//------------------------------//
// The Calling of a God 
// Story: Your New God... Ahuizotl? 
// by CanterlotGuardian 
//------------------------------//

Ahuizotl didn't know how long he'd been running for. He just knew that it had been a very long time, and it was the hardest thing that he'd ever had to do.

The image was still burned firmly into his mind's eye, an image that he just somehow knew would never be able to be pried out. Daring Do, flying away triumphantly. The look of determined elation on her face, that she'd been able to foil the plans of her most dire enemy. He could almost imagine the glint of those rings still glimmering in her eyes, reliving that fateful moment when she and her compatriot tore the proverbial walls out from everything that he had worked for.

What was her name again? he wondered. It took him a moment to remember. She hadn't really said it at all during their confrontation, maybe just as an afterthought. Rainbow something or another. Rainbow Dash, maybe? That sounded about right.

It wasn't like he'd expected to ever have to remember that name. After all, if the mighty Daring Do hadn't been able to completely stop him, to make it so that his reign of terror on Equestria would come to a decisive end, then what would have made him think that this random pony would have anything at all to contribute?

As it had turned out, Rainbow had done more than her part in foiling his plans. In fact, Daring Do wouldn't have even been able to lift those rings off the pole they had been placed so carefully around, if it weren't for Rainbow's assistance. Ahuizotl himself, a being of immense strength and will, had struggled to get them exactly in the place they needed to be in, so he hadn't counted at all on two mere ponies being able to get them out of place- even if one of them was his most nefarious nemesis.

Of course, his lack of foresight into the matter had been his downfall. Being able to swallow his pride never had been Ahuizotl's strong suit, and this instance hadn't been the exception to the rule. His unwillingness to consider that he may have overlooked something had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

That realization hurt like a bugbear's bite. He was having to do a lot of soul-searching, if a monstrosity like him could even be thought to have a soul. He had to, though, right? After all, the soul is the font of life for all living things, or so he'd heard. And since he was most definitely alive, wouldn't the logical extension of that premise be that he indeed had a soul?

Maybe it just died a long time ago, and that's why he couldn't feel it within him. That thought was one that had been rolling around in his head for the past week or so. It had shaken him tremendously when it had initially occurred to him, right down to the very core of his being.

And the biggest question of all, the one that had started him down this path of self search to begin with: What would he do now? A majority of his life had been predicated on the belief that his way was right, and the actions he was taking, the ponies whom he had practically had to enslave in order for them to (albeit reluctantly) do his bidding- all of that was justified. 

Why? Because he had a work to do in Equestria. Everything that he had done up to that point- all the battles with Daring Do, all the work he had put into making sure that every event just had to come out exactly the way he had envisioned it in his mind- was all just steps on a giant staircase, leading to a door. And behind that door, where some would have seen mystery, only he saw clarity. Clarity of purpose, of meaning.

To put it simply, he was meant to rule. Not just over a few, but over all Equestria.

That metaphor wasn't just some abstraction, meant to put a physical presence behind his mental state of being. No, it was entirely literal to him. He'd seen it in a dream. He'd only had the dream once, and it had been thousands of moons since he'd had it, but ever since that fateful night when he still wasn't yet even considered an adult in his culture, long since died out from pestilence and war and all those other nasty, horrible things that usually end a nation's existence, he had known exactly what was behind that door. Even though in that dream, he'd never even opened the door (the dream had ended right before he could grasp the ornately-decorated door handle), he had known from the moment he'd awakened the vision that would have greeted his sight had he been able to open the door.

He would have seen himself, sitting upon a throne of gold in his temple, which had been situated on the highest cliff in all Equestria. From there, he would be able to look out over all his subjects, monitoring every aspect of their lives, just as a good ruler should. And ever since that dream, he had vowed to himself that he would make this sliver of the ethereal into a reality for himself.

Look at me now, though... he thought bitterly to himself. I'm a Celestia-damned disgrace.

He began to ruminate, as was often his wont, about what he could have changed- something small, maybe, or something profound about the very core of his being- that would have allowed him to have achieved his true destiny, rather than finding himself running from the very idea of what he could have been. Maybe he could have tightened up his defenses a bit more. Maybe he shouldn't have taken Caballeron on as his top advisor and go-getter, or allowed him to choose his own team of henchmen. Maybe he sbouldn't have stayed up in the temple the whole time, but instead have gone out on more missions of his own.

He was, after all, a being incredibly gifted in the art of stealth. The ability to blend in with his surroundings, to make himself entirely invisible, however, had always eluded him- though he did not blame himself for this, as the mystics of his race who were far more in tune with their magical abilities had not even been able to even begin to master that art. At one point, they had possessed that power, along with a whole slew of other neat abilities. Those had been lost to time, though, dying out with the Elder Council, the Five Kings, the Prince's Menagerie, and any one of a hundred-odd other factions that had warred for millennia for the dominance of his people.

Now, only one remained, and the only being who held dominance over him was himself.

He crested a hill, allowing the view that awaited him to wash over him. He sat back on his haunches, closing his eyes and letting the wind blow through his hair for the first time in- well, he didn't quite know exactly how long it had been. Quite a while, to be sure. The breeze wasn't too stiff, to where he felt as though he had to brace himself against it, but it wasn't so soft either, that he couldn't feel it well enough. It was simply perfect... The only thing in his entire existence that he could genuinely say that was.

He opened his eyes, trying to get a better bearing of where he was. Not that he could recognize any of the landmarks. He already knew that he'd never been in this area before, not a day in his life. He was incorrigibly lost, and strangely he was fine with that. Because, as he rationalized, if he didn't know where he was, and he happened across some being- pony, changeling, griffon, whatever- it stood an equally good chance that they would not know who he was either.

And right then, that's all he craved. Anonymity. He knew that he had not garnered himself as good of a reputation as he could have. But most of that, he reasoned, was Daring Do's fault anyways- or as she decided to call herself in her regular interactions with the common ponyfolk, A.K Yearling. If Yearling hadn't have published all those books, detailing every interaction, every fight, every nail-biting, harrowing turn of events, nopony would know who he was, or how “evil” he was. (Evil was such a strong word to him. He had never considered himself to be evil, not until this most recent turn of events in his life had forced him to retake stock of himself and his personal beliefs and thought structures. Then again, he knew that most people who were evil were like that as well, maybe with the exception of questioning whether or not they were evil, and why they were even wanting to do the things they were doing [or forcing other ponies to do], so he never had quite been able to reconcile those two vastly differing views of opinion.)

He saw a stream on the horizon. It looked like one of those that could have turned into a larger river further on down the line. And when there was a river, he mused, that most likely meant there was also a village somewhere along the line, and while he was fine with eating off the land, it'd been far too long since he'd been able to have (or more accurately, steal) a good home-cooked meal. His mouth watered at the mere thought of it.

He didn't dare just barge into the village, though. He'd learned very quickly on that his appearance was far from normal, and while he was used to other ponies fearing him, it had usually been because he seemed to possess a large amount of physical strength, or because he was able to project his voice very well and thus simply seemed to overall be a very imposing figure.

The villages he'd visited since then, though? They hadn't been afraid of him for any of those reasons. At least, they hadn't given any of the normal signs that this was the reason for their fear. No, this time around, it was simply because of his looks. He was different from them, unknown to them in many ways (besides the fact of his existence; this in particular was irrefutable) so they feared him- a concept that he had thought died out in the days of the famed explorer Amerihoof... Something-or-another. He couldn't quite remember his surname at the time, nor did he particularly care to.

He quickened his pace slightly, now heading towards the stream at the speed of what ponies would probably call a trot- or, as the one called Pinkie Pie referred to it as at one point, a “hop, skip, and a jump.” Whatever in Tartarus that meant. The trees began to zip past him at more than just a meandering stroll. His mouth was suddenly dry as a bone. He needed that water, more than anything.

A minute or so later, he reached the stream. He slowed to a regular walk and approached the river tentatively, scanning the surrounding areas for any sign of something out of the ordinary. He knew that there were groups of ponies who were after him, emboldened by his defeat. “Surely if Daring Do and Rainbow whatever can defeat him, then we can, too!” So many ponies now wanting to make his life a living hell.

Granted, he'd probably wronged them in some way in the past, so they most likely weren't out for his head for no real reason. He was, after all, an evil tyrant, so the things he did to the ponies that were around him- even those who had chosen to willingly associate themselves with him, and weren't in his presence simply because they were enslaved, or for some other reason that Ahuizotl was forcing upon them- were merely a logical extension of that. He had been evil, so he had done evil things. To him, doing wrong things was as natural as breathing or walking.

He shook his head slowly. How wrong he had been. And now look at him. A damned pitiful sight.

His scan of the forest in the immediate vicinity showed no signs of bands of ponies lurking in wait for him to let his guard down to present the exact perfect moment for them to strike, or traps laid in the hopes that he'd be stupid enough to blunder into them, or hidden and disguised well enough so that Ahuizotl's intelligence level didn't quite matter as much.

He crossed the final few steps to the stream and dipped his head down a bit, taking stock of the water itself. Clean. “Good,” he murmured to himself. He'd had far too many occasions of finding a pool of water or a stream just like this one, only to discover that it was tainted in some way (some dead animal polluting it, for example), or otherwise undrinkable due to being immensely dirty or the like.

He drank from the stream in great draughts, and from the moment the water touched his parched lips, he felt like he was in heaven- if there could even be said to be such a thing. He drank with abandon. It wasn't like he was depleting some finite resource, after all- and even if he was, there was nopony around for miles, as far as he could tell. Who cares how much he drank? It was his for the taking. He needed it. He-

“No!” he screamed aloud, flinging his head up from the water, causing a ripple effect in the stream as small pellets of water dislodged themselves from his muzzle and were airborne for a few seconds before landing safely back in the stream from whence they had come. He knew the signs of his thought process, and he was finding that he had to make a conscious effort to evict those kinds of thoughts from his mind before they were able to take root once again.

Those ways of feeling were the ways that got him into this situation, after all. And even if he weren't in this situation anymore, even if he had escaped the confines of being on the lam, he'd come to realize that simply put, those thoughts weren't right. They weren't what was best for him. And he knew it, and knew that he had to be the one to put the mental barriers up so those kinds of thoughts didn't start to influence him again.

Once the moment of pause had passed, he began to drink from the stream again. He took it a bit more slowly this time, now that he didn't feel as though he were about to die from dehydration- and, in no small part, due to the fact that his initial moment of glee had been severely tempered by the realization that his old, destructive habits were not dying at nearly the speedy rate that he had hoped they would.

When his thirst was sated, he laid down by the bank of the stream, simply staring into his own reflection. He thought to himself, “What is the next thing I should do? Where do I go next?” He wish he knew the answer to that. 

He'd been thinking for quite a while about some places that he could go to, to where nopony could find him, to where he'd have the safety and anonymity he so desperately craved. His first idea had been to go to the Castle of the Two Sisters, the former ruling place of both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna before certain events beyond their control had forced them to relocate their place of power to the Royal Castle in Canterlot, where they continue to rule to this very day. 

He'd shook that idea off, though, once he'd done a bit of reconnaissance and realized that the castle wasn't actually empty anymore. The Elements of Harmony had begun going there every once in a while, if not to refurbish the castle and re-beautify it as the one called Rarity was wont to do, then simply to get away from everypony else and avail themselves of the vast riches of the library in the castle. This was mostly Twilight Sparkle's doing, though every once in a while Rainbow Dash or Applejack would join her for a “day off” of sorts. So that was out of the question. There was just too big of a risk that he'd be caught, and forced away from the place.

He'd thought about some other places, each less likely than the last. Some far-away mountaintop where he could live in peace by himself? Then how would he survive? How would he get food, or water? So that was out of the question. The woods, near some unsuspecting village? Again, way too easy for him to get caught.

He didn't want to admit it to himself, and he'd been putting this particular thought out of his mind every time it had entered it- which was becoming a more and more recurring thing- but he was having to face a very hard truth: There very well could actually be no place for him in the world. He may very well be forced to wander for the rest of his life, seeking asylum and never finding it.

This wasn't even on his list of desires. He wanted to find someplace to settle down, to where he could live out the rest of his life without having to fear for being driven out by enraged ponies, or by those who didn't want to take the time to understand him and his reasonings for trying to change who he is at the very core of his being.

He got up, shaking his head slightly to clear out some mental cobwebs, and looked up at the sky. Clear as far as he could tell. This was good. This would make navigating the forest a lot easier on him. He began his way downstream, slowly and carefully.

The stream turned out to be much longer than he'd expected, but eventually he did make it to the end, and just as he'd thought, it did dead-end into a much larger river. He allowed himself a brief moment of self-congratulation as his senses hadn't quite yet been dulled from lack of use, before he began to follow the river now.

After only a few minutes of walking, he saw lights up ahead. He froze for a moment, before ducking behind a particularly large tree. He peered out, hoping that the lights weren't from some raiding party out to get him. They didn't seem as though they were getting closer, so he relaxed a bit. They were probably lights coming from a village.

He slowly made his way towards the village, constantly on the lookout around him for anypony trying to sneak up on him. After an intense few minutes, he had reached the edge of the village. He stopped, listening for any sort of activity there. He heard the crackling of a large fire in the center of town, and merry-sounding voices coming from that direction as well.

Sticking to the forest, he circled around the village to see what it was that was causing that noise. Sure enough, once he'd crested a large hill, allowing him to look out over the entire village, he saw a large bonfire in what he assumed was the town square. It was taking up nearly the entire square and was immensely high. He saw spits set up in intervals around the fire, cooking everything from pig to fowl.

And then, there were the ponies. The entire village had turned out for this event- not surprising, he mused, considering how little of note must go on in a village this remote. They were of all sizes and colors, some old, some very young. But all of them had one defining characteristic about them: To a pony, they were all smiling. Not a single one of them seemed to have a care in the world. They were all merry and jolly- a bit too much so, if he was reading them properly.

He sat on that hilltop and watched them for a few hours. They showed no signs of stopping the entire time. They feasted, they talked merrily amongst each other, they danced, they sang. It was all in all, a supremely festive event. But one thing stuck in his mind the most, and it absolutely refused to dislodge itself: What even was the point of this festival? There did not seem to be any signs of it being a commemoration of some village elder pony's life, or a celebration of some new birth. So why were they even doing any of this to begin with?

As he ruminated on this, his attention was diverted by a slight movement to his left. He whipped his head around in alarm, only to find a female pony walking up to him. He froze, not knowing what to think. He was surprised, though, when the pony merely sat down beside him and looked out at the bonfire, as he himself was doing.

“They call this the Calling of a God,” the pony said in an almost inaudible volume. “Our village is one that for whatever reason, constantly has to have a god to worship. The last being we called our god, left us about six months ago, and ever since then, we've been holding these ceremonies once a month, hoping our sacrifices and merriment will call a god to us to worship.” She scoffed, as though the mere mention of this was as banal as the idea itself. “I don't see why they do this, personally. Why do we even need a god?”

He didn't know if speaking to her was something that she would take an offense to, but at that moment he wasn't sensing any kind of hostility towards him, so he felt clear to speak for the time being. “No one wants to feel as though there's no purpose in their existence. We all want to think that we're here for a reason. And when a god leaves our lives, we can fall into a very deep trap of thinking that our purpose here in Equestria has left us as well.”

“While that may be true for some,” the pony replied, “I've always felt that nopony needs a god to tell them what their purpose is. I mean, isn't that what a cutie mark is for? To tell you what it is that your special talent is? Even those who don't have cutie marks have purpose. And they don't need some foolish god to tell them what that is.”

He liked her, for whatever reason. She was intelligent, rational. Two qualities that weren't shared by nearly any of the other ponies he'd had the unfortunately pleasure of meeting. He extended a paw to her. “Ahuizotl.”

She placed her hoof in his paw. “Loraszca. Everypony around here just calls me Lorrie, though. Much easier to remember. Even my Queen calls me that.”

This threw him for a loop. “Is that what you call your village elder? The Queen?”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, no. I keep forgetting that you can't see through my disguise.” A flash of green light enveloped her, and she began to change form into an insect-like being, about the same size as a pony, except possessing both insectile wings and a jagged, ornately-patterned horn.

Once her transformation was finished, she spoke again. “Nopony in this village knows that I'm a changeling, and that's probably for the best. Our last god was a changeling- funny story about that. He'd been sent by Chrysalis to deliver a message to me. The village saw him and thought he'd been sent to be our new god. So, they kind of kept him here for about a year or so, before Chrysalis finally got fed up with them worshiping him and came here herself in the middle of the night to get him back.”

This brought up more than a few questions for him. “So how often does your village go through gods?”

She laughed, and this time he felt it was a genuine laugh. “Way more often than they should. Some of the village elders- and I do mean elders, as I'm pretty damn sure at least one of them has been around since the founding of the village, and that was like seven hundred or so years ago- believe that a curse was put on our village at some point, to drive away any and all who would deign to be worshiped as a god here. The one that I mentioned that I'm pretty sure has found immortality somehow, his name is Great Wonder, and he believes that the curse was put on us by the first god we ever worshiped- a being by the name of Chrendotl.”

Ahiuzotl tried to keep his face aloof, but on the inside his heart was racing. He recognized that name. Chrendotl had been an outcast from his tribe, a heretic for his forays into necromancy- a practice (the only practice, in fact) that had been outlawed by his tribe since the beginning. So when Chrendotl had been banished from the tribe, he'd come here? And then cursed the village once they'd undoubtedly found out about his necromantic ways and driven him out?

This was much too specific of a coincidence to be accidental. He was supposed to come here on this night. And if he was meant to come here...

“What would your village say if they saw me?” he asked, hoping he'd asked the question in such a way that it hadn't revealed any other sort of grand design behind it, other than being just an innocent question.

The changeling thought for a moment. “I'm not quite sure, actually. On the one hoof, they are in the middle of the Calling of a God, so they might not appreciate the interruption. On the other hoof...” She looked up at him, as he was easily three or four times her size. 

“Have you ever had aspirations at godhood?”

The question threw him into a mental tizzy. There was no way she could know about his dream, could she? He'd never had the chance to study a changeling at any sort of length, so he had no idea if they were mind-readers, or had some other sort of telepathic powers that not even he could begin to understand.

As he opened his mouth to answer, a thought washed over him, and it was one that both chilled and intrigued him at the same time: He had absolutely no desire to lie to her. This changeling, that he'd just met and that he didn't know from Starswirl, had somehow lowered his defenses so much that he straight-up didn't even have the desire to mislead her. And so, he told her everything. The dream, the golden throne, all of his troubles and adventures since that point.

She listened to him intently, only interrupting to whisper exclamations of disbelief. When he'd finished, she simply shook her head. “From what you've told me, you deserve to be worshiped as a god, if only because you need a bit of R&R.” She smiled at him, the first time in forever that anypony had done that willingly. “Come on down. I think we just found our new god.”

They began the descent down the hill, and a moment or so later, they'd crossed into the village itself. Because of the way they were entering, it just so happened that the entire village's worth of ponies had been dancing facing that exact way. Once they saw him and Lorrie re-enter the village (he noticed that at some point, as well, she'd shifted back into her regular pony form, with a  white coat and tan mane/tail, and a cutie mark of a heart being pierced by two arrows), they stopped as one, staring slack-jawed at the pair. The only sound that could be heard, was the crackling of the fire.

One pony stepped up tentatively. He looked to be the oldest out of all of them, so Ahuizotl assumed that he was the one that Lorrie had been talking about, the one named Great Wonder. He sized Ahuizotl up with his eyes, before speaking to them. “Who are you? And why have you come here?”

Lorrie, thankfully, spoke in his stead. “His name is Ahuizotl, and he is on the run from a group of ponies who wish to do him harm. He wishes to remain here for the time being, until he can be sure that it is safe for him to leave.”

Great Wonder's shoulders slumped a little bit, and Lorrie knew exactly why. She crossed the few feet that remained between the two of them, and whispered something into his ear. He brightened up immediately and turned to face the rest of the village. “The heavens have heard our cries!” he said in a booming voice that seemed out of place, coming from an elderly body like his own. “They have sent us a god to worship! Let us rejoice in the presence of our new god... Ahuizotl!”

The entire village erupted into cheers, before prostrating themselves on bended knee before him, offering their undying loyalty and allegiance to him. He looked at Lorrie, who was grinning like a madmare.

“Well, it's no golden throne...” she said, laying a hoof on his flank. “But I think you'll like it here.”