In the year that Lord Twelve Serpents sacrificed his nine virgin daughters to make the rain fall from the sky again was born into the world a child.
And at his first cry his mother rolled up her eyes into her head and chanted:
He shall be called Jaguar Claw
He shall eat up his enemies
And sacrifice their daughters
Their blood shall rise to heaven
And praise his name for ever
Crying: We are here in heaven
And it was Jaguar Claw that sent us.
He shall be as a temple on a mountain
While the world sinks beneath the sea.
Great is the day of the birth of my son
Jaguar Claw.
So said his mother and then she convulsed and fell back onto her soft birthing mats and shuddered out one last breath, then died.
She was taken to her family tomb and buried with honor as a prophetess with paintings made on the walls of Jaguar Claw biting the throat out of a feathered king.
The father of Jaguar Claw bought a woman from the north who's child was given to the god of suffering and she had her tongue removed so she could not breathe evil words while she gave him milk from her breasts.
Time passed and the days were counted and when Jaguar Claw reached the age of accountability he was taken by his father before the lords or the city and there he offered the blood of First Penance by thrusting a sting ray spine through the foreskin of his penis. The blood ran down and dripped onto parchment which was carefully folded then burned, and while the smoke rose up to heaven Jaguar Claw prayed that he would be a great warrior as his mother prophesied he would be.
And then after his performance of First Penance he was human and was his fathers heir, and the woman from the north that was his wet nurse was sent to the priests for sacrifice.
These were the last days of peace for Jaguar Claw.
It was his younger sister from his father's lesser wife that first called attention to things when she asked her father, "Why are Jaguar Claw's fingers so small?"
"In what way do you mean small, my daughter?"
"He has stubby little fingers. Smaller than mine, and I am three months and five days younger than him."
Father nodded wisely and said, "Boys will often grow more slowly than girls. Perhaps this is the case with him."
"Perhaps, Father, but his fingers look funny to me."
And so when it was time for the evening meal, Jaguar Claw's father took his sons hand in his own and looked down at the fingers.
He gasped, and a look of fear came into his eyes.
"Tell me son. Explain to me about your fingers. Why are they so small? And now that I look at you, I see your arms are short as well. Explain this to me!"
Jaguar Claw frowned. He hung his head. A great salty drop slipped from his eye, fell down his nose, and dripped down onto his toes. His toes were small too. And so were his feet.
"I don't grow, Father," he said.
"What? What do you mean, you don't grow?"
"Since First Penance, Father, my fingers have not grown. My hair has grown, my face has grown, even my penis has grown, Father, but my arms and legs and fingers and toes do not grow."
His father fell back on his mat with a look of astonishment on his face.
"Never have I heard of such a thing," he said.
"How can I be a great warrior if I don't grow, Father?" wailed Jaguar Claw, crying freely now as small boys are want to do from time to time when their world collapses and their fathers show fear.
His father thought for a long while with a stern look on his face, his bottom lip jutted far out and his brow heavy. Finally he announced, "We will take you to the priests. Perhaps they can cure you, or perhaps they will sacrifice you. I don't know what else to do. We will let them decide."
Jaguar Claw wailed loudly then and his sister joined him as did the servants and his fathers lesser wife and even the dog howled, and there was no peace in Jaguar Claw's father's house that night until far after the gods let the golden sun fall beneath the sea.
When the moon rose, his father lifted himself from his sleeping mat and walked out to the courtyard and looked up to the stars and prayed:
On the night that you died
