Trecena 12 runs from 1 Cuetzpalin through 13 Cozcacuauhtli, vulture, its span carrying lizard, serpent, death, deer, rabbit, water, dog, monkey, grass, reed and jaguar before closing on the sign that opens Trecena 16 next in the round. This trecena sits in the count's third quarter, past the midpoint reached at Trecena 10, and the frost lord's severe patronage here continues a run of weightier trecenas that includes the movement sign's extremes in Trecena 13 immediately following, a stretch the tonalpouhque would have flagged to clients as requiring particular care in the timing of undertakings.
The vulture sign that closes this trecena carries, in its own right as a day sign, a reading of long life and patient age, a gentler note to end on after the frost lord's severity governs the week's middle stretch, and a diviner reading the full thirteen days in order would have narrated this movement from hardship toward eventual endurance and longevity as the count approached its close. As with every trecena, the day signs crossed within these thirteen days each carry independent patron deities and readings of their own in the twenty sign count proper, a separate and fuller layer of meaning than their brief appearance here as steps within Cuetzpalin's week.