Title: the sharpened heart
Fandom: The Book of Life
Summary: Pre-movie AU. How to create and shape a god of death.
A/N: Besides drawing from the canonical movie, also referring to the "Art Of" book. Started developing this before creator/director tweets, and will continue to not take those into account, and identifying this as clear AU.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Book of Life.
prologue
Once upon a time, there was a mother who had recently given birth to a daughter. She was summoned before the priests, along with her infant.
After reading the signs known to them, the priests had identified the newborn girl as a necessary sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. The mother and daughter were given appropriate escort, to guard them until the specific time prophecized for sacrificial rites.
The mother of the girl was at peace with this, and even thought it an honor, believing the sweet words of the priests. She soothed her daughter and smiled down at her, also wishing to keep her in innocent and blissful ignorance; so the baby girl died in relative comfort and joy, spared from despair at least.
The gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca took the spirit of the slain child for their own purposes. They reshaped her into a deity like themselves, though still an infant. She was made to be their sword to conquer and rule one of the untamed territories of the dead, the Midland, Mictecacihuatl—which was right below the living mortal plane. In fact, a piece of Mictecacihuatl had been used for the child diety's creation.
To deal with her emotional needs, they first left her in the Candle Maker's care. They also left her with a name: La Muerte.
In the Cave of Souls, La Muerte was reborn happy, curious and mischevious, darting around the cave with as much life as the mortals' sacred candles. The Candle Maker tended to her needs and began her education. He had never nurtured a young life before, and did his best. The Candle Maker grew to care deeply for his charge, despite misgivings he had over what Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca—gods that outranked him—had done to ensure her existence. Consequently he felt rather guilty for abiding by Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca's will reinforced by a coerced promise under the ancient rules—for it was currently forbidden to tell La Muerte the truth behind her birth.
For her part, La Muerte very much enjoyed making her guardian laugh.
She also took great pleasure in visiting the mortal world, a land she was always encouraged by the Candle Maker to explore, and Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca had always approved of this. One of La Muerte's favorite things about the humans were their games, especially those that dealt with chance.
When La Muerte was old enough, Quetzalcoatl alone returned for her. He began her training, took her to the wild Mictecacihuatl, the realm which called to her once she touched the ground. But the land did not welcome her, rebellious and chaotic as it was, and overrun with demons that terrorized the dead—and those among the deceased that clung to their wicked ways, and oppressed their fellows.
But despite her age, the child La Muerte was still a diety of considerable power, and Quetzalcoatl would ensure she reached maturity with her potential met. Still, she would periodically be taken back to the Candle Maker, for the rest of her body and soul; and still her trips to the mortal world were encouraged; and so she drifted between the realms.
Tezcatlipoca, on the other hand, made preparations to create another diety. He and Quetzalcoatl had agreed to divide the work as such, with each training a child deity into maturity and complete power. There were still more wild territories of the dead to claim, the Mictlantecuhtli, the Lowlands underneath Mictecacihuatl. It was there that souls fell when the living forgot them; and they too forgot they were ever human, becoming monsters...
A few mortal years after the human mother had sacrificed the daughter that would become La Muerte, the priests read new signs, for Tezcatlipoca had made his decision, with Quetzalcoatl's agreement. Another woman was summoned before them, with her recently born son. They too were given appropriate escort, guarding them until the specific time prophecized for sacrificial rites.
The mother of the boy was quiet. She said not a word, until she drew members of her escort into talk. She told them stories, tall tales, little anecdotes of her son, how he had almost been crawling by himself the other day. When her escort was relatively unmoved by that, she then drew them into riddling games. Once the guards seemed too focused on puzzling out her tangled words, the mother made a break for it with her boy.
But she was caught, and dragged back kicking and screaming. Her son cried loudly, distressed by her fear. The son's mother had managed to run too far, there was no more time to bring the sacrfice to the ceremonial space, to conduct the precise ritual. The most important part could still be salvaged at least, they had to perform the sacrifice on time.
Pulled from his wailing mother, whose grip had been so tight she had left bloody claw marks on his soft skin, the baby boy died terrified and acutely aware of pain on his arms.
Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl took the newly slain child's spirit, and also remade him into an infant diety, incorporating a piece of the Mictlantecuhtli into his creation.
Again, they left the newborn god in the Cave of Souls, with the Candle Maker.
A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Any feedback is appreciated. Now, some more things specifically about this fic and the cultural terms/concepts it uses: I'm taking artistic license, because according to online research i.e. Wikipedia, Mictecacihuatl and Mictlantecuhtli are the names of death gods from Aztec mythology, who were married rulers that oversaw Mictlan, name for the underworld. I had read some people suggest that The Book of Life's La Muerte and Xibalba could have drawn some inspiration from those death gods. When I looked at the wiki page for Mictecacihuatl, Queen of the Underworld, it said she was also "known as the Lady of the Dead, since it is believed that she was born, then sacrificed as an infant"—and that kickstarted inspiration for this whole fic. On Mictlantecuhtli's wiki page, it said that "after Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca created the world, they put their creation in order and placed Mictlantecuhtli and his wife in the underworld," and that led to their inclusion in this fic. More on them later, and even more elaboration on this prologue as the fic goes along, since not everything has been entirely explained yet.