Disclaimer: I don't own the Book of Life or any of the characters
Burnt Angel Wings (A Xibalba and La Muerte story)
La Muerte slowly opened her eyes and for a moment she was confused as to where she was. She blinked a few times and looked around at her surroundings. It took a couple of seconds for her to realize she was in the Land of the Forgotten and more specifically, Xibalba's room.
It was then she remembered all that had happened yesterday. How she had come to her husband's domain to pay him a visit after not seeing him for almost a week, how they had dinner together with foods she had brought from her realm and how she had been reluctant to leave and had asked him if she could stay the night with him. Xibalba had agreed she could stay, but only after she had put at ease some concerns he had when he asked if her land would okay without her around.
La Muerte mentally shook herself out of her thoughts and turned her attention to the man next to her. Xibalba was still fast asleep, laying on his side with his back facing her. Her focus was instantly drawn to his wings. Even after all these years they still fascinate her.
Very carefully so she didn't wake him, she trailed her slim, sugar-coated fingers down the black feathers. Despite their slightly ragged looking appearance, they where actually quite soft to touch. But as the goddess continue to look them over, she couldn't help but wonder...had his wings always looked like this? They looked like this when she had first meet him, but what about before that? How did he get those scars?
Curiosity nagged at her until she couldn't help herself. She just had to know so she called out, "Balby?"
"Hmm?" Xibalba's head turned enough so that one half-lidded eye looked at her over his shoulder. "What is it, mi amor?" His voice was still groggy with sleep.
"I was just wondering," she began, fingers still stroking his feathers," have you always had these scars on your wings?"
Her husband's eye widen and his whole body became tense. La Muerte's crystalized digits paused in their caresses when she saw his reaction. "Xibalba?" At her quizzical tone, he turned his head away from her and remained silent. The sugar skull deity frowned and sat up a little bit. "Xibalba?" she tried saying his name again, but he still said nothing.
La Muerte pulled her lower lip between her teeth and bit down. Perhaps she had made a mistake on asking him that. Maybe it was too personal for him to talk about. With that thought in mind, she started to apologize, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize-"
"No, mi amor, it's fine. It's just..." He let out a long sigh. "It's just been a very long time since I last remembered what happened."
"Still if you don't feel comfortable talking about it you don't-"
"No, I'll tell you."
La Muerte rested a hand on his boney arm and waited for him to continue.
The tar deity took in a breath before launching into his tale. " In truth my wings haven't always looked the way they do now, but there was an incident that happened a long time ago, back when my father was sill the ruler of the Land of the Forgotten and I was still very young..."
Xibalba moved swiftly and silently throughout the halls of the castle. He pressed himself against the wall and peeked his head around the corner. There was no sign of his father or any of the servants. 'Good." he thought with a relieved sigh. He turned himself into tar and slithered down the hallway until he made it to a large pair of doors. Xibalba changed back to his regular form, glancing around once more before he opened the door and slipped inside the room, closing the door as quietly as possible behind him.
The room he had snuck into was served as a place where he could practice using magic. Recently the young god had been attempting summon fire, but so far none of his attempts had gone very well. No matter how hard he tried and followed his father's instructions, all he managed to conjure up is a puff of smoke.
It frustrated the prince that he could get right. His father assured him that he would get it with a little more time and practice, but Xibalba was impatient.
Which is why Xibalba decided to do some practice on his own. He really wasn't suppose to be doing these. His dad had warned him many times to never use magic without his supervision since he was still just learning how to use his powers and there was the risk of him losing control of them.
'Papa, worries too much. I know I can get it. I just need to try one more time.'
Xibalba cupped his hands out in front of him and closed his eyes. 'Concentrate...concentrate...I can do this.' He focused on finding his magical core and once he found it, he willed the magic to come out and flow into his hands. 'Okay, now the hard part.'
Xibalba pictured in his mind what he wanted to shape the energy into and make it appear in his hands.
At first, he didn't feel anything happen and became disappointed that he probably failed once again. But then...he felt it. Even through the leather of his gloves, he could definitely feel something warm. He risked opening his eyes and gasped.
There nestled between the palms of his hands was a small ball of green fire.
"I did it." the child whispered and then a wide smile broke out on his face. "I did it! I really did it! I can't wait to show Papa!"
La Muerte,who had been listening intently to her husband's story, smiled. The image of a little Xibalba getting excited over his first accomplishment of using magic was such an adorable image in her mind.
"You must have been proud of yourself."
"I was." the king's mouth quirked up a bit, although his wife didn't see it since his back was still turned towards her and she didn't see how his expression fell a few seconds later. "Unfortunately, that's when everything went wrong."
She cocked her head to the side. "What do you mean?"
"I was happy in that moment, but then I thought...what if I could make it a little bit bigger?"
Xibalba was practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "Papa going to be so surprised when I show him this!" He would go show this father now, but the King of the Underworld was currently attending to the Forgotten souls (both the regular and the more monstrous ones) and didn't like to be disturbed unless it was an emergency.
So Xibalba attempted to keep himself busy while he waited for his dad by summoning fire a few more times just to make sure he got it down. The first few times he tried, he was able to the fire appear again, but the green flames only lasted for a second or two before they fizzled out. But after a while, he started to get better at it and now he could get it to last for a least few minutes.
As the prince made another ball of fire appear in his hands, he frowned as he realized something. 'Mine look small compared to Papa's' It's true, whenever the elder god gave a demonstration, the flames were much bigger then the ones he had been making.
"Hmm, I wonder if I can make it a liiittle bit bigger..." He held his hands out once more and focused more of his magic into the fire. As he had hoped, the small ball grew bigger until it was about size of his fist.
"Perfect!" the small god beamed.
But then his eyes widened as he saw the fire in his hands was still growin and getting bigger and bigger by the second.
"W-Wait! That's too big! S-Stop!" Xibalba cried and quickly tried to get it until control. But the flames kept getting larger until, without warning, exploded like a firecracker all around him.
The sound of Xibalba's scream echoed throughout the entire castle.
La Muerte's fingers tightened on his arm. She almost shuddered as she could practically hear the younger Xibalba's screams in her head.
"What happened after that?"
"I must have passed out after that because when I woke up, I was back in my room and my father was there with me." There was a small pause before he continued with the story again. "As you can probably guess, he was less then pleased when he found out what happened."
Xibalba was sitting on his bed, trying his hardest not to cry. When he woke up and saw his dad standing over the bed beside him, he knew he was in big trouble. His father's stern face and words sill reverberated throughout his head.
'I'm very disappointed in you, mijo. You disobeyed my warnings and look at what happened! Xibalba, one day you will take my place as king, but you need to learn how to be responsible with your actions.'
His father's words stung, but Xibalba knew he was right. And as punishment, Xibalba was forbidden from leaving the Land of the Forgotten and going into the Land of the Living until his father said otherwise.
The little deity was really bummed to hear that. He hated being cooped up in the castle and what's worse is that he couldn't play pranks on the mortals-his favorite pastime!
Xibalba shifted on the bed and regretted doing so as he felt a stinging sensation ran up his wings. He winced.
The fire had did more damage to his wings then the rest of him since they weren't made of tar like most of his body was. His father had healed them to the best of his ability, but there was only so much he could do.
Xibalba hadn't gotten a chance to look at them yet, but he suppose he should probably look to see how bad it was.
He hopped off the bed and went towards the mirror on the other side of the room. Taking a shaky breath, he very slowly and carefully spread his wings out.
To say he was shocked by what he saw would had been a big understatement.
His wings were...ruined. The smooth, glossy, black feathers were now raggedy in appearance. Some were torn and others were frayed at the ends.
They were so ugly now.
"Oh Balby..."
"Don't pity me, my dear. It's all in the past now."
La Muerte wasn't quite sure what to say, but though perhaps it was better not to say anything. So eventually she took her hand off of his arm and started touching his wings again. "Well, I for one think your wings are beautiful." She trailed her fingers down the length of them and smirked when Xibalba shivered. " And powerful as well." She kissed right where the wing connected to his shoulder blades and he jumped.
"Mi amor," the tar god groaned out, struggling hard to keep his wings from flaring out, "if you keep doing that, we won't be leaving this bed anytime soon."
"Hmm," the goddess hummed, walking two fingers up his spine. "I think our lands can last a little bit longer without us."
Xibalba chuckled. "I think I'm becoming a bad influence on you." He then turned over to that he was on top of her.
"Balby," La Muerte brought one hand to tangle in his curly beard while the other smoothed out his moustache and just like that Xibalba started melting into her hands. "Just get down here and kiss me."
And without another word, Xibalba did just that.
Author's Notes: So in honor of my birthday today, here's a few Gravepainter fanfic for you guys! I recently saw that someone asked Jorge on Twitter why Xibalba's wings looked scarred. And he answered because their burnt angel wings. So this is my take on what happened to them. Hope you guys like it!