Xibalba's Crown (A Xibalba and La Muerte Story)
Disclaimer: I don't own Xibalba, La Muerte or the Book of Life.
In a flurry of gold petals, La Muerte appeared at the entrance of Xibalba's castle. She glided her way through the palace until she found herself outside the king's chambers. She knocked on the door and wait until she heard Xibalba yell "Enter!" before opening the door and going inside.
La Muerte glanced around the room, but noticed her lover was nowhere in sight. "Xibalba?" she called out.
"I'm in the library, love." she heard him answer back. "I'll be out shortly."
Xibalba's private library was connected right next to his room, but while La Muerte was waiting for him to come out, she found herself looking around his room. Just then she saw something that caught her attention. There sitting in a box on the nightstand next to the bed…was Xibalba's crown.
The queen moved forward until she was standing in front of the dresser and started examining it. She never actually had a chance to look at it up close before as it was rare to see Xibalba without it on. The main, tall and spiky structure appeared to be made of silver and although it looked dull no doubt from the centuries of wear, it mange to maintain some of its shine. She gently traced the skull symbol and the little bone designs that was etched into it before continuing with her examination. No matter how hard La Muerte tried, she couldn't really identify what the black and dark teal striped branches that stuck out of the side of the crown were.
La Muerte carefully toyed with one of the few skull-like ornaments that hung off the smaller, curling stumps. She noticed the black candles at the very top didn't have their usual green flames and wondered how Xibalba lit them. Either way she had to admit that his crown was pretty interesting to look at. An idea suddenly came to her mind. 'I wonder…'
The goddess looked at the doorway that led to the library and saw that Xibalba had yet to emerge. Confident that he wouldn't be coming out any time soon, she picked the crown up and moved towards the mirror on the other side of the room. La Muerte then took her sombrero and placed it carefully on the desk that was next to the mirror before putting the crown on the top of her head.
'It's heavier than I expected.' She thought. Now her hat was slightly heavy as well with all the decorations it had on it, but the crown definitely weighed a little bit more then what she was used to. And how the dark god kept it on his head was another mystery. The women felt like even the slightest movement of her head would send it falling to the floor. She assumed the crown must simply stick to his head due to the tar-like substance that made up his body. That or he used magic to keep it in place. 'Still, it looks pretty good.'
La Muerte suddenly tried standing as straight and tall as she could while placing both of her hands behind her back. "I'm Xibalba," she lowered her voice to a more masculine tone, trying to mimic her fellow deity's, "King of the Land of the Forgotten."
She held her serious expression for several moments before bursting out into a fit of giggles. It was silly and little childish to do this she knew, but she couldn't help herself. Beside it's not like Xibalba was here to-
"Ha, ha, very amusing, my dear."
La Muerte turned around to the source of the voice so quickly, she had to bring her hands up to hold the crown in place least it go flying. Xibalba was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest with an amused expression on his skeletal features.
"Xibalba, you startled me!" She hadn't even heard him enter the room.
"My apologies, love. That wasn't my intention." Xibalba placed his arms back down to his side and moved till he was standing in front of her. "I was just coming in to tell you that I'm done with my work…that is until I saw this."
La Muerte could feel her face turn red in embarrassment. She immediately reached up to take his crown off. "I'm sorry. I just-."
"No, no, mi amor its fine." the god stopped her hands with his own. "In fact, I think it looks rather good on you." There was something about seeing her wearing his crown that caused this feeling of pride and possessiveness to build up in his chest.
The queen smiled and lowered their hands back down. "Thank you, love. But I think it suits you better than me."
"Perhaps," he said, letting go of her hands. "But still think it looks pretty good." Xibalba noticed her sombrero still on his desk and an idea popped into his head.
When she saw him grab her hat, she asked, "Xibalba, what are you doing?"
"Since you tried on my crown, it's only fair I try on your hat." With that, he placed the large sombrero on top of his head.
La Muerte brought a hand to her lips to try and hide the grin that spread across her face, but that didn't stop the giggles from escaping her mouth. "Balby…you look ridiculous."
"Probably," the king said with a grin of his own. "It's a bit too flowery for my taste. No offence."
"None taken."
"And how you keep this on your head, my dear, I'll never know."
"I was actually wondering the same thing about your crown."
"That's my little secret." There was a brief pause before he said, "Well as fun as this was we really should be going."
"Agreed," the goddess said with a nod of her head. She took off his crown at the same moment he took off her hat and together they swapped them back to each other. As she put her sombrero back on, La Muerte noticed that the second Xibalba put on his crown, the black candles on top and the ones on his armored shoulders lit up with their usual green flames.
They took each other by the hand and in a blink of an eye; the two immortals vanished from the Land of the Forgotten to reappear in the San Angel graveyard.
"So," La Muerte began. "What shall we do tonight on this lovely Day of the Dead?"
"Actually, dear," Xibalba said, giving her this mysterious smile. "I already have something planned."
"Oh?" She looked pretty curious. "Like what?"
"I can't tell you. It's surprise."
La Muerte raised an eye ridge at him "What sort of surprise?"
Hearing the slight wariness in her tone, the king chuckled. "Trust me, my love. You'll like this one."
Author's notes: Yay, I did another Gravepainters story. So when I was writing this I wasn't entirely sure what Xibalba's crown was made out of…so I just kind of took a guess based on what I've seen in movie, all the trailers and TV spots. I hope this turned out pretty well. Anyway if you can't tell there will be a follow up story after this one.