Can I play with you?
Marigold thought she was in paradise.
She had never been in Aztlan before, or at least she didn't remember; La Muerte told her they had brought her here when she was a baby to meet the other Gods. She did have flashes of being in her mother's arms in an unknown place, surrounded by complete strangers fawning over her.
As she followed her parents through the stainless clean halls, Marigold took in every detail, watching as servants walked around doing their chores, polishing the floor or the ornaments acting as a decoration, dusting the royal carpets and watering the plants. She was wearing her prettier rose dress, her hair carefully combed, adorned with a small red rose clip and a red hair bow, combining with her little shoes. Her parents wanted her to look her best for today, she didn't know why, but she didn't protest either; however, they couldn't prevent Marigold from bringing Rattles with her. She never went anywhere with that plush.
They knew that it was the first time (rather, second) Marigold had been here, so it would be wise that she caused a good impression. Xibalba, in particular, had been especially panicky, considering Marigold had never really interacted that much with other gods that were not her family, much less with children gods. La Muerte reassured him that she would be fine, and she was certain their little one would make a few friends. Perhaps she might even get a childhood sweetheart.
What she did to remain so calm, he would never know.
Once they were outside in the garden, they heard children laughter and teenager complaints. Marigold knew what was going on; her parents would go with the other grown up Gods and Goddesses to talk about grown-up stuff and she would stay here with the other children and play with them.
"I'm scared, mami…" Marigold clutched at her mother's dress with one hand, Rattles with the other and tried to hide behind her.
"Don't worry, chiquita." La Muerte smiled down kindly at her as she grabbed her hand reassuringly. "It'll be okay. You're going to make lots of new friends your age."
"What if they don't like me?"
"They'd have to be crazy not to like you, mi florecita!" Xibalba chuckled and ruffled Marigold's hair. Deep down, however, he knew what she was feeling, when he was a child he had never been so popular with other children. "Just talk to them like you talk with your little friends back home."
La Muerte gently pushed her daughter forward to encourage her. "Go on, mi vida. We'll be back in a few hours."
Glancing up at her parents one more time, Marigold reluctantly went forward to look for the other children. La Muerte and Xibalba watched her go with warm hearts, recalling their younger days.
"I hope she won't have the same problem as me when I was her age." Xibalba sighed sadly.
"She's a sweet young girl, Xibalba, I'm sure she'll have no problem at it." La Muerte replied gently, leaning against her husband.
"I hope so. I wouldn't like her to go through what I went through, not having a single friend."
La Muerte smiled and brought her hand up to touch his cheek. "You had me."
Xibalba blushed and pulled his wife closer in an embrace. "Well, other than you, mi amor. We should go, they'll wonder why we are taking so long." He offered his arm for her. "Shall we go, milady?"
La Muerte giggled and grabbed unto his arm. "Let's go, milord."
The two deities walked away from the garden, and into the hallowed halls of Aztlan.
Marigold, meanwhile, advanced towards the source of the children's laughter, towards the clearing. She spotted about eight water nymphs-the oldest being about thirteen and the youngest five- (probably Tlaloc's numerous daughters), a boy with bat ears, wings and fangs, and many other children, were doing different things; some were playing ring-around-the-rosey, others were playing tag, and others were playing with ball, Tlaloc's daughters in particular seemed to be very fond of that game.
Marigold clutched unto Rattles tightly against her chest, then approached the other children warily, not sure how to talk to them. The ball whizzed towards her and rolled over to her feet; Marigold froze as Tlaloc's daughters finally took notice of her presence and stared at her with wide eyes. Soon the other children joined them, though some were less shocked than others. Tlaloc's eldest daughter, in particular, showed a little interest in Marigold, though she soon was back to her book.
"H-Hola…" Marigold stuttered. "M-My name is M-Marigold…"
"We know who you are." One of the young water nymphs interrupted her rolling her eyes. "Your parents are Lady La Muerte and Lord Xibalba."
"What are you doing here?" another asked, unamused.
Marigold gulped. "CanIplaywithyou?"
"What did you say?" yet a third nymph repeated. "What language is that, dumbese?"
Being the first time she ever met them, Marigold didn't know that Tlaloc's daughters were very vain, smug and classist, they didn't like hanging out with 'la chusma', as they called it. They only wanted to socialize with other Gods or Goddesses who were of their same status, and they considered death gods to be inferior to them.
"C-Can I p-play with you?" Marigold repeated, slowly this time.
"You?" the same nymph started to laugh, and was soon joined by her sisters. "You think you can play with us? Don't be a fool!"
"You're can't even hold a candle, brat!"
Marigold felt close to tears as the nymphs continued taunting her, but it got worse when out of sudden one of them came forward and snatched Rattles from her.
"What's this, shrimp?" she asked, examining the snake plush with indifference. "Aren't you a little big to be playing around with dolls?"
"Give me Rattles back!" Marigold ran to get her plush from the nymph, but she threw her over to one of her sisters.
"You want it?" the nymph grinned tauntingly, shaking Rattles above her. "Come for it!"
Marigold tried to recover her precious toy back from the nymphs, but they just kept throwing it to one another, until the tallest caught it and then shook it above Marigold's head, snickering as the younger Goddess tried to get it back. "What? Too tall for you?"
Finally, her father's temper flared within her and she charged at the older nymph, knocking her down surprisingly for her young age. Marigold started hitting the water nymph, trying to get her to let Rattles go. However, the nymph's younger sisters approached and started pulling on her hair and wings. Tears of pain stung Marigold's eyes, but she was determined to get her toy; but the older nymph managed to get her off her and crawled away from her, her blue hair all messy and marks of nails on her arms.
"You brat!" she hissed, holding out Rattles. "You'll pay for that! Look what I do with your stupid doll!"
Marigold's eyes widened in horror when the nymph ripped Rattles in half, and her eyes stung with tears even more, both from the pulling and plucking of her hair and feathers. The eldest of the nymphs finally saw what was going on, and quickly went to stop her sisters from doing any further harm to the child, but suddenly she felt a powerful aura coming from the young goddess.
The water nymphs were sent flying backwards by a wave of dark energy and rose petals.
La Muerte and Xibalba nearly had a heart attack when a servant rushed into the meeting hall, yelling that the children had a fight. They found Marigold curled over Rattle's remains on top of a bed, sobbing. La Muerte immediately scooped her baby into her arms and held her close like when she was a baby.
The servant waiting with her explained to them what had happened, how Tlaloc's daughters had panicked, but that they had started first, so what happened so was just an act of self-defense. Still, Lord Xibalba and Lord Tláloc were less than pleased. The Lord of the Land of the Forgotten threatened the water nymphs with the worst of tortures if they ever dared to lay a hand on his daughter again; Tláloc agreed and did nothing as his daughters cowered in fear under the dark lord's fury.
Once he returned to the room his family was in, Xibalba drew close to them. Marigold snuggled deeper into her mother's arms.
"Shhhh, it's okay, chiquita…" La Muerte cooed, caressing her daughter's hair gently.
Xibalba gently tugged on the broken plush. Marigold let him pull it out. He examined it, and said. "Don't worry, mi florecita, we can fix dear old Rattles."
Marigold sniffled. Xibalba sat down next to his wife and lifted Marigold's chin to look into her eyes; they were glossy and puffy. Forced to look at her father, she whimpered out, terrified. "Are you mad, papi?"
Xibalba kissed her forehead. "No, mi florecita." When her head began to lower, he made her look up at him again. "But you do know the way to deal with the problem was wrong, right?"
Marigold nodded.
"You should never resort to violence to solve things, Marigold." La Muerte continued, wiping her daughter's tears with her thumbs. "It doesn't mean you should run away from problems; you have to face them, but not like that, pequeña. You could have gone to ask for help from any of the servants, of you could have come to us."
"I just wanted Rattles back, mami…" Marigold sniffled, before bursting out in tears once again and snuggling deeper into her embrace. La Muerte planted a kiss on her head and hummed their song to soothe and comfort her. Xibalba took her little hand gently.
"Would you like some churros?" he inquired with a small smile. "I heard Auntie Xochiquétzal made a whole basket just for you." Xibalba smiled when Marigold glanced at him with brightened eyes. "I'll be back in a moment."
The dark god stood up from bed and out of the room, heading towards Xochiquétzal's chambers. He passed by a couple of servants, and overheard their conversation.
"She took on all of Tláloc's daughters by herself?"
"And with a single wave of energy."
"That's surprising for a child her age, and she hasn't even developed her full powers yet."
"Imagine when they've fully developed."
Xibalba chose to ignore it, his daughter being his main concern right now.
A few days after returning home, Marigold wouldn't come out of her room, she was still too afraid to do so after what happened. She'd stay curled up in bed all day, hidden under her covers. La Muerte and Xibalba would try to coax her to come out, but for the moment it was no use, she didn't want to.
"I know you're upset, nenita, but you can't stay in here forever." La Muerte soothed her child, stroking her head gently.
"I don't want them to hurt me…" Marigold sobbed.
"We're back home, sweetie, with your old friends. They'd never hurt you, I'm sure they will be happy to see you."
"What if they don't like me anymore?"
"Don't say that, they're not like Tláloc's daughters."
There was a knock on the door, and Xibalba came in, hiding something behind his back with one hand. "Mi florecita…" he chimed with a grin as he approached the bed. "Look what I got for you."
Marigold shifted around in bed to see what her father had brought. Her eyes widened in delight when he brought his hand forward, holding Rattles back in once piece, as if it had never been torn, though there were stitches on half of its body. "Rattles!" she took her beloved plush and hugged it tightly.
"It wasn't that bad, I just had to refill it a bit and stitch it back." Xibalba smiled as he sat down next to his wife and child.
"Thanks, papi!" Marigold wrapped her arms around her father's waist.
"But how about you dry those tears and we go for a little walk?"
Marigold looked up at her father with still glossy eyes. "But I'm scared, papi…"
"It'll be okay, mi florecita. It'll be the three of us, we could even get some chocolate flan, what do you say?"
At the mention of chocolate flan, Marigold's eyes brightened once more, this time indefinitely. "Yay!"
La Muerte giggled. "That's much better, chiquita. But you need to take a bath first."
"Mami!" Marigold whined as her mother picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. "I don't want to take a bath!"
"You don't want to be stinky, do you? Remember you haven't bathed in three days."
Xibalba chuckled as his wife and daughter disappeared through the door of the bathroom. Ah, the things he did for those two girls.
His two girls.