Forgiveness
Five month-old Marigold wailed loudly in her crib, struggling to get the blankets off her as if they were the monsters that just disturbed her sleep. Tiny tears rolled down her cheeks and her little nose sniffled. Xibalba didn't usually like to be awakened at two in the morning by anyone, but as soon as he heard his daughter crying, he threw his covers off his body, stood from bed and walked towards the crib to take a peek to what was causing his baby's distress with tired eyes. Marigold was so immersed in her crying she didn't notice her father's presence.
"Shhhh, sh-sh-sh-sh." Xibalba cooed gently as he took her in his arms and held her against his chest before bouncing her. "Esta bién, mi florecita. Papi esta aquí."
Marigold buried her face into her father's chest, muffling her cries and sobs, her little hand clutching the collar of his purple bathrobe. She must have had a pretty bad dream to be crying like this. Xibalba sat down on his rocking chair and swayed it with his wings, patting Marigold's back and shushing her gently, but she still cried. After a while and after trying everything, Xibalba decided to try another thing. Snapping his fingers, the dark god summoned a long, small, purple-colored snake plush with button eyes, black stripes running down its back and a pink tongue sewn at the mouth.
"Marigold, look." Xibalba shook the plush snake over his daughter, and it made a rattling sound. "I was saving this for your birthday, but you can have it now if you'd like"
Marigold lifted her face from its hiding place in her father's chest, and looked up at the rattling plush snake with glossy eyes. She stared curiously at it, her wide red pupils glued unto it, before she smiled a toothless grin and reached out for the snake plush, giggling. Xibalba smiled as he shook the snake plush over Marigold's head in a playful manner, before setting it down and letting her take it from his grasp. "I'm glad you liked it, mi florecita. His name is Rattles, he'll take care of you when I'm not around."
"Dadlees…." Marigold blurted out, then she started nibbling on the snake plush.
Xibalba chuckled and snuggled his daughter deeply into his embrace, stroking her saliva-stained cheek with his thumb gingerly, still swaying his rocking chair with his wings.
A la roro niña
A la roro ya
Duérmete mi niña
Duérmete mi amor
Marigold's little eyes started to shutter as her father sang and lulled her to sleep; she let out a small yawn as she rested her head against her father's chest, pulling Rattles closer to her and snuggling her face into it. It took a while before she finally fell asleep. Carefully, Xibalba stood from his rocking chair and walked towards Marigold's cradle, lay her unto it and tucked her in, careful so that she still held Rattles. Finally, he bent down and planted a kiss on Marigold's cheek, making her giggle in her sleep.
"Dulces sueños, mi bebé."
It had been a week.
A week, and she hadn't come out of her room, not even to eat. No, Rodrigo and the other lizards took up her meals to her room, and she'd let them in. But not her father. Xibalba couldn't help but feel pangs of hurt and jealously when she opened her doors to others, but not him. She'd let the servitude, Garra and Colmillo, even Ponzoña, in, but not him. He'd stay for hours outside, pleading, even begging her, to come out, but she wouldn't budge. He'd often heard sobbing coming from the inside, and it killed him. Because he was the cause of it.
He regretted what he'd done deeply, he wished there was some way he could fix it, but she didn't want to see him. He'd thought about telling Emilio to ask her what he could do so she'd listen to him, but Marigold went into a yelling fit and kicked out anyone who mentioned her father. She didn't want to hear from him, she was too hurt. So, Xibalba spent those endless hours alone, missing his daughter's laughter, her smile, her hugs and kisses.
He knocked on the door for the fifth time that day with one hand, holding a plate with a dark-colored flan in the other. "Sweetie, are you in there?" No reply. "I brought you some chocolate flan, the one you liked when you were small." Before, Marigold would squeal in delight and get up from bed in a flash to retrieve her favorite dessert, but now he heard no sound coming from within. He had hoped her favorite treat would make her come out, but it didn't work. "I… I'll leave it here for you in case you get hungry." He placed the plate on a small decorative table just next to her door. "If you need anything, I'll be in my chambers, okay?"
Still no reply. The silence was killing him. It took him a great effort to keep his eyes dry.
"Buenas noches, mi florecita."
Xibalba turned around and glided down the hallway, giving one last glance at the door, until he turned around the corner. As soon as she was certain he was out of earshot, Marigold slowly pulled her door open, and stared at the direction her father had left. He was not the only one who was suffering, she missed her father terribly too; but then she remembered the way he had struck her, and everytime she did so, her cheek burned. She didn't even have the craving for the chocolate flan.
Meanwhile, Ponzoña had been deeply asleep when he heard his master coming in, and lifted both its head from the hat stand in curiosity. He watched as Xibalba headed to his bookshelves and pulled out a tome; by the time the snake slid down the hat stand and went to him, Xibalba had already sat down in his rocking chair and flipped through the pages of the thick tome, yet another photo album. But this was not the one with the pictures of himself and La Muerte; Ponzoña slid up his rocking chair and his master's cloak and found his way to his lap, finding himself staring at the pictures of Marigold when she was a baby.
"They grow up so fast, don't they, boy?" Xibalba gently spoke at his snake, with a touch of sadness in his voice. "She was so small…"
He glanced at every picture dearly, some of them depicting Marigold as a newborn sleeping in her crib or in his arms, others as a six month old crawling up his chest to play with his moustache, tormenting Ponzoña and even climbing unto Garra or Colmillo's back, bringing back fond memories. Xibalba couldn't help but chuckle sadly when he found the picture of Marigold's first birthday; she had a party hat of pastel colors on top of her head that had fallen over her eyes (since it was ridiculously big for her little head, or maybe her head was too small to fit properly in it because she had been too young), sitting on top of his bed; she was giggling as she played with Rattles, the plush he had given her as a birthday present. Xibalba felt his eyes tearing up with heart ache as he ran a finger on Marigold's chubby cheek in the picture, recalling those years when she needed him so much, but he hadn't realized he needed her just as much, or even more. Xibalba closed his eyes as the memories came back.
"Shhhhh." The dark God cooed at his whimpering child, bouncing her in his arms and stroking her little head with his thumb. "No llores, mi florecita. Papi's not letting anything happen to you."
Marigold giggled wildly from her little seat in the dining hall, all dirty with apple puree, as her father tried to feed her some more puree without getting himself any dirtier. "Here comes the trenecito! Choo-choo!" he approached the spoonful of puree to Marigold's mouth, and laughed when she took it all into her mouth.
"Come on, Marigold! Stay still!" Xibalba struggled to bathe his daughter, but she was making it more difficult with her playful splashes; the only problem, she was drenching him. Still, he couldn't contain a chuckle when she tried to touch the forming bubbles, only to stare in confusion as they popped.
Xibalba gently picked up his whimpering daughter from the floor, and planted a small kiss on her hurt hand, before smiling down at her. "There. Better, pequeña?" He got a small giggle as a reply.
What if things were never the same again? What if she never forgave him for what he did? He was dying for her to speak to him, but she just kept shutting him out. One thing was for certain, he'd never forgive himself for laying a hand on her. La Muerte would never forgive him, from wherever she was now. But he wouldn't bear if his daughter didn't forgive him. He needed to think a bit of what to do. Placing the photo album aside, Xibalba stood up from the chair and opened the doors to his balcony, walking out. Ponzoña's heads hissed in worry at him.
"It's okay, Ponzoña." Xibalba looked back at his snake reassuringly. "I won't do anything stupid again. I'm just going to think things over a bit."
With those last words, Xibalba took off with a flap of his wings and flew to the top of the tallest tower his castle had, the only place he knew he could be alone. Like a brokenhearted zombie, he landed on top of the stone ceiling and sat down, hugging his knees and his wings resting against his body. Even from this height, the Land of the Forgotten lacked any kind of pretty landscapes, everything was still the same; The same gray colors, the same jagged landscape, the same lake of lava around his castle… nothing ever changed in his realm.
He felt a presence next to him. He casually turned around to see if any of his servants had found a way up, but he was surprised (and delighted) to find Marigold instead, in a similar position to his; however, his joy evaporated and was replaced by hurt when she inched away from him, trembling slightly. Marigold felt bad when she saw the hurt expression on her father's face when she moved away, but she was still trying tog et over what happened a week ago. None of them said anything for a while, and instead just remained like that, staring into the horizon. When they did speak, it felt awkward and it was at the same time.
"Marigold, I-"
"Padre, I-"
Xibalba froze. "What did you just call me?"
"Padre." Marigold looked at her father with a strange look, as if she was surprised by how he reacted. HE looked like he had been physically struck.
"No." Xibalba said firmly. "Don't call me that. I'm not your padre."
Marigold's eyes were swelling up with tears at those words, and she trembled in dread. Was he that angry at her.
And he didn't even react. "Do you know what a padre is? A padre is nothing. He planted a seed. That's it. Any man can be a padre. A padre isn't important or special. A padre is meaningless." Suddenly, his features softened. "But a papá… A papá is something else entirely." Xibalba smiled fondly and Marigold found herself calming down. "Papá isn't a title you can just claim. You can't demand it or buy it. You have to earn it. When your newborn baby cried in the middle of the night, it is a padre who goes to sleep. A papá trudges out of bed, no matter how tired he is, gets a bottle and sings as his little daughter fills her belly. When she is learning her first words or taking her first step, a papá is there to encourage her and cheer her on. When her heart is broken a papá cries with her. When she succeeds a papá is right there, cheering her on. And once you earn that title it is yours… because a papá never lets go of his children and he never abandons them."
Marigold was weeping by then, her body bouncing as she sobbed, looking at her father with guilt-ridden and teary eyes.
"So no… I'm not your padre. I'm your papá and nothing you or the Devil or the anyone else says will make me stop being your papá." Xibalba was weeping too, tears falling unto the black tiles of the roof. "I know I screwed up… I may be a God but that doesn't make me perfect, even Gods screw up sometimes. I messed up really badly but I will always come back and always make it right. Because I'm your papá. Got it?"
Marigold managed a watery smile despite her cracking heart. "Got it."
Despite the contradictory tears, Xibalba smiled at his child and gave her the tender look she knew so well. "Can I get a hug from my bebita now? I've been wanting to get one these days."
That was the last straw. Marigold flung herself into her father's arms and wrapped her arms around his neck as she cried openly, burying her face into his chest plate. Xibalba in turn pulled her into his lap and wrapped both his arms and wings protectively around her, not wanting to let go of her ever again. The both of them cried openly, after days of being apart from each other. Xibalba hesitated, but he gingerly stroked Marigold's cheek with his claw-like fingers (the cheek he had struck); Marigold trembled and tried to pull away from him, but he pulled her even closer to his body
"I'm so sorry, mi pequeña…" Xibalba sobbed with a broken heart. "Please forgive me…I didn't meant to hurt you…" He stroked is daughter's hair softly.
Marigold sobbed louder, and she touched her father's cheek with her hand as she looked up at him. Red met red, not with anger, but with love. "Please don't cry, papi… it makes me sad…"
Xibalba smiled down at his daughter and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb, as tenderly like he was touching a fragile rose, before both returned to their embrace.
"I'm sorry, papá…" now it was Marigold's turn to sob. "I didn't mean any of those things I said…"
"Shhhh…" the dark good cooed gently. "Sh-sh-sh. It's okay, mi florecita. I was partly to blame for that; I pushed you too far. It's just, I still can't believe you're growing up so fast…" Xibalba smiled fondly. "I still remember when you were a baby… You were such a tiny thing that I could hold you in one hand."
"I'm not a baby anymore, papá…"
"I know, mi florecita..." Xibalba thought for a moment, before looking down at his daughter. "Tell you what, sweetie. I'll let you visit the Land of the Living more often, if you promise me you'll always tell me before."
Marigold's whole face brightened as she looked up at her father with hopeful eyes. "A-Are you serious, papá…?" when he nodded, she immediately peppered his face with butterfly kisses and hugged him tightly, with a strength comparable to that of her mother's. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, papi!"
Xibalba felt the air leave his lungs when Marigold squeezed his ribcage, but he nevertheless returned the embrace. When she released her hold on him, he spoke again. "Well, sweetie, how about we go downstairs to get some chocolate flan?" he grinned when he saw the look on Marigold's face.
"You're on!" she jumped from the roof and dove down, opening her wings in the last moment to glide through the sky. Xibalba soon went after her at his own pace, the two of them laughing all the way back inside.