Title: always been a security guard

Fandom: The Book of Life

Summary: Xibalba welcomes new arrivals to the Land of the Forgotten.

Character(s)/Pairing(s): Xibalba, the Forgotten, Joaquin and Manolo cameo, some La Muerte/Xibalba

A/N: Heavily based on and inspired by the "Art of" book, as I wanted to try to combine its cut concept of the Forgotten starting out as monsters that had forgotten their own humanity, with the on-screen canon of the really sad and regretful and much more human-like skeletons. Also fully running with me remembering never actually seeing Xibalba interact with the Forgotten in the movie, and wanting to explore Xibalba as the complicated character I see him as; also, running with me remembering not seeing when someone joins the Land of the Forgotten.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Book of Life.

As a ruler, Xibalba could surprise: he was no true tyrant. (Tired and worn down and embittered, yes. Tyrannical, not really.)

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There were those mortals who died, with no one to remember them, and so they immediately went to the Land of the Forgotten.

Their entry always tugged at Xibalba's consciousness. He had been created to sense them, and trained to excel at that. (And so he loathed his creator and teacher.)

So far, no amount of wagering had changed his predetermined lot in life. (The first a failure, and costing him greatly, more than he had imagined—but the second time, this time, would be different, and he would gain back what he had lost.)

Xibalba could even feel them while visiting the Land of the Living. The god had been in the middle of observing his champion, invisible to any mortal eye, when the alert for new arrivals began stirring up at the back of his mind. So he got up from his perch where he had been watching young Joaquin and Manolo playing marbles. He was reluctant to go (not regretful, it was not as if he bore any affection for the boy, let alone his little friend, absolutely not, it was all strictly business); finally he teleported away, back to his rotting hole.

Xibalba idly counted heads: two lost souls, in fine—that is, perfectly vicious—beast form. The Forgotten never entered his realm gently. It was not Xibalba just brooding when he thought the Forgotten themselves were enraged over no one left behind to remember them—he felt that radiating off the creatures in thick, hot waves. Needless to say, it was not pleasant to be in their heads. But it was not their own anger that transformed them. (And their anger existed for a variety of other reasons, alongside the regret, sadness, and other dark feelings.)

Souls that were forgotten; souls that had forgotten their humanity, to become something else; the "Forgotten" was a very apt name for them.

Feeling a stab of boredom, for this whole thing was nothing new, Xibalba made a little bet with himself, wagering that the Forgotten with the blue markings would pounce first, while the one with the red markings would go second.

The two Forgotten crouched down, then jumped, claws raised, mouths wide open with dark fangs lengthening—

The god frowned, forced to admit that the two seemed to have pounced simultaneously; he could not distinguish a clear winner. Sighing, Xibalba raised a hand, and the two Forgotten froze in mid-air. He then lowered his hand, and they went down to the ground, struggling against his psychic hold and growling and whining in confusion.

Given that there were only two, Xibalba placed both of his hands on their heads. He extended his power and will further (as he had been trained to do), to repress the Forgotten's bestiality. What had been a struggle before, was much simpler now: he cut through the monster, to the human inside, and forced that to the top; even if that humanity now consisted only of regret and other dark things.

To not do this every time the Forgotten arrived, to let them run wild, as they had done before there was any ruling guardian, when they could eventually generate enough strength and numbers to tear through the fabric of time and space to cross the realms, invade and ravage, as they had been able to do ages before—not ideal. It had been beaten into him since his youth to never let that happen again. (It was something he had never been able to resist, even in his darkest moods. The lessons had been too ingrained, his teacher ruthlessly thorough.)

The Forgotten underneath his hands soon quieted, and shrunk, their claws and fangs breaking off, their markings turning from blue and red to a shade of green that resembled Xibalba's own.

Now they looked human enough, as much as the dead in the Land of the Remembered. Harmless enough.

And now they regretfully sighed as every other lost mortal soul in the Land of the Forgotten. They would soon be as mindlessly sad as the rest, trading full sentience for a cycling through one dark mood until they disintegrated. (The fact that their ashes would eventually be reused for the Candlemaker's wax in making new candles of life was no longer much of a comforting thought to Xibalba.)

More out of habit than any real hope at this point, Xibalba tried searching through their heads for their names, identities; as usual, there were no names, and all sorts of dark memories. He tried to make use of what he found, but it was not enough of a basis for reviving their full minds. That was nothing new. Another habit: he tried impressing his will and power once more, pushing harder.

That did not work either, which was just another end result he had faced before. The Forgotten had only ever shown the god two modes: mindless monster or mindless griever, Xibalba could never get them to a sentience equaling that of those Remembered souls. (His teacher had predicted this with little concern, and it made Xibalba irrationally despise him all the more.)

Xibalba leaned back from the newly Forgotten, crossing his arms, and resisted the urge to sigh, irritably thinking how damned infectious that was down here. Then he deflated, grumbling, once he realized that since he was back already, might as well check to make sure that all of the Forgotten remained harmless and weren't growing fangs or claws again, even if he hadn't exactly sensed anything from them. It would do nothing to better his mood if, the second he teleported back to the Land of the Living, the Forgotten then flared up again on his radar.

So Xibalba went around his rotting realm and stretched his senses out to check the status of his mindless subjects, for he could not permanently banish the Forgotten's monstrous forms. They required continual suppression, though there was no exact science or pattern to when they were close to breaking loose again. Although most of the time Xibalba could rely on them to remain harmless for a good long while, there were exceptions. He could still remember vividly one time he had to leave La Muerte in the middle of a date, to repress the Forgotten's return to bestiality, and of course she had not minded, knowing the nature of his land, and forgiving of duty—but not of...

Well, thank goodness for divine teleportation.

(Not in the mood to be reminded of La Muerte pre-estrangement.)

It always rendered any concern over being too far away from the Land of the Forgotten at the exact wrong moment relatively moot, as he could always teleport back in an instant. At least he could, theoretically, relax and be careless over that.

Xibalba finished his patrol, and had only needed to suppress the monsters of thirty-five more Forgotten. Still, he had pushed a bit more on the rest, figuring he could reinforce the defenses against the Forgotten's beastly forms while he was there, thinking it would hold them off longer and give him even more time for something like peace of mind. But by the end of it, his mood had grown even more foul, and instead of returning to the Land of the Living to spy on his champion, the god returned to his castle. The whole process with suppressing the Forgotten's monstrous nature was not as draining as when he had been a fledgling slip of a brat, but it could still be tiring.

Sitting back in his cracked throne, closing his eyes, Xibalba—well, did not sleep, exactly. That eluded him.

Dark thoughts did not leave him, and there the Forgotten King brooded on his throne.

A/N: Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed! Any feedback is always appreciated. Like other TBoL fic of mine, this fic includes vague references (i.e. Xibalba's teacher) to future plotbunnies I'd like to share later. Reincarnation mention based on a theory at TV Tropes.