Xunantunich

Xunantunich is a story written by shukyou. It ran in Issue 85 at https://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/xunantunich/.

Summary

It was just after sunset when they saw the woman walking alongside the road.

Two archaeologists pick up a hitchhiker on the winter solstice.

Author's Notes

Okay, so:

I don't want to say too much about the scholarly work that inspired this, because I don't want it to show up in a Google search for the concepts. Suffice it to say, though, it comes from something a bit more grounded than The University Of My Ass.

This is not meant to be a completely accurate depiction of anything in Mesoamerican mythology, folklore, and/or tradition -- and I think I'm pretty up-front about that with the discussion of climbing the idea of El Castillo. This is not about objective reality; this is about collective reality. Ana and Hilde are sharing an understanding of the way the world works, and it's an understanding informed by what they understand about themselves, their own cultures, their own experiences, and where they are. For instance, Hilde's the reason there's a ribbon around her neck. You get the story through her point of view, so it'd make sense that her interpretation of it would match what she knows.

There are LOTS of decapitated moon goddesses in Mesoamerica, and the woman isn't meant to be any specific one of them. I mean, she's more Coyolxauhqui than anything else ... which of course doesn't make any sense, because Coyolxauhqui is Azetc, and Xunantunich is Mayan, right? But Xunantunich is named (by white people) after a series of ghost sightings that happened there, so it seems like a good place for her to wind up after she's decapitated by the sunset. The world at its darkest descends into the crack in the universe that is the Milky Way in the night sky, and is reborn a little sunnier the next morning.

Hilde is named Hilde as a nod to the Invisibles. Ana is named Ana because I like the name. Belikin is the Beer of Belize.

Also -- and this is goofy, but I don't care -- with this X story, I have now written at least one SSBB story for every letter of the alphabet, which is a dubious accomplishment, to say the least.