"Some of the greatest stories ever told were never meant to be told at all . . . "
Stop me if you've heard this one. . .
Long ago there was a young girl named Xanat. She lived with her parents on the sugar-sandy beaches of what is now eastern Mexico. She played in the warm Mexican sunshine and ran free with childish abandon amongst the flowers & trees of the nearby forest. She would frequently come home with an orchid, her favorite, tucked behind her ear. She was a pearl in her mother's eye; a thorn in her father's side.
As she grew older her beauty blossomed like the flowers of the forest. Fine features, long hair, soft as silk and black as the rarest pearl in the sea, and eyes so dark you became lost just staring into them. But her most beguiling feature could not be seen, but rather felt. For from within she radiated a sense of headstrong independence that both terrified and captivated all those around her. Naturally, she took after her father.
She fascinated the young men of the village and soon they began vying for her attention. One look in her eternal eyes and they were just as lost as a leaf floating on the vast, rolling waves of the ocean. There were many suitors, but one young man won her heart and stole her soul. Together they approached her father to ask for his blessing on their marriage.
Her father became enraged at their request. "My daughter has hair of ebony, skin of gold, and eyes of the darkest roasted cacao!" he thundered. "She will never marry a town peasant! I forbid her to marry any mortal. She is meant for a god!"
The young man cowered beneath his rage, but Xanat stood tall and faced her father with a stubbornness just as fierce. "I will marry whom I will." She proclaimed, anger rising like the swell of the sea just before a hurricane.