What The Fireleaves Danced

"A wound far from the heart is a wound not worth worrying about."

- Liwayan Saying

Mayumi awoke to the sound of a tree falling.

When she forced herself away from her dreamless sleep, she realized that Angas was nowhere within her arms. She opened her eyes and looked up, only to see her little civet cat growling at something. She moved and flattened herself against the large root of the tree, before peering out past it.

"Angas?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

The sun was high up in the sky. Rising had passed; it was the time of the Resplendent. The radiant light of Adlayari, goddess of the Morning and the Sun, bore down on the foliage and struck beams of light all the way to the bottom of the huge forest. A majority of the sungleam broke through the top canopy.

Angas silenced. The feisty little thing was staring straight at something, observing or maybe sizing something up. She couldn't quite tell.

"A tree...?" Mayumi pulled herself up a bit more and tried to peer through the brambles and thick foliage. She heard the boisterous cry of a king eagle.

Mayumi decided that this was worth inspecting. Maybe it was a human logger from another barangay, going on his rounds? Although she wondered who would be brazen enough to log trees in such a dense forest – let alone the Kalilim – that she couldn't help but believe that the diwata wouldn't have agreed to it.

She's watched their barangay anitowan talk to them once, and they didn't allow logging in this particular part of this forest.

Mayumi ventured on anyway. Only be able to see if I go myself. She heard Angas yelp, and then followed after her heels. The young girl walked cautiously, vaulting over roots slowly and controlling her fall upon the muddy, leaf covered floor of the forest.

Before long, she came across a small clearing, within which a stream cut through. A tree had indeed been knocked over, laid across the stream and stopping the flow of water. She realized now that she could only faintly hear the lapping of the babbling brook against its newfound tree wall.

The thing that caught Mayumi's attention moreso than that were the two figures standing on opposite sides of the fallen log.

On one side was a creature she'd seen before, a creature which her elders had told her to steer away from or to not cross his path. A dark-skinned – and haired – creature, with teeth so yellow they looked like they were made of some sort of cheese, and a tobacco tube wrapped together with a large banana leaf nestled between its lips. Its dark, beady eyes stared at the being on the opposite side of the tree.

This one was vaguely humanoid in figure, and much, much taller than Mayumi, standing almost three heads above her. His perfect mouth, with lips supple and full, of the reddest of fireleaves, was drawn in a grim line. His skin was the color of the brightest sunrise -- so white and ivory that Mayumi thought it to have been woven together by starstuff. His hair, tied up into a tight braid glimmered the brightest of platinums and his eyes were droplets of the sea.

Mayumi covered her mouth. The beautiful creature held a slender sword, and wore armor seemingly grown of vines, adorned with leaves of different colors from red to blue to green to brown to indigo.

From beside her, Angas stared at Mayumi.

"Tamawo," she whispered.

"Leave this place, unglok." The tamawo spoke with a deep, full, and melodious voice. "Or I shall make you."

The unglok shook its head. When it spoke, its voice was low and hoarse, as if his lungs had been burnt from the inside out. "I've done nothing wrong. All I've been doing is smoking here and minding my own business."

The tranquil look on the tamawo's eyes flashed and fell for the quickest of moments. And then, "Lies." With a quick flick of his wrist, the tamawo cut open the tree lying across the stream, forcing the both of them to stand on opposite sides of it. The tree burst open and, almost like an egg, bones both yellowed and blackened spilled out into the stream, carried down to the river. The tamawo's tranquil gaze returned, like a veil dr.a.p.ed over his soul, and he stared at the unglok, almost accusingly.

"To Sulad with you!" The unglok spat. "You damned tamawo always get on my nerves!"

"Kalilim is under our protection. It is also within oath that we protect the humans of the Datu Sariman's barangay. If you are breaking this oath, then it is in my interests to enforce it."

The unglok was already moving. The giant, lumbering hulk's foot slammed into the stream, kicking water up in a huge splash around him.

The tamawo was quick.

The unglok stepped again, out of the stream, bringing his fist down upon the seemingly stationary pale being. The water framed his strike.

The tamawo had moved. It reappeared behind the unglok, on the other side of the stream. He flicked the sword down onto the soil, and viscous black blood -- intermingled with some sort of fine ephemeral gossamer -- splattered onto the ground.

The unglok was cut.

It screamed in the middle of its attack; its decapitated fist struck the ground, detached from the rest of its arm. A long cut materialized on its c.h.e.s.t, its tobacco pipe cut cleanly in half, and the still burning tobacco within scattered into the wind.

And even the water, by some supernatural means, was split horizontally, exploding into a fine drizzle that fell all about the unglok.

The unglok screamed and fell to its knees. The tamawo and the unglok stood on opposite sides once again, but in each other's places.

A flock of birds burst out of their resting places crying incessantly, sounding either like they were screaming afraid of the combat, or exceedingly annoyed at the raucuous noise they were making.

The tamawo was silent. His blue eyes were unblinking, his silver braided hair swayed in the quick, stray wind, with various platinum strands rising about him like a halo. He watched the unglok scream and scream… until the black creature quieted down, and all about him thick black liquid pocked with white tendrils pooled.

In the silence, the tamawo let go of his blade, and it dissipated in a torrent of bright motes. From the quick combat earlier, Mayumi hadn't seen it, but the tamawo wore a cloak of what looked like tightly woven webbings of spider silk, with the occasional leaf sprouting from a random area. The tamawo walked over the stream and to the unglok, kneeling beside it.

After a few moments, the tamawo stood up. A stray beam of sunlight basked him in a golden sheen. Mayumi blinked, and realized there was liquid in her eyes. She sniffed, realizing that she was crying, ever so slightly.

Angas had flipped backwards, behind the large tree root, and cuddled Mayumi's leg.

Mayumi couldn't tear her eyes away from the immaculate creature. From this pale, silver-skinned, slender humanoid. His ears were sharp as well, denoting some sort of supernatural ancestry, and his eyes. Oh, by the great Bu-an, his eyes were the colors of indigo midnights, illuminated by the sea reflecting the moongleam, speckled with starlight.

She couldn't stop thinking about his physicality.

Eventually, the tamawo nodded, and then turned to her direction.

Mayumi gasped as their gazeas met.

There was some sort of depth that she couldn't quite grasp in the abyss within those indigo irises. A history of a thousand lifetimes, of wars and sorceries she couldn't quite understand. She looked away, turned around and hid behind the large root, and prayed to the God Bu-an to keep her safe, but she wasn't quite convinced of her own prayers. She wasn't quite convinced of her own fears. She felt safe, within his eyes.

She heard the sound of feet crunching twigs and leaves.

"Are you alright?" His voice was deep and smooth, like hot butter being spread across bread.

Mayumi gasped. She turned to the tall being and scrambled backwards with a yelp. "Y-yes…"

He was so close now. Right in front of her. He stood behind the large, thick root of those gigantic trees. "Are you from Datu Sariman's Barangay?" He didn't blink when he spoke. His voice dripped like ichor.

Mayumi nodded.

"Why are you here?"

She pressed her lips together, but eventually managed to force the words out. "We've been attacked by bandits."

The tamawo blinked – the first she'd seen him do such a human gesture.

And then, without another word, he vaulted over the root, bounding over Mayumi and strode past her, clearing huge swathes of the forests in a few bounds and leaps.

Mayumi blinked, the wind from the sudden rush of movement kicking her brown hair up. She turned to Angas, who had huddled near a small grove of the tree root. When she found him, she blinked, opened her mouth, and then promptly closed it. She turned to see where the tamawo was, but he was already gone, yet she could still hear the sound of roots and branches cracking under his step.

Mayumi turned to Angas. "Let's follow him."

Angas rose to his feet and ran after Mayumi as they both tried to catch up with the tamawo. They dashed and sprinted through vines and low branches, skillfully evading and jumping over fallen tree, detritus kicked up around her.

She'd gone and played through these woods before, and so she was quite used to dodging rogue branches, jumping and vaulting over large, low roots, grabbing onto branches and swinging over small ravines. She realized that, as she neared the exit of the woods and – subsequently – her barangay by the river, she could hear a loud thundering, and she could feel the light patter of a drizzle.

She eventually broke out of the woods and arrived at the barangay that had been raided and burned. The rain was moderate here -- not too heavy a downpour to obfuscate her vision, yet at the same time not too light either. She was breathing heavily, she realized, as Angas jumped onto her shoulder.

They actually did it… Her thoughts were morbid as she took it all in. Her barangay had been, quite literally, burnt to the ground. The humble and small huts had been burnt straight to the earth, with only their mere foundations serving as a reminder, a ghastly echo that they were once there. The only thing standing relatively strong was the concrete house in the middle of it all, before the barangay bonfire wherein their anitowan would conduct rituals to appease the gods and call upon benefits from both their anestors – the anito, and nature itself – the diwata. And even that seemed like a dry husk of what it had once been.

Mayumi remembered a time of jubilance as she watched the ghost of her home. Like some sort of cruel waking dream, some sort of reveried illusion, she remembered and could even see the joyous laughter of her and her friends, most smart aleck yet responsible and hardworking Tigas, and the beautiful, moon-skinned daughter of the Datu, Luning as they played around within the house, and would run out of it. They would run over to the rice paddies near the river to work within them, and then they would stop and stay beside the wide Bokosan River, where they would watch Tigas spear large fish going upstream.

Now all of that was gone. The phantasm disappeared before her like veil of smoke pierced through by rain. The small wooden port they've constructed by the river had been utterly smashed, and the rice paddies had been burnt down to into the earth, nothing was left of their irrigation system. There was nothing left within their houses, all looted to the ground…

She began looking for the tamawo. She swept a gaze across the clearing until she found that the house she'd stayed in had been miraculously kept safe from the most intense of the flames. It was still charred black, but unlike the other huts, hers was still standing up. Mayumi ran over to the house and launched herself into the building, through the destroyed door… only to find her mother, stripped n.a.k.e.d and splayed on the floor with blood pooling about her. Her neck had been twisted into an unnatural angle, and there was a kampilan blade entrenched deep into her stomach.

Mayumi fell to her knees. "Ina…" She called, the honorary name they called their mothers. "Ina!"

But she would not awake. When Mayumi understood this, she crawled to her mother, and gathered the lifeless corpse into her arms. She closed her mother's still open eyes as she hugged her and cried. She didn't know how long she cried. She didn't realize Angas had crawled up to her mother's neck and began nudging her cheek, as if trying to wake her up.

Mayumi shook her head. "Angas… she's dead."

Angas, oblivious and seemingly not understanding those words, kept nudging their Ina's cheek.

Mayumi didn't realize that she'd fallen asleep. Her eyes burned red, and she wiped away the tears from her cheeks. Her entire right face and baro had been drenched in blood, from the blood that covered her mom. Angas' fur had been matted with blood as well.

"Let's go, Angas. There's no use in grieving anymore. Let us bury her and pray for her to join the anito." Her voice was anything but strong. It was broken. The semblance of her soul seeping through to the physical world.

Mayumi reached for the kampilan and pulled it out of her mother's abdomen. It was surprisingly not too heavy in her hands. She hefted it to throw it away, but decided against it after a brief thought fluttered across her mind's eye. With her being alone now, she's going to need every weapon she could get.

Angas rubbed against her shin. Mayumi watched her mother, and then turned and walked over to the small clay pot that sat underneath a dug-in hole in the corner of their house. She brought the clay pot out fairly quickly with just her hands and smashed it against the ground. A small bracelet made of gold and furnished with three seemingly rare gems – two rubies and one diamond – clinked onto the earthen soil.

She outfitted it to herself, and she felt a small surge of power which she immediately dismissed. It receded into the back of her mind as the agimat popped into place.

Her mother routinely wore that same bracelet when she traveled with her father before, and she said that it protected her from a whole slew of harm. But now that her mother had birthed Mayumi, she had hidden it for her to be able to use later on in her future.

Mayumi sniffed at the thoughts, staring at the agimat bracelet. A feeling of cold tugged at her heart, pulling it down. That won't help me now. She shrugged the feeling off and made her way outside the house.

Outside, the rain had stopped and turned into a light drizzle. The sun was still up, and was in its Rescinding phase, although only merely after-resplendent, so it still hung relatively high in the sky. The village was still quiet, save for the occasional tweets of birds and the stray roar of whatever fauna roamed those lands, and the rushing melody of the river that seemed to accompany the entire, dreadful scene.

Mayumi looked for the tamawo, and found him before the concrete house of the Datu.

"Datu Sariman was a good friend to me," Mayumi heard him say as she walked up to him. Angas perched on her shoulder. "I promised that I would protect him, as he had protected me. I promised to protect his daughter, Luning."

Mayumi blinked. Luning! "Luning is always hidden in her cave room," said Mayumi. A burst of hope kindled from her heart. "It's possible that the bandits might not have seen her!" She began to move to the backside of the Datu's house, where the hidden entrance to the cave was, but a cold hand gripped her arm. Easily too, as if her arm were just a piece of bamboo.

"She is dead."

Mayumi stopped. She swallowed.

"They are all dead." His voice was one of monotone. "Help me, human. Help me bury their bodies, so that they may join the anito."

Mayumi had to gather up all the will and strength and courage that she had to prevent herself from bursting into a depressed cry once again. She nodded. An answer to the tamawo's command. "Tell me your name."

"Dakila," he said, simply and plainly. He stopped, and let go of Mayumi's arm. The human girl turned to face him.

"I a-am Mayumi." Her voice cracked.

"Do not harbor it all inside," said the tamawo – Dakila. And for the first time, she saw emotion on his face. His eyebrows tilted upward in a worried arc.

"Harbor what--" And she realized there were tears once again. She tried to breathe, and ended up having to gasp for air.

Mayumi couldn't help but sob once again. She felt Dakila's cold hand pat her head. "Let it out. Do not harbor it all inside."

The rain stopped as Mayumi wept.

Before long, they had buried all the bodies they could find. They managed to find a crude shovel within the panday's burned down house. They also managed to find a hard, narrawood bow, without a string. Dakila suggested that the looters must've missed it, mistaking it for some old stick without a purpose. After they buried the bodies around the large campfire, they set the barangay bonfire ablaze in a final tribute, so that the fires of Laguhon, God of Fire and Light, may lead their way into Magu'yawan the Ferry's safe arms.

Dakila had unravelled some web he had found nearby from a wolf spider's webbing, and he created another taut and strong string. "We have no arrows, and you have none of my sorcerous weaving to be able to create arrows out of branches. I am no panday. I may fashion some arrows out of rocks, for crude arrows. You will not be heading into much combat anyway, and it will only be a last line of defense.

"We must hurry to Pinagsama, the safest place I know, to the northwest," the tamawo's indigo eyes turned to the bonfire, surrounded by graves. "It is the least I can do, in exchange for your barangay's loss."

Mayumi, through all this, had managed to strengthen up once more. It had all felt like a dream, the past few hours. A strange fae-trance that she'd been induced into, maybe by this tamawo. But when they burned the bonfire and buried Datu Sariman, finding his body washed up on the banks of the river, and smelled the stench of death, she knew that this was indeed real, and she had to take measures now. She had to survive on her own now.

On my own.

Can I do that?

She inhaled, gulping down words unspoken, and then said, "Thank you."

Dakila nodded, still staring at the bonfire. His gaze was reminiscent of someone trying to see something -- his eyes squinting, and his head slightly leaning forward. Mayumi watched him, and Angas crawled up to Mayumi's shoulder once again, settling there, looking up at the tamawo.

Before long, Dakila turned to Mayumi. "We must leave soon. What will you do once you've arrived at Pinagsama?"

Mayumi opened her mouth. In truth she was unsure. She turned and looked at the bonfire once again, arrayed by the graves. In truth she wanted to die, to join and join her fellow people – the people that had been her life – among the ranks of the anitos.

All of them had been slaughtered. She was the last of Datu Sariman's.

There must be some justice.

So, she was unsure if she had meant it or not -- doubly so thanks to her doubts -- when she said, "Becoming stronger, and then kill those that killed me."