The Land Archaic

Eight - Those among the Few

    Laang stood up from where he laid. He cleaned the dirt on his cheeks and the sweat from his right temple. The clouds greeted his eyes as he turned about, towards the torogan. How should he explain?

"I can not bear my mother weep

      now that my father is lost

           who am I to tell her what the gods had permitted!

               Please, Gahaman deliver me from this pain!" Laang cried.

  Gahaman did not respond. Though his eyes pierced through the air that had stood between them. There was no need to say anymore, no need for comfort. For he knew they had to accept what was willed and stand tall from it. He avoided the lordling's eyes, for he knew too well that he can not answer his heed.

"Why are the gods,

       though forgiving

          are as ruthless as nothing else?

They say we are one with them

   bloods share their blood, the god's

But even this, Gahaman!

    I feel no love from the gods

        and the ways of the old

          and my soul's purpose!"Laang cried.

It is true, this Gahaman thought. But even at that his thoughts did not become words. Only his eyes did agree. They are but pebbles of a world as divine as it is supposed to be. At his rear, was the lordling at his pace towards the torogan. 

"Laang, blood of my blood

    let my songs praise your return dearly

      come now, and we'll see you fit!" Iloy.

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 Her kneel at the wooden floor made her knees tremble at the itch it generously pinched. Iloy had lit the fire she kept outside of the torogan when she'd seen tall seawaves brewing among the feet of the balangay isles, as it did her heart pranced at the thought of the lost souls of the ancients. 

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"Mother hear me

    but I beg not of your tears,

        my father the Datu..."

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  She'd heard an odd unkempt alarming voice not too beyond the isles. 

It was a cry  most remembered a long time ago, from a distant memory it was. A voice of a son who blurred her  doubtful reason. 

"Laang"

and not more than a little while her feet leaped out of the wooden floor and found its weight on the earth eagerly, she ran more than she could as her Laang's distress consumed her sanity.

"Come now!"

 but as she anxiously make her way through a bush towards the beach the earth trembled, reminiscent of before.

Iloy fell to her knees, flesh undaunted to the troubles of the sands. For her eyes swam on the serpent's gaze, the serpent's seduction, and its ardent flight. And as the Bakunawa did descend, she saw it full length towards the sea, waters grew taller and as awaited it devoured the sands where a man stood, a man not his Laang.

The parading water quickly reached her knees, there where she hid tightly. Iloy sat subtly, blunted and numb. She willed herself for the emotions to fllod in, yet she summoned none. She knew that the god finally willed its purpose. Yet how she deared for her child and his cries. Iloy felt her moving willed on its own, out of that dreadful itch. Out of the murderous waters. She ran from her Laang! Not to abandon him, but to save him!

Still she ran... from the serpent god, fearfully

  from his son, ran from her husband the Datu Sari ang Daga, whom she did love and bore an heir.

 Whom with she made her purpose.

    Whom with she built a home, a life, and as timely as destined..... A LIE

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 "...has left us

     the serpent-god mother!

        It took our father from us!"As Laang cried to her mother.