Hamartia - the Singing Dagger | #NaNoWriMo2019

Chapter 4: The Giant's Offer

|To IreneGabiana, whose story inspired me to continue my own. 🤗|

The two had left the house and flew back to the treetops. It was nightfall, and nocturnal creatures had just started to creep out of their crevices.

Caelem landed Mahani gently on the branch of a balete tree. She twirled her fingers nervously.

"If things weren't so unfair, I could save the kingdom from this wacko snake cult. But no." Mahani pounded her fist on the roots of the balete tree in frustration. "The way humans abuse power... is disgusting."

Caelem scoffed at Mahani. "I thought that as a human yourself you would've figured that sooner. But you were also blind of the real world just two years ago, Mahani."

Looking away from the human, Caelem laughed drily.

"I bet you didn't even notice what was done to your parents' slaves at their funeral."

Then Mahani remembered how Caelem had introduced himself in the forest clearing. A warrior-slave.

"Why did you tell me you were a warrior-slave when you could've pretended to be anybody else? I mean, as a Wind Spirit, you can take any form."

The Wind Spirit snapped his head at her. "Two thousand years." His eyes widened threateningly.

"You don't become the possession, the tool, of human beings for two thousand years and pretend it hasn't seeped into your identity. Even if your body hasn't tasted their barbaric whips, your spirit can never efface that suffering from who you are."

Wind Spirit breathed in deeply, trying to calm himself down.

"After Halea, a friend of us Wind Spirits, was trapped in a lake in Indramur, I was assigned by our Maluna to stay on the island under the guise of an Indramurim slave.

"Every time one of my owners would die, their living relatives would tie me and the other slaves unto the raft that held their dead bodies. We were supposed keep them company in the underworld. For two thousand years, I had to go through the same thing.

That was the fate of your parents' slaves as well."

"I'm really sorry." Mahani looked down at her feet. "I can't relate to what you've been through. I guess my ancestors' were right in taking me out of the palace.

I am destined for more than being a power-hungry, sun-deprived royal jerk. "

Mahani reached to comb over the strong Wind Spirit's wings and stopped herself. She barely knew this creature yet she felt dangerously comfortable around him.

"My turn for the questions, human. How do you how to wind-speak?"

"I thought that you were controlling that. Like you would send me your thoughts and receive mine from the wind. "

"No, I can only hear other people's thoughts. They can't hear mine."

Mahani gaped in wonder, standing up on the thick branch of the balete tree and leaning on its body. "Are you suggesting I'm some freak supernatural being like you? And by the way, I couldn't hear your thoughts when we first met, remember? The tour group, and then the riverside. Just in the sky."

When they had spiraled up the air in an embrace.

Suddenly, while leaning on the trunk of the balete, Mahani saw something she didn't want to.

Caelem, I want you to stay dead quiet. He looked up to the shaking woman standing above him, his purple wings fluffing up in alarm. Silently, he floated into the air to look over Mahani's shoulder.

An agta.

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Mahani gaped at the coal-black giant that sat smoking in the tree in front of them. Slowly, it's massive head turned to them and smiled. The giant took out the banana-leaf pipe that he was smoking.

As the agta chuckled, the two of them looked in horror as the giant proved to be as thick as the balete tree's trunk and a half it's height.

"Do I perchance hear two beings speaking of the immortal moon warrior Halea?" The agta's smile grew freakishly large until it almost reached the lobes of his ears.

Caelem rolled his eyes in boredom. "Stop trying to faze us, agta. We're fully grown beings, not children you show yourpathetic tricks to. What do you know of Halea, giant?" The agta reluctantly receded his smile and answered.

"Wind Beasts do not know of everything that goes on in the mortal world, no matter what their pride may tell them." Caelem's green eyes squinted fiercely at the giant, the giant violet talon of his left wing caving into the bark of the balete tree.

Release your immortal talon from my trunk, Wind Spirit. My existence in this universe may have been shorter than yours. But the horrors of Earth age us mortals more than all your carefree years would care to know. Be humble.

With a huff, Caelem took out his talon. "Don't even reply to that, you filthy agta. What's your point?"

The agta jumped down from his branch and unto the forest floor, frightening the songbirds up into the treetops. Squatting on the ground, the giant's yellow eyes shone against his pitch-black skin. "You said that mortals have forgotten the blue-skinned Halea. But we Forest People remember. In fact, we saw something that you Spirits missed on that accursed night.

"When Halea hid in the lake to await Bulan's return, she sent her third soul out unto the surface, bearing her Kalis dagger of moonlight. She bid her karkarma to inhabit a worthy body and not to search for her until it was a wise and strong one. Halea's karkarma never came back."

Mahani looked stunned. "Hold up. What's a karkarma?"

Laughter bombarded her eardrums. She realized that everybody, even the balete tree was laughing at her. Caelem flitted up and down,
guffawing wildly.

"Glad to see you're happy, " Mahani said.

Caelem was shaking his head in glee. "I just forgot how ignorant humans were."

Yeah, that makes me feel much better.

The nymph of the balete came out of the split in the trunk. She was a small creature, reaching up only to Mahani's knee. The nymph climbed up to an orange mushroom that was clinging to her bark.

"Well, honey, every living being has four souls, and some of them travel outside of your body all the time."

The agta interjected, "Not the lesser creatures though. Birds and other animals only have two souls."

Okay. Now Mahani was just plain confused.

As if Caelem wasn't satisfied with her level of befuddlement, he added to it. "One of your souls can only separate with you when you die. Another travels at night when you are dreaming. One is an undead vesper that roams the Earth to deal with unfinished business.

The karkarma, the one we're talking about, can escape when you're frightened or be stolen by a sorcerer."

Mahani slid down the roots of the balete and scanned the three magical beings.

"I am seriously have to check on my sanity after this conversation."

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Hey, guys! I just changed my username to Hadassah Branch but my tagline is @Sephrenia3214. My writing has really been slowing down these past three days. Ugh. As all of you other Filipinos out there know, the holidays are over! Now I have to write two thousand words a day to reach my NaNoWriMo quota.

Wish me, luck guys! If you love my story, please don't forget to vote, comment, and follow to be updated on upcoming chapters and such! 😘 Hadassah 🎋 out!