The blood of the leaf filled Ilunin's nostrils with a nauseating sharpness. Instinctively, she covered them with her hands.
The window of escape had long passed. Due to the ruckus caused by the little boy, other creatures flocked to the meadow, carrying pointed spears and burning torches. They looked like Ilunin but they smelled different.
And the boy still had her gripped by the hem of her leather.
"...become..." The whisper of her creator had done something special to her, as though making everything clearer, albeit she still has a lot to learn.
Even with a borrowed body and a borrowed memory, the concept of trust was a far abstract concept to an infant. Ilunin knew only how to hunger, how to fear and how to recognize. Facing a crowd of leaf-bloods that held fire and weapons, she began to glare intently at them.
"Is it a snake?" One of them asked.
"A boar?"
The little boy only wrung his head no.
Then a more familiar face parted the crowd. "What is going on?"
"Father..," called the boy.
Father had the same curls and the shade of tan, but his edges were sharp, and his muscles pronounced. In Ilunin's eyes, he posed the greatest harm to her.
"Aren't you supposed to be home with your mother?"
"I'm sorry," the boy began to weep.
Father gazed to the darkening forest behind them. A subtle breeze seemed to hum from there as he did so. "You went to the deepness of the woods, didn't you? The weeping figs?" His voice was stern.
The little boy looked up to Ilunin but she had no words for him.
"WITH ME, NOW!!!" Father yelled, stunning both of them and the others.
As a creature of inferior physique, Ilunin bent in submission and followed them.
This part of the land had less green, less trees and less shrubs. Even if there were, they grew in lines and in small numbers. On this part of the land, there was a grassless path that the villagers trod on. The trees grew on both sides of it. Every after some time, they would pass a small hut filled with the sound of roosters and ducks. She remembered she was still hungry. Her mouth watered at the sight of them. In a field, a carabao plowed the mud. All around her the pungent fragrance of the blood of the earth wafted to her nose. Yet stronger still was the stink of the leaf-bloods who surrounded her. Once, she spotted dark smoke rising behind a small hill but soon it died down, leaving Ilunin wondering what it was for.
"Are you alright Ilunin?"
"Are you alright Ilunin?" She repeated.
The boy became teary-eyed. "Stop mocking me."
"Stop mocking me."
He broke into tears. She immediately wiped them, copying an action from memory. "I'm sorry," she said, also taken from the same memory.
Sniffing, he said, "You look like you're very scared."
"Scared..." Indeed she was. These creatures that walked on two legs and held spits were bigger than her. This whole place was so full of stimuli that she felt like drowning again.
Yes, drowning. That was the last memory of this body. The water entering her lungs. When she tried to gasp for breath, only water came to her.
A group of huts that numbered more than her fingers and toes soon came to view down in the plains; however, it still took some time before they reached it. The way down was mud and laden with slippery traps that caught the unaware. Ilunin's legs though seemed to know the path like her creator knew the trees. The boy held on tightly to her.
A creature that most resembled Ilunin was waiting at the bamboo gate, her arms crossed over her chest. She greeted Father with a respectful bow.
"Ilunin, Ipuhip, to the hut," she said plainly. She looked down to Ilunin with a look of disappointment.
A man close to Ilunin's stature nudged her aside. "Ha, your ass is cooked." A pudgy nose and a face full of disdain, Ilunin's memories told her it was her elder brother. He had been married three harvests ago, but his wife had yet to bear a child. She pulled a word from memory, saying, "Impotent."
The word elicited a violent response. Her brother's face suddenly darkened and not a second later, a fist connected to her right cheek, sending her reeling. Perhaps the anger for this man was embedded deep within Ilunin's body, or perhaps it was the indignation of being hurt by a leaf-blood that she threw a punch back, a stronger one, right on his brother's nose.
"You imbecile!" He cried holding his broken bridge, about to let loose another jab.
Ilunin forgot all words and growled, "Arrgh." She bared her teeth ready to tear his neck until somebody yanked her by the arm and dragged her to a shed. It was Ilunin's father. She kept growling at her brother as they were taken apart.
"You are a disgrace to me!" CLAP! He said, giving her cheek a slap, the same side that her brother had hit.
She knew what the words meant but all Ilunin could think about was the pain on her face. She massaged it with her knuckles.
"She brought Ipuhip to the dark forest, to the balete trees, she has crossed the line, Lakan," Mother added, shuffling to stand next to her husband. Ipuhip stared with round eyes, gripping his mother's dress.
"You are to meet your promised husband tomorrow. In the turn of the full moon, you will be as one. It's a shame that your face is now marred but we'll tell him that it was a hunting incident. You are a ferocious warrior after all." He wrung his head in helplessness. "It's my fault that you turned out like this. You are too strong for your own good."
Ilunin tried to remember something from yesterday. "I don't want to."
Mother sank to her knees to meet her eye to eye. "You have to give us a child to inherit this family's legacy. The man promised to you is a hero's progeny. He will match your fury. He is strong and he will protect you. And you, you shall be his home. His warmth and support. This union is a bridge of peace and progress. Please understand," Mother cupped Ilunin's hands. "And one day, if your brother fails, it might be you who will lead the village. Or it will be your children. But for now, you have to be obedient. Tuck in this boldness for a while. You are ready, I promise you. I was the same age, younger even. You are ripe for your age, Ilunin."
"I don't want to." She remembered that Ilunin was in tears when she said that the first time. "I don't want to. Not yet."
Father slammed his fist on the wooden column. "I've heard enough of it yesterday, Ilunin. We ride at sunrise tomorrow, whether you like it or not. I will tie you to a carriage even if that's the last thing I do."
"You are to stay in this shed until tomorrow. I'll have you guarded. C'mon Ipuhip."
"I'm sorry," the boy said.
They all turned and left, shutting the bamboo door and locking it with a wooden bar. Thud! She spotted three shadows standing sentry and another one at the rear of the shed. How could she escape? More importantly, she was starved.
Looking around in the house, all she found were some pots that contained powders and some dried leaves, cloves of garlic and roots of ginger in a clay plate. They all had a strong pungent taste when she put them to her tongue. She craved the birds she saw outside. She eyed some of them in the village as well.
"Tok-ko!" A sound echoed in the small shed. Another creature.
She stumbled on the cold earth as she rushed to find it, dropping the pots of flavorings to spill. Tok-ko! It was a creature that crawled on four legs, camouflaged in the bamboo walls in its light brown skin and red spots. Unluckily for the lizard, Ilunin had a sharp nose. The lingering smell of the leafbloods in the shed were strong but the earth smell of the critter prey was unique.
Tok - ko! It was unmoving. It was the size of Ipuhip's arm. And it was edible.
Wam! She struck but it was unexpectedly slithery. Squirming out of her grasp, it leapt to the ground, scurrying towards a dark corner. She lunged for it. She gripped its slippery hide, sinking her nails deep in its stomach as it struggled to break free. Before it could bite her, she sank her flat teeth on its neck. Chunk.
Ilunin's body rejected the taste of raw gecko but her hunger was too immense for her to be picky right now. Her hands became drenched in red blood as she rent the head of the lizard with her teeth.
She was barely through half of her meal when light suddenly illuminated the dimness of the shed where she snacked. There by the door stood a wrinkly woman she recognized to be Ilunin's grandmother. Apo was old and she did not have many years to her left.
"Ilunin, my little flower?" Apo muttered, breathy and tired, and more importantly, horrified. "No, no, who are you?"