Eli

Taer was forged for travel. His youthful body seemed to be comprised of the perfect stock for a roving hero.

His hair was blondish enough.

His skin was tannish enough.

His eyes were just the right shade of blue, and his features were chiseled just enough to maintain an approachable softness. He was so ideal in appearance that he would often be mistaken for handsome by those not inclined to imagine what they were actually attracted to.

Due to these gifts of birth, his life in Magayon was about as effortless as one can expect. The island itself presented unique challenges. Magayon has a shifting, dynamic nature to some of its settings. This shifting nature did not often move the ground under one’s feet but acted more like a sundial, inching its revelations slowly. Scenes would change slightly; where once there was a flower, in a day or so, it might be a wheatstalk or a weed. For some, these changes fed into a specific type of insecurity, but for Taer, they were inconsequential.

He viewed his life as a rushing river, changing constantly and running its inevitable course. He also viewed himself as a hero in this landscape. Why wouldn’t he? He has never known anything different.

Taer was not fearless but presented himself as such.

His armor was comprised of earth-colored scraps of leather and cloth. This patchwork was stitched together with neatness and vanity. He carried a curved bolo and a silver flute. He was skilled with both items, but not adept.

Skilled had always gotten him by, and he never understood the need for improvement. There was not yet a bandit that could outduel him or a settling that did not welcome his pure and bright flitting tones.

Since he was able, he had travelled across the shifting lands of Magayon performing as many heroic duties as he was allowed. He, for the most part, succeeded in all his ventures. He would save a town or an unfortunate person. He would battle roving marauders and all manner of sinister inhabitants that, at various times, were said to terrorize the island.

These heroic deeds were always rewarded, but whether it was monetary, material, or physical, Taer never felt the reward was enough. He had trained himself to do the right thing, and he expected to feel fulfilled when the right thing was accomplished.

This lack of fulfillment always vexed him. He never dared to think he was in the wrong, but he was aware that something about these transactions felt imbalanced or off. Sometimes, to remedy this imbalance, he would make a material offering to a particularly auspicious environmental threshold; he would leave some rice or other equally suitable consumable.

Sometimes, when he felt the pangs of a deep spiritual void, he would even pay reverence with a tabi-tabi po1. These acts were performed with the correct reverence, but there was no real thrust of belief behind them. They, in and of themselves, were simply learned behaviors—acts of self-deceptive devotional pantomime.

Again, Taer felt these rituals were somehow transactional, and he did not feel the reward was worth the effort. It was this spiritually bankrupt hubris, combined with his ever-growing hunger for some vague heroic fulfillment, that caused him to stumble.

Hristo

Anyone from Magayon would know better than to travel through Mistwood2 during Habagat3.

Taer knew better, or he would lead people to believe that he did.

He thought this act of foolishness was becoming of a hero. To further drive home his arrogant point, he chose to travel at night.

On his first night out, he approached two twisted trees.

Their genus was alien to Taer.

These distorted growths formed an archway that would have been an ominous and obvious threshold to most. The fog grew so dense beyond this gate that the path Taer had been following was dashed away, scattered into a stark nebulous nothingness. Taer crossed beneath these trees casually. He stepped with cold and flat precision. His left foot landed in a dense spongy bed of wet desiccated leaves and coniferous needles.

He did not hesitate once.

He moved as if the landscape in front of him had not changed. Once his entire body was past the bowed trees, if he had turned around, he would have seen Magayon behind him completely transformed, but Taer could not be bothered to look. With this—one more—act of disrespect, Magayon itself lost its patience.

First, the Mistwood sighed its disapproval.

It filled the air with a dense decay-scented mist. Each wisp of condensation would momentarily take on the horrific visage of a vengeful white lady4, only to have the fangs and soulless eyes evaporate at a second glance. With every step Taer took, the Mistwood transmuted the soil beneath his feet to a subtly different texture, sometimes cool and malleable,

sometimes warm and fixed.

The purportedly heroic traveler was only somatically aware of these changes. His balance and gate altered slightly, but his disorientation quickened his heart alone, and he did not stumble here.

Next, the Habagat cried forth with disappointment and baleful scorn.

The skies wept and dripped innumerable fat tears. This tantrum did not manifest as rage, but a cleansing and purifying disappointment. Each whip crack of lightning would illuminate the now amorphous forest. Each gurgling rattle of thunder would shake the malevolent looming curtain of clouds above.

The black night sky was wrungout by these rumbles, and these heavenly tremors would increase the torrents of viscous salty rain.

With any nocturnal illumination snuffed out, Taer’s vision was reduced to flashes. The forest around him wavered and spun with mocking gestures and illusions.

The thin veneer of Taer’s courage cracked, and as is his manner, Taer withdrew his comforting thin silver flute.

He wished to play himself a tune, something to accompany the hero as he strolled.

His wet lips and shaky hand failed to make a tight seal.

A tremulous breath ejaculated from his lungs with spiritual regret. All that was produced was a single shrill whimpering whistle.

Taer, for the first time in his life, knew he had made a grave error.

The Island of Magayon now spoke up.

No whistling at night is a simple rule to follow, but Taer had failed.

His entitled heroism has been his undoing.

A sonic boom of thunder roared out above the noises of the Mistwood, and the Habagat—they in turn—shied away.

The echo of Magayon’s roar faded, and a weighty silence permeated the cowed environment. A faint tallowy illumination filled the sky, and Taer shuddered in this unnatural eye. He returned his flute to his belt and fell to his knees. His mind raced, searching for a suitable tabi-tabi po to offer.

Before the first utterance of his benediction, the orpiment soundless shroud was ruptured by the unmistakable shrieking wail of a baby.

Atonon

Magayon was not without its own sin, and it was not without its own grief. Taer, through his travels and callous nature, has produced his fair share of abandoned souls, and the island, although complicit, was far less culpable. It did not possess the free will gifted to Taer and his lot. Magayon lacked the fallacy of freewill, but it possessed the ability to manifest. In the Mistwood this evening, Magayon had manifested a Tiyanak. Taer bounded to his feet, forgetting his offer of prayer. He should have known better, but again, hubris overtook his sense. He raced toward the sound of the baby’s cry. He felt that if he could save this child from such a perilous plight, he perhaps would find the fulfilment he desperately sought. The shrieks and wails of distress rang out, and the storms that had previously shaken the land continued to hold their breath.

Taer scrambled toward the sound, eventually falling to his knees just in front of tiny handprints in the mud. The prints led off into a thick bramble of thorns and prickers. Taer crawled through this brush, desperately searching for the source of his fulfillment. Sharp natural edges tore at his exposed skin like diminutive knives. Arching thin sprout branches ripped at his hair and armor. Taer’s blue eyes were nearly impaled several times, and he needed to cover them with his hand and forearm. After seconds of eternity, he reached a clearing, and there in the distorted yellow light, he saw a chubby knee and thigh. The Tiyanak was lying on its side in a pile of leaves. Taer grasped toward it, and the Tiyanak, feeling Taer’s touch on its flesh, ceased its wail.

It turned its head toward Taer. The pained contortion of its mouth shifted.

The lips curled upwards, and for a single moment during this transition, Taer thought he saw a smile of relief on the creature. This split-second glance was replaced with terror and regret. The Tiyanak’s smile continued to curve, pushing beyond anything anatomically possible.

When the musculature of these curving lips appeared as if they would burst this thing’s soft skull, this mouth instead split wide, revealing row after row of stained needlelike fangs.

The Tiyanak sprang forth like a rupture.

Like new wine from an old wineskin.

It wrapped its oversized mandible around the nose and mouth of Taer. Fangs plunged into Taer’s nasal cavity and jawbone simultaneously. They latched on, and a seal was formed. The Tiyanak began to sup on Taer’s lifeforces, both spiritual and material. Taer collapsed, and the Tiyanak took its time with the unconscious body. Chubby clawed hands pawed and tore at Taer’s ears and throat. When his flesh was not being rent, and because of the deliberate pace of this feeding, there were moments when the Tiyanak’s vicious groping almost appeared tender. Magayon closed its eye, and the darkness reclaimed the night.

In truth, we can only guess at what drove Taer. Assumptions or assessments aside, only the island knows for sure why it or its inhabitants behave the way they do. Perhaps, on some level, this was Taer’s churlish suicide. Perhaps, it was pure petulant pride.

No one noticed his disappearance, despite his former seemingly heroic deeds.

Some briefly thought of him, but his itinerant nature made his absence expected rather than mourned.

His life and subsequent death were forgotten.

Magayon used what remained of Taer to craft a new being. Another Tiyanak. This Tiyanak, when luring its prey, had the perfect stock.

Wispy baby hair, just blond enough.

Folded soft infant flesh, just tan enough.

Eyes that pleaded and sparkled just enough.

Eyes that were just blue enough.

Inspired by Magayon Na Isla TTRPG