The Marks of the Engkanto

⋆༒⋆*༺༽ 𝟙 ༼༻*⋆༒⋆

"I'm here!" Akali said a little too loudly to herself and the world that the creatures walking about glanced her way, but she couldn't help it and didn't care. Black eyes, silver eyes, fiery eyes, whatever color turned to her, she didn't care.

She huffed out a laugh--grinning all teeth--as she gazed at the famous acacia tree. It was everything she had imagined it would be, all the stories she had heard about coming to reality before her, reachable in only a few steps. She almost ran with exhilaration that surged from her heart, racing down her torso and her legs. She almost ran to reach her dream.

She skipped down the path lined with tall trees, dirt mounds, and mushrooms--establishments and homes of the Engkanto, spirits living gloriously in the mystical Central Forest. It wasn't like where she had come from, outside a small human village in the Southern Forest, within a gathering of mango trees where a minor group of peaceful diwata--her kind--lived. The Central Forest was crowded and bustling, all sorts of creatures going to and fro, bumping her shoulders and elbows from all angles.

"Watch where you're going!" Akali almost jumped, looking down at her feet, where a nuno shouted. Her hand grazed the top of his bald head. She stopped to apologize, but the nuno, a creature only less than half her height, turned and continued without giving her a second look.

"Move it!" a higante said above her, giving her a little shove on the shoulder with a stocky finger, and she almost toppled on her feet as she looked up at the towering higante who rose more than double her height.

Akali stepped aside, clutching her sling bag to let him pass. "Sorry," she said before gearing her legs and following everyone's quick pace so she flowed with the sea of creatures.

She focused on the path to the famous acacia tree--the shop was called Pinta, known as the most remarkable tattoo parlor in the realm of the Engkanto.

She traveled all the way from the Southern Forest to get a job as a tattoo artist in Pinta. Though her father told her she wouldn't make it, her heart would be broken for dreaming something impossible because diwata were never meant to become anything other than stewards of the forest. She didn't listen.

Akali's grandmother had taught her all she knew about drawing body ink, and it was all she wanted to do--all she wanted to become.

Her heart pounded as she neared the acacia tree, her father's words ringing in her ears. She knew why he had been worried. Part of the reason was due to her blood. Akali's grandmother was a mangkukulam--a creature of spells and magic, and she was a great tattoo artist in their little forest. Their neighbors came to her to get inked. Some creatures even came from other forests only to experience her grandmother's talents--a legend. But that all ended when Akali's grandmother married her human grandfather. The Engkanto hated his kind--they were the vilest of all creatures, destroying forests to make their homes instead of living in them.

Akali had that human blood, though she was known as a diwata like her mother. And when her grandparents passed to the afterlife, her father and mother decided to hide the human part of her identity.

Akali clung to tha decision now. If she could get a job as a tattoo artist, she would do anything, hide anything, and a little secret wouldn't harm anyone. It shouldn't even matter if she was part human. What should matter was the truth, she believed, that she was a great tattoo artist like her grandmother had been. If anyone were to find out that she had human blood, she would have already proven herself.

She stopped a few steps from the entrance of Pinta. The gate was a ring of tiny mushrooms the size of her toes, enchanted to keep those with ill intentions out. She stepped over the boundary, and a soft breeze washed over every inch of her like the edge of a leaf scraped on her skin.