Chapter 2: The Bakunawa
Isle of Immortals Book One · Filipino Mythology Romantasy
by Ayin Quijano
Chapter One showed you the hunter.
Now meet the dragon.
He is nothing like the story you were told.
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Cursed.
That’s what they called him—what they had always called him—ever since the night the moons fell and his father burned.
Lakan lay stretched across the highest branch of an ancient narra tree, one hand tucked behind his head, the other cradling a coconut shell of wine against his stomach.
Above him, the moon hung heavy and bright—taunting him with its distance, its untouchable grace. Once, his kind had coiled around such light, guardians blessed to dwell among the stars. They had been judges of immortals, protectors of goddesses, warriors worthy of the heavens.
Now?
Now they called him Spawn of Laho. Moon-eater. Devourer. Harbinger of calamities.
The forest breathed around him—crickets singing their endless song, leaves rustling in the night breeze, the distant call of a night bird settling into its roost
Peaceful. Welcoming.
So different from the hostile waters of his underwater prison, where even his own kind watched him with wary eyes, waiting for the madness to take him as it had taken his father.
In this cursed life, he wasn’t the hunter.
He was prey.
The Daughters of the Moon had been relentless since he’d settled on the isles five years ago. That female who led them—fierce, persistent, and impossibly skilled—had come closer to killing him than anyone had in centuries.
The first time he saw her, she was hunting along the cliffs near the forest, fire dancing around her as if she had been born from flame itself. Her body was a weapon, her focus absolute. She fought three immortals at once, santelmos weaving between her strikes, and she looked…
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Alive.
Like wildfire.
On the adjacent branch, Alab exhaled a long stream of smoke, one leg swinging slowly. The kapre had been quiet, content to drink and smoke and exist in companionable silence. But Lakan could feel his friend’s attention, the weight of unspoken thoughts.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Alab said finally, voice low and gravelly.
Lakan didn’t move. “Doubtful.”
“That female hunter.” Another drag from his pipe. “The Daughter of the Moon. The one who wants you dead.” A pause. “Her name is…”
Lakan’s fingers tightened fractionally around the coconut shell. “You mean Wildfire?”
“There it is.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Alab just grunted—a sound that said he knew exactly what Lakan was doing and wasn’t buying any of it. But he didn’t push. That was the thing about Alab. He said his piece and let the silence do the rest.
Lakan shifted on the branch, the bark rough against his tattooed shoulders. He cleared his throat. “I’m running out of time.”
“I know.”
“Any word from Diwata? Has she found anything new in the fairy archives?”
“Still the same answer,” Alab said. “Sacrifice. Blood offered willingly might break a curse that old. Might.” He emphasized the word. “But nothing certain.”
Lakan stared at the moon.
Sacrifice.
He’d been chasing that word for decades, turning it over in his mind like a coin. What did it mean? His life? Someone else’s? His pride? His crown?
“Maybe I should just do it,” he said quietly. “See if my blood appeases the gods enough to lift the curse.”
Alab’s leg stopped swinging.
“Don’t be stupid,” the kapre said flatly. “Stop trying to be a martyr for sins that were never yours.”
The words landed heavy, but Lakan’s gaze remained fixed on the moon. “What if it’s the only way? To break the curse. To fly in the heavens once more.”
“Your family doesn’t need the heavens,” Alab said. “They want you alive.”
Before Lakan could respond, something flickered in his peripheral vision.
Light.
Lakan sat up slowly, eyes narrowing. There—threading through the canopy, weaving between trees in perfect formation—were dozens of glowing points moving with military precision.
“What is that?” Alab murmured, smoke forgotten.
“Fireflies,” Lakan said—and dread pooled in his gut.
They looked at each other, horror dawning simultaneously.
“Ali,” they said in unison.
Known in the kingdoms as General Aliput Taptap, commander of the firefly sentinels, the one immortal who never failed to catch his mark.
Bleeding moons.
“My family sent them.” Lakan was already moving, swinging down from branch to branch with predatory grace. “They’ll track me faster in the trees.”
Alab followed, dropping through the canopy with surprising speed for someone his size. Despite his bulk and his usual unhurried demeanor, the kapre moved like smoke when he chose to—silent, efficient, and deadly. His long hair whipped behind him as he landed beside Lakan on the forest floor.
“You could stop running,” Alab pointed out, even as he fell into step.
“And spend the next turn of the moon listening to Uncle Bakos lecture me about duty and destiny?” Lakan vaulted over a moss-covered log, his bare feet finding purchase on the damp earth. “I’m not ready to be king of a fallen race. I’ll pass.”
“You can’t run forever.”
“Watch me.”
Except he couldn’t, and they both knew it. His thousandth year was approaching—the year he’d have no choice but to accept the crown or watch his entire clan—his aunts, his cousins, the hatchlings—lose their immortality. No pressure. Just the fate of everyone he loved resting on his shoulders.
“You don’t have to go with me,” Lakan said, ducking under low-hanging vines.
“I know.”
But Alab would anyway. He’d been loyal since Lakan found him centuries ago—alone in the forest, half-wild, with fire in his veins and no understanding of what he was. Lakan had recognized the dragon blood in him immediately, though Alab wasn’t a full dragon. He couldn’t shift, couldn’t fly. But he had the fire, the strength, the rage. Lakan had taken him in, trained him, given him purpose. They had been fighting together ever since, bound by something deeper than duty.
“Where to?” Alab asked.
“My cave.”
“Your cave is on the other side of the mountain. We’ll never make it before—”
“I have another one. Close by.”
Alab snorted. “Of course you do. You and your hoards.”
“It’s called being smart,” Lakan said, affecting the tone of a merchant explaining basic economics. “Divide your treasures. Especially when half the world is trying to kill you.”
They moved through the forest at speed, the fireflies’ glow growing brighter behind them. Lakan’s mind raced, calculating distances, considering options. The cave wasn’t far—just east, hidden in a cliff face that most wouldn’t think to search—
He stopped abruptly.
“What?” Alab nearly collided with him.
Lakan’s nose lifted, scenting the air. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Dead duwendes.” He moved toward the massive balete tree to their left, its roots arching above the ground like cathedral bones. “And something else. Magic. Old magic.” His eyes narrowed. “Tagam.”
“The bruha here is dead,” Lakan murmured, studying the disturbed earth and lingering traces of violent magic. “The Daughters of the Moon were here.”
“A day old,” Alab confirmed, kneeling to touch the soil.
“Wildfire has Tagam.”
Alab straightened, a knowing smile curving his mouth. “I knew it. You’re stalking that female. You’re obsessed.”
“I am not.” Heat crawled up Lakan’s neck. “That female is trying to kill me. We’re enemies.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“We are,” Lakan insisted, resuming his path toward the cave. “Enemies. Mortal ones. She hunts immortals and I’m the biggest prize. That’s all it is.”
“Here’s a thought,” Alab said, amusement threading through his words. “While you’re in human form, why don’t you court one of the Daughters? You’re not… entirely unappealing. One of them might find you acceptable.”
Lakan nearly choked. “Court a Daughter of the Moon? Have you lost your mind?”
“You could enter the Courtship challenge at the next Halad. Win her favor. Turn her to your side.”
“Never.”
“The Daughters are fierce,” Alab continued, undeterred. “Resourceful. Connected. They might actually help you find answers about the curse. Better than martyrdom, at least.”
“I’m not—” Lakan cut himself off as they broke through the tree line.
The cave entrance yawned before them, hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines. But something was wrong. The air shimmered wrong, felt wrong, tasted wrong—
“Company,” Alab muttered.
Ali stood in the center of the chamber, arms crossed, wings flickering with barely contained irritation. Around him, fireflies pulsed in the darkness like earthbound stars.
“Your Highness,” Ali said, his tone dripping with barely concealed irritation. “You’ve been difficult to locate.”
Lakan straightened, affecting his most arrogant smile. “Ali. Looking well. Love what you’ve done with the formation. Very intimidating.”
“Save it.” Ali’s wings flickered once—a sign of agitation. “The regent has been looking for you for eighteen years. Eighteen. Years.”
“Has it been that long? Time flies when you’re—”
“Running away from your responsibilities?”
“I was going to say, ‘living my best life,’ but sure, let’s go with what you said.”
Lakan brushed past him, moving deeper into the cave.
“Where are you going?” Ali demanded.
“Just checking my things.” Lakan’s gaze swept the chamber, cataloging every gem, every artifact, every carefully arranged piece of his hoard. The Bakunawa—like all dragons—were possessive of their treasures. The thought of someone rifling through his things made his scales itch beneath his skin. “Did you touch anything?”
“Rude. I would never…” Ali huffed a breath. “Anyway. Nice to see you’re not dead.”
“I try not to be.” Lakan picked up a jade statue, examined it, set it down precisely where it had been. “Unlike you, I can’t be reborn indefinitely.”
Alab snorted.
Lakan ignored him. “So what’s the message?”
Ali’s jaw tightened. “Your coronation, Lakan. You’re out of time.”
Something cold settled in Lakan’s gut. “I still have—”
“Just a few moon cycles before your thousandth year. And if you don’t accept the crown…” Ali’s expression softened, just slightly. “You know what happens.”
Yeah. He knew. His entire family would lose their immortality. Centuries of existence reduced to the lifespan of a common fish. All because he was too much of a coward to accept a throne he didn’t deserve.
“I need more time,” Lakan said quietly.
“You’ve been saying that for half a century—”
“I’m close.” Lakan moved deeper into the cave, checking, touching, verifying. Everything seemed untouched. “I’m close to finding what the Daughters of the Moon know about breaking the curse. If I can just—”
“Wildfire,” Alab interjected helpfully.
Lakan glared at him.
Ali’s wings flickered. “Lakan, you can’t keep—”
Everything stopped.
A sensation ripped through him—sharp, visceral, wrong. Like someone had reached into his chest and yanked. His wards, the ones he’d carefully layered around his other cave, his more precious treasures—they weren’t just breached.
They were shattered.
Someone had walked straight through centuries-old magic like it was nothing.
“No.” The word came out strangled.
Alab straightened immediately. “What is it?”
Lakan’s hand pressed against his sternum where phantom pain centered. Someone was in his cave. Touching his things. Taking—
“Someone’s stealing my treasure,” Lakan said, his voice dropping to something dangerous.
Ali held up his hands defensively. “What? I’m standing right here. I’m not stealing—”
“Not this cave. The other one.”
Lakan was already moving.
His tattooed skin rippled as he called on the shift—that ancient magic that let him move between forms. His bahag and the weapons strapped to his back dissolved into starlight as his body expanded, reshaped, and transformed.
Bones lengthened. Scales erupted across his skin like black glass shot through with veins of gold—his father’s colors, a reminder of legacy and shame. Two sets of wings erupted from his spine—a massive black pair near his head and a smaller, golden pair near his tail.
The dragon filled the cave, too large for the space, black and gold scales gleaming in the fireflies’ light.
Then he was moving—launching through the cave mouth, wings catching air, powerful strokes carrying him across the canopy. Behind him, he heard Ali curse as the swarm mobilized, but Lakan didn’t slow.
His mind raced as he flew, cataloging what he kept in that cave.
Gold. Ancient gems. Weapons forged in celestial fires.
His scales.
Oh, moon goddesses. His scales.
Every time he shifted, he shed scales—remnants of magic that, in the wrong hands, could be weaponized by witches or other immortals. He’d always been careful, always transformed in the safety of his caves, always kept them protected.
He dove toward the cliff face, tucked his wings, and plunged through the hidden entrance. He shifted back and landed in human form.
The cave was smaller than the other, more secret. Stalactites dripped from the ceiling like frozen tears. His hoard glittered in the dark—gold coins, jeweled blades, pearls the size of fists.
Then he saw what was missing.
Not the gold.
Not the weapons.
The one scale that mattered.
His heart scale.
Every unmated Bakunawa shed one each century—a call written into their bones, into fate itself. The heart scale carried more than magic. It carried choice. Legacy. Bonding.
Or so the elders said.
Lakan had never believed he would need one.
He stepped closer. The cradle of stone was empty.
Gone.
His breath hitched.
Only a true mate could claim a heart scale.
Lakan had never wanted a mate. Not with his father’s madness lurking in his blood. Not with the curse hanging over his head. Not with purple fire waiting in his future like a promise of destruction.
Lakan knelt, fingers brushing the stone where it had rested. The wards weren’t broken—they had been unraveled, gently and precisely, as if the magic itself had allowed it.
Then he saw it.
A scrap of dark cloth, snagged on crystal.
He lifted it slowly. Inhaled.
Sampaguita and steel. Forest rain and something else—something that smelled the way moonlight tasted, bright and sharp and utterly impossible to capture.
His dragon stirred, recognizing what his mind refused to accept.
Mate.
The word echoed through his bones like a verdict.
Only a true mate could take a heart scale. Only a true mate could walk through his wards like they were smoke.
Behind him, Ali and Alab skidded to a halt.
“What was taken?” Ali demanded. At the same moment, Alab asked, “Who do we kill?”
Lakan closed his fist around the fabric.
He already knew.
Wildfire.
AUTHOR’S NOTE🌙
Hello, I’m Ayin — your storyteller.
So… that’s Lakan.
Not quite the monster the legends promised, is he?
No blazing eyes. No sky-splitting roar. No moons being swallowed whole.
Just a man — well, a shapeshifting dragon — stretched across a tree branch, drinking coconut wine, and staring at the moon like it owes him an apology.
He has a name. A past. A family he ran from.
And feelings for a woman who is trying to kill him-though he’s not admitting that yet.
So now we ask the question this story keeps circling:
Who is the real monster here?
Stick around. The answer might surprise you.
Now, two other characters step into the story in this chapter — and both of them come from the folklore I grew up with.
Alab the kapre.
Ali the alitaptap.
Both of them will eventually have their own books in the Isle of Immortals series, so it’s worth knowing them now, before everything gets complicated.
The kapre came to me from a lomboy tree — duhat in Tagalog, Java plum in English — that used to grow right beside our house in the city.
The elders in our neighborhood would warn us away from it. They said a kapre lived there: dark-skinned, dark-lipped from the fruit he ate, and fond of smoking — rolling the lomboy leaves and lighting them up. They said he’d take children who bothered him.
Every late afternoon, we’d catch the smell of smoke drifting past our bedroom window, making us believe that a kapre really lived there.
Years later, I found out it was just my father — sneaking a cigarette on the side of the house, hiding it from our mother.
But by then, the kapre had already taken root in my imagination. And honestly? I think that’s how the best folklore works. It lives in the smoke and the shadows just long enough to become real.
The alitaptap — the firefly — came from somewhere quieter. In the province, where the nights are dark, there’s a big Palua Maria tree beside our family home by the beach. After sunset, fireflies gather around it like a living constellation. The village folks say that means engkanto royalty lives there. Fireflies are known to be royal guardians.
True or not, I believed it. I still do, a little.
What I know for certain is that fireflies are heartbreakingly beautiful — and heartbreakingly brief. The glowing adults only live for a few weeks after they emerge. That’s why it’s painful to see people catch them and seal them in jars. There are fewer of them every year. Rarer every season.
But that brevity gave me Ali’s story. What if the fireflies didn’t have to be brief? What if they were reborn — over and over — making them not just beautiful, but formidable? The best guardians are the ones who’ve already faced death and kept coming back.
That’s Ali.
Now I want to hear from you. What are the kapre stories from your childhood? Did you have a tree the elders warned you away from? A smell in the dark you couldn’t quite explain?
Share them in the comments. Let’s keep these stories alive together.
Up next: Chapter 3 — I Will Not Die Tonight.
Liya knows exactly where the Bakunawa’s treasure is hidden. She also knows climbing down a cliff in the dark, alone, with bleeding hands, is a terrible idea.
She’s doing it anyway.
If you like to listen to the audio, Bakunawa’s Curse is also streaming now at Ayinisms Story Podcast on Spotify. If you enjoy visuals, you can also watch it at the Ayinisms Story Channel on YouTube.
Till the next story!
❤️Ayin
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🌙 Thank you for reading. The moon is watching.
© Ayin Quijano. All rights reserved.
Ayin Quijano 
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