Lilah waited patiently in the waiting room. With a book on her lap, she was too preoccupied to even pay attention to the words on the page. She felt like she had reread the same paragraph at least five times since sitting.
Despite it being her birthday, she was spending the morning having the last meeting with her event planner before her debut. Her mother had to skip the meeting since she had to work early to get the evening off for Lilah's birthday dinner. She had never gone to an appointment alone before, and wondered if her jitters were nervous from being alone or excitement for doing her first adult thing alone. Or perhaps she was just nervous because her debut was in a week.
The door to Kathi Mendoza's office opened, the event planning walking out while rubbing one of her eyes. When she looked upon Lilah, she paused for a second, leaving her hand covering her eye. She looked as if she had just seen a ghost.
Lilah hadn't noticed though, she was too busy placing her book back into her bag. By the time she stood up and looked at Kathi, the older woman had a smile back on her face.
"Come on in," Kathi said between gritted teeth, moving a fallen strand of wavy brown hair out of her face. Her Australian accent sounded very muffled the way she was speaking. "We have a lot to discuss."
Lilah grinned in response, going into the office. Kathi locked the door and sat down on the other side of her desk, pulling out a binder.
"Is it your actual eighteenth birthday today?" Kathi asked her.
Lilah blinked a few times at her, nodding. "Y-Yeah. How'd you know?"
"Just a good guess," Kathi shrugged it off. She opened the binder, flipping through pages that had pictures of party plans—decorations, lights, balloons, centerpieces, color schemes, and everything else in between. "So, you're still okay with this theme?"
"Yes," Lilah nodded. "I've been wanting to do a Winter Wonderland themed debut since I was in, like, the fifth grade."
"Your parents must be very excited for you. Debuting their only daughter into society as a woman, it's a big deal. The world is only going to get bigger and scarier from here. Nothing a Filipina girl looks forward to more than the day of her debut... well, other than maybe her wedding."
Lilah chuckled, assuming that she was joking about the world getting scarier.
"Lilah, if you don't mind," Kathi said slowly, pulling the binder back towards herself and closing it shut. "I have something I want to talk to you about."
Lilah turned her head to the side, a little bit confused. She merely nodded, unsure what Kathi wanted to discuss that wasn't debut related.
"I'm going to ask you to do something and it's going to sound silly," Kathi said, keeping her calm and slow voice. "I want you to cover one of your eyes and look at me, and tell me what you see."
Lilah's head moved back in confusion, her eyebrows contorting down. She frowned, but complied with the weird request. She placed her right hand over her right eye, staring at Kathi through her left. Her open eye widened and her mouth opened just slightly in surprise.
There was a dim light surrounding Kathi, like she was just barely shining.
"How are you doing that?" Lilah asked her, looking around for something that could be projecting the shine onto Kathi. "Is this some new device you want me to see for my debut?"
Kathi closed the binder that was in front of her, signalling they were no longer talking about her debut. She folded her hands in front of her on the desk and shook her head.
"No, Lilah. This is all real. You're eighteen now, so you're going to be going through some changes other than being an adult," Kathi said. "I'm going to be straight up because I don;t believe in sugarcoating what I'm about to tell you. You are a descendant of a demigod. You're going to get abilities that you hadn't had before, and things aren't going to make sense at first. People will come after you and try to kill you—"
Lilah's face was changing from confused to angry. She felt as if Kathi was just messing around with her, and the nonsense she was spewing was irritating her. Lilah got up, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She stopped at the door and glared down at Kathi, a look of disgust on her face.
"I don't know what kind of joke this is, but unless you have something else to discuss with me about my party, I think we're done here," Lilah said.
"No, Lilah, we need to talk about the dangers of—"
"We don't need to talk about anything you crazy lady," Lilah responded. "I need to get out of here and enjoy my eighteenth birthday, not talk about mythology and possibly killers."
She opened the door and rushed out, not waiting to hear what Kathi had to say next. She kept her head down as she passed the receptionist in a hurry, unsure if she had heard the conversation or not. She exited the building, looking around the empty street of Downtown San Jose.
She walked towards her car, digging through her bag for her keys. Before she could even react, something had pulled her backwards into the alley between Kathi's building and the one next to them. She tried to scream, but a hand came over her mouth.
"You know, normally, it's difficult for a Laki to see a Yari's shine, so I'm guessing it must be your eighteenth birthday."
There was a girl in front of her. It was someone she had never seen before, dressed head to toe in black with short black hair and tanned skin. She had a wicked smirk on her face as she pinned Lilah against the wall.
"And seeing as you just walked out of an office for an event planner, I'm guessing you're having your debut soon," the woman snarled.
So, she's Filipino, too, Lilah managed to think between her panicking.
"Too bad you're not going to make it 'til then," the girl feigned sadness, turning her head to the side and pouted her bottom lip out.
She raised one of her hands, frightening Lilah when she saw a small fireball grow within her palm.
"I truly despite Yari," the girl spat at her, raising her hand as if to strike her.
Lilah closed her eyes shut, bracing for impact. Instead, she heard a thud and the grip on her shoulder vanished. When she opened her eyes again, the girl was on the floor in front of her, eyes open but unmoving.
Kathi was there, too. She seemed almost posed, with one heeled foot in front of the other, her body turned dramatically as she looked back at Lilah. In each of her hands were two daggers, red blood dripping off of them.
Lilah opened her mouth to scream, but Kathi put her hands up to try to plead with her not to. The girl grabbed the wall and stepped back, trying to get away from Kathi and her blood stained daggers. Kathi put a black gloved finger to her maroon colored lips, as if to tell her to shush.
"What the hell is going on?!" Lilah whisper-yelled. "Did you just kill that girl?!"
"She had literal fire to your face!" Kathi whispered back, panting. "Are you finally ready to listen?" She looked down to the dead woman in front of them. "Because this will just keep happening, but I can't always be there to protect you. And you can't learn to protect yourself until you start trusting me."
Lilah was silent, trying to calm herself down from the rapid beating of her chest. She had to suppress the urge she had to cry, horrified out of her mind.
"Do the thing again, with your hands and eye," Kathi commanded her. "And look at the body."
She did as Kathi asked her to, looking down at the body on the floor. The woman had a shine surrounding her.
"Now, we have to get back in my office before someone sees us here."
Kathi grabbed Lilah's wrist, tugging her behind her to a back entrance to the office.
"What about her?" Lilah asked, her free hand flying to her own mouth to conceal a gasp when two bodies jumped into the alleyway, grabbing the body and jumping out.
...
"So, what did you see?" Kathi asked her, leaning against her office desk. "When you looked at that woman?"
"The same thing I saw when I looked at you," Lilah said monotonously, still trying to wrap her head around everything. She was standing against the door, too afraid to sit down. She wanted to be able to bolt out the door again if she needed to.
"The exact same? Or was it different?" Kathi pressed.
"Different?" Lilah responded, unsure if that was the answer she should've been giving.
"Is that a question or a statement?" Kathi asked, folding her arms in front of chest.
"Different," Lilah stated this time, meeting Kathi's eyes. She looked at her as if she wanted her to keep talking, like she was leaving something out. "Her shine was brighter."
Kathi closed her eyes and nodded, licking her lips. She let out a sigh and pressed off of her desk, going around the table to actually sit down. She folded her hands on the table once again.
"I understand that this is all scary," Kathi said to her. "But you need to listen. It's the only way I can keep you safe. The only way you can keep yourself safe."
"Fine, then explain," Lilah said, crossing her arms as she leaned against the door.
"It's a long story, are you sure you don't want to sit down?"
Lilah let out a grunt and rolled her eyes, but she sat down anyways. "So, talk. What's the Laki? And why did that lady call me a Yari?"
"So, like I was trying to tell you earlier, you are a part of the descendants or offspring or bloodline, however you feel like describing it, of the Filipino demigod, Mayari. Mayari was—"
"The Goddess of the Moon in Filipino mythology, yeah. I've done some reading on Filipino mythology before," nodded Lilah.
"Not all of it was myth," Kathi responded. "Since you know who Mayari is, do you know the story behind why we have night and day?"
"Mayari and her brother Apolaki, sometimes known in some places as Adlwan, fought over who got to rule over the Earth after their father, Bathala, who was the King of the Gods. Mayari wanted to rule equally together while Apolaki wanted to rule alone. They fought with bamboo clubs, and in battle, Apolaki caused Mayari to lose an eye. After that, he agreed to rule equally together, splitting up their time, leading to night and day. Due to losing an eye, Mayari's shine was dimmer than her brother's," Lilah explained, recalling everything she had learned.
"You are very well versed in your Filipino mythology. Perhaps it was calling for you," Kathi smiled. "The Laki the girl was talking about is the descendants of Apolaki. The Yari are the descendants for Mayari. As you have witnessed, the Laki despise us. They shine a little brighter than we do because Apolaki shines brighter than Mayari. With practice, you can learn to conceal your shine."
"But why don't the Laki like the Yari? If what you're saying is true, then our ancestors were siblings," Lilah reasoned.
As much as she believed what Kathi was saying, she had seen someone create fire in their hand for crying out loud, she still couldn't grasp the realness of the situation yet.
"The Laki believe that Apolaki won the battle for Earth when he ruined Mayari's eye, and should have been the sole and rightly ruler. There's been stories going around for centuries that if the Laki wiped out the Yari, it would relinquish Mayari's hold of the night. What they don't seem to fully understand is that Mayari wasn't just the Goddess of the Moon and Night. She was known to be the most beautiful of the lunar goddesses, and she also represented combat, wear, revolution, hunt, weaponry, beauty, and strength. Without Mayari's hold over the earth, there would be chaos, there would be no beauty, there would be no strength. So over the centuries, the Yari have split up, have gone into hiding, some have become lost from their roots. Much like you."
"Wait, but if I'm a part of this descendant line, why aren't my parents?"
"There's people who we call Dormant. They may be descendants of Apolaki or Mayari, but don't have any of the abilities. They cannot see the shine of either descendant line, they cannot tap into the powers of their deity. In cases of your family, sometimes the Dormantness of their lives lead to a total disconnect from the Yari organizations."
"And why don't Apolaki and Mayari just tell their descendant lines to stop fighting when sharing Earth is what they wanted?"
"That's where it gets complicated."
"This whole thing is complicated."
"Apolaki and Mayari are no longer with us, they haven't been for centuries. The two of them are meant to reincarnate sometime, we're just unsure when. But they'll reincarnate as newborns with no memories of their past life."
"Why?"
"We're not exactly sure," Kathi responded. "There's theories it's to disconnect themselves from the fighting between their descendant lines, to live a life unbeknownst to the turmoil their fight over the Earth caused for the two lines. But there's another that it's to have another battle where the two of them don't hold back. Mayari and Apolaki grew up as siblings, so Apolaki had given up his victory despite defeating Mayari. In this theory, which people seem to have more faith in, the two reincarnations are meant to battle one another for real control of the earth."
"And how do you find these reincarnations if they don't reincarnate with their memories?"
"When the siblings were born, they were born with an insanely bright shine. It's rumored that their reincarnations will do the same. Of course, it's only a shine the two descendant lines can see. We've been on the hunt for Moon Shadow, a mission tasked to every generation of Yari in hopes to train and prepare them in case this battle becomes more than just a theory."
"Moon Shadow?"
"It's what we've been calling her reincarnation. Mayari was once referred to as Khlalaying, which translates to Moon Shadow."
Lilah just nodded, unsure of what to say about the information she had received.
"So, any questions?" Kathi asked her.
Lilah grimaced, trying to think of a singular question. She was still confused about how it all worked.
"So, with this... shine... we can only see them when we cover our eyes?"
"Yes, due to the fact that Mayari only had one eye after her battle with Apolaki."
"But the Laki can barely see it? That woman said normally they have difficulty seeing the shine, which is how she somehow knew it was my birthday?" Lilah questioned.
"The Laki have a big advantage over us normally. They were never forced to separate or go into hiding, but there have been disadvantages they have. They call it a curse bestowed upon them by Mayari as to hide her descendants from them. They have difficulty seeing our dim shine in the day time, sort of like how sometimes it's hard to see the moon in the day, but have no problem seeing the shine within their own community. It gets a little easier for them to see at night, which is normally when they attempt to attack. So, it's smart not to be out too late by yourself. I've yet to see a situation where a Laki attacks when humans are around. As for us, we can always see the shines as long as we have an eye covered. Something we've learned to do over the years is conceal our shines from them, it's difficult to do, but not impossible with practice. Because of this, we still suggest being inside after sunset."
"That's not... confusing or anything," Lilah frowned. "I can't go outside at night?"
"You'll understand all of the different rules with time, and for now, it's just a precaution."
Lilah nodded, trying to wrap her mind around everything and think up any possible questions she had. It was like her mind was going blank with the information overload she was experiencing. She asked, "You mentioned Yari organizations, being united, having missions, and some going into hiding and never being found... so this is a full on like... secret society?"
Kathi let out a soft chuckle and nodded. "I suppose you can think of it that way. We have divisions of small groups of Yari.. We usually know who in our city is and isn't Laki because of our stronger ability to differentiate and see shines, but because of our minimal population, we hardly strike against them. Our goal is to stay hidden and away from Laki at all costs. We're very spread out, but our divisions are meant to try to find any Yari we can to try to help them survive. To try to work together to find the Moon Shadow."
"And where is our division?" asked Lilah.
"You're sitting in it," responded Kathi.
"Moonlight Events is the division?" questioned Lilah, before nodding. "Actually, no, that makes sense."
"The event planning business works well for us because many Filipinos in the area ask for our help in planning debuts, like you had. I forgot to explain this part to you earlier, but the reason why the Laki was able to see your shine now rather than any other day is because you shine the brightest on your eighteenth birthday. It's also the first time Apolaki and Yari alike begin to shine and begin to see others' shines. Before that, they look like any normal human. Thanks to Moonlight Events being asked to oversee debuts, we are able to find some debutantes before the Laki do. Like we did with you. It's a good cover since we can't find those who got lost until they are eighteen anyways."
"Does this come with any sort of powers?" Lilah asked. "Like, am I gonna end up being able to read minds or something?"
Kathi laughed, shaking her head. "No mind reading, but you should already have felt some of your powers. The only thing that changes when you turn eighteen is that you start to glow to allow others of our kind to differentiate you from Laki and the humans. But those whose abilities aren't dormant have enhanced strength and a natural skill to combat and weaponry. I'm sure you've always been the athletic type, no?"
"I took kickboxing classes my whole life," she nodded.
"That's good," Kathi said. "Means you have some self defense under your belt, which will be useful for you now that you shine."
Lilah sent her a weak smile in response. She looked around the grey office. On the walls were pictures from various events that the company had planned, group trips for the workers, and even one with Kathi with a little boy. Kathi was a middle-aged Filipino lady with long brown hair and tanned skin, and in the photo she seemed more sunkissed and younger. The boy in her lap, however, looked nothing like her. He had blonde hair, beige skin, and eyes that Lilah couldn't tell whether they were green or hazel. He was definitely not Filipino, though Lilah was unsure if he could possibly be mixed.
"That's my son," Kathi said, following Lilah's stare to the photo. "That's when my husband and I had adopted him when he was four, and I still lived in Australia, though he was born in Britain. He and I moved here about eight years ago."
Lilah merely nodded, turning her head to the side. He seemed familiar in a way, but she couldn't figure out where he had seen his face before.
"Is he... like us?" she wondered.
"Oh, no," Kathi shook her head. "He doesn't even have a single drop of regular Filipino blood in him, let alone the deity bloodlines."
Lilah nodded one again. She was unsure how to respond to most of the information that Kathi was giving her. A part of her was still trying to find the logic to it, trying to reason with herself and decide that everything was impossible. Another part of her was waiting for her to wake up from some supernatural dream she was having. But the biggest part of her knew that the heat from the fire on that woman's hand felt too real near her face for all of this to be made up.
Her phone started to ring, vibrating in her back pocket. She took it out, seeing her best friend's contact name and picture pop up.
"Sorry, I had plans with my friend," Lilah sighed, putting her phone back into her pocket.
"You're free to go," Kathi informed her.
"I am?" Lilah asked. "It's safe? What if another Laki tries to murder me while I'm out? You said it yourself earlier, you can't always be there to protect me."
"It's highly unlikely, but if it makes you feel better, we do have agents all over the city patrolling. I already sent out a memo of who you are, that you're one of us. So, in any sight of danger, someone should be able to find you."
"Should be?" questioned Lilah, leaning forward in her seat and placing her hands on the table.
"Sweetheart," Kathi said, reaching over and grabbing one of Lilah's hands. "I've been the leader of the Bay Area Division since I moved here. The number of Yari deaths at the hand of the Laki are little to none ever since. Now that we have found you, I promise you, we will do everything in our power to keep you safe. We just need something in return."
"What's that?"
"You intern at Moonlight Events and work for the Bay Area division."
☪⋆
AUTHOR'S NOTE!!
welcome to Moon Shadow! For those who have been watching the writing journey for this via my tiktok, thank you for sticking around and following me with this project!
i'd love to hear opinions, so feel free to comment them along with any constructive criticisms you may have! I'm hoping to post a new chapter every Friday!