The sand room was blossoming with pink flowers on the banaba trees. The floor, hot sand, had warm water from the waterfall piped through in delicate lacings like veins of water god Oden to warm their feet. Catarina plucked a pink-purple banaba blossom, tossed it in the air, then sliced it with her sharp as the moon swordstick in one clean cut, her curves and slender muscles moving like cacao pods down a river stream.

Rose and her were dressed in Givenchy athleisure Catarina collected – they both loved thrifted designer clothes – and Rose had chosen an itak bolo made of rose gold smelted with steel alloy, carved with a climbing tarsier.

“Cut the flower, my tao,” Catarina said, sheathing her swordstick and moving gently behind Rose’s tall, bouncing six foot form – the height came from her Cherokee roots, alongside her hairless body – and Catarina guided the position of Rose’s itak with moonlight arms.

Rose breathed in Catarina’s musk. It was a rare perfume from Filipina artist Natalya Lagdameo, Absolem, with notes of earth, based on moss.

Catarina set the banaba flower to fall. “Now,” Catarina instructed, her fangs nuzzling Rose’s shoulder.

Rose moved her itak in a sword-cutting motion.

The petals scattered in her long curls of blonde hair, sweat beginning to billow.

“Now, face me,” Catarina purred, she was a pint-sized danger – 5’2 and deadly – but it was her speed that made her able to defend the Iron Pillar from Eduardo’s Night Clan each and every day.

“If I look at you too long, your beauty will turn me to stone. We can’t have that, can we?” Rose teased.

Catarina, typically stoic, often shy, blushed to bely her strength. “You are so forward. Are all Americans like that?”

“We’re loud and obnoxious, yes – but Catarina Rosales Marquez, when I see something I like, I never dare stop pursuing that jewel of my imagination – whether it is you, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, or flocks of your Philippine eagles.”

Catarina’s eyes rolled from violet to amber-red fire, shifting like a stone of mythic beauty. “I am a monster, Rose,” Catarina sighed, pulling at her black hair. She balanced her eagle-carved rosewood swordstick on her bountiful hip. “Be careful – I may devour you. Doesn’t it bother you? The aswang – half my traitorous family eats babies, tears fetuses from mother’s bellies. And I could do nothing to defend the citizens of Domminga Mountain. Soon, they will resume their human and Aswang forms, when Delan the moon shines. You should be careful of us who haunt the night.”

“Draw your sword, Catarina,” Rose said, smiling invitingly. “I fenced at Stanford.”

“Then test your mettle on me. The creatures of Domminga Mountain – we do not go easy on kanos, much less a starstruck doctoral student. That is why I say: watch out for us, Rose. I cherish you. I too, take what I want.”

Their swords danced – a thrust, a parry, metal against metal, a blossom of hurricane wind.

Rose thrust her tak at Catarina, careful not to hurt her – she had the advantage of height. She went for a weak spot – Cate’s wings – but Catarina took to the air, leaping over Rose.

“Hah!” Rose jousted.

She felt cold metal at her back – the flat of Catarina’s blade.

On Catarina’s neck – a nick. The faintest bit of poison blood. It smelled like lime this time – somehow distinct from the lemon of an hour ago. Rose wondered if Catarina was made of fruit and flowers, had grown like a stem in a hothouse into a florid beauty.

“That was a good fight, Rose Virginia Smith.” Catarina laughed, pushing Rose down into the hot sand. She put the sharp of the swordstick on Rose’s neck and drew the faintest line of red. “Blood for blood, tithe for tithe. That is the law of Domminga. You’ll do well to meet my family tonight, and be accepted into the Ikapati tribe. Only then, may I take you to study the Philippine eagles that I tend to.”

Rose pulled her down on top of her, fending off Catarina’s sword expertly.

“Wha?” Catarina gasped as she toppled into Rose’s bosom. Their faces flushed. Tandem breathing, the sampaloac on their breath, the honey of the flower, the taste of Rose’s enchanted blood, marking their pact of veins.

Catarina stared at Rose: blue-green eyes like the Indian Ocean. It was like a lintel stone over the doorway to Lampanag – heaven – guarded by old Angoro.

“About taking what I want…” Rose murmured, tracing Catarina’s waist. The Givenchy athleisure crop top and sweats were sticky with sweat and sand. Catarina’s jewels of long black hair were a war banner cresting Rose’s breasts.

Catarina knew: she was a tender morsel to this human, who knew nothing of the terror of losing your child to an aswang. How shameful, Catarina’s past – though the Ikapati raised humans as thralls and were peaceful, the Night Clan her half-brother Eduardo the Black ran mad through the hills of Mindanao, raping women, then eating the babies they sired. There were holding pens of humans to fuck, impregnate through rape, then eat the fetuses of through forced pennyroyal tea abortions. Though the police tried to fight them off, no human was safe, and often times, if a family was down on it’s luck, to Eduardo Victor Marquez their youngest daughter they would sell, to be a broodmare.

Catarina’s eyes misted: she continued – “I want my kingdom back. And you are a Babylan warrior shaman. A swordswoman. Mountain singing. Water magick. I want you by my side, forever and always, Rose. We have only met for this one night. But I am a woman of instinct – I seize all I want, like you.”

Rose threaded her fingers through Catarina’s violet-black mane. She whispered into Cataraina’s ear: “I’m all yours, Cate – our blood pact makes it so. Give me a little yurt to live in, to study the beautiful biota and flora and fauna of Domminga Mountains, access to your labs, and why, I shall never leave. My bridal gift will be your kingdom back.”

They kissed, tender, slow, languid – like jasmine tea boiling over coals – and the moon began to wink its hooded eye.

Suddenly, a great flurry of flying fox wings, tarsiers, cats – as the humans and aswang of Ikapati tribe were freed from Eduardo’s curse.

A wizened, beautiful woman – she had to be 50, dressed in a tunic and sandals – came to the door. She had a butch haircut and threads of water dragon tattoos on her arms. “Knock knock, my little Rina, ah me oh my, looks like you’ve found a girlfriend.”

Rose and Catarina froze: “Auntie Gleziel!” Catarina hastened, blushing, spit on her lips from Rose’s mouth. She quickly wiped it away.

Gleziel laughed to high heaven. “So we have a new tribe member – and for the first time in history, a woman to warm my niece-baby’s bed! Hah! The thought.”

Rose bowed low. “I will prove my worth at the sword dance with Queen Catarina tonight, Lady Gleziel.”

Catarina helped her up. “No need to bow in front of my dear Glezy,” Catarina soothed, winking at Rose.

“Come join the party, young girls – oh, the blessings of youth!” the trickster aunt said, guiding them on

Into the mirthful light of the Ikapati tribe.

Rose sheathed her tak bolo, and Catarina closed her swordstick, twisting the pommel shut.

They shared a secretive glance.

Rose liked it. This close confidence.

She knew she would do whatever it took to save Domminga Mountain and Mindanao – all for the woman

She loved.