A/n: Image of Bakunawa has been added to the Auxiliary.

Daphne raised an eyebrow and shifted her gaze toward Luna and Fleur. The three of them shared a silent moment of eye contact, communicating through their eyes as they weighed the decision of whether or not they should get involved in the local affairs of this realm.

“Can you tell us why Lords Sidapa and Muhen deemed it so that you cannot kill the serpent?” Luna asked the giant. She wanted to gain a complete picture of the divine politics at play before they made a move.

“I suspect they wish for us gods to work more closely with the mortals in this situation,” the giant replied, placing a large hand on his chin as he hummed in thought. He offered his theory on why the gods of fate would allow such a creature to roam free.

Fleur nodded to herself in understanding. In the ancient myths she had studied, the supreme god Bathala had eventually taught the humans to go outside and bang pots and pans loudly during eclipses.

The noise was intended to startle the serpent into spitting the moon back out. The supreme god had only stepped in once there was only a single moon left in the sky.

“I think the lesson of gods working with mortals is far more important than me finding a mount right now,” Daphne suggested. She felt that she could easily find a companion elsewhere without disrupting the natural growth of this world.

Kapre scratched his head in a bit of bewilderment before taking another long puff of his cigar and giving a casual shrug of his massive shoulders.

“If you say so,” he muttered before pushing himself up from the ground. “We can leave it at that, then. Would you children allow me to host you for a while?” He asked the question with an easy, welcoming grin.

The girls gave their assent, which prompted a booming laugh from the giant. He began walking in a specific direction through the woods and gestured for them to follow him.

They mounted their winged stag once more, and the creature took flight just behind the giant, keeping pace with his long strides.

Kapre led them to a massive hollow tree that served as his home. He invited them inside with a broad gesture.

He used his magic to form a table and several chairs that were perfectly sized for the girls, then offered them a variety of exotic fruits to eat.

The giant sat with his back against the curved inner wall of the tree, puffing on his cigar while they rested.

The girls found themselves smiling at how simplistic and non pretentious the god was. They relaxed into the environment and began chatting with him as if they were old friends.

While Kapre was known as a trickster god, he was not malicious. He enjoyed playing harmless pranks on travelers, often leading them in circles before eventually showing them the correct path if they were truly lost.

“There was this one time a traveler got completely turned around in the woods,” Kapre shared, his voice erupting in a booming laugh. “And for this once, I promise it was not my doing that caused him to get lost.”

He continued the story, clutching his stomach as he laughed at the memory. “Anyway, the lad was convinced I was the one playing tricks on him. He thought that if he turned his clothes inside out, it would break my spell and force me to help him.”

The giant took a puff of his cigar to control his laughter so he could finish. “I found the sight of him so incredibly funny that I personally appeared before him and guided him out of the woods myself.”

The girls giggled at the image while they sampled the sweet fruits.

“That could very well create a legend where people believe they have to put their clothes on inside out if they get lost in the woods” Daphne mused with a grin and a shake of her head.

“It already has. And I find it funny every single time,” the giant replied.

He suddenly looked toward the entrance of his hollow tree and noticed that darkness had fallen. He stood up and gestured for the girls to follow him outside.

When they stepped out, they looked up to see a night sky illuminated by four beautiful moons. The girls marveled at the sight for a few moments while Kapre climbed a nearby giant, sturdy tree.

He sat on a thick branch and lit a fresh cigar, watching the celestial bodies with a quiet intensity.

“It is late now, children. You should return home for the night, but do come back to visit from time to time,” Kapre said, grinning down at them before turning his attention back to the moons.

“Thank you, My Lord,” the three of them said in unison as they offered a respectful curtsy.

They mounted the winged stag and prepared for flight. The creature flapped its blazing wings and rose into the sky, but Fleur suddenly gestured for it to hover in mid air. She was staring intently at a specific point in the heavens.

“Look over there,” she said, pointing toward the horizon.

Daphne and Luna looked in the direction she was pointing. Through their enhanced divine sight, they saw a majestic and terrifying snake moving toward one of the moons.

The serpent had a white underbelly and a vibrant green body. Its mouth was long and wide, and a striking red tongue slithered out between its fangs.

The beast possessed a pair of large, ash grey wings and fins along its sides, but its most striking feature was a single green horn protruding from its nose.

The snake let out a long hiss and began to grow in size. Its mouth opened wide enough to swallow the moon whole.

“You greedy snake! Three were not enough for you, were they?”

An angry, feminine voice reverberated across the sky. A beautiful goddess with flowing dark hair and fair skin appeared in the path of the serpent.

She held a pair of fighting sticks covered in glowing runes, and her eyes and face were protected by a golden mask.

The serpent ignored her warning. It was far too enamored with the beauty of the moon. It lowered its head and fired a devastating bolt of lightning from its green horn toward the goddess.

She crossed her fighting sticks in front of her to block the attack, but the force of the strike sent her tumbling backward with wounds opening across her body.

Despite the pain and the fact that the lower portion of her mask had been destroyed, she gritted her teeth and charged back at the beast. Her weapons shimmered with lunar light as she landed several heavy strikes against the serpent’s scales.

“That is Mayari, the Goddess of the Moon,” Kapre explained to the girls from below. “She fights the snake every time it appears. She has lost three times already.” He added solemnly.

“Why doesn’t she use the full extent of her divinity to destroy that thing?” Luna asked, tilting her head as she watched the lopsided battle.

“When two beings of divinity fight in this realm, they often use the aspects of their divinity to fight as their divine energies cancel each other out if they are at an equal level. This leads to the battles of equal gods being more grounded and also stops whole realms from being destroyed.” the giant explained without taking his eyes off the sky.

“Since the gods of fate have decreed that we cannot kill that snake, her divine power is being neutralized by that very concept, even though Bakunawa has significantly less divinity than she does.” He said with a shake of his head.

The girls could see that Bakunawa was strong, perhaps even stronger than most demigods.

It likely possessed enough power to fight off a small army of demigods together.

However, in the dreamlands, a thousand demigods usually could not even scratch a true god, no matter if they are even a lesser god.

The fact that the serpent was winning proved how much authority the gods of fate held over their pantheon.

Daphne felt a secret sense of relief that no gods of fate held authority over The Lux Aeternum Court.

The battle continued to rage until the serpent struck Mayari with its massive tail, flinging her back once more. she crashed into the surface of one of the moons, forming a deep crater as blood began to seep from her wounds.

Her beautiful, bloodied face was now fully visible because her mask had completely shattered. This was a dire situation, as without the protection of her mask, she was susceptible to the magical gaze of the beast.

The serpent’s eyes began to shine with a brilliant gold light. The goddess went limp, her gaze turning vacant as she watched helplessly while the snake moved toward the moon.

Kapre sighed and shook his head when Bakunawa opened its maw and swallowed the moon in a single gulp. A massive bulge formed in the snake’s throat and began to move slowly toward its stomach.

However, at that exact moment, a series of loud, banging noises echoed through the entire realm. The high pitched sound of mortals striking pots and pans together reached even the highest reaches of the sky.

The serpent jerked and flinched as if it were being attacked by an unseen enemy. Despite its divine power, the creature possessed the intelligence of a common snake.

It panicked and spit the moon back out so that it would not be weighed down during a potential fight.

The beast fired a few random bolts of lightning into the air and hissed at the empty sky before diving back toward the safety of the sea. Kapre laughed loudly and clapped his hands in delight at the sight of the retreat.

“It seems the great god Bathala decided to intervene and taught the mortals how to ward the beast away,” the giant said with a happy smile.

He jumped down from his branch and took a mighty leap toward the moon where the goddess lay.

He landed softly a few moments later and shrunk his size so he could lift Mayari into his arms. He vanished from the moon and reappeared back in his domain an instant later.

“I must heal her wounds,” he said as he carried her into his hollow tree and laid her on a wooden bed covered in soft leaves.

The girls looked at one another before following him inside. They watched as he began to mix various herbs into a paste to apply to her injuries.

“Here, use these as well,” Fleur said. She waved her hand, and several shimmering silver herbs began to grow from the ground inside the house.

Kapre recognized them as divine herbs of the moon. He knew they would greatly aid in Mayari’s recovery, so he plucked them and added them to his mixture immediately.

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