The stink of wet fur mixed with the aroma of herbs churned Akali's stomach, and her breakfast threatened to climb up her throat. She'd already covered her mouth and nose with a cloth, but the stench still seeped into her nostrils.

"Make sure to get the lower back," the amomongo sitting on a stool with his back to her said, leaning forward and jerking a thumb at his back. "That's where the tail goes. I'm getting a tiger tattoo."

As Akali raised a blade to the amomongo's furry back, she gritted her teeth in disgust. Why would a monkey-like creature want a tattoo when it would be covered in fur when it all grew back? She wanted to ask, but like her breakfast, she forced it down to avoid offending the customer, not to protect the parlor's reputation but to avoid getting disemboweled by the amomongo. However, clients were under strict contract not to harm any worker within the parlor's premises. All she could do was hasten her work to leave the room quickly.

As a cleaner, she hadn't expected to do things like this or interact with the client. She thought she'd only be sweeping floors and maybe washing tools in the parlor, but certainly not this.

A few more scrapes of the blade and all the fur on the amomongo's back were shaved off. "Alright, you're done," she said, controlling her inhale.

"You sure?" The amomongo looked over his shoulders and gave a satisfied hum that sounded like it reverberated from deep within his belly to his throat.

Akali bowed with a hand to her chest. "The tattoo artist will be with you shortly." She was about to rush out the door when Makka tugged at the skirt of her red sarong. She stopped and turned to the dwende.

"Please clean the room, yes? I will be right back. Yes, yes, yes, I will." Already, Makka was turning to the door without waiting for Akali's response.

"But--" Akali started to protest.

Makka waved a hand at her. "Sweep all that fur and take it to the waste disposal at the back of the parlor. That should be easy enough. Yes, yes, it should." Then she pushed open the bamboo woven partition and left, closing it behind her.

Akali sighed, picked up the broom from the corner, and started sweeping the floor. She swallowed the disgust and thought to herself that this was what she needed to do to achieve her dream, but as she swung the broom, the scent of the amomongo wafted to her face, and she doubted it.

"You're new here, aren't you?" The amomongo spoke, his voice throaty and rough.

Akali didn't look at the creature. "Yes," she said, focused on getting the work done quickly.

"I thought so. I've never seen you before," the amomongo said. "I've never seen a diwata working. What you do in the forests can be called work, but not this kind of work."

Akali's ears heated, and she was suddenly irritated with the client. Her sweeping hastened, but she didn't say a word. She had thought that the human part of her would be challenging to be accepted around here, but she never thought that the diwata part would have the same trouble.

"Well, I think it's good." The amomongo spoke again when Akali didn't. "I think it's about time we opened opportunities for everyone no matter the kind... and no matter the smell."

Akali's head snapped up from the wet fur on the floor, and when she looked at the amomongo, he winked at her.

"I'm sorry," Akali said, tugging at the cloth that covered her nose.

"Oh, no, no. Don't worry. I know what I smell like. You keep that cloth on." He pointed at her with a long, sharp nail, and Akali dropped her hand. "And you might want to hurry up with that so you can get out of here." The amomongo grinned, showing his pointy teeth.

"Right." Akali started sweeping again and gathered all the fur into a basket. When she finished, she placed the broom back in the corner and bowed again at the amomongo. "Please wait here for the tattoo artist. Thank you," she said, then picked up the waste and left the room.

Akali walked down the hall lit by the sun from the top of the acacia tree, passing two dwende whispering to each other. She heard the word 'human,' which made her feel uneasy.

Ducking her head, she hurried on her way, avoiding a glance in their direction. They couldn't have been talking about her, she assured herself.

When she got to the waste area outside, three dwende huddled together and were talking beside the compost pits in the ground.

"No! Yes, yes, yes. They did it again," one of the dwende, a young female, said.

"I don't believe it. No, no, no. It's so horrible." The second dwende, another female, said.

Akali dropped the contents of her basket into one of the pits and walked up to them. She removed the cloth over her mouth, thankful to distance herself from the stink.

She bent down to listen to the conversation of the dwende. "What happened?" she asked, curious. "What's so horrible?"

"Oh, oh, oh!" the third dwende, a male, said. "It's the humans, Akali! They destroyed another part of the forest in the north. It's horrible. It is, it is, it is."

Akali flinched at hearing the word human as if heat stung her, but she said nothing. They didn't know that she was part human, so she should stop acting as if she was guilty.

"I wish those humans get what they deserve," the second dwende said. "They should, they should, oh, they should." She scrunched up her face angrily. Dwende were the most playful and fun of all creatures, and to hear them sound so distressed was unthinkable.

"Maybe it's not so bad," Akali said, but her voice was so low, like a whisper. It was almost as if she was telling it to convince herself that humans were not so bad. Not so bad at all, but--

"No, no, no!" The first, the youngest dwende contradicted her. "They are bad. Bad, bad, bad indeed. Unforgivable!"

Their conversation had gotten furious, and Akali couldn't listen to more. She couldn't say more about the situation as she felt so contradicted.

She'd known little of her grandfather as he died before she was born, but her grandmother was so fond of him that she spoke of him like he was the best man ever. Akali grew up believing that not all humans were wrong, and she thought that her human side was not evil. But she had no proof to convince the dwende.

"I have to go back now," she said to the three dwende who dwelled on their sorrow for the forest lost.

Akali walked out of the waste area and hurried back into the parlor. The skirt of her sarong was wrapped too tight around her legs that it restricted her movements, slowing her down. When she finally stopped fighting her dress and slowed her steps, she neared the staircase going up to the second level.

It had been three days since she signed her contract, but she hadn't done anything to get Ma'am Nyan to let her work as a tattoo artist. She had no plan on how she was going to do it. And every day, she breathed out a frustrated sigh, for she couldn't get the opportunity to showcase how excellent she was with the needle.

Two creatures stood in discussion at the bottom of the stairs. Akali was a few paces away before recognizing the diwata with the eagle tattoo she'd seen on her first day at Pinta. She studied him and noted the many tattoos on his exposed skin--around his neck and a few patches on both his arms--in different inked designs, primarily black, red, and blue.

When Akali looked up at his face, he was watching her. She flinched, but she stared back at his dark eyes. He looked younger than she remembered--his face clean, his jaw squared, and his hair black with a lock at his nape braided into a rat tail and draped over his shoulder. There was a smile in his eyes, a genuineness that couldn't be denied. Then the smile found his lips, the sides of his mouth tugged upward, and Akali's heart skipped. She stopped in the way, frozen and unsure if she should smile back.

The diwata talked to a larger male, at least three heads taller than him, who had his back toward Akali. When the other creature looked over his shoulder, following the diwata's gaze, Akali stepped back with wide eyes.

"Diwata?" The creature, a kapre with broad shoulders and yellow eyes, blew out a smoke, and the scent of burnt woody herbs hung in the air. He raised a thick eyebrow and tapped a cigar between his fingers, pointing it at Akali.

Akali had seen the creature before. A kapre who had visited her village several times to trade cigars for moonlight. Akali's mother was one of the best moonlight gatherers; she had done business with this kapre many times.

The kapre knew that Akali's father was part human. She would be exposed if the creature recognized her before she could prove herself to be a great tattoo artist.

Akali panicked. She turned her face away, fumbling for the cloth she had removed from her face, and hurried to tie it back over her mouth. She kept her head down as she walked forward. "Excuse me," she said as she passed the two creatures. Her bare feet padded quickly over the wooden floors as she skittered away and up the stairs, sensing the diwata and kapre's stare on her back.