Fatima III

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It was about a week after the First Meeting that Fatima was talking with Nadia in the village.

They were chatting about the productivity of the farms (not good, so far), and how recent drama involving an affair between some of the villagers might be causing friction. (It wasn’t even originally Meiszko and Perun who’s affair had been revealed—apparently Lada had been sleeping with both Ander and Perun, who then revealed his own affair with her husband, the husband who then went on about how ‘he didn’t actually sleep with Perun because his heart wasn’t in it so it wasn’t actually adultery’ which then led into the reveal that Perun was the bottom between the two of them which was for some reason a big deal and—she was just gonna stop there. The drama was wild though.)

It was the middle of the day, and the two of them were relaxing on a tree stump on the outskirts of the village, when a kid came up to them.

“Lady, Lady!” she heard someone call from behind her. Turning, she saw a young boy with a dirty nose and a wide grin running up to her. “Lady Queen! I’ve got something important to tell you!”

“Ah, hello!” she called back, crouching down to meat him. “You must be… uh…”

“Taro,” Nadia coughed into her hand.

“Taro!” Fatima chirped happily, waving at him. “Now Taro, what are you shouting about?”

“River people! There are people in the river! They brought shells and fish!” The kid suddenly gasped, as if remembering something. “That’s right! The old lady asked me to get you! They seemed kind of nervous about the river people.”

Fatima didn’t bother asking who the old lady was—she didn’t want to risk learning it was someone younger than her. “Okay then!” she grinned back at him, “Show us to the river people, Taro!”

“Yay!” he giggled, running back the way he came. “Follow! Follow!”

“You aren’t worried it’s something dangerous?” Nadia asked, quietly enough that Taro couldn’t hear.

“I think if it was, they wouldn’t have sent a five-year-old to come get me,” she replied. “Besides, if they came with food and shells, they may just be here to trade.”

Nadia conceded the point, and together they followed the child towards the river.

Arriving at the river, it turned out that the ‘river people’ had indeed come to trade, setting up shop on the banks near the outskirts of the river. They’d pulled their boats (which were thin, almost canoe-like constructions) up onto the land, arranging them like market stalls. The stuff they had brought with them filled the insides of the boats, filled with fish (several of which she didn’t recognize), furs, shells, and other small, miscellaneous items.

A few of her own people were scattered around the boats, trading with whatever they had on them. There were some surprising things getting bartered—wait, was that a wolf sculpture? Made of clay? When did they have the time to make that!? Why are they even selling something like that!?

The biggest shock, however, was the fact that one of the other ‘God-Kings,’ Xian, was there with them, sitting off to the side of this mini-market.

As the two of them made eye contact, his eyes lit up, and he swiftly stood and walked over to them.

“Miss Fatima,” he greeted her, smiling lightly and giving her a small bow. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Ah, Xian,” she smiled back, confused at why he was here. “It’s nice to see you as well. Oh, and this is my assistant, Nadia,” she waved back to the other woman, who gave him a stiff nod. “Um, why are you here, exactly? I didn’t think there was any need for us to meet…?”

“Ah, my apologies if my visit startled you,” he told her, sounding genuinely remorseful. “What we talked about back at the alliance meeting—not the alliance itself, but how we each got a different sort of ‘boon.’ How you got pigs, and Issei got chickens, and I got boats. I spent the past few days thinking on it, and I realized that, if my only advantage in this world is this boon, then I wasn’t using it properly. Boats are meant for travel—they allow people to move themselves and goods faster and farther than normal. As such, I decided to set up a trade mission down the river, to each of our villages, before the winter hit and froze it over. I also decided it would be a good time to meet one-on-one with each of our allies, to get to know them better.”

Fatima blinked, startled by his exposition dump. “Uh, ah, yeah. You do that! It, uh, sounds like a good idea!”

Xian smiled as her, looking pleased with himself. “Thank you. If there’s anything you’d like to talk about, we’ll be here until tomorrow morning. We’ll set up camp a bit further away once the sun begins to set, so you won’t have to worry about housing us.”

“Well, at least some leaders are competent enough to think their ideas through,” Nadia said dryly, her words like an invisible arrow to her Queen’s heart. “What exactly are you trading?”

“Mostly just fish,” Xian admitted, seeming a little embarrassed by that for some reason. “But my own village is closer to the sea, so many of the fish we brought are unfamiliar this far inland. And there are also several luxury goods as well! I know Yun-yun brought a couple of drinking horns he’d carved from goat’s horns, and we also brought some of our better knifes and furs to trade.”

“Luxury goods?” Nadia asked, confused.

“Those are things that you don’t need, but think are cool,” Fatima explained. “Like, drinking horns are good, but you don’t need to carve them. But once they’re carved, they’re more valuable, and you can trade them for better things.”

“Ah, I see,” the woman nodded. “All that said, if you’re fine with it, I think I’ll leave the two of you alone for now. Someone needs to stop these idiots from selling their souls for a fancy cup.”

Fatima nodded, waving off Nadia with a smile. “So, Xian,” she turned back to him, “you said earlier that you’re visiting each of us, right? So, I imagine you’ve already talked to Issei?”

“Yes,” he nodded, scratching his chin. “I spoke with Issei quite a bit. The fact that he is Japanese is… well, it’s not as similar to my own culture as you’d think. But even being able to speak with someone from Asia has done wonders to help me relax.”

“Hm? Really?” she asked curiously. “I mean, I feel homesick sometimes, but I don’t think I’ve been feeling that uncomfortable about it?”

“No, no I understand,” he nodded at her. “I myself didn’t realize that I longed for my home as much as I did until I was able to talk about it with someone. Lately, we’ve spent so much time worrying about surviving in the now, that we’ve ignored our own comfort. But now that things have stabilized somewhat, I’ve felt a painful longing for the traditions I grew up with.”

“Huh,” she hummed thoughtfully. “I think I get it, kind of. Like food and stuff, right? I’ve never been huge on traditions and holidays, but I know I’ve missed a lot of the food we could get so easily back at home. I’ve been craving some curry for weeks now, and there’s nothing I can do to satisfy it!”

“I—” he visibly struggled with himself for a moment, before sighing. “I know. It’s awful. The spiciest thing I’ve been able to eat around here is garlic! These people don’t even have pepper! They barely have salt! I just want some spicy pork, is that too much to ask!?”

She coughed into her elbow to hide her laughter, patting his shoulder sympathetically as he slumped. After that the two of them fell into a companionable silence for a bit, simply watching their people trade along the river. Fatima snickered slightly as she watched Nadia desperately try to convince Lada not to sell her husband for a fish, and Xian rubbed his forehead in exasperation when one of his people sold off all of his pelts for a single jug of ‘miracle fluid.’

“Do you think we should do this more often?” Fatima asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“Like, a marketplace, or something,” she gestured to the people in front of them. “Maybe we should set up something more permanent, so that they don’t have to sell right out of their boats all the time. Like a dock or a market or something similar.”

Xian turned to look at her with an appraising eye. “I see, so you’d like to continue this? To make these trips a tradition?”

“I mean, yeah?” she asked him in confusion. “I sort of figured that was what was gonna happen anyway? I mean, we’re working together—we’re allied. So we’ll obviously have to trade with each other, and it’d be easier if we have a designated place to do that in.”

Xian was silent for long enough to make her wonder if for some reason she had misread him, before he smiled at her. “Of course,” he nodded, clasping his hands together in a polite bow. “I would love to continue these trade missions. Perhaps, say, once every three months?”

“Three months? Isn’t that kind of a long time?”

“Not as long as you’d think. We don’t really have an industry now, after all, so if we traded to often it wouldn’t be worth making the trip. Plus, in three months we’ll have hopefully passed the worst of winter, making it easier to travel.”

“Ah, I see! That makes sense. So once every three months, baring any issues or changes, you’ll travel up the river to trade with us, agreed?”

“Yes, I agree,” he smiled lightly at her reaching out to shake her hand.

“Alright!” she shook his hand cheerfully. “Then if you have any questions, just ask!”

“Well… I suppose I do have one question, though it’s not exactly about the marketplace itself, but…” the Chinese man pointed to one of her citizens, who was trying to barter one of his jugs for a particularly large rack of antlers. “Is that man trying to sell… beer?”

Fatima’s lips twitched at the incredulousness in his voice. “Yup. Why, do you want some? I’ve got a spare jug in my own cabin.”

“How? Surely making beer is too complex for these people?”

“Toil, hard work, and a determination to get drunk!” she chirped back with an amused grin. “Also, wild barley grows around these parts. These people were already making alcohol out of it long before I got here.”

“Incredible,” Xian shook his head with a smile. “To think that these people were getting drunk before they invented agriculture.”

“To be fair, I think our own people invented agriculture in order to make it easier to get drunk.”

Xian chuckled lightly. “Perhaps we did. Would you mind bringing it to the next meeting, next month? I imagine everyone will be much happier with some spirits to lighten the mood.”

“Eh,” she wiggled her hand in a ‘so-so’ motion. “It’s not actually that good. I mean, beer in general is just piss-water, but this can’t even be called that. It’s just piss.”

“Queen Fatima, alcohol isn’t meant to taste good,” he mock-scolded her. “It’s meant to get you plastered.”

“Of course!” she nodded back mock-seriously. “But we’re going to be discussing important things, like politics, and taxes! …Actually, maybe we should be drunk for that.” She then paused for a second, remembering something. “Also, we sadly can’t get drunk. Trust me, I tried. I downed a gallon of the stuff my first week here and I didn’t even get a buzz. I think our immortal bodies immediately fix our livers before we can destroy them.”

“Ah. Shame.”

“Well, that just means we’ll be able to drink as much of the good stuff as we want! Once we finally make it, I mean.”

He stared at her a moment, before his lips twitched into a small smile. “Always looking on the bright side, aren’t you?”

“Of course!” she smiled back. “If it’s a choice between being depressed and being happy, why not choose to be happy?”

Xian smiled wryly at her. “If only we could all think like that. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.”

“Probably not,” she shrugged. “But that just makes it all the more important to smile when you can, right?”

Xian stared at her, before his smile turned a bit more genuine. “I see. You’re wiser than you look, Queen Fatima.”

She scoffed at him, grinning. “Of course I’m wise, King Xian—I’m me!”

9,962 God-Kings Remain