Heng III

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“Well, this sucks, huh Mohu?” Heng asked that night, leaning against his pet mammoth.

“PFTTTTPHF!!” she trumpeted, in what he interpreted as a consoling manner.

“I mean, it’s just… ugh!” he sighed, throwing his hands up. “I know I shouldn’t be this pissed, I’ve probably got a better lot in life than anyone else out here, but I just… The more I think about the more angry I get!”

“Yeah, I understand that feeling.”

“Who-fuck-what!?” Heng yelped, jumping off the mammoth. Mohu raised her head up to give him the stink eye, before laying back on the ground. “Who’s there!?”

“Gods, I can’t believe I might have to marry you…”

There! A humanoid shadow stood a bit away from him, outside of the light of the small campfire he’d set up. Heng blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, only for the stranger to apparently get tired of waiting for him and stepped into the light.

And revealed herself to be Wachiwi, Elder Hanska’s daughter. The young woman stood straight before him, her arms crossed in annoyance. And yet, looking at her, he couldn’t help but feel she looked a bit… tired. Her hair was no longer in a braid, and even in the flickering firelight he could see the bags under her eyes.

“You are… Wachiwi, right?” Heng asked, at a loss for anything else to say.

The other woman just sighed in annoyance. “Yes. I am.”

“Ah,” Heng paused, searching for something else to say. “That’s… good?”

Wachiwi stared at him for a long moment. “…Look, just shut up. I bet you already know why I’m here.”

He really didn’t, but he had already made enough of a fool of himself tonight to tell her otherwise.

“When you finally get asked which woman you’re going to pick, you’re going to pick me,” she told him.

“…Okay, I’m going to be honest here, that was the exact opposite of what I expected you to say.”

--

“Alright, start from the beginning,” Heng told her after the two of them got comfortable around the fire. “Why do you want to marry me? Power? Prestige? Wealth?”

“The first one,” she grunted. He noticed she wasn’t looking at him, but instead eyeing Mohu warily. Considering the lazy mammoth was asleep, it was a pointless action. “Power, protection, safety, whatever you call it. Anything, anything at all to get out from under my father’s thumb.”

“I… can actually understand that,” Heng admitted. “He seems like a dick.”

“You don’t even know the half of it!” she snapped. “’Oh, Wachiwi! Don’t bother thinking for yourself, Wachiwi! Everyone knows you only exist to further my own ambitions! So just sit there like a good little girl and let me sell you to another man for political gain, oh beloved daughter of mine.’”

“…You, uh,” Heng stuttered, “You sound like there’s some shit going on between you and your father.”

“Really? Who could have guessed!? Was it the way he shouts at me when I do anything that he doesn’t give me express orders to do? The way he controls my every move? The way he’s already planned my future out to the smallest detail!? Gee, I wonder what it could be!?”

Heng steepled his fingers in front of his face, wondering at what point this turned into a therapy session. Because he was in no way qualified for something like this. Still, this seemed like it was helping her. If nothing else, it would be cathartic for her.

“Um, and how does that make you feel…?”

“Like shit!” she yelled, jumping to her feet. “Like I’m just a doll he made for himself! Like I’m not my own person, but another tool he controls! Like a pet rather than a person!”

“Well, he sounds like an asshole, but I don’t understand how doing what he wants and marrying me will help you.”

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The woman smirked, the flickering light of the fire causing the expression to warp across her face. “That’s the thing. He doesn’t want me to marry you—he’s had his eye on Mahkah for years now, and me marrying you would mess up his plans.”

Heng blinked. “Mahkah? That name sounds familiar. Is he one of the other Elder’s sons? And why wouldn’t he want you to marry me? Uh, I mean, marry the chief?”

“He’s Elder Chanska’s son. And he’s full of himself,” she hissed, slumping back to the ground. “But it’s pretty obvious why he doesn’t want me to marry you, you know.”

“Uh, as someone who barely understands anything about tribal politics, it really isn’t.”

Wachiwi rolled her eyes. “It’s because you’re immortal, Chieftain Heng. The gods themselves said it—you’ll rule our tribe forever. In that case, what’s the point of marrying your daughter off to a man if her sons will never inherit anything. I suppose that’s his own fucked up way of looking out for me. No matter what happens, you’ll outlive me, and any of our children, and their children’s children, etc. etc.”

Heng stared at her for a long time, the world around him draining away. Slowly, he placed his head in his hands as that sunk in. The sheer, depressing truth of what would inevitably happen one day.

“Holy fuck,” he mumbled to himself. “Suddenly, I want to get married even less now.”

“Here here!” the woman across from him agreed, waving a hand in the air.

A silence settled between them, one formed from the mutual camaraderie of two people who understood each other implicitly.

“So, what’s our plan now?” Heng broke the silence, frowning seriously at her across the fire.

Wachiwi shrugged. “Get married, get me away from my father. Have kids one day. Whatever couples normally do once they’re married.”

Heng choked, before composing himself. Right, married couples had kids, that was a thing they did. So if he went through with this, then one day he would… they would…

He glanced at the woman across from him, before quickly looking away, glad the low light hid his blush. Damn, and here he thought he’d left his hormones back in highschool.

“Right. That,” he coughed into his hand. “I meant more of, ‘what should we do about the Elders?’ You said yourself that your father would never let you marry me, right?”

Wachiwi was quiet for a long moment. Finally, she seemed to sigh to herself, before looking up at him. “You don’t need to worry about that. Just, when the time comes, make sure to protect me. That’s what a husband does, after all.”

Heng… was not at all reassured by that statement. But, against his better judgement, he let the matter sit. It would be rude to pry into family affairs, anyway.

--

The next day Heng began the most harrowing challenge he’d faced yet.

Meeting his first marriage candidate.

Who, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t going to end up marrying anyway. So this whole meeting was worthless. Great. Damn, thinking on it now, it was like he was going on a crappy date with a the daughter of one of his mom’s friends.

Wow, that was almost more depressing than what was actually happening.

In other words, the two of them were meeting out a fair distance away from the tribe. Behind one of the few hills out on the prairie, they could just barely see whisps of smoke from the morning fires. Whether the distance was the Elder’s way of telling them to get a room or just coincidence was unclear.

Ehawee, the woman he was meeting today, had apparently decided that casual dress was the way to go, wearing just the basic furs of their tribe. Heng, who’d gotten a little dressed up for the occasion, was feeling pretty awkward about it.

“So, um, what do you want to do today?” Heng asked the woman across from him awkwardly, suddenly realizing that he had no idea what they were supposed to do. Turns out making half-baked plans on the fly didn’t always work out—who would have thought?

“Hm, I don’t know,” she hummed, spinning in circles absentmindedly. Heng couldn’t help but feel dizzy just watching her. “I like the grass.”

“The grass?”

“Hm. It’s very green.”

“Oh, um, I suppose it is?”

“Well, except for where it’s yellow. There it’s not very green.”

“I mean, yes? Well, green is made with yellow, so I guess there’s a little bit of green even in the yellow? Does it work like that?”

“So you’re saying that green is yellow, but yellow is not green? Or is yellow green, but green not yellow?”

“Wait, stop,” Heng held up a hand, his other hand clutching his forehead. “I think we’ve just confused ourselves.”

“Hm,” Ehawee nodded. “This conversation has grown increasingly nonsensical.”

“Yes…?” Heng agreed hesitantly, before shaking his head. “Wait, let’s just talk about something else. Anything else.”

“I think it would be better to talk about what we’re thinking about talking about,” she told him, turning to him seriously.

“Wait, what?”

“Are you going to marry me?” she asked, her previously bubbly smile turning into a serious frown.

“!?” Heng stepped back in surprise. What was with everyone in this village being so blasé about marriage!? Was this normal? Was he the problem here???

“Um, I’m sorry, but I’m probably not going to choose you,” Heng finally told her, awkwardly bowing his head. “Something else came up with Wachiwi, and, well…”

“That’s all right!” Ehawee smiled at him, “I don’t want to marry a man anyway!”

Heng blinked, a lot of emotions flowing through him in an instant. Finally, he settled on something resembling confused relief. “Oh. That’s good, I think? So you like women?”

Ehawee stopped suddenly

“You just realized this now!? Didn’t you just say you didn’t like men!?”

“Oh, I still don’t,” she reassured him. “I just didn’t realize I liked women instead until this moment!”

Heng covered his eyes with a hand. “I see. Got it. Moving on, what do you want to do next?”

The young woman frowned, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Hm. Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—”

“Look, Ehawee,” Heng cut her off. “Don’t get me wrong, but this whole thing is a lot weirder than I thought it would be.”

“Excellent!” she chirped. “That’s the vibe I’m going for!”

Heng sighed, before snapping back to look at her. “Wait, did you just say ‘vibe?’ That translates!?”

“What?”

Heng shook his head. “No, never mind. I’m just—I don’t understand my life, sometimes. Do you… do you want to just go pet my mammoth?”

“Oh, yes please!”

9,914 God-Kings Remain