Interlude II – Mortal Matters

Meiling

When she had first met Juliette, she hadn’t been impressed.

Oh, certainly she looked divine enough. Golden hair, flawless skin, and the tallest person she had ever seen.

But her arms were weak, her hands uncalloused, and she flinched at the sight of a spider.

It wasn’t even a big spider!

So truthfully, though she had ceded some of her power to the young queen, she hadn’t really respected her. Maybe one day, after she spent a few years toughening up, she’d be willing to actually give her the tribe. Until then, she treated her more like a favored daughter than a true chieftess.

Then she had declared a war. Not a raid, a war.

Meiling was so proud.

In less than an afternoon, her little Juli had gone from being a weak little pacifist to being a blooded warrior!

That was why she had accepted her offer to rule the other clan. The young woman had taken her first steps toward becoming a true queen. Who was she to get in the way of that?

Besides, it wasn’t like her place in the world had changed much. She had subjects, got first pick of the meat, and answered to no one. Juliette was more than a days’ walk away—she was queen of this tribe in all but name.

She grinned as she gazed out upon the people of her new tribe. She sat on a new throne, a large boulder she’d carved into a seat, with animal pelts draped across it to act as a cushion. All of her subjects bowed low when they passed—and those who didn’t were swiftly reminded of their place.

“Your tea, Lady Meiling,” a voice murmured from her side. Glancing down, she saw the first prisoner, Lia, who was now her servant. The bitch who had tried to kill her Juli.

Meiling gave her a disdainful look. She grabbed her tea, before kicking the girl as she moved away, knocking her to the ground. The girl spun to glare at her, breaking her ‘servant’ façade for a moment, staring up at her with hatred in her eyes.

Meiling merely raised an eyebrow, daring her to fight back.

Unfortunately, the girl chose life, and sulked back into the corner of her vision.

When Juli had first told her of the girl’s punishment, Meiling had been disappointed. She’d thought it soft, and told her as much. You couldn’t rule people without making sure to punish them harshly when they turned against you. That just gave them free reign to try again later.

Unfortunately, Juli wouldn’t budge. So the girl was branded, and was now subject to Meiling.

Frankly, everyone here was subject to her anyway, so it wasn’t much of a punishment. Still, taking a sip of her tea, Meiling decided that maybe having a personal slave around really was useful.

Meiling shook away the thought, relaxing into her throne. Truly, she had been blessed. First with her own rule of her tribe, and now with a gift of a new one.

But, even though she was blessed, she was no longer content. Before, she had thought her tribe was as big as could be—that over a hundred people was too much for any one woman to handle. But now…

Juliette ruled two tribes and had plans to conquer more. Over two hundred people under her rule, twice that of Meiling at her height.

But who says that was her height? That Meiling would be doomed to only be able to rule one tribe? Juliette could rule two, and she was currently only a shadow of Meiling’s greatness. Who’s to say Meiling couldn’t rule two as well? Or maybe three? Five? Ten?

Surely, it was the will of the gods for her to become powerful, and it was only her own ignorance that had held her back before!

And so, Meiling began training Juliette’s (her) soldiers, building up an army to conquer more. To become a Queen in her own right, to rule over a hundred more tribes, crushing the weak beneath her boot, and gaining riches beyond measure.

She was practically salivating at the thought.

Qian

Qian loved his new Queen.

Not in a romantic sense—he already had a wife and two children he loved dearly—but in a more spiritual sense, the way one might love an honored ancestor.

And was she not an honored ancestor? She who had been brought forth by the spirits of their forefathers to return to them their lost glory and honor?

His father had been the leader of his tribe, back before Meiling came. He had loved his father dearly, as any filial son should. Then, one day, Meiling’s tribe had showed up, settling along the river nearby. For a while, their two tribes peacefully coexisted. They traded, intermarried, and coexisted for years.

Then Meiling the Stone-fist (Meiling the Power-Hungry) attacked them, unifying their tribes into one.

His father had killed himself rather than live with the shame of that failure.

And Qian? He had been lost. His faith in the spirits shattered. What had they done, for the ancestors to have abandoned them so? To have left his father cold and alone before a great enemy?

He had fallen into a great depression. He stopped going to firepit for the Shaman’s tales, he’d stopped going out to hunt, and he’d barely even eaten the berries his sister brought to his tent.

It was only thanks to Li—his wonderful, beautiful Li!—that he didn’t simply waste away. She had dragged him out of his tent and forced food and laughter and love back into him. In return he had married her, doing his best to be a great husband for her and a better father to his children. It had been hard, after his father had died, but he had learned to love again.

And he never prayed to the ancestors ever again.

For what had they done? They had left his father to die, and would have left him to waste away if it wasn’t for Li. The ancestors had abandoned him, so he abandoned them in turn.

But then they brought forth Juliette.

Juliette, who usurped Meiling, banishing her to another tribe. Juliette, who let him lead her army and regain his family’s lost honor. Juliette, who had been stabbed through the heart, and yet walked it off without issue.

When she had first arrived, he had thrown his lot in with her as a small ‘fuck you’ to Meiling. It was the best decision he had ever made.

And sure, maybe she was a bit impulsive, and bad at naming things, but everyone had their flaws! When he was her age, he was a moping, nervous wreck! She was practically perfect compared to him.

To this day, he held no love for the ancestors, the spirits, or any gods that may have existed.

But Juliette? She was the Divine Queen of their tribe, who would lead them to greater heights than any before.

So he gathered up all of his forgotten devotion, and gave it wholeheartedly to her.

Lia

Lia had been young when her father had died. Truthfully, she didn’t know much about him—he was a hunter that died when a deer gored him through. She could name three other men who had gone that way since. And her mother had died a few years after she had been born—it had been a bad pregnancy, and the complications never really went away. So, she and Basi had been raised by the community, same as a few other people she knew. It wasn’t uncommon, even if she often wished she could have known her parents beyond her aunt’s stories.

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But Basi was someone she loved. He had been her older brother. She had braided his hair when he started going out for hunts. He taught her how to spear a boar and how to set up rabbit snares. She taught him how to talk to girls and not make a fool of himself (after letting him be a dumbass for a while for a laugh). He snuck her choice cuts of meat under Old Lady Mai’s nose.

And now he was dead.

Before the ‘Queen’ arrived, she hadn’t understood how some people could hate each other. Sure, some people were annoying, and some people needed to be beat over the head to get them to go away. But she didn’t hate anyone like Ushi hated Yang after he married Qiu, or how Bai hated Lian after he returned from a hunting trip which killed his brother.

And then Juliette arrived. The so-called ‘Queen’ to the West. The woman who showed up with an army to slaughter her tribe. Yang, Lian, Zheng, Qin, Song, Rei, Dao, Xiu, Rai, Sam, and her brother Basi.

She did not know most of them well—especially Sam. While he was their leader and someone she had spent the last week with, he wasn’t someone she knew well. She knew his name, and some facts about his homeland, but she didn’t know him. She could at least remember small tidbits about the others—Qin once tripped over a rock and fell face first into a pile of deer guts. He stank for weeks. Yang and Ushi had spent the better part of their childhood fighting over Qiu; it had been all anyone could talk about that one winter she finally chose Yang. Now her daughters would never have a father. And Basi, well. She could tell stories about him for years.

But she didn’t know the first thing about Sam.

She felt guilty about it, of course she did, but she couldn’t mourn him the same way she did the others. He was gone as suddenly as he arrived, like a spring rain or a swooping hawk. She could only hope that there were others out there that could mourn him properly.

All of this fed into why she hated Juliette. That hatred which built up with every action she took, and every moment she breathed free. She hated Juliette in a way she couldn’t properly express. Hated her soldiers, and hated the old bitch she had left behind.

Which is why she found herself here, in a small cave hidden far from the village. Qiu stood to her left, and Shi stood to her right. Between them, a small fire flickered, just big enough to allow them to see each other.

“Why have you brought us here, Lia?” Shi asked, the older man looking exhausted. It was night—she had to wait until after Meiling had fallen asleep to sneak out, and so they were all tired.

Lia was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain her plan. Eventually, she decided to just be blunt.

“I hate this new ‘Queen,’ Juliette,” she spat.

“Aye, I was there when you stabbed her,” Shi sighed. “And I was also there when she shrugged it off and kept talking.”

“That’s not—that’s only part of what I meant.” She scowled, gesturing with her hands. “I mean, you two hate her as well, right? She killed you son, Xiu, and your husband, Yang! You must hate her as much as I do!”

“Yes, we do,” Qiu scowled, her tone frosty, “but that doesn’t give you the right to bring up my husband like that.”

Lia flinched, some of the bite leaving her. “Ah, right. I’m sorry, Qiu, Shi. But it’s just—you can’t just accept this, right!? Our families have died because of her, and yet she walks unmolested through our home. Surely you can’t accept that!?”

“And what would you have us do? Stab her? Because that worked out so well for you, didn’t it? Unless you’ve forgotten what’s on your forehead?” Shi asked, tapping his own forehead.

Beside her, Qiu grimaced, likely remembering her own daughter—she’d tried to attack one of the men left behind, who she realized was the one who killed her father. She was eventually subdued and was branded with the same mark Lia had: the black diamond. After that when Qiu had protested, she had been branded the same.

The Black Diamond Punishment had grown popular—the Queen wanted to pretend she was good, and so she banned true mutilation. Instead, whenever Meiling felt someone had violated her rule, she marked them with a Black Diamond on their forehead—a constant reminder to all others of their ‘sin.’

In truth, most of the villagers didn’t care for the markings, just treating them like they had before. It was only Juliette’s people who treated them like scum. And that caused issues, when they were the only ones allowed to carry weapons in the village.

“Meiling goes too far,” Qiu muttered, rubbing her own forehead.

“They all do,” Lia told her. “Which is why we must do everything possible to end them.”

“Again, Lia,” Shu sighed, “their leader—now our leader—is an unkillable demigoddess. What could we do to her?”

“To her? Nothing. To her tribe—her precious ‘kingdom?’” Lia scoffed mockingly. “That, we can destroy.”

The two of them looked at her, confusion written across their faces.

“Juliette is immortal,” she began, outlining her plans to them. “But everyone else is not. Meiling is an old woman—she would die of natural causes withing a few winters regardless. But she is necessary to the ‘Queen’s’ rule of us. Without Meiling, Juliette cannot control us.”

“You sound like you mean to kill her,” Qiu quirked an eyebrow, not sounding against the idea.

“And then Juliette’ll send another like Meiling,” Shi told her. “Possibly someone worse. All killing Meiling would accomplish is petty revenge.”

“Not revenge—vengeance. Unless you say your son does not deserve even that?”

“Watch your tongue,” he growled, his face thunderous. “I have let you speak freely long enough already—continue to speak that way about my family, and I will bring word of this little rebellion straight to Meiling myself.”

“…I’m sorry, Shi. You’re right, that was uncalled for,” Lia winced, running a hand through her hair. “It’s just… I hate her! I can’t just let her kill my brother and get away with it! I need to do something!”

Shi looked at her for a long moment, before sighing. “Aye. I know the feeling. But wanton murder won’t fix all our problems.”

“Actually,” Qiu mused, “I think she may be on to something.”

The two others turned to her, one hopeful and the other exasperated.

“Think about it. If you cut off a woman’s head, they die. But this woman won’t die no matter what. In that case, maybe we shouldn’t be focusing on the head at all. Perhaps instead, we should cut off her limbs. A woman without a hand can’t hunt, or cook, or weave. A woman without a foot can’t walk or dance. We cannot kill Juliette—but we can cripple her.”

Lia grinned, and Shi sighed, but the idea had been planted, and was already bearing fruit. So the three of them got to work, plotting and planning all the way till dawn.

Yue

Yue was used to being alone.

She’d spent years of her life wandering the forests. She’d gone south, skirting the great swamps and bogs, filled with crouching beasts and deadly plagues. She’d gone north and seen snows that piled over the heads of even the tallest men. She’d gone east and seen the great lake, which she could never find an end to. And she’d gone west and seen rolling hills, with mountain peaks reaching into the sky in the distance.

But she was always, always alone.

She had a family, once. Her feelings on them were complicated, even to today. But she still remembered the soft moments—her father teaching her to walk, her mother greeting her in the morning, and her brothers cheering over a deer they had killed. Then she had lost them, thanks to the foolishness of youth. It had left a hole in her heart for the rest of time, one she was never quite sure how to fill. At least, until she met Liu, and was invited to join her tribe.

But then they committed a sin, one that she could never forgive. They had abandoned someone—the same way her first family had abandoned her. And she would not, could not, forgive that.

So now she had left them too.

“You’re an idiot,” Fei scoffed, dragging Ishi away from where he was trying to grab an obviously poisonous toad.

Well, at least she wasn’t alone this time.

“Wait, why’s he an idiot?” Jamal asked, looking between the others with a frown. “It’s just a frog, right?”

“…You’re an idiot as well,” Fei told him dryly.

“You shouldn’t touch toads no matter what,” Yue told Jamal. “Even if they aren’t poisonous, they may be carrying some other type of disease. It’s safest just to ignore them.”

“Ah, right, frogs can be poisonous…” he muttered sheepishly, scratching his jaw. “I forgot about that—I never really saw them back home.”

She perked up slightly at the mention of his home—he didn’t talk about it much, but what she had heard of it was fascinating. She wished she could have visited it.

Alas, for it was the land of the gods, and she was only a mortal.

She could still imagine it, though.

“Eh, you’d probably be fine if you touched it,” Fei shrugged, waving the hand not holding onto Ishi. “The rest of us, though, we’d be fucked.”

“Lucky me. I’ll add that to my resume—'cannot be poisoned by frogs.’”

“I don’t know what a resume is, but if you’ve got to talk about how poison-proof you are then it sounds dumb. Now come on, lets get a move on. You may be immune to disease, but the rest of us aren’t, and I’m not sleeping in a swamp.”

With that they started moving once again, marching their way through the marshlands. They’d decided to go south after a couple days of travel—following the river might have been easier, but it would be much easier to track them that way. Instead, they started moving south, eventually running into the marshlands that were prevalent the further south you went. They’d skirted the edge of the swamps, trying to stay on solid ground, but sometimes they were forced to move through them.

They weren’t really fleeing from the other Queen anymore. If she was going to find them, she’d have found them already. At this point they were too far away from her for her to do anything to them.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one they had to worry about.

Jamal had told them some of what was going on—that there were thousands of people like him out there, each with their own tribes they were leading. And unfortunately, they would instantly recognize him if they met him. Not because of anything inherent to their people, but because—in his words—he was a ‘six-foot-two black man, and everyone here were Asian.’

She didn’t fully understand what he meant by that (why did he measure with feet? What was Asian?) but she agreed that he was blatantly foreign.

So they tended to avoid bigger tribes. Sometimes one of them would go into a village to trade pelts or berries for tools or herbs, but for the most part they kept to themselves. Which inevitably meant that she had learned more about her travelling companions in the last few days than she did over the last few years.

Sometimes she wished she hadn’t.

But as ever, life moved on. She had been alone before, and now she wasn’t. It was only three other people, a far cry from the hundred of the tribe. But that didn’t matter—had never mattered to her. So she continued to walk with Fei and Ishi, following the man who they once had called king—and now called friend.

She felt a small grin grow across her face. Because right now? She was content.