Fatima I

PA 0

Deep in the northern taiga, a small village sat idly. Fur tents sat surrounded by rudimentary log cabins, which were in turn surrounded by a wooden wall. People walked between their homes, greeting neighbors, crafting tools, and taking care of the pigs. Puffs of mist hazed out of their mouths as they breathed the cool Autumn air, and the half-frozen grass beneath their feet crunched as they walked.

A short distance away from the village sat a river, cutting lazily through the trees. Isolated and alone from the village, a young woman sat to herself, a fishing rod in hand. The woman had dark skin and a small, hooked nose. A worn Hijab covered her head, a few strands of brown hair slipping out without her noticing. Beside her sat a woven basket half filled with fish, the product of a long day’s work.

Fatima hummed softly, singing quietly to herself as she held her fishing rod. The rod was just a long stick with some animal tendons as the string, but it served its purpose, as the basket of fish next to her showed. It wasn’t fast, but it had the benefit of being both productive and relaxing.

It had been about a month since she’d been dumped into the middle of nowhere by some sort of God-Thing, and she’d finally managed to settle into a routine. In the mornings she’d greet the people of her tribe, talking with them and figuring out what they wanted or needed done that day. Then she’d go to the river, taking her fishing rod with her. She’d spend the next few hours there alone, relaxing by the river. After that she’d return for their community meal, and everyone would talk and tell stories until the sun set.

After a month of getting used to it, the routine had become almost soothing.

There were, of course, issues that she’d come across when settling in. Some were external, but some her fairly personal as well. For instance, when she’d first arrived she had, thankfully, been in her work clothes, so she still had her Hijab. But early on she’d realized the cloth wouldn’t last, and she’d spent some time worrying about what she should do about that. Should she forgo it entirely? Or should she hold onto it, as a memento of her past? For now, she had decided to keep it, but she still wasn’t sure what she should do with it.

In terms of scale, it wasn’t the end of the world to get rid of her Hijab. She could, eventually, get used to not wearing it.

But that didn’t mean she wanted to get rid of it.

But there weren’t only personal issues she had to deal with. There were also external threats.

Within the first week of arrival, four people had died. That was all the encouragement she needed to start preparing her defenses.

It turned out to be the right call, as by the end of the next week, that number doubled. And that 10,000 in the back of her head kept on dwindling down.

It was, in a word, stressful.

She’d cut down the trees around her village, building a rudimentary wall, and followed that up with a set of spikes along the perimeter. She’d tried to make a moat, but that just caused flooding and forced some people to move their tents, so she was forced to drop the idea.

Of course, that was all in preparation for a worst-case scenario. Her actual plan was much more diplomatic.

Once her people had finished building the wall (just in case), she had sent out scouts in every direction in order to find her closest neighbors.

They found three, one northwest up the river, one southeast down the river, and one directly south along what at first seemed like a completely different river, but turned out to be the original river curving back on itself. Her scouts had gone a bit further out, with the ones going south managing to find what she assumed was the ocean. But when the trip started to take them more than a day out she called them back. It was best to figure out what was going on locally first, before exploring further.

With that, she’d contacted the other tribes, sending her scouts back as ‘envoys’ to see if they were willing to set up an alliance. It ended up taking a lot longer than she thought it would—it was a two or three day long round trip for them, and coordinating a meeting point between everyone had gone past tiring and straight into exasperating.

She hoped they’d figure something out soon—she wouldn’t feel secure until she was sure the whole alliance thing worked out.

Suddenly the fishing line went taunt, and she was forced out of her thoughts. She pulled back, but unfortunately the fish wasn’t giving up that easily. It suddenly yanked forwards again, almost dragging the rod out of her hands.

She planted her feet in the dirt, before reaching forward and grabbing the line itself. Unfortunately, the fishing rod didn’t have a reel, so she was forced to pull it back by hand. Inch by inch she pulled, slowly dragging the scaly bastard closer to her.

“C’mon, c’mon…” she muttered, growling under her breath as a particularly sharp tug almost tore it out of her hands.

“Lady Fatima!” she heard someone suddenly yell, “I need to speak with you! It’s urgent!”

She yelped, knocked out of her focus. Scrambling, she just barely managed to stop the whole rod from being yanked out of her hands, but it was a near thing.

She glanced over and saw a pale, brown haired woman. It was her current ‘secretary’ (i.e. the person she dumped all her responsibilities onto when she got overwhelmed (or bored)) Nadia.

“Nadia! Perfect timing!” she yelled back. “Quick! Help me out with this!”

“But—this is important!” Nadia called back, running up to her.

“Too important to wait for a fish!?”

“Uh… no?”

“Then help me out woman! We can’t let the fish win!”

Nadia’s freckled face twisted in annoyance, making her look like she was a moment away from committing regicide. But with a roll of her eyes, she stomped up next to Fatima. She grabbed the fishing line with a single hand, and then yanked.

An orange fish exploded out of the river, sending water spraying everywhere. The fish flew over their heads, momentarily blocking out the sun, before slamming into the ground behind them.

Fatima turned to look at it, humming in disappointment as it flopped back and forth on the ground. “Huh. It felt bigger than that.”

Nadia sighed. Deeply. “There. The fish is caught. Now, are you ready to talk, Lady Fatima?”

Fatima turned her eyes heavenward. Honestly, Nadia could do to loosen the stick up her ass. “Yes, Nadia, what is it?”

“The other kings you’ve been in contact with have finally responded. They’ve agreed upon the lake as a meeting place. In three days, they expect for everyone to meet up to discuss your idea of an alliance.”

“Oh, oh shit!” she yelped, her eyes going wide. “They’re finally ready!? Why didn’t you say anything sooner!?”

Nadia just sighed.

“We’ve got to get our people ready!” She panicked, starting to run back to the village. “Five—no, ten people! Can’t be too careful. We’ll need supplies as well—you said they agreed on the lake, right? Then it’s half a day to the lake, so a full day round trip, so that means we’d need, uh…”

“You don’t have to worry about this, Lady Fatima,” Nadia called out behind her. “I’ve already set people to start preparing.”

Fatima stopped moving, spinning back to Nadia. “Hey, Nads, have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“You can show your love by never calling me Nads again.”

--

Two days later, they were on their way to the lake. The lake sat at about equidistant from each of the villages, so she decided to leave the day before the meeting to make sure they’d get there in time.

They’d have to walk there, since they didn’t even have horses. And spending over half a day hiking through the forest was, in a word, tiring.

Fatima had started talking with her people as they walked, chatting about their lives, the upcoming alliance, and even the weather (it was cold). Unfortunately, there was only so much they could talk about, and eventually she’d just devolved into playing meaningless games to pass the time.

“Eye spy with my little eye…”

“Rabbit.”

“Wha!? I didn’t even say anything yet!”

“It’s the only thing here that’s not a tree or a bush, and you haven’t used one of those for ages.”

“HMPH! Well then, I spy—”

“Tree. Third one on the left.”

“Oh, fuck you too.”

Fatima crossed her arms, mock pouting as the men behind her giggled to themselves.

At least it wasn’t boring. Really, you’d think going on a nature walk would be fun, but after spending the last month surrounded by the same trees, the same bushes, and the same rocks, she really couldn’t bring herself to care. You can only see a cool rock or a big tree so many times before you get bored of it, after all.

Behind her, her people started chatting amongst themselves. She rolled her shoulders, readjusting her fur jacket as she listened in.

‘Oh ho? Perun and Mieszko are fucking? Well, color me impressed, I didn’t think Meiszko had it in him. Well, he definitely has something in him,’ she giggled quietly to herself. ‘…I hope Lada doesn’t come to me to deal with that. I don’t know how I’d judge that. It’s adultery, right? So, it’s a crime, but what punishment should adultery get…?’

She brought her hand up to her chin, attempting to rub it thoughtfully. However, instead of her fingers, something else hit her chin, clacking against her jaw. She winced, before glancing down in confusion at her hand.

Which was currently holding her own soul-orb, green and orange threads swirling within.

The soul-orb she had left back at the village. That she’d buried beneath her cabin, hidden away from the world.

How in the fuck was she currently holding it!?

For a long moment, she couldn’t do anything more than stare in shock at the orb, rolling it around absently in her hand.

Then she snapped out of it, rattled as what she was holding really sunk in.

Panicking, she shoved her soul-orb into her jacket. She scrambled around inside of it for a moment, before finding the internal pocket she kept her waterskin in (to keep it warm and stop it from freezing). Shoving it into the flap, she quickly looked around at the others to make sure none of them had seen her flailing.

She sighed in relief when she saw they were too busy talking among themselves to notice.

‘What the hell happened?’ she thought frantically. ‘I left that at home! How the hell is that here!?’

Her heart was beating rapidly, pounding against her chest. She brought her thumb up to her mouth, biting down on it in an attempt to calm down.

Unfortunately, she was so preoccupied trying to figure out what was going on, she ended up tripping on a root.

With a yelp, she fell face first onto the ground, slamming her nose into the dirt.

“Lady—!” “Fatima!” “Are you all right!?” she heard her people shout from behind her.

“M’fine!” she shouted, her voice muffled by the ground. Shoving her arms beneath herself, she managed to push herself up. Lestek offered his hand, and she used it to help stand back up. “I’m okay! Not even a scratch!”

They gave her dubious looks, but didn’t question her further. And while they did go back to talking with each other, she saw each of them occasionally give her worried looks.

She sighed, shaking her head. As much as she wanted to worry about this right now, she had other, arguably bigger issues. ‘Later,’ she thought to herself, ‘I’ll figure this out later.’

--

About an hour later they arrived at the lake.

The lake itself wasn’t that large—it could probably fit inside the river that her own village was next to. But it was rather easy to find, and sat at about equidistant from each of the villages, which was why she had offered it as a meeting place. It was also quite peaceful, now that she got a closer look at it. It spread out before her, its waters almost completely still, which acted as a mirror to reflect the spectacular oranges and purples of the dusk.

Fatima took a deep breath, simply enjoying the view for a moment.

“Right,” she told the people she’d brought along with her. “This is where I want us to meet. Let’s set up camp over here, and then tomorrow we can prepare for the alliance talks. Is that alright with everyone?”

A chorus of vague grumbling and sighs answered her. They were all exhausted from an almost sixteen-hour hike. Without hesitation, they began pulling their bedrolls out, laying them down on the ground. Some of them didn’t even do that, simply flopping down and passing out in the dirt.

Fatima chuckled. Yeah, she got that.

Or well, she would have. Back before.

She frowned, looking back out across the lake. She let her eyes wander over the swirling colors, pondering her situation.

She wasn’t one for melancholy, believing it was dumb and was for people blinded by nostalgia. If you spent all your time bemoaning the bad things in life, you’d just end up ignoring all the good things.

Like, for example, this lake. The trees framed it artfully, making it almost look like a painting, and she could start to see stars reflected onto the water, as twilight turned into night. Along the edges she could see fireflies fluttering around, their lights accompanied by the croaking of toads.

This wasn’t something she’d be able to see in her old world. There was no garbage around the lake—no crushed cigarettes or soda cans. No big yellow signs or paved roads cutting through the trees. It was just nature in its truest form.

She smiled. Yeah, this was nice.

She glanced back at her own people, and then sighed once she noticed that they were all asleep. They didn’t even take the time to set up a watch!

Rolling her eyes, she found a comfortable looking rock, and sat down, prepared to settle in for the night. ‘This is what I get for not needing to sleep, huh?’

--

In the morning they started preparing. Bedrolls were picked up and stored out of the way. She had started clearing out shrubs and trees where she could for when the others arrived. With the rest of her people helping, they managed to clear out more than enough space.

After that she sent half of them on patrols around the lake, to make sure they wouldn’t miss anyone if they arrived on the other side.

The other half she put to work helping move some relatively large boulders. They shoved four of them into a sort of vague circle, and then laid animal furs over them to make a cushion. Once that was done, she once more conscripted their help in creating a table.

They dragged over a smaller boulder to the center of the seats. Then, they grabbed a large stone dais and slowly, carefully, lifted it up. It took all five of them to pick it up, and longer than making the rest of the seats combined to finally get it on top of the other boulder. But it worked! They had a table!

Sweaty and exhausted, she couldn’t help but stare at the seating arrangement for a long moment, wondering if that had been worth it.

‘Whatever.’

With the preparations done, she sat back and sighed. Now all that was left to do was wait.

--

A couple hours later the first ruler arrived, brought over to the meeting place by one of her patrols.

She had orange-red hair that fell to her shoulders, with two small braids that framed her face. She was rather tall, looking around six feet tall, which put her at a foot higher than Fatima and about even with the people who lived here. Her face was splattered with freckles, and was currently twisted into a severe frown. Surrounded by her people, she cut an imposing figure.

She had brought with her fourteen people, a full four more than Fatima had. It wasn’t exactly a bad sign, but it was something to worry about regardless.

Still, this was to be a peaceful negotiation, so she’d hold out hope regardless. Taking a steadying breath, she smiled at the other woman.

“Hello! My name is Fatima,” she told the other woman amicably. “I’m the one who called everyone here. May I ask your name…?”

“Avery,” she answered curtly.

“…uh, well, it’s nice to meet you,” Fatima said, shaking the Avery’s hand. She gave the other woman her best smile. “I just wish it had been under better circumstances.”

“Hm,” she hummed, finally softening out her frown. “I’m blunt, and I don’t want to deal with any dumb politics. So, I’ll tell you this now since it’s just the two of us. I want an alliance, and I want us all to stay peaceful. But if nothing else I’ll take just a single ally. So, if everything goes to shit here, do you want to be allies regardless?”

Fatima blinked slowly. That… she wasn’t expecting that, though she supposed she should’ve been. Nobody would be dumb enough to stay alone right now, so even one ally would be better than none. She’d just been thinking in terms of four, instead of two.

“Ah, all right,” she told Avery, “I’d love to be your ally.”

The redhead gave her a brittle smile. “Thank you.”

--

Three hours later, the other two ‘kings’ arrived, both of them men. They arrived together, having apparently stumbled across each other on the way to the lake. They marched up to Fatima and Avery, a dozen people following behind them.

While both of them looked Asian, their ages were wildly different. One of them was an older man, with tanned skin, a wrinkled face, and greying hair. The other was much more youthful, with paler skin and an unsure smile spread across his face.

“Hello,” the older man greeted them, bowing. “If I’m not mistaken, you two are the other, ah… ‘God-Kings?’”

“Yes, we are.” Fatima smiled at them. “It’s nice to meet you. We’ve set up a place for us to talk, if you’re willing,” she told them, waving at the stone seating she’d set up. “Also, uh, I know this might be a bit much to ask, but would it be alright if you left your followers somewhere? They can sit over with the rest of ours, but the two of us were talking, and we thought it might be better if we kept this to a ‘rulers only’ discussion for now.”

The older man frowned, mulling it over.

The younger man didn’t even think on it. “Sure, that’s fine! Anton, Laida, you two can go do your own things for a bit.”

Fatima gave him a look, unsure if he was being arrogant or not just thinking this through. Like, sure, she wasn’t going to attack them, but she’d expected him to put up a bit of a fight about getting rid of his guards. ‘Wait a second, did he only bring two people with him?’ she thought incredulously. ‘…I know he looks young, but how young is he, exactly?’

The older man side-eyed his companion, before sighing and waving off his followers as well.

“Well,” he grunted, sitting on the seat across from her, placing his hands on the stone dais between them, “I can see the two of you are already acquainted, and as you can see, we are as well. But we don’t know each other. As such, I believe introductions are in order, before we do anything else.”

“Hm. Yes, I agree,” Fatima smiled at him.

“I, uh, I’ll go first!” the younger man yelped, raising a hand like they were in a classroom.

‘Seriously, how old is he?’

He stood up from his seat, and then bowed at almost a ninety-degree angle. “My name is Tanaka Issei, I like swimming and drawing—uh, painting. I’m from Osaka, Japan. It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

Fatima side-eyed him. Yeah, that sounded like something a teacher would have you write on those dumb ‘ice-breakers’ that nobody liked. If this kid wasn’t still in high school, she’d eat her hijab.

“Well,” she hummed, gaining everyone’s attention. “it’s nice to meet you, Issei, right? You put your first name last in Japan, right?”

The teenager blushed, looking embarrassed for some reason, but nodded.

“Right,” she turned back to the others. “My name is Fatima Aziz. I’m from Dubai, which is in the Middle East if you didn’t know. Recently, I’ve found a new passion for fishing, so if any of you want to I’d be happy to go fishing with you if we get the chance. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

“Wait, hold on, are you Muslim?” Issei asked, looking thrown off.

“Yes?” Fatima asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, no!” the Issei assured her, waving his hands. “I just—I wasn’t expecting it! I sort of assumed—I mean, if we were all chosen randomly, I assumed most of us would be from Asia…”

“Is this some dumb anime thing you’re thinking of?” Avery asked dubiously, before gesturing to herself. “Unless I’ve misunderstood something about Asia, I’m pretty obviously not Asian. Also, I’m pretty sure there are Muslims in Japan.”

“Wait a minute,” Fatima frowned as she remembered something. “Dubai is in Asia. The Middle East is part of Asia. I am Asian.”

Issei moaned piteously, dropping his face into his hands. “I’m sorry, but can we please talk about something else?”

The redhead rolled her eyes, scoffing. “Yeah, well, I’m Avery, and I’m from Scotland. Edinburgh specifically.”

“Wait, really?” Fatima gave her a surprised look. “I thought you were from America or something. I can’t hear your accent at all.”

Avery gave her a look. “Isn’t something auto-translating our languages? Why would I have an accent if we’re all speaking the same language.”

“Erm,” she winced, before realizing something. “Hey, wait, I’m speaking English too. If we’re speaking the same language, why would it need to translate for us?”

“Maybe her real accent’s so thick it counts as a different language,” Issei quipped, before jerking back at Avery’s glare.

“Ahem,” the last man coughed, reminding the rest of them of his presence. With one last glare at Issei, they all calmed down and turned back to the last man. “If you’re all done, I still need to introduce myself. I am Xian Li, from Hangzhou, China. I would prefer it if you called me Xian for now. It is a pleasure to meet you all,” he bowed lightly to them.

The two women gave him polite nods, while Issei bowed back in return.

With introductions out of the way, Fatima decided it was time to start talking about what they’d actually come here for.

“Right,” she looked each of them in the eye, making sure their attention was on her. “You all know why we’re here. I want us to establish an alliance. I’m assuming you all have the numbers in the back of your mind; the amount of people who’ve been brought to this world to act as ‘God-Kings.’ You also know that it’s been ticking down, fast.”

“You don’t have to make a big speech about this,” Avery interjected with a scoff, crossing her arms. “I’m in. You want an alliance? You’ve got one. I’m not out here to kill people, but I also don’t want to get killed myself, and an alliance is the easiest way to deal with that.”

“Ah! I, uh, I would also like to join this alliance as well!” Issei yelped, raising a hand.

Fatima felt herself relax. Huh, that had been easier than she’d thought it’d be.

“Now, hold on,” Xian interrupted. “While I understand your enthusiasm, we need to temper this decision with caution. While Fatima has been nothing but pleasant so far, we do not know her, or each other. It would be foolhardy to jump into an alliance without giving it at least a little thought.”

“I have given it thought,” Avery snapped back. “Three weeks of thought, actually. And I think I want an alliance.”

“Wait a minute,” Fatima interjected. “While I know I shouldn’t be doing anything to undermine my own proposal, Mr. Xian has a point. We don’t know each other, and we don’t know what being in this alliance really means. What if one of us gets attacked, but because we never decided on any rules we should have to follow, the others decide they’d rather not help? So, instead of rushing this, I think we should set up some rules. Things that we have to follow, or else we get… some sort of punishment. I’m not sure what yet.”

“Well said,” Xian smiled at her.

Avery rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

“Uh, so what should the first rule be? No fighting each other?” Issei asked unsurely.

“That’s kind of the point of an alliance, du—Issei.”

“I think the second rule is that we should be polite to our allies,” Xian said mildly.

Avery shot the older man a withering look, but didn’t argue.

“The third rule, should be that, no matter what,” Fatima stressed, “we go to help our allies if they get attacked.”

Everyone nodded in agreement at that rule.

“We should also share food and supplies and stuff,” Avery told them.

Fatima shot her a confused look. “Food? Why should—actually, I mean, I agree, it sounds like a good idea. But why? Is there something you’re worried about?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” the Scot waved her arms around. “We’re somewhere cold. I don’t know where, but I’ve talked with my people, and I guarantee you we’ll be getting snow this winter. I’m pretty sure Dubai is in a desert, so I doubt you’ve delt with the snow much, but let me just tell you that snow is cold, and it kills a lot of game and crops we could be using for food. I don’t want my people to starve, and I don’t think you all want yours too either. So, when winter comes, whoever has an excess shares food.”

“Reasonable,” Xian nodded.

“Ah, yeah, I didn’t even think of that Miss Avery!” Issei smiled at her.

Avery just rolled her eyes.

“You bring up a good point,” Fatima told her, getting everyone’s attention again. “But I do have one issue with it. How are we going to ship food around? It’s over a day’s trip from me to all of your villages. Some of you might have to travel even further. Any food we have might go bad in that time, to say nothing less of actually moving it around.”

Avery frowned, not having thought of that.

“We could use boats, I believe,” Xian hummed, scratching his chin. “I’ve managed to make a few, since my village isn’t that far from the sea. I thought I could use them for fishing, but I could always make more for transport.”

“No, that probably won’t work,” Avery scowled. “The river might freeze come winter. If we put all our eggs in one basket, we might end up getting fucked. We should probably try and figure out a land route.”

Xian’s expression soured. “If what you say is true, a land route may be even worse. Traversing all that snow would be an issue in and of itself.”

Fatima frowned, thinking to herself. “Do any of you have horses? I have some pigs back in my village, though we obviously can’t ride those.”

“You have animals?” Xian asked, surprised. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“I have pigs too,” Avery told him, looking confused as well. “Surely you have pigs? Or something similar?”

“Uh,” Issei piped up, “Maybe everyone gets random buffs? Like a strategy game? Because I got chickens. And, uh, the eggs taste kind of weird, but they’re still good. I think.”

“Hrm, maybe…” Xian hummed, looking skeptical.

“Maybe it’s your boats?” Fatima asked. “Did you only make them after you arrived, or did they already have some ready before then?”

“Ah, I see,” he muttered, lighting up. “Yes, they had three before I arrived. I’ve had them make four more since then.”

“Uh,” Avery cut in, “while this is fascinating and all, I think we still have to deal with the whole, y’know, winter starvation thing?”

“Right,” Fatima nodded to her, somewhat embarrassed they got off track. “Does anyone else have any ideas about that?”

She looked to each of them hopefully, but unfortunately, none of them spoke up.

“Anything…?”

“Um, do we really need to figure this out right now?” Issei asked, before wincing at the glare Avery sent him.

“You’d rather our people starve!?” she shouted angrily.

“No! I mean—uh, they haven’t starved yet, right!? They’ve been living here a while, so they obviously know the land well! And we still have a couple months until winter, right? We don’t have to deal with everything on our first meeting!”

Avery continued to glare at him, before sighing and looking away. “All right,” she hissed, “you might have a point. I’m just—I’m just worried, all right?”

“We all are,” Xian told her softly, giving her a smile. “Trusts me, these last few weeks have been stressful for all of us. But we aren’t going to figure every problem out at once. One thing at a time, all right?”

Avery grunted, but begrudgingly nodded at the older man.

“Well,” Fatima asked, filling in the silence that followed Xian’s statement. “With that on the backburner for now, is there anything else we want to talk about?”

She looked at everyone, but it seemed no one had anything left they wanted to say.

“Right, then,” she smiled once more at all of them. “Thank you all for coming, and for agreeing to our alliance. I look forward to continuing to work with you in the future.”

The other agreed, and they all began standing up.

“So, are we planning to meet here again?” Xian asked, turning to face her fully.

“Hm. Yes, I think it would be a good idea,” Fatima nodded. “Would next month work? So we can clear up everything before the first snowfall?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Issei said, smiling at her.

Avery just grunted. “Yeah, sounds good.”

“Right, then we’ll meet up in a month’s time,” Fatima smiled at them once more, feeling relief flood through her. ‘Yes, this all worked out!’ she thought happily. ‘Alhamdulillah.’

“See you next time, then,” Avery nodded at them, before walking back to her people.

“If that is all, then I’ll need to return to my village as well,” Xian told her, giving her a shallow bow.

“That’s fine,” she smiled at him, nodding back. “It was good meeting you.”

“And you as well,” he smiled, before leaving too.

“Uh,” Issei spoke up nervously, “it was, um, nice meeting you too, Miss Fatima.”

‘Definitely a kid,’ she mused, her heart twisting at the thought. ‘Damn, how young can these people get. This whole thing was random, right? Does that mean there are even younger children out there? Toddlers!? How young could some of the people out there be?'

She sighed, before smiling as wide as she could at him. “It was nice meeting you as well, Issei.”

He blushed up to his ears, babbling a thank you, before turning and powerwalking back to his followers.

‘Cute kid,’ she thought, her lips twitching with suppressed laughter.

Still, now that everyone else was leaving it was time for her to go as well.

“Lestek, how prepared are you to leave?” she called out to the man she’d temporarily left in charge.

“Ready as always, Lady Fatima!” he called back, pounding his chest in a salute.

“Hrm. So, you’ll need a few more minutes?”

She laughed lightly as he began spluttering at her. With a grin she turned away, gathering up her own supplies. Grabbing her stuff, she let out a deep breath, feeling something inside of her relax for the first time in weeks. ‘Yeah, things are finally looking up.’

9,975 God-Kings Remain