Weaponsmith - Chapter 140 (Patreon)

It’s hard to say what exactly is left to be done with life from here on out.

Hineni stands there, looking at the frog-god, Nekyia, the sworn rival of the woman he intends to marry. She is a person who has caused him lots of trouble, and she’s a sworn enemy of the owl-god.

But Nekyia has never hurt anyone. Sure, she kidnapped him and brainwashed him. But those were things she did out of the sickness of her mind and the desperation of her heart.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” asks Hineni, looking at her. “Why all of the games and the kidnapping?” he asks. “Why the mind-control and everything?” He shakes his head. “You really could have just sent a letter,” says Hineni, noticing a repeating theme in every single interaction of his with any god. “You know? One line? ‘We’re related, weird right’? and that would have been that.”

Nekyia looks at him, playing with the hair of her wig. “We were brother and sister before,” she explains. “However, I died. You died. Ribbit,” says the frog-god. “That frees us both of the shackles of those bonds.”

“Like hell it does, you weirdo,” replies Hineni, clapping a hand down onto her shoulder.

“Ribbit?” she asks, looking down at it and then at him.

“You realize you’re kind of out there, right?” he asks, tilting his head. “I think the whole frog-thing really messed you up.”

She frowns, looking away dejectedly. “So you do think I’m ugly, right?”

“Hey,” says Hineni. “I said you’re weird. Not that you’re ugly,” he explains, pointing at himself. “I told you already, this here is a masterpiece,” says Hineni. “And it runs in the family.”

Nekyia tilts her head, matching the angle of his, to stare at him from the same level, her throat moving, stretching in and out as she breathes. “I promised to take care of you,” replies Nekyia. “I didn’t.”

“You did,” replies Hineni. “Because of you, I didn’t get eaten back then, and now, here I am.” He looks at her. “I pissed off our dad and ruined his life’s work like any good son would. I have a good life and a good family. I’m happy.”

Her throat stretches in and out as she quietly croaks, watching him with her emerald eyes.

“You’re free from your promise. It’s done,” says Hineni, pulling her in and hugging her. “Thank you.”

The big-frog croaks and awkwardly stands there for a moment.

“What is this?” she asks. “Are we eloping?”

Hineni sighs. “Get a grip. It’s called an ‘awkward sibling hug’,” he says, patting her back. “It’s what families do.”

“Hi~ ne~ ni~ hi~”

“No more of that,” he says, as Nekyia hugs him back. “We’ll try to make this work somehow. I still need to talk to Obscura,” he says. “This is going to be a whole thing.”

— Something wet touches his ear, and he turns his head to look at the long tongue that has risen up over his shoulder.

“Aaand now you made it weird. Okay,” says Hineni, letting go of her and wiping his ear dry. “Good talk.”

There is a quiet croaking from her throat as she pulls her tongue back in. “We can talk more, right?” asks Nekyia. “You want to talk to me, right?” She blinks. “You’re not just pretending to want to talk to me, right?”

Hineni nods. “Right,” he affirms, saying it a fourth time. She smiles. “Hey, I gotta ask out of curiosity, where did you get all of your money from anyway?” He rubs his chin. “Who pays the frog-god?”

She croaks and looks around before leaning in to whisper into his ear.

“Wishing wells.”

“Huh?” asks Hineni, looking at her in confused surprise.

She nods. “I have frogs beneath every wishing well in the nation. They bring me the money that people throw in.”

Hineni blinks and then laughs.

It’s not really what he expected.

_____________________________________________

The new house is actually really nice.

He’s a little bummed out that he wasn’t here when it was ‘growing’, even if it was only a few days. Still.

Hineni looks at the various rooms. There’s everything they need here for a home. The others already set everything up in anticipation of his return, which he really appreciates.

The man rubs a hand over a windowsill as he repeats the phrase in his mind once again.

‘In anticipation of his return’.

He stares out through the glass, looking not jealously and sadly at swarms of people walking by his station in the world, as he had in his past, but instead at the sheer, vast, endlessness of the world.

It hasn’t even been that long, has it?

A few months.

Five, perhaps.

His finger taps against the windowsill.

Everything is…

— He sighs.

Everything has really come together, hasn’t it? He lifts his gaze up towards a small fairy-house, hanging emptily on the wall.

Horseshit.

Hineni narrows his eyes. This blows.

He turns around, walking back down the hall to find Nekyia. There’s something he has to ask.

_____________________________________

“What did you mean?” asks Hineni, looking at her and grabbing her shoulder. In the mean-time, Nekyia has wandered off to the collection of gods in the living space, who are all still dropping in one after the other.

There are a lot of gods, apparently.

They’ve all come to discuss the future of the nation and the world now that the game of death has been put to an end. There must be a reconfiguration of the old seats of power and of interaction with human society.

— Say some.

Others prefer that things stay as they are.

That is why all the gods have gathered in the central nation, in what may be the greatest landmark to ever exist, to hold this talk.

The room is full of hundreds of people of varying shape and make. Some of them take their normal ‘human’ forms, as elves or whatever else. But many of them are in their more exotic, abstract shapes, and it’s all kind of a mess to look at, honestly.

Many of them look his way, whispering and mumbling to themselves.

He can only assume the ‘secret’ of his birth circumstances is out of the bag and has made its way around godly society.

“Ribbit?”

“Why the hell did death send the horse?” he asks, looking at her. Nekyia quietly croaks. But smiles.

— The room goes quiet.

Hineni narrows his eyes, looking around at them. “You’re telling me the god of death itself had a horse do his dirty-work? He didn’t have some cultists or something, at least?” Hineni points to the side. “He could’ve sent something more scary at least, like… I dunno. That guy,” says Hineni, pointing at an armored god who may or may not be related to some aspect of war.

The creature pounds against its chest. “I am the master o-”

“- Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says Hineni, waving him off.

Someone clears their throat noisily to the side, as if he were being very rude right now.

Hineni turns his head, pointing at the elegantly dressed and apparently offended woman, clad in a dress of waving layers of blue. “Get the hell out of my house, you kitchen-sponge,” barks Hineni, pointing at the goddess who is very likely the primal, ancient goddess of water.

She and several others gasp, as if they had never heard such a thing before. Hineni points at himself. “See this tree?” he asks, nodding to the room that we’re in. “I peed it on it once. That makes it mine.”

“Oh, yeah. I did that too!” calls Rhine from the side.

“Good man,” says Hineni, giving him a thumbs-up. He looks back at Nekyia. “Nekyia. Who. Was. The. Horse?”

— The room falls quiet as a silence spreads through the hundreds of people there.

“Why was its magic so prevalent? Why did it make the note with our names? Why is horse the five-god and not ‘death’? Or, I dunno, ‘human’?” asks the man. “Is there even a human-god?”

“I am the human-god!” calls a loud, booming voice from the side.

Hineni looks over his way towards the man on the sidelines, who looks like an extremely apt specimen of humanity. The god is huge and musclebound like an ox. “Keep up the good work,” says Hineni. “Love where this is all going.” He looks back at Nekyia. “Nekyia. Who gives a fuck about horses?”

“— Now, now,” says a voice from the side. Another man walks over. Hineni doesn’t recognize him from anywhere. “Please, Weaponsmith Hineni,” says the stranger, lifting his hands. “We haven’t met yet,” says the god of something or other. “But let me say that it’s been a hard time for you. You haven’t slept yet and a lot has happened.” He tries to calm Hineni down. “Please. You’re raving.”

Hineni quietly stares at him for a moment. That may be true, actually.

He looks around the room in confusion, his eyes wandering over the party and the hundreds of people here, all of great wealth, power, and station — all gathered in one room together to conspire about the world’s future.

When has that ever led to something good happening?

Hineni’s eyes go wide as he realizes what this is. “— Oh, fuck me,” says the man. He looks around at the room, realizing. “We’re still in it, aren’t we?” he asks. “This isn’t base-reality, is it?”

Something ribbits next to him.