Something Like a Love Story
When Kya was a little girl, her father used to tell stories for her and her mother. Some of them were adventure stories, and some were sillier and more light hearted. Some of them were true, and some of them were fiction. Some were ancient, and some he made up as he went along.
All of them, though, were about love. Love between friends, between family members, between lovers... but there was always love. (Kya knew some of her friends didn't like that last kind, that boys were supposed to be icky, but she'd never found the thought of romance especially gross. Unlike most kids her age, she thought it was cute when her parents kissed.)
Her father would save the best stories for the days and nights after the biggest storms, the ones that left the door blocked up and meant that the three of them would likely be stuck at home for several days, if not longer. After they'd eaten dinner and refueled the fire, Kya would cuddle up in her mother's lap on the rug and listen to her father tell fantastical tales of daring heroines and epic quests
When she was little, she wished for a husband like the ones in Dad's stories- valiant heroes and warriors. As she got older, her dreams shifted, became a little more realistic. I want someone who'll be there for me. I want someone who'll be my best friend. I want what Mom and Dad have.
One dream, however, never changed, never altered, never shifted. It's the dream she had when she was four years old, falling asleep to the sound of her father's stories, and it's the dream she has at sixeen years old, listening to him try to recite one last tale through chattering teeth and racking coughs.
I want someone who'll tell me and my children stories like these.
Hakoda looks over at the girl standing near the edge of the ice.
She's been there for weeks now, staring off into the ocean, as though if she waits long enough, her parents will return.
He doesn't really know what happened to Kya's mother. No one does. One morning, no more than a handful of days after they lowered her father's body into the sea, someone had found Kya standing there, watching the sea with a quiet, contemplative look on her face, her mother nowhere to be seen. His mother had been the only one brave enough to dare ask the girl.
"She's gone," Kya had said, a wistful look on her face, and that was all any of them ever heard from her on the subject.
Threw herself into the sea, poor thing, say the whispered rumors, couldn't stand the grief.
These whispers, of course, are usually followed by the next question.
What will happen to the girl?
Her father had been an orphan (his parents lost to the raids, long before either Kya or Hakoda had been born), and no one knew who her mother's people had been, so there was no family to take her in. His mom had offered, of course, as had several others, but Kya had- softly, politely, but firmly and resolutely- refused them all. She wakes in the morning, does her chores, and then returns to her post, gazing out at the fathomless blue waters.
The general assumption is that she'll have to find herself a husband soon. At sixteen, she's old enough to get married, although she doesn't seem to have a boyfriend.
(His mother is the only one in the village who seems to think otherwise.
"That girl isn't going to get married until she chooses to, whether that be in one year or ten," he overheard her saying the other day. "Kya takes after her father that way. He never let anyone push him into anything, either.")
Married, huh? At fifteen, Hakoda hasn't thought much about marriage. He's at that in-between stage, old enough to have gone ice dodging, but too young to have earned his first pelt. He's got another year or two before he'll be ready to pitch his own tent, nevermind when he'll be able to provide for a family.
He's never been especially close with Kya, although their mothers were friends. He doesn't even remember if they've ever had a conversation without one of their parents present. He wouldn't go so far as to call their relationship 'friendship.'
But the sight of her standing there, day after day, watching and waiting as though she expects the waves to return what they took from her, touches a part of him he can't quite put into words.
Hakoda has never been alone, not the way she is. He can't imagine how she must be feeling.
Even so, it takes him a few more days to work up the nerve to approach her.
Finally, one day, he manages to muster up the courage, and walks over to what he's come to think of as 'Kya's spot.'
He doesn't speak (he's never been much for words), just stands and gazes out at the ocean with her.
"Can I help you?" Kya finally asks, clearly wondering what he's doing here.
"No," he says, sitting down and pulling out a piece of stone and a small knife from his parka. He's never been very good at carving, but he enjoys the feeling of rock in his palm, the pressure of the knife in his fingers as he patiently cuts away tiny flakes, trying to match the shape in his head with the one in his hands.
A few more minutes go by before she turns back to him, sitting down.
"Hakoda, why are you here?" Kya's voice is soft, but he can hear a hint of annoyance in it.
"You looked lonely," he tells her. "I figured I might as well keep you company."
"Why?" She doesn't sound annoyed now, just confused.
"Because you shouldn't have to be alone." Hakoda looks her in the eyes as he says this, willing her to understand. "You're a part of this tribe, Kya, and we care about you. That means you'll never really be on your own."
"Oh?" For a moment, he thinks he sees a glimpse of a smile on her lips, possibly the first one she's shown since before her father got sick. "And what would a boy like you know about loneliness?"
"Nothing, really," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "So what?"
She doesn't reply.
Before she even realizes it, Kya's grown used to Hakoda, his presence more of a comfort than she would have thought. He's there every day, for no apparent reason other than to keep her company.
Some days they're quiet, just silently breathing in each other's company.
And some days they talk.
Kya has never before never realized just how funny Hakoda was. He's always seemed so somber and serious, but as they spend more time together, she gets to see more of his sillier side. She'd never have guessed the chief's son had such a great sense of humor.
"Alright, I give up," she says. "What did the ocean say to the ice floe?"
"Nothing," Hakoda explains. "It just waved! Get it?"
She stares at him for a moment before breaking out into laughter.
"Bwahahahaha! It waved! Because it's the ocean- waves- oh that's hilarious!" She slaps the ice next to her, chortling. "Tell me another one!"
And so he tells her another. And another. And another. Until they're both so exhausted from laughing that they're lying on their backs, breathing hard. And then she tilts her head to meet his eyes, and they're laughing again.
And Kya thinks to herself, I wouldn't mind laughing like this every day.
One afternoon, Hakoda arrives at what's become their spot, only to find it deserted. Kya isn't there.
His mind instantly flashes over to one of the other whispered rumors he's heard people saying about Kya.
Perhaps she stands by the sea because she longs to jump in too, to follow after her parents.
Before he can think twice, Hakoda runs back to the village, barging into his home.
"Mom, Kya's-"
"Yes?" Two heads turn in his direction. One belongs to his mother, and the other is Kya's.
"Kya? What are you doing here?" He can see that the two of them are sitting over the carcass of the tiger seal he'd brought home that morning, but he's not quite sure why.
"Because I asked your mother if I could help her prepare the jerky, in exchange for getting to keep some," Kya explains.
Oh.
Hakoda hasn't thought much about what living on her own means for Kya, other than the wistful loneliness he's been trying to alleviate.
No family means no menfolk to catch tiger seals for her to prepare, to build up a food supply for the approaching cold season. It means doing her own fishing, and no one to help her prepare furs for new blankets, and-
And everyone in the village would be happy to provide her with those things, no questions asked. Knowing his mother, she'd probably already been planning on bringing some of the jerky over to Kya's hut when it was done.
Kya's not here because she needs to be, she's here because she wants to be. Because maybe, finally, she's ready to be around other people again, to rejoin life again, rather than living in the past, waiting for something that won't return.
There are still some days at the shore's edge, but they're few and far in between. More and more, Kya's in the village, spending time with other people, being a part of the tribe in a way she hasn't in months.
They still find time to talk, of course. They're still friends. But it's not the same.
He's glad for her, of course, but a part of him misses those days. He pushes those thoughts away.
The first big storm after Kya loses her parents is hard.
She's trapped in her house, alone, where she'll probably be stuck for days, if not weeks.
She's well-prepared, of course. She's not going to starve or freeze- physically, she's fine.
But there's no Dad to tell her stories. No Mom to wrap her up in hugs.
Kya thought she'd been lonely before, in those first few days and weeks, but those had been nothing like this. It's so cold, and the hut is too big for one person, and it's too quiet.
She's never minded the quiet before.
She thinks back to those days spent at the ice's edge, watching the sea with Hakoda. Some days, they'd been silent, just sitting together until the sun sank below the horizon.
Kya doesn't think the quiet would be so bad if Hakoda were here with her.
Within a few days, she hears digging.
It's too early- the snow won't have melted enough to get through properly, but that doesn't appear to be stopping whoever's shoveling towards her front door. A few minutes later, she opens it to reveal sunlight- and one very worried-looking teenage boy.
"Are you alright, Kya?" Hakoda asks.
"I'm fine," she says. "You worry too much."
And she thinks to herself, I wouldn't mind seeing that face every day.
A few days after Hakoda turns sixteen, he and Kya are talking (though later he won't be able to remember what it is they were talking about), when she changes the subject.
"I'm going to marry you," she says suddenly. Hakoda blinks.
"I'm sorry, what?" He's gotten used to the strange mixture of softness and bluntness that is Kya, but she still manages to surprise him sometimes. (That time she hadn't taken his protests about being too old for penguin sledding stands out vividly.)
"I love you," she says without a trace of embarassment. "You're sweet, and you make me laugh, and my life is better with you in it. So we should get married."
He tries (and fails) to fight back the blush flooding to his cheeks.
"Don't I get a say?" Hakoda asks.
She tilts her head slightly, apparently confused.
"Do you... not want to marry me?" Kya frowns. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything, it was stupid, and-"
He grabs her arm, stopping her from walking away in the middle of her embarrassed ramble.
"-just let me go find a hole to crawl into and-"
Hakoda interrupts her babbling with a kiss.
"Of course I love you," he says, pulling away. "But Kya... I can't get married now. I still need to finish preparing my pelts, and build a bigger house, and-"
"Oh, I know that," she interrupts. "I didn't mean we should get married tomorrow, silly. But someday."
"Someday," he agrees.
No one in the tribe seems the slightest bit surprised to see the two of them walking around holding hands, or sharing the occassion kiss- apparently, they were the only ones who hadn't realized that they were courting.
The seasons pass by achingly slowly. Kya doesn't mind, not really- she's learned to treasure time with the people she has, rather than rushing forward to the next stage in life, and the next.
But each evening, as Hakoda leaves her at her door, she feels a touch of impatience, waiting for the day they can come home together, for the night she doesn't have to sleep alone.
TIme creeps by so slowly that she almost doesn't realize that it's been a year without her parents until the moon is nearly new.
She cries on that day, something she hasn't done since the day Kanna told her that her father wasn't going to be getting better. Hakoda holds her through the tears, and she wonders what her mother would think of him.
Oh, Mom, why did you have to go?
The second anniversary is easier. That day, she sits on the shore with Hakoda again, and, while she doesn't cry, she doesn't speak, either.
Kya knows that her mother isn't coming back. She's always known that. But she's going to be an orphan on her wedding day, and it hurts. She wonders if this is how her father had felt, or her mother. They'd been even more alone than she is- she can't imagine the thought.
Oh, please, she prays, Don't let my children be orphaned young, too.
Hakoda's nearly eighteen before he starts panicking.
He wants to propose soon, but he doesn't know what to give Kya for a betrothal gift.
The traditional gift is a necklace, he knows, but they don't have the right sort of shells around here, and the war has kept traders away for decades. Most of the men his age make do with other things- the only requirement is that it be something pretty, something that serves no other practical purpose but to look nice. He doesn't really understand, although he recalls his mother laughing when he'd asked about it as a child. ("A woman wants to feel special," she'd said, "she wants something she wouldn't have gotten for herself, something that's not for anyone's use but her own.")
He's hopeless at weaving, and he doesn't feel like one of his clumsy carvings would do. He could buy or trade for something, of course, but what?
"Hakoda," Mom says to him one day. "Here." She tosses a small object in his direction, and, without thinking, he reaches out and catches it.
"What on earth-" Carefully, he unfurls the blue cloth, revealing a carved shell pendant hanging from the ribbon. "Where did this come from, Mom?" It's not her necklace, the one his father gave her- she's still wearing that one. He's never seen this before in his life.
"A woman has her secrets," she says. "I've been holding onto that for years, wondering what I should do with it. I can't tell you how many times I thought about chucking it into the ocean. I imagine you could probably make better use of it than I."
"You mean..." He's been holding off asking his mother- not because he's afraid she'll say no (she adores Kya, saying that she's the most sensible choice he's made in years), but because she'll say not yet- and somehow, that's almost worse.
"Go on already." Mom laughs, tilting her head in the direction of Kya's house. "I think she's been waiting long enough."
Kya says yes, of course.
It isn't until the next big storm that Kya discovers the problem.
She and Hakoda have been married for several moons by this point. It's been tricky, getting used to living with another person, but she's happier than she's been in years. However, this new revelation threatens to shatter their blissful newly-wed peace.
The trouble is this: Hakoda can't tell stories.
She doesn't know how they've gone on so long without this crucial piece of information coming out. He's never told her stories before, but she's never expected him to- stories are for cold nights bundled up at home, curled together around the fire. She'd just assumed all husbands told stories. Hakoda, however, is bewildered when she sits down on the rug after dinner, asking him for his favorite tale.
He tries, of course, and she loves him for it, but his attempts are pitiful- a lot of stuttering and backtracking, and confusing plot threads that twist and knot until both of them are totally lost.
A part of her wants to cry, but she reigns it in. So she doesn't have the husband she'd dreamt of, the one who would tell her stories to keep her warm. But she has Hakoda, and that's even better. This dream will just have to die.
But when the children come, who will tell them stories? All children need stories, she knows that much- someone else will have to tell them.
Hakoda interrupts her silent musings.
"Do you know any stories?"
"Of course I do!" She remembers every story her father ever told her, even the most nonsensical ones.
"Well, why don't you tell me one?" He smiles at her, and she tilts her head, considering this.
Her mother had never told stories. She was too quiet for that.
So? I'm not Mom, and Hakoda isn't Dad.
Her marriage isn't going to be exactly like her parents', and that's okay.
Sometimes dreams have to die- but other times, they just have to change.
"Alright," she says, leaning back into Hakoda's firm chest. "Long ago, when spirits still walked the land..."
And Kya tells her husband a love story- or, at least, something like a love story.