Victoria Constance Emalia Stanford has had the most dreadful week. Her birthday voyage has ended in an oh so unfortunate shipwreck, her favorite dress is ruined, and she’s washed ashore on an island inhabited by volcano worshipping natives. But, what’s this? Their so called God king is so handsome, so hot, strong like stone.
Perhaps next week won’t be so bad…
A sequel to @internutter/challenge-04752-l365-his-little-sister -- Deathshead419
On one hand, providence and the kind hand of the Allmighties had seen to it that she survived the wreck. The piece of decking she had found to cling to had washed her ashore. Safe enough, or at least alive. Providence had not ensured the preservation of her dress or the lack of salt or sand in her petticoats.
Victoria Constance Emalia Stanford, of the Fonstpring Stanfords, was barely able to drag herself to the high tide mark. Exhausted, pained, and in an unseemly appearance, she was forced to take her rest on the sands under the beating sun.
It was when she woke that Victoria bemoaned her fate. "Shipwrecked," she cried. "Marooned without hope of seeing civilisation once more! How can I, a weak and fragile woman, possibly survive in this utter desolation?"
Mere paces away, one of the natives finished boring a hole into a coconut. She added a small piece of bamboo to the new orifice and took it to Victoria. "You drink. You come to the shade. You feel better."
Victoria barely remembered that it was impolite to criticise a host's manner of dress when one appeared at their residence unannounced. She did do her level best to not mention that a loincloth and a necklace of shells and stones was not appropriate attire for the public.
Her host was correct, the water inside the coconut did make her feel better, and sitting in the shade improved her state a great deal. It did nothing to improve her clothes, alas. In her time of recovery, Victoria noted that all the savages of this island wore very little at all. Men and women alike wore a little loincloth, and the children wore nothing at all.
Their boating technology didn't seem more advanced than tiny canoes. If one was lucky, they might be big enough for a sail and an outrigger.
No shoes, no cobbled streets, no carriages, galas, nor festivals. No fine society to rub elbows with. No operas.
She started to weep.
Her half-naked host offered her more coconut, fire-roasted fish, and fresh fruits to try and soothe her mood, but nothing worked. Finally, a host of natives hauled Victoria upright and helped her drag herself and her salt-stiffened skirts to the village.
In any other circumstances -say, being freely able to go home again- it would have been quaint and picturesque. Now that she was ostensibly trapped in it, it looked like her exact nightmare of a primitive backwater full of half-naked savages. And wild animals. And they had a volcano. So of course they had a volcano god, apparently named Maugamu. The temple had enjoyed a rejuvination, according to her chattering host, owing to the existance of Maugamu's son and their new chieftain, Nalani.
It seemed a little rich, but deities had made demigods with mortals before. The exact mechanics of how a volcano could mate with a mortal were beyond her. Then again, Victoria had never truly felt the touch of the Divine. She was aware the gods existed and occasionally influenced the path of history. Her general attitude was that if she didn't bother them, they wouldn't bother with her.
Until she laid eyes on the son of the volcano god. Skin like polished basalt. Hair like wild flames. Eyes that shone like embers. Built like a fine and sturdy temple to the very concept of divinity.
Victoria had been betrothed to a duke before the wreck. The instant she greeted this demigod, she was suddenly willing to be betrothed to a king.
[Photo by Ernests Vaga on Unsplash]
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