Victoria Constance Emalia Stanford has become enamored with her new husband, the son of the volcano god. He’s handsome, charming, everything she could dream of, and he returns her feelings in kind. The only hitch is that he can bathe in lava, something her flesh is too sensitive to bear. However, Nalani knows of a mask which will strengthen Victoria’s skin and let her enjoy a liquid stone Jacuzzi with her hubby.
@internutter/challenge-04750-m001-all-alone-more-or-less -- Deathshead419
[AN: Had to insert the link, and I know you're kicking yourself about that, OP]
According to the noble savages, Intra and Maugamu had arranged for Nalani to have a bride. Maugamu's undersea rumblings and Intra's fierce storms and enormous waves had, indeed, washed up a bride with skin like marble and hair the colour of the very best of the natives' alcohol, hair that flowed down instead of coiling up. Victoria had to agree that she did fit this strange prophecy, at least after she was able to wash the salt from her hair.
And she had to agree that meeting an actual demigod was an experience far above accepting the highly reluctant courtship of Duke Nazelnoth. Just seeing Nalani walking down the streets of Blessed-By-Maugamu was enough to change her mind about returning to Civilisation. The way he spoke to her, treating her with a reverence she had never known before that day.
He said, "I am very sorry that my father and his friend tore you away from the life you knew."
She blurted, "I'm not," under her breath. His loincloth and chief's cloak did nothing to enrich imagination. Not that that stopped Victoria from imagining anyway. She cleared her throat and said, "I'm certain I'll be able to adapt, once in good company such as your own. I am surprised that you speak the Trader Tongue so eloquently."
"I'm not speaking it, you're hearing it," he smirked. And thus began her education in things Divine. Nalani could be understood by anyone, and thus had to enlist small children to teach Victoria the words of the island Maugamune.
The children involved thought it was hilarious.
He courted her so gently that she wasn't aware she was being courted. Victoria certainly appreciated his attention, his guidance, and his gentle education. She admired him for his respect for her boundaries. And she was happy to marry him when he asked.
There was just one small problem. The island's marriage tradition involved the bride and groom bathing together. And ever since Nalani helped his father birth his baby sister, he could only bathe in lava. Water came to the boil around him and boiled away at best. And it gave him an awful chill. The sea did not hurt him so badly, but there was the salt issue in that equation.
"My father has foreseen this, and has been making something. I shall swim through his blood and see if he has finished it."
That was just... something Nalani could do. Victoria was used to his demigod stuff by that time, and set up a little camp by the cauldera. She made herself as comfortable as she could and kept watch over the simmering molten rock. Karkaul, her mother-in-law-to-be also sat watch with her.
"Have faith," said Karkaul. "The gods have a way with gifts." It was hard to believe that she was over a century old. She still looked twenty-five at her oldest. She had been eighty when she went to her god to beg a follower. She was eighty-one and looking twenty when she birthed a demigod.
"I have been shorn of all my doubts," Victoria told her. "You're a good mother to have raised such a good man. I can only hope I'm just as good a wife to him."
"You must be strong," said Karkaul. "He is part god, but he is also a man. He will not admit a weakness, so you must be strong enough to let him be weak."
"That's a lesson I learned a long time ago," said Victoria. "One I hadn't thought to employ for some time."
"Practice it," advised Karkaul. "We don't know if you're going to get him pregnant."
To be fair, she'd also impregnated a god with the sister island. It was part of the family history. Victoria was about to ask about the details involved in the separate births, but Nalani emerged from the lava.
Victoria politely looked to the sky as he put his loincloth back on. She wanted to leave one thing for the wedding night, after all. When she peeked again, he was as dressed as he could get, and holding a peculiar shape in one hand.
"This will help you," said Nalani, presenting an orange-glowing mask that cooled to black. It looked like it was a set of curves and curls in the shape of artistically tangled vines. "Our blood will merge and you shall become part god once the ceremony is complete."
The mask meshed perfectly with her face. It caused her no pain when it did so. Looking through the eyes of the mask turned the world into a living mesh of lights, interwoven with the physical matter. She could see the physical and the metaphysical together.
"This is how you see the world?" she asked, startled by how he was wreathed in golden, sparkling flames. She saw a blue-green web around her arms. Settling slowly towards her skin. Victoria knew exactly when it would become part of her.
When she joined with the son of the volcano god.
She began to undo her clothes, heading for the lava in absolute trust. She knew, somehow, what kind of demigod she would become. A fertility demigod. One for regrowth after disaster. Counter to the destruction of a volcano.
[Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash]
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