Challenge #04849-M100: Stolen Mercy

Victoria Constance Emilia Stanford has become a goddess, enjoying her new form and her husband. Alas, it seems that some desperate folks from a drought stricken land would like to enjoy her powers, for they kidnap her from the shores in the dead of night whilst her husband and father in law slept. This is unlikely to end well for anyone involved… Sequel to: @internutter/challenge-04815-m066-bride-of-the-son-of-the-volcano-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04815-m066-bride-of-the-son-of-the-volcano-god -- Deathshead419

There was a new goddess, though few in Arunem could pronounce her name. What they did know was that she could revitalise land devastated by disasters. They knew how to spot her from a distance. Skin the colour of marble. Hair that flowed down instead of curling up. And, of course, seedlings sprouted wherever she walked. She lived on the islands of Blessed-By-Maugamu, and all of Arunem had heard of how they prospered.

All of Arunem needed her presence, and the Baushau tribe didn't want to go through any formalities. Their lands were burning-dry and their food plants were dying. Soon, the people would be dying. They landed in the night and made sure she slept with cloth soaked in dreamweed wine, so they could carry her away.

They made sure she was tied up and secure in their canoe before they launched to race to their homeland.

She woke up halfway through the following day, immediately outraged. Then she saw who had taken her. Not the men of the Baushau, but the mothers of Baushau. One was a grandmother, but all of them were looking worried. Their arms never stopped working the paddles, though they took turns singing their fast-rowing song.

The milk-skinned goddess stilled her screaming and calmed her rage. She could see that all the mothers of Baushau were stick-thin. They were all good mothers, making sure their children had their fill before they took the scraps for themselves.

She said in the gods-tongue that all could understand, "You didn't need to steal me. I would have come if you'd asked."

"We could not take that chance," said the grandmother. "The last of our stores are almost gone. We cannot grow the seeds we have, the ground is too dry. If you must have wrath, have it on me. This is my idea."

Each of the six mothers didn't stop paddling until they reached the shores of Arunem, where they unbound the goddess Vykoria and carried the canoe up the dry riverbed to their tribal lands. Though seedlings sprouted in her footsteps, they shriveled and died soon after she passed.

Nevertheless, it gave them hope. There were seedlings in her footprints.

They reached the scorched village and the cracked ground that had been their fields, where the adults were starving worse than their children. But they were all starving. Just as the goddess Vykoria entered the Baushau holy spaces, the whole ground shook, and a dark cloud began to be seen from Blessed-By-Maugamu.

"You have angered my husband and father, but I can calm them in time," said Vykoria. "Let me determine what has gone wrong." As sprouts rose and fell by her toes, she closed her eyes and spread her fingers. Her flowing hair spread around her as if she were underwater.

For a pace of time as the dark clouds spread across the sky, there was whispering in the air. Unseen forces moved the dust around.

Then Vykoria settled back to her mortal form. "You have angered Mastorava by forgetting to thank her for your last harvest. One of you must follow the course of your river upstream and capture the first animal larger than a dog that you see. That shall be your sacrifice to her in amends. In this moment you must run for your houses. NOW!"

The voice of command from a goddess sent them running before they understood why they were running. The first lava bomb hit the neighbouring ocean and sent fish raining down on the ground. And the goddess Vykoria began to sing the songs of Blessed-By-Maugamu, adding the song she sang to her husband.

He had sent five bombs, which rained fish upon their houses and shook the earth. His father had sent the ash cloud to blot out their sun, and it settled down on their fields. Once Maugamu and Nalani heard her song, they stopped their godly revenge.

The villagers cooked the fish they knew, and were grateful for the feast. The canniest of their hunters followed Vykoria's bidding, finding a fat goat in the mountains upstream. Only once the sacrifice went through, Mastorava allowed Intra to send the rains. Only then could Vykoria grow the seeds that the mothers sowed.

By the time the crops were flourishing, the demigod Nalani had sailed a canoe to the island and up the river to the lands of Baushau. He was steaming mad, but the grandmother came forward.

"It was my idea to steal her, god's son, for the sake of the children. Vent your wrath on me."

Vykoria had been with those very children in the fields just seconds before. Now she put her marble-white hand gently on Nalani's dark basalt shoulder. She said, "Any mother would give everything she has for her children. Any grandmother doubly so."

"They stole you from me," he seethed. "Did they hurt you?"

"Not a scratch. They just needed me, and were scared I would not come."

And since they had both been born, and had once been small, they remembered being scared. The burning of his eyes cooled. "Then I shall be merciful, for your sake. Let the word go out that the next to try such a wild gamble will face my full wrath."

"I will tell them," said the grandmother. "I will tell all of them. We must ask the gods for their mercies. Even when they still wear mortal flesh."

"I must still curse you," said Nalani. "Therefore I curse you with fifty more years. Make sure you travel far and tell many in that time."

[Photo by @mineral_of_demon?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nastia Petruk on Unsplash]

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