Nation and all its characters do not belong to me, but to Terry Pratchett.
I haven't actually read this book, I listened to the audio version, but the story immediately struck me and this sort of fell into my head. Having only listened once, I apoligize for any misspellings or inaccuracies.
Princess Ermintrude of England had a problem.
Actually, she had several problems, not the least of which was the fact that anyone besides her father absolutely refused to call her Daphne, as she called herself. People had actually called her that for a while, until her grandmother had ever so kindly corrected them all, and now she was firmly and forever Princess Ermintrude of England.
Some thought the alliteration was charming. Some tried to call her 'Trudy,' which was dreadful. Others wanted 'Minnie,' which was just as bad. One particularly horrid cousin of hers, who thought that he was particularly funny, called her 'Erm,' and thought that it was particularly flattering. Daphne was not amused.
Another of her problems, the ones that had nothing to do with politics, that is, was her husband, Erik. Actually, Erik wasn't the problem. Daphne was the problem, and she didn't particularly like the idea of solving herself, so she just became more problematic.
Most people, the same people who thought that it was so very fortunate that she had been rescued from that dreadful island with all those dreadful savages and the same people who agreed with her grandmother about anything, thought that she and Erik had had a fairy tale romance.
This was a fundamental lie.
They got along, that much was true, but there was nothing exciting or even, frankly, romantic about their romance.
Prince Erik of Holland had come to visit the new British Royal family, he and Daphne had not been hostile, and Erik had asked at dinner one night if she had ever considered the prospect of their marriage. Her father had thought that it was a 'jolly good' idea, those who already appreciated the alliteration of her title positively beamed at the prospect of Ermintrude and Erik of England, and the thing was settled.
Of course, since they had been sixteen at the time, the thing hadn't been settled for four years, but it was now and had been for five years last Tuesday, well and settled.
The problem with this problem, Daphne reflected now, was that she didn't feel settled.
Erik was a lovely gentleman. He had fresh trousers and shined shoes and neatly combed blond hair, and her grandmother adored him. Perhaps that was the problem—Daphne had disagreed with her grandmother about everything else in life, and she was fairly certain that she should also disagree with her when it came to proper husbands.
Her grandmother hadn't like Mau at all.
And there, that, right there, was the problem. The big problem that all of her other little problems had sprung from over the years. Everything reminded her of the Nation, in one way or another, and the Nation reminded her of its chief, which reminded her of things that decent, married, royal ladies should not be reminded of.
Not that they had… ahem… be assured of that. She was as a maid should be on her wedding night; maidenly.
Her grandmother had given her a speech before her wedding night, one that would have shocked Ermintrude but one that Daphne already knew all about.
It just so happened that when that thing that was supposed to happen on your wedding night happened, Daphne didn't close her eyes and think of England, as her grandmother had suggested. Instead, she closed her eyes and thought of… Mau.
She had felt horrid afterwards, adulterous, and she had lain awake next to Erik all night while he slept and tortured herself over it.
But in the light of the day, sensible Daphne had kicked pious Ermintrude out, and Daphne determined that the thing had to be done, and if that was the only way that she could get it done, then she would keep on thinking.
Daphne still tried not to think of Mau too much, or his Nation, but she didn't feel guilty anymore. She just felt sad and achy, and it was much less trouble to just not think of it than to try and cheer herself up afterwards.
She had gotten better at that thing with her husband, too. Usually she remembered that it was Erik, and she was alright. But sometimes, sometimes she still pretended that it was Mau's warm breath in her ear, his kisses down her throat, his muscled torso moving above her.
Going back had been a really, really bad idea.
It had also been the best thing that had ever happened to her.
When they had come to the nation again, almost precisely one year after she had left it the last time, the telescope had been the first thing out on the beach. Daphne had been the second.
The first thing she had done had been to almost bowl Mau over, running right into him without waiting for him to even open his arms. The second had been to notice the small little changes that one wouldn't necessarily notice unless one went away for a year and then came back.
The island was busier, better built, with many people that Daphne didn't recognize on it.
Pilu had apparently married one of these newcomers, and they were radiantly happy. Pilu couldn't stop talking about his wife to anyone who would listen, and since the islanders had stopped listening ages ago, Daphne and the crew of the ship heard very much about the newlyweds.
Milo seemed even bigger, though that was hardly possible, and even quieter, which was possible. Twinkle, or rather, Guiding Star, was as loud as his uncle and was well on his way to being as big as his father. He also didn't remember Daphne at all.
Cahle, for her part, was pregnant again, and she was very disappointed that Daphne wouldn't sing her the song this time, since she had done such a good job the year before. But at least this time, there were other women around to sing a song for her.
The most remarkable thing about Mrs. Gurgle was that she was still alive. Daphne hadn't thought that it was possible that she could get any older and still exist, but apparently she had been wrong.
The person most changed though, was Mau. Daphne supposed that most boys sprung up at some point, and she vaguely recollected a distant cousin of hers coming to visit one year looking entirely different than he had the year before, but the change in Mau was no less than astonishing.
He had always had a man's soul, but now he had the body to match.
He was almost as tall as Milo now, and almost as broad as well, for building an entire civilization is hard work, and hard work had been good to Mau.
The muscles that Daphne had admired the year before, albeit secretly and guiltily, were bigger and better defined, but they still rippled under his copper skin the same way. He had the same face, the same hair, the same smile, he was simply… more.
This was the most astonishing part to Daphne: that Mau had changed so much, and yet he was still Mau. He was still her Mau, the person that she had actually dreamed about seeing again, the same boy—no, man—that she had yearned for for a year.
Later, she couldn't remember whether it had been that night or the next that he had kissed her, but it was the sort of detail that faded when contrasted with the bigger detail, like the fact that Mau had kissed her. She had been expecting it for ages: she had almost kissed him once, she had had her arms around his neck and her face so close to his that she could see the darker spots in his already dark eyes. And then her father had shown up and ruined everything.
Ermintrude had very clearly said "Ahem," in her head when the kiss finally happened, but Daphne had been waiting for this moment for—well, she didn't know precisely how long, but for a very long time, and so Daphne sighed happily and threaded her fingers through his curls and pulled his warm, strong body up against hers.
Daphne very much liked kissing Mau, and he apparently felt the same way, for he kissed her whenever they had a spare moment, and then he didn't seem particularly inclined to stop kissing her until they were interrupted.
They were interrupted every single time, it turned out, a common phenomenon when you're kissing the chief, but it turned out to be a very good thing, because there were moments where, had they not been interrupted, Daphne might have worried for her chastity.
It was only very, very lucky that her chaperone, a lady who thoroughly prescribed to her grandmother's views and thoroughly disapproved of being dragged to a desert island for a telescope, never walked up on them. Daphne could only imagine what her reaction might have been: after fainting dead away, she might have scolded Daphne for consorting with someone so far below herself.
But Daphne had an answer for that: she may have been a princess, but Mau was a chief, and what was a chief to his people other than a King? And Kings were higher than Princesses in society, or at least equal to them, so there.
Mau kissed like a chief. He had the tendency to push Daphne up against things as he kissed her, pressing their bodies together in a highly indecent and marvelously exhilarating way: tree trunks, cave walls, God stones, even, as he demonstrated when there was nothing upright in their immediate vicinity, the sand of the beach where they had been standing.
This had been thrilling to Daphne when she was an innocent young girl back on the beach, made less and less innocent with every kiss, and though she didn't like to admit it, it was thrilling to her now as the wife of a Prince.
Perhaps Princes simply didn't kiss like Chiefs did, or perhaps Erik just didn't kiss like Princes did. He did kiss like a gentleman: softly, gently, and very boringly. Daphne sometimes felt vaguely content when he kissed her, but it was nothing like the heat and passion she had felt when they were Mau's lips against hers.
It was this passion that made Daphne grateful that she and Mau were frequently interrupted by islanders, for without them, who knows what could have happened.
Usually, Mau sought her out, seized her, backed her up against the nearest vertical surface, and kissed her until she was giddy and breathless. Then, just as they were being swept up in themselves, they were interrupted by a blushing, stammering islander. Mau would solve their problem, they would go back on their way, and he would return to turning her into a dizzy mess that she hadn't thought that she could become until they were interrupted by another blushing, stammering islander.
Daphne had been dreadfully embarrassed the first time, but she quickly discovered that the more often something happens, the less you care, and she quickly moved past that.
Once, it had been Cahle who had walked up on the two by the lagoon. She had laughed and said something to Mau that Daphne had half understood and blushed deeply at, and then backed out, clearly telling Mau to get back to it.
Once, it had been Milo. He had studiously ignored them, simply walking right past them in the low forest without uttering a word or even looking in their direction. That time, perhaps, had been the worst. There's something about someone else ignoring you that makes you feel incredibly self conscious.
Mau spoke to her in his language, whatever it was, when he kissed her, and hearing those sorts of things whispered in her ear was quite exciting for Daphne. Erik spoke to her in Dutch sometimes, but as it turned out, Dutch wasn't particularly nice sounding. Daphne also had at least a rudimentary understanding of the island language and could often understand Mau. She knew no Dutch. For all she knew, Erik could have been saying, "You look like a horse. I wish I never had to look at you again," and she would still have nodded and said, "How kind of you."
Those weeks with Mau on his tropical island had been the best of Daphne's life. She still missed him, yearned for his lips and his solid, warm hands and the hard muscles of his chest shifting as she ran her fingers over them.
And now she was back in England, married to Erik, who was her friend just as Mau was her friend. It just so happened that Mau was the type of friend that you married and Erik wasn't. And yet, she had married him. She really had royally mucked things up.
It had been harder to leave the second time.
The first time, she had left the island, the Nation, and that was bad enough. The second time, though, she had left Mau, and it was the single hardest thing she ever had to do. She had cried for months, but she had taken care to do it alone and at night, for her father could never know.
Mau had not married, she knew that quite certainly. She was positive that she would feel it when it happened, when he took a wife, by some reasoning that she was knew was right, even as she could not explain how.
She wondered sometimes whether he had felt it, her marriage to Erik, her wedding night, but then she stopped thinking of it, because that thought made her feel horribly guilty.
She could never go back now, partly because of this guilt, partly because Mau deserved to be happy and she couldn't just shove her marriage in his face, and partly because she deserved to be happy, and she feared that if she got any closer to Mau that the thousand miles that currently separated them, she would make them both very happy in ways that delicately bred young ladies most certainly weren't supposed to be happy.
She couldn't go to him because she wanted him and she couldn't have him and she wouldn't tempt either one of them in that way. Her resolve wasn't that strong, the minute he even looked at her she would cave, and that would just be a rather awful mess for everyone involved.
England deserved more of its Princess. Erik deserved more of his wife. A King deserved more of his daughter.
Daphne tried to ignore the small part of her brain that told her that she deserved something too, and Mau deserved something more than anyone else in the world, the perfect, good, brave man he was.
But then again, she wasn't Daphne the Ghost Girl here. She was Princess Ermintrude of England. Daphne could mourn the loss of a heathen, Daphne could long to be in his arms, Daphne could imagine them together. But Princess Ermintrude of England disapproved. It was improper and ghastly, and besides, there were problems to solve.