Characters property of SM.

This story is a present for sweetp-1

The Lake Song

My father, chief hereabouts, has no lack of certainty over who may or may not be allowed to become my suitor. I am of marriageable age and there are fine young men aplenty from respectable families, but my father has declared none of them eligible. He has said emphatically that I will not marry because he does not want me to ever leave him.

I lie at night on my virgin's narrow pallet in the women's quarters near the dwelling of my father, and I wonder what it would be to have a lover. I am all but forbidden the company of males - I may attend school in the village, and other than that I am expected to be in the house. I cook and clean and weave, and I spend time in reverie.

The girls in my village giggle and blush as they speak of the boys they know, and they lower their voices to whisper of kisses and touches, and I strain to hear while wanting to appear that I am not listening. I know nothing of the boy-girl games beyond what the whispers say, and I am curious. Seventeen is the age my mother was when she met my father. Seventeen is the age I am now.

We live on a lake shore and there are other clans around and sometimes there are gatherings with music and dancing and laughter so that the elders might tell stories of the old days, brag of their deeds and braveries, and offer cautionary tales to the children. The adolescents are permitted to mingle, although they are watched closely. It is in this way that youths and maidens meet, and alliances are formed which strengthen bonds between tribes.

It was at one such gathering that I became aware of the young prince. I didn't know who he was at first, but the gossip circulating amongst the girls soon informed me. His family lived on the great island in the lake, and apparently he had been sent away years previously for his initiation, and for training. His father was the head of the clan, and was a medicine man. He had three sons - the eldest a warrior, as was traditional, the second a balladeer, and holder of the family's oral history, and the third, in training to be a herbalist and healer. The boy was my age, tall, as the other men in his family were tall, and he caught my eye immediately.

His family were unusual in that his father had had three wives, one after the other, and all the sons had different mothers. They all looked different, and the youngest was the most different of all. His hair, with the sun glinting off it on a rare bright day, was like the copper that came from the mines in the south and even from a distance his eyes looked like greenstone.

He caught my stare and returned it. I wondered why, and looked around me, sure that I was mistaken, but when my eyes returned to him he was still staring. A minute later he was at my side.

"Who are you?" he asked in a deep and quiet voice.

I answered first with my parentage, as is the custom, and he raised his eyebrows.

"A chief's daughter?" he asked with a smile. Amongst our people status is important when establishing social connections. He and I were of equivalent rank.

My father arrived on the scene moments later, before the prince and I could speak more. Taking my elbow, my father ushered me away, and I took the chance to glance over my shoulder. The prince was watching my departure.

That night there was love in the air, many young people had paired and were talking quietly, eyes glowing in firelight, heads tilted in to one another, and who knows what hands were doing in the dark?

My father sat with other clan chiefs and talked politics, with one eye always on me. I saw the prince in the shadows with his brothers, but his brothers were finding maidens and becoming taken up in conversations. The prince remained alone, and every time I sought him, it was to find him also seeking me.

I was reluctant to leave without any further chance at talking to him, but the next day my father and I packed the tent he slept in alone, and the one I shared with other girls and matrons from my village and we set out on the walk back.

"So, the handsome one with the bright hair. I saw him look at you!" one of my friends began, but my father growled and silenced her.

That night, the music started.

Floating across the lake on wings of the scented breeze, strains of a song came to me in the women's hut. I had been half-asleep, half-deaming, half-imagining hands on me and a mouth on mine, as I lay too heated and restless in the dark. The hands were the prince's hands, the mouth his mouth. I felt desirous and ashamed. The song came through the dark, and I rose and went out, drawn by it. There was a male voice, alternating with a flute. No words were discernible, just a low melody, repeated over and over, with the same melody being played by the flute. It wasn't one of the traditional songs of our people - if it had been I would have known what was being said.

There is a huge rock jutting out into the lake where children dive from when they swim, and where we stand with our spears to punch the fat fish - I sat on the rock in silvered beams of moonlight and listened for an hour, until the unknown musician ceased his lonely refrain.

Night after night the song came and during the days no-one spoke of it. I am not given to superstition, any more than the usual amount, but I began to wonder if I was the only one who could hear it.

A moon or so later there was another gathering, and the prince was there again, surrounded by his family. His brothers sought the same girls I had seen them with the last time, so obviously their courtships were well underway, but the prince was again alone. Many girls seemed to want to capture his attention, but though he was polite, he gave none of them his time. He watched me.

My father had assigned some of the older women to keep an eye on me and they did, but all older women wish for romance for their young charges, and when the prince turned up to speak to me my chaperones discreetly melted away.

"I have been thinking of you," he said, and I hoped it wasn't improper of me to admit I had thought of him, too.

"I am of the age to find a bride and my father wishes for me to announce a betrothal," he said. "I have been given a list of acceptable girls from good families but I want none of them. You are the only girl I am interested in. Your father must be wanting to find a match for you - could I begin to hope that you might look upon me favorably?"

Girls of noble blood are brought up to be proud. I blushed fiercely but I held his gaze, those jade eyes of his, and saw my reflection in them, and told him yes.

"My father will never agree, though. He would have me kept a child forever," I said.

"Quick, now, the chief approaches!" one of my minders hissed, and the prince took me by the arm and pulled me behind a tree.

"Come to me. Cross the lake while he sleeps," he whispered, head low, breath tickling my ear. "We can be married by the morning."

"But I have never been to the island. I don't know where you live!" I whispered back, his strong arms encircling me, my hands reaching up to rest on his chest. His eldest brother may have been the one to be first in line to inherit the chiefdom, and to be the warrior, but the young prince had the build and strength to have taken the role, too. He was muscular and firm to my touch.

"Have you not heard me calling to you with my song? I will sing again tonight. Follow my voice," he said, and dropped a kiss to my lips, mouth warm. It was warm at first. It became hotter. I was shocked at how wet it was, then thrilled. I pressed my mouth back to his, all thought forgotten.

"I will wait for you," came his voice, a promise as he let me go and lost himself in the dark trees.

So the unknown singer, the mystery song that was a call had been him looking for me, trying to summon me to his side.

My father found me breathless and he frowned. I thought he suspected something.

The song came later, mixing with the crickets and the swish of the water, and I made my way down the well-worn path to the lake's edge. Normally, there would be several fishing boats strewn along the shore in readiness for the daily pre-dawn expeditions, but there were none. It was a moonless night, and I could barely see, but the sand stretched palely before me, with no black lizard shapes of the canoes to darken it.

I sat on the rock, eyes and ears straining to the lake, and realized that my father must have instructed the men to hide the boats this night. My brief tryst with the prince in the woods had not been secret. Either that, or my father had correctly interpreted the looks my suitor and I had been giving one another.

The next morning neither of us spoke of what had transpired in the night. My father was a taciturn man, unless he was in the company of other men. When he was with me, there was little conversation.

In the night my call came again, and again the moon hid herself, and again the boats were missing. I couldn't hope to look for them with no source of illumination, and the song grew sad and urgent. He wanted me, my lover, and I wanted to go to him.

The next gathering was not planned until after the winter. It was the very end of summer now, the last of the warmth was upon us, and soon the cold would draw in, nights longer and bleaker, air damp and exhalations misted. There was but one thing I could do.

Wood floats, and people don't. The next day, while gathering firewood, I set aside a large branch, leaving it under the sentinel rock. I waited until the velvet dark, and I waited until I heard sighs from my mat-mates in the women's hut, and I crept to where my father slept. Assured by his grunting and snoring, I went down to the rock.

Clothes drag in water. I hadn't swum since my bleeding had started, but as a child I was in the lake all the time, and I knew the weight of clothes. I slipped out of mine, took the stout, dead branch I had found, and eased into the black wet.

The song came, and I held on with my arms and kicked with my legs, and followed my lover's voice. I was very cold, but I was strong and there was a current to aid and abet me in my flight. I left behind my home, my face towards the island.

It was a very long swim, but it was also a very long night. I grew tired, but continued, and as if he knew that this night I was coming, the song went on longer. I could hear words now.

Lonely she is

But she shall be no longer

I wait for my love

As she crosses the water

She holds my heart

And we'll soon be together

My bride she'll become

In my arms here forever

Unerringly, I drew close.

The trees on the island loomed larger to my tired eyes, letting me know I was almost there. Hesitantly I dropped one foot beneath me, and there was sand. Exhausted now, and chilled almost to the point of paralysis, I managed to haul myself up onto the beach.

The music had stopped, I could barely see, and I was shivering uncontrollably. To my feet, though, the rocks I was staggering across started to feel warm, and I knew there must be thermal springs here, close. The distinctive smell guided me, as I pushed my way through trees and undergrowth, and in a little clearing my toes found water that soothed and heated them. I slid gratefully forward, finding when I sat down and curled up, the pool I had discovered was deep enough to cover me to my shoulders.

The warmth returned to me slowly, easing the chill in my limbs and putting a stop to the knocking together of my teeth. I could unclench my jaw, which I hadn't even realized had become locked. I had time to contemplate my next move, and I had time to regret I hadn't carried any clothing with me. I simply hadn't thought of it, but it would be worse than unseemly to go looking for my prince while naked. All that effort I had put into the swim, all the fatigue I was currently suffering were nothing to the realization that I had absolutely no idea what I could do now. My lack of forethought could be my undoing.

The pre-dawn chorus came and went and I still had no plan.

As the night lifted, I heard a sudden noise in the undergrowth, signifying an approach. I shrank back into overhanging ferns, hiding myself as thoroughly as I possibly could, and caught sight of two small legs.

"Who is that?" I growled, in a voice gravelly and, I hoped, fearsome. "What are you doing here in my domain?"

"I - I fetch water for my master. Who is there?" a trembling voice answered. It was no more than a child, I couldn't even tell its gender.

"I am the Spirit of the Spring. Who is your master, that he dares send you to disturb my slumber?" I snarled.

"My master is the young prince," the child answered, terrified.

"Tell him to fetch his water himself, before I eat you," I answered, and the feet turned and ran.

I waited, terrified that the prince would not come, and terrified that he would. Of course I wanted to see him, but would that I had been dressed in my finest! Even rags would have been better than to meet him in this way, utterly naked.

Shortly after, more legs appeared, and a voice asked sternly, "Who is there? There is no spirit of the spring. You are playing games with my water-bearer. Why have you frightened him?" It was my prince.

I rose slowly in the coming dawn. I have long hair, and it is long enough to cover my blushing cheeks, yet not long enough to cover anything else. I stood before him, unarrayed.

"It is I," I answered.

Those greenstone eyes stared, and his breath stopped. His gaze swept me in surprise and wonder, and I think, admiration.

"It is you!" he answered. "You have come to me. I don't even know your name."

"My name is Beautiful," I said, fighting shyness at my nakedness, fighting for composure. I was brought up to be proud.

"Beautiful, my hut is close. I will take you there through the trees so that no-one will see us. I will give you my tunic," he said, and slipped the tunic over his head, handing it to me. After that first glance, he hadn't stared, he steadfastly kept his gaze averted, respecting my modesty. It was still just dark as he led me through trees and shrubs, though soft dawn's glimmer was beginning to slip through the air.

We weren't far from his hut - it loomed in front of us within minutes and he took me inside where a small torch alleviated the darkness, throwing scant light about the tidy interior. There was a bed against one wall, a straw-stuffed mattress covered with skins and woven blankets.

"You must be tired," he said, following my gaze. "It was a very long way to row. Will you rest? But first, tell me, why are you naked?"

"I didn't row. There were no boats. I have looked these past three nights and I fear my father ordered that the boats be pulled high on the shore so that I couldn't find them. I am unclothed because I swam."

"You swam?" he asked, clearly astonished. His dark eyes glittered with the flickering flames from the torch and he stepped closer and picked up a lock of my wet hair, feeling its weight, and the weight of the lake water saturating it. "You swam to me, through the cold, in the dark..." he breathed in wonder. "Truly you are strong, and brave, Beautiful. Let me fetch you food and water. Sit down, here, here is a blanket, you shiver. Wait, I will soon return."

I sat nervously on his bed amongst the hides and furs, marveling at how soft it all was. I wondered what I was doing here. If he didn't marry me I would be ruined. What folly had I committed? Fathers arrange marriages for political purposes - silly girls don't run away from home to the first good-looking man they see who says something sweet to them. For all I knew he could already be married, although there was no sign that a woman lived here. He may have invited me here in a moment of weakness and lust, and since thought better of it. What sort of naive young fool was I? Perhaps he said such things to all the girls.

He was back soon with a pitcher of some sort of hot tea for me, liberally laced with honey, and a bowl with bread and stone-baked wood pigeon. I fell on the food with the hunger that only comes from swimming for several hours across a body of water. And from having to distract myself even as I desperately tried to think what I was going to do about the situation of my own making that I now found myself in.

He was silent as he watched me eat, and when I finished he gently took the bowl and cup from me and placed them near the door.

"Beautiful, we need to talk," he said.

I looked at the floor.

"Did you come here because you agree to marry me?" he asked, a fingertip to my chin, and lifting my face so that I had to look at him. "You must have, there could be no other reason. It will happen tomorrow, doubt it not. My father will perform the ceremony. I mentioned you to him, but I imagined I would have to come and get you myself, after the winter. I was planning to give your father goats and cloths and jewelry and anything else that might persuade him to give you up to me. I know love is no reason to wed - and I know this is sudden, this thing between you and me. But sudden as it is, it is true and cannot be denied, and your journey here proves the strength of it. I love you, and I will provide for you and care for you and cherish you for all of our lives," he said.

"I love you, too," I told him, simply. "I came because you asked me to."

He smiled, a smile that held triumph and yet humility, hope and confidence, tenderness and longing.

"Have you lain with a man before, Beautiful?" His voice was a caress.

"No." Mine was a whisper.

"Then we will wait until tomorrow, after the nuptials and the celebration. Now you need to sleep."

I knew it was very early morning, as we'd already heard the birds that trill in the violet quiet, and there was time yet before the day started for me to rest. It was true I was very, very tired, but being this near to him and hearing his voice and words renewed my energy. He was sitting next to me, an arm about my shoulders, his mouth so close that if I just reached a little I could bring my own into contact with it. I did so, and his other arm came up to tangle in my hair as we kissed. His breath sped immediately, and I put my hand to his chest to feel his heartbeat, to feel the thudding that sent his blood careening the way mine was.

"You don't want to wait? You would make me yours right now, before the vows?" he asked huskily. "Sweet one, I am willing, more than willing, but you are fatigued and we have the rest of our days and nights together for love. Come now, lie down, and I will hold you as you sleep. I will not leave you."

So we lay down, me with my back to him, his arms about me. I did sleep, because the next thing I knew the heavy curtain at the hut's door was drawn back in mid-morning light and a head came through, a voice saying, "Wake up brother, you lazybones. You would waste the day?" and the head withdrew sharply with a muffled curse.

"There is a girl in there!" the voice exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" another voice asked. "Our brother knows no girls!"

My prince's arms tightened around me and he laughed quietly into my hair.

"I will know one soon enough," he murmured to me. "As my wife."

We emerged some time later, me in the tunic that was far too big, and leggings I'd had to tie at the waist with string, and a cloak he said had been handed down from his mother's family - a bridal cloak, the very same one she had worn to wed his father. Although it was quiet outside his hut, it appeared his entire clan had gathered waiting there to see who lay with the prince. At their head was his handsome father, whose face lit to see me. Next to him was a woman with jade eyes and red hair who must be the prince's mother. She came forward holding her arms out to me.

"Daughter, welcome," was her greeting.

"How did you get here?" the eldest son asked with undisguised curiosity, once introductions had been made.

My prince was proud and smiling as he told of my journey. "A feat you couldn't hope to achieve, brother," he finished, with a wink at me.

"Well, obviously the two of you will have fine, and strong children, but let's all hope they take after their mother," his brother retorted.

The chief sent for a boat to be prepared so that he could cross the lake himself and inform my father that I had undertaken the journey willingly and not been abducted. Otherwise my father might send a band of warriors to come and fight for me and ensure my return. The prince's father took gifts such as one tribal leader might give to another on the happy occasion of a royal wedding.

"Do you think I will meet with your father's approval?" my prince asked with some concern, once we had been left to our own devices, and I wasn't sure.

"My clan didn't need an alliance with yours as we are already friendly, so I don't know. Our union will not really be expedient," I answered.

"Expedient or not, it will be happy. Surely that will be a consideration?"

"I think my father will be angry, initially, to tell you the truth," I said. "But even as he scolded me when I was young for having spirit, he was pleased. He grumbled that I would make a troublesome wife, but he would smile as he said it."

My prince laughed. "Troublesome? Because of your courage and initiative, and your trust in your intuition? If that's trouble I look forward to it."

My father was angry. He came on the return trip with my prospective father-in-law, grumbling all the way. He stayed for all three days of the wedding feast, grumbling to anyone who would listen, but beneath his gruff exterior he soon became delighted, as it was apparent to all that my prince and I adored each other.

I had been taken to the women's hut in preparation for my marriage, I had various hairs plucked which was very painful, and I had impermanent insect-ink tattoos painted on me telling the story of my journey to love.

"We will make these tattoos permanent once your honeymoon is over," I was told. "People will still be talking of you in a hundred years. Your legend will outlive you."

The older women told me exactly what to expect on my wedding night and what to ask for. I blushed to hear them and they gave me toothless cackles, delighted by my virginity. I was instructed in how to prevent the making of babies until such time as I wanted them, and they told me how I could drive my husband wild. The next day they adorned me in all the splendor the tribe had to offer.

When I approached my prince and the assembled crowd that evening I trembled with nervousness, and my betrothed trembled too, his mouth falling open as I stood before him. I could only stare at him in quiet wonderment. Amongst all our people I had never seen anyone apart from him and his mother with such coloring as they had, and he looked magnificent.

"Princess of the Lake," he called me quietly, and when his father had finished saying the marriage words and blessing us, we kissed until people started to cough with embarrassment and boredom, although the elders from the women's hut kept up with their cackles.

The feast, as I have said, lasted three days although I must confess we missed quite a lot of it. My prince and I were busy with the business of getting to know one another better. In our hut he sang to me the song he had composed and he wound my hair around his fingertips and stopped to kiss me.

"My Beautiful, my love, my only, my wife," he sighed, caressing my shoulders, my arms, and between my arms, across the front of my body.

"My husband, my love," I answered him, and we both stopped speaking. We loved.

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Based on a New Zealand Maori legend known as the tale of Hinemoa and Tutanekai