Well, Gentle Reader, here is a story with an interesting genesis. My short story,
Beginning to End
, will be published in an anthology of science fiction/fantasy short stories. One of the characters in it was the island princess
I'a wikiwiki
. She was a minor but very important character in the story, worthy of only a couple of paragraphs. But I liked her very much and decided to explore her life in detail. So let us see, shall we, how her life became so important to the history of the universe.
Island Princess
I'a wikiwiki
's fate was settled when the single sperm cell from the nameless man who had traded a large conch shell, well polished, for the right to satisfy his needs on her mother did not have a Y chromosome. At the instant of conception, with no Y chromosome to give her choices,
I'a wikiwiki
was bound to be a
hookamakama
in the vowel rich language of the island culture into which she was born, a whore in modern English although
ho'okipa
is probably more accurate, a "courtesan" to you.
I'a wikiwiki
, "quick fish" in that beautiful language was, indeed, quick although she was hardly a fish.
Her mother,
Pua akahai
, "gentle flower," was much in demand, and as her belly and breasts grew, the men who visited were bidding on the chance to be the first with her baby even before her milk started flowing and her belly had truly started to bulge.
Ku'i koholā
, "whale bane," won the bidding for the outrageous sum of four giant conch, and seventeen Junonia shells, an unprecedented price for a virgin, even one expected to be as beautiful as
I'a wikiwiki
.
Nature took its course, and a little under nine months after the sperm found the egg in
Pua akahai
's womb, she went into labor. In the tradition of the islands, the oldest woman of the community mixed a tea of
māmaki
. When the labor pains were within a few chirps of the
Akiapola'au
bird, the timing of which served as the only timekeeper on the islands, apart, the
Wahine kahiko loa
, the honorific meaning "oldest woman," gave her the tea and had
Pua akahai
stand and squat, letting gravity help in the delivery in the way of the islands from time beyond memory.
The birth went smoothly and
Ku'i koholā
took his pleasure from
Pua akahai
as soon as the sex of the baby was confirmed. This completed their transaction and cemented
Ku'i koholā
's claim on the newborn baby even as he enjoyed the sensation of her afterbirth surrounding his erection inside of her mother.
I'a wikiwiki
was a beautiful child, graceful even during those coltish years of puberty and growth spurts. She showed a natural affinity for the world around her. The gardens she tended were the brightest, their nectar the sweetest, their perfume the most heady. The purple
taro
bread she baked, and her
poi
and
poke
were always perfect. The
imu
oven she dug held the perfect temperature for baking. No one needed to show her these things; they all came naturally.
She was a creature of the world, and the world around her loved her. In the salty water of the ocean, where she swam often, the life never attacked. Even the sharks, common in these warm waters, nuzzled and bumped playfully as she giggled and held onto that fin others found so frightening, and took rides without fear wherever the fish would go. The smaller denizens of that world, the clattering crabs and tiny darting fish, nuzzled rather than bit, and after a swim, her skin would be fresh, cleansed of the cells that died as part of the cycle of life by the tiny fish that lived on such things. Her hair, so black it seemed blue, hung to the calves of her legs, but no longer, since the fish in the ocean she loved so would nibble off the dead ends.
The
Hale hauoli
, the "House of Joy," in which
I'a wikiwiki
was reared, included a school that was the equal of any anywhere in the world. She learned the domestic skills, and the meals she prepared were considered among the best on the island. She learned the skills of an entertainer, and her dance, even as a child, was considered a standard to be studied. She could sing in a way that charmed the birds from the trees and tell the old stories in a way that kept the younger children mesmerized.
When her first moonflow announced her transition from childhood, the
Wahine kahiko loa
showed her how to fashion the pad from the
Ma'o
plant and a strap woven from
Lauhala
leaves. The
Wahine kahiko loa
taught
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how to carefully save her pads.
When her moonflow stopped,
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was taken to the sacred place where the fiery blood of Father Earth replenished itself in the boiling waters of Mother Ocean. Standing on the edge of the chasm carved over millennia,
I'a wikiwiki
made the offering as all of the women of her society did as their moonflow announced their fertility.
"E ka makua honua e ʻae i kēia hōʻailona o kuʻu aloha,"
she called in her musical voice, "Father Earth, accept this token of my love," as she gently lifted the necklace of the used pads over her head and dropped it into the slow-moving river of fiery lava.