Fantasy Pin-Up Girl! Huata of the Waves, Human Druid of the Sea – PREVIEW (Patreon)

Character: Huata of the Waves, Druid of the Sea

Born inside her father’s double-hulled voyaging canoe during her tribe’s sea exodus from a volcanic eruption, Huata always felt a strong connection to the sea.

When Temahua, the ancient volcano, woke up after an epoch of slumber, Huata’s people had to migrate east and carve a new life on strange islands where Temahua’s anger did not choke the sky in smoke and rain cinders on the sea. Yet Huata always yearned to sail back to Lakuu, the ancestral island she never knew.

As a young woman, she learned to use the stars to navigate the countless islands of Draconesia, hoping one day to sail under the shadow of Temahua’s smoke and see the island her people had left behind.

As soon as she reached adulthood and was entrusted with precious tools, she repaired and maintained her late father’s double-hulled canoe in secret and bid her time. On the morning of the annual courtship dance instead of donning a garland of fresh flowers, she dragged her father’s canoe back on the sea and sailed west, despite her elders’ wishes.

For days she sailed towards Temahua’s endless pillar of smoke, weathering storms and battling her own loneliness. Yet one day, the sea spoke to her and she was alone no more. At first, she feared the angry volcano had struck her with madness, but as the days passed by and she was about to sail under the shadow of Temahua’s smoke, the spirits of the sea showed her how to harness the magic of nature to make the wood of canoe sprout flowers that bore fruit overnight, and how to whisper to the spirits of the wind to persuade them to keep her sails full and the air around her clean. She realized this was the fabled magic of the ancients, the same magic that once brought life to barren islands, so she knew what she had to do.

An entire week she saw no stars at night and the sun’s rays were only a fade glow behind Temahua’s smoke as she sailed towards Lakuu, the island of her ancestors. When she finally stepped on Lakuu, she had to trudge through knee-deep soot and cinders to reach the ancient stone circle in the island’s center. There, she whispered to the spirits, begging them to heal the island and bring new life under Temahua’s volcanic ash. To her surprise, it was Temahua himself who answered back, offended that a mere human dared bargain with the spirits of nature, but also pleased that the mortals had once again learned to commune with nature. Temahua told her of his bottomless anger towards evil and insidious beings that dreamt of being gods and threatened to destroy the world in a mad bid for supremacy, and she told him of her people, their customs, and their dreams that he had turned to nightmares when he erupted.

Huata and Temahua spoke for an entire day and an entire night. He tried to scare her back to her people, and she tried to placate him. At the break of dawn, Temahua commanded her to go forth and oppose those who had originally offended the natural order, the evil and deviant pretender gods, the usurpers of life and magic. Huata agreed, pledging her life to restoring balance, or at least stopping the usurpers from tearing the world asunder. Pleased, Temahua transformed his elemental fury to magic for Huata’s people and slept once again, knowing that if more mortals were like Huata of the Waves, when he woke up again in the next epoch, the world would still be there…

What do you think? :)

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