A moonlit melody of sunlit noontime.
It is a song that tells the story of one maiden who was never allowed to see the sun,
And what it meant to her to be with the moon.
There was once a princess who lived in the Irish Countryside. Her parents were poor villagers, who had once been royalty, but when the Scots had come to defeat the Irish the had been divested of all their wealth and allowed to remain in the country only if they kept their royalty a secret.
One day a mob of Scottish thieves rode to the cottage of the royal family and threatened the king and queen. They had been told that the villagers had discovered their neighbors true identity. The Scottish King was afraid that the villagers would revolt and raise the old king back up to power, and so he had hired these evil men to kill them for him.
The young princess hid under her bed trembling while she watched her father and mother sliced to bits before her eyes. The guards tramped through the house raiding it, stealing all the gold they could find, which wasn't much since the royal family's wealth had all been stolen before.
They latched the doors to the cottage, and lit the hay roof on fire. Violet flames licked the sky and the princess grew afraid. She was a very brave princess, though, and so she caught her screaming cat up into her arms and rushed upstairs to the loft. There was a hidden ladder out the back and she scrambled down to the wheat fields behind her home.
Just as she flew into the woods a burning swatch of hay came down on her. A young soldier who had been watching her escape ran surreptitiously to her side. He stomped out the fire singing her skin and gave her a lotion.
"Put this on your burns," he said, "You will heal, but you will no longer be able to go outside during the day. Burns this deep leave damage so deep that the sun will bring it back up again. Find somewhere safe, and hide, stay there until it is time, I will come find you."
The little girl ran with the cat in one arm, the lotion in the other, as if her life depended on it, for truly it did depend on her running. She reached the depths of the forest and took a deep breath. She had suffered grevious burns, her lips were parched and cracked and her skin was scarlet and blistering. She resolved to run just a little farther to her favorite hiding place.
It was a cave on the side of a cliff. It overlooked a lagoon that was sheltered by rocks that looked like bridges, creating a secret bay just outside of her new home.
The Princess lived there for several years. She did heal from her burns, but as the soldier had said, she was only able to go outside at night, for if she did she fell gravely ill, and grew better only with long periods of rest and much time on the water at night.
One day many years later a stranger came into the village at night. He sat at the bar of the inn and listened to the gossip of the town. Some visiting children were listening to an old Grandmother telling them stories...
"They say she wanders the bay at night, and sings, looking for the lost love who saved her life."
"Is it true Grandmother?"
"The bay is a beautiful area, at night the moon casts strange shadows."
"But Grandmother is she there?"
"She is alive in the moonlight."
The Innkeeper looked up surprised as the visiting soldier jolted out of the door, grabbing all of his things and disappeared into the twilight.
He heard the legend from the Grandmother's lips and his heart leapt. He knew it must be the princess of which she spoke. His mind had dwelt on the small girl that he helped that day when he was so young and he often wondered what had become of her. That is what brought him to this village once a year, searching for some hint of her existence, and for the first time, he knew someone had seen her.
He ran at lightning speed through the woods and scrambled down the cliffs into the bay, and then he waited.
Moments later a figure of insurpassable beauty wandered out into the moonlight. She wore a blue spun gown that glittered as if it itself were made of moonbeams, cherry blossoms spilled through the locks of hair that shared their hue with wheat lit by the golden sun. Midnight blue mist surrounded them, and basked the pair in a magical glow, and the long, lost soldier stepped into the light.
The Princess looked up. Something about the figure before her defied the fear she should have felt. She gazed at him, as he returned her gaze and the two stepped toward each other.
The Soldier stepped forward one last time, and held the Princess' hand in his. For a moment they stood in perfect silence. The moon spoke what their hearts knew.
The moon revealed their romance and in their silence they accepted it.
The Soldier pressed the Princess' hand to his lips and bowed before her.
"My Princess, will you have me?"
The princess inclined her head in assent, and he smiled.
"You will be my Princess Reinaluna, and you will live on in legend for all of time."
And so she has.
The moonlit bay still lies in the cliffs of Ireland, and those who visit sometimes say that they can hear the lovers singing of their romance.
A romance foretold by the moon and brought together by eternal, selfless love.
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