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mhess-writing · 27 days ago

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The Star Prince

Once upon a time there was a boy called the Prince of the Stars. He was their shepherd, and led them out every night into their places. He made a place for new stars being born, and made sure old stars had a good death. As the Prince of Stars, he carried his very own bright shining silver star, just a little one, set into his breast beside his heart. It always shone, soft and true out of the black cloak the Star Prince wore, and sometimes on a clear night, you could see it twinkling in the heavens as he danced through his beloved night sky.

The Star Prince had a few dear friends in the Man in the Moon, and the Queen of the Clouds. When the Queen would come by, she and the Star Prince and the Moon Man, would have tea together, and sit in the fluffy clouds, and talk all night long. The Man in the Moon made a lot of jokes, and laughed loudly, while the Queen of the Clouds was very lovely, and graceful, and soft. They had both been around a lot longer than the Star Prince, and he learned much from them. They were the closest thing he had to a mother and father. Some nights the Man would be away from the Moon, and then the Prince of the Stars would curl up under the arm of the Cloud Queen, and listen to her sing by the light of the stars.

One night when the Man was out of his Moon and away, the Prince and the Queen had tea together as usual. They sat together, and the Star Prince got very warm and sleepy. “Wake me before sunrise,” he told the Queen of the Clouds, and went straight to sleep.

But she did not wake him. When the prince opened his eyes it was well after sunrise, the stars were in complete disarray, and the King of the Sea was shaking him gently. But worse than all that was the pain in his chest as he sat up, and he put a hand to his heart, only to discover that his own precious star was gone. It had been cut out, but he could not believe it, and he fled from the worried Sea King, off into the starfields, with all his charges skittering after.

He could not think who had taken his own heart-star from him, except for the Queen of the Clouds. But she was his friend, she could not have done such a thing! He wrapped his dark robes tightly about himself, trying to hide the hole and hoping no one would notice. He decided he would ask the Queen of the Clouds about it the next night, when they had tea with the Man in the Moon.

But when they met again, the Queen of the Clouds behaved as if nothing at all was amiss, making jokes with the Moon Man, so that he laughed loudly, and the Star Prince quickly gave up trying to be heard. He was afraid, and confused. He thought the Queen had betrayed him and stolen his light, but she smiled at him the same way she always did, so perhaps he was wrong. He also didn’t like admitting his own star was gone, for how could he be Prince of the Stars and lead all those other lights if he had none of his own?

So in the end, the Prince of the Stars said nothing, and decided he would try to find his heart-star all on his own. Many nights the stars went astray and out of their places in the dance, as he searched through the clouds, and even snuck into the Moon one day. But there the Man caught him, and demanded to know why the boy was sneaking around, why he would try to steal from an old friend. The Star Prince burst into tears. “I am not trying to steal!” he cried. “I only want back what was stolen from me!”

He told the whole story to the Man in the Moon, even showed him the scar that had slowly grown over his chest, and then the Man in the Moon was very quiet for a time. “I am sorry,” he said at last, “that you have lost your light. But the Queen of the Clouds would never do such a thing to you. She loves you like her own child, and I have known her too long. It must have been someone else.”

The Star Prince was quite sure it was the Cloud Queen; he did not know who else it could have been. He had hoped the Man in the Moon would believe him, would trust him, and help him ask the Queen to return his star. But when the Moon Man turned him away, the Star Prince’s grief turned to anger, and he rose up that night, gathering all the stars around him and into his train, and came down to confront the Queen of the Clouds.

He took her by surprise for once, as she talked close with the Man in the Moon, and that was when he saw it. A gleam of silver light between her fingers, and she turned towards him, and hid her hands in her pockets.

At first she showed shock and sadness, reaching tender fingers out to brush his scar, but when he drew back, when he insisted that it had been her, and that she must return his heart-star, she turned stormy, and her mocking laughter was like thunder. “Silly star boy,” the Queen said. “Why would I ever want your star? Who would take a little thing like that? How could you betray our old friendship like this?” And her tears were hailstones, even as the clouds rushed in to smother the Star Prince.

The Prince fought bravely, but he was young and small, no match for the grey Queen. It was the stars’ fire that saved him that night, as they burned hot enough to warm him, to cut through the fog, but still he was buffeted and battered, and finally fell from the sky, half-alive as he drifted down through the dawn air.

It was the King of the Sea who caught him, who lifted the Star Prince in his arms, as gentle as any father. The sea had always rejoiced to see the stars, though they rarely came close enough to speak, and the King was worried about the Star Prince, as nights now brought confusion to the sailors who needed the stars patterns to find their way. He wept his own salt tears as he carried the boy home, grieved by the grey face so still and dull, the blue eyes shuttered, and the limp darkness of the silky cloak that had always flowed around the Star Prince.

The last few stars winked out, as the Sea King laid the Prince of the Stars in his daughter’s arms. “We must heal him,” the King said.

“His light has gone out, and his heart is broken,” whispered the Princess of the Wind. “This will not be easy.”

They did their best for many days, with the help of Mother Earth, but still the Star Prince grew very weak and ill, whispering and weeping in fits, never seeming to know them. He begged them not to take his heart, pleaded with them to leave him alone and not hurt him. From the things he said, the King and his daughter pieced together the story, and understood that the Queen of the Clouds had stolen the Star Prince’s star, taken it from him by force, and so they treated him with more kindness than ever.

At last, as the sea continued to rock him, and the earth continued to warm him, and the breeze continued to tell him he was loved, he grew calmer, and fell into a deep healing sleep. For nigh on a week, while clouds covered the darkened skies, and storms beset many ships, the King of the Sea tenderly carried the Star Prince over the swelling waves, close to his heart. His daughter, the Princess of the Wind, had been deeply angered by the injustice done to the boy from the sky, and she had sworn to go fight the Queen of the Clouds and get back the heart-star.

The Prince of the Stars woke at last one grey evening, and he lay for a time against the shoulder of the Sea King, watching the rain on the waves without speaking.

“I am lost,” he said at last.

“Are you?” said Mother Earth from a nearby island. “Or have you simply been found in a place you did not expect?”

“Ah, my wife always speaks in riddles,” the King said, chuckling as he set the boy down gently on a rock. “But take heart, Prince. All is not lost,” and he smiled gently into the tired eyes that looked up at him. “My daughter, the Princess of the Wind, has gone to rescue your star. She alone is strong enough to fight the Queen of the Clouds. Out of her love for you, and her wish to see you shine again, she has gone to war.”

The Star Prince could not believe the Sea King’s words. “Why would she do that? How many sailors have died because of me?”

“None,” said the King of the Sea. “Between myself, my daughter, and my wife the sailors have had had no more casualties than they may in any storm season. None of this is your fault, child.”

The Star Prince sat for a while, listening to the waved on the shore, and he heard them repeating the King’s words over and over, while the rock grew warm under him. He did not smile, and his once blue eyes were as dark as the stormy sky.

That night the Princess of the Wind met the Queen of the Clouds in the court of the sky, and denounced her for her cruelty, demanding she return the star at once. The Queen refused.

“Then I shall fight you and throw you down, or die trying,” said the Princess.

The Star Prince, sheltered in a cove by Mother Earth, while the King of the Sea went out to save whom he might, heard the howl of the hurricane winds, and saw the flashing of the lightnings, and he found he had begun to hope. He wanted the Princess to win and get his heart back. There was so much courage and strength in the roaring air, he began to think she could do it. Still, Mother Earth was glad when he fell asleep, lulled by the storm; he was still weak and had not truly recovered from his ordeals.

When the Prince of the Stars awoke, he saw the Sun rising into a clear blue sky, the air was still and soft, and he could hear seabirds singing. When he sat up, he caught his breath, for lying on the sand next to him was the Princess of the Wind. She slept, her long white hair strewn about her, but in the hand held to her breast, he could see light, slipping between her fingers.

The King of the Sea, weary as he also was from the long night, came quickly to wash the boy’s tears away.

“She has triumphed,” he murmured, looking down at his daughter with love and pride. “The Queen of the Clouds has been thrown down, and your star has been found.”

The Sea King would have woken his daughter, but the Prince caught his arm. “No, let her rest,” and his eyes had a little bit of light in them when he looked back to the King. “I can wait.”

So they sat together, watching the light on the waves, and the Prince hummed softly in his throat, a soft, sad melody that made the Sun beam just a little warmer and brighter. The King of the Sea dozed off too, and the Star Prince smiled to himself as he watched his family rest, grateful for all they had done for him.

When at last, as the Sun sank toward the west, the Princess of the Wind stood before him with her long white hair drifting around her, and held out his little glowing star in her cupped hands, he could not speak, but his eyes shone blue as the sky. And when he took back that gem of living light, laying it next to his heart, fire sprang into the sky, and from the far-distant starfields, sleeping stars woke up, and began to sing.

The Princess of the Wind laughed, the King of the Sea roared, and Mother Earth exclaimed, “Found in a place you did not expect! Not lost! Did I not say so?”

The Prince of the Stars looked into the earth-dark eyes of the Princess of the Wind, and taking her hand, pulled her into a dance, to the song of the seabirds and the setting Sun. And as they danced, the wind caught them up, carrying them up above the waves and the islands, and into the evening sky.

The Star Prince held on tight to the Princess’s hand, even as he felt as if he might burst with joy. He had his light, his star burning next to his heart, shining brighter than ever before, and he was whole again.

That night the stars sprang out to their places all at once, all of them blazing with joy to hear their shepherd call them out again, call them to dance. The Prince of the Stars stood tall, with darkness curling gently round his shoulders, and silver light spilled through the cracks of his scar, fracturing into a thousand rays that dazzled the Princess of the Wind.

That night the Man in the Moon came humbly to beg for the Star Prince’s forgiveness, and the Star Prince granted it so sweetly that the Moon Man went away in tears, and was not seen again for several days. But he became better friends with the Sun Queen in that time, and she was a stronger, more faithful companion then the fickle clouds, and from their places they kept watch over the Prince of the Stars and the Princess of the Wind, and guarded them from all the harm they could.

But that night the breeze sang softly between the stars, and they twinkled with the laughter of a thousand bells, and the heavens rejoiced for the beauty of a broken heart put back together with the love of a family.

Finis

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