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Once upon a time there was a kingdom where the sun never set, no, never, not even once, and so the people who dwelt there did not know night, nor darkness, nor the customary fears that shadows awaken in the human heart. They lived always in bright and shining splendor, and for this they thanked their king and queen, whose love, they said, lit up all the heavens, so that the sun did not have to work so hard as it did in other lands, but could simply shine and shine without interruption. The king and queen lived in a palace all of gold, and it gleamed in the sunlight like a second sun, so that all who came to visit this wonderful country needed first to stop and stare in awe at the brilliance of their home. Yet for all that brightness, there was a quiet within the halls that no amount of light or joy could chase away, for the king and queen had no children, and the queen wept with longing every day.
One such day, as she walked in the garden, she saw a movement deep within the roses. Curious, she stepped closer. A fine white tomcat burst out of the leaves and onto the path in front of her, his tail curved like a question above his back. The queen, who was well-versed in all the queenly graces, laughed and bowed to him, her tears forgotten; for those who live eternally in light must be mercurial at heart, or else be seized by melancholy at the absence of the dark and all its wonders.
“Hello, dear sir cat,” she said. “What may I do to ease your troubles on this day?”
The cat settled himself on the pathway, wrapping his tail tight around his feet, and looked at her. Finally, he said, “You have cried many oceans in the wanting of a child. Fish swim in the memory of your sadness, and mermaids sing the tale of your desires.”
The queen, who ruled over a country where the sun never set and was thus no stranger to magic, was nonetheless somewhat surprised to be spoken to so, and by a cat, no less. “I am sorry for the mermaids,” she said. “My sorrow is hard enough to carry by myself, and I had no wish to inflict it upon them.”
“The mermaids have their own troubles, and find yours a pleasant diversion,” said the cat, dismissing the troubles of girls who were foolish enough to swim their lives away. “I am here to offer you a bargain.”
“And what bargain would that be, sir cat?”
“Let me live with you in your palace. Give me soft cushions to sleep upon and sweet cream to drink, and scratch my ears whenever I desire, and stop whenever I tell you to. If you will do these things, you will have a little girl before year’s end, as golden as the sun, as blue as the sky, as sweet as the daylight. She will want for nothing, and neither will I.”
The queen considered the cat’s request for but a moment before she said, “All these things are yours, and whatever else you ask of me.”
“Then carry me home, my queen, and tell your king to prepare for the birth of a daughter.”
The queen gathered the white cat into her arms, running back into the palace, and for a time, everything was as he had said. He lay on silken pillows and drank sweet cream, his ears were scratched when he wanted them scratched and left alone when he did not, and after the customary interval, the princess was born. She was, indeed, as golden as the sun, or at least her hair was; and she was as blue as the sky, or at least her eyes were; and when she first saw the white cat she gurgled and giggled and clapped her hands with joy, so that all could see that she was sweet as daylight.
The queen laughed for joy and turned to the white cat, saying, “You shall have all you desire for the length of your days, sir cat, and be a part of this family always.”
The white cat licked his paw with a pink tongue and said, “I will be as I will be.”
There are no true nights in a kingdom where the sun is always in the sky, but there are quiet times, times when everyone has agreed that they will draw the shades and sleep, and because they do not know any better, the people who live in such kingdoms will call those times “night.” Humans are magpies, and do not like to leave words unused. So it was that the white cat waited until night had come, and the king and queen slept sound in their beds, and the nursemaid of the new princess dozed beside her cradle. Then, and only then, did he come to sit beside the newborn babe, who alone in all the kingdom had not yet learned to sleep when all others told themselves the pleasant lie of nighttime.
“I will miss you,” he said. “But we have long and long before we meet again, and it was mine only to bring you into this story; it is not mine to see you through it, nor lead you where you need to go. You will not remember me, and still I promise you this: I will always and forever be your friend.”
When the kingdom awoke the white cat was gone, and none had seen him leave.
The queen was sad for a time, for it is difficult to lose a friend. But she had her beautiful daughter to distract her, and the princess grew day after day, until sixteen years had come and gone, and she was everything her parents could have wished. She was beautiful, yes, beautiful as light on water. She was warm and compassionate, as welcome as sun on skin. She was lightfooted and lithe on horseback or on the dance floor, as quick as a sunbeam slipping through a needle. All the kingdom loved her, and rejoiced that they had been blessed with so perfect a princess.
Whatever the princess wanted, she was given. Whatever the princess asked for, be it time or love or answers, it was ripe and ready for the taking. Had she been less sweet, less inherently good, she could easily have turned spoiled. Instead, she walked in guileless innocence, never knowing what it was like to be refused.
As time went on, however, she found that more and more, visitors to the court of her parents did not want to comment on her dancing skills, or on how gracefully she rode her horses, which were golden as the sun and white as clouds; all those foreign dignitaries and visiting nobles seemed to notice was her beauty. “So lovely,” they said, and “Such good fortune,” and “She will enrich your coffers by the ransom of a thousand kings.”
These words confused the princess, and stilled her laughter for a time. “So modest,” said those visitors to the court, and “So quiet; she will make a fine queen one day, if she continues to hold her tongue.”
And finally, the princess understood that all they saw was the surface of her, and not her heart. They were kind because she was beautiful, and not because she was herself.
It would be easy to think that the princess of a kingdom where the sun never left the sky would never have seen the moon; the moon is a nighttime visitor, creeping in as twilight fades to brilliant black and spangled stars. But who has not seen a daylight moon peeping over the horizon, shy and faded, yes, but still! The moon does not like to be left out, and will always find a way to make its presence known.
How the princess loved the moon! Here was something pale and quiet and secret, that most people never seemed to notice, being as absorbed as they were in brightness and in laughter. She thought of the moon as her friend, and as more and more visitors to the court remarked only on her beauty, and not on anything else, she came to think of the moon as her best friend. The only one who would not leave her always, but would come back to her, even if her beauty somehow faded.
One night—which was truly day, but we must adhere to the conventions of the kingdom we are visiting, and here, the night was a negotiated thing, not to be ignored—the princess crept from her bed to sit upon her windowsill, looking at the pale circle of the moon that wavered, paper thin, against the blue, blue sky.
“I am very lonely, and I do not know what to do,” she said to the moon. “I am surrounded by friends and by people who love me, but all of them seem to see me as a living portrait, a beautiful thing to be admired, yes, but never allowed any value outside its surface. I want to mean something. I want to earn something. I want to choose and be chosen, not because I am beautiful, but because I am myself. I am tired of superficiality. I am tired of being a prize. I am tired of everything, and I do not know what to do.”
That night, she slept in her bed with the sunlight streaming over her, and she dreamt that the moon was a girl in a gold and silver dress, with silver mirrors in her hair. The princess awoke full of energy and excitement, for the most wonderful plan had sprung into her mind, fully-formed. She leapt from her bed and ran to her closet. For those who live in sunlight always are by their nature mercurial, and will never be slow when speed might serve them better.
When her ladies in waiting came to prepare the princess for the day ahead, she was already gone. There was a great hue and cry in the palace after that…but ah, you do not care for hues, or for cries. You wish to follow the princess, and so do I, so follow the princess we shall.
The princess had left the palace before her ladies arrived, and did not know that she was leaving chaos in her wake. She wore a dress of many rags and tatters, in a thousand colors, so that no two agreed, but rather presented a cacophony to the eye. Her hair was streaked with berry juice from the kitchen, and with mud from the lane, and none who saw her would have known her for the princess, but would have thought her instead a wood-maid, come into the presence of people for the first time in many days.
Bold as anything, she walked into the village square and stopped, waiting for everyone around to greet her. No one seemed to note her presence, and bit by bit, she realized that they had not greeted her because they were pleased to see another soul, but because she was their princess. Her clever disguise was too clever, and none could pause in their work to ask her if she needed anything, or if she wanted anything, or if she was looking for a friendly hand to hold.
She walked to the edge of the fountain at the village square and sat, suddenly plunged into deep sorrow. If she was not beautiful, no one saw her. If she was, no one saw anything but her beauty. “What value do I have?” she asked.
“You have hands,” said a voice. Startled, the princess turned and saw a small white rabbit regarding her. “You have feet. You can work.”
“What would be the point of that?” asked the princess.
“If you work, you will be paid,” said the rabbit. “If you are paid, you can buy food. If you buy food, you can feed me, and if you feed me, I will tell you a secret.”
“We could go back to the palace. I can have all the food I want for free.”
“Ah,” said the rabbit, “but I will be gone by then, off to find some other princess, some princess who wants to feed me, and wants to learn a secret. It is a good secret. You would like it very much. But if you want me to give it to some other girl…” The rabbit made as if to hop away.
“No, wait!” said the princess. “Wait, please. I will work. I will get money. I will feed you. Please save your secret for me.”
“Very well,” said the rabbit. “I did not feel like walking anywhere today, anyway.”
Everyone likes a secret, especially when it is a good secret, and most especially of all when it is a secret that could be given to someone else. The princess looked frantically around the square, until she saw an old woman with a bundle of sticks on her back. She rushed to the old woman’s side. “Can I help you?” she asked. “My back is young and strong, I would be glad to work for you.”
The old woman smiled. “I would like that very much,” she said. “What a good girl you must be.” And she handed the bundle of sticks to the princess.
Now the princess, being a princess, was not accustomed to working very hard, but she had a willing heart, and she had seen the trouble the old woman was having. The secret slipped from her mind as she walked through the village with the bundle of sticks on her back, and when they reached the old woman’s home, she felt a hot new pride under her breastbone, like a second sun.
“I haven’t any money,” said the old woman. “But please, take this bread, and Sun bless you, my child.”
“Thank you, aged mother,” said the princess, and ran off to find someone else who needed help.
The princess helped an old man draw water from the well, ripping the skin of her palms; the old man paid her three fat apples.
The princess helped a little girl wash her dishes in the stream, getting water in her eyes and reddening her skin; the little girl paid her two small pies that smelled like ripe berries and sugar.
The princess helped a young mother fish her middle child out of the fountain, which he thought was a fine place to play; the young mother paid her a wedge of cheese already sticky with jam.
Exhausted and aching, the princess went looking for the rabbit, finding it asleep in the shadow of the fountain. “I have worked,” she announced. “I did not get any money, but I got quite a lot of food. Are you still hungry?”
“I am always hungry,” said the rabbit, leaping awake. The princess set her wages in front of it, and the rabbit fell on them with a will. One, two, and everything was gone, down into the belly of the bunny.
“Well?” said the princess. “What is the secret?”
“Sticks snag fabric,” said the rabbit.
The princess stared at the rabbit like it was the most foolish thing she had ever seen. “What?”
“Sticks snag fabric, and water washes faces, and soap washes hands,” said the rabbit. “Small children pull hoods away. This is the secret, princess: you are the princess, and now everyone knows it.”
The princess froze before turning, horrified, to look around the square. There were all the people she had helped, staring at her, knowing her for who she was.
Then the young mother rushed forward and hugged her. “I have always known you were beautiful, because how could a princess not be beautiful,” she said. “But before today, I would never have known that you were good.”
“You are still beautiful,” added the old woman. “But if you wish to be more than that, we are happy to let you, and besides, my thatch needs mending.”
There are many kinds of princess, and all of them have stories. There are princesses in forests, and they love their people, but they cannot turn away from the land; they must be forever tending gardens. There are princesses in fire, and they protect their people, but they cannot turn away from the fire; they must be forever tending ashes. There are princesses in ice, and they understand their people, but they cannot turn away from the ice; they must be forever tending storms. This princess was a princess of sunlight, of days unending and beauty that warms, and when she looked at her people, she finally understood that her place had never been alone in a palace, where she was lovely but lonely.
“All right,” she said. “We have work to do.”
It took the princess many hours to move all through the village, helping everyone she met, at least a little, at least enough to come and love them as they had always loved her. By the time she turned home, tired in a new and wonderful way, all she could do was look up at the sky. There was her old friend moon, pale as a cloud on the horizon.
“I am not unseen now,” she said. “Is this why I came?”
The moon did not answer. The moon so rarely does.
The princess returned to her palace, but ever after, she ventured out into the land, further each day, until all in the kingdom knew that she would appear, as if by magic, when they needed her. In time, she would even come to lead her father’s hunters through the wood, and to patrol the borders with mother’s scouts. The people of the kingdom bragged far and wide of their princess, who was more beautiful inside than all the golden suns and wide blue skies in all the world. In time, those stories would travel as far as the lands of those other princesses we have mentioned but not considered further, and things would change again.
But that is another tale to tell.
Now rest, my dear, and be at ease; there’s a fire in the hearth and a wind in the eaves, and the night is so dark, and the dark is so deep, and it’s time that all good little stars go to sleep.