Trials of the Moonlight

Lenge, Lenge Siden

It is said that long, long ago, there lived five guardians in an enchanted realm, where no hatred, no lies, and no pain exist.

Their immortal souls were bound to earth so that they may bring hope and joy to the innocent youth, as long as they were not seen.

The fifth guardian, the youngest, dreamt of the human world, of the sun, the grass, the rain, of playing with other children... and so he escaped from the watchful eyes of the other guardians and came to our world. It was forbidden, and so the moon created an eclipse that erased all of his memories and stripped him of his powers. The fifth guardian was no more.

The four guardians of old would not give up searching for the spirit of their fifth companion, for the moon had told them that he would be reborn once again, but in the body of a human, in another place, at another time.

...

Jack Frost peered into Elsa's bedroom where he heard her and Sophie's voices.

"When you have reached your fifteenth year," said the grandmother, "you will have permission to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will see both forests and towns." In the following year, one of the sisters would be fifteen: but as each was a year younger than the other, the youngest would have to wait five years before her turn came to rise up from the bottom of the ocean, and see the earth as we do." Elsa read aloud. Sophie lied curled up next to her, the only light they had was a small lantern. Elsa turned the page, but she noticed her door had been opened. They both turned and sniggered.

"Mom would be mad you're up past your bedtime."

"Mom doesn't have to know!" Sophie chortled. "Besides, I'm thirteen, I don't need a bedtime!"

"I had one when I was thirteen." Elsa grinned. "Didn't stop me, of course."

"I used to sneak and get mom's leftover desserts when I was up late." Jack closed the door behind him. "What are you two reading?"

"It's a new Danish book Elsa got!"

"Actually, it's a fairytale collection that was sent to me as a gift." She looked at the cover. "Hans Christian Anderson."

"Aren't you two a little old for fairytales?"

"Excuse you?" Elsa snarked playfully. Sophie stuck her tongue out at him; they knew he was joking. "Why don't you read with us since you're here?"

"Why not?" He sat with Sophie in-between the two of them. "Mom will want me to take you back to bed anyway."

"After this last story, okay Jack?" She begged.

"Here, you read to us." Elsa handed him the book. He looked at the title of the passage.

"The Little Mermaid?"

"Read! It's about a mermaid that wants to go to the human world!"

"Okay, okay. Where'd you leave off?"

Sophie pointed on the page. "Right here."

"Uh..." He felt awkward reading aloud, since he had a tendency to accidentally mix words up and stammer. "As soon as the eldest was fifteen..." He paused as he cringed at his own 'narrating' voice. "She was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean..." He swallowed. "When she–"

Elsa got tired of his boring reading and took over. "When she came back, she had hundreds of things to talk about; but the most beautiful, she said, was to lie in the moonlight, on a sandbank, in the quiet sea, near the coast, and to gaze on a large town nearby, where the lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars; to listen to the sounds of the music, the noise of carriages, and the voices of human beings, and then to hear the merry bells peal out from the church steeples; and because she could not go near to all those wonderful things, she longed for them more than ever. Oh, did not the youngest sister listen eagerly to all these descriptions?" She was much more fit for reading bedtime stories. Jack was better at playacting, which is why he loved Shakespeare night, where the family sat together and read one of his plays dramatically aloud.