The Lord of Light and the Man In the Moon
THE LORD OF LIGHT AND THE MAN IN THE MOON
It is so often the sad case that love springs from star-crossed desire. The sometimes astronomical unlikelihood of which, if it doesn’t crush it outright, can further fuel that desire even to recklessness. Opposites attract, after-all, and look to kindle balance.
So it was with the Moon Man's admiration for the Lord of Light. Her brilliance was threaded from golden filaments while his was hammered from broad, silver sheets and riveted by crude grommets; hers to blaze, untouchable through the ether and his to shield from the rocks of the titans; hers was the rapture of the dance incarnate and his was forged in furnaces so cold that they burned only blue. It seemed an impossibility. Also, they had totally opposite work schedules. How would he even meet her?
But he had seen her, glimpsed her at dusk and dawn and knew her passion by her warmth and the deep blue of her eyes. She invaded his dreams and he imagined her lilting voice harmonizing with his ancient lullabies. But though he held sway over the oceans themselves, his power only came with the darkness and he grew so very tired by dawn - all his energy spent on making the night bright for his nocturnal friends.
One evening while playing dominoes with his friend Yeti in the secret mountain valley of Hui-Neng, between bits of the Moon Man's famous blue cheese and sips of moonshine, Yeti made a passing comment that got the Man in the Moon’s mind a wonderin’. Yeti said, “This is past my bedtime.” And the Moon Man thought, “that’s it! I just need to stay up. I can deal with a little sleep deprivation.”
Now, you might find it a little silly that he hadn’t thought of that already, but you have to remember how hard he works and when you’re that old, you really get stuck in your routines. And also, the first time he took a vacation and wasn’t there to throw his gravity drag net over a Titan-thrown meteor and alter its course, it \ nearly split Magicalena in half and caused a mass extinction event. And the 2nd and last time he took a vacation, it caused an Ice Age, so…
This time would be different, he told himself. He determined to stay up way past his bedtime and wear his best face. As he paced across the night sky, he thought of what to say, so excited that he felt like he was floating at 1/6th gravity. But when she finally arrived he was spellbound, feeling like he had swallowed tons of iron and some nickel. Eventually, he just blurted out, “I love you! You’re so beautiful!”
As respectably honest as the remark certainly was, it wasn’t the sunnet he had been composing in his head.
However, what the Moon Man didn’t know was that the Lord of Light felt the same way. She blushed so hard, the whole sky turned pink. But the Man in the Moon misinterpreted this as having embarrassed her and not wanting to do any additional damage, he fled deep into his cave to nurse his broken heart where the Lord of Light couldn’t reach him. Seeing him retreat thusly, she cried until there were rainbows pouring out of her eyes.
The Man in the Moon was haunted as he slept, his desire transforming into horrible day creature chimeras with sharp teeth and gnashing claws. They flew to Magicalena with their riddles of the heart to eat unwary travelers.
The Moon Man awoke before dusk, drank some black coffee and then rose into the sky at his usual hour, trying his best to still sing the pollination songs to the moths, but they could tell his heart wasn’t in it. They tried their best to cheer him up by combining their best colors and creating a Luna Moth for him and really, it did help, but he was pretty crestfallen.
Suddenly, the Lord of Light rose directly opposite him from across the world and crowned him in light with the full love of a lunar eclipse. They were together in that moment and neither had felt so fulfilled before in all their ancient lives. It was truly a stellar moment of everything aligning perfectly.
Now, opposites attract and even fall in love, but they often have difficult relationships. Anyone could have seen that the distance between them was just too great. Still, they never stopped loving each other and still align every 73 or 122 days or thereabouts. And one of those times, twin boys were conceived: The Leprechaun and his equally mischievous, composite brother, Roy G. Biv.
So if you see the Man in the Moon stay up past his bedtime, now you’ll know that he’s just checking on his family because he loves them a lot and it’s hard for him to be away for work so much.