It is easy, even know, to love the night; infinite, mysterious and full of wonders, yet so safe as a secret keeper. Night means danger for some because it holds truths that we are denied, and desires that crave to be uncovered.

 

Many people say that’s easier to think at night, and it’s for the same reasons; Momo was starting to agree more and more as the nights went by and she just let go of all of her doubts, letting her mind fly away from ceremonies and boring dinners, dresses and uncomfortable shoes. Momo was part of the royalty, but her mind at night talked about so much more than that.

 

She childishly wished sometimes, for someone to somehow hear her thoughts and give true value to the ideas that she gave birth to, to give sense to her most complex questions.

 

As her eyes met the stars from the window of her chambers, the princess realized that, despite being quite unrealistic, it wasn’t entirely impossible to let the stars carry her thoughts to the sky and them wherever they were needed. So she quietly made sure her maid was not right on the others side of the door as she opened her window in order to let herself be heard by the skies, even if it was only an illusion.

 

What she didn’t count on though, was the possibility that there was someone expecting her to do just that in order to get what they wanted.

 

Momo let her eyes wander on the edge of the mountains, that silver line that was drawn in the horizon thanks to her eternal companion: the moonlight. She ignored the cold that cut through her skin when she leaned forward to let the breeze hit her face and wake her up completely; the night was merciless, but Momo learned to see the beauty of death starting from that night, and with that, she learned to lose fear of the night itself, no matter how blood stained would it appear in front of her eyes.

 

As there was beauty to see in the night, thanks to the moonlight, Momo learned that there was also music on nature, small sounds in the dead of the night that told the young princess about so much more life beyond the palace grounds.

 

“It’s not a night for you to wander”

 

A voice wasn’t expected, and the startled princess let her curiosity win over her self-preservation instinct, immediately searching for the origin of the voice.

 

“Who is it?”

 

“So demanding, for a mere second I allowed myself to believe that you weren’t just a princess, so naïve of me to believe that.”

 

Momo tried to track the direction where the voice was coming from, but there wasn’t much to see except for snow, and the moonlight covering the structure of the palace.

 

“I’m sure I’m more than a princess, I do not need validation from no other but myself regarding how correct my values are.” She tried “It’d be certainly more convincing for you, maybe, if you came out from your hiding and revealed yourself.”

 

There was an instant of silence, and then the light sound of feet moving over the snow.

 

“Do you believe I’m a ghost, Princess? That’s why you look so scared?”

 

“I wouldn’t be scared If I thought you were a ghost, stranger. Ghosts cannot harm like people do; I heard your footsteps, that’s why I’m afraid.”

 

“So you are afraid, yet you don’t take a step back from the window to be back to safety… How reckless from you to take those chances, Princess.”

 

Momo bit her lip in concentration, eyes looking into the dark for any signal of movement, every sign of life.

 

She found none.

 

“If you were to hurt me… You would have already, because we’ve been talking for a while, and I still cannot find you, stranger.”

 

A single hum, bluntly mocking but endearingly feminine nonetheless, and Momo finally found movement in the depths of the shadows the wing of the building casted towards the rest of the palace; from darkness she emerged, like any idea did before it casted the light over a soul, and Momo was left breathless because a beauty like that could only be compared to the moon itself.

 

She should’ve been jealous of the wild and free beauty staring up at her from the roof of the first floor, obsidian-colored hair floating like smoke thanks to the white breeze of an incoming storm, but she was too busy being mesmerized by the dangerously shining eyes and the crimson lips curling up in an almost-smirk when, she assumed, she was looking far too caught up in her to say something.

 

“What are you?” She found herself asking, and the beauty’s lips kept the same shape, she looked amused, but not enough to show her teeth or just smile like any other person would.

 

“I think your mind might be a little lost, your majesty, the word you seem to be searching for is who.”

 

Momo’s cheeks were tinted red in embarrassment, a foreign feeling for someone who belonged to royalty and was meant to be the next most powerful person in the continent. The stranger took a couple steps forward, bare feet leaving a trace behind her; Momo frowned then and leaned on the edge of the window, extending her hand towards the girl.

 

“You must be crazy, stranger, this is no weather to be this bare outside.”

 

The stranger took the turn to frown then, deeply confused by the sudden change on the princess demeanor; the whole exchange seemed oddly planned, and suddenly, the young heir to the throne was more kind than she anticipated.

 

“Are you seriously offering to let me into your palace, without knowing who I am or why I’m here for?” the stranger asked, raising a single perfect eyebrow, differently colored eyes shining mischievously in the night.

 

“We are both doing unusual things tonight, I’m choosing to not freeze to death in the process” Momo replied, still extending her arm towards the other girl.

 

The stranger, more fascinating at every second, completely ignored the princess hand and jumped towards the wall, nimbly moving up the structure until she reached the window; rough fingers surprising Momo because she, observant as she was, noticed in her hands the strength of a person that lived their entire life in the forests yet her beauty talked about royalty, even divinity.

 

She moved aside to let the stranger enter her chambers, but the girl only held onto the edge of the window, looking at her expectantly; Momo was surprised by her strength when she noticed she was still, in fact, staring in her direction while hanging from a building .

 

“Aren’t you inviting me in? I thought Princesses had manners.”

 

Momo rolled her eyes, crossing her arms.

 

“Come in, stranger.” She said anyway, and in a swift movement, the stranger was inside.

 

As agile as she could be because of the forest life, Momo still knew there was something oddly inhuman to the girl; besides her eyes, her whole presence was as powerful as her own and Momo couldn’t help but be attracted to it.

 

She should’ve felt threatened.

 

She didn’t.

 

The first mistake.

 

Momo observed quietly for a bit, taking it all in; the disheveled look of the other female threw her off, it wasn’t often than she saw a person dressed in other thing that wasn’t expensive dresses and luxurious military outfits. But there she was, a stranger in nothing but a poor excuse of a gown, ripped a bit on the neck, and pants that barely covered her calves.

 

The princess would’ve mistaken her for a peasant if it wasn’t for the proud look on her eyes.

 

And her eyes…

 

Momo couldn’t stop looking at them when she noticed the particularity they held; the girl’s right eye was brown like hers, but the left one was what had the young princess fascinated. She felt chills running down her back when she looked at her and that snow-blue eye stared back at her in curiosity.

 

“You don’t talk much indoors” Momo noted, and bare feet moved across the carpet, taking her eyes from the princess to look around the bedroom instead; the stranger just hummed in acknowledgement.

 

She was fascinating, and somehow, she was still alive and looking well regardless of weather.

 

“Right” The princess interrupted her own train of thought after seeing the other girl’s bare feet again. “I’ll get you one of my gowns, you can’t be around this land wearing just that.”

 

“There’s no need” The soft velvety voice from the stranger replied. “My life runs differently than yours, your majesty.”

 

“How so?” Came the immediate question, Momo was as curious as any young one could be when exposed to a different side of the world.

 

The stranger stopped looking at the books that rested beside her bed and looked at her with a single eyebrow raised in question. Momo’s breath was caught on , unable to behave properly under the gaze of the wild girl on her chambers, who walked closer, and closer until the princess realized she was trapped between her and her desk.

 

The threat was right there, in front of her; piercing blue and brown eyes looking at her like she knew all of her secrets, like she was the moon whom she told all her thoughts to.

 

“We are different, Princess.”

 

A rough looking hand came close to her face, and Momo breath hitched when surprisingly delicate fingers started playing with a strand of her hair; it was a spell, when she looked at her, so closely she found the stars branded on her skin and the roses bloomed in violent shades of red in the curve of her lips.

 

“What are you?” Momo breathed out, her own fingers, like magnets, reaching out to touch what it seemed too ethereal to be really there, carrying the smell of the forest and mountains on her skin and the sky on her face.

 

“Curious, as you” Came the quiet reply, and the stranger didn’t even bother to remove Momo’s hands from her shoulder and face.

 

Momo wasn’t supposed to be so calm.

 

Yet she was, under her touch.

 

“About what?”

 

“Humans, letting strangers in.”

 

“So you’re not human, stranger?”

 

“Never said I was.”

 

It was Momo’s turn to hum, another shiver waking up her body from a deep reverie when the stranger took a step back, like she was deep in thought about something. The princess figured out that a creature like that would only think about the wonders of the heavens and the unknown; that stranger could only know of beauty, since she carried it herself.

 

The space between them was like a bubble of air, that finally entered the young Princess lungs and let her clear her mind at least for a minute.

 

She heard of legends before, frequently whispered by the children of the castle workers, or by the people who took care of her horses; she never believed them, often blaming the people’s ignorance towards the true dangers of the world. Momo was as logical as her father, but still, being in front of a creature like that could only prove that there was so much more than evil man wandering in the dark of the forests.

 

“Are you God?” She found herself asking out loud, hands holding to the edge of the desk until her knuckles turned white.

 

The stranger tilted her head to the side, stepping back until she sat on the edge of the Princess’ bed.

 

There was fascination on her eyes as she scanned Momo, and the princess’ knees nearly gave up when the stranger kept staring at her like she was the strange one.

 

“Not here.”

 

“Where then?”

 

“Somewhere else, around the corner, maybe further… Never the same place.”

 

“Why are you here then?”

 

A moment of silence, and Momo stepped forward; she knew well of the presence of her personal guard on the other side of the room and she felt somehow safe knowing that. She dared to stare back, even glaring when it came to that because of the ever-growing lack of sound coming from the stranger.

 

The princess remembered how the death-cold breath felt against her skin, and how the stranger locked the door when she was pacing around the room.

 

She was supposed to feel threatened.

 

She still didn’t.

 

Such a fool.

 

“There’s whispers, around the kingdom; they spread rumors about you like legends spread among kids.” Momo took another step forward, hands now busy holding onto her gown’s hem. “They talk about a princess living on this palace, who’s smile heals the most broken hearts and relieves the most disturbed minds; there’s stories about your smell, like wild flowers after the rain.”

 

“People tend to exaggerate my qualities”

 

“Those aren’t the whispers I follow, Princess” The stranger clarifies, reaching towards her when she’s close enough, her hand soon trapped in a stronger one as deep, dark eyes stare up at her knowingly. “Although I understand their admiration, I never met a young woman as beautiful as you are.”

 

“Which ones you listen to, forest goddess?”

 

“My people talks about the taste of your skin, and the golden blood running hot through your veins.” She replies, the tips of her fingers tracing over the skin on the inner side of her forearm, right over her veins. “We smell it from the dark, coming from your window every night the moon shines over the lands you and your father think you own.”

 

Momo is lost in her.

 

“Are your people demons?”

 

Danger.

 

“And I’m to be their queen.” She answers.

 

Run away.

 

Momo feels like the peasant, even when she’s the one standing in front of a sitting girl who dresses like a beggar; she looks into her eyes again and she’s reminded of children stories about the Pricolici, her heart beating faster upon the discovery but more wildly when the stranger’s lips graze her wrist, breathing in her perfume.

 

She doesn’t stop her though, as her cold hands trace her body as she’s looking for answers where she shouldn’t.

 

Her touch shouldn’t burn so much when she’s so cold.

 

“What are you searching for?” The princess breathes out, poisonous fingers tracing up her leg and getting lost under her sleeping gown.

 

“The sweetness I’m about to conquer”

 

A demon.

 

“Is it my death what you wish for?”

 

She’s a strong girl, already capable of taking the reins of a whole kingdom on her own in case something bad happened to her father; other kingdoms have praised her wisdom before, other Princes wished for her hand in marriage in order to reign alongside her and many people both admired and feared her beauty. She could be as dangerous as the stranger wandering in the shadow of the night.

 

Still, she’s reduced to heavy breathing and trembling hands when the wild beauty looks in her direction.

 

“Not the death you would expect. I wish something to end in you, call it naivety or innocence.”

 

“You came to take me.”

 

“My intentions are not something you would understand, dear Princess; but now that I’m in front of you, I desire much more than I could get by my own hands.”

 

“Even though you’re the Queen goddess of the forest?”

 

“My kingdom ends where these stone walls begin. I’m nothing but a peasant in this room.”

 

“Then obey your Princess and tell me your name, stranger.” She sighs, watching as her own hands slide down the beauty’s back, ripping the neck of her already torn gown even further.

 

“You shall call me Mina inside these walls.”

 

“Then call me Momo, and let your hunger be sated until your spirit is calm and your sights are clear.”

 

And so she did.

 

It was easy to love the night; infinite, mysterious and full of wonders, yet so safe as a secret keeper. Night means danger for some because it holds truths that we are denied, and desires that crave to be uncovered.

 

These particular nights revealed many desires, both lawful and sinful; as blood ran down pale skin and pants echoed inside decorated stone walls.

 

Momo discovered the true horrors and wonders of the moonlight, hidden behind eyes that showed both the light and dark of the forest; the untouchable, unreachable beauty trembling out of anger and desire fading onto distance as her nails branded yet another piece of the map as her kingdom.

 

She promised to comeback every night the moon shone on the edges of the palace.

 

It felt good to tame a goddess.

 

And it was a wonder to keep being pure and sweet as the tales told of.

 

Momo was sweet after all, everyone knows it, and only the Pricolici got to taste it.