Once upon a time, in the magical realm of the Sky Kingdom, where fluffy clouds lounged and birds sang sweetly, there lived a spirited little princess named Nimbus. She drifted gracefully amidst the clouds, always dressed in her silvery gown and a radiant crown made of dreams and starlight. On this particular afternoon, the sun glistened brightly, and a mischievous wind started to blow, swirling and twirling through the sky.
Above her, Nimbus could see the immense thunder clouds shuffling nervously. “Oh dear! It seems a strong wind is coming your way!” she said, waving to her dear friends, the big thunder clouds. Just then, a powerful gust swirled all around her, picking up the fallen yellow gorse and sharp whins, and her precious crown was whisked away. “Oh no! My crown!” screamed the little princess, floating up as fast as her little feet could take her.
The wind was swift, and it carried her crown across the Blue Square of the sea, then over a cluster of islands below, where swarms of bees were playing in the honeysuckle orchard, and purple rabbits were nibbling green maraschino cherries. The princess urged loudly to the wind, “Take me to my crown! Take me to my crown!” She almost turned dizzy with the spinning, but still she chased the crown.
Meanwhile, below on a tiny island, two cloud images were piloted by a little boy whose bare feet were almost dangling into the water. He saw something dance across the sky over his head and whispered to his two boats, “It’s a good day for good luck; row toward that white thing!” And the two cloud image boats drifted dreamily toward the princess.
“Where’s my crown? Where’s my crown?” she cried in all directions. The wind began to whistle softly, then bolder and louder in agitation, and faded again with the tinkle of far-off bells. What could have happened, but all at once the whisper of the Samphire Ivy told her and the rainbow glove of bubbles covered half a mile of the sea where the crown must have fallen. Then the little boy took all the oars himself, and the little princess, breathing fast, soon reached the island of glad floods bursting from shells, with garlands of coral and gold spreading nakedly above the water. Like a rainbow, ill-dried by the sun, the landscape curved down the hanging hillside to a rocky basin that was the sea.
The fisherman who lived there with his wife dreamed that he lived in the glorious land of Lunaria, where only the best children went but where there were long jectst to deliver all sorts of things, including crowns blown away by winds.
The fisherman was just finishing his breakfast of fruit when the girl dashed in with her crown on her head before she had thought of thanking him for a good wash of her feet in his brown sea. As she looked at the bananas and drank the creamy milk served in big gourd vessels, her eyes sparkled with happiness and she laughed, thanks to her joy toilet, like a little princess should.
All the future-night children dined at his house, and they were given a peep in a deer-skin sack, and when he heard that all the dinners from above were done, at his sister’s nick-nacks from below and their furan coffee beans—“It would be a pity,” he said, “to spoil your lunch by carrying your work both ways again.”
So six evenings after, the little family was sitting on their doorstep twisting colored grasses into half-suspended roofs for the Wells. “I do wish I could pay you for all your kindness,” said the little princess, rifling in her skirt. The fisherman thought over his cloths, his nets, and his free boots and war-paint, and considered there was really nothing she could give him; but she was not disheartened and said, looking at one of the pink cone-houses, “I would give you so much if I could.”
Suddenly the fisherman fancied there was a tale in the rhyme of the huts, so instead of giving anything himself, he said, “You knew each other in Heaven, I think, where more is given than received! If you will row me straight home, and let me sleep on board, as my little merry life preserver will be as firm as a deal door when you let go, I will be both merchant and skipper.” So off the two boats started, one of glad floods, where the sink fishes, and the runner of dreams; the fishes tumbling and fishing and tumbling in the Gaitt! And all day long they moved on always with the show-wind behind them, until on the morning of the seventh they arrived near the fishing in the static little cage.
The fisherman kneeled down before the girl, and they took leave of each other in lines like among the sardines of the finest Montedain League. The sea-wind carried her back to the appointment she had not broken, where starlight fell on her head and sunlight on the reign of her floor like an heirloom.