Enchantment

by She's a Star

A bit of a twist on everyone's favorite love story...

Summary: The story of Moulin Rouge unfolds in a land of fantasy, magic, and legends as a jaded siren and naive minstrel find love.

Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge belongs to Baz Luhrmann.

Author's Note: I know practically nothing about fantasy and such, so I'll be kind of inventing things as I go along. :) I may make a mistake or two, but this is NitaFantasy, okay? *hehehe* Completely different thing. And yes, sitars are from India, but ah well. This is a magical sitar. Completely different.

Well then...heeere we go.

Chapter One

It is often thought that the fairest in the land should be a princess or queen. After all, they are the personifications of grace and elegance, and what else could those attributes equal to but beauty?

And yet, the fairest in the land was not a princess, nor queen, nor duchess nor countess. As a matter of fact, they were not a lady of the court at all.

Rather, the most beautiful woman in the entire country of Rougia was a siren.

Sirens were dangerous, deadly creatures. One note of a sweet song, and a man could be eternally lost to her. It was not the love of the man that a siren earned upon captivating him. Oh, no: love was something unknown to such a creature. Rather, it was lustful desire. You could not love someone who did not have a soul.

Sirens, it was told, did not have souls.

No one even thought of considering the possibility.

For a man to capture a siren was a most glorious feat. It was difficult, but not unheard of. In order to do so, the man must sing back to the siren; if for one moment her guard was let down and she lost herself in the beauty of the song, she would belong to him forever. She had to do whatever the man commanded, and if she attempted to free herself from him, she would begin to waste away.

Once this started, only his song could save her.

If, of course, he chose to save her, which rarely occurred. After all, to rob a siren of her life was a most impressive victory, and the sooner they were killed, the better. They were dangerous, meaningless monsters; only existing to awaken desire and sin in helpless males.

Creatures of the underworld.

Our tale begins on one fine midsummer morning, in the palace of a king called Duke. Why he was called Duke, no one was quite sure, for it was quite a confusing task to figure out whether he was a king named Duke or a duke named King.

Now, in his own opinion, King Duke was the most brilliant human being ever to walk on earth. He was an intelligent man, well-read with a library full of important texts. (Yes, he'd never even touched the majority of the books, but that was quite an unimportant detail.) With complete confidence, he could say he was the most handsome man in his kingdom of Monroth. (If you wanted to get technical, this was because he'd had all the more good-looking ones banished or beheaded, but ah well. Did that really matter?) Women were known to grow faint at his very presence, it was no doubt in Duke's mind that they would commit murder to become his queen. (What he did not know was that the first murder they would most likely want to commit was his own.)

Within his palace, King Duke had many magical and marvelous things that he'd felt necessary to make his home do justice to his marvelous self. Though he very much enjoyed the room filled with frogs that he had come accustomed to smooshing daily (good exercise, frog smooshing. There was nothing quite as satisfying as feeling their insides squish under your shoe and their little voices croak in one last 'ribbit'.) and the chamber full of lovely maidens, his most prized possession was by far his magical sitar. The sitar had been a gift from a queen who inhabited a faraway land, and its powers were extraordinary: it could only speak the truth! The king had learned many valuable things from the sitar, including the names of men who were more handsome than him and if the cooks were trying to poison his meals. (He had come to suspect this when his royal food tester had dropped dead seconds after tasting the rabbit stew. Of course, the cooks had been disposed of immediately, and new ones had been found.)

On this particular day, he had a most pressing question for the sitar, one which had been on his mind for quite sometime.

"O Magical Sitar," he boomed in his deep and intimidating (in his mind...in actuality, it was rather nasal and squeaky) tone, "I need this knowledge now, and of course the truth. Who is the most beautiful woman in all of Rougia? She must be my wife."

The sitar struck a few notes before responding in its heavily accented voice, "The most beautiful woman in all of Rougia is a siren called Satine. She lives in the Diamond Territory with a few others of her kind."

"The Diamond Territory!?" King Duke repeated incredulously. "But that's all the way across the country! A man as important as myself simply cannot make such a long and dangerous journey! What shall I do?"

The sitar replied, "Give the task to the man with the gift of song. It is destiny."

"What??" Duke asked, dumbfounded.

This time, the sitar had no response.

Oh well, Duke thought. I'll know in time. After all, it's destiny.

And with that, he left the sitar and delightedly made his way to the frog room, which had been refilled with amphibians that morning. It had been a long and exhausting morning, and quite confusing as well. Who was this man with the gift of song??

I suppose, the king said to himself silently, Time will tell.