Striking Midnight
(This is the first half of the story, the second part will follow soon. As well as the obvious Cinderella motif, it draws on several Old Irish stories, including Fingal Ronain. Some phrases, particularly at the begining, are pretty straight translations from that story. Hope you like.)
Once upon a time, there was an old king who had one son. This son was not merely bold and fearless: he was brave and generous. The men of that land clustered around him at all times, and he was every woman's darling. Despite all this, however, he was unmarried, and his heart had never felt that touch of frost or flame that some people call love. His father, too, was without a wife: the boy's mother had died several years before. The father was concerned that his son should have heirs, and the boy worried that his father was lonely. The king decreed, therefore, that a great feast should be held, for the whole kingdom, so that they could each choose a fit partner. (A fertile young girl for the boy, a sane and steady companion for the king himself.)
All was arranged as they wished. Their great court was hung with a hundred thousand lamps and glimmering lights, and the walls were hung with silks as white and red as a woman's breasts. There was not a girl with a drop of noble blood in her delicate veins who was not invited, and all who were invited came. They wore gowns of gold, and gowns of pink, gowns of blue and green and purple and silver and yellow and bronze and black. There were long velvet dresses, which pooled behind grand figures, and dresses that were mere vapours, barely obscuring the moony flesh within. There were tresses of hair the colour of fire, of sunlight, of midnight. It was a gathering of beauties such as was never before seen, and will never be seen again.
Both prince and king moved amongst the splendid forms with confident pleasure, comparing each lovely face with the last. But five minutes before the bells were rung to summon them to their meat and drink, a gong was struck, and the steward announced one final guest. As the ring echoed through the hall, the whole court turned to see the new arrival, and her beauty was such that none heard the name by which she was proclaimed. She was taller than anyone in the room save for the prince, and her hair was a splendour that reached her feet, which glimmered in dew-drop slippers. Her dress was woven of the colours of a stormy sky on midsummer's day, and her skin's brightness was so great that all the women of the court were instantly blinded simply from looking at her. (Some never recovered.)
She was led instantly to the head of the table, to the king's own seat, and was feasted bountifully. The king himself sat to her right, and the prince to her left. Throughout the meal, she discoursed with them both, quite charmingly. Afterwards, she danced first with the king and then, for many hours, with his son. No one else moved throughout the evening. As she danced with the bold prince, she flirted with him constantly, drawing him into declarations of love that were increasingly wild and foolhardy.
Then midnight struck. On the first chime, her very shape seemed to flicker, like a flash of lightning, or the breaking of an enchantment. The prince, who was gazing at her flawless features, noticed suddenly that her exquisitely-shaped eyes were a simple blue, of no extra-ordinary brightness. Then she turned from him, and fled. As she went, she cried sadly to the company: "If you love me truly, do not desire me." She reached the steps then, and lost a slipper a half-second before the last chime struck. Upon that chime, she slowed, and glided away serenely, as stunning as before. Not a man amongst them remembered reaching his bed that night.