Once upon a time in a faraway land, there was a kingdom whose people worshipped the goddess of the moon. Every cycle, on the night when she shown brightest, they would offer her beautiful crowns made of blue roses. To show her love and gratitude, the Moon sent her kiss to the kingdom, and its magic made it so their beautiful blue roses never withered. And one of them, the most beautiful of them all turned its petals to the silver color of the Moon. It was said to have the power to heal every sickness, protect from misfortune and bring happiness to the kingdom.

Many years passed and the King and Queen were expecting the birth of their first child when the beautiful Queen fell ill. Desperate to save her life, the King had the Moon's silver rose used to make a potion. The magical rose restored the Queen's health, and on that same night, when the full moon was high the sky, she gave birth to a handsome prince with eyes like stars and hair of moonlight. He shined so splendid that the Moon herself hid her face from the sky the moment he was born, so as to not outshine the Prince's beauty.

The Prince grew to become beautiful and kind, beloved by the Moon and the people. From a young age, he learned to dance on the frozen lake by the palace and every year, on the night of the Prince's birthday, the Moon would hide her face and the people would come to watch him dance, and his Moonlight hair would shine blessings on everyone present.

But as time went by, the King's Great Chancellor grew jealous of the Prince's Moonlight hair and wanted to have its blessings all for himself. It was the Prince's eighth birthday and the Moon had hidden her face, and the wretched warlock used the boisterous party as a distraction to take the benevolent King and the beautiful Queen's lives and steal the Prince away, shrouding the kingdom in complete darkness.

The kingdom was devastated by the loss of their beloved rulers and their beautiful Prince, but no matter how much they searched, they could never find him. Desolate and confused, the people begged the King's brother to become Regent until their Lost Prince came back, which he accepted out of love, knowing his departed brother would have wanted him to keep the kingdom at peace.

Ever since then, the Regent valiantly guards over the kingdom, whose people have not lost hope for their Lost Prince to come back. And every year, on the Lost Prince's birthday, when the Moon hides her face and the night turns darkest, the people light up lanterns of silver fire to simulate the Lost Prince's Moonlight hair, wishing he will see them and find his way back home.

The End

"Ah, I really never get tired of this story." Yuko sighs, shutting the book closed and placing it on her lap, a dreamy flush on her cheeks. "What's wrong, Yuuri-kun? You look troubled."

Yuuri perks up, only now noticing he's frowning. He blinks a couple of times and looks down at his hands, pensively.

"I don't know…" he admits, glancing briefly at the book on Yuko's lap. The story of the Lost Prince and his Moonlight hair has always been his favorite, for as long as he can remember. Every night, he asks his mother to tell it before he goes to sleep, and in his dreams he envisions himself finding the Prince, dancing with him on the frozen lake, hearing his chrystalline voice calling his name 'Yuuri, my little star', mesmerized by his smile that shines as beautiful as his hair, "Just… something's off about… this." He vaguely gestures at the book, a little helpless "It's… different to how Mom tells it." He says finally, not knowing how else to explain it.

Yuko frowns and puts the book back on its shelf "You're weird Yuuri-kun."

The door bursts open and Takeshi comes stumbling through it. "Come on! The other kids have already started making their lamps! We can't lose to them, we gotta make ours bigger!"

Yuko giggles and nods. "Let's go, Yuuri-kun, we came all the way to the capital for this!"

Yuuri doesn't reply and lets her drag him outside with Vicchan yipping at his feet. He holds the white rice papers they'll use to make the lamps close to his chest. His eyes then find Vicchan and he smiles, struck by an idea that makes him run to his mother to ask her for a black chalk to draw.

Hours later, when the sky has turned darkest, he'll unclasp his small hand from his mother's and let go of his floating lamp of silver fire, closing his eyes in a silent prayer.

Please let him see you.

To be continued

Well I succumbed to my own impatience once again. I really wanted to share this with you and welp, here we are. I'm trying to normalize my writing schedule so it won't take me 3 months to update each of my on-going stories, but I hope you'll have patience with me. It's the first time I try to do an AU of this scale so I'm slowly working through some kinks and issues to make it all fall into place. I've got a general outline down and most importantly I'm super excited to share it with you. As you've probably noticed already, this has deviated quite a bit from the Tangled story, but I hope you'll appreciate the changes and enjoy it as a whole.

This chapter's pretty short because it's mostly a prologue, but I still hope to hear your thoughts about it. I'm not entirely sold on the title, so I might change it eventually, but let me know your opinions on it please :)