"Do you know the strange tale of why the bay lights up on Independence Day?" asked the grandfather.
"Some sort of bioluminescent sea creatures attracting prey?"
"Hah! Good guess. That would be strange. Hah, maybe some mating ritual!" Grandfather toyed with the idea. "But no, it's stranger than that. It's our princess, you see. I was there when it started ..."
Princess Sweetpea was in trouble. Again. She and Charles were tucked under the footbridge, in the muck of the river's edge, listening to the feet of the Phoregian troops pounding by overhead. They waited until they faded away, and the crickets started chirruping again.
"Nice of them to tie my frigate to the dock there," opined Charles.
"And for them to fill it with gunpowder," said Sweetpea.
"So what's the plan?" asked Charles. "We sneak on, steal it, fire at any pursuers, and take their gunpowder to the resistance?"
"Sounds iffy."
"Well what else?"
"They've got the Elixer of Enlightenment on board," said Sweetpea. "The prophecy said that whoever drank it would lead Dagland to victory."
Charles pondered. "And you said stealing the boat and running away from all the armed soldiers was iffy. How are you going to lead anyone with all those Phoregians between you and the Dagland troops?"
"I'll be enlightened!"
"i SEE ..."
The call had gone out to Dagland. Covertly, the people had rallied, bringing guns and pitchforks and mounted moas. Anything they could muster. Life under Phoregean rule had been stifling interspersed with terrifying. Dirk sat on his horse, surveying the mob. Tonight they were ready to attack. But they needed a signal. His best guess was the princess was distracting the troops for them by gathering them all around the docks. Misdirection was definitely part of the princess's style.
"OK, we're belowdecks, surrounded by kegs of gunpowder, and you've got your elixer," said Charles.
"I still don't understand how we got here," said Sweetpea.
"It's a mystery to me too." said Charles. "But this elixer ... what is it exactly?"
"The essence of an eldritch being, lending enlightenment!"
"So, you're saying, some eldritch being had indigestion, and burped this stuff up? The idea of humans having true wisdom made them queasy like that?"
"Well that's what the ancient scrolls said. Sort of. It's hard to pin down these mystical meanings."
"I wouldn't touch that stuff with a ten foot pole," said Charles. "Yet you would. Will. What is with you and these ridiculous chances you keep taking?"
"I'm in the habit," said Sweetpea. "I'm pretty sure I've got plot armor. Luck beats me up along the way, but things always work out for me in the end."
"You're mad."
"Yeah? Well, bottoms up!"
Princess Sweetpea uncorked the vial and drank it. She cocked her head and looked puzzled. An aura surrounded her.
"Feeling wise yet? Why's the ocean near the shore?'
"I don't think I'm thinking any different," said Sweetpea. She was positively glowing.
Charles looked alarmed. "Um. Maybe it's not that type of enlightenment. Maybe it's just en-lightening you."
"What? That makes no sense," said the Princess. It hurt to look at her. Heat was radiating off of her. "This is annoying. If I'm so bright it's going to give away where we're hiding." The powder kegs nearest her started smoking.
"That's it, I'm out of here," said Charles. "Maybe plot armor will protect you but I don't think it'll save me." Pounding footsteps above showed they'd been spotted.
Charles lifted the hatch — "Over here, they're in here!" he yelled. He ran out as the soldiers ran in. "That way, that way quick!" yelled Charles as he ran away.
From a distance, the ship appeared to have a lantern belowdeck, gradually brightening. The open hatch shown a spotlight on the clouds overhead. It grew brighter and brighter.
There was an explosion, obliterating the ship, then two more explosions in quick succession. Fragments of ship were blasted in every direction. The shockwaves leveled some nearby shacks, knocked down a section of castle wall, and rattled the countryside.
"If that's not a signal, the I'm a monkey's uncle," said Dirk. The castle was backlit in yellow flames and the thunder of the explosion echoed back and forth.
Charles appeared, out of breath.
"Where's the princess?" asked Dirk.
"She was on the ship that just blew up."
"Did she survive?"
"I don't see how," said Charles.
"Nonsense. She survives everything."
Flaming pieces of ship fell from the sky, along with radiant bits that fell down from the sky. The nearest one, if you really squinted so you could make it out, looked like a tooth. Another in a tree looked like maybe a shinbone.
The people took them up. They mounted them on poles as lanterns. "An eye! An enlightened eye!" said one, with a radiant eye on the end of their pole. The mob roared and stormed the castle. They overran it. That is how Dagland regained its independence from the Phoregians.
The mourners gathered around the open grave. All they'd managed to salvage of Princess Sweetpea for the grave was a single mystical radiant fingernail. They lowered it into the grave and covered it up.
Sweetpea's wizened old mother Emma stood among the mourners and watched as her daughter, well a bit of her, went to a hopefully final resting place. "Sweetpea always had plot armor," said Emma. She scratched her hooked nose. "But I don't think she quite understood what that means. It just means she is vital to advancing the plot."
"I was just a boy when that happened," said the grandfather. "Independence day coincided with the yearly smelt migration. The smelt found these radiant bits falling down into the water, and ate them. Then they dispersed, and the light was gone. But every year, they return. And every year, on Independence Day, our bay glows because of our enlightened princess."
This was first posted on reddit rWritingPrompts, to a prompt "A pun so bad as to cause the mind of an eldritch horror to recoil in agony," but really had been written years earlier.