"This Dream of the Moon"

[butterflydreaming]

From the dedication page of The Darkangel:
To Joy, Carnell, and Dr. Green,
this dream of the Moon
-Meredith Ann Pierce

***
[Yue has a series of bad dreams after reading a fantasy novel, featuring various people he knows in place of the novel's characters.]

***

Awakening

Eyes opening in the dark, Yue, Sakura’s Moon Guardian, shuddered awake. He could still hear like an echo the green-eyed girl calling him evil. He remembered hunting her across dessert sands, losing her in the battle with the golden lion. Clinging wisps of loneliness in a cold, empty castle followed him out of the dream.

Yue rested his gaze onto the sliver of shining moon outside the room's window. It appeared as a fat crescent, to a cursory look. When seen a different way, it was clearly a dark orb, reflecting light only along one curved side. A world. In his dream, it was a world of open magic and unearthly creatures. In this world of lingering nights, he was a winged Icarus, a vampyre that stole the souls and drank the blood of girls, turning them into wraiths.

It was all the fault of the novel he had read, he knew. It was the same story, only... only he was the monster. He was the bloodless, timeless Prince Irrylath, who flew out across the land once a year to steal a bride. He wore their souls in vials on a heavy chain around his neck. Vivid images came to mind, rising up from the remains of the dream like bodies floating in a polluted lake.

Yue shuddered again. It seemed foolish to be disturbed by such a dream, yet he was. A monster. His heart had been covered in lead: walled off and unfeeling. A man with a beautiful face, but wings turned as ink-black as his deeds.  He indulged himself in a measure of reassurance by unfolding his wings so that the moon's light fell on the satiny white feathers. He sat in the darkness, poignantly desiring company. After a long while, his head drooped down onto the cradle of his arms. He slept again. He dreamed, again.

He was hidden inside of Yukito Tsukishiro through the day, and then evening arrived.

Darkangel’s Dreams

 

Yuki had fallen asleep on top of Touya’s bed. All Touya wanted to do was to put the text books away, turn off his computer, and pull a blanket over their two bodies snuggled together. He sighed quietly. Because his job kept him late, he still had unfinished homework, homework that counted toward his final grade. He set to it with a burst of incentive to finish.

 

He was absorbed in formulas when Yukito’s mumbling voice startled him. The soft-spoken young man sounded as though he was still half asleep. “I remember…”, he began. “I dreamed I was a vampyre who drank maiden’s blood.” He halted, perplexed. Blinking, he looked at Touya with a smile. “You were in my dream,” he said.

 

“No,” he amended as he rubbed sleepiness from his eyes. “You were in Yue’s dream.” He chuckled with gentle cheer.

 

“Yue dreamed that he was a vampire?” asked Touya with disbelief.

 

“It was a dream about Sakura-chan…” mused Yukito. He yawned, stretched. “Is it very late?”

 

Touya looked at the time. “Just after nine-thirty.” He cast his friend a small smile. “Sleepyhead.”

 

Yukito shyly returned the look. “I’m going to see if Sakura-chan is still awake. In case it’s important.”

 

Sakura was in pajamas, awake and playing a video game against Kero-chan. He complained when she got up to open the door. She opened the door not to Yukito, but to Yue. She ushered him into the room. “Hoee…” she couldn’t help vocalizing, however quietly, as she pulled the door closed again.

 

“Yue!” exclaimed Keroberos, immediately changing into his full size leonine form.

 

“Is something wrong?” asked Sakura.

 

Yue tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. “I have been having dreams…” he started.

 

Keroberos rubbed his chin with one clawed paw. “Prophetic dreams?” he asked in a shrewd tone. “A warning of some danger coming?”

 

Very carefully, Yue sat down on Sakura’s pink bed. “Nothing of the like. Merely, dreams.” He looked at his Mistress with dismay. “May I tell you about them?”

 

“What kind of dreams?” Sakura pulled out her desk chair and sat attentively ready to listen. Yue rarely asked for anything from her. It made her happy that he wanted to confide in her.

 

Yue knew he had to speak about the dreams to make them stop. Beyond that, there was an element to this series of dreams that made him feel troubled about his relationship with his new master. He saw that she was intimidated by him, but surely she didn’t see him as a monster? “Your dark-haired friend,” he started. It was easier, with Keroberos listening; he had heard telling of many of Yue’s strange dreams, in times past.

 

“Tomoyo-chan?” supplied Sakura.

 

“Yes. I dreamed that… .” He started again. “I dreamed that you and she were on a hillside. Flower, dancing in the sunset sky, sprinkled snowdrops on you from above. You and Eoduin… Tomoyo-san… were collecting the flowers.”

 

“That sounds nice,” commented Sakura in the pause.

 

“Night fell. A creature with black wings swooped down and stole the dark-haired girl away. A vampyre, taking her to be his bride.” He continued on over Sakura’s noise of dismay, “It was I. I have been dreaming that I am that vampyre.

 

“I took the girl away to my castle, an enormous, cold, empty place. When I was done with her, she was hollow and empty, too. A wraith. I cast her away with my twelve previous brides – all wraiths. They huddled in a room, unable to remember their names or lives, all vitality and youth stolen from them.”

 

“Whoa. Scary,” Keroberos interjected. “That’s some bad dream.”

 

“A nightmare!” Sakura clutched at a stuffed toy that had been within her reach.

 

Keroberos looked keenly at his counterpart. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Icarus’ Bride

 

Yue continued. “You, Mistress Sakura, came seeking justice for this evil deed. Yet I captured you as well, and took you back to my demesne to serve as a maid to the wraith wives.”

 

Sakura cringed further at Yue’s  dream-telling. “Ghosts…!” she shivered.

 

“I am sorry. I am upsetting you.”

 

“No, Yue-san. I’m okay.” Sakura put on a braver appearance. “You can tell the rest.” Sakura did not like scary stories at all, but she also knew that sharing a nightmare made the bad dream less awful. She wanted Yue to treat her as a friend. This is what friends did for each other – even if it meant thinking about ghosts.

 

“But the girl – you, Sakura – made a friend and ally at the castle.” He told a lighter part of the story. His dream had not contained much of this part from the novel, except for the odd characterization of the ally. “He lived in the caves below the castle because he had to stay hidden in shadow, but he helped you as he could. He was called ‘The Little Mage of Downwending’, for the labyrinthine nature of the caves.” In Yue’s dream, Clow played this part. Yue was accustomed to Clow being a part of his dreams. Still, this part seemed strange. Yet it was true that Clow Reed had helped Sakura as she captured and became the new Master of the Clow Cards. 

 

“The Little Mage worked against the vampyre. He gave you a golden spindle and gave you a riddle-quest, later helping you escape so that you could find the secret of the Icarus’ undoing.”

 

“A spindle? Like in the “Sleeping Beauty” play?”

 

Yue nodded. “You used it to spin for the wraiths. It took much practice, but you mastered it.” Yue mused. “Your staff. As when you first began to collect the Cards. Later in the dream, it also became your weapon, in the desert.”

 

“But why, Yue-san?” Sakura asked the question softly. “Why were you evil?”

 

Yue flinched. The green-eyed girl in his dream had also called him evil. This part he also told from the book. “The Darkangel was a prince that had been stolen as a child, then turned into an  Icarus by a witch.”

 

“And why did I go to the desert?” asked Sakura.

 

 

Quest and Flight

 

“The riddle told of an artifact that would undo the vampyre,” explained Yue. “The Icarus raged through the castle… mad with dreams. The Little Mage of Downwending gave you a boat in the shape of a bird and sent you out to the desert to find the hoof of the Star Horse. It was this power of the stars that would make you strong enough to defeat the Icarus.

 

“You escaped the Icarus’ castle in the boat. When it came to shore, the boat changed into a large bird and flew away. It became the Windy,” he noted with bemusement.  In his dream, his sibling in creation had appeared, unsurprisingly, as Wing-on-the-Wind.

 

“I gave chase when I discovered that you were gone, and nearly recaptured you, but a golden lion appeared as your protector,” he said this part in ironic tones, “and bested in me a challenge of might.”

 

Keroberos did nothing to hide his satisfaction at the turn in the story.

 

“And then what happened?”

 

“The vampyre, wounded, wing broken, returned to the castle.” This was some of the worst of the dream: damaged, alone, trapped in the castle. Or rather, not alone – it was a castle haunted by his past misdeeds, the wraith wives. “You returned to confront me… Mistress. You had grown strong. You conquered me.” In the dream, Sakura had returned with the hoof of the Star Horse. It was the Bell of the Moon, and when she rang it, Yue had no power against her. There were places where the dream was obvious, and this was one, that the Mage had given the green-eyed girl the means to best him, just as Clow had preordained that Sakura would win the Judgment.

 

“You also saved me.”

 

Sakura released a tense breath, though she didn’t lighten her grip on the stuffed toy. “Then… it has a good ending? That is a scary dream, Yue-san. But, if it ended all right, it isn’t too bad, right?”

 

Yue shook his head slowly. “You are right. It is nothing,” he said. He could not, now, ask her if she thought him a monster with a heart of lead. She looked at him with sweet concern, but always still with a diffidence bordering on fear.

 

A light knock announced the opening of the room door. “Everything okay in here?” asked Touya. When he locked eyes with Keroberos, the big lion could not help, for a moment, freezing up out of habit.

 

“Yue-san was telling us about his bad dream,” Sakura supplied.

 

Touya turned his measuring gaze to the winged Guardian of his little sister.

 

“It has disrupted my sleep, but it is nothing of importance.” Yue stood. “A fantasy captured my imagination too deeply.” He shook his head again. “Thank you for listening.”

 

Sakura wished her Guardian a good night. Touya followed when Yue quietly walked out into the hallway, heading back in the direction of Touya’s room. “When Yuki woke up,” Touya started, “he said I had been in your dream.”

 

“At the end, it was you who gave me your heart. To save my life.” Yue seemed to realize, suddenly, that he had spoken. He made a poor attempt to cover his embarrassment. “In the manner of dreams.” He quickly escaped into a cocoon of his wings and transformed into his other self. Yukito still looked slightly sleepy.

 

“I’m almost done with homework.” Touya offered, “Do you want to go down to the kitchen and get something to eat?”

 

Return

 

Eyes opening to night, Yue awoke. He had been hidden inside of a false form while Keroberos selected a candidate and while the candidate, a girl-child, collected the wayward Clow Cards. Now, he awoke as Yue the Judge, to test the suitability of one who would be their new Master.

 

This one was certain to fail. The boy who attacked, despite being a Li and therefore a relation to Clow Reed, was a moment’s distraction. The girl was sure to fail, in spite of being the chosen candidate, because no one had ever defeated Yue the Judge except Clow Reed – his creator.

 

And as he expected, she was not strong enough, or clever enough, or deceitful enough to beat him, as Clow had been. She even cast Windy to fight him. When she again made a weak, poorly-thought-out attempt with The Woody, Yue turned the sinuous branches back to her and bound her, making them squeeze her. She would soon faint.

 

Then the Doom would happen. Everyone would forget the one they loved the most. He, Yue, would not feel the terrible ache in his soul, anymore, when all of Clow was wiped from his memory. One loss to cure another.

 

Trickery and deceit. Yue had not known about the Bell of the Moon until he heard its pure, mournful tone and he felt his power bound by the sound.

 

Change of Heart

 

 

In the dream, the winged man cried out in agony.  He collapsed in convulsions, twisting, crawling and clawing across the frigid stone floor. At last, he lay still, unable to move.

 

Touya approached and knelt down beside the fallen Icarus. Somehow, he was the bearer of the Sword Card, and Sword had manifested as a smaller blade. The gleaming dagger pierced Yue’s chest, splitting open ribs and bloodless flesh to reveal his cold heart. With one hand, Touya removed the lead covered heart. With the other, he used Sword to open his own chest. He placed his heart in the hollow of Yue’s chest, then collapsed.

 

The heart beat, filling Yue with life and power.  It cleansed him. His tar-dark wings fell away into a cloud of black feathers scattering across the room. He was no longer the inhuman Icarus.

 

In the dream, he was redeemed. In the dream, he became Yukito Tsukishiro.

The Riddling Rime

 

“Hmm,” Kero grumbled thoughtfully.

 

“Isn’t there a card that can make dreams, Sakura-chan?” asked Tomoyo.

 

“Mhm, the Dream,” confirmed the other girl. “We checked, but Dream isn’t doing anything.” She refilled her friend’s teacup. “I don’t like the part where you get kidnapped.”

 

“Hmmm,” Kero pondered. Served his cake, he stabbed a large piece with his fork and then stuffed it in his mouth. “Mmmmm.”

 

Tomoyo sipped her tea thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s just a bad dream after all.”

 

 

Eclipse

 

The phone rang. Yue knew who was calling, who would not-to-infrequently call in the middle of the night for no reason, but this time he picked up the call.

 

Ruby Moon pretended apology. “Oh! Did I wake you up?”

 

“Not this time, Ruby Moon.” Yue sighed.

 

“No?” Eriol’s Moon Guardian sounded disappointed. “Oh. Good.” Thwarted, she let silence sit on the long-distance line for several long, expensive seconds. “So… why are you up?”

 

Yue considered dissembling. But it was lonely enough in Yukito’s house that even the company of Ruby Moon appealed more than another return to fitful sleep. “Have you ever thought of yourself as a monster?” he asked.

 

Ruby Moon laughed. “Cute little me? Of course I’m a monster!” Her laugh squealed before turning into a more intimate chuckle. “I’m the meanest, cutest man-eater you ever met. Why?” she inquired. “Are you seeing a monster in the mirror these days, Yue? Wishing you were mortal?” She pronounced the word with deep distain.

 

If Yue had been more clear-headed, he might have been impressed with Ruby Moon’s accuracy.  He sighed again.

 

“Is that really it?” she asked, sounding perturbed.

 

“No. It is just that…” he paused and wondered if he should say anything. Had he been getting better sleep than of late, he might not have said anything more. “A recurring nightmare. A foolish one, yet… troubling.”

 

“Am I in it?”

 

There was a heartless, horrible witch in the story. “Strangely,” answered Yue, “no.”

 

“Oh. Maybe your losing your mind. It happens with old age. Well, that’s my dime. Gotta fly.” She added, before hanging up, “Sweet dreams, Yue.”

 

 

Prince Irrylath

 

“That was… easy,” proclaimed Sakura. Compared to collecting the Clow Cards, reincarnating them into Sakura Cards, and stopping the Void Card, dealing with a little bit of roaming mischief magic was over with awfully quickly. Having Keroberos and Yue backing her up was almost overkill. She shrank her star staff back to key size and dropped it inside her collar. She looked expectantly at her Guardians. “Let’s go home.”

 

They arrived at the Kinomoto house. Sakura stopped her Moon Guardian when he turned to go. “Yue-san,” she started, “wait.” She answered his look of mild surprise with a warm smile. “Otosan and Oniichan are working, but would you want to come in and spend some time with me and Kero-chan?”

Keroberos agreed. “Yeah, Yue! We had videos,” he offered. “You don’t spend enough time with us, anyway.”

 

“Certainly. If you wish.”

 

Sakura led the way in and continued on to the kitchen. “Do you want some hot chocolate, Kero-chan?”

 

“Sure. I’ll put a movie in while you make it,” answered the lion.

 

“Yue-san, can you help me in the kitchen?” When the winged man drifted in, Sakura indicated a high shelf. “I can’t reach the mini marshmallows. Can you bring them down for me, please?”

 

Yue easily reached the bag, which he then handed down to his Mistress. She mixed sugar, cocoa powder, and milk in a saucepan. She then proffered the large spoon to Yue. “Do you mind stirring?”

 

“Not at all,” answered a bemused Yue. After a few moments, he made a suggestion. “A half pinch of salt with balances the sweetness of desserts.”

 

“That’s  right. I remember that from cooking class.” She shook a few grains from the salt shaker into her hand, looked at Yue for confirmation, and then sprinkled them into the hot beverage.

 

“You know, Yue-san,” she said after a while of comfortable silence between them, “This is nice.”

 

Stirring the chocolaty milk, Yue quietly agreed with a nod.

 

The girl selected three mugs and set them on the counter. “Um, are you still having your bad dream?”

 

Yue turned off the heat under the saucepan. Before pouring only two of the mugs full, he studied Sakura’s expression. He poured the cocoa and set down the pot. “Why am I frightening to you?”

 

Sakura dropped marshmallows on top of the cocoa. She looked at the emptiness of the last mug. “Um. Well.” She considered. “Um, you never smile or laugh. I want us to be friends, but… do you like us?”

 

“Of course,” Yue answered softly with dismay.

 

“I can’t tell if you do,” mourned Sakura. “Do you like Oniichan?”

 

“I do. And I am grateful for what he did.” He considered what he had just said, then clarified, “And one is separate from the other. Regardless of his sacrifice… I do like Touya-san.”

 

“I would like us to be your family, too, like Kero-chan.”

 

“Ah,” said Yue.

 

Sakura then surprised him with a little hug. “I do want you to get over your bad dreams, Yue-san.” She looked at him with sincere caring in her eyes, for once more concerned than intimidated by him.

 

 

A Spindle of Fallow Gold

 

When the girl spun for the wraiths, she began with empty hands. By magic, she spun a thread light and fine. Instead of making a thread from wool, flax, or silk fiber, she spun from the charity, kindness, and love in her heart. She clothed the wraiths in garments woven from her love. They were her charges, and broken though they were, she cared for them.

 

It was her star staff; it was a golden spindle. It didn’t matter. It was gentle, peaceful dream.

 

 

***

 

[Author’s Note: The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce was a moderately popular set of YA SF/fantasy novels from the mid-eighties. I have essentially retold the story, and there are spoilers, but I thinned them out as much as possible so that if you haven’t read The Darkangel yet, you will still have some surprises. During a recent re-reading of this long time favorite of mine, I kept seeing CCS comparisons. This fic is just a little one-shot to work that out of my system. The section titles are chapter titles from the book.]

 

 

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