lady_moon | (no subject)

(no subject)

Moon leaves Greece and returns to the castle.

Home is best for the annoyed tarot.

She settles herself on the railing of the balcony outside her room, her feet swaying in the salty breeze as she watches the sun set and the two moons rise.

It was wonderful being home. No minds or paths or pleas for help weighed on her. She was free to just be, and to be near her family. What good is one tarot card, after all? No, you need them all to function or else nothing worked right.

She hums to herself, toes teased by the air and her mind at complete ease.

Home is where the heart is.

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Star deliberated for a moment, leaning downward so that her elbows rested on her knees and two of her fingers were touching the balcony railing she hovered just above.

"The pull waxes in a new direction, and so she bides her shores to follow the new current through its new faces for new phases."

Moon giggles and leans back on the railing, looking upwards.

"She is learning her own path, her own direction, and is trying desperately not to lose who she once was for who she could be."

Maybe it wouldn't make sense to anyone else, but Moon's sure Star gets it. Who better to understand The Moon but The Star?

The giggle is returned as she found the emerald eyes, offering a smile finally as she was floating a tiny bit closer and saying in a voice that might have been a conspiratorial whisper if not for their foot apart.

"You are true, but, even more, you are over joyed on the other side."

Which was sometimes true. But more important to know now.

"Perhaps."

Moon takes a deep breath and laughs.

"I once thought contact was a cage. Friends, family, lovers. Ever since the Broken Girl." She tilts her head. "But it's starting to change. The holes are still there, but some of them seem to be missing... or else misplaced. Can you misplace a hole? I never thought you could, but they seem to be. I don't want to be caged, but it seems I've walked into one all the same, but it was pretty and inviting on the outside, but I fear what it'll look like when I finally open my eyes to see the inside."

She remembers how ugly the cage was when the Broken Girl had left.

Star lowered to the banister as her hand became intertwined with Moon's and her head rested gently against her shoulder.

The Moon was meant to rise and fall, to wax and wane, around worlds, but stars were stationary in their places and thus Star did not usually come down in most situations unless it was necessary, or very important.

"You've feared the lesson you are now bound to teach, big sister. The same path you walk aside him, fearing to show him, fearing to know it is the same."

Her words were quiet in the wind, they could be piercing but they had a gentle solemnity that shown regardless.

"I know," she says very quietly, her hand giving a little pressure. "I don't want to go as far as he does. I don't think I want to love someone. Everyone but family is mortal and will die. I loved the Broken Girl, I think, and... I think... it hurt when... she died."

Moon was trying hard to remember it, but she had, long ago, set into the framework of a story once told to her. Separated it from herself. She couldn't feel what she once did, so now she questions if she ever felt it at all.

"I care. I need. I trust. But love? No. Let that be for the mortals."

"But you do."

Star smiled, glad that it was tucked against Moon's shoulder unseen. For this was exactly how she was like her young charge.

"You love the sky, and the night, and the beating of the waves." The was a gesture with her other hand to the realm's image before them.

She squeezed the hand back gently. "You love the bar, and you love the boys. To protect and defend as though they came from you, even against those known for time unlimited."

Star was pointedly not yet looking at the dark cloud though.

"You can't love things... and I... I don't love them. I care and worry, yes, but..."

Loving was frightening.

She didn't want to love anyone.

"You sound like Strength. She suggested that I was becoming maternal. How can anyone be maternal when they never had a mother to learn from? No. Best to keep it friendly and professional."

But it had already gone way beyond professional with the boys. She had interceded on their behalf, promised them protection against one of her own. You didn't do that just on a whim.

Then there was Indy.

She needed him. She liked his smile. She liked waking up in bed beside him. She felt safe when he was around, and she felt like she was simply... a girl... when he looked at her and kissed her.

But... that wasn't love.

"Dear one?" Her voice was soft in address for as she pulled away looking up, though she did not release her hand, eyes having now turned slightly more silver.

She turns to Star, her own eyes vibrant and bright.

They are wide.

And lined with tears.

"Don't. Don't say it. If you say it, then it's real and I'll have to know and I don't want to know I never want to know and I like not knowing and pretending pretending is good and it's not real please don't make it real," she breathes all at once.

Oh, how similar and how different.

"Does the full moon fear the new moon?"

Sadness filled her face, or as much could for being true peace and joy, as she reached up with her other hand to cup the side of her face as age seemed so much more prevalent in Star of the two.

"Justice carries a blind folded to our number already, but you are meant to shine. To know fully the wax and wane of all things. Even this. You can not deny where you walk for you are the night, you are the light. You are the promise that nothing ends, even with the pain, but only continues to begin and end and begin again."

"I do shine!" she insists. "I shine just fine without...that...don't I? I do my job and I help and I guide and I do what I was created to do. I don't need any more than that."

"You can not keep her locked away inside you, creating more holes to save yourself from the gifts she gave you."

For all creatures of love and laughter, who found the inspiration of light through darkness were Stars. She knew, numbered, and could have named them all.

Those who were lost but found the time to dance she loved the more.

"She would not approve."

"Of course she wouldn't."

Moon finally looks down at her hands, her vision blurred.

It's been centuries since she cried, and two tears fall onto her skirt as her mouth opens and she tries to speak.

It take a bit, but when she does, it's whispered.

Words on the wind kissed by moonlight.

"I love them, don't I?"

For some, it would be a time of rejoicing.

For Moon, it was as if she were in mourning.

Star doesn't press her when she looks down, letting her hand drop from Moon's face. It's not because she doesn't care. It's the same reason she didn't pull Draco into her lap. This step isn't hers. It isn't allowed or right.

She gives them the door. But she can not be the feet to walk through it.

But this is her sister, and for that alone, there is a very minute squeeze of her hand.

She sighs and looks up.

"I don't know what to do with it."

For this there is laughter.

Not spiteful or surprised, but true and joyful sound the breaks through the night around them.

"You laugh, you try, you walk, you believe," she reached out the dropped hand to lift her chin. "You hurt and cry, swear and fight, and when it feels too much you lean on friends and family before going back to it because it's where you belong."

She huffs and pouts.

"I bet they already know, too. Didn't even say anything to me, the meanies."

Star is now radiant, and leaning over to nudge her with a shoulder, her expression a delight of mock conspiracy.

"Oh, yes. They've been keeping tabs on everything related to it. Books full of incrimination information."

Moon laughs and sticks out her tongue.

"You can keeps your silly sarcasm to yourself, young lady!"

Star can't stop smiling, or giggling.

"Never!"

She gives her sister a little shove with her elbow.

"If you aren't careful, you'll slip off the railing and right into the water," she teases as she shoves gently again.

Ack! Elbow attacks!

So uncalled for. There is a mock glare for as much good it does when she's become so cheerful again. "If I forget how to fly."

Star doesn't say that there isn't very much a way for someone to not love Moon. Or that being feared by some people is because of their love for her.

What she does say is, "You'll tell them in their own time. We know that because we know you, and your marvelous changing faces."

Faces, it shall be remarked here, is said so very subtly that it sounds like 'faces' and 'phases'.

"I'd tell Indy first. He deserves it," she says thoughtfully. "Miniver might not know how to deal with my affection... and Draco wouldn't appreciate it yet."

More quiet thinking.

"Rabastan might mistake my love and affection for him as something more than it is. I just know him enough to know that."

Star nods, bobbing a little as her form becomes lighter though still sitting, which reflects the change of direness. "Rabastan is a strange one from what I can gather."

"Indy will be amazing," there was a pause before the last two words. She had almost said laugh, because that face would be amused and amazed all at once. The treasure of a lifetime in so few words.

"And no, Draco is not ready. He only starts to realize his actions. His feelings for them will come, and then the feelings for himself, too."

"But Miniver," Star hesitated with a smile beginning to play on her lips. "I think you misjudge him. I think he will understand least of all, accept fastest of all, and may need to hear it more than either two others."

This may be the tell tale sign of an impending visit, because theres a watching fondness in it.

"Maybe," she agrees, in response to Miniver. "Maybe not. Only one way to know."

Moon closes her eyes and smiles faintly.

"I like being home."

Star looked up at the sky smoothing her smile to something smaller.

"Me, too."

And it was true. Because though she was not alone, it was not the same and being here reminded her why she was one of many and not one alone.

"I think perhaps I will roost a while longer, as you put it. I have missed it."

Moon rests against her sister, hands still entwined, and smiles pleasantly out at the ocean and night sky.

"It's missed you," is all she whispers, content to sit here with Star for a long while to come.

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