(no subject)

[lady_moon]

Up on the parapet, Moon sat on the wall that soldiers might have once stood behind had soldiers ever walked the battlements of the tarot's castle. A light breeze kicks up the salty air as, below her, the ocean crashes into the ancient stones as it has for centuries. The sky is dappled, lavender and pink with a hint of the ocean's jade in the clouds as the sun sinks fully below the horizon and the two moons rise.

Almost full.

Tomorrow night, they would rise full and heavy and foreboding.

And her mind was hers, clear and precise and unfettered by the madness that usually held her in its sway so close to the full moon.

She can't feel her wolf, though she knows if he called, she'd hear. Her call would come as it did every month, and the shifters would shift, but she would not be there to see it.

Moon was here.

Moon was home.

Filled with so much, she sometimes doesn't know if she wants to laugh madly, scream until her throat bleeds, or cry until exhaustion takes her physical form. It was a strange cycle, and right now, her eyes glitter with unshed tears as she gazes out on the world she helped to create.

The paths were dark, hidden, and they were all afloat.

Missing one of their number.

Comments

[bright_daughter]

It takes her a while to get there -- time is different when it isn't spinning endlessly in her thoughts in everything existing direction. She has things she has to do, the sensation of their necessity never displacing her sister from her first thoughts.

But eventually she does, because she should and because she knows she will.

All but hop-skipping along that battlement wall. All but for the silence of her movements. All but for the way her movements are not entirely free of care, or duty. All but for the fact she does not skip on the wall because she never actually touches it.

"The sun descending in the west, the evening star does shine; the birds are silent in their nest. And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower in heaven's high bower..." she sang, softly as she came across, poetry from one of their many worlds.

[lady_moon]

"Star-bright, giving the Moon its light," she says, looking over her shoulder to watch her sister's approach. "An eclipse has taken the moon's light, and the wolves bay at darkness."

[bright_daughter]

She continues on, the constant movement swinging her vibrant blue skirts and white-gold curls, until she reaches a few feet from where her sister sits.

"Time and tide will bring the light back. The moon would not be shadowed forever," Star said, softly, as her gaze searched over her sisters face. As though the act might give something more than the fact they all shared the same burden and the same memories of action.

[lady_moon]

"No, the moon forever moves along her path, whether shining brightly or obscured by shadow."

Moon flips her long, black hair from her face and turns her bright eyes back out to the night sky and dark ocean.

"I dislike our brother being separate from us."

[bright_daughter]

Star nodded, her lips thinning faintly.

"He is in a tower not of our making."




Then, with a tilt of her head.

"I could not touch him."


At least not without causing a larger problem in that place.

[lady_moon]

"I want to hug him, thank him, chastise him for being so rash."

Her hands tighten on the stone under her palms.

"But they keep him away. Locked away, a barrier between us. There should never be barriers between us. No Ciaran, no Jason, and no paths!" Moon feels sorrow well inside her rapidly, feeling lost and so very confused. "I no longer know who I am, sister-mine."

[bright_daughter]

Star slipped down from the battlement ledge to the main walk where men would have stood, her steps taken as though on an invisible staircase only she could see.

"We do," she said, easy and even. Knowing that she even speaks for those who are not in the family. Those who will not be easily forgiven. "We can - would - will - not forget."

Her eyes follow where her sister is looking. "No change, no sully, no growth which can steal that from those who hold so tightly to."

[lady_moon]

"Never forget," she murmurs. "As old as the stones, as old as the ocean, as old as the moons in the heavens. We will never forget what was. Never forget what is. Never forget what can be."

Her eyes lift to hold her sister's.

"Never forget what must be."

[bright_daughter]

Star nodded, as close to quiet solemnity as could be gotten, stepping up next to her sister from behind and below.

[lady_moon]

Moon's gaze returns to the sky, the wind pleasant in her face.

"Everything changes, and yet, so much remains."

[bright_daughter]

Star watched her sister watch the sky for a long pause.

Then softly, "How does The Moon with her change?"

[lady_moon]

Moon laughs softly, sadly, the sound echoing off the stone around them.

"She longs. She aches. She remembers."

She tries to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but the wind whips it wild again.

"The Moon finds little solace in the dark, separated from her wolf and all she thinks of as comfort."

Jason, Nathaniel, Yrael, Liz, Asher, Charlie, Teja -- those she'd grown to think of as family in a way, as hers and she theirs.

[bright_daughter]

"Still she sits here where they are not," Star offered. "Does her eclipse keeps her from those who've come to call in new ways?"

[lady_moon]

"I can't go to him," she whispers. "Not yet. Not time. The clouds must move, the sun must shine, the stars need to twinkle before the moon can smile again."

As for the others, they were part of him in various ways.

"They are all full of sorrow and anger, distrust and pain. Swallow me up. Craving their nearness, but afraid of being swallowed by all they feel."

So many new emotions, so many choices, and she sits on the parapet, frightened.

[bright_daughter]

"She wonders if they need her for herself," Star said, gentle lilt to her ease speaking tone. "Or if they seek her as a vessel that might be used for what they need without it?"

[lady_moon]

Tears fill her eyes again.

"Do they want me," she whispers raggedly, "or do they want The Moon?"

It was strange, thinking of herself in two terms, as two selves that could be separated, seen differently, want differently.

[bright_daughter]

The silent question lingers, Does he?

Star's hand reached out to run through her sisters hair gently. "She walks the path now. She who can be broken and mended, who can chose and chose not to chose, who can wound and be wounded by the mistakes of others."

[lady_moon]

She leans into that touch, closing her eyes, that silent question loud in her ears.

"When it is done, will The Moon remain on the parapet, longing, or will she forget?"

The third, unspoken question lingers: Or will she find her place among them?

"Questions and fear and hopes, all wrapped up, hidden down the dark path than none can see. None can anticipate."

[bright_daughter]

"Yet does she remain in her home because she is figuring this out," Star posed. "Or is it that she knows why she waits? What she wants?"

[lady_moon]

"Because she wants, she fears. Because she wants, she can be disappointed."

But she knows.

Moon knows what she wants, what she hopes for, and it is that which keeps her home.

Keeps her hiding.

[bright_daughter]

"Because she want--" Stars voice turned softer still. "--she can be set free."

[lady_moon]

Her eyes return to Star, so bright in her face, and she stares at her sister with a mixture of awe and fear.

"The pretty cage broken, the bonds broken," she murmurs.

[bright_daughter]

Star tilted her head, the breeze ruffling her curls back from her shoulders and held out her hands to her sister.

Somewhere in the distance she hears it quietly her -- elders, underlings, equals -- brothers voice;

(I chose.)

[lady_moon]

Moon reaches up, rising gracefully, and slips her hands into Star's, staring into the starlight of her eyes.

"Choice," she breathes.

[bright_daughter]

Star stood up straight and tall for such a small looking girl, golden white light shivering the edges of her. As though every part of her was trying to fill as much air as possible, to know each millimeter of it touching her, touching everywhere, touching every her.

"My Moon-"

Her voice was ageless and timeless and her eyes never left her sisters, never hesitated, when she said the words that were the rarest of all on her lips.

"Tell me your wish."

[lady_moon]

Her eyes grow wider, just a fraction, and her breath catches for a moment.

"My wish," she whispers.

A thousand wishes flitter through her mind, but only one is on her lips.

"I wish I could be whole, that I could find my pieces."

[bright_daughter]

Stars are little hopes, she said.
And he asked, What happens when they fall?

Star eyes closed, as for a moment her exterior ripples with dissolving, only to open again. There is no doubt, no fear, no longing for something else in the pure depth of white hot. It's only the smallest space to cross -- two inches -- before solidness can cause the faintest ricochet in her balance when her toes touch the ground.

The wish comes true.
But wishes are never so simple--

The light under and in and of her skin flutters, like a startled candles in the strong evening breeze. Flutters and sputters softer and softer still, as the white of her eyes turns back to blue-silver, dampened by shadow. And even when pain -- a calling of the Star but no a knowledge of it -- blossom into her eyes, the awareness of another change singing through them all, it struggles with the irrefutable faith for The Moon.

They are like butterfly wings
Beautiful, fragile things
She is the first domino in a line for morning, the candle in the erstwhile oblivion, the silver line -- a card of promise, not delivery, and all that she was in that moment goes to that one for one of the few beings she would give it all to. Because she can not doubt the act, the reason, or The Moon even when her eyes cloud with unshed tears.

[lady_moon]

Moon's own eyes mirror those tears.

Star's feet touch the parapet wall, hand in hand with her, and Moon stares in wonderment at their little sister.

"The point of choice," she whispers, fingers coming to brush down Star's pale cheek. "It comes, like the waiting storm. I can feel it even if I cannot see it. A star falls, sweet sister."

The importance of Star's sacrifice, the importance of this moment, is not lost on Moon. Just as Star would give all she was for Moon, Moon would give all she was for Star.

[bright_daughter]

Star could give a rough relatively accurate number, if she was ever asked, for the number of tears she's ever cried. It's not her place, it's not who she is meant to be in her core -- she can feel it turning things sideways, upside down, inverting, as one slips down her cheek in the path her sister's finger brushed.

"She would see The Moon rise."

The edge of her voice trembles with an awareness of foundation that is so foreign and presently absolute. It's not the first time, but that doesn't make it any better. Any less terrifying and heart wrenching.

And still not any less right for being utterly wrong.

[lady_moon]

Moon's arms embrace the slighter, brighter form. The Moon pulls The Star close, wraps moonbeams around starlight.

While The Star's tears can be counted, The Moon's cannot. She has shed tears for love and loss, for missing pieces and broken mirrors. A girl locked in a cage because she heard voices--

       (Michèle)

--and a wolf running from himself, from his hurt and his longing and his loss of control--

                (Jason)

--The Moon has wept for herself, for her family, for her sweet Michèle, for her loyal wolf, and for everyone who walked a path, who saw nothing but the darkness she sees now.

Her embrace tightens.

"The Moon shall rise and bring The Star back into the heavens with her."

[bright_daughter]

Stars hands knotted gentle against her sisters back, leaning in, and whispering, quietly, as much knowing as wanting, "In time, in we will all rise again."

[lady_moon]

A kiss is placed on the silver-gold crown of Star's head.

"Rise and shine over all below us," she agrees.