Blood on the Moon

Blue Eyes At Night/ Aspen Sorcha Stanton

She was the blood around his moon. She offered a splotch of color on the bleak grey outlook of his life. She was this all-consuming presence that glowed; glowed with power, glowed with beauty. She glowed in that commanding fashion. Like the ring around the moon, she took the focus away from even the brightest of moons and owned the stage.

When he looked at her he could, for once in his life, not care about the moon at all.

Perhaps that's what frightened him so much about her.

The moon was, after all, more prominent in his life than his own parents. The moon was his savior and executioner, his strength and his weakness, his love and his hate all in one fantastic, radiant orb of light surrounded by darkness. The moon was god and goddess and all the demons of hell. The moon was the one part of his life that never changed; she waxed and waned as the world carried on its changes around him.

His bright demon was darkly beautiful with her sanguine sash, carelessly tied around her in that effortless way the beautiful own and the ugly covet. But then again, this woman in his dreams was effortlessly beautiful as well.

She could change her hair, she could wear the most atrocious shades of the most atrocious colors, but old or young, fat or thin, she was still effortlessly, unendingly beautiful. That's what he loved about her.

And he knew precisely why he loved that about her. She was like the blood on the moon, glowing from the inside until beauty radiated out of her pores. Like the scarlet ring in the night sky she was the type of stain that you could never get rid of, the kind of stain you wouldn't get rid of if you could.

She was ethereal. Even her name sounded like a constellation, and that is why he never shortened it or avoided it. He loved the way the syllables rolled off of his tongue as though they were actually stars going directly from his mouth to the sky. She was like those constellations that kept the moon company, the constellations he studied on those long nights of captivity within the beast. She was beautiful, and he could study her from a distance, admiring her, and never be burned by that white-hot fire she was made of.

He had thought of her as a constellation so many times, he had rather forgotten she was human at all. Far more human than he.

At a moment's notice, he could dutifully list all the reasons he couldn't have her. He could give you all the details on why living a life with her couldn't work. But saying he was poor, he was old, he was dangerous was so much easier then tripping over the reason that he held in his heart.

The blood on the moon, however close to the moon it may seem, does not actually touch it at all. It remains a stunning illusion, the scarlet on the white, both shining into the blackness around them as if smiling at their little charade. And he was the moon. He was waxing and waning, without fail; he was strong and weak; monstrous and elegant in all the many ways that you could name.

And if she was the same, she was also different. The chimera of crimson which seemingly wrapped itself completely around his life and would not let go.

But we do not connect, we do not touch, it is all an illusion. It is all a façade. He reminded himself daily, The blood on the moon is beautiful because it seems to stain the moon but then the moon returns the next night, immaculate as ever before. The blood is beautiful because it is an illusion.

Like love, he mused.

Author's Note: this is yet another Remus brooding piece. I seem to have some sick affinity for brooding pieces. I like the anonymity of this piece, and the darkness of it. If I've review one of your fics I may have called it "darkly beautiful" I have a certain love for that particular brand of beauty…as shown.

Also! For ALL future Remus/Tonks fics I will have the two pennames present: Blue Eyes At Night and Aspen Sorcha Stanton. They are both me, rest assured I'm not stealing by own fics. Aspen S. Stanton (for those of you who read Diary of a Mad Black Fan) is a character of mine specific to the Harry Potter universe and I use her name for all things strictly Harry Potter. Blue Eyes At Night is a general penname used for Lord of the Rings, Underworld, etc. etc.

In short, they're both me.

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