It was a small, protected harbor, sheltered from even the fiercest of nature's assaults. It was always calm, never chaotic. There was no danger here, no threat to your life. I sat in a rather typical road-side diner. The kind you find at truck stops. You know the ones that have the doors at the end of the long building. A bar with red padded leather and stainless steel stools bolted to the floor set on the right, while booths line the windowed wall to the left. Behind the long bar is a work area for the waitresses, and an open window gives access to the small kitchen in the back. Strangely I find that I cannot see the faces of the chef or waitress. They're clouded in shadows. Turning back in my seat toward the couple that sits across from me in the otherwise deserted diner, my back faces the doorway. Both of their faces are clouded in shadow as well, unable to be seen no matter how hard I try. One of them is a man. He's very tall, with jet black hair, and smells slightly of… of… I can't place it, but it's some type of flower. Feelings of jealousy, anger, and hate fill me slightly when I look at him. However I know that I hide it well. But young woman who sat next to him…

Soft Cruelty: The Maelstrom Dream

By: LowFlyer1080

DISCLAIMER: Naoko Takenuchi owns Sailor Moon. I do not. Italics are thoughts.

That young woman brought feelings of longing, love, and desire. Feelings so great it was hard to contain them all. Hard to not let them show. However much to my sadness, her face too was covered in a veil of dark shadow. But her hair; kami-sama her hair: long, blonde strands in two pigtails flowing down from her head like waterfalls of silken gold. How I yearned to feel those locks slip between my fingers. But as I watched within my mind, I knew that would never be. I could see myself having a conversation with the couple, but none of what words were said. I cannot remember. I watch myself look to the left, and out the window at the harbor. A waning gibbous moon hung in the dark sapphire sky which was void of stars. Suddenly, the painted image of a dragon appeared in the sky, floating next to the moon. It glowed with a calm, golden fury that struck something inside me. Moving, I stand up and hurry out of the diner, and down to the small docks where a wooden sailing ship with a large tiller sat floating in the water. A decently strong wind was blowing out toward the exit to the harbor. I board the ship and begin preparing for launch. I give pause only long enough to see the couple rush out the door and down the sloped dock toward me.

The male appears to say nothing, but that girl. That girl with the platinum gold hair is yelling something, something at me that I cannot make out. What I see though is enough to let me know that she is begging, pleading for me to stay here where it is safe. I hear myself softly form a response, in the form of a poem. But as I speak the words to a poem I've never heard before, that has surely never been written by anyone, I forget them. I cannot remember what it was that I had just said; only that after I felt myself stop talking, I resumed preparing the rigging and sails, getting ready to cast off. Before I realize it, that beautiful innocent woman has boarded my ship as well, much to the visible protests of her mate, still on the docks, still on the safety of the shore. I turn to her and feel myself vocalize something to her, to which her response is short, but visibly clear. She intends to go with me. Her mate seems none too pleased and voices his anger, but does not fight it. Merely letting her do as she wishes.

Casting off the mooring lines, I hoist the main sail and watching it fill with the wind, the boat pulling away from the dock. I secure everything and sit back at the stern, the tiller bar gripped in both my hands. I guide the little sailing ship out into the harbor, toward the exit out into the sea. I notice the shoreline turn into wooden planked walls, just barely higher than the deck of the ship the woman and I were on. The pathway narrows even further, getting to the point where there is barely enough room to turn the ship around and head back. I look out ahead of us, and see that the wooden planks were nothing more than a water chute, ramping slowly up before disappearing. Looking to my right I see that the harbor existed on a tall rocky island, unreachable anything. The skies had turned black, and what I saw ahead gripped my heart with fear. A fear for the life of the angel that sat next to me.

The wooden water chute jutted out over a massive, roiling, ocean. Dark water with swells easily fifty to eighty feet high made it seem as though there were a crater in the water like a meteor impact upon land. Black twisters spun down from the dark grey sky into the water as lightning flashed continually. The wind howled and roared, churning the black water and driving it into the immovable rock that made up the island. The continual storm that never seemed to affect the harbor. The continual storm that no one had ever come back from. Only that it was always present outside of the harbor.

I turned to the woman beside me as we neared the entryway to the chute. Unable to hear what I said, I could tell by the way my mouth moved, "If you want to turn back, we have to do it now. Or we will never be able to go back to the harbor." It was a one-way trip. There was no going back. I saw her smile a sad but confident smile and she shook her head, merely wrapping her arms around my own left one, effectively latching herself to me. The wind behind us pushed the ship down the chute. I looked out over the edge at the demonic ocean below and felt the bow of the ship tilt up as we began up the ramp, following the moving water. Pulling a rope near me, I dropped the sails and pulled hard left on the tiller. I heard the grinding of the wood as the ship struggled to turn around. I could not put her through that, I felt myself tell her. I would return her to the safety of the harbor and her mate. Despite the now growing, heavy feeling in my heart, being alone for an unknown length of time was an insignificant price to pay knowing she was safe.

I felt arms slide down my own and hands grip the backs of mine; prying them from the tiller, the ship righting itself and now carried by the current alone, once again head up the water filled ramp now solely from the power of the current. I heard her whisper in my ear that she knew she may die but that as long as she was with me, she believed that she would be safe. I felt a tear slip down my cheek as I turned to her, fully embracing her in a protective hold. We had reached the end of the chute: the point of no return. I sucked in a breath and held it and she gripped tighter to me, the bow of the small wooden ship dipping over the edge signaling the drop into the maelstrom.

I felt a warm weight settled across my lap, as well as one on my chest, resting between my breasts. A minute warm breeze tickled my neck. My eyes snapped open in the pre-dawn darkness as parts of the dream faded from my waking mind even as I desperately tried to grasp for them and hold onto them. It wasn't often I dreamt. And the ones that I remember didn't really seem significant or special at all. But for one reason or another, this one had left a lasting impression on me. It was as though every single thing in the dream was a sign that meant something. Even now I felt my heart trying to calm down as it thudded heavily within my chest. If it weren't for the fact that I had five feet and eight inches of beautiful leggy blonde draped on me, I would have been in a mental state of hysteria. I smile ruefully at that thought. She always did have that effect on me, even in her sleep; calming me and relaxing me, making sure I felt safe and loved. Since my right arm was pinned between her body and mine, I lifted my left and gently took hold of her hand that rested over my heart, feeling her squeeze it unconsciously in her sleep. Every morning I awoke before her and in the night when I would periodically wake up, her hand would always be there over my heart as though shielding it from harm. It was one of her little quirks that I never told her she did, but I loved about her dearly. I turned my head slightly so as not to wake up Usagi, looking at the digital clock on my nightstand as it read 3:09, before turning back. I felt her nuzzle a little closer to my neck before once again lying still. Tilting my own head once again, I rested it against hers and closed my eyes.

Even though her warmth comforted me, I still could not shake the foreboding feelings from my soul as I continued to replay the dream in my head over and over, or at least the parts I could remember. There was a man and a woman, a diner, the moon and gold dragon, a sailing ship, a harbor, the water chute, and that horrific maelstrom churning below myself and the woman. Struggling to remember what she had looked like, I couldn't remember anything more than the fact that she was a she. Not even her hair style or color. Only that she was slightly shorter than I, and that the man was a good head and shoulders taller than her. I knew that the experts say that humans dream every night, even if we aren't aware of it, and that most dreams we don't even know we have. I just generally fall asleep without knowing it and then wake up and its morning. On the rare occasions I dream and actually remember it, I simply dismissed it. But not this time. Hopefully I would still remember it in the morning so that I could write it down. The only thing I could do at the moment was try to get back to sleep. A task easier said than done.

Until sleep finally took hold, the image of the ocean in such a state haunted me. I had never seen anything like that until now, even in my wildest dreams. The image of those swells, those twisters, the flashing lightning, the raging wind, and that dark, almost black water, shook me to my core. It would be another two hours before I would finally fall asleep again, still clutching onto Usagi's hand as she slept, blissfully unaware of my troubled mind.

The next morning at breakfast the dream still plagued my thoughts, while the images of the turbulent nightmare that the ocean had become haunted my mind. I hadn't eaten much of the eggs and toast that my lover had prepared, instead opting to simply drink my orange juice, which even that was still half full. I saw out of the corner of my eye the worried look on her face as she slowly ate but I said nothing. I was too distracted. Finally the silence was broken by the question I knew she was going to ask.

"Michi-koi? Daijoubu? Something is wrong, I can see it in your eyes that something is troubling you."

"Gomen ne, Usagi-koi. Just didn't get much sleep last night."

"You've never had trouble before, at least not that I know of. You want to talk about it?"

"Just a troubling dream, not much to worry about."

"I'll worry about it regardless. Especially if it was to the point it has you so distracted like you are. You've hardly touched your breakfast." The blonde replied, setting her glass down and giving her full attention to her lover, "Please tell me about it, Michi. It might help you if you do."

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt any. Dreams are just creations made by our subconscious aren't they?" I replied, smiling ruefully.

"While I suppose they can't hurt us physically, they can emotionally, even if they aren't real."

"Alright, I'll tell you then." I replied with a blush, not used to sharing my dreams with anyone, not even Haruka. I slowly recalled the dream to her, trying to remember as many details about it as I could with her listening intently to what I had to say. As I finished, there was silence from her as she mulled it all over in her mind.

"Well, that certainly is intriguing as far as dreams go. And I understand you being upset about what the ocean looked like. From your description it must've been pretty scary."

"But what does it all mean?"

"That I can't tell you. At least nothing definitive. But from what I perceive and in my own interpretation, the couple may have been a representation of someone from your past or someone you know having relationship troubles. That would explain why she boarded the ship with you. The waning moon could represent changing times and the dragon some type of catalyst to set off the chain of events that made you decide to leave the harbor by sea The ship itself could represent many things, like how you really feel deep down inside. It was an open deck, nothing really for shelter in it, and even the strongest of woods can be battered by the sea to the point of breaking. That could show that you feel more vulnerable than you let on." She explained, continuing on as she took hold of my hand on the table and rubbing it gently. "The harbor may have represented a closed-off world that was sheltered from the real world, where not everything is calm and peaceful. That would explain the ocean being like it was, though not necessarily the magnitude that you described. The wooden chute with the water current could represent a narrowing path, one that is difficult to reverse from. And the ramp leading up and off the end of it into the ocean below simply shows that once you have chosen this path you only have a certain period of time before you can never turn back."

I took in my lover's words as a quiet settled in the air around us. All of that was a plausible explanation to what I saw. But I quickly realized her lack of an explanation for the woman acting the way she did toward me. I'm sure she probably felt a little hurt that I had dreamt of me leaving on a ship with another woman whose identity I could not be sure of. Not one to let her suffer either, I voiced another question to force us to deal with that little issue.

"And what of the way the woman acted toward me?"

She drew in a slow, deep breath before releasing it. "It could be that there was something between you and her. Something that made her want to join you. Perhaps it was love. Perhaps a strong friendship. I don't know."

I could hear the discomfort in her voice, so in order to alleviate it I offered my own explanation for that part, "Maybe that woman was you. She was the same height as you, and from your description of Chiba-san, the male was the same height as him as well."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, not everyone in the world is as accepting of a love like ours as we would like. That could be why the ocean was so turbulent. Perhaps the turbulent ocean represents the real world and all of its hazards and the harbor represented you in a way. You were safe with Mamoru, no one thought twice of a man and woman together and in love. But something happened that made you get on the ship with me. And in the dream, even though you knew that the ocean could very well prove deadly, you stopped me from taking you back to the safety of the harbor."

"That could be true." She visibly brightened and I could help but giggle a little at that which earned me a curious look, "What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing, I was just thinking of how cute you look when you're jealous."

"Mou! I am not jealous!" she humpfed, crossing her arms and turning away in slight anger.

I got up and moved to stand behind her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and resting my head next to hers, planting a kiss on her cheek, "Love, no matter what anyone says, you will always be my only. You shall always be in my dreams. Nothing can stop that. We've been together for six months now, going on seven. I'm serious about you, Tsukino Usagi. Believe me when I say you're stuck with me."

I felt her smile a little and saw her crack an eye open to look at me before closing it again as the smile spread across her face. Her hands came up to cover my own as her head leaned into mine.

"Thank you, Michiru."

I kissed her cheek again, "I love you, Usagi. You know that don't you?"

She turned and we kissed briefly, "Yes, my Michiru. I know. And I love you too."

We stayed like that for a little while before I reluctantly let go to return to my seat and finish my now cold breakfast while Usagi finished her own. It does not do good to dwell upon dreams, and if I didn't want to be late for work I would have to hurry to get ready on time. We could talk more about it tonight over dinner. Right now, I wanted to take a shower with my Usagi-chan, and maybe get a quickie in before I had to leave for work, I thought with a wicked grin.

Dashing in the doorways to the small music studio and recording company I worked with I waved good morning to the receptionist before making my way hurriedly to my office. Note to self, never discuss dreams in the morning before going to work and still try to have a 'quickie' with your girlfriend in the shower. You will be late to work. Every. Single. Time.

End

A/N – The dream is based on one that I actually had about 3 weeks ago. The only editing of it I did was the people who were in it and the part that no one had ever come back from the maelstrom. Other than that, it is told from the point of view that I myself experienced it in. I still to this day do not know what to make of it and had hoped that doing this might ease my mind of it somewhat. I chose to put Michiru in my place through the dream as she was paired with Usagi. She doesn't know that the couple in the dream was Usagi and Mamoru as she can't remember anything about their features, even the hair that you saw in the dream. I myself can't remember anything more than the heights of the couple from my dream in relation to my own. I am simply fitting the dream to the story in a way that I thought would work in terms of belief. I still don't know whether or not this is the correct interpretation of what I saw and, like Michiru in this story, I don't dream that often. And when I do, I typically don't take any note of it. But this one just seemed to stick out in my mind.