A/N: Written for the Advent Calendar Challenge at the DFC, Day 25 – write a gift-fic! This is for Phoenix to Flame, one of my oldest friends on this site, the reason I'm familiar with more of CLAMP than just Cardcaptor Sakura and the first person I ever co-wrote with. :D
A Shared Dream
Dreams were a cruel thing, once one learned the truth about them.
Dreamgazers knew. Kakyou knew. The princess beneath the government building knew as well, but she was less detached to the idea. She still hoped: for a future, for a change.
Kakyou had given up hoping long ago.
'But you did hope, once.'
He didn't spare her a glance as she rose from the water. The dream world rippled as, first, her bow emerged. Then her long white hair. Then her face, her body, and the heavy gown she was wrapped in.
The world welcomed her presence, lonely as it was with only him for company. He accepted her for the same reason. Dreamgazers could wander into each other's dreams and converse and change nothing.
And he'd already tried venturing elsewhere. It had only hurt.
'You did hope.' Her lips did not move, but still, it was her voice: her echoing will that spoke.
'I did.' His voice did not echo like hers, but was solid. Corporal. Because the dreamscape had been built around him, to accommodate his very being.
Including the heart that had cried a small lake into an ocean.
'Hope is a beautiful thing,' she continued. 'Won't you hope again?' She touched the water gently. It rippled under her fingers and, for a glimpse, Kakyou saw the small lake that had been on the estate. Small and pitiful, and yet it had been the most beautiful thing. The way birds would come and dip their beaks. The way tiny, almost microscopic, fish would drift up to the surface and blow bubbles.
But it had been so small, confined. And he'd wanted it to cover his entire world.
'Have you seen the ocean?' he asked.
'You ask me this every time.' She sounded amused, and her face morphed to mirror the sentiment. 'My answer has not changed.'
'The ocean is a beautiful thing,' he replied.
The dreamscape morphed. She was merging it with hers. Showing him her dream. Her paradise. She did this often as well. Often, they shared their dreams because there was no-one else they could afford to share wish.
Hinoto's dream was a mountain wrapped in clouds. Cold, with forest trees tipped with white frost. But beautiful, he admitted. And land animals running free. Birds coming and going.
Birds came and went from the ocean as well.
'The mountains are beautiful too,' said Hinoto. 'Beautiful…and far away.'
Just like the ocean. Just like any hope they had of changing the futures.
'But I still want to believe.'
Because she hadn't already tried and lost something.
Hokuto…
Kakyou closed his eyes, and the dark walls of his room replaced the scene. This was the truth. The truth that lay encroached in his dream. The cage in which destiny had left them: stranded, unable to move.
At least until the Promised Day grew near, and they'd know whether hope or hopelessness was the right. When the Kamui – the one person who'd been given a choice – would choose.
'I will side with the Seals.'
She had not said this before, but it wasn't an unexpected sentiment either. She believed in hope. In the old world. What the Seals fought for. Even though she had also seen the end.
As for him…
'I am an Angel.'
That destiny had already been chosen for the both of them. Once the Promised Day drew nearer, the fragile peace they shared in their conversation, their dream, would be lost. The only…friend they could ever hope to make: another Dreamgazer. Lost to the other side as the fight for that one choice began.
Both of them knew there was only ever one end to a dream.
That was why it was so cruel.