A/N: This a rewrite of a story I had originally posted many years ago, once part of a bigger collection, which I'll slowly rewrite, too. I'm not bothering to correct the flaw in POV's - you'll just have to deal with being in everybody's head at once :P
Beneath the cherry tree, two small figures slept deeply, ignorant of the ominous night. One was a mere child; his white hair sprawled on the leafy floor like a pool of milk. Aside of him, a snoring cub whined and tossed as he dreamt of a hunt. In between dreams, when he remained unmoving and breathed silently, he was like a golden statue, with fur as lustrous as gold but soft as goose-down. Both child and cub had fledglings' wings on their backs, and an earring would make itself known by reflecting what little light fell upon it, from one of each sleeper's ears.
Yue and Keroberos loved to sleep more than anything else. 'To sleep to dream,' said Shakespeare in their master's tomes. They would pretend to be the Guardians of the Cherry Tree, stand guard around it, and let the first grains of sleep-sand from the Sandman put them out without an utterance of disagreement.
A figure dressed in midnight blue approached the sleeping siblings. The Dark crossed the figure's path, reclining her pale hands on his chest to keep him from reaching the guardians. "Master, would you rather have Light and I take them in? It's chilly out, and we can't have the most powerful sorcerer catch a cold."
Light appeared, her colorless curls lapped by the wind. She wore a tight fitting silver-white dress that reached down to her ankles, revealing a pair of uncovered feet, semi-translucent along with the rest of her snow-white beauty. Light picked up the child, young Yue, cradling his small, divine white person in her arms. "There. Dark, you may take Keroberos. And you," she said shooting a disapproving look at Clow Reed, " Clow-sama, will return to the house."
Hands still on his broad chest, Dark smirked. "Go easy on him, Light. I fear the excessive doting of fatherhood is spreading in our master like senility in an old man… Or it could be the other way around?"
"You two speak as though I wasn't here." Clow Reed said, smiling. "But thank you for being so helpful. Go and get Keroberos for me, please."
Dark gathered the napping cub, wincing as she brought him halfway to her shoulder. "Oh, Keroberos," she wheezed, "you're not eating sweets for a week. You are too small to weigh this much."
Their master watched both sisters struggling not to let the two guardians fall amused. Those two were growing up swiftly. Soon, he would have a fully-grown angel and a mane-less, winged lion all for himself.
Someone pressed his shoulder lightly. "Light…Yue…"
Light held the boy in one arm, his head thrust over her shoulder and her arm under his bottom. His humid breath against the back of her neck reminded her of warm summer mist, precipitating on her cool skin. Flaccid arms wound around her clumsily, tangled in the mess of moon-colored curls, and lacking the necessary strength to hold on, they slipped away from her neck and hung limply, one down her front and the other, down her back. "Let's go home, Master," Light said, shuffling the boy's weight on the arm.
Clow Reed smiled. They looked so alike, in their white attire, a color representing purity, innocence, honestly, all properties both his creations shared. He thought he had been blessed with a mirage of two tangible angels. "Do you know what you two look like?"
"Like two lost ghosts, wanting to rest in peace and in warmth, not outside in the cold-hearted night," Light quipped, annoyed by his static presence. Driving Master Clow Reed away from his children was always a strenuous endeavor, requiring patience, something Light could use. "Now, let's go in before Yue and I do freeze to death. And if so, you had better go hire an exorcist. I'll be haunting you for ever and a day."
"Like a pair of alabaster angels," he said.
"Really?" "Angels?" Yue and Light's questions ran together.
Light and Yue exchanged looks. "Hey, you were supposed to be asleep!" exclaimed the taller, female alabaster angel.
"I couldn't sleep with you two talking." Yue jumped out of Light's clutch. "Dark and Keroberos went into the house ages ago. Shouldn't we, too, go inside?"
Light fixed her hair, removing the crown first. "Yue, that's what I've telling Master Clow Reed. Instead of considering my requests, he's calling us angels and freezing our behinds out here!" She placed the crown back on her hair, placating the unruly strands with the weight of the ivory, moonstone-jeweled ornament. "Excuse me. I'll be sitting in front of the fireplace with the others. If you two want, I'll drag out a mattress, so you two can sleep under the stars and maybe even spot angels, while you're at it."
Clow Reed rubbed his neck. "All right, Light, you win. C'mon, Yue. Our Light mistress wants to lock us out."
"No, not yet!" There was an earnest quality to his face that made Clow grin.
"We'll be with you in a minute."
"Suit yourselves," Light said, and soon enough, was waving at them from the window.
"So, Yue," Clow started, "what is your excuse?"
Yue plopped down on the grass and sat cross-legged, staring up at him. "Dunno yet. Ask me tomorrow. What's yours?"
"Mmm… stars? Yes, stars. I like to stargaze."
"No you don't!" With this, Yue lightly cuffed Clow's leg.
The sorcerer smiled a bit. "True. Sometimes the abstract draws you to it, without any reason. Like when you find yourself walking into a room, not sure of what to find or of what you're wanting to find. You just go into that room and somehow the contents of that room-"
"Strike you as odd and normal at the same time," Yue finished.
"Yes." There is a feeling of completeness when finding someone with the same understanding as you.
Yue's face livened. "I've had those moments."
"That's what I feel tonight with the sky. I believe we have such moments because our conscious is not clear; something needs to be disclosed." Like secrets, plans… the future.
"But what does the room have to do with it?"
"At some point in time something unforgettable occurred there, or it could be a metaphorical representation of another entity."
Silence. The young guardian spoke, "The moon. It draws me to it. I wish my wings to strengthen and span as wide as a house and carry me to it."
"What about the stars?" Had there been a cluster here and there where spans of black-and-blue were not star-freckled, it would been like staring at the gateway of heaven, or beneath the throne of Artemis.
"They're puny-looking and wink too much. I don't trust them."
Clow Reed laughed. Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, had killed a human hunter for catching a glimpse of her bathing—a suggestion of her mistrust in humans, even if she was worshiped by them. In one version of stories, she sent her lover and hunting partner, Orion, to live among the stars as her nightly companion. In another, it is she herself who killed him in self-defense. Her weapon of choice, the bow and arrow, also went into Clow's creation of his own moon guardian, as did her guarded nature and loyalty to her sun brother. "And what have secret have you entrusted to the moon…hmm?"
"Um…" The child's silver-blue eyes traced the gold embroidery on Clow's robe.
"It's all right, secrets are secrets."
"To be with you forever," Yue blurted out, and began to regret doing so when he saw his master's frown.
"And Kero… and the 52-some rest?"
"Kero will never leave me, we've made an oath already. Light and Dark and the others coexist in nature, so they will always be with me."
He was the ever-confounding guardian, Clow thought. He seemed to love too much, and yet not love at all; to care for all those who were tangents of his life, and care less for them when it came to him; and to seem so brave and strong but dependant on dreams and wishes.
Yue looked at him. "Do you not wish for the same thing?"
"I've wished it to every star…except one."
"Which one?" He stood up, balancing himself on his toes to see beyond the budding heads of cherry tree groves.
"The one over there." Clow pointed to a vacant expanse of night sky.
Yue stood on his tippy toes, trying to see his master's mysterious star. "But there is no–uh!" He lost his balance, and Clow caught him by the shoulders. He offered his hand, and Yue accepted with a grateful grin and a blush from ear to ear.
"Its light will not reach us for years, but someday, it'll shine as brightly as the morning star."
"This star, is the thing that draws you tonight, isn't it?"
Clow Reed tugged him in the direction of home. "Yes. It is the star that will grant my wish."
"And if it fails?" Yue stopped.
"The others might, but not my star. It shall not fail me." An unfading veil of confidence and conviction fell over his expression that could make any witness shudder. Yue walked quietly with him to the mansion, where Keroberos' cries of salutation rang out from the opened door ahead.
No matter how slowly his pacing grew Clow held onto his hand. Yue savored the moment and gripped his master's palm tighter as the doorway approached, before he had no choice but to let him go.
...O...
"What do you watch?" Sakura asked. She had been standing behind him a minute or so before asking. Yue had not been bothered by this, or by the intrusion of his private time. His mistress was always a wonderful companion, whether he bluntly denied this or avoided her.
He stood outside her window, balancing adroitly on the wide ledge. "The stars."
"Oh." Her voice lost its curious charm.
"Is there something wrong?" He looked at her this time. Sakura was not in her nightgown tonight, hair unmade, and wearing those ridiculous pink bunny sandals Keroberos had sworn to hide the day before. She was in a thin-strapped, white and silver, sequined dress that opened like a backward V mid-thigh and spread behind her legs to the floor. Her high-heeled shoes exposed her toes, flaunting pink toenails. She had spoken of this Prom dress to Daidouji in several conversations, Yue remembered. Kero had made a comment earlier in the evening that she reminded him of disco balls, which earned him a wack with a pillow as a thank you. He, himself, the ever reserved of her guardians, had not made any references to it or her plans with the Li boy that night.
"No." She shook her head, her small diamond-stud earrings playing with the bedroom's light. "Just that I thought you'd be watching the moon, but that would be redundant, wouldn't it? Your name being Yue, being powered by the moon and all…"
"I watch it as well."
Sakura leaned forward, her head now outside the window frame to see more stars tangled up in the blue and black. "Any particular constellation you admire?"
"No, just the stars themselves. If I were to study and be able to name them, then they'd lose their mystery and the forces that draw me to them would also be lost."
"Look at that star over there!" She pointed to a bluish-white one having tenfold the luminosity of all in its vicinity.
"It's…bright."
"I wonder what its name is." Sakura took and let out a full breath, pensively gazing at the star. "It's so pretty and... twinkly...? If Tomoyo was here, she's be able to describe it more poetically."
The moon guardian was not watching it though, for he knew the name of this star. He sat down to join her at the windowsill, where she stargazed with ever-growing interest.
Sakura took his hand. "Make a wish."
"No." Not anymore…
She did not fold at his refusal. "You don't believe in the whole 'Wish-Upon-A-Star-Crap,' do you?"
"No-"
"Yue, a guardian of many words..." she joked.
"—my wish never came true." At his sentence's completion, he shifted in place, not sure of what to do there.
"I'm sorry," his mistress said, though it had been a faultless conversation. The winking of stars was visible in the dark jades of her eyes, and the glitter of her gown captured their essence in silver reflections. She was looking at the moons in his eyes, he at the stars in hers; neither made an effort to look back to the sky.
Sakura sparkles tonight.
I wish— He halted there, realizing she was still holding his hand.