Disclaimer: Give unto Be-Papas the things that are Be-Papas's (such as Shoujo Kakumei Utena and all related characters). Give unto Langston Hughes the things that are his, too.
Author's Note: Shiori's POV. * . . . * indicates italics.
Title: Dreams (Part Three, Sub Rosa)
Rating: G
Category: Drama/Angst
Pairings: Nothing that isn't implied by the show.
Summary: Cast
Warnings: None I can think of.
Spoilers: Through Episode 17 (Thorns of Death), and a bit of Episode 28
(Whispering in the Dark).
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Sub Rosa
Part Three: Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
from "Dreams," by Langston Hughes
I don't remember dreaming much in the years before Ohtori. Now and then I'd have one of those standard-issue dreams of flying, of taking tests naked...dreams to laugh about with friends and forget.
But with dreams here, though you may remember not one detail, you awaken and are transformed.
On my return to Ohtori, I was half relieved and half disappointed at how little things seemed to have changed. The smell of cooking in the dorms, the sounding of footsteps and voices in the colonnades. The cookie-cutter uniforms, enlivened here and there by the white of a Student Council jacket or some athletic outfit.
I was welcomed back by my former circle of acquaintances. Well, most of them.
There was the small matter of my broken friendship with Juri.
The rift was originally of my making, of course. I shouldn't have expected it to be easy to mend. On the other hand, the Juri I found was not the girl I'd left behind.
At first, I attributed the difference to her serving on the Student Council. Perhaps she'd simply moved above and beyond her old friends. Yet I didn't see her socializing much with the other Seitokai members (Kaoru Miki being the exception that proved the rule). Nor did she rub shoulders with the officers of other clubs or the rest of Ohtori's elite. Oh yes, she shone brightly, won admiration, but not the kind of adulation heaped on Utenaor Kiryuu Touga; there was no band of flatterers like those who trail after Kiryuu Nanami.
She had retreated somehow, sealed herself inside her elegant shell. Sealed herself, perhaps, within the locket at her throat.
The first day I saw her after coming back, I ran after Juri, told her I'd done wrong in taking him away. I told her I missed the times we'd shared together.
Her face was stone. She turned away. Then said she'd always been indifferent to him.
I couldn't help it. I blurted, "Then, whose picture is in your pendant? You have it hidden under your clothes even now!"
She simply walked away.
Not long after, I had the dream. A dream so deep it seemed to have lasted days. And though I could not remember one single thing about it, I arose changed. Harder, sharper. Ready to leave behind old memories and forge new ones.
Juri was still Juri to me: the brilliance to my shadow. But I was done apologizing, trying to mend fences. I'd even grown past fretting over the mystery of her locket. If she wanted to keep some dark secret, who was I to convince her otherwise, to tell her that her light seemed slightly dimmed?
Perhaps she detected, and respected, the change in me, for these days she would at least greet me when we passed on campus. She never stopped to talk, but then, neither did I.
Still, I came from time to time to watch her dart and twist and parry on the fencing floor, watch her shake back her sunset ringlets and bark "Next," disposing of one opponent after another.
She never looked up at the balcony these days.
And then came the afternoon when I had to push through a crowd to look over the railing of the balcony. An unholy din rose from the watchers around me and on the floor of the hall.
My eyes immediately found her: standing alone, foil lowered, mask off. As often happened in practice, her ringlets had become looser, reminiscent of the gentle waves in which she'd worn her hair years ago. Perhaps that was why she seemed younger, almost uncertain.
She was looking fixedly at something going on several yards away. I followed her gaze, and found...Ruka. Found, as well, the purpose for which that dream had tested and tempered me.