She's had the dream for so long now that she can recite it by heart.
There's a city. An elegant one, done in shades of silver, and it feels so terribly old. She blinks, and it's swallowed in fire. She can feel the heat of the flames on her skin as she runs, and ash smears over the hem of her dress, between her bare toes. She's looking for someone. Someone is looking for her. She has to find them. She has to. Someone seizes the back of her dress, but she tears herself away.
There is a blade in her hands and blood on her skirt. She is dying. She will not let it happen again.
Lan Fan always wakes with tears running down her cheeks.
Lan Fan's lived on her own since her grandfather died. Before the accident, they lived in a two-story house in Kasai; after, she lives on the ground floor of a bad apartment building in Urayasu, near a desiccated park. It doesn't particularly bother her. It's what she can afford, with what little she inherited and what she earns working at the arcade part-time, and it's not like she was ever really planning on going to college anyway. Entrance exams are for other people to worry about, not her. She's just lucky that Al at the arcade took her on after seeing she's missing an arm. Her prosthetic pinches most days, since she's grown enough for it to not quite fit right anymore, but she deals with it. After all, she can't afford a new one, either.
It's a surprisingly chilly morning in August when she finds the dog.
The park across the street from her apartment building is always full of tardy and/or skiving kids, and this morning they seem to have found something to pick on. There's an old dog, scrawny and dirty, snapping and snarling at a trio of middle school boys. They're poking at it with sticks and hooting and shouting, and something in Lan Fan's guts twists. She picks up a rock in her good hand, and throws it as hard as she can at the back of the ringleader, a truly repulsive little pustule named Selim. He howls when it connects with his shoulder blade, and when he turns around, she already has a big old stick in her good hand.
"Leave it alone!"
They bolt, like mice. The dog stands there quivering all over, staring at her with vivid eyes. Blue, she realizes. It's a stray, probably. It's bony in some places and its fur is patchy in others, and someone's stuck a stupid bandage over its forehead. She frowns, and drops her stick.
"You'd better go somewhere else, mutt," she says, and crouches. The dog growls at her, but she doesn't move. "They're just gonna come back, y'know. And as sharp as your teeth are, you can't take them if you're outnumbered."
The dog looks at her for a long moment, and then blinks, and sits back on its haunches. She can't tell if it's male or female, not from just looking. She wonders if it has fleas. Then it whuffs at her, and scrapes at the bandage on its forehead with one paw. She sighs.
"Did they put that on you too?"
The dog whuffs again.
"Chatty, aren't you?" She gets to her feet, and comes a little closer. The dog doesn't budge. "Hold still."
The dog remains absolutely stiff as she works her fingernails under the bandage, and peels it away. There's a funny little crescent-shaped bald patch underneath it. She wonders if it's an old scar.
"There," she says, and then she rubs the dog's ears, because it's standing there and seems fairly friendly. It leans into her good hand, and lets out a long sigh. "I have to go to school. Okay? Get out of here, before those brats come back."
The dog scrapes at its forehead once, twice.
"Thank you," it says, in a low, feminine voice, and then it turns on its heel and vanishes into the dead bushes.
Lan Fan stands there for so long she's late for homeroom.
Over the course of the next week, she sees the dog three more times.
Once, as she's taking out the garbage. It's sitting across the street, tail curled neatly around its paws. When she looks again, it's gone.
The second time, she's walking through the park again, and the dog is trailing her through the shadows.
The third time she sees it, it's out of the corner of her eye at school, but when she turns and looks again, it's not there.
She has to be imagining things, she thinks. The dog can't have followed her to school.
Of course, the dog can't have talked, either, but that's a different question entirely.
She always leaves her bedroom window open while she's studying, so it's no wonder the dog eventually finds its way in that way.
Lan Fan's going over mathematical theorems with a pencil perched behind her ear when there's a thump, and she turns around to find the dog—the same ratty, pale-furred, blue-eyed dog—sitting at the end of her bed with its bottlebrush tail tucked around its claws. She screams, and throws herself out of the chair, but all the dog does is look at her, so she puts her (flesh) hand to her heart, and lets out a breath.
"God. You scared me."
The dog gives her a long look, and then licks its own nose.
"You can't be in here," she says in a hiss, ignoring the way her heart is pounding. "I'm not allowed to have pets. I'll get kicked out if someone finds you in here."
"They won't," says the dog, and it gets to its feet. Lan Fan's knees turn to jelly. She presses her back against her closet door.
"I'm dreaming," she says, stupidly. "I fell asleep while I was studying again, didn't I?"
The dog makes an irritated growling sound, and then darts forward, and nips her kneecap hard enough to draw blood. Lan Fan yelps, and slides down the wall to sit on the floor. She's on eye-level with the dog, and its pointed ears flick towards her and away again in a flurry of irritation.
"Don't be stupid," says the dog. "And even if you were, you're not the sort to have a dream as silly as this one."
Lan Fan refuses to think about how a dog knows her so well, and then licks her lips. "But you're a dog," she says. "And you're talking."
"I'm not a dog," says the dog. "I'm a wolf." She pauses. "My name is Olivier."
"Olivier?" Lan Fan laughs. It's a little hysterical-sounding. "That's a weird name for a wolf."
"I can't help what I'm named, now can I?" Olivier snaps, and she bares her long white teeth. "I have a title. It's Luna. But you," she says, in an implacable voice, "will call me Olivier. Is that understood?"
Lan Fan has the strangest urge to snap to her feet and offer a military salute. "Yeah. Um. Yes."
"Good," says Olivier. She sits back on her haunches again, and studies Lan Fan carefully. Then she lowers her head a little, in a doggish—wolfish—nod. "Yes," she says, and then she leans forward, and licks Lan Fan right in the center of the forehead. The touch of her tongue burns a little. "Yes, I was right."
Blood runs down Lan Fan's bare leg from the nip.
"Right about what?" says Lan Fan, who is still fairly sure this is a dream, even as the stinging in her knee fades to a dull, throbbing ache.
Olivier draws her long claws across Lan Fan's wooden floor, and then she lifts her tail. There's a little circle of metal lying there, about the size of a compact, small enough to tuck into a pocket, large enough to fit neatly in Lan Fan's palm. She's never seen it before in her life. It's inlaid with a crescent and four glittering stones. "Take it," says Olivier, and Lan Fan looks at her.
"Why?"
Olivier blinks at her once. "You have dreams," she says. "Don't you?"
Lan Fan rubs the stump of her arm under her clothes. "I have nightmares."
Olivier creeps forward again, until she's standing between Lan Fan's knees, her heavy paws on either side of Lan Fan's hips. She licks Lan Fan's face, once, again, avoiding the forehead. She's warm and heavy. Lan Fan only realizes she's crying when Olivier nudges her head hard into Lan Fan's chest.
"Don't be foolish," says Olivier briskly. "Or I will bite you again. You're older than I thought you would be, and that's good, because we have a lot of work to do."
"What work?"
"Well," says Olivier, "your destiny, of course," and then she steps away from Lan Fan, leaps up onto the bed, and turns in three circles before settling down. Lan Fan looks at the compact still lying on the floor—it is a compact, she realizes, seeing the catch—and then she picks it up and turns it over in her palm. It's surprisingly warm against her skin. The inlaid stones are duller than she thought they would be, somehow.
"There's someone you have to protect," says Olivier, and in Lan Fan's head, everything slots into place.
She may be crazy, she thinks, closing her fingers tight over the compact, but being crazy has never made so much sense.
He starts having night terrors when he's thirteen, and comes down with a fever so bad he has to be hospitalized for a month.
He thinks he's been having these dreams for years, but he's just never remembered them before, only woke up sick and shaking with adrenalin for no reason he could actually name.
It starts with the girl. It always starts with the girl. Her hand is in his and they're running, together, towards something that he can't name. He carries something in his other hand, a weapon, a long-bladed sword. She has one too, thinner, with an indescribable sheen that looks like moonlight.
Her fingers are tangled together with his, and it's the only thing that keeps him moving forward through a wasteland of a rose garden.
"We have to find it," she says. "We have to find the Silver Crystal."
And then the world explodes, and he shoots awake, sweaty and panting and cursing to himself, because he still can't see her face.
Technically, Lan Fan's not supposed to bring pets to school. Somehow, Olivier scrounges up a little strap-on canine-sized that's labeled guide dog in training, and Lan Fan goes to the vice principal (who has always had a soft spot for her) and wrangles a permission slip. Olivier acts the perfect dog in public, even when the other girls in Lan Fan's class coo over her enough to start an international incident. Gradually, the novelty fades, and Olivier spends most of her time curled up next to Lan Fan's desk, head on her paws, listening hard.
Olivier is different at night, when Lan Fan palms the compact out of her pocket, and whispers the words to it, in a voice so soft she can barely hear herself. Moon Prism Power, Make-Up. Olivier grows. Her fur gleams. The crescent moon on her forehead shines golden. She snaps and snarls. She is a wolf, the Wolf Luna, and she is powerful.
It still astonishes her, this notion that out there, there is a princess she must protect; there are teammates she has to find.
She doesn't need both arms to take down youma. Not when she has her tiara and Olivier' long teeth at her fingertips.
It's her third tangle with the youma when she looks up to see a cloak flickering on a rooftop corner. Her skin prickles when she realizes it's a man, and he's watching her. He straightens when he sees that her face is turned up to his, and tips his hat in her direction before vanishing into the dark.
The next night, she notices him again, and this time he comes close enough for her to make out patches of his face, beneath the mask.
She's not sure why her heart feels so tight and so full whenever she sees roses.
She meets Winry in gym class, when a trio of girls from class D start whispering behind their hands about Lan Fan's prosthetic. Winry, who has a multitude of piercings and long blonde hair ("it's natural," she tells Lan Fan cheerfully, as they do their pre-lap stretches), is also one of the highest-ranked students in the school. She doesn't really want to be an academic, though. "My grandma runs a car repair place," says Winry. "I'll go into engineering and then come back and help her build things."
Olivier sniffs at Winry's heels, and licks her fur in a way that means she's thinking.
Lan Fan's still learning how to use her tiara when the youma attack Rockbell Automobile Repair. Something's possessing the cars, turning their drivers into automatons, and when Lan Fan breaks through the glass, Winry's already been tainted. Her eyes are flat, and the wrench lies heavy in her hand as she goes over the motor on the table, over and over and over. The youma is stronger than anything Lan Fan's ever fought, and her prosthetic shatters with the force of the last blow.
Winry sees. Her eyes glow blue. Her forehead shines.
Olivier throws her head back, and howls.
"Mercury," says Winry the next night, and tilts her face up to the sky. She's wearing new earrings, Lan Fan realizes. Little sapphires. She folds her hands in her lap. Lan Fan rests her remaining hand on her knee. Her prosthetic was irreparable.
"You don't have to," says Lan Fan. "If you don't want to."
"Nonsense," says Winry. "Of course I want to. It's who I am." She gives Lan Fan a considering look. "The first thing I'm gonna do is fix that arm of yours, Lan Fan. I can't be a genius and not be able to figure out something for that."
Lan Fan hooks her good arm around Winry, and hugs her tight. In the compact, the blue stone shimmers.
It's nice, she thinks. Not to be alone anymore.
They find Mei only a week after Winry finishes Lan Fan's new arm, a marvel of machinery that she has to keep hidden under sleeves and gloves so she's not stared at. Winry's never designed anything like it before, and she's fairly certain she never will again. "I dreamt about it," says Winry, and she reaches out to touch the plates in Lan Fan's forearm, almost wonderingly. "I don't know if I can ever recreate it."
Actually, Mei finds them. "I had dreams," says Mei, when she runs to catch up with them outside of the shrine where she works. "About you two." She draws a breath and puts out her hand for Olivier to sniff before eyeing Lan Fan carefully, her new arm in particular. Then she sighs.
"I've found you," she says, and hugs Lan Fan hard.
Lan Fan doesn't know what to say.
There's a boy who starts coming into the arcade after Paninya shocks them all with vivid green nails and a mark for Jupiter between her eyes. He's tall, taller than Lan Fan is, and he wears long hair back in a neat ponytail. He wears the uniform for Shin Gakuen, the classy new high school a few districts over. He seems particularly close with Al, who works behind the counter. Lan Fan watches him in between cleaning the machines (Sailor V in particular gets hard use) and chews her lip, because he looks familiar, but she can't quite work out why.
He watches her too, and every time she catches him at it, he gives her half a smile that makes her insides turn over.
"Lan Fan," says Olivier one night, as Lan Fan wraps up her history homework. Lan Fan turns. Olivier has become an expert of sneaking in and out of Lan Fan's open window.
"Mm?"
"That man," she says. "Tuxedo Mask."
Lan Fan pauses, and then sets her pencil down, very carefully, to turn and look Olivier in the face. "What about him?"
Olivier growls. "I don't trust him."
Lan Fan swallows hard. She knows Olivier can smell the spark of temper that's snapped into being. She shouldn't defend him, she thinks. They've barely exchanged words. He stands like a hawk over their battles, watching. He throws down words of encouragement, sometimes. He calls her strong. He calls her beautiful. Her face flames. She licks her lips.
"Nor do I," says Lan Fan, and though Olivier huffs a bit, she nods, and settles back down on the bed again.
Lan Fan doesn't sleep that night.
It's her.
He can't believe he hasn't seen it before now. But it's her. It's Sailor Moon. She pulls her hair back, rather than let it hang down; she wears cargo pants and long-sleeved shirts and heavy black jackets with chains, but it's her. She moves in the same way, swift and controlled. Her eyes are the same. He knows her face. He's known it since forever.
He sips his coffee and does his homework in a booth at the arcade, and pretends he doesn't notice her sending him questioning glances.
Slowly, their enemies unveil themselves.
There are seven of them, fighting for the evil Queen Metallia and her leading general. The Homunculi call him Father. They've defeated four. Gluttony is gone. So is Sloth. Pride nearly destroyed Paninya, luring her into a state that almost crippled her permanently, in a way that, unlike bodies, could not be fixed. It is Wrath that Lan Fan tangles with, Wrath that nearly breaks her through the fury and repressed guilt of her grandfather's death, but she knocks it free of the body it has stolen, and pierces it through with the Moon Stick, and then it's gone.
It's not Jupiter or Mars or even Mercury that gets to her first, but Tuxedo Mask, and before she realizes it, he's lifted her up and swept her away, and all she can do is cry into his shoulder.
He smells like the roses he carries, and something deeper and sharper that reminds her of home.
When she wakes, she's in her own bed, still in her soldier's uniform, and there's a single yellow rose resting on her bedside table.
Her dreams change when Lust reveals herself.
For the most part, it's the same. The burning silver city, the sword, the blood. But for the first time, there's more. There are the other senshi—Mercury, Jupiter, Mars. There's a fifth, and her face is cast in shadow. Lan Fan thinks it's the princess that they've been searching for.
There's a man at her side, and though she cannot see his face, their hands fit together so perfectly that it's as if someone sculpted them that way. Hand in hand.
Some nights the dream goes further, into a garden of yellow roses, and when she wakes, her lips tingle as if she's been kissed.
"You're Lan Fan," says a voice, and Lan Fan nearly knocks her head on the underside of the table in her effort to get up. The voice is familiar. She almost knocks over a cup when she stands, and finds that the boy with the ponytail, the one who does his homework here, is standing in front of her, hands in pockets, smiling. Out of the corner of her eyes he can see Paninya and Mei whispering to each other, and Winry's smirking. She wants to kill them.
"Yeah." She chokes. "I mean, yes. Sorry. Who are you?"
For some reason, it feels like a stupid question. Of course I know who he is. He's—
"Ling," he says. "Ling Yao."
She knows that smile.
One morning, Olivier wakes her early, and tells her to collect the girls and report to the arcade before school. Lan Fan obeys, but there's something pounding behind her eyes. She hasn't slept for more than an hour at a time since Ling Yao came up to her in the arcade. She can still see him, standing there. It overlays with Tuxedo Mask. They're the same. She knows they're the same. How can she tell anyone? Would they believe her? They would believe her, she chastises herself. Of all of them, she was probably the last to figure it out. But she wants—she doesn't know what she wants.
He doesn't know she knows.
Olivier waits until Winry scoots in (the last; she overslept) and then nudges her way underneath the Sailor V machine, and hits a switch. It moves back. Stairs lead down into the dark.
Sailor V—the real Sailor V—meets them below, and she wears a crescent moon between her brows.
Her name, she says, is Riza Hawkeye. She's a substitute teacher at Shin Gakuen, seven or eight years older than the rest of them. She's beautiful in a way that Lan Fan will never be, steady and strong and fierce, and at her side there's a black wolf with dark eyes that she calls Roy.
"I should have come forward earlier," says Riza, "but I needed to stay hidden. The Dark Kingdom—"
The lights go out. Winry's sensors go off.
Lan Fan is the first to transform.
They have Tuxedo Mask. They have Ling Yao. He's unconscious, she thinks, or maybe dead—no, not dead, not again—but why is she thinking again?—and dangling from a rooftop. His mask is gone, and blood trickles down his cheek. It is Ling Yao, and behind her, Mei and Winry begin to whisper. Paninya nudges her in the arm, and says, "Four o'clock, cap," just as a flash of darkness catches her attention. Lan Fan spins the Moon Stick between her fingers.
"Protect the Princess," she tells Paninya and Winry, offense and defense together, and then flicks her gloved metal fingers at Mei. "Mars, Luna, with me."
"Okay," chirps Mei, and Olivier, in her pure white wolf form, snarls.
"Don't call me Luna."
"Ugh," says a deep voice, and when she looks up, there's a burly, short-haired man staring down at her. He's heavily muscled, with a strong jaw and sharp teeth, and his nails are long and black and dangerous. "Father told me that the famous senshi would be a gaggle of girls, but I didn't actually believe him."
"Free the captive," says Lan Fan, and miraculously, her voice stays steady. Olivier has never liked Tuxedo Mask, but when the ropes begin to slip, she growls. "You can't fight us, homunculus. You and your youma haven't succeeded yet, and you will not win now."
"Youma," says the homunculus, and laughs. "What youma? Just me here, girly-girl, and I don't—"
Lan Fan's in the air and lashing out with the Moon Stick before the homunculus can finish his sentence. He knocks the Moon Stick aside, the sharp crescent gashing into his skin, and he snarls. There are youma, deep shadowy beings that lash out at the Princess—Riza—Princess Riza?—Sailor V, and she hears Paninya cry out and unleash the lightning. The homunculus laughs, and flips onto his feet again from where he's landed, leaving a deep scoremark in the road.
"It's not my policy to fight little girls," he says, and then his skin turns black. "I can make an exception for you, Sailor Moon."
She bares her teeth at him, and down below, Olivier sinks her fangs into a youma's throat and howls.
She's trying to get at Ling Yao. He's trying to keep her away. It leaves her open, she realizes, when the first true blow lands, and draws blood under her uniform. Her desperation makes her vulnerable. But she can't just leave him there, not like that, not him, not ever him, and so she seizes her tiara from her forehead and it leaves a deep, blackened scorch, even in his armored skin. The homunculus laughs.
"Better and better and better!" he shouts, and he seizes her by the hair and slams her into the rooftop. She feels a rib break. Down below, she hears someone scream. "I've been waiting for someone like you—"
"Sailor Moon!" someone cries, and it's a new voice, one she doesn't know well yet. Riza. The princess. Lan Fan staggers to her feet, and passes the Moon Stick from her flesh hand to her metal one.
"Stay away," she says. She can taste blood on her lips. She's just beneath Ling now, and she feels a drop of blood hit her shoulder. His blood. Her knees quake. "What sin are you, homunculus?"
"I'm Greed," he says, and sweeps her an elaborate bow. The scoremarks from her tiara haven't faded. Neither has the cut from the Moon Stick. The rest of her blows have vanished, as if they had never been. Another drop of blood hits her shoulder, and she flinches. Greed notices, and his eyes flick up to Ling Yao. "Ah," he says, and he smiles. "Fond of him, are you? We thought so. Hell of a time catching that one. He fought so hard. I thought it'd be better to kill him, but Father said we better leave him alive." He cocks his head at her. "What do you think?"
Her vision goes white, and she leaps for him.
Lan Fan fades.
Images flash in front of her eyes.
Her hands closing around Greed's throat—
The prince, running beside her, hand clasped in hers—
Her gloves tearing as her elbow blade snaps in two—
A sword in her hand, back to back with the prince—
Greed tossing her over the edge of the rooftop, and the ground rushing to meet her—
Fire licking at the palace walls—
She—
Is—
Not—
Dead—
And bright white light sparks between her fingers—
Fabric catches between her legs as she runs—
Her dress is long and white and her arm is made of smooth silver—
Her forehead burns—
Her forehead burns—
Endymion, dead, blood staining his dark hair—
"Lan Fan," he shouts, and he's free of his ropes, looking up at her—
She raises her arms, and Sailor Venus looks up at her—
She raises her arms, and Riza watches her do it—
The crystal glows, lengthens, turns into a sword—
She feels the hilt of the rapier between her palms—
"It will never happen again," she says, and brings the crystal sword down.
The Silver Crystal is nestled between her fingers when he catches her, and lowers her to the ground.
It's nothing more than a crystal again, shaped like a teardrop, clear and glistening as water. She looks paler than he remembers her being, from the arcade; her eyes are closed, long black lashes just brushing against her cheek. Her hair is long and loose. Twists of silver are woven into it. They match her arm, which shines moonbright, its blade repaired, her fingers loose and smooth. Her white dress is stained at the bottom with dirt, but there is no blood there, not like he remembers. She's warm and heavy in his arms.
The women surround him. The girl with long blonde hair, Mercury—she gives him a long, considering look, and then curls her fingers into the white wolf's ruff. The black wolf is beside the new soldier, the one in orange with a belt made of interlocked metal hearts. The one in orange peels off her gloves and checks Lan Fan's pulse. He's reticent to let her go, and even though the white wolf snarls at him, he stares back at Sailor Venus and licks his lips.
"She's all right," he says, and she inclines her head once, slowly.
"Yes," she says. "The Princess is fine."
Ling leans forward and rests his forehead against Lan Fan's, barely trusting himself to breathe.
She dreams.
The rose garden is fresh and clean. There are blooms of all colors, but her favorites have always been the yellow ones. They are brighter than the rest, somehow. They remind her of his court robes, when he visits the Moon Kingdom for the first time. He catches her eye across the room and winks, and she flushes red, because none of the men on the Moon would ever dare to do something like that to their princess. But he's a prince, she learns. Besides, he's never been one for real decorum.
Olivier is the lead general of the Moon's armies, and she oversees the training of the five princesses, one for each of the inner planets. Olivier oversees her training, for she will not be one to be left defenseless if her best friends fall first.
The man called Father is Metallia's instrument, and he corrupts the Earth's generals, one by one, all seven of them, until they turn on their prince and lead a revolt against the Moon.
She can fight. She leads her women with her.
Venus falls last, the leader, ever true, and her lover, the one they call the Black Wolf, he falls by her side.
She finds the prince's body among the ruins, beneath the Silver Crystal, and she dies defending it, her sword held high.
Lan Fan opens her eyes, and Ling Yao is sitting beside her bed, her silver hand in his. She takes a breath, and he starts awake, and blinks at her.
"Hello," he says.
She cannot think. She cannot breathe. She stares at him, and then somehow he is in the bed with her, they are lying beside each other, her arms are around him, she is shaking, he is crying, they are kissing, and his lips taste just like she remembers.
She smells roses, and smiles.
A/N:
So more of a layover than a crossover so NO CROSSOVER SECTION FOR YOU KALEIDOSCOPE HEART
Also I am cry because this grew SO MUCH LARGER THAN I ANTICIPATED