31_days | November 1 (Card Captor Sakura) Goodnight

Title: Goodnight
Day/Theme: November 1, 'you silver-tongued, unreliable narrator'
Series: Card Captor Sakura
Character/Pairing: Tomoyo, hints of Sakura/Syaoran, Tomoyo/Sakura
Rating: PG
Summary: It was a dream, always had been one, and that is how it will end. A beautfiul dream, without the traces of reality winded in.
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They are lying in their beds, eyes big and bright and not a trace of sleep in them at all. She chuckles as she she stands in front of them, a camera in her hand (she never lost that habit) filming them.

"Tell us a story," the youngest one pleads, and Tomoyo grins.

"Why don't I dress you up instead?" Her hands twitch, eager to get the two girls into a costume--something Sakura never lets her do anymore.

"But, I want a story!" She pouts, her four-year-old voice coming high and demanding. The elder, seven, chimes in.

"Fine, but only because you two are just so..." She can't even finish the sentence, just sighing as she films the pout on their faces. They look like Sakura, both of them, with only the smallest hints of Syaoran. A refined cheekbone here, a determined eyebrow there, and there is little else to tell who their father is.

"A story, about magic," the elder asks, "Like the other ones!"

"Oh, those stories. Well, the little girl and her best friend were at a race, watching their parents compete, when flowers suddenly flew through the air..." Tomoyo tells them, a familiar story slipping off her tongue. She remembers the first time she told them this story, the first time she mentioned the magical cards and the creature that guarded them.

(Of the little girl who had to fit shoes too big for her and hold a wand that was too heavy. She grew into them, of course, but she never mentions that. Instead she tells them of a strong heroine, the kind that knew what she was doing. It wouldn't do to mention that the girl misses the magic, the adventure, and wishes she could do it all over again.)

She told them stories of a boy with a hard heart that softened, ever so slowly. About a boy that learned to love and grew through time. He learned about the greatest victory of all, the one where you sacrfice your dreams for another because it is right and not because you are asked to.

("He reminds me of daddy," the littlest girl said.

"Oh?" Tomoyo replied distantly before adding parts about his coldness and arrogance. She changed him a little, so he could no longer be recongized. She kept out the parts about his scarred fingers, his avoidance of his family, his aversion of all things Chinese. It was better if the children didn't know how much their father's family didn't agree to keeping the girls away from magic, away from the terrible beauty of it.)

She told of a small guardian that showed the girl the way. The guardian was described as a huge lion, with a firey peronality and forceful nature. Tomoyo didn't say anything about the guardian's hidden self, of the guilt he felt for dragging someone into a world not her own, or about his lonliness over the years. Those are things that happen after the story, after the tale is completed. This is what happens after the 'happy-ever-afters' and no one wants to hear about the broken warrior.

It doesn't make as good a story.

"And that was how she saved the day," Tomoyo finishes. The youngest one is asleep and the older is slowly drifting away herself.

"I wonder what happened to the best friend..." the girl whispers.

Tomoyo doesn't answer that. She never will, because that is a tale of unrequited love, one that isn't seen or heard at all. Over time, everyone who knew had forgotten it and Sakura has never noticed it. Her's is a story of understanding smiles and knowing that she'll always be the shadow in the alley, the stagehands behind the curtains. She'll be the person who helps but is never noticed.

Instead, she'll regal the girls with stories of the magical girl. Eventually, that is how it will remain, a story, a tale that is true but will always be thought of as false.

"Goodnight," Tomoyo whispered as she closed the door. "Sweet dreams."

And that was how it began, a dream. That is also how it ends, in the dreams of children.