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Once upon a time—which is a country all unto itself, my darling, for it contains years and days and hours that we have yet to touch upon or explore; it is a wild place, full of dangers and wonders, quests and choices—there was a glacier. We have been there before, you and I, and so you must know that on that glacier was a kingdom, carved from ice and sustained by clever magic. And oh, the cleverest of all the souls who dwelt in this ever-frozen kingdom was their princess, whose hands were cold, and whose hair was the color of the deepest ice of winter, which keeps its secrets even from itself. She was a glad thing, this princess, for all that she had not always been. She had learned to smile only recently, and her laughter was still the gladdest sound that any in the kingdom had ever heard, for they had lived so long thinking that she would never laugh at all.
Now, this princess worked very hard, for the spells which sustained her kingdom and its people were cast and powered by the royal family. She had few friends, either inside or outside the palace, which is a sadly common state for princesses, for who can understand their troubles? But always there was one friend that she could count on, one sweet and constant companion who would never leave her lonely. Every night, she would go to her room, and sit on the balcony of her great, wide window, and smile her sweet and new-found smile for her dearest, oldest friend: the moon.
It is the nature of moons to wax and wane; they are inconstant things, never showing the same face two nights in a row. So it was that the princess did not think it strange when the moon vanished from her sky, for all that she had believed the crescent moon of the previous night to be a trifle thicker than it normally was before a disappearance. The moon would return to her. The moon always returned.
But three days trickled by like meltwater down a glacier’s face, and the moon did not return.
The princess did her best to keep her spirits up, but as another day passed, and another, her laughter faded into silence and her smile withered like a snowflake in the sun. For if even the moon could not love her well enough to stay and bear her company, then how could any other friend that she might hope to have be true?
Soon, even the king and queen could see that their princess was fading. They came to her, survivors of their own stories, and asked, “What can we do, oh darling daughter, to spare you from this pain? You are our love and our light and the proof that love endures, even in the cold. How can we bring you back to us?”
The princess was clever, even with her heart on the verge of breaking. She knew how these stories were meant to go. So she stood as straight as her sorrow-laden shoulders would allow, and said, “Give me supplies for a week. Give me good shoes, and give me a map to the place where I should least have cause to wander. Give me your blessing, and let me go. The moon is my friend. The moon needs me.”
It is a hard thing for kings and queens, to have their daughters stand before them as women grown and ask permission to begin a questing story. Questing stories are not like princess stories, you see: questing stories have costs, and sometimes those costs are more than we can bear. But they had not come to their happy endings without struggle, and they knew what was asked of them.
“Here are all the things you have asked for, and my bow besides,” said the queen, who had been a huntress in her time, before she traded silver seas for frozen walls.
“Here are all the things you have asked for, and my harp besides,” said the king, who had been a messenger and a thief in his time, before he traded stolen silver for a golden crown.
The princess, who did not know the stories of her parents, and did not want to—for such is the wild heartlessness of the young, who must always and ever be the first ones to love, or lose, or set out on a quest to find the moon—took such gifts as she was given, and thanked her parents softly, and turned, and walked away.
She did not feel the cold, for she knew her kingdom’s clever magic better than anyone else in her parents' lands. She did not hunger, for she had made her choices well. She did not feel burdened by any of the things she carried. The princess walked, and her only burden was hope. She had walked for the better part of a day when something moved in the snow ahead of her. She stopped, hope looming huge and hungry in her heart, for she had made this journey before. “Hello, rabbit!” she called, and hoped—how she hoped!—to be answered.
But it was not a rabbit that appeared out of the snowswept fields; it was a girl of the princess’s very own age. Her hair was long and golden, bound back in knots like a rabbit’s ears, and her plain white dress was far too thin for the everlasting winter. “Is that my name?” she asked. Her accent was unfamiliar to the princess, who had heard so many visiting dignitaries come and go. “I do not think it is my name. Who are you? Where am I?” She stood, and her legs were unsteady, like she had been newly born. “Is it always this cold?”
The princess, who still had little skill at speaking with strangers, stared at her. The girl with the rabbit-ear hair stared back. They might be there yet, staring in silence, if not for the snow beginning to fall a little harder. The strange girl sneezed mightily, and fell backward into the snow, so that she became nothing but bare feet sticking into the air like an accusation of misbehavior.
The princess blinked. The princess smiled. And then, to her own amazement, the princess began to laugh.
“Oh, this will not do, this will not do at all!” she cried. “You’ll freeze before I even know your name!” Quick as an arrow, she ran to the stranger, crafting one of her kingdom’s clever spells with the motion of her fingers and tossing it over the rabbit-girl like a fisherman’s net.
The stranger sat up, wiggling her nose to stop another sneeze, and straightened up experimentally. “I am not cold anymore,” she said wonderingly. “What did you do? Who are you? Where am I?”
“This is the Kingdom of Ice, where it has not thawed in a thousand years,” said the princess. “I wove a spell of warmth to keep you from taking ill, for the cold is not kind to strangers. My name is Ami. I am the princess here, as my mother was before me. One day, all this land will be mine to keep and care for. But right now, keeping and caring for one stranger in the snow is quite enough!”
“It is very strange, is it not?” The stranger stood, still unsteady, and smiled at her. “I thank you, Princess Ami of the ice. My name is…I am not sure of my name, only that it is not ‘rabbit,’ although that seems good enough for now. So you will call me Rabbit, and I will call you Ami, and I will be very glad indeed that you have found me.”
Ami was accustomed to many things, but not to the open-hearted smiles of golden-haired girls who seemed happy as all the world to meet her. Her kingdom had not thawed in a thousand years, but it felt as if some small and unneeded vein of ice in her heart, which had survived all past adventures, finally allowed itself to break and melt away. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I brought food enough for myself and a friend, but it seems the friend I was expecting has not come.”
“Then I shall be your friend instead,” said Rabbit firmly. “And I am always hungry.”
Together, Ami and Rabbit made short work of a good meal, and began to walk again. Rabbit talked without ceasing, asking questions, pointing to things that struck her as worth pointing to. And Ami found that she was not bothered by this new facet to her world, because in seeing her kingdom through Rabbit’s eyes, she saw it again for the first time.
As they walked, the air began to warm, and the ground to soften under their feet, for the ice that kept it hard was melting. Ami frowned. She had never seen mud before, and yet here it was, appearing in great patches between the drifts of snow. Twice she stopped to re-cast her clever spells, hardening the ice enough to let them continue walking. Finally, she let the spells go altogether, and concentrated instead of keeping Rabbit—who was less careful than she could have been—from sinking into the mud and being lost forever.
On they walked, until they came to the very edge of the kingdom. The land beyond was swathed in smoke and swaddled in ashes. Ami stopped, for she was afraid. Rabbit, however, gave a glad cry and ran on ahead to a clear, clean pool of water, surrounded by white-petaled flowers with blackened centers, like craters on the surface of the moon. “Come on, Ami!” she called, dropping to her knees, heedless of what the mud might do to her thin white dress. “The water is delicious.”
Ami started to step forward, only to stop again as two black-winged birds slashed down from the sky like knives, trailing ash and soot behind them. “Who dares to cross the borders of my kingdom?” demanded a voice. Ami raised her head, all but frozen in her fear, and saw a girl her own age standing at the edge of the burning land. She had hair as black as soot, and eyes as dark as ash, and as Ami watched, the two black birds came to rest upon her shoulders.
There are ways that introductions between princesses should go, rules to be followed and diplomacies to be observed. Ami knew them all. Rabbit knew nary a one. “Hello!” she called gladly, still on her knees in the mud. “My name is Rabbit. Her name is Ami. She is a princess, and I am her friend, and if this is your water, it is very tasty, and if it is not your water, it is still very tasty, and you should try some.”
The stranger—who was a princess in her own right, here in this kingdom where the land burned eternally, and where children were fed on ashes and fire—had encountered many trials in her time, and knew the answers to many riddles. She did not, however, know how to deal with Rabbit. She turned her eyes on Ami, questioning without speaking a word.
Ami found her voice then, and said, “I am the princess of the Kingdom of Ice, and I am here because this is where my quest has led me. I am searching for the moon. She is my friend, and when she last disappeared from the sky outside my window, she did not return. I miss her, and am worried for her, so I am seeking her even now.”
The princess of the burning kingdom frowned. “But that is why I am here,” she said. “I am the princess of these lands. When last I spoke with the moon, it was here, at this pool. She came to me as a white rabbit, and she left me when I needed her most, and she is missing from my sky as well as yours.”
“Then we must travel together,” said Ami. “Surely two of us can find the moon more quickly.”
“She does not count me, for I have yet to even find myself,” said Rabbit gaily, wiggling her toes in the water. “But what is your name? We cannot call you ‘princess’ all the time. It does not suit you.”
“My name is Rei,” said the princess of the Kingdom of Fire imperiously, “and I have not said that I will come with you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Rabbit, with a smile as bright as all the fires that have ever burned in all the kingdoms of the world. “You will.”
They sat for a while by the waters of the pond, while Ami found the clever spell that would let her walk across the Kingdom of Fire unmelted, and let Rabbit walk across the Kingdom of Fire unburnt. Rei’s crows scolded them all until they found their feet and began to walk again, into the eternal coals of the ever-burning land. Here, too, Rabbit found delight in her surroundings, crying out with joy again and again, until even Rei was forced to smile at the beauty of her kingdom. On they walked, and on, and on, until they came to a place that even Rei did not know, where the ground cooled beneath their feet into hard-baked clay before softening into rich dark soil. Then, as if by magic, a line of mighty trees appeared, their trunks so tall that they seemed like nothing more nor less than a mountain of leaves and branches.
Rei, who had never seen a tree that was not burning, stopped and stared. Ami, who had never seen a tree that was not carved from ice, stopped and stared. Rabbit, who had never seen a tree, continued on, until she stood in the shadow of the great oaks, laughing with delight.
So brave was her laughter, and so great was her delight, that Rei and Ami felt the slightest touch of shame at their own reluctance. They ran to join her, and the three sat beneath the trees while Ami spun a clever spell to keep Rei’s fire burning even in shadows, and Rabbit ran to gather blackberries, fresh from the vines.
She was reaching for a particularly large, ripe berry when a hand closed around her wrist, and a puzzled voice said, “You are not a bird, to steal my berries all unknowing, and you are not a kitchen girl, to pluck them for our pies. Who are you?”
Rabbit blinked wide blue eyes at the hand sticking out of the bush, and said, “I am Rabbit, and only Rabbit, but you are a bush that talks, and I am very much impressed by that.”
The hand did not release Rabbit’s wrist, but pushed her back, and became a hand attached to an arm, which became in turn an arm attached to a young girl with hair as brown as bark and eyes as green as new spring leaves. She blinked at Rabbit. Rabbit blinked back. For a moment, the two stood in silence, which is how many good friendships begin: with confusion, and with a wary assessment of who is more likely to pull away and run. Then came the sound of a bowstring being drawn, and of a branch bursting into flame, and the stranger looked past Rabbit to Ami and Rei, who stood side by side, their weapons at the ready.
“I am the princess of these lands, and I do not wish to fight you,” said the stranger, still more puzzled than anything else. “Why do you threaten me with arrows and with flame?”
“Let our friend go,” said Rei. “Rabbit has done nothing to you.”
“Yes, I have,” said Rabbit helpfully. “I have stolen her berries and called her a bush, which I am sure is a grave insult in this land, as she has not released me yet.”
Ami groaned.
The stranger let go of Rabbit’s wrist. “I am not insulted to be compared to a bush; bushes are good growing things, and the forest needs them. Sadly I, too, have needs: I need to gather berries, for I am about to go on a long journey, and will need food to see me safely through what lies ahead.”
Rei, who had always had a talent for seeing what would often go unseen, frowned, and asked, “Have you misplaced the moon?”
“Yes,” said the stranger. “How did you know? She was my friend when I had none, and has stood by me all the days of my life, but now she is missing, and I fear she may be hurt, for what else could keep her from my skies? I must find her. She has cared for me. I will protect her as best I can, forever, as repayment.”
“We are looking for the moon as well,” said Ami, lowering her bow. “We have food, and we have each other, and we would be glad for you to join us, for it seems that Rabbit likes you, and while she may be silly, she makes me laugh, and she has not led us astray yet.”
“A rabbit helped me once…” said the strange new princess. She straightened, standing taller than any of them. “My name is Makoto, and I will be glad to join you on your quest.”
“That is good, for I like friends, and it seems that all my friends are to be the moon’s friends as well,” said Rabbit happily. “Now may we go back to picking berries?”
They did pick berries then, for a time, and came to know each other a little better. Oh, that we could take the hours to recreate the bonds of friendship, braiding them each over each, so that they would hold us all as safe and close as they held those four girls in the shade of that great wood! But once upon a time will ever and always be deeper and wider than now; now is limited on all sides, and must always ever fade into the shadowy face of then. So I will tell you this: that while they did not love each other yet, as sisters, they cared for one another as friends before they gathered their bundles of berries—for those girls who were of flesh—and their bundles of sticks—for Rei, who was of fire, however well she might at times conceal it—and started on again.
They had walked for a day and a night and a day again when Ami stopped, and said, “This is wrong.”
The others turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” asked Rei.
“It should be night now; the day has gone on too long. But still the sun is shining, and the dark does not descend.”
“That explains why Rabbit has been sleeping for these last few hours,” said Makoto, her arms looped under Rabbit’s legs. Rabbit snored on, her own arms looped around Makoto’s shoulders, dreaming whatever dreams are reserved for girls who wear their hair like a rabbit’s ears, and are always hungry, and are never full.
“No,” said Rei. “She does that because she’s lazy. Where are we?”
“This is not my kingdom,” said Ami.
“Or mine,” said Makoto.
“It’s mine,” said a strange new voice. They all turned to see a girl with hair like the sun and eyes like the sky leaning against the trunk of a nearby palm tree, arms folded, watching them. “And as it is mine, I believe a better question would be ‘why are you here’? Not that I did not enjoy your company before, you see, but I did not ask you here, and we have borders for a reason.”
“We have never met before,” said Makoto, stepping between the stranger and the others. She shook Rabbit a little, hoping the other girl would wake and free her hands.
Rabbit did not wake.
“At the ball? Where the prince with all the silly roses danced with the moon, and spurned us all, which really. The moon can have him, if he was so blind as to miss our loveliness.” The stranger frowned. “You.” She pointed to Rei. “You ran after him. I watched you go. There is power in being seen as the silly, careless one; no one cares where you might be looking. You told him the moon was your friend. I was going to look for you, but I did not know the way. Are you truly telling me not one of you remembers?”
Feeling faintly ashamed, although they could not have answered why, the others shook their heads. The golden princess sank to her knees, shoulders sagging.
“Then all is lost,” she said. “If we cannot remember where we last saw the moon, then how are we to find her? How are we to ever bring her home?”
“Don’t be sad,” said Rabbit, lifting her head from Makoto’s shoulder. “All is not lost. If you met once, and now you have met again, how can all possibly be lost? Things wax and wane. Stories become truths become stories. I have never met the moon, but it seems that if she loved you as you have all loved her, you will find her. The world is too well-mannered to behave in any other way.”
The golden princess looked up. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Rabbit, and I am hungry.” Rabbit squirmed until Makoto stooped to put her down. “These are my friends, and they are all princesses in their own lands, while I am only ever silly Rabbit, who has to be fished from ponds and pulled from trees. What is your name?”
“I am Minako,” said the golden princess, and climbed back to her feet. “I am the princess in these lands, and I am coming with you.”
They looked at one another and smiled, and for a moment there was a feeling of sublime calm shared between them, like they had found the final piece to a puzzle that none of them had set out to complete. Five faces; five smiles. Five parts to make a whole.
You may leave them there, if you wish; you may turn and walk away from our five brave girls, leaving them standing in the sunlight forevermore. Such adventures they will have, with their magic and their weapons and their friendships! Such trials and such triumphs, and all while searching for the moon, and all outside the bounds that edge this story. You do not need to follow them down darker paths. Close your eyes, my love, close your eyes and go to sleep, and let their story be unfinished. Let them be happy. Let them go.
But such is not to be their fate, is it? You are too awake; the story has you, and you will have it, drop by dreadful drop. So come, then. They have walked while we were speaking, and we must hurry if we are to catch them on the road…
They walked, our five brave girls—save for the times when Rabbit was carried, but we will not begrudge her that, will we, for Makoto did not begrudge the carrying of her—until it seemed that there was nothing to the world but walking; that they had never been princesses, never lived in any lands but the ones through which they traveled. They ate and slept and walked, Ami re-casting the spells that kept them from freezing or burning or withering in the darkness, Rei lighting fires every night with the faintest brush of her fingers, Makoto finding ripe fruit on barren trees, and Minako charting their course by the movement of light. In time, even Rabbit began to droop, her laughter pressed out of her by the journey. Until at last, they came to a great wall of thorns, and could walk no further.
Blackberries are sharp and thorny things, as are thistles, and roses. But this wall was sharper than any of those things, with thorns the length of a man’s arm that bristled with smaller thorns of their own, until the entire unbroken expanse was nothing but thorns piled upon thorns. In front of the hedge was a rock, and on the rock sat a man, rumpled and covered with thorn-briar scratches, a single white rose held in his hand. He looked up at the sound of footsteps, and stood, a frown upon his face.
“Has my mother sent an army of princesses, then, to fetch me home to her?” he asked, and his voice was small and weary from disuse. “I will not go. I saw the rabbit here, once. The moon sleeps in the castle beyond.”
“Do not think so much of yourself, prince,” said Minako. “We are princesses, but more, we are friends come in the name of friendship to save the moon and set her back into the heavens, where she belongs. You are not of our concern. Stand aside, and let us pass.”
“I would do so gladly, but nothing passes here,” said the prince. “I have tried to climb the wall a thousand times, and a thousand times have I failed. Even the rabbit has not been able to find a way back through the thorns to me. The moon is trapped by these thorns, and none of us shall save her.”
“You have failed,” said Rei. “We have not.”
“Not yet,” said the prince.
So wrapped were they in the ancient dance of argument that none of them saw Makoto walking toward the thorns like a woman in a dream; none save for Rabbit, who ran to her, and grabbed her hands, and said, “No. No, and no, and no again. Mako, do not do this. We can find another quest. We can find another story. You have carried me, and laughed with me, and been my friend. Let me be your friend. Forget the moon, and love a rabbit in her place.”
“I do love you, Rabbit,” said Makoto, and pulled her hands gently free. “That is why I must do this. I promised the moon my protection, and what sort of friend would I be if I broke my word? Only wait a little while, and we will be happy together. I will bake you so many pies that your belly will ache. I will carry you forever. But first, I have to keep my promise.”
Makoto placed her hands among the thorns, and oh, how it hurt her; a thousand knives, a thousand splinters, could not match the pain she felt as she forced her fingers tight and reached deep inside herself for the first gift the moon had ever given her, nestled close against the knowledge that she would never have found that gift without the rabbit who stayed so white, even amongst the mud and loam of the forest. She allowed herself one glance back at Rabbit, in her white dress that never stained or tore, but stayed somehow clean, no matter what. And then she called the lightning down, and the heavens split in two, and all the world was electric green and burning from within.
Makoto did not scream.
When the smoke and ashes cleared, the wall of thorns was gone, and Makoto with them; the others found Rabbit sitting at the very edge of where the wall had been, her arms wrapped around her knees and her face buried against her legs. “It is not worth it,” she moaned. “Turn back, turn back; it is not worth it. Let the moon become a story. Let the world move on.”
“Come, silly Rabbit,” said Rei, and pulled her gently to her feet. “You will have to carry yourself now. There is no one here to do it for you.”
“I remember the ball,” said Ami abruptly. “I remember you.” She looked to the prince. “You danced with a woman…”
“I danced with the moon,” said the prince.
Ami, who remembered the face of the woman who had fascinated the prince so, all through that long-forgotten night, said nothing. But she shed a tear for Makoto, who had been brave, and the ground froze where it fell.
Minako, meanwhile, had run ahead, refusing to let Makoto’s sacrifice be in vain. So it was that she was the first to find the next barrier: the wall of mirrors, that blurred and split the light, and left no clear passage. They were slick as glass, and reached to the sky, blinding in their brightness.
The others walked to join her, and looked in awe at the wall, which seemed unbreakable. “What are we to do now?” asked Rei, who had little experience with mirrors not smeared with soot and ash.
“We could throw rocks at it,” said Minako.
None of them saw Ami walking toward the wall like a woman in a dream; none save for Rabbit, who ran to her, and grabbed her hands, and said, “No. No, and no, and no again. Ami, do not do this. You were my first friend. You loved me when I had nothing, not even a name. We can find another quest. We can find another story. Let me be your friend. Forget the moon, and love a rabbit in her place.”
“I do love you, Rabbit,” said Ami. “That is why I must do this. Without the moon, I would never have learned what it was to be a friend, and without those lessons, I could not have loved you. Only wait a little while, and we will be happy together. I will teach you all the stories I know. I will laugh with you forever. But first, I have to save my friend.”
Rabbit looked at her sadly before releasing her hands. Ami smiled and touched Rabbit’s cheek with her cold fingers.
“Rabbit is a good name for you,” she said. “But it is not, I think, the name that suits you best. I remember.”
Then she turned to the wall of mirrors, and reached deep into herself for the most clever of all her clever magics, nestled close against the knowledge that she would never have mastered it had she not first learned the lessons of a rabbit who stayed so white that it was like the snow on which it ran. She allowed herself one glance back at Rabbit, in her white dress like the snows of the kingdom they had left so far behind them. And then she called the frost, and the world turned cold, and everything was frozen blue and the sound of shattering.
Ami screamed. But in the end, what loving heart could blame her?
The sound of screams drew the others like moths to a flame. They ran, but the cloud of ice was already gone, and Ami with it; they found Rabbit standing frozen where the wall had been, staring blank-eyed into the distance. “It is not worth it,” she said. “Turn back, turn back; I am not worth it. Let the moon become a story. Let the world move on.”
“Come, silly Rabbit,” said Rei, putting an arm around her shoulders. “You will have to lead yourself now. There is no one here to do it for you.”
“I know you,” said the prince.
Minako, who knew that this was not the time, shushed him and turned to look ahead, for she knew the way of stories, and knew that this was not the end. So it was that she was the first to see the next barrier, the wall of shadows, so dark and so dense that they seemed to have no ending. And she sighed, for she would have liked to belong to this story for a little longer; she had always hoped to find the white cat who had attended on her birthing, and ask him why he had done it, and ask him why he had left her. But there was no more time, and a princess always knows her destiny.
“Darkness is not so bad,” said the prince.
“We could throw rocks at it,” said Rei, and turned to share a smile with Minako…
…but Minako was gone, walking toward the wall like a woman in a dream. Rei shouted her name. Minako did not turn, and somehow Rabbit was there, grabbing her hands and saying, “No. No, and no, and no again. Mina, do not do this. We cannot go on without you, when we are already so few. We can find another quest. We can find another story. Let me be your friend. Forget the moon, and love a rabbit in her place.”
“I do love you, Rabbit,” said Minako quietly, as she pulled her hands away. “That is why I must do this. Without the moon, I would never have learned to be anything but beautiful, and beauty is not the strongest foundation for a friendship. Only wait a little while, and we will be happy together. I will tell you a thousand jokes. I will join you in a thousand games. But first, I have to earn my happy ending.”
Minako, who came from a land without darkness, stepped forward into the shadows. They were hungry; they grabbed for her, trying to obscure her light. She reached deep into her heart for the light that had been hers for all the days of her life, and allowed herself one glance back at Rabbit, in her white dress like the whiskers of a white cat who had come, and gone, and never given any reason.
Minako had always believed in making a good exit. She smiled, winking at Rabbit, and shouted, “I know your name, Rabbit! I have always known you! In the name of—” And then the dark crashed down, and the light rose up to meet it, and everything was so brilliantly bright that it seared away all the shadows of the world. For one brief instant, everything was clear. Everything was known.
Rabbit put her hands over her face and wept.
She was still weeping when the others reached her. Rei held out her hand…and stopped, looking at the wall of unbroken ice in front of them. Through it, she could see the outline of a castle. There were no pathways around. There were no tunnels through.
“I see the shape of the story now,” she said. “We were all of us only ever the brave companions. But it is not your story!” She whirled on the prince, who loved roses, who loved the moon. “Do you understand me? If this story is not mine, then it is hers, not yours. I do this for the sake of our friendship, and for a white rabbit who drowned because she loved me. I do not do it for you.”
The prince—who was a better man than some might think; he loved well, if not wisely, and never wished ill on any living soul—nodded. “I will care for her. I will see her to her story’s end.”
“Good.” Rei turned to Rabbit. “Silly Rabbit. Do not cry. You were only ever a dream, and a beautiful one. But dreams end. Even when the dreamer does not want them to.”
Rabbit uncovered her face. “What…?”
Rei shook her head and walked toward the wall. She did not walk like a woman in a dream; she walked like a woman wide awake, eyes open, chin up, ready to burn the world if that was what was needed. Rabbit ran after her, grabbing her hands and saying, “No. No, and no, and no again. Rei, do not do this. If you ever loved me, do not do this. We can find another quest. We can find another story. Let me be your friend. Forget the moon, and love a rabbit in her place.”
“I do love you, you stupid Rabbit,” said Rei, and her fingers were like coals; without Ami, all the clever spells were winking out, one by one, leaving Rei’s fires to burn unbanked. Rabbit squealed and pulled away. Rei continued softly, “That is why I must do this. If I kept you as you are, kept you for myself, I would be selfish. I would be undeserving of your friendship—of your love. Only wait a little while, and you will be happy. Without me, which is a bitter pill to swallow, but happy all the same.”
Rei placed her hand against the ice and closed her eyes. She did not look back at Rabbit; she did not need to, for the white of her gown was burned into Rei's heart like the white of the shining moon. “Burn,” Rei whispered, and the wall burst into flame. Everything was golden and blazing, and when the fire died and the smoke cleared, there was only Rabbit, Rabbit and the Prince, standing alone in front of a castle carved from gold and silver stone.
“They left me alone,” Rabbit whispered. “What use in coming all this way, if they were only ever going to leave me alone?”
“You are not alone,” said the prince, who knew her now; knew the curve of her cheek and the tilt of her head, even if they were not exactly as he remembered.
Rabbit looked at him dubiously. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Mamoru,” he said, and offered her his hand. She hesitated before sliding her fingers into his, and together they walked through the open castle door, and up the long and winding stair beyond.
They walked so long that it seemed there was nothing to the world but walking, and they came to know each other on the stairs. Until at last they reached the top, and their narrow world opened up into a bedchamber. In that chamber, a bed; and in that bed, a girl with silver-gold hair tied up like a rabbit’s ears, wearing a white dress that seemed to glow all on its own. Her eyes were closed. Rabbit looked on her, and was afraid.
“The moon,” whispered Mamoru, and took a step toward her.
But there was Rabbit, clutching his hand, holding him fast. “No,” she whispered. “No. If you do this, I will die.”
“You are here because she is sleeping,” said Mamoru. “You will live.”
“Is a dream truly alive when the dreamer wakes?” Rabbit looked at him with wide and earnest eyes. “Only one of us can stay. But maybe…” She pulled her hand from his. “Maybe she can dream another dream.”
Mamoru looked at her. Then, slowly, he nodded, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. Rabbit smiled, and stepped away, walking to kneel beside the bed of her sleeping self. What she whispered into her own ear is something that no living soul can say, for when the whispered stopped, the moon opened her eyes, and Rabbit was gone as if she had never been.
Tangled in bedclothes, the moon sat up, looking dazedly around herself, and said, “I had the strangest dream.” She stopped when she saw Mamoru. “You found me.”
“No,” he said. “You found me first. May I ask your name?”
“Serenity,” she said, and there was the sound of voices from the stairs, and Serenity smiled to see Mamoru’s confusion. “All sacrifice should be rewarded,” she said. “Even the sacrifices of a dream.” And she rose from her bed and moved to join him as they waited for the princesses to run, arms open, back into the story. They would have many adventures after that, and there would always be something laughing in the moon’s heart, for it is difficult to forget, even through serenity, what it is to be a Rabbit.
But that is another tale to tell.
Now rest, my dear, and be at ease; there’s a fire in the hearth and a wind in the eaves, and the night is so dark, and the dark is so deep, and it’s time that all good little stars go to sleep.