the moon over tsukimine shrine

KERBEROS & YUE + transforming into their true forms for the first time

Clow Reed is very good at this. He's made himself very good at this. He can't stand thinking about what happened the last time he slipped and wished and wanted, because when he did the universe snapped a little piece of itself off to grant it, and he can't forgive himself that. So he doesn't think about it. He has a very powerful Lock at his disposal, after all.

He forgets, but he doesn't forgive. Forgive what? He doesn't know. Some things, you just don't think about.

He doesn't think about how too many people will pay the price for what he felt too strongly. In the wake of the disaster he caused, even his guilt and regret have taken on a face and form, and thinking about that could only compound the problems they already have. In the moments where he gives himself access to his memories, heavily Shielded and Locked away from the world to prevent any further disasters, Clow thinks of Fei-Wong with a tickle of bitter amusement, because he bears his name. Whatever he does will always be associated with Clow himself, but he can't begrudge him that. Clow is the reason he exists, after all, and Clow damned him to a bitter existence; there's nothing more to him than yearning, wanting, desperate seeking, and there never will be. The human aftershock of Clow's wishful thought is wrapped up in a stubborn self-righteousness, centered in the knowledge that what he wants is justified, and that want doesn't revolve around Yuuko's life or death, no matter what he tells himself - no, Fei-Wong exists to prove that he's better, knows better, can do better, can and should and will control how things should be.

It terrifies Clow, because if he closes his eyes and tilts his head and almost-sort-of-not-really imagines in just the right way, in just the right world and at just the right place, he thinks he could have ended up that way. He could have started feeling that way. He likes to think that he wouldn't have, that he would never devolve into tyrannical certainty that his will is how everything should be, without a thought for the lives of anyone but himself and his own loves. But he knows better than to comfort himself with the idea that he never could. He lets himself have a little refuge in the fact that it still has the capacity to frighten him, instead.

Though what exactly "it" is, he doesn't know. He only knows he shouldn't be arrogant, and that he should never give himself over to wanting things ever again, and that the rest has been Locked away, because if he thinks about that too hard it will have consequences that no one alive will be able to fix.

Some things, you just don't think about, and Clow Reed is very good at this.

He's gotten used to it. He's made himself used to it. He isn't quite a creature of habit, and he never has been, and that makes it easy to continue living his life around the secrets he keeps from himself. When he starts to think something and finds his attention pulled violently somewhere else, he lets it go. When he blinks and can't remember what he was about to say, he lets it go. When dread pits in his stomach at the memory of the memory of a name, when he starts to think this spell is just like one I've cast before and the details blur before his eyes, when he finds himself suddenly desperate to cook or clean or garden instead of whatever he was about to do (what exactly was he about to do?) he lets it go. It becomes common to find himself a few paces away from a bookshelf or stack of records that he'd meant to retrieve something from, or to find himself suddenly unable to continue writing about something he'd just thought, and he learns not to chase those topics down. It gives him headaches, to press and push and dig at those things. If he tries anyway, he gets dizzy and can't keep his balance, and if he's stubborn and stupid enough to search his mind for answers when he's bedridden he's met with rushes of adrenaline and alternating urges to fight or fly until he can't hold anything else in his mind.

But he learns not to dig, learns his own limits against his own magic, and settles into a new routine shaped around the knowledge he's deemed too dangerous for himself to have.

(It isn't just about how the avatar of his wish will have torn dimensions apart to pull reality inside-out to save one person's life. It's about smaller things, too, though what couldn't look small beside that? Hidden arts, love and loss, locations of deadly treasures, truths no one needs to know anymore - they blur together somewhere in his mind, somewhere he can't keep track of on his own. Secrets are manifold and many in a sorcerer's life, and it's important to protect himself and the people he loves just as much as it's important to protect the things he knows.)

He teaches Lock rhymes and signs and pass-phrases and riddles, because it's important to know how to unlock something just as much as it can be to keep it buried. She's playful, as many of the Cards under Cerberus are, and she loves the learning of these games. Together they seal layers of secrets beyond more secrets; gaining one answer from Lock will only ever yield another riddle that he might not even retain access to, if he isn't in the right state of mind. Fragments of songs given the wrong words and questions with strange answers are his favorite ways to lead himself back to his memories. These things don't prompt too much of an investigation if he finds himself thinking of them again suddenly when he isn't sure what he'd been thinking of before, and they're easy ways to lay false trails. He doesn't think there are any rivals left in the world who would challenge him for his secrets, even lightheartedly, but there is always the chance of petty subterfuge, and he will pay if he's ever not careful again.

Careful about what? He doesn't know.

Some things, you just don't think about.

-----

yuuko ichihara.