Chapter 10:

Sakaki's Dream

***

Before awakening, Sakaki had a dream. 

(Dreams can be pretty strange, nonliteral, prophetic, and arbitary, so please bear with your dear author as she tries to describe.)

It starts like a dream that Sakaki has had many times before. It's a hard dream, once she wishes she could get away from. The dream of the end of high school.

Sakaki's end of high school was a lot different than Kaorin's end of high school.

Absent her desperate hope of requital for feelings she could not even bring voice to, in that place where she was never safe, Kaorin had been hellbent on getting away from high school as fast as possible. This was understandable. This was to be expected. But for Sakaki, who had an almost completely diametrically opposite high school experience in every possible respect from Kaorin, the end of high school was the collapse of the hopeful world. Her little glimpse of paradise, suddenly brought to final ruin. 

And it wasn't a rapid, merciful collapse. Oh, no. There was no ignorance to be bliss; no kindly oblivion. Sakaki could FEEL it coming. In the quiet moments, in the cracks between the halcyon days, she could feel the end of it all, slowly rushing in from the horizon like a cruel tsunami, onto the shore of the only island of peace and comfort she'd ever known in her quiet, lonely life. Soon there would be nothing but driftwood and wreckage, soon there would be a shore barren of all save debris... Soon Kagura would be gone. Soon there would be no more Osaka, and Tomo and Yomi would disappear from her life, and even Kaorin, who was a dance partner and a summer companion and a school trip buddy and a stargazing friend but she'd barely even gotten to... 

(Yes! I tell you, dear reader, she even thought of Kaorin! Did she know? Could Kaorin, in the state she was in, possibly have understood that Sakaki... *noticed* her? Had paid attention to her? Was a little curious about some kind of inkling of mystery that seemed to lie beneath Kaorin's warm, measuredly placid surface? No, a bitter heart clouds the truth. A bitter heart refigures the world as a narrative of sorrow... Kaorin was only certain, only too, too certain that Sakaki had never seen her, only too certain that she had just been *stupid*, and then right after that, that hellish year of college before she understood that her feelings had a form and a name, the hellish year when she knew nothing but her own immediate rawness and hurt... No, there was no seeing or appreciating the tiny spark-wisp of possibility before Kaorin graduated high school. If only she'd known that Sakaki was looking back at her when they danced together. If only she'd known that Sakaki glimpsed her looking sad in the hallways between classes sometimes, if only she'd known that Sakaki wanted to reach her, extend her hand out to her sometimes, but could never bring herself to...) 

...even Kaorin, who Sakaki had barely even gotten to... and even Yukari and Nyamo, who felt like part of the friend group too by the end of things, they would keep teaching at the same school, they'd stay right where they were but self-involved and out of reach and, and Sakaki *knew* herself, knew she couldn't bear to keep up a holiday-greeting-exchange level of estranged connection. That would only make it more painful. 

The ruin of paradise was coming. And when it was over, it was over. And when it was done, it was done. Sakaki knew the end was coming and she was certain it would break her like a wave, pitifully scattering on the shore. She would lose everybody... Everybody, even the most important, even the most special to her... even precious Chiyo was leaving...

It is a dream drawn from this certain era, a dream set during a too-quiet moment where the fear was creeping in, from exactly one month before her personal tsunami makes landfall.

And this is the moment she's dreamed of again and again.

But this time, somehow... it feels a little different.

A little different?

Yeah. A little different this time.

There is a tall, dark-haired girl who feels small as she weeps the front of her dear friend's pajamas wet. Chiyo holds Sakaki more tightly than she's ever held anybody. As if to highlight the way she has let Sakaki so deeply into her inner world, there are no signature twintails on Chiyo's head at this time of night, just her loose hair the color of blood-orange let down in the briefest of cascades, sometimes brushing against Sakaki's cheek when she leans down to whisper soothing words. The exam study-party has been swept away by the overflow of repressed emotions, and the endlessly gentle Chiyo is petting the tearful Sakaki.

Yosh, yosh.

Yosh, yosh.

There there, my dear girl, those precocious head-pets say to the trembling Sakaki. Chiyo sighs and takes deep breaths, like a mother rabbit coaxing her kits into calm. Sakaki trembles, and sobs, and even though it's always just a dream she can always just *feel* herself so present, so physical, so snotted up with grief. Chiyo's embrace brings her so close to the point of comfort and calm... but then she thinks about Chiyo being gone, and once more, the wailing grief bursts inside her chest anew... 

How is it that Chiyo was so calm on that day? Sakaki knew how much it all meant to her too... knew how hard it was for her too... So how could she be so okay with saying goodbye? How could such a delicate girl be so indomitable in the face of evanescence, of special-friendship entropy? What did she know that Sakaki didn't, that could make her so unafraid, even of the inevitable... Sakaki didn't know. Sakaki couldn't figure it all out right now. Sakaki just let herself be held some more, cried some more. And listened to Chiyo's sweet, sweet murmuring, so sweet it could even lull her sorrow...

And amidst the kindnesses borne on the wind of Chiyo's whisper... Sakaki suddenly gleaned...

Instructions?

Instructions.

That was different. She'd never dreamed this part before. But she was sure she was hearing instructions.

Gentle, loving, unjudging, patient. The way Chiyo always was about everything. Even about giving instructions. And Chiyo wasn't wearing pajamas after all. She was wearing a business suit, was about as tall as Tomo had been, her voice was a good bit less squeaky and she had the earliest traces of laugh-lines appearing on her face. Of course, right? Chiyo was the president, right?

"Sakaki-san, you have to go on a journey alone for a while, ok? I promise I'm going to catch up with you. But you have three things you need to do now. And then when those things are done... then I can come for you. When you're ready for me, and you need me, I'm going to come help you!"

Sakaki nodded, with her face in the crook of Chiyo's blazer-covered shoulder. "W, what should I do...?"

"It's just a few things, okay...? I can hear you're worried... Please don't be worried...! I know you can do it! You really inspire me!" Sakaki could hear the earnest, encouraging smile in Chiyo's voice as she gently lilted these encouragements into her ear.

"O, okay... I'll do my best... I won't get scared, so, can you tell me what to do...?" What was there to do but trust in Chiyo...?

"Sakaki-san..." Chiyo lifted Sakaki's face from her shoulder and took her by the hand and looked her in the eyes. Chiyo's eyes were full of stars. Not cold or lonely ones. Bright, warm, lifegiving suns. And her hand was warm too, warmer than she remembered, and Chiyo's smile was less nervous and tentative than it had ever been in previous iterations of this particular memory-dream template. And Sakaki realized that she wasn't sad at all anymore, had never really been all that sad, had never really been far apart from Chiyo, or Kagura, Osaka or Tomo, or Yomi, or even... even *that* girl...

"Sakaki-san... Here's what you have to do... I believe in you...

First of all, you have to save the animals, Sakaki! The animals can be saved! You just have to figure out how!" 

Sakaki nodded. Save the animals. The dream shifted, and of course she'd been wearing her trusty labcoat this entire time. Chiyo's three eyes shining, beatific, seeing-through-all, devoid now of sorrow, devoid of all fear, banishing fear from Sakaki's heart too. "I will save the animals."

Chiyo smiled. "And you already have!" Sakaki was grateful to know she was already so far along on her quest.

"Second of all... You have to live in the desert of the heart, okay Sakaki? I'm sorry to have to ask this of you. But you have to live in the desert for a while. With the freezing nights and the blazing, dessicated days. You have to eat prickly pears and lizard meat and wild honey and locusts, and you must walk and walk again the wretched, endless sand. You have to bite past the thorns and vampire the cactuses. You have to live in the desert and learn to be a brave, hardy princess."

Sakaki nodded. Live in the desert. Yes, of course, she had already been faithfully obeying this instruction. The dream shifted, and she realized of course she was the brave, hardy desert princess in the tattered sandblown labcoat and pencil skirt. Of course she sucked some life from the cacti and always left them enough to grow on. Of course she was no longer afraid to bite past the thorns. "I will live in the desert."

Chiyo smiled. "And you already have!"

"Third of all... There are three caged princesses. You must fly to the side of the first caged princess. There is a spell that will let you fly. I will teach you the spell that will let you fly. You must uncage her caged heart. You will be strong enough because your body was tempered in the desert, Sakaki-san! Do you know who this caged princess is? Do you remember her face?" Chiyo's three eyes were blazing with more than just the suns... Chiyo's eyes were so full of love that they began to refract and strobe and twinkle. Chiyo's eyes were full of the Pillars of Creation, full of the hot rainbow that stars are born from as she looked down and gave her instructions to dream-Sakaki.

Sakaki puzzled... Of course she would do what Chiyo-chan asked of her, but who...? Caged princesses...? Who are the caged princesses...? "Is it..."

SAKAKI: "Is it me?"
CHIYO:"No, hehe, you are a princess of return-from-exile. Your cage will be unlocked second, and with it, your wild secret heart."
SAKAKI: "Is it you?"
CHIYO: "No, hehe, I am a princess of peerless brilliance. My cage will be unlocked last of all. And mine will be the unchainable light that passes all cages and bars."
SAKAKI: "But who..."
CHIYO: "How many princesses do you know, Sakaki?"
SAKAKI: "It can't be Princess Osaka because she always carries her inner nothing-sword that cuts through any cage... It can't be Princess Yomi because she has to look after Princess Tomo and has no time to be spending in cages. It can't be Princess Tomo because she has to look after Princess Yomi. It can't be Princess Kagura because she is her own princess-knight and no one could ever catch her, it can't be Princess Yukari because she's protected by the veil of apathy, it can't be Princess Nyamo because she's protected by the aegis of personal truth... Then..."
Chiyo smiled, and her smile was a song, and the song was wrought in every jewel of the jewelled palisades of the Pure Land, and the song was as wide and as open as the endlessly open gates of the Pure Land, and Sakaki was pretty sure that her dream of the event had begun to diverge from the actual waking-world historical event i.e. the sleepover that this dream was based on, wherein she just spent all night crying into Chiyo's pajama top and talking about her fears for life after graduation, but... Sakaki was cool with that, was cool with where the dream was heading, she was more than willing to roll with the punches here in the strangest, newest iteration of her old recurring dream.

CHIYO: "The caged princess is a princess of mystery. The mystery is in many layers like her many-layered every-color princess kimono. The princess's mystery is powerful, loved by some and feared by many. The cage was placed there because Demiurgos resents and fears mystery above all else. The cage was placed there because the princess is feared and despised by the Principality Will." 
SAKAKI: "Oh yeah, Demiurgos is like that, isn't he... Plus, I know how it can be with Principality Will, and all that."
CHIYO: "Right? That guy sure hates mystery, doesn't he, Sakaki-san?"
SAKAKI: "Sure does..."

There was a lull in the conversation because dream-Chiyo was trying to think about how to tie her point together and lead Sakaki to the conclusion she was trying to get her to draw. But Sakaki figured it out before Chiyo had to do any more leading.

SAKAKI: "The girl I could never get close to..."
CHIYO: "Oh! Yeah...??"
SAKAKI: "The girl I was always one step too many away from. The one whose smiles always seemed to be hiding something."
CHIYO: "Yeah! Right!!"
SAKAKI: "Mystery. Hiding truth, hiding untold happiness, hiding secret sorrow beneath the smile of a princess like any other..."
CHIYO: "Right!! That's exactly right!!! It's the one you're thinking of!!"
SAKAKI: "Kaorin... Kaorin... I don't... Who is she, Chiyo...? Who is the caged princess, Kaorin? What are her smile-hidden mysteries...?"
CHIYO: "Only she can tell you that."
SAKAKI: "Okay... Then I guess... I guess I'll just have to find her."
CHIYO: "Don't worry! I know you will!"

Sakaki looked up at Chiyo, who was holding her. Sakaki was being safely ensconced in the arms of the goddess. She repeated the instructions with a sweetly earnest 'did-i-do-a-good-job?' questioning uplilt.

"Save the animals... Live in the desert... Fly to the side of the caged princess. And then you'll come for me. And everything will be okay." Chiyo nodded affirmatively like 'yes-you-did-such-a-good-job', and her gentle smile was infinity.

"That's exactly it! You are doing a great job! You're... You really were my best friend, and I really loved you, and I'm going to love you forever! Ahaha... Maybe that sounds silly." Sakaki giggled. Maybe it was silly. But silly was okay.  They hugged it out for a long, long time, sighed, and then felt ready to move on. 

"Let me teach you how to fly, ok Sakaki?" Of course this was okay. It was time. "You have to say the spell along with me... You already know it, so just say it, okay?" And of course this was okay too.

The spell:

And of course, by the time their voices had finished their thrumming finales, by the time Chiyo's voice faded out and the last little ember of Chiyo's psychedelic dream-star-glow had twinkled out, Sakaki realized that she had already flown on snow-white wings to the side of the caged princess with the caged heart. Then she woke up, with the caged princess right next to her, and immediately the dream was obscured by an avalanche of other, more urgent things, such as panic.