What Did You Wish For, and What Did You Dream?
Mother.
A child born on the street, raised in the coming and going of criminals. Even that had been so she might be fattened and sold—and still she was cast out as an ill omen, for eyes and hair of ashen gray, the very color of a witch.
A culvert in the capital's underworld. There, where bloated corpses came drifting, she brooded for a long time. Would it not be better to die now than to live the whole of her life like this? Even that, she failed.
"A life I meant to throw away anyway. I'll wring a little more use out of you."
On the verge of death she was taken by an assassins' organization, and so her wretched life dragged on. Training no different from abuse, and neglect. Whether it was misfortune or luck, she had a talent for killing, and after years of that discipline she succeeded in annihilating the organization.
"Damn woman. ...Live well. Well—it'll be hard. It was for everyone."
The leader had told the truth. All she had ever learned was death, so she chose the mercenary's road. She trusted no one, and so she was always alone, and so she often came within a breath of dying.
And then she met him.
"...What are you looking at?"
"I could ask you the same."
A beggar out of the same gutter as herself, and yet far, far weaker.
A few coincidences stacked one upon another. They took requests together, and little by little the two of them drew close. His rank remained E+. Mother's, before she knew it, had become S−. Even so they went on with each other, and somewhere along the way they became lovers.
And around that time—
"I'm pregnant."
"...What?"
"I said I'm pregnant."
A child was coming. The two of them, who had never lived an easy life, agonized for a long while.
"Will it be all right? People like us, as parents."
"...Yeah."
But isn't it said that people are drawn to what resembles them, and dream of what they cannot hold?
"Now that I think about it, I think I love you. A lot. I'll take responsibility, so let's have the baby."
He dreamed.
"...You will?"
"What's that supposed to mean? Looking down on me because I'm E-rank?"
"No, that's not—"
And I was drawn to the resemblance.
And so Selena was born.
"Beautiful. She's so beautiful."
Not the cursed color that was her own, but pale gold hair, blended half and half with her husband's.
"Ah..."
When she caught the little arm, white as moonlight, warmth came with it, and a shiver. She had never known such a thing—she had never lived it—but time passed, and then she understood.
"Selena!"
"Not your weak daddy. Come to your strong mommy."
"Mama!"
It was happiness. The dream he had wished for, the happiness she had been drawn into dreaming beside him. It had come to them.
"I'm gonna be a mercenary like Mommy!!"
"Ah... and Daddy?"
"A mercenary like Mommy!!"
"...Pfft."
But as with every story, the happiness did not last long.
"...A named request?"
"Yeah! The advance is nothing like the usual! With this, we can wash our hands of the work and live!"
"No. I'll be the one who feeds us. You stay home and look after Selena."
"Kind of you to say, but I've already accepted. It's safe, so don't worry—just wait. I'll get you something good for your birthday this time."
He took a named commission from a group no one could name, and in the end he never came back. A few days later, word of his death arrived—and in the same breath, Selena's illness began. To meet the enormous cost of treatment, Mother accepted a request that smelled of something wrong.
"...Mom. Do you have to do that?"
Selena, awake for the first time in days, tried to stop her with uneasy eyes. But as has already been said, people are drawn to what resembles them.
"It's all right. Rest."
Mother, making the same choice her husband had made, drifted out into the Ash-White Wasteland.
The trafficking of children. A thing that even she—born on the street, a walker of the dark—could hardly bring herself to accept. And yet—
"I think I love you. A lot."
"I'm gonna be a mercenary like Mom!"
Happiness, once tasted, had addicted her past any hope of letting go. It tempted her, and she died into that ash-white, thinking of nothing but the happiness she meant to win back.
"...Smile brightly. That's how you live."
Recalling it as if in a dream—the single thread of light she had once held, now faded. And in the midst of that, she met you.
"...Mom?"
Filthy, nothing but skin and bone, holding out a hand and calling her Mother. By rights she would have dragged the child away without a word. And yet, in the end, she opened her mouth.
"I am not your parent. But... if you wish it, I can become one."
Why in the world had she done that?
"Mom!!"
"...Luna."
You were not Selena.
"You know what? I like Mom best in the whole world."
"...I—"
"Bleh, you're about to say you're not my mom again, aren't you? Nope. Mom is my mom!!"
And I was not your parent.
"Mom likes moonlight! Wanna touch my hair?! The color's pretty close!!"
"..."
"Oh! You're touching it! Here!! Here!!"
...A soft rustle.
Because you followed me like a little fool, I held light in my hands again. That was why. Selena and Luna—she had agonized so long over which of the two of you to choose, and yet—
"Run, Luna!!!"
—when the moment actually came, she found herself saving you first. The one in danger, right then.
"Mom!!"
"Good girl. My daughter."
She had only just managed to give her the whole of her heart when she faced Auctioneer No. 1, the one bound to Eclipse. Hours of fighting ended in a wretched defeat. Jaw shattered, Mother asked whether Selena lived or died.
"Did I not tell you? I am rather fond of a good melodrama. Of course I killed her. No—that isn't right. She died. About a year after you came here."
"...!!"
"Ah. What a fine look in your eyes. Glad I bit it back and saved it, auction after auction."
Sure enough, there was no hope left for her. But only for a moment.
Thank goodness. At the very last, she did not make a foolish choice. Mother smiled. In truth, she had expected as much. The hand of those who called themselves Eclipse had been a rotten rope, seized only because there was nothing else to seize—and she had kept hold of it solely because she still could not let go. Anyway. Truly, thank goodness.
"P-Proxy, sir!! It's that bastard again!!"
"Haa... Let us go back."
Because in choosing the dead daughter, she had not chosen to kill the one who still lived.
"M-Mom!!!"
"...Let go. Lactea."
Mother looked at Luna, returned at Black Wolf's side, and smiled, faintly.
It was a life that had clearly ended that way.
"...Why are you trying to leave me behind again?"
Mother could not rightly understand the second chance that had been given to her.
...This isn't my power.
Then was it Luna's?
Crushing Charge
Masquerade
Whatever the truth of it, when she came to her senses Luna was in danger, and all she had done was draw up a little strength, just as she had in life.
O you who were never saved.
What did you wish for, and what did you dream?
Her consciousness dimmed, as if something had swallowed her whole, and when she came to again she had been flung this way and that into the moment at hand. One thing, however, was certain.
Time, as always.
Before long, even this time she had been given would end. And so Mother set her mask straight and struggled to pull away from Luna.
The truth is, I don't want this either.
If she followed her heart, she would draw Luna into her arms this very instant and spend whatever time remained whispering that she loved her. She wanted to feel the warmth. She wanted to stroke the hair that resembled moonlight. And—
"I love you, Mom."
—she wanted to give her the words she had never managed to speak, the day she died.
But I am already dead.
She did not want to lay the grief of parting upon that lovely child a second time.
"I'll say it again. I am not your mother. I am only a memory, reproduced."
Better to vanish like this—not as Mother, but as some twisted remnant of a thought.
"I am nothing but the lingering will of a woman called Mother. Someone who never loved you."
Surely that would be better for you. And for her, who could not stop thinking of you.
"I..."
And yet why were you—
"You're really bad at pretending to be Mom."
"What...?"
—unafraid, though facing her could only ever be a moment of happiness that would turn to grief?
"I missed you. I missed you so much."
Why were you pulling her into your arms?
"......I—"
Something surged up. Mother's mouth, on the verge of words, closed again before a single sentence could escape. A small hand burrowed into the robe and held on tight, and from it a faint warmth came through.
"It's okay. It's okay, Mom."
An awkward smile, as if she too were swallowing her tears.
"It's okay, so... it's really all okay, so please don't push me away. Yeah?"
The corner of her mouth trembled, terrified of being pushed away again.
O you who were never saved.
What did you wish for, and what did you dream?
Only then did Mother understand. What she had wished for, all her life, abandoned in this hell of a world and tumbling through it—what she had still dreamed, even after losing the happiness she had held for a little while and giving up on everything—
"...Luna."
—was that you, the one she loved, would not cry.
Just before the tears could fall, Mother pulled her into her arms. She had lied to herself with the excuse that she was afraid the child would be hurt, when the one afraid of being hurt was herself. Afraid that happiness, once faced, would be lost. Afraid that the death soon to come would leave her with nothing but regret. Far from comforting the child, she was the one being comforted.
Coming back to herself at last, Mother stroked the girl she held and whispered.
"Forgive your foolish mother."
"...Mom."
Luna's shoulders began to shake.
"It's all right. It's all right, Luna."
She met a face wrecked with tears—the smile the girl had been forced to wear, all this time, gone from it.
"I'm sorry, Mom. Because of me, you... I'm sorry. Sorry I hurt you, making you protect me. Sorry I sent you off all alone."
Guilt. The memory of that death—dying horribly to protect her, and dying still hidden under robe and mask, so that even that would not be shown to Luna. But, Luna.
"That day, I didn't hurt at all. I wasn't lonely at all."
She had been happy, rather.
"Because with this worthless life, I could save you. The most precious thing in the world."
Mother drew off her gloves, moved her rough fingers, and wiped Luna's tears.
"Luna. You were the only light in a life that had never held so much as a single point of light."
Just as he and Selena had saved her, you had come to her like moonlight.
"You are my most precious treasure."
So, Luna.
"Don't be sad over me anymore."
Words she had only ever kept inside came spilling out with no order to them. They had been spoken to make the crying stop, and yet Luna wept all the harder, heartbroken.
"Mom, Mommy..."
The grown-up face she had worn for the sake of her lacking mother was nowhere to be seen.
"Let's live together again. Okay? I'll find a way, somehow. So... can't you wait just a little longer? Please?"
Like any ordinary child fussing at her parent, she clung to Mother and cried, small and wretched. Of course Mother wanted the same. But—
Time, as always.
A miracle born where coincidences overlap is, as a rule, only a single moment in a life.
"...Luna."
Instead of an answer, Mother held her close. In that instant, her eyes met Black Wolf's. Not the Black Wolf she had faced on the day she died—eyes in which a light had gathered.
"I leave my daughter in your care."
"...Worry not."
With that reply as the last of it, the body Mother had manifested began to melt away.