http://mrua7.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] mrua7.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] section7mfu2017-01-03 11:59 am
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"Claire de Lune- the moonlight" redux

This is an early PicFic first posted back 2012. Time flies when you're having fun writing Man from UNCLE stories. Considering its winter for a lot of us, I thought this would be a nice temperature change...



It was a hot, sultry night. Too hot to sleep in his stuffy little apartment. The windows wide open did little good, as there was no breeze, just humid air hanging over him like a clinging wet blanket. He’d taken several cold showers, but the comfort they brought him was short lived.

He walked out into the night as he’d done so many times before during this heat wave, seeking solace in the streets, finding a bar that had air conditioning and hopefully some good music.  Once or twice he met a woman and went home with her, or to an air conditioned hotel.

Tonight he wanted none of that, as he yearned for a peace the concrete  city did not offer, he wanted to escape the noise and the ever present lights, there was only one place he could find that nearby for that...Central Park.


The Russian walked the entire way, watching as people milled about on street corners and in front of the local watering holes. as they paid him no mind. Even the hookers seemed to look right through him, though he nodded to them, yet  they ignored him, not even trying to get him to stop.

Napoleon would have known some of their names, not because he used their services, but because he was just more friendly and took pity on them at times, slipping them money for a meal when business was bad.

He was not friendly like his partner, and kept to himself as he walked past them, seemingly invisible.

It was a full moon with a few wisps of clouds that would darken it from time to time, that became fully visible as Illya finally reached the entrance to the park, seeking out one of the many glacially-polished rocky outcroppings located throughout the well cared for acreage.

He passed park benches, occupied by lovers holding each other as they embraced, and drunks curled up in the grass, finding their rest for the evening. There was always a risk of muggers in the darkness, hiding in one of the many arched passageways, but Illya Kuryakin was a trained agent and had his Special tucked safely in the waist of his jeans, concealed by his black tee shirt; so fear of them was non-existent.

Illya paused, listening as the sounds of countless crickets and night birds filled the air. Somewhere in the distance a dog was baying at the moon. This was the serenity he sought, as the din of the city was muffled at a distance now.

He spotted the bronze statue of George Blackall Simonds' masterpiece, ‘the Falconer, with the bird rising from an upraised hand, looking absolutely real next to the tree branches, silhouetted against the light of the full moon.



It was there he decided to head to the rocks,;their ice age coldness pulling the excess heat from his body as he lay his dampened back against them, with his hands folded behind his head, gazing up at the moon and the statue.

He’d done some falconry when he was stationed at headquarters in London, and found it fascinating...to be able to bind such a magnificent creature to ones will, all for the price of a piece of meat.

It was bound yet it was free, as he was. Illya had his obligations to perform his duty to his country and to U.N.C.L.E.  Ah, but to be free like the falcon, to soar above the heavens, hunting its next meal....

There was a slight breeze as he lay there under the moonlight, hidden in the shadows of the night, as if he were invisible to the world. Yes that’s what he was...masked, hidden...invisible. That word had come to mind few times this evening. It was his father’s dying words to him,’stay invisible.' Illya did just that all his life, making himself known at his own choosing. When he left his father that day in the forest of Bykivnia, Illya was just a child in body, but in mind and spirit he'd become a man. War had done that to him.

He looked again at the falcon just at the moment of release in the statues hand and sighed, longing for that freedom, and to be rid of the need to be inconspicuous.

An owl hooted off in the distance, the wind was picking up and it felt like a storm was coming as the moon clouded over.  Illya Kuryakin got up and walked off, disappearing into the night, becoming invisible again as he headed back to the pulse of the city he called home; his only companion at the moment,  the moonlight.


[identity profile] pfrye.livejournal.com 2017-01-03 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
So moody - beautiful

[identity profile] meneleth.livejournal.com 2017-01-03 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
This reminds me of the poem "Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost, which is one of the tracks on the soundtrack from the original Beauty & the Beast TV series. Very poignant.

[identity profile] lindafishes8.livejournal.com 2017-01-03 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I remember this fic. Very nice.

[identity profile] laurose8.livejournal.com 2017-01-03 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Excellent and well thought analogy; all the training needed for both sides only likens it further.

And lovely scene and mood writing, too. That bit about his invisibility, and Napoleon's difference, is another good touch.

Also, I like the last paragraph, with the owl.