Forget Me Not

Author's Note: For the purposes of this fic Neverending Story 3 never happened.

As the Childlike Empress gazed out on the land of Fantasia from a window of the Ivory tower her thoughts turned to him, as they did very often. Bastian Balthazar Bux, the hero of Fantasia, the boy whose dreams saved her and her world.

She wondered if he thought of her often as well. It had been a long while, far to long since he last visited this world, and her, but she tried not to feel hurt. He must have had a good reason to stay away so long, but she so desperately wanted to know what that reason could be. Her position isolated her many of her citizens and it was so rare anyone visited her, only Atreyu came occasionally, but those visits where always short as he had to return to his people.

She thought back on when she had first encountered the boy, he was shy and timid, afraid to really dream. When he overcame that he named her. Moon Child, it was such a beautiful name, she was proud to carry it. Others would still call her Empress, but she would always love it when he called her by her true name.

In there second encounter he was a bit older and far more confident in himself, and, with what she would like to believe she helped in, he was able to beat his own personal fears and save her world from the dark witch Xayida.

Bastian visited Fantasia often after Xayida's defeat and the Empress spent many happy hours talking with him.

He told her more about his world, she shared her tales of her life as ruler of Fantasia.

She grew to look forward to Bastian's visits with great eagerness not proper for a ruler like herself.

She didn't realize it then, but looking back now she knew she had been falling in love with him.

But then Bastian's visits started becoming less frequent, he didn't look at Fantasia with the same wonder as he did before.

He didn't seem to have time to tell her tales of the human world anymore, and his outlook on life seemed a lot darker.

She feared she was losing him then, losing him as Fantasia had lost many of its Keepers before, losing him to human age.

She refused to believe it though; Fantasia has had many Keepers, many of them she had become friends with, and they all stopped coming to her world after reaching a certain age, but none of them had been like Bastian.

She had never been as close to them as she was to Bastian, she hadn't loved them as she did Bastian.

But then Bastian stopped visiting her and Fantasia all together.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, and still Bastian hadn't returned. But she waited still, unrelenting, confident he would be back.

Atreyu had been hit hard by the disappearance of the man who had been like a brother to him, but was far more pessimistic then she was. He believed Bastian was gone forever as the other Keepers before him were.

Her advisers, her friends, all tried to get her to accept he was gone, but she would not listen.

Bastian would return to her, and she would wait as long as it took. But perhaps she could gaze into the real world…just for a moment.

She had done it before …it was a power she was rarely allowed to use, but there couldn't be any harm in just looking to see Bastian as long as no one found out.