Disclaimer: X, the series and the characters, belong to CLAMP, Kodansha
and the distributors of the anime and movie (and OAV and respective
merchandise). I don't own anything except this piece of writing, and
frankly, I don't /want/ to own them. I would never survive the
angst. Or the sakura trees. Or the littering with petals and feathers
and whatnot.

=======================
Chasing Feathers
by Alexandra Lucas
kohlcrimson@hotmail.com
=======================

Once upon a time, there lived two little boys named Kamui and Fuuma
were very good friends. They used to play together in Fuuma's house,
which was really a temple, while their mothers, who were also very good
friends, had tea on the porch and talked to each other in tense, low
voices about things that neither Kamui nor Fuuma understood very well,
so they paid no attention to what was said. They would regret it later
on, but not for a very long time, and not until a great many things had
happened. Nothing in the world bothered the children as they played
together.

Their favourite playground was the garden of the temple. It had many
trees that begged to be climbed and hung from, many cunning hideyholes
behind the hedges and, best of all, had a tree with a sturdy branch
from which you could see the whole street. Fuuma, the oldest and
strongest of them, would wait for Kotori and Kamui to climb first,
ready to catch them if they fell. Kotori was the fastest of them; she
would speed gracelessly up the trunk and wait impatiently for Kamui,
slower and more cautious, to get up, and then finally Fuuma, coming the
slowest of all up the tree, avoiding the branches that would snag his
clothes, responsibility making him crawl at what seemed a snail's pace
towards where Kamui and Kotori sat.

The whole street was their kingdom, and they could look down upon it
for the whole day. They watched Tanaka-baasan come slowly down the
road, laden with a basket of shopping, pausing only to greet a
neighbour. She had lived here forever, or at least as long as the
children could remember. She smelled of the oil she rubbed into her
joints at night for her arthritis, sharp and heavy, but she would
bring sweets for them during the festivals and she never forgot their
birthdays. She would touch their smooth, unlined faces sometimes and
smile a little, then sit and watch them play and run about the
yard on feet that barely touched the ground. Kotori knew, because she
had heard her mother talking, that Tanaka-baasan lived alone, though
she had two sons. Kamui and Fuuma had been vaguely disturbed at this; a
chill had shivered down their spines at the thought of leaving the
security of a mother. Kamui, in particular, had clung to Tooru as he
had not since he was a baby, but when his mother asked, he could not
put a name to what he feared. He did not know himself.

There was an entire universe of people on that street, but on that day
there was not a body to be seen. The road was bare of cars, even the
wind seemed strangely still and hushed.

The children felt this and fell silent. They waited - it felt as if the
entire world was waiting for something Important. Kamui grabbed
Kotori's hand and held it tightly, and a moment later, Fuuma took
Kamui's hand and smiled reassuringly down at them both.

"Look. /Look/." Kotori's voice was all suppressed excitement and they
all turned.

There was a cloud of white floating down the street, dancing up and
down on a breeze the children could not feel. It moved slowly towards
them, and as one they leaned forward, Kotori straining so far that she
almost fell off their perch. Fuuma saw it for what it was first.

"They're /feathers/."

And indeed they were, snowy white and long, longer than the feathers of
any bird they had ever seen. There were seven of them, floating several
feet off the ground, undulating gracefully like the body of a great
serpent.

They flew right past the startled eyes of the children. Kotori made
some sound - her excitement had been held in check too long - but Fuuma
and Kamui did not hear. They didn't even breathe as the feathers passed
them, and Kamui got a very very cold feeling right down in the pit of
his stomach. Fuuma's face showed nothing except a strange sort of calm,
but his fingers squeezed Kamui so tightly that they turned white and
bloodless.

Then Kotori was scrambling down the tree, tearing another hole in her
dress in the process and pulling Kamui down with her. "It's /magic/,"
she was saying, trembling all over with the wonder of it. "We have to
follow it, I bet it's the beginning of some great adventure. It's in
all the stories."

"Following a bunch of feathers?," Kamui said dubiously, and looked to
Fuuma for support, but he was looking after the feathers as well, and
Kamui's heart sank. He knew that look; that was Fuuma's 'serious' look
and he would not be dissuaded from whatever decision he had made. The
last time he had gotten that look was when he had decided he was old
enough to stay up all night. He had - or at least, he had been awake
when Kamui had given up and fallen asleep, and he had still been awake
and sitting in the exact same position when he woke up. He had gone
through the next day as normal, if a bit heavy-eyed, but had slept like
a log the next night, and it had taken more than a few calls and
ungentle nudges from Kamui and Kotori to wake him up after that. Saya
had been so concerned that she insisted Fuuma stay inside the whole
day; it was simply not like Fuuma to be so lethargic and she thought he
must surely be falling sick.

Now, Fuuma cast one glance towards the temple and started off
towards the road. "Come on. We'll lose them if we wait." Kotori ran
after him, but Kamui hesitated - it was as though their mothers didn't
even see them as they left the yard, and his mother always noticed
things like that. She wasn't on the porch, she must have gone inside
where it was cooler.

In fact, it was as though no one saw them as they walked. The streets
were deserted. Kamui wondered where all the people had gone. Kotori and
Fuuma didn't seem to notice it; Fuuma watched the feathers like they
were the only things in the world and Kotori was talking all the while
about fairy tales and magic. Kamui ran after them; if there was one
thing he was sure of, it was that he did /not/ want to be left alone
in this not-Tokyo.

The feathers brought them to a park, beautiful and green, filled with
sakura trees whose branches were bare of flowers, but at the center of
the park, there was one tree which bloomed impossibly, lush and somehow
threatening in its vibrant, obscene abundance in the midst of other
trees that were naked and sleeping. The feathers circled the tree once,
the children following, and flew away again. Kamui was glad to leave;
he thought the tree might have watched them as they left, but he was
too afraid to look back and check if it was laughing at them, mocking
and deadly. The arch that they walked through on their way out said
"Ueno Park" in tall kanji.

The feathers travelled on, past the large, closed gates of the
prestigious CLAMP Gakuen and the imposing Diet building, down a street
which had figures in the windows that made Kamui and Kotori blush
furiously and avert their eyes. Kamui had not noticed before, but the
feathers were disappearing, one by one. Another disappeared into a
building that had books in the window, and "ASUKA Publishing House"
written outside, and then there were three feathers left. One
disappeared as they passed another small temple where Kotori said
her father had visited once, and yet another vanished after its
brother.

Then only one feather was left. Kamui looked up in surprise; without
noticing it, they had come home. The three of them stood at the gate,
Kotori having finally grown tired of all the walking and she leaned
heavily on Kamui's arm. Fuuma didn't seem to notice his sister,
staring fixedly at the last feather. It was not moving now, nor was
it disappearing into thin air like the rest of the feathers; it hung
motionless in front of Kamui.

Kamui had not liked this day - it had turned out nothing like it was
supposed to and he was tired and frightened and more than a little
angry. Worst of all was the absolute lack of anything on Fuuma's face.
He could always tell when Fuuma was angry or sad or just being Fuuma,
but there was none of it now, and it unsettled Kamui. He took a step
towards home, but Fuuma didn't move, didn't blink, didn't breathe,
and this made Kamui even more angry. "Fuuma!," he called, but Fuuma
did not hear him.

Kamui had had enough. It had not been his idea in the first place,
Kotori was almost asleep on his shoulder and being no help, and Fuuma
was just standing there doing a very good imitation of a rock. He
wanted to go /inside/, back to his mother, back to the things he knew;
once he had done that, he was sure, all these strange things would melt
away and it would be as if this day had never happened.

Kamui
reached out
and


pulled


the feather

out

of

the

air.


"Kamui!" Kamui got up quickly and brushed the leaves off his shirt. He
found something in his pocket, a long white feather that he had found
somewhere, but he couldn't imagine what had possessed him to put it
into his pocket. With a shrug, he tossed it away. It was time for
dinner. Kotori was already running towards the house, but it seemed
that she was slower than usual, and she had to pause and catch her
breath before she got to the door, her face pale. Behind them, Fuuma
picked himself up slowly, moving like someone who had not quite
woken from a long dream. He picked up the discarded feather and ran
it once between his fingers, soft and clean and too long to be a
bird's, and he put it into his pocket, where it disappeared without
a sound.

Then Kotori, Fuuma and Kamui went for dinner.

The evening passed quietly and the day had never been.