Title: Legend (formerly Pirates)
Author: AkizukiSakura
Series: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: Romance/Adventure/Fantasy
Rating: M/R
Pairing(s): Sakura/Eriol
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura is owned by the esteemed CLAMP and all subsequent copyrights. I claim no ownership of this series, nor do I make monetary profit from the writing of this story. Similarly, the realms of Tortall et all belong to Tamora Pierce.
Summary: Sakura was just an ordinary girl living in the Yamani Islands with her family. Everything changed one day when she got involved in something that most would say she had no business involving herself in. It was the beginning of a long journey. Now she must travel throughout the realms to right the wrongs caused by this new power and face her enemy.
-CCS-
Prologue
He didn't know why he'd woken so late in the night. When he glanced out of his window and caught sight of the nearly-full moon through his window he knew from its position that it was very late indeed. If he'd been a light sleeper perhaps this occurrence might not have been quite so strange, but he usually slept deeply through the night and rose with the sun.
He lay in bed for several more minutes but, when it seemed sleep was not going to return easily to him, he sighed and sat up. Pushing the heavy winter coverlet away from his legs he set his feet on the polished floorboards, noting their worn smoothness fondly, and stood up. Since he was awake he thought he might like a glass of water; he really would have preferred green tea but that would have only woken him more.
His footsteps were cat-quiet as he moved nearly silently down the hall, careful not to wake his son sleeping in the room next to his. Though the sliding paper door to his room was plain, his son's was painted nicely of a peach tree in full bloom, the petals captured in the act of falling delicately to the floor. Unlike his father, the boy that slept within was a light sleeper and prone to waking up in the few times his father wandered the house at night
Though he only meant to go to the kitchen for water he stopped before entering the room, a hand resting on the sliding door, his gaze straying to the front door. His brow furrowed slightly; this man rarely frowned in anger. This was a slight frown of curiosity. Why did he have the strange feeling to go open the door?
Like nearly everyone that resided in these realms this man was a believer in the gods and the divine realms. Perhaps different gods sponsored different lands but he knew they existed. It was said, often, that the gods liked to interfere in the lives of mortals for whatever reason; right now he would have bet a gold coin that one of the gods was urging him to go open that door.
Who was he to ignore the gods?
Even with such a feeling he was not aptly inclined to openly trust whatever could be on the other side of that door. Still moving quietly he unlatched the door – unlike the inner doors this one was made, like the walls, of sturdy wood – and opened it just a fraction. A moment later he threw it open completely, his expression morphing quickly to shocked horror.
Moonlight glittered off a bed of fresh snow with lightly falling flakes gradually and gently adding height to the already-tall drifts. It should have been quite poetically beautiful. His late wife would have thrilled in writing poetry – a form the Easterners would call "haiku" – about the silver-tinted frost.
The marring on the otherwise peaceful winter setting was the dark-haired woman lying on the wood of the walkway. Half of her body was submerged in the foot of snow covering the grass; the walkways had been spared due to the fact that they were covered by extensions of the roof held up by thin, square wooden poles. A deep, viscous liquid oozed from multiple lacerations on the woman's body. From the tattered clothes – well made and expensive – he could see signs of whipping and a deep stab wound in her left breast.
Her skin, if she was a native, should have been a creamy golden brown but blood loss had turned it ashen. Her breath puffed unevenly in the chilled air and, even though he was no healer, he knew that this woman would not live. It was only when he moved further out onto the walkway that he noticed an abnormality about this situation: He always locked the circular gates every night before he went to bed. They were closed and locked now – he could see moonlight glinting off the locks – so how had she gotten in?
Looking down upon the woman again he was startled to see a pair of blue-grey eyes looking up at him through a heavy fringe of dark lashes. He was equally surprised that her lips were moving. Hastily he knelt to hear what he was certain would be her last words. Her fingers twitched; clearly she was trying to move her hand. On instinct he reached out and touched her icy fingers to clasp her hand. In that moment a spark jumped between them. A gasp was all he was allowed before his mind was yanked fiercely.
There was a moment of pure blackness.
When he regained his senses he could tell that his eyes were closed, yet he could still see the woman clearly. She was sitting upright in the prim and proper way that showed not only her manners but also that she was a well-bred noblewoman of the Isles. Strangely, a shadow covered her eyes and nose. Though the overall structure of her features was blank and smooth, as was custom in the Isles, he could hear the fear and desperation in her voice when she spoke. Though he had a sense of his ears her voice sounded more in his mind than anything, a voice of sweet honey laced with terrible pain.
"Please…" Anguish, loss… "I erased my tracks and spelled open the gate," she admitted sorrowfully – trespassing was extremely disrespectful. "I had no choice… They want my baby… My poor child… Please," her voice whispered in agony. There was a sob in her tone as she went on. "On my body there is a purse of jewels… Sell them and anything of value, take what you need, but please…"
He knew what she wanted even before he saw the tears tracing down her smooth cheeks, creating rivets in her white powder.
"Take care of my baby… My little cherry blossom…"
His heart lurched for this doomed woman and, without having to think on it further, he nodded his assent. The tension in her elegant hands – artist's hands, he noted absently – faded. A smile of gratitude lit her face. He felt more than heard her heartfelt thanks, the feeling warming his heart like sunshine.
For the second time he felt his consciousness briefly recede.
When he blinked he was once again kneeling in front of the dying woman. With a – he was sure – supreme effort the woman rolled onto her side, gave one last, shuddering breath, and lay still. Respectfully he reached out and drew a hand over her face, closing the eyes that would see no longer from this physical body. He looked down and saw a tiny child, a girl who looked no older than perhaps three years of age, lying in the snow. Her kimono, like her mother's, were elegant silk with delicate embroidery, but they were ruined by the blood her mother had shed to keep her alive. The child did not seem injured in any physical way.
As he used to do for his son he reached down and gathered the child into his arms. It was his night to be surprised, it seemed, for a pair of very green eyes looked up into his. Instantly he fell in love with the little girl that gazed up at him with such trust, the little girl that had shed tears for her dead mother but did not scream or struggle… The little girl that was to be his daughter now. His cherry blossom.
His Sakura.
-CCS-
In Japan, and in the Yamani Islands, kimono are worn in pairs, hence the plural terms. Like many Japanese, and Yamani, words, "kimono" can be both a plural and singular noun. "Kimonos" is also correct, but "kimono" is my preference.
I say Japan and the Yamani Islands because it's pretty obvious to me what culture Tamora Pierce was basing her Yamani off of.
I'm very happy to have finally gotten around to this rewrite, but while I have other chapters completed for now the prologue is all that I'll put up until I know if people like this one as much as – preferably better than – the original.
I am aware of how short this is. It's just a prologue. The next chapter is well over 4,000 words and growing. Perhaps they won't be the longest chapters, but ah well. One does what one can.
Ciao!