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- Feathers of Love -
- Prologue –
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-- At the Palace of Clow --
"Shh…sleep well, my dear. Everything is all right." A queen whispered as she touched the face of her twelve-year-old child, the princess of her country. The queen could restrain it no longer and tears fell, gently and silently, onto the cheeks of her restless child, who was sleeping, but tossing and turning.
Nadeshiko stilled the movements of the sleeping Sakura with a lullaby, which she hummed softly. There was nothing she could do, except stay in the palace with Sakura. Her husband, Fujitaka, and her son, Touya, were out fighting the war against Debonair. She knew that their country was going to fall soon, but she did not say anything. Touya and Fujitaka were trying their best to save their country and she knew that they would try, even if the end result was that their country had fallen and they were dead, but Nadeshiko dared not have these negative thoughts on her mind.
In fact, it was Debonair's fault, for she had wanted to conquer all the countries in the region. However, their country, Clow, was not the first country to be besieged by Debonair's army. Even though they had been preparing for the war for a very long time, ever since Debonair had started besieging the other neighbouring countries, it seemed that it was still not enough, for they were unable to hold back Debonair's forces for long.
Still, they would try their best!
At that moment, there was someone knocking on the door and saying, "Your Majesty, I bear grave news." Nadeshiko stood up from where she was sitting- on Sakura's bed- and went towards the door, opening it and slipping out, whispering. "Please be quiet, the princess is sleeping. Follow me."
Queen Nadeshiko led the man towards a secluded corner near Sakura's room. It was only when they reached there did Nadeshiko lift her head and look at the loyal general calmly. The old general, with wrinkles surrounding his eyes was looking grieved. His face, already weathered by the elements, was now even more wrinkled than before the war. Nadeshiko looked at him and understood, immediately.
"Who then?" she asked.
The general sighed. He did not want to be the bearer of the bad news, but he was bid to do so. The general was not out fighting the war, for he was aged and the Royal family did not want him to die out in the battlefield, so he was now a strategist, charged to protect the Royal family when needed and also plot out the plans for the battles to come with the other strategists.
"…" the general did not say.
"Who? Please answer me!" Nadeshiko asked.
"Both the King and the Crown Prince."
Silent tears welled into Nadeshiko's eyes, but she did not allow them to fall, not in front of her subject! She turned her back towards the general and wiped her tears, before walking past the general with a command, "Prepare to defend the palace."
Nadeshiko went back to Sakura's room, her will resolute. This was not the end yet. Now, even though she was a widowed Queen, she was still entitled to govern the country until she died, and the throne to be passed to Sakura, now Crown Princess of the country. But before she would think of these things, she had other things to do.
She took a bracelet out from the folds of her dress, where a pocket was hidden cleverly in it to hide the important things that she had to keep- like the bracelet, for instance. This bracelet did not look very beautiful at all, and it had a worn out look, as if it had seen the lives of people pass for many years. Indeed, this bracelet was created by the people who knew the crafts of creating an item that could keep the memories and precious items of the intended person. There were only very few people who could do this and now, the people had died out, which meant that the items with these powers were getting rarer and rarer, and the once rare items had become even more expensive now. The one that Nadeshiko had was requested by an ancestor of the Kinomoto family a few hundred years ago. The most important property of these items was that they could sense the people who were in need of the protection of their magic when the intended person wore it on their wrist. No spell was needed to activate it and they could not be removed until all the things that were kept inside were returned back to the owner.
The queen hung the bracelet on Sakura's wrist and the moment it was secure, a light shone gently from the bracelet and a breeze picked its way in form the window.
"The wind sprite that is sleeping inside this bracelet, please help me keep my daughter's memories, magical items and most important of all, the feather that is hidden inside her body. Here, I, Queen Nadeshiko of Clow, thank you."
"Don't worry, I will do my best. I will keep these precious things of your daughter's close to me. They will be returned to her when the appropriate time comes. However, this may take a long time, for I cannot predict when everything will be returned to her, as they are very important things."
"I understand. I do not care how long it takes for everything to return to her, as long as they are protected. Please do hurry, for I fear that Debonair may barge into the palace at any moment."
"Understood!" the wind sprite whispered quietly as the light on the bracelet grew brighter and brighter, until the whole of Sakura was enveloped with it. Then, as sudden as it came, it was gone.
Sakura was now almost an empty husk, with very few memories in her. Those that she remembered were of her mother.
Nadeshiko heard a commotion outside and instantly knew that Debonair was here. She called awake Sakura and dragged the still sleepy child from her bed towards the door. They would not fight back. Nadeshiko knew that she could not beat Debonair. She would wait until the day came when her daughter's soul mate came and kissed her, thereby remembering all her past and the feather. However, if she was to regain all the memories of the past with her soul mate, that would be another problem, for a capture that was not successful had taken away her memories of him. It was only when that capture became successful would she remember every single thing.
Before Nadeshiko could reach the door, it was blasted open by a force. Debonair was here.
"Nadeshiko…good to see you so healthy and vibrant!" the voice of a woman was heard as she walked into the room.
"What do you want, Debonair? You have almost taken my country, taken my family and what else do you want?" The queen asked through gritted teeth. She had known what Debonair wanted, but she wanted to gain more time in the hopes that her husband and son were still alive and would save them.
"If you are thinking that your husband and son are still alive, think again! I killed them myself and saw them die, so there is no doubt that they have died. Now, behave like a good girl and follow me. If not, you will have to be dragged like a little animal to the courtyard."
"Let my daughter go, or else I will not follow you!"
"Ah…yes, I have forgotten that you have a daughter. Now where is she? Come along, everything will be all right if the two of you behave." Debonair said with feigned sweetness. Sakura looked at her mother in confusion. She did not know who that woman was, but she had sensed something unpleasant from her. Since Sakura did not see her mother move, she did not move either. Besides, she was a bit afraid of the woman dressed almost in black and have the face painted almost white. When Debonair saw that the two of them did not move, she became furious, immediately.
"When I say move, move!" she barked. "It seems like you do not want to preserve your dignity at all. Guards!"
Guards swarmed into the room and surrounded the queen and the princess. Sakura, feeling more and more worried at what was happening, clutched her mother's hand and looked at her. However, instead of terror, Nadeshiko smiled calmly and said, "Everything is going to be all right. Believe in yourself."
"I will, mother dear." Sakura replied.
"Silent, you insolent women!" One of the guards, which Nadeshiko and Sakura assumed to be the captain of the men, hissed, as he stared at them.
"Get them out of my sight!" Debonair shouted and under her command, Sakura and Nadeshiko were led out of the palace towards a gigantic cage, where many of the prisoners of war were kept. Already, the cage was more than three thirds full, but when the prisoners saw that the princess and queen were coming, all of them tried to make space for them so that they would be more comfortable. Nadeshiko tried to decline but the civilian still persisted and they had no choice but to accept it.
"How touching." Debonair sneered as she walked towards the cage. "Why are you still so loyal to your queen and princess when all of you are already captured by me? Your country has fallen, unless you have forgotten that…"
Meanwhile, two men were watching from not afar. They had managed to survive the battle and had sneaked into the palace to find out if their family was still all right. What they had seen had dismayed them. Both of them had thought that Nadeshiko would fight, giving Sakura a chance to escape. They looked into each other's eyes in exasperation.
"Silent! You hag!" one of the guards shouted, diverting their attention back to what was happening. "How dare you curse our queen, the one who gave us the freedom?" It seemed as if one of their loyal civilians had cursed Debonair as Debonair was walking away. She seemed not to have noticed that she was cursed, or she had pretended not to have heard. Whatever the reason, that loyal civilian was killed under the sword of the guard, who thrust it in between the bars of the cage.
"If any of you still dares to curse our queen, you will be the next when we take you to the palace of our queen! Imagine how it feels like to fall into the sky when you are already up in it?"
Everyone in the cage looked resolute. It seemed to them that when they were in the cage, all hopes of surviving were gone. The two men looked at Sakura's eyes. It was then that they realized that the reason Nadeshiko did not fight was due to the fact that she had used it already. They understood the reason now.
"Let's go!" the older man whispered into the other man's ears. They had wanted to see their family go, but they dared not, for it was getting dark and the palace would soon be filled with guards protecting Debonair before she went back to her home the next day.
Crown prince Touya and King Fujitaka slipped out of the palace and towards the home of their loyal general, which they had prepared beforehand in case their country had fallen.
-- Somewhere in the Li Kingdom --
The Prince of the kingdom, Li Syaoran, was staring aimlessly at the sky which was ablaze with orange by the setting sun. The sun dyed the clouds into such a beautiful pinkish orange and light purple. The window he was staring out of was in the direction of the country of his beloved, where it was under turmoil. Not that his country was able to escape from such a problem as well.
"Sakura, where are you now? Are you trying to remember me?" Syaoran thought aimlessly as he stared at nothing in the horizon. "I know that you love your country and that you will protect her with whatever you can, but, what if in the process, you have died? How can I get through this in my life?"
Syaoran looked behind him. The room, which he was in at the moment, was full of books, from wall to wall. It may seem small from where he was standing, but it was in fact a gigantic room filled to the brim with books from all over the world. He loved reading them and had remembered reading some of those books whenever he was free. Now, he would not be reading those, but something else of importance too.
Everything about his father.
Yes, he had actually known his father since he was young, since he was a young boy of three. However, his father passed away when he was eight. Syaoran actually remembered everything to do with his father when he was young, but the problem of was that recently, when he was helping Sakura to capture the last Clow card in Clow, both of them had lost something in their memories. He had forgotten about his father and Sakura, him. That was the most painful memory ever. And to make matters worse, that card, even though it had taken their memories, it was not yet captured.
Syaoran still had time to read up everything about his father, as his mother wished but what about Sakura? He could not go back to Clow now. Clow was under besiege by Debonair and it seemed that Clow would fall to Debonair's hands soon. He was brought back home unwillingly by his mother, who had explained that he was the crown prince of his own country and the country cannot afford to lose him, on the account that he was the only son in the Royal family. In fact, his mother had sprung this on him when he rested at Clow, the day after him and Sakura's failure at capturing the card.
"Son, why are you not studying?" someone asked as she walked next to him and stared at the sky too. "If you do not make use of this chance to study everything about your father, when are you going to? Before long, we will also have to battle against Debonair ourselves."
"Mother, I can't concentrate now, not with Clow in trouble." Syaoran protested.
"If you do not study now, how are you going to help Clow in the future?" Queen Yelen shot back. "You can only help Clow when you have learnt everything about your own country and your family, which you have not finished." Her eyes softened. "I know that you are thinking about Sakura, and that you want to send our country's army to help Clow, but…we need our army, and we will be defeated too if I send part of the army to Clow. Besides, Clow has fallen."
Syaoran heard it and stood, momentarily still, before he recovered enough to ask, "Sakura and her family?" Queen Yelen shook her head. "From what I have heard, it is said that King Fujitaka and Prince Touya have perished today, but it is not confirmed yet. As for Sakura and Queen Nadeshiko, they are being held at Debonair's palace. As prisoners of war, I expect." She frowned.
"I will study now, mother." Syaoran said quietly as he sat down at his seat and took one book from the pile. Yelen knew that he needed time to think about what has happened, and decided to leave him to it.
"I have important matters to look at. I'll see you at dinner." She said.
"Yes, mother." Syaoran answered, not looking up from his book. As for Yelen, she left the room and tears started falling from her eyes, out of earshot of anybody.
He was not reading at all. In fact, he was just thinking about Sakura and the happy times he had with her. He could not believe that in such a short time, they had lost almost everything from each other. Except that special something that each of them had since they were born.
Time passed. When Syaoran was too engrossed in the memories of Sakura, something broke through the window and flew towards Syaoran. He dodged it immediately, out of natural-born reflex.
He looked at the intruder. It was a gigantic bird with blur feathers and instead of a bird's head, it had a human head. An old lady's head, in fact.
"Who are you and what do you want, barging into the castle of the Li kingdom?" he asked.
"How dare you ask me who I am? I am known to everyone, unless you do not know me? I am Yubaba. And my purpose? I need more people to work at my bathhouse, and you seem to be a choice." The bird cackled and cast a spell, which Syaoran dodged again. It was to no avail. Syaoran was captured in moments by Yubaba's strong spells and he was taken away from the castle by Yubaba. By the time Yelen came to see what had happened, Syaoran was already gone.
-- In the Spirit World --
Clow Reed looked on, with no expressions on his face. He had already expected something like this to happen when he was alive, hundreds of years ago, and part of it had come true. He did not know if the rest of it would come true too but he hoped that it would, for if it did not, then the world would be destroyed by Debonair's evil hands. Clow had also wanted to see what would happen in the end, as the future he had predicted further on was very foggy and there were many paths a person could take, with only a few of them leading to the eventual happiness of the two people who would save the world…
Yeah! Exams are overTODAY and I have finished the prologue today! bows Thanks to those who have supported Feathers of Love! smiles happily This is the rewritten version of it and there are new things added to this chapitre. I hope that I can add something new to each chapitre and make the fanfiction longer and more interesting! Please continue to support Feathers of Love!
I would like to thank the following people for your wonderful reviews:
Mariko/ Maisuki-chan: Arigato gozaimashita for your reviews! They are very encouraging and as for your fanfic, I think that they are REALLY VERY INTERESTING. It is just that I am not very good with giving comments…lol. :D
justine: Thanks!
BlueStar123: I'm glad that you like it:)
Hillary: Arigato!
sweet-little-girl: Thank you!
tenshi cherry blossoms: Er…yeah, the end result is that Syaoran is Haku…
Tenille: Arigato!
Angel Cherry Blossom: Yup, Spirited Away is a movie. :D
nutty-brains: Arigato! But I still cannot forgive you for wanting to stop writing Inu Sensei. Hmph!
kawaiisakura05: Thanks for enjoying reading this fanfic! However, the songs are NOT written by me…they were written by someone else.
MoonShineSilver: Thank you so much!
XcherryXblossomX: :D
AxFaTaLxiLLuSioN: Yes, is it Spirited Away!
Xtremequeen666: Thanks for your comments! I have reread this fanfic and due to this, I have decided to rewrite the whole fanfic…by the way, also got new ideas for this fanfic too:D
FlowerLover: I know what you mean when teachers give so much homework…anyway, enjoy yourself!
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Juay: Thank you very much! And yes, this fanfic kind of started when I read Tsubasa…
Jen: I will update ASAP:D
I really hope that all of you will like this newer version of Feathers of Love! Arigato gozaimashita! bows
Disclaimer: I do NOT own anything at all, so please, just enjoy yourself reading this fanfiction and don't sue me. :D arigato!
Completed on: 12 May 2005