Disclaimer: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles is the intellectual property of CLAMP.
Author's Note: The song is Love Story.
Shattered Melody
When they had arrived, Mokona had been confident that a feather lay somewhere in the decrepit, abandoned mansion, missed somehow by the clone in his rush to collect them. They had split up, each going a separate direction. Syaoran had taken the left wing upstairs.
In a sparsely furnished room, that might once have been a bedroom or a drawing room, Syaoran found it on the floor, shattered and left behind; a glass music box. It must have been beautiful, he mused, turning it this way and that until it's dusted surface caught the filtered yellow light of the setting sun shining through a dirty, uncovered window.
Its sides were covered in plates of cracked mirror, reflecting his own image back at him as distorted, a cruel irony that Syaoran found it difficult to turn from. On its surface had once been dancers, he could tell because the one remaining figure (a boy in a crystallized suit) held its arms out as if accompanying an invisible partner. The second figure was gone. Only two spots of aged glue remained upon the glass's surface to attest to the knowledge that the remaining figure had not always been alone. Syaoran looked for the missing figure on the floor around him but he did not find it.
On the bottom of the music box was the key. Syaoran cut himself twice against the jagged edges of broken glass but he wound it anyway and sat it back down on a nearby desk to listen to it play. The male figure turned alone on the surface of the music box, his reflection showing at his feet, mesmerizing Syaoran as the light bounced off of the crystalline figure and the side panels as they turned round and round making small rainbows. Syaoran took a step back and let his left foot follow his right in time with the music. Sliding his eyes closed, he brought his hands into position, holding the ghost of a memory in careful hands.
The world around him faded, becoming each slowing chime of the tune a lone crystallized figure turned to, frozen in place, holding to him a precious empty space, the void in Syaoran's heart, as the music slowly died, finally coming to its final stop just one note short of completion. Syaoran could not will it to finish. His arms fell heavily to his sides and he opened his eyes to see the sun with its last light, disappear below the horizon, the scene blurred as warmth spilled in burning trails down his cheeks. After holding it back this long, he could not will it to stop.
Post whatevers: Just a sad little blip. If you liked, please review.
