Disclaimer: CCS and Tsubasa characters and original plots belong to CLAMP, though the implementation of their characters in this specific plot is my idea. Blah, blah, blah, and all that jazz.
Summary: CCS x Tsubasa: The dimension-travelers stumble across Yuuko's world, across the lives of a Sakura and a Syaoran of a different dimension. Fate can be so cruel sometimes, especially when Card Mistress Sakura is found to harbor one of Sakura's feathers – in the form of her powerful magic. This was something Clow Reed had not predicted, but Yelan Li saw. Syaoran is torn between the good of the world and the good of a girl, the girl who looks like his beloved Sakura. Perhaps Sakura Kinomoto is too kind for her own good.
Debated with myself for a while as to whether I should put this under CCS or TRC – thought CCS was more appropriate because this fic just might concentrate more towards the CCS end, but then I decided TRC because it just makes more sense.
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Dictionary:
hime: princess
daijoubu: (1) are you alright / ok / fine? or (2) I'm fine depending on the context
un: yes / yeah in a very endearing sense
manju: a traditional Japanese food with an outside made from flour, rice powder, and buckwheat and an inside filled with an (red bean paste) (taken from Wikipedia)
yoku wakanai: I don't understand very well (informal) (wakaru – to understand; yoi – good – I think yoku is derived from yoi)
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The Story of a Girl
Chapter 00: Prologue: Speculations
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Travelers . . . they will come.
Yelan Li could see this, feel the power that flowed out of the young girl who was on a journey for her missing pieces and the more mystical powers of the very white magician who claimed to have given up his magic. She could see feathers, drawing out power from the new Card Mistress. She frowned briefly.
She breathed in and out, deeply, quietly, calmly, and opened her eyes. Ritualistically she took the burning incense between two fingers, bowed in front of the china bowl of water, and fashionably dipped the incense into the water, swirling the water, distorting the vision, temporarily ridding herself of it. She quietly signaled for an attendant; she had to see her son, the heir, the future clan leader, immediately. The news was definitely important. It was good she had sent for him to come home for the end of summer break.
Immediately he appeared, bowing respectfully, "Mother," formally.
She smiled in a cold way, "My son, I have seen that it was fate that has brought you to remain in Tomoeda, most certainly, and that it was a very curious fate that has the Cards bound to young Miss Kinomoto. You will soon encounter very mysterious things and perhaps that you will find yourself seeing double. However, as much as collecting ancient relics may be a cause for the Li Clan, you must first and foremost protect the Card Mistress and protect the magic of the world. You will be aided, no doubt, but certain strings of fate have gone astray, and you must . . . adjust such fates. I fear that something is drawing closer; an ill moon will show its face, not very soon, but close enough. You may be excused."
The youthful leader-to-be sighed inwardly, slightly defeated; he respected his mother deeply and thus loved her, but sometimes he felt so awkward, restrained, nervous around her. He knew that beyond the formalities, there was something more, but he was always dubious, skeptical. He bowed again and left.
He turned her words over and over in his mind; he would be sure to carefully heed the wise words she had spoken.
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Yuuko was worried. She knew that her dimension-traveler-associates would soon be returning to the very world they had started out in; her very own Japan. Perhaps it was not the wishing dimension, but it was her world, with the young Card Mistress. Of course, they had been traveling for nearly a year so it could have been expected; it was already well into autumn, with the leaves on many deciduous trees turning gorgeous reds and oranges. Yet she could sense a deep shift in powers; the fates were slowly changing course. She could sense a deep, dark imbalance coming. And she didn't like it one bit. Too bad she could not foresee as Clow could; her only gift was the gift for exchange, a gift of balancing two separate but equal 'powers.'
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"It's coming."
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Again the travelers had landed in odd positions, all a dizzying mess.
"Get off!" Kurogane yelled, annoyed, practically barking.
Syaoran laughed nervously and pardoned himself, "Ehehehe, sorry. Hime, daijoubu?"
"Un," Sakura nodded in a graceful manner.
"Can't that damned manju land us properly for once?" he complained, glaring darkly.
And Fye D. Flowright (1) simply smiled.
These were all travelers who had come together by chance, fate, and perhaps destiny as well. Together they had gone through many challenging ordeals. They had to; sticking together was the only way to fulfill all of their wishes. Two from the same country: the boy who wanted to save his Princess and love, the girl who lost everything yet nothing. One from Ancient Japan, who only wanted to go home, endeared with fighting and forced to Yuuko's by his Princess to learn the meaning of "true strength." And then the last wisher from Celes, a cold and snowy northern country, hiding fears and pains behind his smiling mask, refusing to use his magic, who only wanted to keep moving from world to world to avoid his King.
The group finally managed to become somewhat civilized looking, standing unfazed by their great fall. By this time they had established that it was possible there was a feather in the world; Mokona couldn't tell: "There're too many really, really strong powers in this world! Yoku wakanai!" Thus, their first concern was the question of where they would stay. The second was food.
They decided to satisfy the latter of their concerns first, as it seemed the easiest, by far, and entered a café.
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"Something has come," he muttered once again. He frowned again. He could feel some strange imbalance of powers that had just arisen, as well as a strangely familiar but unfamiliar power. He couldn't reconcile these feelings inside himself.
The bell attached to the transparent glass door, semi-frosted with A Glass Café in elegant cursive, jingled.
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My first fic in a really, really long time, and I just had to put this prologue out! Anyway, dramatic ending! I really should have put dun, dun, dun, but I resisted that temptation. :wink:
I tend to be a slow writer (and I know I haven't touched all those other particular works but I'm pretty much on hiatus for all that jazz because of all the stupid schoolwork I've got and my part-time job), especially since I tend to be a very harsh critic that I kind-of get the heebie-jeebies out of the idea that I have to post so then I don't – my most effective deterrent. However, part of the cure is getting a lot of reviews. Sooo, you know you would just love to give me feedback by pressing that pretty, tantalizing, sultry but not tawdry button down there . . . you'll get a virtual cookie if you do:)
--K. Kasai (email at starlightjewel01ATyahoo.ca)
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(1): I decided to spell his name this way for several reasons. I thought that spelling it as Fay, while it might match the rest of his name as 'Flowright,' was stupid because it would never sound right. That gave me between Fai and Fye. I chose Fye because I thought it made his name more unique and gave it an appeal that the name is quite different and foreign compared to Kurogane & co. Their names are Japanese, while I thought that it would be appropriate for Fye's name to sound, well, I dunno, more Western, perhaps Scandinavian even. I do believe that Fai is appropriate phonetically, however.