Notes: Written for the 31 Days community on LiveJournal.
Interpretation
"The sun was a flower, the evening, crescent moons, the arrows were," she read, "rain, and the swords were lightning flashes. Tomoyo-chan," Sakura said, imploringly, "do you understand what any of this means?"
The paper hissed from her fingers; Tomoyo examined it with a delicate air, seeing, over its edge, the children gathered into a circle for the discussion. "It does," she conceded eventually, "seem a bit hard for our grade."
"Not that hard," Yamazaki said. He held up a finger brightly, ignoring the pinches Chiharu dragged on his ear. "If one examines it in historical context, it all makes perfect sense."
Sakura was all eyes and clasped hands; in the desk pulled to her side, Tomoyo hid a smile. "Really?"
"Yes, of course," Eriol took up the train of words smoothly. Behind his glasses, she met a glance like seas the color of wine. "In ancient times, when they looked up at the sky, the old astronomers saw the sun as petals of light around a center bright as fire."
Chiharu said dubiously, "Really, Hiiragizawa-kun?"
"Really," the boy assured her with perfect impassiveness. "When they curled away, they split and fell, becoming only pricks of light in the sky – but secretly, if you looked, they would have little hooks, like crescent moons."
"But what about the arrows?" Syaoran said aggrievedly, as though he had met the author and hadn't liked his cheek.
"Ah!" said Yamazaki. Chiharu looked as though she might apply teeth, soon, to ensure his (honest) silence. "You must remember that this was in a time when we, our people, were particularly hardy. So hardy that when the other continents came to conquer us, we drank up their weapons and asked for more, and read by the light of their swords while they were flashing."
"Do you read by lightning?" Sakura whispered to Syaoran, a little worriedly, as Eriol and Yamazaki beamed at each other in the recognition of partnership and continued. In the manner, Tomoyo reflected, of someone who hid beneath the blankets as the rain roared outside her windows – childish, she thought, but extremely cute.
She noted with the absent passion of an artist the colors of his face as he met Sakura's eyes. "No," he muttered, eyes quick and dark. "Only fools would."
"Oh."
"Not that you're a fool! Er," he said, "do you—"
"Ah, no," she smiled, confessing, and pressed her hand sheepishly to the back of her head, elbow narrowly missing Chiharu's eye. "I'm afraid of it!"
Syaoran snorted, then crimsoned; matching his expression, they fell out of step and into silence. She looked, then, to the others: Chiharu smacking Yamazaki upside the head, Eriol mirroring what she watched. Their eyes reflected each other in ghosted movements before sliding away, to other paths.
"And now," said their teacher, sweeping them all back into orderly rows as he moved to the front of the room. "Please select a representative of your group to present your analysis of the passage."
"Um…" Sakura said, and Tomoyo smiled as Yamazaki rose to his feet.
end
