Splinters

A joint fan fiction by: Candyland and Ciuline Ihmenjo

Card Captor Sakura does not belong to me. The characters in Card Captor Sakura do not belong to me. CLAMP owns CCS. Besides, even if you do try and sue me, I have no money.

Pre-fiction…

After negotiating with Candyland, I took back Splinters as a solo-work as, she is currently writing for the Conan fandom. I haven't found anything I like more than CCS, so I'm going to write this instead of making it a joint project. Yes, this is a short chapter, but at the same time, wasn't my first chapter of Fallen quite short as well?

Hope you guys still like this.

Italicized words are thoughts. Bold words are emphasis. CAPS WORDS are shouting.

o()o Splinters I: Eriol o()o

These were my memories, yet at the exact same time, they did not belong to me.

They were the memories of the one who existed before me, that much I knew. But I had never heard of this memory, or even had visions of it in the past. Instead, I was utterly in the dark in a reality that was once my own.

The doorway to a dark, bleak room.

A rumpled form lying on the bed, coughing without sound.

Lips moving in tune with silent words.

There was no sound in these worlds, there never was, could not be. Memories, though preserving sound in most manners, rarely cared to play back the voices that were trapped within time. At least, in visions of the past and future, especially in dreams, sounds often did not manage to translate into actual noise. They emerged at little more than gibberish, static in the background, to emerge as faint buzzing or tinny echoes, indistinguishable even in the silence that was a dream.

The lips of the person moved, shadows playing across the form just enough to guise it completely, as if the wielder of such a memory did not want that form to ever be unveiled. Even the body was shrouded in mystery, shadows and clouds of dust that were most certainly conjured up to protect the identity of the pathetic form on the bed.

The faint mutterings of a chant could be heard, but not distinguished. It would have seemed like a part of a whole separate dream if only the fact that I could see a mouth moving in a puddle of clear water, the eyes focusing not on the form, but the puddle

The face that stared back at me…

Eriol woke up in a cold sweat. The dream, the same dream that had been plaguing him for months, had not ceased at all. His breath came in haggard, panicked gasps and he tried to move. Any strength he possessed was gone. Laying on his back in these first waking moments, he never could get past the face.

It was Clow. The face staring back from the puddle was unmistakably that of Clow Reed.

But why these memories? He had no recollection of these events. The customary warning that preceded the sudden rush of the past did not come with these foggy pictures. Even stranger, not even when all of Clow's memories returned to him, had he inherited this memory. Nor had he inherited any sorts of memories pertaining to the events in the dream. He wondered what other secrets Clow had to hide. But, why now? Why was he dreaming about the past now? More importantly, why did Clow lock this memory away, possibly never to be seen?

His chest heaving with an irritated sigh, Eriol looked over to see what had woken him this time; seemingly the fates were allied against him continuing this dream.

Nakuru, and a very guilty looking Spinel, both covered in copious amounts of what looked to be flour. He swore he could see splinters of eggshell and tiny globs of runny yolk in the hair of his humanoid guardian. The feline had somehow managed to evade the chaos of its companion.

"We tried making that cake…"

Eriol barely avoided rolling his eyes. The troublesome thing about instilling the same penchant for mischief in one's magical creation as existed in one's self was the surprising results that it yielded. He sat halfway up in the bed and fixed his bleary gaze in the direction of the two figures. "The fates truly are allied against me," he muttered under his breath.

"Hmm?" The sly remark on the tip of the feline guardian's tongue faded away; Eriol could sense that much. Spinel settled on the thick comforter, a halo of white powder marking the spot where he landed.

"Just tell me what happened."

"I wanted to help make that cake for Tomoyo, but Soupy wouldn't let me!"

The aforementioned 'Soupy' managed a soft growl. "You see, I was stirring the eggs when he—" A gasp of protest sounded from Nakuru's direction "—decided to upend the flour on my head."

Nakuru pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "You looked so serious, and I was only trying to help lighten the mood."

"Because you thought you had grabbed the sugar container!" Spinel roared, his fur ruffling considerably.

"It would have been funny," the humanoid retorted.

"You said that the last thousand times you tried that." The black cat began grooming himself, flapping his wings in an effort to dislodge the remaining flour there. "Besides, what are we going to do about the mess in the kitchen?"

"Mess?" The word perked Eriol's interest enough to rouse him from his half-wakefulness. "What mess?"

"The disaster that could," Spinel coughed, "under very abnormal circumstances, qualify as a kitchen."

"Did you blow anything up?"

The two guardians exchanged startled looks, as if this was a not-so-ordinary occurrence.

It was Ruby who responded first. "Not this time."

Eriol heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, as long as everything is still in one piece and I don't have to erase the memories of everyone within a city block, I think we'll all be fine." He smiled. "Besides, as long as you didn't kill all the eggs, I have a stash of ingredients that you two would never find."

O o o o O

It took him most of the morning to clean up what his guardians considered a disaster. In all rights, they were utterly correct. His kitchen looked remarkably similar to a winter meadow coated with morning fog. Egg bits dripped off cabinets. Paw and footprints alike marred flour-covered surfaces. A cloud of white mist still rose from the counters whenever a current of air moved in the room. Amazingly, they hadn't set anything on fire, nor had they managed to break anything too valuable. Yes, a wide assortment of mixing bowls and splinters of wooden spoons lay shattered on the ground, but he could always repair or replace such mundane objects. Replacing the entire kitchen wall – such was the case of previous 'fights' – often was much more tedious on his wallet as it cried out in agony. Small, simple household objects were not beyond his ability to repair. Entire kitchen walls (unfortunately) were.

Eriol sighed again, scrubbing yolk off an ornate cabinet as crashes and muttering echoed through the empty house, most likely Nakuru and Spinel attempting to help him clean the kitchen, but he didn't really wish to turn around to find out what had broken this time.

Perhaps it was his sanity? He often wondered how he managed to remain sane in this environment. Pausing thoughtfully from his work, the phone managed to pop his thought bubble. He rushed to pick it up.

"Hirigizawa residence, this is Eriol." The person on the other end of the line did not have to speak before he knew her identity. The way she breathed… the sounds of her house… the ways she moved and the ways she smiled… it was all imprinted in his brain. Tomoyo Daidouji. What she did to his heart and his body stunned even him. It was all he could do to not confess feelings he couldn't even name to this girl each time he saw her… talked to her… heard her breath in his ears.

"Hello, I hope you haven't forgotten about our meeting today." She sounded slightly annoyed, possibly at the budding couple. Sakura and Syaoran commonly went to her for advice on just about every aspect of their relationship. From the small things such as finding way to spend more time with each other, to the larger things like what Sakura would wear that day, Tomoyo was always there to lend a hand. He wondered how she did it.

"No, of course not." How could he forget? He'd been planning for it all week. He'd even gone out of his way to hide a stash of ingredients in the case that his guardians would attempt to assist him in that matter. Invariably, his house settled into a pattern of predictable chaos.

"You sure you'll be able to make it?" She giggled. The sound was something that would never lose its effect on his senses. "I hear a lot of crashing in the background."

"That would be Spinel and Ruby attempting to clean."

"Which leads to more work for you."

"Right," he put his palm to his forehead and shook his head. "I may be a little late."

"I understand," she said.

"I wish they were more understanding of my sanity," he muttered. Tomoyo responded with a muffled snigger. "And I think that I might withhold one vanilla cake… or perhaps I should just accidentally leave my famous pound cake at home."

"Pfft, world famous?" She snorted and the muffled laughter returned. "You are too much of a braggart to do that."

"Alas, I've been caught," he feigned an injured tone and clutched one hand to his chest, placing the back of the other to his forehead before realizing the gesture didn't quite translate over the telephone. "Whatever shall I do?"

"Stop the theatrics and clean your kitchen?" Tomoyo offered.

He shook his head a smile playing over his lips. "Or I could take your helpful advice."

"Please do," she replied sweetly. "After all, you've been bragging for nearly a week about these universally famous cakes that you bake. And if someone hadn't informed poor Sakura and Syaoran convinced that the ancient Japanese did not originally bake cakes in order to serve as measuring devices, I'm sure someone would have clubbed you by now. Nevertheless, I think Chiharu was about ready to."

"No, I think that was Yamazaki." Eriol winced at the thought of a rampaging Chiharu as something large – and possibly very valuable – came crashing down in the background. He was seriously considering banishing Ruby and Spinel to opposite corners of the house before they broke something else. Maybe they would spare the refrigerator this time. He could only hope.

Post fiction…

The title "splinters" came up during a brainstorming session between Candyland and me. I felt it a fitting title as much of this fiction involves splinters of past memories. And just like Fallen Neo, nothing really is ever going to be exactly as it seems.

See you next update: Ciuline Ihmenjo