A/N: And the adventure continues. Hopefully the last bit in the prologue will make more sense after you've read this chapter. If not, feel free to ask questions. ;) Enjoy the update.

The brass pipes shook and rattled as highly-pressurized steam travelled through them, powering the mechanisms that pulled up the tiny box-like room, an 'ascension chamber', as it had been called, the floor shuddering as brakes were applied once the destination was reached. The man who operated the chamber pulled on a lever to completely halt its motion before pulling open the protective grate for Syaoran to pass through, nodding a silent goodbye as the brunette stepped out with his bag of groceries clutched tightly in his arms. Smiling his thanks, the boy proceeded down the hall to the very last door, pulling the leather chord to ring the bell. From the other side of the door, he could hear Mokona's cheery response, the door unlocking only moments later.

"Syaoran! Did you get everything?" The white creature asked even as it hopped to the brunette's shoulder, hitching a ride to the kitchen.

"I think so." He replied, sliding the grocery bag onto the counter, carefully pulling out several glass bottles and jars and placing them down. "Fai-san, they did not have any raki fruit at the shop, but the shop girl told me to buy some raspberries instead. Will these do?" he asked pulling out a box of neatly packaged raspberries.

"Why do they never have raki fruit?" the magician grumbled, sticking out his bottom lip to show his displeasure as he plucked the box of raspberries from Syaoran's hand. "I suppose I will have to make do with these. Although, really, one of these days I have got to find you guys some raki fruit. You won't ask for any other fruit ever again."

The brunette smiled and nodded, turning his attention back to the grocery bag. Despite its slim size, the little bag was capable of items several times it capacity, quite a bit like Mokona. It was an interesting application of magic. Even more interesting, though, was the way the people of that world had blended magic with science, though Fai had claimed magic was just a very advanced form of the former. Despite that, however, Rekourt was a country that Syaoran could happily spend years exploring, were it not for the pressing matter of searching for Sakura's feathers. For an archeologist and multi-cultural enthusiast, this country was heaven on earth. Or, well…heaven in a different dimension.

Rekourt was home to one of the largest libraries known in any country, with thousands upon thousands of books on any subject one could think of. For a country where magic was a part of more than half its population, the word "strange" lacked any definition in this world, which was why, even after nearly a week of searching, the group had yet to find even the slightest mention of a pearl-white feather. Rekourt's written language was something Syaoran had come across during his travels to one of the nomadic desert tribes with his father, but surprisingly enough, he wasn't the only one that could read the language. Rekourt's written and spoken language was the same as Maddy and Xahra's mother tongue, a fact which should have greatly helped them speed up the search for Sakura's feather but despite the added help, it was slow going. The brunette was pulled out of his musings when a loud alarm blared in a room opposite to the dining room-cum-living room which was in turn attached to the kitchen and the rest of their small apartment.

The alarm suddenly stopped, replaced by angry cursing and some crashes and bangs. Fai fake-whistled from his place at the stove as he looked over his shoulder to share a look with Syaoran. "Sounds like Maddy-chan is finally awake."

However, when the door to the room that Madiha shared with Xahra and Sakura opened, it happened to be the latter two who stepped into the living space.

"Good morning Fai, Syaoran," Xahra greeted them extra cheerfully.

"Ah, Xahra-chan, Sakura-chan," Fai chirped back, "did you two sleep okay?"

"Umm… yes. Thank you, Fai-san," Sakura mumbled, looking over her shoulder towards the door with a look that Syaoran had come to interpret as doubt.

Xahra chuckled, muttering something about Sakura being nervous about a PMS-ing Madiha, making Syaoran blush to the roots of his hair while Fai's eyes sparkled like he had been handed the perfect present. Hoping to distract the blond from concocting any schemes that might earn him Maddy's ire, Syaoran wracked his brains for a subject to bring up.

"Princess, would you like some apples?" Syaoran blurted out, suddenly remembering how much the girl loved that particular fruit even as he reached into the grocery bag, his entire arm disappearing inside it as he searched around for one.

"Syaoran-kun," Sakura smiled that sweet smile of hers, the tiniest of pangs attacking the brunette's heart as he took note of how it still wasn't one of her special smiles, but he pushed it away before the pain could show on his face, his fingers finally clutching the round fruit. Pulling it out with a triumphant grin, he happily offered it to the princess.

"Thank you." She said shyly, taking the fruit from his hand, her soft fingers brushing against his skin for the briefest of moments, reminding him of all the times she had held on to his hands like it was nothing at all. Sakura seemed to be staring down at their hands as well, a thoughtful look on her face as she reached out to touch his fingers once more. A thrum of excitement pulsed through his body at the thought that maybe…maybe she was remembering it too. He knew it shouldn't be possible but even so, it was hard to keep his emotions in check as his gaze darted to her face, finding her perplexed green eyes staring back at him. Could this be it? Could Yuuko's price have a loophole? Could it be that-

"Awww," Xahra's loud coo made them both jump apart as though they had been electrocuted, "young love. You two are so adorable!" Blood rushed to his face as Sakura's cheeks colored opposite to him, the black haired girl grinning mischievously at them both. "Oh, if only I had a camera with me."

"X-Xahra-san," Sakura stuttered as Syaoran hurriedly busied himself with emptying the grocery bag. That was when the door to the room the girls shared burst outwards and Madiha stomped towards the dining room, a perpetual frown furrowing her brow as she wordlessly pulled out a seat and sat down. Her hair was pulled back in a braid today, just a few bangs pulled loose of the hairdo to fall over her eyes. She looked a little pale, giving off the air of someone who had not slept properly, her eyes swollen just the tiniest bit behind the frames of her spectacles, making them appear puffy and tired. He wondered if she had been having nightmares. He could recall Xahra mentioning something about the brunette having those from time to time.

"Hand me an apple too, would you, Sleeping Beauty?" the brunette grunted, sounding surprisingly a lot like a female version of Kurogane as she slumped over the hardwood tabletop. Her braid swept across the right side of her face, spilling against the grainy texture of the wood as she rested her forehead on it. "I'd kill for a steaming cup of tea and some Panadol right now." She groaned as Sakura handed her a ripe apple, its skin half-rosy like Sakura's cheeks after one of her attempts at learning gymnastics and half-golden like those little decorative coins he'd seen dangling from some of Sakura's more formal dresses.

"Is Maddy-san going to be okay?" Sakura asked worriedly, eyeing the arm the brunette had wrapped around her abdomen. "What is wrong with her?" Despite not having been around many women while growing up, Syaoran still had interacted with them in all the different cultures he'd visited during his travels with his father, and while some were quite open about these matters and had freely imparted their knowledge to the young brunette, Syaoran still didn't feel comfortable enough around a girl going through her 'female issues' to be of any help like the men in those cultures had been. The groceries on the counter provided the boy with the perfect excuse to bail as he hurriedly mumbled something about putting them away and scampered off to the kitchen while Xahra launched into an explanation about biology and 'female issues'. Well, she used a different term for it, but that's what the brunette had decided to dub it as in his head very, very early on in his life and he decided to stick with it now.

"Does Syaoran-kun have any idea what panamol might be?" Fai asked as he placed a kettle on the stove, easily flipping some sort of flat bread in the pan on the other side of the stove, 'pancakes', the blond had called them. Adjusting the heat on both the stove tops as Syaoran moved next to him to reach the cabinets, he turned his attention to the mixing bowl only about a quarter full of creamy batter. "Maddy-chan doesn't sound so good."

"I'm afraid not." The brunette replied with a shake of his head, neatly stacking the boxes inside the cabinet.

"Hmm…" he heard the magician hum in response as he reached over Syaoran's shoulder and opened the second cabinet. Withdrawing a bag of tea-leaves, he slid it shut, using his free hand to slip the now-cooked pancake onto a plate holding an already-considerable stack. Syaoran watched him work in fascination as the magician carried out several tasks at the same time without botching up a single one, moving comfortably around the kitchen as though it was something he did every day. The blond said nothing else, the scent of batter rising from the frying pan as it cooked before Fai easily flipped it over, humming a nearly inaudible tune to himself. "Could you please set the table, Syaoran-kun? I think Xahra-chan is finished with her lecture by now." He could picture the smirk on the blonde's face at that last part, letting Syaoran know that Fai knew the reason why he had taken refuge in the kitchen.

Fighting back an embarrassed blush, the brunette retrieved the plates and glasses before filling a metal jug with water from the tap and hurrying back into the living room. True to Fai's prediction, Xahra was now regaling Sakura with stories of what the best friends usually got up to in their home world, interjected with embarrassed groans from Madiha every now and then. Sakura was giggling and pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle the sounds, probably for Madiha's benefit, though Syaoran could somehow tell the brunette was merely complaining for the sake of complaining and didn't really mind Sakura laughing at her expense. He felt a small rush of gratitude towards the pair of friends. They'd brought so many smiles to Sakura's face in the short five weeks they'd been travelling together, bringing forth the former Sakura every time. Of course, she still never smiled that special smile of hers, but it was still enough for him that the old Sakura shone through this girl who barely had enough memories to function properly.

The princess darted forward to help him with the table and Xahra too stepped around the table once she noticed his entrance. Maddy waved from her spot at the table, munching her way through the very last bits of the apple. Syaoran's gaze was drawn towards the entrance to the apartment and as though summoned by his thoughts, the ninja walked through, sweat dripping from his brow as he leant a makeshift staff against the wall and headed off into the bathroom with a simple grunt in their direction. Mokona bounced up to the table and made itself at home on Madiha's head. The girl made a half-hearted swipe at it before giving up and going back to her slumped position on the table. Kurogane emerged dressed in fresh clothes with hair dripping wet from a quick shower only a short while later just as Fai entered from the kitchen, balancing a tray loaded with pancakes and a bottle of syrup, a ball of butter and a big mug of tea, setting down the last wordlessly next to Madiha before moving on to set the breakfast down.

Sakura's stomach grumbled loudly, making the princess blush and look down. Xahra laughed good-naturedly at the girl before passing her the pancakes.

-0-

Xahra looked around with an excited grin, looking quite a lot like a kid in a candy store, though she never thought she'd have that look on her face in a library of all places. She might have been good at her studies in school, but she'd never been a bookworm. The Eastern Rekourt Library, or 'ERL' as some of the students who had been living on the same floor of the dormitories had called it, had the biggest section on myths and legends of all the cities' libraries. Having no starting point to go on, the group of dimension travelers had had no luck so far. It had been decided that every day their group would split into two smaller groups and one would head out to the libraries and search for legends with a mention of Sakura's feather or something similar while the other group would ask around for information. Magic was common enough in the country that their arrival had not caused any fuss, despite the group having landed in the middle of the orientation ceremony of one of the magic schools. The schools offered courses in non-magical subjects as well, so the group (barring Kurogane and Fai who simply looked far too old) everyone had posed as students, Syaoran and Fai once again handling most of the talking with one of the administrators. Their accommodations had been fairly easy to acquire and although classes were not due to start for two weeks' time, most students had arrived early to explore the vast city.

Not for the first time since they had arrived, Xahra felt a tingle of something crawl down her spine as a witch passed her by. She couldn't help but frown, wondering again about her new ability to sense magic, because after thinking about all the times it had happened, that was the only thing she could come up with that made sense. She felt it all the time whenever she was around Mokona or Sakura, although with Sakura it was more like a broken beat and with Mokona's made her really giddy. Fai was perhaps the only person who she knew had magic yet didn't set off her new sense at all. She looked over at him where he was busy pestering Madiha as the former peered at various leather-bound volumes, looking like she was struggling very hard not to grab one and bash the blond on the head with it. Biting back a smile, she looked overhead where a librarian sputtered by on a steam-powered contraption, shelving books into their places with a wave of her wand. She felt another tingle as a book zoomed past her and settled neatly onto a shelf to her right. This world was so amazing that she could spend years exploring it. Magic and science blended together to work seamlessly. It was so wonderful. She must have had a zoned-out look on her face for Madiha stomped up to her, grabbing her rather angrily by the arm before dragging her over to a table where she had dumped a surprising amount of books, all with their titles written out in the girls' mother tongue.

"You can drool over the library later," she snapped, slamming a thick volume into her hands before snatching one for herself and impatiently opening it up to the index page. "We really need to find something about Sleeping Beauty's feather before I go crazy pouring over all these books. Had I known I'd be studying so much on this trip, I'd have stayed behind and worked on my prep for finals. I'm pretty sure I'd have scored an A with half the amount of effort."

Xahra wisely kept her mouth shut, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from pointing out how they had never really taken this trip by choice in the first place. She was quite sure she did not want to risk having her skull bashed in for contradicting Madiha in her current state. Though the brunette often was prone to mood swings, she had never really been this volatile before. Something, or rather someone- blond and blue-eyed- was probably to be blamed for that, but she kept that information to herself as well. Best do as Madiha had so very nicely asked.

"Hyuu…some of these legends are quite disturbing, wouldn't you agree, Miss Xahra?" Fai said in his strangely-accented English some time later. Mokona had been sent along with Syaoran, Kurogane and Sakura, seeing as how the girls both spoke the local language and Fai could communicate with them in English, though the blond had been quick to point out it had a different name in his home world and was not his mother tongue either. Apparently he had only learnt it for the purpose of entertaining diplomats at the Royal Court.

"Well," she replied, looking up from the book she had been bent over for nearly the past three hours, "mine looks a lot like a bunch of fairy tales strung together. Like this one here," she pointed to a passage that resembled something out of the of the Grimm fairytales collection, "this one is just like the story of Red Riding Hood, only the girl in this one is a werewolf herself and the hood she wears is a magical item spelled by a sorcerer to keep her from turning every full moon. But yes, it's quite disturbing. She turns into a wolf while trying to hide from her grandmother and ends up eating the man she loved." Flipping to the end of the book she made a face, "says here that the legends are based on true stories. Does this mean they're trying to prove that werewolves are real?"

"Mine drones on and on about vampires." Madiha snapped her book shut, slamming her forehead into the closed cover with a groan. "This is hopeless. It will take us years to read everything in here before we can even move on to the next library, let alone find her feather."

Xahra's reply was interrupted by a loud grumbling sound from her belly and she had to fight down a blush as both Fai and Madiha turned to look at her.

"Maybe we should look for something to eat and then we can ask one of the librarians to help us look for relevant information?" Fai suggested lightly as he pushed the book away from him and stood up.

"We did ask for help," Madiha groaned, clambering to her feet nonetheless , "the old lady at the front desk with a really large head. She's the one who pointed us to this section on the very first day, remember?"

"Well, maybe we should ask one of the girls who's shelving the books all the time," Xahra piped up, gladly depositing her book on the table and grabbing her tiny purse. Smoothing down the front of her rather poufy skirt which looked a lot like the dress she had worn in Jade, she smiled at one of the librarians eyeing them with an annoyed frown. "We'll be back after lunch, so you don't have to put the books away yet." She said to the witch, frowning when the latter stomped down the aisle before she climbed onto her steam-powered contraption and sputtered away on it. "Why, that rude little-" Xahra turned away with a huff and made her way out of the maze of towering bookshelves behind Madiha and Fai, through the ornate wooden double doors and onto the sunlit cobblestone street.

A/N: So… I've decided that the worlds won't be appearing in the same order as they did in the manga. On top of that, some of the basic things about them would be changed as well to suit the plot, including the time the group spends there. Here's a little explanation for some of the changes you've seen made to Rekourt so far.

Instead of being an all-magical world, it's a combination of magic and steampunk science. The reason for that might not become clear until a few worlds later but that's just the way it is. They will definitely be spending a few weeks here and exploring not just the nice libraries and the safe side of magic and technology but probably and possibly some of the nasty sides as well. *hint hint wink wink* Hmm… I can't really think of anything else at the moment but if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will do my best to either explain them or put something into the story for you guys :)

Cookies for anyone who catches my little nod to 'Once Upon a Time' ;) ;)