Challenge: Opposite Day
Genre: drama
Canon: pre-anime
Length: 1,500
Task: Feature a character or write a particular genre that you've never done before.
Tease: I've never featured this guy before. So, here goes.
'genesis'
The blood welled up, dark scarlet, and she watched it drip from his cut lip to the scuffed mat underneath. It hurt her as deeply as it must have hurt him, but somehow she managed to stay back and say nothing. After a moment to catch his breath, her son pushed himself back onto his feet and stood – injured but not beaten just yet.
"You still want more?" his opponent sneered. "Don't you know you can't beat me, half-breed? You can't beat anyone."
Her son's eyes flashed angrily and he rushed at the boy with a long kick, sloppily executed and easily seen. The other fighter sidestepped it easily and struck her son squarely on the nose. Even with the padded bandages wrapped around his knuckles it must have hurt, and her son hit the mat with a thud. Under his hand she could the blood seeping, and when he didn't get up again the teacher dropped his hand.
"It is finished. Xio is the victor."
"Weakling half-breed," he scoffed, and took the chance to kick her son's inert body on his way back to the mat's edge. Her son coughed and groaned, but the teacher said nothing. Holding the sleeve of his loose training clothes to his bleeding nose, somehow he managed to crawl off the mat and collapsed gratefully on the grass.
"Hu, Ping," their teacher commanded, and the next pair of students scrambled to the center. "Begin!"
And her son obeyed, though it was not noticeable at first. Xio twitched uncomfortably, once or twice, then absentmindedly reached to scratch. The fight continued, thrust and parry and strike, and Xio's discomfort grew. His hands roved over his body a little faster, scratching harder, forgetting his surroundings. Those students next to him eyed him curiously, then scooted a few inches away. By the time one student finally flattened the other to the mats, Xio was in absolute agony. Their teacher opened his mouth to announce the victor, but he was cut short by a tormented bellow. Xio sprang to his feet and sprinted hard for the lily-bedecked pool, throwing himself in with a splash. Astonished, the class could only stare at first. And then, in the manner of boys everywhere, they all began to laugh.
Everyone except the teacher, of course. And her grimly smiling son.
- - - - - - -
Class was dismissed, all those except for the humiliated Xio, and her son stopped short when he saw her lurking in the gardens.
"Mother. How long have you been here?"
"Long enough," she answered coolly, communicating her displeasure, and he winced a little.
"It was just a bit of fun. He deserved it."
Before she could reprimand her son, someone else interrupted.
"Half-breed!" Her son's eyes narrowed and he turned his head sharply, scowling at his dripping classmate ten paces away. Xio's face was scorched red with anger and embarrassment, his black eyes flashing. "I know it was you, witchcraft student. You think you're so clever, always hiding behind your books, but you are just a whelp of mixed blood, a mutt. You don't belong in China."
She saw her son's fists clench, felt the swell of power, and was afraid for the life of that boy.
"Xio!" their teacher called sharply, right when she murmured her son's name. "Come! You have work to do."
The student glared nastily at her son before he whipped around and stalked away, anger obvious in the tense set of his muscles. Her son relaxed, though righteous anger still lurked in his foreign blue eyes.
"Come," she said softly. "It's time to return home, you're injured."
"I know."
Looking as if he didn't care to be reminded of it, he stomped past her and made for their family carriage.
The ride home was awkwardly silent.
- - - - - - -
"Ouch!" Again he tried to wriggle out from under her grip, but with the determination of a mother she wiped at his cut lip. "Stop it, it hurts!"
"It's the crushed marigold, it stings as it disinfects. The pain will be gone soon."
"I don't like that class, Mother, I don't want to go anymore."
"And will you always give up under the threat of a little pain?"
"It's not that," he huffed. "I don't like the martial arts, fighting is no fun. Books and spells are far more interesting. Can't I just spend the afternoons in the library instead?"
"Between your morning lessons and nights spent glued to the telescope? It's not healthy to stay cooped up in a room all day. You need exercise."
"Getting kicked by witless rich sons is not exercise."
"Those witless rich sons are the children of China's leaders, and you should make an effort to get along with them."
"Why, to become a politician like Father? What a waste of time. I don't want anything to do with people when I grow up. I'm going to be a great sorcerer."
She finished wiping at his blood and stepped back with a sigh. "One day you will learn there is more to life than just magic. And even great sorcerers need friends."
"Well I don't." Clearly fed up with this conversation, her son leapt to his feet and stormed out of the room.
- - - - - - - - - -
Every day she could see it, her control and influence over her headstrong son slipping away. Already he'd surpassed her and his father in power, and he was finally beginning to catch on to that notion. Her family watched him nervously, like a pack of wolves whose territory had been encroached upon by a young and strong newcomer. His intellect seemed to have no limits; he'd devoured every book in their library and was already begging for the chance to study in England. She had not agreed to send him there, yet, and it was not for the sake of maternal affection. She knew her son would not fit in there anymore than he did here; the son of China and England would find a home in neither. It was little wonder that he rejected people so impatiently.
Disquieted by her thoughts, she sank into the plush sofa alongside her husband and sighed. Four o'clock, and all family activities were suspended for teatime. None of that bitter black stuff either, he'd declared, all their tea came imported from India and was served with the proper milk and sugar. It was his only weakness for home life, the British ambassador being in all other things quite adaptable to Chinese culture, and she indulged it with a patient smile.
"He won't be joining us?" he asked, when the servant had left their tray and departed noiselessly. She shook her head.
"He is angry, and troubled."
"He is a teenage boy. He'll grow out of it."
How she wished she could be so sure. "He is so strong, and only getting stronger. I fear for him, and I also fear… what we've brought into the world. Was it right, for us to create such a mixture?"
Milk swirled into his tea, lightening it, a shade neither brown nor white but something in between.
"That's not a mixture, that's our son. If he was born then he has a purpose, or so my philosophy says. Just because he's grown stronger doesn't mean he'll forget what we taught him. His soul is a good one."
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Clow stomped across the grounds, lashing now and then at the hedges with a bamboo switch, angrily venting his frustration. Mother would never understand, Father wouldn't either. No one called them a half-breed, mocking the mixture of blood in their veins. They didn't have the eyes of one world and hair of another, prompting strangers to stare and whisper. They each had their home, a place to belong, but he had nowhere.
Already exhausted from his ill-fated class, Clow flopped down on a sunny knoll to rest. The sting of his injuries was already fading, just like Mother promised it would, but that didn't take away the burn of humiliation when Xio kicked him so roughly.
"I hate people," he muttered. Though that really wasn't true, he just wished they would leave him alone. It wasn't his fault he'd been born of two races, an automatic outcast wherever he went.
And yet…
He closed his eyes, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sun overhead. And yet he had a secret, something no one else knew about. He didn't even know it himself, at first, but time and long hours of practice were proving his theory right. A child of western and eastern magics, perhaps the first ever, was more than just a half-breed. Clow's unique heritage had left him poised to conquer both, harnessing the better aspects of each and combining them. The very idea was breathtaking and he'd shared it with no one, not even Mother. Surely it was dangerous, but Clow wasn't afraid of that kind of danger. And if he could succeed, if he could accomplish a true mixture, then he might very well become the most powerful sorcerer in all of China. Or the world.
A tiny sigh escaped his lips.
Fanciful daydreams, perhaps, but he'd written every thought of it down, keeping a journal of his progress. It might take years, but at least it was something to look forward to. Who cared then if people despised him?
Maybe one day he'd just make his own friends.
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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters
I'm not sure why I've never been tempted to write for Clow, but now that I look back over this piece I think I've got an idea. I love CCS, not for just a romance/fantasy series, but as a coming-of-age story. Which is what it really is, when you consider how much of the plot was focused on Sakura's growing power. Most of my favorite characters are the ones that evolved somehow over the course of the series, especially Li and Meilin. And Clow, needless to say, is not one of those.
So instead of writing him as the Clow we all knew, the wise/mature/Yoda-like sorcerer that engineered practically everything in Sakura's world, I went back in time a little. Even men like Clow were boys once, and we weren't born with the wisdom and maturity of adults (not counting Tomoyo Sue). I've theorized before that Eriol has a paternal fondness for Li, perhaps because he reminds him of himself in his/Clow's younger years.
I don't have any evidence for it, of course, but it's true Clow was a half-breed. More than giving him the chance to combine magic, I wonder if his mixed blood made him inclined to retreat from people later on in life. It would explain his reclusive estate and even maybe why he created Yue and Kero.