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Chapter Rating: PG-- very slight language
Overall Rating: PG-13 for some blood and language.
AN: I don't own Card Captor Sakura, nor do I particularly want it. It's much better off in the hands of CLAMP anyway. Band-Aids belong to Johnson & Johnson... I think. All the characteristics of the Folk came from The Moorchild. Don't sue; I have a hard enough time mooching bus money off my parents. God only knows how I'd get my hands on settlement money.
Side note: In Japan, the school week takes all of Monday through Friday, then until noon on Saturday. They get Sunday off.
Summary: Tomoyo hasn't been herself lately. Around blood, she grows dizzy and drawn to it, sometimes even regressing into hallucinations. She has the constant feeling that someone is following her. She's generally fatigued and hungry-- but for something she cannot name...
Warnings: A very short installment. Please don't flame.
"It's like I'm paranoid looking over my back
It's like a whirlwind inside of my head"
--Linkin Park, Papercut
"... can anyone tell me why the blood would not come out?"
Tomoyo sat at her desk, brooding, while the class discussed Macbeth. Twirling a lock of hair around her finger, she turned a page in her copy with her free hand, and winced at the sharp pain in the index finger. Turning it over, she examined the cut-- small, but bloody. She raised it to her mouth and licked it clean, glancing briefly out the window. No one there. Strange... she could have sworn there was someone.
"It's symbolism. By washing away the blood, she was washing away her guilt, and because of her guilt she thought the blood remained on her hands."
She glanced at the clock, wondering when the teacher would stop looking pointedly at her whenever he referred to blood... he seemed to think she was Satanic. God only knew why. And with five more days left in the school week, God also knew how she would tolerate it every day.
Everyone seemed to be either avoiding or purposely seeking her out today. She had caught Syaoran eyeing her suspiciously more than once; to add to that, he wouldn't let Sakura near her. He would block her line of sight however possible whenever she came along. Overprotective, impatient, well-meaning... just not towards me. Sakura was trying to find her, no thanks to Syaoran, but she was the last person Tomoyo wanted to talk to at the moment. She had more pressing things to worry about.
For one, when Rika had skinned her knee in gym, Tomoyo had become dizzy, weak and delusional. She had been forced to sit down and turn away from the sight. Even then, a strange, metallic smell assaulted her senses. What troubled her even more was its familiarity-- she could smell it from thirty feet away, when her friends claimed they smelled nothing. Jogging past the junior high students on her warm-up lap, it had been unbearably strong; fortunately, she had the strength to get away. The gym teacher had looked surprised to see her there so early, but said nothing.
She turned restlessly between the sheets, uncomfortable in her waterbed. Finding a warm spot, she settled briefly, staring blankly at the curtains-- until a shadow darkened them. She scrambled out of bed, throwing on a bathrobe and tiptoeing to the window, throwing open the sheers in one rapid movement.
No one. Looking around, she saw nothing out of the ordinary; just the usual tranquil street bathed in flickering lamplight. A rustling tree over there-- and there, the grass was flattened-- but she couldn't go out and investigate now. Who knew what might be waiting for her? Sighing disappointedly, she turned and shuffled back to bed, conscious of someone's eyes burning holes in her back.
Out of the shadows came a slight figure bearing a crude wooden pipe. Its eyes were olive green; flaming red spots of excitement stood out against its pale cheeks. A sharp nose, small mouth, and thin, dark brows completed the picture, all framed by thick black hair unevenly streaked with gold, cut raggedly near the chin.
Lekka was elvish; she was human; she was a demon. Neither one thing nor yet quite t'other. She was the offspring of a human, her father, and an elf, or as her mother called herself, one of the Folk. Her mother, purebred Folk born and raised, but with a streak of humanity in her nonetheless, had left them to be with her father. Then, when Lekka was three, she had been stolen away from her home in the Irish countryside, given a name, and become a slave to them, supposedly to be returned to her world when her mother returned to the Folk. Her name wasn't even really a name, just the word for "stolen." They had stolen her to persuade her mother to come back, and eventually Jiqua'nkkn had; if not for homesickness, then for her child.
The Folk weren't a people of their word.
They had kept Lekka there, under her false name, away from either parent, completely lost to her world. One day, when she was twelve, they made a mistake; they sent her to work in the nursery, where the ointment used to counteract the glamourie-- an illusion the Folk put to work to deceive humans into staying-- was kept. She had realized what it was, put on liberal amounts, and been able to escape.
Three years later, she got herself bitten. By a vampire, no less.
Lekka moved silently toward the girl's bedroom window, this time careful to hide her shadow. Peeking noiselessly through the sheers, she saw her victim's sleeping face contorted with sadness-- and decided to leave for the night.
The poor girl was being torn apart.
Tomoyo stumbled through the after-school crowd, practically carried by it, clutching her bag to her chest. Theft was all too common for tenth-graders at Tomoeda High.
"Hey! Tomoyo!"
Syaoran's voice. She kept her head down and stumbled faster. Perhaps he would take her for someone else. She had never walked like this in her life. She felt like a pathetic loser-- maybe because she was trying to look like one.
Too late. He was walking alongside her, slightly out of breath, questioning her in a low voice.
"What's wrong with you? Are you sick or something?" She ignored him, speeding up until she was almost jogging. He was running to keep up.
"Tomoyo? Sakura-chan's been worried. What's wrong?" His voice was slightly louder now. She blinked back a tear, raising her head, and looked straight at him without pausing. She gave a slight shake of her head and started jogging.
"God, Tomoyo, don't you know what's wrong?!" His voice was loud enough to silence the people around them, and she suddenly found herself the focus of thirty or more pairs of eyes. It was too much. She ran, managing to knock a few people out of the way, half-blinded by tears.
Sakura-chan's been worried... and I can't tell her anything...
Looking back, she saw that Sakura had caught up with him, and was apparently giving him a good scolding, a rarity for her timid friend. She strained to hear them through violent sobs.
"Look at her-- you upset Tomoyo-chan, and she's got enough on her plate as it is! Leave her alone!"
She hiccupped, sniffed, and looked back again. Syaoran looked as if he was receiving a good dressing-down. Sakura was still standing near him, head tilted up to look at him, brows furrowed angrily as she rebuked him. She was too good to her sometimes...
Sobs suddenly redoubled, Tomoyo fled the scene. Footsteps, voices, a presence, echoing in her mind, driving her mad with frustration...
Late afternoon. The sun shone lazily through the blinds in the dining room, casting long, foreboding shadows. Her mother's tea scented the air. This was the one place where she felt sane again.
She held the onion in place with one hand, reaching for the cleaver with the other. Positioning the knife just above the onion's outer edge, she sliced it firmly, with a satisfying schiik. Tears pooled in her eyes, already stinging from the fumes. She repeated the action, hands shaking sporadically. Hunger rumbled in her stomach, although she had eaten an hour ago.
"Oww!"
She raised the finger to eye level, examining the injury. It looked as if some skin had been chopped off, not just the usual slice. A tiny scar marked where the same finger had suffered from a papercut just two days ago. She thrust the finger into her mouth, hoping saliva would lessen the pain, and startled to find that the blood soothed her hunger.
"Tomoyo-chan? What are you making?"
Mumbling the words around her finger, she replied, "Spaghetti, Mom. With onions and meatballs."
"Sounds good-- did you hurt yourself?" Sonomi had just entered the kitchen. Nodding, Tomoyo released it and held it out. Her mother glanced over it, fingers halfway to the box of Band-Aids.
"It doesn't look so bad... just leave it alone until it heals. You can wash it if you want to. Now, have you cooked the meatballs yet?"
"No. Do you want to?"
"I'll take care of them," Sonomi assured her, lifting the cover of the sauce."Mmm... that smells good! We're having dinner at home tonight!"
The smaller girl managed a watery grin. Her mother never found time to cook. Suddenly finding time meant she cared more about her daughter than was evident. Now Tomoyo knew everything would be all right.
Tomoyo flopped into bed, her silk nightgown rustling in complaint. She noticed the sliver of moonlight peeking through the sheers-- and decided to leave them that way, despite the constant presence in her head persuading her otherwise.
Perhaps she could learn something from the spy.