Author's Notes: I know that it's a little extreme the way Sakura goes from acting one way to another, but remember she is confused right now.
Despite how it ends up sounding, they are both concerned about their son the WHOLE time. I also want to apologize for the formatting. I lost my ability to make .doc when I got my new computer, so I'm stuck with .html. Kentaro is a name I stole from Love Hina, so
credits apply there. Mara was also stolen from OMG, so credits there too. They are not those people though. CCS belongs to CLAMP, and
there's no way for me to argue. Always review and tell me what you think! Do try, when Black Rose gets up her fics, to separate us. I am only
one half of Moonlight Priestess. As always, hope you enjoy! -Anrui
The wind had risen and Sakura tried to use her arms to shield her face from it. Snow littered the air making it hard to see. "Syaoran!" she cried getting snow in her mouth.
A hand grabbed hers, and she heard a voice shout, "We need to take shelter. There's supposed to be a cave near here." They wandered through the snow drifts and finally reached a solid wall. Syaoran followed it until they stumbled into an opening.
The cave was large and in the distance they could occasionally hear water dropping. Sakura shivered, her clothing soaked with the melting snow. Syaoran moved towards her and took off the outer layers. "We need to get you out of these," he said, concentrating undoing the wet buttons.
She laid a hand on his chest, "Aren't you cold?" He shook his head, trying to stop his shaking. She took off the outer layer of his clothes, wondering if any of them were dry. They undressed each other together, hands and arms tangling.
Finally, he took her hands and placed them away from him. She opened her mouth as if to ask what, and he blushed. His breathing was heavy, "I think I should finish from here."
Sakura looked at him and bit her lip. Finally, she got down to the last layer of her clothing which was the only part of her clothing that was completely dry. She put her hair up like she did every night, and stood turning to him. He stopped with the shirt he was messing with and looked up at her. "I am ready if the emperor is willing" Sakura said, for the first time giving her consent. Syaoran got up and met her ready mouth, sharing what little warmth they had left.
-----
T'ien sat in the little room staring at nothing. Little light found him, the only window being the one high up on the ceiling. He sucked on his thumb, a habit he knew his mother would have scolded him for, and lay down on the small, hard mattress.
The little emperor, as the pretty ladies that waited on him had dubbed him, imagined that he was home with his mommy and daddy. When he pictured them, they were together and speaking. They didn't usually speak to each other, but he found comfort in his imaginings.
His mind moved on to the Japanese folktale his mother had told him of the beautiful Princess Kaguya, who had come to an old couple from the moon. She could not be seen, and he pretended that he was in the small room so that he could not be seen.
The evil man who had brought him here rested in the boy's thoughts. He had smelled bad, T'ien remembered wrinkling his nose. T'ien got up from the bed and pounded on the door, "I want to go home!" Silence rewarded him from the other side, and the young prince sat down teary eyed.
Finally, he heard footsteps sound outside. His heart fell though as the evil man opened the door and peered into the room. "Do you know your father would trade anything for you?" he asked T'ien.
T'ien nodded, his daddy told him that all the time. "He loves me," he told the man pointedly.
The man snickered, "I suppose he does love you, and probably your dear mommy, too... though I've heard she hates him somewhat fiercely."
T'ien's eyes flared, "She does not!"
"So confident, are we? Tell me then, does your mommy ever smile at your daddy?"
His voice was quiet, "No."
"Has she ever said she loves him?"
"No."
He rested his fingertips on the boy's head, "Then why are you so convinced?" T'ien sat down as he could come up with no answer. Akuma laughed and left the little boy to follow that thought line.
-----
Mara hands were balled into fists at her side, "How dare he do this to us!"
Kentaro was studying the lock intently, "Evil is as evil does... I suppose." She twisted some of the loose string from her sleeve lost in some obscure contemplation.
"If I ever get out of here, I'm going to get back at that son of a..."
Kentaro cut her off, "You really do need to control your language."
"I actually feel sorry for the little brat being stuck in here..." she looked at the door, "It's really no place for a kid."
Kentaro put comforting arms around her, "The emperor won't let him stay here for long."
She sighed, "I guess you're right." A rat peeped out from a hole in the wall, and Mara screamed. "Get that dirty thing away from me!" It had already run form the commotion and was back in its hole.
Outside a guard laughed at her plight. He stopped as she slammed her fist into the door. "You try facing a disease ridden rodent!" she screamed at his retreating back.
Kentaro was messing with some wire on the floor. "Aha!" he exclaimed, holding up his creation.
"What is it?" Mara asked quietly.
"A lock pick."
She laughed, "You expect to tell me that is a lock pick? Seriously, Kentaro..."
"Well I can't show you yet because it's a bad time to escape!" He was looking really annoyed.
"Fine, fine. It's a lock pick. Whatever. I just want to get out of here, and I don't care if it's a little piece of wire or the emperor himself."
-----
Syaoran woke to intense cold and a wall of white. He got up, turned around, and was relieved to see the cave on the other side of him. Sakura was already awake and sat watching him. "The clothes are not wearable," she told him pointing to the clothes that had been wet last night. Tiny ice crystals had formed on the top of them. "And," she continued on, "You dropped the rest of your stuff out there." Sakura pointed to the white wall of snow.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" he asked, wondering why she sounded so amused with the situation.
Sakura lay back down and stared at the ceiling, "Oh, I don't know..." Syaoran wished she would just get it over with.
"What?" She lay still stubbornly, and he sat down beside her. "Come on, Sakura. This is a serious matter."
"And I'm thinking about it seriously." Syaoran had to give it to her... she was a great actress. "Calm down, we're going to be stuck here for awhile."
He laid down beside her, "Do you ever realize how beautiful you are?"
Sakura blushed slightly, "I'm not that great, and... flattery will get you nowhere."
"Then why are you so moved by it?"
"I'm not... it's just strange..." she continued staring at the ceiling. "I know you've said you love me, but it always felt so... automatic. After you spend so long with a person, you always become at least somewhat attached... It's different when you say something like that. In the time that I've known you, you rarely do, and it's touching when you say it as if it were a reverie."
"Have you ever let anyone close to you?" Syaoran asked, propping himself up on his arm.
Sakura squinted, "I don't really remember much of before..." She shook her head, "I don't really want to talk about it."
"Sakura?" he asked sitting up to look at her.
"Yes?"
"What are we going to do about my attire?"
She laughed, "You're going to have to wear my robes!" He groaned.
-----
Akuma strolled along his hall, chuckling to himself. People were so easily manipulated. He wondered how easily he could have just built an army for a rebellion, but rebellions were so messy.
He would have liked to meet two such people as the emperor and his concubine. Not many women had the will power to keep their sanity under such conditions. His own great-aunt had been taken by an emperor, only to plunge herself from a ledge. She must have quite a presence to her... Anyways, the royalty always had managed to push their children past the point where they could accurately comprehend normal people. That was his advantage, he had not been raised by the pleasures of whatever he desired.
Akuma's life had definitely not been easily. His mother had not known his father's name and was very poor herself. He had worked since childhood just to pay for the things that his mother wanted... as if it were his fault she had been so easily seduced.
The palace loomed in his mind, full of the luxuries that were rightful his. He deserved them! They were fated to be his by his early demises...
He heard the brat yelling again from the little room down the hall. Next time he made any noise, Akuma swore he'd choke him. Covering his ears, he made his way quickly from the hall and went into his bedroom. Laying down in the silence, his head throbbing he decided that there was no harm in a nap.
When will the palace reply to my letter, he wondered drowsily, I expected to have it all over with by now...
-----
Sakura and Syaoran made their way out of the cave when the sunlight was strong enough. "You look good in that," she complimented lightly. He turned red and tried to cover himself better with the little blanket they had packed.
"My mother did want a little girl," he frowned as he told it, unconscious pulling the blanket tighter.
"Did you... want a little girl?" she asked it quietly.
"I was too shocked the whole time to really think about it. It's hard to adjust to being a father, and thinking about you made the whole situation overwhelming. Still, when I held him for the first time... I don't think I could have been happier..." he stopped for a minute, "Though it would be nice to have a little girl." He touched her face softly, "One that looks just like you."
"You don't have to be so nice. You are the emperor, and I'm... I'm just another woman, despite what you say," she sighed, "And I've seen women that are prettier. And ones that are nicer. No one really thinks of me that way... I thought that you just wanted me because you couldn't have me before. It makes it so hard when you keep saying all of this like you really mean it." Sakura wiped the tears from her eyes.
Syaoran kissed her and then looked at her intensely, "How can you say that?" He leaned close to her ear and whispered, "I wanted you from the moment I saw you."
"The last thing I heard about my parents was the man on the boat to China. They had sent me away, and it hurt."
He hugged her, "They were crazy if they purposely let you go." Sakura hugged him back and then started walking.
They continued on, and Syaoran pointed at something in the distance, "Look, there it is!"
The fortress stood in front of them like a small, burned mountain. The sunlight gleamed off it, making it look all the more unnatural. Sakura shivered, "I can't bear to think of our son in there." She followed him as they wandered around the building.
"There should be a door somewhere..." he touched the wall, and it crumbled away. Syaoran looked wonderingly at Sakura.
Sakura shrugged, "It must be poor structuring." Inside the opening stood a dark hallway full of door with huge locks on them. "This must be the dungeon," she assumed meekly. Their steps echoed eerily, and they both froze as they heard a voice.
"Hey, hey. Over here," a woman beckoned from behind a door. "Let us out. We'll help you with your son."
Syaoran looked at her suspiciously, "How do you know what we're after?"
She sighed, "Okay, I took the kid. Sorry... but I really do want to make up for it. Not to mention get even..."
Kentaro came to the bars, "I couldn't unlock the door."
They regarded the couple for a second. "They are in his dungeon," she pointed out.
Syaoran nodded, "They look too shallow to sit in a cell to simply trap us."
Mara grabbed the bars, "What's that supposed to mean!"
"You did kidnap our son!"
"You should've watched the kid more!" she shouted back.
"Yeah," Kentaro added, "We hardly ever pull any of our schemes off..." Mara hit him on the head.
Syaoran took out his sword while they were arguing, and Mara yelped as the lock was hacked off the door. "Now you're going to help us free our son!"
"Of course," Mara replied easily, "...this is revenge."