Disclaimer: I do not own and will never own Card Captor Sakura (though I wish I did) it is owned by CLAMP. This author is merely borrowing so please don't sue me!!!^_^;
Fated Circle: Four Sacred Treasures of Earth
~Part 5
Nadezha: Flight to Hope
Chapter 28
We landed in a grassy clearing within the forest, close to the Spine
Ridge - a long and forbidding mountain range that the Uncharted Forests
away from the more populated areas of Nadezha (I think that's the reason
why it is still uncharted up to now). The Uncharted Forests occupied the
upper left area of Nadezha and there were very few places of clearing that
could be seen from above.
As I looked around, the trees surrounding us were so dense that I couldn't
see anything beyond the trees except blackness.
"Syaoran, where are we going now?" I asked.
He looked around for a bit. "Over there," he pointed, "over those trees
with the white bark.
I looked at the place and saw two white-barked trees standing next to
each other with silver-blue leaves. I didn't know what kind of tree it was
but it was beautiful. "What kind of tree is that?" I asked him.
"That, Sakura, is an Elven tree called Mordrayns or Evelake." Eriol
answered me.
"Yup, that tree is known to have a life longer than any tree!" Tomoyo
added.
Syaoran smiled at me. "I guess that answers your question."
After taking a short break and some stretching exercises, we headed
towards the Evelake trees. "Syaoran, there doesn't seem to be an entrance
anywhere!" I told him.
Syaoran just smiled at me and suddenly placed his hand in between the
trunks. To my surprise, his hand just went in the trunk. He kept on
pushing it inside until his whole left arm was inside the tree. "It's
perfectly safe. These trees mark the secret entrance to the elven kingdom
of Salacia."
"WHAT!!!!" Eriol suddenly exclaimed, "You're taking us there??? You must
be nuts! That's the realm of the sea-elves! We can't go there without
drowning!!!"
"Relax! Mizuki should have received my message by now!" Syaoran told him
calmly.
"You don't tell me that…"
"I did."
Completely clueless about what they were talking about, I merely sighed
and said, "Can we just go? I really can't stand waiting here any longer."
"Eriol, come on!" Syaoran said as he passed through an unseen door and
disappeared.
Taking a big breath of air and closing my eyes, I followed in.
The first thing I felt was that familiar cold wetness that I felt before.
When I opened my eyes I panicked and immediately stopped breathing. Beside
me, I heard a soft chuckle. It was Syaoran.
"Don't worry Sakura," he said, to my complete surprise, "it's perfectly
safe. I asked queen Mizuki to install a spell here so that when we enter,
it'll be like passing through an ordinary door!"
At first, I was a bit scared but then, he looked at me and smiled and
portrayed breathing and bubbles appeared before him as he breathed out.
*okay then, here I go!* and I breathed, expecting me to drown any minute.
Syaoran's words were proven true when I easily breathed in air. "A-amazing!"
"Heh! Nice one huh?"
I nodded.
Next, Tomoyo went in followed by Eriol. He was looking at Syaoran like we
was going to kill him. Just right after Eriol went in, four dolphins
greeted us. They had saddles on their backs and their rich, dark eyes
invited us to ride them.
"WOW!! A real-life dolphin!" I said happily, "I've never seen one in
real-life!"
"Well, this might me an experience of a lifetime Sakura, not only do you
get to see them, but you get to ride them as well!!" Tomoyo told me.
I felt my smile widen as I slowly approached them and touched their skin.
It was a bit slimy but it felt silky nonetheless. "Can we really ride
them?" I asked.
"What do you think those saddles are for?" Syaoran said and he rode on
one of the dolphins and held on the rein that was oddly attached to the
saddle and not the dolphin.
Tomoyo rode on as well and Eriol too. I was the last person to get on.
After I comfortably seated myself, the dolphins took off. At first, they
were going along on fine speed but as time went on, they sped up until I
had to stoop down just to avoid drinking the water in.
When we finally stopped, I had to fix myself up a bit because I was a bit
disoriented. I was about to ask Syaoran a question when I saw the look of
awe in his amber eyes. He was looking at the direction straight ahead of
us and being the curious person that I am, looked to that direction as
well.
It was an awe-inspiring sight. There was a city before us, with small and
big houses made of rock with spiraling roofs made of.....well, something I
didn't know. Beyond the houses was a sand-colored castle with spiraling
towers and decorated with shells that was visible from where we stood
(which was an awful lot away). The roofs of the towers were not spiraling
like the houses, but ridged - like that of a shell.
People floated on the streets and above the houses and dolphin-pulled
carriages and seahorse-pulled carts floated above the houses. But then, if
you looked more carefully, they weren't people at all. They were elves,
with pointed ears and slim bodies. Most of them had bluish-green skin with
webbed hands and feet, but there were some who were flesh colored too… or
blue-green skinned with normal fingers but webbed feet…and so on…
"Welcome to Salacia, Sakura" Syaoran told me.
"This is beautiful!!... and amazing!" I said.
"Wait till you meet the king." Eriol said with a laugh.
"We're going to meet the King and Queen??"
Tomoyo nodded. Then, she urged her dolphin forward. The three of us
followed behind her.
As we passed above the busy streets, many elves stopped to look at us. It
seemed to me that it was the first time they say any people like us at
all.
Up close, you could notice that the sea elves wore a kind of cloth that
was mostly in the hue of blues, greens and browns but sometimes in reds
and yellows as well. There were many people with different jobs, just like
on land. There was even a group of tuna fishes that we passed along, being
urged forward by a boy sea-elf with a small brown hat (that looked like it
was made up of thin roots of plants), a blue shirt and brown shorts with
holding a staff in his left hand. Tomoyo told me that he was a fish-herder,
similar to that of a sheep-herder.
After that short passage, we stopped right before the castle's blue
walls, just beyond a crimson-colored moat, in front of a wooden drawbridge.
"An enspelled moat." Tomoyo said, "Interesting."
"Enspelled moat?" I asked.
"This moat is not made of water, but made of spells itself. I heard that
it will pull anything down once you try to cross it, no matter how high
you are." Syaoran explained.
"Even above water?"
"Even above water." A familiar voice, deep and light at the same time,
said.
I knew that the voice didn't come from Eriol because Eriol's voice was
kind of high and flat voice (well that's what it seemed to me). I looked
before us and that's when I saw that the drawbridge was already down and
there was someone standing on it. This person was a man, with short brown
hair, thin brown eyes and a tall, well-built stature. He was all clad in a
black, tight shirt with silver buttons and long sleeves lined with a silver
leaf design in the edges. He also wore black pants with a single, silver
seaweed design sewed along the side, the part below the knees tucked
inside a black, leather boot with a silver lining on the top edge and he
had white gloves on his hands (which was not webbed!). Finally, he wore a
single band of gold on his forehead with a large white gem that was shaped
like a star in the middle.
"T-to-touya??"
"Hello Sakura, long time no see."
Syaoran put a hand on my shoulder. "Sakura, meet Touya Svaldifari, King
of the Sea-Elves of Salacia.
to be continued
Fated Circle: Four Sacred Treasures of Earth
~Part 5
Nadezha: Flight to Hope
Chapter 28
We landed in a grassy clearing within the forest, close to the Spine
Ridge - a long and forbidding mountain range that the Uncharted Forests
away from the more populated areas of Nadezha (I think that's the reason
why it is still uncharted up to now). The Uncharted Forests occupied the
upper left area of Nadezha and there were very few places of clearing that
could be seen from above.
As I looked around, the trees surrounding us were so dense that I couldn't
see anything beyond the trees except blackness.
"Syaoran, where are we going now?" I asked.
He looked around for a bit. "Over there," he pointed, "over those trees
with the white bark.
I looked at the place and saw two white-barked trees standing next to
each other with silver-blue leaves. I didn't know what kind of tree it was
but it was beautiful. "What kind of tree is that?" I asked him.
"That, Sakura, is an Elven tree called Mordrayns or Evelake." Eriol
answered me.
"Yup, that tree is known to have a life longer than any tree!" Tomoyo
added.
Syaoran smiled at me. "I guess that answers your question."
After taking a short break and some stretching exercises, we headed
towards the Evelake trees. "Syaoran, there doesn't seem to be an entrance
anywhere!" I told him.
Syaoran just smiled at me and suddenly placed his hand in between the
trunks. To my surprise, his hand just went in the trunk. He kept on
pushing it inside until his whole left arm was inside the tree. "It's
perfectly safe. These trees mark the secret entrance to the elven kingdom
of Salacia."
"WHAT!!!!" Eriol suddenly exclaimed, "You're taking us there??? You must
be nuts! That's the realm of the sea-elves! We can't go there without
drowning!!!"
"Relax! Mizuki should have received my message by now!" Syaoran told him
calmly.
"You don't tell me that…"
"I did."
Completely clueless about what they were talking about, I merely sighed
and said, "Can we just go? I really can't stand waiting here any longer."
"Eriol, come on!" Syaoran said as he passed through an unseen door and
disappeared.
Taking a big breath of air and closing my eyes, I followed in.
The first thing I felt was that familiar cold wetness that I felt before.
When I opened my eyes I panicked and immediately stopped breathing. Beside
me, I heard a soft chuckle. It was Syaoran.
"Don't worry Sakura," he said, to my complete surprise, "it's perfectly
safe. I asked queen Mizuki to install a spell here so that when we enter,
it'll be like passing through an ordinary door!"
At first, I was a bit scared but then, he looked at me and smiled and
portrayed breathing and bubbles appeared before him as he breathed out.
*okay then, here I go!* and I breathed, expecting me to drown any minute.
Syaoran's words were proven true when I easily breathed in air. "A-amazing!"
"Heh! Nice one huh?"
I nodded.
Next, Tomoyo went in followed by Eriol. He was looking at Syaoran like we
was going to kill him. Just right after Eriol went in, four dolphins
greeted us. They had saddles on their backs and their rich, dark eyes
invited us to ride them.
"WOW!! A real-life dolphin!" I said happily, "I've never seen one in
real-life!"
"Well, this might me an experience of a lifetime Sakura, not only do you
get to see them, but you get to ride them as well!!" Tomoyo told me.
I felt my smile widen as I slowly approached them and touched their skin.
It was a bit slimy but it felt silky nonetheless. "Can we really ride
them?" I asked.
"What do you think those saddles are for?" Syaoran said and he rode on
one of the dolphins and held on the rein that was oddly attached to the
saddle and not the dolphin.
Tomoyo rode on as well and Eriol too. I was the last person to get on.
After I comfortably seated myself, the dolphins took off. At first, they
were going along on fine speed but as time went on, they sped up until I
had to stoop down just to avoid drinking the water in.
When we finally stopped, I had to fix myself up a bit because I was a bit
disoriented. I was about to ask Syaoran a question when I saw the look of
awe in his amber eyes. He was looking at the direction straight ahead of
us and being the curious person that I am, looked to that direction as
well.
It was an awe-inspiring sight. There was a city before us, with small and
big houses made of rock with spiraling roofs made of.....well, something I
didn't know. Beyond the houses was a sand-colored castle with spiraling
towers and decorated with shells that was visible from where we stood
(which was an awful lot away). The roofs of the towers were not spiraling
like the houses, but ridged - like that of a shell.
People floated on the streets and above the houses and dolphin-pulled
carriages and seahorse-pulled carts floated above the houses. But then, if
you looked more carefully, they weren't people at all. They were elves,
with pointed ears and slim bodies. Most of them had bluish-green skin with
webbed hands and feet, but there were some who were flesh colored too… or
blue-green skinned with normal fingers but webbed feet…and so on…
"Welcome to Salacia, Sakura" Syaoran told me.
"This is beautiful!!... and amazing!" I said.
"Wait till you meet the king." Eriol said with a laugh.
"We're going to meet the King and Queen??"
Tomoyo nodded. Then, she urged her dolphin forward. The three of us
followed behind her.
As we passed above the busy streets, many elves stopped to look at us. It
seemed to me that it was the first time they say any people like us at
all.
Up close, you could notice that the sea elves wore a kind of cloth that
was mostly in the hue of blues, greens and browns but sometimes in reds
and yellows as well. There were many people with different jobs, just like
on land. There was even a group of tuna fishes that we passed along, being
urged forward by a boy sea-elf with a small brown hat (that looked like it
was made up of thin roots of plants), a blue shirt and brown shorts with
holding a staff in his left hand. Tomoyo told me that he was a fish-herder,
similar to that of a sheep-herder.
After that short passage, we stopped right before the castle's blue
walls, just beyond a crimson-colored moat, in front of a wooden drawbridge.
"An enspelled moat." Tomoyo said, "Interesting."
"Enspelled moat?" I asked.
"This moat is not made of water, but made of spells itself. I heard that
it will pull anything down once you try to cross it, no matter how high
you are." Syaoran explained.
"Even above water?"
"Even above water." A familiar voice, deep and light at the same time,
said.
I knew that the voice didn't come from Eriol because Eriol's voice was
kind of high and flat voice (well that's what it seemed to me). I looked
before us and that's when I saw that the drawbridge was already down and
there was someone standing on it. This person was a man, with short brown
hair, thin brown eyes and a tall, well-built stature. He was all clad in a
black, tight shirt with silver buttons and long sleeves lined with a silver
leaf design in the edges. He also wore black pants with a single, silver
seaweed design sewed along the side, the part below the knees tucked
inside a black, leather boot with a silver lining on the top edge and he
had white gloves on his hands (which was not webbed!). Finally, he wore a
single band of gold on his forehead with a large white gem that was shaped
like a star in the middle.
"T-to-touya??"
"Hello Sakura, long time no see."
Syaoran put a hand on my shoulder. "Sakura, meet Touya Svaldifari, King
of the Sea-Elves of Salacia.
to be continued