DISCLAIMER: I don't own any CCS characters, they belong to CLAMP or (very unfortunately) Nelvana, so don't sue me.




Snow, Dreams, and Green Fire




Syaoran threw a passing glance into the hallway, but stopped to stare at what he saw - Yue and Kero in huge parkas. "You two look absolutely ridiculous."

"I wouldn't be laughing Syaoran," Nakuru admonished. "You'll be stuffed into one of these soon enough," was the ominous explination.

"Yue....Kero!" he heard a voice call. "If you run away right now, you'll freeze later!" For a minute, he thought it was Sakura, then he thought it was Tomoyo, when he finally realized, it was Rika. Since when had she sounded like Sakura and Tomoyo?

"Was that Syaoran? Nakuru, will you go get him?" Syaoran heard Rika calling out again in a muffled voice. Syaoran groaned and walked over to where Rika and Nakuru were. He poked his head into the room Yue and Kero had entered moments before.

Rika gestured at Nakuru and at a pile of winter clothes. Nakuru explained what he needed to do, as Rika had a mouth full of pins to think about. "Find on that kind of fits you. It's better if it's a little bigger, so we can fix it more easily," Nakuru ended with a smirk on her face.

"You're enjoying making us suffer aren't you?" Syaoran accused, walking over to the parkas. "What's all this for anyway?"

"Number one: who wouldn't enjoy watching everyone sweating like pigs in those silly looking things? And number two: Rika said that the next place we're going is going to be rather cold....I'd listen if I were you."

Syaoran mumbled a strangled sounding answer; he was drowning inside a fur coat two times too large for him. Nakuru pulled it off him and handed him another one. "As long as there's no hidden cameras anywhere in here..." Syaoran said, glancing around suspiciously. "I know Rika wouldn't do that, but you would."

"Puh-lez, Syaoran. It gets less fun when everyone has to do it. I do, however, have this!" she cried, whipping out a camera and taking a picture of Syaoran in a ridiculous looking coat.

"Acccckkkkk! YOU!!!"

"Syaoran!!" Rika yelled. "Stand still. You know, you're the last one. If you don't stand still, I might "accidentally" prick you," she threatened.

Syaoran sighed. After a little while, he decided to try to make conversation. "You know, Tomo-"

"I know, I know," Rika sniffled a little. "Tomoyo used to make all the clothes you ever needed, and she had all your measurements memorized and everything. I know." Rika stopped, her head bent and her eyes sheilded by her bangs.

"Are you crying? I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry. Is everything alright?"

"Yes, I mean no." Rika moaned. "Every time you guys think of something that's sad, I get even sadder," she wailed, succumbing to a new wave of sobs. "I miss Tomoyo and Chiharu and Naoko and Takashi." Rika sniffed again. "And most of all I miss Yoshiyuki!" After a few more minutes of crying, she said, "I just want this whole thing to be over with!" and she accidently stabbed Syaoran with a pin. "Oops. I'm so sorry," Rika dropped all her pins and left.

"You'd better stay there or else," Nakuru threatened before she ran after Rika. Syaoran sighed. He really hadn't meant to make her cry.

Sakura, he called out with his mind. Could you come and help me for a second?

Sakura came in the room and looked around. "Where's Rika?"

"She had a small emotional break down. I don't think we should disturb her for a while."

She immediately knew what Syaoran was asking her to do - finish what Rika had left behind. "Well, dear, you know I'm not good at sewing, but I'll do my best."

Meanwhile, Rika had locked herself in her room, leaving a forlorn Nakuru outside, wondering if she would ever be let in. Soon, however, Rika came out of her own accord. "I'm sorry, Nakuru. I really didn't meant to do that. It was just, everyone was so sad..." her voice trailed off as she walked towards the direction of where she had left Syaoran. "I have to go apologize to him too."

Nakuru followed behind Rika, wondering if her little friend were alright. She had not seen Rika so phased out since when they saw the tree and they started realizing what Rika might be able to do. In truth, Rika's state worried Nakuru a lot. According to Sakura, Rika had always been sensetive, but starting on this trip, she seemed to have gotten even more sensetive to everyone's feelings. Eriol called it empathy.

Rika stopped abruptly outside the room without looking in. "Sakura's in there," she said to Nakuru, smiling contently, "Can't you just feel the love coming from the room?" She nudged Nakuru, "Go peek and see what they're doing," she smirked.

Nakuru poked her head in and came back out giggling. "They're so cute together. Actually, they're talking they looked like they were about to kiss."
Rika sighed, "Love is such a beautiful thing. I think we should bother them before they get out of hand."

They knocked and stuck their heads in. "Cuuuuuuuuute," they both sighed at the same time. Sakura and Syaoran parted quickly. He cleared his throat.

"Feeling better Rika?"

"Oh yes. I wanted to apologize and I can finish the adjustments now."

"We weren't sure how you were, so I finished it for you," Sakura admitted.

"Wow, thanks Sakura. I guess that means we can rest until when ever we get there."

"There was one more thing actually. I think Eriol said we should all find out about what to expect when we get there," Sakura reminded Rika.

"Snow. Lots and lots of snow." Rika flopped down on a pile of pillows and sighed. She had learned to control the things she thought about, but still, there were times when random bits of information would inturrupt her conversations or thoughts. Some times, she would "remember" information that she couldn't attatch to a place. Most of the time though, the information she did remember was "colored" so she could match the thought with the key, but some of the time, she'd remember things that didn't have a color attatched.

It was then that Rika realized how soft the pillows were, how tired she was and how warm the room was. As she drifted off to sleep, forgetting where she was, an other-worldly voice called to her. Something she could see, yet not see beckoned to her, and brought her to a window. Rika looked out and saw a white landscape. There were little dots, like ants, moving below her. She tried to call out to ask to be shown who they were, but she was voiceless in her dream. Then came the green fire. It came and then left with one of the little dots. Rika screamed a voiceless scream, begging for someone to hear her, pleading with eyes to let her see what had happened.

There was no one there though. Now she was all alone in a dark world. And like the day everything disappeared, she was glowing, but this time, she was glowing a briliant white. Beams of light shot through her toes and fingers and the ends of her hair. Opposite her...she couldn't see opposite her, but she could feel coldness, and the darkness, trying to take all her light. And as the dark crept closer and closer, she felt something terrible happening to her, but she couldn't name it. She was feeling the suffering of a hundred, no, a thousand people dying....

Sakura and Syaoran watched Rika fall asleep and then left, so they wouldn't disturb her. She slept for hours peacefully. No one bothered her, no one tried to wake her up. Then Yue walked in. Not knowing that Rika was still sleeping, he had come to the room for a quite retreat from his yellow counterpart. He turned on the lights and his eyes scanned the room. There, in a pile of coushins, looking far smaller than she really was, Rika lay curled up in the fetal position. He moved closer, out of curiosity. There was blood on her lip and tears on her cheek.

The sight bothered Yue. He wasn't sure what to do. If this was his mistress, he'd wake her up and ask what was wrong, but as of yet, he had not grown comfortable with his mistress' friend, Rika, and wasn't sure if waking her up and asking what was wrong would be acceptable. Yue shifted indecisively. Rika looked upset, but what was he to do? Part of him wanted to fetch Sakura, but the other half wondered if it would be better to wake her up first. He extended his hand slowly, as if to wake her, but it hovered in midair. What if waking her himself wasn't the right thing to do? Yue sighed. His hand moved to shake her shoulder.

Rika whimpered a little and bit her already bleeding lip. Yue, noticing that she was hurting herself again, shook her harder. Rika opened her eyes slowly. She tasted the blood in her mouth and rolled her tongue around to see where the blood was coming from. She frowned a little, noting that she had bit herself on the inside of one of her cheeks and multiple times on her lip. Then she saw Yue standing over her, his expression fluttering between worry and indifference. Rika tried to smile, but couldn't. Somehow, this wasn't the time to smile.

She pushed herself up with her left hand and winced in pain. She looked and saw that her hand was clenched tightly into a fist. Rika opened the fist slowly and cried out softly; in the palm of her hand were four purple/red cresent moons her nails had dug. She closed her open hand slightly and winced again in pain. "Yue, one of us..." Rika stopped. Seconds ago, her dream had been so clear, and at the forefront of her thoughts, but now...now it was like a fire smothered by a blanket; she knew there was something she should be remembering, but there simply wasn't anything to be remembered.

"One of us-?" promted Yue.

Rika blinked and looked up. "I can't...I can't remember. I can't remember."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Well, I guess it's a good thing we all sat through the fittings for these," Nakuru said, refering to the heavy winter garb they were all now wearing. They had ended up close to the edge of a forest. In one direction, all that was visible was a bleak snowscape. In another direction, the dark shadows of a forest.

"I have never seen this much snow in my life," Eriol commented. The snow reached up to his knees when they first landed. Sakura started to use the Firey card to melt the snow when they realized that the snow was on top of several feet of ice, so she started over and used the Power card to compact the snow. They were going to go into the forest and search for a path which would lead them to the key they were looking for.

"I'm pretty sure we can just go in a straight line," Rika said out loud to no one in particular. Ever since that day Yue had woken her up, she had seemed to be constantly preoccupied. In truth, she was trying to remember what she had dreamt about that had caused her so much pain in her sleep, but she couldn't. Try as she might, nothing worked.

Syaoran looked around. Using his magic, he didn't sink into the snow, but stood on top of it. Rika was the only one who couldn't use magic to lift herself, but they had all decided to walk anyway. Syaoran and Yue were the only two who were not in the snow. They were both "top-side" acting as lookouts. Yue was flying above them, circling.

A green flash of light streaked past Yue and Syaoran and towards Sakura and Rika. "Sobek," Sakura hissed.

Rika stood paralyzed. She knew that one of them was going to be taken away. This was what her dream was about. This was what she was supposed to be worrying about. She wanted to shout out a warning. "He-" she started, but her voice disappeared. Rika was no longer in control of her own body. She was only watching through her eyes as someone else controlled her movements.

Syaoran and Yue jumped in to help defend against Sobek. It was frightening to think that all of them were engaged in fighting one person, if you could even call Sobek a person. Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon went to Eriol. "No, Rika needs you all more than I do. Go help her," he ordered while manipulating the weather around Sobek's person.

Syaoran was getting ready to unleash lightning while Yue and Nakuru shot crystals into the condensed storm now swirling around Sobek. While they couldn't see Sobek very clearly through the storm, they could watch the progress of Sobek's personal weather annomoly. At the same time, Sakura whispered to a card in her hand, "Illusion, distract Sobek by making him see what he wants."

Sobek, however, wasn't so easily distracted. He slowly made his way through the storm to where he sensed Rika to be. The weather and the crystals and the lightning were blinding him, but he could rely on his reptilian side to find what he wanted. Spinel Sun and Kero were standing by Sakura and Rika, ready to fire at Sobek if they had to. "Wait," Rika said softly. "Kero, Suppi, back off. Sakura try the Illusion again."

She did, but this time, Sobek saw his goal, the Child of Dark, moving farther away. He could see so clearly now for some reason. Now he was moving faster, Eriol intensified the storm and Syaoran kept using his lightning. Yue had switched to shooting arrows, while Nakuru kept using the crystals. None of these attacks though, seemed to hurt Sobek very much. He just kept moving while the lightning, arrows, and crystals all seemed to bounce off him.

Frusterated, Sobek tried to run towards the Child of Dark. He could see so clearly where she was. He bumped into someone. The storm had now engulfed Rika and Sakura. Syaoran yelled for Yue and Nakuru to stop so they wouldn't hurt either. Sobek looked down and saw the Child of Dark. He grabbed her and disappeared in a flash of green light. She kicked and screamed, but he silenced her with a blow.

Eriol let the storm die down. Nakuru's eyes widened, she couldn't breath, her hand flew to her mouth, clamping it shut, trying to hold in a scream; Syaoran let out a groan and he fell to the ground, his hands on his head and his body shaking; Yue froze, his mouth open, and slowly slumped to the earth; Eriol turned away, unable to hold back tears; Spinel sun and Kero transformed into their earthly forms their energy drained from them by shock.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sobek paced back and forth. He clearly had the Child of Dark. There was no way she wasn't it. He had gone and checked too many times for him to think she was anyone else. He had hit her, but only hard enough to keep her still, and yet she remained unconcious for hours, so he found a doctor. The doctor told him that she would wake up soon, so Sobek had her moved to his study. The servants placed her in a chair and using magic, Sobek bound her to the chair. Her breathing speed up and she shifted a little. She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands and feet, trying to move them.

Sobek lounged back in his chair, his bauble floating precariously behind him. "You know, I've gone through a lot of trouble to bring you here," he paused. "Why don't you look at me when I speak to you?" he demanded.

"What did you do with my friends?" she demanded, deliberately keeping her head lowered.

"Your friends," he sneered, "are left to die. They'll drift from planet to planet, never finding what they want because now I have you." Sobek got up slowly and moved to her side. "Besides you're more valuable to me than you will ever be to them."

He grabbed her face by her chin and forced her to look at him. Sobek saw everything differently now. This was not the Child of Dark. The Child of Dark did not have green eyes.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The quest to bring back their world has brought them all closer together. The mutual sense of loss sealed their friendship. The hope that was still burning, burning, but ever dimmer. Always ever shrinking.

"Please, please. No matter how bad things get, how different I become. Please, remind me of the past. Please, remind me. Maybe....maybe it won't get that bad, but you have to promise me...please don't let me forget. Help me change who I'm becoming."



END OF PART 1