DISCLAIMER: I don't own any CCS characters, they belong to CLAMP.
a/n: *Fanfare* finally, the hopefully long awaited chapter 5! I was suffering from writers block and then ff.net said we couldn't update. There's good news though, during that week authors couldn't update, I cranked out three chapters, so unless my parents decide to be spontaneous and take us on a vacation, look for rather frequent updates...I'm thinking one a week...more if you and me are lucky. ^-^v I'm trying to make Syaoran sound less girly ^^...but I wouldn't be expecting sudden miracles...after all, I'm just a girl too
My sisters simple shed gallons and gallons of tears over my departure. My mother shed none. But that doesn't mean she wasn't hurting. I think that even though she didn't want me to leave, she knew that if I saw her cry, I would insist on staying. And I would have.
I think my distaste for prolonged farewells stems from that point in my life. After you're said "good-bye" and "I'll miss you" once, isn't that enough?
The journey to the Realms of the Gods wasn't a journey. It was like disappearing and reappearing instantaneously; I had barely lost sight of my mother when I saw Kaho. The quick trip left me a little nauseated, and the change in scenery didn't really sink in for a few hours.
"Hello Syaoran. Remember me?" Kaho greeted. "This is Eriol," she said pulling forward a smiling, dark-haired man, her husband.
"Of course I remember you," I shook both their hands.
"I guess you'll be staying with us for a while," Eriol smiled some more, "there's another boy we're helping adjust too, but he's not here yet. So we can all be friends right?" He didn't stop smiling. On any other person, that smile would have been scary, irritating, and screaming "lock-me-up-in-a-mental-hospital", but on Eriol, it looked good, comforting, rather.
Kaiba didn't come until the next day. He was a little boy of sixteen. I could tell he still had a lot of growing to do as he was in his awkward stage. I think he broke more dishes his first day there than I've broken in my life, and I'm an absolute klutz with kitchenware. He had light brown hair and golden-red eyes, that reminded me of Meiling. His determination also reminded me of her. I took to Kaiba immediately partially because he reminded me so much of my lost best friend and partially because I genuinely liked him.
Kaiba didn't really talk very much in the beginning; he was painfully shy, but he eventually grew at ease. Our lives were such as they were in the mortal realms until one day we discovered magic. Kaiba and I were out hunting one day. " I'm so hungry," he said.
"Me too," I agreed, because we had been out all day.
Kaiba turned around in his saddle and looked at me. "What?" he asked, confused.
"What?" I was confused about what he was confused about.
"Why did you just say 'me too'?"
"Didn't you just say you were hungry?"
He gave me a funny look. "No, but I was thinking about being hungry."
I couldn't believe what was happening. "Are you sure it didn't just slip out?"
"You'd think I'd know when I open my mouth to talk," he said sarcastically.
We stopped side-by-side. "I think we should go back and ask Kaho and Eriol," I thought.
"I do too," Kaiba said. "Wait a second. You didn't actually say anything did you? That...that was all in...in my head?" he ended on a questioning note.
I nodded and the two of us rode home. "Eriol," I asked, out of breath, "what's with this telepathy thing?"
His eyes flashed with something I couldn't name and he answered, "It has to do with your magic."
"Magic?" Kaiba choked out.
"Yeah. All gods have magic," he replied, surprised that we didn't know that.
"What's going on Eriol?" Kaho asked looking from her husband to the two of us.
"Nothing much, their magic just manifested. At the same time too. We're lucky. This'll be easier than teaching two of you two different things at the same time."
We must have had blank looks on our faces. "You have to learn to control you're magic, or else bad things can happen," Kaho explained.
"So, now beings thy real education," Eriol finished.
"What?" Kaiba asked in a perfectly flat tone of voice. He never had patience when people started even being remotely theatrical.
"He means to say that now the two of you actually are going to learn what it takes to be a god. It's not all fun and games," Kaho elaborated.
Gods can do just about anything they want with their magic, as we soon learned. We started out with deceptively easy concepts like auras. Everyone has a different color; mine is green; Kaiba's is red; Kaho's is purple; Eriol's it blue. Much of it involves a lot of control. You have to be extremely careful how much magic you release or else you might hurt someone by accident. Kaiba was always more reckless than I was, something that caused Kaho a lot of grief, since a lot of her furniture got destroyed when Kaiba and I practiced.
The last piece of magic we learned from Kaho and Eriol was teleportation. Teleportation is a vital part of being a god because with out it, no god can properly serve his or her people. It wasn't until then that I had a chance to actually think about my family. After I had mastered teleportation, I was let loose; I could go where ever I pleased, and it pleased me to go back to visit my family.
Everything was still the same. The smell of the air, the feel of the dirt, the buildings; time stood still for my village. At least, that's what I thought.
I came upon my house. It still looked as beautiful as it did when I lived here. I 'ported myself into my old room and found myself surrounded by flowers. Either one of my sisters moved in, or my mother had turned my room into a shrine. I walked the halls of the house, calling out the names of my sisters and my mother. No one answered. A swarm of little girls ran into me though. They stared up at me in fear, not knowing who I was. I didn't know who they were either. I couldn't have been away for that long, could i have?
"Girls, girls, you'll disturb your grandmother!" An older woman's voice reprimanded. Then she saw me. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
"I used to live here. Who are you?"
Her hands flew to her mouth. "You're a ghost!" and she turned to run away, followed by the little girls, when she ran into an old lady.
"What's the matter, my dear?" she asked the younger woman. All the younger woman could to was stutter and point. The old woman's gaze followed the pointing finger and landed on me. Her eyes narrowed and then filled with tears. "S...Syao...syaoran...is it you? Syaoran it it you?" she asked, not believing.
It was my turn to scrutinize. It took me a moment to realize that this was my sister, Fan-ren. I had been gone for a long time.
"Fan....ren?"
"It's been a long time," she said matter-of-factly as she gracefully walked towards me. She had clearly changed since the last time I had seen her too many years ago.
"How long has it been?"
"Almost fifty years," she looked up and touched my face, proving to herself that it was really me. "Fifty years is a long time."
All that time, I stood, petrified, glued to my spot on the ground. It didn't feel like fifty years. Had time really gone by so fast while I was in the Realms? The number of years didn't really register until I looked at my sister again. Over fifty years, I had not seen this sweet, sweet face. "Fifty years is too long, Fan-ren," I hugged her tightly and she hugged me back.
"Come, come, Syaoran," she whispered, her voice choked with tears. "There's so much to talk about." She led me to the living room, completely ignoring the children and woman, and sat me down. "I can't believe you're back."
"Neither can I. Where're the others?"
Fan-ren smiled sadly. "I'm the last one here. They all died except for Seifa. She's in another village. I still hear from her from time to time, but we all have our own lives now....don't we little brother? Those children who ran into you were my grandchildren. All of them know stories about you." She let out a dry laugh, "Right after you left, mother went to Ved, the story teller, remember? And she told him to tell about you because you were a god. Ved didn't believe her at first, but your friends, the Fates, came and told him to tell the story or else, so he did. Everyone in the village knows your story."
"Your grandchildren?"
She nodded. "So, tell me. Did you ever find that girl you were looking for?" she asked, her old sparkle and vigor reviving.
"No. Not yet. Maybe I should stop. If the dream really was true, we'll probably meet sometime in the future anyway, but the habit of looking at people's eyes. I think that's something that'll stay with me forever."
Fan-ren nodded sagely. "Tell me about your life with the Gods," she prompted.
"Well....everyone there's very nice," I struggled for a little while. "What do you want to know?"
"Who are you living with, or do you have a place of your own?"
"I'm living with Eriol and Kaho. But now that you mention it, a place of my own sounds nice. Oh, and I'm living with Kaiba too. I think you know Eriol and Kaho, but Kaiba is a new God, like me."
"No, I know about all of you. The Fates also told Ved to tell about Kaiba. Tell me about the wheather there."
"Well, it's a lot like the wheather here. In the winter, there's snow, and in the summer there's sun, in the spring there're flowers and in the fall there're leaves."
"So you had no trouble adjusting?"
"No."
"Mother would be so glad to know that. She always worried that you wouldn't fit in, or that you wouldn't be used to any of the things the Gods did."
Neither of us spoke for a while. "I wish I could have been here when mother...when she left."
"Don't dwell on it," she said, patting my hand. "It's not healthy. Why is it that you're here anyway?" She asked, suddenly alive again.
"Umm. I just learned how to teleport and I was allowed to visit anywhere I wanted to for a few hours."
"I see."
We sat together for a moment. I wasn't sure what to say. I really had no idea that so much time had passed since I left. I had no idea.
"So...um...You got married? To who?"
"I married one of the villagers, Roald. Mother never really approved, but she ended up liking him. I married him just a few years after you left. We had four kids. I wanted more. You know me, I always liked kids, but that last one almost killed me, so I stopped."
"So who was that woman in the hallway?"
"That was one of the maids. None of my children are actually here right now. They're all out. My oldest two are married and they stayed here. My other two aren't."
"Girls? Boys?"
"Three boys and a girl."
"Almost opposite of us," I laughed. "Is your girl your youngest or your oldest?"
"Second to last, actually." Fan-ren chuckled, "Her older brothers act like they don't care about her, but they really do. They've managed to get her out of a lot of scrapes."
"I'll bet." Silence again. "I don't think....maybe....Maybe I shouldn't have visited," I mused.
"Why do you think you shouldn't have visited?" Fan-ren asked.
"Did I say that out loud?" She nodded. "Well, because this visit maked me not want to leave again." And it maked me sad, I added to myself.
"Well, you survived over fifty years without seeing us, I'm sure you can buck up and do it again."
"It didn't feel like fifty years," I grumbled.
"I know. I just woke up one morning and discovered I was old."
"Did you? I don't even look in the mirror very often anymore."
"You don't have to. You're always going to look the same, little brother." She sighed. "If leaving is going to be so hard for you, maybe you should go sooner than later."
"Maybe...." I hugged me sister tightly. "I'll miss you so much, Fan-ren"
"I will too, I will too," she sniffled. "You know I love you. I always will."
"I love you too."
"Are you going to go now?"
"Is it best if I do?"
She shrugged and looked away. "Do what will help you, little brother."
As much as I didn't want to leave, the longer I stayed, the harder it would be for me to leave. So, I summoned all my power, kissed my sister good-bye one last time, and disappeared from my old world forever. Never again, did I refer to the Mortal realms as "home". The Realms of the Gods was home now.
a/n: Did making him leave his sister like that seem harsh? I crave reviews!! so press da button and review!
