A/N: Thankies so much to everyone who reviewed (seriously, I dunno if I'd have the energy in me to continue if it weren't for you nice, nice people ;___; ) Hopefully I'm on the right track....
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Chapter 10: Rhapsody
Rhapsody: n, freely structured emotional piece of music.
"How do I look?" Eriol asked, tugging on his lace-trimmed collar.
"As good as you ever can," replied Syaoran, blowing away the renegade bangs out of his eyes.
"Are you implying something?" The raven-haired youth smirked, glad for his friend's almost uncanny sense of humour; oddly enough, Syaoran had none, but made him laugh in any case.
"Not anything more than usual," stated the Little Wolf, stifling his own lopsided grin. "Seriously, I'm beginning to doubt your actual age, with the way you're acting. This girl has you hook around her dainty little finger, hasn't she?"
The viscount nodded shamefully. "She has captured me, ensnared me in her cage. And I went willingly, I wanted to be caught by her. I can't stop thinking about her; it seems as if I live only for her. Every moment I'm awake, I'm thinking of her, and in every dream, she plagues me." Eriol chucked lightly, harshly almost. "It's funny. I wanted to catch her because she mesmerized me with that one glance, and instead, she was the one who captured me." He paused, debating with himself – should he have said that? Did he say enough? "You, Syaoran, are my closest and dearest friend. You grew up alongside me, and thus you know me best... What should I do?"
It was a fruitless plea; Syaoran knew less about the matters of the heart than a common housewife knew about the fine mechanics of soldering irons. But still, Eriol felt some sort of reassurance when knowing that his best friend was there for him, though not necessarily helping. He was comforted with the thought that, should he ever feel like it, he could always rely on Syaoran.
The Little Wolf lay a comforting hand on Eriol's shoulder, squeezing it lightly before letting go. "This is some heavy business you've gotten yourself into, that heart of yours. I can't give you any advice, and I can't tell you how to solve your problem, but I can tell you that everything will be resolved with time."
Eriol grinned at his friend; the smile was like Cheshire Cat's, the same one he used whenever he didn't want people to know what he was thinking. It was a defence mechanism of sorts. "Thanks, Syaoran, I didn't think you had enough compassion to even do that much."
"Ha ha," replied his friend, though he, too, was smiling.
"Seriously, how do I look?" Eriol asked again, trying to smooth out the imaginary wrinkles on his vest.
"Very... charming," replied Syaoran, raising a brow at the other's costume. "Like Juliet, she'll fall, swooning, into the arms of her Romeo."
Eriol ignored the (innocent?) jest. Ironically enough, he was dressed as Tybalt, the Prince of Cats, with two-toned tights and several layers of billowy shirts that felt too restricting and fell just low enough to conceal his private parts. Syaoran, however, kept on insisting that he was Romeo – "Oh, Romeo! Romeo! Where for art thou Romeo?" He exclaimed dramatically when Nakuru demanded he parade the outfit.
"If you don't stop fussing over your appearance, she'll whither and blow away after such a long time waiting," Syaoran reminded him. "Go, go, Lover Boy, find your pretty lady."
"Yes, yes," said Eriol and after a final breath, like the one a dead man takes before an execution, he moved into the throng of people.
"Don't be too eager!" He heard his friend calling after him and Eriol relaxed slightly.
His insides were jumping, like something alien had invaded his innards, his stomach in particular, and refused to leave. He'd been waiting for this moment all evening, longer – a lifetime – it seemed. Sakura had approached him earlier at the masquerade, steering him aside and brusquely whispering a plan. She had arranged for Tomoyo to meet him in a broken-down gazebo not too far off the main mansion. The girl also implored that he do this meeting as discreetly as possible, secrecy was of outmost importance.
And so, Eriol found himself walking across the slightly moist grass plain and among apple trees. The soles of his slippered feet were getting wet, his tights darkening where the nightly dew touched, but he didn't really notice, the moment was too surreal to care about such little details. There was music behind him and he thought that made the scene slightly eerie; the moon watching, cold, from up above, dark shapes menacing over him and oddly happy, laughing almost, music behind him.
But that all became background information when he reached the gazebo. Tomoyo stood in the centre of it, framed by carved wood and hanging vines. Her back was turned to him, so Eriol only saw her shoulders poised rigidly and hair cascading down her back like when the night sky touched the surface of the water. Her form seemed almost ghostly in a shimmer-y white dress, the colour of it slightly altering with the moving shadows.
"God..." Eriol managed to breathe out, the word coming off his lips as both a prayer and an oath would.
Tomoyo whirled around to face him, startled.
"You!" She exclaimed, backing off from him. "What are you doing here?"
He stepped onto the gazebo and immediately the outside world and everything else it heralded disappeared."I was told that I would meet my destiny here." He mentally cringed at the cliché.
"And I was told that I must discuss something very important with a friend," she returned scathingly. Inside, she reeled. She wasn't expecting him to be the "friend" Sakura mentioned, she didn't want to see him. He stood for more than she was accustomed to, like freedom and wanton actions and righteousness and fearlessness. He scared her, in a sense. So many things he had that she didn't, so many things he didn't know that she could teach him. She was like one part, blind to the world and its beauties, and he was the other, blind to world's pains.
"Then I'm in the right place." He said with a small smile and Tomoyo suddenly found herself envying that smile. How could he do that so freely? To give away such simple yet monumental gestures without heed; to be so careless was very new to her. "You're the one I had to find."
She moved farther away from him, backing up until her heels touched a decaying bench. He was too close; she could feel him, warm and alive, so very different from the coldness that she was used to.
"Why must you joke like this?" She bit her tongue, unsure whether she was as angry as she sounded.
"Joking about what?" Eriol frowned. "That you're the one I was looking for or that I finally found you?"
"Both... neither." Tomoyo couldn't remember why she was acting like this, why she tried so hard to push away when he wasn't even doing anything. "Stop playing."
"I'm not."
"What do you wish of me, Sir?" She asked coldly. "To play with me? To be infatuated with my face and body? To use me, pull by strings and then, when you grow tired of me, throw me away?" Tomoyo spit out harshly, balling her fists at her sides. Her voice was bitter and vile, but underneath the surface, there could have also been pain and sadness.
"I want no such things from you," Eriol replied roughly, wincing. "I want to maybe hold your hand, to touch your hair and kiss you goodnight and good morning. I want to see you smile and to hear your laugh..."
Quite suddenly, he took her smaller hand in his, palm facing upward. Tomoyo sucked in a breath when she felt him tracing imaginary patterns in the centre of her palm, his calloused finger delicate against her soft skin, tickling slightly. He blew a puff of air on the same spot and brought it to his lips, placing a small kiss there. Tomoyo could not think clearly enough to move, to shove him away, and to breathe.
"I can read fortune," he whispered softly, almost melancholy-like; she wondered whether he was as transparent as she thought. "Yours says that you will live long and in happiness. It says that you'll be blessed with a happy family, adoring children, a husband who worships you. Also that you're very beautiful, and will stay so for all eternity, that you're wonderful and magical."
His fingers had moved from her palm to the cold mask; she had almost forgotten it.
"Sir..."
"Eriol."
"Eriol... Don't, please don't – just don't. You can't understand –"
"Then let me see, show me what I can't understand. Teach me to understand."
His voice was earnest, a deep rumble resonating from his throat and moving to escape his lips, almost like melted chocolate. She found herself nodding.
He reached almost tentative hands to her face, fingers brushing against cold porcelain, testing, probing how far he could take things. Tomoyo was trembling, her heart flopping in her chest. She wanted this, had been wanting this for a while, she realized; she wanted somebody to see her, the real her, not the warped rendition of a doll. But still, she was afraid. What would he think of her?
Eriol moved his hands behind her head, where the cold porcelain visage was tied with a blue silk ribbon. Slowly, almost fearfully, Eriol pulled on one end of the ribbon. The silk came loose almost instantly, slipping through his fingers and onto the ground. The mask, too, fell heedlessly to the ground, shattering ominously to a thousand little pieces. Along with the mask, something else broke as well.
The two stood there, bathed in moonlight and silence, completely entranced in each other. Eriol couldn't look away. Absent -mindedly he noted that, like the fortune said, she was breathtakingly beautiful. She had a pale, heart-shaped face with eyes the colour of raw amethysts; she was utterly perfect, he thought.
Looking closer, Eriol noticed a tiny mark just below her right eye. It was less than five millimetres long and was almost white, blending in with her natural skin tone. He touched the mark with his thumb. Frowning slightly, he noticed a similar mark on her cheek and just below her lips. He was startled to realize that her entire face was covered with these tiny markings, like some horrible pattern.
"What happened?" He asked breathlessly, chewing on his lip. Already many scenarios were forming in his mind, each making his stomach lurch.
"I... I wanted to take it off... the face wouldn't come off," She replied in a near whisper.
"You did this?" Eriol's voice was hoarse. "How? Why?"
Tomoyo swallowed nervously. She was naked now, exposed to him, she had to be careful. "Because... because there's this dark room, and it's very silent and scary and I can see the shadows coming at me. They'd try to get me, they touch my face, they want me to take it off. Mother said that everything's because of my face. I tried to take it off, but I can't..."
"Oh, God," Eriol whispered. It pained him to know that she hurt herself, even if scared; touching her face like this, hearing her voice so small and broken, he could feel her fear and pain. "Why do you have to wear that mask? To hide the marks?"
"My mother she... she says I need to wear it. She says I'm ugly, that I need to be hidden from the rest of the world because if I'm not, then they'll hate me and laugh at me. She says I look horrible, like a whore. She only wants to protect me."
"You're beautiful." Eriol clenched his teeth, biting the inside of his cheek. He felt like he could kill the woman who caused this.
"T-the scars, don't you mind them?"
"Scars? What scars?" He asked, brushing his thumb against a faint white line. "All I see is a beautiful face. I see large, jewel eyes, so very dark and deep. I see a small, perky nose, and luscious rosy lips. I see the shadow of a dimple in the corner of your mouth and a faint dusting of pink across your cheeks. I see no scars, only you."
"B-but I'm hideous! I'm a monster a freak! I'm a —"
"Shh," he soothed, pressing her body flush against his and brushing his lips against her forehead. "You are Tomoyo Daidouji, my Blue Bird. You are the one that managed to catch me, and I refuse to let you go, or to be let go, now that I'm in your cage. You are beautiful and will forever remain so, you hear me."
Tomoyo nodded. She could feel moisture gather behind her eyes. It had been a long time since she cried in front of other people, it has been a long time since anybody dared to come this close to her. She was afraid that this... this dream, this whatever it was would disappear and she would be left alone again, sitting propped up against a dark wall, trying to escape the silence. She didn't want Eriol to let go, especially not now that she let him in. So she clung to him.
And he still held her, pressing her face into his shoulder while the silent tears ran down her cheeks and while he fought down his own.
"Sometimes I would wake up and think is this real?" Tomoyo said quietly after a long time. "Things are always the same, always the coldness and laughter and people gawking at me and ... pain. Everyday it's the same thing, over and over again. I can't even tell any more whether this is just one big nightmare and I keep on waking to feel the pain and then only to fall asleep and dream of it again."
"Pain?" Eriol looked at her, startled. "More pain? What kind?"
"T-they'd come to me," the girl stuttered quietly, ashamed.
"They?"
"There were men, so many of them." Tomoyo choked and looked away. "They'd come to my house, looking for me. They said they wanted to be my friends, wanted to play with me. They'd take me with them to their houses or... someplace else, I can't remember. We'd play games like tag and skip rope. And then they'd say that they loved me and would give me envelopes to give to Mother. And... and I'd have to do things for them, say... things and touch them in places... I was so scared..."
"Oh, God! Tomoyo!" Eriol exclaimed, choking on her name. He cupped her face with his hands and traced the little white marks with his thumbs. "My dear, dear Tomoyo." The lord whispered before he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.
He couldn't believe the things she told him, wouldn't have believed them if he hadn't seen the tiny scars, from her fingernails, he figured, and the obvious pain in her eyes. His heart hurt. She hid everything; she purposely was cruel to him so he wouldn't notice anything. She was afraid of him, like she was of those men. He breathed in deeply and pulled her in closer; he didn't want to be like those men, he didn't want her to be afraid of him.
"Oh, Lord, Tomoyo, what has been done to you..."
(tsuzuku...)
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By the way, just so you know, Tomoyo is dressed as Morgan Le Fay.
