-Indian Summer, Blackthorn Winter-
2 Falling LeavesMaddeningly, Clow woke to the same vision each morning, or else it came on him while making or eating the morning meal. He was learning to hide when the moment enfolded him, to avoid questions from his companions. After he stopped keeping Yue in his bed, Clow woke to the vision alone, but it was easier than trying to cover his fear under Yue's attention. Despite Clow's outward calm, the repetition of the vision only increased his agitation. A single incidence would have been a warning, a minor but possible outcome.
Sometimes, the vision flowed from the end of a dream, especially if he dreamed of Keroberos and Yue. He would be paralyzed, watching them drift into non-existence. Unaware of what was happening to themselves, they would become less than an idea, a hope, or a memory. He learned to stop dreaming of his creations. His dream-life became discolored, a remembered loneliness creeping in to taint it, keeping him aware that his dreams were a dim reflection of living.
In dreams, he was a step removed from his emotions. His dreams were just paler than real life. Regrettably, his visions, particularly the unpleasant ones, boiled with a vivid passion that matched the most intense moments of his experience. Clow Reed had been forever plagued with knowledge of his future. He was a man who delighted in the unexpected moment. So few of them, for him, were unforseen.
Once, he had coveted knowledge. He had starved and lusted for knowledge, and that was a beneficial desire for a man of magic. Over time, and after the creation of his companions, he became sated, and alternately drawn to experience, and to the shape of the moment. Yet the knowledge that came from visions was unstoppable, inevitable, and burdensome.
This foresight, he wished had come sooner. Time was so short, now. As if in sympathy, the autumn had finally begun to chill the nights and change the colors of the leaves. At times the air smelled of snow. Nothing could match the volume of knowledge in his own libraries, but they were too familiar, and his house felt close and imprisoning. The magician alternated thought-filled walks through his estate with forays to the outer world. He exercised his honorary doctorate to scour the University libraries for the mote of information that might lead to an answer.
In these excursions, he went alone, leaving his companions perturbed. Keroberos would see Clow dressed modernly in his camel-hair suit and shift happily into his false form, and Clow had needed to order Keroberos not to hide in his pockets. To mollify the disappointed creature, the magician always remembered to return with treats. Yue, in contrast, seemed patient to give Clow his privacy, but Clow felt Yue watch him when he left the house, and Yue would always be waiting at a window for his return.
After several weeks, Clow returned to his own libraries, beginning his search again. He noticed that Yue would take Keroberos out of the house, and out of sight of the windows, during the days, and was grateful for the quiet. As a side effect, he saw little of his companions. Yue only came to Clow's room by invitation, and lately the sorcerer was spending late evenings with his books.
As the weather became colder, the pair stayed indoors more, but seemed to have found quiet pursuits. One morning, Clow realized that the manor felt empty. He found that Yue had again prepared a breakfast for him, fruit and madeleines and tea that was still hot, in a pot wrapped with a tea towel. After a brief hunt, he found that Keroberos was taking a late morning nap in the sun. Clow hesitated, wondering if he should wake him, for a chat or for a game. Realizing that he was without the energy for either, he left the lion sleeping. He went, instead, to look for Yue, just to see him.
Yue was reading in the West Library. He was nestled in the bay window, a book open in his lap, but he was contemplatively gazing out at the crisp blue sky. He looked back into the dark room as Clow approached, his eyes narrowing slightly as they readjusted to the indoor shadows.
"You looked so far away," murmured Clow.
Yue's slight smile was slow and dreamy. "I was contemplating my existence." He lifted the book from his lap. It was a book on philosophy that Clow had seen him often reading. Yue looked down at the page, and said, as if reading the text within, "Nothing exists, but for Clow. Therefore, Clow is All."
At his words, Clow stepped toward him and stole the book from Yue's hands. He slammed the book closed. "Do not say that." His frustrated anger bubbled up, and he threw the book to the floor, where it skidded and flipped across the Persian rug.
"It was a jest!" exclaimed a shocked Yue. "Clow."
The magician was immediately ashamed of his outburst. Yet, he was still angry. He knew he should say something, an apology, but Yue's oblivious calm only exacerbated the sorcerer's desperation. "I have work to do," he stated, turning away.
Yue made no response for a pause that felt eternal. "Should I leave," he asked flatly, his melodious voice rimed with a prickling frost.
"Yes. Please."
Yue silently unfolded himself from the window seat. His bare feet touched the floor and he brought himself up with elegant grace. "Clow." His eyes fluoresced violet; his voice was quiet. "Are you hiding something?"
Clow Reed grew still. "You know that I would never hide anything of importance from you," he lied calmly. He looked into his creation's eyes. Yue met them measuringly. His smile was gone, and his face was like porcelain. Yue looked away and began to walk quickly past his Master toward the doorway, but Clow reached out and held fast to his arm.
"Let go," came Yue's voice, not icy now, but crystalline.
Clow released him, and Yue bolted out of the library. Clow cursed, at first quietly, then again loudly. He strode toward the door, beginning to follow, and then changed his mind, instead slamming the heavy door shut. The burst of violence only made him feel more ashamed; he knew that he was at fault for being on edge. He was at fault for initiating the confrontation; he was at fault for lying. Everything was his fault.
The length of another week disappeared in the Reed libraries. Yue avoided his Master entirely, and Clow allowed it. Keroberos brought meals to the sorcerer, but kept characteristically silent about the bitterness in the household. Often, Clow found his oldest friend watching him with a waiting, feline stare. Once, he brushed against the magician and gently growled, "you'll work it out", misinterpreting the root of Clow's obscured cheer.
Clow Reed thought of almost nothing but his own death. The vision was almost constantly at the back of his eyes now. His eyes ached; words blurred; he read and reread them without being able to extract the sought after elixir. Looking out his window, he had a view of the world stretching out to a distant horizon. To the sorcerer, it was an empty world.
I know the sorrow of the autumn leaf, thought Clow, a slow thought, as if someone listened. The trees beyond the window were painted with the season's change, leaves of every shape dropping. When it is time to fall, how does it find the courage to release the branch? In the garden, no breeze moved, but the magician watched a maple leaf, red as a flower and fringed like a feather, detach and spiral downward, graceful and lovely. And why does it dance?
The leaves would all fall; that was the simplest of truths. They had already begun to pile up on the walkways and flower beds, making a warm blanket that would protect the sleeping plants from winter's frost and snow. The leaves would all fall. All things must die.
I must die too.
Only… it would not only be Clow Reed who would die, and this is what laid sorrow upon him. He was a mortal man, sorcery made him long-lived, yet still he was mortal. Keroberos and Yue were creations of his magic… his magic. Sorcery made them immortal, but –
Immortal while I live.
It was obscene. He would die, and they would not die; they would dissolve into the ether from which they came. He, Clow Reed, was the calligrapher. He had written their names on magic. He could love them to the core of his soul but he could not save them merely with his love.
And so Clow wept, behind a locked door where his beloveds could not see him powerless. Angrily he shed tears in a study full of books, filled with answers to every question under the heavens but this one, how to save them. Against the cold glass he sobbed as a child sobs, inconsolable.