Story Title: Portrait of a Cherry Blossom

Author: CCSakura

Other: Chapter three came in kind of late, but thanks to the reviewers! Anyway, enjoy! (If you can…)

Chapter Three: A Fireplace

Tomoyo gently patted the redness with a towel. "Sakura, Mistress Meiling is very dangerous. She can easily change the whole attitude of Master Syaoran." Sakura winced. "What is she, married to him?" Tomoyo laughed softly. "No…not yet. They will get married next month."

Sakura sighed. She had a feeling that if she were to stay working with this household, her demands were to be increasingly severe. When the stinging had disappeared, she gently pushed away her friend's hand. "Thank you, Tomoyo. It's wonderful knowing how I have a friend here."

Tomoyo's eyes softened. "I will be your friend no matter where you go, Sakura. There's something that even Fate cannot break. I knew that you would be the best friend I would ever have." Sakura nodded in agreement. "It is the same here."

There was a silence at the thought of destiny, but a shriek disrupted their thoughts. Sakura jumped up immediately and followed Tomoyo as they went into the leisure room. Meiling was crouched on top of the chair and below her was a mouse.

Sakura could hardly keep the laugh that was threatening to spill out. But Tomoyo simply pulled out of her pocket a stick and whacked the mouse on the head. Sakura watched in horror as she picked the mouse up in placed it in a bag.

"To-moyo…" Sakura couldn't believe what her friend had done. Tomoyo smiled back. "There's no harm done. Meiling brings out all the mice in this city. You have to knock them unconscious and then shoot them back out. There are many cats in the city that will do this sort of work for us."

Sakura gulped and nodded. She had thought for a moment that Tomoyo was a…killer. But she brushed that thought from her mind and left Meiling. The two hurried back to their quarters.

"So there's really nothing else to do?" Sakura knew she almost had the rest of the day left. Tomoyo thought for a moment. "Master and Mistress's demands are not too constant, but you should be ready for them. Just know that they have adjusted to a schedule in which, if it is broken, they will be extremely angered." Sakura nodded.

Tomoyo pulled out a piece of paper from the inside of the desk. "And paper is hard to come by, lately. So we must be careful about our resources." She winked. "But we can still do something today."

From the other pocket of her apron, she pulled out a metallic-colored pencil. "Whenever I get bored, I try to draw what I see. It kills an hour or so in a day. Go ahead, Sakura. You try."

Nervously, Sakura placed the paper on the stone floor and took the pencil from Tomoyo. She had never tried to draw anything in her entire life…but she could picture the stone fireplace in her house perfectly. It was a good start.

So she began sketching the outline. The basic shapes were drawn in and once she was pleased with the layout, she hardened the borders of each stone and gently carved the wood that usually sat in the inside. And with her fingers, she smoothed away the roughness of the rock and shaded in the shadows that they always cast on each other and the floor.

Tomoyo was right, she thought happily, it does kill some time. When she did several lines to show the wooden floor, she realized one thing. Tomoyo had said nothing that entire time. Sakura grew anxious, wondering if she had done something wrong.

"Sakura…that's…amazing…" Tomoyo could barely get her words across. "It's so real…it's like I've sat in that fireplace and looked at each stone…and…I'm sitting right there!" Sakura looked, confused, at her friend and glanced back at her drawing. Why, it was just an ordinary drawing of an ordinary fireplace!

"I mean…you make it real. I can feel the heat that must have been radiating out of it during winter. I can smell the wood that must have been tosssed in there in autumn. Sakura, it's alive."

Sakura laughed. "You're just saying that, but thanks for the compliment!" She tossed the paper in the wastebasket and Tomoyo hurried to pick it back up. "Sakura, I've never been so serious in my entire life! You should be a professional artist!"

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "Like Master Syaoran?" Tomoyo nodded. "Somewhat. You'd first need to get people interested in your drawings…and then you could hold speeches and make so much money…" Her voice trailed off in thought.

"Not possible, Tomoyo. I'm just a maid in this house and I'll be nothing more." Sakura firmly told her. But Tomoyo knew elsewise.

[A/N] Sorry if I'm bothering you with this…Anyway, I gave Sakura a drawing talent. I know, I know, Tomoyo is the one with that, but how else would anything happen if she didn't have it? Please, no flames! ^^'''