A/N: Sap warning, as usual, though I don't think it's too cliché-I don't think I've ever seen a Kero-fic like this one. This is also an answer to the Tsukimineshrine "beliefs" challenge, though I already wrote one for it-because it's also an answer to the fgf "quote" challenge: "pick a quote and let it be the inspiration for a fic". The quote is illustrated explicitly at the end, but the belief itself goes without saying.

^_^


One Perfect Moment
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He'd never stopped to think about time, really, because he'd never had a reason to measure it before. It was the sort of thing Kero barely noticed, right up there with people's hairstyles and what clothes they were wearing. Lunchtime, of course, was important (as was supper and breakfast), but since all times were Snacktime that wasn't terribly relevant either. Food simply appeared, then it disappeared down his throat, and that was all the more he needed to care about.

Oh, humans worried about time, of course. They had all sorts of clever phrases to describe it and tame it; little things like "making time for X" and "killing time doing Y". Clow, the crazy sorcerer, had been completely obsessed with it for a while-until one day he woke up and started mourning his lack of it. Even Yue felt the passing of time more acutely than Kero did, because Yue's power was tied to the moon and it waxed and waned on a cycle that definitely affected his mood. (Kero had only once made the mistake of calling him on it, though-his counterpart was Most Certainly NOT Amused by cracks about "that time of the month".) All in all, though, none of this had any effect on Kero himself...which was why it him so much harder when he finally realized it.

Sakura was getting married today, and it occurred to him that he couldn't even remember her growing up.

"I'm so sorry you can't be part of the ceremony!" she was saying for the five thousandth time, pacing nervously around the small dressing room. "I really wish you could be there, especially since Yue-san is, but he can look human and there's people who just wouldn't understand about-"

She was aimlessly fretting again, too nervous just to sit down and relax, and he was surprised again to realize just how much she had grown. Just when had she gotten so big? He felt like he should remember, but somehow the knowledge was escaping him.

"...so I understand if you're feeling left out, and I thought that maybe..."

"Hey now!" he growled, feeling slightly helpless. Of course he was feeling left out-who wouldn't, he wondered?-but there was nothing they could do about it now. He took the very edge of her train in his teeth--carefully, so as not to tear anything--and yanked on it hard, pulling it down over her eyes. She shrieked and slapped at him reflexively, startled out of her worrying fit.

"Kero-chaaan!" She complained, and for a moment she was ten years old again, yelling into his drawer. He let go and jumped backwards, still reeling from the double image. She was twenty-five now, not a small girl, but...

...but at least she was laughing, and no longer worrying about silly things she couldn't change.

"You just slip me some cake at the reception, eh?" He reminded, giving her hand an affectionate lick. "I already told you what kind I want."

"Strawberry." She smiled and adjusted her headdress. "I know."

"Yeah." He whispered. There had been a lot of strawberries over the years, hadn't there? In the summer time, mostly, though sometimes earlier. He'd helped her build a greenhouse one winter; the class project that had eventually turned magical, and he remembered how amazed she had been to pick strawberries while there was still snow on the ground. It was his sunlight that had cared for them, his cards that had helped them grow, and they'd laughed and eaten strawberries until they were both so sick they couldn't look at a berry for weeks. Looking back, he could scarcely believe that had been ten years ago.

Ten years.

For the very first time, Kero thought he might understand what it was like to be Old.

Sakura finished adjusting and turned to display herself, spreading the creamy cloth wide to show off the embroidery.

"How do I look?" She asked shyly.

Like an angel. He thought, though he'd never admit it. That was Yue's department (or rather, the snow-bunny's-Yue had never quite gotten the hang of compliments), and it wasn't like him to obsess over clothing anyway.

"Engh, decent, I guess." He replied instead, and brandished the white satin ribbon Tomoyo had tied around his neck. "Not as nice as me, of course."

She laughed and bent down to him, slipping her arms around his neck and ruffling his fur just the way he liked it. At one point, she wouldn't have needed to kneel to wrap her arms around him, but now...

"Thanks for being here, Kero-chan." She said, and squeezed him tight.

The lion blinked, unsure what to make of it. How could he respond to that? She was his mistress, he would always be with her; and he told her that as best he could without saying anything at all, wrapping one wing around her and nuzzling her cheek.

"Sakura?" a soft voice called, and Kero recognized Tomoyo's presence just outside the door.

"Coming!" Sakura replied cheerfully, slowly relinquishing her hold on his fur. She drew back gracefully, looking wistful, looking beautiful...and in that moment he realized that Time had stopped itself completely.

Clow had once told him that a man could spend his entire life waiting for that one perfect moment and never actually find it-because, he had said, there was no such thing as a single, perfect moment. Now, Kero realized that Clow had got it all backwards. There were no perfect moments because every moment was perfect, because you couldn't choose between them. He could have wished for this one to last forever, just the two of them...

"Sakura-chan?"

But right now life was out there and waiting, and there were other glorious things to come.

"Aw, get on with it!" he rumbled happily and butted his master with his head, still being mindful of the dress. "Show starts in half an hour, c'mon, let's go!"

She smiled then and disappeared through the doorway, Tomoyo chattering excitedly next to her. He watched them go through hooded eyes, tail swishing gently. His mistress, a woman, no longer a child...

Then he raised his head and bellowed after them.

"And remember!" He cried happily. "I WANT STRAWBERRY!"

No matter how old they'd gotten, or how much they'd been through together, life would always be filled with these precious, perfect moments.

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But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little girl and her lion will always be playing.
--apologies to A.A. Milne.