Disclaimer: I own not. Takes place between volumes 5 and 6; no real spoilers unless you haven't read anything.

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Evanescent

Sakura is bemused.

She dips her finger into a small vat of powdered sugar, considering. Fai mentioned that the sugar's effect atop pastries was more than visual- not just a decoration, he says, but a delight, short-lived but enjoyable. Short-lived as what she recalls? She thinks not. In her solitude, she has had the time to relive and contemplate the instant in which she woke to an unfamiliar ceiling and a less familiar mind. She still imagines that she is imprisoned in a body that is not her own, as it feels as such; the sensation of missing something that she isn't sure had been there in the first place is unnerving, and if she ponders further, she wonders how she knew that she felt as if anything was missing at all. How is it that she is so well-acquainted with the feeling of bereavement?

Now, by this point, she has determined that she is not only missing herself and a great deal of her memories, her past and present and future along with it- she is missing someone else. Someone or something that was an integral part of her, and it frustrates her. She has been living recently by what she has learned and not from what she knows, and she treads carefully. But she has long since given up on her wariness of her traveling companions, and now holds them dear to her heart. It is good to have something to fill that space in her heart with. Why do they go to such great lengths, though? Why does her smile lift the spirits of the other youngest fighter, waging his war because he has to- undivulged reasons and secrets he has, and her curiosity is piqued- and not because he loves to hurt others?

She shuts her eyes, wrinkles her nose, sighs a little sigh. She can, at least, say that the past days have not been uneventful. It has indeed been a time of wonders.

She leans forward and licks her finger, feeling the sugar dissolve upon her tongue in a heartbeat, and it is in such an instant that her musings disappear and she sets about, unburdened, to making more pastries. The puppies will be returning soon, and they will be tired, so she will be waiting with open arms, mind, smile.

Elsewhere, Yuuko twirls the girl's thoughts around her finger. She has a gift of perception, but it is tedious, and things are indeed as fleeting as Sakura imagines them to be.

…..

.:for mist and dew disappear in the morning sun:.

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Written for LJ's 31days theme community- August 9, Anno Mirabilis (year of wonders).