Disclaimer: All rights and privileges to Card Captor Sakura and all related art, characters and story are trademarks and property of CLAMP, Nelvana, Kodansha, NEP21, Tokyo Pop and associated parties. The characters of these works are used without permission for the purpose of entertainment only. I, Hally Dang, do not claim Card Captor Sakura and all related art, characters and story as my own property.
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She
Sang Beyond the Genius of the Sea
ByHally
Dang
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"She
sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind
or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty
sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused
constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we
understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean."
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i.living like a jellyfish
It was the summer after they graduated from junior high school. Tomoyo had somehow convinced her mother to rent her friends a little seaside house where they could spend the last weekend in August. They made a tight fit into the small room, having to sleep in sleeping bags spread across the hardwood floors. No one minded though. All were glad for the chance to spend time together before they went on their separate ways when summer ended.
Syaoran-kun was asked by his mother to return to Hong Kong in September. Tomoyo would be accompanying her mother to a new corporate headquarter in New York City. And Eriol-kun was returning to London in order to attend Eton in the fall. It was all coming to a close: their adventures, their exploits, their jokes.
It was a sad afternoon, for Tomoyo knew that it might very well be the last time she could spend time with all her friends. The entire car ride to the beach, Tomoyo felt like her stomach was being clutched at from the inside. There were many times she felt it was hard to breathe. She felt heavy, yet the waves lapping on the sand was like a cleansing water that pulled away all her worries into the ever-forgiving sea.
Oh, the sea, the sea! Tomoyo had no idea how small she could felt when she was standing beside the crashing waves. She could smell the salt in the air, mildly stinging. She remembered giggling suddenly because the waves were tickling her toes.
Tomoyo was running along the seashore where the sand was wet. The wind was pushing in from the water so her hair was a mess of charcoal in the air. She laughed and laughed because suddenly Sakura-chan was chasing her and they ran and ran; they fell giggling into the sand and rolled around trying to tickle each other until every bit of their clothe was covered in sand. Eriol-kun and Syaoran-kun were throwing the Frisbee back and forth, trying to outdo each other. Sakura-chan found a shell that glistened like a purple stone and strung it into Tomoyo's necklace.
When the sun was setting, Sakura-chan followed Syaoran-kun towards the rocky cliff-side, looking for sand dollars on the beach in the shape of a heart. Eriol-kun volunteered to untangle Tomoyo's hair by the bonfire. His hands were gentle. He pulled the brush through her long, long hair; it was like untying silk. She remembered how delicate he had been and it didn't hurt at all like it usually did when Sakura-chan or her maid had tried.
When Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun did not return, Eriol-kun suggested that they go hunting for jellyfishes. The horizon was glittering in an orange afterglow. They found pieces of white gossamer washed up by the tide that looked like plastic bags.
"Do you know where jellyfishes come from, Tomoyo-chan?" he had asked her.
She shook her head.
"Well, a long, long time ago, a beautiful princess fell in love with a beautiful god. But that god did not love her back because he was a god and could not love mortals. The princess couldn't accept that her beautiful god did not love her. In her despair, she turned herself into tears and drifted into the ocean and mourned for her lost love. When the prince realized what had happened, he was maddened by grief for he had always loved the princess even though he never let her know."
"That was foolish of them," she had said. "If you love someone, you should let them know. You should scream it with all your being."
"Yes, that is true. But there was too much unsaid, too much lost between the prince and the princess. Yet even though his princess was gone, the prince still wanted to be near her. So the prince asked the god to turn him into a jellyfish so that he may be apart of his princess. That's why, my dear Tomoyo-chan, jellyfishes are the way they are. They are forever bounded to water for love of the sea."
She remembered his face then, consumed in shadows of the coming night.
"For the love of the sea, Tomoyo-chan, because the princess's grief was very great that it was like the rising tide, it consumed the prince. But the prince loved her nonetheless. The prince was with her nonetheless. Do you understand, Tomoyo-chan?"
She smiled and nodded. She started to run from him and stopped and turned to face him again. She was smiling broader. "Are we living like jellyfishes, Eriol-kun?"
"I think so."
She remembered the way his eyes matched the bottomless depths of the dark waters, reflected every pigment of color of its song. Suddenly, Tomoyo knew he was as infinite as the ocean; he was full of soft voices, full of smells, full of memories, full of everything the world could possibly contain.
"Yes; the sea, the sea, the sea," she was singing. Her voice faint, drowned out by the crashing waves.
"Yes, Tomoyo-chan," he returned in his quiet voice. "The sea, the sea, the sea."
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Eriol remembered too. In the years to come, her voice that evening etched itself into his memory as the single moment when he had felt her—the true her—and she was beautiful beyond words. Nothing stained it, not even her immense sadness, as boundless as the sea she sang about; not even the knowledge that after being friends since elementary school, she still did not trust him enough to see her that way. Let it be, let it be.
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Author's Note: Based on a personal memory. I love the ocean, I do. I've always wanted to write this and now I have, it's a wonderful feeling. "She sang beyond the genius of the sea" is from the first line of one of my favorite poems, "The Idea of Order at Key West" by Wallace Stevens, as quoted in the beginning of this fic. Please look it up and read it. It's beautiful.
The last bit from Eriol's perspective is partly inspired, partly stolen from Annie Proulx. Go read her short story "Brokeback Mountain."
This was originally a drabble for 52flavour, a fic challenge where I had claimed EriolxTomoyo. The prompt was "living like a jellyfish" thus this strange story. This is a bit too long so I am posting this separately from "Drops in the Ocean"—where all my other drabbles are archived. Please go there if you are interested in reading more.
I think there is room for a few more chapters. I'm very happy with how this turned out and there are many ideas and emotions in here I would like to write more about. Look out for more updates.
Thank you for reading and please review before you leave.