Chapter 13

Syaoran was handsome, Meilin had to admit. She was slightly upset that his good looks didn't run in the family all the way to her times. His locks of dark brown hair hung lightly in his dark brown eyes. He tapped his foot impatiently as the girls approached, his face was stern, but his eyes sparkled with happiness to see Sakura. The outfit he wore was green, it was identical to the one that Kita had lifted from the stone tomb in the room Funaho had taken them to. Meilin smiled to herself, it most likely was the one that had been in the sarcophagus.

"Sakura, where have you been? I've been looking all over for you. For a little while, I was beginning to think I would have to cut the whole forest down to find you." Syaoran tried to sound upset, but he cracked a gentle smiled at the two girls.

"You wouldn't really kill all the trees just for me, would you?"

Syaoran smiled. "Not all the trees, only until I found you. I've told you before, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you."

Sakura blushed and stood in awkward silence. She was flattered by his words, but she didn't know how to respond, she never knew how to respond, so she just didn't.

Syaoran brushed off the silence like it was nothing. In fact, it had become like nothing, he was used to the silence to his comments. At first, he had been hurt by them, but over time, he had grown to realize that Sakura just didn't know what to say. She either didn't know, or was too afraid to say it.

"Come on, Sakura, I need your opinion on something. Meilin, would you please come as well?"

Meilin nodded, not knowing how he knew her name. She supposed that she had been introduced 'last night' as Dita had supposedly 'reminded' her that morning. She laughed to herself. They had no idea that last night was many years later.

Syaoran led the woman through the forest paths. Meilin noted that they were lightly paved in stones in some areas, and beaten down dirt paths in others. The paths, whether stone or dirt, were no longer there in her time. The walk was short, much shorter than it was for the girls to find their way into the woods a couple of days previously. They came out of the forest in a large clearing, it was the top of a hill that sloped gently downward to a dirt road below.

Meilin looked around and frowned. She knew where they were, but, something was different, the manor was not there. "Where is the manor?" Meilin accidentally said out loud.

Syaoran studied her with his brown eyes. "I haven't built it yet. I plan on building a nice lovely home, it will be passed down through my family for all time. Sakura, I would like your opinion on the home. Do you think I should build something large and grand, or something small and quaint.

Sakura stared at Syaoran in shock. "Why would you want my opinion?"

The young man smiled at Sakura's naivety. "Because dear Sakura, I want you to live with me in it."

Meilin watched Kita carefully. Her face looked like someone had cut off all of her oxygen all at once. She staggered backwards a little, and resisted as Syaoran rushed forward to steady her. She thought of the tombs in the dark unused room in the manor, and of how they were empty. Sakura was afraid of loving him, it was obvious.

"Are you going to go to the festival tomorrow night?" Meilin heard Syaoran asking them.

"Festival?"

"Yeah, every year, the people of the village gather in the woods to reenact the battle we had to fight to regain our land from those who oppressed us many generations ago." Syaoran smiled at Meilin's confusion. "Many many generations ago, all of this land belonged to my family, and the families of those who had always been here. However, over time, outsiders came to settle on the land. They found us here, and found that all the woods belonged to us, so they attacked us and killed many of our families in the dead of night. For many years, our families lived in oppression from these outsiders who had claimed the land as their own. We pretended to take our servitude and defeat quietly and peacefully, but inside was all turmoil. We bode our time and waited many years, honing our fighting skills, waiting for our population to increase, and we plotted everything down to the last detail in order to take our revenge and wrench our lands back from those who had stolen it from us years before."

"The uprising was a success," Sakura continued for Syaoran. "And the Li family, as well as the other families who had owned the lands gained what was theirs back. The buildings in the woods are the remaining buildings that the families had been forced to live in when they were under servitude. So, every year, at about the same time as the uprising, we reenact it in the center of the Stone Village, as they called it. Of course no one dies, but occaisionally there have been accidents where people have been severely injured."

"They used to have it where the entire town would split in two, one side representing the outsiders, the other representing the families, but more people were injured that way because few were skilled in fighting. Over time that too changed, so now it is just two elected individuals. This year, I am to play the role of those who rose against the outsiders, and Yue will play the role of the outsiders."

Sakura stood in place for a moment and felt herself getting dizzy. She thought she was being pulled through a vacuum for a minute. She felt her breathing quicken, she felt like she was running through a forest, quickly, like she had to get somewhere fast, or it was going to be too late. She heard voices in her head as a darkness began to close in about the corners of her eyes. 'It was an accident, he didn't mean for it to happen' was all she could hear before everything went black.