November 24, Fall, year 36

I am going to kill that little princess… Though first maybe I should yell at Hikari, since I know she had to have a hand in this. Suiren doesn't have any power. Not the kind that can alter memories of the past…

I suppose this was brought on by the fact that Daisuke chose to marry Tsuyu last night. Still! By which I mean he picked Tsuyu, as opposed to anyone else. Geh…

It had been a busy day for Skye. Kaemon had been pulling out books at Akio's request, and since he wasn't able to cart them up and down the stairs or across the palace, it fell to Skye.

Between trips he was also hurrying back to his room to check on Claire, who had agreed to spend the day indoors as long as he walked with her through the gardens later on.

The prince-turned-thief-turned-farmer let out a tired sigh, and sat for a brief moment at the base of the stairs leading between Akio's office and Kaemon's library. Already he was tired. It didn't help that Akio was requesting some of the thicker, heavier books from Kaemon's stacks.

"Prince Sora, are you alright?"

Suiren stood at the base of the stairs, fine silver brows drawn together in worry. Skye waved a hand lightly, in an almost dismissive gesture.

"I'm fine Princess," he replied with a faint smile. "My brothers are keeping me hopping today."

"You are the eldest, why do you not ask them to let you be?" Suiren tilted her head slightly, coquettishly, folding her arms behind her back to push out her chest.

"It's no trouble," his response startled her. "We're family, and they've certainly indulged me enough as the eldest."

The concept of family bonds was clearly alien to her and Skye gave a briefly amused chuckle. It had been alien to him as well until he had gone to live on the Earth. Most families on Earth had siblings who weren't in obvious competition among themselves.

Well, at least, the ones he'd seen, which had been quite a few. Sure there were the dysfunctional ones but there were also the wonderful ones.

"Would you at least like a drink?" Suiren asked after a moment. "If you've been running up and down those stairs so often…"

"Hmmm," and Skye winked a sea-green eye at her in an almost cheeky fashion. "That actually sounds like a good idea, and it will give Kaemon time to find the books Akio wants."

Suiren seemed pleased that he'd accepted the suggestion so easily. She didn't understand that living with Claire had meant a lot of fun attempts at 'compromising,' before solutions were worked out.

Still, it made it all the more easy for her. All she had to do was make sure that she put the potion into his cup, and everything would turn out just the way she wanted. That would show that rotten Tsuyu and stupid Daisuke.

"What do you mean he's in the healer's room?" Claire demanded softly, gripping Tenshi's hand. "Is he alright?!"

"He is unconscious at the moment Claire," Tenshi patted her friend's hand sympathetically. "Miharu sent me to fetch you, she thinks it would be best if a familiar face was nearby when he woke."

"R-right," the blonde gave herself a mental shake, and let go of her friend. "Sorry…"

"It is quite alright," and the messenger smiled gently. "I would be distraught myself hearing such news."

It took Claire only a few minutes more to inform her children—and request that they remain in the room until she returned—before she was out the door, moving as quickly as she could. With the loose fit of her farming clothes, unless one looked close, it was still a little tricky to tell that she was three months along with triplets.

Claire knew that soon enough it would change, and her mobility would be swiftly limited, but until that time came she would continue to run as fast as she could.

Tenshi kept to a more sedate pace, letting the blonde work out her nerves in the sprint to Miharu's domain.

Claire carefully poked her head through the door, looking for Miharu, and by proxy, her husband. After a few minutes of careful scanning—she was starting to be able to tell Miharu from her three assistants at last, from behind—she slipped to the far end of the room where the head healer was waiting for her.

"Is he alright?" the farmer took the stool that Miharu pushed in her direction without complaint.

"According to Suiren, who delivered him, he'd apparently been running books between his brothers for several hours without a break," Miharu shook her head lightly. "Silly clutch offered him water on an empty stomach and then panicked when he went down. Nobles…"

Claire let out a soft sigh of relief, tension easing out of her shoulders.

"Other than a few bruises from sliding down a couple of stares," Claire covered a grin with her hand at Miharu's tone, "he should be fine once he wakes. Fear not."

The blonde reached out and lightly grasped her husband's hand, relief making her slightly giddy, even though he was still out of it. If that was all it was, she could easily wait.

She didn't notice that Suiren was standing in the corner, her white clothes and silver hair blending her into almost pure invisibility against the white stone walls of the infirmary. Her grey eyes glowed with cruel glee as she waited for the potion she'd bribed out of Hikari to take effect.

Once it did, the farm-woman would be out of the way, and she would be number one. But first, she had to wait and see.

It almost made Suiren wish for a recording crystal, though the faceted rainbow would have given her away in seconds.

Sora groaned a little bit as he started to come around. What had he been doing that had him aching, and feeling as though he'd fallen down a couple of stairs? The last thing he recalled with Suiren giving him something to drink…

A hand gently squeezed his, and a soft voice reached his ears.

"I though I was supposed to be the one giving heart attacks."

It was… a familiar voice. The tone was a mixture of dry exasperation, warmth, and worried amusement. But for his life he couldn't attach it to a name or a face.

So instead, he opened his eyes and looked up.

She was pretty, though clearly not from the Moon. Bright gold hair like hers had to be from Earth, and those blue eyes… Sora found himself frowning a little in confusion. There was the niggling in the back of his mind that he should know this woman, who gazed on him with such worry. But her name escaped him.

Why?

The blonde woman reached out with her other hand, a worried frown of her own crossing her face.

"Skye? Are you alright?"

It took him several minutes to form the right words to express his confusion.

"Do I know you?"

The sudden stillness of her face made him wonder if he'd said something wrong. Abruptly she stood, releasing his hand, and turned.

"I'll be right back," she said. "I'm going to get Miharu."

Sora slowly sat up as she walked away, and rubbed his head lightly in confusion. What in the world had that been about? And why did he feel like he'd done something wrong?

His hand was still warm where she'd held it.

Claire's heart thumped almost painfully in her chest as she tracked down the healer and repeated the conversation she'd had with Skye. Miharu immediately grabbed her assistant and put her to working on the papers, then moved quickly to the former Prince's side.

He looked almost relieved to see the healer, and uncertain about Claire's presence.

"It's good that you're awake," Miharu said, pulling up the stool that Claire had vacated. "How are you feeling?"

"A little… fuzzy," Sora admitted. "I feel a little disjointed and out of place…"

"Hmmm…" Miharu's lips pursed in a slight frown. "I'm going to do a quick magical scan on you, all right?"

Sora blinked, then nodded after a moment. For some reason, despite the fact that he knew he was married to Suiren, he couldn't keep from staring at the blonde over Miharu's shoulder. There was just something about her that attracted his attention.

Where was Suiren anyways? Sure they'd come to see Daisuke's pick of a wife—it was about time he got married—but she should have been right there, the way the blonde had been. Right? Was that what felt off?

He shivered a little as a pale green light flowed over him, Miharu's magic. The healer's frown deepened, but instead of telling him what was wrong, she turned to the blonde.

"Claire, wait here a moment please," she said. "I need to check something."

"Miharu, what?"

"It may be nothing…" and the healer tried to smile for the blonde, though she was worried herself. "I just need to see something in my records, alright?"

"Well," Claire sighed, "okay Miharu."

Silence descended as the healer left them, an uncertain one. Claire didn't know what to do with herself, and was honestly doing her best to suppress the panic that was clawing at the back of her throat. So when Sora cleared his throat, she jumped about a foot, and nearly tripped over the stool.

Per his usual reflexes, Sora was out of his bed and supporting her before she fell more than a few inches. He carefully set her on the stool, before sitting back down himself, and did his level best to not wonder why holding her like that had felt both familiar and nice.

"So uhm… Claire, is it?"

He had no idea why his question made her uncertainty fade into unhappiness and look like she wanted to cry, but he found himself wanting to fix that. She would look much prettier with a smile on her face.

"Y-yes," she whispered, voice thick with suppressed emotion. "I'm Claire."

"Did I say something wrong?" his brows drew together in worry and he reached out to carefully, lightly touch her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry f I did… everything feels slightly disjointed right now."

"You… According to Suiren you did hit your head," and Claire took several deep breaths to reign herself back in. "So feeling a little out of place is expected."

She tried to smile, but the worry lining her brow defeated it. And she couldn't look into confused sea-green eyes for very long without feeling like something inside of her was breaking apart.

"Claire, come here for a moment!"

With a mixture of relief and sorrow, the blonde obeyed with more speed than decorum, leaving Sora to wonder just what he had said to distress such a lovely young woman. And to wonder where her husband was. The woman—Claire, he reminded himself. A cute name for her—was clearly pregnant, and as such shouldn't be left alone to sit at the beside of the Prince who would soon enough be leaving back to Moisture Palace.

Well, once his brother was crowned, he would. Until then he would be a guest, in the same quarters as Suiren. His old ones had been refurbished for the use of… of…?

His thoughts paused as Suiren moved from her corner, and he gave his wife a warm smile. She smiled back, triumphantly, and leaned in to lightly touch his face.

He was now all hers.

"His memories have been altered," Miharu said softly, once Claire was seated. "Suiren must have received help, there are very few people who have that power. In fact there's only one in residence now."

The look she gave Claire, made the blonde's heart sink.

"Hikari," she mumbled, "right?"

"Correct. I can't reverse what it's done to him without finding out the ingredients Hikari used in her spell, as well as the strength of the magic itself."

The blonde covered her face briefly with her hands, and let out several long shuddering breaths, before thoughts started to clamor in her mind, each vying for supremacy.

Hikari herself had been slated to marry Skye. So where was Hikari now? Why wasn't she there to see the outcome of her potion, and her success? At the very least, even gloating, Claire knew that Hikari wasn't above that.

Which meant that while Hikari might have made the potion, she hadn't done it for herself.

"Miharu, is someone by Skye now?"

Miharu blinked, looking down at the blonde. How anyone could have slipped by them when they were in the main corridor to go be with the former prince… But dutifully she checked, and found her jaw dropping slightly at the sight of Suiren standing next to Skye's bed.

"Princess Suiren? But how did she..?"

"My guess is she was waiting," Claire's voice was soft. "In white and silver you all blend into the walls pretty easily, and she's very fond of those two colors."

Sorrow and hurt was slowly shifting over to burning rage. Anger at Suiren for being duplicitous like this because she had lost in the 'game' to win Daisuke, anger at Hikari for giving her the ability to change Skye's memories, and—even though it felt misplaced—anger at Skye for not being able to resist it.

"Miharu, I'm going back to the rooms. I need to…. I need to think. To talk with the children."

The healer eyed her friend and student in worry. The expression in Claire's eyes was anything but comforting. Fire burned in those blue eyes, the banked kind of fire that spoke of a dangerous temper.

"And after that I'm going to go have a talk with Hikari."

The explanation wasn't an easy one, and was met with varying degrees of disbelief and utter shock.

Jamie did what Claire had wanted to do, and sat with a sudden, abrupt thud.

Lauren turned around, went to the nearest piece of wood—in this case several shelves that had been removed from the bookshelves lining the room—and broke them. Effortlessly.

Alan and Mirei started to pelt their mother with questions.

And Meri began to cry.

Claire sat in the middle, an island of calm. The only sign of the growing anger within her was the way her blue eyes flashed in response to a couple of the questions that were asked. And the questioning didn't last long either as first Mirei then Alan dissolved into tears, as it registered that their father wasn't going to be coming back to them any time soon.

The three crying children turned to their mother, who soothed them effectively and efficiently, letting them cry themselves into slumber. Jamie looked down at the floor, at a loss for words. His father… not coming back?

"How can you be so calm about this Mom?" Lauren demanded, her voice choked. "How are we gonna get Dad back?!"

"Lauren," Claire's voice made her oldest daughter instantly silent. It was almost akin to the voice that she used when they were in trouble and had actually managed to make their mother more than a little pissed. "I'll handle it."

Instinctively, Lauren nodded, ducking her head slightly. Being on the receiving end of that voice was more than slight unnerving.

"I need you and Jamie to keep an eye on the younger ones while I do, however," Claire continued. "I don't know how much of Skye's memory has been altered, but if he doesn't remember me it's highly likely that he won't remember any of you either, and I don't want to expose the younger ones to that."

Jamie and Lauren exchanged looks then nodded again. Alan and Mirei might get it a little, but Meredith? Not in the slightest.

"Mom?" The silver haired teen ducked his head slightly as she turned her gaze in his direction. "What's going to happen now?"

"Now…?" Claire paused briefly. "I'm going to talk to Kaemon, first of all, then track down Hikari. Kaemon might be able to help me find a solution to all of this…"

And of Skye's family, he was the only one she wanted to talk to.

She found Kaemon hidden in the stacks, looking a little annoyed. But his annoyance faded into surprise, then worry when he saw her. Clearly, Miharu had beaten her to the library.

There were several books near him, and he gestured to them almost apologetically.

"This was all I could find, but I know there's more in the older parts of the library."

The books were all about mental manipulations, and how to beat them, or bring back someone who had fallen prey to them, in lieu of the original spell-caster. Claire attempted to smile, but the hard knot of anger in her chest made it difficult to even fake being cheerful.

Kaemon wisely didn't touch her, but he gave her a sympathetic smile.

"Don't worry, we'll figure this out," he promised. "Here, start with this one, it's already got the translation spell on it."

I spent the rest of the day in the library. Tomorrow I start with hunting down that rat Hikari, finding out what she did and making her fix it.

Miharu told me that Skye left with Suiren, who was making all sorts of lovey-dovey faces at him. Guh…. I'm so going to wipe that smirk from her face!