Title: Interlude: Poetry Appreciation Day
Fandom: Card Captor Sakura
Series: Faces of the Moon
Summary: In 1970s Japan, a psychic detective cuts grass for his pillow
Characters: Osaka Joe (OC), Yue (Jade Platter), Keroberous
Warnings: Poetry. Plot? What Plot?

Interlude: Poetry Appreciation Day

He... now departs
The firm-established
City of the sacred rule,
And up mountain slopes
By hill-secluded Hatsuse,
On rough mountain tracks
Where the bristling timber stands...

And when evening comes
That gleams as softly as a glinting gem,
On the snowy plain,
The vast fields of Aki,
He spreads the ground
With bannergrass and small bamboo,
And grass for pillow...

Osaka Joe, Psychic Detective, said, "It could be fun."

Honourable Secretary Jade Platter said, "I do not think the budget will extend."

Keroberous, Golden-Eyed Beast of the Seal said, "Mountain-climbing? For poetry? That's hardcore."

Then Jade Platter said, "But, the budget. Our food money. What will we eat?"

And Keroberous said, "Eh, it'll all work out, missy. We'll find a job on the way."

And then Osaka Joe said, "You're... not still afraid of heights, are you, Odango-han?"

Which is why the next day found Osaka and Jade Platter toiling over a chilly hillside in rented hiking gear, following a group of hikers like chattering, brightly-coloured birds across the bleak landscape. Osaka paused and adjusted the laces on his boots one more time. There were blisters.

"Where's your warrior spirit?" demanded Keroberous from inside Osaka's pack. (He had recently discovered war movies and had been cheering them on with cries of "Hut hut hut!" and "For our Beloved Emperor!") Osaka decided not to explain at which point of their hike his warrior spirit had run away yelping and hidden in the scrubby brush.

Jade Platter stood a little ahead, on the crest of the hill, and shouted, "Please look! Please look!" They'd found the plains of Aki, falling away from the high places, desolate and cold and ancient.

The travellers who take
Shelter on the fields of Aki -
Do they lie at ease,
Are they able to find sleep,
When they think of days gone by?

That night, Osaka lay on a pile of cut bracken, shivering inside a padded sleeping bag. A few metres away there was a bonfire surrounded by noisy, cheerful people.

"I am cold," he heard Jade Platter say.

"I, also, am very cold," he replied. "Perhaps we could..."

"Yes."

Jade Platter sat up and he heard rustling cloth and zips unzipping. Then the weight of her sleeping bag settled over his head. "Here," she said, and trotted over to the campfire.

Osaka's sides shook silently. The sleeping bag was still warm. He sighed, pulled it around him, and snuggled. Later, still sleepless, he made his own way to the campfire, where the terribly enthusiastic young people were passing around bottles and mugs and half-incinerated marshmallows.

"Yes," he heard Jade Platter say. "You are dreaming. You are dreaming that a small stuffed toy is walking and talking."

"And putting away more beer than you!" added Keroberous, cheerfully.

Eastward on the fields
A flickering of flame begins
To rise against the dark,
And looking back the sunken moon
Is seen to rest upon the land.

"Look," said Osaka, pointing. The round yellow moon was dipping down to the western horizon. "And there," he said, nodding his head the other way, where the sun was just coming up. "It doesn't happen often that they match up, but, eh... it happens." A little way away, the other hikers were cheering loudly.

Keroberous on his shoulder was quivering, small black bead eyes as wide as they would go. "But," he said quietly, "but I've been here before. It was, Clow was here, and Yue, and, and..." All at once the small beast shot into the sky and vanished in a dizzy, gambolling spiral.

We come in memory of him,
Our lord who passed like the yellow leaf...

"Clow was here!" echoed down from above.

Who knew what the other hikers thought of this. The 'just a dream' excuse had to be wearing a bit thin by now. Osaka filled his ivory pipe with cold-stiff hands and lit it, hunching over to shield the flame from the wind. He felt very tired all of a sudden – tired and cold, and not as young as he remembered he used to be.

"How did you know?" his secretary asked quietly.

He shrugged. "Lucky guess?"

He knew Jade Platter's moods by now, a little, and didn't need to see her face: this was the silence that meant a doubtful eyebrow cocked in his direction.

"I played the odds," he said, drawing on his pipe and releasing a mouthful of tobacco smoke. "It seemed the sort of thing a person of Clow-sensei's character might do."

Jade Platter sat on the hillock next to him. "It is the sort of thing a person of your character would do."

Osaka looked up, and she tweaked his nose.

"Nnngh – c-cold. C-c-cold fingers. Agh! No tickling, have mercy! C-c-cold."

Peer of the Sun,
His Highness our most noble Prince
Would line up his steeds
And start upon the royal hunt
At this very hour that now has come.

"It's... snowing quite a lot. I'm a city boy. Is that normal from a clear sky?"

From above, they heard, "Clow Card! INCOMING..."

Owari

NOTES:

The poem comes from a very old book of Japanese poetry, the Manyoshu, and is formally titled: "A poem composed by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro when Prince Karu lodged on the fields of Aki." (Prince Karu was travelling to his dead father's old hunting lodge, to remember the man.) This translation comes from A Waka Anthology Volume One: The Gem-Glistening Cup. (Cranston, Edwin A., Stanford University Press, 1993). Apparently, travelling to Aki to celebrate the scene is a yearly event.

If I've screwed up my depiction of Aki, please forgive me. I can't find a detailed description of terrain, and for all I know there's a city there now.