Persephone's Dilemma a work of Card Captor Sakura fanfiction by Michelle Thatcher -------------------------------------------------------------- Card Captor Sakura belongs to the ladies of CLAMP. I am using these characters and situations without the permission of their owners. This story contains SPOILERS for the entire manga series. You have been warned. -------------------------------------------------------------- Turning. The leaves were turning. Yellow, red, orange. And soon it would snow and soon it would thaw and soon it would be Summer again. Soon. Too soon. Professor Kinomoto Sakura had nothing against the turning of the seasons, per se. It was just that on this particular autumn day she was feeling the passage of the years more keenly than she usually did. And on the long walk from work to the house, she'd have plenty of time for needed meditation. It was sometimes like this in the fall. There were years when she just couldn't watch so many things die without a surge of melancholy longing for the loved ones that time and the perils of mortality had taken from her. Friends, lovers, ... family. You didn't get to be the most powerful magician on the Eastern Hemisphere without developing a healthy respect for the cycles of natural life. That, however, didn't stop it from hurting when your best friend since first grade looks up at you through her ever thicker lenses and gives you that same smile of absolute adoration that's warmed you your entire life while your internal sense of the workings of fate tells you that her heart will give out in less than a month. It doesn't stop the sense of longing you have to gently seize her hand, to feel the wrinkled skin against yours, still as smooth as it was seventy years ago and will the life back into her deteriorating body. But magic doesn't work that way. It doesn't keep time from passing. At least not for long. It can protect those around you from fire and famine and flood, but not from fate. And not from the frailties of humanity. One by one, they fell. And now her father's time was coming. Not after taking a stand against the darkness like her beautiful Syaoran or after a sudden and peaceful fall like Tomoyo-chan or a lingering illness like onii-chan, but by his own choice. He'd come to visit her at work bringing the home-made sweet bean treats she'd once loved so much to this same college where he himself had taught archeology for fifty years. She'd known immediately that something in him had changed. He had always carried with him a sense of serenity, but today it had seemed deeper than ever. A wave of calm that washed over her as the man who had always taken such good care of her walked in to her office for what would almost certainly be the last time. "I'm tired, Sakura-san," he had said. "And Nadeshiko-san is waiting for me." She had cried then. She'd been unable to keep herself from shaking as he held her and silently begged for her understanding. And she did understand. More and more as she lost her loved ones she understood what he must feel having the power, but not the will to extend his life into centuries. The overwhelming sense of weariness that flowed through those who watched virtually unchanging as the world went on turning and turning. But she'd be so lonely without him. She turned the key automatically, barely even aware that she'd reached home. It was a traditional and necessarily large Japanese home full of color and memory and the tools of her life's work. More importantly at this moment, however, was the fact that it was full of love. Full of friendship. Besides which, her slippers and her favorite chair were expecting her, and she didn't want to keep them waiting. She was almost glad that the house was somewhat chill when she walked into her personal study. It gave her an excuse to point authoritatively at the fireplace and watch the flames snap to attention. It was a little trick that Syaoran had taught her when they were both children. One that she'd improved upon a little. A nice gentle fire. Something cheerful to help her get over this gloom. Keroberus poked his nose through the door, then padded over and put his head solidly in her lap. She absently reached over to scratch his ears as he looked at her in concern. He waited, gave her time to volunteer her feelings, but when she continued to sit silently staring into the flames, he raised his head and spoke. "What is it, Sakura-chan?" Slowly, her eyes drifted away from the flames and down to meet his. She wanted to speak, but at first it was too much. Too much loss. Too much sudden loneliness. But there was sympathy in his golden eyes, and eventually the necessity of passing on the news was able to make its way to the surface. "Kero-chan," she said quietly. "Would you bring Yue here? I need to talk to both of you." He padded back two steps, made the deep subservient bow that he knew she'd never have required of him, and backed out of the room. She sat back a little further and sighed, Hard as this was going to be, she couldn't help feeling a rush of gratitude for her sun guardian. His cheerful and friendly nature helped her to keep her own outlook positive and warm, and supported her in times like these. He returned long moments later and pressed his head back into her lap purring loudly. Subtle, she thought, almost laughing as new tears began to gather in her eyes. When Yue walked in, his posture as straight and proud as ever, she had begun weeping again. As much as she hated burdening them with the extent of her pain, she couldn't seem to stop the shining tears that fell onto her shirt as her second guardian walked slowly to her side. "What is it, master?" he asked calmly. His composure was as thorough as ever, but more than a century of his company had taught her better than to believe him apathetic. He showed his love differently than her Kero-chan, but it was always just as strong. Always just as absolute. And as she met his eyes through the tears, the same gratitude for him made its presence felt in her heart. For a moment, though, it was accompanied by another sensation. An echo of longing. Of old pain that seemed somehow magnified by the loss she was already feeling. Seconds later she dismissed it in favor of the matter at hand. Pulling together her strength, she addressed them. "My father has asked for my help," she confided. "He wishes to put all of his business and personal concerns in the best order possible. There are a few loose ends to be dealt with before..." How tight her throat suddenly felt. How her voice wavered. She stopped for a moment to gather what she could of her composure. Keroberus closed his eyes in understanding, his purring resumed gently. Yue knelt and placed one hand quietly on her shoulder. She felt strength flowing into her and didn't know if it was a natural reaction to their show of support, or if they were truly sending power through their mystical connections to her. Whatever the cause, it gave her the courage to continue. "I think we all knew this day would eventually come. As strong as he is, his heart has never been focused on power or influence. More and more these last few years, we've seen glimpses of how tired he's become. I know that he wants to be with mother." Her hands clenched for a moment and she closed her eyes tightly. "I want to be selfish. I want to cry and complain and convince him that I need him." Yue's grip tightened a little. Friendship. That was what would get her through this. On the day that Yue had acknowledged her as his new master, she'd told him that she didn't want a servant. That she hoped instead that they could all be friends. And her friends would see her through even this. "I know some of what he must be feeling." She couldn't afford to think about Syaoran. Not now. There'd be time to relive that loss along with the others when this crisis was over. Time to feel it all and put it into the perspective that the years allowed her. Mountains of time. "He deserves my support. He needs me, and I won't let him down. I can't." She looked at both of them in turn and the calm was much easier to find this time. "I know that I can count on both of you. I just hope..." She smiled weakly. Ironically. "I just hope that I'm up to this." "Of course you are," said Yue. "You've always been up to whatever you needed to be." She sighed. "I've felt pretty helpless from time to time. Like when..." Almost without meaning to, she looked into Yue's eyes. Searching... The shadow was still there. The longing for something lost long ago. He remembered. Her greatest failure. The biggest regret of her life. They had both suffered so much from the loss of her older brother. For Sakura it had been more than just a great personal tragedy, it had been a painful reminder of her history of magical failures. She had learned much from those days, but at a truly high cost. And because she hadn't been strong enough back then, he had faded away. The one man whose power might easily have surpassed her own. The person who should be standing beside her facing the difficult tasks ahead. And Yue had lost much more... "But it's never felt like this," she said, breaking free of another painful reflection. "I know it's silly, but I feel so ... abandoned. Like some lost child. At my age!" "You'll be fine, Sakura-chan. You're just in shock." said Keroberus resettling his enormous white wings. Such impractical things for inside buildings, she mused briefly, but they certainly were beautiful. Just the thing for her sun powered lion warrior. Her predecessor Clow Reed had certainly had a flare for the dramatic. And he too had lived for centuries and spent the end of his days setting his affairs in order. But oh, how much there had been to set in order. Events far in the future he'd had to foresee with amazing clairvoyance. Necessity driven, but still frightening and terrible to the people whose lives they had affected years and years after his death. But that was the price for creating such new magics. Magics that had become eternal just as his creations the guardians had become eternal. His own eventual mortality demanded that he prepare for the proper use of his creations. It was an awesome and terrible stewardship. One that weighed upon her more heavily every day of her life. But worst of all was the knowledge that whether in weeks or centuries, her own mortality would some day begin to make itself felt. And though she knew that the idea of greeting her own death was becoming more and more welcome with the passing of each new year, the prospect of arranging the details of finding her own successor was incredibly intimidating. Just thinking about it made her weary from scalp to toenails. Necessity. And so her own time of relief would have to wait, because on the day her brother had died, she'd made a deep and binding promise. A promise that before she gave in to mortality, she would be ready to resettle the burden of her legacy and Clow's as painlessly as possible upon her heir. It would probably take centuries of work and worry, but she was more determined at this moment than she had ever been before. She'd miss her father, but she wouldn't follow him. Not until ... _Syaoran,_ she vowed. _Tomoyo-chan, Onii-chan. I won't fail. I won't let anyone else suffer what we suffered. No one will have to face the fear or the loss that took away our childhood. I won't allow it. I promise. I'll see you all again one day, but there are some things I have to do first._ She smiled through her tears as a feeling of peace welled up inside her. They knew. They understood. And her confidence surged. Looking down at her guardians once more, she wondered how much they understood. Whether or not they knew what fire it was that would drive her work from now on. "Thank you both," she said. "Thank you for everything. I know I can count on you." It wouldn't be easy, but she wouldn't be alone. She would never be alone. And that made all the difference. -------------------------------------------------------------- The End -------------------------------------------------------------- I can't say enough good things about this manga series. It's poetic, it's gripping, it captures the imagination and feeds the spirit! The plot is complex and interesting on several levels from the universal children's archetype of the ten year old magical girl to the heart breaking and socially stigmatized angst of two teen-aged boys who just can't seem to tell each other how they really feel to the eternal torment of the world's most powerful magician who must go on hurting those he loves in the hope that someday his soul will be able to rest peacefully. It is my love for this magnificent epic which prompted the writing of this story. I would like to send a huge thankyou to my wonderfully insightful and encouraging pre-readers for this story so far, Krista Perry, Anand Rao, and Donny Cheng. Thank you for reading and please feel free to send any comments or questions you have about this story to misha@cybergal.com.