Chapter Five as promised.  Not much happens in this chapter. 
Just Sakura and Ayumi getting to know each other a little
better.  You see, in *my* opinion, ^-^ the purpose of an
unfamiliar character in fanfiction is to let the author show
off how cool the *other* characters are. 

Krista and Lisa (serenab4@comcast.net) were very helpful in 
keeping this part from totally sucking.  

My life's a little hectic right now, but I'll do my level best
to have chapter six out by next Sunday as well.  It still
needs some polishing, but otherwise, it's ready.  

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Wasteland 
A Card Captor Sakura fanfic 
by Michelle Thatcher 

============= 
Chapter Five
============= 



"Ayumi-chan?  Do you want to go for a walk today?"

Ayumi looked up from breakfast and smiled at her new
sensei.  Sensei was friendly and nice and wonderful.  She
really really loved sensei.  "You and me, sensei?  Just us?"

"Yes.  Just the girls!  Want to come?"

"Okay, Sensei!"  She jumped up and took Sakura's hand. 
"Where are we going to go?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Maybe down the mountain.  Towards the
ocean.  It's a long way, but if you want I can help you.  We
can take a lunch with us."

That far?  Ayumi was worried.

The house was safe.  She knew that somehow.  Any place
that she went she could see sensei's magic and little glowing
spots where Kero-chan-san took naps sometimes or where Yue-san
sat reading or just thinking in that quiet and serious way
that he had.  She liked the big house a lot.

If Kero-chan-san or Yue-san came with her, she didn't mind
going outside.  Sensei had a beautiful garden and there was a
pond with frogs and some paths in the woods that were safe. 
Safe because they were close to the house and because Sakura-
sensei and her friends went there a lot too.

She didn't want to go back out in the woods or down the
mountain, though.  It scared her out there.  Mommy and Kero-
chan-san had helped her be safe that one time so that she
could come here, but there were still so many things out there
to be scared of.  Scary things that she'd heard stories about
since she was a tiny tiny girl.  Bad things on the mountain. 
Scary things.  Sensei knew that, though, didn't she?  Sensei
wouldn't take her anyplace scary.

"Are you sure it'll be safe, Sakura-sensei?  Safe out that
far away?"

"Yes, of course it's safe.  Why wouldn't it be?"

Why indeed?  "Because you're very strong, aren't you,
sensei?"  That's why it was okay.  Because there wasn't
anything that *her* sensei couldn't fight off.  Even bad
things that wanted to eat little girls she could fight because
she had good spells.  She could keep them safe.

Sensei laughed.  "Pretty strong." she said.  "We'll be
alright."

So she nodded.  She'd go with Sensei, and it would be a
lot of fun.  Just Ayumi and Sensei, and *no*body else.


***


     Sakura and her new little moonchild were going down to the
beach, and as far as Keroberus was concerned, that made Yue
fair game.  It had been a very long time since he'd had the
Moon Guardian to himself.  "Whatcha doin'?"

     Yue seemed a little distracted.  He'd been sitting in the
same spot for twenty minutes.  He kept putting one hand, then
the other, over the spot in the center of his chest.  It was
kinda creepy.  He'd been moody before, and he'd been irritable
before, but even Keroberus had rarely seen him so ...
contemplative.  "Oi!  Yue!"

     "Yes?"

     "What's on your mind, man?  You've been staring out the
window for, like, a year now."

     Since the Yukito persona had reappeared years ago, Yue had
changed a lot, but then, Yue had always been prone to change. 
Keroberus wondered what it meant sometimes.  The core of his
personality was always loyalty and propriety, but the cycle of
his moods went around and around in phases of ten or fifty or
a hundred years.  As they looked at one another now, he
thought that his fellow guardian seemed happy enough, but he'd
been very quiet all day, even for Yue.  Calm and subdued and
full of peace.  He felt the urge to tease him waning.  Damn it
all.

     "I was just thinking."

     The urge returned a little.  "Really?  Thinking?  I
couldn't tell.  What with all the sighing and staring and not
moving at all."

     Yue's content expression didn't change.  His hand went to
that spot just to the right of his heart again.  "Has master
been doing any sort of research into how your magic flows
through you?"

     It was supremely irritating when your long time playmate
suddenly stopped taking his cues.  Still that peace lingered
over Yue, and Keroberus found that even the lack of a good
target for his teasing lately was not enough to keep him in a
teasing mood.  "Nope.  She mentioned wanting to check yours,
though."  Of course, that had been twelve years ago.  He knew
what the goals of Sakura's experiments were, but if she hadn't
told Yue, then it was certainly not his place to do so.  She'd
promised to ask for Keroberus's help and advice before doing
anything drastic, and he trusted she would.

     "That's strange, isn't it?  Wouldn't you think that if she
were setting up something new, she'd need to study the
balance?"

     "I'm not sure she's trying anything that ambitious.  She
just wants to figure out how things work, probably.  She's got
great intuition, but she's been learning more and more about
magic basics for the last twenty years or so.  A little
practical study of how Clow did things, maybe."

     "I suppose it could be so."

     "You didn't even ask, did you?"  He pretended to be
surprised.  

     "What do you mean?"

     It wasn't his place.  It seemed unlikely, though, that
Sakura would intentionally keep something like this from Yue. 
She wasn't the secretive type, and she wasn't likely to demand
his unquestioning obedience.  "She said she wanted to do all
these experiments on you and you just said 'okay,' and that
was that?  If it was me, I'd have wanted to know what she
wanted to find out and how, and what she planned to do with
the information once she had it."

     Yue shook his head.  "I don't need to know.  I trust her."

     Of course, that was it.  It was easy to figure out how
this problem had come to pass.  Sakura hadn't said anything
because the subject was painful or because she had assumed
that Yue would figure it out on his own, and Yue hadn't asked
because to him it would have seemed like questioning her
wisdom or authority.  They were stupid.  The pair of them. 
"Sure you do.  You aren't the only one who trusts her.  Or
loves her, for that matter.  I'd do anything she asked. 
Anything at all.  So what?  I'll do what she says, but she'll
tell me why if I ask.  She wouldn't be mad at me for asking,
and if she said 'I can't tell you, but you have to trust me,'
that would be good enough.  I bet she'll tell you.  You have
to ask, though.  There's nothing wrong with asking."

     The calm didn't change as Yue thought about the idea.  "I
am not sure that I agree with you, but ... I will consider
your words."

     "You do that."  He decided to go outside and find
someplace sunny.  This game was no fun at all.  He'd play with
Yue some other time.


***


     There was no way to be *totally* accurate when guessing
how much someone with moon power would eat.  Sakura had made
her best estimate based on the previous night's dinner, then
had added about two portions of everything just in case.  She
was coming away with leftovers, but that was alright.  


As Sakura held Ayumi's hand and drew her deeper and deeper
back into the trees, she noticed that she still seemed worried
about something.  She'd been nervous from the moment they left
the house, until the moment they'd stepped clear of the trees. 
Lunch had been pleasant, and she'd learned that Ayumi had seen
the ocean twice before that she could remember, and that she
knew the names of two different kinds of shells that could be
found here, and that she liked standing in the water, but
didn't know how to swim.  (She'd told her this solemnly, as if
not knowing how to swim at the age of five were a great
personal shortcoming.)  She'd been the relaxed and happy child
that Sakura was coming to know until she'd led her up the
beach and back into the heavily wooded area between the ocean
and home.  The child was still learning to trust others after
her ordeal, so she waited and hoped, and eventually Ayumi
began to ask questions.

"Sensei, do you ... have you ever met an old hag?"

"A hag, Ayumi?  I've met my share of little old ladies."

"No, I mean a witch.  Everyone in my village tells stories
about the hag on this mountain.  They say that she's hundreds
of years old and that she knows all kinds of curses to put on
people that go where she lives.  They say she likes to trap
people, and that she does terrible things to them.  That this
is her mountain.  Have you ever met her, sensei?  They say
she's very ugly and mean."

Sakura giggled.  One could always count on the masses to
construct useful fictions like these.  "There's only one witch
on this mountain, Ayumi-chan.  I may be hundreds of years old,
and this mountain may belong to me as much as a mountain can
belong to any human being, but I'll let you decide for
yourself whether I'm ugly or mean."

Ayumi stopped and tugged on her sensei's hand until Sakura
turned to her.  They studied each other seriously for a few
moments.

"You're the mountain hag?"  The pure skepticism in the
child's voice greatly amused Sakura.

"Yes," she admitted pleasantly.  "Those stories are about
me.  They've been telling them ever since I came here a long
time ago before your mother was born, or her mother."

"So ... you know about the stories?"

"Yes."

"And ... it doesn't make you mad that people say that you
lure children into bear caves or turn men into straw dolls?"

"No."

Ayumi's hand was stiff in hers, but to her eternal credit,
she did not try to pull it away.  "You ... you don't *really*
do all those mean things, do you?"

Sakura's free hand went to Ayumi's shoulder.  She knelt in
front of her and brought her eyes to the same level as the
girl's, her expression serious.  "What do you think, Ayumi-
chan?"  After all, one of the girl's strongest natural talents
seemed to be her perfect instinct in reading other people. 
She kept her gaze as frank as possible, and waited for the
assessment to be completed.

They looked at each other.  Finally Ayumi shook her head. 
"You'd never hurt nobody."

Sakura nodded.  "You're a smart girl, Ayumi-chan."

"But then ... why don't you tell them that you're not
mean?" 

"Ayumi-chan, is everyone from your village friendly and
nice?"

The child shuddered violently, a hundred unpleasant
memories fighting for her attention.  

"Do you think that anyone from your village might try to
hurt me, or Yue, or Kero-chan if they could?"

She gave a miserable nod and squeezed Sakura's hand in a
silent plea for protection and comfort.

"You see, little one, most people don't understand gifts
like yours and mine.  Lots of people are afraid of them.  They
don't know why you can tell when they're lying.  They don't
know how I can control the weather, or make things grow so
quickly.  They get scared or angry because they know that
we're somehow stronger than they are, and sometimes they even
decide that they're going to hurt us before we can hurt them."

Ayumi nodded again.  She had seen it.  She had lived it.

"Someone came up this mountain once. *My* mountain. 
They'd heard stories about a huge golden lion here.  They
decided that they were going to find it, and kill it, and take
it back to the city to show their friends."

The child seemed properly horrified.  "Kero-chan-san?" she
whispered.

"Yes.  Kero-chan.  Someone from one of the villages to the
west had spotted him, and he'd been telling everyone he met
about how he'd been attacked.  How he'd barely escaped.  Of
course, he made up most of the story, and most people just
thought he'd been drinking too much, but there was one man who
brought traps and weapons, and he climbed my mountain to
search for something to show the world.  He never found
Keroberus, but he did manage to shoot down a mother hawk, and
trap two of our bear cubs before I realized he was here."

"That's horrible!"  Her free hand clenched into a fist,
and Sakura took a moment to pity any poachers who crossed
Ayumi's path once she grew into her full power.

"Luckily, I was able to find the four baby hawks, and we
fed them until we could teach them to fly and hunt.  There was
nothing I could do for the mother bear, but the following
spring she had two more cubs, and they both grew up strong and
healthy."  

"What happened to the man?"

In her mildest voice, Sakura answered the question.  "It
was the strangest thing.  All of his traps and weapons broke
mysteriously.  He couldn't find any more animals.  It was as
if someone were scaring them all away.  Then it started to
rain.  Then it started to *snow*.  In June!  Then he began to
lose things.  Like a blanket, and a canteen, and all his
matches.  Eventually he gave up and went home.   He came back
once, but he only made it as far as the south-west canyon when
the winds became so strong that he couldn't pass.  He turned
back and made camp, and the next day when the winds died down,
he set off into the canyon again.  This time the winds became
so strong that they pushed him back two steps every time he
went forward one step.  He camped again, and he was so tired
that he rested for two days.  The wind died down again, and he
decided he'd make it for sure on the third day, but as soon as
he set foot in the canyon again, the wind came back stronger
than ever, and this time, there was also rain.  Strange,
right?"

Grinning softly, Ayumi nodded, her eyes glowing with new
found admiration.

"That was when I first came here.  I'd bought the house,
and all the land for miles and miles around.  Legally, I own
all of it.  I decided that it would be best if ... I didn't
have too many visitors.  I didn't start the stories of the
mountain hag, but I also didn't try to stop people from
telling them.  The more people hear the story the -"

"The easier it is to scare them away if they come here."

"Yes.  I told you you were a smart girl."

"But is it really okay that I'm here?"

Sakura smiled and took Ayumi in her arms.  "Of course it's
alright.  You're not going to hurt any of the animals here, or
try to find the golden lion, or anything silly like that, are
you?"

She shook her head solemnly.

"You want to stay, don't you?"

She nodded and held on to her new teacher tightly.

"Then it's settled."

Sakura pretended not to notice when Ayumi began to
sniffle.


***


     Yukito liked charcoal better than pencil.  He liked
running his finger over a hard line to turn it into a soft
line.  He liked the smooth feel of the stick moving over the
paper as it left a trail behind it.  "Sit still, Ayumi-chan. 
Just a little longer."

     The little girl that Keroberus had found on the mountain
sat before him.  It was a strange situation.  A lion finding a
young human.  Asking his master if he could keep her.  He
could half imagine Sakura giving a lecture on responsibility. 
'And you have to feed her every day and clean up after her.' 
The thought brought a mild smile to his face.  

     He liked this girl.  She seemed nice and intelligent and
gentle.  

     And energetic.  A bit *too* energetic at the moment.  He
would have guessed that after a long walk and a picnic and
another long walk that she'd be at least a little worn out,
but she seemed to be packed full of wiggles.  "Ayumi-chan,
we'll go outside and play later, but right now we have to
finish this portrait for Sakura-chan.  Can you sit still for
five more minutes?"

     She looked up at him curiously, and he used her
distraction to check a few of his lines.  

     "You call sensei Sakura-chan?"

     Yukito paused.  It still seemed like a very natural thing
to do.  She was To-ya's little sister.  He'd known her since
she was a small child, and she had always been very dear to
him.  Someone that he wanted to protect and nurture.  Now that
this child mentioned it, it did seem somewhat disrespectful. 
She was a mature and powerful woman.  She had much more
worldly experience than he, and a great deal more
responsibility as well as an impressive fortune.  

     But she'd never seemed to mind.

     If he were to call her Sakura or Sakura-san he wondered
what would happen.  Especially now that  

     "Oh!  I know!"

     The girl seemed very excited about whatever she had
figured out.  "What?  What is it, Ayumi-chan?"  

     "You call her Sakura-chan because she's your girlfriend!"

     "No!  I  "  That was the problem with seers.  No hiding. 
No lying.  No fooling them at all.  Of course, he'd never
known a five-year old seer before, and if she was this candid
all the time, he was in for more embarrassing moments in the
near future.  "It's not like that.  I just   I've known her
for a long time.  Since she was little, so   I've always
called her Sakura-chan."

     "So  "  Her eyes were full of suspicion.  "You're not in
love with her?"

     "I  "  He knew better than to lie.  "I didn't say that. 
She likes someone else.  I'm   I'm her friend, so    Ayumi-
chan, let's just finish what we're doing, okay?"  He ignored
the pain.  Sakura was a puzzle that he would work out in time. 
He knew how he felt, but he didn't know how he felt about how
he felt.  He went through the guilt and the loss and the hope
every time he saw her, but he couldn't let this child see
that.  He didn't need to be reminded.

     Ayumi left her cushion on the floor to come to him and put
her hands on his knees and stare at him with concern. 
"Yukito-san?"

     "Yes?"

     "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to make you hurt."

     "Ah.  It's alright.  I'm fine."

     "You shouldn't be so sad, you know.  Sensei likes you as
much as she likes anybody."

     He pointed to her spot on the floor, but smiled softly. 
"I know that, Ayumi-chan.  It's not quite as simple as that,
but ... thank you."  The frightening thing was that despite
her age, he was fairly certain that he could explain the whole
thing to her and she *would* understand it all.  Yue and To-ya
and how bad he felt; everything.  Seers were just like that. 
It wouldn't really help, though.  He knew he had to figure
things out on his own no matter how long it took.  At the
moment, he had important work to do, and he couldn't afford to
think too much about it.  "Let's finish up, okay?"

     She nodded and went back to the same spot and tried to sit
as still as a five year old can.


-------------------------------------------------------------- 

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Thanks for reading!