butterflydreaming (
butterflydreaming) wrote2004-12-07 06:45 pm
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Maybe Sometime, Somewhere Part 3 draft
Apologies. I have no business writing something that
looks like a romance, especially since I know perfectly well what I'm
setting up.
Parts 1 & 2 are here, on mm.org
Maybe Sometime, Somewhere
Part 3 Yin and Yang
Clow studied the ancient but unfaded lettering on the scroll in the yellow lamplight with a gleeful look of satisfaction. Every few moments, he made a sound, a quiet “Aha!” or a musing “Hmmm”, nodding his head or drumming his fingers over his lips. It was starting to drive Yuuko crazy. The dusty little room, storage for the monastery, was cold, too.
“Is it what you were looking for?” Yuuko whispered. She was more than ready to return to the nice, warm hunting lodge where the evening had begun, where she had made the error of saying, “I could take you to it” when Clow had been verbally longing for a lost manuscript.
“Mm,” said Clow. He looked up with a gleam of teeth, a clear sign of pronounced happiness. Blinking, he adjusted his glasses and focused on Yuuko.
He had a Card that could make a double of anything; she wished that he would use it now. She also wished that she had accepted his coat when he had offered it. Though this room was deeply buried behind many walls, she was certain that she could nevertheless hear the shrieking of the winter wind raging outside. “Is it as you remembered it?” Yuuko prodded.
Clow, who had gone back to reading, answered in distraction. “Not at all,” he said. “This isn’t the manuscript.” He looked up again. “But… it… is… fascinating,” he sighed lovingly.
“You mean we’ve been standing here for over an hour while you’ve been READING SOMETHING ELSE?!” Yuuko shouted.
“Yuuko! Your voice!” Clow warned in an alarmed hush.
The exasperated sorceress shivered from frustration with Clow, and frustration with the cold air. “We’re leaving!” she insisted, opening a Doorway. Without looking back to see if her cohort was following, she began to step onto the Path. She felt Clow’s arm at her waist, then around her waist, as he hurried to stay with her.
She was done with being cold, she decided. A favorite direction came into view, and she took it -- a branching that opened in the tropics, on an almost unpopulated island in the South Pacific, amid a cluster of narrow-trunked palm trees. She smiled as a wave of moist heat and filtered sunshine washed over her. In a moment, she had her shoes and stockings removed and in a haphazard pile. Picking up her long and trailing skirts, she ran with bared legs toward the beach.
Her sigh of hedonistic pleasure harmonized with the shush of the calm surf. The ocean water, warm and pristinely clear, washed over her skin, flecking it with sticky white sand. She remembered Clow finally, and looked back for him. He was at the border of beach and palms, stripping a frond into strips and weaving the strips into a circle.
“Are you making a basket?!” she called back, perplexed. It would be just like him, she thought, to do something weird like that.
“A hat,” Clow called back. He began walking down to the waterline, palm strips stuck into odd places of his coat. He gradually added them to the form in his hands, weaving a shallow hat with a wide brim. “This sun will darken your alabaster complexion in minutes.” His fingers were nimble, and by the time he stood next to Yuuko, the palm hat was nearly finished. He smiled at her while he put the last wrapping at the edge of the brim, and then perched the completed hat onto Yuuko’s pinned hair. Though not a perfect fit, it was close. He then began a second palm creation for himself.
“I didn’t know you were so vain about your appearance,” Yuuko couldn’t help taunting.
“I prefer not to sunburn,” answered Clow, intent on the weaving of his hat. He looked at Yuuko from the corner of his eyes. “It’s hot, isn’t it?” he observed
Yuuko was obstinate. “I like it,” she said.
“I like it, too,” Clow answered, walking slowly back up the beach. Under the shade of the palms, he kicked out of his embroidered slippers and removed his canvas coat. Yuuko watched uncertainly while another layer followed, until Clow was simply wearing loose, straight-legged pants and the high-collared shirt that was tied with a sash at the waist. He then sat down on the sand with folded legs and wove the rest of his hat.
Yuuko silently cursed corsets, European fashion, and all men while she wondered how many of her own heavy layers she, herself, could remove. The heat of the island was too much for her dress, but if she disrobed she would only have a thin chemise to cover herself -- not a problem when she had been alone, but too little for mixed company. Since her arms were tiring from holding up her layers of skirt, she wandered back up toward Clow so that she could let them drop, hems dragging over the sand. They ballooned around her when she kneeled.
“I take it you’ve been here, before,” Clow speculated. “Where are we?”
“Seashells wash up on the shores of these islands,” said Yuuko. “As beautiful as they are, they’ve traveled into the hands of collectors; the indigenes gather them and trade them. The shells remember their origins,” she explained, picking up handfuls of the fluffy sand and letting it pour back through her fingers. “If an object remembers its home, I can find that place.”
“Without ending up in fathoms below,” the other mage supplied.
“I don’t end up inside of walls, either,” added the young witch. “Give me credit for some finesse, Clow.”
“I do respect your abilities, Yuuko,” he answered back. “I’m merely unclear on the details.”
There was nothing to say to that, so Yuuko shrugged. A warm trickle of perspiration tracked down the side of her face, from her hairline to her neck. Her corset itched. “I like the colors of ocean and sky,” she mused, attempting to wipe her sweat discretely. “In every place, the sky is different. Higher, or a different blue. And yet, it’s still the same sky,” she contemplated with a smile. “In this world, at least,” she added.
Clow exhaled a relaxed sigh. “A shame that I didn’t bring that scroll with me,” he mused. Yuuko cast him a dark look of warning. He smiled back innocently. “Or a chilled drink.”
Another salty rivulet coursed down her neck and into her tightly bound décolletage. “Here, here,” seconded Yuuko. Despite the discomfort of her clothing and the lack of refreshments, however, she didn’t want to leave the quiet island yet. She studied Clow’s clothing. “Untie your sash,” she commanded without preamble.
Clow blinked, and his mouth twitched, but without questioning her request, he unwound the long strip of dark blue silk from his waist, and handed it to her. She stood up and opened the cloth, checking its size. It was narrow, but long enough.
“Stay here, and don’t look,” she ordered before getting up and moving behind the thick cover of low palms nearby. She disappeared; several minutes of rustling followed; she stepped back out into the open, carrying her dress. She was wearing the cloth of Clow’s sash wrapped around her like a sari, though its short width left her legs bare from the knee downward. “Don’t stare,” she said, self-consciously.
Clow clucked his tongue against his palate.
“Don’t do that, either,” complained the woman.
“Merely a sound of appreciation,” Clow apologized. “You look quite fetching, Yuuko.”
She shook her satin dress and lay it carefully on a bone dry area of clean sand. “I was melting.” She continue to arrange the empty cloths, pointedly not looking at her companion. “You don’t think I’m fetching in this satin cage?”
She could hear the laughter in his answer. “Now, who’s vanity speaks?” he asked. He answered her question brazenly. “You are a very attractive woman, Yuuko, with or without your dress.”
Yuuko skipped back down to the cresting waves so that he would see the flaming blush that she was certain colored even the back of her neck. She waded into the surf until the water dampened the hems of her makeshift sari. The sand underwater was only slightly more coarse underfoot, but large rocks provided homes for a bounty of fish and sea life. She let the sun wash over her; it was shaded by the green-smelling hat, but reflected up from the ocean’s surface. The water sparkled out to a blurring distance, ever breaking wave and undulating swell glittering like a jewel, so that the ocean glittered like a ball gown. Clear as aquamarines at her feet, it became a precious sapphire blue in the distance.
Clow splashed in the shallow waves beside her. He gave no attention to his pant legs, which were not only soaked from the sea’s depth but were also wicking the water upward. He squinted against the bright sunlight with bare eyes; he had left his spectacles in the protection of the rest of his clothing. “This could be Paradise, and we the only ones in the world,” said Clow. He rested his hands on his hips and gazed out with her at the view.
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” said Yuuko, amused. A breeze like a song pulled wisps of her hair loose and lifted them playfully.
“As long as one is not completely alone,” added Clow.
Waves moved over the sand, and the breeze shook the palms musically. A thumb-sized crab scurried over Clow’s toe. Yuuko broke a silence of many minutes with an unadorned statement. “I’ve left my father’s house,” she said, still looking out at the long strip of horizon.
Clow studied the calm but defiant lines of her face. She had the wistful expression that people often wore when looking out across a sea, and he wondered what thoughts were rolling and cresting in her mind. “Does it suit you?” he asked.
Yuuko considered before answering. “I am a sorceress,” she said. “A normal woman’s life is not for me.” She tucked some of the errant wisps back behind her ears. “And what would that life be? I’m almost to old to marry, even if I accepted anyone. I’ve been corrupted; I can’t see my life in so narrow of a view, when I have been to places far beyond the borders of that small world.”
“Age becomes irrelevant,” Clow said, digging toes into the sand.
“Something you can teach me, yet,” teased Yuuko. “How to keep my unblemished youth.”
“Oh, there’s much more than that, that I could teach you,” Clow flippantly answered back, with a roguishly level gaze. Yuuko laughed at his wolfish manner, which earned her a chuckle in return. “Why have you never married?” he inquired lightly but without joking.
“You marry a man’s family when you marry the man,” the sorceress explained. Swishing her feet in the pleasant currents, she continued, “I can’t imagine explaining myself to my husband’s mother, and grandmother, and aunts. I have no interest in cooking or keeping house. I’d make a terrible wife.”
“And what of a man with no family?”
“Why not sleep under bridges?” Yuuko retorted without thinking. She realized to whom she was speaking when it was too late to catch herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, contrite and sincere. “And you?” she said, merrily to erase her mistake. “You’ve never married.” She dipped a cupped hand into the waves, hiding her intent. She caught Clow unexpecting with a splash of saltwater. He stumbled in the water trying to avoid the splash, nearly fell in, and lost his hat. It began to float away while Yuuko clapped her hands in laughter.
Wearing a smile of mischief, Clow swept Yuuko’s feet out from under her and a graceful hook of one leg. Her laughter transformed into a shout of dismay as she went over backward and landed on her seat, nearly up to her shoulders in the water. Laughing again, she slapped waves at him while she tried to stand. Clow retrieved his palm frond hat before coming back to help her up.
For a moment, Clow’s eyes widened when Yuuko came out of the water. He immediately turned away and stripped off his shirt, wrung out the ends and handed it back to her without looking. “Here,” he said, staring straight ahead of himself. “Cover yourself.”
Yuuko looked down at herself. The silk of Clow’s sash, her makeshift dress, was saturated, and it clung to every curve and contour of her body. Her personal topography was as apparent as if she had been wearing nothing at all. She quickly wrapped herself in the loose covering of Clow’s shirt.
“I think it’s time for me to go back to dry ground,” said Clow, sounding strained. He began wading out without looking back at Yuuko. “I think the crabs have taken an epicurean liking to my feet.”
“I need to dry,” said Yuuko, feeling shy but trying not to let that show. She walked out of the water, wincing. “Ow. I think I hit a rock when you tripped me.”
“I hope nothing is bruised…” Clow started to say, then stopped speaking abruptly. He increased his pace up to dry sand. He then made a show of casually lying down on the hot, dry sand and covering his face with his hat. He tucked his hands behind his head in the pose of someone who was at ease and relaxed.
“Pain in my… backside,” Yuuko grumbled as she sat down nearby.
“Transdimensional Witch,” Clow countered in a mumble.
Yuuko couldn’t help the smile that Clow always drew out of her. He was infuriating, but he was also… fun. She pulled off his shirt and tossed it onto his bare chest. In the warm air and on the sun-heated sand, her silk wrap was already drying. “You didn’t answer,” she noted.
“Answer what?”
Yuuko repeated her question. “You have never married, have you?”
Clow sighed almost imperceptibly. “No.”
Yuuko waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. She studied him surreptitiously, wantonly noting his pleasant physique. His lack of clothing revealed a better physical condition than she would have expected, and shadings of sand, stuck to his skin, lent a nice accent. He was, in a way, handsome, she supposed. She liked the way his hair spilled over the sand like spilled ink. It was always a little messy; she still found that annoying and distracting.
It was just like him, not to really answer her question. Clow was secretive; she always had the feeling that he left much unsaid. He kept most of his life hidden. She had yet to receive an invitation to his home; they met in public places, inns and the like. She wasn’t even sure of his age, though she knew his true age did not show.
Of all the people that Yuuko knew, Clow was the closest to her in power. They squabbled and bickered, but on an unspoken level, seemed to understand each other. Or, at least, Yuuko thought to herself, as much as anyone could understand the maddening person that was Clow Reed. It really was no wonder that he had never married. She wondered what it would be like, to have him for a husband. Sharing his bed. Sharing a life. She had not found a man that could induce her to marry, and Clow had remained unmarried for more years than his apparent age showed.
“Maybe we should marry each other.” The contemplation didn’t sound as absurd as she expected. She didn’t realize that she had spoken it out loud.
Clow slipped his hat off of his face and turned to look at her. His expression was more serious than she had ever seen, and more open.
… … …
Parts 1 & 2 are here, on mm.org
Maybe Sometime, Somewhere
Part 3 Yin and Yang
Clow studied the ancient but unfaded lettering on the scroll in the yellow lamplight with a gleeful look of satisfaction. Every few moments, he made a sound, a quiet “Aha!” or a musing “Hmmm”, nodding his head or drumming his fingers over his lips. It was starting to drive Yuuko crazy. The dusty little room, storage for the monastery, was cold, too.
“Is it what you were looking for?” Yuuko whispered. She was more than ready to return to the nice, warm hunting lodge where the evening had begun, where she had made the error of saying, “I could take you to it” when Clow had been verbally longing for a lost manuscript.
“Mm,” said Clow. He looked up with a gleam of teeth, a clear sign of pronounced happiness. Blinking, he adjusted his glasses and focused on Yuuko.
He had a Card that could make a double of anything; she wished that he would use it now. She also wished that she had accepted his coat when he had offered it. Though this room was deeply buried behind many walls, she was certain that she could nevertheless hear the shrieking of the winter wind raging outside. “Is it as you remembered it?” Yuuko prodded.
Clow, who had gone back to reading, answered in distraction. “Not at all,” he said. “This isn’t the manuscript.” He looked up again. “But… it… is… fascinating,” he sighed lovingly.
“You mean we’ve been standing here for over an hour while you’ve been READING SOMETHING ELSE?!” Yuuko shouted.
“Yuuko! Your voice!” Clow warned in an alarmed hush.
The exasperated sorceress shivered from frustration with Clow, and frustration with the cold air. “We’re leaving!” she insisted, opening a Doorway. Without looking back to see if her cohort was following, she began to step onto the Path. She felt Clow’s arm at her waist, then around her waist, as he hurried to stay with her.
She was done with being cold, she decided. A favorite direction came into view, and she took it -- a branching that opened in the tropics, on an almost unpopulated island in the South Pacific, amid a cluster of narrow-trunked palm trees. She smiled as a wave of moist heat and filtered sunshine washed over her. In a moment, she had her shoes and stockings removed and in a haphazard pile. Picking up her long and trailing skirts, she ran with bared legs toward the beach.
Her sigh of hedonistic pleasure harmonized with the shush of the calm surf. The ocean water, warm and pristinely clear, washed over her skin, flecking it with sticky white sand. She remembered Clow finally, and looked back for him. He was at the border of beach and palms, stripping a frond into strips and weaving the strips into a circle.
“Are you making a basket?!” she called back, perplexed. It would be just like him, she thought, to do something weird like that.
“A hat,” Clow called back. He began walking down to the waterline, palm strips stuck into odd places of his coat. He gradually added them to the form in his hands, weaving a shallow hat with a wide brim. “This sun will darken your alabaster complexion in minutes.” His fingers were nimble, and by the time he stood next to Yuuko, the palm hat was nearly finished. He smiled at her while he put the last wrapping at the edge of the brim, and then perched the completed hat onto Yuuko’s pinned hair. Though not a perfect fit, it was close. He then began a second palm creation for himself.
“I didn’t know you were so vain about your appearance,” Yuuko couldn’t help taunting.
“I prefer not to sunburn,” answered Clow, intent on the weaving of his hat. He looked at Yuuko from the corner of his eyes. “It’s hot, isn’t it?” he observed
Yuuko was obstinate. “I like it,” she said.
“I like it, too,” Clow answered, walking slowly back up the beach. Under the shade of the palms, he kicked out of his embroidered slippers and removed his canvas coat. Yuuko watched uncertainly while another layer followed, until Clow was simply wearing loose, straight-legged pants and the high-collared shirt that was tied with a sash at the waist. He then sat down on the sand with folded legs and wove the rest of his hat.
Yuuko silently cursed corsets, European fashion, and all men while she wondered how many of her own heavy layers she, herself, could remove. The heat of the island was too much for her dress, but if she disrobed she would only have a thin chemise to cover herself -- not a problem when she had been alone, but too little for mixed company. Since her arms were tiring from holding up her layers of skirt, she wandered back up toward Clow so that she could let them drop, hems dragging over the sand. They ballooned around her when she kneeled.
“I take it you’ve been here, before,” Clow speculated. “Where are we?”
“Seashells wash up on the shores of these islands,” said Yuuko. “As beautiful as they are, they’ve traveled into the hands of collectors; the indigenes gather them and trade them. The shells remember their origins,” she explained, picking up handfuls of the fluffy sand and letting it pour back through her fingers. “If an object remembers its home, I can find that place.”
“Without ending up in fathoms below,” the other mage supplied.
“I don’t end up inside of walls, either,” added the young witch. “Give me credit for some finesse, Clow.”
“I do respect your abilities, Yuuko,” he answered back. “I’m merely unclear on the details.”
There was nothing to say to that, so Yuuko shrugged. A warm trickle of perspiration tracked down the side of her face, from her hairline to her neck. Her corset itched. “I like the colors of ocean and sky,” she mused, attempting to wipe her sweat discretely. “In every place, the sky is different. Higher, or a different blue. And yet, it’s still the same sky,” she contemplated with a smile. “In this world, at least,” she added.
Clow exhaled a relaxed sigh. “A shame that I didn’t bring that scroll with me,” he mused. Yuuko cast him a dark look of warning. He smiled back innocently. “Or a chilled drink.”
Another salty rivulet coursed down her neck and into her tightly bound décolletage. “Here, here,” seconded Yuuko. Despite the discomfort of her clothing and the lack of refreshments, however, she didn’t want to leave the quiet island yet. She studied Clow’s clothing. “Untie your sash,” she commanded without preamble.
Clow blinked, and his mouth twitched, but without questioning her request, he unwound the long strip of dark blue silk from his waist, and handed it to her. She stood up and opened the cloth, checking its size. It was narrow, but long enough.
“Stay here, and don’t look,” she ordered before getting up and moving behind the thick cover of low palms nearby. She disappeared; several minutes of rustling followed; she stepped back out into the open, carrying her dress. She was wearing the cloth of Clow’s sash wrapped around her like a sari, though its short width left her legs bare from the knee downward. “Don’t stare,” she said, self-consciously.
Clow clucked his tongue against his palate.
“Don’t do that, either,” complained the woman.
“Merely a sound of appreciation,” Clow apologized. “You look quite fetching, Yuuko.”
She shook her satin dress and lay it carefully on a bone dry area of clean sand. “I was melting.” She continue to arrange the empty cloths, pointedly not looking at her companion. “You don’t think I’m fetching in this satin cage?”
She could hear the laughter in his answer. “Now, who’s vanity speaks?” he asked. He answered her question brazenly. “You are a very attractive woman, Yuuko, with or without your dress.”
Yuuko skipped back down to the cresting waves so that he would see the flaming blush that she was certain colored even the back of her neck. She waded into the surf until the water dampened the hems of her makeshift sari. The sand underwater was only slightly more coarse underfoot, but large rocks provided homes for a bounty of fish and sea life. She let the sun wash over her; it was shaded by the green-smelling hat, but reflected up from the ocean’s surface. The water sparkled out to a blurring distance, ever breaking wave and undulating swell glittering like a jewel, so that the ocean glittered like a ball gown. Clear as aquamarines at her feet, it became a precious sapphire blue in the distance.
Clow splashed in the shallow waves beside her. He gave no attention to his pant legs, which were not only soaked from the sea’s depth but were also wicking the water upward. He squinted against the bright sunlight with bare eyes; he had left his spectacles in the protection of the rest of his clothing. “This could be Paradise, and we the only ones in the world,” said Clow. He rested his hands on his hips and gazed out with her at the view.
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” said Yuuko, amused. A breeze like a song pulled wisps of her hair loose and lifted them playfully.
“As long as one is not completely alone,” added Clow.
Waves moved over the sand, and the breeze shook the palms musically. A thumb-sized crab scurried over Clow’s toe. Yuuko broke a silence of many minutes with an unadorned statement. “I’ve left my father’s house,” she said, still looking out at the long strip of horizon.
Clow studied the calm but defiant lines of her face. She had the wistful expression that people often wore when looking out across a sea, and he wondered what thoughts were rolling and cresting in her mind. “Does it suit you?” he asked.
Yuuko considered before answering. “I am a sorceress,” she said. “A normal woman’s life is not for me.” She tucked some of the errant wisps back behind her ears. “And what would that life be? I’m almost to old to marry, even if I accepted anyone. I’ve been corrupted; I can’t see my life in so narrow of a view, when I have been to places far beyond the borders of that small world.”
“Age becomes irrelevant,” Clow said, digging toes into the sand.
“Something you can teach me, yet,” teased Yuuko. “How to keep my unblemished youth.”
“Oh, there’s much more than that, that I could teach you,” Clow flippantly answered back, with a roguishly level gaze. Yuuko laughed at his wolfish manner, which earned her a chuckle in return. “Why have you never married?” he inquired lightly but without joking.
“You marry a man’s family when you marry the man,” the sorceress explained. Swishing her feet in the pleasant currents, she continued, “I can’t imagine explaining myself to my husband’s mother, and grandmother, and aunts. I have no interest in cooking or keeping house. I’d make a terrible wife.”
“And what of a man with no family?”
“Why not sleep under bridges?” Yuuko retorted without thinking. She realized to whom she was speaking when it was too late to catch herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, contrite and sincere. “And you?” she said, merrily to erase her mistake. “You’ve never married.” She dipped a cupped hand into the waves, hiding her intent. She caught Clow unexpecting with a splash of saltwater. He stumbled in the water trying to avoid the splash, nearly fell in, and lost his hat. It began to float away while Yuuko clapped her hands in laughter.
Wearing a smile of mischief, Clow swept Yuuko’s feet out from under her and a graceful hook of one leg. Her laughter transformed into a shout of dismay as she went over backward and landed on her seat, nearly up to her shoulders in the water. Laughing again, she slapped waves at him while she tried to stand. Clow retrieved his palm frond hat before coming back to help her up.
For a moment, Clow’s eyes widened when Yuuko came out of the water. He immediately turned away and stripped off his shirt, wrung out the ends and handed it back to her without looking. “Here,” he said, staring straight ahead of himself. “Cover yourself.”
Yuuko looked down at herself. The silk of Clow’s sash, her makeshift dress, was saturated, and it clung to every curve and contour of her body. Her personal topography was as apparent as if she had been wearing nothing at all. She quickly wrapped herself in the loose covering of Clow’s shirt.
“I think it’s time for me to go back to dry ground,” said Clow, sounding strained. He began wading out without looking back at Yuuko. “I think the crabs have taken an epicurean liking to my feet.”
“I need to dry,” said Yuuko, feeling shy but trying not to let that show. She walked out of the water, wincing. “Ow. I think I hit a rock when you tripped me.”
“I hope nothing is bruised…” Clow started to say, then stopped speaking abruptly. He increased his pace up to dry sand. He then made a show of casually lying down on the hot, dry sand and covering his face with his hat. He tucked his hands behind his head in the pose of someone who was at ease and relaxed.
“Pain in my… backside,” Yuuko grumbled as she sat down nearby.
“Transdimensional Witch,” Clow countered in a mumble.
Yuuko couldn’t help the smile that Clow always drew out of her. He was infuriating, but he was also… fun. She pulled off his shirt and tossed it onto his bare chest. In the warm air and on the sun-heated sand, her silk wrap was already drying. “You didn’t answer,” she noted.
“Answer what?”
Yuuko repeated her question. “You have never married, have you?”
Clow sighed almost imperceptibly. “No.”
Yuuko waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. She studied him surreptitiously, wantonly noting his pleasant physique. His lack of clothing revealed a better physical condition than she would have expected, and shadings of sand, stuck to his skin, lent a nice accent. He was, in a way, handsome, she supposed. She liked the way his hair spilled over the sand like spilled ink. It was always a little messy; she still found that annoying and distracting.
It was just like him, not to really answer her question. Clow was secretive; she always had the feeling that he left much unsaid. He kept most of his life hidden. She had yet to receive an invitation to his home; they met in public places, inns and the like. She wasn’t even sure of his age, though she knew his true age did not show.
Of all the people that Yuuko knew, Clow was the closest to her in power. They squabbled and bickered, but on an unspoken level, seemed to understand each other. Or, at least, Yuuko thought to herself, as much as anyone could understand the maddening person that was Clow Reed. It really was no wonder that he had never married. She wondered what it would be like, to have him for a husband. Sharing his bed. Sharing a life. She had not found a man that could induce her to marry, and Clow had remained unmarried for more years than his apparent age showed.
“Maybe we should marry each other.” The contemplation didn’t sound as absurd as she expected. She didn’t realize that she had spoken it out loud.
Clow slipped his hat off of his face and turned to look at her. His expression was more serious than she had ever seen, and more open.
… … …
no subject
I love you so much for this T_T
no subject
They're always so in character! The bit about the scroll was perfect.
“Maybe we should marry each other.”
*sigh* Shipper as I am, I must take a leaf from Jo March's book and admit that they'd kill each other in the first week.
no subject
I love this story so much! Just read the first two chapters on MediaMiner, and now this! Your development of Yuuko is very interesting and impressive. I was surprised to see her so young and confused in the first chapter, which immediately engaged me. This story is constantly surprising in the best way possible. I especially loved the imagery of this chapter.
I can't wait to see more, especially after Yuuko's suggestion.
no subject
I love it. There’s the subtle differences in young!Yuuko and Xxxholic!Yuuko, but it’s clear to see how some things have changed. The dynamic between Clow and Yuuko is slowly changing with each chapter in a very believable way, even if I think there’s a lot of things that need to come first before we see Clow and Yuuko interacting like they did in the Mokona book.
Just one, small detail that continues to bug me in the same way a painting just tipped to the side would... “Siñorina”, as you used in the first chapter is, indeed the correct pronunciation of ‘miss’, but the ‘ñ’ is purely used in Spanish, therefore in Italian it should be “Signorina”
no subject