CCS Fanfiction: "Marble Halls"

[butterflydreaming]

CCS fanfiction Tsukimine Shrine Challenge: Cold Rating: PG, Length: just around 1300 words Characters: Sonomi-san & Daidoji-san A/N: It’s my understanding that it isn’t uncommon to use the surname san even for someone who is your lover, depending on circumstances.
 

. . .

 

            -Marble Halls-

 

            Thin winter light, the light of the first day of a new year, flowed into the bedroom, making the white walls glow.  Framed by the full pillow and the rumpled cover that Sonomi had pulled up to her chin, everything in her vision was an ethereal white.  Her lashes came down over her eyes in sharp blinks as she woke, tearing at the fabric of dreams that still clung to her.

 

            I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, with vassals and serfs at my side…

 

            She was, she thought, probably the only person on earth whose dreams were no different from her reality.  While other people dreamed of flying or falling, Sonomi Amamiya dreamed of the day’s events, of board meetings, of marriage plans that benefited the family’s honor.

 

            …I had riches all to great to count, and a high ancestral name…

 

            Sonomi blinked away the last of her dream, and remembered that she wasn’t Sonomi Amamiya anymore, and had not been since just before the end of the fiscal year, the end of the Western calendar year.  She was, she remembered as she began to register the presence of another person in the bed, Sonomi Daidoji, now.  She had been married for over two months.

 

            But I also dreamt, which pleased me most, that you love me still the same

            That you loved me

            You loved me still the same

 

            “Oh, Nadeshiko,” she mourned in a sotto voce murmur, and felt a sudden wave of nausea, and launched herself out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom.  She was only wearing a negligé, but the room felt exceptionally chilly as she crossed it.  She swiped at the door to the toilet and it swung mostly closed; she kneeled onto the soothingly cold tile of the floor and rid herself of  her stomach’s meager contents.  Resting her forehead against the icy ceramic tank, she had never been so thankful for the mansion’s spotless housekeeping than at that moment.

 

            A small tap on the door brought her back up to her knees, and her husband’s voice floated in softly through the thin open space.  “Sonomi-san, are you all right?”

 

            She stood, turned on the taps in the sink and washed her face and mouth.  “I’m fine,” she sighed.  “I must have overdone the rich food at the banquet.”  Turning off the hot water completely, she filled her hands with cold and splashed at her face.  The temperature was slightly numbing of her hands, but cleared her mind and brought the color back into her pallid face.

 

            “Are you sure?” he asked, stepping quietly into the room.  He came close to his wife and rubbed her back with a gentle hand.  Sonomi nodded.  He pushed the hair off of her face -- though it was short, bits of it were clinging wetly to her cheeks – and looked at her in the mirror.  “You’ve been sick on more than just this morning.  Why don’t you see a doctor?” he suggested.  Sonomi caught his eyes in reflection; they were a velvety deep blue, enough to be called violet, contrasting like his midnight-black hair with his fair skin.  Her husband looked more hopeful than worried.

 

            “Why is it so cold in the room?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.  She slipped away from his touch and walked out into the bedroom again, and looked around for something warm in which to wrap herself.  The robe that matched her negligé was draped over a lacquer valet, but it was too thin and sheer; she rejected it for her thick cotton bathrobe.

 

            “I’m sorry,” he answered.  “I like the fresh air.  I opened the window after – that is, last night, when you were taking your bath.”  He moved to the window nearest to his side of the bed to close it, but Sonomi stopped him.

 

            “No, leave it,” she sighed.  I’ll get used to it, she thought to herself.  His silk robe was loose on his shoulders, and he didn’t seem cold.

 

            Her husband was an only child and the heir of the Daidoji family, and the current CEO of Daidoji Toy Corporation.  He was twenty-nine, just a few years older than she, had never been married before, well-mannered, and handsome.  Sonomi knew that she was luckier than many.  She watched him pick up the in-house phone and ask for coffee to be sent up to the room; he drank his coffee black, but remembered to request sugar and cream for her, and some plain wafer cookies, which he knew would settle her stomach.

 

            He pulled back the thick comforter on the bed and pat the fluffy mattress.  “Come,” he said.  “The bed is still warm.”  Sonomi made herself cross the carpet and settle herself back in under the covers.  She slipped out of the cotton robe.  Her husband took it from her and hung it up in the closet before returning to her; when he was back at her side, he fixed her hair on her pillow and tucked the comforter around her.  “And there you go, my lady,” he whispered.  He rested a kiss onto her cheek.  She knew her skin was cold, because it felt cold against the warm sheets and his warm lips.

 

            I dreamt that suitors sought my hand

That knights upon bended knee

And with vows no maiden’s heart could withstand

They pledged their faith to me

 

            “No one expects us to be up early today,” he assured.  “Everyone else will also be recovering from the New Year’s celebration.”

 

            Before the banquet had started, Sonomi had slipped away to a simple yellow house in Tomoeda.  Her husband’s jet had not yet come in from Malaysia, and in the festival commotion, no one else would have missed her.   Nadeshiko refused to be spirited away, even for a few minutes in a tea shop, and received her cousin in the living room as if such a visit was an everyday circumstance.  Only a couple of months from delivering her second child, Nadeshiko hardly showed her pregnancy at all.  She pouted about having to be padded for the maternity catalog shots.  Sonomi ignored the older child and the husband in the short hour that she was there.

 

            After the maid arrived with the tray, Daidoji mixed cream and sugar into one of the china cups and brought it to his wife.  Sonomi took it from him, and when the cover shifted off of her shoulders as she sat up, he fixed them around her again so that she wouldn’t be bothered by the draft.  He brought his own cup carefully into the bed and snuggled in next to her with his arm resting in a loose embrace of her shoulder.  Sonomi could hardly feel his touch through the thick covers around her. She sat in the marital bed, holding the smooth, warm cup without taking even a sip.  She didn’t know if the coffee held just the right amount of sweetness; she didn’t know if the balance of cream would have suited her palate.  She let the cup sit in her hands, untouched, until the liquid became cold, and undrinkable.

 

            …But I also dreamt, which charmed me most,

            That you loved me still the same, that you loved me

            You loved me still the same.

 

. . .

 

Comments

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and tragic, and a unique look at Tomoyo's father (which should really be a seperate challenge all its own, really!). That he would love Sonomi when Sonomi could never love anyone but Nadeshiko and eventually her own daughter is rightly haunting.

actually...

[rinoakitty.livejournal.com]

Since I'm doing the challenge this Thursday, what do you think about a father challenge? I was toying with the idea before, but your comment has solidified it some. It'll probably be the choice between Tomoyo's father or Syaoran's, though, since his father isn't mentioned at all either.

Lovely story. Sonomi seemed lost in a dream, very detached from everything, even the possibility of being pregnant. She is just as I would have imagined, somewhere between duly dutifull & complacent and cold & lonely. The line about Sonomi ignoring Touya and Fujitaka really added weight to her detachment: she didn't even have anger for Fujitaka. It was all about Nadeshiko. Wonderful job, I really enjoyed reading this piece.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

I love your take at Sonomi. It truly is tragic that she won't let herself forget Nadeshiko.

I liked how you portrayed Tomoyo's father, too, and the way he does seem to care about Sonomi.