Fic: Ever After (10.1)
Title: Ever After
Characters/Pairings: Characters abound from the multiverse, and if you think you spot a pairing, it’s probably there.
Rating: T
Summary: ‘Fairytale’ is a very trying place. Children get abandoned; loves fall under evil spells, and various members of royal families get abducted on an almost regular basis. Even with a witch on-hand all ills can’t simply be wished away - but then, if it’s really the ‘happy ever after’ you’re looking for, it’s quite obligatory to start with ‘once upon a time…’ AU, with heavy reference to canon.
A/N: I have a great lot of nothing to say this chapter but this: http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149601784 This amuses me, ^w^.
Posted in two parts.
Chapter I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX |
Chapter X
Once upon a time, back before most stories began, there was a little dark-haired boy - a prince - who woke one day in his bed knowing he’d had a terrible dream. It lingered bitterly in his mind, a vision of the future, and was to plague his sleep for years to come. Distraught, he flung himself into study, researching the arcane to try and prevent what he had dreamed coming to pass, and at length he became a great magician, renowned throughout all the lands.
Once upon a time, a stupidly, ridiculously long, long time ago, there was a girl. She had no real name ad no-one quite knew where she had come from - some say she had walked straight out of a dream. The prince-magician certainly thought so, then a grown man, hearing of a beautiful young lady on the edges of his parents’ kingdom, someone who could see the future when she stretched out her hand, read fates by the tilt of a head or the wish of a heart. He went to her and watched her tend her garden of butterflies before making himself known, omitting his royal title he took her hand and kissed it, greeting her like an old, dear friend.
“I don’t know you.” She seemed mildly perplexed by his behaviour, letting the handsome stranger have her hand for the moment as she studied him, peeling apart the threads of destiny around him.
“But I’ve known you,” he told her in reply with a smile, “for such a terribly long time.”
“Then you can wait a little longer for a friendly reunion,” she retorted with a dryness he’d fallen for years before he’d known her, “as right now I’ve other idiots to attend.” And she flung him out of her house.
With his parents’ permission, the magician went away for a very long time, leaving the kingdom, going to explore distant lands. He learned even more while he was out there, but still he could not find the answer to the dream that had plagued him since his youth. Eventually, he concluded, the world he lived in simply did not have the solution in it yet.
The prince returned to his kingdom a long time later in secrecy, his head full of strange thoughts and knowledge, something changed about his eyes. The girl - now a woman, still beautiful, even wiser than she had been when he’d left - saw it immediately when he entered her house, taking his face in her hands and frowning at him.
“What…have you done?”
He wouldn’t tell her, but the whole kingdom was gossiping about the new man who had appeared at the palace with royal blood, a prince, according to the rumours, who had been hidden away from the public eye - some mistress’ child? The royal family had acknowledged him, legitimised him, the magician-prince’s new younger brother.
“I’m still looking,” he explained to her eventually, nonsensically, refusing any and all details to her immediate frustration. “I promise.”
“Magicians,” she fumed, taking the bottle of sake he’d offered her as a gift and pouring some out into two cups, “should not make promises lightly.”
Once upon a time, a good few years after tears and loss and heartbreak, the magician found an answer, an arrowing pain that went on unceasingly for all of them, a long, weary, winding road of suffering to disaster. He was King of what had once been his parents’ country, the crown a bitter, lonely thing. He had no heir of his own - the throne would pass to his cousins upon his death, his father’s relations.
He dreamed more than ever, fast asleep whilst wide awake, drawing solace from the celestial guardians he’d made with his magic, stirred into livelihood with the sun, resting in the moon’s cool arms. Prophecies, visions…he took what they showed them as his punishment, just desserts for his actions, and quietly he planned, searching for the strongest path in the future, the brightest, some way to undo the transgressions that had been done.
He grew older, wearier, even though his magic left him looking forever young. Eventually, a path became clear to him, and as he felt himself dying he dismissed his guardians despite their distress, sending them to the royal family with their orders, and split his soul in two, sending the first out as a light, a child that was to born in the future, a boy, Fujitaka. He would have no memories, no magic of the life before, blameless, pure.
The other half…the other half was born too, half-grown, stepping from the split as a young boy, the child who had first dreamed the terrifying dream aeons ago. His smile was ageless and sad, half-forgotten memories lingering in his mind, his incarnation’s magic hanging around his shoulders. He was called Eriol, and he went away from the kingdom, taking his misfortunate magic with him, and made himself two new guardians, too heartsick to be totally alone.
He came back, after a long while had passed, for a visit of sorts. He left his guardians behind him and found his way to a very special shop in the middle of a sacred lake in the middle of the Enchanted Forest, and he met a woman there. A very beautiful woman with no real name and a broken heart, and the boy understood why it was he had instinctively created his guardians in the image of butterflies.
She froze when she saw him, and then he saw the flare of anger in her eyes. “Get out.”
“This shop can only be found by those who have need of it,” he told her calmly. “I have a wish.”
“I cannot grant it,” she snapped. “Now get out.”
“Yuuko -” She turned her back on him, and the children she had made watched him stonily, flanking her either side. “I am not him. I have his magic; I have his memory, aged as it is, but I am not him. Why do you think I could see past your barrier, enter this shop? Your wish does not extend to me.” Eriol paused, seeing the other remained unmoving. “Please, Ichihara-san, you know even better than I what exactly has been done. My previous incarnation saw a way to undo it - to end the dream at last.”
Yuuko turned, slowly, reluctantly, and he saw her eyes were hazy with the threads of the future, hitsuzen. “…They’re crying,” she said eventually, softly. “All the children are crying.”
Eriol’s smile faded completely, his face solemn. “I’m sorry.”
Yuuko eyed him contemplatively, then waved a hand. “…You’re not him.” She turned, and headed for the kitchen in her home, motioning for Eriol to take a seat. “I’ll be back soon - I have the feeling this conversation is going to require a strong drink.”
Once upon a time, so many, many years later, there was a dark-haired boy who was really coming to a sort of home when he entered Yuuko’s shop but didn’t know it, who woke on his futon one day knowing he’d had a peculiar dream. He’d dreamt of a girl, green-eyed and lonely, sitting in a great tree surrounded by sakura blossoms. She was sad but she had smiled for him, comforting him when she realised he was lost.
The boy found a feather in the garden that day when he was tending the plants there, something warm and soft that glowed with power, and took it to Yuuko. The woman declared it was his, and asked him what he would do with it, and so Watanuki asked Yuuko how he could give gifts to people in dreams. She told him, for the price of him fetching the highest-growing apple on the tallest tree in the entire forest, and that night, Watanuki gave the feather to the girl in his dreams. He knew it was hers, somehow, by the warmth the feather had emitted, and he smiled when she smiled, taking his hands and thanking him, giving him her name - ‘Sakura’.
The following day, Watanuki asked Yuuko how he could help Sakura. She told him how and he made a wish, giving away most of his memories of his life in Nihon, of Sakura herself, a future price.
Yuuko walked in Sakura’s dreams that night, and gently explained why it was that she wouldn’t see Watanuki again for a very long while. The princess had looked shaken, guilt-stricken that someone could give away so much for her, but looked up bravely when Yuuko laid a hand on one shoulder.
“Everything will be alright,” she said firmly, as if speaking the words would make things so.
“Everything will be alright,” Yuuko agreed, and left the princess to her dreams.
#
“Yuuko-san,” Watanuki could have such a terribly grim face when he was serious, dream-lost eyes sharpened, focused in a way they weren’t ordinarily. It was such a pity it took just as grim events for that side of the child to show - purpose could be found elsewhere, in situations that didn’t carry such heavy costs. “Yuuko-san, I have a wish.”
Yuuko picked up the untouched drink she’d poured herself a little earlier - red, red wine. She wasn’t much of a wine drinker, getting through more traditional sake, occasional some stronger whisky for the burn, but…oh, anything would do right now. Yuuko looked down at her glass, seeing her own pale face reflected back up at her from scarlet depths. “You can’t afford it.”
Watanuki, naturally, like many others before him, couldn’t accept that. “Yuuko-san -”
“You can’t afford it,” Yuuko repeated, flicking one finger against her flute of wine, the glass ringing out once with a high, lonely note. The black Mokona, still sleeping beside on the couch, gave a sleepy murmur, low discontent, and then rolled over and fell back into the depths of slumber. “With the knowledge you possess you would trade me not for an eye but for a life - you can’t afford it.”
“Yuuko-san…” Watanuki was aghast, glad he was sitting down already, the world tilting alarmingly as his thoughts raced. “Yuuko-san, please. Isn’t there something I can do?” This was his fault; he had to fix things somehow.
Yuuko’s eyes softened slightly as she looked at her employee, at Watanuki, and once more put down her drink. There would be a time for alcohol later -
Later, only a little later, Yuuko stood on the edge of her island and watched Watanuki disembark from the boat he’d rowed over the lake to the other side, a pale figure in the night. He was running practically as soon as his feet touched dry land, speeding off into the dangerous forest to certain peril because…because he was Watanuki, and he was a martyr and he had such a terribly, terribly pure heart.
It was a wonder he hadn’t managed to kill himself yet.
Mokona, woken from his nap when Yuuko had told Watanuki what it was he had to do, sat on the witch’s shoulder and watched Watanuki go, his long ears drooping around his round body, soft and sad. “Watanuki really doesn’t remember, does he?”
Yuuko reached up to touch the little creature’s blue earring with a sigh, stroking a long fingertip down one black ear to offer what little comfort she could. “No,” she felt old. Old and weary, and her heart was tired. “No, he doesn’t.”
Mokona’s voice was small, snuggling into Yuuko’s petting, seeing his friend disappear beneath the forest trees. “Will Watanuki be alright?”
For a few moments, Yuuko didn’t answer. When she finally did, she was turning back to her house, Mokona a warm presence pressed against her neck. “Come, Mokona…I think it’s time to wake up Syaoran-kun, don’t you?”
#
His head ached, a steady throbbing behind his eyes, banging him into rude consciousness against his will. As his eyes slowly opened all his other aches and pains decided to make themselves known, as well as the freezing cold hardness of whatever it was he was lying on.
“It is generally,” spoke a voice, cool and clipped and vaguely sardonic, “considered bad manners to drop into a dinner uninvited.”
Kurogane made a low grumbling noise that could’ve been either agreement or a curse, pushing himself up onto one elbow and automatically glowering in the direction the voice had come, not even bothering to focus before letting his displeasure be known.
A violet gaze - slitted and cat-like and painfully not human - looked back at him disdainfully, letting Kurogane slowly regain his focus on the abnormal whiteness of the stranger’s face, the long silver braid of the stranger’s hair, the huge, white, feathery wings folded behind the stranger’s back, impressive even whilst not spread out to their full length.
This guy was an -
“You’re also late,” rumbled another voice behind the winged guy (quite a way behind too, by the sounds of it - the room had good acoustics, then), but Kurogane was still trying to get his head round the fact he was busy glaring down an angel to look for the source right then. “Sakura saw your arrival a good few weeks back.” There was a vague squeak - another voice, clearly Not Expecting To Be Brought So Suddenly Into The Conversation -, and something that sounded like someone attempting to vanish into their seat - the rub of the fabric was quite distinctive. “Well,” said the rumbling voice a little more quietly, clearly speaking to the squeaking one, “you did. You made me save him some of the takoyaki,” here the speaker turned vaguely accusing, tones of mourning being adopted, “and he didn’t turn up to eat it. Takoyaki.” Clearly, Kurogane had performed some cardinal sin by missing the takoyaki-deadline.
“I can’t say I knew I was expected.” Kurogane finally looked past the stony-eyed angel, his focus regained but his head still throbbing, taking in the long expanse of a tremendous wooden dining table, a teenage girl with auburn-brown hair sitting perched in a large chair at the head, a golden - winged - lion sitting on the floor at her side.
…His life just kept getting weirder by the second, didn’t it.
The lion turned to the girl, perfectly conversational. “Can I eat him?”
The girl sounded scandalised, and smacked the lion on the nose. “Kero-chan!”
The angel stood from where he’d been crouching over Kurogane, opening out his wings - that was an awe-worthy wingspan - and flying the length of the hall they appeared to be in to reach the lion - ‘Kero’ - and girl, standing on the opposite side of the child’s chair to the great cat.
The girl - ‘Sakura’, if the lion’s earlier comment and the squeak had been anything to go by - looked up at the angel. “Is he alright, Yue-san?”
‘Yue’ folded his wings closed once more and assumed an air of utter disinterest, perfectly reflected in the dryness of his tone. “He’ll live.”
Kurogane, from his position on the floor of the other end of the floor, growled at the comment and pushed himself up to his feet, reaching a little unsteadily for Souhi on his belt - damn the magic, the idiot mage’s or otherwise, for affecting him so! -, only to discover his sword wasn’t there. (Somehow, somewhere, the deities were laughing at him. Or maybe just Yuuko, the bitch.)
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Sakura seemed to have paid absolutely no attention to Kurogane’s ill-temper, pushing back her seat with a horrible screech, ignoring her guardians’ winces and dashing down the hall towards the shinobi before Yue could reach out and grab hold of the back of her voluminous dress.
“Mistress!”
“Sakura!”
Both lion and angel swept their wings wide, taking to the air after Sakura, but Kurogane had been taking even steps towards the oncoming girl and the youth herself was quite quick considering the weight of all those frills she was wearing.
Sakura reached Kurogane before Yue and Kero reached Sakura, bowing down rather energetically before the shinobi - to the sound of Yue’s rather outraged cry of ‘Mistress!’ - and smiling up at him.
“My name is Sakura - it’s so wonderful to finally meet you!!”
“Sakura-hime,” Yue corrected stiffly, alighting at the girl’s side and shooting a rather poisonous look at Kurogane. (So much for indifference.) “Mistress, your supper will be getting cold.”
Kurogane ignored the angel, looking down at the girl - the princess. She had to be around Tomoyo’s age, but they looked nothing alike. “…You know of me?”
“I…saw you,” Sakura explained a little hesitantly, absently twisting one of the frills on her dress with one hand, “in a dream. That’s how we knew you were going to be coming.”
So it had been less that the girl had saw and more that she had seen - the princess was a seer. (Brilliant. Another one.)
“…Kurogane,” Kurogane finally replied in a mutter, seeing the likelihood of Yuuko being the one behind his current misfortune trebling in an instant.
“I beg your pardon?” Sakura looked politely confused, green eyes hitting the lights in a manner many would probably dub ‘sweet’ and reminded Kurogane far too much of Tomoyo. Although the Tsukoyomi and Sakura were so physically different this…this girl before him couldn’t help but strike a pang of homesickness in Kurogane, a brief longing for the home he hadn’t seen for half a year.
“My name,” the shinobi reiterated, a little more clearly the second time around, “is Kurogane.”
“Oh,” Sakura blushed a little, sensing that that answer should’ve been obvious, but covered her actions up again with another quick bow (Yue hissed again). “Then welcome to castle Leval, Kurogane-san!” Her smile was pleasant, open and warm. “Would you like some supper?”
#
The fog around Watanuki shifted rather ominously, strange chittering echoing around shadowy trunks; flickers of movement lost to the night and blurred landscape. This end of the forest was even worse after the sun went down, colder and danker, Watanuki shivering as he put one step in front of the other, the hairs of the nape of his neck rising with the knowledge that he was being watched by an endless number of unseen, angry eyes. Nothing came close to him though, warded away by the silver flower pinned to his shift-front that he’d plucked from the area earlier in the day, the cause of this mess. The miasma around this area made him feel sick.
‘This way is fey territory,’ stupid Doumeki - couldn’t he have been more specific? Everyone in the world didn’t communicate through monotone; stupid idiots should volunteer information before it became necessary, so that people were warned ahead of time. ‘Some fey are worse than others.’
Stupid Doumeki. Idiot bird.
“My, my, my,” the airy voice curled through the fog, low and amused and sending another round of shivers down Watanuki’s spine, the youth ducking under one of the off-white ropes that dangled from the trees around him, heavy, sticky loops and strands. He - they reminded him of something, but he just couldn’t - not quite - “have you brought my flower home, little thief?” The voice was louder, closer, and Watanuki looked up.
A young woman sat on a loop of the rope that bedecked the forest around them some way above Watanuki’s head, tumbling gold curls around her pale face framing her black eyes, thick and dark and coldly unforgiving. She smiled when she saw she had Watanuki’s attention, leaning forward a little in her seat and smiling with red, red lips thoughtfully pursed.
“Well, aren’t you cute?”
Watanuki frowned up at her, his stomach lurching uncomfortably. “Who are you?”
“It’s rude to call upon a lady without first finding out her name.” The woman chided him, wagging one long finger as a rebuke. “It is ruder still, however, to take what doesn’t belong to you. Really, child, didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” She smiled again, the expression failing to reach her eyes, seeing Watanuki’s flinch. “Don’t you already know who I am? I would wager some part of you has already guessed…” The woman stood on her loop, perfectly balanced, mild currents of air blowing the wispy black dress she wore around her stocking-clad legs. One gloved hand reached out to loosely grasp the rope holding her aloft, its owner’s expression imperious as she looked down from above. “The humans call me Jorougumo, boy, the Spider Queen. The flower you wear upon your breast belonged to my underlings and kin - adorning it like you have was a good way to call our attention; my brethren take a certain pleasure in taking their revenge on those who flaunt their offences against us.”
Watanuki looked at her. “It’s just a flower -”
“To you perhaps,” the Jorougumo interrupted, “but then the perpetrator of a crime rarely feels the same way as the victim. Those flowers are precious to us - we grow them from our webs to use and trade throughout the forest.”
“You took Doumeki’s eyesight.”
“The eagle?” Watanuki nodded. “I heard he was a messenger of Ashura-ou’s Court - what was he doing with such a strange human child as yourself?”
Watanuki looked at the Jorougumo steadily, though his insides were whirling unpleasantly - he felt like he was going to retch, just wanting to sink onto his knees. “Please give his eye back.”
The woman shook her head. “He took my flower.”
Watanuki could feel his desperation rising. “That was me!”
“Then he is guilty by association.” The Spider Queen smiled, something sweet that was totally at odds with the situation. “You’re such a kind boy. Did you come all this way to help your friend?”
“Please,” Watanuki repeated, “give his eye back.” The Jorougumo turned away. “If you must, take mine instead!! Just…please give the eye back.”
The woman before him paused, turning back to the human and leaning forwards, curious. “Is that bird so very important to you?”
“He…” Watanuki sagged slightly. “It’s my fault his eye is gone.”
Ropes of white flew in from nowhere, lashing themselves around Watanuki’s waist and arms and sharply yanking the youth up into the air, Watanuki struggling until he was raised to the height of the Jorougumo, the woman placing a long, pointed fingernail in the soft skin below his right eye. This close her presence was overwhelming, the miasma in the area bringing Watanuki to the verge of passing out. “You’re offering your eye to me in trade, as simply as that?”
“I -” Watanuki swallowed when she pressed a little harder with her nail, feeling his Adam’s apple bump against the chain of the pendant he wore about his throat. The web binding him stung and burned, searing where it touched his skin. “I am.”
The Jorougumo leaned closer, hair falling around her face, raising her palm and covering the boy’s right eye, dropping his glasses to the floor. Her skin was cold. “It won’t ever come back.”
“I’ll make the trade.”
The Jorougumo pressed harder against his eye, Watanuki crying out as pain suddenly burned in his socket, white ripping through his skull. When he came back to himself it was to blurry vision, divided in two. On his right side he saw himself, blinking and bleary, on his left the Jorougumo, cradling a small smoky-blue sphere in her hands. That…was his eye? As he watched her (and watched himself through the eye she held) she raised the sphere to her red lips, parting them and swallowing the ball, his right eye descending through dark and then -
Nothing, his connection to the eye disappeared completely, the sphere dissolving inside the smiling creature before him.
“I hate this.” Watanuki looked at her, alarmed, the Jorougumo shaking her head. “I will return your friend’s eye; you have paid for it - but what is to stop me from taking more from you? You wandered so naively into my lair - why should I not take more? You clearly give no value to your own person - I would be doing you a favour, to remove the responsibility of yourself from your hands.”
Watanuki’s mouth dried up. “I -”
“Does no-one love you, boy,” the Jorougumo asked him coolly, “or do you just not care? You make a mockery of any affection bestowed on you by treating your own existence like trash to be thrown away.”
“That’s not true.” Watanuki clenched his fists, trying to focus, trying to stay awake.
“Oh, but it is.” The Spider Queen cradled his face with her hands, black eyes foreign and cold. “Your eye was so very delicious. Since nobody loves you, should I take your left one as well?”
“Let him go.”
Watanuki recognised that voice, glancing down to see a familiar head of brown hair, Syaoran glaring up at the Jorougumo, his sword held out before him. Watanuki had no idea what he was doing there. “Syaoran-kun…”
The Jorougumo looked up from Watanuki, glancing down to the forest floor. She smiled. “So many cute boys are coming to visit me today. I should be quite flattered.”
“Let him go,” Syaoran repeated, tightening his grip on his weapon.
“Or else?” The woman sweetly enquired, laughing when the youth shifted into a more aggressive stance. “This is what I like.” She flicked her hand and more thick strands of her web shot down at Syaoran, aiming to capture the brunet the same way they’d done Watanuki.
Syaoran evaded them, leaping from rope to rope and using them as platforms as he went up, vaulting into the air and slicing at the sticky strands that held Watanuki in place. Freed, Watanuki dropped, flailing and clutching onto part of the web nearest to him and digging his fingers in to stop his fall, hissing as the substance it was made of burned his skin, weakening his grip. His vision was already hazy, the miasma choking, and unconsciousness only an eyeblink away -
Watanuki was out cold when the pain and pressure around him finally got the better of him, his grip slackening as he let go, still quite a way above the forest floor, and plummeted towards the ground.
#
The moon was high in the sky when Yuuko entered the room where her patient was laid, Syaoran solemn-eyed as he knelt at Watanuki’s bedside, deep in thought. Yuuko didn’t speak to him as she went to place Watanuki’s repaired glasses beside the sleeping youth’s pillow, within easy reaching distance for when Watanuki awoke. Her long dress rustled slightly as she knelt on the opposite side of her customer, the only sound in the room.
“She…” It was Syaoran who broke the silence, eventually, not looking at anything in particular, his voice quiet. “The Jorougumo…she didn’t fight, after I caught Watanuki-kun.”
Yuuko folded her hands in her lap, her long hair loose and trailing about her knees. “Perhaps her point had already been made.” Syaoran looked confused. “No creature,” Yuuko elaborated slowly, “is disconnected from everything in the world in which they live - none. Every occurrence is an event divided into two, action and reaction, a process of give and take. Simply by existing you force others to acknowledge your existence, and bonds that are made - however briefly - do not easily break. All is half and half with responsibility borne for both sides. Watanuki-kun…” Yuuko paused for a few seconds, taking in the slumbering visage of the bandaged youth, the eye-patch covering Watanuki’s right eye. “Watanuki-kun still needs to learn this.”
Syaoran nodded slightly - assent. “What is the price for his treatment?”
“It’s already covered.” Yuuko uncurled one of her hands, and something white and blue and glowing rested there, drawn from the air itself, apparently, by the witch. It was the Zashiki-warashi’s pendant, her gift to Watanuki. “This was not the use that that girl intended the necklace for, but I think she will be glad that it is aiding Watanuki-kun all the same.”
Again, Syaoran nodded. The Zashiki-warashi, from what he’d seen of her, would be thankful to help Watanuki in any way. “…What should I do with this?” He raised the faded silver flower that he’d lain on his lap, some of the vibrant red of the inner core of the bloom dulled with time and wear. He’d almost crushed it when he’d carried Watanuki back to the shop, this flower that Himawari would never receive, struggling against the strange feeling that swept through him when he came into close contact with the other boy.
“I asked you to retrieve Watanuki as your third and final quest,” Yuuko replied, tucking the pendant she held back out of sight. “I never specified you had to stop the Jorougumo from taking his eyesight completely, or indeed any other part of his body. That was your own doing, your own services rendered to Watanuki, and so that precious flower is his payment to you.”
“I don’t want it.” Syaoran did not want payment for helping a friend.
“Yet you must accept it,” Yuuko said sternly. “Services rendered must be paid for, and prices demanded, however unconsciously, must be received.” When Syaoran still looked reluctant the woman reached across, plucking the flower from the boy’s grasp. “I will hold this in trust for you, until the time that it is needed.”
Syaoran couldn’t see himself needing a flower anytime soon. “Thank you, Yuuko-san.”
The witch rose to her feet, the flower still between her fingertips, and towered over both of the children who were so much closer to the ground - in height, in age, in weariness and wisdom. The moon bleached her pale skin white, her hair darker than the night sky outside. “I apologise that your night tonight is such a busy one, Syaoran-kun, but we must move on now.” Syaoran looked up at her inquiringly. “You have finished paying your price to me.” The boy was instantly on his feet, Yuuko moving to the door and ushering him out ahead of her, sliding the frame noiselessly back into place behind her so that Watanuki could rest, undisturbed. She led them to her main lounge and Syaoran was first in, stopping only a few paces into the room and staring at a familiar blond figure on the witch’s couch, not understanding why the man was there at that time of night, cradling what looked like a cup of sweetened tea.
“Fai-san?” The man looked up from his - untouched - drink, and his face was just as pale as Yuuko’s, probably worse. He wasn’t smiling, his eyes utterly blank, and Syaoran didn’t understand. “Fai-san, why are you here?”
“For the same reason everyone comes to see Yuuko-san,” the mage replied, lips curved with a distant bitterness as he watched the woman herself walk into the room, her own expression still serious, solemn. “I made a wish.”
#
Second part here.