Fic: Ever After (12)

[shadow_of_egypt]

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’ve not a terrible lot to say, other than ‘oops.’ ;;;  Also, raspberry milkshake shower gel smells extraordinarily lovely.

Chapter I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI |



Chapter XII

Once upon a time, within the span of one generation ago, a babe and his mother left the ruins of Suwa to live in the Enchanted Forest with the child’s grandparents on his father’s side, returning to the old ways the child’s father had abandoned for the light of Nihon. Their old home was gone - Suwa was completely destroyed thanks to mysterious oni many claimed had come from the trees - but it did not detract from the hope the forest offered them, the kindness offered by Doumeki Haruka and his wife to their kin, to their daughter-in-law and to their grandson, Doumeki Shizuka.

Shizuka was quiet and clever as he slowly grew up, and got along well with his grandfather. Haruka taught him about the forest, about the fey that dwelled there, about charms and protection against magical wiles. They examined the tales of the trees, of the spirits, and Shizuka listened silently as Haruka spoke of witches and wishes and the price of all things. The boy had strong spiritual strength, and took to his grandfather’s training well. When Haruka died, half a year after Shizuka’s twelfth birthday, Shizuka was understandably upset.

He was distracted when he went into the forest for days afterwards, his bow and arrows with him as he sought peace from his remaining family for a little while to train. On one of those days he went particularly far in, coming across a tranquil clearing with a crystal coffin at its heart, glittering in the afternoon sun. A young man slept inside and Shizuka sought to wake him, only to be seized by the curse upon the case the moment he opened the lid. He felt it at work upon him and he doubled over, dropping his weapons as the magic changed his form. His feet became claws, his arms, wings, his skin rippling and sprouting golden feathers, his face morphing it a razor beak.

Shizuka lay stunned for a while after the spell did its work, and then somehow staggered to his feet, tottering around dizzily, unused to the weight of his wings, his new centre of gravity. He tried to get back to his home but everything looked different, and his head ached too much for him to really think straight. He grew lost under the trees, eventually sinking down to rest in the shade of one of them, hazy and hurting. He fell asleep there, and when he woke up, there was a sharp-eyed fox eying him, clearly bent on a new meal. Still dizzy Shizuka could do little else than get up onto his claws, flapping his wings - and then the fox pounced, and sank teeth into his new right wing. Shizuka put up a struggle - as did the fox, determined to get his prey, and there was fur and feathers and blood. Somewhat weak and confused after his transformation went under the fox, and passed out, in pain, thinking he was going to die.

It naturally came as some surprise, therefore, when he woke up again, bandaged, breathing, and still a bird. He was lying on a soft cushion, a sliding door open in the fairly non-descript room he was in leading to a green garden outside, fresh air and sunshine spilling in across the floor.

“So you’re awake.”

Shizuka knew at first glance the woman who was with him wasn’t normal. His grandfather’s teachings rang clear in his mind as he met her red eyes with his golden own, seeing wisdom there, the weight of years and knowledge. She was beautiful, carrying a regal austerity that neither his mother nor his grandmother bore with a casual confidence, but it did nothing to ease the sudden frisson going through Shizuka - something about the strange woman put his back up, ruffled his feathers and left him tense.

She only smiled at him. “You’re wondering why you’re here?” Shizuka didn’t reply - he didn’t know if he could talk after his transformation anyway. “You wished not to die. Silently, and yet with all your heart, you wished not to die in that instant when you went under the fox, and so I granted that wish.”

Shizuka opened his beak, and, thankfully, words still came as they had done when he had been a human. “I did not wish to you.”

His words were blunt - they could’ve easily been considered offensive judging by what the woman before had apparently done for him, but Shizuka was a Doumeki, taught by Haruka, and raised in the Enchanted Forest. Things were rarely given for free in the magical world - ‘favours’ carried steep prices.

“Maybe…” the woman had long black hair, long strands that trailed around her as she knelt, easily caught up and kept for binding. “Maybe not. I answered all the same.”

And, in the greater scheme of things, that still counted. Shizuka eyed his hostess, wary. “What is your price?”

“It is already paid.” Shizuka’s distrust did not lessen. “Your grandfather did me a great service some years back, and he requested I intercede in these events.”

Shizuka remained with the woman for a week, as his injuries slowly healed. Through the chattering of her two servant girls he learned that he was on an island on the lake in the forest, and through the signs of another visitor to the island he learned that his hostess was a witch. When the week was done most of his bandages were removed, and the lady witch came to sit by him again.

“I could break the spell keeping you in that body, if you wished for it.”

Shizuka turned his head away from her.

She only smiled again. “I thought you would not make the wish. So did your grandfather - you would rather break it yourself, so he paid so that you might learn the methodology.” There were many things Shizuka could’ve asked to that - what had Haruka paid, how he had known to pay it - but Shizuka didn’t ask. It wasn’t in his nature, and one could only exchange so much. “There is a Court not too far from here - the Faerie Court. Its king has long been absent and its Regent needs a messenger - if you go to them, and take up the position there, the curse upon you will eventually be broken. You may not know when that day will come or how the curse-breaking will occur, and you will be subject to the whims of the fey, kept only for so long as you are useful to them. They kill those who swear service to them and then fail in their tasks, and yet, this is the only way open to you in your mindset. Will you take it, Doumeki-kun?”

Shizuka - Doumeki - took it, as Yuuko, the woman and wish-granting witch, had known he would. He went to the Faerie Court with her guidance and swore his service to the Crown, the Royal Crest hung around his neck to bind him into silence. He could speak when it was removed - but who cared to hear his voice?

Doumeki returned to his home to watch over his mother and grandmother, but didn’t dare get too close. His grandfather’s own wards, that had once protected him, repelled him with the Crest around his neck, and his silence meant he could not speak to his remaining family. When his grandmother died and his mother returned to her home in Nihon Doumeki resolved he would never return to his home until the day he was human again, serving the Regent of the Faerie Court until then. He was sent to Yuuko’s island on business quite a few times but she spoke little to him - the few times he looked for her, and her home, when not bid by the Court he couldn’t even find the lake she was supposed to dwell on, even though he followed the river down from the waterfall.

“You have no need of my shop,” she explained to him once, idly, when he brought her a price from the Regent, “and so you will not find me.”

The girl came first. Alone, from Nihon, with dark curling hair and sad, sad eyes, something about her immediately caught Doumeki’s attention, causing him to watch her carefully. She wasn’t a child, but she wasn’t a woman, and she paused when she entered the trees’ shade to look up at the tangle of branches above her, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves before slowly moving forwards. She went to the witch and she was put in the tower, that creation of smooth white stone and broken hearts. He flew by her window one day and she smiled like she was crying, and so, for a terribly long time for a mortal, he didn’t fly back again. The fey murmured about the place, and said the tower was evil.

The boy came next. Quite unlike the girl’s steady pace and pauses this one ran, feet guiding him where his thoughts couldn’t quite reach him. Again, the stranger caught Doumeki’s attention - the boy was pale, from Nihon, with eyes like twilight. He moved like the wind but was a lot noisier about it, and looked like a broken thing. He, too, went to the witch, and the forest whispered about the lady’s new apprentice, who the spirits hungered for and the witch minded close, though the child-student claimed she did nothing but torment him. The Court’s business did not take Doumeki to the with for a long time and so he didn’t see the boy there - instead, a new creature flailed under the trees, visiting the girl in the tower who laughed and smiled and chattered with him. Doumeki watched them absently, as he went about his duties, and they went about their own lives.

He was passing the tower again one time when he heard a strange noise - coming closer, it was discernible as crying. He flew to the tower window-ledge despite himself, seeing the girl, now a few years older, with her face covered by her hands, and tears dripping down her cheeks. He must’ve made some noise while doing so for she looked up at him, and she looked thoroughly miserable.

“You…” she breathed out, a hitching sound, and then she smiled. She must’ve been a liar before she was put in the tower, for how else could she have learned since then, being totally alone? “You shouldn’t be here.”

Doumeki didn’t move. Even though the girl - the young woman - tried to shoo him he refused to budge, looking at her impassively. Eventually, she stopped, seeing it was a lost cause and sinking down into a seat, a half-reluctant, half-reproachful smile on her face. It hurt to look at a little, but it didn’t look as dejected as her tears.

That was the beginning of it, though neither of them could tell.

#

“Hiiimawaaari-chaaaaaan~~!”

“Watanuki-kun!” Himawari looked delighted to see the sparkly Watanuki at the base of her tower, leaning far out of her high window so that her hair - loose that day - swept around her face in dark ringlets, almost obscuring her sight. “Doumeki-kun came to tell me you’d been sick; that’s why you hadn’t come for a few days. Are you feeling better now?”

Watanuki promptly sparkled up at his beloved a thousand times more, spinning around in a swirl of happiness that not even the mention of Doumeki could squash. (Thankfully, the eagle was nowhere in sight that day.) His darling, his precious, lovely, wonderful Himawari-chan had been concerned about him-! “I’m wonderful, Himawari-chan!” He felt like leaping, spinning, soaring, smiling up at his one true love -

“Watanuki-kun!” Himawari gasped, her voice ringing with distress. Watanuki blinked out of his love-struck daze immediately, alert for danger, but that wasn’t what had upset the girl. “Watanuki-kun, what happened to your eye?”

Instinctively, Watanuki raised a hand to his bandaged right eye, as if to cover it from sight, but the damage was done. Himawari had seen his covered eye, face stricken, her own gaze suspiciously bright. “It’s nothing~!” Watanuki tried to be reassuring, forcing cheerfulness, but the eye-patch’s material was coarse beneath his fingertips, the edge of one of his knuckles brushing the edge of his glasses. “Just a little accident in the kitchen while I was cooking. Himawari-chan shouldn’t worry about me.” A little white lie wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Himawari bit her lip. “Did it happen whilst you were sick?”

Watanuki smiled, sad. “…Yeah.” Make that two little white lies.

“Watanuki-kun shouldn’t work so hard all the time!! Especially not when he’s sick!” Himawari scolded him roundly for his fabricated transgressions, worry clouding her voice. She quietened slightly, and Watanuki had to strain to hear her. “…Accidents happen. I don’t want Watanuki-kun to get hurt.”

“…I’ll be alright,” he promised her, just as quietly, and smiled. The basket he’d brought Himawari that day felt heavy in his grasp so he set it down on the grass, careful not to crush a single flower that was growing there. “I don’t ever want Himawari-chan to be sad because of me.”

#

Kurogane stood at the beginning of Leval’s castle gardens dressed in Court finery with a basket of roses on his arm, and tried his very hardest not to feel domesticated. It was a little hard, considering he could feel a certain angel smirking at him from under a nearby copse of trees and he really was slowly trailing around after a bubbling princess cutting flowers of all things, but years of service under the Tsukoyomi at Shirasagi had steeled his manly nerves against that sort of thing (almost), and he bore the situation with admirable dignity (and only a tiny twitch at the corner of one eye). Anything was better than being a wolf he supposed - he had no idea, really, why the curse had stopped working when he’d unduly entered the castle, why he stood as a human both day and night. The witch…Fai had some explaining to do when he next caught either or both of them.

“Kurogane-san!” Sakura waved him over with a smile from another copse of rose bushes, Keroberos at her side, tilting her head up at him so she could meet his eyes from under the brim of her hat. It seemed pretty hot outside, and the hat kept her green eyes from the sun’s glare. Obligingly, he went over, and tried not to let the fact he was contemplating the many ways it might be possible to kill an angel show on his face. “Kurogane-san, do you think we should cut some red roses as well?”

Kurogane looked down at the red bloom the princess was holding out to him with a smile, largely disinterested. A flower was a flower, whatever colour it was, and roses weren’t poisonous. Colours seemed brighter to him than they had before - perhaps it was a side-effect from having monochrome vision in his canine form for so long, and only regaining colour vision with the falling of night. It had been over half a year, after all. “If you can think of something to do with them afterwards.”

Sakura looked thoughtful, considering the flowers already in her basket, as well as the ones in Kurogane’s. “We have cut quite a few already - but there are a lot of rooms in the palace.”

“Mistress,” Yue approached, a soft beat of his wings until he stood beside Kurogane, (“Sa-ku-ra!” The girl chided her guardian immediately, only for Yue to ignore her. It seemed like a long-running argument) “do you really wish to arrange flowers for so many rooms? It would be a tiring task.”

Kurogane interrupted. “Couldn’t the servants do it?”

Sakura blinked up at him. “Servants?”

One of Keroberos’ wings twitched in agitation. “There aren’t any servants.”

Sakura nodded. “There’s just Yue-san, Kero-chan and I here, Kurogane-san. And now you.” She placed the rose she’d been holding down in her basket, one red bloom on a blanket of white, a drop of blood on the snow. “It’s always been that way, ever since I was very small.”

In Kurogane’s eyes the princess was still very small, but he didn’t say that - he didn’t do much but ‘hn’ under his breath; whether or not an angel and a winged lion had been fit constant company and role-models for a lonely little girl as she was growing up was none of his business.

“The princess was kidnapped from her home country of Clow when she was seven.” Yue’s tones were clipped, his story-telling blunt and to the point. “She was brought in, and sealed by the magic barrier about the place. There’s no-one in the castle but us and -”

“There are people in the town!” Sakura cut Yue off in her enthusiasm, putting down her basket and clapping her hands together. “We don’t see them very often but they’ve always been very kind - come,” she took Kurogane’s larger hand in her own impulsively, pulling the man along to the furthest end of the garden, and a low white wall there. She waved her free hand over it, smiling brilliantly. “Look!”

Kurogane looked. And Kurogane stared.

A long, steep hill rolled down the other side of the wall, carpeted in clinging grass and flowers but impossible to climb. Below - terribly, terribly far below - white buildings gleamed under the sun, arched roofs with roads threaded between them, steps up and down a sloping town of dreams and spires, archways and bridges spanning here and there. Tiny people moved about below, splashes of colour amidst the white - the town was by no means bustling, but the people seemed busy enough. Beyond the town was a great white wall, and beyond the wall there was -

Nothing. The land stopped there, dropping off into blue sky, and white curling clouds.

Kurogane choked. “We’re flying?!”

Sakura blinked up at him. “Kurogane-san, you didn’t know?” She sounded curiously surprised - then again, she was the one who’d spent most of her life in a lonely castle overlooking a flying city. “The island we’re on has wings - you can see them when you come outside at night; they only show under the moon.”

Kurogane still looked a little stunned, so Yue took it upon himself to elaborate. “The castle, the town, and the barrier around them are made up and supported by layers of different magics - all of seemingly different origins - that do different tasks. The people of the town… Quite a few seem to have been drawn in by the magic over the years; sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. They weren’t important enough to warrant a place in the castle, so they took up home in the town. It was empty before we came here.”

Keroberos suddenly stiffened, bristling as his neck jerked up, looking at something just out of sight. Yue, seeing his brother’s action, jolted slightly as well, before placing a slim hand on Kurogane’s back and suddenly shoving the man into a nearby large bush with surprising strength. (Kurogane dropped his basket on the way.)

Kurogane tripped over some root or stone in the soil and landed on his knees in a rather undignified fashion due to the push - his reputation due to his physical prowess back in Nihon would have taken a considerable hammering had Souma or any of the other shinobi seen it. He - naturally - wasn’t particularly pleased, opening his mouth to complain only to have the bush abruptly come to life around him - more than usual, anyway -, and stuff a bunch of leaves in his mouth, choking him. Magic.

As he spat them out, Yue glowered through the bush at him. “If you value your life,” the angel threatened lowly, “you will sit there until we say you can come out again and not make a single sound.”

Kurogane growled, still willing to protest - but then Sakura echoed her guardian, with clasped hands and large eyes, her voice soft, urgent. “Please, Kurogane-san?”

Kurogane gave in. (He told himself it had nothing to do with the girl’s pleading expression - of course not -; it was simply common sense - after all, anything that could bother the bitchy angel and his cat companion would have to be something to be incredibly wary of.)

The bush wove itself more tightly around Kurogane, hiding him from sight as there was the sound of footsteps on the gravel path of the garden, a steady crunch coming closer. Through the weave of leaves and twigs in front of his nose Kurogane peered out, narrowing his gaze at the picture of a perfect gentleman that had come to stand before Sakura, half-bowing from the waist with an indulgent smile on his face.

“Princess.”

With that one word, both Yue and Keroberos already looked infuriated.

Sakura’s expression was neutral. “Rondart-san,” she greeted demurely, inclining her head slightly in a gesture Kurogane could only guess Yue had drilled into her - she looked so very strange without her usual sunny smile, but, at the end of the day, she was royalty.

‘Rondart’ was dressed in the courtly fashion the castle seemed fond of, laced and frilled with a blue ribbon tying back his black hair. The look did nothing to endear the man to Kurogane - in fact, the smug glint of the sunlight on Rondart’s glasses, coupled with the man’s own patronising tone, made Kurogane long to do nothing less than punch the man squarely in the face. (Judging by the rippling flex of the lithe muscles in Yue’s back and wings, sheer restraint in its purest form, the abuse could even be a good bonding exercise for the two of them.)

“My apologies for the unannounced visit,” Kyle said, and laid his hand atop Sakura’s head in an almost fatherly fashion, “but it has been a while since my last visit, has it not?”

“Almost four weeks, Rondart-san,” Sakura replied, and did not bow her head to cause the hand to drop away, nor step back. Kyle kept his hand there in expectation of the act, but when the princess remained unflinching, looking at him with impassively clear eyes, he dropped the limb himself, letting it hang awkwardly at his side once more.

Kereberos spoke, claws digging into the grass below them. “So your visit was not so ‘unexpected’, after all.” There was a coiled anger in his words, quite unlike the guardian’s usually brighter disposition.

“Perhaps.” Rondart smiled again, apparently eased by the familiar temper. “How goes your Sight?” He spoke to Sakura again, eyes trained on the girl’s face.

It was Yue’s turn to bristle again. “You know she lost the ability to See a few feathers ago.” He was lying - wasn’t he? Kurogane could recall the two guardians and the princess mentioning her Sight when they’d first met… (But why were they measuring time in feathers?)

“All of it in one go?” Rondart kept smiling, his expression closed. “What a pity.” Yue gritted his teeth, and Kurogane scratched his fingers in the dirt, trying not to lose his own temper. Just who did this Rondart think he was? “We’ll be holding another set of balls at the end of the week.” Sakura’s face dropped. “Come,” the newcomer tried to be persuasive, “don’t you like the dancing?” He raised a hand again but Keroberos pushed between Rondart and the princess, rumbling out a firm command.

“Leave. Now.”

Rondart went reluctantly. He tried not to show it, blathering and bluffing his way through the rest of the conversation, dawdling away the time in an effort to convince all present that he wasn’t departing in the face of Keroberos’ gleaming teeth. He didn’t convince anyone, and departed with a rather mincing stalk and a dainty look upon his face that suggested someone had wafted something unpleasant under his refined little nose.

Sakura bent down to pick up Kurogane’s fallen basket as Rondart strode huffily away, the crunch of his footsteps getting quieter and quieter as he moved further away. Still no-one looked at Kurogane in the bush - when the shinobi tried to move the plant only wrapped more firmly around him and held him still. Sakura was speaking softly with her guardians - apparently she felt tired, something to do with the sun, and they suggested she go lie down - but Kurogane was busy struggling against the bush. Every branch he snapped caused three more to bind him in place, and he was really beginning to hate the taste of twigs being shoved in his mouth. It was another five minutes or so before Kurogane was finally freed, bursting out the bush thoroughly irritated with the ones that had dumped him in there.

They ignored him, clustered around Sakura, and Yue shot him a pointed look as he started escorting the princess inside, a clear ‘not now’.

Keroberos followed his brother in, but not before offering a low jab to their guest’s pride. “You’ve got leaves in your hair.”

Kurogane swore after them both (a little more quietly than usual, so Sakura wouldn’t hear), swiping the leaves out of his hair and resolving to get his answers as soon as Sakura was resting and he could collar her guardians again. He had too many questions to be shoved aside (again).

#

It was like looking at a vision from his childhood, an inversion of the memories in his head. A slim form with pale skin, sable hair cut short around a softly pointed-face, grass-green eyes expressively lined, though downcast…

Fai dropped the sheet he was holding that had been covering the figure before him, his mind trailing off into questions as to why, exactly, someone had made a - female - doll version of Lord Subaru Sumeragi and put her away in some forgotten room in a quiet corner of the Faerie Court. He’d been wandering - a little bored - when he’d caught sight of a white hand, a limb having slipped out from under its covering sheet. Curiosity had caused him to investigate further - and now he stood, perplexed.

“Her name’s Hokuto.”

Fai didn’t jump when a voice spoke behind him - he’d known he had a tail as he’d went around the Court, but it hadn’t particularly bothered him. “Why does she look like Subaru-san?”

Fuuma came further into the room from where he’d been lounging against the door lintel, his hands stuffed lazily in his pockets. Fai wondered just who he was doing the tailing for. “She was a gift - from my cousin, Lady Kotori Monou, to Lord Subaru. Back when we were younger, and Subaru was very small. He wondered what it would be like to have a sister, so Kotori made him one for his birthday.”

Fai considered the information. “Didn’t Kamui-san object?”

Fuuma smiled, a languid expression. “Kamui thought it was a weird thing to wonder about, but he took to the doll as much as Subaru did, only with a bit more hissing. Hokuto was…very energetic, and liked to play dress-up with them.”

“…I see.” Kamui had probably thrown an out-and-out fit about being put in frilly clothes, and then caved in when Subaru made eyes at him.

“It was pretty easy to forget she was a doll.” Fuuma’s smile hadn’t dropped at all, but with his eyes in shadow he was just as enigmatic as his infuriating brother. “She didn’t act like one.”

“…Even created beings have hearts.” Fai crouched down beside the doll - Hokuto - and lifted her limply-hanging hand, putting it back on her lap. Her skin was smooth, soft but cold, fingers made for painting, sewing, delicate tasks. Fai could still remember Subaru’s hands, much the same, the smiling noble plaiting the twins’ hair. Hokuto: a doll in the image of someone else - was that the fate of all the pretty marionettes? Chii - sweet Chii, flying fast and far away to deliver a message for him - had been made in the shape of his mother, strung together from memories and magic. Fai hoped she was alright.

Fuuma nodded, a brief movement. “Makes them easier to break.” Fai slanted a glance at him but the faerie was quicker, taking one of Fai’s hands and pressing it against Hokuto’s cool chest, below her collarbone. There was no heartbeat, vibration…nothing. “Someone mangled her heart one day, and she’s never worked since. She was gutted open, and for all our magic we couldn’t do anything but cover up the hole.”

Fai slid his hand away from Fuuma’s larger palm, and stood. “Couldn’t Monou-shi fix her?”

“Possibly,” Fuuma put his hands back in his pockets, “but Kotori left the forest a few years beforehand, and never came back.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “General consensus is that she’s dead.”

Fai bowed his head. “…Ah.” He didn’t ask any more questions.

#

The smithies of the Faerie Court were a sight to behold, tucked away behind secret doors that only led into the glorious open air once more, the diligent fey hard at work under the shade of trees the like Syaoran had never seen before, with warped branches and curling roots that coiled around magical fires burning every colour of the rainbow and a few more besides.

“What do you think of our workshops?” The Regent Ashura, Syaoran’s guide, asked the boy, drawing Syaoran’s attention back from where he’d been staring at a faerie blowing bubbles of what he could only assume was coloured glass - that is, right up until those bubbles began floating up into the air, caught with a silver net three more faeries sitting up in a tree’s branches above held strung out for such a purpose.

“They’re…” one of the bubbles missed the net to the cries of its catchers, soaring up into the sky, still hot from the fire that had crafted it. As it rose higher and higher it cooled and changed colour once, twice, and then shattered, raining down tiny glitters that the souls on the ground ran around trying to catch in painted buckets. “They’re fascinating.”

Ashura smiled, apparently pleased by the compliment. “This Court is what you make of it.” It said a lot about the boy that Syaoran could still view it as a place of wonder.

Mokona, sitting on Syaoran’s left shoulder, started jumping up and down. “Mokona wants to try that!” She was pointing out a set of strangely-shaped billows a short distance away, a smiling, serene faerie with wings pumping them as a friend flailed at him, twirling about with little licks of flame. It seemed as though the latter faerie was being mostly ignored, as swirling, blue-tinted smoke came out of the bellows in steady puffs, drifting in rings over a shallow tract of liquid metal that ran past them, part of a longer assembly line that snaked around at least three large trees.

Primera, once more sitting on Syaoran’s other shoulder putting tiny braids in the boy’s hair, snorted, but before she could comment a new voice broke into the conversation:

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” The new speaker - a young woman - bowed her head graciously in the direction of Ashura when the small group turned to see who had spoken, her high, golden-blonde ponytail swinging down over her shoulder with the forward motion. “Highness.”

“Presea,” Ashura said by means of introduction for Syaoran and Mokona, motioning to the new faerie with one hand, “the High Blacksmith of this Court.”

“I’m responsible for maintaining this place,” Presea said, straightening with a smile. Syaoran smiled back at her - and then noticed the heavy bouquet of familiar silver flowers in her arms, the blooms streaked with vivid shades of red. Weren’t those the ones he’d seen when he’d rescued Watanuki…?

“She makes the best weapons out of all the fey,” Primera whispered. “She made Shougo’s sword for him.”

The green-haired faerie apparently didn’t whisper quietly enough. “The materials are very expensive and need to be carefully monitored at every stage of development,” Presea explained, following on from Primera’s opening. “Which is why I’m afraid your little companion can’t have a turn at the bellows - it would be too costly if there was a mistake.” The blacksmith sighed, and looked down at the blooms in her hold. “We pay a lot for these.”

“Excuse me, but…” Syaoran interjected, “those flowers…are they the materials you use to make your weaponry?”

“That’s right.” Presea said, mildly perplexed at the boy’s obvious astonishment.

“Syaoran has one of those~,” Mokona sang out - she still wasn’t terribly good at keeping private matters private. Syaoran wasn’t even going to ask how she knew he had the flower from Watanuki in the first place; Mokona’s dreams took her to other places, and it was sometimes best not to question her or them.

Ashura raised an eyebrow. “The Jorougumo gifted one to a human?”

Syaoran rubbed the back of his head. “…It’s a long story.”

“You should put it to good use,” Ashura said, thoughtful. “Would you allow us to craft your flower into a sword for you? You have done me favours with your strong defence in this Court and your quest in itself will most likely do me more favours yet - you should take a gift from us, to show our gratitude.”

“I -” Syaoran started, stumbling a little at the thought of Kurogane’s sword, that beautiful blue long sword Fai claimed had been of faerie crafting. To have a weapon like that… “It would be an honour.”

‘Of course it would.’ Yuuko suddenly chimed from behind the group, startling them all - save Mokona, who only giggled when Ashura tensed, Syaoran jumped, Primera eeked and Presea almost fell over at the massive circular window the white creature had called up without telling anyone. Yuuko smiled down at them all, well aware of Mokona’s tricks. ‘Do you know how much a faerie sword is worth in trade? Especially one crafted by the High Blacksmith herself.’ Presea, catching the compliment, stopped waving her hand through the transmission and hastily bowed.

“Yuuko-san,” Ashura spoke, calling the witch’s attention, “the flower is in your care?”

‘It’s a long story,’ Yuuko smiled, enigmatic as always, and Syaoran shifted a little uncomfortably, wondering if Yuuko had hired magical spies and planted them everywhere. She raised the flower Watanuki had originally picked for Himawari - it wasn’t as vibrant as the ones Presea held but it was still shimmering, the petals firm and still showing the contrast of silver and red. ‘Mokona?’

The flower vanished from Yuuko’s hands in a swirl of magic, reappearing a second or two later in front of Syaoran and the others when Mokona spat it out of her mouth with a cheerful ‘puu!’  Syaoran caught it, holding the flower closely to his chest.

Yuuko continued, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. ‘How goes it locating the castle?’

“My people are still searching the archives,” Ashura told her. “It’s taking quite a while - my father did a lot of business in the Court when I was young, and there is much to be looked through, especially since the filing of the time seems to be out or order.”

‘…Of course,’ Yuuko said, her face solemn - and her tone, strangely, echoing with an odd twinge of what could have been compassion. ‘I wish you all the best.’ She vanished with a nod of her head, Mokona letting the image dissolve into coloured light, and then nothing.

“You have some interesting sponsors on your journey,” Ashura commented to Syaoran, the youth smiling a little awkwardly in acknowledgement and bowing his head.

Presea, meanwhile, had her free hand on her hip, and was hollering into the distance. “Ryuuki!!” The flailing, fiery angel over by the bellows visibly jumped at the yell, fluttering his wings and swooping over as soon as he’d located the High Blacksmith.

“Presea -”

“Here,” Presea shoved the flowers she was holding into the other faerie’s grasp, ‘Ryuuki’ fumbling with them for a second before arranging them neatly in his hold. “Put these in my room - and don’t crush them.”

“Yes, Presea -”

“And stop bothering Ransho - he’s working!”

Ryuuki bowed his head, colouring a little. “Yes, Presea.”

“Scary,” Mokona whispered behind a tiny paw as Ryuuki fluttered off again, Primera and Syaoran nodding in agreement. Presea turned and eyed all three of them, Syaoran letting out a quiet ‘urk.’

“May I have the flower?” The blacksmith extended a hand and Syaoran handed over the silver bloom immediately, watching in interest as Presea began to closely examine it. “…This is a good one,” the faerie murmured, mostly to herself, but Ashura moved a little closer, intrigued by her words. Presea glanced up, smiling at Syaoran warmly. “It has your fire in it - and friendship, and bravery. You must’ve done something very great indeed with this in your possession, for it to burn so fiercely.” Syaoran attempted to look like he could understand how a flower could be burning in the first place. Presea held the flower in question out to Ashura. “It’s as fine a standard as the one that gave birth to Souhi.” The Regent took the flower, looking at it as well for a few seconds. “Don’t you think so?” Ashura handed it back with a nod. “I’ll enjoy working on it.”

“Let me help.” Primera fluttered over the other woman with a glimmering flutter of her wings, wavering in the air before Presea’s face. “I can sing, while you make it.” When Presea looked as if she was about to speak Primera continued on, raising her voice. “I can sing I’ll have you know! I’m Primera, one of the best singers at this stupid Court! And - and -” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest. “I need to pay back my saviour.”

Ashura and Presea looked at Syaoran. Syaoran blushed.

“…Alright,” said Presea finally, surmising Primera. “You can sing while the sword is made - I’m sure it can only help, after all.” Primera looked delighted. “Shall we go?”