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Pleasure Slave	By : Capitalist Category: +. to F > Card Captor Sakura Views: 84321 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 36
- 37
- 38
Chapter 37
‘the messenger’

Something felt wrong when Touya opened his eyes. His last waking memory was falling asleep on Yue’s chest, cozily nestled up against his warmth. But now his cheek was resting directly against the sheet, as if Yue had slipped out from underneath him, and the sheets were cool.
Touya blinked, stretched, and sat up. “Yue?” He was not by the fireplace, or out on the balcony. The room was empty. The world was quiet. Outside, the sky was still dark with midnight.
Where did Yue go? Touya was not sleepy, and didn’t feel like lying back against the pillows. Something felt wrong. He hunted for his clothing, which should have been lying in a heap by the bed, but found nothing. Instead he wrapped one of the sheets around him, holding the edge tightly against his ribs. The satin fell against his skin as softly as a whisper, almost floating around him as he left the bedroom and entered Yue’s study. He was not here either.
Out in the halls, the castle was so quiet. Of course it was quiet – this castle was always quiet, even in the daytime. But now it felt unnatural, and Touya’s bare skin was prickling with unease. Maybe he should go check on his sister too. Then he would look for Yue.
Marble steps passed under his feet, cool and impersonal, high-ceilinged corridors yawning in the silence. There was a time when this place was a bewildering labyrinth, and he’d gotten lost trying to escape it, but now Touya knew the way with certainty. In his long-legged stride he traveled through the castle, and down the stairwells, and approached the room where his sister slept.
The cage was empty though, the door firmly shut and locked to keep no one at all in. Confused, Touya stood before the bars and stared.
“She isn’t here.”
Touya jumped. After so many months he’d essentially forgotten that this room was originally a throne room, that particular furniture sitting empty and useless on its dais. Now in it a man lounged, draped casually in a midnight-blue robe, longish black hair tied into a messy ponytail. As Touya watched he finished cleaning his glasses, and returned them to his face with a smile.
“But you needn’t worry; she’s quite safe. They’re all quite safe.”
“And what about me?”
“Are you safe? Well, I suppose that would depend on what you want to be safe from. But forgive me, I am getting ahead of myself – introductions are in order. My name is -”
“I know who you are.” His voice cut across the room flat and cold. “And I have nothing to say to you.”
“Fortunate, because I have a great many things to say to you, and my time here is short. It’s probably best that you don’t interrupt.” Clow beamed and oiled off his seat to saunter closer; instinctively Touya backed away.
“Leave me alone.”
“Ah, so that is what you want to be safe from. Well in that case, no, you are absolutely not safe tonight.”
“Where’s Yue?”
“He won’t be joining us, I’m afraid, my beloved has his own demons to deal with.” Clow pointed to the window, and when Touya followed the direction of his finger he glimpsed Yue far away in the woods. He should not have been able to see him so clearly from here, but he was standing in that clearing and talking to someone, a man that seemed very familiar to Touya. His back was turned, however, and he could not see the face.
“Who -” When he turned back Clow was gone, and he whirled around with the fear that he might be right behind him. He was safely far away, however, walking away with an unhurried grace.
“Perhaps one day he’ll be ready to face us, and then all three lovers can stand in the same room and sort things out. Not yet, though, not this soon. That would be too simple and simple is boring. Don’t you think?”
“I think I’m going to wake up now.”
Clow laughed. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Toya, not until I decide to let you go. But you are welcome to try.”
Touya froze, his fingers mid-pinch, and his head jerked up. “What did you call me?”
Clow was gone. Touya left the throne room almost at a run, but there was no sign of Clow anywhere in the long corridor. He couldn’t have disappeared so quickly.
“Hey!” he shouted, a sound swallowed up by the silence of the castle. No reply. But it felt as though he was being watched. Irritated, Touya stomped back the way he’d come. He would go back to bed, close his eyes, and when he opened them everything would be back to normal. But when he turned the knob and opened Yue’s door, there was Clow in his chair.
“Yah!” He jumped and nearly lost control of his bedsheet; hastily he clutched at it. “What are you doing in here?”
“Musing,” came the absentminded answer. Clow was staring into the dark fireplace as if he’d never seen such a thing before. “It’s rather charming, isn’t it, how my Yue adopted so many of my mannerisms as his own. If you had told me when I was alive that he would spend every night after my death drinking wine before the fire, I would not have believed it. He dislikes the taste, you know. And to have a slave sit at his feet and read to him… well, that was a surprise. But then, you were a surprise all by yourself.”
Touya grimaced. “What do you want with me?”
“I told you, I have many things to say. I’ve been quite anxious to meet you for some time, ever since you entered my room and walked through my lingering presence. Alas, your magical perception just wasn’t developing fast enough. Fortunately my beloved saw fit to dress you in one of my old favorites…” He paused to nod at the silver chain around Touya’s throat. “Thus opening a way for me.”
Unconsciously Touya’s hand moved to cover it. “Did you come to tell me I should keep my hands off your things?”
Clow looked intrigued. “Would that anger you?”
“I’d think you were wasting your time. Yue’s the one who took me into his bed, not the other way around. You should be talking to him in his dream and leave me alone.”
“But you are the one I’m curious about, lost boy of the mountains. Reader, writer, thinker. Your heart beats too proudly to accept the role of slavery, but you’ve learned to bend to Yue’s will. Adaptation, or some other reason?”
“I did it to protect my sister, that’s all.”
“Yes, yes, darling little girl. Quite pretty as well; I like her.”
Touya bristled. “Do I have to tell you to stay away from her too?”
Clow laughed. “Like a dog on permanent guard. You must learn to stop treating your little sister like an object that only you can possess – not only will it lead you to a dead end, it underestimates her impact on your life.   Her choices are not done affecting your future.”
“I do not treat my sister like an object, I just -” Touya cut himself off, an uneasy tingle going down his back. What was that noise?
“Did you hear…?” Absurd, but he could swear it sounded like the clatter of hooves on marble. Uncertainly he glanced back at the doors and then to Clow again, who was studying him interestedly. Like he was waiting to see what Touya would do next. Cautiously, trying to keep at least one eye on him, Touya backed up and pushed the door wide open. The study was empty, of course. No hooved animals that he could see.
He hadn’t kept close enough eye on Clow, though. When he looked back, the chair was empty. Touya huffed, then pricked up his ears at another noise, this one more believable. It was the sound of piano music.

“A beautiful instrument,” Clow sighed, when Touya entered the music room, as if the conversation had never stopped. “And a challenge to learn, though the result is surely worth it. Don’t you think? You are particularly gifted.”
“I just play the notes.”
“No, I taught Yue to ‘just play the notes’. Yet he would never touch the keys unless I ordered him to, and preferred to sit beside me and simply listen. You play the soul of the song itself, it is no wonder you’ve captivated him so.”
“I don’t play for him,” Touya insisted. Clow did not look his way. “I play because I like it.”
“Yes, and I suppose my beloved told you he was my willing slave.”
“Huh?”
“That he would follow my every order without pause, that he lived to please me and would rather die than leave me.”
Touya scowled. “So?”
“So, you’re both lying.”
“What?”
“Although he hardly knows that himself. He cannot remember his earliest days on this earth, anymore than we can remember our own infancy. In the days before he even mastered language, Yue was a wild untamed creature of magic that felt nothing but pure hatred for me. It was unexpected, but I could hardly blame him. Offspring of the moonlight, which shines freely in the night sky, how could he stand to be bound up in a cage? Or for that matter, his own physical body? I do not know how much he really understood, in those days, but I am sure he knew I was responsible for his imprisonment. He would growl and snap at me, and shrink from my touch, wings beating like a panicked bird. It was never my wish to cage him, but without control his powers were lethal. I told myself that, and yet…”
A sigh escaped Clow and he turned his attention to a complicated trill, leaving Touya with his breath bated.
“Yet what?”
“It was not my wish to cage him, but all the same I liked it. I stared him down through the bars and promised him daily that I would conquer his hatred; I looked into his frosty glare and felt the thrill of challenge. Power is a dangerous aphrodisiac, and addictive. I loved every minute of his domestication. And it all began with music; playing my violin outside his cage was the only way he would allow me to touch him. It’s easy to see why music enthralls him to this day.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Don’t worry, I’m getting to that.”
Clow shot him a smile that sent cold water trickling down Touya’s spine, and then – there it was again! Sure that he’d heard it this time, Touya whirled around and burst out of the doors and into the corridor. But the moonlight was fickle; he only caught a glimpse of a shadow disappearing into a larger one. What was that shape?
“The truth seeks you.”
Clow’s voice was all of an inch from his ear, and Touya almost fell over trying to jump away and around at the same time. “Stop that! Get away from me!”
Clow blinked at him through those spectacles, looking curious. “My goodness, you act as though I’m here to harm you. Why so nervous?”
“You’re dead,” Touya pointed out, silly as it seemed to point out the obvious. Clow just looked amused. “And, I think you must hate me.”
“Why would I?”
Again Touya absently rubbed at the silver chain around his throat. “You love him, you were together with him for… years, I guess. I don’t even know how long. Now I’m sleeping with him.”
“You’re asking me if I’m jealous.”
“…yeah.”
A sadness flickered through Clow’s expression, and he walked past Touya as if he weren’t there.
“Well. I won’t pretend it isn’t difficult, watching my beloved open his heart to another man. He shares his bed with you, lets you kiss him on the lips. These are affections he has not granted to any pleasure slave in his long life, things he once shared only with me.” Clow just kept on walking, apparently unmindful of where he was going, and uncertainly Touya followed.
“Everything he’s taught you in bed, every movement of his hands on your body, is something that I showed him. Something that was once just between us. Yes, I am sinfully jealous knowing how intimate you’ve been with my lover, physically and emotionally. But Yue’s heart has been in a dark, cold place since my death. His pain haunts me, though I am the one who’s dead. So if you’ve brought a kindle of warmth to his life, given him reason to smile again, how can I be unhappy? True love, you see, is loving someone so much that his happiness comes before your own. True love is sacrificing what you thought you wanted most, for his sake. Besides…”
When did Clow stop walking? Touya almost bumped into him, startled to find their faces so close to one another. His eyes were a brilliant, intense shade of blue.
“How could I fault my creation for such exquisite taste? I would have been tempted too.” He touched Touya on the cheek, very lightly, and Touya flinched and knocked the hand away. Clow chuckled.
“Only Yue’s to touch, I see. I’m sure he had to earn the privilege. You are quite the conundrum, Toya.”
He turned and started walking again, oblivious to the glower Touya was aiming at his back.
“Do not call me that.”
“Oh dear, that’s his pet name for you, isn’t it? I apologize. I would not want to trespass on the ground between you – far too dangerous. In all my long life I’ve never seen two hearts put each other through so much pain and so much delight at the same time. It’s frightening to watch. One too scared to admit his love, the other too proud. The urge to step in and simply ‘fix it’ is overwhelming, but I let Yue go a long time ago and he must learn to solve these things on his own.”
“I don’t love him.”
“Of course you do.” Clow paused to examine idly a painting. “That’s why you resent me. That’s why you can’t stand to be near me and glare at me like you’re currently doing. I am his former lover, and though I am dead I live on in his heart. It’s there you’ll have to best me, and you’re not sure if you can.”
“No,” Touya growled. “You’re wrong. I don’t like you because you’re a selfish bastard.”
“Oh?”
“Yes! You’re an arrogant, selfish wizard that created a living thing just to prove you could. Because you were ‘lonely’ and couldn’t be bothered to find another human for your bed. You created him, let him fall in love with you, let him worship you, and then you died on him and left him all alone in the world. And he can’t die, unless something strong enough to kill him shows up, which won’t happen, and he’ll just keep on living forever. How could you do that to him? How could you be so selfish?”
For the first time, Clow looked surprised. Then he dropped his eyes.
“Indeed you are right; I won’t deny it. When I created Yue I was the most powerful sorcerer in the civilized world, and competitors had ceased trying to challenge my claim. I was bored, and restless, and in my arrogance created an immortal creature because immortality was what I aspired to as well. I thought when I’d found it, the two of us would live on forever and in love. It was only many years after Yue’s birth that I realized it was not my place to cheat death. I created a friend and brother for him, so he would not have to bear out the centuries alone, but it wasn’t enough. Yue’s heart seeks love.”   He paused to study Touya. “You are very concerned with his feelings, aren’t you? Protective of you.”
“I don’t love him, so you can stop looking at me like that. Yue’s done nothing but destroy my life, I’ve got no reason to feel anything but hate for him.”
“But as Yue himself proved, hate and love are dangerously close to one another on the spectrum of human emotion. Are you sure of your feelings?”
“Very, I -” Touya almost bit his tongue at the loud clatter of hooves, so loud it had to be right behind him, but when he whirled around there was nothing but a shadow sprinting across the wall. “Did you see that?”
“The truth is coming for you, Toya. It won’t be easy to hear.”
The shadow was darting through patches of moonlight against the wall, sprinting along on four legs. An animal?
“What is it?”
“That it’s too late,” Clow answered calmly, ignoring the frantic pounding of hooves circling them. “It was too late the moment you met, right here in this hall, where you were discovered trying to escape with your sister. Do you know what he saw in you that night? I do.”
The shadows had sharpened. It was an animal with antlers.
“What the hell is it?”
“I might call it destiny. You will probably see it as a cruel joke. But Yue has been waiting for you all these years, and when he saw you he was determined to have you. He was seduced by the same power that I was.”
The staccato beat of hooves against the marble was so fast, Touya had to fight down a surge of panic just hearing it. The shadow was no longer a shadow, but had become a real animal. A magnificent stag, the biggest he’d ever seen, was galloping around him in ever-shrinking loops.
“Clow!”
“You were his slave long before Yue ever laid eyes on you, before you were born. Now it’s up to you what you will do with this truth. Can you accept it? Or will you dash his heart to the ground in defiance?”
The stag screeched to a halt directly before Touya, just a step away from goring him on those lethal antlers. Muscles rippled under its black coat, and it snorted at him. Feet frozen to the floor, Touya stared up at the stag and it stared right back.
“You needn’t be frightened,” Clow told him gently. “It’s only a reflection, after all.”
The animal stamped a hoof and ducked his head. Vaguely Touya noticed he’d loosened his grip, and the bedsheet was slipping away to fall on the floor. It didn’t matter. Tentatively, not at all sure why, he reached to touch. But Clow was right; his hand only met the cool reflective glass of a mirror.

He woke up in a seizure of fright, kicking and hitting anything that touched him while his lungs threatened to burst for lack of air.
“Toya! What -” A hand closed over his wrist and Touya panicked, clawing at Yue to get free.
“Let me go! Let me go!” Somehow he wrested himself from Yue’s grip and scrambled to escape the bed, climbing over Yue and almost falling to the floor in his urgency. He tore outside and threw himself against the balcony rail, gulping in the free night air. It filled his lungs, caressed his bare skin, and after a few moments his panic began to dwindle. Leaving him weak, sick to his stomach, and shivering.
He sank to the floor. Eventually Yue’s hand rested lightly on his shoulder, but he didn’t react.
“Bad dream?”
“Worse.”
“What happened?”
“I had a visit. From your master.”
Yue’s hand jerked away. Touya did not have to look up to see the shock, fear, and probably jealousy in his eyes.
“You… saw Clow?”
“A lot more than that. He talked… he wouldn’t stop talking and I had to listen -” Touya paused to catch his breath again, swallowing back nausea.
“Yue. You have to tell me something, and please god don’t leave anything out this time. No evasion, no hints, no more secrets. Just, please, tell me… what happened with the stag?”
All the color drained from Yue’s face, and his eyes dilated with fear. “What did you say?”
“The stag. I know it’s important, so please don’t lie. If you don’t tell me, I think he’ll come back. And I don’t want to talk to him again, I can’t.”
Yue was not looking so different from how Touya felt, now. He stumbled to his feet and turned away, one hand braced against the rail.
“Oh Clow,” he heard him whisper. “How could you?”
“It’s just an animal, Yue.”
“It was never just an animal,” Yue contradicted sharply, then softened. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to raise my voice.”
“Just tell me.”
Yue’s grip curled at the stone rail, but he managed to compose himself after a few deep breaths.
“Come inside, Toya, you can’t be comfortable sitting on the stones like that.”
“No.” Reflexively Touya grabbed at the stone posts of the railing, as if Yue might try to drag him inside. “No, outside. Only outside now.”
Yue looked down at him unhappily, but did not press the issue. “I too prefer the outdoors when I’m upset; although I could not say why. When it happened, I would not leave the roof for days.”
“When what happened?”
Yue’s gaze turned to the forest, a sea of dark green and black in the night. “Clow discovered early on that I loved plant life. For as long as I can remember, we took long walks under the trees together. Even after Keroberos was born, him and his unsatiable love for picnics, Clow always set aside the time for just the two of us to go out alone. Our place was that clearing, our special place to rest and watch the sun set.”
He paused to swallow. Touya said nothing.
“Then, one bright summer day, we found that our clearing had been invaded. A beautiful stag, the finest I had ever seen, had been running through the forest and must have tripped on a root. He was sprawled there across the grass, one leg broken, helpless and unable to move when we found him. He was so afraid.”
Touya noticed Yue’s hands were trembling.
“Afraid… but so proud in spite of it. He held his head high and stared at me; his black eyes were defiant and strong. He was doomed, but he would fight to his end. Such bravery fascinated me; I was entranced. He was very lucky that we found him before a pack of wolves did. Clow was able to heal his leg, and set about doing so.
“The stag didn’t even pay any attention to him. He only looked only at me, would not blink or drop his gaze. And the more we stared at one another, the more I wanted him. I told Clow I wanted to keep him.
“He laughed,” Yue went on to say, bitterly. “He told me not to be silly, that I could not take a wild animal for a pet. Such a creature wasn’t meant to live within walls. ‘No, Yue, you couldn’t tie him up, he’d be miserable. Put him in a cage and he’ll die.’ But he didn’t understand, how much I already loved it. I wanted to take it home and keep it with me forever. I asked him again and he said no.”
Yue closed his eyes, looking as if he were in pain.
“I became unreasonable. I’d never had to ask Clow for much, but now I would not stop until he’d given me what I wanted. I begged. I cried. I threw a tantrum that almost buried the summer clearing in frost, and still he refused. He just finished healing the bone, and when he was done the stag leapt to its feet and dashed away. My stag, he just let it go and I never saw it again. I told him that I hated him, and flew away.”
Now the tears had come. A pair of them squeezed out of his closed eyes, sliding down his cheeks in the moonlight.
“For days I pouted on the roof, and would not speak to him. And it never bothered him, of course, he would only smile and excuse himself when I turned my back. Clow always was so selfish. He knew he was dying, and he let me carry on without even a hint of how little time we had left. It was not until the last day of his life, when he could not leave his bed, that Keroberos convinced me to come and see him. Just a few words, that’s all we had, and then he was gone.”
Yue’s shoulders convulsed in a sob, and he sank to his knees beside Touya. “I know… it was only an animal. I just wanted it so badly. It was the only thing that ever came between us, and for that I hated it. But I still loved it. If he’d allowed me to keep it, I would have kept it forever.”
Touya had heard enough. Stiffly he rolled forward and onto his feet; he pretended not to feel Yue’s hand on his arm. The room still seemed too small but he pushed back his claustrophobia to collapse on his side of the bed, clutching the sheets in his lap.
You were his slave long before Yue ever laid eyes on you, before you were born.
“I want to go home,” he whispered into the night, and then he too started to cry.

Neither of them spoke, or looked at one another, for the rest of the night. Touya did not remember falling asleep, but woke up sometime in the late morning in a bed that was empty. Yue was gone, off to his daily meditation, which Touya had begun to suspect was not really meditation at all.
Every detail of his unwanted conversation with Clow flooded his mind, sharp and clear. Usually he couldn’t even remember his dreams; this one wouldn’t go away. It made him feel wretched and not want to get out of bed, which he did not do for a while. A long warm bath helped, a little, but piano practice was out of the question. He spent the early afternoon in the library, but the calculus equations were impossible to solve today. His concentration was gone, splintered. And every time he tried to get it back, the whispered words of a wizard brought him straight back to last night.
When Yue returned to his room, Touya was on his second glass of wine. He said nothing at first, probably too stunned, and just stared as Touya threw back the last of it.
“Welcome back.”
“Toya! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Don’t bother making a fuss, Clow told me you don’t even like the stuff. I don’t think it’s great either, but it’s better than ale.” Touya had never been much of a drinker in his home village; he couldn’t afford it. But he knew the taste and more importantly knew what alcohol could do. He filled the goblet again.
“You should not have helped yourself. That was very naughty.”
“So punish me.”
Yue didn’t look like he was in a punishing mood. He joined Touya on the rug, a first, sitting to face him.
“Toya, you have dinner with your sister in a little while.”
“I’m not going. Tell her I’m sick. Which I am.”
“Toya, you never miss dinner with your sister if you can help it.”
“I’m missing it tonight. I can’t see her, I can’t face her, not tonight. She’ll know.” Touya took another large swallow of wine and made a face at the bitterness washing over his tongue.
“She’ll know what?”
“That something’s wrong. She’s getting so good at that lately, and she keeps making these bothersome, know-it-all comments. She’ll take one look at my face, and ask if we’re fighting again.”
“Are we?” Yue asked gently. “Fighting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you angry, Toya?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated, truthfully. He didn’t know. “Maybe I’m just… upset.”
Upset to discover, after fearing he was a replacement for Clow, that he was only a replacement for a giant deer. Upset at how the discovery was forced upon him.
“I hate him.” Swallow. “And I don’t care if you get mad at me for saying it, I hate him. Is he always that obnoxious about what he knows and we don’t?”
“Yes.”
“Bastard.” Touya finished off the goblet and set it down, then blinked because Yue was blurring slightly.
“Toya, you’ve become intoxicated.”
“No I haven’t. And I think I know why he came. He wanted to make me feel… small.”
Yue’s former lover hadn’t spared him, no, talking about all he’d taught Yue in the bed, how everything he’d done to Touya was something Clow once did to him. Did Yue ever close his eyes and pretend he was Clow? Did Touya even compare to his skills?
A little clumsily he tipped forward and tried to kiss Yue, who thwarted him with a hand braced against his chest.
“Stop that, Toya.”
“Let’s have sex.”
“No. I am not in the mood, and you aren’t either.”
“You’re mad because I don’t like him.”
“That isn’t true. I wish that he had not come to you at all, but it can’t be helped. He can be… difficult to speak with, I know.”
Touya gave up trying to fight Yue’s strength and pushed himself away, frustrated growl rising in his throat.
“Why don’t you hate him, Yue? Look at what he did to you! He made you to live forever and then he died, he left you all alone.” It was very difficult to stand, for some reason, but Touya managed it and glared down at Yue in a self-righteous way. “I saw how sad you were up in his room.”
Yue swallowed, but his shoulders were set resolutely. “It is hard, to live so long beyond his death, but Clow had good reasons to create me the way he did.”
“No he didn’t.”
“Toya, there are so many things you don’t know.”
“Well, what a surprise.”
Why was the bed jumping around like that? He’d almost managed to get his hand on the corner post when Yue grasped him firmly on his waist and guided him to sit on the mattress.
“Stop it I’m fine.”
“You’re not. And as gratified as I am to see how jealous you are of Clow, I won’t have you judging him. That is not your place.”
“No, you’ll never let me forget my place.” Touya could feel himself gripping wads of the sheets in his fists, his blurry vision swamped with the image of a black stag.
“Toya, you have the abilities of a psychic. But sorcery is another matter entirely, something you know nothing about. True magic, designed and executed properly, constructs a lasting spell. No artisan creates anything valuable with the intention of smashing it a few years later. Once something is made, it is made.”
“You’re not a thing!”
“Shh.” Yue pushed his hair back from his face, which Touya vaguely noticed was damp with sweat now. “My brother and I are the only spells Clow ever constructed to be self-aware; we have hearts and minds. As such we are responsible for his many other spells.”
“Other spells?”
“You are surrounded by magics, Toya, I know you can feel them. Light, for example.” He gestured toward the fireplace and the unnaturally bright flames flickering within. “And Bubble, which possesses this bed and is constantly cleaning the sheets. I bear a few, which you have seen: Freeze, Water, Through, Silent.”
“Silent?”
“Yes, I have the ability to remove sound. The castle itself is possessed by Maze. And my brother holds Glow and Fire, among others. All born from Clow’s hand, all alive, all permanent, all in our care.” An unhappy shadow crossed his face. “It is the way sorcery works.”
Something wasn’t right. Yue’s eyes were… pained, troubled. Touya knew he was missing something, and he should be smart enough to figure it out, but trying to hold onto a thought was like trying to hold onto dust in a windstorm. Waves of dizziness and nausea alternately threatened him, and eventually he decided that three glasses of wine on an empty stomach was not a good idea after all.
He barely made it into the bathroom in time. And after he’d emptied his stomach of most of the alcohol he realized his hands were shaking, his face in the mirror a shade whiter than Yue’s. He rinsed his mouth out with cold water, then splashed it on his face in an attempt to curb the feverish heat blazing within. It was so hard to breathe… it was too hot in here.
Someone was patting a damp towel against his face, and it wasn’t him.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and Yue shushed him.
“Just stand still.”
Yue’s palm pressed against his temple, and Touya felt it grow cold against his skin. The coldness flowed into him, bringing relief to his pounding head and the awful sickly heat. Touya trembled, and when Yue pulled him to his chest he collapsed against his weight gratefully.
“I didn’t mean to -”
“I’m not angry. Let’s just get you into bed, you’re in need of rest.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep.” Touya clutched at Yue with renewed desperation. “He’ll come back.”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you will sleep too deeply for any dreams tonight.” They were moving, but Touya wasn’t walking. Yue was carrying him to the bed, settling him gently against the cool sheets. His palm pressed against Touya’s forehead again but this time it left Touya feeling heavy, as if sand was pouring into his body. Even his hand felt too heavy, and it dropped away from Yue’s arm. Sleep without dreams, yes, this was a good thing. No more Clow, no more magic, no more Yue. Just for now, he would sleep and be free.

Touya did, indeed, sleep very well. True to Yue’s word he did not dream, and received no unwelcome visits from dead wizards. Unfortunately, none of that prevented Touya from waking up into the worst headache of his life. Wine must be a lot stronger than beer, not that Touya had ever had more than a pint of anything alcoholic within one month. When he tried to get up, his brain clamored in loud and painful protest.
Oh, ouch. He should not have gotten drunk like that, but it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been so upset about Clow, so now he would blame the hangover on him. Eyeballs jangling with every step, Touya crept across the room.
Thirst and pain overpowered everything, even his appetite. By the time he’d crawled into fresh clothes and made it downstairs, it had been well over a day since he ate and still the breakfast held no appeal. He emptied his glass instead, then emptied the entire pitcher, and still his mouth felt gluey and dry while his head throbbed. There was nothing for it; he would have to seek some real relief. Yue and his magic cooling touch were not around, so he limped downstairs to find a substitute. Where was that kitchen, anyway?
With the kind of luck he’d been having, he figured it was only to be expected that he found the kid instead. Li took one look at him and snickered.
“Good night last night?”
“Shut up, and tell me where to find a servant.”
“Listen to you. Anyone would think you’re the master of the castle now.”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Touya muttered, desperately pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead.
“And you don’t make me laugh. You couldn’t hurt Ralen right now.”
“Brat kid, I’m gonna- hey!” A passing girl caught his attention and he shouted, then promptly winced. “Hey, you.”
“Sir?”
“Painkiller tea. Bring it to the library when you’ve made it. Go, now.”
She bowed her head and scurried away, and Touya didn’t even care if he sounded like a spoiled aristocrat. His head hurt too much.
Li had raised an eyebrow. “I’d punch you into the wall for being an asshole, but I might knock you out and that would be doing you a favor. So I won’t.”
“Fuck you.” He didn’t have the energy to deal with Clow’s snot-nosed descendent right now. Tenderly he turned and started to shuffle away.
“I’d like my knife back. You know, whenever you’ve got the time.”
Touya pretended not to hear him. Eventually, he could hear his boots stomping away in the opposite direction.

The tea helped. Lying very still on a sofa in the library helped too. Trying to concentrate on mathematics or squint at small text did not, so Touya contented himself with spending the day browsing geography books and their large colorful maps. By the time the sun was dropping in the west, Touya’s headache was gone and he could walk without wincing. He even, as a concession to decency, took the time to return to Clow’s tower before heading back to Yue’s suite.
The door was still unlocked. This room would probably never hold any significance for anyone other than him and Yue, maybe Keroberos, and stood quietly undisturbed in its forgotten corridor. The hinges creaked in protest, but it opened. Li’s knife was still lying where he’d left it, unthinkingly, in that tiny alcove and next to a dusty statuette. His hand closed over the handle, and then he got a better look at the little marble sculpture. Long hair, and wings… was it Yue?
Curious, he blew off a cloud of dust, but the features were still too indistinct. He rubbed at the face with the edge of his sleeve, maybe just a little too hard. It tilted back, but before Touya could grab at it something in the wall clicked loudly and the statuette snapped back into place. Then the whole wall shifted. Startled, Touya took a step back just before the left edge disconnected from the corner and moved back. And then kept moving, until a yawning black tunnel was facing him and the groaning of unseen gears had stopped.
His heart thudded.
“Huh.”
It was, bizarrely, all he could say. His thoughts were racing, though, clambering over one another in effort to be heard and too chaotic to sort out into logical order. A secret passage? How could he have not wondered about them before, after reading all those fairy tale stories his sister adored? Was this the only one? Or were there more? Why didn’t Yue mention it when he brought him here? Maybe Yue didn’t know about it. Maybe Clow built it before he was even born and never had occasion to use it – but that all depended on where it led. And there was no way Touya was leaving this tower until he knew.
The passage was paved with flagged stones, rough and cold under his bare feet but easy enough to walk upon. Light was another matter. There was no source of it here and he’d only been walking for a minute when the paltry daylight behind him was gone completely. He couldn’t bear the thought of taking the time to find a torch, though, so he walked by feel, one hand on the wall. It did not split off into side passages, or even do all that much turning in a castle that was full of twisting and turning hallways. Twice it broke itself up with a small spiral staircase – he almost pitched forward when he wasn’t careful – and he sensed that he was moving down the levels of the castle as well as out. But which direction, he could no longer tell. For ten minutes he scuffed along in the darkness, starting to worry he would not get back to Yue’s room in time, and then he quite abruptly he reached the end.
At least, he assumed it was the end. There was a door, anyway, and on the other side could be more tunnel or something else entirely. He was afraid it might be locked but there didn’t seem to even be a keyhole; Touya felt around until he’d discovered the handle and with an aggressive push of the shoulder shoved it wide open.
And almost fell out of the castle doing so. A deep and black canyon beckoned and he hastily scrambled back from the edge, flattening himself against the stone walls in acrophobic reflex. After the pitch dark of the tunnel his vision was overexposed and he had to shut his eyes against whirlpools of purple and blue. A breeze teased his hair. And eventually, when his heartrate had slowed and he felt ready, he opened his eyes again.
“Oh my god.”
He was outside the castle. This was not the majestic landscape he knew so well, though, and he wondered why he’d never noticed that most of the castle’s windows and balconies were pointed forward. The castle faced the valley, and its city, which seemed reasonable enough, and he’d never wondered what lay behind it. The downslope of the hill, of course, but this was not the gentle gradient of the north face. Jagged and exposed walls of rock went almost straight down, nearly flush with the rear wall of the castle itself, disappearing into that canyon that was so dark he couldn’t even see to the bottom. The far side was equally steep. If the hills continued on beyond this unusual rift in the landscape, he couldn’t see it.
He could see the path, though. The narrow but walkable path under his feet that hugged the base of the castle and wound along to the east, just inside the lip of the canyon, leading to the forest that he could see when he leaned out. The forest that covered most of Terriene’s valley, the one that wrapped around its eastern hills and on up into the mountains of the north. His home.
His heart was beating away wildly inside his chest now. After all this time, after abandoning any hope of it, he was looking at his chance to escape.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

You may all commence freaking out now.
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Pleasure Slave