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His bed smelled like dust and wood smoke.

Orange sunlight bled through his eyelids and as he turned his face away with a groan, his cheek scraped over grit and tile.

Not a bed, then.

Fai cracked his eyes open and squinted at the room.  Dirt and sand and jagged rubble clung to his cheek; he pushed himself onto his elbows and brushed the debris away with a swipe of his palm.  

A fire hissed and puffed on a hearth beside him, and pots and pans swayed on hooks over a wood burning stove, moving along with the cool breeze flowing through an open window.

Fai couldn’t remember falling asleep—especially on someone’s dirty kitchen floor.

He pushed himself the rest of the way up and winced when his back complained about his poor choice in bedding.

His surroundings were unfamiliar, though he supposed that was to be expected.  He recalled leaving the last world—luck had been on their side for once and Mokona’s earring had started glowing just as an android with a flamethrower came inches from flambéing their ragtag group.  They had escaped that world, but Fai’s inability to recall landing in this one was worrisome.

There was no sign of the others—no indication that someone had been sleeping next to him, nothing familiar left behind in this kitchen to show that his friends had been here.  He could sense people farther back in the house, but their life forces weren’t familiar. 

They’d been separated, then?

The breeze picked up in a sudden burst, blowing a layer of dust off the kitchen counter and leaving Fai with shivers running down his spine.  He shuffled closer to the fire and rubbed his arms. 

And then scrunched his face in confusion when he felt rough and scratchy linen under his fingers instead of soft cotton.  There’d been no time to change out of his jacket from the last world, so what—

What was he wearing?

He gawked at the ugly gray fabric draped around him—rags.  Shapeless and dirty and oversized.  A length of rope wound around his hips—a makeshift belt that might stop his pants from falling to his ankles.

Fai had never considered himself vain.  But he had standards.

He was still eyeing his state of dress with distaste—shoes! why wasn’t he wearing shoes?—when a clamor broke through his thoughts.

Echoing voices, banging doors, thumping feet, and feminine shrieks heralded the three women that barreled through the door from the rooms beyond.  

Fai’s eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet, taking in the three figures that joined him in the kitchen. 

They were… a lot to take in. 

He tried to examine their faces but was having a hard time looking past the miles of fabric adorning their bodies.  All three were covered, from the tops of their ringlet-piled hair to the bottoms of their lacy slippers, with voluminous bows and plum-red ribbons and orange satin ruffles.  Their monstrous gowns flared at the bottom into layer upon layer of billowing skirt.  The kitchen wasn’t wide enough for that much skirt.

The three stumbled across the room, the two younger women bouncing off each other’s hoop skirts and bickering in octaves higher than even Mokona could manage.

Fai opened his mouth, hoping to get a word in and ask where he was; but before he could utter one syllable, the oldest woman—gray hair and delicate pointed nose and severe eyebrows—turned to him with the cook fire reflecting in her eyes.

“Did you fetch the well water?”

Fai blinked.  He glanced at the other two women, like they could offer some clarification, but they hadn’t taken a breath during their bickering much less turned to notice the strange man in their kitchen.

Fai decided to go with the diplomatic-lost-person routine.  “I’m sorry?  I’m not sure how I got here.  I need to find my fr—”

“Lazy child!  Go get the water.  Then get back here and help your sisters with their rouge.”  She gestured to the squabbling women behind her.

Sisters?

Fai had heard many strange things since starting this journey and liked to think he was rather adaptable, able to navigate unfamiliar territory with ease and a quick tongue.

Fai… didn’t have a response for this one.

“Quit gaping and pick up the bucket!”

The woman jabbed her finger at a wooden pail sitting near the hearth.  Wide-eyed and bewildered, Fai grabbed it and shuffled out the backdoor. 

He took two steps into the yard and stood blinking in the light.  The sun was dipping low in the sky, painting the back of the house a deep orange.  Judging by the strangers’ elaborate eveningwear, it was heading into night instead of early morning as Fai had first thought upon waking.

He stood there clutching the bucket to his chest, trying to figure out what he should do.  Part of him wondered whether he were still asleep.

But his surroundings seemed real, he thought, as he peered around the yard.

A fence enclosed the property, wrapping the house in a perfect box.  Chickens wandered the yard and pecked at the grass; and to Fai’s left, horses grunted within a small stable.  A carriage, worn but freshly polished, sat on a dirt path that followed the fence line up to the front of the house.  Fai assumed the path met up with a road.

On Fai’s right was a garden.  Leafy greens poked through the soil; Fai could pick out the slivers of orange marking the carrot patch, but his limited gardening skills couldn't fit names to the other growing things.  At least not from this distance.

The scene would be peaceful and picturesque if not for the squabbling still spilling through the kitchen window.

Grass flattened under his toes as he walked over to the garden and stood beside it.  It spanned the entire side of the house, and Fai had been right; from this angle, he could see a road stretching past the front of the home.  

Fai followed it with his eyes, tracing the stretch of dirt until it disappeared into a large field of wheat.  Fai glanced behind him—back toward the stable—then past the fence line at the back of the house.  Wheat fields surrounded the home in all directions, as though the property had been picked up and plopped here in isolation. 

It was unnerving, looking out into an endless ocean of brown swaying stalks.

Fai turned his eyes away and they caught on something in the corner of the garden.  A stone well rested next to the picket fence.

Fai stepped over vegetables, tugged at the ragged pants falling too low on his hips, and sat on the well’s rim, placing the bucket by his feet.

The others weren’t here.  They couldn’t have missed the ruckus inside.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scent of cut grass and lavender and farm animals, and let it back out slow and even.

Fai’s best option was to locate Mokona.  She couldn’t be too far; Fai had been able to understand the words shouted at him.  Tracking Mokona would only take a minor spell.  Her little body was made of magic and Fai was familiar enough with her magical signature by now to feel confident he could pinpoint her direction with relative ease.

It was worth a try.

Fai closed his eyes and tilted his head, feeling his magic pulse beneath his skin and flow through his body. 

He forced himself to relax—his senses to focus on their task; he needed to filter out everything except that bubbly bit of light that was Mokona.  On a slow exhale, he let his magic ebb out into the world, a spell woven into a sigh.

His spell fizzled and died.

His eyes shot open. 

Fai doubled over, jaw clenched and palms digging into his temples, as a backlash of otherworldly magic stabbed down his spine and sent his own magic throbbing behind his eyes.

He choked down a few stuttering breaths and waited for the pain stabbing through his head to subside.

To his relief, it began to ease quickly, lessening as the seconds passed.  Soon it had faded to a dull throbbing behind his eyes.

There was an enormous amount of magic in this world, pushing and pulling at its seams—enough that Fai wouldn’t be able to see anything through it without giving himself an aneurysm in the attempt.  The magic here didn’t seem to react well with his own.

He wouldn’t be finding the others with a spell.

Fai rubbed his temple and debated.  Should he try talking to the three women again?  Or should he start walking and hope he found a village before nightfall? 

A screech tore out through an open window: “I dance much better than you!” 

Walking it was.

Fai left the bucket in the dirt, and stepped through the garden to the front of the house.  He stopped at the front gate, taking a closer look at the road.  And his options. 

To his left, the great field of wheat stretched over the land farther than Fai could see.  The road wound through the fields, climbing a large hill and disappearing over the top several miles off in the distance. 

To Fai’s right, the road led into a wall of trees—a forest.  Dark and foreboding.  At least he wasn’t completely surrounded by wheat as he’d first thought.

Fai stepped onto the dirt road and turned left toward the fields.  Perhaps he’d be able to spot a town from the top of that hill. 

He took off walking.  Rocks dug into his bare feet and after a few wincing steps, he hopped off the path to walk beside it through stubby grass.  He had a mild headache from his attempt at magic, but it was a minor annoyance, especially compared with his lack of shoes.

Not far from the house, he passed a signpost—old and rotting, but with a fresh coat of paint highlighting letters carved into the wood.  Fai couldn’t read it, which was a disappointment he’d become familiar with on their journey.  The sign was plain, with no directional arrows or indication of what it might say.  Fai squinted at it for a moment, but could gain no insight into what it might be trying to convey.

He continued on, following the road through the endless fields.  The landscape blurred in his eyes, an endless wall of sand-colored wheat and orange sky.  He checked over his shoulder several times, using the shrinking house as proof that he was moving.

Fai hoped the others were faring better in this world; he didn’t like the idea of Syaoran wandering around out here alone, like Fai was.  The boy could take care of himself and Fai didn’t sense anything particularly malevolent about this world; but Fai’s parental side strove to make their journey as painless as possible for the boy who’d been through so many difficulties already in his young life.

Hopefully, Kurogane was with him.  Fai could almost picture the two of them walking through the rows of wheat, Kurogane grumbling about how the ‘crazy magician’ had gotten himself lost.  The thought put a smile on Fai’s face.

Fai had walked about an hour when he crested the large hill that had been visible from the house.  If Fai turned, he could still see the little home as a dot in the fields below.  A disappointed sigh was pulled from his lungs when the only sight in front of him was more wheat.  No town.  If one existed, it was farther than Fai had hoped.  The light was fading; soon he’d be walking in the dark.  And he hadn’t brought supplies for a long journey—he wouldn’t say no to some water right now.

Movement caught Fai’s attention and he squinted down the hill.  A horse-drawn cart was rattling up the path toward him. 

Its progress was slow as it crept to the hilltop, and Fai waited, debating.  Should he keep his head down or try asking for assistance?  In the end, he waved to the driver as the cart neared his position. 

The little cart clattered to a stop and Fai offered the driver his most charming smile.  The gray-haired man sat hunched in his seat and eyed Fai beneath bushy eyebrows.

“What are you doing way out here?” the man said, with narrowed eyes.

“I’m—”

“Foolish child.  Running away after everything that poor widow’s done for you.”

The smile slipped off Fai’s face, falling to shatter somewhere around his throbbing feet. 

Did everyone in this world think they knew him?  Or—

Did they?  A new thought came to him.  Was there a version of him in this world?  Fai and the others hadn’t met versions of themselves on their travels, but it wasn’t impossible.

“I’m trying to get to town,” Fai ventured.  Should he play along?  If another him existed in this world, it wouldn’t do to make his double’s life difficult.  But then where was this world’s version of him?

“Get on.  I’ll take you back to your home.”

Fai grimaced and looked back at the house far below.  He didn’t want to backtrack.  Returning to the house wouldn’t help Fai locate his missing little family.

“No, thank you.  I’m running errands.”  That was a reasonable excuse, right?

“Get on.”

The man’s voice was angling toward annoyance.  Fai peered up the road; it stretched out farther than he could see, the land dipping in a sharp slope before rising again to the next hill.  If Fai kept walking, he could see what was beyond that hill.  The cart-owner had been traveling from that direction; it was reasonable to believe there was a destination past the fields.

But Fai wasn’t sure he’d make it on foot before nightfall.   He was fairly certain his heel was bleeding where he’d stepped on a sharp stone around the twenty minute mark of his trek.  Fai needed a ride, or at least a horse, if he were going to continue. 

Discouraged, he climbed onto the seat beside the little man. 

“What’s the name of this place?” Fai asked, hoping to gain something from this outing.  Knowledge was valuable.

“Huh?” The man jerked the reins and the cart started forward.

“The name of the town up the road?” 

That might seem like a strange question if Fai were supposed to live here, but he needed information.  The question would hopefully lead the man to at least confirm Fai’s suspicion that there was a town. 

“You hit your head or something?”

“No.” Not that he remembered.

The man glared at Fai and didn’t seem to think his question worthy of an answer.  The rest of the journey passed in silence on the man’s part.  Any attempt Fai made to draw him into conversation was met with the same outcome that talking to the wheat would’ve had. 

Stars were sparkling in the sky when the cart finally pulled up to the house’s gate.  The cart-driver (who hadn’t even bothered to offer Fai his name) all but shoved him off the seat.  Fai stumbled and sent the man a glare, his façade of polite civility slipping at the rough treatment.   

The front door of the house banged open and the older woman stepped into the yard with a scowl on her face.

“Where have you been?”

Fai grimaced.  Was she still angry?

“I bet he was trying to sneak to the ball!” 

One of the younger women took careful steps up the walkway, holding up the hem of her dress so it didn’t brush against the cobblestones.

“Is that true?” The older woman looked like she would like to strangle Fai with his rags.

“No.”  Fai raised his hands in a placating gesture, eyes wide.  It was the truth, but the lady didn’t look like she believed him.  What ball?

“Found him out on the road, Ma’am,” said the incredibly unhelpful little man still seated in the cart behind Fai.  “Was heading in the direction of the castle.”

Fai turned to glare at the man again.  Now he was supplying directional information?

“In those rags?” scoffed...Fai’s sister, was it?  “You think you’re going to win the prince’s heart looking like that?” 

The girl laughed and Fai pinched the bridge of his nose, that headache worsening. 

Win the prince’s heart?  What prince?  Just—what?

“I’m sorry I ran away,” Fai tried.  He usually liked conversations with new people, but this one needed to end.

Fai’s other ‘sister’ exited the house then, her own skirt as wide as the walkway.  Her lips—set beneath a crooked nose—were puckered like they’d been frozen in permanent distaste.  The older woman gave her a nod of approval and turned to the man on the cart.

“Your help is appreciated.”

The man nodded and gave the two younger ladies a smile and a wink. 

The man could smile?  

“Have a lovely time tonight, girls.” He looked at Fai and the smile disappeared.  “You.  Be good to your mother.”

The man tugged at his reins and the cart continued on its way down the road.  Good riddance.

The woman—his mother?—turned back to Fai, a sneer twisting her face into something ugly. “I want you to clean the kitchen—every tile scrubbed, every pot washed.  We’ll talk about this when I return from the ball tonight.”

Fai nodded, forcing an apologetic wince across his face and feeling like a scolded child despite the fact that he was old enough to be this woman’s great-something.  He refrained from saying that he knew twelve different hexes that would guarantee her a terrible time at the ball.  An itching spell would certainly liven up her dancing.

The carriage Fai had spotted earlier came rattling up the house’s side path, two gray horses leading it.  It stopped when it reached the fence, and a man jumped off the driver’s seat—a servant of the family, Fai assumed.  The man ran to open a second gate set in the fence, large enough for the carriage to pass through. 

The sisters shuffled over to the carriage and climbed inside, tripping on the steps in their heels.  Their driver looked alarmed when one sister toppled face-first into her seat.

“I want to see my reflection in that floor,” the older woman said, and peered down her nose at Fai, neck arched in imperial arrogance.  It was quite the feat considering Fai had a good seven inches of height over her. 

Fai gave a tight nod, his patience nearing its end.  He didn’t want to make trouble for any double he might have, but his only plans for tonight included raiding the woman’s house for better clothes and turning in early so he could leave as soon as possible come morning.

The woman stepped into the carriage, with much more grace than her daughters, and the driver set it clambering down the road.  Fai watched until it was out of sight.

That woman was supposed to be his mother in this world?  She wasn’t the mother Fai remembered—the one he had been born to in Valeria.  He couldn’t see any resemblance between him and this woman. 

And the man with the cart had called the woman a widow.  So did that mean Fai’s father was…

Fai shivered.  This was a dangerous line of thought.  His friends had helped ease and heal the wounds inflicted by Valeria, but thoughts of any part of that place always led his mind down dark paths.  Not for the first time since waking up in this world, he wished Kurogane were here.  The man was good at ensuring Fai remained facing the light.

Fai sat down on a bench in the garden and stared at his feet.  He twisted one of his ankles around to angle it better in the moonlight; blood crusted the bottom of his heel.  Great.

“You wish to go to the ball?”

Fai’s eyes widened and he jumped off the bench, almost falling over as his injured foot protested the abrupt movement. 

A woman stood behind him, a glittering white gown fluttering around her thin frame.  Dark curls fell around a pretty face and—were those wings?

“Who—? How—?” He peered around the garden, double checking that no one else had appeared.

Where had she even come from?  Kurogane and Syaoran weren’t the only ones good at sensing people around them.  How had Fai not noticed her?

“I’m your fairy godmother!”

Oh.  Right.  Of course.

“What?”

Fai was starting to get sick of living in a perpetual state of confusion.

“You wish to go to the ball.”  It wasn’t a question this time.

Fai blinked at her.  “Not particularly, no.”

“I can grant your wish.”

“…I happen to know that wishes usually come with a steep price.  So no.  Thank you.  I don’t really want to go to a—”

“Say no more!”  The woman waved her hand with a flourish, a wand appearing in her fist.  “One trip to the ball, as you wish!”

She waved her hand and one of the squash in the garden started glowing.  The glow became a blinding light, the squash expanded and grew, and after a shower of golden sparkles, a beautiful carriage sat in the middle of the rutabaga crop.

“Um.”  Fai couldn’t think of anything to say.  It was an interesting use of magic, for sure.  Something Fai had never thought to try.  Though if he were going to magic up a form of transportation it would be easier to just spell something—anything, really—to fly him where he needed to go.  He might have tried such a thing earlier today if he hadn’t thought it too conspicuous.  “That’s…thank you, but I think I’ll stay here for the night.  Better to set off in the morning and all.”

Fai chuckled nervously and began backing toward the door to the house.  He was closer to the back door from this spot in the garden.  He just needed to reach the kitchen.  She wouldn’t follow him in, right?

“Where are you going?” said the fairy godmother, confusion in her eyes.  “What about the ball?”

Fai stared at her, because how many times did he have to repeat that he wasn’t interested in a ball?  “Well, you know, the floors won’t clean themselves.”

He made it to the doorstep and the woman frowned at him.  Even Fai had a limit to how much insanity he could handle in one day, and right now sleeping in an angry woman’s kitchen seemed a better option than standing outside with a crazy winged woman.

He jimmied the door open behind him and stepped backwards across the entryway.

“But what about the ball?” The woman repeated in concern.  She began crossing the grass toward Fai with hesitant steps, as though he were the one acting strange.

“I’ll go to the next one,” Fai chirped.  

And then he slammed the door in his fairy godmother’s face.

~*~

Syaoran sat at the low kitchen table, sipped warm cider from a mug, and tried to keep his facial expressions neutral.  The cider—apple cider—was not helping him accomplish that.

Seven faces stared at him with varying degrees of emotion.

Even sitting, Syaoran had to peer down to meet the eyes of the dwarves around him; the tallest only reached his shoulder.  And that included the extra two inches added by his hat.

One of the dwarves laughed, a bright smile enlarging his rosy cheeks. “You must mean the Prince!”

“No, not a prince,” said Syaoran.  “My one friend is really tall.  With dark hair.  And the other—”

“You definitely mean the Prince.  You’re confused,” grumbled another dwarf.

Syaoran frowned.  This conversation had been going in circles for the last twenty minutes.  The seven dwarves obviously didn’t know where Kurogane, Fai, and Mokona were.

Seven dwarves.

Syaoran had no idea how he’d woken up reenacting the story of Snow White. 

But he had.

This had to be Snow White—there were too many coincidences, otherwise.  The seven little men with oddly specific personalities, the quaint cottage in the woods, the apples spilling out of a basket on the counter, the bluebirds that kept landing on the windowsill...definitely Snow White.

His mother had read fairytales to him before bed as a child.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves hadn’t been Syaoran’s favorite one, but he was familiar with the story.  How many dimensions did Snow White exist in?  He thought Mokona might be familiar with it, but Fai and Kurogane needed to be warned not to eat any apples.

Syaoran glanced at the cider in his mug.  He should take his own advice.

The dwarves were chatting amongst themselves—they seemed to have determined it was the prince’s horse Syaoran was actually looking for.

Syaoran’s chair screeched as he stood up and backed away from the table.  “I’m going to look for my friends.  Thank you for letting me stay here last night.”

More like thank you for not kicking me out when I woke up in your house with no idea how I got here, but close enough.

“Be safe,” said one of the dwarves, a slight blush on his face as he twiddled with his hat.  “We’ll see you at supper.”

“Oh,” said Syaoran, somewhat surprised.  He’d thought his goodbye had been implied. “I don’t think I’ll be back, actually.”

“We have a busy day at the mine, but we’ll look forward to seeing you later,” said another of the dwarves through a yawn.

Syaoran’s eye twitched (a reaction he was probably picking up from Kurogane).

“I’m not…” He wasn’t sure how to make it any clearer that he wasn’t coming back.

It became irrelevant when the dwarves began shouting farewells as they pulled pickaxes from a closet across the room.  Syaoran followed them out of the cottage and ended up awkwardly waving goodbye as the dwarves marched into the woods.

Syaoran waited a moment and then trailed after them.  There was no path that Syaoran could see as his feet tromped over soft grass and pine needles.  Endless trees filled his vision, making him unusually claustrophobic, and though Syaoran had set off after the dwarves, he soon felt sure he’d wandered in a different direction without noticing.

He wasn’t sure where he was going; earlier attempts to ask for directions had been met with equal success to asking if the dwarves had seen Kurogane and Fai.

Birds chirped from the branches high above and a stream splashed over smooth stones on his right.  Syaoran followed the stream’s bank for a time, amusing himself by watching tiny fish putter in the water.  He positioned himself between the stream and the sun, until the water looped and swept back to the right, too close to the direction he’d come from to be worth following anymore.

He cut through a tangle of underbrush and attempted to keep a straight line as he walked.  A bluebird landed on a tree stump nearby and tilted its head.  Syaoran stopped to consider it.

“Do you know how to get out of here?”

Didn’t animals talk in fairytales?

The bird ruffled its feathers.  The only answer came from the pine needles rustling in the breeze.  Syaoran was grateful the others weren’t here to see him talking to a bird.

He grimaced and moved on.

As he walked, he became aware of the life clamoring around him.  A deer raised its head to analyze the stranger in its midst, and Syaoran caught sight of a non-Mokona-like rabbit darting into the brush.  Another bluebird landed above him and sang a merry little tune.  If Syaoran weren’t lost and separated from his traveling companions, he might enjoy the tranquility of it all.

He walked for an hour and regretted not taking supplies from the dwarves’ house.  He had a flask of water swinging from his hip, but no food or camping supplies.  His shoes were too thin for hiking; he swore he could feel every rock and nettle under his feet.  He hadn’t woken up in the same clothes he’d left the last world in.  His new blue tunic was comfortable enough, but the odd yellow pants were already stained with mud and too light to keep him warm if the forest cooled down after dark.

A bluebird landed on a branch above his head and Syaoran had a feeling that it was judging him.

He didn’t know how to get back at this point.  His only option was to keep walking and hope he was walking out of the forest instead of farther in.

Syaoran stepped over a tree stump and traipsed across a small clearing.  The bluebird that had unfairly judged Syaoran’s wilderness skills followed after him, landing in a patch of wildflowers.  A second bluebird joined it.

Syaoran eyed both of them and kept walking.  His feet sunk into a mud puddle as he clambered over uneven ground.  The two bluebirds swung over his head in a fluttering of wings and landed on a rock nearby.  Two more bluebirds joined them.

Syaoran eyed them all warily and kept walking.  He pushed his way through shrubbery and swung a low hanging branch away from his face.  The group of bluebirds flew past him, so close their wings brushed against Syaoran’s arms, and landed on a fallen log in front of him.  Two more bluebirds joined them.

Syaoran eyed them with growing alarm and kept walking.  He grappled with some vines blocking his way and had to pause to untangle his ankle from a persistent one.  The flock of bluebirds flew past him, so close to Syaoran’s face that he yelped, and fluttered to a landing in a blackberry bush.  Four more bluebirds joined them.

“What!”

The birds startled and flew up into the trees.  Syaoran was more than a little disturbed.  He was fairly certain he was being stalked by bluebirds.

Ten sets of beady little eyes stared down from the trees.  Syaoran was grateful once more that the others weren’t around at the moment to witness this.  Kurogane would be rather disappointed to see Syaoran fearful of some cute, pudgy birds.

Syaoran met their eyes and edged around the trees they were perched in.  As soon as he was past them, he broke into a stumbling run, an unnecessary surge of adrenaline fueling his motions.  He heard the ruffle of feathers behind him, but didn’t turn to look.

He broke through the brush and his eyes widened when he took a step and found the ground had disappeared beneath him.

He fell.  

The ground reappeared as he tumbled, rolling over rocks and scrub grass.  It was over before he even realized what had happened, and he stayed on his back staring up at the clouds for a few minutes catching his breath. 

Dazed and hurting, he pushed himself up on his elbows.  He was sprawled in the pine needles at the bottom of a steep slope.

At least he seemed to have lost the birds.

His knee was scraped and bleeding, the thin pants torn in several places.  He had scratches on his arms and his cheek stung when he raised a hand to it.  But no severe injuries.  For once, he’d been lucky.

With a groan, he climbed to his feet and turned to see where he’d ended up.

And then immediately wished he hadn’t.

On the other side of a large clearing—

Was the cottage.

He was back at the dwarves’ cottage.

How was he back at the dwarves’ cottage?

He had been walking in a straight line!  He knew he had been; he’d been watching the sun’s position in the sky, using it as a guide.

In utter confusion, he staggered across the clearing, stopping when he caught sight of a figure sitting on the cottage’s front porch.  Syaoran approached with caution.

The woman stood up, a long black robe rustling around her feet.  She was haggard, with scraggly white hair and a long, crooked nose and Syaoran knew exactly who she was supposed to be.  He wasn’t even surprised when she reached into a basket and offered him an apple. 

In a state of panic, Syaoran pushed past her and dove into the cottage.  He swung the door closed behind him with an impolite click.

A weary hand ran over his face as he slumped against the wall.  How was he supposed to find the others if he was trapped in a fairytale?

The only answer came from his stomach rumbling.

A bluebird flew in through the open kitchen window and dropped an apple at his feet.

Syaoran wanted to scream.

~*~

Kurogane pulled the most obscene words from his vocabulary and arranged them into a colorful curse that would have made even Fai blush.  This emphatic grouping of expletives was then directed at the wrought iron fence that rose like the gates of Hell above his head.

He took some satisfaction from the fact that the gates didn’t curse him back.

Kurogane had been stuck in this damn castle for a day now and the damn gates would not let him leave.

Dammit.

He’d woken disoriented on a cold floor yesterday morning and had found himself alone in a dark, depressing castle.  His day had been spent scouring for a way out.  Or a clue to where the others were. 

The castle was occupied, he’d found, but not by the members of his group.

He needed to leave—search for the others before they got themselves into trouble without him—but the entire castle was surrounded by iron fencing and, despite the front gates standing un-rusted and obviously well-maintained, Kurogane couldn’t get them open.

The gates refused to budge no matter how hard he pushed and pulled.  The added strength from his mechanical arm had been no help.  Digging under the fence had proven fruitless—the iron spikes burrowed into the ground deeper than he could reasonably tunnel beneath.  Kurogane had tried climbing over the thing, but after falling for the sixth time—a strange wind materializing as he neared the top and knocking him back to the ground—he’d given up.

The gates had to be spelled.  Or hexed.  Or whatever one called it.

As the only one in their group with no magical aptitude, Kurogane couldn’t know for sure that the gates were enchanted.  But he’d picked up a few things spending so much time around magic users.  Enough to recognize the signs of magical interference.  He was confident that any attempt to blow the gates down with a well placed sword swing would backfire and send him flying across the yard to land on his ass.

Fai would be able to tell what kind of spell was keeping him hostage.

But Fai wasn’t here.

So Kurogane was stuck and rightfully annoyed about it.  His attitude wasn’t improved by the uncomfortable crick in his neck—the price from spending the night sleeping in a supply closet.  He’d started off in one of the bedrooms but had quickly found the room to be...occupied.  And by the time the sun had set, Kurogane couldn’t take another second of the castle’s occupants.

He rubbed his neck with a grimace.  Standing out by the gates cursing them for the fifth time today wasn’t doing him much good.  Maybe he could find some kind of underground tunnel inside? 

He turned and strode back up the castle steps.  They were stone, like the rest of the gloomy castle.  The structure was nothing like Shirasagi.  Whereas the palace in Nihon was all sloping lines and rich colored tile, this castle was harsh angles and imposing towers and cold gray stone.  This castle unnerved him.

Kurogane traipsed back inside and groaned when he saw who was waiting for him.

“Did you find what you were looking for in the yard?”

Kurogane ignored the voice and kept walking.  He was pretty sure the door to the right of the foyer led to the kitchens.  Kitchens were good access points for secret tunnels, weren’t they?

“Are you the man?”

The new, second voice came directly below him and Kurogane flailed backwards, just avoiding trampling the teacup sitting on the floor.

“You are, aren’t you!  Do you want a cup of tea?” asked the teacup.  Because of course a teacup would ask that.

“No,” Kurogane ground out.

“Don’t pester the poor boy,” said the first voice—the one belonging to the talking candlestick that had designated itself Kurogane’s personal host.  It hopped over to stand beside the teacup on the floor.

“Why?” asked the teacup with innocent concern.  It looked up at Kurogane. “Are you shy?”

Kurogane restrained himself from putting another chip in the teacup’s rim.

He had gotten used to having a talking manju around on a daily basis, but this castle was ridiculous.  Everything in this place was out to annoy him.  Because everything in this place could fucking talk.

“The master’s coming!  The master’s—Oh good, the man’s here.”

And there was the stupid candlestick’s stupid clock friend.  Right on time.

… And Kurogane was losing his mind if he was stooping to terrible clock jokes.  He needed to get out of here.

He took a step, intending to hop over the vocal inanimate objects blocking his path, but stopped when he felt a new presence.  A large new presence.  Too large to be human.

Something was coming down the stairs—the same ones the clock had just hobbled down.  Master, the clock had said.  This master’s aura was solid; it was flesh and blood and alive, unlike the talking objects.  Its stride was long, its step a heavy drum to Kurogane’s senses.  How had he not felt it before?

Kurogane stepped back into the center of the foyer and watched the stairs.  Perhaps this creature had escaped his notice due to distance, hiding in the castle towers?  Or maybe it was more of that magical interference.  The aura felt weaker than he would normally expect, not growing even as the creature neared.

It was almost here.  Kurogane held out his hand in front of him, feeling magic—Fai’s magic, light and gentle—warm his palm.  Ginryuu appeared in a quick flash of blue light.

“What is that?” Kurogane addressed the clock.  It was staring wide-eyed at Ginryuu’s long blade.

“That?” the clock echoed.

“That creature.”

“You mean the master?” the clock ticked with indignant bluster, as though Kurogane had insulted it somehow.  Or its master.  Kurogane found that he didn’t care.

The clock looked like it might say more, but then its master was there.  On the stairs. 

Kurogane’s grip tightened on Ginryuu’s hilt.  

The creature was taller than Kurogane by at least two feet, with dark fur bristling over its entire body.  Two horns twisted in coils at the top of its head, ending in sharp points that looked capable of gutting a man if he weren’t careful.  The creature’s claws were long and sharp, and Kurogane grinned. 

A good fight would make him feel better.

The creature paused at the top of the stairs and gazed down at him.  It opened its mouth and Kurogane could see the row of sharp teeth glittering in the weak castle lighting.  Kurogane raised his sword, shifted his stance, and waited for it to make the first attack.

The creature shifted, as well.

And glanced away.

When it turned its gaze back, there was a nervous energy in the way it shuffled side to side.  Kurogane paused, because…was the monster twiddling its thumbs?

“Would you... join me for dinner?”

Kurogane’s sword arm dropped along with his jaw.

The creature shifted awkwardly, reminding Kurogane of Syaoran when placed in Sakura’s presence.

What the hell.

Kurogane blinked, jaw slack, and tried to organize his thoughts into some type of elegant response.

“No.”

~*~

Fai spent the afternoon—and the evening—on his hands and knees, scrubbing a floor. 

Which was ridiculous.

He threw his sponge back into the bucket of soapy water with a huff.

Completely ridiculous.

The woman had arrived home from the ball late last night, seen the house in the same state she had left it, and woken Fai up to scream at him for not following her orders.  Saving his eardrums had been a bigger priority than saving his dignity, so Fai had given in and agreed to do the chores. 

But he’d taken the lazy route, waving his hand and letting his magic turn the rubble covered floor into a smooth oasis of cleanliness.  After his failed searching spell, he should have known better; the resulting wave of dizziness almost knocked him over.  The magic in this world really didn't like him, it seemed.

He’d gone to bed afterward, eager to leave as soon as possible.

And come morning, he had tried.

Twice.

The first time, Fai had made it two miles down the road before the same man with the cart rambled right into him.  When the man started giving Fai the same spiel as before, Fai had taken off running.  Only to find the man blocking the road in front of him five minutes later.  The only explanation was magic, but Fai wasn’t sure what he was dealing with.  Otherwise, Fai might have tried freezing cart-man’s cart to the road, whether his own magic backfired on him or not.

He had allowed cart-man to drive him home, then had waited an hour before leaving again.  The second time, he’d only walked for ten minutes before the angry woman pulled up alongside him in her carriage.

After another round of screaming, Fai had ended up in his current predicament—scrubbing the floors.

Fai felt his teeth grind.

He was doing chores for a mean woman he didn’t know.  He was still wearing rags (and didn’t want to contemplate the reason why right now).  And he had come to the realization that he was trapped in this house.

Fai had the distinct feeling that some greater force was working against him—that there was something beyond bad timing leading to his capture.  Whatever it was, it wanted him in this house.  He just hadn’t been able to determine what it was.  Yet.

Fai wrung out the sponge and let it fall to the floor.  He gave a lazy scrub to one of the tiles.  Everything—tiles, counters, pots, pans—still sparkled from last night’s spell; this was busy work and served no point. 

He should be out searching for Kurogane and Syaoran and Mokona.    

Bickering echoed through the house and Fai winced.  The two sisters were at it again.  All three women were getting ready for another ball.  How many balls were there in this country?

The word ‘ridiculous’ came to mind again.

Everything in this world was completely ridicu—

The sponge fell from his hand.  His head jerked up.

He’d felt—

That was his magic he’d felt.  It was like an old friend tapping his shoulder for attention, raising the hair on the back of his neck from its familiarity.

It was a sensation he recognized immediately.  He felt it every time Kurogane drew upon that tiny bit of magic Fai had gifted him with.

Kurogane had drawn his sword.

Before the sensation faded completely, Fai latched on, forcing his senses to hold that thin trail of magic before anything could interfere.  He focused, closed his eyes, and followed it backwards.  A pounding formed in his temples, this world’s magic arriving to play, but he ignored it—there. 

Fai opened his eyes, feeling giddy.  He didn’t have a destination, but he had a direction and a rough estimate of distance.  He could find Kurogane.

His excitement faded fast.  He couldn’t get to Kurogane if he couldn’t leave this place.  And if Kurogane had drawn his sword, he was likely in the middle of a fight right now.  Or in some kind of trouble.  What if something happened to him and Fai wasn’t there?

Fai forced a deep breath in through his nose and let it out slow.

Kurogane was strong.  He would be okay.

Fai’s hand shook on the sponge when he went back to scrubbing.

He hadn’t moved much farther across the floor when the women entered the kitchen, almost a perfect copy of their actions yesterday. 

“We’re leaving,” said Fai’s ‘mother.’ “Bring in enough water to draw a bath.  I’ll want to soak my feet when I return.”

“Me too,” intoned one of the sisters, examining the paint on her nails.  “And make sure the water’s hot.”

Fai glared up at them through wisps of blond hair.  His foot was bandaged and smarting, he was pretty sure he smelled like chickens, and his hair band had snapped this morning.  The strip of cloth he’d torn from his rags for a replacement was falling loose, leaving his hair an unkempt mess.

“Of course,” he said, with no sincerity.  These women were one insult away from living out the rest of their lives as gnomes in their own garden.

The women filed back through the door and Fai sighed when he heard the distant rattle of their carriage leaving.  After a few quiet moments, Fai left the sponge on the floor, grabbed the bucket, and headed outside to the yard.  He tossed the dirty water over a patch of wilting flowers in the garden and moved over to the well.  Maybe he’d just draw himself a bath instead.

“You wish to go to the ball?”

The bucket slipped from his hands, landing on his injured foot, and Fai yelped.  With a lurch, he turned around and met the gaze of the smiling fairy godmother.

“I can grant your wish!”

Not this again.  “I really don’t want to go to a ball.  I just want to find my friends.  And maybe bathe.”

“You’ll make lots of friends at the ball!”

“I don’t want to make frien—”  He stopped and eyed the fairy godmother.  She didn’t seem to have any trouble using magic.

…And Fai needed transportation.  Especially now.

Every attempt Fai had made to leave, he’d wandered off into the wheat fields; he’d been hoping to find civilization around the castle where these balls were held.  Now he realized he’d been going the wrong direction.  That spike of magic from earlier had come from the woods.  Kurogane was somewhere in those woods.  It was impossible to know what Fai would find when he crossed the tree line, but he was certain it would be better not to make the trip on bare feet.   

“All right.  Let’s go to the ball,” he said, a plan starting to form in his mind.

The fairy godmother’s face lit up.

It wasn’t long before another squash was transformed into a carriage for his use.  Fai stared at it in some awe.  The carriage was round and striking, with white paint and gold filigree.  It looked like it had been crafted by a skilled hand through many hours of labor.  His fairy godmother had good taste; Fai would give her that.

Except.

“I’m not sure where to get a horse for it…” he said.  Fai had seen the stable at the back of the home.  The woman owned two horses and she’d taken both with her when her family had left for the ball.

“I’m not finished,” smiled the fairy godmother.  She knelt down by the garden, and Fai watched in surprise as two mice scurried through the grass and into her outstretched hands.  The woman nuzzled the tiny creatures to her breast, holding them close with one arm, and raised the tip of her wand to hover over them.

The mice were surrounded by a flare of shimmering sparkles; they rose out of the fairy godmother’s arm, glowing in the moonlight.  Fai took a step back as two white horses appeared in front of him.  Without hesitation, they moved to the front of the carriage where a harness appeared around their necks. 

All right, then. 

Fai had everything he needed to get out of here.

“The horses know which way to go.  They’ll take you right to the ball!” The fairy godmother bobbed on her feet in excitement.

Fai crossed his arms. “Would it be all right if I stopped somewhere else?  Before going to the ball, I mean.”

“I suppose,” answered the fairy godmother, a note of confusion in her eyes.  “The horses will take you where you tell them to go.”

“Perfect.  I just need to find something in the woods.  Before I go to the ball.”  Fai walked over to the carriage and patted one of the horses on its neck; he whispered directions to it, feeling a bit silly.  That done, Fai moved over to the carriage door, intending to climb in and leave; he turned to call out a thank you to his fairy godmother.

“You can’t go to the ball looking like that!”

Fai stared at her and let out a long sigh.  No, he could not show up to a ball looking like this, but he wasn’t actually intending to go to the ball.  He hated these rags, but it wasn’t important right now.  He couldn’t tell the fairy godmother that, though. 

She wouldn’t listen, anyway.

“This is fine.  I don’t have anything else to wear.”

“Leave that to me!”

Before Fai could protest or blink (or run away screaming), she waved her wand—toward him.  Fai took an alarmed step backwards as gold and white sparkles glimmered over his rags.  A rush of air surrounded him, and Fai could feel that same magic that was so prominent in this world wrap around him.  He closed his eyes when the light from the fairy’s magic became too bright.  When it finally faded, he had to blink spots out of his eyes.

“Much better,” said the fairy godmother with a nod of satisfaction.

Fai looked down at his clothes and felt his eye twitch.

He was now wearing light blue leggings with a matching light blue tunic.  A length of silver velvet was belted around his waist, his hair was properly tied back, and silver epaulets hung from his shoulders.  It was better than the rags but…

“Why did you encase my feet in glass?” Fai asked, trying to keep the note of exasperation out of his voice.  He lifted one foot and shook it; the glass was thoroughly wrapped around his foot, stopping just below his ankle, like some disturbed loafer.  It wouldn’t be coming off unless he broke it off.  One foot was already injured; shattering glass while it was attached to his foot didn’t seem like a smart idea.   

“Glass slippers,” said the fairy godmother, as if that were an acceptable answer.

“Okay. But. Why?”

“Hurry now.  This spell won’t last forever.  At the stroke of midnight, the spell will break and everything will be as it was before.”

“Why is that?” Fai asked, squinting in confusion.  It was her spell; why craft a time limit into it?

He didn’t get an answer.  The fairy godmother repeated her warning and ushered Fai into the carriage.  He stumbled in the glass slippers; the traction was terrible.

“Have a good time at the ball!” she called, as the carriage turned and began rolling out of the garden, looping around to the side path that his not-mother’s carriage always took.  He worried for a moment that the horses would take him right to the ball, but as the fairy godmother said they would, the horses turned right and set off toward the woods.

Fai settled back in his seat.

Now he was getting somewhere.

~*~

Kurogane tore down the hallway at breakneck speed. 

He made a sharp turn around a corner, steps muffled by the plush red carpet, and vaulted over the railing of a flight of stairs.  He landed on the balls of his feet and kept going, not slowing down even as his elbow knocked against a suit of armor and sent it clattering to the ground.  Every hallway looked the same—long and daunting. 

When he was certain he was three floors down and in the farthest wing from the ballroom, he stopped.  The moon cast long shadows as it fell upon the tables and vases and armor lining the walls.  Kurogane leaned against a window, heaving deep gulping breaths.

The furniture in the castle had joined forces against him.

It had tried to compel him to dance—with a monster—to a sappy song warbled by a singing teapot.

What the hell was his life?

The only upside was that there had been no witnesses and, therefore, word of this would never reach back to Princess Tomoyo.

Heart rate back to normal, Kurogane pushed off the window and continued down the hallway.  Another flight of stairs came into view and he wandered down the steps at a slower pace.  He hadn’t heard any pursuit when he’d escaped and he wasn’t worried about what would happen if something did catch up; Kurogane just didn’t want to deal with talking objects and fidgeting monsters anymore.  His already limited patience had worn out a long time ago today.

The hallway on this floor was lined with sconces, warm yellow light flickering as he passed by.  The light was welcome, especially since he was a bit lost in this grand maze of hallways.  His goal was to make it back to the first floor; he was most familiar with it due to its proximity to the exit, and Kurogane wanted to find a nice corner in the foyer, curl up, and sleep.  Tomorrow would hopefully bring better results than today’s pointless assault on the front gates.

With a sigh, Kurogane rounded another corner.

And ran smack into something solid.

A pained ‘oomph’ echoed in the hallway and Kurogane stumbled backwards, ramming his hip into a table; he managed to catch a grip on it to keep himself from falling.  Surprised and confused, he regained his footing and cast his gaze toward the floor when his eyes caught movement.

Kurogane felt his jaw drop open.

“You—”

“Kuro-tan!  Well, don’t you look...yellow.”

A few seconds passed while Kurogane forced his brain to recognize that yes, that indeed was the wizard sitting on the floor there.  Then Fai’s words sunk in.

Kurogane tried not to blush and tried not to think about the bright golden-yellow pants and garish matching waistcoat and jacket he was currently wearing not by choice.

“Shut up,” Kurogane muttered, but still offered Fai a hand to pull him up off the floor.

As soon as Fai regained his feet, the wizard broke into peels of laugher.

And there was the blush Kurogane’d been trying to avoid. 

“Well, what the hell are you wearing?” Kurogane retaliated.  “It looks like a bird died on your shoulder.”

Fai looked down at himself, still laughing. 

“I know! Doesn’t it?”  He poked one of the offending shoulder pads, long silver tassels trailing over his arms.

“Where’s the kid and the manju?”

A few more giggles escaped before Fai sobered.  Amusement still glimmered behind blue eyes, but it quieted as Fai pondered Kurogane’s question.

“I don’t know.  You’re the first one I’ve found.”

“Have you been here this whole time?”  Fai couldn’t have been, right?  Kurogane would have noticed.  But then again, he’d missed the monster.

“In the castle?  No, I just got here.  I’ve been walking around looking for you for about an hour.”

Kurogane nodded, then stilled when he thought of something.  “How did you get in?  The front gates are locked.”

“They weren’t for me,” said Fai, brows furrowed.

“The hell?” Kurogane ran a hand through his hair.

“…You haven’t been able to leave?”

“No.” Kurogane studied the man in front of him; he knew Fai’s tone of voice when the man was puzzling over something—fitting pieces together.  “What is it?”

“…A recurring theme I’m finding.  Let’s head back to the gates.  There’s a theory I want to test.”

The wizard turned and headed back the way he’d come from.  Kurogane followed after, not bothering to ask; Fai would reveal what he was up to eventually.  Kurogane was just grateful to have the man back at his side.

They marched down a long staircase, into another darkened hallway.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Hm?” Fai had a finger held against his chin, lost in thought.

“You said you were searching for me.  Me.  Specifically.”

Fai glanced over at him and Kurogane was surprised to see a sheepish expression cross the man’s face in the moonlight.  “I felt you summon your sword earlier this evening…and may have tracked you here.”

Kurogane stopped in the middle of the hallway.

“You can sense that?”

Fai grimaced. “Well, it’s my magic you’re using.  It’s still connected to me, so if you’re close enough—yes, I can sense it.”

“Damn it.  Is that how you always sneak up on me?”  Fai’s odd ability to locate him no matter how crowded the marketplace or how mazelike the city made a lot more sense now.

“It’s really your own fault for drawing your sword all the time.”

Kurogane muttered a few curses and gave the other man his best glare.  He started moving down the hall again, Fai falling into step.

“To be fair, I can’t exactly turn it off.”

“I don’t suppose you put a tracker on the kid or the bun, too?” he said, and reached over to muss the other man’s hair.  Fai swatted his hand away, but gave him a grateful smile, catching the teasing in Kurogane’s voice.  The ninja would complain about this new development indefinitely, but he didn’t actually care about the mild breach in privacy.  It wasn’t like he ever needed to hide from Fai and it was probably good if the mage could locate him in a pinch.  It had been helpful in this world.

They rounded another corner and Kurogane recognized a few of the paintings on the walls. 

“No.  No trackers on the others,” Fai answered.  “I did try looking for Mokona’s magical signature, but there’s too much magic in this world blocking me.”

No quick way to find their other two companions, then, Kurogane translated.

The hallway ended in a staircase—the main staircase, finally.  Kurogane quickened his pace, spotting the main doors down below.

They hurried down the steps and were soon heading across the tiled foyer to the exit.  They hadn’t come across any of the castle’s occupants and Kurogane had no desire to say goodbye.  He was looking forward to leaving.

A yelp came from beside him and Kurogane turned just in time to see Fai topple backwards onto his ass.

Kurogane paused.  Fai stared up at him with shock plain on his face. 

They stood blinking at each other in the dim light.

“…Did you just fall over?”  Kurogane asked in bewilderment.  Fai—the unfair bastard—exuded grace and agility even on his worst day.  In the years Kurogane had known the wizard, he’d never so much as seen Fai trip, much less fall over for no reason.

“I can’t walk in these shoes!” Fai whined.

“…Shoes?” Kurogane looked at the wizard’s feet.  “Shit, is that glass?”

“I’m really trying not to break them, but they’re terrible shoes.”

“Why the hell are you wearing those?”  Kurogane had never seen anything less practical.  He reached down and hauled Fai up for the second time that night, but kept hold of the wizard’s arm in case he toppled over again.

“I didn’t want to!  My fairy godmother put them on me.”

“Your what?”

“It’s a long story.”

Kurogane shook his head and began pulling Fai toward the exit.  “You’re telling me later.”

They made it outside and down the palace steps to the front gates without incident.  Both gates were closed like Kurogane remembered, but an ornate white carriage stood beyond the fence, almost glowing in the moonlight.  Two horses whinnied at them as they approached.

“That yours?”  Kurogane nodded to the carriage and belatedly released Fai’s arm.

“Yep,” Fai said, popping the ‘p’ on the end of the word.  He walked up to the gates, gripped one of the iron bars and tugged.  The hinge groaned and metal clattered as the gate caught against the center lock.  Fai’s brow furrowed.  He let go and gripped the second gate’s bars with two hands.  He pushed, then pulled, then stood back with a huff.  The doors remained closed.

“Terrific,” Kurogane grumbled. “So it will let us in, but won’t let us out.”

“Hmm…” Fai stared at the gates.  “Stand back a bit, Kuro-chan.”

Kurogane eyed the wizard.  “You going to blast it open?”

“No.  Like I said, I have a theory.”

Kurogane raised an eyebrow, but took a few steps back.

“Farther, Kuro-tan.” Fai made a shooing motion with his hand.

Kurogane rolled his eyes and took two more steps back.

“Keep going.”

Kurogane walked backwards, glaring at the wizard.  He was almost back to the front steps, when the lock between the gates audibly clicked.

“Hah!” Fai cheered in triumph.  He poked a bar with one long finger and the gate swung open a few inches.

“What the hell!”

Kurogane took two stomping steps forward, an exasperated scowl plastered on his face.  Fai jumped backwards, pulling his fingers out of the way as the gate slammed shut.  The lock clicked and clanked.

“I think you have to stay over there, Kuro-tan.”

“It won’t let me leave?  Is that it?”

Kurogane crossed back over to Fai and stood beside him.  He gave one of the gates a solid kick.  Because he could.

“I think so,” Fai said, placing his hands on his hips as he pondered the gates.  “I’ve been a bit stuck, myself.  I think something in this world wants to keep us where we are.”

“…you know what this something is?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, when you figure it out, let me know so I can kick the shit out of it.”

“So violent, Kuro-chan.”

Kurogane sighed.  “…You said you were stuck?  You don’t look stuck.”

“Well, my mother doesn’t want me to leave her house.”

A choke tore itself out of Kurogane’s throat and his wide eyes searched Fai’s face in concern.  The comment had been casual, but Fai (and Kurogane) avoided the topic of parents most days.  The wizard’s smile was sincere and too amused to be masking any hurt, but his words hadn’t been a joke.  What the hell?

Fai chuckled and his smile softened. 

“Not my real mother, obviously.  I woke up in a house with a lady yelling at me to do the chores.  She seems to think we’re related and that I owe servitude to her and her daughters.”  Fai crossed his arms, head tilting to the side.  “I’ve been trying to leave since I woke up, but I keep getting dragged back.  I was only able to get here because my fairy godmother showed up and made me a carriage out of a vegetable.”

Kurogane tried to think of an adequate response to that. 

“…I think the monster in this castle is trying to court me.”

The smile dropped off Fai’s face. “What?”

“Don’t even ask.”

Fai looked like he very much wanted to ask.

“Can you get me out of here?” Kurogane said, before Fai could gather his thoughts.

The wizard’s expression said he wouldn’t be forgetting this conversation but, to Kurogane’s relief, Fai turned back to ponder the gates.  One pale hand rose to hover before the iron bars; it moved in slow, random arches across the gate—searching, studying.  Kurogane watched in silence until Fai’s face pinched and his hand dropped.

“What?”

“I can’t sense any reason for why it’s keeping you here.  No spell, no enchantment,” Fai said, frustration evident in his voice.  “But like I said earlier, this world is full of magic.  It’s making everything difficult to read.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Fai lifted his hand back up to hover over the lock.  A blue glow surrounded the mechanism and Kurogane felt the familiar buzz of Fai’s magic raise the hair on the back of his arm.

Fai winced and the magic cut off.  The man took an unsteady step backwards and Kurogane grabbed his elbow in surprise.

“What’s wrong?”

“Not only is there a lot of magic, it’s not mixing well with my own.  I can’t—I don’t think I can get you out of here, Kuro-rin,” Fai said, rubbing one of his temples.

Kurogane eyed him, waiting for the pained expression to leave Fai’s face before he spoke.  “Okay, so you can’t magic me out.  What’s our plan, then?”

“…I can see if the fairy godmother can help me find Syaoran-kun tomorrow night.  Or Mokona.  I think you’ll have to stay here for now.”

“Great.”

Fai grimaced.

Kurogane considered him a moment, then sighed.  “I’ll keep poking around this place.  See if I can find a back door or something.”

Fai bit his lip and nodded, his eyes cast somewhere down by his terrible shoes.

Kurogane squeezed the wizard’s arm—reassurance. “Hey—”

Bam!

Both of them jumped as the carriage exploded into a plume of golden sparkles, smashed yellow squash raining down onto the path.  Kurogane blinked, shocked, as the two horses that had been standing a few feet away glowed, twisted, and shrank.  When the golden light surrounding them subsided, two mice scampered away into the bushes.

Fai tugged his arm away and Kurogane met his eyes just as the wizard’s body was surrounded by the same soft glow.  The odd blue clothing disappeared, and when the only light surrounding them was moonlight again, Fai was standing there in tatters.

Kurogane didn’t like repeating himself, but, “What the hell?”

Fai peered down at his clothing and cringed. “The fairy godmother did mention something about her spell wearing off at midnight…”

Kurogane eyed Fai’s bare feet and rags.

“These are technically more comfortable than what I was wearing before.”  Fai rubbed his arms, the night air raising goose bumps on his bare skin.  “I think I need to go.”

Kurogane shrugged out of his hideous yellow jacket and draped it around Fai’s shoulders.  The wizard gave him a grateful smile and tugged it closer.

“That house you’re staying at.  Where did you say it was?” 

A teasing grin lit up Fai’s face. “Aw, is Kuro-tan worried about me?”

An image came unbidden to Kurogane’s mind—a child huddled barefoot in blood darkened snow, rags draped around a fragile, emaciated form.  Kurogane observed the man standing before him now, still barefoot and clothed in rags but lips tilted in a smile so warm that snow could never touch it again.  He reached forward and captured a blond lock between his fingers, knuckles brushing feather-light against Fai’s cheek.  Emotion welled in Kurogane’s breast, indefinable yet simple.  He felt his own lips quirk and didn't even mind the heat tinting his ears.

“Not at all,” he said, and had the pleasure of watching Fai's smile settle into something so gentle and fond.

The lock clicked.

They both turned to look in astonishment as the gate swung open.  Kurogane untangled his fingers from Fai’s hair and took a tentative step forward.

Right out the gate. 

Fai’s eyes were wide as he followed Kurogane, stepping out onto the road.

“Um… I’m not complaining.  But…”  The blond tilted his head to the side and trailed off into silence, looking lost.

Kurogane eyed the gate with mistrust.  “Let’s go before it changes its mind.”

“It’s a gate, Kuro-sama.  It doesn’t have a mind of its own.”

“…You didn't see much of the castle, did you?”

“No.  Why?”

“Trust me.  Let's go.”

They headed off down the road.  Kurogane was more than a little happy when the castle faded away into the trees behind them.  He would not miss that place.

Night owls cried somewhere in the distance and a cold breeze rustled the limbs of the pines around them.  They walked in silence for the most part, Fai seemingly lost in thought and Kurogane more worn out from the stressful day than he would admit.

Only twenty minutes had passed when Kurogane heard something coming up the road toward them—a horse, maybe? 

Rattling accompanied it. 

A carriage?

Kurogane squinted as a dark carriage came clambering up the forest path, pulled by two large horses, and then glanced to Fai when the wizard groaned.

“Not again.”

“What is it?”  Kurogane said, wondering if he should ready his sword.

“That’s the woman’s carriage.  The one that thinks I’m her son.”

Kurogane held out his hand.  He wouldn’t hurt her, but it wouldn’t hurt to scare her a bit.

Fai placed a hand on his arm, tugging it back down.  “Don’t.  I told you this was what happens.”

“You want to go back with her?”

“No...  But I was thinking—what if there’s another me in this world?  One that really is her son?  I don’t want to interfere.”

Kurogane grimaced.  He wasn’t sure what to think of that.  “Fine.  Let’s get off the road.”

The carriage was rolling closer now, and Kurogane thought he could hear shouting—shrill and angry—coming from inside.  He grabbed Fai’s arm and started hauling him into the woods.

“Wait.”  Fai pulled his arm from Kurogane’s grip.

The ninja stared at him in puzzlement.

Fai winced and looked toward the carriage—it was slowing down.  At this rate, it was going to pull up right next to them.

“It’s too dark to go running through the woods…and even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t make it very far walking over pine needles and rocks like this.”  He nodded to his feet.

His bare feet.

Shit. 

How had Kurogane forgotten that?  As he looked closer, he noticed a bandage wrapped around the wizard’s foot.

Shit.

“I’m fine,” Fai said.  The man could apparently read Kurogane’s expression.

Before Kurogane could respond, the carriage rolled to a stop beside them and Fai stepped back onto the path.  The door swung open and a thin-lipped woman leaned out with a sneer directed at the wizard.

“You ungrateful wretch.  Traipsing in the lanes!  Come here.”

“Oi,” Kurogane growled.  He regretted not having a sword in his hand.  “You—”

“Now!  Filthy little—”

She trailed off on a string of insults, and Kurogane’s eye twitched as he was ignored.  The woman didn’t even glance at him, her attention on Fai.  Two younger women in the carriage smiled with glee as though they were enjoying a delightful spectacle.

Fai sighed and turned to Kurogane.  He spoke over the storm of insults still thundering over their heads.  “Their house is down the road, outside the forest.  I’ll be all right.  See if you can find Syaoran-kun and Mokona tomorrow.  I’ll catch up with you tomorrow night if I can.”

Kurogane nodded reluctantly. 

The wizard pulled off the borrowed yellow jacket and Kurogane caught it with one hand when Fai tossed it to him.  Then the wizard climbed into the carriage, squeezing around the women’s billowing skirts.  The older woman slammed the door shut and the carriage turned in the road before heading back the way it had come.

Kurogane watched it roll away, standing alone on the road. 

Somewhere in the distance, an owl’s voice echoed in the night.

~*~

The moment the sun snuck through the cottage window, Syaoran was up and out the door.  He prepared better this time, taking along an extra flask of water and some dried meat from the dwarves’ pantry.  There was nothing to be done about his shoes—there were none that would fit him in the cottage.

Following the dwarves out the front door yesterday had ended in disaster, so Syaoran took the opposite approach this morning.  He left from the south side of the house, walking straight off the back porch into the woods.  An hour later, he was back in the clearing.

He left from the side of the house next, walking west into the forest.  When that led back to the cottage, he tried east.  Syaoran walked and walked and walked, with nothing familiar lining his path to indicate he was stumbling back across one of his own trails.  He made sure to keep his eyes on the sun’s position, to ensure he kept to a straight line.

He was back at the clearing three hours later.

Syaoran stepped out of the woods—for the third time today—and frowned across the clearing at the cottage.  Shadows spilled on the grass, the sun sinking behind the little structure to signal late afternoon, and Syaoran felt himself edging from mild trepidation into outright anxiety.

He couldn’t leave.  No matter which direction Syaoran chose, he ended up back here.

It had to be magic.

Either a spell was messing with his senses or the woods were enchanted, keeping him trapped.  Unfortunately, this wasn't magic Syaoran knew how to fight.

The hag was sitting on the porch again with a fresh basket of apples. 

The woman was staring across the clearing at him, unblinking.  Her gaze sent a chill up Syaoran’s spine and he had half a mind to perform an about-face and march back into the woods whether it did him any good or not.

He kept his gaze locked with the hag’s and side-stepped around the clearing until he was behind the house, out of her sight.

The dwarves wouldn't be back for a few more hours and Syaoran wasn't ready to try his luck in the woods again.  He released a breath and sat heavily in the grass.  A bluebird fluttered down from the trees to sit beside him and Syaoran shooed it away.  If Sakura were here she’d be thrilled to have an entourage of chubby little birds; but after the creatures had stalked him all day, Syaoran wasn't finding anything cute about them.

He wasn't going to see Sakura again if he remained stuck in this world.

His stomach turned at the thought.

No. He'd been in worse binds than this.  He would find a way out, and he would find Kurogane, Fai, and Mokona.  It was reasonable to think they were looking for him, too.

And maybe…

…maybe they were looking for him.

They could be similarly trapped… but if they weren't...

Syaoran stood up with a new plan in mind.

He stomped back over to the woods and began hunting in the underbrush.  The ground was littered with pine branches and he began piling them into his arms with new determination.  A short distance past the tree line he found a fallen pine tree, and from this he broke off several large branches to use as the bulk of his firewood.  After three trips between the woods and the edge of the clearing, he had a sizable pile of kindling that would hopefully last until dark.

Syaoran ducked into the cottage and came back out with a pickaxe—an extra from the dwarves’ closet.  It wasn’t the best shovel, but it would work for what he had in mind. 

He chose a spot on the ground—equidistant between the trees and the side of the house—and broke the earth with a heavy swing.  Between the pickaxe and his bare hands, he was able to dig a decent fire pit.  It was small, but it would do.

He found rocks in the woods to make a ring around the pit and once the firewood was placed in the center, he had a campfire ready to go.  Now he just needed to light it.

Syaoran didn’t have a lighter and he wasn’t sure where the dwarves stowed their matches; they had to have some for the little chimney in their home, but Syaoran hadn’t been able to find any when he’d gone to get the pickaxe.  He’d once seen a man light a fire with some glass and sunlight, but Syaoran wasn’t sure if he could replicate the technique.  If he had to rub two sticks together, the sun would be down before he got the fire going—which would defeat the purpose of a signal fire.

With some hesitation, Syaoran released the spell keeping his sword hidden in his palm. 

This would be overkill, but it would work.

Fire licked down the steel of his blade, his magic releasing as he called it forth.  He kept the magic’s flow to a minimum; he didn’t need the full force of his Kashin Shourai attack just to start a campfire. 

Syaoran thrust the blade into the fire pit and the kindling caught ablaze with ease.  Smoke—thick and black and easily visible—rose above the trees into the sky and Syaoran smiled.  If the others were nearby, they would see it—whether they would investigate it was another matter—but Syaoran felt better for trying.

A sudden whoosh was his only warning.

The fire spell flared outward in a stinging surge of magic—rushing back up his blade, igniting the grass, spitting flames into the trees. 

Syaoran stumbled backwards, his sword falling from his grip as his own magic stabbed through his palm as though it had bitten him.

What had that been?

Syaoran flexed his throbbing hand and massaged his wrist with the other.  He’d never lost control of his magic before. 

His eyes widened, even as smoke made them water.

Two of the nearest trees were on fire.

They were burning.

They were burning in a forest that Syaoran was currently trapped in and oh dear god he had just started a forest fire.

The fire leapt up the trees, eating their bark and darkening their trunks to a crisp black.  They were burning fast—too fast.  There was no way this wouldn’t spread.

He cast around for something to use.  Was there water nearby?  He recalled seeing a well behind the house.  But how would he get enough water back here?

Syaoran excelled with fire based spells more than water; and even if that weren’t the case, he didn’t trust his own magic not to drown him at the moment.

He backed up and covered his mouth with his sleeve.

The dwarves’ cottage was going to burn down!  Syaoran may not be enjoying his stay there, but he didn’t want to destroy his hosts’ home.

A wind—strong and crisp—hit Syaoran in the chest with such force that he landed on his butt in the grass.

He blinked in surprise.  Another gale came toward him and Syaoran held his arm up, shielding his face.

The wind died as abruptly as it had started and Syaoran peeked out from under his arm.  The trees were still smoking but the fire was out, the heat sucked out of the flames from the wind.

“The hell happened?”

“Kurogane-san!” 

Syaoran wasn’t sure whether to laugh, cry, or choke on the lingering haze when the ninja stepped out of the woods, sword held loose by his side.  At least one of them still had working attacks.

“Kid,” the man sighed, seeming relieved.  “Been looking everywhere for you.”

“I’ve been trying to get out of here for days,” said Syaoran, feeling his own relief.  He wasn’t alone anymore.  They could find their way out together.  “How did you find me?”

“I was on the road and saw the smoke.”

Syaoran froze where he stood.  “Road?  What road?”

“The one on the other side of the trees.”

“…Like several miles away on the other side of the trees…?”

“No, like on the other side of the trees on the other side of the trees.  You can see this place from there.”  Kurogane jerked his sword toward the cottage.  “Only reason I missed it last night was because it was dark.”

Syaoran wasn’t sure how to respond.  What came out was rather choked.  “Kurogane-san.  There isn’t a road over there.  I’ve been over there.  I’ve walked miles in that direction.”

“Come on.”  Kurogane turned around and marched into the trees; he let his sword flash back into his hand.

Syaoran followed, part skeptical and part hopeful.  They hadn’t walked far at all when Kurogane stopped and swore.

“It was right here.”

Syaoran felt something cold settle in his gut.  There was no sign of a road, just endless trees.  “I’m sorry, Kurogane-san.  Now you’re trapped here, too.”

The older man tilted his head, eyes scanning the ground.  When he turned back, Syaoran was surprised to note the ninja didn’t look all that concerned.

“Walk back to the house.”

“Huh?”

“I want to check something the mage noticed.  See if it’s true here, too.”

“You found Fai-san?”

“Yeah, now go over there.”

Syaoran eyed him but did as instructed.  He ambled back over to the cottage.  Some of the grass still smoldered and his sword was still abandoned on the ground.  He snatched it up, the hilt uncomfortably hot, and let the sword sink back under his skin—that bit of magic was working, at least. 

He wandered around to the front of the house.  The hag had left, though an apple sat on the porch in her stead.  Syaoran picked it up and chucked it into the trees.

Kurogane came back and eyed the spot the apple had flown through.  He didn't bother asking.

“Road’s back.”

“What?”  Syaoran’s brows rose into his hairline.  He started to rush back toward the woods to check, but Kurogane caught his arm.

“It won’t let you out.  Just me.”

Syaoran stopped, waiting for an explanation.  Kurogane let go of his arm and stepped back.

“I got trapped in a castle.  The wizard could get in and out, but I couldn't.  Looks like you're the same way.”

“But you’re here.  So you did get out?”

“Yeah.”  Kurogane’s face scrunched and he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.  “We don’t know how.  The front gate just decided to open.  Mage said there wasn't a spell on it.”

“Where is Fai-san?  And Mokona?”

“We haven't found the bun… The wizard’s stuck at some house.”

Syaoran nodded, trying to take in the new information. 

Something caught his attention.

“You said you were at a castle?  I don’t suppose there was an evil queen there?  Or a talking mirror?”

Kurogane raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the wall of the cottage.  Two bluebirds flickered over to land on the roof.

“I didn't see a queen but there was a lot of talking things.  The whole damn castle wanted to chat.”

Syaoran pursed his lips.  There was something familiar about that.  “When you say things… Do you mean… furniture?  Objects?  A candlestick, maybe?”

“How did you guess that?” Kurogane asked, bewildered.

“Because we aren't just trapped—we're trapped in fairytales.  Different ones, it seems.”

“Fairytales?  What kind of fairytale has a talking teapot?”

“It's called Beauty and the Beast in my world.  I suppose there was a beast at the castle?”

Kurogane looked a bit uneasy and plucked at a thread on his bright yellow jacket.  The color was unusual on the man who normally wore black.  Syaoran really wanted to ask, but had a feeling it wouldn’t go over well.  He probably didn’t have the right to ask when his own clothes were such a mess and similarly yellow. 

“Some big furry creature,” Kurogane confirmed.

“Definitely Beauty and the Beast.  And I'm in Snow White.”

“I haven't heard of either of those.”

Syaoran nodded.  “What about Fai-san?  You said he was at a house?”

“Yeah.  Some lady thinks she’s his mother.”

Syaoran tilted his head, face scrunching.  “Um.  What else?”

“He can only leave the house at night when some fairy appears.”

“A fairy?”

“He gets dragged back to the house if he stays past midnight.”

 Oh.  “Was it a fairy or a fairy godmother?”

“You know that story, too.”  It wasn’t a question.

“It's probably Cinderella.”

Kurogane’s nose scrunched at the odd name.  “So we're in fairytales?  What exactly does that mean and how do we leave?”

Syaoran shuffled in the grass and watched the bluebirds flutter down from the roof to land by his feet.

“I don’t know.  You sure the castle just let you go?” He didn’t like the thought of waiting around until the forest decided it was bored with him.  “There has to be something.”

“We were just standing there talking.  Didn’t do anything.”  Kurogane pushed off the side of the house and looked toward the trees.  “Sun’s almost down.  We should tell this to the mage.  I’ll get him and then we can try to come up with a plan.”

Syaoran nodded.  It was the best option for the moment.

The ninja scowled suddenly and jerked his foot with a harsh flick.  A bluebird fluttered away with an angry tweet, interrupted from pecking at the man’s boot.

“The hell’s wrong with the birds in this place?”

Syaoran sighed.

~*~

Kurogane found the house easily, even with the sky dark above him.  It was the first house he came across after leaving the forest and, judging by the endless stretch of wheat and road, the only house that existed for miles.

He hadn’t needed to even approach the house to know he’d found the right one; a loud (familiar) curse from the garden told him he’d found the mage.

Kurogane wandered off the path, edging along the fence and following the soft glow of a lantern set in the grass.  He stopped and leaned against a fence post. 

“You’re doing chores?”

Fai startled.  A few weeds went flying through the air as he jerked around in surprise.  The man relaxed when he spotted Kurogane and his expression turned sheepish.

“I tried not to.” Fai turned back around and started pulling more weeds away from a crop of something.  He was kneeling in the dirt, gardening in the moonlight, with only the lantern by his knee providing any extra light.  “The woman yelled for an hour straight when I refused and at this point, I’m doing this to pass the time and avoid a headache.”

“Maybe it’s karma for all the times you’ve shirked the chores on me.”

Fai turned around long enough to stick out his tongue.  “Very funny.  Any news?”

“I found—”

“You wish to go to the ball?”

They both startled this time.

Kurogane leaned away from the fence and gawked at the woman that had just appeared—out of nowhere—in the garden.

Where the hell had she come from?

He heard Fai sigh and caught the man gazing up at the sky like he was looking for strength there.  The wizard stood up and wiped his hands off on his ragged pants.

“Looks like you’re right on time, Kuro-tan.”

“Does she have wings?”

“Mm hmm.”

Kurogane went back to leaning on the fence and watched in mild horror at the events that unfolded next. 

By the time he was sitting inside what he knew had been a pumpkin not long ago, his eye had developed a permanent twitch.  He stared at Fai’s glass shoes with disgust to take his mind off the carriage.

“How far down the road was Syaoran-kun’s cottage?”

Fai’s voice dragged Kurogane back to the present.  The other man was leaning against the window carved into the not-a-carriage.

“Not far.  About four miles.  We should be there soon.”

“And you said Syaoran-kun believes this world is made up of fairytales?”  Fai leaned back from the window and crossed his arms.

“The kid seemed to know about them—you’ll have to ask him.  Stop here.”

Kurogane had left a marker on the side of the road—two sticks jabbed vertically into the ground to indicate where the cottage sat beyond the trees.  He hadn't wanted to miss it in the dark like he must have last night.

Fai leaned out the window and called to the horses; to Kurogane’s surprise, they actually listened and stopped in the middle of the road.  Kurogane decided he wasn't going to question anything else about this stupid world.

He climbed out of the carriage but stayed near the door.  Just in case Fai slipped down the stairs in those stupid shoes. 

The mage stepped out and swanned down the steps with perfect grace like the incident yesterday had never happened.  Kurogane rolled his eyes. 

Without a word, they tromped off the path and into the woods.  Kurogane had spent last night camping in these woods after Fai had left.  He was ready to leave them (and this world) behind. 

A lantern was lit in the cottage window, casting a square of light over a small portion of the clearing.  Syaoran stood up from the porch step and waved as they approached.

“Syaoran-kun!” Fai called with a smile and a return wave.

“Fai-san.”  The boy looked relieved when they joined him in the patch of light.  “I'm glad you're okay.”

“This is quite the world we've landed in.  I think—” Fai stopped.  He squinted at Syaoran.

“Fai-san?”

“…Is there a trend with yellow pants in this world that I'm missing out on?”

Kurogane's eye twitched.  He was going to burn these clothes.  As soon as he could.  And if Syaoran wanted to add his muddy yellow pants to the bonfire, the more the merrier.

“You’re the one with glass attached to your feet,” Kurogane grumbled.

Syaoran's eyes widened when he caught sight of Fai's shoes.  “In the original story they were more of a woman's heel…not a full shoe!  Can you even take those off?”

“Nope.”  Fai rocked back on his heels with a chuckle, but then his brows knitted in a frown.  Blue eyes raked over Syaoran’s torn clothing before landing on the scratches across his cheek.  “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” said the boy, running a finger over the scratches like he’d forgotten they were there.  “Come inside.  I’ll introduce you to the dwarves.”

“Dwarves?” Fai looked at Kurogane, but Kurogane couldn’t offer him more than a shrug.

They followed Syaoran inside and Kurogane stopped in the doorway when he caught sight of the dwarves.  They were tall enough to reach his waist and no taller; most had long white beards that trailed to their toes and pointed hats in a wide array of bright colors.

They were mingling in a small sitting room, around a fire set in a cozy hearth.  Syaoran stopped on the edge of the room.

“This is Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful—” Syaoran listed off, counting on his fingers as he went.

Kurogane stopped listening after the first few names; he wasn’t going to remember them.  Or which dwarf belonged to which name.

There was a chorus of hellos from some of the dwarves, but they kept most of their attention on Syaoran, complimenting him on his kindness for taking in wayward strangers. 

When Syaoran launched into a futile attempt to correct the dwarves, Kurogane leaned over to Fai and muttered, “At least I didn’t have to introduce you to every piece of cutlery.”

“You are going to tell me—in detail—what happened at that castle,” the man whispered back.

“Only if you supply booze.”

“Deal.”

Syaoran ran a hand over his hair, aggravation growing as the dwarves continued to refer to Kurogane and Fai as ‘the two strangers’ despite the number of times the boy corrected them.

“Give it up, kid,” Kurogane said over the dwarves’ chatter.  He shuffled over to the kitchen, ducking his head under the ceiling beam that partitioned the two rooms, and leaned back against the counter.

“I don’t understand,” Syaoran groaned, joining him in the kitchen. “It’s like they don’t hear anything I say.”

“Maybe they can’t.”  Fai jumped up to sit next to a loaf of bread on the counter, his knee knocking against Kurogane’s arm.  He gazed back to where the dwarves still lingered in the sitting area. “I don’t think this world is normal.  It reminds me of Outo a bit.  With the way some people seem to be following a script of sorts.”

Kurogane nodded, remembering the odd circular way some people in that world spoke.  “You think we’re in another game?”

Fai crossed his arms, his head tilting to one side.  “No, not a game.  There’s too much magic here for this to be some type of technology again.  But something created with magic, maybe.  If this world is mirroring fairytales, then perhaps it was designed to do so.”

Syaoran nodded.  “That would make sense.  If this world was created by magic, it would explain why my own magic isn’t working right.”

“You too, huh?” Fai said.

“How does that explain anything?” Kurogane broke in.

“Our own magic is likely interfering with the construction of this world.  For whatever reason, ours isn’t compatible and this world’s magic is fighting us—probably to maintain its own stability,” Fai answered.  “You know—this would also explain why I couldn’t find a spell on your castle gates.  If this whole world is a spell, there would be nothing to distinguish it.”

“Great, so we’re stuck in someone’s spell.  How do we get out?”

They all paused at that.

The floor creaked as Syaoran shifted on his feet.  “When I woke up here, the dwarves all acted like they knew me.  My first thought was that I was somehow reenacting the story.  Maybe that’s true.  Maybe I’m supposed to be Snow White in this scenario.” 

Fai nodded.  “The woman back at my house seems to think I’m her son.  I thought there might be another version of me in this world, but it would make sense if I’m supposed to be a character.”

“You’d be Cinderella,” Syaoran told him.  “The woman’s supposed to be your evil stepmother.  Do you think we have to finish the stories in order to leave them?”

“I’m not sure.”  Fai dug one of his nails into the wooden countertop, idly carving little lines into the surface.  “Kuro-rin left his story.”

Syaoran tugged one of the rickety chairs out from the little kitchen table.  He sat down with a thump and met Kurogane’s eyes, a knuckle running over his chin as he thought.  “Your story is Beauty and the Beast…”

“We didn’t have any of these stories in my world,” Fai said.  “How does Kuro-tan’s end?”

Kurogane couldn’t imagine that it ended with the hero glaring at a gate.  He didn’t see how they could have possibly completed the story.

“Well…” Syaoran’s eyes wandered up to the ceiling beams as he considered his response.  “The Beast was cursed and had to find love before the last petal fell on a rose.  Beauty fell in love with him and when she told him, it broke the curse.”

Kurogane’s back dug into the counter as he shifted his weight.  The others remained silent, letting that information percolate around them.

So much for their theory.

Fai reached over and jabbed him in the shoulder with a thin finger.  “What exactly went on between you and that beast, Kuro-beauty?”

Kurogane spluttered.  He jolted halfway across the kitchen and turned to glare at the wizard.  “Nothing!”

Fai’s grin was large and catlike.  “You sure you didn’t confess your undying love before I got there?”

“If I had finished the damn story I wouldn’t have still been locked in when you got there!  Did you hear me make a love declaration when we were standing out in the cold?”

Fai chuckled. 

Then the smile froze on his face.

Kurogane went from anger to apprehension in record time.

The wizard turned to Syaoran and when he spoke his voice came out a bit tentative.  “Does it have to be an explicitly worded love declaration…or just the emotion that needs to be conveyed?”

Kurogane stared at the blond.  Where was the man going with this?

He thought back to their conversation by the gates, right before the lock clicked.  Kurogane hadn’t been making declarations of love.  He’d just been…thinking…

Oh.

Oh.

Syaoran was staring at him; the boy’s cheeks were tinted pink.

Kurogane was certain his own ears were on fire.

“…I’m not sure,” Syaoran choked.

Kurogane pointedly did not look at Fai.  Or Syaoran.  He glared at the teapot sitting on the stove.  Where was the singing one when he needed a distraction?

Fai puffed a sharp laugh.  Kurogane hesitantly glanced at him, looking up just in time to meet Fai’s eyes.  That fondness was sparkling there again, though it was tinted with amusement.

Fai broke the gaze, casting his eyes back down to Syaoran.  “Let’s consider Beauty and the Beast finished.  What’s my story, then?  Cindella?”

“Cinderella,” the boy corrected.  He looked relieved by the change in topic, though his cheeks were still unnaturally rosy.  “She wants to go to a ball, but her evil stepmother and stepsisters won’t let her.  Her fairy godmother appears, gives her a dress and glass slippers, and sends her to the ball.  Cinderella meets the prince there and falls in love with him, but she has to leave at midnight.”

“Why?” Kurogane asked, and was proud when his voice came out even and normal.

“That’s how long the magic lasts.  It’s just part of the story.  Cinderella runs out of the castle when the clock strikes midnight and loses one of her glass slippers.  The prince uses it to find her.”

“How?  With a locator spell?”  Fai leaned forward on the counter top.

“…Not exactly…but that would make more sense.  Let’s just go with that.  The prince finds Cinderella, returns her shoe, and they leave together and get married.  And I think some birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes in some versions.”  Syaoran turned his head and glared at one of the high kitchen shelves; a bluebird had made a nest out of a ceramic cookie jar there.

“So I have to marry a prince?” Fai hopped off the counter, shoes making a clink, and copied Kurogane’s earlier position leaning against the wood.

“Can I just take those brats’ eyes out instead?”

“Kuro-tan!  Don’t threaten my evil stepsisters!”

“How about your story?”  Kurogane moved over to sit on the tabletop beside Syaoran.  He thought about pulling out a chair, but the seats looked so small that Kurogane was sure he’d end up hunched over with his knees digging into his chin.

“Snow White,” nodded Syaoran.  “An evil queen tries to kill her, but Snow White escapes and ends up here—with the dwarves.  The queen disguises herself and tricks Snow White into eating a poisoned apple that places her in a cursed sleep.  At the end, a prince finds her and kisses her to break the spell.  They ride off together happily. …There’s more to it, but that’s the general idea.”

Kurogane felt his face twist in a grimace.  “These stories don’t make any sense.  If Cinderella didn’t like her stepmother, why didn’t she just leave?  And if an evil queen was trying to kill her, why didn’t Snow White just grab a sword and kill her first?  The hell’s with all the princes?”

Syaoran pursed his lips.  “I don’t think the concept of feminism was invented when these stories were first written, Kurogane-san.”

“The old stories from Nihon are much better.  How come we couldn’t be dropped into The Ogre of Rashomon?  I could’ve sliced an ogre’s arm off in that one.”

“I think you've reached your lifetime quota of arm chopping, Kuro-chan.”

“Like you wouldn't rather be battling an ogre right now.”

Fai shrugged, not confirming or denying.  “It could be worse.  In Ceres, most of the folktales ended with the hero getting eaten by an ice monster or dying in an avalanche—any way to kill someone with ice, really.”

“Most of ours taught some kind of moral or lesson,” Kurogane continued, thinking back to the stories he’d grown up with as a child.

“So did ours,” nodded Fai.  “‘Stay inside where it’s warm.’”

Kurogane snorted at that.

They lapsed into silence.  The only sound came from the crackling fire in the other room, the dwarves having drifted off to bed sometime during their conversation.

Kurogane wasn’t sure where this left them.  How exactly were they supposed to finish these stupid stories?

“So, what?  You two need to ride off into the sunset with some strange men in fancy clothes?”

Syaoran paled.

Fai’s nose crinkled.  “The most important moment in Beauty and the Beast was the love confession, correct?  What moment was most important in Snow White?”

Syaoran’s fingers drummed against the table.  “The prince waking up Snow White…”

Kurogane raised an eyebrow.  “You want to try knocking yourself out with an apple?  Where are we going to get a prince?”

Syaoran’s pale face gained a greenish tint.  His mouth opened, but whatever he’d been about to say cut off as his eyes widened.

Fai’s clothing had started glowing.

“Not again,” Fai sighed, shaking his head.

Kurogane felt that eye twitch trying to make a reappearance.

The glass shoes, the light blue formalwear, even the satin ribbon tying back Fai’s hair—all of it disappeared in a flash of light, leaving him standing barefoot in rags again.

Not a moment later there came an odd sound—clattering.  Like a carriage coming down a road.  But...

There was not a road outside.

Kurogane turned around in his seat to peer at the cottage door.  There was not a road outside!  But he was positive that was the sound of a carriage door slamming.  How?  Had the damn carriage driven straight through the trees?

Fai groaned.  “Oh for—”

“Filthy child!  How dare you sneak out!  I have never—”

The loud voice came muffled through the door, familiar and unwelcome.

Syaoran’s jaw was slack.  “Is that…?”

Kurogane flinched when the woman’s voice rose an octave.  “Real or not real, how many balls can they possibly go to?"

Fai’s mouth was set in a grim line.  “I think there’s one every night.”

Syaoran stood from his chair and eyed the door like they were under siege.  “…If the story is trying to get you to go to the ball, maybe you should.  Maybe that’s the key.”

“I’ve been to balls before.  They aren’t that fun.”  Fai crept over to the front window and peered out through the curtain.

Kurogane and Syaoran both stared at him.

In hindsight, Kurogane probably should have considered this detail.

“Fai-san…you’re technically a prince, right?”

The blond turned back to them, shoulders tense and gaze wary.  “More than technically.”

“Right.  Sorry,” Syaoran winced.

Kurogane scrutinized the blond.  Fai never brought up his former title and truthfully, Kurogane wasn’t sure how the wizard felt about it—if it was a reminder of things lost or just a distant memory of a life worlds away.

Fai turned to him and raised an eyebrow.  He didn’t say anything, but Kurogane got the message.  This wasn’t something to worry about.

It was something worth considering, however.

Kurogane turned to Syaoran.  “So the mage can kiss you awake?”

Syaoran and Fai both gawked at him.  The woman outside started hammering on the door.

“What!  Does it have to be on the lips?”

The door clattered, straining at its hinges, and the two stepsisters’ voices joined their mother’s.

Kurogane growled and went to stand by Fai and the door.  His back thumped against the wood as he leaned against it, holding it shut with his weight.  He turned to Fai.  “You said they’re magically created.  Can’t I just cut them in half?”

“That would be rude.  And if they are magically created, it probably wouldn’t work.”

“It’d work to make me feel better.”

Fai chuckled and looked at Syaoran.  “I should go.  Keep working with Kuro-tan on a way out of Snow White.  I’ll go to the ball tomorrow and meet you back here the next night.”

He motioned for Kurogane to step away from the door and reached around to clasp the door handle.  Kurogane wasn’t ready to move just yet.

“I’ll stop by the house—”

“No,” Fai said and met his eyes.  The quiet word was spoken so close that warm breath tickled over Kurogane’s cheek.  “I’ll feel better knowing you’re helping Syaoran-kun.  Or out looking for Mokona.  The faster we can leave this world the better.”

Kurogane bit his cheek, but nodded.  It would be more efficient.  Fai had a plan to get himself unstuck and there wasn’t any way for Kurogane to help on that end.  Syaoran and the bun needed him more.

But that didn’t mean Kurogane was happy about it.

“You sure you don’t want help with them?”

“I’ll be fine.  I’ll see you in 48 hours.”

Fai twisted the doorknob and Kurogane slid to the side, out of the way.  He watched as the mage waved goodbye to Syaoran, even as a well-manicured hand latched onto Fai’s arm through the crack in the door and tugged him outside.  The voices rose for a minute, overlaid with platitudes from Fai, and then cut off when the door slammed shut.  A few minutes later, Kurogane could hear the carriage rattling away.

He sighed.  His eyes were bleary and for the first time he realized how exhausted he was.

“I don’t suppose there’s a normal sized bed in this place?”

Syaoran shook his head.

“Didn’t think so.”

~*~

“I don’t think it’s working.”

Syaoran ignored the voice.  He kept his eyes closed, his breathing even.  He was calm—relaxed—like any person in a deep sleep would be.

“Kid.”

He was in a very deep sleep.  A deep, deep, terrible sleep.  The dwarves would be so sad, thinking him dead.  His sleep was that deep.

“Kid.”

Syaoran cracked his eyes open, then sighed and sat up.

Kurogane was leaning against a tree watching him with boredom plain on his face.

“No, it’s not working.”  Syaoran plucked idly at the clover growing under him, twirling one stem between his fingers.

“I don’t think you can fake the magical coma thing.”

“You’re right, but I don’t want to get stuck in a real magical coma.  Any change?”

Kurogane glanced behind him, peering through the trees at where the road would be if Syaoran weren’t sitting too near it.

“Still gone.  What other moments are important in Snow White?”

Syaoran leaned back in the grass and stared up at the gray sky.  They’d been at this for a few hours already—trying to find an option other than the magical sleep.

“There’s a magic mirror...” he ventured.

Kurogane straightened and stepped away from the tree, obviously eager to do something.  “Is it in the house?”

“No…”

“What?” Kurogane said, wary.

Syaoran sighed again.  “I don't know where Snow White’s castle is in this world.  If it even is somewhere in this world.  The mirror would be there.  Although…your castle has an enchanted mirror, too.”

“I'm not going back there.”  Kurogane folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow, daring Syaoran to challenge him on that.

“That's okay.  It’s the wrong mirror, anyway.”  He looked back at the cottage.  “…Snow White cleans the house.”

Kurogane’s eyebrow remained raised.  “You think doing chores is going to help?”

“It can't hurt.”

“Fine.  I’ll go get your mirror.”

Syaoran lifted himself fully upright and stared at the older man.  “Huh?”

“I would rather deal with the talking furniture than sweep the floor.  Where do I find the mirror?”

“Um, the beast's room in the west wing, probably.”

Kurogane nodded and immediately headed into the trees.  “Go back to the porch so I can leave.”

“The mirror probably won’t work,” said Syaoran, rising to his feet and heading back to the cottage, anyway.

“Worth a try,” the man said and disappeared into the woods.

Syaoran squinted at the tree line, waiting a moment to ensure Kurogane had enough time to find the road, and then walked back into the long grass.  He slumped back to lie on the cool ground and gave himself a moment to stare up at the overcast sky—breathe in the scent of oncoming rain.  A slow breath expanded his lungs and he released it in a quick huff.

They’d landed in all types of worlds on their journey—some friendly, some strange, some wrought with blood-curdling peril.  But Syaoran hadn’t been to one where he’d felt quite this useless.

Part of his brain—the logical part—knew this was a ridiculous way to feel.  He was the only one familiar with the stories they were trapped in.  And he was helping, in any way he could.  But he felt he wasn’t doing enough, couldn’t do enough, stuck as he was in this clearing.  He wanted to be out doing something.  His feet itched to explore this strange land—see Kurogane’s castle and Fai’s strange house.  Not sit in the grass.

He pulled himself to his feet, the urge to move overwhelming him, and marched back into the cottage.  He riffled around the dwarves’ house until he found a broom shoved into a storage closet in the back bedroom.  There was a pack of matches there too, he noted with a grumble.

The swishing of the broom across wooden floorboards accompanied the birdsong flowing through the open window.  Syaoran swept the kitchen first, feeling a bit silly cleaning the dwarves’ house.  He could already tell this wasn’t going to solve anything.  But he went through the motions regardless, the movement calming his restlessness.

Bluebirds started fluttering in through the window, landing on the furniture and flapping around Syaoran’s head.  He swatted one with the broom when it tried to land on his shoulder.

By the time he finished the kitchen and moved on to the sitting room, the birds were making quick dives in through the window, picking pebbles up off the floor with their beaks and dropping them back outside.

Syaoran didn’t care that they were helping.  It was too bizarre for Syaoran to feel grateful.  

He finished with the broom, scrubbed some of the dishes in the kitchen, and then lugged a wash bin into the sitting room.  It clunked when he dropped it in the middle of the floor, startling some of the birds.  Syaoran didn’t know if the dwarves’ clothing was dirty, but it was all going to be washed, anyway.

A quick trip to the well outside got him a tub full of water and he quickly scrubbed the dwarves’ clothes, tossing each article in a soggy pile on the floor when he was done with it.  The birds kept dropping wayward socks on his head that they’d found in the back room.

Syaoran piled the clothes into one big wad, tossed them in a basket he’d found while sweeping the kitchen, and headed to the door.  It was going to rain; the clothes wouldn’t dry on a line.  But it was the thought that counted, right?

Syaoran pulled open the front door. 

Two deer and four rabbits stared at him from the porch, as though waiting for orders.

The door slammed shut.

The basket thumped against the floor.

Syaoran was done with chores.

It was an hour later—the rain had started pounding against the roof—when Kurogane finally reappeared at the cottage.  The man lumbered through the door, water dripping from his hair and a scowl as dark as the sky plastered on his face.

The yellow clothing was absent; he was dressed in black pants and a black tunic and had a bundle thrown over his shoulder.

“Did you find the mirror?” Syaoran hesitated to ask.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I got into a fight with a clock.”

Syaoran squinted, trying to see the connection.

“…How many years of bad luck do you think it is to break a famous, magically enchanted mirror?”

“Oh.”

~*~

Rain drummed against the roof—a steady, peaceful beat.  A thin line of daylight cut through the curtains, leaking enough light into the room for Kurogane to map the whorls in the wooden beams above.

Snoring filtered in from the back room; the dwarves were still asleep.  So was Syaoran.  The boy slept on a worn sofa with his face mashed against a book.  The kid had found it in a drawer last night, been surprised he could read the writing, and then had fallen asleep with it.

Kurogane hadn’t bothered asking what it was about.  The boy would have told him if it was important and Kurogane had other things on his mind, besides.

Like the fact that it was now day five in this world and they hadn’t located the pork bun.  Or the fact that midnight had come and gone and Fai hadn’t shown up at the cottage.  They hadn’t expected him to, but Kurogane had hoped. 

The wizard must still be stuck; otherwise, he would have come right back here after the ball.

Knowing the wizard was miles away, sleeping under a different roof, was disconcerting in a way Kurogane hadn’t expected. 

He’d never reflected on it before—their constant companionship.  But until now it had been constant.  Since that day they’d met in the rain with contradictory wishes in their hearts, Kurogane had never gone twenty-four hours without seeing the other man.  They’d been separated, together, from the kids, but not each other.

He felt like he was missing a limb in a way he’d never felt from missing a limb.

It made him restless and jittery.

Kurogane’s heart pounded against his ribs and he sat up on the floor.  He needed to move.  Work off some of the nervous energy.  He’d like to go outside and run through his kata, but the rain was coming down too hard.

Instead, he slipped into the kitchen and pulled a chunk of bread off the loaf sitting on the counter.  He ate slowly, taking small bites and swallowing without tasting.

Syaoran soon rose, the sofa making a loud groan, and joined him as the dwarves started making rustling sounds in the back room.  Getting ready for ‘work’ or whatever it was they did during the day.

“Going to the ball must not have worked.”  The boy’s thoughts were apparently in line with Kurogane’s.

Kurogane grunted, not bothering to comment.  The floor creaked under his boots as he crossed the room and tugged the curtains open, letting light flood into the house now that Syaoran was awake.

He could already tell the day was going to be long; the sun had barely risen and he was longing for night.

They finished breakfast and time continued to pass in relative boredom.  Kurogane watched Syaoran dust the kitchen shelves for an hour and when the rain slowed to a drizzle outside, Kurogane took it as an opportunity to escape. 

He left the cottage and traveled down the road back toward the castle looking for any paths he’d missed or more wayward cottages that might be housing lost pork buns.

He didn’t find anything and started back up the road to the wheat fields, fully intending to stop by Fai’s stupid house, when the rain picked up, throwing stinging water into his face and spiking a chill through his body.

He stumbled, soaking, back to the cottage instead.  It was closer and he had a change of clothes wrapped in a bundle on the dwarves’ floor.  During his trip to the castle yesterday, he’d taken the opportunity to grab better clothing for all of them.  Syaoran had appreciated the gesture and hadn’t wasted any time discarding his mud-stained garments.

Kurogane walked through the cottage door, dripping on the floorboards, and shook his head when Syaoran looked up at him hopefully.  By the time Kurogane was changed and seated in front of the fire, it was early evening.

They had dinner in the cottage sitting room—a quick stew that Syaoran threw together out of ingredients pulled from the dwarves’ limited pantry.  The dwarves themselves arrived home too late for the meal, but in plenty of time to join them by the fire.  Kurogane found it a bit stifling inside with seven dwarves staring up at him.  Syaoran chatted amiably with them, but Kurogane spent most of the evening wishing his apple cider was a bit stronger.

Some of the dwarves were starting to nod off when a knock finally came at the door and Fai waltzed in, glass shoes molded to his feet once more.

Syaoran stood up as Fai joined them near the fire.  “How was the ball?  Did you find anything ou—Fai-san?”

The boy broke off, staring owlishly at the dreamlike expression across Fai’s face.

“The hell’s wrong with you?” Kurogane stood up too, not exactly sure what to do with this development.

“I take back what I said about balls,” Fai said, falling heavily to the sofa and swooning against a dwarf.  “They’re wonderful.”

Kurogane and Syaoran exchanged perplexed glances.

“You sure sending him to the ball was the right thing to do?”

Syaoran shook his head, lost.  “Fai-san…what happened?”

“I met the prince,” Fai sighed, long and drawn out, lounging across the dwarf’s lap. 

“Get off him.”  Kurogane tugged at the wizard’s arm, hoisting him off the wholly unconcerned dwarf. 

Fai immediately swooned against the armrest.  The bluebird nesting in the kitchen woke up and fluttered over to land on the wizard’s shoulder, and Fai gave it a loving stroke on the head.  “It was wonderful.  We laughed and danced all night.  There was wine and little chocolates that we fed to each other. …And then it ended at midnight.”

Fai’s expression fell. 

Kurogane felt his teeth grind.  “How do I knock sense into him?”

Syaoran held up his hands as he gave Kurogane a bewildered shrug and head shake. “I don’t—that sounds like Cinderella’s story but…We haven’t been affected by our stories…I don’t know why Fai-san—”

There was a snort from the sofa.  The bluebird flitted away as Fai snickered behind his hand.

Kurogane released a breath he’d apparently been holding and pinched the bridge of his nose.  Then he whapped Fai on the head with a fist. “You’re a goddamn moron.”

“Sorry, you both looked way too high-strung when I walked in,” Fai chuckled, rubbing his head.  “To be fair, everything I said was true.”

Kurogane glowered.

“I really did have a lovely night with Prince Mokona.”

Kurogane and Syaoran both straightened and gawked at Fai.

“You found Mokona?” Syaoran asked, excitement and hope pouring past his lips.

“Mm hmm.  She's having fun playing prince up at this big fancy palace.  The nightly balls are keeping her happily fed and inebriated.”

Kurogane huffed. “Great.  We're trapped in weird places and the pork bun’s having a holiday at a buffet table.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” Fai grinned.  “The castle’s farther than I thought it’d be.  The magic here must be amplifying Mokona’s translation capabilities somehow.” 

Syaoran nodded. “Is she trapped, too?”

“She’s tried to leave but the castle guards escort her back every time.”

“Great,” Kurogane flopped back down in the chair he’d left earlier.  “How do we complete her story?”

Syaoran grimaced.  “If she's supposed to be the prince, I’m not sure.  The princes in fairytales weren't even given names most of the time, much less back story and character development.”

“Perfect.”

“Did anything change after going to the ball?” Syaoran tilted his head at Fai.  The fire popped and hissed behind him.

“No, today was the same routine it’s been since arriving.  But I forgot to leave a shoe behind last night.  Maybe I should have done that.”

“If you do that, will the fairy still show up?” Kurogane wondered, thinking back to what Syaoran had said about Cinderella.  The last thing they needed was to make the situation worse and trap Fai permanently in the house.

“I’m not sure.” Syaoran’s eyebrows pinched and he sat down on the floor, leaning back on his hands.  “The fairy godmother only shows up to send Cinderella to the ball.  Once you ‘complete’ the ball, you might not have a way to leave anymore.  But you might not be able to ever free yourself if you don't.”

Fai sighed.  “I guess I’ll try again tomorrow.  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get this shoe off without breaking it, though.  Did you make any progress on Syaoran’s situation?”

Kurogane stayed quiet, not wanting to admit to two days of complete failure on all accounts.

“Not exactly,” Syaoran muttered to his feet.

“Well, I see you made some progress in the clothing department.”  Fai twirled a finger toward Syaoran’s new generic brown trousers and tunic.

At that, Kurogane leaned over and snatched up the satchel he’d carried back from the castle.  He’d left it lying on the floor and one of the dwarves had fallen asleep against it; the dwarf startled awake when Kurogane pulled his pillow away. 

Kurogane threw the whole bundle at Fai, who caught it with a surprised oomph.  “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“Better clothes.”

“But where did—”

“Beast’s castle.  I made friends with the wardrobe there.”

“You went back there?” Fai’s eyes widened as he shifted the large bundle in his lap.  “What if you’d been locked in again?”

“I wasn’t.  And I needed to get out of those damn clothes.  Got you some, too.”

Fai frowned at the bundle in his arms before carefully handing it back to Kurogane with a regretful set to his mouth.  “Can you hold on to them?”

Kurogane raised an eyebrow.  He’d expected Fai to jump at the opportunity for decent clothing.  “You want to stay in that?  Or the rags?”

“No, but I tried to change the first night I was here and my stepsisters tore off my clothing.”

Kurogane wasn’t sure how to respond to that.  His nose crinkled. 

“In a mean way.  Not an incestuous way.”

That was a distinction Kurogane hadn’t needed. 

He glanced at Syaoran, to see what the boy’s reaction was to this bit of information, but Syaoran was still staring at his shoes, lost in some faraway thought.  Probably for the best.

“I will hold onto the clothes,” Kurogane said, flatly.

“Thank you, Kuro-tan.”

“You sure you don’t want me to save you from your evil step relatives?”  Kurogane set the bag back on the floor; the dwarf that had woken up stumbled past his chair, following his friends to bed.  The only other dwarf still in the room was the one on the sofa with Fai, and loud snores were echoing in the room from his small frame.

“Why do I get the feeling that your idea of ‘saving’ involves violence?”

“Because it does.”

“Naturally.”

“…I think I have to eat the apple.”

Kurogane’s head shot back to Syaoran, conversation with Fai forgotten.  The boy looked like he’d just shoved a lemon in his mouth and was attempting to power through chewing it.

“It's the only thing left to try,” the boy choked out and stood up.

“What?  Right now?” Fai’s eyes grew wide in alarm.

“There’s no point in waiting any longer,” answered Syaoran, staring across the room at the kitchen.

“There has to be something else,” Fai said.  “We don’t know how to wake you up.  Or even if our theory about finishing the stories is correct.”

“I’m out of theories.  And nothing I’ve tried has been working.”

An apple was sitting on the kitchen counter across the room, seemingly harmless and unobtrusive.  Kurogane had noticed it appear there earlier in the evening, but hadn’t paid it any mind.  The kid must have brought it in; how long had he been building up to this?

“You sure about this, kid?”

“Kuro-sama,” Fai frowned at him, obviously not liking Kurogane’s easy acceptance of Syaoran’s new plan.

“He’s right.  You have a better idea?”

“How about something that doesn’t involve ingesting poison?”

“I’ll be fine, Fai-san.  It’s called a poison apple, but it’s just a sleeping spell.”  Syaoran stepped forward, heading to the kitchen.  Fai jumped up and followed, and Kurogane trailed after them both at a slower pace.

“No spell should be taken lightly,” Fai argued, but didn’t stop Syaoran when the boy plucked the apple off the counter.

“He knows that,” Kurogane clapped a hand on Fai’s shoulder—not a restraint, just a comfort.  Fai leaned into the touch and sighed.

“All right.  What do you want us to do?”  Fai’s words were laced with worry, but he seemed resolved.  

“We don’t know where Snow White’s prince is and I can’t help you look for him—sleeping spell or no sleeping spell.  You might have to find him.  Or maybe if Mokona’s supposed to be a prince, she can do something?” Syaoran suggested.  “But maybe start with Kurogane-san’s plan from the other night.  You’re a prince, Fai-san…you might be able to wake me up.”

Fai didn’t look like he had much faith in that plan.

“I’m sorry I can’t help more,” Syaoran said, staring at his hands where they twirled the apple around in anxious circles.

Kurogane released Fai’s shoulder and clasped his hand onto Syaoran’s instead, giving it a squeeze.  The boy looked up at him with uncertainty.  Was Kurogane the only one not panicking over this?

“We’ll wake you up, kid.  We’re not going to let a children’s bedtime story take you out.”

Syaoran’s lips twitched.  When he looked down at the apple again, there was a bit of humor shining in his eyes; recognition for the insanity of this whole situation.

“Thank you,” he said, to Kurogane and Fai both.

“You should probably lie down,” Fai said, and ushered Syaoran back to the sitting area.

Kurogane took it upon himself to lift the dwarf off the sofa and plop him down on the other side of the room.  On the floor and out of the way.  The dwarf snuffled in his sleep but didn’t wake up through the rough treatment.  When Kurogane came back, Fai raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t comment.

Syaoran sat down on the unoccupied sofa and stretched his legs across the seat, Fai hovering nearby.  Kurogane settled back in his chair by the fire and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.  He felt a bit uneasy, despite his confident words earlier, as Syaoran lifted the apple.

“Goodnight, I suppose.” Syaoran said, raising the apple like a flute of champagne in toast. 

He took a bite with a loud crunch.

Fai shifted on his feet and Kurogane watched the kid’s face intently as he chewed and swallowed. 

Brown eyes squinted under a scrunched forehead.  “It doesn’t taste very good.”

Fai leaned closer.  “How do you—”

Syaoran’s eyes dropped closed and he slumped over on the armrest; the apple fell from his limp hand and rolled away across the room.

“—feel.”

“Guess that answers that.”

Fai nodded and tugged Syaoran’s arm into a more comfortable position across his chest.

“Your turn.”

Fai bit his lip and stared down at the kid, considering.  He leaned over and placed a rather chaste and parental kiss on the boy’s forehead.

Kurogane stood up and wandered around to the other side of the sofa—a better angle to see from.  Syaoran’s face was still.  Kurogane felt his heart stutter when he couldn’t see the kid’s chest rising or falling.  Was he breathing?  He wasn’t waking up.

“It didn’t work,” Fai murmured.  The man knelt beside the sofa and placed a hand across Syaoran’s forehead; a blue glow wrapped around his palm.  Brows pinched in concentration, the wizard’s eyes slipped closed and the cool light brightened, highlighting deep shadows under Syaoran’s eyes and making his face seem far too pale.

After a long moment where Kurogane’s eyes darted between the blond and the boy, unsure which to focus on, the wizard sat back on his heels and dropped his hand.  He stared up at Kurogane.  “It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what type of sleeping spell he’s under with all the magical interference, but it’s definitely a strong one.  He’s in a deep sleep, but it is just sleep.  Nothing too dangerous.”

“Good,” Kurogane nodded, and restrained himself from checking the boy’s pulse, anyway.

“Given enough time, I might be able to come up with a counter spell.”  Fai rose from his crouch, swayed on his feet, and landed back on his knees.

“Oi.”  Kurogane rounded the sofa in two long strides and knelt beside the wizard.  “No, you won’t.  You can’t do magic in this world.”

“We can’t leave Syaoran-kun like this.”

“We can for now.  Making yourself sick won’t help anything.”

Fai gave him a shaky half-nod and rose, slower this time, a hand reaching up to massage his temple as Kurogane guided him into the chair by the fire.

Kurogane glanced back at their sleeping companion.  “Maybe it does have to be on the lips.”

Fai grimaced.  “The gates at your castle weren’t that picky.  I think it’s just me. …Maybe we need a princess, instead?”

“You want to call the princess in Clow?  Have her blow a kiss at him through a portal?”  They would need Mokona’s help for that.  And even then, it didn’t seem that viable of a plan.

“No, I doubt such a thing would translate across dimensions.”  Fai brushed a strand of hair behind his ear.  “What else do we know about Snow White that might help?”

“Nothing.  Our expert’s asleep.”

“So we just have to leave him like this?”

“Until we find some random prince to kiss him, yeah.”

Fai sighed. 

“…Let’s definitely not tell Sakura-chan about this.”

~*~

There was a spot on the floor that wouldn’t wipe off.  Fai had scrubbed it, dumped a whole bottle of soap across the tiles, and scrubbed it again.

The black smudge refused to dissolve.

Water splashed across the floor when his sponge dropped back in the bucket.  Fai let out a quiet breath and shifted on the foyer tiles, flexing fingers that were stiff from clutching the sponge too tight.  His eyes were burning; he hadn’t been sleeping well in this world.  It wasn’t even that his bed was a hard kitchen floor—he’d slept in worse places.  It was the separation from his companions combined with the unwelcoming atmosphere created by the owners of the house.

Fai had already spent enough years of his life feeling unwanted and unwelcome.

He scowled at the bucket.

These were not the kind of thoughts he should be entertaining right now.

When Fai had (unwillingly) left last night, he’d forced Kurogane to stay behind with Syaoran.  The boy would be fine with the dwarves and didn’t exactly need Kurogane to watch him sleep, but Fai felt better knowing that he was being looked after.

Fai wasn’t sure what their options were at this point.  Syaoran should be the priority; they couldn’t let him remain unconscious.  Yet Fai needed to figure a way out of his own situation.  He’d been planning to go to the ball again…but would it be better to spend tonight hunting down Snow White’s prince? 

In the dark. 

With only a few hours of search time before midnight came along.

…But Mokona needed help, too.

Frustration surged through him.  Without thinking, he picked up the pail of water and upended the whole thing, thunking the bucket upside down with a hard crack against the tiles.  Water rolled out in all directions—soaking into Fai’s pants, dampening the nearby rug, splashing over expensive looking shoes someone had left by the door.

Fai watched it pool and settle, breathing hard and feeling a bit childish.

He pulled the bucket upright and tossed the sponge back into it.  Now the floor needed mopping. 

And the smudge was still on the tile.

Fai’s willingness to do chores for his fake stepfamily was sputtering out.  These menial tasks weren’t helping him out of this situation (though they did keep Cinderella’s stepmother quiet in the back of the house).  Fai didn’t know enough about Cinderella to try reenacting anything else from the story.

He pulled himself off the floor and shoved the front door open, leaving behind the bucket and the flood.  If his evil stepmother decided there would be consequences for the mess, Fai couldn’t bring himself to care.

Sunlight beamed between cotton clouds, warming Fai’s skin when he stepped outside.  He made his way over to the garden.  If he was going to keep doing chores, he was going to do them in the cheery sunlight, with the scent of wildflowers for company.

The grass was still damp from yesterday’s rain, but Fai sat down on it anyway at the edge of the carrot patch.  His pants were already wet and what were a few more mud stains?  He started pulling weeds out of the dirt.

The sun crossed the sky in a slow arc.  He moved from the carrot patch to the section of radishes, and from there to the plot of onions.  A pile of plucked weeds was steadily growing in height by his knee when quiet footsteps scuffled in the grass beyond the fence.

Fai ignored the noise for the moment, his attention elsewhere.  He dug his fingers into the dirt, loosening the soil around a weed that had a strong will to live.

“Hey.”

Fai tugged at the weed, but it refused to budge.

“Mage?”

He dug his fingers into the soil, tangling them around the thin, scraggly roots.  He could feel the dirt crawling under his fingernails.

“Oi.”

Fine.  The weed could just keep on living.  May it have a long and happy life choking these onions.

“Mage!”

Fai flinched and craned his neck up, meeting Kurogane’s concerned eyes.  The man was leaning against the fence post with a deep frown sagging his face.

“Any news?” Fai asked, and hoped his tone was appropriately apologetic.  He hadn’t meant to ignore the man.  Fai was exhausted, but that didn’t mean he should subject Kurogane to his foul mood.

The ninja didn’t answer, red eyes searching Fai’s face. 

What the man was searching for, Fai wasn’t sure, but he allowed the examination all the same.  His fingers found another weed and began plucking at it while he waited.

When the weed was added to the pile, Kurogane let out a sigh. 

“…What happened to your hair?”

Fai frowned and started on another weed.  His hair was hanging in his face more than usual, the tie he’d created out of rags falling loose and barely hanging on.  Fai had fixed it twice this morning but had given up on it after it’d unraveled a third time.

Yet Fai was fairly certain Kurogane was referring to the way his hair was matted in a clump on the right side of his head.

“A cow tried to eat me.”

Kurogane’s frown remained, but an eyebrow rose into his hairline.

“They made me milk a cow this morning.”  Fai dropped the weed on top of his pile along with a dirt clod still clinging to it.  “We didn’t have cows in Ceres.  I don’t know how to milk a cow.  I think I violated the cow.”

The last cow came out a bit strained and Fai stopped—forced himself to take a calming breath.

Kurogane vaulted over the fence and landed in the garden, trampling some of the carrots as he stepped over to Fai. 

“Come on,” Kurogane held out a hand. “Just…stop weeding the garden for a minute.”

Fai nodded and reached his hand up, but then tugged it down with a grimace when he caught sight of the dirt coating his fingers.  Kurogane rolled his eyes and grabbed Fai’s hand, pulling him to his feet.

Fai started to wipe his fingers off on his pants but stopped when a warm hand tilted his head back up.  Kurogane nudged Fai’s chin, angling his face into the sunlight. 

“You look tired.”

Fai didn’t bother adding anything to that and shrugged.  He was well aware of the dark circles that had appeared under his eyes this morning. 

“Any news?” he repeated, even though he knew there wasn’t any.  Kurogane would have said something by now if there was good news.  Or Syaoran would have shown up with him.

“No.”  Kurogane released Fai’s chin, but didn’t make a move to step back.  “I’ve been up and down that forest road several times now.  There’s nothing else there.  Definitely no prince.”

Fai nodded.

“…You okay?”

Fai clamped down the instinct to say that yes, he was fine.  Even though he was.  He would be.  He met Kurogane’s eyes—those eyes that saw every part of Fai and never looked away.

“I know it’s a story and none of it is actually directed at me, but Cinderella’s family is rather mean.”

Kurogane’s face twisted in a grimace and he glanced over at the house behind them.

Fai followed his gaze for a moment, before continuing.  “I’m okay.  Really.  Just tired of this place.  Tired of being yelled at.”

A door slammed inside the house—loud enough to reach their ears outside—and Fai winced.

Kurogane was scowling, fists clenched, looking as frustrated as Fai had felt earlier.  And Fai couldn’t help it when something eased in his chest at that sight.  Like a vice lifting from his lungs.

Because, not for the first time, Fai was reminded that he had someone in his life now that cared—cared enough to feel anger and frustration on his behalf and offer to carry some of his hurts.

Fai let out a deep breath and felt a fond sort of gratitude flood his lungs with the next one in.  He bumped Kurogane’s arm, drawing the man’s attention.  The ninja must have caught the change in Fai’s demeanor, because he raised an eyebrow in question.

“Let’s try your idea.”

“Hah?” Kurogane scrunched his face, looking a bit whiplashed.

“I need someone to mount a daring rescue and save me from my evil stepmother,” Fai chuckled.  He felt a genuine smile spread across his face.  “Want to help me with that?”

Red eyes searched over his face once more.  And then Kurogane’s lips twisted in a toothy grin. “Finally.” 

The ninja stepped backwards, putting some distance between them; blue tendrils of light wrapped around his palm and surged out in a thin line, melding into Ginryuu’s sharp blade.  It was still a bit strange, Fai thought—feeling his magic work with no conscious effort on his part.  Yet Fai could think of no one better to entrust with such an intimate part of himself, small though it was.

Kurogane swung the blade down, pointed at the grass but ready at his side.  “Stay here.  This might get messy.”

“…Maybe don’t actually hurt them.”

“Feh.  I’m just going to scare them a little.  Or a lot.  Depends how it goes.”

Fai followed Kurogane around to the front of the house and stood next to the fence, watching in amusement as Kurogane marched across the lawn to the porch.  The man lifted his sword, raised a boot and kicked the door in; it flew off its hinges and clattered somewhere in the house beyond Fai’s line of sight.

“It wasn’t locked,” Fai said with a cringe. 

The ninja ignored him and stepped into the house. 

“Watch out for the water on the floor!”

There was silence in the garden and Fai crossed his arms, waiting for hell to break loose.  This wouldn’t help Fai finish the story, but it would make him feel better.  And allow Kurogane to work off some restless energy.

A loud thud came from inside the house, followed by more silence.  Fai shifted his weight onto one foot.  This might have been a terrible idea, he reflected. 

His weight shifted to the other foot and something sharp dug into his still mending heel.

On second thought, those women had it coming.  If what Syaoran had mentioned was true, and Cinderella’s story demanded some type of karmic revenge against the stepfamily, an angry ninja invading their house had to be better than birds pecking out their eyes.  Fai was practically altruistic.

A loud crashing boom shook the whole house and Fai stepped backwards, getting as close to the fence as he could.  Just in case.

He could hear the women inside shrieking now—their voices high and wailing.  In fear or anger, Fai couldn’t tell.  He sidestepped along the fence until he could see the side of the house.  A window was open and he could almost make out voices.

Another roar of noise split through the sunny afternoon; the house creaked and splintered as a gust of wind burst through its side, spraying wood panels, furniture, and tiles in every direction.  A lovely painted rendition of a bowl of fruit went soaring through the air and landed with a thunk out in the wheat field.  Dust—brown and thick—rose into the sky, and Fai watched as the three women stumbled out into the yard.  They were covered in dust, but unharmed.

The two sisters stood clutching each other; one of them had the remnants of a green facial mask still plastered to her face.  Cinderella’s stepmother stared with livid eyes at the extensive damage to her house.

Kurogane stepped through the hole in the wall and glared at all three of them.  It was a very menacing glare, Fai thought, though it seemed lost on Cinderella’s stepfamily.  The sisters were wailing, but they were wailing about the state of their clothes.  The woman was glowering at the house, but didn’t spare one moment for Kurogane, who turned his back on her and started making his way over to Fai.   

“Let’s go,” the man said, heading out the gate.

Fai took a hesitant step after him, glancing back toward the house.  The woman was glaring at Fai now, but she stayed next to the house, not moving to grab him back.

They made it to the road.  Then they made it three minutes away from the house.  Then they made it twelve minutes away from the house.

Fai kept his eyes fixed on the long stretch of dirt ahead, expecting cart-man to come rattling down the way any second.  He was so focused on the road—was that a cart in the distance or a bird?—that he startled when Kurogane spoke.

“They thought I was their driver.”

“Sorry, what?”  Fai couldn’t have heard that right.

“They were mad at me for being too early to take them to the ball.  Then I broke something and they started yelling that a thief was invading their home.”  Kurogane shook his head.  He was still clutching his sword like he wanted to break something else.

Fai mulled over what he’d said.  They were almost to the forest.  No sign of pursuit, yet.  “I think we should assume our theory is correct—they aren’t real people.  If they’re bound by the limitations of their stories, they’re likely forced to fit us into a role that they can process.  Which would explain why we can’t convince the dwarves that the two of us aren’t lost vagabonds.”

Had that been movement on the road ahead?  Fai squinted.  No, just wheat.

“It took some of the fun out of it,” Kurogane grumbled, and finally let his sword disappear back into its magical storage.

“Sorry.”  Fai glanced behind him.  That had definitely been a rattling carriage. 

Or was it just their feet scuffing the dirt?  He couldn’t tell.

“Will you stop that?”

Fai turned his head, facing Kurogane's glare.  “Hm?”

“No one is coming.”

Was that true?  Fai scrutinized the road ahead.  The woods were looming closer.  He’d never made it this far in this direction before without getting captured.  He’d made the attempt—experimenting with his boundaries had helped pass the time during those 48 hours of isolation he'd subjected himself to.  Fai had found that he could walk miles out into the fields, but only fifteen minutes toward the forest.  He’d never made it this far before. 

The light dimmed as they stepped under thick branches.

No one was coming.

But. 

Why?

Fai wasn't an expert, but he knew the story didn't end with Cinderella hiring a ninja to rip a wall out of the stepmother’s house.

“I don’t—why did that work?”  He glanced over his shoulder one more time.  Still nothing.

“The prince comes and takes Cinderella away right?”

“You’re not a prince,” Fai reminded him.

“And you’re not a beast,” Kurogane said with a shrug.  “Still worked.”

“None of this makes sense.  That can’t possibly count as finishing the story.”

“I say we don’t try to apply logic to this world.”

Fai huffed at that.  There had to be a logical reason he was free—whoever had created this world would’ve bound rules into the spellwork.  Did they have it wrong?  Were they supposed to be doing something else?  But if they were, how had they escaped?

Fai pondered that all the way back to the dwarves’ cottage, but had no new theories by the time they reached the front porch.  Stepping through the door, he forgot his thoughts entirely as his eyes landed on Syaoran’s inert form lying on the couch.

The dwarves were home—Fai vaguely recalled Syaoran saying they left every afternoon to work.  Syaoran’s sleeping curse must have changed something in his story.  The dwarves were huddled around the couch, kneeling by the slumbering boy with tears glimmering in their eyes.

“He's fine, you know,” Kurogane growled at the nearest dwarf.  He was ignored.

Fai stared at the solemn group, feeling as though he’d stepped into a private wake.  It made something twist in his stomach.  “I feel bad for them.  Do they think he's dead?”

“I already explained things to them this morning.  It's their fault for not listening.”

“It’s beyond the scope of their story, remember?  Try to be sympathetic, Kuro-grumpy.”

“What?”  One of the dwarves’ heads popped up, looking surprised.

Fai winced.  “Sorry, not you, Grumpy.”

Kurogane crossed the room and bent to lift the bundle of clothes he'd tried giving Fai a few nights ago.  “Want these now?”

“Yes,” Fai said—with feeling—and had to hold himself back from ripping the bag from Kurogane’s hands.  He suddenly couldn't stand one more second in these rags.

“There's some water and a wash bin in the back bedroom, too.”

Fai nodded, gratefully.  He didn't even want to look at the state of his bare feet.  Socks!  Were there socks in this bag?  Oh, how he missed socks.

Fai started across the room, heading toward the bedroom, but paused as he passed the sofa.  Turns out he did have another second in him.  He squeezed between two dwarves and leaned over to run a hand across Syaoran’s brow.  The boy was too still, his breathing too low, but his skin was warm.  Alive.  He wasn't in any danger.  As long as they could wake him up.

Fai hefted his bundle and slipped into the other room, listening as Kurogane started rifling through the dwarves’ cupboards for food.  Fai found the basin and filled it from a jug of water.  His hair was his first priority and he took his time scrubbing the cow spittle out of it, happy when his fingers could run through it again without snagging on tangles and snarls.  A hand towel was thrown across the basin’s rim and Fai used it to work the garden soil from beneath his fingernails and path rubble away from his feet.

When he finally felt clean, he stripped off the rags, tossing them in a far corner where they could be forgotten for the rest of eternity.  The clothes Kurogane had picked for him were nothing fancy; they were similar to what he'd grabbed for Syaoran.  Plain leggings, plain green tunic, plain but sturdy shoes.  And socks.  Glorious socks.  He began pulling on the new clothes when something registered.

Fai stood near the closed bedroom door and called out, loud enough for his voice to carry back to the main room, “Kuro-taaaan!  That’s meeean—!”

The only answer he received was a low, rumbling snigger.

Fai shook his head, but tugged the sunny yellow pants on.

They were hideous but comfortable.  He could live with them.

With a yawn, Fai plopped down onto one of the little beds and pulled his socks on.  They were thick and fuzzy and Fai’s mending foot already felt better for them.  He slumped backwards on the bed to stare at the ceiling, just enjoying the feeling of warmth hugging his feet. 

Later, when he woke up to a dark room with a blanket thrown over him, he couldn’t say he remembered falling asleep.

~*~

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep for so long.  We'll miss the ball at this rate.”

Kurogane urged his horse forward and glanced across the road at the other man.  Fai was looking at the sky, staring at the low arching moon for the fifth time in so many minutes.  Circles still darkened the skin beneath his eyes, visible even in the moonlight, but he’d lost that slightly manic look that had worried Kurogane this afternoon when he’d found the wizard in the garden.  Despite Fai’s anxious words, he seemed in better spirits.

“You needed the rest.  Besides, it gave me time to come up with a plan.”  It wasn’t a terrific plan, Kurogane admitted to himself, but it kept them moving.

“I’m not sure storming the castle and hoping things work out is much of a plan.”

And apparently Fai didn’t have much faith in his plan, either. 

“Dragging you out that house worked,” Kurogane defended, because it was still his plan and he was going to stand by it, damn it.  “Dragging the bun off the buffet table might work, too.”

“I don’t think Syaoran-kun mentioned anything about Cinderella’s prince getting abducted from his own ball.”

“Maybe he forgot to mention it.”

Fai chuckled, his eyes rolling back to the road ahead.

The hour was growing late, Kurogane conceded.  But they no longer had a midnight time limit, and he could see the castle now, coming into view as they sloped down through the wheat.

Kurogane nudged his horse to a faster pace and heard Fai copy him from his own mount.  The two of them had slipped back to the stepmother’s house as the sun was setting, arriving just before she and her daughters typically left for the ball.  Kurogane had ‘liberated’ the woman’s horses as she screamed curses from the gaping hole in her wall.

The two horses were good steeds—strong and sturdy.  But they were accustomed to pulling a carriage at a slow gait, not tearing across the landscape at breakneck speed because their riders were two dumbasses who had managed to get lost on the only road in this world and were now late.

“I woke you up in plenty of time.  You’re the one who got us lost,” Kurogane said, accurately if unfairly.  Sure, the wizard had only been to the ball once and shouldn’t be blamed for not remembering which direction to take at the one fork this road had, but that didn’t mean Kurogane couldn’t rub it in.  Just a little.

“I’m also the one that got us un-lost,” Fai said, and stuck his tongue out.

“Just because you suggested turning around first doesn’t mea—”

“Do you think there even is a ball still?”

“Hah?”

Fai slowed his horse.  They were starting to pass the first houses on the outskirts of the little castle town, and Kurogane glanced around with some wariness when he didn’t sense people nearby as he’d expected.

“If we finished Cinderella’s story, shouldn’t the balls be over?”

Kurogane eyed the darkened streets.  “The stepfamily was still dressed up when we stopped by.”

“…True.  And the streets are still empty.”

“They were like this last time?”  Kurogane couldn’t sense anyone at all.  Though that wasn’t surprising—he’d found that most ‘people’ in this world lacked a distinct presence he could pick up on.  But this was a town.  There should be someone around, right?

“From what I could tell, everyone was gathered at the ball.  I didn’t see anyone in the actual town.”

“You sure this is a fairytale and not a ghost story?”

“Come on,” Fai said, and nudged his horse into a trot.

They looped through the empty streets, past gable roofed houses and little shops with hand carved signs hanging from the eaves.  The horses cantered up the lane as though familiar with the route and stopped without any command in front of a grand staircase leading up to the castle doors.  Carriages—some small and plain, some ornate and elaborate —were parked around a long circular drive.  Kurogane hopped off his horse, landing on the cobblestone walkway with a soft thud, and craned his neck when a voice shouted to them.

“You two are awfully late!”

Fai dismounted while Kurogane kept his eyes on the ruddy-faced man coming down the stairs.  The newcomer gave them both a polite bow when he reached them, and proceeded to take the reins for their horses.  The valet was a bit wide-eyed as he glanced behind them, apparently wondering where they’d lost their carriage on the way here. 

“Did we miss much of the ball?” Fai asked, giving the man a friendly smile.

“What ball?”

Kurogane didn’t bother gawking or blinking or staring in confusion.  He was over it—this fucking world couldn’t surprise him anymore.   At this point, it would have been more of a shock had the man offered to escort them directly to the food spread.

“The ball that’s been held here every night,” Fai said, his voice a bit funny.  The wizard apparently wasn’t of the same mind as Kurogane judging by the way his right eye was twitching ever so slightly.  Though if this world had actually made Fai’s eye twitch, Kurogane supposed he could concede that it had one redeeming quality.

“We’re celebrating the birth of the queen’s daughter,” the man corrected, eyeing them both strangely.

Fai opened his mouth, but Kurogane could already see this becoming a long, pointless conversation.  He interrupted with a quick, “Yes, of course.  That.  Wouldn’t miss it.”  Then he grabbed Fai’s arm and starting hauling the wizard up the stairs.

“Queen’s daughter?” Fai muttered, pulling his arm away.  “Syaoran-kun didn’t mention anything like that.”

“Let’s just find the manju and go.”

They stepped through the doors and were quickly ushered by a guard to a large audience chamber past the main foyer.  The room was long and crowded—hundreds of townspeople crammed into the space, all staring with avid attention at the scene unfolding up on the dais at the front of the room.

Kurogane squinted, not sure what he was looking at.  “Are those…?”

“More fairies, I think,” said Fai, nose crinkled at the little red and green and blue creatures flitting over a baby cradle. 

“Let’s try to find the buffet table.”

“This isn’t a ball, Kuro-rin.  I doubt there is one.  Besides…look.”  Fai pointed up toward the dais.

At first, Kurogane couldn’t tell where he should be looking.  The small fluttering creatures tugged at his attention, but he forced his gaze away from them.  A man and a woman sat on a pair of thrones behind the cradle, and…oh.  There.  Standing on the back of the queen’s throne, jumping up and down with an annoying amount of perpetual glee, was Mokona.

Kurogane stepped into the crowd, intending to go snatch their companion mid-jump, but Fai tugged at his arm. 

“Do you really think we should interrupt?”

Kurogane hoped his expression conveyed just how much he thought that yes, they should absolutely interrupt.

Fai let go of his arm.

Kurogane stomped through the crowd, elbowing people out of the way as Fai muttered quiet apologies behind him, until they were both in front of the dais.  He was about to climb up to the raised platform when there came a piercing shout—

“Kurogane!  Fai!”

 —and a lump of fur landed smack in Kurogane’s face. 

He pulled Mokona away from his nose, gripping her by the ears, and restrained himself from chucking the little bun back across the room.

“Mokona’s a prince!” she said, flapping her arms in excitement.

“Are you all right, Mokona?  What happened to the ball?”  Fai glanced around them, aware of the glares being sent their way by nearby townspeople.

“The story changed!  Mokona thinks we’re in Sleeping Beauty now!”

“‘Sleeping Beauty?’” Fai asked.

“Mm hmm.  Is Syaoran here, too?”

“He’s stuck in a sleeping spell.”

“Oh no!”

“We can talk about this later.  Let’s go,” Kurogane interrupted.  He set the manju on his shoulder and started pushing back through the crowd.

“Mokona still can’t leave,” the little creature said in his ear. “Every time Mokona tries, the guards show up.”

“I can go through the guards.”  Kurogane figured it to be a fairly simple solution.

He shoved people out of his way, not caring about the quiet curses directed at him.  Fai seemed to have stopped bothering with apologies; he followed close behind, head tilted as though trying to hear what the fairies were saying up on that dais over the baby cradle.

They were a few feet from the doors when a booming cackle of laugher echoed around the room, shaking the walls and stopping Kurogane in his tracks.  With a wince, he turned back to the dais.

“Oooh, we’re at the exciting part!” flapped Mokona.

Kurogane took one look at the black clad figure that had just appeared in a plume of green fire and decided he wanted no part in whatever the hell that was.

“We’re leaving.  Right now.”   Kurogane pushed through the last few people and finally made it out the door.

The guards lining the foyer studied them, but remained at their posts.  Watching.  Kurogane crossed the room, Fai at his side, and tried to act casual.  They were almost to the front doors.

“Your Highness, where are you going?”

A man stepped in front of them, blocking the way.  He was dressed in formalwear with a monocle perched over one eye and some sort of crest sewn into his jacket.  Kurogane sighed.  He lifted Mokona off his shoulder and dumped her in Fai’s arms, getting ready to pull out his sword.   

“You!  What are you doing here?”

Kurogane blinked in confusion.

And damn it.  He’d told himself he wasn’t going to do that anymore.

But he hadn’t expected Fai to start spouting the next round of insanity.

So, yes, Kurogane’s eyes were wide when he looked at the man next to him.  “You know him?”

Fai tore his gaze away from the little man in front of them.  “He’s the man with the cart.  The one that kept catching me.”

“He catches Mokona lots, too!” said the little creature, with a grumpy pout.

“So we don’t like him, then,” Kurogane sighed, and let his sword appear in his hand.  He was more than a little relieved that the man was just a nameless annoyance from this world and not someone Fai actually knew, like he’d first feared.  He pointed his blade at the man.  “Let us pass.  We’re leaving.”

The man ignored him.  And his sword.  “Your Highness, it’s dangerous to leave the palace.”

“Mokona’s going with Kurogane and Fai,” said the bun, cradled in Fai’s arms.

The guards were starting to move from their posts, forming a loose circle around them.  Kurogane tightened his grip on Ginryuu and watched, waiting for them to make the first move.

“Who are you, exactly?”  Fai’s attention was still on the man blocking the doors.

“He’s the Duke.  From Cinderella!” answered Mokona.

“Actually,” Kurogane said, tilting his head, “He kind of sounds like the talking clock I met.”

“Huh?” Now Fai’s eyes were really wide.

“Fai told Mokona that this world was made with magic.  Maybe whoever made it wasn’t very creative,” Mokona offered.

Fai pinched the bridge of his nose.  “So he’s filling in wherever he’s needed.  To stop us or move the story along.”

“That’s what Mokona thinks.”

The guards were tightening the circle around them, but none of them had reached for their swords yet.

Kurogane turned to Mokona.  “If you’re supposed to be the prince in this scenario, can’t you just order them to stand down?”

Mokona’s face scrunched. “Mokona doesn’t know.  Mokona can try!”

Kurogane stared as Mokona puffed out her chest (or its approximation) and attempted to appear regal.

“Mokona decrees that everyone should be nice and go away!”

“Your highness, you need to stay inside the castle.”

Fai glanced around them.  “That didn’t work.”

Mokona squinted, her little face scrunching.  Kurogane was about to ask her if she was sick or something, but then the little bun giggled of all things. 

“Mokona knows!  Mokona orders everyone to let us pass because Mokona has to go save Snow White!”

“‘Save Snow White?’”  Kurogane repeated.  Was the manju talking about Syaoran?

“Is there anything we can do to help, Your Highness?”

“No, Mokona will be just fine with her loyal bodyguards.”

Kurogane spluttered, his eyes darting from Mokona to the ‘Duke.’  He didn’t even spare a moment to react to his new position as ‘bun bodyguard.’  The palace guards were easing back to their posts.  “That—what—Why the hell did that work?”

“Mokona’s a prince,” the bun nodded, sagely.  “It’s Mokona’s job to rescue princesses!”

“Oh for—”

“If they’re letting us go, I say we go,” said Fai, tugging Kurogane forward.

Kurogane let his sword fall to his side.  Looks like he wasn’t going to get to use it after all.

They cautiously approached the doors and the man stood aside, letting them pass out into the night.  They cautiously walked down the stairs; the valet ran to greet them and was soon handing them the reins for their horses.  They cautiously moved through the town, but no one was around to even attempt to stop them. 

Soon they were back on the road.

Heading off into the night.

Kurogane tried not to question it further.

~*~

Sunlight peaked over the horizon, dyeing the wheat a deep golden yellow.  The last glimmer of stars fought against the orange and pink streaking the sky, before ultimately fading into the dawn.  Such a sunrise would be lovely if Fai weren’t so sick of the wheat.

“It might work,” said Mokona, fidgeting in the saddle. 

Fai let go of one of the reins to raise Mokona up to his shoulder, a more comfortable perch for her if not for him.

“We figured we’d need Snow White’s prince.  Whoever the hell that’s supposed to be,” grumbled Kurogane from atop his own horse.  “But we might as well let you give it a shot, too.”

They had traveled straight through the night since leaving the castle and were nearing the stepmother’s house again.  Fai could see it in the distance.

“Right!  Maybe Syaoran just needs a prince, not a specific one.  Mokona’s a prince now!” the little creature agreed.

“It’s worth a try,” said Fai.  “And I’m sure Syaoran-kun would much rather receive a kiss from Mokona than a magically-constructed stranger.”

“Mokona gives the best kisses!”  She pecked Fai on the cheek to emphasize the point.

“What’s that?”  Kurogane slowed his horse to a stop in the road. 

Fai tugged on his reins and his own horse stilled.  There was nothing of interest on the road ahead, but then Kurogane wasn’t staring down the road; he was looking at the path below him.   

“Mokona can’t read it.”

Fai followed her gaze, peering around Kurogane’s broad shoulders.  The sign Fai had passed on his first day here was sticking out of the wheat.

“I’ve seen that.  I can’t read it, either.”

“Looks like gibberish to me,” Kurogane agreed.  Then he kicked his horse back into a trot.

Fai followed suit, but couldn’t tear his mind away from the sign.  It was an oddity.  They hadn’t passed anything else like it; the fork in the road where they’d made their wrong turn last night would have been a perfect spot to post directions.  They wouldn’t have been able to read them, but a sign would have been more helpful there than in front of a wheat field on a straight road.  Or maybe Fai was over thinking this.  Maybe it was just an advertisement for a shop in town.

They trotted past the stepmother’s house and were soon making their way through the woods.  The route was familiar by now and Fai had no trouble picking out the spot that led to the cabin, even without the marker Kurogane had created.  They tied their horses to a tree on the edge of the path, and Fai couldn’t help feeling a bit relieved.  Even if Syaoran was still trapped in a spell, at least they were finally all back together.

His relief faded rather fast as they walked into the clearing that housed the cottage.

“…That wasn’t there before,” he squawked.

That was a layer of spiny vines covering the entire cottage as though a shield of thorns had grown overnight to devour the home.

“It’s like the castle in Sleeping Beauty!” shouted Mokona.  “The prince had to cut through the thorns to get inside and rescue the princess.”

“We might need your sword, Kuro-tan.”  Fai couldn’t see an easy way through the thicket.  The vines were tightly coiled around the small home, like a snake choking its victim.  Were the dwarves trapped inside along with Syaoran?

“Why does everything in this world have to be a pain,” Kurogane grumbled as his sword appeared in his hand.  Without hesitation, he began hacking at the thorns.

“Be careful,” Fai said, eyeing the vines.  With their luck, they’d find the plants were enchanted to turn anyone they scratched into a frog.  Fai didn’t want to deal with a grouchy Kuro-frog.

“Maybe Syaoran is supposed to be Sleeping Beauty now?  They were both put under sleeping spells,” Mokona said, tilting forward on Fai’s shoulder to better see the vines.

“Sounds like lazy writing,” muttered Kurogane through a sword swing.

It took several minutes to clear all the vines away from the door, and by the time Kurogane had, sweat was forming on his brow.  He’d managed to clear them a short tunnel through the thorns.

“What was the point of that?  Other than to waste time?” the man growled.

“It’s part of the story!” Mokona cheered.

“Isn’t it part of your story?  You should be the one doing this!”

“But that’s what Mokona’s manservant is for!”

“Manservant!”

Fai brushed past Kurogane, ignoring the argument, and shoved the door to the cottage open.  The inside was as they’d left it, though the dwarves were notably absent.

“Where’d they go?” Kurogane asked, stepping through the door behind Fai.

“It sounds like the stories are getting mixed up,” Fai said.  He walked across the room and crouched beside Syaoran, his prone form still reclined on the sofa.  “Maybe they’re just…gone.  Removed from the scene somehow.”

“That’s not creepy at all.”  Kurogane muttered.  He moved to stand behind the sofa and peered down at the slumbering boy.  “Okay, pork bun.  Wake him up.”

Mokona shuffled forward on Fai’s shoulder.  “Right!  Mokona will—”

Syaoran gasped.

Fai jerked backwards, startled as the boy shot up as though they’d thrown a bucket of water over his head.

“Aw!  Mokona didn’t get to do anything!”

“Syaoran-kun?”  Fai choked.  They hadn’t done anything!

“What the hell, kid?” Kurogane’s face would be hilarious if Fai could spare the time to appreciate it.

Syaoran gasped in a few breaths, sounding like someone who’d just run ten miles instead of someone waking up from a magically induced coma.

“Fai-san, Kurogane-san.”  The boy’s eyes landed on Mokona.  “Mokona, you’re all right?”

Mokona jumped over to Syaoran, landing in his lap.  “Mokona’s a great and powerful prince!  Is Syaoran feeling better?”

“I’m fine,” the boy wheezed.  His gaze flickered between Kurogane and Fai.  “You managed to break the sleeping curse?”

“We didn’t do anything!” Kurogane ran a hand through his hair and started pacing the room.  “You just woke up!”

“What?” Syaoran said, looking at Fai for confirmation.

And what could Fai say to that?  It was true.  “We were about to have Mokona kiss you.  But she didn’t, so…”

“That…that doesn’t make sense.”  Syaoran looked far too frazzled for someone just waking up.

“Maybe Mokona’s presence was enough?”  Fai said.  It sounded weak even to him.

“People say Mokona has a very strong presence,” nodded Mokona.  She hopped off of Syaoran’s lap as the boy stood up.

Fai lifted himself up as well, and then moved to place a hand on Kurogane’s arm, stilling the man’s anxious pacing.

“I’m sick of nothing making sense in this damn world,” the man growled.

“So am I,” Fai nodded and gave the ninja’s arm a squeeze.  “Let’s go see if Syaoran-kun can get to the road now.”

Kurogane let out a breath at that.  He gave Mokona a tired stare, watching as she jumped off the sofa and started bouncing around the dwarves’ home with boundless curiosity.  “I don’t suppose you can encourage that earring to start glowing.”

“Mokona can’t control when we have to leave,” chirped the little creature.

They all knew that, but it didn’t make them stop hoping.

“Is there somewhere we can go while we wait for it to start?” Syaoran asked.  “Anywhere that isn’t in these woods?”

“We could head back to town,” Fai offered.  “Or…we did find a fork in the road.  We followed it for a while before turning around, but we could see where it leads.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Kurogane grumbled. 

“Ooh!  Mokona found an apple over here!”

“Don’t eat that!” all three of them shouted.

Mokona crawled out from under a table on the other side of the room, rolling an apple in front of her.  The fruit had turned an ugly shade of brown and had a single bite taken out of it. 

“Mokona knows that!” the creature cried in indignation.  She looked out the open window, where the vines were poking through to wrap around the windowsill.  “We should probably go before Maleficent shows up.”

Syaoran’s eyes grew twice their normal size, Kurogane ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and Fai really didn’t want to ask, but—

“Who’s Maleficent?” he sighed.

 “The dragon!”

Fai shouldn’t have asked.

~*~

They were back on the road.  And by some miracle they had avoided the dragon.

Kurogane was grateful for that, at least.

“And that worked?” Syaoran asked, as their horses trotted past the stepmother’s house.  The boy was peering around Fai’s shoulders, taking in the giant hole in the home’s wall.

“Wah!  Kurogane’s such a brute!” Mokona wailed.

Kurogane reached up to his shoulder, intending to strangle the obnoxious bun, but she jumped away, landing on the horse Fai and Syaoran were sharing.  He might have chased after her a bit more, but his limbs felt heavy and his back was sore from riding.  He’d managed a quick nap during that afternoon Fai had slept through, but he’d still had considerably less sleep than the other two humans in their group.  Kurogane was starting to feel it.

“It worked,” answered Fai.  “Though I can’t say why, exactly.”

“I’m all out of theories for this world,” Syaoran said, craning his neck to see the garden as they passed it.

The boy’s head had been on a constant swivel since they’d left the clearing, taking in every new sight he could.  Though he hadn’t seemed particularly interested in seeing more of the forest.  Syaoran hadn’t mentioned any regrets about not visiting the beast’s castle.

Kurogane shifted in his saddle, reaching up to rub his neck.  He couldn’t say he’d miss the sight of the stepmother’s house, either.  Let it rot in the wheat fields behind him.

They rode in silence for a bit, the only sound the soft padding of the horses’ hooves in the dirt.  Kurogane caught Syaoran jerking to look over his shoulder several times.  The boy had been twitchy ever since a flock of bluebirds had started following them to the forest’s edge, twittering in the trees above their heads.  The annoying things hadn’t followed them beyond the trees; Kurogane wasn’t sure what the boy was so paranoid about.

“Is that a sign?”

Syaoran was pointing down into the wheat, focused back on the road in front of them.

Fai slowed his horse, stopping in front of the wooden post so the boy could see.

“None of us could read it,” Fai said, staring down at the wooden post.

“It looks like some kind of writing…” The boy was leaning over in the saddle, studying the strange symbols.

“Can Syaoran read it?” Mokona asked.  She jumped from the saddle to Fai’s shoulder and stared down at the boy.

“I’m not sure.  Maybe.  Could we stop for a minute?”

Kurogane swung his leg over his horse and jumped down onto the path.  If they were stopping, he wasn’t staying on the horse longer than he had to.

Syaoran and Fai dismounted, as well.  Fai handed Mokona over to Syaoran and the boy hurried to stand in front of the sign post, instantly in puzzle solving mode.

Kurogane watched him in amusement and felt his lips quirk at the sight.

“Everything all right?” murmured Fai, joining Kurogane on the opposite side of the path.  “You’ve been fidgeting a lot.”

“Too much riding, not enough sleep,” Kurogane shrugged.  It wasn’t a big deal.

Fai nodded, giving him a small smile—a small smile that turned wicked rather fast.

“Am I going to have to change your name from Kuro-beauty to Kuro-geezer?”

The remaining smile on Kurogane’s face withered and died.

“Damn it, you’re the old one!”

Fai laughed and Kurogane had no choice but to clap a hand to the wizard’s head and muss the man’s hair until he begged for mercy.  Or until the man stopped laughing.  Fai would probably let himself go bald before he begged Kurogane for mercy.

The wizard’s laughter died into pained chuckles, and Kurogane relaxed his hold, letting his arm fall to drape around the man’s shoulders instead.  Fai straightened, leaning back into Kurogane’s grip, and started fixing his hair.

“Any luck, Syaoran-kun?” Fai called, after a moment’s silence.

“I can recognize some of these characters.  It’s an old alphabet and a bit different from what I remember, but…”

Kurogane shared a glance with Fai, and they wordlessly crossed the road to stand next to Syaoran.

The boy pointed up to the sign, “I can’t make out the first part, but I think the last bit says something like ‘here we depart’ or ‘go we to the end.’”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kurogane raised an eyebrow at the piece of old wood.

“I’m not sure,” Syaoran muttered, casting his eyes back over the strange symbols.

Fai crossed his arms. “That’s an odd message to post in front of a wheat field.”

It definitely was, Kurogane agreed.  There was nothing around the sign except wheat.  Kurogane wasn’t sure where the sign thought they should ‘go.’

“I could be translating it wrong,” Syaoran offered.  He reached up and tapped one of the symbols.  “But this one definitely means ‘to go’ or ‘to leave’ and—”

Syaoran broke off as the symbols on the sign started glowing, green light tracing over the letters, spreading from the symbol Syaoran had poked.

They all took a step backwards as the whole face of the sign turned a blinding green.

“What’s happening?”  Should Kurogane ready his sword again?

“A spell?” Fai grimaced.

“I figured,” Kurogane grumbled.  “But what—”

A splintering sound, like ice cracking, shattered the quiet atmosphere.  Their horses reared in fright and took off running, back down the path.  Kurogane didn’t spare them much attention; his eyes were too focused on the cracks spreading through the road beneath their feet.  Green light spilled through the hairline fissures, spreading at an alarming rate up and down the road.

“Get off the road!” Syaoran shouted.

Kurogane didn’t need to be told twice.  He grabbed Fai’s arm and Syaoran’s collar, and shoved them toward the wheat field.  He was mid step when a loud snap rent the air and the ground gave way beneath his feet.  His hands were still clutching the others, and he registered Mokona’s voice wailing in panic, but Kurogane’s vision was obscured by green.

And then he fell.

~*~

Syaoran woke to the murmuring of voices.

They were hushed and hurried, surrounding him on all sides, and decidedly unfamiliar.  When Syaoran cracked an eye open, he saw several dark shapes looming above him, the sun shining behind their silhouettes and masking their faces in shadow.

Syaoran pushed himself up, feeling gravel dig into his knees. 

Was he still on the road?

One of the figures knelt down beside him—

“Are you all right?”

—and Syaoran goggled.

“Chu’nyan?”

The girl’s eyebrows rose.  “Eh?”

No, Syaoran thought, this wasn't the same Chu’nyan—the one the other Syaoran had met in Koryo so long ago.  This girl was older, the childhood youth gone from her thin cheeks.  But her eyes were the same, squinting in suspicion at him.

“Uh,” Syaoran sputtered.

The scrape of a heel across dirt drew Syaoran’s attention and he turned to see Kurogane and Fai sitting up in the road, back in the clothing they'd been in before landing in this world.  Syaoran ran a hand over the zippers on his own coat, confirming they were back. 

But how?

“Sorry, we don't really know where we are,” said Fai, catching Chu’nyan’s attention and sparing Syaoran from coming up with an explanation on the fly for why he knew the girl’s name.

“You're in Verhaal,” said Chu’nyan, pinching her brows.

“Whatever dissipation spell you used to get here landed you right on the reflection road,” said a new voice, and Syaoran had to stop himself from making the same mistake twice by yelling Sorata! at the man.  “We came over to make sure you were all right.  The transition can be a bit disorienting even when prepared, especially with the time difference.”

Syaoran took a look at their new surroundings, staring past the small group of people hovering around them.  He wasn’t sure what Sorata meant by ‘dissipation spell.’  And the ‘reflection road’ looked the same as the one that had just crumbled under their feet; the sign was even still standing next to the path.  Magic hung in the air, but Syaoran couldn’t tell where it was originating from.

The wheat field was absent, replaced by a plain of waving green grass.  A few rustic houses and barns were scattered nearby, growing in number as they approached a village.  Syaoran noted that the road they were on didn’t lead into town.  In fact, it didn’t seem to lead anywhere.  It was more accurate to call it a patch of dirt stranded in the middle of the grass.  Syaoran was sure he could walk the length of it in ten strides.

“Time difference?” asked Fai, pulling himself to his feet.

“Of course.  A few hours in Storybook are only a few seconds here in Verhaal.  I’m sure it feels like you’ve been gone for days,” Sorata said with a bright smile.

“The hell’s a reflection road?” Kurogane pulled Mokona off his head and stood.  The man gripped Syaoran’s arm and hauled him up, too.

“You didn’t come here for it?” Chu’nyan asked, frowning as she regained her feet.  The small group of townspeople broke into a quiet murmur.

“No.  We're from far away…we haven’t heard of it...” Syaoran said, slowly.

A figure pushed his way through the townspeople and came to a stop in front of Syaoran.  He stared dispassionately at their group from behind large spectacles.  “People come from all over this kingdom to walk on the road and reflect on the life lessons they've learned.  Most people don’t transport directly onto it, though.”

“You!” Kurogane said, squinting at the newcomer.  “Your voice—that’s the same voice as that stupid clock and duke and—”

“My name is Eriol.  I’m the creator of the road.  And yes, I did lend my voice to a few minor characters that can be encountered in Storybook.”

Syaoran eyed the dark haired boy; he couldn’t be much older than Syaoran.  And he had created a whole world out of magic on his own?

“Perhaps you could explain more?  About what the ‘reflection road’ is,” Fai said.

“Of course.  We all can,” said Sorata.  “You should step off the road, though.  Before it reactivates.”

Reactivates?

Syaoran looked at the road under his feet.  It looked like normal dirt and gravel.  But none of the other townspeople were standing on it; they seemed to be keeping their distance, in fact.

He took a step off the road and the magic that had been hanging around them instantly disappeared.

“Syaoran.”  The whisper came from Mokona and when Syaoran glanced over to where she was balanced on Kurogane’s shoulder, he was surprised to see that her earring was glowing a deep red.  Kurogane and Fai stared at her with equal surprise.

They were only just starting to figure out what had happened in this world.  Syaoran wasn't ready to leave.  Not before getting answers.

There were too many details that still didn’t make sense.

But their journey demanded they not linger.

Syaoran turned back to Chu’nyan, a frown on his face and regret pooling in his stomach.

“We have to go.”

Her eyes widened at him.  “Already?  I thought you had some questions?”

Syaoran did.  He had more questions than he knew how to vocalize.  Syaoran didn’t want to leave; he wanted to study this world and its strange magic.  He wanted to know why they had just spent the last few days stuck in fairytales.

A hand landed on his head, ruffling his hair.  Syaoran looked up, meeting Kurogane’s eyes in understanding, and gave the man a grateful smile.

Syaoran wasn’t the only one who wanted answers but—

It was time to go.

“I’m afraid we can’t stay,” Syaoran confirmed, and nodded to Mokona.  Maybe they could have squeezed in a few more minutes, but it still wouldn’t have been enough to answer everything Syaoran wanted to ask.

Chu’nyan, Sorata and Eriol looked puzzled by their sudden decision to leave, but not shocked when Mokona rose into the air and wrapped the travelers in her magic.

Syaoran smiled at the two familiar faces in front of him, even as their group began to fade away, Mokona pulling them away from this place.  Right before the last bit of reality faded, he turned to stare at the road.

One last look.

And then the world faded away. 

And they were on to the next one.

~*~

The ground was soft and spongy beneath his feet, but Fai didn’t pay it much mind.  Before he even tried to take in the layout of this new world, he whirled around and made sure the others were here.  With him.  Next to him. 

“Why is everything purple?”

Fai let out a long, relieved sigh at hearing Kurogane’s voice.  And when he looked, he could see that Syaoran and Mokona were here, too.  Good.  Fai didn’t think he could take another solo adventure so soon.

He took in a breath of sugar sweet air and gazed around their new surroundings.  The sky was a deep purple, with tiny pinpoint stars mapping its vastness.  The grass below him was a deep wine-red and small mouse-like critters were rummaging around between patches of delicate red flowers.  The few trees in the area looked like their branches had been wrapped in violet cotton fluff in place of leaves.

“I don’t sense any people nearby,” said Syaoran, peering around at the odd surroundings.

“Me neither,” Kurogane grumbled.  “Anyone against setting up camp and figuring out where we are in the morning?”

He received three weary headshakes in return.

They ended up camping next to a small thicket of fluffy purple trees.  This new world was warm so they chose to forgo a campfire; they weren’t sure if it was safe to burn the odd trees, anyway.

From Mokona’s storage they drew out a small meal—dried meats and fruits they’d added to their provisions two worlds ago.

Kurogane was the first to break the tired silence they’d lapsed into.

“That whole thing was weird.”

Fai didn’t need clarification to know the man was referring to the last world.  Verhaal?  Storybook?  He supposed the distinction didn’t matter.

“I much prefer the purple grass,” Fai said.  They could find out tomorrow that the grass was somehow poisonous or sentient (or both) and Fai would still prefer it over everything in the last world.

“From what I understand, that fairytale world was sort of like Outo, then?  A world within a world?”  Syaoran sent a questioning gaze bouncing around the little circle they’d formed.

Fai thought back to what had happened on the road, when the ground had given way beneath their feet.  Magic had whirled around them in a similar manner to Mokona’s transportation spell.  “Right.  It sounds like we landed right on top of that strange road and got stuck in a transportation spell before we even realized it.”

“And that sign in the wheat field was some sort of doorway back?”  Syaoran tilted his head, staring intently at the grass in thought.

“I believe so,” Fai answered.  They had unquestionably been transported somewhere, unlike in Outo where only their minds had traveled.  He glanced down at his clothes—jacket and brown trousers.  When entering Storybook, these clothes must have been transformed in order to immerse them in the story world.  But then anything generated from that magical world must not have been able to cross back.  Not that Fai was complaining.

“What did he mean, though?  The life lessons we’ve learned?” Syaoran asked.

That was a good question.  It sounded like people from Verhaal made a special trip to visit the fairytale world.  On purpose.  There had to be more to it that they weren’t seeing.  What had Eriol said about it? 

“Mokona learned that chocolate éclairs are very, very yummy!”

Kurogane growled and swiped at Mokona, who hopped from the grass into Syaoran’s lap.  “That’s not a life lesson, you glutinous—”

“Were we supposed to learn from the fairytales?” Syaoran continued, setting Mokona on his shoulder.  “And when we learned the lesson, we were able to leave the places we were trapped?”

Kurogane scoffed.  “So...you should get another person to yell at your stepmother for you and find a random royal person to kiss you while you're sleeping in the woods.  Great lessons.  Glad I learned those.”

“No,” Syaoran sputtered. “I’m sure that’s not it…”

That couldn’t be it, Fai thought.  Those weren’t exactly the type of lessons people would travel across a kingdom to learn.  Though, perhaps that was it.  Eriol hadn’t said anything about learning a lesson.

“Fai got really quiet.”

At Mokona’s voice, Fai jerked his head up from where he’d been staring blankly at his shoes.  He’d been lost in thought for a minute.  Everyone was staring at him now.

“He said people ‘reflect’ on the lessons they’ve learned,” Fai said, slowly.  “Maybe we weren’t supposed to learn a lesson.  Just reflect on one we’ve already learned.”

Kurogane raised an eyebrow.  “Like what?”

And that was the real question, wasn’t it?  Fai wasn’t sure about the others yet, but he thought the theory held true for him.  “Well.  I could only leave after you came and dragged me away from the house…”

“Yeah,” Kurogane squinted at him.  “And I yelled at your stepmother…”

“But it was more than that.” Fai felt his cheeks darken a bit, against his will.  He couldn’t say why.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fai saw Kurogane raise an eyebrow, but the man kept silent, waiting for Fai to continue.  Syaoran and Mokona had their full attention on Fai too, patiently waiting.

“I could only leave after I asked you for help.  I said it jokingly at the time, but… If there’s a lesson I was meant to reflect on,”—here he looked pointedly at Kurogane—“I learned a while ago that I shouldn’t try to solve all of my problems alone.”

Fai let a crooked smile fight away the heat on his cheeks. “…That’s probably a lesson I’m still working on a bit.”

Kurogane huffed a small laugh and leaned over to squeeze Fai’s shoulder.  It was a warm gesture, a quiet acknowledgement of old wounds mended and healed.  Syaoran was smiling softly at both of them.

“Mokona learned how amazing Mokona is!  Mokona reflected on that when she bravely offered to go rescue Syaoran!”

Fai saw Kurogane roll his eyes.

It fit, though—that Mokona had discovered bravery within herself through the course of their journey.  The courage to stand by her friends in the most painful of moments.

“What about Kurogane’s lesson?” Mokona said, and then stuck her tongue out at the man in retaliation for the eye roll.

Kurogane jerked his hand away from where it still rested on Fai’s shoulder.  The poor man’s cheeks looked like they were on fire.  Fai thought of several comments that would make the man’s face match the purple grass, but he let them dissipate into the peaceful night.  He didn’t want to ruin the calm that had settled over their group.

“You learned what Tomoyo-hime wanted you to learn all that time ago.  True strength,” Fai said instead, and knew he’d made the right choice when Kurogane sent him a grateful look.

Kurogane didn’t need Fai to put it into words.  True strength could be defined in a multitude of ways, but at the heart—the answer was the heart.  Choosing to protect the ones you loved.  And in Kurogane’s case, perhaps it was even allowing yourself to love.

“And what about Syaoran?” Mokona said, bouncing on the boy’s shoulder and effectively moving attention away from Kurogane.

Syaoran patted her on the head.  “I was asleep when you figured out how to free me from the woods…”

“Right,” Kurogane said.  “What’s the kid supposed to reflect on when he slept through it?”

Fai didn’t have an answer to that.  He squinted at Syaoran, but nothing came to him.  Syaoran hadn’t been involved with his own ‘freeing.’

“Trust!” shouted Mokona.

“Hah?” Kurogane’s face scrunched.

“Syaoran trusted Fai and Kurogane and Mokona to wake him up!  And he only woke up when we were all there to offer him support!”

“Mokona…” Syaoran smiled—a soft little quirk of the lips—and tugged Mokona close to his cheek.

So that was it, then.  Fai couldn’t help the smile that spread across his own face.  When they’d first met, Syaoran had struggled so hard not to be a burden on his friends.  Fai was happy to know the boy had accepted that it was fine to rely on them, in the same way Fai had learned that he could lean on these three important people. 

“As it should be,” Fai said.

No more words were spoken between them as they settled in for sleep in this new world.  Who knew what challenges they’d face in the morning; but as Fai settled back on the strange purple grass, staring at a night full of unfamiliar stars and listening to the jittering critters around them, he only felt content.  They were together.  Together and stronger for it.

As it should be.