Violets Do Blossom In Winter

The Courtship of Daidouji Tomoyo

A Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction

Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura or any of the anime, games, movies, books and other material here that are copyrighted by other people. This is a purely fictional work.

Note: This is a prologue that sets the theme for the rest of the story. The three major events of this prologue are set thirty years before CCS, during the first movie, and seven years after the second movie ("The Sealed Card"), respectively. The main story itself is set eight years after the second movie and will begin with the next chapter. Please enjoy.

Dedication: To Syaoran no Hime, my personal inspirational Princess of Card Captor fluff, especially when it comes to ExT; to Jess-chan, one third of the Fluff, Inc. trio, who once told her online onii-chan that I writes such swell romances– almost as if I was a girl 00''; and to fan of sk as a way of saying "Sorry!" This story is for you three.

Prologue

The Stage Is Set For The Future

The cottage was small and neat and menaced on all sides by rapidly industrializing Hong Kong. It was not the house of one Clow Read. That personage stayed in a luxurious apartment within the city proper.

This little house stood on the outskirts of the town. It stood on prime real estate, but as its owner was very attached to it and had a scary reputation, no one had yet gathered the courage to make a proposal.

In the cottage lived a very lonely woman.

She was dying. She had literally pined herself away through waiting for a certain person for such a long time. She had poured so much of herself into calling him back. And she had nothing to show for it except disappointment and heartache. Her spells failed her. Her calls went unanswered.

He did not return.

As the years had passed, so she had wasted away.

Now, as she lay dying, her life slipping away, her magic almost spent, she still could think of only one thing, one person. And she murmured his name aloud again and again. It was her talisman against the darkness of death that rose to claim her tonight. It sustained her for a little while longer. It kept her alive a moment longer.

Long enough to do what she needed to do.

In her arms was a scarf. It was his gift to her when last they met. The white silk was pleasant to the touch. The scent of it was his and hers. And to think she might have thrown it away! She had to smile at that memory.

"There's no reason to give me such a useless thing," she had scowled at him.

Ever smiling, he held up his hands to refuse the flimsy garment she would have shoved into his face. Instead, he pushed it into her arms. If he noticed that they were now holding hands, he made no issue of it. But she did notice, and she was blushing.

"Today is your birthday, isn't it? That is my gift for you. If you find it useless, then please throw it away."

Smiling, he walked off.

And all she could do was helplessly glare at him, even as she held the scarf close to her heart.

She had claimed it was useless. She had kept it nonetheless. In turn, the scarf had kept her company through all those lonely years. It was the only physical memento of him that remained in her possession, her one source of feeble strength and meager happiness.

Now, it would serve her one last time.

She had strength and will for one last spell. She cast that spell now.

Absent was the fancy light show or fancy foreign incantations. That was never her style. She believed that only amateurs used such fancy effects for spell casting. Besides, she had little mana left to draw upon. She had expended so much in her fruitless efforts to call him through her book of magic. What remained now was barely enough for her purposes.

She had only one shot at this.

And then she would die.

As she cast the spell, she kept the thought of that man in her mind and heart. Even if she failed, she would allow herself to go only if he was with her in any way possible.

After what seemed to be a lifetime's worth of waiting, fifteen seconds worth, she completed her final spell.

She had succeeded.

As her consciousness slipped away, as she died knowing that this was not the end, she murmured his name. And she smiled at him for the first time.

"Clow Read…"

Then she fell quiet and lay still.

Upon her heart, her scarf briefly shone. Then it, and its owner, faded away.

The years passed. Abandoned, the cottage fell into disrepair. It was demolished to make room for a new subdivision. The people who knew her passed away as well. Their children and children's children found new attractions. Blissfully ignorant about the special woman who once made it her home, Hong Kong grew more prosperous and happy.

And life went on.

"You actually like Clow, don't you?"

The question froze her in place. Her obstinacy remained even in defeat. She was still with great power. She would never surrender to a mere child who had somehow usurped his power. Never! She'd rather die again than acknowledge this annoying sacrilege standing before her, wielding the Cards of his making against her yet again!

Until that question was posed to her. Then all of her pretenses melted away as reality caught up with her illusions.

"It must be harsh," the young Japanese girl agreed to her unspoken answer, "To have someone you love pass away. Isn't it?"

It was the hardest thing to ask. She already knew what the answer was. What she dreaded was acknowledging it. Because acknowledging would mean that she was wrong. She would be proven wrong. And she didn't want to be wrong.

"Did he really die?"

The girl looked at her sadly.

It's a lie! He wouldn't possibly have died. He can't... Clow Read can't... ...possibly have died!

All this time, I've been waiting... All this time... I used all my powers to keep calling upon Clow. For years… For decades...

And he's dead?

And then the girl slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry," she admitted, for all the truth was worth. "I'm very sorry."

"All this time, I've been waiting... for you alone, for so long... All this time, I've been waiting… All this time… Because… because there is something… I had been wishing to tell him."

And from so far away, his voice answered her dejected confession.

"Water is something that keeps flowing."

And then she vanished, never to be seen again.

Or so they thought.

Hong Kong was a constant bustle of activity. The shopping malls were perhaps the best examples. Always filled with people, foreign shoppers bargaining with sidewalk and stall vendors, they stood out from the glamorous city with their own particular glittery appeal.

In the heart of a city that never really slept, within the seemingly endless sprawl of an elite shopping district, a girl stopped to stare at a flash of white.

There, almost buried in an avalanche of bright colors and soft cotton, was a white scarf.

The girl had come here to shop for clothes, but a scarf wasn't really what she had in mind. But, her curiosity stirred, she took it out of the jumbled pile for a quick study.

There was something special about the scarf. Not just the softness of the fabric or the clean beauty of its simplicity. There was an ethereal aspect to it that struck her without her knowing what it was, enthralling her without her understanding exactly what it was or why she felt that way. It simply was.

And that was enough.

They said that art was one of the greatest mediums of communication between vastly differing times and peoples. That artworks were capable of conveying unspoken the thoughts and feelings of its creator to an audience so far off and far away into the future.

If this scarf was such, then it was a masterpiece of an example, the work of a genius.

Its plea was short but powerful. It touched the girl in ways nothing else could.

In a sense, it was a reflection of her innermost self.

A girl who was lonely and hurting and needing someone.

Take me.

Take me.

Take me and make me yours.

Please.

"Tomoyo-chan?"

"Ah! Mama!"

"That's a nice scarf. Do you like it?"

"Well," she deliberated. "It feels very soft, and it looks nice."

"Then go ahead. Get it."

"But it seems so plain, Mama,"

"Don't be daft. I'm sure Sakura-chan would absolutely adore it."

And that settled things for her.

"Welcome to Japan," she told the scarf as she reverently placed it within a drawer of its own. "I hope you like it here. There are lots of nice things and people here, and I really think you'd find them wonderful."

Reluctantly, she went off to change and sleep.

Left alone, the scarf stood still.

It glowed.

Tsuzuku

She was living a life that was not hers. But the simple and frank truth is that, deep inside, she is hurting so much. Next on Violets: My Life.