Disclaimer: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and all of its affliated characters do not belong to me. CLAMP owns all.

Sakura-Angel: So I've been fidgeting with the idea of Fay's past for awhile, and this is the product. Kurogane and Sakura star in their own little drabble-ish piece also included in this, because I felt the overlying feeling of the pieces carried well. And no implication of pairings are intended, though you are free to tinker around with them in your head if you like. Feedback is welcome.

Simple, Unsimple

1. TINGLE TURNED
Fay is a complicated man.

He hates the word, really, because it is very vague and too forgiving. It is a diplomat's word. A word for excuses. And Fay cannot tolerate excuses.

What he really wants is another chance. Back in Seresu, where everyone knew he was high magician, and everyone knew there was method upon method of magic-murder, chances were few and far in between.

There was that time he arrived at a hovel in true winter (it snowed so often they had to distinguish between winter and summer), snow crunching beneath his boots. He was fine. His fingers were warm with soon-to-be destructive magic. The seal rested on his back, stretching smoothly over his shoulder blades.

A mother answered the door. Her breath made shuddery shapes in the air. She took one look at his cloak and told him that she knew who he was and that he should leave and not ever come back.

He smiled mildly at her. It was a frigid smile. He replied that she knew the law, that it was impossible. He needed her child. He held out his hand in a cruel mockery of asking her for a dance.

Her fists were weak and had he not stopped her pounding her bones would've cracked. His fingers tingled. Ma'am, you need to hand over your child. Ma'am you must stop.

And when her tears started to flow and the closet door cracked open to reveal a figure no taller than four feet and the thought of both their fates occured to him, he felt a pang at the absence of pity in him.

And the tingle turned to numbness.

And the numbness lasted all through to his last day in Seresu, when he, one among the many who cried mutiny, sealed his king up, and fled.

And whatever was simple was... complicated.

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2. FIRST MEMORY
Your eyelashes flutter, lids trying for an unhealthy translucence. You're so weak, I notice. Fragile, so unlike my princess, but still something is reminiscent...

I shouldn't be here. It should be the kid you wake up to, not me. But it's too late.

Your slight groan and shift on the futon bring your gaze up to me. "Who..."

Your eyes are green. No more unusual than my own red, but I'm still somehow surprised. The green is of jade, speckled with olive in your drowsy state.

"Who are you?"

I hold back my words, breath coming to me heavier than before. It takes a certain kind of person to ask who someone else is before where they are, or what has been done to them. I close my eyes. You are very like my princess.

"Kurogane."

Your eyes blink a bit wider before closing again, and you slump over.

I make my way over to you, reaching certainly for your arm. If you sleep like this, you'll make it go numb.

As I rearrange you on the futon, you shift and sigh. I can't imagine what you're dreaming of, since you've lost all your memory.

I stand to leave, before you wake again. But not before I get one last look. So very like her.

"Kurogane..."

My eyes slide towards you, still sleeping. And then I leave, disconcerted with the memory of what happened with one princess, and the infinite possibilities of what could happen with another.