Title: The Dressmaker's Bride (final part)

Rating: T

Pairing: Tomoyo/Sakura

Spoilers: AU of the Card Captor Sakura verse (with a couple of familiar cameos!)

Summary: Sakura investigates an old, run-down mansion in her neighborhood and surprised to find that a new girl has moved in. Tomoyo Daidouji is a girl who has it all; wealth, beauty, taste. What could she possibly see in a poor little tomboy like Sakura?

Author's Note: At this point it's more of a "valentine's day gift" than a "christmas present" per se. Well, happy belated v-day, clover!

Sakura was alerted not by Touya slipping out, but by him coming back. After finally crying herself out, she'd taken a shower and changed into some clean clothes - something plain, shapeless and warm, and not a hint of pink. She'd even manage to stir herself to eat something, but she'd walked through the kitchen in a daze and retreated back to her room as soon as she had something edible in hand. It wasn't until the door rattled and swung open on the cold damp air that Sakura roused herself from the self-absorbed fog of misery she was in and realized she hadn't seen or heard Touya moving about the apartment for hours.

Sudden, altogether belated panic seized Sakura; surely Touya hadn't gone charging out into the night with some mad idea of confronting Tomoyo, had he? She hadn't told him anything, she knew she couldn't tell him anything, because if he involved himself with Tomoyo he wouldn't be safe... but what if he had figured things out somehow? She poked her head uneasily around the jamb of her doorframe; Touya was taking off his sneakers in the genkan, and shrugging off a leather jacket that was beaded from the wet air. He seemed perfectly normal and nonchalant, and Sakura breathed a little easier.

Obviously nothing had happened. Touya must have just gone out to the conbini for something… Sakura's eyes slid over to the clock on the wall, and the glowing digital numbers hit her with a jolt; it was past midnight. When had it gotten to be so late?

"Brother?" Sakura asked tentatively, sidling around the doorframe. "Where were… What did you go out for?"

Touya looked up in mild surprise at hearing her voice. "Oh, you're still up?" he said. "I thought you'd gone to bed a while ago. It's late."

His voice was perfectly calm and uninterested, nothing to inspire alarm at all… yet somehow it made Sakura uneasy. It was too calm, devoid of inflection… just a few hours ago he'd been pounding on her door demanding that he tell her what was wrong; wasn't he even a little bit worried about her now?

"N…no, I'm not sleepy yet," Sakura said, and stepped fully out of her bedroom. "But it's awfully late to be out… where were you?"

"Oh. I was at Tomoyo's house, of course," Touya explained carelessly. He stepped out of the genkan and toed on his house slippers, dropping the jacket casually over the back of a chair. "What with this and that, I didn't realize how late it had gotten."

An icy dagger seemed to drop through Sakura's chest into her stomach. It was just as she had feared! But… why was he so calm? "You didn't yell at her?" Sakura asked apprehensively. After all their explosive arguments about Tomoyo, surely he would have blown up at her as soon as he'd gotten in her presence? And what if he'd made her angry?

"No, why would I?" Touya looked surprised. "She's a perfectly nice girl. Just as you've always said. I don't have any problems with Tomoyo Daidouji. Why would I go over to someone else's house just to pick a fight with them? That would be absurd."

"But…" Sakura trailed off, confused. Absurd or not, that was exactly the sort of thing that Touya did. He'd picked fights with the neighbor in their old apartment building who'd set their dog on Sakura to frighten her; he'd actually come to Tomoeda in the middle of the school day to confront a chemistry teacher who'd bullied Sakura harshly enough to make her cry. Sakura had always been embarrassed, but secretly grateful, for Touya's uncompromising and belligerent protection.

Touya snapped the door lock behind him, and headed for his own bedroom. He passed by Sakura standing in the hall without even a glance; the look in his eyes made Sakura shiver despite the bulky sweatshirt. Despite the calm, unconcerned expression on his face, there was something… off about his eyes, something vague and unfocused as though he were sleepwalking.

"Brother?" Sakura trailed after him uncertainly, pausing at the door to his own bedroom. Touya seated himself at his rickety desk and pulled open a drawer, riffling around for a stack of papers and a pen. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd get a jump on these applications before I went to bed," Touya said.

"Applications?" Sakura's heart gave a startled little jump, and her mouth went dry. "What applications?"

"For college, of course," Touya sounded surprised she needed to ask. "The sooner I get my application essays in the mail, the better. I'm pretty late off the mark, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem - a lot of people take a year to work before they enter university, and I've just taken a few more than one." He chuckled, expression turning wry and thoughtful. "They do say that taking a year off gives you more of a chance to be sure you know what you want to major in, and that part sure is true - I know exactly what I plan to do."

"College? University?" Sakura stared at Touya in bewilderment. She half expected him to twit her about being a parrot or a broken record, but he didn't even look up from the stack of forms. "But - but what about your jobs?"

"Hmm? Well, I'm sure Miss Matsumoto will be able to find someone to replace me," Touya said, scratching his chin with the pen. "I can probably find a part-time job somewhere in Kyoto, if I end up getting accepted there. Depending on what the rents are like, I might be able to get a flat, although student housing would be a lot cheaper."

A small smile touched his lips, transforming his face. "Kyoto is where Yukito is living, after all. He's graduating in the spring. I wonder if he can put me up until I find a place?" He bent back to his work with the smile still on his face.

"But -" Sakura stared at the back of Touya's head, feeling increasingly like the world was spinning away from her. "But, Brother, what about me?" she wailed.

Touya looked up at her and blinked, and the remote, empty look in his eyes was stronger than ever. "Well, you don't have to move to Kyoto if you don't want to, of course," he said, sounding mildly puzzled. "I know you like this place."

"No, I mean, but -" Sakura bit her lip, she didn't want to be selfish, she didn't want to whine, but - "If you quit your job and move away, what am I going to do?"

"Hmm? Well, I'm sure something will come up," Touya said vaguely. "You're a smart girl with a lot of resources, I know you'll be able to take care of yourself just fine."

And with that, he turned his back on her.

Sakura felt the world drop out from under her. A few hours ago, she only thought her life had been turned inside out, where friend became foe and nightmares appeared in waking daylight. But now she realized that despite her shock, she hadn't been nearly as frightened then as she was now. Now, it was the very foundation of her life, her family and home, that had been torn away in the blink of an eye.

Sakura had told herself - tragically and self-sacrificingly - that she wouldn't involve Touya in her business with Tomoyo, that she didn't want any harm to come to him. But that had just been a silly, self-serving fantasy; she had unconsciously still assumed that if things got too out of control, she could go to Touya and he would protect her, he would make everything right as he always had.

If her big brother, the one who had always protected her, the one who had looked out for her and supported her and sacrificed for her when everyone else in her life had failed or abandoned or left them - if Touya would not help her, then who would? Who could?

She wanted to cry, but she'd sobbed out all her useless tears hours earlier. Instead, Sakura reached down inside her, to some previously untapped well of strength; and made herself let go, step back from her brother's bedroom door and close it quietly behind her. She sniffed deeply, and forced her chin up and her shoulders back.

Well.

If no one else would save her, then she'd just have to save herself.

"Brother?" Sakura hovered in the doorway to Touya's bedroom. "Brother, I'm going out now," she said.

"Okay," Touya said. He didn't sound very interested.

Sakura swallowed. "To, to Tomoyo's place," she said defiantly.

That got a brief flare of interest - but nothing like the angry, defensive suspicion he had always shown before. "Okay," Touya said. "Say hi to her for me."

A lump caught in Sakura's throat, and she had to swallow again - harder - to force it down so she could speak. Wasn't there anything she could say to make him care? "I - I'm not sure when I'll be back," her voice quavered, "so you might have to think about your own dinner."

"That's fine," Touya said. "Oh, wait," he said, looking up as Sakura started to turn away.

Sakura turned back, heart thumping. "Yes?" she said breathlessly. It hung on the tip of her tongue to throw herself on him, to beg him to protect her, to make him break through this fog of careless disinterest.

"If you're going to be out all day anyway, make sure you don't come back before three," Touya said. "I've got some people coming to look at the apartment, and it'll be easier to show them around if you're not getting underfoot."

The breath seemed to squeeze out of Sakura's throat, suffocated by hurt and panic. She tried to speak, couldn't, and in the end just turned and walked away. She couldn't stay here any longer. She had to face this at the center of all her troubles.

Sakura walked out of the apartment building and stopped dead. Although nobody had come to their door, the black limousine sat crouched in their apartment building's parking lot again. From this distance, through the tinted windows, Sakura couldn't tell if the driver was Fai or one of the other valets. Either way the message was clear: if Sakura wanted to return to the Daidouji household, Tomoyo was ready and waiting.

Well, so what? She wasn't going to be delivered up on a platter; she would walk on her own two feet. Sakura tossed her head and walked straight on past the limousine, her shoulders twinging with the effort not to look over her shoulder. Nobody called out to her or ran after her, anyway, and her breath eased a bit as the parking lot fell away behind her.

As she pushed her way through the thornbrake, wading through drifts of fallen leaves, Sakura was hit by an almost nauseating surrealness. Although she'd been in and out of Tomoyo's house for weeks, she had stopped coming through the back-lot route a long time ago; Fai or one of the other valets always took her back and forth. But the old, familiar words was a new and undiscovered country to her today; what lay behind her was no longer her home, and what was ahead she was afraid to even imagine.

Down here in the ravine along the dry creekbed, out of sight of any of the houses, Sakura felt like she was pushing through some dire borderland into another world, and was suddenly reminded of stories of mischievous fox sprites who would lure travelers away into the woods and strand them there. It was just fairy stories, of course, nothing to be afraid of.

Like vampires?

Sakura shivered, despite her jacket and the waning autumn sun. She hurried along faster than ever, jumping from one slippery rock to another and skimming her palms on tree branches to steady her. At last she jumped over the last barrier - the low concrete channel trickling with black water - and burst through the brush onto the edge of the Daidouji estate.

For a moment she stopped stock still, frozen at the edge of the lawn as she stared up at the mansion. More than ever the house looked like a fairy castle, and that did nothing to lessen the unreality of her journey. It all looked so peaceful, so sunny and tranquil; there was no way that house could be hiding a… a blood sucking creature of the night, could it?

Steps which had hurried along before now dragged reluctantly, as Sakura toiled up the hill towards the house. There hardly seemed to be anyone around. Were they out looking for her? But when at last she spotted a human figure - nearly jumping out of her skin in fright before she identified it as the old groundskeeper - he barely looked up at her. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding her eyes.

The driver of the black car hadn't chased after her, either; it seemed the servants were under orders to leave her alone. Sakura took some heart from that, straightening her shoulders and marching into the house more confidently. The way the maids and servants slid out from under her gaze and scurried aside when she approached made her at once feel oddly powerful, and deeply distressed. How had everything gone so bad so fast?

"In the solarium, Miss," one of the maids said, in a subdued and almost frightened tone. She, too, refused to meet Sakura's eyes.

Sakura flung open the door, and a strange tableau struck her eyes.

The room inside was wide and high-ceilinged, with many tall glass windows set along the walls, but each of them was completely blocked off from the daylight outside by a set of heavy velvet curtains. The only light in the room came from a ring of low-lit, golden table lamps scattered on desks and tabletops around the room, none higher than chest-height.

In the center of the room sat Tomoyo, her dress arranged in a train around her. For the first time Sakura had ever seen her, she wore entirely black, a dress with fluffy black wool lace bunched over smooth black satin. A fine veil was drawn over her head and face, but for once she wore no hat nor visor.

"Welcome, Sakura," Tomoyo said, and her voice was as smooth and sweet as honey and as dark as the velvet curtains. "I am glad you have returned. I was hoping that a night's rest in a safe, familiar environment would help you steady your mind."

Sakura was seized by a surge of anger; she felt a sudden impulsive urge to march across the room and yank open those curtains, flood the room with daylight. See how Tomoyo liked that. The only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that she had seen Tomoyo standing in full daylight before; it wasn't likely to do more than annoy her. And that… probably wouldn't help her much now.

So instead she took a deep breath, marched forward and planted her feet in the carpet in front of Tomoyo, and demanded: "What did you do to my brother?"

Tomoyo raised her elegant eyebrows. "Nothing," she replied. "Nothing harmful, that is. I merely… reassured him. Set his fears to rest."

"You did more than reassure him!" The choking, overwhelming feel of panic she'd been fighting all day returned - born of calling Touya's name last night and this morning and seeing the long distance in his eyes. "He's talking about quitting his jobs, and transferring the lease of our apartment, and, and applying to college and everything! He's moving away!"

"Why, yes," Tomoyo said equitably. "That was what you desired, was it not? For your brother to look to his own needs, to concentrate on his own future, rather than destroying his life by continuing to care solely about you?"

"No!" Wasn't it? Sakura wondered. Be careful what you wish for, she thought with chilling dismay.

"I only encouraged him to do so, offering some modest financial incentives of my own, of course," Tomoyo went on. "It wasn't really all that difficult. In the end, even we cannot compel humans to do things they are not secretly willing to do."

"Compel humans?" Sakura drew in her breath, feeling a cold spike of terror. She fought it back with anger. "Well, if it's so easy to 'compel' us 'humans,' why didn't you just mind-control me into… staying here in the first place? Why this whole charade with the dress?" It wasn't just the dress, Sakura was realizing. Everything Tomoyo had done, from the very beginning, had been designed to draw Sakura in, to make her dependant on Tomoyo. The food, the clothes, the car rides, the fancy parties - the sudden, convenient relocation of all Sakura's other friends - and now Sakura's very own brother…

"I wouldn't do that," Tomoyo said, sounding surprised. "I couldn't do that. If you agreed to become mine, it could only be of your own free will! To use compulsion on you would be unfair."

"Oh yeah?" Sakura felt a stab of savage sarcasm. "Well, how 'fair' is it for you to take away my only source of support? I don't have any money of my own, I can't get a job yet! Without Touya, I don't have anywhere to go! That's cheating!"

A moment of thoughtful pause, and then Tomoyo lifted her slender shoulders in a tiny shrug. "I suppose it might seem like that to you," she said. "But not according to how my people do these things."

"Your people…" Sakura gulped, and rocked back on her heels. The anger which had sustained her, driven her to speak out, had drained away - but with it had faded much of the tearing panic that had driven her out of this house the night before. She stood face-to-face with a… a vampire, but Tomoyo hadn't attacked her yet; they were speaking calmly and reasonably instead. Finally, her driving curiosity was allowed to gain the upper hand, and she blurted out, "Who are you? What are you?"

Tomoyo settled back in her grand chair, folding her hands across her lap. "I suppose the time has come for you to know," she said. "I never wished to lie to you, dear Sakura, but in order to be left in peace in this world, my people must practice a certain amount of discretion.

"I was indeed born in this country, in Japan, but not the Japan that you know. I was born - in the manner of my people - in Kan'ei year thirteen, which by the modern Gregorian calendar would translate to the year of Our Lord sixteen-thirty two."

The number stunned Sakura, and she tried frantically to do the math in her head. That would mean - that meant that Tomoyo was over three hundred years old…

"Among my people, I would still be considered young," Tomoyo said calmly, as though Sakura had spoken aloud. "Since time unremembered, we have always made our way through the world and hidden our nature by traveling from one place to the next, so that people would not think to notice that we did not seem to age. We do, of course, although our lifespans are much longer than that of you humans.

"As the world around us grew wider, so too did our travels. Instead of merely traveling from one country hamlet to the next, we began to travel between countries. The widening world was a great boon to us, as it allowed us to more easily disguise our nature - people always expect foreigners to be a little strange.

"I passed through the country of my birth two times since we first departed; the most recent was in the early nineteen hundreds, which was where I acquired a taste for these fashions. That was not the only thing I picked up during that trip," Tomoyo said, directing her words with a fond smile to a darkened corner of the room. Sakura instinctively followed her gaze, and managed to pick out the dark form of tall, red-eyed Kurogane lurking in the shadows. He didn't smile in return, but Sakura thought his grim mouth softened a bit, at the reminder.

"But…" Sakura tried to push past this sudden spate of history. "But what are you - really? You can't really be a vampire. I mean, I know I've seen you out in the sunlight…"

Tomoyo sighed. "Over time, it was inevitable that humans should catch glimpses enough of our true nature to generate ignorant legends," she said. "We are stronger than humans, and longer-lived, and can recover from many serious wounds without difficulty. Yes, we drink blood, but we do not shun garlic or Christian crosses or any of that nonsense. We do avoid the sunlight, because my people evolved to be children of the night, and we have no natural mechanisms to protect ourselves against the sun's damaging radiation. Given only a few minutes in the sun, and we will start to burn; a full day in the sunlight, without any protection or relief, might well be enough to kill us.

"But still," she added briskly, "that's only true for direct sunlight, and we can take precautions to protect ourselves similar to what any pale, sunburn-prone human might do. I do so bless whatever clever scientist came up with commercial sunblock, I must say. It makes things ever so much easier." She smiled demurely.

"Can you really - mind-control people?" Sakura said in a small voice.

"To some extent, yes. In the last hundred recent years, I have to say I've rarely needed to compel humans in any uncanny fashion; simple money usually has the same effect. It's strange," she added reflectively, her voice distant. "Our glamour may have helped us to amass this fortune in the first place, but now that we have it, we rarely ever need the glamour at all. In eras past, members of my family used our abilities to prove ourselves avatars of the gods, in order to command respect and obedience from humans. Nowadays, all we have to be is rich."

Sakura thought of Rika's scholarship; of Naoko's father's new job; tried hard not to think of the fire in Chiharu's apartment at night. Instead, she wrenched her thoughts around to face the one question that had been nagging at the back of her mind all day and night - for weeks, if she was being honest, ever since Tomoyo had invited her in the first place. "Why me?" she burst out. "Why - why do you want me to be your - whatever it is that you want? I'm not special, or pretty or rich or clever. I'm just a stupid ugly tomboy who fails half her homework assignments and mooches off others. Why do you want me of all the people out there?"

"Dear Sakura..." And Tomoyo broke into a soft laugh, continuing to chuckle for several moments before she regained command of herself. "You are so young. You understand so little. You are special, in ways you barely comprehend. Your spirit is so bright, your body so full of energy and life. It draws me - it would draw any of my kind - like a moth to a flame. I wonder if there is not something else within you as well, some greater potential left untapped; in another place, another time, you might have commanded some powerful magic of your own.

"But there is more to it than that. Any vampire would desire you, but I do more than desire. I need you. Since I first laid eyes on you, since I scented your skin, since I tasted your blood, none others would suffice for me. We can drink from anyone, you know, but every since you first appeared in my garden all other blood has grown thin and bitter to me. It is all for naught. I must have you, Sakura, or I will continue to wither until I die."

She said that so calmly, so devoid of passion, that Sakura recoiled as though Tomoyo had screamed those words in her ear. No, that couldn't be! Tomoyo - die? Go away? All that wry humor, that gentle wisdom, that musical voice - silenced forever? That beauty withered, that tempered power drained? The thought rocked Sakura, and reignited the suffocating panic within her: not for Touya this time, nor even for herself, but for Tomoyo. Lose Tomoyo? She couldn't - she couldn't, because without Tomoyo… without Tomoyo, she had no one at all…

"That's not fair," she burst out, through the strangling constriction in her throat. "It's not! You can't just put that on me, that I have to say yes to you or you'll die! It's not right!"

"I never said it was, my darling one," Tomoyo said, still in that strange calm voice. "The ways of my people have never been much for fairness. We must take from humans in order to survive - but we have much to give in return. In that, I believe, we are not so very different from you."

Sakura fell silent, her thoughts racing. Her heart racing. At length, she swallowed hard, licking her lips to try to moisten them for speech. It was a futile effort, as her tongue was dry as a rag. "If I say yes," she said in a rusty voice. "If you - I - if you drink my blood. Will I… will I die?"

"No!" Shocked outrage flashed over Tomoyo's face; for the first time in this conversation, she seemed actually offended. "Of course not! It doesn't even hurt. I do not enjoy causing pain."

"Will I…" Sakura floundered, sorting through what she knew of vampire myth and legend. "Will I become a vampire? Will… will you make me drink your blood too?"

"No." Tomoyo settled back against the sedan with a sigh. "I do not need to burden you with the details now, but there is far more that goes into birthing a new vampire than a mere bite. If you were to drink my blood, you might become stronger, more resistant to disease, than you are now - in the past, those humans so graced were longer-lived, but in the world of today's modern medicine, the difference is negligible." Was it Sakura's imagination, or did Tomoyo's gaze flicker briefly to the corner containing Kurogane?

There was another long silence. The beating of Sakura's heart felt like the loudest sound in the room, hot and stuffy with all the velvet curtains drawn. She tried to look anywhere away, but all the light in the room drew her eyes inevitably back to Tomoyo.

"You have to take care of my brother," she said finally. "Promise me that you'll pay for university for him, and whatever else he needs to be happy."

"Of course," Tomoyo said. She had gone very still, so still she almost seemed to quiver, like Opal preparing to pounce on a toy. "I would do no less for my esteemed brother-in-law."

"And Naoko and Rika, too," Sakura went on. "I want you to make sure they're okay, too."

"Certainly," Tomoyo said.

"And… and Chiharu, too," Sakura forced out. She was trying not to think too hard about that fire, because if she did, she would never be able to go through with this. "I want you to promise me that she and her mother will be okay, and nothing else bad will happen to them. And that they have everything they need."

A flicker of annoyance showed in Tomoyo's eyes, but only the faintest tightening of her lips betrayed it. "Very well," she said quietly. "If that is what you desire."

"Then…" Sakura took a deep breath; she felt like she was teetering on the edge of a diving board, or at the very peak of a roller coaster before the drop. But once gravity took her, there would be no choice but to go through with the fall. "Then I accept."

Tomoyo… snapped, that was the only word Sakura knew to describe it, and even that was not nearly enough. It was as though there had been something that, up until this moment, she had held tightly furled within her, which now unraveled and opened with a fierce vengeance. She reached up to draw the veil back from her face and opened her eyes wide. She smiled, really smiled widely for the first time since Sakura had met her, lips drawing back to leave her fangs fully exposed.

Tomoyo stood up; although she was the same height she had always been, she seemed to unfold and unfold until she towered above Sakura. Her dark hair, black and glossy as night, uncurled along her shoulders, its glossy coils slipping over each other as though they had a life of their own. Her eyes glowed purple, unnaturally bright, as though a fire burned behind them to light her from within.

"You accept this contract?" Tomoyo asked, and her voice rang and reverberated around the room. "To become my chalice, to supply me with blood whensoever I should require or desire it?"

"Yes," Sakura said, her voice small and shaky. She was trembling as Tomoyo stepped towards her, but she felt rooted in place, unable to flee.

Tomoyo took another step forward. She was hypnotic, magnetic, bending the air around her until she was wreathed in an aura of candlelight. "To be bound in my household, under my protection and my will, until death or a higher power release you?"

"Yes," Sakura whispered.

Tomoyo stepped forward again, to within arms reach of Sakura. She did not dare to reach out and touch that coruscating aura, but Tomoyo did; she touched one ice-white finger to Sakura's face, and trailed it gently down along her cheekbones, over the line of her jaw, turning under her chin to tilt her face upwards. "To be my companion," Tomoyo breathed, "my lover, to come to my bed when I call, to share and receive my gifts of pleasure freely and without hesitance?"

Sakura's mouth dropped open, and she gulped for air; it seemed to have taken fire in her lungs. She wasn't sure she understood what Tomoyo was asking, and what she did understand frightened her; but oh, she wanted it, she wanted it more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. "Y-yes," she squeaked. "I-I do."

"Then I accept you in turn," Tomoyo breathed, and the words made Sakura's skin shudder. "My Sakura, my darling one… my pet, my chalice, my bride."

She tilted Sakura's chin further upward, and Sakura held her breath as she clutched her hands together. This was it, then, Tomoyo was going to - to bite her neck, to drink her blood. Would it hurt? Tomoyo had said not, but Tomoyo wasn't the one being bitten. How would she know? She swallowed what felt like a boulder in her throat; her neck already hurt, muscles throbbing with anticipatory tension.

To her confusion, though, Tomoyo did not bite down on the exposed column of her neck. Instead, those pale hands skimmed lightly down the sides of her neck to her shoulders, flowing along her collarbones to the front of her shirt. She felt the light grinding tug of her jacket's zipper being lowered, and then heard the shirring sound of ripping fabric. Tomoyo's head hovered, dipped; her hands pushed the torn shirt back over Sakura's bare shoulders, and her lips touched lightly on the indentation of Sakura's collarbone. Just the faintest of pressure from the tips of her teeth, needle-sharp, pricking like the necklace she'd given to Sakura when she promised not to leave her.

"Wha- what are you doing?" Sakura choked out.

"Claiming what is mine," Tomoyo said, her voice thick with hunger and lust. "Now, and forever."

Her hands slid down Sakura's back, trailing icy fire in its wake; they caressed the curves of her sides before settling in a surprisingly strong grip on Sakura's hipbones, trapping her in place. Instinctively Sakura raised her own arms, wrapping them over the top of Tomoyo's shoulder for a grip. She could only see the top of Tomoyo's head from this angle, and a slanted sliver of her face, her eyelids heavy over those glowing eyes. "T-tomoyo?" she asked, voice wavering in her throat. She felt hot and cold at once, every inch of her body thudding to the beat of her own heart; blood racing along in her veins, demanding its release. "Please…"

"Hush," Tomoyo murmured against her skin. He tongue flickered out, trailing a line of dampness down from Sakura's collarbone, over the skin of Sakura's chest. Although most of the rest of her was tanned from spending time outdoors in the sun - all that summer practice with the track and gymnastic teams, all that time spent tramping through the woods - here, where it had been hidden by her shirt and bra, the skin was pale and clear enough to clearly show the light blue vein tracing along her skin. Sakura took a deep breath, her chest heaving, as Tomoyo's mouth stopped on her chest just above that vein, just at the top of the swell of her breast.

Sakura cried out as Tomoyo's fangs pierced her; a hot electric surge washed outward from the twin punctures. Hot blood spurted briefly from the pressure of the bite, then welled more slowly; most of it was captured by Tomoyo's hungry mouth and thirsty tongue, but a few drops escaped to slide hot and wet down her breast and her stomach. Tomoyo had been wrong, it did hurt, but the pain was so small and so lost in the glorious torrent of ecstasy as the sheer power of Tomoyo's presence overcame her.

She felt the vampire's hunger, dark and endlessly deep, and the sweet iron tang of her own blood that spiraled down to fill it. In that moment all of her doubts, all her fear and pain was washed away in the ultimate rightness of belonging; and she threw herself into it willingly.

Belowstairs, the orchestra struck up a new number. Sakura straightened and surveyed herself in the mirror, tugging at the skirt of the dress to make it lie flat.

It was one of Tomoyo's new creations; a long dress of pale spring green with light brown and pink accents. The very hem of the dress was a darker brown, rich like wet earth, and above it on the skirt to the knee rose layers and layers of pale pink ruffles. Darker green trim along the seams of the pleats and corset gave the illusion of tree branches swaying in the wind, dropping translucent cherry blossoms to the ground below. It wasn't much like Tomoyo's other dresses, Sakura was sure of that; Tomoyo claimed that Sakura had inspired her.

Her hair had grown out in the past few months; although it still wasn't nearly as long as Tomoyo's, it was long enough to braid and pin up over the head. The low neckline of the dress, curving across the top of her chest and leaving her shoulders bare - left a great bare expanse of neck and collarbone and chest that made Sakura feel at once very grown-up and very exposed. One of the maids had helped her get into the dress, and braided up her hair with fresh flowers; it seemed odd to Sakura that Tomoyo would prefer fresh flowers, which would wither in a matter of days, over silk flowers which could last for ever. But then Tomoyo was strange about things like that.

"Sakura, dear? Are you ready?" Her mistresses' voice floated in through the door on the growing tide of music, and Sakura jumped. She hurried with nervous excitement to finish the last touches; a platinum pendant clasped around her throat, a matching bracelet around her wrist, ringed with diamonds and pale sapphires in gradated sizes. "Coming!" she called out through the door, and rose from her chair. The tug and drag of the hem along the thick carpeted floor was slightly distracting, but Sakura was getting used to moving in clothes like this. The days of faded jeans and holey t-shirts were behind her, now, abandoned with the rest of her old life.

Tomoyo was waiting at the top of the stairs, darkly resplendent in a dress of black lace and deep wine red. Her face lit up in a beaming smile as she saw Sakura, and she held out a black-gloved hand in summons. "Oh, don't you look lovely, now? I knew you would. That dress is absolutely perfect for you, and you wear it so well!"

Obediently Sakura crossed the hallway to Tomoyo's side, and the violet-eyed girl hummed and tutted for a minute as she made a few last-minute changes or adjustments, tucking in a ribbon or a pleat here or there and combing a few locks of light brown hair to tumble over her shoulders. "There, aren't you just a picture. Are your new shoes comfortable? Not too hot, or too binding?"

"Yes, Tomoyo," Sakura said.

"Very good. I will want to dance with you at least twice, tonight. That dress was made to be in motion, and I am beside myself waiting to see it - and you, dear Sakura - in action."

"Oh, but I couldn't," Sakura protested. "I've only had a few lessons so far, I couldn't dance in front of all your guests."

"Nonsense. This is a ball, and at a ball, one dances! I'm sure," and Tomoyo gave Sakura her most winning, gentle smile; "your natural athleticism will take over, and you will simply be the envy of all of the guests there!"

"All right," Sakura gave in. "I'll do my best."

"Of course you will." Tomoyo's smile widened, until the very tips of her fangs peeked out over her lips. Her hands drifted one more time over the neckline of Sakura's dress, fingernails running light as a whisper over the bared skin. She placed her hand under Sakura's chin and tilted it upwards; obediently, Sakura parted her lips as her eyelashes fluttered closed. The kiss was long, deep and wet, and the play of Tomoyo's teeth and tongue over her mouth awoke a deep shivering hunger in Sakura's belly. She almost moaned when Tomoyo pulled away, managing to keep it to only a slightly exhaled breath.

Tomoyo's eyes burned like lavender fire. "Once the ball is over," she murmured in Sakura's ear, "come to my room. That dress was made to contrast with my bedroom floor, as well. I am looking forward to it." She gave the shell of Sakura's ear a little nip - just enough to draw a tiny trace of blood, and then lick it off - before pulling away.

Sakura took a deep, shuddering breath, and had to swallow and clear her throat before she could move. "Yes, Tomoyo," she said.

She could feel the pull of the vampire's will on her own, fathomless and dark and full of a living hunger. Tomoyo's attention, Tomoyo's desire, Tomoyo's command, it all blended together wrapped around her like a cloak, so close and familiar as to be a second skin - as accustomed as the dresses she now wore. She knew it, but it no longer worried or bothered her, not in this new life she found herself sinking into deeper by the day. Balls and parties, feasts and sweets and chandeliers and dances and dazzling dresses and climbing roses swirled about her like a whirlwind; and at the center of it, always waiting, always smiling, was Tomoyo.

"Very good," Tomoyo breathed, and inhaled deeply as though tasting Sakura's perfume - although that was the one thing her mistress had forbidden to go along with the ribbons and dresses and jewelry. Tomoyo took a step back, and her face was smooth and smiling once more. "Remember to eat and drink tonight, my dear," Tomoyo admonished her. "You don't want to get dizzy or overheated on the dance floor."

"Yes, Tomoyo," Sakura said, and Tomoyo laughed - a tinkling sound like windchimes - and turned away for the stairs. The orchestral music swelled, rising in volume and intensity as Tomoyo began to descend.

Sakura followed in her wake, holding her skirt carefully so that she did not trip on the hem; after the dimmed hush of the dressing-room and the upstairs hallways, the light and noise of the party rushed up around her like a dazzling flood. They were using the biggest hallway for this ball, and every chandelier and lamp had been lit up; in the glitter below moved black-suited men and women in bright dresses that glowed like flames.

Outside, time moved on, but in this one space, nothing much changed from one year to the next - there would always be the dance, the talking, laughing, glittering people, like a little slice of Fairyland. And once you had entered that Fairyland, and eaten of its fruit, you could never go back to the real world. But really, why would you want to?

With the dazzle of the crystal chandelier in her eyes, Sakura descended the curving staircase after her mistress.

~end.

More author's notes: The particular type of vampire that Tomoyo represents here was inspired by a number of sources. Twilight was not one of them. In case you were wondering.

Primary would be Madness Season by C.S. Friedman, a very good 'Vampires vs. Aliens' sci-fi book; to a lesser extent would be Velvet Mace's vampires from her Sherlock series, which introduced among others the concept of vampires taking humans as mates.

While I am not generally a big vampire fan and tend to think that removing their traditional mythical weaknesses (sunlight, holy water etc) is 'cheating,' this particular interpretation of vampires sees them less as monsters and more as a subset of the human race who evolved for long, slow lifespans with very low and controlled fertility, intended to act as long-term lorekeepers and even caretakers of the human race. Their relationship with mankind is therefore intended to be symbiotic, not parasitic or predatory.