A/N: I know it's late. I'm sorry, in case anyone is still reading :[ Syaoran won't make a complete appearance until a few chapters from now, which should be pretty obvious which one that'll be based on chapter 1 [hint, hint]. Thank you for the reviews.

Once upon a time, there was…

-|Wood|-

"Master," Yue asked, "why don't you send for one of us or one of Wood's representatives for the fruit?"

King Clow continued filling his woven basket with berries on the lowest boughs of the tree - berries, twigs, leaves and all. "Picking the berries is half the fun, Yue, and your added company certainly improves the task."

Yue pulled the twig ends off a few and placed them back on the basket. "Your condition requires lots of bed rest, of which you've continuously sidestepped all month for these trivialities."

"One day you'll learn how it's the little things in life that matter most. Like smelling roses… and blossoms." Clow produced a cherry blossom out of the hidden pocket in his robe, one he had sewn in to keep random trinkets. He tucked the flower in between silver hair, securing it behind the ear of his startled moon guardian.

Yue removed the blossom and cradled it in his palm.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" his master asked.

He nodded.

"Hold this basket, while I shake off some stubborn berries from this branch."

Yue placed the blossom on his robe and accepted the basket. "What sort are these? Could they be any better than the raspberries we have at home?"

"Yew berries."

A few berries rattled onto the floor and others made it into the basket. Yue kneeled and began plucking the leaves that crowned the base of the fruits.

Clow interrupted, "No, save the leaves, they'll make a fitting tea later."

In the evening, after a few hours of berry-picking and a few short breaks for flower-admiring, they settled under the shade of a Reed. The moon guardian watched Clow eat a handful of berries from their collection. Yue fitted his head comfortably on his master's shoulder, and listened to him speak about the trees as if they were old, living friends. This tree, he explained, symbolized purpose, protection, purification, and two other meanings, lost in a digression into ancient Celtic culture. A small fire burned to their left, and over it, a tiny pot brewed water with yew leaves.

Yue poured a share in a small clay cup and offered it to his master. "Your tea is ready."

He waved it away. "It's for you."

"I don't eat or drink."

"Humor me. You'd be surprised to like some of these human customs. Cerberus certainly does."

"Hmm." Yue peeked into the cup. A few leaves floated at the top and a touch of sweet sap remained unmixed. He brought it to his lips, filling his mouth with the warm concoction, and swallowed. The sensation of heat down his throat burned pleasantly, even if it was alien to him. "Not terrible," he declared, flashing a smirk.

"I'm sorry," Clow said, and then the world around stopped and fell apart.

…..O…..

The descent back to earth was easier than the climb. Cherry Blossom and Cerberus used their wings to glide down gracefully, each carrying half a hundred spiders on their forms. Protesting about the energy cost of spinning a thread from cloud to ground, they insisted on boarding both as passengers. Upon landing, the spiders bid their tiny farewells and dispersed to their web-dome and uncle.

While waving to the runt of the lot, Suzy, who tailed the group at the far end, Cherry's attention was diverted to a tiara of leaves out in the open.

"Cerberus, look at this." She pointed at the small tiara. It possessed in its wreath structure at least three types of leaves woven into the piece, with some brightly green, some reddish-brown, and a third set in a dark plum shade. They were dry and healthy, the tiara likely placed out here after the rain stopped and sunshine dried out the excess pools of water around. Humidity still prevailed in the air and the grassy ground felt mushy like a marsh under her boots.

"Hmm… well that was easy."

"Hoe?"

"It's a gift for you from Princess Wood. You can now master the trees. Congratulations." A spider threading tickled his nose and he plucked it off, letting the flimsy line float away. "You can built wooden cages outta branches or walk around like Johnny Appleseed. Your pick. I'd go with the first, in my honest guardian-y opinion, but I am craving some apples, or berries, real ones."

"But I haven't done anything to earn it." The trees were jerks. They were not the Gaia, Mother-Nature-bullcrap she'd been spoon-fed in her fragmented childhood, the same childhood which she recalled sporadically in incompletely reliable pieces. She would rather bear-hug a porcupine, or an actual bear. An average hug to a grizzly grumpy one awoken way too early from hibernation. Harnessing the power of trees was not as thrilling as it sounded. Their dislike for her trespassing and stepping on roots would graduate to unadulterated hatred with her command. Could this 'gift' be some trickery… a curse? Even if it was not, who was she to forcefully rule over a Clow element with no desire to be tamed by the likes of her?

The guardian sniffed the air, licked a paw and raised it high to monitor the direction of wind. "So?"

"I can't just take it." To accept this token, Cherry decided, she required a face-to-face, one-on-one, girl-to-girl meeting with this Princess Wood. Surely she was more reasonable than a rainforest. Because bad-tempered forestry was quite common everywhere. It was right up there, in a top ten list of world problems along with shadow giants, forlorn mermaids, global warming, and mock fruits.

"Sure you can." He grabbed the wreath and dropped it on her head. It glowed and disappeared into her pendant.

"Hey! That's exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do."

"Take what you can when you can, kiddo."

I would like not to bonk you over your head right now."

He returned to monitor wind patterns, and replied, "Har-har. Witty retort…blah blah blah. Onto Prince Jump! This should be easy, on account of how dumb he is. All we gotta do is distract him while the other one rubs his foot."

"I have to find Princess Wood and thank her properly." And discuss what exactly was her problem, if any. Not that Cherry would jump so quickly to conclusions depicting the generous princess in a negative light.

Cerberus rolled his eyes. "Forget it, she knows you deserve it. She's so tiny. You'll never find her anyway."

"No princess, prince or citizen is too small to be worthy of my time. If that wasn't so, I'd pick larger companions."

"Speak for yourself." Cerberus transformed into his maneless lion self. "You're the small fry." He nuzzled her back with cold wet nose, nearly toppling her over with his weight. "Noodle limbs."

"I'm lean. Tiny but mighty!" She flexed her bare arms. Her companion rolled his eyes for the thirty-fifth time since he joined her on this odd adventure. Cherry gave a captain dismissal and headed off into the wooden area with a brisk running pace, only turning slight to shout out, "You can get a head start on Prince Jump. I'll catch up later!"

Too late to warn the girl, the sun guardian huffed. She would learn on her own not to look at a gift horse's mouth, especially if it intervened with his acquisition of baked sweets.

…..O…..

"What are you?" the young man asked. Princess Woody harrumphed. Floating about his bespectacled face, she lightly pulled at the gray hair covering them, to closely inspect the deep earthy brown of his eyes. "Ow!" he exclaimed, to which she sheepishly shrugged her shoulders and gave her best apologetic expression. He was a fair-skinned human specimen, obviously not of the desert nearby where the Shadow realm resided. A bit of sunshine would serve the stranger well, she thought.

His aura was familiar, as was his face, yet no identity came to mind. "Who are you?" she asked.

His eyes widened in astonishment. Stomach grumbled. The thin lips of the stranger curved upward into a smile, embarrassed. "Excuse me! I haven't eaten since… hmm. I don't remember when I last ate."

Princess Wood snapped her teeny fingers. Branches extended toward him, heavy with papayas, mangoes, and guavas. Grinning, he took a few guavas.

"Why, thank you!" He bit into the first fruit, and looked into the fleshy pink of its meat. "These would make great tarts."

Princess Wood perched herself on an extended branch, and continued to watch her visitor eat. Only a day ago, he wandered into her rainforest, lost and looking for a leafy awning to keep him from the rain. Eating and conversing with her at ease now, he seemed to belong. The trees left him be for the most part, and interfered only in his favor, clearing paths in the dark and shielding him as best they could. He was more at comfort here than the young girl running around with Cerberus. Princess Wood's curiosity was extremely piqued.

Placing a few white blossoms in her verdant hair, she instinctively reached to remove the tiara around her head. Earlier, she fashioned a larger one as an impromptu gift to the girl seeking her out. Wood promised to fashion a lovelier one with cherry blossom to suit its new owner, but at the moment, her time was monopolized by the young man before her. Not that she minded. He was attractive. If he was a flower, she'd pick a handsome bouquet of him.

He grinned at her, noticing her attention. "I'm Julian Star. Pleased to meet you, miss…?"

"Princess Wood," she replied. "Where do you come from?"

Shrugging, he took another bite of guava. "Not entirely sure. Somewhere there?" He pointed upward.

"Up there?"

"Yes, from the castle on the moon."

It was a good thing he was nice-looking, Princess Wood thought. It made it easier to brush off the bit of lunacy.

…..O…..

The forest enclosed around her, not all at once, slowly, crouching down as she delved deeper. A root whipped the back of her feet. Desiccated leaves of various autumn gold and red shades flung at her, not along the soft sweep of breeze but along an indomitable, miniature tornado-like force.

"Wood: release!" Cherry called out. The trees froze in menacing posturing. "Phew!"

A willow tree groaned and creaked nearby. Its roots shook the earth without any easing out of its firm entrapment.

"Why must you be so stubborn, tree? I like you. You're okay. When I was a little kid, I carved-" The tree creaked louder. Cherry Blossom started over, catching her folly, "I mean I enjoyed reading under others like you. It was nice place to nap, too."

"They are not angry at you, dear," a whisper-like voice called out to her, a sound that arose of a mixture of leaf rustling and branches scrapping across another. Cherry whirled to its direction, holding out her pendant defensively in front of her. An old couple, barefoot and clothed in simple dark garments came into view. As they came closer in delicate steps in thin limbs, she noted that the sharp wrinkle lines on their faces and bodies were the rings of trees and the taut flesh, wood-like. Examining their movements once more, she was reminded of a marionette's awkwardness to mimic the fluidity of human motion.

The woman spoke, "They are trying to join you. The forest is an unexciting place. All you have to look forward to is cycles of day and night with a splash of rain every now and then. You, on the other hand, have daily endless quests, sprouting out of the blue."

Her male companion added, "We get sick of green around here."

"Are you Princess Wood?" Cherry asked the woman.

"Oh, heavens no! I've got far too many rings for that kind of responsibility. I am Nantosuelta and this is my husband, Sucellus. You are Cherry, correct?"

"Pleased to meet you, both," she replied. "Does everyone know who I am?"

"Of course. It is true you have a heart forged out of a dying star?" Sucellus asked.

Cherry blushed. "Well, that is more embellishment than I expected out of Windy."

His wife scoffed. "He's got it all sorts of wrong. I am certain it was a line about borne of nebula."

Cherry felt her face turn a deeper shade of rose. It was classic of Windy to make her out to be a figment of hot air. "Do you know where I can find your Princess?"

"No, and you got the wrong tree there for that sort of questioning," Sucellus answered.

"How so?"

"That willow there, he's sorrowful and only good for enchantment."

As in spells?"

"As in trance." He winked at his wife. "We're common visitors. Enjoy a bit of adventure ourselves in the comfort of our heads and forest-home."

Nantosuelta laughed lightly. "Find yourself a nice walnut or sycamore tree. The first for prophesy, the second for a favor. Princess Wood is often in the company of the first."

"Any tree I should avoid?"

"Yew."

"Me…?"

"Yew: Y-E-W. A taste will bring death."

"She's paled two shades below her olive color, husband. Don't be afraid, darling, you've got the woods in your command, and we're on your side."

Cherry smiled. "I know that now. Wish I'd taken a botany course or listened to my guardian when he pointed and named trees out. I've never been a fan of lectures. And he talked with his mouth full of food half the time."

"Care for a touch of inspiration?" Nantosuelta extended out her thin arm to the willow. "A bit of bewitchment?"

"Will it hurt?"

"No, but you'll develop an appetite when it's over."

"And sprout a leaf or two," her husband added.

"Well, if it helps me find Princess Wood…" Cherry began, and was immediately interrupted by the outreaching roots of the willow, snaking out of the earth beneath her feet. They wrapped around her wrists and ankles, raising her from the ground.

"Willow, go easy," Sucellus commanded.

…..O…..

In her haze of thoughts, Cherry imaged herself as a doll, no a puppet, on strings which pulled at her limbs in rather comical steps toward an unknown destination. Her head flopped from one side to another. Through blurred vision, faces of trees were etched, others protruded from trunks as she passed by.

"Here," the rustling said from the distant. She returned to full consciousness, seeing her strings, now as the ends of the willow roots, releasing her carefully to the ground.

She sympathized with Pinocchio, the poor creature subjected to such loss of self-control. It was no surprise he wished to be a real boy. The short experience left her head reeling as if filled with blue fairy dust. Not far, a small figure came into sight. She lacked the wings of a fairy, and by the likes of her vines and mossy green hair and the tiny tiara over it, Cherry had found her princess.

"Princess Wood?"

"Yes?" she twirled to her second visitor. "Oh! Cherry, you've come to see me!"

"Yes, I came to repay you for your blessing. It's only proper." Cherry looked over to the other individual in their vicinity, a young gray-haired man with glasses. "I'm sorry. I came at a bad time."

"No, please stay!" Princess Wood insisted. "This is my new friend, Julian Star. Julian, this is Cherry Blossom, future Queen of everything."

"Nice to meet you, Julian."

In the shadowy shield of trees, he seemed to glow, as if an aura smoldered under his skin."Likewise, Cherry. You have the prettiest green eyes. They look like emeralds."

She sweatdropped. He appeared human-like unlike the many encounters she's had with magical beings in weeks before. He was cute and had complimented her eyes. Called them 'emeralds,' though 'jade' was her preferred precious stone of comparison.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She had not realized she'd been gawking, staring at his perfect face, admiring his tall stature.

"Oh, yeah! I'm fine," she ascertained. "So where did you come from?" He must be from a human place, one where she could be from she hoped. His clothing was ordinary even if unusual for such place, clean white pants, white long-sleeved button-up shirt and white boots. He looked like a snow rabbit lost in the forest, so out of place yet undeniable adorable.

"Um, he's not able to entirely answer that clearly right now," Princess Wood said. "He has a bit of amnesia. Needs some help in jotting back his memory."

Yes, he indeed came from a place like hers, Cherry thought. "I know how you feel," she assured him. "What helps me is exploring. Little things here and there bring back the randomest flashes of my past."

"Take him with you," Princess said. "I can't leave for long, got too much to do. He needs a change of scenery. That would be a fair repayment, since you seek one."

"Can you?" he inquired, almost pleading. "I don't have much to offer you, except maybe this?" Julian produced a gold shard out of his pocket. It was similar to Cerberus' as if they once were part of a larger structure. If jewels and scrap metal were bartered properly they could bring them lodging and a real meal in the next faction.

Cherry Blossom bit her lower lip in thought. Should she accept taking the gorgeous human male with an amnesia streak not unlike hers, who'd sprinkle her with sweet words and perhaps even fall in love with her as the heroine of this story? Or return to her adventure with the gluttonous guardian, and be subjected to endless criticism of her lazy morning routine and poor grasp of magic?

"Let's go!" she exclaimed.

Julian's smile widened. "I'm ready, m'lady." After planting a gentlemanly kiss on her hand, he offered the crook of his arm. She happily accepted, borderline giddy and thrilled at a thought of living her own fairytale.

Yes, she would enjoy this adventure finally, and with luck find herself a king, if she hadn't already.

Finding romance in a playground was as likely as a puzzle box containing all the pieces in Mr. Reed's classroom. Yamazaki spoke of the Last-Piece Bandit, whose life purpose was the attainment of the final piece of puzzles. Legend went that if one failed in retrieving the piece and mortals completed the puzzle, the bandit's heart would break into pieces, literally, and die. The classroom certainly had a bandit, and it's name was Chiharu, who glued crudely fitting collected pieces together, in the shape of hearts, when she thought nobody looked.

The closest love came here was in recess chants, involving kissing in trees and ended in babies. It instilled fear everywhere.

"Your eyes are the color of crusty boogers."

"You would know, Syaoran, you're always picking your nose," Sakura snapped back. "And your eyes are the color of poop!"

"Nice, sis," Touya said. "Never thought I'd hear such filth from you." Her older brother and his best friend, Yukito, clung to the metal fencing separating their schoolyards, behind them.

Yukito shushed him. "Let them play, Touya, it's only in fun."

Sakura, perturbed by her brother's comment clarified herself to save face in front of her crush. "He said my eyes were two shiny clusters of boogers, green as the goo inside of a fat bug who ate all the leaves in a tree."

Yukito laughed. Sakura loved hearing the eleven-year-old laugh, even if it was at her expense this time. His voice was simply musical. "He needs help with his wording. I'm sure he meant they were as sparkly and beautiful as his marbles."

Syaoran gulped, and gathered his marbles, which shared the characteristic shade of green of her eyes, placing them in a small sack. He took off, red-faced and wordless.

"There's something wrong with that kid," Touya said.

Sakura picked up a lonely green sphere, left behind as a souvenir in her peer's haste. Syaoran's bipolar attitude towards her was something to marble at.

Cherry Blossom and Julian emerged from the forest into the clearing leading to their next destination. In the faint cast of evening over the pasture, Cerberus rested, paws folded and tucked under his head.

"You're still here," Cherry said.

"You've got the map and the elemental resources," he explained. "Why, you're on a date?"

"Shut up," she said through gritted teeth, releasing her companion's arm. "This is Julian, he'll be joining us."

"Whatevs."

"You don't wanna know why, how, when, or the what?"

His eyes narrowed, focusing intently on the Julian Star person before him for a second before breaking eye contact. "Nope."

"Great. Let's make like a tree..."

Cerberus flew onto Julian's shoulder, disregarding asking permission and made himself a seat there. "Poor guy, you're gonna be hearing plenty of such gems from this one."

"Yew are so rootless, Kero," punned Cherry.

"See?"

"It's okay. I'm ready to branch out to Cherry lingo. A good pun can spruce up any conversation," Julian teased.

"Sweet mother of Clow..."

"Quit yer barking..." The girl grinned. "Fronds, I see some cake in our fuchsia."

"That is the worst one yet."

Julian followed, "If I may go out on a limb and say..."