The Dolphin's Footsteps
by Morgan D.

Book I

Card Captor Sakura's characters belong to CLAMP and Kodansha. I'm responsible for Tata, Gareth Wilcox, Lady Wilcox, Lieh-Pai and the others. Feel free to borrow them, just tell people I'm the one to blame for their existence ^_~
Sequel to "Orbit and Contact". You'd better read it before getting to this one.
Shounen Ai.

~*~

Part II
Three Summons

Yue, of course, took it the wrong way. Clow couldn't believe any of his Guardians would actually think he would ever tell them "you'll regret this" in that sense. Not seriously anyway. It wasn't his style, and furthermore, it was never the treatment he offered to anyone as dear and close to his heart as his adorable creations.

So it was hard not to feel somewhat betrayed by the apprehensive look in his moon lark's face. The wizard tried to be rational and remember that Yue was probably still feeling guilty for shooting that arrow without paying attention to his surroundings. Even if Kerberus had jumped in the way and dexterously caught the arrow in mid-flight on purpose, he could have been just obliviously flying around. It could have been a real accident, a quite dangerous one. Yue was usually very careful when practicing, and awfully strict about his own mistakes. He would think this slip would deserve the harshest punishment, and who else to dictate this punishment if not his Master? That was the natural assumption of a servant.

A servant.

Clow sighed bitterly. He wasn't all that fond of hard disciplining, and he had imagined Yue would have noticed it already. Perhaps having Gareth around for so long hadn't been such a bright idea after all. The boy reminded Yue too often that most sorcerers had little attachment to their magical "pets"; he might have inadvertently stuck some weird notions in the Moon Guardian's head.

Lady Wilcox was known for pulling her singing griffins' tails whenever they got out of tune, and for quoting her horse trainer when talking about the best ways to teach magical beings. Clow had hoped Gareth would grow wiser than that, but... Good grief...

Educating by fear wasn't something Clow could see himself doing. Besides, he couldn't think of a worse punishment for Yue than the shocking realization that he could have indeed accidentally killed someone, or the brutal embarrassment of being laughed at for falling for another of Kerberus's practical jokes. Adding any scolding to it at that point would only push the Moon Guardian further in his little corner of reserve and cautious mistrust of the world. Push him further away in his perennial orbit around his Master...

He couldn't. He had to talk to Yue, explain about the vision...

...explain... how? What was that vision?

"Honey, I think Blue-eyes might want to send a reply to these letters," Tata told Yue with her most loving tone. "Why don't you go fetch him his quill and stationery?"

Yue still eyed Clow with frightened eyes, as if he hadn't heard her. But at last he nodded absently and flew to the house.

"Hey Clow," Kerberus huffed when the silvery angel was out of earshot. "C'mon, it's not as bad as all that... I know he didn't mean it." He shrugged. "Well, not entirely."

Pathetic tears flooded the wizard's eyes, and he dried them hastily before they ran down his face. He could feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears, the eggs he had had for breakfast were churning in his stomach, the chilly air was burning his dry throat... and Kerberus had to choose that precise moment to be so absolutely endearing? "You don't need to defend him," he murmured, wincing at the sudden hoarseness in his voice. "I'm not angry."

"I'm not defending him!" the lion groaned. "It's just that..."

Clow waited patiently until his Sun Guardian came out with an excuse. It had to be a good one, to justify that lapse of protectiveness towards his "arch-rival".

"...it's just that he'll get all sullen and desolate because you admonished him and he won't talk to me for a whole month..." Kerberus twitched his muzzle. "...not that this is a bad thing, that's probably the best part of it... But then he also won't have the guts to talk to you for a month..." His wings fluttered. "...although that'll be great, because you'll get to spend more time playing backgammon with me instead of babysitting him... But then he'll refuse to talk to the Cards too!" He grinned triumphantly. "And that will be a disaster because I'll be the only one putting them to work on the house, and the Moony ones will be nice enough to obey me but never the way they're supposed to... Rain will swamp the garden, Lock will bar all the wrong doors, Song will hum my lullaby out of tune, Loop will make me walk through the same corridors over and over... A complete cataclysm!"

Clow's eyes still stung menacingly. His lips wouldn't accept any command not to smile now. "I think I'm still perfectly capable of controlling my Cards, Kerberus. All of them."

The Sun Guardian hesitated only for half a second. "Yeah, but you'll be too busy trying to get Yue not to be miserable, and that takes time..."

Tata petted his ears. "Your fur got all ruffled in the fight, kitten... Bring me a brush and I'll smooth it for you."

The lion scowled. "You just want me to leave you alone with Clow so you two can talk behind my back."

"Exactly," she agreed with a broad smile.

"Moon witch," Kerberus growled. "Because of that you'll have to rub my tummy too." With that the Sun Guardian rose gloriously in the air, soaring to the house on a completely different route from Yue's.

The sorceress chuckled. "I have to hand it to you, Blue-eyes. He's quite a character."

Kerberus... What did that vision mean for Kerberus? Better off without... shattered wings... blood everywhere... Stray words from different voices, all whispering in tormented sorrow for a reality that was too coarse to be borne with sanity...

Tata put in Clow's hand the glass she had just poured for Yue. "Here, drink this. Right now I don't know who needs it worse."

He accepted the beverage, distantly noticing the slight change in taste from her calming spell. "Why did you send them away? I don't want Yue to think that I..."

"I know. But then you'll have to tell him what you meant by "too soon you'll be regretting these words". Are you feeling up to it already?"

Clow sighed and shook his head. Sure, he could simply say that those were the words of a prophecy, that someday he would see Yue displaying deep remorse for having said what he had just said... Hah, so simple... As if both Yue and Kerberus wouldn't assault him with all kinds of questions the second the term "prophecy" were mentioned. Very understandable questions, for which Clow had no fathomable answers so far.

The Guardians weren't gifted with the power of clairvoyance. They understood it in a theoretical sense, but never experienced it. Hence only Tata comprehended the haziness of it, and the numb feeling of loneliness that always followed a vision. Even visions predicting only happiness and good fortune brought the hollow, saddening sensation of having been alone in a misty world no one else could touch, and coming back without any words to properly describe what has been seen, heard and felt.

He needed time to reorganize his thoughts, regain his composure. And find out what he could and what he couldn't tell his Guardians.

Minutes passed in thoughtful silence. The sun hid behind a small treacherous cloud, the only one tainting the perfect blue of the morning sky. Clow found himself wishing it to be summer again.

"It must have been really bad if you were fighting it," Tata suggested softly, not wanting to press him.

"I don't know. I wasn't even aware of fighting it."

"Vivid images?"

"No... yes." He leaned back on the chair, massaging his temples. "I'm not sure I really saw something. I was looking at Yue's face... and that was all I could see, his eyes staring at me with so much emotion..."

Tata perked up. "Emotion?"

"Not that kind of emotion," Clow snorted. "Fear. Shame. Anxiety."

"I saw those too, Blue-eyes," she pointed out. "Those were real."

"But then it changed. Horror. Anger. Indignation. And it kept changing over and over. Sadness. Loneliness. And fear again, more than ever. And pity."

"Pity?"

"I'm not sure pity is the right word. It was the only warm emotion I could sense from him. It was the only warm feeling I had throughout the whole experience."

"And that was all you saw?"

Clow took another sip of the juice. "Yes. But there were voices. Voices I know, mostly."

"Whose?"

He let out a sarcastic chuckle. "I couldn't tell. Isn't that what makes clairvoyance interesting?"

Tata rolled her eyes. "I only heard of one sorcerer that had visions as accurate as yours, Blue-eyes, and it was an old witch from Nepal, four times your age, that only got to be as good as you in her last decade of life. Count your blessings, boy!"

Clow was about to retort when he saw his two Guardians returning, carrying the objects they had been sent to fetch. Yue had also changed clothes, leaving behind the dirty white garments and flying back to his Master wearing a long navy-blue tunic, plain and with no ornaments except for the inseparable azure gem on the chest. He was trying to wordlessly show his repentance, Clow knew. However, Yue's attempts of dressing humbly were never that successful. Always with him was that ethereal, august quality, as if he had the innate ability of looking dignified even covered with mud.

He and Kerberus landed before the two sorcerers at the same time but not together, as they had approached the garden table from different sides. Opposing sides.

In other circumstances, Clow would have laughed at how intrinsic that diametrical attitude was becoming to those two. But with the acrid perfume of ominous stupor still filling his nostrils, the mage sensed there wouldn't be many occasions to laugh for the next months...

~*~

At least Tata and Kerberus were having fun. Especially since the woman was visibly less interested in arraying the lion's fur than making it as entertaining as possible. "I'd never noticed how much you resemble my grandfather," she chortled, combing the white fur around his mouth to cover his snout.

"What a great figure he must... *aaaa-CHOO*... have been." Kerberus rubbed a paw to his nose. "That tickles."

She put the white fur back as it was supposed to be... but started drawing strange patterns on the golden pelt over his eyes. "And like this you look just like our dear Lady Wilcox..."

The lion frowned. "My chin will never be that big..."

"Don't move! Don't move!" Tata examined him closely. "Look, Blue-eyes! Scowling like this, couldn't he pass for Lieh-Pai's younger brother?"

Kerberus tilted his head furiously. "Don't insult me!"

The sorceress grabbed him by the neck before he could run. "Come back here, I'm not done with you yet. And I happen to find Lieh-Pai a very attractive man."

"What?!" The Sun Guardian couldn't believe his ears.

"The only one of Blue-eyes's cousins I bothered to look twice at."

"He's a mucky snake!"

"No, he's a stalwart, virile, handsome snake." She winked at Yue. "Don't you think so, honey?"

"Huh?" the silvery angel blinked. "I... I don't know."

"Be honest, honey. Don't tell me you've never noticed him."

Yue seemed completely lost, sitting beside Clow without daring to raise his eyes towards him, his long fingernails scratching the table surface nervously. "The Counselor has... a very distinguished presence."

Tata grimaced at the diplomatic reply, but chose not to continue the game. Clow wasn't paying any attention anyway, as he let his mind flee from his current problems to focus on the first of the three letters. "Bad news, Blue-eyes?"

"Lady Wilcox," he answered succinctly.

She rolled her eyes. "Bad news then."

"Does she send news about Gareth?" asked Kerberus.

"No. She gives me a detailed report on the religious practices in the Brendt farms."

Tata knitted her thin brows. "Why?"

"She's afraid that... the Brendt stockmen are risking their souls by embracing vile customs that are condemned by the Church of England," he quoted.

"I thought Lady Wilcox was Calvinist," Tata pointed out.

"She is," Clow agreed wryly. "Only she doesn't realize it yet."

"Does any of that make any difference?" Kerberus yawned, offering his neck to Tata's brush.

"What does she want, Blue-eyes?"

"My help to... guide those lost, incautious souls back to the path of Truth and Righteousness," he quoted again.

"You?!" The sorceress let out a wild, vibrant laugh. "I wouldn't trust you to guide me across the street!"

"Tata, please..."

"And since when you've converted to the Church of England?"

"Lady Wilcox describes me here as a wise, kindhearted magician," Clow said dryly. "I suppose we always think wise people must share our beliefs, or else they wouldn't be wise." He sighed. "The fact is, she never asked me about my religion."

Kerberus was frowning in wonder. "I don't get it, Clow. What does she expect you to do about those folks? For all I know, you don't have the power to change other people's faith... do you?"

"I don't even want to find out."

"But..."

"Coercion, kitten," explained Tata. "Intimidation. Threatening them with impressive magic, frightening them with the power of lightning, floods, drought, hurricanes... and promising the gods' forgiveness and good fortune if they "choose" to change their habits. Good grief, I've seen too much of it everywhere."

"Gareth's mother wouldn't..."

"Only because she doesn't have enough power to do it, thank goodness. That's the greatest dilemma with magic wielders. At first they're so fascinated with the things they can do that they never stop to think if those are things they should do. Only many and many decades of practice can bring you knowledge and discipline enough so you can decide wisely when to interfere and when to let it be. And if you think about it, kitten, you'll realize that the most powerful sorcerers of all time were precisely the ones that least intervened in history."

"I'm not sure if I agree with you, Tata," Clow murmured.

The old woman sent him a heavy glare. "Don't tell me you're considering to accept..."

"Of course I'm not. I'm just saying that we don't study magic for so long only to keep our houses clean, our gardens blooming and our stomachs full. It'd be horribly selfish to waste all our skills and knowledge with ourselves. If we're blessed with the faculty of helping other people to find good fortune, tranquility, health, justice, our omission is unacceptable."

Tata was shaking her head in clear disappointment. "And here I was so happy that you took after your father..."

"My father never neglected anyone in need."

"No, but he knew that magic wasn't the solution for all the needs of the world."

"I'm not saying it is!" Clow protested.

"Are you sure?"

The two sorcerers glowered at each other for a brief moment, until their irritation was dissolved into the warm comfort of familiarity. "You know, Tata, I don't think I ever got you to tell me I'm right about anything," Clow giggled.

She shrugged and resumed brushing Kerberus's fur with a lopsided grin. "You never are, that's why."

The lion wouldn't rest still though, as his delighted chuckles burst in the air. Clow's strange, reticent mood was bothering him greatly, and Yue's despondent silence was assuredly not improving things at all, so it was a relief to have the old Moon witch around at a time like that to hearten those two up. Especially since her methods were so amusing.

"Don't mock me, Kerberus," Clow nudged him, and opened the second envelope. "Or I won't tell you that the other letter is from Gareth."

The next second the Sun Guardian was on his hind legs behind Clow, leaning over the mage's chair so he could read from over his shoulder. "What does he say? Is he back in Cambridge?"

It was hard for Clow to tell, with a large lion's head between him and the paper.

Yue opened his mouth to censure Kerberus for snooping into their Master's correspondence, but closed it tight before uttering a single sound. He wouldn't risk hearing another rebuke from Clow.

"Hey, he's still here!" Kerberus exclaimed, reading the heading. "Heh, I guess his mother wasn't ready to let him go back yet... Won't he be in trouble in school for being away for so long?"

"I'll try to find out as soon as you let me read his letter," Clow smirked.

"Huh? Oh!" The lion dismounted from the mage's seat and returned to Tata's care. "But read it out loud!"

Clow didn't. As always, Gareth's writing was long, verbose, overly anecdotal and very reluctant to be any objective, precisely what he wasn't in the mood for right now. He quickly ran his eyes down the eight pages of small, flowery calligraphy, looking for actual content, promising Kerberus to let him read them by himself later.

At the last page, in the very last paragraph, was the real reason behind Gareth's missive. "For crying out loud, she's taking this too seriously," Clow groaned.

"What? Who?"

"Lady Wilcox. Gareth says she's already started her intimidation strategy."

"What is she doing?" Tata inquired.

"Gareth describes a new being she created... a tiny insect with an orchid shape. Apparently quite exquisite for what he says, but with a voracious appetite for wheat grains..."

The old woman couldn't hide her surprise. "So she does have enough power?!"

"Some farmers have lost one fifth of their crops already," Clow told them. "But still she thinks her Orchaide, as Gareth's calls it, is too slow for her purposes, and creating another would take too much time..."

"...and that's why she asked your help," Tata concluded bitterly. "Because her version of divine punishment isn't convincing enough."

Kerberus was shocked. "What's got into her?! She's all weird and brassy, and some of her sudden whims make even Clow look like a sufferable man... but this?!"

Clow had a suspicion or two about that. Lady Wilcox had always been a loud, opinionated woman ever since he remembered her. However, something had been changing gradually over the years, something deep and subtle, since she had lost her husband to a preposterous skirmish with an enraged servant that returned with a sharp sword an unnecessary insult to his honor. There was no one around to counter her anymore, and only one son to offer her heart to. A son that had irremediably grown old enough to go to a university too many miles away, old enough to want and need independence, but still too young to understand that he really didn't need to break all the ties with...

He halted that line of thought with a shudder. Dangerous topic. One that Tata could easily turn against him if he said it aloud.

Lady Wilcox had changed, period. And her growing solitude probably had a lot to do with her expanding weirdness and brassiness.

"Well, that's exactly the kind of nosy sorcerer I was talking about," Tata spat. "She believes Truth and Power are beside her, so why not use the latter to guarantee the former?"

"The sad part is that she might be genuinely worried about the stockmen's souls," Clow sighed. "If she genuinely believes that what they do is offensive to the God she prays for."

Tata snorted at that, but said nothing.

"At least Gareth is also showing genuine concern about the situation in Brendt," the wizard pointed out. "And that is exactly what I meant by helping other people to find justice. He's not a magician, but if he were I'm sure he'd using his talents to do the right thing. I'm sure he is using all the talents he has to do the right thing."

"Like calling you to help him?" Tata asked caustically.

"If I know Gareth, he's doing a lot more than that," Kerberus stated confidently.

Clow nodded.

"After all, even if he's not so genuinely concerned about the crops or the Truth's owner, he's very genuinely in love with a pretty brunette whose father is some sort of parson or druid in Brendt," the Sun Guardian went on. "He was even talking about marriage, you know."

The two sorcerers froze. Even Yue was choking at that.

Sensing the abrupt silence, Kerberus eyed the people around them with exasperation. "What?"

"Good grief!" Clow gasped.

Tata leaned back on her chair and faked a thoughtful look. "Say, Blue-eyes... You think young Gareth wanting to marry outside his mother's religion might have a little something to do with all this?" Sarcasm was practically dripping from her tongue.

"I can't believe it. I can't believe it!" Clow blurted out. "What are they thinking?!"

The old lady shrugged. "My guess is that they think you are a wise, kindhearted magician, who's still naïve enough to be manipulated by whoever comes up with a clever speech full of good intentions. And I'm still not sure if they're wrong."

Clow stood up and paced around the table as his blood rushed violently to his head and limbs, making it impossible for him to remain seated. "Absurd! This goes beyond all the discussions about ethics we might have. It's a low game, absolutely irresponsible!"

In silence, Tata played with the brushy fur on the tip of Kerberus's tail for a few minutes, giving Clow the time to steam off. Honestly, she found hard to bring her heart to feel so much indignation, despite the obvious cowardliness of using magic to attack the crops of defenseless farmers. She had indeed seen too much of it already, and Lady Wilcox was simply not worse or better than the great majority of sorcerers in the world. Tata wasn't too old to care, but she did feel too old to believe there was a way out. That kind of egotistical wickedness seemed to be engraved in the very essence that made mankind to be what it was. Very few tried to fight this fateful trait, and fewer yet were any successful in it.

Besides, although she and Lady Wilcox could hardly be considered friends, they had too much in common to make any easy for Tata to point fingers at the other. Two women in their last years of life, lonely women that had once loved passionately, worked intensely, breathed delightedly, enjoyed the boon of existence as if it grew from an immortal tree that would never leave them hungry... Two witches that now had to approach the end of their road with the tart realization that they were leaving no heirs to their magic -- poor Gareth! --, no one to continue their works, no mark for posterity, no sign that their passion, intensity and delight had meant anything more than an ephemeral breeze over the grass.

Two women desperate to build something good, something to be proud of. Tata had focused on her dear tutor's son, and tried at least make sure that he'd be walking a path for happiness when she left this life. But that implied supposedly knowing what was best for him, just like Lady Wilcox supposedly knew what was best for Gareth and the Brendt stockmen...

One good reason never to offer Yue a love potion. If Tata were wrong about her assumptions, then hopefully fate would prove her wrong. Just because she knew how to bend nature didn't mean she knew when to do it.

Yue stared at his Master's frantic pacing, mute anxiety widening his feline eyes, while Kerberus wondered what malevolent bug had bitten Clow that morning. The crackpot wizard hadn't yelled at Yue -- or any of them, actually -- in years, not since that time the two Guardians had had a nasty fight about the taste of snow. Yue had called Erase to delete the ground under Kerberus's feet, and the lion had asked for Create's help to produce a varied amount of heavy objects to be dropped on the angel's head... therefore reforming the layout of Clow's house in Japan... you know, just a tiny little bit...

And even then Clow would have found it funny... if only Erase hadn't gotten rid of his whole library, and Create hadn't dropped the head of the Egyptian Sphinx on his washroom...

Anyway. Clow had yelled at Yue then. Well, at both of them. And the wizard didn't even help them to fix things, nor did he let them use the Cards for it. He only smiled at them again after his bathtub was repaired five weeks later. The longest five weeks in Kerberus's life, and he didn't want to imagine the hell it had been for Yue. The irksome Moon Guardian was far too sensitive to their Master's mood.

So whatever was bugging Clow now, Kerberus hoped it would leave him alone fast. A gloomy Clow meant sadness and boredom in the whole house.

Eventually, the wizard stopped pacing, coming to stand near the table. "Yue?"

The silvery angel nearly jumped. "Yes, Master?" Yue answered tentatively, still not facing him.

Not that Clow would have noticed it, since he still couldn't face his moon lark either. "Would you write a reply for the Wilcoxes for me? My hands are shaking."

The Guardian looked like someone else entirely after Clow's softly spoken request. Not completely his usual self yet, but at least the palest shade of pink tinted his cheeks, his feathers rippled contentedly, and a threat of a smile glimmered in his lips. "Of course, Master."

As Yue took hold of the quill and papers and prepared for the dictate, Clow opened the third envelope, his mind totally concentrated on elaborating polite but strong sentences to express his feeling on the whole matter of the Brendt farms. He valued the Wilcoxes' friendship and didn't want to lose it, but there were limits. There had to be limits. To his patience and to their thoughtlessness.

Tata sighed sadly. That beautiful morning had promised her such a jolly, pleasant day, and somehow everything was down the drain now. She massaged Kerberus's neck with great care, wondering if she could count on the Sun Guardian's complicity in a plan to restore the good spirits of the house...

Yue signaled that he was ready. The sorceress was sure that his calligraphy would be unbearably faultless, a work of art worthy of being hung on the wall before the King's bed, so eager was the angel to please his Master.

"I received your letter," Clow dictated in Chinese. "I'll be leaving immediately. Count on my arrival in no more than twenty-five days."

Yue blinked. "Should I write to the Wilcoxes in Chinese?"

Kerberus was even more intrigued. "Are you planning to creep all the way to the Wilcox Estate? There's no way you'll take twenty-five days to get there if you leave immediately."

Tata stared at Clow in bewilderment, astonished at how quickly he seemed to have regained his ludicrous sense of humor...

...but there was no humor at all in him. A massive, tenebrous aura enveloped him whole, bringing the temperature around him to fall brusquely, bringing the scariest shiver to her bones. She tried to call his name, and found her voice gone.

Clow clenched his fingers, crumpling the solitary paper that composed the third letter, the one he had just read. "We're going to Hong Kong," he hissed.

"Again?" Yue gulped. Clow looked even more furious than before. And he was emitting to his Guardians the sense of danger, of needing their protection, but Yue couldn't find any menace around!

"What about Gareth and the Brendt farms?" Kerberus frowned.

Tata had to gather great courage to fight that dreadful speechlessness that had dominated her. "Blue-eyes... if this is your mother summoning you again," she indicated the crumpled letter, "let me deal with her. The old hag is always coming up with the darkest ultimatums, but I can..."

"She's gone, Tata," Clow snapped, thick tears winning over him. "My mother is dead."

~*~

April 9th, 2002

Author's Notes:
- I couldn't find any place called Brendt in the Atlas, so hopefully this is an entirely fictional land founded in my overactive mind.
- No offense of any kind was meant to followers of any religion. We'll sadly find people like Lady Wilcox in all religious/political/social groups, in all countries, in all History.

This story is part of the Clow no Tenshi timeline. Read the other stories of the series in the Only the Inevitable website:
http://www.solitudeofafallingstar.hpg.com.br/cardcaptorsakura.html