“We’re, home!”

Syaoran’s exclamation rang out upon the sands like a bell. Kurogane blinked, forced the fog out of his mind. He hated dimension jumping, never got used to the feeling of being off-balance. A shake or two of his head was needed just to focus his eyes to the new light. When he was able to perceive more than mere shapes again, he grunted. The kid was right. They were indeed in Clow’s kingdom.

Waves upon waves of sand spread out in front of them, an unending ocean of it. Every once in a while a craggy hill or otherwise unidentified structure broke upon the landscape. The sun beat down upon the land, the heat emanating from it dry and unforgiving. It scorched the back of Kurogane’s neck. They’d need cover soon. Every survival instinct in him warned for the necessity of shade and shelter. It was a hostile world out here.

It was Syaoran’s world. His home. Fai could see the young man’s excitement in his odd tension, the impatient energy of seeing home. It made sense of course; how long had it been since Syaoran had last breathed the air of the world he loved so much? How long had it even been since they’d last seen Sakura? In the flesh of course, for Syaoran and Sakura were in as much contact as they could possibly get. Really, sometimes Fai felt like a dad telling his child to get out of the telephone – that’s how the saying went, wasn’t it – and let his poor parents get some sleep.

But how could Fai blame him. After all, he was lucky enough. He woke up a pile of limbs, wrapped around his partner like a particularly acrobatic barnacle. He wasn’t about to begrudge Syaoran for yearning. As if to prove that, Fai ruffled the kid’s head. Syaoran deserved a welcome home too.

The wizard was about to say something sappy. Kurogane couldn’t help but smile at the idea. Idiot. The kid would be embarrassed. Really, his brow was so furrowed, his eye would probably sink right underneath his eyebrows after whatever idiocy left Fai’s lips. The expression flashed across Kurogane’s mind. He looked at the kid, then at the landscape. He shook his head.

“No. We’re not.”

About to scold Kurogane, Fai took a closer glance at Syaoran, worried that his feelings might be hurt somehow. What was Kurogane going on about? He certainly wasn’t the sort of moralist to make a comment about the home being where the heart is – unless there was a manuscript for a self-help book hidden at the bottom of his bag, which if so Fai needed to read before it ever hit a publisher. Perhaps Kurogane meant that they were in another part of Clow’s – or no longer Clow’s – world? He glanced down to Syaoran again, bracing for a stung look.

But to Fai’s surprise, when he went to do just that he found Syaoran not red, face cast downward, but instead nodding along. As zen as a sage. What sort of – Fai looked at Kurogane, bewildered. Ah wait, that’s how it was. Kurogane was not, in fact, experiencing a moment of moral clarity – which was good, because none of them were up for that right now, it was so terribly hot. He was, as Kurogane was fond of doing, stating a fact.

“The landscape is totally different,” Syaoran said, by confirmation. “It’s too craggy. The layers of sand are thin.”

As if to prove this, Kurogane stomped his foot, hit rock. He grinned. “You’re right. Wrong place.”

“What sort of place are we in then?” Fai asked.

Kurogane stifled a laugh. His poor mage. He’d clearly thought that they were safe on Syaoran’s home planet. Well, actually, he’d probably been looking forward to a chance to lecture Kurogane. Those chances were becoming fewer and farther between. When was the last time he’d even been called ‘Kuro-scary’ or ‘Kuro-grumpy.’ Not a long enough ways away. Kurogane wouldn’t give Fai an opening that easily. No matter how much he loved him. Some things were a matter of principle, and Kuro-cuddly was about how far he was willing to go on the matter.

He glanced over to find Mokona, found the pork bun fast asleep in a water skin. Kurogane couldn’t decide what was worse, verbal teasing or watching someone else bathe in cool water. Both of them seemed almost personally insulting. For different reasons. He cast another glance out upon the desert. It was hot. Very hot. Whoever lived here – did anyone live here? For some reason the matter seemed innately in question – must be deep underground.

“Perhaps there’s someone who needs our help,” Syaoran said, the look on his face mirroring the unease in the ninjga’s thought. Good kid, the disappointment probably wouldn’t even be visible to an outsider. “Or maybe some unusual activity.”

“Makes as much sense as any other reason.”

“Or as much nonsense.”

Kurogane couldn’t help but ruffle the kid’s head.

“Well.” Fai stretched himself a little taller. Clearly he’d managed to recover. “We should make camp. It’ll be too hot to walk around otherwise. Tomorrow we’ll have to look for water.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t buckled from all the water skins you’re already carrying,” Kurogane commented.

Fai ignored this. If not it would give Kurogane all too much attention.

It didn’t take as long to find a cave as Kurogane would have thought. Hard ground or not, that didn’t mean that there would be shelter every quarter mile. Or less. He glanced over at the neighboring rock structure, looking as craggy and unassuming as the hole they were currently crowded into. He’d missed it. How on Earth had he missed it. Almost fallen right off of it, had Syaoran not said something about it. No matter how much sand he’d trek through, Kurogane would never know as much about desert life as the kid. Kurogane was impressed. And maybe embarrassed.  

It didn’t help that the caves were all hiding behind – underneath, really – the sand dunes. They were designed to be as annoying to people as naturally possible. What if someone fell into one of the holes, bigger than they looked from far away? Fall right down through the rock, land at the center, die of exposure. Well, at least Kurogane had managed to avoid that.

He didn’t know why this place bothered him. Maybe it was the weird emptiness. Or maybe it was that it was too damn hot.

Fai took a sip from a water skin, feeling incredible smug at his forethought. ‘Don’t fill them,’ Kurogane has said. ‘It’ll be dead weight,’ he’d murmured the previous night – half asleep already or he wouldn’t have said something so stupid. But Fai did not allow himself to be so swept away from the siren song of sleep. Nope, that was not for Fai. At least, not outside of Tomoyo’s castle – the world’s worst insomniac could sleep thirteen hours in a row there, he was sure of it. A pity they were here instead. But then the water skins really would have been superfluous; so really maybe it was better that they’d ended up where they did.

He glanced over at Syaoran, who was writing furiously away in his journal. Fai would never pry of course, and so never did. But he liked in a way that Syaoran kept some sort of log. It was probably good for him. He had a good eye for detail – something which had helped them navigate this apparently-alien desert. He probably wouldn’t have been a bad author, had he been born in a completely different place and time. But then he’d be a different person, so really who knew.

Who would they all be, had they all been born in different places, different words. A pity that they’d never run into copies of themselves – or rather, he and Kurogane hadn’t, and Syaoran and Sakura’s copies hadn’t been the normal alternate dimension sorts. What would Kurogane be like as a ‘normal’ – the word normal would never truly apply – man. Maybe he’d be a school teacher. A grumpy one. Fai giggled.

Anyways, it was certainly good for Syaoran to get his emotions out. The disappointment was surely sharp. In a desert and no familiar friends in sight. Not even a bird caw. Whatever animals lay around them made sure to keep out of sight, skulking away in the corner of their vision. At one point, thinking he might have found a beetle, Fai had – against Kurogane’s warning about venomous bugs, really the man was such a worrier – sunk his hand into the sand. Alas, though her was confident that he’d felt thrashing, the scurrying of something nut smooth brushing against his fingers, the bug had evaded the outlander’s grasp. No dice.

Good thing they had rations. Kurogane slumped against the stony rock. They’d find out what they needed to do here and then they’d be off. Hopefully to a cooler place next time. They’d need to travel at night now. Better that than risk heat stroke. But it was so empty here. Emptier than anywhere they’d been in a while. It was a bad sign. The group always gravitated towards human settlement. What happened when they got to a place without it? Even Tokyo had people.

Heat and shade are a powerful sleep-inducer. As are unanswered questions. Kurogane could feel warm oblivion settling behind his eyelids. His jaw was clenched. He smoothed it out. The rock behind him wasn’t so bad. What kind of rock might it be? Craggy rock. Syaoran probably knew. Too bad for Syaoran…

It was dark. Night. They’d have to move soon. Good. He didn’t want to be here.

Sitting up, Kurogane glanced around. No one.

He got up. Moved to the edge of the cavern. It was far away. There was a tunnel shooting off.

No sign of life.

No footprints.

He turned to the tunnel. Glided down. It was warm.

There was weak light at the end. It was his home. He recognized the tree. It had grown. It almost touched the moon.

He could probably reach up and touch the moon.

It was the only thing here.

He moved. Went towards the palace. It was all splinters.

How odd.

The cemetery was overgrown.

The lichens had almost reached the tree.

Kurogane jolted awake. For a moment memory left him, and all he could sense was a vague amalgamation of dread, nestling in his gut. The walls around him glared, all pockmarked and ragged. Not walls, rocks. Ah, that’s right. They were in a cave, in the middle of nowhere, alone.

Rolling away from the rock centimeters away from his nose, Kurogane looked for Fai. Now was not the time to have second thoughts about being ‘Kuro-cuddly’ – an impulse he was working through, at the mage’s request. He wanted comfort. But no matter how much his eyes searched, Kurogane realized that his mage wasn’t there. The information passed through his head innocuously enough. But the dread dusting his shoulders settled on thicker. Glancing only to make sure that Syaoran was asleep, grabbing a set of sun-goggles, Kurogane stepped out into the now evaporating daylight.

It wasn’t hard to find him. Fai never bothered to cover his tracks. Why would he? Idiot. Loving idiot, but idiot nevertheless. Didn’t Fai know the slightest thing about taking care of yourself in a hostile environ? Yes, maybe he was a vampire. But vampires probably couldn’t walk on air sans help, and if the man went careening down a tunnel, Kurogane would have to jump in and drag him out. He would do it without feeling the obligation. But it would be stressful and unpleasant, and didn’t Fai know that nights – or days in this case, it was damnably hot out – were better spent with Kurogane himself? Of course Fai knew that, but one couldn’t expect idiots to keep their principles straight all the time. Maybe Fai had finally found a bug and wandered out after it. He probably didn’t find people, but considering how oddly craggy it was around here. Who knew?

He knew. Kurogane realized that he’d walked far away from the camp. Hopefully Fai was close. Kurogane didn’t like being in such a lifeless place.

His hair itched. He ran his fingers through it. Damn. That nightmare had really done a number on him. His head felt fogged with something. He felt as stupid as the mage that had wandered out alone in the desert. What if Fai had gotten hurt? Heatstroke was no joke. And there were no doctors to speak of here. What would Kurogane do? The image of Fai sprawled out on the ground painted itself across his consciousness. It made him almost nauseous. He realized his feet had sped up significantly.

He would find that damn mage and save him from whatever idiocy had befallen him – if Kurogane had to personally rent a tear in the space-time continuum.

If Yuuko were still alive, she’d laugh at him.

So would Fai, it seemed. Kurogane looked up and found his vision eclipsed by the icy clearness of his partner’s gaze. As delicate as ice on the river, it was also full of laughter.

Kurogane looked rather worse for wear Fai thought idly. It wasn’t just the bedhead either – how adorable; it made Fai want to drag his hands through the thick strands. The ninja looked a little dazed, standing like a bear lumbering out of hibernation, caught off guard by an errant tracker in the snow. Maybe even a hunter. Fai pressed back a giggle. The metaphor wasn’t exactly apt considering the environment they were in right now. He looked like a… sleeping lion? An awoken camel? What did live in the desert? Oh the occupational hazards of living in a land of ice and snow. There was no fixing it. Fai would have to ask Syaoran later.

Kurogane did look rather worse for wear. He brushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face, not waiting for Fai to approach and do just that. He was sweating too. The man was lucky that dusk was coming on, Without saying anything Fai untied his water skin from his hip. He handed it to the ninja, who drank long and deep. His neck flexed as he swallowed. Beautiful neck, beautiful skin. But too tense, both of them. Clearly something was afoot.

“Why are you here,” Kurogane rasped. The sound sobered the mage.

“To see the view.”

“What view?”

He hadn’t even noticed. Fai raised an eyebrow, smiled. “The one over there, Kuro-focused. Look.”

The ninja followed the sweep of his partner’s arm. There, not too far away, some old ruins rose out of the sandy landscape. Marble perhaps, sandstone? The pillars that remained looked elegant, despite the pock marks that were visible even from meters away, chunks falling, already fallen, barely clinging onto the life of the pillar. The wall shone less with old splendor, but the blue flashes of what was surely paint looked deep and pure even now. A section of roof was holding onto dear life in one place, arching elegantly, like a nobleman among riotous ruin.

“Any signs of life?”

“No. No one’s been here for centuries. Maybe a millennia.”

The words came out almost on a sigh, ringing with the hollowed nostalgia of looking at the old, abandoned home of some unnamed people who were, in the end, not yours. All sweetness of admiration. No agony of loss.

“Any magic?”

“Not that I can sense.”

“Then why walk out in the daytime to go look at it?”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

A picture of burnt out wood and collapsed roofing shot through Kurogane, cold and sharp.

“Ruins aren’t beautiful.”

“What a grouchy thing to say Kuro-philistine!” Fai couldn’t help but laugh, and the sound echoed around in the empty space like a lone bell in a cemetery. “You can only say that if you’ve been hauled around too many old sites. I never left the capital of Celes before running off on adventure – not in all my centuries. It’s very boring to never see something of the world, Kuro-traveler. And then when you do you’re on a timer… I’m determined to play the tourist!”

“You never play tourist, Fai. None of us do. We’re not here for pleasure.”

Kurogane really did look rather tired. And rather wrong, but the poor darling was wrong about so many things. It was in one’s nature at times, to be wrong about things. But it was pressing heavy on the ninja now, Fai knew. Kurogane didn’t usually let it. But it happened to everyone. They were all subject to the whims of emotions, mortal or not. Fai’d learned that the rather hard way. Not abandoning his facing towards the ruins – clearly they were a point of contention, a knot that need to be massaged away – Fai tilted his head slowly.

“We’re not looking for feathers anymore. Perhaps the trip is not exactly leisure in origin. But I don’t think anyone will mind a mage’s look into the past for an evening. This civilization is older than I am, you know. A lot of modern ones aren’t. When we went to Hanshin? I couldn’t help but think I was easily a century or two old when it began. It’s not always fun feeling like an old man. Especially when a vampire!! Aged and decrepit indeed!”

When Fai turned to look at his partner, he found him – almost crying? Though the tears had not come, the expression of agony was unmistakable.

“Kurogane. Tell me what’s wrong.”

A part of Kurogane bucked against the gentle command. But the care in Fai’s voice quickly smoothed away the reaction. The mage was right, at least this time.

“I dreamt that Nihon was gone.” There was no comment, so Kurogane continued. “I was walking around a shell of the palace. There was nothing. Completely empty. I…” he grunted an irritated laugh, “I dreamt that there was a cemetery growing up in the backyard. There’s no cemetery in the palace grounds. But I dreamt it.”

He stared at Fai, and his eyes were almost accusatory, lulled anger echoing. “I don’t want to be on this dead planet with nothing but ruins.”

“And.”

“And I think sometimes that we’re going to be planet hunting until we all die. One by one.”

“Are you afraid of death, Kurogane?”

“No.”

“But?”

“But right now,” communicating fears was like pouring molten down your throat, “we’re stuck. Traveling forever. Never going home. There’s no curse to stop this time, Fai. No feathers. It’s just the rules of things. What the witch went on about. Inevitability. Damn it, I don’t want to believe it.”

“But…”

“But sometimes I think it’s true. You can’t beat inevitability.”

It was more than that. The future, it lay ahead like an endless string of road, leading nowhere but into a dull, blank horizon. All the way home slinked farther and farther away. Kurogane didn’t mind traveling. He didn’t need to be home all the time. And yet the future loomed ahead, just as certain as the ruins now in front of him. He could almost imagine the ruins himself and Fai and Syaoran. Down in this god forsaken world, while Nihon lay in shreds somewhere else. Would he even be able to protect Tomoyo from the end he saw in his mind?

To say this all to Fai, to set it out like a child, make the ninja feel hysteric. And yet the dream, the truth of it, remain dusted on his shoulders.

“Kurogane.”

The ninja looked up. His mage was looking at him with a small smile. In it Kurogane read the understanding that could only come from the ages and ages. He forgot sometimes, that civilizations had been made younger than Fai.

“You aren’t a seer – though you are very talented. So as to a cemetery growing in Nihon, I would not rely on it. However,” Fai raised a finger to his lips, sensing the quick retort already in the back of Kurogane’s throat, “even if Nihon comes to ruin someday it is very rare that civilizations fall and swallow up all their people with it. If that comes to pass, the people who will come after us – or perhaps Tomoyo herself – will still find somewhere to live. Hasn’t the past shown you, we’re all wildly stubborn on living. And if we aren’t, the people around us are.”

Kurogane’s expression was supremely dissatisfied. His mouth a thin, straight line, the ninja swept his hand out towards the desert.

“Yes, it’s true, there are ruins here. You can’t expect people to pack up all their buildings with them, can you Kurogane?”

“There’s nothing else here. Whoever came after, they didn’t replace them with anything. It’s not just here. You sense this. It’s empty. This place is empty. This land is deserted.”

“Do you think people cannot find a way to travel worlds when they need it? For all we know Kurogane, we’re standing on top of an evil dragon who might eat us any day. Or maybe there is no water in this world, it all dried up. Maybe the air was bad for them. Or maybe it was time to leave. Besides, we may yet be surprised. But if we aren’t, we got here. We’ll get out. There are no skeletons scattered around her. I doubt a meteor simply dropped on the world and took everyone with it.”

The ninja gave the mage a look; but still he drew closer, smelling of fresh air and of Fai, smiling with the unshakable confidence of a man who wouldn’t let his lover’s fears sit there untouched. Kurogane thought about how insufferable this whole conversation would be if it wasn’t for the person he was having it with.

“They could come back someday. Maybe in a hundred years. In a thousand. Probably not in ten, but you have to consider, after all there’s hope for all of us, don’t you?” The mage appeared to ignore the chuckle that slipped, unbidden, from Kurogane’s mouth. “Inevitability is a big thing. But it’s hardly quicksand. There were moments when the universe proclaimed that Fei Wong Reed would win.”

His gaze flickered to Kurogane’s arm for a minute, then seemed to turn inward, as if Fai were looking now upon himself, and all he’d been in that moment when the scales tipped and shuddered. Then it was gone and there was only Fai himself.

“But that didn’t happen in the end. Together, we managed to bend the strings of inevitability. And look at us now!”

“Stuck in limbo.”

“Alive, Kuro-silly,” Fai sighed, a soft, exasperated smile on his face. “Alive and looking at a beautiful old civilization that some people in some other land tell their children about as a bedtime story. But it’s not a mythical land, it’s right here, we’re standing on it. Or near it. Though, I could go climbing the wall, if you wanted me to make my point clearer.”

“Don’t.”

“Good, because it would all be terribly tiring. Anyways, just as this is right in front of us, waiting to be rediscovered – and really, I’d think we’ve played quite a hand in it in terms of universal things – the solution to our travels is not a castle in the air. Or if it is, it’s one you can fly to.

“Besides, you don’t intend on dying soon and leaving me a single father, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then stop talking as if inevitability is a sign in front of you saying ‘You shall not leave’ or ‘all your nightmares are now prophetic.’ Let’s not give our troubles too much credit.”

The dust suffusing him trembled and floated to the ground, leaving Kurogane’s shoulders lighter, his eyes clearer, as if just now finally waking up. He looked over at the ancient structure, at the marbled columns, the spots of blue. For moment he imagined the sort of people who would leave it. He imagined the sort of people who would eventually come back. He imagined himself coming back. Preferably with Fai. Tomoyo would probably chase the pair to a separate house – she had very distinct ideas about that sort of thing.  Maybe Syaoran and Sakura would visit them often. He sighed, enjoying the picture. He should tell Fai the last bit of it.

“Hope is, uncomfortable.”

“It is.”

The mage was leaning on Kurogane now, examining the top of the roof, the scalloped pattern.

“I sound ridiculous.”

“You don’t.”

“Hope isn’t reliant.”

“It’s true, it’s not like a blade. More like quicksilver. Like magic.” Fai pressed a soft kiss to Kurogane’s cheek. “But you’ve never doubted me in those things, have you?”

“No.”

“So what are you doing now, Kuro-silly! Keep trusting in me. And in Syaoran, and Sakura.”

And Watanuki. Kurogane’s expression lightened. The moment had passed.

“Now.” Fai straightened up. The peace on Kurogane’s face flickered to confusion as Fai stretched his arms out. “Before we go, I’m getting closer. You won’t stop me playing the tourist entirely!”

The exasperation that plastered itself on Kurogane’s face almost made Fai burst into the laughter.

“And by the way, Kurogane darling, I’m horribly offended you didn’t say that home is where the heart is – with me, of course. And I thought you’d be the one to write a self-help book! It’s okay, you can write the introduction extolling my virtues and my wizardly wisdom. Beyond my age, really.”

The ninja stared at him, brows furrowing. “I think you’re experiencing heatstroke. Darling.”

“Oh do you? I’m glad you’re so worried about me, Kuro-caring.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“Am I? I don’t think so. Come on Kurogane. The people who used to be here would want us to talk about how lovely their houses were. And Syaoran needs the sleep.”

As much as he wanted to tell Fai he was full of shit, Kurogane couldn’t bring himself too. Sighing, he trundled by his mage, who skipped along, as he hadn’t just imparted upon Kurogane the wisdom of the ages – and threatened to become a ‘self-help’ author. What a fool. A surprisingly smart fool. One he couldn’t help but follow.

Somewhere off in the universe there is you and me – older, perhaps greyer. Still together, of course. At home. You reminded me that it will happen. Traveling is an impermanent state. Whether we want to keep going or not. There is always, for the weary wanderer, a home, to go back to.