13 Things from Yuuko's Dreams (Yuuko gen)

[storypaint]

Title: 13 Things from Yuuko's Dreams
Length: 1270 words
Prompt: 13 things you remember about your childhood for the_lucky13
Pairing: Yuuko gen mostly
Other: Made-up backstory; written a long time ago; sort of Jossed by TRC
Excerpt: The first time one of the creatures bit me, I lay abed for a week, unable to explain why I could see them, but no one else could.

01. birth

I remember being born. It was Clow's fault, really, hypnotizing me for a lark to see how back my memories could go.

Darknesssafety pressurepainfear lightairlife mother

He took me back a little further, but stopped when I started screaming.

02. four years old

I traced sigils in the dust, every shape a rebellion against the ones who were already raising me to repress my power, to do as they did.

"I can raise the rain," I told my mother two months ago, and she laughed. The things that children came up with--!

The rains came and she looked at me with utter fear in her eyes and she said nothing. She could say nothing.

I shut my eyes and let my fingers write the words I hoped would take me away from here someday.

03. five years old

"Onee-chan, give it! Onee-chan!"

I watched Riiko's little eyes fill with tears and stood firm, keeping the toy just out of her reach.

Five years later, she was taller than I and she didn't care about dolls anymore. But some part of her remembered this, deep down, and I couldn't be too surprised when she started taking things from me.

04. seven years old

"Are you a witch?" he asked, wide-eyed. Riiko backed away, as I would have-- she saw something not quite right in his eyes.

I caught her before she bumped into me. "We're both witches!" I announced cheerfully over her head. "Want to play? I'll turn you into a bird!"

"No," he said after a considered moment. I gripped Riiko's shoulder tighter. "I'm going to go play ball!"

"Better go before we get you!" I said, making a face, and he laughed and ran off.

As soon as he was out of sight I spun her around and made her look at me.

"You can't do that where anyone can see," I said. "Be more careful."

05. seven and a half

We laid my baby brother to rest on a strangely sunny day, though the weather didn't buoy my mood. The rest of the family was sober. Riiko's eyes were red-rimmed. She had climbed into bed with me the night before, seeking sisterly comfort.

He hadn't a chance to draw his first breath; marked for death in the womb. It was fate, my father said, even as he struggled to breathe through his grief. What would be would be.

Sometimes I didn't like "what would be."

06. almost eight

"I want you to meet your fiance, Yuuko-chan! This is Shinji Nobara. Doesn't he seem nice?"

My mother's voice was strained, perhaps because Shinji was excavating his nose with a well-used finger. He couldn't have been more than five. I, at a well-seasoned seven years of age, despised him instantly.

"I don't want to get married," I said firmly. "I am going to grow up and run away and become something else."

"You'll learn to like him," my mother said, clearly having anticipated this outburst. "See, he wants to be friendly!"

Shinji had extended a hand in curiousity to brush at my garment. I stepped back, and then I burst into tears and ran away.

07. eight years old

What small child hasn't brought an injured animal home to heal, and learned the lesson about death? My sister was five and I was eight-- old enough to remember the little bird I'd laid beneath a bush and ache with old grief.

So when she brought this one home, his little wing askew and his fate clear-- to leave him to the cats would be a death sentence-- I spoke words I only sort of knew and watched the bird glow.

He didn't fly away again, but he didn't die. It was all I could do to stop the bleeding. But it was something.

He became Riiko's pet and pecked at me when I touched him. Even at eight, I wasn't entirely surprised.

08. ten years old

He was three years old and he wasn't anything like the other toddlers. There was something of the other in him, something strange. His mother followed my gaze and burst out apologetically, "He's a good kid, just a bit odd. It's hard for him, not having his father around."

She bit off the last, actually biting her own lip without realizing, and I recognized something foreign in her voice.

I didn't know it then, but Clow's father was English and he had an even stranger heritage: magic from both sides.

For the moment, I just had to baby-sit.

(What can I say: I've known him a long time.)

09. still ten

"Going to marry Okaa-san someday," he announced to me, digging in the dirt with a stick. He pulled a rock out and studied it thoughtfully, then put it in his mouth. He spit it out after a moment, educated. I figured this was the best way to teach him.

"You can't. She's married to your Otou-san," I replied, squatting down on my hanches next to him.

"Not. They're not married," he said.

"Well, you can't marry her-- you're her son!" I said. The sooner he learned that, the better. He hit his baby fist against the ground for a moment, assimilating that idea.

"Then I'll marry you," he said, looking up at me with those striking blue eyes.

"I'm never getting married," I confided in him. Sure, I'd told my family that plenty of times, but never a stranger. It made my wishes more real, somehow.

"I will be your husband," he said, and I couldn't dissuade him from the idea, as his mother came to pick him up at that moment.

10. twelve years old

The first time one of the creatures bit me, I lay abed for a week, unable to explain why I could see them, but no one else could.

Riiko could see them, and eventually she convinced my parents to leave me alone. She nursed my fever until it broke, at midnight on the seventh day.

"What were you doing, Onee-chan?" she asked in a solemn child's voice, and when I wouldn't tell her, she stopped doing magic with me.

11. thirteen years old

I had my first prophetic dream when I was thirteen. Flashing almond eyes I recognized as my own, a voice that carried in a language I didn't yet know (Chinese, I realized later)... and eyes. Calm blue eyes and small round glasses.

I managed to forget it until he brought the first pair to my shop, crowing over his good luck in finding something so useful.

12. fourteen and a half

Shinji hadn't been mentioned to me since I'd met him, and I'd almost forgotten he'd existed when my mother took me aside.

"Now that you have become a woman," she said (and I had, and I loved it-- the blood seemed to lend more power to my statements and the little magicks I was beginning to learn), "you must be thinking about your future. Shinji is coming for another visit next week."

"Shinji?" I said, wrinkling my nose, and barely managing to recollect the Boy with Well-Explored Nose. "I'm not going to marry him!"

"You'll get used to him," my mother said in a knowing voice.

I was a late bloomer, lucky to have lasted this far without a husband. The next day I went out to pick herbs for dinner and I didn't come back again. I would not become my mother, faceless against my father's wrath, accepting... and worst of all, loving him. I wouldn't do that.

13. fifteen years old

"There will be a price for the teaching," the old woman said. I nodded eagerly. She looked ancient, with wrinkles nestled against wrinkles until her face seemed mummified. In my teenage arrogance I was sure she would die within days. I wanted to learn all I could from a master in my craft.

"Where do I start?"

"In the kitchen, I think," she said thoughtfully, and my childhood ended when my training began.