Ring to Rust (Eriol/Tomoyo)

[storypaint]

Title: Ring to Rust
Day/Theme: 29 // his grave robber's compassion
Series: Cardcaptor Sakura
Character/Pairing: Hiiragizawa Eriol/Daidouji Tomoyo
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP.

Synopsis: At Tomoyo's funeral, Eriol steals her wedding ring. She didn't want to go into eternity with it, he was sure.

Grave robber's compassion seemed like an oxymoron, but he didn't hesitate to slip the ring from her finger (a little magic as grease worked wonders) before he shut the lid and nodded politely at the widower.

"Who are you?" the man asked. A sneer crept onto his face and Eriol wondered yet again how Tomoyo had lived with this man.

Not very well, apparently. Their marriage had only lasted a year before she was gone.

"Just an old friend," Eriol said, smiling. "We went to school together."

"I've never met you," he challenged.

"It was a very long time ago. I'm sorry for your loss," Eriol lied, and returned to his seat. Since he'd been the last in line, he'd closed the casket. He hoped that the husband wouldn't think to open it again. He ran his fingers across the ring in his pocket.

It had been too small for her. Earlier that year when he'd been in town, they'd met by chance in the supermarket and paused to talk. She had fidgeted with it constantly, making the excuse that it was new to her to be married and bejeweled all the time. She'd slipped it down her finger and he could see how cruelly it bit into her skin.

Her husband never offered to get it sized, Eriol assumed. He'd given her a ring from one of those department stores, mass produced, cold, and never asked if it fit her finger.

Eriol hadn't hesitated to take it, though he hadn't planned it either. He'd done stranger things on impulse. Tomoyo had deserved better than this. Some part of his mind was considering the fact that she could have been wearing his ring; it would have been better than this marriage arranged by her well-meaning, clueless mother.

The viewing was over and soon they would commit Tomoyo to the flames. Her thin, consumptive body would be cleansed of her husband's stains and misunderstandings. Eriol didn't know all the details, why her health had declined so quickly. He hadn't been here. Neither had Sakura, his usual source of information, since she and Syaoran had moved to Hong Kong after their wedding. This was Sakura's first time back in Tomoeda since Christmas, and he was glad to see her again, though he wished that it was under different circumstances.

He shut his eyes and Tomoyo's husband spoke. He wasn't really listening for the words. There it was, a rustle of feathers. He had to strain nowadays, as weak as his magic was, but she was here, all right.

"Thank you," a voice whispered in his ear, and he didn't dare open his eyes, for the vision of an angelic Tomoyo would only make him want more what he could not have. Instead he smiled.

In his pocket, the ring turned to rust, and when he left that day he scattered the flakes to the wind.