To Conquer a Queen

Eriol Hiirigizawa: genius, sorcerer, wealthy Englishman of good family, devastatingly attractive. Currently this multi-talented young man of good fortune is seated in first-class on a flight to Japan. His unique and energetic genderless magical bodyguard is playing flight attendant, having insisted beforehand that this was the perfect chance to experiment with possible career choices. All it took to get her in was some magical suggestion… And his flying panther was present, disguised as a pet cat in a small animal carrier, currently taking up the seat beside Eriol. The person meant to occupy that seat had conveniently missed the flight.


You may know Eriol from CCS, when he was but a young boy. Well, he has since grown up out of the smiling lad many of you remember, into someone… quite different and yet absolutely the same. Just as wicked, but still a sweetheart. To a select few, anyway.


Eriol Hiirigizawa hadn’t stayed in touch much with his friends from Tomoeda. He had spent the years since preoccupied with other things, such as expanding his wealth, relearning how to have sex once his body matured, and exploring the world. After all, if he had two lifetimes worth of education, he also had over a lifetime of sexual experience. The trick was using them. It wasn’t like knowledge, his body was clumsy at first, unused to the motions. Or at least it was the first time or so… he was always quick to adapt.


Hiirigizawa wrote monthly letters of epic proportions to a few select people, namely Takashi and Tomoyo, and responded every few months to Sakura’s inquiries, when she remembered to email him. From various places in the world, he felt Sakura and Syaoran’s magic grow, eclipsing most, but only just surpassing others. By the time his old acquaintances surpassed the other magically adept people in the world, it didn’t matter. Eriol knew all of the rest, and his own magic had begun to mature normally, leaving him not as powerful as when he was challenging Sakura, but no slouch.


He hadn’t honestly ever considered returning for any length of time until Tomoyo had written that Syaoran had returned and that she was throwing a Christmas party. He had dropped in for a weekend, stayed at Tomoyo’s large estate, and had some nice, mild fun. He left again and then two years later, the summer before senior year, Tomoyo had written him once more. This time she and Sakura were staying with the Li clan in Hong Kong. And she practically demanded that he visit. So, he did. Refusing a woman like Tomoyo Daidouji was difficult, if only because she became increasingly more beautiful each time he saw her.


Eriol considered himself to possess only one weakness. He coveted beautiful, long-haired temptresses. And Tomoyo Daidouji knew how to play men. She knew how to flaunt herself, as most society women did, she knew how to talk, and she also had the rare ability to flaunt the people around her. So he visited, she paraded him around a bit at the Li parties, at the clubs Li’s insane cousin Meilin showed them. In the gaps, they spent their time talking, debating, engaging in philosophical discussions and religious discussion, and arguments over pop culture in other countries. Her mind was nearly as adept as his own, and grasped a side of life and culture that he could never quite reach. And yet her looks surpassed her mind.


So they talked, they danced, they were tourists, and he tried his best to flatter her into his bed. Or even onto his lips. Her refusal was never direct, always absolute. Never cutting, but almost managed to make him feel guilty for trying something on a pure-minded lady such as her. Even though she was far from it.


Tomoyo Daidouji knew how to flirt, but she was a tease. Did she even like men? There was no way to tell. Tomoyo Daidouji is successful, but inside of her there is a gap that has yet to be filled with kisses, or with sex, or with emotion. She patched it up a few years ago with some tape and bandaids. She hides it with inviting glances, by dancing too close, then by turning away, looking to some other boy. So in the end, perhaps the truth was that she was pure, innocent, inexperienced. But not all of her. Only one single aspect to her character, a chink in the armor of maturity.


He had seen her several times, three times recently in three separate European cities because she’s been the next best thing in Japanese fashion for a while. For two years her designs had been on the streets of Milan, Tokyo, New York, Paris. He also had seen her nearly all summer before she entered High School. That was so long ago… She’d been staying in England with an Aunt of her deceased father’s. She was young then, but smart, pretty, and manipulative. Tomoyo at fourteen: impetuous, but subtle as a side effect of her gentle childhood nature and increasingly witty mind, which was capable of controlling the people around it with merely a few words. It was a relief when she grew up and learned to temper her impetuosity with control, gaining back some of the reserve she lost in the first rush of puberty and hormones.


Fact of the matter was, she knew him just well enough that when she told him to come meet her someplace, he did. And the inevitable had finally occurred. She had, in her subtle way, issued the order for him to come to Tomoeda for the winter. The entire winter. His plans had been to settle down for two months and relax. He had finished school three years ago, having skipped a few years the minute he returned to England after the Sakura episodes.


There were only a few people on Earth Eriol would actually allow to ‘call’ him to a place. She was not one them because of her beauty, or his weakness, or even her proximity to Sakura and her role in his childhood. Rather, it was because of her entire being as a whole, including her mind and personality, which complemented his own. She challenged him, but they also looked good together. Being with her was interesting, because she was as good as him. But their talents were never at war. Sakura and Syaoran were good at the same things, and learning to live with that had been the cause of much difficulty in Tomoyo’s attempts to get them together. Eriol and Tomoyo were good at different things, but their souls were the same. They attacked a problem in the same way. And so she intrigued him, and he placed her above other people in his mind. She was at once comfortable and off-putting.


Actually, the tone of her letters had gotten increasingly more sad. Not much, but some. They were still intellectual sometimes, or simply fun and informative others, but now the intelligence was sarcastic and cynical, and there were no more crazy stories. He hadn’t been worried. They were her problems. Except Tomoyo Daidouji was smart enough to know when she needed a friend to help bail her out or to support her. And apparently she had decided that this was one of those times. Thus, he was on his way to live in Tomoeda for two months.


The only consolation was that Tomoyo would be in Tokyo at least half of the time, or on weekends at the very least. She was still working part-time on her fashion career, and she, coming up on an eligible marrying age, constantly attended business dinners, galas, and parties for her mother’s company. So in the end Eriol would get to experience Japanese high society, which could be fun. And if it wasn’t, then he could exact revenge on Tomoyo as soon as she was back to normal.


Yes. That would work. In truth, he wasn’t much worried about dying of boredom while in Tomoeda. Trying to trick Tomoyo into suddenly realizing just how sexy they’d be together was going to be enough to keep him occupied…


………


His first night there was the same. She teased him a little, because it was tradition, and he flirted outrageously. However, there were glimpses in the expressions on her face when they waited at red lights, or when the conversation died. Her mouth was tight, her hair was tied back normally, her outfit was plain, although still in style. Her eyes weren’t focused on the now, on where she was.


Maybe it was his problem. Even if it wasn’t, her sadness was bugging the hell out of him, nearly enough for him to want to fix her. What in the world could be capable of breaking a woman like her?


…..


It took him a few days to really be sure of where it came from. Tomoyo had always gotten a little nostalgic when Li and Sakura were together. It was rare. The Li’s did everything possible to keep the two apart, despite the fact that Li’s sisters, Yelan, and Meilin were all on the couple’s side. Fact was that Li and Sakura never really had a chance at a relationship. Syaoran was back for a year in ninth grade before the power in his clan shifted and he was yanked back to China.


Leaving Tomoyo to have Sakura every moment of the day. Sakura, with her addictive personality and such energy that Tomoyo need do nothing more than channel it, didn’t even need to worry about her own emotions. Sakura of the clear green eyes, like colored glass, with sun-crisped golden-brown hair, the one that drew people to the light inside her.


Now, Syaoran was back. And he and Sakura had a relationship. It was new, and so the relationship did what all budding relationships do. It took up all of Sakura and Syaoran’s time, it kicked out friends, and it grew. And for the first time, Tomoyo Daidouji was nearly ignored by her friend. This had never happened.


Sakura becomes a magical girl? Tomoyo becomes her stylist and directs a documentary starring her. Sakura’s nervous about being with Li in Hong Kong? What if he doesn’t love her anymore? Tomoyo books a ticket and comes along, also drags an old friend into it so Sakura doesn’t feel nervous, and so it doesn’t look like Tomoyo’s trying to keep them apart. But this… Sakura gets a relationship FINALLY with the boy of her dreams, and it sputters for a while, and then bursts into true love and flourishes. Tomoyo… can’t film. Too creepy. Tomoyo… no longer walks with them to school. Too awkward. Tomoyo sits with her in class, the ones they have together, and leaves the two to be sweet at lunch, while she turns to chat with Rika. Because Rika knows what it’s like to love and not be able to touch, and that is enough, for now. Or was enough, back then. Tomoyo has no one here. There is no boy smart enough, no girl or woman to compare with her Sakura, and no personality awe-inspiringly brilliant, educated, experienced, traveled, cultured, or mature enough to even attract her attention. She has no one to focus on, no one to live with, confide in, or to trust. There is no counterpart and no focus for her energy. One is gone, and the other is seemingly not in existence.


And yet she’s brilliant and resourceful still, because, if one isn’t around, then she knows where she can find someone. And so she mail-orders someone to breathe life into her, until she learns how to survive on hope, and not Sakura.


Sakura’s light, her star, the thing that powers her magic leaks through her clear green eyes into other people’s souls. The person closest to her became addicted, and withdrawal kills, leaves Tomoyo Daidouji, who has felt herself flourish as though fueled and nurtured by this light, empty and weak.


…………….


But there is one other person that Tomoyo feels powerful standing next to. There is another person, who doesn’t shine like Sakura, doesn’t have that glowing light. He passes for utterly normal, yet people think he is above them. He has knowledge spanning over lifetimes, and he makes her laugh. He makes her feel wanted. His mind can keep up, and he can maneuver people as well as she can. But he makes her nervous. She is used to masculine glances, to people wanting to own her body.


What she is not used to is dark eyes cutting through her smiling façade. Eyes seeing even the little smidgens of sadness when they were no more than specks, and then squashing them by thoroughly ridiculing Li, or by pranking the would-be couple. Or even by setting up Meilin with a Chinese government official’s son, who ended up not being drab at all, but a BDSM fan, which sat quite well with Li’s cousin. Even Tomoyo hadn’t caught that one…


Even when he makes her nervous, he covers it up. He feels her up, sexy not sleazy, only when she’s in an evening gown or a school uniform. Somehow he knows that’s when it bothers her least. He lets her slap him around, and obeys her whims. He’s intelligent enough to figure out her problems without asking, and he’s too proud to say he’ll fix them, but he’ll always find a way to distract her. She thoroughly enjoys him, but he’s like dark chocolate. It’s too much, too rich, what if she has too much and can’t go back.
(Ironic, that she worried about that with Eriol while Sakura was the one who she was hooked on, like a drug).


Eriol’s eyes are like magnets. They draw you in, but there’s no assurance you’ll get out. Tomoyo doesn’t like being tied down. She likes to come and go freely. And so being his friend still makes her nervous. But he’s too good a player to pass up calling on when she senses she’s in trouble.


Tomoyo Daidouji feels herself slipping, getting tired. Her friend Sakura asks her is she okay? She looks nearly exhausted, pushed to the edge… if it shows, then it’s a problem. So there is really only one person she can grasp at. But around this crazy friend of hers that wants to own her mind and body, she’ll have to find a way to fix herself, because the alternative is scary. Motivation. That’s what Hiirigizawa really gives her. Motivation to change, to adapt, to live and prove that she’s formidable, that he isn’t the best thing to grace the earth.


…..


And so now Eriol is here in the house and school is out. Tomoyo is not as bright. She is calm, too calm, and her fun side is fraught with ragged and exhausted edges that suggest, “No, I’m not having a good time.”


Eriol has decided on a course of action, but she may not like it. Too bad. He was done following her lead, especially after flying around the world. He had a particularly wicked idea for wiping the sadness from her eyes…


………


And so when Tomoyo entered her room that night, Eriol was on the bed.


~End chapter one! Heehee.
I'd love to call this a cliffhanger, but I can't really cause I'm uploading the next chapter as soon as I put this one up! This is my first ever smutty story, so please review, tell me if the scenes in the next chapter work!