FicWad

Could those who argue over nature versus nurture understand the case of Fai D Flowright, exiled prince, magician, and family man? He was a one in a million occurrence, a special kind of person with the power to make you feel at ease the second he cast his famous smile.

Fai, who for years had never seen or felt the touch of a human being. He who had spent his childhood in the snowy tower, screaming and crying and exhausting every last bit of energy in his body. Fai-once-Yuui, because the real Fai was dead. His family was dead, his father committing suicide before his very eyes, cursing him in the process. Celes had collapsed so as to never rise from its mistakes.

Like a set of dominoes, every piece of the life he once had fallen, crashing and burning, never to be whole again.

Yet here he was, relaxing under the palm trees of a distant world, where the skies were a mixture of red and orange, and the beaches were covered in blue sand next to the sparkling lavender waters. Sakura was splashing in the froth of the waves, Syaoran doing a nervous dance around her in a constant fight to keep his princess safe. Kurogane was a few feet away from Fai's lawn chair, attempting to build sand castles despite Mokona's playing the Godzilla to Kuro-kichi's fledgling Tokyo.

Here was something that had been missing from Fai's life since his young years: love. A message sweet enough to make you sick, but true. His parents, in the pursuit of protecting the well-being of Celes, sacrificed his and his twin's lives to imprisonment in an icy hell. Ashura-ou, once the benevolent savior, only wanting Fai to bring about his own end.

The last act of love in the history of Celes - the child Fai giving his life up to Fei Wong to save Yuui - ended up only in causing the magician Fai more grief. Every one of his movements, smiles, words - it all reminded him of the brother he could never see again except in the mirror, an image stained in a sibling's blood.

If he closed his eyes and concentrated, Fai could still feel the raindrops on his face from when he first met the people he would call his family: Syaoran (the proud son), Sakura (the quiet daughter), Kurogane (the reluctant daddy), Mokona (the grand-daughter? son?), Yuko (the distant aunt who sent gifts with excruciating catches to them).

"Aargh! You stupid pork bun!" Kurogane grabbed Mokona by the cheeks and began stretching him out until the poor creature was as thin as he once was rotund. With a /pop/, he escaped Kurogane's grasp and began bouncing around in what was left of Kurogane's sand creations.

Yes, Fai was certainly special. But no one had to know that just yet. Not yet, while they still believed their Fai-san was a pure and good person (two factors that were arguable to the magician) and could do no wrong. He smiled at his dysfunctional adopted family and relaed as his troubles temporarily floated away with the waves, assured to return with the coming of the next tide.