(Liss, find your easter egg)
This is my favorite story so far. Enjoy it!
A Page out of Folken's Book.
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All's well with the power of wishes, but one day, the dashing young king of Fanelia makes the most thrilling and disconcerting discovery: that's not precisely what gets him to the Mystic Moon.
Like most Fanelian stories, this one also begins with a dragon. More than three months into the diligent, meticulous reconstruction of the kingdom's capital, hardly a day has gone by without some kind of incident: they are usually trivial, mind you, (a fruit stand knocked out, produce irreparably trampled on, the new windows on a two-storied house shattered by the careless swish of a tail) but they disturb the work rhythm nonetheless. Dragons are cunning, but curious, (they flock to the reparations' hustle-and-bustle) and become clumsy within the newly-restored narrow alleyways and passages: the involuntary destruction they wreak makes it hard for the king to convince his citizens that it's actually better to leave the primeval beasts be than fight them. In a manner that it eventually becomes a royal duty for king Van to chase the confounded reptiles out of the city, before his subjects take matters into their own hands "the traditional way".
Some days, the king really hates those stupid dragons. Like today, when one blasted beast decided it's in its best interests to climb to the summit of a bell-tower, and almost the entire population of the capital thinks it should be burnt down: dragon, tower, everything… (never mind that the mortar is still fresh, from three days ago when the tower's reparations were completed.) It takes baiting of all kinds and almost all the patience the king has on him to get the creature to come down, and then, it takes a large amount of the successful bait (stomach-churning half-rotten rivershark) to lure the now intrigued dragon back to the heart of the forest, and, since no one is really enthusiastic about dragging the disgusting thing all the way there, it also takes a great deal of the king's single-handed strength.
Exhausted, and rather cranky, king Van takes a moment to rest in the forest, under the cool shade of an aeons-old oak tree, before going back to the city. If only Folken, the gods rest his soul, had not kind of unbeknownst-to-him guilt-tripped him into not killing dragons. Ah. What a happy king he would be, then. Well, maybe not exactly happy, but for sure he wouldn't be as tired…
He falls asleep right there, unaware, and the perils of the forest be damned.
He is startled awake some time later, by the most nauseating stench he's had to suffer since… since, well, today's decomposing sharkflesh, and it comes from the muzzle of today's very dragon, not a hand's distance from his face.
Well, confound it. He levelly watches as the beast sniffs him so completely it's almost ridiculous, and does not really understand what is going on, until the creature "gently" regurgitates something at his feet. Stoically, as is his fashion, Van takes a look. It's a rivershark fin, or at least that's the closest thing it resembles, but the stench is a dead giveaway. A god-awful damned half-rotten rivershark fin. The dragon looks at it expectantly. Then at Van. Then, at the retch-inducing fin again; and so on, until the king finally catches on. It's nothing spectacular, though: he deadpans.
'You want more.'
Of course the dragon will not nod nor confirm this, but Van groans at the knowledge.
This is also how, in a matter of a few minutes' time, the king is running through the forest without actually putting much thought as to where, with a damnedly eager dragon hot on his trail; until, suddenly, he is not there anymore.
In the blink of an eye, he's running on a hard surface that feels like stone (later he learns it's called concrete), across a very busy road in a very busy city, and he'll be damned; but he's got a feeling he's not on Gaia any longer, (and, actually, he's got the very distinct feeling that he's back on the Mystic Moon.)
Gracefully, he swerves into the first alleyway he can find, so fast he escapes the commotion and hysteria caused by the fleshy, slimy dragon that is still running behind him (he believes Hitomi told him once that they don't have those in the Mystic Moon. Lucky bastards.) Just as he has hoped, the dragon follows him into the alleyway, furthering the mess it's made by knocking over some garbage cans and tearing a fire-escape ladder from a wall.
Van rolls his eyes: dragons.
But now, he must choose a course of action, and, face to face with the creature (which is swinging its tail in a rather lazy and yet threatening manner), with no other weapon that his good hunting knife, which in the present circumstances is completely useless, he adopts his best 'well, what have I got to lose anyway' attitude, and takes a page out of Folken's book:
'So, eh, dragon,' he begins, 'Somehow, (he looks around, appraising his surroundings rather dubiously) we've ended up in the Mystic Moon. There's no riversharks here, that I know,' he says, nonchalantly, 'so it might be better if we work together to get back home. Where we may be able to do something about it…'
He'll be damned (and this is about the fourth or fifth time in the day he thinks those very words,) but no sooner has he said that, that the dragon looks at him in a funny way, and once he blinks, the city's gone, the bleak, dirty alleyway is gone, and he's standing on his own in an unknown part of the forest. The pesky, unnerving dragon is thankfully gone, too.
In the distance, king Van can see faint columns of smoke begin to rise- a sign that the working day is over, and the citizens of Fanelia are starting their evening routines. Weary as he rarely remembers to have felt, he starts the long walk back to the city.
The next day, in school, Yukari all but dashes to her friend's seat by the window, before the lesson begins:
'Hitomi, did you hear about the dragon?'
'The dragon?'
'Oh, you! Sometimes I think your head's up in the moon 24/7. There's lots of people saying they saw a dragon running around downtown, yesterday. Some say Godzilla, some say an ad campaign, but you know what I think…?'
Torn between confused and hopeful, and ignoring the knowing glint on her friend's eye, Hitomi blinks, trying to process this information.
'It's a sign from this other world you've been talking about!' Yukari cries, excited. Of course.
'Maybe,' she says, puzzled. 'I just thought… our farewell was so epic… I thought more time would've passed before I heard of Gaia again… but it's only been a few weeks…'
The following morning, king Van wakes up well rested, but startled by a strange, confusing noise. It takes him no time to find out what it is about: yesterday's very same dragon is perched on his windowsill, rather squished between the two stone walls, and otherwise taking up almost the entire window and blocking out the light. It would perhaps be terrifying if it weren't somehow slightly nonsensical.
King Van groans. He has the disquieting sensation that he will have to learn to tolerate the vile stench of rotting rivershark, fast. What he doesn't think he'll be tolerating anytime soon is such an invasion of his private space from his subjects, whatever species they may happen to belong to:
'All right, you, dragon. This is no way to wake up the king. You go down to the courtyard, and wait. I'll see that you get sent some food. Now, scram.'
And scram it does, when it manages to dislodge itself from the window. Then, the young king is left to ponder, first, since when can dragons and people understand one another, and second, in light of yesterday's events, whether this is a good or a bad thing.
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Over the course of the following weeks, the dragon becomes a regular at the palace. It appears religiously in the mornings, where, perched on the horned helmet of a recently restored stone statue of a samurai, he waits for someone to bring him his tasty(not) breakfast of rotting fish and fish entrails. Then, it flies around a bit until the young king shows his face somewhere outdoors, when it descends, stands face-to-face with Van for a while, and then, with a gleam in its eyes perhaps akin to satisfaction (it's almost impossible to know), placidly takes off towards the forest, wherefrom it does not emerge again until the following morning.
No one is entirely certain of its behavior, and those who are not weary of it are few. King Van decides to take it with nonchalant acceptance, and lets the dragon be.
Then, four months later, it happens again.
And this time, the dashing young king of Fanelia doesn't miss the connection, and makes the most thrilling and disconcerting discovery: the power of wishes is not precisely what gets him to the Mystic Moon.
That good-for-nothing creature, or 'Landy, the land dragon', (as the castle folk unimaginatively begin to call it), somehow breaks its daily routine by somehow thinking that it might be a good idea to hover around the king's room the morning right after he's just come back from a long winter mission surveilling the borders of the realm, knees-deep in mud and snow for two weeks; and wake him up precisely on the one morning of the one day he'd planned on sleeping over.
'God damn it,' Van mutters, when the sound of the dragon fidgeting to fit on the window-slot registers, and his barely-cracked eyes take in the huge shape blocking the light. 'God damn it,' he groans again, 'go away'.
It does nothing of the sort. Instead, it extends its long neck into the room, slowly opening its poisonous jaws, and (playfully…?) snatches away the mess of clothes on the floor that the king pulled off himself the previous day, including his trusted pair of now-mud-soiled boots. Uncomprehending, Van's eyes follow the dragon's movements, at first entertaining the thought that it might all just be a dream, and then, abruptly, realizing that the damned thing is squirming out of the window and taking off in guilty flight with his stuff secured in its bedamned jaws.
In a mechanical and pissed way, Van advances to the window, bracing himself against the biting winter air, spreads his wings, and takes flight to pursue the reptile thief.
"Landy" is flying ahead, but not at a great speed. But it so happens, than when the pissed-off king is stretching his hand to grasp its scaly skin, he blinks, and in a sudden flash of light he's not soaring over the sleepy rooftops of Fanelia, but over a city impossibly huge and unlike anything on Gaia, so that he must conclude that he is, once again, on the Mystic Moon.
And this time, he knows there's no coincidence in it. He stops, mid-flight, to consider this.
Sensing the dulling of the pursuit, the dragon touches down on the top of a skyscraper crowded with antennas and satellite-dishes, (not that either it or the king, who touches down shortly after, know precisely what they're for.)
'Dragons can travel between worlds,' king Van says, unamusedly stating this as he stares the dragon down. It doesn't seem to mind him.
'Look,' he says, pinching the bridge of his nose just as he does when he knows he's gonna have a headache, 'This is great news, really. But I've got to go back to sleep now. So give me back my clothes and cut the crap.'
The clothes are unceremoniously dropped on the floor. By now, Van has absolutely no fear in getting really close to the dragon to retrieve them. He bundles his dragon-saliva-coated clothes in his arms, and, as an afterthought, chucks the filthy, ruined boots over the edge of the building.
Then, when he blinks, he's back in his room, almost as if he'd never left. True to that, he muses his hair in thought for some seconds, then coolly heads straight back to bed.
The next day, in school, Yukari dashes to her friend's seat by the window in a way that Hitomi thinks she can recognize, and before the lesson begins, she says, excitedly:
'Hitomi, did you hear they saw the dragon again!?'
'The dragon?' Hitomi echoes.
'Yes, but hear this out! There was an angel with it this time!'
Hitomi, however, filters through all that and catches one word only: 'An angel?' She becomes caught in a strange limbo between paling and blushing.
'Yeah,' continues Yukari, with that special glint in her eye, 'There's some footage caught on a drone, or something, you know how they're filming everything now with the yakuza wars and all. Anyway. They're saying it's for a movie or some fancy ad campaign, but you know what I think…?'
'Yeah, I think I do,' Hitomi says, trailing off, thinking how it's a bit early to process all this information. 'But I wonder what's going on…'
The rest of her school day is ruined for her, as her concentration is bankrupted by her brain coming up with theories, serious at first, and more and more ridiculous as the day wears on, about why a Gaian dragon, and now presumably Van, too, dear Van, are popping in and out of her world. And so soon, too.
It's been, after all, only four weeks since the first time the dragon appeared.
During the following months, whenever his royal duties allow him to sneak a break of uncertain duration, king Van takes to experimenting. However, despite being a fairly intelligent beast, Landy the land dragon is a wild creature down to its last damned scale, and answers only to its own convenience.
'The gods thought you'd cooperate,' Van growls, under his breath, staring daggers at the placidly dragon squatting on the courtyard. 'We've been feeding your pestilent skin for almost a year now.'
The king glares at the dragon. When the minutes trickle by and nothing happens, his eyes narrow in profound annoyance.
'I would suggest you to get yourself moving, and if you won't, then get us to the Mystic Moon as you please. But this is your king's command, and if you don't honor it, so help me gods, I will slay you where you are and find myself a dragon that better suits me.'
Man and beast are alone in the courtyard, so there is no one who can marvel nor pale at the severe (and uncharacteristically many) words coming out of the young king's mouth. Van prefers it so.
With grim satisfaction encouraged by the amount of free time he's wasted on trying to persuade the dragon through amicable talk, Van notices this new approach did cause an effect on the damned beast. It's risen from its place where it sat still, almost as if it were taunting him, and now it slowly begins to circle him. As if the creature were gauging him, inspecting him, measuring him, or any of those things it should have had plenty of time to do during all these months of coexistence.
From somewhere behind him, it eventually lets out a very dragon-ish sound, a sort of high-pitched gargle, and Van thinks he understands it's laughing. Laughing.
At the end of his very stretched patience, he reaches for the hilt of his sword, only to realize when he draws it that he's in the middle of a grassy plain, now.
It's a park.
Full of people, but not Fanelians, not even Gaians. These are innocently unaware Earthlings, or, as Van knows them better, Mystic Mooners -teenagers having picnics, children playing catch, adults walking their dogs- and most of them have paused what they were doing to look at him (his sword is almost immediately returned to its sheath), and, he pales an imperceptible bit, the dragon that stands behind him. His keen sense of perception picks up something peculiar from it: a feeling of amusement.
Great. It turns out he's becoming empathetic towards dragons. The thought of a curse flashes through his mind in the milliseconds it takes him to spin round and face the diverted creature, which, with a mellow cry, spreads out its wings and takes to the sky leaving him deserted on what feels like the scene of the crime.
Annoyed, confused, and thoroughly unwilling to let out his wings to chase after the god-damned beast, Van feels his legs spring to action and run him away from there before he can understand what he's actually going to do: "regroup and rethink", or, less nicely worded, find a spot to hide, and figure out what to do next.
He vaguely wonders what he was expecting when he commanded the dragon to take him to the Mystic Moon: precisely this is what anyone with a sliver of logic would've been expecting to happen (people like Allen or Dryden would be making fun of him now); but he has to confess he'd not planned that far ahead. He had also not been factoring in the possibility that this confounded tormenter of Landy the dragon could actually take any satisfaction in ruffling the king's feathers (not… literally…).
Huh. But he's got what he's got, and he's pretty sure he'll be finding that dragon again, as soon as it wants to be found again, most likely when it's had its fill of the Mystic Moon for the day.
Van really gets the feeling that this dragon wouldn't cross back to Gaia without taking its king back as well.
Actually, now that he's aware of this dragon-empathy thing going on, he's surprised to realize that the beast feels pretty loyal to its king, in a manner unique to its race. It's just its sense of humor that the king is doubting now, but maybe it's just because he doesn't know anything about the cultural codes of dragons.
Hell, up until today, he didn't even know dragons had cultural codes…
Lost in thought, he lets his inner intuitive compass guide him around. Being a king has taught him how to regally ignore everyone around him, and with so many people noticing him because of his particular way of dressing (not to mention he seems to be on the way to becoming taller than most Mystic Mooners), it's a skill that comes in handy.
He roughly estimates the sun has sunk two fingers in the sky when the directional pull brings him somewhere that looks less unfamiliar than the rest of what he's been seeing so far: a thin, red, wooden structure –some kind of arch, her surmises- marks the beginning of ancient stone steps that go up a wooded hill. There are similar red arches along the path, that winds upwards and gets lost in the woods. It reminds him a bit of home, and it makes him like it.
He is pondering on this resemblance to Fanelia, and wondering why his inner compass has fallen silent, when approaching voices snap him out of it. It's two girls conversing, and he'll be damned, but one of those voices he knows.
Well, all things considered, he really shouldn't be surprised. Where on the Mystic Moon would his inner compass lead him, if not to her?
She spots him before he can call out to her, and the grin that spreads on her face makes him grin as well. She –Hitomi, of course- runs towards him, straight into his arms.
'Van!' she says, delighted, 'What on Earth…!' She buries her face in his neck, he embraces her tightly, and they happily bask in each other's presence until Hitomi's friend catches up to them.
'I'd ask for an explanation if what's going on wasn't so glaringly obvious,' Yukari says, trying to make her surprise pass as nonchalance. As the wheels in her mind turn (something for which she's got plenty of time, seeing that her friend and her regally dressed paramour are lost in each other's eyes…), she recognizes the guy as the one that briefly crossed their lives back when that incident of the dragon happened; and, being a smart kid and knowing her friend as well as she does, she concludes that most of what Hitomi didn't tell her of the time she spent in that 'other world' probably involved this guy and her feelings for him. So typically Hitomi.
Yukari sighs. Given that the entrance to this temple is just around the corner from their school, and there are still students who are leaving, she thinks that maybe it's a good idea to get out of sight of prying eyes that will otherwise ask many, many probably unanswerable questions for the next weeks if they spot them, she clears her throat and says:
'You guys, this is very romantic and all, but it's as PDA as it gets, and if someone sees you, Hitomi, you're gonna have to start explaining…'
Hitomi sheepishly (and reluctantly) pries herself from Van's arms. 'Yeah, you're right. Thanks, Yukari'.
'Don't mention it,' her friend answers dismissively, 'Let's go up to the temple and find somewhere to talk.'
Van nods.
Once they've started going up the stairs, Yukari says: 'Just so you know, I'm not letting either of you out of my sight until you let me in on what's going on.'
To everyone's surprise, Van chuckles under his breath- back on Gaia, His Majesty the King of the Realm of Fanelia could have her sent away from his presence with a flick of his wrist if he so desired; but here on the Mystic Moon, he is just another guy she can boss around. It is nonsensically amusing.
Yukari mistakes his amusement for contempt. 'What is it you find so funny?'
'You Mystic Mooners and your fearless ways.'
It's Hitomi's turn to laugh. 'Goodness, Yukari, don't worry- we'll tell you all soon and you'll get it. By the way, Yukari, this is Van. Van, Yukari.'
'A pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss,' and 'Hmm… nice to meet you…' are said at the same time.
Hitomi laughs under her breath and shakes her head, wondering if appeasing her friend won't cost her more in desserts than she'll be able to give her during her lifetime.
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They pick a wooden bench to sit that's sheltered from the pleasant sun by the delicate leaves of a cherry tree.
By the time Hitomi finishes telling the whole story (with some occasional, almost monosyllabic comments courtesy of the king), Yukari sincerely tells herself that, hadn't Van appeared out of nowhere just like that to confirm it all, and hadn't that dragon been lurking around in the news some weeks ago, she probably would've thought her friend had too active an imagination. But what did she know, right?
'So, you think that Harry Potter might have been real too?' Yukari asks, halfway between serious and not.
Hitomi fixes her with a glare that translates as 'you should know better'.
'Sorry, sorry,' Yukari apologizes.
'Letting us out of your sight now?' Van asks, with a pleasant, mischievous smile.
Hitomi looks at him with a small blush and slight bewilderment, absolutely ignoring Yukari's knowing smirk in favor of the stark, totally unsettling realization that Van looks (and, taking into account that comment, sounds) kind of… older.
'Actually, Yukari…' Hitomi says, with a blush, knowing well that whatever she could say will never convince her friend that the reasons she wants to be alone with Van aren't those she is thinking of: 'Would you… could we… eh…'
'Yeah yeah, I'll leave you guys alone… Wouldn't want to see your smoochin' face, anyway,' Yukari says dismissively but with a wink, and, saying goodbye to Van as if he were another Amano and not the king of a country in another world, she expertly makes herself scarce in few seconds. Hitomi will never cease to admire her friend.
Once alone, Van mirrors Hitomi's shy smile with a fond one.
'It's good to see you again'.
'Yeah'.
'I missed you'.
'I missed you too…'
But before things get awkward(er), for example, before she starts asking about how's everything and everyone, Hitomi has the good sense of addressing the two most important issues: 'How come you're here, Van? And why do you look older?'
He smiles, and his smile soon becomes a low laugh. Now, he explains to her everything about Landy, the dragon sent out of hell to make his reign more extenuating than it is already, his theory about the dragons' seeming ability to cross between worlds, and the many months that had to go by until he got Landy to kind of agree to cross him over.
'Months?' she repeats, curiously. Van nods.
'Time on Earth and on Gaia must pass differently,' she comments, 'It's been… what… a month and a half, tops, since I returned.'
Van frowns, but it doesn't last for long. 'Well,' he says, nonchalantly, 'I guess my visits will come sooner to you than to me.'
She smiles. 'Do you think your dragon will want to take me to Gaia, some day?'
He shrugs. 'I don't know. It's a damned beast that can hardly be reasoned with. We could try, but you might be gone for weeks. I don't know.'
'Well, we'll think of something.'
'Yeah'.
Gosh. She makes him so sheepish. And she looks just as lovely as he remembers her, and her beautiful, soulful eyes glisten in the sunlight.
Well. Better seize the day, who knows when Landy might show its mug around wanting to return, huh?
Softly, regally, he stoops down and kisses her.
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Hitomi does come with Van to Fanelia, roughly an Earthean year later- or four and a half Fanelian years, which is as long as it takes the king to convince the dragon, by now rather plump because of the pampering it receives in the castle, and much tamer, to cross her over to Gaia. And only does Van suggest it to Hitomi after he has extracted all kinds of promises, oaths, and safeguards, that no harm at all will come to his future wife (not that Hitomi knows this particular, mind you), from the dragon. He actually suspects it is the confiding of this information in Landy the dragon what actually gets it to agree, because the creature really likes its king, in its very uniquely draconian way, and finds it only logical that it should like the (future) queen as well.
Besides, it makes it feel somehow special and privileged over all the other citizens of the kingdom, because as far as it knows, no one else knows that the king thinks of marriage. It makes it a weirdly chirpy, happy dragon with a secret.
Now, Hitomi and Van have kept in regular contact throughout the months/years, to the point in which she's eventually introduced him to her family officially as her boyfriend (he found it deeply amusing, and her family loved him), so she hardly notices Van's aging unless she dwells on how tall he's become, or how broad his shoulders are (much like Folken's). His clothes do change, though, proof of how seriously he takes his kingly duties. But that's about it.
However, when she opens her eyes in Gaia again, her hand still in doubtful contact with the spiky scales of the dragon, she does notice the passage of time. Fanelia's capital is still being rebuilt, but much of its former flair is restored, and as familiar faces come to greet her in the royal palace (all their mutual friends were told in advance of her very likely arrival), she has many surprises.
Merle is the prettiest 17-year-old she's ever seen, and Chid is now as tall as she; Dryden and Millerna have a daughter; and Selena, in equal parts kind and spunky, is hooked around Gaddeth's arm. Allen is surprisingly absent: his sister explains he is travelling around Gaia, like Balgus once did, in the hopes of becoming a swordsman so great he can rise to fill the spot his master left vacant, as one of the three greatest swordsmen on Gaia.
All the visitors have made sure to bring gifts and tokens, mostly food, though, from their respective lands, to Fanelia's famous royal dragon Landy. And to all who will listen, the Fanelian scholars swear, with great pride, that the occurrence of a Fanelian king having a dragon companion has not been recorded for centuries; so king Van lets them be, and doesn't even bother to correct them in how Landy is more of a nuisance than a companion, what with the constant judging and teasing and satirizing (… that only he can hear… or… rather… feel…).
Besides, the scholar's awe would most likely turn into something negative and ominously judgmental if they knew the truth.
The king painstakingly takes his time to explain to each of his guests that the dragon (he tactfully omits his usual expletives to refer to it: accursed, annoying, damned, among others…) is not to be messed with. He makes very sure to make it very clear. Accidents happen, however. Or, almost-happen. Like when Chid accidentally misses Merle, with whom he's playing catch, and hits the dragon with the hard leather ball they're using.
They tell the tale with blackened faces and clothes; and singed fur, in Merle's case.
Or when Gaddeth and Selena connivingly trick Dryden into actually proving how he's courageous enough to sneak up on the dragon and steal a scale. Dryden's bravado almost cost him a hand- the dragon might be a shadow of friendly, compared to other dragons, but it is in no way tame.
Van knows, although he does not share this knowlegde with the rest, that it will only suffer its king, (and occasionally its unknowing future queen,) to come within a hand's distance. He doesn't say it because he's sure they would want him to demonstrate it, and, come on, he's the king, he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. And he's actually not so sure the dragon would cooperate if it knew they were making a spectacle out of it.
It's got its codes, this dragon. The only one allowed to make a spectacle out of it, is itself.
… and only when, if, the king is around. Otherwise it's a very serious and respectable and menacing dragon.
Thank you, very much.
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Hitomi stays in Gaia over a month. And, indeed, when she returns to her world, barely a week has passed.
.
.
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The king keeps visiting once a month, but Hitomi's next return to Gaia happens one Earthean year later, once she's finished school. She tells her parents she's going with friends to a summer camp, and then stays in Gaia a whole Gaian year- where she is constantly busy helping with the reparations in the city, in the castle, in the forest villages, and lending a hand to practically anyone that needs a hand.
She also visits Asturia, where Queen Eries makes very sure there is no good thing left in her kingdom that she has not tried or experienced; and Dryden and Millerna's island mansion, that is some kind of unimaginable tropical paradise where all she does is swim in the crystalline waters with Millerna and her daughter and the local school of mermaids. When she decides to visit the kingdom of Freid, she is air-ferried there in the Crusade, now whimsically co-piloted by Gaddeth and Selena. And in Freid she is shown around by a very charming teenage Chid on something she can only describe as a breed between horses, leopards, and elephants. Despite the enslaving call of his kingly duties, sometimes, Van comes with her. They find that the longer amount of time they spend together, the better they like each-other, and they clash less when they begin to learn when to give each other space.
Not seeing why not, and pulling together his courage, (something he's really good at) king Van asks Hitomi to marry him exactly two minutes before she returns to the Mystic Moon.
'And you're telling me this now?' she exclaims, more bewildered at the timing than at the proposal.
'Yeah, well… think it over!'
And then, Landy, in complete and shameless connivance with its king, crosses her over and that's that.
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When, about a week later, Van shows himself again on the Mystic Moon, Hitomi, all annoyance at him mollified by the passage of time, is waiting for him with open arms and a suitcase.
'Are you sure you're coming with me just like that? What about your family?'
'Well, they know you already, and I promised I'll visit. Shall we go?'
The kind smiles and shakes his head.
.
.
The time until the wedding passes in a blur of preparations, excitement, Merle bossing everyone around and being shrewdly competent in doing so, and, somewhere close to the wedding date, someone's stealing from the royal kitchens. It turns out to be Selena, who is sneaking out food to Landy the very pampered dragon.
No one is really surprised to see those two kind of get along.
Sometimes, it even seems as though they were pranking people together. King Van suppresses a shudder at the thought and decides he'll turn a blind eye to all of that… unless something ends up getting burned.
Like everything in life, the day of the wedding ceremony arrives, eventually. Van and Hitomi find themselves wearing really fancy clothes and standing on a platform, decorated in the stately yet Spartan Fanelian way, and being the center of attention of an amazingly numerous concentration of people that crowd all the expanse of the courtyard that is not cleared and guarded for the ceremony.
Everyone is present, and everything is in place, and the minister is drawing breath to start speaking, when the king serenely raises a hand to stop him: he insists the wedding will not commence until the dragon, who, regardless of its being an annoying, overglorified reptile, has made it all possible, is present.
And thus is the wedding ceremony delayed about half an hour, during which the foreign dignitaries' discomfort becomes the king's secret amusement, until a familiar flapping of wings marks the arrival of the heavy dragon.
Together with an almost unbearable stench, that is generically gut-wrenching to everyone but the kitchen staff and the king, who can identify very well the stench of what it precisely is.
Not surprisingly, only the king is bewildered, rather than sickened: even the radiant queen-to-be looks at his surprised face with heavy skepticism.
Landy the land dragon, having landed in the middle of the ample courtyard, makes it tremble with its weight as it takes reverent step after reverent step, carrying the whole rotten carcass of the largest rivershark anyone present has ever seen, (It is so large, that some Fanelians present swear off bathing in a river ever again…) flooding the whole place with its nauseating stench.
The royal guard rise their weapons in tandem against this heavily non-protocolar interruption of a ceremony of such magnitude and relevance, but king Van, with a regal, discreet movement of his hand, tells them to lower them.
The dragon places its strange offering at a respectful distance from the royal couple, and bows its long neck and head. In its draconian way, it's making a reverence.
Everyone present holds their breaths and look on: there is no one who doesn't realize that something very, very transcendental is taking place.
The king smiles, and shakes his head, finally understanding it all. Offering a reassuring side-glance to his soon-to-be wife, he turns to the minister conducting the ceremony, and tells him to continue.
Some people gasp, some gag because of the smell, but, really, that's not of Van's concern. And few realize that, surreptitiously perched on the tops of towers, roofs, and hidden in trees, many other dragons from the valley have come to behold the ceremony. And, those who realize, say nothing; and when Dryden tries to, he's silenced by an elbow to the ribs, courtesy of his far tactfuller wife.
When every formula is read, every vow is exchanged, every symbolic gift delivered, and the minister deigns to finish his seemingly endless sermon, Van and Hitomi kiss, and the whole kingdom cheers. They smile at one another- 'Well, that's that,' they seem to say with their eyes.
As per tradition, an elderly thrush of the wolf tribe begins to sing Fanelian songs afterwards. But, contrary to tradition, no one ventures anywhere near the king and queen to congratulate them as long as the Landy the dragon (and its smelly offering, gift, or whatever it is) remains at such a close range.
(If anyone cared to, or, actually, could, catch onto the feelings of the dragons that are in attendance, they would see how they are greatly amused at this all- dragons have, after all, a very peculiar sense of humor.)
'I've got to take care of this,' Van says to Hitomi, kisses her deeply once more, and then climbs the few steps down the platform, side-steps the unfortunate rivershark's carcass, and comes to stop at an arm's distance from the dragon.
It rises its head, after so long of keeping it bent, and with humor in its amber reptile eyes, regards Van. Van, again, shakes his head with a smile.
'You're one slimy bastard,' he says, so quietly only the dragon can hear him, 'You could've done this at a less dramatic moment.'
Where would the fun in that be? the dragon's entertained eyes seem to tell him, Besides, I thought you'd like your subjects to see just how well you get along with the dragon tribe, Dragon King.
Van grins, and, reaching out, places his hand on Landy the dragon's muzzle.
The collective gasp is very audible.
He'd have never suspected, all those years ago, when he tried to lure a troublesome dragon out of the razed city they were trying to rebuild with a chunk of rotting rivershark fin that was lying around, that, for dragons, rivershark is a token of friendship.
Well, and see how it paid off, too: with the woman of his dreams as his wife, and the goodwill of an untamable tribe of ruthless wild reptiles, and the personal friendship of pesky, yet fearsomely loyal dragon.
They certainly looked to Van to be all the makings of a 'happily ever after'. Yeah, Folken would've been proud of him.
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The End
(... and, yes, they lived happily ever after)
Author's Note:
I would've wished that Folken could've been there!
That I've been kind to Allen shows how magnanimous my heart is.
Please, drop me a review! This story is the apple of my eyes :D