A/N: New story! Hope you like it!! I don't own Escaflowne.

Thoughts are in Italics, exept for the story at the begining.

The Tempest

The sun stood high in the sky, warming the earth. A light breeze whistled through the long grass and the few trees of a wide, peaceful meadow.

On a little hill in the middle of the meadow sat a group of young people, each of them was dressed in a white robe with the hood covering their faces. They had all gathered around an elderly woman, who fondly smiled down at them. She closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh, clean air. Everything was so peaceful! But slowly she opened her dark purple eyes again and her words were carried with the wind:

A long time ago, longer than man can remember, Gaea was at war.

It was a horrible war, hundred thousands died, women and children were tortured and slaughtered. Villages were robbed and burnt, blood was on every man's hand. Fathers were killed by sons and mothers stabbed their daughters. Sadness and despair covered Gaea, there was not a night without screams and cries.

Until one day the most powerful and wisest sorcerers of all Gaea came together to stop the terrible battles and bring peace upon Gaea again.

They were thirteen, one from each country, their names are long forgotten. But their united powers ended the war. After the last battle the sorcerers banned their powers into a stone and sealed it into mountains far away and unreachable, so none of them could use their powers to harm Gaea and bring destruction again.

Peace was brought upon Gaea for many years and people forgot about the stone, the sorcerers and the war.

The woman's eyes sifted away from the youths and stared at the horizon.

However, one day the time of peace will end and an even bloodier and colder war will start again. An oracle foretold that an ancestor of one of the thirteen sorcerers will find the sealed stone and blinded by its power, he will try to rule over Gaea, with him as the ultimate ruler. With every fiber of his being he will try to get to his goal and fight everyone in his way!

The woman looked at her students again. Her gaze filled with deep sadness.

The time of the peace has ended. The prophecy has fulfilled itself, the Great Gaean war has begun.


A loud scream echoed through the woods followed by more bloody cries and soon fire flared up in the sky.

That night the first innocent lives were taken by the war. It was a little village at the outside of Basram, bordering the dark kingdom of Zaibach.
A young woman bolted out of her bed with a little scream, her green eyes wide open in shock and beads of sweat stood on her forehead. Her slender hands clung to the white bed sheets painfully. Her breathing was heavy and fast.

She slowly reached up to her forehead and rested her head.

"What was that?", she asked out loud, exhaustion heavy in her voice. It couldn't have been a vision, could it? She had never had visions before in her life! But it felt so real! It felt as if she was right there in the middle of that little village, seeing those poor people die. She even felt the immense heat of the fire burning her skin.

The woman's breathing slowed down a bit as she carefully got out of her bed. Her bare feet touched the soft carpeted floor and her long night grown fell around her ankles. Still in grief she grabbed her heavy house coat and quickly put it on her slender form.

She walked over to the door that led out to the long hallway. She slowly cracked the door open, she didn't want anybody to wake up. The hallway was barely lit by the burning candles hanging from the walls, their dark holders were almost invisible to the eye.

The young woman walked down the hallway without paying attention, but she didn't need to. She had walked these halls since she was eight, she could walk them with eyes closed.

Lost in thoughts she quickly reached the huge oak door leading to the kitchen. She absently got out a wooden cup and filled it with water, not even noticing the other person in the room.

Her mind was set on her dream, or better nightmare. She tried to convince herself that it was just a dream, she couldn't have visions. It was just not possible!

"I don't have the powers to have visions!", she set the empty cup angrily down on the table.

"What did you say Hitomi?"

Hitomi quickly jumped and turned around, her eyes met dark brown ones. The other young woman came out of the food storage cabinet with a roasted chicken-leg in her mouth and another one in her hand. Her shoulder length brownish red hair was a little out of place, probably from sleeping. But apart from that she looked wide awake.

"Yukari!!!! You startled me!!! Can't you say that you are here!?! And what are you doing?!", Hitomi cried angrily.

"Ohh Hitomi", she waved with one of the chicken legs, "Don't act like that. I was here first, so you should have said something. And I am eating, I got a little hungry and I remembered the roasted chicken we had tonight so I just got some. So! Now tell me what you are doing here". Yukari eyed her friend, her long sandy blond hair was tangled and stood to all sides, her cheeks looked flushed. Yukari could tell something had happened, the look in Hitomi's eyes told her. She had known Hitomi since the sandy blond arrived here in the temple at eight, Yukari had shown her around and since that day they were best friends.

"Besides, what did you say about visions or so?"

Hitomi watched her feet, "I-I don't know. I had this dream, but it felt so real. I was in this village and everything was quiet and peaceful, until suddenly a burning arrow whistled through the air. It set one of the houses on fire and then everything went so fast, people came out of their houses screaming and man came from the woods, killing villagers and robbing houses. I could feel the heat of the fire, but then I suddenly woke up", Hitomi looked at her best friend, "I don't know what it was."

Yukari watched her friend a long time in deep concentration. She knew this dream or vision troubled Hitomi greatly. But it couldn't be possible,... could it? She began carefully: "Hitomi, I don't want to hurt you or anything, but-but visions aren't in your power. You are a great archer and sword fighter, probably the best here, but you have to admit that your magical powers aren't- are ", Yukari was searching for the right words, "not your real strength." She saw her friend lowering her head, she hoped she hadn't hurt her.

She was right, magic isn't my strength. She remembered when she arrived here at the Iovi temple. People who came to this temple had special powers within them, they were selected to come here to learn how to control their gifts and to develop them.

She came here because of her mother, she had been one of the strongest seers and sorceresses in Gaea and lived here in this temple until she met Hitomi's father. They moved together into a nearby village and lived happy, especially when Hitomi was born. But their happiness didn't last long, as when Hitomi turned eight her mother got very sick and soon passed away. Her father turned into an empty shell, he didn't enjoy life anymore. He loved Hitomi, but he couldn't get over his beloved wife's death. So his decision was to send his daughter to the Iovi temple.

They took her with open arms, because they thought she possessed powers like her mother, although her father was a normal human.

But she was a disappointment.

She couldn't even use the easiest spells, nothing would work. All the other kids called her names and wanted to have nothing to do with her, except for Yukari. But that wasn't enough, after two years she wanted to go home and live with her father. However, he passed away only one week before Hitomi wanted to go home again. She had been devastated, her beloved father had died and she had no other place to go to than the temple. So she started training. If her magical powers wouldn't work she would learn how to use the bow and the sword better than anybody.

And she did!

She was better than every man and woman in the temple and around. Now, ten years after she first arrived, she felt at home here. She found more friends here and got along with everybody. She loved the wide fields and woods surrounding the temple.

And the best, she even learned some spells. They were very simple and nothing special and she would never be as good as Yukari or some of her other friends, who she looked up to as they performed their tricks or trained in the gardens. She sometimes longed to be like them, but she had to live with it. Besides she was only eighteen and would maybe learn a little bit more.

Yukari felt bad for her friend, she knew that it hurt Hitomi that she wasn't a magician like the others were. But she was a wonderful person, kind and caring and humorous. Hitomi was a great friend, she had always been there for her, it didn't matter if she talked about her latest crush or if she was mad at her teacher for yelling at her. Hitomi always listened and tried to comfort her. She hoped that she was as good a friend to Hitomi as she was to her.

And now her friend needed cheering up. A mischievous grin spread on Yukari's face. "So Hitomi, I think you have been lying to me." Hitomi's head shot up in astonishment. The grin on the red hair's face widened as she continued, "I mean your hair is all messed up, your night gown wrinkled and your face was flushed... I think you had a passionate dream about Amano again, right?"

The other girl's eyes widened and her face reddened immediately: "N-No, no! I-I never had a dream about Amano. What are you thinking?"

Yukari had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing," Oh Hitomi, don't lie to me! I know that you like him and think that he's 'Ohhh sooooo hot'", she mockingly waved air into her face, "I think you should talk to him, or ... do you want me to do that? Right tomorrow morning, I'm going to tell him everything, about your dreams and your wedding plans for the two of you and- "

She could end her sentence, because an angry Hitomi lunged at her: "You little liar! You wouldn't dare.."

"Try me!" And a wildly giggling Yukari ran out of the kitchen into the hallway.

"You!!" With that Hitomi was sprinting after her, shaking her fist at her friend's laughing form.
A/N: First chapter done!!!!! The story doesn't really have to do anything with Shakespeare. But I liked the title and it suites the story. Hope you like it! I try to update as soon as possible, but first I try to finish 'In Disguise'. I know, I haven't updated in ten months soooo I think I need to! PLEASE REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!!!

Read you next time,

Little fairy