I, um, do not own the copyright to Escaflowne. You knew that.

I wanted to write a continuation fic, but not a typical one. I realize that Van and Selena falling in love is nearly as cliche as Hitomi returning to save Gaea from a new great evil, but bear with me. It will be worth it, if you can stand the overwhelming angst of it all, and a lot of overbearing dialogue. There is going to be extremely little development of actual plot in this (as with practically everything I write), and more delving into the actual characters.

I don't know how often I'll update this. I'm currently working on a lot of projects (short attention span), and I want to get this done with quickly before I stop caring and neglect it. If you're wondering why all of my other fics are oneshots, that would be the reason. Anyway, I'm sorry to babble so much, and on with the story!

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She walked on the horizon of the setting sun, the last dying rays beneath her feet, shining through her filmy dress to silhouette her thighs, her face a profile against the red of sky and heart. It was painfully clear to him how beautiful she was then, hair engaged in the brisk winds of this valley, dress blown back with modest yet complete abandon, toes arched stiff against the rail of the bridge as she took perfectly precise steps along the way. She never faltered, which put him ill at ease; her eerie solidarity let him know that she could not possibly be, not really, the girl her brother claimed she was.

He saw the creature in her that he'd feared, since Allen Schezar's sister arrived, would manifest itself in her form. Those elegant eyes burned somewhere out of normal view, somewhere the naked retina strained to venture but Van Fanel's careful scientific observation revealed. And she was beautiful.

"Selena," he said, wooden as the plank she balanced upon.

She looked at him, eyes transparent to reveal the spectacle of burning sky behind her, or was that in his imagination? She blinked, killing the day to start a fresh era anew, and her eyes were clear once more, smooth as moon. "My brother sent you for me."

She did not sound like him.

"Allen's been worried about you."

"I won't get lost." Delicately, gingerly, she perched upon the rail, lowering herself to a seated position with perfect composure. The stream sparkled beneath her, clear enough to reveal the smooth stones of cool hues beneath, mirroring the advancing night. He thought he saw the stars in them where the broken reflection of her white skin played upon the surface of the rocks. Even now, as she was, the vessel of Dilandau Albatou was incompatible with water.

Van said nothing in reply. The moons were beginning to rise, behind them, bringing with it the habitual night-time whispers that haunted his mind, back at first then prominent in the forefront. He managed to forget, in daylight, as if the heat of the Fanelian sun upon the reconstruction burned all memory of the green-eyed girl away; when the chill of a valley night returned, the cycle began again to wreak havoc on his senses. Selena was beautiful, but with none of the mysterious allure of the Phantom Moon.

She saw him staring at it, and she laughed, not his laugh. "You still love her?" Merely an assenting grunt answered her, and Selena observed, unsympathetically, "She's all that Allen talks about. I can't imagine what was so wonderful about her that everyone fell for."

"It's because she was kind to everyone. Even Folken, when none of us dared to trust him but her. She was amazing." He leaned back upon the railing nearby her, still looking up at the face of the Earth. Green land for eyes, downy clouds for hair, water for substance, fluid, like Hitomi's compassion.

"She was, she did, and only good words to impart. You talk about her as if she'd died." Another laugh, and this one was his. "You may never see her again, but at least she's not dead." The gaze of Selena Schezar cut him levelly, straight through him with those dangerous eyes, her monotonous voice disturbing in the absence of vocal sorrow. "My fifteen boys really are gone. Though, to be fair, you didn't slaughter Miguel with the rest of them."

"You remember that?" Allen was always unclear about if she remembered anything before her reappearance, and insistent on the reality that his sister was not the same person the Captain of the Dragon Slayers had been, and that she never would be. That distortion of fact had been the reason Van agreed to allow Selena's presence in his nation, though he was uncertain about the danger to both of them should she still retain the slightest portion of Dilandau's essence.

"As well as I remember what you did to my face," she sighed, tiredly. "But the mark is gone now, and the scar would have faded even on the skin of that other destiny." A white-gloved finger delicately traced the familiar line of demarcation on the inner map of self-image; he'd spent hours gazing into mirrors, at glasses of wine, at anything which could reflect real and imagined flaws back to his carnation eyes, running gloved hands over the pattern, surely. Temple to jaw, temple to jaw, red and livid. Repeat.

"Do you still hate me?"

She surprised him by smiling as if at a jibe, carefully enunciating the single word, "No."

"Why not?"

Selena carefully stepped down, standing level beside him, their eyes at matching height. "I've changed since then. It was war, and that's what happens during a war. People kill other people and nations fall. Your nation fell, my people died. It was all either one of us could do. I realized that after Allen told me his censored version of the story. We both had responsibilities and our own loyalties. It hurts, but we weren't in control of it. Our fates were being tinkered with, besides."

Gooseflesh was rising on her skin, small inconsistencies appearing in her deceptively smooth flesh, and Van knew that it was not because of the dusk chill. Dilandau would never have allowed himself to shiver or flinch. "Allen said you didn't remember when you were...him. Allen thinks you and he are two completely different people. But you don't talk like that."

"I am not Dilandau anymore. Dilandau was deluded. Dilandau was vain. Dilandau believed in causes worth fighting for, even when they weren't. Dilandau could bear a difficult and solitary life. I'm disillusioned, need my brother to support me, and don't believe in anything anymore. I'm not Dilandau, but sometimes I wish I were."

"But you're the same person," Van stated.

"In the way you mean it, yes, I'm the same person. I've always remembered everything, but when the sorcerers' control on me began to loose hold, I was very confused and couldn't tell up from down, past from present. I couldn't explain my past to Allen at first if I tried, and I wasn't even sure where I was or what was happening. I was...scared."

He risked a glance in her direction again, and the sun was nearly gone, only a sliver of light illuminating the separate wild strands of blonde hair carried away freely in the cold breeze. "Why don't you tell Allen?"

"I let him believe what he wants to about me. It's easier for both of us if I can just start my life fresh, with him, as Selena. I made mistakes, but I regret them all. I don't want to be remembered for them, except, maybe, by you... I deserve that."

Van could think of no way to reply to her, though he wanted to protest. Her voice was flat, but the water in her narrowed eyes didn't lie. She wasn't made of the same substance as Dilandau anymore, couldn't be, because any tear that boy might cry would dry and sizzle before it left the fount. There was no source for water in his perpetual burning passions, but something had extinguished him and only this lost girl remained. Something was left of his obstinance in her, it seemed, for she did not cry. The tears in her eyes were only a reflection of the current she gazed upon beneath herself, a part of her she would not give up.

He did not need to think of a response, because Allen stumbled upon them, and fussing over the sister he didn't know, led Selena away. Van followed, curious, content to leave conversation to persons other than himself as they approached the palace.

"Selena, you know I worry when you wander off that way. Please let me keep you safe. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I lost you a second time."

She smiled, sadly, face framed by the oppression of the invading night, and she allowed him to coddle her for the sake of his chivalrous sanity. No words passed through those rosy lips, but instead remained trapped inside the cage of her gaze, fluttering and twittering but drained of energy and will; Allen could never look in the angle necessary to catch a glimpse of the emotion that struggled and died there.

Van could.

She glanced at him tiredly, too worn away and eroded to be vindictive, and looked away, serene, soft, and utterly silent.