"Eternity Dragon"

Chapter 1 - Remembrance

-:-

"I won't forget you, even when I'm old!"

"I promise, I'll never forget you!"

The young teen groaned softly, curling up on her bed and holding her pillow over her head. For months, now, that had been playing in her mind. "Why, oh why did I say that? Did I really mean… that I would never see him again?"

She had to see him in real life at least once more, right? If her life was like the fantasy that it now was… she would have to see him at least once more. To be in his arms… to truly tell him how she felt. And maybe… just maybe, a kiss? How could she not have kissed him before she left? She groaned again in regret as she tucked the pillow beneath her head once more.

But Van really everything she missed? No. There was Gaea and her great lands. Allen Schezar, Knight of Asturia, Millerna, Dryden, Prince Chid, Celena, who she had never really gotten to meet properly. Even Merle. How she missed it all.

Hitomi Kanzaki sighed, uncurling her body to lie back on her pillow and stare up at the dark ceiling of her room. She glanced briefly at the clock. 2:15. It was early morning and she still couldn't sleep. Not surprising, really. The loss of sleep wasn't new to her.

Only a few months had passed since she had taken her leave of Gaea. A few months? Seemed like a year…

The first few weeks were a blur now. Getting used to the other life. Life on the Mystic Moon… or, Earth, as it was now called. She had gone through multiple, hour long conversations with her two best friends, Amano and Yukari. Her fantastical story of the other world was hard to believe. But what else could have explained the beam of light? And the young boy they knew to be called Van and the white dragon he had taken Hitomi away on.

Van. Everything she thought about... always led her back to him. She had never really gotten used to the loss. Just when she had realized that she loved him… she had been sent back. It wasn't fair. But every so often, when the pain was unbearable, Van came to her in a brief vision. Smiling. The smile had always been returned. Always. But lately, that smile was forced. She couldn't help it anymore.

She missed him. That messy, hopeless black hair. His warm brown eyes. His wings. The smell… of fields. His rare smile and laugh. That stubborn personality.

"Oh, Van…" Hitomi sat up, resting her back on the wall that her bed was up against. Her arms wrapped loosely around her bent knees, she looked around her room. It brought back memories. How she had read her own fortune... if she would ever find true love. And how she saw The Tower of distant separation… The Ace of Serpents. And the vision from before of the dragon armor Escaflowne and being saved by a winged angel... which, at the time, she didn't realize was Van. Then came the beam of light and her summoning to Gaea. From there, her life was thrown into a dangerous adventure from which she emerged, changed. It sounded so much like a movie… or a fairy tale. It had taken many days of doubt, soul-searching, and questioning to convince herself that all that had happened had been real.

Those fateful cards now lay in a neat pile on her desk. She had given up tarot card reading but kept the cards to remind her herself. To never forget. "Not like that's possible…" She sighed softly, looking at her desk. As she concentrated, she felt a sudden pain in her stomach. Gasping, a vision obscured everything in sight.

There lay Van in a pile of blood. "MERLE! NO! You bastards…" A swift kick in the head by a shadowed figure silenced him.

Then the images changed to Escaflowne in its dragon form. Flying beside it was a black copy of the dragon armor. A black Escaflowne?

Hitomi gasped, looking around in shock. A woman then stood, shrouded in black. The only visible thing was blood dripping from her hands. Before her features became visible, she was replaced with Earth. Then, it all burned. The Earth, the girl, the Escaflowne's…

"No! VAN!" She gasped, the vision disappearing and bringing her back to reality. Another vision… she hadn't had images like these… since Gaea.

"What's… what's happening..!" Pressing a shaking hand to her forehead, she tried to bring the images to mind again, but she could make no sense of them. Van. Was Van really in trouble? Was Van dying? And what about Merle? And the black Escaflowne…Finding this to much for her, Hitomi sighed and lay her head back down on the pillow. What did it mean?

-:-

The next morning, Hitomi tired not to think about the vision she had had a few hours before and instead changed from her pajamas into jeans and a layered shirt. As she tossed her sleeping clothes onto her bed, she noticed something out of place. Her tarot cards were somewhat out of order. The top two cards had been swept off the pile. "Probably wind…"

She moved forward to fix up the stack when she noticed exactly what cards were out of order and now lay face up. Her hand drew back as her emerald eyes widened in shock and a weak gasp escaped her.

The Death card.

Again, The Tower.

"What… no…" She took in a shaky breath before looking down at the two cards, remembering her vision. "You're wrong. Van's not dead. He can't be… I would've felt it..." She pressed a hand to her chest where once, a while ago, her pendant hung. "… I would've felt it…"

As if in defiance, another card gently floated from the stack to reveal it's meaning.

The Ace of Serpents.

"No…" It was happening all over again. "No!" She grabbed all the cards, running out of her room past her confused mother and brother outside to where the garbage bin stood. Hitomi stood over it, holding the cards and breathing heavily. Not from running, but from emotion.

Just as she was about to toss the cards in, a noise distracted her. The sound of a door opening from the house over. She had gotten new neighbors recently but hadn't seen any of them. A girl her age with black-blue hair flowing down her back walked out. As she walked, in Hitomi's eyes, pure white wings spread from her back. Gaping, she continued to stare, but as soon as the image had appeared, the wings were gone and it left behind a simple girl that had just noticed Hitomi standing there.

It was awkward, the girl having caught Hitomi with reddened, angry cheeks holding a pile of cards over a trash bin and staring in shock at her. She smiled in a friendly matter and walked over to the fence that separated their two yards.

"Hi. What're you doing?" A paper bag in her hand showed that she had actually been going to her family's own garbage bin to take out the trash.

Hitomi blinked at her then hurriedly pulled her hands back, holding the tarot cards tightly in her trembling fingers. "Hi… oh, um… nothing…" She was still disturbed by the image of wings. Wings that resembled Van's. Draconian wings. A card fell from her hands and the girl instantly knelt to pick it up for her. Handing it back, she smiled, her large grey eyes piercing.

"It's the card of a hanged man. Here, you dropped it."

"Uh... thanks…"

The card of the hanged man? Not everything is what it seems? Hitomi hesitantly took the card, feeling strange sensations from this girl, who grinned and tossed her garbage in her bin.

"So why're you throwing your cards away? They look like they're in good condition."

"Well, I… I dunno."

"Oh well. It was nice meeting you." She smiled again and waved, leaving Hitomi shocked and still clutching at her cards. Then, still looking shocked, she turned and went back up to her house, calmly walking past her family that was eating breakfast and back up to her room. She dropped the cards down on her table and stared at them.

Who was that girl? And why… did she have wings?

The cards, the girl… what did it all mean?

-:-

The next day was school and the first class was History. Hitomi sat by her usual seat near the windows and Yukari was next to her, who was still babbling on excitedly about the tickets to a local concert Amano had bought for them. Hitomi was trying to pay attention but couldn't help but have her thoughts stray back to all that had happened the day before. She was suddenly jerked out of her daydreams and even Yukari paused in her rants to look to the front of classroom where a strange girl stood, looking somewhat nervous.

Hitomi gasped. There she was. Her new neighbor. The girl from before.

The professor stood and cleared his throat loudly, quieting the class.

"We have a new student today. This is Miss Harakei Hamano. She has just transferred from Tokyo to join us here today."

Harakei grinned slightly and bowed. "Pleased to meet you all."

The professor nodded and motioned to an empty seat in front of Hitomi. "Please take a sit by Miss Kanzaki, Hamano. Hitomi, raise your hand."

Hitomi, still somewhat dazed, obediently lifted her arm. Harakei nodded and walked forward, giving the shocked girl a small smile before sitting and the professor continued on with his lesson.

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. It turned out that Harakei had been placed in all of Hitomi's classes. Then Hitomi's lunch period began. She went outside and sat on the steps of her school to eat when she heard someone call her name. "Hitomi Kanzaki?'

Hitomi turned, blinking slightly. "Yes?"

Harakei stood there, looking slightly nervous. "Could I… sit with you?"

"Um... alright."

She smiled in relief, sitting down beside her. "Thank you."

"Your name's Harakei, isn't it?"

"Oh, that's my full name. Just call me Kei."

"Oh, Kei… alright." She nodded, looking at her to see wings again. She blinked, and as soon as they had appeared, they were gone. "Wings…"

Kei blinked. "What did you say?"

"Huh? Oh… nothing. The professor said you transferred from Tokyo?"

"Uh.. yeah. And now, as you can see, we're neighbors." The grey-eyed girl grinned.

Hitomi returned the grin rather weakly, turning back to her lunch. Her head was still swirling with that vision. She couldn't shake the thought that maybe… something had happened to Van. That he was in pain. And what about Merle? Van had called her name. Then there was the figure of the woman… and black Escaflowne? Bad things were going to happen…. Especially with those tarot card readings.

"Hitomi?"

She looked up sharply. "Eh.. yes?"

"Why were you throwing away those tarot cards yesterday?"

"Oh… a silly reason."

"I read tarot cards a little. That looked like a good deck."

"Yes, well… they mean a lot to me. I didn't throw them out after all…" The honey-browned haired girl laughed weakly.

Kei was about to say something when she accidentally knocked her knife off her lunch tray. With a sigh, she bent forward to pick it up. As she did so, the sleeve of her jacket pulled up and revealed a bracelet. Hitomi's eyes widened with shock and her breath caught in her chest. A pink stone hung from the chain. Just like her pendant.

"Where… where did you get that?"

"Hmm?" She stopped, looking at her wrist. "Oh, this? I dunno, when my parents adopted me, they said it had come with me. I usually wear it around my neck, but… I didn't feel like it today."

Hitomi still couldn't breathe. "Can I see it?"

"Oh, sure…" The girl held out her wrist to Hitomi, who in turn reached out to touch it.

As soon as her fingertips brushed the smooth surface, images suddenly filled her head. A field of flowers, a young woman with black hair laughing, the image of earth in the sky, wings, the pendant… then blood. Everywhere. Blood.

She gasped, staring at the pendant while Kei frowned in concern. "You ok, Hitomi?"

"I'm… I'm fine… I gotta go!" She stood, and without another word, she ran back into the school with Kei staring after her.

She ran, heading for the cafeteria where the only two people she could talk to were eating lunch.

What did it all mean? She couldn't get the images, the numerous questions, or the feeling of impending danger out of her head.

What did it all mean?