I rarely work with pop culture references, but I'll give it a go today, I think it might be worth it.
The idea for this fic came while I was waxing my legs. What can I say.
.
.
.
Home that our feet may leave
(but not our hearts)
.
The first time it dawns on her, she's writing a history paper about the progression of the Trojan war from a literary epic to an actual historical event.
It's a subject she knows well, her essay flows with her usual neat precision, until, innocently, she notices she has posed herself a peculiar question in the last paragraph, whose answer will be the golden brooch to her conclusion: and why could Schliemann find the ruins of Troy?
The pen stops, her eyes see things that are not there: pillars, staircases, marble-colored ruins and thriving vegetation, all glimmering under a sky that is forever-blue. Atlantis' ruins, presumed to be underwater, never found because they simply aren't there.
Suddenly, the tip of her pen holds many possible answers. She is tempted to write out the one she would like to read, but there's a time and a place for everything.
Instead, she writes that, undoubtedly, the ruins of Troy could be found because Troy actually existed.
The second time it dawns on her, she doesn't know whether it really counts, because she was drunk- but, given that she can still remember it, she supposes it must count.
She's having a sleepover with two other girl friends in the university campus; late-Saturday night in pajamas eating ice-cream, watching a marathon of Studio Ghibli's classics. They make it through Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and two beers and one bottle of gin-tonic. At the end of Spirited Away, the count adds also a bottle of piña colada. And one of the girls poses the question:
'Why would Chihiro ever choose to leave him? I mean, hot river dragon god you're in love with?'
Glass of piña colada in hand, both her friends agree on that. She would have too, exactly 4.5 years ago. But now, she knows better, she knows why.
Because Chihiro had to tie all her lose ends on the other side, because the next time they meet she'll go back with him forever. It's about goodbyes and ever-afters.
When her friends look at her with their eyes that say that they want her opinion, she says: 'Maybe she just knows she'll see him again.'
'Aw, come on, how could she know that?'
'Maybe she just knows.'
She and Yukari keep in touch, virtually, mostly, because Yukari's university is in Kioto. They have this religious habit of liking each other's every single facebook or instagram picture. It almost feels as if she'd never gone away.
It's a late Tuesday after a track-training session when, flicking through her phone, she sees Yukari's tagged her on a post- a blurry picture (which she must have taken in her artfully sneaky way) of a guy in the subway, looking Okinawan or southern from the tan skin and the wiry hair, wearing a red shirt and khaki cargoes:
Hitomi – Looks familiar? ;)
She is surprised to notice she's mildly annoyed: they guy doesn't look familiar at all, but she knows where Yukari's coming from: though they never speak about it directly, she knows Yukari never forgot that particular event that spirited her best friend away for nearly a whole week (measured in Earth time, of course). They have sometimes discussed the dragon and the dragon hunter, but Hitomi can't blame her friend for not knowing things she hasn't ever told her. Like how, ever since, she's been counting the seconds…
She shakes herself off the frown and the melancholy sigh, but doesn't reply anything. She googles up some geeky random image of a dragon instead, puts it up, and tags Yukari:
Yukari – No more than this guy!
A tiny smile appears on her face. Yukari is sure to find it funny, leave it to her to make fond memories of memories that are filled with nostalgia instead.
She's got a 'Bucket List of Things to do on Earth'.
In reality, it's pretty short: graduate university, live a month in a Buddhist temple, learn basic mechanics, and get as many recipes crammed inside her recipe book as is physically possible.
It doesn't include getting kissed, but it regrettably happened in a party right before she finished high school. It doesn't include blowing bubbles from the top of Tokyo tower cosplaying as Sakura Card Captor, either, but that happened once, too. Neither does it include getting a driver's license, getting mistaken for a lesbian in a public restroom, nor getting food poisoning from stale salmon on her 23rd birthday nigiri, but those things also happened along the way.
It's the end of the summer now, and, waving goodbye at a row of serene monks, her soul in peace, it dawns on her: when she graduates university, next fall, that'll be it.
The beautiful temple, with its venerable eaves that have withstood the centuries, and grandfather oaks that must be rooted to the heart of the Earth, is left behind slowly, as she walks the way back home.
One day, probably, she'll walk away from her home just like this.
Are you still so certain of going? a voice in her head asks.
She smiles.
Yes. Yes, I am.
There was never really any doubt.
The night immediately after the night she graduates, she makes a long, lonely hike to a far-away lake, where she makes a huge fire from her university books and pinecones. The bright tongues of flame lick their way up to the sky, where they look as bright as the stars. Beautiful, cleansing fire.
She started it with her deck of tarot cards.
There is one last thing she becomes aware of, as she sits by the warm, warm fire, heart beating and cheeks glowing: that's it.
There's a note on her bed explaining everything to whomever wishes to believe her, and all she's got is the clothes she's wearing and a heart that's a wishing well.
So, she smiles, a smile that has been on the making for eight years now, and gathers her courage. She doesn't really need to say anything: a bright light and a violent wind flood the place and put out the fire; and when they die down, a short-haired girl starts to walk on the cobbled streets of Fanelia rebuilt.
.
.
.
A/N:
I needed to write this. It's a break from my usual gloomish style but I needed to see personally to Hitomi's return to Gaia.
However, writing this raised some thoughts, like:
- Since traffic between the Earth and Gaia was always shown involving a dragon/energist/etc, does that mean that dragons can travel between worlds? 'Cause that would be so cool.
- Escaflowne is an alternate version of Spirited Away.
- I don't understand how Van and Hitomi make such an attractive couple, when they've not got too much going for them in the chemistry department, huh. Mystery.
Update: fixed the horribly horrible summary.
Update: now actively working on that universe-crossing dragon fic.