Author's Gibberish: Well hello there! No this isn't another chapter for R&R, that's coming along soon, trust me. I've been wanting to do another one of these companion fictions for a while. Basically, it's a few short scenes that might have occurred during the series, and a few that might have happened after the ending that left most of us so unfulfilled.
Thank you again to all my wonderful reviewers, and my fantastic beta reader Kinyo. Please feel free to respond with constructive criticisms or general comments.
Tawnyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Get that? Nothing. I'm legally incapable of owning anything. In truth, my parents own me.
"Say, ahhh…Van?" Hitomi was all conflicting innocence and curiosity as she lay next to him beneath Escaflowne. She had given up on being eloquent, her mind too busy with battling down her own nerves. "You've never really told me about your parents."
He frowns-starring at the trees and stars above that seem to wink like perverts sticking their noses into everyone's business-and she thinks she's asked too much. But then a smile spreads across his face: a boyish grin that makes him look as a fifteen-year-old boy should, and turns to face her. There's something that goes unsaid as the boy-king starts to speak, and Hitomi has a feeling she knows what it is.
'Probably because you've never really asked.'
.:.
He hated that stupid knight with his stupid girly, blonde hair and his stupid good looks and his stupid everything.
Van hated how the womanizing member of the Knight Caeli had wrapped his arm around Hitomi, kissed her cheek, and passed her off as something impure. Really, he hated himself for not coming up with a way out of Dilandau's keen eye, and how the older man seemed so quick to save the day.
There was a knock, and Van couldn't stop that brunt of his frustration from showing it's self. "What?"
"Say, ahh…" They paused for too long, and Van was quick to cut the person off as they spoke to each other through the door. It didn't really matter that the voice seemed kind of familiar.
"What is it?" He spoke too gruffly, too loudly, and winced. Where had the years of gentlemanly training gone?
"Geez, I just came up to get you for dinner, don't bite my head off!" They left, whoever it was, and Van found himself going to the door as quickly as he could without tripping. As the door swung open, he caught a glimpse of pink dashing around the corner.
Hitomi. He'd screwed up. Again.
'Damn it.'
.:.
She looked down at the pink dress Millerna's maid helped her put on gave a 'tsk.'
Pink was never really her color of choice, and it seemed disgustingly cliché that it was-apparently-the princess's favorite shade. It was like meeting the living version of Peach from the Mario games.
But they were all being kind, and she had seemed so excited picking out the garment, so Hitomi had accepted it without a word. Especially grateful now, when she ended up needing her voice for later.
The dress came along with other-far less comfortable-bits and pieces that the handmaiden had to help her get on before even attempting to fit into the slim-figured garment. Hitomi felt a little like she was playing dress up, trying to pass as something other than what she was. As the heavy cloth slipped over her head and her arms found the holes in the expensive fabric, Hitomi was feeling utterly dejected.
She didn't fit, didn't belong. Millerna, Van and Merle were simply humoring her-a pauper amongst an obscene amount of royalty-letting the alien girl do as she pleased so that they could get what they wanted.
It was stupid and; deep down, Hitomi knew it wasn't true. But she didn't want to think of that: she was alone on a planet that was not her own, homesick and traveling with Gaea's most anti-social King.
Most would be in hysterics right around that point, so Hitomi could forgive herself for being a little melodramatic.
She let out a sigh and slipped out the room, in search of something mildly entertaining. Some turned into the hall behind her, and opened a door after a few moments.
"Say, ahh… Hitomi?" She turned, finding Van and his cat-girl companion standing just in front of his rooms' door.
"Yes?"
His tanned face blushed red, and the King of Fanelia tuned his head away. "N-nothing."
She had to smile, "Ok, Van."
Maybe she was being too dramatic, and making a bad situation out of nothing. Or maybe she simply loved the glower Merle was giving her behind Van's back.
.:.
Van grimaced, searching the open field from the back of his black yerkle. The guards spoke in murmurs, peering around from behind him as if in search of a ghost.
There had been a beam of light, and it had been reported from multiple villagers that it had hit the field not two hours ago. But there were so many things that could have happened with in that time frame, and the muscles in Van's back strained painfully in stress.
He looked back, catching the eyes of the guard's highest- ranking officer. "Spread out and search for her in the field and into the forest. Keep them within calling distance of the first line of trees."
Really, the last thing they needed to do was upset some creature in the forest, the home of Fanelia's dragon population. Soldiers did not need to be lost, and waking some animal would put her greater danger.
Van joined them, taking to the forest with a section of the troop. He was too tense to be much good, but an extra set of eyes could only help. Calls of "Lady Hitomi!" and "Seeress!" sounded about the field.
"Hitomi!" The sound died quickly, not going far against the trees that only multiplied in number the deeper he went. The noon sun was setting all too quickly.
They had to pull out when it became too dark and too dangerous to continue. Van fought back the sting of frustrated tears that stayed hidden in the dark, angry and terrified that the one person he had grown so close to had been spirited away.
Luckily, the soldiers stayed as far away as their duty would permit, and Van did not feel the urge to chase them off with a childish fit of temper. Something about Hitomi made him want to act like a fifteen-ear-old all over again, instead of a matured King of twenty.
A stable boy removed his yerkle in the stables, and Van was off to his own rooms in a moment. It was very, very late, and he was upset and tired and frustrated. He was stopped though, by a very odd figure that stood in his way.
Green eye looked up, glinting and bright with a devious smile that said she had been at the castle the entire time. "Say, ahhh… are you looking for something?"
Van had never known that you could both hate and love someone so much from one simple phrase.
.:.
The evening was oddly cold for Fanelia, and Hitomi rubbed at her bare arms. The stars were clear, and she could hear the sound of some kind of insect from the gardens. It was beautiful.
But it wasn't pretty enough to distract her from the terribly cold breeze that somehow found any available part of her body to chill. Van grimaced, watching as the King of the surrounded lands starred out at the twinkling lights of the capital city.
Why on Gaea were they out there? She had been perfectly content sitting in the library with him, snuggled in front of a fire as he told her stories that had been told during his childhood. It had been a beautiful evening, uninterrupted by any servant or messenger.
"Say, ahh… Van?" He stiffened, and Hitomi wondered at how easily stressed her King was. "What are we doing out here?"
He made a sound like a grunt, and bent forward into the marble railing. There was a moment of tense confusion, but his face was suddenly determined and ready in the lamplight. The words, those wonderful words that made her take a step back, came out in a jumble that tossed itself at her feet. "Hitomi, will you marry me?"
Van didn't kneel-she had never expected him to-but turned to her and held out his hand, face and stance open and beseeching. She shook herself and took it, pulling herself close and smiling through her nerves.
"Yes, of course!"
He smiled back and kissed her lips before burying his head in her shoulder with a sigh of relief. It sparked something in Hitomi's gut, and she had to push him away. "You idiot, did you think I was actually going to say no?"
She knew he hated it when someone called him names, but for some reason it only made him grin, grabbing her hand and slipping the ring-a silver dragon biting its own tail with gemstone eyes-about her finger.