Disclaimer: The Escaflowne TV series and film and all other related merchandise belong to Sunrise inc. except for this fanfic and Ashitaka! Mwahahah! I only wish I could own Folken-sama and Dilandau-sama TT
A/N: Apologies to all! Sorry I haven't updated for ages, but I've been busy with my schoolwork. I'm afraid I can't guarantee a weekly or bi-weekly etc. update, I'll just have to update whenever I can.
Thankyou all for your reviews as well
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Van sat in quiet contemplation. All he could think about was her, and that dream. He missed beyond belief and he needed her with him.
Van wore a sad look on his face. He was still staring at the pink gem in his hand, wishing, praying for that pillar of light to appear and bring back to him what he most cherished.
Merle walked past the throne room as she continued her search for Van. She stopped briefly and looked inside the immense room and her eyes met with the dejected, young Fanelian King.
Merle sighed. She slowly walked into the room and stood before the King in the hopes of seeing his expression change.
"Oh Van-sama, if you keep that look on your face for much longer, it'll stay like that!" Merle scolded him. She hoped he would give some ort of reaction. He could give a look that said told her she was over-stepping her bounds by teasing him like this. He could scold her for being rude. He could even hit her over the head for saying such things, but nothing. He slowly looked up at Merle, still maintaining his pained expression. He got up, and left, leaving a bewildered Merle alone in the throne room.
Merle decided to follow Van for most of the day to see if he got any better. Merle was deeply concerned for her Van-sama; she hadn't ever seen him like this. It all started a few weeks after Hitomi had left and he didn't seem to perk up over anything. He showed little enthusiasm in the re-building of his kingdom and even Guymelef tournaments, which he used to love fighting in or just watching, did nothing for him any more.
When she decided that Van wasn't going to improve that day, she decided to take matters into her own hands, Merle started work on her plan…
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As Hitomi and Yukari neared the track, a sixteen-year-old boy with medium length, messy, dark brown hair caught sight of them and smiled as his deep blue eyes lit up a little, in the hope that Hitomi would return the warm greeting. Ashitaka had always liked Hitomi at a distance, he had had a crush on her for as long as he could remember and envied Amano, his older brother because of Hitomi's crush on him. He had known that Hitomi had been miserable a lot of the time lately, and Ashitaka was starting to think that maybe it was his fault somehow. Before they had started going out, she had seemed so full of life. Full of a kind of infectious energy whenever she was happy and he had admired that in Hitomi, but now…it was as if she lost that part of her somehow. He had been seeing for 3 months now, and even though she had improved recently, or so he heard from Yukari, she'd been really distant today. He hoped to make her feel better…
"Come on Kanzaki! You've been late every track meet for the last 2 weeks! You keep this up and you'll be off the team…and we'd all know what a great loss that'd be…" with that, he winked at Hitomi to provoke a reaction.
Hitomi perked up a little with the sound of Ashitaka's voice in her ears. He had been the only thing that he kept her as happy, or even remotely as her old self recently.
Hitomi playfully hit Ashitaka on the arm and then hugged him. After a few minutes, she hesitated and then broke the embrace. She still felt a little guilty whenever she was like this with someone else. Whenever she showed some sort of affection with Ashitaka, they hadn't had their first kiss yet, but she wasn't so sure she wanted to have it either. All she thought of was Van's face from the dream last night, now and felt a pang of guilt. She tried to hide this from her friends, so she ignored the feeling for now, smiled and made her way to the track…
A/N: ok sorry this one's a lot shorter, but I haven't had a lot of time recently. I'm supposed to be doing homework right now but I needed to get some of this done too XD
Sayonara! R&R please!
