Title: Visions and Dreams, part 2
Series: Escaflowne
Pairing: Van x Hitomi; Van x Merle
AN: It's kind of a long story, but I was battling depression when I wrote both the first part of this fic and large chunks of this installment. For that reason, this chapter was almost impossible for me to go back and finish, as it reminds me of a very painful time (though I suspect the tone of both chapters might not reflect that). I'm taking some liberties with canon here, as the series doesn't really go into any detail about the biological possibility/probability of interspecies breeding between the beast people and humans (made even more complicated by the fact that Van is not fully human himself, but half-Draconian). Nor does it go into much detail about the social/racial/political structure of Gaea as a whole (there's "these two countries are supposed to be friends" mixed with "Zaibach's bad, mmmkay?" and a helping of "random country names not mentioned until grand climatic battle at end"). I guess what I'm trying to say is, I made some shit up. If it seems awkward or not fitting in with canon, let me know.
Disclaimer: Escaflowne is not mine. All characters are the property of the original creator(s). No profit is being made from this work.
His councilors were after him again, pressuring him to make a decision soon about his choice for a queen. After all, it had been ten years since he had assumed the throne of Fanelia right before the Zaibach invasion, and still no marriage—much less an heir to the throne—was in sight. It was making the councilors nervous. Most of them were sensible, well-meaning, and devoted to ensuring the good of the country. He wouldn't have appointed them if they were otherwise. That wasn't helping him now, though.
He knew that all of them would be shocked to know he'd already made his choice. In fact, had made it long ago. Somehow, somewhere in all the chaos that had begun with Zaibach's destruction of the capital of Fanelia, Van had lost his heart to the one girl he could never keep. Hitomi, the girl from the Mystic Moon, who had returned there after helping to save Gaea from self-destruction.
She had left behind her necklace-a token of her love for him, of their mutual promise never to forget that love. A necklace that he still wore; that had only rarely left his neck since she placed it there, and then only to replace the chain it hung from. For a while, the necklace had been his touchstone, providing tangible proof that the slender girl he'd fallen in love with truly existed.
It had also provided him with an unexpected link to her. He'd discovered shortly after she left that if he held the necklace and concentrated on her, sometimes he could see her, at least momentarily. It was fortunate that the connection worked only occasionally. Otherwise he might have spent all his time with his hand wrapped around the pendant, straining to reach her.
As hard as it was to be able to see her through the necklace-aided visions, the dreams were twenty times worse. He supposed it was Merle who saved his sanity—not to mention his kingship. Saved him from the dreams that were both comfort and torture with her constant presence.
He loved Merle, he truly did. He loved her for staying by his side through all these years, unwaveringly loyal, unhesitatingly helpful. He loved her for helping him rebuild Fanelia. He loved her for giving of herself unstintingly. Unfortunately, he wasn't in romantic love with her. His feelings had become a strange hodgepodge over the years, mutating into some not completely identifiable amalgam of affection mixed with the companionship of a shared lifetime and a genuine appreciation of her abilities. He loved her, yes. It was different from the love he'd shared with Hitomi—but love nonetheless. They both knew, and accepted, that if Hitomi were to reappear in Van's life, he would choose to be with her. How could he not? But that didn't negate the feelings he had for Merle, built on the foundation of years—years he hadn't spent with Hitomi.
He remembered how horrified he'd been the first time he'd woken up with Merle in his bed. Horrified because, for just a moment when he'd woken to the feel of a warm female body next to his, he'd thought it was Hitomi—and when he realized it wasn't, he'd almost broken down into tears.
He hadn't wanted to use Merle like that, but she'd insisted. Rumors had started flying about his possible mental instability—people hearing noises from his room, half a conversation to a nonexistent person—he'd almost had no choice but to acquiesce.
He asked her about it once, after one of the more intense dreams. They were still lying together, Merle's head on his chest. Her hand stroked down his arm, still damp from their earlier exertion.
"I thought you hated Hitomi, Merle!"
"Well, she was a rival for your affections, Lord Van, so it was only natural that I'd hate her, at least a little bit. Plus, she could be kind of whiny, you know."
"Merle!" His protest carried no sting of actual anger, but an undercurrent of rare laughter.
"Well, she could!"
The conversation paused, and he contemplated how her fingers looked, entwined with his own.
"So why did you tell me to go to her, all those years ago?" He felt more than heard her deep sigh.
"How do you justify keeping that kind of love apart, if it's possible for the two people to be together? I would tell you to go to her now, Lord Van, if Fanelia could survive without you."
He could see the absolute conviction of her words shining out of her golden-brown eyes. It humbled him. After all, he'd done nothing to earn the love of two such completely different women. Merle had every right to resent his inability to feel the same passion for her that he felt for Hitomi, but she didn't. She did worry, though. She worried that he was letting his feelings influence what he should do—had to do—in order to ensure that his nation, his world, had hope for a lasting peace.
They'd promised each other that they'd never forget, that they'd always love each other. Van intended to keep that promise, and he knew Hitomi would as well. But for the sake of Fanelia he needed to, not give up his feelings for her, but push them back. Push them deeper inside so that the longing, the love, the joy was banked—still burning and alive inside of him, but allowing him to fulfill his duty to his country and to Gaea.
And so the dreams just stopped, as if his decision had constructed a mental wall, not allowing a connection between the two of them. When a month passed without any Hitomi dreams of any kind, Merle quietly informed him she would no longer be sleeping in his rooms at night.
He suspected this was her gentle way of reminding him that he needed to choose a suitable wife and produce an heir.
He'd briefly considered marrying Merle, but couldn't quite bring himself to do that to her. It didn't seem right to tie her to someone whose heart she knew lay elsewhere. The weightier reason though, in his councilors eyes, was that in all their time together as lovers Merle had never conceived. As Van himself was half-Draconian, no one knew if they would even be able to have children. As the councilors said, it had been proven that Draconian blood was able to mingle with human; therefore he had best take a human woman as his queen and the mother of his heirs.
So he married to solidify alliances, to stabilize a Gaean peace that was still all too fragile. Married one of the daughters of ?, a practical, even-tempered young lady who seemed happy enough at being removed from the shadow of an overbearing mother and older sister. Who seemed accepting that theirs was a marriage of alliance, not emotion; accepting that, though he would teach himself to care, would value what she gave to him, she could not replace the missing portion of his soul.
Van is relieved when Merle finds her own happiness, though it takes her from the palace and out into the city. He misses her, but is relieved that finally—finally—Merle is able to be first in someone's heart. He cannot quite bring himself to feel the same when a vision reveals that Hitomi has married.
They both had children. Van's visions had shown him flashes of Hitomi with an infant girl that bore too much resemblance to her to belong to another. His own wife had produced a son—it seemed the Fanelian royal family ran to males.
And as the years pass, somehow King Van, along with Queen Millerna of Asturia, Duke Mahad of Freid, and all the others of the core group that defied Zaibach manage to forge new alliances while strengthening the bonds between their countries. They manage, finally, to restore Gaea to a more secure peace. A peace they, the rebels of old, know must actively nurture lest it wither and die. And the current generation learns to live without the threat of imminent death and destruction; the new generation grows up having never known the terrors of war.
A month after the ceremony celebrating both his son's 25th birthday and confirmation of succession to the throne of Fanelia, King Van of Fanelia disappears from the palace. No one in the kingdom seemed particularly shocked, given the history of the royal family. After all, had the King's own brother and mother not done exactly the same? After a year's fruitless search, the unmourning Queen Dowager quietly has her husband, King Van Slezar de Fanel, declared dead.
