Woo hoo for another update, ne? Mmmkay, some of you may have noticed how the story is going a bit similarly with the anime storyline. That's what my plan is. It's an AU, of sorts. So Allen, Dilandau, Millerna, Merle, Folken, and especially Dornkirk will all be in here some time or other. So there will be scenes that are familiar, but, as you can see with both this chapter and the last one, they'll have a spin on it as to fit my fic. So there ya go.
I could've sworn that I had something else to say in here. But… I forgot. Ah well.
Echelon
Chapter 3 – "Code of a Thief"
Van, too shocked for words, could only watch as the light picked him up and he began to float skywards. Finally, he managed to choke out a "What is this?" but no one could have possibly heard him.
Then they were gone.
"Where is that stupid thief…" muttered Van, stumbling out of the piloting seat and nearly falling to the ground below because of a branch that happened to be in his way.
He impatiently shoved it aside, looking around. "What the...?"
No longer was he surrounded by the enemy melefs. Instead, trees now stood before him like silent guards of the forest. "Where… am I? And where did that girl go?"
It was still night. Van turned his gaze to the stars, but he couldn't tell much from them on where exactly he was.
Jumping to the grassy forest floor, Van took hold of the situation. Fanelia was still in danger, and he needed to get back there as soon as he could from this forest.
That was all good and sound, but he couldn't leave without the Thief. Not that she was especially needed, but Van's pride wouldn't let her escape once more, not when she had literally been in the palm of his hand.
"What are you staring at?"
"Huh?"
Van jerked himself around to see the Thief standing quite placidly before him in one of the beams of moonlight that had managed to make its way through the tree branches. She had just stepped out of the shadow of the Escaflowne. On her cheeks, if Van had been calm enough to notice, were stains of tears. Instead, Fanel stalked towards her, looking irritated.
"Where the hell did you go? You have no right wandering off like that when you're my captive!"
"Hello to you, too." Hitomi muttered, walking past him to set down the food and sit down on a fallen log. She sniffed softly, and then froze, hoping Van hadn't heard that.
Luckily, he had not. Still seething, he moved to stand before her, glaring down. "What did you do? Where are we?
Hitomi slowly raised her eyes to meet his. "I don't know what happened. All I know is that my pendant started to glow, we were lifted into the air by that blue light, and now…" She spread her arms. "…we're here."
Van stared. "Your pendant?"
A silence filled in, only broken by the chirping of crickets in the night. Hitomi stared at Van with a very obvious expression of "What, are you stupid or something?"
The night was cold and Van tired. His legs were shaking and begging to sit, but the king resisted. By standing, he could still appear higher than the Thief, more assertive and commanding. Van quickly frowned again, sounding stern. "Then take us back with it!"
"I can't! I…." Hitomi stood back up, shivering.
Her weakness only made him angrier. "Do you realize what's happening to Fanelia right now, thief? It's burning, it's being destroyed! I don't know what you did, but because of you, there's no one to help it!"
Hitomi flinched away for a moment from the angry words, then flared up as well. "I know! I know! But there's nothing I can do, I don't know what I did!"
"Oh, I'm not surprised, Thief. You can only do harm and steal the Royal heirlooms but when it comes to saving your country, you're useless!"
"Stop it!" Hitomi screamed, livid. "I have a name, you know, you idiot!"
Just as he had been preparing to throw more anger out at Hitomi, he stopped dead. The Thief, it seemed, had gone too far. It was time to remind her of her place. Drawing himself up, he put on his best angry furious King voice.
"How dare you speak to me that way? You're a daughter of a book keeper! A nobody! In fact, you're a thief! You're broken the law, you're even lower than a regular citizen!"
Van Fanel obviously had not dealt with a stressed girl before. And especially not Hitomi. He was shocked when the girl dealt him a slap across that face, and could only back away as her green eyes flared with anger and she advanced upon him.
"Oh, so that's what this is about! Social status! I'm a lowly citizen but you're a king! I have to address you as sire and your majesty, huh? Well, you know what?" She jabbed her finger into Van's chest as he was backed up into a tree.
"You're not worth my respect! You are no king in my book! In fact, you're lower than me on the personality scale! You're selfish! Conceited! Thick-headed! Too proud and stubborn! And so arrogant! You're just full of yourself!"
She screamed the last words as loud as she could, staring into his startled eyes, then burst into tears and walked away to sit back on her log again.
Van's anger faded away, only to be replaced with perplexity and embarrassment as he blinked at Hitomi, holding a hand to his stinging cheek. He had taken it too far, really. It was shameful to yell at a woman and make her cry, although this girl… was quite emotional, and it was bewildering on how she could have gone so easily from anger to tears. Not to mention that no one had ever spoken to him that way, but the Thief, whom he had never really spoken with before, was freely spouting his flaws and weaknesses.
He moved forward, at a loss as to what to say or do. King's weren't trained to take care of weeping girls, after all.
Hitomi, meanwhile, buried her head into her hands and let the tears run down unchecked. She didn't care if Fanel saw her, that pompous prick. She was out in a forest who knew where while the kingdom of Fanelia, her home, was being destroyed. The situation was hopeless. There was every good reason to cry, and that's what Hitomi did.
Footsteps announced Fanel's presence before her. Sighing, the young king sat himself on his haunches. He lowered his voice to a calm one. It came out cold, but certainly better than before.
"Look, I'm going to go scout out where we are."
Hitomi said nothing, sniffling and sobbing into her hands. Van tried again. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Just don't run off."
She finally lifted her head and glared at him through bloodshot eyes. "And why would I do that?"
"Well… I don't trust you, and since I'm supposed to be throwing you into jail for everything you've done, you might have considered running away."
She turned her head away, wiping the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hands. "We thieves have codes and honor too, you know. I'm not going anywhere."
Shrugging, Van stood, glancing over at the girl over his shoulder. He left the small clearing, leaving Hitomi to herself.
Silence filled in again. The Thief sniffled softly, wiping her eyes firmly with a firm resolve not to let herself break down again.
"I can handle this! I'm the Thief of Fanelia!"
As soon as the words had left her mouth, Hitomi realized how much of a lie it was. She slumped again, drained from her previous burst of emotions and tears. What would the Thief do in a situation like this? The Thief wouldn't have cried, but the Thief wasn't there. Hitomi Kanzaki was, and Hitomi Kanzaki felt like crying.
A sigh escaped her lips. The Thief and Hitomi Kanzaki were completely different people. When she put on the black wrap around her head, she felt braver, like taking on hundreds of guards was child's play. Maybe it was because no one had known who she was. Because, in reality, the Thief really was the somewhat quiet Hitomi Kanzaki who could read tarot cards.
"And has transporting pendants, obviously". She thought with a wry smirk.
The thought of tarot cards reminded Hitomi of their company. She pulled them out of an inside pocket in her shirt, along with a folded map of Gaea. The two items never left her presence and she certainly always had them on every illegal visit to the Fanelian castle. This was lucky, considering that her other pack was now burned up and gone.
While she shuffled her deck of cards, Hitomi took time to reflect on all that had happened, and what they would do now. It seemed like a desperate situation. A thief and a king, stuck in the middle of nowhere, their home burnt to the ground with no means of getting to it anyway except the guymelef, Escaflowne.
Hitomi set the deck down, letting her gaze stray to the Ispano guymelef for a moment before shifting to sit in the grass on her knees, deciding that she was spending too much time thinking, and flipping over the first few cards of her freshly shuffled deck.
"What are those?" Van walked back, tossing down some firewood and frowning down at the cards as he sat himself on Hitomi's log.
Not looking up, the Thief closely examined her cards and said nothing. His words from before were not forgiven and the last thing Hitomi wanted to do was talk to him.
Van tried again. "Thief…"
She continued to stubbornly ignore him, staring intently at the cards. Her brow furrowed with confusion at what she saw and Van almost grew worried. Almost, but not quite. His patience for the emotional girl was growing thin.
"Look, we have no choice but to wait until morning. I brought some firewood. Once morning breaks, we'll start back to Fanelia."
"The Fool…. The serpent…" Hitomi murmured under her breath, analyzing the cards and, obviously, not listening to a word Van said.
The boy frowned, not pleased. "Did you hear a word I said, Thief?"
"Mm?" Hitomi looked up. "Yes. Firewood. Fanelia. Right. And stop calling me Thief." Nodding, she turned back to her cards, a look of perplexity returning to her features.
"Well, then, what's your name?"
"I go by Hitomi Kanzaki."
"Well, then, Hitomi, you'd better put whatever those are away and get to sleep." Van said, waving at the cards.
"They're tarot cards!" Hitomi exclaimed, indignant. However, she folded the cards back into one deck and sat back to look at Van more closely.
"And what do they do?"
She grinned. "They tell you your fortune!"
Van snorted in disbelief. "Right, sure. Just go to bed, I'll wake you up in the morning."
"There's still at least 6 hours of night left. Don't you want to take shifts?" Hitomi wasn't familiar with camping outdoors, but she knew from the castle guard's schedules that they took shifts.
"Shifts? Shifts are for people who trust each other. I'd rather keep an eye on you the whole night." Van's voice was cold, still. He set to starting a fire with the wood he had retrieved.
"I told you before, we thieves have a code. Once we get caught, we are bound by code to stay with you. As you said, you caught me, although I hardly think I had a choice…" Hitomi rolled her eyes. "... so I won't be going anywhere. I'll take the last shift and wake you up when morning breaks."
Her proposition was met with a shrug from Van. "Fine. Whatever, Thi-eh… Hitomi."
"Fine."
She stiffly lay down as Van sat back to watch his newly created fire spread through the firewood. As the two stared into the flames, Hitomi felt herself grow sleepy and her eyes closed partly. She relaxed her body and let out a soft sigh. However, she couldn't go to sleep without asking Fanel something that had been nagging at her since they arrived in the forest.
"Van…" Hitomi murmured softly, half-asleep.
He looked up from the fire. "Hmm?"
"Why did you…" She paused, hesitant, as her eyes reflected the wavering flames in-between them.
"What?"
"Back on the roof of the castle. Why did you jump after me when I fell?"
Whatever Van had been expecting, that wasn't it. He fumbled for an answer, caught off guard. "Well, uh… I didn't want you to die; you're no good to me dead. I hoped I could somehow save you, but that was… kind of stupid."
A drowsy smile lit Hitomi's face as she rolled over onto her side, her back to the fire. Van could hear her last words, soft and wistful. "Thank you for saving me, Van. Good night…"
He turned back to staring at the fire, thoughtful.
"… good night."
Fire. Screaming. Pain. Destruction. Everywhere.
Hitomi turned in circles, confused. The flames encircled her. She had nowhere to go, she was trapped. Right before her eyes, everything burned to nothing. Bodies melted away into the embers. Screams died out with the smoke. Buildings fell apart as if they were dying with the city. The city.
Fanelia was dying.
Fanelia was dead.
"No!" Hitomi jerked herself awake, looking around wildly as if still expecting to see fire all around her.
What she saw instead was a dazzling, sunny morning. She was surrounded by brightly lit trees. The air was warm, the birds were singing, and all that.
"Where… oh…" Everything returned to her. The attack on Fanelia. Van. Escaflowne. As her recalled the previous night, she stretched, yawning.
"About time you're awake."
Hitomi yelped in surprise at the voice. Van looked at her from across the now put out fire that had been between them.
"Fanel! Er… good morning…" Standing, she nodded in greeting to him. Something was odd about this. She remembered thinking the previous night that she couldn't be waking up this early. "… what time is it?"
Van rose as well, fixing the sword on his belt. "I would say that there's about a few more hours until noon."
His words sunk in. Hitomi gaped. "A few hours? Fanel! Why didn't you wake me up for my shift?"
"I didn't want to wake you. You could have run off."
"Why you…" Hitomi was flabbergasted. Van Fanel had stayed up all night because he still didn't trust her! "I gave you my word! I told you that I follow the code!"
He turned on her, his auburn eyes cold. "What good is the word of the Thief?"
"As good as the word of Van Fanel!" she snapped back, angered once again. Grabbing her pile of tarot cards and her pendant from the forest floor, Hitomi glared at the king before turning on her heel and storming off into the brightly lit forest. "Fine! I'll just leave, then!"
Van stared after her. "Wait, thief!" He called, then cursed under his breath. "I mean, Hitomi! Hitomi, come back!"
She didn't answer or even glance back. She kept going until she was out of sight.
"Fine! You can go, see if I care!" With a frustrated sigh, Van sat down and set to polishing his sword, but it didn't take his conscious long to begin gnawing at him. He chucked the sword away in anger.
"Damn that girl!"
"AHHHHHH!"
Van shot from his seat, looking around wildly. "What?"
There was more screaming. Cursing again, Van sprinted into the forest after Hitomi. What had the girl gotten herself into now?
Hitomi grumbled as she stomped along through the trees. That Van Fanel! She had never met a more arrogant boy than he. Even more irking was that despite her lie about a Code, he still didn't trust her.
Indeed, the Code had been a lie. Hitomi had no code to follow. She wasn't exactly part of a Thieves guild or anything of the sort. She worked alone, and thieves hardly had rules. No, Hitomi had stayed with Van purely out of fear and a strong urge to cling to another human being. Van was the only one round, and Hitomi hardly wanted to go wandering off into strange forests unprotected. Although, strangely enough, that was what she was doing now.
With no sense of direction, she quickly lost site of camp and found herself hopelessly lost. A lump rose in her throat, which was no doubt another incoming crying fit. Swallowing, Hitomi pulled out the pendant, closing her eyes.
"Please… just show me where to do… tell me what to do. What am I supposed to do?" She whispered softly, as if the pendant would answer. She calmed her pounding her for a moment, concentrating.
"OOO! SHINY!"
There was a sharp tug on the chain of the pendant. Hitomi screamed and pulled back, snapping her eyes open to see a very peculiar sight.
A disgusting little man, who bore a very close resemblance to a mole, was trying to pull the pendant away from her, making dark cackling sounds as he did so. Screaming once more, Hitomi tried backing away. Her foot caught on a tree root and she fell painfully to the forest floor. Unfortunately, the mole man followed right after her, almost giggling with excitement.
The two of them were determined not to let the other claim the pendant. Hitomi tried to kick the man, but he began to climb on top of her, his hands scrambling this way and that, finally making contact with her chest.
Horrified and chocked, Hitomi screamed at the top of her lungs and kicked out at the man, who flew off to the side, with the pendant.
"Shiny shiny shiny pendant…" He murmured softly, holding the pendant up to the light as the girl he had just stolen from shivered from disgust.
There was a sudden screech of a hawk and the moleman began screaming.
Hitomi looked up to see the mole man squawking in distress as he flapped his arms to shoo away a bird of some sort.
"AHH! Get off, you stupid bird! Get lost! Go away!" When the bird had flown off, the mole man looked nervously at someone she couldn't quite see.
"A-Allen… I didn't know you would be here…"
"I thought I told you to keep away from these parts. Not only are you back, but you're harassing little girls now, too? What… a shame."
Hitomi gasped. A tall man had entered the area, his eyes dark with anger. What made him stand out, however, was his long blonde hair.
"Idiot!" The man named Allen ran forward, delivering a solid uppercut to the burglar.
The moleman flew through the air, landing with a thump on the other side of the clearing, clearly knocked out. When Allen turned his attention to Hitomi, she couldn't help but gasp and recoil a bit, nervous of what this new stranger would be like.
"I hope you aren't hurt, miss." His voice was deep and melodious. The young thief couldn't help but shudder slightly in fear as a shiver ran up her spine. "What are you doing in a place like this, all alone?"
He knelt down beside her, smiling kindly. "What's wrong?"
The kind look in his eyes and the true concern in his voice made Hitomi's heart wrench. She had had enough excitement for years to come. The lump was back again and with a sob of pain, she threw herself into Allen's arms, crying. "I was so scared! And I was all alone! And now I'll never see Mom or Dad again… Fanelia…"
Her mind shut down. With a sigh, she slumped into the white fabric of Allen's shirt. It smelled pleasant. That was the last thing she remembered before everything went faded into darkness.
WOOOO! Another chapter written. This was hard to write. All the thinking… and talking… ugh. I'm so much better and writing action. I dunno. I never think that anything I write is worthy of even being read. But I suppose that's what fanfiction is for. Then at least someone likes what you write.
I'll probably update this one again before anything else. Now that Allen's here! Shweet.
Thank you for reviewing, all! I heart reviews. Seriously. The more reviews, the better I write. It's been proven. Really.
Inda – Yay! Thank you! And thanks for reviewing! It means a lot to me.
Macky – Yes, Merle will be in this story later on. I'll get to it as soon as I can, haha.
CapT.BlacK – Esca! Flowne! Ah haha. Thanks for the reviewness.
Random – Have I mentioned that you're my hero? 'Cause you are. Thank you for boosting my self-esteem, although I hardly deserve it. I'll try updating as soon as I can without throwing out chapters that sound terrible.
Kmmgirly – Allen? Yes, he's probably going to be the same. I couldn't dare to change his personality!
f-zelda – Yes, the story is pretty similar, but it's still quite different, I suppose. And now you know where they went with the light!