Van splashed water on his face, and stared at himself in the mirror. He was being such a dick. Here he was, sitting in his room, quietly moping! He was a King, and the Queen of his country had just been kidnapped. He should be out doing things: organizing a search part to bring back Lady Hyrule, sending spies to search for information, telling his countrymen everything would be alright, and most importantly, he should be out there looking for Hitomi!
In a fiery mood, he nearly ran from his room. "Lord Wernym!" he shouted, almost angrily. He was, in fact, furious, but not at Lady Wernym. He was mad at himself for sitting around feeling sorry for himself, and mad at the people who kidnapped Hitomi.
Lord Wernym skirted around the corner, Merle only a few steps behind. The young council member looked quite startled at having been yelled at. King Van hardly ever was in a foul mood. Before Hitomi arrived, he had always been to busy day dreaming about her to be angry. He tried to bow, but King Van just brushed right by him. Lord Wernym hurried to walk behind him, following his brisk pace. "You called, King Van?"
"Yes, Wernym, send scouts along the road. I want to know the instant Lady Hyrule returns. Call the Spymaster, tell him to send one his trusted minions to keep a close watch on Prime Minister Hyrule. Merle?"
Merle stepped up beside her best friend. "Yes, Van?"
"I want you to go and try to find out whatever you can to connect Lady Hyrule to the kidnappers. Okay?"
She smiled up at him proudly. Merle would gladly go and ask around. People who weren't familiar with her with completely terrified of her, and she could get into places no one else could. "Van.... are you...."
"Precisely." Van stopped walking to look at the pink-haired cat-girl. Lord Wernym almost ended up walking into them. "You managed to sneak stuff away from Hitomi all those years ago. You don't even have to be sneaky. Tell them I sent you to get a paper from her, and she must have left it in her office. I have complete and total faith in you."
Her eyes got larger as he spoke, and her smile grew brighter. Merle threw her arms around his neck and licked him happily, her tail waving high above her head. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you Van! I'll make you proud, I promise!" Merle had been beginning to think she was going to have to sit around the palace and do nothing while Hitomi had been missing. "Oh Lord Van, it's good to have you back! I was beginning to miss you!"
"Okay, okay Merle... Merle get off me! Your tongue is tickling me!" Van smiled, laughed, and tried to push Merle off of him.
She stopped and saluted him, before running off, leaving Van smiling amusedly and Lord Wernym looking positively muddled.
"King Van, exactly what is Merle to do?"
"Oh, well...." Van rubbed the back of his head. "Wernym, sometimes these things can't be won without a bit of conniving. So, I pretty much send Merle to sneak into Lady Hyrule's estate and to find something that would connect her to Hitomi's kidnapping."
Wernym's mouth opened in aghast. "Your majesty! You can't do that! You need the proper legal papers! There will be forms and forms to sign before the proper document for a police or Imperial guard investigation of the states belonging to Lord and Lady Hyrule can be properly investiga..."
"You know, you talk too much." The King of Fanelia pointed out. Wernym's mouth opened up further. "Put it to some good use. Let the people of my Kingdom know that everything is alright, and that everything that can be done to find my wife *is* being done, understood?"
"Y... yes my King!" Wernym stuttered. "King Van, what... what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to fly around and see if I can feel Hitomi." Van hopped up on the window sill. "We're very strongly connected. It may be possible that I'll be able to sense her presence if I get close enough to her." He spread his white wings, causing Wernym to take a cautious step back so as not to be hit. "Wish me luck."
Van took off flapping, searching for any sign of his love.
*****
Dryden opened the door quietly and took the last look at his wife. Walking silently to her side, he wrapped his arms around her waist, hearing give a small gasp in surprise. Closing his eyes and sighing heavily, Drdyen apologized to her.
"Sorry? For what?" Millerna asked, wishing she could see his face. She felt him open her hand and place something small, hard, and warm in it. It was circular. She could feel the tears start to come to her eyes and she blinked them away. When she spoke again, she could hear the painful waver in her voice. "You're leaving me? Again?"
Again. How Dryden hated that word. He hated that word almost as much as he hated off and on relationships. He continued to hold Millerna close. "Yes. I am. I'm so sorry for putting you through all of this, but now I realised my mistake." Dryden slowly opened his eyes. "I've been leading you on. Myself. And worse than the two of us, our daughter. All of us were blind."
"Blind? Blind to what?" Millerna tore out of his embrace to face him on their bed. "I don't understand, Dryden! How have I been led on? How were we blind? Please, explain it to me!"
"Do you remember, when we were married? Before the great battle?" Dryden raised his eyes and he saw Millerna nod. His words caught in his throat. He didn't want to do this to her, and especially not for a second time, but he couldn't live with himself if he stayed with her. "I gave you back my wedding ring, and told you that I would make you love. That one day I would be back for you and I would have found away for you to love me as much as you loved Allen, or as Van loved Hitomi."
"Yes, I remember that. How could I forget?"
He continued on, avoiding her hurt look. He also didn't like dragging things up from the past, but he had to get Millerna to understand. "I was wrong. I can't make you love me, Millerna. I was damned even for trying. So that's why I have to leave."
"Because you made a mistake? No! That's not fair, Dryden!" Millerna clutched at his sleeves hopelessly. "Stay. Please, stay. If not for me, or for yourself, then for Pandora!"
"Pandora is part of the reason why I have to leave." Dryden told her quietly. "She's young, and it's not right that she's raised in a place where people are pretending. Pretending to be a family, pretending to be truly happy, pretending to love each other...." Millerna opened her mouth to speak, but Dryden placed a callused finger on her lips to silence her. He smiled at her kindly, a wise and knowing but sorrowful smile. "You don't have to say a word. I know, you can stop pretending." His face grew slightly happier. "Or maybe you don't realize that yet. The truth is, I love you, but you don't love me. That isn't true love, so I want to get out there and find my true love, and so that you can find yours. That will mean our beautiful daughter will grow up happy, in a family environment. Batter to live with two families that love each other deeply then one that goes around blind."
Dryden stood up off the bed. Bending over, he cupped Millerna's chin and lightly kissed her lips. "I truly am sorry. I'll have my things moved to another room immediately, and send someone for the proper papers."
Without another word, Dryden strode from the room, leaving Millerna bewildered and clutching his wedding ring.
*****
Right. Left. Straight. Back. Wrong way! Dead End! LIGHT!
Hotomi followed the way her pendant swung in her mind. She kept telling it to point the way towards the door that would take her outside, but that wasn't exactly the brightest thing to say. Her powers weren't perfect, and they only told her what she wanted to know. She wanted to know where the door was, but instead of showing her the path she should take, her pendant in her mind showed her where the door was, and sometimes that was through a wall.
Eventually, Hitomi found the exit, and thankfully avoided any confrontations. She looked behind her, pausing to take in the building. Tall and matchbox, there had to be several levels. It looked as though at one time had been an apartment building of some sort, but now the obscene white building seemed to be abandoned.
She shrugged and hurried along, but not before a large shadow flew overhead. Hitomi didn't have time to look up and see what it was, especially if it had been some sort of a dragon. It had seemed large enough to be a reptile. Hitomi saw something flutter down from the sky. Sunlight glinted off of it, and she smiled, immediately recognizing it. Even blind she would know a feather from one of Van's wings.
Arms wrapped around her waist, and for a moment her feet where lifted off the ground as Hitomi was hugged from behind. She found it hard to breath in Van's tight embrace but somehow managed to laugh all the same. "It took you long enough, Van. I had to save myself."
Van turned her around to face him and smiled teasingly, happy that she was unhurt enough to tease him. "Well, Lord Wernym wouldn't let me come rescue you until I had signed all the necessary documents and papers. Rescuign royalty has a lot of red tape attached to it, and you wouldn't believe how life insurance costs fly up."
Letting go of Hitomi he began pulling at the back of her shirt. Hitomi demanded to know what he was doing. "I want to make sure that they didn't hurt you." Van said quietly. His roan eyes looked at her, full of worry over her well being.
"I'm fine, Van. You can check me over later and play doctor all you want. I promise." Hitomi chewed her lip her mind racing. "I just figured out how to capture my kidnappers, and I don't mean the two men in there. They actually are very kind, and should be rewarded for that. They only kidnapped me because they needed the money!"
"What exactly did you have in mind?" Van asked his wife curiously. She smiled up at him slyly, and Van smiled back with a lopsided grin. "Oh Gods, I missed you!" Pulling her close, Van tilted her back and kissed her with the pain of separation for only a single day.
*****Several Hours Later
Merle heard footsteps behind her and dove into the closest. Her breathing was fast and ragged because of being suddenly scared, but it was quiet. Merle could be as silent as death himself when needed, and it was needed. She was not to be caught sneaking around Lady Hyrule's rooms!
Someone slammed open the door not with anger, but rather with hurry. Lady Hyrule swarmed into her chambers in a breeze of heavy perfume and nervousness. The two combined together made Merle's cat senses want to retch. Lady Hyrule grabbed a letter opener from her desk, causing Merle's tail to puff up like a mutated marshmallow.
'Lady Hyrule knows I'm here! She's gonna kill me with a letter opened and wear my tail as a scarf!' Merle clutched at the tail she loved so much helplessly. Blinking, she let it go and narrowed her eyes at the wife of the Prime Minister. 'Wait a minute! I'm not scared of you! Bring IT ON!'
Throwing the envelope on the ground, Lady Hyrule began to read the letter out loud. "'Dear Patron, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah.... much consideration.... need money.... Ah ha! Here it is! 'Hitomi Kanzaki Fanel has been killed. We tied her up in the woods and left her for the dragons that live in them. In only a matter of hours, there were only bones left. We burnt the rope and left the bones, along with two other sets, so that if the guards ever find them, they will believe both the Queen and her kidnappers perished. We hope this suits to your interest. We expect payment soon.'" Hyrule crumpled the note and threw it in the waist basket. She then took a lighter match, all the while humming to herself, and striking the match, she said: "It pleases me greatly."
Merle had both hands clamped tightly over her mouth, and tears streamed down her face. Hitomi.... was dead? Hitomi couldn't be dead! Merle wouldn't believe it. She could feel the rage building inside her and Merle just wanted to leap out of that closet, using her teeth and nails to rip Lady Hyrule into shreds! She wanted to see her body broken and bleeding, without even a single breath of life in her lungs! Hitomi was family now, and even though Merle could still put in a bad word in now and then about her, nobody else could! Even when she despised Hitomi, Merle still didn't bring herself to such low depths!
She dropped one hand and dug her nails into the wooden floor, ripping it up badly. Van wouldn't want her to do it. Van would want to deal with Lady Hyrule in his own way, and what Merle wanted was just as bad as what Lady Hyrule had done. Revenge was not legal, and even being a close family friend to Van wouldn't get her out of law's way. Revenge was just as illegal and was, infact, cold-blooded murder.
Van would have to deal with her himself...
Looking down at the floor of the closet, Merle spied the only piece of evidence she could find, and shoved it into her pocket. It was a copy of a letter, from Lady Hyrule's writing pad. Whenever she wrote on it, the writing instrument would leave an imprinted copy on the page underneath. Going over the top sheet on the pad with a bit of ink, the imprinted letters remained white while the paper turned dark, allowing a person to see what someone else had last written. Luckliy, Merle had read it over and had discovered it was an order from Lady Hyrule for the kidnappers to execute Hitomi.
Of course, even after finding the letter, Merle had been shocked almost senseless by the news of Hitomi's death. She had been expecting Van to find Hitomi in time, but it appeared not to be so. Only a few days after their marriage, and Hitomi was dead... Not even a week together. Worse, from a political point of view, no heir to take over the throne.
She shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind and wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, although it did no good because more kept coming. Tensing her muscles, she prepared herself for the dash from the rooms that would ensue after Lady Hyrule left. The moment it happened, Merle was out of the closest, across the room, and out the window, climbing from the sill to the drain pipe and up unto the roof. Jumping from roof to roof with a cat-woman's accuracy. Merle made a beeline for the palace.
*****To Be Continued
AN: Writing some of this made me think.... Hitomi and Van were ordered to spend as much time together as possible. So what if Hitomi got pregnant? What would she have? Boy or girl? On child, twins, triplets, hell, sextuplets? What would she name them? After Van's parents, someone she knew from Earth (like Yukari) or maybe someone that died in the war (like Folken or Cheid's father -not the biological one.)? What do you think?
By the way, I had exams and writer's block, sorry this took so long, but I hope you'll enjoy this!
