Elevator

Again Allen heard him. He wasn't shocked. And he wasn't disgusted. The accumulation of wealth, of things, never mattered to him. Anyone and anywhere else and he would have been put off by such a statement, of the envy inherent in the words. But he knew better, he knew Van better. No one, he thought, no one deserves to see his people live and thrive more than Van does. No people deserve it more than Fanelians.

They turned as the doors closed behind them, and watched the Fanelian city below them grow larger and larger as they slowly moved down towards it. Merle clung to Van's arm like a child would to their mothers dress when frightened. She didn't trust these new 'elevators'. Lots of people in Fanelia didn't, they'd never seen one before now. The rickety noise and sound of metal gears turning didn't particularly help either.

Their talk down the elevator was the usual, "How is the Crusade and its crew doing?" "I heard Dryden freed another mermaid." "What was in that drink you gave me?" "How goes the war effort?" It was only broken when the elevator met with some resistance in its gears and shook, causing Merle to jump into Van's arms, terrified of the "Stupid box, why do we have to ride in this crappy thing?" When Allen caught a glimpse of the long scars that ran down her left shoulder he immediately asked "My god, what happened?"

Merle caught his gaze and followed it to her shoulder. Which she immediately shifted into Van's arms for cover. She wanted to get a new shirt, a coat, anything to cover it up. It made her feel ugly. Van hadn't said anything similar to that, she knew, but she still felt terrible. Allen's outburst didn't help things.

"A building fell on me and Van rescued me and now we are officially courting, so I'll thank you very much not to leer at me. I'm taken and not looking for anyone else."

Allen stood slightly dumbfounded, both by Merle's story A building fell on her? and by the attitude in which she said it. "I'm taken and not looking for anyone else."

Oh.

He looked at Van, who nodded, letting down Merle and letting her grab onto his arm again, holding her hand and letting her stand slightly ahead of him, her scarred shoulder being covered by his chest. "It's true. Although a building didn't quite fall on her."

"Lord Van, please tell me we didn't just start dating and already you are correcting me?" Merle gave out a mock sigh of exasperation. "Men."

"When did this happen?" Allen asked, his mind still unable to accept his two friend's newly formed relationship, though a small part of his mind told him he should have been expecting this.

"Well, the accident with a collapsing building that landed Merle in the hospital" "And in your arms" Merle suddenly cut in, "was a few weeks ago. Us, well that happened earlier this day."

"Well," Allen started, bowing to them "congratulations are in order then. I hope you two find happiness in each other."

Merle squeezed Van's hand, and they briefly looked at each other. Allen saw something there, and smiled inwardly.

"Thank you, Allen." Van finally said. "Yeah, thanks. You know, you can sometimes be sweet for a raging womanizer" Merle said, before Van again gave her a glare, scolding her words.

Allen laughed, "She's right again Van. I do deserve that one. I'm actually working on that." "Oh, what do you mean?" Van looked confused, Merle was looking out into the lift's windows, clearly not buying it. "Well, I'm trying to be more focused, less…" Allen looked for the right words, "Flirty?" Merle chimed in again, her eyes still trained on the bottom of the elevator which she so desperately wished came faster. "Yes. I realized that my behavior caused quite a bit of harm during our journey."

Allen and Merle suddenly tensed up. Allen because he realized speaking of Hitomi in front of Merle may not be such a great idea, and Merle because she quickly scanned Van's face, hoping to see if he had a bad reaction to her name being implied.

"True. Allen, you shouldn't do that anymore, you could end up hurting another poor girl's feelings."

Allen nodded, glad that a potentially awkward situation had passed. The lift finally came to a stop, the doors swinging open as the operator at the bottom of the lift lifted them up, nodding at the King and a high ranking knight pass by… followed by Merle.

They passed by several people on their way towards the castle, Van making it a point to stay and talk to any who wanted a talk with him. Allen would also listen in, offering solutions or suggestions to the problems he heard sometimes, followed by Van introducing him to his fellows, explaining the part he had in his adventure. "He's a good friend too" he would add. People would accept him after that.

Once, when Van and Allen had stopped and volunteered to help some men move some furniture that was being placed into a newly restructured house Merle sat nearby, her head propped up on her hands as she watched Van. She held no pretensions to being a "proper" woman, and was unrestricted by some of the more uptight and strict moral rules that some nobles lived by, and as such was unashamedly watching Van's body as he moved and worked. She was also under no delusion that watching him work was physically exciting her. It was quite normal, in her mind, for such a thing to happen. Not only were they both reaching their adulthood but they were now together. It's not wrong to want the person you love?

Of course not. Humans should be less stuck up about sex.

Merle knew that some would frown on her behavior and thoughts, though she could never figure out why human culture made sex 'wrong' to talk about. Without sex, there wouldn't be people. So what's the deal?

She pushed those thoughts away, Whoever says thinking or talking about sex, especially with someone you love, is wrong probably isn't getting any.

She continued to watch Van when some shadows loomed over her, quickly followed by "You shouldn't stare so obviously Merle. What would Lord Fanel say if he caught you doing that?"

Merle looked up at the familiar voice, that of Mimi, who stood alongside Cassandra and a few other girls. Her friends from town. Cassandra, one of the only other catpeople in Fanelia, sat down near Merle, her taller body gracefully moving as she did so. Merle was jealous of Cassandra, though she would never admit it, since she was one of the few catpeople who had taken on a more shapely human form, whereas most catwomen bodies took on a more streamlined athletic look. She vaguely wondered if Van liked the voluptuous look, or he if preferred her body type. He did have a thing for Hitomi, and I didn't see much difference between me and her.

"Merle, I can already smell your lust for him. You reek of it, you're lucky I'm the only other gatita around, otherwise it would be even more obvious that you want our King."

Merle shifted uncomfortable, cursing cat noses as being far more sensitive than human ones, able to pick up on the telltale signals that signified heat, lust, fear, anger and others. The other girls giggled and laughed, some of them having the faint idea as to what they meant. "Yeah, what about all of you? I can smell if from you all two. You especially Cassandra." Merle pointed out, her finger accusing each of them in turn in an obvious attempt to draw attention away from herself, "So don't act like I'm the only girl around he who has the hots for him."

Merle huffed and looked back at Van, noticing the stares of some girls around her also fell on him. Jealousy overtook her.

"Come on Merle, lighten up," Mimi said, sitting down nearby, "You can't blame us for looking, or wanting to be with him, I mean, what girl in Fanelia wouldn't want to be with him? He's strong, he's a hero, he's saved almost all our lives, and he's handsome. Frankly, it's almost unfair to all the other guys in town." The girls nodded in agreement, feeling sorry for all the men who had to sit in Van's shadow."

They sat and began talking of other things, though for most of the teenage girls in current Fanelia their lives had taken extreme turns. Where once they would be speaking of clothing they had seen at the tailors or of boys their age, they now spoke of sowing tents and blankets for people to sleep in, of the injuries they saw while working as nurses or apprentice healers. Here and there, however, they would just joke, talk as normal, and the world around them would be normal again, with running water, walls that didn't fall on you in your sleep, and of dances at the school or parties at someone's house.

All the while Merle would look back at Van, not just because she always wanted to have her eyes on him, but she felt different from her friends. As if she was apart from them. She couldn't, no matter how hard she tried, pretend that everything was ok. But then again, she knew her friend's couldn't either. Helena wasn't here, neither was Sofia or Mimi's younger sister, Bella. They were gone.

When Van's hands found themselves snaking into Merle's their entire group stopped talking.

"What?"

Van stood wondering why the chatter had stopped, it wasn't like he had never met Merle's friends before, or stopped by and said hello. They had never acted like this before.

"Oh, um I think I hear my mom calling me."

"Yeah, I got to get back to work."

"I've got to go."

And just as fast as they had arrived the girls left, some of them throwing glances back at Van and Merle as they retreated towards their destinations. Allen began to chuckle, "You know Van if Fanelia didn't know about you and Merle before they will now."

"Yeah," Merle started, getting comfortable in Van's arms, "they'll spill to everyone and anyone who will listen. In a few hours the old ladies will know, and by nightfall even the pets will know."

"Well, they'd find out sooner or later. Come on, we have to get to the castle, I need to speak with Allen about other business."

As they made their way towards the castle up above on massive foundation at the back of the city they passed by several people who had already begun giving them strange looks. Teenage girls, women and some of the older ladies began looking at Van and Merle with smiles, while Van noticed a few grins and thumbs up, a recent gesture that made its way into Fanelia, directed at him. "Oh, I guess gossip goes faster now that there aren't many walls to block it." Merle let out, immediately wishing she could take back the offensive sentences, Van just looked at her in his 'Don't say that again' look. They made their way up towards the Castle, where they took a brief stop to take a moment of silence at the unmarked graves of three soldiers in what was once a courtyard.

They finally made their way to one of the conference rooms, where a few of the Fanelian officials were already talking to their Asturian counterparts. The meeting took a brief pause to salute Lord Van and Sir Schezar, though it continued just as quick.

The meeting went on for several hours, setting up patrol routes, gauging the response to the proposed "victory gardens" that had been devised to help bolster food stores of the smaller towns, the treasury fund.

As the hours passed by Allen, and the Asturian men and women realized just how deep in trouble Fanelia was. They had heard stories from some refugees, and Allen had read Van's letters, and they had seen the outside so they had assumed it was fine, just some tumbled buildings, but they were wrong. Looking at Fanelia it seemed fine in the same way that a man with internal bleeding seems fine, Fanelia was improving, there was no doubt but improving at an uneven pace. Fixing a house is hard work, rebuilding one is even more, but figuring out how to fix several thousand houses, pay for them and feed its across a span of several hundred miles was a completely different matter.

The hours dragged on, 1 turned into 2, 2 intro 4. Soon there was a break to eat a dinner, though most people continued working as they ate. A fight broke out when two men argued over whether they even deserved to eat while so many didn't though it was resolved. Everyone's nerves were on edge.

During this small break Allen turned to Van, and began some small chat.

"I hadn't realized it was like this. I don't know why I didn't though. The entire city was razed, I guess I wasn't expecting something so…"

"Thorough?" Van offered between bites of bread. Allen nodded, and though it appalled him that one group of humans could inflict such misery on another, he was, in some sense, left with respect for the Zaibach army. They had been thorough how so many escaped was beyond him. But he didn't want to dwell on that, he looked around, hoping to catch Merle around and hopefully wave her over. He'd never admit it, but Allen found Merle's behavior comical and uplifting. Behind all the swears and blunt behavior there was a nice girl there.

"Van, where is Merle?"

"Oh, she's over right here." Van said, lifting up his tray that had been blocking Allen's view of Merle. Her head was in Van's lap, sound asleep. "She fell asleep several hours ago, these things always bore her, though she's been trying to take a better interest in them."

"You can't blame her, she wasn't born into this life was she?"

"No, she wasn't, how did you know?" Van asked while he looked down at her sleeping form, her face looking so peaceful amidst such danger.

"I once asked her what she was to you, when we first started traveling I thought she was some sort of servant, or a slave."

Van's face immediately shot up at Allen, "What? I would never-"

"I know that now Van," Allen quickly interrupted, keeping his voice down, "but I didn't know that before. Smaller kingdoms are prone to slavery. And with her clothes I had assumed that she was one. I'm sorry if I offended you."

"No, it's fine. But don't say that around others here, slavery is found disgusting by most Fanelians. Several decades ago, when my father was still young, Fanelia had a terrible slaver problem. Several small battles were fought with them. A small town, Irini, was hit by them. It's where Merle is from."

"Irini?" Allen asked, mentally going over the map he had previously seen a few moments ago. "I didn't see any town called Irini on your maps." He thought for a few more seconds before realization set in. "Oh."

"Exactly." Van stroked Merle's hair, for once in his life admiring how pretty it was, "It was hit hard. Merle was taken in by my mother soon after. That's why Merle doesn't own much, she didn't save much from her old home."

Van played with her hair a few more seconds, before he stopped and added "She deserves a home that won't be destroyed."

Allen put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Everyone does. And you are a good king Van, you'll make it happen."

Van looked up and sighed, his friend and thousands like her depended on him. He'd give them safety and stability. He had to. He stood up, carrying Merle in his arms, "Well, it won't happen while we sit here and talk. Allen, it seems like everyone is done with their meal. Tell them that the meeting starts back up when I arrive again."

"Oh?" Allen stood up alongside Van, handing his tray and cup to a nearby man who was collecting the same from everyone, already some people were filing back into the room, discussions filling the room. "And where are you going?"

Van smiled, "Isn't it obvious? I'm taking my sleeping beauty here to her room. I'll be back soon."