(And now, the epilogue.)
EPILOGUE
****1 month later.*****
"So," Hitomi but down the teacup. "You and Allen have started dating?"
"Yes." Millerna was on another quick visit to Fanelia, this time though, it was for a different matter then marriage. "I realize that maybe after being married to Dryden for more than 5 years it was a little soon, but it's more then just my needs that are telling me to do it. I don't like having Pandora without a constant father she can turn to for a males point of vies, since she only sees Dryden twice a month, and I definitely don't like Asturia not having a King. Allen is acting as all of those, officially or not. And I love Allen. Besides, it's only casually dating. There's nothing serious about talking over a cup of tea."
Hitomi smiled, and brushed her short cropped hair out of her eyes. It had gotten much too long for her, and she cut it back to the same way she had it when she and Van first mer. Van had said he liked it much better that way, but he also had said that she could go bald and he'd still love the way she had her hair. Hitomi felt so lucky.
Pandora burst threw the door. "Mommy! Mommy!" she shouted, jumping up and down excitedly. "Uncle Van wants to know if I can go horse back riding with him. Can I? Can I? Can I please? I promise that I'll be really super de dooper good! I'll be on my Court manners too! And Uncle Van is good at math, so he can help me with it while I ride! Or he can explain to me the history of Fanelia! I just know that Uncle Van would make it a so much more intewsting then my tutor!" she said, once again speaking so fats people who weren't around her might not have a clue as to what she had asked about.
Millerna smiled, and rubbed her daughters head. In the past month, Pandora's hair had begun to darken, telling Millerna that she was going to end up having the same hair colour as Dryden. Her eyes had also begun to slowly turn grey from the brilliant blue. Millerna shook her head, seeing her angelic looking baby slowly grow out of her baby colours, and growing her new plumage. With brown hair and green eyes on the way, Millerna wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the newest rumours said that Van was gay, Hotomi was actually a man, and Pandora was the child of Hitomi and Millerna. "Sure, honey, have fun."
"How's Pandora doing with the new baby?" Hitomi asked, pouring herself another cup of tea.
"Wonderful." she answered, smiling and rubbing what would soon become a swelled belly. "She's even busy trying to find names for the baby, but somehow the names are less then suitable. On the way over here she overheard a conversation between me and Allen and began to think the baby should by called 'Large' because that's what I'll become and that way the baby can be named after me." They both, amused by Pandora's cheerfulness. "Dryden is hoping his second child will be a male, so that he has someone to teach everything he knows about marketing too. Although, I truly hope Pandora gets taught it all. She's perfect for it: a fast-talker, smart, good with money... she's much like Dryden when he was younger."
"So, have you told him yet?" Millerna asked after draining her tea.
The Queen of Fanelia shook her head. "No, I didn't want to say anything because I was afraid he was wrong. I mean, on Earth, we have machines that will allow us to look inside and actually see and count, where as here you have to count by sound, which can be confusing. What happens if he counted wrong and I tell Van? His manhood will be terribly hurt at the idea of having two and not three!" Hitomi told her friend, stifling a laugh at the thought of Van's hurt manhood.
"But, Merle knows?" she asked to confirm it, looking towards the day dreaming cat girl.
Merle was busy day dreaming because in only a few short weeks lay her 20th birthday. She couldn't believe she was going to be 20 years old. True, there was nothing overly spectacular about becoming twenty, no special privileges, but it meant something to her. Now she couldn't be looked down at and called a teenager. Her tail flicked behind her lightly, and she turned to her look at the two Queens with a dreamy-face. "Just as long as you wake me up when you're going to tell your husband, Hitomi. Otherwise I'm sleeping." Merle curled up on the couch, almost already asleep with daydreams of visiting the Mystic Moon. She muttered something about the sun being so nice and warm, and how she loved sunbathing, but after that she was fast asleep.
"Poor Merle." Hitomi looked at her close friend with a gentle expression. "She must be so tired from all of this. I know we all are. At least we'll get 8 months of rest though, before it all starts up again."
"Well Hitomi." Merle pulled out her blue bag, and dug out a stethoscope. "Might as well pull of your shirt so I can have a look."
**** Later on that Day
Van found his wife in their chambers. She was sitting at the desk, writing something. He snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her front. Hitomi didn't make a sound, but he could feel her give a slight jump, so Van knew he'd startled her. "Hello, again, Hitomi. Fancy meeting you here." he joked.
She laughed, and turned the paper over so he couldn't see it. She tilted back her head, her green eyes dancing mischievously. "Twenty four years old, and yet you still act like a teenager in love."
He widened his eyes, pretending to be hurt. "Ouch. Are you trying to say I'm immature?"
"No." Hitomi raised a hand and brought Van's lips to her own, kissing him tightly. "I'm trying to say I think it's adorable."
"Well," he said, blushing and holding her a bit tighter. "I've got nine years to catch up on. I've got almost a decade of watching you from the shadows, holding you, kissing you, talking to you, to catch up." he could feel her tremble slightly at his words, and he wondered if he'd said something wrong, but instead she shot out of his grasp, stood up, and clung to him. Van's concerned face was replaced by one of his small but happy smiled, and he stroked her short cropped hair. "I love you, Hitomi Kanzaki."
"I love you too...."
The two of them kissed for a long time, but stopped when the large bell began to toll, signalling it was time for supper. They both continued to hug each other, not wanting to let go and have to face Courtly manners. "I wonder if they have watermelon.... or maybe some pickles..."
"Pardon?" Van felt Hitomi pull away a bit so that she could look at his face. He could feel between them that there was something between them she wasn't telling him, and asked her what it was. She looked at the paper on the desk, and he followed her gaze. Picking it up, Van knew he couldn't use it to find out what it was, because everything she'd written on the paper was crossed off. Crumpling up the paper, he began to loose his worry and instead become a little bit more angrier. "What is it that you're not telling me, Hitomi?"
"I'm sorry Van." Hitomi hung her head, feeling Van close the space between them so that he stood in front of her, instead of next to the desk. "I'm so, so, sorry. You see, I don't know how to tell you. So I sat around trying to think of a way to tell you, but none of it seemed right."
"Tell me what?" Van was back to getting worried. He kept his voice soft, but deep inside him, he could feel himself shake with anticipation. Was she going to leave him? Was she trying to say she'd had an affair? His mind was buzzing with a thousand things she could say that would be worse than a physical blow. However, if he had looked deeper, he would have seen that he knew they were so deeply connected that nothing could have come between them.
"Do you remember when we got married how Lady June- No. That doesn't sound right either." she paused a moment and chewed her lip. "Van, when two people love each other... No, that's just silly. A Queen as certain obligated duties.... Oh bother! Why does this have to beat so difficult?"
"Hitomi..." He whispered, reaching out to hold her hand. "Can't you please just come right and tell me?" he begged. "The suspense is killing me, and if you can't think of a way to say it, then just come right out and out it bluntly, or don't tell me at all."
They both looked at each other a long time, and before long, there was a loud knocking at the door. It was Lord Wernym, wondering why they weren't coming to dinner. Hitomi held tighter to Van's hand, so that he wouldn't leave her. She held unto his chin with her other hand, gazing into his eyes as if looking for something.
Van as such a nice looking man, she still couldn't get over it. He had been through so much, that it had made him much more stronger of a leader. A war, a wife from the Mystic Moon, a Draconian mother, a cat-person for a best friend, a brother who left Fanelia for the Zaibach empire and tried to capture Van on several occasions including going so far as to drug him, a wife that had been kidnapped, getting her visions. Surely, this wouldn't hurt him in the slightest. She let go of her husband, but stayed where she was as he went to answer the door.
Hitomi heard him begin to open the door, and that was when she spoke.
"I'm pregnant with triplets."
"WHAT!?" Van was sure he hadn't heard right, and spun around, the door wide open with Lord Wernym listening in. "Did you.... di- di- did you say you were PREGNANT?" Hitomi nodded. "Wi- wi- with tri- tri- triplets???!!!!"
Hitomi nodded again, and heard two heavy things drop on the floor. She wondered if Van had gotten mad and had thrown something on the floor. When she turned around, she didn't know wether to call for a bit of help, or to fall down herself and laugh until she turned blue.
Both Van and Lord Wernym had fainted.
******About 8 Months later
"Will you just calm down, Van?" Merle asked, getting bit dizzy from watching him pace back and forth.
"How can I calm down!?" Van shouted, motion to the door. "I want to know what's going on in there! She's been in there for 7 hours! Seven!" He stoped for a moment as another scream rang through the hallway, making Van steel his stance so he wouldn't go a barge through the door. This was even worse then that time when Plaktu had been interrogating Hitomi and her heart had stopped beating. At least then he had known that Millerna was there doing what she could. This time though, he couldn't even make that statement because she was busy taking care of her own baby daughter.
"You knew it was going to be a difficult birth." Merle reminded him. Outwardly she looked in control, but she found it just as horrid as Van. "The physician even said that. Hitomi's giving birth to triplets. I mean, Hitomi's a twig and there are watermelons inside of her...." she eeped and became quiet again when Van turned to look at her sternly.
"I do not need you to explain to me the physiology of my wife." Van told her.
"You know Van, with a look like that, you'll be a great father."
"Father..." he repeated slowly. "I'm going to be a daddy...." Even he had known that for almost eight months, he was still full of wonder at that sentence. Van was starting to learn that there were certain things that still made your heart thump no matter how long you knew about them. One of them was being married to your Soulmate. The other one he'd discovered was being a father.
The doors open, and Van heard crying, but it wasn't Hitomi's. The doctor through him a mask. "Lord Van.... we are ready for you know, if you'd like to come in and cut the umbilical cords."
Van put on the scrubs and walked in, looking at his wife and three beautiful children with love and admiration. 'They're all so beautiful....' he thought to himself. He looked at the babies again. "Three boys! And what boys!!"
"Ah-" the doctor raised an eyebrow and handed him the scissors. "Those are the umbilical cords, your majesty."
He blushed under his mask, cutting the cords. Nothing more bloodier than slicing up a dragon for it's energist. He had never been much good with babies. (Though, in reality he was excellent with babies, it was simply considered improper for Kings to be spending a lot of time with them, and Van's head was quite unbalanced at the time with the stress of having a pregnant wife.) Van sat down beside Hitomi, holding two of the babies.
Her hair was tampered down to her face with sweat, and she was pale, but Van thought she looked beautiful. He kissed her lips softly, waking her up to hold unto her children she had been carrying around in her. "Van..." she whispered, opening up her eyes.
Van didn't know what to say, so he simply kissed her again. "You're amazing, Hitomi."
"Congratulations, Queen Hitomi." the doctor said, pulling off gloves nearly soaked with blood. "You'll be quite sore and tired for a few days, but don't worry. You're children are all healthy and doing fine. They are slightly underweight, and I'll be by every single day to make sure they are okay, but I expect that with parents like you two, they'll do quite well."
Hitomi was passed a baby, and she held it like a china doll. She could feel the tears coming to her eyes as she held her daughter. "This is the eldest." she said, running a finger down her baby's nose, and laughing as she tried to grab at it already. "Those two are the younger, both boys."
Van looked at them both. "The two boys are younger? The eldest is a girl??" he sighed heavily, and swore. "Oh now, which one is going to inherit the throne? Oh, my Council is going to have a field day over this!"
She smacked him lightly upside the head. "Van! Don't use language like that around our newborns!"
"I'm sorry! Sorry, sorry!" Van smiled an kissed her forehead. "So, what are we going to name them?"
"What about naming Amano one of the boys?" she suggested.
"That clunk? Uh uh! I don't think so!" he could tell by the look Hitomi was giving him that his reason was not good enough. "Well, what happens if he ever asks who he was named for? Do you really want to tell your son he was named for your school-hood crush that your best friend ended up dating?"
Hitomi winced. "Good point. Well, what about Folken?"
"Everybody's been naming their boys that since the Destiny War." Van rolled his eyes slightly.
"Well, what about Faith?"
"Faith? Faith! That's a girl's name!" Van cried. "I refused to have MY son have a pansy name like Faith!"
"It's not necessarily a girl's name in my language." Hitomi responded defiantly. "Shinkou. I don't know, what do you think?"
Van looked down at the younger son, the smallest one there was. "Shinkou (AN: The u is not pronounced, k?)... It's different, I like it. It totally suits him. What about the other son here?" he asked, motioning to the elder boy, wrapped in a green blanket.
"What about something to do with dragons? Like, 'flying dragon' or 'dragon king'?"
"Well, what do those names sound like in you language?"
"Hiryuu and Ryuujin."
Van contemplate it over. "What about naming him Ryuu? Just plain old, 'dragon'?
"Ryuu it is." Hitomi looked at the little girl, the biggest one of them all, and the most energetic. Unlike Ryuu and Shinkou, she was busy waving her little arms around, showing no sign that she was going to go to bed soon. "And this feisty little one, what she we call her?"
"We should have named her Faith." Van muttered. He looked at her again, he tiny fists waving around in the air. "On the other hand, she looks a little too violent to be named Faith. I really hope that she'll be able to fit in."
"At least we can make her name fit in. It's perfect. Busouheiwa. 'Armed Peace'. Or do you think it's too long for her?" Van nodded, and Hitomi closed her eyes again, thinking. "What about naming her Tenshi? That means Angel."
"I don't know.... oh well." Van looked out their bedroom window to the mystic Moon. "We're both really tired, how about we wait until tomorrow, and look at it all in a new light?"
"Sure Van." Hitomi held her daughter close, and Van's arm wrapped around her. She snuggled right in, and followed to Earth. She sighed heavily, wondering what her family and her friends were doing now. Van nuzzled her neck.
"Don't worry, Hitomi. Once you and the babies are all healthy, I'll take us all to you r home again, so that they can meet their grandparents." he promised her.
Hitomi looked up at him and smiled. "Thank you." he kissed her lightly, making her smile as she fell asleep.
And she knew that when she woke up, he'd be there beside her all the way. The five of them, the Royal Family in a land of green and peace.
Even if there were still a few kinks to work out....