Vision of Escaflowne: Soulmates
Written by: Meghanna Starsong
"Chapter Twenty-One"
Standard Disclaimer: Escaflowne is copyright to its creator, Shoji Kawamori, owners, and distributors. I am not making any money off of this fanfiction. None of the Escaflowne characters are mine, although I have inserted my own creations into this universe as well. Please do not steal my original characters or use them without my permission. This is a continuation of Escaflowne the series after Episode 26.
Author's Notes: Remember, Key is another term for the pendants worn by Hitomi and Dane in this story.
A big "arigatou gozaimasu" to Mystical-Grace.
Edited: 6/14/2018
"""""""
Van knelt upon the stone floor until his hand stopped trembling on his sword's hilt. The polished metal of the blade mirrored his reflection back at him. He looked haggard despite his youth, but also more at peace, some burden removed. He felt full of steel and purpose. Gaou wanted to see what kind of man he was, and by the gods, Van would show him.
He shed his nightclothes and ransacked the armoire and chest of drawers that contained his wardrobe, lobbing the tinseled garments that Trigornia had insisted upon over his shoulders. At last, he fished out a musty pair of trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, the like he hadn't worn in half a year. While Van tied the shirt's laces, he located the calf-high boots and leather gloves he preferred for riding. He was in such a hurry that he didn't bother with a cloak or jacket.
After belting his sword around his hips, he strode to the door of his chambers and flung it open. It slammed against the outside wall. From the settee, General Dinair arched a wry eyebrow at him over the top of her book. Without an explanation, Van stalked by the coffee table overflowing with gifts from his well-wishers. He crossed the sitting room to the huge main door, grasped the knob, and shouldered it aside.
With a sigh, Melusine rose from the settee and tailed the king. "Between Lady Hitomi and you, I'm starting to believe that nightly strolls through the castle are in vogue."
"Where's Hitomi's room?" Van scowled at the trio of sleepy guards. They jerked awake and saluted. One blubbered something, but the king hushed him with a gesture.
Melusine flipped a page in her book, keeping pace with him despite the obvious distraction. "Sir Trigornia has her housed in the East Wing, Your Highness."
"Take me there." On an afterthought, he added gently, "Please."
The general reluctantly closed her book, her countenance serious. "You do realize that both your chief advisor and physician won't like you being out and about so soon."
"Coddling won't make me stronger. As for Trigornia and Baris, if I must, I'll remind them who is king here." The king bristled.
"A word of caution." Melusine tossed her book to a guard, who caught it in surprise. "You may not like what you find."
"I know, Dinair. I'm prepared," he said softly, thinking of Hitomi. His bangs covered an eye, veiling half of his expression.
The general winced. "You're a little late taming the Dragon."
During the reconstruction, Van's people had taken to calling him the Dragon King, and it stuck ever since. He was never sure what had started it. Perhaps it stemmed from Escaflowne's capability to convert into flight mode or how he had piloted it during the Great War. Maybe the nickname had roots in his rite of passage. Surely it wasn't for his half-Draconian heritage, since precious few were privy to that knowledge. Another less flattering reason could be his disposition, which he admitted closely resembled the beast's own.
In this regard, Melusine was right; he had been a proverbial dragon as of late: moody, stubborn, and foul-mouthed. He was aware of that now and would do his best to improve his attitude. Van rewarded her candor with a lopsided smile. "A belated attempt is still an attempt."
Melusine smoothed her hands over her scalp, her fingers absentmindedly skipping along the crests and valleys of her braids. "Let's go then."
Van had no clue what would happen. He couldn't begin to fathom the mysterious workings of the female mind or the profundities of the human heart. Hitomi might refuse to speak to him. She might yell, weep, or simply ignore him. She could spurn him, spit in his face. Maybe she'd slap him again. I hope not. She hits hard, he grimaced.
No matter what she wound up saying or doing, he had to meet with her and explain his motives, his logic. Or, at least to try.
He sought only amity. He wouldn't fool himself into believing that there could be anything more between them. Five years was a long time, and with a castle of highborn ladies competing for a marriage contract, there was little room for anything else.
Besides, after his latest antics, Van doubted Hitomi would even agree to be friends. Hopefully, he could beg her forgiveness, although undeserving of it, and salvage something of their relationship. Any sort of connection with her, albeit platonic and awkward, was better than nothing at all.
He comprehended and accepted his father's lesson. Van might be a king, but he could not, should not, control the free will of those around him. Hells, the weight of his own decisions was heavy enough. If Hitomi stayed on Gaea or not, it was her choice. He wouldn't interfere anymore. He only wished to impress upon her the current hazards and offer her a room in his castle, with no restrictions, should she desire it.
Following torch-lit halls, Melusine led Van at a fast-walk through the labyrinthine castle to the East Wing. The general's shoulders tensed more and more the closer they drew to Hitomi's room. When she paused outside of a nondescript door, she was as rigid as an oak's trunk. She linked her hands behind her back, standing at attention.
Some of Van's unpleasantness resurfaced with the general's strange body language. "This is her room?"
"Yes, Lord Van."
"Why isn't there a guard posted as I requested?"
"You'll want to bring that up with Sir Trigornia." Melusine shrugged her shoulders, feigning nonchalance. Her furrowed brow betrayed the act.
Frowning, Van raised a fist to knock and hesitated. Something was amiss. He scanned the door frame. Radiance seeped through the cracks along its top and bottom. There was no noise from the other side. Wordlessly, the king seized the knob and forced the door inward.
Much like his bedchamber, the room was disorderly. Garments littered the floor, and a chair was overturned. A sunlamp glowed on a table. The bed was unmade, the blankets on it rumpled. As he suspected, the room was empty.
"Where is she?" he demanded. His apprehension ignited into a wildfire.
Melusine licked her lips. "I don't know."
"Don't know, or won't tell?" He rounded on her. They were almost the same height, so Van easily locked eyes with her.
"Truly, Highness, I don't know where Lady Hitomi is."
Van fought to rein in his impatience. He found it hard to trust anyone aside from Merle and Hitomi these days, and he must change that. As teenagers, he once overheard Hitomi tell Folken during his political asylum in Asturia, "If you don't trust others, they won't trust you."
He inhaled and considered Melusine. She was an excellent fighter and a proficient bowwoman. She had an affinity for yerkles and which soldiers to pair them with. Her selection of mounts and how she trained their riders had strengthened his cavalry. She was a competent leader, and as a person, she prided herself on a strict moral code. It was something he admired and respected about her; no matter how problematic the outcome, she never lied.
If he must place his faith in someone, Melusine was a good choice.
To be doubly certain, Van utilized something else Hitomi had taught him: dowsing. Until recently, he'd avoided using the ability, because it reminded him too much of the war and the girl from the Mystic Moon. There also hadn't been a pressing need to scour an area for invisible enemies. Perhaps he could tweak the skill to detect dishonesty in the people he dealt with.
Balling his hands into fists, the king imagined the Atlantis pendant, its rubicund gem, the fragile chain. He fumbled with the image at first. It almost seemed to resist him. After several attempts, he branded the image into his mind's eye. Once it was, Van commanded it to indicate a direction that represented truth and another for deceit. The pendant swayed obediently to the right, lingered, and then to the left. It returned to its original position, awaiting his next query.
Is Melusine telling me the truth about Hitomi? he inquired, his eyes half-lidded. The pendant swung to the right. He sighed, grateful that his earlier assumption was not incorrect.
"Lord Van?" Melusine tentatively shook his shoulder with a hand. "Are you ill again?"
Van broke out of his trance. "I believe you, Dinair."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Er…thank you. You might still be too sick for all of this. Why don't I escort you back to your chambers? Sir Trigornia mentioned organizing some entertainment for Lady Hitomi this evening, although he never said anything about the particulars. Once the sun is up, I'll question him in your stead."
"No, I'm going to his quarters now and seeing what all this is about," Van said. "I need to know that Hitomi is safe."
"What's the harm in a night out? Lady Hitomi saved your life, Your Majesty." The general tilted her head, and her horsetail of braids feathered over a shoulder. "Torg was right; you can't keep her locked up. She doesn't deserve that. If anything, I'd say she's earned some fun with friends."
"I see that now." Berated, he rubbed the back of his neck. "At the time, I thought I was protecting her."
"You, better than anyone, should know how taxing that kind of protection can be."
The king met her eyes, startled. He did understand, because Trigornia had done the exact same thing to him. The courtier had stationed guards at his door, alternated generals in his sitting room, and isolated Van to his bedchamber. Like a fool, he'd caged Hitomi in a similar fashion.
He gritted his teeth. How long have I been lost in others' expectations of who I am and what I should do? Not anymore. It ends here.
Before either Van or Melusine could say more, a sound permeated the night. He held his breath to listen: a mournful, sonorous bellow. He rushed across Hitomi's room, threw wide the shutters, and unhooked the glass panes. Leaning out the window, a biting wind smacked him in the face and blew his hair back. It carried the voices of the Wall's great horns. Higher pitched horns from nearby joined them, trumpeting an alarm.
Melusine appeared by his shoulder. The stud in her nostril twinkled in the moonlight. "It's the Wall."
"Shit!" Van's fingers dug into the windowsill, his nails almost bending. "The Capital's under attack!"
"Your orders, Lord Van?"
His heart hammered in his chest, and his ears buzzed. He summoned the likeness of the pendant again. Is Hitomi in danger? The jewel hummed and gravitated to the right. For just a second, he flashbacked to his nightmare: the chthonic moon, the carnage of the sky, and the ground engulfing Hitomi.
"Send Aldric's Horns to the Wall with every available guymelf." Van climbed up onto the windowsill. He sat there with his legs dangling out. "Have Torg's Tusks on standby here at White Castle. I want his Digern unit operational and ready in case there's a fire."
Unsettled by the king's precarious perch in the window, the general grabbed his elbow. "Get back in here! Are you trying to kill yourself?"
"Your Claws are to patrol the Capital with whatever melfs you can find." Van shoved Melusine off of him with an arm. Fear and determination lent him superhuman might.
She careened backwards but regained her balance almost immediately. "What're you doing?!"
"Finding Hitomi!" Then Van launched himself out of the window and into the night.
As he plummeted, Melusine shouted. Van focused on the air streaming by him, the goosebumps on his flesh, the acrid taste on his tongue. He conjured his wings. The shaping of them scalded his back worse than boiling water. It'd been so long since he flew. He'd forgotten the agony of it.
New ligaments and bones generated, rearranging his muscles and skeleton. The skin on his shoulders crawled and stung. The sensation crept down his vertebral column to his waist. Two things strained there, causing him to hunch even as he tumbled headlong. Sharp ulnas rent tissue and ripped apart his shirt, spraying scarlet blood and molting cloth. He writhed and cried out, the wind absorbing his voice. The appendages effervesced into white down, lengthening. Then came a spurt of ecstasy, the silken peculiarity of feathers, and the span of secondary limbs.
Van flapped the appendages. He arrested his fall, banked on the wind, and barrel rolled. With his sheathed sword in his left hand, he waved his free one at the stunned Melusine. He dowsed for Hitomi's location. Moonlight glossed his wings with pearl as he soared off to the night market.
"""""""
Hitomi managed to slink away from her friends when Dane went to refill his milk. Gaddess, eager to learn more about the healer, dogged his heels, oblivious to Dane's efforts to escape. While the sergeant flirted with his quarry, Ruhm and his mates shifted their game to the table Merle snoozed on, safeguarding her. Hitomi mumbled about needing a toilet to Ruhm, who just grinned perceptively back at her. Despite his assurance of hastening back, Aldric was still absent.
After using the facilities, Hitomi skirted the inn's rowdy guests, receiving a whistle and a lewd comment in passing. She evaded eye contact and toes, rotating sideways to wriggle through the mass of people. Finally, she made it to the entrance, darted out the door, and took a whoosh of air in the face. Her cheeks, hot from the vino she'd ingested, began to cool.
A tad damp yet and reeking of beer, Hitomi gathered her cloak around her. Though the night was waning, stars still dominated the sky. The twin moons set low over the horizon, poking above the rooftops like mismatched eyes. A wispy band of clouds sailed in front of them, ghostly strips of gauze. She walked to the corner of the inn's storefront. Here it was far enough from the door to be quieter but still lit well enough for comfort.
The Daedalians had imparted a cruel, yet necessary lesson: she must always be aware of her surroundings.
Back home, she had been lax about personal safety and brought that naivety with her. Japan boasted one of the lowest crime rates in the world, and that meant women, within reason, could relax. Though her past on Gaea had been perilous, deadly even, Hitomi's aristocratic allies had formed a kind of buffer around her. This time things were different. Between the Demons and the evil in men's hearts, there was plenty to threaten her.
She must be vigilant.
Hitomi exhaled. She planted her back against the building and squatted down. The cloak folded around her, hiding her like a child in a favorite blanket. For a while, the Mystic Moonling did nothing except breathe. It had been an eventful night. She flinched at the recollection of all that had transpired. Placing the back of her head against the inn's exterior, she shut her eyes, and then there was only the nip of an early autumn morning and the wind's susurrations.
There won't always be someone around to rescue me. Her forehead wrinkled. I'll ask Allen or Merle to teach me a few things for self-defense. I have this dagger, so I better learn to use it.
The baying of enormous bass horns destroyed the silence. They were like wailing alphorns. Their song blasted through the Capital, reverberating off walls and roofs, flooding the streets. More horns, these ones treble and alto, picked up their lamenting moan.
Hitomi stiffened, and a chill oozed down the back of her neck. Some instinct told her she wasn't alone. She opened her eyes. They alighted on the stooped figure of a man to her left. He hovered just outside the illumination trickling through the inn's windows. In the dim alley between Trigornia's restaurant and the adjoining property, he was bizarrely still and mute.
He seemed ordinary enough, with patched trousers and a tunic, but Hitomi's intuition said otherwise. A picture of the pendant when it was whole oscillated across the landscape of her mind and tolled a warning. Slowly, she hoisted herself up, her arms still beneath the cloak. She noticed the man had no shoes, and likewise, he sported no coat or cape against the cold. Darkness accumulated around him, gloomier and deeper than an ocean's abyss.
The hairs on Hitomi's arms were fully erect. She smelt something wafting off the man like rancid meat. Air wheezed grotesquely through lungs already rotting. "Paaain."
She backed away from the abomination wearing the corpse. It came nearer, an ankle popping, just at the edge of the luminescence. Her left hand clamped around the pendant, and her right clenched the dagger's handle.
"Paaain," it whined.
"What are you?" Wide-eyed, Hitomi unsheathed the dagger and brandished the spire of its blade at the thing. She shivered.
Another head materialized by the ear of the beast, a kind of sallow half-moon. Puckered, red marks crisscrossed the scorched epidermis there, turning an already hideous caricature of a face into something worse. Alongside the web of scars, the lips had been blown away, exposing the sharkish fangs in the Demon's mandible. Skull bone shown through where ribbons of mummified hide had peeled away. The pendant's explosion had seared the maggots that once dined on the head, leaving the Demon without its pets. Somehow, its eye, the only one visible, remained unscathed, a sinkhole.
"S-Shadow," she whispered.
The Demon trained the obsidian orb of its eye on her. The man-creature gurgled, and then Shadow spoke through it, spewing hatred. "Yooou huuurt meee."
Hitomi retreated towards the inn's door, her entire body shuddering. Shadow urged its puppet after her. It shied away from the radiance, slurring gibberish in its throat. Its master did something she couldn't see, and then the thing shrieked in pain. To elude further torment, the man-creature plodded after her and submerged itself in the light. This close, she saw the grayness of its scales and the scattering of boils across its face and neck. Its human form was already warping: the neck slender and thrice its regular length; bear claws in place of fingers and toes; and weird spines on its back protruded through the tunic's fabric like hedgehog quills.
It achieved another tottering step towards her, the double-jointed ankle once more cracking. "Huuurt meee," Shadow hissed through its voice box.
"S-Stay away!" she stuttered.
"Kiiill yooou!" the Demon squawked. Its serpentine, mauve tongue lolled out of its mouth, tasting the air.
Hitomi recoiled, her gut bubbling stomach acid up the pillar of her throat. She sensed the hunger of the Demon and the master riding it. While the monster yearned for blood, Shadow craved souls.
Then she gazed into the man-beast's eyes and felt something unexpected: sympathy. The left one was an echo of Shadow's own, inky and abysmal, but the right was not. A vivid hazel, this eye was bloodshot but wholly human, with both pupil and iris. It rolled around in its socket, large and terrified, even as its counterpart stared flatly back at her. To her astonishment, jewel-bright moisture collected in the human eye and dribbled out.
[Yes, those are tears.]Lucem's words were sad in her head.
For an instant, all movement ceased. The river of time stretched and became sluggish. Everything paled to a yellow monochrome: the sky a honeyed plain strewn with topazes, the businesses mustard children's blocks, the inn's windows like square candles. The man-thing froze mid-step, beige and ossified. Though the entity behind the Demon was still an opaque sable, Shadow was nevertheless affected by this same immobility.
In this moment of fixed time, Hitomi held the Dragseye up. Its gem smoldered cerise, alert and immune to whatever was going on. "What's happening?" she wondered aloud.
Lucem responded with a caress of feathers. [Shadow disobeyed the rules of our game. We are not to interact directly with mortals or impinge upon their autonomy, but the Demon broke this agreement. Shadow's ego is more injured than its husk now, and it sought you itself to exact its revenge in the physical realm. However, because of this, I am also able to act thus, albeit briefly. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," to quote your Isaac Newton.]
"You mean, because Shadow attacked me outright, it 'cheated.' As a result, you can 'cheat' yourself and stop time."
[To aid you, yes.]
"I can't see you." Hitomi swiveled her head about, seeking the owner of the inaudible voice.
[Alas, as Shadow heals, I weaken. I can no longer manifest myself. I called to you many, many times before, but I failed to reach you. If not for Shadow's carelessness, we could not speak in this island of time. I use fading reserves of my strength to do this, but I must warn you.]
Hitomi's pulse quickened.
[The respite your prior actions afforded you is no more. As Plague extends across Gaea and more of Shadow's minions infest the dead, the Demon gains power. It feeds upon these mortals' souls, and they fuel its recovery.]
"I thought maybe." Hitomi spared a pitying glance at the man-creature, tears icing its cheek. "It's as if something of the original person is intact inside the Demon."
[Temporarily. Plague is the gateway for Demons. Once a mortal perishes from the disease, they leave behind a discarded body. If their heart is full of negativity, Shadow manipulates Power and infects the cadaver with a minion. The mortal's spirit is trapped. Its energy drives the process of the Demon crossing over. Once this is complete, either Shadow or the minion consumes the spirit, depending on the master's whim.]
"You're telling me there's a human soul in there?" She pointed the dagger at the monstrosity, repulsed and dismayed.
Lucem cringed mentally. [Yes, for this Demon is newly born and not wholly formed.]
Hitomi gasped and rocked back on her heels in shock, her hand around the pendant loosening. She hugged her arms over her chest, her eyes and throat burning. The impulse to vomit almost overcame her. Her vision fuzzed with tears for the poor man before her, for those suffering with Plague, and for those already lost to the epidemic and the Demons. So horrible! I can't…there are no words…horrible!
[My power dwindles, Hitomi Kanzaki.] There was an undercurrent of desperation in Lucem's thought transference. Its warm wing-arms surrounded her. [Soon the pull of time will overcome me. The darkness upon Gaea grows and spreads, obscuring the light.]
"Can't we save those people?" She swallowed thickly and wiped her face with her cloak, the stale odor of beer oddly reassuring.
[That will depend upon you and your allies. Even now, many search for a cure for Plague with no success. As for the souls that are Demon-devoured, I cannot say.]
"I-I thought we'd have more time." Her lip quivered, her face unusually ashen. "This is so much all at once."
Lucem poured its essence into her, pacifying her, a pure conduit of love. The being of light embraced her and projected into her psyche the heat of summer, the music of guitar strings, and the sweetness of sugar cookies. [Peace, my little one. It is true that much is asked of you. For this, I am sorry, but there is no other way to alter the course of this current fate. In the past, you did a great service for this world. Despite Shadow's manipulation, Gaea aided your return during this crisis. There is much need for your gifts and those of your friends. Hope is not lost yet, Hitomi Kanzaki.]
"I'm okay now. I'm sorry." She sniffled and gave a watery smile. She discerned other hues bleeding into the sepia of the scene.
Again, that note of distress tainted the melody of Lucem's speech. [Harken to me! Shadow has discovered an alternate means of eliminating the crippled Seal. Even so, it will continue its efforts to slay either the Fanelian king or you. Both, if it can. Be on guard! The Demon cares not which of its schemes work, so long as one speeds Shadow to its goal.]
She tightened her fingers around the Dragseye's handle. The leather wrapped around the metal squeaked. The scar on her right palm, the brand it had marked her with, tingled. The dagger contemplated her with its lidless ruby-eye, its cognizance stirring in the back of her mind. It grew increasingly restless, a bonfire haze.
[There are whispers of ancient voices. The old ones of Atlantis are awakening during this strife. You will have equal allies and enemies, Hitomi Kanzaki.] Lucem's luster sputtered like a sparkler at the end of its life, a flame on a wet wick.
The pendant around Hitomi's neck thumped once, just a single heartbeat, a gleam of fuchsia. She tapped the ebon stone with an index finger. "The Key! It's done this before. Why?"
Tired, Lucem communicated hardly above a telepathic murmur. [Perhaps the Key is not destroyed as we thought, but simply comatose. You severed its connection to Power, and yet it has fleeting instances of life.]
"If there was a way to restore its link to Power, could that fix it?"
[Ah, a question I cannot answer. Such a feat has never been undertaken, because no Key has ever been lost to us before this one.]
Nearby, the Demon flexed a claw-hand, the slate of its flesh draining the sepia. Behind it, Shadow's miasma engorged, a thunderhead warring against Lucem's authority over time. The heavens reverted back to their natural order, the moons spheres of opal and sapphirine. The street was losing its buttery hue, returning to the depth of its shadows and the brown of its cobbles. Lucem can't hold out much longer, she realized.
Hitomi warily watched the man-thing, her dagger at the ready. She reached out to Lucem, psychically gripping its wing-arm with a ferocious resolve. "There has to be a way! I have to be able to do something!"
[Join with me, Hitomi Kanzaki. Be my avatar. Once we have merged with Power, anything is possible. We can save the Plague ridden. We can resurrect the Key. We can shatter Shadow's dominion over this planet and save this universe.]
She almost dropped the Dragseye. "No! I-I can't! I swear, I'll help somehow, but not that!"
Only a pocket of gold endured around Hitomi, and it shrank as Lucem replied wearily. [I beseech you on behalf of creation, on behalf of goodness. Please, Hitomi Kanzaki, choose me. Together, we are mighty. Together, there is a chance for us. Apart, we cannot stand against a Shadow mingled with Power.]
"T-There has to be someone better than me," she insisted, despondent.
[I choose you.]
"What you ask for is too much!" Lucem's influence over reality condensed to a lemony glimmer. It outlined her shape and pulsated scant centimeters above her skin. Static crackled over the hairs on her arms, hopping from one follicle to another. "I don't want to cease to exist altogether!"
If Lucem meant to answer, the entity never got the chance. Time resumed. It churned by her in a maelstrom of sound, motion, and variegated colors. With an angry squeal, the man-thing surged towards her. It scrambled on all fours, still uncertain of the locomotion of its limbs. It gained momentum until it charged at a normal speed. Shadow screeched unintelligibly, jockeying its minion's back like an ugly tick. The Demon's jaw unhinged, and its mount mimicked the action, their tongues snaking out. Spurred on by its parasitic master, the abomination prepared to shred her to streamers.
The last of Lucem's power palpitated once, fulvous and misty, around the Dragseye dagger. The being whispered to her in nonsensical parting, [We change…always whole. Make me…whole.]
The man-creature reared on its hindlegs. It morphed even as Hitomi gawked up at it. While looming over her, its spine elongated and shoulders broadened. It tore through the remainder of its clothes, its hulk doubling. Its knees reversed direction and bony protrusions sprouted from its elbows. With a final blink, the human eye transformed to coal, the true mate of the other. The Demon was the size of a draft yerkle now, bigger and bulkier than the one she'd stabbed in the eye on the Main Road.
Do something! her brain screamed at her listless body. Panic numbed her fingers and dulled her senses. She had the dagger, yet what good would it do against a Demon of this size?
The Dragseye gonged and pierced through Hitomi's daze. Adrenalin gushed through her, lightning in her veins, but it was too late. The Demon was too swift, and she was off-guard. Towering over her, it drew back a paw-hand and swiped down, its claws daggers themselves. She quailed and bowed, trying to make herself a smaller target. She shielded her face with her arms. Bracing for impact, she squeezed her eyelids together, not wanting to see the end.
Ting.
"""""""
To Be Continued
"""""""
Salutations, dearest readers! How are you all? It's been a hectic month on my side between a mini-vacation, my mother's illness and hospitalization, and some job search blues. As a result, this story sat on my computer for a while, and I was a month late responding to the first reviewers of the last chapter. (So sorry about that, but I hope that you all understand. T_T)
To begin with, please allow me to shout-out to some fresh faces: Guest (anonymous reviewer), Tonks, serenityrain2233, Guest (de espanol), samcarter2070, sakura son zukino, and soulkeeperpol. Thank you so much for your reviews and encouragement.
Some of you have read Soulmates since the beginning and leave me the most wonderful feedback every chapter. Because of your dedication, patience, and loyalty, I plan to recognize all the longtime readers at the end of Part II. Our next chapter marks the conclusion of this section, and since I have three years' worth of individuals to thank, I opted to show my gratitude in a separate post.
Longtime readers, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'd also like to highlight a couple of noteworthy Escaflowne stories. As you know, I sometimes beta for Banryuu, and her current project, Broken Promises, is winding down. If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly encourage you to. ^_^
Likewise, while I am not much for alternate universes (AUs), I had the pleasure of helping 40Four with her outline for one. Little did I know it would suck me in! Yes, it converted me, lol. (Although I'm still behind on my reading. *blush*) Her story, Fate Without Honor, is refreshing, witty, and full of fluffy drama. You simply must give it a read!
And finally, if you are an Eries fan like myself, I suggest perusing Aerika S and The Secret Life of a Girl trilogy. These stories came out roughly the same time that I posted the original Soulmates, circa 2001. I reread the trilogy and fell in love with it again. Aerika S definitely ranks as one of the top Escaflowne writers for me. ^.^
Until our next (and final) chapter for Part II! Tah-tah! I hope to see you all for Part III. :)