Return to Gaea from the Mystic Moon Chapter 24, an escaflowne fanfic

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

The women and children and older people of Fanelia just stood there helplessly and watched as their samurai and king where fighting the enemy. "Why?" Hitomi asked herself out loud. "Why after two years of peace?"

"Some people can't stand the sight of peace." A woman said to her. "Though I don't see why, peaceful times are better then war times." She put a hand on Hitomi's shoulder. "Come help the other women try to keep the young children calm."

"Sure." Hitomi said and followed the woman to the back to the children.

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Van could feel the excitement of fighting as he had when he had piloted EscaFlowne for the first time. "DILANDU!" Van shouted and knocked the other man/woman backwards. "What have you done with Celena?" Van asked rather having had been followed around by Allen's sister then this crazy mad man.

"Celena, oh you mean Celena Schzar! I got rid of her. (I know that I spelt Allen's last name wrong.) You see, she was beginning to bug me by keeping me in that cold dark hell! That damn woman wasn't helping much either. I assumed that she was with you, but obviously I'm wrong." Dilandu said as he looked around for Hitomi. "I was surprised to see her there at Fried's ceremony though."

"Who are you working for?" Van asked and didn't expect to get an answer as the two locked swords.

"What was his name again? Ah yes, Naomi, revived me from that hell of a prison." Dilandu said and laughed evily again.

"That's impossible!" Van thought out loud. "NAOMI'S DEAD!"

"Dead, alive, who cares, I'm here now!" Dilandu shouted back and was suddenly stopped. "REMEMBER YOUR ORDERS DILANDU!" A voice shouted in his ear. "BRING BACK QUEEN FANELLIA!"

"Don't shout at me!" Dilandu said back. "It's difficult to fight when someone's shouting in your ear!"

Van pushed Dilandu to the ground again, and raised his sword above the other man. "Where is Naomi?" Van asked.

"Zaibach, where else." Dilandu laughed and that's when Van plunged the sword in to Dilandu's guymelof and killed him.

"DON'T LET ANY OF THE PRISONERS ESCAPE!" Van shouted at his men as the attacking army began to retreat.

Hitomi looked up from one of the children as she suddenly felt something or someone watching them. "Whose there?" She ordered to know as she looked around trying to sense where it was at. She suddenly screamed as she felt something grab hold of her and brought her off of the ground.

"QUEEN HITOMI!" She could faintly hear someone shout as she then felt the world around her go dark.

Something told him to look back to where the women and children where hiding and he could see a guymelof standing there. 'How on Gaea did they find out about that?' Van asked angrily as he now made EscaFlowne go in to dragon mode and quickly piloted it over there.

"NO YOU DON'T!" Van shouted as he dropped and EscaFlowne went back to its normal form again and grabbed hold of the attacking guymelof. 'Damn it, what the hell is he holding?' Van asked as he watched the enemy guymelof try to attack with only one hand. Van narrowed his eyes on to the enemies hand and could feel his anger rise once he recognized the female in the man's hand. "LET GO OF HITOMI!" He shouted as he raised his sword and managed to cut off the guymelof's hand. 'Damn it! Why the hell didn't I think that she would drop?' Van asked as he watched the hand start to fall. He quickly destroyed the remaining guymelof and opened the EscaFlowne, removed his shirt and jumped out.

His people knew about his wings, so he didn't care, he wondered why Hitomi wasn't using her wings. He wondered if part of the reason was because she didn't want the others to know, but he didn't care at this moment if they did, he just wanted to save Hitomi. 'Damn it, fly faster!' He shouted at himself as she seemed to be falling at a faster speed then to which he could catch up. He reached out his arm as he got closer and then realized that she wasn't consciounce. "Damn it Hitomi WAKE UP!" Van shouted.

Hitomi looked down to see something pulling her down at a great speed. 'This is just like my vision.' She thought as she looked up to see Van flying down at her at a great speed, trying to reach her. "VAN!" She shouted as she now reached out her hand. The thing that was pulling her down appeared to be a hand of some sort, a guymelof's hand, at least that explained that part of the vision, but she was also flying herself to which she wasn't doing at the moment. People where too close and could see as her wings came out, but at this moment, she didn't care. She didn't want to die a second time, and she didn't want to leave Van, not when she was pregnant three months with their first child. Her wings came out painfully since they had to rip through her dress.

"Hitomi…." Van thought not having expected his wife to do that. "Why? Now everyone will know that you are as cursed as I am."

Hitomi tried to fly up to him, but could still feel the piece of machinery grasping hold of her. She tried to get free but couldn't. "VAN!" She shouted again and looked up. "I can't get free!"

Van quickly pulled out his sword once he got to her level and started to pribe away the guymelofs fingers off of her, it was taking too much time. Once he finally got three fingers free, he let go of his sword, and pulled Hitomi out. They watched as the guymelofs hand and Van's sword fall to the ground below.

Hitomi looked at Van with tearful eyes. "Van, I thought that I was never going to be able to see you again." She said in between sobs.

"It's alright, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You where right, Dilandu is behind this attack. He was separated from Celena by Naomi who is now working for Zaibach." Van said as he tried to calm his wife down.

"Naomi, she's…" Hitomi started to say.

"That's what I thought." Van said trying to calm his wife down. "Let's go up now, I'm sure that people are worried about you."

"How are we to explain these?" Hitomi asked referring to the wings on her back.

"Well…." Van said. "I'm not sure. We can say that it's a Mystic Moon thing?" He asked questionably.

"Perhaps…" Hitomi said. "Well if they marked me as cursed, wait, they've already done that." Hitomi said as she tried to smile.

Once everything was calmed back down, Fanelia had tightened its security by land and air as they reached the night time hours. Van had ordered Hitomi to see a doctor to see if she was really alright and to see if the baby was alright. He didn't want to take any chances at either one of them being hurt in any way.

"I wish that you would have told me that she was with child sooner." The woman healer said once she was finished examining Hitomi.

"Why, is there something wrong?" Hitomi asked worried.

"No, but as a healer and a doctor, it is my responsibility to make sure that you and the child are safe and so forth." The woman said sighing.

"Thank the gods there's nothing wrong." Van said happily.

"On the contrary." The woman said. "If that hand had squeezed the queen any more it could have killed both her highness and the growing child with in her."

"I…." Hitomi started to say nervously as she looked up at Van.

"Thank the gods that it didn't and that as far as I can tell that both are alright." The woman with black hair said and gave a smile to her queen. "However you will be needing to take an easy for the next two weeks just to make sure."

"But you said nothing was wrong." Hitomi protested.

"I did, but this is to make."

Hitomi looked at Van who just kept his hand on her shoulder. "Just do as she says my queen, she is the best at what she does." Van said.

"Yes, I have been there at his highness side for whatever illness or scratch or broken bones that needed to be mended since he was a child." The woman said.

"Also try not to get in to anything that will make you stressed." Draiya ordered. "Stress is bad for you and especially when you're pregnant. Not like what happened recently is going to fix that one very well."

"Well it's too bad that you couldn't heal his recklessness." Hitomi said and now began to laugh.

"That one thing I have not been able to cure." The healer agreed laughing.

"What is this?" Van asked. "My queen and my old doctor ganging up on me, why is that a strange scene?"

"Why is it always me who is stuck in bed?" Hitomi complained to Van who rested his head on her stomach and tried not to put too much pressure on to her.

"Don't ask me, but you have to trust her judgment, I wouldn't have trusted going to any other doctor." Van said and could now feel Hitomi's hands run through his hair.

"We're probably going to end up going to war with Zaibach again." Van said sadly and he could then feel his wife's fingers suddenly stop.

"Not again Van!" Hitomi said.

"They attacked us first." Van said. "Dilandu said that he was with Zaibach, maybe now would be a good time to call Allen in." Van said even though he didn't want Allen any where near his wife if that could be helped.

"No more war, not again." Hitomi said.

"Don't worry, this time we'll be ready, our army has grown to a decent sized number since the last time." Van said reassuringly. "Not to mention our allies will help us since Zaibach disobey their promises."

"What where the terms?" Hitomi asked.

"Their not allowed to take up arms, not to have an army, none of their people are allowed to come in to another's country with out permission of the ruler, that's just to name a few." Van replied. "You don't need to worry about that though, Hitomi." Van said. "Just leave it to me."

"But…." Hitomi protested.

"You're not allowed to get stressed out!" Van reminded her sharply. "I don't want you to have to deal with these things."

Hitomi sighed. Why was it that Van seemed to always try to protect her from any harm? She had been in dangerous situations before and he never seemed this protective. Actually now that she thought about it, he had always been this protective, but he never had been this caring and kind to her before. "Van, I'm with you, no matter what happens." Hitomi finally said sighing. "Through war or peace, I will stay by your side." She realized that he had not heard her words, he was asleep. "Baka!" She whispered with a smile.

For the next few days Hitomi was bored half out of her mind, she felt like she should have been sick, only expect for the fact that she wasn't. She wanted to know what Van was doing about the whole Zaibach attacking them situation, but he wouldn't tell her at all!

"You mean one of Van's advisers is going to talk to Zaibach's new emperor?" Hitomi asked Merle who nodded.

"Yes, one of his represenitives anyway, maybe not one of his advisers." Merle said. "I heard that Van-sama wanted to go himself, but he's not allowed to."

"He better not go, I'd kill him!" Hitomi said. "He would really wish that he had never even thought about it when I was through with him." She added.

"Word has gotten out that you're pregnant." Merle said suddenly.

"WHAT?" Hitomi shouted.

"Hai, (Yes) all of Fanelia seems to know now." Merle said. "They know that their queen is with their king's heir."

"Geeze, just a heir, why is it that that is the only thing that people seem to think about when it comes to royalty? Marry young, have lots of children. Is that the only purpose of a wife on this world?" Hitomi asked frustrated.

"I suppose, that's what it seems like anyway." Merle replied. "Why is it not like that on the Mystic Moon?"

"On the Mystic Moon," Hitomi started to explain. "We have many different cultures like we do here on Gaea. The cultures vary but it is usually the same now then it was back in the old days. Women are allowed to go to school as they do here in Gaea, and when we become of the age of marriage, it is up to us if we want to marry or not." She said. "Just like here on Gaea, but on the Mystic Moon, in most countries you have to be at least 18 to marry or have some other special reason to get married such as two people end up making love and the woman becomes pregnant. We're allowed to marry at whatever age we want to after the age of 18 or we can choose a career that we want to after we finish college."

"College?" Merle asked. "What's that?"

"It's like school, expect it's for grown ups, not little kids. This is where you go to study in the field that you want to do." Hitomi explained.

"Sounds something similar here, expect that you don't go to that type of school unless if you want to be a doctor or something that has to do with politics. And you usually have to be in a royal family to do that in most countries." Merle explained. "A lot of times, the marriages are re-arranged, but in this case, the women and the man marring one another has to agree. Millerna didn't really get that choice since she's royalty and when you re-arrange marriages in royal families, you don't usually have any say so in it."

Merle stopped and looked at Hitomi. "What would you have done if you stayed on the Mystic Moon?"

"I'm not sure actually. I did get a scholar ship for the track team at an university." Hitomi said. "Though I'm not sure if I would have wanted to run as my career since track isn't a very good field to go in since if you get injured or something, well once you're leg is useless then that's that."

"Track?"

"Running, it's a sport on the Mystic Moon." Hitomi answered.

"Oh, running for fun? How boring! I can't stand running expect for when it was for my life when we where traveling over two years ago."

"You didn't want to do it back then either did you?" Hitomi asked.

"Well you're the one who hurt poor Van-Sama while you where going after that Allen person!" Merle said raising her voice dangerously.

"Yes, I did deserve that." Hitomi said sighing. "Now that I think about it, I wonder why I ever liked him?"

"I don't know, Van-Sama is way better, he's cutter and…"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about my husband like that." Hitomi said. "I am the only one who can say things like that about him."

"NANI?" Merle hissed and brought her claws out.

"Do I have to say that that was an order Merle?" Hitomi asked.

"Since when did you get to order me around?" Merle hissed.

"I don't do it very often, but I am your queen you know." Hitomi snapped back. 'Damn, it's bad enough that it pisses me off when she gets to eat lunch with him and how she clings all over him and probably does that when I'm there but her talking about Van in such a manner! THAT'S MY JOB!'

Merle looked like she was about to kill Hitomi at the moment but then thought about it and then backed off. She stormed out of Hitomi and Van's room and slammed the door behind him. Once Merle had left two guards came in.

"Is something wrong Queen Hitomi?" One of the guards asked.

"No, nothing, she's just having a bad day that's all." Hitomi lied not needing to tell them that Hitomi was getting jealous over that cat for saying how cute he was. "There's no need to worry, I'm sure that she'll get over it."

Merle stormed down the halls away from Hitomi's and Van's room and tried not to break anything as she went down. "WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS SUDDENLY BEING ABLE TO ORDER ME AROUND!" Merle shouted in the depths of her mind. "She's married to Van and she suddenly gets so edgy about me saying a few words about him!" She added. "DAMN! Must be hormones going out of control." Merle finally concluded.

Long enough? I think so. Phew! Long chapter, I think this is my longest actually. Thanks for all of the reviews, or in this case I should say for the lack of reviews. Well here's the next chapter have fun.