A/N: This sucker is almost done!
Missing White Wings 15 - Thank-you so much for your review! And yeah, Ozuru had to be the one to do it, or he would never trust another woman with his hear and then he wouldn't get his 'happily ever after'.
The next day the media was in complete chaos, trying to cover everything; the mysterious explosion, the sightings of Art flying through the sky and then there was the astonishing return of nearly everyone that had been caught in the explosion in the first place. Over the course of a week the remaining missing people returned. None of the survivors had any explanation for what had happened to them, or how they were not dead.
After pulling off grabbing so many people all at once and sending them forward in time Ruadhan had such bad headache that he felt nauseous for several days, throwing up often. Gwenda nursed him throughout it and eventually made him promise not to stalk her ever again; if she's in trouble than he is to tell her, rather than skulk in the shadows, watching her.
Van was standing on high ground, looking at a map with a government woman, both of them holding one edge of it. The Japanese government had, just the other day, offered him and his people a large chunk of land (they had space to spare since the merging of Earth and Gaea). The soil was good, the mountains were ideal, the climate was proving to be pleasant (though it was fall, so they were waiting to see how the winter would be) and - best of all - Hitomi was standing between him and the woman, translating. Van had his arm wrapped around her as she subconsciously tried to maintain a certain minimum body space between herself and the other woman.
He had found out just a couple of days ago about her break-up with Ozuru. Hitomi hadn't been sure what to do since then, so Van was taking the lead. Thankfully, linguists had been able to work out most of the Gaean languages well enough that Hitomi wasn't needed for every meeting anymore; it turned out that Earth's own languages were fairly similar to many of Gaea's. Now that the boarders were mostly worked out (the childish representatives had been replaced with some actually effective ones) everyone was trying to figure out what to call their new world. 'Rhea' and 'Terra' were some tentative options.
"Hey, Van..." Hitomi said, her eyes on the map.
He turned his attention to her.
"Isn't that..." She pointed to a spot on the map, drawing his attention reluctantly back to it, "Where Adom is?"
He wasn't entirely sure, but he thought that she might be right. Hitomi spoke to the woman beside her and twenty minutes later it was confirmed. A week after that and the area the government had been offering was expanded to include all of the Beast People villages, which were in very convenient locations. Van suspected that Hitomi's power was at play in that. Either way, it didn't matter. What Van really wanted an answer to was why the Japanese government was being so generous. To that end he asked them.
Their answer was that after seeing his powers they would prefer to keep him and his people close and as friends of Japan. They didn't want him and his people to end up being neighbors with a world superpower that may, or may not, like Japan. The job of the Japanese government is to ensure the safety of the country both in the short and long run. Van found this to be both understandable and an acceptable reason for their previously odd-seeming generosity.
Once satisfied with that answer he and the Japanese government worked out the details of building the new Draconian kingdom and moving his people there. Taro eventually got him to the point of being understandable in Japanese. By then Van and Hitomi's relationship was progressing smoothly and everyone was speculating about when they would be expecting their first child.
Yukari and Amano were just glad to see her finally, truly happy.
Aifric stared at her husband's back as he stayed stoically focused on his paperwork. He had been like that ever since the battle at the embassy. This was actually a normal response he had after any battle; he would avoid her and try to keep his distance when he couldn't. She always had to coax him back into her arms. Art had once confessed that after any battle he felt like touching Aifric was some kind of sin. She had taken him to task for it, which had actually made him smile at the time.
It seemed that she was likely going to have to take him to task again.
"Art..." She said softly, "Why won't you look at me?"
"...I cannot. Not after... After killing so many of our friends."
"Friends...?" Aifric murmured, confused, then understanding dawned and she closed the gap between them.
She rested her hand on her husband's broad back, smoothing it up to his neck. He shivered and she smiled.
"Lover... They ceased being my friends the moment I found out that they thought it was alright to let Einion torture our grandchild. Even if Hitomi had been someone else's granddaughter I would have reacted the same way. Even when torture was the normal course of things I found it to be barbaric and horrible. I would never count among my friends any who thought that it was acceptable to ever do to anyone."
"Then... You do not hate me?" He asked in a small voice.
Aifric had never felt so horrified in her life. She quickly came around to kneel beside him. Taking his face in her hands she turned his head towards her. When he finally looked at her he looked so very lost and bereft.
"Don't you ever think something like that again. I may get mad at you from time to time, but I could never and would never hate you. How could I? You're my sun around which I orbit."
He smiled, so relieved that he started crying. Aifric was just glad that there were no arms on the chair; it allowed her to pull him off of it to sit on the floor with her where she held him close. He tried to tell her how much she meant to him, but it all came out garbled and unintelligible through the crying.
She understood him anyway.
A/N: So, like I said, only two chapter left to this. Then there's the sequel. Pretty please review!