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The breaths Van exhales are laboured as he grapples with too many things at once. Homesickness, feelings of great grief, the memory of flight, hunger (hunger...?), visions of little sea animals dancing under the dark waves of the ocean by a harbour. Pain between his shoulderblades. And the annoying sensation of trying to hold fast to the elusive fabric of a dream he can't remember, but that feels close to his skin, as though, if he could try hard enough to remember it, he would be able to.
But that possibility disappears when his eyes stray across the room, and feathers catch his eye. This petrifies him. What is he supposed to do now? Play it cool, come clean about one more thing that dissonates with this world? And not a little thing either, not at all.
How will Hitomi react to knowing that he is cursed? That his blood is cursed, and he comes from a cursed bloodline?
That he, a dragon-person, is looking for a dragon. It tastes bitter in his mouth without even having said anything. She'll stop trusting him. She'll hate him. Kick him out.
She'll hate him. The thought scorches him. He needs to fix this.
Cat-like silently, he picks up the feathers, one by one. Opens the window. The wind scatters them across different rooftops.
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For Hitomi, it feels like this Friday can't go fast enough. She managed to get to the school in time and keep more-or-less decent conversation throughout the morning, but now, after lunch, minutes crawl so very slowly. Snail's pace.
Her students are doing warm-up training. She's sitting on one of the long benches outside, idly looking at how they run around the circular track. She's cold. She wants to go home. Since she arrived, this morning, it feels like everything smells like smoke.
One of the students trips. A couple of other students gather around and give the kid a hand. She really wants to go home.
Slowly, they start being done with the warm-up, and the first ones group around her.
'Teach,' one says, 'you're looking a bit pale.'
'I guess I am,' she says, resigned.
During the afternoon break, she goes and sees the principal. Reluctantly, she schedules some time off for the following week, and takes some minutes in the teacher's lounge to compose herself. It almost feels as though she had caught the flu, but never had any symptoms, just tiredness. But that's not all there is, if she has to be honest.
Goodness, she thinks, her reflection in the restroom mirror looks awful. So drained. But why?
Back in the lounge, and in spite of the warm air coming in through the open window, she finds herself mixing a very strong, very sweet coffee in the hopes of forcing her body to shape up. She's idly stirring it with the teaspoon when one of her co-workers comes in for a cup of tea.
Yes, she answers, mechanically, she knows she doesn't look well. Yes, her couchsurfer is still around. Yeah, the embassy is taking forever. No, really, she's okay with it. No, he's got nothing to do with her not doing so good, it's actually a complicated family situation. An ill relative. Cancer.
As she walks back to her last class for the week, she wonders if her lies sound as terrible to others as they sound to her. She is a bit concerned that someone might discover all the loose ends in her answers and the places where she's contradicting herself. She hopes, sincerely, that no one is listening too closely.
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Friday finally ends, and Hitomi relishes in putting on her shorts and trainers and preparing to have a nice, cathartic run back home. She consciously breathes in the late-spring air, that carries the scent of the gardenias and jasmines that grow over the school's fence, and chases away the memory of the scent of smoke that trailed after her the whole day. Her grandma's pendant seems warm against her breast. She exhales. It will be nice to have some days off, actually. As she warms up, the day's weariness begins to be forgotten. When she starts to run, she just feels the wind and the arising scents of the city- pavement, car exhausts, other people's perfumes. Life seems, for the moment, normal again; and it's easy to forget Van, Fanelia burning, or the liberating feeling of flapping your wings in flight.
Huh. What a strange thought. She lets it disappear with the other thoughts, and just runs.
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She climbs the stairs up to her apartment dreaming of peeling off her clothes and taking the world's most relaxing shower. She's really sweaty, and low-key hopes that Van will not be home so she can just unwind and be in silence.
Well, that will not be her luck today, it seems, because Van sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room is the first she sees when she opens the door. She notices the furniture has been closely moved away to leave the room looking almost-empty. She will ask him about it later, she thinks, taking off her shoes and socks, since he looks very focused with his legs crossed and his eyes closed.
Tip-toeing in my own home? she thinks, a bit frustrated, although she knows that her frustration is born of her tiredness. But she should have known she wouldn't be able to sneak past him.
'Don't be silent for my sake,' he says. Doesn't open his eyes, though. 'This is your house.'
Well, yeah. That's true.
'It's alright,' she says, instead, not really able or willing to be chatty. She goes into the bathroom, turns the shower on (not before picking up a feather from the drain, though), and plays some nice music. Yes, yes, this is just what she needed.
The shower feels timeless, and when she is ready to turn off the water, she feels much, much lighter. As if she'd just washed the whole week away. The Dragon Quest sits quietly at the back of her mind now, as something that has to be addressed soon- but not right now. The mere fact that she's been able to calm down and get her thoughts in order makes her happy. Dead tired, actually, but happy.
She comes out of the bathroom with rosy cheeks, towel-dried hair, and cosily wrapped in her fluffiest robe. Van will have to deal with it. It's as he said, after all, this is her home.
He does regard her with a little surprise, but also with a little smile. She lets herself fall on her cozy armchair and looks at him. Studies him a bit, still sitting cross-legged but now in a relaxed posture. She doesn't know he's schooling himself to returning her gaze, instead of being distracted by her long, shapely legs.
It's just because it's not what Fanelian women do. It's just because it's unusual. Don't be creepy. Those are his thoughts, but outwardly he serenely lets Hitomi look at him. She's resting her face on her hand, her elbow on the armchair's arm.
Van's not really used to people looking at him like this. Not this openly, not this trustingly, not right in the eyes. Because he's royalty and because he's not really close to anyone these days. Sometimes Merle or Ruhm come close: maybe, because he's a winged person, he feels more affinity with beast people. Who knows. And Folken's always got this glint in his eye, as though he knows something Van doesn't- a bit like adults look at children. Even though that hasn't applied to them for ages.
He is not aware of this, but the way Hitomi looks at him is a relief.
'This was a long week, wasn't it?' she says, eventually.
He's caught a bit unaware.
'Yes... yeah, long is putting it kindly.'
She smiles. He likes that smile. Inadvertently, he's smiling back- as he knows how to smile, in a little way, maybe shyly. He was always better with practical things than with feelings.
'I'm really feeling like taking it easy,' she says, stretching slowly, 'No Gaia-stuff this evening. Nope, none at all!'
He waits for her to go on.
'We'll eat something nice, then maybe watch a movie... and no nightmares tonight! I forbid nightmares!' she says, playfully, and gets up from the armchair, in the direction of the kitchen. Van still sits on the floor, looks slightly over his shoulder as she walks past. He's still smiling, slightly.
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Domesticity is a very new, inexplicable thing to Van.
He chopped vegetables while she fried some animal cut that she had in the frozen storage ("freezer", as he recalls). Then, they spent some time pushing his futon against the wall and transforming it into a comfortable place where they could sit and watch one of those moving stories that Hitomi thought were so great. He has to admit that they've grown on him.
Domesticity, Van thinks, is more puzzling than chasing dragons through maze-like streets in this strange other-world. A mysterious place where dashing women live on their own and support themselves. Where communities don't seem to exist.
A lonely world.
Hitomi should have known she'd be too tired to sit through an hour and a half of looking at scenes moving in a screen. At some point she fell asleep, and now her head rests on Van's shoulder.
The thing is, he thinks, and sighs at the thought, that he likes this a bit. Someone who seems to like him for what he is, who trusts him, who is open with him. He never thought he lacked anything, before. But the doubt begins to form, when he goes back home, if he shouldn't start thinking of... well, of settling down.
It did Folken good. Maybe it would also be good for him...?
He steals a glance at Hitomi. She looks peaceful, in her sleep. But he's being too practical, again, as he tends to be. Thinking of the perks of having a partner, but then, that would come with a relationship, and...
He nips it at the bud, at the same time that the image of a dragon and a pillar of light flash before his eyes. He's an idiot. This is definitely not the time, and all this situation is only distracting.
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The bedchamber is swallowed by shadows.
It's a very dark night, and the pale light of the stars is barely enough to show Hitomi that a man is standing by a window.
The voice of a woman, with gentle feline inflection, softly travels through the air and the darkness, asking Folken to come to bed. Folken's voice, Hitomi thinks, is very gentle. Soon, he says.
Hitomi tip-toes. She's suddenly curious about what Folken is so intent of seeing, out of the window. She succeeds in moving silently, but she cannot keep from gasping when she sees it: the moon hangs on the night sky, closer than what it ever would seem from her own window. But behind it looms another shape, another planet, morosely peeking out from behind the shoulder of the moon. It's Earth.
Earth!
That is when she gasps. A moon behind the moon, as seen from Gaia... the memory of the name come with Van's voice: the Mystic Moon.
Folken's voice cuts through the darkness, all kindness gone. Only ice.
'I know you're there again'.
This is where Hitomi always wakes up. Folken knows she's there. She wakes up.
But she doesn't wake up this time.
'I'm sorry,' she says. He doesn't answer. 'I don't control when I appear here. I'm actually sleeping. This is my dream,' she explains.
It does feel like a dream, too. As if, for example, she could start flying around if she so wished.
'Who are you?'
She hesitates. She's so confused. Is this real, even if it's a dream? Is she really talking to this man? To Van's brother?
To the king of the country that will soon be consumed by fire?
Panic and urgency take hold of her. 'Hitomi,' she says hurriedly, 'I'm from Earth. The Mystic Moon. Your brother's in my home, he's okay, and oh god, you...'
'I heard Van today. Tell him I've heard him. Thank the gods he's safe,' he says, turning around to face her, at last.
'Dear...? the voice calls, and Hitomi thinks it must be Merle, 'Will you come?'. She sounds like she had fallen asleep and just woken.
'Soon,' Folken reassures her, and then, more lowly, says, 'I cannot see you'.
Hitomi twirls her hands in uneasiness, 'Something's gonna happen, something-'
The Feeling interrupts her. As she's pulled back into awakening, she hears herself screaming, 'FIRE!' and Folken's bewildered face is gone in the darkness,
as she jumps awake, still with the scream fresh in her lips.
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A/N
It's been like, years since I wrote anything, but it's nice to be writing again. I remembered how much I liked this story and the badass plot it had, so I, having a soft spot for dragons, decided to see if I can write it all the way to the end. I make no promises, but I'd really like to have written this. Because, yeah.
Dragons.
I must specially thank CovertEyes for the review that gave me the courage to continue :)
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Drop me a comment with your thoughts!
And do tell me if something seems to contradict what I'd written before!
Read you soon, I hope :)