Epilogue
By Hanako Miyuki
Dedicated to iCe
Happy Birthday!
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How long has it been? How much time has passed since... since *that*?
Has it really been so long ago? Maybe... so far back I can't even remember when... but then why have the memories been etched so firmly in my mind? Memories I don't even think are real. So ethereal, so fantasy-like... maybe it had all been a vision... or a dream... anything but reality.
Not that I don't *want* it to be reality.
After all, who would want to dismiss those soulful chocolate eyes as mere illusion? Those eyes who managed to burn through my heart, my soul... The haunting orbs, no, the boy, who has managed to captivate me. So much so that even *if* he didn't exist, even *if* he was just a fantasy, I'm willing to hold onto him. Hold onto the possibility that he wasn't *just* that... That maybe, just maybe, he *had* been real. That he *had* existed. That all those memories *were* true. That I'm not living in false hope...
Is it foolish for me to do that? To blindly believe in a possibility too ridiculous and incredible to remain a possibility? Maybe... I think it is. I think I've finally caved in. I know I have to move on... grow up... forget those images, forget the boy, forget everything... forget Gaea. Forget Van.
How can I?
How can I forget a boy, dream or not, whom I loved so much? How can I forget when the memories would never stop tormenting me... every waking moment and in every dream at night... I can still hear Melulu hiss at me like the cat-girl she is... still listen to the Moleman as he tries to get one over us... still remember giving tarot readings to Millerna before her marriage to Dryden... still love Van after all this time, without even being sure if it was all-- if *he* was all true...
When I can still remember it all as if it was just yesterday? When I can still think of them as real, when I can *not* accept them to be dreams?
Can they be memories I have no right to call my own?
Can I forget them when they have such a hold on me?
If it *was* just a dream... why do the memories feel so real? Why do I never forget? Why would a dream create such an impact on me?
Why would a vision like Van keep me from loving someone else?
Things haven't changed... yet *everything* has changed. Life has been the same... but I have grown different. The morning after whatever I had with Gaea... nothing has been the norm. I still wake up expecting to see the Mystic Moon up in the sky of the land I had grown to call my home... still expecting to see the people I have grown to care for... still expecting to see Van by my side...
Yet every morning I wake up to the harsh reality that is my life. That nothing was ever concretely there. That I am nothing more than a pathetic woman trapped within her own fantasies.
Always... *always*... the sun's rays would shine through my window and I would wonder if it was real. If one day... Van *will* come back and take me from the Mystic Moon... if one day he would appear and bring me out of my misery...
The sunlight harsh on my face would slap me with the present... fade out yesterday... mock me with the disappointment today would bring... And always... *always*... I would have to accept it.
It would never stop me from hoping.
Dreams fill me... give me temporary happiness with visions of immaculate wings wrapped around so securely around me... visions of swirling orbs of brown drowning me... and that would keep me content... and that would give me strength... and that would spark in me a tiny bit of hope.
That hope... I guess some would call it delusion... it would always remind me of what I had. Of what I *will* have one day... when the time comes. I know in my heart Van will come for me. And often, that fierce hope is enough to convince me that Gaea *wasn't* just a dream... that Van *is* real and he *will* swoop from the heavens one day and take me away.
And often... that belief is all I have to keep me going through every painful day of my life.
Nothing right now can ever replace Van.
And maybe nothing ever will.
Still, something would keep nagging me... like this little voice trying to force so-called reason into me... telling me all this is useless. That Van would never come. That I would never see him. That Gaea was never anything but a reality only in my head.
Sometimes, that voice would almost get to me.
Sometimes, I would almost give up on Van.
But always, I could never do it.
I just cannot forget Van... just could not accept him as nothing more than overactive imagination.
How do you expect to consider him a pseudo-reality when the feelings are so strong, so real, I can't let go?
How do you expect *me* to let go?
The only thing left for me to do now is wait. For Van. For the reality I know to prove itself.
And I'll wait, even for a possibly non-existent reality.
I'll wait.
Even if it means forever.
Notes: iCe, I'm awfully sorry it was sooo WAFF-y. What I wanted was the ending. Eheh... oh, and in case you wonder, I thought it should be an Esca fic cause it's common ground. With all the Nabiki pics around, I bet you thought I'll give you a Nabiki introspective, right? Ah well... happy birthday! Count the asterisks above, la lang. ^_~ Hope you liked it. [And you better! My muses weren't the ones working on it; I made it ALL BY MYSELF.] And no, that wasn't a Celine Dion innuendo.
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