The Aeon and the Star
GoldenEagle

Prologue

The moon shone down, its pale, white light dancing on the waves that thundered in on shore. Spray blasted up, into the night air, slowly soaking the blonde strands of the girl that stood before it. Hitomi Kanzakai stood there, motionless, her eyes on the dark water, her mind on a different world. She leaned forward on the wooden railing that jutted up from the pale sand. Sometimes she wondered... What if it was all a dream? Her friends had no memory of her disappearance, nor had any time passed since she had left and returned. Was it all just some seductive fairy tale? Was she somehow insane, making this adventure up to make up for some sort of emptiness in her life? No, she concluded. Though it had been five years and she was not the dreamful teenager of before, she knew well enough that it had to be true. For, who fell in love with a figment of imagination so fully as her? Surely Gaea had existed, and she had been there, and someday... Someday she would return.

And, even if it was a dream, she felt better believing in it than not doing so. At one point she had thought there had been evidence of its truth. Van Fanel, the king, the one she had loved too late, would speak to her, in the back of her mind. She would feel what he felt throughout the day, just as she knew he would. And what had become of their link? What of their friendship, if not love? She was unsure. One day she had awoken, and she felt more distant from him. The next day, she could not feel as he felt. And the third day, she felt empty, no part of Van's spirit with her. That had happened two years ago, and was particularly hard on her, since she was going through the pain of departure at the same time. Leaving High School had been hard on her. Amano had long ago left to travel abroad. Though she still received postcards from him from time to time, she knew there was nothing left of the friendship they had once shared. And Yukari? Yukari was to go to college in America. Hitomi was still undecided about her future. After all, up to the time that her link had been severed with Van, she had always thought she would live her adult life on Gaea. And now she was nineteen years of age, with no deffinent future, and a dreamworld past.

Hitomi sighed, her head lowered. She had long ago ran out of tears to cry for Gaea, and now she hid it within herself, a secret meant to be treasured, a pain she embraced fully. She looked up to the moon, her eyes wide with loneliness. "Why did you bring me back?" She whispered up to the stars. "I thought I knew what I needed... But it is not what I want." A stray cloud wandered across the room, its light dimming on the scene.

"So, you feel it, too?" The voice broke her from her reverie and she spun around to be met with a shadowy figure. Hitomi frightened a bit. Her world had grown worst since her return. Rumors of wars surfaced. Increased and more brutal acts of violence were whispered about behind closed doors. But never in the open. Terror was a thing that was held at a distance.

The cloud passed the moon and her light shone down again, revealing the figure before Hitomi only partially. A gasp echoed through her as the dim rays reflected off of a fiery head of hair and pale skin. "Persephone... Oh, God, Persephone!" Her voice was relieved and tears etched their way down her face. Tears she had, moments before, thought were long gone. She threw herself forward, her arms wrapping around the older woman's frame. A sob escaped her. Proof! Hard proof that Gaea was real, that it still existed. Hitomi's acquaintance, no, surely a friend, stood frozen for a moment before returning the gesture. "Where have you been?" She muttered.

The woman smirked, premature wrinkles lining her mouth and eyes. "Around and about. Getting into the... routine... of things." She said the word routine with a bit of malice, as if it were the most distasteful and shameful thing that ever did exist. "Plus, I've had things to tend to."

"Why didn't you contact me earlier? I thought you were still on Gaea! Why did you come back-" Her words froze in her throat as she realized the reason. Folken Fanel, this girl's lover, was dead. What more did she have to stay for?

Persephone gave a knowing smile. "I should have come for you earlier, but I was still licking old wounds." She stepped further into the dim light and Hitomi could make out the military uniform she wore. She opened her mouth to ask about it when Persephone answered for her. "I joined the military. Can't fight worth shit." She glanced down at her scarred palms, the white tissue evidence of the wars she fought on Gaea. "Damn hands. But I do help with the intelligence units. I just can't seem to let go of everything that happened there." Persephone's eyes lay hidden in the dark shadows that her hair cast, but Hitomi could still tell she had glanced up to the stars, indicating the planet they both knew was there. "I can't let go of war." She muttered, stepping next to Hitomi, leaning on the wooden bar.

"Why are you here, Persephone?" Hitomi asked seriously.

The woman sighed. "I have something to ask of you, friend. Something important." Hitomi merely nodded in reply. "There are things I want you to care for when I die. Important 'things'-"

"Die?! What are you talking about?" Hitomi's voice had risen a bit and she pulled away. Her happiness at seeing her old friend was tainted.

A bitter chuckle was carried to her on the breeze. "My death comes soon, but in two different forms. I will either die in the war that is soon to come. Japan is preparing to join forces, talk of battle comes, and hands are short. My hands are no good for warfare, but they may send me out anyways. A World War is starting up, Hitomi. I warn you in advance. And the second? The second is that I am already dying. You wonder why you cannot feel Gaea and your friends which live upon her? She is dying and she is bringing me down with her. The link between our two worlds has been lost in her final breaths. Zaibach opened a gate, Hitomi, a gate which drains her of her power. Though Dornkirk and the Machine was destroyed, her life force still slips from her. The only reason I am still alive is for the sake of..." But she didn't finish the sentence. "There is much I need you to care for when I am gone, friend. I need you to be strong. If not for Gaea and earth, then for me."

"I don't believe you." Hitomi whispered, fresh tears falling down her face. "You can't be dying."

A small growl rippled through Persephone in annoyance. "Look into my eyes, Hitomi!" She suddenly burst out, turning on the girl. "Do you not see my death within them?!" The younger girl shrank back, the hopelessness of the inevitable playing in her friend's eyes. When they should have been blue, they were red with blood. So was the warning that Persephone was dying. So was the warning that Gaea was dying, as well.

********************

Hitomi sat in her apartment, the tea she had taken the effort to make going cold in her hands. A blank expression was on her face. Persephone spoke the truth when she had said she needed Hitomi to care for many things. And yet... How could she accept it? How could Hitomi just sit here and wait for everything she loved to die? Persephone, her friends, Van, Gaea... All would be gone in the end. An unnoticed tear fell into her tea and she shook her head, wiping the moisture away. No. She would be strong. For Persephone. For Gaea. Her gaze floated to her desk on the far side of the room. Without thinking she stood and walked over to it. Opening the drawer she hadn't opened in two years, it didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. A small, velvet pouch, its contents all to well known to her.

She opened it and dropped the contents into her hand. The cool cards twinkled up at her, inviting her to ask her everything she needed to know. She stood there, staring down at them. With a final resolution she strode across the room and walked briskly onto her patio, which hovered high above the city below. With a small, yet broken cry, she threw them to the wind. A sob escaped her. She would never see Gaea again, never see her friends, never see Van... Her own thoughts forced her to sit down on a chair she kept outside, one which she would sit in to watch the sun rise or look up to where she knew her secret planet lay.

This time, she lowered her head, pushing away all her hopes, and cried. The exhaustion of the day got to her and she fell asleep that way, her arms folded on the balcony's railing, her head falling on that. A wish pushed through her as she fell into a deep slumber and she sighed through her tears.

'I wish... I wish everything is as it should be.'

A star seemed to wink at the wish, and the fates looked down and considered it. With a final sigh, Destiny took hold of the child's wants and a power built. A power that could change worlds, and that did. The breeze fluttered over her and, seemingly out of nowhere, fluttered down two cards, falling gently into her lap. The Aeon and the Star. The Aeon, the card of rebirth through fire. The Star, the foreteller of good endings after trials.