Okay, let me get the legal blah down
and taken care of, and then I'll address just a few other technicalities. I don't own Escaflowne; yes, it's
true. And were I to be sued—well, my
extreme lack of money is my best defense against that, really. In the end, it would be a nice big waste of
effort without a lot of profit turnout.
Nyah!
And now that that's out of the way, I
can to proceed to bastardize Escaflowne however which way I see
fit. Whee!
Technicalities? Ah, yes.
I notice that the title of this piece is obscure. Some of you might recall it from a very
in-depth astronomy course, if you ever had the pleasure (or displeasure) of
that. Otherwise, let me spare you a trip
to the dictionary:
aphelion—the point farthest from the sun in the orbit of a
planet or comet.
Thematically, that should make more
sense to you in the context of what follows.
At least I hope so. Finally, I
ask everybody to bear in mind that this is not only my first post ever, but
this so happens to also be my very first Escaflowne fic. I'm a little out of my element here, but
what the hell. If it's worth your time,
tell me what you think.
I love, I love—do you
really? is that possible?—yes, I
love the face—a pale snapshot of defeat—and the kiss-parted lips, and
the gurgle that empties out the soul when the body is dead and senseless. And the soul is flown, it's up in
the air, and I breathe it in, and I capture it, and it's
mine. A soul for my very own. His:
to keep, to pet, to exalt.
Traveling from lungs to brain, like smoldering flakes of tobacco, so
addictive, so scorching at first—funny how all at once, the conscience can rise
up in protest—but later so desired.
It's mine.
Endowed by the souls of hundreds,
sucking off their vitality like a tit, being moved by it, forward, faster,
propelled in this queasy delight, renewed vigor—yes, all along, without a
doubt, it kept him going. Like nothing
else.
"Tell me what it is," Folken had one
time said. It was worthy of
scrutiny: such sudden softness, like
the scalp of an infant—why? "Tell me
the source of this, and everything."
(so then he could help you; you were
scared, but you could be discharged, and things would fall quiet again, into
that perfect, pretty bliss again, that pasture bliss, that rolling fields,
hide-and-seek story-time happiness, sublime little-big house on the fucking
prairie)
I held out. Because I found something new and better
than that. I made the way things
work work for me.
He recoiled from the helping hand as
if slapped. The arm lost momentum and
shrank back to its master's side, where it turned cold and unfeeling as
steel. It grew claws.
That was him; that was Strategos.
Always dying to say something
unanswerable.
The palm closed into a fist. The warmth receded back into its private
territory, where Dilandau secretly believed it always belonged. A total breakdown in professionalism—that
was certainly something he would never permit.
Who would have guessed? he remembered thinking. Such a warm gushiness inside of the
Strategos, like a little candy for Valentine's. One of those nasty surprises:
you bit into it, because your tongue approved of that chocolate shell,
but then the teeth broke through, and you nearly barfed: creamy nugget filling, absolute sabotage!
The outside was very important, and a
lot of times it was a lie.
Following the brief exposition of
Folken's startling creamy nugget goodness, Dilandau had encountered some
troubles. His yellow brick road wasn't
a smooth ride anymore; as a matter of fact, it was overwhelmed by steaming,
shit-pile misfortune. For love of
himself and a total lack of objectivity, he considered his life the personal
shitting grounds of Lady Luck. In
short, he ceased to glide. It had been
easy for him to attribute this upset in serene self-containment to the
subliminal undertones of failure emitted in Folken's
hey-now-are-you-sure-about-this-whole-mess diatribe.
Although rebuffed, a period of solemn
self-examination—a month, maybe two; three?
time is time is time is time; it keeps rolling, and you get lost—a
period of hard soul-searching in front of every mirror and reflective
surface—the bottom of a metal pot, spooned clean of glompy oats, the
buttonhook, the blade—and he had lost a good lot of time, staring at that
reflection and sensing something inherently wrong therein.
It was not a bad face. It suited all functional purposes—he could
very well blink and smile and show teeth and offer a wide variety of
expression—and then some: it was something
to behold, and most everyone appreciated it.
They would gawk, and at first, it was a center of much anxiety. They see it, he would think, applying
his fingers to his mouth and gnawing them sore. Something is wrong, and they know. Tentative, he would inspect every groove of
that mirror-face, superficially pleased, but sensing that there was something
beneath, something more genuine.
Something unwearable.
All right, that had been a shaky year,
not one of his best. But he was certain
that these were everyday rigors that broadsided everybody. Adolescence was formative, still, and prone
to frailties. Outwardly, he betrayed no
indication of his turmoil. Smooth and
connected, foot follows foot: the first
exhibition of the Dragon Slayers had been an awakening. I walk, I pick up one foot, I
put it down, I repeat with the other. I smile for everybody.
But the mechanical process was interrupted by an all-at-once revelation.
It was his first foray into reality,
and there along the parade route the faces of normalcy flanked him. Bankers and clerks and bums, all alive and
throwing up their hands—it was there that he discovered a welcome
reassurance. The warm, spongy sensation
of gloating overtook him, because right there, in an instant, as though god-delivered,
it came to him. He was special, outside
of this world. This was the common
mass, generic and completely loathsome, that god-awful lunch lady brand of
ugliness abounding in force. Loving
him, adoring him: yes, he was really
something, all by himself a big show, the stuff of legends.
The beauty that had once seemed to
befit a flower rather than a soldier now became a point of peculiar irony. It was better this way, he realized. It came with an expectation, something
automatic and instinctual that would be surprised to learn otherwise.
All along the way, he laid snares for
hearts, baiting them with a fatal smile.
The papers said he was beautiful; the people said so. And they said more: they said he was pure and good and brilliant
and everything, all of this prime fodder for ego-masturbation.
He mounted a personal recovery, a
landmark as unnoticed to the outside world as the pitiful trials of
yester-fuck. The mirror finally
cooperated. It reported his glory
dutifully, lovingly. It was so. It really was. He buried those doubts deep within his well-trained self-esteem
and would never again know them.
Hello, darling. How do you like it? You have everything now. Everything is yours. The world is splitting open beneath your
feet like a watermelon, everywhere you stomp.
The days of confusing duality were
likewise done. He sent her to the
nether regions of the subconscious, to emerge only in dreams. He banished her and her woeful rumination of
green fields and the stars that arced above, bright, stupid confetti.
You go on making a meal of other
people's lives. This was her
last desperate stab in the waking world.
You haven't got a soul.
But I have yours; and I have theirs. I'm keeping them. And I'll get more.
All righty, that's a wrap-up. That was basically just a tiny character
study of Dilandau, who (in my opinion) is probably the most dynamic and
interesting of the series. I have no
clue where this is going, or if it's even going at all, but thanks for giving
it a go. ;)
Ta-ta for now, you guys! I'm over and out.
