Flowers For Hitmomi
By ~ Umi-Chan
By ~ Umi-Chan
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Escaflowne characters or the show or anything used in the show such as weird places and weird names.
PART II
The noise from the songbirds that had made their nests along the side of inn floated through the room's open window and shook Hitomi out of sleep. She got out of bed and stretched, knuckling the small of her back. She walked over to the window and leaned out to let the soft breeze rustle her short brown hair. The night shift that Millerna had given her was made of soft thin fabric that let the breeze take away the sweat from the night spent under the wool blanket. Sounds of life squeezed under the connecting door of the two rooms and drew Hitomi to it. She carefully opened the door and peeked in to see a table all set for breakfast with…no one around it. Sounds of laughter and voices that Hitomi knew filled the room, but she didn't see anyone, not even a ghost like figure of a person. Hesitantly, Hitomi stepped into the room and the noise became almost deafening, Hitomi covered her ears and began to scream. The voices grew and began to swirl around Hitomi, she screamed and the voices got louder and louder and louder until…
"Hitomi!! Hitomi wake up!!" Van's voice cut through the noise like a knife. The blackness that had seemed like sunlight was spilt down the center and Hitomi's slowly opened to the wooden ceiling of the inn. "Hitomi, are you ok?" Merle was poking her head out from behind Van as he stood over Hitomi, the concern showing in his eyes.
Hitomi sat up and pressed her hand against her sweaty forehead. "We heard you scream from all the way in the other room. Even with the door shut." Merle yelled as she bounded to Hitomi's bedside. "What happened?" Merle's tail twitched with curiosity as she stared deeply into Hitomi's eyes. Hitomi giggled at the serious look that covered Merle's face. With the way that she was always laughing and running around after van, it just didn't seem like the kind of look Merle should have. Merle now looked puzzled and confused.
"I had a dream…" Hitomi ran the back on her hand across her forehead again remembering how empty the room had been and how loud the voices had gotten at the end. She thought she could remember bits and pieces of what they had been yelling. But since she couldn't be sure she told herself sternly not to think about it too hard. "But it's over now." Van stood over her; almost like a guardian angel and the look on his face plainly that he didn't believe her. But knowing him he wouldn't say anything until everyone else was out of the room. "It's better now tough, thank you all for coming in here…if you all don't mind I'd like to try and get a little more sleep before the day really starts." Millerna tugged at Allen's arm and smiled at Hitomi. Merle followed, still looking very confused by the way that Hitomi had acted.
Van sat down on the side of Hitomi's bed once they had all left. "What did you dream about?" Hitomi looked at the sheets that were slightly damp and stretched so tightly across her legs that you could see them through the thin white. "And don't try to give me any of that, you don't need to worry stuff. People don't scream like that just because they had a bad dream." He sighed and looked out the window. "I should know all about that." Van said the last so softly that Hitomi had to strain to catch what he had said. He stared out the window a while longer and then focused all of his attention back on Hitomi. "Besides, if you have a bad dream, it's got to mean something."
Hitomi looked pleadingly up at Van, even if he was the only one in the room she still didn't want to tell anyone about her dream. The reason for her uneasiness evaded her; it slipped out of her thoughts and into the darker places of her mind, the places where Hitomi couldn't follow it. She looked blankly up at Van, stumbling around in her mind for a reason not to tell her dream to Van but he kept staring at her, almost willing her to tell him all of it. "Um…there were flowers and some little pink bunnies running around in small green shorts and bright yellow vests…"
Van smiled and laughed softly. "Then why did you scream the way that you did?" Van crossed his arms and gave Hitomi his best, 'beat that one' look.
"The shorts were daisy dukes and they were riding up on the bunnies. That alone would make even a grown man scream." Hitomi mumbled from under her sweat soaked sheets. She shoot a look at Van that made him laugh so loud that Merle stuck her head in the connecting door to see what was wrong. After she had made sure that everything was all right, she withdrew into the other room.
Van squinted down at Hitomi huddling under her sheets. What was she hiding from him? He knew that Hitomi wasn't telling him something because she had the classic 'please let him take that lame excuse and leave me alone' look on her face. "Why won't you tell me about your dream?" He asked her. She closed her eyes and let out a slow deep felt sigh.
"Because when I have nightmares they always mean something." She rolled onto her side and stared out at the clear blue sky wishing that she could be so care free as a cloud. "I am so scared even to think about what it might mean." Hitomi let out another huge sigh and rolled back onto her back.
"Oh, well that makes sense. Should have just said that to start with." Van joked, playfully punching Hitomi on her shoulder. She smiled up at him, it made her feel good to know that she had someone she felt comfortable talking about that kind of stuff with. "Want to go out to the market place?" He asked.
"Sure, let me get dressed." Hitomi rolled out of bed and threw on her school skirt and a jacket and was standing in front of Van ready to go in only about a minute or two. "Let's go." Van stood and to make sure that they didn't bother Millerna, Allen, and Merle, the pair snuck out of the door that connected the girl's room to the hallway. Once out in the hall they ran down into the common room and out the front door into the street.
*~*
Merle stuck her head in through the connecting door again. It had been much too quiet in there since she had last heard anything. No one here, ok then. Merle turned back into the room to go and sit with Millerna, who was seated and doing her needlepoint. Wait a minute, NO ONE THERE!? Merle stopped in her tracks and went back to check and see if she had seen nothing like she thought she had. When she looked again the room was still empty. "Allen and Millerna," Merle said as calmly as she could, "Where could Van and Hitomi gotten to because they are not in the other room like they should be." Millerna and Allen were on their feet and in the next room with in the next 15 seconds or so.
"Where could they have gone?" Allen mused standing next to the window. He never would have told anyone but he was standing there because he was hoping that they would happen to walk below him so that he could be the hero that he thought Millerna expected him to be. No such luck came to him though and he stood there, looking kind of like a model for a painting and hoping against hope that he wouldn't have to go out and search all over the city for them like he knew Millerna would want him to.
"Allen, you search the city," Millerna yelled at the top of her lungs, she always talked too loud when she got nervous about something and not knowing where Van and Hitomi was making her a little more than just nervous. "Merle, you check the market place and I will stay here in case they come back." She flopped down on a bed and looked as if she might cry. Allen made a move to go and comfort her but stood still waiting for her to say something. Merle didn't even so much as flick her tail, she knew when to stand her ground and since she had never seen Millerna like this she figured that it would be wise not to provoke any out-bursts. Millerna looked up at them and shouted, "Why are you standing around here for? GET OUT THERE AND FIND THEM!!!!" Merle and Allen ran for the door, almost knocking each other down. Allen held the door long enough for Merle to make it out and he was out right after her.
"Where could you two be?" Millerna whined under her breath. Then she curled up on one of the beds and softly began to cry as she thought about all that could be happening to Van and Hitomi, wherever they were.
*~*
Allen charged out onto the dirt road and turned left down the alleyway next to the inn on a whim. He had no idea where to start looking so he figured that he would just do what his gut told him to. He walked around the dirty and narrow streets of the valley town for a while until his gut told him to stop at the tavern and rest his feet for a while.
*~*
Merle walked down the streets as calmly as she could. Inside she was torn up with panic, so scared that she couldn't think strait. None of that showed as she walked to the center of the town and to the market where she would franticly look for Van-sama and bring him back safely to the inn where she would lock him on the closet so that she would know where he was at all times.
The number of horse drawn wagons increased as she neared the market place. The noise reached her sensitive ears before she rounded the corner and was standing in the thick of it. Merle had failed to ever notice how many people were in the market place on her other trips there, maybe that was because she wasn't looking for someone who was a king and had suddenly turned up missing one morning. The vender next to Merle's ear started to yell something about fresh pears at the top of his lungs into the dim roar that was the market place. She slowly began to pick her way along the isles of vendors making sure to look everywhere at once for a glimpse of either Hitomi or Van. She hoped that he would have lost Hitomi so that she could take him strait back to the inn and not have to fight with Hitomi about putting Van in the closet like she wanted to.
The crowds didn't help Merle at all. They all seemed to be aimed strait for her, and most of them hit. Hard too. Merle walked around the market looking as many ways that she could at once for a long time, so long that she couldn't think of how long she had been looking. She began to sniffle from the dust that had gone up her nose and the frustration that was building inside of her at not finding Van-sama. Tears began to well up in her eyes and spill over onto the soft fur of her face. Small rivers on her cheeks soon formed and were covered in the dust that was being kicked up around her. "Van-sama, where are you?" She whispered to herself. She wanted to run but the lack of space in the market wouldn't let her. As Merle kept on through the crowds her frustration became worse and worse until she had to duck into an alleyway and sit with her head on her knees sobbing.
"Merle? What are you doing here?" A voice said close to her ears. She looked pup slowly, still crying, into the somewhat dusty face of Van-sama. He looked so concerned; she wondered why she hadn't tried sitting still and crying to start with.
"VAN-SAMA!!!!" Merle practically screamed as she lunged for Van-sama's neck and clung to him harder than she ever had before. Van was hurled backward into the street and almost instantly started to turn purple. Hitomi jumped to the side just in time to see all of this.
"Merle, you need to let go of him," Van began pulling as gently as he could on Merle's arms. "Merle, you are gonna' kill him." Van began to pull harder on Merle's arms. "MERLE!" Hitomi yelled at the cat girl, Merle's head snapped in Hitomi's direction. "You need to let go. Van's face is turning blue." Merle looked at Van-sama's face and almost started to cry again. She let go slowly and Van dragged himself away from Merle and leaned on Hitomi's leg.
"Thank you both," he gasped as he tried to get his breath back. Hitomi laid a hand on his head and asked if he would be ok. Van looked up and smiled, "Yea, I think so." They stood there smiling at each other while Merle sat in the dirt a little ways off with her tail standing strait in the air and tears spilling down her face again.
"Van-sama, I thought you were lost and that I would never see you again and that…" Merle's tail curled down to her body as she put her head in her hands and began to sob again. Van got up and walked over to Merle. He placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned down next to her ear.
"Let's go back to the inn ok?" He said, lifting Merle to her feet by her armpits and then swinging the still sobbing Merle onto his back. He walked up to Hitomi and smiled, and they set off back to the inn together.