My first attempt at an Esca fic! *cheers* I have found a wonderful new bishie (well, sort of) to worship in everyone's favorite pyro. Oh, the angst fics that are probably to come.

Warnings...A/U I suppose (though I think it *could* fit in the series world), and slightly OOC.

Disclaimer: Vision of Escaflowne is not mine. Much, much cooler people own it, whereas I (read: LOSER) sit huddled in my dorm all day, writing these things for kicks. Please don't sue. The original portion of this story is MINE, however, so please ask before carting it off somewhere. I won't mind, I just like to keep my fics on a short leash. ^_^



=== "Red Threads" by Morgan Steelgrave - Prologue ===



"Dornkirk-sama," Folken bowed, his good arm placed across his chest in a gesture of fidelity. When he straightened again before the huge monitor, it became apparent to the aging lord that a smoky wisp of irritation was seething through the Strategos' mastered visage. Dornkirk raised one bushy eyebrow in mild surprise.

"Yes, my Strategos?"

"There is an issue I wish to address," Folken said, as politely as possible while speaking through gritted teeth.

"Such as?"

"If my Lord would observe the monitor over Palas..." Folken could feel his head pounding as he flipped the switch to display the view in question. He hated headaches. He hated them even more than the accursed throbbing he sometimes felt where his right arm had once been. Headaches were such a nuisance because they impaired his most important asset; he could never think quite properly when his head hurt. And it had never hurt quite as much as it did at that moment.

Dornkirk found himself wondering absently what had irritated the infamous deadpan Folken Fanel so much. He looked as if his head hurt. Dornkirk's drooping eyes met with a staticky image of the capital of Asturia slowly burning to the ground. Civilian screams could be heard, along with thunderous crashes and clangs of guymelef armor.

"What--?!" The ancient leader of the Zaibach Empire squinted harder at the screen in an attempt to make out what was destroying the city of Palas. His question was answered as two guymelefs came into view, locked in mortal combat, completely unaware of their surroundings as they tried desperately to destroy one another. One was unmistakably white, and the other was a familiar dark red. An Alseides and Escaflowne, so intent on killing each other that it never occurred to them that they were demolishing the capital of Asturia in the process.

"Dilandau," Dornkirk growled. The footage was halted abruptly and Folken's tired figure returned to the monitor. "Strategos, what is the meaning of this? Did you permit this...this...catfight?"

"No, my Lord, I did not." Folken pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, but the action neither concealed the fury in his voice nor alleviated his headache. "That is why I am here, to report that Dilandau went out without permission, without backup, to attack the king of Fanelia. My brother, of course, fought back. To make a long story short, Dornkirk-sama, this grudge they have against each other is in the middle of destroying the city."

"Dilandau has become even more reckless than before. He is beyond control, I take it? Bring him in. We will correct this error in conduct," the ancient leader ordered.

"Wait, if it please my Lord," Folken stalled, "I have another idea. Perhaps we can correct this permanently, without the use of valuable fate-alteration devices." And without the undue torture for all parties involved, he added mentally.

The Strategos held his breath in the weighty silence for a moment, until Dornkirk finally assented. "I am listening," though he was still clearly displeased with the leader of the Dragonslayers.

"Yes, my Lord," Folken smiled. "If you would permit me to contact the Asturians, we might be able to work out something mutually beneficial."

* * *

"Van! Van, what do you think you're doing?! VA-AN!!" Allen Schezar tried getting the headstrong king's attention, but there was no interrupting his battle with that demon spawn from Zaibach.

Allen shut Sherezade's visor with a curse. Demon spawn or no, Van's little promenade through the city's river district was slowly reducing the city to shambles. At this rate, this sworn rivalry was going to be their mutual undoing. He would have claimed such an obsession was less than what he expected from the young Fanelian, but upon reconsideration Allen decided his fixation on Dilandau fit Van's personality perfectly.

The Holy Knight picked his way back through the rubble, nursing an injured shoulder he had received while trying to intervene. Neither Van nor Dilandau had wanted him to, and between the two combatants Allen had been knocked clear back into the market strip on the other side of the river. Where Van had gotten that kind of 'melef skill Allen had no idea, because all the faults he had witnessed in the boy's fighting to date seemed to vanish when Dilandau was in front of him.

In an odd way, the crazed Zaibach soldier brought out the best in Van, at least in a military sense. Allen shuddered and shoved that thought out of his mind. The last thing he needed to think about now was how that Dilandau creature seemed to complete Van Fanel.

Glancing down, he could see Hitomi, Merle, and the princess waving at him from a relatively untouched area of sidewalk. Allen flipped up his visor. "There's no reasoning with him," he called down to them. Hitomi and the other girls climbed aboard his lowered 'melef gauntlet, away from the rubble.

"We've got to do something! At this rate there won't be a Palas to save!" she cried, wiping short brown hair out of her eyes.

"You really weren't kidding with all that death and destruction babble," Merle sulked. Hitomi threw her a pointed glance, and Merle responded by sticking out her tongue and pulling at one eye.

"Did you try to intervene?" Millerna asked. Allen nodded grimly toward the damaged right arm of Sherezade.

"Yes, but it didn't accomplish much. They just teamed up against me until I was out of the way," he muttered.

"Well, if there's one thing the two of them can agree on, it's that they hate each other," Hitomi pointed out, surveying the destruction from her higher vantage point. She watched the two guymelefs attacking one another relentlessly on the other side of the city.

"Van-sama," Merle whimpered. "I've never seen him so angry."

"Or so careless about hurting innocent people," Hitomi added, warily regarding the fires that had sprung up throughout the urban area. Palas was going to have to be completely rebuilt from the ground up. Even if Van and the Zaibach soldier ceased their battle, the fires were out of control. They would just have to burn themselves out. At least most of the citizens had been evacuated, except for a skeleton crew of army officers and the last stand of bureaucrats who were just now fleeing the area in their coaches.

Hitomi squinted at the black coach she had spotted. It was not fleeing as she had first thought. It was heading right for Sherezade.

"Allen-san! Down there!" she pointed to the approaching carriage. Allen scowled at it from his perch.

"That's a Zaibach carriage," he hissed, transferring the other passengers to the 'melef's shoulder so he could have free use of his remaining good arm.

The vehicle came to a stop right below them, the fires reflecting in its glossy black finish, making it seem something out of hell itself. The door swung open, and out stepped a tall, pale man wearing the long, sweeping black of a Zaibach Madoshi. Allen identified him immediately as the representative who had been present at his audience with King Aston.

"Allen Schezar," the man called. His voice was deep and dark, every bit as chilling as his physical appearance.

"What do you want, Strategos?" the Holy Knight demanded, his hostility plain.

"I wish to propose a temporary alliance," Folken replied calmly. He managed to restrain his anger when his proposition was met with a bitter laugh from the girls, though his eye twitched perceptibly. "I think it would benefit all those involved, including the city of Palas."

"*What* city of Palas?" Allen retorted hotly. "Your Dragonslayer is in the process of destroying it at the moment."

"As is your young king of Fanelia." Folken smiled ruefully. "You see, the blame is equally divided. I must say that Zaibach's motives are ultimately peaceful. We never wished for such mass destruction. It is counter-productive."

"And what about Fanelia?" Hitomi called down, hurt plain in her wide green eyes. "Was that counter-productive? It certainly seemed like it was the Dragonslayers who destroyed it."

"You're right," the Strategos answered, "it was the Dragonslayers. Zaibach never had any intention of leveling the city. It was a certain captain of the Dragonslayers whose ideas were a bit more zealous than Zaibach policy would have liked." It was not a total lie, Folken thought; he had given the order to attack, but he had never commanded the Dragonslayers to be quite so...thorough.

"Dilandau." Allen ground his teeth in frustration. "So what are you getting at? You're saying that none of this is your fault, that all the blame goes to this crazed lunatic? Weren't you the ones who put him in charge of the missions in the first place?"

"Yes, though he was easier to control at the time. Dilandau has had special..." Folken searched for the proper word, "...training. He was conditioned at a very high level to be the best soldier Zaibach could ever hope for. Yet a certain incident with Van triggered a breakdown in Dilandau's disciplinary conditioning. He has been increasingly difficult to control ever since. The results are before you now." He looked around at the chaos that ensued when Van and Dilandau had begun to fight.

"He's right, you know," Millerna agreed quietly. "Van seemed like such a caring young man, always looking out for the innocents. Except when he's around that other soldier, he gets tunnel-visioned. Nothing matters except winning. That's not Van. And politically this situation is no good for either Zaibach or Asturia."

"Not that we'll agree to it, but what do you propose, Folken?" Hitomi asked. Though every thought in her brain was telling her otherwise, in her heart this man from Zaibach seemed trustworthy. She wanted to hear him out, at least.

"I want to put an end to this destructive rivalry between Van and Dilandau. Once that is out of the way, it should be easier to negotiate between our respective sides." The Strategos continued to describe his scheme in detail, and what would be required of the two sides.

"It sounds like it might work," Allen mused. "But how do we know this isn't just a trick to capture Van? You've been trying to get your hands on Escaflowne all this time, what about now?"

"This arrangement will be strictly between us. Neither Zaibach nor Asturia need be involved." Folken's countenance softened slightly as he brought his gaze up to meet Hitomi's. "I am concerned for both Van and Dilandau. I do not wish them to waste their valuable lives on such a petty argument as this."

"Concerned? For Van-sama?" Merle's shock was clearly evident in her voice. "Why would you care about what happens to Van-sama?"

"Because," Hitomi said quietly, "this is Van's brother." Millerna and Merle both regarded her with incredulous disbelief, but upon examining the Strategos more closely, even Millerna could not deny the resemblance to the boy she had met in her royal childhood. Hitomi stared long and hard at the man on the ground below whose deep garnet eyes were so like Van's, trying to find some fault in his plan or in his character, some foreboding catch in her heart, that would warrant a refusal to cooperate. She could find none.

"Well?" Folken asked the girl from the Mystic Moon, "What will it be? Will you help?"

"I think we should do it," Hitomi declared. The other girls looked at each other, then at Hitomi. They nodded in agreement.

"Do you feel anything strange about it, Hitomi?" Allen called up from inside Sherezade, "Anything bad? No visions of the end of the world as we know it?"

Hitomi closed her eyes for a moment, her hand fumbling for her pendant. After a short while she opened them again, shaking her head. "No, Allen. It won't be the end of the world." The Holy Knight, perhaps waiting for her to continue, waited a moment before answering the Strategos.

"Alright. We'll do it. Where do we start?" He allowed the girls to climb from Sherezade's shoulder to the massive hand once again so he could place them on the ground to converse with Folken. As the hand passed in front of the open visor, he caught Hitomi's emerald gaze. There were tears in her eyes. Allen would have said something to her, but she shook them away and bounded down to the Zaibach carriage without a glance back.

* * *

Nestled deep in his liquid metal womb, Dilandau's hands caressed the controls of his Alseides with heated concentration. The right side of his face was throbbing again in anticipation of revenge. Every nerve in his body was tingling, coiled on edge, waiting for the right moments to strike at his enemy. "Come on, come on...don't run away!" He cut off Escaflowne's attempted retreat from the populated area with a volley of crima claws. He punctuated every taunt with a blow to the opposing guymelef. "Van...how can I play with you if you keep *clang*...running *crash*...away?!"

Van tried several times to draw the enraged Dragonslayer away from the city, but his efforts proved futile each time. His enemy simply gave no quarter, and it was not long before Van was returning each slash and parry with equal ferocity, the ailing condition of their urban arena far away and forgotten.

They had been fighting for what felt like forever and a mere moment at once, their fatigue countered by their adrenaline and obsessive lust for winning. There would be no walking away from this fight, no matter what. It would end tonight, that much was certain.

But just as that certainty was ringing in their minds as clear as the clangs of metal against metal and the cries of victory and disappointment as blows were struck and parried, it was questioned by the sudden jerkiness of both guymelefs.

"Piece of junk!" Dilandau muttered, the scowl on his fair forehead deepening from exhilarated concentration to irritation. A fine time for his guymelef to malfunction. It was not responding to his maneuvering. Letting loose a stream of curses, he tugged at the controls of his Alseides. It did no good, however, as the faster he tried to move, the more constricting the liquid metal cockpit became. The 'melef's movements were no longer his own, but almost automatic as it ceased fighting and lurched ungracefully to its knees.

Van could still control Escaflowne, difficult as it had become for some reason. It was as if the signals his own body was sending to the machine were being confused with something else, the 'melef's confusion following the blood ties to Van's own perception. He looked up and saw that Dilandau's guymelef had been disabled somehow as well, though he had lost control of it completely. With a feral grin, Van approached the fallen Alseides with his sword drawn high, ready to make the final blow that would finish the battle once and for all. He drew his arms down, but Escaflowne did not mirror his movements. The guymelef's arms remained upright and unresponsive, sword still poised. Van uttered a vehement curse and jerked harder on the rigging, but the arms still refused to budge. With a sigh, he pulled his arms out of the controls and wiped his sweaty face. It would seem that his certain victory had been turned into an uncertain stalemate.

Intent on finishing the rivalry one way or another, Dilandau grabbed his own sword and slid open the visor and moved to exit his now defunct guymelef. Just as he was climbing down from his perch, however, something very swift and very hard collided with the back of his head before his feet had ever reached the ground. Crimson eyes rolling back into his head as he slipped into unconsciousness, Dilandau fell backwards into the waiting arms of Folken Strategos, whose prosthetic limb it had been that had knocked him out cold.

Van watched this all from inside Escaflowne. His confusion deepened as he saw Folken carry Dilandau away swiftly. Had Zaibach become unhappy with Dilandau's Dragon hunting hobby? It did not matter, the young king told himself as he slid out of his guymelef. That was Folken. He had to follow him. It never occurred to him as he was descending Escaflowne that a similar fate was awaiting him on the ground below, in the form of the blunt end of Allen Schezar's scabbard.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Millerna asked, gnawing on a fingernail in a most unladylike manner as she observed their handiwork. Her eyes traveled doubtfully over the two inert forms at their feet.

"I guess so," Allen said with a shrug. He bent down and removed Van's sword for safekeeping. "Everything's gone according to Folken's plan so far."

"I still don't know how he managed to stall the guymelefs like that," Millerna mused. "He created one of them, so I suppose he would know how to stop it. But what about Escaflowne?"

"He's Van-sama's brother," Merle said. "He has a tie to Escaflowne, just like Van-sama does."

"Well, all we can do now is wait and see what happens." Allen cast one last glance over the their invention before drawing Millerna and Merle away.

Hitomi and Folken stood there a moment longer. The girl tore her eyes from the sleeping Van to Folken, who was staring contemplatively.

"You really still care about him, don't you?" she stated more than asked. Folken nodded.

"We are still brothers, no matter what happened in the past. I just want him to be happy. That cannot happen while this competition exists between them." He turned to face Hitomi.

"By 'happy' you mean with you in Zaibach," Hitomi added. Folken's eyes narrowed a fraction, focusing on a lucid pang in his heart.

"My deepest hope is that when Zaibach brings this world into its next phase of existence, Van will not be lost in the process. If that means standing by my side in Zaibach, yes. Though I doubt even that would eliminate the disagreement between him and Dilandau."

"So you want to force them to work together instead of against each other," she said, mulling the Strategos' plan aloud. "Their hatred for each other should cancel out."

"That's the idea, yes."

"Do you think it will work?" She fingered her pendant as if for reassurance that what they had just done was right. Folken's dark eyes flickered down to observe this action, then back up to the strange girl's eyes.

"Why don't you tell me?" he said, raising an eyebrow. The girl blushed slightly.

"I..." she trailed off, "...I think it will. They'll learn to get along, eventually, they have to. It's strange, but I think they'll bring each other peace, to some degree at least. And maybe if that happens, everything else will fall into place. Everything will be okay." She stared at the ground, still holding her necklace.

"Except for you, right?" The Strategos tilted his head, smiling slightly at the surprise that registered on Hitomi's face. "You have your magic. I have my machines. They both see the same fate." He turned and disappeared into the shadows, black cloak swishing softly in the night air.

Hitomi watched him leave, then pulled the necklace over her head and placed it tenderly around Van's neck. Wiping her eyes, she followed after Allen and the girls, leaving Van and Dilandau alone in the clearing as it warmed to sunrise.

- TO BE CONTINUED -