Sorry it has taken me so long to post this, but Dilandaus gal has been keeping me working day and night on By the Hand of Destiny.  Writing a story alone is time consuming, but combining the writings of three authors is both time consuming and a challenge

My tale here is almost complete, as there are only two chapters and the epilog left, but a lot can happen before the end, so read and please review**Fanilia

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The Green Dragon is dead, extinguished by the hand of the White Dragon, now all that remains is to restore the new Light of Balance to it's resting place.  Can Van now save Hitomi with the Heart of Light?  Friends and enemies are saved and the past returns to the shrine.

Chapter 32 The Light of Balance

Tears stream unchecked down Van's face.  He opens the dragon's chest and heart with his sword, solemnly reaching in and removing the Blue/green energist, the new Light of Balance.  His sword falls to the floor, metal on stone echoing in the quiet. 

Empress Terrial watches as Van removes the energist, the power her Masters wish to possess.  She has lain motionless during most of the fighting, waiting for an opening to strike.  Van will pay for rejecting her, pay with his life.  While all attention is focused on Van, she has edged over to a better position, one close enough to finish him before his friends can interfere.  She nods her head to the still hidden Dark Lord and as Van stands next to the body of the Green Dragon, the energist in his hand, she charges.  A blood sick scream comes from her as she nears her target.

On the far side of the shrine all eyes are on Van as he strikes down the Green Dragon and removes the energist.  Merle is the first to move forward, drawn to her lifelong friend in his time of pain.  A movement from the other side of the shrine draws her attention.  She turns seeing the Empress charging the weaponless Van.  No one is close enough to stop her before she reaches him. 

Merle: "Nathen!"

Nathen's keen eye has also caught the movement of the Empress.  He knows what Merle needs, she has a clear shot, he doesn't.  Nathen quickly pulls his knife from the Ziabach soldier where he had left it and tosses it to Merle.  She grabs the knife as it sails thru the air changing it's direction and adding her own strength the its momentum.  The knife flies across the shrine to find its home deep in the Empresses neck.  She falls to the ground a few feet from Van dead.

Van turns just as he hears a horrid scream, to see Empress Terrial in the uniform of a dragon slayer hit the floor a knife deep in her neck.  Looking up he sees Merle standing there a smile of grim satisfaction on her face.

Van approaches the alter placing the energist in its resting place.  A gust of wind blows thru the shrine, followed by dead calm.  There is no noise inside or out, animals, dragons, even the rustling of the leaves in the trees are gone.  Van looks up in the sky at the eclipse, the moons should be moving past the sun by now, but they remain in place, unmoving, as have the clouds in the surrounding sky.  Time is standing still.  Slowly the phantom moon brightens, its glow casting an eerie light in the shrine.  The energist, Hitomi's energist, begins to resonate, glowing blue/green in the flickering torchlight.

Beams of light shoot out from it to touch each of the energists resting in the walls, starting them to resonate also.  Each sends out a shaft of red swirling energy, which seems to dance around the shrine moving closer and closer to the center.  The energy is absorbed by the Balance of light, and then released, shooting up into the sky and across Gaea, renewing and restoring the land.  The clouds again begin to move in the sky as the sun peaks out from behind the moons ending the eclipse.  Van looks down at the Green Dragon, but it is no longer, Hitomi the Dragon mere of legend, the last protector of the Balance of light, lays at his feet. 

Van gently lifts her into his arms, holding her lifeless body close to his as he moves over to the shrines alter.  He is unaware of the others watching, as he lays her on the alter next to the lightly glowing energist resting there, leaving only long enough to retrieve the pendant from the floor.  He knots the broken chain, lifting Hitomi's head to place the pendant back around her neck, its true home.  Van's hopes for a miracle, Hitomi's life and that of their child rest on his belief that he has indeed found the heart of light, and with it Hitomi will be renewed as is written in the Prophecy.  Van can't breath as he waits for the miracle to come, the act of pulling air into his starving lungs forgotten as he watches, for something, anything to happen.  He stands there staring, to him an eternity passes, or so it seems.  Nothing.  He grabs the stone of the pendant wishing his hearts desire, picturing her in his mind.  He feels warmth, and as he releases his hold he can see the pendant glowing.

From the shadows steps a young woman.

Van: "Hitomi?"

Woman: "No Van, I am not Hitomi."

The woman, no she is a girl, looks just like Hitomi, except her long brown hair is braided and she is wearing a kimono.  Van knows her; she is Hitomi's grandma.

Allen:  "Hitomi's Grandma."

Woman: "Yes and no.  I was Hitomi's grandmother, but the story of the Dragon Prince, was true, not a fable, and my child, born so long, long ago, was Hitomi, she was the last protector of the Light of Balance and the keeper of the new hope.  I hid her here in my future, with my other daughter to rise as her own, to protect her.  Van, I want more than anything to make your wishes come true, but it is not within my power to bring her back.  I can though do one thing to help."

She reaches out to touch the Light of Balance, drawing to her being a small amount of its vast power.  She then touches first the pendant and then Hitomi.  The glow from the pendant spreads across Hitomi's body changing her again to the girl from the Mystic Moon.  Her pale body unmarked, it shows no signs of the dragon's death. 

Woman: "Her body will remain balanced on the edge till your child is born.  Hitomi is gone as was always her fate.  She used the last of the stars power, the power of Atlantics not to save herself, but to save others, friends and enemies."

Van: "But the Prophecy said she could be renewed."

Woman: "The energist was a part of her, without it she is not whole.  You will understand one day."

Silent tears cascade from the woman's eyes as she bends down to place a gentle kiss on her daughter.  As she steps away from the alter a tall dragon man with the same emerald green eyes as Hitomi steps out of the shadows to join his wife, taking her hand in his. They both turn to look one last time at their daughter, and then as they step toward the shadows, they are gone.

Van removes his short cloak, placing it on Hitomi, and then he crumples to the floor as his grief overcomes him.  Merle and Nathen approach, Merle bending down to take him in her arms.  Van buries his head in her shoulder.

Van: "I was so sure the pendant would save her."

Again the pendant starts to glow softy, unnoticed by those in the shrine.  Two pillars of light again descend, and then vanish.  In their wake are Yukari, who is holding her head and looking around in confusion, and Dilandau.  But he is not alone for in his arms is Celena.  Dilandau is staring at her, a small almost loving smile on his face.

Allen: "What? How?"

Dilandau: "Not one step closer Allen."

Celena stirs and opens her light blue eyes to star up at the man holding her.

Celena: "Brother."

Dilandau: "Yes, I am, can you feel it, we are both whole."

Celena: "Yes I feel it.  Stay, please."

Dilandau: "I can't, we are night and day, you and I.  I must have battle to be happy, but you, you are the good in us."

Celena: "She did this for us, Hitomi."

Dilandau looks at the girl laid on the stone alter, covered by a dark cloak.  He knows the truth of it too.  She could have simply changed him back to Celena, trapping him in her mind forever, but she used her remaining power, not for herself, but to give both him and Celena their freedom.  'Am I worth her sacrifice?'   Dilandau gently lowers Celena to the floor, his eyes fixed on Allen.

Dilandau: "Care for her, protect her.   If anything ever happens to her I will know she is the best of both of us, brother.  Till we meet again."

He turns taking up his sword from the stone floor and heads out of the shrine, knowing they will not try to stop him.  An unspoken truce exists in this place at this moment in time.  Allen rushes to his sister, as Gaddis removes his coat handing it to his commander.  Celena puts the coat on with her brother's help.

Allen: "How do you feel?"

Celena: "Whole."

Allen holds his sister hugging her tightly; he is for a brief moment happy.  As Celena looks over, his eyes follow hers to see Hitomi and next to her on the floor wrapped in Merles arms is Van.

Celena: "She did this for us, she used her power to free us both."

In the shadows the Dark Lord Lawrence turns, he was so close to fulfilling his dream of conquest this time.  But with some work he may still have Dilandau, and he is a patient man, it will be years before Gaea's next trail, he will wait.

There is one other in the shadows, watching, he sighs as he turns to leave, heading back to the Crusade.  Mr. Mole feels the pain of the people there in the shrine, wanting to help, but knowing he can't interfere with time and destiny.  How long has he been present to see the struggles of this world, cursed to bear witness for all time to the fact that they, the people of Atlantis, were not greater than the gods as they once had foolishly believed themselves to be. 

He thinks of Hitomi, the destiny of her heart, has saved this world, not once but twice with the greatest love ever known by any being, her love not only for that one special man, but also for a world and a dream for the future.  And if dreams continue to create Gaea, someday the people of Atlantic, the Draconions, may be reborn because of her.  A small plan crossed his mind bringing a sad smile to his worn face, 'A little push in the proper direction is really not interfering.'  He looks around the shrine one last time.  It's been such a very long time since he was last here in this place, since the time he saw that first girl from the Mystic Moon.

**

Love lives on as the child of Van and Hitomi is given the chance for life.  But Hitomi is gone without the energist she is not whole.  Mr. Mole is more than he seems, what will his push be, and will it help in the end.  The Prophecies of Escaflowne are fulfilled in Chapter 33 The Journey's End