Disclaimer:
Read last disclaimer... my muses won't let me write another unsupervised... *sniff*
Authoress Note: Winter break is only a week away!! My older brother is already home from college, but I still have four more days of school... let them be easy. (Plans: watch movie in Japanese 1st period, watch movie on blowing stuff up (Chem) 2nd period, make fun of movie on Theodore Roosevelt 3rd, fall asleep...errr...watch Macbeth 4th, watch all of the band's field shows for the past 20 odd years 5th, and 6th? Probably take a test. *blech*)
Well, on with the ficcie!
Note: More was added to chapter 2, so go back and read it!
Elements of Destruction: Chapter 3
Harsh Awakenings
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Van placed a wet cloth on the girl's forehead. She had had a high fever ever since Van had found her out in the forest. Van stood up, and picked up the half empty bowl of water. He walked outside and poured the lukewarm water out into the flower beds. He then walked through the small garden to where a stream trickled downhill. Van filled the bowl with fresh, cold water, and made his way back into the old house.
The house was simple and modest, certainly not fit for a king. All of Van's advisors and councilors disliked their king living there, but Van had decided to live in a regular home like his people. Besides, all of the not-so-gentle urging to move satisfied Van's rebellious streak. His official excuse was that it was more important to rebuild the people's homes than the castle. Thus, the King of Fanelia happily made his home in a house that was a mere step above a hovel.
He swung open the door, and nearly dropped the bowl. The girl was awake, sitting up in the bed, hugging her knees. She was visibly shaking, and her eyes were clenched shut. Van quickly moved to her side, setting the bowl down on the table beside the bed. He placed his hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him, startled. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were stained by the tears flowing them.
"Are you alright?" he asked gently.
"W- who are you?" she asked, ignoring his question. She brought a hand to her face and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She never took her cerulean eyes off of him.
"My name is Van. Are you alright?" he repeated. She sniffed, and looked down at the blankets, before looking back up at him.
"Yeah, I think- " she stopped, staring at him, her eyes wide.
"What? What is it?!" he asked, worried.
"That- that necklace... I saw it..." she said, stunned. Van's hand when to the red pendant around his neck, covering it's inner fire.
"Where did you see it?" he asked, frowning.
"In a dream, I think..." she said, and with Van's encouragement, continued, "There were four... me and three other girls. They all had a different color necklace.. mine was blue, and the girl that had the red one... she had short blond hair and green eyes..." she related her entire dream to him, and he listened carefully. "But it was just a dream."
"No, it wasn't." he said, softly. She looked up at him, surprized. "A dream like that is no dream. Hitomi told me about her visions, and this sounds a lot like them..." he said, and then would explain no further. She sensed the tenderness of the subject of 'Hitomi', and avoided it.
"What happened?" she asked, not referring to the vision. Her head drooped and she sobbed softly, before whispering, "I don't understand."
Van sat down on the bed next to her, and pulled her into his arms. She stiffened, and then relaxed, and cried into his shoulder. It was a friendly embrace, nothing meant by it at all. Van had comforted enough young women this way, when the people of Fanelia had returned to their destroyed city. Who had not cried when they returned to see their home a pile of rubble, a cross atop it, placed by the Lost Prince Folken, where a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a brother, or a sister had fallen. Those who had lost everyone, who had no one left to hold on to, held on to their king. Everyone knew that if they saw Van comforting a crying woman, there was no secret tryst going on. They all heard of the king's love, the Lady Hitomi, had all seen her before the day that Fanelia burned. And even though he denied it, they all saw the pendant that he never took off. Everyone but Van knew that his heart lay elsewhere, and he was getting close to figuring it out himself.
After a while, she pulled away from him. "My name is Relena." she said softly.
'That's a beautiful name." he replied, and didn't ask anymore questions. She got up, off of the bed, and smoothed her wrinkled skirts. She walked over to the window and looked out, breathing in the fresh air, and letting the sun warm her face. She looked around, trying to determine her location, when her eyes saw the moons hanging in the sky. Or, rather, the moon and the earth. Her breath caught in her throat. No colony had a view like this, and she'd be damned if this beautiful green valley was on Mars.
"Where are we?" she asked, never moving her eyes from the blue planet in the sky.
"We are on Gaia."
"I know what I saw!!" Heero yelled, slamming his fist on the desk. "I don't understand it, but I know what happened!" Noin was shocked to see tears on the young man's face.
"I understand, Heero." she said. "But I can't believe that she just disappeared in a pillar of light. How would the public react? Top headlines: Relena Peacecraft, Abducted by Aliens." a sudden thought occurred to her, "How would her brother react?"
"I don't know, and I don't care." he replied, truthfully. "But it happened... and... I've got to get her back." the last part was barely a whisper.
"Heero, we can't give this story to the public. You've got no proof, and they would go nuts! We've got to make something up."
"So you'll help me?" he asked.
"I'm not sure what I can do. I can't launch an investigation, that would lead to panic, and-"
The door to her office slammed shut. Noin let out an exasperated sigh and followed him. She caught up with him in an enclosed garden right outside of Preventer HQ. Noin was going to say something to console him, but when he slammed his fist into a tree.
"I failed!" he yelled, looking away from Noin, keeping his face from her view. "I failed her!" he punched the tree again. Heero sank to his knees, cradling his bloodied hand. "I couldn't protect her..."
Noin put her hand on his shoulder, and said, "Heero, it's not your fau-" she trailed off. Her hand tightened on his shoulder, warning him that something was wrong. "I- I think I'll believe you now, Heero." she said shakily. Heero looked up sharply, wiping away the tears away before the intruder could see his weakness. What he saw was not what he expected.
A white column of light, the same one that took Relena away, had appeared in the garden not ten feet from where they stood. A dark, feminine figure floated down towards them. Heero stood on shaky legs, hoping with all of his heart. But, as the figure landed gently on her feet, Heero saw that her hair was much too short, the shape of her face and body all wrong. The light faded and they saw that she was facing away from them. She had short, dark blond hair, and was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. She muttered something that sounded like Japanese, and turned to face them.
"Who are you?" Heero growled.
"I'm Hitomi Kanzaki." she replied in halting English. 'Who are y-" the girl's green eyes widened, and then squeezed shut. She fell to her knees whimpering. Then Hitomi slumped, lying, unconscious, on the grass. Noin ran over to her and checked her breathing and pulse. Heero stood completely still, watching the girl carefully. He slowly walked over to her and kneeled next to Noin, who was calling Sally Po on her cellphone. Heero nodded to himself. Don't call the paramedics, keep this quiet. He reached down and brushed Hitomi's dirty blond hair out of her face.
Sakoto gripped Kaoru's hand tightly as they ran through the thick woods. Kaoru was the only thing keeping her going after... after...
After the sun set, the two of them crested a hill, and turned around to look back at the camp where their nomadic tribe had made it's home for the last two months. What they saw was not a group of tents and happy people walking about, children darting in and out of tents, and getting in the way of everything. They saw bright flames and dark smoke staining the evening sky.
They stood very still as they watched their village burn, everyone they had ever know probably dead within. Sakoto felt her knees buckle, and she leaned back against Kaoru. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her firmly.
"We- we've got to help them!" she cried out, tears falling from her eyes.
"There's nothing we can do..." he whispered, his voice distant. "Mother..."
"She's dead?" Sakoto sobbed. "Varie can't die! She can't!"
"We have to go on." he said, trying to hide his pain. "But where?"
Sakoto turned from the scene and looked at him. She then closed her eyes. "Fanelia." she whispered. "We go to Fanelia."
Relena and Van toured his growing kingdom, and he was helping her accept the existence of Gaia. She quickly came to term with the fact that she was not on Earth, Mars, or the colonies.
They agreed that she should stay with Van in his house, considering that there was little room elsewhere. He borrowed some dresses from some girls for her, and that was that. Fanelia was used to taking in people who had nothing.
They sat down at a small outdoor restaurant that had been recently built. Van shared with her all he knew about Hitomi's visions, leaving only what happens when you mix the visions, a certain guymelf, and Draconian blood together. That was an experience he'd rather not retell. Besides, unless Relena was Draconian and didn't tell him, that shouldn't be a problem.
"You love her, don't you." Relena asked, when he was done explaining. Van turned a few shades of red, and shook his head.
"No, of course not!" he said, and Relena laughed. A waiter who had overhead muttered something to the effect of "Sure, Lord Van, keep on telling yourself that." making Van turn redder. Relena fell off of her chair laughing. Finally! She had met a person of noble birth with a sense of humor! God knows Millardo didn't have one, nor any Romafeller members.
Relena took a moment to marvel at how fast she had adapted to Gaia, and found that they were still people. She forced herself to stop laughing, and she held her aching sides.
The waiter returned with their food, and stayed a moment to chat. "You know, Lord Van wasn't always like this." he said to Relena, pretending that the King wasn't right there next to her. "He used to be a sour little boy, but the Lady Hitomi changed all that, she did! When we came back to the city, we hardly believed out eyes! Our little Lord Van had turned into both a responsible adult and a good young man!" he said, and Van grunted. Relena laughed some more. "He was right there with us, helping us put our lives back together. And once that was done, he made friends! Little Lord Van used to be such a loner, and..." the waiter continued his description of Van's metamorphosis, much to Van's displeasure. But he didn't stop the man, because Relena was still laughing, and Van knew that laughter helped. Still, he didn't laugh very often, and he never had since his parents had died. Nevertheless, Van was much more open than he had been. Besides, everything the man was saying was true.
"Lord Van!" the waiter's monologue was interrupted by a messenger. Van told the waiter to leave, and the messenger whispered in his ear. Relena did not try to eavesdrop, and stood up to look at the sun setting over the mountains, the castle walls casting long shadows over the ground.
Relena gasped as the landscape seemed to ripple around her. When her vision became clear again, she was standing on the castle walls, in the dead of night. Both the moon and Earth were high overhead, casting a pale light over everything. Approaching the city walls were strange white mecha. "Mobile suits...?" she whispered, shocked. But they were smaller that Mobile suits, and unlike and model she'd ever seen before.
The one of the strange suits reached out, and shot liquid metal from it's arm. The silver stream was coming straight for Relena. It impacted the wall right below her, and she fell, great boulders from the wall falling about her. Relena screamed as she fell into the darkness.
Van caught the girl before she hit the ground. She laid unconscious in his arms, her face flushed. She blinked slowly as she came to, and she tried to sit up.
"Mobile suit..." she choked out. "attacking city... night..." she looked up at Van again before closing her eyes again.
"Yuki, dearest?" a low voice echoed through the small, dark room.
"I am here." she said, feeling extremely small and vulnerable. "U..Usuakari, I...I wanted to tell you that... I... I'm going to... agree with your terms..."
"Very good." he replied. "I knew that you would see the truth." he stepped out from his corner and took her hand. She repressed a shudder. "Soon, all four realms will be ours." he said, his oily voice filling the chamber. She nodded numbly. He gave her his small, fake smile, and drew her into his arms, embracing her.
She shivered in the cold.
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You like? Still confused? Good. ^_^ *hugs*
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-Ayanami_Chan
ayanami_rei@softhome.net
http://go.to/ayanami_shrine
