~Aftermath~

By Utena Aston

PART ONE:

G A E A

O N E :

The war was over. Zaibach had been defeated. Nothing could have made Allen Schezar any happier. He had gained back his lost sister, and he would take care of her. Hitomi had returned to her world and all was well in Gaea.

Then why did Allen feel the pull of battle, the thrill of war? After the Zaibach Empire had been fought, King Aston had suggested that Allen take some leave time and put Allen's men to other random posts, scattering them over the countryside. Was King Aston still threatened by Allen's presence in the capitol? Did he still resent him for what he had done with his eldest daughter? Allen had no idea. But he was still restless. Driven. Waiting for something to happen in his life that would give him true fulfillment. But he didn't know what that something was.

Asturia was a-bustle with rebuilding. Millerna walked around the palace in a daze. She had not been the same since Hitomi came and went and her relationship (whatever it had been), with Allen had ended. Also, she couldn't stop thinking of Dryden who had gone off to make more money so that he could prove himself to her. Millerna was lonely, but she and Eries had grown somewhat closer together since the time of the war with Zaibach. Millerna now realized why Eries had never married and why she swore never to marry. She loved Allen. "Just like all of us sisters," Millerna thought it ironic. "We all fell for the same man at one time or another. Either our tastes are similar or it's in our royal blood." Just then, she saw a royal page coming toward her.

"Your Highness, Princess Millerna," he said bowing.

"Yes, what is it?" Millerna asked curiously.

"You are wanted in your father's chamber."

"Thank you," Millerna said as she moved past the young man. She went directly to her father's room. He had still been bedridden throughout all these ordeals. Millerna and Eries were afraid that he was dying. She hoped that the reason he was summoning her was not to tell her some awful news.

Stepping into the darkened room, Millerna crossed it carefully and approached the King's bed. She noted with concern that her father had also called Eries to be there as well. Eries stood very close to the sick man to one side of his bed. Millerna went around the bed to stand on the other side.

"Don't look as if you expect me to die any second, Millerna!" Aston chastised weakly. Millerna blushed in embarrassment. Her worry must be too evident.

"I'm just wondering why you wanted to see us, Father." Millerna said simply.

"As am I," Eries added in her low, smooth voice.

King Aston gazed up at both of their faces in turn. "So beautiful," he gasped. "All my daughters, so beautiful. And I do love you. Only I wish…" he broke off.

"You wish Marlene was still alive, don't you?" Millerna said quietly.

King Aston looked up at Millerna with surprise. "Yes," he finally said. "I do. I miss having all of you together. The last years of Marlene's life were…wasted. I never saw her or wrote to her. But I still loved her so much." Tears poured down from the proud King's eyes, grey, like all of his daughters' eyes were, or had been in Marlene's case.

"But that is not the reason I have asked you here." Aston told them.

"It isn't?" Eries asked.

"No!" Aston exclaimed. "I wanted to tell you that your Aunt Silvara died last week. Her daughter and only child will be coming to stay here in Palas as my steward. I want you both to be kind to her. She is just about between you both, eighteen, I think. She has no other living relatives other than you two and I. My sister, Silvara, was a lovely and kind woman. I hope her daughter will be like her. I have never seen her. In any case, she bears the name of Aston. She will arrive here in two days time."

"What is her name, Father?" Eries asked softly.

"Do-Domaris." The King said. Then they each bent down at his invitation and kissed his cheeks. Silently the Asturian princesses left their father to his rest. "I hope he will rest well." Eries said.

Millerna nodded. "But what of this girl coming? Domaris? Our cousin? I hope she does not complicate things!"

Eries put a hand on her younger sister's shoulder. "You must be kind to her, Millerna! After all, she just lost her mother. I'm sure she will be nice, and we could use some company just as much as I'm sure she must." Millerna shrugged and went to take a bath. Eries looked out the window at the dying sunlight. She felt a strange feeling inside tell her that this would complicate things, as Millerna had put it. But just how it would do that, Eries couldn't say.

The next day was full of even more energy as the palace prepared to welcome the princess. The name of Domaris Ilyena Aston had been unknown to all the day before, but to-day it was constantly on the lips of servants and lords alike. Everyone knew that the Princess Silvara had been kind, but plain. However, she had married Lord Grantus, who had been a very noble and handsome man. Everyone was wondering whether or not their child, the Princess Domaris, was going to be beautiful or plain. They would find out the next day when the air convoy from northern Asturia came to Palas carrying the woman of the hour.

Eries was in charge of many of the preparations. She arranged to have one of the suites readied and that a feast was prepared for the evening of Domaris' arrival. Millerna fidgeted around looking for something to occupy herself. Eries only entrusted her irresponsible younger sister with menial tasks that no one could flub. Millerna resented this after she realized that any of the servants could have seen to these things.

"I want to help!" she complained to Eries. "You can trust me! Surely there is something I can do that none of the servants could see to."

Eries regarded her sister with kind, but wary eyes. They filled with mirth foreign to her strict attitude and she let a small amount of laughter bubble forth from her lips. "Millerna! You are just like a child!" she teased. "You may see that the chamber is comfortable enough and perhaps set the seamstresses to making a new wardrobe for our cousin, if you like. You are very fond of fine cloth and clothes, are you not?"

Millerna pouted at the teasing a little, but then asked Eries, "But won't Domaris have her own clothes that she shall bring?"

"Yes, but whether or not they will be suitable for life here in the palace, I do not know. It is better to be prepared. Now run along while I see to setting up a tour of Palas for her." Millerna, who was sixteen and certainly no child, went away in her most princessly manner to find the royal seamstresses and set them to immediate work on clothes for Domaris. She hoped that Domaris measured somewhere close to her, because they would need to use someone to fit things to, and Millerna thought it best that she volunteered. She pick out pretty cloths in colours that varied in brightness and pallour, as she did not know her kinswoman's taste. The gowns were fashioned in the designs used by women of the royal house of Asturia and gloves and slippers were made to match each outfit.

Eries supervised the decoration of the palace with Asturian flowers, both wild and hothouse, and saw to it that everything was cleaned from the ceilings to the floors. This took the whole of the first day and part of the second. In the late afternoon of the second day, the day when the Princess was to arrive, everything was finished except a few of the gowns, which would be completed the next day.

An hour later, roars went up all over Palas as the convoy arrived on time. Everyone in Asturia loved the royal Princesses and now there came another. As the ships landed, Eries, with Millerna at her side, and the royal advisors and lords of the court, went to the top of the laid out red welcome carpet to greet her cousin. In a new gown of pale seafoam green, Eries stood tall and regal. Millerna looked beautiful in a brand new gown of dark rose colour. Excitement flushed her cheeks. But both of the sisters felt a certain degree of nervous foreboding as well, especially Eries.

Out of the large levi-ship came squires and advisors to the late Princess Silvara. They now would name Domaris as their mistress. Horns were sounded and escorted out of the ship by an elderly lord, came a young woman in a dark traveling gown and cloak. The fabric was heavy because of the cold winds in the north. The hood was drawn over the head of the woman and shadowed her face so that none could decipher whether or not she be plain or beautiful. Down the carpet the strange pair walked, and right up to the feet of the two princesses, where the lord bowed and the woman curtsied low.

Eries held out a hand to the woman and said in a low, clear voice, "Our welcome, you have, O cousin. In your grief, in your glory, the memory of your beloved mother rests in our hearts as well as your own. May you come in to us and share our roof, our home, and think of it as your own, and we two as your own sisters."

The girl stretched out her own hand to meet and clasp Eries', and when they touched Eries felt a shiver go down her spine. Was there magic in this woman?

With her other gloved hand, Domaris removed her hood and revealed a crown of glorious hair. The elderly lord took her cloak from her delicate shoulders and her hair fell about her in sheets of stainless pale gold. Her dark gown emphasized the paleness of her hair and her white skin. Looking up at the princesses with a proud, yet calm air, Domaris met their eyes with her own amaranthine gaze. Her eyes startled both the sisters. They were not the pale grey of their father or aunt. They were dark, dark, dark! So dark that they seemed to overwhelm the pale flower-like face they occupied. The depth of their purple was unfathomable. They gazed up at Eries and Millerna with the glow of twin jewels and the beauty of them made the princesses' marvel.

"I thank you, beyond words is my thanks. To offer me a home in my time of need and grief," Domaris said in a silver smooth voice that held all the warmth and melody of music. It was neither low nor high, but both at the same time. It was full of authority and gentleness, a strange combination.

Millerna extended her hand to her cousin and gave her own greeting. Domaris gave her other hand to her so that she held both sisters' hands now. Millerna felt an unexplainable attraction to this strange, beautiful person. Eries also felt an attraction, but was somewhat wary of her emotions and did not let them show. Millerna was younger and more naïve and quickly let herself admire their cousin.

"If I may ask, where is my Uncle?" Domaris inquired.

Eries answered kindly. "He is abed, sick. He has been ill since the war…" she trailed off as Domaris nodded with sympathy and understanding.

"He will see you to-night, though, after he is well rested. He is showing all the signs of recuperating." Millerna told Domaris.

Together, hand in hand, the three princesses entered the palace as their lords and pages and guards followed after them. Domaris looked over her shoulder and indicated the elder lord who had escorted her. "He is my late mother's advisor, and my father's before her. His name is Lord Singleton. I would appreciate if you could perhaps make his quarters nearer mine than my other serfs."

The vulnerability shown in this request stirred the pity of Eries as well as the admiration of Millerna. "Of course," Eries answered swiftly. "I will personally see to it."

They escorted Domaris to her chamber suite and left her there with her maids to bathe and ready herself for the welcoming feast. Domaris thanked them again and they left to take Lord Singleton to a nearby room that had been prepared just in case of such a situation. Eries had seen to everything.

"Isn't Domaris wonderful?" Millerna asked her older sister in awe.

"She is lovely. She is different. I suppose she gets her strange beauty from her father." Eries answered stiffly. She still felt unease for some reason. Though she was not sure if it was nerves or intuition that guided her, so she dismissed the feelings and went to the great hall to see that everything was being done rightly for the feast.