Amoro Revidi

Title: Fit Welcome - Cesario [Part Twenty-Three]
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13
A/N: I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I've already gotten into chapter 26. I don't like the length of twenty-five, so it might be a while before it gets posted. I decided not to upload all the chapters I've finished so that I have more of a chance to edit them this time. It's genuinely relaxing for me to write the story, which is a good thing, it comes easily to me right now, so I might not take a break between book one and book two. (Especially, since, as I said, I'm already working on 26 right now.) Review responses at the end. Sorry I don't do email right now, but I doubt any of you would write and I don't have time to respond anyway.

***

The trip back to Cesario is a quiet one, but the air inside the carriage is thick with tension. Kira sits quietly across from Jasper with her hands folded demurely in her lap, staring down at them for the majority of the overland trip, occasionally turning to look outside to where Nil rides alongside the carriage, at the head of the small contingent of guards Jasper had brought with him, along with a bodyguard Xachary sent along for his own daughter's safe keeping until the wedding.

Jasper stares with a pleasant half-smile upon his face out the opposite window from where Nil rides, an expression that Kira, when she chances to draw her violet eyes up from her intense concentration of her lap, cannot begin to fathom.

*

The atmosphere in the carriage remained the same the entire first day of the journey, and the second, as the newly betrothed couple made their way through the country of Asturia and into the borderland of Daedalus. The change of scenery from the slightly mountainous seaside country to the more inland nation brought about some reason for comment between the two royal persons within the carriage.

*

"What do you think of Daedalus' scenery, Kira?" Jasper asks when he notices her repeated glances out the window of the carriage at the thickly passing forests around them.

"It's so… concealed. In Basram… most of the available land is used for farming, and exports… not nearly so much of it is left go to forest like this."

"I gather it must leave you feeling pretty exposed, to be so out in the open all the time," Jasper remarks, turning his glance again out the window opposite Nil to glance at the trees himself, knowing it might be some time before he leaves his own country again.

"Yes, Basram… stopped feeling like a safe place, after father was elected king."

Jasper turns green eyes on his fiancé inquiringly, his look urging her to go on, but she turns towards the window silently, either missing his look or misinterpreting it. With a kind smile, Jasper leans forward and places his hand on hers, which remain folded in her lap. As she turns, eyes startled, he says in a soft voice, "Would you mind telling me about it?"

A relieved expression warms her startled face and she nods slowly. "If… you would really like to know."

"I most certainly would."

***

Two days after the ship left Asturia, it was clear that weather conditions would be unrelenting for the port selected to set down its travelers on their way to Fanelia, and so, making an easy decision, Van directed the captain to put into the nearest available port and that those bound with him to head to Fanelia would simply go overland instead of finishing the journey by sea to a closer port.

It was not a very prosperous port that the Swan put into, but it was substantial enough for horses to be secured, along with a few beasts of burden, to take the handful of nobles, their king, and Hitomi to a larger city on their way back to Fanelia. The two day journey on rough seas had only brought the ship a quarter of the distance it had intended to travel, since the winds had taken to the wrong direction a few mere hours after the ship set out.

Van was slightly displeased by the idea that his safe return of Hitomi to first Fanelia, and then Earth, if she chose, would be delayed in the slightest, and he itched to be out of the public eye. There was not a country on Gaea that did not recognize him as king, however begrudgingly, and those countries that did so only begrudgingly would not challenge him because of his efforts during the Great War.

The rain splatters down upon the group as they mount their horses in the livery stables of Aves, the port city they were dropped off in, and as Van looks around at the other nobles, grouchy and slightly seasick from the rough travels onboard the Swan, he finds only one smiling, jovial face in the lot of them. The face, bearing jade green eyes and a dripping wet set of sandy blond bangs despite the hooded travel cloak provided her, belongs to none other than Hitomi herself, and even though she is no longer wearing a gown, as Van glances her over, leaping astride the horse found to carry him to the Egzardian capital, he notes that her bearing is still as though she is dressed in fine clothing.

She looks like a queen, he thinks, and then laughs at himself for such an off-color thought. How could any woman astride an aging horse, getting soaked to the bone, look like a queen? he asks himself.

A nagging thought in the back of his mind gets repeatedly dismissed until he can dismiss it no longer, and admits the truth of the statement, accepting it for what it's worth. "What's with all the long faces?" Hitomi calls out to the other Fanelian nobles, and as they hear her cheerful voice the nobles seem to perk up as well, somehow the discomfiture of the sea journey put aside and behind them as they see the young lady so much farther from home than they are, less comfortable and still in good spirits. "We're going home!"

Van blinks at the emphasis on which she places those words, and wonders what the answer to the question he's decided to ask her will be.

***

At the first town in Cesario, Jasper descends the carriage, and helps Kira down after her. They are met by a small crowd that cheers the prince, having no idea who the demure and regal young woman he is traveling with is. Though the queen had long since received word that her son had chosen a bride and would be bringing her home with him, in the interest of the future queen meeting her predecessor and to introduce the country to her, as well as that her own father had all but demanded it, Queen Emman had decided it was best to hold off on the announcement of her son's engagement until he materialized with her.

That and she had no wish to draw attention to her son during his travels. The news that Queen Millerna Aston had turned up missing shortly after her son's coronation struck the Cesarian Queen to the core, and she began to fear for her distant son, and so when she received word he was coming home, she sat on it, just like her throne.

Jasper, slightly distressed at the lack of an announcement, smiles at the people that greet them and ushers Kira quietly into the waiting carriage to take the two of them the rest of the way to the castle. When she tries to comment, he hushes her with a slight squeeze of the hand he holds, and she, understanding that hidden signal at least, smiles gracefully and ascends.

Once the two are underway, Nil seated at a perch on top of the carriage, however, Kira turns to her intended husband and asks, "What was all that about? I realize I'm not of your country, Jasper, but shouldn't your people know that we're to be married?" her voice is tight, thick as though he is ashamed of her, and the thought turns her stomach, in some small way. Since becoming engaged to Jasper, Kira had felt, for the first time, as though she were really a princess and not just the daughter of some elected high born official.

"Please don't get so upset, but something must have happened to make my mother delay in announcing the engagement… don't worry, we'll soon be at the capital and the palace and you'll have your announcement and I can find out what's gone so wrong to delay mother from announcing it."

Seated side by side, a thick silence passes between the two of them for a while as the carriage rolls along, until at last Jasper sighs and, bowing, reaches over to take her hands in his. "Please, don't be angry… I want very much for you and my mother to get along…"

"Father always said," Kira replies, staring forward at the lush interior of the carriage before her, "that to judge something without knowing all the facts is unfair and rash. I intend to do nothing in this manner, if I can at all help it." She tries to maintain her dignified and aloof manner, but the gentleness and warmth of Jasper's hand in her own makes her turn her violet eyes towards him, a large mistake, she finds as the glance itself causes her heartbeat to speed up slightly. He smiles as he sees the change in her poise and she looks away, out the other window to the country outside, just past the guards.

*

The castle in Zari, Cesario, is at least the age of the castle in Palas, and in the same style, though it is more suited to the climate of the mountainous, forested Cesario than the seaside and sunlight of Asturia. The cooler air of the country, in general, refreshes Kira as she gets a scent of it through the carriage windows, and she finds herself smiling despite her slight discontent with Jasper. She watches the shadows the leaves make in the carriage as they leave Zari and approach the slightly removed castle, and leans her head quietly on his shoulder, continuing to watch the scenery go by.

Jasper flushes too faintly for Kira to notice as she does this, but eventually a smile breaks out on his face as the carriage slows to a hault and he rouses her gently. "I hate to disturb you, Kira," he says in a quiet voice, "but we've arrived."

*

Kira expected, after the lack of a reception in the border town, for the same treatment at the castle, to be ushered out of the carriage and into a suite somewhere until the queen had time to meet with her, or Jasper came to collect her. But, as Jasper told her to be sure her gown was as straightened and tidy as she could make it after a week of carriage travel with few stops, she began to wonder.

And when he began to fuss with his own state of dress, she began to grow nervous. A well-dressed footman opened the door on Jasper's side of the carriage and he stepped out, extending a hand towards her own person within the carriage with all the regal grace he had used when dancing in the Asturian court, and she very nearly fell out on her face as she descended to see the rows of castle staff turned out to greet the prince and his future wife.

A hundred off-handed introductions later, after traveling the length of the drawbridge in Asturia twice, and ascending what seemed to Kira to be a million and two stairs, Jasper allowed her to catch her breath outside a large pair of ornately carved doors. "Jasper-" she began, trying to get him to explain, but he merely drew up to his full height and tucked her arm in his with a consoling gaze as he mouthed the words that very nearly caused Kira to loose consciousness, 'The Queen has asked to meet you, now.'

No sooner had Kira taken a breath to reply to that statement, to object, perhaps, because of her weariness or the lack of freshness in her attire, had the doors been pushed open from inside by two more smartly dressed servants and trumpets sounded to herald the prince and princess's arrival.

*

Queen Emman of Cesario, Kira thinks as she gathers her wits about her and bows deeply to her soon-to-be mother-in-law, looks hardly older than my own mother. True, the queen is paler than most, having had health problems for the past decade or so, and she looks slightly tired, even at midday, seated upon her throne at the heart of the palace. The lighting in the room softens the queen's brown hair and causes her green eyes, so much like Jasper's, to sparkle softly as she smiles at Kira.

"So you're the princess that's caused such a fuss."

Kira glances up at the voice that somehow manages to hold a smile within it, drawing the eyes past the frail shell of the queen and into her personality. "I suppose I am, your highness," she says, bowing her head low before slowly standing.

"Come, my dear young lady, we're soon to be as close as a mother-in-law and her son's husband can be… I would be most put out if for the remainder of my time here you were to call me 'your highness' or 'majesty'. Em will do just fine."

Kira's face cracks with a warm smile as she hears the queen's words.

"Now, Jasper, do be a good son and go see to Kira's things, will you? I'm sure I've got some explaining to do about not having announced your engagement to the entire country."

Jasper nods slowly, "And I'll get to be privy to this… just when, mother?"

"Dinner. Now, go."

Kira watches in fascination as Jasper departs the room, Nil slipping off silently to follow him. Kira frowns slightly, not having noticed Nil enter the room with them.

"You'll get used to Nileyah, Kira," the queen says, rising slowly, due to age and infirmity. "But she will be a bit cross with you, I suspect, at first."

Kira blinks, "Y-" she stops herself, "Em, you know…?"

"I know that my son's bodyguard is excellent at her job, and watches over him as any mother could hope for," Emman replies, moving to link arms with Kira, "She has stopped three attempts on his life in the past year. I will be hiring more castle guards now with what has happened…"

*

Dinner, it turns out, is rather silent with the heavy news from Asturia hanging in the air between those assembled in the dining room. But soon, despite her reticence to speak with the stoic figure of Nileyah hanging just over Jasper's shoulder near the wall, Kira manages to strike up conversation about the country, and the mood in the room lightens.

The three royals retire to their separate chambers, Kira and Jasper seeing Emman to her bedchambers first, and then, since he knows his own way around the castle, Jasper sees Kira to hers. "I really enjoy your mother's company," Kira says with a smile as the faint laughter in the air between them seems to pleasantly fade out.

"I'm glad, I knew that you would."

"And… I wanted to apologize for my behavior during the ride to the palace, I … was being unfair to you."

Jasper blinks and looks down at the woman on his arm, appreciating how much it must've taken her to say that, and smiles. "It's all right."

The two walk on in silence for a while, until Jasper draws them up short in front of a set of carved doors. "Here we are," he says, reaching forward to unlock the doors and then turns over the key to her. "Your own suite, to keep your own hours in."

Kira smiles faintly as Jasper goes on about arranging servants for her and the other copies of that key, until she leans up a few inches and kisses him into silence. Blinking wide green eyes, he returns the kiss until she leans back and looks down at the floor. Before he gets a chance to say anything she turns and heads into her room, closing the door with a polite good evening.

*

While Asturia searched her borders high and wide for their queen, Cesario prepared to welcome a future one, with a wedding ceremony and a coronation of their own. Emman, understanding the shifting airs in politics, sent out announcements for the wedding, but few invitations, wanting neither the responsibility to protect those that might gather, nor for a war to blow up and trap her guests far from home.

The ceremony was held on the same day that Asturia received word of the whereabouts of Queen Millerna, but that bit of news was kept within the castle at Palas and not broadcasted to the neighboring countries for fear of the reactions people might have to the loss of the ruler from her throne.

The ceremony, in itself was both elegant and simple. A holiday was called in the country so that as many of the people wishing to attend the service of their prince and his princess could attend, and, seeing that Jasper was much more loved than his father before him, many of the citizens of Cesario did indeed attend the ceremony, putting off work either to make the journey to the capital or to celebrate the fact that the prince had gotten married.

All in all it was a pleasant day for the kingdom, and an event both Kira and Emman were well proud of, in both its design and execution. Jasper teasingly remarked to his wife and mother that if it weren't for Nil he would have spent his entire wedding day alone, but closed his lips tightly on that comment as Kira and Emman exchanged worried glances for a moment and even Jasper dared not glance over his shoulder to where he knew Nil was standing. The head table at the banquet was much more noticeably silent after he spoke those words, and the banquet ended with a single dance for Kira and Jasper, who then were toasted and headed up, alone, towards their marital chambers.

*

"That was a mean thing to say," Kira says to him lowly as they walk slowly up to their rooms, though she does not object in the least to Jasper's arm around her waist or the gentle kiss he places on her cheek.

"I didn't mean for it to be, it was meant in jest."

Kira sighs and glances back to see Nileyah following them at a decent distance, but present nonetheless. "She won't… come into the room, will she?"

"No, but she will guard the door all evening."

Kira nods acquiescently at that, leaning her head on her new husband's shoulder as the two of them climb the final set of stairs up to the suite.

Nil watches the couple closely, a faint glow to her eyes as she does so, that, if he were watching her as closely as he used to, Jasper would have been able to identify as strange and off-colored for his Kathis.

***

Etoile - I guess I didn't realize the story had so much angst, but then I'm just the writer. The little mascarade of characters in my head all have their own goals and hopes to see to. I suppose for some of them there is quite a bit of angst, because, as William Goldman is prone to state, "Life isn't fair." (Of course you must also be told that Goldman is also quite fond of saying that "love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops". I personally think love is better than cough drops... but I'm not Goldman.) I'm glad you enjoy the story, it's meant to be that way. And of course I will be continuing it.

DragonSun - Doh! Can you tell me the band(s) that play them? Perhaps I have heard the songs.

To the anonymous writer that is either telepathic, a speaker of the language, or mystically picked up a sky blue spiral bound notebook that dropped from the sky, thank you for the translation. I really do research the foreign languages I use in my stories, it just rarely shows.

I'll do my best to keep responding to questions placed in reviews here, since I don't have time to email everyone that leaves an email with their reviews. Catch you all next week with the next chapter!