Dreams and Visions: Chapter 22

By mercy_angel_09

Rating PG-13

Disclaimers: I don't own Escaflowne and I'm certainly not making any money off of this venture, so it'd be sort of pointless to sue me.  (Besides, I'm a poor college student; you'd lose more money than you'd gain.)  The creative geniuses behind EscaFlowne are Hajime Yatate and Shoji Kawamori, Sunrise, Bandai, and I'm sure a few other companies that I'm forgetting or have no idea about.

~*~

            Letting the blanket flare out in the warm breeze, Hikari stood thoughtfully on a hillside where she had gone for a little privacy.  She knew that Chid and Indira were mean to be, but the problem was getting them to realize that.

            Anchoring down the blanket with her shoes and a few books, she lay down and closed her eyes.  Maybe if something brought them together in a moment of crisis, but that would require one of them being in danger.  Or maybe not.  Maybe they had to be apart, but Indira had just arrived.  Damn!  This was going to be harder than originally thought.

            "Princess?"

            She had been seeking solitude, but with as many people running around the Fanelian Royal household as there were, solitude was a precious commodity that was not often had.  "Yes, what can I do for you Lady Indira?"

            "I came to ask you about Chid."

            "What about him?"

            "What does he like?"

            Hikari chuckled.  "I don't know.  I know that he's an excellent swords man and that he's very chivalrous, but that's about it.  He's also very dedicated to maintaining the order of Freid.  He's almost always doing something related to the well being of his country."

            "Yes, he's a very dedicated leader indeed."

            "But he's also very dedicated to those he cares about."

            "Yes, um, about that."

            "I think that he'll care for you very much once he knows you better.  Sometimes things need time to grow."

            "Like a garden?"

            "Uh, yeah.  Good analogy."

            "What's an analogy?"

            Hikari was taken off guard.  From the observations she had been making since she had arrived in Fanelia, she had reached the conclusion that academics were virtually the same.  But since Indira didn't seem to know what an analogy was, Hikari felt compelled to explain.  "An analogy is when two different situations are compared to each other because they're similar.  This usually works with abstract notions such as peace, love and freedom."

            "What do you mean by 'abstract notions'?"

            "Something that's abstract is something that you can't touch or does not exist in the physical world.  Love, peace and freedom are examples of abstract notions since you can't touch them, and they exist only in ideals within the human mind."

            "Oh, they're like feelings and emotions."

            "I suppose that's one way of putting it."

            "I've never heard of analogies before now.  I am quite ignorant."

            "What do you mean by that?  You seem very intelligent to me."

            "I had a formal education growing up, but not nearly as formal as Chid's.  I know that you're as smart as he is because you talk much in the same manner as he.  But I am not as smart as he is.  I'm sure he thinks that I am a great fool."

            "No!  Of course not!  I'm sure that Chid thinks highly of you!  You are going to marry him after all."

            "But this is an arranged marriage.  I sure he'd rather marry someone like you, someone who shares his intelligence."

            "That's not true!  At least I'm pretty sure that it's not true.  Lady Indira, don't put your self down like that!  Just be you and I'm sure that Chid will like you."

            "I wish that I could believe you."  Indira looked down the hillside at the Fanelian countryside and sighed.  "This marriage was a terrible idea.  Well, I must be going.  I was going to go to the library and hopefully do a little reading and perhaps tonight I can impress him with a fact about Fried.  Farwell your Grace."

            "Farewell," Hikari answered, a little put out that Indira felt so inferior about her own intellect.  Perhaps she should talk to Chid about this . . . or maybe . . .

            "Privacy is overrated you know."

            Hikari groaned.  "Shut up Kaiden."

            "Did you honestly think that you were going to get privacy?"

            "Sadly, yes.  Kaiden, I'm worried about Lady Indira.  She's a very intelligent woman, yet she seems to doubt her intellect."

            "Are you sure?  She's always telling me that I should know all these stupid little facts about Asturia and such."

            "As the future king, I should hope that you would know those stupid little facts."

            "You suck."

            "I'm right and you know it."

            Kaiden didn't reply, he just stared down at the Fanelian countryside.  "So what do you plan to do about it?" he finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

            "I don't know.  I know I have to talk to Chid about it, but then it might seem as though I'm meddling.  And despite my rather odd reputation, I'm not a meddler."

            "So basically you want to meddle without meddling?"

            "Uh . . . yeah."

            "Good luck to you then.  But you're going to have to meddle."

            "Yeah, I know.  It's just that I learned when I was little not to meddle in the affairs of other people.  I know it sounds stupid, it's just one of those things that my mother told me never to do."

            "Right.  Why don't you tell Chid about your concern for Lady Indira?  Perhaps he'll see it as you expressing concern for her well being and not meddling.  Then he'll take the steps to help her.  And if push comes to shove, we give them a nudge in the right direction."

            "I don't know.  It still sounds like meddling to me."

            "Meddling, meddling, meddling!  Stop thinking of it as meddling and start thinking of it as helping out a friend!" Kaiden said with an exasperated sigh. 

            "Fine!  I'll talk to Chid, but if he thinks that I'm meddling, I blame you."

            Kaiden was too shocked to say anything in reply.  He watched Hikari stand up and storm off and before he could give her a parting comment, she was gone.  Realizing that she had left her shoes, blanket and books, he scooped them up and headed back to the palace.

~*~

            Wringing her hands, Hikari paced in front of Chid's door.  She had never had a problem with talking to him before, but then again, she didn't have to talk to him about his fiancée.

            Finally mustering her courage, she rapped on the door.

            "Come in."

            Hikari opened the large oak door and stepped through.  Clearing her throat, she started.  "I want to talk to you about Lady Indira."

            Chid looked up from a pile of papers that were strewn across the desk in front of him at the nervous Fanelian princess.  "What about her?"

            "Erm, I think she's not ready to be married."

            "Well neither am I, but there's really nothing I can do about it."

            "But there is!  That is . . . erm . . . I mean to say . . . she doesn't feel worthy of you."

            "Why ever not?  She's of high social and economic standing, she's the perfect lady –"

            "That's not what I mean.  She doesn't feel smart enough to be around you."

            "Who ever told her I was smart was lying through their teeth.  That's not to say that I'm not intelligent, but I have always considered my intellect to be that of a normal person."

            "Yes, well . . . as the case may be, Indira feels rather unintelligent compared to you, or even myself.  She actually told me that you should marry someone like me."

            Chid chuckled softly.  "While I wouldn't mind marrying you, I don't think that you and I would last.  But why would she doubt herself?"

            "I don't know.  Servants talk Chid.  Perhaps they overheard us discussing affairs of state or something and just automatically assumed that we were the brainy politician types.  Which I know for sure I'm not.  And then they told her once she arrived."

            "Servants eh?  What makes you say that?"

            "It was the way she expressed her concerns to me."

            "Wait, she approached you?"

            "Yes.  There wasn't a whole lot I could do about it . . . she just sorta walked up and started talking.  I had no choice but to listen."

            "And then you came to me?"

            "Well, what else was I supposed to do?  I couldn't just leave you in the dark!  You have to do something to prove to her that you like her just the way she is!  For her to change herself just for you would be to deny you of the woman she really is!"

            "When you put it that way you make a rather valid point."

            "You bet I do!  She said she was heading to the library, if you were wondering."

            Chid raised an eyebrow.  "Are you meddling?"  Hikari blushed a bright shade of scarlet that matched her dress and Chid laughed.  "Of course you're not.  You're just expressing your concern for a friend.  Very well, I'll go and speak to her."

            Hikari breathed a sigh of relief as Chid left the small office for the library.  She wasn't meddling.  Sitting down in one of the large overstuffed chairs, she closed her eyes in a silent prayer.  May their lives forever be entwined together, and may nothing, not even a predetermined fate, pull them apart.

~*~

Gomen, gomen, gomen!  I have just suffered through two weeks of hell (also known as school) so obviously I've had little time for writing.

I hope that you liked this chapter . . . I was thinking of a rather crucial conversation that Hitomi had with her Grandmother in the series about how her predictions were coming true and how they affected Gaea.  Obviously after the whole Gaea episode she stopped doing the tarot readings and by doing so, stopped meddling in other people's lives.  I figured that she probably taught this lesson to Hikari as well, that it was okay to help others out, just as long as you don't meddle.

Well, enough with the meddling.  I have to get up early tomorrow morning and it's late and my bed is so warm and comfy . . . oh . . . flannel sheets . . .

Mercy_Angel_09

PS – If you feel that you want to know me better, I do have a Dead Journal where I write down pretty much anything that comes to mind.  Including all of the reasons why I'm not updating my stories.  You can find me at:

http://www.deadjournal.com/users/tsubasa_no_kami

No, that's not my picture that goes with it.  It's a cute picture of Hitomi from the movie version of Escaflowne (which rocks, btw).  Feel free to comment, give me story ideas, etc., if you feel so inclined.  It's just an afterthought I felt like sharing with my beloved readers.