Disclaimer – I do not own Escaflowne or the characters of Escaflowne.
And I must give credit and many thanks to Benny, who's been my perfect muse for the ideas of this fic.
Chapter One – Estrella's Vow
Estrella could hear the animals scream. Birds took flight in order to flee from the scene of destruction that was washing ever closer to the small mountain village. Woodland creatures scurried from underneath the pounding feet of the machine that walked steadily closing the gap between it and the outermost home of the town. Entire tree trunks snapped in half as the large white Espano guymelef crashed through the forest, coming relentlessly closer to her small village.
Every warrior was attacking the towering machine, trying to slow its progress to the village and trying to save the lives of the people who lived there. Bows and arrows, swords, and clubs had little effect on the hard outer shell of the guymelef. She cringed as the townspeople fought against a mountain of a machine to save their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Estrella held her little brother close and watched helplessly from the doorway of their small house as her father was crushed underfoot of the gleaming white guymelef. Her little brother screamed out, clutching more feverishly to her skirts.
The village people worked together to try to stop it, but a handful of brave warriors is no match for the large machine of a guymelef. It's dark blue and red cape flapped in the rising wind, a result of the burning houses in the village. Embers sparked and swirled around it. Estrella pushed her little brother back into the house, telling him to stay with their mother and hoping that he could actually hear her over the terrified screams of the villagers. With grim determination, she took a hold of her sword that leaned against the inside of the doorway. She was a warrior, too, and she was not going to stand by and let her home be destroyed.
The guymelef did not notice the humans clinging to its shell, desperately trying to stop the massacre of the villagers. It drew its large sword, swiping at entire houses and laying waste to whole families in mere seconds. It stepped mercilessly on the small humans scrambling about its feet, crushing houses and barns alike as it trampled through the tiny mountain village.
It was coming for her home. With a deep breath, Estrella calmed her nerves and began the soft chant that would focus her energy and grant her strength. The guymelef did not seem daunted in the slightest as she raised her sword and called out in a challenge. It simply kept walking forward, paying no attention to the insignificant woman defending her home. Estrella stood her ground, holding her sword ready and feeling the ground shake beneath her with each massive step of the guymelef. She braced herself for the crushing force of the bottom of its foot.
But it passed over her, towering into the heights of the sky as it missed stepping on her. Its foot, instead, landed on her house, where her brother and mother were hiding inside. A scream of rage tore itself from her throat as she charged the devilish white guymelef. The heat of the burning houses intensified as she let go of her hatred in that cry, and flames flickered higher to scorch the perfect white of the Espano guymelef.
*******
"Hitomi," the teasing voice called from the top bunk, "are you still day-dreaming about that guy?" Crystal's head appeared upside down as she hung from the edge of the top bed. "You need to get out more or find that guy."
Hitomi sighed and held out her latest sketch of Van for inspection. Crys whistled.
"He's hot," she said with a wink. "So why aren't you with him again?"
"'Cause I'm an idiot," Hitomi said without hesitation.
"You weren't an idiot," Crys argued. "You were young and the idea of spending the rest of your life with that King, no matter how hot he is, is just wrong when you're fifteen."
Hitomi sighed again and closed her sketchpad. "You're right."
"Aren't I always?" Crystal's head disappeared again as she sat up in bed. Hitomi rolled over onto her back, staring up at the wooden slats on the bottom of Crys's bed. She stretched out, reveling in the fact that their beds were by the window. At this time of day the sun streamed in through the blinds and made her bed so warm and comfortable. She curled up in the little patch of waning sunshine like a cat seeking a warm place for a nap. Her hair fanned out around her head, still styled in a long boy-cut like it had been when she had first met Van. Hitomi wasn't as skinny now as she had been five years ago. She'd lost her boyish figure and adopted the more mature curves of a woman, but she kept her lean muscles that resulted from her continuous involvement with track.
"Do you want to come with me to the Main?" her roommate asked as she jumped down from her bed. "It's almost 7:00."
Hitomi sighed again. "Yea, I guess we should before the cafeteria closes." She'd had reservations about coming to college here in the United States, but Yukari supported her completely and pushed her to accept her scholarship to the university. Once she had arrived at school, Hitomi had been even more nervous upon meeting her roommate. Her roommate had turned out to be Black, an ethnicity that was, needless to say, quite underrepresented in Japan. But Crystal, who preferred to be called Crys, turned out to be Hitomi's missing piece, prompting Hitomi to emerge from her shell of shyness and become about a fourth as independent as Crys was. And amazingly enough, Crys didn't find Hitomi's story about Gaia, Van, the Escaflowne, or saving the world odd at all, and she believed every word Hitomi said about the fantastical place where Van lived.
"You know, we're supposed to sign up for housing this week. You still want to be roommates next year?" Crys asked. It was a useless question; she and Hitomi had already decided to live together again for the third year in a row.
"Uh huh," Hitomi mumbled as she looked up at the pink clouds illuminated by the setting sun.
"Are you listening to be me at all?"
"Uh huh."
"I'm going to shave your head bald in your sleep."
"Uh huh."
"I knew you weren't paying any attention to me," Crys said, nudging Hitomi hard in the side and nearly knocking her off the sidewalk. Squirrels chattered and ran around under Crys's feet.
"I'm sorry, what'd you say?" Hitomi asked, embarrassed at having been caught day dreaming again.
"It doesn't matter," Crys said with a little smile as she tried to nudge the squirrels away from her. "And if you think about him so much, you should go and see him." She reached up and fingered the top edge of her short afro as they walked.
"I can't just go there," Hitomi started.
"Bullshit."
"It's been five years! You can't just show up at someone's house after five years and be like, 'Hi, remember me? We fell in love back when we were fifteen years old…' You can't just do that," Hitomi argued.
"Why not?" Crys argued back.
"Because it's too sudden. Besides, he may not even remember me."
"And he might just be missing you as much as you miss him," Crys said with another nudge. "And he's too scared to just show up after five years of not seeing you, too."
"You're right," Hitomi conceded.
"I always am," Crys boasted, giving a teasing smile. "So are you going to see him or what?"
"It's not like I can just take a train."
"Well, then how do you go and see him?"
"Didn't I explain this once?" Hitomi asked, wanting to keep from talking about this out loud since they were now in the cafeteria and picking out their food from the regular choices of pasta, chicken strips, hamburgers, and rotisserie chicken.
"You kind of did. Spaghetti with meat sauce, please," Crys said, dividing her attention between Hitomi and the guy serving the pasta. "Thank you," she said as she accepted her Styrofoam box of overcooked spaghetti and watery meat sauce.
"I'll have spaghetti with marinara, please," Hitomi told the man behind the counter. "This food sucks," she said in a low voice to Crys as she peered in her Styrofoam box of starch and tomato sauce.
"Was there ever any doubt?" Crys laughed as they paid for their food and left the cafeteria to head back to their room. They always ate in their dorm room.
"Its amazing that people can eat this every day," Hitomi continued, looking at her spaghetti as if it would get up and walk away at any moment.
"And its even more amazing that you don't just go to that guy and tell him that you still love him," Crys said, smoothly changing the subject back to Van.
"It's more complicated than that. Besides, I'm too scared to just go back by myself," Hitomi started making excuses.
"Hello? I'm right here. What's this 'going back by yourself' business? Do I not get to go with you?" Crys asked. The campus squirrels again came to play around her feet. "Damn squirrels," she muttered trying to kick them away again.
"Of course I'd want you to come," Hitomi exclaimed. "I didn't think you would want to go."
"And why not? There's an extremely hot-looking guy on the other end of this trip. Just please tell me that he has a good-looking brother or something."
"Actually, his brother did look pretty good…"
"Oh really?"
"But he died in the war."
"Damn."
The girls walked up the stairs leading to the front door of their dormitory, pausing as Crys fished her keys out of her pocket.
"You know," she said as she searched, "I care about more than just guys."
"I know. Thanks," Hitomi said with a smile, accepting a quick hug from Crys before they trudged indoors and up the stairs to their room.
*******
Estrella woke, looking up into the dark black sky speckled with stars. She couldn't remember fighting against the guymelef. Not knowing how she remained alive after attacking the machine, Estrella was lying in the grass near the village well, which was several yards from the edge of town. She must have been thrown here. With an aching head, she sat up, looking around at what used to be her village.
The light reflected from the mystic moon illuminated what was left of her town. The cold blue light contrasted with the red glow emanating from the foundations of houses as they burned themselves out. Only a beam or pillar remained, charred and glowing a faint orange as the last embers cooled in the chilly mountain air.
She stood up from her place in the dewy grass. The heat from the recent burning of her village wafted across the dirt road and onto the meadow where she'd been laying. Estrella covered her mouth with the corner of her skirt. The stench of burning flesh and smoke made her choke, despite her mask of clothing. She stumbled toward the remains of the village.
The magistrate's home was once a striking two-story house with dark wood and a blue painted door. Now only splinters of walnut lumber and flecks of blue paint littered the ground around the stone foundation. The hardy furniture that she had admired as a child was now nothing but charred remains of a table leg or the frame of a bed. That furniture had been hand crafted by the woodworker who lived several houses down, in a home that was chopped by the large guymelef's sword and burned to the ground.
Estrella wandered through the village streets, looking for another soul to have survived the clash with the guymelef. She found only the remains of the village people who had once made this town alive with laughter and celebration. The healer who had lived three houses down from her own was lying next to a child, whose identity could not be determined by his conditions. She suspected he was the troublemaker and youngest child of the Hartwood family, a jovial child with dark black hair and dancing blue eyes. But he wasn't cheerful anymore.
Suppressing the urge to spill the contents of her stomach onto the ruins of her town, Estrella ran up the pathway to her own home. She knew that her family was dead. She'd seen her father die and could do nothing but watch as her mother and brother were condemned in the house that met the same fate as her father. But she had too see. With a frown under her mask of skirts, she stumbled into the rubble that had once been her home. The ash made little puffs of clouds as she walked over the remains of the house, getting her skirts stained with the dark gray powder. She couldn't see the blood or bodies of her mother and brother, but she knew they were under there somewhere.
Something caught her eye. The red sparkling stone her mother had worn. It was missing its chain, and the once bright gold setting was black with ash and the intense heat of earlier. The red stone in the middle of the sun-shaped gold was bright and untarnished. With trembling fingers, she reached into the ash and extracted it from the ruins. She held it tightly in her hands and close to her chest, her tears leaving cleaned tracks on her sweat- and ash-stained cheeks.
Her village was dead. The brave warriors who had trained her since childhood and protected their abode since before her father was born were trampled and slaughtered with their wives and children. Standing from the rubble of her old home, Estrella vowed to avenge the deaths of each and every one of them. She ripped a piece of black cord from the trim of her skirt, threading the end through the eyelet of the red sunstone in her hand. Securing the necklace about her neck, the sparkling sun rested perfectly on top of the place where her collarbones met.
Finding her sword near the well, Estrella left her village behind, seeking out the only one known to activate a white Espano guymelef.