Failed Strand of Destiny (Part 3 of 3)

by NickelS
purple_shad@hotmail.com
February 2003

Author's Note: Please make sure you've read the completed version of Part 2 before continuing.

Disclaimer: Escaflowne and all characters (save 'Elvedo') are not my creations, as they belong to Bandai, Sunrise, and all respective japanese animation contingencies. This piece of mind fart is for fan entertainment only. Episode references and timelines are about as muddled as my tapes as I've only seen the entire series once.

"You had better not have any ulterior motives towards the Princess, Folken Strategos." Allen Schezar's eyes burned with a suppressed fury, though his expression remained in check. I had to suppress a laugh.

"What did you have in mind, Caeli?" I replied evenly.

He paused, a scowl passing across his face for an instant, before continuing carefully. "I don't appreciate your attitude towards Princess Eries. You have been warned."

My eyebrows creased together. "Then let me tell you that I do not appreciate being shadowed by a knight with a hand too ready to draw. One who mistakes a simple act of chivalry for an assumption based on his own prejudice."

His fingers opened, but his palm remained resting on the hilt. "I'll back off as soon as you remove your hand from the short sword behind your back."

Oh, so you noticed, did you? Perhaps you might have been a worthy sparring partner, were the circumstances better. Did you learn as well as I did from Vargas? Perhaps you may even be worthy of Eries's hand… My expression remained impassive as I lifted both of my hands, empty, away from my person to show him I had nothing to hide. Likewise, he stepped back and let go of his sword.

Why in the names of all the gods is it such a femininely rose colour?

A night and a day later, Folken hunched over his workbench, scratching out formulas on the parchment paper with a primitive quill and inkbottle. Not for the first time did he continue writing even when all the ink had flowed out of the tip of his writing instrument, his mind already splitting the calculation, altering the variables, merging them back together, before he realized that he could no longer see half of what he was trying to record. So, in irritation, he dipped his quill and retraced some of the results that were already imprinted on the paper by the weight of his handwriting.

The torque causing the twist in the secondary axle must be increased, so the angle of the axle, without changing the distance along the shaft from the hinge to the weight, should be…

Should be…

In an idyllic world, Folken Lacour deFanel, King of Fanelia, sat upon his knees on the raised mat at the head of the long wooden room presiding over Fanelia's governing body. In two rows, sitting parallel and facing centre, their backs to the wall, were his advisors. His foremost advisor, seated at the front of the right column, was Van, looking much older and wiser than his sixteen years while wearing his formal robes. Van smiled up at his older brother, confident in both of their roles in the scheme of Fanelia's present and future.

Immediately beside Folken, to his left, sat Fanelia's queen, kind and regal in her bearing, pale skin and hair contrasting with the deep purple of her dress robes: Eries Aria Aston.

At the end of the meeting, the advisors all turned their bodies facing front to their King and leaned forwards toward the floor, bowing. Then they shifted back to their original positions and bowed to each other. Standing, they filed out of the end of the hall, turning back once more at the doorway in a half-bow.

When even Van was outside the room, Folken finally rose to his feet. When he had done so, Eries stood as well. He offered his hand to her, breaking custom as his father had done so often with his mother. Eries graciously accepted, but did not take her eyes off his, even as she beamed at him. Folken could feel his own mouth returning the smile before he led them both out of the hall.

Folken resumed breathing. In his entire life, the total number of visions that he had experienced could be counted on one hand. That number, increased now by just one, still fit. He blinked a few times and took a few deep breaths to reorient himself. When he looked down, he almost grimaced as the blank space below his quill tip regained his attention.

She's probably one of the few women who'd be the perfect height for me, too.

How fine a pair we would have made.

Certainly she would know how to run a country and deal with domestic issues as well as I. Her tenacity and opinions I could admire and value above that of any advisor…

But would she have liked Fanelia?

I don't think so.

No, that's not true.

Liked it, she would have. Been content within it, I'm not so sure. Devoid of Asturian social niceties, it would seem a far cry from this palace and its seashore metropolis. No court ballroom parties, no greedy merchants to debate with everyday, no annoying little sister to look after. Gods, she might have been bored out of her brilliant mind.

This angle should be increased and the tension on the support cable will therefore be reduced by a factor of point oh… six.

With that, Folken continued refining his blue prints for a miniature fortune machine for the next hour. He spent the following four hours adjusting his equipment to match his theoretical changes. At length, he stood with his hand resting on the humming engine, his gaze lost in the intricacies of the revolving components at the centre of his machine.

The end is so close to me, now. I can feel it in my wings, though I haven't called them to form yet.

When the time comes, I will make it up to you, Van. No more tears.

I promise.

And Eries… when I lie dying, bleeding or burning –or however it's going to be- to death within the zone of absolute fortune, I will ask for a better future than what you have been living up until now. I hope that you'll be happy, living your life, unencumbered by such things as traditional as betrothals among royalty. Yes, maybe even with your Heavenly Knight. Perhaps with him, you might have something better than this… our failed strand of destiny.

"Princess!"

I looked up from my desk at the sudden interruption by one of my personal guards. I recognized Elvedo, one of the newest members of my entourage. That would explain the suddenness that most would have found quite rude.

At the tilt of my head, Elvedo immediately bowed low and straightened with a somewhat embarrassed expression. "Forgive me, Highness, but there's some strange phenomenon taking place in the East wing that I think you should see. Please, come quickly."

I frowned, not at my guard though he shifted a little uncomfortably, but wondering what it could be that was so urgent. Quickly, I picked up my skirts, swept out of my rooms and led the way down the corridor. When I passed a window facing east, I stopped dead on my feet, suppressing a gasp.

"That's it, right there, Highness!" I heard Elvedo exclaim excitedly from somewhere behind me.

There was a narrow beam of light, brilliant like the sun, shooting into the dark heavens. It seemed to stretch upwards forever, but the lower end was embedded in the far side of the East wing. "What… what is that?" Almost before I had finished those words, the light vanished and everything was dark again as it should have been. I blinked several times, but the negative burned into my retinas proved that I had not simply imagined it.

When I reached the East Wing, I began to have an uneasy feeling in my stomach. This feeling increased when I noticed the throng of guards investigating one of the rooms.

Don't tell me.

"Highness," acknowledged the captain of the guard when I walked up to him. He had a very serious, puzzled expression. "It appears there was a big flash of light that people all over the palace saw, lighting up the whole sky."

I nodded that I had also seen it.

"We believe it originated from this room, but by the time my men arrived here, it was already fading. There's no sign of what caused it, unless it was that strange whirling machine in there…"

Let me guess.

"This is the Lord Strategos's room, Highness," the Captain finished.

"Folken," I absently corrected him. Hearing the truth I already suspected didn't make me feel any better at all. "Well, where is he? You don't mean to tell me he was in the room when it happened?"

"There is no sign of either him, or the girl Hitomi, who was last seen in his presence." The captain shook his head. "Two men saw them head in the direction of this room some minutes before they saw the light. I'm afraid we don't know much more than that, Highness."

I swallowed. Hitomi, too? I hope she's all right.

What could have happened to them?

Folken…

"May I go inside?"

"I suppose so." The captain flicked a glance over his shoulder into the room, and then at Elvedo over my shoulder, who followed me closely through the doorway.

There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary, though most of the guards inside the room were thoroughly searching every corner of the room without disturbing anything. The only place they left completely untouched was the workbench in the centre of the room with the large humming, globular contraption, its workings still spinning slowly. As I moved closer, I realized what the black streaks on the floor were. Elvedo hurried up behind me when I knelt down to pick up a great black feather.

"Princess?"

I held up the feather next to my arm. It was longer than the length from my elbow to the tips of my fingers, and this could not have been the largest one.

"No bird has feathers that big," my guard observed, in awe, totally perplexed. "Or if there was, not around this area, at least."

"I know." I ran my fingers along its silken edge. So black.

"So how did they get here?" Elvedo mused, bending to pick another feather up from the floor. There must have been at least a dozen.

Just then, I looked up and heard the spinning machine groan. It was slowing down. No, it was stopping, so gradually. And when it finally ceased to function, and everyone paused to stare at the now silent thing, I don't know how, but I knew what it meant. I knew what the black feather in my hand meant. I felt… nostalgically sad, as if it was only a faint echo of something else, something that once existed in full force for someone else.

Why didn't the feathers just disappear like I had once seen them do, when they had been white?

"I will take them," I said softly. Then slightly louder, to my young guard, "I would appreciate if you would not speak of them unless you had reason to, Elvedo."

He drew to attention and gave a curt bow. "Of course, Highness."

I took the feather he was holding and collected the others before retiring to my room. I looked under my desk and drew out a long flute case, removed the flute and placed all but one of the feathers inside. I'll get another case for the flute later.

When the war is over, and I hope it's over soon, I will give these feathers to Van. He at least should have them.

Then with the remaining feather waiting on my desk, I rummaged among the boxes in the corner of my wardrobe for a bit before procuring a similar case, this one more suited to its purpose. I stared a while at the ornate wooden cover, the enamel hardly showing its age of ten years. I wondered at what I would find when I opened it. The latch opened easily enough and the hinges made no sound when I flipped the lid over. I carefully placed the ebon feather inside next to its ivory predecessor.

How beautiful they both were.

[fin]

Post Production Notes:

- Booyah! It's finished (sorry for the wait). The ending wrote pretty much the way I originally envisioned it. Like I said at the start, this was not supposed to be a romance. I'm a purest, so I try not to deviate from canon as much as possible. No complaints, I prefer constructive criticism.

- Thanks to all readers and reviewers. This is the first of my fics that has passed the 20-review mark! Thankyouthankyou. Now I can't possibly delete this fic... -_-;

- I'm so ashamed, I've forgotten all of my elementary physics =( as referenced by the blotchy torque calculations =P

- Now I can move onto a Folken/Sora fic! ^__^ and oh boy have they been bugging me lately.