[Disclaimer from Hell: Sunrise Bandai and other legal entities, all of which are not even vaguely affiliated with me, own Escaflowne. This chapter expressly uses subtitles and scenes from the original work and I make absolutely no claims of ownership of them. They are used without permission, but with respect. Movie subtitles are represented in italics. These may seem a little odd, because I have played around with the punctuation to suit myself. And for people who have not seen the movie yet and are determined to be spoiled; I am working with one extremely short flash back scene that appears split in half in the movie with each fragment being significantly far apart from each other. The fight scene (sadly) does not appear in the movie, nor does much of the action other than what directly relates to the italicized dialogue.]
[Disclaimer, Part Two: lyrics from Legendary Pink Dot's, Ghost also appear without permission.]
[Author note: If this was a movie it would get an R for violence and sheer gore, but I think if you're mature enough to read for entertainment then, you're mature enough to handle it. It isn't like they rate the bodice-rippers and sci-fi books at the grocery store. This chapter is probably the most gripping, yet approaching the second chapter in terms of poor writing. /pointless rambling]
Second Patricide, Part Twoblood on the door
blood on the stairs
blood on the floorblood in my hair
In a rare show of contemplation, Folken ran toughened fingers over the grisly stone smile of one of the airship's ornamental dragonhead anchors. He did not wear gloves, as his fingers were deprived of enough sensitivity as it was. His fingers were less sensitive, but he could feel the smooth surface, the contours of the rows of fangs, and appreciate the cool metal.
He knew he would yearn for the moment he could fling aside the helmet all the standard soldiers were issued. Other than his lack of armored gloves, he appeared like any other ordinary soldier of the Black Dragon tribe. In battle, his fighting and demeanor would belie his appearance, but that wasn't a worry. Folken didn't want to chance being recognized too soon in the upcoming conflict. If word spread of who he was right away, there would be a stronger resistance, but more importantly to Folken, certain things he wanted might be hidden away.
After a lifetime of being denied the simplest desires, Folken was no longer interested in taking chances. It was obvious to him that fate would always wrest satisfaction from him unless he could out-plan or destroy it. The former seemed only slightly more likely than the latter.
Looking down into the night from the airship's aft, he noted the progress of the fire in the White Dragon castle. Had he not been obliged as a child to investigate every quiet corner in the castle, he would not have been half as effective when he drafted the assault with Adel. As a man, Folken could easily exploit the memories of a thousand escape routes he'd thought of as a child. With the help of Adel's military engineers, Folken had drafted the castle's structure while they had planned the path the flames would most likely take.
Without his extensive knowledge, the castle would never be taken. It was situated in a remote area, but was so blessed with defensive terrain that no strategist had pleasant thoughts about taking it since it was constructed. The castle was built into the side of one of the mountains the country's interior valleys were laced with. The very rock that made it was quarried out of the mountain to make room for it in the first place.
The valley itself was narrow and tightly carpeted with vast coniferous forests. Any advancing army would be siphoned in a straight line with little room for maneuvering. The trees would obscure effective targets and hamper lines of communication. The only way to possibly turn the terrain to an advancing army's advantage would be to set the forest ablaze and no sane enemy would do that lest the fire became uncontrollable and he lit his own forces: the fire burning in the castle was contained.
Rough fingertips continued to trace the anchor's teeth. It was the only nervousness he could afford to betray the last few moments before his move. General Adel was under the impression he had talked Folken into a conventional entry into the castle. He had emphasized the importance of how the White Dragon king should be dealt with: by execution rather than battle. Folken did not resist the suggestion, just as he had not resisted remaining in armor that did not befit his rank. If Folken wore the armor befitting his relatively new title of lesser general, it would only draw attention and that was the last thing either of them wanted.
He had agreed on every count, but he had no true intention of entering the castle conventionally. Clenching a fist, he bared his teeth in a wordless growl, not unlike that of the metal snarl his hand had left to the ornamental anchor. Below him laid the prize, and he wasn't willing to let fate or Adel's planning get in the way. Gathering up the innate abilities of his blood, Folken vaulted the airship's deck and let gravity deliver him to his destination thousands of meters below.
nothing is sure
visions impair
sick to the core
walking on air
Folken moved through the fire with familiar ease. He was at home with the flames as his hatred and rage burned hotter still. The castle itself, while evoking moldering memories, did not make him feel at home. On the contrary, the castle had, from the very beginning of the assault, surfaced an agitation that caused him to nearly tremble with passionate hatred.
As he stalked through the corridors he'd once galloped down on all fours, Folken thought of nothing but his father and the suffering he had brought down on his then innocent head. His boots' hobnails rang on the stone floor in time with the roaring of the flames and the murderous staccato of his heart.
Ashes from banners and tapestries danced in his eyes and slid down his plates of armor, to lodge in the chain. The stench of burning flesh and furniture tangled in his hair and lingered on his body side by side with the blood of his former countrymen. He did not think of it, but was fixed on locating the man responsible for the real death of the country.
He encountered little resistance on his way to the central throne room. He swept down the wide corridor, trailing death in his wake. The few weak retainers remaining were left in broken heaps on either side of his passing; felled by a crushing blow of his fist or an easy flicker of his curving blade.
Before him was the wide entry to the impressively open throne room where, he assumed, he would meet his father. He did not give pause as he passed through it, but he could feel the hatred vibrating within him begin to translate itself to his body. If not for the roaring inferno, the chattering of his chain on plate would have been easy to hear.
The room was alive with agonized movement. All the banners and flags were burning and convulsing with the rushing of the heated air. Central to the motion, though, was an organic movement characterized by flesh and bone.
He stopped momentarily and the amber eyes, which previously drank in the room's overall interior, focused suddenly on the form of a woman Folken had no intention of sparing. Grieving and she was for her fallen handmaids, she saw him only moments after he resumed his unflagging advance, but did not falter at the sight of him. She read the death in his eyes calmly and turned to meet him defiantly.
Folken smiled grimly, the shake beginning to fade from his body. The woman was armed, standing amidst the bodies of her handmaids. He might have respected that, but she would have nothing from him. She had done nothing to prevent the disaster that had befallen him. She had only dubious loyalty to her own offspring and her own petty desires.
Armed sufficiently with a spike of unreasonable rage, Folken unleashed his hatred on her. She put up the best defense she could, but her own power was not sufficient to shield her from one of his background. From across the room, Folken slammed her short sword back, forcing her limbs to fatally betray her.
Defiance and disbelief mingled in her lovely brown eyes. Her hands fell away from the weapon lodged through her solar plexus. Death was coming to her swiftly, but she went in defiance of him. Her eyes said volumes, but Folken was deaf to all but the final breath that rushed from her mouth as she slipped to the floor within the rough circle of her handmaids.
"Van..."
The simple word took the grim smile and transformed it into another shock of hateful fury. His body fairly hummed with the force of his utterly irrational rage as it lent itself to his telekinetic power.
The rage, which radiated from him, blowing his hair about as easily as the heated air, was probably all that saved him from the overwhelming blast that came from beyond her. He felt his father's presence just before the most intense pain of his life lit his body and mind up. His every nerve ending, pore, and follicle, bled excruciating shocks of agony.
The force his father wielded was so great it lifted Folken off his feet and propelled him into one of the room's vast stone walls. He didn't have time to properly defend himself, but knowing his life was rapidly coming to an end, he focused on a lifetime of frustration, pain, uncertainty, sorrow and betrayal and used the night's mad rage, continuing suffering, and underlying fear as a catalyst to propel his power forth, driving back his father's with brute force of will. Still, his father pressed on, fueled by his own understandably formidable rage.
The second blast ripped at Folken before he began to fall away from the wall from the first strike. His heels hadn't even hit the floor but he still found enough time for his survival instinct and battle reflexes to throw up a sloppy, but functional defense. His father's strike was a chain of initial blow, collision, and seamless follow through that slammed Folken to the wall a second time, powdering mortar and rock. Dragon or not, between his power and that of his father, his body was trembling with strain. He could feel himself beginning to be torn apart; external and internal wounds opened in his flesh, regardless of armor.
As had happened a few years prior, Folken felt pressure build behind his burning amber eyes. With one final roar of primal rage, pain, and hatred, Folken channeled every last bit of his father's rage away. The pop of agony, this time, was more intense and the consequences more immediate. Something within his left eye ruptured explosively, effectively obscuring half his vision. Not withstanding the injury, his continued survival led to his discovery.
"Is that you, Dune?" The years had made the White Dragon no less imposing, his voice still resounded with authority Folken had not fully attained. The grave voice had not changed, but the tight chrysalis of ugliness it inspired in his first son's chest was no longer affected the same way.
"You are a fool," the king went on when Folken did not immediately respond. "That is why the sign was not on your side."
Folken's head did not raise, but his eyes scanned the scene's the seven dead women and the blaze spilling in every direction. The chrysalis burst as his bloodied face lifted to the formidable man before him. Who was the fool? The man on the verge of an empire or the man with nothing left but his oracle-chosen heir? A sadistic expression pulled up the corners of his mouth.
"I'll kill Van with my own hands… Father."
Dragon power leading, they leapt together to claw and tear with their fangs of steel. Folken considered the many years his father had on him in terms of skill and cunning, but in battle, such things flew away. Always, when he fought, his mind and body coalesced into instinct pushed to the tenuous limits of sanity.
They whirled apart only to crash together. Folken could afford an aura of recklessness, thanks to his vitality and better armor. His father was forced to depend on more conservative tactics. He was stronger than his son, but his experience was neither as fresh nor his armor as effective. The descendents of the Dragon had always opted to wear armor that left their backs open to the possibility of aerial combat. It was a consideration that kept the older Dragon's sword busy defending Folken's slashing attacks, while Folken could occasionally let a slicing attack come into his circle of protection. All the younger Dragon really needed to worry about was his legs, hands and head, unless his father could get a thrust in, and then he found it crucial to redirect or beat the sword aside.
When he'd been a child, Folken had never gotten anywhere sparring with his father. The man had never shown weakness, temper, or interest. His impassive attitude had convinced Folken he would never have any skill at all, that he was a hopeless case with a sword. The Black Dragon tribe had taught him better: he was slowly forcing his father across the throne room.
"If you beat me down," he growled, when next they crashed together, faces scant inches apart as they each strained for an advantage, "I'll fulfill your last command to me."
His taunt was returned with an even glare, which gave Folken no satisfaction. "You should not have to be compelled to obey. It was your duty."
Folken's rage nearly undid him. The comment spiked Folken with white-hot rage and a strength he'd rarely known. In fury, he swung back for another forceful charge, swinging his sword across to cleave his father in half from shoulder to opposite hip. His father barely had time to parry the blow, but forced Folken's blow to slide down the opposing blade. It was the opening the old Dragon needed to redirect his own force and swing the hilt of his sword underneath the arc of his son's. The pommel of the sword, propelled by monstrous pressure, connected a glancing blow to Folken's jaw.
The crack of bone was loud in Folken's head, resounding in his skull like a death knell. Though he had moved his head to the side as quickly as he could, there was no way he could avoid the whole attack. He fell back quickly, nearly falling over, losing all momentum but throwing up his defenses in terms of Dragon power. He dealt his father a blow born of outraged pain and surged to the left, away from the thrust of deadly steel.
The two fell away from each other. Folken's jaw was out of place and clearly broken; there was too much pain to tell how badly. His father was bleeding from numerous wounds across his torso.
"I would have obeyed," Folken slurred, a mouthful of blood and saliva spilling past his broken lips, "before you made the command, but you never gave me the chance."
The man's glower never faltered, "Your life was never yours to take. Fool, even my life is at the mercy of the land. As king you would have destroyed the kingdom and Van."
Folken's eyes widened in another spike of rage, but he smiled madly despite the pain and fury. "As nobody at all I am achieving the same." His sword came up again in time to defend against his father's next onslaught. It was becoming apparent his banter was drawing the more experienced man into his son's realm of fury. "After you, I will kill Van with these same hands."
The concussion of their meeting resounded over the roaring flames, bending the blaze back over itself. The fighting was at its fiercest and most deadly. Cuts opened up over them within their tight sphere of enraged power and steel. Where blades did not lick across vulnerable flesh or waning armor, dragon power sank the occasional tooth or claw.
The distance between the two grew and waned like the coming of lethal tides. Each slight break in the distance between them shrank as the seconds blurred together until the ringing of swords was almost constant. They both knew the next slip was the end of one of them, that there was no room for even a slight mistake. They were far beyond fighting for life and concentrated only on forcing death on one another.
In the midst of the fighting, one thought pierced the haze of Folken's bloodlust; all his life his father expected failure from him, had never wanted him, had never shed a tear for his first wife, had wanted his first son to fade away. The thought was the opening of a split second and all the White Dragon needed to force a blow past his son's precarious defense.
The heavier sword sailed straight in, piercing Folken's breastplate.
It was exactly what Folken predicted from a man used to seeing him as a mistake. Driven by battlefield instinct and profound genius, he twisted into the thrust allowing his father's sword to slide between plate and chain and dive for his left shoulder. The tip of the sword did not stop along the chain, but dove through, as he knew it would. He had planned on the injury, instinctually capitalizing on the benefits of the added force it would feed the full bodied swing he was pouring his whole will into.
His father knew the mistake the instant his son twisted into the thrust; it was in his bloodied eyes. Folken had made the mistake for him. Though his sword was plunging into the madman's shoulder, it was adding to the force of Folken's lethal swing.
Huge gouts of steaming blood shot forth, blinding Folken more fully as his sword cleaved through his father's neck. Mad laughter rang through the vaulted room at the unholy victory surging through his own blood. Clearing his eyes, he fixed on the rolling cranium he'd won. His vision was hardly clear, his left eye saw nothing at all, but quality of sight could not keep him from his father's head.
He left the Dragon King's sword and collapsing body behind him and snagged the White Dragon's head by a fistful of bloodstained hair. "How long did we live and die," Folken murmured, pushing another mouthful of blood and saliva out past his lips, "by self-fulfilling prophecies? I'll destroy fate, if I can't make my own."
His father's head weighed his arm as he turned around to face the flames that grew behind him. He wasn't sure what to do with the head, but he supposed he'd find something appropriate for it. Thoughts of mounting it on the castle's gates came to him or as trophy to appease Adel's certain ire. Those thoughts faded, though, with the feeling of a new presence rapidly approaching from the wide hall he'd entered by moments before.
A strange sensation replaced the heady euphoria of victory as he saw through the flames. There was a small boy running toward him. It was almost too much for him to bear. His father was dead by his hand and the reunion with his little brother was directly before him. His heart clenched in a different kind of pain. He imagined it was a good thing, but he hadn't enough experience to be sure.
"Mother!"
It clenched again and he knew the following feeling was not good; his anger was returning in full force. His heart pumped the growing rage with unerring ferocity, forcing him to draw himself up physically against it. Van was ruining their reunion by calling for the wrong person.
"Fight, Van!"
The guttural moan from beside Folken's thigh was an even more unpleasant shock. What did it take to kill a Dragon King? The raging of his blood threatened to burn him more deeply than the blaze billowing around them.
"The king of the Dragon Clan never runs from his enemy." Folken couldn't begin to force himself to look down at the head weighing heavily from his crimson fingers. He stood stock still, eyes wide and mad, body still despite its best efforts at rocking in frustration.
The little boy had slid to a horrified stop; his warm brown eyes were wider still and filled with unimaginable pain. They were fixed, glazed, branded with the sight of his dead mother, his father's head… "Fight…! Fight, Van!"
Folken stepped forward, raising the head high over his head. The step took his face into better lighting, though orange light and shadows still danced maniacally over his features. The child's shocked expression turned into devastated recognition as Folken flung the head down on the stone floor. The thud of its impact was not so remarkable as the sound it made as Folken's iron shod boot slammed down on it. The sound and feel was not unlike flattening a full bowl of porridge.
A high keening followed his cruel gesture, which he mistook, at first, for another of his father's tricks. When he looked for the source all he saw was a child on sooty knees in the midst of flames. His mouth was down turned, his eyes streaming, his body trembling in the throes of traumatic grief.
"Van…" the name sounded almost as distorted as their father's last syllable. Folken's jaw was swelling fast, preventing him from keeping his mouth completely shut. A steady flow of blood and saliva fell down his breastplate from his mouth when he didn't swallow regularly. His rage melted slowly away, leaving him weak and somewhat uncertain.
Huddled on the floor was the bundle of flesh and bone Folken had set out to steal. With his prize in reach he suddenly found his will faltering. "Van…"
He tried to reason that the trembling gripping the child's body was a trick of the heat, but as he approached his weakened perceptions showed the thought for the lie it was. Instinct called up enough power to keep himself untouched by the hungry flames as he passed through them to the miserable form.
"Van…" He knelt beside the boy and found himself amazed at how his brother had grown. There was only a hint of youthful roundness to his flesh. His arms were already lined with the first pigments of their heritage. There were diamonds on his swelling triceps like those on the backs of Folken's hands. He wondered if he had squirmed under the monotonous pain of the tattooist's bunch of needles and hammer. Did he cry?
A rough hand, coated in a knotted glove of congealing blood and gore, laid lightly on Van's arm. Folken's own blue marks were concealed by chain and darkening blood: their father's blood. As if burned by that blood, the boy shot straight back, falling on his hands and rump. His eyes were so wide Folken wondered if they might roll down the boy's stricken face. Even backwards, the boy was dreadfully fast on his hands and feet: he was yards away before Folken could drag himself to his feet.
"Van."
Any recognition his little brother had worn was gone. Only animal instinct remained and it was more than enough to tell the boy to get away from the creature that had murdered his parents. Whether it was adrenaline or fledgling Dragon power, Van turned and shot away like an arrow released from its string, scrambling on hands and feet.
Folken stretched out a sticky hand in a movement born more of emotion than sense; there was no way he could reach the boy. In the blink it took to take him from his sight he knew that he had killed any chance the two had to be together or happy.
One by one, the stars fell out of the sky, unpinning velvet blackness… smothering him. No iron slash of the moon could part the dark weight disfiguring his spirit.
nothing is real
no one to hold
nothing to feel
except for the cold
Folken's head swung back, an arc of blood trailed his mouth and left a crescent on the floor. He let his head drift slowly back only to have Adel's mailed fist collide with it from the opposite direction. A twin crescent of spit and blood adorned the floor on Folken's other side.
Adel had made their audience private in case he lost his temper so thoroughly he attempted to kill the man before him outright. Most of the anger was with Folken, but a not inconsiderable amount was directed at himself for misreading his best tool.
"Fool!" he hissed, nearly frothing at the mouth, "Fool!" He punctuated his second declaration with another cruel backhand. The steel plate riveted to the back of his glove opened up a fresh lesion above Folken's purple mottled jaw. "Who are you to disobey my orders? Who are you to jeopardize my relationship with the Elder Council with your petty vengeance?"
The eye that was not swollen shut observed Adel coolly, but he kept his mouth as shut as he could. He wasn't certain his best route with the enraged general; he'd never seen him so impassioned. In the past, he'd seen other soldier's lose their lives to lesser rages. It occurred to the apathetic Dragon that he could probably kill Adel even in his terribly injured state, but he couldn't yet find the will. The idea of dying at Adel's hands didn't seem distasteful; it seemed familiar, it was almost comforting.
"Answer me," the general snarled, his hand rising in honest threat.
"Folken," the Dragon answered listlessly, words somewhat garbled from his injury, "fourth field general of the Black Dragon."
The threatening hand shot out, grasping Folken by his swollen jaw. Adel's fingertips flexed meaningfully, but he saw no corresponding flinch in his subordinate's open eye. "Lies. No general of the Black Dragon would disobey my express orders like you have."
It was true, Folken admitted dispassionately, but he wasn't a typical lesser general of the Black Dragon. He didn't say as much; Adel hardly seemed to be in the mood for it. "I'm guilty of flagrant disobedience."
Adel's eyes narrowed to hateful slits; his hand tightened. "What?"
It was becoming increasingly difficult to respond to his commander while he pressed in on Folken's jaw. "I'm guilty of flagrant disobedience."
Adel shoved back on the young Dragon's face. Folken stumbled back several paces before regaining his balance. "Who are you to treat me with such disrespect? None of my generals would answer me like that."
Slow realization spread through Foken's mind. He regained his balance and pulled himself into a more formal stance. "I am guilty of flagrant disobedience, sir."
The enraged general closed the distance between them once again. "Who do you think you are, boy?"
It had been a while since Adel had addressed him with calculated disrespect. It hit another familiar chord within the increasingly apathetic Dragon. "I thought…" He thought what? He thought the general had, perhaps, given him an unspoken personal privilege that in private he needn't be formal with him. "I thought it was occasionally permissible to be less formal with you, sir."
"That," Adel seized him by a handful of hair in an equally familiar gesture, "is not what I asked you. I asked you, who you think you are. The answer seems to be that you think you are someone better than my other generals."
Though the grip on his hair was touching something decidedly paranoid in Folken's mind, he answered with confidence. "That is so, sir."
Adel released his grip with a short bark of laughter. "True, boy, true. But only in that you are a greater weapon." The humor was short lived. Adel jerked Folken's face to his, showing open derision. "I'm only going to tell you this once, and only because I value your abilities. You are no one. You are a body with a set of powers that make you valuable. You have an aptitude for military tactics and personal combat that give you even greater utility. That's all." He shook the Dragon's head by his hair. "Up here, there's nothing important. I don't care what you like or fear; you just follow orders. Step out of line and I'll assume you're broken. And you should know," he released his grip, but stood his ground, "that a broken weapon is of no use at all."
There had been little feeling left for the Black Dragon tribe's supreme commander since the siege of Asturia, but what rags remained fell away. Folken felt a coldness envelop him as he allowed Adel's words to penetrate the ugly remains of his heart. He almost smiled. "A broken weapon," he replied evenly, "is only of use when employed by the enemy, sir. I understand. In the future I will be of greater use to you."
The answer was something Adel could understand, even if he didn't trust his Dragon as closely as before. He assumed the young man would do as he said if for no other reason than he had nothing left to destroy. A smirk pulled at his harsh face and he slapped Folken's arm good-naturedly. "Good, I prefer keeping you around. Now get out of here; you reek."
"Thank you, sir." Folken found he enjoyed the cold words; they rang with final clarity. He bowed low and headed for the door, thinking of how Adel could be of most use to him now. As he shut the door behind him, a frigid smile slanted across his cracked lips. Fate and Adel would find him a pawn no longer.
blood on the door
blood on the stairs
blood on the floor
blood in my hair