Disclaimer: Visions of Escaflowne is not owned by me, and no money is being made from this story. Nothing ever changes. If you were expecting something wittier or more original in this disclaimer, you'll have to wait for the next chapter. I'm too tired to be witty.


Chapter Sixteen - - Broken promises


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And likewise death will drive us from the scene
With the great flowering world unbroken yet,
Which we held in idea, a little handful.
- - Richard Everhart, The Horse Chestnut Tree

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He looked upon this final loss with a more analytical perspective than he would have thought himself capable of. Around him, the deep scent of the earth made this broken place seem far older than it was - ancient and forgotten, though they had been uninhabited for less than a year. By now, he had developed some sort of depraved alliance with loss. Or a truce, more like. They respected and were familiar with one another, even if their shared animosity was great. It was patient with him, as he was with it, and allowed him to fall back into the memories of of the past without devaluing them through petty catharsis. He could reflect and revere his memories, for this moment, with the proper dignity they deserved. But soon, Loss promised, their truce would end.


Everyone, even Folken, had been surprised at the dramatic results of Naria and Eriya's fortune enhancements. At first Folken hadn't been exactly sure what to expect from such a thing, especially since it had been a new, untested procedure when it had been performed. Folken had taken precautions to ensure that the transfusions would be as safe as possible, but other than determining that the process would not change the Rh factor of the new blood and cause it to clot or behave strangely once it was reintroduced into the girls' bodies, there was little anyone could actually be sure of.

It seemed that the safety measures had been successful. The fortune enhancements were working well enough, turning negative fates outward and keeping the twins totally protected. Any sort of action from others that might produce an ill fate were stopped or reflected back into the surrounding environment.

The golden knight of Asturia hadn't even been able to activate his guymelef, which was a relief. No one knew exactly how he and the other two had managed to escape from the Imperial fortress of Zaibach, but it was safe to assume that whatever power that gilded Van's fortune worked equally well on Allen whenever he was near the young king. If Allen was feeling the effects of a darker fortune, Van likely would be as well.

That had been proven quite true, as the battle progressed. The Escaflowne didn't have the power to stand against the distortions in fate that the two were able to instill. The scene of Asturia, where the marriage of Dryden and the youngest daughter of King Aston was set to take place was thrown into utter disarray by their arrival. The presence of the civilians made the situation even more advantageous for the twins, namely because those who opposed them were forced to be far more cautious.

Folken had watched the situation below him with more than simple interest. This matter was bigger than win or loss; bigger to him, in fact, than the success of his mission or the manipulation of destiny. Again, he was faced with a dilemma. In the end, would it be his brother or the twins who fell? The twins were protected and it had not been their objective to harm Van, but these things were rarely so uncomplicated. While both girls knew what Van meant to Folken, they had a task to complete. If Van crossed them, he was nothing more than an enemy - and in their victorious euphoria brought on by the fortune blood, it might be difficult for them to remember what he was.

He could lose Van now, just like before. The danger for him was just as real as it had ever been. Why Folken didn't feel more panic, he really couldn't say. Perhaps, he thought quietly, he'd felt it so often that he was now used to it. Even if Naria and Eriya were so much stronger than Van, this situation was certainly no more dark than it had been when Dilandau had been out for vengeance.


Within minutes of the ensuing conflict, the twins had easily taken total control of the situation.

We're ready, Lord Folken! Naria's proud cry broke him out of his reverie. Turning to the receiver, he adjusted the speaker so that the announcement would be broadcast to the huddled masses below the Vionne.

We are the Intensified Luck Soldiers of Zaibach. Give us the girl known as Hitomi Kanzaki and no one else will be harmed. It was happening. He would take the girl and nothing Van could do would stop him. Once Hitomi was theirs, fate would fall away.


Only it hadn't happened. Leaning up against what was once the garden wall, Folken was still at a loss as to what had gone wrong.

The destiny machine, in the middle of a highly advanced prognostication, suddenly stopped transmitting. As all the instruments around him shut down and the sinking whir of dying machinery filled the room, Folken broke into a run for the nearest diagnostic station.

What happened?! Folken cried, bile welling up in his throat. No matter what was supposed to have taken place, Folken could feel the darkness clouding him and he knew without having to question fate that all of his worst fears would come true this day.

It seems there is something wrong with the luck intensification. We can't control the fluctuation... The man spoke with an unconcerned air, trained like all soldiers to be calm in the face of an emergency. Folken was far from calm, and didn't care if it showed. Looking up into the last functioning screen, he was still able to watch what was taking place on the ground. Though power was still being redirected from the engine cores in the heart of the fortress, the momentary black-out had obviously had detrimental effects on everything.

Somehow, though the Vione had been eclipsing the sun only moments earlier, it had shifted enough that sunlight was allowed past it, and the bright, exposing glow had violently effected the young girls. All at once the power that had been filling them was totally gone, not even a trace of it lingering in or around them or their guymelefs.

Get them out of there! When no one moved, he raised his metal fist and slammed it into the bulk head nearest to him, the sound ringing like a great bell of doom through the chatter and the shrilling of the Vione's now-functioning alarms. Pull them out! NOW!!

One of the soldiers rushed to the transmitter, but Folken didn't hear what he said. Trusting that the command would be carried out, he returned to an instrument panel and began manually over-riding as many of the burned out systems that he could. The damage wasn't as severe as he'd feared, but the flashback surge from the interruption of the destiny device over their transmitters had caused most of the critical systems to overcompensate, freezing everything until the overloads could be taken care of. It was fortunate that turbines, heaters, and stabilization engines for the fortress were powered by different energy cores than the control systems, a design feature that had been incorporated in case of such an emergency.


Eriya lay in his bed, her eyes closed. Folken sat nearby, glad that they were
alone. There was no one else he trusted to be at her bedside, and he suddenly felt the urge to strike himself when he thought of how he left the two girls alone during the moment of their augmentation.

I never should have brought them into this war,' he thought. When men fight fate, everyone is doomed to suffer.' And suffer they would have, if Dornkirk could have had his way.


Folken! Why did you order them to withdraw?! The angered man had shouted when the connection between the Zaibach capital and the Vione had been re-established. Why did you disobey me? You knew the potential price of their mission today! You knew, better than anyone, how much hangs on our success! If we cannot separate the girl and the dragon...

I'm sorry, Majesty. But had they remained, their lives would have been lost. Something went wrong... they wouldn't have been a match for the dragon, or even for the knight of Caelli. They would have died. Folken hated the way Dornkirk closed his eyes, apparently to shut out the words that he didn't want to hear.

What must be, must be. It is for our ideal future.


Eriya came around, surely enough, but since nothing that day had happened with deftness or certainty to reassure him, he wasn't inclined to believe that the situation was done getting worse. Naria was still gone, stranded somewhere without any strength left. It was very possible that she was actually dead, since the view screen had shown all too clearly the burning wreckage of her tiering guymelef when she and Eriya had sought to return to the fortress. Folken, of course, knew that it was perfectly reasonable of him to assume that she might have escaped relatively unharmed. The girl from the mystic moon was no where to be seen in city, and their instruments hadn't picked up her signal yet. If she was missing, the most likely explanation was that Naria was with her.

Though the cloaking system that kept the Vione hidden from plain sight - a larger and much more intricate version of the stealth cloaks - was operational again, the long-range visual equipment was still down. Dornkirk would contact them as soon as he had spotted what they sought, and the entire garrison would set out to find both Naria and the girl with all haste.


The time came, of course, well before Folken was ready for it. That in itself was unusual. Folken had become used to the agonizing wait that destiny always inevitably put him through. He was taken by surprise, pulled into a new, crueler game that destiny had decided to play with him.

Folken, we've found the girl. Naria is with her, and they both must be
retrieved. Dispatch the remaining Intensified Luck Soldier at once.

Folken had been incensed, and had no qualms in explaining it to the Emperor. Eriya was still exhausted, he'd said. Her power wasn't completely restored and, what was worse, they still weren't sure what had caused it to leave her in the first place. It was all too obvious to him that Hitomi was somehow connected, but he didn't bother to say so.

I'm ready, Lord Folken. It was Eriya behind him, her face flushed from something other than fatigue. Her eyes were strange to him, bearing an emotion he was unaccustomed to viewing in her. I can take care of this situation. Before he could even speak, she was gone. For a while he stood still, watching the portal she'd exited through, wondering why she hadn't bothered to mask her anger and if it had been meant solely for him.

Retiring to his chamber, he hunched dumbly in a cold corner, not bothering to light a lamp. Enough light came from the hallway beyond, at least for his purposes. Pulling off the jacket of his Imperial uniform, he allowed the familiar tension to build and grow across his back, spreading like blood in water until it pushed, an extra sensation causing him to intake his breath very suddenly. It was rare for him to expose his wings; it was almost never called for and it certainly wasn't something he did trivially, but it had never caused him pain before. He turned to face the full-length mirror beside his bed, he steeled himself for what he knew he'd find there, waiting for him in the shadowed pane of glass. Both wings were so black that their outline stood out starkly against the darkness of everything else. Tampering with destiny had finally caught up with him.


It wasn't done catching up with him, he quickly learned. Or maybe Van's arrival had more to do with the past than with destiny itself, but it all served a very similar end. How Van had come and why the fortress hadn't detected him before the enraged king had planted the Escaflowne's blade deep into the Vione's hull, Folken didn't know. At the time, he hadn't particularly cared. Van had come to kill him.

Facing Van, coming slowly out of the smoke and the billowing sparks from hundreds of desiccated control panels, Folken spoke directly to his brother. Why don't you understand that the creation of our new world is almost at hand? This is the final battle... why can't you see that, Van? It was easy to keep all anger out of his voice. There was none left within him to draw on. As deep as he looked inside of himself, all he could see was the blackened cold of resignation, tempered by sorrow. He had lied to his brother again - this was not the final battle. Their battle had not yet begun and would not be fought here.

When Eriya came, she and Van had fought. She threw accusing comments at the younger boy and in the end, somehow cast him free of the already-dying Vione. Her words would have been pertinent, had he found the strength to focus on them. In all of one moment, the two girls lay dying in his arms and, to his horror, he found that he had nothing left to feel. All of the pain, all of the terror, all of the loss and sacrifice and the hatred...

Dornkirk's voice was all but lost by the roars of the fortress as it was devoured by the ocean. Folken, the Destiny machine's malfunction was based on a reaction not of fortune, but of misfortune! Our calculations, no matter how precise, failed to take into account the most simple laws of thermodynamics. But our plans...
The chances are not lost... Folken hadn't raised his head then.

Your majesty... The sound was weak, pitifully echoing in and around the eruptions. Your majesty... you were wrong.

The emperor gasped.

Standing in the old court of Fanelia, he traced the tear on his cheek with his metal finger, wishing it could be real. Naria and Eriya had deserved real tears, just as they had deserved more love than he had shown them. But the truth was, in the end, love was something he'd forgotten. Like his dignity and his strength, they were traits that belonged in someone more noble than him, more noble than the cause he'd wasted ten years of his life fighting for. When it came to him, all of the old pain was welcomed.

Pain was real and it was reality, not fallacy, that he longed for most of all. Let the world come, with its swords and its lies. Let it break him and leave him in his blood, just as long as it remembered that he was alive.

There would be more promises, he knew, and they would be broken just as irreverently as before. It wouldn't be done intentionally, of course, but he knew that it would happen and couldn't fathom how it could be avoided. There would be death and hardship and loss, like before. The promises of life would be broken with an utter heartlessness that would leave him wondering why mortals could spend so many centuries existing and still not understand just what existence was. And somehow, he had to learn to accept that instead of letting it draw him in and break him.

He wondered as he stood if anyone else in the world ever had those thoughts. They must, he decided. It was selfish of him to think that he was alone in feeling pain when so much of life centered around it. But he didn't mind feeling selfish just then.

The battle with Van would start soon because it was destined to, ending only one of two ways. Either Van would kill him or Van would not; Fate would have it's way without a struggle. Leaning back against the wall, Folken's eyes closed gratefully. In the meantime, it was still his fate to linger.



Ollen70: This is a fragmented, garbled mess. I hope you're able to get something out of this chapter, because I was trying to be inventive and unique with some of my wording and the overall flow of time, but I think I just ended up falling on my face in the attempt. As always, feedback is appreciated.