Title: Learning to Love, Chapter 10, The Frog and the Scorpion
Author: angelwarriar
Email: crystaldreamer06@yahoo.com--email me anytime!
A/N: I want to thank all of you for reviewing my story. I would also like to apologize for three things: Number one, sorry that my chapters are so spaced out. I just got out of school, so I hope to speed them up a bit. Number two, I'm going to dedicate this to all of my reviewers and I'm going to apologize ahead of time if I left anyone out, or if I spell a name wrong. Please email me and get on to me if I did. Here are the people that I am dedicating this chapter to:
anna, TRB, Yukari-Uchida, Kiddi Chi, thundersenshi17, Sakura Scout, Foxtails, TigerWolf, Sailor Hope, Enzeru no Yami, Ryan, Milie, rose, Pretty Senshi1519, Kitty Meow, Angel of Drama, Artamis Godess of the Hunt, Phantom Angel, SakuraKitty, Water Madian, Alice, Kim, Rusty-chan, ami kou, lady of the sea, Trunks gal, Tyoko, Kizzy, Melody, hanako, Kitty, NeoStar22, Elisabet, Mystic Blue, maniac bubbles, Dark Angel, jj, sorrow, jen, magicman, winter light, Yukari_Kanzaki, elena~sun, wolf rose, C.G, Sakura MysticMoon, Yu-ting.
Thank all of you for your kind reviews. I also would like to once again tell you that if you want me to email you, then tell me so in your reviews, please. These are the people that I have so far: Sailor Hope, Angel of Drama, thundersenshi17, Enzeru no Yama, Foxtails, Kiddi Chi, Sakura MysticMoon, Yu-ting.
Number three, I am sorry, but I am adding something else that should have went into the summary. Celena was a dragon slayer during the Great War.
Now, I have a request to make. If any of you would be so kind as to just humor me, I would like to know what some of your favorite anime shows are. There isn't a reason; I just would like to know because the two shows that I really know about are Escaflowne and Digimon. I'm just now, hopefully, starting to learn about SailorMoon. If you have the time to do this request, then I would really appreciate it. When you do email me, please put in some good information on why you like it. Thanx! My email address is crystaldreamer06@yahoo.com. And I might as well add in that this probably won't be the last request that I will make. Well, with those million things out of the way, on with the show!!
angelwarriar
===========================================================
Hitomi woke up to an empty bed. Van had gotten up early for a counsel meeting and did not want to disturb her. Hitomi sighed and got up. She bathed then got dressed. She wore her hair in a bun, as usual; she had on a white dress that went all the way to her ankles. It had loose sleeves that went all the way to her wrist. It bunched up at the waist and had little silver sashes flowing out around the bottom. Hitomi inspected herself in the mirror. When she was satisfied, she slipped on her most comfortable silver shoes and went out the door. She made her way to the North Wing where the solarium was. Last night, Eries, Millerna, Aston, Christina, and Celena had all arrived by carriage from Fried. Hitomi tried to dress comfortably, but elegantly so not to insult her guests by dressing casually. She knew that they were going to want to go shopping somewhere in town today while waiting for the counsel meeting to finish. She rounded a curve and opened the door to the solarium. Inside were all of the guests and Merle. They were all relaxing and talking to one another. The children were playing a little ways away. Hitomi walked up to them. They all got up and gave her a hug. It was awkward for she and Eries to hug due to Eries growing stomach. It was the same for Celena, as well. When they tried for the second time to hug properly, they gave up and began to laugh.
"When are you due?" Hitomi asked both of them with a smile still on her face.
"In five more months," Eries said then added, "Thank the gods."
Everyone smiled at her.
"Come now, sister," Millerna teasingly chided her, "it can't be that bad. Allen watches you extremely closely, and today he even asked that I watch you and Celena for him. I'm sure it's quite nice in some ways."
Eries looked at her. "Oh, hush up, you," she said to her playfully. "Besides, Celena gets the same treatment that I do, but from two men."
The women all laughed once again, and Celena blushed.
"What about you?" Hitomi asked Celena.
"One more month," she said quietly.
"Merle," Eries said to change the subject, "have you found anyone that interests you yet?"
Merle looked at her and said, "No, not yet."
"Then we must help you," Millerna said.
Merle smiled. "That's all right."
Hitomi interrupted the conversation. "I'm sure that when the right man comes, Merle won't need our help to get him. The right man will like her without her saying a word. By just looking at one another, they both will know." Then she added, "Besides, Merle is only two years below me in age and I was only seventeen when I married Van. Merle is but sixteen, so give her some time."
"See," Merle said to the other two women, "I will do just fine."
Millerna and Eries smiled. "I'm sure you will," they said to her.
Celena, who had been quiet up to that moment, stood up, "Well, let's go shopping."
The other women agreed and they proceeded to the marketplace in Fanelia. Merle and Hitomi fell behind the other three women.
"Thank you so much," Merle said to Hitomi. "I really appreciate you breaking into the conversation back there."
Hitomi smiled at her. "No problem whatsoever. Besides, I meant what I said. You will know."
Merle looked at her. "Do you know something that I don't?"
"Of course not," Hitomi said to her in fake surprise.
Merle smiled at her. "Right. Come on."
The two women laughed and caught up with the other three women and children in front of them.
==============
The marketplace was full of merchants and buyers. The first place that the women and children went to was the silk merchant. They looked at all the different selections and chose a few colors. Hitomi only chose one: green. She paid the merchant with a silver coin and smiled at him. She told him to keep the change. The merchant thanked her.
Next, the women and children moved on to the jewelry merchant. Hitomi decided to buy April, Suzanne, Patience, and Carol a piece of jewelry to thank them for all the mornings that they spent together in the kitchen.
After the women had bought some jewelry, they moved on to the bakery. There, they had lunch. Hitomi didn't want anything and told them that she would meet them in the square in half an hour. They said all right. Hitomi left the bakery and went over to the antiques shop. She had been there once before and had loved it. She opened the door and a little bell rung to alert the merchant of her arrival. The little woman stepped out from the back.
"My Lady," the woman said, bowing slightly, "it is wonderful to see you again."
"And you," Hitomi said to her. "Have you anything new?"
"Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I just got something in yesterday morning. Please come this way."
Hitomi followed the woman to the back of the store. They went through a little archway and ended up in a big room that was full of mini crystal statues. The woman walked up to a black box on a shelf. It was small enough that it fit in her hand. The woman handed it to Hitomi.
"I don't know what it does," the woman admitted to Hitomi. "It is very light, so I imagine that it is empty inside."
Hitomi only heard a few words of what the woman was saying. She was looking at the inscription on top of the box. "Do you know what this says?" she asked the woman.
The woman looked at the box. "Why, no, Milady. That wasn't there this morning when I set it here on the shelf."
Hitomi got out of her daze and smiled at the woman. She took out two silver coins and put them in the little woman's hand. "I'll take it, anyway."
"Milady, this is to much. A little box like that isn't even worth a whole copper coin."
"I insist," Hitomi said to her. "Please."
"Very well, ma'am," the woman said somewhat reluctantly.
"By the way," Hitomi said to her. "What is your name?"
"Gera, Gera Zanico," the woman replied proudly.
"Well, then my name is Hitomi, Hitomi Fanel."
The woman smiled at her. Hitomi smiled back at her.
"Good day, Gera."
"Good day, Hitomi."
==============
Van was getting grouchy at his counsel for being so uncooperative. They had been in session all day, and still they could not decide what to do about Hitomi's vision. The only people that could at least agree on something were himself, Balgus, Gaddis, Dryden, and Allen. Chasten would just sit quietly while everyone debated about the subject.
The cooks interrupted the meeting and said that dinner was ready, but since the dinning room was still being repaired, they didn't know where to serve it. At that moment Merle, Celena, Millerna, the children, and Eries came through the door. Hitomi was nowhere to be found.
"Where's Hitomi?" Van asked them.
"Here I am," Hitomi's voice made everyone turn. There was Hitomi dressed in a casual light yellow dress (she had changed out of her other dress so she could help with the cooking.) with an apron tied around her middle. Van guessed that the women had gotten back early from shopping and Hitomi had wanted to help cook.
"Van," Allen's voice brought him back to the present. "Why don't the women sit in on the meeting while we eat?"
"All right," Van agreed.
Half an hour later, everyone was sitting around the counsel table and began to debate again.
"We can't just start from nowhere and try to get somewhere," one of the counsel members said.
"He's right, why must we even dig into this? It could be nothing," another counsel member said.
A loud crash sounded at the table. Celena had dropped her spoon onto her plate and had her head buried in her hands, sobbing.
"Celena!" Gaddis cried. He quickly got up and went to his wife. He wrapped his arms around her. Celena buried her head in his shoulder.
"Celena, what's wrong?" Merle asked quietly.
Celena brought her head up and looked at all of them. "You are all trying to debate about things that should have action to them. War is not something you just hear about or talk about; it is real. Why can't you all see that?" she cried. "Why?" Then she added in a more quiet tone. "I don't understand it. Why do people start wars? It only makes you bitter and leaves you dead inside. I would have ended up that way if it had not been for my friends and Gaddis." She put her arms protectively around her bulging stomach. "Why must children be born into a world of war?" She leaned her head back on her husbands shoulder, but left her arms where they were.
Everyone was quiet. Then Hitomi quietly spoke up. "Celena, there once was a scorpion who wanted to get to the other side of a stream, but the scorpion couldn't swim, so he couldn't get across. He would go to the water's edge everyday trying to find a way to get across. One day when he came to the stream, a frog was sitting there.
'My friend,' the scorpion called out to the frog, 'will you help me get across this stream so that I may get to the other side?'
'No,' cried the frog, 'you're a scorpion, you'll sting me and I'll die.'
'No,' the scorpion replied. 'I won't.'
'All right,' said the frog. 'I'll carry you across.'
So the scorpion crawled on top of the frogs back and they began across the water. They made it halfway across the stream when the scorpion brought down its tail and stung the frog.
'Why did you do that?' asked the frog. 'Now we will both die.'
'I'm sorry,' he replied. 'I'm a scorpion, I couldn't help it.'
Hitomi let the meaning sink in to everyone's mind. Then she said, "The scorpion couldn't help it because it was his nature. He didn't know any better but to kill."
Celena looked at her. Then she nodded her head in understanding. "Thank you," she said. Then she closed her eyes and fainted in her husband's arms. Gaddis picked her up and carried her to their room. Millerna, Dryden, Allen, Eries, the children, and Merle followed.
"This meeting is dismissed for now," Van addressed the counsel. They all left without a word. Balgus stayed behind. When everyone had left the room but Hitomi, Van, and himself, Balgus looked to them.
"Her Majesty would have been very proud of both of you," he said to them. Then he left the room to go see how Celena was doing.
After a moment, Van took Hitomi's hand and they walked to their room. There they walked out onto the balcony. The Mystic Moon and its child were bright. Van wrapped his arms around Hitomi's waist. Hitomi leaned into his chest.
"Do you think that Celena is all right?" Hitomi asked him.
"I'm sure that she will be. I think that she is just exhausted. Gaddis said that she hadn't been sleeping too well lately. She's worried that this war may be worse than the Great War."
"I hope not," Hitomi said to him.
"So do I," Van replied.
After a moment, Van guided Hitomi to their bed. "You need some rest," he said to her.
Hitomi grabbed his hand. "So do you. You were up before me."
Van smiled, then he removed his shirt and boots and climbed into bed with her. He wrapped his arms around her. Then he looked at her. He lost himself within her deep green eyes. He lowered his head and kissed her. Hitomi responded to his kiss and entangled her fingers into his hair. When they broke the kiss, Hitomi laid her hands beside her head on his chest. Van held her tightly.
"Love you," Hitomi sighed softly, falling asleep listening to Van's heartbeat.
Van smiled. "I love you, too."
==============
In the dark castle, the creature looked out a window facing the Mystic Moon.
"Soon," it hissed, "soon I will have the pendant and the Powers of Eternity will be mine. You cannot hide it forever.... daughter."