[Disclaimer: Escaflowne is copyrighted by the legal entities Sunrise and Bandai. The world, landmarks and characters are used without permission but no material profit of any kind is being made from the following work. Sunrise and Bandai reserve all rights to Escaflowne material, but all of the situations unique to this work of fan fiction (including repetitive scenes containing blood and bathing) are property of the writer.]

[Note: This isn't spoiler intensive for the movie, but I think it would help to be familiar with the spoilerrific Diaspora.  It is worth noting that this started out as a one-shot called Slide and has since been reworked and combined with an idea for a kitty-twin movie fic.]

[This fic was inspired, in no small amount, by e-mails with NickelS (user: 162413).  Check out her site for the good ship Folken/Sora.]


Slide

            It was an unwritten rule that she should sing for him alone.  There should be no other to take the immediate pleasure of her voice except the one who considered himself its owner.  When she was certain he was away, she sang anyway.  It wasn't that she was disobedient, rather that she knew nobody would risk a 'he-said-she-said' type of argument when she did.  Keeping in mind his predecessor, the equally violent Adel, the fortress' many soldiers found sense in not being the bearer of bad news.

            Though she was not considered a prisoner within the fortress, she did not often leave the large chambers accorded his rank as supreme military commander.  The acoustics left her much to desire, as it was designed around anything but the idea of carrying voices.  She contented herself with one of the many thin, floor to ceiling windows and the view of a waxing moon it provided. 

Her sleep was always fitful.  When Folken was there his moody restlessness, brought on by his consuming passion to defy fate, disturbed her.  Whether he was present or not, she contended with the nightmares of the hapless people he crushed underfoot.  In her habitual sleeplessness and mounting depression, she drifted so close to the glass that her soft singing left a visible trail in feathering fingers across the frigid surface.

            The cold radiating from the window kissed her lips with the same frigidity she could expect from his oft-insensitive mouth.  She was uncertain which of the two were more or less satisfying.  The song reached such low depths with her mood, she leaned forward in no small amount of humorous self-pity, to speak visible words into the mist her breath left on the glass. 

            "Perhaps," she whispered to the cold surface, creating a montage of lip prints and feathers, "the glass."  She did not miss the appearance of her words on the glass nor how inevitably they would fade away.  "They slide off."

            She startled when the narrow double doors slammed inward, nearly hitting her pale face against the window frame.  She had not felt him; she had been as close to self-absorbed misery as he.  Unprepared for his entry, she quickly did her best to exude the calm serenity that was usually every bit as natural to her as the Dragon blood pumping through his veins. 

            He did not come close to noticing her remarkable transformation as he strode into the room and past.  His furrowed brow, the whirlwind of confusing emotions encompassing his mind, and the hard concussion of the doors as his power slammed them shut in the face of one of his respected generals; all the hallmarks of another set-back or a new annoyance in his quest for Escaflowne.  Very few people made it to his quarters, fewer still were allowed entry, and none, save the select servants he assigned her, were allowed beyond the doors since her arrival.  That the man outside had followed so far could only mean trouble, that Folken had not slain him outright meant the man was indeed valuable.

            The crashing of the doors still reverberated around the room as she considered following him.  Pointless?  How pointless?  And yet, her feet whispered forward, her long gown brushed the ground, and the soft tinkling of the gold at her wrists told the story as she rounded the corner.

            She found him at the mirror set over the room's convenient washbasin, staring at his reflection.  It wasn't the first time nor, she decided, the last time she would see him wrestling in his private war.  The anger and hatred flowing from him was stronger than ever, nearly forcing her out of the room.  Finding her footing difficult, she advanced as he continued to glare into the mirror. 

            When he began to speak, she was startled again, for he wasn't one to parse words with himself, at least not in the semi-public of her presence.  "You won't win," he growled from deep within his chest.  "You're dead.  The failure in me is you and that can be bled away."

            Nor was he one to waste words on dead men.  Which one was it?  Not Adel, for the late military commander had been almost a complete stranger to failure.  The former Dragon King?  Likely, for the mention of blood, even more likely for the depths of rage his memory could inspire.

            A sudden spike in his rage foretold possible self-annihilation, prompting Sora to cry out in shock.  She threw her hands out in horror as Folken whipped his hands back and over his shoulders and sank toughened fingers into his worked leather coat and mail shirt.  He pitched both up and over his head in a black arc that ended with an explosion of glass and ceramics as they collided with the basin, pitcher, and mirror.

            Sora knew that property damage wasn't his aim, could see the future he was actualizing before he could create it.  She also knew that to get in the way of his fury was foolish beyond all other foolishness.  But she did.  The window couldn't change what it was, but Folken had changed before: once upon a time, his name had been Dune.

            White hands encircled the blue-lined arm closest to her and threw all her meager weight behind it.  She knew it made no difference, he was the dragon she had always known; there was little she could do while he was blind to all but himself.

            When his arms surged up and back again, ripping at the thin undershirt that had remained behind his armor, she felt her feet leave the ground.  Her weight meant nothing to him even in those uncommon moments he recognized her presence.  In the same instant, in his mad impatience, black feathers were siphoning from his back in a flurry of sleek magnificence, ripping the rest of the shirt away from his too-hot skin.  For a moment, she was lost in transition.  Soft feathers; sleek, black satin and down were going one way and she another as she maintained her stubborn, fruitless, grip on his arm.  She wanted to follow the feathers back to their source and stop the terrible irony.  In a way, he granted her wish.

            As she turned back, caught between heart-rending hope for those wings and the despair she knew would follow, she found the arm she held mirroring the one opposite.  His long-fingered hands, tough and calloused from wars he never needed to wage, found the root of each wing with instinctual ease.

            "No," she whispered futilely, but she felt the tendons in his arms bunch and the Dragon power he hated as much as he needed spiked again.  Then followed the hideous sound of ripping flesh, waves of excruciating pain, and debilitating nausea.

She was not unused to blood.  How many times did he return to his quarters without removing the evidence of his blood lust?  How often she dreamed of the slaughter he put her village to.  Even that left her sorely prepared for the level of self-mutilation his hatred had inspired.


The stars were pinpricks in a black veil, hiding eternity, while the Phantom Moon lived up to its name, moving slowly across the sky in a shroud of crystalline gauze.  The light cast down on Eriya lit her up in an equally mystic apparition; her fur shone brightly, gathering and reflecting the cold light in a dreamy nimbus while she waited in one of the large and raucous tavern's narrow windows.

Her ears swiveled and flicked, unconsciously picking up cheers, snippets of songs, and the exclamation point of breaking glass.  None of it was what she really wanted to hear and none of it was what she really did not want to hear.  What she hoped for, waited for, was the secretive sound of bare feet on stone that heralded the beginning of another strenuous journey.

She felt her sister's warm presence nearly at the same time as she heard her careful footsteps.  A smile formed on her formerly blank countenance as she grasped either side of the windowsill and tipped her head backwards.  The glass beads in her hair struck up an unintelligible tune against the wall as she looked upside down at Naria's quiet approach.

"Asleep?"  She asked with sympathy.  Some moments were luckier than others; Dryden had managed to snag her sister for drinks after their nightly performance.

Naria stepped up to her silver twin before dropping an affectionate kiss on her pointed chin.  "Unconscious."

Neither of them disliked the tavern's charismatic and frighteningly brilliant owner, but they were never completely sure how much of his extravagant behavior was real or assumed.  They couldn't help but find they actually liked the strange man, but neither looked forward to the possible prospect of spending a night with him.  Not when they only had eyes for someone else.

Eriya smiled warmly, eyes squinting happily.  "I thought the alcohol smell in your glass was weak.  Did you cut with water?  He must have known and let you."

Shrugging, Naria tugged gently on her sister's spotted ears.  "You deny that I'm getting better at holding liquor and switching my glasses.  Have more confidence in me.  Don't you think our master will be pleased?"

A dark emotion wilted Eriya's smile.  She sat up slowly and turned, pulling a leg over the windowsill so her sister could sit facing her.  "Why should he be pleased?  He has that other pet now."

It was only natural that they should be bitter, Naria supposed, but the best way to combat it was through the kinds of victories their savior from the Black Dragon tribe would appreciate.  In a show of careless grace, she slid sideways into the windowsill, her body flush with her silver twin's.  "Sky above," she mocked in a sly whisper meant to provoke humor, "you need to lose weight or we're never sitting here again!"

She didn't want to be cheered up with the loving barb, but Eriya couldn't help a smile.  "You're just jealous because mine are bigger than yours."

Naria continued the girlish joke with a sniffle, "Now we know who will receive more of our Lord's favor and he'll know how to tell us a part in the night…"

An exasperated snort sounded as Eriya leaned forward to place her chin on her sister's shoulder.  "Don't be silly; the new girl doesn't even have any.  For all we know, he likes young effeminate boys in dresses."

Both erupted into soft sneezing laughter, which they tried to angle out the window as to not reveal their rendezvous.  At length, the two subsided into shudders of merriment with the only noise being the pleasant tinkling of the glass beads in their hair.  In the end they slipped their arms around one another in a loving embrace.  "He's a strong man and she's fragile," one whispered into the other's ear, "one day that skinny pet will get broken."

They sighed as one before leaning out the window a bit more and then both chimed in hushed tones, "Then maybe we'll get to see the Captain of the Dragonslayers in a dress…!"

Quickly, the two slid their arms away from one another and slipped out the window into a controlled fall down three floors to the steep roof.  They were still chuckling as they bounded down the roof's short incline to leap down into the structure's well-kept garden terrace and the flowing drop to the small wooded area just beyond.  It wasn't until they had quit the copse of trees surrounding Dryden's property that the two began to breathe a bit easier.  They recovered slowly from their amusement and the wariness of their positions within the Abaharaki's most important household.