Thank you so much for your wonderful reviews. I hope I won't disappoint you.

I have totally neglected Van & Merle, so here they are.

Chapter 5.

Van was sitting behind his desk. He had lots of work to do, but he couldn't concentrate. He was thinking on her, on her soft, smooth skin, her long brown hair, gentle lips… He was wondering how she's doing on the Mystic Moon. Does she miss him and Gaea? Would she come to live here with him?

His thoughts were interrupted by a guard that came in.

"I'm sorry for the interruption your majesty, but we can't find Miss Merle."

"How do you mean you can't find her?!" he was a bit scared and nervous.

"We are looking for her the whole time, but we can't find her anywhere. She's been missing since yesterday's party."

"What?!" Van was angry "and you're telling me this now. Why didn't you say it earlier?" He was so upset and mad that he scared the guard.

He didn't have time to explain, Van was already on his way to Escaflowne. He jumped in, and went to look for his best friend.

Merle woke up. She looked around and realized that she was in a cave. It looked like someone lives there. There was a table in the center of the room, a closet on the one wall and a bed on the other on which she was laying. She heard the water falling. Is it raining or is this cave behind a waterfall she wondered.

"I see you have finally woken up." She heard a voice, but she didn't see the person. That made her very scared. Who is it? What does he want from me? She was terrified.

I have to find her. I can't lose her. Where could she be? Did someone kidnap her? But who and why? "Merle!!" screamed Van as he was flying in Escaflowne. He was looking like wild to find her. "Merle where are you? Merle!!!!!!"

A person revealed itself from a dark corner of the room.

"Did I scare you again?" Kal asked

"Yeas, you did. Why do you always have to make that kind of entrance? You have scared me to death." She was angry

"I'm really sorry" he apologized "I promise I won't do it again."

"I hope so. Where are we? What happened?"

"You are in my humble home, I know it's not what you're used to, but it's ok."

"It's fine, but how do you know so much about me?" she wondered "Are you a spy or something? What happened yesterday? I know we were talking about Dornkirk and suddenly I felt something hitting my back, I felt weak and… and that's the last thing I can remember."

"I'm not a spy, I don't work for anybody. You felt unconscious because a small, thin arrow with poison on the top hit you."

"An arrow? Who shot it on me?! I don't have any enemies, especially not in Fanelia. Who was it?"

"I didn't see his face, but I'm almost sure that it was Denau or one of his men." He was becoming angry.

"Who is Denau? I have never heard of him?"

"That's not a surprise. Only few people know about him."

"Why? Who is he?" she was surprised and curious.

"He is Dilandau's son."

"Dilandau has a son?!" she was very surprised. "How? Whom with? Why was it a secret?" she ran out of breath.

Kal started to explain: "There was a woman that he met and fell in love with. They've got married and soon after that she was pregnant."

"That crazy, war obsessed guy had a wife?! How crazy was she?!"

"He wasn't always like that. He used to be normal, loving person who worshiped his wife above all." He looked sadly to the ground.

"What had happened? What made him change?" Merle was interested.

"She died giving birth to his son." He said sadly.

"Oh, it's so sad. I didn't know…" she saw how much this story has affected him. She wondered why. She felt uncomfortable with all this, although she had lot of questions to ask she didn't know if it was vise to ask them at this moment. He felt so connected with the story.

Suddenly he started to talk again, showing no emotions "he was so hurt, he didn't want to take his son, because he was responsible for his wife's death. Lost of his wife was too much to handle for him, so…… you know what happened then. He became the person you know."

"What happened to the child? Who took care of him?"

He was a bit surprised with this question, that was the child of her enemy after all, and then he remembered that she was an orphan. "He left him with his parents. He couldn't take care of him. Too much pain was involved."

"That's not fair. I think that it's best for the child to stay with its parents. It's so cruel that he left him, he's responsible for him, it's his only child with the woman that he loved so much." You could see how much this has affected her. Kal felt sorry for telling her all this, but then she said "but at least he left him with his grandparents. He wasn't alone." She tried to smile but it was too hard. She remembered how it was for her when her parents died.

First of all I want to apologize for not writing for such a long time. I thought nobody reads my story, I nearly stopped updating and than I read your wonderful reviews, so I changed my mind. Thank you for that. Another reason for not writing was school. I've had pretty tough weeks, it's quite hard when you have 16 subjects to learn for.

So, again, sorry for not updating earlier. I hope you like this story. Don't forget to review.