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Van was too proud to break down if front of anybody. He waited till he was alone to collapse in his room.
The large fireplace lay cold, dark and empty. The whole room was cold and dark. Van could hardly make out the darker shadow the were a bed, a desk, and a soldier frame, all extremely untidy most of the time.
He opened the back door out of his room and vaulted himself on the roof. Van always went there to be alone; no one would bother him there. This side of the castle faced the old gates to Fanalia and on the darkening horizon he could just see the sun glinting of the sea.
Van pressed his forehead against his knees. Memories wracked him of when Fanalia had been destroyed. Ziabach had attacked from those gates. Hitomi had been with him then, but he had ignored her, even though she had just saved him. He felt so arrogant and stupid. What Hitomi must of thought of him back then! Van grinned a little. Maybe she had been to busy chasing Merle…
Hitomi.
She left him alone! It was all her fault! Whose idea of a cruel joke was this? To have her in his head, but to still be worlds apart! To be in her head, as she thought she was alone, had no idea that he was there with her. To hear her wishing to die and not being able to do anything about it!
Why couldn't he forget about her? Why wouldn't she just ---- leave him alone! Hot, bitter tears soaked Van's shirt. The sword he wore jabbed painfully into his side and he grit his teeth. A warrior, crying. How pitiful.
He gazed up at the Mystic Moon. He didn't understand why or how he loved Hitomi. But he did. He didn't even mean to ask for her love! It was an accident. Or was it?
Van's shoulders rose and fell as he heaved a sigh. No, it wasn't just some kind of coincident or accident. But what was it? It didn't matter. The dragon was asleep again. Hitomi's flame was growing every second. The young king spent the hours till dawn on the roof of the castle brooding.
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Selena found him sitting on the roof of his room. Very clever. No one would find him there. It was just lucky that she had chanced to look up when searching for him. She watched him for awhile, but Van remained as still and impassive as rock, and just about as hard.
He was always gazing into the distance brooding. More frequently in the last few months then after the Great War. He was way too withdrawn and quiet then he should be, staring at the same spot for hours.
Allen had said that that was Van's nature, to be withdrawn. But when he got angry there was only one thing you could do---- run. Run really fast.
"Clever. No one but me could find you here, knife friend," Selena spoke up and set Van jumping.
Selena had named Van her knife friend, a Asturian warrior's tradition, meaning that they were at each other's back always and your knife was their own and vise versa. They both knew war. They both understood. No matter what Allen thought, and however close they were they were not romantically interested. Selena never understood about Hitomi, but knew how to deal with Van.
"How did you find me?" Van asked.
"I just know you way to well," Selena retorted. Then, "You going to tell me why your up here?"
"Probably," Van said dryly.
"Well?"
Van hesitated, annoyed, "If you were a man, I would beat you to a pulp."
"But, I'm not," Selena pointed out the obvious.
Van sighed, "I know----" He paused and looked out at the almost rebuilt city. "I almost killed her, Selena." Van shook his head and look far away to a place Selena couldn't see.
"She was in agony, and I felt every damn second of it. Dillandua is going to kill her and I can't do anything about it. All I can do is watch through her head, her fear, her pain, while he finds her and kills her, if she doesn't kill herself first. It would kill me too." Selena paled and steadied her self with one hand on the shingles of the roof, but Van wasn't done yet.
"I can't bring her here to save her, because she's to powerful to be alive," Van spat bitterly. "We can't live without being on the same world because it tears us apart. So even if Dillandua didn't kill her, we would die anyway."
And loving her hurts, Van thought. "And on top of that we have someone even stronger than Dornkirk to deal with," Van snarled. Selena blinked. In three years she had never heard that many words from Van. Ten times more emotion, too. Van must be a lot more worked up than he led them to believe. It was that girl. Just the memory of her, affected the Van she knew in strange ways. What had Van told her brother? That they talked to each other?
"Well, Highness, in that case I challenge you to a mortal combat." Selena said matter-of-factly.
"What?" Van asked incredulously.
"Well, you obviously need to beat someone to a pulp," Selena said succinctly.