"Always…"
X: Girl, Interrupted
The leviship port is crowded. Too crowded. Troops that should have shipped out to Rampant already remain here, littering the dockyard in clusters color-coded by their uniforms. Some are unclear on where their orders tell them to be. Others are without any orders at all. Packs of soldiers idle by the leviships. Impatience permeates the air.
Marqesita is generating a large storm cloud of it all by herself. She should have left hours ago. She got up early to make the predawn flight. In all this confusion though, her ship was grounded and she hasn't been given an expected time of departure. This greatly displeases her, as various commanders who've made the mistake of wandering into her vicinity can attest. I volunteered to see her off to be a good friend and hostess. So far, my role has been more of a mediator, calming her down and assuring the dock master that Marqesita didn't really mean to call him a 'neimpla', whatever that is.
I understand her frustration. I hadn't planned on being here all day either. Moreover, I'm disappointed. Moving troops the short distance from here to Rampant does take some coordination but nothing on the level that a full-scale war will take. Today's confusion is not the start anyone except Zaibach would have hoped for.
Marqesita does find some relief in the form of her hobby, Alucier. Waiting must have cramped her libido as most of her comments are pointed questions about why he's the only Caeli that seems to be missing out on combat action. She's not buying into his excuse that he needs to keep guarding me. After all, neither Father, Millerna nor Dryden have Caeli bodyguards around them all the time and nobody feels like that's a breech of security.
"I'm not the only Caeli not being sent to the front," he says. "Lord Ramkin is helping with strategy and there are four others who aren't even doing that much."
"Those wouldn't be the same ones that you've complained about numerous times as being 'Legacies', would it? Really, Alucier, lumping yourself with a bunch of elderly men who only got into the order because their last names are attached to old families and large bank accounts… That's just embarrassing."
She should hear the real reason why Alucier isn't going into combat. I don't find it *that* humiliating, but Alucier's not proud of it and Revius, with Seclas' help, exploited it into a running joke that took months to die and still crops up on occasion. It must be a male thing.
"Please don't compare me to men who barely know which end of the sword to hold."
"I didn't compare you to them. You did."
"I never specifically stated which Caeli --"
"There are only twelve of you. That doesn't leave much room for other men you can pretend to have been talking about."
Knowing these two, they could banter like this for hours. I've already got the makings of a nasty headache from the crowd noise and the general annoyance of being made to wait. Alucier and Marqesita going at each other is like adding someone with a pointy stick poking me in the temple. I wouldn't really consider it betraying a confidence either, not something this silly, if I let Alucier's secret slip. It would shut him up at least.
"He can't pilot a guymelef," I say. "He's dreadful at it. Revius mentioned something about almost stepping on his instructor."
Marqesita passes over laughter in favor of patronizing him with gooey sympathy for his poor piloting skills. "It's probably a design flaw. The things aren't meant for the vision impaired."
"Not that I don't know that you're being incredibly condescending and sarcastic, but those things are hard to see out of. And the mechanisms are a lot more complex than they look."
"Of course, Alucier, of course! Move right arm, right arm of guymelef moves. I completely understand how that might befuddle you and make you fall down and go --"
The finish of that sentence is drowned out by an explosion. There's a second of absolute stillness when everyone on the dock makes a mutual gasp of surprise and then an unbearable flood of noise rushes in as several hundred people try to form an ordered reaction to an unordered event. Alucier instinctively grabs Marqesita with one arm and me with the other and hauls us both towards the carriage that brought us here. Through the chaos, his uniform commands the respect needed to clear the path.
The road leading back to the palace is steep, but the high terrain lets us see where all this noise is coming from. Plumes of smoke that are becoming disquietingly familiar rise up from the one place everyone wanted to be this morning. I don't think anyone is that eager to go to Rampant now.
We can't make out much from sight or sound but we're left with the impression that things cannot be going well for our side. The smoke is thickening; the occasional red and orange flare from what I assume to be Zaibach guymelefs is all that can be seen through the grey. Why would we be doing well? The majority of our troops are lingering, useless, back at the yard. The outcome is not made any more promising by the appearance of a dark figure in the shape of Zaibach floating fortress directly over the fight.
The palace is on full alert when we return. That means Marqesita and I are going to stay safely sequestered deep within palace walls until this is over. Marqesita doesn't utter a single complaint, perhaps the worst sign of all of how serious this is. Alucier escorts us to my room and orders us to stay put before leaving to see what he can do. In times of crisis, knights and guards outrank their charges, regardless of the regality of their blood.
"Nothing to do but wait until the smoke clears," Marqesita sighs, but it lacks the bite of a complaint.
There is little else to do. Though Alucier probably has a nice little lecture he would give us, we quickly grow tired of staring at each other and go in search of someone who might know what's going on or a spot where we might be able to discern that for ourselves. We find Millerna, who isn't much help with either of our goals. She says she's looking for Hitomi. The two had a pleasant morning of helping the laundresses and talking about something Millerna isn't keen to go into, but she hasn't seen her since.
"I'm worried," Millerna says. "Whenever anything bad like this happens, Hitomi has those awful visions."
Ever the empathetic one, Marqesita concludes, "So she would know what's going on, right?"
Millerna gapes at her but I can't really feign indignation. If it meant I could find out what's happening, I would pick Hitomi's brain too. There were some troops that made it to Rampant. The crew and commander of the Crusade, along with Van Fanel, were in that number. Add that to the fact that the group Revius was in left late last night and there are too many people I know for the too few people that are there.
Marqesita, getting the idea, lets us be and drifts over to a window. "Excuse me," she calls to us before long, "but a long pillar of white light, is that a good or bad sign?"
"Pillar of light?" Millerna repeats. "That's how Hitomi said she came from the Mystic Moon and then later to Asturia."
"Oh, sure. So much more convenient than using a leviship," Marqesita snorts. "Odd and odder, that girl…"
That would explain why Millerna couldn't find Hitomi. Tracking down a girl can be so difficult when mysterious forces are transporting her from spot to spot. Joking aside, I sincerely hope the light Marqesita saw wasn't an indication that Hitomi's been sent to the middle of the fighting.
Millerna's had the same thought. She's round the corner and resuming her search before a curious Marqesita and I can even get moving.
Hitomi is by her room, hunched over by the glass doors out to the balcony. They don't give her a good view of Rampant but the weariness on her face seems to say she doesn't need it. She already knows exactly what happened.
"Hitomi…?" Millerna asks.
She asks again.
"Sometimes it better to leave people be. Especially when they're giving you subtle hints like total silence." That's sensitive for Marqesita, but obvious enough to get Millerna to relent.
"Hitomi, if you need anything…" Millerna says to her friend. To me, she expresses a desire to find her husband. Of course, Dryden will be getting the most accurate and current news from Rampant. She'll do her duty as a supportive wife and overhear the best intelligence.
We pass Merle in the hall. She's going to get Hitomi so they can meet Van Fanel on his way back to the palace. She's doesn't care that it might be evening until any of the troops start returning. It probably wouldn't matter if it were next week.
It's not long until dusk falls. Since leaving Hitomi, I've been helping Marqesita wrangle a new flight home. Understandably to me but not so much to her, all leviships have been grounded until it can be confirmed Zaibach's no longer around. I do concede Marqesita's point that it could take forever for that to happen since Zaibach likes to fly around in invisible ships.
"No offense, but what do your people expect? Zaibach to make an announcement? We're leaving now. See, watch us go. We're just dots in the sky to you now!"
"They're just trying to keep everyone safe, Marqesita."
"I know, I know. And I'd feel awfully foolish in the few seconds I'd have left to live if one of their fortresses materialized right in front of my ship. But this is growing beyond frustrating and -- What? Another one?"
Another one being another pillar of light. I missed the first; all but the blind can see this one. The light, from just on the outskirts of Palas, extends deep into the sky, beyond it. All the way to the Mystic Moon?
Darkness chases up from the tail of the pillar to its end, taking the light and whoever was eclipsed by it to their destination. But with the length of the pillar and Hitomi's earlier silence, the who and the where doesn't really seem all that mysterious.
Even Marqesita senses it. "We're not going to go frantically searching for that Hitomi girl this time, are we?"
"No," I say. "I believe that would be futile."
"Huh. And odder still… I guess this means the wedding's off."
***
Much as I complain about it, the joy of a robust network of palace gossip is that finding the information you need is a matter of walking the halls long enough to overhear the right conversation. In the single loop I've made through the north wing (circuitous, but with purposeful stops -- I have a reputation to uphold and the second you look like you're listening is the second people make themselves hard to hear) I've learned several interesting facts. Hitomi was seen leaving the palace shortly before the second pillar of light and not since. Millerna's instinct to find Dryden was right as he convened an impromptu conference on the very objects of our curiosity. It was important enough that even the Strategos was lured out of his basement lair to attend. Details of the meeting are sketchy but Van Fanel sulked out in a state of brooding that would do Allen Schezar proud. Allen himself did not seem to be of the same mood, but it should be noted he has withdrawn to his family estate.
All that information to process and, of course, I find myself dwelling on the last bit. Allen reclaimed his family estate years ago upon his return to Asturian society, but, to my knowledge, never actually spent any significant amount of time there afterwards. He does keep a skeleton staff to maintain the manor. When he lived in Palas, the head maid, Aelia, would visit him periodically to keep him appraised of any repairs that needed to be made and the general activities of the staff but that was the limit of his involvement. He never held any functions there, never took anyone there, never spent a single night there.
So what does it mean that he's there now? Is this an expansion on what I heard at his mother's grave? He's made peace with his father, does that mean he no longer fears the memories lingering at his childhood home?
And one last question -- what does this have to do with the vanishing of the girl he cared enough about to propose to her? Is going home a retreat from this newest blow or is it a step to overcome it?
So it's actually two more questions. There's a third one lingering, but it's for me to answer: why can't I stop asking all these damned questions?
***
It's amazing the relief the familiarity of ritual can bring. The number of breakfasts I've had with my cadre of Caeli must be up in the hundreds with the number of times Revius has complained about his work in the thousands, but I'm enjoying both things this morning. I should. The beating we took at Rampant was followed by news that Zaibach has set up troops along the border. Getting all three of them here required some pulling of the strings of our overtaxed army.
"So those idiots are just standing there, watching everything burn. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get the other troops to at least panic in an orderly fashion and get to a melef myself, but I can't because apparently people from Cesario have never seen the magic of fire and are too spellbound to move out of my way," Revius rants.
"Not that you could have done a whole lot, except get burnt to a crisp," Seclas says, mournfully enough that I wonder if he witnessed that very thing.
"Yeah, you really do need the full sized guymelef to take on those Zaibach bastards," Revius agrees. "I just felt like I should have been doing something other than pulling stupid Cesarian moths away from flames. At least Asturia got to save some face when Fanel and Allen showed up and started kicking butt."
"Wouldn't the king be saving Fanelian face?" Alucier asks.
"Well, yeah, but everyone knows he's kind of with us. We were the first people to take him in."
And promptly sell him out to Zaibach. Some corrections don't need to be made, though.
"Besides," Revius continues, "It's not like you can tell he's the king of anything by looking at him. When he came out of Escaflowne, most of the soldiers were wondering how some peasant kid scored such a great guymelef. Although honestly, I can see an advantage to the attire. We're out there in these ridiculous getups all 'Whee! Look at me! I'm a fancy knight! Kill me and it'll be symbolic!' while he gets to slink around inconspicuously."
"Except for the one-of-a-kind Espano guymelef that everyone in Zaibach is out to capture, you mean."
"Shut up, Lucier, you know what I meant."
This could and probably would go on well into the afternoon, but it gets interrupted by a page delivering a message that there's another messenger out in the hall that I need to speak to. It's Asturian formality at its best.
The second messenger wouldn't know anything about that. It's Gaddes, which means that the message in question must be from Allen. I can't imagine anyone else using him as a courier any more than I can imagine what Allen wants to say to me.
He hands a note to me and leans back on his heels waiting for me to read it. It is Allen's writing and he's requesting that I meet him at his mother's grave. There's nothing more except that it's urgent I do so. "Gaddes, what do you know about this?"
"I don't think I'm the one to tell you, Princess, and you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you anyway," he says. "But it's really important to the boss. He said I wasn't to leave until you gave me a time you'd meet him."
"Being awfully presumptuous, isn't he?"
"Not like many ladies tell him no," he laughs. He's too casual for this note to be a signal of something being wrong. Yet, Allen's fiancée just disappeared. I'm receiving a summons from him out of nowhere. Something may not be wrong but something is definitely going on.
He doesn't just want me to come, he expects me to come. We did talk fairly openly on the night he proposed to Hitomi. Perhaps he's assumed that the privileges of our old friendship are still in place.
I'm in a good mood this morning. Perhaps, for today at least, they still can be. "Tell Allen I will see him this evening."
***
And once more I go to the cemetery and to Allen. Curiosity was the explanation I gave Alucier and for once, it was entirely truthful. That didn't stop him from sliding back into his old method of hearing me talk about Allen. Meaning he said 'of course', 'yes' or some variation thereof while inwardly groaning 'not again.' I can see his point. This isn't exactly unfamiliar territory. Regardless, Alucier did agree to escort me and hasn't said much more than to make comments about what kind of people would repeatedly meet each other in cemeteries.
"Most people meet at taverns or at their estates, you know. That's why people have fancy sitting rooms. So they have somewhere to sit when company comes."
"I doubt the Schezar estate is in any condition to receive visitors, especially not royal visitors."
"And a cemetery is ever so formal. True, I doubt the two of you will be lounging against the grave markers, but…"
"But you're only complaining because you know the significance this cemetery has to my past with Allen and you think I came here far too eagerly."
"If you're going to be so open and up front about the situation, I've got nothing to be sarcastic about."
"I'm sure you'll think of something."
"Wouldn't be the same," he sniffs. "Seriously though, Eries, watch yourself. I know what you've said and I believe you. I do. But old patterns, even old, bad patterns, are comfortable and easy to slip into."
"I know. But avoiding Allen in potentially uncomfortable situations was an old pattern, too. For whatever reason, he requested my company. It's common courtesy that I accept the invitation. This doesn't have to mean anything more than that."
"Fine," he agrees, but not without tacking on a warning. "Remember that. He's vulnerable which always used to make you vulnerable. So you should treat it like an audience. Just be nice and formal."
"Like a sitting room," I assure him, knowing what I'm about to ask. "But I don't think this is an audience that requires an armed guard by my side so if you don't mind, it's probably been awhile since you've visited your grandfather…"
More well-intentioned advice looks to be on the tip of his tongue but he settles for an exasperated sigh. He walks off to the section of the cemetery where his relative is buried, mumbling that he never saw the man that much when he was alive.
The Schezar plots are further up the hill. Allen, in his Caeli uniform, has already arrived. He's leaning over his mother's grave marker and when he rights himself I see that he's not alone. He's explaining something to a figure kneeling on the ground but I can't tell what. From here, I can't really see who his company is. I gather it's a girl from her slender build but she's wearing one of Allen's outfits. I remember the time when I had to borrow similar clothes from Allen and wonder who exactly this girl is and what her circumstances are.
Allen bows slightly as I approach. "Princess Eries, thank you for coming. I want you to meet someone."
The girl cocks her head back to see who Allen's talking to but doesn't add anything herself. Fortunate, since I wouldn't know how to reply. Her eyes, eyes of that rich sapphire blue that mark her every bit as they mark Chid, lock on mine and in the space of a blink an old mystery is solved and so many new ones take its place.
Allen makes the unnecessary introduction. His sister is unimpressed with meeting a princess and returns to her mother's grave marker. I rely on my standard royal posture to keep myself from gawking as Allen explains how Celena, missing for so long, came to be here in front of us today.
He doesn't know as much as he wants to, that's apparent. It was late last night. The house staff has already gone to bed while Allen stayed up to 'think on things' and Celena simply appeared. She walked into the house, dazed and weary from what looked to be a long trek through the woods bordering the estate but apparently with nothing else wrong with her.
Physically, I say to myself. She's so quiet, so intent on the ground in front of her. If she's aware that we're talking about her, she doesn't show it. Something is… off… about her, but I can't say exactly what it is or if it's just the shock of her being here and I certainly can't blame Allen for overlooking it. Miracles aren't supposed to be questioned.
It doesn't hurt to confirm them, though. "So she really is Celena."
"Yes. It's been ten years, but I'd recognize my sister Celena anywhere. The poor thing doesn't remember where she's been all this time."
"She's lost her memory?" That would explain what was wrong with her. To leave your home in the morning and return in the night but with ten years between it and no knowledge of how those years passed… 'Poor thing' hardly covers it.
It's going to be rough for her. Allen will, of course, stay by her side and do whatever he can to help her. At least he will once the looming war allows him to. It must kill him to have to leave her so soon after finding her. He's already thought of this, though. He's already planning for her care.
"Princess Eries. Take care of my sister while I'm away fighting. You're the only one I can trust her to."
Another request that assumes a positive response. It's not a false assumption. The trained diplomat in me answers, "Very well. She's the sister of a Knight Caeli. I'll take care of her at the palace."
The other aspects of me are not so dispassionate. This is so much more than a brother trying to provide protection for his sister. This is Celena: one of many of Allen's loved ones to leave him, the first to actually come back. It's a touch surreal that I am here, calmly discussing this with him as if we make these arrangements all the time. I had written off the possibility of her return long ago and thought Allen was torturing himself by clinging to it. Yet here Celena is, sitting right there, watching a butterfly. An article of faith given back to a man who was given so many reasons to disbelieve.
And I am the only one he will trust her to.
The implications of his asking, the implications of my readily given acceptance --
All become trivial with a scream. Celena hunches over, shrieking in unknown pain.
"Celena!" Allen calls to her.
There's a crunching sound, an unnatural, sickening noise coming from within Celena. I can only stare at her, dumbfounded at what can be causing this to happen to her and silently offering a prayer to the gods that it stop.
Finally, her scream deepens into a moan and she stands. Or someone is standing where Celena was. Her hair, her figure, her bearing…
Allen asks the question that's both obvious and foolish. "Are you all right, Celena?"
"Celena?" says a voice that clearly has no idea who Celena is. More horrifying, when its owner turns, I know exactly who he is. I only saw Dilandau Albatau once when Zaibach came to Palas earlier this summer but it was a lasting impression. He was the one who set fire to Palas. He was the one who cavalierly dismissed it as collateral damage we should have expected.
He is not so sure of himself now. "Where am I? What am I doing here?"
Allen's trying to piece it together too. "Are you a Doppelganger?"
But Dilandau won't answer. He keeps screaming 'Jajuka' over and over in a frantic mantra. It takes me a while to realize he's crying for help.
Unbelievably, the cry is answered. The space at the edge at the cemetery ripples and bends into the shape of a Zaibach guymelef. We had no idea it was there. It could have attacked at any time and we couldn't have done a thing.
"What!?" Allen yells in confusion while moving protectively in front of me. "Princess Eries!"
I readily fall in behind him.
Dilandau's face practically beams in relief as the pilot calls out to him. He runs eagerly to his savior, leaving Allen to cry desperately, futilely after him to wait. With another shift in the air, the guymelef, and Dilandau, are gone. Celena, if she was ever really here at all, is gone again.
So quickly, it's over. The winds created by the guymelef's liftoff settle into a feint breeze. Recloaked, I can't tell in what direction it went. There's nothing but clear sky to the horizon. The cemetery, save for a few birds and a Caeli frantically sprinting up the hill, is still. Another glorious Asturian summer day.
***
None of us is in a hurry to leave the cemetery. Allen keeps staring at the spot where the Zaibach guymelef had hidden itself, as if it would reappear and the whole scene could be replayed or reversed until Celena was once again with him. I'm having a time of it trying to explain to Alucier what happened. He's familiar with the story of Celena's disappearance and the effect it had on Allen, but the events of the past few minutes defy rationale explanation.
"Maybe it wasn't really her," Alucier says quietly to me. "Allen is closely connected to both Van Fanel and Hitomi Kanzaki. As a high ranking knight, he also has knowledge to our battle plans. This could have been a ploy."
"That is possible but it doesn't explain everything. It certainly doesn't explain how she changed from Celena into Dilandau. From what I know of Doppelgangers, their shape-shifting ability doesn't work that way."
"Some secret Zaibach technology? They can hide a guymelef in plain sight. Who's to say they can't make a person look like somebody else?"
"Folken Fanel," Allen says abruptly. "He worked with Dilandau. He knows about Zaibach technology."
His next step decided, Allen can't get back to the palace to confront the former Strategos fast enough. He's on his carriage and driving it away so quickly that Millerna and Dryden are coming out to greet me when Alucier finally stops ours behind his at the palace.
"I get the feeling that there's something I should know," Dryden says. "Allen comes into to my office demanding to know where Folken Fanel is, but he won't say why he needs to know except to ask you."
"It's…complicated. But where is Fanel anyway?"
"Out partying at the docks," Dryden says wryly, "Or in his dungeon/lab where he always is."
The dungeon/lab better be spacious. Millerna insists on coming with me, Dryden too. This has riled his curiosity and a curious Dryden is one of the more determined creatures on Gaea. Only Alucier defers to Allen's privacy, or at least pretends to, volunteering to move the carriages out of the way while signaling to me that he'll be available for discussion later.
I assume Allen's been through all the basic opening questions because he's already at the meat of the conversation when we three arrive at the lab.
Fanel doesn't look shocked by the line of questioning but I doubt he would show any emotion if Allen decided to do this interrogation at sword point. "Dilandau…" he intones. "I'm sorry but I don't know much about his past. But it seems certain that the Sorcerers are behind him."
"Sorcerers?!" Allen exclaims out loud as I ask the question mentally. Zaibach uses some sort of magic? Is there anything that empire won't resort to?
"Zaibach's scientists, who answer only to Dornkirk himself. Rumor has it that, in order to change a man's fate, they performed experiments on live subjects. They used kidnapped children."
All the pieces of the puzzle fall neatly, horrifically into place. Celena was kidnapped and taken to Zaibach. That's why no body was ever found or there were never any ransom demands. Zaibach had other goals. They changed her, forced her to become another person entirely. It's not surprising Dilandau acted as crazed as he did. He is what Zaibach made him to be - their perfect specimen, built over the buried soul of an innocent girl.
"They experimented on people?!" Allen cries. "Celena… Celena, she's…" He can't finish. He can't say what his sister has been turned into.
Dryden snorts in disgust. "This is sick. How could a human being do something like that to a child? What kind of world is this?"
"Dryden…" Millerna says softly.
"With Dilandau reverting to his original body and back again, the process has obviously become unstable, indicating that the effects of Fate Alteration are far from permanent," Folken says, offering a seemingly rare bit of compassion. "They could possibly be negated."
"Would you know how?" I ask.
"No, but I know of those who likely do. The Sorcerers generally stay sequestered at Zaibach's capital, safety locked away in their laboratories. Should you and your allies win the capital, you will be able to take them alive."
"Thank you."
Fanel declines my gratitude but offers another piece of advice to Allen. "Dilandau will not be kept off the front lines and he has many enemies. You should seek him out and neutralize him before anyone can exact their revenge."
Allen eyes widen. "Van…"
"Among others," Folken says but even I know of Van Fanel's reciprocated hatred for Dilandau. It could be disastrous if Allen found Dilandau after Van had gotten to him and not just for the two Schezars. Even if Van should win, if he found out after the fact who exactly it was he had killed, I don't think the young king has grown bitter enough to be able to forgive himself.
That might be the source of Folken Fanel's sympathy for Allen. He knows the desperate drive to protect a younger sibling.
"We can have Van restationed to keep him away. And Allen, you'll still be on the front line and Scherazade is one of the fastest guymelefs there is," I say, parroting information Alucier and Revius once fed me. "You'll find her in time."
Millerna chimes in with her agreement. Folken Fanel merely nods at Allen before retreating to the recesses of the lab. Dryden's still too angry at what Zaibach's sorcerers did to offer much support.
And Allen… He's simply learned too much, faces too much of a task to be able to do anything but try to absorb it all without it crushing him. Not exactly his forte.
I take his arm to at least get him away from this lab. "Come on, you'll need to be rested for tomorrow."
"Tomorrow… right…
Celena…"
***
I feel like a shepherd leading a lost and disoriented lamb taking Allen to his room. He's lapsed into silence since last uttering his sister's name and his body seems to have fallen into the same stupor. I have to walk with one hand on his back and the other clutching his arm, while he responds to my guidance automatically. Push a little on his back, he moves forward. Tug a little to the right, he turns right. Step after step until we've put the Strategos' lab behind us and reached… what exactly?
These are the quarters Allen used before he returned to his family's estate but I don't know what to do now that I've gotten him here. Go to bed early and get some sleep, Allen. What happened to your sister will seem less horrifying in the morning. Hardly. Sleep, if it ever comes, won't erase what we saw at the cemetery or anything that Folken Fanel said. I wouldn't wish the kind of nightmares that both could create on anyone.
I know better than to offer him any drink. He's tried that remedy before, upon learning of Marlene's engagement, to bad results. If I hadn't pulled him out of Tuvello's before he could drink himself completely stupid, if I hadn't dragged him up the stairs into to my room before his commanding officer found him, if I hadn't told him to see Marlene one last time to sort things through…
I wouldn't have a five-year old nephew for one thing. Gods, it actually has been that long. I've let six years pass full of promises and decisions to say this to Allen, to be that to him and it's all come round again, right down to me trying to carry him away from his pain. Alucier was right. The old cycle that I ended a friendship to escape never really stopped; it just swung a wider loop this time in trying to bring me back in.
I know how the circle moves. The spaces between hope to disappointment to hope again stretched long this time, but it's still on the old, too-worn path. I suppose the only way to end the repetition is to break away from it entirely, to refuse to follow Allen's lead, to walk away again.
The cost though, to Allen, especially tonight, is too much. I thought Hitomi Kanzaki would take over this role, but she's gone. The hope Celena's reappearance created is gone too, replaced by a greater despair over what happened to her.
Yet, really, in the end, wouldn't either girl just be taking the same place I held? Celena for Hitomi for Millerna for me for Marlene, all the way back to his mother, I guess. The ideal practitioner of chivalry - he needs to protect the women around him because he needs them to protect him in return. How much safer he would be if he learned to protect himself. So much easier, too.
And yet still, I feel like I should do something. A draught from the palace doctors might get him the dreamless sleep he needs. I offer to get one for him but he refuses. "Princess… Eries… If you could just stay for awhile…"
I well remember that pleading. I well remember my typical response to it. Old, comfortable patterns and all that. So what is worse? Being overly cautious or not cautious at all?
"Allen, I don't…. I don't know what more I can do for you."
"I don't want you to do anything except stay."
I can see him under different circumstances charming women with a similar line. Delivered by a smile, and perhaps a slight caress of the arm, a canny woman would melt under the allure even as she realized the basic premise of the line was bunk. It's even harder to resist when there's no smile, no intimate gestures, just the raw, basic need to not be alone.
"All right, Allen, for a little while."
He thanks me, clears a bedside chair of his spare uniform for me to sit in and then settles at the edge the bed. The moons are on the rise, pouring light into the room and almost making the wall sconces redundant. It's an ideal setting for a quiet, intimate talk that neither one of us moves to exploit for long minutes.
"I could have the kitchens send up some food, if you'd like." Another banal suggestion, I know, but something has to fill this room other than the silence of his thoughts.
"No," he whispers. "That's not necessary. We… Celena and I… we ate before we came to meet you. Can you believe that? We actually used the formal dining room. It was just some bread and meats, but that's what you're supposed to do. The family of the estate takes their meals together in the formal dining room."
"I can't imagine how good that must have felt, to be able to be with her even for something so mundane."
"That's what made it so good," he says. He's more animated now. He wants to talk about this. "Celena was back and we were doing something so normal, as if we had been doing it all along, as if neither of us had ever left even though it had been so long. Before, the idea of living there, in a family estate that has no family, I couldn't stand it."
"I remember how little you went there, how you talked about it even less. I was surprised to find out that you had gone there yesterday."
"To be honest," he sighs, "I was surprised by that myself. "But after Hitomi went home, I wondered if I should do the same thing myself."
I expected to hear some kind of pain in his voice when he said her name, or at the least some kind of bitter acceptance. Instead, there was genuine warmth. It's unusual for him and worth exploring, especially if it keeps the topic off Celena. "You must miss her…"
"I do, but it's best for her to be back home. She's safe there. She's with family and friends."
"But I thought you wanted to be her family. You love her."
This actually draws a small smile from him. "I do, just not quite in the way I thought I did. She's a special person, a good friend. I wanted to protect her."
"So that's why you proposed to her?"
"Partly, and partly because I thought I could be happy with her. I probably could have been. I don't know. It seemed so simple when she was here but once she left, once I started thinking about what that meant to me, I realized more than anything, *I was happy for her*."
Or you were able to rationalize that loss better than the others. Something tells me that isn't it, though. Allen had the scapegoats of his father, the excuse of societal rules and his duty to cover everything from his mother's death to Marlene's marriage to Mahad. He didn't accept events so much as explain them away and deny how much they truly affected them. He could be doing the same thing here, but it doesn't quite feel like he is.
"What would you do if she came back? Would the proposal still stand?"
He looks at me quizzically and I realize just how long it's been since I've delved into his life like this. "Hitomi never did give me an answer. I think she knew. She knew how I really felt because she probably feels the same."
"So there is a woman out there capable of resisting your charm." Gods, where did that come from?
"Not too many," he says and the small smile returns. "And she might have fallen for the charm of another. I know he has for her. You should have seen Van when the pillar of light took Hitomi away. It was like a piece of his soul was being torn out of him."
"I heard that he was upset, but I didn't know the extent of it."
"He'll be all right. I imagine Merle is with him. She understands him more than you would think."
"Considering she's practically attached to his arm, she should have spent enough time with him to learn every last thing about him."
"They've known each others for years. That kind of history bonds people."
It does, more than I've been admitting to myself. I've placed so much importance, for both me and Allen, on moving on that I've never considered that it didn't have to mean moving away. People change, people grow. My qualms with Allen were that he refused to do either, but that doesn't seem to hold true anymore. Old Allen would never have let Hitomi go, either with such ease or affection. I don't know if Old Allen could have even survived the cruel taunt that was Celena's reappearance. At the least, he'd be obsessing on it, spending the night plotting strategies, no matter how reckless they might be, to get her back. Old Eries would have probably stood by with her mouth shut while she fumed over the fact he wasn't acting exactly like she wanted him to act and mentally pictured how wondrous and problem free Allen's life would be if he would just fall in love with her.
I'll be charitable and say I wasn't quite that absurd, but I was close. I worried so much and for so long over telling Allen how I felt about him that I missed the obvious outcome. If I had confessed, he would have eaten it up. Another forbidden romance would have given him years of brooding material and I would have been right there brooding away with him, wondering why my love hadn't yet transformed him into Perfect Allen and using that to fuel doubts as to whether or not he truly returned my affections. What a fun couple we would have made; the cemetery would have been a far too cheerful a place for us to spend our time.
"Are you all right?" he asks after I inadvertently let out a laugh.
"I'm fine, just thinking about the past," I say.
"Something very amusing about the past…"
"Not really, but sometimes a situation will come along that's so tangled and awful, laughing seems to be the best defense against it."
"I wouldn't know," he says honestly. "Was it really that bad though, what you were remembering?"
"At the time, it seemed like the most serious thing in the world. If I were still in the situation, it would still be the most serious thing in the world."
"It's not so serious now?"
"It's…" It was a large part of my life, a large part of his. Neither one of us would be the people we are on this night without it. We went through problem after problem (and some of the problems over and over again) and it ended badly, but that's not all that it was. We went to theaters together, to fairs, to markets. We must have walked the entire palace grounds a hundred times over. I can order his favorite meal in any given tavern and he can do the same for me. Over those meals, during those walks, we talked. We talked about more than the bad times. It didn't matter if it was a shared interest or an interest only one of us held but the other discussed anyway because they knew it was important; we could go on and on. And when we were going over the bad times, I took comfort from it. Even though it turned out to not be enough, I believe Allen took some too.
"It may not be the most serious thing in all the world, but it's important in mine. The difference between now and then is that I can look back a little more objectively and see everything for what is really was."
"I see," he says and I think that might actually be true. I've been vague but there's only so much of my past that he isn't a part of. "I know how perspectives on things can change. My past with my father hasn't changed, but I can think of him without any anger. I still think he was wrong to leave us, but I understand why he made that choice and I know that he regretted it."
"That must have been an amazing gift, to be able to see him again and come to that understanding…"
"He'd been gone for over ten years and I was able to find him. I never thought I was going to see him again; I didn't want to see him again. Yet his spirit wanted to see me so much, it clung to that place, waiting and hoping that I'd come."
"And you did. Maybe more by accident than anything but in the end, you were able to find him."
"Fate is such a strange thing," he says as he gets up from the bed and begins to pace. "Hitomi got her pendant from her grandmother, who got it from my father. Without the pendant, we never would have made it Atlantis. Without Hitomi, I doubt I would have been in any condition to reconcile with my father. If we hadn't reconciled, I wouldn't have been able to go back home. If I hadn't been home last night, I wouldn't have seen Celena again."
I knew we would come back to her. You can ignore the elephant in the room for awhile but eventually, someone's going to bring it up and demand something be done to take care of it.
Allen, at least, is being as optimistic about her as he was with Hitomi and his father. "It shouldn't be that hard to find her tomorrow. I've only ever seen one red guymelef in Zaibach's entire fleet. The trick is to find her and before Dilandau can do too much damage or anyone can do damage to him."
"You're still worried about Van Fanel, aren't you? We'll have to check on having him posted away from the front tomorrow morning."
"Assuming we can find him," Allen says. "He doesn't come to the palace often. He doesn't have a commanding officer. He *is* Fanelia's army. But I can't worry about that. Celena is my priority."
"And when you find Dilandau?"
"I'm not sure. I'm hoping it's like Folken said: the process that made him is unstable and Celena will be able to assert herself or…something. Gods," he hisses, "I don't even know how this works."
"I wonder if the sorcerers that did it know either. To tamper with a human life like that, they have to be lacking something in their souls."
"If they have any at all. But whatever it takes, if I have to deal with Dilandau until I can find a way to bring back Celena, I'll deal with Dilandau. The crew of the Crusade will stick close to me. They know how to move quickly and keep silent once their work is done. They can harbor him until the fighting's over."
So he is spending the night plotting reckless strategies after all, but not quite how I imagined it. Few things about this conversation have been as I would have imagined them. I like this new Allen. I saw the little changes in him and wondered how deep they really ran, how long they would last when they were challenged. And here he is, shoring up plans to save his sister calmly, logically and resolutely in terms of a positive outcome. What's the old joke - who are you and what have done with the real Allen Schezar?
I don't laugh out loud this time but Allen stops planning long enough to question my amused expression. "Laughing about the past again?"
"No, the present. This has been an…interesting…evening. Different from the talks -"
"- the talks we used to have."
"Yes."
"Better, right?"
"Definitely."
"For one, you haven't walked out the door yet."
"Allen, I - "
"You don't have to explain. I know why you did it. I all but escorted you to that door. You warned me about Millerna and I didn't listen. You warned me about a lot of things and I didn't listen. I couldn't. Not then."
"You're not wholly to blame, Allen. I kept things from you; I kept them from myself. I had a very clear vision in my mind of who you could be and I had no right to be angry with you for failing to live up to it."
"But you had every right to walk away if the person I was was hurting you."
"Well, yes. That's true."
His apologies come to a crashing halt. A bit wounded but in a playful manner that erases over a year of chilly formality, he asks, "Weren't you supposed to defend me? Say something along the lines of 'I was hurting myself'? Or dispute that I hurt you at all?"
"You wish for me to lie to prop up your ego?"
He's instantly back to being serious. "No. I don't want you to protect me anymore. I shouldn't expect you to. You shouldn't feel as if you have to."
"That won't stop me from wanting to. But I have to learn how to better walk the line between helping a friend and forcing help upon a friend."
"Now that's how it's supposed to go. I pick myself apart; you pick yourself apart."
"Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. I know I'm a picky person, but that takes it too far."
"A pun? I haven't heard a pun from you in… In a very long time. Too long. I've missed this."
"I haven't. Alucier and Revius banter on like this all the time. Seclas is the one that makes the puns though - "
"Eries…"
"I have missed that."
"I missed you."
We never could banter very long without sliding into more profound talk. Somber conversation for somber people. Maybe we can work on that this time around…only later.
Right now, candid, heartfelt admissions are bringing a deeper joy to me than any amount of larking about ever could and I have one of my own to make. "I've missed you, too."
He hesitates, briefly but with an endearing awkwardness from someone normally so suave, before pulling up from my chair. It's debatable who hugs the other first. He folds his arms around me and I sink against his chest with a feeling that's familiar, yet new and better than in any time in the past.
We hold each other. Two friends reuniting, nothing more and nothing less, and for the very first time since I first laid eyes upon him, I don't want anything more. I know this. I know it just as I know I was foolish to ever think I could divorce myself entirely from Allen simply because we aren't bound by blood. We have our history. Pocked by tragedies and misunderstandings, but it's ours. It doesn't need to be rewritten. We were friends. That's all we needed to be and if that's all we ever are, I can accept this.
Embracing doesn't erase the past few months of separation and I don't want it to. We are not the people who fought over his actions with Millerna, but without them, we could not have grown into anything better.
There is one thing that is unchanged, another thing I know. I do love him. I do, but to quote Allen, just not quite in the way I thought I did. It's not the one-sided, insecure love I felt for him in the past. That wasn't good for either of us. Instead, it's the simple love of knowing he is the person in this world I am closest to and I am the same to him. The love I always had from him, but never thought was enough.
What wonderfully stupid irony.
"Eries, not that I mind, but what has you laughing this time?"
"I just realized that all I ever needed and what I want now is what I already knew I had but used to think was what I never wanted."
"I will take your word for that."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spoil the moment. Or be so inarticulate."
"No, it's fine," he says. "You made this moment. I was still in shock when you brought me here. I kept thinking of Celena, Dilandau and what Zaibach must have done to her to change one into the other. I didn't know whether to shut down or try to make some sense of it. And I remember how we used to talked…and you there you were -"
"Because you asked me to stay."
"You didn't have to."
"And you didn't have to ask me. But you did. And you didn't have to be so open about Hitomi. But you were. And so on and so forth. To be more accurate, we made this moment."
"We. That does sound better, but I do know what you meant earlier, no matter how poorly you stated it. I could have been miserable tonight. I could have wallowed in it and tortured myself with images Celena and Dilandau. I didn't. And tomorrow, I can go into battle knowing I will find my sister. You see," he pauses. "I've gotten my father back. I've gotten you back. I will get my sister back."
So pleased am I with by Allen's optimism, I hardly notice a third source of inspiration. Yet again, Asturia bears witness to that white pillar of light. It's briefer than the others and somewhat further off in the distance but its meaning couldn't be clearer.
Allen, his left arm still around my shoulder, smiles at the sight. "It looks like Van got Hitomi back, too."
***
Took me long enough, didn't it? Many apologies and thanks for your patience (and Ron and his Sakura's persistence ^_^). Props to RahS for the donation of the chapter name as well. Originally I made the pun 'Sister, Interrupted' but this chapter is much more about Eries and Allen's reunion than Celena so now the pun refers to this story's prequel.
Next up - One last and (mostly) happy chapter and it's a wrap. 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Energist Bomb.'