A sleep ashen face lifts suddenly, as if to an invisible source of light, a hopeful smile stretching onto a face with closed eyes.
"Hitomi."
Pale pink lips move half a degree.
"Hitomi. Please wake up."
Eyes shift underneath closed eyelids, and as something clear and crystalline drops onto her face, she bolts up.
"Van?"
She swallows a lump in her throat warily, and searches the intangible darkness.
"Van?"
The name is repeated, quietly this time, and the endless silence titters at her.
The Girl from the Mystic Moon weaves through the days hollowly, waiting for that starch white flurry of feathers that haunts her daydreams and nightmares. And the young king will stand in her line of vision, usually no more and no less than thirty feet. Beckoning for her to come. But despite how much she trains, and how much she pleas to the Gods, he is always gone by the time she cuts that doomed invisible finish line.
Iron.
There's the smell of iron. Or copper. Some sort of pungent metal.
A head is smashed between a guymelef and a wall, and as the rubble and mayhem clears away a broken wife and son try to bring the pieces of their loved one together and failing, falling, and failing some more...
"They couldn't save him," Hitomi breathes, blinking as if awakening suddenly. Yukari looks up from stirring some sugar into her coffee.
"What Hitomi?" her friend replies, looking slightly aghast at the sudden grim nonsense.
"Oh nothing," she corrects, curling her lips into a large smile, her eyes fading just a bit more. "Nothing at all."
She sleeps poorly again that night. Not again, actually. She always sleeps poorly, lately. Cotton sheets, sweat, and skin tangle into a frenzied vision. She knocks over the glass of water on her dresser, the shattering noise her savior, waking her from the scenes that Fate had decided to fill her with. Gingerly, she picks up the broken glass in it's home of the puddle of water, and does a mental rewind. Her last memory is of a masked dark soldier holding a wine glass over Van's head.
The need to find him is stronger. She sits in the middle of her bedroom, closing her eyes.
"Van."
The faint sound of rain permeates the calm of her surroundings.
"Van, can you hear me?"
The faint outline of wings outstretching streaks across the plain walls. And then it's gone. She gives up for the day and gets up slowly, looking slightly crestfallen.
He lies on the battlefield, fingernails digging into the soft earth.
"Hitomi."
The sound of screaming men die in the distance.
"Hitomi."
The name is repeated, quietly this time, and the endless landscape sneers at him.
"This Van you speak of, he's at peace. Let go, he is fine," comes that ominous, gravelly voice. A large green plant shadows the speaker's face, and the faint ringing of the alarm clock tells them that their time is over.
She nods passively and exits the office. Yukari and Amano sit outside, waiting anxiously.
"What did the doctor say?" Amano asks, standing up quickly.
"He said that he's fine," she murmurs quietly.
"I'm sure he is fine," Yukari says, then catches the expression on her friend's face. "The psychiatrist doesn't think you're crazy Hitomi. We know that Van's really there."
"Oh," she answers distantly. "Thank you." A part of her means it.
The Fanelian Kingdom begins to officially bow down on it's knees, the previously proud banners of red, black and gold now burnt and torn. It's young king heaves his sword up exhaustedly and the sound of clashing steel rings through the air as his adversary wields his own weapon deftly. The Great War had only finished two years ago. The world was so tired of fighting... Who was mad enough to start a second war?
He fights hard, but the unfamiliar taste of utter defeat is beginning to invade his senses. Or maybe it's blood.
"Hitomi."
A heart thumps, an arm thrashes as a hand clenches a handful of cotton sheets.
"Hitomi, please wake up."
She throws herself forward, and grabs at her knees, panting heavily. Green eyes shoot open and she opens her mouth to scream.
"Van," in the form of a sob, is all that comes out. She's positive that he's there this time, but as she looks ahead the quiet shadows of her furniture and items melt together into a doubting stillness.
And then she shivers.
Gingerly, he reaches out a hand from his position kneeling beside her bed, and touches her cheek. The sensation isn't anything real, nothing physical. Yet it's there, like something disintegrating and wet gliding into her skin. His skin is ethereal, and partially see-through.
"Van?" she whispers, tears streaming down her face and scrambling to untangle herself from the sheets.
He looks at her sadly and moves his head slowly.
"Van?" she repeats, her voice rougher this time, "Please tell me you're real."
He says nothing, only reaches for her tense hands and soothes them. He lifts his left hand and looks into her eyes.
"There's been a war," he says. "They've won Hitomi. I've been trying to contact you for so long."
"Do you need my help? I can come Van," she starts urgently, and he places his fingers over her mouth. She gasps. His fingers suddenly become that familiar rough texture, but she can feel his skin crushing the sudden new texture of her lips. That bruisable, wet feeling like his skin was before.
"You can't come," he interrupts quietly, "It's over."
Her face is full of many emotions, but the clearest one is horror. She leans forward, too much, and falls unceremoniously onto the floor.
"Van," she nearly whimpers, placing her hands on his shoulders and then realizing it isn't enough to support her yet enough to make him lean and fall onto his back. Despite their age, he still blushes at the close, semi-contact.
She runs a hand over his broad chest, and the partially transparent form reveals into real, bruised skin, reverting back to the odd moon light like form it was before after she lifts her hand away. "I waited for you," she whispered, large green eyes hovering over his own dark ones.
"I know," he replies quietly. Slowly, in his embarrassed and hesitant way, his hands lift so that they rest on the small of her back. Her skin is getting warm and heated. "I meant it... That day at the windmill. When I said I wanted you... I didn't want your power--"
"I know," she replies quietly. Her bottom lashes clump together as her eyes start to fill up with tears. "Let me come," she whispers pleadingly, " I can save you."
"Hitomi," he smiles sadly up at her. "You can't."
He leans up, and as her tears fall onto his ghostly form he kisses her. Real skin melts into that smooth material, sensations melt into different degrees of pleasure, but their lips--
Their lips are both real upon each other. He is soft, she is desperate, he tastes like something bittersweet and she longs to memorize the taste forever and ever. It's their first, and the novelty of that makes her throw away that killing feeling of losing him and instead makes her concentrate on how heavenly he is.
Her hands travel over his skin, his hands grip her hips, and they can no longer tell who's skin is that solemn, ethereal quality and who's is painfully real. He is awed by her, the way she cries for him, and as she kisses him again and again...
She draws a breathless name from his lips.
Hitomi stares down at bruised lips, and she is broken to know the fact that it is not from her ministrations; it is from the battlefield. Cuts and gashes decorate his body and she has the terrible sensation of something beautiful slipping through her fingers.
"Don't."
She gently bites his earlobe.
"Forget."
Tapered, feminine fingers brush through liquid like black hair.
"Me."
More tears stain his smooth complexion, though his eyes are weary and dry, no, the tears are from her.
"I could never," she promises, and as he leans up on his elbows, she laces her hands around his neck and bites back the tears. It seems that her tears only mar his moonlike form, and it is then that she realizes even the strongest, most brightest stars mark sometimes. And that those marks can never be covered, only gently smoothed away with loving hands and kisses.
"What happens now?" she asks as even now, she is too overcome with that dawning realization to attack him with broken affection.
"What happens now?" he echoes faintly, that sad smile returning to his lips. A hand glides over her jaw line, and slowly, he kisses her, a kiss that will haunt all her future kisses to come. "You save yourself."
"Van, no, I can save both of us," she pleads with shiny green eyes that are tinged with red, and the more she cries the more the brightest star in the sky begins to fade.
The doctor leaves the office, and Yukari and Amano stand up.
"She is quiet."
"Quiet? How--"
"She no longer speaks of Van. She will be fine."
"She's not lying, she's not crazy."
The doctor blinks twice, not in rapid succession.
"Her recovery wasn't somebody who's seen the light suddenly, or an epiphany. It's not like that. She is strong, but she has only parted with this Van because their parting was broken and cold. She will be fine."
She's alone in her bed, dreaming. The shapes and shadows aren't defined, they slither through the open horizon, and she twists and turns. Sheets shuffle, her clock strikes another new hour. She doesn't know what the mystic world is trying to tell her.
She knows very little.
But everyone has to know something, and so she knows a few precious things. She knows the feeling of complete, total heartbreak as he managed, in all his broken state, to pick up that capsule of cyanide and snap it between his front teeth. She knows he did it because without his existence, seventy others will not die. His people will be no longer bound to serve and stay with him, and will maybe have a chance for freedom. He has made her understand that loyalty is both a gift and a curse. She knows what it is like to hold a stone cold body, not even entirely real, in her arms, and knows what it is like to know that you ask for very little, and are refused for the few things you request.
She knows that she loved him, and that the lone king from Fanelia had loved her too. She knows what is like to feel like the Gods do not hear you, and knows what it is like to not know what to do.
She knows what it is like to to follow the last wish of someone cherished, and she knows that with dreams... She will always have her dreams.
"Hitomi."
Lips twitch as a hand clenches a handful of sheets.
"Hitomi. Please wake up."
She bolts up immediately, and the endless silence titters at her.
A/N: So yes... I'm writing again. This is just a little one shot I wanted to get out; I'm dabbling in this other fluffy/romantic story about Van and Hitomi. My other stories... I'm in a big rut, and I don't wanna write anything too cliche with those stories, so they're kind of sitting there.
Nobody Said It Was Easy - I'm really not in the mood to write war scenes and tragic hope filled love..... But I have faint idea as to what I'm doing.
Every Moment Gets Better - Ah I know the goal but I don't know how to get there. Again, don't want it to be cliche.
Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly - Aww my baby-to-be. I have a good idea of what I'm doing, but this one is all about finding the time. It's not the kind of story I can write bits and pieces of, I need to be able to sit down and get it done.
Annnd as for all my other stories, I guess those are side projects that will be done once I get all my other ones out of the way.
I really want to thank you guys for taking the time to read and review my stories, it really brightens my day and just... Thank you. I mean it a lot alot alot.
Hope you enjoyed this one-shot, it's a little choppy and vague but yeah, I guess you have to fill some of it with your imagination.
Luff!
-CinderellaxVan