Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne or any of the characters.

A/N: Thanks again to Rai Dorian for beta- reading this and the next chapter.


--------


"So, did you enjoy your walk?" asked Merle as they were all eating lunch. She had also grown up into a very elegant cat woman. Her hair had grown almost halfway down her back.

"Yes, it was lovely. The grounds are really quite breathtaking," said Hitomi. She took a sip from her glass.

"I'm sure Lord Van was enjoying the view as well, right? Hmmm?" teased Merle.

Van blushed again.

"Yes, thank you, Merle," growled Van. As he turned to talk to Hitomi sitting next to him, he could hear Merle giggling opposite him, and could feel his face getting more flushed.

"So, Hitomi..." he said, slightly louder than was needed, considering that Hitomi was only sitting next to him. He did so to drown out the cat woman's mirth.

"Do you know that Allen, Millerna, and Dryden have to come to visit you tonight?" he continued.

"Really? That's great! I haven't seen them in ages," smiled Hitomi.

"Lord Van, are you going to tell her the surprise now?" cried Merle. She clapped her hands together.

"Yeah. There's going to be a party tonight in your honour, Hitomi. It was going to be a surprise party, but Merle thought we should give you a little warning so you would have some time to get dressed up."

Hitomi looked a little shocked and clapped her hands over her mouth. Merle, seeing the shock, got even more excited and let out a cry.

"Oh, Hitomi, it's going to be wonderful! I thought we could go and find a dress after lunch!"

She almost seemed to be jumping in her seat as she said this. Hitomi was completely taken back and looked at Van and Merle.

"Say something, silly!" said Merle.

"I can't believe it, thank you!" Hitomi gasped.

With that, they all went back eating the rest of their lunch and talking excitedly about the upcoming evening.

--------

"Good afternoon, Miss Kanzaki and Miss Merle," greeted passersby as the two young women walked down the street. They nodded back as they walked, arms linked and talking animatedly.

"So what colour of dress do you want to go for?" asked Merle. While the two of them debated this they passed a shop with a dress in the window which made them both stop in their tracks.

"Oh, wow! Hitomi, you have to get that one!" demanded her friend while pointing at the dress. As they drew closer, they could see the fine detail on the bodice. It was a simple-looking style that came off the shoulders and had no sleeves. What had caught the women's attention was the color and the pattern on the bodice. It was a deep blue with tiny little red flowers embroidered on it. When the two off them went to examine it closer, Hitomi instantly recognized the kind of flower.

"Isn't that Lover's Kiss?" she asked Merle.

Her friend nodded, a little surprised, and asked her how she knew what it was called.

"Van told me this morning on our walk." With that she pulled the one she had picked earlier out of her pocket.

"Is that a fact? He didn't happen to say what they are used for, did he?" Merle smiled.

Hitomi shook her head. "He just said they were important in the festival coming up."

Merle sniggered, at which Hitomi prodded her in the shoulder.

Hitomi pretended to be annoyed. "What's so funny?"

"You don't know what happens at this festival, do you?"

When Hitomi shook her head again Merle started to laugh and said she would explain while Hitomi was trying on the dress.

"You finished in there yet?" called Merle over the curtain.

"Nearly, so explain why you find it so funny that I don't know what happens at this festival," she replied.

Hitomi could hear Merle start to giggle again.

"First of all, it's called 'Lovers Kiss' because it's traditional to put them in wedding bouquets and to decorate a newly weds room with them. Mainly because of the colour and shape of the petals, but also because there's a superstition about them, which is why they are so important at the festival."

"Again, do you want to explain that?" said Hitomi as she unzipped the dress and stepped into it.

"I was just getting to that. Geesh, you Mystic Moon people don't have much patience."

Hitomi lifted back part of the curtain and stuck her tongue out at the cat, which was reciprocated.

"The festival is really quite romantic. It's when you get the chance to say to the one you have a crush on that you have feelings for them. It always happens with an eclipse that happens every couple of years. The light only affects that specific flower, making it supposedly glow. It's the pigment in the petals or something. Lord Van explained it to me once but it was too complicated. It's actually called the 'Twilight Festival' because of the eclipse." Merle paused for a moment, catching her breath, before continuing again. She played about with her nail file around her neck as she spoke.

"When two people proclaim their love for each other at that time, and if it's true, then they give each other one of the flowers. There's supposed to be some sort of mystic bonding thing that goes on, and then the two are 'forever joined.' Or something. I don't personally believe in the whole 'joining' thing, but I think the sentiment is lovely."

"Yeah, it sounds lovely. Have you actually seen the flowers glowing?" Hitomi asked. She pulled the zip up the back and ran her fingers down, smoothing it out. She looked at herself in the mirror, which was in the little changing room, and turned slightly to see her profile. As Merle started to talk again, Hitomi had to admit to herself that she looked really good in the dress. It felt like it was made for her. She was jarred from her thoughts by Merle shouting at her.

"Are you listening to me, Hitomi?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I said that I only remember a little of the last festival. I was really young at the time. Plus I got sent to bed early as I got pretty ill that day, if I remember correctly. So I can't really honestly tell you if they do or not."

"What was wrong with you?" Hitomi asked.

"Err..." stuttered Merle, embarrassed, as the woman shopkeeper was listening to the conversation.

"Well, you see, Lord Van and I were a little greedy and we both ate large gateaux. I was as sick as a dog. Excuse the pun!"

"And Van?" asked Hitomi.

"Oh, he got sent to bed. But only because he tired himself out playing for ages with Lord Folken in the grounds," she replied with a small amount of bitterness in her voice. She called for her to hurry up and come out as Hitomi started to laugh, as did the shopkeeper, much to Merle's embarrassment. But the shopkeeper stopped laughing when Hitomi came out from behind the curtain. Merle gave a little gasp.

"Wow. Hitomi, you look gorgeous! Lord Van is going to have a heart attack when he sees you in this! And Allen's face! Their eyes are going to pop out their heads!"

"The young lady does indeed look wonderful in the dress," confirmed the shopkeeper, as she came over to make sure that the dress was fitting properly. When she bent down to check the length of the dress at the bottom she looked up at the two of them.

"If you young misses don't mind, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation about the 'Twilight Festival.'"

Merle was fiddling about with Hitomi's long hair seeing if would be better up or down.

"Huh? No, we don't mind, what is it?"

"It's just, when you were talking about what happens when you exchange flowers...."

She paused as she stood up and checked to see if it fitted around the bust area as well. "I did that at the last festival and, well, I believe something does happen. When you do exchange flowers with someone special you get a funny feeling. It's... it's like when you eat something warm on a cold day."

Looking up at the ceiling, as though she could see the whole scene being played out on it, she blushed, more at the memory than at any embarrassment. "Sorry. Imagine a grown woman spouting things like that, but something did happen, though."

"What about the 'someone special'?" asked Hitomi.

"I think he must have felt something as well, because he asked me to marry him shortly afterwards," the woman concluded, tugging on the shoulders of the dress. The two younger women looked at each other, pretty convinced.

"I can't believe it, this dress seems to have been made for you, miss. It fits perfectly." said the woman.

"I know," agreed Merle. "You have to get this dress!"

"But how much is it, though?" asked Hitomi, wondering if shops in Gaea took her money.

"Don't worry about it. Van said that if we saw something, we were to charge it to him," said Merle. She dug in her bag for the letter with the royal seal on it, which said the exact same thing Merle had just said, only more formally.

When she handed it to the shopkeeper, Merle then had to spend the next half hour convincing Hitomi that it was okay and that Van didn't mind buying the dress. In fact, he had insisted on it. Plus the deciding fact that Hitomi couldn't exactly buy it with her 'Moon' money. When they had said goodbye to the shopkeeper and were walking back to the palace, she still felt a little guilty about it.

As they were walking back, the two of them got into another conversation, laughing and nudging each other playfully. When they walked by a little bit of woodland that was on either side of the entrance leading into the palace grounds, the hair on the back of Hitomi's neck stood up. She stopped laughing and looked around, feeling like she was being watched.

"You okay?" asked Merle as she finished laughing.

Hitomi shook the idea out of her head.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just being silly." With that, she nudged Merle with her hip not noticing the little flower she had picked earlier falling out of her pocket. Merle laughed and playfully pushed Hitomi back, and they carried on their conversation.

Making sure the two women were a good distance away, a shadowy figure crept silently out of the woodland and picked up the dropped flower. Holding it close to his chest, he made his way back into the foliage, completely soundless, merging again with the shadows.