Disclaimer: Tenkuu no Escaflowne is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, or any legal proceedings concerning Tenkuu no Escaflowne. This story has been written purely out of enjoyment, and is not intended to make a profit, steal ideas, or offend anybody. Any similarities between my work and anyone else's is purely coincidental. "Anywhere" song lyrics are property ofEvanescence, all rights reserved.
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"Anywhere"--Chapter 1: Anywhere
By The Last Princess of Hyrule
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"Dear my love, haven't you wanted to be with me?
And dear my love, haven't you longed to be free?
I can't keep pretending that I don't even know you,
When at sweet night, you are my own, take my hand,
We're leaving here tonight, there's no need to tell anyone,
They'd only hold us down, so by the morning's light,
We'll be halfway to anywhere, where love is more than just your name,
I have dreamt of a place for you and I, no one knows who we are there,
All I want is to give my life only to you, I've dreamt so long,
I cannot dream anymore, let's run away, I'll take you there,
We're leaving here tonight, there's no need to tell anyone,
They'd only hold us down, so by the morning's light,
We'll be halfway to anywhere, where no one needs a reason,
Forget this life, come with me, don't look back--you're safe now,
Unlock your heart, drop your guard, no one's left to stop you,
Forget this life, come with me, don't look back-you're safe now,
Unlock your heart, drop your guard, no one's left to stop you now,
We're leaving here tonight, there's no need to tell anyone,
They'd only hold us down, so by the morning's light,
We'll be halfway to anywhere, where love is more than just your name . . ."
-Evanescence, "Anywhere"
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The halls of the floating fortress Delate were cold and empty, and Dilandau Albatou felt the same as he walked along them--cold, empty, and alone. He hated being alone. He couldn't explain exactly why, but for some reason he simply hated the memories of it. Or was it the lack of memories? If there wasn't anyone else around him, his memories somehow became scattered and inconsistent.
As he wandered the corridors, Dilandau tried to figure out what he had been doing before he started walking. He remembered the dank gray room he had left, with the drab metal furniture, and the cold, impersonal feeling it gave him. At one point he remembered a bottle of red wine and a glass brought to him, but he couldn't recall drinking any. Then ahead of him, Dilandau could hear two voices.
"All the maintenance work going on in the aerie is supposed to be done within the next couple hours," said one soldier.
"You can't be serious," replied the other. "We'll be in Rampant that soon?"
"According to the general."
"Shit. I don't think they'll have all the 'melefs done by then."
Dilandau decided to follow them, and found himself at the entrance to the hangar, nicknamed the aerie by the soldiers of the Delate, who liked to think of themselves as predators of the skies. He got a strange feeling of dejá vou as he entered. He couldn't remember being on the Delate before, but the hangar's design looked strikingly familiar. Maybe the Delate was a copy of the Vione during concept stage, or something like that.
The hangar was full of activity. The fortress's mechanics were busy repairing thousands of guymelefs, checking the equipment and weaponry to be sure everything was in top form for the upcoming battle. The Delate was on its way to a location on the Asturian coast where Alliance armies were said to be gathering. The soldiers on the fortress were in a frenzy to be ready, and Dilandau seemed to be the only person in the aerie without purpose or haste.
"If these damn things aren't all running in eighty-five minutes, we're all going to be seeing just how well those pilots can fly without their machines," a scowling middle-aged man shouted at the mechanics as he and a group of younger soldiers hurried by. They passed Dilandau without even acknowledging his presence.
No one in the aerie paid any attention to him. On the Vione, the crew treated Dilandau with the utmost respect, but here, no one seemed to even notice his presence. He had lost his purpose in the Zaibach army--a failed ploy in a mass of military strategy soon to be forgotten completely.
So absorbed by his thoughts, Dilandau almost walked right past his own guymelef without noticing it. He stopped and stared at it. The Alseides had been well repaired from its last encounter with the Dragon. That day . . . Dilandau pushed the memory out of his mind. Of all the things to remember, why does it always have to be that day? Those were some events he wouldn't mind forgetting.
There was no activity around his guymelef as Dilandau looked critically over the repairs. A new firing apparatus replaced the old damaged one, and the crushed parts of the frame had been enhanced with a more durable steel alloy. The flying mechanism had been repaired, and a new stealth cloak installed.
Dilandau leapt over the walkway rail into the open cockpit. Inside, a technician had been at work on the controls, which no longer showed any signs of strain of the last battle.
The cockpit closed with a quiet whoosh, and the locks holding the red guymelef in place released. The doors on the opposite end of the hangar were open where other guymelefs were going in and out on test flights. Dilandau followed some out, toggling the flight capacitors, and taking off straight into the night. No one followed.
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Later that night when Hitomi was back inside the palace, she locked herself in room without eating or talking to anyone. The people who saw her come in thought this looked strange, considering Hitomi was not a characteristically moody person, but ignored it.
Sitting down on her bed, Hitomi pulled her pendant out of her pocket and turned it over in her palm. When she had finally managed to stop crying, Hitomi found herself telling Folken everything, though she wasn't fully conscious of the decision until she started talking. Why she told to tell him rather than anyone else remained a mystery, but for some reason, it just made her feel better.
Even now, Hitomi couldn't make sense of it. She had had no trouble telling Folken what was bothering her, yet she was reluctant to tell Allen that afternoon when she had the chance. Why was it so much easier to tell things to Folken than Allen? I love Allen. When you love somebody, you're not supposed to be afraid to tell them anything. She shook her head. Then why couldn't she do it?
Hitomi sighed and flopped back, dangling the pendant above her face. Folken had mended the broken chain in the courtyard. The repair was so precise it took her almost a minute to find it.
Folken had done a surprising job with it; Hitomi remembered watching incredulously as he worked. Even in the darkening twilight with the inhibition of his artificial right arm, he somehow managed a craftsmanship she hadn't thought possible from the best jeweler on Gaea. Maybe that was the answer--his right arm. Perhaps it was capable of the minuscule details a clumsy mortal hand would have struggled with.
Hitomi closed her hand around the stone, and rolled over onto her stomach so that she was facing the large bay windows and balcony annexed to her quarters. They gave her an excellent view of the harbor, and beyond that the ocean, its softly rolling waves splashed with moonlight. It was misleading in its beauty.
Beneath that peaceful surface were countless sunken ships and rotting carnage wreaked from eras of war, its most recent addition the wreck of the Vione. Somewhere within its submerged walls were the bodies of Naria and her sister. Hitomi closed her eyes, trying not to think of the silver cat-woman she had befriended. They died because of another one of my stupid mistakes, just like everyone else.
How many more people would suffer from her bad judgment? How many more of her foolish mistakes would result in death? How many more times would her powers run amok and cause so much pain?
Hitomi folded her arms out in front of her and laid her head on them. For a long time she stayed like that, staring out at the ocean lost in thought.
She was so deep entranced that it took a moment for her to notice the timid knocking at her door. Hitomi got up and opened it. On the other side was the trembling maid who had offered to wash Hitomi's school uniform earlier that evening. It was clean and folded in her arms, and the girl held it out to Hitomi with her head slightly bowed.
"For you, my lady," she said, unable to hide the quiver in her voice. "Washed, as you requested. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Hitomi took the clothes. "No, I'm fine, thank you," she replied, slightly taken aback by the maid's timid behavior, and closed the door without waiting for a reply. She walked back to her bed and sat down, starting at her clothes, the nervousness of the maid still etched in her mind.
How long are people going to be so scared of me?
What a frustrating vat of suffering the city of Palas had become. The same problems rolled over and over in her mind. Hitomi sighed. She couldn't pass five minutes anymore without something reminding her of them.
Trying to repress more thought on the topic, Hitomi distracted herself by changing into her clean clothes. Unfortunately, putting them on didn't make her feel better as she hoped.
She sighed and gazed out the window again. The Earth and its moon were still high in the sky above the harbor, but in perfect view from Hitomi's room. A sense of longing filled her at the sight of them. I wish I could go back there. For a moment, she wondered if there was anyone else on Gaea who wanted so much to live somewhere other than where they were. How lonely they must be. How lonely Hitomi was.
Am I ever going to be able to go home, or am I going to be stuck on this miserable planet forever?
"You shouldn't worry about it too much, my lady."
Hitomi whirled around. Leaning against the table was a young man around her age with yellowy-blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a charming smile. He was dressed in a blue and black military uniform that looked familiar, but Hitomi couldn't place it.
"Who are you?" she asked. "How did you get in here?" Her eyes flickered toward the door, but it was still locked.
He straightened and bowed gracefully. "My name is Shesta. I'm afraid I don't know how I got here, but it wasn't through the door." He frowned. "One minute I was sleeping, the next I was here."
Shesta took a step away from the table, and the candlelight caught his face. That was when Hitomi noticed something strange about him. The candlelight didn't seem to cast any shadows on his figure--it filtered right through him.
Shesta noticed her studying him, and raised an eyebrow. "Is something wrong?"
Hitomi walked toward him slowly, her hand outstretched. She reached out to touch his cheek . . . and kept reaching. With a startled gasp, she drew back her hand. It had gone right through him.
"You're--you're not real," she stammered.
"Not in the way you're used to, my lady," he said in a voice that seemed almost sad.
"Are you . . . dead?" she asked timidly.
Shesta nodded.
Hitomi covered her mouth. How could this be possible? How could a dead soldier be in her bedroom? And most importantly, how could she actually be talking to him?
"I'm afraid I don't know that either."
Hitomi stopped. She hadn't spoken any of her thoughts. Can he read my mind?
"It seems so."
She shook her head, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "This is crazy," she said. It was just too weird hearing someone other than herself comment on her thoughts. "If you're dead, how can you be here? This has got to be a trick."
"I wish it were," he agreed. "That would at least make some sense."
"Hmm . . ." Hitomi leaned her chin against her hand. "Where are you from?" She suddenly asked. Maybe his past could lend some clues toward finding out how and why he was there, though it was definitely a long shot.
"I was a soldier of Zaibach under Lord Dilandau," Shesta answered.
"Zaibach?" So that was where his uniform was familiar from.
"Yes." He sat down in a chair by the table and looked past her out the window.
There was ruin and burning wreckage everywhere. Shesta watched as another of his comrades fell, the Dragon ripping through the guymelef's armor with its razor sword. Now there were only two of them left. How was the Dragon seeing through their stealth cloaks? It was impossible.
Suddenly the Dragon turned, and Shesta knew it had spotted him. He didn't even have a chance to move as it drove at him. He felt the sword bite through his armor. No! He couldn't die like this! He had to protect Lord Dilandau. The last thing he saw before everything went black was the final guymelef fall.
Hitomi lurched sickeningly out of the vision and back into consciousness. This pilot was one of the ones Van had killed several weeks ago, when he himself almost died, one of the Dragonslayers that served Lord Dilandau.
Dilandau. Hitomi remembered him too well--his pale skin, his silver hair, his haunting, bloodthirsty red eyes. He was the one who had been trying so hard to kill Van since she arrived on Gaea, and for no reason other than his own bloodlust.
"Lord Dilandau isn't as bad a person like you think, my lady." Shesta's gaze met Hitomi's. "He isn't anything like you think."
"No, I suppose not." She paused for a moment, then asked, "Where did you go? After you died, I mean."
"I'm not sure," said Shesta. "I remember walking somewhere, but I don't know where. Everything was foggy and confusing, and I couldn't think clearly . . . anyway, I must have gotten where I was going, because I went to sleep, and the next thing I saw was you."
That makes no sense, Hitomi thought with a sigh. This is going nowhere. She knew whom she was dealing with now, but she still had too many more questions. She was starting to get tired of dealing with people like Shesta, who wouldn't give her straight answers. Why did everything have to be so cryptic and confusing?
They sat in silence for a long time, both of them thinking. Communication between the living and the dead--it broke every rule of nature Hitomi knew. Without those rules, there was no way to explain the unnatural phenomenon. It was simply magic.
A cold breeze made Hitomi shiver, and she looked up. The chair Shesta had been sitting in was empty. "Shesta?" She got up.
There was no answer. She was alone in her room again. Shesta had vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared.
Hitomi put a hand to her head, trying to shake the confused thoughts from it. The whole idea was mad; that the soul of a dead Zaibach guymelef pilot could have been in her room, and that she had a conversation with him. Just the thought of it was absurd. Hitomi rubbed her temples. I swear I'm going crazy. All this fortune telling is starting to go to my head.
She noticed her track clothes in a pile on the floor, and picked them up. Her pendant fell out from under them. As Hitomi stuffed them in her bag, she sat on her bed, and noticed that the red stone was glowing.
She bent over and grabbed it. When she needed answers, the pendant always showed her to them. Figuring it had to work again, Hitomi held it out in front of her, and swung it. What should I do? she asked it. Instead of swinging back and forth like a pendulum, the pendant froze, pointing toward the door, as if someone had tied a string to the stone and was pulling it from that direction.
The door. The message the necklace was giving her was simple, and unmistakable, one that had been lingering in the back of her mind for several days. I should just leave Palas. If I go somewhere where no one knows me, then I won't be able to hurt anyone. With Allen, Van, and the others around her all the time, she kept bringing undesirable futures into play. Their lives would be much better if she left. She had seen it in Van's eyes many times; she was just a burden to them.
Maybe if I just left, everybody would be able to live peaceful lives, and I can find a way home.
Inspired by this thought, Hitomi slung her duffle bag over her shoulder, unlocked the door, and let herself out into the silent corridor.
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"Dear my love,
Haven't you wanted to be with me?
And dear my love,
Haven't you longed to be free . . . ?"
-Evanescence, "Anywhere"
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TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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