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. "Meant To Live" song lyrics are property ofSwitchfoot, all rights reserved.
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"Anywhere" -- Chapter 5: Meant To Live
By The Last Princess of Hyrule
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"Fumbling his confidence,
And wondering why the world has passed him by,
Hoping that he's meant for more than arguments,
And failed attempts to fly,
We were meant to live for so much more,
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside . . ."
-Switchfoot, "Meant To Live"
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Out of the cockpit of the red guymelef climbed a body; a fair-haired, pale-skinned, slender body, which pulled herself from the wreckage on shaking limbs. She was a mess, covered with cuts and bruises all over, but somehow she was able to walk.
The grassy field spread out before her like a great shaggy rug, wind rippling through it as if it was water in a pond. Extending out along the horizon was the silhouette of a vast city, its buildings dark and foreboding.
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The sky was black with smoke and dark enough to be night, though Celena knew the sky was lighter behind her, and that it was actually daytime. The buildings in the city were dark and mysterious against the scorched sky. Everything was covered with black soot belched from the chimneys of factories rising into the murky sky.
"Where are all the trees?" Celena asked aloud.
"Quiet!" snapped a man standing over her.
She and a group of other children her age were huddled together aboard a massive leviship speeding toward the center of the city flanked by a large group of soldiers. Each one was armed and in uniform, watching the children sternly and without pity.
"Where are we going?" asked one little boy.
"I'm scared," said another.
"I wanna go home!"
"Where's my mama?"
The quiet murmur of the children's frightened voices quickly became a dull roar, which only served to aggravate the guards further.
"Shut up!" they yelled. "You there, quiet down!"
Some of the children, who were not used to having such harsh words spoken to them, began to cry. But Celena didn't. "Where are all the trees?" she kept asking, her voice growing in urgency. "Where are all the trees?"
"I said shut up!"
The blunt end of a sword crashed upside her head, knocking her unconscious.
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"Where are all the trees . . . ?" the fair-haired girl whispered, walking dazedly through the field toward the town. "Where are all the trees . . . ?"
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"There."
Folken pointed to a two-story wood-and-plaster building wedged tightly between two others deep in the urban sprawl of Tenue. "It isn't the greatest as far as comfort, but it's small and relatively unknown."
Hitomi looked up at the inn, called the White-Winged Dragon. Tacked to the door was a notice asking men to enlist in the Egzardian army for the honor of the country and of all Gaea. The inn appeared to be in good condition from the outside, despite evidence that the building was fairly old, but it gave no clues as to what it would be like on the inside.
Folken saw her dubious expression and touched her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry. It'll be fine."
They went in. The interior wasn't exactly what Hitomi expected. The inn was small, of course. The lobby, if you could call it that, fit only a desk to the left and a few potted plants and wooden chairs to the right. At the end of the room was a narrow staircase, and a hallway leading back behind it toward what Hitomi guessed were the kitchens. At the desk, the receptionist was asleep.
"Wait, I don't have any money," said Hitomi. "Do you think I'll be able to barter more of my stuff for a room?"
"You won't need to. Here." Folken held something out to her in his fist, and when Hitomi cupped her hands beneath it, he dropped a pile of coins. They were all copper, just a little larger than a bottle cap, with unfamiliar writing around the face. "Fifty-five gidaru. That should be enough."
She smiled. "Thanks."
As Hitomi walked up to the counter, she found herself feeling completely confident in what she was doing for the first time since she arrived on Gaea. It was a curious feeling, and one she didn't know the source of. There was no time for speculation on the thought, as when she reached the desk, the receptionist opened his eyes. "Yes, can I help you?" he asked in a bored monotone voice.
"I'd like two rooms, please."
"Sorry, only one left."
"How much?"
"Ten for the first night, and five more each one after that."
The price sounded like reasonable. "I'll take it." They would be able to stay for up to nine more days, which Hitomi hoped would be more than enough time to find a source of income and better residence. Taking the room key, she had a feeling that wouldn't be the case.
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A piercing scream echoed across the open field, and a man fell to his knees, wailing in tormented pain. His limbs pinched together in excruciating ways, and his body felt consumed by raging fire. Everything was burning and spinning, burning and spinning, until, as quickly as it had began, the pain stopped.
Dilandau stayed on his knees for several minutes, his eyes wide with fear and his entire body shaking. His pale face had gone impossibly white and his mind was blank, utterly devoid of thought, save for his own resonant screams echoing again and again within it.
Slowly, he began to calm down and regain his senses. As he became fully conscious of the world around him, he found that he was out in an open field only five miles or so away from a large town. The sun had almost set behind the town, and storm clouds were rolling in from the north. On shaking legs, Dilandau stood up and headed toward the town.
After two miles, the clouds were directly overhead and a soft rain had started to fall, as if emphasizing the serene calm that had settled over him. But the whisper that wafted into his mind was like a jolt of lightening recalling the tension.
/ . . . Dilandau . . . /
No, Dilandau prayed. No, please, not again.
/Dilandau . . . /
I don't want this to happen again . . .
/Dilandau . . . /
/./Leave me alone././
Immediately after he spoke, he realized he shouldn't have acknowledged her.
/Dilandau! Oh, I'm so glad you're all right!/
/./Stop talking to me././
/I was so worried about you! What on Gaea happened?/
/./Nothing happened. Just leave me alone././
/Dilandau . . . ?/ Celena sounded hurt.
/./Listen. Ever since you started talking to me, nothing but bad things have been happening, and I'm sure you're the reason. I crashed, I'm lost, not to mention that freaky memory thing that happened. Just go away, and don't ever speak to me again././
/I can't./ said Celena in a small voice.
/./Why the hell not?/./
/Because I don't want to be alone, and neither do you./
They said nothing more as Dilandau walked into the town. He hardly noticed that it was Tenue, a place he had visited aboard the Vione several times, or how odd he must have looked when he arrived, a Zaibach pilot traveling alone on foot. All of his thoughts were directed solely to the purpose of trying not to think about anything, in the case that Celena was reading his mind.
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The first thing Hitomi noticed upon entering the room was that it stank to the Mystic Moon above. The air was stale and musty. A fine layer of dust covered everything in the room; from the single bed, to the two wooden chairs opposite it, to the small window looking out onto Tenue, and the door she had just entered.
"This is . . . quaint," she said. "It's not what I was expecting, but I think it'll be fine."
She threw her duffle bag on the bed as Folken came in and closed the door. It hit with a cloud of dust that made her sneeze.
"Bless you," he said automatically, looking at the window with a scowl.
Hitomi sat down on the bed, grimacing slightly. "Do you think maybe I should call housekeeping?"
"Housekeeping?"
"Never mind."
Folken unlocked the window, pushing it open, and a rush of clean, cool air wafted into the room.
Hitomi breathed in deeply. "Thank you, that's much nicer." She pushed her bag off the bed and pulled down the covers. "I think I'll shake these out, if you don't mind."
"No, go ahead." Folken stepped aside as Hitomi rolled one of the sheets around her arm. He looked around for a place to sit, but seeing that everything was covered in dust, decided to stay standing instead.
Hitomi hung the sheet out the window by one side and beat it against the wall of the inn, releasing monstrous clouds of dust into the air. Hanging above the rooftops outside were Gaea's two moons, which seemed to be ever-present in the sky. The Mystic Moon was as alluring as ever, and Hitomi couldn't help staring at it longingly as she shook out another blanket.
Folken noticed. "Do you miss your homeland?"
Hitomi turned to him. He was watching her intently, not studying her, or appraising her, or measuring her up in any way--just watching in the interest of her answer.
"Yeah," she said. "I miss it a lot." She turned back to the window and continued shaking the blanket.
"It must be hard," Folken went on, "to be away from your friends and family for so long."
Hitomi, who had fallen again into her own self-pity, failed to notice the sadness behind his words. "It is," she said. "I want to go back there someday."
"I hope your wish comes true." Folken sat down on the bed. "I hope your friends and family will still be waiting for you, and that they haven't stopped caring about you. I hope everything is the way it should be when you return."
As she heard these words, Hitomi felt the sentiment in them, and suddenly realized what two meanings Folken had given them. Her heart began to ache.
"Maybe," he offered, "if you wish hard enough, you'll succeed."
Hitomi pulled in the blanket from the window and turned back to him. Folken was no longer watching her, but looking down at his hands, both lying in his lap palms up. The left, with its cold tallow skin, was a reminder of everything he had lost in Fanelia, and the right, with its icy steel and rigid perfection, was a reminder of everything he had done to destroy that home. How was it that two such parallels could be part of the same person?
Somehow, he sensed her watching, and looked up from his melancholy trance smiling. "Tell me, what was it like on the Mystic Moon?"
"Well, it's a lot like Gaea," she said, gathering the bed sheets in her arms and piling them on the bed. Folken stood as she did this, and moved over to the open window again, leaning against the sill. "Except that the buildings are a lot taller and the technology is more advanced."
"How so?" he asked with interest.
"Well . . . here, I'll show you." Hitomi abandoned the bed making and picked up her bag, shaking out its contents into a pile on the lumpy mattress. From the mess she grabbed her CD player and held it out to him.
Folken took it. "What is it?" He turned it over in his hands and examined it.
"It's a CD player." Hitomi smiled smugly, and he gave her a look.
"It's a machine that plays music," she explained as she reached out and righted its position in his hands. "I suppose it's a lot like a mechanical minstrel. It plays these things called CDs." She opened the CD player and took out the CD. "All the music is on this disk. No music comes out if you don't have one of these inside." She put it back in.
"How does it work?"
Hitomi took his left hand and guided it to the 'play' button. "When you have a CD in, you press this button." He pressed it, and the CD player whirred as it turned on. With her other hand, Hitomi picked up the headphones. "And you hear the music through here." She turned up the volume so he could hear it.
"It's like magic."
"But it is science." Hitomi smiled. "In my world, there is no magic. Everything is explained by science."
"Everything?"
She nodded.
"Then how would you explain Gaea?"
Hitomi looked up at him. Folken's face was set with an expectant expression, the one she had seen just a few minutes before. It was not the desire that one of them be right and the other wrong, but a simple interest to hear what she said.
When she couldn't find an answer, Hitomi replied to him with not a look of defeat, but a confident smile. "I don't know," she said, her voice gentle and unthreatening.
But there was something Folken heard in the gentleness of her words that was not at all reassuring. Maybe it was the stuffiness of the room, or the heavy throbbing beat of the music, or the openness of Hitomi's startling green eyes, but there was something there, and he knew he couldn't stay in it any longer.
Dropping his gaze from her face, Folken handed her the CD player and backed away toward the door.
"Folken?" Hitomi's voice was filled with concern. That concern . . . He had heard it before, and he knew all too well what awaited it. There was nothing to be gained by those who cared about him, only everything to be lost. Hitomi had left Asturia to keep herself from hurting the people she cared about and who cared about her. Folken had come to Asturia for the same reason.
Folken opened the door and stepped outside. Her concern was the same that he once felt from his mother and father, from Van, and Naria and Eriya. He had returned that love to all of them, and all had died but Van, who stopped caring and saved himself. If Hitomi started to care, and Folken let himself return her feelings, she was doomed to fall, just like everyone else. If he could keep Hitomi from falling, it would not be too much. Asking for anything more and then losing her would only leave him with another hurt that could never heal.
I don't deserve anything more than just to keep her safe . . .
"I'm sorry," he whispered inaudibly. "But I won't let this happen again to anyone." He closed the door.
On the other side, Folken leaned back slid down against the door, covering his face with his hands. For an inn with no vacancy, he was surprised to find that the hallway was empty and he was alone.
Alone. He was always alone, ever since the day so many years ago when he failed to slay the dragon and become king of Fanelia. His fate, and everything he had hoped for in his life, was altered that day, while every happiness he knew and could ever experience was lost. For all these years since, he no longer knew anything that would happen to him, anyone he would meet, or anywhere he would be, except alone.
At first, he had wished for a different life, that the unfair events that befell him would change favor, but his wishes never came true. Over time, suffering and misfortune became part of who he was, and he grew used to it. But there were still times when he caught himself wishing again, only to be disappointed by the results.
This time, as he sat alone in the night chill of the drafty inn, Folken found himself wishing again. Wishing for Hitomi, that her fate would be more kind, that her life--whether she could predict it or not--be free of sorrow and despair, and that her wishes would always come true.
Maybe things could have . . . maybe we . . . I . . . no, never. I don't deserve to be that lucky.
For once in his life, Folken wanted more than anything before that this wish would come true.
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"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 . . ."
-Evanescence, "Anywhere"
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TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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