Once On A Blue Moon

AN: I am like totally hooked on Escaflowne and I've read so many fanfics that I decided to do one of my own. This is going to be a Hitomi\Dilandau story in case you wanted to know. It goes on a year from when Hitomi left Van, Allan and all of those really great friends she just had to leave, this is my first story o.k. - so no flames please, but if flames are sent I will take them and set fire to things - hehehe... OH!

Sorry I am a pyromaniac so don't mind if I write weird things like that - Dilly's my role model. So whatever, enjoy!

(This is the revamped version of Chapter One so there will be some small changes ,but bear with me please.)

Author : purplepumpkinsmasher

Disclaimer: I do not own Escaflowne but mark my words - someday I will. ( laughs wickedly and chokes on lolly)

Chapter One: An Almost Normal Life

It was a bright Sunday morning in Japan when a young girl suddenly woke up from the vivid dream that had just been playing along in her head. The said girl was not the most beautiful female to grace the Earth (though she ranked pretty high on the scale at her school), but her kindness and personality made her shine above the rest of them. Despite her average appearance Hitomi Kanzaki was no ordinary girl.

Sure she did the normal things like all the other kids at her school, like she was on the track team and she got average if not good mark in all subjects (especially sports) ,but ever since she was absent those few days a year ago she had changed and none knew why - accept her best friends Yukari and Amano of course.

None knew about what happened to her on Gaia. She had told everyone that she was visiting an old friend of hers in Kyoto for a few weeks. People were still pondering over this story for the past year or so and were still coming up with ridicules ideas of what happened to her. Some thought that she had been beamed up by aliens and experimented on, as they saw that strange beam of light, others thought that she was suffering from depression from Amano rejecting her and she had run away for that period of time, but the most ridiculous idea of all had to the one were she was hiding up a mango tree for all that time because she was to scared to come down as she saw a strange multi-coloured butterfly…Yes, there were all sorts of strange rumors that people came up with in her absence…

Only Amano and Yukari knew that she had been on another planet meeting cat-girls and wolf-men, falling in love with angels, redirecting fate, going up against an evil force called Ziabach, almost dying and a whole lot of other unbelievable things. Yeah, well that was Hitomi Kanzaki for you. A bit-above-average girl who was thrown into lots of undesirable situations and was now trying to settle down into her old life of again .

Hitomi jerked up out of bed and slumped straight back down again as strong pain shot through her head. 'Why,' she thought unhappily, 'do these dreams seem so real to me. I haven't hade any visions since I left Gaia - except ones where they show a happy Van in a rebuilt Fanalia with all his people and best friends Merle and Allen .' Hitomi was very puzzled with her most recent dream.

"Why", she murmured out aloud "did I just have a dream of Dilandau and his Dragonslayers? The other dreams that I have had that felt as real as that all meant something really important. But what does this one mean?"

Hitomi sighed as she fell back onto her bed and stared at the ceiling so as to help clear her already cluttered mind. It had already been around about one year since she had left Gaia and one year since the big war that decided the fate of Gaia had happened. It had also been a year since Van had defeated the Dragonslayers and their enigmatic captain, the man who now haunted her every thought.

Dilandau Albatou…

They were dead in reality but in her dream they had been in the flesh and blood - how could this be? Hitomi decided to forget about the matter for now and go for a quick drive so she could go buy the outfit she was dying to buy and also stop at the park to think these recent events out clearly.

She crawled out of bed and had a quick shower and got dressed. Now wide awake she ran downstairs to the kitchen and got herself a bowl of Cheerios and sat down and turned the television on and it must have been left on channel 8 as the SBS new was now playing. Before she could pick up the remote and change the channel a new report came on and left Hitomi felt drawn to this one in some way, like she need to watch this.

The most famous news reporter in Tokyo, Keito Hirigano, was sitting at his normal desk and smiling down at the audience, though the topic wasn't really one to be smiling about. "And now for our latest story, a young man was seen in downtown Tokyo running around with a traditional Japanese sword and was wearing strange blue and black clothes that looked like a kind of costume, but the Tokyo cosplayer convention isn't on until tomorrow. When questioned on the street he spoke a strange language and ran away. We do not know if this man is a threat, so please be on your guard and call 911 is you see anything suspicious."

Hitomi sighed and turned off the T.V. "Not another samurai wannabe running around madly causing a scene",she grumbled, but she actually felt as if she should know something about this strange character but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

She finished eating her breakfast and went into her room to get some paper and a pen to write a note explaining where she was and that she would be back by six o'clock if possible. She put it on the refrigerator so that if anyone came home they would most likely see this and wouldn't worry about her.

Hitomi grabbed her duffel - bag and made sure that she had enough money to buy this new top and skirt that she had been dying to get. From experiences Hitomi always took her duffel bag with her everywhere she went. She had eight sets of clothing packed as well as rations, a bit of makeup, her joggers, a sleeping bag and a first-aid kit. It seemed like a lot and it was but Hitomi knew that it was better to take to much rather that to less and she hade to be prepared for anything.

She walked out the door and locked it and put her key in her pocket. Hitomi couldn't be bothered walking to the mall so she opened the garage and hopped into her silver convertible that she had emptied her entire savings on and revved the engine a few times before reversing it onto the road. She then pushed the remote for the roller doors and they automatically shut themselves and locked. Hitomi sped off down the road heading towards the mall, not really caring if she went over the speed limit - driving was a great stress reliever for her.

She was almost there only a few more minutes and she would be at the mall. She turned in at the malls parking lots and found a park under a shady tree. Hitomi locked her car and walked into the mall and after ten minutes of searching she finally found the shop she was looking for - City Beach, it was the coolest surf shop ever. She strode casually into the shop and went to find the clothes she wanted. Hitomi quickly found what she was looking for - a dark denim Billibong mini and a red Roxy boobtube. She took them over to the desk and paid the eighty - three dollars for them and thanked the girl working at the shop.

Hitomi spent the next few hours looking around the mall in all of her other favorite shops. by the time she had finished looking around and having some lunch it was already five o'clock. 'Damn,' thought Hitomi 'I thought that I hadn't spent much time at this place, oh well I guess I should go to the park now.' Hitomi sighed and stood up. She then made her way to the car park and unlocked her car then drove off to the park.

Hitomi pulled up in one of the parks near the park. She got out and went to her favorite seat there - in one of the thick, sturdy branches of the biggest oak tree. It was a cool afternoon, especially if you were in a tree of course. Hitomi started thinking of the dream that she had had earlier this morning. It couldn't of been real unless... Hitomi's head was so overloaded with questions and when the cool breeze mixed with her weariness Hitomi could do nothing other than let sleep take over.

Hitomi woke up more confused than ever. Once again she had dreamt of Dilandau and his Dragonslayers. 'Why do I keep having dreams of them? Why? Plus this time I felt the reality of my dream so strong, almost as if it were real ! But how could this be? They can't be alive, they just can't!' Hitomi struggled with the thought then finally sat up, almost falling out of the tree in her hurry. She sighed and put her head in her arms and tried to calm down but not succeeding. She sat there for a minute, her mind lost in distant memories and thought. Hitomi was just about to jump out of the tree when something caught her eye. It was a bright light - a pillar of light to be exact.