Over the Sky

A fanfiction by Lyrael.

Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne, though I very much wish I did.

Remember, when your dreams have ended
Time can be transcended
I live forever
Remember me


The next time my eyes opened, I squinted into the bright light of the sun. It burned, and reflexively I threw my right arm upwards to block out the light. That was a big mistake, as pain tore through my chest and I heard a loud, piercing scream echo around me. Then I realized that the scream had come from my own parched throat, and my eyes stung with tears of agony. I had no idea where I was, or exactly what had happened. But as my eyes adjusted to the light, it slowly dawned on me that I was no longer on Earth.

After the pain subsided, I blinked and lifted my head. My head spun at various speeds and I felt incredibly exhausted, but the sight was worth the very effort. I was lying on a cliff overlooking a dry valley, one that I hadn't seen over five years. The memories came flooding back: everything from Nina the snake to her creepy owner. But the memories that struck me the hardest were the ones that contained feathers, and the visions of the beautiful young man who had just helped me escape imminent death on Earth.

"The dragon graveyard? What am I doing here?" I coughed, immediately making a face. There was a horrible, prominent metallic taste in my mouth. It was caked around my teeth and lips, and I gagged. I tried to spit, but I had no saliva, and my mouth was as dry as rice paper. Wistfully, I let my head drop back to the hard ground, and sighed. Behind the shadows of my eyelids, I could see Van's face, his soft smile…

Under the sun, my body felt like it was baking. I couldn't move myself far, and I knew that there was no trace of green trees and cool shade for miles around. Perhaps I had escaped death, but I was still in some sort of mortal danger. A familiar feeling of frustration settled over my stomach, one that I knew from my past days here, and in vain I tried to turn myself over to get my bearings. Red-hot pain clawed its way through my ribcage, and I used what energy I had left to hold my breath and not scream. I didn't know if I was just trying to be strong or keep myself from expanding my lungs, but the pain burned with a fiery intensity. I eased my body back to the ground, grimacing. So this was how I was doomed to die. I would meet my fated end from starvation and dehydration in the middle of the dragon's graveyard. It was either that or being eaten alive, and that was an image that I wished, as I closed my eyes against the offending rays of the sun, had never crossed my mind.

A sticky warmth began to gather under my breast. Gingerly I touched it, bringing my fingers up to my nose and sniffing shallowly. Copper filled my nostrils, and I recoiled. A dull, throbbing ached pounded under my heart, steadily and rhythmically.

'Van…' I thought, my eyes stinging behind my eyelids. A few tears leaked from the sides of my eyes, and rolled down my cheeks into my hair. 'Where are you…?'

I let my mind go black then, and I had no dreams with the exception of a short vision: crimson eyes glinting beneath raven hair, and bitter tears on my tongue.

I fell asleep for a long time while lying exposed on the hot, dusty rocks. My mind was silent, and I endured the first and only complete darkness of my life. In essence, I suppose it was like my mind had utterly shut down, but had not succumbed to the clutches of death. I was told later on, after I woke up, that I had remained in that stasis for over two weeks, not moving and barely breathing.

When my mind finally restarted, it was abrupt and horrifying. It had been calm, peaceful shadows, and nothing had disturbed me. I was in the deepest hold of a coma that was possible. But the day came when suddenly my brain decided to wake me up, and it was like being startled back to life.

It was black and then insanity; pictures of death, gore, and war clawed their gleeful way through my head, and jumbles of words and pictures followed suit. In my mind's eye I watched the deaths of soldiers during the war on Gaia; I saw them get ripped apart, all within seconds. I witnessed Folken's death about fifty times over in my head, along with the death of his younger, beautiful brother. In my head my moans of horror melted into the collective vociferation, and Van was torn limb from limb not two feet in front of me, his warm blood spattering across my body.

It was watching Van's eyes go blank with lifelessness that flicked the switch inside my skull. The unending screams of agony merged into a horrifically loud, jumbled furor of sound in my mind, and my eyes popped open. My body lurched upwards into a sitting position, and my hands were tearing at my hair and ears. When I opened my mouth, there was a horrible, dry scream ripping from my throat. The bullet wound burned like crazy, and the air in my lungs felt stale.

Suddenly my screams stopped, and I shakily lowered my hands to my sides. My labored breathing, combined with dry, raspy sobs, echoed in the small, darkened space around me.

"Where… where…" my voice sounded unnaturally thick and soft to my ears. I bit my lip against the waves of pain; the mental confusion had disappeared, leaving me alone with reality. I had no idea where I was, but someone had taken me in.

My hands were clutching at a sweat-soaked, scratchy linen blanket, and I realized that I was sitting on a rather lumpy makeshift bed. My left hand tentatively released the blanket, and slid up my stomach to where the entrance wound from the bullet was. I let out a soft gasp as my fingers made contact with tightly bound bandages; someone had taken the time to clean the wounds and stop the bleeding?

The laceration was angry and flared at my touch, and I could hear the gunshot in my ears. I was still wearing my bloodstained tank top from Earth, complete with a hole in the fabric. An amused "humph" passed through my lips.

As I struggled to keep myself sitting up, I began to make sense of where I was. The room around me was dark, but as my eyes adjusted, I began to see things on the walls and floor.

The faint outline of the door was a few feet away, and next to it was a few stacks of clay pottery. My gaze traced the unevenness of the walls, and I figured that I was in a hut of some sort. I looked above me, trying to concentrate on something other than the pain, and I could just make out something that made my heart leap within my chest. Hundreds of white feathers, all strung to the ceiling in a nonsensical arrangement, fluttered and danced over my head. My thoughts immediately went to Van, and heaviness like lead settled in my heart.

I was on Gaia, and I had no doubt of it. But as I crisscrossed my gaze over my surroundings, I felt a twinge of despair. This was obviously not Van's doing, but someone else's; and I couldn't be sure of who it was. Gaia was a relatively hospitable planet, so I began to assume that maybe I was in a village somewhere, hopefully close to Fanelia.

As my body woke up and my nerves and muscles began to tingle from disuse, the cloth door in front of me was flung open. Surprised, I heard myself squeak. The light from outside was bright, but not glaring. My eyes adjusted instantly, and suddenly I was filled with a new hope when I saw who was standing in the doorway.

"Ruhm!" I squealed, a blind delight filling my heart. I heard him chuckle, a sound that I had missed dearly.

"Well little lady," he said jovially, "it's good to see you alive and well." He tucked the door curtain behind a hook, and stepped forward into my room. I could see beyond him to the outside, and curious wolf-children peered in at me, their eyes wide and round. When they saw me looking at them, they fled, giggling and whispering to each other.

"Hitomi," Ruhm began, his expression softening as he sat cross-legged beside my bed. "We almost lost you. And for that reason I
have not yet contacted any… outsiders about your presence here." He looked at me, as if trying to see if I understood what he was communicating. I nodded slowly. Ruhm had not contacted Van.

I glanced at him, my dirty hands idly playing with the blanket. I had blood caked under my fingernails. "Ruhm… how is Van? I-I want to see him… soon…"

Ruhm smiled, his pointed fangs shiny in the daylight. He laid a strong hand on my thin shoulder. "Van is a King now, Hitomi. I have no doubt in my mind that he will come to see you once a messenger reaches him. But… other matters may keep him away most of the time. Besides," he gestured to my left. I turned and looked, and cringed at what I saw.

A large mirror had been propped up against the wall of the hut. It was ornately carved and perfect down to every last detail, but my reflection was enough to possibly crack its beauty.

I was bruised, scratched, and utterly filthy. My lip was split and swollen, and my face had been cut; there were two shallow, partially healed cuts on my right cheek. I was thin and pale from not eating, and the deep, dark circles under my eyes made me look like I was dead. My hair was matted and caked with blood. I turned away from myself, sucking in air through clenched teeth. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't summon moisture from anywhere in my body.

"Some of the women in the village have volunteered to clean you up," Ruhm said softly. "You're going to need assistance for awhile, and I mean that. You're far too weak to attempt to refuse any help either so," he winked at me, "don't try to be strong and tough, at least for awhile. You need to heal, and by the looks of this wound here, you're going to need a lot of time to do so."

What I did next surprised me – I laughed. It wasn't particularly loud, but a thin smile spread across my swollen lips. "Thank you very much."

Ruhm stood up, and absentmindedly scratched his shoulder. His eyes passed over my bloodstained tank top, and his brow furrowed, as if something had triggered his memory. It was a few seconds and an awkward silence before he spoke.

"Hitomi…" he said, his voice trailing off for a moment, "your wounds. They are peculiar, as I have just recalled."

Puzzled, I stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that according to various anatomical diagrams that our healing man keeps, whatever passed through your body should have caused enough harm to kill you."

I blinked, absorbing the information. I did remember that after being struck by the bullet on Earth, the right side of my chest had felt like I was carrying a dead weight. I hadn't been able to breathe. My mind spun as I considered the possibilities, and then I knew: the bullet had collapsed my right lung. I laid my right hand over the right side of my chest, and breathed in. And exhaled. Over and over I did this, finding nothing wrong.

On Earth, a punctured lung, if not attended to, ultimately meant death. And here on Gaia… there were no emergency rooms, no professional surgeons, no morphine… no technology. My heart just about stopped beating when the truth hit me – I should have died. But my lung was in working condition, perfect order, and there was no explanation as to why I was alive.

"Ruhm, I-" I said, looking up to try to make sense of my thoughts. But he was already gone.

Only a few minutes after Ruhm left, the village women he had spoken of appeared at my door. They were three soft-spoken widows of the pack; each with their silvery hair gathered in several braids that hung down past their knees and a gentle visage that frightened away my shattered nerves. The first, a tall wolf-woman with a husky voice and nicked ears, bowed humbly and softly introduced herself as Reine. Her eyes were ice blue and hard, but her gaze softened when she surveyed my state of being.

The other two, twins with amber eyes and a tendency to mimic each other, introduced themselves as Tela and Cela. They bowed deeper then Reine had, and remained in that position for a few strange moments. Then the twins quietly turned their backs, and Reine stepped further into my room.

"M'lady Hitomi," she said, sounding as if her tongue was having trouble wrapping itself around my foreign name, "in order to commence treatment, we require that you remove your clothes." Her statement was short and blunt, but she extended both her hands. I lifted my arms as much as I could, and to my surprise, she moved in much closer than I had initially expected. She put hands underneath my armpits, her rough palms tickling me. In a few dizzying seconds, I was lifted from beneath the security of the blanket and placed on my feet.

I stumbled at first, my legs unaccustomed to gravity's forces, but Reine steadied me. I was silent during this whole process, for Reine's stoic aura was intimidating. Tela and Cela remained with their backs turned, not moving. I stared past them, to the outside world, suddenly missing the warmth of the sun.

There was a ripping sound as Reine grasped the back of my tank top and tore it clear down the center of my back. I gasped, but a ripple of pain echoed through my chest as I did so. Reine paused, and I could feel her eyes staring at my bra. She was befuddled by the simple piece of fabric, and I was amused.

"Just unhook it," I said, turning my head slightly. Reine fumbled with the strap for a second, and then my bra fell loose in front of me. I shrugged it off and it fell to the floor, unimportant. A few seconds later, my inner voice laughed, and I felt my cheeks turning red; I was completely exposed!

My skirt slid down to the floor, and I kicked it away, still unsure of my balance. I wobbled a little bit, but as Reine firmly held my shoulders, I heard her let out an involuntary gasp.

"What's wrong?" I inquired, almost afraid to know. Reine was silent behind me, but her hand grabbed my left one, and she bent my left arm comfortably so my fingers were running over my own skin.

My eyes widened as I felt a long, thin, uneven patch of skin that ran from below my neck, across my shoulder blade, and ended just above my hips. "What is that?" I felt my stomach clench uneasily.

"It is a scar, m'lady," she said, her voice shaky. "But… there is another." She moved my hand a little further towards the right side of my back. My arm cramped a little but I ignored it, and underneath my fingertips was another scar, identical in placement and length to the other. She let go of my arm then, and I let it fall back to my side. I was confused, and my ears were buzzing. I certainly didn't remember getting injured any further…

My thoughts, however, slowed and eventually stopped as the women began to clean me up, and make me look like a civilized human being again.

A little less than an hour and a half later, fully bandaged and clothed in brand new clan robes, I tentatively stepped out into the dying rays of the sun. It cast long, oblong shadows over the village and its inhabitants, but it was the most beautiful summer evening I'd witnessed in a long time.

I felt an incredible sense of peace envelop me, and my mind finally stopped buzzing enough to enjoy the laziness of everything.

After a short bath in the nearby river, Reine and the twins had worked diligently for the past hour or so, cleansing and disinfecting my wounds with a strange-smelling salve. I drank a lot of water while they were busy; my thirst felt unquenchable, even though I drank and drank until my stomach felt like it was going to burst. The women hadn't been able to do much about the entrance and exit wounds from the bullet, but they changed the bandages before allowing me to put my bra back on. Reine had frowned slightly when I had insisted upon it, grumbling about no need for it.

The twins had worked on my hair, which had gotten a bit long within the few weeks of my arrival on Gaia. Using thin razors, they expertly cut out some of the more disgusting mats of dry blood in my hair. Tela washed my hair afterwards, using a sweet-smelling soap that reminded me all too much of Amano and Yukari.

Once I was fully clean and bandaged, they tied a loose piece of dyed purple cloth around my back and neck, and slipped me into a colorful skirt that wrapped around a few times before it was tied on the side. Then they draped a long robe around my shoulders. The geometric detail was stenciled on in red, and the fabric felt something akin to silk against my bare shoulders.

And now, as I walked through the village with Tela letting me use her arm to steady myself, I saw the curiosity spreading like wildfire. The children stood near their mothers, but sniffed the air as I walked by. I tried to keep my eyes trained on the ground at my feet, but my surroundings were just too distracting.

Among the wolf-people I could hear whispers, and I knew what they were saying, for there was no doubt in my mind that Ruhm had informed the adults of his human guest.

Tela and Cela led me to a clearing that was on the other side of the village, but I never paid attention to where we were going; instead, I was analyzing everything I saw.

The village where Ruhm and his people lived was easily about half the size of Fanelia, if not a little bigger. It was organized into streets of huts and small shops, and some of the streets were lined with young trees. Children played in the streets with balls and sometimes I could catch a glimpse of a game that involved a hoop and a petrified rabbit-looking creature.

I sighed, taking in everything that surrounded me. We passed many fruit and meat stands, where transactions took place in a friendly, street-market atmosphere. It reminded me a lot of Asturia's market, which had always been bustling with activity. I closed my eyes for a few moments when my memory drifted across the city and the recollections that I had spent the last five years erasing from my mind.

I did think with fondness of Allen Schezar from time to time, but only of his companionship. After a while, I stopped thinking of him, as I had with most of Gaia. My thoughts had only stayed with the most important person to me, and he was far away in Fanelia.

Though we had only been walking a short time, my legs had grown very tired. It was harder for me to keep my balance with every passing second, and I started to lean more on Tela.

"M'lady?" she said, her amber eyes flickering to meet my gaze. I managed a weak smile.

"I'm tired, is all." My voice sounded exhausted to my own ears, even though I had spent the last two weeks sleeping.

Tela nodded, and turned her eyes straight ahead again. "Don't worry, m'lady," she said, gesturing with her free hand. "Our destination is there."

I blinked, and my eyes fell upon the area she had indicated. Underneath a large tree were a few villagers, and Ruhm was in the middle of the group, addressing them. Standing next to him was a petite young cat-woman with soft pink hair and very familiar ears, and I suddenly knew why Tela and Cela had brought me here.

The petite cat-woman noticed us approaching, and her reaction was almost laughably hysterical. Her eyes grew insanely round and her jaw dropped.

My exhaustion disappeared as I tilted back my head and laughed, removing myself from Tela's assurance and stepping forward on my own. As she bounded toward me, I spread my arms as far as I could, and a spunky young cat named Merle gave me the gentlest fierce hug I'd ever received in my life

"Hitomi!" Merle shrieked, hugging me carefully, and then stepping back to survey me. I grinned, a bit embarrassed.

"I'm sorry I look horrible," I said, "but that's what happens when you get shot."

Merle tilted her head. "Shot? By what, an arrow?"

"No," I replied, with a thin smile; she had still retained her old innocence. "I got shot by a gun."

"What's a gun?" she asked, and the following silence was so awkward that we just giggled at each other after a few moments. "It's wonderful to see you, though, wounds, scrapes, scratches, and all." She grinned, her pointed teeth showing.

I doubted that if I had been crippled and scarred beyond repair that she would've cared. Merle clapped her hands together, more than exuberant to see me.

"Oh Hitomi, it's been so long," she said, her voice still the same high, squeaky pitch it had been when I'd left. "I was beginning to wonder when you were going to wake up!"

I was amazed on one hand, for most traces of Merle's brash, bratty attitude had disappeared, or were, at the very least, hidden away. But I was incredulous on the other, because she had grown into a very pretty young woman. Her pink-hued hair hung in ringlets down to her shoulders, and she had grown in height (but not more than two inches). She barely looked like she was five years older, but in my experience, cat-people looked inanely young until they were on their deathbeds.

"Hitomi," she said, laying her tiny, delicately clawed hands on my shoulders. "You look so tired… but you're suddenly so pretty now! Where's the funny-looking girl I remember from so long ago?"

Ah, there it was. Her brazen sense of humor came back to bite me like a pissed off cat, but I was so grateful to hear her words that I hugged her as tightly as my body would allow me. "Merle… we have a lot to talk about," I said. She nodded, and let me take her arm. We walked slowly to the large tree where Ruhm had been a few minutes before, and beneath the cool shade of its thick branches, the last five years came and went.

Author's Notes: I figured that it would be slightly easier to read if I didn't try to make it look like my original document on Word. I feel kind of stupid about this whole thing, so I may just take the fic down anyway. But thanks to those of you who've read so far.