Revelations
A bright bluebird warbled a sweet song, perched on the tender green shoots of vines that had come creeping shyly up Hitomi's balcony while she slept. The bird's pure tones, however, woke her as the vines had not, and she stepped out to greet the day. She hadn't realized that she was wearing a VERY thin shift, nor that she was being watched.
The low whistled immediately made her blush and look down, ducking into a little ball on the slate stone as soon as she noticed that this particular nighty was more lace than anything else.
"hssst, Hitomi, modesty is not needed among friends" whispered Merle as she stepped out from the shadows. A far cry from the kitchens Merle too had been caught in the drastic changes that Van had made, and so was now wearing a short silk crimson shift. Her fur glowed in the morning light, and the expression of amazement on Hitomi's face made her whoop with glee.
"Honestly, you'd think that you would be used to it by now, after all, you've had that cute little doctor hovering around you for days now..not to mention Vaaaaaannnnn" Merle winked cheekily and jumped up to balance on the rail.
"Why you little." Hitomi's laughter robbed her of speech. She rose in a fluid motion to her feet and pulled Merle off the rail into a tight hug. "Oh, I never thought I'd see any of you again" she whispered into her furry thin shoulder.
"Oh Hitomi," Merle said as tears slid down her face , " You don't know what it was like, seeing you again, and you were so thin.we didn't think you would live" She hugged the slender form tightly, not realizing that Hitomi had started to pull away.
That's right, she thought, remembering the wraith that had stared back at her from the window, I was dying. She looked down at her long limbs, seeing them to be slender, not emaciated. And her movement.she remembered stories of people who were bedridden feeling weak. I don't feel weak, Hitomi thought, I feel.reborn.
"Merle, please, tell me everything that has happened in the last two years. I have to know why.how." Hitomi couldn't put to words the horrific memories in her head. Merle sighed. She had been dreading this moment, because she knew that Hitomi would ask for and expect, complete honesty.
"You're communication was everything to him Hitomi, because he knew that no matter how lonely he got, no matter what happened to him, that there would always you. The day that stopped he fell. He sat in his room for hours, locked himself in. He gradually turned away from everyone, including me.
All he knew was that the connection was gone. Three years had passed and that link had always been there. He could only assume that you were dead, or that you loved someone else, because the bond had been founded on love.
It drove him to the brink of madness, Hitomi. There are scars on his wrist from where he tried to cut himself." Merle looked down, trying to think of whether she should tell Hitomi of her own treatment or not.
"Merle," Hitomi's soft voice rang over the courtyard, "Please, you don't have tell me everything. I know enough from what I saw in van to guess, if you don't want to unearth painful memories."
"No," her voice was harsh, "I must tell you. He took up his 'kingly' duties with a vengeance. All of his advisors could not control him, for he instituted a power of veto. His word was law, Hitomi, and oh, the things he said. Taxes were raised, all wasted on throwing extravagant parties, the beast people were made worse than slaves, even I, Hitomi, I who had grown up with him was forced to be a menial kitchen drudge" her words dripped with poisoned wounds.
"That was a year ago. Its gotten worse ever since. Millerna, Allen, Dryden, all of them had forsaken him, breaking alliances and making new ones for the sake of their own countries. The prison's are filled with thousands of people simply arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time., or in the way of his majesty's carriage.
"But no one was killed. Everyone was so afraid though, so afraid, and that poor little girl finally dared to defy him. That's was when he broke and became the monster we all feared.
"but oh Hitomi, with you here it will all be better, you'll see, you can make him go back to the person he was" Merle threw herself down and lay her haed in Hitomi's lacy lap, while her strong hands gently played with her hair and stroked the back of her ears until her shoulders stopped quivering.
"Hitomi..what did happen that day two years ago. You didn't die. Did you" Merle bit her lip, now resting back on her knees and gazing up to the sad face with red rimmed eyes, "did you stop loving Van?"
Hitomi looked puzzled at this, a little crease forming between her eyebrows as she strung the events on a web of time.
"Nothing.nothing happened. Like you said, it was fine for three years. I finished high school, went to college, I had a good life. And every day I would fall asleep thinking of my dragon prince," a little smile tugged on her rose petal lips, and a blush rose across her cheeks like light in dawn.
"But after the connection was gone I did almost the same thing as van. I pushed everyone I cared about away. But right before we lost the connection I had I vision. I had almost forgotten about it. You see, I thought van was dead because the next day I found the death card face up on the floor. But the dreams.I hopes, I prayed, that sometimes they were real, but every morning I would feel anew that anguish that comes from losing someone who is your other half. What drove me to suicide was that I couldn't remember his face it was just a blur. I couldn't remember his face." Hitomi's breath caught, and she drank in deep steadying breaths.
"But if the separation was caused neither by you nor by Van, something else must again be happening to Gaia" Merle said, eyes wide with an excited whisper. Hitomi remembered then that she was very much still a child.
"Merle, why would you think that? Couldn't it be that this was caused by some passing flotsam between the worlds? What if the barrier that separated Earth from Gaia were to thicken, would the link remain? There is so much that we don't know, don't go adding a sinister force to the mysteries." Hitomi slightly condescendingly looked down on the young catwoman, who had matured far more than Hitomi in some ways.
"Let me tell you something Hitomi. You were only able to forgive van because you saw that underneath that cold heart of his there still lived the Van you loved. Now, do you think that he REALLY would go around murdering people. I tell you this, he looked like a puppet on that dias. Something was affecting him, affecting his judgment. SOMETHING tried to kill you, or bond you, VAN FELT IT, YOU felt it, and you can't deny it Hitomi." The victim of Merle's tongue lashing stood silent, musing. Something had tried to bond her, and she had barely been able to fight it off. Had she seen those same iron bands constricting around Van's heart.
YES. The revelation thundered through her, constricting her muscles as her body channeled yet another vision.
Black.the earth was barren, everywhere was scorched bone, scorched wood. The stench rose and almost chocked her, blocking out her reason. She looked up, trying to gain a balance, and what she saw shocked her almost as much. The earth was shinig, a great fireball leviathan of the sky, arcing, realing in its path. The only untouched thing was the gaian moon.
"oh, little seeress, you see?" said a voice behind her. Ice ran up her spine as she truned to face the well known voice.
"Oh yes.silly me, I never introduced myself.Hitomi, but oh, you already know me, or don't you remember" The woman's white teeth gleamed against the bloody darkness of her lips. Hitomi did remember, and began backing away. That little voice that had resided in the midst of her depression, it wasn't part of Hitomi no, it was this creature.
Blood red nails held the leash that kept a struggling beloved form getting loose. The dark woman walked over to him, threw one glance at Hitomi, and leaned down to kiss him. He convulsed, trying to get away, but could do nothing. The woman laughed, going around behind him and running her nails down his chest, slitting the shirt he wore.
"You see Hitomi, I have destroyed everything dear to you, and the man you love so much is my plaything. Now, what are you going to do?" The laugh echoed on and on, dissolving the remains of the vision while Hitomi stood stricken, abandoned on a black battlefield of good and evil.
A bright bluebird warbled a sweet song, perched on the tender green shoots of vines that had come creeping shyly up Hitomi's balcony while she slept. The bird's pure tones, however, woke her as the vines had not, and she stepped out to greet the day. She hadn't realized that she was wearing a VERY thin shift, nor that she was being watched.
The low whistled immediately made her blush and look down, ducking into a little ball on the slate stone as soon as she noticed that this particular nighty was more lace than anything else.
"hssst, Hitomi, modesty is not needed among friends" whispered Merle as she stepped out from the shadows. A far cry from the kitchens Merle too had been caught in the drastic changes that Van had made, and so was now wearing a short silk crimson shift. Her fur glowed in the morning light, and the expression of amazement on Hitomi's face made her whoop with glee.
"Honestly, you'd think that you would be used to it by now, after all, you've had that cute little doctor hovering around you for days now..not to mention Vaaaaaannnnn" Merle winked cheekily and jumped up to balance on the rail.
"Why you little." Hitomi's laughter robbed her of speech. She rose in a fluid motion to her feet and pulled Merle off the rail into a tight hug. "Oh, I never thought I'd see any of you again" she whispered into her furry thin shoulder.
"Oh Hitomi," Merle said as tears slid down her face , " You don't know what it was like, seeing you again, and you were so thin.we didn't think you would live" She hugged the slender form tightly, not realizing that Hitomi had started to pull away.
That's right, she thought, remembering the wraith that had stared back at her from the window, I was dying. She looked down at her long limbs, seeing them to be slender, not emaciated. And her movement.she remembered stories of people who were bedridden feeling weak. I don't feel weak, Hitomi thought, I feel.reborn.
"Merle, please, tell me everything that has happened in the last two years. I have to know why.how." Hitomi couldn't put to words the horrific memories in her head. Merle sighed. She had been dreading this moment, because she knew that Hitomi would ask for and expect, complete honesty.
"You're communication was everything to him Hitomi, because he knew that no matter how lonely he got, no matter what happened to him, that there would always you. The day that stopped he fell. He sat in his room for hours, locked himself in. He gradually turned away from everyone, including me.
All he knew was that the connection was gone. Three years had passed and that link had always been there. He could only assume that you were dead, or that you loved someone else, because the bond had been founded on love.
It drove him to the brink of madness, Hitomi. There are scars on his wrist from where he tried to cut himself." Merle looked down, trying to think of whether she should tell Hitomi of her own treatment or not.
"Merle," Hitomi's soft voice rang over the courtyard, "Please, you don't have tell me everything. I know enough from what I saw in van to guess, if you don't want to unearth painful memories."
"No," her voice was harsh, "I must tell you. He took up his 'kingly' duties with a vengeance. All of his advisors could not control him, for he instituted a power of veto. His word was law, Hitomi, and oh, the things he said. Taxes were raised, all wasted on throwing extravagant parties, the beast people were made worse than slaves, even I, Hitomi, I who had grown up with him was forced to be a menial kitchen drudge" her words dripped with poisoned wounds.
"That was a year ago. Its gotten worse ever since. Millerna, Allen, Dryden, all of them had forsaken him, breaking alliances and making new ones for the sake of their own countries. The prison's are filled with thousands of people simply arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time., or in the way of his majesty's carriage.
"But no one was killed. Everyone was so afraid though, so afraid, and that poor little girl finally dared to defy him. That's was when he broke and became the monster we all feared.
"but oh Hitomi, with you here it will all be better, you'll see, you can make him go back to the person he was" Merle threw herself down and lay her haed in Hitomi's lacy lap, while her strong hands gently played with her hair and stroked the back of her ears until her shoulders stopped quivering.
"Hitomi..what did happen that day two years ago. You didn't die. Did you" Merle bit her lip, now resting back on her knees and gazing up to the sad face with red rimmed eyes, "did you stop loving Van?"
Hitomi looked puzzled at this, a little crease forming between her eyebrows as she strung the events on a web of time.
"Nothing.nothing happened. Like you said, it was fine for three years. I finished high school, went to college, I had a good life. And every day I would fall asleep thinking of my dragon prince," a little smile tugged on her rose petal lips, and a blush rose across her cheeks like light in dawn.
"But after the connection was gone I did almost the same thing as van. I pushed everyone I cared about away. But right before we lost the connection I had I vision. I had almost forgotten about it. You see, I thought van was dead because the next day I found the death card face up on the floor. But the dreams.I hopes, I prayed, that sometimes they were real, but every morning I would feel anew that anguish that comes from losing someone who is your other half. What drove me to suicide was that I couldn't remember his face it was just a blur. I couldn't remember his face." Hitomi's breath caught, and she drank in deep steadying breaths.
"But if the separation was caused neither by you nor by Van, something else must again be happening to Gaia" Merle said, eyes wide with an excited whisper. Hitomi remembered then that she was very much still a child.
"Merle, why would you think that? Couldn't it be that this was caused by some passing flotsam between the worlds? What if the barrier that separated Earth from Gaia were to thicken, would the link remain? There is so much that we don't know, don't go adding a sinister force to the mysteries." Hitomi slightly condescendingly looked down on the young catwoman, who had matured far more than Hitomi in some ways.
"Let me tell you something Hitomi. You were only able to forgive van because you saw that underneath that cold heart of his there still lived the Van you loved. Now, do you think that he REALLY would go around murdering people. I tell you this, he looked like a puppet on that dias. Something was affecting him, affecting his judgment. SOMETHING tried to kill you, or bond you, VAN FELT IT, YOU felt it, and you can't deny it Hitomi." The victim of Merle's tongue lashing stood silent, musing. Something had tried to bond her, and she had barely been able to fight it off. Had she seen those same iron bands constricting around Van's heart.
YES. The revelation thundered through her, constricting her muscles as her body channeled yet another vision.
Black.the earth was barren, everywhere was scorched bone, scorched wood. The stench rose and almost chocked her, blocking out her reason. She looked up, trying to gain a balance, and what she saw shocked her almost as much. The earth was shinig, a great fireball leviathan of the sky, arcing, realing in its path. The only untouched thing was the gaian moon.
"oh, little seeress, you see?" said a voice behind her. Ice ran up her spine as she truned to face the well known voice.
"Oh yes.silly me, I never introduced myself.Hitomi, but oh, you already know me, or don't you remember" The woman's white teeth gleamed against the bloody darkness of her lips. Hitomi did remember, and began backing away. That little voice that had resided in the midst of her depression, it wasn't part of Hitomi no, it was this creature.
Blood red nails held the leash that kept a struggling beloved form getting loose. The dark woman walked over to him, threw one glance at Hitomi, and leaned down to kiss him. He convulsed, trying to get away, but could do nothing. The woman laughed, going around behind him and running her nails down his chest, slitting the shirt he wore.
"You see Hitomi, I have destroyed everything dear to you, and the man you love so much is my plaything. Now, what are you going to do?" The laugh echoed on and on, dissolving the remains of the vision while Hitomi stood stricken, abandoned on a black battlefield of good and evil.