Fortune 10-Blinded by Life
They still weren't exactly at the front gates of the protected, crystal city, but Blai set the girl down on the ground. The wings on the boy's back disappeared in a flurry of feathers that glowed in the light and he gently landed on the ground. "Do you mind if we take a quick rest?" he asked his strangely quiet companion. It wasn't as if Star had much of a choice. Blai was exhausted from first searching for the missing teenager and then flying her back to where he was supposed to be meeting with his father and the others.
Star nodded and scratched the rabbit-cat hybrid behind one if its soft, fuzzy ears. Her lips curved into an absent smile, she didn't even realize she was doing it. "How did you tame that thing?" the young prince asked, forcing Star to snap out of her thoughts. She was about to ask what she would have probably considered one of the stupidest questions she had ever heard in her life, when she noticed that the boy's gaze was on the creature that rested in the crook of her arm.
"Aiichirou? Tame?" the girl laughed, "He's definitely anything but tame…" It was true; this little creature was exactly like her dear brother…absolutely the same, including the same wild personality and fear of water.
Blai looked thoughtful for a moment, "Aiichirou, Aiichirou…" he muttered, stroking his chin in what would have been a comical way had Star felt like laughing. "I swear I've heard the name before."
"My brother," the girl answered before he even had the chance to ask the question, "you probably heard it when you were listening in on me before." She shook her head as if trying to shake out unpleasant thoughts and the animal in her arms looked up at her with worry in its large eyes. "Where are Kanzaki and the others?" It was strange, try as she might to deny it, in the end Star always had to admit that she cared a great deal about her older cousin.
The corners of Blai's lips twitched, he tried to keep a straight face as he asked, "You really care about her, don't you?"
The prince was taken aback by the girl's reaction, she snorted. "Kanzaki…? That idiot? I'm not going to waste my time worrying about a weakling like her."
"But from what my father said—"
Star snorted again, "Your dad doesn't know Kanzaki the way I do. She can't do anything for herself." Once again the girl tried to shake away all unwanted thoughts, but having apparently failed miserably, she regained her cruel, snappish tone and said, "I'm not sitting here all day because you're too damn tired."
The boy started clenched his hands into fists at his sides as he walked in the direction of the crystal city. God, that girl was starting to get on his nerves. They were having a decent conversation, and then she snaps at him for no apparent reason. What was her deal?
When Blai and Star caught sight of the others, they were just outside of the enchanting city that was to be their meeting place. "How'd you get here so fast?" Merle asked curiously.
The boy shrugged, just being around that girl had completely destroyed all desire in him to have a decent conversation. "Flew," he shrugged.
"We aren't staying here are we?" Star asked with evident disgust.
Blai couldn't stand it anymore. "If you don't want to then sleep in the woods!" he shouted at her. Anyone would have lost their temper after being forced to be with the girl for as long as he had. The teenage prince wondered briefly how Hitomi managed to stand living in the same house as her without wanting to tear out all of her hair.
The girl's eyes flared and she shot a malevolent glare in Blai's direction. Chills ran up and down the boy's spine, but he wasn't about to show it. And without another word, Star stalked into the forest. Hitomi sighed deeply and everyone's focus snapped instantly onto her. "She'll be there for a while; she does the same thing a lot back home." The young woman ran a hand through her short brown hair, "We should probably leave her alone until she decides to come back on her own."
Blai was stunned, he had just done all that to get the stupid girl back, he had gone through all that guilt on her behalf, and Hitomi wanted him to just leave it? Apparently, he and his father were on the same wave-length. "What do you mean, 'leave her alone'?" Van yelled angrily. "We wandered half-way across Gaea, on foot, and you want us to 'leave her alone'? We have a right to know what's going on!"
"And she has a right to keep her silence," Dryden interrupted in his calm, soothing voice. He pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, "I'd love to meet the kid," he said. "From what I've heard it would be an interesting experience. But I'm not risking it right now, not if she's in as bad a mood as Hitomi's making it out to be."
Hitomi looked up at the king with those emerald green eyes that had etched themselves so deeply into his memory. "He's right, Van," she said quietly. She had changed so much, yet she was still the same girl from all those years ago, "I've never known her to say what's on her mind. Sometimes I worry about her, with all those feelings pent up inside of her…"
Blai immediately found something of a great deal of interest on the tip of his shoe and began to study it intensely. What he had seen that day that felt like it had been an eternity ago, in the garden of the home he had lost, must have been a matter of the greatest importance; it was something so secret, so personal, that not even her cousin, the woman that she lived with, knew what was going on. It made the boy feel both dirty and guilty just thinking about it. "I guess I should go apologize," Blai said to that intensely interesting invisible object on his shoe. He, too, walked through the trees, in the same direction Star had gone.
"Star!" he called when he got far enough away from the others that he was sure they wouldn't hear him. "Star!" he called again, but louder. "Where are you?" And that was definitely a question that Star classified as one of the stupidest questions she had ever heard. Blai sat down, he hadn't given up, but he was still exhausted, having yet to recover from his long flight.
"Idiot," Star's voice came from a high up branch of the tree against which the young prince was leaning. "You shouldn't go butting into other people's business."
"We'll, you shouldn't act so spoiled," he said. It sounded pretty stupid coming from the lips of a boy who was until recently the heir to the throne of a prosperous kingdom.
Blai tilted his chin up to get a better look at the girl with whom he was, at that moment, attempting to have a failing conversation with. He saw her slowly close her brilliant blue eyes and chew on a piece of grass. She was sitting with her back leaning against the trunk, one leg swinging below her, and her fingers entwined behind her head to cushion it against the uncomfortable tree.
"I have my reasons," the girl finally said, "if you've come here to apologize, I'm not accepting, so you might as well leave."
The boy stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, "I'm not leaving until you accept." Even he had to admit that he was starting to sound like such a child.
The blue-eyed teenager gave a slight shrug, "Suit yourself. But you'd better get comfortable, kid, because you're going to be here for a long time."
Blai silently fumed, or would have silently fumed had his mouth not acted before his head. "What's your deal?" he asked angrily.
Star chose not to answer the question, "See ya in the morning," she said as she spat out the blade of grass and squirmed a bit to get into a better sleeping position.
"Answer me!" More and more was he starting to sound like a child, but more and more was this girl testing what little patience he had.
The other teenager was silent for a moment and then she tilted her head to the canopy of the trees so that the boy wouldn't be able to see the tears streaming silently down her face. "You're my problem, kid," she lied. "Now let me go to sleep." Much as she wanted to, she refused to tell him, or anyone else, what she was really feeling. She was not going to let them think she was weak.
Blai felt as if something had slammed into him. His gaze instantly returned to the invisible blemish on his shoes and thoughts swarmed through his head. They weren't angry thoughts, though. They were sad and hurt; he didn't think that girl's words could hurt him so much. The boy slid onto the ground and curled up against the base of the tree. The creature—she had called it Aiichirou, hadn't she?—walked over to him and curled up against him to fall into a peaceful sleep.
"Aiichirou, you traitor!" Star yelled. Something, a tree branch most likely, hit the boy squarely in the back of the head, but he didn't notice. His eyes were drawn to the little creature's chest as it rose and fell, but he wasn't really watching its movements. Blai was completely lost in his own thoughts which were filled with echoes of the words Star had just said. "You're my problem, kid." For a brief instant, Blai thought, If I had the EscaFlowne she'd think differently, before he fell asleep.
When Blai awoke he stretched his arms out above his head and wondered briefly why he felt so miserable as a blanket of long grass fluttered off of him. In a flash, he remembered all the events of the past few days and he looked up in search of the other teen. She was no where in sight, "Where'd she go?" he asked himself. The boy stood up and brushed himself off. "I can't go back without her," he said.
"Yes, you can," Star was walking toward him through the trees. "Go back to your family while you've still got one," she said with a trace of something Blai was sure couldn't have been there. Was it something like sadness, or envy? It couldn't be, not coming from that girl.
"Thank you."
"What are you thanking me for, idiot?" Star snapped as she set what Blai recognized as the animal named after her brother onto the ground. "I tell you to get lost and you say, 'thank you'? You're even more of a moron than I thought."
Blai shrugged, "You covered me with the grass, right? Thanks."
The girl snorted and turned around so that her back was facing him, "The wind," she said shortly. "You'd better get going or the others will be worried about you."
"What about you? They'll be worried about you, too!"
Star shook her head and the boy found himself watching the way her pure black hair fell around the nape of her neck. "No, they won't. I have no one left to care."
Her attitude was starting to get on the boy's nerves. Sure, he wasn't happy with the way he was leading his life, but he didn't make such an annoyingly big deal out of it. "What about Hitomi?" Blai was surprised he had the patience say anything but what was on his mind at the time.
The girl shook her head once more, "I've been such a pain-in-the-ass to her…do you really expect her to welcome me with open arms?" She watched as Aiichirou rubbed against her leg and purred contentedly.
"Yes!" Star looked up, apparently startled by the answer he had given to her. "And I know that you care, too, otherwise you wouldn't have been so worried when you thought it was her in that pit. I'm not leaving without you," he said stubbornly. He looked at the ground, "I'm tired of being a mistake. I'm tired of being a little kid. I'm tired of being weak…"
The girl was even more surprised than she had been with the boy's previous answer. She wondered vaguely what in the world the pampered prince could have meant before a stronger voice inside Star's head told her that it was none of her business and he could keep his secrets if she could keep her own.
"Let's go," the girl said loudly in the awkward silence that had sunk in after Blai's words. "I have a feeling that we have to be there, so let's go," what a load of bull. The girl had no such feeling, but she did indeed finally realize that it would be to both her and the boy's benefit if they returned to the others.
But just as she was about to walk back in the direction of the beautiful, fragile city, a vision flashed before her eyes.
A large, elegant white Melef unlike any she had ever seen before in her time on Gaea stood in the middle of a dark field. It must have just rained, because the machine was covered in blood. Star cupped her hands and gathered some of the liquid in her palms; it wasn't rain water, it was blood.
Another Melef ran towards the one in the center of the girl's range of vision. She wanted to yell out to the pilot, but no words came out, not that he would have needed it. The girl watched as the white machine destroyed Melef after Melef, swinging its sword gracefully as if it was an extension of the machine rather than an extra, awkward limb. Due to Star's love of swords, she could appreciate the beauty in the machine's style.
Just as she was admiring the machine's movements, it turned its empty face to stare at her. Behind the Melef's eyes, Star could see a pair of very familiar ones. It took her a moment to place them. "Blai!" she shouted when she realized to whom those usually fierce, but now empty, eyes belonged. "Blai, wake up!" The girl tried to move, to run forward, not that she had any idea of what she would do when she got there, but her limbs refused to follow the commands her brain was sending.
Star looked at the ground, it felt as if something was pulling at her, forcing her to stay in that spot…trying to pull her deeper into the bloodstained ground. Hands. Uncountable hands reached out and groped around, trying to get a hold onto her leg to pull her down with them, to wherever the bodies they were attached to lay. The hands circled around the girl's throat.
She gave one last scream before…
Hitomi stopped dead, her vision blurred and in the very far off distance she could see the EscaFlowne. But it was so hard to see, like she was looking at a wet photograph from three feet away. "Something's wrong!" she jumped up from her place at the lovely wooden table and ran out the door, the others following in her footsteps. Even though all those years had gone by, she still prided herself in her running and even coached the track team.
She ran through the trees, the foliage crunching beneath her feet, until she crashed into someone. "Blai?" she asked. "Where's Star?"
The boy shook his head, his face was pale and he looked, as the saying went, as if he had seen a ghost. "Something weird happened while we were just heading back. I was about to go get Millerna…"
"Is she okay?"
"Out of no where, she just went all rigid and screamed and then she just collapsed…"
"Oh, no…You go get Millerna, I'll go find Star." Hitomi ran through the woods and caught sight of three sets of footprints. One going in the way from which she had just come, most likely Blai's, one set going in the opposite direction and, one that didn't look entirely human. "Star!" the woman yelled out once more.
Something rustled in the tree above the woman from the Mystic Moon. "What do you want?" her cousin hung upside down, with her knees hooked onto a branch, from the nearest tree. Before Hitomi could say anything, the teenager's eyes became distant and she watched something that was so far away that the older woman could not see it. "The dragon," Star said, "it's alone. It wants the taste of blood again, so I have to go find it alone." The girl flipped and jumped easily onto the ground, "If anyone else gets near it, it'll eat them."
Hitomi was startled, "You know where the EscaFlowne is?" She recognized the term for the mysterious Guymelef from long ago.
Star nodded, "I had a vision," she said. "I have to find it before anyone else does, otherwise…" her voice trailed off and she gave an involuntary shudder. The girl shook her head as if hoping that the thoughts in her mind would fall out.
"What would happen?" Hitomi asked, stalling for time. Though she placed much faith in her own track skills, the girl knew that if her cousin decided to bolt, she would never be able to catch up. Hopefully, the others would get there before such a situation was to happen.
"They were suffocating me…I couldn't do anything," Star said quietly to that distant object that only she could see. She regained her usual tone of voice and said to her cousin, though she was still looking far away, "If I don't go everyone is going to die. I won't let that happen. Not again."
"No one's dying."
"Yes they are!" Star yelled, her eyes snapping back to focus angrily on her cousin. "You're too blinded by life to see it!" Blai had found the others and the entire group ducked beneath the brush when they heard the angry hiss in the younger girl's voice. "Stop caring about me. Stop caring about whether I die or not!"