Disclaimer: Tenkuu no Escaflowne is property of Bandai and Sunrise, all rights reserved. I am in no way affiliated with these companies, and am not making a profit by writing this novel. Any similarities between my work and that of any other fan-author is purely coincidental. "This Life" song lyrics are property ofMandalay, all rights reserved.
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"Broken" - Chapter 4: Colorblind Days
By The Last Princess of Hyrule
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"You had to go spoil it all,
I know you had to go,
Now I find these endlessly,
Colorblind days to fill,
You never will,
Take this life,
Take it all in your hands,
You were mine,
I could smile,
You understand, fine . . ."
-Mandalay, "This Life"
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The next morning dawned gray and overcast, a heavy layer of fog obscuring the harbor from view as a chill, late autumn breeze wafted through the waking city. Though the windows were closed, with heavy burgundy drapes drawn over them, the cold air somehow managed to seep into Hitomi's room. It worked its way around into the fireplace, between the legs of the end table and sofa before it, around soft chairs, and under a chestnut wardrobe. It billowed over the tapestries hanging on the walls, not quite strong enough to ruffle their thickly-woven fabric, until it crept beneath the heavy blankets piled atop the great four-poster bed, and sent a chill down Hitomi's spine. Half awake, she shivered and pulled the covers up to her chin.
Just as she was about to drift back into sleep, she heard a faint click as a doorknob turned open, allowing someone inside her room. The floorboards creaked under someone's weight as they tiptoed to her bedside, and called quietly, "Hitomi?"
Hitomi rolled over and saw a girl dressed all in white standing over her. "Celena?" she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes and blinking. "Is that you?"
Celena smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.
"It's great to see you again," said Hitomi, yawning as she sat up. "But what are you doing in here?"
"I wanted to talk you."
Hitomi stretched her arms out, working out the stiffness of last night's sleep. "And you couldn't wait until breakfast?"
The smile faded from Celena's face.
Hitomi's eyebrows furrowed together a little in worry. "Is something wrong? You went kind of pale all of the sudden."
"I have to talk to you," Celena repeated hesitantly. "It's about Dilandau."
Hitomi didn't have to ask what she meant, or why she was talking about Dilandau. She knew their story. For the first week after the fall of the Zaibach empire, Celena had stayed in the decrepit farmhouse with Hitomi and Folken as she prepared to leave for Asturia to find her brother. In this time, Celena explained to them about her and Dilandau's secret with a promise that it would stay only between the four of them.
But had been when Celena thought Hitomi and Folken would never come back to Asturia, and they would never be in a situation where that promise could be broken.
"He's . . . he's really concerned about you being here. And about our safety." Looking guilty, as if she'd just spouted heresy, Celena turned away.
"Are you worried that Folken and I are going to tell everyone your secret now that we're back?"
Celena's cheeks turned red. "Dilandau does . . ." she mumbled. "I don't really . . . but Dilandau . . ."
It was obvious that she was lying, that she agreed with Dilandau on some level, even if she didn't want to believe it. "No, no, I understand," Hitomi assured her. "If I were in your position, I probably would have confronted me just the same. I know what it feels like when you really want to trust someone, but something keeps making you wary. It's hard to put aside those fears and give that person a chance to prove himself. But you have to do it. Throw caution to the wind."
"Huh?" Celena gave her a confused look.
"It's a saying back on Earth," Hitomi explained with a smile. "It means throw away all your worries and put everything into the moment."
Celena contemplated this for a moment, then smiled. "Dilandau says that sounds like good advice."
Hitomi laughed at the change of expression. On multiple occasions when Celena had lived on the border, Hitomi had watched her have a conversation with Dilandau, just like this. At first it had been strange to see Celena's expressions change without any prompting from things around her, but after a while, Hitomi hardly noticed it. Celena wasn't quite Celena without Dilandau. "That's his outlook on life, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Celena nodded. "He's always saying I should listen to my heart more instead of my head. I think if I did that, I'd probably end up in a lot of stupid messes."
"I have to agree with you there," said Hitomi. "You have to trust your own ideas, even if they conflict with what Dilandau thinks. He has his own reasoning. Sometimes you get into situations where you can't predict the outcome, and you really want it to end one way, but you don't know how to make it happen. He might tell you to do something that seems completely opposite of what you want to do. Whatever you choose to do might cause something good or something bad to happen, but you won't know until you make a choice. Dilandau's reason may be just as good as yours, but doesn't it make more sense to listen to yourself?"
Celena gaped at her.
Hitomi blushed. "Did I really say all that out loud?" she asked in disbelief, her hands covering her rosy cheeks. "Oh man, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be so long-winded."
"It's fine," Celena assured her, smiling. "Actually, it was really insightful."
Hitomi's blush deepened. "I think I completely missed the point, but all I meant to say is that you can trust us. We aren't going to tell anyone your secret."
"I believe you, and so does Dilandau," said Celena. "Well, as much as Dilandau believes anybody," she added. "Thanks for being so understanding."
Hitomi waved it off. "That's what friends are for."
Celena's smile vanished. "You consider me a friend?"
"Well, yeah."
"Huh." Celena sat down on the edge of the bed., her expression turning pensive. "I've never really had any friends before." She gave Hitomi a pitiable smile. "I think I'm a little too strange for that."
Hitomi got up on her knees and crawled beside Celena. "Hey, take a look at me. I'm way different from everyone else here on Gaea, but I still deserve to be happy."
"Have you always believed that?"
"To tell you the truth, no." Hitomi admitted. "Especially not after what happened on Millerna's wedding day."
Celena nodded in understanding. "Dilandau told me a little about that, and I heard the rest from Millerna and Allen."
"After that happened, I started thinking I really didn't belong on Gaea," Hitomi went on. "That I was too different and too dangerous with my powers to be more than a tool of destruction. But let me tell you, having someone who really believed in meeven when he knew what I was and what I could domade a huge difference."
Hitomi's gaze flickered over to where Folken was asleep on the sofa before the cold fireplace. He looked so gentle and harmless, contradicting everything she knew about his cold exterior nature. It made her wonder sometimes which was his true self; the open, gentle person he only revealed when they were alone together, or the closed, callous one she saw in the presence of anyone else.
"You really love him, don't you?" asked Celena.
Drawn from her reverie, Hitomi nodded. "That's what my heart tells me, and for once, my mind actually agrees with it."
"Have you ever done a reading for you two?"
"No."
"How come?"
Hitomi shrugged. "I don't really have any questions or doubts about us, so I don't see the need. Honestly, I don't want to know if the cards say Folken is the right man for me or not. I mean, if they said he wasn't, I'd go crazy with that always on my mind, and it'd eventually ruin our relationship."
Celena smiled. "That's good logic. I don't think I would like it if the cards told me the man I was in love with wasn't the one I was meant to be with. I'd rather go through the relationship and decide that for myself. Sometimes, I don't agree with the things I read in the cards."
"Are you practicing?" Hitomi turned back to Celena with interest. Before Celena left for Asturia, Hitomi had given her the Tarot cards and taught her how to use them.
Celena nodded excitedly. "Yes, whenever I can. Dilandau hates it because it takes me so long to do a single reading. I always have to consult that old book you gave me with the cards' meanings. It takes hours."
"I know exactly what you mean," Hitomi insisted. "When I first started learning to read the cards, I had to look up every single one I turned over, and some more than once because I read the wrong meaning or forgot what it meant with the other cards."
"Yes, that's what happens to me." Celena gave her a pitiful look. "It gets easier, doesn't it?"
This made Hitomi laugh. "Oh yeah, a lot easier. Once you start to recognize some of the simpler cards and their meanings, the others will eventually start to fall into place. It takes a while, but with some time and a lot of practice, you'll be an expert fortune teller."
"I'm glad. It's so much work, but I love being able to read the future. Even if I can't change my fate, at least I know what's coming." She smiled. "Though it does take me two or three hours to figure it out."
Hitomi stifled a giggle. "Did you read the cards yesterday to figure out that Folken and I were coming?"
"Actually, the night before, two nights ago. That took me a really long time. I had to look up a few of the cards four times because I couldn't figure out what events they were referring to. After I figured out that the 'disaster' they were talking about was the attack on Palas rather than the fall of the empire, everything made a lot of sense."
Celena was smiling, but Hitomi looked a little worried. The purpose of Celena's reading had obviously been to find out about events in the future, but she seemed to be referring to Millerna's wedding day when she talked about the attack on Palas. Somewhere along the reading, Celena must had misread the cards. It wasn't possible to read events of the past at the same time as events of the future. Either she hadn't actually read that Hitomi and Folken were coming back to Asturia and simply made a lucky guess, or else this attack on Palas the cards had foretold hadn't happened yet.
"Is something wrong, Hitomi?" asked Celena.
Hitomi shook her head and smiled. "No, I'm fine. Sorry about that, I was just thinking." She promptly put Celena's reading out of mind. She'd already resolved several times not to worry anymore about what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. She was going to live a normal, happy, fate-less life like everybody else. She wasn't going to let a simple misread fortune change that.
Hitomi and Celena talked for another hour as the sun rose up behind the Chatal Mountains east of the city. Eventually a maid knocked loudly on the door, waking Folken at last, and announced that breakfast would soon be ready.
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Unfortunately, conversation at breakfast was not nearly as comfortable and relaxed for Hitomi as her conversation with Celena earlier. It wasn't so much that there was an awkward silence like the night before, but it almost seemed as though everyone had something to say that they weren't willing to voice.
Allen was the first to speak after everyone was seated and the first course was served. He looked directly at Hitomi with a piercing stare that used to make her heart pound and her cheeks burn, and said, "So, Hitomi, tell us everything."
Hitomi blushed anyway, but more from the suddenness of such a direct question than his gaze. "Uh, that's kind of a lot," she said, smiling at the melon slices on her plate. "I don't really know where to start."
"Well, start at the beginning and work your way up to now," Allen suggested as if it were obvious, which it was. "And don't skip anything," he added with a wink.
Hitomi's blush deepened as she tried to guess what he might have meant by this statement. As she looked around, she could see all eyes were on her, alert and watching her expectantly, soon to be hanging on her every word. There was no getting out of this. "Well, I'm no storyteller, but I'll try."
Her story lasted through three courses, and most of the fourth when she was finally done. Everything came out tangled and discordant as she tried to put her experiences into some kind of logical order, and Hitomi found herself inserting a lot of facts into places they did not belong. It got easier after a while, once she shut out the faces around her and focused only on her story. Yet, even so deeply immersed, she still made a special effort to leave out most of the details about her budding relationship with Folken, which, toward the end, meant leaving out almost everything.
She wasn't exactly sure why she did it. After all, everyone probably already knew about it. Millerna wouldn't have kept such a big secret to herself for so long, no matter what. Whatever the reason, Hitomi's intuition insisted that there was something definitely wrong with this attraction, and that it should be kept hidden as best possible.
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TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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