Hello?...Is anyone actually...out there...(brandishes megaphone) HELLO! So yeah, I haven't updated any of my stories because I just started A Level and I'm trying to manage my time between homework and junk, I'm also battling a major case of writer's block (which is being overcome as I just had SO much fun doing this chapter) I love this chapter so much (hugs chapter) it's got so many feelings and stuff in it, feelings and fighting (sighs dramatically) This chapter also starts to reveal some of the mystery hehe.

BW: (looks up from playing cards) FB?...You're back? But...but...

FB: (questioningly) But?

BW: Oh nothing (whistles and pushes people out of document)

FB: What? You can tell me!

BW: Well I sort of thought you wouldn't be coming back so I...I...

FB: YOU WHAT DAMNIT! (holds up flame thrower)

BW: I sort of rented out your account to a bunch of random dudes (cowers)

FB: YOU WHAT? (torches everything)

Disclaimer: I do not own Escaflowne but Aiken is all mine (drools) I also own a rather bad case of writer's block, a watch neclace that I recently bought from Camden Lock and a vanilla flavoured cake (devours cake)

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3: Finding out the Hard Way

The first thing that struck Hitomi as she walked silently through the dusty Fanelian streets was how deserted the place seemed. She kept her eyes open, looking both left and right, scanning each building she passed for any signs of life but nothing stirred. The fine cotton curtains in the windows wouldn't even ripple with the wind.

"What's going on?" she whispered to herself. Her voice rang out through the empty streets although in normal circumstances it would have been barely audible. The tension of the silence was bearing down on top of her and she shivered involuntarily.

'I wish Aiken hadn't left me on my own.' She thought to herself fingering her pendant nervously. She glanced up at the jaded roof of the palace, just visible over the other clay coloured buildings and sighed. Whatever was happening here, whatever had gone wrong on Gaea while she was away, she would hopefully get some answers at the palace.

She veered a sharp left to walk down a side alley. The shadows of the alley quickly enveloped over her so she had to rely on the light at either end of the tunnel to find her way. The silvery moonlight gave off a haunting glow at the end of the alley and in the alleyway itself, darkness mingled with silence so Hitomi felt as though her body was being compressed by the pressure of the two.

When she came to the end of the alley she stepped out gratefully into the light and checked herself over. She had hoped there would be more people here but as in the previous street there was no-one.

"Where is every-"

A raucous cheer cut her off mid-sentence making her jump backwards, clutching at her chest to stop her heart from bursting out of it. She was staring at the palace, watching as it was suddenly bathed in a warm orange glow. Someone had obviously just started a fire.

"What's going on?" she mumbled again. Her confusion overrode the shock of the cheer penetrating the silence and she started to move on towards the palace keeping her eyes fixed on the flickering roof as a marker of where to go. She walked slowly through the streets, gradually getting closer to the palace so she could make out finer details, the shutters of the windows open to allow air circulation and the white paint on the walls.

As she got closer she could hear the crisp voice of a man speaking. Something clicked in her mind. The cheer must have been because of something this man had said, he was making a speech to a crowd gathered below him, so that's where everyone was. She strained her ears to listen.

"…united these…hand…peace to…"

She shook her head and looked down. She was still too far for any of it to make sense but now that she had locked on to his voice, finding the palace became a lot easier. Where she couldn't see the roof of the palace over the buildings she could listen to his voice and determine where to go from there. Within about an hour of first entering Fanelian grounds she had found her way to the palace, just as the crowd gathered outside the entrance gave out another burst of cheers to the man who was speaking.

She stepped up to the gates and joined the back of the crowd feeling a great sense of relief wash over her. She had finally found her way to the palace. She looked around at the beaming faces of the people as they jumped up in the air and yelled and felt out of place for some reason.

As the cheering died off, full attention was given to the unknown speaker. Hitomi followed the eyes of the crowd up to a small balcony where 3 figures stood. One of them was a tall, thin man with a pale complexion that, when mixed with the flames, made him look almost sinister. He was wearing a traditional Fanelian shirt but there was faint embroidery on the shoulder that signified he was someone important.

Beside him was a girl with long dark brown hair who was wearing an eager smile and was waving down at the citizens of Fanelia as the thin man continued his speech. Her attire was foreign, her long skirt was intricately designed with weaving patterns whereas the Fanelian get up was much plainer. She looked like someone who enjoyed attention, a trait Hitomi automatically disliked in her.

On the far corner of the balcony was-

Hitomi gasped and drew back, hands shaking.

His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed. His wild black hair fell over his face, masking his features in shadow but the flash of the red shirt and the way he stood as though indifferent to everything around him told her who he was straight away.

She hadn't seen him in 3 months, her heart hammered at her chest. She was seeing him now.

"Van…"

"The unity of these two people, the alliance of our two nations, it all comes together for a stronger Fanelia, a Fanelia led by a king who is fuelled with the emotions of his people and his queen. Once the young prince has killed the dragon and has become king, we shall celebrate a wedding to remember. The wedding of Princess Anevay Gladius and the new King Van Fanel!"

The speaker threw his hands up in the air and the crowd erupted. Hitomi was left standing stock still, face shock white, biting tears forming at the corner of her eyes. Despite the amount of information given in that speech only one simple fact had managed to etch itself on her mind.

Van was getting married. He was engaged to that girl, someone Hitomi had never even met. Van was getting married!

The tears fell freely down her face now, the emotion she was feeling was simply too much to bottle up. She drew her hands into fists to stop her shoulders from shaking and closed her eyes. How could this have happened? Why hadn't Aiken warned her before? Why had Van…

She remembered the last time they had been together, right before she had been sent home. She had held out her pendant for him to take and he had pulled her into his arms. She could remember the scent on his clothes, could feel the fabric on her face and the warmth where it had been resting on his skin. She had told him that she would never forget him.

She felt at her chest and gripped her pendant. Had he sent it back to her as a way of saying he couldn't love her anymore?

"Are you alright there?"

Hitomi opened her eyes only to have a fresh wave of tears overtake them. She rubbed at them a few times and tried not to look the stranger in the eye.

"Um…" she said unable to find her voice.

"You should be happy! This wedding will give us a chance to celebrate!" The stranger moved around to get a good look at the girl in strange clothes behind him, his own face distorted with concern and curiosity.

"I…I have to go." Hitomi replied stiffly. She jerked her head away and her tears were left hanging on the air, glistening like stars before falling to the ground as she walked out from the back the crowd.

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He could hear mingling voices of the crowd outside as they slowly dispersed the palace courtyard. He could hear the wind beating against the palace walls, a warning of possible storms. He could hear a voice like a phantom from his past sobbing at the back of his mind. He could hear the faint thud of his own heartbeat as he readied the moon white sword in front of him.

He would have to drown it all out. He would have to drown out the departing crowd, the wind against the walls and the voice in the dark. He would have to drown it all out to listen to the sound of his heart, find its rhythm, keep its rhythm.

He bought the sword round in a sweeping arc and used his free left hand to guide it into a point. He was in pinpoint balance, he was completely focused, he was-

"Lord Van!"

The silver sword slipped from his hand and clattered on the dojo's wooden floor. The little cat girl Merle bounded over to him and swung her arms around his neck, pulling him into a reluctant embrace. When she let go, Van glared at her coldly.

"Merle, can't you see I'm practicing?" he asked walking over to his sword.

"Where's Balgess?" Merle asked peering around in the darkness, her slit-like eyes piercing the shadows.

"I'm practicing alone." Van said in a monotone voice.

"Is it…" the cat girl's hesitation made Van turn around, his burning brown eyes seemed to see straight into her soul. She gulped and tried again. "Is it to take your mind off things?"

Van didn't reply his eyes once again fixed on the moon-white blade before him. He sighed a deep, meaningful sigh. Sometimes that cat girl knew him all too well.

"Am I interrupting anything?"

Van crouched down and grasped the handle of his sword before glancing over at the figure leaning against the door. She wore a wry smile; her dark blue eyes gleamed through the shadows of the dojo.

"No, I was just about to leave."

Van made to punctuate this sentence by stepping out of the dojo but Anevay cut across his path and barred his exit, arms outstretched.

"You're leaving without having a chance to spar?"

Van's wilful eyes cut into hers but she held her stare and waited for his reply.

"I was practicing alone," at this Anevay's eyes darted across the floor to Merle's crouched figure but she didn't interrupt him as he continued. "besides at this early stage in my training, you would beat me without trying."

"You take things too seriously Lord Van. I wouldn't fight you to beat you, I would fight to teach you." Anevay retorted without moving.

"I have Balgess to teach me sword combat, I don't need more than one teacher."

Anevay's smile widened, her hand rested on the hilt of her sword in anticipation. She was clearly enjoying herself.

"Perhaps you could learn a lot from having 'more than one teacher'."

Van sighed wearily and lifted his sword up so the point was at eye level. He shifted his feet for better leverage and faced her just in time to see her eyes flash with pure glee. She too took up the stance.

For a moment there was pure silence between the two, a silence only broken by the faint whistle of the wind against the building and the steady down pour of rain as it started to spatter and disperse on the roof. He closed his eyes and felt the sounds drown out.

Anevay felt around the hilt of her sword, gripped it tight and sprung. His eyes snapped open and he caught her sword on a glancing blow to his own, barely blocking his face as she came down upon him. And in the back of his mind it started up again, the distant sobbing of a phantom from the past, a voice belonging to someone he could not comfort nor block from his mind for too long.

Anevay lifted her sword from the struggle and spun revealing her exposed back for a brief instant before bringing her sword down upon him for a second time. Again he blocked it but she could see he was losing focus. She wasn't ready for their little sparring match to be over but she could see his mind was already occupied with something other than the fight at hand.

'I'll just have to get his attention.'

"Can you think of a more intimate way to get to know each other Lord Van? No two people can ever know each other as well as those that fight on the battlefield."

He looked at her then as though seeing her for the first time. Her eyes sparkled in the flickering light from the window in a way that he had never seen them sparkle before. It was as though a mystic blue fire had been set alight behind them and she was prettier for it. The fight between them had made her come alive.

The sobbing grew louder in his ears.

She felt the upsurge of strength from him and was delighted when he had pushed her back so they were once again equal. He kept his eyes on her face, wide and alert; he knew she was an expert with the sword and so he knew that the only way to predict her moves was to trust her to be unpredictable. Her blade glinted on the falling rain and he could almost picture Balgess standing by the window watching his performance critically and every now and then offering words of advice in that calm monotonous voice.

"Keep your eyes on your opponent Lord Van, not their weapon; for you can judge what they are about to do by watching the way their emotions conflict across their face but weapons tell no tales."

Although he felt drawn to the blade, to watch the one thing that could hurt him, he kept his eyes on Anevay's face and watched as her eyes flared.

Merle followed the confrontation from the background and willed Van to strike back hard and precise. She knew of course that a strike like that wasn't Van's style and she could already tell that Anevay was going to win easily. As they circled one another she led the steps, as they clashed with one another she was always above him and as they faced each other, hers was the face that was full of the fight.

They faced each other now, both breathing lightly as the force of the battle wore on them. Merle took some satisfaction in seeing the flush on Anevay's cheeks that came from trying to force herself against Van.

"You don't give yourself enough credit Lord Van, you are quite strong with the sword."

Van said nothing; he continued to watch her carefully for a hint of her next move. The sobbing at the back of his mind was dying off again; he could barely make out the tenor of the voice anymore and felt the unexpected pang of relief and despair.

"You are strong," Anevay continued. "But you are not strong enough."

She launched forward, sword erect, pulse drumming in her ears. This was it, the final strike, if he blocked this one-

He glanced up…and took her off guard. Such sorrow she had never seen in one face, such despair she could not have thought possible for one human to feel. His eyes cried out to her although why she could not understand. It was a fleeting moment when her heart understood something that her mind could not begin to fathom and her final strike lost it's full glory force.

Her blade collided with his but neither held their ground. Both blades slipped out of their owners hands and clattered once again to the dojo's wooden floor.

Merle blinked at them both and then at the blades lying side by side on the floor.

"Does that mean it's a draw?"

Van crouched down and lifted both swords up from the floor. His was slightly heavier than Anevay's and without looking he handed hers back to her. She took it without question and reverted her gaze, anything to keep from seeing that expression, the expression that had cost her the win, had made her have to settle for…a draw.

"As I said before," His voice was devoid of emotion as always but she couldn't forget what she had seen. " I have Balgess to teach me sword combat and I don't need more than one teacher."

He slipped his sword into its sheath and walked across the wooden floor to the exit. After a moment's hesitation, Merle bounded after him leaving Anevay alone with her thoughts.

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Outside, Hitomi huddled up against the rain, seeking shelter under the trees looking out on the Fanelian burial grounds. It was the last place she had seen him before she had come back to Earth and it was the last place she could ventilate her feelings. Her face was still burning with tears that would never stop and the words the announcer spoke still rang clear in her head.

"The wedding of Princess Anevay Gladius and the new King Van Fanel!"

"How could he do this?" she whispered hugging her knees tight. She could still see them together in her mind, could still feel his arms around her, warm and safe. In her minds eye a stroke of sharp lightening split the scene and forced them apart.

"How could he do this to me?" Her voice warbled as she pictured a hazy version of Princess Anevay running up to embrace Van. At first he turned away, sought out Hitomi but eventually…

As the Van in her mind opened his arms welcomingly to this Anevay a fresh wave of tears obscured the leafy scene before her. She sniffed heavily and wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve so her tears mingled with the raindrops. She tried to get a grip on herself, tried to stand up and make her way out of Fanelia, out of his life but she seemed to have lost her energy.

"I feel like I have flu." She muttered to herself. "I never knew one person could feel this awful."

Another wave of tears fell over her face as she pictured his face with one of those rare smiles, those smiles he hardly ever gave anyone but towards the end had given to her a lot.

"I should have just moved on like I knew he would…" Her shoulders shook as her sorrow reached its peak and she collapsed into fitful sobs, burying her face in her knees letting the misery flood out of her. In this state she was hardly aware of the broad figure standing above her.

"Why are you crying?" The voice was deliberately soft and vaguely familiar, like a voice from a dream. She chanced a glance up knowing full well her face was swollen from crying and tears magnified her eyes. His frame was half hidden by the shadow of the trees; she couldn't make out his face.

"I…I lost s-someone very close to me r-recently." Her voice was barely controllable.

"You're not from Fanelia are you little lady…where is your home? Are you alone here?"

She saw him again on the balcony, his hair falling about his face, his arms folded against his chest, slightly impatient, mostly indifferent. Anevay was beside him waving down at the people eagerly.

"I am now." The tears fell over her face again following the path carved out by the previous flow. The figure above her knelt down slowly on one knee so he was eye level with her. She could feel his warm breath on her hand and found it strangely comforting.

"Come, you look chilled to the bone and I'll be damned if you'll spend the night out here by yourself."

He held out his hand, she looked up and the gasp escaped her lips before she could stop herself.

"Balgess!"

A slight frown wrinkled his forehead. "Have we met?"

Hitomi's breathing was erratic and heavy; her eyes were wide and unfocused. She was taken back to that day, that first day in Fanelia when the city was burning and the air was thick with the stench of smoke and death. The needle glinted on the flame and was fired. He didn't see it coming and was thrown from the Guymelef he had been fighting. Landing on the ground with a sickening thud his lifeblood had drained away.

"Balgess, you're…you're supposed to be dead!"

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So Van has been betroathed to Princess Anevay Gladius, a Princess from another continent and Balgess is still alive and kicking but why? How did all this come about? Was Hitomi getting the pendant back really Van's way of saying he couldn't love her anymore? Not to mention the old favourites how does Aiken fit into all of it? and so on well...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA you guys don't know!

Thanks to karialkia for your reviews and I'm sorry I never got back to you! I just never checked my reviews and there will be more Aiken later on you'll see!