For Want of a Nail
By LSR_7 (aka LSR-7 since ff.net doesn't like underscores!)
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vision of Escaflowne/Tenkuu no Escaflowne
Prologue
A pillar of white light flashed onto a circular platform and disintegrated to reveal Folken and Hitomi on its center.
"Where are we?" a startled Hitomi asked her tall companion.
"Everything is now in place," a gravelly voice said behind her. She turned away from Folken and looked up to locate the voice. Dornkirk continued, "All of the pieces have come to me. The time has come to use the full power of the Fate Alteration Engine. All is proceeding according to my will."
"Your will?" questioned Folken.
"Yes," Dornkirk answered, "I guided fate so you would bring the girl from the Mystic Moon to me."
Folken's shocked face quickly turned to anger. "Just how far do you plan to toy with fate?!"
"A foolish question. You should know my true intentions," the emperor answered calmly.
Folken's eyes narrowed as he said resolutely, "Then you should know what I'm determined to do."
"You've come to kill me, correct?" No fear was evident in the old man's voice.
Hitomi was shocked and quickly turned to face Folken to see if what Dornkirk had said was true.
"Come, kill me. I am the only one here."
Folken pulled out his sword that had been resting on his left hip with his true hand and flapped his powerful black wings.
"Folken-san!" shouted Hitomi anxiously.
The metal plates around Emperor Dornkirk lifted and separated in a cloud of steam. His cold laugh could be heard echoing in the immense chamber. In the veil of the steam he could be seen standing with his withered arms raised.
"Come, Folken!" he laughed mockingly, raising his arms past his shoulders.
A mask of rage slipped onto Folken's face. His eyebrows bunched, eyes narrowing into slits and screamed, "Monster!"
He flew up, black feathers littered the air in his wake, and landed before Dornkirk who was mocking him, challenging him to kill him with his arms open.
"Folken-san!" Hitomi desperately pleaded.
Folken raised his broadsword above his head.
"Dame!" Hitomi screams.
The sword started its descent. Dornkirk's eyes widened in surprise, as he had not expected Folken to actually kill him. The sword finally slashed down on the emperor and green fluid spurted out at Folken. It reminded him of the blood he had drawn from the dragon he had failed to slay over a decade ago. The sword had cut Dornkirk down, but went even further until the tip hit the plating of the massive machine that had formerly been connected to Dornkirk. It broke off and spun back up to hit the black winged avenging angel in the chest. Folken grunted and his eyes grew round in shock. The green liquid finally slowed then stopped leaving three empty bell jars that had held the fluid. Folken remained hunched over from when he went on his downward arc to kill the emperor and discovered the probable reasoning to this happening, "I see. This is the heart of the fate alteration, where action and reaction are at their most powerful." He looked up and continued, "But the war will end now." At this point his face was calm as he accepted his fate and he straightened up as he said, "May Gaea find true peace…"
He fell back and bounced off Dornkirk's machine and came to rest on the cold metal deck. Blood pooled around him from his chest, mouth and eyes. His final thought voiced was, "Van."
As his eyesight dimmed into blackness a distant sounding yell from Hitomi was heard. "Folken-san!"
Author's Notes May 25, 2003:
I went back and changed this chapter so that all of the sentences stay in the same tense. Or at least I hope I got all of them.
Author's Notes: The dialogue is directly from the subtitles from my Escaflowne tapes. They are exactly the same except that I left it so that Hitomi still says, "Folken-san" rather than the plain "Folken" since she is speaking Japanese. That goes for her saying "Dame!" (pronounced "da" like the "du" in "duck" and "me" is like the "me" in "met") which means "No!" I left everything else as is. Since this is a prologue I just used it as a recap. It will take a while to get the whole story out since I intend to finish the whole story before I post many more chapters out.
This fanfiction is going to be focused on Folken after his "supposed" demise. I guess it's almost an AU. I'm playing off of that Van never said directly that Folken's body was found and buried, although I know he probably meant that when he and Hitomi were in front of the monument looking place when he said "You can watch us from here" or something to that effect. I just want to make it clear that I've seen the whole series multiple times and I pretty much know what I'm talking about.
I will be introducing many of my own characters, the first few you'll meet will have "normal" names, meaning ones we've heard before, Earth names. My defense is that they already have Earth names on Gaea/Gaia like Allen, Merle, Van, Eries, Astoria/Asturia, etc. Are you surprised about Astoria? I was surfing the net and found a place called Astoria in New York, I think. I believe it was the name of a hotel. From my own experience of reading fanfics I find that having an onslaught of new characters can be frustrating, so I hope I have written this well enough that you, the readers, don't find it annoying.
I'm having my story edited so that also adds onto the time thingy, but I'm having everyone take their time. I hope you will enjoy.
-LSR_7