"The way out will be hard. You will want to give up but you can't. All of Gaia and Earth depend on your courage and valor." The centaur touched where his heart lay. "Remember to follow your heart and trust your instincts."

"I will. I promise." Vanel gave the room a once over before he knew he was to leave. The whole story was told of Atlantis was told in the writing and he wished he could understand all of it. On Earth no one really knew quite what happened to Atlantis.

You know more than you think Young Lord. The voice echoed in his head once again. He looked around to find that he was no longer in the monumental room cave. The writings on the wall now were not but the strange writing on the back wall.

"What is this place?" His voice came back to him throughout the hall. - - - - "You can't do this."

"Yes I can. I told you a long time ago when you agreed to this that this would eventually happen. Now go. We'll call you when his assignment has ended.

The woman was escorted off the ground.

-Another place-

"He has begun his test. He must not be allowed to finish it."

"We can't get in. They are giving him a different test."

"We might not be able to get in but we can sure make his life a living Tartarus." - - - -

Tramie- thank you for all of your help with the writiing of the story. Thank you also for being one of my most faithful reviewers.

Meinen

Lady Winged Knight

kark princess Adidas

Emely Raines

Wolf's Spirit- You changed your name!!!!!!! Why!! I liked it!

Fuzzie

officially Obsesses with Pyro

Disclaimer: I don't own them. I happen to just love to write the characters.

Chapter 10

-Analous-

He was nervous and jittery about his new assignment. It wasn't as if this was Fanelia's Queen officially. He had been dismissed for the night by Lady Hitomi and he could see that Lord Van was going to be in trouble when he arrived to the room. Instead of going to his room he went to the library. "Lord Kitan, you're here late today."

"I'll be here for a while. Do you have information on the Destiny War and Lady Hitomi?"

"I do. It's right over....." The canine-like librarian expertly pushed the moving ladder to where he needed to go. He browsed through one of the shelves. "Here it is. Brushing up on your history?"

"Just Lady Hitomi and her involvement with it."

"I'm sure that she has some stories that she could tell. You know, we wouldn't have survived that war if it hadn't been for her."

"I'm sure she does have some. What can you tell me about her?"

"Well, my daddy was the around at the time. I was just a little pup. I don't think I had opened my eyes to the world around me yet." He made sure that the library was all straight before he sat down in front of Analous. "This was four or five years after the Destiny War. There had been little scuffles of rebellion that popped up here and there, but over the years they had become of no consequence. The advisors were finding the King a suitable wife, saying that it was time. They sent out invitations to all of the kingdoms to bring all of the princesses for a ball."

Analous could see all of this happening as if he were there. He saw the counsel making decisions for the young King, as if he wasn't capable of doing anything. He had to sit through some of those meetings himself and they had been threatening the same thing with him now. He couldn't become King until he was married.

"Lord Van, much to their disappointment, disappeared a couple of days before the ball. He returned a day later with a beautiful young woman. My daddy said that he saw the pillar of light appear and a few hours later Lord Van arrived to the castle. All the while it seemed that Lady Merle knew what was going on and had been ordering the staff around, trying to get one of the rooms ready in the royal wing. My parents figured that we were getting ready for some princess from another country's arrival.

"My mama painted pictures when we were napping." He got up and went to pull down one of the pictures off the wall. "She saw Lord Van return a few hours later with this young woman on the back of another horse." The picture showed Lady Hitomi and Lord Van racing to the palace. It looked like they were having the time of their lives.

"They look like they were having fun."

"Oh they were. That was until half of the advisors assaulted him while he was climbing down the horse. My daddy said that it looked like they were chastising him. He did recognize Lady Hitomi, though. They paid no mind to the woman that was behind them, that was until Lady Merle pounced on her and Lord Van managed to push past them to get Lady Merle off of her. Lord Van gave one of his famous glares that dared anyone to go anywhere near them for the next few hours."

Analous remembered that last glare that Lord Van had given him. He knew exactly what the canine librarian was talking about.

"It didn't take long to get the tailor and the seamstress here. It had become very evident that the Lady that had arrived with the King would be attending the ball. At that time, women were only allowed to know the measurements of the ladies and the men were the only ones that knew the same of the gentleman. There was another skirmish that broke out before the ball. It required attention. The advisors raised cain when they found that Lord Van had brought her with them to resolve this.

'She holds no clout here. Why is she here?' They asked.

'She holds plenty of clout or have you forgotten she is the reason we won the last war.' Lord Van is reported to have said.

'I haven't forgotten.' A voice seemed to speak from the crowd. The crowd parted to reveal Lady Merle.

The advisors shook their heads. 'It still doesn't count.'

'These two ladies are worth more than all of you put together. They will be helping and if any of you have a problem with that you are fired.' They didn't say anything after that.

Lady Hitomi nodded to merle." There was another picture on the wall. That showed what was happening with the crowd parting. There was Lady Merle in formal wear, just like Lady Hitomi. They stood by the King, proud to be there. "Zaibach was brought to the table for talks. It was agreed that there would be no more fighting in trade that they could get some food, because the war had left their people without it. A treaty was drawn up so that they could sign. We haven't had that much trouble out of Zaibach in many years. There are still some people that are a little bit leery of them, though. The technology that they once used against us is supposed to be destroyed. There are some that say that it isn't and that it is still floating around waiting for someone to get there hands on it.

A day later we had the ball." There was another picture that was brought down. "Lady Hitomi entered the room looking absolutely gorgeous. The women that were there just to marry Lord Van were sorely disappointed when she was introduced as Kanzaki Hitomi. At the very sound of the name, they knew that they stood no chance. She was supposed to be the legendary seeress that they had all heard about in war stories. The stories had been so exaggerated that they wondered why she looked like she was human. You know how gossip can fly and change the whole story." The picture held the women's shocked faces as she came down the steps. Lord Van waited with his back turned to the artist. He was in the formal Fanelian clothes.

"Your mother was quite the artist. How did she capture such scenes?"

"She was there. She would always be somewhere that couldn't be spotted. Sometimes it was up in a tree and other times she would be in the balcony painting or drawing."

"Well what else happened?"

"Just as everyone expected, after she showed up at the ball he announced that he would be marrying Lady Hitomi. The advisors were going crazy. All they knew about her was that she had helped to save Gaia. They put her through vigorous training in running matters of state and kept her from Lord Van a lot. He put a stop to that. He wasn't going to be separated from her for that long. They liked to keep her through lunch and she would be so tired from all the training that she would come back exhausted.

I would say that it was two months later that they were married. It was a great occasion." There was another picture on the wall. "They were married in the palace chapel. They had tried to keep it quiet when they were getting married, but it didn't seem to work. The church was packed and there wasn't one street for miles in the city that wasn't empty, waiting for them to come out. They were all hoping to get a good look at the new Queen. Some of them had yet to meet her. She didn't disappoint them. She greeted each of the people that she could on the way back to the palace. That was a little hard. The knights and the guards were having to work extra hard to keep the people off the streets as much as they could. They even had the Asturian knights helping out.

She was here for a great many meetings and helped to solve several problems. One day she came out of her room very pale. By then I had seen her and I knew what she looked like. My daddy had told me that she had played with us quite a bit before she had to go home. I just don't remember that much about her, other than what I was told."

"Well what about her test. I thought that all of the Kings and Queens had to be tested before they were allowed to take the throne."

"They are and she will be tested again. She's been gone for so long that the advisors that we have now don't know who she is. In fact, I heard that they questioned her about her status and their son. They wanted to try to think that she had been unfaithful or something to him. I've seen her son, though. He looks just like Lord Van did when he was younger. They would never be able to dispute that with anyone."

"What about her test that she had to take then?"

"She had to take that test in the arena. There were three different tests. They were to test wit, strength and wisdom. She passed all three. It was a shock to them, because I think that they threw in several things in those tests that they didn't have to. Since she passed them, she was allowed to marry him and to be crowned Queen of all Fanelia."

"I think that she knew that they would. She always seems to know more than she lets on. I've only met her just today."

The librarian chuckled. "You will find that she will always know a lot more than she lets on. I will warn you, since I think that you have been assigned to protect her to watch out for her visions. The last one she had had the whole castle worrying. They couldn't do anything about it, though."

"Thanks. I'll take that into consideration. Expect the unexpected." Analous went to his room.

-Hitomi and Van-

"Van, I am perfectly able to take care of myself. I don't have to have your student watch over me." Hitomi paced the floor, staying 10 feet away from him.

"I know you are, but Vanel tells me that this has happened more than once. I don't think I could take it if anything like what happened to you on the Mystic Moon happened here. Here you are a Queen and a mother. We need you." Van countered trying to get closer to her.

She wouldn't let him any closer. "My son is out there doing something to do with some vision that he had, and you're worried about me needing bodyguards." She couldn't get used to calling Vanel their son. It would take her a long while to get to that point.

"Yes I am. I promised him, Hitomi, that I would find a way to protect you, even if I wasn't with you. Wherever you go you will find that Analous Kitan holds just as much clout as you do around here. They won't be able to touch you."

"That threat told a lot. How much have you trained him in the last sixteen years?"

"I've seen him once a week since he was about 3 years old."

"That would make him about 19 now."

"You're right it would. The counsel is pushing me to find him a wife. They say that he can't become King until he is married."

"If they say that about him, what are they going to say about our son?"

"They'll say the same thing. They want the future King married before he accepts the crown. They say that the protocol has always been there. It's just when I was crowned King they needed a leader. That was why it wasn't required at the time. They will test both of them, I'm guessing in order to choose a King."

Hitomi shook her head. She had walked into a huge web that she would probably never again get out of. She didn't really want to. She was used to a lot of mayhem because of what she did for a living on Earth.

"I still don't want a bodyguard 24/7." She said, before settling on the bed.

"I know." He was finally able to get close enough to her without her walking on his feet.

"Have you ever..." She began to ask him.

"No I haven't Hitomi."

"How do you even know what I am going to ask?"

"I can see it in your eyes. You were going to ask me about Lady Kitan." He paused before he embraced her. "I've only ever loved you. Whenever she has been around, there have been witnesses that would watch through the mirror/window in the meeting room."

"I'm worried."

"I know. Let me see if I can take your mind off your worries."

-Vanel-

Vanel walked the cavern that he had been left in. All along the walls were the different markings that had been behind the chair. He still couldn't read them, but then again he didn't expect to be able to. He had studied the ancient Greek and Egyptian languages when he had studied the countries. When they were off on a trip, his mother had insisted he keep studying something. It didn't matter what, just as long as he was learning. It wasn't as if he wasn't allowed to have fun, she just wanted him to be well knowledged in everything that he could be.

He finally came across a cave with hieroglyphs. He stopped to read what it said. "Two countries and cultures that were once combined now lay as far apart as the two worlds themselves. To be combined can either bring destruction or prosperity to two worlds. However, the two worlds will remain apart, with one having no knowledge of the other. It will all seem but myth." He read out loud. It made the words seem more real than they were. Earth and Gaia were but the same. "How did Gaia get here, though?" He knew the meaning of the Greek word Gaia was Earth and Uranus was heaven.

There were rocks that were out of place all over. Vanel had stepped over the large ones and the little ones had been kicked out of the way. That was until 15 minutes later he stepped on a rock that slid from its spot, causing him to disappear into a......

-- - - - Okay that is the end of this chapter. I hope that it is satisfactory. Let me know what you think of it!