The Dragon Priestess

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Happy Sunday my wonderful readers. I got it done! I typed up this chapter before I had to publish it. I'm so proud of myself I wish you guys knew. I've been having some major writing blocks with some of my stories and it's scary. I should be good for next week though, but don't hold your breath. As always I can't wait to hear what you guys think, so leave a review or a fav or a follow and I'll (hopefully) see you next week!

Chapter 16: City of Intrigue pt. 1

Brooke had been doing a lot of thinking. Like… a lot of thinking. A lot of remembering too.

Happy memories colored in that depressing blue lens of loss. They'd be more fond to remember if she didn't miss her family so terribly. Or if she hadn't just found out that her sister was alive and very not happy to see her.

She longed to ask someone what she meant by the divine destiny. She wanted to ask Van why her sister was so mad that Brooke was rumored to have married him. Because the way her sister had said it, why did you marry a Fanel, made it sound like that meant something. But how could it? Unless the Fanel's were tied to this divine destiny thing.

But no one would talk to Brooke. And it had been like this for days.

They were heading for Palas the capital of Asturia. Allen had been avoiding her, probably because of the super invasive reading she did about his past and his father. She should have gone easier on him. Now he wouldn't look her in the eye.

Not even Van would look at her. But he had been sulking, not so much about her, but just in general. She tried to talk to him, but he had gone back to thousand-yard-stares and one-word curt answers. The only one who would really talk to her was Merle and the cat girl was rarely nice.

She had been told that they would be landing in a few short hours and that made her nervous. Because she didn't know what was expected. She didn't know if she would still be allowed to tag along, especially since everyone seemed mad at her right now.

So, she went looking for the one person she thought would actually give her a straight answer. Even if it wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, she figured he of all people would tell her the truth. Better to know the truth now than to be blind-sided by it when they landed.

Brooke walked into the guymelef hanger and found Van exactly where he had been spending most of his time these days. Sitting in Escalfowne's lap. His knees up clearly lost in thought. Though he no doubt wanted his solitude Brooke climbed up, making a big show of pulling herself up onto Escaflowne's lap beside him too so she wouldn't startle him.

Well, she hoped it looked like she was putting on a big show. In reality she really, really needed to work on her upper body strength, it never used to be this bad, being a gymnast and all that, but she hadn't been practicing much since she got her and she was already starting to loose it. But Van hadn't even looked at her.

She sat down right beside him, crossed her legs and arranged her skirt so it was modestly covering her up. Still nothing. No words, no sounds. He didn't even look in her direction.

"How you doing?" she asked and finally Van turned to her. He said nothing, he just stared at her with big wounded brown eyes and she nodded. "Yeah me too."

Van half laughed. "Really? What do you have to be distressed about?"

Brooke narrowed her eyes at him. "Well what do you?"

Van turned surprised eyes to her. "Well for starters my country just burned down…"

"You abducted me from a different planet," Brooke answered dryly.

"I wouldn't say abducted…"

"I'm on a different planet then my home one, we're tied right now, keep going."

He scowled at her but didn't argue. "Fine. I'm a wanted fugitive."

"I'm with you. We're wanted fugitives together."

Van huffed. "And I just found out that my brother, who I thought was dead, is the reason all of this is happening."

"What?" she then paused. "Was that the blue haired guy you called brother?"

Van turned another dry glare to here "Yeah, I mean… for ten years I thought he was dead…"

"Oh my god."

"I know it's terrible."

"No, no not that," Brooke said quickly and then winced. "No, I mean, that is terrible what a betrayal, what I really meant is that my sister did the same thing."

Van blinked his eyes. "What?"

"My sister. My twin sister, I found her up on that floating castle. I thought she was dead. Like died with the rest of my family dead and she's been alive this whole time. A whole ten years, and she's with them and really mad at me for some reason. Spouting something about divine destiny or something, I unno it's weird…"

"Yeah. Weird." Van said. "You do have magic powers though and my brother seemed oddly interested in them. He seemed to think we're in on something, challenging him for something."

"I bet it's that divine destiny thing, cause my sister was super pissed I supposedly married you," Brooke said. "Do you know what they're talking about?" Van shook his head. "Yeah I don't either."

For a moment they were silent and then Brooke said: "I'm sorry your brother sucks."

"I'm sorry your sister sucks," he said back immediately. He then glanced at her and cleared his throat. "I uh… I'm sorry for what I said… when… when Allen found out that we weren't… I don't know why I was so mean to you…"

Brooke stared at him for a moment, he was super rude. "That's okay… I guess…" she said after a while. After a moment of silence Brooke turned to him. "Could I maybe… ask you a favour?"

Van turned to her again, almost perplexed. "Uh… I guess…"

Brooke found herself fidgeting a bit. "Uh… you can say no," she whispered. "Cause I know that… well… I'm useless. I know that bringing me along, will be hard. I can't fight, I don't know anything about this world or the cultures and I say the wrong thing all the time but… I… I don't know anyone else, and I'm… kind of alone so could you… could I go with you? Wherever your going I mean? Cause I mean… I don't have anywhere else and I'm sure wherever you go will be fine cause how would I know any better? … So yeah… can I?"

Van blinked his eyes. Clearly not expecting that.

"And don't get me wrong, Merle was here with me too but she's mean and… just… I mean, look at my arm Van… she left marks."

Van looked at the bicep that was in fact sporting teeth marks from Merle. "I'm sorry she bit you. I will talk to her about that."

"Thanks," Brooke said and then turned to him again. "So… can I? Go with you I mean. You can say no, you know, but… please say yes…"

Van half scoffed and looked down and away. "I would have thought that you'd want to go with Allen."

That would be ideal, but Allen was a stranger and she had known Van longer and Allen was mad at her right now. She didn't think it would help her case to say that though, so, she shrugged.

"I mean he's cute. But I was alone with him for like half an hour and I went into hysterics. On purpose. To spite him. Because he told me to calm down."

At that Van laughed. "Well… considering all you've been through in such a short time, hysterics seems like an appropriate response…"

"Thank you!" Brooke cried and the two shared a laugh again.

Van seemed to think about it a bit before saying: "Of course you can come with me."

Brooke let out a deep sigh of: "Thank you."

"But you know I was like captured right?" Van asked. "I didn't choose to leave you behind, and I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted you to get captured with me."

"No, I know, of course I know that," Brooke said.

"And I know I didn't say it but uh… I am grateful that you and Allen came to save me."

Brooke was quiet for a bit and then she said: "You promise you won't leave me behind?"

Van stared at her for a second, realizing that she was honestly very afraid of being alone. He stared at her for almost too long as if silently conversing with himself before he finally started moving. He unsheathed his sword, pried his glove off of his hand, and then carefully sliced his palm open.

"What the hell did you do that for?"

He then took her hand and before she could stop him, he sliced her own palm open.

"OW Van!" she cried but it was too late, he linked their two hands and then just smiled at her.

"There. Blood oath. I so solemnly swear, on my very blood, that I will never purposely leave you behind. Okay?"

Despite the pain in her hand she found herself smiling. "Okay."

Van nodded. "Right," he said quickly dropping her hand. He hadn't even cut her that deep, but they were both still bleeding. "Come on, we'll get you a bandage."

Brooke smiled watching as he hopped down and then offered her a hand to help her down too. She couldn't help but feel completely settled. Even with everything going on now, she had never felt so calm.

Just like Allen said they would, they landed only a few hours later on this little cobble stone airport or landing strip above the city.

The city below them looked only a little bit bigger than Fanelia was, except instead of rolling green forests they had the ocean glistening out in the noon-day sun. Looking as inviting as ever.

"Oh Lord Van! Isn't the sea beautiful? Just look at it!" Merle asked him. She was in her usual position, which was attached to Van's arm. Brooke was starting to think the cat girl was half octopus.

This must have been a typical thing because as usual Van doesn't even look phased. "Yes, it's the first time I've seen it."

Brooke had never really seen an ocean either, but she had seen a lot of lakes.

"Me too," she ended up whispering and then turned to Van. "You know, where I'm from, we do something called Vacations. And we go somewhere warm with a beach and play in the sand and the ocean and… and… drink fruity drinks with little umbrella's in them."

Van was staring at her over Merle's head. Brooke had no idea that she was rambling but he didn't look annoyed with her like he usually was.

"If we have the time, we should go… you know? Have ourselves a little beach vacation. Lord knows we deserve it."

At that Van smiled but Merle frowned. "You're not coming with us," she said crossly.

"Yes, she is," Van said quickly. "She's one of us now, Merle. We're not leaving her behind."

Merle said nothing else, but she scowled up at Brooke who stuck her tongue out at her. That was right, she would be coming with them from now on.

Any other arguments were immediately cut off by the sound of someone screeching Allen's name. A feminine someone. The voice sounded melodic and perfect, but Brooke's jealous side found it sounded more like the shrill cry of a groupie.

The woman that rode up, on a horse that too had its mane on it's neck like a beard, was certainly very beautiful. She was nothing but long legs and beautiful blonde hair. She was in black tights and a pink dress that looked a lot like version of Allen's shirt, except it had a bow in the front and was styled to look more like a high-low dress. And she was tall, almost as tall as Allen and she was in flats.

She looked perfect, and she clearly knew Allen enough to be excited to see him. But how had she known he was there? They had literally just flown in and Brooke was pretty sure that he had come unannounced.

"It's certainly a surprise to have you arrive unannounced, Allen."

And then she just stuck her hand out like Allen was to take it or something.

Then to make matters worse he actually did. He got down on bended knee, took her hand carefully in his and kissed her fingers.

That in itself was terrible to watch, especially how he lingered, and how she seemed to just watch him expecting nothing more from him. But it was the: "Princess Millerna. Truly the surprise is all mine."

See, now that was what a princess was supposed to look like. Not like Brooke who was too gangly and too plain. That was the kind of girl that guys like Allen really fell for.

Maybe she'd be lucky and that was just the custom of how they greeted royalty here. Though that would mean Brooke would have to kiss this woman's hand too. Maybe she could convince Van to let her masquerade as his wife for a few more days.

Once he was done drooling all over her hand, he looked up to her.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

"I can't ride a horse in a dress, now can I? Why didn't you send a message ahead? We could have had a proper welcome for you."

By then he had stood up and for some reason she had clasped onto his hand with both of hers, kind of like the way Merle grabbed onto Van's arm. So this princess was part octopus too.

"My Apologies. We had to come in a hurry."

She finally poked her head around Allen's shoulder to stare at the other people who had all gathered around to watch her fawn all over Allen.

"Oh… and who's that." And then she very rudely pointed right at Van. Seriously, didn't think girl know any decorum? What did they teach the princesses here? Probably the same things that turned Van the way he was.

Allen turned with a warm smile. "Allow me to introduce Van Fanel, King of Fanelia."

Princess Millerna had one of those light bulb moments the second she heard Van's name. "Oh! I see. You know, I thought we had met somewhere before."

Then she quickly turned her attention back to Allen. "When I was young, I went to Fanelia. Oh Allen, it reminded me of a green emerald, Fanelia has such lush forests. It's such a beautiful country."

Wow! Insensitive much? Brooke turned to Van, longing to put a hand out to him, to hold his hand through what was probably a lot of distressing memories, seeing as his country had just burned down. Too bad Merle was in the way.

"The Castle had a blue roof, and in the garden behind it, you were with your brother. Your brother seemed like such a nice person."

WOW! She was hitting all sorts of sour notes with this one, wasn't she? Hot damn, this girl needed to learn how to read a room. Or crowd seeing as they were outside.

Luckily it was Allen to the rescue. "Princess, I have a favour to ask."

"Come on Allen, you're asking me?" she asked once again taking his hand. Geeze, she really was as bad as Merle. "Please, just name it and it's yours."

"Princess I think it would be best if I went ahead to the castle."

"That's a good idea, Actually, father mentioned that he had something important to discuss with you. Here you can use my horse."

He didn't even look back at her as he said that he'd meet them at the castle, he just rode away. Typical. Just typical. The knight and the princess… the perfect couple. Brooke never even stood a chance.

Millerna turned back to them. "Well we better get going," she said and then focused right on Brooke. "You there girl, be a dear and carry Allen's bags?"

Brooke made a big show of looking back and forth because surely this girl couldn't have meant her.

"Who, me?" she finally asked.

Millerna had the nerve to put a single hand to her perfectly cinched waist and say: "Yes I meant you."

Van jumped to her defense immediately. "She's not a handmaiden, she's with me."

Alright brownie points to Van. Definitely starting to make up for the outburst on the bridge after they rescued him.

Merle on the other hand freaked out. "No! She's supposed to be with Allen!"

Now that really surprised Millerna. "She's with Allen?" she echoed and Brooke tried to ward her off but Millerna had gone straight to be fake nice. "I'm sorry, I just saw you in that servant dress and assumed…"

Brooke looked down to the dress that Van had picked for her, the dress she had been told multiple times now made her look odd or servantly and realized that this stupid boy had either no sense of style or had done this on purpose.

Brownie points gone.

"Seriously?" she said to him and he just shrugged.

"I didn't know that… I unno… I thought it suited you."

Did he mean the color, or the fact that the dress was clearly for servants?

"You're not allowed to pick my clothes anymore," Brooke growled to him and then turned a dark glare onto Millerna. "I'm not a servant."

She wanted to say more, something snipper but she didn't. Didn't think it would be a good idea to antagonize this princess. But she knew one thing. The longer she looked at Millerna's smug face, the more Brooke knew she didn't like her.