When he was 15, Folken slayed the dragon and became king of Fanelia. Many years later, however… History repeats itself.
Or, does it?
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The Council of Typhon
by witchfingers
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0
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Faster, goddamnit.
Faster.
The forest ground is slippery, traitorous. It swallows the strength of his legs, exhausting him.
The shadow of the dragon looms over him- not bound by the laws of the ground, it slithers above him, through the treetops.
His own armor never felt like protection enough, but now, it feels like a coffin, it cages him in.
He runs, keeps on running, for his life.
He wonders when it is that he'll come to stop.
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I
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It was the most unsettling feeling, like static fuzzying around her, and it had been dogging her for a couple of days now.
She wasn't aware of it at first: she wrote it off as the shifting spring weather. It was sneaky to pinpoint, too: it hid in the subtle fragrance of the last cherry blossoms, in the gentle swish-swash of someone's brushing of the street with a straw broom, even in the icy and evanescent bite of the sparse raindrops of the sudden spring showers.
If only she could shake the feeling off. Unfortunately, once she isolated and identified it, she couldn't seem to get rid of it- as if the air around her was charged, and every single tiny hair on her body had to stand on edge to respond to it.
It didn't seem to be a constant thing, however. She began to notice it particularly when she went to work in the mornings, and then, when she returned home in the evenings. She began leaving her tracksuit on, rather than folding it back into her backpack like she normally did, instead opting to make the last run of the day the run back home, to speed up the being done with the weird feeling, which was taking a turn more and more towards the eerie with every passing day.
It had worked the first times, but, afterwards, The Feeling hung on heavily even long after she was back in her tiny apartment.
It was starting to wear her –Kanzaki Hitomi, Japanese, 26-years-old, P.E. highschool teacher– down.
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II
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It had been an especially long Monday.
All her 3 classes of P.E. students had had a particularly overall disastrous performance, tripping and falling and having their morals pathetically low. Moreover, ever since early in the morning, The Feeling had been insistently nagging and gloomy; so that, at 5:30 pm, when classes were finally over, Hitomi was uncharacteristically eager to rush back home, have a warm, comforting shower and eat something sweet and possibly unhealthy, to maybe try and start the week on a better note.
Because of this, she finished putting away the sports equipment in almost record-time, and spent as little time as she could transcribing the day's scores and observations into the school's teachers' records. She went through her routine check to make sure everything was in order, and swiftly locked up her little office.
Today, just like every other Monday and Wednesday, she was the last teacher to leave, and she got to see a quiet, sleepy side of the school building that others rarely saw. She didn't dislike it at all, to see the halls bathed in the warm, dreamy, red sunset-light.
She put on her headphones, clicked on 'PLAY', hoisted her bag, and started jogging back home.
!
The air was warm and the scents rose with the falling afternoon. A thought shyly appeared in her mind, that it was perfect to jog around in the park a bit, instead of going past it like every day. The thought suggested it would do her well, too, after such a shitty day like today.
!
Her feet sank slightly on the grass. Her footfalls rhythmically took her around the paths. This is just what I needed, she thought, pleased to feel the wind against her face.
Ah, running always made her feel alive.
!
The Feeling returned without warning.
It took over with such strength that she could feel it humming, humming deeply, and there was no sound, and she was weightless, and everything stopped… except for her.
A sudden blinding light exploded out of nowhere, swallowing everything around her, and she… she kept on running.
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III
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Footfall.
Footfall.
Silence.
Footfall.
She ran in silent slow-motion through the haze of blinding light, unable to stop her feet from moving.
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IV
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Faster, goddamnit.
Faster.
The forest ground is slippery, traitorous. It swallows the strength of his legs, exhausting him.
The shadow of the dragon looms over him- not bound by the laws of the ground, it slithers above him, through the treetops.
His own armor never felt like protection enough, but now, it feels like a coffin, it cages him in.
He runs, keeps on running, for his life. Faster, goddamnit, faster.
Faster.
A sudden light erases the shadow of the dragon. Like a mirage, a silhouette stands out from the blinding brightness, he can see it in the distance.
He has to stop: his legs can't carry him any further. And, suddenly, just like it came, the light is gone.
When his vision settles again, he's not in the forest any more.
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V
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She outran the light, the park appears dim in comparison now despite the embers of the twilight, but this is just a passing thought she gets right before she realizes she will inevitably crash against a man, who certainly wasn't there two seconds ago, before…
The light. The speed at which she was running lands them both painfully on the ground, and the strange kind of light armor he's wearing will leave some ugly bruises on her. Cursing under her breath, she's ready to give this stranger a piece of her mind, but then she takes in how he's heaving and looking around wildly, and all her words die on the tip of her tongue.
The Feeling is back, tenfold, and it is somehow making her aware of a certain shadowed spot between a grouplet of trees in the park. Coincidentally, that is also where the eyes of the stranger are fixed, as if he could somehow see something she cannot.
'Get away from here,' he rasps, and he sounds commanding despite the exhaustion in his voice.
'What?' she asks, confused, 'Where did you come from?'
He doesn't even spare her a glance, 'There's a dragon about to come out of those trees, so go if you value your life.'
A dragon?
She eyes the trees with profound uncertainty, deepened by the fact that The Feeling tells her that that's exactly what is about to happen. She scrambles to her feet, and offers him a hand up.
'Come on, let's go,' she says.
For the first time, he looks at her, with dark eyes that assess her, first, and then question her. 'And who will stay behind to stop it?' he asks then, in a dead-serious manner that somehow offends her.
'Not you, that's for sure,' she replies, though not unkindly. He truly is worse-for-wear, and when he finally accepts her helping hand to stand up, he has to steady himself with the help of a sword he carries by his hip. She decides to put all questions on hold for later.
Lightning and thunder come from the trees, where a tear in the darkness announces that something is about to come through from somewhere. Hitomi's whole body is racked with goosebumps, her sixth sense feels like it will kill her.
'Someone will take care of it, now let's go,' she urges. He nods.
A cavernous roar and the sound of heavy limbs taking calculated steps brings them to movement.
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VI
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He was overtaxing himself, her trained eyes could read all the signs. And if it'd been in any other circumstance, she would be making him lie down to catch his breath and then stretch, but they couldn't afford that right then, as they ran across the park. Hitomi bore the curious, and sometimes disapproving stares of the people they passed by with a mixture of nonchalance and shame, but the man by her side didn't seem to mind at all, focused instead on willing his legs to take the next step, then the next one…
In reality, Hitomi didn't know where she was taking them. They soon found themselves at a busy crossroads, standing amidst crowds of commuters in varying stages of coming home, where the man placed his hands on his knees, slightly bent, and strove to catch his breath.
'Do you think it could follow us here?' she asked, glancing around; alert, but trying not to look paranoid.
He shook his head. 'Too many people'.
'Hey,' she said, trying to sound friendly, and not as psyched out as she felt, 'Let's go find somewhere quiet to rest a bit.' She caught his gaze- there, she read he was calculating, and unsettled, probably as confused as she was. Again, he nodded. He was deciding to trust her- very well. She appreciated it. Mostly because she wished to know what the hell was going on. Also, because sure as hell she needed to sit down as well. Every nerve in her body was on edge.
Every café or pub around was busy at that hour, so Hitomi chose the one with the dimmest lights she could spot nearby, and made her way to the furthest, most secluded corner available.
It wasn't near as secluded or far enough to make a tall, rugged man in armor go unnoticed, however.
She left him at the table and went over to the counter to get him the next best thing to the power drink they surely wouldn't have, which turned out to be lemonade.
When she returned, she sat opposite him. The silence was strange and uneasy: he looked out of the window at the passing people, with a regal expression that blanketed a lot of sadness.
She let him be until a waitress came over with a tall jar of ginger-and-mint lemonade, which she poured into two glasses. Hitomi gently pushed one towards him.
'Drink it up,' she said, 'It's gonna do you good, after all the running you've been doing. My name is Hitomi,' she offered, with a slight smile.
He turned, to look at her. He was probably around her age, and his eyes were soulful, with thick, dark lashes.
'I'm Van,' he returned, taking a sip out of the glass, and, establishing it wasn't not alcoholic nor disgusting, drank it down in a couple of gulps. 'Thank you,' he said quietly, with a slight tilting of the glass.
'No problem.'
It was starting to become awkward again, but then he asked: 'If you please… Hitomi… where is this place?'
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VII
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'Well, it's, eh… maybe it's better if you tell me where you're from, first?'
'The kingdom of Fanelia,' he said. '… on Gaia.'
'Oh.'
He guessed from her face that she had never heard from either place. And he also guessed that, had she not seen him suddenly appear in that park through a haze of light, she probably would not have believed him.
Hitomi sighed. 'Well, you're in Japan now, a country on… planet Earth. If that's any good to you.'
It was, although the deep shock Van felt at those words did not translate with the blank expression on his face: he chose to keep his sudden wisdom to himself.
'I wonder how I wound up here,' he asked, instead, knowing full well that no one would be answering him.
'…chased by a dragon?' Hitomi offered.
'Yeah,' he said, cracking a slight smile for the first time, 'Not worth the trouble at all, I know now…'
'What do you mean?'
'That dragon and I, we were both after the same thing. I should've known when to quit,' he said, with a shrug.
Hitomi frowned. 'You're not making any sense,' she informed him.
Van shrugged.
Hitomi looked at him for a while, trying to get some information out of his looks without having to ask, but there wasn't much she could tell, other than how out-of-place he looked in his foreign clothes and foreign height, and how he must have had a long, rough day, which he was lucky to come out of with his life.
She deflated, feeling suddenly very low-spirited.
It was starting to get late. She was emotionally confused, her legs ached from mindless running, and there was a man from another… world? maybe? sitting across her, wearing some kind of medieval garb in the middle of a technologically lively 21st-century city, and otherwise alone… what was the right thing for her to do?
She didn't know anyone well enough in this city to call this late already, and her family lived in a city two hours away. And, anyway, who was going to believe her, about this guy?
And she couldn't just put him up in her place. He was a total stranger. Not to mention she didn't even own a couch.
'Hey,' he suddenly said, 'I uh, wanted to thank you. For everything you've done for me today.'
'It's no problem at all,' she replied. 'So what are you gonna do now?'
'It's a good question,' he said, and looked out to the black sky, 'Try to go back, I guess. Aren't there any stars here on… Earth?'
She explained, with a small smile, that there were, but one couldn't see them because of the bright city lights.
'That's a shame,' said Van, 'You people are missing out.'
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VIII
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Later that evening, she sat by her small round kitchen table eating a cup of instant noodles, and listened to the water running in the shower as if it would somehow bring to her answers, of any sort, to questions such as: why? how? for what purpose?; but mostly: what was I thinking?
In an effort to pacify herself, she'd brought out her tarot cards. Currently, however, they rested neatly as a perfectly piled deck, after she'd drawn The Tower, and her resolve had faded and she'd decided she really didn't want to know anything else.
But now, perfect stranger Van from somewhere-not-Earth (honestly?) was in her shower, which she had had to teach him how to use, (because he'd never seen one before) and she was lending him some old clothes of her dad's she'd stolen as pajamas ages ago, and his armor and his sword rested innocently in a corner, but they felt like they weighed the room down.
'Hey, Hitomi… would you give me a hand with this?' he'd asked, while untying a thick, braided leather cord that held one of the shoulder plates in place, 'There's a hook, back there, where I can't reach.'
'Uh. Sure.' She'd approached with a fake kind of nonchalance she could keep up by repeating in her head: this is normal for him, this is no big deal for you, there are stranger things that could have happened… and so on.
She did note he seemed to be, if rather rough, a gentleman.
'Who does it for you, normally?'
A mother? A sibling? A wife?
'A servant'.
'…Oh.'
Maybe she was asking the wrong questions? He appeared to be the kind of man who didn't hesitate to tell the truth, although maybe the kind not to tell the whole truth to a stranger.
By the time he stepped out of the shower, Hitomi had rolled out for him the spare futon her parents had brought for when they came over, and he was looking like someone else entirely. She could now see how his wet hair reached the nape of his neck, and the tan hue of his skin. Her dad's old sweatpants were too short for him. His ankles were also tan… perhaps he came from a very sunny place.
'That shower thing… it's weird,' he commented, amused, 'but it's good.'
Hitomi felt like laughing, but she toned it down to a smile.
'I assumed you'd be pretty hungry, so I made a lot of noodles, though you don't have to eat them all if you don't want to…'
'That's fine,' he said, with a small smile, accepting the warm bowl she passed over to him with pleasant thanks, and taking a seat by the table, like her.
'So, uh, I hope it's not too different from… whatever you eat where you're from. You didn't land with the best cook in town, either, so…'
'You're really kind, you know?' he said, cutting into her trailing words, 'You didn't have any business with me, but you're still concerning yourself. I do hope I will be able to repay you some day.'
'Don't worry. I have the feeling you would've done the same for me.' She wasn't lying. She'd always relied on her keen sixth sense and her accurate sense of intuition, and Van gave her an ok-feeling.
'There is one thing I'd like if you don't mind. I'd like you to tell me about you, or the place where you're from.'
Van obliged.
Hitomi listened in wonder as he described Fanelia, a small landlocked kingdom nested in the heart of ancient forests, both threatened and protected by various kinds of dragons, where many different peoples and races dwelled. He recounted how it was renowned both because of her unparalleled sword-masters and her laureate poets, and how, since many years now, they lived in a steady peace.
'You know so much about Fanelia,' Hitomi mused, slightly ashamed, 'Hah, much more so than I know about Japan. You must really love it…'
He broke into an easy smile: 'I do. It's just part of who I am.'
Hitomi smiled, too. It was such an honest-
'I'm brother to the king, after all.'
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IX
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Oh god, Hitomi blanched, he's a prince and I gave him instant noodles.
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Van frowned.
'You've got nothing to worry about,' he said, 'In any case, it's not a big deal for me.'
'A big deal?'
'Yeah,' he said, with a casual shrug, 'I'm glad it's Folken who's king and not me, I'm not really cut out for stiff palace life, anyway.'
'I'm glad,' Hitomi said, relaxing visibly, ''Cause all I've got is a spare futon and some rice!' That made him laugh, which, in turn, made her laugh. It was probably at that moment when the lingering awkwardness between them finally dissipated, and suddenly Hitomi felt pretty much at ease with the foreign visitor. She decided to tell him more about her country and her (rather uninteresting, in comparison) life.
At some point, he reached out to the deck of tarot cards, forgotten on the table between them, and casually drew the one on top, while asking her what it was. 'A romantic game?' he asked, with a mischievous smile.
Hitomi was puzzled. 'R-romantic? What?'
He handed her over the card he'd drawn, and Hitomi took a look. It was The Lovers. She laughed, understanding his confusion, but it didn't erase the blush that had taken over her face. If that card called out to him does that mean that he… maybe and I… The glance she stole at him then was from a completely different perspective- He's not half-bad looking. Oh god.
'It's not a game,' she chose to say, 'You play cards there in Gaia?'
A nod confirmed this.
'Here we do too, but these are called Tarot Cards. They are used to predict the future, and some people can make very accurate readings.'
'Can you?' he asked, amused.
'Yup, I'm pretty good.'
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X
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He convinces her not with words, but with a little hopeful gleam in his eyes, that this may be a good headstart for him, and that maybe it can clue him as to where to begin the search for the way home. It's a noble cause.
So she prepares the spread, a simple one. She's both intrigued and dreading what the cards will show to him. Everything is set, and she is handing the deck out for him to shuffle it, when it happens. For two seconds, The Feeling courses through her veins, cautioning her. She remembers drawing The Tower, earlier.
Before his fingers touch the deck, she hastily draws her hand back.
He frowns. 'Did I get something wrong?'
She shakes her head, thoughtful. 'I got a funny feeling that doing this is not a great idea.' Before he can articulate looking crestfallen, she suggests:
'How about you ask for guidance? I'll shuffle, and you pick the card that calls out to you'.
He draws The Ace of Serpents. Somehow, to Hitomi it feels like it was inevitable.
'It's got a dragon,' he observes, also apparently not surprised, 'So? What's this?'
She ponders.
'Courage. It represents courage.'
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Author's Note:
Hello! I couldn't resist the temptation of writing this story, because as far as I know there is none that deals with this 'what-if'.
For the purposes of this story, I will use the spelling of the name for the Greek goddess, Gaia, instead of 'Gaea'. Bear with me, you'll see why.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me if the characters are in-character so far! Please, drop me a line!