Amare Dividere
Title: Secret Speaking Part Fifteen
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13 for some violence.
A/N after the story.
The baby is coming. It is early for the delivery to have started, but there is nothing that anyone can do to stop that. All Emman's preparedness does little good, the queen finds, when the child decides to stir in its mother a month early. Princess Kira's screams are loud enough to wake the guards on the ground floor of the palace in the middle of the night, and bring the castle steward on the heels of the Queen.
It is mid-harvest. An inopportune time to call the servants from a good night's rest, or to wake the farmers. The midwife resides a day's ride away from the castle through forest, so there is no hurrying her arrival.
To all apparent, who see the sweat on the princess's face, the grit of her lovely teeth as her stomach muscles contract, the child will be born that night. Perhaps before the sun rises.
Nileyah, having tripped her way into her clothes and followed the Queen and steward to the room. When the Queen disappeared into the bedchamber, shoving her son into the antechamber, she had waited beside the steward for the prince's reaction. It is delayed. In his confusion, she pushes him towards a chair in the outer room with a firm hand, despite his scowl of protest.
"I cannot just sit by and watch!" Jasper roars, leaping from his seat and pacing the room angrily. "She is my wife! That is my child!"
"And both are in danger," Emman says in a soft voice as she steps out of the bedroom. "You can do nothing for them."
The prince turns troubled green eyes on his Kathis, a look pleading with her, though unnecessary.
"Stay here, Jasper," Nileyah says, her clothing askew because of the haste, hair a mess. She rolls up her sleeves purposefully. "Let me do what can be done."
Emman looks between the two of them from her position near the door to the princess, and her heart comes up to her throat. Behind her, a writhing woman married to her son, and very much in love with him. Before her, a woman very much in love with the same man, but bound in a different manner.
Cruelty, but on whose part?
Without another word to the agitated man, Nileyah nods her head, and puts a hand on the prince's shoulder, stepping past him to start snapping orders at the servants. "Warm water! Towels! And for Haeris' sake bring the knar!"
The servants, who had been standing around, snap into action, and two are out of the door before the prince, who the Queen steps forward to guide out into the hallway herself.
"Mother," Jasper says in a broken voice, turning to put his arms around the aged woman. "I am…" his voice is very quiet, "scared."
"Hush, son," Emman replies. "Nileyah always does all she can for you. This will be no different. If Kira can be saved, now, this morning, you and I both know that she is the one who will do it. Go downstairs and have some breakfast. Kira will need you strong when she is finished with this."
Reluctantly, Jasper complies, walking slowly down the hall past the returning servants. Emman turns with a heavy sigh back towards the room, following the hot water in.
Receiving the pain relieving knar root ground in hot water, Nileyah lifts the cup to Kira's lips. "It will taste harsh," Nil says, "but you will need it. I will not mince words with you," the Kathis continues, "this is a serious turn of events."
There is a groaning chuckle from the woman lying on the bed, as if to say that were obvious. Once dark lips, pale with pain, part to take the medicine down her throat. The steam fills Kira's nostrils, and she feels the pain recede, and with it threatens conscience. A strong hand takes Nil's wrist in a vice grip. "The child lives," a determined voice says. "If it's me or the child, the child lives," she says, violet eyes dark and meaningful. "He will have you if I die, you have it so you may chose."
And then the herb's affect takes hold of her, and the hand on Nileyah's wrist slackens, and it falls to the bed.
Emman stands quietly at the foot of the bed, observing. Kira had spoken too low for the Queen to make out her words, but her intent was unmistakable.
"It does not look good," Nil says, turning to look at her Queen. "Highness, I may not be able to save both. Even my lady knows it."
"And her decision?" Emman asks, voice and eyes grave.
"The child," Nil says, eyes watering.
"So be it."
Gaddes had been at Allen's side during the attack. He understands, as he and Allen make their slow way back to the Crusade, what Eries meant when she had disagreed with his haste, but knows that it was Allen's decision to make in the end, and so he helps his wounded friend towards the ship. They barely escaped, in the end.
The battle had been a blur of swords and blood, the rushing noise of footsteps on stone and the scream of warriors fighting with every ounce of strength. It had been a good battle, Gaddes reflects, but the price of it had almost been too high.
"Celena… wanted to come…" Allen says with a laugh as the two of them rest on the rocky side of the hill.
"Well then it's a good thing," Gaddes checks the bandage over Allen's arm, tightening it slightly and receiving a groan for his trouble, "that you told her no, isn't it? Stay here, I'm going to go look for the ship. The rest of the crew should be keeping an eye for us." He does not add that not all the crew will have escaped. Or that not the losses were likely tremendous. A good battle was one thing… but war was never a good thing. Casualties were real, and some things could never be taken back.
"You… do… that," Allen says, not bothering to add that he will remain resting.
Of the two of them, he has lost more blood. He fought harder, because of anger and frustration at the situation, he went in blindly in a manner he had not since he was very young. With a wince, Gaddes notes that Allen will bear the scars of this outing, and hopes that those scars will not endanger what headway the blond knight was making with Eries.
In his opinion, the two of them have been playing in circles for far too long. Since Allen had reformed himself, since Celena had returned to him… there is no obstacle, in Gaddes' mind at least, to the old betrothal being honored.
He had known both of them when they were much younger. He had seen the royal carriage outside the Schezar house in town, and the guards riding before it. He had seen the smile on the pale princess's face to be helped down, and the look on Encia's face as she knelt before the royal child. It had looked, to Gaddes, like a dance… one in which all parties were willing, even if Allen did not know it.
His head spins, and he catches himself from tottering down the hill without Allen. Too much thought could get dangerous, just now.
"So," Gaddes says as he returns, fighting the vertigo from his own, lesser blood loss, again impressed at how well Allen manages his body, "what are you going to say to her about this mess?"
Allen sets his jaw. "It … depends," he says, struggling step for step with Gaddes, "on… if… I make… it back…"
"You're going to make it back, you jackass," Gaddes replies, pulling Allen from the ground and putting his arm over his shoulders. "Otherwise I could've left your heavy ass… back in the castle!"
Allen lets out a bark of laughter that is quick followed by a cough. "How far…?"
"The next hill," Gaddes says in a low voice. "So don't you die on me now."
"It… honestly… depends… on what… she says," Allen admits, eyes rolling back into his head and changing the subject. Thinking about death won't do now. He closes his eyelids and forces himself to struggle on, helping Gaddes drag his useless body as best he can. "If I… fall… at the top of… this hill… let me roll… down…"
"Whatever you say, commander," Gaddes replies with a snort.
"What is it you come to speak to me about with such a grave look on your face, Aria?" the Mother Superior asks. Unlike the other sisters, who had always looked up to her and called her princess, the Mother Superior, who had known the late Queen, Therese, addressed Eries in the manner that her own mother would have, had she survived, and called her by her middle name.
Eries lowers herself to her knees reverently, "I have a weakness, Mother. I feel… unwell because of it."
"It is not like you to be so sick with something." The Mother Superior sits heavily in the chair behind her desk. "Empty your mind to me."
"When I was very young, my father arranged for me to be married," Eries says, her throat thick. "But the… boy… was not informed of the suit… and so…"
"These things are in the past, child," the Mother Superior says in a gentle voice. "It may hurt, but Jichia teaches that grieving is done for the dead, and not the past. The past can only cloud the present if you let it. What happened then is between you and he and Jichia, who holds all secrets and knows all things. Tell me what troubles you now, Aria."
"I came to Tuloom thinking that I would forget the world outside, Mother," she says in a soft voice. "I came to Tuloom to forget, to leave the past behind as Jichia says. To be like water flowing downstream. But now… now that I am back in Palas and I am around him… there is no peace from the thought of him…"
"I feel I should ask why you wanted to give up this man who seems so all encompassing, given your words. But only as it relates to yourself."
Eries blinks, glancing up at the Mother Superior.
"My heart tells me that what reasons you had for leaving this man were not entirely of your own making. If that is the case, then you are running from this, which is why you cannot put him aside as you wish to. And it is why your home has not become here with us."
"Mother, I do not know if I can find the strength to be who I must to accept him. He has done… things… To forgive… It is hard, Mother."
"If life were easy, it would not be as sweet," the Mother Superior says, "the path Jichia leads is not always along a smooth shore."
"These things are all?"
"It is not an easy thing to feel nothing for him. In anyone's case."
"Then let it not be your case either." Rising, the old woman steps over to brush her wrinkled fingers across Eries's bare forehead. "How goes the search for your sister?"
Tristan finds himself amazed, yet again, at Skan's resourcefulness. The winged man goes about warming the last of their trapped food on a small, smokeless fire in the cave that the High Priest had retreated the two of them to. It has been days since Van and Arik left the temple, and though neither had mentioned it in their varied languages, both feel the absence of one of the departed keenly.
Tristan's mind, as he watches the dark red glow of the barely-there fire, strays again to Arik, and he wonders, idly, how she is faring with Van. His eyes are so intent on the fire that he does not even notice when Skan has finished heating the food.
The winged man waves his hand before the priest's face and brings him back to the moment at hand.
"Sorry," Tristan says with a smile, aware that the other man most likely cannot understand him. "I was wondering about Arik."
Skan's face twists into a slight frown, and he rolls his eyes, shoving the small wooden bowl of food at Tristan. When the priest takes the bowl, the Draconian reaches up to his neck to remove a small pendant.
Tristan begins eating before realizing that Skan is speaking in a hushed voice. What draws the priest back is the glow of the cave walls around them. They are a soft, shimmering pink, and his eyes look to the source of the light.
"An energist," Tristan says in a confused voice.
Much of what he had seen in Asgardia had made little sense to the High Priest, which troubled him, since his land was supposedly that which the Draconians of Asgardia had created for them. The chanting around the fire at night… the battles… the singing…
Skan hushes him with his eyes, holding the stone over the fire and concentrating, the words he speaks turning melodious, sounding like the songs sung evenings on Asgardia with the Draconians, which had always sounded like prayer to Tristan, though even he admitted he was biased.
The air above the fire starts to shimmer, a placid teal color, and the center of the shimmering light flattens out into a small window, and in it he sees Arik.
"But where is Van?"
Skan shrugs his wings, absently, the image widening to show that Arik is tucked in a bed, eyes closed but looking troubled in her sleep, with a similarly sleeping, though smaller, female figure beside her. Tristan frowns, not knowing who the other woman might be, and a surge of jealousy flares up in him, strangely, until he sees the color of the younger woman's hair and the slant of her cheekbones.
So familiar.
Once, distantly, he can remember from their stay in the Compound, Arik had mentioned… "The Council is certain that every Kathis sent out is capable of fathering… or giving birth to a child, Tristan. No one leaves the Compound on a mission of becoming a bodyguard without having that proven without a doubt."
This, then, his mind catches up to his memory to inform him, will be the child that Arik had before she knew him. No wonder the child looks so similar. No wonder they are sleeping so closely.
Skan, watching his face, sees that he is satisfied, and trails off his speak-singing, the image fading out into the lick of the flames beneath it, the walls darkening from their luminescence.
"That was probably dangerous… it could attract attention."
Skan regards him flatly, a look that says volumes. The least of which an annoyed, 'What do you want from me?' And then there is a noise, and the winged man tenses, rising to his feet in a crouch and drawing his sword.
But the head that peaks through wears no armor and the body that follows bears no weapons. The small man is a sight for sore eyes, and as he gazes at Tristan, his eyes water as much as the priest's.
A/N: Gaddes, in this chapter, makes a reference about the battle having been a 'good' one. I think of this in the slant of the show. Gaddes is a seasoned warrior, a knight-for-hire, according to the way I laid the story out. Draw your own conclusions.