Amare Dividere
Title: Eggshells of Happiness Part Sixteen
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13 for some violence.
Merle finds herself lingering in the chapel long after Hitomi is gone, and is ashamed of herself because of it. Her duty, she knows, is not to cower in this manner, but to be constantly at Hitomi's side, protecting her in the time of danger. There are many foreign soldiers around the country, and with the refugee monarchs and their daughters there is much uncertainty surrounding both the castle and the Queen.
But lately, she has been a little glad for Hitomi's hardship, and she feels in her heart that these feelings are unjust in regards to the Queen of Fanelia, and her good friend. Hitomi's happiness, though the source of some of Merle's pain, was not the direct cause of it. And Hitomi had done nothing wrong by being happy with Van.
The smiles on her oldest friend's face had been enough to assure her that Hitomi was doing more than adequately at making Van happy, and that was really the only thing that could ever have turned Merle from being Hitomi's friend. Nearly seven years prior, she had blamed Hitomi for Van's sorrow, and even, in her least charitable moments of self-loathing over what had happened to Van, she could blame Hitomi for what she had done to try and cheer him up. But deep down, Merle knew that no one was to blame for that incident except the perpetrators, and they had perished for their crimes.
Kneeling before the altar, Merle stares up at the icons carved into the wall, and speaks an almost silent prayer, "May the Queen and her child live. May the King return. May my friends be safe." She closes her eyes. Prayer, Merle had turned her back on long ago. The dragon god, she recalled a hateful member of the Consortium spitting at her, did not aide those not of his own kind.
She cannot believe that, anymore, though, she finds. Not after the way that Hitomi had returned because of Van's silent prayers. Not after how Fanelia had been saved by Escaflowne. The entire country were not descended of dragons… just the king.
"May my heart be strong. May my intentions be pure. May all those I know and care for see the end of the war and live to tell stories of it."
The air pressure changes slightly, and she turns her head to look at the side door to the chapel, expecting to find Hitomi staring at her with accusing eyes. But it is not the jade eyed queen, instead, she is quite surprised to find that Quivel, the youngest of the Egzardian princesses.
"I am sorry," the princess says in a soft voice, obviously trembling. "I did not mean to interrupt you. I… was looking for the great hall."
"It is a large castle," Merle replies, rising from her knees and stepping in the direction of the princess, putting her palm up against the thick carved wood to open the door. "Easy to get lost in. Allow me to escort you."
The week of celebration can not pass by quickly enough for Van, though to his credit, Arik does not think many know of his frustration. And she herself is kept busy with talking to her daughter when the two of them are not sitting in silent prayer or being feasted or being danced before. It is a nice change to spend some quiet time with Fariah.
"Tell me of things in the wide world," Arik says to her, sitting with hawk-like eyes watching Van and Chid move through the motions of sword practice, the monarchs' only respite from the festivities.
"Queen Millerna of Asturia was taken by the king of Norte."
"That much I knew. Ouran's threat appears clear."
Fariah pauses for a moment before speaking, knowing that the age of Aden and his twin sister would put them close to the same training time as her mother. "It was Aden Calipse who is responsible for him."
Arik frowns. "No, that I cannot believe. Nileyah and Aden were close twins. And there is nothing that would turn Aden from the Consortium. He loved his queen, of that I am certain."
"Love is a fickle thing, mother," Fariah replies, eyes scanning the other cardinal balconies as is her practice when Chid worked with his sword. It is not impossible that someone will try the same tactics again. Word does not spread of how attacks happen, in Freid, only that they have.
"More than you know," Arik said, shaking her head slightly.
"You left the Compound with the High Priest."
"Ispano was invaded by Norte's forces, Fari," Arik says, turning kind eyes on her daughter. "The Compound is no safer a place than the hills of my father. And so I took my lord Tristan where he would safe. And where he would have a choice."
"Where he would, or where you would, mother?" Fariah asks, turning gray eyes accusingly at her mother. "When I was a child you told me what it meant to truly be a companion. You told me it was heartless and cruel to give someone that sort of an expectation only to rip it from them."
"It has happened many times to many I have known. To friends and sisters. To brothers and cousins you will never meet. Because they are dead."
"It is a service, mother. Nothing more. You said so yourself. It is a cruel service."
"You only just received your post, Fari, I do not expect you to understand what I have come to over the years."
"It is easier to reaffirm a position than to create one against what you already believe, mother. You always thought that was wrong. Your years have done nothing but strengthen your opinion of it."
"Perhaps," Arik replies. "But if this is the case, then if you have the opportunity, I want you to look into Nileyah's eyes. I want you to gaze at Aden when his soul is free and his body is his own. See their sorrow. And if you will not see theirs. See mine."
Blinking her bright, wide eyes, Fariah takes a step back from her mother. "You…"
"Yes," Arik says, turning her face towards her daughter, straightening her shoulders in the gown she had been gifted with by Chid. "In a way I was not allowed to know your father."
"Then you left so that…"
"He did not want such a thing, Fari. He was a child of a Kathis father, and I could not, in conscious, force a child from him." A hand strays to her stomach. "Though I may have miscalculated."
"You left him behind in Ispano, mother. You betrayed-"
"Enough of this talk," Arik snaps at her daughter. "I was forced to leave Ispano by my lord and my charge and the king below with your duke. I am strong, Fari, but you could not have met those eyes and won either."
"You are talking nonsense. All of this. We are trained for such battles! You are strong, mother. I cannot believe that you were overpowered… unless you were willing."
"Then perhaps you have been too long without your own thoughts, Fari." Rising, she bows to her daughter in the Freidan manner. "The life of a Kathis is hard, because if we dare to hope for what we know may come to pass, we are often disappointed. And if we do not hope, it can come to pass, regardless. Fate is not so simple as you seem to think of her. Even if we get what it is we think we want, sometimes it is not entirely as you dream of it." She straightens, meeting her daughter's gray eyes with her own cold stony ones.
"I will leave you to your thoughts now, and hope you will one day see the truth instead of what Mot has thrust upon you. I require practice with a sword." Her tone is less than amused, and the slant of her shoulders displeased. She had thought she raised a more open-minded daughter than that. Apparently, she thinks, she has been wrong.
As the taller woman heads down the stairs, drawing her hair over her shoulder to braid it out of her eyes, Fariah clenches her fists. 'What could that mean? There is nothing I do not know about this position that I need to. There is nothing I will learn that I haven't already.'
And then she sees her mother, dressed in an elegant gown, take two swords from the standing armory steward, bow her head, and step out into the practice battle between Chid and Van.
Her eyes are glued to the scene as she hears the words drift up to her.
"Arik?"
"My lady," Chid says at the same time. Their looks ask the obvious question. 'What are you doing?'
"I am out of practice," she says with a smile. "I would appreciate training with the two of you."
"Two against one is hardly fair," Chid says, lowering his sword. Van follows suit.
"Perhaps it is not fair, but true battle rarely is. I will train this way with you or I will train in this manner with others. If I am to continue with this position, I need my skills sharp."
There is more discussion, but in the end, Arik's logic wins over the two men, and the battle begins. To Fariah's eyes there is little more beautiful than the swinging dance of the swords and the whirling fabric and braid as her mother fends off the two young men. She is proud of Chid's progress, and heaves a sigh that he is disarmed and forgotten halfway through the battle.
But the clash of swords between her mother and the Fanelian king is more than enough to make up for her disappointment in him. The two experts clash blades, and Arik lowers one to toss it across the grass to the steward.
Dawn breaks, and two worn out women rest in awkward positions on the large bed of the royal couple. "The child," Nil says, lifting the near-silent baby to the queen. "Take him to his father. I have work to do."
Emman nods her head gravely, taking the child and wrapping it in clean cloth set aside for the child, heading into the hallway with it held securely against her breast as she goes to find her son.
"The… child?" Kira echoes in a weak voice. One that Nil had not realized the princess still had the strength to use.
The Kathis woman reaches out and takes the princess's hand in her own messy one, offering her a smile of support as she sees the woman's eyelids flutter open. "Alive and healthy. A fine son."
Closing her eyes wearily once more, the princess nods.
"Don't you dare," Nil snaps. Her roughly shorn hair had started to grow back in the months since she had returned from Norte, and it falls in front of her eyes. "You keep your eyes open! You aren't leaving him!"
A grimace of a smile graces Kira's pale lips, and she nods. "I will do my best."
"And I will do better than mine," Nil replies.
Fariah is both proud of her mother as she throws aside her second weapon and battles with the Fanelian king, and also very disturbed. The two warriors, for Fariah cannot deny that Van seems to be very much a warrior as well as a king, clash swords two handedly with a look of mirrored grim determination on their faces.
Slowly, she makes her way down to where Chid has fallen, and watches the battle, enthralled. Wordlessly, she picks the younger boy up off the ground and dusts him off.
Her mother's words haunt her mind, and she finds that she cannot entirely disregard them. She lets go of Chid, who is still paying her little attention, and returns to watching the embankments and the balconies warily.
Small periods of laxness will prove fatal to Chid, in her mind if not in actuality. The world, her mind reminds her silently, is at war.
There is an angry roar from Van, and Fariah's gray eyes are turned back to the battle. She is surprised to find that both Arik and Van are leaning in closely towards one another, as though conversing, their muscles straining.
And then, likewise as the unison of their expressions, both take a staggering step backwards and lower their sword points to the ground.
"I am out of practice," Arik says, bowing her head to Van.
"As am I," the Fanelian king replies.
Kiyo, who Fariah has not noticed standing with the swords, takes a bowing step forward. "My Duke, Lord King, my lady," he greets each in kind before bowing silently to Fariah. "The spar was well played indeed. But the sun grows high in the sky, and it is nigh the hour for the ceremony of departure."
Fariah frowns to herself. She had forgotten that today was the day her mother and Lord Van were going to depart.
Down in the dining hall, Emman finds her son, as she had commanded, having breakfast and looking very distraught. "Your son, Jasper," she says, stepping over near him to draw the cloth from the quiet, pale child's face.
"And my wife?" Jasper asks in a shaky voice, rising immediately.
Emman hands her grandson to his father, and steps over to warm herself by the fire as the morning light reaches the palace. One of the servants thoughtfully brings a chair over for the aged woman. "Nileyah is with her now. She is the best hands in the castle to tend to her."
"We should have had the midwife here sooner," Jasper says, holding the child awkwardly. "We should have… been more prepared." The baby's face tilts towards the sound of his voice, but the crown prince is regarding his mother as she rests wearily by the fire.
"These are things that you examine in the past sense. It is no use speaking of them now. I do not remember giving birth to you, or I would have known more." Her eyes grow kind. "What will you name the child?"
"I will let Kira decide."
"And if she does not last the day?"
"Then I already know the child's name," he replies, voice stiff at the thought. He does not care that his mother is simply trying to prepare him for the worst. It does not matter. It is nothing he wants to acknowledge. "And there is no need to ask me further about it."
"Everyone is doing what they can," Emman assures her son, placatingly lifting her hands. "There is nothing for you and I to do but to wait."
Cradling the child in his arms protectively, Jasper does not look up at his mother as he speaks. "I do not know what I will do if anything happens to her."
"You will do what you must, and raise your son in the manner she would have wanted you to," Emman says in a stern voice. "Otherwise you will dishonor the life she has lead and the love you have shared."
There is silence in Jasper's eyes as he glances up at his mother, and then returns to staring at the unopened eyes of his child. The noise of the doors opening signals Nil's entrance into the hall, and Emman and Jasper look anxiously at her.
Sleeves rolled up, sweat on her brow that plasters her uneven hair to her forehead, there is blood up Nil's forearms, sticky but drying. "The princess lives," she says in a worn out voice. "But she is very weak."
Jasper's smile brightens his entire face, and he moves past Nil towards the stairs in the hall carrying the baby, leaving the Kathis and the Queen to stare evenly at one another.
"And you?" Emman asks in a gentle voice, rising and motioning the strong young woman into her seat.
"I am doing my best for the princess," she replies, sitting wearily in the chair offered. Her skin, normally a healthy bronzed tan, is pale, and there is sweat dripping from her forehead. Her rough cut hair is matted with sweat, and she smells like the birthing sheets she has just carried from the princess's chambers.
"I never doubted that. I simply asked how you were doing. I expect an answer." Emman motions to the servant who had been feeding Jasper. "Water, and food."
The servant bows wordlessly and turns to return to the kitchen. It is no different than serving the royal family, to assist the black haired Kathis when she had need of it. It is never very often, the servants find, since she takes care of everything for herself other than cooking and her laundry. Her room is sparsely furnished, and maintained like a military barrack. Her clothing is simple and she requires no dresser, nor an attendant.
When she does need something, it is usually asked for by someone else, instead of her. So the servants do not mind helping someone so unobtrusive, if they mind helping the royal family at all.
"You look like death is sitting on your shoulder," Emman says.
"It was staring the princess in the face. It was a battle I do not care to repeat," Nil replies, head drooping to rest against her chest.
"We will get you cleaned up, and then you can rest. With luck, you will feel better soon."
Nil does not reply to that comment, but lets her sticky arms rest on her lap and closes her eyes, thinking that it will take much more to make her better than luck, or even rest. She feels the darkness of death heavy in her chest, and knows that Kira is on borrowed time.