Amare Dividere

Title: Unspoken Sacrafices Part Nineteen

Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13 for some violence.

It is obvious not long after the child is born and named that the princess, though a strong and protective mother, is in failing health. The midwife is stumped as to how she even survived the birthing, given the complications she had found upon her arrival.

Nileyah takes to staying at the princess's side, leaving Jasper and Emman to take care of the young prince. In a tall chair in the corner of the room she sits with her sword across her lap, letting the sunshine streak past her onto the bed where the princess lays, her brown eyes rarely leaving the princess's prone form.

The servants follow what orders the Kathis's gives without question.

And when the midwife looks at Nileyah's weak form propped defiantly in the chair, she knows why Kira survived the birth, and why the child survived.

All she can do is ease the woman's pain and try to look after the woman who strengthens her lifeline.

The day the princess dies, the entire castle is festooned in black. It is expected for days beforehand, and Kira's room has been swathed in white in preparation. The doctor and the priest are astounded she has lasted as long as she did. The midwife is surprised to find Nileyah still breathing.

The Queen, the Crown Prince, and the Heir are all dressed for the occasion, though the Heir knows nothing of the demise of his mother... or at least he can not have known, being so young.

When the Princess closes her weary eyes for the last time, the Queen holds the Heir, watching, and the Prince holds his wife's chill hand, kneeling on the floor beside his wife's bed. The servants are all as wet-cheeked as the two monarchs, and the wail of the Prince, though unequalled in volume, is not alone in sentiment.

Word passes from the palace to the villages, and there is a day of silence observed for the Princess who had won the heart of their Prince.

Only one figure is notably absent from the mourners in the Princess's chambers... and the procession of her funeral... and the wake in the mausoleum. Nileyah, when the Princess took a turn for the worst, had grown ill enough to be moved from the room by the midwife. As she was being helped into the hallway, she was ordered to bed by the Prince.

"I will not have you dying as well," he snapped at her. "You will go to bed and not get out of it until you can beat me!"

Too weak to protest strongly, Nileyah had narrowed her dark ringed eyes and nodded her head weakly. The midwife's lips were pressed tightly in a thin line, wondering why it was only then that he decided to take notice of his guardian's failing health. But she said nothing, and helped the strong woman to her rarely used bed, and watched her sink into it almost as though she were dying as well.

Because of the death of the Princess, no one notices that Nileyah does not leave it during the proceedings. No one but the Queen, who is informed by the midwife. And when Emman finds that his son's guardian is truly ill, she makes similar swift connections between the Princess's dwindling health and the Kathis's illness that the midwife had made.

She alone knows to send the royal doctor to the fallen woman. She alone carries the Heir into the room and sets him in the arms of a serving woman so that the fallen Kathis can see what good she has done. She alone takes the time to speak with Nileyah.

Jasper is simply too caught up in his own grief.

What words he had managed before would be what Nileyah would have to live on for some time.

Dutifully sponging off Allen's forehead, Celena frowns at her brother. "You should have taken me along," she says, chiding. "These wounds are deep."

"If I needed your advice, dear sister," Allen groans out as he shifts on the soft bed in the room he had been carried to while unconscious, "I would ask for it. As it is... thank you for your care. But I must be getting back on my feet."

"You shouldn't be walking yet," Celena chides, a firm hand pressing him back against the bed as he tries, again, to sit up. "What would Princess Eries say if she saw you up and about?"

"You forget... she was the one who sent me on this mission." Allen knows he is bitter, and needlessly so, but he finds he cannot bring his heart to forgive so easily something he feels could have been avoided.

"You forget she had no choice. And that she was the one who had you ordered to this suite in the palace, and given doctors and servants."

"My lady does provide, does she not?" Allen scowls, forcing himself to sit up past his sister's hand, much to Celena's surprise and anger. He knows Eries does not deserve his scorn in this manner... knows he is being unduly unkind...

The drapes are dark, but drawn, and through the gauzy curtains he can see the unexpected spring snow falling on the city. After his return, as though Jichia were feeling sympathy for the mourning populace, the mountain snows from high above had blown down into Palas, and when Allen woke from slumber for the first time, he had been greeted with the usually temperate city covered in a blanket of snow. The light was stolen by the overcast skies that rained snow down on the capital, and his own energy had gone with it. The gray glow of winter daylight fails to warm the room as much as the fire burning in the hearth. "Has it been so long?" he asks, reclining again at Celena's insisting hands.

"The winter comes upon the city swiftly. I prefer the forests... there the winter is a guest and not an intruder," Celena says. She smiles down at her brother and tucks him in a little bit more, pulling the blankets up over his bandages in an attempt to keep him warm. His fever worries her, as much as his caged anger at being stuck in bed, and the princess who assigned him his mission.

Reaching over to the basin on the bedside table, she wets a cloth and places it on his flush forehead. "If your fever has broken in the morning, I will help you to walk the halls. But if it has not you must stay in bed another day. Your body is trying to heal. You will hurt it if you push it too hard now."

"Yes, mother," Allen says with a smile.

Celena hits his forehead with the washcloth.

When his grief finally breaks, much time has passed. Jasper is a shadow of the man that he had been when he was married. His child is absent, his wife is dead. Outside winter is upon his country.

He turns to the only other place that is natural.

And it is then that he discovers Nileyah ill and bed ridden.

"I told you, not you too!" he growls at her. His face is more animated than it has been in the months since Kira's death. His feet brace the floor shoulder's distance apart and he balls his fists over where she lays in bed, glaring angrily at her. "You are not allowed to die!"

She coughs in response, but there is a twinkle in her eyes, "Her death hurt you emotionally, I see," her voice is low and throaty, but also weak sounding, "it has hurt me physically. But unlike you," she laughs, managing not to cough this time, "I will be out of this bed and training in the morning."

"You will do no such thing!" Jasper shouts, surprised that he hurts his throat in doing so. He nearly jumps at her on the bed where she lies. "You will stay in bed and get well!"

"Staying in bed does not a well person make, Jasper," Nil replies in a quiet voice, an unsettling intensity in her tone. Dressed in bedclothes, Nil's normally ruddy complexion looks much paler, and her face slightly sunken in the dreary winter light coming in through the tall windows of her small room. "Dawn. In the courtyard. Bring a sword."

Jasper starts to retort again, but Nil catches his eyes, and there is a fire in her brown ones that he cannot brush off so easily, despite her debilitated state. He nods, dumbly.

"And the heir?" Nil asks when he bows his head and looks away from her towards the window. The snow, at least, does not remind him of death.

"The heir?" he asks absently, still staring at the snow littering the landscape just beyond the panes of glass.

"What of your son, Orthius?"

"I..."

"I have seen him these past weeks. He grows strong... he will walk soon." Seeing the confused, fallen look on Jasper's face, Nil continues where she would have otherwise stopped. "If you will teach him."

"Of course I will teach him!" Jasper snaps, reanimated by the challenge once more.

The Queen, from the far corner of the room, smiles a little. Her son, while good at handling problems, has occasionally needed a small push in the proper direction. She was always pleased to find that Nileyah cared little for the throne and more for her son's life.

"Good. Now leave me and go play with him. I need to rest so that in the morning I do not accidentally kill you."

"Left foot, right foot. Take it slowly," Celena chides her brother as the two of them make their way down the hallway slowly and ponderously. As if in defiance of her, Allen's fever was missing when he woke up, and so she is forced to keep her end of the bargain and help him to walk. "Remember what I told you about pushing."

The guards, lining the hallways, do not move from their erect position of lax attention as they pass, but Allen can feel their eyes on the two of them. For once, however, the sun is truly out and the overcast skies hold small peeking pockets of blue amid the gray clouds. He cannot decide whether they are more aimed at himself or at Celena. Glancing at his sister, whose hair has grown long again and is kept pulled back in a carefully bun that does not fail to hide the waves of it, he has an annoying suspicion that they are looking at her and not at him.

He fights down the urge to return to the suite Eries ordered him placed in. No palace guard would dare lay a hand on Celena, even if only because of his wrath afterwards. But right now he happens to appear weak... Allen grits his teeth.

The guards suddenly snap to a more erect stance and Allen looks up, checking both ends of the hallway for who he knows to be approaching.

"Brother, what is–" Celena follows her brother's gaze, and then looks back at him. Both of them seem to be weighing their options as the King and the Princess walk down the hall, flanked by guards and engaged in an animated conversation.

Allen glances around and jerks Celena to the side by the arm she has slung over her shoulders, and the two of them duck into a room on the side of the hall to let the royals passby.

"Brother, what are you doing?" Celena asks in an annoyed whisper as he closes the doors behind them. His burst of strength appears to wear out and she helps him to cross to lean against the wall of the small entrance hallway to the room.

"...the fault lies in the kidnapper, not the rescuer," Eries says as they reach earshot. "If his timing was wrong then perhaps I should not have been so quick to appoint him."

"The advisors are calling for treason charges, Princess," Dryden replies in a cold voice. He lacks sympathy or even empathy for Allen's failed mission. It is too close to his heart... it is his wife.

"Then let them. They have not produced any reason to cause such charges. Failure is not treason," she says, blue eyes flashing a little over the top edge of her veil, "it is human."

"Human or not it was the queen he was to rescue," Dryden replies in a cool voice. "My wife. I do not take such failure so lightly."

"In all the years I have known you I have known always of your love of my sister, Dryden. I never thought that love made you foolish enough to condemn an innocent and useful subject." Eries watches her brother-in-law from behind a cool mask of detachment, inwardly wondering how she is going to save Allen if the king and the royal advisors decide he must be executed. Her heart beats more swiftly in her chest and she breathes a little more quickly at the thought of it, but restrains herself from lifting a hand to her heart.

"Perhaps that is why I was not born to this position, then, isn't it?" Dryden's voice lowers a notch and he turns to stare hard at her. "Unless you have some other reason for protecting him?" He has been trying to get an admission of some sort out of one of them for quite some time, and if he must pardon Allen, he feels he should get something from the deal. The truth about the relationship between the two of them seems enough to satisfy him, he thinks, and the advisors will roll over given the proper motivation.

"This is not the place for such a discussion, brother," Eries replies, taking him by the elbow and steering him right towards the room Allen and Celena's are hiding in.

Inside the room, Celena's eyes widen. "Brother," she whispers again, we must remove ourselves," but Allen is catching his breath and does not truly hear her.

"Whatever can be said can be said in this hallway. Are these not our own guards?" Dryden protests.

"If you were thinking correctly then you would realize that discretion is always in order when involving matters of the state. I only began this conversation with you to forestall any hasty actions you were thinking of doing at the end of your walk, brother."

"Fine," Dryden replies, yanking his arm from her hand and stalking over to the door, which the guards on either side of it open before he can reach for the handle. "But you will have to explain some day when it became a matter of state."

Startling awake at the noise of the door, Allen tries to usher Celena onto the balcony, but it is too late. "And here," Dryden says over his shoulder to Eries, "is the man in question himself."

Eries's mouth sets in a firm line and she steps around Dryden. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"I have a better question for him," Dryden replies, stepping up to Eries's shoulder. "What happened that made you fail your mission?"

Celena half curtsies to Eries, "Princess, he was restless and so I told him that if his fever broke I would help him take a walk around the halls today."

Dryden scowls at being ignored so easily in the presence of someone truly of Aston blood. Allen remains silent, gazing for a long moment at Eries's veiled face, and then turns to look at Dryden, ready to answer his king's question.

"Carry on then," Eries replies, reaching to take Dryden's arm. "When you are well, Sir Schezar, the King will expect his answer." Dryden starts to protest, but Eries tightens her hand on his arm warningly, turning pale eyes momentarily on him, and he frowns more deeply.

"Yes," Dryden says, agreeing through tight lips. "When you are well again," the King yanks his arm from Eries again and turns to stalk out of the room and back down the hallway.

For a long moment there is silence in the room.

"Thank you, princess," Allen says, lowering his head respectfully in lieu of bowing.

Celena stares for a long moment at Eries and then looks at her brother with an exasperated expression. The Princess sets her shoulders at his respectful nod and says, "We have a conversation that you threatened me with, after all." She turns to leave, again feeling her heart race, though this time at his disapproval of her actions, "Inform me of the progress of his health, please, Lady Celena."

"Yes, Princess," Celena replies, staring at her back.

Allen looks up.

"Good day to you both," Eries says, stepping from the room and into the hallway to follow after Dryden. The guards close the doors behind her, leaving the two Schezars alone in the small drawing room.

"That's all you had to say to her?" Celena snaps. "I'm not surprised she won't talk to you about anything serious."

"What would you have had me say?"

Peralis watches from the balcony as the King and Queen make slow progress through the courtyard. Van has Hitomi's hand tucked securely in his arm and the two are speaking lowly, or perhaps not at all as they walk through the light dusting of snow on the floor of the courtyard stones. The queen holds herself tightly against his side, her arms wrapped around his, and to the casual observer it looks to be for warmth. But to Peralis's old and wizened eyes, he knows that it is more than that. Since the King's return, the Queen has spent little time not by his side, and when she is not, she is usually sleeping, to the Chief Royal Advisor's knowledge.

That morning Van had stood up at breakfast, from which Hitomi was absent, and announced that there would be a Council meeting.

The Chief Advisor knows what it will be about. He also knows, in the back of his mind, that the question of the baby's father will not be resolved until the child spreads its wings for the first time. He had discussed as much with the queen, but she had said nothing and simply looked longingly out the window at the time, it was before Van had returned to the kingdom.

'Looks will help,' Peralis thinks to himself. 'Looks will indeed help. But Master Folken did not look like either Queen Varie or King Goau.'

It will be, in Peralis's opinion, a curious meeting, to say the least.

In the snowy courtyard, Hitomi leans her head on Van's shoulder. "Are you sure this is for the best?" she asks, closing her eyes halfway.

"You have hidden it long enough," Van replies in a confident voice, one hand stroking the arms wrapped around his. "I am proud of my child, and my wife who carries it. Besides, if we don't announce it and someone finds out who is less than discreet..." Van shakes his head and kisses the top of Hitomi's sandy colored hair. Hitomi turns her face to look at him and he smiles down the few inches he is taller than her and lowers his face to kiss her warmly, despite the cold temperature of the air.

All the veiled animosity of their reunion seems to melt away, Hitomi finds, at the brush of his lips, or the touch of his hand. 'I am lucky afterall,' she thinks to herself, smiling against the kiss. Hitomi shivers a little and leans closer to him. In response, Van puts his cloak over her shoulders on top of her own. "Let's go inside now."

She nods, chuckling softly. "I can only imagine what the Egzardians will think."

Van blinks. "You know... I'd forgotten they were here. I've been so much more concerned with you."

Hitomi feels herself melt, again, at his flattery, and she stands up on the balls of her feet to kiss him on the lips.

Once the two of them pull from the kiss to breathe, Van lifts his eyes to Peralis on the balcony and nods. He holds Hitomi to him with strong arms as he sees his closest advisor leave the balcony overhead, and strokes Hitomi's back. "The Council will be waiting on us. Are you ready?"

Pacing angrily in his room, which has always been more of a cell than a real room, Aden chafes at the collar on his neck. Since Ouran took over, the seasons of Norte have all become the same, a darkly overcast blackish gray with a moderate but uncomfortable temperature. After all these years it has seeped into the walls and rooms of castle, and invades the feelings of the people as well as their clothing.

But Aden is not concerned with that, he has been a silent witness to the deterioration of the country, and has done, always, what he could to help protect the people from the worst of Ouran's displeasure. Looking back he sees that this has probably been folly. At his Queen's death he should have returned to the Compound and raised notice of Ouran's treachery... or rather his repeated treachery.

'Poor Mistress Mot,' he thinks to himself as he continues to pace, 'you never truly knew what sort of a man you fell in love with.'

Ouran is attacking again, Aden knows. He does not know which kingdom it will be... or if there is any way to warn the people. He had enough advance warning before to make sure that someone in Egzardia knew to evacuate the royal family. But this time...

With a sigh he realizes that there's little chance of warning anyone of what will happen. The world ought to be on the alert in general. There is nothing more he can do on that score. He lifts a hand to the collar around his neck and scowls to himself. Nothing much he can do about that at all. The freedom his sister's presence had brought did not extend so far as that. She was always the stronger of the two of them when it came to magic. He always the follower. He closes his eyes a moment and imagines his sister's placid face. It is much younger than when he last saw her. It is much more bright and hopeful.

He gets a flash of her that he does not expect, fighting against strong magic to recover her health, and he is concerned. His eyes open. One more thing he cannot affect. 'What can I do?' he thinks very quietly, unsure what Ouran can still know of his thoughts and what he does not.

The only thing he can do comes to mind. He leaves his cell of a room and heads down to the secret room to look in on the hidden queen. Stepping into the hallway leading to the secret stairs, the guards start to question him. "You should know better," Aden says, eyes trained on the stones before him as he descends, not stopping long enough to answer.

The guards, unused to hearing the silent man's voice, shy off to the side and ask him nothing more.

In the cellar, Aden steps to the wall and pulls the lever that moves the back set of shelves out of the way and leads to a small staircase heading down to the room Ouran was keeping Millerna.

The blond haired queen does not look very regal in her borrowed cloak and with her arms barely strong enough to lift the shackles from the floor. Her eyes are lowered to the floor in front of her and she does not raise them at the noise of his approach. Since Nileyah's departure, she has eaten little, and lost much hope.

"Millerna," Aden says in a soft voice, kneeling before her to put his eyes on the level with her face. Slowly, the queen lifts her eyes, and Aden is heartened to see the anger and rage stewing in them. "My sister has gone. You have no one to talk to," he says, lifting a hand to brush her hair from her face. "I do not ask that you talk to me, only that you allow me to assist you in maintaining your strength."

Millerna jerks her head from Aden's touch, teeth snapping at the hand that touched her.

"There is nothing to be so angry about. Captivity is better than death, unless I have missed my guess." Aden gazes at her with kind brown eyes. "Your husband will be missing you terribly, I am sure. And your son. Both are fine men."

Silence hangs in the air for a long moment before Millerna finally speaks. "Exeter is only five," Millerna says in a hoarse voice.

"He has good role model." Aden glances back towards the way that he came. "Your husband and Sir Schezar will both do well to show him what it is to truly be a man."