Author's note: Ok, I finally know how this fic is going to end. Maybe I will actually be able to finish it some day ;)

A note on the characters' ages: They are never mentioned in the anime, so if you haven't noticed by now, I've taken the liberty of assigning them myself. In this fic, Van and Hitomi were 17 during the Zaibach war, making them 22 in present day. I recently found out that they were supposed to be 15 in the anime, but that seems way too young to me, so I'm sticking with the ages I came up with.

Edit: I've just made some minor corrections to geographical locations.

-

The Last Night of the World

Chapter 6

River of Fire

-

"Oh my God," Hitomi said again.

Van brought Escaflowne in lower, sweeping back and forth in wide arcs as close to the fiery pit as he could. The sides were steep and sheer, as if a giant blacksmith had poured out a ladleful of molten metal that burned right through the ground. It was so hot that his vision wavered and blurred, as if the air itself were melting. Try as he might, Van couldn't get in much closer, the wall of heat emanating from the liquid fire was so blistering.

"Why is there so much lava here?" he heard Hitomi ask, echoing his own thoughts. "Where did it come from?"

"It must have been an earthquake," he concluded, unable to draw his eyes away from the massive fissure blighting the landscape.

"But wouldn't we have felt the tremors?"

She had a good point. "What else could it be?"

"I don't know." Her arm came into view, reaching between his arm and chest to point at the mountain range in the distance. "Is there a volcano nearby?"

Van shook his head. There were no volcanoes, and there had never been an earthquake in the history of Fanelia, or in that region of the world for that matter. It was as if the ground had been cracked wide open and the planet itself was bleeding.

He swung them away from the pit and began to circle over the remainder of the forest. "The village of Arzas should be around here," he shouted over the wind and the roar of the lava. "Do you think you can locate it?"

"I'll try."

Ruhm, please be safe. The forest spread out before him in a thick carpet of leaves, the treetops poking up at different heights, knobby and uneven. He kept his eyes trained for the telltale thinning of foliage that heralded the presence of civilization, looking for the clusters of brown huts that huddled together like anthills.

"Van," Hitomi said anxiously, "I can't seem to find it."

"What? Are you sure?"

"The village where the wolf people live, right?"

"Right."

"Hang on, let me try again." Then, after a moment, "There!" she cried."To our left!"

He followed her finger, which indicated a patch of trees that looked exactly the same as all the rest. "Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully, but pulled up the handle on the right to fly in for a closer look.

In that moment, a hard gust blew in from the northeast, and what Van meant as a sharp turn became an even sharper roll to the left, drawing a terrified yelp from Hitomi and nearly causing him to lose his footing. With all the strength he could muster, he hauled Escaflowne's wings back in the other direction in an attempt to level out, but the dragon armor bucked in the turbulent winds. Then, as if by its own will, the dragon lowered its head and they began to descend at an alarming rate.

"Escaflowne!" Van exclaimed. He vainly tried to pull up, but they were getting too close to the trees and, from the way his left side was suddenly bathed in heat, the wind was trying to blow them back to the ravine. Leaves and branches rushed up at him, followed by tree trunks covered in rough bark, each one a great pillar that against which Van was sure they would meet their end, but ended up missing them by mere inches instead.

As Escaflowne crashed through and snapped the lower branches, Van let go of the controls, grabbed Hitomi, and catapulted away from the dragon just as it plowed into the ground. They tumbled through the undergrowth and over the roots that protruded from the forest floor, Van using his body to shield Hitomi from the impact as much as possible. When they finally rolled to a halt, he let go and lay there panting from pain and relief.

Hitomi groaned and slowly pushed herself up. She saw Van lying on his back, unmoving, and concern colored her features. "Van, are you ok?" she said, her eyebrows drawn together in worry.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He tried to sit up and winced at the sudden pain shooting through his shoulder.

"What's wrong with your arm?" she asked in alarm.

He carefully moved his right arm up and down and around in circles. The shoulder didn't appear to be dislocated, but when he drew his arm back, he winced. "I probably sprained it when we jumped off. Either that or Escaflowne took some minor damage when it landed." He twisted around to find the dragon armor, which had created a large furrow in the earth, its wings tucked close to its body. "But I'm ok."

Hitomi continued to look at him with worried eyes, as if she didn't quite believe him, but she nodded and helped him up. "That way," she said, pointing westward. "That's where they are."

"Arzas?"

"I don't know. But there's a mother and a child."

He followed her, his compass in these ravaged woods. The afternoon was deceptively peaceful. The sunlight filtering through the canopy of leaves danced across the ground as the trees swayed in the wind. Then Van noticed that it was very quiet, too quiet; there were no signs of birds calling to each other or hopping from branch to branch, no chitter of insects rubbing their wings together. There was only the rumbling like that of a distant waterfall that permeated through the trees.

They shortly came upon a bundle of gray fur and dirt-stained blue cloth huddled by the base of a towering oak. The wolf's eyes were half-open, dull yellow and glazed, and in her arms was a mewling pup. Hitomi knelt by her side and shook her gently. "Excuse me, are you all right? Can you hear me?"

The woman weakly turned her lupine head in Hitomi's direction. "My child…please help my child," she said hoarsely.

"What's your name?" Van asked, kneeling beside Hitomi. "What happened?"

Her yellow eyes opened a hair wider at the sight of Van. "Van-sama…it's me, Clara."

"Clara?" The wife of Ruhm, the clan leader of the wolves of Arzas, was hardly recognizable to Van in her current state. Her rust-colored mane of hair, whose rich luster had been the envy of the village, was now dull and rough, knotted in places and tangled with twigs and burrs. The spunk and liveliness he was so used to seeing had gone out of her eyes, now listless and the color of dull gold. "What in the world happened to you?"

"I was away from the village…foraging…when it happened. There was a loud rumbling…I rushed back…the ground opened up…swallowed the village…" Clara broke off coughing, her breathing labored and wheezing. Her eyes began to close, as if speaking had drained her of any remaining energy. "Everyone…gone. Arzas…is no more."

"Arzas is no more?" Van repeated, shocked. "How can that be?" When she didn't respond, he frantically shook her shoulder. "Clara? Clara!"

"She's running a high fever," Hitomi said, her palm on the wolf's forehead. She ran her hands over the arms, through the fur, looking for something. Then, flipping up the torn hem of Clara's blue dress, she revealed an angry-looking gash just below the knee, caked with black chunks of dried blood and dirt. The inside of the wound gleamed pale pink, the color of raw meat that had been sitting out for too long, and was dripping a filmy white fluid. "No wonder. It must be infected," she declared, gingerly touching the back of her hand to the leg. "The skin around it is burning hot. The infection must have gotten into her system."

"All right. Let's move her," Van said, but instead of moving to help him pick up the injured wolf, Hitomi went completely still. Her eyes were still fixed on Clara's terrible wound, blank and unfocused, and Van had seen her do this enough times to know when she was having a vision.

Just as suddenly as she had entered the trance, she snapped out of it with a little gasp and fell forward onto her hands, her chest heaving. "Van…it's coming…fire, a river of fire…it's coming! We have to get out of here!"

She had barely finished speaking when a loud crack split through the air and the ground began to tremble beneath them. "Hitomi, you take the pup. I'll carry Clara. We need to get to Escaflowne right away!"

Van lifted Clara's limp body over his good shoulder, and Hitomi scooped up the wolf child in her arms. They took off at a sprint, Hitomi leading the way. It was no easy task, with Clara's body weighing down on him like a heavy bag of sand and the tremors making his every step uncertain. Sinewy tree roots seemed to crop up out of the ground at the most inconvenient times and the thick vines that carpeted the forest floor tripped him and tangled around his feet. Escaflowne…come to me, Escaflowne! he thought desperately, a wave of heat following close on his heels.

Crashing through the underbrush, Escaflowne had never been such a welcome sight. The enormous Guymelef halted in front of them and the control chamber opened with the hiss of pressure released, a mechanical sigh. He laid Clara down by its feet and, with several great leaps, settled himself into the control chamber. Thrusting his arms into the hollow armpieces and his legs into the pedals, Van reached down and gathered up Hitomi and Clara in his giant armored hands before the cockpit even had the chance to close.

However fast Van tried to move, the delay of mobilizing Escaflowne was more than enough for the wrath of nature to catch up to them. Fissures split the ground they stood on like the intricate pattern of a spider's web, and the forest floor rapidly crumbled, falling away into the river of molten lava that carved its way through the Fanelian forest.

I need to find the main road, Van thought as he dodged between the trees, carefully cradled the two women in his hands. The vegetation here was so thick that he could hardly see where he was going; there was certainly no room for Escaflowne to take off. The main road was wide and well-traveled and would provide more than enough space for Escaflowne to spread its wings. But I can't see the sun through the trees and there are no landmarks. Where is the road?

He tried to picture it in his mind: a well-worn path tramped out by the feet of merchants and travelers over the centuries, wide enough to allow twenty men on horseback to pass. Then in his mind's eye, it popped into view, a distant strip of road somewhere ahead, beyond the trees. He made a beeline for it, making sure to shield Hitomi and Clara from the branches that snagged at their clothing and scratched at their skin. With every step he took, the ground gave way under the feet of the dragon armor before collapsing into the fiery river below, which followed them like a deadly orange tongue.

At last, the trees began to thin out and they broke out into the open, the blessed open ground and sunlight. Escaflowne immediately transformed into the dragon, and they lifted off the ground and into the air. Van brought them high, as far away from their near escape from death as possible. From the air, he saw that the river of fire veered off from the larger ravine like a tributary, consuming the forest floor that lay in its path. It cut across the road they just left and snaked through the trees on the other side, arcing across Fanelia's southern border like a moat. Fanelia was now virtually closed off to anyone trying to reach it on foot.

Give him a dozen Guymelefs, and he could defeat them all; but in the face of a natural disaster, the earth tearing at its seams, Van was at a loss. All he could do was pray that Fanelia itself would not be swallowed up in the fiery chaos below.

-

They soared through the air with the eagles, heading east for Asturia. In front of Van, Hitomi sat in the hollow of Escaflowne's back with Clara, who was curled up against the prow. The dragon armor rocked like a small canoe in choppy waters as Van navigated the winds, and had the pilot been anyone else, Hitomi would have feared falling off. Clara, who had never been on a flying Guymelef before, did not share the same sentiment. She had nervously drawn into herself and clutched her son close.

The child, however, was more skittish than his mother was. He wriggled in her arms, his green eyes rolling in terror, whimpering and fighting to free himself. "Sen, hold still," his mother scolded as sternly as she could in her weakened state.

Sen, a wolf of four years, only shook his head violently and fought even harder. "No, Momma, let me off. Let me off!"

"Sen, we can't get off until we get to somewhere safe. Be a good boy and stay with Momma."

But no amount of coaxing would calm the wolf child. With a great heave, he hoisted himself out of his mother's arms and clambered over the side, disappearing under Escaflowne's wing.

"Sen!" Clara and Hitomi cried at the same time, horrified.

"Hitomi!" Van yelled. Hitomi looked up at him, and before she could say a word, he had thrust Escaflowne's control gears into her hands and dove off the dragon after the boy.

Hitomi could only stare at her hands in shock. "Van…!" she began to say. Escaflowne went into a nosedive, and she tried to scramble to her feet. But she only partially succeeded, with one leg still tucked beneath her and the other foot jammed into one of the footholds. She pulled up on the handles as she had seen Van do so many times, but it was like trying to pull up a fifty-ton boulder. She needed more leverage. Swinging her leg around, she was able to finally free it and haul herself upright, all the while making Escaflowne sway from side to side even more violently. Clara tightly gripped the raised edges of the prow, her eyes closed and mouth moving as if muttering in prayer.

Fighting to bring Escaflowne under control was like fighting to control a beast that wanted to do everything except what Hitomi wanted it to do. They bobbed drunkenly through the air, and Hitomi was too focused on trying to reign in the dragon armor, her arms burning with effort, to think about being sick.

After what seemed like an eternity, Van reappeared by the dragon's head with the trembling Sen in his arms, gliding alongside Escaflowne. Two snow-white wings had sprouted from his back, the torn edges of his green shirt trailing behind where the wings had exited.

"Van!" Hitomi shouted in frustration and relief. "What in the world were you thinking?"

She didn't know if he heard her, because instead of answering, he dropped behind and landed somewhere on the rear of the dragon. Suddenly, a flash of gray darted between her legs, and Sen scampered into his mother's waiting arms. Tears of relief rolled down Clara's face as she cradled and cooed at her son, who was shaking with fright.

"What were you thinking, Van?" Hitomi said again, almost crying with exasperation. "You nearly killed us! I thought we were going to die!"

"Don't worry," he replied, his voice unexpectedly close, by her ear. "Hitomi, I'm going to ask you to fly Escaflowne for me."

"Are you crazy?"

"This way I can keep an eye on the other two, just in case. Don't worry; if you trust me, Escaflowne will listen to you."

Don't worry, he says. Swallowing nervously, Hitomi wondered how on earth he was going to make this happen. But she noticed that even though the wind continued to pitch them from side to side, their course was far less bumpy than it had been before. Van reached his arms around Hitomi and placed his hands on the controls over both of hers. With gentle pressure, he coached her to pull up and to the side as the wind changed direction. He showed her when to lean into a current to pick up speed and how to skirt around the crosswinds. After a while, Hitomi began to sense the patterns of the invisible currents the way Van did and to feel the dragon armor's gears moving and churning as if they were part of her own body.

"There's Palas, over there," Van pointed out as they approached the city, its many canals glittering in the late afternoon sun, a jewel nestled in the coastline of Asturia. From the streets, the capital of Asturia was a beautiful city; from the air, it was simply breathtaking.

They descended over the leviship docks and landed next to a stocky cargo ship, Escaflowne's claws skidding over the loose gravel. They lurched to a halt and Hitomi collapsed to her knees, a heap of jelly. Several hands helped Van carry Clara and Sen off the dragon and when he had made sure that they were getting the care they needed, he came back to help Hitomi.

"Can you stand?" he asked, holding out his hand.

"I can try." She grabbed his hand and tried to pull herself up, but her arm felt like a rubber band. Van stooped down, lifted her into his arms, and hopped down. Carefully lowering her legs, he let her feet touch the ground, and she half-stood with an arm around his waist and his hand behind her back.

"We did it," she said breathlessly, not quite believing her own words. "We did it, Van!" Her knees giddy with relief and trembling from the effort of flying Escaflowne, Hitomi leaned her head on Van's chest, and in spite of everything that had happened, she began to laugh. She laughed out of the joy of being alive, for doing the impossible, for simply being able to stand on solid ground. The emotion poured out of her like a torrent, and the low sound coming from Van's chest told her that he was laughing with her, too.

"What have we here? The Lady Hitomi herself, piloting the legendary Escaflowne!" A deep voice broke through their moment, and a tall, bespectacled man with flowing brown hair strode toward them with Merle and Councilor Wellyn in tow. "Who would have dreamed it was possible? I thought the dragon armor only obeyed its master."

"It will listen to someone else, if its master trusts them," Van replied. "It's good to see you, Dryden. I was not expecting to meet you here."

"Well met, King of Fanelia. I have heard about your situation. My condolences."

"It's not over yet, Dryden. As long as I'm king, Fanelia will survive."

The merchant sagely nodded in agreement. "They have a future as long as they have you." Then his eyes widened in pleasant surprise as he spotted the ring on Hitomi's hand, which was holding onto Van's shoulder. "It seems that you two have a future together as well. I have hardly seen a happier couple."

It was as if a cold shroud suddenly descended with Dryden's words. The silence that followed was expectant, and Van waited for Hitomi to reply. But when it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything, he slowly removed his arm, leaving her to stand awkwardly without assistance. "We're nothing of the sort," he said quietly. Hooking a thumb over the scabbard at his waist, he walked away, across the loading docks to the city. Merle trailed after him, but not before she threw Hitomi a dirty look.

"It seems that things are not what they appear," Dryden remarked, watching them go. "There was something I wanted to discuss with him, too, but it looks like it will have to wait."

Legs wobbling, Hitomi sank to the ground, her knees buckling under her. Wellyn hurried forward to catch her before she fell all the way down. The spell had been broken.