Author's note: Probably my shortest chapter yet. It was either that or it was going to be way too long.

-

The Last Night of the World

Chapter 8

Premonitions

-

Unable to see, Hitomi groped for each step with her feet as Yutaro carefully guided her up the stairs. They reached the landing, and after walking some distance, they came to a halt.

There was a jangle of metal followed by the unlatching of a bolt. A doorknob turned, and a door opened with a slight squeak of the hinges. "Ok, you can open your eyes now."

Giggling, Hitomi pulled Yutaro's hands away, which had been covering her eyes from behind. Her giggles turned into a sigh of wonder when she saw that the living room of her tiny one-bedroom apartment had been transformed into a banquet room fit for a king. The walls were festooned with satiny pink and silver, the loops of rich fabric hugging the ceiling before cascading down the corners of the room. Her futon and armchair had disappeared (into her bedroom, she hoped) and in the middle of the floor stood a small round table draped in a crisp white tablecloth with chairs on either side. There were tall champagne glasses and two slim red candles nestled in golden candle holders with a single crimson rose lying between them. The room was lit by a fire crackling cheerfully in the fireplace—which Hitomi had never used before—and the smell of something wonderful floated through the air.

"Oh, Yutaro," Hitomi breathed, "you shouldn't have. It's just my birthday, you know, nothing special."

Yutaro drew her close and said, "You're special."

Laughing, Hitomi brushed her hand through his short golden-brown hair, over his ear. "You are so corny."

"I thought you might like it, that's all," Yutaro said, smiling. The reflection from the fireplace danced in the gray of his eyes.

"I love it," she said, and kissed him.

As their kiss ended, music started to play from the speakers of her stereo system, slow jazz and violins.

I can't stop loving you
I've made up my mind

How did he do that? And without me noticing? she wondered. "Hmm? What's this?" she mumbled, Yutaro's breath pleasantly tickling her face.

To live in memories
of the lonesome times

"Ray Charles," he replied. "It's an American song. I thought it would be romantic."

I can't stop wanting you
It's useless to say
So I'll just live my life
in dreams of yesterday

Instead of answering, Hitomi put her arms around his neck and they swayed together to the cool beat of the music, their feet drifting across the carpet, moving in slow circles, the dance of lovers lost in a world that belonged to them alone.

After a while, Yutaro unhooked her arms and said, "Hitomi, there's something I have to ask you."

Suddenly her heart was in her throat. Something to ask me? Could it be…? she thought feverishly. No, too obvious. What if it turns out he's just asking me to move in with him or something? Well, it wouldn't just be moving in, but what if I'm making this out to be a bigger deal than—

Yutaro dropped to one knee, and a small box appeared in his hand. He opened the lid, and all she could see was the gleam of the smooth gold band that was tucked in the deep red velvet and diamonds that glittered like three dewdrops.

"Will you marry me?"

For a moment, Hitomi was speechless. When she found her voice again, her throat was filled with cotton. "Of course I will, Yutaro," she said. She threw her arms around him, her eyes filling with happy tears. "Of course I will."

They kissed again, and Hitomi no longer heard the music or felt the floor beneath her; there was nothing, nothing but Yutaro. His lips knew her better than anyone else's ever had—the shape of her mouth, the way her lips fit together, the way she liked it when he ran the tip of his tongue over the corner of her mouth.

When they finally drew apart, she leaned her head on his shoulder, kneeling on the floor with him, his arms encircling her. She closed her eyes and breathed the clean scent of his cologne and the smell of his skin. "Yutaro," she murmured as he nuzzled her hair and brushed her earlobe with his lips.

"Hitomi," he said. Her eyes flew open and she went rigid, because it was not Yutaro who had said her name. It was Van.

Pulling back, she saw that Van was now the one holding her. Thick strands of hair, dark and wild, were strewn across his face. He stared at her, saying nothing. His eyes were haunted with the look of someone who had lost everything and knew the kind of sorrow that was deeper than the darkest night sky. His gaze was so intense that she shifted uncomfortably. "Van…?"

Then Hitomi noticed that everything else had changed around her. The strains of the Ray Charles song had faded away, and her apartment had become a barren landscape of mountains and plateaus dotted with brush, the scraggly leaves brown and withered. Black clouds gathered in the sky above, seething and roiling, a turbulent landscape all its own. Suddenly Hitomi felt very, very alone.

A soft pattering reached her ears, and it quickly became louder until it sounded like gravel raining onto the rocky soil. All around them, chunks of ice fell from the sky, some no bigger than pebbles, some the size of her fist. Hail. They needed to get to somewhere safe, to find shelter from the storm.

Turning back to Van, she said, "Van, we have to—" and barely managed to stifle a scream. Van's skin was the color of granite, and the rest of him—his hair, his eyes, his clothes—had also turned the same stony shade of gray. His arms were cold and held her in a stiff, awkward embrace. His stone eyes continued to stare at her, intent and unblinking.

"Van?" she whispered fearfully as rocks of ice continued to fall around them. With a trembling hand, she touched his face, which was smooth as marble and colder than the wind that sliced through her clothes. Unable to move her hand from his stony cheek, unable to break her eyes away from his lifeless gaze, Hitomi began to scream, and the world fell out from under her.

"VAAAAAAN!"

-

Hitomi awoke with a start, breathing hard. A dream, she realized. Thank God, it was just a dream.

"Hitomi? Are you all right?"

She almost screamed again on hearing Van's voice. It took all she had to keep herself together. The image of Van's eyes, his empty stone eyes, was etched so deeply into her mind that she still saw it even with her eyes open. When she finally dared to look at him, he was standing over her, his face full of concern, his eyes beautifully brown and warm.

"Thank goodness," she said brokenly, almost crying. Without knowing it, she had been clinging to his hand this whole time. Her hands climbed up his arm, and her forehead came to rest in the crook of his elbow. Flesh and blood, warm with life. "Thank goodness, Van. Thank goodness."

"Hitomi?" he asked again. He squatted next to the bed and gently laid his other hand on her shoulder.

"You gave us quite a scare, little lady. Glad to see you're awake." It was Dryden who had spoken. Then it came to her that she and Van were not alone; there were other people in the room, too.

Now that she was fully awake, Hitomi was utterly mortified. Straightening, she looked over Van's shoulder and saw Millerna, Allen, and Celena standing next to Dryden. How must she look, a babbling idiot jumping at her own shadow? And clinging to Van like this?

Hitomi carefully disengaged herself from him, and Millerna hurried to her side, laying the palm of her hand on Hitomi's cheek and then her forehead. "How are you feeling?" Millerna asked.

"I feel…" Embarrassed. "I feel fine," Hitomi said shakily. "What happened?"

"While we were in my apartments, talking, you had a vision and you collapsed. You were colder than ice, so we put you in bed and tried to warm you up."

Indeed, there were five or six blankets wrapped around her. Hitomi remembered having the vision in Millerna's sitting room, and now that she thought about it, she also remembered feeling very cold. I've always felt the things that happened in my visions, but that was the first one that's affected me like this. What could it mean?

"What did you see, Hitomi?" asked Van, who still hovered by her side.

A wave of cold rose through her belly as she recalled her vision. "There were giants in Palas…giants made of ice, destroying everything…and there was ice everywhere."

"Are you sure it was Palas?" Dryden asked skeptically. "Perhaps it was a city in the mountains or in Asgard."

Hitomi shook her head, remembering the bridges over the frozen waterways. "I'm certain it was Palas, unless there's another city on Gaea that's full of canals."

"Impossible," Dryden said. "It's the middle of the summer. You must have seen something at some point far into the future. Which means we don't have anything to worry about for several months."

"Hitomi's visions are never wrong," Van heatedly declared, and stood to face the older man. "What she saw is going to happen, and it's going to happen soon."

Dryden only chuckled and shook his head at the younger man's impetuousness while Van glared at him. Then, for the first time, Allen spoke. "How big were the giants, Hitomi?"

"Let me see… About as tall as a building, I think." The image of a featureless, blue-white monster made of ice swiping the roof off a house surfaced in her mind. "No, taller."

"Would you say they were the size of, say, a Guymelef?" he asked.

Suddenly, Hitomi saw what it was he was really asking. "Yes, about the same size, maybe a little bigger."

"We have the description of the enemy and the advantage of being forewarned," Allen said. "We should be able to limit the amount of damage they will cause."

"That's brilliant, Allen!" Millerna said. "We must let father know at once so he knows to be prepared."

But as Millerna rose to her feet, Allen held up a hand. "Princess, Dryden and I will take care of it. You have a patient who needs looking after."

And Celena, Hitomi added silently, and she could tell from the way a shadow fell across Millerna's face that the Asturian princess was thinking the same thing. The room darkened as a blanket of heavy gray clouds rolled across the sun. Rain began to streak the windowpanes.

"Let's go. We haven't a moment to spare," Allen said, and headed for the door. Dryden trailed after him, his expression one of amusement mingled with doubt.

Van moved to follow them, but Hitomi caught his hand. "Please, don't go."

He turned to her in surprise. "What do you mean? I have to help them fight. They're giving refuge to Fanelia's people, and they're our allies besides. I can't leave them hanging out to dry."

The rain continued to fall, no longer droplets of water but hard pellets that tapped against the glass before falling into the courtyard below. Sleet. What was sleet but a smaller version of hail? Hitomi felt cold again, despite the blankets. Van's unblinking stone eyes still stared at her in her mind. "Don't go," she pleaded. "If you go, you might die."

His expression hardened, and he pulled his hand away. "A samurai cannot be a coward afraid of death. Much less a king," he said, suddenly distant. It was as if a wall had come up between them.

"Van, listen to me," she protested as he walked away. "Van, I saw it! You might die!"

That made him stop in his tracks. "What do you mean?"

"I…I saw…" She could still feel the arms of granite around her, a statue's embrace, trapping her body, her sanity. Her voice faltered.

"What did you see, Hitomi?" Millerna prompted.

How could she explain that Van might turn to stone if he went out in the hail without sounding like a complete lunatic? As if the ice giants weren't bad enough. And it wasn't even a vision…it was just a dream. "It's just a feeling I have."

Van paused at the threshold as if weighing what she said. Then, without another word, he left.

"Van…" Dream or not, Hitomi still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Throwing aside the blankets, she tried to go after him. But when her feet touched the floor, her legs gave way and Millerna had to catch her. "Van!" she cried in desperation.

"Hitomi, you're not strong enough to be moving around yet," Millerna cautioned, and settled Hitomi back into bed, who struggled weakly against her.

"But…Van…" Hitomi said helplessly.

By now, the sleet had grown to balls of ice that rattled the windowpanes and crushed the flowers lining the fountain in the courtyard. "Don't worry, he'll be fine," Millerna said reassuringly. But the sudden coming of the hail must have unnerved her as well, because her fingers tightened around Hitomi's hand. "They all will."

-

-

Author's note #2: I'm not sure when I'll be able to get the next chapter out—this week is about to get pretty busy, pretty fast. But I already have some of it done, so who knows, maybe I'll even surprise myself