I'm so sorry! This is over three weeks late. You would have had it sooner, BUT when I was typing it the computer played a prank on me. I switch screens for one second, and came back and find it ALL squiggles on the far side of the page. I tried to undo it with no avail. So I tried to exit, so I could salvage what I had pre-saved… and stupid me saved the squiggles over my document. Lets just say I was too mad to rewrite everything over. I still kind of am, but I owe you all seeing this is the last official chapter! I'll try to make it a good one.

Disclaimer; Do you think the dunce that saved a ruined document over something so important could lay any claim to Escaflowne? I didn't think so. Then again I can always dream.

Far From Home

Chapter 7

The sun beat down on a girl huddled in on herself, not from the climate but from the solid coldness that settled around her insides. Her screams of agony have long since subsided into, sorrowful weeping which ceased when her endless well of tears dried up, leaving her body racked with painful sobs. Hitomi was deep in morning, but no one was dead with the exception of her dreams.

I guess you could say this wasn't your average break up. Van didn't dump her, his planet did. Only the aching of her tense muscles trying to compete with the throbbing of the raw wound on her heart brought her back to the reality. Her body screamed at her, protesting the long exposure to the fetal position.

Numbly she uncurled herself and began to stand on shaky feet. No sooner had Hitomi stood then her knees began to tremble. With a sharp pain her legs began to spasm and quickly gave way, dumping her unceremoniously on a more padded part of her anatomy. Tears sprung to her eyes. Fighting them back she shook her head taking a deep shaky breath in the attempt to calm down. "Van wouldn't want me to wallow in self pity like this." She scolded herself, mumbling "Then again he wouldn't want me stuck here either."

She stretched her long legs out in front of the as if warming up for a race. It didn't take long for the abused muscles to loosen and the knots to work themselves out. With one last deep calming breath she began to slowly and steadily get to her feet. This time her stance was firm and her body had ceased the trembling that still affected her heart.

Walking to the top of the steps overlooking the red pillars and school below she stared out across the building tops with determination in her eyes. "What now?" She asked herself out loud not expecting a response.

Hitomi felt a sharp shooting pain encircle her wrist. Looking down her eyes widened in terror as the bruise darkened to a pitch black healthy bodies don't become. The pain spread up her arm and down her to her fingertips in unison with the stabbing darkness. She screamed until her lungs burned with the effort to continue breathing. The bizarre pelage spread over her legs and torso in record time. It crept up her neck spiking over her jaw, when it neared her eyes they widened and glazed over allowing her just enough time to choke out. "Why?"

The reply flowed around her like silk. "Retribution." The wind whispered.

Hitomi was plunged into a solid darkness thick enough to not be considered air. Her free fall swiftly came to an end when she impacted what must have been the bottom. Still slightly jarred she pealed herself off the ground. "Hello?" She called into the blackness. "You spoke to me before. Can you tell me where I am?"

The voice came out from inky dark, rich and smooth like expensive chocolate. "You who play with the lives of others, are you only concerned with your own?" I was a female's voice cultured and flowing with an edge of amusement or was it accusation, maybe both.

"No. I never meant to hurt anyone!" She spun around searching for the owner of the voice.

"Powers denied cause more damage then the same powers in the clutches of something dark."

"I'm just a normal school girl! I don't want to play with other people's lives!" Hitomi cried out.

"You are far too late on both accounts." The voice was mellow, if the being cared about the subject at hand it didn't show. "Questions later, now is time to watch the entertainment."

"Entertainment?" She croaked

As if by the wave of a powerful hand, Gaea appeared before her. At first look all seamed normal, though some how harsher.

"Take a closer look are your master piece." You could almost see a smirk to accompany the voice. On cue Hitomi was floating above the ground absorbing all the surroundings in horror. Wasteland, would be putting it lightly. This couldn't be Gaea, the lush beautiful land caressed by the mountains and loved by the ocean. No this had to be somewhere else a true hell on earth.

The soild was dry and cracked like a burn victim's skin. There was little to no signs of life. Trees were sparse and all that was left were little more then mangled sticks. Hitomi looked closer as she saw one of the trees moving. No, it was a person, or what was left of one. Its leathery flesh hung loosely off its withered frame, like extra fabric on a rag doll. Their breathing was labored in the thin atmosphere.

Hitomi was almost too afraid to ask. "Is everyone like this?"

"The survivors you mean?" The voice asked almost chiding her. "The few that are left to wander, yes, though some fare better by less honorable means."

In a blur of color all red, orange and browns Hitomi arrived in a city, if you could call it that. Most of the buildings lay in ruin, some still smoldering. The streets were littered with corpses and debris causing a stench harsh enough to bite at the senses. A few dirty and worn people congregated with raised voices and random battered weapons in hand. Your classic mob surrounding a woman protecting her children. They screamed obscenities, accused her of stealing, and hoarding food. From the look of it, her cries of innocence were truth. Truth and guilt mean very little when dealing with circumstances such as this. They converged on her till no screaming was heard anymore.

"Oh my God!" Hitomi looked away tears streaming down her face.

"Do you wish to see more?"

"NO! I don't want to see this!" She shrieked at the ever calm voice.

"Don't you wish to see your king?"

"Van? What will happen to Van!" Hitomi began to become hysterical.

A scene played out before her, a large mob of angry people tearing at the gates of the Fanelian palace. Chanting, that Van was a corrupt King. That he planed on enslaving them, by withholding his massive stores in greed. The gates opened, reviling a Van both prematurely aged from worry. He was just as dirty and starved as the people calling for his death. He tried to sedate them with no avail, they called for his seppuku. Again he tried to calm them, this time a large man stepped forward pushing Van to his knees, and with out blinking beheaded the young king. The mob raided the palace of the man they called their savoir only a year before, leaving his battered body in pieces laying in the dust.

Hitomi's knees gave out once more sobs racking her body. Words escaped her.

Though not the voice she always knew what to say. "Anarchy, nothing but violence, it won't help them for long. Why is that?"

Hitomi's eyes widened as the answers played past like a sped up film. The words spilled from her lips in a steady coherent flow. "The barrier protecting Gaea has dissolved not only from time but the stress placed on it due to the wishes and beliefs of thousands. With out the protection of the Atlantians the rain has ceased to fall drying the rivers and withering the plants. Once all the vegetation is gone the atmosphere will disappear. By the time astronauts make it to Gaea all life would have vanished long before they would ever notice. Leaving the beautiful planet a replica of the rock, called our moon." As she finished her monologue Hitomi blinked her eyes in disbelief, the sad truth and fate of the planet sinking in. Desperately she began to plead the voice, which seemed to know everything about this tragedy. "We have to stop it! We have to save Gaea as its people."

"We?" The voice questioned. "The correct term would be 'I' unless you have a mouse in your pocket."

"What can I do? I'm powerless, always have been."

"You want my help?" The voice baited the hook and waited for the fish to bite.

"Can you fix this? Can you save Gaea?" Hitomi felt a surge of hope course through her veins. Only to feel it sink back to the depths of the ocean floor of despair.

"You can not afford the price." It stated. "There is a way for you to save that doomed world, but are you willing to pay the price?"

"I would give anything!" She stated determined to right everything she just found out was her fault.

As soon as the words left her mouth she was no longer alone with the voice. "Don't!" The strong yet familiar voice of Fanelia's long dead Queen hit Hitomi like a slap in the face. "Don't make him suffer anymore!" Varie appeared by her side with hands clutching tight fists onto the striped fabric of her dress.

"I just want to save Van. I've screwed up again. I just cause him more pain and heart ached. How many times did he suffer because of me?" Hitomi turned on the mother of her beloved.

"Don't raise your voice to me child. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You should know that by now." Varie turned with her back to Hitomi, facing the image of the glowing world. "Her attitude is that of a selfish child but her heart is pure and her powers once trained would rival yours."

"Who is that?" Hitomi questioned, wondering whom the voice belonged to.

"Hush girl, let me speak to her or you may bargain off your soul or worse."

"My soul!" Hitomi gasped "What could be worse then that?"

Varie brushed her off. "She could work for you."

"I have no need of her services. Her power on the other hand." The voice purred. "Hitomi Kanzaki of Earth the price for rebuilding the barrier of protection will be all of your powers. You will be as you claim just a simple schoolgirl. To let all know of your sins you shall bare a curse upon your body. Do you agree to these terms?"

Hitomi looked to the draconian woman for approval. Varie nodded with a small smile proving that this was the best offer she was going to get. "Yes. May I request that I be sent home when you are done?"

With a small warm chuckle the voice conceded. "Agreed, shall we collect payment now?"

"Yes." Hitomi's eyes shot open as a liquid fire consumed her, it felt as if it was ripping its way from her insides out. A pink glow enveloped her form, pulsing in time with the acid pain coursing through her veins. Her screams fell on deaf ears.

To Be Continued…

Just kidding I'll give you the last little bit.

After being ripped painfully from the woman he loved, Van had been unceremoniously dumped onto the dry soil of his home world by the sadistic pillar of light. He lay in a undignified heap relearning the art of breathing. Taking a deep breath he turned his body out of the pretzel position he had been occupying a moment before. With a loud series of pops from his spine as well as the majority of his joints, he ended up on his feet with a sigh. "Hitomi why couldn't you come back with me?" He asked the air, who had about as much a clue as he did about the matter.

By the terrain he knew he was home, in the center of a large field just outside the capital city, Fanelia. "When I left Merle was helping the Ballston family prepare for their new baby. Which means she will be here in three, two…"

"LORD VAN!" The cat-girl screeched launching herself at her only family. "I'm so glad you're back Lord Van. I've missed you! How did things go on the mystic moon? Are all the people there as strange as Hitomi? Did you bring me anything?" Her tail ticked back and forth at each question. When she received only silence as an answer Merle looked up at her long time friend's sad face. "Where is she? I hope Hitomi was dropped right in the middle of a lake for all she made you worry." Merle huffed at the rudeness of anyone making Lord Van worry.

"She is not coming." He stated removing himself from her grasp.

"What do you mean Hitomi isn't coming? She has to come back Lord Van. She promised, didn't she?"

"Hitomi can't come back." Van began to walk towards the farmhouse Merle has shot out of at the first hint of blue light in the sky. "She is the cause of all this." He stated fluttering his hands at the dried and barren field.

"I knew it had to be her fault. That girl is nothing but trouble! I can't believe she-" Merle cut herself off. "You love her anyway don't you Lord Van?"

He nodded slightly, hiding his eyes behind the shadow of his bangs.

"Oh Lord Van…" Merle sighed hugging him in a comforting way. "I know this must hurt you Lord Van. I hate to see you hurt, but its okay that you are crying. Just let it out you'll feel better."

"Merle?" He questioned looking down at her.

"Yes Lord Van?"

"Merle I'm not crying."

"I just felt it though." Another drop hit her arm this time. "Lord Van! Its-"

"Raining." He finished for her in awe. By the seconds the fat drops became more and more frequent, till it was steadily falling. The parched soil drank the crisp rain up greedily.

"Wonderful!" Merle spun around dancing as if she too was soaking up the precipitation.

"Hitomi must have done this." Van stood blinking up into the drenching shower. That's when he saw it. A faintly glowing object hung suspended high in the air. "Hitomi?" He squinted through the beads of water, the pink light faded to nothing leaving the darkened being free falling head first towards earth. Van's shirt was plastered to his chest by the rain. He tore the poor red shirt from him flinging it aside as he sprung off the ground. Brilliant wings burst from his shoulder blades, propelling him upwards advancing on the falling girl.

She was descending so fast that she passed him approaching the ground, he pulled his great wings tightly to himself forcing his body into a dive. Van rapped his arms firmly around her drenched form, pulling them both upright. As gently as he could Van landed, it would have been a smooth touch down had his knees not given out collapsing under them both, from relief. He cradled her in his arms the adrenaline draining from his body. "Hitomi can you hear me?" He asked fear filling him that she may be injured from her lack of motion as well as her silence.

Hitomi's eyes fluttered open. "I'm here Van." Her voice was weak, by her eyes held pure relief and happiness. "I'm just a regular girl now, not a seer anymore." She smiled up at him.

"That's all I ever wanted." He pulled her close into a warm embrace.

"Van." Hitomi blushed placing a hand on his chest pushing his away lightly.

His face was hurt, but before he could ask what was wrong she placed her fingers on his lips to silence him.

"Van. They cursed me for my foolishness."

He opened his mouth to ask who 'they' happen to be when Hitomi squeezed her eyes shut in pain. "Hitomi! What is it?"

"My punishment." She croaked out before throwing her head back. Her back bowing out, spilling rich white feathers out behind her in the form of large graceful wings. "Can you still love me?" Her voice was weak, her eyes held the fear of his repulsion.

"I never though you could be more beautiful." A true warm smile graced his lips. "Now you are stuck with me for good Hitomi Kanzaki. Seeing as we are a matching set."

"Oh Van." She threw her arms around his neck. "I love you."

"I love you too Hitomi. Welcome home." His lips met hers as they melted together in an embrace that seemed to stop time, with the exception of the rain that fell intertwined with cascading pure white feathers.

The End.

Well sort of. I wasn't lying when I said this was the last chapter. BUT there will be an epiloge to seal the deal. Stay tune for the FINAL conclusion!

A/N. When describing the voice my (insane) friend said it should be rich and smooth like fancy melted cheese. Or like that rich cream straight from the cow. Still warm…. I'll stick with chocolate. Godiva. Lindt. Mmmmm Yummy. Anyone got a mop cuz I just drooled a big puddle.

Two blondes were in a parking lot trying to unlock the door of their Mercedes with a coat hanger. They tried and tried to get the door open, but they couldn't. The girl with the coat hanger stopped for a moment to catch her breath, and her friend said anxiously, "Hurry up! It's starting to rain and the top is down!"

Thank you ALL for reading. Thank you again you my two readers that had cameos. Please review! You've come so far as it is!