"I… hate you…" Kaen pulled himself out of the sea tide dragging me with him. He dropped me to the ground and I attempted to peel my wet clothes from my skin in a way that screamed failure. "If you ever…"
"You do not fly quite so well as you fall and scream." I could only glare at him as I was too heavy from all the water to get up and hit him. And yes, I would have hit him.
"You, are a bastard… How could you do that! How did you know there wasn't a bunch of rocks just under the water surface? We could have died!" I was then forced to turn away as Kaen began striping every article of clothing he was wearing. "A-Are you crazy!"
"You cannot wear such clothes still. It is cold tonight." I was lifted off of my feet when I felt a cold hand grab my shirt from the side and pull up.
"W-What are you doing!" He set me down so that I was sitting on his knee and my shirt was hiked up over my head with only a bra on. "Stop!" The shirt went flying.
"You will freeze. You see? I am also without clothing." I was most definitely not looking. "I will start a fire, we will dry our clothes and wait till morning to move again. By then those men following you will only be half way down to us and well will still have a head start."
I stood up having forgotten that I was being followed. That I had escaped a cat-people village, escaped Allen and his giant machine… That I was alone on some planet without even my mother… I forgot until Kaen pantsed me and started building a fire. There wasn't much I could do at that point though. I was cold, homesick and was wearing only a bra and underwear. Thankfully they were plain black and not some neon, lacy pink. Else I might have acted on the wish to die of embarrassment. And it wasn't like I could go and get my clothes. He was hanging them up with being all but naked so he wasn't a target I was willing to attack let alone touch.
.
The sun couldn't rise fast enough, but it was alright as soon as the clothes were dry. Kaen pulled some weird fruit that she had tried a few times in the village that kind of tasted like dragon-fruit. I ate one to myself while he ate almost five. I could only think that somehow, at almost seven feet tall, that he was a growing boy.
"So, from here you have to decide which was we are going to go." Kaen had stopped sharpening the dagger he had and looked at me.
"Which way?"
"Yes. Do we continue on straight to Fanelia or do we go to Asturia and beg an audience with the child-like King?" His wrist rested on his knee, the dagger hanging loose from long fingers.
"I'm not sure… You said that Fanelia was very cautious with their King… I want to go straight there, but… I think if I can see the King from Asturia and get some kind of letter… I might be able to see Van personally that way… I guess I have no choice… it will take longer, but I have a better chance by going to see this child-King."
"So be it. We will travel along the sea coastline until we hit Astrain. It is a small coastal village that we will be able to purchase our passage directly to Palas, the capital of Asturia. From there we will gain an audience with King Chid and then make way to Fanelia to meet with King Van posing as messenger from Asturia. This is a good plan. Little to go wrong here."
"Wait a second…"
"This is Scherezade, my Guymelef and I am its master Allen Schzar, knight of Caeli of Asturia."
I shivered and swallowed while I checked to see if my clothes were dry yet. They were still damped.
"Hurin, what is it that bothers you so?"
"What is a Guymelef?" Kaen looked startled and amused that I would know such a word despite that it was one of these things that had driven Ragan and I to the village to begin with.
"The Guymelef are a series of creations made by the ancients. The Atlantians made them for some unknown purpose and though the ancients died out, they left the Guymelef behind. Only a handful remains today; one is mastered by the King of Fanelia, The Escaflowne and it is most curious of all the Guymelef. Another is piloted by…
"Allen Schzar and knight of Asturia…. His Guymelefs' name is Scherezade…" Kaen walked round to see my face.
"Who is it that you know this much, Hurin?"
"That man that chased Ragan and I? That was Allen and his Guymelef." Kaen now understood the scope of everything going on.
"Why does a knight of Asturia want the strange woman from the mystic moon? Why did he chase you?" I couldn't explain. I didn't even know myself.
"I don't know. My mother came here once before… Her name was Hitomi Kanzaki…" Kaen's hand smothered my words in an instant.
"Silence. You must not speak that name here… What you say and speak are dangerous things… This much I will tell you, the name you mentioned in anathema here… you must not speak it. The woman you mention was said to have been one of the ancients come down to punish Gaia for its sins 3 years ago acting through the machine city of Zaibach…. We must wait to make a trip to any place now. I must know what it is that you know before I can take you anywhere. To take you to Asturia would mean facing Allen. To go to Fanelia with your speech and knowledge… you would be imprisoned because you do not know what you can speak aloud…" Kaen pulled the still wet clothes from the branch by the fire and told me to get dress even though the sun was still down.
"I thought we were going to wait until morning?"
"We cannot wait now. I fear the men that chase you are more than as I assumed. I must find Dryden Fassa… What you say has been very similar to a writing the man published after the war against Zaibach. He may well be your best chance now of doing anything… he is a wealthy man and what you say may be enough to interest him into helping you." He slid the leather belt around his waist after dressing and turned to me. I was still trying to pull my pants up so he put out the fire and tossed the remains into the sea.
"How long will it take to find this guy?" At that Kaen smiled.
"Of all the things in Gaia that are easy, this will be the simplest. I assure you; somehow, this man already knows you are here and on the run. If we are in luck, he is searching for you as we speak…" As soon as I had managed to pull the damp clothes on, Kaen tossed a blanket over me like a cap and swung me on his back like I was nothing more than a bag of socks. "We will travel fast to avoid as much trouble as we can… Ragan should have told me there would be this much to do… I would not have asked as much of him as I did…"
"What do you mean?" I could see him smiling as I forced my head higher to see where we were going.
"Had I known that I was going to have an adventure and see the people I will and go to the places I am, I might not have made him pay me for babysitting…"
"How much did you make him pay? His smile grew wider.
"Enough to buy one of those houses they have in Asturia by the sea. I had asked to see just how much he cared for Hurin, but when he told me it did not matter… I took what I did, but he should have just told me the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
"Ragan told me, that money did not matter where ever life was concerned… I did not know then that 'life' meant both life as in 'breath' and life as in 'what you do while breathing'. It did not matter to Ragan so long as he did what he could for Hurin." I dropped my forehead down on Kaen's shoulder and stared at the dark wrinkles of brown weave that was his shirt. I had not realized that Ragan had been 'that' attached to me… and that I had run. But he knew I was going to, that I had to and he even helped me; had given one of his strongest men to help me even to find my way home.
"He does know that I am trying to find a way back to the Mystic Moon right?"
"Does love stop because it cannot touch? Does love stop because it cannot speak? No, Love does not know time, or death, it does not know distance or even change. The only thing love knows is loss. Should Hurin not find a way home, she will be broken. If Hurin does not find Van, she cannot go home. If Hurin cannot get into Fanelia she cannot find Van. Ragan is doing what Ragan can. To help his love whichever way he can."
"Shut up Kaen…." I couldn't take it anymore. People didn't act like this one earth, didn't talk like this on earth and we seemed all the more stupid for it. I could have said I loved someone with all of my heart and not done a single one of the simple things Ragan had done so far for just me. The people here were so pure in thoughts and actions, they didn't have the ulterior motives that blinded people from my planet… and yet it made everything so much harder to deal with.
"Do not think too much on this… I will do what I can for you." That only made it harder. Because Kaen was acting on Ragan's behalf and was doing it without begrudging me. If anything, he was thanking me for the trouble, the hassle and risk of being caught with a girl from another planet who was the daughter of the woman who had been written down in history as anathema for almost destroying life on Gaia.