Kaen was always there to shake me out of my dreams and the dream was always the same. It was as if the moment the Praktu had gotten into my head they had unlocked the ability to recall my nightmares.

"I do not know what to do with you… You need sleep and to heal, but you do not rest when you sleep. I wonder if I should not bring Hurin back to the Fanelian and the child King." I glared at Kaen and looked away as his cold hands redressed my bandages. Blood caked them into a hard wad and I watched yet another mass burn in the fire. The painkiller I had lifted from Millerna are all that kept me on Kaen's back and on the move. When I felt that I had used too much we would rest and only long enough to sleep a bit and let the drugs filter through my system. I also wondered belatedly if the painkillers were some kind of hard drug like earth's heroin or something and if I should even be taking it, but when the pain kicked in I no longer cared and sucked them back.

"If you bring me back I will return you to Ragan…"

Traveling out of Asturia was a rather easy thing to do. Neither Kaen or I had the feeling of being chased and when we crossed the border we both noticed a stress disappear the neither him nor I could pin-point when it had settled in. The landscape changed quickly as a week passed by. We ate lite meals, but they were often and we slept only when we had to. The weather held for that week also and only on the eight day did it finally fail us and down pour. The entire day was wasted as I couldn't hold on in the wet and the bandages really did need to be kept dry.

"Keiki? What will you do when if I go home? If I can leave?" Kaen looked at me with a strange look.

"I do not know. I had intended to not return at all, but… I believe Ragan would need to know. I decided when the machine attacked the child king's palace that I would return with whatever news I had. Hurin is important to many." I seriously hated when he talked like this.

"Why do you think I am important? I'm just lost and trying to get home. I can't jump high trees or pilot a Guymelef like Escaflowne or even swim long distance. I don't see what you see." Kaen stood up and kneeled in front of me, his eyes boring into mine.

"Does the flower know it is envied by man? Does water understand that we covet it more than gold? Does the moon, even yours, know that it is beautiful and a source of light and life? No. I did not think you would see your own worth. That is another thing of beauty… and like you; you share a bond with all I have mentioned. You are the thorn from a moon far away and without you; many feel they may die… The Fanelian King has so many strange feeling for you. He feels obliged to keep you safe as a friend of your mothers and yet he does it of his own accord anyways. I have seen him watch you when you think you have a moment to yourself. They very way that you look at things he finds interesting. Like me. Like Ragan. He is also bitter. He does not like that you know what you know. He believes his past is no-one's concern… Then there is the Knight. He is also strange. He wants to help you so much and feels like he failed your mother so much when she was here. The… machine made him strange and he seconds guess much with concerns to you. The Child-like King is a mystery. So tentative with his own thoughts. He worries on much and cares too much… he will make either the greatest king or will fall to others with evil intentions…"

"Stop… How do you even know all of this? Where do you get off making these accusations of others?" Kaen leaned back and sat down, his legs crossed almost lazily before him while his elbows rested on this knee.

"I know… like I know the sun will rise every morning. Like you know that you had to leave… Like how you know that your dreams are not just dreams." His people were just an odd bunch. They were so light hearted and free, but when something serious came about everything was so serious and the way their eyes just stare into yours with such intensity… Wow.

"I think you may have it wrong. I'm like a shiny new book. Once the book has been read it no longer is of any use. The story is known and the book loses its purpose. I'm like that book. Once thing settle down I won't be so interesting.

"No. If you are like a book then it is an unfinished book and that makes the story even exciting. It is so new and everything so unknown that it makes those around them impatient for more." A change in topic was needed. ASAP.

"You and Ragan have poor taste."

I should have kept my mouth shut because the moment the words were out from between my lips, Kaen's moved into action. His kiss was nothing liked Ragan's because I could feel passion and inpatients mingled with the taste of the mint leaves he had chewed on after lunch. But just like Ragan's I was left bereft of thought. Had I not been a less than attractive human on earth I might have made an easy victim of a freaks motives, but alas here I was. Stunned into paralysis.

"Tastes fine to me." He moved back and walked away as if he's not just invaded everything sanctified by a girl of my age. People didn't just go up and do that on Earth! And despite all of that I could only still manage to think that the mint taste was now on my breath and made my teeth feel cold.

"What is wrong with you people!" It final came out. Human indignation took over even though I was screaming at my face to not be redder that it obviously was. "You can't just go and kiss someone like that! What if the person didn't want to be kissed? What if they don't feel the same way?" Kane sat down and poked and the small fire while his other hand popped in more of the mint leaves into him mouth. The sight of watching him chew was highly distracting.

"Does Hurin not like to be kissed? Should I have asked?" The answers turn to mush in my throat and I could only manage garbled attempts to explain. All of which ended with me walking away and him being demanded at all costs to not follow.

As if walking cured the raging embarrassment it surely didn't help my wound and my walk cut short in a clearing. The trees all fell away bleeding away into nothing but perhaps wheat. It stretched on for as far as I could see and behind that was a grey mass of something undistinguished. A sudden shock rocked me backwards and I gained equilibrium against a tree when I was rocked again and hit the ground which was wet. When my eyes focused again it was something I knew was not real, but my heart didn't know that and beat wildly as a large Guymelef soared over me and screams filled my ears.

"Keiki…" His name was said so weakly as I dodged a sword wielding soldier and another Guymelef rushed by. The steam from it was warm and damp while a sickly sweet smell wafted into my nose. It was the smell of blood again and I instantly retched.

"Van! Ignore the battle and find Hitomi!" My eyes swung and Escaflowne, Scherezade and a crimson Guymelef stood just over top me. "Celina!"

"This is Alseides…" I watched as Alseides lunged and the ground shook enough to topple me over. I could hear Dilandau's voice taunting while Van shouted. All around me people were dying and then I saw her.

"Mother!" The word peeled out of me as I got up and dropped again. The would had yet another tear in it.

"Hitomi!" Mother turned and faced me, looked right at me…

"Mother!"

"No one is here Hurin." The world snapped back into position like a slap to the face.

"She was. They all were. Van, Allen and Celina… so many dead. So much blood…" I retched again and Kaen gave me a moment to finish.

"This was the battle of Zaibach. Many fought here against the Emperor. His zone of absolute fortune ensured a bloody battle and so much was lost… Their bones lie just below the surface.

"Something I read once or twice… but we will talk about it later. We are being watched." I stiffened and realized he was right. I could see them as they weren't really hidden or anything. "These people are all that remains of Zaibach and the machine empire. They suffered the most after it still suffers because they have no chieftain." Keori doubted that the lack of ruler-ship is what ruined these people. It was the war that chocked there land with blood so nothing grew. It was the foreigners that came here and strip them of everything they had including the land they walked. This place made me want to cry and cry I did.

"Hurin, please. Stand up… we must go. It is not safe." But the scene had wounded my like the Praktu had not. I'd seen for years on television the effects of war and of disease

and hunger. Seeing it first hand was unsettling and tore the sounds out of my throat.

"Hurin please…" Kaen touched my shoulder and tried to lift me, but an unknown voice stopped him.

"The child is hurt and bleeding. I do have cloth that she can use to change the bandage and something small of her to eat. If she doesn't, she may die before you can get back to one of your cities in the south." A woman dressed in almost earthly clothes walked close and then held out a hand, palm up for Kaen to see. She had no weapons and just the fact that she was a woman and was gentle and sweet consumed me.

"I just wanted to go home!" The women held on to me and I hugged her as if she were my mother or my father. If I'd had brothers and sisters I might have hugged them this tightly too.

"She is not healing well?" Kaen must have nodded because he helped the woman lift me and to walk. "Stress is holding the wound open. She has to rest without such stresses… this may not have been the best place for her to heal sir…"

"Keiki… His name is Keiki." That got both Kaen and the woman's attention.

"Come then Keiki. I will treat you both. You can lie to her, but I am a healer of sorts and I have worked with the beast-tribes… You require rest as well, Great-One." Kaen stifled his abject denial and followed while glaring daggers at any so as to put the fear in them. He did not trust the people of the machine cities and that they had found them on the Battle field of Keori's mothers was just too much to set aside as coincidence.