All you need is Love, Isn't it? Chapter 98, an escaflowne fanfic

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Escaflowne: All you need is Love, Isn't it?

Chapter 98

As the empty, darkness retreated; Hitomi felt a dull aching pain from her head to her toes. She groaned. "What happened to me?" No answer came.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and was greeted by the orange hue of a warm fire burning close by, the sound of a gentle breeze rustling the nearby trees, and the star-filled night sky. "Where am I?"

"At a clearing near the river." A familiar voice answered.

Gingerly, she turned her head and saw the young king of Fanelia emerging from the forest with wood for the fire in his arms. He walked past her and added some of them to the fire. Then he retrieved his canteen and a piece of cloth, and knelt down next to her.

"How are you feeling, Hitomi?" He whispered softly.

"Van." Seeing the deep, sad expression upon his face broke the young girl's heart. "What happened? How… how? …" She shook her head, which caused it to throb painfully. "Huh." Hitomi tried lift her right hand to her forehead but her arm didn't move from under her chest. She looked up at him with a worried expression. "Van?"

"You dislocated your shoulder when you fell. I had to pop it back in place. There was no bruising. Least, none that I saw a couple hours ago, but I immobilized your arm just to be safe." He opened the canteen and slid his hand under her head. "Here, drink."

With Van's help, she lifted her head and drank. "Thank you, Van." She licked her lips dry.

The king nodded then poured some water on the cloth, folded it and laid it gently upon the injured girl's forehead.

"Aah," she sighed. "That feels good." She tried to smile but even that hurt. "What happened to me, Van?" Her eyes pleaded.

"What's the last think you remember?" He asked, sitting down next to her.

She tried to think, but everything was a blurry haze. "I-I'm not sure. I sorta remember… crying… and running… and… and falling." She closed her eyes, desperately trying to recall but to no avail. "The last think I remember clearly was leaving Arzas, and riding back to the river to follow the trail south towards the ocean."

Van nodded and lowered his gaze. "We argued. I insulted you. You got angry and rode off. I rode off after you."

Images flashed in Hitomi's mind, nothing entirely clear but moments, instances of memory.

"I caught up to you and stopped your horse, but you jumped off and ran into the forest. I ran after you. You ran to a clearing but it turned out to be a cliff. Not a sheer drop, fortunately but steep enough. You rolled down the face of the cliff. By the time I got to you, you'd already reached the bottom… unconscious. Your shoulder was dislocated and so was your knee-"

"My knee!" Hitomi panicked. "No, not my knee!" Through all the pain she was feeling, she tried to isolate the pain in her legs to determine which hurt more. "I dislocated my left knee? God, I have to get back home! I have to get to a hospital!" Tears started streaming down her face. "God, why my knee? Anything but my knee!" She sobbed.

"Relax, Hitomi. You didn't dislocate your knee, only your knee cap." Van assured her.

She looked up at him. "M-my knee cap. Only my knee cap." She tried to gain control over her breathing. "Yeah… well, I guess it would hurt a lot more than it does if it were my knee that was dislocated and not just my knee cap." The tears stopped and she managed to crack a faint smile.

Van wiped her tears away and gently caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers. "I'm so sorry, Hitomi. If I hadn't lost my temper, none of this would have happened." A tear escaped his eye and slowly made its way down his cheek. "I'm so very sorry, Hitomi."

"Oh, Van… " She reached up with her good hand and wiped his tear away, then brought her hand around to the back of his head and pulled him down to her. Their foreheads touched and Hitomi turned just enough to kiss his cheek. "Lay here with me, Van. Please."

"But your injuries… " He protested.

"Please Van." Fresh tears welled up in the girl's eyes.

The young king nodded ever so slightly, then stretched out next to her. She flinched a bit and he tried to back away, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him close. "It's all right." She forced a smile.

Van carefully slid his arm under her head and gazed deeply into her sparkling emerald eyes. "It seems all I know how to do is cause you pain on this trip."

"That's not true."

"You've been suffering emotionally for days now, because I make it too hard for you to talk to me. Now, I've caused you physical pain as well." He wiped away her tears again.

"No Van. That's not true. It's my own fault. All of it." She pressed her cheek up against his arm. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry," she whispered.

They fell silent for a time, neither sure what else to say. After several minutes, Hitomi asked, "What were we fighting about?" Seeing Van hesitate to reply, she added, "Was it about my last race?"

"No, it's nothing really." He looked away. "I… " Van sighed. "I told you about the bridge, how the elders consented to having it built, with concessions."

Hitomi looked puzzled.

"It's not important. You were right. Restricting the freedom of the wolven people is too high a price to pay just to have the convenience of a bridge. I'll send word to Sir Baschan once we reach the sea."

"Oh." Still puzzled, Hitomi offered Van a faint smile before turning her head and looking up at the stars.

After several long minutes of silence, Van asked, "Hitomi, what happened at your last meet that's had you so upset?"

The teenage girl continued to stare up at the stars.

Van studied her profile, hoping it might reveal her secrets to him.

Slowly, Hitomi's lips began to quiver and her breathing became labored, then tears began to fall from the corner of her eyes.

"Hitomi, if it hurts too much to talk about it--"

She shook her head and smiled weakly while keeping her eyes on the stars. "It's not that Van." She turned her head and gazed into his eyes. "It's just…" She closed her eyes, and after a moment looked back up at the night sky. "I know it's going to sound so dumb, so pointless to you. But it means so much to me…"

Van waited patiently.

Several minutes later… "The last race of the day was the girl's four by one hundred meter relay. I've explained what a relay race was before, didn't I, Van?"

He nodded.

"The meet was a dead heat between us and East Yokohama. The winner of this race would win the meet. I was running the anchor leg. The other three girls on my team ran as hard and as fast as they could and we had a slight lead, but just as she was ready to hand me the baton, Harumi's ankle gave and she started to fall. I caught the baton with my fingertips but couldn't hold on. It slipped out of my hand and fell to the ground in front of me. Luckily, it bounce back up and I was able to catch it but I lost precious time, and I was running against Ruri Hayamoto, one of the fastest sprinters in all of Kanagawa Prefecture. I had to run the race of my life, faster than I've ever run before. And I did. We won the race, the meet, and the championship." Hitomi smiled sadly as fresh tears fell from her eyes.

Van remained silent, not wanting to say anything that would upset the girl he loved any more than she was already.

Finally, she added, "And I did it, without you, Van. I did it without thinking of you, without visualizing you. I wanted to win and that desire alone was enough to push me, make me run faster then ever."

"And this scares you?"

Hitomi just nodded. "I'm just a first year student with two more years of high school ahead of me. If I keep improving, if my times get even better, people will start to take notice. Important people. People who have the power and money to send me to national and maybe even international meets to represent my country."

Van's eyes widened. Gently, he freed his arm from under Hitomi's head and stood up.

"Van?" The girl's heart raced.

He turned and started adding more wood to the fire. With his back toward her, he spoke. "A swordsman doesn't reach his full potential until his body finishes maturing and he has fought hundreds, even thousands of duels." He paused. "To represent one's kingdom in a dueling match is one of the greatest honors a warrior can hope to achieve."

"Van." Hitomi's tears ran unchecked.

"We need more firewood." He stood up. "You should get some sleep, Hitomi. You need to rest. It's the best thing for your injuries." He walked off into the wood.

"Van… " Hitomi's voice cracked. "Van… please… " There was no response. She raised her hand to her mouth as she wept uncontrollably. "Van…" she whispered and pressed her hand to her forehead. "Van…"

(To Be Continued)

AN: Well that was a little faster, wasn't it? I hope you enjoyed it. Do you feel as sorry for Hitomi as I do? Please, let me know what you think. Either by review or by posting at my Escaflowne form on Comments and speculations concerning what is to come are welcomed.

While I am forwarding this chapter to my beta, I have gone ahead and posted as is. So please be kind concerning grammatical error. Those will be corrected after Janice returned me her edited version and I get a chance to go through them.

Plan on reaching 100 chapters before ACEN'06 so that means minimally 2 more chapters before May. Hopefully, more then that even.

A. Amishi