Disclaimer: I don't own "The Vision of Escaflowne," nor do I claim to. If you think that I do, then you're rather stupid I'm sorry to say… Any original characters are property of the author. Any flashbacks from the series or characters from the series do not belong to me, either. The song "Somewhere Out There" belongs to James Horner and the song "Overjoyed" belongs to Stevie Wonder.
A/N: I've got the rest of this fic set in stone so now I just have to rewrite it… I spent eight hours on the way home from Wisconsin yesterday jotting little notes to myself while listening to American Idol songs and my Escaflowne soundtrack. Oh yes, and this fic is going to be 15 chapters long in total… It has finally been decided! Yay! So review when you're done or I may just file what I've written away to babble about incoherently to my grandkids when I'm 60…
Tears of the Heart
Somewhere out there
Beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me
And loving me tonight
Somewhere out there
Someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another
In that big somewhere out there
And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
If helps to think we're sleeping
Underneath the same big sky
Somewhere out there
If love can see us through
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true
And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star
And when the night winds starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping
Underneath the same big sky
Somewhere out there
If love can see us through (Can see us through)
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true
-"Somewhere Out There" by James Horner, performed by James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt
Chapter 9: Where the Heart Lies
Folken lay sprawled across a dusty wooden table in his private quarters, his face pressed against ancient musty texts. He was having a rather amusing dream about a strange little girl with a noisy little dog and a rainbow. Suddenly, he was rudely awakened by a persistent poke in his shoulder.
"What is it now…?" he mumbled in annoyance.
"I beg pardon, Milord… But I brought you dinner. You've been at it since dawn. Don't you think that it's about time you gave yourself a rest?" Ari asked in concern, setting down a basket filled with some biscuits and fruit at his side.
"Umm…" he sighed, his head falling limp again as Ari rolled her eyes, sighing.
"Oh hail our Mighty Lord…" she muttered sarcastically as Folken began to snore and she crept from the room.
Several hours later, the king of Zaibach awoke with a start, a small bead of sweat coursing down his brow.
"It's that same dream… It's always that dream…" he whispered, lighting a candle so he could continue on with his translations. After a few minutes of struggling with the complex language of the ancient Atlanteans, he sighed, fumbling with the small glasses he had perched on his nose, shoving them in a drawer carelessly. He winced, hearing the breaking of glass, knowing that he might be making a visit to the optometrist in the medical wing again…
"Milord." Yuushi waltzed into the room without knocking, bowing briefly before walking over and removing several articles from Folken's basket, munching on them hungrily.
Folken gave him an indignant look, watching his dinner being devoured.
"What, pray tell, are you doing?"
"Sorry, Milord… The wife kicked me out. Apparently I forgot the radish anniversary or something. So, being the wretch that I am, I have been condemned to the lonely corridors until the dear lets me back in…" He looked away, a bit ashamed. "She has my dinner in there too… I was hoping that you wouldn't mind sharing one of your extra futons so I won't be forced to be smashed by the door when she comes out tomorrow morning and perhaps lets me in!"
Folken sighed reluctantly.
"Grab a spare sheet from the closet and leave me in peace…" he murmured, massaging his forehead with his hand that still held flesh.
"Right, Boss!" Yuushi grinned, grabbing some more of Folken's spare rations as he growled lightly in annoyance.
"Hmm…" Folken studied the text carefully. "Traveling between worlds…" He smirked slightly. He'd found what he had been looking for.
Van stood by his window in his castle home in Fanelia. He sighed softly as a warm breeze blew by, carrying the slightest hint of jasmine. It ruffled his jet-black hair as he continued to study the horizon with unwavering amber eyes.
Flashback
"I'm sick of it! I'm sick of this whole world!" the girl shrieked angrily at them.
End of Flashback
He sighed again.
"When did everything start going wrong? It wasn't supposed to be like this…" He clenched his fists angrily. "Folken… is a traitor… I will not let him outsmart me again. He will die for his unforgivable transgressions…"
He desperately tried to block out the horrible images flashing through his mind. The bomb exploding while everyone was inside at the meeting, the mangled bodies dripping with blood, the lost limbs floating about in the sea…
Flashback
"Lord Van…" He could hear Merle's desperate whimper, blood congealing in her throat. He had run over to her, cradling her limp body in his shaking arms. She turned her head to face him, smiling slightly, her bright blue eyes clouding over.
"Oh, Lord Van… Please… Don't be mad…" she whispered before she took her last breath.
End of Flashback
"It is… my curse…" he murmured. He bad been forced to watch his best friends, some of the only people he had ever truly cared for, die before his very eyes. "It shouldn't be this way…"
Flashback
"Lord Van… The curse of the Draconian blood is legendary… It is known that every being with the blood of the Atlanteans coursing through his veins is destined to meet a sticky end… But not before they bring death and misfortune to those around them… This is the burden that the last of your clan is cursed to bear…" a member of his council warned him coldly.
End of Flashback
"I don't know where it all began… Maybe on that day… The day that Hitomi left Gaea… The day that she left me…" Van whispered idly.
Flashback
"Please, someone send me back to my world!"
End of Flashback
If only it were that easy… Van thought silently. Hitomi…
He wandered down the hallway until he reached the apartments Hitomi had lived in when she first came to Gaea. He was fascinated by the Discman she had forgotten in Asturia when she returned home. Strangely enough, it had somehow survived the destruction. He'd found it in the rubble with a few of Hitomi's other things and brought it back with him, intending to return it to her should they meet again. Fiddling with the golden ring on his finger, he accidentally caused it to slip off, rolling across the floor.
"Oh yeah. My luck is incomparable…" Van muttered in annoyance, getting down on his hands and knees to try to find it. It had been his father's wedding ring. It had been passed on to him after his father's death by Folken. Folken had not wanted to be reminded of his dearly departed father in such a manner. It was one of the few mementos he had left from when his parents were alive. He would hate to lose it. It rolled under the dresser and he cursed silently, getting down on his belly and sliding his head between the dresser legs.
"Hey… What's this doing down here…?" He pulled out a shiny round disc and stared at it perplexedly.
"Over…joyed…" He sounded out the title sloppily scrawled across the top. He picked up the Discman that he'd left on the dresser and popped the CD in, putting on the headphones.
Over time,
I've been building my castle of love, oh yeah
Just for two, though
you never knew you were my reason
I've gone much too far for you
now to say
That I've got to throw my castle away
Flashback
"Allen… Help me…" Hitomi whispered as she fell into the blackness. She woke up startled, blushing madly.
"Oh no… Did I fall asleep…?"
"It's alright. Sleep if you're tired." Van comforted her.
"No. I'm okay." She got up.
"'Allen, help me!'" she says. Still haven't given up on that guy?" Merle mocked her in amusement.
"Oh no… Did I say something…?" Hitomi asked, her face the color of a boiled lobster.
"You're so easygoing. We barely got out of their in one piece. Don't forget, you were almost sold off by that Meiden guy…"
"I know…" Hitomi murmured.
"If Allen hadn't come we wouldn't have made it out…" Van commented.
Merle shoved a stick with some bugs on it in her face.
"Here." Hitomi looked sickened.
"Eat this, although they're much better raw…"
"They're not so bad…" Van remarked optimistically.
"These are good too!" Merle began eating some of Hitomi's snacks.
"Hey, those are my snacks!" Hitomi protested.
There's more…" Merle pulled some items out of Hitomi's bag.
"Hey, my lipstick and my watch… When'd you swipe those?!" Merle pulled out Hitomi's pager and began to chew on it.
"What about this?"
"That's my pager! You can't eat that!" Hitomi protested angrily. Hitomi desperately tried to get it away from her before Merle scampered up onto Escaflowne.
"Get down here you cat burglar! Ya dumb cat!" Van seemed slightly amused by their quarreling.
Van began to practice his swordsmanship in the darkness of the silent woods when Hitomi interrupted him.
"Hey Van… Don't you think these two look alike?" Hitomi asked softly, holding up her pendant to Escaflowne's energist.
"Tell me, where did you get that stone?"
"It's my good luck charm!" Hitomi beamed.
"Good luck charm?"
"Yeah, it's from when I was little. Now it's more of a memento from my grandmother."
"So, do you have anyone else in your family?"
"Yeah… A father, a mother, and a little brother…"
"A father and a mother…" Van whispered.
"Yeah, but my brother and I are always arguing. He's always mouthing off, but I'm the one who gets in trouble. 'Hitomi, you're older aren't you?' 'Hitomi, you're a girl!' 'Hitomi, you are in high school!' I hate it; it's not fair… Just because I'm the oldest… My dad just sits there and laughs… I wonder how they're doing now… My father and mother…" Tears slid down her cheeks.
"My parents both died when I was little…" Van confessed painfully.
"With Fanelia burned and Balgus dead, the only one I can really count on is her…" He gestured at the slumbering catgirl.
"But that man… I thought you called him brother…" Hitomi remembered the incident on the Vione.
"He's no brother of mine! Folken is a traitor!" Van shouted heatedly. "Ten years ago, he was sent to fight a dragon in the rite to become king… But he ran away… And my brother even tried to kill me!" He saw Hitomi's nervous expression and felt bad. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't carry on like that…"
"No, it's alright… So what are you going to do now…?"
"This has only taught me how much I need to grow… First, I'm going to train… And then, it all starts from here… What about you, Hitomi?"
Hitomi fell back in the grass.
"What am I going to do…? I guess I can't go back to Allen's country."
"I know that Zaibach's looking for me, but do you want to come with us?" Van asked hesitantly.
"Can I?" Hitomi asked happily.
"Sure. I might need your help someday…" Van replied, flopping down into the moist grass.
"There's one thing I know for sure…" he murmured, staring up at the mystic moon. "I'm going to help you get back there…" Hitomi turned, smiling at him as they lay beneath the starry sky.
Over
dreams, I have picked out a perfect come true
Though you never
knew it was of you I've been dreaming
The sandman has come from
too far away
For you to say come back some other day
"Don't cry, Mother. I'll grow up to take my brother's place. I'll be a strong king just like my father. Mother… It'll be okay, I promise… Please, Mother?" Van's young face at the age of five was filled with sorrow at his mother's listless expression.
"Soon later, Mother went into the forest, to look for my brother. For Folken. Balgus went to look for her, but couldn't find her. Mother never returned to the castle…" Van murmured as they rode the dragon Escaflowne, Merle sleeping peacefully as they soared over the countryside.
"Thank you for telling me, Van… And about your wings…" Van looked up at her, dreading her comment.
"Don't worry, Van… I think they're beautiful…" A slight twinge of blush stained her cheeks and he smiled in relief.
"You and Merle are probably the only ones who would say that…"
"So you're putting me and her on the same level? Very funny!"
And though
you don't believe that they do
They do come true
For did my
dreams
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too, if you
would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over loved, over me
Hitomi was running through the foggy landscape before she came upon a procession of the dead.
"VAN! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
They were marching tragically. She spotted him.
"VAN! VAN, WAIT!" She ran up to him, trying to place a hand on him only to watch it go through. "VAN!"
"Her pulse! It stopped!" Millerna exclaimed in the real world.
Hitomi awoke to find herself in an unfamiliar landscape, reminding her somewhat of ancient Greece or Rome. People with wings were flying above her and all that she could do was stare.
"What is this place?" She stood on a cliff. Then she spotted a lone tree in the distance. Van was sitting beneath it, hugging his knees into his chest, horror in his eyes. She ran up to him, kneeling down to speak with the young king of Fanelia.
"Let's go home, Van. Everyone's waiting…" Van said nothing, eyes still wide, shaking slightly.
"Van…?" Hitomi fell as the ground shook, buildings collapsed as fire spread, burning the winged people.
"What the…?" The ground collapsed beneath them and she held onto Van for dear life.
"VAN! SNAP OUT OF IT, VAN!"
"Three minutes have passed…" Allen murmured gravely outside Hitomi's nightmare world.
"We've got to save Hitomi!" Millerna insisted.
"NO!" Merle cried desperately. She jumped on top of Escaflowne.
"HEY, YOU STUPID GIRL! DON'T GIVE UP!"
"YOU HAVE TO BRING LORD VAN BACK! HEY, ARE YOU LISTENING?!" She slapped Hitomi angrily.
"LORD VAN!"
"Merle…?" Hitomi murmured, hearing the catgirl's distant voice.
"SAVE LORD VAN!" The cry echoed.
The cliff collapsed as Van and Hitomi were surrounded by a pillar of light. They started plummeting towards the lava beneath them.
"FLY VAN, FLY!" Hitomi shrieked, knowing that if he didn't, then they'd die. Suddenly, Van's wings spread and they flew away from the fire and burning tree.
Hitomi slipped off of the Escaflowne and the energist returned to its bright pink shade. The cockpit opened and Van stumbled out.
"He's alive!"
"Lord Van…"
Hitomi clutched her face in pain as Merle noted what she'd done. She looked away.
"Merle…" Hitomi realized what the catgirl had done. She leaped up, happily hugging her. "THANK YOU!"
Over
hearts, I have painfully turned every stone, yes I have
Just to
find, I had found what I've searched to discover
I've come much
too far for me now to find
The love that I've sought can never be
mine
"I can't believe what a jerk I am!" Hitomi criticized herself angrily. "I was so relieved about Millerna's marriage… But then I said 'Don't give up!' Then, to top it all off, I ran away…"
Van approached her.
"Hey. What's wrong?" he asked in concern, seeing her disturbed state.
"Van?" Hitomi looked up in surprise.
They sat in a windmill in Asturia.
"You make yourself sick…?" Van asked in confusion.
"I'm such a jerk… I play nice, but I'm always getting into everyone's business… I'm such an idiot…" Van threw a fruit up to her and she looks at it in confusion as Van smiled at her. He showed her how to break off the top and stick a straw in it. She took a sip.
"Uh! It's sour! What is this?"
"They're called Piscuss. Do you feel any better now?"
"Ew…"
A few minutes later Van began to clean Escaflowne's sword.
"If you go around with that nervous look on your face, something bad's going to happen to you… It's not like you to be depressed, now is it?"
'He… He's trying to make me feel better…' Hitomi realized in astonishment.
"Hitomi… I'd like you to stay with me… Stay with me from now on, that is…" Hitomi dropped the fruit in shock.
"But Van… What do you mean…?" Van stood up, turned away from her.
"I want you to stay with me… I want you, Hitomi!" He whipped around as she stared at him with the same expression of shock, her cheeks red.
"I want… I want your power! Let's go defeat Zaibach together! But to do it, I'm going to need your power! The power of Atlantis! With it, who knows if Escaflowne could do even more incredible things! Please, Hitomi, I need your help…" He looked up in confusion at her furious expression. She stood up, slapping him and leaving.
A few minutes later she found herself at the bridge. She threw a stone in the water, eyeing her wavering reflection.
"What
a jerk…" Van's cheek throbbed a pulsing red.
And
though you don't believe that they do
They do come true
For
did my dreams
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too,
if you would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over loved,
over me
"What good will it do if you come with me…?" Van asked Hitomi. She held onto him tightly as they headed towards Fanelia.
"It'll be okay. It's not a trap."
"How do you know?"
"Folken's your brother, right? Do you think your own brother would lie to you? You'll understand when you see him, right?"
"Stop yelling in my ear!" Van protested in annoyance. "It hurts…"
"Sorry…"
"I'll keep my promise… Whether it's to Allen or the Mystic Moon, I'll bring you back… I'm not going to let you down…"
End of Flashback
And though
the odds say improbable
What do they know
For in romance
All
true love needs is a chance
And maybe with a chance you will find
You too like I
Overjoyed, over loved, over you, over you…
The CD ended. He stood there for a moment, lost in thought. Why did she haunt him so? He removed the headphones, sighing softly.
"Lord Van…?" A small boy ran into the room, looking around anxiously, feeling like he was really interrupting something.
"Hm…?" Van replied in disinterest, not even bothering to turn around.
"Milord, it's a message from Emperor Folken…" the boy piped up urgently.
"What is it then?" Van asked impatiently.
"Sorry, Lord, I'm getting to it!" He pulled out a crumpled slip of paper, squinting before reading it aloud.
"VAN- COME TO ZAIBACH. I CAN BRING BACK HITOMI."
"What…?" Van whispered in confusion. The boy trembled a bit, noting the expression of anger and disbelief on the young king's visage. He quickly scurried away, leaving Van to his thoughts.
"Hitomi… can be returned?" he asked the silence, although he expected no reply.
"What did you want to see me about, Folken?" Van spat in disgust as he found his brother in the guymelef hangar.
"Something I thought that you'd find interesting. I know how anxious you were to see me again, Van…" Folken responded coolly, turning and heading out into the corridor.
"Hey, come back here!" Van demanded, chasing after him. He followed his brother through the twisted hall of the Vione until they arrived in his chambers. The older boy silently walked over to a table where various open books lay strewn about with dog-eared pages. A scullery maid was busy tending the fire on the opposite side of the room. Catching sight of the two men, her face flushed and she promptly scurried out of the room, leaving a trail of coal dust in her wake.
"Here…" Folken murmured, flipping through a leather-bound text.
Van skeptically glanced at the open page. There was an illustration of a Draconian and the pendant. Van gulped. It resembled Hitomi's pendant.
"What does it say…?" Van asked, attempting to feign disinterest.
"You never studied the ancient texts, did you brother? I knew that you were skipping out on your lessons…" Folken muttered accusingly as Van's face turned red.
"I… I had important business to attend to!" He defended himself hurriedly.
"And what was that? Pulling Merle's tail?" Folken asked sardonically, turning to the book in front of him as Van muttered obscenities beneath his breath. "Do you recognize her?"
"Recognize who?" Van grunted impatiently.
"The woman, in the drawing…" Folken muttered in a cryptic tone.
"Should I?" Van was getting fed up with his brother's little mind games.
"I'd expect you to. Mother would have cried if she knew that her own son didn't know her face…" Folken muttered desolately.
"Mother…?" Van whispered in bewilderment. He lifted up the book, staring at the woman in the picture. It was her. He ran a gloved hand down her pale, flawless cheek, wishing that she were real. He sighed softly. He had cast an unlucky lot in the game of life. His family had faired no better. "Folken…?"
"What?" Folken replied apathetically.
"What… What was she like? Mother, I mean… I was only five when she left… Even younger than that when Father passed away… I never really knew either of them… I was too young at the time to value our time together before Father's illness…" Van murmured, regret dripping from his tone.
"You didn't, did you?" Folken asked rhetorically. "You could not understand the grief Mother went through when Father succumbed to sickness… You were so young…" Folken muttered. "You, of course, felt devotion towards Father, as is natural between any father and son… But it cannot be helped I supposed… When Father died, I remember Mother… she wouldn't leave her room for half a week. I flew up to their balcony to see if she was alright. She was hugging Father's old tattered robe. She wanted to die…" Folken murmured. Van looked at him intently, never knowing the depth of his mother's sadness after their father's departure. "But then… she looked up at the portrait… The one we had made after Father came back from the trade dispute with Schezario. She stared at your face and touched it, breaking down and crying. She loved you very much…" Folken muttered, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "It was your face that kept her living for a bit longer… However…" He held out his arm, his eyes penetrating it. He was obviously disgusted by it as it was evident in his expression. "When I went to slay the dragon, I lost my humanity… I became half-man, half-machine… I felt empty… But I could still hear Mother crying… That was the only stability left in my life. She cried in pain when you were born, in sadness when our sister was born prematurely and died, in loneliness when Father went off to fight, and in happiness when he returned home safely. I think that if I had forgotten her, I would have lost all traces of my sanity. I later inquired about her by sending spies to Fanelia. They reported her dead. I still think sometimes that she's alive out there… That she has lost or forgotten her kingdom… I'll only believe it when I see the corpse…"
"Folken… If she was alive, I know that she would have returned home… Balgus never found her… She's gone, Folken…" Van muttered bitterly. "You don't think she cared for you, do you…?" Van realized, his eyes narrowing at his brother's thick-headedness. Folken was silent. "If Mother didn't love you, then why did she leave the castle to find you? Why did she go through with it if she might merely find your mangled body? Do you think it was so she could snub you? She went to find you, whether it meant to bring you home or to cry over your broken body… It was me that she was oblivious to…" Van clenched his fist. "I was forced to watch her stare out her window into the forest for almost half a year. She never spoke to me. It was as if I wasn't there. I felt invisible. I was just a child, clamoring for my mother's attention. But she was in her own world… A world where you and Father were still alive and she wasn't stuck with her youngest son in a castle full of people terrified of her… She never loved me, Folken, she tolerated me… If she had cared for me at all she would have never left me…" Van murmured. He felt a sharp sting in his right cheek. Folken had slapped him with his metal hand. Blood was coursing down Van's cheek.
"Perhaps now you know the pain Mother felt…" Folken whispered icily. He turned back to the book, putting aside their "discussion." He flipped through the pages again and Van noted a picture of the mystic moon. "During the white moon, a channel is opened between our world and Hitomi's. There's a way to call people from the mystic moon forth to our own world at this time, using the pendant." Folken explained calmly.
"Then why haven't you brought her back yet, damn it!" Van shouted angrily, pounding his fist on the table. Folken eyed him coldly.
"Haven't you learned anything, Van? If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it was never meant to be…" He gazed into the crackling flames of the fire, blazing red and orange. "I guess I'm growing soft…" he admitted reluctantly. "But I want her to be happy…"
Hitomi was tearing off down the sidewalk. She couldn't take it anymore. She didn't belong here on Earth; she didn't belong on Gaea. Perhaps Yukari had had the right idea to end it all. What was the point? Running was escaping. Escaping from this façade of life. She watched the scenery whip by her on the cool April evening. Parks she'd played at as a child, schools she'd attended, houses she'd slept over at.
"It was when I first went to Gaea that I became different… I can never belong here again. Lives here are so simple… Not like the ones in Van's world." She ran past her best friend's old house. "Yukari…" she whimpered, remembering the girl's horrible demise. "It's all my fault…" she muttered, rocking back and fourth and shaking. "All mine…" She sat on the cool cement steps leading up to the door and brought her face to her knees, crying softly. "I should have never come back… I hurt the people that I care about most…" Her chest racked with sobs. She felt a cold hand on her shoulder and turned her head slightly. Her eyes widened and her mouth hung agape.
"It can't be…" she whispered, staring at the person before her in shock. "You're dead… Aren't you Yukari…?"
A/N: Cliff hanger! Sorry about that! Well, I'm off to CO for a couple of weeks to bond with nature and uh… stuff… Yeah, anyway, I will work on the fic if I have time. It's funny. I was working on this fic when I went there last year… Anyway, I hope to see a lot of beautiful, shiny reviews when I get back! Don't let me down! Thank you so much for all of your support!
Next Time on "Tears of the Heart":
"Hitomi… You've finally come home!" Tears sprang to Yukari's eyes as she threw her arms around her best friend. "I never thought that I'd see you again! Oh, Hitomi…!" She sobbed softly, not noticing Hitomi's vacant expression as she stiffly accepted the crushing embrace.
"Yukari…?" she muttered in confusion, staring over Yukari's shoulder in a sort of trance.