Escaflowne is property of its owners.
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A/N:
A big and warm hug to CovertEyes, she just made this story better (and readable) with her amazing skills.
02/2023
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Sixth Moon
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The world through your eyes
(Oneshot)
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The boy-prince had been visiting Irini, an old town a day's journey away from the royal capital of his kingdom, Fanelia. For nine suns, he played with beast children under the dense and dark leaves of the trees. He learned the farmers' way of making the piscus fruits so plump, juicy, and bitter. He also watched the long moustache of his father's samurai, Yurizen, swirl in disgust like a fluffy tail over his bony cheeks as he argued with the elders of two families over a farmland inheritance dispute—the motive of their presence there. The people were candid, the air warm, the grassy food delicious, and the flowers abundant.
But there were no flowers like the ones he wanted.
Their new supplies were already loaded in the carts: a decent amount of the delicacies they enjoyed during their visit, stored in wooden boxes, fat casks, and jute bags. Yawning and waiting, the guards were already on their horses, ready to start their journey back as soon as the sun turned the sky blue.
Before jumping onto the front seat of the royal coach—a seat not meant for royalty, but no one denied the prince the chance to choose it—the boy asked Yurizen to take a different route back to the capital, keeping to himself the hope of finding the elusive flowers that were neither on the royal road nor in the shops in the little town.
"As you wish, prince Folken," said the samurai, bowing to the tall boy, who smiled, pleased, and looked ahead with shiny eyes.
The coachman approached, his dark, reddish tunic sprinkled with light bread crumbs that scattered when he bowed and bent his unruly black head to his prince with a murmured hasty greeting. As he got onto the carriage, his amiable weight tilted it to the left. Amused, prince Folken ran to the right side and hopped onto the step, holding on tightly until the carriage found a resemblance of balance.
This was Prince Folken's tenth spring and the first he had spent so much time away from home and his parents. His father, King Goau, had wanted him to apply his schooling by accompanying the samurai and himself in the way of the ruling, and that meant travelling from time to time to solve the Kingdom's problems. When the King informed Folken about the issue at Irini, the prince had been silently excited at first but grew anxious when he learned that his father, who was in delicate health, wouldn't be on the trip after all. Folken would accompany the samurai general Yurizen instead, a thin man of long, darkish hair as colossal as his father, but with tender, light eyes that made his appearance less imposing.
Queen Varie, the prince's mother, who was pregnant with his upcoming sibling, wished him a safe journey and to learn as much as he could. She had hugged him tightly before he boarded the royal coach, while his father, King Goau, nodded goodbye. As soon as the guards shouted for the horses to move, Folken had opened the pale window curtains at the back. As the coach pulled away, he had watched his family, standing in front of the castle gates, grow smaller until the giant gates of the capital and the dragonmills guarding the walls surrounding it were tiny points in the distance across the warm teal fields.
Now he was returning home. The constant hum of the dragonfans—attached by vertical poles to the yoke of the horses, the wagons and the carriage—was drowned by the lively chat between the guards and the samurai. They discussed the weather—hotter and hotter everyday— the stunning mountains, the new trainees, the everyday life, and speculated about the arrival of the new royal baby in one more collor, maybe at the end of White Moon. The gidals were bet on a new princess.
But Folken paid no mind to their chatter and talk of money. Seated in the carriage next to the driver, the young prince gazed over the reborn landscape after the thaw of a tempest winter. His bright, red eyes fixated upon the camouflaged hosts of flowers with intensity, as if he were viewing them under a glass. He wasn't satisfied with any of them. None were the ones he wanted, and the ones that could be taken instead were too small sometimes, others an indistinguishable shade, others weirdly shaped, others too old. With a sigh, the boy wiped the sweat from his brow, and brushed back a strand of white hair that had fallen over his face. The silver flecks of his hair reflected the soaring sun, shielding his pale neck from the harsh light.
At first glance, Folken's attire was not of a prince but of a peasant. The fine tailoring of his tunic, the thick leather boots inside his fair trousers, and the proud way of his bearings gave away his royal, meticulous upbringing. The prince was often mistaken to be older. Already tall for his age, the tiny white stripes in the skin and the constant ache in his bones were obvious indications that he would reach the same height as the King in no time.
"Is Your Highness searching for something?" asked the broad coachman next to him. A curious scent of baked bread emanated from his body.
"Yes, Breno," the boy replied. "I want to gift my mother and my sibling a bouquet of flowers."
"Flowers!" the big man replied in a higher tone that made everyone turn their attention to the royal carriage. The bread-sprinkler man turned pink and added in a hurried voice, "Forgive me, Highness, of course—of course, our Queen will be delighted! If Your Highness points to me the ones you want, I will—I gladly will go get them."
"Thank you, but there's no need. I'll get them myself."
And when Folken saw a perfect bed of what he knew in his heart were talas flowers resting peacefully in a meadow sloping up away from the road, the whole company halted at his word. Yurizen, worried for the prince to be out in the wilderness—even if it was only two or three costas away— suggested to the royal to go with at least one guard. The prince refused, his judgement too young to see the dangers amongst the innocent grass, the laughing trees, and the scorching sky. But he was old enough to reconsider and take Breno's offer from before. Several pairs of eyes opened wide when they heard his choice, including the coachman's. But for Folken it was obvious: Breno had offered before the order, and the prince wanted him to feel useful.
The swishing of their steps through the grass brought a big smile to Folken's lips. He did his best to contain his excitement and avoid running towards the flowers and stopped several times instead in order to wait for Breno. The big man had such a slow pace. When they finally reached the flower bed, the real test began.
Focused in the meadow before him, drops of sweat flowing from the young boy's neck into his shirt, Folken crossed his arms and stared at the field. The flowers were there, dancing to the rhythm of the wind. The only thing left for him to do was to go closer and gather them. He wanted only violet ones. A perfect bouquet of violetness.
"My prince," Breno said with a high pitch and hurried hands, "it looks so beautiful. Please, tell me, which ones do you want?"
"You see, Breno, I want to get them myself. I hope you find no offence."
"Of course, Highness—of course, how could I take offence? I'll be right here by your side."
Folken got immersed into the waves of fragrant and gentle drop-like petals. He ran his hands over them, trying to sense a hint of their elusive nature. The light ones could be either "white", or "yellow" or "pink", or "orange", and only the gods knew how many "colours" the different shades were. The world seen by others was a mysterious thing to Folken, and one he often found himself pondering. Was there a way to make him see things he couldn't perceive naturally? Could he make others not see something, as he apparently did not? Could only the gods see the unseen?
Clenching his fists and pouting fine lips in tribulation, he stole a glance at Breno. The big man was closer to him than he had thought, scratching his hairy, thick arms with his fat, dirty hands, and his tiny eyes roving erratically all around the place.
No, Folken wouldn't ask for help. It was a gift he wanted to make to his mother himself, and he wouldn't let anyone else do it in his stead. Silencing the doubts in his mind, he closed his eyes and made a quick prayer to the Flower God. A very simple and impossible wish.
"Please," he thought. "Guide me to choose your finest violet flowers."
The sun shone hot on the exposed skin of his arms, and the sounds of the soldiers' talk reverberated from the distance. A gust of wind carried a velvety aroma to his nose like a mystical answer. With decisive zeal, Folken started working.
He chose the flowers he considered to be correct from the wide variety of shades the same pinkish red.
It wasn't that long ago when Queen Varie had confessed to her colourless son what her favourite flower was. They had been in the game room, she was arranging a flower bouquet, preparing it to fit a vase and place it over the main table. She liked to entertain herself in menial tasks, and Folken entertained himself watching her while playing with his soon-to-be-left-behind toys—for he had sworn to his father that he would give them all to the baby as soon as it was born, as his first brotherly present.
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On that day, he had a wooden dragon figure and a tiny wooden sword. The queen had reprimanded Folken several times for tossing around the toy along with her patience, and resorted to asking him to help her. Reluctantly, the boy had sat next to his mother and took the flowers handed to him by the stems, rolling them between his fingers, transforming them into shapeless fuzziness. The Queen then explained to him lots of things about flowers, and he tried to pay attention to it all but ended up just looking at her moving lips. It was then when she told him.
"Sweetheart, look, this is a talas," Varie handed it to him and Folken took it with clumsy fingers. "Before marrying your father and coming to Fanelia, our family lived near a flower field. From among all of them, the talas have always been my favourites".
Squinting, Folken looked at the flower. It was oddly shaped compared to all the others: long anther protruding from a small circle at the centre, and wide petals shaped like droplets of water extending from them. He handed it back along with a now forgotten question and a hazy answer.
"The violet ones are the ones I like the most," she told him after knotting the freshly arranged bouquet with a ribbon and placing it in the ceramic vase.
With a hole in his chest, the boy understood that he could never fully see what his mother liked so much about that violet colour. Folken's world was a shade of reds, greens, greys, and turquoises—according to others. Plants were hard for him to memorise and recognise during his lessons, but he would try.
The prince heard a loud sneeze as he was about to pull out the last victim of his hunt. Looking behind, Breno stood with intense bloodshot eyes and a stubborn red nose that he had wiped with his forearm, leaving a trail of damp hairs.
"Forgive me, Your Highness," said the teary man. "The—The flowers have this effect on me. Pay no mind."
After a sneeze that moved the grass around them and surely made some insects mad, Folken smiled, ashamed, and said:
"Thank you, Breno, for offering your aid even in your condition. I will make it right as thanks. Here, could you please bear with me a bit more and…" the boy hesitated. "And take these to the carriage".
"Wha—Yes, yes my prince, I can do that."
Folken's thin hands handed the thick bouquet of wildflowers to the fat hands of his runny coachman, who snuffled noisily. Taking his chance, he ran towards the woods close by.
"W—wait, prince Folken!"
The crimson blur surrounding the boy changed slowly to simple and tall, dark tree trunks full of life in the middle of the labyrinthine forest. Folken wasn't that far from the main road nor from Breno. If the loaf of a man could walk faster, he'd give him no time to find the leaves he needed for him to get better. The prince looked into the grass near the trees, sometimes pulling out the wrong plants just to toss them away, and choosing new ones to rip off their leaves.
Plants were hard. Forests were hard. Everything looked alike. Was the plant upright or was it down? Was it a leaf, a stem, or a berry?
Finally, Folken found the one he wanted. He had tasted some of its bitterness before, during the last summer. Yurizen had used it on him when he got a rash after playing in the gardens, and the general took that as an opportunity to teach him about other simple ways to cure allergies and mild poisoning. The glaar plant had large, spiked leaves with dark dots that mimicked simple shadows, and they usually grew at the foot of trees, for they liked the seclusion of darkness.
With a smile and a racing heart, the prince squatted and took a fistful of leaves and was about to run back to his sneezing servant, when he heard a loud noise coming from above, in the tree he was hunched under. His heart turned cold and his feet weighted like rocks when he looked up and saw his own gawking reflection in the oval and bright, vibrant eyes at the centre of a plain, human-like face.
It was a giant bird that reflected colours he had never seen before.
Perched on the trunk of the tree, the creature's wings were spread wide, its long feathers shimmering with a wave of light and miracles: intense reds he was unused to, gradient hues he was unable to name. Folken couldn't help but stare at its changing illusion, breathing in short and sharp intervals as his eyes grew dry and tired from lack of blinking.
The creature was beautiful. And it was looking directly at him, luring him in with those strange, colourful—finally he understood what the word referred to—eyes. The prince swiped at his wet mouth and shrieked when the iridescent feathers caressed his face with a rustle.
An inhuman shriek.
An inhuman body.
And then, he was the one perched in the tree, surrounded by a strange and overwhelming world drowned in differences: the trees all of varied colours, leaves with distinctive shades, the grass composed of sprinkled lights, the sky lighter and brighter, the berries and fruits hanging and exposed and easy to see. The kid with too-light hair, crimson eyes, weird flesh, and dotted green—intense green—leaves in his gloved hand smirked, looking up at him. He raised a hand to point at a clump of talas a costa away, next to the flower bed in the distance, right at the start of the little forest.
Folken gaped, mesmerised by the sight of it. The flowers nodded in the grass, like a portion of his usual sky. A colour so tender. So sweet. So rich.
His heart swelled.
Why was he seeing all those things?
A pink ray of light nailed itself to the branch he was in, followed by a loud explosion. Grey smoke filled his vision, erasing that miraculous variety of colour, turning his world black.
"By Escaflowne! Prince Folken!"
Someone was shouting his name.
The smell of gunpowder filled his nostrils, and he coughed.
"Prince Folken!"
The prince touched his face, pleased to feel his own skin with his own fingers, and opened his eyes. The world was back to what it was—the treetops the same shade, the sky its familiar deep shade, the trunks equally dark. A wave of comfort invaded his chest, and he blinked to hide the tears in his eyes.
"Highness, are you alright?" Yurizen held the young prince in a supportive hug. "What were you thinking?!"
"Wha—Where's Breno? Is he alright?" Folken asked when he noticed the absence of the big man.
"He's alright. Please, drink some water." Yurizen inclined a leather flask over the boy's parched lips.
Folken's garnet eyes regained their focus after a few sips. The general noticed this and helped the prince to sit up straight, but he stepped away from the man and got up. Still with trembling limbs, Folken brushed the dirt from his clothes and walked alongside the general out of the forest trees.
"Your Highness," said Yurizen. "What you did was utterly reckless. It was unnecessary for you to enter the forest; whatever you wished, we would have gone and done instead."
The prince remained silent, his attention focused on the flowers in the distance.
"My liege," the general continued, his eyebrows curved. "You were weaponless and had no dragonfans. You ought to be more careful. When we return to the castle, we'll start a new training to avoid these situations. It was my lack of insight that led to this incident."
"Don't punish Breno. He only did what I told him to do."
"Of course, prince Folken."
"What happened, Yurizen?"
"Highness? Don't you—I see. Breno shouted and signalled us to come. I saw you on the ground, not far from the first line of trees, a big ruk eyeing you. I scared it off with an explosive arrow."
"A ruk?" asked Folken, eyes opened big, impressed, voice full of disbelief. He knew ruks. Big stupid birds half his size and twice his weight, with squared heads and a funny crest. What he saw was not one of those.
"Yes, Highness. I assume you fainted due to the heat. You spent some time under the sun with no shade over you. Did the bird frighten you?"
"That was no ruk, Yurizen, it was—," Folken paused, his lips trembling with lack of words and his eyes panicked with lack of coherent thoughts. "I—I don't know what it was..." he confessed.
"I'm sorry, my liege. It was a female ruk, they're slightly bigger than males, all brown, with white dots on their wings."
"It wasn't, it had… it had a—," Folken stopped and dropped his shoulders. "I see. Thank you for coming to my aid."
He decided not to say more. He wasn't sure what he had experienced, but Yurizen wouldn't believe it; for him, it was a ruk, but to Folken it was the answer to his pleadings, his wish fulfilled. The prince deviated slightly from the way back to the party. The tall man followed him silently, the certain distance he put between them serving as gentle pressure to go back quickly. Folken stopped right in front of the flowers the god—in his body, at his image—had pointed at. They had such delicate petals and a sweet scent. Carefully, he chose some of them.
"What a beautiful shade of violet," said the general, and Folken knew it was his way to blunt his previous words. "May I know who they are for?"
The boy doubted. In his mind's eye, he saw the surprised and pleased face of his mother when he arrived with this gift—their gift— and the prideful look of his father to know that for once—and forever—his son got all the flowers of the exact same colour.
"They're a gift for my mother and my sibling," said Folken. When he was about to pluck the last flower, he noticed that it was bigger, well-shaped and slightly different from the others. It had a sheen effect, like the mysterious feathers of the not-a-ruk that he saw. He took it too, and went back to the general.
"I'm sure they will love them," Yurizen said as they approached the travelling party.
In absolute silence, the guardsmen kept a relieved eye on the prince and a surprised one on his bounty. Breno was sitting in the driver's seat of the royal carriage, his face swollen and damp. The boy handed him the glaar leaves, and the big man chewed them in time with the horse munching on the grass below. The other flowers were neatly arranged in the padding of the royal coach, and Folken compared them to the new ones he still held. They all looked the same, but he knew, he noticed, the fragrant petals, the tender anthers, the bright light they emanated…
The boy-prince thanked Breno for all his help before getting inside the carriage. And at Yurizen's call, the whole party continued on their way back to the royal capital.
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A/N: Now it was Folken's turn. Most of the time he's pictured very emo and gothic (and he is), but here I wanted a fragment of the last of his childhood, his closeness to Varie, and some other things, and tying them to the series.
Did you know that Isaac Newton revolutionised the colour-light researches back at his time? And we got from him the colour wheel that we still use? There were other people too that discovered more neat things about light and color, one of them, that colours don't exist. It's just the way we perceive light waves, and there are light waves inbetween that our brain can't interpret and makes up colours like cyan and magenta. Goethe (the writer) also researched on light and optics and published his research.
Alright, I tried to portray Tritanopia, it's the type of Daltonism where you are blue-yellow blind. It's rare, most people who are daltonic are red-green/green-red blind.
And I must say, that I don't believe there's something wrong with Daltonism. The world is what we see and we all perceive it in different ways. Even us, the ones with all colour cones, see colour different from each other. There's no absolutes, just guides. But, the hard part is that the human world is built around non-colour-blind people, so, let's keep that in mind and start changing things for the benefit of everyone.
Zw