Amoro Revidi
Title: Rendezvous [Part Eleven]
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Part 11, fun times trying to keep this all straight in my
head. Oh well, when I get home on Saturday I should be getting my mini cassette
recorder and then I'll be able to keep better notes on the story, wish me luck.
***
Once they had set out, the caravan had made good progress through Fanelian territory. Hitomi had refused to ride in the coach the advisors had insisted be brought along for both her and Van, but neither she nor Van made use of it during the journey, preferring to ride the horses they had been riding since her arrival.
Hitomi glances over at Van, who sits tall in his saddle, eyes scanning the forest area around them uncertainly. “Van?” she asks quietly.
He starts and turns to look at her. “Ah…?” he inquires softly.
“What do you keep looking for in the forest, Van?”
He smiles over at her, “I can’t stop looking for enemies.”
She frowns slightly, “For once, Van, let go of it, we aren’t in any danger and we aren’t going to be attacked.”
He settles a little in his saddle, contemplating her words. “Perhaps you’re right,” he says skeptically, “but I won’t be so careless with your life,” he pauses a moment to glance at her fondly, “or mine.”
***
“Arik, what are you doing up?”
“I’ve got…” leaning against a chair as she pulls on her cleaned garments, she stumbles a little, “to start getting back into shape.”
Tristan frowns and she raises a hand between the two of them, stopping his words before he even opens his mouth, head bowed, face obscured by dark hair. “I know what you’re going to say, but it doesn’t change what I must do. I am sworn to protect you, and I can’t do that if I’ve slept off all my muscles allowing my upper body to recover, can I?”
She straightens, slender shoulders setting, and moves towards the doorway of her chamber. She pauses to glance at him, gray eyes almost immediately turning back to look at her target, the door. Upon her next footfall, however, a spasm shoots through her back and she crumples.
He catches her and frowns. “You can’t protect me at all if you’re dead, Arik,” he says in a low tone, chastising. “You are so wrapped up in this duty of yours to me that you won’t even take the time to see that you’re killing yourself?” he lays one hand gently on her back, between her shoulder blades. “You carried me, with all those cuts on your back, until they forced you to give out, and even then you threw me over your shoulder and dragged me to the edge of the forest. I can’t believe you think you’re doing me any service by wearing yourself into the ground, now I want you to stop this foolishness, this instant.”
She grunts, shoving him away and standing unsteadily on shaky legs, knees together. “I… don’t need your pity,” she says in a harsh tone, eyes still invisible to his gaze. “I know very well what I am and am not doing, and right now I am not having this discussion with you.”
Tristan glares and folds his arms on his chest. “Then when will we have it?”
She tosses her head towards him and glowers. “Never. It is not your place to worry about what I do with my own body.” Arik’s voice lowers as she says, “Just so long as it continues to act as a shield to yours, all is well.”
With an angry cry he advances on her, grasping her by the upper arms and shaking her, just once. “Get your hands off me!” Arik cries as soon as they land on her. “Don’t touch me!”
“Damnit woman!” he growls out, shaking her again. “Will you listen to me? To yourself?” he pauses and she begins to struggle. Finally Tristan relinquishes his hold on her arms.
“Don’t… stay back,” she says in a weak, exhausted tone. “I won’t have you defile yourself by…”
“Arik, what’s gotten in to you? Weren’t we… friends… at least, once? Weren’t we? Whatever happened, you said, you would always be there for me. You aren’t going to be able to do that if you don’t rest!”
“I can’t let you get that close to me, not now, not ever. I’m your bodyguard, High Priest, and nothing more. If you can’t accept that it has to be that way then I will have to prove to you why it must, now step away and let me get to the door.”
He takes a step back and watches as she makes her way to the large oak door, pulling on it weakly. Slowly, she sinks down to her knees, grip slackening. He glares and comes over, lifting her to her feet in his arms and throwing one arm around his neck. “And what happens… dear bodyguard, when you cannot make it to the armory to retrieve your sword, much less open the door?” There is no response. “Simply put, we need each other. We’re here in a foreign place with little safety to ourselves and I won’t just sit by and let you endanger yourself or even me, true, by throwing yourself about recklessly.”
She groans as he lies her down in the bed.
“I order you to wait until I can heal your wounds before you go practice.”
“You can’t-”
“As the person you are guarding, and your High Priest, I can, I am, and I have,” he replies, pulling off her boots. “Now, take the covers,” he pulls them up to her chest, “close your eyes, and go to sleep.”
“Damned traitorous body,” she murmurs as he leans over her and kisses her forehead, “and damn you for making me sleep, Tristan…”
“Damn me all you want when you’re well, and can smack your sense into me,” he smiles calmly, “but for right now, just get some sleep, Arik.”
“I’ve been…” she yawns, “sleeping for…” again, “almost a week.”
“Give it another day and I should be able to heal you,” he says, brushing her hair from her eyes with a tender hand. “Then you can go cavorting all over the castle and hack up all the practice dummies that you want to. But until then, just rest.”
***
“How much longer?” Chid asks Allen as the captain of the Crusade prepares his ship by overseeing the supply load. The young Duke had asked leave to come and watch the activities, since most of the other activities were boring to him.
Allen and Millerna had both agreed, so Dryden had logically granted the request of the young Duke’s excusal for the day. “We should set sail just before sunset,” Allen replies.
“And then how long until Hitomi and King Van arrive?”
Allen smiles tolerantly at Chid and says, “Depends on the weather, could be in two days, could be in three,” he moves forward, calling to Gaddes to inquire about some of the supplies.
“You sure that we need all this stuff, boss?” he asks, scratching his chin.
“Quite. It isn’t very often that Van leaves Fanelia, and even rarer is it that Hitomi makes a trip to Gaea,” he says.
“She hasn’t been around since the Great War, if I recall correctly,” Gaddes adds.
“No, she hasn’t. So I want this trip to be nice for the two of them.”
“It’ll be nice to see them again, won’t it?” Chid asks as he leans against one of the waiting crates. “I wonder what’s changed about them since I saw them last,” he asks wistfully to no one in particular.
“They’ve aged,” one of Allen’s crew says with a smirk and a wink at the young Duke. Chid chuckles lightheartedly and waves.
***
Sitting in the large tent around the fire pit, Van eats his dinner quietly, looking across the flames at Hitomi, face bathed in the warm glow and framed against the dark color of the tent’s fabric. The conversation amidst the king and his traveling companions meanders comfortably from the weather to the festivities in Palas, and settles on the state of the royal families.
These people do not know about Tristan and Arik’s origin in Ispano, and so they comment on the affairs of the mysterious southern nation. Hitomi glances uneasily around, avoiding eye contact. She had had a vision during the day’s ride, and the memory of it haunts her as the meal and conversation progress.
Van, noticing her absentness from the conversation, moves around the fire to sit next to her. “Hitomi?” he whispers in her ear, all the while nodding to one of the younger noble’s speech about the superiorities of Basram’s eldest princess to its youngest.
Startled, she looks up at him, having been so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice his approach. “Is something bothering you?” he asks, leaning closer and setting his arm on the far side of her. She shakes her head and leans against him slightly, letting the warmth of his body counteract the chill sent down her spine by her dream.
With a somewhat satisfied smile the King of Fanelia lets the arm bracing him behind her move to encircle her waist as she relaxes against him. He nods to some other comment on the state of princesses on Gaea and ignores the sinking feeling of memory in his gut. I am supposed to be finding a bride, he thinks to himself, arm tightening involuntarily around Hitomi, and I haven’t thought about that at all since she’s been here.
Hitomi sighs and leans against him, mind relaxing, What I wouldn’t give to make this last forever… She stops that train of thought and asks herself about her other friends, I wonder what has happened with Allen, Millerna, Dryden and Chid?
Slowly the party breaks up for the evening, leaving Van and Hitomi the last two seated by the fire as the sentinel changes.
“We should get some rest,” Van says, unwilling to leave but forcing himself to see the facts of the situation. “We don’t want to be so tired that we’re falling out of our saddles tomorrow.”
She nods and looks up at him, “When do we meet up with the Crusade?” she asks as she stares into his eyes.
“Tomorrow evening, I suppose, Allen was given leave to come that far into Fanelia in order to escort us to Palas…” he looks away, red eyes drawn to the dying embers of the fire, “I suppose you’re looking forward to seeing him again, aren’t you?”
Hitomi frowns. “Van.”
“You haven’t seen him in longer than you’ve seen me, it’s only natural that…”
She repeats his name, a little more forcefully, but he still does not look at her. Van falls silent and Hitomi, frustrated, kisses his cheek to get his attention. He looks at her, one hand going to her cheek as though she just slapped him instead of having just kissed him. “Van Slanzar de Fanel, would you listen to me for a minute?” Hitomi says, putting her right arm up and around his neck.
He nods dumbly.
“I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line I fell…” she hesitates and then blushes as she says, “I fell in love with you.”
***
In the light of the double moon over the castle in Fanelia, Tristan sits and gazes out his window, remembering evenings in a much different manner in Ispano. There was always something for him to do there, always someone to talk to.
Certainly the people of Fanelia were nice enough to him, the King and the Lady Hitomi, the king’s advisors were always polite, but there was just something missing. Arik, being wounded, was probably not experiencing the same nostalgia.
He frowns.
If she keeps trying to push herself she’s going to get worse instead of better, he thinks as he glances across the room at her bed. It won’t do either of us any good if she ends up seriously wounded or… he finds he cannot finish that thought.
But the castle is strangely, to him at least, devoid of commoners. None of the servants are anything other than just that, born and bred from servant parents and grandparents and ancestors countless. Sure some of them were from other countries, but as Van himself had pointed out, Ispano lie on the other side of the planet, so none of the servants were from Tristan’s own homeland.
Not that the High Priest wanted to be worshipped as the representation of the Gods on Gaea, but just that he felt a little homesick for his own country, for his own place and his people.
He didn’t mind that by the time he would return the place would be in shambles, ruins of its former normalcy and splendor. It was still his land, and the people, even though they had rebelled to overthrow him, were still his people.
Across the room, Arik stirs, opening her gray eyes to glance over at the young High Priest. “Tristan… are you thinking about your home again?”
Always, he thought, always this separation of what is mine and what is yours, Arik, why?
***
Not the least bit tired, even after spending most of the night awake and in front of the dying fire, Hitomi sits tall in her saddle, glancing around as her horse, Crisslis again, follows Van’s mount up the rise. Around the two of them the other horses, bearing nobles as well as the king’s guard, ascend as well, a bit slowly because of the previous evening’s rains. Hitomi glances up at where Van is seated and catches his glance back at her.
She smiles and he blushes a little as he turns back to look ahead of them for any signs of danger. Not that there should be any within my own borders, he reasons with himself, but if anything happens to her, I…
He glances back to see her petting Crisslis’ neck and urging the mare upwards.
I’d be lost.
***
Allen feels the gentle rock of the ship as the Crusade touches down in the appointed clearing. He goes down the gangplank and looks around, wondering if, in the haste to go and retrieve his friends, he had somehow come to the wrong spot. The messenger had said to expect them on this day, and so he had done everything in his power to get to the meeting place on time.
Van might still be younger than him, but he was a king, and one did not step on the toes of the King of Fanelia, for any reason, if it could be helped. Though Allen doubted his own mistake would cause any international incident, he did not want to loose face in front of Van… or Hitomi.
Glancing over his shoulder up at the viewing deck he waves to Celena, whose figure he can make out. She had chosen to accompany him on this journey rather than be left at court with Millerna and Dryden and the other nobles, preferring, still, to remain with her brother and socialize with them little.
He sighs, remembering how he had been forced to convince Millerna that Celena had no problem with the Queen of Asturia or her guests, but that he had been gone for a while picking up the other monarchs and so it was only natural that she want to spend some time with him. Millerna had been about to deny the request when Dryden had spoken up and asked her to let Celena go.
The Queen had acquiesced and Allen breathes another sigh of relief at his good fortune. Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with Celena, but she can’t stick by me all the time.
Turning to regard the landscape of Fanelia once more, Allen is pleased to see a group of horses approaching over the rise. He moves forward a little, trying to make out the standards the King’s men would bear, but he finds none, and his heartbeat speeds up.
That’s not Van.
***
The noise of a battle reaches Van’s ears as the horses reach the top of the rise and he frowns. He calls to the advance men to scout farther and almost immediately they return with the news of a battle taking place before the Crusade.
Angry, he orders several of the guard to remain with Hitomi and the youngest nobles and spurs his horse forward, drawing his sword.
Hitomi glares at the guards and frowns as she recalls her vision. “Van!” she calls out to him, but he is far out of earshot. Angry at being left behind she urges Crisslis to follow Van’s mount, which she does easily, kicking up into a canter and carrying her after him.
***
Allen curses, cutting the reigns so that the horse rears from the sword point and tosses its rider to the ground. Around him his men employ similar tactics as they dispatch the marauding group. As though told by some sixth sense that this isn’t the end of the attack, Allen holds his opponent at sword point.
The noise of other hooves beating the somewhat frozen Fanelian earth alerts him to the approach of more men on horseback. He glances over his shoulder to see that these riders do bear the Fanelian crest and carry standards, and he recognizes a familiar mop of black hair at the head of the riders.
Allen sighs, somewhat relieved, and his men begin to tie up the marauders as the king approaches and dismounts. “Allen?” Van calls out.
Another group of horses approaches behind Van’s initial guard, a single horse being followed by a larger group, and Hitomi rides right up next to where Van has dismounted, glaring at him.
Allen suppresses his chuckle as Van glares at her in return slightly.
“Why did you just leave me back there!” Hitomi demands, throwing one leg over the saddle and preparing to dismount. Van moves forward and lifts her by the waist, setting her carefully on her feet before responding with, “You were supposed to wait back on the other side of the last rise, there was a battle, you could’ve been hurt!”
Allen makes his way over as the two banter back and forth. “Knight Caeli Allen Schezar gives his duty to King Van Slanzar de Fanel and Lady Hitomi,” he says, kneeling for a moment before standing to address the bickering pair.
“Van?” he asks in an even tone.
Hitomi bites her lower lip, crossing her arms and turning her back on Van, facing her horse and the other young nobles. Van, bewildered by this little burst of the “old” Hitomi attitude, turns and greets Allen.
“What happened, Allen?” he asks evenly, glancing at Hitomi repeatedly, trying to gauge her anger at him.
“We just touched down and were waiting when these,” here Allen gestures to the roped men, “young men, came upon us with their swords drawn.”
Van seems to debate that for a moment. “I’d rather deal with them myself, but I’m not willing to miss the celebration,” he says, turning slightly and laying a hand on Hitomi’s shoulder. “Hitomi, aren’t you even going to say hello to Allen?”
After some contemplation, she had decided that Van’s actions were only to try and protect her from the battle, which she had been ill prepared to enter, and so when he puts his hand on her shoulder she smiles and turns towards him, nodding with a smile and a wink to him.
“Hitomi?” Allen says, puzzled. “You’ve certainly grown,” he says offering her an embrace. Hitomi hugs Allen and then pulls back, smiling.
“It doesn’t seem like you’ve gotten any shorter, or smaller either,” she winks at him. “And your sister?”
“Celena came along and is waiting inside, I’m sure she’ll be happy to meet the two of you,” Allen says. “Van, what should we do with them?” he motions to the marauders.
Van contemplates a moment, “We’ll send them back to the Castle and have the advisors deal with them,” he says easily.
“Then let’s get everyone loaded on board and we’ll be off as soon as preparations are complete,” Allen says, offering an arm to Hitomi. Van purses his lips as he does so, but Hitomi just shakes her head and moves to take the reigns of Crisslis from one of his men. As she heads off to help the horse into the hold, Allen glances at Van and smiles.
“So, you’ve told her that you love her, have you?” Allen asks.
Van sputters a moment and blinks in confusion.
“Don’t worry, she’s obviously chosen you too,” Allen says, “but you’re going to have to watch out at the anniversary celebration, you know how some of the princesses get,” he turns and goes to speak to the Captain of the King’s Guard at that point, leaving Van with his thoughts and his horse to load up.
The King of Fanelia shakes his head and glances up at the Crusade. In the window of the viewing deck he sees the silhouette of Celena Schezar and a chill runs down his spine. She is not Dilandu, Van reminds himself, starting up the gangplank with his mount. At the top, just off to the side, Hitomi stands watching him, as though waiting for him to get to the top.
With a small smile he picks up his pace, glad, at least, for that bit of pleasantness to the day. Hitomi…
***