Amoro Revidi

Title: Tradition and Duty [Part Twenty-Eight]
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Things appear to be going quicker with this editing than I thought. I'm a little iffy on a scene from this chapter, but other than that, I'm pleased with the progress. I'll warn everyone who's reading this book and planning to continue on into the second book, the second story is a lot darker and more macabre. I haven't started it yet, but I probably will tomorrow afternoon or sometime soon, because my mood's been in the right frame to handle writing it. This chapter's 8 pages long, and the next two are going to be quicker paced, so hold on to your chairs while you read kids.

***

   The time until the wedding seems to fly by for Hitomi, the lessons Van had arranged taking up much of her time. She was very proud when Van asked her to begin attending his council meetings. It distressed her that Gaea was standing at the edge of another war, but she was relieved not to be left out in the dark about what was going on. It made her feel special that Van trusted her, and that meant a great deal to her.

    Merle was a great help during the time of the preparation, helping her to remember Fanelian customs that she might otherwise have forgot, and making sure the seamstresses completed a decent wardrobe for her. With two weeks left, all that remained for either woman or cat-woman to do was to see to the wedding dress.

    And it was a great battle.

*

    “I won’t wear that.”

    “Hitomi-” Merle begins.

    “Lady Hitomi, this is the traditional Fanelian wedding gown… and has been worn by-” Peralis’ chief aide tries to convince her, about to go on about custom and tradition.

    “No,” Hitomi says flatly, folding her arms across her chest.

    Merle chuckles at the incredulous look on the man’s face. “But, my lady, it’s tradition.”

    “It’s also my wedding. And I refuse to wear a hundred pounds of heavy robes. I’m sorry but I’d rather wear an actual dress.”

    “Hitomi, your dress would have to have a train about ten feet long.”

    “I don’t care. I’m not going to wear those robes… I’d pass out! What are they, wool?” The aide looks a little bashful and she sighs. “Besides, it doesn’t look like anything that Van would like at all. It looks so…” Hitomi circles the maid holding the wedding robes as high as she can and scrunches her nose up. “So military.”

    “Formal,” the aide corrects.

    Merle sighs and steps in, “Tell the council to leave the wedding dress to Hitomi and me, we’ll see to it that the seamstresses do a decent job on it, and it will look properly formal.”

    “But Miss Merle-”

    Hitomi shoots a stern glance at the aide and he freezes. Silently, Merle applauds Hitomi’s mastery of what she’s always called Van’s “commanding look”. The aide bows politely and turns to leave the chamber, the maid bearing the robes out after him.

    “How did Varie wear those?” Hitomi asks no one in particular, sinking down into a chair wearily. “I can’t even imagine walking five steps in it, let alone the length of the castle and to the shrine.”

   Merle shrugs, “There’s tradition for you.”

    Hitomi chuckles. “So we’d better get started… got any paper?”

    “Paper?”

    “To design the dress, of course.”

    Merle retrieves some and Hitomi starts to sketch out on the paper a dress. “Where’d you learn to do that, Hitomi?”

    Hitomi, continuing to draw, speaks absently, “I was… going to school for it.”

    “Really? You were going to draw dresses? You do it well enough, why did you need to go to school for it?”

***

    Mot paces the room agitatedly. The Council had finally decided to inform her the reason for letting Sotet visit his father, and she is nervous about it. A knock comes to the door and she nearly pounces on it, calling out, “Enter!” before the knocking is through.

    “You requested my presence, Mistress?” Arik replies, keeping her eyes lowered as she enters the room with her former teacher.

    Mot narrows her dark eyes at the auburn-haired Kathis. “Your scars… are they healing well?”

    “Which ones, Mistress? Those across my back, or those on my body from the attack on Ispano?”

    “Both,” Mot frowns as she says it, drawing herself back into the darker corners of the room to pace some more.

    “Those on my back heal slowly, and are old, no liability. Those on my body were tended well in Fanelia, and will soon be gone.”

    “I see.”

    “It is not my fault Sotet was sent to Norte, Mistress,” Arik stares at the other woman evenly. “You have no right to take it out on me.”

    “You have no cause to be preventing your duties!” Mot snaps, her voice clear and crisp in the darkened room. The firelight makes her shadow dance upon the wall frightfully. “Don’t think I do not know what you do, Dulchap, because I have been where you are now. I know you delay things… things that could be over and done with.”

    “You know nothing,” Arik spits out, turning to look into the fire, letting its warmth caress her face.

    “I know plenty.” There is a long moment of silence, and then Mot decides to try another approach, “It should please you to know Fariah has been sent to Freid.”

    Arik turns and takes a step forward, one hand raising to her breast, “She…”

    “Was selected to be Duke Chid’s Kathis.”

    In spite of her anger, and her mistrust of the Mistress, Arik smiles. “She has done well then.”

    “Better than her mother,” Mot replies, voice chill as she glares at Arik, “who cannot seem to do what she must when she must.”

    Arik glares at Mot. “I’m not one of your students anymore, Mistress,” Arik retorts, silver eyes glaring. “And I won’t take this abuse from you.”

    “It is not abuse, and you have no choice.”

    “You can lock a door for so long on someone before they find a window, Mistress,” Arik replies, voice stiff and formal. “It is only a matter of time. It’s no safer here for Tristan than it would be elsewhere. If Ispano can be invaded, so can the Compound.”

    Mot frowns and turns away, long silver braid swinging angrily behind her.

    “It is no use of me to speak with you when you are so enraged, Mistress. I take my leave.”

    “You,” Mot snaps, “will do nothing of the sort!”

    Arik turns and glares at Mot. “You can’t blame me for your mistakes, mother.” She frowns, “I am not a little girl anymore, and I’m not the reason Daeluzito did what he did to you. If you are looking for someone to blame, then blame yourself.” Without another word, Arik turns on her heel and heads out of the room, back to the cell-like space she shares with Tristan.

    Mot leans against the wall, appalled at her daughter’s behavior. Am I only looking for someone to blame? Some outlet for all this anger that’s inside me because of Sotet’s journeying to Daeluzito, and his mission, when he is so clearly not ready for it? She sighs, hoping that her unknowing granddaughter is doing better than she herself is.

***

    “Take care, Fariah,” Jujiin says, embracing the young woman tightly. “I will send your mother your best, and tell her of your great fortune once I am returned.”

    “Mother… is going to be back…?”

    “Something has befallen her country that she could not avert, and so she has retired to the Compound with her protectorate. Pray this does not happen to you.”

    “I will.”

    Chid watches the parting from a small balcony where he is breaking from his lessons for the day, and eyes the red haired young woman sent to protect him. His mother had never spoken of Kathis before, and his father refused to put faith in them, the fact that his own had died to save him years before Marlene consented to wed the Duke of Freid, was beyond the point.

    He drinks some water brought for him and watches as Fariah resolutely turns on her heel and ascends the stairs to the balcony, glancing over the practice area. She does not comment, but takes up station at one corner of the sparring space.

    Chid ambles over and asks, “What were you talking about with Master Jujiin down there?”

    “Nothing of consequence,” Fariah responds, her eyes distant.

    “I very much doubt that.”

    Fariah eyes her protectorate and sighs, “If you would know,” she begins formally, “we were speaking of my mother.”

    Chid blinks, “Your mother?”

    She nods. “Everyone has a mother. Even we heartless bodyguards.”

    He frowns. “Fariah, I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t have a mother. Simply that I didn’t think to ever hear you speak of her.”

    “And your parents, Chid? Why don’t you talk about them?”

    “Because they are dead,” Chid replies, voice growing cold.

    “And so, then, are mine to me,” Fariah turns her attention to the carvings on the palace again, eyes making their own patterns of the nubs and crannies in the rock face.

    Chid’s expression softens. “I’m sorry to have brought it up,” he turns and draws his sword again as Kiyo beckons him into the ring.

***

    The dress, when it is finished, does indeed have Merle’s warned ten feet of train behind it. But Hitomi, turning in the mirrored prism set up for her to inspect the garment in, cannot deny her satisfaction at how it has turned out.

    With less than three days to the wedding, she can’t help but be glad it was not a failure on any of those involved in its creation’s parts. She sighs and turns around again. The dress still seems to be missing something.

    “What’s wrong?” a quiet voice from the door asks.

    “Van Fanel! You get out of here this instant! You’re not supposed to see me in my wedding gown before the wedding.” Hitomi turns to look for him and sees him by the door, with his eyes closed. She smiles. The maid holding the train chuckles and Hitomi waves her off, out of the room. “Oh, you might as well come in now. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

    Van grins and steps around one of the mirrors and past the maid on her way out to stand before her. “You look radiant.”

    “Thanks,” Hitomi says with a sigh, turning to try and adjust the fall of the full skirt a little. Van blinks, puzzled.

    “What’s wrong?”

    “It just feels like it’s missing something…”

    Van steps forward and stops her hands with his own a moment, forcing her to turn, first one way, and then the other. “Maybe… have you thought about something around the neckline?” he asks after a long moment of contemplation.

    “Only every day. But I can’t think of what…”

    “Ah well perhaps I can make a little suggestion.”

    Hitomi looks up, puzzled that Van is so attentive to the look of her dress. She decides, finally, that it’s because the wedding is, despite his relaxed attitude about it, rather important for him as well. She chuckles as she thinks about how she’s put off thinking about just how important the wedding, and coronation, are for him as well, Van being the king.

    “Go right ahead.”

    “Feathers.”

    Hitomi blinks. “Feathers?”

   Van nods, fingering the neckline of the gown on her for a moment. “White ones… to match the material.”

    Hitomi looks down at Van’s hand against her breastbone and then up into his eyes, a thought springing to her mind as her heart speeds up slightly. “Your feathers!”

    Van pauses his hand for a moment and then looks up at Hitomi with curious crimson eyes. “I don’t know about that… I was thinking maybe swan feathers or…”

    She cuts him off by leaning her face forward towards his and says, “I think it’s proper, don’t you?”

    Van sighs, hopelessly trapped in her eyes, and nods slowly, stripping off his shirt. And extending his wings. As usual, white feathers fall from them, and litter the floor of the fitting room with them. After a moment, he glances over his shoulder at her, and she nods. He retracts his wings, turning to face the wall slightly, and sighs.

    Hitomi, sensing his dejectedness, leans forward and wraps her arms around him, nuzzling his neck with her face. The tension in Van’s shoulders melts away and he sighs, turning carefully to slip his arms around her as well. The two of them share a lingering kiss just as Merle steps into the room.

    “Lord Van! Hitomi!” She exclaims, all but dropping the box containing the veil.

    Hitomi blushes bright red and Van smirks slightly, glancing over at Merle.

    Merle firmly closes the door behind herself and locks it, tossing Van’s shirt at his head and giving Hitomi a pointed look. “It’s three days until the wedding.”

    “And I asked for feathers to put on the neckline,” Hitomi replies, a little vexed that Merle is being so prudish about the scene she walked in on.

    “Who was it that said he wasn’t supposed to see the dress until the wedding?” Merle counters.

    “I was the one who walked in anyway, Merle.”

    “Let’s stop squabbling. Watch your feet,” Hitomi replies, pulling away from Van to lean down and start collecting the feathers.

    “If we all do it, it’ll get done faster,” Van adds, stooping to lend a hand as well. Merle sighs and scoops them up too, knowing better than to try and argue with the two of them, and secretly still jealous of the royal couple.

    Van steps out while Merle helps Hitomi change out of the dress and into something less formal to go have dinner in, the feathers spread out on a long table across from the window. Merle leans against the table, sighing as she remembers part of her training.

    It will hurt, but you must let it happen, she can hear Mot’s voice still. That part of your duty may never be necessary, and you must learn to accept it. But the rest of your duty is still the same.

*

    Hitomi jogs after Van, and finds him waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Smiling, she hugs him tightly, and they kiss again, heading off for dinner. The castle staff smile and bow to their king and his future queen, much pleased with the happiness within despite the threat of war looming on the horizon not so far away.

    Dinner seems to fly by, and then the two of them meet with advisors about the ceremony, and have some time to themselves, which they take in a stroll along the battlements, just as the moon starts to rise.

    Hitomi snuggles against Van’s shoulder and he walks slowly, with his arm around her waist comfortably. “It all seems like a dream,” Hitomi mutters slightly as they pause to look out over the castle-city lit up at night.

    Van makes an agreeing sound in his throat, and Hitomi turns to look at his face in silhouette under the moonlight. After a moment of her scrutiny, he turns and kisses her. She kisses back, and after a moment or two they are embracing as well.

    Breathless, Van whispers in her ear, “Merle wasn’t lying… the wedding is only a few days away.”

    Hitomi blushes at her forwardness as she says, “Then there really isn’t anything to stop us, is there?” It had been with a heavy heart that she left Gaea, and the shy lover she’d found in him six years ago, she finds, as she contemplates the thought of her future husband, that she has no intentions of being so forlorn again.

    “Hitomi-” Van begins, but is hushed by another of her kisses. “The entire castle keeps its eyes on us…”

    Hitomi smiles against his lips and says, “You are the king, and this is your castle, and you don’t know how to avoid detection for a single evening?”

    Van grins at the challenge. “Do keep up then, my lady,” he says, taking a step back and pulling her along gently by the hand.

***

    Chid leans against the balcony and stares out at the practice grounds, knowing he has better things to do with his time than watch Fariah, but he cannot help it. Something about her reminds him of Celena. As though merely thinking her name might summon her to his side, Chid sees her as though she is standing next to him on the balcony.

    On the practice mat, Fariah freezes as she begins her next set of movements and listens closely. She throws her eyes all around the open area of the castle, and stands up straight, body going still.

    Prince Chid on the balcony to the west… the balcony to the east, clear. The balcony to the south, clear. The balcony to the north-

    Throwing herself into a run, Fariah moves straight towards the north balcony, because with its stairs that face straight into the practice courtyard, she bets she will have a better chance of stopping the archer with his crossbow than she would at getting to the west balcony and getting Chid to the ground.

    Chid blinks out of his slight stupor to find Fariah gone from the courtyard and running up the northern balcony steps quicker than he’s ever seen her move before. He looks up to the balcony and sees one of the monks. For a moment he believes it is one of the monks, until he sees the glint of the sunlight off the metal tip of the crossbow. He throws himself to the ground even as he sees the faint sparkle leap from the weapon, afraid his movements have been too slow.

    Crouching with his arms covering his head, Chid blinks and looks around himself for blood, and, finding none, he peeks through the balustrade of the balcony.

    Fariah, however, is bleeding.

    Seeing the arrow leap from the crossbow, she had vaulted up from the landing and taken the shaft in the left shoulder, landing almost badly and falling back down the stairs, she had nonetheless continued quickly up the stairs and decked the startled assailant with an angry right cross that sent the two of them to the ground.

    “Guards!” Chid bellows, unsettled and worried, but aware that Fariah would probably gain nothing from his coming any closer to the dangerous assailant than he already is.

    A few moments later, guards swarm the north and west balconies. Umal is shocked to find the Duke’s bleeding Kathis seated upon the much larger would-be assassin’s chest with stormy gray eyes and a creased frown.

    “Take him to the dungeon,” Fariah snaps, getting up only once the unconscious assassin has been bound, and staggering a step or two from loss of blood. “I will deal with him later.”

    Umal narrows his eyes and starts to speak, but Fariah throws a glance at him that silences him. “In matters concerning the Duke’s safety, of a personal sort, I am in charge. And if you have a problem with it, I will be more than glad to meet you on your grounds to settle it.” She lifts a hand and roughly yanks the shaft of the arrow from her left shoulder, lifting it to the sun to look at it.

    Chid crosses quickly to the north balcony, and winces as he sees Fariah rip the arrow from her shoulder. “What are you all standing there for?” he snaps, “Call a doctor.”

    The guards and Umal move off.

    “It’s… unnecessary, Chid.”

    “Fariah, what are you talking about? You’ve been injured.”

    Fariah, getting swiftly dizzier, leans on the railing to support herself as she presses her right hand tightly against the wound. “I’m serious, Chid.”

    “What’s wrong? You look…” Chid assesses his Kathis and frowns, “You look like you’ve been poisoned.”

    Fariah smiles, “I have been. The arrowhead… was laced with something.”

    Chid begins to get a little frantic, and starts to holler again, until Fariah grabs his arm. “I will either be all right, or I won’t, Chid. No doctor can help me.”

    “I don’t understand you!” Chid shouts, starting to leave the balcony, angry.

    “I don’t expect you to,” Fariah says in a low voice, then as she sees him start to leave, she snaps, “Stop right there!”

    “What?” he turns and glares at his Kathis.

    “An assassination was just attempted, you aren’t going anywhere alone until the palace has been searched. And the assassin interrogated.”

    “Who’s going to escort me? You’ve been-” Chid turns back towards her, about to comment on how weak the poison has made her, but her color has returned and she is simply holding her shoulder to stop the blood. “You’re not… poisoned anymore… are you?”

    “No.” Fariah slowly peels her hand from her shoulder and glances at it. “Now, what’s the hardest place to get to?”

    “The alcove behind the throne room… why?”

    Fariah wipes the blood from her hand onto her pants and then draws her sword. “Lead the way.”

    “Fari-”

    “Don’t,” Fariah glares at him, “argue with me right now. Your life is in danger and as you can see,” she makes a slight motion with the silver blade around the empty balconies and practice courtyard, “I’m the only one here to protect you. Do as I say or I’ll take you somewhere of my own discoveries.”

    Chid, blinking, nods and starts off for the alcove.