Amoro Revidi
Title: Visiting Hours [Part Two]
Series: Vision of Escaflowne
Rating: G
A/N: Part 2... this gets harder and easier as I go along.
***
Standing in front of the shrine and staring up at the Mystic
Moon hanging in the night sky, Van looks into the glitter of the pink stone with
a troubled gaze. “Hitomi… what is it?”
A moment later a bright column of light materializes and the young king of Fanelia disappears into the stars.
***
Gasping for breath, she sits up swiftly.
Mother… father…
Glancing around the small, formal hospital room she is again disappointed. Aching muscles crying out from beneath her casts, she adjusts slightly, stretching her cramped muscles. Brother…
Slowly she sinks back to the pillows of the bed, glad, at least, that after three months the larger masses of plaster and glue had been stripped to only splints that were wrapped nightly in braces to keep her from jostling the injuries during her dreams, which had turned violent. Turning her head, she looks out the window at the night sky, the perfect full moon framed in her window and she suppresses a wistful sigh.
The moon… looks so much deader here. I remember… that night… it had looked so alive, for some reason, almost as though I was back in Gaea…
A shadow crosses the windowpane and she looks after it, eyes focusing quickly.
“What…” she begins in a hoarse voice, throat still sore from so much disuse.
As she watches, from somewhere out of sight, a hand extends and pushes the window open into the space of the room. “Who’s there?” she calls, drawing the sheets up to her neck with painstaking care.
“Hitomi?” the voice, as he steps into the room, is meek and almost timid, something unfamiliar from the familiar form of the Fanelian king she had come to know over the past six years.
“Van?” her voice quivers a little as her eyes take in his tall silhouette in the darkness. “Is that…” incredulously, she continues, “really you?”
“Hitomi, are you ok?” he asks, glancing around warily. “I… tried to find you but…”
She turns her face away from his and says in a low voice, “I must look hideous right now… I… was in an accident.”
“When? You’re not… permanently injured, are you?”
“N-no,” she bites her lower lip softly. “I should make a full recovery.”
“Hitomi, what is it?” He takes a step closer to the bed and kneels next to the railing. “Something is wrong… isn’t it? Something you aren’t telling me.”
She nods her head, eyes closed tightly.
“You can tell me, Hitomi, I…” he pauses, searching for the right words, “I’d like to know. I’m worried about you.”
“My family,” she whispers quietly.
“Hitomi?” he leans closer to her, reaching forward to take her hand in his own. “What happened?”
“There was an accident… we…” she forces her eyes open to look at him as the tears begin to fall from her eyes.
He draws a hand up to her face and brushes the tears from her cheeks gently.
“We went off the road… I… I don’t remember what happened after that.”
Tenderly he strokes the bangs from her temples and lets his hand rest on her cheek. “Then the rest of your family…?”
“Already buried,” she replies, voice empty. “Up on the mountain with grandmother… overlooking the ocean…”
With a gentle brush of his lips on her brow he hushes her, and the two sit like that, in the quiet, for a long moment, the only motion between them the gentle motion of his fingers against her cheek.
A noise at the door goes forgotten as the tears dry in her eyes.
The night nurse enters and gasps. “Who are you?” she demands loudly. “Miss Kanzaki, are you all right?”
“I’m fine…” she says evenly, “now.”
Van looks up at the nurse with a puzzled expression, even though he understands the words she speaks, thanks to the pendant, and the nurse says, “Really, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, visiting hours for the day are over.”
Glancing back down at the frail, cast coated form on the bed Van motions with his head towards the window. “I… really should be going, I suppose, Hitomi…”
“Be well, Van.”
“Ah…”
“Excuse me, young man, but the door is over that way,” the nurse taps her foot angrily. Van glances at her, still somewhat confused by her response to him, and nods, heading towards the door with one last glance at Hitomi.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” the look in her eyes asks hopefully. Van nods slightly and exits the room, the nurse closing it firmly behind him.
“Really, Miss Kanzaki, if your friend wanted to visit, he should have come during visiting hours. This hospital has a strict policy on guests to rooms during evening hours…”
Hitomi rolls her eyes disinterestedly and leans back, feeling a peaceful exhaustion overtake her and the warmth of his hand on hers.
“… Kanzaki …”
The nurse’s voice fades to a low whisper in her ears and her eyes drift closed.
Van…
***