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"I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re drinking on the job again,” the young man said, “but somehow I am.”At that, the old woman dropped her dusting cloth and gave up even the pretense of working; she pulled the flask of wine from her tunic pocket and propped it next to her. Her long sigh mingled scornfully with the whistling wind. “How else am I meant to stay warm on a night like this?”“I know you’ve got no respect for the state of the palace gardens, but to have no respect for the dead…” the young man went on, as though they had practised this.“Oh, and it’s so respectful of the dead to deck this out like a pleasure garden, for her of all people to visit? That’s what I call a joke.”"Everything's a joke to you, isn't it?" He gestured with a broad swing of his lantern, flickering the light over the rows of names. "This is a chance to show things have changed.""Things changed when the war ended. Now Zaibach just want to feel better about itself."“New Zaibach,” he said, automatically.“Oh, yes, ‘New Zaibach’,” she said. “‘Neeewwww Zaibach’. Only five years old. Past, what past!”“New, old, or just-ripe,” he said, “if the grass isn’t cut and the stones aren’t polished, the delegation will see. And if they won’t, I will.”“What they’ll see is a heap of dead leaves blown over all of our work by morning,” the old woman said, “but whatever makes you think you’re breaking your back in a good cause.”“Well, at least help me dress Escaflowne,” the young man said, as though biting back other words that he had tried uselessly in the past, “that can’t get covered with leaves.”He took one corner of the great waxed cloak that shrouded the guymelef and the old woman the other, and they worked methodically to check the guy-ropes that held it firm. For the ceremony the front three ropes would be cut, and the tension should be high enough that the veil would come leaping away at once to show the whole audience the Dragon-God. Even the young man thought in his heart: they’ll be afraid when they see it, they should be afraid.As he stretched and re-stretched the heavy cloth over the back of one gleaming ankle, cursing the wind for how it flicked and distorted the fabric, he heard a sharp grinding sound. “Careful!” he said at once.“It wasn’t me this time,” the old woman said, “It’s…”There was a flash of violet in her vision, and she looked up, expecting lightning along with the miserable downpour; but beneath the hooding of the fabric she could see two spreading pools of brightness, flickering in and out. And then another sound, somewhere between a gear jamming and a cornered animal; a sharp shriek.The shroud lifted from her hands as well, and she prayed it was the wind, but she could see it was Escaflowne. Another ripple of movement came up through its arm this time, groaning with rust; and then a spasm across its back and shoulders, and worst of all a trembling movement of its head. The old woman tried very hard not to remember her family dog, trying to the very last to get up and greet her, its tongue straining, its back legs scrabbling and collapsing. She tried very hard not to think: we took away its heart, why did we take away its heart.For all this time that Escaflowne had shivered and almost raised one foot towards her the old woman had not thought of moving. It seemed impossible that it could really hurt her. She had a tiny shrine to it in her house. What she had not told the young man was that the alcohol had settled her stomach for the sheer sacredness of this, which would have felled her sober. The sharp sword of Escaflowne lunging like a fish spear and gutting the invisible destroyers of her city. Drowning them justly in their blood. If Escaflowne was going to fall apart in this very moment she could fall apart with it, she had had her time.“What should we do?” the young man said. All the self-assurance had come out of his voice. They had lived through the same times but he suddenly hoped that she remembered something he could not.Something rang with metal in Escaflowne; something sparked and almost burned her hand. When she touched the greave of it with one hand beneath its shroud it was red-hot.“Warn Lord Van,” she said. “You go; you’ll run faster than me.”When he turned to go he had only made a few steps before he could have collided with Lord Van himself, which would have been funny at any other time.Lord Van was shoeless; his hair was undone. She couldn’t see even one retainer around him. He said nothing to them but they cleared a path for him at once to reach the guymelef and he reached a hand straight for the back of one trembling calf.His lips were moving without one audible word; the wind could have swallowed them up, but she heard the awful noises that Escaflowne was making over it. A Levi-Ship coming apart. A cornered water-buffalo. For a long time Lord Van braced himself against Escaflowne as though he was holding it up one-handed; and then the swaying began to die down, and Lord Van’s face greyed, until it was Escaflowne holding him up.“Your Majesty,” the young man said, which she thought was unnecessary, but Lord Van nodded to him.Escaflowne had almost completely stilled. It was possible to convince herself she had imagined all of it.
-Hitomi was doubled over to catch her breath. There was something very wrong about a world where Van could arrive half a minute before her. “I - should never - have cut down - to practice once a week,” she managed. “Do you - think those two - even noticed I was there?”“I’m not sure what they noticed,” Van said. He was still taking long strides, which just added an edge to Hitomi’s frustration. She knew his flying steps from her own dreams, her dreams hadn’t given her her own body beside his, suddenly unable to keep up. She should throw her textbooks out of the window and run laps of the library stairs. And Van’s tone wasn’t right.“It looked like - you calmed it down” she said.“I don’t…” He only walked faster. The flare of annoyance was sharper than the stitch in Hitomi’s side and she pulled up ahead of him despite the pain.“What happened, Van?”Which made Van wince. She touched his shoulder and he shrugged her off at once. The whole time she had been standing there watching Escaflowne rattle in the wind she had felt convinced her shirt buttons were still undone; her skin was still prickling. But she would try to be reasonable.“All right, you don’t have to say anything right now, just don’t keep me in the dark forever,” Hitomi said. “I guess getting my pendant back has made me nosy.”Van’s heavy steps.“Are you embarrassed?” She should have added: because I am! but didn’t. She should have added: it’s been five years and you still do this? Or: but we could practically read each other’s minds.But that was a link that flowered open with good news to send; bright hopes to share. Van as he truly was, at least some of the time. Hitomi couldn’t imagine forming a picture of herself on the bathroom floor at 3am, sobbing over a missed grade. Here you are Van, I’m miserable! Just so you know, wherever you are! He had that right. Still, there they were three steps from each other and his expression was a door slammed in her face.“What do you want to do?” she managed, finally.“I need to prepare for tomorrow,” he said. “I’m not - I’m not as ready as I thought I was.”“I’ll go over the script with you,” Hitomi said, “we could rehearse.”“No,” Van said. Just “no”. Which was really wonderful.“Look, I realise it’s going to be awful! But at least let me feel awful with you. I’m here right now, at least.”
Feel Awful With Me For White Day, Hitomi thought. But wasn’t that some portion of love? Whatever ugly thing it is, I know, I already know somehow. Her hand off his shoulder hurt.“You shouldn’t come near me,” Van said very flatly.She took in a few painful gulps of windchill and then pushed herself off, right foot to the starting block, and ran against the buffeting wind and the frosty ground. And sure enough she could overtake him like this, her breath snapping. A tide of adrenaline that meant she couldn’t think for a moment, or cry or yell.After half an hour of pretending to sleep she gave up and climbed the winding staircase to the battlements for open air. There was a tick-tick-tick from a prayer wheel on one cornice, whirling out its warnings to the night sky. Questions Hitomi still hadn’t asked: if the palace had once had no wheels guarding its own towers, because people had trusted the walls. If the royal city was smaller now and less sprawling, as it looked to her from above. It felt rude somehow, and, anyway, she wasn’t sure how well she remembered the old Fanelia anyway.She would go down and talk to Van; she would wake him with a knock on the door if she had to. Or she really would be intruding then. Or Van was thinking about her ideal distant smiling image and regretting her in flesh and blood.It was lucky that she was not the only honoured guest housed in this quarter of the castle.“Here you are,” Millerna said; as though she’d been looking for Hitomi and it was the most natural thing in the world. “Try this. Isn’t it strange how you can taste a food for the first time and then your body decides you have to have it? It’s fried. I don’t know what got fried, but it’s fried.”Millerna’s cravings were bright orange on the outside and a little sticky. The first bite didn’t taste of earthworm, so Hitomi decided to be hopeful.“How did you persuade the kitchen?”“Oh, bakers keep very strange hours anyway,” Millerna said, “or don’t you know? There’s a pastry called Dolphin’s Kisses in Asturia which gets proofed just past midnight, and then dipped in saltwater every hour on the hour. You’ll have to try that too, unless you’re planning to be just like Van and glue yourself to this valley.”“I had pisco juice with him once,” Hitomi said, “I don’t think that was a Fanelian specialty.”“That’s what being royalty gets you,” Millerna said, “imports. Don’t tell me you’re awake because you’re worried about tomorrow; I can tell you now it’s a circus.”Hitomi touched her pendant. “No portents,” she said, “No, it’s really something that Celena’s coming here.”“Oh yes, and there’ll be one or two assassination attempts at most; but you and I aren’t the security. And I don’t think that’s what’s worrying you anyway.”
“No,” Hitomi said. “It’s…”“A-ha. I see. It’s a delicate matter,” Millerna said. Her face had rounded a little over the years; her robe fell around her in deep-blue curves. She was teasing and she wasn’t. It was strange how of all the people Hitomi had met, they had fallen back into their old prickly friendship almost the most easily. “Well, you’re only twenty, that’s certainly not on the shelf yet...”“You know that’s not what I meant,” Hitomi said.“Well, it’s a new set of clergy these days, still set in their ways about suitable royal wives, but the odds of Van listening to them or anyone are low - and besides, from their point of view, their current king being born was a bit of a mistake,” Millerna said, “and as for the three samurai, they seem very fierce all together but you have to work on them individually. Try asking Gonten about his flower arranging. No, I’m serious.”There was nothing that funny about the flower arranging; it was Millerna’s determined attitude that had Hitomi muffling her face in her sleeve.“Getting sons out slaying dragons probably won’t do any more; you’ll have to work something out,” Millerna said, “but you can cross that bridge when you come to it. Besides, that’s not the only thing I think you could have some influence on. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve had messages three days late because a messenger had to come in personally; everyone in Asturia has carrier pigeons. You don’t know if a dragon would eat them if you don’t try.”“The poor pigeons,” Hitomi said.“And if it’s a scandal you’re worried about causing at this early stage, everyone knows where you’re headed,” Millerna said.“Well, I don’t know!” Hitomi said. “I mean, I don’t know how long I can stay, or if I can get back safely again, or when I will be back - here or there. It’s like playing the world’s most high-stakes game of interdimensional Frogger.”“Is Frogger anything like chess?” Millerna said.And Hitomi, despite herself, laughed. “Not really. Oh, god, you’re right though. I’m not being fair.”“No, no, it makes it harder for both of you,” Millerna said. “Don’t forget Dryden wandered off into the wilderness for a year…I’ll tell you about sometime. But when you told me about your studies I really thought you were preparing for this life. ‘Inter-national Relations’. I’m sure my father would have wished I’d read those kinds of books rather than medicine.”Hitomi thought, right, Module 5: multipolar world; core-periphery studies; Marxism; when your boyfriend is a feudal lord on an alien planet.“Millerna, I didn’t even take that course for a good reason,” Hitomi said. “I didn’t know I would see Gaea again. I wanted to, but - it wasn’t something I could consciously control.”“So why study it?” Millerna said, “for illicit reasons?”The actual reason that Hitomi had taken her International Relations course was embarassing enough that she couldn’t imagine telling Millerna in a thousand years. The conversation where she’d almost told Yukari was one of the most excruciating they’d ever had.It had begun with Hitomi seeing a counsellor in high school, which was unusual but not bad. That, she was open about; she hated to see how many people hid their pain, their fear, their doubt because they thought it was worse to say something.What had then happened was that about 90% of the things that kept Hitomi awake at night had happened on another planet, and also that her heart was hurting over Van. She had no intention of lying to Ms Mizukatani, who taught her breathing exercises and had never once brought up Freud to explain anything, but she had to tell her somehow to not tell her.She decided she would use one session to tell one simple story: she had a boyfriend in Canada who she messaged on AOL. They met at an international track meet a year ago. His life had been kind of crazy before he got to Canada.But that one session ballooned. Van-in-Canada developed a Little League career that made her worry about broken teeth and concussions. His legal guardian was called Balgus and his little sister was called Merle and she had shoplifted from Claire’s Accessories once because she was an incorrigible brat. Van struggled to sleep at night because of all the things that happened to him before his family came to Canada, which Hitomi collected from school library visits and newspaper clippings.Hitomi started to do brilliantly on her Social Studies classes and to feel a snowball of guilt picking up speed in her chest the better she did and the more Ms Mizukatani earnestly talked her through everything.Ms Mizukatani’s affirmations would bounce through the back of her mind at the strangest of times, so helpfully meant. Remember, when you’re helping someone by hearing them talk about a really hard time, you don’t have to draw a mental picture of that. It’s OK not to understand why this world is how it is. You have to remember that here and now, he’s in Canada.“Illicit reasons,” Hitomi said. “Maybe we could talk about anything else for a while.”“I’ll get more of these, then,” Millerna said. “And you’ll hate to hear it, but if you’re worried about the mechanics of flying back and forth from the Mystic Moon, the New Zaibach delegation would be worth tapping for information.”“I’m glad I’m here now,” Hitomi said, “whatever happens.”“That’s the spirit,” Millerna said. The next tray she brought up from the kitchens really was full of earthworms.
–The most excruciating conversation Hitomi ever had with Yukari went like this. Yukari was studying Comparative Literature and had started wearing a beret. At university they ran up terrible landline bills together. As much as Yukari loved books, she hated them with an equally burning fervour - and maybe, Hitomi thought, hatred was easier to talk about than love. Or at least more entertaining.“- and Lewis just leaves her there, with her ‘lipsticks and nylons’, as though he’s saying that growing up is the worst thing that could happen to a girl! Everyone else is fighting the forces of evil and Susan is - what? At the club? Because she’s a silly girl?”“Well, maybe she should have been at the club,” Hitomi said, “She’s only nineteen!”“But in the author’s mind, being at the club is like - some kind of moral degeneracy and affront to God! She’s shut out of this beautiful world forever, and for what?”“Is it such a beautiful world, though?” Hitomi said.“Eh? Tell me more?”“You see, when it’s a children’s book, I’ve actually read it…but think about it, Yukari. She was a queen for like a century right? And before that she shot all those people dead with arrows when she was 12 years old! And she’ll never see anyone from England ever again, not from school or from home, and even if the White Witch is dead there’s the Calormenes or what, there’s always something. And no one’s invented penicillin yet.”“Well, if you take a strictly realistic view, but it’s not meant to be realistic, it’s like heaven…”“If it’s like heaven, then there’s nothing to improve on or change; and then it might as well be an afterlife, so she’d rather be alive,” Hitomi said, “and if things can change and there are adventures then there’s always other adventures and new fates and new quests and so forth. Why shouldn’t Susan just - go and put on her nylons and take the London Metro and go to her salarywoman job and just stand there on her lunch break with her Spam sandwich thinking how glad she is to be alive? And not have everything decided for her and her whole story be over? Maybe just seeing - those old familiar trees blossoming or ducks on a pond or her bicycle wheel squeaking makes her cry because she thought she’d never ever have those things again.”“Hitomi…” Yukari said.Hitomi’s breath stopped. She felt like she’d said too much.“Hitomi, I love it! You shouldn’t put yourself down! It’s existentialist, it’s brutal, I love it,” Yukari said, “yes - it’s the 20th century and if God is dead then we’re all Susan, faced with the radical freedom of our lives on earth! What meaning does power have for her if it’s accompanied without an ability to choose? We are all shut out from Eden now, but to be shut out from perfection is life! God. Do you think Camus ever read Narnia? Or Nishitani?”“Maybe,” Hitomi said, her goosebumps settling, “yeah, maybe.”
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Millerna kept giving Hitomi knowing glances the next morning over the breakfast, even though Hitomi hadn’t said anything outright, and even though what she was worried about was Escaflowne shaking like that, which she hadn’t told Millerna about either. She hadn’t even known it could move, even just barely, without the Drag-Energist. Did the blood-pact mean that Van could act as a battery in an emergency? But what emergency? It hadn’t felt as though Escaflowne was about to go berserk, more as though some circuit had overloaded and sparked.Hitomi was trying not to kick herself about the night before. She had kept almost wanting to go down and knock at Van’s door to apologise, except he had comprehensively given her the cold shoulder. Also, there were two armed guards outside it that she’d have to explain the situation to. And besides, what was she doing, telling him he couldn’t cope without her?And that was the precious thing she had given him, or wanted to give him; not needing her. She remembered wrapping her arms around his bony shoulders and trying to squeeze all the love that had overspilled her into him. She made no guesses about his future, only poured all her willpower into it. He would be happy and Fanelia would be happy, and so would she.And Van looked tired - very tired, but all right. He wasn’t trying to tell her anything and she didn’t tug on that gossamer link for more information.It felt slightly surreal to see Van be this polite. What a significant day this was. The work of the Asturian delegates in building economic and scientific ties. Whether or not the musicians would be able to out-play the bad weather, the speeches still be heard. He wasn’t even slouching.She could see the way other people in the room watched him and drew strength from him. Hitomi thought: he’s honestly a really good king, and then: he’s an idiot , and then: so many important things are happening right now and this is all I can think about?She could have continued a while like that if her competitor in the Excessively-Thinking-About-Van context hadn’t ambushed her on her way to the restroom.“Look,” Merle said, “this day better go off perfectly, or I’ll have pulled out this much hair for nothing.” “Oh, no, you’ve been overgrooming?” Hitomi said.“It’s just like you to put it that bluntly! Aiii, my beautiful fur.”“You’re fine, Merle, I can barely notice,” Hitomi said. “Anyway, I think you’ve done it before, right?”“Not when you were here…”“No, but I saw you! I mean, when I saw Van, I could see you sometimes just - doing whatever you were doing. I think you were kind of…chewing between your toes one time when you were talking.”“I can’t believe you’ve been spying on me for the last five years! And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me until now,” Merle said.“What, you wanted that to be the first thing I said to you? That you look different to how you pop up in my visions?”“I didn’t ‘pop up’ in there, and I wouldn’t have wanted to ‘pop up’ in there,” Merle said. “Can’t you just look at King Van and not at me?”“Well, not when you’re right next to him! I don’t mean that in a bad way, but there’s not really a filter I can put on,”“So I can’t stand within five feet of Van and do anything embarrassing,” Merle said.“It’s not embarrassing to be stressed out,” Hitomi tried.“It’s embarrassing that you’re lecturing me about chewing between my toes! What do you know about what I’ve been up to! It’s embarrassing that Van hasn’t told me when you chew between your toes.”“That one, I haven’t done!” Hitomi said. She was very thankful that she didn’t live in a universe where Merle could see everything Van saw. “But…are you OK?”“No, obviously not,” Merle said, “But I’ll feel better if you let me explain how the guard arrangement is going to work today so I know you aren’t going to get yourself into trouble.”“I thought the samurai generals had that one planned,” Hitomi said.“I have a second plan in case their plan doesn’t work,” Merle said. “Obviously. Only about a quarter of the guests know that one, but that’s enough to manage if we have to.”“Their plan is in case of an assassination attempt, right? Because we’re out of doors and by the clearing, so it’s harder to be sure of the exits.”“My plan is in case the entire New Zaibach delegation including Allen Schezar tried to kill us,” Merle said. “Look, the samurai generals lived through everything that happened with Fanelia, and they can imagine something going wrong that could go wrong, but I was on the lam with King Van and you for that time and I remember how everything that couldn’t go wrong also went wrong.”“That’s not wrong, but Allen of all people?““Or a Zaibach actor impersonating Allen,” Merle said, “or a doppelganger, or a third evil Schezar sibling I didn’t know about, or…probably not. Honestly, I missed you, Hitomi. Stay safe.” “You too, Merle. I really think it’s going to be fine today.” Merle hugged her very warmly and tightly. Her breath prickled.“But give a girl some privacy! When all this is over, I am definitely getting you back for that!”-After all that, it was funny that it came as a relief to Hitomi to see soldiers in Zaibach uniforms dismount the Crusade along with Celena. Millerna had joked about it - and then tried to change the subject to Hitomi’s love life whenever she could - but Celena’s appointment as President seemed to have come about as much because New Zaibach had relied on Asturian money for its immediate survival as because of anything the remains of its Parliament had done.Emperor Dornkirk had built an elaborate machine of a society that thrived on at least the illusion of consensus; it sounded as though with that gone, New Zaibach was torn in a lot of directions at once. She’d got different answers on Celena’s appointment from every one of her friends. Dryden explaining that the world would be a utopian place if women ran every country would have struck her more positively if it hadn’t been clear what an absurd idea this was to him; Millerna had said that Asturia didn’t view a woman in a position of authority as a threat, so as long as the New Zaibach Parliament stayed divided and weak, Celena was a safe point of authority. The fact that Millerna and Dryden had come to ensure that everything went off to plan today made sense from that perspective.Van said Celena was the last person to want to go back to the way things were, and maybe enough of New Zaibach was as sick of what they’d been as everyone else to leave her as their ambassador. Merle had said that New Zaibach had got rid of all their real royalty a long ago, when Dornkirk came in, and that was the start of them going wrong; so they were trying to replace them with Celena.As for what Allen might be thinking… the sight of him in a navy-and-grey New Zaibach uniform was a sudden shock, as much as she’d expected it. That, Hitomi could admire; he’d surely lost a lot in giving up his role as a Knight Caeli and his place in Asturian society to help his sister. She was glad that his ship and his crew had come with him, even to work with their former enemies.Hitomi’s mind stayed clear, her pendant a still cool weight on her chest, as the ship settled into its moorings and Allen escorted his sister between a long line of dignitaries. Celena was in grey and white; her hair was so much longer than Hitomi remembered, flowing down over her back.She looked like a shampoo advertisement; perfect, luscious bounce and hold for when you apologise for crimes that you have no recollection of. Poor Celena, Hitomi thought, surely there are so many other people who gave orders and fought battles for Zaibach who were in their right minds?They had raised a stage for Van next to the memorial tablets for the royal family, which must have been standing in for all of Fanelia. So it would be a kind of reunion for Folken and Dilandau over the ashes…not that they would have wanted to meet again. Under a long rain-cloak, Escaflowne, like a wrapped parcel. Still and silent for now.She had been trying not to catch Van’s eyes, trying, honestly, not to rush up onto the dais and grab his arm and tell him he could get through this, but she couldn’t avoid looking at him altogether. His gaze flicked across from Celena and her retinue to Hitomi and he gave her a very small very ironic smile. It’s just got to be done, Hitomi thought, and then wondered if those were her thoughts, and if those were her nails clenched briefly onto her hands.One of the farmers kneeling towards the back scrambled abruptly to his feet as Celena passed by and shouted: “Murderer! Murderer”” Hitomi’s feet moved of their own accord.The man next to him was grabbing his shirt collar and trying to wrestle him back down. Hitomi couldn’t see a weapon in his hand. She really could still sprint if she had to; she was between him and the Zaibach delegation, for all that that was worth if it got any uglier.Allen looked at her in astonishment. His hand was on his sword. It was possible no one had told him that Hitomi had dropped down in a beam of light with a packed duffel bag a week ago, with no particular plan.“He’s not armed,” Hitomi said, and at the same time Celena pushed her brother aside and said, “You’re right, that’s why I’m here today.”The farmer stopped trying to throw both his neighbour and two of the actual guards present off; one of them was bracing a long pole against his chest.“Who did you lose when I burnt Fanelia?” Celena said.“I…my mother and father,” he said. “They were old. They couldn’t leave quickly enough. I saw one of your melefs skewer them as I tried to get them out. What the hell do you think you can give me?”“I can never give them back to you,” Celena said, “and I know my words will be empty for you. All I can do is to try to change the future.”“You’re right that they’re empty,” he said. “I just wanted to see your face and - “And no guard or weapon or bodyguard could stop him from spitting on her. She didn’t flinch; Hitomi thought she might have been expecting it. “You bastard!” came from one of her retinue; and Hitomi briefly thought it was one of the Zaibach soldiers before she realised it was Geddes.Van had jumped straight from the stage himself. He bowed; he actually touched Celena on the arm.“I’m sorry,” he said, “that should never have happened.”“I’m all right,” Celena said. “The next part is that I come up to the stage, isn’t that right?”The handkerchief she blotted her face with was monogrammed with CS and edged with lace. Her voice carried like a bell across the stage. Over the ringing in her ears Hitomi caught: “All that I can take from such everlasting grief is a new resolve; a resolve for better days ahead, where we never, ever see such crimes and such sorrow again; a resolve for us to share the best of what we produce instead of the worst…”And Van’s speech, sounding for all the world as though he had waited all his life to make pleasant conversation with the woman who used to be Dilandau. “I once heard someone tell me that there could be a war to end all wars…I know how little that means. We can’t end anything here, and we can’t forget anything. So we can only begin. It’s not just for me to make those agreements, but for all the Fanelian people - “ (without even a hitch) “- which is why one of our best men from the Dragon Peace Patrol is here to speak with you today - “After that, the Dragon Peace Patrol soldiers knelt by Escaflowne and cut the guy-ropes. There was a ripple of strings and then there was Escaflowne, gleaming like a polished statue in the mid-morning light. It was strange to think when Escaflowne wasn’t rushing about or being tended to that it was beautiful, and stranger to remember the terrible last time she’d seen it in action.For the first time Hitomi saw Celena’s eyes had filled with tears. When she spoke her final words, it was with a hitching sob in her breath. Her shoulders rounded.That was when the audience began to applaud; slowly at first, like drops of rain, but then louder like a hailstorm. What good were these tears of Celena’s to them? Or did someone just have to open the gates of weeping, and Celena was smart enough to do it?WIth that, the public part was over. Someone was selling roasted nuts on the pathway from the grove to the city outside. There was a bored child who had started crying as well. Hitomi felt somehow tireder than she had ever felt in her life. But the ceremony had gone off; no one was hurt; this was a step forward. And Van had held as firm as an anchor all through; she knew it, she knew it.
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It was a feeling like poking at a broken tooth; the certainty that you'd definitely done something stupid, but it would be a while before you realised exactly what. Van was very familiar with that feeling. His own words were echoing in his ears, sounding more and more pompous every time. There were so many pieces of counsel he'd been given in his life, from the examples of history to the ideals of philosophy. Half of them contradicted each other, and the other half he was afraid he'd missed completely, trying to sneak outside or seize the opportunity for a nap after a morning of what seemed like endless sword practice. He remembered sweltering over his books on a sticky summer day, imagining seeing the world outside of Fanelia.Well, he'd seen it. The food was terrible, most of the people were idiots, and he wasn't planning to leave again any time soon. And the stern-faced men who he thought would never stop lecturing him on duty and honour had lived up to all their tedious speeches to the last, and he would never see them again. And now he could say he had grown to be a man as far as anyone grew to be one, he was - pacing back and forth in the vicinity of Merle's chambers, without knocking or even admitting he had come there on purpose. Which was the same thing he had done when he was eight years old. He had left a blank hour after the ceremony both for himself and the Zaibach delegation to lick their wounds, but he’d imagined himself sitting and meditating in his own quarters, or training until the sweat drowned out everything else. On his fourth or fifth pass by her door, a paw shot out and Van, given who it was, let himself be dragged in. Anyway, resistance would just mean getting scratched. He was never more than a few feet from his bodyguards for the entirety of the visit, but they politely took up their posts outside ."Merle!" he said, indignantly, and, "King Van!" Merle said, joyously, as though she had found him hiding from her on the palace roof instead of skulking outside."Don't shred my robe, I'm meant to be at a formal dinner tonight," Van said."But your robes always look kinda shredded," Merle said, "Catch!"Merle was juggling a faintly translucent cylinder between her paws. It wobbled when Van caught it on two outstretched fingers and sent it bouncing back. "What a daaaay," Merle said. "It's not even that I don't like Celena.""Yeah, Celena's fine," Van said."It's just, when you think about it...what. The. Fuck.""What the fuck.”Merle added a second balloon to her collection, then a third. When Van caught them both and ricocheted one of them off a wall, she rolled back briefly onto her back to kick one over with redoubled force. However hard they got hit, the aerodynamics were terrible; it was like punching a cloud."You don't have to do the round of hand-shaking before dinner," Merle said, "I can schmooze as well as you can, King Van.""I can talk to them," Van said. “I’ve talked to them in Asturia.”"I'm just saying, you don't have to do this on your own."The roaring in Van's ears had died down, and there was that familiar flat sensation afterwards, like heavy rain. Nothing had happened, he thought, nothing. You didn’t sleep for the last two days but nothing happened. He knew enough to know when he had to stop. Stop and admit you're human was what Balgus had scolded him with; for given definitions of human. Stop and fold up your big white stupid wings. None of his ideas right now were going to be good ideas, but if he waited it out, the good ideas would come back; the world would come back into focus. Merle extended one claw and popped a balloon with a sudden cracking sound, and he kicked one hard enough into the wall to explode into sickly-smelling fragments. It was a weird stereotype that only catpeople enjoyed finding something to destroy. For a while he just batted back and forth with her, sitting on the floor. Who knew how long Celena would stay in that role, threading the needle between Asturia’s anxious councilmen and New Zaibach, who loved her for who she’d been; how long any of this would last. But he’d done a good job acting as though it could last. The balloons went pok-pok-pok between them. Merle burst one with her teeth. "Where did you even get these from, Merle?" Van said at last, "Fried?""No, they're some kind of disgusting jerky from the Mystic Moon," Merle said. "I blew them up after I couldn't eat them. Smells like watermelon but definitely doesn't taste like watermelon.""You didn't go through Hitomi's things," he said. "I didn't take anything important. And I told her I would since she's been spying on me for the past five years. 'Oh, Merle, that dress you wore three summers ago looked great!' Get out!"“Well, if you weren’t always two feet away from me…” Van said. “You’re as bad as each other,” Merle said. “Come here.”Merle did a good impression of squeezing the life out of Van, as always. “I’m glad you came to see me, but isn’t there someone else you could be debriefing?”“You call this debriefing?” Van said.“Come on, ” Merle said. “We got through so far and no one died, and you’re going to have to talk to all of New Zaibach all evening, followed by telling Millerna and Dryden everything Zaibach told you, followed by telling Zaibach about Millerna and Dryden, even though whatever great ideas they come up with go through a hundred subcommittees anyway, so –“It’s Asturia, someone just bribes someone else,” Van said, “no subcommittee needed. That wasn’t fair, I…”“You’ve been saying very polite things to everyone all day,” Merle said, “enough, no one’s eavesdropping on us here.”There was nothing Van could do to convince Merle that he was anything more or less than the kid who had wanted to fly off the palace roof and didn’t understand what would happen if he did; so there was nothing he needed to try and do. He leant back a little further against the wooden wall and realised he was beginning to slide down. They’d talk later, when the delegation was gone and Merle didn’t have her anger holding her up; he’d have something helpful to say then. Merle hopped down from her chair and sat near enough to him that their shoulders were brushing.. “I’m always happy to see you, King Van, but I’m not your true love that arrived from the Mystic Moon.”“I…” Van said, “There’s something I have to fix.”"Already? Yanno,I realise every day how lucky I am I'm not the one who got saddled with being your girlfriend." She punctuated that with a long sandpapery lick to his cheek. “Don’t waste any more time than you have to on all this, talk to her.”“I will,” Van said, “Of course I will. But you shouldn’t…shouldn’t destroy her snack foods.”“I can’t make any promises,” Merle said; her voice sounded fainter and fainter to him, as though it was coming from the end of a long tunnel. It wasn’t the first or the last time he had laid down on the floor, laid his cloak over his face, and caught a fitful stretch of sleep; Merle writing furiously at her desk, tail lashing; the bodyguards rolling dice. –Of all the ways Van had imagined apologising to Hitomi after the whole incident, interrupting her while she was talking to Celena of all people wasn’t one of them. The strangest thing was that Celena looked like she’d been crying; her eyes were red-rimmed and there was a tearstain on the shoulder of Hitomi’s blouse. Van knew Celena well enough to know she got something out of acting like she’d been Dilandau, but as far as he was concerned, she had been hurt worse by that psychopath than he had; he’d been grafted into her actual brain. Or however the Fate Alteration Machine had worked it. And here he was caught up in whatever he had done to Escaflowne without considering that Celena had come to his country to get spit on for the actions of the ugly ghost in her head. But she was doing her best to hide whatever it had been from him, back straight, and so he said nothing about it. Better to let her think he hadn’t noticed, anyway. She had Allen, and even the Zaibach bodyguards who worked with the Crusade crew were nice enough; young. Anything Van could do to sell the idea that Celena was fully capable of leadership was a bonus, and if losing her mind occasionally would be enough to disqualify her, who in the world was capable? New Zaibach should be thankful every day that they didn’t have one of a hundred ambitious pole-climbers who thought they were perfectly sane and would have dragged the whole rump of the empire into the old madness that had been Dornkirk. Shutting the door and walking out would have been worse than acknowledging both of them; which he did. He and Celena exchanged a few lines about the weather, which was probably a sign they’d said everything they could possibly have said. Hitomi had a sweat-soaked strand of hair across her forehead, which she brushed back absently. Her jaw was set with annoyance. She was a little taller than he remembered her, which he had thought was his imagination until he’d held her and her forehead didn’t rest under his chin. Her clothes were dark except for her bright white Mystic Moon shoes that made her steps spring like a mountain goat’s. He really didn’t know what he was doing. “Hitomi, if I was abrupt earlier, I’m sorry,” he said, “I mean - I was abrupt, and I am– ““Why don’t we talk after Lady Celena’s visit?” Hitomi said, sounding very deliberately light.“Of course,” Van said. Celena looked as though she welcomed the distraction from whatever ghosts had been troubling her. Even Van’s apologies had an audience these days.It couldn’t be that Hitomi’s presence had made Escaflowne go mad again; it couldn’t be. Escaflowne had barely moved. It couldn’t be that it was wrong for her to be there, deeply wrong. There were things Van could give up on, easily, and before Hitomi had been here, really here, he would have said he had everything just from her presence in his mind; the warmth of her regard, her trust in him. Of all the absurd things to think about he kept thinking about her catching her breath running after him and past him. She must spend so long studying; he remembered her telling him about the hard work of the last year of school. If she stayed for the summer they could even train together, take circuits of the gardens and the paths through the woods. There were times when she had been running on the Mystic Moon and for a moment he could feel all of it; the sharp pain in her legs, the track flashing past, her determination and the exaltation of hitting her stride. That sharp joy. –“I would say it was a short circuit if it wasn’t that there’s no Drag-Energist there,” Van said. “It should have been impossible.”Dryden stretched his arms back behind his head and drew in a sharp breath. He was on his third cup of green tea of the night; but the subject had animated him. “You haven’t considered that the battery might have been you yourself?”“Do you think the blood-pact could work that way?”“It would have interesting implications if it could,” Dryden said, “albeit unpleasant ones for you. DId you feel exhausted after the fact?”“It’s hard to tell. I came running as soon as I sensed it moving, so…” He put his head in his hands. “And Hitomi…was there, and I know that she’s been able to help me pilot Escaflowne without being in it, so maybe that’s why I could move it for the first time in all those years.”“A logical, neat and satisfactory explanation if you had been trying to move it, which you weren’t.”“I wasn’t,” Van said.“And you weren’t thinking about Escaflowne at that moment?”“No! That was the last thing I was thinking of!” Van said. He was trying very hard to give nothing away in his expression; for what that was worth. “I’ll consider it a state secret, but it sounds as though you and the young lady hadn’t restricted yourself to holding hands.”“How is that relevant - ”“My dear fellow,” Dryden said, “unfortunately for you, your body is Escaflowne’s body and Escaflowne’s body is your body. In some situations. Therefore it may be you who has the short circuit.”“A short circuit? What kind of question is this?”“Fortunately for you, this is a subject I am exceptionally well versed in,” Dryden said, “Of course, now I am a married man, but in those years beforehand I accumulated my own library of memory, one might say. And not just the young ladies of the capital! I am well travelled; I am broad-minded; as a handsome youth I caught the eye of a dolphin of indeterminate gender…”“ How does this explain how I activated Escaflowne,” Van said.“Well, from the works of poets and musicians, you might consider all this experience purely pleasurable.”“I see,” Van said; grimly determined to see this through.“But in a way…isn’t pleasure the sister of terror?” Dryden actually stood up to make his point; he paced around the room with an emphatic thud from his cane. “Not the pleasure of a mellow evening spent enjoying a fine vintage of vino, but the pleasure that shakes the limbs, that makes the hair stand on end, that makes the animal spirits rush up the nervous filaments to the brain!”"In a way...?" Van said. “And I’ll be honest with you: I was a very spoiled teenager. My idea of a terrifying night was of losing my allowance on a game of cards, or of buying a cheaply painted crock that I mistook for a fine antique.”“Whatever you say about the person you were, I’m grateful to them,” Van said. “Ha!” Dryden said. “It would have taken a real bastard to have let you die. I remember how you looked…” He waved his hand. “All of that helped me to blossom into the wise statesman I am today, et cetera, including having half a ton of architecture fall on my leg. But I can see how it might make it a little harder to let your guard down.”“Not to be in control of yourself…” Van said, without meaning to say it. The words made him wince. Dryden clicked his fingers. “You’ve got it exactly! Why, as a callow youth, I thought: let the evening take whatever course it will! Drench me in saltwater and squeak at me, it’s all the same to me! But with misfortune comes caution; I’d probably worry more about drowning if I tried that now.”“No saltwater involved.”“But it’s not saltwater which is so dangerous, it’s love,” Dryden said. “that draws fire upward and air to fire, iron to the lodestone, earth down to the centre of the world…and therefore such a powerful force that it should be taken very slowly.”“So you’re saying I panicked,” Van said flatly.“You didn’t panic, ” Dryden said, “You just – “ he waved his hand “-- zz-zzap. Short-circuit. Your heart sped up, your ears rang, and therefore you assumed from the weight of experience that something very unfortunate was about to happen and you’d need Escaflowne. Which obligingly did what she could. I do wonder what would have happened to you if you’d kept consciously trying.”“It sounds like you would have had a really interesting autopsy to complete,” Van said. “You see, you’re laughing about it, that’s good,” Dryden said. “So all you need to do, as they say, get back on the horse - ”Van sprang up and knocked his own chair backwards: “ If you use that expression again - ” “No, no, no, not with any reference to any person or insult to them meant - I just meant if you try again but - with a little more circumspection,” Dryden said, “You’ll feel better to know if it won’t happen every time. Just breathe, take your time, check that you’re not psychically raising your dormant guymelef to battle midway through.”“We barely - I mean - it’s not what you think,” Van said. “Very, very slowly,” Dryden said. “And if you can’t take the technical part of this conversation face to face, I did bring some related literature with me.”“Yes all right give me the book,” Van said. “I will read whatever you put in front of me if it helps.”“No mention of guymelefs in any of them,” Dryden said, “but that part, I think you understand.”