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The reflection of the Mystic Moon stared back at him like a great eye, pitiless and cruel as it rippled gently in the water. From where he leaned over the bank, it looked as if it were floating just out of reach behind his head, as if he could simply reach behind himself and pluck it from the sky.
It was a lie of course, one of the many lies he told himself over and over again until if he just closed his eyes, he could almost believe them to be truth. Fanelia was safe and would prosper. The streets rang with laughter as his people delighted in rebuilding what had been lost, rising to the challenge. Gaea was entering into a new age of peace and prosperity, everyone pleased to be able to put the horrors of war behind them.
They were such comforting lies, the sort you could all too easily wrap around yourself like a blanket on a winter night, blocking out the world around you and staying nestled in its warmth. Only, he still kept waking up in the middle of the night feeling the hot kiss of fire against his skin, hearing that psychotic laughter, seeing his brother’s shattered body on the floor. The artificial light of the Emperor’s throne room making the pooling blood as dark as his wings.
He could still look down at his hands and feel the hot spray of blood, hear the dying screams of the Dragonslayers echo through the air and the rising sun always reminded him of that terrible light which had consumed the battlefield, burning friend and foe to ash in the blink of an eye.
Unlike so many others, he couldn’t embrace the lie. He wouldn’t blind himself to the pain of the world around him. His people had been shattered and their city razed until not a single building had been left standing. They were still finding bodies in the ruins, little more than rotting bones and ragged cloth now after a year and a half of being left to scavengers. The funeral fires burned nightly as they sent the spirits of the lost to the stars. While only a few could be named, all were mourned, and Fanelia was gutted by their collective loss.
Their shared grief drew them together as prosperity never had; Van could now safely say that he knew the names and faces of every single one of his people. They were no longer a vast anonymous mass who gathered under the banner of his family, sworn to his country. They had names, hopes, dreams and their own demons to battle.
Each night he consoled those who’d lost loved ones, burying his own pain beneath theirs. Afterwards, he would head into the jungle alone, his shirt wet with the tears of his people, his skin darkened with the ash of the pyres. Unerringly, he’d find himself at the river, scrubbing himself clean in the icy cold waters and staring up at the sky, feeling so horribly alone.
“Why didn’t you stay?” He asked the reflection of the Mystic Moon, his voice so soft that it might as well have been a whisper of the wind across the water. “I wanted you to… I’d hoped that you would.” He could still remember their last moments together so vividly and cursed his foolish idealism when he’d claimed that everyone’s dreams and wishes would continue to be fulfilled all across Gaea. Such stupid empty thoughtless words spoken in a moment of foolish hope, still drunk on their victory.
It hadn’t taken long for reality to raise its ugly head and make the truth known. His people were still starving, still terrified of waking up on night and finding their world once again burning to ashes. Each one of them looked to him to lead them, saw him as an infallible hero king who could bring about miracles. Steadily, day after day, Van could feel himself being slowly crushed under the weight of their expectations.
He wasn’t some great hero, some mystical saviour. He was Van Slanzer Fanel, a Draconian, the last of that cursed race. His dreams would never come true because they’d been burned out of him, reduced to ash much like his country, like his family. It was as if in that single moment when he’d stood at the heart of the Zone of Absolute Fortune, holding Hitomi firmly in his arms and desperately praying that his love for her would be enough, he’d used up all the power Fate had given him.
Where were his dreams? Where were his wishes? Hitomi had left him, his mother hadn’t returned and Folken… Folken had remained shattered on the floor at his feet. Where was his happy ending that the stories had always promised? Where was his grand reward?
Closing his eyes, he released his wings in a cool rush of feathers, feeling them burst free from the confines of his skin and spread wide, drinking in the night breeze. A gentle fall of downy plumes drifted around him like errant snowflakes, several landing on the water, causing the reflection of the Mystic Moon to ripple.
“Mother… please come back.” He murmured, opening his eyes once more, only to find that beautiful and cursed moon now framed by his wings, taunting him. “I know nothing about myself, who I am… who I could be. Please…” Reaching up, he cupped his hand around the pendant Hitomi had left him. It was warm in his hands, reminding him of the energist heart of Escaflowne, gently pulsing with the promise of power. No, his mother was gone, likely forever. Returned back to Atlantis… or what remained of it. She wouldn’t even speak to him when he’d gone there, preferring to talk to Hitomi instead…. Hitomi… it always came back to her didn’t it? There really was no escaping some destinies, and his seemed to circle around her, even when she wasn’t here.
“Hitomi…” His hand squeezed the pendant as he spoke that beautiful name, feeling his heart ache at the sound of it. “Come back and help me rebuild this world. Help me make it into a place you could love and be proud of. Don’t leave me alone.” They’d both left him when he’d needed them the most, abandoning him to a world filled with pain and loss while they sought out their own dreams and destinies. “Am I really so terrible? I thought you loved me…I thought you wanted to be with me. Please… let me see you again.” Gripping the pendant tightly in his hands, he felt the gentle warmth become actual heat as the jewel pulsed with power.
Another feather drifted by on the gentle current, the ripples slicing the Mystic Moon in half for a moment before the edges once again bled into one another, forming a new shape… a heartbreakingly familiar shape.
Hitomi stood there watching him from across the river, standing on some strange looking metal bridge and surrounded by unnaturally shaped rocks which looked more like giant children’s toys absently tossed about. Still wearing that scandalously short skirt and strange shirt, her jade eyes were distant and thoughtful, as if she wasn’t sure she was seeing him either.
The sight of her brought a tremulous smile to his face as he did his best to drink in the sight of her. That familiar vibrancy which always surrounded her reached out across the void and brushed against him, warm and familiar. He wanted to call to her, to reach out a hand and pull her once more into his arms, perhaps kiss her the way she’d always dreamily talked about.
“Van.” Hitomi’s voice was gentle and warm, though surprised. Just hearing it made the loneliness inside him yawn wide, threatening to swallow him whole. Please he begged the fates. Please say that you miss me, that you want to come back… that leaving was a mistake!
Instead, he watched as she broke into a brilliant smile, her eyes sparkling with contentment.
“I’m doing fine.” Her words cut through him like a sword, wounding him more than the blade of any enemy, but worse was that sense of completion to her. Just looking at her, he could see that there was a wholeness, a contentment which she’d been lacking here on Gaea, and in that moment, Van knew that she had truly moved beyond his reach. Much like that shining moon she lived on, he’d never be able to extend a hand and touch her again.
Unable to bear the sudden pain which tore through him, Van slapped his hand into the water, shattering the reflection into a thousand shimmering pieces and stood up. His wings dissolved with the motion, bursting into a storm of shining feathers before fading away.
Turning his back on the water, on the moon and the pain it brought him, he looked back at the light of the pyres lowing distantly through the trees. She didn’t need him, perhaps she never did, and it was he who’d always needed her. Her life continued without him, a future full of happiness and dreams while he was left with ashes and pain.
So be it.
Drawing in a deep breath, he let his hand fell away from the pendant.
His people needed him. Fanelia needed him and Gaea needed him. It helped no one for him to sit here night after night lamenting his losses. If it was his fate to be alone, then so be it. He was the last Draconian, perhaps that was his own destiny. No matter how badly he wished otherwise in his heart, it seemed that all of his wishes had been used up, but perhaps once again, that was for the best. Draconian wishes shattered worlds, and this one had been put through enough pain. It was time to rebuild rather than lament.
In the distance, he could hear Merle calling for him, urging him to return to the camp, warning that dragons still stalked the forests and just because they didn’t eat him once didn’t make him immortal.
A smile tugged at his lips as he headed towards the sounds of life and hope.