Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Visions of the Irenic Wars ❯ Orchestration II ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: Honestly, I don't understand the point of putting one of these up here, because if I had any legal ownership rights to The Vision of Escaflowne, it wouldn't be called fanfiction, now would it? Oh well, I'll go through the drivel anyway. Escaflowne belongs solely to the Sunrise and Bandai corporate entities. All characters and locations belong to them, with the obvious exception of any original character that may pop up. Any similarities between the original characters and an actual person, alive or deceased, are purely coincidental; don't bother with a lawsuit if a character happens to sound exactly like your dead great-great-great aunt (twice removed), because I'm a college student living off of Ramen and you won't get anything but pocket lint.

Author's Note: This piece of fanfiction takes place about two years after the series ends, during the fall of Hitomi's second year of college. Don't complain about out-of-character characters because I'm taking in to account the fact that people change and mature; this means that there will be no Merle-pouncing-on-Van (in fact, I have plans for Merle) and readers should expect Van to be a tad more diplomatic when dealing with people (I should hope that over four years of rebuilding a broken nation would lead to that...), among other things. Now, I'm a huge fan of the series, but even a nut like me can make mistakes. If anyone notes something out of place (aside from what I mentioned), feel free to let me know. There may be some fantasy clichés, but I think you can all live with that.

With that said, allow me to present the second chapter of Visions of the Irenic Wars.

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Orchestration II

“Merle! Merle, I think we should start looking for some shelter!” Darius shouted, trying to make himself heard over the roar of the wind and rain.

Merle looked over her shoulder at the tracker and returned her gaze to the road ahead, hoping that no one could see her blush. Her first assignment as Fannelia's new Diplomat of Tribes had started so well. Everything had gone better than planned and they had made good traveling time on their visits to every significant beast village. She scolded herself mentally; she should have known better than to think that their exceptional luck was going to hold out so long. “Of course something so miserable would pop out of nowhere on the night we planned to return to Fannelia,” she muttered under her breath.

Clutching her cloak more tightly, as if it might actually do any good against the stinging rain, she pushed her sopping bangs out of her eyes. Merle didn't have to have eyes on the back of her head to know that Darius was giving her that stupid I-told-you-so look, but, as much as she hated to admit it, he really had been right. The tracker had advised her to stay in the last village overnight. He told her that he smelled rain and even some of the animals were hunkering down for the evening. Did she listen?

The obvious answer, Merle knew, was the biggest NO she had ever had bouncing around in her mind.

Merle stopped and signaled for the other members of her troupe to do the same. Some looked relieved; some looked ready to slap her silly. Trying to ignore their critical gazes, she prepared to swallow her pride. “Do you know of any possible shelter nearby?” she asked Darius.

The tracker nodded, his golden ears twitching as he shook the water from them. “There's a cave around here. It's got a low ceiling, but it's deep,” he said. Darius paused for a moment and then pointed to the left. “It should be in that direction.”

“How far?”

“Almost a kilometer.”

Merle watched the muddied men of her troupe shift expectantly. “Alright. Lead the way.” She had barely finished speaking before Darius took off at a brisk walk. Merle sighed and grumbled about the unexpected turn in the weather and followed the tracker. The troupe trudged after them with renewed energy.

True to his word, Darius's cave wasn't far away. It was barely noticeable, a mere crack in the rock and hidden behind the slender emerald trees characteristic of Fannelia's northern territory. Merle shuffled along, stepping over a few roots that had been exposed by the storm. She noticed, with more than a little jealousy, that Darius managed to glide across the ground like the feline he was, while she, encumbered by her soaked cloak and bruised ego, somehow wound up looking like a bumbling human. That the tracker had spent his entire life in the outdoors, where grace and stealth were more than just admired- they were necessary. Despite his bright fur, he still managed to remind Merle of a true feline- a wild panther stalking its way through the woods.

Merle growled softly in her throat. “It doesn't make him any less of an ass,” she said herself.

“Did you say something?”

Merle managed to stop herself before slamming into Darius's back. “Just that oafs like you should stop in the middle of the road,” she hissed, moving past him and into the dark cave.

“Watch your-”

“Damn!” Merle cried, her hands flying to her forehead. Her eyes stung with tears and she bit her lip to keep from yelling more.”

“Head,” finished Darius. “I told you that it was a low cave,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But I guess you just had to find out for yourself.”

Instead of tossing back a bitter retort, Merle pulled her shoulders back and ducked her head. She made a mental note to tell Van not to send her out anywhere with Darius again. If he did, he might end up short a tracker by the time she made it back to Fannelia.

***

Hitomi didn't bother to raise her hand. She knew the answer, but she also knew that, sooner or later, the professor would call on her when no one spoke up. Truth be told, she didn't mind being called on so much; and she wouldn't have cared at all on that fine, cloudy morning if she wasn't so damn tired. Why was she so tired in the first place? Hitomi stared at her blank notebook paper. It wasn't as if she had gone without too much sleep this past week. Right?

“Miss Kanzaki?”

Sighing, Hitomi lifted her bleary gaze from her notebook to her professor. The very sight of her Latin professor always made her smile, especially when the short man wore his day-glo blue or green suit. He was wearing the green one, she noted. Professor Williams was from England, one of the university's many foreign transplants done in the name of diversity. As far as looks went, he didn't exactly fit in; wearing those bright suits didn't help any.

“Miss Kanzaki, can you tell me what, `Abutebaris modo subjunctivo denuo,' means?” he asked. After only two weeks into the introductory course and having realized that Hitomi had a rather good grasp of Latin, he did not hesitate to look to her to answer questions.

“You've been misusing the subjunctive again,” Hitomi said.

“Exactly!” The professor hopped off to stare at the rest of the class. “Every day in class, you will hear such things spoken only in Latin. There's no better way to learn a language than total immersion!”

Hitomi blocked out the rest of his speech. Williams had a tendency to repeat himself; this wasn't the first time he had reminded them that he would speak in Latin for almost the entirety of the class. Which was ironic as he was currently babbling away in Japanese.

“Come. Follow me.”

Hitomi's head jerked and she sat up, looking around. Professor Williams was busy lecturing in Latin and most students were paying him rapt attention. The tenor of the voice echoed in her head. No one around her had spoken, but it felt as if the words had been whispered by her ear.

“Miss Kanzaki? Can you tell me the origin of…”

Hitomi felt herself going through the standard motions of the dedicated student, answering questions and scratching notes into her notebook with an old pen. The voice faded from her mind.

***

“Olin, surely you jest!” Karlos insisted. The Rennochian diplomat's girth shook as he chuckled. “My lord Van, can this man really be speaking the truth?”

Smiling, Van reached for his goblet and nodded. “Olin makes many of the best warriors in the realm look like scared children, but I assume you haven't heard how he fears his own wife more than death itself!”

The man in question, Fannelia's General of the Northern Forces, rubbed the back of his head and grimaced as if remembering some harsh blow. “If your wife could drink you under the table, Lord Karlos, and then drag your unconscious body to bed, you'd be wary, too,” said Olin. “I love the woman, but she could put fear into the heart of a dragon!”

“Then I feel lucky to be unwed,” said a soft voice, laced with humor and sparking with wit.

The three men looked up in unison as a slight figure shuffled into Van's study. In the darkness of the room, the wooden furniture and books dimly lit by a series of candles, the young man's pale skin seemed to glow. His green, unseeing eyes remained focused forward. The young man ran a hand through his fair hair.

Van stood up and motioned for him to sit, even though the gesture was wasted on him. “Sit down, Kilao. The chair with the carved back and patterned cushion is open.”

He smiled and bowed in the direction of his king's voice. “Thank you, milord. I was afraid I would be interrupting something important and would ruin my reputation for good timing, but I see I had nothing to worry about.” His smile grew wider, as though he really could see and knew that the other men in the room had caught on to his sad little joke. Kilao walked to the open chair, sat down, and hid his hands in the voluminous sleeves of his maroon robes.

“Lord Karlos, I don't believe you've met my counselor, Kilao Tsuin,” Van said.

Karlos tipped his head back. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine, or I'm sure it should be,” quipped Kilao, nodding.

Van let himself relax a little. With Kilao present, he had little to worry about. The man was nothing if not brilliant and could handle the particulars of negotiations better than anyone else he'd ever met. Whatever problem Karlos had to throw at Van, Kilao would be a vital advisor.

***

The fire had warmed the entire cave, but Merle still felt cold. She looked around and watched her fellow travelers huddle together for warmth. Were she not so restless, she might have joined them. Instead, she stood and stretched. The troupe had gone far enough into the cave to keep out of the rain and wind, but the back of the cave had remained largely unexplored- a problem she was determined to solve shortly.

With a hand trailing the wall of the cave, she walked away from the group and into the outer fringes of the fire's light. Merle kicked loose stones with each step and felt for grooves in the wall. A glimpse of bright fur caught her eye and she paused. It was Darius, she knew, and if she turned around soon enough, there was a chance he wouldn't notice her.

“Merle?”

Too late.

Merle lifted her chin and toyed with a loose bracelet. “Darius.” She stood a little straighter. “You're not by the fire?”

“That's my line,” he said. Darius stepped a little closer to the light and looked at the wall of the cave.

Merle caught her breath. “If only he wasn't such an asshole…” she whispered to herself after suddenly finding the dirt at her feet rather interesting.

“Huh?” Darius tilted his head in confusion.

“Nothing.”

Shrugging, Darius pointed to the wall of the cave. “I was checking out the old carvings. My brother and I used to come here all the time, just to look at them even though we can't understand any of it.”

“Carvings?” Merle followed his gaze and gasped. At that moment, she forgot about being cold, about Darius the asshole, and about her earlier misjudging of the weather. “These carvings…”

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Author's Commentary: Ooh, a cliffhanger! Okay, so maybe it's more of a hilltop… The point is that I finally got off of my butt to finish this chapter. I don't know what took me so long, but I really did plan on having this thing posted less than a week after the first. Anyway, that's the end of this chapter. I hope it was at least entertaining. At any rate, it's something, and something is usually better than nothing.

As always, constructive criticism is welcome. It is time for Maverick to go find a productive hobby.