Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Journey of Fire and Shadow ❯ Part One ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Well, this is written in response to episode 14. DO NOT HATE ME, for this fic is NOT what it seems at first. Don't stop reading at the end of the second part. Don't think that after nearly crying seeing the poor dragonslayers die, that I would actually do that to Dilandau and his soldiers. I haven't seen a fic like this before, so give it a chance. Please. I LIVE on reviews, so tell me that you're out there, reading. This means a lot to me. I'm trying to pour as much heart into this as I can, so it would kill me not to get reviews.

Oh, and I don't own Escaflowne. If I did, the DS would not be dead, and Dilandau would beat Van into a bloody pulp.

Onward! (yes, I always say this ^_^)


JOURNEY OF SHADOW AND FLAME: PART ONE by Feye Morgan



"Wha-what's happening?!?" Dilandau's cry echoed through the desolate battlefield.

They were falling. One by one. So quickly. The beautiful guymelefs, the magnifiscent Alseides were falling. His Angels of Death crumpled under the Dragon's claws. Their screams pierced Dilandau's ears. His head rang with them.

~No. No. This can't be happening. NO!~

Dalet fell, his guymelef pooling on the rocky earth as blood. Blood and flame.

"Dilandau-sama! Aiiiiiii-"

Chesta...

"Dilandau-sama!"

Dilandau stared in shock. The world swayed, blurring between the bars of his visor.

~No. They can't be...what is this? Demon! No!~

Terror gripped the general's heart. Escaflowne turned toward him, surrounded by the pitiful ruins of his soldiers.

"And this is for Fanelia!" The triumphant ring in Fanel's voice washed Dilandau in icy fear.

"N-NO! STAY AWAY! GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Dilandau shrank back in his cockpit, hysterical beyond coherent thought. Still, the White Dragon came for him.

"Stop."

The calm tone echoed, soft, yet it penetrated the deepest recesses of the rocky hills.

"Nani?" Van growled. Dilandau blinked. His hysterics subsided slightly.

~What? Dalet? But you-you're dead, aren't you?~ No, maybe they were still alive. Maybe-

Pale shades. Ghosts. Eerie, ethereal beings of light and shadow. It was them. The Dragonslayers. His Dragonslayers. But they...

"You may not kill Dilandau-sama."

"What?" Van snarled. Dilandau could tell from his voice that he was confused. He could just see Van twisting his scrawny neck from side to side, searching.

"You may not kill Dilandau-sama."

Then they were there, surrounding him. Dilandau gasped. They were -protecting- him, even in death. Through the pain, Dilandau's hazy mind registered a glimmer of pride.

"He gave us our guymelefs. He gave us our magnifiscent guymelefs. You may not hurt the man who bestowed upon us the honor of being his Dragonslayers."

~Yes! Disable him! Then I can kill him! And we can go back to the Vione...~

But any hopes that his beloved soldiers were coming back were shattered with their next haunting words:

"Come with us."

~No.~

The red alseides was silent, motionless, as the Dragonslayers moved away from him, reaching for the Dragon. Van screamed. The Dragon gleamed black as obsidian, and fell.

Quiet. Quiet but for the blue flames that were now dying out. There was no sign of the Dragonslayers. They were gone. Dead. The smell of smoke and burning flesh permeated the air. Stifling.

"AIIIIIII!!! SHESTA! GATTI! DALET! VIOLE! No..."

Dilandau fled.

~*~*~*~

Some time later, on the last battlefield, a red Oreides searches for vengeance. A mysterious blinding flash of light has destroyed the Zaibach army. But Dilandau doesn't know this. Dilandau doesn't care. Dilandau has only one goal: kill the Dragon.

"Van!"

The ghosts of the dead whisper to Dilandau Albatou, and he heeds them. His eyes gleam with bloodlust, all sanity gone that once may have been there. All hope of salvation lies in the red tears of the Dragon.

"The red guymelef." Van turns in Escaflowne to meet his archenemy.

~Kill him. Kill him. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die~ The chanting pounds in his head like blood through his veins.

The ghosts' whispering stops. Something is wrong. Again. They can feel it. But the crazed general pays no heed. One goal exists, and only one goal.

Avenge. Their. Deaths.

And he comes. The electric shock of their swords clashing together thrills Dilandau. Adreneline courses through his body, putting his senses on high alert.

But it is not enough. One arm. A leg. Now the last arm. Dilandau's Oreades falls to the bloodstained earth.

Dilandau clenches his teeth so tightly they threaten to break.

~I will not die without tasting the Dragon's lifeblood~

Dilandau scrambles out of his guymelef just in time. Escaflowne's sword cleaves the helm and chest of the Oreades in two. Dilandau stares at the Dragon defiantly, ruby eyes shining from the fire around him. His silver hair catches the light, giving him an ephemeral, otherwordly appearance.

"Come out, Van! Come out and fight me face to face!"

Escaflowne pauses. Dilandau unsheathes his sword and points it at the Dragon.

"You owe me a blood debt, Fanelia."

The cockpit of the Escaflowne shoots open with a hiss. Van Fanel jumps to the ground, cinnamon eyes blazing with hatred.

"-I- owe -you- a blood debt?" he hisses.

Dilandau snarls.

"You baka. I'll spill your blood for what you did to Fanelia." Van trembles with rage.

Dilandau grins, and charges, the voices of his soldiers ringing in his ears.

Swords clash, reflecting the fading sunlight. The dance of death begins. Dilandau slashes at Van's stomach. Van leans back, flipping Dilandau's sword to the side and lunging. Dilandau dodges, twists, and slices at Van's head. Fanelia counters, leaning against the impact. Swords hilt to hilt, they strain against the other's strength. Noses almost touching, eyes locked, hatred burning in each heart.

"You killed my dragonslayers."

"You destroyed Fanelia."

They break apart, circling each other.

"Do you feel no remorse for what you have done? The countless lives you have taken?" Van screams at his archenemy.

"Do you feel no remorse at what you did to them? Chesta, Gatti, Dalet, Viole, Refina? You-"

Dilandau screams and charges Van, attacking with unparalleled frenzy. Momentarily stunned, Van falls back a few steps.

~I will have him yet. I will soak my hands in his blood yet!~

Flushed with victory, Dilandau makes a mistake.

Silver arcs through the air. Dilandau's sword sinks into the earth several feet away. Following through, Van lunges, impaling Dilandau through his midsection.

"Oh..." Dilandau gasps.

~The pain. Oh the pain. I have failed you! Oh my beloved soldiers I have failed you! No!~

Van twists the sword cruelly and jerks it out of Dilandau's body. The albino crumples to the ground, crimson liquid staining the earth beneath him. Calmly Van kneels down beside Dilandau, and, looking him in the eyes, carefully wipes his sword on the fallen's armor. Dilandau shudders. The feel of that hard steel, the wet drenching of his own blood; it all serves to remind the albino of his failure. Without another word, Van walks away, fading from Dilandau's sight.

~No~

Dilandau fades into darkness.


~*~*~*~

~Where am I? I thought I was dead~

Dilandau stood on an endless grey plain, still dressed in his armor. There was no sky, nothing for as far as his eyes could see.

Dilandau gasped. Out of nowhere, the dead appeared. Colorless shades of shadow, they marched on, towards some distant goal. Dilandau even recognized some of them from the Zaibach army.

~These are the dead of battle. I am one of them. But, where are we going?~ Dilandau had no choice but to march alongside them.

Each step was a burden. The farther he went, the heavier he felt. Tired. He was so tired. Just forget it all...

Something was ahead. There were walls, towering cliff sides with no ceiling. They simply went on forever into the dark. The walls narrowed closer and closer. The procession kept on marching in silence.

~A light up ahead...~

The light grew brighter, hardening shadows in the rock walls, which were now so close that he nearly scraped himself on their harsh edges.

~But can I even cut myself anymore?~ He wondered hazily. He felt himself drifting away, drifting into the growing light, no longer caring. Vengeance no longer existed. There was nothing...

Dilandau was saved merely by luck. If he had not been pushed so close to the rock side, he would have passed into oblivion. But, as fate would have it, Dilandau felt someone grasp his arm and pull. Before he could react, he was tugged bodily into a crevasse in the rock's face. Dilandau struggled against his captors.

"The light! Must...get...back...march..."

"No Dilandau-sama!"

That voice shattered the spell.

~I -know- that voice~

"C-chesta?"

The ghostly faces of his Dragonslayers shone with an eerie witchlight. Stunned, Dilandau stared at them.

"Surely, my lord Dilandau, you did not expect us to forget you."

Dilandau's mouth worked for a few seconds before he could get any sound out.

"But, the light. Did it not capture you as well?"

Chesta's face fell. "Not all of us made it, Dilandau-sama. Only Dalet, Gatti, Voile, Refina, Guimel and I were saved."

"Saved? By whom?" Dilandau was curious.

"Migel."

"Migel?!" Dilandau searched the faces of his soldiers until he found the familiar chestnut hair. "Migel."

The Dragonslayers merely smiled, and kneeled to their recovered lord.

"We are at your service, Dilandau-sama."

It all came back to him in a rush. His defeat. Van's sword stealing his lifeblood. That icy, alien substance slowly wiping crimson droplets on his armor.

"Why?" he snarled. "What point is there? Were DEAD. How can you serve me any longer?" Dilandau glared at them, his fury threatening to drown him.

"May I speak, my lord?" Migel asked.

Dilandau simply stared at him, lips pressed tightly together. Migel took that as a 'yes'.

"My lord, while I was here, I took the liberty of exploring a bit. These crevasses extend for quite some ways back, opening into caverns. I looked through many of them-"

"Get to the point, Lavariel."

"Yes, sir. In one of these caverns is...writing."

"Writing? What do you mean? Explain yourself!"

"Others before us have escaped the march into the underworld. Many of them wrote on the walls of what they had left behind, and what business they sorely wished they could have set to rest. But one of them in particular wrote of a way to get back to the realm of the living."

Dilandau stared. "Get...back?"

Migel nodded dutifully. "Yes, my Lord Dilandau. You might like to see for yourself."

Dilandau nodded, a glimmer of hope lighting his heart. "Show me."

Dilandau followed Migel through the caves, leaving the light behind. At first Dilandau was worried that they might be plunged into darkness without the light, but instead his surroundings simply took on the same opressive grey tones he had first encountered in this realm.

The caves took so many twists and turns that Dilandau would have been lost had he been alive and wandering these caves. But death seemed to have lent the albino and his soldiers an uncanny sense of direction.

Dilandau did not know how long they walked for. There was no time in the realm of the dead. Nor was there time in the limbo in which he existed now, trapped between life and the gateway to Hades. He caught glimpses of many strange caverns through the openings in the passageway he was treading. Water falling endlessly in one, strange shimmering half-lights in another.

~I must come back and inspect these...that is, if we do not escape~

"Here it is, Dilandau-sama."

Dilandau strode through a cavern opening after Migel, the rest of his soldiers at his heels. The general walked up to the spot on the wall where Migel was pointing.

"It is here. I have read of it, and I have found it. The old tales were true. Qwynn Silverlord returned from the dead. So shall I. He wrote of it in his journal. Only I have uncovered it. It was buried deep in one of my family's chests, underneath a false bottom. All who read this passage I write here, have hope. There is a way back.

"The path is dangerous. Do not attempt to return unless your heart is desperate. There is plenty of room for wandering souls in the caves. Be warned. Once you begin, there is no turning back. If you falter at any point, your spirit will be destroyed.

"In one of the caverns there is a six-pointed star etched onto the wall. I do not know what it means. Beings long before Qwynn arrived set this into motion. You must place your hand upon this star. If your desire is strong enough, a space in the wall will appear, revealing a long pathway into darkness. Beyond this, or so I have read, are trials of various sorts. All of them are of the spirit. The journal does not speak of them. Perhaps they cannot be described. But beyond them lies freedom. I go now to enter the door myself. May fortune fare well with all those who follow in my footsteps, if indeed fortune dares to exist in such a place as this."

Dilandau reread the words in silence, mulling over them. He had once heard of Qwynn Silverlord. He was a great warrior of legend, from long ago, killed in battle trying to avenge the death of his comrade.

~Not so unlike myself~

The Dragonslayers watched their leader patiently.

"Migel."

"Dilandau-sama?"

"How many caverns are there here?"

"An infinite amount, my lord. But I have already found the star."

Dilandau whirled around. "You found it? Then why did you not enter it?"

"I did not wish to go alone." Migel looked at Dilandau and held his gaze steadily.

Dilandau studied Migel carefully. He nodded. "You wished to wait for us?"

"Somehow I did not think you would be far behind."

Dilandau raised a silvery eyebrow. Migel ducked his head, fearing his forwardness might have earned himself one of his lord's infamous slaps. But Dilandau did nothing. Instead, he smiled wickedly, glancing once again at the words carved in stone.

"Shall we?"

Muahahahahahahaha!!!! And so I leave you. There is more to come. I was going to make this a one-shot, but I got too tired, and I need to think of ideas for the 'trials'. I heave to make this good. Please review! Looking back, I don't think this is that good at all. Other fics I've read put me to shame, they describe the characters so vividly. I need to know how well I've done. Or how poorly. Any comment or suggestion fills me with happiness and vigour and impetus to move forward and improve!!!!!! Please? *cute chibi eyes