Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Her Name ❯ The Light of Day ( Chapter 1 )

Her Name

Disclaimer: I do not own Escaflowne: a Girl in Gaea at all, or the series, Vision of Escaflowne, and I make no money from this work of fanfiction at all.

A/N: This is my first foray into the Escaflowne universe. I saw the movie first, and watched it several times, so I hope I get the characterizations right. If not, please tell me. It's also an attempt to sort out some questions I had. I hope you enjoy it, but if you think things are off... well, this is my interpretation.

"Her name is Hitomi, not Wing Goddess," she said, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at Allen, as they stood on the bridge of the land ship, Crusade.

"She was the Wing Goddess," Allen went on, when Millerna interrupted him again.

"And she was a girl, from the Mystic Moon, but an ordinary girl. You could tell just by looking at her… Well, not ordinary, but you get my meaning. She was a special person, but she was human, too. All the reverence she got after the death of old Folkie made her uncomfortable."

"When she wasn't attached to Van, you mean," Allen said with a faint smile, seeing his second in command bristle like an annoyed cat- or an annoyed Merle for that matter.

"They made an… appropriate couple," Millerna said softly, turning away, seeming to deflate. "The Dragon King and the Winged Goddess…"

"But you never saw her that way, did you? To you, she was a chick fallen from a nest. A pretty little bird, who was lost and alone," he said shrewdly, and saw the hidden wince from this second.

"She's gone, Millerna… you have to let her go," the golden haired leader of the Abaharki said with compassion, knowing what it was like to lose someone you loved.

"Right… who do you mean, Hitomi, or your little sister?" Millerna shot back, and Allen frowned for the first time in this conversation.

"That was a low shot… But she wasn't my little sister, either. I know how close you two had been as children," he murmured, and turned from her, head hanging slightly.

"I loved her too, Allen."

Silence reigned for several minutes, as both thought about their lives. Millerna, the princess without a country- so much like Van, a ruler in exile. Allen had lost his family to the Black Dragon, without any reason to live.

"Celena would have wanted you to go on with your life... and you were too young to love each other like that."

"You damn well know I loved her like that, even if we were barely five at the time... I know she didn't like me like that, but we pretended. I was her Knight when you couldn't bother to play with her," Millerna reminisced.

"It wasn't your fault we lost her," Allen reminded, but with a self-recriminating edge.

"Nor was it yours," Millerna whispered, remembering the day she had been visited by her best friend, as the Black Dragon Forces had attacked, being separated...

Leaning over, Millerna tried not to cry. Her people were gone; she was only part of this ragtag band of rebels...

At least the Black Dragon Clan had been thorough, she thought sourly. There weren't enough people left outside of BD held lands to fight over resources... Her sisters would have known how to go about rebuilding things. Millerna had been part of the war so long she didn't know any other way of life. They however... along with her parents... had died during that fateful attack.

"Think on the bright side, Mill," Allen teased. "The leftovers of the Black Dragon Clan are too busy fighting themselves to worry about us, the beast people and humans are getting along for once, the harvests were good despite the war so no one will starve..."

"Yeah, and a lot fewer people to eat it," Millerna snapped, and Allen finally left. There was just no talking to her when she was in one of those moods.

Whimpering softly, the disenfranchised princess looked up to the heavens, seeing the ordinary, beautiful face of her dreams in the blue reflection of the Mystic Moon.

~*~*~*~*~

Hitomi blinked sleepily, warm sun filtering through her windows to warm her face and pull her from slumber. Part of her resented this- there is always a cheated feeling that comes from being waked from a dream.

It had been three months since her return from Gaea, and Hitomi's life had gotten... both better and worse. The all-pervasive depression that had made her wish to just wink out had faded... She took joy in her old activities like track, talking and playing with her friend Yukari, talking about Yukari's new boyfriend Amano, and doing well in school. Yet... while there was joy, it was tamed. It was like staring at a well remembered, much handled photo. The colors were faded even though it was a happy thing.

Yukari would come over, always surprised and a little timid that her friend had pulled out of her long spiral of depression and treated her with kid gloves. Her guardians, distant cousins of her mother, were content to let her stay in her family's old apartment so she could keep going to the school she had grown up in.

Rolling over, Hitomi looked at the old family portrait she kept by her bed on her desk and smiled faintly at it.

"What would you all think of what happened? Would you call it a dream? Or a vision? Or a bad drug trip?"

None of her family had survived the bus accident, which had claimed their lives. Hitomi had lived because she had been spending the night at Yukari's.

Everyone had thought she had handled the horrible aftermath, the funeral, all of it, very well. What they didn't know, or didn't want to see, was the slow slide into nothingness she had begun by keeping everything inside.

"I miss you all... I miss you Van, too."

She supposed, that the worst of it, was that Dune had disappeared. Her imaginary friend, who had appeared to her in the train station that day, had stopped visiting her when her family had died. Her imaginary friend that had turned out so solidly real that she nearly wanted to vomit. The betrayal there... It had hurt.

"Wing Goddess," her mouth twisted at the word. She'd been brought there by her childhood 'bestest friend' to destroy his world because he couldn't be king! What a load of SHIT!

However- before her mental tirade could continue a wave of nausea hit her and sent her stumbling for the bathroom.

For several minutes it seemed that Hitomi's world had narrowed to the cold porcelain of the toilet, her knees being bruised and the burning vomit coming up her throat. Gasping, she was grateful she hadn't eaten yet... There wasn't much to come up now.

"Fifth... damn time... this week," she wheezed, climbing to her feet and rinsing her mouth out and splashing her face. She wondered what the hell could be wrong with her, and leaned up against the doorframe and sighed.

//"Hitomi?" asked a startled voice, and little Hitomi looked up at her bestest friend in weird clothes, and whimpered, tears making her big eyes shiny.

"I fall down," she cried, looking at her bloody knee. It hurt!

"Poor Hitomi," Dune mumbled, and sat besides her, picking her up to cuddle. Hitomi was happy to have someone to hold on to, as he got to his feet. "What happened?"

"I was looking at that," she pointed, at a big bird flapping down the street. "And I didn't see that," she then pointed to a crack in the sidewalk.

"You went following the birds again?" Dune said in a chiding tone. "You shouldn't do that without your okaasan and otousan."

"But they're PRITTY! Thoses wings are so pritty!" the child tried to explain. She had always had a love of wings, whether on birds or butterflies. Dune smiled and shook his head.

"You are as adventurous as my brother," he said to himself, looking away. It was little more than a deep scrape, but to a child that could mean the end of the world. Fumbling with the many pockets his robes afforded him; he found a small jar of balm and a clean handkerchief to put over the ouchie.

Hitomi beamed as her hurt stopped hurting and became so much prettier.

"Thank you Dune! You is my bestest friend! I gonna marry you!"//

"What happened, Dune? Folken?" Hitomi wandered, feeling like a noodle, back to her futon and sat heavily down on it. It sighed under her weight.

To a child, it had made perfect sense. He was her hero, best friend, so they should get married...

Then she laughed, grabbed her pillow and tossed it into the air. "Of course, at the time, I thought more of him as a big sister than anything else..."

Unbidden, thoughts of Gaea drifted through her mind, and she was happy that she was the weekend. With a soft omph, she fell back into her bed and smiled.

Closing her eyes again, she drifted off, as a pair of blue, welcoming eyes looked into hers, forcing her to remember the sunlight and to start living.

~*~*~*~*~

"I wonder what she's doing?" Millerna muttered, looking up at the dim shape of the Mystic Moon.

"Who?" Gaddess asked, as both warriors hammered nails on a new house. Dryden, their old friend and backer, was now helping the relief effort and the former soldiers were now carpenters and craftsmen (or trying to be).

Millerna had finally returned to Asturia, and the survivors of her people had been housed in the remains of the cities. The entire old government had been wiped out; the nobility had been living cheek by jowl with the peasantry for so many years, and in the same conditions, that there had been little difference between them. In fact, a village council had been created- the people had learned to handle themselves; they didn't need a princess who didn't know how to negotiate without a sword.

"Hitomi, dufus."

"I don't know, boss-lady... Doing whatever it is a goddess would do, I guess?" he shrugged and went back to laying slate shingles.

"She-" and then Millerna sighed and shook her head. There was no use arguing. She could remember being treated much the same way when she had been a princess. How she had envied Van his escape back to Adom village.

"Hey, don't hammer them like that," Gaddess said, and showed her the correct way to pound in the nails. Millerna wryly realized she wasn't much of a carpenter.

"I wish I could visit the Mystic Moon," she said offhandedly. "Hitomi mentioned some amazing things about it."

~*~*~*~*~

Hitomi woke with a start; surprised that she had thought she could hear Millerna and Gaddess chatting. Then she shook her head.

She was gone from Gaea. Yet...

"That's crazy, Hitomi."

Trying to convince herself of this, Hitomi surged to her feet and looked around, and went about the morning ritual of bathing and dressing, then pulled her lips back in a snarl.

"Sora told me* that I was her successor as the Tsubasa no Kami. I wish I knew what that meant," she grumped, while brushing her teeth. She and Yukari were going to go see End of Evangelion that afternoon. While part of her just wanted to keep right on sleeping, she had made a promise…

"I bet Millerna would have liked Evangelion, even if Asuka was a bit of a bitch, she would have appreciated the girls getting to fight," the Winged Goddess laughed, combing her short hair. Today, she was dressed in pale green tank top and jeans, with some old, well worn running shoes. She frowned, when the usually loose jeans didn't quite want to fit, but was able to get them on.

"I've put on some weight."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Millerna smiled, in a bittersweet way, when it became completely clear to her how she wasn't needed to rule. Unlike Van, who had a personal vendetta against the Black Dragons, Millerna had kept going because she felt that her people needed her to. She had become a living symbol- and now that symbol was obsolete.

"I'm dead weight now, aren't I?" she said to no one, but Allen looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"You could always run in the elections," he pointed out.

"If I was elected, what would I do? You know as well as I do, my experience is with commanding squads, companies- but nothing in politics. I'm blunt, I'm calloused, and I'm NOT a virgin, which they would insist upon, I'm a lesbian- I am a disaster waiting to happen."

"You could always marry Dryden," Allen commented dryly.

"Then people would be expecting children, and I won't marry him, I don't want you to be jealous of me," she said with wicked humor, and Allen stiffened. While Millerna had accepted her tastes long before, Allen had been bred and trained to be a 'ladies' man' and had fought his desires by being a playboy.

Millerna sighed at the affronted expression on Allen's face, and watched him go off to sulk. She shook her head in annoyance. It never ceased to amaze her how the leader of the Abaharki could be both so brilliant and yet so… dense.

She wondered what Hitomi would have thought of this.

Suddenly the Crusade was suddenly stifling. The Princess couldn't breath. Running outside, she yanked her sword clear of its sheath and lurched into the most difficult kata she knew. Completing that, sloppily, she started another, trying to force away her thoughts with exercise.

Foolish woman, she berated herself. You always thought you would die in the war. Never thought you would actually win… You let yourself become attached to someone else who would leave you…

Like everyone else left you…

With a vicious kick, she snapped an inoffensive board that had been left after they had finished helping build some barns. Panting, she screamed, head tilted back to accuse the two Moons of all her troubles.

Falling to her knees, she sobbed out the anger and frustration that had plagued her for so long. The Moons didn't care. She wasn't so stupid as to think they were really the causes…

"I want to see you, Hitomi," she said softly, "just so I can get closure- I need to know. I have to know!"

Unnoticed to Millerna, smoke had started to ring its way around her, and then suddenly leapt into flame. Fire crept up on her, rising higher and higher, and Millerna looked back up at the Mystic Moon, her eyes wide with some unnamed emotion- perhaps wonder.

The blaze surrounded her, whirled around in a cyclone of smoke and heat-

And Princess Millerna was gone.

To be continued!

*Denotes another story I have in the works to answer the question: Who is the Wing Goddess?

A/N: This chapter is the set up for several simultaneous storylines I have in mind. One to explain why Dune became Folken the nihilistic bastard, one to explain the Wing Goddess, one to explain the origins of Movie Dilandau, and some romance all around for everyone. If you have flames about the pairings, go ahead and send them and I'll laugh my ass off. If you can't tell, this story is MAJORLY slashy. If you don't care for it, keep reading and become more open minded. It will do you some good. I don't mind you stopping if the writing is bad- I do that all the time.