Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Mark of a Goddess ❯ A Breath of Air ( Chapter 20 )

Chapter 20

A Breath of Air

 

Hitomi walked away from the training gym feeling miserable. Van was stubborn! `Oh well,' she thought grimly, `At least he's honest about it.' She couldn't bring herself to think bad thoughts about him. She was too overcome by the passion of his personality to do much more than walk. He was so intense that she felt like she was burning. Whether this turned out the way she wanted it to or not … Van was amazing to her! Even when he was wrong - he was still amazing.

Hitomi was passing through part of the main house when she saw a light coming from Dryden's study. She couldn't believe he was still awake. It was late and she needed to get some sleep herself, but who could sleep after a conversation like that? Not only that, but she hadn't had the chance to speak with Dryden since he got back and she wanted to talk to him, so she tiptoed up to the entrance.

“Hi Dryden,” Hitomi said as she entered the dimly lit room.

Dryden lifted his head from the glare of his computer screen and looked at Hitomi. “Oh, hello,” he said, picking up his glasses and putting them on. It was interesting to see him without them. This was one of the first times. He looked tired.

“Why are you still awake?” she asked, approaching the desk and picking up a post-it pad. “Are you having more problems with your corporation?”

“My corporation? Oh, them. Aw, well, the board is still pissed off with me, but my mother stood up for me when she came to meet me in Madrid. Once The Sun God was involved, she said that the wishes of the company were second to my role as a Tarot user and took it upon herself to tell them off. It wasn't much, but it didn't have to be. She owns a lot of shares and since she generally just lets them do whatever they want, they listen to her when she makes requests.”

“Well, then why wasn't she standing up for you earlier?” Hitomi asked, setting the booklet back down.

“Most the time she can't be bothered with my petty problems. She thinks I'm a man and should be able to take care of myself. She only stands up for me when I've tried my hardest to make things work and things still aren't playing out right.”

“Hm … like with Naria and Eriya?” Hitomi questioned, thinking that she heard him say that his mother had stood up for him then, too.

Dryden looked thoughtful. “That was for their protection, not mine.”

“Huh?” Hitomi asked, confused. She thought that it had definitely been the other way around. Hadn't they been hounding Dryden?

Dryden leaned back in his chair and shrugged his shoulders.

“Why would that have been for their protection?” Hitomi asked.

Dryden turned and absently flipped a page on his desk. “So, what do you think of The Sun God? I wanted to wait until we were alone before I asked you your impression of him.”

“Well, I'd met him before. He was living at Van's house when I moved in.”

“Yeah, Van said that.”

“Back then, I didn't get any special feeling from him. I just thought he was an ordinary kid. I was completely fooled by him,” Hitomi admitted.

“Naturally,” Dryden conceded. “You would have been incredible if you had sensed anything. I meant, now that you've met him as a Tarot user?”

“Hmm … I'm not sure. But you knew who he was all along, didn't you? That's why you were afraid of him. You were worried what he might think of you. I don't understand why you would tense up about it. You are an absolute angel! You couldn't have anything to fret about,” Hitomi said, thinking of all the times Dryden had supported her and Van.

“You think I'm an angel?” Dryden asked, glancing at her. Then he started scribbling something on the back of one of the pages he'd been working on before dropping the pen and looking at her more intently. “Oh Kanzaki,” he breathed, using his pet name for her that he only used in extremely intimate moments between them. “If we talk about that, I'm afraid that I'll destroy any pretty little ideas you might have about me. You might believe somewhere in your gentle heart that I'm a good guy deep down inside and if I tell you the truth about me, I won't be able to take it back. I think I want to stay a good person in your eyes. Right now, yours are about the only eyes that don't seem to look down on me for misbehaviour. Even when we were in school and you say you thought that I was a man-whore, you still didn't look down on me the way you would if I told you the truth about myself. Because you don't know all about me, there's no discriminating witness in you. I kind of like that. I don't think I want to tell you.” He wasn't looking at her. His hair was not tied in the usual ponytail and his hair was falling casually around his shoulders. There was a thick silver chain around his neck that fell under his shirt. But it was the expression on his face that caused Hitomi to worry; he somehow looked defenseless - like he was in trouble.

“How do you know I'd be hard on you, even if you told me everything?” she asked gently. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to confide in her, but she knew that even if he didn't tell her about himself, she had to let him know that she wouldn't judge him, no matter what he had done.

“I know you wouldn't be hard on me.” Dryden smiled an odd half smile and peeked at Hitomi over the rims of his glasses. “But throwing myself on your mercy would make me feel like the penance I've served has been worthless when I could have just cried on your lap to begin with.”

“Why would you need forgiveness from me?” Hitomi said, not understanding what he meant by that comment.

Here, he abruptly frowned. “I also couldn't let you carry my burdens. I'm supposed to be the one helping you.”

“I'm not begging you to tell me,” Hitomi said tartly. “I only wanted you to know that even if I were to find out everything about you, I still wouldn't think worse of you, or forbid you to be my friend. You have been a spectacular friend to me, Dryden. And I won't let you walk around thinking that our friendship is conditional. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. If you like the way I look at you now, then I'll look at you like this forever if that's the way you want it.”

“Even if you find out about me from another source?”

“Even then,” Hitomi promised earnestly.

Dryden looked at her, as if gauging her fortitude, and then, he said slowly and humbly, “Then I would beg you to listen to my story.” He beckoned for her to sit in one of the chairs.

She sat and looked into his face.

“So, I'm The Lover and I came into my powers at the age of seven. I can tell you right now that that's not a good thing. I have many wholesome qualities and natural attributes that help me understand people and to love them no matter what sort they are. I know that's mostly what you've seen in me. I've almost tried to hide the other half of my personality from you, though it's impossible. At least, I've tried to shield you from the reality of it.” He paused, and the expression on his face let Hitomi know he was having a hard time speaking. “The truth is that you were right the first time you saw me. I am the whore you thought I was.”

Hitomi didn't blink. She hated to tell him that she was disappointed in his confession. She thought it was going to be something far more interesting than this. She already knew that he was loose. “It can't be that bad. You told me before that you never got anyone pregnant.”

Dryden gulped. “Well, normally Tarot users do not have the ability have children with people who are not also Tarot users. My mother believes that I am an exception to this rule, and that it may be possible for me to have children with an ordinary human. However, if possible, I would rather not discuss this portion of my history with you. I took very careful precautions to ensure that I would not get anyone pregnant. It is horrible enough to get a girl pregnant when that's not your intent, but to have the child be a Tarot user would be much worse. So, I was painstakingly careful, but like I said, I'd rather not discuss it in detail. Is that okay with you?”

“I'm sure I'd rather not hear the details,” Hitomi said eagerly, waiting for the rest of his story.

“Thank you,” he said, before he sat up and continued. “To tell you the absolute truth, before I met Selphie, I have no clue how many women I slept with,” Dryden said ruthlessly. He watched Hitomi carefully to see her reaction.

Here Hitomi didn't just blink, but she gaped. At first, she couldn't even speak. “No idea at all?” she finally whispered.

“Well a vague idea … vague,” he said, finally turning his face away in scarlet shame.

“You'd do it with anyone?” Hitomi asked through chapped lips.

“Sorry, Hitomi,” he said, looking downcast and disgraced. “It must have been something like that. I think I was behaving like an animal and just went where my nose took me - to anyone who needed a lover that night.”

“Did you get paid?” she asked, still feeling sick. Hitomi couldn't imagine doing what she did with Van with just anyone. How could someone live like that?

“That would have been against what I was trying to do. I would see a lonely, lost, needing little woman and I would feel like I should be the one to take care of her. At least, until it was time to move on. Sometimes I'd stay for a month, sometimes a week, sometimes less than a few hours. I didn't settle down and decide on one girlfriend because I used to travel with my mother when I was growing up. I'm not really interested in explaining the details about this either. The short version was simply that I was always meeting new women and always making them feel better … at least I thought I was making them feel better … and I never saw what happened to them after I disappeared, because I was gone.” He paused. Hitomi didn't think that this was how most young men talked about their exploits. These didn't sound like exploits to Dryden, but instead it seemed more like he regarded them as crimes. “I don't know what I thought I was doing. I must have thought that there was nothing wrong with sleeping around like that.”

“Didn't your mother notice what you were doing? Didn't she care?” Hitomi asked, thinking of how her own father would have hit the ceiling if he even suspected her of impropriety.

When he continued, his voice was dryer than his name. “Well, I kept it a secret from her as long as I could, but eventually she found out about the kinds of things I had been doing. Once she found out, she didn't like it at all. She used to beat me when I got to the hotel room after one of these `adventures'. She knew just by looking at me that I had been fooling around.”

“Did that stop you from doing it?”

“Sometimes … mostly when I was a younger teenager,” Dryden answered gloomily. “I didn't like being beaten and I didn't like being with my mother when she was angry with me. As long as I lived with her I tried my best not to do anything unless it was worth suffering child abuse over and living with a cranky parent for months afterwards. You'd be surprised at how often that kept me behaving properly. But then, finally, after I'd been good for an extremely long stretch, I asked to live apart from her. I told her I was weary of traveling and I wanted to settle down in one place. At first, she didn't trust me. It was only after I dragged my heels one time too many that she agreed and left me alone in an air port terminal.”

“Was that okay?” Hitomi asked, concerned for his safety.

“Well, yeah. I was eighteen, and I was old enough to be living away from my mother. We were starting to cramp each other's styles. She left me in Italy, so I just walked out of the airport, found a place that I liked, bought it, and settled down.”

“And …?”

“And naturally, I had five women hanging off me at my new place before nightfall. That's my villa. I couldn't help myself now that my mother wasn't around to check up on my behaviour and I'd slept with all of them by the end of the week. So, since I wasn't being watched, I finally got to do exactly what I wanted.”

“I can't imagine,” Hitomi said.

“Don't try,” he advised sourly. “Besides being extremely promiscuous, this was also the first time I had to face up to some of the consequences of living like that. I had no plans to leave my villa, so I had to deal with the angry females who learned that I hadn't been faithful to them. Sometimes I could convince them not to be angry with me, but most of them wanted a lifetime with me as my wife or something like that. Most of these girls were little better than table decorations, and I refused to commit to them.”

“Yeah, I can see why some of them wouldn't take that nicely,” Hitomi said, feeling bluer than she expected. This wasn't turning out to be a good story.

Dryden sighed, “For the first time in my life I learned exactly what I had been doing. I had been using them. All those girls I thought I was helping, I was actually ruining. I had no idea. I just got so caught up in the moment that I could never even picture what would happen afterwards or how I would affect the women I met. I seriously thought that as long as no one got pregnant, it didn't matter and I could do whatever I wanted. What a lie! I was a fool. I was a heartbreaker in the worst sense of the word. You have no idea how much damage I did, and the reputation I had. I can't even explain it to you. My name was the blackest swearword among women. You have no idea how far some of them went to get their revenge on me. I had death threats, my villa was broken into several times and my property vandalized. One girl sunk my yacht. I was on a first name basis with the local police, incidents were happening so often. But the worst one was a reporter I dated. She was particularly angry with me and started a column in the paper about my dating escapades and broadcast who I was dating to the whole area as well as warned everyone what trouble I was. It wasn't long after that that the whole city seemed to know that I was a player, and the women available to me got fewer and fewer, until I was stuck hanging out with … guys! Guys! Can you imagine?” Here Hitomi wasn't sure, but she thought that Dryden looked faint. “That was also around the time I decided to work for my father's corporation. I needed something to do, and I wouldn't leave now that I'd finally found a place to live. Plus, I didn't think that things would turn out differently anywhere else, so there was no point to running away,” he paused. “Actually, working was more fulfilling than I expected. It was really fun to get things accomplished and to do things that no one else had been able to do. And, as an added bonus, my mother was actually proud of me, which was something I was seldom able to accomplish. She was always the one person who knew what I really was.”

“So, you …”

“So even though I was successful, I still was just a skirt chaser, and what was more - I hate hurting people, and I was doing it ALL THE TIME. But even though I felt this way, I didn't get up the nerve to change myself until I met Selphie. There's no way you could have missed how absolutely ravishing that woman is …”

“Please don't elaborate,” Hitomi asked, colouring. “She's my friend.”

Dryden nodded understandingly and continued, but when he spoke of Selphie, his face lit up and all his blues seemed to fly away. “When I met her she was the fiancé of one of my subordinates.”

“Did you steal her away?”

The colour seemed to leak out of his face. “Not exactly. We were at a party when I first I saw her and I just couldn't stop looking at her. I knew that if there was any woman in this world that was meant for me, then it had to be her. She is so gentle. She's afraid of small things, like spiders and boating at night. I saw her and instantly I wanted to take her home and make her my whole world. That moment really changed everything for me. It was like lightning. Now normally, it doesn't take much for me to convince a woman that she should take me home with her or that she should come home with me. Normally, it doesn't take anything beyond buying her a drink and asking her, but when I went up to Selphie and asked her if I could get her a drink, she told me that she didn't drink and that she was there with her fiancé.”

“What a blow to your ego!” Hitomi commented, finally feeling like she'd gotten past the grossest part of his story.

“What? I wasn't put down at all. I was intrigued. A woman who could resist my charms was one that I needed to examine more carefully, so I tried harder. She wasn't married yet, and though I wouldn't directly interfere with her engagement, I was definitely going to try to steal her for myself. So, I asked to see her engagement ring.”

“Was it nice?”

“It was boring. A diamond solitaire set in white gold. I told her I thought it was lovely, but that it couldn't possibly be her dream set. What stone did she really like? She told me that her favourite stone was a pink sapphire. She explained the cut she liked and under my interested gaze she told me everything about it. I didn't know if such an item was available anywhere on this earth, but I arranged to have the exact piece made by a jeweler that night.”

“You didn't!”

“No, I did,” Dryden said, looking excited. “I didn't leave the party that night without making the necessary arrangements. I can't explain to you how badly I wanted her, and how much more interested I was because I couldn't have her.”

“What was your next step?” Hitomi asked, actually getting into his story. It was exciting.

“Next, I had a dinner party at my home at which I invited all my assistants and their partners. For my date, I asked a model we'd recently had pose for one of our layouts. She seemed interested, so she came, and she looked good, but not a tenth as good as Selphie. I learned more about Selphie at the party as well. I found out that she was a fantastic swimmer and had almost made the Olympic team, had done modeling and was almost finished a degree in fine arts. I was dazzled by her. She seemed to light up the whole room and astound me.”

“Was your date happy with you paying so much attention to another woman?”

Dryden smiled. “Oh yes. I didn't neglect my date. Besides, listening intently to everything possible about Selphie, I was also trying to raise her opinion of me. If I had a date like that, and if I treated her well, Selphie would notice what a gentleman I am.”

“Did she notice?”

“Yeah, she seemed to notice. Except that it wasn't in a good way. She noticed what I was like, my home, my date, my behaviour, but she didn't seem interested in me. She seemed shy and almost afraid of me. I didn't know how to interpret her. All women loved me.”

“I didn't like you like that,” Hitomi said, feeling that his ego must be running away with him.

“Yeah, because you were already with Van. I told you already that she had a fiancé, and I can tell who's with who, but with Selphie - I couldn't tell where her heart lay at all. I couldn't tell if she loved her man, or if she was thinking of making a trade, or anything. It was most disconcerting. The next thing I did, was I `accidentally' met her as she was coming out of one of her favourite art studios and begged her to let me take her for lunch.”

“How did that go?”

“It didn't go well at all. She agreed to come but only after extreme protests. When we were at the table I asked her what the problem was. The outing was totally innocent. She looked at me and she whispered, `If someone sees us, there's no way they'll think that it's totally innocent. They'll think we're having an affair.' I laughed at her. I know I shouldn't have, but, yeah, they'd think we were having an affair. I wanted them to think that. I wanted to cause trouble with her and her fiancé and make her want me instead, so I downplayed it and I told her that I would take responsibility if a rumour like that came out.”

“Were you really going to?” Hitomi asked skeptically.

“Yes. I had every intention of taking care of it if something like that really did happen, but the damage will have already been done.”

“You're evil!” Hitomi quaked. She couldn't believe he would go to such lengths for a woman. “How did you possibly end up with her?”

“Well, I went to go see her often after that. I made time to be with her and took her out (when she would let me), gave her presents, made a fuss over her, and basically treated her like she hung my moon.”

“Did it work?”

“No, she still believed that I was a skirt-chaser. But another black tie company party came up where I decided to go stag in order to show her my devotion to her, and something very lucky happened.”

“What?”

“I was standing by Selphie, obviously cutting in on her date with Boyo when one of my other assistants came up to me. This one was a woman in her thirties who told me that she'd hurt her ankle coming in and she was just coming to bid me goodnight before she went home to nurse it. I set her down on a chair and had a look at it. She was right - she had really twisted it. So, I had her stay put while I went and got a first-aid kit. Then I wrapped it up and took her home myself. Honestly, in my compassion for Constance, I forgot all about Selphie and that I was supposed to be butting in on her date. I completely forgot.”

“What did she think? Did you find out afterwards?”

“Yep! She was so moved by my action that she decided she wanted to look for a different husband.”

“So you got her?”

“No!” Dryden said, looking annoyed. “She decided that she liked that one part of me and that she wanted to find a man who was like that, but I was still not the man for her. She still met with me and I had been upgraded to `friend' status, but there was no way she'd date me seriously because she still believed that I was a player who would sleep with anyone. But she did break off her engagement. So, I felt like that was progress. I invited her on formal dates and she wouldn't come. She wouldn't use lame excuses, but she'd let me know each time that she wasn't going to choose me and that I might as well give up.”

“And she chose to come with you when you left Italy to come after Van and I? Really? Are you sure you didn't tie her up and gag her?”

“Har har. No, I didn't tie her up. I asked her if she wanted to come with me and she said `yes', but I haven't come anywhere near that time.”

“So what happened to get her to that place with you?”

“Well, I told you that I had that ring made for her. Well, it wasn't made overnight, even though I made the arrangements as soon as possible. When it came I took it and I went over to her flat. She was alone that night, watching T.V. and eating popcorn by herself. I sat on her living room floor with her and watched subtitled movies with her until I found the right moment to tell her that I got her a present. I flipped open the box and showed her the ring. I told her that it wasn't an engagement ring or a wedding ring, but it was a promise ring. I was promising that I'd make myself into the man she wanted. She didn't even have to wait for me if she didn't want to. I asked absolutely nothing from her, except her permission to allow me to love her forever - and to never love anyone else.”

“You made that sort of promise?” Hitomi asked - staring.

“I wanted to be a good man for her, and this was the only way for me. She really didn't believe that I could be that guy, but I worked hard. Slowly, things started to cool off. My little reporter friend stopped writing her column after there was no good news about me for a few months. I guess she found something else to write about. I wasn't sleeping around, so I wasn't finding cross girls on my doorstep anymore. I was excelling professionally and slowly my black reputation was slipping to grey - though it isn't white yet. You know, it almost doesn't matter how good I am, someone will always remember me for what I've done. Just walking down the street I run into a handful of girls who have had bad experiences with me, so I'll never be squeaky white. I even apologize now for being a jerk. That was Selphie's idea and it's worked out a lot better than I expected. Some are so happy to hear the apology that they cry and if Selphie's with me, then she cries, too. Their conversation goes something like, `He was such a jerk.' Then Selphie sobs, `I know. Such a jerk, but he's trying hard to be a good person now.' Then the first girl snivels again, `He was such a jerk!'”

Hitomi laughed at his impression of the girls. “And I'm sure that conversation makes you feel great.”

“Oh, it makes me feel smashing.” Dryden shook his head regretfully. “It makes me feel like I must be the worst person in the world, and it's been going on for years. It's been two years since I met Selphie. You see, this is the reason why I didn't want to meet The Sun God. I knew that if I met him he would know the truth about me and I knew that he wouldn't see it in the same forgiving light that Selphie does. She loves to see me improve and apologize again and again. Chid would see me for what I truly am. He would know if I'd really changed or not. So, call me crazy, but I didn't want to meet him until I was positive that I could look him in the eye and say, `I've done what I could to correct my wrongs'. But with the way things were turning out with you and Van and the Dragon Slayers, I knew that I couldn't wait anymore and I had to do go see him. I had no idea what he would say when he saw me. I might have been blown to pieces by his judgment, or nothing might happen, or I might suffer for what I had done. I didn't know. But he laid his hand on my head and told me that I had changed …” Dryden stopped. Once again, he turned his face away from Hitomi and at first he didn't speak. He looked like he was fighting back tears. When he finally did, he sounded steady - like Van. “Chid says I should go meet him from time to time to make sure that I haven't reverted back. That way, I'll keep on doing good things and I won't get sucked into the ruts of my lesser self. And I can finally do what I've always wanted.”

“What?” Hitomi asked shyly.

Dryden turned and looked at Hitomi with bloodshot eyes. “I can ask Selphie to marry me.”

“Ah, so Van was right. She wanted to marry you and you have been hesitating,” Hitomi blurted, not thinking about how bad it sounded.

Dryden smirked. “Yes, like that. I'm sorry, but I can't wait to see her. I'm flying to New York tomorrow. I've got to see her.”

“You're going to get married?”

“As soon as possible,” Dryden said firmly. “I would have left already, but I want to make sure that things go all right with the Devil tomorrow.”

“Chid told you that we are going to judge him tomorrow?” Hitomi asked.

Dryden nodded. “I want to support you. If you need me to stay longer, I—“

“Don't even think about it!” Hitomi said firmly. “No matter what happens, you should go and be with Selphie. If I have to, I'll order you. She needs you and I have Van so …” Hitomi trailed off.

“Do you?” Dryden asked firmly.

Hitomi put a hand to her mouth and looked at the ceiling. “What am I going to do if he doesn't pull through this? I can't even think.”

“Hitomi,” Van said, entering the room and talking to her like he hadn't heard their conversation. He looked bad. His hair and clothes were wet and he was shaking. Had he gotten under the fountain? “I'm going to have a bath. You should come to bed. Tomorrow is a big day.” Then he turned around and left the room like he couldn't wait for her to get up and follow him. He was trembling from the cold.

“Congratulations Dryden,” Hitomi said, rushing after Van. “Sorry, I have to go.”

“I understand, Kanzaki,” Dryden said, waving to her as she chased after Van.

`This might be the last time I get to be with him,' Hitomi thought tearfully as she chased after the Dragon.