Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Thoughts ❯ Chapter 2: Reflections of A Seer ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2: Reflections

The moon glinted off of the cool metal, as it swung in a mighty ark. She watched him, his breath taking strokes, his even breathing, his stance. She imprinted every detail into memory, with out even realizing it.

She watched him practice. His movements were elegant, perfectly timed as he balanced between the stones. She watched as he threw off his shirt, his stomach muscles rippling, his breeches riding up his waist. He was built for a fifteen year-old, and she knew that given a few years, he'd mature to be one breath-taking man. She blushed as the thought went through her head. He might be breath-taking, but he was hot headed, arrogant, stubborn, and she shouldn't be thinking such thought about him.

She sighed, resting her head against the pillar she stood behind. Their first meeting was clear in her mind, his arrogance, his stubbornness, his unthankful ness. He hadn't improved very much, she decided. But one part of her wasn't at rest with that. It insisted that she give him time, to know his past. And seeing his past, she realised that she could almost understand why he was like he was. Almost.

The truth was, they were very different from one another, if one takes past experiences. Morwenna and Damien Kanzaki met in school, and married at twenty-five. Hitomi followed a year later, four and a half years later came Matthew. Her family was no typical Japanese family. For one thing, they all had unusual names, well, Matthew was not unusual, it was biblical, but still, it wasn't usually used in Japan, and Hitomi herself. Morwenna's family, though they had lived in Japan for four or so generations still had very old-fashioned western traditions. And Damien's father may have been Japanese, giving him the last name, but his mother had been European, and had raised him, with help of his paternal grand-mother, who was also named Hitomi, when Damien's father died.

When Hitomi was born, it caused some problems in the family. Morwenna came from a family which used the unusual, mostly old-fashioned names, like Morwenna, or Athena, Morwenna's mother. Damien was half Japanese, and thought that his children should bear at least a semi-Japanese name, to make things easier in school, where he himself had trouble with his name. It was finally decided that Hitomi would be named after her late paternal great-grandmother, and Malana, the name her mother chose. Matthew had also gone through the same, with a middle name of Yobidasu. Matthew could not stand his middle name and went through school known as Matthew, or Matt, no matter how different it was from most of his Japanese friends.

Her childhood had been simple, but nice. Her mother used to work as a teacher for elementary aged children, but also specialised in Math and the sciences, as well as English, Greek and Latin. Occasionally Morwenna would tutor students, referred to her by friends she had, who taught in the upper classes. Damien was a lawyer, a litigation attorney, who made a lot of money, but wasn't home very often. Through both her parents, Hitomi and Matthew were both very good in school, top of their classes, and though Hitomi ran track, Matthew was excellent at the team sports, though when forced, he could also run.

Morwenna had quit teaching when pregnant with Hitomi, and stayed at home to raise her daughter. And when she started to think about going back to teach, when Hitomi was a little more than three, she found she was pregnant with Matthew, and decided to stop forever. They lived in an expensive house, and had money, enough so that splurging on something was no problem. Of course, the disadvantage was that Damien Kanzaki was rarely at home.

Hitomi grew up knowing that her father worked very hard to make lots of money, and that was why he was rarely home. Family dinners were a rarity as a child for her. She grew up playing with her mother, Matthew, and Athena, whom they sometimes visited. She was not very close to her father, who took no nonsense, and could be very strict. She wondered if he even knew she was gone, or what he'd say when she came back.

Matthew and she were never very close either, though her mother said it needed time. Actually, the two people in her life she was closed to, were her mother and Athena. Athena's death hit her hard. She was ten years old when her grandmother died of an unusual illness, which was incurable. The day before Athena was admitted into the hospital, she called Hitomi over, and gave her the pendant and tarot cards, giving her a quick lesson in how to use them, and what the various cards meant. The next day she was rushed to the hospital, where she fell into a coma and died.

The hardest thing about Athena's death to Hitomi was that she knew it was going to happen. The visions ran in Athena's family, along with looks. Although Athena's family origins were unclear, and the only person who knew about them was Athena, who was dead, it was clear that the visions ran through the line. Hitomi remembered her first vision about Yukari, both then five, who fell out of a tree when the branch broke. Morwenna had afterwards sat a hysterical Hitomi down, and began to explain that she had also had visions as a young girl, and that she should be careful with them. The visions had always been relative infrequent until she went to Gaia.

Hitomi sighed, and ran a hand through her short hair, making note that it hadn't grown any in the last month or so, ever since she had been on Gaia. As a child, Hitomi had always had curly locks to her shoulder blades. It wasn't until se was thirteen and wanted to try it differently, that she had cut it. She had hair that grew at an immense rate, she needed to go to the barber every other week, sometimes every week to keep it the same length. Of course, the longer it got, the slower it grew, and Morwenna, whose hair was halfway down her back hadn't gotten her hair trimmed in six months. She wondered why it hadn't grown. Did it want to keep her appearance the same, in the case she was able to go back to earth? Or was there something about Gaia?

She watched as Van completed his exercises. The moon light from the earth and moon hit him, making him shine, just like it had earlier in the evening. She had known he was watching her earlier in the evening. She had sensed him near her, though she could not say how. It was almost as if she could feel him, feel his presence. But that couldn't be…she felt no one else that way, and why would she suddenly start to feel Van? Fishing around in her head, she decided that it must be a form of dousing, or something to that effect. In her thought process, it was amazing to think that she skipped over the most logical, simple and true answer; that she could feel his presence in her heart because they were beginning to bond.

Watching Van practise brought her to Allen. She couldn't tell why she liked him so much. Maybe it was because she saw Amano in him, or maybe it was because he had actually been a gentleman when they first met. But a nagging part of her made her realise that Van was also being nice to her now. He wasn't the same as he had been when they had met. In Asturia, he had gone after her…not Allen. He had rescued her when she fell down into the abyss. He had shown his wings to her, something his mother had forbidden him to do, to never show his wings. And he had. He had come to her in her movement of need, as her Angel. My Angel…

She had thought Allen had been her Angel. How wrong she was. Allen was not her Angel. Allen had never been. The mystical qualities of an Angel belonged to Van only. It made her sigh. Was she- could she be- could she be feeling something for Van? Could she feel something other than friendship for him?

Shaking her head, she took hold of her pendant. It was her lucky charm, her salvation, her protector. She watched it glow. It glowed brightly, the rosy colour shining. She still didn't know why it was behaving so strangely ever since she had gotten to Gaea. Always keep it with you, Hitomi, please. There's much more to this pendant than meets the eye. Be careful with it, and it will protect you. Go now, remember, I love you. The last words Athena Ravain had ever spoken.

Hitomi clutched it to her chest, soon remembering the reason she came out in the moonlight in the first place was that she couldn't sleep. The slight breeze went right through her summer night gown and robe. She wasn't sure where Chid had gotten them, probably at the bazaar, but she had thanked him gratefully for it. She wanted to fit in, she hated being the odd one out. Of course, in a different world, where she had visions, she probably couldn't get anymore strange. Unless she had purple skin and blue hair, maybe, but then again, Gaddess did have blackish blue hair, Varyie, Van's mother had dark green, and if there were gecko-men, cat-girls and wolf-men, why wouldn't there be people with blue skin?

She brought her vision to Van again. His sword flashed through the air, the moonlight catching the silver, and making it gleam. She stood there silently, watching. Though she knew nothing of the swordsman art, she enjoyed watching him practice. He had confessed to her that he needed lots more practice to perfect the art, but she didn't believe him. He already could. All he needed to do is to keep his head.

That was another thing she didn't understand. He was so…self-loathing. He took everything as if it was all his fault, including the entire war! And Folken…Hitomi didn't know what was keeping Van away from his brother. True, Folken was on the side of the enemy, but…he was still Van's older brother. Blood is thicker than water after all…

She wrapped her dressing gown tighter around her. She kept on reminding herself that she should probably be going to bed, but she didn't want to. Watching Van was too interesting, and she reminded herself that she needed the time to reflect. She took a deep breath, for the moment forgetting where she was. "Oh Van…"

"What?"

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I am terribly sorry for the wait, but I just got swamped with work. I got to work the emergency shift at the veterinary hospital, there turned out to be a huge mistake in my wedding and to top it out my sister, dear Gabbers, decided to take up acting, and though I don't know how she managed it, she somehow slipped on the stage, and went careening into a piece of scenery, breaking her wrist. I had to visit her in the hospital and play caring older sister for a few weeks. This among other things made it hard to write. But never fear, I will not give up on this story.

Oh and another note, if someone would like to edit for me…what is it called, beta-reader? My sister told me the term, I'd be glad to have someone do it. My grammar and everything competent, but I'd like having someone to read through it just in case. And someone to bounce ideas off would also be nice.

So, please await Chapter 3 hopefully sooner than this chapter came out. Please review, and e-mail me with questiona and comments.

Madrilène, the twenty-eighth of November.