Still... he had a feeling he couldn't shake, that something was deeply wrong here. He knew with an eerie certainty that he was supposed to be awake, and his pendant shone as if in agreement, only partly reflecting the light of the moons.
He stood, pulling off his shirt in one smooth motion, and the wind swirled around him, caressing his skin with the slight chill that meant winter was almost here. With an almost instictive movement of his muscles, he unfurled his wings, the wings of the Cursed People of Atlantis, wings that Hitomi had called the wings of an Angel. It was strange to him that the cursed race of Gaea was thought to be the messengers of God on the Mystic Moon, the messengers of hope.
He let himself fall slowly from the roof, his mind wandering back to the first time that Hitomi had seen those wings that marked him as a cursed Draconian here. He remembered the look of stunned rapture on her face as she had murmured the word Angel, and told him that those wings were beautiful in her sight.
Wings open to the wind, he soared into the sky, shaking out a few broken or loose feathers with the first powerful sweep of those wings. It would be obvious that he had been here, as those feathers were much too large to be the feathers of a bird. Some of his primaries were, after all, as long as his forearm.
It had been far too long. Ten years without her felt more like a hundred, especially right now. He missed the unity of their thoughts more than he had thought he would when she left, missed the strength that flowed between them like lifeblood. They had been alone too long.
He wanted to fly higher and higher, wanted to wish his way into her arms, to wish his way across the seemingly endless space between them. He couldn't, shouldn't make such a wish, for wishes were more dangerous here than all the weapons of war. His heart, however, was not listening to him now, and it wished for her with all the might that it could muster.
That wish hung endlessly and palpably in the air, and for a moment Van hung motionless in the air as the great Column of Light sprang into being around him. Yes! His heart exulted and the thought of her, even as some part of his mind shrank away from what they had just done. He knew that some part of her must have been wishing just as hard....
Then there she was, a figure in silhouette descending to him, framed by the Mystic Moon. He reached for her eagerly, caught her in her arms and held her closely to him as the light faded from his sight. For a moment he was caught up in the simple feeling of being close to her.
Then reality began to intrude. She lay limply against him, still and silent, and he was surprised to feel her slipping from his grasp, her skin and clothes slick with blood. The scent of it was thick and metallic around them as he let her weight carry him toward the ground, their fall slowed only by the wind cupped beneath his wings.
He bore them to the wide courtyard of the Citadel's veranda, curling his wings protectively around her as he called for someone to help him. She was bleeding still, gasping silently for breath, and he felt panic weaving itself around the shadowed edges of his mind.
"Hitomi!"
She must have heard him, heard the pain and panic in his voice, for her eyes fluttered open as several people came running out of the hall, half of them with bared swords. He didn't notice any of them as she sought and found his eyes and they gazed at each other, jade to wine.
"Van...." she smiled softly, "I wanted to see you so badly....I thought it was just a dream...."
Tears welled up in her eyes and they slid closed, leaving a small and peaceful smile. Van's breath stilled in his throat, and he held onto her as if his love could save her until the physicians gently but firmly pulled her from his grasp.
He cursed his wings for getting in the way before he noticed that it wasn't his wings that were in the way, but the restraining hand of his young Guard Captian, Reyan. He tried to shrug off those hands as he allowed his wings to fade away, but Reyan would not be shaken off, and guided his friend and king firmly down a different hall, toward a bath and fresh clothing.
"The lady will not appreciate you if you go to her covered in blood, Majesty," he suggested softly. Van finally subsided, following with little spirit where Reyan led.
Reyan confessed in the privacy of his mind that he had never seen Van look so lost and broken hearted. It was true that the ladies of the court all spoke of the sadness in his eyes as if it were the height of romance, but Reyan had always assumed that it was their imagination. The naked longing in his eyes when he watched them cart that girl away though... It was a little disturbing.
Van went as quickly as Reyan would let him to the room where she lay waiting, while his captain assured the nobles outside that their king was merely very sensitive to the pain of others. She looked so small and fragile in the bed they had placed her in. Her skin was as pale as the moonlight, and her golden hair lacked somewhat the luster that he remembered, and it was much longer than when last he had seen it. The almost childlike repose in her face worried him and caused a thrill of fear at the thought of her leaving him again, permanently this time.
It was difficult for him to make those steps to her bedside, know that she could be gone at any moment, and even more difficult to take her small, pale and slightly fevered hand in his own. He shook with a confused mixture of pain, grief and love as he brought that hand to his lips, and lay his head beside her shoulder, closing eis eyes in sleep as the first rays of sunlight touched the horizon. |
