Twin Moons

Chapter Twenty-Three

Wrapping up

Dilandau looked at himself in the mirror. There was a light dusting of pink across his cheeks and nose but the initial flush of painful bright red had thankfully faded over the past few days. He poked at it and it made a painful protest. He was fascinated with the stiff, itchy feel of the lightly scorched skin. He'd never had a sunburn before; he'd never spent enough time out of doors to acquire one.

He stepped back and looked at himself at a greater distance. The burn crossing the bridge of his nose added quite a bit of unfamiliar color to his face. It made the pale shirts Celena had insisted he wear during the trial (some mad idea that the colors he showed up in would have an effect on what the panel thought of him) look slightly more well placed.

'It's open,' he replied to a knock at the door and Celena appeared in a pale green dress with her hair pulled back from her face.

She sat herself at the foot of his bed and smiled up at him, the morning light playing across her hair. 'So what do you think they have in store for us today? It looks like they're almost done, I think.'

Dilandau settled onto the vanity stand's stool and sighed, 'Anything's better than yesterday.'

'Too true,' Celena agreed fidgeting with her skirts. 'After the trial... are you going to come back home?'

Dilandau gazed at her for a while before answering, 'I don't want to impose on Allen more than I already have.'

Celena looked down at the skirt fabrics she was balling her hands around, 'That means no...'

Dilandau leaned back against the edge of the vanity stand, failing to notice how desperately uncomfortable that was. He sighed at the unhappy look on Celena's face, 'I hate being a burden.'

'You're not!' Celena protested, but she thought her voice lacked conviction and she knew that she really had no idea. She herself must be a burden on her brother, who was she to say that Dilandau wasn't?

Celena stormed out of the room, angry that she had no good reason to.

Dilandau found himself in the box once again, but the questions didn't last long. Shortly before lunch hour the panel seemed unable to think of anything else to ask and were shuffled off to deliberate amongst themselves as everyone else was sent out to wander the palace grounds and feel useless and bored. Dilandau lay on the grass next to the little cobbled canal and gazed up into the clouds and Meryl wandered out to keep him company while Celena followed Allen to the library where he and Erise were conversing in their usual calm, quiet manner.

In a small study with an ovular table and comfortable chairs, the panel ate sandwiches and thought their own thoughts. Dryden sipped some tea that had accompanied the sandwiches and gazed around the table at the other panel members. They all looked vaguely troubled and thurougly confused.

'Are there any thoughts that might be shared?' Dryden asked and the panel members looked slightly startled.

'I think,' Duke Chid spoke softly, his head adviser, Voris, sitting calmly next to him but leaving the young duke to his own decisions as they had so often been sound through his short reign, 'that he should be fully pardoned.'

Millerna smiled at him, looking proud and happy. Leaders from the other represented countries looked uncomfortable and unsure. Van looked the small duke very seriously in the eye and countered, 'Chid... he destroyed your country and killed your father. Don't you think you're being awfully lenient?'

Chid shook his head, 'Now that's just plain wrong, Lord Van. Arrows killed my father, Dilandau was piloting a guymelef at the time, so he obviously wasn't the one to shoot my father. You sound as though you're trying to blame him for the entire war, Lord Van, and you just can't. He wasn't even in a real position of power.'

'I have to agree with Duke Chid,' the princess of Basram said unexpectedly. All eyes shifted to her, stunned. Of all people, she seemed the least likely to show any signs of compassion or feeling.

'I hate to be terribly predictable,' Dryden said as everyone's heads swiveled back towards him, 'but I would also that he be given a full pardon.'

Millerna nodded beside him, 'As do I. I have not know Dilandau much, but I've know Celena since the end of the war and I trust her judgement of character. I also believe it would be unfair to punish a soldier for following his orders after we've come to an agreement and truce with the country at which we were warring. That completely aside, I truly believe that his actions were not his own as we have heard, from him as well as the sorcerer, of the mind altering drugs he was being given.'

The other royals in the room looked uncertainly at Van and he suddenly knew that whatever his decision was, the rest would follow suit. He felt a great weight in his stomach as he looked back at them. Everyone in the room now had their eyes on him. He could not remember ever having been so uncomfortable. He looked down at the table and thought, memories battling in his mind.

He had only met Dilandau in person twice, once at the end of a blade. The only real impression he had of Dilandau from the war was through the great metal hulk of a guymelef, but he'd heard enough out of the psychotic to form a full idea of his character.

Now, however, none of it fit at all. Dilandau showed no sign of being anything like he had during the war. Meryl trusted him. Meryl never trusted anyone. It had taken her nearly a month to warm up to Hitomi at all, and here she had almost instantly befriended the former destroyer of her home and nearly everything she'd grown up with and knew.

'I...' Van looked back up at the expectant faces around him and gulped, 'I believe him. I can not, in good conscience, condemn him.'

Meryl was teaching Dilandau how to catch a trout in ones hand when a maid bustled through the trees and spotted them. 'Master Dilandau, Miss Meryl, everyone's being called back to the courtroom,' she announced slightly breathlessly.

Dilandau wondered with a slight grin pulling at his lips how many maids were out in the garden looking for him. He stood up, shaking water from his hand and abandoning the fish he's been cajoling, to follow her back towards the building. Meryl was close behind him, mourning that she'd had to give up on her trout.

Dilandau's whole body prickled with nervousness as he climbed into the box and watched the panel file back into the room. They had taken far too short a time deliberating. Was that good or bad? He was chewing his lip quite raw when Dryden finally stood and started speaking.

'This panel of judges of the Allied Nations has reached a decision. I could make a large formal speech, but I think you've all waited long enough to hear a verdict. We have decided that Dilandau Albatuo shall here by be granted a full pardon for his part in the Fate War.'

Dilandau didn't realize that he wasn't breathing until he abruptly started again. He fell back in his chair and laughed breathlessly with giddy relief. The rest of the formalities of the trial were a blur until he found himself being swept away by Celena and Allen who were both talking excitedly to him.

He soon found himself in his room, Celena demanding that he freshen up and attend dinner downstairs with everybody else. He laughed and agreed before she whipped out of the room to go do the same. He fell back on his bed, his heartbeat finally slowing back to normal. Allen grinned from near the door.

'I told you you'd win,' Allen said smugly.

'So you did,' Dilandau sighed happily.

'Glad it's over?'

'You have no idea,' Dilandau laughed.

'I thought you would be,' Allen laughed too. 'We'll head back home tomorrow then.'

Dilandau looked up at him, his face alight with joy. 'O-okay,' he stammered in reply as Allen turned and left.

Dinner was a fabulous and lighthearted affair. Everyone was happy to be done with the trial and to have ended it on such a good note. People were laughing and drinking and gorging themselves.

While some were still partying, Dilandau snuck off to the side of the canal and stared up at the stars and fireflies.

After a few minutes he heard quiet footsteps on the grass coming towards him. Meryl plopped herself down next to him and smiled. 'So how's it feel to be a free man?'

Dilandau chuckled, 'It's weird. Suddenly some panel of royal guys is telling me I'm a good person, but it's hard for that to sink in. I still feel like I've done some pretty unforgivable things, and even though they forgive me, I don't know if I can.'

Meryl watched him in the purplish light of the rising Mystic Moon. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and said in a quiet, non-joking voice, 'I believe you're a good person, if that makes you feel any better.'

He stared back at her in the half-light for several minutes before quietly answering. 'It does. Thank you.'

Fin