Most characters within were created by and belong to the persons associated with The Escaflowne Movie Copyright 2000

Fostering Hatred

The countrymen were worried and upset and depressingly superstitious. Usually, orphans were taken in by the community. The Adon Dragon Clan was proud to say that there were no homeless children on its streets. Unfortunately, when a clan was as old as this one, centuries old beliefs and superstitions still ran rampant. Any and all birth defects and oddities were feared and scorned.

No one would dare to take in such an odd looking orphan as had just come into their midst. Whispers of demon, bad luck and evil spirit filtered among the people. His mother's profession may have been used as an excuse, but it was fear that kept them closing their doors to the infant.

Varie felt angry tears prickling at the back of her eyes. One would think she'd become accustomed to hearing the whispers in ten years, or that the people would become accustomed to the prince's mismatched eye, but the head shaking and muffled speaking behind hands continued to stab at her heart.

The day was rainy and oddly chill for the late summer months. She gazed out through the small window of her coach and watched the gray, muddy streets go by. They'd been traveling for a few hours, and she was fairly sure they would reach their destination shortly.

Thank the gods Kora had noticed the child's entry to the world. As a bastard bearing the blood of the Dragon Clan, he was an oddity that Kora was likely to notice. Varie would have been haunted by the death of the child, had she not heard of him in time to save him from the cruel, cold shoulder of abandonment. A great swell of contempt for mankind threatened to bring the prickling back to her eyes.

The coach ground to a stop outside a nondescript inn. Varie jumped slightly, realizing they had stopped moving, and pulled the fur cloak beside her round her shoulders. The coachman opened the door for her to step out into the miserable downpour. She strided towards the inn with an ere of menacing confidence.

When she opened the door, the few patrons that saw fit to be there in the middle of day scrambled into surprised bows. She nodded vaguely to them and walked toward the counter that the innkeeper was hurrying around.

'May I get you anything, Your Majesty?' he enquired nervously.

'Thank you, no,' Varie responded curtly. 'I'd like to be home before evening.'

'Of course,' the innkeeper bowed. 'If you would follow me, Madam,' he bowed again and lead her through the door separating the inn from his home. His somewhat rotund wife looked up as they entered and then hopped to her feet to dip a clumsy curtsy. 'Majesty,' she said, her face tilted down.

'Don't just stand there, woman,' the innkeeper scolded, 'Her Ladyship is in a hurry!'

His wife nodded, looking as though she had only just remembered what was happening and skipped off through a door to the left, returning in a moment with an armful of blankets. Varie held her arms out to accept it, relief playing over both women's faces.

Varie rocked the bundle slowly and pulled back at the loose blankets, uncovering the sleeping face of the tiny baby. Delicate, white down was curled all round his head; a bruise from labor ran just above one little, red ear. His hand fisted and twitched back, he squirmed a moment and opened his eyes, awakened by the cool air of the room.

Varie stared back at him for a long while as he caught hold of a one of her fair brown locks and twined his round, soft fingers through it. His eyes were defiantly not the blue of a baby's or any other human seeming color. They were brilliant magenta, as the whispers had said, and hypnotically engaging.

'Does he have a name?' she enquired, looking back up to the innkeeper's wife.

She nodded solemnly, 'His mother said he'd be Dilandau, just before she passed.'

Varie pulled him under her cloak for the walk back to the coach, giving the innkeeper a handful of coins and bidding him and his wife a brusque farewell. She sang softly to Dilandau until he fell asleep again, and then to herself as the coach rumbled on through the rain.

Dune was utterly enchanted by the baby Varie arrived back at the palace with. He sat cradling his arms round the bundle of blankets and staring at him while Varie conversed in low voices with her husband.

'I won't let the poor thing be cast away to die of neglect just for being a little different,' Varie said in a cool voice, the discussion of the previous evening repeating itself.

'Of course not,' Goau answered. 'I just wonder that there's no one who will take him in.'

'They're all afraid to, the wretched people,' Varie scowled. Then she smiled, sliding her hand into Goau's, 'Look at Dune. He looks so pleased. He's always been so ashamed of his eyes. Now look, he'll see that he's not so strange. Maybe being able to relate to this baby will help him to gain confidence himself.'

Goau nodded, closing his eyes.

'And he's so close to Van's age. You always said you wished you'd had a friend your age around when you were a child,' Varie leaned her head against Goau's shoulder.

'I know,' Goau replied softly, kissing her hair.

Varie smiled and sighed.

There seemed to be artistic differences about the placement of the last block onto the pyramid/pile Van and Dilandau were building on the floor of the playroom. One would put it here, the other would take it off and put it there.

'No!' Van shouted taking the wooden block back again, 'No no no!'

Dune tilted his gaze back to the book he was supposed to be reading. It was a dreadfully dry thing on the history of King Dael IV. Van exploded into an angry shout that overpowered the sound of blocks clattering to the floor entirely and drew Dune's attention back to the toddlers.

Van was stamping his foot and screaming his favorite new word, 'No! No no!'

Dilandau picked up a few blocks and started stacking them again as Van berated him with shouts. Dune half wondered which one had knocked over the pile. It really didn't matter, Van would shout either way.

'Shut up, Van,' Dune sighed, turning the to the next boring page of his book.

'No!' Van shouted back, though given that he used the same word to indicate everything he wanted or was feeling, it meant very little.

Dilandau turned his face back towards Dune and smiled a wide, gappy grin. Van pushed over the new stack of blocks and started restacking them again, babbling lightly as he did so.

Dune read a few more paragraphs before a block was dropped into his lap. He set the book face down on the arm of his chair and smiled amusedly at Dilandau, closely followed by Van who, not to be outdone, was carrying two blocks to offer his brother.

The door opened and Varie swept in, her long skirts making a soft whispering as they brushed the stone floor then silencing when she advanced on to the carpet within the playroom. She smiled warmly, stopping just inside the door. Van abandoned his blocks and waddled happily over to his mother instead. Varie bent and hoisted him into her arms as he reached her.

'Good afternoon, mother,' Dune smiled up at her, wrapping an arm around Dilandau's waist and pulling him up as he attempted to scale the side of the chair.

'You've picked an odd place to study, Dune,' Varie glided over to him, sitting on the footstool that was pushed slightly to the side of him.

Dune shrugged, 'I can't concentrate in silence.'

'And you can concentrate here?' Varie raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him, watching Dilandau again handing the block to him.

'No,' Dune chuckled.

'No!' Van chorused happily.

'Oh try a different word, sweet!' Varie gave Van a squeeze. 'You're getting to sound so disagreeable.'

'When has he not?' Dune asked with a grin.

Varie sent him an annoyed look, 'Very few babies are dead silent, you know.'

The smile faded from Dune's face and he looked back at Dilandau. 'He'll talk,' he said, brushing back the little boy's fluffy hair to look at him.

'I didn't say he wouldn't,' Varie insisted. She heard the whispers too. Maids gossiped in the dark corners about the strange muteness of the child. It wasn't true of course; Dilandau did vocalize on occasion but still had yet to master any words.

'He's collecting words,' Dune pulled Dilandau into a hug and the toddler's small squishy arms wrapped happily around his neck.

Dune followed the sound of soft, distraught sobs. It lead him to a rose bush, well guarded by thorns and too low to the ground for him to climb under, as rose bushes tend to be. 'Dilandau, come out of there,' he urged, sitting down on the grass beside it.

There was a reluctant silence, broken by sniffling, then the rustling scraping sound of the five year old crawling out of the bush, over the dead leaves and thorns. As he immerged into the daylight, Dune could see a number of angry, red scratches along his slender arms and a few dotting his creamy face.

'What's wrong?' Dune asked, pulling Dilandau into his lap and holding him tightly.

Dilandau sniffled and leaned his head against Dune's shoulder, clutching at his shirt and pressing close. 'A maid called me a demon,' he enunciated in the clear adult way he had done since starting to speak at nearly four.

Dune's expression hardened, 'Which one?'

'Hattie,' Dilandau hooked one arm around Dune's back.

'She said that to you?' Dune stroked Dilandau's fine hair comfortingly.

'No,' Dilandau shook his head slightly, sniffing, 'she did not know I heard her.'

Dune nodded. Despite this, he would be sure this Hattie was sent away within the day. 'Don't listen to them. They're stupid. They don't know what they're talking about,' Dune muttered into Dilandau's hair, kissing the top of his head.

'She say I have evil eyes,' Dilandau insisted, burying his face in Dune's shirt.

'Am I a demon, Dilandau?' Dune asked.

'No!' Dilandau pushed away slightly, looking up at him in shock. 'Of course not!'

Dune smiled and hugged Dilandau close to him again, 'People say I have evil eyes. We're different, but that doesn't matter. We're better than them.'

'Really?' Dilandau's eyes shown with tears, but he was smiling weakly now.

'Really,' Dune smiled back at him.

'Why is Dune sad?' Dilandau asked crisply.

Varie jumped slightly, looking down at him in surprise. 'Why do you think Dune is sad, Dilandau?' Varie asked.

'Because he is,' Dilandau answered smoothly, tearing up fistfuls of grass and depositing them into a growing pile he and Van seemed to have been working on for a while.

Van looked up with mild interest, without breaking the methodic ruining of the lawn. Varie had been wondering whether there was any intended purpose for it. 'Sometimes,' she said slowly, stretching for an explanation though having none herself, 'people just need to be sad. There doesn't always have to be a reason for it. People just get sad sometimes.'

The boys picked quietly at the grass for a long while. Varie was never quite sure when conversations with Dilandau were over. He would take long pauses while turning things over in his mind and always seemed to leave off without any indication of closing.

Varie refrained from sighing as she stared off into space. Dilandau was right about Dune, like he usually was. He always seemed able to read Dune better than she herself could, though he paid little attention to goings and comings of other people.

The whispers were bolder in some ways and more secretive in others than they ever had been before. They all bore the same message now. They all told the same sad, terrifying tale. The eldest prince was going mad. The new whispers lead to a revival in the old whispers, as well. Suddenly everyone was telling their neighbors and fellows how they had always known it was coming. First the oddness of the prince's eye, a bad omen to begin with, but taking that little demon child in was a terrible stroke of bad judgement.

Varie had sent away three maids just that month for gossiping and so soon she was hearing herself included in the whispers. The queen, poor woman, her favorite son was going mad. She was worrying herself to death over it. Poor woman.

'He's been sad a long time. I wish he will stop soon,' Dilandau said with a soft sigh, pausing in the defoliation for a moment.

'"Would",' Varie corrected his tense as she often found herself doing of late, though she rarely did for Van. 'So do I.'