On Wings
Chapter One: Wings of Vision

Many years ago-thousands upon thousands, to be true-the children of the gods dwelt in a city known as Atlantis. They were truly a marvelous people: wise, courageous, and powerful. However, they were only the children of gods, not gods themselves, and though they had strengths, their weaknesses led to their downfall. For they were wise but passionate, courageous but rash, and powerful but proud. Their pride was the greatest contribution to the fall of Atlantis, but passion and rashness played their own parts as well.

I don't see what this has to do with-

Silence, child! the old woman snapped. All in good time. You cannot see the sky in a single star, and a tale is the very same. Now, if I may continue? A nod. Very well. The Atlanteans had devised means by which to live in palaces, keep their health, and even change their bodies to please themselves. It became first law, then an inborn trait, to have wings. And that was but one way in which they pushed the limits of nature. However, not all Atlanteans were blind to what was happening, and some thought they were testing the patience of the gods too much. Others thought that too much power had been allowed into their hands. Slow, secret fear took root in the hearts of a few as they watched more control be wrested from nature and the gods.

One such person was the daughter of the King of Atlantis, Princess Aiyeth. Descended from the goddess of truth, justice, and prophecy, she saw many omens that Atlantis was slowly and steadily reeling out of control. Her dreams were plagued with nightmares of fire and destruction raining from the sky.

There was a snort.

Yes, what others dismissed as nightmares she knew to be visions, portents-warnings from higher powers. Her father, too busy to pay too much heed to his teenage daughter's ill dreams, merely assigned her a guard thinking extra security would soothe whatever fears from which the dreams came. Rather, the presence of the guard, a young man known as Tiore, merely frustrated Princess Aiyeth. He seemed to scorn her and her omens, and was no more than a nuisance to her. Indeed, to him it was just as much an irritating dilemma-for what guard would be called on to babysit a princess with bad dreams? Dislike swiftly bred between them.

But-

Hush, child. All in good time.

Kanzaki Hitomi knew, somewhere deep, deep down, that there was a reason she had visions, as opposed to someone such as Yukari or another classmate. For one thing, not everyone would be able to handle the kind of rapid-fire oracular onslaught she'd been barraged with on Gaea, particularly when most premonitions were of the sort of things that drew the line between an R rating and an NC-17. She'd barely made it through the war with her sanity as it was.

And it wasn't that she wished for someone else to shoulder the burden and make some lucky therapist very, very rich from the ensuing chain of mental breakdowns they were practically guaranteed. No, if someone had to shoulder the burden, it had to be her.

It was moments like this, though, that shook her resolve. Though decreasing in frequency, the visions had followed her back to Earth. This was probably through the wisdom and grace of some cruel deity who decided that since she and Van were keeping in touch, Hitomi could still serve her purpose as Prophet of Impending Doom, even if it was at long distance. Raging wildfires in Fanelia's forests? Bandits raiding a village? Rabid Land Dragon terrorizing the innocent? She saw it all in advance, got word to Van, and paid for an extra shot of espresso to compensate for the sleep loss. At least the visions only came while she slept instead of bowling her over at random, with distinct differences between a simple dream and one of the prophetic dreams-everything was clear, and even if she tried to wake up, she couldn't until it was over.

Some of the visions, however, were so bad that once she awoke, she couldn't go back to sleep. Particularly cryptic ones. The visions came in the straightforward this-is-the-unaltered-future type, or in the strange, disturbing, symbolically puzzling kind. More often than not, the second type of vision made little to no sense and involved brutal things happening to people she knew, so naturally, she disliked them the most. And judging by the red sky, blood rain, and raging fires she was seeing now, this was going to be a lovely, enigmatic, gory mess of a vision.

Hitomi saw herself a year and a half younger, swinging the pendant, red dripping onto her shoulders and staining the uniform first pink, then crimson. Her younger self kept swinging the pendant, searching for something in the barren, burning landscape, as flames crackled closer. Then the pendant slipped from her grasp and flew into the sky, the ground shattering under her feet. Suddenly Hitomi was her younger self, falling, hands outstretched towards the stars that were bare pinpricks of fire in a blood-hued sky. This was the part where Van flew down and caught her-but the sky had been blue then, not red-she twisted in midair and found him falling beside her, unconscious, battered, and just out of her desperate reach. Van, wake up! she cried, noting the darkness growing deeper. The pendant was now around his neck, but it remained dull and useless. Wake up!
Hitomi managed to seize a wrist flaking with dried blood, but couldn't find a pulse. Somehow she knew she wouldn't find one. They continued to plummet, slowly fading into the darkness.

Fear raced through her veins as she screamed in vain, Wake up!

Then wake up she did, sitting up with a shrieking gasp in her bead. For a moment the world reeled and she couldn't find her balance-then she realized her house was shaking, dust and grit falling onto her bed. Hitomi blindly grabbed for something solid and braced herself on the bedposts, waiting for the shuddering to stop. After about ten seconds, the house fell silent again.

Another earthquake, she thought with disgust. They're getting closer together too, which doesn't point to good things at all. She noted with even more disgust that it was a full half an hour before she was supposed to wake up. There was no helping it and no way to return to sleep, not after a vision and an earthquake. Grumbling to herself, she staggered to her feet and started getting dressed.

A glowing white feather drifted in the window, floating down to her desk. She sighed, finished buttoning her uniform's blouse, and put a hand on the feather. Yes, Van?

Are you all right? He was trying to keep worry out of his voice and meeting with little success.

I'm fine, why?

I-I don't know. Now he sounded just embarrassed. I... had this weird dream, and then when I woke up there was this feeling something was wrong on the Mystic Moon...

Occasionally they both got a vision; perhaps a side effect of their communication link between worlds, or something else was at play; either way, Hitomi had no way of knowing and thus no reason to care. Blood rain, falling, and so on?

In so many words, yes.

Just another one of those symbolic visions, I think. There was an earthquake when I woke up, but we've been having a lot of those.

An earthquake? he demanded, alarmed. Hitomi, that sounds dangerous-

I know, but I can't exactly make them stop. Anyway, I'm fine, you know what the vision was, and I've got school to go to. I'll talk to you later.

Take care, Van said in one of his very distinct Tones. This one happened to mean I am very, very afraid for you and think you're doing the wrong thing or not taking this seriously enough, but I won't say so to your face... so come live on Gaea.
Some days it seemed like a better idea than others. A year and a half had passed, and she and Van had danced around the issue with all the grace of toddlers attempting a waltz whenever they'd communicated mind-to-mind, but it still hung over them like the moon-clearer at some times than at others, but always there.

The fact was that she wasn't even seventeen yet, and she was the girl from the Mystic Moon. Neither of them were stupid, and they both knew it'd take a lot of spin to make even a passing association look good to the people of Fanelia. When their king was the son of a cursed woman, the last thing they needed was him to so much as look funny at a girl from the Mystic Moon.

Moreover, she had a family and friends on Earth, not to mention the relatively normal life that everyone else had in front of them. What would her high school reunion be like should she go and live on Gaea? Me? I moved to this planet you can't see, and I watch from the sidelines as the man I love rules his kingdom-yeah, he's a king-and keeps himself open for a political marriage, all the while ducking obsessive cat girls, knights with an uncanny resemblance to Amano-sempai, greasy but noble merchants, and the stray dragon or twelve. How'd that accounting business work out for you? She snorted derisively-not because it was absurd, but because it sounded eerily accurate.

Tugging at the last knee sock, Hitomi all but crawled downstairs, her head still stiff and groggy but too restless, now that it was awake, to settle down and let her catch up on her sleep. Her mother was already in the kitchen and snapping some kind of plastic case shut as Hitomi walked in. Morning, Mama.

Morning, Hitomi. Her mother pulled out a marker and started writing on the top of one of the cases, then moved to another. These are earthquake kits. I want you to put this one- she tapped the one that now said Hitomi' on the top -in your room. There are a couple bottles of distilled water, some emergency food, a blanket, a first aid kit, a flashlight, matches, and so on. If we have another earthquake you can grab this in case we get separated.

Her mother was deliberately not voicing what people were coming to realize and her entire family was aware of: the earthquakes, rather than decreasing in intensity, were increasing. That meant to biggest one had to come soon, and when it did, they didn't know how much of their house would be left. Hitomi had heard her parents talking about it, and had discreetly been packing up her own belongings. They didn't have the funds for a full-out move right now, but there was a chance they'd relocate to a hotel somewhere off the mainland until the big one had hit; others in their neighborhood had done the same thing already. In the case that they didn't make it out in time, at least they had some sort of emergency provisions.

I'll put this upstairs, she said quietly. Her grip on the box turned white-knuckled as her stocking feet thudded up the staircase; what was the point in sending her cryptic, pointless visions when she could see something much more useful, such as when the earthquake would hit? What made it worse was that this power of visions was hers, but she couldn't figure out for the life of her how to control it. She'd tried meditating, focusing on an event to come, but any resulting vision was fractured, warped, with holes, like an incomplete, badly woven tapestry-and they never made any sense. Simply asking a question didn't do it either. Visions came and went as they pleased, regardless of where and when they came during her sleeping hours, and what they showed.

Someday she'd figure out how to direct this power; this Hitomi knew. Until then, she was stuck with her emergency kits.

Van Slanzar de Fanel was not, by nature, a patient creature. Years of training in every possible area deemed useful had granted him something akin to patience; rather than true patience, it was merely the ability to suppress frustrations and take them out on some poor, unsuspecting inanimate and relatively worthless object later. Lately, he'd taken to the destruction of dishes. These dishes were chipped, cracked, damaged in some way or another, so he didn't get quite the satisfaction flinging them across a (very isolated and soundproof) room as he would chucking around flawless heirloom chinaware, but he was not one to needlessly waste. The head cook made sure all flawed and useless dishes made their way to him, and no one ever asked where they went.

Merle, of course, found it all very amusing. This was after the initial hysterics fit she had when she'd first found him taking his irritation out on some crates too rotten to even be used for firewood. Once she'd realized he was merely keeping his temper from flying to pieces by reducing other things to splinters, shards, scraps, and so on, her concerns died down. She'd taken to watching his near-vindictive smashing sessions with first grave attention, then curiosity, then something like mirth. She was also starting to detect a pattern. After breaking something very, very badly, Lord Van would tell her about a vision he'd had, think of something, and then go kick something to shreds again.

This morning, as her blue eyes followed dish after dish to its fragmented end, she decided to test out her suspicions. Another talk with Hitomi, Lord Van? Merle asked innocently, tail waving.

How- smash -did- crunch -you- crash -guess? he asked, less angrily than she'd suspected. Then again, he was still plowing through dishes.

Well, you didn't have the council yesterday, and nothing big has happened since last night when you were in a decent mood, so obviously something happened no one knows about. And the past few times you've been here, you said something about a vision, but you wouldn't get one and not tell Hitomi. She shrugged. Cat's intuition.

He narrowed his eyes and hurled one final piece of a place into a wall, then walked over, scowling. She's worried about something, but she won't say what. There was an earthquake on the Mystic Moon, and for the first time, I saw her in a vision, but she... doesn't want to talk about it.

An earthquake? Merle tilted her head to the side. That's not the first time it's happened, right?
It's the fifth one this summer... It's summer over there, at least. Van's face was dark. And they're getting closer together.

Merle's tail switched anxiously. She should come stay here until they stop. Seeing Van's face, she added, But you already know that. There was silence, and she made another leap in logic. And Hitomi knows it too.

He nodded slowly. I think so. But she won't leave her family.

At that Merle sighed impatiently. That girl! What do they have that we don't? I bet she doesn't live in a palace.
It's not that, Merle. The concept of a family was hard to convey to Merle: all she'd really had was Van for most of her life. If we were having earthquakes and I refused to leave the castle, would you go?

No! she said immediately. Of course not. There was a pause. Oh.

Van nodded again. See? And if she really wanted to come back, I think she would have a long time ago.

That's not true! protested Merle. You know she's got that school and... track? Besides, you've got the pendant and you've gone to the Mystic Moon before, why don't you now? The question sounded worse once said. Never mind. Of course you can't.

For a moment, Van looked like he wanted to throw some more plates. Then he just sat down on the bench next to her. No, he muttered. I can't.

If Merle had looked out of the window on the other side of the room, she would have seen the Fanelian capitol spread before her, mostly rebuilt, some of the larger buildings still in stages of reconstruction. This time, though, certain things had been taken into consideration. For one thing, though the cliffs walling in the small nation made it near impossible to invade from any way but walking straight into the city, it also made escape extremely difficult once the front defenses were breached. Moreover, the cliffs restricted vision and daylight. With that in mind, they had begun a project to build fortresses actually in the cliffs, and excavations of evacuation tunnels should they ever be attacked again. At the time of the invasion, most of the nation's population had lived in the capital, with the occasional small village bringing in fish or grain. That had changed. Refugee camps had turned into more villages, for one, but the diminished population was troubling to a king whose people, though it was spring then, would need grain to last the winter.
The idea that had saved them all had come from that same king. Acres of fields remained unused, providing a crop of naught but weeds, and he had made an offer to refugees in every nation, even the riot-torn Zaibach. The land was theirs, he said, if they agreed to citizenship, got a deed at the capital, then farmed their new lands and turned in a quarter of their produce at harvest time to the nearest village head, to be distributed to those who still needed it. With so much land devastated by war elsewhere, immigrants had practically flooded Fanelia, and now at least half of the nation made their living from the earth-or for those who took to the West, the sea.

Asturia still held the biggest markets for fineries, such as silks, lace, jewelry, tapestries, expensive woods and stones, and so on. Freid still remained a holy land. But Fanelia, once in ruins, was now the largest provider of basic goods-woolen cloth, lumber, produce, and fish. The other nations had assisted in financing the reconstruction of Fanelia, and had received their payment in imported goods for those who had been hit hardest by the war-the common people. Though Daedalus, Cesario, and Basram had swiftly returned to their own countries after the war, distrust still brewed between them-but the trading between Fanelia, Freid, and Asturia was at an all-time high.

It was difficult for anyone to imagine that the country had been turned around by a boy barely sixteen then, and just a few moons over seventeen now. For Merle, it was too much of a reality.

From the moment he had accepted the crown of Fanelia, Van hadn't stopped working. First the war, then the rebuilding-it had been two years since he had had a break, and those closest to him could see it was breaking him. They were lucky that dishes, crates, and other useless things were the only things he took his frustrations out on. He had advisors to tell him what to do, and sufficient means to do most of the things he wanted, but short of Merle, there were few people he could actually talk to. Van had the respect, grudging or wholehearted, of most of his subjects, but the whispers of draconian' still followed in his footsteps, glances shifting towards his shoulders and then swiftly away. Some days he wanted to walk around with his wings on full display, wearing a sign that said, YES, YOUR KING IS A DRACONIAN. DEAL WITH IT. Other days he wanted to fly somewhere only wings could take him, such as the top of the castle's Great Tree, and just hide there.

Merle didn't know-nobody knew but Hitomi-that he'd actually gone to the Mystic Moon. Every full moon, in the dead of night, with Hitomi's help he'd teleport there and they would have a half an hour to talk face-to-face. But for the past few moons even his midnights had been occupied, and dark circles were starting to become a permanent feature under his eyes. He was being worn to the bone keeping the kingdom intact, but he'd die before he gave in.

You haven't talked to her that much, have you? Merle asked softly.

I talk to her every day- He cut himself off, then continued. -for about thirty seconds. She's busy, I'm busy, and I haven't seen her in five moons.

There was silence as neither could think of a solution, or even anything to say. Eventually Van stood up, heading for the door. Thank you, Merle.

For what? She stood up, skipping over, but he was already down the hall. The cat girl crossed her arms with an irritated sigh, frowning. Now she felt like throwing dishes. It's not fair. They're both making themselves miserable, but they're too glued to their duties to catch their breath, much less see each other. I don't know whose idea this was, but it's a bad one.

...:...

What do you say we get Ishigawa-sensei a charm for car safety? Yukari suggested, holding up a tiny, colorful bag. Their math teacher had gotten in a car accident over the weekend.

Sure, Hitomi said absently.

Yukari gave her friend a dirty look. Hitomi had been in a daze all day, making things such as intelligent conversation something of a challenge. Or how about a health charm?

Sounds good. Her friend's green eyes were wandering, slightly unfocused. if Yukari didn't know better, she'd suspect substance abuse.

Tell you what, Hitomi, why don't you go make a wish at the shrine? Yukari pressed a five-yen coin into her friend's hand and gave her a little shove. Hitomi's attention returned momentarily, and she nodded, heading for the altar.

Hitomi knew she'd been distracted since she'd woken up, but for some reason that last vision was sticking with her. Something was nudging her focus towards the pendant, too, and that was very unsettling.

Standing in front of the shrine's entrance, facing the altar, she dropped the five-yen coin through the collection box's slats and clapped her hands twice, then bowed. Please, spirit of the shrine, make my sight clear and guide me. As an afterthought, she added, And please watch over my family and I, with these earthquakes. I'm afraid, I really am.

She bowed again, and as she straightened, she thought she caught a gleam of something in the dim interior of the shrine. Intrigued, Hitomi leaned closer.

Hitomi! Yukari ran over. I got a health charm for the sensei, and a love charm for myself... and I got this for you. She dangled another small bag in front of Hitomi's face.

Hitomi promptly snatched it from her friend and glared at it, trying to make it change into something more... innocuous. It didn't work. A fertility charm? she demanded, blushing furiously. Hitomi drew her arm back to throw it far, far away, when Yukari stopped her.

You wouldn't want to offend the spirit of the shrine, would you? she asked sweetly. Throwing away one of its charms like that... You'd never have kids!

Hitomi flushed even brighter, muttered a sullen protest, and stuffed the charm into her gym bag, vowing to cram it into a box, put the box in a box, put that box in a bag, and hide that bag in the deepest, darkest, most desolate corner of her closet she could find. Can we go home now? she asked plaintively.

Sure, sure, lazybones. Yukari slapped her on the back. You did good today, so I'll let you off easy.

Thanks, I think. They headed to the train station, bought tickets, and collapsed onto their seats. Hitomi let her head loll backward and closed her eyes, knowing Yukari would wake her up when they reached their stop.

As you know, it's normal to lose a caravan once or twice a year, a man was saying grimly. After a moment, Hitomi placed the tall figure, truly untidy brown hair, and bristling chin. It wasn't often that Dryden Fassa made it into her visions. Usually it's an overseas shipment, or going through the Tribelands. But I've lost three normal caravans in the past two months here. He jabbed a finger into the map, marking a spot on the uneven southeastern Fanelian border there. The only thing in that area is a canyon and a village of sheep farmers. Unless the people of- he adjusted his glasses and peered closer -Woolton are more vicious than they are creative with names, something is up.

I'll send some men to investigate. That voice she knew instantly. For the first time she saw Van, sitting at the table, looking... exhausted. The lantern light did nothing to help the shadows under his eyes, and... had he lost weight? Hitomi bit her lip.

Don't bother. Dryden sat, studying the map. I filled a fourth caravan to the brim with mercenaries-don't give me that look, I picked them out myself and there's not a pillager, looter, or rapist in the whole lot-and sent it there. It never made it over the border.

That caught Van by surprise. He frowned a little deeper and took a closer look at the map. What's been on these caravans?

Mainly scrap metal, leftover parts, so on. One had a couple crates of Energists... Dryden trailed off, putting the pieces together himself.

Asturia is our ally, Van said slowly. Neither of the Queens have any reason to attack-anyone, now that I think of it.

Dryden nodded slowly, then traced the border slowly. The border's formed by a canyon, yes? Van nodded. With a river deep enough to take a boat to?

In winter it's too low, but the snow melt and rains make it deep enough through autumn. The canyon makes it too hard to transport much, though.

Dryden continued tracing the border, going further south until his finger came to a rest fifty miles from Woolton and twenty miles from the Asturian border. What use, your Majesty, do you suppose Basram could have for scrap metal and Energists? he asked cordially. Look at all those plains. Must have been a lot of farms before the war. Same with Cesario. Both of them mined as much iron and energists as they could from the land and put citizens into factories to make them build weapons-more than they ended up using. I guess they were counting on winning the war so they could colonize, because those farms are probably falling to pieces now.

Van's face was a mask, a stoic, calm mask, but she saw something flickering in his eyes. Fanelia is not taking on Basram, he said quietly. I will not plunge this country into another war.

I'm not asking you to, Dryden said just as calmly. I don't want war myself, it's terrible for my business. But I'm not going to mince words, your Majesty: from the looks of it, Basram is arming themselves, and it's not so the boys can play dress-up. They were depending on winning the war and settling where they pleased, and now they have starving people with no farms and no living, but a stockpile that could blow us all away. Today it's caravans, but if I were you, I'd put some guards around dragon graveyards and armories, and be ready yourself. It won't be long before the Basramu army comes a' knocking.

Van looked at Dryden, and there was something in his eyes that sent shivers down Hitomi's spine.

There will be no preparations for war.

Hitomi?

Hitomi?

Hitomi sat up straight with a gasp, blushing at the stares of the other passengers. Yukari tugged her sleeve and she stood, swaying with the train, mind working over the vision. Why had she seen that? What was going on? She had to talk to Van, and quickly-short naps never yielded visions, and for her to get one while dozing on the train had to mean something important. Hitomi all but pulled Yukari off the train when it grated to a stop, parted ways with her friend in more haste than usual, and waited until she was out of sight to lean against a wall. It was always harder when Van didn't make the connection first...

Taking a deep breath, she turned her eyes to the moon and focused just behind it, until the outline of a planet came into her sight. Her thoughts were spun into a single beam of light that she visualized forming a slender thread between the two worlds, passing through space and time to connect-

Van!

Van jumped, blinking. He was lucky he was in his own room, or else anyone who saw him might think him crazy. Hi-Hitomi?

I had a vision, but I wasn't-it was- Her words and thoughts were coming in a knotted, jumbled mess, and it was all he could do to make sense of them. He knew visions had restricted themselves to her dreams, but according to her frantic thoughts, she'd had one while nodding off on a-a-whatever those metal carriages were. The vision came in fragments as well, and to his astonishment, he saw the discussion between him and Dryden the hour before. Hitomi, calm down, I know that.

What? she asked, astonished.

That happened an hour ago. I know Basram means to attack us.

Oh. Hitomi frowned. Why the urgency, then? What are you going to do about it?

There was hesitation on Van's end, more than she was comfortable with. Finally he said, I'm going to handle it myself.

What? This time, the single word was practically screamed.

Van winced and said reluctantly, Dryden is going to manage things here for a few days while I put a stop to the hijackings. If Basram can't get any more parts, they won't have the means to attack us.

But that's dangerous! Hitomi was well aware of how familiar that sounded, but ignored it. Fanelia needs you! Can't someone else go and report to you?

No, he said stubbornly. None of the guards can be spared, we're still building our spy network and the ones that are capable are still out in the field, and I'm the only person who knows how to handle a sword. Once I see what's going on, I'll either take it out myself or get reinforcements and head back.

What if something goes wrong and you don't come back? Hitomi knew it wasn't a what if'-this had to be why she'd seen that vision.

Dryden has his instructions. He'll have Queen Eries and Queen Millerna choose the next ruler from the surviving nobility, and help organize a defense against Basram. Besides, if I don't come back from a mission like this, Fanelia has more problems than a missing king.
Someone else can do it, I'm sure of it, Van! Hitomi didn't even try to keep the fear out of her voice anymore.
Van was about to snap at her, but he managed to check himself in time. I need to do this myself, Hitomi. I'll be fine. Trust me. There was an uneasy pause, and before she could say anything, he said finally, I've got to go. I'll talk to you when I return. There was a near audible snap as he severed the mental link between them.

Immediately he could feel her trying to reestablish the connection, but he pushed all attempts away. He had an obligation to his people to stop this war before it even started.

And if he spent a single second in this castle more than was necessary, he was going to explode.

Hitomi tried to calm herself down and forced herself to start walking again. Van knew what he was doing. He had to. He wasn't stupid. She wasn't stupid for thinking that. He wouldn't take unnecessary risks.

Alright, maybe he would. Hopefully not as many as he would have a before. He knew there was a nation on his shoulders now, and he wouldn't throw his life away, or underestimate his enemies, or...

He'll be fine, she told herself. He'll be fine.

Then she was at her house. The windows were warm with light as she let herself in, the summer breeze dying once inside. Her shoes were dropped by the door, slippers sliding on. I'm home.

Welcome back, her mother called from the kitchen. Dinner's going to be ready in twenty minutes.

I'll be upstairs. It would be nice if her family could afford air conditioning for the entire house instead of just the family room, but they had to make ends meet somehow, and there just wasn't the kind of money to spare for something like that. Hitomi made do with a fan instead, buying another from the hundred-yen store each time her current fan broke.

The air in her room was still, but a draft blew through once the door was opened. She dropped her duffel bag and flopped on her bed, trying to think of anything but Van, and failing.

I'm pretty sure a lot of you have read fics like this, where it's been some time since Hitomi and Van parted ways but now she's compelled to return. Pretty standard, right? But I intend to do more than that, personally.

After watching the entire series, I did some research and discovered that originally, the series was supposed to be 39 episodes long, not 26. 39! They had to cut out a THIRD of the story, or condense it, than what was originally intended. Can you imagine? And then fans hoped they'd handle it in a sequel, but no, they got a movie. So a movie would tie up the series nicely, right? Well, no, they decided to retell the story with some pretty big differences. So this left us fans screaming, I bought/checked out/borrowed the ENTIRE SERIES and all the Hitomi/Van action was hand-holding and hugging? IF SHE KISSED ALLEN, SHE COULD'VE HAD A MAKEOUT SESSION WITH VAN, DAMMIT! Moreover, there were some things either I missed or that went unexplained. Such as, why Hitomi and her grandmother? What's the real deal with the pendant? Now what happens with Zaibach? Does Millerna join a nunnery, or what?

So this isn't exactly a Hitomi returns to Gaea and after a passionate makeout scene or three, convinces the ministers that she IS the best candidate for Queenhood! Yaaay! fic. There are too many golden plot threads left behind for my comfort, so I'll be exploiting those. And for anyone who's read any of my other stories (I'm not sure if I recommend them or not, because they're all fairly old and I'm not so fond of them anymore) you know that, somewhere in the process, a main character is going to have to eat it. It's me, it's what I do!

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter. I've no notion how many more there are, or when they'll be coming along.