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mirimiramiri · 10 months ago

Text

… in a hopeless place

The shadows of the fighters looked like long brush strokes drawn by a restless hand on the dusty canvas of the castle courtyard. In the hazy red light of the evening sun, the master trained his student to prepare him for his great test. Their steps were quick and silent, only the singing of the swords disturbing the peace.

“Folken is good, isn’t he, Mom?”

“Yes.” Like his father, Varie thought. The dark waves of loneliness once again overwhelmed her inexorably. Using strength that she no longer possessed, she fought her way back into the here and now.

From one of the castle's countless balconies, she watched the progress of her firstborn. Her youngest son keeping her company. Mother and child were alone, only little Merle was sleeping in her bed in a room behind them. She was exhausted from raging. Once again Van - her tireless playmate - had followed her throughout the castle. Maids complained in secret about the children's wild antics, but the queen didn't care.

Little did she care about anything these days.

It was slowly becoming autumn. The world was immersed in a cheerful sea of various colors, but red was the most present. Like a harbinger of doom, the forest's crown of leaves turned crimson, as if blood were streaming down the sacred mountains of Fanelia.

The queen was shivering and the thick cloak around her shoulders did nothing to stop it.

“He will definitely be able to complete the ritual,” explained her youngest son with the confidence of childish inexperience. He reached for her hand as if he sensed her slipping toward depression. "Certainly."

Folken narrowly avoided a dangerous blow from Vargas, but the tip of his sword robbed him of a few strands of his silver hair. Varie frowned as her son was reprimanded by his master. In her opinion, they shouldn't train with real weapons. It was negligent, an accident could have happened too easily. Goau would surely have laughed at her womanish clucking...

“Mom?” Van tugged at her fingertips and with difficulty she tore her worried gaze away from her firstborn, who had grown up far too quickly. There stood her second son, the long-awaited latecomer, her late miracle. When she had already buried any hope along with his unfortunate siblings. In the evening light his big eyes shone like two rubies. He looked very serious.

“Yes, what is it?” she asked and decided to give him her full attention now. She was neglecting him, that much was clear to her. But it was often so painful to dedicate herself to him. She only ever saw his father in his face, his fuzzy head, his thoughtful look. Even his high child's voice sounded like Goau's deep baritone and tore her heart into a thousand shreds every day.

“Once Folken is king, what will become of me?” “Oh, a fair question,” were her words of praise. She cocked her head a little. From his mouth it sounded as if he had not the slightest doubt about his brother's success.

“Don’t you know?” he pressed impatiently.

She knelt down. Her blue robe cascaded across the floor. Her long hair flowed over it like a second cloak. Not a single white thread ran through her blackness, even though she was already the age of a grandmother by human standards.

Their first son, by a quirk of nature, had hair like an old man, but Van looked just like his father. A hand stroked his fluffy, shaggy head, ruffling it even more. “You, my little dragon, can do whatever you want with your life.” His eyes grew even larger.

"Anything?"

"Exactly." She tapped his tiny nose, making him giggle. “But most likely you will get married, have a family and take over the administration of one of the southern territories.”

“Marry?!” Van shouted loudly as if the idea were the most absurd thing in the world. “A girl?!”

"Boys usually marry girls," his mother smiled. She immediately thought of the day of her own wedding, when she walked down the aisle under countless critical looks and swore eternal loyalty to the man of her life. With great difficulty she withdrew from this all too sweet past.

“But girls are yucky!” her son complained, putting his fists on his sides. The wooden sword at his hip, a gift from Vargas, clacked just as indignantly. “For example, these two boring blonde princesses from Asturia…” he murmured under his breath because it wasn’t really appropriate to gossip.

“But certainly not all of them,” said Varie indulgently.

Van seemed to have to ponder this for a long time. He furrowed his little brow and she almost thought she saw smoke rising from his ears.

“Merle is also a girl and not yucky,” he combined extremely astutely. “I’ll just marry Merle.”

“Oh Van.” Now Varie laughed. It sounded rusty, her body had forgotten how to do it. "Unfortunately this is not possible."

“Why not?” Now he crossed his arms and looked at her sternly.

Varie sighed. Children were truly excellent verbal duelists with inexhaustible endurance. Van was no exception. He may not have been nearly as eloquent as Folken at his age, but he made up for it with his tenacity.

“Merle is not like us,” she explained gently. But that only made him seem even more determined. True to the motto “especially now”. “Dad wasn’t like you either and you still got married.”

“That was different…” his mother began, but then she stopped. Wasn't she teaching her son exactly the same kind of prejudice as those who had always met her? Who had almost prevented her marriage to Goau? “You know what, you’re right. If you really want that and Merle does too, then you’ll get married one day.”

She stroked his hair, which no matter how often she combed it would always remain an untamable tangle. Secretly she wanted nothing less than for him to change his mind when he grew up. If the relationship between her and her husband had already been under difficult circumstances, what about between him and the cat girl? Van should have it easier for once. Easier than her and Goau and also Folken. Without the burden of the crown on his head and the weight of the whole world on his shoulders. Hopefully one day he would meet a nice, uncomplicated girl from Fanelia with whom he wanted to marry.

“Yes, I’m definitely marrying Merle!” Van seemed very happy with himself and his decision. Then his mood changed abruptly. “Are you going to get married again?” he wanted to know sadly.

Varie swallowed. She hadn't expected this question. "Why would you ask that?"

“This lunchtime… a few maids were talking about it. That you find a new man and disappear with him. And that they can’t wait for it to happen.”

20 years.

For 20 years she called this castle and this country her home, the humans her people and yet in their perception she was a parasite. The black widow who dragged the king into misfortune. It was probably only because of the respect that Master Vargas enjoyed among the citizens that they had not been chased away. Sometimes she wondered whether her sons wouldn't be better off without her... and whether there wasn't something to the curse that supposedly fell on the descendants of Atlantis.

Varie's heart felt heavy. Then she forced her lips into a smile. It certainly seemed tense, but it was all she could manage. “Didn’t I teach you that it’s not appropriate to eavesdrop?”

Van waved his short arms indignantly. “I can’t help it! I hid and they talked right next to me! I… I…” He blushed. “I even covered my ears, but they were really really really loud.”

His mother nodded. “I believe you,” she assured and he stopped trying to justify himself. "And to your question: I won't go away with another man." She tickled his chin and he squirmed back and forth, giggling. “Your dad was my great love and that will only go away when the stars no longer shine at night.”

And sometimes, in dark hours, she cursed Sora for her prophecy, forever chaining her to the human world and a man who had been taken from her far too soon.

If she had known this beforehand, would she have avoided her fate? Would she have never gone to that mountain lake that night? Or would curiosity have ultimately driven her there? So that her treacherous heart immediately focused on that tall, beautiful man who climbed out of the thicket to her. With that face that was nothing but stunned admiration. Although she immediately showed him her true, feared nature. But he had loved her wings, the mark of her curse, as fiercely and deeply as everything about her. Despite, or perhaps because of, she was different.

“The stars will always shine, so will you always love daddy?” Goau’s second son concluded after a long time of thinking.

“Always…” she confirmed.

Prince Van grinned broadly. In doing so, he revealed a gigantic gap from which the last baby tooth had recently fallen. The clanging of metal resounded from the courtyard again. Mother and son turned their attention downward. Folken now held a round shield in front of him. With this he fended off the attacks of automatically fired bolts that drilled into the ground behind him in a grotesque pattern. He moved quickly and deftly. His spectators watched the exercises in admiration.

A window was slightly open behind the queen and prince. In the room beyond, a small figure lay in a bed. Her long ears twitched frantically. Merle was wide awake. It wasn't appropriate to eavesdrop, but the two of them were talking nearby. No challenge for her excellent hearing. She heard her own heartbeat louder than anything else in her ears.

Marry? That's what two people did to stay together forever? Out of love. And her prince wanted to marry her. That meant he loved her. Van, her prince, loved her.

Merle hugged her pillow and imagined it was her Van. Her future husband. Who worshiped her and carried her in his hands. Inspired by this wonderful future, she felt like the most valuable creature in the world. No longer an orphan, an outlaw, neither animal nor human, a servant, an oddball. She was still looked at askance for it, but soon people would look up to her.

That she would be Van's wife and great love. She pressed a kiss to her pillow and couldn't wait for his promise to finally come true.

Note: Vargas is the German name for Balgus.

I found the huge age gap between Van and Folken remarkable and wondered if their parents might have had problems conceiving and with miscarriage. I had a lot of fun with small Van and will write more about the little rascal in the future, probably together with his father. He reminds me of Calvin and can join the G.R.O.S.S club :D

Huge thanks to wonderful @eireanness!

#escaflowne #vision of escaflowne #van fanel #escaflowne fanart #tenkuu no escaflowne #the vision of escaflowne #escaflowne fanfiction #varie fanel

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