If I and YouHe stumbled in a drift of snow and fell to his knees. Gasping at the bitter cold, a trickle of blood dripped from his mouth onto the pristine white snow below him.
Sullying purity.
He spent a few precious moments kneeling there, trying to gather some vestiges of strength into his limbs. Finally, taking a deep breath, he shoved his sword into the ground, pushing himself up. He almost fell again, but steadied himself against his weapon, trying to push the nausea and dizziness away. He took a step forward.
It felt like an eternity until his foot touched the ground again.
I must be flying.
He took another step, and another; one more, and then he fell. He didn’t want to get up again.
His entire body hurt. Any movement made had him feeling as though he had pushed himself against a wall of spikes, shoving the blades in deeper and deeper.
Until I have nothing more to bleed.
The snow against his body piled up slowly, but surely. They barely even bothered him anymore. They felt like they were getting warmer.
Or maybe... I’m the one who’s getting colder.
He smiled weakly.
It’s almost over.
He closed his eyes.
* * * * *
The town house he owned in Palas was still intact. Miraculously, it had survived the Zaibach assault upon the city proper, suffering nothing more than minor scorches on the walls.
"From here, it almost looks like the attack had never happened," Millerna commented.
He nodded, but he really couldn’t stay with her long. "What brings you here, Princess Millerna?" he asked.
She paused a while before replying. "I will be leaving with Dryden on his new convoy of merchant ships."
"I see."
Another pause, then: "We’re expecting our first child."
"Congratulations, Your Highness."
She shook her head, then stopped herself. "Yes," she said softly. "I just wanted to tell you first. Before you could hear from... someone else."
She wouldn’t even look at him. He thought he knew why.
Taking the few steps toward her, he put a hand to her shoulder. Startled, she lifted her head. As their eyes met, he smiled.
"I’m happy for you, Your Highness," he said, and he meant it. "I know you will have a wonderful future."
She flushed scarlet. "Allen..."
"When is the birthing ceremony?" he asked,taking his hand from her.
She took a moment to compose herself before she replied. "Next spring. We’ve arranged to have it at the palace." Millerna looked at him again. "Will you be there?"
He looked out the window. He could see the ocean from here. Wide and blue, almost endless.
"Allen?"
He smiled at her. "I promise."
* * * * *
Yet another promise to go unfulfilled. Poor Millerna would go through her birthing day, wondering where he was keeping himself hidden. Perhaps she would try to find him. Searching for his eyes through the countless others she would meet, but finally giving up and devoting all her attention to her new family.
I’m glad. She deserves happiness. Dryden should know how fortunate he is to have her.
Another breath rattled in his lungs, setting his chest on fire. It was a stark contrast to the cold wind that must have been blowing around him. He couldn’t feel anything beyond his own pain anymore.
At least his quest had been a success.
* * * * *
"Make sure that everything’s taken care of, Mason," he said. "I’d hate to come back and find this place falling to pieces." His smile robbed the barbs from his words.
The old steward bowed his head. "I won’t disappoint you, Lord Allen."
The man’s words and the obvious concern over him touched him deeply. "I know you won’t, Mason."
He left the study and headed for Serena’s room. Though his sister had been presumed dead when he bought the town house, he’d set aside this one room especially for her. Or perhaps for her spirit, the memory of her. At times, it had felt as though it was the only way to keep her alive in his mind. So many years had passed and Serena’s face was almost all but forgotten. He had only snippets of momentary recollections to picture her with.
Dilandau, he thought. Serena... One and the same.
He didn’t like having to leave her. It was like his father abandoning them all those years ago.
During the nights when he’d stay beside Dilandau’s bed, somehow secure in the feeling that Serena still existed somewhere in the depths of the guymelef pilot’s psyche, he would hear him cry out softly. Calling out for his friends, comrades, and occasionally, mother. Looking down at Dilandau, it was hard to imagine that he had been the little sister Allen had played with so long ago. Hard to picture the dual persona asleep before him as his own flesh and blood. But he was.
"Mason," he said.
The steward’s reply was immediate. "Yes, Lord Allen?"
"I’ve left instructions on my desk regarding the details of Se... Dilandau’s care and health. I want them obeyed to the letter," he told him. "No exceptions."
The old man hesitated before replying that he understood.
Allen almost smiled at that. He knew that nobody else except his companions could really understand why he had taken it upon himself to provide support for the reputedly insane Dilandau. Still, he knew that, despite his doubts, Mason would do all that he could to make sure that Dilandau was well taken care of.
When I get back, he thought, I’ll make it up to Serena. I’ll make sure to spend whatever time I have to make her well again.
* * * * *
Thinking about Serena brought some determination back into him. He couldn’t give in to the pain so easily, to die and leave her alone again. He had to fight.
Slowly, he placed his hands on the snow, palms down, and pushed. His arms quivered at the effort, but he managed to raise himself up from the ground. Another agony of effort, and he was on his feet. Using his sword as a crude walking stick, he walked forward.
Dear Gods, it hurts to move.
The time elemental had been almost impossible to hold back. It had trapped him in its web, aging him so far until he didn’t even have the strength to raise his hands. It had been so tempting to close his eyes then, and accept his death. After all those months of hard travel and fighting, he had truly wanted to embrace the end. He believed that he would have, if it hadn’t been for...
... her.
Like a newly dawning sun, her image appeared before him. He caught sight of her just as his eyelids were drooping to a close. She looked just like she had the day she left; still so innocent and vulnerable. She’d aged a little, of course, but she was still unmistakable.
Hitomi.
Her back was to him, at first. He saw her head looking this way and that, as if she were surprised to find herself there. Then, she turned and saw him.
"Don’t look at me!" he’d shouted. "Or you’ll be cursed as well!"
But she didn’t turn away, and wasn’t cursed along with him. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she recognised him behind the mass of wrinkled skin and white hair. Hitomi had run to him, knelt beside him, and taken him into her arms.
He had been astonished to feel the warmth of her embrace. Some part of his mind was convinced that she was a mere hallucination, and the physical touch he experienced was jolting.
It really was you, Hitomi.
Time didn’t seem to exist anymore. Nothing else registered in his mind, except her presence. He whispered her name. Again and again, like a mantra. A chant to give him hope.
"You can’t give up, Allen," she’d told him, weeping. "Please, fight for your life!"
And he did. Like a phoenix, he rose. Pushed away the desire to die, pushed away the aches in his poor old body. Drawing in breath after breath of life-sustaining air. Lifting his sword had been the most painful thing then, but he managed.
In the darkness before him, he could hear the enraged scream of the time elemental. It was coming for him.
"Allen!"
Her cry galvanised him into action. With every ounce of strength he possessed, he gripped his sword and charged.
They clashed. He almost died by the elemental’s hands, but he thought again of her presence, her image, and somehow it gave him the power to fight on.
* * * * *
"The seer of the Mystic Moon is in peril," the old crone had said.
"What do you mean?"
"There are forces still vying for her power. Forces from both worlds."
"What can I do?"
The fortune-teller smiled at him. "Need you even ask?"
He bowed his head. He hadn’t expected to be doing things like this anymore. He’d been trying to cut back on his formal commitments, to devote more of his time to finding a cure for Dilandau’s ailment. His queries had pointed him to this fortune-teller, but her answers were of different matters. Different worlds. "I accept the quest, old one."
Her smile widened. "Seek and defeat time, Allen Shezar," she told him.
"Time?"
"So that the seer of the Mystic Moon will never have to pay for her deeds, you must defeat that which has the power to erase her from existence."
He listened raptly to everything she had to say. Hours later, he took his leave and returned to Palas. He left again two days after.
* * * * *
Finally, the elemental lay in front him, dead. He had collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Though he’d won, it wasn’t without cost. His left arm was broken, and several of his ribs felt like they were broken, too. An ankle twisted. Several deep gashes on his body had left blood flowing like red streams to the ground.
As he looked at his old, weak hands, time flowed from his body. It hurt, but he knew he was reverting back to his normal age. The death of the elemental had broken the curse. But he still ached everywhere.
"You fought well, Allen," she said.
He looked up and saw her kneeling beside him. To his horror, he could see right through her, as if she were made of only mist. His hand reached up to take hers. For a moment, he could feel her; she was still solid. But then, his hand fell right through to hit the ground painfully.
Her face was sad. "I can’t stay long," she said. "I don’t have as much power as I used to."
He could only stare, trying to drink in the sight of her. He didn’t think that he could have spoken at all even if he’d wanted to. She stared back at him, and he hoped it was for the same reasons he had.
* * * * *
He entered Fanelia a week after leaving Palas. The great city was still being rebuilt, and the scars of Zaibach’s attack promised to linger on in the minds of Fanelia’s inhabitants for a long time to come. Still, Fanelia’s king was strong, and determined to bring his people out from the shadows of the past.
Van Fanel had grown much in the past four years. Taller, stronger, matured. His eyes held some of the surety of purpose that his father’s had. Watching him, Allen could only marvel at the change.
"Are you really going to fight time?" Van had asked one night, after a late supper with his new wife and Allen.
"Yes."
"Do you think you can win?"
Allen couldn’t answer, though he suspected that Van didn’t expect him to. "I accepted the quest," he said after a while. "I can’t say if I can win or not, only that I have to see it through to the end."
Van nodded. "I’ll come with you."
His wife whirled to face him, shock evident on her face. "Van!"
He raised a hand to forestall her arguments. "This is Hitomi’s life we’re talking about."
"But...," she began, before Allen interrupted quietly.
"And what about Fanelia?"
The young king frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Fanelia has need of her king, Van. You must not abandon her."
"I’m not abandoning Fanelia!" Van had shouted. "This is Hitomi we’re talking about!"
"You’re Fanelia’s king, Van," Allen said calmly. "Fanelia is still in the midst of a rebuilding itself. You can’t leave her now. She needs you here."
"But, Hitomi..."
"Leave that to me." His eyes softened as he saw the king’s expression. "A king must serve his country first and foremost. Quests like this are better left to knights and soldiers who are more expendable than kings."
Van hadn’t liked it, but he couldn’t argue. He’d spent too much to reclaim Fanelia from extinction. He’d faced challenges that would ruin a weaker man, all for the sake of his country and his heritage. Leaving at a critical stage like this could possibly destroy all that he had fought for.
Allen remembered looking closely at Merle after that. He’d caught a brief glimpse of the pain and insecurity she had felt at Van’s spoken intention to go along with the knight on his quest. The stark image of her emotions, however momentary, was enough to make his heart ache in sympathy. He went to sleep that night wondering if Van truly realised how lucky he was.
* * * * *
He was walking. Progress was slow, though. The storm showed no signs of stopping. The horizon was no more to be seen, covered as it was by the thick clouds and the wall of falling snow. He didn’t know where his feet were taking him to.
As long as I’ve succeeded...
The hurt was gradually fading, getting easier to ignore. He preferred it this way. Vaguely, he recalled that this was a dangerous feeling. It meant that he was on the verge of expiring. Worse, it also meant that he didn’t care anymore about trying to live.
Years ago, the pain would have been more welcome than the numbness he was feeling now. Pain meant that he was alive, and that he was still fighting to keep it that way.
Even the legendary knight of Asturia has to fall one day.
He laughed at the thought. Chido, Duke of Freid, would be disappointed in him.
* * * * *
His search took him everywhere, except the one place he longed to visit. Though Freid’s boy-king had extended him an invitation to visit the newly rebuilt palace, Allen had never been able to gather the nerve to accept. The thought of facing Chido again was as frightening as it was longed for.
Chido had grown remarkably, much like Van. Though not even ten years of age, he took to his royal duties with such fervour, it was eerie. Allen had seen a recent painting of Freid’s Duke Chido, and the boy’s resemblance to Marlene was astonishing.
Millerna hadn’t commented, but the knight also knew that Chido’s resemblance to Allen himself could be seen.
Chido. Blood son of Asturia’s Princess Marlene and the Heavenly Knight, Allen Shezar.
How long had the late Duke Freid known?
* * * * *
The storm broke and the snow tapered off. He had no idea how far he had walked. After hours of painstaking shambling, he arrived on a patch of ground that was not covered by ice.
The sight of dull gray rock beneath his feet made him smile. He’d dropped his sword in the snow some time ago, and hadn’t the will to stop and pick it up. Pausing to gaze at the stone allowed exhaustion to catch up to him. With nothing to support him, he crumpled to the ground like an oak felled. He couldn’t feel his impact with the ground.
Where am I?
Night sky above. Stars. Two Moons. He sighed. Hitomi was somewhere on the Mystic Moon, the home she called Earth.
It seemed as though he’d closed his eyes for a moment, but when he next looked around him, it was dawn. With the new light, he could see a little more of his surroundings. He was on a peak of a mountain. A few feet in front of him lay a sheer, vertical drop. He’d been fortunate that he hadn’t fallen to his death.
Instead, I’ll just lay here and slowly die.
He wondered if it was on a peak such as this where his father had met the enchanting girl from the Mystic Moon. If they had both sat upon the edge of the ground here to talk and learn to dream of one another for the rest of their lives. Perhaps this was the very spot where she had been taken by that pillar of light, leaving his father bereft and empty.
Perhaps this was where it had all begun. Here, here. Here...
* * * * *
He couldn’t bear to throw away his father’s journal even though he’d sworn never to forgive Leon Shezar for abandoning his family. His inability to let go of that one final keepsake of his father’s angered him. It was a weakness in the wall of anger he’d built around his heart. A flaw that shouldn’t have been.
And yet...
When he finally learned what Leon had written in the journal, he felt that he could understand the elder Shezar’s reasons. Of course, that angered him even further. How could he ever think to forgive such a man?
Leon Shezar had left his family. Left his wife alone, to gaze out of the windows every day and every night, hoping with all her heart that she would one day see him appear on the horizon. Left his son to fend for the family, to nurse the bitterness in his heart, to turn that hate and anger into a determination to master the sword, and to drive himself to live by the codes of chivalry so that such acts of abandonment could never happen again. Left his daughter to grow up without being able to remember his face or hear his voice, to cower in the darkness of a Zaibach programming facility, barely ever knowing that she had a father she could call out to for help.
Their meeting at the Mystic Valley forced him to reexamine his stance. The true reasons behind Leon’s continued absence were finally made known to him. Left with nothing else, he had to forgive. Yet, somewhere inside, he was aware that a part of him still wanted to be angry with his father. He had spent half his lifetime harbouring the rage within him. It was impossible for him to let it all go.
Despite his forgiveness, Leon Shezar was all that his son had sworn not to be.
And yet, they were both so alike. Even down to the fact that each had been left to live the rest of their lives yearning for the unattainable love of a girl from the Mystic Moon.
* * * * *
He was wasting away out on the peak. There was nowhere else he could go, and there was no power on Gaea that could save him this time.
But Hitomi’s safe, at least.
There had been many things he’d dreamt of doing with his life. Finding his sister, guiding her back from the nightmare she had become, devoting his life to the glory of Asturia and Gaea, reconciling his memories of Marlene, becoming a true father to Chido, even though he would never tell the boy the truth. Out of all of them, he’d only managed to accomplish the very first. It didn’t seem like much.
But, he’d managed to save Hitomi.
That will be enough for me, I think.
He turned to lay on his back. It was difficult to move. He couldn’t even feel the rest of his body anymore.
Even though the sun was rising, the sky above him was still dark enough for him to see the stars. Tilting his head back a little, he caught a glimpse of the majestic Moons, drifting serenely through the sky. He was careful to keep his gaze on them. He wanted his last sight to be that of the incomparable Mystic Moon.
His mind was filled with memories of a voice he thought he’d never hear again. He was smiling when his eyes gradually drew shut.
* * * * *
He awoke to find himself lying under a tree in a large field of grass. The sun shone down on the world, but he was shielded from it by the shade of the great tree. He could feel a breeze blowing by, and saw the branches of the tree rocking gently.
"So you’re awake now."
He smiled, still lying down. "Yes."
"Were you having a bad dream? You were thrashing about in your sleep."
"It was a sad dream." He sat up slowly. "It didn’t have a very happy ending."
Playfully. "Was it about me?"
"Partly," he replied.
"Anyone else, then?"
"Some."
He could almost feel her bemused exasperation. "Why can’t I ever get a straight answer from you?"
"Maybe because I’m that much of a liar."
They sat together silently, watching the long grass bend with the wind, listening to the whispering leaves as they swayed gently to the breeze. It felt so peaceful there. He felt good.
"Were you really there with me, at the cave?" he asked.
"If you wished for me hard enough, yes," she replied.
It was his turn to be playful. "What if I hadn’t?"
"Then we wouldn’t be here at all."
He turned to face her. She really hadn’t changed a bit.
"Is this real?" His voice had a desperation to it that he’d never heard in life.
"Do you love me?"
He nodded and said, "Yes."
She smiled. "Then, it’s real enough."