Chapter Text
Hitomi cuddled herself in the blanket from her bed and sat down on the small balcony attached to her room at the Nest. The events of the last day left her tired but agitated, unable to sleep. The view of Fanelia at night oddly attracted her. It was a lovely sight, a fairy ring of warm yellow lights surrounded by the gray peaks and the impenetrable darkness of the forest. To a poet, ignorant of the current events, it could be almost romantic.
But to an anxious heart, the darkness seemed to be just waiting to swallow the city whole.
Suddenly, a sharp sound woke her up from her musings. It sounded like somebody dropped something, and a glass broke. The door on the larger balcony a tiny bit higher and further away from hers opened suddenly and she craned her neck to get a better look.
A familiar figure crossed the balcony in a few hurried strides, leaving the light coming from the balcony door behind his back. He leaned over the railing for a bit, letting the night draft play with his hair. She noticed he had finally shed his uniform and was clad in a loose Fanelian-style shirt that was a nondescript, pale color in the dark. She was dumbfounded as Van stepped back, doubled over as if in a cramp, his hands gripping the railing. Then he raked his trembling fingers through his hair until they entwined at his nape, his form bending forward so that he was leaning on the metal pipe with his upper arms.
His face was hidden but his pose and harsh breath spoke volumes about his disrupted state. Hitomi almost stopped her own breathing in fear of being discovered, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. Similar to the moment she had caught at the hospital the day before, he lost the grip over his mask and was currently showing anguish she would not have expected. Despite their earlier conflict, she felt a lot of sympathy for him. She could only imagine the responsibility that lay with the duty of a king, especially in a situation such as this.
A cautious thought appeared in her head. That maybe she had been unfair to him. Didn't take into account all that she should have… preoccupied as she was with herself.
She stood up slowly, without any conscious effort. It was then that Van noticed he had company. Their eyes met and she was frozen to the spot by the empty, haunted look that greeted her. She only saw his face muscles twitch into a grimace that looked like hardly contained rage before his lips settled in a disdainful frown. He looked away from her sharply.
"Wait," she gasped and reached one hand above the railing hesitantly. Wait for what? For her apology for intruding on his private meltdown? Would she be brave enough to run to his room and try to talk to him? He answered in her stead. His grip on the railing seemed to have tightened and within a second, he effortlessly jumped sideways over it. Letting gravity do the rest.
"Ah!" With a gasp, she bent over the ledge as he fell, her eyes trying to discern him in the night. Even knowing that this was not really dangerous to him, her heart threatened to jump out of her chest. It took a few scary breaths before her strained eyes caught a bright dot gliding down towards the forest.
Hitomi sighed as she let her knees buckle and she slid back down against the railing. Van hadn't exactly acknowledged her presence and she was more than sure this balcony episode would go right to the "never happened" bin along with the "barn" and "bridge" one, to name a few. Never to be mentioned nor talked about again, as if it didn't happen at all. But she was just as sure of what she saw. And no one could convince her otherwise.
Still, she felt like she should alert someone. The king seemed not well, and she was the only one who seemed to be aware of it. She knew.
Merle.
The sleepy catgirl opened the metal door of her cabin, wiping at her eyes with her entire forearm. "What is it?" she asked with a sleep-rough voice.
"It's Van. He just jumped off the balcony, just like that. He seemed not right."
The younger girl paused mid-movement but then just sighed. "Is that really so shocking, considering everything?"
"Shouldn't we… do something?"
"Well, yeah, we can go and check his room. For any goodbye notes and such."
She looked at the girl in horror. "Don't joke about such things!"
"Listen, if you knew Van-sama at all, you would know that he would never leave his country in such a cowardly way. Especially not in this situation."
True. Hitomi knew that herself. But she wouldn't have expected him to behave like he did, either.
Yet, here we are. Both of them losing their sleep and standing in front of the heavy Zaibach door leading, no doubt, to the original fortress commander's suite, the door itself befitting something more like a submarine rather than a castle.
"It's probably locked," Merle sighed, but Hitomi could still see worry in her. "In that case, I will just climb in through another balcony."
But the door opened with ease, surprising the catgirl visibly. They both carefully stepped over the tall threshold into a still light-filled room.
She looked around curiously. Despite being bigger than hers, it managed to look quite cozy. As much as the Zaibach fortress allowed, at least. The metal furniture she saw during her brief visit to Vione when Van was kidnapped must have been replaced by wooden Fanelian pieces, the predominant tones brown, green and beige. The blue energist lamps of Zaibach were swapped for a warm yellow flame. There was a bit of a disarray, but less than what she would expect of a room of a boy his age. Not that it wouldn't make sense, he just got back and she was sure he had servants scrubbing his room daily.
One of the few signs of the room being lived in was the coat strewn over the stool on top of some other clothing. More importantly, there were several objects dropped on the ground, including a splayed book, no doubt one of those picked out by his advisor. She had never seen him read a book before… and it definitely looked like he didn't have an eye for them, because it seemed like he threw it and knocked some fragiles off the table.
Really, she could be a detective.
While Merle bent down to collect the shards. Hitomi carefully picked up the book. It was heavy and well-worn. The unfamiliar Gaean script hid its title and contents from her. She could not read it anymore without using her powers and asking Merle about it seemed silly. Instead, she walked over to put it on the end table, where it felt like it belonged. The thicker, green top cover of the bed seemed rumpled a bit, with a few scrolls and other books on top of it. Hitomi imagined Van there, stretched and reading, then throwing the book across the room.
He did seem reluctant to go through with the whole rite thing. Did he feel forcibly pressured into it? No, it was almost impossible to make him do something against his will.
She eyed the entrance to the balcony. What in the book could have possibly upset him so much? As if it's a hard task to anger him, really. The night wind was playing with the simple thin curtain from the open balcony door. She got the brief idea that he would just land back on the balcony and catch them right in the act. Well, not Merle, who was obviously close enough to him to hang around his quarters. But Hitomi surely was an intruder. He made it clear before that it was his impression.
No wonder.
She wasn't even supposed to be here, on this planet; she was a black passenger on Dryden's ship, she was not able to help, had ran away stubbornly, and to top it all off, she had to witness Van displaying weakness, whatever it was that she saw. The uncomfortable feeling was not leaving. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, feeling cold.
"It's alright," the catgirl murmured. She had finished collecting the shards of whatever was knocked down into a piece of fabric in the meantime. "He will have coped with it by the morning. They leave early. We should go back to sleep as well."
She nodded, sparing one last look at the open balcony door. She finally realized why the Nest was perfect for him. Come night, the ladders were drawn up and nobody went up or down. That made the fortress safe from most kinds of intruders. But he, he could come and go freely as he pleased. I wonder if Van will want to come down to the ground again, she remembered Millerna's words from yesterday.
She had always thought it must be great to be able to fly, to reach the skies. But now, for the first time she realized it must also be very lonely up there…
Sleep did not come for what seemed like long hours after that, leaving her tossing and turning as the blue glow of the twin moons reached her bed. Knowing it was going to be another exhausting day tomorrow, she tried to lull herself to sleep but the thoughts of Fanelia's grim situation whirred in her head.
Her eyes kept opening every few minutes, blinking away horrible scenarios from the canvas on the back of her lids, the picture of the huge night-sky object that was her original home both beautiful and distressing. Yet, her gaze was still pulled to it. Last thing she remembered was the quick glance of a few feathers in the wind, as they passed her still open balcony door. Whether it was a dream or not, she slept peacefully after.