Hitomi and company belong to Sunrise, TV Tokyo/Bandai Entertainment,
Inc./Egan Loo. I'll return her (very reluctantly) after this is done,
though Van might be a touch late. Spoilers for Escaflowne. Mystic Eyes and
all original characters and plot copyright 2002 by Quicksilver/Aishuu.
Please ask permission before reposting.

Quicksilver's Quill Offers:

Mystic Eyes
An Escaflowne Epic

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
PART THREE: MOON
Keywords:
Fear, Illusion
Imagination, Bewilderment

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



If you look around the room right now, you will (probably!) see people and
objects that are comforting in their familiarity. Everything is exactly as
you expect it to be. You know that if you closed your eyes and opened
them, the room would be the same. But...have you ever lost the familiar to
find, in its place, a world so extraordinary you can't even grasp it? This
is the experience of the Moon.

Most of the time we live in a tiny pocket of normality that we wrap around
us like a security blanket. We turn our backs on the mysterious universe
that waits outside. From time to time we may sneak a peak with our
imagination, or venture out through fantasy or expanded awareness. We can
be thrust out there unprepared through drugs, madness or intense
experiences such as battle.

The Moon is the light of this realm - the world of shadow and night.
Although this place is awesome, it does not have to be frightening. In the
right circumstances, the Moon inspires and enchants. It holds out the
promise that all you imagine can be yours. The Moon guides you to the
unknown so you can allow the unusual into your life.

Sadly, we are usually afraid of the Moon. In readings, this card often
stands for fears and anxieties - the ones that come in the darkest part of
the night. Card 18 also stands for illusions. It is easy to lose our way
in the moonlight. Be careful not to let deceptions and false ideas lead
you astray. Sometimes the Moon is a signal that you are lost and wandering
aimlessly. You must find your way back to the path and your clarity of
purpose.




~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


Hitomi didn't know what to say or do. Her eyes were transfixed on the
swinging pendant. Van looked slightly surprised as he saw the shock
written all over her face, but he quickly grabbed the necklace and shoved
it back under his shirt. "Sorry. I've had it as long as I can remember- it
may look feminine, but it feels like a part of me."

She opened her mouth and moved it wordlessly, unable to find anything
intelligible to say. Then she panicked.

The door swung open almost magically, since she doubted that her fumbling
fingers were capable of anything responsible. Van's expression changed
from slight embarrassment to full-grown confusion, as he called out her
name, but it was too late. She had already managed to stumble out of the
car, and started to run.

She darted into the dorm, throwing her ID through the security partition
at the uniformed security officer was sitting there. The security officer
swiped her card, and the magnetic strip served to open interior door. She
darted in, glancing back to see if Van had followed her.

He hadn't.

She wondered if she was more disappointed or relieved.

The officer looked at her, and blinked. Hitomi remembered then that the
campus put security on each of the front desk between 11 and 6, instead of
students. The officer wore a nametag, "Takamura."

"Kanzaki-san?" the petite officer said, holding Hitomi's ID. "Are you
okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. It had been a short run, not even enough to wind
her, although she was still feeling shaken from the sight of Van's
pendant. Still, she was sure she was dead white, and her green eyes
probably stood out against her skin like lanterns in the dark.

Takamura scanned the girl, noticing the party clothes and over-sized
jacket. "Kanzaki-san, did you have a problem with a date?" she asked
gently.

Hitomi blinked in confusion. "No..." Why wasn't Takamura giving her back
her ID?

Takamura slid out from behind the desk and walked around. "There's no
shame in coming forward if a boy did something to you. It can happen to
anyone."

"Nothing happened!" Hitomi insisted as it dawned on her that Takamura
suspected that she had possibly been a victim of date rape.

Takamura seemed unconvinced, but didn't push. She handed Hitomi's ID back
over to her, wrapped up in a piece of paper. Hitomi took it and darted
down the hallway, her sandals not inhibiting her running a bit. She
fumbled with the keys to her door for a second before she managed to
unlock it, letting herself in.

The room that had been her sanctuary for the past two months seemed
foreign. She walked into the darkness, not bothering to turn the lights on
until she reached her bed. Hitomi clicked the small table lamp on,
throwing strange shadows across the wall. Her books were still scattered
on the floor, and she looked at her copy of Hamlet, wondering if it had
only been a few hours ago that the world had been simpler.

She shivered, cold, wondering why she was still wearing Bridget's jacket.
That meant she would have to return it... and Bridget was the one who had
got her into this entire mess. Hitomi supposed Bridget hadn't meant to
cause problems. Still, she removed the pale jacket and shoved it in her
closet as she kicked her shoes off, hoping to think of some other way to
get it back to Bridget.

She was avoiding the issue, she knew.

How was Van here, she wondered.

He had her necklace... it had to be Van- yet she had run from him.

Why had she run from him? Was she that much of a coward?

She looked around her room, wondering how things that had been familiar
had turned into objects she barely recognized. The chair seemed like some
object she had never seen before, while the various lamps reared from
their corners, grasping at her, shadowed in unaccustomed darkness. And the
telephone had become a foreign contraption that she barely knew how to
use. She blinked at it a few times before coming to a decision.

She would talk to Yukari, and tell her the truth. Yukari wouldn't think
she was crazy; rather, she would know what to do.

She grabbed the cordless off her desk, and pulled the phone card out of
her purse. She hadn't bothered to pay for the phone line, since she called
so few people, so she had to rely on calling cards. An annoyance, but she
didn't feel like paying the extortionist fees the company charged college
students. She patiently went through the routine, and was embarrassed that
she had to look up Yukari's phone number. It was true that Yukari had been
living in her new dorm for only two months, but there had been a time in
high school when they talked to each other every day.

The phone rang twice, between a sleepy voice answered. "Moshi moshi?"

Hitomi blinked in surprise. She had been expecting to hear Yukari's voice;
instead, a masculine voice was there. "I'm so sorry!" she said. "I must
have the wrong num-"

"Hitomi?" The voice sounded more alert.

"Yes?" She didn't recognize it.

"It's Amano," the voice said. "Are you okay? You never call this late..."

Hitomi's mind was reeling. "I-I just realized that I hadn't called Yukari
in a couple of weeks, and I thought she' be up..."

"I can get her, if you give me a second..." Amano volunteered.

"No, no... I'll call her later."

Silence hung between them for an eternal second before he replied. "Okay.
Hitomi... are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" she insisted.

Again there was silence. "Hitomi... we're worried about you. If you decide
you can't talk to Yukari, you can talk to me. I'd like to consider myself
your friend."

"Thanks, Amano-sempai. Nothing's wrong, though. I just felt like talking.
Tell Yukari that I love her! Bai Bai!" she said, clicking the phone's off
button.

She stared at the receiver for a second before throwing it violently
across the room, watching it smack into the poster of Gackt she had hung
on the wall. There was a satisfying CRASH, and it dawned on her that she
had just broken it. She stared at the wreckage for a second, before
pulling her knees up against her chest and wrapping her arms around her
body.

Amano had been with Yukari. She knew Yukari had been adamant about getting
a single, and knowledge now fell perfectly in place. Yukari and Amano...
she hadn't believed they were at that stage in their relationship. She
suddenly felt even more alone, and abandoned.

She hadn't loved Amano... but the knowledge that Yukari had taken that
step without telling her hurt. She had believed herself beyond petty
betrayals, but tonight had just turned her world upside down, in so many
ways. She felt the tears she had been repressing for so many years aching
to be released, but Hitomi wouldn't cry. Crying was a futile pursuit.

She would do what she always did when she felt pressured- she would run.

Hitomi uncurled from her ball of misery and stripped the beautiful dress
off, tossing it onto the chair in the corner of her room. Then she pulled
out a sports bra, running shorts, socks and a sweatshirt, and got into
them quickly, before putting on her running sneakers. She knew her coach
would kill her for wearing them off the track, but there was no way she'd
run without proper ankle support.

Again she grabbed her key and ID, and shoved about ten dollars into her
carrier before putting the thing beneath the jacket. It jangled and felt
uncomfortable, but campus policy required that students have ID on them at
all times. She recognized the logic behind it, but it didn't make it
comfortable for running. She sighed as she tied her shoes up tightly.

No matter how upset she was, she never forgot to stretch before running.
She carefully spent five minutes warming up, careful to keep her mind
empty. It wouldn't do to have a blotchy face- Takamura would stop her on
her way out, and she was sure the officer would already give her a hard
enough time as it was. Even though KO had a wonderful record for campus
security, going out on a Friday night at two AM to run wasn't one of the
brightest things she'd ever done.

She locked her door carefully after completing her exercises, and darted
by the check-in before Takamura could start lecturing her on date rape
again. She needed some time to think, and some time to forget. She wasn't
sure what she wanted to do first, so she set her 50,000 yen shoes on the
path and let them carry her, breaking into a run.

Hitomi was a sprinter, not a distance runner, but she still ran at least
five kilometers each morning before breakfast. She knew all the paths
around campus quite well, and her feet automatically took her on her usual
run.

She ran until she lost all track of time and self. She ran until her lungs
began to burn, and her feet ached. She ran her usual path three times, and
was halfway through her fourth when she doubled over, gasping for air. It
was still dark out, and she had no idea what time it was. The crescent
moon hung overhead, providing just enough illumination to warp lampposts
and other nearby objects into monsters and other horrifying creatures of
imagination.

The sound of her breathing rang heavily in her ears as she sat down,
gasping for breath. She had taxed herself foolishly, and over a minor
upset. Why shouldn't Yukari and Amano be lovers? It was natural... and
there was no reason for her to be upset. Just because she couldn't have
Van didn't mean that Yukari shouldn't experience intimacy, either.

She needed water. She was going to dehydrate....

She needed to stop being such an idiot. Donovan Masanori couldn't be her
Van. Her Van was still on Fanelia. She had to accept that. They said that
everyone in the world had a twin.... Well, she had just met Van's... and
the coincidence had extended so far as to include his name. After all, she
had pulled the Wheel of Fortune, and perhaps this was what the card had
been warning about.

Hitomi had just about become reconciled to this point of view when she
heard the sound of approaching footsteps. A solitary set of shoes hitting
the pavement gently, the stride sounded too long to be that of a woman...

If she was lucky, it would be a security guard, but Hitomi knew that her
luck had been out the last twenty-four hours, ever since one of her
teammates had suddenly become interested in the social life of the "ice
queen". She cursed herself for not bringing her pocket mace or whistle,
and she knew she was too tired to outrun an attacker. She shut her eyes as
she rose to her feet, trying to steady her breathing.

The footsteps approached, closer... closer, until the person came into
range, stopped about ten feet away. Sure enough, it was a man. Tall,
slender. Still too far away to make out his features, but the moonlight
turned his hair white, and the long jacket he was wearing billowed out
around him like a cape. "You shouldn't be out this late," he called.

"I was just about to go back to my dorm," she answered.

"Do you need an escort?" he offered.

"No... I'm jogging, and you're not wearing the shoes for it," she said
coolly.

He laughed. His voice was familiar, but she couldn't place him. Still, she
had met so many people since coming to campus that it was quite possible
that she had simply forgotten him. "Be careful, Kanzaki-san. It's not safe
for an attractive young lady to be wandering around campus at this time of
night. You never know who you'll meet." He laughed softly, turned around
and walked the other way.

She watched him go, wondering who the hell he was. Obviously they had met,
or at least he recognized her. That wasn't that difficult, as she was a
campus celebrity because of her running, but it was still annoying to have
people come up to her and pretend to be her friend.

She hated that part of track.

She just wanted to run.

With a sigh of resignation, she spun around and started to jog back to the
dorm. He was right that it was insane for her to be out- she should be in
her dorm. Being upset about Van and Yukari would get her nowhere. If she
was smart, she'd just go curl up in bed and pretend that today had never
happened, and go back to her normal life.

Go back to being miserable...

She almost tripped over her own feet as that thought came to her. Was she
miserable? She had thought her life fairly content- she was a star
athlete, a competent student, and the beloved child of her family. It was
true that she'd been locking away part of herself, her mystical heritage,
but that had brought her nothing but heartache in the past.

But... how had she been living? Stagnating, existing? Just waiting for the
next day to come, and the day after that...what was the point?

For the first time in years she had felt alive, when she had seen Donovan.
She had felt the surge of possibilities, the joy of hope. Hitomi had felt
herself open up to the belief that yes, Van could have returned to her,
against all odds. After all, hadn't Gaea taught her that miracles were
possible? Didn't she learn that love was the most potent force of all? Why
wouldn't Van cross worlds to be with her?

Her jog slowed into a cool-down walk as her dorm came into sight. As she
thought about it, the situation was slowly starting to make more sense.
She was afraid of taking the chance that Donovan COULD be Van... because
she knew, deep in her heart, he most likely wasn't. Van was loyal to
Fanelia, and Fanelia needed him. He was the last of his family, the last
King, and he had to rule. He might love her, but he couldn't.

It had been up to her, and she had failed. She had come home, choosing the
safety of Earth over her love for Van.

And that was the crux of the matter.

She had never wanted to admit it, but she could have -should have- stayed
with Van on Gaea. If the Emperor of Zaibach had managed to stay all those
years there, surely she could have managed to do the same. But she hadn't-
she had returned home a second time.

She was barely aware that she was crying until she saw the tears hit the
pavement, like the first drops of a summer shower. Her hand went to her
cheek, and she rested it against the warm wetness for a second before
trotting back to the dorm.

She felt so tired.

Takamura was still sitting at the desk. She pushed her ID card through the
slot, annoyed at the procedure. Hitomi had the feeling the security guard
was going to take the opportunity to lecture her again.

She was right. "Kanzaki-san... are you okay?" the officer asked after
letting the girl through the security door..

"I'm fine... I just had a rather unsettling conversation with an ex-
boyfriend," she fibbed. Amano had never been her boyfriend, but she knew
that the security guard would most likely buy that. And lay off. "I needed
to go for a run- I always go running to think about things."

"Still... it's too late to be going around campus by yourself..."

"Takamura-san... I'm eighteen years old. I'm perfectly capable of taking
care of myself." Hitomi leveled the cool look she'd been using effectively
on people for years. It was a look that had cowed better people then a
security guard at a college, and it didn't fail her now.

"Fine, fine..." Takamura passed the ID card back to Hitomi, who took it
disdainfully, pretending there were no tearstains on her face. "Still, if
you do this again, I'm going to call your RA... or the Counseling Center.
Just because you're upset doesn't mean you should do things that are
risky."

Hitomi nodded and murmured a few platitudes before taking off down the
hall to her room. With a sigh of relief she unlocked her door, flicked her
lights on, and walked into her room, ready to collapse. She wrestled with
the knots on her shoes (which suddenly seemed too complicated for her
numbed fingers to untie) and managed to undo them after a struggle.
Stripping down to her underwear, she resolved to take a shower as soon as
she woke up in the morning. She felt grubby, but it was almost time for
sunrise, and her exhaustion outweighed her desire to clean up. Quickly she
dug up one of the overly large T-shirts she preferred to sleep in and
threw it on. She knew her hair still had all the blue goop Bridget had put
in all those hours ago, and her face still bore the ruins of her makeup,
but she didn't care. She just wanted to sleep.

Sleep would bring blissful nothingness, for she rarely remembered her
dreams.

As she pulled the blankets of her bed back so she could crawl in, she was
surprised to hear the sound of paper crinkling. Her homework was still
scattered on the floor- she never bothered to do it in her bed, since she
knew she would fall asleep if she did it in her bed. With a puzzled look,
she found the piece of neon pink paper that had made the noise.

It was the pamphlet Takamura had given her. It was about date rape.

Hitomi stared down at it in amazement before she crumpled it up and threw
the paper wad across the room. Appropriately enough, it landed on the
remains of the phone.




END PART THREE

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Technical Notes: Ah, Date Rape can happen, and is VERY frequent on college
campuses. It's quite natural Takamura thought that. A resource:
http://www.ncpc.org/10yth3.htm