Ties of Blood

an Escaflowne fanfic

by Serenade

Part 4: Dreaming of the Dead

Author's Notes

Spoiler warning:
This story is set after the end of the Escaflowne series. If you haven't seen all the episodes, you may encounter a number of significant spoilers.

Disclaimers and other notes can be found in Part 1 of the story.

Thanks again to Nat-chan for beta reading and advice.

Dilandau lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, his gaze lost in its mosaic of cracks and shadows. He refused to see Allen; he refused to see anyone at all. Even the guards who brought his food and the servants who changed the linen entered the room only when necessary.

He watched the light grow pale with the hours and then deepen into indigo again. He left the curtains closed. At intervals, he heard the door creak open and the clatter of a tray being set down. Sometimes he dragged himself out of bed to sate his hunger, feeding himself clumsily with his uninjured hand. Sometimes it seemed like too much effort, and he lay motionless until he heard the door scrape open again and the rattle of crockery being carried away.

You'd best remember you're not a Dragonslayer anymore.

He'd wanted to fling boiling abuse at Allen; he'd wanted to skin him alive with curses. But there were no words that could have expressed the borderless rage seething inside him. Not a Dragonslayer anymore. That burned, that did--a slow, relentless ache, like an itch beneath the skin, like the sting of the scar branded upon his cheek.

How could he call himself a Dragonslayer now, anyway? He was a soldier without orders, a commander without troops, a pilot without a guymelef. What claim did he have to rank and position? What was Dilandau Albatou now?

He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about anything. It was so much easier to lie there and pretend the world away, in the eternal twilight of that room.

But whenever he fell into sleep, the dreams came.

Dilandau was shaken from nightmare by the rough grip of hands on his shoulders. He lurched upright, eyes wide, ready to strike whichever of his hapless officers had drawn the task of waking him. He stopped cold when he registered the tall, shadowy profile outlined in the semidarkness.

"Are you planning to lie there until you rot?"

Allen's voice was tight with suppressed anger. So the bastard wasn't even going to let him rest in peace. Dilandau fell back onto the pillows. "Leave me the hell alone."

Allen muttered a disgusted oath and turned towards the window. He tore the curtains open, flooding the room with mid-morning light. Dilandau recoiled from the sudden brightness.

"Get up. There's a carriage waiting for us outside."

Dilandau raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "I'm not going anywhere with you. And close the frigging curtains!"

As though he hadn't heard, Allen threw a bundle of clothes at Dilandau.

"Get dressed," Allen said. "We're going to visit your mother's grave."

The rain had stopped. Overhead, the sky shone a pale, fragile blue, laced with delicate spirals of cloud.

Dilandau shivered in the brisk wind despite the heavy wool cloak he wore. He was out here under the naked sky without weapon or armour or guymelef, and it filled him with a curious sense of exposure.

The hillside rippled as the wind sent a wave rolling across the grass. Only the dark columns of the gravestones seemed to pin it down to the earth. Thousands of them lined the vast green expanse of the hill. Many were obviously recent, the newly turned soil beneath them dark, like scars furrowed into the earth.

This particular gravestone, however, had been here for some time, the grass curling thick and green around its base. Long strands brushed against Dilandau's ankles as he approached, his eyes focused on the cross-shaped marker that stood as high as his chest. He was hardly aware of the presences behind him; Allen, the Princess, their escorts, all of them receded into insignificance.

Everything was obvious in retrospect, of course. If Dilandau accepted Allen's claims about his origins, then they shared common blood, common ancestry. Common parentage.

I don't have a mother, Dilandau had said. All he could think of to say. Allen had given this protest the scathing look it deserved.

Now Dilandau laid his hand upon the stone, feeling the grainy texture of its surface, the warmth against his skin.

"Hello, Mother," he said.

He'd meant it to sound casual, perhaps even coolly sarcastic. But somehow, his voice wavered on the last syllable. He only hoped Allen didn't hear.

Dilandau tried to picture her, the woman lying beneath that stone, ten years dead. No images came into his mind. Had she been laughing or serious? Kind or severe? Had she been beautiful? Did she look anything like Allen? Did she look anything like... himself?

His hands bunched into fists. This was crazy.

Mother.

He couldn't even remember her face.

"What am I doing here?" he said, too loudly. He spun around, his eyes challenging Allen. "Do you expect me to be able to remember her? Well, I don't, okay? No happy childhood memories, no anything! So, are you satisfied?"

Allen swept him a look that would have chilled stone. "This isn't about you," he said. "We're here to pay our respects to the dead."

Dilandau flushed, chastened.

He watched as Allen and Elise laid flowers upon the grave: lilies and bluebells and columbine, gathered into a generous wreath. ("She loved wildflowers," Allen said.)

They stood for several minutes in silent contemplation. Dilandau saw that the edges of the gravestone were beginning to wear smooth with time and weather, but the letters upon its surface had been engraved deep and were legible still.

ENCIA SCHEZAR
ALWAYS BELOVED

The dates were carved below.

"How did she die?" Dilandau asked, before he could stop himself.

The sun slid behind fragments of cloud; bands of shadow passed over them.

"She fell ill," Allen said slowly, "soon after Serena disappeared. Her health was always delicate. This time she just kept on fading, and there was nothing--" He made a brief, abortive gesture with his hands.

At Allen's words, Dilandau felt a strange, stabbing sensation in his heart. "So is that my fault too?"

He expected Allen to reprimand him, or to snap back an exasperated denial. But Allen only gave him a distant, almost wistful look. "No. Not your fault."

Elise's voice rippled through the stillness like wind on water. "Allen." She began walking towards the crest of the hill. Allen turned to follow, matching his stride to hers. He didn't wait to see if Dilandau was behind him.

Dilandau glanced around at the guards, who seemed only mildly interested in his activities. He noted, however, that their swords were loose in their sheaths, and their hands were never far from the hilts.

Dilandau made a small sound of derision, and hastened to catch up with the others.

Near the top of the rise, where the sea breeze bent the long grass into one undulating wave, another set of graves stood silhouetted against the sky. They were undecorated, their carvings no more ornate than the rest, but there was a sense of age and dignity about them.

Elise walked through the long row of graves with scarcely a sideways glance. She stopped in front of the last gravestone in the line. To Dilandau's surprise, Elise knelt down beside it, brushing the dirt away from the stone with her own hands.

"Who's that?"

"Her mother," Allen said. "The late queen."

Allen didn't seem about to join Elise in this particular ritual, nor did he indicate that Dilandau should do so. Waiting for Elise to finish her observances, Dilandau fiddled again with the position of his sling, which always seemed too high or too low for his arm.

As he glanced around idly, his attention was drawn to another gravestone standing a little off to one side. Unlike the others, it did not stand upon a mound. A posy of withered flowers was laid in front of it. Dilandau gravitated closer, to see what name was inscribed on its face.

"Marlene," Allen said, from behind him.

"What?" Dilandau spun around.

Allen's expression was odd. "Her name was Marlene Erisha Aston." He gave the words a gentle rhythm, almost like poetry.

Dilandau turned back to the gravestone, crouching down to read the inscription. This Marlene had died five years ago. "Aston... Isn't that the name of the king?"

"She was the eldest princess," Elise said, walking up to them. Bending down, she placed the last of the flowers upon the grave. "My sister. Lost to us now."

"She was still so young," Allen said, a strange note in his voice. "She deserved--so much more time--"

If Dilandau didn't know better, he'd swear Allen was trying to hold his emotions in check, and he wondered what there was about some dead princess to get so worked up about.

After a moment, Dilandau realised. Of course. Allen had... issues with lost sisters. No doubt it was a sensitive area for him, especially if he'd been mourning Serena all these years. Dilandau wondered in morbid curiosity if there was a grave for her somewhere here. "Hey, Allen..."

"She's not even here," Allen said, as though he hadn't heard. Dilandau realised they were talking about Princess Marlene again. Allen's gaze caught Elise's, held it. "But we pretend she is, don't we? Pretend to an empty cenotaph. Pretend she isn't buried in Freid, far, far from home."

"Freid was her home, after she married." Elise, not missing a beat, her response all ready, as though this was a conversation they had worn grooves into.

"Maybe," Allen said. "Maybe not. All I know is she died there."

He turned and began walking back down the hill, past the long lines of graves.

Elise watched him go, releasing a slow sigh from her lips. "Come on," she said at last. "Let's go."

Migel had died in Freid too, Dilandau thought as they began their descent. Did he have a gravestone as well, or had he simply been buried in a random pit, unmarked and unmourned? No one would put flowers on his grave. No one would ever kneel by his stone and whisper to him how badly he was missed.

And what about you? the voice inside him whispered. Who's going to put flowers on your grave? Who's going to remember you when you're dead, or even care that you're gone?

Dilandau raised his head. At the bottom of the hill, Allen was waiting for them, standing alone in the midst of the silent forest of graves.

Their eyes met.

continued in Part 5: And Trust