Lost Memories
Chapter 3
~Changes Over Time~
By: Willow Mae
"Get up." A voice ordered Hitomi. Slowly, the woman opened her eyes and looked about her. She lay in a field of soft green grass. Hurriedly she pushed herself into a sitting position and cast her gaze to the sky. There hung the blue planet she has lived on all her life, the Mystic Moon.
"I made it." Hitomi breathed a happy sigh.
"Stand up and state your business." The voice said again. Hitomi looked to the speaker. It was a tawny young cat woman, dressed in a short battle skirt and top. Her pink hair had been divided into two tight braids that swung down her back. Her blue eyes were calm, but her tail swished behind her in an agitated manner. She held a long sword in her hand. It hung by her side limply in an non-threatening manner, but Hitomi could tell by the trim muscles in the other woman's arms that she knew how to use the weapon, and that she would, if need be. Slowly, Hitomi got to her feet.
"Am I in Fanelia?" she asked the cat woman.
"You are. I ask again, what is your business? I think it only fair to warn you that I'm not alone, so it wouldn't be wise to try anything funny." She twisted the sword in her hand slightly to maker her point. Hitomi found herself becoming frightened. What had happened since she had been here 17 years ago? She never remembered Fanelians being so hostile before. Still, she had to cling to the hope that she could still find a way to live here.
"My business is to see King Van." Hitomi said carefully, unsure of what might agitate her companion. "Or Merle, if she is still at his side. Tell me, are they still alive?" her voice carried a heavy note of anxiety as the thought that perhaps they had died in some way came to her. She felt her heart tighten within her breast as she fought back oncoming hysteria. She felt that if everyone she had loved were gone, perhaps it would be time to join them herself. The cat woman was looking her over suspiciously, but something in her manner seemed friendlier. A thought flashed through Hitomi's mind as she watched her companion, but she didn't voice her thoughts quite yet.
"Who are you, to seek conference with them?"
"So they are alive?" Hitomi breathed as she felt relief washing through her.
"Yes."
"Thank God…" Hitomi sank to her knees and nearly wept for joy. "I'm an old friend."
"Lord Van has few friends now." The younger woman said. "I am one of them. If you were as well, I'm certain I would know of it."
Hitomi chewed on her lip in frustration. All she wanted was to see Van again, to be brought back to life in his love. It was proving to be difficult to convince this woman to take her to him. Suddenly, a thought struck her.
"I have come from the Mystic Moon to advise the king in…current affairs… " She said emphatically, trying to invent a cast to please the other woman. She recalled that awe the people of Gaea held for the planet Earth and she hoped to play this stranger’s suspicious against her. She was about to launch into a more detailed story of her mystical powers and details of her soon-to-be-invented prophecy for the kingdom of Fanelia when the cat stopped her.
"There is only one person I have ever known to come from the Mystic Moon. She left long ago." Hitomi froze halfway through forming her next sentence, looking over the woman before her. She had noticed it before, but she had dismissed the thought earlier. Yet now, she wasn’t so sure. Yes, the eyes had the same sort of light…her hair was certainly longer, but it was still pink…she noticed her companion eyeing her in the same sort of manner, as though a light had clicked on in both their minds.
"Merle/Hitomi?" they asked each other simultaneously. Two pairs of eyes widened in recognition.
"It really is you…" Merle whispered, her body gone limp in astonishment, her marsh mannerisms dropping at once.
"Merle!" Hitomi wept, wrapping her arms around the younger woman’s neck and clinging like a child. "I’m so glad to see you again…" she buried her face in the soft fur on her neck. The sword Merle had been holding dropped to the ground as she wrapped her arms around the crying friend attached to her neck.
"Hitomi, are you all right?" she asked, stroking her friend's light brown hair in a soothing manner.
"Take me to see Van, please." Hitomi murmured, not loosening her arms from her old friend. "I have little strength of heart left." Merle bit her lip worriedly as she tried to find words to explain the trouble. She couldn't take her friend to see Van, much as she longed to. It wasn't possible…
"Captain?" a voice asked from the tall grasses. Merle looked to the sound and a young man stood up from his hiding spot.
"It's all right, Bendil. Gather the rest of the squad, we're going back." The young man's eyes widened and he looked around nervously.
"But Captain…" Merle fixed him with such a stare that he fell silent immediately. Hitomi wondered about the title her friend had, but said nothing.
"That's an order. We're taking the Lady Hitomi back to the palace." She gave her friend a title so the men would know to treat her with respect. "There are other squads patrolling, and we'll send a reserve troop to take our place. Dismissed." Bendil executed a smart salute and jogged back into the field, bringing other men to their feet as he went.
"Come on Hitomi, it's a short ways back to the palace." Hitomi nodded and began to walk alongside Captain Merle, never once removing her arm from around the other's neck. Merle, disturbed not only with Hitomi's sudden dependence on her but also burdened with thoughts of how to explain the many changes over the years, supported Hitomi through the whole walk to the palace. Once back, she placed the green-eyed woman in the care of a kindly serving maid. After promising a visit to Hitomi later and deflecting another inquiry about Van by instructing the servant to find a suitable room for their guest, Merle jogged out to the barracks and readied a replacement squad to finish searching the area her troop found Hitomi in.
"Captain!" the men in the room stood as she entered.
"Gentlemen." She acknowledged as they sat down again and went back to their business. "Any news, Janon?" she asked the first man. He was dressed differently than the others, and by his bearing was obviously an officer of high rank.
"None so far." he apologized. "Do you think we should send out some melefs yet?" Merle chewed her lip and wrinkled her brow.
"I don't know what to do." She sighed, leaning against the wall. "No, don't send the melefs out yet. I know we were going to if there was no news by now, but I don't like the idea of the troops frightening the people. Send a squad to the fields west of the city, we didn't finish our patrol. There is a new player in the game, and I'm hoping that somehow, things will start to fall into place."
"What kind of player? Will they be able to help?" Janon asked.
"I'm not sure." Said Merle. "Keep searching for now, I have some other business I must take care of."
***
Hitomi was playing with the drapes in the large room she was in when there was a knock at the door.
"Come in." she said. The door opened just wide enough to let the little girl on the other side through. She was dressed simply but elegantly in a green velvet dress that fluffed around her knees. Her raven hair was braided around her head like a crown and her hazel eyes watched Hitomi with suppressed wonder.
"Are you the Lady from the Mystic Moon?" she asked, her voice light. The lilt of her tone suggested a noble upbringing.
"I am." Hitomi responded, coming to kneel by the young child. She couldn't have been much older the five or six years old. About Kei's age… Hitomi couldn't keep the thought from running painfully through her mind. "And who are you?"
"You may call me Molly." The child responded, conducting a tiny curtsy.
"I'm glad to meet you, Molly." Hitomi responded, taking the edges of her shirt between her thumb and forefinger and conducting a variation of the curtsy Molly had just performed. The child giggled, and it tugged a string in Hitomi's hear. Never again would she hear her daughter's happy laughter…
"I heard that you knew my father. Is that true? Tell me stories about him." The child half begged, half demanded. Hitomi sat back on her heels and looked closely at the child.
"I may have know your father," she said, mentally listing every name she could remember from seventeen years before. "Who was he?"
"Hitomi? It's Merle. Can we talk?" the voice was accompanied by a knock at the door to the chamber.
"Merle! Please, come in!" the cat-woman entered.
"Hitomi, I need you to understand that a lot has changed since you were here…" then her eyes landed on the small girl standing just behind Hitomi. "Princess Margaretta! I did not see you there." Merle coughed uncomfortably.
"How do you do, Aunt Merle?" Molly wrapped her arms around the cat's legs.
"Princess?" Hitomi whispered. She looked at the child, dumbfounded. Now she could see…such a resemblance to Van…
"Um, yes. This is one of those changes I mentioned…"she placed her hand on the girl's black hair. "Hitomi, this is Princess Margaretta, Lord Van's daughter. I'm sorry." Hitomi felt faint as things began to register. Of course. Seventeen years had passed. She had married and had a child of her own; she couldn't have truly expected Van to wait for her forever. Not really. It was only logical that he had formed a family of his own. After all, he was a king; there were endless reasons why a family would be a good idea. Still, Hitomi could not help feeling jealous and hurt.
"I understand. I would still like to see him, to give him and the queen…" she couldn't bring herself to say 'his wife'. She said her words with false happiness. "…A proper congratulations." She couldn't believe how difficult it was to feign her calm.
"Daddy's gone." Margaretta offered helpfully.
"Molly, dear, why don't you go back to your studies? I met your tutor on the way here and he's quite frightened by your disappearance." Merle said kindly, nudging the child towards the door.
"I was only playing around. I wanted to meet the magic Lady." Molly pouted before skipping out, only to poke her tiny head back in the door. "Lady Hitomi, please come by the nursery at some point. I would very much like to hear some stories." She commanded. With a giggle, she left again.
"She's a dear child." Merle commented, sitting down beside Hitomi on the floor.
"I know. She reminds me of my own." Hitomi gazed at the floor, smiling without bitterness. Merle looked shocked.
"You have a child?" she asked. Hitomi gave a slight nod. "She must be very sweet. Do you think there may be a way for me to see her?"
"She'd dead." The response was clipped. The two women were silent for a while, before Hitomi continued. "My husband is dead too. That's why I came back."
"I see. I'm sorry." They sat in silence for a few moments more.
"Molly said that Van was gone." Hitomi ventured, not raising her eyes from the floor.
"Unfortunately, yes. There was some trouble along the southern border and he went to go investigate. He intended to make a political mission to ask the duke who owns that land to keep his people in line.
"He's a good, caring king." Hitomi sighed, her thoughts lingering on the handsome boy she had fallen in love with. "When will he return?"
Merle was silent for a moment, fidgeting uncomfortably as she struggled to decide what to tell her friend.
"Hitomi, I have to be honest with you. I couldn't bear to lie to you, even though I don't want to add to your pain." Merle clasped her hands together in her lap. "He was to return 2 weeks ago. No one knows where he is now. He's disappeared completely."
"Lost Memories"