Disclaimer: Vision of Escaflowne, its characters and events do not belong to me, nor am I making any money from the writing of this story. I'm just having fun in the owners' sand box.

A/N: Apologies in advance for any mistakes you might find. I'm far from perfect. Criticism will be framed and hung on a wall (will show pictures for proof!) and flames are always welcome (Dilandau says thanks). That said, welcome to the grandiose first chapter, in which much frolicking occurs... Enjoy!

I. Dilandau Albatou

It was all the rain's fault.

Nothing but that unstoppable force of nature could ever have this strong a grip over the young boy's heart, constricting his chest and clogging his throat without his permission. It could only be the rain, for he surely felt like he was suffocating. His breaths were spasmic and his face was wet enough that if a thunderstorm broke out overhead it would not be any worse. And if it was not the rain, what would be the cause for his condition? Certainly not the other boys, girls, parents or neighbours - why should they and their opinions have any effect on him? No, he knew from long ago that anything they had to say was worthless and had shed that concern at an early age, so the thought of it was laughable.

He wanted to believe that so badly.

So that left only the rain.

The boy's day had started no differently from any other before it. Perhaps the birds had been singing a bit louder than usual, but everything did use to have a harsher edge to it in the mornings, when one was still in the protective embrace of the hidden world beneath the bed covers. The sun had been crisply shining through the worn curtains in his window...

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...while the mattress had taken on every curve of his petit frame during the night and the pillow had leaked one more feather to crown his pale forehead. The blankets had settled nicely around him, leaving not one gap for the cold to breach. And the boy, so quiet and peaceful in his fortress of plumes one would not know he was there, rolled to the other side, dispersing in one blow the equilibrium that had been perfected and finetuned throughout the night.

In moments, he was up and stretching his hands to the ceiling, willing his unusually toned muscles to awaken also. His efforts were slow moving, but he eventually sprouted to life as his mother's call came from the next room. It was time to start his daily routine.

Clothed in record time, he set out to do his morning chores, helping his mother around the house with any and everything she needed. It was hard but simple work and it was a vital help to his mother due to her quickly deteriorating health, but as far as the youth was concerned, it was "dead time": time that was not his; time that went by wastefully spent. Only after the daily cleaning, shopping and tidying (with the occasional rushed lessons about which letter was which over the accumulated dust before wiping) had been done, did his time come, right after glorious lunch. Once the sun reached its peak, his mother's pots and pans blared him a secret warning to stand by. After the eating, time would be his again.

The afternoon was the part of the day he liked best; when he didn't have to listen to his mother and was obligated to do nothing but what he so pleased. He endured the wait till midday, because he knew that the rewards that came afterwards were worth it. He was free to unlock his wilful and independent mind from where he had kept it safe before going to bed in the night. And so it was that this particular afternoon came and he left the house and his mother's authority for the day, ready to enter the second stage of his routine.

The crisp morning sun had given way to a grey light, blurred by some heavy storm clouds starting to amass overhead and threatening to overflow the small village. The youth dismissed them after a cursory glance and continued on his way down the street.

The miniature town where he lived was an isolated place, located on a clearing surrounded by thick woods on all sides and consisting of a gathering of two handfuls of farmers and herders plus their respective families. They had tucked themselves in this faraway corner of the world, remembered by no outsiders but caring not for them either. A stream flowed by not far from the outer edges of the village and provided it with all the water its inhabitants needed. In self-sufficient peace and detachment from the world beyond, these people lived with their children and animals. Everyone knew whom everyone was related to, and everyone knew where everyone lived. It was a peaceful and familiar environment, no ill will existed among the people. Except in his case.

There was a healthy amount of children in the village. More than enough to take over their fathers' work when they were old enough and perpetuate the peaceful settlement, guaranteeing continuity. The petit boy now making his way through the streets, however, was hardly ever seen amongst his peers, or with anyone else for that matter. He had been long dubbed the "black sheep of the village" - in less kind terms.

There had once been a time when he had tried to make friends with the other children, but not any more. Those days were over. By now, he had convinced himself that there was nothing he could do but make good of what he had - at least no one was openly violent towards him, just mean - and thus he lived by himself and for himself. That may have been an unusual way of life for someone with only eight years spent on the world, but he was a very unique boy through and through.

The only person in this micro-universe that the boy liked was his mother, but not for the same reasons that little boys usually have for loving their families. He liked her because she was the one who treated him best in the world - with indifference. She was also the living, breathing remains of one far more treasured, of whom he had nothing except a picture. And for that, he hated her.

The youth had a picture of his mother, taken during pregnancy, with her arms draped around both her swollen womb and her grinning husband. Torn and frayed at the edges, the differently shaded tones of brown that silhouetted the individuals were starting to look all the same, but the boy kept it with him at all times, resolute to hold on to it until the paper became too old to bind the image to itself. The woman there was his real mother, the one with alabaster skin and long brown locks so light that when the sun touched them they seemed blonde -lay buried beneath the shell the one he saw everyday, who always wore her hair down in disarray, mirroring her health condition, and hated. That brown-toned woman was the one he loved, the one person he knew would never curse him as everyone else did, but most of all, she was the only one who loved him back.

Many of the townspeople said that his mother's stress after his father had died weeks before he was due to be born was the reason he was so special. He had been hearing the whispers since birth; about how he was "different" and how he had been "fostered by the devil". As a baby, he had been more alike an angel in his paleness than any other infant, but his moon-kissed hair and eyes the colour of sin and blood had him seggregated.

Now, little over eight years later, the boy found himself utterly alone, apart from his picture. The woman he called mother was cold and falling deeper into depression and disease; she never spoke to him unless it was to give him an order. Both tolerated each other's presence. He had no friends, since none of the other children wanted anything to do with his abnormal eyes, so it was only him, his picture of what could have been, and his loneliness.

However, the boy had somehow managed to preserve his spirit, his wit and his determination throughout the years. From the moment the boy had realised that no one on that place cared for him in the least, he had gathered what knowledge he had accumulated and made a resolution, a very specific objective to keep in mind, to lighten his days and give him hope and something to strive towards. And strive he did, working to become independent and self-sufficient, like a one-man version of the remote town he lived in, and he swore that as soon as possible, he would run away and leave that cursed place forever. That was his goal and that was how he spent his afternoons.

He would do all sort of things, anything that appealed to him and anything that his eight-year-old body could do. The lessons in reading and writing he tried to extricate from his mother on a daily basis were proof of his strategical intelligence, as he knew that, although he didn't care much for books, knowing how to read properly would undoubtedly serve him well. He imagined that the greatest sources of information in the outside world would come to him in a written format, and information was always something that could save your life. He hadn't been making many progresses in his studies, but it was not so much for lack of effort, as it was for lack of resources. He had no books to practice his reading on, and whatever lessons he got from his mother, the only one whom he could get to talk to him, were vague and incomplete, mumbled and doodled on dust, occasionally contradictory.

But there were other things the boy did in order to prepare for the glorious day of his departure. He had fashioned himself a sort of hidden base among the trees next to the road that went down to the river. It was his place, no one else knew of its existence, and it was where he could plan his activities and tuck away his treasures for safekeeping. Equipped with a clear view over the river, a pair of torn blankets and a jar of wild berries he collected from the bushes lining the river road, it was where he hid and learnt to make use of the two most precious items he had ever found while roaming the wilderness around the village.

To him, "precious" meant that it was something tremendously useful, not that it would fetch a pretty price in a market. He had no need for superfluous items. As such, his two most "precious" discoveries were, in fact, not much more other than two hunks of rusting metal that he had found lying by a corpse on the bottom of a ravine.

Most people, if not all, would have run at the sight and stench, or would have been shocked or disgusted, but not him. He had stared at it for a minute or two, unperturbed by the cloud of insects buzzing overhead, until the glint of steel somehow managed to reflect the sun and catch his eye. He had spent the rest of the day by the body, mesmerized by every detail it had to offer. It was the first concrete proof he had come upon of an outside world, separate from the village.

The cold body was male, but it was no longer possible to tell how old it had been at the time of death. The clothes it bore were so fine and rich that the village boy considered it a waste to wear them as such. The ornamented cloth, with its lively sunset colours was the sort of thing you would normally hang on a wall, much too delicate to wrap a body with. The two deep slashes ripping it from side to side and the dark brown stain were almost blasphemous.

The shiny golden figures and patterns emblazoning the shirt and coat had left the boy entranced for some good hours - making him wonder about the outside world. Was everybody so rich and fine there that they all dressed like this, or on the contrary, would he ever make it as far as to wear something of such quality? It was, after all, what he was hoping to accomplish. The complex patterns were so beautiful - unlike anything he had ever seen at the village - that he found it hard to believe that real people could have created them. Surely beauty of this kind was reserved for the gods. Inevitably, after that, his gaze followed the outstretched arms and rested upon the items that had brought up his interest in the first place.

In complete contrast to the elegant display on the man, two old weapons had lain abandoned some distance away. They were so mistreated that the boy realised at once that the man wrapped in finesse could not have been their owner. Rust spots blossomed from the centre of the blades and the edges were crooked and chipped, but the youth immediately claimed the sword and hunting knife as his own and considered them to be his greatest possessions.

The day after that had marked the beginning of his self-tutelage in mastering the weapons, practicing as much as he could when he was sure that no one was watching. While his persistency was showing in his building muscles, his technique was clumsy at best. Without a teacher or even a role model to observe, the moves and strategies were left for his imagination to conjure. It was something he was hoping to remedy as soon as he got out of that purgatory of a town.

But none of this presently occupied the mind of the petit red-eyed with silver hair called Dilandau. As the rain-filled clouds rolled into town, Dilandau silently wandered the streets, waiting for a destination to meet him.

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Large drops of rain fell on his face, repeatedly drilling his skin as if demanding to be admitted inside. Dilandau could have said many things and offered many excuses as to what was going on if someone were to see him now, but he would not lie to himself. After all, if he could not be honest to himself and admit that the burning in his eyes was caused not by the prickling rain, but by the flow of tears stemming from behind his lashes, then he would be more alone than he ever wanted to be.

What was confusing him, though, was the "why" behind those tears.

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Dilandau had wanted to take the day off and just relax, but given his lack of ideas he was considering heading to his retreat instead and practice some sword moves he had seen in his dreams. Or maybe, he thought suddenly as a pleased smile erupted on his face, he would just go for a swim in the river. It was bound to rain sooner or later, so he had the perfect excuse for coming in the house wet at night. He liked his genius that could come up with such brilliant plans and mentally gave himself a pat on the back.

Turning towards the familiar river road, he scanned its edges without much thought. He could see the spot where one was supposed to turn among the brambles in order to get to his shelter, and one glance was enough to tell him that another day had gone by without it being discovered by the town folk. His smile returned and his stride lengthened, as he descended the foot-made path to the river. His contentment soon faltered, though, when the shore came into view.

Splashing and tossing in the water were the other children, a group of six he knew well. They were his age, some a little older, and had made clear on many an occasion what exactly it was that they thought of Dilandau. Even though he was slightly disheartened about having to abandon his plan, the red-eyed did not linger and turned back in hopes he had not been spotted. It was, unfortunately, too late.

A shrill call accompanied by laughs from the others made him spin back to face his age-peers, fists clenched.

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He sat, numb, by the river's edge, watching the storm unfurl around him. Like any spectator, he looked but did not participate and therefore he was unaffected by it as well. A part of his mind told him he should be freezing, but another fraction of it was locking his muscles in place and telling him to keep looking at the rain falling in the river and creating warm ripples on its surface.

There was so much water. Around him, above him, on him, in him. It begged to cleanse and appease him, but the same portion of his mind that had disabled his muscles, had him unable to grasp anything other than the fact that he was still crying and no matter how much water fell and rippled and flowed, his hands were still stained red.

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"Look! It's Dilly-freak!" The first one yelled, only to be followed by a chorus of others with their own taunts and jeers - always laughing.

"Hey, Dilly, been whining to your dad lately?"

"Must have been, my mum said this weather was the work of the devil..."

"I saw him with his stupid picture the other day."

Dilandau remained stoic. His eight-year-old face set in serious stone and his body tensed with un-vented anger and rage. Those were two emotions that always assaulted him when in the presence of this crowd, but lately, a fledgling third had been testing its wings and urging him a bit further still - pride. He was in such inner turmoil, ignoring the comments thrown at him and focusing on showing no trace of pain or frailty, that his fingernails were cutting crescents into his palms, drawing blood. If one were to touch petit Dilandau at that point, it was impossible to tell how he would react.

"Shut up," Dilandau ground out through his teeth, glaring as fiercely as he could. If the bathing children wanted a devil, they were getting one fine sight - red eyes ablaze with the shadow of repressed emotions dancing in their depths. But the group was blind to all but the superficial and never realised how perturbed he really was. Either way, it would not have made a difference even if they had. They pressed on.

"Oh, really?"

"What's that, Dilly-freak?"

"Yea, you gonna throw your picture at us if we don't?"

"Oooh, please don't hurt us..."

"He's just scared!"

Booming laughter resounded, from one margin of the river to the other.

"I said, shut up," he growled again, more forcefully this time.

"Make us!"

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"It was an accident..." he whispered brokenly to the body laying cold at his feet, its lifeless hand plunged into the rippling water and invisible behind its dark veil; a mockery of a gesture that would have been natural for any living being; something that he had been hoping to do not an hour before.

All Dilandau remembered was springing forward after that last remark. He knew they must have rolled all the way down to the shore, where he was now. He also knew that the others must have run off when they saw that their friend wasn't moving. But the petit boy could not bring himself to remember any details of those moments. His thoughts were a jumble, and he did not know why.

Why was he so confused? Why was he crying? Why was he so afraid?

His muscles were beginning to uncoil, giving him some control over his body again. As if a wall had come down, his mind leapt into action and one certainty suddenly came with screaming clarity. The time had come to go. He had to leave the village now.

Just as abruptly as his mind was made up, Dilandau was running back to his shelter to pick up his things. He did not dare go back up to his house; who knew what could be going on in the village by now.

There was nothing more for him in this place.

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Pallas, Asturia. Eight years later...

"Onii-sama!" Fifteen-year-old Celena Schezar called out in joy as the freighter's ramp lowered and her brother came into view. Realising that he probably would not hear her over the noise, she stood on her tiptoes and tried to reach above the crowd to wave at him. She was tall, but unfortunately the others around her were taller.

Her brother was Allen Schezar, Knight Caeli of Asturia, and he was returning home after a long absence of four years in which he had been serving on a remote outpost. Celena had been living in the Palace at the capital during that time, staying with her best friend, Princess Millerna Aston, who was the same age as her. But friends were not the same as family - even if she sometimes said Millerna was a true sibling and Allen a nuisance - and the youngest Schezar had thoroughly missed her brother's company. The mere sight of his golden hair made her heart feel complete again and she could not wait to hug him after being so long apart.

Allen was her only family, after their mother's death. Their father, Leon Schezar, had left wife and children behind long ago to pursue some wild dream and had never been seen again. Celena did not remember him very well, having been very young at the time, but the stories she heard from her brother did not make her wish she had kept those memories either. Since then, Celena and Allen had been inseparable, if not physically then in mind. They looked after each other and acted as the other's sustaining pillars. No power in Gaea could ever hope to break or damage these two siblings' bond.

She suddenly realised with some despair that while she had been reaching heavenward, she had lost sight of her brother. She was just gathering up enough courage to ask a taller stranger if he could see the Knight when a hand came down on her shoulder from behind. Celena jumped in surprise, but afterwards was incapable of waiting to fully turn around to throw herself at the grinning blond clad in blues behind her.

"Celena! Can't... breathe..." He offered in the way of greeting, squeezing her back.

"Oh, you deserve it for scaring me, Allen!" She admonished but pulled back all the same to admire her brother. She quirked an eyebrow and held a lock of the long hair that had spilled over her brother's shoulder as he settled his bags down. "What is this, Onii-sama? You never told me you were letting your hair grow."

He looked around, probably to inspect if there were any ladies nearby to see him get embarrassed under his little sister's gaze. "I suppose it never came up..."

"Turning fashionable, are we? Are the effects of having all those women constantly after you finally showing, brother dearest?" Celena said with an amused laugh, and when he turned even more uncomfortable she laughed harder and hugged him again. "I missed you!"

"I'm no longer sure whether I missed you too or not, Celena. Only you could ever make me this embarrassed," he teased, only to receive the lightest of punches on the arm and even more laughter. Pulling her off him and away from the crowd, he produced a small parcel from the interior of his coat and handed it to the platinum-haired teenager. "Happy delayed birthday, little sister!"

She squealed in delight, opening the gift at once, and just when he thought her smile could not get bigger or more radiant, it did. Allen had missed her spirit and although he was tired, he could not wait to hear about everything that had happened while he had been away.

He had some interesting news of his own to share with his fifteen-year-old sister.