Like Birds in the Wind

Chapter 1: The Bird-of-Paradise No Longer

An Eriol/Tomoyo Alterfic

Good afternoon. You are well, I trust? I am glad, then. You must forgive my abruptness, but there is the matter at hand. Yes, that matter at hand. Please do make yourself comfortable. I will conclude the story after all, contrary to what others have said for so many years, and bring a peace to the events surrounding my husband's death and what happened after. There is much to be told.

My name is Anna. My late husband, Hiiragizawa Eriol. My maiden name is Windsor, I being of a minor branch of the British royalty. I had just recently started to reuse it again, some thirty years after the Eriol's passing. I started to reuse it after the truth of my late husband's past came into the light. And this is the past that I shall tell of to you.

It all started one day in a little town east of London, a cold, dreary day when there was a stinging icy wind at the train station. I had recently arrived there from the warmer regions of the southern estates of my mother, the 14th in line for the throne. My father had died some years ago. I had embarked on this journey to meet a close friend, Maria Delessandro Sandomere and her mother, Anita Delessandro. They were the niece and sister of the Queen of Spain, and were very highly regarded within the elite circles of Europe. My mother had hoped to show me some of the world before college and marriage. There were few other choices for me. So I went, not knowing that this fateful journey would change the entire course of my life, if you will excuse my using the worn-out cliché.

I stood there at the train depot, shivering and wet and thoroughly miserable, all the while thinking of the relative warmth of the south. That was when Maria and her mother appeared. They wore very finely tailored clothing, expensive and exquisite and at the height of fashion. As usual, they came with the exuberance, the warmth of the Mediterranean Sea itself, and enveloped me in hugs and lavished attention on me. Then they ushered me to the train. We were bound for London.

The entire ride was quite uneventful until it neared its end, and that was when I met my future husband. Eriol. I was walking during a particularly turbulent part of the ride, and nearly fell onto my seatmate when I tried to sit down. He wasn't really even my seatmate, having rented out his entire half of the compartment to himself, while Maria, her mother, and I sat at the other half. Immediately, two strong, beautifully made hands steadied on my waist, and the scent of clean-smelling cologne enveloped me, mingling with the smell of sunned linen.

After I had sat down next to a dozing Senora Delessandro and a reading Maria, I thanked my seatmate for his assistance. Even then, and until the day of his death, he was extraordinarily beautiful. He had deep, brilliantly blue eyes that were so dark they were almost like black in dim light, and blackish-blue hair that had a tendency to be very unruly. Sometimes women would just stare at him for a moment, in a trance, perhaps trying to see if his eyes were black or blue, as you could not distinguish their hue in dull weather. Even few women came to his level of beauty, and he carried himself casually, as if unaware of his exquisiteness, making him all the more handsome. He had nodded politely at me, and gave me an abbreviated bow, as graceful, even sitting, as a dancing master who was born with that innate fluidity of movement. It was quite breathtaking. Even under a heavy navy-blue coat, I could see an impressive physique, and the power of his movements accentuated it.

I do not remember exactly how we got to talk to one another, but we ended up chatting quite companionably, and I discovered that he too, was bound for London to meet with a friend. He was fascinating. I cannot recall the exact moment when I decided that I was in love with him, but I think it came soon after our conversation. That was how enigmatic, how very fascinating he was. After our small talk had died out, Maria insisted that I accompany her to the ladies' room. I acquiesced.

As we were walking down the narrow hall lined with fine polished wood, Maria gave out the greatest ear-shattering squeal.

/You talked to him/ She had said.

/Who/ I was confused.

/Him/ Maria had replied excitedly, as if I should automatically know the owner of that pronoun. She was sometimes such a fluttery goose.

/You mean the young man sitting in our seat compartment/ Maria rolled her eyes at me sarcastically.

/You are so dense sometimes, my dear. Of course him/ Why on earth had she been so excited?

/Is there something special about that/ Maria looked at me disbelievingly.

/Do you mean to tell me, Anna Sophia Windsor, that you didn't know that you were talking with Eriol Hiiragizawa/

Since I had been stuck in the south, far from London, I hadn't heard of the most popular young man among the elite of London.

/Who is he/ I had asked.

Maria only shook her head at my ignorance, and then dragged me into the restroom for a half-hour and proceeded to fill me in on everything that I had been missing, since being treated like a prisoner, residing the southern estates. Eriol Hiiragizawa was a close friend, perhaps the best friend of the crown prince. He lived the first ten years of his life in England and Scotland, but had proceeded to travel the world, to many places until he was eighteen. He had been all over Europe, with a summer home in Bordeaux, France, and another in Tuscany, Italy, a flat in Rome at the Piazza del Foscari, and he had an expansive home in Japan, which was where his Japanese grandfather had been born. Some speculated that in Tomoeda, Japan, he had met a girl with whom he was absolutely infatuated with, a gorgeous black-haired beauty that he had brought to London once, when she was visiting. Even at seventeen, Eriol had seemed enamored with the young girl. He had gone to China and Hong Kong with some close childhood friends, but he hadn't yet brought those friends with him to England.

Maria had continued to list his many talents, one of which was being remarkably well educated for a man of his age, only twenty-one. I was nineteen at that time. He spoke flawless Japanese and English, as well as Chinese, French, and proficient Italian. Some said that he was studying German, too. He had an extensive art collection. When he was in China a few years back, visiting a close friend in Hong Kong, he learned from a martial arts instructor there, the one who had trained his friend, all that there was to know about fighting. It was said that he could kill with any two fingers on a hand. He was an acclaimed piano virtuoso, hating to play in public, but had only done so once, and it was long ago, at the funeral of the Queen Mother of England, of which the rulers of thirty nations, including the President of the United States, had attended. He had gotten many requests after that, but managed to politely decline all.

I was quite impressed with this long list of stunning achievements. I had been listening avidly, fascinated. Of course, Maria informed me that I would quickly become popular if I made it out that I knew Eriol. I didn't know what to do. And Maria was envious of me, my plain little self, a very sparrow when compared to her. If I was a sparrow, then Maria was definitely a peacock, or at least a bird-of-paradise, with its wildly exotic plumage and gorgeous shape. I had fancied myself as rather dull. It was a refreshing change to have Maria jealous of me for once. I had always rather been the shy sparrow, but it was exhilarating to be the bird-of-paradise.

When I had been thinking at that time, I was very much a naiveté and knew nothing that worldly people, like Maria or Eriol knew. I still had my childhood fancies of a Prince Charming who would pick me out of crowds of adoring female fans, all at random, and carry me off to the sunset where we would live happily ever after. I must warn you that it is so very rarely that way.

Well? What did you think? I really like the idea of this story, told from Anna's point of view. I really should post my Rayearth fanfic, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I think that the story of Emeraude and Zagato is absolutely charming, albeit in a very sad way. I know exactly where I am going with this story, unlike For Your Sake, where I just wrote random, pretty things for recreation. Oh well. This one has a nice plot, I think.