As Soon As Pigs Fly

An Escaflowne fanfiction.

Chapter One- Newfound Sunset
“It’s been a while, Fanelia.” The Knight gripped his sword two-handed, circling easily.
“We never did settle this,” Van said. “But be careful. I’m stronger now.”
Allen smiled, eyes piercing. “Understood. I haven’t been slacking off either.”
Van screened out the superfluous noise. People were taking bets again, and this time, some dared bet on him- but that was all irrelevant. He raised his katana, stepping back and taking a stance. “Here I come!”

He charged forwards, blade slashing down towards the Knight’s face. Allen stepped aside, parrying and flicking his blade into a deft attack. Van blocked and leapt back, turning his katana and charging again. His blade sparked across the rapier, driving it down before exploding up towards Allen’s face. The Knight leapt back, landing and slashing out rapidly, dissecting Van’s charging attack before striking down. Their blades clashed, inches from Van’s face, and then the King leapt aside, slashing at Allen’s flank. The knight exploded the other way, sword swinging down to parry, but Van turned on him and slashed out rapidly. Their blades crossed, clashing, as the two strained against each other. Then Allen jumped back and regained his stance, smiling slightly. “Impressive.”

Van raised his blade one-handed. “I’ve only just begun.” He charged, striking fast and hard. Allen blocked the strike and cut out with a flourish, but the King fought back ferociously, raining down blows and driving the knight back. He cut down, smashing his sword against the rapier, then drew back and stabbed, flicking out as Allen parried again. The katana spun then cut down once more, ringing heavily against the blade, flashing out again and again. The two grunted as they struggled, blades clashing repeatedly. Allen cut low, beating Van’s sword away and pushing him back, then leapt on. Van landed, regained his stance, and closed his eyes.
Allen frowned at his motionless foe, raising his sword. “Then I’ll end this.” He shifted his blade, drew back, then charged.

Van thrust out, punching down the length of Allen’s rapier and flicking it from his hands. The katana flicked out and ended inches from the Knight’s neck. “I win.”
Allen frowned, then stepped back and bowed. “Impressive, Fanelia. I yield.” He stopped to pick up his rapier, then threw the blunt weapon to an attendant. “You must teach me dowsing some day.”
“When we have the time, certainly,” Van said, striding back to his own retinue. “You should learn in Fanelia, Allen. We’ve made it an art form.”
“That would be a pleasure,” Allen said, smiling. “But difficult, circumstantially. We should wait for happier times.”
“I agree.” Van sighed. “Some other time.” He looked up. “Princess, an honour. I’m afraid I’ve humbled your knight.”
“Had you lost, Allen would have humbled Fanelia’s king,” Millerna said. “So it’s reasonable enough.”
“These duels aren’t of much significance anyway,” Van said.
“Do you mean that, or are you just saying that?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, sounding slightly irritated.
She laughed. “Touché, Fanelia. But it’s a pity that we can’t organise a duel with Guymelef. Scherazade’s here, isn’t it, Allen? And that’s so much more exiting.”
“I don’t think we should play games with war machines right now,” Van said. “I didn’t come here for that.”
“Of course. Forgive me,” she said, smiling. “Shall we take a walk? I thought we should discuss things before we return.”
Van nodded. “Iola! Over here, if you please.” He passed her his sparring katana and turned away. “Let’s go.”

The samurai sighed, sheathing the weapon and flicking blonde hair out of her eyes. “As you say, my lord.” But he’d already walked off. She followed more slowly, watching Allen warily. In spite of Lord Van’s insistence, that man was a potential enemy- and a powerful one at that. Further, one who could not just beat her but humiliate her. She would have to redouble her training.
“In any case, you’re stronger than ever, Van,” Allen said.
“We train and prepare. That is the duty of King and samurai,” Van said with affected carelessness.
“And it could be as well,” Iola said.
“We’re here to prevent that,” the King snapped.
“As you say, my lord.”
“In any case,” Van said, as if nothing had happened, “negotiations are proving somewhat strained. Is that not so?” They walked into the gardens, heading towards the secluded outer section.

The Princess nodded sadly. “That’s so, and there seems to be very little we can do about it. I’ll speak freely; Basram’s Arch-Proctor is showing little signs of compromising in the peace process. To be frank, they don’t seem interested in the peace at all.”
“Zaibach is the same,” Van said cynically. “It’s the same old story. People want war.”
“Five years after the last, which we called the final war? And with the Energist Bomb on hand?” Allen asked. “No one wants a conflict.” They’d reached their habitual pavilion by now. The two royals sat down while their bodyguards stood by them.
“Not on that scale, perhaps,” Van agreed. “But nothing’s changed. This conflict isn’t about Daedalus and Egzardia. It’s Zaibach and Basram again, fighting by proxy. And why? The same old story. Hate and fear. Don’t tell me the Energist Bomb stops war- it makes people afraid, and when they’re afraid they hate, and when they hate they want to make their foes suffer.”

“But they don’t want to die,” Allen argued. “There will be no conflict between Zaibach and Basram for as long as the Bomb exists. Of course, they’ll still fight this frozen war- but it will prevent that very direct and brutal war that seemed so likely before.”
“And what about us? The little states?” Van sighed. “The two powers could crush us like flies, and if one invaded one of us the other would take no action, because if they fought it would mean the world’s ending. So what do we do? Develop our own Energist Bombs? Would that be a good idea? No one would be invading Egzardia if they had an Energist Bomb, after all…”
“But the more people that have it, the more danger the world’s in,” Millerna said. “It would only take one power to use a Bomb, and they’d all use them.”
“Any number of states with that power is too many,” Van said. “The world would be far better without them.”
“Without them, Zaibach and Basram would already be at war,” Allen said. “As it is, the peace between them has lasted five years. That’s been possible only because of those weapons.”
“They’d be at clean war,” Iola said quietly. “The honour of warriors and soldiers who fight. The fighters would be the ones dying, and civilians would be unharmed. Not like this black fear of an Energist War, which would kill thousands of innocents.”
“It’s not that simple,” Allen said. “You’re being stupid to pretend that it is. Look at Zaibach in the last war. They practised genocide as routine course, destroyed cities and thousands of innocents-”
“And did less evil, still, than the Basram who brought the Bomb into this world,” Van said shortly.
Allen gritted his teeth, and shrugged. “You know, Fanelia. You of all people. Conventional war is not neat, pretty or honourable. At least the Bomb prevents that.”
“Wasn’t that the Zaibach dream?” Van mused. “To prevent war? I guess they got that, in an odd way. But what they got instead is far worse.”

Millerna shrugged. “We’ll never agree on this, so we should forget it. It’s enough to know that the Bomb exists, right? It’s not going to go away, whether we approve of it or not.”
“That’s true,” Van conceded. “And because of that inevitability Daedalus and Egzardia are at war. And far from brokering a peace, we’re having a hard enough time preventing the other countries from rushing in. That’s their lust for war…” he scowled, his fists balling. “That’s it. That’s our new dawn. Things were supposed to be different.”
“People need to be free,” Allen said. “That’s important. One of those freedoms has to be to go to war. It’s wrong, but if you start making deciding people’s destinies for them you end up like Zaibach.”
“Deciding people’s destinies is what nations want all the time. But we should stop talking philosophy,” Van said. “I wanted to see a time of peace. We haven’t been that lucky. To be frank, I don’t think we can stop this war. It will have to be fought- but neither alliance can afford to let their little brothers fall over. Zaibach will invade if Daedalus is winning, Basram if Egzardia has the upper hand.”

“Peace can still be brokered,” Millerna said. “I’m sure of that. We can’t give up now.”
“I’m not giving up!” Van scowled. “But it’s not easy. We’re trying hard, but you know the others aren’t.”
“Between us, Asturia’s also coming under internal pressure to take a harder stance,” Allen said. “There’s a lot of hate for Zaibach there.”
“Fanelia wants peace, nothing but peace,” Van said. “You were wounded deeply. We were ruined.”
“How do they deal with being allied to Zaibach?”
“I don’t know,” Van admitted. “It’s my best judgement, and nothing more.”
“They trust King Van,” Iola said simply. “We all do.”

“What options do we have?” Millerna asked. “The City of Dalzel…”
“Can’t be given up as a peace offering,” Van said. “Zaibach and Egzardia both are clear on that. I agree with them. It belongs to Egzardia, and we shouldn’t be brokering peace by the right of conquest.”
“Likewise, though, Daedalus are going to need an incentive to leave,” Allen said. “Them gaining nothing from this war would be as disastrous for them as Egzardia losing Dalzel would be to your alliance.”
“Zaibach is against reparations,” Van said. “They say, with some justice, that such an act would make future wars more, not less, likely. The closer links with Egzardia they offer are seen as inflammatory rather than helpful.”
“Likewise with the Basram demands for military tribute,” Allen said. “The less we say about that kind of posturing, the better.”
“We need something that can leaver a peace deal,” Van said. “And the face of both alliances must remain intact.”
“We’ve been arguing about this for months,” Iola said. “We’re not going to come up with something now.”
“We have to try,” Millerna said earnestly. “How about our own nations? Asturia could offer reparations alone in return for peace.”
“That would be unwise, in the mood of our country,” Allen said. “And damaging to relations with Basram.”
“You’re right,” Millerna said. “But… how about Fanelia? You said yourself, Lord Van, your people want nothing but peace.”
“We have nothing to offer, that could sway an international stage,” Van said. “We lack particularly valuable resources or anything that could persuade Daedalus.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Millerna said. “For a start, there’s Escaflowne-”
“Don’t dare suggest it.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “That was just an example, to show that you do have things of value. Say, how about dowsing?”
Iola frowned. The Princess had been leading up to that. “Dowsing’s a warrior curiosity,” she said. “It won’t make or break a war.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Allen said. “Dowsing’s very valuable. As I understand it, a Guymelef warrior can expand their field of vision from straight ahead, through the vision slits, to full-circle vision, regardless of conditions night or day, visibility high or low. And you can see through Stealth Cloaks…”
“And so offering it to part of the enemy alliance will not endear us to Zaibach,” Van said. “Far from that. Just as your suggestion would ruin relationships with Basram- though worse than that, actually. And it is not an easy thing to teach.”
“She taught you it in a matter of days, as I recall,” Allen said. “And you’ve also given me to understand that anyone can learn it.”
“She was an exceptional teacher, and I a fast learner. It now takes several weeks for me to teach a new student, and it only seems to work on certain mentally attuned people. But even if Daedalus would be willing to cut a deal along those lines, Zaibach would never permit it,” Van said. “Nor would Egzardia accept that. They’re country’s been ruined, they want more than peace.”
“If you’re really dedicated to peace, you wouldn’t be so bothered about your relations with Zaibach,” Allen said. “Are you just the same as the rest, Fanelia? Saying you want peace but offering no real concessions?”
“Save the rhetoric for the negotiating table,” Van said sharply. “You know you’re just the same. Are we here to really talk, or is this the same waste of time as the rest of it? I’ll go home if that’s so.”
“That was uncalled for, Allen,” Millerna said. “We must be reasonable. And we must also decide just how far we’re both willing to go for peace.”

Van caught the glint in her eyes. “Okay, let’s hear it. What’s the big idea?”
“Well, we’ve done it, haven’t we,” the Princess said. “We have a plan. I think it could work. Daedalus gains dowsing from you. We’ll provide reparations for Egzardia.”
“The alliance leaders would never accept that,” Iola said.
“That’s the next bit,” Millerna said. “We’re going to have to do this ourselves, and leave the others behind. Start private negotiations with the two sides independent of the other countries. It would all have to be very hush, though. Ostensibly, the two countries meet an amicable and independent peace agreement. Independently of that, you send a deputation to teach Daedalus dowsing- the gods know that they want it, everyone does. You’d laugh to see our efforts in trying to learn it. And we provide “aid” to help Egzardia, without calling it any form of reparations.”
“We’d be setting ourselves up in a way that would enrage the powers,” Van said. “All four of our countries would be estranged from our respective patrons; Zaibach and Basram would work it out, and they wouldn’t be happy.”
“That’s something we’d have to grin and bear,” Allen said. “I don’t like how much we depend on them anyway. I recall that you upgraded your Guymelef construction workshops to near-Zaibach standards, with Zaibach help, presumably to gain further independence from them. And that rides against your pacifistic inclinations, of course.”
“We understand we must be pragmatic,” Van said. “Certainly, neither of us are staking our military power on our big brothers, that would be folly. But you can’t deny they could crush us all still.”
“But they wouldn’t, not over this,” Millerna said. “Oh, they’d be irked. But I think they want a way, any way, out of this crisis as much as anyone else does. They’d be relieved.”
“That’s the problem, though,” Van said. “Aside from anything else, it’s not going to look good for the Daedalus.”
“As you said, everyone will work it out anyway,” Allen said. “And besides, patronisingly magnanimous declarations can go a long way.”

Van hunched over, frowning, his eyes far away. Then he looked up. “It might just work. We should give it a shot.”
Millerna clapped her hands. “Then let’s prepare.”