hontou ni sou omou?

Episode 9. Memories of a Feather: Hitomi learns about how Van’s father Goau met his mother Varie and married her despite the taboo of associating with the winged Draconians, the cursed descendants of Atlantis. She taught him not to reveal his wings until the time was right and left the castle, never to return, after Goau’s death and Folken’s disappearance. As Zaibach catches up, Hitomi proves all round situational awareness but the badly outnumbered Van is almost captured again until Allen rides to the rescue. However he is badly injured, taking a blow that would have hit Hitomi.

Varie being sent to Goau in order to bear Folken and Van. No wonder I found The Sisko’s back story somewhat familiar. ;) The disaster of Atlantis seems to be at the root of the taboo against associating with Draconians (not, not the grunts from Dragonlance) but I suppose being King has its privileges.

Episode 10. The Blue-Eyed Prince: On board a trading fleet, Allen’s life-threatening injuries are competently treated by runaway princess and former medical student Millerna. They arrive in Freid, whose design has strong Indian and Buddhist motifs, to be welcomed by Prince Chid as the Duke is away on an inspection tour. The young boy is an Allen fanboy due to his late mother’s influence. Hypnotist monk Platku arrives to interrogate Zaibach prisoner Migel but he’s been killed and replaced by the Doppelganger Zongi who feeds false information to Chid and Voris, accusing Allen of planning to create chaos to seize the throne of Asturia. Van puts Hitomi’s training to good use, defeating the cloaked Melef of Migel, thus foiling his escape, but is surrounded and restrained by Freid forces.

Good to see how Millerna had a valuable skill which one doesn’t expect a princess to have but it was also good that her farewell conversation with her elder sister prepared us for it. Oh gosh, it was quite plainly obvious that Chid’s parentage would be a source of doramaz right from the outside, since the title made such a fuss of it already and because of the hints during the stint in Asturia. Hitomi tells Van about how to use the Force, could have done with a ‘Do or do not, there is no try’ speech; does his Draconian blood have anything to do with him levelling up on this skill so quickly?

Episode 11. Prophecy of Death: Zongi interrogates Hitomi to try and find out about her powers and gets more than he expects. Hitomi sees his true form, his murder of Plaktu and a vision of a horrible death by liquid metal. The shock stops her heart but, with Millerna’s instruction, Van manages to revive her (CPR with no mouth to mouth!?). Allen convinces Chid to allow Van and Hitomi to go after Zongi but they’re too late to stop him from telling Dilandau about Hitomi or his execution by Dilandau in revenge for killing Migel. Van shows his skill by disabling two of Dilandau’s escorts before returning to Godashim. Chid, Voris and the others now believe him as the Doppelganger-sucke(re)d corpse of the real Plaktu has been discovered.

This is another SUNRISE theme of beleaguered heroes being chased from place to place and being harried in places that they thought they had found shelter. Plaktu went down a bit too easily for my liking. If Doppelgangers are so powerful, their sheer usefulness would probably overcome the huge prejudice against them and see them employed in intelligence and assassin work. Alternatively they could have infiltrated higher up positions if they can infiltrate armies as grunts. Anyhow there’s a softer side to Folken given the dedication shown to him by Zongi.