Xellos smiled with deep satisfaction as he surveyed the world spread out far below him. A little assignment from his mistress, Beastmaster Zelas-Metallium, had kept him busy for the last few years but now that he had successfully completed it he was free to go visit his friends again. Of course when Xellos said 'friends' he really meant 'favorite victims', but 'friends' is a much more pleasant word, isn't it?
The first of his former traveling companions that he spotted was Amelia.
Crown Princess Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun looked up at a knock on her door. "Come in," she called.
A handsome young man opened the door and stepped into the room. His black hair stuck out like wings on either side of his face. He wore a white, belted tunic and white pants. A white cape hung from his shoulders and a thick sword hung from his belt.
"Good morning," Amelia greeted her visitor with a smile.
"Good morning," he replied, smiling back. "I heard that something is troubling the villages along our southern border. It's probably just bandits but I thought I should go see if I can be of assistance to the villagers."
"Zel, you must not think of bandits as a lesser threat than the monsters you prefer fighting. Bandits can cause just as much suffering to innocent villagers as any supernatural monster. You must crush them just as thoroughly as you would a dragon or a pack of beastmen!"
"Yes, I know, Mother. You've told me that a thousand times," he said, rolling his eyes with adolescent impatience, but also kissing her cheek fondly. "Don't worry. I'll crush whatever is bothering our villagers as thoroughly as any warrior of justice could wish. I'll be back in a few days."
He turned to go.
"Good bye...and be careful," she called after him, maternal pride warring with maternal fears.
Left alone again, she smiled fondly. Prince Florizel El Ra Seyruun was everything a prince should be: brave, unselfish, polite and handsome, a true warrior of justice. He was universally adored throughout Seyruun, especially by the young women. Amelia privately thought that her son resembled the way her first love, Zelgadis, must have looked before he had been transformed into a chimera. It was a strange coincidence since Zelgadis was not the boy's father.
Zelgadis had never been interested in Amelia as anything more than a friend, and even if he had returned her feelings she couldn't have married him. Since her sister had vanished and her cousin was dead Amelia had been the only possible heir to the succession. She had had to be prepared to help her father rule once he became king and she had to bear children who could rule Seyruun in the future. She refused to believe that her people would have rejected Zelgadis just because he was kind of creepy looking with blue stone skin and wire hair, but he was also a foreigner with no great affection for Seyruun and he hated public appearances. The duties of royalty would not have suited him well. His chimeric curse might also have interfered with his ability to father children. Maybe if he had ever found a cure, or if he had ever returned her feelings...
Amelia scolded herself for her unjust thoughts. She loved her husband. He was a good man: just, kind, loyal and intelligent, a wonderful husband and father and a popular ruler. He was the youngest son of a Seyruunese earl. She had met him at a state function twenty-two years ago and immediately been impressed by the idealism and good sense of his ideas. He was as dedicated to the happiness of the people of Seyruun as Amelia was to the pursuit of justice. They made a good team. Amelia was happy with her life.
Although she would be even happier if she did not have to accept this invitation from Their Majesties Martina and Zangulus of Xoana. Visiting them in person was not only necessary for diplomatic relations, but also the only way to be sure they were not trying to build up their army or acquire weapons of mass destruction again. Martina and Zangulus were Amelia's old friends but their excessive enthusiasm, their cultish worship of the Monstrous Zoramel Gustav and their large brood of obnoxious children could wear on even Amelia's nerves. Amelia sighed and started penning a polite acceptance letter. At least it would be a chance to travel. Travelling from land to land having adventures and righting wrongs was the part of her youth she missed most.
Xellos didn't linger in Seyruun. Amelia had always been the least fun of his friends to play with because of her sunny disposition and naive idealism. He had hoped that the passing years might have made her bitter and disillusioned but she seemed as cheerful as ever.
Undiscouraged, Xellos looked around for his favorite flame-haired sorceress. He found her in her homeland, Zefilia, and - my, my - Gourry was with her.
"Gourry, I've been thinking."
Lina Inverse glanced over at her partner. He was lying in the grass beside her with his eyes closed, enjoying the warm summer sun. She had been looking at that handsome face for so long that she rarely noticed that it was handsome any more. There were lines there she hadn't seen before. He opened one blue eye to indicate that he was listening and then closed it again.
"My parents are getting old," Lina continued, half to herself, "They're talking about closing the store...Gourry, have you ever thought about settling down?"
"No," he said.
Lina hit him (but not very hard), "You never think about anything, Jellyfish Brains!"
Gourry smiled his agreement.
"I've been thinking about it," Lina said in a more serious tone. "We're not as young as we used to be." A month ago a young mercenary who was after the same target they were had called Lina 'old woman'. She had blasted him through the wall with a fireball, of course, but the insult stuck in her mind. "Don't you ever get tired of sleeping in a different bed every night? Or fighting the same sorts of monsters that we've fought a hundred times before? Bandits aren't even a challenge any more. And what about those aches that don't go away no matter how many healing spells we use? I've seen the way you rub your right arm on rainy days. And all the restaurant owners everywhere we go know about us. It just isn't as much fun as it used to be. We need a new challenge."
Gourry sat up. Lina was being serious, which meant that he had better be serious too. "What sort of a challenge do you have in mind?"
"Shop keeping!"
"But where would we get a shop?"
"From my parents, you idiot." Lina punched him (again not very hard). "Like I just told you, they need someone to take over the work of running the store."
"Oh," Gourry smiled, "I like your parent's store." Then a worrying thought occurred to him. "Lina, if you become a shopkeeper will you still need me as your bodyguard?"
"I never needed you as my bodyguard!...But you could stay and help out in the store...sweep floors and stuff. My family has that spare bedroom you always stay in when we visit them. You could live there."
Lina had already discussed this with her parents and sister. They had given her that look which meant, "We like Gourry. He would make a good son/brother-in-law," but they hadn't actually said it this time, unlike most of the other times she had visited home in the last twenty-five years. When would they give up and realize that Lina and Gourry were just friends and co-workers?
There had been a time, a long time ago, when Lina still had raging hormones and silly romantic ideas, when she had thought that they might become lovers, but it had never happened. Her childish crush had eventually faded along with the rest of her childhood, much to her relief. Lina had always planned to marry someone rich, handsome and charming, if she ever married at all, someone with a lot more brains than Gourry. She knew that she wasn't his ideal either. He'd told her so often enough. Really, they were much better off with the comfortable, stable, long-term, unromantic partnership that they had developed.
"Well?" Lina prompted.
"Okay," Gourry agreed easily. He had always planned on traveling with Lina for the rest of his life, but maybe staying still with her would be fun too. At least as long as he was with Lina he knew he wouldn't be bored.
How...boring. Xellos was very disappointed in them. After destroying some of the most powerful dark lords in existence, how could they have been content to work as ordinary mercenaries for a quarter century? How could they be content now to become mere shopkeepers? Yet they were content. Xellos couldn't sense any strong negative emotions from them. What a disappointment. Lina used to have such a lovely wake of destruction!
He turned to his most reliable source of angst, Zelgadis. There he was buried in one of Rezo's old labs far away from any civilization and, ah good, he was still a chimera.
Zelgadis put down the letter he had just finished reading with a smile. It was from the Director of the Atlas City Sorcerer's Guild, a man whom he had never met in person but whom he considered a good friend. They had been writing to each other for several years now and had a high respect for each other's abilities. This particular letter was about the Director's experiments in adapting the Holy Magic spells of the New World for human use, and also contained several amusing anecdotes about the current battles for status going on in the guild.
Zelgadis got pen, ink and paper so that he could write back about his own current research. He was still looking for his cure but realistically no longer expected to find it. It seemed that the only thing strong enough to turn him human again would be the power of a dark lord like Shabranigdo, and he knew better than to repeat Rezo's mistake. As a result, his research had turned to increasingly esoteric branches of magic, particularly those related to transformation. He was becoming quite well known in the community of magical scholars, a community that was fortunately so far-flung its members didn't question that they had never seen his face. Those letters and his weekly shopping trips into the one nearby village (where the villagers thought he was a holy hermit with some kind of skin disease), constituted his only human contact, or they had until recently.
"Zel, Zel!" a shrill voice shouted. A two-legged lightning bolt darted into the room, latched onto the chimera's leg, and resolved itself into a sturdily built four-year-old boy.
"Yes, what is it Tad?" Zel asked.
"Watch this," the child ordered imperiously. "Light of life. Brighter than flame. Let thy power gather in my hand. Lighting!" His face screwed up in fierce concentration. After a moment a ball of glowing light the size of a marble appeared in between the tiny hands. It stayed there for several seconds before popping back out of existence.
"Very good," Zel said warmly. "That was nearly two seconds longer than last time. Soon you'll have the spell completely mastered."
The little boy glowed with pride. "I'm going to play with my dragons now," he announced. Zel nodded in acknowledgement. Tad ran over to the far corner of the room, which was strewn with toys. He carefully selected a half-dozen carved wooden dragons from the pile and proceeded to set up an elaborate game involving much roaring, zooming the toys through the air, and banging them together.
Zelgadis watched indulgently. He had stumbled upon Tad a year ago while gathering spell ingredients in the woods. The boy had been dying of cold and fever. He had taken the child home with him and nursed him back to health. Inquiries in the village had revealed that the boy had been orphaned by the same illness that almost killed him. Zelgadis had decided to keep him.
He had never regretted that decision. Tad lit up the gloomy stone tunnels with his sunny smiles and laughter. He reminded Zel that there was more to living than just surviving from day to day. It was really too early to tell but Zelgadis liked to think that the boy had real potential as a sorcerer. He had tried teaching the boy swordsmanship too, but so far Tad had only grasped the concept of hitting things with a stick. Zel would try again when the boy was old enough to sit still for more than half an hour at a time. In the meantime, he just enjoyed watching the boy play. It was surprisingly gratifying to see how much pleasure the boy got from the simple toys Zel had made for him.
Zelgadis dipped his pen into the inkwell. "To the Director of the Atlas City Sorcerers' Guild," he wrote, "Greetings..."
Xellos was disgusted. Rezo hadn't given up his search for a cure after a mere two decades. He had continued to search for nearly a century, and he had found it. Zelgadis was definitely made of weaker stuff than his grandfather (or was it great-grandfather? Xellos could never remember).
He was disgusted by the change in Zelgadis' personality too. Zelgadis had been a passionate young man. Rage, self-loathing and obsession had boiled just under an outer crust of cool reason. His mind had been one of the tastiest Xellos had ever encountered. Now all those passions had cooled. He had the heart of a hermit as well as the lifestyle. Xellos tasted loneliness and regret, but the chimera's dominant emotions were a resignation so deep that it felt like peace, love for that overly-cute child he had acquired, and the same sort of boring contentment that afflicted Lina, Gourry and Amelia. Disgusting! And very disappointing.
Xellos thought hard. Who else was there that he could look up? The main four had proven so disappointing that he needed a more angstful mind to cheer him up. Who could he rely on to be unhappy? Of course, Slyphiel! Her delicate, sweet sorrow was just what he needed right now, and he knew that Gourry was nowhere near her.
"Aren't they lovely?" Eveska sighed.
"Oh yes," Slyphiel agreed with all her heart. "For so long, I thought we would never see anything like this again."
The two priestesses were watching the young shrine maidens of Sairaag perform a ritual in honor of Flagoon. The maidens' simple, white dresses contrasted vividly with the dark bark and green leaves of the trees they danced among. Occasional sparkles of gold floated down from the leaves and fell into the girls' unbound hair. A lovelier sight would be hard to imagine.
"The city is recovering," Eveska said thoughtfully. "Look at how tall the baby Flagoons have grown and how many shrine maidens there are to attend them. Look at all the people here today. Sairaag must be almost city-sized again."
"Yes," Slyphiel sighed sadly, "but it was so much larger than this before..."
Eveska patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry about before. The important thing is how big and prosperous our new Sairaag is becoming. You should be proud, High Priestess."
"I am," Slyphiel said with a warm smile, but there was still a hint of sorrow in her eyes.
After the city had been completely destroyed for the second time in as many years, even she had been ready to give up and move somewhere else. She had traveled for awhile with Gourry, Lina and a few other friends but their rough manners and haphazard lifestyle hadn't suited her well. She had really only wanted to become a wandering sorceress so that she could be with Gourry. Once she realized that she could never take Lina's place in his life, no matter how many offensive spells she learned, the wandering life had quickly lost its appeal. She had eventually returned to Sairaag for lack of anywhere else to go. She had intended to spend just a few days weeping over the rubble that held the bodies of nearly everyone and everything she had ever loved, but then she had met the brave people who were trying to rebuild Sairaag. They looked at her as if she was a holy relic, as if her presence turned their tiny cluster of houses into the ancient city that used to stand there. Slyphiel had stayed.
A year to the day after the last destruction of Sairaag, Slyphiel had visited the empty space in the center of the ruins which had briefly held Phibrizzo's temple and before that had always been the location of the great Holy Tree Flagoon. She had been avoiding the place because of all the painful memories it held and the lingering aura of evil and chaos that surrounded it, but on that day it felt right to go there to remember. What she found there had changed her life. She had found a ring of tiny seedlings, baby trees which had grown from Flagoon's seeds or roots, or possibly just from memory and need. Slyphiel had known as soon as she saw them that she had found her life's calling.
Eveska interrupted her thoughts. "What are you thinking about? I can't decide whether you look sad or very, very happy."
"I was remembering the day I found those tiny reincarnations of Flagoon," Slyphiel replied softly.
"You used to visit them every day," Eveska recalled. "I was in awe of you. I thought that you were the holiest person in all the world. Then the council convinced you to teach me and the other girls to be shrine maidens, and I found out that I had been completely right."
"Eveska!" Slyphiel protested, "I am not especially holy at all! The council only named me high priestess because I was the only person who knew the old rituals."
Out of all the priests, priestess and other devotees of Flagoon, only one shrine maiden had survived and returned. Slyphiel had done her best to pass on the traditions. All of Sairaag's dozens of priests and priestesses were her former pupils.
"You always have been and always will be the holiest person I know," Eveska retorted.
"Do you know that I never planned to become a priestess? I just wanted what most girls want: a wonderful husband, a beautiful house and sweet children."
"Then you ended up with everything you always wanted and more besides," a new voice interrupted. A golden-haired man seated himself beside Slyphiel and put an arm around her shoulders.
"Gabe!" Slyphiel exclaimed. "How long have you been listening in on our conversation?"
"Not long." He grinned unrepentantly.
Gabriel Nis Coopa had quietly walked into New Sairaag one morning fifteen years ago and within a few weeks it felt like he had always been there. He belonged to one of the old families of Sairaag but he had run away to seek his fortune at an early age. When he heard the city had been destroyed he thanked his luck and stayed far away. When he heard that it had been destroyed a second time he just shook his head and swore he would never go back. However, a few years later he suffered a revelation, which led to him to become a priest of Ceipheed and otherwise change his attitude toward life. Eventually he had come to Sairaag to see if the rumors that Flagoon had returned were true. He had been very impressed by the strength, wisdom and gentleness of the high priestess and she had been equally impressed by him. He seemed to fill a hole in her life that she had barely noticed was there. He loved her cooking too. They had been married for thirteen years now. Two of the girls performing the ceremony below were their daughters.
Slyphiel snuggled closer to her husband so that she could rest her head against his shoulder. "Aren't they lovely?" Gabe said softly, looking down at the shrine maidens.
"That's just what I said," Eveska giggled.
Slyphiel smiled in perfect happiness. She still grieved for the loss of her father and the Sairaag that used to be, but she loved the new Sairaag with a passion and she treasured each day with her students, her family and her people.
Xellos fled quickly before all the happiness and purity could make him nauseous. That was not what he expected at all! Those people rejoiced as only those who have known sorrow can rejoice and loved as only those who have lost can love. They were deeply, genuinely happy and, to make things worse, their happiness came from hard work and self sacrifice. It was a noble, unselfish happiness. In short, they couldn't have come up with a better recipe for making a Mazoku violently ill if they'd tried. If Filia was here, she'd be laughing her head off.
Filia...One last chance. If she was the same uncontrolled dragon child he remembered, her rage would be the perfect antidote to all this sickening sweetness. If she had gone the same way as all these fickle mortals then he would give up in disgust. There was plenty of room for hope. Dragons age far less in twenty-five years than ephemeral humans.
Anyone who knew Filia Ul Copt would know at once that this shop could only belong to her. It was called the Vase and Mace Shop and that was exactly what it sold: antique vases and massive, spiked maces. Over the years it had branched out to selling all kinds of ceramics, a slightly larger range of weapons, specialty teas, knit and crocheted goods, and white magic spells. At the moment, it was empty of people. A little sign in the window read "Sorry, we're closed. Please come back tomorrow."
The owners of the shop were not far away. In fact, they were straight overhead. Someone standing at the door of the shop might have caught a glimpse of two lithe forms darting among the flame-coloured clouds. One was as bright as a new minted gold coin. The other was as dark as the deepest shadows. In fact, the observer could have mistaken the second for the shadow of the first, so perfectly were the flyers in sync.
As the sun sank below the horizon, the dragons landed in the garden behind the Vase and Mace. The one with smooth, leathery, golden skin landed first. A blinding light surrounded it for a moment. When the light faded away, the dragon had been replaced by a young woman with long, blonde hair. She walked to the edge of the garden in order to make room for the second, much smaller dragon. This dragon, which was covered with vicious-looking black spikes, folded its feathery black wings and became a little girl with turquoise hair.
The girl grinned, revealing small fangs and a missing front tooth. "That was a good flight, Mom."
"Yes," Filia agreed. "You are becoming quite the fancy flier."
She scooped up her child in her arms and carried her through the back door, up the stairs, and into a cozy bedroom. At moments like these, her adopted daughter seemed just like a little angel. Filia stored up the warm, loving feeling for the next time Val blew up the furniture or clawed a customer or pulled one of her other pranks. Val was the only living ancient dragon, the daughter (of sorts) of the only survivor of the massacre of the ancient dragons a millennium ago. Sometimes, though, Filia suspected her of also containing traces of the mazoku lord Gaav and the Overworld deities, Dark Star and Volfeed. Valgaav had been a weirdly composite being by the end, and surely such a mischievous child as Val couldn't come from pure dragon blood. Filia suppressed the memory of some of her own less-than-virtuous childhood exploits.
"When's Gravos coming?" the little girl asked as she wriggled into her pajamas.
"He said that he'll be here by the end of the week."
Gravos was one of the two beastmen who had helped Filia set up the shop. The other was a fox-man named Jiras. They had left shortly after Val hatched when it became obvious that she was not, as they had believed, the reincarnation of their former master, Valgaav. Filia had not tried to keep them. Between Jiras' habit of keeping live bombs in his pockets and Gravos' tendency not to watch where he swung his tail, they had not been ideal assistants for a shop selling fragile antiques. Besides, they scared off customers.
Jiras had died a few years ago at the advanced age of twenty-seven, but his son, Palu, still invited Filia and Val to join the family for the midwinter celebration every year. Val always enjoyed playing with the young foxes even though they grew up so much faster than she did. Jiras' family were the finest gunsmiths, mechanics and explosives experts in the world, at least in Filia's opinion. People were willing to pay very high prices for the fox-made guns she sold in her shop. Gravos usually visited Filia and Val two or three times a year. He had never told Filia exactly what he did for a living and Filia had never asked.
"Tell me a story?" Val begged as her mother tucked her into bed.
Filia sat down on the chair beside the bed. "Once upon a time, there was a little dragon..."
Xellos stared in disbelief. Was that patient mother and prosperous shopkeeper really Filia? There didn't seem to be any mace dents or scorch marks on the boy or the house or anywhere in sight. She had certainly changed.
Xellos decided to give up. What was wrong with these people? He left them alone for twenty-five measly years and they all turned domestic and boring! They went and got married, retired, raised children or abandoned life long quests. Worst of all, they all seemed to be happy about it. There wasn't enough angst among the lot of them to feed one hungry Mazoku, or enough excitement to keep him interested for one day.
Mortals, you just couldn't trust them!
Author's Note: In case you hadn't figured it out, this is an anti-romance. It occurred to me in one of my more cynical moments that a lot of the romantic endings in Slayers fanfiction were rather unlikely. Therefore, I set out to write an epilogue which is plausible, satisfies none of coupledom enthusiasts, and yet lets the characters all live happily ever after. Let me know if I succeeded.
(Flames, criticism and praise all welcome. I just want reactions.)