Author's note: many thanks to chlorineobsession for agreeng to be my beta :)
The song I used in this story is Melnitsa — Nevesta Poloza (Bride of Poloz), and it's really beautiful… I think. Both the story and the song are originally Russian, and the translation of the song isn't mine, just like Slayers.
This oneshot is actually a part of one longer (unfinished) work, but I think it works even better alone.
NB! Please, don't skip the song while reading. It contains some important information the text doesn't.
Oh, that's not just a dust creeping along the forest road
Oh, don't go there, don't be looking for trouble, girl
Don't play with magic
Turn your eyes away from it
Snakes are getting married there.
This evening wasn't too different from many previous evenings. At a dining room in some small roadside inn, Lina and Gourry were eating, Zelgadis was sitting gloomily with his endless cup of coffee, Amelia was making origami cranes and doves from tissue papers, Xelloss and Filia were drinking tea and arguing quietly, radiating a thick aura of mutual hatred...
As usual, nobody knew how those two ended up sitting together once again.
While fighting, Xellos for some reason laid his hand on Filia's shoulder, and she exploded:
"Don't touch me, monster! I'm engaged, you know! And even if I wasn't, you still wouldn't have any right to touch me! There!"
Even some passerby in the street could hear her.
Completely red in her face, Filia stood up and took a glove off her left hand. She looked like she was going to challenge him to a duel. But she just gripped the glove in her fist instead and exposed her bare hand with a thin gold ring on it. The ring sparkled under the last rays of sun for a second or two. Then Filia turned on her heels, leaving a couple of deep scratches on a wooden floor, and went to the passage leading to the bedrooms upstairs.
Her dinner was left unfinished and Gourry decided to make use of it. It's wrong to waste good food, after all.
The reason why Filia had so suddenly remembered her engagement was left unclear. Nobody listened to her quarrels with Xellos for quite a long time already, and the monster himself refused to explain the context.
But Lina, personally, suspected that he was no less astonished by the dragoness' behaviour than anyone else in their team.
In any case, quite soon she and Amelia went up to the bedroom, too. They were going to get as much information as they could out of Filia. It wasn't too difficult: they didn't even have to ask her about anything.
When they came in, she was quietly humming some sticky, viscous and anxious melody. Her tail, adorned with a plump pink bow, rushed about just like a rattlesnake's tail with a rattle. Noticing them, she cut off her singing, gave a welcoming nod… and started to complain without any warning.
"...and I still can't understand what these Elders were thinking when they gave this mission to me! Sometimes it seems this monster will bring me to my grave before we even reach the temple!"
"Miss Filia, please, don't say such things!" Amelia said with tears in her eyes as she grasped Filia's hands while Lina just carefully came closer. She was silent (because her infrequent attempts to comfort someone tended to lead to even more crying) and quite glad that at least someone there had any idea of what to do.
"He is unbearable!" Filia continued to rage. "I know, nobody could even imagine that he would follow us, but… but it's so horrible! What could I have done to deserve such a nightmare..?"
You couldn't see a danger, facing this challenge without fear
'From now on you're the one of us, it's only your fault, my dear!
Can you see the thick fog covering the glade
The serpent king is expecting you there
You're engaged to be married to him'
She even started to cry after that. And Lina suddenly understood how difficult everything was for Filia. And, really, how could she have been so blind before?! New people and places, huge amounts of problems that she couldn't talk about to anyone… Was Filia too shy or too proud to do this? No, she probably just didn't want to show her fear. Or maybe she thought that nobody would understand her because of the difference in their races.
And a famous dragon-killing monster above this all. Hell, it was so wrong!
Every girl has the right to girlfriends she could trust! And from now on Filia would have Lina and Amelia. And she won't get away from it.
"If only Orion was here" sobbed Filia, looking on her ring sorrowfully. "It would be so much easier to me! And now…"
"Why would it be easier?"
The dragoness' gaze became serious and unnaturally sad.
Yes, even for someone who'd been crying for the last couple of minutes.
Hold me close to you
Put me to our bed with silk sheets
Show me your love, give me a kiss
Just don't let me go to the well alone
"I wouldn't be alone then. Especially with this monster...Why, why hadn't Orion said a word when the Elders gave this mission to me? Why hadn't he asked them to choose someone else or to let him go with me..?"
"But, Miss Filia, he couldn't have known that it would be so difficult and dangerous here!"
"Amelia is right. And besides, it was your chance to show yourself! Nobody has a right to interfere in times like these!
"I understand, Lina. It's just really hard on me, that's all, that's why I'm talking nonsense" Filia tried to laugh, but it didn't come out convincingly enough.
I'll hardly ever find a magic potion
And i can't look at you through my golden eyes
My body is covered with snake scales now
So I have to leave my home
And follow snakes
It seemed that Filia had calmed down a little, but suddenly she shook her head furiously and started to cry again.
"But I'm such a horrible dragon! Horrible! And Orion… He doesn't know anything and, most likely, still loves me! Still believes that I couldn't…" the rest of her sentence was drowned out by unintelligible sobs.
Lina really couldn't understand what this girl considered "logic". Could it really be that she still couldn't forget that incident with the "trial" and her transformation?
"Filia, believe me, one destroyed city is not such a tragedy" — Lina caught a deeply sceptical glance from Amelia and promptly changed the topic. "And it wasn't your fault anyway! They deserved it. They shouldn't have attacked an innocent girl!"
"And if you're talking about your transformation before the big crowd of people" —Amelia added, — "you didn't do that intentionally, right? Mister Xellos made you angry… and you saved all of us then, after all!"
Of course, the princess hated injustice and therefore unjust accusations, but she still had enough sense not to complete this elementary chain of logic.
"Don't talk about him anymore! Please! At least for today, okay?.. Oh, that snake!" — hissed Filia with hate, twitching her tail angrily. — "He is such a snake with those serpent eyes of his!"
Under the bed curtain I can hear the serpent's hiss
I can see his hungry golden eyes looking for me
He is calling me
'My dear, come down to me,
Let me hug you and take you in my 33 coils!'
"Did you hear that?!"
Lina, who had almost fallen asleep already, angrily punched her pillow. Now she was going to turn in her bed for another half an hour...
"Did we hear what?"
"A voice. It's…" — Filia continued in an anxious whisper, — "It's almost like Xellos' voice."
"Filia! It's only your quarreling that's still ringing in your head. Don't chatter with him so much in the daytime and you won't hear his voice at night. It's quite simple, you know? Now stop talking and let me have some sleep already!"
Filia didn't say a word after that, but soon she started to sing once more and Lina decided not to interrupt her, after some thought.
Laying on the bed with her eyes closed, Lina listened to the song, and it even seemed as though sometimes she could understand some separate words and lines within the quiet humming. Something about scales, golden eyes, and thirty three coils… Only she couldn't recognize anything from the refrain yet. It was sad and somehow disturbing, a little louder than the song itself.
Hold me close to you
Put me to our bed with silk sheets
Show me your love, give me a kiss
Just don't let me go to the well alone
And only at the very end of the song, after she'd repeated the heart-rending tune countless times, Filia — in the voice that, it seemed, had already lost all hope — quietly, but clearly, sang:
"Hold me close to you…"
And exhaled:
"Orion."