Nightmares

by Kaitrin

What is your worst nightmare? What is your heart's desire? Are you sure you aren't confused?

1. Chapter 1: Waning Moon

It was the plaintive whimpers that woke her up. After all their time traveling together, Amelia had grown used to the fact that Lina was neither a quiet nor gentle sleeper, and as long as her friend stayed on her side of the room, Amelia had somehow learned to sleep through the various outbursts, thumps, and snores that were a fact of life when one shared accommodations with the Sorceress Supreme (or Dra-Mata, depending on if you were talking to Lina herself or someone else).

Whimpering, though . . . that was not a typical part of Lina's nighttime repertoire, and although the sound was not loud, it was enough to jerk Amelia out of a deep sleep.

"Miss Lina?" she asked tentatively, listening for some alteration in Lina's breathing that might indicate that her friend was awake.

The whimpers continued unabated, although they were interspersed with an occasional moan or grunt. Amelia felt her face flush as she wondered if Lina was having one of those dreams.

Until Lina sat bolt-upright in bed and screamed "NO!" in a voice of panic and utter agony.

Instantly, Amelia was out of her bed and on the other side of the room, a faint light spell blossoming automatically behind her. Lina was shaking, staring at something only she could see, and her breath came in gasps.

"Miss Lina?" Amelia asked again, stretching her hand out to lay it on Lina's shoulder, hoping to comfort her friend.

Just before she made contact, two things happened simultaneously. The door to their room burst open, and Gourry and Zelgadis rushed in, their weapons drawn, just as Lina screamed again, her hands clenching the blanket in which she was tangled, and ripping it in two.

Amelia tried to grab Lina by the shoulders to shake her out of whatever nightmare was gripping her, but to her horror, Lina turned on her. Her hands formed into claws and reached up to gouge Amelia's face. Gourry and Zelgadis were there just before she made contact. Zel grabbed the back of Amelia's nightshirt, dragging her out of Lina's range, while Gourry caught Lina's hands in his own. At his touch, Lina's body crumpled like a rag doll, and she started quietly weeping, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

Without a word, Gourry gathered Lina onto his lap and held her, stroking her hair and her back. Lina allowed him to hold her, but she seemed oblivious to everything around her, as if she were still asleep.

The rather loud murmuring behind her made Amelia realize that they had attracted quite a bit of attention. As she turned to deal with the crowd of onlookers Lina's scream had brought, she just barely caught the look that passed between Gourry and Zelgadis.

"What's going on here?" a gruff and sleepy male voice demanded.

Amelia quickly pulled on a robe and moved to block the doorway. She was aware that Zelgadis was standing behind her, still holding his double-edged sword. "I'm terribly sorry," Amelia said, using her most soothing diplomatic voice. "I think my friend had a nightmare."

The crowd started murmuring incoherently, and a couple of the people at the front craned their necks, trying for some view of what was going on in the room.

"There's nothing to see here," Zelgadis rumbled menacingly from behind her. "We apologize for waking you, but this is really none of your business."

The crowd of onlookers thinned remarkably quickly at that point. She had to admit, with that stony exterior, Zelgadis was really effective at scaring people off. Not that she approved of such methods. As she watched the people disperse, she was barely aware of Zelgadis's hand on her elbow, gently urging her forward as well. The last person disappeared around the corner, and she was just about to turn back into the room she shared with Lina when the door snicked shut behind her. She looked up at Zelgadis in confusion.

"Shouldn't we—"

"Gourry will take care of her," Zelgadis said abruptly, interrupting her. His grip on her elbow was not painful, but it was firm and inexorably guided her toward the stairs that led down into the common room.

"But—" Amelia tried again as she craned her neck to look over her shoulder.

"No, Amelia," Zelgadis replied firmly.

And that was that.

Down in the common room, Zelgadis steered her toward a table by the fireplace. The fire had been banked for the night, but the coals still glowed cheerily, providing faint illumination, and turning Zelgadis's normally silver hair to a burnished copper. He sat with his arms crossed, and stared into the embers.

An awkward silence stretched out. At least it felt like an awkward silence to her. If Zelgadis felt any discomfort about sitting there in silence in the semi-gloom, he hid it well. Amelia glared at him a few times, feeling that it was unjust of him to prevent her from helping Lina, but if he noticed that, he ignored it as well.

Out of all the people close to her, Zelgadis was the one who kept her most on edge. Part of it was his general attitude. He was typically very quiet and cautious. Almost secretive. 'Heartless mystical swordsman' described him pretty well, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his sense of right and wrong, of just actions and unjust actions was distinctly underdeveloped. Not that he was evil—he was definitely not evil. He was driven, though, and she was not fully convinced that he would make proper choices if faced with the possibility of his cure. He was friend and companion, and there were moments when she thought there was more to their relationship, but . . . Amelia firmly squelched that line of thought. He cared for her, she knew he did. For some reason, though, he had a hard time expressing anything besides doom, gloom, and angst. No wonder Xellos seemed to thrive whenever he was near Zelgadis. Her mission was clear. It was not necessary to turn him into a bubbly personality—she was bubbly enough for the two of them—just to make him less the type of person who was always a monster's feast.

She stared into the fire. After their last adventure with Lina and Gourry, he had accompanied her back to Seyruun, although he had not stayed long. Not that she blamed him. She had been thrust into the responsibilities of the kingdom, and he had very little to do while she spent her days surrounded by paperwork and meetings. So he had left, promising to return eventually. A month or so later, he returned for a longer visit, establishing a pattern that had been repeated several times since. He would stay for a while, but would grow increasingly restless and discontent, and then he would leave. Sometimes just for a day or so. Sometimes for months at a time. Then he would come back, and the cycle started over. She had asked Daddy to give him an official position, hoping it would calm the restlessness, maybe give him some sense of purpose. She remembered how thrilled she had been when Zelgadis had accepted the position as her official escort and bodyguard. There had even been a formal ceremony where he had pledged his loyalty to her in front of Daddy and the other nobles of Seyruun. But it had not been enough to curb his restlessness. He came back when she needed him, although she had not quite figured out how he knew to time his travels. Out of all the people she knew, he was the hardest for her to read, but she had learned to recognize certain patterns, and she had slowly realized that his restlessness always became much worse if there had been any hint of heightened physical intimacy between them, regardless of how innocuous . . .

Her musings were interrupted when Gourry came down the stairs, looking very tired and worn out.

"Everything okay?" Zelgadis asked at the same time that she said, "Is Miss Lina okay?"

Gourry gave both of them a very tired looking smile. "She's back asleep," he said as he raked his hair out of his eyes.

Amelia sighed in relief. "Thank goodness!"

Zelgadis gave her a sharp look, but he averted his eyes quickly enough when she looked at him questioningly. She was used to his façade of aloofness, that mask of indifference he wore to keep the world at a distance. She knew he meant nothing by it—it was his natural expression, after all. So why did seeing him assume it now suddenly make her so sad?

No sooner had she identified the feeling than it was gone. Maybe she was just tired. It had been a very busy day, after all.

"Sleepy?" Gourry asked as he reached out and ruffled her hair.

"Mmm, yeah. A bit," she confessed. "I think I'll go back to bed."

"Sleep well, Amelia," Gourry replied with a casual smile.

Amelia smiled back and bid the two men good night before returning to the room she shared with Lina, who was actually sleeping peacefully for once. As Amelia slipped between the covers, she wondered if part of Zelgadis's grumpy attitude came from being woken up in the middle of the night, which led her to wonder why a chimera who was mostly rock golem and brow demon needed to sleep. Her last conscious thought was to hope that he would be in a better mood in the morning.

---

"You sure it's safe?" Zelgadis asked very quietly as he watched Amelia head up the stairs.

Gourry shrugged casually. "As long as she doesn't slip into Lina's bed, she'll be fine, right?"

"That's not what I meant," Zelgadis growled softly. Then he paused, examining the other man carefully. "And I think you know exactly what I meant, too."

Gourry gave him a very direct look. "The answer's still the same, though," he replied evenly, "so does it really matter?"

"Of course it matters!" Zel struggled to keep his voice low and not pound his fists on the table in front of him. "You saw Lina! She was attacking Amelia!"

"I saw," Gourry acknowledged.

Zelgadis sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He tried to control his breathing, and wished that his heart would stop thumping so dramatically. He had seen Amelia in danger several times before, but only one other time had made him react like this: the time they had been fighting Gaav outside the temple containing the Claire Bible. He had been prepared for Gourry to tell him that he had just been imagining things, and dismiss the entire situation as if it had been nothing. And maybe he was hoping that he had just imagined that look of pure hatred on Lina's face as she reached up to gouge out Amelia's eyes . . .

"You saw," Zelgadis echoed. "Still going to tell me that Amelia's safe up there in the same room with her?"

"She put herself to sleep."

"She did what?" Zel exclaimed, hoping he was misunderstanding. After all this was Gourry, the man who was clueless about magic and the various subtle dangers of using particular spells on the self, especially the sleep spell.

When Gourry caught his eyes, Zelgadis realized that he was actually not entirely clueless about how dangerous it was for Lina to cast a sleep spell on herself. And just for a moment, he saw how worried the other man was. He acknowledged the worry and waited for the explanation.

"She told me to ask you to wake her up in the morning. But don't let Amelia know—she doesn't want to worry her." Gourry paused, and took a deep breath. "She said to tell you the normal counter probably wouldn't work, that you'd have to—" He broke off, and closed his eyes. His face took on a look of concentration and intensity that it normally only wore during swordplay. "You'd probably have to use the break spell to disrupt it—"

"Flow Break?" Zelgadis interrupted incredulously. "Are you sure about that? Flow Break doesn't usually work against a sleeping spell—"

Gourry sighed. "Don't ask me to explain it, okay? She said to tell you that her variant doesn't work the same way as a typical spell—"

"Of course not," Zel snorted. "How foolish of me," he continued sarcastically. "Lina can't do anything the way everyone else does, can she?"

"Look," Gourry said with a hint of frustration. "Do you want to help or not? 'Cause all these interruptions aren't really helping."

He bit back an acid reply and gestured at Gourry to continue.

"The next part was confusing," Gourry confessed, looking worried. "She said that if the break spell didn't work, you should try it with a fire spirit. If that didn't work, you'd have to use a different kind of breaking spell . . . but she really hoped that wouldn't be necessary since it would make a mess of the floor."

"A Rune Breaker?" Zelgadis asked, pretty sure that was what Lina would have meant.

"Yeah . . . yeah, I think that's what she said," Gourry replied hesitantly.

Zelgadis closed his eyes, and leaned his head against his hand, rubbing at his forehead while he tried to process what Gourry had told him. From what he could tell, Lina's sleep variant created an artificial sleep, rather than enhancing the body's natural process, which is why a Counter Sleeping would not work but a Flow Break could. It seemed like she somehow had created a shamanistic variant using the forces of water or ice—at least that was the only thing he could think of that would make combining a fire spirit with Flow Break make sense. He really hoped that a simple Flow Break was enough, because he was not really sure he could develop a spell variant on the fly. Trust Lina to come up with something so complicated—

Like a nice complicated distraction. Something to keep him occupied and keep him from asking the real question—the one he actually had already asked and Gourry had neatly evaded, not just once, but twice now.

"I'll help," he said slowly. "But I want some answers. What exactly is going on with Lina?"

Gourry shrugged, a deliberately casual move. "Most of it you already know," he said easily enough. "She had a nightmare that scared her, and she wanted to make sure she didn't wake up again until morning."

"There must be more to it than that," he insisted. "Lina does not strike me as the type to wake up screaming in terror." He paused and considered. "In fact," he said slowly, "I don't think I've ever heard Lina scream in terror. Not like that."

"You've obviously never been around her when she sees slugs, then," Gourry replied, sounding amused.

Zel's eyes narrowed. That was the third time Gourry had evaded a direct question. "You're protecting her, aren't you?" he accused. It was the only logical explanation, since Gourry normally was not so evasive. Lina must have put him up to it.

Gourry met his eyes, all hint of laughter gone. "Yes, I am," he replied, deadly serious.

---

The first thing she was aware of was heat. Not uncomfortable sticky heat, but the kind of heat that sank through the skin into chilled muscles and joints. It was like sitting by a sunny window on a spring day after a long winter. The feeling was intense, but also comforting. At least, it was comforting at first. Within moments, Lina started to feel as if she were roasting in front of roaring oven. She could practically hear the flames burning out of control.

With a tremendous effort, she forced her eyes open, half expecting to see a raging inferno. Instead, she saw nothing aside from the wooden ceiling of the room she was sharing with Amelia. Feeling incredibly groggy, she pushed herself up on one elbow, wondering why she was on the floor instead of in bed. Almost instantly, the intense heat faded.

"Took you long enough," Zelgadis grumped from behind her.

The memories of the previous night came flooding back at that point. Lina rubbed a finger through one of the sooty gray lines that patterned the floor while she tried to prepare for the inquisition she was pretty sure would be coming rather shortly. How was she supposed to think straight when she was this groggy? "What time is it?" she asked, trying to buy herself some time.

"Mid-morning," he replied as he moved to her side and held out a hand to help her up. Even for a guy with skin of rock he looked pretty haggard. "Do me a favor, will you?" he asked as he pulled her up off the floor. "Next time you want me to do something, please don't relay your instructions through Gourry," he complained, sounding rather aggrieved. "A note in that scrawl you call writing would be preferable—"

"What are you complaining about?" Lina interrupted with a yawn. "It looks like you figured it out okay."

Zel started muttering under his breath. Since he was just complaining about the fact that her spells had to be crazy variants instead of the normal versions that normal people used, she tuned him out. She had more important things to deal with at the moment, anyways. Like trying to decide if she should stagger down to the common room for breakfast, since her stomach felt like an aching cavern, or if she should tumble back into bed, since keeping her eyes open seemed virtually impossible.

"Zel?" she asked through another huge yawn. The bed was looking more and more appealing by the moment.

"Yeah?" he replied cautiously.

"Do me a favor and have someone send up some food?" she asked plaintively as she fell into her bed. The pillow was so soft next to her cheek . . .

---

Amelia found Zelgadis sitting by himself behind the inn. She felt as though he had been avoiding her, and she suspected it had something to do with the fact that Lina was still in bed, even though two meals had gone by.

He gave her a very wary glance as she rounded the corner of the inn, and she was surprised at how haggard he looked, but when he returned his attention to the piece of wood he was carving, she wondered if she had imagined it. He was, after all, a heartless mystical swordsman—haggard was not really a part of his repertoire. Carving, however . . . apparently that was. The wide range of his talents never ceased to amaze her. But she had not sought him out to admire his many talents.

"What did you do to Miss Lina?" she asked without preamble.

"What makes you think I did anything to her?" he replied coolly in a tone calculated to make her back off, not even deigning to look up at her.

"Because you've been hiding from me all day, and every time I ask Mr. Gourry about Miss Lina he gets all funny on me."

"Funny?" he repeated, sounding slightly strangled. Amelia could not tell if he was trying not to laugh or really angry.

"Well," Amelia hesitated briefly knowing how strange this was going to sound. "It's almost like he's evading my questions. On the one hand, it seems like typical air-headed Mr. Gourry, but . . ." she trailed off, not certain exactly how to explain it.

"But like he's doing it on purpose," Zelgadis said coolly.

That pretty much described it exactly.

"Do you think he really is," Amelia asked cautiously.

"He's protecting her. He said as much last night," Zelgadis replied brusquely.

"By keeping things from us?" Amelia asked indignantly. "But we're her friends!"

Zelgadis said nothing for a few moments as he shaved the knife against the wood in his hand in long confident strokes, adding small yellow curls to the piles at his feet. "To be honest," he said at last, "I don't think Gourry really knows what's going on either. He's just following Lina's lead." He looked her in the eye then, the first time he had truly looked at her this entire conversation. "What happened last night?" he asked.

"I think Miss Lina was having a nightmare—"

"I figured that much already," Zelgadis interrupted. "I want to know why she attacked you," he said fiercely.

Amelia's brain tried valiantly to process two very different pieces of information at the same time. One was immediate shock and denial that Lina had been trying to attack her, coupled with the realization that 'attack' actually summed it up quite nicely. The other was the fierce tone of his voice that spoke of worry and protectiveness—feelings she had suspected he felt, but had never really seen him express. She watched his hands moving confidently over the piece of wood, shaving a long curl here, a chunk there in an effort to keep herself focused and not climbing the highest available edifice to proclaim her giddy joy to the world.

"Amelia?" Zelgadis prompted with a hint of annoyance.

With an effort, she pulled her attention back to the current conversation. "I'm not sure," she replied, more to buy herself time than out of any real uncertainty. "I don't think she knew it was me," she finally offered.

"She knew it was Gourry, though, didn't she?"

Amelia thought about that a moment. "She did, didn't she?" she replied happily with a beatific smile. "Do you think they're finally together?" she asked hopefully.

Zelgadis looked up from his carving, his expression somewhere between annoyance and indifference. "First of all, we've already had this conversation, remember? They seem the same as always, so unless they tell us differently, or we actually catch them in the middle of something, I doubt we'll know one way or the other. Secondly, I thought that we agreed that it was none of our business. Finally, I don't see how that is relevant to the current conversation," he said coolly.

"Of course it is!" Amelia gushed enthusiastically. "She attacked me because she didn't recognize me because we're just friends. We're not close enough for her to recognize me instinctively. But she knew it was Mr. Gourry even though she was in the middle of a nightmare! Don't you see? This is wonderful!"

"Wonderful?" Zelgadis echoed, jumping to his feet, in obvious agitation. "You're sharing a room with a woman who is having nightmares and she can't distinguish between friend and foe! Last night she almost gouged your eyes out! What will it be next time?"

"It was just one nightmare," Amelia said calmly, trying to placate him while her stomach did backflips in nervous exultation. She knew Lina's nightmare must have been bad to cause her friend to react the way she had, but so much good was happening as a result . . . It just proved that good things always came out of bad!

Zelgadis sat back down, turning his attention back to his carving, running his fingers over the torso. It startled her when she realized that the figure looked like a young maiden with short hair. After a moment he looked up at her, considering. Finally he let out his breath in a silent sigh. "You asked me what I did to Lina? Well, I woke her up," he said finally.

"Woke her up?" Amelia echoed, shaking her head slightly. A terrible suspicion started to bloom in her mind. "You don't mean," she said hesitantly, "she didn't . . ." She glanced up for confirmation, and sighed when he nodded slightly. "She put herself to sleep, didn't she." It was no longer a question.

"Still think it was just one nightmare?" Zelgadis asked. "Because it's pretty clear that Lina thinks it's something more. It's also obvious that she's worried enough to take steps to avoid a repeat performance."

Amelia chewed on her lip, the wisp of an idea wafting at the edge of her mind. When she grasped it, she suppressed a wicked grin. "It seems to me that it would be better if I didn't share a room with Miss Lina until we figure out what's going on."

Zelgadis looked visibly relieved before he masked his expression. "That might be for the best," he said indifferently.

"And," Amelia continued, "since Mr. Gourry seems to be able to calm her down, I think he should share a room with her instead."

"Amelia," Zelgadis growled warningly. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish, here?"

"Mr. Zelgadis," Amelia replied innocently, "I'm just thinking about what's best for our friends. If Mr. Gourry is the one who can calm Miss Lina when she's having a nightmare, doesn't it make sense to have him in the same room with her?"

Zelgadis looked at her warily, his eyes narrowed to slits. "And where are you going to sleep?" he asked suspiciously.

Amelia suppressed a sigh, knowing what a stickler he was for proper protocols concerning acceptable behavior for the escort of a princess. "This is a large inn," she pointed out reasonably. "I'm sure there are other rooms."

When he turned his attention back to the figure in his hands, Amelia thought the matter was closed. But then he looked up at her. "No," he said abruptly. "If Gourry is going to be with Lina, I want you with me."

Amelia felt her heart in her throat. "Mr. Zelgadis?" she asked slowly, wondering what happened to protocol.

"Until we know exactly what's going on here," he said intently, meeting her gaze, "I want you where I know I can keep you safe."

---

When Lina next woke, the room was empty, and judging by the quality of the light, it was somewhere around early evening. She was so hungry she almost felt nauseous, which was a distinctly unpleasant feeling. Fortunately, there was a tray sitting on the table next to her bed. She eagerly reached for it, but at the sight of sausages sitting in congealed grease and scrambled eggs starting to shrivel and harden, nausea won out. Lina barely had enough time to dump the water pitcher out of the basin before what was left of last night's dinner made a hasty and unpleasant exit.

Once the spasm passed, Lina cleaned herself up and collapsed onto the bed, curling into a ball. First the nightmare, now this.

She was running out of time.

---

Gourry watched Lina come down the stairs to the common room and take the last empty seat at their table.

"Did you guys order yet?" she asked, sounding mostly like her normal self. "I'm starving!" she declared emphatically as she opened the menu.

He knew it was a façade, but a quick glance at Zelgadis and Amelia told him that they were not quite sure if it was or not. Amelia was clearly worried. Zel was mostly just annoyed. They both had tons of questions, and he had very few answers he could give them. The strain of hiding his own concern while putting the two of them off was pushing even his limits.

Lina tossed the menu down on the table and gestured to the waiter. "Hey, Pops!" she called out, "I'll have the chicken dinner for two!"

Zel sipped at his coffee. Amelia toyed with her water glass. Gourry saw them exchange a glance before the waiter swooped down on their table to take their orders. Once their orders were placed, Lina leaned forward, propping herself up on her elbows. After one glance at Amelia, she turned on Zel. "You told her, didn't you?" She sounded pretty annoyed. Gourry wondered how long it would take for her to turn on him.

"She's not a child," Zel returned with a flinty gaze.

It was enough to shock Lina out of annoyance and into surprise. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"You don't have to—" Zel started.

"Will the two of you please stop talking about me like I'm not here?" Amelia asked, sounding like she had caught Lina's annoyance.

Gourry stopped following the conversation at that point, letting the cadences and tones of his companions' voices blend into the rest of the sounds in the room. He knew it drove Lina up the wall, but old mercenary habits died hard. For too long, his survival had depended on his ability to accurately gauge the tenor of his surroundings. From Gourry's perspective, keeping track of the swirling and shifting currents around them was far more important than following the specifics of a conversation.

"You decided what?" Lina's sudden spike of temper brought his attention quickly back to said conversation.

"You heard me," Zel growled.

"If you're not going to tell us what's going on, Miss Lina, it's really for the best," Amelia said soothingly. "After all, it's really not a good idea for you to keep putting yourself to sleep."

Gourry struggled to pick up the thread of the conversation.

"Why not separate rooms, then?" Lina asked from between clenched teeth.

Ah, so that was what was going on.

"Two reasons," Zel replied implacably. "First, the inn doesn't have other singles in our price range. And second, which is related to the first, our travel funds are running low."

"Fine," Lina said slowly from between clenched teeth. "We just pick up a merc job, then, or go raid some bandits."

"Wait, what?" Gourry asked, interrupting the flow of the conversation.

Lina turned and glared at him. "Zelgadis and Amelia," she said, slowly enunciating each word, "think we should change sleeping arrangements."

At least she did not chew him out for not paying attention to the conversation. Gourry looked across the table at Zelgadis. "You want to share a room with Amelia that badly?" he asked, going on the offensive.

It was Zelgadis's turn to glare, while Amelia immediately started protesting something about only thinking about Lina's well-being.

Lina, on the other hand, calmed down dramatically. "Is that what this is all about?" she asked, sounding both surprised and pleased. "All you guys had to do was say so, you know," she continued.

Their food arrived at that point, ending the conversation. However, it seemed that everyone considered the matter settled, since after dinner, Amelia commented that she was going to move her things and Lina just smiled at her and waved her off. She did smirk knowingly at Zelgadis after Amelia disappeared up the stairs, but he just stared at her in stony silence. Finally, she stood up. "You better not hurt her, Zelgadis Greywords," she said seriously; there was absolutely nothing teasing about her demeanor. After holding his eyes for a few moments, she went upstairs as well.

"That was really low," Zelgadis said angrily to Gourry as soon as Lina was out of hearing.

Gourry shrugged. "Did you really want to argue with her all night about it?" he asked calmly. "I just gave her a good reason to give up gracefully." He looked archly at Zelgadis. "Our funds aren't really that low, are they?"

"They're not that great," Zelgadis responded. "We'll need to be careful to make it back to Seyruun, or take another merc job, like Lina suggested." He sighed then. "I'd really rather not, though. I want to get Amelia back home as soon as possible." He stared off into space, lost in his own thoughts.

Gourry left him there, pretty sure that he would brood for the rest of the evening. After sharing a room with Zelgadis off and on for the past few years, he had a good idea what was bothering him: the more he admitted to his feelings for Amelia, the more desperate he was to find a way to return his body back to its purely human form. Unfortunately, there was very little Gourry could do to help. Lina had looked into the situation a bit, but her specialty was not chimeras. He knew she was keeping her eyes open for anything that might help, but that she also did not take Zelgadis's desire all that seriously. If Zel was not going to explain why he wanted to be cured so badly, it certainly was not Gourry's place to do so.

After spending some time on the practice field, Gourry went upstairs to move his things out of the room he had been sharing with Zelgadis. Amelia was already there, sitting at the small table under the window and writing something. She looked up when he came in and watched him as he gathered up his belongings for a few moments before speaking. "That was really mean, Mr. Gourry," she finally said reprovingly.

"Why?" he asked guilelessly, as he suppressed a sigh.

"Because—" Amelia broke off and bit her lip, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. "Never mind," she muttered.

"Sleep well, Amelia," he said simply as he gathered the last of his things and left the room.

When he entered Lina's room, he saw her perched on her bed, leaning against the wall amidst scattered scraps of parchment. A good-sized book rested on her bent knees, and she was absently nibbling on one of those damned pens, her eyes staring at nothing. Not exactly what he expected to see, but it was not exactly surprising, either. What did surprise him was the fact that she was wearing a dark silk nightgown. "Is that what you're wearing to bed these days?" he asked as he tossed his gear on the other bed.

"Mmm," she replied absently, the kind of non-committal reply he typically got from her when she was focused on books and words and research. She looked back down at her book, rifled through a couple pages, and then started sifting through the parchment scattered around her. When she found the one she was looking for, she made a couple of quick notes, placed the parchment in the book, and closed it with a loud thunk. Then she looked up at Gourry.

"Is that the book you took from Lord Margstrom's?" he asked, his interest piqued. Most books looked pretty much the same to him, but this one held special memories.

"Yeah," she replied. "The Menagerie." She gathered up the other scraps of parchment, stacked them on the book, and then put the whole pile under her bed.

"Just looking up one thing?" he asked, trying to gauge her mood.

"Yeah," she repeated slowly, her eyes taking a faraway look. "But not the 'just one thing' you're thinking of," she said with a knowing smile, finally focusing all her attention on him. She slid off the bed to stand in front of him.

"So, does Amelia know that you have this," Gourry asked in a low voice, stroking a finger along the edge of the silk.

"Of course not!" she retorted. "Kinda defeats the purpose, don't you think?" Her eyes took that faraway look again. With an effort, she shook herself and refocused on him. A wicked look bloomed in her eyes as she closed the distance between them and snaked a hand around his neck, drawing him down for a kiss. "Come to my bed," she whispered against his mouth.

It was the first opportunity they had had since the evening Gourry had ambushed her in the middle of a forest glade. Clearly, Lina wanted to take full advantage of the situation. Not that he had any intention of stopping her . . . except for one minor detail.

"Zel and Amelia are next door, you know," he reminded her gently. "And the walls really aren't all that thick."

"Already taken care of," she murmured as she tugged him toward her bed. "Do you want the full explanation or—"

He could feel her lips curve into a grin as he kissed her to interrupt her explanation. Apparently, that was the right answer.

---

With an inaudible sigh, Amelia skimmed over the report she had just finished writing describing her meetings with the Lord of Lim. She really should have taken care of this the day before, when the details were still fresh, but she had hoped that a bit of distance would provide some clarity. Unfortunately, now that she was struggling to record her impressions, the situation seemed more tangled than she had first thought. The report was a rather bare-bones recitation that seemed to mock her perceptions. With another sigh, Amelia started to read the report again, taking time to scratch impressions and thoughts in the spaces between lines.

She was halfway through when Zelgadis came in. He nodded at her before sitting down on a bed, his arms loosely gripping one of his knees, and staring out the window into the night.

Half-formed suspicions and concerns about Lim slipped away as she studied him. It was pretty obvious he was trying to act as if she were not in the room, and she wondered if that was his idea of maintaining some sort of proper protocol. She smiled fondly at him while her thoughts whirled furiously. She could afford the time it would take to lull him into a sense of complacency before she attacked. Even if it meant he fled as soon as they reached Seyruun, there was no way she was letting a golden opportunity like this slip through her fingers. Let him maintain the illusion that he was a disinterested bodyguard. Not even a naked sword on the floor between their beds—potent symbol of chastity that it was—would stop her.

As if he had heard her thoughts, Zelgadis got up, pulled his sword from its sheath and began examining the edges for nicks. He sat with the blade resting on his knees, while he methodically worked a whetstone over the edges. It was an unfamiliar sound, but not unpleasant. In fact, she was surprised to find that there was something soothing about the repetitive steely rasp of whetstone over blade.

She shook her head deliberately and turned her attention back to the report. Only half way through, and she had so many cross-outs and interlinear notes, she wondered if it might be a better idea to just start all over. In spite of the thought, she found herself scratching out another line and squeezing text into the scant margins. Then she huffed in annoyance, realizing that she had just edited one of her earlier edits.

"Am I bothering you?" Zelgadis asked quietly without looking up from his sword.

"No," she answered honestly. "It's this report."

"You never did tell me how your meetings with Lord Gottwald went."

Amelia did not answer right away, as she quickly skimmed over the mess of her report. It just seemed to be getting worse. "Honestly?" she said finally. "I think I'm in over my head with Jeremiah."

Zelgadis raised an eyebrow and looked at her quizzically. "'Jeremiah'?" he repeated.

For some strange reason, Amelia realized that she was blushing even as she clamped down on the sudden inexplicable urge to squirm. "He insisted that I call him by his given name," she said, the explanation sounding lame in her own ears. And there was no real reason it should, since it was the truth.

Zelgadis studied her for a moment before seeming to accept her explanation and returning his attention to his sword. "In over your head, how?" he asked in the tone of someone making polite conversation, but she could hear the undertone beneath his words.

"I'm not sure," Amelia admitted slowly. "He seemed interested in an alliance during our initial meetings, but later, it was different. Suddenly the terms weren't good enough. He wanted further negotiations." She fished around her notes until she found the sealed message Jeremiah had asked her to carry to her father. At the time, his request had seemed perfectly normal, but ever since she had left Jeremiah's residence, she could not help but feel like she had been insulted in some subtle way.

"Do you have any idea what he wants," Zel asked curiously, looking back up at her.

Amelia shook her head. "No, not really," she answered slowly as she stared at the bright orange seal of the Lord of Lim. "But I'm not sure that I really trust him." Even that was not fully accurate. She both trusted and did not at the same time. It was as if all her senses and intuitions that usually guided her so well in other situations had gone haywire.

That statement earned her Zelgadis's full attention. "You mean to tell me that you're comfortable calling him by his first name, but you don't trust him?" he asked incredulously.

"I know it sounds strange," she admitted as she toyed with the envelope, and wondered what kind of man scented his stationary. It was not unpleasant: kind of fruity and spicy. "It's like when I think about him, there are all of these layers."

"Layers?" Zelgadis echoed slowly, as his eyes bored into her as if he were trying to see into her mind.

"I don't know how else to explain it," Amelia admitted. Hence the problem writing her report. "The top layer feels genuinely friendly. It's something under that that makes me feel like I can't trust him."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Zelgadis demanded. "I wouldn't have let you continue meeting him alone if I had known."

"That's why I didn't tell you," she said firmly. "I didn't think he'd meet with you there to glower at him."

Zelgadis folded his arms over his chest and glowered at her. "I'm your bodyguard," he said tightly. "And your official escort. I have every right to be there."

"Yes, but you hate escort duties, don't you?" she challenged archly.

He recoiled, the glower replaced by sudden surprise. "What makes you think that?" he demanded.

Suddenly, instead of feeling playful, she was annoyed. "Because every time you have to serve as my escort, you do it, but then you find some excuse to run off. There's always something you suddenly remembered to do on the other side of the kingdoms. Every single time." Amelia was surprised at how bitter she sounded. Had she always been this bothered by his behavior?

"Is that why—" he cut himself off abruptly, shaking his head. "Amelia, listen to me," he said intently, moving quickly to kneel by her chair. "Phil gave me the choice. I didn't have to take both positions," he continued, sounding both gentle and decisive. "I chose to be your escort in addition to your bodyguard."

The tone of his voice made the statement a declaration he was almost daring her to contradict. His eyes seemed to beg her to understand. And she could feel the layers of him. It confused her, because in that moment, she felt the same urge to both trust and not trust that she had already associated with the Lord of Lim. She pressed the heel of one hand against her eye, wondering if something was wrong with her.

"Amelia?" Zelgadis asked, his voice tinted with concern. For some reason, it made her feel better.

She pushed decisively away from the table, leaving the report for some later time. That too, made her feel better, and she gave him a genuine smile. "I must be more tired than I thought," she said. "I guess I'm not really thinking straight."

His eyes searched hers for a few more moments. "Well, if you need to meet with Lord Gottwald again—or anyone else you don't exactly trust for that matter—you're taking me with you," he announced decisively. "I didn't become your bodyguard just for the sake of an empty title, you know."

This time Amelia's smile seemed to come forth from the depths of her heart, making Zelgadis's lips quirk in response. She stood up and pulled her night clothes from her pack, while he returned to his bed and started wiping down his sword. It was one part curiosity and one part pure mischievousness that prompted her to take off her belt and hang it over the chair.

"Uh, Amelia?" Zelgadis asked, not quite masking the quaver in his voice.

"Hmm?" she responded, looking over her shoulder while gripping the hem of her tunic. It took all her self-control to keep her voice uninterested. She had suspected he was looking at her, even when it seemed like his attention was elsewhere.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Getting ready for bed, of course!" she announced even as she started pulling her tunic up.

Quicker than she would have thought possible, he was hustling her out of the room with firm instructions to change in the garderobe at the end of the hall. When she came back, ready for bed, she was not surprised to find his naked sword lying on the floor exactly between the two beds, which had been shoved as far apart as possible. She climbed into the empty bed, hiding her grin. She wondered just how much she would succeed in cracking that stony exterior by the time they reached Seyruun.

---

Lina awoke slowly and stretched luxuriantly. She felt more relaxed than she had in days. Having Gourry in her bed had kept the nightmares at bay, among other things. Unfortunately, she probably was a bit too relaxed. If she went down looking like this, Amelia and Zel would start in, trying to figure out if they were really together or not.

Oh, who was she kidding? They were going to do that regardless. She wished there was some way to put them off. Zel's eyes saw way too much, and of course, Amelia was so convinced they belonged together that she analyzed and interpreted every single touch or interaction. Lina sighed to herself. That was probably another reason she was so relaxed, since she did not have to maintain the illusion in front of Amelia last night.

Dressing quickly, Lina stuffed her belongings into her pack, noticing that Gourry had already cleared out his gear. She tossed her pack over her shoulder and headed down to the common room.

She saw Zelgadis and Amelia sitting at a table. Zel was sitting with his back to her, and from the set of his shoulders, something was bothering him—not that there was anything peculiar about that. Amelia, on the other hand, looked like she was trying really hard not to cry. After descending a couple more steps, Lina realized the probable reason for Amelia's distress: Gourry had his arms around a waitress, gripping her hands around a serving spoon and nudging her body into the proper stance for holding a sword. As she watched, Gourry pulled her closer to his body and whispered something in her ear that made her blush like crazy.

Lina felt the simultaneous urge to kiss him for his brilliance and to smack him into next week for touching another woman.

"Hey, there, Gourry!" she called with only half-feigned cheerfulness. "Did you order breakfast yet?"

"Lina!" he returned her greeting with his typical sunny smile and then returned his attention to the waitress, giving her a few more comments and refining her stance a bit.

As Lina slid into one of the empty seats, she fumbled in one of her pockets, looking for one of the scraps of parchment she had scribbled notes on the previous night. It gave her a few more minutes to compose herself and an excuse not to stare at Amelia, whose eyes were as large as saucers. She found it just as Gourry sat down. "I hope you remembered to charge her for the pointers," Lina said as if this were a normal occurrence.

In reply, Gourry slid a copper across the table. "I told them you wouldn't mind as long as I charged," he said, sounding smug.

Amelia started making choking sounds. "Are you okay, Amelia?" Lina asked, turning toward the other girl in concern.

Amelia met her eyes and stared at her in disbelief for quite a few moments before dropping her gaze and muttering under her breath.

Lina shrugged and pushed the scrap across the table at Zelgadis. "What do you make of this?" she asked, hoping it was enough to push off comments and questions about Gourry indefinitely.

Zel also studied her hard for a moment before his eyes flicked down to the parchment. With a sigh, he picked it up and squinted at her handwriting. "Sounds like gibberish," he said shortly, pushing it over to Amelia.

"'All creatures are composed of black and gold, order and chaos,'" Amelia read slowly. "'Creation itself requires a balance . . .'" she trailed off. "This can't be right," she protested. "Everyone knows that the balance of our world is determined through the struggle between the gods and the demons, and that all creatures are composed of the four elements."

Lina nodded. "That's what we've been taught," she agreed. Then she looked closer at Zel. "Have you ever come across anything like this in any of your research?"

Zelgadis thought for a moment, and then he shook his head. "Not that I can recall," he said decisively. "Why?"

Lina responded with another question, one that had struck her forcefully when she had re-read this passage the night before. "Have you ever read anything about how our world was created?"

Both Amelia and Zelgadis stared at her. Zelgadis grasped the meaning of her question first. "No," he said slowly. "It's like Amelia said: everyone knows the story—"

"Exactly," Lina interrupted. "Everyone—except for Gourry, of course," she said derisively.

"Wha . . .?" Gourry put in, upon hearing his name.

"Nothing, bait-for-brains," she said acerbically, but not quite hiding her affection. "As I was saying, everyone knows the story, but I've never actually read anything that says what everyone knows. How do you suppose we all know it?"

"Maybe," Amelia said slowly, "it's something passed down to the priests . . . ?"

"You're a shrine maiden," Lina pointed out, "you tell me."

Amelia shook her head. "I'm not really a high-ranking shrine maiden, though," she pointed out. "Someone like Sylphiel or Filia might be able to better answer—"

"What about the Claire Bible," Zel interrupted. "Did that say anything . . ." he trailed off when Lina shook her head.

"The Claire Bible only answered my direct questions, and the thing I needed to know most was how to destroy a high ranking demon," she explained with a sigh. "I wasn't really thinking of more esoteric questions at the time," she said regretfully. "Or even more practical questions," she continued apologetically. She knew Zelgadis had been hoping to find his cure in the Claire Bible, but he never even got close to looking at it.

He nodded, accepting her tacit apology.

"I was thinking," Lina continued. "What if this description, about all creatures being a balance of black and gold, order and chaos, is correct?" She looked at Zelgadis. "You've been trying to return your body back to normal, but nothing in the shamanistic or white schools has helped, right?" She did not wait for his acknowledgement, since she already knew the answer. "Maybe it isn't working because what everyone knows isn't really the truth," she suggested.

Zelgadis's eyes narrowed, and he held out his hand to Amelia in a silent request for the scrap of parchment. He stared at the words for several moments before he looked up at Lina. "Where did you find this?" he asked intently.

"It was just a bestiary," Lina replied, hoping she did not sound like she was trying to be evasive. She swore inwardly when Zelgadis pinned her with a glare, and then she struggled to not put on her best innocent look, knowing that would make him more suspicious, so she just shrugged instead.

"So if you think there's some truth to this," Zel finally said, indicating the words on the parchment, "what do you think it means?"

Lina was glad that he seemed willing to let her evade his question, but something in his eyes made her certain that it was only a matter of time before he started to push her. "I'm not sure yet," she admitted. "That's why I wanted to ask you about it." She definitely had ideas, though.

"But Miss Lina," Amelia said, sounding puzzled, "if this idea were true, wouldn't it mean that chimeras as we know them wouldn't be possible?"

"Not necessarily," Lina objected reasonably. "First of all, most of what we know about chimeras focuses on the 'how,' not the 'why.'" She looked at Zelgadis, who nodded in confirmation. "Chimeras are more the result of trial and error, rather than any understanding of underpinning theories. Secondly," she continued, "both theories are based on the idea of four aspects: earth, fire, water, and wind—the basic elements of shamanism; or black, gold, chaos and order. It's possible that the reason we think chimeras work is not the reason that they do."

"So did this bestiary give you any clue as to what black, gold, order, and chaos are supposed to mean?" Zel asked.

"No," Lina replied in disgust. "The author seemed to assume that the reader would automatically understand." She stared off into space for a moment. "Either he was pulling on an idea that was really common at some point, or he was just a wacko."

Zelgadis snorted in response.

Lina ignored it. "Still," she continued, "Even if the author was just a wacko, aren't you curious about where our current ideas come from?"

"Not particularly," Zel shrugged.

Lina resisted the urge to scream at him in frustration for being so dense. This was really important, not just to her, but potentially to him as well. With effort, she forced herself to calm down. "Even if it has the potential to lead to your cure?" she asked incredulously, pleased that her own inner frustration was not fully evident in her tone.

"You know I'd do anything for my cure," Zel said with equanimity. "I'm just not all that interested in creation stories."

Lina stared at him, flabbergasted. "If you're not interested in understanding, how do you know if you've already missed the clue you need for your cure?"

---

Zelgadis followed his companions, deep in thought. Lina would probably say he was brooding, and he was honest enough with himself at least to admit that she if she were to say so, she would be right. At the moment, however, she was chatting happily with Amelia about something.

Her comment at breakfast had bothered him more than he cared to admit. Even to himself. His cure. He knew he was close to being obsessed with it. Aside from the time he spent serving as Amelia's bodyguard and escort, he devoted every waking moment to trying to figure out how to turn his body back to his fully human self. The more time he spent with Amelia, the more desperately he wanted it, so much so that it drowned out any other consideration, even Amelia's feelings.

He wanted to give Amelia his feelings. Unfortunately, there was very little to give. Oh, the emotions were there, certainly. But the physical feelings . . . he knew that he should feel at the very minimum, burning lust to have a beautiful and desirable woman sharing a room with him. At best, he felt something muted and far away: like an afterthought so easily dismissed. Hunger, sleepiness, lust . . . none of them seemed to impact him the way they should. He so desperately wanted to feel the needs of the body again!

Had he been so focused on any particular method to undo Rezo's transformation to his body that he had missed the larger framework that might have offered a clue? He had studied medical treatises, bestiaries, notes and notes on research devoted to developing chimeras, hoping for a clue to his condition. Unfortunately, nothing had even come close. His initial reaction to the scrap of parchment Lina had shown him was dismissal. The words did not fit his conception of the universe, so he had dismissed them as unhelpful. Had he dismissed other potential leads without giving them due consideration? After listening to Lina this morning, he almost felt like he was his own worst enemy in his quest for a cure. He half considered asking for her help.

But he did not.

And there was a very good reason he did not.

He was pretty sure that Gourry had guessed it. In spite of his seemingly vacuous memory, very little got past Gourry's steady gaze. If Gourry did know, he never mentioned it, even obliquely, for which Zelgadis was eternally grateful. Asking Lina for help would mean revealing everything to her. Not an option.

Would it be worth sacrificing pride and dignity if it meant his cure?

Zelgadis tried not to cringe inside. If he had asked himself that question a year ago, the answer would have been a definitive 'no.' Now, he was not sure. Still, it would do no harm to help Lina research her current theory. It was not like he had any stronger leads to follow at the moment anyways. If she seemed close to something useful, then he could decide how much—if anything—to tell her.

Watching her chat with Amelia and ignore Gourry, who seemed oblivious to the fact that he was being ignored . . . he wondered what their game was. He may not have Gourry's powers of observations, but he still saw plenty. Their meals were about three quarters normal food fight, and one quarter excuses to touch and even feed each other. Something about Gourry flirting with the waitress had made Lina pretty happy, although there was an undercurrent of something else that he had not quite been able to identify. That whole scene had upset Amelia a great deal, and most of his attention had been on her. He was not sure exactly why, but she really wanted Lina and Gourry to be together.

"So, Miss Lina," Amelia suddenly asked, "how did you sleep last night?"

Instantly, Gourry went from oblivious to focused.

Without any hesitation, Lina stretched her arms over her head. "Pretty good," she said with a smile, "considering that Gourry snores like you wouldn't believe."

"I can't believe anyone could snore worse than you, Miss Lina," Amelia responded pertly.

"What was that?" Lina growled with mock ferocity.

Amelia threw her hands up in surrender. "I didn't mean it!" she protested with feigned innocence. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and then they both started laughing. Amelia hooked her arm in Lina's. "I'm so glad you're coming with us all the way back to Seyruun," she said with a happy smile.

Lina returned the smile. "Can't pass up the opportunity to poke around in the Seyruun Royal Library," she replied. "Plus there's all those perks of being friends with the royal—" she broke off suddenly, staring at the road in front of her.

They all stared.

Just ahead of them, the road split into a fork. One branch followed the Cylte River toward the southern side of the demesne of Lim. The other branch led to the bridge that crossed the Cylte and led toward Seyruun.

Except that the bridge was no longer there. They had crossed that bridge on the way out. It had been high quality stone craftsmanship, with graceful arches spanning the river, resting on pylons that had been driven deep into the riverbed to keep the bridge stable even when the river ran violently due to spring time run-off. Now, there was nothing to indicate that there had ever been a bridge there, save the shadow of pylons, just barely visible under the rushing water of the Cylte.

The missing bridge was nothing compared to the carnage.

Amelia rushed forward, searching for survivors or anyone who might be in need of help, as unlikely as that seemed. Zelgadis was marginally aware that Lina was still staring in shock. Both he and Gourry drew their swords, alert to any potential danger.

His first thought was that it had been a merchant caravan. There were smashed bits of wagons scattered along the road at the embankment. As Zelgadis ran to catch up with Amelia, he noticed small fragments of scorched wool everywhere: it floated through the air and coated the ground. Unfortunately, it did not hide the bodies.

They were also in fragments. Scattered limbs of all sizes: hands, fingers there. Half of a foot over there. Shattered bone fragments peeked through gore. Skulls that had been torn open, revealing the brains within. And everywhere, flocks of carrion gorged: large ravens with vicious beaks hopped leisurely from morsel to morsel, ignoring their appearance. For a moment, Zelgadis was thankful that the physical feelings of the body were so muted. Otherwise, he would probably be puking up his guts right now, instead of feeling mildly nauseous. Amelia suddenly bolted to the edge of the clearing, her shoulders heaving. Gourry looked very grim, as if he were keeping himself under control by dint of sheer will alone. Lina's face was as white as chalk, and she was staring at the ground by her feet.

Amelia stood up slowly and wiped her mouth. "Who would do something like this to merchants?" she asked, her voice sounding sick.

"No," Lina said so softly it was barely audible. "Not merchants." Her eyes did not waver from the spot of the ground she was staring at. "Not merchants," she repeated a bit louder. "A family."

Zelgadis finally realized what she was staring at. It was the severed arm of an infant. A few feet away lay the crushed upper torso of a woman. He could see shattered ribs and pulpy spongy flesh that could only be lungs. Amelia fell to her hands and knees and immediately started heaving uncontrollably. Zelgadis quickly went to her side and knelt next to her. Since she had already emptied the contents of her stomach at the edge of the clearing, nothing came up except for a frothy bile. She coughed weakly between spasms, but seemed unable to bring herself under control. He felt the edges of panic and was wondering what to do when she suddenly turned toward him, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his chest to muffle her sobs. Zelgadis did the only thing he could think of: he held her and stroked her hair.

He was vaguely aware that Gourry went over to Lina and that they had a short conversation, although he had no idea what they said. Gourry headed down the embankment toward the river, and Lina stayed where she was a bit longer before she started moving around. Most of his attention was focused on Amelia. He knew there was very little he could do for her, aside from just holding her, but it seemed to be enough. Amelia's sobs had transformed to sniffles and the occasional hitch of her shoulders before Zelgadis realized that his other companions had begun the gruesome work of gathering the bodies for burial. Lina had pulled out one of the groundsheets they used when they camped out. It seemed like she was planning to use it as a communal shroud. After a few moments, he nudged Amelia gently. She looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, but brimming with anger and purpose. "We should help," he suggested softly.

Amelia took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before nodding.

By the time they had finished gathering the fragments of the bodies together, they were all feeling sick at heart. Altogether, there were six bodies: an elderly woman; an adult male and female; two young children, and the infant. Lina's initial appraisal seemed to be spot on. He wanted to ask her how she had known so quickly, but the few times he had started, Gourry had interrupted him. It was nothing obvious: a question about the best place to bury the family; a comment about the height of the river. Each time, Zel had caught the way Gourry's eyes had flicked between him and Lina. She was still chalk-white, and there was something in the way her eyes were unfocused as she went about the task of sorting fragments of bodies to make them recognizable as distinct people . . . he hoped that she was just in shock. The alternative scared him a great deal.

Once they finished burying the family, Gourry led them downstream a bit until he found a point where the river had formed a small inlet where the current was not as strong. He led Lina into the water. Almost mechanically, she started stripping out of her clothes. Zelgadis averted his eyes and considered looking for another inlet, but Amelia had already plunged into the water and was vigorously scrubbing at the blood and gore that stained her skin and clothing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lina toss her clothes onto the grassy bank before she moved out into the stronger current. He tensed up, until he noticed that Gourry was watching her very closely. Knowing that the other man would keep her safe or let them know if he needed help, Zelgadis focused on his own ablutions.

The water was bitter cold: it was something he could recognize, but like all physical sensation, it was something that seemed so distant, almost like it had nothing quite to do with him. Amelia's teeth were chattering, and he could see that her arms were covered in gooseflesh. As soon as she was out of the water, she used Lina's trick with a low-powered fireball to dry herself off and warm up.

In spite of the temperature, Lina showed no sign of discomfort as she stood in the rapid current. Given how much she tended to whine—not to mention burn down forests, or melt frozen lakes in an effort to use her magic to stay warm—any time the weather took a turn for the colder, her seeming obliviousness was just as troubling as the unfocused look in her eyes.

"Do you think Miss Lina is okay," Amelia asked very softly. She was also studying their friend closely.

"No," Zelgadis answered honestly, but just as softly.

Amelia was just taking a deep breath to respond, when Lina started wading toward the shore. The moment she saw her bloodstained clothes sitting on the grassy bank, something snapped in her eyes. Survival instincts kicked in immediately, and Zelgadis had no sooner pulled Amelia and himself out of the way before the inferno hit, turning her clothes and the surrounding embankment—including the spot where they had just been standing—into fine gritty ash.

He wished he could say with confidence that the attack had been typical Lina short-sightedness: that she had been targeting her clothes and uncaring about any collateral damage. Unfortunately he had caught the look in her eyes. As her gaze slid quickly over him and Amelia, she had focused on them with a look a pure hatred, and then she launched her spell. No matter that her clothes had been in the center of the blast. He was certain that in that brief moment, she had been hoping to hit the two of them as well.

Gourry took her by the elbow then, and guided her out of the water and up the bank. Somehow, he got her to sit while he dug through her pack for some spare clothes. Then he knelt in front of her and snapped his fingers so that she focused on his hand. Slowly he raised his hand, bringing it up so that her eyes rose to meet his. "Lina." He spoke softly, but in an otherwise normal tone of voice. "We need to get to the other side of the river."

Lina shuddered, but she nodded and started pulling her spare clothes on over her still soaking shift. Then she stood up and looked over at Zel and Amelia. Her face wore a slightly confused expression, but other than that, she looked mostly normal—at least in expression. Her complexion had improved moderately: now instead of looking chalk-white, she was only pasty. "C'mon," she said to them, sounding subdued. "I want to check out the pylons." Without waiting for an answer, she took Gourry's hand, pulled him effortlessly into the air, and headed back upstream.

Amelia started to follow, but he grabbed her elbow before she could lift off the ground. She looked at him quizzically.

Zelgadis tried to pull his thoughts into some semblance of order. He was still reeling with anger and shock over Lina's latest attack. He was also trying to tell himself that that hollow pounding of his heart had nothing to do with being afraid of one of his closest friends and for another. "Do you think," he suggested slowly, "we should split up from them?"

Amelia looked at him for a long time before answering. "You don't trust Mr. Gourry?" she finally asked.

"Gourry?" he spluttered in shocked surprise. "He's not the—"

"The dangerous one?" she interrupted, sounding angry.

Zelgadis nodded curtly, his face composing itself into the cool mask that had been less and less effective with her the more time they spent together. "This is the second time in as many days that Lina," he paused slightly for emphasis after pronouncing Lina's name before he continued, "has tried to attack you."

"I still don't think she knew it was me," Amelia insisted stubbornly, but her eyes were snapping with righteous indignation. "Our friend is in trouble, and you want to leave?" She shook her head emphatically. "That's wrong, Mr. Zelgadis."

"You know how dangerous she can be, even under normal circumstances," Zel bit out in frustration. "This isn't about a friend in trouble, this is about trying to keep you safe."

"No," Amelia responded firmly. "You can't tell me that Miss Lina is more dangerous than Zanaffar or Gaav or Hellmaster." She paused for a moment, silently daring him to contradict her. "She's our friend," she continued, "and something is bothering her. And I think she needs our help. That stuff she was talking about this morning . . . I got the feeling that was as much for her as it was for you." She paused again. "Besides, I trust Mr. Gourry to keep her under control." Then she smiled at him, "and I trust our reflexes to keep us safe."

Zelgadis suppressed a sigh, knowing that he had already lost this particular argument.

"C'mon," Amelia took his hand in hers. "Let's go see what has Miss Lina so interested in the bridge pylons."

---

Gourry quietly led Lina up to their room. He knew that Zelgadis was dying to take him aside and grill him about Lina's behavior. He felt he owed both Amelia and Zelgadis some sort of explanation . . . even if he was not exactly sure he could give them the answers they wanted, for a variety of reasons. But. Almost all of his attention was focused on Lina, assessing her mood and trying to get them all through the day in one piece, to get them to a point where she could let go of the barriers and defenses she had been putting up since they found the family by the river. There was no way he was going to let her out of sight and hearing, something that would be necessary to satisfy Zelgadis. Not even for an instant.

With a sigh, he closed the door, wishing they had enough money to afford an inn with attached baths. Lina was so clenched up, a soak in hot water would help her—in many different ways. Unfortunately, they had arrived in the village well after dark, and they had been lucky to find an inn that was still accepting custom, let alone one that had two available rooms for the four of them. He tossed their gear onto the bed closest to the door, and then started tugging Lina to the other bed.

She resisted for a moment, pulling herself free. First she went to the door and whispered the spell that he assumed was locking it. Then she turned around, leaned against the door, and folded her arms across her chest. She was trying to look relaxed, but Gourry could see the way her hands clenched around her elbows, even in the dim light.

"Lina," he said softly.

Something flickered across her face too quickly to identify. He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his embrace. This time, she did not resist. But she did not relax, either. In fact, she felt like a lute string that had been tightened to the point of snapping. Instinctively, he knew that she had clenched herself up so much, the only thing she could do was clench herself up even more. Even as he stroked her back, he felt her tension increase and her muscles start to quiver from the strain.

Trusting to his instincts—the only thing he could do when it came to Lina—he briskly stripped her out of her clothes and gently pushed her face down on the bed. He rummaged around in his pack until he found a bottle of liniment. As he poured some into his hands, the aroma of camphor and rosemary filled the tiny room. He let his body heat warm the thick liquid for a moment before smoothing it onto Lina's back, his fingers identifying the worst points of tension.

It took longer than he thought it would, and he had used up at least a good third of the bottle before the muscles in Lina's back finally started to relax. Then he moved on to her legs. As he worked his fingers into the knotted muscles of her thighs, Lina suddenly let out a deep shuddering sigh. And then another one.

"I'm scared, Gourry," she admitted, whispering against the sheets.

Unsure of how to respond to that, he settled for saying nothing as he continued to work along her legs. He had felt a lot of the tension fade with her sighs and her admission. Not all of it, but at least it no longer felt like she was about to snap from strain. As his fingers massaged the tension out of her flesh, he considered her words. Considered what had brought her so close to snapping in the first place. And sighed as he reached a possible conclusion. "Are you pregnant," he asked softly, struggling to keep his tone neutral.

It was her turn for silence. Then she answered just as quietly and neutrally, "It's possible. I'm more than a week late." She craned her neck to see his reaction.

Gourry tried to figure out what he was feeling. Was it possible to be ecstatic and terrified at the same time?

"I'm not sure yet," she cautioned, holding his eyes. "I might just be late."

All his instincts screamed that he should be terrified at the prospect of Lina being pregnant. She had made it clear why she wanted to hide the fact that they were sleeping together; a child would not only make it impossible to hide, but also created another weakness for any who hoped to use her powers for their own ends. In spite of that, giddiness was winning out, and he knew he was grinning like a loon. He pulled her onto his lap and rested a hand low on her belly while he kissed her, needing an outlet for the happiness surging through him. Otherwise, he would start swinging her around the room and shouting. Not the best way to keep a secret.

He could feel her relaxing even more under his kiss. But again, not completely.

"Gourry," she said slowly after pushing him away a bit. He could hear the hesitation in her voice.

"Lina," he responded, hugging her to him. "I know it's just a possibility. I know you're scared—I am, too. I know there's a lot you're going to have to think about, a lot of things we're going to have to do to protect our child. I know there are problems." He released her slightly and tilted her head so that he could look into her eyes. "Tonight, be happy with me," he urged.

She returned his look for several moments. Then she smiled affectionately. "I think I can manage that," she murmured as she pulled his head down for another kiss.

It was much later when the need to sleep started to outstrip their desire to celebrate. As Lina cuddled up in his arms, she suddenly snorted. "You're gonna have to up your flirting with the maids tomorrow to hide this," she commented. She twisted around to look at him. "That was absolutely brilliant, you know," she said in an annoyed tone. "I so wanted to kill you for it, but it was brilliant nonetheless."

Gourry allowed himself a rare predatory grin. "I'm glad you appreciate the efforts and sacrifices I make for you," he teased.

Lina snorted again. "'Sacrifice,' my ass. I saw the look in your eyes. I know that look. You were enjoying every moment," she accused.

"Jealous?" he asked, feeling surprised and flattered.

"A real gentleman would deny it," she sniffed, neatly avoiding his question.

He resisted the urge to sigh at the tangle of emotions he could sense in her: admiration, practicality, jealousy, resentment, possessiveness . . . they were all there, swirling around in her eyes. "I'm a guy," he pointed out the obvious. "Of course I'm going to get that look after having female flesh pressed up against me. If I didn't, it would probably mean that I'm dead." She took a deep breath to answer, but he cut her off by placing a finger over her lips. "And if I didn't, Zel and Amelia would really wonder what the hell we were up to."

Lina chewed on her lip, only marginally mollified. Once again, he knew they were not the words she had been hoping for. He pushed an errant strand of hair out of her face. "It doesn't matter how my body reacts to other women," he said intently, "because you're the one I want. The only one I want." There was more he wanted to say, but apparently, those were the right words: the ones she wanted to hear.

"You can keep flirting with the maids," she said lightly, "to keep Zel and Amelia off our backs. But just you remember," her tone shifted, became fierce, as she pushed herself up onto her elbow, "you're mine. You got that, Gourry? Mine."

"Shall I have 'Property of Lina Inverse' tattooed somewhere on my body to make you happy?" he teased, trying to deflect the intensity of what he saw in her eyes, because there was no way he was going to be able to perform that way again tonight.

"I'll figure something out," Lina said in a sultry voice as her hand slipped down along his torso.

"Uh . . . Lina . . . ?" he captured her questing hand in his.

She smiled beatifically at him then. "You're the one who taught me that the sex is just a bonus," she reminded him.

With fingers, lips, and tongue, she gave him a thorough demonstration of what she had learned, leaving him awash in sensual pleasure that came from the touch of a lover.

---

Amelia eased herself into the hot water with a sigh, feeling her muscles relax almost against their will. With any luck, a good long soak would rinse away the memories of the previous day and would provide enough rest to give the illusion that she had not spent a mostly sleepless night sharing a room with . . . Zelgadis. She shivered happily and hugged her knees. Last night, he had insisted that she drop the polite designation. He said it made her sound like a little girl, and his tone of voice indicated that he saw her as anything but.

And then he had rolled himself into his bed with his face resolutely toward the wall.

After placing his sword on the floor again.

On any other day, she might have taken it as a challenge. Not when her thoughts whirled chaotically between images of brutal slaughter and the burning desire to bring to justice the miscreants who had dared perpetrate such villainy on the borders of Seyruun.

After spending much of the night tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position, and at best falling into a half doze, Zelgadis had asked her if she wanted to talk about it.

They had spent the rest of the night exchanging impressions and arguing about interpretations. He wanted to know what was going on with Lina. She did too, but she was more interested in piecing together scattered clues to figure out the identities of victims and villains. He thought she was wasting her time.

By dawn, they had exhausted most conversational angles, but she was still too keyed up to sleep, in spite of the deep ache in her legs that she always got when physically tired. It did feel good to scrub away the residue of the day before. Their ablutions in the cold water had been sufficient to remove bloodstains and worse from their clothes, but it did not leave her feeling truly cleansed. She knew she should have sought out the cavernous bathing area in the basement of the inn the night before, but it had been so late, and she had thought she was too tired to move.

Amelia allowed herself to semi-float in the water. With an effort, she forced herself to let go of conscious thought and focus on the now: the soft lap of water against the edge of the bathing pool; the almost ethereal wisps of steam that occasionally wafted along the surface of the water; the warmth of the water supporting her body; the humidity of the air; the flickering of a scant few oil lamps that barely penetrated the darkness.

Once she had successfully quieted her conscious mind, she slipped naturally into the calm meditative state taught to all shrine maidens. She floated in the eternal now, open to all possibilities without expectation of any.

The creak of a door opening and the soft slap of bare feet against the floor brought her back to herself. Following the tenets of her training, she grounded herself by focusing on the sensations that surrounded her for a few moments. With a smile and a happy sigh, she let go of conscious control, allowing her thoughts to wander where they may. In marked contrast to the chaotic whirling that had dominated the night, she felt relaxed and refreshed—if not exactly rested. At least she felt like she had some sense of direction.

The first order of business was to get back to the capital as soon as possible. Her father needed to be informed so that reconstruction on the destroyed bridge could start as soon as possible, and so she could pass on the message from Jeremiah. If things went well, she hoped to be placed in charge of the reconstruction efforts. No more innocent families would be needlessly slaughtered on her watch! It would have been better to conduct a thorough investigation yesterday, but given Lina's obvious distress, her well-being was more important. And, as Zelgadis had pointed out to her, the best clues had likely already been disposed of by the carrion.

Amelia felt torn between the desire to help Lina and the need to protect the people of her kingdom. She wished she knew what had pushed Lina so off-balance. Gourry had pretty much kept both her and Zelgadis away from Lina, although now that she thought about it, she was not exactly sure how he had managed to do it. In spite of the seriousness of their situation, watching the single-minded devotion he had shown to Lina the day before had made her hope that they would finally be honest about their feelings. If she ever caught Gourry flirting with random waitresses again, she was going to give him a thorough speech about the injustice of his acts. And she would give Lina one as well, for not kicking sense into him for pulling a stunt like that.

No sooner had she come to that conclusion when Lina entered the room. She stopped, surprised to see another person, but she seemed to recover quickly. "Oh, 'morning, Amelia," she said as she slipped into the hot water. She sounded really tired.

"You're up early," Amelia commented. She looked closely at her friend in the dim flickering light. Lina seemed to be avoiding eye contact, and there was a rather grim set to her lips. "Did you have another nightmare," she asked gently.

Lina shrugged noncommittally, hugging her knees and resting her forehead on them. She sat quietly for several moments. Amelia could tell that she was debating something, and knew from experience that it would be best to wait her out. Finally, Lina sighed softly. "Amelia," she asked, sounding very subdued, "have you ever had a prescient dream?"

"Do you mean a dream where you see the future, or a dream that is a message from the gods?" Amelia asked in a neutral tone.

Lina shrugged again. "Both," she said. "Either."

Actually, her question served little purpose, except to clarify Miss Lina's question. The answer was the same, either way. "No," she answered easily. "Some of the higher ranked shrine maidens have received prophecy, though."

"Prophecy isn't usually a dream, though," Lina pointed out. "And from what I understand, prophecy is generally so randomly specific as to be useless."

"I wouldn't go that far," Amelia objected. "Not all prophecy is useless." Then she sighed. "But you're right. Prophecy is random, and usually it takes the form of a waking vision, rather than a dream."

"But they do exist," Lina pressed. "Prescient dreams. At least, so the old legends tell us."

"They do," Amelia agreed. "They're pretty rare, though. There hasn't been a true Dreamer in several generations, at least that I know of."

"True," it was Lina's turn to agree. "But . . ." she trailed off and focused on the tiny whirls she was forming in the water with her fingers. "Would you know how to recognize a prescient dream?" she finally asked.

"Depends," Amelia answered. Something about Lina's question threatened to shatter the equanimity she had just achieved moments earlier. "If it's just a vision of the future, the only way to know is to wait and see if—and exactly how—it comes true. Most people don't believe that dreams can really predict the future. They're more about our wishes and fears than anything else. We dream about what we desire—or fear—and our actions and choices bring such things into reality."

Lina nodded slowly, as she stared into space. Amelia unconsciously held her breath, wondering if that would be enough to satisfy her friend. It was not that the rest was exactly secret, she just had the strangest feeling . . .

Abruptly Lina turned and looked Amelia in the eyes with a very serious expression. "Have you been trained in Dream Walking?"

"Not fully," Amelia admitted with a slight frown. If Miss Lina knew about Dream Walking, she already had the answers to her questions. It was possible that she was just seeking confirmation of what she knew, but Amelia doubted it. Amelia wondered where she got her information. The knowledge and training was typically reserved for those shrine maidens who had fully dedicated their life to a particular shrine, but she had been given some tutoring in the basic methods and theoretical understanding of more advanced techniques—rank did have its privileges.

"Can you train me," Lina asked intently, confirming Amelia's fears.

"How much do you know?" Amelia countered, trying to buy time while she figured out how to diplomatically refuse the request.

"Dream Walking is a technique that ranges from simple self-awareness—the ability to recall one's dreams, for example," Lina replied promptly. It sounded like she was reciting from a textbook. "At more advanced levels, the Dream Walker learns to control and manipulate first their own dreams, and then the dreams of others. At the final stages, the Dream Walker is able to manipulate reality on the Astral side."

"No," Amelia answered resolutely, rejecting diplomacy. Lina seemed a little too interested in the final stages, and that made her request dangerous.

"Why not?" Lina asked. At least she sounded genuinely curious, instead of upset.

"For two reasons," Amelia responded in the same firm tone. "First, you already know pretty much what I know, so there's not much I can teach you. Second, you know too much about the advanced levels for it to be safe for someone with my limited skills to be able to train you." She took a deep breath. "Dream Walking alters the connection between your physical and astral body. If it's not done exactly right, it's easy to damage that connection." She felt she owed her friend at least that much of an explanation.

Lina's eyes took on a far-off unfocused quality. The she asked, "Do you think that you could arrange for me to be trained?" Although she did not allow it to color her tone, Amelia could see the desperation in her eyes.

"Because of your nightmares?" Amelia asked gently.

Lina shuddered at the question, and even in the dim light, Amelia could see the blood drain out of her face. "Among other things," she answered softly.

"Miss Lina, can't you—"

"Not yet," Lina interrupted harshly. Then she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I know I haven't told anyone much of anything." She paused, and then sighed. "Honestly, I'm not sure of anything right now. The dreams might be just like you said: echoes of my hopes and fears, and nothing more."

"But you don't think so," Amelia noted what she thought was the obvious.

Lina shrugged in response, the move oddly self-deprecating. "I don't even know if I can trust myself anymore," she said with a snort. "All I know is that if it is all just in my head, the worst that can happen by me keeping it to myself is that you guys get annoyed at me for keeping secrets."

"And if it's not?" Amelia pressed.

Lina looked directly at her. "What's the worst you can imagine?" she asked, her tone deathly serious.

---

The inn they had chosen the night before boasted a nice-sized courtyard. There was a small patio with tables and chairs where guests could enjoy refreshments or a meal, and a larger area surrounded with a hip-level wall and filled with sand and wood mulch. Whatever the owners had intended for the space, it currently was serving as a sparring field. Zelgadis could see a couple pairs working on their techniques with wooden practice dowels, including—much to his surprise—Lina and Gourry. He made his way over to the table where Amelia sat toying with the remains of her breakfast. He ordered a coffee from a passing waitress as he seated himself and then turned his attention back to the pair on the sparring field.

"How long has that been going on?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

Amelia pushed fragments of melon rinds around on her plate, swirling them in the remains of syrup. "They've been at it for about an hour. Looks like they've done this before," she said, sounding rather distracted.

A waitress placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of Zel. He sipped at the brew, luxuriating in the sensation of heat sliding down into his body. It was one of the few ways his body could feel, and he tended to take every available opportunity to remind himself that he could still feel. Unfortunately, taste was something also denied him, but given the raw odor of the coffee, he was not really missing much.

The thwack of wood against wood was constant. Zel watched Lina parry a couple of Gourry's attacks, her face a mask of intense concentration. Then Gourry launched a rapid series of blows. Lina reacted initially well, turning aside his 'blade,' but as the attack continued, unrelenting, it was clear she was being pushed out of her rhythm. A couple of moves later, Gourry neatly disarmed her, catching her practice sword in his hand. Much to Zel's surprise, instead of getting angry or frustrated, Lina held her hand out to Gourry for her sword with a self-deprecating smile, as she asked him something that did not carry far enough for him to hear. Gourry returned her smile and her sword, and then stood behind her to position her body, much the way he had with their waitress the day before.

"What the—" Zel burst out before he could stop himself.

Amelia looked up and followed his gaze. "That," she said dismissively. "They've been doing that all morning. You should've seen what happened when Mr. Gourry put Miss Lina in the dirt. After disarming her, he lay down on top of her, pinning her arms and looked for all the world like he was going to—" Amelia broke off and bit her lip.

"Lina let him get away with that?" Zelgadis asked incredulously.

"They stayed in that position for a bit, just talking, and then Mr. Gourry jumped up and then they started sparring again like nothing had happened," Amelia returned her focus to her breakfast plate and covered the melon rinds with a large leaf of garnish. "All this after Mr. Gourry was practically sucking face with a maid he had pinned to the wall," she said angrily.

Zel found himself spitting coffee across the table. Amelia handed him a napkin. "You caught him kissing a maid?" he asked hesitantly. 'Sucking face' was definitely not a part of Amelia's typical vocabulary, although it was hard to imagine any other intended meaning.

"I said 'practically,'" she corrected. "He said he was helping her get something out of her eye. It sounded so fake, but if he was lying, he was doing a really good job. Miss Lina didn't seem to question it, but . . ." she trailed off, sounding annoyed again.

Zelgadis tried to process all the information he was receiving, wondering what the hell was going on. His eyes drifted back over to the sparring field, and he studied the way Lina and Gourry were interacting. Even knowing them as well as he did, they seemed the same as always. Ever since he had known them, they had always worked well together, and they seemed to have some type of connection that allowed them to communicate without words. All he could see were two good friends—who paradoxically seemed to be oblivious to the sexual tension they were generating—going through sparring routines. Lina had always been decently skilled with a sword, but her form seemed to have markedly improved since the last time he had seen her in action. It was true that she would never be in Gourry's league—not that his level of skill was necessary for most situations, particularly since Lina had other options available to her.

As he watched, they finished sparring. Gourry put a companionable arm around Lina as they headed toward the table. Lina flagged a waitress and asked her for a menu before collapsing into the chair next to Zelgadis. Without asking, she grabbed his water glass and drained it in a single draught, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and sighing lustily.

"So," Zelgadis started to say coolly. He was interrupted, however, by the waitress appearing with a couple of menus, and Lina's gleeful rapid-fire ordering of her breakfast. Once he was sure he could hold her attention—at least until the food started arriving—he tried again. "How long have you been practicing sword-play with Gourry?"

Lina looked over at Gourry affectionately. "It's been a couple months now, or so," she said easily. "Gourry said it would be good for me to improve my form."

Zel filed away the information that Lina's seemingly new interest in sword-play was actually Gourry's idea.

"Besides," Lina continued. "Since the Ragna Blade is my strongest spell, improving my form with a blade is probably a good idea."

Any comment he might have made in response was eclipsed by the arrival of breakfast. At least the ensuing food fight was mostly confined to their side of the table. Being spattered with scrambled eggs and other assorted breakfast foods had never been his favorite way to start the day.

He was debating on whether or not to order another cup of coffee when Gourry suddenly yelled, "Lina, you almost bit off my finger!"

"'Almost' doesn't count for anything," she replied cheekily, but her eyes were smoldering.

The moment passed so quickly, Zelgadis half wondered if he had just imagined the look she had been giving Gourry. A quick glance across the table, however, indicated that Amelia had also seen it. Her face was slightly flushed and she looked dazed. Suddenly, she jumped to her feet. "Are you two together or not?" she demanded, her eyes flicking between Lina and Gourry.

"Awuh . . . ?" Lina asked around a mouthful of pancakes, her fork stalled halfway between her plate and her lips.

Gourry took advantage of her lapse in attention and helped himself to some of her sausages. Predictably, the food fight resumed its course. Amelia stared at the two of them for a few moments. A couple of times, she took a deep breath as if to start saying something, but she appeared to change her mind each time. Finally, she shot him a look that mingled frustration and worry. "I'm going to pack," she announced to no one in particular, although she held his gaze until he acknowledged her with a slight nod.

He watched her pick her way across the patio, weaving among the small tables until she disappeared inside the inn. Part of him wanted to chase after her. The other part of him pointed out that such an activity would be worse than futile. With a ragged sigh, he flagged the waitress for another cup of coffee. Just as it arrived, Lina pushed back her now-empty plate and studied him carefully.

Zel raised an eyebrow in a silent question as he sipped his coffee.

"How much would you be willing to give up to get your body back to normal?" she asked without preamble.

For the second time that morning, he found himself spitting his coffee across the table. "Excuse me?" he asked, not sure if he had reacted out of shock or resentment.

"What would you give up?" she repeated.

He could tell it was no idle question. "Why should I have to give up anything?" he asked coolly.

Lina leaned back in her chair, obviously considering his answer very carefully. Finally she nodded. "That's what I thought," she said cryptically.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

She studied him a few moments more before answering. "How much of your current abilities are tied to that body?" she asked. "Normal humans don't have your kind of speed or stamina, for starters," she pointed out. "And I'd be willing to bet that your capacity for magic is also greatly enhanced in that form. What was your experience of 'normal' before Rezo turned you into a chimera?"

Zelgadis took another sip of coffee in an attempt to cover his dismay.

"Leave him alone, Lina," Gourry said absently as he picked at his teeth with a toothpick.

Lina shot Gourry an annoyed glance and stood up. "You're never going to get what you want if you don't know what you want," she said intently. Then she shoved her chair in and stalked off.

"I want to get Lina a sword," Gourry commented as she disappeared into the inn.

It was such a non sequitur that Zelgadis could only gape at the other man. "What are you two playing at?" he asked as soon as he could gather his wits.

"I wouldn't let what she said worry you," Gourry responded with a sunny smile. "I think she's using you as a guinea pig."

"And I'm supposed to find that reassuring?" Zel demanded, feeling anything but.

Gourry shrugged. "I think she'll do better with something custom made to her size."

Zelgadis mentally counted to ten. Then he took a deep breath and counted to ten again. "So, are you two together or not?" he asked, echoing Amelia's earlier question.

Gourry shrugged again. "We've been together for years," he said calmly. "I don't see any reason to change anything now."

Zelgadis ground his teeth in frustration. "I know how long you've been traveling together," he said slowly through clenched teeth. He was really tired of the deflections and the run-around. Gourry knew damn well what the question was really asking. But fine, if Gourry wanted to play it literally, Zelgadis would phrase it in no uncertain terms. "I meant are you fucking her?"

Instantly, Gourry transitioned from slightly amused and distracted to completely focused. "No," he snarled softly as he stood up abruptly, radiating a quiet fury. No, it was more than that. It was animosity fueled by a prodigious will: the will that had controlled the Sword of Light and turned it into a weapon that sliced through high-ranking monsters with ease. "I don't ever want to hear crap like that again," Gourry finally bit out after the silence had dragged out uncomfortably long. Without waiting for a reply, he stalked off toward the inn.

Zelgadis sat immobile for several moments more, playing and replaying the encounter over in his mind. Damn. He was so used to Gourry's typical easy-going nature, he had forgotten how fiercely he protected Lina. Even after watching him deflect and cover for her for the past few days, and watching him handle her so carefully to keep her from breaking after the affair at the bridge, Zelgadis had still underestimated him.

He just wished he understood what exactly it was about his question that had provoked Gourry to such an unprecedented degree.