§ Assorted disclaimers: This is an AU, and rated mostly for violence. Slayers doesn't belong to me, it is owned by Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I am making no profit off of this story.
Blood Red Roses
by Ryo Hoshi
Cold Haily Rainy Night Jo
Filia bustled about the small cottage's kitchen. Here, in the English countryside, the war seemed very far away. Filia could almost pretend that she was married to the house's owner already, and that her husband would be home any minute to ask her, his soft brown eyes twinkling, what was for dinner. But little details all over the house reminded her that she wasn't welcome there, like the still-broken kitchen window, where somebody had thrown a rock through. The lone ring she wore, an engagement ring, was also a permanent reminder that her fiancé had enlisted in the army almost as soon as the war had started, and was posted away before they could get married.
She pulled the bread out of the oven and sighed, reminded by it that she hadn't been able to get any meat when she did the week's grocery shopping that morning. She suspected that they had simply not wanted to sell 'the German Bitch' meat, since, though they had told her they didn't have any, she could see that they had some in the back that they simply hadn't put on display yet.
Filia hated the war. She had not really been old enough to quite understand what had been going on when Hitler took over Germany, yet she could understand quite well that her English father had wanted the entire family to leave Germany while her German mother had wanted to stay. Neither won, and her father ended up taking her with him to England late one nightmarish night, leaving her mother behind.
She hadn't liked England at first. At least her father had always insisted that she be able to speak English and she sounded like a well-educated London girl most of the time. Still, it hadn't been Germany, and she wasn't with her childhood friends. Then she had met Arthur. They had first met her sixteenth birthday, her first in England. He was a handsome young man who had accidentally run into her.
He ran into her daily for the next week before he admitted that he had been running into her on purpose, and asked if she would let him treat her to dinner. Over the dinner, they had learned about each other. He had not been bothered at all that she had been born and had spent most of her life in Germany. Instead, he had quoted some German poetry with a slight but obvious English accent. She was pleasantly surprised to find out that this charming young man was a college student, planning on becoming a country doctor.
The war had started a few months after he had proposed to her on her seventeenth birthday. Arrangements were made, and she had found herself takeing care of the cottage he had inherited from his parents, while her father and her fiancé were busy with the war.
During the year since then, she had found herself slowly forgetting what her fiancé looked like. To try to distract herself from that, she had taken in two of the children being sent away from the cities. She hadn't gone to the village the day they arrived to take in any of the children. When the train arrived and none of the villagers were willing to take Val because he was from Germany, she couldn't refuse. Amelia had come with the six-year-old Jewish orphan. The sixteen-year-old girl was the daughter of a banker and no relation to Val at all, but she had insisted on making sure that Val got a home before she would accept one herself. By the time Filia decided to take Val in the boy was unwilling to be parted from Amelia.
Amelia and Val's company and kindness, Filia had discovered, had made the villagers' hostility towards her easier to stand. Unlike the villagers, neither seemed to blame her for the war. Their innate ability to make her feel better, however, didn't effect her when they were absent, as they were right now. Val had gotten very restless during the recent near-ceaseless rains. There was no way Filia could deny him and Amelia the chance to go outside once the rains stopped, no matter how muddy it might be out there.
Filia glanced out of the broken kitchen window, and frowned at the storm clouds which had been hanging over them all day, filling the sky and looking threatening. It looked like they were soon going to stop merely threatening to rain. Filia hoped that Amelia would notice, and bring herself and Val in before it started raining.
Amelia looked up at the clouds, worried. "Val, please come out of there! Miss Copt will be worried about us if we're not home before it starts raining." Amelia didn't want to add that if Filia found out where Val was currently, she would probably be very angry.
Amelia seemed to recall that, before the public school her father had sent her to had closed for the duration, her history teacher had said that some of the mounds in England were actually ancient graves. Amelia also remembered all the stories one of her classmates had told about curses on ancient tombs that would cause the deaths of anybody who dared disturb them. That all of those tales had been about Egyptian tombs didn't help Amelia get rid of her bad feeling about Val going into the mound, nor did they help her try to convince herself to go in after him.
"But Amy!" Val called from inside, "I've only been in here for a little while! Let me at least get a look around with my torch!"
Amelia sighed. She should have known that Val would have his torch with him; Val never went anywhere without it. "Don't take long, I..."
"I won't!" he interrupted.
Val pulled his torch out from his pocket as he sat in the pitch-black chamber inside the mound. Val had his back against the opening of the tunnel that he had crawled through to reach the chamber, to make sure that he could be certain of finding it again if his torch wouldn't turn on. He thumbed its switch, and the chamber was dimly lit by his torch.
Val's torch wasn't bright enough to illuminate the opposite wall of the room, only dimly lighting the area closest to him. The area it did light, though, had what looked rather like children had been drawing in black and brownish red all over, even on the floor and ceiling. Aside from the drawings, however, what of the chamber that Val could see was undecorated.
What caught Val's interest was not the chamber itself, however. Near where he was sitting, outlined twice over in black, with scribbles in the brownish red inbetween the two black lines, lay a skeleton. It was a near-perfect human skeleton, every single bone exactly where it would be if it was still surrounded by flesh... The only thing wrong was the skull. Like all the other bones, it lay in exactly the same place it would have if it had been a living person, and that living person had a wolf's head.
Curious, Val carefully put his torch down on the floor, its light pointing up towards the ceiling, and walked over to where the wolf's skull lay. He picked the skull up, and examined it. He didn't quite like the rest of the skeleton, but he had handled animal bones before and was comfortable with them.
Amelia's voice, worried, came from outside of where the tunnel's entrance had been recently uncovered by the rains. "Val, it's starting to drip... Please come out!"
Val sighed and tucked the wolf skull inside his jumper. "I'm coming out now, Amy!" Amelia was nice, and one of the kindest people he had met since his father had sent him to England, but in Val's opinion she worried too much. He didn't really expect her not to worry too much, though; he considered that one of the normal flaws of girls. It was in Amelia's favor that she had few of the others.
Still, he didn't want Miss Copt to get angry with him. He crawled back out, forgetting his torch in his hurry and his delight at having found a wolf skull. He already could see, in his mind, Miss Copt's reaction to him bringing it home!
"Get that..." Filia paused for a few seconds, mentally changing 'dirty' to something that did apply to the wolf's skull, "disgusting thing out of my house and take it back to where you found it!"
Val blinked, eyes big. He had thought that Miss Copt would be proud of his find. Wolf skulls were wonderful, not disgusting! It seemed to Val that here, at least, Miss Copt was very much a girl. Girls usually were weird about things like skulls. He looked outside, and saw that it was still raining lightly. "I'll return it, Miss Filia. Can I please wait until it's stopped raining, though?" Val didn't feel too eager to go back out in the cold rain.
Filia sighed, feeling her heart soften. "I suppose it can stay until then..." She took a deep breath and added, "But as soon as it's stopped raining it has to go!"
Val smiled happily. "Thank you, Miss Copt!" He happily headed towards the narrow staircase to the cottage's attic, which was serving as his room. At the bottom of the stairs, he reached for his torch to light his way until he was able to turn his lamp on and froze. "I left my torch behind!" he wailed.
Filia and Amelia looked at each other, worried. His torch was one of the few things Val had when he had arrived there. They had learned early on that without it he was afraid of the dark. He normally was very good at keeping track of it, and had only lost it once before.
"I'll go back and get it, Miss Copt!" Amelia slightly hoped that Filia would ask her not to go get Val's torch, even though she knew it was not really good of her to think that. She was, after all, probably responsible for Val having forgotten to grab his torch on his way out...
"Take your mackintosh, Amelia," Filia said. "I'll sit with Val in the kitchen and we'll drink tea..."
Amelia nodded, thankful that she wasn't going to be asked to take the wolf's skull back while she was at it. She went to get her yellow mackintosh on. If she had known that was what Val had under his jumper, she'd have insisted he put it back before they went home. She was uneasy enough about that place as it was, and knowing that Val had taken something so morbid out of there made her even more nervous about it. She didn't think she could bear having to take that thing with her...
"I'll be back soon!" Amelia called to the kitchen as she left the house. She hoped nothing would happen while she was gone.
The first thing Amelia saw when she had finished carefully crawling through the entrance tunnel was that Val's flashlight was still on. She was thrilled by that, since she hadn't been looking forward to having to look in the dark for it. The next thing she saw, however, was the skeleton. She froze as she realized where Val had taken his wolf skull from by the outlines of a wolf's head where the human's should have been.
She nervously picked Val's torch up and felt something cold and wet flow over her hand. Amelia looked down, unconsciously turning the torch's beam to the floor, and saw a thin stream of mud flow through the tunnel and towards the skeleton. The mud covered the skeleton, forming consecutive layers of flesh in what looked like something Amelia had once seen in a horror movie that she had snuck out to see but even more frightening.
Amelia was pressed tightly against the wall as the last touches formed on the thing. Its head shifted from a malformed lump into a hairy malformed lump and finally, reluctantly, became a wolf's head and neck with dull black fur. A dense patch of matching hair formed between the thing's legs.
The wolf-headed man sat up and grinned, tongue lolling. His glowing yellow eyes glittered at her, and Amelia tried to back away from him only to find that she had already backed herself up against the wall. She looked around wildly, and quickly saw that the tunnel's opening was only a meter or so away from her.
Amelia looked at the wolf-headed man. He seemed to be looking away from her and the tunnel. She bit her lip and, not daring to stand up, scampered towards the tunnel, and froze. The wolf-headed man had moved faster than she could see and was now crouching between her and the tunnel, still grinning.
Amelia whimpered, and moved away from it. It moved a step forwards, almost leaning over her. She leapt backwards with a scream, and felt bones and flesh underneath her. Val's torch, which she had dropped, rolled to a stop, its beam shining on Amelia.
Amelia looked down. She was sprawled over what might be a very, very large dog, except it had a large human head attached to its neck and it currently was skinless; Amelia could see the mud flowing towards it, forming skin.
It lifted its head and, as its head turned towards her, she could see the muscles in its neck move. Amelia screamed again as she saw its skinless human face and lidless red eyes, and moved away from it a little. Skin started flowing over it, and its lips parted in a grin, revealing pointy metallic fangs. "Wolf-head, leave the maiden to me..." it said in an almost-growl. "You need to get your skull back."
The wolf-headed man whimpered, and looked at Amelia.
"I know it's been a long time since you had a maiden. But you're not going to be able to do too much without your skull. I'm amazed you've been able to get your head in its proper shape and to hold it that way without it," the dog-creature said. While it was speaking, pale skin finished covering its body, dead black fur covered its body and long, matching hair formed on its scalp.
The wolf-headed man whined, but turned to leave through the tunnel. He bumped his head on the top of the entrance of the tunnel, denting his head. He paused while the dent unmade itself and then lowered himself so he'd not damage his head any more on his way out.
"So, maiden..." the dog-creature said, grinning and moving between Amelia and the tunnel's entrance. "It looks like it's just you and me now..."
"Isn't English weather dreadful?" a short young woman with long red hair who was in an American army officer's uniform opined to her three companions. Two of them looked at her nervously, but the one standing to her left didn't seem to find anything strange with what she had just said.
"But Miss Inverse, it's so charming! Why, when it's not raining..." This was said by the last one, who also wore the uniform of a member of the American army, though his lacked any insignia to indicate his own rank. His purple hair longer than regulations would like, making him look more like he was playing a role than was an actual soldier.
"I'm an officer, not a civilian. Don't address me like a civilian, Xelloss!" 'Miss' Inverse snapped.
"You're no fun...and we're all officers here." He flashed a grin, shrugging.
"Will you two cut it out! We've got a mission!" This was from the shorter of the two who hadn't spoken before. He wore the uniform of a British army officer, and though his hair was longer than proper, and glistened, he looked every inch a proper officer.
"This is going to be easy, Zel!" the fourth and tallest one said. He wore his own British uniform comfortably, his yellow hair hanging down in a long braid behind him. "If what the villagers said is right, all we'll have to do is hide the entrance again!"
There was a short and deep silence, and then the one Xelloss had called 'Miss' Inverse spoke. "Gourry, please don't jinx us again."
"Okay, Lina!"
"Jellyfish..."
"Oh dear, it looks like we're already jinxed!" Xelloss said cheerfully. Three heads turned to see what he was pointing at: a wolf-headed man, walking in the general direction of the village.
"Damn!" Lina said. "Somebody's already disturbed it!"
§ This was semi-inspired by stories I faintly remember reading and stories I've only heard of so far; some of the second group shouldn't be too hard to guess. (I'll be picking one of them up as part of my post-NekoCon budget...)
This was not intended to be an accurate portrayal in any particular way of England during World War II. This is only based on some things that happened during that time. This is not intended to be taken as some kind of historical novel. The setting, the village and its surroundings, are also not intended to portray anywhere in our England, of any era.
Oh, and of course any resembalance to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
§ I know that Amelia normally addresses people with honorifics, but having her using either English or Japanese honorifics when using everybody's name would not have really worked in this story. As a result, she uses English honorifics on a case-by-case basis in this story, since it would just not really work to not have her using honorifics towards anybody.
I had not originally planned on having Amelia in this story at all when I started plotting this out, less than an hour before starting to write this. However, as I was writing the paragraph where Val was first mentioned Amelia turned up suddenly in this story and refused to be edited out. I've no idea why, really.
§ On a related note, none of the characters who are in the military in this story seem to want to actually address the others properly. Each seems to have some reason or other to not use proper military form when addressing each other. About the only thing I can determine is that Xelloss has the lowest rank of the group, Zelgadiss has a rank above Xelloss's but below Lina and Gourry's ranks, and Lina has the highest rank of them all. Oh, and I pity anybody who gets stuck trying to get them to do more than sometimes address each other 'properly' in public, because they seem to be quite adamant on the whole on not doing so.
§ I know that many Americans have, as of late, been gaining familiarity with British English, but I am providing explanations of some of the British English that I use in this story here anyway. 'Some Americans' does not cover all people who might read English.
English public schools are not the same as American public schools; they're closer to American private schools. Amelia probably went to a girls' academy for girls who were hoped to marry well-educated men and would need to be capable of intelligent and well-educated conversation.
'Torch' is what the English call what is known in America as a 'flashlight.' A 'mackintosh' is known in America as a 'raincoat.'
The hill in this story is based somewhat on burial mounds that can be found in England, but I'd put this one as having actually been built at the very end of the building of such things... It also was much better hidden than many of them, since the people who made it didn't want anybody to accidentally free what was inside. (Given how well such things usually work, it has probably had to be resealed several times over already by the time of this story.)
§ I hope that those who read this far enjoyed this story...