Hiyas! Here's anoth all Lina/Gourry ficcie for you! I can't believe it! Another ficcie without ANY Zel/Ame!!! *sniff* ANYWAYS! Lina and Gourry is almost jsut as good... I wanted this to be Zel/Ame, but the plot didn't fit, so it had to be Lina/Gourry! But that's okay! Read and enjoy, minna-san! ^^
About six months after the DarkStar battle, the Slayers had all gone their separate ways. Amelia was in Seyruun, dully and impassionately learning her dutiful princess chores. Zelgadis had gone south into the desert to try to find his cure, trusting his fate in the hands of a black market dealer.
While those two were doing such, Lina and Gourry were roaming the world. For the most part they just tried out new foods they hadn't had time to sample during their quicker travels, but they were also looking for a new sword for Gourry. Since Sirius had taken the Sword of Light back to the Overworld, Gourry had to use a plain sword. He found it didn't compare with the Sword of Light, and felt strange without a more powerful blade. So he and Lina started to search for one.
They'd had several 'maybe's by way of blades, but nothing had seemed to fit for Gourry. Lina knew the one thing Gourry knew about was swords, and if it didn't feel right, it wouldn't work. So they kept going. The Holy Sword of the Sandpeople was out-- that had to remain where it was to guard the beast. There was the Quicksilver Blade, but when Gourry had tried it out, he found it flimsy and hard to control. The Burning Rapier wasn't the style of sword Gourry was used to-- the Rapier was long and bendable, more for fencing than actual fighting. The Lancer's Longsword, it turned out, wasn't magical at all-- some guy had killed a monster with it ages ago, and so they deemed it special. The Sword of Flame turned out to be nonexistent-- just a rumor some black market junkie had come up with to make some quick cash. He'd been rewarded for tricking Lina with a Fireball in the face.
Even after so many dunces and failures, Lina and Gourry still kept searching. Finally, Lina caught wind of a blade called the Dragon Sword. As she knew, a sorcerer had killed a dragon with the Dragon Slave spell, then known as the Dragon Slayer. Rumor had it that the Dragon Sword belonged to that sorcerer.
"If such an important sorcerer had a sword," Lina told Gourry. "Then it must be magical somehow!"
So the two of them set off towards the mountains, where the sword was said to be hidden away. When Gourry asked how they would find the sword if it was hidden, Lina just shrugged, and said, "We'll worry about that when we get there."
Unfortunately, when they got there, Lina had still not figured out how they would find it. They followed the trail all the way to the foot of the mountain, and found themselves staring at the face. Neither of them could see a way in or anywhere around it. It was actually sheer luck that caused Gourry to trip on a loose stone and fall into the hidden panel. When he slammed into it, it slowly opened, revealing a magically lit hallway delving deep into the mountain.
"Way to go, Gourry!" Lina shouted, and ran over there. She dragged him by his hair into the cavern. After Gourry had regained his balance, he stood up, Lina letting go of his hair.
The hallway was very long and straight, but they both noticed that it sloped down gradually as they walked. The magical light was a faint blue, giving the place a very eerie feel about it. It was damp, and occasionally fog and mist would swirl around their ankles.
As the two of them went deeper and deeper, Lina started getting goose pimples. She ignored them, figuring they were a cause from the dampness and the cold, together with the downright creep factor of the place. But, even though she told herself it was only chills, she still had a strong sense of foreboding.
Before Lina could decide that the goose pimples might really be something, they reached the end of the long corridor, which opened into a massive chamber. The ceiling was too high to be seen. The entire cavern was dome-shaped, with occasional drops in the ground. Aside from the size, it was rather strange. The entire room was empty except for one decoration on the wall.
The decoration was directly across from the entrance from the corridor. There were two pillars carved right into the stone, which stood on either side of what looked like stone wardrobe doors. There was a small statue of a dragon leaning on the top of the "doors" with its wings spread, and the handles were in the shape of claws.
Cautiously, Lina and Gourry made their way across the floor, stepping over pitfalls and ditches in the uneven ground. Gourry slipped more than once, stumbling in ditches and slipping knee-high into small holes. But eventually they made it to the far wall, where stood the strange decor.
"Go ahead," Lina told him, gesturing to the doors. "It'll be your sword..."
Gourry nodded, and reached out with one hand. He grabbed one claw-handle, and pulled. It didn't open. He jiggled it a little, and tried yanking it open. The door didn't budge. Frustrated, Gourry grabbed the handle in both hands, and gave it as hard a tug as he could. The door inched open slowly. After it was open about four inches, it suddenly swung wide, causing Gourry to fall backwards.
After rubbing his sore bottom, Gourry got up again, and shoved the other door open. Inside the stone doors was a rack covered in dragon motifs, with a strange sword held vertical by a talon-shaped hook.
The sword's hilt was identical to a head of a dragon. The entire hilt was black, except for the dragon's eyes, which glittered bright red. The cross-brace just above the hilt resembled a pair of skeletal wings without the sail in between. The blade itself was long and silver, with pale flames engraved at the base.
Gourry admired the sword for a moment, reveling in it's magnificence and splendor, before he slowly put one hand forward. The moment his hand gripped the hilt, his eyes flashed bright red-- just for half a second --before they turned back to their normal blue. He felt something tingling through his hand, up his arm, and through his whole body. It lasted only a fraction of a second, before he felt completely normal again.
Turning away from the dragon-covered shrine, Gourry tested the weight and balance of the blade. It was almost as though it were made for him. It suited him almost as well as the Sword of Light had.
"You like it?" Lina asked him, looking at the dragon-hilted weapon.
Nodding, Gourry replied, "Yeah. It's perfect."
Lina nodded perfunctorily, and said, "Good. Now let's get out of this place-- I've got goose pimples."
Together, they made their way back across the room. Surprisingly, Gourry didn't trip, stumble, or slip even once. They got back in the corridor, and headed back up again. As they went further and further up, Lina was amazed to find that her goose pimples didn't go away. She could no longer use the chill as a scapegoat, seeing as it was fairly warm towards the top. But, instead of pondering their presence, she ignored them, and concentrated on feeling proud of herself for finding Gourry a sword.
Outside the mountain, it was still pretty early afternoon. With nothing else better to do, Lina and Gourry just kept walking, back towards the town they'd left a few days ago. After a few minutes, Lina decided that she was hungry, and she was going to catch them some fish. So they stopped beside a river, Gourry leaning against a tree, his new sword in a scabbard at his hip, while Lina knelt by the river and caught a huge mound of fish with her spell.
While Lina was concentrating on fishing, Gourry's eyes flashed red again. This time they stayed red longer. They stayed red long enough for him to glance unfamiliarly around their temporary resting spot, and stare bug-eyed at the pile of fish. When he looked over at Lina, his red eyes took in every curve of her body, before looking up at her face. Then Gourry grinned wickedly, and started to get up. But his eyes flickered back to blue. He shrugged, and leaned back against his tree again, his hands behind his head.
Lina's back had been to Gourry during that whole episode, so he had been unaware. While she fished, she rubbed at her arms, trying to get her goose pimples to go away. She couldn't blame cold or creepiness, and they weren't any danger now that they were out of the mountain cave. So what could they mean?
Again, Lina just shrugged it all away, and thought only about catching as many fish as her empty stomach could hold-- which was quite a lot.
After Lina had gathered an enormous heap of freshly-caught fish, she decided on the quick way to cook them, and just Fireball-ed the whole pile. Then she started digging ravenously into her food.
Gourry started to dive into the fish along with Lina, but his eyes flicked to red once again. He eyed the huge pile of fish with a very disgusted look, and stared incredulously at Lina, who was shoving three fish in her mouth at a time. He picked up one well-cooked fish, and poked it a few times, before tossing it back on the pile. He was about to get up again, when his eyes shifted colors again, regaining their blue hue.
When his eyes returned to blue, Gourry dug into the pile of fish, and shoveled fish into his mouth with the same voracity Lina did. The two of them finished off the mound of fish in record time, and each leaned against a tree in satisfaction.
"That was good," Gourry drawled.
Lina nodded, and said, "Yeah..." With great effort, she hauled herself to her feet, and said, "We'd better get going. It's getting dark." Gourry stood up, and started following Lina down the trail again.
Things were perfect in Gourry's world. He and Lina were traveling, they'd tried great foods from all over, and he got a new sword. True, Zelgadis and Amelia weren't with them, but they hadn't run into too much trouble since they began their traveling again. No mazoku or dragons or crazy sorcerers. No fish-people, either.
A few hours later, the sun was starting to drop, and they were getting tired. Gourry was just about to comment that he was dead tired and wanted to stop and sleep, when his eyes glittered red. "Perhaps we should make camp over in that copse of trees," Gourry said, pointing.
Lina stopped dead in her tracks. She had thought Gourry said something very un-Gourry-like. And his voice hadn't sounded like Gourry either. She turned around, and looked up at him, his blue eyes smiling down at her. "What?" she asked, wondering if she heard Gourry right.
"Huh?" was Gourry's clueless reply.
"Huh?"
"What?"
"What'd you say?"
"What did I say?"
"You said something."
"What'd I say?"
"Nevermind!" Lina said in exasperation. "Let's stop for camp over here..." She led Gourry over to a gentle slope off to the side of the trail, figuring she'd just imagined Gourry saying something intelligent. She was tired, and was hallucinating. To Lina's disgust, her goose pimples still hadn't gone away. They made the hairs on the back of her neck stand out, and gave her shudders.
Shoving aside all thoughts of an intelligent Gourry and creepy goose pimples, Lina concentrated solely on sleeping. She grabbed the edge of her cape and, laying down on the slope, tucked it around herself, and curled her knees up a little.
Gourry laid down on the slope beside her, enough distance between the two of them for them both to feel comfortable. They lay back to back, and both fell into a deep sleep.