I'm not owning of the Slayers, but I'm fine with the borrowing.
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Zelgadis followed the rest of the group, decidedly miserable even if he kept it hidden. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was blazing hot. Well, that made sense since they were wandering a desert. It had been quite a while since the group had last stopped for anything since starting out from their inn early that morning. Their midday meal had even been eaten while walking. They had to make up for the distance lost from yesterday's desert-raider fiasco. Only Lina had mildly complained, saying that walking while eating gave her stomach cramps. But that was only once, and the company fell into silence again. When Amelia had passed him the water skin after he'd finished his meal, he declined. At the time, his bodily systems had been perfectly normal. Now was not the same, however.
Some three hours after their midday meal had been consumed was when they actually halted. Lina decreed they stop for a moment so Zelgadis could check if they were still headed in the right direction, and everyone else could get a quick drink of water. The chimera shifted uncomfortably (his bladder was now beginning to protest the morning's copious amount of coffee) and unhooked the device from his belt, the one that had helped map their position in the outside world. Determinedly trying to take his mind off his bladder, he attempted to lose himself in his work. It wasn't long before he was done, and found himself faced with a cheerily smiling Amelia after sketching another circle on his map. He blinked at her as she asked, "Would you like some water, Mr. Zelgadis?" And here he found himself presented with that dreaded skin of water again.
Before Zelgadis could shake his head and decline, the princess joggled the container to make the water sloshed about noisily. His insides did a funny flip—but not the 'butterflies-in-stomach' flip, and he shook his head emphatically. Eyebrows knitting together briefly, she questioned, "You sure? You haven't had anything to drink since your coffee this mor—" "I'm sure, Amelia." To soften the abruptness of his rude interruption, he added, "Thank you, though. I'm not very thirsty." Zelgadis knew that was a dirty lie, but drinking water seemed more dangerous at the moment. Still not thoroughly convinced, she nodded and turned to offer the water to Gourry. The swordsman accepted happily and began to drink with great vigor, some of the liquid spilling out of the corners of his mouth. Biting his lip and vowing never to drink so much in the morning again, Zelgadis turned away and scanned the area with meager hope of an out-of-place huddle of trees or shrouding greenery. Nothing. Not even a single tumbleweed. Gods rot all deserts! He thought fervently.
"So, Zel, how far to the nearest oasis?" Lina stretched briefly, arms reached towards the sky before she hooked her canteen back to her belt. Zelgadis blinked at her question, his brain momentarily drawing a blank. "Oh… er… um… An hour, if we keep up our normal pace." He consulted the half-rolled up map in his hands and the lines and circles he'd drawn on it before nodding affirmation. "About an hour." The sorceress perked up. "Really? Well, if I'd known that, I'd say we should've just kept going and not've stopped. We'll make camp at the oasis and start again at moonrise so we have a couple hours of cool-travel. Alright! Let's go!" Spurred with the thought of an impending bath, the sorceress turned and continued her march in the direction they'd been headed.
Through the distorting waves of heat rising off of the ground the greenish-black dot in the distance, which was previously thought a mirage, seemed a good deal closer. Hah! Something to concentrate on! Pleased he'd finally found something to distract himself with (He'd considered Amelia for the briefest moment before rejecting it with heavy self-scolding), he locked his eyes on the swatch of green and even passed Lina up in her enthusiastic stride. An hour… Pah! It would be less than an hour (it had to be!) or Zelgadis felt he would explode otherwise…
A little more than a quarter of the state hour passed when he realized that Amelia had fallen into step with him, and was keeping up her normal cheerfulness punctuated by bits of chatter. He hadn't even notice she'd been there, he'd been so focused on the oasis, and reaching it. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the almost bouncing-along Amelia and allowed himself the tiniest of smiles. Just like her, to be so cheery, even in the middle of a desert. He contented himself to half listen to her chatter while keeping his mind mainly on the greenery that they were slowly (too slowly) approaching. Another ten minutes passed, and from the looks of it, their rest-stop was only another fifteen minutes away. With that realization thick in his mind, he put on an extra bit of speed, trying to ignore the lower portion of his middle. It was almost growing unbearable. It would wait, though… It would have to!
With Amelia's steady supply of amiable chatter and the looming shape of the greenery of the oasis, the next quarter-hour passed by swiftly. Never before had Zelgadis felt such a strong dislike for coffee. It seemed like a dream when his feet were finally among small ground-shrubs. However, the strangest sound was drawing him towards what looked like the edge of the small plateau at the edge of the oasis. The chimera halted in his tracks, face paling just a bit. With a happy cry, Lina brushed past him, Gourry not far behind. With an admiring gasp, Amelia halted briefly besides Zelgadis, "Oooh, Mr. Zelgadis, look! Isn't that waterfall beautiful?"
The chimera had to admit, for all he hated it with quite a passion at the moment, that it was a lovely sight. The spring on top of the small plateau bubbled up from the higher ground right at the edge before it dropped off. The water spilled over the side of the plateau to cascade gracefully ten feet and burble devilishly into a larger, shallower pool at whose edge they now stood. Zelgadis thought his eyes themselves had turned yellow.
"Hey, Zel!" Zelgadis looked up to see Gourry crouched by the lower pool's edge a few yards away, waving at him and looking impressed. The chimera raised his eyebrows in silent question. "Where'd you learn to dance like that?" A faint blush touching his cheeks, he realized his legs were clamped in an odd position and he was beginning to squirm. Fortunately, Amelia was too busy already exploring the oasis to notice Gourry's loud question or Zelgadis's own antics. Lina, quite thankfully, was thoroughly occupied with divesting herself of her cloak and setting up camp. Shaking his head negatively at the blonde swordsman, Zelgadis turned to the thick screen of greenery just twenty feet from the water's edge.
Why, he questioned himself piteously for the thousandth time while nearly jazz-running towards the safety of the clumpette of tall greenery, did I have to finish off that last cup of coffee?
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Author's Note: Oh, you people make me feel all fuzzywarmspecial! I go away to be yelled at by marching-and-music-instructors for two days, and come back, and BAM. Reviews. I fell out of my chair, quite literally, I flailed with so much happy. Reviews are the most wonderful mood-boosters, y'know? They even make sunburns hurt less! xD
L'anyhoodle… Just a little oneshot, I suppose. I always wondered if all that coffee (or tea, I don't rightly know which he consumes. I stuck with coffee, because that seems to be what the majority thinks. Tea sounds more.. More like Zel, though, methinks.)-drinking by Zelgadis ever had any severe consequences… I really only meant for this to be something like three paragraphs long… Something short and snippy, right? But the combination of not being able to sleep at 2am and lack of anything else better to do morphed it into this… It's probably got gaping holes or unclear part to it. Hrm. Oh well. Hope it's somewhat close to par with my last one…