A Father's Advice

It's one of those rare uneventful days. As the sun sets, the tall blond man walks down to the nearby lake.

"Ryu!"

The young red-haired boy turns around.

"Tou-san!"

Gourry Gabriev sits down on the grass beside his son.

"Ryu," he begins. "I know that I'm not good with words and I always forget things. Your Ka-san, Amelia and Zelgadis tell me that I'm dense and that I miss a lot of things. But in our adventures, I've learned some very important things that I want you to teach you before I forget again. I'm getting old, son. I may only have a few more years to live."

"Tou-san!"

Gourry smiles sheepishly and lies down, staring up at the sky.

"I'm sick Ryu, you know that. This disease may take my life any day now. That, or Ka-san kill me someday for all the times I made fun of her." He laughs. "Either way I want to give you some advice while I still can.

Firstly if you find good friends, don't let anything get between you. The four of us – me, your Ka-san, Amelia and Zelgadis – we've gone through a lot together. I don't think any of us could have gone as far as we did alone. We definitely couldn't have saved the world even once, let alone as many times as we did. We don't always get along, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Good friends are hard to come by.

Second. Practice your sword skills. The world is full of bad people. You are a Gabriev and we fight to protect the innocent, and never do evil. Understand?"

"Hai, Tou-san."

"Third. Don't be afraid to fight for the things you hold dear. But you may find yourself doing that before you even realise you care." Gourry smiles back at a fond memory.

"Gourry! Ryu!" A redheaded woman yells from the nearby cottage. "Dinner!"

The father smiles at the voice. "Your Ka-san is an amazing woman you know. She is a wonderful person deep down inside despite her short temper. When I'm gone, you're going to have to take care of her for me."

"Ka-san can take care of herself you know. She's a genius sorceress." Ryu tells his father. "She doesn't need to be protected."

"I know that. I'm not really that thick. But beautiful precious things should be protected not matter how unbreakable they seem. All it takes is one unexpected event and it could be gone. Your Ka-san is not invincible. Sometimes she does get into real danger. We came close to losing her more than once in our adventures. She needs someone to protect and help her once in a while."

He coughs before continuing.

"I think my following and comments kept her spirits up because every time something happened to make her worried, I would be there to rile her up. She would come after me and for a brief moment, forget her troubles. She needs some light in her life, even if she won't admit it. Kuromajutsu can be very dangerous and lonely."

For a moment Gourry smiles sadly at the sky. Ryu wonders if his father is thinking of those moments when his mother almost disappeared.

"GOURRY GABRIEV!" A white boot comes flying from the direction of the cottage. "I CALLED YOU FIVE MINUTES AGO! GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE RIGHT NOW!!"

Gourry jumps at the sound of his wife's voice, and rubs the bump on his head. He picks up the boot and gets up.

"I guess we'd better go, Ryu." As they run back to the cottage, he gives his son one last word of advice.

"And the most important thing son, if you ever hear your Ka-san yell 'Dragon Slave', RUN FOR THE HILLS!"


Naïve-wings: By the way, turns out Gourry wasn't dying. He just had the flu.

This story is inspired from a conversation with my boyfriend. Somehow the topic of a video will came up and he said he could see himself ending with "and finally son, if you ever hear your mother yell 'Dragon Slave' RUN FOR THE HILLS!"