Disclaimer: I asked for a Zelgadis for Christmas; suffice to say, Santa won't be getting a thank-you note this year. I don't own anything beyond this story.
Kaette Itadakitai; Come Back, I Beg of You
"No."
"Ah, c'mon, Zel! The group won't be the same without you!"
"I said no, Lina. You can go off on your little treasure hunt if you want, but I've got my own matters to attend to."
"Yeah, another quest for the cure, right?" The sorceress plopped into a sitting position in front of the fire, glaring at Zelgadis. "I knew we should've snatched you away from that crazy old hag in the last town sooner."
He continued benignly sipping his coffee from his log in front of the campfire. "You have your obsessions, I have mine," he stated simply. Her glare hardened. "You'll manage without me, I trust."
"Ooh..." she growled. "Why do you do this, Zel?" The question came off more as a plea, and she took a sip from her own mug, swirling its contents around. "You come back and stay with us for a while, a few months maybe, then leave, off on another quest. I don't get it. I don't get you."
Zelgadis sighed and stood, discarding the empty tin cup he'd been holding. "There's nothing to get about me, Lina. I merely want to regain a form which is familiar to me, my true form. If you want me to stay that badly, then help me find my cure. I just want to be able to gaze at my reflection without disgust, and I want others to be able to do the same."
"I already do that..." she noted softly.
"Then that's one," he stated grimly, and turned towards the tents. "Tell Gourry and Amelia I wish them well, and hope to meet again some time down the road--"
"Now you hold it right there," Lina commanded, getting to her feet. "I've had about enough of this pity party. 'Oh, I'm so ugly, people run in fear at the sight of me.' Don't give yourself too much credit there, Zel, people run if they hear my name. But you, you're starting to drift a bit to the selfish side. Your disregard for your friends' feelings is really ticking me off! I don't see how you can be so cruel as to pass us off as so shallow that we'd judge you based on your appearance--"
With his chimeric speed, he was in her face before she finished her sentence, staring down into her eyes. "Me?" he hissed. "Cruel?" His voice rose. "Tell me, do I drag anyone on my quests? Do I plunder and harass people when I don't get my way?" He backed away from her, then turned around and began walking into the darkness.
"Z-Zelgadis!" she shouted at his retreating figure. "You come back!" All he returned before he disappeared into the night was a nonchalant backwards gesture, brushing her off like an ash from his cloak.
*****
3 Years Later
Zelgadis Greywers had been wandering the roads of the earth for quite some time now, cure hunting. Chasing lead after lead after lead: each as hope lifting and dream crushing as the last. If time had worn on him physically, it didn't show, for he still walked with some spring to his step, trying to keep a positive outlook and failing miserably. He'd been to temples, priests, sorcerers, wizards, and more wise men than he knew the world could hold.
He was currently trudging along a well-beaten path, in no particular direction but with the ultimate goal of East. He hadn't been "East" in a few months, may as well try there again, see if any new discoveries had been made. The sun, which was directly overhead, showed the already sufficiently cursed Zelgadis no mercy. Sighting a large stone to the side of the road, he stopped to rest and take a drink from his canteen. He removed his cloak and gently set it to his side.
He wiped his stony forehead of the sweat accumulated thereon and stared ahead of him over the path, which mounted a hilltop and continued on, he assumed, down into a valley on the other side. He squinted his eyes, spotting a figure marching ahead of him near the hilltop. One he was surprised he hadn't noticed before, for it was eerily familiar.
Black cape flapping in the light breeze, rose colored tunic, gloves. The hair wasn't the same, but then, people change in three years, don't they?
'Yes they do,' he told himself, and, slinging his canteen around his neck and draping his cloak over one arm, he began sprinting at his full chimeric speed towards the retreating figure, calling her name.
"Lina!...Lina!" The figure halted and whipped around after the first "Lina." Zelgadis screeched to a halt, mouth agape, in front of the person he'd been chasing.
"A-Amelia?!" Yes, an older, more mature-looking, Lina-clothed Ameila. Her first face of confusion at being addressed by the sorceress's name changed to one of happiness and welcome. However, she did not, as she had been wont to do, knock him over in a hug, but rather offered a handshake and a soft, "Zel, it's been a while, ne?"
Zelgadis hesitantly took her hand in his, then tightened it into a firm grip. "Yes, it has. Three years now, right?" She nodded and released his hand.
"Would you like to walk with me for a ways?" the princess asked. "The sun's too hot to stand around in, and I'm trying to reach the next town before night." He nodded his agreement and the two journeyed onward in silence for a few moments.
"So," he broke into the silence, "how is everyone? I take it you're no longer traveling together as a group?"
Amelia stared at him quizzically. "Well, no, of course not. Who would--" She halted in mid-sentence and mid-stride and he did the same, turning to face her. "Wait...Zel, you don't-- no one told-- oh, no..." Confusion crept over his features.
"Amelia?" He took her shoulders and shook her just a bit. "Amelia? No one told me what?"
"No, of course not," she mumbled to herself, her gaze tilting down toward the ground. "Who would have told him, after he left..." she trailed off, her voice softening until it became difficult for even Zelgadis to decipher the words.
"Amelia!" He raised his voice and shook her harder. "What is it?"
"Oh, Zel, I'm sorry, so sorry," she said, looking into his eyes. "It's just, I thought you knew... didn't want to be the one to have to tell you... Gourry was supposed to... Zel, Lina's been dead for nearly three years now. Murdered in her sleep a few weeks after you left that last time."
Zelgadis was bowled over and literally fell to the ground in a heap, as if all his bones had been simultaneously removed from his body.
Amelia sank to her knees beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "I'm so sorry, we couldn't even tell you, you of all people..."
"B-but how?!" he stuttered. "How-- Lina?! How can she be...How could anyone..."
"It was a sneak attack Zel, no one saw it coming, not even her. That last bunch of bandits we hit, outside of Sairaag. They took her first, and then- then they came after Gourry and me. Gave me this." She tilted her neck up to reveal a long scar down the side. "Just missed my jugular."
"Lina..." he repeated again, still trapped in the shock of the moment. "Amelia." He looked up at her, eyes quivering on the verge of tears. "Tell me what happened," he commanded. "All of it."
*****
Lina Inverse gave a large, loud yawn and turned the coals of the weak campfire, sending up a volley of sparks. "Boring..." she muttered sleepily, stifling another yawn. She hated having the dead-of-night watch. Nothing even remotely exciting happened in these hours, and to top it off, she was dead tired. Ten hours straight of hiking will do that to a person, no matter how strong. Staring up at the moon, full and fat above her, she wondered if anyone else was doing the same.
The sorceress abruptly stood in her spot and stretched, releasing the crick in her neck and trying to wake up. With another casual glance at the moon, she decided she'd had enough: it was Gourry's turn to keep watch. She wouldn't be a very effective sentry if she fell asleep on duty, now would she?
Clumsily, she stumbled though the darkness to the tents set up on the other side of the clearing in which the three were encamped. As she made her way across the meadow, something she caught out of the corner of her eye brought her attention over to the tree line between the clearing and the forest; for a moment she thought she had seen a figure reflecting moonlight through the trees. She halted and rubbed her eyes for a better look. There was someone there, but not one she was familiar with.
However, she must not have realized just how exhausted she really was, because strangely enough, she chose that moment to nod off, her legs involuntarily giving out under her weight, letting her body slip to the ground before she could so much as open her mouth to call out to her companions.
*****
"She never woke up," Amelia stated sadly, and paused to gauge Zelgadis's reaction. She couldn't see his face, as his head was bent over supported by his hands, but she was nearly certain he was crying. Strange, she'd never known him to show emotions like this nearly so openly, but then, it had been three years. "Do—do you want me to stop, Zel?" she asked softly.
"No..." came his quivering reply after a moment. "Keep going..."
*****
The black cloaked mercenary silently drew back the flap on the young princess's tent, still sound asleep thanks to their mage's spell. He bent over the girl's form, holding his dagger steady over her neck.
"...Lina?" came a soft mumble from Amelia. "...C'mon, Lina...s'not my watch yet...." Her eyelids fluttered only momentarily, but just long enough to catch the glint of moonlight off the steel of the blade. She widened her eyes in fear, about to call out, when a hand was slapped over her mouth, muffling any cries.
"Be quiet, little girl," the assassin hissed, "Don't make this any harder than it has to be." With that he slashed downward with a grunt. Amelia rolled out of the way of the blade as quickly as possible, barely missing receiving a fatal wound and, instead, earning a long gash down the side of her neck which began bleeding profusely.
Clamping her hand over the cut, she lashed out with one leg, throwing off her covers and connecting with the man's chin. With her attacker out of commission she scrambled to her feet and called for her friends. "Miss Lina! Gourry! Bandits! Wake up!!"
At this cry, two more entered her tent, whom she easily dispatched with a few simple spells, now that she was fully awake and aware of what was happening. She rushed outside and saw Gourry.
There he was, surrounded by a circle of bandits, nonetheless fighting bravely and with all his strength. Three of them rushed him at once, and one landed a lucky blow to his sword hand, incapacitating him.
Anger filled Amelia, enraging her, body and mind; she wasted no more time in dealing with the bandits, who really didn't have much of a chance against magic anymore as their mage had been one of the first to fall by the sword of light. As quickly as the battle had begun, it was over, and Lina Inverse was dead, found by her friends moments later, struck down with a sword run through her heart.