Magic Lesson
If asked to list Gourry Gabriev's skills and abilities, most people would immediately say his swordsmanship. He was, after all, a top-notch swordsman. If asked to list some of his other abilities, most people who knew him would say his abilities started and ended there. Some who were fairly well acquainted with him might include his ability to forget things. Regardless, the list would be a short one.
But he had plenty of other skills that often got overlooked, except by those who knew him very, very well. His powers of observation, for example. Gourry had a knack for noticing things that other people usually missed (though whether or not he mentioned these often important details to his traveling companions is another matter entirely).
But at the moment, Gourry was not making particularly good use of this ability. He was distracted. Distracted by what, you ask? Food, of course. Had he not been so intent on his savory, well prepared stew, he might have noticed the calculating look Lina was giving him. It was the same look she got when she was A) working out the best way to swipe his food without him noticing, B) figuring out how she was going to get him into drag, should the situation warrant it, or C) planning to steal the Sword of Light from him (though he didn't have the aforementioned sword anymore).
Gourry took no notice of any of it. He slurped some more of his soup, savoring the well spiced chunks of meat. Mmmmmmm, this stuff is great! He tried to pick out the different herbs that had gone into it. Sage, some wild onions… ooo, is that thyme? He made a mental note to thank Amelia when she got back from… where had she gone again? She'd wandered off with Zelgadis a while ago. Maybe to get more firewood. He didn't remember.
Lina was saying something to him now. Hey, Zelgadis left some soup in his bowl. I wonder if he'll mind if I take it? It looked liked Lina was waiting for him to respond to whatever it was that she'd been saying. He nodded vaguely and said "uh-huh," not really paying attention. Gourry swiped the abandoned soup bowl as she continued talking. Awww… the meat's cold now.
Now his redheaded companion was going on and on about something to do with magic. He wondered why she bothered. They both knew he'd forget it all pretty quickly, and he didn't use magic, so it wasn't like he really needed to know this stuff. He continued to nod and periodically make "uh-huh" noises, in case she got mad at him for not paying attention. Hey, that crack in the dirt looks like a dolphin. I wonder if dolphins taste good sautéed in lemon sauce?
"Gourry!" Lina's elbow connected painfully with his head.
"Ow! What was that for Lina?!"
Her eye twitched. "You haven't been listening to a word I've been saying, have you?!"
"Um… maybe?"
She growled in frustration and chucked her empty soup bowl at him, feeling greatly satisfied as it clonked him in the head. "Alright, I'm going to explain this ONE MORE TIME, and PAY ATTENTION!" He nodded meekly, tenderly rubbing the spot where her soup bowl had hit him. Lina took a deep breath. "Ok Gourry. You can do magic."
He gave her a confused look. "Uh, yeah." He'd known that for a while now. Why was this news?
"This changes a lot of things. No offense Gourry, but without the Sword of Light, you're pretty much useless in a fight against Mazoku."
"Yeah…" He looked at the ground somewhat dejectedly. She didn't have to remind him of that. He hated being useless.
"But if you knew how to use magic," Lina continued, "you could do the Macarena in a beaver suit."
He sat bolt upright and stared at her. "Huh?!"
She grinned at him. "Just making sure you were paying attention. What I meant to say was that if you knew how to use magic, you'd be able to fight the Mazoku."
"But I don't know how to do magic Lina," Gourry pointed out.
"Which is exactly why I'm going to teach you Gourry," she replied through gritted teeth.
"Oh…" The campfire crackled and popped for a moment, orange flames contrasting against the dark, moonless forest. He seemed less enthusiastic than Lina had thought. Not that she'd really been expecting him to jump up and down with excitement. "So… when do we start?" He sounded almost afraid to ask.
"Right now of course," was the simple reply.
He blinked in surprise. "Now?"
"Yup!" she pumped her fist. "No time like the present." Her face turned slightly more serious. "Right. The first thing you're gonna learn a lighting spell."
He looked at her blankly. "A lighting spell? What does that do?"
Lina groaned and buried her face in her hands. "For the love of-! For crying out loud Gourry, even you should be able to figure out what a lighting spell does just from the name!"
The swordsman threw up his hands defensively. "Ok! Ok! I was only kidding. Can't you take a joke?"
She gave him a withering look. "Yes, when I'm the one making it." She didn't catch what it was that he muttered under his breath, but it wasn't hard to guess. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that Gourry. Now, this shouldn't be too difficult, even for you. Anyone cast a light spell, even if they don't know the first thing about magic. Just watch what I do." Lina held out her hands in spellcasting position. "Light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hand. Lighting!" A ball of brilliant white light formed within her hands. After a moment, she let it wink out. "Ok, now you try."
"Uh…" Gourry tentatively held his hands the same way she had done. "Um, how does it go again?"
Lina sighed. She really should've known better than to think that Gourry would remember the incantation after only hearing it once. You'd think I'd know better than that after traveling with the Jellyfish brain for nearly four years. "Light which burns beyond crimson," she said slowly, "let thy power gather in my hand."
"Um…" Gourry furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. "Light which burns beyond, uh… what's the next part?"
"Let thy power gather in my hand," Lina replied, what little patience she had already starting to wear thin.
"Let thy power gather-"
"No, Gourry! If you say something else in the middle of the incantation, than it won't work! Start over from the beginning."
"Oh, ok. Uh…" He struggled to remember. "Could you tell me the first part again?" Lina suppressed a groan and recited it for him, and Gourry tried to repeat the chant correctly. Briefly she imagined a little hamster running furiously on a wheel inside his head. The mental image almost made her laugh. "Um, kite which burns… neon crimson, uh… bet my shower rather than my hand."
The campfire suddenly burst into a fit of violent crackling. Startled, Lina and Gourry leapt back from it. Sparks shot out every which way, and the flames suddenly turned bright red, and congealed into the form of-
"A kite?" Gourry stared. Sure enough, the fire now looked like a miniature little person flying a kite. As quickly as it formed, the fire returned to its normal shape and color, shooting out another volley of sparks and embers. He looked at Lina in bewilderment. "Was it supposed to do that?"
For once in her life Lina was at a loss for words. She had known that if you changed the words of an incantation, you changed the spell's effect. Still, she hadn't realized it could happen… quite like that.
Later, at an inn…
Day four of Gourry's magic training. Lina wasn't exactly looking forward to it. Days one, two and three had been bad enough. Gourry still hadn't managed to perform the light spell correctly! Every time he tried, he either forgot part or all of the incantation, or just said it wrong. The latter had caused a number of… unwanted side effects. She still wasn't sure how he'd managed to turn Zel's hair every color of the rainbow.
Lina ground her teeth in frustration. She'd known that teaching Gourry to do magic would be hard, but she hadn't thought that it would be this hard! Maybe I should just stop trying, she thought dejectedly. Face it, Gourry couldn't memorize an incantation to save his life! She shook her head. What am I thinking?! I can't quit now! Lina Inverse doesn't give up! I'll make him learn that spell even if I have to beat it into his head with a stick!
She sat up on her bed and pumped her fist. "Yeah, that's it Lina! Keep thinking like Amelia! Raging flames of Justice and all that crap!" She laughed in spite of herself. "Yeah right."
The main problem was really just getting just getting her protector to remember the incantation long enough. If she could just get him to say it right once… An idea popped into her head. It was so simple, she was astounded that she hadn't thought of it earlier. It wouldn't solve all her problems, but it was at start.
Excited, she grabbed what she needed and ran off to find Gourry.
"Alright Gourry, our main problem so far has been…" Lina explained rapidly as she dragged her protector down the path away from the inn to a more secluded locale. "So in order to work around that problem, tonight we're going to…"
Gourry picked his ear and inspected the results, not taking in a word she was saying. I wonder how trees get bigger without a mouth to eat food with. You need food to grow, and a mouth to eat, right? Maybe they hide them underground… and at night they uproot themselves and eat little forest creatures. Sometimes I think Lina will do that when she's really hungry. I wonder if they taste good with pickles?
"Gourry!" Lina's voice cut into his reverie.
He jumped, startled. "Um… Yes! No! 12! Zebras! Cheese and garlic! Uhh…"
She eyed him skeptically. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Ummmm…" he scratched his head. "I have no idea." Her fist collided with his jaw. His body collided with the dirt.
"ANYWAYS!" she glared at him as he sat up and rubbed his head. "Since you obviously weren't paying attention to a word I just said, I'll explain it to you ONE MORE TIME! And PAY ATTENTION this time!" Gourry was suddenly struck with a feeling of Déjà vu.
"Explain what?" She twitched, but chose to ignore him.
"Clearly, if we spend every night trying to get you to remember the incantation long enough to repeat it, we'll be doing this for months before finally you get it right." She rummaged around her cloak pockets. "So, I've found a temporary shortcut that we can use so you won't need to memorize it." She pulled out some paper and a piece of charcoal and sat down next to him. Gourry peered over her shoulder, mildly interested, as she cast a light spell and began to scribble something down on the paper.
"Here," she said suddenly, shoving the paper in front of his face. "Hold out your hand and read this out loud." She glanced at him suspiciously. "You DO know how to read, right Gourry?"
"Of course I can!" Gourry said, slightly offended. He grabbed the paper out of her hand. "Just how dumb do you think I am?" She decided not to answer that one.
"Just read you big lunkhead."
He regarded the paper for a moment, looking to be in deep concentration. He looked up at her seriously. "Hey Lina, this writing…" She blinked. Now what? "What is it, exactly?" Lina nearly fell over. Right… should've expected him to forget it completely. "I know I've seen before somewhere," Gourry said thoughtfully, "but I can remember where…" He brightened. "Is it an omelet recipe?!" This time Lina did fall over.
"NO! IT'S NOT!" Lina shouted. "It's a light spell you moron! Now just read the damn thing aloud already!"
"Geez, alright," Gourry muttered. He cleared his throat and read the incantation. "Lighting." A small point of light formed in his palm for a second, wavered, and then winked out completely. He stared at his hand, nonplussed. "Huh?"
"Yes! It worked!" Lina cheered. She almost hugged him, but caught herself in time. She settled on giving him a congratulatory thump on the back instead. "Nice job Gourry! C'mon, let's go have dinner!" She charged off back to the inn.
"Huh? That's it?" Gourry was still a little shell shocked.
She turned and hollered back to him, grinning devilishly. "Last one there has to pay the bill!"
That got him on his feet. "H-hey! Wait for me! I'm broke right now!"
Nature has many different ways of saying "approach at your own risk." Rattle snakes would rattle. Cats would hiss and arch their backs. Dogs would growl and bark. Lina Inverse would… well, you can probably imagine what Lina would do.
When Amelia came down into the dining area to see Lina wolfing down everything in sight and yelling at the wait staff, common sense told her to get the hell out of there before she got fireballed. But Amelia listened to common sense pretty infrequently. Only when it was in agreement with her Justice sense.
At the moment her Justice sense was telling her something quite different: If Miss Lina is this crabby, it's only a matter of time before someone or something sets her off. When that happens, the inn will get wrecked and she'll probably make me pay for the damages again. Her Justice sense demolished her common sense like Lina would demolish a platter of drumsticks. Some of her survival instincts wound up as collateral damage in the process. For the sake of Justice (and Seyruun's finances) I cannot allow that to happen! I must calm her down!
So she marched across the room and sat down next to the redheaded sorceress. "Hi Miss Lina!" She said cheerfully. Lina grunted through a mouthful of roast potatoes. "How's your day been?" She grunted again. Amelia frowned slightly. "You look upset. Is something bothering you?" Nothing like a direct approach, right? Another grunt.
"Is there something wrong with the food?" Grunt.
"Is the service really bad?" Grunt.
"Have there not been enough bandits for you to blow up lately?" Grunt.
"Mr. Gourry's magic lessons?" Amelia ducked as Lina snarled and chucked a water glass at her. I guess that's it. "Why? I thought he'd been improving since you started writing the spells down for him."
"I know!" Lina ranted angrily. "That's just it though! He can perform the spells ok so long as they're written down for him, but if he tries to do them from memory, he gets them completely wrong! And when he does that, weird stuff happens!"
"You mean like that swarm of green gnomes from two nights ago?"
"Exactly!"
"Well, look on the bright side," Amelia pointed out. "At least he can cast spells now, even if he needs help doing."
"Amelia…" Lina gave her a what-kind-of-idiot-are-you look that she usually reserved for Gourry. "The whole point of teaching Gourry to do magic is so he can be useful in fights against lesser demons and Mazoku and things like that. Do you really think he'll be able to read incantations off little scraps of paper in the middle of a battle?"
Amelia deflated. "I guess not." Neither said anything.
Lina put her forehead in her palm and leaned her elbow on the table. She sighed. "How is it that someone who's practically a genius when it comes to swordplay can be such a numbskull when it comes to just about everything else?"
Amelia leaned back in her chair thoughtfully. "Hmmm… maybe you should try combining them, Miss Lina."
"Huh? Combining what Amelia?"
"Magic and swordplay," the princess explained. "Like you just said, sword fighting is the only thing Mr. Gourry is smart about. Maybe he'll learn magic better if you combine the two."
"Could you be more specific? Combining them how?"
Amelia shrugged. "I don't know, it was just an idea I had."
Lina sighed again. "Well that's not much help." She stared off into space for a minute. Suddenly it dawned on her. She sprang up excitedly. "Of course! Thanks Amelia, you're a genius!" She promptly dashed towards the exit.
"Huh?" Amelia looked startled. "H-hey! Where are you going?!"
"To find Zelgadis!" Lina called over her shoulder.
Lina settled down onto the forest floor. "Alright Gourry, tonight we're gonna try something a little different. Tonight I'm gonna teach you how to cast Astral Vine. It's a spell that fuses magic power into a sword, or whatever weapon you want. It can make ordinary physical weapons effective against Mazoku. Understand?"
Gourry snored loudly. She twitched. "DAMNIT GOURRY, DON'T FALL ASLEEP!" Several boots to the head later, he was awake. He sighed and rubbed his eyes as Lina started over. This was really boring. Heck, this whole business of learning to do magic was boring. He really would rather that he stick to fighting with just a sword and leave the whole using magic part to Lina. That was more her thing than his anyways.
Still, he understood and even agreed with Lina's reasons for why it was important that he learn to use magic. He knew that an ordinary sword like the one he had now wouldn't be able to hurt Mozu… Moxa… Mikas… whatever-you-call-em. He also knew that those pretty balls of light that Lina chucked at bad guys when she was casting spells could hurt the demon-monster things. And he understood that if he knew how to make those pretty balls of light, he would be better able to fight the Monkey-kids and therefore be better able to protect Lina from them.
Protecting Lina was good. That much he was sure of. It was the only reason he was willing to keep doing this night after night. That, and the fact that Lina would probably beat him into a pulp if he tried to back out of it.
"…so do I make myself clear Gourry?" He blinked in surprise. Had Lina been talking to him this entire time? Uh oh…
"Uh, could you repeat that? I wasn't paying attention." This time she was near apoplectic. She sputtered with incoherent rage for a few minutes, her face turning an interesting shade of reddish-plum-purple. Gourry resisted the urge to laugh at how ridiculous she looked. Even an idiot still has survival instincts.
"Oh, forget it!" she snarled. "Let just do this and get it over with! Draw your sword."
"Huh? Why-?"
"JUST DO IT!" He meekly obeyed, still wondering why he would need his sword for doing magic. Lina hmphed and shoved another piece of paper at him. "Here. Read this incantation out loud."
"Huh? Why? What does it do?" He looked confused. "And what does my sword have to do with it?"
She eyed him suspiciously. "If I tell you, will you pay attention this time?" He nodded. "Fine. You know the Astral Vine spell that Zelgadis sometimes uses?" Seeing his blank expression, she added, "The one that makes his sword glow red and he uses to fight Mazoku?" Gourry's face remained blank for a minute, before he realized what she meant and nodded. "Well that's the spell I just gave you." Oh, so it's not another spell for making pretty lights, Gourry thought.
"I thought you couldn't do that one Lina."
"I couldn't, until I got Zel to teach it to me earlier this afternoon."
"Oh."
"Just read the spell, will ya?"
"Oh, right." He held his sword in one hand and read the incantation. "Astral Vine." The blade glowed faint crimson. It took him a couple more tries before he got the hang of doing it. Lina smiled with self satisfaction. It had taken him a lot longer with all the other spells. Looks like Amelia was right. Remind me to give her a cookie later.
But she could celebrate quite yet. There was still one more hurdle to cross. "Alright Gourry, now try to memorize it. Let's see if you can do it without the paper." All the previous times she'd tried to get him to cast spells from memory, he had always said the incantation wrong, and produced results that were completely unlike the spells intended effects, not to mention just plain bizarre. But he seemed to have a knack for casting this spell, since he'd gotten the hang of it so quickly. Maybe he'd actually get it right this time…
"Did you hear that?"
Amelia looked up from her chess game at Zelgadis. "Hear what?"
"That noise."
She shook her head. "No, but your hearing's a lot better than mine."
"Hmmm…" Zelgadis stood, up accidentally knocking some of the blue pieces he'd taken off the table (Amelia had insisted on painting all the black pieces blue, since black was "the color of villains"). He looked out the window and stared. "What the-?"
"What? What is it?" She ran over to the window and stared.
Running across the grass, was a sword. Running. On legs. Not far behind it were Gourry and Lina. The latter was shouting and calling the former a jellyfish brain.
"I… I guess Mr. Gourry's magic lessons are going the same as always," Amelia said, finally managing to regain control of her vocal chords.
"Indeed…" Zelgadis murmured.
Several long chases and one Flow Break spell later, Lina and Gourry had managed to capture the runaway sword a return it to its usual legless state.
Lina leaned against a tree, panting heavily. "Damn… that thing was fast."
Gourry gave her a somewhat surprised look. "You think so? Seemed sorta sluggish to me."
She glared at him between pants. "Shut up. It not my fault my legs aren't as long as yours." He merely shrugged.
"So now what do we do?" he asked.
"We go back to the inn and rest while I think of something for tomorrow," Lina said firmly. She just wanted to eat and get some sleep right now.
As they walked back to the inn, Gourry regarded his sword casually. It could never replace the Sword of Light, but it still wasn't a bad sword. He bought it when the sword he got in the Village of Justice broke not long after their battle with Dark Star.
The search for a new sword had taken a while. At first, they had only looked at magical swords. Lina seemed to think that having a magical sword was important. Something to do with fighting Mazoku. Gourry suspected that she just wanted him to buy one so she could steal it from him afterwards.
Most of the swords they'd looked at had weird writing on them. What did Lina say they were called? Ancient prunes? Something like that. Some kind of weird writing he couldn't read. Or maybe he'd learned a long time ago and just forgot. That wouldn't surprise him. If he'd forgotten it, then it probably wasn't that important.
He'd had fun for a while, wondering what the prunes said. The name of the sword's owner, to keep it from getting lost? Really old brownie recipes? A reminder from their moms to wear clean underwear?
At some point, Lina had told him what they meant. The real explanation had been a lot less interesting, so naturally it slipped from his memory after about 2 minutes.
Hey… that gave him an idea. "Hey Lina?"
"Mmm? What is it Gourry?"
"Why don't you write in on my sword?"
"Huh? Write what?"
"That spell thingy that makes my sword glow red."
Fatigue had her brain in a mental haze. It took Lina a minute to figure out what he was talking about. When it hit her, she felt like banging her head against a tree for not having thought of this earlier. "Not a bad idea," was all her bruised pride would allow her to admit. "But there's one problem with that Gourry."
He looked puzzled. "What?"
"If you haven't noticed, there's not much room on your sword for writing stuff. I doubt we'll be able to fit more than one short spell incantation on there," she pointed.
"So?" he still looked puzzled.
"Whaddaya mean 'so'?" she sounded cross. "One spell isn't all that useful in a fight."
"So why not just do the red-glowing sword spell?" he suggested. "We both know I wouldn't really use magic in a fight all that much anyways."
Lina opened her mouth to retort, but closed it. As she thought it over silently, she had to admit he had a point. Even though he technically was able to cast spells, Gourry had never had much of a knack for actually doing magic, and his enthusiasm had been minimal at best. Besides, she had a tough time imagining Gourry really combining magic and swordplay the way sorcerer-swordsmen like Zelgadis did. The concept of it just seemed… wrong to her somehow.
"Y'know Gourry, that may just be the first smart idea you've had all week," she said with a grin. "Tell ya what, tonight, dinner is on me," she added, knowing full well that he'd forget when the time came to pay the bill.
"I'll remember that," Gourry grinned, knowing full well that she expected him to forget, making him all the more determined to remember.
A/N: Greetings once again earthlings! Hoped you liked this. I realize the whole "Lina-teaching-Gourry-to-do-magic" isn't the most orginal and has already been done a few times before. First, off, for those of you who didn't already know this, Gourry being able to do magic is canon. Hajime Kanzaka said so himself in an interview. While I was writing "In Your Shoes," I couldn't see how Lina could switch bodies with Gourry and not discover this fact at some point. The idea for a fic where she tries to teach him to do magic followed by natural progression. Originally I didn't plan to actually write this though- as I said, it's been done before. But then I got to thinking: in his interview Mr. Kanzaka said that even though Gourry technically has the ability to do magic, he wouldn't really be able to cast spells because his memory's so poor. I thought to myself that if Gourry tried to cast spells, he'd wind up saying them all wrong. In the Slayers universe, if you change the incantation, you change the ultimate effect of the spell. For example, in one of the Radio Dramas, Lina adds a couple words to the Dragon Slave chant and turns it into a "Mini" Dragon Slave. That's where the idea for Gourry saying the incantations completely wrong with bizarre results came from. I figured that was enough of an "original spin" for me to get away with writing this.
The reason for the way I ended this: Gourry may be able to do magic, but the idea of him actually using it seems wrong to me. It just doesn't fit his character. But that wouldn't stop Lina from trying to teach him, nor would the fact that he can't remember spells stop her either. But I thought he might not have so much trouble with Astral Vine, since it goes with swordplay. It also solves the problem of finding a replace ment the Sword of Light bvery nicely.
Anyhoo, a lot of this wound up being told from Gourry's point of view. I've gotta say, writing from his POV was a lot more fun than I expected. Gourry seems to have a mild case of ADD in this, doesn't he? He also reminded me of Osaka while was writing this (the character from Azumanga Daioh, not the region of Japan. Though coincidentally, Osaka is where Hajime Kanzaka is from. Isn't it sad that I know this?)
As always, R&R!