As always, I don't own anything, I'm just a fan writing some fiction. Please enjoy!
2- Friends and Relations
The prized sword hung on the mantle, just above the fireplace, its hilt positioned so that the stream of sunlight coming through the window first thing in the morning would reflect off the colorful jewels that adorned the sides.
In the middle of the night, however, it was difficult to see. A young man- a boy, really, no more than sixteen years old- reached out over the mantle to lift the sword off its holder. Even in the dim light, he was able to make out all the curves and designs. He'd studied them, memorized them, and analyzed them all to the best of the ability of a young boy with no formal education. But the best he could do alone was not enough. It would never be enough if he didn't do something-
"What do you think you're doing with that?"
The boy flinched, nearly dropping the sword, and twirled around. He registered the sight of the one who'd spoken to him just before he registered the voice. He breathed a sigh of relief, brushing a few stray strands of blond hair out of his face. "Don't do that. You scared me half to death."
"If I was anyone else, you would be dead. Father would have killed you on the spot. What are you thinking, endangering yourself like this?"
"Have you forgotten already? I told you I was going to steal the sword- I expected you'd remember something that important."
"I do. I didn't think you were serious."
"Have I ever not been serious?"
There was a pause. The two boys were nearly mirror images of one another, with slight differences in facial features and stature. The taller- older- of the two approached his younger brother with a frown. "One year." he pleaded. "That's all I ask. We've been through this before- one year and I'll be eighteen. Father will let me leave the house and I'll take you with me. We'll become mercenaries. We can build a new life together, just the two of us. It'll be better, I promise. You just have to-"
"And leave the Sword of Light with those who would abuse its power? I don't want to wait." the younger brother spat. "And I don't want to become a mercenary. I want to be a scholar."
"We weren't born for that life."
The younger of the two turned away, clutching the sword even more tightly to his chest. "You mean that you weren't born for that life! Unlike you, I have DREAMS!"
"Not so loud." the older brother hissed. "If we wake someone up, we'll both be killed- dreams and all. It's best just to wait-"
"I don't want to hear what's best for me coming from somebody like you."
The room went silent. The older of the two recoiled a few steps and the younger realized just what he'd said.
"I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it like tha-"
"No. I understand."
"You do?"
The older brother nodded. "No matter what ties bind us, we're different people. We have different dreams and ambitions- different ideas for what we want out of life. We have to live in a way that best suits us. I tried to forbid you from doing this because I promised to protect you, but… protecting you also means protecting your dreams. If this is what you really want, then… I support you."
"Then you'll come with me?" The younger brother's eyes lit up.
"No. My dream is to live a normal life someday. To do that, I have to stay here, where I'm safe… er than I would be running off. But I'll cover for you. In return, you have to promise me you'll do everything you can to stay alive. Someday I want to meet you again so that you can tell me about all the cool stuff you're studying that I could never understand."
The younger of the two smiled. "You would understand it if you tried."
"And hurt my poor head in the process? No thanks. I'll leave the tough thinking up to smart people like you."
"How are we even related?"
The two brothers shared a quiet laugh.
Gourry and Meg stood outside the door to the small office as Lina and Inspector Morrigan negotiated her price. Meg had stated that she disliked haggling and preferred to step out of the room while that went on, and Gourry had badly needed to stretch his legs.
"Aaah, my knees hurt." he groaned, leaning against the wall. "Next time I'm offered a chair that small, I should just stand."
"I'm sorry, Mister Gabriev. It must be tough being such a large person." Meg tried to sympathize, but it wasn't of much help coming from someone of her stature. "I wouldn't know, of course, but…"
"Yeah, I guess it can be tough. But I'm a better bodyguard that way."
"Did Miss Lina hire you?"
"Hire me? No, not really. I kinda just…" He thought about it for a moment. "…hired myself, I guess. For her. It's not really an employer-employee relationship, Lina just likes to say that because 'bodyguard' sounds more official than 'travelling companion.' Y'know?"
"Not really, but…" Meg's voice trailed off. "I suppose it's a rather special relationship."
"Yeah." Gourry smiled, but rolled his eyes at the sound of Lina's yelling from the other side of the door. "It's special alright."
There was a silence, and the two focused on the muffled argument just behind them. Something large crashed, and while Meg worried for Lina's sake, Gourry was more worried about Inspector Morrigan.
"Um," Meg began, wringing her hands nervously. "I… I want to apologize for the way I acted yesterday."
"Huh?"
"I didn't mean to yell when I saw you. You surprised me, so-"
Gourry waved one hand in an attempt to calm her. "Don't worry about it. We were just talking about me being a large person- I tend to have that effect on others."
"No, it's just-" Meg exclaimed and then sighed sadly. "-that you remind me of someone. He was an old coworker of mine, but it's been a long time since I last saw him, so it brought up a bunch of old memories all of a sudden."
"Ah." Gourry nodded, a smile on his face. "I hope the memories were fond."
"Most of them."
"That's good." He chuckled to himself and continued. "I have a lot of memories that aren't so fond, but looking back on my time with Lina, I can't help but be happy. We've been through some bad times, but she always manages to come through it victorious. She never fails to amaze me… ah! I'm talking too much, aren't I? Sorry about that."
Meg was surprised by Gourry's apology and gasped. "N-no! Don't apologize! When you talk about Miss Lina, your face… er, I mean, your smile…" Her face flushed slightly. "…I like seeing the joy in your eyes. Don't apologize."
"…" Gourry stared at her a moment. "Okay, then. I had no idea-"
The door burst open and Lina waltzed out with a triumphant grin on her face. "It's a pleasure doing business with you, Mister Morrigan!"
"That's Inspector Morrigan to you…" he grumbled.
"C'mon, Gourry. Let's go get our things together." Lina grabbed hold of Gourry's arm and led him down the hallway. "We leave this afternoon- Morrigan has agreed to pay our traveling costs. From now on, we eat like kings!"
"Yeah!" Gourry exclaimed in delight, his earlier frustration with Lina's attitude forgotten. He could always count on her to get the best deals no matter what, and as much as he disliked her forceful nature, he was grateful for it.
Inspector Morrigan and Meg watched the two go. "…what did you finally decide?" Meg asked quietly.
"She was demanding an outrageous sum of money, and I told her that it just couldn't be done. She finally brought her price down when I agreed to pay all the travel expenses for her and her companion. Everyone back at the Bureau of Investigation is going to be angry with me for this, but…" Morrigan sighed sadly as he walked back into the office and began sorting through the piles of paper that had been tossed onto the floor.
"Then why not just dismiss them?" Meg followed him into the office and closed the door behind her. "There are plenty of others with inside knowledge into the Gioconda case- Is it so vital that we have this girl in particular?"
"Inspector Freion insisted that, if we wanted to succeed, we had to get Lina Inverse to assist the investigation. He's the one who put his reputation on the line by assigning me to this case. I have to make sure this operation goes smoothly… just to prove it to all those detectives who think I'm too young to handle a case this serious." The paper that was in Morrigan's hand crumpled as he said the words 'too young.' He was the youngest detective in the Ruvinigald Bureau of Investigation, after all, so the more practiced investigators had reason to view him as inexperienced and naive. But if he never got assigned to an important case, how would he ever prove himself? "I'm not going to let the risks that my mentor took for me be in vain."
Meg nodded silently and began picking up papers herself. "...I'm surprised that they were ready to leave on such short notice. I was sure they would ask us to at least wait until tomorrow morning."
"They seem to be traveling aimlessly. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Wandering all around the world with the one you love? Sounds nice, yes."
Morrigan stopped what he was doing and stared at Meg. "Come again? I thought Mister Gourry was Miss Lina's bodyguard."
"Oh, well…" Meg shrugged. "I spoke to him in the hallway, and his mannerisms seemed to suggest otherwise."
"Aaaaah," Morrigan laughed. "interesting. That must be nice, then. Do you have anyone you'd want to travel the world with, Meg? You always wear that lovely ring-"
"No." For once, Meg didn't hesitate before answering. "I do not."
"Hey, that's nothing to be ashamed of! Me neither!" Morrigan waved a hand with a good natured smile on his face. "I'm a married man already- married to this job."
Meg nodded, twisting the ring back and forth on her finger absentmindedly. "…married to your job, huh? That's an awfully interesting way of putting it…"
"If we're investigating a Ruvinigald citizen, why are we going to Zoana?" Lina began complaining the moment the carriage left. She wasn't happy with the destination, and began speaking out against it before Inspector Morrigan even had the chance to explain.
"Miss Lina, please." The man waved his hands in an attempt to calm her. "We're going to be attending the festival that's being held in Zoana this week. Many nobles have been invited and are attending the celebration, and-"
"What are they celebrating?" Gourry raised his hand to ask.
Lina nudged him. "Knowing Martina? It's probably just some ploy to use Zoamelgustar to bolster the economy."
"Yes, well, that's probably true." Morrigan cleared his throat. "The public statement is that it's a festival to celebrate the young prince's first birthday, but his birthday was almost two months ago."
"It takes a long time to organize a festival of this size. I don't think it's suspicious necessarily." Meg offered good-naturedly, but none of the others in the carriage seemed to buy her optimism.
"I didn't know Zoana had a prince." Gourry whispered, leaning down to speak close to Lina's ear.
Lina shrugged. "It's been a few years. I guess Martina and Zangulus have been pretty busy since we last saw them."
"Busy, or busy?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
"We have knowledge that Lady Adelaide will be in attendance at the festival as well," Meg spoke up over Lina and Gourry's side-conversation. "so it will be of great importance that she not become suspicious of our investigation."
"That's right. You can't let anyone know that you're there doing investigation work." Morrigan instructed sternly. "We've gotten clearance to attend the special events under the authority of the Ruvinigald International Trade Administration as economists assessing the possibility of investing in future international events held in Zoana. You'll be expected to ask questions about the situation in Ruvinigald, but to phrase them from an economic standpoint so as to protect your identities."
Gourry raised his hand again. "I have a question."
"Yes?"
"What's economics? That's, like, making chairs the right shape for your back so that you don't end up with back and neck problems later in life, right?"
"Gourry, that's ergonomics."
"It's almost the same thing, though, right?"
"Sure, why not?" Lina groaned and rested her head in one hand. "Please continue, Inspector."
Morrigan cleared his throat and flipped over a page on the clipboard his was holding. "Right now we're en route to a villa just outside of the main city, where we'll be meeting with Dr. Samuel Wilson, the curator of Ruvinigald's national archives-"
"Um, Inspector Morrigan-"
"-who will be aiding us in our investigation during the events of the festival-"
"-Inspector Morrigan-"
"-and will be able to give us valuable insight about the implications Lady Adelaide's actions in the context of former criminal activities in-"
"-Inspector Morrigan, Dr. Wilson isn't coming."
Morrigan stopped abruptly and turned to Meg. "What?"
"He's not coming. I received a message from him telling me that he is tied up with a time-sensitive restoration project and can't leave town during the next week." Meg stated. "He's sending one of his assistants to help us instead."
"And you waited until now to tell me this?!"
"With all due respect, sir, I walked into the office with Dr. Wilson's note in my hand and you immediately sent me off in search of Miss Lina and Mister Gabriev. I left the note on the desk, assuming that you'd read it."
"For goodness' sakes, Meg, you can't just assume that people will read every random piece of paper that-" "It was written on his letterhead, so I doubted that you would mistake it for-" "-comes across their desk! Do you have any idea how many-" "-something of little importance. A good detective is aware of his surroundings at all-" "-papers I read a day and how few of them say anything of value that I can-" "-times, you know, and so I expected that you'd-"
Lina and Gourry inched away from the two, glancing at each other uneasily. It wasn't that there was any animosity between the detective and his assistant, but it didn't seem like they worked particularly well together.
"Hey, Gourry?" Lina whispered.
"What is it?"
"Have you noticed the way Meg refers to us?"
"What about it?"
"She always uses my first name but your last name."
"So what? Maybe she forgot my name. I forget it sometimes too."
"Gourry, really."
"You remembered it. Good for you."
"I'm being serious here."
Gourry sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Gourry isn't a very common first name, while Gabriev is a fairly well-known surname. Lina, on the other hand, is pretty and easier to say than Inverse, which is kind of strange if you ask me. I wouldn't think too much about it."
Lina's face turned red, though not because of any specific emotion. She was caught between 'aw, he called my name pretty' and 'how DARE he insult the Inverse family like that.'
Meg and Morrigan were still arguing, so Lina cleared her throat to grab their attention. "Excuse me. While I hate to be rude, I still don't know much about this Lady Adelaide character, and I don't want to start investigating without the necessary background information. What's her story, anyway? You said that she was removed from Gioconda's custody?"
"Yes, when she was thirteen years old." Morrigan nodded, turning back to Lina and Gourry and jumping into investigation-mode again. "Allegations of child abuse had been raised against Marquess Gioconda when Lady Adelaide was much younger, but they were always dropped before anything came of them. It's likely that some money exchanged hands, just as it always did when the authorities began to wise up to the Marquess' actions, and then everything was swept under the rug and not spoken of again for years."
"It's horrible, but I don't doubt it." Lina nodded.
"Finally, after multiple attempts, the Ruvinigald government was finally able to remove Lady Adelaide from her mother's custody. For some reason, they were unable to locate any of Adelaide's father's family-"
"Marquess Gioconda had married her second husband for his alleged family ties to a famous priest," Meg broke in. "but it turned out that he was estranged from his family and claimed no ties after all. That's probably why she murdered him after such a short marriage-"
"-I already told you, Meg, please don't say the 'm' word. We don't have sufficient evidence." Morrigan interrupted again. "Anyway, with no family to whom they could send Lady Adelaide, the government placed her in a girls' boarding school in the city of Millspring, on the southwestern border of their allied country of Seyruun. She graduated less than a year ago, ranked third in her class. Her grades were impeccable, her discipline record was spotless, and all her instructors had nothing but glowing things to say about her. She had been the president of the fencing club, and was also a registered sister of Millspring's Order of the Holy Sword."
"Order of the Holy Sword?" Lina repeated. "Is that… some sort of secret society?"
"I know what it is!" Gourry raised his hand with a proud smile. "I studied under a chapter of the Order of the Holy Sword once."
Lina blinked, gaping at him in shock. "You were part of a secret society?"
"I-it's not really a secret society. It's more like a group of scholars with similar interests." Gourry replied awkwardly. "And I… wasn't part of it. Y'see, the Order of the Holy Sword mixes swordsmanship and White Magic, and you know how I am with magic…"
"You don't practice magic, Mister Gabriev?" Meg asked in surprise.
"Nah. All those incantations and stuff are too much for me to remember." Gourry laughed good-naturedly. "I'm better off doing something I don't have to think too much about. But I still managed to learn a lot from the chapter I studied under. The Order of the Holy Sword has a very unique fighting style that focuses less on building the power of the fighter and more on using the power of the opponent against them. It's supposed to be better for mages and scholars who tend to be…" he glanced over at Lina, "…on the small side."
"Sounds like the perfect style for a young girl interested in swordsmanship." Lina nodded, shooting him a glare. "Of course, considering what Adelaide's mother did with her swordsmanship skills, I don't like the sound of that."
"If this Adelaide person is really a sister of the Holy Sword, though, she could never have done all this stuff that you've accused her of." Gourry continued, closing his eyes and appearing deep in thought.
Morrigan frowned. "What makes you say that?"
"Well, because the Order of the Holy Sword has extremely strict moral guidelines that its members follow. Before a person can be accepted as a brother or sister of the order, not only do they have to display their skill in both swordsmanship and White Magic, but they also receive special training with monks or nuns to educate them on the Order's doctrine of oneness with humanity… whatever that means."
Lina raised an eyebrow. "Oneness with humanity?"
"I just said I don't know what it means."
Morrigan was scribbling down notes on the margins of his paper. "Incredible… this is fascinating…"
"Inspector Morrigan, didn't you know this already?" Meg asked. "I thought you said you'd done research on Lady Adelaide."
"I did do research on Lady Adelaide. I didn't do research on the Order of the Holy Sword."
"But if she's a sister of the order, wouldn't it make sense to research the order as well?"
"W-well, I suppose, but-"
Meg and Morrigan began arguing again, and Lina and Gourry tried to ignore them, continuing their own conversation.
"If Adelaide took the time to become part of an organization that preaches oneness with humanity, there must be a reason for it." Lina spoke. "Don't you think?"
"Yes." Gourry nodded. "The sisters at the chapter I studied with said that very few students ever go on to actually become official brothers or sisters. They said that the order is willing to teach swordsmanship and White Magic to all students who wish to learn, but membership in the order requires… something more complicated that I can't remember. Something about the whole oneness deal."
Lina leaned back, resting her head on the back of her seat. "I've been to Millspring before. It's a scholarly town, built up around one of Seyruun's finest universities. There are opportunities all over for budding swordsmen or White Magicians. For Adelaide to not only have chosen the Order of the Holy Sword, but to have become a sister of the order must have some significance."
"Maybe it could help prove her innocence." Gourry suggested.
"Or her guilt." Lina shot back. "People with squeaky-clean reputations like this are either perfect angels or have something to hide, and I'm banking on the latter."
"I see." Gourry murmured. He glanced down at his feet. "Even if we do find out that Adelaide is guilty, I… don't know if I can turn her in."
"Gourry, what are you saying? This is a matter of life and death-"
"Exactly. This girl is younger than you are, Lina. Turning her in for a crime like this is sentencing her to death."
"You remember all the terrible stuff that old hag Gioconda did, don't you?"
"And you remember that I still didn't want to fight her, don't you?"
"You can't let chivalry get in the way of justice, Gourry."
"I understand that. But is sentencing an eighteen-year-old girl to death your idea of justice?"
The two were silent. The sound of Meg and Morrigan's argument droned on, but neither one paid attention to it. They didn't want to admit it, but they were both starting to wonder if they'd soon regret the decision to join the investigation.
Was it really worth it?
After a long and somewhat awkward ride, the group finally arrived at the villa outside of the city of Zoana. It was dark and hard to see, and Meg went inside to greet Dr. Wilson's assistant who'd been waiting for them while Morrigan, Lina, and Gourry pulled the luggage out of the carriage. They could hear Meg conversing with a young man, thanking him for his trouble and asking him about Dr. Wilson's well-being.
"I can't tell you how much it means that you're helping with our investigation. I know you've been busy aiding Dr. Wilson with the restoration work-"
"Don't think so much of it. I'm happy to get out of the stuffy museum every once in a while."
Lina was sure she recognized that voice, but she couldn't turn around to look with the large trunk she had in her arms. She struggled to walk toward the villa, and suddenly felt someone grab hold of the trunk from the other side.
"Need some help there, Lina?"
She dropped the trunk into his arms, staring at him in surprise.
"Zelgadis?!"
