Goodnight Kisses

Part Eleven, Violent

By Relm

The next morning most of Lina's group was up at a reasonable time. It wasn't early enough to be considered early but it was a respectable hour to be awake. As it was with the traveling schedule they were on they were likely to get to the convention at least a day before it started and it was a multiday affair. There was very little need to be there before it even started or even on the first day. The first two days of the convention were mostly about selling and trading healing items or healing related wares. It wasn't until the third day that the main festivities started up.

So even if Lina and company hadn't busted their collective asses to town the previous night they still would be fine on their timeline to get to the convention early enough. But the whole point of getting to the town was that Gourry could get a proper rest (and Lina could pig out at a restaurant.)

And did Gourry benefit from the comfy bed? Well Amelia was just dying to find out. The golden haired swordsman was on Amelia's mind right from the moment she woke up. Being the budding healer and champion of justice that she was Amelia's mind was always on being helpful and needed. So knowing that her friend was possible sick in bed really made Amelia want to jump into action and do whatever she could to help Gourry feel better.

However Amelia woke up too early... way too early. She hadn't been trying to it just happened that way. Her dreams bled with anxious energy spilling over with such intensity that when she woke Amelia was ready to jump out of bed.

Knowing that it was still too early Amelia had tried to go back to sleep but her busy brain would have none of it. Amelia was awake and going to stay that way.

Amelia didn't know what to do with herself while she waited. She tried to read but she couldn't concentrate on what she was reading. She tried to do word puzzle but the answers escaped her. Amelia even tried to write a few motivational speeches to say for when peoples' spirits need a little more uplifting than with a normal speech but the energy just wasn't there.

Figuring that Lina would have to be just as anxious as she was about Gourry Amelia assumed that Lina would also be awake. Lina had to be up already. It didn't make sense that Lina who was the woman that Gourry promised to guard and protect would be happily sleeping while Gourry potentially very ill.

Naturally Amelia was blowing up Lina and Gourry's 'relationship' to bigger proportions that it was as Lina was very much sleeping when Amelia came into Lina's room. And if Lina was truly worried she hid it well. Lina practically threw every handy item she could get her hands on at Amelia in the efforts to get the Sailune princess to leave her so she could get some sleep.

If Amelia was really thinking that Lina was head over heels in love with Gourry she might have been very distressed by Lina's actions concerning her sleep. And as it was Amelia was thinking Lina's feelings were that strong but she wasn't disturbed by it. Amelia found a way to rationalize the dragon slayer's actions that still worked in tandem with Lina's 'feelings'. Perhaps Lina was so racked with stress and worry that it took her forever to fall asleep the previous night. As such she would be far too tired to even think about anything thus seeming like she was being insensitive.

Amelia wasn't a delusional person but as you can see she did have her moments. She was ever the sucker for an epic love story and you couldn't get more epic than the tale of Lina Inverse and Gourry Gaberieve. At least in Amelia's mind that is.

The wooden floor boards of the inn hall creaked under Amelia's boots making the Sailune cringe with each betraying sound. She couldn't wait any more so Amelia decided that if she could be quieter than a mouse then she could check on Gourry without waking him. With her mind at ease Amelia could concentrate on other things and not be so worried about the former swordsman of light.

However as the inn was an old one the hardwood flooring was being a noisy little... brat. It didn't matter how slow or careful she stepped the floors creaked with such a loud annoying level that anyone would hear her coming.

'Grr... stupid floors... why can't you just be quiet?!' Amelia thought to herself. Though the floors were noisy Amelia could have avoided the sounds all together if only she used magic and floated her way to the door. Amelia didn't do this and she was cursing all the way to Gourry's door.

It seemed that the door was in league with the floor as it was very stubbornly noisy as Amelia tried to open it slowly.

CREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAK...

Amelia held her breath as she opened the door. Her ears were opened wide listening in for the sounds of sleeping. Never before in her life had Amelia hoped to hear someone snoring. Sadly Amelia didn't get what she wanted. The room was quiet despite the noises Amelia had made though it didn't appear that Gourry was awake. From Amelia's vantage point in the doorway she could see the former swordsman of light's form lying in his bed.

One of Amelia's first thoughts was that maybe Gourry wasn't sleeping at all. He hadn't been feeling well so it was possible things were worse than they had all thought. Perhaps Gourry had been so sick that he had passed away in his sleep.

It was a truly awful thought that had Amelia frozen in fear. Her eyes were glued to the stationary form of her blond haired friend hoping to see some sort of sign of life from him.

A very slow rise and fall of his chest confirmed to Amelia that Gourry was indeed alive and sleeping.

The breath Amelia had been holding was exhaled and not a moment too soon. Her lungs had been in just as much fear as her mind had been though for very different reasons.

Carefully Amelia approached the bed hoping to be quiet not that the floorboards were being cooperative. Still Gourry didn't seem to stir though his breathing did not sound good. Rather than the normal nasally sounds of a person sleeping well his breathing sounded laboured and wheezy. But maybe this wasn't a bad thing but just how Gourry's sleeping had been sounding as of late.

Amelia was hopeful as she got to the side of her friend's bed but those hopes were quickly dashed away as she got a better look at him.

Gourry was sleeping on his back his head turned slightly as though he had been looking at the door before he had fallen asleep. His normal pinky flesh toned face was very pale and clammy and bags hung low under his eyes. Amelia could already tell that Gourry's breathing was bad but she didn't know how his heart was doing. A quick check of his pulse told Amelia that it was weak.

Sleeping in a comfortable inn bed hadn't helped Gourry. He wasn't doing better, he was doing much worse!

"Miss Lina!" Amelia yelled while running out of Gourry's room at towards the red headed sorceress'.

Despite this sudden outburst of noise Gourry was still sleeping

...

It was a normal thing to wake up in ones bed. Or in the case of sleeping on the floor or on a couch of some sort waking up while lying down in general was a standard. This were the sorts of things one expected of a waking experience.

When sleeping in an unfamiliar location waking up could be a confusing experience. Your mind gets disoriented thinking you are at home in your own bed and doesn't quite grasp that the area around said bed doesn't look right.

Often this confusion was short lived as the brain would wake up and clarify the surroundings by remembering various facts leading up to sleep. 'I'm not in my bed because I went camping' or 'that's right I went to visit my aunt and uncle' and so on.

Slightly location based confusion for Sylphiel would have been a welcome thing. It would have been a blessing only to worry about not remembering where she was when she woke. But when you were gripped with the condition of sleepwalking there were far more unknowns to deal with.

Like in this instance when Sylphiel woke after supposedly having a restful sleep in her comfortable inn bed. Sylphiel didn't get the luxury of waking up lying in her bed; no she wasn't even lying down at all. When Sylphiel awoke she was standing in her room.

There was nothing more disorienting for a sleeping person then to wake up while standing. Well perhaps waking up being suspended upside might be more distressing but for Sylphiel this was the worse she had experienced.

Extreme confusion clouded Sylphiel normally clear emerald green eyes. Where was she? What had happened? Why wasn't she in bed?

A wall was in front of her and not the one with the window or the door in it. This was the 'feature' wall of the room but rather than be painted another colour than the other walls it was covered from floor to ceiling in wood paneling. She was standing about two feet away from this wall and the sight of the wood paneling was confusing to her. Was she in a wooden lodge? A quick glance to her left and Sylphiel noticed the bed she had supposed to have slept in.

This was when the fog started to lift from Sylphiel's mind. She was in an inn room in a town that wasn't too far away from the convention she and Pokota was heading to. She remembered all the things she had done the previous night to ensure a good restful sleep but a quick look around the room told her that it had been in vain.

The candles and incense Sylphiel had used the night before were broken and scattered on the floor. The extra bedding she had set up in the bed was in balls in bunches twisted on the bed and hanging off the side. The pillows that were still intact had been tossed haphazardly around the room while the feather remnants of the destroyed ones occasionally fluffed around the room.

There really wasn't much that wasn't on the floor. Sylphiel saw all of her traveling items and clothing thrown in every which way completely littering the floor of her room. The most distressing thing of all was the vanity mirror. Before bed Sylphiel had sat in front of it while brushing her long raven hair. She had admired the reflection of her hair in the mirror as it looked particularly shiny last night. The mirror had been elegant and grand with an expertly carved dark cherry frame.

Sylphiel's current reflection in the mirror was a cracked one. Shards of glass littered the floor around the vanity and what was left of the mirror in the vanity was cracked and blood stained.

It was possible that someone had came into Sylphiel's room and trashed it while she had been sleeping. Or at the very least casted some wind based magic spells to toss around all of Sylphiel's belongings on the floor. But that didn't explain why Sylphiel had woken up standing, the blood on the vanity or why her right hand was suddenly hurting so much.

In a daze Sylphiel looked down at the paining limb of hers and was marveled to see the dried red stains of her own blood on her knuckles and fingers. Piece of glass were even still embedded into her flesh from when she had punched the vanity in her sleep.

This chilled Sylphiel to the bone. Never before had she ever done something violent in her sleep. Never had she broken anything to this scale. It didn't look accidental. It looked like Sylphiel had wanted to completely trash her room. And punching a mirror? What had Sylphiel been dreaming about that would make her want to punch something or someone? And worse still...

...had she hurt someone?

Completely forgetting about the pain and glass in her hand Sylphiel crumpled to the ground into a tight ball. This wasn't good, not good at all.