The absolute last thing Zelgadis wanted to do the following morning was interact with other people, so naturally it was the very first thing he had to do: Seyruun's unyielding foreign minister convened a brief meeting just after , sore, and without a hangover only because he was still drunk, Zelgadis prayed a cold bath and hot coffee would at least offer a veneer of normalcy. Any hopes he had of blinking through some banal presentation were crushed by the presence of Lina, Gourry, and Pokota among the other statesmen. This was not ordinary business.

Zelgadis tried to settle in the back corner of the room, only to be accosted by his fellow spies. Hans and Franz pulled up chairs in front of him. Eogre, whose bulk couldn't fit into a single chair and would still be strained with two, stood scowling beside him along the wall.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the man himself," Hans grunted. "I'm impressed. I thought you were down for the count for sure."

Franz leaned over to Zelgadis, palm outstretched. "Pay up. You're the one who had us working overtime."

What the hell are they talking about?

"When the royal guard reported two maniacs were bench-pressing monuments in the Palazzo of Heroes, who do you think had to make sure they didn't call in the army?" Eogre said.

Zelgadis winced as he tried to remember. Parts of the evening came back to him with the fuzzy detachment of a story that had happened to someone else. They'd finished the first bottle, then Phil had suggested feats of strength, and somehow on the way outside they'd grabbed another bottle, a traditional drink that tasted like musty licorice. More fragments of scenes, incomplete sensations: the statue of Seyruun's first modern cultural minister had been a lot heavier than he'd expected. There was Phil, bellowing his encouragement. Why did we take our shirts off?

Because Zelgadis was a novice with the concept of apologizing, and certainly not something nuanced like "you may be trying to curse me but I'm still kind of sorry you had to clean up while I got blitzed with the king at 3 AM", he just sipped silently at his coffee. He was saved from further harassment by the arrival of foreign minister alongside Amelia, whose firmness of purpose was like a shining light in the drab, drowsy assembly room. Or maybe that was the actual sunlight coming in from the northeast windows? Zelgadis stared at the floor. Looking at moving things was too much work anyway.

He heard the drop and sharp snap of an unfurling scroll. With difficulty he tried to listen to the briefing, but it felt like bobbing along in some slow, fluid nightmare full of ambiguous terrors. Every word had the dissonant clang of a warping bell, and behind each too-loud word was a notion that struck like a match against his brain.

With the blessings of the king and crown princess, the foreign minister began, Seyruun was proposing a delegation to Yalain (bad idea, Zelgadis thought, so forcefully he feared he said it aloud). The crown had already selected artists, healers, historians, writers and more to highlight Seyruun's rich history of white magic and practical pacifism. These luminaries, along with diplomats, would offer informal advice to the duke of Yalain about how his nation could protect the rights of those who studied magic (they can't be serious, oh my god, they're all going to be killed). "And of course we intend to emphasize the considerable advantages of a strong formal relationship with Seyruun. I'm sure there are ample opportunities for mutual cooperation..."

But they would be prepared in case there weren't. A squadron of cavalry would accompany the delegation (a single squadron versus what?). Hans, Franz, and Eogre were nominated to come as well, undercover as cultural ambassadors. There was also a contingency plan in the form of a separate surveillance party, meant to trail at a long distance and step in only if something went catastrophically wrong (well, at least that's something...).

"They may well spot you the second you're off the boat," the minister said. "That's fine, we'd rather them think we're being too cautious. But you won't step in unless the delegation is in grave danger. Stay to yourselves, go sightseeing for all I care, just don't interfere with official business. You four would only be there only in case of emergency. What do you think?"

"I think a vacation that includes hazard pay is great!" Lina declared.

"We've been trying to take a vacation for two months now," Gourry reminded her, sounding irritated.

On the one hand, it was a prudent move, but on the other, Zelgadis pitied the rest of that party. You four, the minister had said, so that probably meant Gourry, Pokota, and...and...

He sat up so violently it brought a surge of bile up into his throat, which he attempted to cover with a cough.

"Do you have a concern, Sir Greywords?" the minister asked.

Zelgadis kept his gaze fixed on the ground, where the eager morning sun cast everything in gleaming bronze. He tried to sort his thoughts so that he could speak with patience and exactitude, just as Rezo had instructed him.

"Traveling someplace distant, without a full army, in a territory that's supposedly hostile to magic users...it's a needless danger. The benefits aren't commensurate with the risks." He wanted to continue but a wave of nausea warned against it. And any plan that counts on Lina Inverse not interfering is as stupid as it is doomed.

"Yes, it's risky," said an assertive voice he was in no mood to hear. How much of the plan was her doing? The idea that she had signed him up for this thudded into him, ugly and unwelcome, a poisoned rat of a thought. "And we'll mitigate those risks as best we can. For Seyruun, the costs of a delegation are small. What we can't afford is to sit back and ignore suffering and persecution, especially by a government against its own people. It would be terrible and unjust!"

You can't believe that old goat's nonsense, Zelgadis thought, knowing that to some extent she did. Sure, sure, she was great at palace intrigue, but she could never resist a sob story. Just when he thought she'd been coming around to a slightly more realistic worldview, she'd learned about Seyruun and Taforashia, and if anything that had hardened her belief in the need for national do-good...ery. Whatever that word is. Zelgadis decided this, like so many things, was Pokota's fault.

Something was fomenting inside him, a petty and blurred spite, or maybe just more nausea. So what if it was a disastrous plan? If Amelia thought babysitting Lina was the best use of his time and talents, then fine. His opinion wasn't warranted. He'd go, all right, and commit himself to this total diplomatic debacle if she thought he should.

But drunken passion is both volatile and ephemeral, and his spite waned as sensible albeit not-at-all sober Zelgadis stirred in closed his eyes and tried to settle himself over the sound of Hans and Franz muttering about their per diem. The briefing continued in a hypnotic drone about counterintelligence concerns in foreign territory.

Calm, calm, calm. Be angry later. Just focus on not vomiting. Deepening sunlight warmed the stony protrusions on the side of his didn't have the faintest idea how to approach stealth diplomacy in a foreign land, but it occurred to him he might know someone who did. A letter was in order, he decided. After a very long nap.

xOxOxO

Following her father's coronation, Amelia had spent most of the past two weeks in dresses befitting a future queen, but she traded the gowns for her beloved traveling tunic to help carry cargo. The delegation would travel to Atlas City, then board a ship for faraway Yalain, a thrilling journey in which she had no part. Loading the wagons was as close as she could get.

As she carried containers of salted pork she remembered all the times she'd pitched tents and filled knapsacks, or grabbed one last shortbread cookie from a friendly innkeeper before heading out for the next town. She felt a pang at the thought of staying behind while her friends set out on their next adventure. Good or bad, nothing could last, not even those seemingly endless days where they shared makeshift curry over a campfire that always needed tending.

Crown princess or not, Amelia had always known there would come a day when Seyruun pinned her down in its six-pointed grip. She just hadn't thought it would be so soon.

When there was no more food to carry and the first trace of autumn winds rustled the canvas on the covered wagons, Amelia said her goodbyes. Pokota nuzzled her shoulder in as close to a hug as he could manage. From Gourry, she got a real hug and a request to let him know about any cool swords she saw. Lina was in a foul mood, having been kept awake for the last several days by sad music she couldn't trace. "Either you have a bard stuck in the walls or the palace is being haunted by a whiny ghost. All I know is, if I see a guitar anywhere I'm gonna break it."

Amelia felt another pang at the thought of the last goodbye, although by now she was no stranger to Zelgadis's awkward and often sudden departures. She knew all too well that no power in the four planes could make him stay against his will; that any attempt to influence his thinking would only guarantee he fled faster; most of all, the moment she thought he might actually want to stay was always the precise moment before he left.

She did not seek him out specifically, but instead looked around and identified shadowy spaces where someone might go in search of solitude or dramatic pondering. She spotted one lonely cart in the very back piled high with straw and sacks of rice and sure enough, there he was. His horse, the burly white steed Viator, was hitched reluctantly to the sad little cart. Amelia would have laughed if not for the presence of someone who rarely laughed at all, much less at himself and silly situations like a giant horse pulling a teeny wagon. Zelgadis stood with his back to her, looking towards the marble walls of Seyruun's capital.

"Zelgadis-san?"

He didn't answer but turned more pointedly in a way that was still an acknowledgment. Amelia stood next to him, facing the opposite direction. On that bright, slightly chilly morning, the road from home looked more enticing than ever.

"It feels like walking into a trap," Zelgadis said at last.

"You're right."

He glanced at her without making eye contact. "Think about it," Amelia said. "What's happening in Yalain, the stone and the shrine, all those strange monsters coming from the west. Something is trying to lead us to the Outer World. Don't you feel it too?"

Zelgadis crossed his arms: maybe, but I don't like it. Spiritual or not, he was hostile to the idea that anything else could direct his actions.

"I thought that's where all of us would go next, but then…" Amelia sighed. "Just when I forgot about it, that Lord Ortolan showed up. It's fate, I'm sure of it! We have to help people who need us, and we can't resist the call of a hero's destiny! This way we can do both. Besides, I'm worried if we wait any longer Xellos-san might drag us there himself."

"Don't joke about that," Zelgadis said brusquely.

"I'm not."

This only seemed to upset him more. "What if the real danger is back here in Seyruun? Something could happen and none of us would be around to help." He grew more severe and animated as he spoke. Viator, picking up his master's vexation, stamped his hooves with an anxious air. Amelia rubbed his flank tenderly.

"There were monsters in the palace. We still can't trust the household. Everything with the poisons…!"

"The poisons? I thought you figured that out."

"I don't know," he growled. "There's so much we still don't know."

"But the Outer World…" Amelia was not accustomed to being on this side of the conversation, and his vehemence was unnerving. Only Zelgadis could be so angry on such a nice day. "Like Filia-san said, the shrine could have a cure..."

Zelgadis responded with a scoff that made her draw back in surprise. "If that's the cure, it's been there for a thousand years. It's not going anywhere."

What is he saying? A flurry of confused reactions threatened to fly out of her like butterflies and Amelia had to bite her lips together. It had been almost two months since they departed for Calliope, two long months in which they'd rarely been apart. He had to be itching to leave by now and she wasn't standing in the way. So why was he acting like the search for his cure, his self-professed inspiration for everything he did, some kind of nuisance?

"Whatever's out there, it's got to be bigger than one country's business. I know that you can take care of it. You might find your cure, too!"

"My job is-" Zelgadis started, stopped, then shook his head and changed tack. "I'm supposed to be-" Neither of these formulations seemed to work, much to his exasperation. He seethed quietly under his breath.

"Zelgadis-san," Amelia said gingerly, "do you want to…?"

"No," he replied, a little too loud and too long to be convincing, the least no-ful no that was ever no'd, and the most lovely no she had ever heard. She was so filled with joy by that ridiculous farcical sound that she didn't mind one bit when he turned away from her again. He was always so taciturn, so adamant that he never wanted anything for himself.

"...anyway, it doesn't matter. It's an order."

"I thought you said I couldn't order you to do anything." Amelia tried a teasing lilt to her voice, but Zelgadis's stiff reaction indicated he appreciated neither tone nor tease. Phooey.

"Amelia."

She got a tiny shiver every time he said just her name. It was a grounding rod, an anchor, a pin that fixed her exuberant and free-flowing mind in place. Now it was the buttercream icing on a perfect pink cupcake of his obvious lie.

"Get Sylphiel, or Filia, or both of them," he said sternly. Somebody you trust. Have them stay with you until we're back. Okay?"

He's so worried, she thought, and for a second she wondered whether she could somehow change their plans. Even as she thought it she knew it was impossible. He wouldn't have stayed for the same reason he wouldn't say he wanted to. Between his cure and her crown, she knew they were people on two paths that sometimes crossed and sometimes didn't. Yet more and more often those paths were running parallel, which only fueled her hope that they might one day converge. Keep believing!...can I? I think I can...

"Okay. But you have to eat all the octopus you can find."

"I'm serious," he said coldly. Amelia knew better than to be intimidated. He could pretend all he wanted, but she knew that under the rocks and sharp edges was a very squooshy center. She turned so that they were facing the same direction and discreetly reached under his cloak to touch a very specific spot on his back. Even through the thickness of his tunic she could feel the rugged scar tissue from her Resurrection spell so many years before. Zelgadis jerked upwards, which brought her hand a bit lower, and she dared something like an itty-bitty squeeze against him. His left arm twitched and hovered vainly above her head.

"I'm serious too," Amelia said.

xOxOxO

The early evening sky was punctured by a circling white figure. Was it a bird? A portent of change, an allusion to tearful farewells and joyous reunions? No, they were much too far from land. It was just another flying monster hailing from the vast and perilous west, to which they drew ever nearer...

No, "to which they drew ever nearer" wasn't right. Maybe "towards which" is more appropriate. Or is "ever nearer" the problem? Zelgadis cared about the grammar of his internal monologues. However, he had no such care for the constant reminders of the unexplained dangers looming over them all, and so when the monster swooped lower he Flare Lanced it into a leathery char. Its carcass dropped into the sea and was immediately swarmed by ecstatic sharks.

The capricious vagaries of life! The arbitrary swiftness of death! How mysterious, how unknowable! Zelgadis pulled up his cowl out of sheer reflex, then lowered it again. He took several steps forward, then said to no one at all:

"I shouldn't have come."

"We agree," muttered Pokota, without looking up from the long scroll where he sketched engine schematics. Zelgadis, having filtered out Pokota's obnoxious squeak long ago, did not notice. He was still perfecting his monologue.

He had plenty of time to work on it. After a long journey across the continent, the delegation from Seyruun had boarded a grand sailing ship and embarked upon the longer voyage to Yalain. Zelgadis had easily maintained his usual stoic composure at first, but the further they went, the more devious possibilities preyed upon him. They were approaching six full weeks since their departure, six weeks in which more monsters could have attacked Seyruun or Christopher could have made a play for the throne for all they knew. Now, having sailed into literal uncharted waters, they were wholly out of reach. It could be half a year or longer before they returned to the mainland.

The more he dwelled on it, the more reckless it all seemed. Half a year with some of the kingdom's most competent soldiers, spies, and knights outside its borders. What if it's a plot by the foreign minister to seize power? Seyruun barely has a standing army as it is. What if he's been in contact with nearby kingdoms…?

When breathing exercises failed to calm him sufficiently, Zelgadis had turned to recitations, books, and other intellectual pursuits, like crafting a good monologue. He had hoped crafting a good story would get his mind off of things, but his thoughts always came back to themes of disaster, danger, and inescapable tragedy.

No one else appeared bothered in the slightest. Much of the crew was taking in the last hues of sunset before dark. Gourry and Lina were playing a card game they'd invented, a game that Zelgadis and Amelia had never been able to puzzle out in the six years they'd known them. It seemed to involve throwing away cards, different rules for every suit, and a lot of slapping.

"Yeah, would you stop being so stressed?" Lina said. "If you keep it up we're gonna make you an anchor."

Zelgadis contemplated whether that would be better. "It's not stress," he said, without conviction. His boots had already worn a groove in the deck, creating a thin figure-eight track that stretched between the main and mizzen masts. Pokota had taken to rolling marbles in it when Zelgadis wasn't around (and occasionally when he was, so the latter in his distraction would faceplant with a spectacular pratfall).

"The southeastern nomads have a saying," Gourry said, drawing a card and tossing it down before Lina could tear it out of his hand. "It goes like…'If the future can't be changed, why worry about it? And if the future can be changed, why worry about it?' "

"Smart nomads," Lina said approvingly.

Part of Zelgadis wanted to argue the difference between worry and anticipating worst-case scenarios, but doubted anyone would respect the distinction, and in any case he didn't feel much confidence in it himself. He tried to think of other things instead, like how Gourry knew anything about the notoriously dangerous and insular southern nomads.

"Hey, Lina, look at that."

"Nice try. I'm not letting you take my six of bells."

"No, really. What is that?"

Zelgadis glanced out over the horizon and could instantly see what had captured Gourry's attention. Something wide and flat and with a long trailing tail skimmed the ocean's surface, making an orange kite-shaped patch in the water. As he looked closer, he saw the patch comprised many individual pieces, all with rounded shells and pairs of tall protrusions.

"They...kinda look like crabs," Gourry said, squinting. Pokota sat up to look too. Only Lina, defiant to the end, stubbornly refused to turn from her game.

"Crabs? Since when are there crabs in the middle of the ocean?!"

"Since now?" Gourry said, his tone suggesting he didn't understand how he was expected to be a marine biologist on top of everything else. Explanations aside, he wasn't wrong. The shifting orange patch was formed by hundreds of enormous crabs packed together, their legs and claws tightly interlocked. At the end the raft unraveled in a single-file chain, trailing out in a long line that bobbed closer to the boat.

Pokota vaulted forward on his stubby limbs and took off in flight towards the approaching crabs. He skimmed the water just long enough to cast a Digger Volt that created cascades of electric arcs. The crabs trembled as one, shaking together with a bony rattle, but they moved on in an endless swarm.

"It's no good!" Pokota shouted, as though the others hadn't just seen for themselves. "These are no ordinary crabs!"

Powerful spells and more powerful enemies were at last enough to get Lina's attention. With clear satisfaction at the thought of one-upping Pokota, she rolled up the sleeves on her scrawny arms. "What was your first clue? Did you miss that they're the size of banquet tables?!"

The chain of crabs floated closer towards the ship's hull. As they neared Zelgadis could hear the peculiarly disturbing sound of their many appendages pressing together, clicking and grating like chattering teeth.

"Cover them, Gourry. I'll be right back." He sprinted away towards the half-deck. Officers and soldiers had long spotted the crabs through a telescope and were heatedly debating the pending incursion. Hans and Franz helped a petrified younger officer hold his pike with the proper end up.

"Get below deck!" Zelgadis barked. He flung his arm to the side, and this time the resulting snap of his cape accentuated his seriousness. "You can see we've got company. Get all the civilians below deck and out of the way, and don't come out until we give the all-clear. Hans, assemble the soldiers in the upper gun-deck and be ready to go. Franz, make sure all the crew is down from the rigging."

Somewhat to his surprise, they listened. The senior commanding officers withdrew at once. Three of them saluted, a gesture that filled Zelgadis with more conflict than he had capacity to process. Even Franz, who never missed an opportunity to demonstrate his total contempt for everything about him, just nodded and left.

Do I have the authority to tell them what to do? It wasn't as though he'd intended to usurp the chain of command. He'd just seen what needed to be done and told the right people to do it. That was the point of delegating, as Amelia had once explained on a hot summer day when he couldn't see her over the reams of parchment piled on her desk. It wasn't about shirking responsibilities, but understanding who was best suited for which tasks. You assigned other people necessary work so you could focus on your own.

Zelgadis turned around to get back to his work, but the work had come to him. He was confronted by a monstrous crab, its glassy eyes looking down at him from their long stalks. On either side of its body was a bumpy claw: one was enormous, dappled orange and white, bearing heavy pincers as long as Zelgadis was tall; the other was no longer than a dagger and lined with dozens of sharp teeth. They clacked together in hungry, hollow tones.

You seem troubled, young man, it thought at him. Let us ease your burden.

Something about the concept felt oddly seductive, but he had the presence of mind to shove it away. Zelgadis unsheathed his sword and lunged at the beast's underside, but the crab scuttled backwards out of range. It lifted its massive claw to strike, bearing down on him like a sledgehammer. He leapt away just as it bashed through the upper deck. Despite its size and ungainly shape it moved with startling speed. Zelgadis Levitated to a safe distance, only to stumble backwards into another waiting crab.

"Bomb Rod!"

The fiery whip materialized in his hands, but broke apart into embers against a radiant astral shield. Sword it is, then. He swung low, aiming for one of the crab's nimble legs, but it seized his sword in its minor claw. Frustrated, Zelgadis tried to wrest the sword away while he chanted another spell.

"Goz Vu Row!" Shadows surged forward as rippling dark waves, engulfing the crab from beneath the surface. Each wave clung to a leg, a claw, that broad and flat underbelly, until there was nothing left but a form struggling in blackness. The creature shuddered and made a last high-pitched shriek before it disappeared altogether, torn asunder on both the physical and astral plane.

Before Zelgadis could appreciate his work he sensed another sudden attack from behind. He tried to Levitate straight up, but a giant claw swung up and snatched his waist in its pincers, then slammed him down with shattering force. From the splintered deck he saw dozens of legs closing in on him, skittering nearer and nearer.

Let us ease your pains, young man, they all seemed to be telling him in a way that was kindly or hospitable, like the bedside manner of a country doctor. Or a mazoku, Zelgadis thought, remembering the gracious professionalism with which Xellos handled lethal assignments. But there was something rough in it, a bestial gluttony in disguise.

He rolled to one side just as a crab lunged at him with its ancillary claw. The teeth on the claw's inner edge grated and sawed over his face. It squeezed its pincers together, severing strands of his sharp metal hair.

Zelgadis somehow saw Rezo, Eris, two other indistinct yet troubled faces, Rezo's increasingly sparse smiles and the desperate lengths he'd go to be graced by those smiles: take it, something thought, with vicious intensity. Then it was Zolf and Rodimus, their faces twisted in agony before they disappeared forever. Take that, too. And then it was the first time he witnessed the Visfarank, which was also the exact moment he'd realized the Thing was more than some stray impulse.

"No!" He gave a sharp kick to the crab's legs. It crunched inwards, and its whole body jolted towards one side, but the claws held fast.

The memory unrolled before him like sheet music, each detail preserved in perfect clarity. High up in the Kataart mountains, when their food had dwindled to a single sack of dried dates, Zelgadis had watched Amelia take on a mazoku by enchanting her fists in a spell of her own invention (because what could a sweet-faced shrine maiden want more than the power to beat up monsters with her bare hands?). It arrived in two parts-first, sincere respect for such remarkable skill in someone so improbable, like that dazzling Ra Tilt she'd cast with the Sword of Light; and then, unbidden, the observation that she was prettiest when she was beating the tar out of her enemies.

The thought had rattled him so badly that he'd tried to cover it up with a cynical comment. "Typical Amelia," he'd harrumphed, far louder than necessary, just to be sure that everyone in earshot knew how unimpressed he was by this totally typical little princess with a magic knockout punch. Internally he tried to squelch it with an avalanche of rationalizations. He was just tired, a battle gnat had gone awry, he was still overcompensating for that whole Miwan mess, surely.

He assured himself it was nothing as they took on those two monsters in a show of perfect coordination and unity. There was no reason not to like fighting beside her, or like being around her in general. Maybe it was just a teenage girl trying out feelings on somebody who didn't count, but it was still undeniably flattering. So what if he might have thought a bit more of her? He'd once thought that about Lina until he saw her table manners. Was this any different?

Seigram had answered for him in that heart-stopping second when he smashed her spine against a cliff. In the horrible minutes that followed Zelgadis had burned with a helpless rage he hadn't known he could possess. He'd bargained with Ceiphied, Rezo, and the dark lords. He had been so bereft that he could not leave her side even after Milgazia took over. Only the dragon-man's assurances that she would live got him to pick up his sword again and take on Gaav.

So it was not nothing. It was...something. A Thing, he'd admitted later. And it had made a home inside him ever since.

Take it.

Pressure behind his eyes and the sudden chilling wind of absence told him something was being dragged out of him, ripped away by the crab's knobbly claw. He gasped in vain; there was not enough air in all the world to fill his lungs. Zelgadis watched crab after crab scuttle over the side of the boat with something glowing brightly between their pincers. The world dimmed and winked out.

He came to in a puddle of acrid blue blood and the prickly warmth of a Recovery spell. Lina knelt over him, her brow furrowed. She moved her hands away and let the spell diffuse into healing ether.

"Nice haircut, Zel. You okay?"

Zelgadis sat up and looked around. Dusk had given way to twilight, casting the horizon in muted yellow that bled away into a profound navy blue. Gourry was slicing through one last crab amidst a pile of severed legs and claws, where Pokota munched down on any exposed flesh.

"Those things were nasty," Lina continued. "They tried to get inside your mind, right? One of them asked about my sister. That's a guaranteed Blash Ash straight to hell, just for the record."

"Maybe for you," Pokota said smugly. "Those things were cowards! Every time I got close they just ran away screaming."

Zelgadis slowly stood up. His head throbbed, but otherwise he was...fine. Better than fine. He felt unexpectedly light.

"You okay?" Lina repeated, sounding doubtful.

He tested his fingers, his toes. Everything seemed to be in working order. Without the benefit of nearby land the night air held no crispness, no alluring scents of fall, just a remorseless chill. In the back of his mind he knew something had been bothering him, but he couldn't recall what or why.

"I'm fine," Zelgadis said.