"Lina, wake up." Leia gently coaxed as the joyful sounds of a music box playing a lullaby wafted through the room, "It's time to meet your baby."
"Hmm, did I have it already?" Lina asked as she opened her eyes and saw a crib standing a few feet away from her bedside. She moved her hand to her stomach, which was now flat again, and marveled at how easy it had all been.
"He's so cute!" Leia said as she reached into the crib and pulled out a bundle. Leia took a moment to look as him as she smiled indulgently as she turned and walked over to the bed, "I'm not sure who he got his eyes from though."
Leia set the baby in Lina's arms, and as Lina gazed upon his face, she was horrified to see that he had the same green glowing eyes that Prasutagus did. Lina screamed.
And then she shot up in bed and her hands clutched her stomach. It was hard and curvy. She looked to her right, and with the light of the rising sun streaming from the window she could see the deep gash in the wall where they had retrieved the Blast Sword, with not a crib in sight. The masons had been so busy repairing the other parts of the manor that they'd not gotten to their bedroom yet. Her heart raced as she took a deep breath as the dream faded away and Gourry stirred beside her. "You okay?" he murmured.
"Just a dream." Lina said as she laid back down beside him and he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close as he nuzzled his head against hers.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
After everything he had been through lately, the last thing she wanted to do was worry him with what was likely a silly fear. She'd been having strange dreams ever since she'd gotten pregnant, surely this wasn't anything to worry about. Besides, she herself didn't want to give it much more thought, especially when he felt so nice and inviting beside her and there were other things they could be doing. "No." she said as she turned on her side and drew closer to him, "I may need your help distracting me, though."
He received her kiss and ran a hand through her hair. "Again? You make it hard for a man to keep up!"
"Hey!" she said as she playfully pinched him, "Don't make it sound like a chore!"
"I'm just saying…"
"Well if it's that taxing," she said as she pulled away, "I'll just got to another room and take care of it myself!"
He pulled her close to him again as she giggled as he said as he whispered in her ear, "Only if I get to watch!"
"It's been a week!" Lina complained to Amelia as they left the breakfast room and were immediately confronted with a toppled statue of armor, "And how is the manor still trashed every morning?"
"Well, sometimes for such an entrenched haunting an echo of the ghost may continue to inhabit the place." Amelia said as they picked up the pieces and started to reassemble the fallen knight. "Still, I sense no trace of her presence anymore. I can't explain it."
"Well, and that worries me." Lina said.
"Huh?" Amelia asked.
Lina looked around to ensure that no one was listening, and then whispered, "I've been having dreams that Prasutagus did possess my baby. I think it's just a nightmare, but I can't get over the niggling fear that it isn't."
"Wow," Amelia said as she held out her hand to Lina's stomach, "May I?"
"Sure." Lina said.
Amelia touched her belly and started chanting. "I'm not sensing anything in there that shouldn't be. I wouldn't worry about it. I mean, they did give us quite a scare, so it's bound to haunt your mind for a while. I'm not even sure there's been a documented case of a ghost possessing an unborn child and experiencing life again."
"Well, Prasutagus and Iceni certainly thought it was possible." Lina countered.
"But what does a ghost know?" Amelia asked, "Well, I'm hoping that Iceni attacking me means I was right about how I'm having a girl."
"I'm not sure if that's comforting or not." Lina said. "Anyway, I'm off to the library for some lesson planning."
"I guess I'll tag along." Amelia said as they finished assembling the knight and went to the old library.
Maeve was sitting at a desk, books and paper strewn around her as they entered. They acknowledged each other and then went to some bookshelves in the back and started to peruse the titles. A few minutes later they heard Kara enter and comment to Maeve, "You've been hitting the books lately."
"I've been writing a history of Chieftess Boadicea's people." Maeve explained. "Giving a voice to history's losers."
"That's impressive. Especially coming from you."
"Thanks, I think." Maeve said. "I'm glad you're here. I was planning to petition the Eternal Queen for some changes to benefit the common people, and I was wanting your input on what things I should include."
"Who are you and what have you done with Maeve?" Lina heard Kara ask as she turned to Amelia in amazement.
"Well, if you don't want a voice…"
"Education." Kara snapped. "We should all have it, not just those of us who are talented."
Lina looked at Amelia and whispered as Maeve and Kara kept talking, "What is this?"
Amelia smiled and shrugged, and then she shook her head. "Excuse me, nature calls, again. I'll be right back."
Lina's eyes widened, "Oh, damn! I wish you hadn't said that because now that I think of it…"
They locked eyes, and then they cried, "Me first!" as they started sprinting towards the bathroom.
"Lina!" Amelia screeched, "No fair! I called it first!"
"It's my manor, so I get to go first!" Lina yelled as they raced out of the library and nearly knocked over Jean-Luc and Peter. Lina noted that they'd appeared to be arguing, but since the baby had gotten bigger and now seemed parked on her bladder, she just couldn't hold it like she used to, so she continued to run, just barely getting there first before Amelia. Likely Jean-Luc and Peter were just arguing about the Capture the Flag game that would be held the next day anyway. "Find another one!" Lina said as she closed the door on Amelia's face.
Amelia cried out in indignation as she slapped the door in frustration and then ran off to one of the other bathrooms.
They're late, Lina thought to herself as she waited in her office for Owen and Nerys to call.
"Too bad we can't try to contact them." Gourry said as he stared at the clock.
"Right." Lina said, "We have no way of knowing where they are."
"Perhaps it's Nery's time of the month." Gourry suggested.
Lina shook her head, "I taught her a spell to make it go away, so that shouldn't be a factor."
"Well, maybe they got separated, especially since you need two people for the spell."
"If they got separated, then that still means they're in trouble." Lina said as she looked at the window. "Damn, we should have figured out some sort of emergency protocol for what to do in this situation!"
"Well, what can we do?" Gourry asked, "We're thousands of miles away for one thing."
"So we're just supposed to be hands off and…" Someone knocked on the door, and they looked at each other. "Come in."
Jean-Luc walked in, looking nervous. "What is it?" Lina snapped. "And it had better be important! Because we've got some big problems on our hands and I don't have time for some petty school boy drama!"
Jean-Luc reddened and stuttered, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize, I'll come back later."
Before either Lina or Gourry could think about it too much, Owen appeared. "You're late!" Lina yelled, "You'd better have a good reason for it!"
"We were being followed." Owen said, "It took us awhile to shake them."
"Followed?" Lina repeated, "Who's following you? And why?"
"No idea," Owen replied, "We're just doing our best to stay ahead of them while tracking down Garm!"
"Still it makes no sense why someone would follow you…" Lina said. "Unless someone who is set on war caught wind of this plan and wants to derail it."
"Have you seen Caug?" Gourry asked, referring to a friend he had asked to check in on them.
"Last saw him two days ago." Owen said.
"Any sighting of Garm?" Lina asked.
"No, but we're getting close. There's talk of a village that was attacked two days ago not far from where we are. We're checking it out tomorrow." Owen explained.
"Right. Sleep in shifts tonight, especially if you're being followed." Lina cautioned.
"We will."
"Is there anything else we should know?"
"No," Owen said, "I think we're getting close to wrapping this up."
One more week, Lina thought to herself as she walked down the stairs for a middle of the night snack, and Dad will take all of these kids away on a camping trip!
Lina was looking forward to some down time as well as having the manor to herself. And for once she planned not to do too much work. The more pregnant she got, the more she wanted to rest and tend to her home. It would help if it wasn't demolished every night. She looked around as she walked to the kitchen, but whoever was wrecking it hadn't made an appearance yet.
It was after she finished her sandwich that she heard a crashing sound from the hallway. She ran out in its direction and saw a shadow fly by, along with an upturned curio cabinet, but strangely she sensed no presence. Lina ran off in the direction she had seen it going towards and chanted a lighting spell, but try though she might she could find no sign of the intruder, ghostly or otherwise. If it was an intruder and not one of the kids causing trouble.
Lina shook her head and walked to the front door. Adam and Adora were on guard duty that night. "Lady Lina." They said as she opened the door.
"No one has been through here, have they?" she asked.
"We've not seen hide nor hair of anyone all night." Adam said.
"Yeah, we were just talking about what a waste of time it is having us stationed here each night when we could be getting good sleep." Adora added.
"But in the meantime, think of how amazing this will look on your resume!." Lina snapped as she went back into the manor and went to wake up the adults to search it.
Even though they had searched the manor from top to bottom, they had found no one who shouldn't be there or nothing amiss. But at least the late night search did deter the wrecker from destroying the manor. Lina sat on the green lawn the morning after as the kids prepared for the first game of capture the flag and puzzled over the mystery.
"Morning," Leia said as she sat beside her, "Oh, I am getting too old to sit on the grass like this!"
"I'll have to remember to order some lawn chairs." Lina replied as Gourry and Zelgadis started giving the kids their final directives before starting the game. "Do you think I should root for a team, or would that be favoritism?"
"Favoritism." Amelia said as she sat down and the game started.
"But it's more fun to watch if I'm backing one team over the other." Lina whined.
"I don't see anything wrong with making a bet." Leia said.
"Ten gold coins the red team wins!" Lina shot.
"I guess I'm team blue then!" Leia said as they shook on it.
"What's going on with Peter's shadow?" Amelia asked.
"Huh?" Lina said, and then to her shock Peter's shadow seemed to detach itself from he boy as it ran off and chased the shadows of the other players.
"It's almost like a Disfang spell." Leia said.
"Crap!" Lina said as Peter's shadow started to attack Cuchulain's, who was on the opposing team. Cuchulain cried out as his arm developed horrible red welts on it from where his shadow had sustained damage. Peter's shadow then moved and attacked another player on the opposing team, Pippi. She screamed as Jean-Luc jumped in and released a light spell, causing all of their shadows to disappear and the attack to stop.
Amelia raced to Cuchulain and started chanting a healing spell while Maeve tended to Pippi as Peter looked horrified while Jean-Luc glared at him, "I warned you that this was getting out of control!"
"I started noticing weird things since I fell in the lake that time Jan-Luc and Indy fell in the well." Peter explained as Amelia examined him. "But it seemed harmless and cool. And then when the manor was attacked by the undead, it seemed to help. It attacked the undead for me and we took quite a few of them down. Jean-Luc was scared of it and gave me a week to tell you, and I kept telling him I would and lying and said that I had to get him off my back, but he didn't believe me. I guess he didn't ever get around to telling you."
Lina felt a pang of guilt over dismissing Jean-Luc the previous night, and resolved to talk to him later. "This is odd." Amelia said, "His temperature is low, barely ninety-five degrees."
"He also has dark circles under his eyes." Zelgadis added, "How well have you been sleeping?"
"Very well," Peter said, "If anything I've been tired."
"He's looking pale." Lina added as Peter stared at the floor nervously.
"I guess this explains what has been wrecking the manor every night." Leia commented.
"Well, that would explain why I didn't detect a presence, and why I saw a shadow last night." Lina agreed.
Amelia got out a spectacle from her supplies and put it on, and was silent as she examined Peter. Then she cried out in disgust as she exclaimed, "A horrible, ugly demon attached itself to your astral body when you fell in the lake and is manifesting in your shadow!"
Peter's eyes widened in fear as he croaked, "Huh?"
"We have no choice but exorcise it!" Amelia continued, "If this keeps up you will lose your soul."
"Can you do that?" Lina asked.
Amelia shrugged, "It should be simple enough."
Peter slumped forward, "But then I won't be special anymore."
"What are you talking about?" Leia asked.
"The shadow, it made me so cool on the battlefield!" Peter said, "I mean I was one of the most bad ass kids out there that night! Without it I never would have…"
"You're one of the youngest ones in this school." Lina snapped, "You'll grow into your power. And it will be your power, not a demon's. And it will be more fulfilling when that happens. For now let's be thankful Cuchulain and Pippi will recover and no permanent damage was wrought! Amelia, time to work your magic."
AN: Hey ya'll! I made it to 50 chapters with this! That's a record for me! Considering I'm generally always in a hurry to finish a story this was a challenge to write something without end so I wouldn't always be rushing things, and I thank everyone who has been supportive with this along the way and I hope ya'll are still enjoying this and it doesn't feel drawn out. Anyway, with a Normal Girl and another fic idea (those of you who didn't believe I only had one more fic for the Ceiphied's Curse series…you were right, I was wrong, I may never wrap that one up either, *sighs* I'll go eat my humble pie as I write), I'm going to take a break from this one for a bit while I figure out where I'm going and focus on those. In the meantime, thanks for reading!