Joining the Resistance
"Your Jol's mom?" Xina asked surprised. She looked from the arrogant younger boy to the sweetly smiling woman and scratched her head. The hair was the same, but even at sixteen Jolrael was much bigger.
"Yes, would you mind sitting down, I was just making some tea."
"Tea? Where'd you get..."
"Don't ask," Jol said. "She just produces tea anywhere, anytime, no one else has figured it out yet."
"Really?" Val said, turning to Sylphiel. "Do you know my mother?"
"Why yes I do," Sylphiel nodded. "Now please sit down, my husband should be back with the rest of the scouts."
"I get the feeling that you are assuming that we'll be travelling with you," Xalan said, still irritated that someone had gotten the better of him in wood craft. He wondered if travelling by shadow hopping had been how he had missed the scents.
"I think that makes the most sense, Xalan-san," Amethyst said, she sounded shocked. "The High Elves are marching on Sailloon."
"We knew that," Xina said.
"So you were there!" a number of wood elves turned irritated glances at the speaker. Xalan smirked, perhaps he hadn't been as out done as he thought.
"No they were just as surprised about you as you were about them," Jolrael informed him.
"Would you please..."
"Stop what?" Jol interuppted the kage-kitsune, as if he didn't know what Xalan meant.
"Jolrael Gabriev," everybody blinked in surprise at the sudden serious tone in the priestess's voice. "What have I told you about reading peoples' minds with out asking first."
"Sorry, mom," Jol sighed.
"Jolrael-san apologized," Amethyst blinked. "I didn't think anybody but Luna-sama could make him do that."
"Hey, he's never done that to me," Xina noted.
"Remember that day I had the really bad head ache?" Jol asked suddenly.
"Oh, that was when it only cost me about a two hundred gold for your lunch right?" Amethyst asked. Sylphiel and various wood elves familiar with Gabriev appetites sweatdropped.
"What does that have to do with reading my mind?" Xina asked.
"The headache was from reading your mind."
"JOLRAEL!!" Everybody stared wide-eyed at Sylphiel in mild shock.
"What do you mean by that?!!" Xina demanded.
"Never mind," Jol sighed. "Sorry about that."
"He apologized again," Amethyst said. "Can you teach me how you do that?" Jolrael rolled his eyes.
"Certainly, Amethyst-chan," Sylphiel smiled. "I'd be glad to." And now Jolrael looked very nervous.
"Wow, you went into Xina's mind and came out sane," Val gave an impressed whistle.
"HEY!!!" Everybody ignored Xina throwing a rock at the dragon.
Xalan looked over and noticed the little blonde girl sitting with Tinuviel. The girl was repeatedly pointing at a picture and asking what it was, and Tinuviel was repeatedly giving very technical explanations. Explanations he couldn't follow, but suspected they were all about different things. Probably ink, the style of the drawing, the book, everything but whatever the picture itself was.
"Is this the right place for a child of that age?" Xalan asked. He didn't say it, but he knew who's child it was, there was only one human woman around after all.
"No it is not," Sylphiel answered, giving him a look at the implications against her parenting. "That is why Tinuviel and Kyrie will be escorted to join the other refugees."
"Excuse me, but why would Tinuviel-chan have to leave," Amethyst asked. "She has been travelling with us without getting into much trouble."
"Except the time she got taken prisoner," Val noted.
"Or when she set off the booby traps in the dwarf hold," Xalan added.
"Or shaved my head after SOMEONE hit me with FIVE Megido Flares," Xina snapped. "My lovely hair's been recovering ever since." She ran her hands through her purple hair and smiled.
"You're a lot like you're mother," Sylphiel noted, after the long silence that followed that statement.
"Not to mention we did first find her as a prisoner of bandits," Amethyst added trying to change the topic away from Xina's comment. "And there was the incident with Jolrael-san's sword."
"She's been useful," Jol said in her defense. Everybody looked at him. "Once or twice."
"Please, you might hurt her feelings," Sylphiel lectured them. They all looked to Tinuviel who was hurriedly and excitedly taking down notes.
"Don't stop now! It was just getting....oooo....I never thought I'd see one of those this time of year," Tinuviel started following a butterfly.
"Never mind," Sylphiel sighed. "But you see Tinuviel is barely eighty years old, and has none of the training that you others do. You had no choice before, I understand, but now, she needs to be taken somewhere safe. That is what you were planning on anyway, is it not?"
"Gomen nasai, Sylphiel-sama," Amethyst said. "You are correct."
"Dad's coming," Jol said about half a second before the ears began twitching among all the hyper-sensitive hearing races present. A blonde human swordsman just sauntered into the campsite coming from downwind and casually walking with almost no noise.
"Hey Jol, how's your day been?" he asked, as if he had last seen his son the day before. Jol and Sylphiel wondered if perhaps that was about what his memory said. Gourry Gabriev turned toward Val and blinked. "Hey...aren't you the guy that tried to..."
"Gourry-dear," Sylphiel cut him off. "Lina-san's and Zelgadis-san's children are here as well." He blinked and turned to Amethyst and the Twins.
"Oh Hi! Hey, do any of you know a guy with lots of silver knives?"
"That psychopath is STILL following us?" Xina snapped.
"Can you people keep quite please?" one of the circle of elves asked.
"Oh, sorry about that," Xina said.
"He tried to kill Xina," Val said levely with narrowed eyes.
"Oh, well I sort of got him lost," Gourry shrugged.
"Good," Xalan muttered. "Too bad you didn't kill him."
"What about the High Elves?" it was another wood elf.
"Well, I didn't look very high," Gourry said scratching his head. "But I saw some elves yeah." The younger Slayers looked from Gourry Gabriev to Jolrael Gabriev, and back, and then back again.
"Yes, he IS my father," Jol admitted.
"No wonder Father and Lina-sama were so surprised," Amethyst said.
"Gourry-dear, where were the elves?"
"The last of them will pass us in about an hour," he said. "They aren't coming up this way, they think all the wood elves and humans are cowering to the North, sent someone that way."
"How do you know that?" Xalan asked. "The commanders were talking strategy so I listened."
"Hey, I can speak elven you know." Everybody stared in open amazement, apparently Gourry had gotten close enough to overhear the heads of this force and got out again undetected. The impressive part was that he didn't seem impressed by this himself.
"Are you sure he's human?" one of the elves asked his nearest comrade.
"Well, I suppose we'll have to wait until they passed before our various parties leave."
"So what's going to happen?" Xina asked.
"Well, Tinuviel and Kyrie, will, as I said, leave with the last of the non-combatants for Zephilia and safety," Sylphiel noted.
"The rest of us are going to follow the high elves and hit them from behind as soon as they enter battle," Jol said.
Kalus growled as he came across the same tree for perhaps the fifth time in that day. Whoever it was that he had fought had taken him in so many false trails that he had no idea where he was any more. He certainly had no hope of finding the half-were's trail again. Excpet perhaps by luck. He tossed a dagger into a tree in frustration and growled.
The slight chink of metal was the only warning he had before the mail-clad elves appeared, wielding enchanted spears and ready to fight.
"Human scum," one of the elves spat. "You were all told to leave our bounds!"
"I'm.." he didn't get to finish the statement as someone slammed a hard piece of metal against the back of his head.
"Shall we look for others?"
"No, he's not a Beleriand native," the first speaker said disdainfully. "We'll question him later when he wakes up."
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