Serious Reflections
"Excuse me, Xellos-san and Filia-san," the shadow Xellos snapped around to face the door, where the nervous face of the shadow Lina peeked in. "Perhaps you were right to be nervous about staying here."
"What is it?" he asked. The sorceress-copy turned innkeeper came into the room shutting the door behind her.
"The queen is in the village." the shadow-Lina said simply. Xellos screamed pasted himself against the wall.
"Shh," Lina insisted pressing her hands down. She took walked to the closet and gathered magic to her hand, chanting quietly before reaching forward and opening the door. "In here." She walked into the closet.
"What's in there?" Filia asked. Xellos was wondering that too, but after weighing his fear of Tes against his fear of whatever the girl had summoned. Tes won out and he grabbed the shadow Filia and jumped into the closet...and found an expansive store room filled with all manner of things. The shadow Lina closed the closet door, cast some more magic and opened the door again.
"What are you doing?" Xellos shouted as Lina walked back out of the door. "That madwoman is out...." he looked out and saw an extravagant ball room.
"Oh yeah, welcome to my house," the shadow Lina said as her footsteps echoed through the great hall. "Well my husband's house, but the inn and dimensional warehouse are mine."
"As are the various other establishments she has throughout the universes," a voice called out. The shadows looked up at the sound of the voice and saw an exceedingly beautiful man standing in a balcony above them. He was dressed in fine raiments, much finer than much of what the shadow-Xellos could remember seeing. "Guests I assume then?"
"Only for an hour or so Hoto-Hori," she said sweetly, levitating up to meet him. "There's rebellion going on back in my homeworld, and these people are running from some evil tyrant." She explained quite simply.
"Ack! What's SHE doing back." Xellos winced at the high-pitched sound. Filia was just quietly waiting for someone to explain things to her.
"Oh don't worry about that, Nuriko's just a little jealous." Xellos glanced at the flame-aura shrouded "woman" and gulped.
"A LITTLE jealous?" Suddenly, Nuriko was at his side and clutching tightly.
"Oh, don't listen to that whiny little red-head," the "woman" insisted. Xellos wasn't greatly fooled, Nuriko was just trying to use him to try and engender some jealousy of her own. Besides, she scared him. "Now tell us all about you, it isn't every day that we have man-steal...err...visitors from another world....though it certainly feels like it."
"Something is wrong," Zelgadis said simply.
"Of course something's WRONG!" Filia responded. "Amelia's shadow has taken over Sailoon and has apparently made a deal with a mazoku."
"That's not what I meant and you know it," Zelgadis said. "You went off to help Xenith and then you come back and suddenly you're acting like she's your long lost sister."
"I just felt that we've kept up this juvenile act altogether to long," Filia sniffed. "Her its understandable coming from, after all she does need the anger and such to feed on, but from us its just...what?" Zelgadis had arched an eyebrow and looking at her with a rather bland expression. In other words he looked about like he normally did.
"This coming from someone who calls any mazoku she sees a namagomi," Zelgadis noted.
"Okay, okay," Filia hmphed. "I found out that she's a reincarnated human."
"And you believed her?"
"I saw her casting spells," Filia retorted. "And she denied it."
"She's a sorceress as well as a mazoku?" Zelgadis said. "And she was keeping this secret?"
"I don't think she's supposed to let Xellos or any of us that she's human, so don't say anything."
"Fine, I won't. But it still doesn't explain why you're any more concerned about her than you should be."
"Well, how did you like it when people just started snubbing you because of..." she stopped and looked at Zelgadis's stricken face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"No, no, you're right," Zelgadis grumbled. "We ARE doing the same thing, I just didn't realize....perhaps I should apologize."
"Just don't mention you know she was reincarnated," Filia asked. She hadn't really betrayed Li..Xeni...the mazaku's trust. She'd only said part of the story, still it was a load off of her chest that somebody else knew at least part of the truth.
"Please your majesty," the peasant pleaded. "They aren't here, they moved on a week ago."
"So you've said," Tes agreed. "And where did they go?"
"North, your majesty, seeking their friends."
"Hmm," she looked about at the town. "Nice village you got here, I'm not charging you enough taxes. Expect that to change." Then the Queen vanished, blinking away in a teleport back to her own palace. The villager breathed a sigh of relief at her disappearance.
Tes found her room empty. Her eyes narrowed.
"Guard!" a chain mail garmented warrior arrived quickly and hesitantly entered her room.
"Yes, your majesty?"
"Where is the girl that was in here when I left?"
"The servant girl?" he asked nervously.
"Yes, the SERVANT girl," Tes said, amused. "Send for her," Tes ordered.
"She..."
"That won't be possible," she turned to look at her husband, and glared at the shadow-chimera as he came into her room. "It seems that she faked her own death and used that to escape."
"And where are the guards that LET her escape!" Tes demanded. Zelgadis walked to the room's window and gestured outside. Tes looked as she saw heads being set up on pikes.
"I anticpated your descision," Zelgadis said. "I do so hope that you don't mind." She turned to face him, eyes narrowed.
"Of course not," she said evenly. "It is exactly what I would have done. You are dismissed guard." The man virtually ran out of the room.
It was the next day when Zelgadis stopped by the servant quarters, at a time he was sure that Tes was busy with....someone.
"That new girl?" the servant asked nervously. "She is still recovering from....yesterday."
"I realize this, and I will only impose myself on her rest for a moment," he stormed past the servant into the back room. This is where the sick were kept so that they could not infect anyone else. At the moment Sherra was the only "patient." The shadow Zelgadis looked back to the doorway and quietly cast a silence upon the doorway so that none of the girls could easedrop.
"I told you there is no way she would believe that I'm dead," the still weak mazoku whispered. "If I die then she dies, and she knows that."
"I did not tell her you died," Zelgadis said. "I told her you escaped." Sherra rolled over and looked up.
"Why not just kill me?" she asked rolling back down. "That will solve the problem."
"Perhaps you should speak to my barbaric other," he sniffed. "It is not civilized to attack ladies in need."
He turned about on his heels and walked out of the room, dispelling the silence behind him. Sherra let herself drift back to sleep, still feeding on the trickles of fear and anger she could feel from outside.
She did feel a little safer than before, though she would never admit to it.
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