Author's Notes: There just aren't enough Zelgadis-Amelia romances out there, so I decided to write one myself. Lots of people say that Amelia's too cute and annoying for Zel. I think not. They're perfect for each other! Plus, I like the opposites attract premise. Oh, and I decided to give Zel a huge break in his short-end-of-the-stick life. And, in this story, Lina is nineteen, Gourry is twenty-four, Zelgadis is twenty, and Amelia is eighteen, if anyone cares.
Slayers does not belong to me, but to Kanzaka Hajime, Araizumi Rui, Kadokawa Shoten, TV Tokyo, SOFTX, Marubeni, Enoki Films USA, ADV Films, and anyone else holding copyrights to it.
A Shaman and a Princess By Annie-chan"Hey, Amelia, I just remembered that I found this with a note from Zel saying to give it to you," diminutive sorceress Lina Inverse said between bites of garlic chicken. She handed Amelia a sealed envelope.
Just like Lina-san to forget to give somebody something when she smells food, Amelia thought, a little exasperated. Lina-san always did this. She would even if someone told her that the Lord of Nightmares herself decided to bring an end to this World Plane. Nevertheless, Amelia accepted the envelope and gave her thanks without showing her exasperation.
She was just going to open it and read it at the table—after all, she had finished long ago, and the only things keeping them were Lina-san and Gourry-san's appetites—but she quickly thought better of it. Knowing Lina-san and Gourry-san, they may just read over her shoulder, and if Zelgadis-san didn't mind them hearing what he had to say, he would have just come out and said it. Instead, he had been gone for several days, and now Lina-san finds a sealed envelope with a note saying to give it to Amelia. It was perfectly possible that Zelgadis-san only wanted Amelia to hear this.
She politely excused herself from the table in the inn's dining room, although she was pretty sure than neither Lina-san nor Gourry-san heard what she said over their chewing, and went up to her room up the stairs of the inn. She opened the envelope and read the short note.
"Dear Amelia,
Meet me by the small pond inside the woods to the east of this inn an hour after sunset. I trust you know where that is.
Zelgadis"
Amelia read the note once…twice…thrice. Was it true? Did Zelgadis-san really want to meet with her over something? She had had a crush on him from the moment she first saw him, even though she acted like she found him creepy and suspicious, and that crush had developed into something deeper in the past few years. She had never said anything about it to him, for he acted pretty much indifferent to everyone, including her, and she didn't want to embarrass herself or give him reason to avoid her. The reason for this meeting he wanted could be as far as you could get away from admitting affection, but there was always hope.
The rest of the day went by agonizingly slow. She kept looking at the sun's position to see how far it was from setting, and she kept spacing out and making Lina-san and Gourry-san repeat what they were saying at least three times before she heard them. It wasn't long before they gave up and didn't talk to her at all.
Finally, the sunset. Now, she just had one more hour to wait. She knew very well where that pond was, and she had to refrain from running there to see if he was already there. But, the note had said one hour after sunset, and Zelgadis-san never like his instructions disobeyed, no matter what they were about. She had seen him after Lina-san didn't pay attention to him when they were running from a lesser mazoku that popped up out of the bushes when they apparently encroached on its territory, and Amelia didn't want Zelgadis-san to react to her the way he had reacted to Lina-san. The mazoku had scorched them rather substantially before Zelgadis-san had the chance to Flare Arrow it out of existence, and then he had gotten very angry at Lina-san, who walked away from there with a large lump on her head from a stone fist smashing into it. Zelgadis-san wasn't one to lose his temper often, but not being paid attention to when he wanted people's attention was one of his pet peeves.
The clock in the dining room of the inn finally said 9:30, one hour after sunset at 8:30. Amelia practically ran out of the inn after grabbing her cloak, and made a beeline for the pond to the east.
She saw him immediately. The pond was in a rather large clearing, with quite a bit of space all around it between it and the trees. He was sitting on a log on the near side, his back to her. She started forward and was about to speak when she stopped and shut her mouth. There was something different about him. His skin and hair weren't gleaming in the bright moonlight like they usually did, and his hair seemed a much darker purple than she remembered. It looked more like Rezo's hair color, to tell the truth. She didn't have time to think about these changes long before he turned around.
Her jaw dropped at the sight of his face.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hey, Gourry?" Lina yawned before she walked into her room. "Do you know where Amelia went?"
"No," came the reply.
"What about where Zel's been the past several days?"
"No."
"Okay."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Zelgadis-san," Amelia stammered. "Y-you're…you're normal!"
Zelgadis offered a rare smile. "Yes, I am, aren't I?"
Amelia only stared in shock.
"You probably have all been wondering were I went," Zelgadis continued. "After all, I left without any notice. Anyway, I had found a lead to a cure involving my curse, and…well, you see where it got me."
Amelia couldn't help herself. She ran up to Zelgadis and threw her arms around him in a big hug. "Zelgadis-san! I'm so happy for you! You don't know how much I've wanted to see you like a normal person!" She realized her mistake. "Er…I mean…not that there was anything wrong with you before…" She began backing away, hating herself for being such an idiot. She stopped when she felt his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't worry," he assured her, laughter shining in his eyes, a very rare sight indeed. "I've thought exactly the same thing. The truth is, I wasn't a normal person. That's the long and the short of it. But, I didn't call you out here just to show you this. I could have just walked into the inn and let everybody see this. I wanted to tell you something different." Before she could react to what he had said, his grip on her shoulders tightened, and he pulled her to him, touching his lips to hers.
The kiss was neither hard nor soft. It was merely to show he cared very much for her. She, though, was in shock, hardly believing it was really happening. She hadn't done anything but blink before he backed away.
"I love you, Amelia," he said, his voice soft. "I have since I first met you."
"D…do you really mean that?" Amelia stammered.
"Have I ever been one to play tricks?" Zelgadis replied, amusement at her shock sparkling in his intense blue eyes. He had no time to say anything else before she had jumped up on him, winding her arms around his neck in a death grip.
"Zelgadis-san! I love you, too! I've always wanted to say that!" Zelgadis, suddenly burdened with the weight of the princess, just barely avoided tumbling backwards into the pond. After regaining his balance, he took hold of her waist and lowered her down until her feet touched the ground. The princess may have been little, but she had a chokehold to rival the strongest professional fighters.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" she squeaked when she saw his face, red from lack of air. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Zelgadis-san!"
"No matter," he assured. "Now, let's get back to Lina and Gourry, ne? It's getting chilly out tonight."
"Oh!" Amelia crowed again. "Oh, yes! We have to show Lina-san and Gourry-san what you've done!" With that, she grabbed his hand and took off toward the inn, dragging the ex-chimera behind her the whole way.
OwariAuthor's Notes: There you go. Short and sweet. Please don't flame me for putting those two together. I strongly support original couples—not to say that I can't have fun with alternate couples—and I've seen enough Slayers art to convince myself that they're an original couple. Besides, I think they're cute together! Please send any comments you have to mangareader@hotmail.com, onegai shimasu!