Chapter One:

IN WHICH A CHIMERA WIGS OUT

Zelgadis sighed into his coffee, sweat-dropping as he watched Lina pound Gourry's head into the inn floor. The swordsman had apparently insulted her--shall we say--*ahem* "lack of femininity", and she had decided that the only way to get Gourry to realize he'd said something wrong was to pound it into his brain. The beating was accompanied by many many un-ladylike swear words.

"Whaddaya mean 'uncouth'?? Why I oughta . . . in fact, I think I will!" Pound, pound, pound, thrash, pulverize. "How can you say such things about a pretty young lady like me??" Crush, bludgeon, cudgel. (1)

"But Liiiinaaaa . . . "

And so on. And so forth.

Sigh.

The chimera rolled his eyes and continued to sip his coffee calmly. He had long ago learned that it was completely useless to try and stop them; Lina was Lina, and Gourry was Gourry; he couldn't do anything about it. Besides, Gourry seemed to enjoy his regular beatings, so why spoil his fun? Zelgadis had gotten used to these types of incidents, as they happened so often, so he simply ignored his companions. He absorbed himself in his coffee, appearing mesmerized. Hmm, there were grains of sugar swirling around in the bottom of his cup.

Simply fascinating.

After a while, however, he became thirsty and drank it. Ugh; cold coffee is disgusting. Except for iced coffee. Iced coffee is nummy, especially those Frapuccino things from Starbucks. Wait. What's a Frapuccino? What's a Starbucks(2)? Oro? @_@

Oops, he'd just drunk his diversion. Zelgadis ordered another cup, and immediately downed it; he wouldn't let it go cold again. He made a face as the scalding hot liquid burned his throat. He ordered a glass of water. Coffee wasn't that fascinating anyway. He looked across the table at his other traveling companions, still ignoring Lina and Gourry.

Amelia, on the other hand, stubbornly refused to ignore them. In her immature, school-girlish innocence, she still didn't realize that this seemingly senseless act of violence between the sorceress and swordsman was the only way the two could express their feelings for each other. She still believed that love was supposed to be a mutual respect and deep bond of friendship between two people. Pff. Kid stuff.

The sugary princess repeatedly tried to separate Lina and Gourry, spewing meaningless justice-mottoes all the while, to no avail. Her long-winded, pink-and-fluffy-sounding speeches only added more noise to the chaos, and she ended up getting herself caught in the violent tangle. Zel suppressed the urge to gag, and instead turned his head away from the ridiculous sight. Unfortunately, there was only one person--if you could call him a "person"--left to look at. Before he could stop himself, he'd made eye contact.

"Why, Zelly-poo, what's the matter? You look so down in the dumps! I'll cheer you up! Kitchy-kitchy-koo!" Xelloss playfully poked him in the bellybutton.

"Don't touch me," growled Zelgadis. "And don't call me that."

"Call you what?"

"Zelly-poo."

"Oh, Zelgadis! I didn't know you cared," cried the mazoku, misinterpreting Zel's words on purpose (3). He glomped onto the chimera's arm and started pawing at him.

"I said don't touch me." Zel's eye started to twitch. He decided to change tactics and looked away. "Get off."

"Whatever you say, Zelly-poo." Xellos let go of his arm, pouting. "Now what's gotten you so upset?"

Zel's barely suppressed anger was delicious. The Trickster Priest smiled cheerfully, still trying to tickle the oh-so-serious chimera. He followed Zel's glare to Lina and Gourry, who were still caught up in their "argument".

"Ohh, I see." Xell wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Getting jealous, are we? Well, after all this time not getting laid, I'm not surprised you're getting antsy."

Zel turned red with both rage and embarrassment. He averted his gaze, glowering fixedly at the wall. Xelloss smiled, enjoying his "meal". He continued to rile the grim chimera. "If you're interested, I know of this great place where you can get some for cheap and--gakk!!" Zelgadis began throttling the mazoku. To his chagrin, the disgusting little creep only grinned wider.

"Zelgadis-sama! You are being very un-just," cried Amelia, trying to disentangle herself from Lina and Gourry's affectionate roughhousing. "Violence is never the answer!"

Zelgadis, his patience worn quite threadbare, decided he'd had enough of her prattle. In fact, he'd had enough of them all. He very calmly told Amelia where she could put her Fist of Justice, then turned to Gourry and told him to get it over with and nail Lina. Amelia turned purple and stormed upstairs to her room, where she spent the rest of the night murmuring happy thoughts to herself (4). Gourry blushed and simply pretended not to comprehend Zel's words. The chimera ducked Lina's fireball, kneed Xelloss in the groin (he kept right on grinning, the freaky little bastard), then dropped the mazoku, paid for his tea, and left the inn, dragging a storm cloud behind him (5).

To be continued . . .insert ominous music here

Well? What do you think? Feedback welcomed with open arms and a plateful of warm cookies.


(1) I love my thesaurus. It is a good friend. It gets the kitties.

(2) Lucky bastard; I'd love to live in a world where Starbucks doesn't exist. Rackum frackum soulless corporate leeches rassm frassm . . .

(3) He interpreted it as "Xelly-poo". The shortened versions of their names sound exactly the same, which makes it really confusing when my best friend and me talk about our little darlings. For example:

Gitta: And then Xell says--

Libby: Wait, your "Xell" or my "Zel"?

Gitta: My Xell. Would it help if I referred to him as Xelly-Belly?

Libby: No. I call Zel that too.

Gitta: Wait, are you talking about your "Zel" or my "Xell"? . . . (And so on and so forth. I think you get the idea.)

(4) Happy thoughts such as "101 Ways to Make A Mean Chimera Suffer". Hey, Amelia can't always be nice and sweet, can she? Besides, it would be justified; he was being a big poopie-head. It's all in the name of justice, I swear! (meh-hehehehehe . . . ¬______¬)

(5) It's a figurative storm cloud, not a real one. Just thought you might like to know, in case you assumed that it was a real storm cloud. I know I would. But that's just me. I think I'll shut up now.

_______________________________________________________________________