************
Zelgadis was the first one to go. Lina still couldn't believe
that it had actually happened, but she couldn't deny the reality of the
raining sky or the pile of earth that was just waiting to be shoveled into
the open grave at their feet. Lina wished it would stop raining.
She hated rain on a normal basis, but during a funeral it was just too
damn much. The ground was slowly turning into a swampland, and she
knew that any minute the grave would start to fill up with water, turning
it into a mudhole and making a bad situation worse.
She heard a stifled sob to her right, and turned to look at Amelia,
who had one hand over her mouth. Lina saw a drop of blood drip
off the edge of her hand, and then another. It was obvious that Amelia
was biting her palm as hard as she could to hold her sobs in check.
Her blue eyes were swollen, and tears streaked her cheeks in an unending
stream. Lina's own cheeks were wet with both rainwater and tears
as the priest said the final rights and the grave-diggers began shoveling
the dirt into the awaiting hole.
As the first miniature mound of dirt struck the coffin lid, Amelia let loose with an unearthly wail that caused even Lina's hair to stand up on her forearms. The wailing seemed to go on forever until Amelia collapsed to her knees and began rocking herself back and forth, making a high-pitched crooning noise that was almost worse than the single scream.
Lina leaned into Gourry, thankful for his strong support as she watched her best friend break down in the mud and dirt. She didn't blame Amelia, after all, it had only been two days ago that Zel, in his own way, finally admitted that he had feelings for the princess. Amelia had been so happy that night, flushed with embarrassment and excitment as she and Zel had set out to take a walk in the woods and "talk".
Lina's fist clenched. That was the last time anyone had seen him alive. Gourry had already gone up to the room he was sharing with Zel when Amelia came back to the tavern, and she had sat with Lina for a few minutes and talked about how she couldn't wait to get a message to her father. Zel, she explained, had wanted to stay by a small stream and think for a few minutes uninterrupted.
The next morning, worry began to set in when Zel failed to show up for breakfast. Even though he normally didn't partake in the food wars, he did enjoy his morning cup of coffee. Amelia had been too worried to eat, and once breakfast was over, the three set out to see if they could find him. Gourry had been the first one to see him, and his shout of discovery and alarm brought Lina and Amelia at a run.
What they saw caused them to come to a halt, then Amelia screeched a denial and ran to Zel's side, casting spell after spell to no avail. The chimera was laying on his back, his eyes open and a look of horror and surprise on his features. There was a very small amount of blood underneath the back of his head, and once Lina got Amelia away from Zel's body, it seemed like she switched into automatic pilot, and she turned him over with Gourry's help to see if she could find out how he was killed. She managed to keep her grief in check long enough to see that there was a place on the back of his head that looked like it had been burned with something, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out what it was. She carefully laid Zel back down the way she had found him, and then let the tears come.
Lina watched with a grief-stricken heart as more dirt was shoveled into the grave. They had alerted the authorities about Zel's murder, but no clues or ideas had been found or formed, and the friends were left with the heart-wrenching task of finding a coffin and arranging for their friend's burial, not to mention hundreds of unanswered questions. Amelia had completely withdrawn from the group, retreating into numb silence and not saying anything to anyone. Now, her crooning faded into soft sobs as the last of the dirt was put in place, and the few people who had braved the elements to satisfy their curiousity trickled away. Lina moved away from Gourry's warmth and strength, and moved over to Amelia's side. She crouched down and placed her hand on the princess' arm, trying to bring her out of her grief. Lina herself was still struggling with the realization that Zel was dead and never again would she hear one of his sarcastic comments or complaints about having to stop at a place to eat.
She swallowed hard as she moved her hand up to Amelia's shoulder and used it to pull Amelia into an embrace. The princess' pain tore at Lina's heart, adding to her own pain over what had happened. For a few seconds Amelia cried onto her shoulder, and then with surprising strength she wrenched herself away from Lina and leapt to her feet. Her blue eyes were glazed with shock, and she looked around her as if she didn't realize where she was. Her dazed eyes then looked at Lina, who was slowly getting to her feet, and they suddenly snapped into focus. Amelia's eyes widened, and she began to back away from the sorceress, her hands held in front of her as if to prevent a sudden attack.
"Amelia, what?" Lina began to ask, only to be cut off by Amelia's frantic voice screaming, "Don't! Don't come any closer to me!"
"What are you talking about?" Lina snapped, pain and anger making her lash out.
"Don't come closer! It's not too late for you! Get
away from me while you can!" Amelia's hysterical voice cut through the
rain like a knife, causing Lina to rock backwards a little in shock, only
to bump up
against Gourry. Gourry reached out and placed his hands on her
shoulders, steadying her.
"Amelia . . . ," Lina began, only to be cut off again as Amelia continued to rant, seemingly unaware of her surroundings.
"Everyone I've ever cared about has wound up leaving me in one way or another. My mother, Uncle Randy, my sister, Alfred, and now Zelgadis-san! It wasn't his body that was his curse, I was! You need to get away from me, Lina-san, Gourry-san, while you're still able to do it!" Amelia whirled in the mud and ran back to the tavern, leaving Lina and Gourry standing in the rain and staring after her.
"What was that all about?" Lina asked, struggling to come up with an answer and failing. The agony of the past few days had worn her down mentally, physically and emotionally, and she found that she just couldn't put two and two together anymore. Zel's death had caused the companions world to turn upside down, and nothing made sense anymore.
"Gourry, what was that all about?" Lina repeated tiredly as they began to move slowly back towards the tavern, leaving behind the pile of mud that covered one of their members.
"I don't know, but I'm going to talk to her," Gourry replied, his gruff voice betraying his own emotional turmoil.
"That's fine," Lina replied, too tired to argue and almost too
tired to care. Gourry left her sitting at a one of the tables in
the tavern, and headed up the stairs towards Amelia's room. Lina
felt her head nod
slightly as the past 48 hours of emotional turmoil and lack of sleep
began to catch up with her. She had just started to fall asleep when
a thump directly over her head jerked her back to her senses. Lina
opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling, slowly realizing that the room
she and Amelia shared was directly over her head. Another thump had
her on her feet and running for the stairs, because the second thump had
sounded suspiciously like a body falling to the ground, and with Zel's
killer still on the loose, Lina didn't want to take any chances.
Once she reached the stairs she cast a Levitation spell and flew up the stairs to the door, thus avoiding all the creaky steps and loose boards. She reached the door to the shared room and rammed her shoulder against it, throwing it off it's hinges inward as she barreled through, only to come to a stunned halt.
"G-GOURRY?!" she screamed, staring in horror at the blond swordsman as he calmly removed his sword from Amelia's chest and wiped the blood off on her cape. Amelia was sprawled on her back much like Zelgadis had been, her cape spread out underneath her like a pair of angel wings, the winding pool of blood off-setting her dark beauty. Gourry turned to look at Lina as she stood there staring at him, and for the first time since she had ever known him she failed to recognize him. His face was twisted into an expression of hate, and his blue eyes were bright with madness.
"You weren't supposed to see this," he said in a voice she barely recognized, a flicker of regret making itself known in those alien eyes before it was extinguished. "You were supposed to go tomorrow."
"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH GOURRY?!" Lina screamed. "TELL ME NOW!"
The stranger chuckled as he calmly took the blade off of his sword and called forth it's true blade of shining energy. "Ahh, Lina, I'm right here," he said mockingly, holding the sword in front of him in an oh-so-familiar way.
"No, NO! Gourry would NEVER do this!" Lina yelled, and began to ready her powers to attack this thing that had killed her friends.
"But I have," Gourry said, giving her a twisted smile. "You see, Zel had to be the first to go. He's always looked down on me. Of course, he always looked down on anyone that he considered to be of a lesser intelligence than himself. It was so easy to kill him, too. Just sneak up behind him and slip the Sword of Light into the back of his head. Did you know if you leave the blade in long enough, it's energy causes the wound to burn and close over? That's why there was so little blood."
"No, I'm not listening to this! FIREBALL!" Lina threw the
fire spell at the stranger, then quickly
followed it with another and then another, until her exhaustion and
lack of food caused her power to fizzle
out as she collasped to her knees, watching as Gourry calmly absorbed
the spells with the Sword of Light, turning it's blade from a pure white
into a dark, pulsing red.
"Of course, Amelia had to go after the chimera," Gourry continued. "She's never been one to actively call me an idiot, but I can tell that she looks down upon me, as well."
"Gourry, why?" Lina asked, trying to rise to her feet but failing utterly as he knees gave out.
"I'm sick and tired of being treated like an inferior, you flat-chested little bitch!" Gourry suddenly snapped, his blue eyes blazing. "You use and abuse me every chance you get, convinced that because I'm not the smartest man around, you can get away with anything. I've suffered enough beatings and abuse at yours and everyone elses hands, Lina. It's time for it to end."
Lina's eyes widened as Gourry began walking forward, and she desperately tried to cast a spell, any spell, but found that she couldn't summon the will to call up a lighting spell, much less the Ragna Blade. This was Gourry, the man she loved, how could she even think about turning such a spell against him.
"GET UP, INVERSE, HE'S THE ONE WHO KILLED ZEL AND AMELIA!" one side screamed, while the other shouted back, "BUT IT'S GOURRY!"
Gourry had reached her and drew his sword back, gazing at her face impassively. For a brief moment, Lina thought that his features wavered, that his blue eyes became an impossible green color and his hair flickered black, but then it was gone, and she was staring at a face she knew so well, and eyes that were foreign to her.
"Good-bye, Lina," Gourry said, and plunged downward with his blade.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Lina screamed, sitting bolt upright in her bed with her comforter clutched to her chest. Sweat poured down her face as she tried to control her breathing, only to scream again as her door burst open and Gourry came running in.
"LINA! WHAT HAPPENED?!" he shouted, running to her bedside, only to get a fist in the face as Lina screeched, "GET AWAY FROM ME!" and scrambled madly to get to the other side of the bed.
"Lina? Lina! What's happened? Is everything all right? What was all that screaming?"
Lina's feet were on the ground, and she was still fighting with her sheets, not hearing the concerned voices as they tried to get her to calm down. She bagan to chant a spell, only to be snapped back into reality as a hand slapped her across the face, and she fell to her knees holding her cheek.
"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" she screamed, then blinked as the sleep fog cleared her head, and she found Rowdy, Gourry, and Meliroon staring at her, Meliroon rubbing her hand. Lina stared around her, taking in the lack of tavern decorations and bodies on the floor, before raising her eyes to meet Gourry's, and sighed in relief as familar summer-blue eyes filled with concern met her own. It was Gourry, not that . . . . whatever it had been that had been in her dreams.
"Lina, what happened?" Gourry asked, kneeling down next to her and placing his hand against her stinging cheek. "Grandma, did you have to hit her so hard?"
"I'm sorry, Lina," Meliroon said as she walked to stand next to Gourry, "but you were about to blow up the house."
"Th-that's all right," Lina said shakily, allowing Gourry to pull her to him, unmindful for once that they had an audience. "It was just a dream."
"What kind of dream causes you to scream like that?" Gourry asked. "You scared me, Grandma and Grandpa, and probably half our neighbors as well."
"It was just a nightmare, Gourry, no cause to get stirred up," Lina said, leaning away from him and putting distance between them.
"Yeah, but. . . " he began, only to be cut off by her saying, "Will you just drop it?"
"It looks like things are back to normal, so we'll head back to bed," Rowdy said, cutting off Meliroon's attempted protest, and pulled her out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
"Lina, what's going on?" Gourry asked as Lina got back to her feet.
"Nothing, Gourry. I just had a nightmare and woke up badly," Lina said testily, not wanting to talk about it.
"Are you sure you woke up at all? My head's still spinning from the punch you threw at me," Gourry said as he walked to the other side of the bed and helped Lina replace the sheets she had torn off in her panic.
"Sorry about that," Lina said absentmindedly as she crawled back
into her bed and laid down, hoping that Gourry would get the hint and leave
her along to her thoughts. She suddenly sat up again so fast
that she gave herself a mild case of whiplash when she felt the blankets
lifted and the other side of the bed dip down as Gourry folded himself
in the bed beside her.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Gourry calmly reached up, snagged Lina's shoulder and dragged her back down until she lay beside him, then anchored her there with his arm around her waist. While Lina was trying to find a way to get him out of her bed without damaging the house too much, he said, "My mother used to do this whenever I had a nightmare. I found that it always helped me to sleep better afterwards because I felt protected."
"Gourry, I'm fine," Lina insisted, her face flushed with embarrassment and her body rigid with anger.
"Relax, Lina, I'm staying. I am your protecter, after all,
not to mention we're going to be married
soon. Besides, Grandpa said we could leave tomorrow to get the
Sword of Light, and we need to be rested," Gourry said as he tightened
his hold a bit on Lina and kissed her lightly on the top of her head.
Lina's thoughts and emotions were in utter chaos. On the one hand she liked having Gourry beside her. He was so large and warm, and it was comforting to feel him next to her after her harrowing experience with the nightmare. On the other hand she vowed that she was going to fireball him if he so much as moved a hand in the wrong direction. But, did she really want to fireball him? They were engaged, after all, and maybe he would think it was all right to take some liberties. And did she really want to fireball him if he did try to take a few liberties? Didn't she want to share everything with him? What if he didn't try anything? Would she be insulted or relieved?
As her thoughts continued to rampage around in circles, she gradually became aware of a new sound in the darkness. With a shock she realized that while she had been debating about what her reaction would be if Gourry tried anything, Gourry had fallen asleep and was snoring lightly. Now Lina couldn't really figure out if she should be insulted that he didn't try anything at all, or be happy that she was engaged to someone who didn't expect anything of her that she wasn't quite ready to give yet.
She rolled onto her side and pillowed her head on Gourry's chest, laying her ear directly over his heartbeat and feelings his chest rise and fall with his deep, even breathing. She smiled slightly in the darkness when she realized that she really was luckier than most. Life with Gourry would never be dull, but it would always feel right and safe. With that thought, Lina closed her eyes and was lulled back to sleep by the sound of Gourry's heartbeat. She didn't have any more dreams that night.
**********
Nick Diolon didn't mind the fact that he was sharing his castle with a Mazoku. Hell, he had invited it, and was looking foward to when they would attack Saillune and the White Magic capital would be underneath his rule. Yet if he were honest with himself, and sometimes he was, he had to admit that the screaming was starting to get to him. Sure, he knew Mazoku needed to eat, and he knew that they survived on the darker, negative emotions of humans. Thus he had to keep Ryo happily fed by providing him with with victims taken from the peasants out on the fields.
What Nick didn't know was that his own twisted personality and dark, greed filled thoughts were more than enough to sustaining several Mazoku put together. Ryo, however, had a taste for the more exotic darker emotions, such as pure terror and the resignation one feels as they come face-to-face with death.
Not to mention he liked to experiment with different methods on prolonging the pain and fear for long amounts of time in order to milk out the last drop of essence the human soul had to offer. His current play thing was a young boy no older than five summers who resembled a small splinter pile from all the pieces of wood Ryo had slid into his skin. The child had stopped screaming, and Ryo could tell from the weakening taste of fear in the air that the boy was close to death. He sighed with regret, sorry that his fun was over for now. Of all the humans, he found the children to be the most tasty when they learned that they weren't immortal and were prone to death. Because they hadn't had a chance to really live a full life and make their own choices, not that there would be any choices under Nick's rule, their sudden discovery of death was always punctuated by a sharp spike of terror, that dulled as time passed and they reached, but Ryo loved the taste of that one single spike. It rivaled anything the humans could even come up with in terms of taste.
With a sigh, Ryo quickly dispatched the now mostly dead child,
walking out into the hallway and leaving his body for the palace maids
to clean up. His eyes narrowed slightly when he saw Nick coming down
the hallway towards him. Usually the ruler of Diolon avoided Ryo's
part of the palace like the plague, but something must have been preying
on his narrow mind for the fool to seek him out. Ryo snorted softly
in disgust, probably more rants about their lack of movement in regards
to Saillune.
"Ryo, when are we going to attack Saillune?! Sources tell me
that Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev are no longer in the city proper,
surely there are enough low-grade Mazoku to join with my army to warrant
an attack now," Nick stated, tension radiating from every pore in his body.
Ryo eyed the human male with contempt, getting tired of Nick's complaints and whining. They would move on Saillune only when Lina Inverse and her companions were well and truly gone from the city. He knew through other, more reliable sources that Lina Inverse and her blond swordsman were gone temporarily, and would be returning to the city proper soon, though no one could give him an accurate guess as to when the pair would be returning because no one had actually seen Lina and Gourry leave the city proper. Ryo, however, had no doubt in regards to who had helped Lina and Gourry leave the city without being seen. Damn that interfering Guardian Ailanthus, if it hadn't been for her, Ryo would have the Sword and no one could oppose him.
"Are you even LISTENING TO ME?!" Nick demanded, his face turning a brilliant shade of red as his temper spiked.
"I am sick of listening to your prattle and complaints," Ryo stated, and before Nick could move Ryo had grabbed him by the neck, Nick's skin starting to smoke from where Ryo touched it. Without any trouble, Ryo dove into Nick's psyche, and began to weave a powerful spell around the Diolon's prince's very soul. When he was finished, he viciously disconnected himself from Nick by flinging him into the wall across from him, before he casually stepped over the unconcious body to look for amusement of some kind. When Nick came to, he would be unable to recall what had happened, nor would he be able to speak or even think without Ryo's manipulating his very being.
"Should have done that to him sooner," Ryo thought to himself as he stepped out of the castle into the open air. He turned his gaze in the direction of Saillune, and smiled an unpleasant smile.
"Soon," he whispered.
---------------------------
Next episode: Gourry gets Lina to tell him about her nightmare,
and preparations for returning to Rowdy and Meliroon's past are completed.
Will the younger Rowdy give Gourry the Sword of Light? And how will
Gourry react to seeing his grandparents so young?