"Where's Zelgadis-san?" Amelia asked, looking around the half-crowded inn as she and Sylphiel joined Gourry at one of the larger dining tables. Gourry was already steadily munching his way through a platter of roast meat; Irik, not even looking up from his book, absent-mindedly picked at a salad.

            "(gulp) Went into town for a little fresh air and I think he wanted to look for a blacksmith for his sword," Gourry told them before diving back into his supper. He didn't notice the amazed looks Amelia and Sylphiel gave him. Gourry remembered something!

            "You weren't kidding when you said peaceful living was making his memory improve," whispered Amelia.

            "Yes…but…um…it's never quite been this good."

            Irik ignored them all. Gourry ate more.

            "Um…guys…" They all looked up at the chimera who had just arrived.

            "Zelgadis-san!"

            "Yo, Zeligasad."

            "…" As usual, Irik ignored them.

            "Er…Lina's here."

            There was a second of pure silence. And then Gourry spit out the mouthful of meat he had been chewing. "WHAT?!"

            Amelia and Sylphiel were staring as well. Before Zel could say anything, Lina entered the inn, and all three of them gaped. Lina had changed her pajama bottoms for dark navy-blue breeches that clung to the shape of her legs, and had also put on a belt, but aside from that she was as Zel had seen her in the townhouse – that is, quite startling to those who had known her before.

            "You guys look like you've seen a ghost or something," was her typically ungushy greeting to the group at large.
            They continue to gape, as mute as fish.

            Zel wondered what they would do if they saw who Lina was with. He had his chance to see when they entered the inn, and stood just behind Lina, scowling nervously at the group.

            He wondered if the sheer shock on his face had been as evident as the looks on Gourry, Sylphiel and Amelia. They stared, eyes round as saucers, and about the same size, at the two little boys hiding behind Lina's legs.

            They seemed young, perhaps six or seven years of age. They had red hair that glinted with highlights of gold when the light caught them, and large ruby-red eyes. They had small, pointed faces with almost elfin features, rounded and smooth with baby fat. They had slender, slight frames, and seemed short for their supposed ages.

In short, they looked like younger male versions of Lina Inverse herself. Furthermore, they were identical to each other, right down to the color of the headbands wrapped around their fiery heads in a rather vain attempt to give the tousled hair some semblance of order and in their twin scowls at the group.

            "These are my sons," Lina said in a perfectly level, even slightly proud, tone of voice. "This is Kieros, my firstborn," she laid a hand on the boy on the right, "And this is Daylen, born two minutes after Kieros." She laid her other one on the boy on the left.

            "…" was the mass consensus.

            Irik finally looked up from his tome. "Ah, Lina. There you are."

            Lina's response, surprisingly, was to roll her eyes. "Uncle Irik."

            Zel was seriously considering facevaulting. Were surprising revelations about Lina going to start popping up all the time?