Amelia dragged her feet. "I'm tired," she moaned. It was past sunset, and supper had consisted of a meat roll bought from a food vendor's cart several hours ago. Besides, it had been months since she had last spent an entire day walking.
"We would be there already if you hadn't stopped to rescue that kitten stuck in a tree," Zelgadis snapped.
"But the little girl was so upset! It would have been cruel not to help. Besides, it didn't take that long."
"It wouldn't have if they didn't spend the next hour thanking you."
"It was a picnic. Lina-san always said, 'Never turn down a free lunch.'"
"And what about the farmers whose border dispute you had to settle, or that little boy with the scraped knee?"
"I'm a princess of Seyruun. I have a duty to my people."
"I'm just saying that this trip would go a lot faster if you didn't stop to help every single person along the way."
"Look! Isn't that the town ahead?" Amelia pointed, glad to change the subject.
It wasn't the town they were originally aiming for but it did have an inn.
"Two rooms," Zelgadis requested of the innkeeper. When on his own he usually just slept on the ground near the road, but he knew from experience that Amelia preferred inns.
The innkeeper gave his cloaked guest an appraising look. "Alright, sir," he said, "You take the first room at the top of the stairs. Another gentleman is already in there but the bed is big enough for two. The lady can have the other room."
Zel had some misgivings about sharing a bed with a stranger but this was the only inn in town and he certainly couldn't sleep with Amelia.
Amelia was already halfway up the stairs. Zelgadis followed her up and let himself into his room. His bedmate was already fast asleep. Zelgadis removed his cloak and boots and gingerly crawled into bed. Despite the unaccustomed presence of a warm body next to his, he was soon asleep.
Brinkley woke up starving. He'd arrived at the inn before suppertime and fallen asleep immediately. Why had he been so tired? Because this morning the caravan he had been travelling with had been attacked by bandits and he had been fleeing them ever since, having barely escaped with both his money and his life.
Now that he was finally starting to feel safe, his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten since yesterday. It was too late for supper and much too early for breakfast, but maybe there would be something in the kitchen he could snack on. He lit the candle beside his bed on the second try. Curiously, he noticed that another man had taken the other half of the bed while he was asleep. Brinkley held the candle out over the bed to illuminate his bedmate's face.
"MONSTER!"
Brinkley didn't stop running until he was in Seyruun City.
Zelgadis awoke, the word 'monster' still echoing in his ears, to find that his bed was on fire. He quickly put out the flames with a Freeze Arrow. Now the bed was cold and wet as well as charred, and that idiot would probably be back any minute with reinforcements.
Amelia rushed into the room shouting "Halt, monster!" She was barefoot and her hair was rumpled from sleep but her eyes were blazing with righteousness. Then she took in the scene. "Where's the monster?" she asked plaintively.
"That would be me," Zelgadis said. He picked up his cloak and boots and stormed down to the stables.
The stable was actually more comfortable than his bedroom. At least horses wouldn't run screaming at the sight of him. The hay was soft and, if it was prickly, he didn't notice it though his stone skin. Zelgadis went back to sleep.
Burt the stable boy entered the stable at the crack of dawn to check on his charges, as he did every morning. All the horses seemed happy and healthy today. It should be a peaceful morning. Then he came to the open stall at the far end of the barn.
"Ma...ma...ma...Monster!" he screamed and ran to grab the pitchfork.
Zelgadis awoke to find three sharp metal prongs pointed at his face. His eyes traveled up the handle of the pitchfork to the trembling boy at the other end. He growled and got to his feet. Not again!
"D-don't move!" The boy thrust the pitchfork threateningly at Zelgadis.
"Get out of my way," Zel growled, "I have had a really bad night."
He shoved the pitchfork and boy out of his way and stamped out of the stable. The boy ran after him shouting, "Wait! Stop, monster!"
Amelia and Zelgadis reached the common room at the same time, she from upstairs, he from the stable. They stared at each other for a long moment.
"The monster..." she began.
"...is me again," he finished.
She dispelled her fireball.
"Let's get out of here," he said.
They shoved the payment under the innkeeper's door and left. Zelgadis was tempted not to pay for such a miserable night. Amelia insisted.
The sun rose but it couldn't penetrate the darkness of Zelgadis' mood. Amelia cast nervous glances at him from time to time but didn't dare say anything.
Suddenly she placed a hand on his arm. He stopped walking and gave her a puzzled glance. Her gaze was serious as her hand moved slowly toward his face. Zelgadis stared back at her, startled. There was a faint twang.
"You have hay in your hair," she told him, holding up the offending straw.
Amelia yawned. Zelgadis yawned. They kept walking. A minute later Zelgadis yawned, causing Amelia to yawn again.
"Please, can we stop and rest for just a little while? It's so hot!" Amelia begged for the third time.
Zelgadis was about to say no again, but he was tired and hot too. What would it hurt if they sat down for just a few minutes? They were already irreparably behind schedule. "Oh, alright," he grumbled.
"Thank you!" Amelia exclaimed in relief.
She ran off ahead. Zelgadis found her in a pasture just down the road under a shady tree. He eased himself down beside her with a faint groan.
For a while they just sat letting the peace sink into them and the tension drain out.
"Do you see that cloud?" Amelia pointed.
"Mm-hmm"
"Doesn't it look just like a butterfly?"
Zel considered that. "No, it looks more like a sleeping dragon to me. See, there's its leg, and there's its head curled up against its body.
"Hmm," Amelia agreed, "What about that one?" She pointed to another cloud. "What does that one look like to you?"
They were curled up next to each other fast asleep when the bandits found them.
Zelgadis woke up groggy. Sleep spell, he identified instantly. He cautiously cracked his eyes open and looked around as well as he could without revealing that he was awake. His caution was unnecessary. The only other person in the room was Amelia and she was still asleep.
He sat up. He was in a cage that, judging by the thickness of the bars and the powerful anti-magic charms on it, was designed to hold a dragon. Zelgadis smiled sardonically. So they put the monster in a cage. His captors hadn't bothered to restrain him in any other way though, and they had taken nothing except his sword and money pouch. Good. He pulled a complete set of lock picks out of his pocket and got to work.
For such a fortified cage, it had a very simple lock. Picking it took him only a few minutes.
Zelgadis stepped over Amelia's prone body and looked out the grill in the door. There were no guards in sight. How lax. The lock on the door succumbed to his lock picks even more quickly than the cage's lock had. Soon Zelgadis was slipping through the shadows, scouting out the bandit camp.
Many of the hallways were occupied, but he easily put the bandits to sleep with whispered spells. It seemed like fair turnaround. He finally found a door that was guarded, although the guards lounging against the wall were almost asleep even before he cast his spell on them. This should be the treasure room. Bandits were so predictable.
The bandit leader did not look up from his paperwork at the sound of his door opening. They never told you that being a bandit leader involved paperwork. No one had ever warned him about it. He hated paperwork. It always put him in a bad mood for days. That's why he let it pile up until he couldn't avoid it any more. Unfortunately, this was one of his monthly days of torment.
"I'll give you anything you ask for if you'll do this paperwork for me," he half-joked.
Zelgadis had been standing open-mouthed in surprise, but now he quickly pulled his composure together. "I accept. I want you to free me and the girl you found with me."
The bandit leader looked up. That creepy-looking thing his men had brought in this morning was looming over his desk. "Monster!" he shrieked, "Monster! Monster! Monster!"
Zelgadis moved a few steps closer to the cowering bandit in order to loom more impressively. "Do we have a deal?"
"Yes," the bandit leader decided, backing away from his desk and the approaching monster.
Amelia woke up slowly. Why had someone put a sleep spell on her? She had already been sleeping naturally. And why was she lying on stone? The only stone that had been near her when she fell asleep was Zelgadis, and this certainly wasn't him. She tried to rub her eyes but found that her hands were tied. Oh, she had been captured. She sat up. She was in a small, stone-walled room which contained nothing except her, a large empty cage and some rusty manacles over by the wall.
After a lot of wriggling and a small unbinding spell she managed to get her hands free. She quickly untied her feet and went to look out the grill in the door. To her surprise, the door opened at her touch. What sort of captors would tie her up but leave the door unlocked?
There was no one in the hallway.
"Zelgadis-san?" Amelia called hopefully. No answer, or rather no answer from Zelgadis. The bandits came running as soon as they realized that she was out of her cell.
Amelia smiled smugly. She had hoped to find her friend, but her real goal had been to get her captors in one place where she could deal with them all at once.
"Halt, evil-doers," she shouted confidently, "You have kidnapped innocent travelers and now you will have to face the consequences!"
The bandits glanced at each other, each waiting for someone else to make the first move. She was just an unarmed girl, but she was so confident. Surely she must have some secret weapon. They said that Lina the Bandit Killer looked like a small, scrawny girl. This girl didn't fit the rest of the description, but you never knew.
That lasted until the bandits saw that Amelia wasn't using anything worse than verbal attacks. Then they mobbed her. They had her tied up again in seconds.
"How dare you!" Amelia gasped. She launched into an even more passionate justice speech.
"That's the last of it," Zelgadis said. "Your accountant can't even do basic addition and subtraction."
"Hey, I did that accounting!" the bandit leader protested.
Zelgadis shrugged unapologetically. "I've fulfilled my part of the deal. Now return our belongings and set us free."
He swept out of the room, cape flapping behind him and the bandit scuttling at his heels.
"Uh, the treasure room is in there." The bandit leader pointed to the room they had just left.
"Oh." Zelgadis waited while the bandit retrieved the prisoners' weapons and money pouches.
"Tell us more," the one of the bandits mocked. "Tell us how you're gonna punish us with the power of justice."
"Yeah, and repeat that part about the poor innocent merchants. I liked that part," another sniggered, appreciatively watching Amelia's chest bounce in rage.
Zelgadis followed the sounds of Amelia's ranting and the bandits' jeers back toward his cell. He found most of the bandits in the camp, including several that he had earlier put to sleep, clustered around the noisy heroine of justice.
"... and in the name of Justice I, Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun, will punish you!" Amelia concluded as Zelgadis shoved his way through the crowd with the bandit leader in tow.
"Amelia, this is the leader of the bandits. He's agreed to let us go." Zelgadis said.
Amelia's eyes narrowed. "You made a deal with a bandit? Zelgadis-san, an ally of justice never makes deals with villains! An ally of justice crushes evil-doers without mercy!"
"You didn't tell me she was the princess," the bandit leader broke in. Monster or no monster, he was sticking to his principles. "If you want to ransom a princess, you have to pay a princess' ransom."
Zelgadis held up a large, flawless ruby. "Will this be enough?"
The bandit gaped. "That wasn't in your money pouch!"
"No."
The bandit leader quickly recovered from his surprise. "What's to stop me from keeping both the ruby and you?" He instantly regretted the question.
The monster turned slowly and looked him in the eye. "I am offering you ransom because it's less trouble than blowing up your camp and killing all your men. Marginally. Would you prefer that I change my mind?"
The bandit leader stared back. The threat might be empty but somehow he didn't feel like risking it. "Uh...I'll take that ransom."
"Good."
Amelia finished the incantation she had been muttering under her breath. "Fireball!"
The ball of flame floated up from between her bound hands, arched over her head and flew straight at the bandit leader's face. Zelgadis barely got a shield spell up in time.
"Amelia, what do you think you're doing? If that had exploded, it might have brought down the roof on our heads! Besides, he's already agreed to let us go."
Amelia pointed an accusing shoulder at her partner. "Zelgadis-san, I am disappointed in you! This is not the way to treat evildoers! Listen to the voice of Justice in your heart..."
At this moment, the bandit's mage finally appeared on the scene. He had been so caught up in his reading that he hadn't noticed the commotion until now. He shoved his thick glasses up his nose and cast a sleep spell at Amelia.
Zelgadis deflected it and turned to face the newcomer.
"As an Ally of Justice, you should annihilate them with the irresistible might of your righteous fury!"
The sorcerer panicked and threw a flare arrow at the chimera. Zelgadis canceled it out with a precisely calculated freeze arrow.
The bandit leader gulped. Both his prisoners were magic-users? Why hadn't anyone warned him? The other bandits started surreptitiously slipping away to anywhere that was as far away from this mage fight as possible.
Amelia pointed her shoulder straight at Zelgadis and shouted, "An Ally of Justice does not resort to bribes!"
"Freeze Arrow!" cast the skinny, myopic, young mage.
"Flare Arrow," Zelgadis instantly countered. "Let's get out of here, Amelia!"
"As long as he has justice on his side nothing can stand in his way!"
"Flare Arrow!"
"Freeze Arrow. Amelia..."
"He can destroy all obstacles because of the righteous anger in his heart!"
"Freeze Arrow!"
"Flare Arrow. Amelia, are you listening to me?"
Amelia gazed passionately upward at her vision of a true ally of justice. "An ally of justice is unable to endure the sight of wrong doing."
"Flare Arrow!"
"Freeze Arrow. Amelia..." The air chilled noticeably. Zelgadis' temper was adding power to his spells.
"He crushes injustice wherever he finds it just because it is injustice!"
"Freeze Arrow!"
"Flare Arrow! I..." The flames from Zelgadis' flare arrow brushed the bandit-mage's face before dissipating harmlessly. The young mage started to seriously panic. "...am not..."
"He doesn't wait until the villain harms him..."
"Flare Arrow!"
"Freeze Arrow! ...an Ally of Justice! " A thin layer of frost formed on the ceiling
"...because he feels the pain of any innocent victim as if it was his own!"
"Amelia, I am not an Ally of Justice! Will you get that through your head? Flare Arrow!"
The bandit mage had just cast a fireball.
Time seemed to slow as the two spells collided. The flare arrow melted into the fireball. The combined ball of flame, more than twice as large as the original fireball, rippled uneasily. Zelgadis threw himself on top of Amelia.
The fireball exploded.
"I still think we shouldn't have taken the money."
"Think of it as reward money. The reward for getting rid of those bandits was probably at least as much as we took. If Lina had been there, most of the bandit's hoard would now be in her pockets."
After the explosion had ripped apart the bandit camp, Zelgadis had filled his money pouch (and Amelia's too for good measure) with gold, slung the unconscious princess over his shoulder, and left.
"A true ally of justice doesn't take payment for good deeds and, besides, you only defeated the bandits by accident," Amelia muttered sulkily. Being knocked out by several hundred pounds of stone slamming into her at high speed had not improved her mood.
"I told you," Zelgadis growled through clenched teeth, "I am not an ally of justice. I am a mercenary and I like being paid for my work."
As if things weren't miserable enough, it started to rain.
Zelgadis pulled up his hood and stomped off up the road. Amelia more slowly followed him.
Amelia reminded herself that Zelgadis was just like this. For some incomprehensible reason he liked to act like a villain sometimes. He really was an ally of justice. She shouldn't get angry. He was just like this. On the fifteenth repetition she had convinced herself well enough to ask calmly, "Why don't you want to be an ally of justice?"
"Why would I want to be an ally of justice?" Zelgadis retorted. His temper had cooled enough that he could speak almost calmly too. He had at least talked himself out of killing Amelia and had almost talked himself out of sending her back to Seyruun. "From what you've told me, it's a dangerous and thankless job. I may be a heartless, magic-using swordsman but I almost managed to free us without anyone getting hurt. Almost." He scowled.
"They were bandits, Zelgadis-san. You're supposed to hurt them."
"You've been spending too much time around Lina."
Amelia did not deign to answer that.
As the silence stretched out, Zelgadis added, "You talked a lot about 'the irresistible power of justice' back there, but I didn't see you doing much 'crushing with righteous fury'."
"I was tied up," Amelia replied with dignity, glaring emekia lances at her companion's back. She shoved her dripping bangs out of her eyes.
"Then why didn't you untie yourself? If you could cast a fireball, you could have used a smaller fire spell to burn through your bonds, or a wind spell to cut through them or..."
"...Or an unbinding spell like I used to untie myself the first time," Amelia realized. "I...I was so mad that I didn't think of that." She laughed weakly in embarrassment.
Zelgadis reluctantly smiled. "Well, the bandits ended up crushed by 'the blazing fires of Justice' anyway."
"I guess so."
This time their smiles were more sincere.
Amelia started describing how the bandits were afraid of her at first, and then, with a cute scowl, how they tied her up and mocked her. Zelgadis responded by telling her about the bandit leader and his paperwork. By the time the light started to fade, they had almost forgiven each other.
By that time, they were also thoroughly soaked. Zelgadis was about to suggest that they set up camp for the night when Amelia sneezed.
Zelgadis stared at her in mournful resignation. If he asked her to sleep on the ground while she was this cold and wet she would get sick, and then she would be even more trouble to take care of and slow him down even more, if that was possible. Luck was just against him today.
Or maybe not. There was a crossroads ahead and a large inn at the crossroads. With all the gold he had taken from the bandits, they could certainly afford a hot meal and dry beds, even at such a doubtlessly overpriced establishment. It looked like they were saved.
"A cheese makers' convention?" Zelgadis repeated in disbelief.
"Yes, I'm afraid we don't have any free rooms."
Zelgadis gestured toward his shivering companion. "You can see how cold and wet she is. Don't you have anywhere out of the rain for us to stay?"
The innkeeper was a kind-hearted man. "Well...one convention member hasn't arrived yet. I suppose I could give you his room and stick him in with one of the other convention members if he does show up."
"Thank you," Amelia said through chattering teeth.
"It's room seven." He handed them the key. "You two are married, right?"
"Uh, yes. Yes, we are," Zelgadis lied. He grabbed Amelia and dragged her off before she could protest. "Come on, love. Let's get you out of those wet clothes."
"Zelgadis-san!" Amelia exclaimed in shock. He got her into the room and the door closed behind them before she could find adequate words to express her indignation. "I would never have believed that you were the sort of man who would take advantage of an innocent girl like this! Have I put too much trust in friendship? Will I now loose my sweet innocence?"
Zelgadis almost laughed. "You sound just like Lina." Amelia looked ready to Dil Brando him.
Zel held up his hands to ward her off. "I'm not taking advantage of you, I swear. I only said those things so we could get out of the rain. Now will you change into some dry clothes before you catch cold?"
Amelia continued to glare at him suspiciously.
"I'm going to get supper. Shall I bring you back some?" Zelgadis said in the reasonable tone of someone who is trying to make the other person's protests seem irrational by comparison.
Amelia stared at him for a long moment, uncertain of his intentions. "Okay," she said at last.
Zelgadis returned a several minutes later carrying a tray loaded with a large bowl of soup and two buns. Amelia was now sitting on the bed wearing the pajamas intended for the convention member. The shirt reached her knees. The pants were falling off her even though she was sitting down. She watched Zelgadis warily as he put the tray down on the dressing table.
"Here's your soup," Zelgadis stated. "May I have the bottom half of those pajamas?"
"You want me to be half naked? Zelgadis-san, you promised!"
"I am not trying to take advantage of you." Zelgadis managed to keep his tone reasonable although a hint of clenched teeth showed through. "If I don't take these wet clothes off soon, I'll rust. Unless you want me to be completely naked for the rest of the night..."
Amelia quickly wriggled out of the pajama pants.
"Thank you," Zelgadis said with dignity. "I'll go change behind that folding screen, shall I?"
Amelia nodded, also with great dignity, and went to get her soup. She couldn't help smiling as she ravenously gulped down her supper. It looked like he really wasn't trying to take advantage of her. That meant he was going to all this trouble just so that she could sleep in a warm, dry bed. That meant that he was an ally of justice after all!
Behind the screen, Zelgadis peeled off his soaking wet clothes and pulled on the pajamas. He had to roll up the cuffs and tie the pants on with the drawstrings. The drawstrings wrapped all the way around his waist and back to the front again. He looked ridiculous. He was also showing a lot more stone than he was comfortable with, but it was the best he could do. He hung his wet clothes beside Amelia's on the clothes rack Amelia had dragged in front of the fireplace. It wasn't the only change she had made to the room.
"Why are there a pillow and a blanket on the floor?"
"They're for you. I don't want you to be uncomfortable during the night."
"I'm sleeping in the bed."
"But...I'm sleeping in the bed...Forcing a lady to sleep on the floor, that is what I call unchivalrous!"
Zelgadis put on his I'm-being-perfectly-reasonable voice again. "We can both sleep in the bed. It's more than big enough."
"Sleep together? But..." Amelia turned bright pink.
"Not 'sleep together' that way." Zelgadis said disgustedly, trying futilely not to blush.
"There's more than one way?" she asked with horrified curiosity.
Zelgadis studied her face. Could she really be this innocent? "'Sleeping together' is a euphemism. When people 'sleep together' in the sense you mean they do much more than just sleep," he explained, blushing furiously.
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely certain."
"Then what does 'sleeping together' actually mean?"
Zelgadis choked and turned still redder. "Get your father to explain it to you sometime, or, better yet, ask a woman."
Amelia frowned but decided to leave the subject for the moment. When Zelgadis refused to talk about something it was impossible to pry information out of him. But, as far as she knew, he had never lied to her.
"It still doesn't seem proper for us to sleep together, even in a non-euphemistic way."
Zel's rational pose cracked. "I'm just as cold, wet and tired as you are, and I'm the one who got us this room. I refuse to be banished to the floor while you sleep in a bed big enough for a family of seven just to satisfy your sense of propriety!"
Amelia hesitated. When he put it that way, it really didn't seem just to make him sleep on the floor. "Okay, you can sleep in the bed," she conceded reluctantly.
"Thank you." Feeling rather ashamed of his outburst, Zelgadis climbed into his half of the bed.
It was worth every moment of embarrassment. It was as deliciously soft and dry and warm as his wildest fantasies of what a bed could be.
Amelia glanced over at him doubtfully. Then she extinguished the light and tucked herself in. The situation felt very awkward but they were both so tired that they soon fell asleep anyway.
In her dream, Amelia was back at the bandit camp, but this time the bandits cowered away from her just words as she showed them the error of their ways. But wait! One of them was trying to get away! Amelia flew after him. In her dream she didn't need Levitation or Ray Wing; she was uplifted by the force of Justice.
"Halt, villain!" Amelia cried.
"Halt, villain!" Amelia cried.
Zelgadis watched in horror as Amelia confronted Gaav, armed only with words and confidence. She didn't even notice Gaav appearing behind her. Before Zelgadis could scream a warning, in a flash of light, she was flying backwards into the rock wall with a sickening crunch and a faint cry of surprise. Zelgadis was at her side before she hit the ground. Blood poured out of her head and back and even her mouth, forming a pool around her within seconds. Zelgadis poured all the white energy he could gather into her body, knowing as he did that it was far too little for so serious an injury. Her life-force was fading. He couldn't save her.
Zelgadis awoke with a half-vocalized cry of anguish...and saw Amelia's face. She was perfectly alive and smirking in her sleep. He slumped back limply onto his pillow. Like most of his recurring nightmares, the events had actually happened, although not in quite the same order or quite the same way as they had in the dream.
Zelgadis lay awake for many minutes watching Amelia sleep and listening to the soothing sound of her breathing before he was able to fall asleep again.
Author's Note: Have you ever noticed that people rarely run screaming at the sight of Zelgadis in the series? In fact, they rarely react to his unusual appearance much at all. Despite this, he always seems to expect townsfolk to greet him with flaming pitchforks. I wonder how often he gets the "Monster!" reaction when his friends aren't around.
And yes, I think it is possible that Amelia really is that innocent. Her father seems to have taught her a lot about justice but not much about the ordinary facts of life (Can you imagine Prince Phil trying to explain "the birds and the bees"? Scary thought!), and her mother and sister aren't around to sit her down for a woman-to-woman chat. Of course, it's quite possible that she does know, but isn't this more fun?