As Amelia finished recounting the tragedy, a fragile silence settled over the two.
"So…simple as that," Zelgadis stated softly, his head still cradled in his hands. "All it took was a sword and a cheap, third-rate mage with a sleep spell. No ultimate dark lord, no demon, no being from some other dimension. That's…" He looked up, eyes brimming, "…all…"
"Zelgadis? Are you… are you ok?"
'Of course not…' he wanted to say, but didn't, and instead asked, "What then? What did you and Gourry…"
"Do with her?" He nodded. "We couldn't just leave her there, and yet it didn't seem right either to put her in a coffin and dump her in the ground like some common corpse. I know that's not what she'd have wanted."
He stared at her. "Then...?"
Amelia smiled weakly, trying to keep her own tears back as she remembered actually doing everything she was telling Zelgadis she had done. "Trick I learned from Sylphiel—a preservation spell. I patched up the hole where--" her voice began to crack, and she gave a sniff, "where she was... hit, then put her under the spell—she'll stay just the way she was when she died until the end of time."
Flashback
A man with long golden hair gently carried a corpse into a forest clearing, followed by a small dark-haired girl, both with their heads bowed. The man approached a stone table erected in the center of the clearing and gently laid the corpse—a young woman—on top of it. He stepped back as the young girl at his side approached the table and began reciting an incantation.
End flashback
"We hid her in a copse of pines a few miles south of Neo-Sairaag. I couldn't bear the thought of anyone disturbing Miss Lina's rest, so I put a concealment spell over her, too. It wasn't anything really fancy," the princess confessed, "it's just, when anyone gets too near, they suddenly have this urge to get away. There's--" she coughed again, "there's even a little tombstone." She wiped her eyes of the tears that threatened to spill over.
"Look at me," she stated softly, and turned her gaze back to the ground, "Three years, and I'm still a wreck...
"As for Gourry—he continued on to Sairaag and met up with Sylphiel. They had a funeral for Lina, but I don't know how many people—if any—showed up. The last I heard, they were engaged. I went back to Seyruun, but... it wasn't the same. I'd changed. Daddy held a big parade to welcome me back, and asked me to stay on with him to help rule and prepare for my eventual ascent to the throne. The Father and Daughter for Justice, he called it. But, after seeing someone like Miss Lina struck down so blindly...I guess I lost most of my faith in Justice." She gave a dry laugh, completely void of any mirth. "Believe it or not, I grew up. I ran away in the middle of the night a week after I had returned home, and I haven't been back since."
Gesturing at her new ensemble, she added, "I...I dress like Lina now, mostly I guess so that some part of her lives on, in my memory at least, and maybe I hope some of her strength and courage will extend to me. I roam around, taking out bandit gangs and helping out whenever I can, gathering treasure wherever the opportunity presents itself, you know, the Lina Inverse thing."
Zelgadis smiled sadly. "You always did kind of worship her."
Amelia nodded. "Ever since I met her." She chuckled. "I thought she was the Champion of Justice. Boy was I wrong."
She turned and looked at the distant horizon, onto which a blood red western sun was now setting. "I'm going to have to run if I want to make it to a town before night—Would you like to come? I've got some stolen money burning a hole in my money pouch."
Zelgadis smiled more sincerely; she had the Lina Inverse-attitude down to an art. "Thanks but... I want to see her. For myself. It seems the right thing to do." Who was he kidding, what else could he do?
He turned to leave, headed north to Sairaag, when he heard Amelia calling back to him. "She missed you, Zel."
He halted and turned back to her. "You—you shouldn't have left that last time, she wasn't the same. I--" but she stopped herself and looked down. "You better go, it's quite a journey to Sairaag."
*****
His fault.
"Z-Zelgadis!"
All his fault.
"You come back!"
He should've been there--why had he left?
"I already do that..."
For a cure? What good would it be now, except to make it easier for him to look in a mirror. Who cared about mirrors?! She reflected him...
"I don't get you."
He didn't care about that anymore; everything he'd held dear—allies, friends, loves—they were all gone now. Everything was changed, Gourry, Amelia, Sylphiel, and who knew (or cared) where Xellos was?
He'd come to accept the chaos that was his life with Lina, and now it was gone. He couldn't even have an AB-normal life!
He hadn't said goodbye...thinking back to the last time he saw her, he remembered the last thing he'd done to acknowledge her presence was to brush her away, like she was some pest constantly bothering him.
He hadn't even said goodbye.
He hadn't told her he was sorry.
He hadn't told her... well, it didn't matter now, did it? Anything he'd wanted to say before could be thrown to the wind and blown to the ends of the earth, for all it mattered.
Sairaag was a few week's journey away; Zelgadis made it in a matter of days. Was this curse good for nothing but to hasten his journey to her grave?
As he neared the edge of the old city, he slowed his pace and surveyed his surroundings; he and Lina had trodden this same road years ago, searching for Rezo's laboratory... and Zelgadis's cure...
"I swear, Zel, the things you go through to find that cure, it'll wind up being the death of me!"
The copse loomed ahead, and he halted in his steps, feeling a powerful force emanating from it—Amelia's concealment spell.
Ignoring the gnawing sensation in his gut, he passed through the treeline into the clearing. Inside, it was a different world, appearing untouched by time. Zelgadis wondered in a distant corner of his mind if the preservation spell existed beyond merely Lina's body.
Sunlight spilt in shafts through spaces in the copse's roof, letting just enough light in to guide the chimera's way. He weaved through bushes and saplings, leaving them all untouched by his sword; he would sooner cut down himself than one of the things in Lina's sanctuary.
Ahead, he noticed a clearing of the bushes and took in a breath, preparing himself.
Then, he stopped—his feet would move no further, and he felt his fears resurface. Like something out of a legend, there she was, her prone body laying still, on top of a stone table and wrapped in her own cape. Her red hair spilled down the sides of the table as if it was her own blood, and Zelgadis shivered.
She looked just like she did that night three years prior, so little had she changed. She could have been asleep, but his heightened senses detected no rhythmic rising and falling of her chest. There was no life in this body, and he knew there hadn't been any for some time.
She was gone.
It hit him, she was gone. There was no Lord of Nightmares to send her back, no last minute miracle, no Resurrection spell. She was gone for good. On this plane, he could see her touch her—remember her, but she would never truly be there ever again.
Kneeling on the spot he was rooted to, he felt all the emotion he'd kept bottled up since he'd seen Amelia well up, pressing to be let out.
But no, not yet. He was an expert at keeping true feelings hidden. After he'd found who had done this, then would be the time. He could wait; he was good at waiting.
He'd lost that chance he'd held so firmly in his grasp—now he would be forever trapped in the limbo of "should have said" 's.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. And the prodigal lover returns..." came a voice from the shadows of the branches above Zelgadis. Like a cat, the trickster priest dropped from the upper level of the trees to the ground as the chimera reached for his sword with lightning reflexes.
"Can't I enjoy a single moment without you disturbing me?" he growled through clenched teeth.
The purple-haired man circled Zelgadis, looking him up and down as if sizing him up. "Now, it didn't look to me like you were enjoying this reunion too much—more like a pity party. 'Oh, if only--'" he mocked. "'If only I'd told Lina sooner, then maybe she'd still be ali--"
"Stop it!" an enraged Zelgadis shouted. "You can't possibly understand what it's like to love someone Mazoku!"
Xellos stopped circling Zelgadis and leaned in, inches from his face, wearing a look of rage seldom seen on the demon's features. Then, catching himself, the Mazoku leaned back and plastered his secretive smile back onto his lips. "Perhaps..." he conceded, "But my... feelings... for Lina were as close to love as any of my race have come or will ever come. I have personally guarded this shrine for years, neglecting my orders in favor of watching over this gravesite, waiting for you to finally show up." He held out a hand. "Tell me, my dear Zelgadis, what took you so long?"
The storm which had been brewing in the chimera's eyes slacked off, "W-waiting?" He narrowed his eyes and shifted his gaze beyond Xellos to the sorceress, then back. "Why for me?"
Xellos, in a very un-Xellos manner, threw his head back and laughed, ignoring him.
"I asked you a question!"
Xellos calmed down and stared at him. "And I find it highly amusing that you don't know the answer! Your head must truly be rock through and through." Zelgadis growled and balled his hands into fists, confused. "Fine, Zel, I'll break it down for you." The trickster priest plopped down onto the soft ground and held his hands in front of him. He quickly conjured up an image sphere, as Zelgadis followed suit and sat across from him, peering into the image.
"I'll try to make this as un-sappy as possible; I get sick just explaining this. However, as it is a part of L-sama's plan, I fear I must do my duty and educate you." The image sphere became cloudy for a moment, then cleared to show Lina and Zelgadis, facing off in a room at an inn. "You and Lina are hoveante, commonly called 'soul mates' on this plane. They are two beings, two energies, brought together in countless reincarnations throughout time. Hoveante are constant, unchanging, connected; they are anchors for the threads of existence. L-sama created these 'soul mates' in order that this world might have some stability."
The image clouded over again, now showing him and Lina battling on a lakeshore. "You think it was coincidence that Lina just happened to rob the Dragonfang gang and just happened the Orihalcon statue they just happened to have, leading you right to her? True," he gestured to the image, in which Zelgadis was now applying a monovolt to Lina, "you two got off to a rough start, but it eventually worked out once you realized that working for the man who cursed you was not a good idea." The image sphere darkened, then faded. "You are fated to come together."
Zelgadis grimaced, then stood, speaking softly. "Oh, we are?" he turned from Xellos and walked over to the table. "Well then," his voice rose, "tell me how we're supposed to 'come together' if she's dead!"
The demon stood and faced Zelgadis, smiling. "Yare, yare, Zel, calm yourself. That's because this wasn't supposed to happen."
