~Disclaimer: I don't own Slayers, but I DO this version of Grau/Grou/Grau.
Author's notes: THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO REVIEWED!! Seeing as this had as many reviews as Frozen Summer, but considerably less chapters, this is my most popular fic. Needless to say, they were tied for the most reviews. :: Sherra-sama gives the fic a "Most Popular" stamp:: And so I have written another chapter. I hope you enjoy it.
And as for my Slayers fics in general, this one and Frozen Summer are the only two that will be given regular updates at this point, simply because of all the feedback I get. And the fact that they're my two favorite has absolutely nothing to do with it... ^^;
I am so sorry it took so long for me to post this. I had to make sure it was as good as I wanted, then for a while, when I uploaded this onto the site, all my apostrophes and quotation marks (' and ", for those who had no idea what I was talking about... ^^; ) were somehow turned into a series of symbols, like you'd see if there was Japanese writing and your browser didn't support Japanese. Being the perfectionist I am, I refused to post this until it was -perfect-. So enjoy! ^-^
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~
"Ick. What a dump," Kurai said distastefully.
She and Kagami had hatched a plan. They were quite proud of themselves. The news of their plan spread and the lesser servants in Phibrizzo's stronghold had suddenly found themselves little, obscure tasks to do, all of which were as far as physically and astrally possible from the Priestess and General. The two of them were notorious for the high peon-minion-death- toll their plans tended to include. And lesser servants definitely fit into the category of "peon minion".
But, back to the here and now. Kurai had gone to visit our favorite Ancient Dragon/Mazoku halfling and had found his place of dwelling to be a mess, which she was commenting on and not being very tactful about it, to boot.
"If you don't like it, then leave," Valgarv's derisive voice came from the other side of the room, where he was holding baby Garv at arm's length, examining the toddler as though he had found a grossly mutated frog in a pond and was thoroughly disgusted by it.
"Seriously, what happened?" Kurai asked, curiosity clearly written on her face.
"What happened? This happened!" Val turned and held up little Garv for Kurai to see. "I can't take my eyes off him for even a second! He destroyed the Weapons' Room. They're his weapons, and he just goes in there and knocks the goddamn shelves down!"
Kurai found this incredibly amusing, but held her tongue. She had a proposition to make, after all.
Of course, misery loves company. "Lord Hellmaster is a handful, too. I'm afraid to leave Kagami without my assistance for too long..." she trailed off, her tone worried.
"Then get going," Valgarv snapped, waving toward the door. Of course, to do this, he had to partially let go of little Garv and nearly dropped him. Kurai had never seen anyone move as quickly as Val did to catch his master.
She concealed her laughter behind her hand. When Val straightened and glared at her, her face was devoid of expression.
"I have an idea," she began, "Why don't all of us get together and watch the Lords in one place? After all, there is strength in numbers." She kept her tone carefully nonchalant.
"How would that make it better? There'd be five of us to watch five Dark Lords, only we'd be in the same place. I'd rather not." Valgarv didn't like the thought of spending any more time in the presence of the others than he absolutely had to.
"Four Dark Lords, actually; Xelloss dropped Lord Beastmaster off with Lina Inverse so his hands can be free to search. And don't forget that Lord Dynast has two generals, so there'd be five watching four." Kurai smiled at him. Valgarv sweatdropped; he had a feeling that he wouldn't be allowed to say no, on penalty of being ruined. And he couldn't be more right.
~`~`~`~`~`~`
"Lord Dolphin! Please come out of there!!!"
Dolphin had found a hole in the floor and had gone over to investigate it. To her delight, she'd discovered the "hole" to be a fish pond, complete with fish! She had hopped into it, scaring the hell out of the fish. There was a tunnel underwater, and she had followed it to where it opened on the other side of the room. This pond was bigger. It had a waterfall- like fountain in the center, which was gently sending cascading waves of water into the pond.
In fact, the whole palace gave the sense of cascading waves. At each step Sunfish took, ripples of light shimmered out from his booted feet, much like a pebble thrown into a still pond. The walls, ceiling, and the floor all looked like water was being reflected onto it, so long as they weren't touched. Touching any of them resulted in that nifty rippling effect.
With a sigh, Sunfish stepped into the pond, which went up to mid-calf on him. He moved slowly, so as not to frighten the fish, but more so as to not alert Lord Dolphin. She was giggling and splashing and he had a feeling that they would be needing replacement fish before this ordeal was through. When he was a mere meter away from Dolphin, she took notice of him and began to splash at him enthusiastically. Giggling all the while, she seized one of her fish and made to throw it at Sunfish, but the poor animal managed to wriggle out of her grasp just after it left the water and was now swimming away from her as fast as its fins would allow.
"Alright, Lord Dolphin, that's enough." Sunfish grabbed a hold on the giggling child and sloshed out of the pond. This was how Kurai and a scowling Valgarv found him. He paled considerably.
"Well, I see you're having troubles as well, Sunfish." Kurai addressed the Priest-in-training. "I have an idea, and Valgarv agreed with me," here Kurai shot Valgarv a look that clearly said: 'Don't you dare disagree with me', "that we should cooperate on watching our masters. It'll be easier on all of us, don't you agree?"
Wordlessly, Sunfish nodded. He had never been a natural leader......
~`~`~`~`~`~`
"You want us to what?"
"You heard me."
Kurai's voice was firm and authoritive. It worked great against the peon minions. It didn't do a thing to the egoist known as Norst.
"We don't need any help," a cold, flat voice rang across the room. The speaker was Sherra. Being naturally overprotective of her Lord, Sherra treated each and every visitor with suspicion. She was worse now because the Dynast was vulnerable.
Kurai sighed. These two were agreeing with each other. Wonderful. She'd assumed that they'd disagree like they usually do. She'd have to take a different strategy. As much as she loathed doing it, she'd have to appeal to their egos and put herself down just a little. She braced herself for the sickening feeling and said: "I never said that you needed help," Kurai silently noted that they didn't; Dynast was being very cooperative in Sherra's arms, "but we do."
The two Generals of Dynast Grausherra looked taken aback by her statement. A Mazoku putting itself down, even that little bit, could be very painful. Not only that, but she had stroked their egos. This effectively made the two of them feel far above anyone else in the room, save Dynast-sama. Sherra smirked.
Norst mirrored her expression and said, "Well, if you're desperate..."
Kurai winced. She'd never be hearing the end of this.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
Xelloss growled under his breath in frustration. He had found residual strands of the spell that had turned his master along with her brothers and sister into toddlers, but not only was he unable to determine the type of magic, let alone the user, but the trail that was left by a spell from the caster to the target was wiped out. He had hit a dead end.
There was nothing Xelloss hated more than not knowing. He, the Trickster Priest, who prided himself in his hoards of information, was completely and utterly stumped! Not only was it frustrating, but it was--dare he say it?-- embarrassing! He knew that the answer must be there; there is always an answer, but he couldn't find it. He hadn't a clue as to how to find it. Xelloss shook his head. He was getting too worked up, thinking too hard. He decided to take a break for a few hours and begin anew.
After all, it couldn't be as hard as it seemed.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
"Miss Lina, do you even know how to take care of her?" Amelia asked.
"How hard can it be?" Lina shrugged, full of confidence.
The two of them were in their inn room, having a girls' private time. Little Zelas was lying on her stomach on Lina's bed, investigating the quilt work on the blanket with intense interest. She was a toddler, fairly harmless, but with the driving curiosity of any baby. She was a danger to herself. The Lina-tachi, however, was unaware of this; she hadn't had a chance to get into any trouble all day.
They were in for a big surprise.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
It's short, I know, but yeah. Thank you Digi-riven for the one and ONLY suggestion! (Which was put to use in this chapter.) Now all of you readers go and read her fics!! ::end Riven's plug::
I know what I wanna do with this story; I just don't know how to get there. I was serious when I said I need suggestions.
Please review. And if you have any suggestions, drop them at my E-mail box or say them in the review. My address is: sherra@northernfootholds.zzn.com
You know you want to......
Author's notes: THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO REVIEWED!! Seeing as this had as many reviews as Frozen Summer, but considerably less chapters, this is my most popular fic. Needless to say, they were tied for the most reviews. :: Sherra-sama gives the fic a "Most Popular" stamp:: And so I have written another chapter. I hope you enjoy it.
And as for my Slayers fics in general, this one and Frozen Summer are the only two that will be given regular updates at this point, simply because of all the feedback I get. And the fact that they're my two favorite has absolutely nothing to do with it... ^^;
I am so sorry it took so long for me to post this. I had to make sure it was as good as I wanted, then for a while, when I uploaded this onto the site, all my apostrophes and quotation marks (' and ", for those who had no idea what I was talking about... ^^; ) were somehow turned into a series of symbols, like you'd see if there was Japanese writing and your browser didn't support Japanese. Being the perfectionist I am, I refused to post this until it was -perfect-. So enjoy! ^-^
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~
"Ick. What a dump," Kurai said distastefully.
She and Kagami had hatched a plan. They were quite proud of themselves. The news of their plan spread and the lesser servants in Phibrizzo's stronghold had suddenly found themselves little, obscure tasks to do, all of which were as far as physically and astrally possible from the Priestess and General. The two of them were notorious for the high peon-minion-death- toll their plans tended to include. And lesser servants definitely fit into the category of "peon minion".
But, back to the here and now. Kurai had gone to visit our favorite Ancient Dragon/Mazoku halfling and had found his place of dwelling to be a mess, which she was commenting on and not being very tactful about it, to boot.
"If you don't like it, then leave," Valgarv's derisive voice came from the other side of the room, where he was holding baby Garv at arm's length, examining the toddler as though he had found a grossly mutated frog in a pond and was thoroughly disgusted by it.
"Seriously, what happened?" Kurai asked, curiosity clearly written on her face.
"What happened? This happened!" Val turned and held up little Garv for Kurai to see. "I can't take my eyes off him for even a second! He destroyed the Weapons' Room. They're his weapons, and he just goes in there and knocks the goddamn shelves down!"
Kurai found this incredibly amusing, but held her tongue. She had a proposition to make, after all.
Of course, misery loves company. "Lord Hellmaster is a handful, too. I'm afraid to leave Kagami without my assistance for too long..." she trailed off, her tone worried.
"Then get going," Valgarv snapped, waving toward the door. Of course, to do this, he had to partially let go of little Garv and nearly dropped him. Kurai had never seen anyone move as quickly as Val did to catch his master.
She concealed her laughter behind her hand. When Val straightened and glared at her, her face was devoid of expression.
"I have an idea," she began, "Why don't all of us get together and watch the Lords in one place? After all, there is strength in numbers." She kept her tone carefully nonchalant.
"How would that make it better? There'd be five of us to watch five Dark Lords, only we'd be in the same place. I'd rather not." Valgarv didn't like the thought of spending any more time in the presence of the others than he absolutely had to.
"Four Dark Lords, actually; Xelloss dropped Lord Beastmaster off with Lina Inverse so his hands can be free to search. And don't forget that Lord Dynast has two generals, so there'd be five watching four." Kurai smiled at him. Valgarv sweatdropped; he had a feeling that he wouldn't be allowed to say no, on penalty of being ruined. And he couldn't be more right.
~`~`~`~`~`~`
"Lord Dolphin! Please come out of there!!!"
Dolphin had found a hole in the floor and had gone over to investigate it. To her delight, she'd discovered the "hole" to be a fish pond, complete with fish! She had hopped into it, scaring the hell out of the fish. There was a tunnel underwater, and she had followed it to where it opened on the other side of the room. This pond was bigger. It had a waterfall- like fountain in the center, which was gently sending cascading waves of water into the pond.
In fact, the whole palace gave the sense of cascading waves. At each step Sunfish took, ripples of light shimmered out from his booted feet, much like a pebble thrown into a still pond. The walls, ceiling, and the floor all looked like water was being reflected onto it, so long as they weren't touched. Touching any of them resulted in that nifty rippling effect.
With a sigh, Sunfish stepped into the pond, which went up to mid-calf on him. He moved slowly, so as not to frighten the fish, but more so as to not alert Lord Dolphin. She was giggling and splashing and he had a feeling that they would be needing replacement fish before this ordeal was through. When he was a mere meter away from Dolphin, she took notice of him and began to splash at him enthusiastically. Giggling all the while, she seized one of her fish and made to throw it at Sunfish, but the poor animal managed to wriggle out of her grasp just after it left the water and was now swimming away from her as fast as its fins would allow.
"Alright, Lord Dolphin, that's enough." Sunfish grabbed a hold on the giggling child and sloshed out of the pond. This was how Kurai and a scowling Valgarv found him. He paled considerably.
"Well, I see you're having troubles as well, Sunfish." Kurai addressed the Priest-in-training. "I have an idea, and Valgarv agreed with me," here Kurai shot Valgarv a look that clearly said: 'Don't you dare disagree with me', "that we should cooperate on watching our masters. It'll be easier on all of us, don't you agree?"
Wordlessly, Sunfish nodded. He had never been a natural leader......
~`~`~`~`~`~`
"You want us to what?"
"You heard me."
Kurai's voice was firm and authoritive. It worked great against the peon minions. It didn't do a thing to the egoist known as Norst.
"We don't need any help," a cold, flat voice rang across the room. The speaker was Sherra. Being naturally overprotective of her Lord, Sherra treated each and every visitor with suspicion. She was worse now because the Dynast was vulnerable.
Kurai sighed. These two were agreeing with each other. Wonderful. She'd assumed that they'd disagree like they usually do. She'd have to take a different strategy. As much as she loathed doing it, she'd have to appeal to their egos and put herself down just a little. She braced herself for the sickening feeling and said: "I never said that you needed help," Kurai silently noted that they didn't; Dynast was being very cooperative in Sherra's arms, "but we do."
The two Generals of Dynast Grausherra looked taken aback by her statement. A Mazoku putting itself down, even that little bit, could be very painful. Not only that, but she had stroked their egos. This effectively made the two of them feel far above anyone else in the room, save Dynast-sama. Sherra smirked.
Norst mirrored her expression and said, "Well, if you're desperate..."
Kurai winced. She'd never be hearing the end of this.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
Xelloss growled under his breath in frustration. He had found residual strands of the spell that had turned his master along with her brothers and sister into toddlers, but not only was he unable to determine the type of magic, let alone the user, but the trail that was left by a spell from the caster to the target was wiped out. He had hit a dead end.
There was nothing Xelloss hated more than not knowing. He, the Trickster Priest, who prided himself in his hoards of information, was completely and utterly stumped! Not only was it frustrating, but it was--dare he say it?-- embarrassing! He knew that the answer must be there; there is always an answer, but he couldn't find it. He hadn't a clue as to how to find it. Xelloss shook his head. He was getting too worked up, thinking too hard. He decided to take a break for a few hours and begin anew.
After all, it couldn't be as hard as it seemed.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
"Miss Lina, do you even know how to take care of her?" Amelia asked.
"How hard can it be?" Lina shrugged, full of confidence.
The two of them were in their inn room, having a girls' private time. Little Zelas was lying on her stomach on Lina's bed, investigating the quilt work on the blanket with intense interest. She was a toddler, fairly harmless, but with the driving curiosity of any baby. She was a danger to herself. The Lina-tachi, however, was unaware of this; she hadn't had a chance to get into any trouble all day.
They were in for a big surprise.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
It's short, I know, but yeah. Thank you Digi-riven for the one and ONLY suggestion! (Which was put to use in this chapter.) Now all of you readers go and read her fics!! ::end Riven's plug::
I know what I wanna do with this story; I just don't know how to get there. I was serious when I said I need suggestions.
Please review. And if you have any suggestions, drop them at my E-mail box or say them in the review. My address is: sherra@northernfootholds.zzn.com
You know you want to......
