Thank you to all the repeat reviewers who reviewed the last installment: Faith, Moro, Aloria, Lauren, Sharon Toggle, Icka-san, and Mynuet. There are no first-time reviewers to thank this time, sadly.
Slayers is the creation of Hajime Kanzanka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own it; they and a lot of other people do. I'm not making any profit off of this story.
Idylls
+=== A Slayers Fanfic by Ryo Hoshi
4 +===+ Ladonna Dissima
Zelgadiss woke up again as he felt a blanket getting gently wrapped around him. He blushed, knowing that he had been caught sleeping while he was on watch. He could even tell who had caught him...
Lina would have hit him (gently).
Gourry would have just (gently) shaken him awake. Gourry also had a much better grip of the concept of 'gently'; the last time Lina had hit him, Amelia had ended up spending the rest of the day healing Zelgadiss's skull. He was lucky that it was only a minor fracture...
Amelia was the only one who would gently -- and with her, it would be truly gentle, instead of only gentle in the comparative sense -- wrap a blanket around him.
"Good morning, Zelgadiss-san," a soft voice whispered.
"Good morning, Amelia. Are the others up yet?"
"Not yet. I've already started the fire going, so when Lina-san wakes up she can go fishing like she said she would last night... I've got a pot of water hanging over it for coffee or tea, too," she added with a slight smile.
Zelgadiss sighed, but he smiled too. He didn't like being taken care of, really, but... Amelia was so gentle about it, so caring... So loving.
He looked around, to find something else to talk about, and saw that his cape had been hung on a nearby branch to dry. Amelia noticed his gaze, and blushed slightly. "Zelgadiss-san, I hope you don't mind that I..."
Zelgadiss smiled quickly. "It's alright, Amelia. It needs to dry..."
Amelia smiled happily.
Half a day later, Amelia and Zelgadiss entered turned onto the road to their goal. Lina and Gourry had parted company, Lina wanting to look for some local treasure before going to the town. He didn't mind; he got to be alone with Amelia.
It was more of a narrow path than a real road, filled with brush and loose rocks. It was clear that the trail was not often used, and not at all maintained. They stumbled through, Zelgadiss's comparatively slow reaction times and Amelia's occasional clumsiness matching them on the times they fell.
At the end of the trail, Amelia stumbled and took out a bush, revealing the small town.
They could see the people of the town -- really, it was more of a village -- going about their daily business. Every single one of them was human.
Zelgadiss and Amelia ate dinner at the inn. People had stared at Amelia, looking... curious. Zelgadiss felt an unnamable worry nibbling at him. The entire place felt... wrong.
As Zelgadiss looked at his pile of plates carefully, to make sure they were properly stacked, and Amelia settled back in her chair, the innkeeper walked to their table. "Sir, Ma'am, I hope you don't mind but...there's only one room left, and..." The innkeeper stopped, seeing four eyes looking at him intently. "Here's the key..." There was a metallic kind of plop as the key hit the wooden tabletop.
Amelia picked up the key, looking at its tag. Zelgadiss coughed, embarrassed. "It doesn't look like this village would get many visitors..."
The innkeeper smiled and shrugged. "Most of our rooms are getting rented out on a permanent basis. People...don't leave here."
Zelgadiss followed Amelia up the stairs, wondering why people didn't often leave the village.
Zelgadiss found out why the next morning. He woke up, tangled up in his blankets -- he had insisted that Amelia have the bed; even though he was human, she was still a young lady. Her breathing sounded harsh, and he quickly got up.
Amelia was sweating. Her sheets were already soaked, and her skin was hot to the touch. Zelgadiss frowned slightly. The first symptoms of the plague... He shook his head. Amelia was a chimera, and chimeras were not supposed to get the plague.
It didn't change the fact that Amelia was sick with something.
Zelgadiss rushed out of the room and towards the stairs, where he ran straight into the innkeeper.
"She's sick, isn't she?" the innkeeper said, looking mournful.
"How do you know?" Zelgadiss demanded.
"A...mutation of the plague developed here. It only seems to effect chimeras, though we think that the entire village carries it." There was a long pause. "That's why we don't leave here... Didn't you see the signs on the trail?"
"There were signs on the trail?"
The innkeeper frowned. "There should have been."
Then his expression softened. "Go back to your room and look after her. I'll fetch what you'll need -- breakfast, some water and cloths for cooling her..."
Zelgadiss smiled slightly, thankful for the offer of help. "Alright..."
Zelgadiss sat in the chair beside the sickbed. Amelia's condition had worsened during the night. The last of her stones had just melted away during the night as gritty liquid. Now her bed was slowly getting soaked with the blood that seeped through her skin, seeping noticeably faster from where the stones had been embedded in her skin.
As he reached out and touched her chest, his gentle touch causing the skin there to bleed slightly quicker, he could hardly believe that it had only been a week since her fever had started. Afraid, he felt for the gentle rise and fall of her chest to tell him that she was still breathing, with his fingertips sticky with her blood...
And he waited.
The early morning light changed into the light of noon as he waited, hoping to feel her breathe, and he realized that she had died during the night.
Zelgadiss gently pulled the sheet up over her head, covering her body. He would replace signs on the trail, if the villagers hadn't already, in to warn any travelers of the danger, and then...
Then...
He stood on the cliff, watching the sunset. The signs were in place, properly this time. He had nothing left that he had to do...
Nothing...but one last thing?
He looked back at the inn, and smiled slightly. Looking back at the ocean, he stepped forward.
I might just be a carrier for this plague, he though, knowing it was merely rationalization for his actions.
Hope this chapter wasn't disappointing... Comments and complements will encourage me; chocolate serves well as a bribe to my muse.
