Thank you, Mynuet, Winged Dancer, Lauren-sama, Moro, Elf, and Kel, for your reviews. Chibi Zel's happily been sharing his cinnamon rolls with his friend: Amelia at what looks to be the age of five. (She just turned up... They're getting along happily.)
Sadly, this chapter hasn't gone at all well in letting me write it. Chibi Zelgadiss is just too damn sweet & kawaii. Whenever I tried to get T-sama to actually work on this chapter, he'd look so sad (and Amelia often does, too, out of sympathy for him) and T-sama...gave in.
Currently, she's cooing at him and Amelia, cuddled up together with my favorite blanket wrapped around them after having given them hot chocolate and cinnamon buns so they'll not cry...
I really wish I could be annoyed at that. But it's so sweet!
Slayers is the creation of Hajime Kanzaka 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
6 +===+ This Endris Night
Zelgadiss ran around excitedly, happy to be allowed to be awake and out of bed so late. Rezo, on the other hand, was much calmer. He spread out the blanket on the rock, and put the basket down on it. "Zelgadiss-chan, come sit down if you want any of the hot chocolate and cinnamon buns," he called out as he sat down beside the basket.
Zelgadiss stopped running around in the cool autumn air and sat down beside Rezo so quickly that it might have reasonably been thought that he had teleported. Smiling angelically, he took the mug of hot chocolate and the cinnamon bun that Rezo handed him and started eating.
Rezo smiled, sensing Zel's excitement. He sipped at his own mug, and waited for the boy to scoot a bit closer before starting to teach him the lore of the stars.
"The seven princesses wasted away, yearning for their dead fianceés. Eventually, they died of grief and were placed, as stars, in the sky." Zelgadiss looked up at the Pleiades, eyes wide and shiny. The story of seven heroic brothers and their beloveds was so romantic.
Zelgadiss had never gotten to actually go stargazing before. Before his parents had died, the woman who had been taking care of him had always put him to bed well before sunset, even during the winter. Then, after they had died and Rezo took him away (though the woman seemed to want to keep him), Zelgadiss had found himself so busy learning new things that he was sound asleep by the time the stars came out.
The night sky was beautiful. Zelgadiss could understand why people told such wonderful stories about it, and why people would want to look at it... He glanced upwards at his guardian's always-closed eyes shyly. "You must really want to see them..."
Rezo's face turned, and he smiled softly. "Yes, Zelgadiss-chan. I want to know what the stars and the moon really look like, and I can't do that except by seeing them with my own eyes. Even those who were blessed with telepathy, even those whose skills are as strong as Chiara's were, can only 'read' another's thoughts and send only words."
Zelgadiss could tell that Rezo was sad, and wanted to cheer him up. "When I grow up, Grandfather, and I'm big and strong, I'll find a cure for you! I promise I will! And then you can see the moon and the stars and everything for yourself!"
Rezo smiled, and pulled Zelgadiss into his lap. "You really do remind me of Chiara sometimes, Zelgadiss-chan. I'm sure you'll grow up to be like your grandmother."
Zel smiled happily and snuggled against his grandfather. It was warm, and he felt safe there as he sipped hot chocolate and watched the stars, fascinated by them. Suddenly, he noticed a bright light shoot across the sky, falling downwards. He sprang up, spilling all the hot chocolate left in his mug all over Rezo and himself in his excitement.
Zelgadiss gasped as he realized what he had just done. "I'm sorry, Grandfather!" he said, expecting to be forgiven and comforted.
Instead, he was slapped so hard his ears rang. He looked up at his grandfather, his blue eyes wide with surprise and confusion, and saw that Rezo's eyes were open and red. They were not red in the usual sense, or even in a human sense. They were a solid, glowing ruby red.
Zelgadiss suddenly felt very, very afraid. Following his instincts, which had served him so well when the woman who had taken care of him before had been in a bad mood, he fled.
Rezo chased after him, yelling and moving faster than Zel. Zelgadiss wasn't surprised, though he wished he had. The woman had always caught him, too.
He prayed that Rezo'd be kinder than the woman was about punishing him for daring to flee. She had always been able to come up with the most painful, humiliating punishments for him...
Zelgadiss wasn't sure how he had managed to get out. He was all alone again, in the unnatural stillness between two windy walls of sand. He didn't really want to remember it, anyway.
He would rather not think about how much he had once loved Rezo, nor the good times they had together when he was little. Remembering that made it too hard to hate Rezo, and it was so much easier to hate Rezo and reject the very idea that Shabranigdo might have been the one truly responsible for his condition. As long as he blamed Rezo, he could keep believing it when he told himself there had to be a cure out there, somewhere.
As long as he kept blaming Rezo, he didn't have to feel guilty about blaming Rezo for what he only did because of Shabranigdo's influence. It was so much easier to do that than to admit that what Lina had said back then was almost certainly true.
At least this place, when it had brought up one of the sweet memories he had of his childhood with Rezo, had warped it. It was sort of a mixed blessing, though. He wasn't sure why, but he found it harder to deny the truth anymore.
With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. He ignored the phantom aches and pains from what Rezo had done to him after catching him in that last nightmare. Maybe everything will be much easier if I try the next wall...
He pushed against it gently. It held for a few seconds before giving suddenly and he found himself falling once more into the unknown.
Hmm... There's not much in the way of notes for this one, but I'll do what I can.
I feel that Zel would have been an idealist when he was younger, somebody who loved fairy tales and believed that they could come true, and when Rezo betrayed him and turned him into a chimera, he turned bitter and cynical towards his former ideals. I see him as having been very close to Rezo, though sometimes traveling on his own to sharpen his skills around the time Rezo transformed him.
At least here, he's always been a cute and very pretty child, quite sweet and rather oblivious to some of the bad things going on around him. At least here, his parents seem to have suffered some misfortune before their untimely death; the woman who was taking care of him when he was very small was not doing it because she was getting paid for it or because she liked Zel. I'm not certain what her plans for him were, if she wanted him for herself or so she could give a (spoiled rotten) daughter a husband of good breeding. Either way, that woman wasn't a nice person.
I refuse to say anything more than I already have about what Rezo did to Zel in the warped memory. I'm quite happy with the current rating, really, and don't want to risk getting into shotacon territory.
Reviews will encourage me to try to get the next chapter out sooner. Dark chocolate also will help, particularly in combination with reviews. Chibi Zel and Ame will be cute for cinnamon buns.
