Slayers Resurrection
Disclaimer: Don't own Slayers, never have, never will (But the rest is mine!!), and I'm not making no money! Believe me!.
Chapter Five
Fiona Elizabeth Drygoon
Sunlight flickered softly through the open window. It blurred the sharp edges of the curtains; fell on the red carnations that cheerfully looked at the ceiling from the bedside table. It sparkled and shone through the hair of the blonde girl who was lying asleep on the bed, her breathing gentle, her mouth partly open, her features relaxed into a child-like innocence, much different from when she had arrived in this room, her face pulled by stress and strain. And maybe because of the sunlight, she blinked open her eyes, yawned and looked around.
Panic hit her like a punch to the gut as she realized she didn't know where she was. She looked around quickly, her eyes darting from side to side, until at last they fell upon the boy lying in the bed. His mouth was open, too, but his breathing was ragged, and came in gasps. His blond hair, which he had dyed blue in the beginning of the year was pushed away from his face. His nose was bent unnaturally, and little traces of dried blood still clung to it, like the blood that was all over the hospital gown he wore beneath the covers. Sweat glistened on his forehead and neck, and she could see the effort he was putting into simply staying alive.
Fiona sighed heavily. It wasn't fair that such a beautiful, wonderful young man would be forced into such pain. She felt resentment well up in her again, resentment against Melina Rivers, who had put him in this state, resentment against the doctors for not doing enough quickly enough, resentment against the world in general. But she felt it drain away as soon as it began to make itself known.
It was hard to feel resentment in his presence.
Valerie Michael Garth
Val blinked. Sun was shining in his eyes, and he tried to bring a hand up to shield them, but his hands were so heavy-so heavy. He moaned with the effort it took just to lift them. It sent little tingling feelings of pain all down his arms. Slowly, he became aware of a dull ache all along his body. His lungs hurt, his legs hurt, his shoulders hurt, his face hurt. He tried to sit up to look at his wounds, but even as he tried a gentle hand pushed him down.
"Don't move, you could make it worse."
He remembered that voice. That voice was familiar to him. Swallowing to wet his dry throat, he gasped, "Make what worse?"
A shadow came across the window, and then he could see her clearly. Golden hair was mussed around her face, it looked as if she had pulled it back in a hurry. Dark circles lined her eyes, but they were bright and blue and smiled down at him like the pictures of Santa Clause. She was smiling, along with her eyes, and he was struck at once with what a good-looking lady it was.
"You're hurt."
He could hear real concern in her voice. He blinked again her concern confused him. "So?" His own tone disgusted him. She looked like she had been caring for him, and how did he treat her? But he couldn't take back the words, and so he watched for their effect on her.
She recoiled, as if she had been smacked. Instead of meeting his eyes, hers slid down to the ground, where she stared at her shoes. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize-I'll go." She spun around and headed for the door.
"Wait!"
She turned, and a faint hope shone in her eyes. "Yes?"
"What's your name?"
She smiled, a sad little smile. "Fiona."
And then she was gone.
Melina Callie Rivers/Lina Inverse
"NOOO!" Lina sat up, drenched in sweat, her breath coming fast and hard. Fear turned deep in her gut, fear of something she couldn't name, something she couldn't fathom, and though her dream was over, she still trembled with it. She stared blankly at the wall in front of her, letting her breath slow, letting her tense muscles relax, letting the sweat cool on her face. Only then did she realize that she had never seen the wall before in her life.
A fresh wave of panic threatened to overwhelm her. Quickly, she looked around, taking in the yellow ceiling, degraded, cheap furniture, and the overall sloppiness. Not until her eyes rested on the many-times-used track jacket did she remember. That man. The-man who had saved her. The men who had chased her. The fight. How she had run. And-and why she had been running.
"Damn you, Xellos" Lina whispered, then paused. She did think of herself as 'Lina' now. She closed her eyes and buried them in her hands, then said, softly, "It didn't happen. None of it happened. It's just my imagination. Just my imagination."
The desire to lie there in self delusion was almost overwhelming.
But-no, she couldn't do that. She was Lina Inverse, the greatest sorceress of all time. She was Mel Rivers. She wouldn't do that. So, slowly, she began to go over exactly what Xellos had told her.
Eric Zelgadis Grey
Zel became aware slowly, of his ceiling, his room, the soft whir of his computer, of the weight of his blankets. He sat up gently, stretching, yawning. He was on school break, he thought. Mel would probably want to go see a movie or something today.
No, he thought, a faint sorrow beginning tingle along the edges of his existence, Mel wouldn't want anything. Mel was gone.
With a harsh gasp, he pushed himself back under the covers. No, it wasn't true. Now he'd just wake up for real, and this nightmare would be over. Nothing happened, except the faint turning in his stomach that he always felt when he was very sad. The sadness came from loneliness.
Sighing, he got out of bed, and grabbed a shirt with a picture of his favorite band, Darkest Reflection, on the pack. He was about to pull it over his head, when he noticed a weird rash, which resembled acne, covering his stomach. They usually occurred in pairs, but the pairs were spread out, and covered his entire stomach. Frowning, he stripped, and checked the rest of his body. They were on his arms, his legs, his bottom. He touched one, then another, his fingers finding them all too quickly. Panic started to fill him. He ran to the bathroom he shared with his godfather.
They were there. Just as they had been on his body, there were on his face. Zel leaped back from the mirror, terrified. He knew the places on his skin. He knew them all to well, and the implications scared him more than he could say.
Gorden Ken
Gordon blinked at the sound of soft, padded feet, and he looked up from the pancakes that were sizzling and bubbling on his griddle. His face broke into a smile as he saw the girl standing there, swallowed by his overlarge clothes. They had been big on him, but on her they were absolutely enormous. She looked rather ridiculous, what with her short red hair, childlike brown eyes, and small features, and this huge, knee length fighting-jellyfish tee-shirt. She frowned at him, at his amusement, and the frown looked so out of place on her face that he burst out laughing.
To his surprise, so did she.
He felt the laughter bubbling up within him, bursting from his mouth, heard hers mixing with his, and he laughed harder. It had been a long time since he had had someone to laugh with. But their mutual laughter was cut short by a faint hissing, accompanied by an almost burnt smell. Quickly, Gordon reached down and flipped the pancakes onto plates, and managed to balance the plates, syrup, two glasses of milk, and a dish filled with soft butter to the table. She had beaten him there.
He grinned as he set everything down, then, when he had his mouth free (he had been carrying one of the glasses of milk in it), he said "Hey."
"Good morning." She smiled happily up at him as she spread butter over her pancakes.
He did the same, then poured syrup over his. He wanted to ask her a million questions, and he would, but they all seemed so intrusive. And she wasn't helping any. She was going at his pancakes with quite an appetite, he thought with a mixture of jealousy and amusement, but she wasn't trying to further their conversation. At all.
Finally it got to be too much. He needed to know some things about her, anything was better than nothing. Throwing caution to the winds, as far as manners went, he said, "Just who are you?"
She stared down at her pancakes. Could it be she was a little embarrassed about this? "Don't worry, you can tell me", he said quickly, not wanting her to be ashamed.
Still, she looked at her plate. He was confused. All he wanted was a name! It shouldn't be too hard for her to tell him a name! Finally, she spoke, though she didn't lift her eyes. "My name is Melina Ri-" she started to continue, but then thought better of it, "just Melina. You can call me Me- Lina."
"What? Isn't Melina your name?"
"Call me Lina."
"Lina" Gordon said, rolling the word around in his mouth. "Lina. Lina." He considered for a moment, before deciding. "I like it."
Lina looked up at him, and a grin slowly spread across her face.
Sabrina Grace Kyria
"Val!" The pale, sickly young man lying that was being enveloped, it seemed, by the alarming over-witness of the hospital bed grinned up at her, and Sabrina felt a worry relieve itself from her heart. "Val! It's so good to see you!" In a rush, she was beside him, his hand firmly clutched in hers, and then they were embracing like long lost friends. When they broke apart at last, Sabrina sat back on her heels, and looked up at him.
"How have you been?" they asked each other in unison, then burst out laughing.
When their laughter had subsided, she titled her head to the side, looking at the young man who had been one of her best friends since they started going to the same dance class, three years ago. He had listened to her through the hardest periods of her life, when her grandfather died, when Phib's change from the darling boy he had been to a monster became apparent, when she first realized she was in love with Gab, the day that Fiona had started going out with him. He had held her when she cried, he had been the sympathetic ear she could turn to. Even Fiona, her best friend, didn't know how much Val meant to her. It was odd, watching him here, looking so ill.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and she realized he must have seen something in her eyes. He knew how to read her after all, after three years. She smiled, almost sadly.
"Nothing. But tell me" her face brightened, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, "how have you been?"
"Fine." He made a face, "the food's terrible, the bed is like a rock, and my pillow is flat, and most of the time they're sticking me with needles, but other than that, sure, I'm fine."
She grinned at him now, and realized just how much she had missed him. Becoming aware of the ache in her knees, she stood up. "So", he said, his eyes still locked on her, "how've you been? How's Phib? How's Gabi?"
"Well", she sighed, "I'm fine. But Phib disappeared again last night, after the ambulance came for you. Mom and Dad were distraught. They couldn't find him anywhere. It took half an hour just to convince them to come home. When we got there, Mom was in tears. Dad started to drink again. But Phib finally showed up around one in the morning. They tried to yell at him, but he just told them that if they didn't shut up he'd leave them forever. He meant it. Oh, Val, what happened to him? He used to be so sweet, so perfect, what happened? I mean, I know you never knew him when he was an angel, but" she smiled at the window, her face lit up with memory, "he was wonderful. When Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer, he helped me, he hugged me, and he convinced me everything would be okay. Then he went to middle school, and I went to High School, and he changed so much. I just don't know what to do about him."
"Hey, Sabrina, it's going to be okay." She turned to see Val, looking at her earnestly, "It's going to be okay. It's just a phase. He'll go back to normal. You'll see. Remember what Mr. Scarlet said?" she shook her head, biting her lower lip to hold back tears. "He said everyone goes through a phase like this. Don't worry" he said, his voice passionate "it'll all be okay."
She ran to him then, threw her arms around him and cried, thinking of the terrifying person that lived in her brothers body. She had never been so frightened of anyone in her entire life. All she wanted was a little reassurance that it would all be okay, and somehow Val's words didn't help her at all.
Minutes later, she wiped her eyes and broke their embrace. "Thanks, Val, thank you so much. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"No problem."
Suddenly, Sabrina remembered why she had come here in the first place. "So, has anyone else come to see you today?"
"Yeah, this weirdo girl that spent the night in my room, I think. She looked a lot like Malgasia Drygoon, you know the goalie on your soccer team. I think she might have been his sister. Do you know her?"
"Yes, she's my best friend in the whole world. Her name's Fiona."
"Oh."
A comfortable silence settled between them. Sabrina was trying to think up a way to continue the conversation about Fiona, and was torn between the desire to help her friend and to keep Val to her self. No! She didn't want to keep him to herself! That was the Phib in her talking! Finally, as the silence was starting to get on her nerves, she started to babble about Fiona.
"Val, you'd really like her, she's really nice, she's a dear! Even though she looks like she might be a real snob on the outside, she's kind, and wonderful, and so well brought up! She drinks tea with her little finger sticking out! And she's totally not a snob, she'll talk to anyone and she's so good to everyone! She helps out in the homeless shelter three days a week! Val, she's really nice, and-and you should meet her!"
He looked up at her and Sabrina felt herself blushing furiously, aware that she had just made a complete fool of herself. "Okay, we can all go see a movie or something when I get out of the hospital." Sabrina sighed. He was so good at salvaging situations that she had bungled. She smiled at him and was about to agree when he continued. "Now, how 'bout lunch?"
A.N. Okay, how do you like the new format? I like it. Um . . tell me if it breaks up the story too much, okay? Um . . this wasn't really a plot mover chapter, sorry, but I wanted to introduce some things. Next chapter, things will happen. Be happy. Peace is love.
~Divine Firefly
Disclaimer: Don't own Slayers, never have, never will (But the rest is mine!!), and I'm not making no money! Believe me!.
Chapter Five
Fiona Elizabeth Drygoon
Sunlight flickered softly through the open window. It blurred the sharp edges of the curtains; fell on the red carnations that cheerfully looked at the ceiling from the bedside table. It sparkled and shone through the hair of the blonde girl who was lying asleep on the bed, her breathing gentle, her mouth partly open, her features relaxed into a child-like innocence, much different from when she had arrived in this room, her face pulled by stress and strain. And maybe because of the sunlight, she blinked open her eyes, yawned and looked around.
Panic hit her like a punch to the gut as she realized she didn't know where she was. She looked around quickly, her eyes darting from side to side, until at last they fell upon the boy lying in the bed. His mouth was open, too, but his breathing was ragged, and came in gasps. His blond hair, which he had dyed blue in the beginning of the year was pushed away from his face. His nose was bent unnaturally, and little traces of dried blood still clung to it, like the blood that was all over the hospital gown he wore beneath the covers. Sweat glistened on his forehead and neck, and she could see the effort he was putting into simply staying alive.
Fiona sighed heavily. It wasn't fair that such a beautiful, wonderful young man would be forced into such pain. She felt resentment well up in her again, resentment against Melina Rivers, who had put him in this state, resentment against the doctors for not doing enough quickly enough, resentment against the world in general. But she felt it drain away as soon as it began to make itself known.
It was hard to feel resentment in his presence.
Valerie Michael Garth
Val blinked. Sun was shining in his eyes, and he tried to bring a hand up to shield them, but his hands were so heavy-so heavy. He moaned with the effort it took just to lift them. It sent little tingling feelings of pain all down his arms. Slowly, he became aware of a dull ache all along his body. His lungs hurt, his legs hurt, his shoulders hurt, his face hurt. He tried to sit up to look at his wounds, but even as he tried a gentle hand pushed him down.
"Don't move, you could make it worse."
He remembered that voice. That voice was familiar to him. Swallowing to wet his dry throat, he gasped, "Make what worse?"
A shadow came across the window, and then he could see her clearly. Golden hair was mussed around her face, it looked as if she had pulled it back in a hurry. Dark circles lined her eyes, but they were bright and blue and smiled down at him like the pictures of Santa Clause. She was smiling, along with her eyes, and he was struck at once with what a good-looking lady it was.
"You're hurt."
He could hear real concern in her voice. He blinked again her concern confused him. "So?" His own tone disgusted him. She looked like she had been caring for him, and how did he treat her? But he couldn't take back the words, and so he watched for their effect on her.
She recoiled, as if she had been smacked. Instead of meeting his eyes, hers slid down to the ground, where she stared at her shoes. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize-I'll go." She spun around and headed for the door.
"Wait!"
She turned, and a faint hope shone in her eyes. "Yes?"
"What's your name?"
She smiled, a sad little smile. "Fiona."
And then she was gone.
Melina Callie Rivers/Lina Inverse
"NOOO!" Lina sat up, drenched in sweat, her breath coming fast and hard. Fear turned deep in her gut, fear of something she couldn't name, something she couldn't fathom, and though her dream was over, she still trembled with it. She stared blankly at the wall in front of her, letting her breath slow, letting her tense muscles relax, letting the sweat cool on her face. Only then did she realize that she had never seen the wall before in her life.
A fresh wave of panic threatened to overwhelm her. Quickly, she looked around, taking in the yellow ceiling, degraded, cheap furniture, and the overall sloppiness. Not until her eyes rested on the many-times-used track jacket did she remember. That man. The-man who had saved her. The men who had chased her. The fight. How she had run. And-and why she had been running.
"Damn you, Xellos" Lina whispered, then paused. She did think of herself as 'Lina' now. She closed her eyes and buried them in her hands, then said, softly, "It didn't happen. None of it happened. It's just my imagination. Just my imagination."
The desire to lie there in self delusion was almost overwhelming.
But-no, she couldn't do that. She was Lina Inverse, the greatest sorceress of all time. She was Mel Rivers. She wouldn't do that. So, slowly, she began to go over exactly what Xellos had told her.
Eric Zelgadis Grey
Zel became aware slowly, of his ceiling, his room, the soft whir of his computer, of the weight of his blankets. He sat up gently, stretching, yawning. He was on school break, he thought. Mel would probably want to go see a movie or something today.
No, he thought, a faint sorrow beginning tingle along the edges of his existence, Mel wouldn't want anything. Mel was gone.
With a harsh gasp, he pushed himself back under the covers. No, it wasn't true. Now he'd just wake up for real, and this nightmare would be over. Nothing happened, except the faint turning in his stomach that he always felt when he was very sad. The sadness came from loneliness.
Sighing, he got out of bed, and grabbed a shirt with a picture of his favorite band, Darkest Reflection, on the pack. He was about to pull it over his head, when he noticed a weird rash, which resembled acne, covering his stomach. They usually occurred in pairs, but the pairs were spread out, and covered his entire stomach. Frowning, he stripped, and checked the rest of his body. They were on his arms, his legs, his bottom. He touched one, then another, his fingers finding them all too quickly. Panic started to fill him. He ran to the bathroom he shared with his godfather.
They were there. Just as they had been on his body, there were on his face. Zel leaped back from the mirror, terrified. He knew the places on his skin. He knew them all to well, and the implications scared him more than he could say.
Gorden Ken
Gordon blinked at the sound of soft, padded feet, and he looked up from the pancakes that were sizzling and bubbling on his griddle. His face broke into a smile as he saw the girl standing there, swallowed by his overlarge clothes. They had been big on him, but on her they were absolutely enormous. She looked rather ridiculous, what with her short red hair, childlike brown eyes, and small features, and this huge, knee length fighting-jellyfish tee-shirt. She frowned at him, at his amusement, and the frown looked so out of place on her face that he burst out laughing.
To his surprise, so did she.
He felt the laughter bubbling up within him, bursting from his mouth, heard hers mixing with his, and he laughed harder. It had been a long time since he had had someone to laugh with. But their mutual laughter was cut short by a faint hissing, accompanied by an almost burnt smell. Quickly, Gordon reached down and flipped the pancakes onto plates, and managed to balance the plates, syrup, two glasses of milk, and a dish filled with soft butter to the table. She had beaten him there.
He grinned as he set everything down, then, when he had his mouth free (he had been carrying one of the glasses of milk in it), he said "Hey."
"Good morning." She smiled happily up at him as she spread butter over her pancakes.
He did the same, then poured syrup over his. He wanted to ask her a million questions, and he would, but they all seemed so intrusive. And she wasn't helping any. She was going at his pancakes with quite an appetite, he thought with a mixture of jealousy and amusement, but she wasn't trying to further their conversation. At all.
Finally it got to be too much. He needed to know some things about her, anything was better than nothing. Throwing caution to the winds, as far as manners went, he said, "Just who are you?"
She stared down at her pancakes. Could it be she was a little embarrassed about this? "Don't worry, you can tell me", he said quickly, not wanting her to be ashamed.
Still, she looked at her plate. He was confused. All he wanted was a name! It shouldn't be too hard for her to tell him a name! Finally, she spoke, though she didn't lift her eyes. "My name is Melina Ri-" she started to continue, but then thought better of it, "just Melina. You can call me Me- Lina."
"What? Isn't Melina your name?"
"Call me Lina."
"Lina" Gordon said, rolling the word around in his mouth. "Lina. Lina." He considered for a moment, before deciding. "I like it."
Lina looked up at him, and a grin slowly spread across her face.
Sabrina Grace Kyria
"Val!" The pale, sickly young man lying that was being enveloped, it seemed, by the alarming over-witness of the hospital bed grinned up at her, and Sabrina felt a worry relieve itself from her heart. "Val! It's so good to see you!" In a rush, she was beside him, his hand firmly clutched in hers, and then they were embracing like long lost friends. When they broke apart at last, Sabrina sat back on her heels, and looked up at him.
"How have you been?" they asked each other in unison, then burst out laughing.
When their laughter had subsided, she titled her head to the side, looking at the young man who had been one of her best friends since they started going to the same dance class, three years ago. He had listened to her through the hardest periods of her life, when her grandfather died, when Phib's change from the darling boy he had been to a monster became apparent, when she first realized she was in love with Gab, the day that Fiona had started going out with him. He had held her when she cried, he had been the sympathetic ear she could turn to. Even Fiona, her best friend, didn't know how much Val meant to her. It was odd, watching him here, looking so ill.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and she realized he must have seen something in her eyes. He knew how to read her after all, after three years. She smiled, almost sadly.
"Nothing. But tell me" her face brightened, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, "how have you been?"
"Fine." He made a face, "the food's terrible, the bed is like a rock, and my pillow is flat, and most of the time they're sticking me with needles, but other than that, sure, I'm fine."
She grinned at him now, and realized just how much she had missed him. Becoming aware of the ache in her knees, she stood up. "So", he said, his eyes still locked on her, "how've you been? How's Phib? How's Gabi?"
"Well", she sighed, "I'm fine. But Phib disappeared again last night, after the ambulance came for you. Mom and Dad were distraught. They couldn't find him anywhere. It took half an hour just to convince them to come home. When we got there, Mom was in tears. Dad started to drink again. But Phib finally showed up around one in the morning. They tried to yell at him, but he just told them that if they didn't shut up he'd leave them forever. He meant it. Oh, Val, what happened to him? He used to be so sweet, so perfect, what happened? I mean, I know you never knew him when he was an angel, but" she smiled at the window, her face lit up with memory, "he was wonderful. When Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer, he helped me, he hugged me, and he convinced me everything would be okay. Then he went to middle school, and I went to High School, and he changed so much. I just don't know what to do about him."
"Hey, Sabrina, it's going to be okay." She turned to see Val, looking at her earnestly, "It's going to be okay. It's just a phase. He'll go back to normal. You'll see. Remember what Mr. Scarlet said?" she shook her head, biting her lower lip to hold back tears. "He said everyone goes through a phase like this. Don't worry" he said, his voice passionate "it'll all be okay."
She ran to him then, threw her arms around him and cried, thinking of the terrifying person that lived in her brothers body. She had never been so frightened of anyone in her entire life. All she wanted was a little reassurance that it would all be okay, and somehow Val's words didn't help her at all.
Minutes later, she wiped her eyes and broke their embrace. "Thanks, Val, thank you so much. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"No problem."
Suddenly, Sabrina remembered why she had come here in the first place. "So, has anyone else come to see you today?"
"Yeah, this weirdo girl that spent the night in my room, I think. She looked a lot like Malgasia Drygoon, you know the goalie on your soccer team. I think she might have been his sister. Do you know her?"
"Yes, she's my best friend in the whole world. Her name's Fiona."
"Oh."
A comfortable silence settled between them. Sabrina was trying to think up a way to continue the conversation about Fiona, and was torn between the desire to help her friend and to keep Val to her self. No! She didn't want to keep him to herself! That was the Phib in her talking! Finally, as the silence was starting to get on her nerves, she started to babble about Fiona.
"Val, you'd really like her, she's really nice, she's a dear! Even though she looks like she might be a real snob on the outside, she's kind, and wonderful, and so well brought up! She drinks tea with her little finger sticking out! And she's totally not a snob, she'll talk to anyone and she's so good to everyone! She helps out in the homeless shelter three days a week! Val, she's really nice, and-and you should meet her!"
He looked up at her and Sabrina felt herself blushing furiously, aware that she had just made a complete fool of herself. "Okay, we can all go see a movie or something when I get out of the hospital." Sabrina sighed. He was so good at salvaging situations that she had bungled. She smiled at him and was about to agree when he continued. "Now, how 'bout lunch?"
A.N. Okay, how do you like the new format? I like it. Um . . tell me if it breaks up the story too much, okay? Um . . this wasn't really a plot mover chapter, sorry, but I wanted to introduce some things. Next chapter, things will happen. Be happy. Peace is love.
~Divine Firefly