Love, Happiness, and Other Impossibilities
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Summary: "Cupid? What a silly idea! Why have one guy fly around in a diaper, spreading love and happiness, when you can have an entire corporation dedicated to it?" L/G, A/Z, possibly X/F
Notes: Yes, this is the second story I've done with Maeve and Kieran, my own two original characters with the exceedingly interesting and taxing, but rewarding career of Love Fairies. This story has no connection to the first, aside from being another typical mission for two typical Love Fairies. It won't be referenced in this at all, so don't worry about reading Trials of a Modern-Day Love Fairy. Unless, of course, you like Final Fantasy 7, and cute, fluffy Vincent/Yuffie 'fics in particular…
Anyway, the point is, I thought the Love Fairies fit much better in the Slayers universe than they did in Final Fantasy 7, and being rather short on original ideas for Slayers stories, I decided to recycle my little OC's. As one might be able to guess if one has any familiarity with my pairing preferences, this will indeed be Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia (particularly the second) with possible heavy doses of Filia/Xellos…if I can just figure out how the heck to write those two.
Oh, well. Enjoy!
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A New Mission? It Sucks to Be the College Intern!
From the doorway of the small café, Maeve scanned the crowds of people, searching for one particular head topped with glossy black hair and an excruciatingly annoying personality. Of course, how Maeve planned to pick up on her partner's personality through only a glimpse of the back of his head was something that she would doubtlessly have disdained to answer, instead glowering angrily at you and failing utterly to intimidate.
The primary reason for this unavoidable failure to intimidate had nothing to do with the utterly unintimidating blue eyes, blonde curls that flatly refused to grow past her shoulders, and little upturned nose – just like a dab of putty, she always lamented.
No, the more likely reason was that Maeve was six inches tall. Six-and-two-ninths, as she would have made haste to tell you, had you been in a position to ask, but two ninths of an inch surely doesn't make that much difference to the average person.
All this being beside the point to the miserable young woman currently trying to squeeze between two people as she cursed all those inconsiderate jerks who refused to take off their wings when manners obviously required it.
"Ow!" she shrieked as the particularly aggressive wing of a very tall man – at least eight-and-a-half inches tall, Maeve reflected as soon as she could see again – poked her in the eye. Then, with a heavy sigh, blinking a badly watering eye fiercely, she wiped a trickle of perspiration from between her eyes and continued scanning the crowds.
The day was hot, and so it only stood to reason that the inside of a small building packed with people would be stifling.
"Of course, Kieran had to pick the most crowded place in the city to meet," she grumbled. "And then he doesn't even show up! Sometimes I think that man lives just to annoy me."
At this unlucky juncture, the world went dark, and she heard a voice call into her ear with sickening cheerfulness,
"Guess who!"
After fuming for about half a second, Maeve got an idea.
"I don't know," she said, voice dripping with sweet, innocent confusion. "Someone who's going to DIE VERY SOON?!"
With this, she wheeled about and planted her fist in the mysterious person's stomach. She smiled smugly. That's the last time Kieran will try that crap with me!
Then, as she knelt to relent and help him up, her smile melted into an expression of horror as her eyes lit on a shock of curly brown hair. Good Gods above, it's not Kieran!
"Uh…geez, I'm really sorry," she stammered, helping the youth to his feet.
The second he was able, the boy tugged away from her arm.
"I thought you were someone else, okay?!" he exclaimed, backing away quickly. "Bloody feminists!"
Before she had time to ponder exactly how horrendous violence and feminism connected, she found herself feeling suddenly a lot more annoyed than she had two seconds ago. She turned slowly to her left and glared at the dark-haired young man crouching next to her.
"Hey there, cutie-pie! I'd offer to buy you a drink, but you obviously aren't lookin' for love tonight, with the way you dispatched that last interested suitor."
"Shut up, Kieran," she sighed. "What the hell took you so long to get here, anyway?"
"Bad traffic," he replied solemnly as he stood and led the way to a table in a corner slightly out of the main area of the restaurant.
She blinked several times as she pondered this.
"Hold on," she finally said slowly. "Didn't you walk here? Don't you live, like, two minutes away from here?"
"Yup," Kieran replied cheerfully.
"Then how…never mind," Maeve finished in an annoyed grumble as she slid into her seat, across from Kieran. "What's up, anyway? Why did you have to drag me out of my lovely, air-conditioned apartment on the hottest day of the year?"
The young man pulled a bulging file folder from his shoulder bag and slapped it down on the table.
"I'm sure you're aware that Sylfia has a new job for us?"
Maeve blinked.
"No, I didn't know about that." She frowned, hurt. "I wonder why Sylfia didn't tell me."
Kieran watched her sympathetically. He reached across the table and took her hand. Slightly taken aback, she tried to pull it away, but stopped as she met his eyes, luminous pools of very green sympathy. Or something. She blushed slightly and decided that it wasn't worth the effort, anyway. Too damned hot to move, really.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it," he finally said kindly.
"Why's that?" she asked suspiciously. Women's intuition was telling her that she would be booting some arse in the near future…
"Because I was supposed to tell you about it last week," he replied beamingly.
"What?!" she exclaimed, drawing the attention of every other denizen of the café. She lowered her voice. "And when do we have to leave on this 'mission'?"
"In three days," Kieran replied.
"Well, at least it's not tomorrow," Maeve said sulkily, almost as though disappointed that Kieran had not been quite as stupid as he might have been. "So, who are we working with this time?"
"There are six people, actually."
She stopped abruptly in her perusal of the drink list.
"Six?" she echoed. "I thought we dealt only in couples at a rank as low as ours."
"There are six people," Kieran repeated. "Three couples."
"Oh," Maeve laughed sheepishly. "That's a little more normal…"
At this juncture, a waiter appeared long enough for Maeve to request a Peach Bellini and for Kieran to request a beer, still in the keg if possible. The waiter replied, either unwilling to play along or unaware that Kieran was trying to play, that he didn't think it would be possible.
As soon as the slightly too serious young man had left, Kieran reached for the file in the middle of the table.
"This is the first couple," he told her, removing two photos and laying them out in front of her.
"She's pretty," Maeve noted admiringly, picking up the photo on the left. It was of a young woman with smooth, fair skin, large red-brown eyes, and masses of long, strikingly red hair. The blonde recalled her own limp, short, annoyingly curly hair, just the colour of ash, with a sigh. And red! Redheads never had to worry about looking plain! Their hair was just so vibrant, it brought automatic life to their faces! Even though this girl clearly had enough without it. One could practically sense her energy and spirit, even from a photo. "Well, who is she?"
"Her name's Lina Inverse. She's a sorceress, and a damn powerful one at that."
Maeve suppressed a groan.
"Why do I get the feeling that that's going to come back to bite us in the ass?"
Kieran laughed before nudging the photo of the man toward her. She picked it up and glanced at it with mild interest…and then looked back again, quite startled.
"That's Gourry Gabriev," Kieran informed her, perhaps more loudly than strictly necessary.
"Uh-huh," she agreed absently, staring dreamily at the dazzlingly blue eyes, the friendly, engaging smile, and the long golden hair sweeping over the broad shoulders of the young man in the photo.
Kieran gritted his teeth, noticing that a thin trail of drool was beginning to make its way from the corner of her mouth.
"He's a swordsman," he continued, even more loudly. "And our report says he's really stupid."
"With a body like that, who needs a brain?"
"Hopefully, Lina Inverse feels the same way," Kieran said with a forced laugh, eyeing the little puddle of drool beginning to form on the photo of that same redhead. "Although, if they've been travelling together for the last six years, I'd say she does."
This got the attention of the woman across the table.
"So, if they've been together for six years, why is Fred even bothering to send us?"
"Apparently, they've been travelling together as friends for six years."
"Ah. Denial."
"Yup," Kieran agreed cheerfully. "So first, we'll deal with giving those two the little extra push they need."
"At least it'll be easy," Maeve noted philosophically.
Interestingly enough, just as she said it, the clear blue of the skies went from cloudless to obscured by sulky-looking dark grey clouds, and the next moment, both fairies jumped in their seats as a crack of thunder shook the small building.
"Weird weather," Kieran noted as heavy raindrops began to pelt down against the window next to their table.
"Yeah," Maeve agreed absently. "Well, I don't want to spend all day here, so let's see the next couple."
Nodding, Kieran withdrew two more photos and slid them across the table, wondering with vague resentment if she'd start drooling over this guy, too.
He needn't have worried.
Maeve picked up the photo on the right, that of a young man. She started slightly as she noticed that his skin was decidedly blue, and dotted with patches of a darker blue. A rather good-looking face, she decided, despite the blueness. His hair was slightly more normal looking, a silvery purple, cut short, and flipping out oddly at the sides of his head. After inspecting the photo more closely, she looked up at Kieran.
"Okay, what the heck's with this guy?"
"His name's Zelgadis Greywords. He's a third rock golem, which explains the pebbles in his face. At first, I just thought he'd gotten into a motorcycle accident when he was younger, and they couldn't get the rocks out."
"Kieran! That's gross! Anyway, go on. Anything else I need to know?"
"Well, he's also a third brau demon."
"That must've been one hell of a family," she noted.
"He wasn't born that way."
"Oh, boy…what happened?"
"Well, when Mr. Greywords was a young man, he was apparently put under a spell by his grandfather. He wished to become stronger, so the old man turned him into a chimera."
"Great," Maeve whimpered, recalling the vaguely grumpy expression of the man. "Let me guess: this has given him a whole multitude of social issues, adding to the multitude of social issues that he already had, and it's gonna make our job as Love Fairies a hell of a lot harder."
"On the nose," Kieran replied cheerfully. "Now for the young lady."
Maeve set the photo in her hand aside and picked up the other one. Seconds later, a delighted expression crossed her face.
"Oh, she's so cute!"
"I agree," Kieran said with studied enthusiasm. Just see how she liked dealing with a partner who drooled over the subjects!
However, this failed utterly.
"I've never seen anyone so friendly-looking," Maeve continued, staring adoringly at the photo of the young woman, dark hair cut short, with large blue eyes, and a smile that did indeed seem to invite all the world to make friends. "Heck, I'd go out with her! So, they're the second couple? Don't look very compatible, do they?"
"I'm sure they'll surprise us," Kieran replied. "Her name's Amelia, and she's a princess of a kingdom known as Seyruun."
"Seyruun," Maeve repeated thoughtfully. "I don't think I've ever heard of it."
"I'm not surprised. It doesn't figure largely in our realm, after all. If you haven't been to that specific dimension of the mortal realm, you wouldn't be likely to have heard of it."
"Nope. Anyway, does this one have any chance of being easy, too?"
"Well, that all depends. It says that both of these two were erstwhile travelling companions of Ms. Inverse and Mr. Gabriev. And in this photo of him, taken fairly recently, you'll notice that he's got a touch of pink about him."
Maeve looked at the new photo, and smiled dopily at the sight of a small pink bracelet adorned with a round blue gem, hanging around the neck of the canteen tied to the man's belt.
"One of Miss Amelia's, I assume?"
"Yup," Kieran replied cheerfully, sliding another photo towards her. "See? In this photo, taken long before the other one, she's wearing it."
"Nice! I don't suppose they're…travelling together, or living in the same city, or, y'know, going to a party together within the next few months, or anything convenient like that, eh?" Maeve asked hopefully.
Kieran shook his head sadly.
"No, he's kind of a wanderer at the moment, and she's more or less indoors, doing paperwork."
"So, how do we swing this? Do we impress upon his mind that he absolutely has to go to Seyruun, right now?"
"Well, there is one thing that might be useful. You see, Mr. Greywords is of the hope that he will be able to find a cure for his curse."
"Okay…"
"And, as I recall, there are many places in Seyruun to check for that sort of thing."
"Come on, Kieran. Wouldn't he have checked there already, if he's got a friend who could get him in anywhere he wanted?"
"It doesn't have to be logical," Kieran reminded her snippily. "We're Love Fairies!"
"Oh, right. Hey, maybe this won't be such a pain in the arse!"
Kieran's expression grew solemn.
"Maeve, I'd have thought you'd have learned by now never, never to say that too loudly."
"Right, right, sorry. Well, get to the third couple."
"Okay. Now, at this point, I ought to make something else clear. For this mission, we'll be taking on a college intern."
"Oh, brother," Maeve muttered.
"Come now, Maeve," Kieran grinned. "Three couples are an awful lot for a team of two."
"College interns are always equal to the level of productiveness of negative one Love Fairies," Maeve retorted. "One of us will be doing the actual missions while the other cleans up after the messes that the intern makes. So in this case, three couple are an awful lot for one Love Fairy."
"Well, that's why Fred's put these three couples into one file. We're supposed to give our new little friend one of the couples to work on independently. She's only supposed to come to us if she needs help. Since they're all in the same dimension of the mortal realm, we can keep an eye on her while we work together on the other two missions."
"I guess that makes sense," Maeve said dubiously. "Oh, well. Let's see the couple."
Kieran withdrew two more small snapshots from the folder and tossed them to the table in front of her.
"The man's name is Xellos. I don't believe we have a last name for him, although he is the servant of someone who goes by the name of Beastmaster Zelas Metallium, so we might get away with calling him Xellos Metallium, just for convenience's sake."
"Uh…interesting," Maeve commented, frowning at the picture of the cheerfully smiling man, eyes obscured by being closed, dark purple hair falling to his shoulders. "So, what else do we need to know? Given that he's the servant of someone named 'Beastmaster Anything', there's gotta be something."
"There is, indeed. By our best estimation, Xellos is part of a race of monsters."
"Monsters," Maeve repeated slowly.
"Monsters," Kieran confirmed cheerfully.
"Okay, what the hell is Fred trying to pull? I thought we only dealt with humans!"
"Just wait; it gets better," Kieran assured her, gesturing to the other photo.
Dropping Xellos' photo with a sigh, Maeve picked up the other one.
"Well, at least she looks normal enough," she commented, examining the photo of a young woman, very beautiful indeed, with long golden hair falling past her hips, almost to her knees, large, tranquil blue eyes, and a peaceful smile.
"Guess again."
"Oh, Gods. What?"
"Guess."
"She eats bugs."
"Weirder."
"She's his cousin."
"Weirder."
"His sister?"
Kieran hesitated.
"Not quite that weird. And think along a different line."
"They've been mortal enemies from birth."
"Getting warmer. Actually, they've been mortal enemies since long before her birth. She's a Golden Dragon, and our information states that he nearly exterminated their race single-handedly."
Maeve blinked, digesting this sizeable shock for quite some time. Then she threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Great!" she wailed. "Why do we have to set these two up? Has Fred been drinking again?"
"Remember, Maeve," Kieran said soothingly, patting her hand. "We have a college intern working with us."
As though following his train of thought, Maeve brightened considerably at this.
"Oh!"
Then, together, both said,
"We'll give the third couple to her."
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End Notes: Hee! I already like where this is going. I have a feeling, though, that it's going to be mostly a story about the disastrous attempts of the third Love Fairy to make Xellos and Filia think happy romantic thoughts about each other. And given that I have no idea how to write either Filia or Xellos, and certainly not Filia/Xellos romance, it could be interesting. Oh, well. It'll still be funny, and there'll be lots of Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia, too. I just think that there'll only be so much chaos that our Love Fairies can bring about with Lina and Gourry in the process of 'suggesting', and Zelgadis and Amelia lend themselves less to chaos. They'll probably be the sweet, sappy part.
Xellos and Filia, however, nothin' sappy about those two! ^_^
