Part Seven
by: Shell Presto
Disclaimer: I don't own the Slayers, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and various companies do. However, this story is my own, and I'd like to keep it that way. Have honour, okay? Enjoy.
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Stemming from Sleep Deprivation for the fanart that goes with this
story.
Doujinshi Alert! Only a few more weeks until I begin posting One Third
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of my website.
When Amelia walked downstairs to find her friends finishing breakfast,
she was distressed to see a lack of a certain chimera. She paused at the
foot of the stairs, shivering. Zelgadis is never late for... He couldn't
have...
"He's still in bed, Amelia!" Lina yelled, sensing her fear from
half a room away.
Her body still trembled as she pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Re...really?" she asked nervously.
Lina smiled for lack of a better response. "Seems you're both
rather shaken up today."
"I can't believe you told Zel you loved him!" Gourry exclaimed
through a mouthful of pancakes.
The girls stared vacantly at the swordsman as he continued to
eat before Lina decided to agree with him. "He's right, Amelia. I can't
say it was your smartest move of the century."
"But he's hurting, Miss Lina! And he won't listen to a word I..er..
any of us say!"
Lina sighed and wagged her fork at the princess like a teacher
would at a misbehaving student. "Then you should have tried to talk to
him. This is... This is bad, Amelia. No matter what you'd like to think,
Zel really isn't ready for a relationship."
"He's at least twenty years old!" she objected, then paused.
"At least.... I think he's twenty... he... he is older than you, right,
Miss Lina?"
The redhead shrugged. "I'd say he's older than me, but I honestly
don't know for sure. He's never told me his age or anything."
"He's definitely younger than I am," Gourry chimed in.
Lina could not hide the pity in her eyes as she looked at her
friend. "That's exactly what I'm saying, Amelia. I don't think Zel has
opened up to anyone in years."
Amelia still wanted to deny that Zelgadis could have cut himself
so far off from humanity. "What about those guys he was with before you
met him... you mentioned them... Rodimus and Zolf?"
Thinking about Zelgadis' past made Lina lose her appetite out
of sheer concern for her friends. She placed her fork on the table as she
debated what she should say. "I... don't know for certain, Amelia, but
they looked about twice Zel's age, if not older. I somehow doubt he really
opened up to them."
In a last ditch attempt, Amelia asked, "What about his parents?"
Lina's brain tangled itself in knots. "I don't know what I should
tell you... Zel never told me anything, except that he knew Rezo since
before he can remember."
"So...?"
"Rezo didn't seem like a very family oriented guy, especially
when we dealt with him. He may not have been psychotic when he first met
Zelgadis, but..."
"But..." Amelia repeated in gripping anticipation.
"I said I don't know, but... Rezo could have kidnapped Zelgadis,
or even.... even killed Zel's parents. I mean, I don't know or anything,
but..."
The princess covered her mouth with her hand, not sure if she
wanted to cry or be sick. "Mister... Mister Zelgadis never talked to anyone,
did he?"
Lina solemnly shook her head. "I don't think he ever did."
Gourry looked up from his plate, saw that things had gotten solemn
to the point that they would be over his head, and returned his attention
to eating. When he finally realized that Lina had not started their morning
battle over the breakfast table, he knew it was too serious to ignore.
"Maybe," he drolled, "you should take something up to Zelgadis. After breakfast,
he won't be able to eat here until dinner."
Amelia quietly agreed before heading back upstairs with Gourry's
key, four slices of toast, and a cup of coffee.
She had to fight her nerves to keep from dropping the glass when
she heard him cry out from the other side of the door. When she entered,
she found the chimera heavily asleep and even more heavily tormented by
nightmares. His eyes were viced shut as if he were in horrid pain, and
a moan constantly escaped his lips, be it soft or loud and agonizing. He
shifted suddenly, turning his back to her, and cried out in some sort of
unbearable pain, all the while sound asleep. The glass shattered on the
floor when he nearly screamed something incoherent or very likely inhuman.
Amelia stepped over the toast as she walked to the other side
of the bed. By the time her slow pace carried her over to him, the moaning
had stopped, but the pain was still written out on his face as he cursed,
"Rezo." All the hate that usually accompanied the name when he addressed
it had been leeched from his voice, only to be replaced by a fearfully
passive shell of Zelgadis. It scared Amelia to see him like this, and more
than anything in the world she wanted to help him right then and there.
She would have given up everything to remove the terror from his demeanor.
Suddenly his arm jutted out in an attempt to reach something, what she
did not know. She watched his hand for a long minute, outstretched beside
her off the edge of the bed as small sounds like agonizing sobs followed.
Then his spread fingers recoiled as he brought his arm back in close to
his face, defeat evident. His head jerked back and his throat visibly quivered
as if he were about to cry.
Her own feelings more than justice compelled her to quickly snatch
his hand with her own. It was met with a strong grip, and she reeled in
shock. Neither Zelgadis nor Amelia were wearing gloves, and his hand was
as cold and harsh as his personality. The initial frigidity of his hand
shocked her, and his grip was strong to the point that it hurt. Her fingers
were cramped into an awkward placement, all between his thumb and index
finger. He then shifted toward her hand, as if it offered some sort of
salvation, and he pulled her fingertips to his cheek and held them there.
Her thumb was somewhat free, laying over his, and his skin, which she always
thought would be smooth like marble, was actually coarse, like very, very
fine sandpaper. It was not coarse to the point of being displeasurable
to touch, just not smooth.
Then he started to cry. Tears did not run from his eyes, but
Amelia could see the moisture building up on his eyelids as he sobbed almost
silently. As she was already offering all the support she could give, there
was not much else she could do except watch and pity him. She wanted to
wake him up and ask him if holding her hand gave him any comfort outside
of his dream, or if he would once again place everything in his cure. She
began to worry when she realized that he could wake up at any moment and
see her holding his hand. There was still an uncertainty between them and
she did not want to force him into anything. Besides that, he could get
angry about it again like the last time she tried to touch him.
Fortunately for her, he released her hand to rub his eye, and
he rolled over slightly in the other direction as he did so. About five
seconds later the action became a tense stretch, and Zelgadis regained
consciousness with a muffled groan. Sitting up, he buried his head in his
hands, half trying to sort out his dreams and half trying to forget them.
Amelia watched as he brought his hands down to rest on the blanket and
stared at them; he studied them with a fearful wonder, like he thought
he'd be human once he woke up. She breathed in heavily, thus interrupting
his morning ritual of remembering how much he hated his body.
His eyes widened as his gaze snapped to her direction. "Amelia!"
he almost gasped, but managed to maintain some composure in his shock.
"What.... Why...?"
She tried meekly to explain, "Well, I... You see... I wanted
to bring you breakfast, but..." In the end, she only pointed to the other
side of the room.
He stared at the mess of toast and coffee on the floor, each
now very much a part of one another, in curiosity for a moment. He then
looked at her a moment, her eyes fixed to the floor but not looking at
it, her clenched fists in her lap a signal of her nervousness. He looked
at the toast once more, then back to her. His eyes narrowed compassionately
as he put the pieces together in his mind. "You heard... I had..."
"You were having a nightmare, and you were.. well, you looked
like you were in a lot of pain. It scared me," she informed him in the
softest tone.
More than anything, he felt guilty. "Hey, it's alright," he assured
her. He leaned over to put his hand on hers, yet stopped mere inches from
her skin. Amelia watched, enamored by the stone hand and the man who owned
it. Her mind was begging him to place it on her own shaking hands. He backed
away though, and the look of disgust at himself was evident in his sorrowful
eyes. The princess knew that any feelings Zelgadis could actually have
for her did not compare in the least to the venom bitter feelings that
he had for his curse. In the end, she left without a word, and his eyes
remained on the door, the image of her last lovelorn glance burning on
his retinas.
He tried his best to ignore her in hopes that his feelings, whatever
they were, would calm down. It was not the normal rage or depression that
had so become a part of his life; instead it was something else, good sometimes,
but more often than not painful. The other feelings he did not like, but
this was the only one that could hurt him anymore. As if that was not enough,
trying to ignore her made him more aware of her presence. After all, he
had to know where she was to not look at her, know when she was saying
something important in case he had to respond. It got to the point that
she figured out what he was doing quite easily. That made it even worse,
because she would wait for his gaze to land on her back, then spin around
and assault him with one of her innocently coy smiles.
Amelia turned his need for isolation into a game.
And she was winning.
As they walked up the trail leading to the Katahto Mountains,
Amelia lingered by his side, two steps ahead to make sure he had to look
at her. Her head cocked at an angle that let him catch passing glimpses
of her face; she deliberately let her left arm hang in hopes that he would
latch onto her hand with his own.
She's tempting me! he suddenly realized. Jolts of founded
speculation were becoming quite normal for him. It sobered him up from
his emotional high. Doesn't she see that it can't work like this? He
clenched his fist. Not with me like this. But she has to push it..
Reading his mind became an impossible chore, and every attempt
was never exactly right. She spun around, unknowingly wielding her innocent
smile like a weapon. "Cheer up, Mister Zelgadis! We'll be there soon, and
then we'll know where to find your cure!"
To Zelgadis, the ease with which she said it was scarier than
the fact that she believed it. It was a statement that enraged him like
no other, because it seemed like she undermined his years of effort. Sure,
they were all futile, but his cure was not just going to turn up because
his friends were with him. "What the hell would you know?" he growled.
Amelia uttered an inaudible sound as the colour drained from
her face. She tried to armor herself up for the verbal lashing she new
was to be had, but her resolve to be stronger cracked as his words bit
into her.
"Don't you get it?! I've been searching for years TO FIND MY
CURE! Just because I might finally get Milgesia's help doesn't mean that
I'll find a cure! I've gone through years of HELL to..." Simultaneously
he realized that he was getting personal and hurting Amelia at the same
time. He clenched his jaw tight and waited for the anger to pass.
By now the princess knew better than to try to comfort him. His
harsh words cut through her, yet she almost wished he had continued so
that she would know what he was thinking. In that second she was all alone
in the world with him, and no effort of hers could take away any of the
pain or negativity surrounding him. She could not make eye contact with
him when he was mad like that, and so she turned away. Amelia cried for
lack of anything better to do.
That snapped him out of his fury with blinding speed. No matter
what was going on inside of him, he felt drawn to the young woman, and
the more his obsession with his cure chipped away at him, the more liable
he was to want to give in to the urges that lay within him. So he reached
out and carefully but firmly gripped her shoulder. She heard a small sound
from his open mouth behind her back, a sure sign that he wanted to say
something alien to his regular vocabulary, something comforting. His fingers
tensed around her shoulder too tightly to be comfortable, and after that
he quickly pulled his hand away. When she finally turned around to look
at him, his face was all confusion and turmoil and guilt.
He could not make eye contact with her, and she could see the
word 'sorry' wanted to form on his lips.
Her lips curved into a soft smile and she sniffled a bit. "You
don't have anything to be ashamed of, Mister Zelgadis," she affirmed as
she took a step closer to him. Her hand rested on the back of his arm while
she tried to look into his eyes. She knew she could utterly destroy the
wall now, but the look in Zelgadis' eyes read nothing but fear. He would
not be able to handle it now, and to crumble the wall would be to break
him. He began to stutter syllables that could not possibly be words as
he began to tremor.
His vulnerability scared her, and something inside her screamed
that she was hurting him, driving a thousand needles through stone flesh.
He was stone; emotional pain was the only thing that could hurt him anymore.
She released his arm as quickly as she had taken hold of it, and she turned
around. "I'm sorry," she amended, noting that she was doing more damage
than anything.
Zelgadis wanted her to take back the apology; he knew it was
his fault if anyone's, but it was always his fault. Even if he could not
believe it, he wanted it to be someone else's error for once. No matter
what she said to him, he would never believe that she wanted to be with
a chimera. Anything that happened was his fault for even thinking he might
want to be with her. He wanted it to be able to place the blame on Amelia
instead.
He worked hard to hold back the rage while he trudged up to the
cliff. Lina had done some thorough convincing, it had seemed, as Milgesia
simply stared suspiciously at the chimera instead of trying to throw him
out of the valley.
"As much as I believe your story, Lina, I would be much more
inclined to help if your companion had not tried to kill me a few years
ago," the humanoid dragon expounded. "He has quite a streak for bloodlust,
does he not?"
The redhead laughed nervously as she stepped between Milgesia
and his view of Zelgadis. "Which is exactly why he needs a cure so badly.
You see, Rezo made him part brow demon, and, well, they may not be the
worst kind of demons, but they're still very violent by nature. Add that
to years of pent up emotion and there's no telling what kind of psychological
change Zel will go through. He really just wants to be normal again. His
curse really is eating at his mind. He needs help."
The dragon steadily walked up to confront Zelgadis. "How do I
know I can trust him?" he asked anyone but the subject of the question.
Zelgadis always had the idea in his mind that he was worthless
due to his form, but he never could tolerate being treated like a thing.
His fists clenched. "Why you...!"
Amelia jumped in on the spot, holding one of his arms back. "Calm
down!" she commanded with distress, stunning Zelgadis. She took the opportunity
to address the man who held Zelgadis' fate in his hands. "Can't you see,
Mister Milgesia? You remember how Zelgadis used to be, don't you? He was
quiet and withdrawn before, yes, but he certainly wasn't violent unless
provoked. His curse didn't just affect his body anymore. He's changing
and he needs your help! I'll vouch for his outstanding character, he does
have a lot of compassion, he's risked his life for others many times! Can't
you just help? Please?" Getting emotional, she was about ready to get on
her knees and beg.
Although his face did not show it, Amelia's display hit a philanthropic
chord in Milgesia. He smiled almost almost wryly at the princess when he
acknowledged, "You're good at calming him." The dragon focused on the fact
that Zelgadis would not make eye contact with him, and it was because the
girl made him see the shame in his rash behaviour. To Milgesia, this meant
there was hope for the chimera. "Alright," he conceded. "I will take Lina
Inverse to check if the Claire Bible remains. I want the rest of you to
remain here. If the Claire Bible is intact, and there is a cure, Miss Inverse
will relay it to you." With that, he turned sharply up the path, his cape
whipping the air behind him. Lina caught up with him and they were off.
Zelgadis was about to get mad over his not being trusted, but
once again Amelia's hand stilled him. He stared at her hand gripping his
sleeve, then at Gourry, who was sitting on the edge of the cliff dragon-watching,
and finally, he looked into Amelia's eyes, for a second. Quietly he complained,
"Don't you think you're being a little too forward, Amelia?"
It took her mind some time to realize that she still had the
fabric of his sleeve bunched up in her tiny fists. "Ah... sorry." Her open
hand flew from its position. "I didn't mean to.. I only wanted..."
"Thank you."
He said it so warmly she was in shock. "C... come again?" she
pressed.
"Thank you, Amelia, but this isn't a good time for me," he confessed.
"I know you're trying to help, and I appreciate the thought, but I'm isolating
myself for a reason. Besides that, I wish you all wouldn't talk about me
like I'm sick. I..."
"But you yourself said you're changing!" she reprimanded. "I
don't care what you say, being a chimera is affecting you more than just
physically. I KNOW you aren't a violent person, Mister Zelgadis. No one
wants to be totally alone, and I won't believe that you want it either."
"I DON'T!" he shouted, and his fist pounded into the wall of
rock that they stood against. It left a mark. The chimera growled, "That's
exACtly my point! I CAN'T be with anyone like this, Amelia. I don't care
what's doing it, if it is this body or not, but I want my cure more than
anything. ANYTHING."
She started to get a little teary-eyed again, and the routine
was wearing thin on Zelgadis. "Will you STOP crying!?"
Amelia bit her lower lip. "but... i don't know how to help....."
His eyes widened, and if his skin wasn't stone she could have
seen a vein above his temple. "I...!" he stuttered, wanting to be hysterical.
"It...! That...!" He dropped to an immediate sitting position as he finally
got out, "THAT'S THE POINT!"
Gourry could see some baby dragons near a remote grove of trees.
They were as gold as his hair.
He refused to look at her, he refused to believe she could be
that blind to the obvious.
She sat down beside him. "I'm sorry if I upset you, Mister Zelgadis,
but I only did it because I ca.."
"I don't want to be having this conversation," he snapped. "I
know perfectly well how you feel, and it won't make an ounce of a difference
until I'm human, so you might as well save it."
"You want to be human again so you can be close to people again,"
she murmured, finally understanding the immensity of that concept.
"You get it now, don't you?"
Her head shook in the negative. "Not really. I don't think i
can understand quite yet."
"You're right. You probably won't ever understand. I wish you
could, Princess."
She hated when he called her that, but she let it slight. Softly,
she uttered, "it upsets you when i cry."
His depression came from true sadness, but not despair this time.
"of course it does."
They sat silently until they became impatient awaiting the final
word on his cure. Soon they joined Gourry. "Look cute together," he observed.
Zelgadis and Amelia gawked at him, their mouths agape. The blonde further
interpreted, "Those two, the black ones, down there." He pointed, and the
anti-couple sighed.
Elven-like ears picked up the first sign of their descent down
the hill. After years of failures, he learned to maintain his composure
no matter how anxious he was. So it was Amelia that ran to Lina when she
first saw the redhead. Gourry and Zelgadis picked themselves up and followed
thereafter. Gourry gave his friend an encouraging punch on the arm. "I
hope this is it."
Zelgadis' smile was half sarcasm and half hope. So do I.
Lina was grinning, which made him vulnerably curious. He stopped
cold and stared at her.
Her voice was the sweetest song he had never heard, but it was
real as she said, "Zel, we're going to Privius! We've found a cure!"
Xellos folded his arms behind his head and leaned back against
the cliff from his post well above them. He could not hear the words being
exchanged below, but he knew the information they had procured. He was
counting on it.
Tsuzuku...
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