"So why am I walking her again? It's obvious she trusts you more, Lina." Zelgadis grumbled.
"We already went over this. I don't want to get bitten, and you don't even have to worry about that. Also, you need some bonding time." Lina laughed.
"Why do I always get involved?" Zelgadis spied Amelia glancing at him. "You sure are quiet. Whatever happened to you being talkative?"
Amelia whined quietly, then turned away and kept walking.
"Hey, and no teasing!" Lina yelled.
"We are dead. We are so dead! She wasn't supposed to survive! Those stupid meddling people! Now what do we do?"
"Simple. Now we do it my way."
"And what do you intend to do?"
"See that overlook there? Right over the river? They'll surely stop there for a breather, then I'll take care of them."
"You better. We can't keep following them like this, or eventually the boss will know we failed.
"Shh! They're coming!"
"Ugh. What is with this heat?! That's it, we're taking a break." Lina announced.
Lina sat down in the middle of the path. Amelia however. had different plans. Something was tickling her senses, so she strained against the rope to find out what it was.
"Lina. she's not going to listen." Zelgadis said as he tried to keep Amelia at bay.
"Just humor her. She can't get far with you holding the rope anyway." Lina replied.
Zelgadis grudgingly let himself be led to a nearby overlook. He casually glanced around while Amelia continued searching along the edge. "Go over, and Lina will have your head."
No sooner had Zelgadis spoken, that the ground under his feet gave way, sending him plummeting to the bottom of the river. As soon as she felt the ground move, Amelia had been quick to leap to safety. Finding herself freed, her first impulse was to run away. Something about the situation bothered her though. She realized that Loner (her name for Zelgadis) was nowhere to be seen. Amelia barked out as she glanced over the edge, then seeing where he had fallen, plunged into the river.
"Whoa, what happened?" Lina ran up to the cliff's edge.
"Lina! Look there!" Gourry pointed to two fleeing figures down below.
"This just gets more interesting. Ray Wing!" Lina grabbed Gourry and gave chase.
Zelgadis was in serious trouble. It was bad enough that he had fallen, but now he was underwater, and the current was too swift for him to get out. He struggled about for a moment before he lost consciousness...
Amelia swam about in the water frantic to find Loner. She continued to dive under to look, but to no avail. Just as she was about to give up, something soft grazed her leg. She dove down and clamped her teeth around it, then began the struggle of her life!
"Get back here!" Lina chased after a lone figure, Gourry not far behind. "That does it. Shadow Snap!" Lina flung her dagger at the fleeing man's shadow, instantly halting him. "Ha! No one gets away from Lina Inverse! Now who are you, and what do you want?"
"That's none of your business." The man sneered.
"Oh, is that so? Will this help?" Lina readied a Fire Ball.
"Do your worse! I've faced worse than that."
Lina was amazed. Either the guy was a loony or...of course! She noticed his clothing looked like that of a sorcerer. In that case...
"Hey Gourry, take care of this guy."
"Right!" Gourry drew his sword.
"Wait! Let's not get hasty!"
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Lina asked.
"I'll talk! Just don't hurt me!"
"That's better. At ease, Gourry. So just what are you doing here?"
"I was hired to...assassinate the princess."
"Is that so? You sure have a strange way of doing it." Lina replied.
"It was the boss' idea! He wanted to make sure that nothing could be traced back to him! ...not that you can stop him now." The man chuckled.
"What do you mean?" Lina asked.
"Surely she's drowned by now, especially with no one to help her." The man grinned evilly.
"What about Zelga...oh!" Gourry gasped.
"Oh no! Zelgadis will be no help at all! Don't think you're getting away with anything!" Lina yelled angrily.
Lina cast a sleep spell on the man, then picked her dagger up from off of the ground. She and Gourry then raced back from where they had come.
Amelia had finally managed to reach the riverbank, but then got stuck. Loner was too heavy! Not about to give up, she began to give quick strong tugs on Loner's cape. The cape tore somewhat, but she was finally able to pull him out of the water. Only problem now was that he wasn't breathing. Unsure of what else to do, Amelia frantically licked his face.
"Please no, you can't die!" Amelia thought.
Suddenly Zelgadis' body convulsed as he erupted into a coughing fit. This startled Amelia at first, but she was overjoyed to see him breathing again.
"Zelgadis! Amelia!"
In a daze, Zelgadis slowly shook his head from side to side as he opened his eyes. Amelia stared straight back at him.
"Zelgadis!" Lina and Gourry finally made it to his side.
"Zelgadis, are you all right?" Gourry asked.
"What happened?" Zelgadis was still in a daze.
"Some jerk tried to kill Amelia, but it looks like you got in the way." Lina answered.
Zelgadis jerked up. "The leash! I accidentally let it go when I fell!"
"Relax Zel, Amelia's right here." Lina said.
"But how?"
"Just look at yourself. She obviously was the one to pull you out of the river." Lina pointed to his torn cape.
Zelgadis looked to his side. Sure enough, Amelia was sitting there of her own free will. She looked worriedly at him.
"Uh, thank you, Amelia." Zelgadis cautiously patted her on the head.
Amelia, overjoyed to see Zelgadis was all right, rushed up to him, nuzzling him excitedly.
"Careful Zel, she doesn't have any human inhibition to hold her back now." Lina teased.
"You don't suppose she's regained her memories, do you?" Gourry pondered.
Lina turned to Amelia. "Hey Amelia, do you know who I am?"
Amelia just cocked her head and gave Lina a confused look.
"Doesn't look like it. I guess when she saw Zelgadis fall something triggered in her memory." Lina continued.
"Meaning?" Zelgadis asked.
"That you've got yourself another shadow." Lina winked.
Sure enough, when Zelgadis stood up, Amelia bounded to his side, leaping about happily.
"Oh great." Zelgadis groaned.
"Relax Zel, I think it's kind of cute. Besides, if she remembered how much she cares about you, maybe she'll regain more of her memories soon." Lina said.
"I hope so." Zelgadis took the end of the rope, reigning in the happy wolf to his side. "I just hope it's very soon."
"How long is she going to take? It's been well over an hour." Gourry yawned.
Gourry, Zelgadis, and Amelia were all sitting near a fountain, positioned in the center of the small town they were passing through. Or at least HAD, then Lina changed plans...
"Well, she did say she needed to stock up on a few things." Zelgadis replied boredly. He looked down to Amelia, who had fallen asleep a while ago.
Gourry continued to watch the townsfolk passing by. More than one shot a wary glance at the sleeping wolf. "She'd better hurry, I think we're making people nervous."
Zelgadis sighed. "Welcome to my life." Having said such, Zelgadis pulled his hood down lower.
"I didn't mean you. I don't think anybody's even looking at you."
"You're just saying that."
"No, really. They're all looking at Amelia. See for yourself."
Zelgadis decided to humor Gourry, so he looked out of the corner of his eye. Of all the people passing by, not one glanced his way. "There's a first."
"Still, I wish they would stop. It's not like Amelia will attack them." Gourry said.
"Tell that to them. We may know that she's Amelia, but those people just see a wolf. Wolves aren't exactly revered." Zelgadis sighed.
"I got it!"
Gourry and Zelgadis looked up to see Lina running towards them.
"What took you so long, Lina?" Gourry asked.
"I figured out the solution to our problem!" Lina beamed.
"You found a cure?" Gourry and Zelgadis responded.
"What? No! That'll take some research. I got this!" Lina held up a collar.
"We waited for you to get a dog collar?" Zelgadis snapped.
"Not just any collar. Look at this inscription." Lina held it out to Gourry.
"Property of Lina Inverse." Gourry scratched his head. "How is that going to help us?"
"Simple. First, if Amelia has a collar she will look less like a wild animal and more like someone's pet. Second, should she get separated, people will know better than to mess with my property." Lina smiled.
"I should have known." Zelgadis grumbled.
Lina knelt down by Amelia. "Amelia, I got something for you."
Amelia woke up to Lina's voice and wagged her tail expectantly.
Lina untied the rope around Amelia's neck, then put the collar on in it's place. "And to make things easier..." Lina pulled a leash out of her cape pocket and attached it to the collar.
Amelia sniffed at the leash, unsure what to make of it.
"That's more like it. At least somebody's appreciative." Lina patted Amelia's head.
Gourry and Zelgadis just looked at each other and sighed. Some women...
Yet again, I am not dead! (Although if this cold keeps up...) I was actually gone earlier last week, then as soon as I got back I picked up the Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker (awesome game! Although it slows down my productivity writing), so I've spent most of my free time playing that. But alack! My younger sister has moved in on the gaming, leaving me to sit here and type. ^_-
I'm finally getting to the more enjoyable parts of this story (such as the shopping scene which I never planned on writing, but it came to me as I wrote, I love when that happens.), and hopefully I'll be able to have another chapter up within the next week or so. Things aren't always going to be happy cheery though... Now I'm off to shake off this cold! (And watch some Zelda on the side.)