* * *
Angst! Oh, the ANGST! I don't normally write angst, but this fic just wouldn't be the same without it . . . and it's not so bad still. I hate unhappy endings.
Review thanks go to Ludacris, Ukchana, Suisei Lady Dragon (five reviews, one for each chapter, wow), gldfire, kellis, Ryoko'n Rain, Neko-Metallium, and minty fresh socks.
* * *
Two days had passed, and Xelloss had not appeared again. Filia had the strangest feeling, as if part of her heart was missing. She continued working on her pottery, not taking pleasure in her work for once.
She felt betrayed. She had given herself to Xelloss, even confessed her sin to him, only to have him up and disappear from her. Had he finally gotten what he wanted all along? She'd kept her celibacy for almost five hundred years, only to lose her head, her body, and her heart to a Mazoku who didn't even bother to return to her again.
The porcelain's bisque firing was done, and the vase itself was cooling in the outer kiln now. A cursory inspection had shown no major flaws; providing that the glazing went all right, Xelloss's master would have her vase on time.
She had started forming other molds from the main earthware cast when Jillas came into her workroom, a puzzle expression on his face.
"Onee-sama, there's a customer in the shop who wants to speak to you. She says it's very important."
Filia sighed and wiped her plaster-coated hands on a damp towel. "Did she give her name?"
"No, onee-sama. She looks very . . . strange."
"I'll go see her."
She entered the main store through the door behind the counter that led to her workroom. Admiring the antique vases and pots was a tall, slender woman with blonde hair spilling down her shoulders, who wore filmy white clothes and an assortment of bracelets on her wrists. She looked very elegant, but as Jillas had noted, there was something strange about her as well. She had a predatory grace about her that showed in every twitch of muscle, and every small, silent step.
"Ma'am?" Filia called, stepping from behind the counter. "How may I help you?"
The woman turned around.
Filia heard herself gasp aloud as she stared at the face of the stranger. She had the same eyes as Xelloss! Long, elegantly slitted violet irises that spoke of volumes of mischievous evil contained in a being too beautiful to be good. The woman held a slender cigarette in her hand, which left a wispy trail of smoke in the air beside her.
"Are you Filia Ul Copt?" she asked. Even her voice was similar to that of Xelloss, although it lacked the teasing note that the priest used.
"Yes," Filia answered, trying to hide her shaking hands. "And you must be the Juuoh-sama."
"Please, call me Zelas," the Beastmaster said with a regal tilt of her head. "I was just admiring your handiwork; you are truly a master craftsman. It's a pity more dragons didn't try their hand at the human arts. Or Mazoku, for that matter."
"Why are you here?" Filia asked quietly. "Does this have something to do with Xelloss?"
"Yes, it does." Zelas took a deep drag on her cigarette, the delicate bones in her wrist sliding around below her skin visibly, elegantly. The Beastmaster had the look of a dancer about her. "Three days ago, Xelloss returned to me in a very . . . undesireable state."
Filia felt her face flush with embarassment. "It was obvious then, what we did."
Zelas raised one eyebrow. "Actually, no, it was not. My son has NEVER been in such a state in all his life. I'm not sure what you could have done to injure him so, but the simple fact is that Xelloss is in very grave danger."
Danger?
Filia brought her fists up to her mouth. Here, she'd been cursing him for not returning, and something she had done to him had prevented him from coming back all along.
"You must come with me. I don't know if he can last much longer."
Zelas grabbed her arm, and teleported them both instantly to a location far, far away. Without breaks, the long teleportation drained Filia of strength as they floated through the endless nothing. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they arrived in a large, darkened room.
In the middle was a bed. On the bed, curled into a fetal position underneath the covers, was Xelloss.
Filia stifled a cry and took a few involuntary steps towards him.
"He cannot hear you, nor see you," Zelas warned, staring at her son with a grave expression. "He's been like this most of the time since he returned to me. Do you know what has happened to him, dragon?"
Filia shook her head, tears beginning to fall down her face. "I thought I had scared him off . . . I only told him . . . that I was in love with him . . . surely mere words can't hurt a Mazoku this badly?"
"The emotions behind the words are very powerful. I believe you triggered a reciprocal feeling in him, despite what Xelloss intended with you."
It took Filia a few moments to decipher Zelas' sentence. "You can't mean that he loves me as well. I've always heard that . . . Mazoku can't . . ."
"Can't love?" Zelas laughed then, a sharp bark that was full of bitter humor. "No, we can't. The affection I hold for my son is because he is a part of me, and I suppose that the humans might view that as a type of love. But true love -- the mutual giving and acceptance of the heart -- Mazoku cannot experience that for long. It kills us."
"A positive emotion . . ."
"Coming from within. Carnal pleasures, the desire for wine, women, and song, to use a human phrase -- all those things are at their very essence negative emotions. Xelloss no doubt thought what he was experiencing was base lust, which is fine for a Mazoku. But instead, he fell in love with you. His emotions are fighting against the very core of his being. The only reason he has lasted this long is because he's so strong."
Filia had found herself drawn to the bed, where Xelloss lay naked under the blankets, his body twisting and grimacing in an unconsciousness too violent to be called sleep. Occasionally a crackle of black lightening would envelope him, and he'd revert to his astral form.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Filia asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the dying Mazoku.
"Nothing. I left him alone for two days, in the hopes that he could fight off the emotions, but his own feelings are too strong. He'd rather die now than reject his love for you."
Zelas spoke with a coolness in her voice, but Filia had a feeling she was far more saddened by what had happened than she let on. After all, Xelloss had been her first and only creation, the one Mazoku in the world she referred to as her son, according to Xelloss.
"I should never . . ." Filia began, and her voice caught. Forcing down the bile in her throat, she tried again. "I should never have fallen in love with him. I knew it was a sin, knew it went against everything I had been taught . . . and yet I couldn't help it. It was wrong of me."
"The humans say that there is no such thing as a wrong love," Zelas corrected her softly.
"But I felt so guilty! I tried not to let him know . . . but he sensed that something had changed in me. And then you requested the vase, and I discovered the yin-yang symbol . . ." Filia collapsed on the ground next to Xelloss' bed, her arms on the covers as she broke into sobs.
"Light and dark. Good and evil. Order and chaos. The sun, the moon. Male and female. The yin-yang is a very mysterious symbol, and it describes the relationship between the Mazoku and the Ryuuzoku very well. But that was not its original meaning." Zelas stepped forward and placed one slender hand on the dragon's shoulder. "The truest meaning is that of love and hate. They are so intertwined that they are often indistinguishable between one another. I think it was inevitable that a Mazoku and Ryuuzoku, who hated each other so passionately, would grow to love each other with equal passion."
Filia sobbed harder, despite the Beastmaster's words. Xelloss is dying, and it's all my fault, her mind kept chanting. It's all my fault.
"I'll leave you alone with him for a while. He may become conscious; I think he'd want to see you one last time."
Zelas left quietly, through the door as if she were a mortal being. Her anklets tinkled an echoe in the cavernous room that they were in, however, their music a sad melody of life in this chamber of death.
* * *
Filia remained there for many hours before Xelloss finally woke up. Upon seeing her face, he grinned, then immediately grimaced in pain.
"Xelloss!" she cried, resisting the urge to fling herself on him.
"Hallo, Filia-chan," he said weakly. "I'm afraid I'm not in the best state at the moment. Why are you here? I don't want you to see me like this."
"You idiot," she argued, fresh tears running down her face. "I wanted to see you again. You left without an explanation, and then Zelas shows up and tells me you're dying! "
"Yeah, well," Xelloss said, and then fell into a fit of coughing. He dropped into his astral form for several moments, and the whirling black cone almost came to a standstill before he gained control over his transformation again. "That's what happens when a Mazoku falls in love."
He'd said the words, and it cost him dearly. He seemed to shrink in onto himself.
"Hold on, Xelloss!" she cried.
Snippets of their conversation the morning after they'd made love flitted through her mind.
She'd no longer felt guilty, since she had a bit of a Mazoku's essence in her to carry the dark emotion. Since the Ryuuzoku were closer to humans in constitution, the dark emotion of guilt had not killed her, especially since it was guilt over a positive emotion in the first place.
Perhaps . . . if there were a bit of Ryuuzoku in Xelloss, he'd be able to carry his love for her without dying?
Without a moment's hesitation, she brought up her wrist and severed the main artery with her sharp incisors. Bright red dragon's blood, the closest thing she could think of to her own essence, flowed from her body onto the blankets. She shoved her wrist against his mouth.
"Drink it, Xelloss," she urged. At the first taste, he recoiled, but then he began to drink greedily, sucking the blood from her body. It hurt her a lot, but the pain from blood loss was nothing compared to the pain of losing Xelloss.
He continued to drink, until she began to feel faint. She tried to pull her wrist away, but he had a firm grip on it with his monster's mouth and she feared ripping her entire hand off.
"Enough," she whispered, spots appearing on the edges of her vision. Finally, Xelloss' body gave out as well, and he fell into what she could only hope was a peaceful slumber and not the Mazoku version of death. She pulled her wrist away and wrapped it in her skirt, to stymie the flow of her life's blood.
Weak from her own blood loss, Filia joined him on the bed, curling up into a ball beside his still frame.
* * *
Zelas entered Xelloss' chamber the next morning, fully expecting to find the dragon girl weeping once more and her only son still on his deathbed. She'd have to comfort the girl as best as she could, which wasn't much, come to think of it, but there really was nothing she knew how to do. Most Mazoku who lost their hearts, be it to human, other Mazoku, or even a dragon (anything was really possible, although it had never happened before them) would have died in an instant. It was a testament to Xelloss', and by extension, the Beastmaster's power that he had lived for that long with the positive emotions of true love eating away at the fibre of his being.
She was very surprised, however, to find them both resting peacefully, side by side. The room smelled strongly of blood -- dragon blood, Zelas noticed -- and the two lovers were almost covered in it.
"What in Shabrinigdo's name happened in here?" Zelas asked, her high heeled sandings making a soft sound against the cobblestone floor.
Filia stirred, her pale face with dark smudges below it from blood loss.
"The yin-yang is now complete," Filia answered. "I think I . . . corrupted your son, but at least he's alive."
Zelas looked incredulous. "You had him drink your blood?" she said, looking down on the pair. Xelloss had smears of crusting red-brown all over his face.
"I think it worked." Filia wrinkled her nose. "Although I could use a glass of water and a piece of steak now. And a bath."
Xelloss woke up then, blinking in the dim light until he recognized the blonde women around him.
"Juooh-sama? Filia?" He sounded very confused.
"Feeling better now, Xelloss?" The Beastmaster looked immensely relieved. "Don't scare your mother like that."
"Good morning, my love!" Filia hugged him tightly to her, and the Mazoku squirmed away from the affection like a child, for the first time not like a wounded animal.
"Filia-chan? Why are you here?"
"Answer my question, Xelloss. Are you feeling better?"
Xelloss blinked a few times to recover his bearings, then dropped into a familiar grin, his eyes smiling in far too innocent of a fashion.
"I feel a great deal better, Juuoh-sama! Although I can't think of how that's possible -- ne, Filia-chan, you don't have to hug me THAT tightly . . ."
"I'm just so HAPPY!"
Even Zelas winced at the joy radiating from the dragon's statement, but Xelloss seemed to take it in stride. It really had worked. And it would hopefully be a permanent solution too; the sharing of an essence between two magical creatures was no trivial matter.
"I'll leave you two alone. Xelloss, you both should get cleaned up. Meet me in the main chamber once you're presentable."
Xelloss looked up from where Filia was attacking him with kisses. "Hai, Juooh-sama!" he said.
* * *
End Part 6
Angst! Oh, the ANGST! I don't normally write angst, but this fic just wouldn't be the same without it . . . and it's not so bad still. I hate unhappy endings.
Review thanks go to Ludacris, Ukchana, Suisei Lady Dragon (five reviews, one for each chapter, wow), gldfire, kellis, Ryoko'n Rain, Neko-Metallium, and minty fresh socks.
* * *
Two days had passed, and Xelloss had not appeared again. Filia had the strangest feeling, as if part of her heart was missing. She continued working on her pottery, not taking pleasure in her work for once.
She felt betrayed. She had given herself to Xelloss, even confessed her sin to him, only to have him up and disappear from her. Had he finally gotten what he wanted all along? She'd kept her celibacy for almost five hundred years, only to lose her head, her body, and her heart to a Mazoku who didn't even bother to return to her again.
The porcelain's bisque firing was done, and the vase itself was cooling in the outer kiln now. A cursory inspection had shown no major flaws; providing that the glazing went all right, Xelloss's master would have her vase on time.
She had started forming other molds from the main earthware cast when Jillas came into her workroom, a puzzle expression on his face.
"Onee-sama, there's a customer in the shop who wants to speak to you. She says it's very important."
Filia sighed and wiped her plaster-coated hands on a damp towel. "Did she give her name?"
"No, onee-sama. She looks very . . . strange."
"I'll go see her."
She entered the main store through the door behind the counter that led to her workroom. Admiring the antique vases and pots was a tall, slender woman with blonde hair spilling down her shoulders, who wore filmy white clothes and an assortment of bracelets on her wrists. She looked very elegant, but as Jillas had noted, there was something strange about her as well. She had a predatory grace about her that showed in every twitch of muscle, and every small, silent step.
"Ma'am?" Filia called, stepping from behind the counter. "How may I help you?"
The woman turned around.
Filia heard herself gasp aloud as she stared at the face of the stranger. She had the same eyes as Xelloss! Long, elegantly slitted violet irises that spoke of volumes of mischievous evil contained in a being too beautiful to be good. The woman held a slender cigarette in her hand, which left a wispy trail of smoke in the air beside her.
"Are you Filia Ul Copt?" she asked. Even her voice was similar to that of Xelloss, although it lacked the teasing note that the priest used.
"Yes," Filia answered, trying to hide her shaking hands. "And you must be the Juuoh-sama."
"Please, call me Zelas," the Beastmaster said with a regal tilt of her head. "I was just admiring your handiwork; you are truly a master craftsman. It's a pity more dragons didn't try their hand at the human arts. Or Mazoku, for that matter."
"Why are you here?" Filia asked quietly. "Does this have something to do with Xelloss?"
"Yes, it does." Zelas took a deep drag on her cigarette, the delicate bones in her wrist sliding around below her skin visibly, elegantly. The Beastmaster had the look of a dancer about her. "Three days ago, Xelloss returned to me in a very . . . undesireable state."
Filia felt her face flush with embarassment. "It was obvious then, what we did."
Zelas raised one eyebrow. "Actually, no, it was not. My son has NEVER been in such a state in all his life. I'm not sure what you could have done to injure him so, but the simple fact is that Xelloss is in very grave danger."
Danger?
Filia brought her fists up to her mouth. Here, she'd been cursing him for not returning, and something she had done to him had prevented him from coming back all along.
"You must come with me. I don't know if he can last much longer."
Zelas grabbed her arm, and teleported them both instantly to a location far, far away. Without breaks, the long teleportation drained Filia of strength as they floated through the endless nothing. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they arrived in a large, darkened room.
In the middle was a bed. On the bed, curled into a fetal position underneath the covers, was Xelloss.
Filia stifled a cry and took a few involuntary steps towards him.
"He cannot hear you, nor see you," Zelas warned, staring at her son with a grave expression. "He's been like this most of the time since he returned to me. Do you know what has happened to him, dragon?"
Filia shook her head, tears beginning to fall down her face. "I thought I had scared him off . . . I only told him . . . that I was in love with him . . . surely mere words can't hurt a Mazoku this badly?"
"The emotions behind the words are very powerful. I believe you triggered a reciprocal feeling in him, despite what Xelloss intended with you."
It took Filia a few moments to decipher Zelas' sentence. "You can't mean that he loves me as well. I've always heard that . . . Mazoku can't . . ."
"Can't love?" Zelas laughed then, a sharp bark that was full of bitter humor. "No, we can't. The affection I hold for my son is because he is a part of me, and I suppose that the humans might view that as a type of love. But true love -- the mutual giving and acceptance of the heart -- Mazoku cannot experience that for long. It kills us."
"A positive emotion . . ."
"Coming from within. Carnal pleasures, the desire for wine, women, and song, to use a human phrase -- all those things are at their very essence negative emotions. Xelloss no doubt thought what he was experiencing was base lust, which is fine for a Mazoku. But instead, he fell in love with you. His emotions are fighting against the very core of his being. The only reason he has lasted this long is because he's so strong."
Filia had found herself drawn to the bed, where Xelloss lay naked under the blankets, his body twisting and grimacing in an unconsciousness too violent to be called sleep. Occasionally a crackle of black lightening would envelope him, and he'd revert to his astral form.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Filia asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the dying Mazoku.
"Nothing. I left him alone for two days, in the hopes that he could fight off the emotions, but his own feelings are too strong. He'd rather die now than reject his love for you."
Zelas spoke with a coolness in her voice, but Filia had a feeling she was far more saddened by what had happened than she let on. After all, Xelloss had been her first and only creation, the one Mazoku in the world she referred to as her son, according to Xelloss.
"I should never . . ." Filia began, and her voice caught. Forcing down the bile in her throat, she tried again. "I should never have fallen in love with him. I knew it was a sin, knew it went against everything I had been taught . . . and yet I couldn't help it. It was wrong of me."
"The humans say that there is no such thing as a wrong love," Zelas corrected her softly.
"But I felt so guilty! I tried not to let him know . . . but he sensed that something had changed in me. And then you requested the vase, and I discovered the yin-yang symbol . . ." Filia collapsed on the ground next to Xelloss' bed, her arms on the covers as she broke into sobs.
"Light and dark. Good and evil. Order and chaos. The sun, the moon. Male and female. The yin-yang is a very mysterious symbol, and it describes the relationship between the Mazoku and the Ryuuzoku very well. But that was not its original meaning." Zelas stepped forward and placed one slender hand on the dragon's shoulder. "The truest meaning is that of love and hate. They are so intertwined that they are often indistinguishable between one another. I think it was inevitable that a Mazoku and Ryuuzoku, who hated each other so passionately, would grow to love each other with equal passion."
Filia sobbed harder, despite the Beastmaster's words. Xelloss is dying, and it's all my fault, her mind kept chanting. It's all my fault.
"I'll leave you alone with him for a while. He may become conscious; I think he'd want to see you one last time."
Zelas left quietly, through the door as if she were a mortal being. Her anklets tinkled an echoe in the cavernous room that they were in, however, their music a sad melody of life in this chamber of death.
* * *
Filia remained there for many hours before Xelloss finally woke up. Upon seeing her face, he grinned, then immediately grimaced in pain.
"Xelloss!" she cried, resisting the urge to fling herself on him.
"Hallo, Filia-chan," he said weakly. "I'm afraid I'm not in the best state at the moment. Why are you here? I don't want you to see me like this."
"You idiot," she argued, fresh tears running down her face. "I wanted to see you again. You left without an explanation, and then Zelas shows up and tells me you're dying! "
"Yeah, well," Xelloss said, and then fell into a fit of coughing. He dropped into his astral form for several moments, and the whirling black cone almost came to a standstill before he gained control over his transformation again. "That's what happens when a Mazoku falls in love."
He'd said the words, and it cost him dearly. He seemed to shrink in onto himself.
"Hold on, Xelloss!" she cried.
Snippets of their conversation the morning after they'd made love flitted through her mind.
She'd no longer felt guilty, since she had a bit of a Mazoku's essence in her to carry the dark emotion. Since the Ryuuzoku were closer to humans in constitution, the dark emotion of guilt had not killed her, especially since it was guilt over a positive emotion in the first place.
Perhaps . . . if there were a bit of Ryuuzoku in Xelloss, he'd be able to carry his love for her without dying?
Without a moment's hesitation, she brought up her wrist and severed the main artery with her sharp incisors. Bright red dragon's blood, the closest thing she could think of to her own essence, flowed from her body onto the blankets. She shoved her wrist against his mouth.
"Drink it, Xelloss," she urged. At the first taste, he recoiled, but then he began to drink greedily, sucking the blood from her body. It hurt her a lot, but the pain from blood loss was nothing compared to the pain of losing Xelloss.
He continued to drink, until she began to feel faint. She tried to pull her wrist away, but he had a firm grip on it with his monster's mouth and she feared ripping her entire hand off.
"Enough," she whispered, spots appearing on the edges of her vision. Finally, Xelloss' body gave out as well, and he fell into what she could only hope was a peaceful slumber and not the Mazoku version of death. She pulled her wrist away and wrapped it in her skirt, to stymie the flow of her life's blood.
Weak from her own blood loss, Filia joined him on the bed, curling up into a ball beside his still frame.
* * *
Zelas entered Xelloss' chamber the next morning, fully expecting to find the dragon girl weeping once more and her only son still on his deathbed. She'd have to comfort the girl as best as she could, which wasn't much, come to think of it, but there really was nothing she knew how to do. Most Mazoku who lost their hearts, be it to human, other Mazoku, or even a dragon (anything was really possible, although it had never happened before them) would have died in an instant. It was a testament to Xelloss', and by extension, the Beastmaster's power that he had lived for that long with the positive emotions of true love eating away at the fibre of his being.
She was very surprised, however, to find them both resting peacefully, side by side. The room smelled strongly of blood -- dragon blood, Zelas noticed -- and the two lovers were almost covered in it.
"What in Shabrinigdo's name happened in here?" Zelas asked, her high heeled sandings making a soft sound against the cobblestone floor.
Filia stirred, her pale face with dark smudges below it from blood loss.
"The yin-yang is now complete," Filia answered. "I think I . . . corrupted your son, but at least he's alive."
Zelas looked incredulous. "You had him drink your blood?" she said, looking down on the pair. Xelloss had smears of crusting red-brown all over his face.
"I think it worked." Filia wrinkled her nose. "Although I could use a glass of water and a piece of steak now. And a bath."
Xelloss woke up then, blinking in the dim light until he recognized the blonde women around him.
"Juooh-sama? Filia?" He sounded very confused.
"Feeling better now, Xelloss?" The Beastmaster looked immensely relieved. "Don't scare your mother like that."
"Good morning, my love!" Filia hugged him tightly to her, and the Mazoku squirmed away from the affection like a child, for the first time not like a wounded animal.
"Filia-chan? Why are you here?"
"Answer my question, Xelloss. Are you feeling better?"
Xelloss blinked a few times to recover his bearings, then dropped into a familiar grin, his eyes smiling in far too innocent of a fashion.
"I feel a great deal better, Juuoh-sama! Although I can't think of how that's possible -- ne, Filia-chan, you don't have to hug me THAT tightly . . ."
"I'm just so HAPPY!"
Even Zelas winced at the joy radiating from the dragon's statement, but Xelloss seemed to take it in stride. It really had worked. And it would hopefully be a permanent solution too; the sharing of an essence between two magical creatures was no trivial matter.
"I'll leave you two alone. Xelloss, you both should get cleaned up. Meet me in the main chamber once you're presentable."
Xelloss looked up from where Filia was attacking him with kisses. "Hai, Juooh-sama!" he said.
* * *
End Part 6