Chapter One: The Bride
Lala grew up on a small farm in Ookami. The year that she was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a singer named Minmay. She had the face of an angel, the grace of a Ryuuzoku, and the voice of a Mazoku. She also was extremely determined to become a famous singer, and it didn't take the greatest warrior of the land long to notice that there was someone really extraordinary singing in the streets.
The hero was also involved with the general of that country, who was not as beautiful as Minmay but was far wiser. She instantly set spies to find out her rival's weakness, and soon she discovered it.
Candy.
Soon Minmay found dishes of candy everywhere she went, and people eager to offer it to her in every household. Before the warrior's bewildered eyes, she went from a slim young thing to a happy, walking sofa within a few months, changed her career from idol singer to opera diva, married a confectioner, and lived happily ever after. (So did the warrior, when he had wed the general -- proof that she was, indeed, wiser.)
The year Lala turned ten, the most beautiful woman lived in Kaffolay, the daughter of a successful tea merchant. This girl's name was Kei, and her skin was of a tawny perfection unseen in Kaffa for two hundred years. (There have only been eleven perfect complexions in all of Kaffa since accurate accounting began.) Kei was seventeen the year the Kaffe River flooded her hometown of Kaffolay and all the surrounding area. The girl and her skin survived, although her will to stay there did not; she ran away and signed up as a tro-con for the Three-Double-A, gaining the chance to see the universe, shoot really big guns, and get blamed for more disasters than Clan Inverse runs through in eighty years.
"It's not that many," Lina muttered. "Well, except for my aunt's sister Jacelyn in Korel Free Port overseas."
"Maybe they were thinking of her," Gourry offered.
Lina and Zelgadis stared at him, wondering if they had actually heard Gourry say something tactful.
Nahhh.
The year Lala turned twelve, the most beautiful woman in the world was a teenaged street brawler called Ayukawa, or Madoka the Pick by those she had defeated. All that fighting had given her muscle tone and stripped the fat from her bones, leaving her lithe and beautiful. As she grew older, she had become bored with brawling and nearly ceased when she was involved in a terrible road accident that smashed the bones of her face and left her badly scarred. Her high-school sweetheart married her the next day, and told her that the beauty of her heart had always overshadowed her face for the next ten years. Considering that he was an esper, it might even have been true.
The year Lala turned fourteen, the most beautiful woman in the world was named Priscilla, and she was a mercenary with a small, elite quartet. Unfortunately, good as she was, she got in a fight with someone who was better. In order to beat them, she went out and had herself turned into a chimaera, and then nearly went insane trying to deal with her new potential --
Amelia broke off, horrified. Lina and Sylphiel found something very interesting about the tabletop. Gourry just looked clueless.
"Go on," Zelgadis said evenly. "What happened next?"
"Um, she managed to pull herself back, and then she and her allies utterly destroyed their enemies in a battle involving giant golems, alchymical formulae, and giving a device with the destructive power of a Mega Brand into the hands of one Ohta -- which Mother said was not quite as stupid as insulting the Rabbit General Bun-Bun to his face, but not by much."
When Lala was sixteen, the most beautiful woman in the world was Marta of Xoana. She had hordes of suitors who compared her to a rose carved out of ice and the keen blade of a sword and such, but she favored none of them above a smile. And then one day one of them exclaimed that without question she must be the most ideal thing ever made.
Marta, flattered, examined herself all night in her mirror. It took her until daybreak, but she concluded that the young man was right: she was, through no real fault of her own, perfect.
As she watched the sun rise, she felt happier than she had in ages. "Not only am I perfect," she said to herself, "I'm probably the first perfect person in the whole entire history of the universe. Not a part of me could stand improving, how lucky I am to be perfect and rich and sought after and sensitive and young and... "
Young?
The mist began to rise as she began to think. Well, of course I'll always be sensitive, and I'll always be rich, but I can't quite see how I'll always be young. And if I'm not young, I won't be perfect any more. And what else is there? What indeed? Marta's brow furrowed in desperate thought. It was the first time in her life her brow had ever had to furrow, and when she realized what she was doing she ran back to her mirror and spent the whole morning making sure she hadn't done herself any permanent damage. Even when she was sure, she wasn't as happy as she had been.
She had begun to fret.
The first worry lines appeared within a fortnight; the first wrinkles, within a few months. She married the man who had accused her of sublimity -- her monarch, as it happened -- and nagged him for the rest of her life.
"Well, that explains Martina," Lina said.
Zelgadis nodded.
"But -- " Sylphiel began.
"Trust me, you should have seen her before she had to grow up," Lina interrupted.
Lala at this time was barely in the top hundred, and that was mostly on potential; sure, she had lovely long blonde hair, but she practically never brushed it or scrubbed behind her ears, preferring to spend the time out riding her horse (which she had named Horse; Lala wasn't much for imagination) or tormenting the girl who lived and worked on the farm. The farmhand's name was Lina, but Lala never called her that.
"Isn't that a great beginning?"
"Sure, Amelia," Gourry said happily. "Except the tormenting part doesn't sound that nice."
"It gets better," Amelia reassured him.
"Why was Lina working on a farm?" Lina Inverse asked.
"Her sister left her there."
"Oh, that's all right then."
"Farmboy, groom my horse."
"I'm a girl, you idiot!"
Lala blinked. "Are you sure? You don't have that sort of a figure." She looked down at her own, which had developed early and been refining itself since.
"LALA, YOU IDIOT!"
Mistress Face, please let me introduce you to Mistress Fist.
Variations and expansions of 'Lala, you idiot' were all Lina ever said to her.
"Farm... uh... girl, make me some dinner." Lala paused and looked at the redhead, who was busy forking hay. "... please?"
"Lala, you idiot, we ate everything there was in the house for lunch. I can't make dinner out of hay."
"Can you, Lina?" Gourry asked.
"No." She looked thoughtful. "There was a sorcerer in Sairaag who was working on a spell like that, but... "
"He was in town when Rezo's copy... " Sylphiel verified.
"Farmhand, fetch me that pitcher."
Lina sighed. "Lala, you idiot, it's right in front of your nose. If it were a snake, it would have bitten you."
That day, Lala was amazed to discover that when Lina said "Lala, you idiot," what she actually meant was "You're my best friend in the whole world." And even more amazing was the day when she realized that Lina was truly her best friend as well.
"I can't remember if it was amazing or not," Gourry said, puzzled. "I mean, it's just the way Lina is, right?"
Lina stared at him.
"She's kind of short-tempered and stuff, but I don't see how we could not be friends."
Lina quickly patted his arm, then glared at the other occupants of the table as if daring them to comment.
"This is all very warm and fuzzy," Zelgadis said, "but where's the stuff about Rezo? Where's the story?" He paused and then asked suspiciously, "Is this one of those girls' stories?"
"It's coming, it's coming," Sylphiel reassured him. "Keep your shirt on."
Gourry blinked. "Why were you taking your shirt off, Zelgadis?"
"Where did you get a phrase like that from?" Lina hissed. "And how do you know what's coming?"
"My grandfather used to tell me a story like this," Sylphiel explained, "and that's what he'd say when I got impatient."
Once she realized this, Lala hung around Lina and did friend-type things more often. She cleaned herself up -- because Lina refused to be seen willingly with anyone who looked as if they'd just been dragged through a haystack backwards -- and while she had often been mildly depressed before, since none of the other girls for miles around were nice to her --
"Why not?" Gourry asked.
"It's kind of hard to be nice to someone while you're gnawing your liver out and hoping at least one boy will be nice to you for a change," Amelia explained.
-- now that she had a friend, she brightened and grew happier every day. Within a week, she was in the top fifty. Within a month, the top twenty, and rising steadily.
Neither Lina nor Lala were the sort of people who like living on a farm all their lives, so they decided to go off adventuring, build up a reputation, wrong rights, depress the oppressed, fight with evil, rob the rich to give to themselves, and in general have a fun time.
Unfortunately, neither of them had any money. Lina decided to go overseas, acquire a reputation and some cash, and send for her friend to join her. It was a very emotional time for poor Lala.
"I don't believe this," Zelgadis muttered.
Sylphiel elbowed him (and then winced, hissing).
"I'm afraid I'll never see you again," Lala said, eyes quivering.
"Nonsense," Lina told her. "Of course you will. I will always come for you... so you'd better be ready to pick up and leave."
"But how can you be so sure?"
"Lala, you idiot, we have Ishin-denshin, such as only the closest of siblings or the truest of lovers or the best of friends share. Do you think this happens every day?"
And while, as I said, Lala had been amazing before, it was nothing to the way she looked after Lina's departure. She exercised daily, and it was hard and boring and she thought her arms would fall off, but she kept at it because suppose she got all the way overseas and Lina said "Look at you! You get tired out walking uphill and you can barely wield a broom, let alone a sword. I'm going to forget I ever knew you and be partners with Cloud Strife."
"Cloud Strife," Gourry said. "Now where have I heard that name?"
The rest of the party shrugged, for once equally clueless.
"I don't know either," Amelia said.
And not only did she brush her hair, she brushed it with two hundred strokes every day until it was thick and shining and golden and fell like a waterfall, and then taught herself to choose outfits that were both flattering and comfortable, because what if she got all the way there and Lina said "You look like an escapee from a rag-bag. I'm going to ignore you and go into partnership with Millennium Feria Nocturne y Stargazer."
"Milly -- " Gourry began.
"No clue," everyone chorused.
By the end of the first week, she was in fifteenth place. By the end of the second, in tenth. She moved up to ninth and then eighth easily enough, but then was deadlocked until she got a letter from Lina, and the sheer burst of happiness from that bumped her up three places.
For more than anything else, it was her feelings for Lina that was responsible for Lala's transformation. The letter itself was no example of sterling artistry -- "I am at the port; wish you were here. The sun is shining; wish you were here. The food's great here; wish you were here, provided you didn't steal MY dinner." -- but Lala understood it perfectly.
And then one day, Lala returned from her ride to find her grandfather reading a letter.
"Is it from Lina?" she asked. "What does it say?"
Her grandfather looked at her. "I'm afraid Lina's ship was attacked. By the Dread Pirate Emeraldas."
"Who never leaves captives alive," Lala said very quietly. "I wonder how they killed her? Sword? Arrow? Magic spell? Maybe they cut her throat while she was asleep? Or did she drown? She was very brave; it probably took them several men... oh, don't mind me." She wandered up to her room and locked herself in. For days she neither slept nor ate.
"Murdered by pirates is good," Zelgadis said.
"What do you mean, 'good'? She got killed off in the first chapter! What sort of Lina is that?" the redhead demanded.
"Maybe she won't stay dead," Sylphiel offered. "You didn't."
"Oh. Yeah."
When Lala finally came out, she had lost some weight. Her face, earlier lovely in its joy, had been stamped with sorrow and was the richer for it. She understood the nature of suffering and the anguish of what might have been. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't care.
"I will never care that much about anyone else, ever again," Lala said.
She never did.
I.e., it is the property of William Goldman, and no more mine than the Slayers cast.