Mazoku of My Dreams
written by Beedoo!
Chapter 34: Slow Going, or None at All?
Lina stared out through one of the inn's bay windows. Outside, against a background of lemon-yellow sunshine and dark storm clouds, raindrops caught the light, each flashing brilliantly before patting against the ground. The petite sorceress sighed. "I know we're in a hurry to find this Elric guy, but do we really have to walk in the rain? It's so cold!"
"Miss Lina, we have to stay ahead of Mister Alemo, or Miss Mayaki and Mister Zelgaddis will never get their cures!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, Amelia. I'm just not looking forward to traveling in this. A couple more months, and it's going to start snowing."
"Oh dear… I didn't realize winder was so close," Mayaki added.
"Doesn't anyone like the snow but me?" the princess whine.
"No," the other two chorused.
"I'm so hungry! Why're we waiting on breakfast?"
Mayaki set her hands on her hips. "I told you already, Lina. If we order food before Xellos gets here, you and Gourry will eat it all, and if he orders his own when he gets here, you'll decide you're hungry again and try to steal it from him." She glanced out the window, looking down to the street. "Oh, here he is!" she twittered, clapping her hands and waving down to him. "Xellos!"
"Great. Let's go meet him and get breakfast!" Lina sprang to her feet, never so happy to see Xellos in her life. Mayaki giggled girlishly and followed, leaving Amelia staring out the window at the rain.
"Hey, wait! Wait for me!" she exclaimed, dashing down the stairs after them.
* * * * *
"East? That's the best directions you could get?" Lina's eye twitched dangerously. Xellos held his hands up in defense.
"Yes… East, until we come to this canyon…"
"And you say there are no inns on the way there?"
"None to tell of. In fact, there didn't seem to be as much as a town the entire distance."
Lina speared a pancake with her fork and shoved the whole thing into her mouth. She chewed twice and swallowed it.
Mayaki carefully cut into her own flapjacks, keeping a wary eye on Lina and Gourry on one side of her, and half an eye on Amelia, just in case. She leaned toward Zelgaddis carefully and asked, "Has Lina's mouth always been disproportionate to the rest of her body?"
Zel spluttered into his coffee, coughed a few times, and his a grin behind his closed fist, trying to maintain his dignity.
"I don't even know why I agreed to come on this stupid quest," the sorceress mumbled through a spray of crumbs.
"But Miss Lina, it was practically your idea!"
Lina narrowed her eyes and did her best to ignore Amelia's solid logic. "The traveling season's almost over and the only major treasure stash we ran into we had to leave behind. From here on out, we're up against rain, snow, sleet, hail, mud, cold temperatures, sleeping on wet ground, no place to take a bath, and a serious lack of profit. Not to mention any monsters we happen to run into."
Even Gourry stopped eating and blinked at her. "Lina, you really don't want to go?"
The petite redhead leaned back in her chair, patted her bulging stomach, and set her boots up on the table. "I'd rather just stay here until spring rolls around." The two waitresses who had been busily clearing the group's stacks of dishes suddenly and simultaneously exchanged looks of horror and made themselves scarce. "Hey, as long as you're going to the kitchen, bring us out a few more eggs, over medium!" Lina shouted after them.
"But, Miss Lina, what about Mister Zelgaddis?"
"Cool it, Amelia," the chimaera warned.
"But…"
He sipped from his cup calmly. "No one forced her to come along in the first place. Why should we force her to come along now?"
The princess deflated, putting a finger to her lower lip. "I… I guess you're right…"
Mayaki stared over the table helplessly. "I'd offer to make you more food while we're on the road, but everything I can catch and fix in a day, you guys go through in less than an hour."
"It'll be a definite loss," Xellos summed up, finishing off a third helping of sausage and eggs. (His capacity for food, once he learned to fight off the ravenous, marauding gourmets of the group, had proven to be almost as prominent as Lina and Gourry's.) "And I assume," he added wryly, "that if Lina stays behind…so will Gourry. Correct?"
The swordsman nodded, in a numb silence and looked over to Lina, who was blushing furiously and twiddling her fingers.
Xellos sighed and nodded somberly.
"Miss Lina, you really won't come?"
The sorceress held up her hands, as if it wasn't her decision at all. "It won't be a very nice trip."
Tense silence settled in the room. Lina continued to hold on to her proud smile, refusing to take back what she'd said, even though she wasn't sure she meant it. Her entire way of life depended on making a choice and standing firm on it; she wasn't about to give in. That would mean she was getting soft.
Mayaki broke the silence by scooting her chair out and standing up. "I suppose we had better pack up and get going, then, if we can't change your mind, Lina. I hope we'll cross paths again sometime." She headed toward the inn's stairs and muttered, seemingly to herself, but loud enough to be heard at the table, "Who would have thought a little inclement weather would stop Lina Inverse…"
Lina was on her in a second, planting the wyvern-girl into the stairs and pinning her with a foot against her back. In each hand, the sorceress gripped a fistful of Mayaki's russet-burgundy hair and yanked on it as she spoke, eyes narrow and threatening. "What did you just say?!"
"Ow! Ow! Lina! OW!" the other girl protested.
"You saying I can't cut it? You think I'm going to wuss-out because of a little cold weather?! You've got another thing coming, sister! Pack it up, people. Let's get this show on the road!" Mayaki's forehead hit the steps as she was dropped, Lina bounding up the stairs to collect her belongings.
Mayaki slowly sat up. Xellos helped her to her feet. "You alright?"
"I thought that might get her moving," she grinned/grimaced as she rubbed the new bump on her forehead. "I just didn't know it would hurt so much…"
* * * * *
The nights were more eventful than the days, at least in Xellos's case. Memories returned to him in dribs and drabs, very small snippets. He would recall a voice, a taste, a favorite song… less in the first few days since his visit to the temple, but increasingly more as time progressed.
*Cirross!*
*What?* he thought, instantly aware of his dream. *Who is…*
* Cirross!… Ua taji bo tesshti na!*
*This language…the old language. It's change over time. Of course. And Cirross is…*
"Cirross!...I told you, those cookies are for later!"
"But Mamma, they're still warm, and that's when they taste best!"
Xellos felt disoriented, one moment viewing the kitchen scene of this straggly-haired kid bargaining with his mother for a cookie; the next moment seeing through his own childhood eyes, looking up into her bright, violet, almond-shaped ones. He both heard the words and felt himself speaking them. He experienced the memory like a firsthand occurrence, but also re-experienced it with a curious sensation of déjà vu.
"But Mamma, they're still warm, and that's when they taste the best!" he said.
"Is that so" the black-haired woman teased, tossing her long braid over her shoulder, letting it fishtail behind her back as she knelt to speak with her son. "And why is that?"
The seven-year old Cirross pondered for a second, screwing up his forehead with the effort. "Because the warm part is all the love put into the cookie by the person who baked it, and if we let them get cold, no one will get to taste the love part."
*Such a weasel, even at that age,* Xellos thought, shaking his head in amusement. He felt the warmth of the hot butter and chocolate on his tongue as he and his mother shared one of the fresh treats.
"Your hair is getting awfully long. How about a haircut?" the violet eyes
shone down on him.
The child looked
quizzically back. "How
about another cookie instead?"
The woman laughed. "Now, now, you need it. Look at how scruffy you are! Let's go out in back and we'll take care of it, shall we?"
* * * * *
Xellos felt the cold wetness around his head and in his ears as his mother splashed water into his unruly hair.
"Let's see, how short shall we make it?"
"Here," Cirross indicated, leveling his hand at his ears. "All the way around."
His mother laughed musically. "Silly boy. If I do it all the way around, it'll still keep falling in your eyes. Let's try…" she trailed off as she held the bowl against his head, cutting his hair to the requested length around the sides. Then she tilted the bowl up higher on his head, above his eyes, and cut his bangs. "There, that ought to do," she smiles. "Turn around, let me see. Oh, but aren't you handsome!"
"I wanna see!" Cirross demanded, running—scrambling was more like it—through the house to find his mother's silver hand-mirror. His child-self examined the new look, found it satisfactory, and began amusing himself by winking at his reflection. His mother came in behind him, took the looking glass from him and set it down gently, then gave her son a squeeze and an affectionate kiss on the forehead.
Xellos sat up in his dew-coated bedroll, well before dawn. The fading images of the dream still lingered. "Mother," he said aloud, though quietly. It was almost a shock to have remembered his mother, when before, he had been unaware of even having had a mother at all. More than this, he remembered the strong, pure love he'd had for her.
Then the thought struck that she was gone, that he would never see her again outside of his dreams, never be able to express his love to her. He bit his lip to stop himself, but two tears rolled out from the corners of his eyes anyway, catching the red light of the dying embers.
Not certain that he wanted to regain any more memories that night, he sniffed once, wrapped his blankets tighter around himself, and lay back down.
He missed her immensely, he realized, now that he remembered her.
* * * * *
"Another day of walking… Geez, Xellos, how far off is this canyon?" Lina bawled discontentedly.
"Yeah," Gourry echoed, likewise tiring of the endless foot-travel. "I'm beginning to wonder if it really exists.
"Maybe we should have bought some horses," Amelia thought aloud.
Xellos turned to cast his eyes over his worn-out companions. Except for Zelgaddis (who stood as firm as ever), all of them looked bedraggled and exhausted. Perhaps, he thought to himself, they had been pushing forward a little too hard. Muddy, wet travel was doing nothing to speed their way. Neither was having to break their own trail. Or the small tribe of trolls who had found themselves on the wrong end of Lina's temper… she didn't stop fireballing them until every last one was reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes. Nevertheless, they had to keep going. After coming so far, what choice did they have? They would run out of food eventually, even if they turned back. That ship had sailed a week ago. So Xellos opted for…well, optimism. "I'm sure it can't be much further," he encouraged brightly. "It has been almost three weeks… The forest in my dream didn't seem to be nearly this large, so the canyon must be somewhere nearby…" He hoped he was right. His own patience with this journey was flagging, and he certainly didn't want to end up like one of those trolls!
The group plodded on through the mist-touched trees.
The misty figure overhead, having eavesdropped on this conversation, returned to the place where her allies waited. "They are not far ahead of us. We could catch them today, if one of our number would pick up his lumbering human feet," Naia snapped and glared at the wyvern-man. Alemo glared straight back at her. D'saani glared vaguely at everything in his path. "Are you never going to make a move against them?" the woman Mazoku continued. "First, they were too close to the city, then the forest was too dense, then the rain hampered your ability to see three feet beyond your stupid, procrastinating beak! Some assassin you're turning out to be! If Mistress had only let us, we would have disposed of both you and them long ago!"
Alemo stared the Mazoku down. "A good assassin knows how to bide his time, waiting… until the perfect opportunity arises."
"A better one would know not to bide too much of it," the woman chided in return. "They'll have reached this canyon they're searching for well before we ever reach them!" She tossed her hair in a flustered gesture.
"Canyon? Hmm…."
"Why do you refuse to attack them?!" the frustrated Mazoku screeched at him.
Alemo narrowed his eyes at her and let loose the irritated sigh he had been holding. "Because. I know that there is not a chance in all the four worlds that we can beat them, especially if we go after all six of them at once. I've fought alongside them, and I can tell you, each one possesses exceptional power, even the young princess and the dimwitted swordsman… even my half sister. I've faced her in battle and she all but tore me to pieces, would have had I not shocked her with news about our father. And you seem to forget, though I keep telling you, that I need my sister and the book she carries, the only link to my father's whereabouts.
Naia's smug silence was much too long. "You're afraid of them.,"
"I am not," he answered back, too quickly.
A low rumble issued from D'saani, an irritated sounding of thunder. Alemo took it as a warning against quibbling with the womanly Mazoku, though she read it in another way.
"What is it?"
"You mentioned a canyon?"
"Yes, why?"
"It is not far off."
Naia waited for him to continue his thought. It was like waiting for the tide to come in. "Yes, and?" she finally prompted. Alemo took the opportunity to take the bottle of deadly oil out of his hip-pouch and examine it in the sun.
No expression arose on the hulking Mazoku's face, no tone entered his voice, yet the malicious intent was clear when he finished, "It will make an ideal trap. A good opportunity to split their ranks."
Alemo shifted an eye up toward D'saani's shoulders. "Don't know what you've got in mind, old boy, but it sounds promising enough for me." He returned the phial to his pouch and rose to his feet, then reached up as high as he could manage and clapped the Mazoku on the back. "By all means, lead the way."
**********************************************************************************
Disclaimer in short: Slayers and related characters aren't mine. Mayaki and various other incidental characters are.
Thanks for reading! Please leave me some feedback; I live and thrive on criticism! (not to mention, I'm a perfectionist. ;)
Pics of Mayaki (and, er, my other stuff) may be found at my art section: Beedoo!'s Place (look me up, I'm the only one with a !)
Well, this update's taken two months, but at least it's progress, huh? Even better, I've got another chapter in my back pocket, waiting to be typed in! So expect it soon! (on a relative geologic time scale, of course… ;)
Thanks, Lina Gabriev, badgerwolf, and Diana-sama for reviews!
LG, no worries! Lina and Gourry moments soon! They probably won't be as fleshed out as the rest, since I'm concentrating on the other five main chars… this is a rather back-burner story for them. And don't think I'm building up characters to have them killed off! Not me! ;D
Badg Perceptive, yes… but he's also got a thousand years of experience under his belt! ;)
D-sama You read it all at once?! Erg! I can't even do that, and I wrote it! Sorry it's not finished… but take into consideration that it's taken me since summer 2001 to get this far! The end is looming somewhere on the horizon, but expect a few more tribulations in the meantime. ;)
Jaa ne!