Disclaimer: see some other chapter.
Notes: Review responses below, as per usual.
ANNOUNCEMENT: (braces hands on knees and pants) Gentles, I apologize for neglecting you, and offer as compensation this chapter and the fruit of my labors over the last month or so: my site is up!!!
Please visit me at www. site-bg. com/ nightfall/ index.html (without the spaces, of course)!
AwA AwA AwA AwA
Holiday
by Nightfall Rising
part eleven
AwA AwA AwA AwA
Upstairs, Zel was leaning against the staircase with his arms crossed, as though that would hide his outfit, and a perfectly, pleasantly blank expression. He missed his out of control bangs ferociously, and was seriously considering undoing the rabbit-shaped diamond and ruby barrettes that held them back so he could hide under them and glare at people.
"Wazzamatter?" Val asked, appearing beside him, and he only just managed not to jump.
"Would you believe," he asked, careful to keep his tone amiable and in fierce control of his sibilants, "that I have spent the last fifteen minutes learning how to maintain a multispecies garrison of slaves on only twelve gold a day?"
"Yeah, it's amazing, the useful tips you can pick up at this kind of party," Val said, and the worst of it was that he sounded as though he meant it. "Listen, Daddy says everybody's starting to talk about my dumbass brother not being here. He's gotta show."
"Got to?" he repeated, blinking.
As though it had been the directive itself Zel had failed to understand, and not its purpose, Val explained, "You've gotta go get him. Right now."
Zel shrugged indifferently, and allowed, "I'll ask."
Regardless of all the blazingly dressed demons milling around looking for something to gossip about, Val planted his hands on either side of Zel's shoulders, stooped to lightly take his throat in his teeth, and growled, "Insist."
Fighting as hard not to squeak as he had before not to hiss, Zel carefully shrugged, and sighed, "Well, if you're going to -bribe- me..."
--------------------------------------------------------
"I wanna do thi-is! I wanna do tha-at!
Hey, you know, that's just how girls a-are!
Just one slip, just one slip, and it's to hell you go,
So you'd -bet-ter run to get out of -my- way!"
Sylphiel was singing. Xellos was singing and clapping to the music. Zelas was fifing tolerantly while Fenris barked backbeat. And Lina...
"FOR AS LONG AS I CAAAN! GET ALONG, TRY-YYY AGAAAAIN!"
Lina was howling at the top of her lungs and posturing shamelessly in the middle of the floor.
It ended in a big grin and a prolonged Victory pose, and then she flung herself backwards onto the couch. "Oh, that was good, was that good," she chattered happily. "Of course, I'm getting a little drunk. I haven't had any champagne since I pretended to marry that twit Hallas back when I was fifteen."
"You're kidding," Zelas said flatly.
"Hey, whether you're a wandering sorceress or a thaumaturgy professor, your money has to go to other things."
Although she didn't seem terribly upset about it, her arm was grabbed by a grimly silent Zelas, who dragged her to the newly installed dry bar without further ceremony.
"What a delightful person," Xellos laughed, looking after them. "Does Zel have any other friends like her?"
"No, there aren't many people like Lina," Sylphiel smiled. "Or like Zel, for that matter. We've had such good times together."
"You'll have even more fun with Val," Xellos promised. "But you'll have to promise to let Zelly and me into the Zel-Val-Lina-and-Sylphiel club.
"Sylphiel!" Lina shrieked, delighted, from across the room. "Look what I found!" A little faster than was prudent, she wheeled an enormous puppet theatre, which had been folded flat and wedged between two bookcases, over next to the door. Over the seaweed-purple curtains stood the words 'Bottlenose Theatre' in beautiful gold calligraphy.
"Oooh!" the taller woman exclaimed, bouncing up and diving to join her behind the curtains. "Let's do 'Little Gabriel and the Light Sword!'"
A blue jellyfish and a yellow starfish in a wizard's hat sprang up in front of the curtains, facing off against what looked like a fisherman. The jellyfish bobbed up and down, saying, "Hey! You almost hooked my eye! I'm going to have my wizard turn you into a flea! A harmless little flea!"
The starfish-wizard cringed as though it didn't think it could, then puffed up confidently with a thrusting out of someone's palm, and declared, "Or, to save on energy, maybe I'll just -smash you with the hammer of justice!-"
Xellos screamed and dived headfirst into the cushions again. This time he managed to make most of his body disappear into the couch. His sister just cringed slightly and downed another glass.
A red and an indigo-blue head poked up in front of the curtains, and their owners rested their elbows on the stage and grinned. "We sometimes put on shows for the students," Sylphiel explained, and Xellos squirmed around in a humanly impossible move to peer warily at them now that the horror seemed to be over. "Usually around midterms and finals. This is really a lovely one."
"Do you know any that aren't terrifying?" he inquired plaintively.
There was a knock on the door. "Xellos!"
"Oh, Zel!" He tried to extricate himself from the couch, but got himself hopelessly tangled up. "Come in!."
Zel did come in, in all his eye-destroying splendor. He didn't notice the girls in the big box, and neither did he blink at the increasingly contorted form of his host, who was in turn too involved with trying to free his arm to look at him. Instead, he just rapped formally on the sole of an exposed dress boot. "Mr. Rubyeye, I have a message for you."
"He should have knocked higher," Lina whispered to Sylphiel, who nodded regretfully.
"And I have one for you," Xellos probably said, but although his tone, matching Zel's for good cheer, came through all right, most of a cushion was crushed up against his face and the actual words got a little muffled.
"I have the honor to inform you," he said, easily picking up the couch from behind with one hand and reaching underneath it with the other to help free Xellos's arm, "that your presence is urgently requested upstairs."
"And I have the honor to inform you—OW! Ahhh. Thank you. That your presence is urgently requested right here." He paused, looking shifty and uncomfortable. "And, uh, maybe you could do that again?"
At the same time, Zelas drawled in explanation, "There's a meeting of the club."
"Your club," Xellos beamed. He'd pushed up into a sitting position by now, and his eyes were open nearly a quarter of an inch, and shining. They opened wider, though, as they took in the blue and black outfit, and his lips pursed a little in disbelief.
"Come on, Blackbeard," Zel said, "the party needs you."
Xellos looked helplessly at his sister, who droned, leaning against the bar and lighting up a cigarette, "Well, now's the time for all good men to come to the aide of the party." Her brother grinned, and nodded at Zel decisively.
"Your father's very upset," he urged.
"You don't say," Xellos drawled, and did a little lounging himself. His grin turned absolutely feral. "Oh, tell me, tell me, whatever -can- be the matter with best-beloved Daddy-darlingest-deary-dumplings?"
Even Zelas, who was used to it, took a moment to stare at him. It was probably the dumplings.
A little sick to his stomach, Zel manfully pushed on. "Everyone's talking about you not being there, and it's embarrassing the family."
"The family!" Xellos sat bolt upright, his expression going wide and hurt in betrayal. "Oh, -Zel!-"
"Uh-oh," Zelas muttered, sauntered casually behind the bar, and ducked. The other women, behind the curtain, hastened to follow her example.
"Come on," the chimera tried again, alarmed, following Zelas's progress out of the corner of his eye. He had to admit, peripheral vision was useful. "It would be polite, and it would make your father happy."
Xellos's face had frozen into a tight, sharp-edged smile under squinched up eyes and stormy brows. "Oh, I'm sure it would. Do you think, I wonder," he inquired with light fury, "it'd make him even happier if I crawled in on my hands and knees and scoured his toenails with my tongue?"
The jellyfish took the moment of helpless, baffled silence to reach out and bap Zel in the leg with the fisherman's rod. "Hey, Zel! Look, Swan Mei, it's Zel!" Startled, the chimera turned around.
"Oh, dear, oh dear," the starfish lamented, and stage-whispered, "That's not Zel."
"No?"
"That," the starfish said solemnly, "Is a Very Important Person."
On the couch, while Zel stared, Xellos leaned back again with his fingers laced behind his head, and started grinning.
"It looks like a stripper to me," the jellyfish said dubiously.
"Don't get fresh, yogurt-brain!" the starfish screeched, smacking the jellyfish with a clamshell. "You treat Important Persons with respect!"
"Shan't!" the jellyfish sniffed.
"Izzat so? You should uphold the democratically decided upon positions of society, you horrible person who kills people for money! That is the way of JUSTICE!"
"What is this?" Zel asked weakly.
"The voice of experience," intoned Zelas, who had stopped hiding with the improvement of her little brother's mood.
With a sudden start of recognition, Zel exclaimed, "Lina! Sylphiel!"
They emerged slowly, their faces squinted and sullen with suspicion. He leaned in to give Sylphiel a hug, and Lina slapped his wrist indignantly with a slipper, crying, "Get away from my wife, you pervert!"
Zel grinned at her, and said, "I am so glad you came."
But she was sniffing at him. Turning her mistrustful eyes to Sylphiel, she demanded, "Do we know anybody who smells like patchouli?"
"Oh!" Sylphiel uttered in despair, lifting a gentle hand to her forehead.
Zel blinked, and stood up straight. He looked at them and their sorrow. He looked at Xellos, who was hugging the pillow again and looked like he was on the watch for attacking rolled-up-newspapers. He looked at Zelas, who raised a disapproving eyebrow at him, took a deep drag through her ebony cigarette holder, and blew out a perfect, smoky square.
"Oh," he said sheepishly, and had the grace to blush. He pulled the bunny barrettes and the blue ribbon out of his wire hair and ran a hand through it with a godawful scraping noise. "How's that?"
"Lina, darling!" Sylphiel exclaimed in delight. "Look, it's Zel Greyweir! You remember him."
"Not old Zelgadis Greyweir, heartless magic-using swordsman?"
"Yes!" Sylphiel squealed, and they each grabbed one of his hands and shook it heartily. "We're so glad to have you back!"
"Back?" he asked, puzzled. "But I—oh. You mean the humahide stuffed shorts got me. Well, I'll go quietly." He lifted his hands, wrists together, with a martyred look.
"Let's do it, ladies and gentlething," Lina said with malicious eagerness, hurtling out from behind the theatre. "And give it all you've got. Let's make this a lesson he'll remember!"
They formed two lines, through which he walked at a dignified pace, slightly bent over. Zelas kicked him, and so did Lina, who hurt her foot and had to stagger around for a while and swear volubly. Sylphiel made a more prudent token gesture.
Xellos yanked at his cloak with a vicious jerk that ripped the cloak off, would have choked a human and brought Zel staggering backwards a step. Then he hauled off with a Visafrank loaded punch that sent the chimera flying into a bookcase. He aimed low.
Zel went down, and two shelves full of dusty thrillers fell on top of him. He shook his head vigorously to get rid of the birdies and got up, rubbing his abused posterior. "Well," he sighed, relieved as the rest went to sit on their former chairs and barstools, "that's a load off my mind."
"And don't you forget it!" Lina scolded.
"Oh," he said, brightening, and walking over to the couch. Xellos made room for him, but he though better of the whole sitting down idea and instead leaned on the back behind his host, who wiggled around to look at him. Or possibly his horrible shirt. "There's something I wanted to tell you. You remember the expedition I mentioned?"
"The Claire Bible one?" Lina asked.
"Yes. I got a pigeon from Amelia yesterday, and I think it's going to work out." Zelas popped open another bottle and started pouring while the professors exploded with excitement and Xellos sat straight up in delight and clasped his hands together. "Everyone, there's a very fair chance that by this time two months from now I'll be able to quit the expedition business."
"And shed the blue skin?" Xellos asked.
"It all depends on what a dragon named Milgazia does. He may have done it already."
"He'll do it," Xellos assured him, practically vibrating with excitement. "Whatever it is, he'll do it."
Zel looked down at him for a minute, with a look that wondered if the little demon just believed in him or was planning on pulling some strings. Then he mentally shrugged, and suggested, "Let's drink to Val. Have you two met him yet?"
"Not yet," Lina said, unconcerned, "but if he's anything like his brother...!"
Xellos fell off the couch laughing, and Zel had to lean over and haul him up by his belt. Before he'd even been lowered back to his seat, he was giggling, "Let's drink to Zel and Val and Milgazia and well-laid plans and good luck and taking advantage of it and—"
"Oh, here you are!" cooed Phibrizzo.
"In the name of L-Sama," sighed a disgusted Xellos, still dangling from Zel's hand by the back of his pants, "it's the jellyfish and his codpiece."
---------------------------------------------------------
[end part eleven]
Review responses:
Kalis Deleira: No, it's not just you; he's been worn down a bit. But as you can see, the committee to bring him back to his senses has alread formed (grins). And Xel's clothes looked cool in my head, too. I'll post that picture, eventually...
ChaosD: I like words. Words are -fun.- (bounces)
Kaeru Shishou: ...you pun like somebody who makes terrible puns... not just the blue but the aspic... itaaaaaai... (grins) As for Rezo--he's staying out of this one. I'm keeping him busy elsewhere, though, don't worry. That is, Xel is keeping him busy, if you want to get technical about it... in any case, the fireworks will continue in the next part!
Thanks for reviewing, all of you, and see you next time!
Notes: Review responses below, as per usual.
ANNOUNCEMENT: (braces hands on knees and pants) Gentles, I apologize for neglecting you, and offer as compensation this chapter and the fruit of my labors over the last month or so: my site is up!!!
Please visit me at www. site-bg. com/ nightfall/ index.html (without the spaces, of course)!
AwA AwA AwA AwA
Holiday
by Nightfall Rising
part eleven
AwA AwA AwA AwA
Upstairs, Zel was leaning against the staircase with his arms crossed, as though that would hide his outfit, and a perfectly, pleasantly blank expression. He missed his out of control bangs ferociously, and was seriously considering undoing the rabbit-shaped diamond and ruby barrettes that held them back so he could hide under them and glare at people.
"Wazzamatter?" Val asked, appearing beside him, and he only just managed not to jump.
"Would you believe," he asked, careful to keep his tone amiable and in fierce control of his sibilants, "that I have spent the last fifteen minutes learning how to maintain a multispecies garrison of slaves on only twelve gold a day?"
"Yeah, it's amazing, the useful tips you can pick up at this kind of party," Val said, and the worst of it was that he sounded as though he meant it. "Listen, Daddy says everybody's starting to talk about my dumbass brother not being here. He's gotta show."
"Got to?" he repeated, blinking.
As though it had been the directive itself Zel had failed to understand, and not its purpose, Val explained, "You've gotta go get him. Right now."
Zel shrugged indifferently, and allowed, "I'll ask."
Regardless of all the blazingly dressed demons milling around looking for something to gossip about, Val planted his hands on either side of Zel's shoulders, stooped to lightly take his throat in his teeth, and growled, "Insist."
Fighting as hard not to squeak as he had before not to hiss, Zel carefully shrugged, and sighed, "Well, if you're going to -bribe- me..."
--------------------------------------------------------
"I wanna do thi-is! I wanna do tha-at!
Hey, you know, that's just how girls a-are!
Just one slip, just one slip, and it's to hell you go,
So you'd -bet-ter run to get out of -my- way!"
Sylphiel was singing. Xellos was singing and clapping to the music. Zelas was fifing tolerantly while Fenris barked backbeat. And Lina...
"FOR AS LONG AS I CAAAN! GET ALONG, TRY-YYY AGAAAAIN!"
Lina was howling at the top of her lungs and posturing shamelessly in the middle of the floor.
It ended in a big grin and a prolonged Victory pose, and then she flung herself backwards onto the couch. "Oh, that was good, was that good," she chattered happily. "Of course, I'm getting a little drunk. I haven't had any champagne since I pretended to marry that twit Hallas back when I was fifteen."
"You're kidding," Zelas said flatly.
"Hey, whether you're a wandering sorceress or a thaumaturgy professor, your money has to go to other things."
Although she didn't seem terribly upset about it, her arm was grabbed by a grimly silent Zelas, who dragged her to the newly installed dry bar without further ceremony.
"What a delightful person," Xellos laughed, looking after them. "Does Zel have any other friends like her?"
"No, there aren't many people like Lina," Sylphiel smiled. "Or like Zel, for that matter. We've had such good times together."
"You'll have even more fun with Val," Xellos promised. "But you'll have to promise to let Zelly and me into the Zel-Val-Lina-and-Sylphiel club.
"Sylphiel!" Lina shrieked, delighted, from across the room. "Look what I found!" A little faster than was prudent, she wheeled an enormous puppet theatre, which had been folded flat and wedged between two bookcases, over next to the door. Over the seaweed-purple curtains stood the words 'Bottlenose Theatre' in beautiful gold calligraphy.
"Oooh!" the taller woman exclaimed, bouncing up and diving to join her behind the curtains. "Let's do 'Little Gabriel and the Light Sword!'"
A blue jellyfish and a yellow starfish in a wizard's hat sprang up in front of the curtains, facing off against what looked like a fisherman. The jellyfish bobbed up and down, saying, "Hey! You almost hooked my eye! I'm going to have my wizard turn you into a flea! A harmless little flea!"
The starfish-wizard cringed as though it didn't think it could, then puffed up confidently with a thrusting out of someone's palm, and declared, "Or, to save on energy, maybe I'll just -smash you with the hammer of justice!-"
Xellos screamed and dived headfirst into the cushions again. This time he managed to make most of his body disappear into the couch. His sister just cringed slightly and downed another glass.
A red and an indigo-blue head poked up in front of the curtains, and their owners rested their elbows on the stage and grinned. "We sometimes put on shows for the students," Sylphiel explained, and Xellos squirmed around in a humanly impossible move to peer warily at them now that the horror seemed to be over. "Usually around midterms and finals. This is really a lovely one."
"Do you know any that aren't terrifying?" he inquired plaintively.
There was a knock on the door. "Xellos!"
"Oh, Zel!" He tried to extricate himself from the couch, but got himself hopelessly tangled up. "Come in!."
Zel did come in, in all his eye-destroying splendor. He didn't notice the girls in the big box, and neither did he blink at the increasingly contorted form of his host, who was in turn too involved with trying to free his arm to look at him. Instead, he just rapped formally on the sole of an exposed dress boot. "Mr. Rubyeye, I have a message for you."
"He should have knocked higher," Lina whispered to Sylphiel, who nodded regretfully.
"And I have one for you," Xellos probably said, but although his tone, matching Zel's for good cheer, came through all right, most of a cushion was crushed up against his face and the actual words got a little muffled.
"I have the honor to inform you," he said, easily picking up the couch from behind with one hand and reaching underneath it with the other to help free Xellos's arm, "that your presence is urgently requested upstairs."
"And I have the honor to inform you—OW! Ahhh. Thank you. That your presence is urgently requested right here." He paused, looking shifty and uncomfortable. "And, uh, maybe you could do that again?"
At the same time, Zelas drawled in explanation, "There's a meeting of the club."
"Your club," Xellos beamed. He'd pushed up into a sitting position by now, and his eyes were open nearly a quarter of an inch, and shining. They opened wider, though, as they took in the blue and black outfit, and his lips pursed a little in disbelief.
"Come on, Blackbeard," Zel said, "the party needs you."
Xellos looked helplessly at his sister, who droned, leaning against the bar and lighting up a cigarette, "Well, now's the time for all good men to come to the aide of the party." Her brother grinned, and nodded at Zel decisively.
"Your father's very upset," he urged.
"You don't say," Xellos drawled, and did a little lounging himself. His grin turned absolutely feral. "Oh, tell me, tell me, whatever -can- be the matter with best-beloved Daddy-darlingest-deary-dumplings?"
Even Zelas, who was used to it, took a moment to stare at him. It was probably the dumplings.
A little sick to his stomach, Zel manfully pushed on. "Everyone's talking about you not being there, and it's embarrassing the family."
"The family!" Xellos sat bolt upright, his expression going wide and hurt in betrayal. "Oh, -Zel!-"
"Uh-oh," Zelas muttered, sauntered casually behind the bar, and ducked. The other women, behind the curtain, hastened to follow her example.
"Come on," the chimera tried again, alarmed, following Zelas's progress out of the corner of his eye. He had to admit, peripheral vision was useful. "It would be polite, and it would make your father happy."
Xellos's face had frozen into a tight, sharp-edged smile under squinched up eyes and stormy brows. "Oh, I'm sure it would. Do you think, I wonder," he inquired with light fury, "it'd make him even happier if I crawled in on my hands and knees and scoured his toenails with my tongue?"
The jellyfish took the moment of helpless, baffled silence to reach out and bap Zel in the leg with the fisherman's rod. "Hey, Zel! Look, Swan Mei, it's Zel!" Startled, the chimera turned around.
"Oh, dear, oh dear," the starfish lamented, and stage-whispered, "That's not Zel."
"No?"
"That," the starfish said solemnly, "Is a Very Important Person."
On the couch, while Zel stared, Xellos leaned back again with his fingers laced behind his head, and started grinning.
"It looks like a stripper to me," the jellyfish said dubiously.
"Don't get fresh, yogurt-brain!" the starfish screeched, smacking the jellyfish with a clamshell. "You treat Important Persons with respect!"
"Shan't!" the jellyfish sniffed.
"Izzat so? You should uphold the democratically decided upon positions of society, you horrible person who kills people for money! That is the way of JUSTICE!"
"What is this?" Zel asked weakly.
"The voice of experience," intoned Zelas, who had stopped hiding with the improvement of her little brother's mood.
With a sudden start of recognition, Zel exclaimed, "Lina! Sylphiel!"
They emerged slowly, their faces squinted and sullen with suspicion. He leaned in to give Sylphiel a hug, and Lina slapped his wrist indignantly with a slipper, crying, "Get away from my wife, you pervert!"
Zel grinned at her, and said, "I am so glad you came."
But she was sniffing at him. Turning her mistrustful eyes to Sylphiel, she demanded, "Do we know anybody who smells like patchouli?"
"Oh!" Sylphiel uttered in despair, lifting a gentle hand to her forehead.
Zel blinked, and stood up straight. He looked at them and their sorrow. He looked at Xellos, who was hugging the pillow again and looked like he was on the watch for attacking rolled-up-newspapers. He looked at Zelas, who raised a disapproving eyebrow at him, took a deep drag through her ebony cigarette holder, and blew out a perfect, smoky square.
"Oh," he said sheepishly, and had the grace to blush. He pulled the bunny barrettes and the blue ribbon out of his wire hair and ran a hand through it with a godawful scraping noise. "How's that?"
"Lina, darling!" Sylphiel exclaimed in delight. "Look, it's Zel Greyweir! You remember him."
"Not old Zelgadis Greyweir, heartless magic-using swordsman?"
"Yes!" Sylphiel squealed, and they each grabbed one of his hands and shook it heartily. "We're so glad to have you back!"
"Back?" he asked, puzzled. "But I—oh. You mean the humahide stuffed shorts got me. Well, I'll go quietly." He lifted his hands, wrists together, with a martyred look.
"Let's do it, ladies and gentlething," Lina said with malicious eagerness, hurtling out from behind the theatre. "And give it all you've got. Let's make this a lesson he'll remember!"
They formed two lines, through which he walked at a dignified pace, slightly bent over. Zelas kicked him, and so did Lina, who hurt her foot and had to stagger around for a while and swear volubly. Sylphiel made a more prudent token gesture.
Xellos yanked at his cloak with a vicious jerk that ripped the cloak off, would have choked a human and brought Zel staggering backwards a step. Then he hauled off with a Visafrank loaded punch that sent the chimera flying into a bookcase. He aimed low.
Zel went down, and two shelves full of dusty thrillers fell on top of him. He shook his head vigorously to get rid of the birdies and got up, rubbing his abused posterior. "Well," he sighed, relieved as the rest went to sit on their former chairs and barstools, "that's a load off my mind."
"And don't you forget it!" Lina scolded.
"Oh," he said, brightening, and walking over to the couch. Xellos made room for him, but he though better of the whole sitting down idea and instead leaned on the back behind his host, who wiggled around to look at him. Or possibly his horrible shirt. "There's something I wanted to tell you. You remember the expedition I mentioned?"
"The Claire Bible one?" Lina asked.
"Yes. I got a pigeon from Amelia yesterday, and I think it's going to work out." Zelas popped open another bottle and started pouring while the professors exploded with excitement and Xellos sat straight up in delight and clasped his hands together. "Everyone, there's a very fair chance that by this time two months from now I'll be able to quit the expedition business."
"And shed the blue skin?" Xellos asked.
"It all depends on what a dragon named Milgazia does. He may have done it already."
"He'll do it," Xellos assured him, practically vibrating with excitement. "Whatever it is, he'll do it."
Zel looked down at him for a minute, with a look that wondered if the little demon just believed in him or was planning on pulling some strings. Then he mentally shrugged, and suggested, "Let's drink to Val. Have you two met him yet?"
"Not yet," Lina said, unconcerned, "but if he's anything like his brother...!"
Xellos fell off the couch laughing, and Zel had to lean over and haul him up by his belt. Before he'd even been lowered back to his seat, he was giggling, "Let's drink to Zel and Val and Milgazia and well-laid plans and good luck and taking advantage of it and—"
"Oh, here you are!" cooed Phibrizzo.
"In the name of L-Sama," sighed a disgusted Xellos, still dangling from Zel's hand by the back of his pants, "it's the jellyfish and his codpiece."
---------------------------------------------------------
[end part eleven]
Review responses:
Kalis Deleira: No, it's not just you; he's been worn down a bit. But as you can see, the committee to bring him back to his senses has alread formed (grins). And Xel's clothes looked cool in my head, too. I'll post that picture, eventually...
ChaosD: I like words. Words are -fun.- (bounces)
Kaeru Shishou: ...you pun like somebody who makes terrible puns... not just the blue but the aspic... itaaaaaai... (grins) As for Rezo--he's staying out of this one. I'm keeping him busy elsewhere, though, don't worry. That is, Xel is keeping him busy, if you want to get technical about it... in any case, the fireworks will continue in the next part!
Thanks for reviewing, all of you, and see you next time!