Sorry for the extreme lateness. I had a lot of work, I then went home for the holiday, and then proceeded to fall quite ill. I apologize for delay and hope I haven't lost any of you.

Also, if any of you have e-mailed me and not gotten a response, it's probably because I didn't get it - for whatever reason, my hotmail address is no longer receiving mail. I'll put a new address that works up in my profile if you need me. Again, I'm not a total jerk, but hotmail is.

Seygram 13 - Glad you liked the Gourry bits. I feel the same way, that he's too often relegated the role of being a moron, when in truth he's very insightful and bright in his own ways. I'm very fond of him and there's no way I would portray him with any less respect than I think he deserves. I appreciate your comments on Amelia too, and maybe you'll see her in action...maybe...;)
Gerao-A - What were they doing indeed... Glad you liked the conversation.. But will Amedyn kill Zel? Hmmm...I'm not saying anything.
Klutz82 - The darkness is brought on! Sorry for the wait!

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Part XI-Himmelen Blir Brutt- (The Sky is Broken)

"I am reaching, but I fall
And the stars seem black and cold
As I stare into the void
Of a world that cannot hold..."
-Javert, "Les Miserables"

-------

It had come in the night, stealing into his unconscious as he slept and hiding itself until the light of dawn woke him, and stirred something within.

It had come as a fear that wasn't necessarily new, but seemed to gnaw at him as it hadn't before. It came in part, he was sure, from the days that came and went and went and came back like clockwork. There were just so many days...

It had come and now it wouldn't go, and although he could have thrown his arms around the sign that read "Merrid," the thing inside him told him it was all for nothing.

Because what had come in the night was a chill and a nagging that said to him the Amelia he'd known was dead.

Now normally, he would have disregarded this thought as nerves, tension. A little bit of his uptight nature drawing his daydreams into funny places. But this was irrefutable. This was a solid piece of...what? And he knew it like he knew his name, like he knew his face. It was, simply, the hard, cold truth.

And it scared him that he knew it like this. It was undeniable, and it was terrifying because it meant that whenever they got there, they were going to be late by far too much. He'd first noticed it the day after he and Gourry had spoken- that was in Ajaul. It had metastasized like a cancer over the next few days as Xellos disappeared to his own devices and they reached Lirose and Sheloryah. It had come to the point now where it was present at every moment.

With every step it got worse.

With every step it reminded him that it was all. His. Fault.

Sure, it would have helped to have someone to talk to, but Lina and Gourry had completely disregarded it. They kept telling him not to get depressed, to keep his spirits up. She wasn't dead, and they were going to find her. They just would not believe it... So he'd been left alone with it for more than a month.

If he'd been feeling god-awful before, this was worse.

"Zel, would you move your butt?!"Lina's cry pierced the air and made him shudder more. The two of them had not been getting on well of late. She was sick of his morbid attitude, and he was sick of her not giving him credit for what was to him the given truth. And the cold weather and put her in an even fouler mood than usual. Gourry was doing all in his power to keep the two from tearing each other to bits.

"It's getting dark, and we have to find an inn soon."Gourry said patiently once they were all walking together again. "And then in the morning we'll hire a boat."

"Oh, wonderful."Zel sneered. "So she'll rot another day while we just fuck around here in another inn, and-"

"Do shut up."Lina suggested, acid in her voice. "Perhaps you'd like to start on a sea voyage in the middle of the night? Well that's great for you, but we're doing this together, and two votes out of three say we're not going until morning, okay?! So would you stop digging yourself into a little 'She's dead' hole and use some sense?!"

"Now look you little unfeeling-"

"I'M unfeeling? Oho, the rock thinks he can teach me how to care about people?!"

The swordsman sighed. They were right in each other's faces again. This had happened at least once a day for the past two weeks, and he was really getting sick of it. It was awfully hard to be the oldest, sometimes.

"Listen, you two..."

"...And I'm sick of hearing you whine!"

"Excuse me for knowing the truth!"

"Please, this is getting silly. Lina..."

"You know, I am not going to argue with you anymore! I'm not even going to TALK TO YOU!"

"Well GOOD!"

"FINE!"

And simultaneously, they both turned their backs to each other with a resolute "Hmph!" Gourry shook his head and pulled his cloak tighter. Things were going from bad to worse.

-------

Finding an inn was stupidly difficult, dinner was obscenely ridiculous, and trying to hire a boat the next morning just plain sucked. Despite his desperate entreaties, Gourry could not make his friends talk to each other; they would address things to him, such as "Gourry, tell Lina that I..." or "Gourry, tell Zel..." but these usually led to more insults. They did everything possible to disagree with one another, which made the already hard task of finding a ship to take them out into the ocean the next morning nearly impossible.

Finally, Gourry sent the two off in separate directions to inquire in hiring a boat. He went with Lina, of course, to keep her from doing something unseemly, but he couldn't help glancing back at Zel every so often. Even from far away, it was possible to tell that the Chimera was growing more and more frustrated with every refusal. He began to wonder if they would ever find anyone to take them out. Or at least, anyone who would take them out without having to use the Dragon Slave as a bribe.

The short daylight was fleeing fast when the pair came to the last ship at the port. It wasn't terribly large, but it looked sturdy, and relatively new. The black paint that broadcasted the name "Sandor" seemed fresh, and the woman who perched on the deck braiding her long blond hair looked very seaworthy for her years.

"HEY!" Lina decided to get her attention in a less than tactful manner. "We want to hire your boat!"

The woman looked up with a raised eyebrow before clambering down the hull to drop in front of them. She surveyed the pair: a tall handsome man who looked cold, tired, and exasperated, and a little red haired girl who was huddled in her cloak, emitting waves of irritation.

The man stepped in front of his companion and extended his hand.

"Hello. My name is Gourry Gabriev, and my friend and I would like to hire your boat."

The woman took it.

"Dhitney Wirks at your service. Where are you going?"

"North. Just straight north."

"To the ice shelf? You're kidding, right?"

Dhitney couldn't help but notice his shoulders sag as she spoke. Ah, these were the people the other captains had mentioned -no specified destination beyond the frigid waters above them. Well, there were reasons no one had taken them aboard. Who in their right mind would want to go sailing up there for no real purpose?

"No, I'm sorry to say that I'm not kidding, but..."

"Look, I don't know why you'd want to go up there. You want snow and ice, just wait another few days and you'll have it right here."

"Does this mean you won't take us?"

"Well, I hate to say it, but-"

"THEN DON'T SAY IT!" Gourry caught Lina by the hood an instant before she leapt at the other woman.

"Lina, please!"

"No, I won't 'please!' I am sick and tired of all these self-righteous shippers who won't be hired to do what they exist for!"

"Hey, miss!" Dhitney backed up a few steps. "It's not that I wouldn't love the money, but I happen to love my personal safety too! If you had a good reason, I might consider it."

"A good reason."Lina's voice dropped low. "A good reason? HOW'S THIS FOR A GOOD REASON?! My friend is stuck up there somewhere, and she's been there for months! We need to get her, and there is no question about it that if you don't take us up there she's as good as dead!"

"Months?!"the boatswoman looked at the other girl. "There's no way anyone could survive there for months! What the hell is she doing up there anyway?"

"There isn't time to explain! Just say you'll take us up there or I'll-"

"You'll what?"

"I'll..."Lina looked up at Gourry's glare and, pursing her lips in a pout, sunk down into her collar. "I won't do anything. I'll build my own goddamn boat and go up there myself."

"We don't care about the price." Gourry ignored his lover stepping on his foot as he said this. "We need to get our friend. Because if we don't, our other friend, the one way down there,"he pointed behind himself to the far end of the pier where Zel stood. "..Will go absolutely insane. Please, you're our last chance."

Dhitney looked back and forth between this pair, and the man who stood beyond them. Finally, she shook her head and turned back her ship.

"You're going to buy all the supplies we'll need. And that means huge amounts of wood to keep us from freezing, and food that'll do alright in the cold. We'll set out tomorrow morning." Casting a backwards look over her shoulder, she added "I'll take you up to the ice shelf. And then you're on your own."

Grasping a rope that hung over the hull, she pulled herself back up onto her boat. After she was gone, Gourry turned to Lina with a broad smile.

"See? I told you we could do it without you having to hurt anyone!"

Lina grumbled something incoherent, and Gourry leaned over and kissed her nose. "I'll go get Zel, and we'll have dinner, alright?"

"Fine."

"Will you talk to him yet?"

"No."

Well, at least they'd accomplished something, even if they were still going to be stubborn about this. Shrugging, the blond man dashed away to gather up their friend.

-------

The stars were dark.

It was a passing revelation to Zel as he stood on the Sandor's deck, freezing spray blowing up into his face every now and then. The water was fairly calm right now, but it had been very violent earlier- after four days, they were beginning to encounter the occasional large chunk of ice, and the weather up here was less than pleasant. Bitter winds and sharp, stinging snow reminded him why he, like Lina, was not a fan of winter.

Lina...now there was a story. Grimacing a little, he recalled how Gourry, fed up with their silence towards each other, dragged them both to the main deck, made Dhitney stop the ship, and forced them to stare at one another until they promised to stop acting like stubborn children. Of course it was true, and they finally apologized to one another, but both were fairly embarrassed, and so hadn't spoken much since. He was pretty certain Lina was trying to make it up to Gourry right now.

But he was on the deck, feeling the ship slowly bob up and down underneath his feet as he pulled his thick cloak tighter. Since going down to the room he was forced into sharing with his friends was not really an option, and Dhitney had already retired to her own cabin (conveniently warmed by one of Lina's heat spells), he really didn't have any other choice besides standing here and looking out at the ocean.

And the stars were dark, as if the sky was broken.

It was kind of uncanny. Usually, he'd found that when you were out in the wild, away from the lights of a city, the stars were brighter. But here they seemed to attempt to match the earth by being cold and dim. Unfriendly. They were nothing close to the sparkling diamonds they'd been in Seyruun.

Sparkling diamonds.

Amelia's ring.

Amelia.

He didn't think it a coincidence that thinking on her suddenly made him shiver. It seemed that everything had fallen under some kind of shadow since his grim epiphany... even her memory, and that scared him most of all.

Each day, the Amelia he'd know seem to drift further and further away from him. He tried to hold on, but he was losing her again. She was slipping out of his hands as she'd done that night, drifting away from him into reaches beyond death. You could keep someone within you, let them live inside you, even if they were gone. But not if their memory disappeared with them.

And he couldn't afford to let her go, because he knew the moment she went, every remaining bit of his sanity would go too. Without any part of her left to him, his world was not going to hold up.

What would they find when they reached Dynast's stronghold?

It was a stretch, he knew, but gods willing, they'd find Amelia and take her home.

Or gods help him when his world came crashing down around him.

-------

Gray eyes took in the stars.

A heart began to race.

She could feel it. They were getting close. She could practically see him stepping onto her battlefield, standing before her, unaware of the danger...unaware of the painful way he would die.

And somewhere in the back of her mind, she could feel him looking at the same stars.

But she was not going to let him share them with her. No, not for much longer.

And then they would have nothing in common. Not even the same world.