Limbo: (lim-bO) n. An imaginary place for lost or neglected things.

Author's Note: I'm aware that my last chapter was very short… I hope that this chapter makes up for that. I would like to thank the elusive Rabid Moth for all of his help with this story.

Disclaimer: Xellos is mine. Zelgadis is mine. Lina is mine. Filia is mine. Uh… you can have Gourry and Amelia. And I'm willing to share Val with you.

Actually, I lied; I don't own any of them. But, if you're the one who does own them, I'm willing to settle for just Xellos and Zelgadis!

Thank You's:

Moonreel: Thanks for taking the time to RR! I know Gourry wouldn't just leave Lina, but I didn't want to get into detail so soon. Don't worry; it'll make better sense later on. I'm glad you didn't find any mistakes; I tried very hard to get rid of them all before posting! I hope this chapter is long enough for you!

Chapter 2: Stimulative Stasis

The feeling was like that of being hit by a ton of bricks. Then being tossed over a cliff, landing funny on a bunch of watermelon sized rocks, and having a large oak tree fall on you … just for good measure.

Deciding not to move at this exact moment was a good idea.

A very good idea.

'What did I do to deserve this?' the echoing of the inner thoughts reverberated, causing a lot of pain.

Figuring that sitting up couldn't possible be any worse than that was a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

Opening eyes was a worse one.

The light was blinding for all of three seconds before her bright red eyes could adjust and take in her surroundings.

Sunlight streamed through the canopy creating a serene atmosphere over the two bodies lying in the clearing. Small animals scurried through the bushes and birds chirped their welcoming to the morning. The forest hummed everywhere with life doing what it did best, living.

Xellos, who until this moment hadn't been moving at all, suddenly opened his eyes and sat up. He then stood and walked over to Lina's lifeless body.

'Seems it worked, ne?' Xellos thought to himself.

"Yare Yare, little Lina, we can't have you leaving us before your time, now can we?" he scolded the comatose form, then added to himself, "Mother may just decide to start all over if you do."

"Jeeze," Lina complained loudly to herself, "Does this just keep going? Just where the hell am I? Where is everybody? This place is as annoying as Xellos!"

Stretched out for as far as she could see was nothing, the only placement of a direction was the ground she walked upon allowing her an up from a down. Even that was annoying to the small spell caster. The ground was flat and smooth, like marble, and was varying shades of grey and black. No patterns or specific shapes could be made out, nothing to say that the placement of tone meant anything.

The sky, for lack of a better word, held no clouds and no sun. No real color was present there either. It seemed as if the 'sky' were made up of someone's shadow lying upon nothing. There was no movement or change in the 'sky' either, though if you looked at it too long you could feel yourself begin to go cross-eyed. Even though the 'sky' held no sun and no other light source anywhere else was apparent, it was not difficult to see. In fact, Lina noticed that there was enough 'light' that even the color of her clothes was as perceptible as if it were broad daylight.

Because of these features, or lack thereof, it was no wonder that Lina held no sense of time or distance. She had no idea of how long she had been walking. All she knew was that she was lost, hungry, tired, and very frustrated. It was also no surprise when she began to talk to herself. No sound was present and the silence grated on her nerves to the point that she was imagining a constant ringing in her ears. So she would fill it with ranting and thoughts spoken aloud only to bring her some measure of comfort.

Try as she might, Lina could not remember why she was here. She remembered how she would travel around doing what she did best. She could recall making a camp as she normally would and going to bed. But, no matter how hard she racked her brains, she could not come up with any reason as to how she got here. Nothing unusual happened before hand. There were no glory-seeking mages with weird spells, no unusual monsters seeking revenge of some kind, and she had definitely not acquired any old artifacts for some time. She just went to bed after another usual day out of a whole year of boring repetitiveness and woke up to this. Whatever 'this' was.

"Oooh! This place is really ticking me off!"

Lina stopped and looked around again. Nope, nothing's changed.

"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The frustration pouring out of her settled into exhaustion and she ungracefully dropped to the ground in a sitting position.

"This place is doing wonders for my psychi…" she mumbled sarcastically.

Her stomach rumbled loudly agreeing with her.

"I know, I know, I'm hungry! But there's nothing out here! Where am I supposed to get food? This place sucks… I wish I knew why I was here. This gods-forsaken place. Even monsters would hate this place! Haha! I could just see Xellos being here! He would have a fit! There's not even anything for a monster to feed off of! Amelia would hate it too! Not a damned person to make her 'I love Justice' speeches to! It would drive her crazy! Gourry's too stupid to hate it here… I doubt he'd even remember that there's nothing around! Zel might like it, though, since there's…" she pauses to snicker, "…no one around to see him! Man, I wish Zel were here, at least he's good to talk to. Hell, I'd even talk to Gourry if he were here! I wonder what everyone's doing? Gourry's probably still helping Sypiell with New Sirag. Amelia's doing princess stuff and wife stuff… I wonder if she's got any kids yet? Oh, I hope they're not like Amelia! One of her is more than enough! Zel's probably still out looking for his cure… unless he's found it. Sometimes I hope he doesn't find it. I think he's much better off the way he is, but since he's my friend all that really matters is what he wants. Oh-well! I bet Xellos is annoying Filia! Jeeze, you'd think he liked her or something. I wonder what Filia's doing… I'll bet she settled down somewhere, though I doubt that she'd want to settle around any dragons. Not after what happened to her clan and the Ancients… Speaking of Ancients, I wonder if Valgaav's hatched yet. It's been a while, he probably has. Not that I know a whole lot about hatching a dragon's egg! I wonder if he'd take on any of Filia's personality? I can just see him now! A miniature version of his former self with a mace the size of him smashing Xellos whenever he comes to visit!" laughter ensues, "Well, I thought it was funny… I guess Filia would teach him some stuff. I wonder if dragons can fly as soon as they're born… That would be a pain in the ass for Filia! She'd have to chase him around everywhere! I bet it'd be funny to watch, though! Heh! Little Val transforms and takes off flying while Filia's in the middle of some town market getting groceries! I wonder if she'd chase after him on foot or would she transform and fl…"

Lina blinked three times.

"NOW WHY THE HELL DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT SOONER?"

The fiery-haired sorceress promptly stood and began chanting. Magical power swirled inside of her, growing as she neared the climax of the spell. The pressure was building, waiting to be let out upon its controllers command.

"LEVITATION!"

Lina, still standing on the ground, looked straight ahead. Her eyes looked clouded and unfocused. Slowly, small tendrils of smoke leaked from her ears. She wavered a bit and then suddenly fell face first onto the ground.

Pulling his legs up under him, Xellos sat cross-legged four feet off of the ground and leaned back on nothing. His finger lightly rubbing his bottom lip in a thoughtful human gesture was betrayed only by his open demonic eyes staring intently upon Lina's breathless body.

Lina's form was still upon the ground. Dried blood caked her arms and hair.

"First thing's first…" the priest decided, "I should probably clean you up. It wouldn't do to have you looking as if you'd just been trampled by a herd of dragons, would it?"

Xellos unfurled his legs and stepped down lightly to the ground. Pulling a damp rag out of thin air he began the meticulous job of cleaning the downed sorceress by hand.

'Oh… I… hurt…'

"Neh…" Lina was vaguely aware that someone had laid a damp cloth on her forehead.

"Dear me," came a soft distinctly male voice, "Does this mean you're awake now?"

'What a weird dream… wait… dream or no dream, where am I?' the petite sorceress bolted into a sitting position so fast that it made her head spin.

"Now, now," the voice scolded lightly, "You shouldn't do that."

With a repetitive throbbing in her head the world slowly came into focus. Lina looked over at her caretaker. A long-limbed man with pale skin, dressed in a plain brown tunic and breeches sat in a chair next to the bed where she was. He had a long crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken in several places.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked, his eyes focused on hers.

"Uh, y-yeah," Lina answered, "Maybe you could answer a few questions for me?"

"I'll do my best," he replied softly, "What is it you would like to know?"

Lina looked around the small room. It seemed normal enough, though very plain, like an inn room. She noticed two doors, but realized that there were no windows.

Focusing her attention back on him, she asked, "Ok, first of all, who are you?"

The man smiled faintly, "I am called Dinh , I am a Githzerai."

"Right," the petite redhead responded, "Well, since you told me your name… I'm Lina Inverse, Beautiful Sorceress Extraordinaire!"

Dinh smiled, "A pleasure to meet you, Lina Inverse."

"Next question, how did I get here?"

"Well, that's quite simple. I was wandering around looking for a nyx when I spotted you lying on the ground. You seemed hurt so I brought you to my home."

Lina smiled sheepishly, "Um, thank you…" she thought for a moment, "So, uh, where exactly is here?"

The slender man nodded, "That's easy, you're in my house not far from the outskirts of Menifer."

Confusion stretched across Lina's face, "Menifer?"

"Ha ha! This must be your first time here if you've never heard of the great city of Menifer!" Dinh paused, "Menifer is a city filled with other Githzerai, like myself, though other races sometimes go there to trade."

Lina shook her head, "That still doesn't tell me where it is. How far are we from Sairune?"

Dinh laughed again, "We are no where near any place called Sairune. Menifer is located in Limbo."

"Well then, where's Limbo?" she barely bit out through clenched teeth.

"Limbo, Lina Inverse, is a dimension between all dimensions. It the place between Heaven and Earth, Celestyn and Akuji, between your world and your astral plane. Every place is connected to Limbo. Sometimes, people who leave their form behind to travel to another place do not make it there… this is where they end up."

She stared at him, "What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying I'm dead?"

Dinh raised his hands in defense, "No, not at all… I was merely giving you some information on Limbo. I did not mean to infer that you had… died. My most humble apologies, Lina Inverse."

Lina looked at him skeptically, "Just 'Lina' ok? Don't bother with the 'Inverse' part when you're talking to me."

"Alright… Lina."

Xellos stepped back to admire his handiwork. Other than the fact that she wasn't breathing, and as long as you didn't look too closely at her arms, you couldn't really tell that anything was wrong.

"There, that should do. Don't you think so, Lina-chan?"

He smirked.

"I agree, though it's about time that we left here."

Xellos placed a thoughtful finger to his lips, "I'm afraid, Lina-chan, that we'll have to do this the other way. I used quite a bit of my energy on that spell for you, you know! It'll be a bit before I can do anything strenuous."

With a playful snap of his fingers Lina floated four feet off of the ground and hovered over to him.

"What was that, Lina-chan? You want to know where we're going? Hmmm… that's a good question. I believe New Sirag isn't too far from here, I think we should head in that direction."

He glanced down at her.

"Don't worry, little Lina-chan, I'm not taking you to see your old friends. Not yet anyway."

At that Xellos turned and began walking out of the clearing. Lina's body, still afloat, stayed next to him the entire time.

AN: Thank you for reading my fic. I have an added disclaimer here: I do not own 'Heaven', 'Earth', 'Limbo', the 'Astral Plane', or the 'Githzerai'. Please don't forget to feed your author. Read Review by clicking the button in the bottom left hand side of this page.