Zelgadis The Geezer?! Let's Take Our Show On The Road!
Four days' northwest of Strylle, and Zelgadis's misgivings were really bothering him. His gaze darted around, inspecting his surroundings again. Nothing but a lonely road, empty of travelers but for them. Rolling hills and meadows stretched away for miles. Perfect late spring weather encouraged them to take it easy and enjoy the walk. There was just something wrong with this entire scenario, though. He watched Lina as she strode along just ahead of him. For the past few days, she had sometimes seemed melancholy, which was odd for her. She wasn't overt about it, but she couldn't hide her moods from him after all these years. He looked at his red-haired friend's back again, deciding he had to know. "You know Lina, I still don't understand why you left Gourry all the way back in Navian. Why couldn't you leave him in Seyruun or something, which is so much closer?" He saw her stiffen slightly, and her stride faltered for a second. He caught up to her, and caught her glance and held it. "No excuses, Lina. We've got days of travel ahead of us, so even if it's a long story, I want the truth."
She looked at him solemnly. "You'll think I'm even more selfish than you already do, Zel."
His first reaction was to ask her if she could possibly be even more selfish, but he withheld it. "Try me."
"I've been thinking a lot about what Shabranigdo said when we defeated him—the part about me living several hundred years." Lina looked troubled as she fixed her eyes on the dirt road as they walked. "I guess in all this time I never really thought about it, until lately." Zelgadis frowned, and waited for her to continue.
"I've been thinking about how I'll age, and it seems that I haven't changed in all these years. I'm twenty and I still look like I'm thirteen."
"I guess I'd never noticed," Zelgadis said quietly. "But how does that relate to leaving Gourry all the way back there?"
Ruby eyes flicked back to him for a second, and just before she fixed her gaze onto the road again, pain flickered there. "Gourry and I have been traveling together for a long time now. In the last couple of years though, he'd started dragging behind. You know, we'd hit a town and he'd want to put his feet up and stay, and I'd sometimes have to drag him out of town by his hair. At first it didn't occur to me why he was acting so weird. I wanted to knock the crap out of him, because it was driving me crazy." She sighed and shrugged helplessly. "It took the dumbest little thing to clue me in."
"What was it?" He was still fairly mystified although there was a slight suspicion nagging him.
She grinned at him in a rather morose fashion. "His beard finally came in and he started shaving every day."
Now Zelgadis really was lost. "What does that have to do with anything, Lina?"
"My rate of aging is magically slowed through my sorcery, Zel." Lina explained slowly. "Gourry on the other hand, is moving along at the normal clip for the average human. He doesn't mean to, but he's leaving me behind."
"Huh, I never would have thought of it like that."
They walked along in silence for a while as Zelgadis considered the subject. He himself hadn't changed much from what he knew either, but he'd just chalked it up to his curse. He never thought about it much either, but then, he didn't have a constant companion to judge against like Lina did. Or had, anyway, now that Gourry was in Navian.
This time, Lina spoke further, without his prompting. "This way, if he wants to, Gourry can get married and have a normal life."
He stopped dead in his tracks and snapped his jaw shut again with an audible click. "What?" Lina had kept walking, leaving him behind, so he trotted up alongside her. "I'm surprised, I admit, but I never saw either of you guys as the type to settle down."
"Well, that's what I'm getting to—I'm not the type to settle down yet. I don't know when I'll be ready to do that. It seems like I blinked, and somehow Gourry became someone who wanted a family." She sniffled and wiped her nose and face with a corner of her cloak. Her pace picked up, as if she were trying to leave her discomfort behind her.
Zelgadis was still reeling from Lina's apparent lack of concern over Gourry's future. He supposed he always thought they'd get married to each other some day; however that day always seemed to be so far away he'd never taken it too seriously. But to think that she would leave Gourry behind, of all people… and then not worry if it meant he might spend the rest of his life with someone else? He hurried after her, knowing there was more she needed to tell him.
"I left him because I don't want to slow down. There's so much more about everything I wanna see! Ok, if we'd gotten married we might not have settled down immediately, we could've stayed on the road. But I know Gourry's tired of traveling constantly. Every damned town we'd visit became somewhere Gourry wanted to stay. I was starting to feel a little trapped." Zel wasn't too surprised to see a tear spill down her cheek. She wiped her face angrily and continued, "I knew that even though I didn't want to settle down, he'd still follow me wherever I went. I know it would eventually kill him, and he'd never get his home and family he was dreaming of."
"I think you're going too far, Lina. Gourry is the best swordsman in the known world—you're selling him short when you say that."
"You never saw the last few times we battled bandits damn it, or you wouldn't say that," she growled. "He was so reluctant to draw on them. He was sick of the fighting. I shudder to think about him going up against a Mazoku. They won't wait til you're good and ready to battle. Besides, his new sword is great, but it doesn't match the Sword of Light. Traveling with me, he's bound to come up against another Mazoku eventually."
"I took us to visit Silphiel in Navian, and I don't regret leaving him with her." Lina's eyes looked at him pleadingly. "You know she's always wanted to do nothing but take care of him."
"Not only take care of him, but marry him, Lina," Zelgadis studied her closely for any signs of jealousy, and was surprised to see far less of a reaction than he was expecting.
"I know what you're asking—am I really prepared to let him go." Her eyes brimmed over again, and she stopped to wipe her eyes. "I'm not, really. I love him too much to make him wait for me! He's been my best friend for years and I'm not about to let him suffer on my account!" She finished the last, looking fiercely determined.
Zel looked down at his friend. Lina stood before him with a defiant look on her face. That was just to cover her pain of leaving Gourry behind, though, he knew. He'd never really expected she'd spill her heart like she had, but it must've been eating at her since she'd walked out of Navian. This had him seeing her in a new light. She wasn't the same Lina he'd always known, or maybe he'd never really known her as well as he'd thought.
"Lina… That doesn't sound like the act of a selfish person to me at all." Her defiance ebbed away and she stared at him questioningly. He blushed as he continued. "Maybe your body's not maturing so quickly… but your heart seems just fine." He was embarrassed about this mushy stuff, but she needed to hear it, rather than beat herself up.
Lina was surprised to hear his kind words, however, she recovered quickly. She winked and grinned up at him, saying, "Thanks Zel, but you realize you're going to damage your heartless sorcerer-swordsman image by saying that kind of stuff."
He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Don't I know it," he growled. "Just make sure I don't say it often."
Lina had been embarrassed to admit her feelings to Zelgadis, but it had been good to get it off her back. The journey had been fairly boring, and there had been nothing to distract her. There had been an almost disturbing lack of bandits since just before she'd gotten to the town of Strylle. No bandits also meant no treasure though. She jingled her coin purse and sighed. Bad things only happen in threes it's said. Embarrassed, bored, and almost broke. Guess they're right.
The sight of a forest looming miles ahead of them raised her spirits a bit. Maybe they'd run into a decent sized gang in there? There'd better be a lot of bandits in there too, she mused. I almost have to make up in past boredom for the last few days!
Before she could start mentally counting the gold however, Zelgadis interrupted her thoughts. "Lina, there's something else that's been bothering me."
"Huh?" Lina started a bit, so engrossed was she with her thoughts of treasure and violence. "What's on your mind, old buddy?"
Zel quirked his eyebrow at the 'old buddy' part, but continued, "Have you gotten the feeling you're being watched or followed?"
Lina's eyebrows drew together a bit as she frowned at him. "I don't think so…why do you ask?"
"…The night we were drinking… I'd swear for a moment I caught sight of Xelloss. At the time I thought it was that I'd had too much ale, but now I don't know."
"Xelloss!?" Lina appeared shocked. "I haven't seen him since we beat Darkstar." Thoughtfulness turned to anger in a second's time. "Wait a minute! I STILL haven't gotten him back for knocking me out that time! If we see him, he's in deep trouble! I'm gonna pay him back with two years' worth of interest!" She growled and shook her fist, apparently not seeming to care that Xelloss was a very powerful Mazoku and could probably toast them without breaking a sweat. Still, that's typical Lina for you…
"You know, making him pay you back would be the least of our worries if I was right about seeing him back there." Whenever he shows up, it always means trouble for us, he silently concluded. Unless there's something more than just going to Buldein that she's after…! Zelgadis smiled humorlessly at his seething friend. Interrupting her in Dragon Spooker mode wasn't always the smartest thing to do, but they needed to rationally talk about this development. He turned to Lina again, "There's not something more you're not telling me is there, Lina? Maybe some new course of action I don't know about that could attract the attention of the Mazoku?"
"Oh, come on Zel!" Lina eyed him, looking amused. "How often do I have anything more than my next meal as my objective? You're so damned suspicious… You should know to trust me more than that." She smacked his shoulder, glaring at him. "Besides, we'll be in that forest in no time, and I'll be shocked if there's not a single bandit in it."
Zelgadis looked at the forest appraisingly. "It has been an awfully quiet few days. I'm almost on edge because of it. I guess it made me suspicious of you, Lina. Sorry."
"Hey, no hard feelings… Maybe if you're really sorry though, you could do me a favor, Zel." She smiled up at him in a speculative manner that made him nervous.
"Uh… what favor?" He had just apologized once for being suspicious of her, but he'd have to be stupid to automatically agree to a favor for her. Deep down, he still couldn't forget being used as an anchor, all so she could have a rare dish.
"Well, maybe if you grab your back and look like you're a tired old guy, it would help a lot. You've already got your hood up and it wouldn't be hard for someone to mistake us for an old man and a young girl. It would help us to look like targets so I can be sure to attract and then toast as many bandits as possible."
Lina beamed at him and he sighed inwardly… Zelgadis hunched over and grabbed his back all of a sudden. "Like this?" He looked at her to see what she thought. "I'm not that good of an actor, Lina."
"Hey, that's perfect Zelgadis!" They continued to walk (or in Zelgadis's case, hobble.) towards the forest. "I'm kind of curious though, why didn't you argue with me about this? You never give in without a fight."
"I decided to go along with your plan, after careful calculations. I knew if I didn't just play along, I might actually end up walking like that anyway."
"Yeah, I suppose you've got a point there," Lina laughed gaily. "Oh, and we gotta be loud, too. People's voices get louder when they're scared… so refer to me as your daughter, Ok?"
Zelgadis sighed again and rolled his eyes. "Che… who says I'm not scared…Daughter?"
Zelgadis hobbled into the forest after Lina.
Author's Notes: Holy cow that chapter was a long time coming! My muse-chan is on vacation folks, what can I say? There should be more soon… Sorry!