Title: Morning Glory
Summary: (post Try) Having survived the battle against Dark Star, Filia has to deal with the aftermath, herself and a certain Mazoku…
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Pairings: intended X/F; hints of L/G and Z/A
Warning: OOC, slight AU (because I haven't seen the end of TRY yet), a lot of musing and contemplating from Filia's POV; Xelloss-ness, of course! ;))
Disclaimer: I don't own Slayers or any involved character. I'm also not earning money with this fan fiction; I wrote it for my own personal amusement.
AN: I've only written this fan fiction down to get a better grip on the characters in Slayers; it has no plot and no really chapter structure after all. But the idea wouldn't leave my mind and besides that, I felt slightly encouraged by all the kind reviews I got for my first story. If someone would like to beta-read this fan fiction, you'd be my hero for… uhm… one day or so.
English's not my native language and I'm sorry for every trouble and misunderstanding my horrible grammar and incomplete vocabulary may cause.
Constructive criticism is highly appreciated, because I intend to re-write this story and correct the mistakes everybody points out. ;))
Music: The Decemberists – The Engine Driver; The Dead 60's – Train to nowhere
Morning Glory
Chapter One – Ignorance is bliss
At the time Filia returned to her newly-acquired room, she was kind of desperate. Just… kind of.
She had always thought of herself as an honest person. In her childhood, she had always voiced her opinion, only with one restriction: as long as it didn't hurt someone's feelings. She knew that sometimes her temper had gotten the best of her, but instantly after the words left her tongue and she had to see and recognize the hurt in the other's features and eyes, she had regretted it badly. After she had been send to the Karyu-ou's temple to receive her training, she had gotten to know another restriction: only voice your opinion as long as it fits the elder's. As long as it fits his view on the world's system, on her purpose in life, on her behaviour. As long as it fits the rules of the temple. As long as it fits everything.
Unwilling and involuntarily, she had learned to adjust her view to the elder's one. And after some time had passed, she did it automatically. When she repeated the sayings she was taught in her training, she didn't see it as a lie, even if she doubted some parts at first. She did make the mistake to question a few of the theories and morals in front of her elder once or twice. The punishment that had followed had been… unpleasant, to say the least.
And she really didn't want to think about it.
But even then, when she knew somewhere very deep in the back of her mind that she deserved no punishment, that she had done nothing wrong, she regretted and felt sorry. A younger Filia would have sat on the bed in her room in the Karyu-ou's temple, grabbing and touching her head with her hands, not stopping her quiet murmur: "Why..? I don't have a reason to feel that way…" But now she forced herself to think of the positive fact attached to her reaction.
Wasn't that what made her a person with feelings? A caring person? Her conscience?
Groaning and feeling only slightly frustrated, she flopped down on the bed. She didn't know. But there was one thing she did know for sure. Her conscience certainly was a reason why she had not been able to bring herself to refuse Amelia's offer to stay in Seyruun, if only for a few days. Or it must have been her glittering puppy-dog-eyes.., she muttered disapprovingly. Eyeing her room the first time since she had entered it, dragging her bags behind her, she silently added her decision to visit Seyruun in order to buy a few groceries and to stay for the night to the mental list of the things she certainly regretted in her life.
She had finished the purchasing in the first groceries shop with a good feeling. Seyruun had high demands on its farmers that were regulated in its law and only allowed food – especially vegetables and fruits – of high quality to be offered in its shops or on the market. But not only was there food of high quality, there was also a high quantity of it. She hadn't needed as much time as she'd thought to get what she searched for and to head for the next shop, but from her point of view, everything after that had gone so delicately wrong.
It wasn't like she had not received any warnings. She should have noticed the danger she was in when she wondered about the fact that only a few people were on the street anymore – when it had been pressingly full around twenty minutes earlier. She'd noticed a woman with a child at her side looking out of her window and eyeing her as if she'd just grown a third eye – or a horn if you like – before closing the shutters quickly. The second and last warning she was the lucky but ignorant receiver of was the lack of food in the shop's stands which had stood in complete contrast to what she'd seen in the first shop.
Maybe it's noon already, and they're all taking their break from work and eating in an inn nearby…, she mused innocently before entering the shop – only to run into an unbelievable big pile of food which was – what she found the most unbelievable in the end – all carried by two strong arms.
Filia slapped herself mentally for that thought, sighing.
She didn't have the time to react properly and staggered backwards, losing her grasp on her basket full of green and red apples, pears and some vegetables. She landed painfully on her back, watching the results of her purchasing partly getting smashed on the floor and partly rolling around. Filia felt her anger increase and quickly turned to face the one she bumped into. Her eyes traced two long legs up to somewhere between the man's waist and hips – …and he surely is a man, she found herself thinking and blushed furiously, there's a direct prove on the way up to his waist that you can't miss.. – where the pile of food began. Said pile was carefully shifted away in an attempt to get a glance at what he made contact with and muffled his reaction to the incident partly: "Oy.. sorry 'bout that.. but you have to look where you're going, miss…"
Filia's eyes instantly widened as she recognized his calm features, blue eyes and the long blond hair that covered one of his eyes in a soft swing before sliding off his shoulders to his waist, but before she could react in another way but gasping and staring at him fish-like, an angry voice was heard from behind him: "Hey, jellyfish, keep going! Why are ya blocking the way! OOOH! Cherries!" Filia's eyes risked to plop out as she recognized the now squealing voice, immediately imagining the scowl on the person's features as she growled the first sentences, before coming face-to-face with said features as the person dipped between her protector's legs to get a good grasp on some cherries.
Red eyes stared into hers for a second, then blinked.
"Yosh, Gourry, look at what we've got here!"
"I can't, Lina…", the blonde swordsman whined, "my arms are full of your food, remember…? Why can't you carry it yourself?"
The redhead shrugged easily and then shot him a glare that he couldn't misunderstand. "'Cause I'm a woman, jellyfish. I could overstretch a muscle."
Understanding that he needed to answer in the affirmative to keep things at bay, he quickly searched for words. "Uh… yeah."
The tension in Lina's features slackened, but her self-proclaimed protector wasn't done yet.
"But can ya get out of between my legs now, Lina? I don't think ya should do things like that in public, ya know?"
"NANI!"
With that, the shop, a good part of its surroundings and Filia's plan to do a nice, little shopping tour were shredded into pieces, rocks and dust by a well-placed dragon slave.
Filia sighed, then slapped herself mentally again.
She really wondered what she'd done to deserve this.
After Gourry – slightly burned – passed out, Lina complained several minutes about the money that she'd invested in the food that was now… nowhere to be seen. After she'd relieved Filia of the little amount of food that she'd managed to save for herself, she quickly explained why they all gathered in Seyruun again.
"You might not know, but my 18th birthday is in two weeks or so. I accidentally told 'Melia-chan about it and now she has this idea about giving me a party, or a banquet or a ball, whatever ya might call it. I tried to talk her out of this, but then she mentioned LOTS of food… hee hee…ya know.. That's quite worth it." The redhead laughed nervously, bringing a hand up behind her head.
Filia sweatdropped. "That's… great, Lina-san."
"Yeah. Hey, you staying here, too?"
I should've known better. You can't just bump into Lina Inverse and then get out of the mess unharmed…, Filia thought, watching her plans fade away quickly.
She'd known that she couldn't just tell Lina the truth; the first restriction was quickly activated in her mind. As ruthless and violent Lina might seem to a foreigner, Filia knew that she cared a lot about her friends and that she could get hurt by sharp words. The whole situation had confused her greatly and after not being able to come up with a good excuse quick enough, she was dragged to Seyruun's palace by Lina, a newly-recovered swordsman trotting along.
Besides being always honest to others, Filia had always been honest to herself, even during her training in the temple, when she was forced to choke down her own opinions. She knew what the truth that she couldn't tell Lina outright consisted of.
Only three weeks had gone by since the battle against Dark Star. After the battle ended, they all had been quite exhausted, deciding to retire for the night in an inn in a village a few miles away. Even Xelloss had come along with them, after disappearing for a short while shortly after the battle had been finished.
Xelloss… Filia squeezed her eyes shut. Don't Filia, just.. don't remember it.
The evening was spent in harmony – what had her surprised the most – but the next few days certainly made up for it.
I guess, we were all trying to forget what happened…, Filia mused, directing her gaze to the ceiling.
As she woke up in the inn's room that she shared with Lina and Amelia the next morning, she knew that she had made a mistake by taking the reincarnated Valgaav with her. A glance to the desk the egg lied on and she knew it clearly. The egg and Valgaav himself after he hatched would constantly remind her of what her race had done to the Ancient Dragons. She had tried to wipe out her fault as one of the Golden by deciding to take care of him, but all it did was to rub it into her face again and again. To show her how false und untrue all of her teachings had been.
Her conscience screamed inside of her, turned her stomach upside down and made her skip breakfast and dinner. Amelia had tried to get her downstairs to drink a cup of tea at least, but she had refused. Seconds later, Lina threatened to kick the door in if she wouldn't come down this instant, but she kept her attitude.
She knew it was stupid to stay in her room, alone with Valgaav's egg. She would get paranoid if she continued that.
After a while, she'd sighed heavily, put a blanket around the egg and trotted downstairs. She was greeted by a heavily drunken Gourry who dropped his arm around her shoulders and got punched by a not slighter drunken Lina instantly.
She hadn't understood the situation at all, but somehow she had ended up sitting next to Zelgadiss with a glass of wine in one hand. She had shared a few words and glares with the chimera, about how dull this here was. About how dull it was to drown the emotional pain that everyone had received in the battle against Dark Star in alcohol. The chimera nodded to her words, but somehow it seemed ironic because he was still holding on to his glass of wine as dearly as she was. And as soon as Amelia was sitting across his lap, he really didn't care any more about how dull this was.
It tore at her pride to confess this to herself, but she'd been frustrated that Zelgadiss had focused his attention on someone other than her. Really, she wasn't that naïve. Gourry had gone off with Lina, shortly after she had got downstairs, and there was the nagging feeling inside of her that Lina had only threatened her so that the room was free for her and Gourry.
Her conclusion about the whole night wasn't really satisfying.
Lina and Gourry in her room, doing… whatever.
Amelia and Zelgadiss snuggling besides her; and she had the feeling that they would soon arrive at a new stadium of their affection to each other.
Xelloss sitting across of her.
It took her some time to realize and understand the thought her foggy mind had managed to put together.
Yeah… why not.
She emptied her glass in one quick movement, then holding it out to Xelloss. It didn't matter to her that his indifferent smile changed into a smirk as he nodded once to her before filling her glass again, and that his smirk grew wider and quite malicious as she emptied this glass as well and demanded another filling of it. As he began to tease her by holding the bottle of wine out of her reach, she simply growled impatiently, lunging over the table at the bottle.
She knew she was drunk. And he knew it, too.
The last thing she could remember was the shattering of glass, his hands closing around her wrists, his suddenly open eyes, the table being pressed painfully into her back, his lips at her neck… and then only heat and surprisingly comfortable darkness.
When she woke up the next morning, she decided that she couldn't be a priestess to the Karyu-ou anymore.
After all that had happened in that one night, she had only needed and wanted one thing: Distance. Distance to him. To Lina and the others. She had become quite used to them and that was the fact that made being around them so painful. Memories. She had focused herself on the things at hand; first, quitting her work as a priestess as well as her membership to the temple; second, rising Val… and third… maybe finding a place where she could settle down and live.
But accomplishing that – she'd realize – wasn't easy.
The evening found Filia still lying unmoving on her bed, considering the happenings and trying to get her too intensive memories out of her mind, until her gaze landed on the antique golden clock that was ticking on the bedside table. Musing and remembering really does take a lot of time., she thought, sighing as she sat up. She'd promised Amelia to take dinner with her, Lina and Gourry after all, and, knowing the last two, she would have to hurry to save herself a small portion of the meal.
She quickly brushed her hair and pinned it up at the back of her head with a hairpin, trying to ignore her reflection in the mirror, but failing. She really didn't know when she'd started to change her appearance; not overall, but from time to time she'd leave out a small detail. It had to have happened shortly after she cut nearly all of her contacts to her elders, because at first, she left out the details that gave away the fact that she was a priestess to the Karyu-ou; her robes and the head dress. She still wore her pink dress, having gotten used to it and not daring to throw it away, but she had decided to change the way she'd worn her hair and try something new from time to time. And even if she wasn't so sure if the new hairdo suited her or not, changing something in her life, even the slightest detail, felt great to her.
She growled quietly at her reflection, when she realized she'd gotten caught up in her thoughts again, then hurried down the stairs to the big dining room Amelia had shown her the way to earlier that day.
The dinner – if you could call it that anymore – was in full swing.
"Lina-san, please…" begged a slightly desperate princess tugging at the arm of the irate sorceress.
"NEVER! He's stolen my chicken! Give me my CHICKEN!"
"Nya… mrghs…" made the swordsman, turning kind of blue, as Lina continued to throttle him mercilessly, trying to pin her fork into his piece of meat.
Filia came to a sudden halt at the room's door, first surveying the situation and contemplating if she shouldn't just stop by at the kitchen and see if she could get a snack there instead of daring to be around Lina when she was hungry. But again, she wasn't quick enough and Amelia beckoned her over instantly, a huge smile plastered across her smooth features. Filia obeyed quietly, sitting down across Amelia. She forced herself to smile at the younger girl; after all, she deserved at least something for her kindness and hospitality.
The princess spared Gourry and Lina only one glance more, and – after seeing that they hadn't stopped fighting yet – sighed before turning her attention back to the only Ryuzoku at the table that tried timidly to get some of the roasted potatoes that had not faced the wrath of Lina Inverse yet onto her plate.
"They've been like this the whole time since the food was brought. I mean, after all that has happened between them, you could hope that they would get quieter and learn to share with each other." Amelia commented quietly, not wanting Lina to hear her musing.
Filia just nodded and tried to look like she was too busy with eating to answer the princess properly. She had already grown fond of the raven-haired girl during their journey to prevent the prophecy of Dark Star from happening, but she wasn't in the mood for talking about the past at the moment.
But being the motivated girl she was, Amelia didn't react to Filia's lack of response outwardly. "So, what did you do in the past few hours, Filia-san? Do you like the room?"
"Uhm… of course. To give me that room was really kind of you, Amelia-san. I've been unpacking my bags and looking after… Val's egg, if that's not a problem for you. I could always stay at an inn, though..."
"But Filia-san, it would be unjust of me to leave you on the streets, while I can offer you a place here! So you've been unpacking? That's great, don't you think? In the name of all that's right and represents the true force of justice, you have to stay here for Lina-san's birthday! We would all be happy about that!" Jumping up and tossing her chair carelessly aside, Amelia posed with her index finger pointing at the dragon.
"And you said we were disturbing." Lina commented dryly, having kicked the swordsman into a wall and now sitting down again to devour the food she'd managed to get before Gourry recovered.
"But I think Amelia-san's right after all, Lina-san! At least I would be really happy to share a party with Filia-san again!"
They all directed their gazes instantly to the Mazoku floating in the air above them, his usual happy-go-lucky smile on his face.
Amelia gasped, then waved at him: "Xelloss-san!" Lina growled. "Before you do something that'll ruin my day – and I'm sure 'bout that – let me finish eating, 'kay?"
Filia turned white and then blushed furiously as she noticed the hidden meaning behind his words. "How… how dare you! You… you NAMAGOMI!"
"Yare, yare, Fi-chan. I remember you calling me that, while you were –"
Before the Mazoku could finish his sentence, a certain iron mace collided with his head, causing him to crash down onto the table. Filia took a deep breath and smiled triumphantly at the Mazoku's now quite motionless, twitching appearance.
She might have left her robes from her old self behind, but Mace-sama would always do it.
"Uhm… do you think Xelloss-san's okay?"
"ARGH! I don't care! He just landed in my FOOD!"
What did I thought about Mace-sama? A Dale Brand certainly does a good job as well…
End, Chapter One
AN: Click the button!