Hrm...perhaps you guys are getting spoiled with such a recent update, as it were. Here's yet another chapter.

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Slayers, only this storyline.

Kara Metallium !

Chapter 7 -- Naked

The tall lithe figure of a dragoness stood at a counter chopping vegetables.

A rather crooked carrot was thrown on the cutting board and mercilessly skinned of its outer layer. Sapphire orbs gazed at the naked vegetable, looking rather forlorne on the cutting board by itself. The pair of eyes closed and a deep sigh was released as if in pain. Filia handled the carrot and stared at it in thought. It had been several months since Xellos had left on that fateful day. Filia purposely had her back turned to the table that Xellos and she had sat at sharing a quiet breakfast. She refused to look at the chair that had held his earthly form leaving absolutely no residue behind from his occupation of it. Filia avoided the chair that she had sat in for quite sometime sobbing with her head in her hands wishing with every inch of her existence that the dark mazoku would return. Filia was rather alone and vulnerable, just like the carrot she had now mercilessly begun to chop.

Her movements slowed and her head nodded forward with her buttery golden hair making a curtain around her face. At this point, she reasoned she probably would cry. She wanted to cry, she really did. It had been months without a single word from the mazoku. Pining away for his presence had made her all that more pathetic. Her days had passed quietly, seeming too long for even herself to count. Each day repeated itself somehow. Filia cleaned her house, took care of Val, and cooked. There was nothing really else to her days. She couldn't bring herself to step into her pottery workshop, let alone actually throw something. Her heart ached when she slept in her own bed. Her soft sheets, warm and cocooning her did nothing to ease her emptiness. They mocked her in attempting to comfort her in place of the mazoku she so desperately wanted to see. Indeed, Filia could barely go anywhere in her house without thinking of the dark mazoku. Even Val's bedroom was no sanctuary, for every time Filia opened the door she expected to see glossy purple hair, closed eyes, and a genki smile. Indeed probably the least painful of all rooms was the kitchen. It was the first place that Filia had made a move that had started the ball rolling in the relationship between the dragon and the monster. And it was the last place that Xellos had occupied before leaving Filia to her vicious inner demons.

Filia didn't really expect Xellos to think about her, nor suddenly show up and console her. Indeed the ryuzoku wanted more from her dark lover than he could ever probably give her. Xellos was an illusive shadow, as it were, and nothing could pin him down. Though, Filia thought with a wry smile, a shadow snap might do the trick.

After Xellos had left, Filia had moped around for entirely two weeks. Nothing could bring her to do much of anything. She didn't eat, though she fed Val enough, only L-sama knew how he was growing. She slept for hours on end. The house became filthy without its routine cleaning every day. Dirty dishes piled in the sink from Val's meals.

One day, Filia had awoken late in the day, as usual, and had padded downstairs to start some food for Val. Yet, when she had reached the kitchen the light flooded through the window and illuminated the kitchen in harsh light. The place was filthy. Filia felt a sort of strength flood her and anger swept over her. This anger motivated Filia in everything. She cared and played with Val. She cleaned her house according to her strict regimen. After about a month of this furious fire, Filia felt a desire to go to her pottery lab and finally begin to throw pottery again.

Filia closed her eyes and threw her head back as she remembered. Her palm extended out and pushed against the rough mahogany door and it swung outward on its squeaky hinges. A sparse amount of light illuminated the room from the small horizontal windows at the top of the walls of the room. She noticed everything was covered in almost a fine layer of dust. The light flashed and settled on the seat by the wheel. She stared at the twin wheels and seats and a sharp pain shot through her. She tore her eyes away from the sight and looked beyond to the cracked open door to the kiln room. She looked at the door and suddenly remmebered her back thrust against it with Xellos hungrily kissing her with those vibrantly intense eyes. A sob had risen in her throat as she tried to keep down her histeria. Filia pulled the door shut with a sudden bang and hadn't touched the door since.

After that incident, Filia had settled into a quiet depression. She no longer cried. She no longer got frustrated. Indeed an overwhelming sense of emptiness had settled within her and had left her in a barren, almost zombie-like state. Nothing really mattered and Filia found herself going through the motions of everyday mediocrity.

"Filia." The dragoness blinked and sliced into her finger. She stared at her finger and the knife for a moment before removing the knife from the wound and holding the finger up to examine it closer. The red blood began to pool about the wound. The red was intense and sharply contrasted against the paleness of her hand.

"Filia." She blinked. Surely that wasn't Xellos was it? He couldn't, wouldn't be here. Now she was hearing voices…

"Filia." A hand pulled the object of her inspection away from her face. She looked up to find the familiar face of the dark mazoku who had haunted her days. His eyes peaked open in an unreadable expression.

She stared dumbfounded at Xellos for a moment, and the next moment she was hugging him with a ferocity that would have surprised even the most vicious of dragons.