Author's notes: I just thought I should put a reminder about the disclaimer. Go left, take a right, and head strait for the first page. You can't miss it! The next chapter is up and ready to read! Please fasten your eyes to the screen and keep your pupils in at all times.

Urgency of Response

Why was time passing so slowly…? It was unusual for a monster to be thinking that, since a day was really like a moment for creatures that lived so long, yet it had been the longest day of Xellos' existence. He had been thinking that about everyday for three years now…. since Dark Star.

Everything felt light somehow. He was worn out, and he could swear the golden light of the Lord of Nightmares was coming to claim him. It was a peaceful feeling, and he could have been satisfied if only Norst hadn't gone after her. If she would have been safe he could have died in peace.

He was too far gone. Most of him had already disintegrated back into nothingness, which was a monsters' eternal dream. Everything was fading, except for his staff. His eyes widened as he watched it suspended in the void which was to become his death bed, and focusing every part of him that remained, he clung to his staff in hope of somehow regaining his body.

Death was supposed to be cold, but she felt warm… A stab of pain from her neck brought her back from unconsciousness, and her eyes flew open. All she could see was the sky. Startled, she tried moving, but someone was holding her. She looked back a little more and saw the worried face of a very familiar monster.

"Xellos..?" she questioned. He was dead. How could he still be here? Maybe she was dead, but she had always thought death was supposed to be painless. Her neck was killing her.

"Norst got you Filia," Xellos said; his voice was filled with something that sounded an awful lot like regret. "I'm sorry…"

"You're sorry…?" She remarked softly in disbelief. She wanted to yell at him, but she couldn't get her voice any louder. He had been the one that almost died, not her. Why was he apologizing? At that moment, realization set in. She had been attacked…

"Where are we?" she demanded. "Where's Valgarv?"

She felt something running down her neck and she raised her hand to swipe it away. Her white glove became stained with her own blood, and she stared at it in disbelief. She had never bled like this before. Now she was even more worried, and Xellos still hadn't answered her!

"Where's Valgarv?" she repeated a little more urgently.

"I'll find you help Filia," Xellos said. "Norst saw a dragon, so he wouldn't find you with more dragons. I'll get you to Milgazia. He'll heal you. I know he will. He's weird like that."

"Xellos," Filia snapped in a hushed tone. She grabbed the monster by the collar and forced him to look at her. "Where is Valgarv?"

He adverted his eyes from her. She couldn't tell what he was feeling anymore, but she knew he was keeping something from her. If Valgarv's egg had been harmed, she would never forgive herself.

"I don't like seeing you dying," he told her, and Filia let go of him.

"Stupid monster," she murmured. "I'm not dying…"

Her vision started to blur and she began feeling light headed. She took another look at her blood soaked glove. How bad was her wound? She couldn't see it herself, but she was beginning to feel the affects of a massive amount of blood loss she was experiencing, but she wasn't going to let herself die. The unborn Valgarv still needed her.

The mountains came into view, and Xellos flew towards them with the speed only a hunted creature could have. They would be there soon, but Norst wouldn't be too far behind. Dynast'spriest was no amateur,even with asword. It was amazing that they had gotten this far. Xellos was anxious. Where was thepriest of the Dark Lordof the North? There was no possible way they could escape him so easily.

Filia was already beginning to drift in and out of consciousness. That was a dangerous thing for someone to do, or so Xellos understood. He couldn't let her do that. She needed to stay with him. Unfortunately he hadn't taken the time to repair his astral self from the last attack. He was beginning to slowly come apart, and it was excruciating.

"F-Filia," he stammered as he forced his mind elsewhere. He couldn't think about the ache right now. He needed to keep moving. "Ask me something Filia. Ask me anything, any secret."

"How did you survive back there Xellos...?" she mumbled only half aware of what was going on.

"It was the staff," he replied flinching as another stab of pain tore through him. Was his astral body really disappearing..? He shook his head and continued, "It saved me. I escaped my body and went to the staff which also carries a part of me. Using all those parts I saved, I was able to come back and save you. You were bleeding. I struck Norst and ran with you. He was surprised. He thought I died too, I almost did… Almost.."

"So we're not dead?" she questioned sleepily.

"Not yet," he said. They had just entered the maze outside of the Mountains. It was a different way than before, but Xellos still knew it. He knew every angle to the valley. It had been a game before, a game he was now glad he played.

"Where's Valgarv…?" she asked again, and Xellos sighed. He didn't want to tell her. Not really. He didn't have enough hands to carry him, and he had reacted very quickly to save Filia.

"Safe. Promise," he replied, and that seemed to satisfy the weary Filia. She closed her eyes and became lifeless in his arms. If she hadn't still been breathing, Xellos would have thought she was dead. Her shallow breaths gave him hope however, and he pressed on.

The path he had taken opened to a ledge that overlooked a part of the valley. There were dragons dotting the valley black and gold, but the sky only held a few of them. Xellos wasn't sure what to do. There wasn't a very good chance that Milgazia was in the sky at the moment, and no other dragon would approach him… would they? They should all know by now. Maybe he had just given himself up to another race that wanted him dead. He glanced down at Filia bleeding freely in his arms, and he knew that it didn't matter. At least she wasn't a lost cause like he was.

The smell of golden dragon blood alerted the dragons in the valley. They roared their anxiety before taking to the sky. Xellos hadn't realized that Filia's blood was on him. She was bleeding, and that's all he was worried about. Golden dragons had a lot more blood than mortals, he would know, but she had already lost so much. If she had been human she would already be dead.

He called to the dragons that were flying overhead. It didn't matter what they thought, just as long as Filia got the help she needed. Then he would either be dead or hunted again. Xellos was startled when the dragons kept their distance. They couldn't really still be afraid of him like this… Hadn't Milgazia told them how useless he had become?

The elder dragon was the only one who landed on the ledge. A bold move apparently… He reviewed the scene before him before shrinking down into his human form. He took a few uncertain steps forward, but stopped before he could get too close to avoid a spell if needed.

"Were you the one who did this to her Xellos?" he asked coolly.

Xellos looked down at Filia who was beginning to turn pale in his arms. She told him she wasn't dying… she lied. He brought his eyes back up to stare down the accusing elder dragon.

"Oh yes, I tried to kill her and failed, so I brought her here," he said sarcastically, holding Filia out to him. He flinched; something wasn't right. He felt his astral body begin to tear apart again. It hurt so much… "Hurry Milgazia. Better save her from me…"

The elder dragon accepted Filia from the monster. She was limp, and her breathing had become very shallow. Her blood had soaked into the top of her dress, and Xellos had gotten some on his shirt and his hands. Her blood was on his hands. Milgazia sighed. That wasn't anything new. The monster had hundreds of his peoples' blood on his hands.

Milgazia laid the young golden dragon on the ground and knelt over her. He closed his eyes and summoned a resurrection spell to his hands. It wasn't too late yet. She still had life in her.

Xellos stood back and watched him from a distance. The last thing he wanted was to get in Milgazia's way. All he could think about as he watched Filia bleeding on the ground was how much he wanted Norst to pay. He no longer felt the eyes of the other golden dragons on him. They didn't matter.

Moments passed painstaking slow. It felt as though time was dawdling on purpose just for this period. The blood from Filia's neck had finally stopped flowing and the wound was beginning to heal. Milgazia relaxed. She was going to be just fine.

Big blue eyes blinked up at him, and he smiled. How many times had he wished to save those who had fallen during the war only to have arrived too late? He helped her sit up. She glanced around at all of the curious dragons who had taken to flying circles overhead. It was unusual for her to see so many of them in their dragon forms. Growing up in the temple, she had grown accustomed to seeing her fellow dragons mostly in their human forms. The concerned elder was still hovering over her… she must have been out for a while.

"How did I get here?" she asked still in a daze.

"Xellos brought you," Milgazia replied. He wanted to hear what happened from her prospective, though he wasn't going to push her to answer any questions.

Everything suddenly flooded back to her. Xellos "dying," her getting attacked by a strange monster with a bitter cold sword, and waking up not knowing what had happened to Valgarv. She still didn't know where he was! If Xellos didn't tell her soon, she was going to throttle him she decided, even though he did save her from the monster that had attacked them both.

"Mr. Milgazia!" A voice cheery voice called from below the cliff. "Is everything alright?

"Ok... somebody better tell me what's going on…" another voice huffed.

"Are you ok Lina?" someone else asked.

"I just ran across the entire valley!" she snapped. "I thought there'd at least be total chaos or something."

"Miss Lina! Total chaos is not something you should be hoping for!"

Filia quickly got to her feet and ran to the edge of the cliff. Below her, Lina, Gourry, and Amelia were all gazing up at the ledge. When they saw her, it was smiles all around. It had been a while since Filia had seen them, and they seemed happy to see her.

"Miss Filia! What are you doing here?" Amelia called waving up at her.

"These are the Kaakato Mountains and I am a dragon," she responded wryly. She was already trying to decide if getting them involved would be a good idea or not. She quickly made the decision to play it safe, at least for a while.

"How about you?" she asked.

"I came here on behalf of Seyruun to strengthen our ties with the dragons in the Kaakato Mountains!" Amelia replied. She really was too cheerful sometimes. The princess gestured to her two companions. "And daddy got Miss Lina and Mister Gourry to escort me all the way here!"

"Yeah, it cost him quite a lot," Gourry added.

"Yes it did," Amelia remarked sheepishly. "Daddy is going to be feeling this one for a while. I just hope Seyruun doesn't get too far in debt."

"Oh stop complaining," Lina said folding her arms behind her head lazily. "I told him it wouldn't be cheap to hire a powerful sorceress like myself."

They really hadn't changed since the last time she saw them. She turned back to Xellos who was already coming towards her. In his hands, he held the Valgarv egg that she had been stressing about the whole time. She took it tenderly from him. Now she was even more grateful. She fell into his arms, relieved that right now everyone was ok. It was all going to be ok… and the loss of blood from before really must have done something to her head. She was hugging Xellos.

"Um…" Amelia glanced at Lina who was staring up at Filia and Xellos with her mouth agape. "Do you think we missed something?"

"Missed something?" Lina shouted. "They gave us all that trouble when we were travelling together before, and now suddenly they turn around and decide they can not only tolerate each other, but they can also act like close friends?"

"Hey, that's Xellos!" Gourry suddenly realized. Lina nearly punched the swordsman in the face for his stupid comment.

Milgazia watched silently as the humans were reunited with their other two companions. He hadn't spoken about Xellos' 'condition' to anyone. It wasn't for him to say. His people were beginning to disperse, and soon the valley would return to normal. In the end all that mattered to him was the safety of the valley and the dragons within it.

More notes: I got a little carried away with this one, but the chapter practically wrote it's self. Some people might be wondering where Zelgadis is, and all I can tell you is he's not here right now. I'm not sure if he'll be in it or not actually… Right now I can see no logical way of including him in the story! Oh. And you might be wondering why I gave a priest a sword instead of a staff. Well there's a very interesting story behind that. I actually thought Norst was a general, but then I got some information that changed my mind. So he specializes in magic, but he's not too shabby with a sword either.