Chapter 8: An Interlude of Sorts
Something brushed ever so lightly against her nose. Amelia sneezed, but didn't open her eyes. Then something heavy pressed on her stomach. Amelia cracked open an eyelid. A whiskered tabby face stared back at her. Amelia blinked. A cat?
The feline in question clambered onto her stomach and curled up. Amelia realized she was back at the inn. But how…? She noticed Zelgadis, sitting in a chair to her right, asleep. He must've brought me here after…
Bam! The door flew open as Lina and Gourry charged into the room.
"Hey lady! Breakfast special for 10 and step on it!"
The cat screeched and dove under the cot, and Zelgadis literally fell out of his chair. "Ow," he muttered, picking himself up off the floor.
Amelia sat up and stared. "Miss Lina? Mr. Gourry?" What are they doing here?
"Oh, Amelia, you're awake," Gourry said happily.
Lina opened her mouth to add something, but was interrupted as the disgruntled looking cook set down several large food-laden platters on the table in front of them.
"Alright! Food!" she and Gourry both cheered in unison, as they dove into their meal. Zelgadis and Amelia both sweatdropped.
"Looks like they haven't changed a bit," Zelgadis muttered. Amelia giggled. Then her stomach gave a loud rumble. Watching her two friends eat like two people who'd just finished a 30-day starvation diet made her realize just how hungry she was herself. Climbing out of bed, she and Zelgadis made their way to the table.
Breakfast went as normal that morning. Or at least, what was normal for them. Lina and Gourry had their usual food war. Amelia and Zelgadis made sure to stay out of it. In between bites of food, Lina (with occasional input from Gourry) filled Amelia and Zelgadis in on how they had ended up near the mountains and how they met up with Zelgadis. After she finished, Amelia told them the parts of her side of the story Zelgadis hadn't already explained.
Once everyone was brought up to speed, Lina finally asked the other question that had been on her mind. "So what now?"
There was silence for a moment as everyone thought about it. Finally, Amelia piped up. "Seyruun's having its Winter Festival in a few weeks," she suggested.
"Well unless someone has a better idea, we're going to Seyruun," Lina announced.
Peaceful days. Some called them boring. Not Lina. When you're Lina Inverse (or even if you're just traveling with her), days where there were no threats to destroy the world, no royal assassination plots, no crazy people plotting world domination, no Mazoku, and no one trying to kill you are like genuine copies of the Claire Bible: so rare you almost doubt their existence.
This was one such day. The path wound through a lightly forested piece of wilderness. There was still snow on the ground, but it only came up to your ankles. The road had not been heavily traveled since the snowfall, meaning the snow was still more or less white, and hadn't turned brown from being stomped into the dirt. The sky was overcast, but not in a dark and ominous way. All in all Lina considered it a pretty good day.
Zelgadis smiled inwardly. Though he wouldn't say so out loud, he was glad to be traveling with his friends again. It had been nearly a year since they last saw each other, after defeating Darkstar before going their separate ways. To be honest, he'd missed them. Not that he'd admit it to any of them. Lina would never let him hear the end of it.
As they walked, Lina told them of her and Gourry's adventures after splitting up, most of which involved finding Gourry a new sword to replace the Sword of Light.
"Our best lead now is something thing called the Blast Sword," Lina explained. "We're gonna see if we can find any information on it when we get to Seyruun." Though that wasn't her only reason for going to the Holy City. Seyruun's Winter Festival celebrations (and the food served at them) were downright famous. Plus, Lina privately hoped that, if she played her cards right, she could score free lodgings for the winter at the Royal Palace. She infinitely preferred staying at the nice, warm, palace to traveling on the road during winter.
Morris regarded the large map spread out on the table in front of him. He glanced at the slip of paper in his left hand.
"Let's see," he muttered to himself. "According to the scout's report, Inverse and her companions are somewhere along this road." With his right hand, he placed three wooden figures the size of chess pieces on a road on the map. The figures were crudely made carvings of Lina, Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis. The Lina statue was missing an arm, from when Morris had once vented his frustrations on the poor little statuette.
Morris pursed his lips. "Hmmmm… now if we set our traps-" he scanned the map, looking for a good location- "here." He drew a circle on a section of the road a few feet away from the figurines, and smiled vindictively. "Yes, that should do nicely…" He stood up out of his chair. "Duclis!" A moment later the brigand poked his head into the room.
"What?"
"Tell the others to start making preparations." Morris's smile widened. "We're putting our plan into action tomorrow."
A/N: Thus ends Part 1! Or Part 2 begins, take your pick. So the plotline with Amelia looking for Zel is now pretty much over, and the focus will be shifting to another plotline I've been setting up -mysterious shifty eyed look-
Originally they were going to be 2 seperate stories, but it worked better this way.
Good god I'm becoming obsessed with cliffhangars...
About the Winter Festival: I've always found it hard to believe that the Slayers would celebrate Christmas, because quite obviously they are not Christian. The odds of any of them even knowing what Christmas is are small. I don't have anything against Christmas or Slayers fics about it. I celebrate Christmas myself, and there are many good Christmas fics out there. The Winter Festival is an idea I borrowed from the Tamora Pierce books. It's essentially a Christmas-equivolent celebrated on the winter solstice.
So long for now. R&R!