Pilgrimage – The Beginning

Part Three

        The Demon King of the North was defeated. I stood in the ruins of the castle, my magic shattered, my will almost spent. The preparations I had made prior to that moment when I gave the Laguna Blade everything that I was had held. The three of us were alive, and the Demon King was not.

        Lina however… Lina was lost within that twilight until my magic returned. For good, for bad. Whatever the future would hold, she would be there awaiting it.

        The dagger I disposed of almost immediately. I cared little for weapons before; even less for them now. It had served its purpose.

        We returned to the town and the small inn. The people knew what had happened and called me the Demon King Destroyer. I’d rather Lina had that name.

        When morning came, we set off on our journey, but along the way it came to us that we had no desire to continue. Gourry had nothing, not even a whisper of thought. Zelgadis offered nothing. I didn’t know what to say.

        We were each of us locked in our own mourning.

        Night came and with it, new decisions.

        Zelgadis looked across the fire to me. “I’ll take you to Saillune, Amelia. But I won’t stay.” He glanced across to Gourry. “What about you, Gourry?”

        The blonde looked into the fire. I’d never seen him so… empty. He reminded me of Lina when he’d been stolen by Hellmaster. “I’ll… probably find some mercenary group and join them.”

        “You could stay in Saillune, Gourry. And you too, Zelgadis. There’s plenty of work there,” I offered.

        “And be stared at like a freak on display?” Zelgadis asked me quietly. I looked away. “No, Amelia. The offer is respected, but unnecessary. The cure for my curse is out there. I simply have to find it.”

        “I don’t know that I’d do you any good, Amelia. What city wants a has-been swordsman anyway?” Gourry said, getting up and walking off towards the trees for first watch before I could object. “You two get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

        Zelgadis went to his sleeping roll and I was left alone by the fire. If only I was stronger. I should have broadened my studies. White magics alone couldn’t make it… Sylphiel was a clearly obvious illustration of that. Chaos… I would go back to Saillune and learn what I could, with or without my magics.
        In the morning, we woke and took our separate paths, myself refusing Zelgadis’ aid. He didn’t want to be near me, and without Lina, what was there to bind us?
        I did not hear from either Zelgadis or Gourry after that.

        I myself went back to Saillune. I had nothing else.

        When I arrived in Saillune, no one recognized me. Of course, I hadn’t expected them to. I wasn’t the timid little girl in white who had snuck out of the Palace after casting yet another disastrous spell. What I was… I had yet to discover. Yet I knew that I would learn my new place in time, and with that came an air of certainty that I carried.

        The moment I walked into the room where my father was reading one of his books, I felt a change in the air and he looked up at me. Something passed before his eyes and he shook his head. “Amelia…! You… you look like your mother.”

        I drew up short, looking at him. Something Gracia had whispered to me once in the middle of a night long ago came back and I blurted the question without thinking. “Was Mother a sorceress, Daddy?”

        His eyes softened and he turned to look across at the family crest on the wall. “Once, long ago, when I met your mother, she was a powerful sorceress. She could make men tremble with fear by simply looking at them. When I didn’t tremble, she decided I alone was worthy of her. We married soon after that, and that was when she learned that I was the Crown Prince of Saillune. She put that part of her life away, became the loving mother you knew.”

        I looked away. But why hadn’t she protected herself? He answered my unspoken question.

        “Your mother told me once that she had passed her magic on to one of you two. But even she wasn’t sure which one. Neither of you showed much inclination towards strong magic… until…”

        I choked out the words. “Is it me, then? Am I the one?”

        “The head of the Guild came to me just after we met Lina and Gourry. He told me that you and Lina shared the same magic, the same path within our understanding. He was who suggested that you learn alongside Lina.”

        I nodded slowly. That made sense. But did any of us have an inkling of the path that I would take, or how I would take it? I sighed. “I’m going upstairs… I think I’m back for a while, Daddy.”

        For once, he didn’t leap up and embrace me in one of his crushing hugs. But then, neither had I. I felt distant, remote. Unattached to the world and uninvolved in its path. I’d left myself back in the cave with Lina.

        Over the weeks I returned to the semblance of a Princess… yet I was hardly the effervescent girl who had left. People all around me were whispering that the adventures had mettled me, that I had grown into a beautiful and strong woman like my mother.

        It was vaguely comforting.

        I settled to learning the spells that I could not cast, memorizing that which was necessary. Until I could cast them again and test them it was all I could do.

        Every night I sought counsel with the quarterstaff beside the bed, yet the sapphire remained still, no flicker within its indigo depths.

        And then, one hopeless night, my father left me to go to my mother’s side.

        I became the Queen of Saillune.

        I could only accept this fact with the same weary resignation that I seemed to accept everything with these days. I had no joy, no love of life, and restlessly walked the halls of the Palace in the night. The days were long and most often filled with the flurry of politics and the rush of daily life. I had no time to reflect on my loss of joy, and yet I had no time in which to try and find it.

        Months passed and a new group of Guildstudents came to my attention. One in particular showed promise, and somehow, around him, I could feel the stirring of my magics.

        I cancelled meetings, postponed events and generally cleared an entire day in which to consider this, and in my wanderings of the Palace grounds, came across the very object of my considerations. He was busy charming a small wild rabbit into sitting contentedly in his hands, and when he saw me approach, presented me with the tame creature.

        His name was Andreas, and we spent a leisurely afternoon discussing magic theory while being entertained by the antics of the small rabbit that romped about us as we talked.

        Was it too predictable that I began to schedule daily discussions with him?

        Probably just as predictable as the fact that I slowly began to fall in love.

        By this time, of course, I had taken lovers. It was a simple fact of life. Andreas soon joined my life as more than a fellow studier of magic, becoming a lover that I could do more than simply sleep with. Our relationship deepened, and I found us discussing the events of nearly a year ago.

        To my surprise, he understood my reasoning behind what I did. He did, however, feel that I should have told Zelgadis and Gourry… but he respected my desires that they not know. It was wonderful, having another to talk to that was not a subordinate, or openly demonstrative of their desires to become the King of Saillune. Indeed, one day, he asked me who would take my place if he managed to convince me to run off with him forever.

        I laughed and told him that the minister of affairs had done such a good job thus far, that I would fear little of any consequences for the country, but that he knew I simply could not run off any longer. He knew, how clearly he understood. And I loved him all the more for it.

        In time, perhaps he might have become the King of Saillune. We were never granted the opportunity, however. The country of his father went to war, and he came to me, telling me that he felt obligated to his family. I understood, and he left to join the ranks of sorcerers to defend his country.

        And among those ranks he died.

        The time was passing quickly, and I felt a pull to visit the Kataart Mountains on the anniversary of Lina’s death. I would have to exchange the stones at the cave in any event… and so I left with a small compliment of servants, ensuring that only those that absolutely knew I was leaving were the ones who needed to know.

        The public statement was that I was going into seclusion for a time to keep vigil for the soul of a lost companion. It was, in its entirety, the truth. It simply left out the fact that I would be going to the spot where she died.

        The journey was rough; it had been a year since I’d been on the road, and the servants were hardly road-worn and experienced travelers. I preferred to sleep in the open, away from towns and places where I would be recognized, but the strangeness of the journey and the fact that I was sick almost all the time prevented that.

        Instead, I took to wearing veils and even dressing as my own servants in order to avoid being recognized.

        When we arrived in the tiny little town where it had all started, the townspeople welcomed me with open arms and sad embraces. They too remembered the price paid for the destruction of the Demon King. But what I was not expecting was to find Zelgadis and Gourry within the ruins of the castle.