Perchance to Dream
The doors of the Royal Hall
unceremoniously burst open, startling the little group at the far end of the
room. Amelia looked up, eyes narrowing, ready to snap at the rude intrusion,
but her eyes widened when she saw the guard rushing up with a frighteningly
limp Lina in his arms. He came to a halt, kneeling and out of breath at the
foot of the dais where Amelia sat discussing the situation with Sylphiel and
Gourry.
Sylphiel, without taking a moment to
think, ran down the steps to the guard, the recovery spell building in her
hands. She cast it effortlessly, but it didn’t bring Lina around. Frowning,
Sylphiel cast the counter-sleeping spell. It too, had no effect.
Amelia
moved towards the group, frowned, and placed her hands lightly but firmly on
Lina’s shoulders, calling forth her own magic. “Oh, power of light and earth
and wind, Break now this evil spell. FLOW BREAK!”
Lina didn’t even so much as twitch.
Amelia looked to the guard, eyes
flashing. “Where did you find her?”
“Your Highness, she was brought to
the gates of the Palace by a man draped in a black cloak,” the guard replied
uneasily. “We could not see his face.”
Sylphiel looked up abruptly. “Was
there gold trim on the hood of his cloak?”
The guard nodded slowly. “Aye. Do
you know him, Lady Sylphiel?”
She shook her head. “No… but I had
seen Lina chasing him earlier. She told me that he’d looked… familiar.” The
shrine maiden sighed, and brushed at a strand of silver in Lina’s hair,
wondering what had happened to her friend.
Gourry stood at the top of the dais,
looking down at the girls and the guard, a memory of more than three years past
washing over him. A time when he would have been there, in the place of the
guard…
The little clearing in the trees was
empty, the question echoed only by the trees. Lina and Zelgadis had left
separately, quietly, no answer given or received. There was a sort of comfort
to both that no answers had been given. He was shocked that he’d managed to
ask, and she was shocked that he had
asked.
Alone in the hotel room, Lina packed
up her belongings and mulled over the question. It was still too early to be
able to think of giving him an answer. She knew him too well now… far too well
for a casual reply, and he knew it. She needed to think about it, think
carefully and detachedly. Think with her head, not her heart. Easier said than done, Lina…
Amelia bounced into the room,
instantly setting Lina’s teeth on edge as she effervesced. “Oh, Miss Lina, how
wonderful! I’m sure that you both will be so happy!!”
Lina looked over at Amelia, pausing
before she grabbed her cloak and put it around herself. “Look, can’t you keep
it down for a bit? I mean, come on Amelia… think about it. This is Zelgadis
we’re talking about. He’s been under a lot of stress lately, and there’s no
telling how that spell warped him around. Just give it a little while.”
Amelia blinked at Lina, big blue
eyes wide with surprise. “But aren’t you happy? Miss Lina… what’s wrong?” The
girl ran over to her friend and looked to her with wide eyes, worried that Lina
wasn’t feeling well.
Lina shook her head again. “I’d be a
lot happier if it hadn’t been for that spell of Rezo’s. I just can’t see Zelgadis
suddenly deciding that he’s in love with anyone… let alone me. Not this
suddenly. I just don’t buy it. So I’m not going to push the subject.”
Amelia frowned, putting a hand on
Lina’s arm. “But what if he really does love you, Miss Lina? It’s possible that
the spell gave him the opportunity to tell you…”
Lina sighed and looked to the girl.
“What if it had been someone else who had been able to help him? I can’t help
but have the nagging feeling that the spell was designed to get Zelgadis to
fall in love with someone as well as everything else it did. Don’t forget,
Amelia… I know him a lot better than I feel that I ought to. I share some of
his memories now. I mean, I know what it felt like when Rezo turned him into a
chimera.” She didn’t reveal to the princess how terribly suffocating that
experience had been. It had helped Lina understand some of the obsession that
Zelgadis had with his cure.
Amelia sighed, lowered her hand, and
opened her mouth to say something else, but a knock at the door stopped her
from anything else.
“Hey, Lina? You two ready? Zel and I
are,” Gourry said, sticking his head in the slightly open door, and looking
into the room at the two girls.
Lina turned, forcing a smile and
nodding. “I think so. Aren’t we done, Amelia?”
The princess took the more than
obvious hint, and picked up her bag, looking down. “If you say so, Miss
Lina...”
Gourry knew right then that
something was wrong, Amelia’s downcast eyes told him that. He suspected that it
was something to do with how Lina had acted when she and Zelgadis had returned.
He’d have to ask Amelia later, because he knew if he asked Lina, the only thing
he’d get for his concern was a fireball in his face, and he didn’t want to
bother Zelgadis about it. The shaman had seemed disturbed enough when he’d
returned.
Lina herself paid for the rooms,
something which took all three of the others by surprise. She brushed it off,
saying instead that her purse was getting a bit heavy, and that the best way to
lighten it was by paying for things.
Right away, they knew something was
wrong.
Lina was preoccupied.
Of course, saying that was one hell
of an understatement. She was far more than preoccupied. Preoccupation implied
that there was only a little on her mind. On the contrary, there was an entire
world of things on her mind. And the vast majority of it had to do with
Zelgadis. It was that stupid spell, it had to have been. Before the spell had
taken effect, there was nothing about Zelgadis that came even close to looking
like he wanted a relationship. He’d pry himself out of Amelia’s grasp faster
than it took her to realize that he’d done it. He preferred to be alone, to go
off on his own in search of his cure.
Zelgadis
is a loner, not a lover, Lina thought to herself, shaking her head and watching
the road continue to unfold under her feet.
And no matter what he may think,
I’ll find a way to break through the spell that makes him think that he loves
me. She paused, hearing his voice echo in her mind. “His spell is the whole
reason that I have the courage to tell you any of this.” I’ll find a way to keep him from making the biggest mistake of his
life. I promise you, Zel. I can’t take advantage of you like that.
The guard had transferred Lina
across to Gourry, and the blonde swordsman carried the unconscious sorceress up
to her room with a very worried Sylphiel following closely behind. Amelia was
only a few steps behind Sylphiel, giving orders to a handmaid to take care of
any further visitors, and to have various things brought up to Lina’s room.
As the handmaid scurried off, Amelia
turned her gaze back to the cascade of red hair that fell over Gourry’s arm.
She had a lot to blame Lina Inverse for. But the question to ask herself was
would she help heal Lina in order to punish her later, or would she count this
as Lina’s punishment?
It had been a hellacious battle
without Lina or Zelgadis or anyone else to help her. But the monster had been
cornered, and Amelia was taking stock of the situation. Her father, Philionel
was injured badly, and the last wave of resistance had fallen back. It was
solely up to Amelia now. She’d never cast what she was contemplating before,
even though she knew the words. She knew that a follower of Cephied could cast
the Dragon Slave, Sylphiel had done so once. So Amelia was going to give it a
try.
“Darkness beyond the twilight,
crimson beyond the blood that flows…” she started, straining to feel the power
that should accompany it. But there was nothing.
A new voice, ragged and rough with
pain caught her attention, and she looked up to see a figure in a black cloak
standing on a nearby roof, hands aimed at the monster.
“Power beyond the twilight, in
crimson blood that flows…Buried in the stream of time is where your power
grows. I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand against the mighty
gift bestowed in my unworthy hand! DRAGON SLAVE!”
The words were slightly different
than from what Amelia remembered, but the end result was just as devastating.
The spell ripped away from the caster, tore down into the monster and destroyed
it.
The woman landed beside Amelia, and
the princess gasped as the back of her mind suddenly registered a whole great
many things at once. The woman beside her was injured, and was undeniably her
older sister Gracia. And Gracia, who couldn’t even control anything beyond a
simple flare arrow or a freeze arrow before she had vanished had cast the
Dragon Slave.
Amelia reached out and caught her
sister as she fell.
It had turned out that Gracia had
been running around the world, calling herself Naga. And the one she’d learned
the Dragon Slave from was none other than Lina Inverse. Of course, that was
many years before Amelia had met Lina, but it still did nothing to appease the
younger princess. Lina hadn’t taught Amelia that spell. And now it would be her
sister’s death. Gracia had had no business in casting it while she was so
injured. But she had, and she had saved Saillune. But she had died for it.
And Amelia blamed Lina.
Gourry settled Lina carefully on the
bed, and looked to Sylphiel. “It’s like that time all those years ago, when she
kept falling into the Astral Plane.”
Sylphiel nodded. “Except that she
hasn’t. She’s there… just not there. It’s like something has … it’s like she’s
locked herself away inside her own mind…”
Amelia closed the doors behind them
all and walked over to the bed, carefully hiding any antipathy that she had for
Lina. “Perhaps it is rest that she needs, and she will return to us when she
has rested.”
Gourry and Sylphiel nodded slowly,
though not convinced.
Lina was indeed locked within
herself. With that simple touch, that damnable Mazoku had shown her everything
from the past three years. She wasn’t dealing with it well at all.
She’d left the night of the ball,
the results of that night she couldn’t have known. He’d waited for her all that
night and the following morning before the servants came in to announce that
Lina had vanished in the night.
“I’m sorry, Zel… Lina is willful,
stubborn, and totally and completely wrong on this one.” Gourry said, clasping
Zelgadis’ shoulder. “If you want, we can head after her. She can’t have gotten
all that far. She was pretty tired.”
Zelgadis took a breath and held it,
debating for the moment. Then the answer came to him as clearly as if it had
been written on the wall in front of him. “No, Gourry. This is her answer to me
at last. So be it.” Turning away, he stepped out of Gourry’s grasp and left the
room in silence.
Once again, it was as if she was
there, standing in the room and unable to interact. She saw the stiffness in
his shoulders; the tense steps as he left the room, and watched the others
react. Gourry sighed, shaking his head, and Amelia did her dead-level best not
to look too upset. But Lina could see that the damage was done.
She’d betrayed them all that night.
The scenery changed, Lina saw
Sylphiel and Gourry get married, Zelgadis a silent figure in the back of the
ceremony, watching without emotion. She knew that he’d declined the request to
be Gourry’s Armsholder in the ceremony. She wanted to rant at him, to scream
that she wasn’t worth ruining his life over. To tell him that it was only a
spell and that he could break it if he’d wanted to. But nothing she could do
would reach across the past. She curled into herself, her very soul aching, hating
herself for what she had done, and hating Xellos for showing her all of this.
He stood in the shadow, watching the
Palace. He still loved her. He always would. But he wasn’t the same anymore. He
didn’t understand it, what had happened after that fight with Xellos. So it was
easier to be someone else, not Zelgadis. He wondered, fleetingly, if his little
brother would pitch a fit if he borrowed his name. The only true difference
between himself and Jedah was that Jedah was damnably better at magic. No… best
not to involve Jedah. Bad enough that Zelgadis had to abandon him when Rezo had
turned him into a chimera. And explaining the family ties would be even more
messy if he was asked.
Time to go. Time to start over. New
life, new name. Whatever had happened, he’d been granted a second chance at a
normal life and he wasn’t about to screw it up again.
So why, by the Power of Cephied, did
he feel like he was making the biggest mistake of his life?