Zelgadis sighed. Home sweet home.
"And so THEN, this little boy killed my guardsmen and ran off with my daughter! What am I supposed to do about that?" The fat old man was yelling about the boy seated beside him, a youth with brown-black hair and mischievous face. The kid didn't look like the type you would want to trust with a daughter. He didn't look like the type you wanted to trust with a pet rock.
"Hey! You promised anyone who could make her laugh could marry her, and she cracked up when she saw me!"
"I never did! Why would I give away my daughter on such stupid terms!" The man yelled, glaring at the boy. "And besides, she laughed because you were running away from the local police force!"
"What does that have to do with anything? I made her laugh and now she's mine." The boy sulked. Zelgadis sighed and leaned back in his chair, wishing for aspirin.
"Where is the girl now?"
"...resting," Muttered the boy.
"Oh? Really?" Zelgadis asked slowly. "She wouldn't happen to be a bit ... tied up at the moment, would she?"
"She's very busy!" The boy stated.
"Doing...?"
"None of your business!" The boy yelled resentfully. "Why are we listening to some stupid cat demon anyway? All they're good for is keeping women happy!"
"The boy's right for once. We should have a real justice!" The man yelled out the out the door. "I demand you discontinue this farce upon myself and grant us the respect this case deserves!"
There was silence, and then crashed and scuffles as the people employed hid under the safety of their desks.
Zelgadis bent his head over and started to laugh. Both men backed up slowly.
"You're right. I'm not cut out for this job, am I?" He said, chuckling. I should be out on some street corner, shouldn't I?"
People ran out from under their desks in a mad dash for the nearest bomb shelter.
"No offence to yourself, I'm sure," The man huffed. "But it's simply your station in life. Your kind can't handle the more serious type of employment."
"Ah. Really?"
"It's just not feasible. You couldn't possibly handle anything more confusing than a mattress -- "
"ELEMEKIA LANCE! DUG HOUT!!! RA TILT!!!"
Zelgadis' boss looked up from his papers. "This is the third time this month you've blown up your office, Zelgadis."
"I'm sorry. The miscreants got into a fight. I had to stop them."
"A fight with whom, Zelgadis?"
"A fight with me, sir."
"Ah." The man looked at his file, and sighed. "Zelgadis, I can sympathize completely with you, but I'm afraid we can't allow our law enforcement to commit crimes."
"It was a public service, sir."
"I bet it was." The sergeant stood up and walked to his window. "It appears to me that recently you've been a bit more touchy than you used to be. Anything going on in your life?"
"Ah... no sir."
"I distinctly hear a pause there."
Zelgadis opted for the truth. "I'm a bit worried about a friend."
"A friend?"
"Yeah." He looked at the ceiling. "The idiots in the fairy godmother department want to give her a happily ever after with some prince."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"She doesn't want to marry a prince."
"Doesn't she? Is there another candidate she'd rather have?"
Zelgadis shrugged. "Not really."
"Then, out of curiosity..."
"She wants to choose herself. She doesn't like destiny, and she doesn't like the princes." Zelgadis sat down and leaned the chair back. "She's been complaining about it since their first try. Says they're all cookie cutouts."
"Well, I'm sure I could do something about this... they simply want a happy ending for the girl, right?"
Zelgadis looked suspicious. "Yes..."
"I wonder how you'd look in a wolf nose...?"
Lina skipped merrily through the woods, her basket of birdseed swinging happily in one arm, her brightly shined shoes prancing along the ground as the birds sang around her...
Ah, who are we kidding, this is Lina.
Lina grumbled as she trudged along with the basket of groceries her mother had sent her to buy. The conniving old hag had stationed herself in a palace but had come out here, in the middle of the woods, just to get Lina. Disappointed that her daughters had taken their parts of the curse off of Lina, She'd decided she'd put as much of a burden upon the girl as possible. Of course, this was Xellos, so it could be she was just bored and decided to torment Lina...
Anyway, Lina was walking through the woods to her mom's house to give her the groceries. Xellos had told her to get them pretty late in the afternoon, so Lina was having a lot of trouble finding her way in the dark. She grumbled. Her stepmother loved to torment her...
"Hey."
Lina turned to the side and got the sight of her life.
Zelgadis stood there sulkily, a plastic wolf nose held onto his face by a bit if string and a wolf tail tied to his real one.
Lina fell over laughing.
Chapter 10 | Fanfiction