"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies". - Aristotle
Lina wandered through the featureless corridors of this place she was coming to hate. The twisting corridors had returned after Xellos had left. She really didn't care where why they'd come back or where she was going, but it was less disconcerting than the featureless plain from earlier. So she trudged along, her little Lighting spell above and slightly above her, throwing bright actinic shadows on the walls around her. But no matter where she turned, how far she walked, she always ended up back outside the door to the room with the balcony.
Which is where she found herself again. This must be a pocket dimension - a subspace bubble, she thought to herself. Drawing up abruptly at that thought, she stared into the darkness. "Where did that come from?" she wondered aloud. Subspace bubble...What was that? How did she know the words? They made no sense to her, and yet...vaguely she knew they should.
"Ow," she whined. "My head hurts." She sighed and turned her attention to the doors on her left. Glaring at them, she deliberately turned her back on them and kept walking. Straight, no turns. She counted to herself as she walked.
"Four hundred ninety-seven. Four hundred ninety-eight. Four hundred - " She stopped and looked at the doors ahead one pace on her left. The same doors. Yet she'd taken no turns.
"All right," she muttered. "I'm getting to the bottom of this right now." She stalked up to the doors and threw them open. The room looked the same as she'd left it: Candles burning on the table, long blood-red runner down the middle, door to the left open onto the room with the settee. The drapes were even still open to reveal the glass doors beyond.
Turning, Lina exited the room, letting the doors slam shut behind her. She turned to her left again, the way she'd been headed before the detour into the room. Lifting her skirts (she was beginning to hate the damned things), she ran down the corridor. She counted to five hundred again and...
"This can't be right," she said as she opened the doors again. It looked like the same room, but what if it were actually a different room? Where there just many, many rooms all furnished in an identical manner stretched out along this corridor? Rushing forward, she grabbed the candlestick from the table and set it on the floor. Turning, she exited the room and this time turned to her right.
Another five hundred paces and the doors appeared again. Flinging them open she burst into the room and stared at the candlestick sitting on the floor. Still unconvinced, she yanked the runner off the table, and dumped it on the floor. Then in a fit of anger, she rushed over to the doors to the balcony and yanked down the thick red drapes. She dragged them over and dumped them over the back of the chair nearest the doors leading into the corridor. Taking a moment to memorize the position of everything in the room, she exited and turned to the right.
Five hundred paces. The doors in the wall to her right. She put her hands on the handles and they seemed to open of their own accord to reveal the candlestick on the floor, the runner dumped next to it and the yards and yards of red fabric hanging carelessly over the back of the chair.
She was literally going around and around in circles. Going nowhere, in other words. What was this place?
Lina felt like kicking something and so kicked the runner across the room where it skidded over the slick marble floor and landed in a heap against the wall. Feeling not in the least bit better, she pulled the throw closer around her, but couldn't block out the spiritual chill that gripped her. Grabbing up the drapes that she'd pulled down from in front of the balcony doors, she put them around her, letting them drag the ground behind her like a shroud.
Spiritually and emotionally worn out, she wandered into the side room and sank down onto the settee. Pulling the red cloth around her, she lay down and let her lighting spell wink out; the ceaselessly burning candles in the other room provided enough light to push the gloom back just enough that she didn't need to keep it going. The flickering candlelight threw great shadows through the doors. One in particular looked like a large creature: Large head with jaws full of sharp teeth, long neck, plumed tail.
She yawned hugely; how long had it been since she slept last? She couldn't tell in this never-changing blackness. Her body was bone-weary and demanded rest. She nestled down into the yards and yards of soft, blood-red velvet and leaned her head back and stared at the darting shadow, that rose out of the darkness and fell back again like an angry sea-dragon rising from the ocean. When sleep overtook her, she was unable to resist...
"Hold still!" Lina pushed the tall blonde back onto the rock and grabbed hold of his hair, mercilessly yanking him down.
"No!" he shouted and pushed her away. He got up and tried to run, but her hold on his hair pulled him back with a jerk. "Amelia! Help me!" A small dark-haired girl threw herself across the man's lap and held him bodily down. "ACK! Not you, too, Amelia!"
"It's the only way we'll be able to get into Sandoria, Gourry-san! It's too dangerous to go in any other way!" the small girl said, getting him into a headlock. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't shift her. Eventually, he gave up and simply bawled as Lina brushed his hair and divided it into two sections.
"Honestly, Gourry, you can be such a baby sometimes. It's just a dress!" She deftly parted his long, sunshine colored hair down the middle of his head and handed part of it to the other girl. "Here, hold this," she said as she pulled a hairband from her wrist and secured the section she was holding.
"Just a dress, you say. It's not that it's a dress, it's the fact that you put me in it! I'm a guy! Guys don't wear dresses!" He shut his eyes so he couldn't see the pink atrocity they'd stuck on his tall frame. As if the dress weren't bad enough, they'd also stripped him down to his birthday suit and thrown small fireballs around his feet to make him don the fancy women's underwear they'd gotten for him. His only consolation had been that both had blushed crimson at the sight of him undressed, but he'd been too busy trying to avoid the sparks flying around his feet to enjoy their embarrassment.
"Oh, qwitcher bellyachin', Gourry," Lina said, taking the other section of hair and securing it with another band. "It'll only be for a short time, once we get on the boat and on our way to Sanboa, you can take it off and be your old, macho guy self again. And quit bawling! You'll make your make-up run!" She yanked him up and ran her comb mercilessly through one of the ponytails on his head. She smiled as the silky strands ran over her fingers. "You've got nice hair, Gourry."
Gourry's response was lost in his sobs.
"Don't cry, Gourry-san," Amelia said, sitting next to him and brushing through the other section of his hair as Lina worked with the first. "You make a very pretty girl."
He lowered his hands from his face and glared at her with the one eye not covered by his hair. "Oh, thank you," he said sarcastically, something quite rare for Gourry. "That makes me feel so much better. What if someone I know sees me like this? I'll never live it down!"
"We know you, and we're seeing you. Who cares?" Lina twisted his hair around several times, then wound it around her fingers, deftly pulling the long section through and forming a nice, round knot.
"You don't count - OW!" he shouted as Lina jerked the knot in his hair more vigorously than necessary at his comment. "Lina!"
"Sorry," Lina said with sugary sweetness, although her eyes were aflame. She made a couple more adjustments to his hair, secured it with another band, then started on the other one. Gourry finally stopped struggling and just sat there whimpering quietly to himself as she worked.
Finished, she went around to the front and looked at him. She rolled her eyes and pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt and wiped at his face. "Cut it out, already. You're making your eyes all red and puffy. Amelia, you got any eye cream?"
"Right here, Lina-san!" Amelia handed the small jar to Lina and she proceeded to smear a small quantity over the delicate skin around Gourry's eyes. He flinched, but did not fight.
"There. You're looking better already. Just need to touch up your make-up a little - " which she did " - and check out everything else..." She took a step back and looked at him sitting there: Light pink dress that suited his coloring quite well, actually; white stockings and white leather boots; long blonde hair done up in pigtails. She took the brush from Amelia and brushed out his long bangs, curling them lightly around the brush. Licking her fingers, she pulled a few bits of hair out of the pigtails on either side of his face near his ears and twisted them around her fingers and shook her head in amazement. He had such obedient hair: It took the curl and stayed where she put it. Then she ran her hand over his cheeks and chin checking for razor stubble. Fortunately his beard grew in lighter than his skin coloring so it didn't show and they wouldn't have to worry about that for several hours at least. By then, they should be on a boat and on their way to Sanboa.
"Perfect," Lina said at last, dusting off her hands. "You don't look anything like that wanted poster."
"Oh, you're so pretty, Gourry-san!" Amelia enthused, clapping her hands together and jumping up and down excitedly.
He looked up and glared at them both. "I'd rather take my chances with the bounty hunters than have to wear this get-up. At least then I know I'd die an honorable death. Right now, I'm just going to die of embarrassment." He stood up and stared down at himself while he tugged at one of his pigtails.
Lina smacked his hand. "Stop that. You'll pull it out."
"It hurts! You did it up too tight!"
"It's supposed to be tight! Otherwise, it will fall out!"
"How can you stand it?" he complained.
"You get used to it." SMACK!
"OW! What was that for?"
"You don't pull at your bra in public, either!"
"But it's uncomfortable!"
"Deal with it! But don't pull at it!"
"Why do I have to wear it?"
"So you look like a girl, that's why!" She smacked him again, this time on the leg. "Don't stand with your feet out like that. You've got to keep your knees together and walk like a girl." His eyes bulged and he turned around and tried to run. "Oh no, you don't," she said, grabbing one of his pigtails and holding him back as he ran in place. When he stopped, she yanked him back so he fell on his knees at her feet. "Work with me here, Gourry. Not only do you have to look like a girl, you've got to act like one, too."
"Then how do you pass for one?" he asked imprudently. "You're skinny, flat-chested and don't walk like - ARGH!" He was cut off abruptly as she used her elbow to ram him into the ground.
"What were you saying?!" she yelled at his mangled form.
"Nothing..." was the muffled response from where he was eating dirt. He tried to claw his way along the ground to escape her Elbow of Death.
"Lina-san!" Amelia protested. "You're going to ruin his make-over and we'll have to start all over again!"
Mouth twisted, Lina ground her elbow one more time before yanking him upwards. "Come on," she said. "We need to get going. So just keep your big mouth shut and try to act inconspicuous." Yeah, as if a six-foot-four woman was going to be inconspicuous, she thought to herself. Stomping along the footpath, she started down towards the seaport town of Sandoria, rounded a corner and disappeared from their sight.
"Lina-san! Wait for us!" Amelia grabbed Gourry's arm and dragged him along behind her. They rounded the corner and Gourry was knocked backwards as a wad of paper hit him squarely in the face. He stumbled backwards and sat down hard. Amelia picked it up out of his lap and uncrumpled it to reveal the wanted poster for Lina. And then, their attention was drawn to a nearby tree on which it and the one for Gourry had been posted. Gourry gulped loudly; the poster with his likeness on it had been shredded.
"Come on, you two! What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?" Amelia jumped, grabbed Gourry and hurried along after Lina, Gourry dragging the ground along behind her.
The sunlight and blue skies over Sandoria faded into darkness as Lina's eyes came slowly open. She found herself still staring at that dragon-shaped shadow on the wall and remembered what it reminded her of. That sea-dragon! The girly-looking one that was actually male. She giggled softly; it had been Gourry who'd figured that out -
She bolted straight upwards. She remembered his name! Gourry! Yes! Her heart leapt into her throat as she turned his name over in her mind. Gourry...
"Gourry," she said aloud, trying it on for size. Only...She still couldn't remember much of anything else. His name, the name of the dark-haired girl, and that they'd fought a sea-dragon that was rampaging through the town of Sandoria...Only, she couldn't remember why there were wanted posters for them up and why they'd had to get to Sanboa so bad that they had to go through the deception of putting Gourry in a dress. She did remember it had been fun - but not the specifics. Another name floated up out of her memory: Volun. But who was that? She laughed, but didn't know why she was laughing.
The soft laughter turned into quiet sobs and she laid back in the enveloping folds of red velvet. Where was he? she thought to herself. When was he going to come take her away from here?
"Gourry..."