WHEN: It takes place directly after TRY #15 ends.
WHY: It amazes me that there is no onscreen reaction to the events of TRY
11-14 in 15-18, considering the trauma involved. (Of course, they were comic relief shows.)
SPOILERS: This gives away the endings of both TRY #14 and #15.
"Hold on for a minute." Zelgadiss ducked into the restroom. He came out a moment later in his normal outfit, and then looked around. "Where did Filia go?"
"She went off to get back in line. Honestly, I don't see why she thought a trip to an amusement park was going to accomplish anything."
"Yeah, but I suppose she has the right to act a little strange after what we just went through." Zelgadiss seemed to have something else on his mind. "Lina?"
"What?"
"I never thought I'd be saying this to you, but - "
"What?" Lina was dimly aware of the fact that ten minutes ago the pair of them had been semi-flirting. If this is "I love you" I'm going to faint, scream or kiss him. Whatever.
"I'm very hungry."
"Oh." That was kind of an anti-climax.
"Ice cream?"
"I want some ice cream. You got a problem with that?"
Zelgadiss shook his head and allowed Lina to drag him into the restaurant.
They ordered, and then looked rather tiredly at each other for a few minutes before Lina decided to say something. "That was...interesting."
"Has the girl gone insane?" Zelgadiss asked bluntly.
"Maybe she's just trying not to. You know how we all do that. When disaster threatens, zoom!" Lina made the appropriate zoom movements with her hands, and almost knocked over a water glass. "In the blink of an eye, Ameria's on a tall object, Gourry's acting like an idiot and you're sulking in some dark corner of your own mind."
Zelgadiss didn't appreciate the last comment, but he had to admit that Lina was right, except that she hadn't mentioned her own tendency to cause property damage. "We do tend to turn into caricatures of ourselves."
"What a mess." Lina interrupted her speech to dig in to her newly arrived bowl of hot fudge with a little bit of ice cream underneath.
"We lost," said Zelgadiss quietly. Those two words had been echoing in his brain for the past three days.
"I know."
"You know what's the worst part for me? There wasn't anything I could to about it, not a damn thing. I don't have the magic to stand up to that. What are we doing here, Lina? This isn't our fight, and it never has been."
"Don't talk like that. This is our fight now. Are you going to eat that?"
"Yes." Zelgadiss hastily dug into his share of the ice cream order, realizing that Lina was going to try to eat it whether or not it was coffee-flavored. "What do you mean?"
"We never came to this place to fight Darkstar. We came for treasure, adventure, chimera cures- same reasons we go anywhere. For all she says about our needing to save the world, this has been Filia's battle up until now. But now - this is bigger than just her. It's involved us all, and once we get past this comic relief - we're going to make sure that we're never defeated again."
"That still leaves the problem of what I'm good for."
"Being Zel. You are extremely good at that."
"Oh."
"That's a compliment."
"Oh."
WHEN: Between episodes 20 and 21 of Slayers TRY.
WHY: Just my personal take on Zel’s childhood.
SPOILERS: None. Just a good place to put this.
"Where are we headed tonight?"
Zelgadiss glanced at his map. "Looks like the next stop is some little town...l can't seem to make out the name."
"Again? How many nameless little towns have we stayed in in the past seven days?" Lina just wanted a hot bath and a bed without straw involved.
"Seven," said Filia. To her credit she didn't let a hint of the incredible irritation she felt creep into her voice, although that was probably because the sarcasm wasn't leaving it proper room.
"There aren't really very many people who want to settle this close to the Ancient Dragon citadel. I can see why," remarked Ameria, wishing with all her heart for a long-sleeved shirt.
"This place looks familiar."
"Yeah, because we've been trudging through country exactly like it for two we - "
"No, I mean really familiar. I remember it from a longtime ago. Lina...I think I used to live near here." Gourry was looking at all passing landmarks, including the sky, with interest.
"when?"
"when I was a kid."
"The implication here being that at some point you were less than six feet tall?"
"Yeah! I had the best time!" Gourry had entered the land of nostalgia, where everything is pastel.
Lina smiled. "Everything seemed so much simpler when we were kids. No saving the world or anything."
"Simple?"
"Oh, Zel. Let me guess - you were already plotting to take over the world when you were ten."
"No."
"What were you doing, then?"
"Being treated for bruises." Zelgadiss had finally realized what to do about his current stress level - he would scare the hell out of Lina. "I would always get into fights when I was a kid. The others would taunt me constantly, just to get me to attack them, which I would, which resulted in my ending up on the floor with mud in my hair."
"Why did they do that?"
Zel ticked the reasons off on his fingers. "Short, short-tempered, long pretentious name, constantly circulating rumors about which public figure I was related to twice over, no father to speak of - "
"Did he die?" You could tell that Gourry was really concerned.
"I don't know, I never met him. Lets just say that when someone calls me an arrogant bastard they're not just insulting me."
"I really shouldn't have asked about that part either." Lina finished a sentence begun at least two years ago.
"And don't get me started on my mother. She was Rezo's daughter and granddaughter, and so there wasn't much genetic drift between the two of them."
Filia, wide-eyed, asked Zel, "How did you survive all of these things?"
"Don't worry, Filia. He's just trying to traumatize us with his family history."
"Well, you started it. If you have anything better to say - "
Lina told a Naga story instead.