This is a sequel to my fanfic The Autumn in the sense that it happens in the same future, but not much else. You can absolutely read this without reading Autumn, but there are some things you ought to know:
It takes place five years after Autumn - that is to say, twenty-five years after Slayers' first season. Of the group, the two main couples (Lina/Gourry and Zel/Ameria) are married. Filia will not appear. Xelloss is dead (bwa ha ha). Ameria is the Queen of Saillune; Zel has no standing within the royal family. Lina is now a masterless Mazoku (I can't explain without writing the entire text of Autumn here.)
New characters run rampant through the story. The main two you should know are Lisa Inverse, Lina and Gourry's daughter, and Amanda Graywords, Zel and Ameria's daughter. The others are entirely new, so they're explained in the fic.
Enjoy!
"Whoa."
"What?"
"Do you ever get that feeling when your head suddenly spins and you almost black out before you - "
"Zelgadiss?" Ameria interrupted.
"Yes?"
"When we stopped over in that little town to get coffee - "
"Yes?"
"Did you go in the bar at all?"
"No."
"Oh."
Ameria thoughtfully crushed her paper cup. "I'll fly this thing for awhile if you're not feeling up to it."
"I'm fine," he said quickly, strengthening the Raywing bubble just to show that he wasn't a bit tired.
"We could have stayed the night in a hotel, you know."
"In that lunatic town? I'd rather pass out from exhaustion after six hours of flight, killing us both in a hideous fall through the treetops and into the hard, cold - " He reconsidered, then finished the sentence. "Well, maybe not."
"..." answered Ameria.
After a longish pause, Zelgadiss decided to ask. "So - what are you going to do?"
"I don't know."
"Would you like me to crash the bubble now?"
"I don't know."
It had all started that morning.
Amanda had been up early. The usual routine. A morning run through the streets, then a trip to a little cafe down on Montparnasse Street for a muffin and then home.
All normal. Waving to early risers on the street. The sun coming up, stars going away. Short thoughts. Everything flashing by -
And then inside again, and hearing the voices.
As Amanda got a final burst of speed on the home stretch, she came up the stairs to her family's living quarters and had the strange feeling that someone was missing.
It couldn't be Sean, because he'd already been gone for a couple of years. Surely she wasn't sensing his disappearance now.
Ameria? Amanda checked the clock, and after noting with not much interest that she had fifteen minutes to be in uniform and in school, she realized that it was well past the time her mother was up and in her office.
That was it. "Daddy?"
She stood in the doorway of her parents' room, just to be sure. Finally, she shrugged and just hit the shower.
"Wonder what he's doing up before nine," was the last thing that she said before taking off again.
"What are you dealing with here, Ameria?"
"I don't know," Ameria said. Although she didn't know it, it was the first of several times she would say that particular phrase that day.
They were walking along a wide boulevard, trying desperately to remain worried and edgy, but failing because of the rather unexpectedly attractive surroundings. The sun was setting by the time they had arrived, and it was putting a red glow on the white buildings of the governmental district.
Ameria voiced her surprise first.
"It's so nice here. I was expecting - I don't know, military police, people being shot on the streets - "
"There seems to be something missing, though," Zelgadiss said thoughtfully.
"What?"
"It'll come to me."
"Do you see the Chancellor's house? He called the meeting there."
"I still don't see why we have to come to Markedra. Don't they have a perfectly good embassy in Saillune?"
"You really ought to get a handle on your paranoia," Ameria didn't say. Instead she substituted "Yes, but I'm trying to keep everything on his terms. I don't know this guy too well, and I'd rather keep things friendly."
"I thought we were on fairly close terms with this little country of his already."
"I'm not so sure anymore."
"Why?"
"They invaded Risantos."
"That would be reason for alarm, I suppose." Zelgadiss did consider the situation delicate, but after all, what was there to fear from Markedra? Saillune had been at peace for more than two hundred years, while all around it wars raged between the other city-states, for a very good reason - its white mages could withstand any attack, magical or otherwise.
Even so, it was downright dangerous for the Queen of Saillune to come to a belligerent country, actual threat or no. Zel could think of, at a rough estimate, five thousand ways for a reasonably clever assassin to throw the political process of the world's greatest city into chaos with one knife thrust here - which was why she needed someone she could trust to act as bodyguard. What else was Zelgadiss going to do about this- stay home and fret about her all day?
"Hey. You there."
Ameria ignored the voice. "Here we are. He doesn't exactly live it up, does he? Must be part of the reason why he's so popular with the people - "
"Hey! Are you listening to me?"
"Is he talking to us?" Ameria asked.
"Hey! Are you talking to us?" Zelgadiss turned his most ferocious "bodyguard glare" onto the guard.
"I'm talking to you in the blue. Do you know that it's six-fifteen in the evening already?"
"Past your bedtime?" Zel replied nastily. You in the blue, indeed!
"It's past curfew. Why aren't you at home?"
"Why should he be?" Ameria's foot was tapping away already.
"I just told you people. Where have you been? It's the law that - " he began to speak in "recitation" tones - "all practitioners of magic, members of the dragon race, members of the chimeric races, etc. be in their homes, in the designated area, between the hours of six aay-em and six pe-em. It helps keep the peace. With those people out at night, you never know - "
"Good god, you - "
"Ack!"
"Zelgadiss! What do I always tell you about creating international incidents in public?"
"What does that have to do with - "
"Please put that guard down!" Ameria hadn't known that people really did turn blue if you held them up by the neck for long enough, but she had never previously had use for this interesting medical fact.
Zelgadiss put him down, reluctantly.
"That's enough. Who are you people?" The guard was furiously scribbling in his notebook about the situation. "Disturbing the peace, assaulting an officer, out after curfew - god, we could almost add attempted murder to that - "
"My name is Ameria Wil Tesla Saillune, Queen of the Democratic Monarchy of Saillune, Ruler of the - " Ameria broke off, decided that the poor man had had enough, and decided to cut to the chase. "Don't arrest my husband, anyway."
The guard looked only slightly surprised to learn of Ameria's identity. "Diplomatic clout only goes so far, your highness. While he's in Markedra, he'll obey Markedran laws!"
"I'll go along with that," Zelgadiss cut in. Ameria was not entirely surprised at the mood swing, but it still didn't seem like him to want to seperate here. What on earth was he thinking? "Zel!" she hissed, too thrown to remember not to use the silly nickname.
"You'll go to the designated area and stay there, then. You've already made me late to deliver my report. Off you go!"
"Well," said Zelgadiss after he had gone, "that was interesting."
Ameria whirled on him. "What are you trying to do? You're going to leave me all alone?"
"I'm going to check out his 'designated area'. Maybe the people there can tell me what's going on. That's what's strange, by the way. Where are the capes?"
"I don't like this one bit," said Ameria bluntly.
"You go and meet with this Chancellor, this - "
"Marai - "
"What's his first name?"
"They don't use those here. There's only one name for - "
"Never mind that. You deal with him and we'll meet when you're done and compare notes." Zelgadiss wasn't in the mood for a lecture on Markedran customs.
Ameria looked hesitant, but then turned away. "I suppose that's a good enough plan."
Zelgadiss was used to slum areas. He had spent most of the first twenty years of his life in them, when he'd bothered with big cities at all. It was easy to blend in there, with the general shabbiness and the assorted criminals walking about, buying coffee and chatting.
This, however, was unusual. People, where they could be seen at all, were scurrying through the street with frightened, hurried looks. Mostly, though, the only sign of movement were the bits of paper and junk that the wind whipped along the road.
Zelgadiss was suddenly extremely aware that he was dressed for a mugging, and he looked around nervously to see anyone who might have seen an easy victim walking along in plain view, wearing expensive clothes - but there was no sign of the usual crime activity here at all.
Something about this place was just...odd.
"Anyway." Zelgadiss proclaimed to get himself back to reality. The word seemed out-of-place in the quiet of the twilit street.
He was here to get information. Where would he find that?
It was the only lit window on the street without curtains tightly drawn. Normally, Zelgadiss would rather have hung by the neck than entered an establishment called "Buddy's Cafe & Bar" but it had a sign in the window that proclaimed "This Establishment Is Run By Sorcerers". While obviously intended to defer customers, it was an encouragement to him.
Inside, the cafe was dim and quiet, but not because it wasn't busy. In fact, it was almost full of patrons, but few of them were talking and fewer still looking up. Until Zelgadiss came in, that is. Then eyes followed him all the way, and whispers ran through the room.
In all of the time that Kara had worked as a waitress here, she had never seen anyone more suspicious enter the cafe. The stranger was one of them, and in more ways than one, too - his status in the magical field was obvious from the cape, the virtual uniform of sorcerers, and even in the gloomy light she could see some sort of odd, bluish skin color. But still, suspicious.
Who still wore a cape in these troubled times? Nobody who wasn't asking for trouble. And while the strange man did have that troubled, worried look so common to this area nowadays, it was clear from everything from the cut of his pale gray tunic to the price that he agreed without hesitation to pay for his coffee that he was doing far better than anyone here.
A spy. And a pathetically obvious one at that.
After a few sips of the coffee, the spy called Kara over.
"Listen, can you answer a few questions? You seem to be in a good position to see. What kind of conditions are the sorcerers and the strange peoples living under here? Why do they all live in this part of town?"
Probably searching out people speaking out against the government. Two of her friends had been deported for talking too loudly in front of the wrong people.
"Listen," she hissed, deciding to level with him, "I know who you are. You are not going to get any information from me."
"Huh?" The spy lost his cool once and for all. "I didn't know that I was that recognizable. It must be the damn tabloids."
Now this was a new one. "That isn't what I meant. What are you talking about?"
"Um...you did know who I was, right?"
"You're not a spy?" she asked stupidly.
"Not at the moment, no."
"We seem to have some crossed wires," said one of the patrons nearby, smiling. It was a first for the evening.
"What was that about the tabloids?"
"Okay, let's start over." Zelgadiss unfolded his arms and hunched a little bit over the table. "My name is Zelgadiss Graywords and I came here with the Sailese diplomatic delegation to discuss terms for a treaty."
"There was a delegation?" asked the man who had smiled.
"Well, there was my wife, Ameria, and me."
"Ameria Wil Tesla Queen of Saillune? That Ameria?" Kara was beginning to wonder if this story wasn't a little too bizarre.
"Yes. Anyway, I almost got arrested for being out after some 'curfew'. I decided to come here and figure it out." Here was the big moment. "So, what's going on?"
There was a pause. Some people shuffled their feet. Others coughed,
"Don't everyone explain at once," Zelgadiss said.
Finally Kara spoke. "I have nothing against Chancellor Marai," she said quickly.
"I was a supporter of his a few years back," added another cafe patron. "Even voted for him for city council."
"It's funny, though, that ever since he came to power, little laws have begun to be passed."
Zelgadiss was beginning to see what they were trying to do. No one person was actually saying anything specific against the government, but the picture was showing up clearly.
"First we had to have a special stamp on our papers - one kind for sorcerers and another for strange races."
"Everyone has to have papers, to make it easier for businesses to run smoothly and to help the economy," said a small man in black.
"Right. And then, we had the curfew."
"Then it got shorter."
"And we had to live in the designated areas of town."
"Then they got smaller."
"And signs on the windows to say where we are."
"That's the conditions and the story," the first man finished.
By what seemed to be mutual consent, there was no more conversation. Zelgadiss considered what to do next, and then gave up and left.
When he returned to the Chancellor's residence, Ameria was already waiting for him outside. She looked more shaken than he had seen her since the death of her father.
"Short talks?"
"Not really. Couple of hours. He said what he needed to say." It was a chilly night, but Ameria was only wearing a short-sleeved dress. She didn't seem to know or care about the cold.
"Do you want to go home?"
"I'm so tired - " Ameria stopped for a moment. "Yes. Let's go. I need to get out of this place."
Ameria was jolted out of the day's memory by a sudden fall of almost twenty feet. "God!"
Zelgadiss ignored her. Keeping them up was even harder with someone complaining about the drops.
"Zelgadiss, I think we should stop now. There's a town."
"We're only an hour's flight from Saillune!"
"That's an hour more than you're going to hold out," Ameria pointed out, amazingly reasonable considering the day she had had.
"Maybe," Zel said hesitantly, "but they'll be worried about us at home."
"I know a communication spell."
"Oh." Out of excuses at last. He might as well ask the question that had been bothering him. "Ameria, I used to be able to do that for longer, didn't I?"
Ameria rubbed her eyes. "I think your memory is going."
"Hi, Amanda."
Amanda almost dropped the book that she had been failing to read entirely. "Mom! Where are you? Are you okay?"
"We're crashing in an inn for tonight. Yes, we're both fine. Except that this place is not exactly four stars."
"Ameria?"
She looked away from the mirror that she had cast the spell on. "Yes?"
"What's this in the sink?"
"Hold, on, Amanda." She crossed the room and looked. "The common Sailese hook spider. It's not poisonous."
"Mom?"
"Coming." When she was back at the mirror, Amanda asked, "How did the talks in Markedra go?"
"Badly. Your father told me some horror stories as well."
"Where was he? That's an interesting expression. Forget it." Amanda almost terminated the connection, but she stopped. "Oh, yeah. One more thing."
"What?"
"Lina and Gourry are here to visit. Can I let them stay?"
"Go ahead." Thank god that's the only disaster that happened while I was gone...
When Zelgadiss was getting ready to go the next morning, Ameria was still slumped in the room's only chair.
"Come on," he said insistently, "get up. We're so close to home, I'll have us there in no time."
"But I feel so apathetic this morning."
"Take one 'a' out of that sentence and you'll get what I think of that excuse."
There was a short pause while Ameria's mind attempted to get into gear. "What?" she finally said.
"It's pathetic," Zel explained.
"Listen, you. I still have distinct memories of yesterday morning, when you told me, and I quote, 'God, I'm so depressed. Please let me sleep in.' And then there was the morning before that. Again, I quote. 'I can't believe you want me up already. It's barely ten.' Shall I go on?"
"But all of that happened because you have enough energy to get up early after we're up till midnight, and I don't. What's different today?"
Ameria looked down at the floor. "When we get there, I'll have to take an official position in front of the Senate. Marai won't back down. He says that the people of Markedra want more territory - don't ask me if he's lying. I have to decide whether to declare war on him."
"But the Senate decides that. Um, don't they?"
"They'll vote depending on what I say. They still depend on the monarchy to decide on issues of what's just." Ameria toyed with her fingers, unable to sit still. "Who wants to go home?"
They finally showed up in Saillune, tired despite their pit stop, and in absolutely no mood for the reception that greeted them at the gates: a very happy Lina and Gourry.
"Zel! Ameria!" Although he always considered her calmer since her return a few years ago, Zelgadiss decided that Lina definitely still tended towards hellos that nobody deserved. She greeted their arrivals with a hug and a grin, looking for a moment just as she had when they had met - except for the grinning part, of course.
"You guys really came at a bad time, though," Ameria said sadly. "Did you hear about the invasion?"
"Yeah. Amanda told us what she knows of how your trip went." Lina seemed eager to get off of the subject. "Val's here too, by the way. We picked him up in Atlas City - he wanted to see 'his Amanda-chan'." She adopted her cutest voice. "Has your baby daughter picked up a little friend?"
"Depends on which one of them you ask," Ameria said shortly.
"Oh."
"I think we'd best be going home," Zelgadiss put in.
"Come on, Lina, she's going through a lot. They're going through a lot."
Lina was still watching the deserted road in puzzlement. "We haven't seen them in almost five years, and this is our welcome? Even at a time like this."
"Things will improve."
"I had a lot to talk to Zel about..."
Gourry came as close as he ever did to losing his temper. "It'll happen. We should go home and make sure all of the kids are all right."
"Senators, spectators, ladies and gentlemen of the press, I come before you today to charge you with an all-important mission. This mission is nothing less than keeping the world safe for government by the people and for all of those among us, myself included, who have magical leanings through practice or race."
Lina waited until she could find Zelgadiss, then took the first opportunity to drag him outside and into the nearest deckchair. Once she had planted herself in the nearest one, she popped the big question.
"She's going through with it?"
Zelgadiss nodded. "Right now, Ameria is up there casting her public vote for declaring war on Markedra."
"Doesn't seem quite like her to me," Lina admitted. "Back in the days when she was the cute Slayer, she was a big pacifist-type."
"I was surprised too. But she had to consider what her justice dictates - and in this case, it's helping people, not peace." He shut his eyes and took a quick sip from the water bottle he had dragged along, ignoring the fact that it was barely warm enough outside not to snow.
Lina just stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Sometimes I don't understand Ameria at all."
"Me neither. And I know her better than anyone."
"We live in a city founded on justice, and part of our duties as such include control of atrocities such as the ones being committed in Markedra. The rights of the people are being taken away, and the situation is rapidly growing worse.
It will be a hard battle. Chancellor Marai has informed me that the weaponry of Markedra far surpasses that of Saillune, and that recently a secret project has resulted in a new threat to our safety as a city and as a nation. However, I believe that in order to do what is right we must declare war."
"So what's your take on all of this?"
Zelgadiss sat for a moment and then started trying to explain without getting a tongue-lashing for pessimism. Then he decided to tell it like it was. "I hate to say this, but any way you look at it, we lose. Look, if we go to war with Markedra, and something goes wrong and they take Saillune, then I - and you, and my family, and my immediate circle of friends - have a one-way ticket to hell. On the other hand, if we don't make our stand here, their territory will expand until we eventually have to give in."
Lina didn't respond in the expected way. She reacted exactly as if he were making sense. "I'm afraid you might be right. You seem remarkably calm about the situation."
Zelgadiss shrugged and picked up the water again. "It might be my cool and collected nature, or my natural ability to cope with my problems. Then again, it might be because this is gin."
"I hope to God you're joking."
"I wish to God I wasn't." Zelgadiss folded his arms around his head for and leaned back. "Listen, you can hear cheering even here. I think the speech went over pretty good."
"In sum, we must take steps to stop this regime from spreading - to save the people of Markedra, and to save ourselves. Thank you."
The cheers hit her and kept on going.
"Well, now what's going on?"
"They would be voting."
"And after that?"
"They'll count it."
"And after that?"
"Recount. This is Saillune we're talking about."
"So, is there any use in staying out here in the cold? We can sweat it out inside."
"I'm not cold," Zelgadiss explained.
"I believe that like I believe you're sober. Let's go."
"So how's the rest of your life been, Zel?" Inside Ameria's office, it was warm, which Lina appreciated. Bad enough that she had a feeling she would soon be giving her friend a good talking-to, without having to do that unpleasant task out in the chill.
"..."
"That bad, eh?"
"No, it's been...fine. It's a good life. No, really, I mean it." Zelgadiss ran his fingers over his opposite wrist, nervously drumming them before stopping the maneuver to talk. "I'm happily married, I have a family, I have political clout, I'm a success by anyone's reckoning." He looked straight at her, daring her to deny it.
"Oh, come on." Lina was fifteen again, puncturing his little bubble with cheerful skepticism. "Is this our obsessive, ambitious, sure-I-want-the-power, damn-you-all-I'm-going-to-get-what-I-want, Zel I'm talking to? You've got nothing bothering you at all?"
"Nothing."
"It means nothing that you got all defensive when I asked you how you were going? It means nothing that I keep seeing your face and having to check your shoulders for a world? It means nothing that you're still semi-coherent after an hour in company with that water bottle of yours?"
Zelgadiss didn't repeat "nothing", but then, he did say absolutely nothing, so maybe that counted.
Lina was excellent at taking a situation and putting the pieces together to make a whole. She had always amazed here enemies by sizing them up perfectly, and she had a little working theory now, one that didn't involve anybody's evil plan. "Offhand, I say that you were so shook up by seeing the Markedran situation because you're fully aware that you wouldn't need to be afraid if you were a little more normal. Seems as if that's still bothering you after all of these years. A contrast between you and the rest of us, no?
Can I give you two pieces of advice? One, get over it. I did. I'm a renegade Mazoku. Ameria's a member of a family where she lost relatives on a regular basis to power struggles and she got over it. Gourry had to deal with my...leaving for awhile and he got over it. It looks like you're alone."
"What's the other advice? Is it as easy to follow as that little self-help tip?" Zelgadiss said rather nastily.
"The other one is to lie down for awhile before you say something like that to Ameria."
Lina really did know people.
Some time later, Ameria pushed open the door to the office and made her way to her normal place behind the big, dark wooden desk.
Zelgadiss glanced at Ameria from his position on the couch, where he was apparently attempting to demonstrate the concept of lethargy to an invisible class of less experienced depressives. He didn't say anything at all.
They looked at each other for a minute, and then Ameria made her report. "They've voted. It's counted, recounted - Saillune is going to war. I signed the papers half an hour ago."
"Oh." Zelgadiss wasn't going to take any chances on slurring.
"Oh? What does that mean?"
"Oh. It just means that. What else should I say?"
"You don't agree with me, do you." It was obviously a statement and not a question.
"Neither choice seemed right. I wouldn't agree with any of them."
"Is that you spent the day with Lina?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Instead of coming to the Senate with me? Afraid you'd actually have to have an opinion?" Ameria snapped a pencil. "It was hard going up in front of all of those people, but I imagine that the ever-brave - "
"All right, you've made your point."
"I don't think so."
"Can we have this...discussion when I'm a little less tired?"
"Tired? After a day like I had and one like you had...you're tired?"
"It's been a long afternoon."
"You're only making it worse, you know." Ameria had half risen, but she lowered herself back into the chair. Suddenly looking very fragile, she said quietly, "But I guess I should have expected that you'd want to talk to Lina instead of me. She must understand things that I don't."
Watch carefully as Zelgadiss reacts in anger, blowing it completely. "Like what? Name one thing that you don't understand!"
"Well...the time you smashed the mirrors in the hall, for example! What on earth could drive someone to that sort of cliched expression of despair?"
"I told you about that! I just don't like looking at myself all of the time! You would understand if you were Li - " damn! - "if you were me."
"Lina?"
"I never said Lina. It was just a verbal slip because I'm a little bit messed up right now."
"I won't even take the opportunity to make the obvious reply to that!"
"I wasn't planning for you to."
"One, two, three!" Ameria played the final chords. "I think that's enough for this evening's jam session, Val. It's been fun."
Val shivered. His white muscle shirt wasn't exactly suited to the cold night on the balcony.
Now that the loud guitar music no longer drowned it out, they could clearly hear the increasingly heated discussion from downstairs.
"Is there some sort of trouble in paradise between them?" Val put his hand around Amanda's shoulders, taking advantage of the quiet moment.
"What 'them'?" She detached him and pretended not to know what he was talking about.
"You know what 'them'. Your parents."
"I don't think so. It's just that, well," - she crossed to the outer edge of the balcony, looking up at the stars - "he's going through a lot of crap lately as it is, has problems with not being human. I don't understand it. I practically revel in it, for god's sake - but then I was born this way. And this whole situation with the war and everything is stressing everyone out and setting people against each other."
"So it's kind of wrong people, wrong place, wrong time?"
"Yeah. It'll blow over." Hopefully. "Anyway, I'll see you in the morning, all right?" She gave him a smile, just because she felt like it.
There is a warm place inside of your mind, where you go every night just before you sleep. For just a moment, no matter who you are, or what happened to you during the day, there is peace.
"Zelgadiss, are you still awake?"
"Ameria? Is that - ? Yes." He raised his head from the pillow, back in the cold world again. Yellow light shone on his face from the oil lamp Ameria had to light her way.
She set down the lamp on the dresser and sat on the edge of the bed. They stayed like that for a moment, and then he touched her shoulder. Listen.
"I'm sorry about today."
"So am I," Ameria replied awkwardly, and that was that.
It was only much later, when she was almost asleep, that she heard the real apology. And she smiled in the dark, and whispered back, "I love you, too."
Lisa Inverse knocked.
"What is it?"
"I just wanted to say hi."
Amanda opened the door. "Welcome back, Lisa. Sorry I didn't say so before."
"You seemed to be having fun up with Val. I didn't want to interfere."
Amanda looked a little uncomfortable, but soon found an excuse to say something else. "We worked out a couple of cool tunes, though. Want to hear one?"
"All right."
"Okay, I don't have any lyrics yet, but for some reason the title "Midnight Blue" comes to mind for it. I thought it might work for my band."
"You're in a band?"
"I said I have one. There's a difference." Lisa didn't see it, but Amanda seemed to think so, so she just shrugged. "Let's hear it."
It turned out to be a dramatic, tense sort of tune with a fast beat that Amanda tapped out on the floor. As she played the guitar, she muttered in tones that Lisa had the feeling were not intended for her. "Lyrics....something for the verse...and then 'tonight, tonight, hm, a wavering flame against the midnight blue'. Something serious - calling on things to ask what's in the future for me. Yeah, seems to fit..."
There was another knock on Amanda's door.
Lisa did a quick headcount. Who else would be trying to get in at this hour? "Who's there?"
"Amanda? Is that you? It's me."
The music stopped abruptly. Amanda put down the guitar and crossed to the door, more nervous than she cared to admit. "Me who?"
"Sean me." There was a short pause while whoever it was worked things out. "Me Sean? Oh, whatever."
"Sean?" Amanda threw open the door and virtually dragged in the owner of the voice inside - a short, slim young man of seventeen or so with dark-blue hair in a long ponytail. Something about him seemed familiar to Lisa.
"Sean! It is you! Oh, God. What - where have you been for all of this time? I don't know whether to hug you or - kill you!" She looked more likely to go for the second option.
"I'm sorry, have we been introduced?" was all Lisa could say.
The stranger turned to her, and to her slight disbelief performed a fantastic bow before taking her hand. "Sean Graywords, sorcerer, swordsman, traveler and son of kings. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Lisa Inverse, may I present my worthless brother, Sean," was Amanda's slightly more biting assessment.
"But, but - " They were both looking at her now. She plunged on. "But he's a human. Or can pass for one, in a bad light," she added, looking at his face closely for purely scientific reasons.
"Genetics is an amazing science," Sean entirely failed to explain.
"So where did you go?" Lisa was still a little dazed from his dramatic flourishes.
"I left home quite awhile ago and ended up attempting to join a group you may have heard of...the Fighting Dragon's Blood Macho Men?"
"You...Fighting Dragon's Blood...Macho Men?" Amanda was obviously trying not to laugh.
"Yes, the Fighting Dragon's Blood Macho Men. Is there anything wrong with that?"
"Nothing. It's just that you're so...so..."
"Short?" Lisa suggested.
"Yeah!" Amanda nodded. "That's it. A perfect description for my little brother. Short."
"I may be smallish for my age but I'm very tough," Sean said defensively.
"You do swords or magic, then?"
"Both, actually."
"Oh? What kind?" A fellow black sorcerer would be nice, Lisa decided. I don't know any others except Mom.
"Well, when you come right down to it, I don't do too much magic really."
"When you do it, what do you-"
"No, honestly, it's so little magic, it's like nothing, mainly I'm a swordsman, and...okay, you can stop looking at me like that. White magic. I'm good with that."
"So what's wrong with white? Filia does white. So does Ameria-san," Lisa pointed out.
"That's just it. It's just so...so...girly." He turned to Amanda. "So, what's been going on?"
""A lot of weirdness."
"You're even more articulate than he is. Do I get an explanation?"
"Who is?" Lisa asked.
"My old man. We don't get along. Do you know him?"
"Not only do I, but I agree with you on that point."
"You two will get along well, then. Can you continue your conversation outside of my room?" Something had set Amanda off.
"Right."
"I'll just go and check out my old room, then, shall I?"
Once they were gone, Amanda shook her head and wondered what was with the world today.
Sean felt strange, waking up in his own room. He had, for most of the past few years, slept in hotel rooms, bandit headquarters, and on the street - not in the relative comfort of his bed at home.
He wasn't exactly sure why he had come back in the first place. He had had a reason, all right, but -
The truth was that Sean Graywords, underneath what he thought was his cool exterior, underneath his love of the dramatic, was in fact a relatively sane person who understood that it was unkind to his family to stay away for so long. And so he'd left, to make sure they were all right.
"And what to I get for it?" he muttered, opening the window to scout out the weather for the day, then quickly shutting it when he realized that it was cold enough to make a lesser man shiver.
Sean hadn't bothered to check last night, but he had to laugh when he now saw that they had left his room exactly the way he had left it. Like Amanda, he had attended school until his departure - the papers were still on his desk. Although they'd been laundered, the same sheets - with a pattern of black-magic stars on a blue background, never mind Sean's actual specialty - were on the bed. He checked his closet, and found everything the same there.
"Maybe they were expecting me, after all," he said to the hall outside as he opened the door to go and find some breakfast.
"Who was?" asked Lisa, who was passing by, also on the way downstairs.
"Oh. My family. Hi."
"Really? Amanda at least didn't seem to be. But then, your family - "
"I know. I should have expected her to be unhappy, and I guess my parents will hardly be overjoyed either," Sean said glumly. "Anyway, maybe I can just lose myself in the crowd. I can't even identify half of the people I just on the way here. There's some person here who even looks just like Lina Inverse - terrible taste and all."
"That would be my mother," said Lisa, her expression almost unreadable.
"Oh." There go all possible chances of ever going out with her.
"Don't worry, we don't even know each other well enough for me to register a slight against her. She showed up, more or less, when I was fourteen or fifteen, after being gone a long time. That little trip was where I met your family, whom I happen to consider the most dysfunctional group of people, give or take a few lunatics, on the entire face of the world."
"Ah. I wouldn't go that far."
"But you did leave."
"What else? Dad in particular probably never noticed when I did."
"I noticed that you're back, at least. That should count for something."
"Oh, crap," Sean remarked, his blood flowing directly into the floor. He turned around slowly, hoping that dramatic effect might somehow happen instead of shock.
Zelgadiss was looking distinctly impatient. A bad morning and a still-present hangover were doing absolutely nothing to improve his mood. "Don't think that I didn't hear that entire conversation. We'll discuss your status as prodigal son later. How good are you with shield spells?" In fact he had barely heard the second half, but it was enough to set his eye to twitching again.
"They're my specialty. Even you know that. Why do you need shields?"
"Just a rapidly approaching invading army. That's all. Get up on the wall."
"Chancellor Marai doesn't waste any time," Lisa remarked, "and neither does Zelgadiss in high gear."
"Not their only similarity," Sean muttered under his breath.
Lisa blinked and squinted under the bright light. The sun was bright this morning, and it combined with Saillune's white walls to make a blinding effect.
Sean pulled up his hood to shield his eyes. "What a day for an attack."
"Hey Sean?"
"Yes?"
"Do you see a flaw in the Markedrans' thinking here?"
Sean thought for a moment. "No."
"Their leader forbids magic."
"So?"
"So they're fighting Sailese magic with normal weapons? Even if they have advanced technology, likes guns and bombs, you can throw them off easily with shields and offensive spells."
Sean kicked a rock as they hurried on their way. "Now that you explain it, it doesn't seem to work. Maybe they're hoping to swarm us. Or what if this new weapon can puncture a shield?"
"It's an icky possibility."
"Oh well." Sean smiled and put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't you worry, Sean the Great will protect you." He tried to make sunlight gleam off of his teeth but it wouldn't do it.
Lisa smiled back anyway. "I'll look out for myself, thank you."
But she never bothered to remove the hand.
Lina and Gourry were already running down the stairs as Zelgadiss was running up. Both parties skidded to a halt just in time.
"Is everyone outside already?" Lina asked breathlessly.
"More or less. Now, can you help me get Ameria back inside?"
"Why?" Lina frowned. "Did she hurt her leg or something?"
"She won't stay in and be safe. Talk some sense into her!"
"Zel?"
"What?"
"Wrong pronoun. I swear, living in Saillune for so long has destroyed your language skills completely."
Zelgadiss frowned. "Living in Saillune...language skills...you're not making much sense."
"So I didn't pull off my joke too well. What I meant was, you've got the wrong pronoun - talk some sense into me, Zelgadiss."
"You're Zelgadiss?" Gourry put in slyly. Lina ignored him completely.
"Why do I need sense?" Zel glanced outside. "We don't have time for this."
"Okay, I'll cut to the chase. It's sweet of you to be thinking of her safety - "
"Sweet?" In all of Zelgadiss' forty-odd years, he had never had that word applied to him.
"I thought we didn't have time for this."
"Go on."
" - but Ameria can take care of herself. She's a big girl now. Now come on, they're probably at the door already."
They were, more or less.
They found Ameria over the main gate to the city walls. She had taken a central defense position, but sorcerers and magic users were also ringed around the wall-top. They had to thread their way through a crowd of soldiers and a far larger one of volunteers that surrounded the main gate. Lina spotted Sean and Lisa talking a few feet from Ameria.
"Hi. Can you see them yet?" asked Gourry as they climbed the nearest staircase.
Ameria pointed, wordlessly, and this time they all saw the column of dust rising in the distance.
They did not dare to leave, so everyone remained in place for most of the day before the enemy arrived.
"I request to speak with her Majesty, Ameria Queen of Saillune!"
"Yes?," Ameria shouted back down at the tall figure at the head of the army.
"I am the official emissary from Markedra!"
"Looks like some random soldier-boy to me," Zelgadiss muttered too quietly for anyone but her to hear.
"What is your business with me?"
"I've come to give you a last warning that if Saillune surrenders peacefully, the terms will be advantageous."
"Why's that a warning?"
"Because if it does not, we will not hesitate to use force."
Ameria bit back her fear and went into her old "justice speech" mode. "Never! Saillune's ideals will not fall to you!"
"Why don't people ever use contractions when they're trying to impress each other?" was Zelgadiss' comment on these proceedings.
"Ever the cynic, eh?" Sean remarked to Lisa.
"Put the shields up now!" Ameria ordered before she could reply.
The combined shield power of the strongest white mages in the city was an impressive sight - different spells combined at the edges, some clear, some misty and some shimmering in various colors. It extended around the entire circle. Zelgadiss and Ameria added their power to it, while Lina began focusing magical energies, just in case.
"Lina, what are you doing?"
"Protecting this city. We want this to be done with quickly."
"No!" Ameria grabbed at Lina's arm, unaware of the danger this put her in. "You can't just destroy them all!"
"Um, Lina, Ameria?" Gourry was peering at the front group of soldiers, who seemed to be dragging machinery together.
They ignored him. "I can, I need to, and I will. We'd try to do it anyway," Lina was insisting.
"Listen to yourself!" Ameria pleaded. "You're thinking just like a Mazoku - just like Xelloss! See a threat and destroy it!"
"I am a Mazoku," Lina declared flatly.
"But not a real one. You left. We helped you escape!"
"Zel, what is that thing?" asked Gourry.
Zelgadiss squinted, still maintaining his spell; the sunlight was reflecting off of gray metal. "I have no idea, but they're assembling it instead of attacking us."
"Yes, you helped me to kill Xelas and release me. And how is that different from what I'm about to do?" Lina was saying.
"It's completely different! These people are human, not monsters!"
"They're human monsters."
"Look at them! A conscript army probably. They aren't here by choice. They're almost children!"
"Listen, what were we when we met and fought together? Don't misjudge the danger because they're young." A ball of dark power was growing in Lina's hand. "I'm doing this for the good of us all. Now stand back and - "
"He's doing something, throwing a switch - " Gourry's eyes suddenly went wide.
- and the power gathered in Lina's hand burned out -
- and the shield disappeared -
- and somebody screamed -
- and somebody ran -
"What happened?" Lina's voice shook as she raised it over the yelling of the crowd of defenders.
"It's gone! The magic's just gone!"
"That's got to be their new weapon that Marai threatened me with!"
"Now what the hell do we do?!" someone shouted, half-screaming and half-sobbing the words. "Ameria-sama, help us, tell us what do we do?"
All around them people were running, first out of panic, and then because everyone else was running. There was only route down to the main part of the city, and they were swept along in the tide.
Ameria was running. She knew exactly where to do. Her enemies were already coming in, with no resistance meeting them. Her father had told her what to do. She would listen to him and everything would be all right.
Zelgadiss was running, trying to find Ameria, knowing he had lost her.
Where would she go?
Or -
That was it. The knowledge forced him to run even faster, and he blurred as he brought his chimeric speed into play for the first time in almost twenty-five years. He hated the feeling, but it was the only way to do it.
Find her. Whatever it took.
Lina was running, and by instinct and luck took a side alley where few people had entered. She curled up there, making herself as inconspicuous as possible, while around her the panic rose.
Gourry could see Sean and Lisa in the crowd, and made for them. Grabbing an arm each, he dragged them into another alleyway. "Are you kids okay?"
They just stared.
Amanda and Val were running, but they had been at the back of the city and far from the stairs down. By the time they reached the front, they had calmed enough to look down at the soldiers, already busily trying to break down the massive gate.
"Everyone's down there!" Amanda shouted over the noise.
"Do you recognize anybody in that crowd?"
"Sean and Lisa!" Amanda pointed. "Look! Pink hair! That has to be her!"
"We should fight."
"Without magic? We should stay here!"
Val clenched a fist. "Remember, I'm a dragon. I can do quite a bit of damage."
"But you have to transform first, correct?"
"Well, yes - "
"With magic?"
Val had to reconsider. "Right. We'll stay," he said helplessly.
Zelgadiss refused to acknowledge the pain. He was finally here.
(And from over the gates, Amanda and Sean saw the Markedrans break through.)
He slammed doors open and they swung shut behind him, but the racket hardly registered with him. He had to find her!
(And Gourry watched the second wave march in, a show of force for the people to stare at in fear).
He opened the last door. Ameria's office. She was standing just in front of the desk.
"I...knew...I'd find...you here." The pauses were hardly for effect. He hadn't felt like this since the early post-Rezo days. "We have to...get you out."
Ameria's face was pale and blotched with red, and her eyes were wide from fear, but her she gripped the edge of the desk. "I'm staying here."
"Come on." Zelgadiss should have known she would do this. "We can escape before they're organized. You can form a government in exile. The fight's not over yet - "
"The words 'in exile' are not in my dictionary."
"Don't be stupid! It can't end here! Please, Ameria," - now he was making a fool of himself, but it didn't matter, only desperation was moving him now - "come with me, you're the only thing that can - "
For some reason, she chose that moment to embrace him. Bending her head to rest it on his shoulder, she said quietly, "You go and save yourself. The best thing to do is to live and try to stop this somehow. It's just that I have to stay. I'd be betraying them all if I ran and hid. If I were to disappear, it would be the end of everything - they'd have no leaders and no hope. Even if I go to prison, they'll know I'm there."
"But they'll - kill you."
"They wouldn't kill me. They need allies, and that's not good for the reputation."
"I hate this. God, I hate this."
Ameria didn't say anything. He couldn't tell if she was crying or not.
They remained like that for a few minutes, not wanting ever to be found again, and then there was a crash from downstairs and the spell was broken.
"They're coming in. I'm going to be all right, so get out. Escape the window, we're only on the second story," Ameria told him.
"You've got to come with me!"
"I'll stay and you'll go. It's the only way- they'll have a leader they can't reach and a leader they can."
"I'm not a leader."
"You'll have to do. Now go." When Zelgadiss hesitated, she raised her voice a little. "I said, go!"
He went.
Ameria... why? Such a stupid thing to do! I could...
I couldn't.
When Sergeant Machard of the Markedran Army came in with his squad, Ameria was alone.
"We have you surrounded, Queen Ameria." His face was tired and he couldn't have been over half of her age, but still, he had come for her. "There's no way out."
"I surrender myself," she said. Her father would have been proud.
And they led her away, and locked her in a solitary cell in Saillune's prison.
Somehow, Zelgadiss found himself back on the street. He seemed out of it to Amanda, but when she touched his hand he turned to defend himself before he realized who she was.
"I thought I'd never track you down."
"Where is everybody?"
"They've been ordered into their homes."
"But where did Lina and everyone go?"
"Come on, I'll take you there. Someone's offered to take us in for tonight."
"Who?" It sounded suspicious to Zel.
"Do you know Jamathiel Iona? He says he's a friend of yours."
"Jama? He's here?"
"Yeah, he's lived here for just a couple of weeks." Amanda looked around at the desolation. "Bad timing, I guess. Who is he to you?"
"He was my only friend when we were kids in Marcelle." Zelgadiss shook his head. "I haven't seen him since before my change, though. How on earth did he find you?"
"Sean looks a lot like you did when he knew you, apparently. While the panic was still going, he spotted him in the alley where he and Lisa and Gourry were. Where's Mom? We should bring her in too."
Zelgadiss was silent. Amanda caught on fast.
They walked together to Jama's house.
It turned out to be an apartment on the outskirts of town, far too small to accommodate seven extra people.
Amanda came inside first. "Jama, I found him."
"You're already using that nickname?" Despite the events of the last day, Zelgadiss couldn't help but smile at this a little.
"Zel." Jama was already at the door, a tall man with graying brown hair who had the look of a former athlete.
"Hi," said Zelgadiss simply.
"You know, after all of the things that have happened to me today, you turning up again seems downright commonplace."
"I know."
"Your friends filled me in, you know, so don't explain so fast how you came to leave home suddenly and turn up in Saillune thirty years later in an entirely different body."
"Sorry. What are you doing here?"
"It's cheaper to live here. I finally quit my job to try and earn a living with my writing, and I wanted to hold onto my savings." Jama shrugged. "Just my luck, I guess. Come in and have a seat." He gestured at the available floor.
Zelgadiss awkwardly scooted over to his friends. "Is everyone okay?"
"Everyone but you," said Lina. "What on earth happened?"
"Ameria wouldn't leave with me. She wanted to stay, and - she's gone." Those two words kept echoing around in his head. It was driving him crazy.
"She had to do what was right," said Amanda gloomily.
"Where did they take her?"
"I never saw. She made me leave."
"This is awful," Val said, summing up the day in three words.
"Hey, tomorrow is another day," said Sean, trying to help things a bit. "Things could get worse, right?"
Silence.
"Right?"
"Nope," said Jama.