"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT HE CASTED THAT DAMN SPELL WHEN HE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE WHOLE THING?!" Lina screamed very, very loud. Oh the pains in her forehead were throbbing and popping out. In this case Zelgadis was actually glad that no one could see him otherwise he would have to deal with Lina's wraith.
"Yes it would assume so Miss Lina. But I'm certain that there must be a few books in the library that could help us find a way to return Mister Zelgadis back to normal." Mister Hender tried to calm the fiery haired dragon spooker so not to have damage caused to his library.
"Mister Hender do you really think we can find a way to return Mister Zelgadis back to normal?"
"We have to. Or otherwise he dies." Everyone stared at Mister Hender in shock.
"What do you mean?! You said that he was just walking around as a spirit and that he isn't dead!"
"For the time being he's like a ghost. But he's not supposed to be in that form like this. If he stays long enough like this his spirit will die if it's not return to physical form." Mister Hender started looking through the shelves of the library.
"But his body disappeared! He has no physical form to return to!"
"Which is why we have to find a book with the information we need and fast. I do find it odd that Mr. Zelgadis would do something so gravely endangering himself just to cure his body. But in way he succeeded."
"What are you talking about?" Lina glared at him.
"His soul is what it was before he was a chimera. Even though he's walking around as a ghost his ghost body is in the form of what he once was."
Zelgadis looked at him in shock. "What is he talking about I'm not..." Zelgadis' eyes bugged out further. For the first time since he this whole thing had happened he realized that his body was not the same bluish stony texture. It was a flesh tone, and his hair was soft not hard like steel. In any other case he would have been jumping for joy but he didn't really care at this moment.
"But in any case we should stop talking and start searching." Mr. Hender glanced at the many books in the massive library.
"Where do we look?"
"I really have no idea." (facefault and sweatdrops all around)
"But you're a librarian! Librarians are supposed to know where books are!" Lina fumed. She was about ready to charge up a fireball to throw in a fit of anger, but considering how much damage that would cause the library and that they still needed to find a book in there, she refrained from doing so.
"I never used to be a librarian, that was always my father's ambition. I was a teacher at a school for gifted scholars and mages. So we both had a love for old books. But my father was a stubborn man and even kept running this library when he was sick and could barely move. Everyone begged him not run the library and hand over the job to someone else. He didn't and all the work killed him. I went to bed one day and never got up in the morning. I took over the library after that, three years ago. My dad knew where everything was in this place. Even after three years I'm still lost on where everything is. It's all organized well I know that, but I have no idea in what manor or subject." Mister Hender pulled out a few books and put them back. "Just look for any books with the same writing as the book Mister Zelgadis used that caused all this trouble. Or anything that might help." Each one went to a respective direction and started to search.
Zelgadis stared at Lina as she poured the books in front of her. Her brow was creased and eyes narrowed. It had been four hours since they had started their search for a way to help Zelgadis. Since then they hadn't found anything useful. As the minutes turned to hours and passed, Zelgadis was losing hope that they would be able to help him. "I'm going to die and it's all because I wanted my damn cure so badly!" He yelled out his frustrations knowing that even though he was in a library it didn't matter how noise he made. He stared back to Lina again. She looked just as frustrated as he was feeling. But she kept going with it book after book after book. They all were. It really surprised Zelgadis. He never knew that they would even care so much about it him. But then Zelgadis was noticing a lot more about them then he had ever before. He always used to be focus on getting a cure and what the situation was that he never really took the time really understand his friends. Sure he considered them friends, but he still wasn't that close to them. He had thought that they were the same way, but he realized that he was wrong.
Zelgadis while not having much he can do experimented with his ghost like body. He found out that all he needed to do was think really hard about being next to somebody and he'd appear right next to them. Some were harder then others. Like he found it more difficult to appear near Xellos then he would Lina. And he was also aware what each one of them was doing. He even knew that Gourry despite how hard he was trying had fallen asleep in the middle of reading a book. That didn't bother Zelgadis that much; he wasn't expecting Gourry to be much of a help anyway. More time ticked away and the more Zelgadis wished that they would stop for the day. They were all tired and not getting anywhere and he had almost given up anyway. But he couldn't tell them to stop because they couldn't hear him. "They probably wouldn't listen to me even if they could." He sadly smiled. Mr. Hender had suggested they take a break and Lina refused. She said that she didn't want to waste time by taking a break.
Lina herself was worried. She didn't like having a challenge in front of her that she couldn't do and she didn't like the thought of Zelgadis must be gong through. The thought of not having a physical body and no one being able to hear, touch or see you gave her cold shivers.
"Damnit Zelgadis why did you do this to yourself?" Lina said in a whisper. Mr. Hender had told them earlier that though Zelgadis may be like a ghost he wasn't oblivious to them. He could hear and see them even though they couldn't towards him. She had no way of knowing of whether or not he was anywhere near her, but she assumed he was anyway. And she assumed right. "I wish I could remember what was going through my head when I was going to cast the spell Lina, I really do." Zelgadis rubbed his head. His memory was fading even more then before. He was even having trouble trying to remember things that he shouldn't forget. Like what Rezo looked like, what was home like, who his parents were...
Which was one of the reasons why stayed close to Lina. Most of his memories that he had with his friends were with her. And as long as he had her in his sights the harder it was for him to forget. But even that was starting to become less effective. He was starting to forget why he hated Xellos so much and even how Lina defeated Shabringdo. It scared him a lot.
Two more hours later Lina was still searching through the books, but mostly everyone else had left. Not even her rumbling stomach was tearing her away from those books. Or at least not for long.
"Mr. Hender, I going to come back tomorrow alright?" Lina closed the book she was reading and looked over to the librarian.
"Alright Miss Lina, I'll see you then. Don't bother putting anything away. Or otherwise it might be hard to figure out which books we have already looked at."
"Sure. Bye."
"Bye."
Lina walked in a daze back to the inn. She was very hungry but very tired as well. So tired that when the waitress came to ask her what she wanted when she was at a table that she didn't even answer him for a few minutes. She was in a total daze, but eventually snapped out of it and ordered her food. She was silent and slow at eating her meal. It was like she didn't even taste what she was eating or even aware that she was eating. Her mind was elsewhere still trying to figure out ways to help Zelgadis.
Lina crashed on her bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Zelgadis sat in the same chair that he had been sitting at the other nights watching Lina sleep. One-way of determining that Zel wasn't a just your average ghost was that he needed to sleep. He would sit and watch Lina until sleep over took him. His dreams where dark. They were cold and dark and empty. He couldn't see anything and it was lonely and frightening. Which is one of the reasons he stayed up watching Lina. He didn't want to fall asleep, he didn't want to have those dreams and he didn't even know what he was dreaming about. One thought that came to mind that he didn't like was that he was dreaming about what death would be like. That thought disturbed him like it was right now and went to get up to pace around the room when he lost his balance. He fell forward and his ghostly body made contact with Lina's sleeping one. That same odd tingling sensation with the fire and ice happened to Zelgadis again only something different happened as well. He felt like he was being pulled and all of a sudden he wasn't in Lina's room but in a quiet meadow with trees and flowers. Lina was sitting by one of those trees toying with a little flower...