The others all stared in shock as Zel picked himself up, brushed off his pants, then walked into his tent. Elkin simply hung from the branch and looked around, tightly wrapped in Zel's cloak.
"Hey bro, who're the people?" Elkin gestured towards the rest of the gang, plus the newcomers, with his chin. Before Zel could say anything from within the tent, Firia stomped over and glared Elkin right in the eye.
"What are you doing here?" Firia hissed, her eyes narrow and hostile. Elkin watched her quite calmly, his face impassive. "Currently I am hanging upside down from a branch by my tail for the fun of it, wrapped in my brother's cloak because I am quite naked underneath."
He just barely managed to drop from the branch in time to avoid Firia's swing. Elkin looked at the mace imbedded in the tree he had been hanging from, smiled, and dashed across the clearing to sit on a large boulder. Zel emerged from his tent, fully dressed and carrying a bundle of clothes, which he threw at his brother before helping the others subdue Firia. After a few alteration to the pants to accommodate the tail, Elkin was fully dressed in a pair of Gourry's blue pants and one of Kusanagi's black shirts. However, Elkin had completely disdained the boots provided and was walking around barefoot. He walked over to Firia, who had been tied to a tree by the others, looked at her for a bit, then moved over the fire to investigate what was left in the stew pot, which Lina had intended to have for breakfast.
"Hey! That's my breakfast!" Lina screeched, heading towards the fire, when Elkin grabbed a spoon and began eating the leftover stew. She was brought up short by his hand on her arm as Zel hissed in her ear,"Let him eat it."
"WHY?!?" Lina shouted, yanking her arm free of Zel's grasp.
"If he doesn't get anything to eat here, he is going to go hunt something down. My brother is not too particular which form he eats his prey in, or if it's raw."
Lina gagged, imagining that, while Zel walked over to sit next to Elkin. Elkin was watching Kusanagi, who was perched on a branch looking off over the lake, when Zel sat down. Kunikida walked over and sat nearby them, with Lina, Matsudaira, and Momiji following him.
Matsudaira stood near Elkin, scribbling down notes in her notepad briefly before putting a pot of water on the fire for coffee. Lina looked at the two, Zel and Elkin, for just a second before moving to sit across the fire from them. As Koume, Yoshiki and Amelia were picking up and cleaning the various weapons, Xeros hopped down from the tree to wander over, actually opening his eyes to look at the newcomer.
Elkin paused, gazing back at Xeros for a brief while before shuddering and resuming his food consumption. Zel noticed Elkin's distraction and took advantage of it. Elkin looked down at the stew pot, noticing the bowl of stew Zel was handing Lina.
"Hey! I was eating that!" Elkin protested, watching the stew in the bowl be devoured rapidly. Zel's voice was neutral in reply, as he reached out for the mug of coffee Matsudaira was handing him. "And guess who's breakfast you're eating?"
"Uh ... yours?"
Zel's only reply was a gesture towards Lina. "Oh .... sorry. I haven't eaten since breakfast this morning."
"It's all right, I can always catch fish from the lake." Lina rather ungracefully said, propped her head on her hand, looking from Zel to Elkin and back. "So Zel, Elkin is your older brother?"
"Yes, and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea why he's here." Zel replied, giving Elkin a pointed look.
Elkin swallowed, clearing his throat. "Tavi, as well as Mom, wants you home in time for mid-winter."
"What happens at mid-winter?" Zel asked, taking a sip of coffee.
"Tavi gives birth to her kid." Zel spat out a mouthful of coffee, a look of utter surprise and shock on his face.
"When the hell did that happen!?!?" Zel shouted, yanking Elkin to face him by the scruff of Elkin's shirt.
"She disappeared a year ago and only had recently returned before I left." A pained smirk passed across Elkin's face. "She won't tell anyone what happened, not even me. So much for the bond of twins."
"Um, excuse me?" Momiji edged over, while everyone else just stared at Elkin and Zel. "What are you two talking about?"
"My twin sister, Titavi, otherwise known as Tavi or Tiv,"Elkin said, prying his shirt from Zel's fingers and returning to his dinner. "She disappeared a few months over a year ago, and had only just returned, seven months pregnant, when she sent me to find Zel and bring him home a little under a month ago. Mom has re-inforced that order bro, and says she's gonna give your spare clothes to Kitten for bedding if you don't come home in time." Elkin smirked at Zel as he delivered their mother's ultimatum. Zel made a face and sighed, leaning back, his arms across his chest. "It seems I must then, as Kitten smells horrible." All traces of the joking tone he had just used fled from his voice. "And to find out what happened to Tavi."
They waited in silence, while Elkin noisily finished his meal (along with three spiders and an incautious fly). When Elkin was finished, Matsudaira spoke up.
"Pardon me, but just what exactly are you?" She asked, looking at Elkin with some puzzlement.
Elkin blinked, mildly surprised, only now really noticing how different her clothes were. "A half-breed, half human, half dragon." He walked around her, looking at the design of her clothes, hair and jewelry. "And you are from off-world." He stated, in the satisfied tone of a scientist who has had a theory proved. Unfortunately, before anybody could react to his statement, Firia finally worked her way free of the ropes tying her to the tree, and charged at Elkin, swinging her mace. The insueing battle, before most of the involved parties were tied up and/or knocked out, collapsed all the tents, took out two trees, and hit almost everybody into the lake. Many towels and much bactine was needed before anyone got any sleep.
It was a cranky Lina that greeted the world next morning, and any sensible being would have hid .... but Gourry, being who he was, was not too sensible, or really aware. Matsudaira watched calmly as Gourry flew over her head into the lake before turning back to the fish soup she was making. Elkin made a faint humming noise, then turned to Matsudaira. "A lot of people in the lake these past twenty-four hours."
They watched Lina stalk towards the lake, snarling faintly at them as she passed by. Gourry emerged from the lake, only to be batted back in when he passed too close to Lina. Elkin and Matsudaira exchanged a glance of puzzlement.
"I wonder if she's always this crabby in the mornings." Matsudaira mused, watching Gourry try to emerge from the lake.
"Methinks I should find something for her breakfast ... before she decides to go after me." Elkin watched wide-eyed as Lina batted gourry back into the lake again, a good twenty feet farther this time. "It would likely be most painful if she did."
"That would probably be a good idea." Zel's voice came from behind them, causing Matsudaira to jump slightly in surprise. "She tends to get crabby when she's hungry. Better leave before she finishes waking up."
Elkin's eyes went wide. "Whoa. Bro, are you telling me someone actually has a worse temper than you do in the morning?"
"Yes. And if you don't leave now, you're going to find out." Zel gestured towards the lake, where a red-headed burst of ill-temper was stalking aggressively towards Elkin. Elkin gulped audibly, and dashed for the trees. However, his running only started Lina to running, though she slowed once Elkin disappeared. Lina slowed, then stopped, next to Matsudaira, who looked surprised that Lina's look of anger had disappeared. As Matsudaira watched, a smug grin spread across Lina's face. "Well, that's definitely not something everyone can claim." Lina said smugly, crossing her arms.
"What is?" Matsudaira asked, completely puzzled.
"Causing a dragon to flee in fear." That was Zelgadis's only answer, a grin spreading across his face. "Even moreso, scaring off my brother." However, the grin did not last long, and his eyes drifted to the north, wondering just what was happening to his sister.
Not that far away to the east, deep within a manor in Sairaug, someone else was contemplating her predicament. Ellis swore, throwing the pen across the room to imbed in the wall. Even when she was selling her magical abilities, the combined costs of the healing she had needed plus the costs of repairing the manor enough to live in, let alone to it's former splendor had almost completely wiped out all the gold she had saved over the past twenty years. Ellis dropped her head in her hands, her eyes staring blankly at the numbers before her, the very numbers that told her that if she wanted to continue eating, she had to keep selling her magical abilities enchanting swords and the like, as well as selling some of the furniture and other valuable knick-knacks around the manor.
"Damn you Koppii!" Ellis hissed, throwing another dart at the picture of him she had kept for that purpose. She had drawn point rings on it a while back. 100 points, not bad aim. Albeit with the picture being a full body one, the spot she hit would have made any male present wince. Ellis fumed, keeping the rage within her wound tight. The rage was much better than the hollowness she had felt before, when she had learned Rezo had left her, which quickly became grief. And that was better than the dispair, guilt and remorse she had felt when she had found out he had died. Ellis had used the anger and rage to build a barrier between her and those emotions, fighting just to stay alive. For a long time, she had turned some part of herself off to survive, and it's lack had allowed her to do what Koppii had wished for so long.
A cockroach scuttled across the doorway, heading for who knows where within the manor. Ellis stifled a shriek and promptly grabbed the nearest thing to throw at it. The gleam of light off somthing caught her attention, and she lowered the object, a hairbrush that had been Rezo's, then Koppi's, to her eyes. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement, wondering what it was that had caught her attention, ignoring the saucy bug which was doing a watlz by the door with an old apple core.
She turned the brush over and over, trying to catch that glint of light again. There! A strand of hair ... and when she held it up to the light, it proved to be of Rezo, not Koppii. Koppii's hair had always had a faintly yellowish gleam to it, while Rezo's hair had a more purple touch. She stared at in shock. She had been able to glean the three hairs from this very brush that were necessary to work the cloning machine in the underground rooms ....
Her thoughts chased themselves around her mind, fear, anger, regret, and most of all a strange sort of hunger rippling through her. With this she could re-create her beloved ... but the first time she had tried had failed ... but again, maybe this time it would work ..... Shivering, Ellis carefully put the hair into a small bottle on her desk and put in the cork. She stared off into nowhere, a strangely blank look slowly taking over her face.