The normalcy was staggering. Normal was now abnormal, but there was no pressure, so it was easy to just lay back and kind of enjoy it. Zelgadis was tired. He woke up tired and he went to bed tired. When he talked to Amelia about it she'd laughed in a very gentle and teasing manner and asked "Didn't you realize the amount of stress you were under?" leaving him a bit confused as Lina's homecoming slowly sank in.
Three things never forgotten: Lina's death. The horror of it was distant now, but the images were still blurred and rushed and left him feeling vaguely panicked.
Gourry's response. A depth that he had never seen before. You were not supposed to see so clearly and deeply into another person. It made him feel raw, and exposed, and gave him the strangest sensation of acrophobia, like he was going to fall in and die inside the tall man's grief.
And then finding them. The look on Amelia's face as she held aside that musty old tarp to show Gourry clinging, improbably, to Lina. To see a dead girl breathing evenly in an over-large shirt. A miracle.
Tears had shone in Amelia's eyes and they had been diamonds before their hard brilliance had consumed them; radiance that had lived. Her eyes had never looked so blue, and he was shaken to see a woman looking back at him from Amelia's large, wet-velvet eyes. Hurt to feel his heart wince, and ...glad to feel connected, to have something to share with the smiling princess. Both had become more than slightly hysterical, and Amelia's laughter kept escaping in gasping bursts as they had Ray Winged them both, still unconscious, back to Lina's home.
The whole day felt weird now. His whole life felt weird now. The twisting lance at the sight of Lina -- it didn't hurt to think her name as much, although he still had not been able to say it -- kept leading him to Amelia's side, because she was the only other one who understood. Amazing.
Amelia seemed so normal now, but that silent scream contorting her face over and over again was just an emotion away, and he gently toyed with a few locks of her hair as she napped next to him on the couch. Under his amazingly sensitive stone skin she was cool and silky under that one escaping fingertip, the man still too much of a boy's hate and fear to admit to liking contact, even in private. The smallest things seemed to mean so much, and he realized that in Gourry's drive. He saw Lina, but the carmine scream of her hair always became that thoughtful blue that Gourry gazed at the world with. Amelia looked.. cute in the pants she wore, hand me downs from Lina's childhood while her own ensemble was washed. She was cute, he realized, and it was okay to admit it, even if it was only in his head. Cute. He shook his head a little at himself. What a word choice. He'd been with this crowd for too long now. What a habit to slip into.
Zelgadis squirmed a little, nudging Amelia as she slept and sending her into a slow slide to end up with her head halfway down his arm. She muttered a bit and then was silent again. In frozen ecstasy he drank agonizing hope. What this was now was only a nap, but someday it might be a life. He brushed her hair back and thought a bit more.
Lina was confused and looking down on her sleeping savior. He still looked so unwell, refusing to be healed magically, wanting to be left alone to just sleep and talk to her; recovering under his own steam. Lina forgot a lot how stubborn Gourry was. Her smooth forehead was troubled, rippled cream under her strawberry mop, and she wondered about sleeping things and the wisdom of waking them up. You found dragons AND mercy in the damnedest places, but she was a little in awe of her best friend at the moment. Luna approved of him. THAT was a first. Who are you Gourry? What are you inside? You are my friend, and you are.. more than that. No other words and a title that went deeper than king, she knew. You can't put into words things that have no language; it was like magic in that respect.
She wasn't afraid, of course.. Lina Inverse feared nothing, and terror of Gourry was a concept she was unable to wrap her head around. But she needed to talk to someone. She needed an observing view. Someone to help her explain away this nameless panic in her stomach. What the hell did she have to be panicked over, really? She needed a calm, detached view. Rational. Cool. Zelgadis was downstairs, and, in her stocking feet, she padded out of the room, one last searching look at the sleeping lump in bed that looked like none of it's potential right now. The room was silent as he slept and breathed, and Lina had a thousand thoughts trapped in her brain as she shut the door, her face solomn and still.
"Behind them lay pain, and death, and fear; ahead of them lay doubt, and danger, and fathomless mysteries. But they weren't alone."
-- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Chapter 17 | Story Index | Fanfiction