In an upwards spiral, he heard angelic chorale burning his ears to raw nubs. It was the most terrifying thing he'd ever heard, and he welcomed it with both arms. On the bed he lay, arms a tangle at his head, and his legs parted in a dominate stance that strode towards the one who left him behind. Booted feet gleamed idly in the submissive candle light, and the throw of his long hair was a fallen angel in it's self. Michael with his crimson wings shorn cruelly at the shoulders lay silent and still upon that bed.
If you stare at blue long enough, and close your eyes, it is red in disguise. Gourry wondered if he'd been staring through his own cobalt eyes for so long now that everything bled down his eyelids as they lay closed....
The door opened and a silent figure strode in, wisps of the frigid night following him. Gourry lay still and completely dressed as though awaiting a trip. And, Zelgadis mused, that was a truth, of the obscene variety. Gourry had given up. He had folded his tent and left the game at the same time. All shut down inside, and not eating. Three days since the murderer's judgment, and his flesh clung in possessive determination to the smooth face.
It was the almost-peace of his still face that so drove Zelgadis to the end of anger; the gut-roiling type that had a tendency to make him feel physically ill until he wanted to go lay down.
"So you're all ready to go, huh?" the sizzle in his voice was lava-heated, and anger brought a flush to the surface of his thin stone skin. No movement other than opening his sky eyes. Gourry said nothing. Frustration upped Zelgadis' core temperature by about thirty degrees, and he poured the venom onto his words, wanting to sting and burn and slash at the idiot, his friend, until something broke through.
"So what would Lina say if she could see you like this? Hmm? Think she'd want you to just roll over and die? Like a fucking dog?!" Gourry still said nothing. Something gave at the base of Zelgadis' neck, and he stormed over to the bed to punch the swordsman as hard as could, to reach inside and break this wall of nothing Gourry had sentenced himself to. Fist cocked and a snarl on his face froze under one attack sure to dismantle.
The tears in Gourry's expressionless face. Muscle and flesh seemed immovable, but his eyes weren't flat as he had thought.. They were deep, and hot and frozen all at the same time in a scream of liquid pain.
"I miss her." his voice was flat and streamlined. Zel's own composure broke suddenly under the silent, intangible weight in the room.
"I miss her too, Gourry. But.. would she want this?! And what about Amelia? And me?!" Gourry's eyes slid shut again, and still the tears refused to fall. Corpse like with a pulse. "It's my fault. All of this." Zelgadis rounded on Gourry again.
"How do you figure THAT nonsense?!!" Zelgadis wound up for a verbal blasting meant to drive Gourry off the bed and back into life. "Gourry. You are -- "
"I am the protector. I FAILED Zelgadis. I FAILED. And now.. she's all alone out there, without me. Suppose it's cold there and she needs my shirt? Suppose she's hungry?" His eyes were still closed and he was so pale. In a burst of pressure behind his eyes Zelgadis had an inkling of this bond that demanded death as tribute to be together at all. There was a depth here, to this tall wanderer that made Zelgadis reel.
It was looking at something imperfect and seeing for no more than a hiccup the glimmer beyond the gates of heaven. Seeing it look at you with love and understanding. Zelgadis fell silent, and, after a moment, gently took the man's hand.
My friend. My friend who is dying.....
A scream of pain and anger startled Zelgadis and Amelia from the chess game they had both been lying about playing. They had enough time to look in confusion at one another before it rang out again, hitting notes that had never been designed for pleasing the ear. This was a raw noise, wet and strangled in the back of the throat.
Clutching his sword, Zel ran to the source of the noise, Amelia at his heels as it echoed once more. Repeated loud banging and slamming gave the impression of something being thrown around
It was coming from Gourry's room. In a panicked rush Zel threw the doors open and saw Gourry on his knees at the floor, head in his large hands and quivering, his thin frame looking like it would snap three times down the middle before collapsing in ruin at the Chimera's feet. "What is it Gourry??!!"
"Gourry-san?!!" Amelia slammed into Zel's back, rocking him foreword slightly.
"MOTHER FUCKER!" Gourry howled, pulling at his hair again, not seeing the long strands in his fists. In front of him was a brown parcel, opened at one corner. Was that it? Zel bent to retrieve it as Amelia took Gourry's stiffened arms in her hands, tugging them down from his head and attempting to soothe him.
"Oh My God." the Shaman intoned, startling Amelia from her ministrations to Gourry.
"What?! What is it Zelgadis-san?" What ELSE has died in my arms, she thought.
"Amelia.." Zel whispered. There in his hands. A ruin tunic and one gold earring. A bulbous sphere, and the corner of the burnt, dirtied shirt was missing one corner.
"Wha.. is that -- Lina-san...?" Gourry suddenly tore the wrapper from Zel's hands, his shaking fingers smoothing the crinkled paper. There was an address. In neat hand-writing it touted a home in...Zephilia. Wasn't that where...?
Somewhere, Amelia had heard that kingdom named in connotation with Lina-san.
"Does this mean...?"
"Oh GOD...some fucker HAS her.."
After his loaded statement Gourry fell into a stupor; the shock of the whole affair too much for his ruined metabolism to handle. Recovery would be too much for him, Amelia said, the irony of the statement lost on none of them. After an hour he seemed to come to a bit more, staggering groggily to his feet in search for the sword he no longer had. A bowl of soup was all his starved system could handle, and Amelia half fancied that she could see the sheer, raw determination that was holding him together glowing through minute cracks in his skin; a porcelain swordsman that had sat on the shelf for too long to be taken down and played with now.
Finally, and too soon, they set out, Gourry in a staggering stomp, and Zelgadis commenting caustically that she was unlikely to be anymore dead at their arrival. Gourry ignored him, much to an embarrassed Chimera's relief. Sometimes even he himself could not believe the things he said.
Fortunately Zephilia wasn't all that far away; too far for Gourry to be attempting, but try telling him that. If there was another competition Zelgadis had no idea what was going to happen. There was no way Gourry could survive it.
But...there had been no way for Gourry to kill the murderer like that, no way he could have been faster than a spell, and no way he could have left his room after a week without food. Gourry seemed to be composed of impossibilities of late.
"He's going to collapse, the fool." Zelgadis muttered a little too loud.
"Zelgadis-san~! Hush!"
"I'll not! He's going to fall on his great stupid head and I'll have to carry him back." And still Gourry just stared ahead, accusing gaze seeming to demand of the horizon questions that had no real answers. Why is always the hardest question to answer.
Anger Anger was breeding dangerously in his soul, proving that hatred was just as powerful as love, and nothing could stop the walking dead. Gourry wanted blood and death, in that order. How it came didn't matter. "So be it." He growled deeply, fractured splintering his clear gaze andkicking up shadows of a storm that promised destruction. There would be blood. Atonement. An apology. A voice in his head was a breathless whisper. Go on go on go on go on.... like the wind was at his shoulders. Or maybe the small one who seemed to linger for him. The wind blew his weakening body along.. a step... and another... Blue fire killed him gently, and red was the only thing he thought about.
"Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?"
-- Thomas Dagget, The Prophecy