Gourry fell asleep shortly after, slouched across the soft cushions and breathing silently. It happened so swiftly, Zelgadis was sure it was magicked on him. "Did you -- ?"
"Yes, Zelgadis, I did. He needs rest, especially for what lies ahead."
"But Luna-san, what lies ahead?" Luna set down a tea-cup on the table before Amelia, then Zel, and gave both a thick, dark brewed coffee to drink. Milk and sugar and other condiments set out on the table before them, and she answered as they each doctored the drink to suit individual tastes.
"What lies ahead is.. well, I guess I could call it a quest. It seems to always be in my cards to give quests." She sighed here, and a little melancholy seemed to seep into her words. Anger kindled in Zelgadis once more.
"Gourry isn't UP for any more quests! Your sister is dead! Does this mean anything to you?!"
Amelia blanched at Zelgadis' intentionally harsh words. Luna paused in the act of sipping her coffee. Hidden eyes stared at him, and he knew she wasn't blinking. Power throbbed in the air like an unborn Rah Tilt, and he wondered what Luna was exactly. Then she smiled, and he understood why Lina so feared her sibling's wrath.
"Zelgadis-san, your concern for our friend is a truly noble thing. And completely un-founded. This quest is the best thing for Gourry; it is the one sure key to his life AND his happiness." She looked down at her cup. "And.. yes, I AM worried for Lina. But you see, I am her big sister. I changed her diapers, I protected her, and then I taught her to protect herself. I will always worry about her, no matter where she is or what she is doing."
"Luna-san, you talk like -- like.." Something exploded in the back of Amelia's throat, and it took a minute for her to recognize hope.
"Like she isn't dead. Lina is.. gone. That's not the same thing. Well, I suppose technically, the proper term is dead..." There was a minute glint from between the thick violet sheen over her eyes. "I have never had much truck with proper." And one small, lonely tear streaked quietly along the smooth ivory cheek, a testimony for a tiny baby who's enormous eyes always engulfed her face. It spoke of chubby baby fists in her hair, and the laugh on her face so worth the pain. It told of poisons and terrors to obey the voice in her head and Protect the Child.
There was a crash as the teacup tumbled from Amelia's suddenly nerveless fingers. The noise jarred her from her stunned state, and she looked down at the shattered cup, tears ridiculously close to the surface. "I-I'm so sorry, Luna-san, I'll fix it, I swear -- " Zel had put his cup down on the coffee table, and was kneeling by Amelia's side, trying to get her to look at him, but all her focus seemed to be riveted to that cup.
"Don't fret over it, Princess Amelia. In the scope of a life, it's just a cup, and an easily mended one at that."
Amelia was suddenly miserable where she had been numb as everything finally sunk in. Dead or alive, Lina was missing. Gourry was dying. And here she sat, next to the one person who could crush her as casually as he saw fit, sobbing into a teacup. All of the colors were wrong now, and the rainbow had shattered. God, she was so confused...
Luna stood, her face -- what they could see of it -- troubled. "You all need rest. I mean real rest. And something decent to eat. Damn inns these days... why don't you two go on upstairs and try to sleep."
"We want answers first."
"That cold tone does nothing to impress me, Zelgadis Graywers. Answers are stationary; they will still be there after you awake." She looked at Zel, her mouth unwavering. He crossed his arms as Amelia carefully gathered each shard of pottery.
"I want an answer all the same, if you don't mind." Ice grew on each word as he tried to butt heads with the one person impossible to out-stubborn. "Who are you? Beyond Lina's sister, we know you're a waitress. And that's all. Yet you seem full of information about all of us! Why did Gourry recognize you so readily? What's going on?!" His hands were fisted at his sides, the confusion a wave that polluted every sensation and lingered in his mouth.
"Amelia. Let me have those." Her voice was smooth and soft, low but not deep, and had a velvet underground that would be easy to drown in. Magic seemed to leak from her very pores in one glance, and in the next she was completely average in all respects. She took the decimated ceramic in her own hands carefully, eager to avoid marring the callused flesh of Amelia's palms. The princess quickly wiped her face on her sleeve, and stood, looking at Luna. A glimmer shone -- for just a second, highlighting the seams where her fingers met, and suddenly her hands were too small to conceal the mended cup. "See?" she whispered. "Easily mended. Now go on up the stairs; I've put you in the first room to the right, over looking the vines. As for you, Greywers-sama..."
She turned to the falsely-stalwart Chimera, as Amelia tiredly mounted the stairs. "Wonderful to know the family arrogance didn't die out with your grandfather." Again she had managed to rattle Zelgadis.
"How do you know of my.. of Rezo?"
"I know your grandfather through many channels. Now go to bed while I rouse Gourry."
"BUT ANSWERS -- "
"ARE NOT YOURS TO SEEK." Sonorously she filled the room with out raising her voice. A gleam of gold shone in her hair, and Zelgadis decided it could indeed wait.
Lina.... he never saw the fear that rumpled her fair skin, or the concern when she looked at the unconscious swordsman.
Gourry came to immediately; the curse of the magicked sleep; quick to slide in and disturbingly quick to slide out. He was awake, but disoriented, and could not figure out why he had not dreamed. Looking around and breathing heavily, he muzzily saw the concerned figure sitting next to him.
"Are you all right?"
To a sleepy ear, it was easy to miss the maturity in her voice and just hear the loved one you missed the most. "Lina?" He muttered, voice thick with sleep and the lazy tongue slow to taste the words. His hand cupped her cheek, feeling only the smooth skin, until suddenly the light caught up with him, and awareness violated his image. Lina was dead, and he was touching her sister. "Oh... I'm sorry.." he whispered, pulling his hand away.
Luna went still when he cupped her cheek, accepting the touch that was not hers to take. The tenderness and the need translated itself into her own loneliness, and she once again loved and hated her sister and hated herself for it. After all, it was hardly Lina's fault that even the Ceipheed Knight got lonely. She caught Gourry's hand, and held him there for just a moment.
"There is a way." She said, speaking into his palm and glad he couldn't see her eyes. He blinked sleepily, slumberous blue catching the light even as the evening fell.
"A way?" He looked so worn and so broken, played with too many times to survive the next session. But he had to. His own life and another depended on it. The intensity had to be re-kindled, the power and the passion; he was what Lina needed and what Lina wasn't, and what Lina was too, in every way that was important. And he had to be it again. The Protector had to rise again if this was going to work -- every thought process frosted and halted instantly as she felt his thin fingers pulling her headband down and out of the thick purple. The same hands ruffled her hair back, smoothing, smoothing, fingers buried deep in her hair, and then she felt the true power of a glance as her headband slid carefully back into place. And Luna Inverse had nothing to hide behind.
"I couldn't see your eyes." He didn't smile -- he never really did anymore -- but there was so much innocent blood in his eyes that an un-barred stare was to risk loss and drowning. A burning lump in her throat and she choked on it as the fear for her baby sister met the real experience of knowing this almost-man-yet-not-boy. Intensity was Lina's trademark.
Gourry's head was buzzing at the sight of the gaze before him. Dreams... dreams had told him about laughing golden eyes, and he saw them there, under fine purple eyebrows. "Your eyes are gold."
"Yes." Her voice was no louder and no softer, but it was...smoother.
"Dragon's gold?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. From what Lina had told me." Luna had nothing to say to that, as his eyes rippled and then seemed to drown themselves.
"Where is she? Where did she go?" The confusion was still so present in his voice as he struggled to grasp the end of his world.
"She didn't go willingly, Gourry. You know that." A moment of silence turned into another as his mouth struggled to find the words that would fit there. "But it is okay to fell resentment. And fear." She whispered, trying to deny the tears in her eyes. Damn. She needed her bangs back.
"C'mon, Jellyfish," she murmured, pulling him to his feet. "You'd better sleep before the next chapter of this quest happens to you."
"..I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes..!"
-- Paint It Black, The Rolling Stones