No one spoke.
What had once been a room had now faded so completely Lina could see the swirling white ethers that were the Astral Plane's true landscape swirling beneath her folded legs. Where did it all go? she wondered slowly, her dread making her mind numb as if with cold. The girl who held her captive merely gazed ahead at Xelloss, her grey eyes as cold and unforgiving as stone.
"Who..or rather what are you? Oh, don't answer," she said to Xelloss, whose mouth opened a fraction of an inch. "I know what you are, Xelloss Metallium. Mazoku. Murderer. And if you are with him.." the stone gaze turned back to Lina, making her flinch, "you can be no good thing."
"Hey!" Lina snapped, trying to make her spirit rise in response to the girl, to make the old defiance come back before the girl sliced off her head with the sharp silver knife she was holding to Lina's throat. But it wouldn't come. Deep inside, Lina knew that she was afraid of this girl, the girl with eyes too ancient and bitter to belong to any human thing.
Oh gods she thought. Why is Xelloss just sitting there? The answer came to her with a rush of bile. Beause he's afraid too..
Lina nearly laughed. If Xelloss was afraid of this girl, they were really up shit creek.
"She's nothing but a little human girl, nothing to be concerned with.." Xelloss began, his smile plastered to his face in a parody of joy. The girl held up the hand that was not holding the knife to quiet him.
"You lie," she said plainly. "No human..NOT ONE can manipulate the Astral Plane like this. Can you imagine my shock when I went out this morning? All around me were trees, bushes, towns, people. Astral shadows that should barely be visible, much less bouncing around full of life. Someone was doing mischief. When I traced the source, it seemed likely that you were behind this-Mazoku can twist the ethers of the Planes to their own desires, to an extent. But now, I can tell from your face that you had nothing to do with this..for you are gazing at this girl with an expression of disbelief and awe."
LIna had half listened to this speech, as she was trying hard not to sneeze. Her nose itched unbearably. "Hey you," she said suddenly.
The girl looked down. "Excuse me?"
Lina was twitching her nose frantically and unconciously doing a wonderful rabbit imitation while she was at it. "Scratch my nose please."
"What?"
"It itches, and I don't want to sneeze..."
The girl looked at her with queenly disbelief, but used her free hand to scratch Lina's nose as Lina sighed in relief. "Thanks."
Xelloss looked at Lina, his mouth moving into a half smile that jumped at the corner. "It looks like you have yet another talent, Lina-san."
"I do?" Lina replied, puzzled as to what Xelloss meant. But she had little time to think as the girl behind her suddenly stiffened.
"What was that? What was that name?" she asked, her thin fingers gripping Lina's shoulder like the talons of a bird. Lina tensed, unsure why she was so agitated. What the hell, she finally decided. It wasn't like the situation could get much worse.
"Lina Inverse, the beautiful genius sorceress..." Lina began, preening just slightly as she always did when she said those words.
The girl's mouth worked, and her grip on Lina loosened. "What's your sister's name?"
"Luna Inverse, the Ceified Knight," Lina replied, getting confused.
"What happened when you first cast the Giga Slave?"
"How the hell do you know all this stuff about me?" Lina asked, getting a little angry. Xelloss, she noted, didn't look too pleased himself, gripping his staff like that.
"Just answer the damn question!" the girl snapped. Her face was very tense.
Lina sighed and answered, her voice wavering a little as she did. "It made a bay..a bay where nothing lived.." she said slowly, and shuddered, not just at the memory of the silent, ravaged bay, but at the punishment she'd received at her sister's hands for it.
"Ah.." the girl said, and gave Lina a short push away, so that she almost fell into Xelloss's arms. She scrambled upright before he could catch her, and whipped back around to stare at her former captor, who was hugging herself and muttering..
"I'm gonna be in so much trouble for this.."
Lina folded her arms tightly across her narrow chest. "Just what the hell is going on," she asked, her voice very quiet and hard and dangerous. The girl finally looked up at her, then to Lina and Xelloss' surprise, bowed low in front of Lina.
"Forgive me, Lina Inverse. I've been traumatising you when I should have been guiding you."
Lina rolled her eyes. "I'm not that breakable."
"Well, you must accept my apology," the girl stated solemnly, her eyes the color of rain.
Lina waved a hand over the girl's bent head. "Done. Now, would you mind telling us who you are and what you meant by guiding us?"
The girl looked slightly surprised. "I thought it was obvious who I was."
Lina's irritation meter was rising higher with each second. "Just Tell Us Who You Are."
"Well.." the girl began, then bowed low again. "I am the Eien no Miko. The servant of the Lord."
They ended up sitting cross-legged on nothing, which turned out to be surprisingly cold. Xelloss cheerfully loaned Lina his cloak, at which the girl had glared so hard it looked like her eyes would explode from the inside out. Xelloss had returned the look with a sweet smile of his own, and the battle lines were drawn.
Lina groaned, watching this. Just like with Filia, huh? That's all I need. Although, Filia would have never worn such a thin dress with that low neckline and short skirt. It kinda looked like her sister's waitress uniform, actually. She rearranged the cloak around her small body and cleared her throat.
"Ahem. Well. The Eien no Miko. That wouldn't be the same thing as L-sama no Miko, would it?
"It would," the girl replied, breaking her glare long enough to answer. Xelloss surriptiously wiggled his tongue at the girl, and Lina whacked him.
"Cut it out. So, Miko-san, do you have a name other then L-sama no Miko? L-sama no Miko is kinda long, and.."
The girl sighed as she watched Xelloss try to taunt her again. "My name is Aelis. You can call me that, I suppose."
"Aelis, huh?" Lina scratched her chin. "That's a really old name."
"Yeah. And it's pronounced AY-lis, not Alice."
Lina waved a casual hand. "Okay. Now, what were you saying about guiding us?"
Aelis looked a little flustered. "Actually, I was just out for a walk. The shrine gets pretty boring...well, nevermind. But since you're here, SHE must have a reason to see you."
"Ah, of course!" Xelloss chirped. "We've been wanting to ask HER if SHE would take a moment or two to send us back home as we've not exactly here by choice, so.."
Lina jumped on Xelloss and stuffed her hand into his mouth. "Actually, we'd rather stay away from HER, as I feel I've imposed on Her enough already, and we were actually going to see YOU as you should have the power to send us back.."
Aelis frowned, and leaned back on her elbows. "I think maybe you'd better tell me your story."
Lina started to tell her about waking up in the Astral Plane alone with Xelloss, but Aelis stopped her with a raised hand. "No, Lina. Begin at the beginning."
So Lina went back further and told of sitting by the fire with Gourry, of feeling as though she had turned into specks of light flying on the wind, of the darkness, and then waking up paralyzed, seeing Xelloss, learning of the loss of her magic. While she spoke, Aelis got up and circled around the pair, frowning at the sight of Xelloss sitting obediently by Lina's side. She moved her lips silently once or twice, and finally shook her head.
"What a tangled spell," she said. "Do you know you have the remnants of not one, but two seperate spells on you?
Lina stared at her. "What?"
Aelis shrugged. "There's a spell on you that prevents magic use, but you already knew that. It's a powerful and complicated spell, but one I would have been able to undo, in time. There's also a simple teleportation spell on you, practically gone by now. But, there's also another spell, like one you would use to send something a great distance."
Lina's throat tightened until she felt she would choke. "And..?" she whispered, afraid of the words that would come next.
Aelis's thin face softened at the look on Lina's. "That spell interrupted the magic spell as it was being cast. The two spells tangled into each other, melted and fused, producing weird side effects. I suspect the magic-loss spell was cast on you without you even knowing. Just as it was finishing, someone teleported you somewhere else, and cast the last spell. Maybe even they didn't know the other spell was on you. They twisted together..trapping you here as a side effect, along with the effect of keeping you whole in the Astral Plane, when most humans would have faded away..Do you remember anything else at all about your kidnapping?"
"I.." Lina began, an image of flickering firelight-from a fireplace, not a camp fire dancing in her mind. But before she could hold the thought, it slipped away, leaving her mind dark once more. "No. I can't."
Aelis looked sorry and Xelloss smiled, his hand moving back to rest innocously on his leg.
"What about you?" Aelis said shortly, turning to look at Xelloss. "What happened to you?"
"Dear me, I really can't say," Xelloss grinned. "All I remember is an odd feeling in my toes, then blackness and..poof! Here I am with Lina-chan!"
Aelis glared at him and filed the smile away in her mind to review later. Lina watched the both of them, her ruby eyes dark with with ruined hope.
"I can't break the spells, Lina," Aelis said, confirming what Lina suspected. "What I can do is guide you to the shrine and ask the Lord to help you. I don't doubt She will, because you're a favorite of Hers, you know."
Lina stared. "I..what?"
Aelis yawned. "Mmm-hmm. She said once you're the only one who truly understands Her..besides me of course." She turned over, what looked like a sleeping bag materialising over her. "I'm sleepy..it must be getting on to night, imagine." At Aelis' words, the sky started to darken until it did look like night was falling.
"We can head off tomorrow Lina," Aelis said. "Now, I think we should sleep."
"Good idea," Xelloss said, smiling. He turned to Lina. "Good night Lina-san. Sleep well. No nightmares now."
"Yeah right," Lina muttered. "Now I have two to worry about instead of one."