"I'm hungry.............."
Xelloss simply smiled and continued to walk into the mists, calm, cheerful, controlled.
His burden wasn't as resolute.
"Xellllllllloooooooooossssssss........I'm dying!!! I'm hungry!!! My stomach needs food or it's going to shrivel up into a tiny useless ball!!!!! I'll never eat again!!!! All the splendors of the food world - yummy chicken, chocolate cake, ice cream.....oooh ice cream!!!! Come on, find me some food!! Xellllllllllooooossss!!!!!"
Xelloss continued to smile, eyes little smily faces as he mentally calculated how he could shut Lina up without strangling her.
Lina glared at the cheery soul who was carrying her. Slung over his shoulder because her legs still refused to work, she was effectively helpless and competing for arm space with his staff. On the other hand, she was positioned in a way that allowed her to whine directly into his ear for maximum impact.
She grunted in annoyance.
Xelloss was currently ignoring Lina's plantive warbles for food, lightly humming under his breath, a comforting sound that vaguely reminded her of bees buzzing over the grape vines of Zefilia, heavy with sweet grapes, the kind that sent juice running down your chin when you bit into them.
Lina sighed. She hadn't been home in so long.....working with her sister on the harvest, running in terror, hiding in the bushes, knees scratched and bleeding, fleeing from her sister after commiting some misdeed, the nature of which she'd long ago forgotten, her parents' infrequent visits home and the partying that always accompanied it....and the food....
Lina's eyes slowly shut, as her thoughts drifted back through time, memories lighting like birds on their rightful perch, home. Her arms and legs felt loose, dangling easily against Xelloss.
Xelloss' smile grew wider as he felt Lina's body relax, becoming soft and limp, folded against him like a pair of old gloves. He shifted her gently and carefully removed his earplugs, putting them back in his satchel. Now he could think.
A soft snort by his ear startled him, and as Lina began to snore and mumble in her sleep, he looked around him to make sure no one was watching, and then murmured a very uncheerful curse. Then, smile firmly back in it's rightful place, Xelloss walked on, shouldering his burden into the mists ahead.
Zelgadis collapsed into a back booth at the resturant they'd stopped at, wishing for a miracle to stop the tiny hammers that were slowly chiseling his skull away into dust. Damnit, why hadn't he listened to Ameria when she read his horoscope???
Stay in bed today for maximum happiness and purity of soul.
Rudely awakened last night by Gourry frantically babbling nonsense about Lina and giant bugs, Zelgadis had assumed it to either be another of Gourry's intelligence-impaired delusions, or a huge, many legged hairy chested horror with razor sharp attenae was attacking the camp and Lina was gleefully blasting it to smithereens as she did so well and cheerfully.
When no explosions had been heard, Zelgadis had grown slightly concerned in an indifferent way, and dressing hastily, ventured outside his tent, and was promptly glomped on by Ameria, who was sobbing that Lina-san was gone, Zelgadis-san whatwillwedo???
After carefully removing Ameria from his body and placing her a safe distance away from him, he conducted a very through search of the surrounding that had concluded that Lina was indeed gone. Gourry had then related that Lina had been sitting with him, when all of a sudden she had been carried off by shining bugs....no wait she had turned into the bugs... no wait a minute......
Zel had registered the fact that something or someone had taken Lina away, most likely not of her own choosing, and that whoever it had been must be very powerful to just snatch Lina away like that.
He'd immediately thought of the Trickster Priest, but realised then that undramatic kidnapping just wasn't Xelloss' style. He would have had smoke and mirrors, flashes of light and unsubtle hints that it had been him strewn all over and fairly sticking out to your eyes. So, if not Xelloss...then who???
His train of thought had immediately derailed and burst into flames the instant Ameria, so overwhelmed by Lina's disappearence, and the lack of a concrete evildoer to lecture to, had overflowed with tears, threatening to turn the forest into a new ocean. Gourry had simply stood by, looking like an exhausted beagle, forlornly fingering the hilt of his sword.
Motivated by fear of sinking like a stone, Zelgadis then suggested that they look for Lina, mostly to distract Gourry and Ameria. He knew that whoever had Lina wasn't going to be found by poking under bushes and turning over rocks, but they all needed a purpose, something to work towards.
So they searched.......and searched...and searched.....and searched.......
Exhausted and 2/3 depressed, they had finally emerged from the forest to find a small town, lights glimmering benignly like pale fireflies. Zelgadis, frustrated, suggested they eat and rest and continue tomorrow. Ameria and Gourry had nodded obediantly, one tear-stricken and wobbly-chinned, the other confused, but harder in the face. So they went into the resturant.
Zelgadis pulled at his hair, and absently noted that he needed another clipping. Ameria was slumped next to him like a discarded sock, fingers pleating the tablecloth, still restless even in depression. Gourry was back in the shadows, hand still on his sword, the same place it had rested through this sorry journey. Zelgadis sighed.
A waitress finally approached their table, hips swaying in a jaunty rhythm, like a clock pendlum. She stopped and beamed at them, charm on high.
"Hiiiiiiiiiiii!!" she squealed, causing Zel to cover his ears, and Ameria to shriek involutarily. Gourry dully looked up.
"What can I do ya for.....errr, what do you nice folks want tonight?" she asked sheepishly, fingers tugging a stand of hair.
Zelgadis eyed her. She didn't look any older then him, unsure and knock-kneed at having to serve them. Her hair was messily piled up under her little waitress hat, and he wondered why she wasn't made to wear a hairnet with all that hair falling into her face, covering her eyes and shadowing her neck. She shifted uncomfortably and grinned shyly, waiting.
"Two chicken dinners, and a coffee, please," Zel said and glanced at the others. They nodded limply as if they were crippled.
"Right away, sir!!" she chirped and swung away, light on her feet as she bounced towards the kitchen. Zelgadis sighed again and slid down in the booth, wondering if it were possible to escape by hiding under the table. Ameria's foot shot out, catching him in the gut, preventing him from sliding any further. He straightened up, prepared to yell, when he noticed she was still absorbed in the tablecloth. He groaned and pulled his hood very far over his head, over his eyes.
"Here ya go!!"
Zel blinked in surprise as their orders were placed in front of them, the waitress swaying back towards the kitchen. That was fast. He picked up his coffee and drank and noted the others slowly picking up their forks and beginning to eat.
He sat back, sipping absently, and wondered what they could do tomorrow. This whole search business was a farce, and all of them recognized that. They couldn't just keeping stumbling around, hoping to trip over Lina somewhere. They needed a definite plan before racing off again......
Zelgadis shook his head, hard. Why did he feel so disconnected all of a sudden??? The room faded in and out of existance around him, lights shrinking and growing, floor warping, the table rising under him as he started to speak.
"Ummm, Ameria?? Gourry?? Do you feel....?" Then he noticed they were already gone, faces slumped into their food, bodies loose. Zelgadis slid down, very slowly and hit the watery floor, as someone came over and removed the cup from his hand.
Zelgadis awoke very slowly, firelight bright in his face.
"So..they lie after all. You can't sleep like a stone, even when drugged. Welcome back to the land of the living."
Zelgadis turned his head ever so gently to the right and noted the voice belonged to the young girl sprawled in the large chair by the fireplace. She was watching him intensely, amusement pulling at the corners of her mouth, legs hooked over the armrest. Her high heels lay on the carpet beside her.
Clutched in one small hand was a long cigarette holder, holding a half burned cigarette. Her bracelets clinked as she took a leisurely puff and turned to face him, brushing the hair out of her eyes. She smiled at him brightly, rose from her chair and came over to kneel besides him.
"Who.... are..you?" he asked. Her eyes were the color of old honey, sparrow bright.
"I'm myself of course," she answered michiveously.
Zelgadis resisted the urge to try to smack her, looked at her more closely, and noticed the ears peeking delicately through her mass of hair, pointed and hung with crystals that would have made any chandelier weep for joy to possess them. Not human. Not human at all.
"Where..am..I?" he tried.
She frowned. "You sound like a troll that's been knocked upside the head once too often. Then again.." she paused thoughtfully, "I guess being drugged might do that to you. Never having been there myself, I can't sympathize, but then maybe...."
"WHERE AM I??????"
"Sheesh. Touchy-touchy. Xel did say you had about as much humor in you as a cow in the rain."
"WH-"
"WOLF PACK ISLAND!!!!!! SATISFIED??????!!"
Zelgadis froze. Wolf Pack-domain of every wild beast in the world, shrouded in eternal fog, home to a constantly erupting volcano, ruled over by a horrible wolfbeast, the Mazoku lord of the Wild..Juuou-sama..the legendary Beastmaster...
He said as calmly as possible, "Juuou-sama?"
She smiled and tossed her hair back, proud winner of a fabulous contest. "Yup!!!" Seeing his stricken expression, she patted his cheek and said, "If that's too much for you, you can call me Xelas."