It was a quiet night in the manor. The only guest tonight was a bard who was a good friend of the manor's mistress. Over dinner and through most of the early evening, the household was regaled with songs and tales of heroics, love, laughter, sadness. The night of entertainment didn't run long as was customary, the bard excusing herself because of her long travels that day.
Princess wandered into the vast garden cornered off on the east side of the manor, kicking rocks and other small things in her path. The servants were bubbling over with the exciting and new tales brought by the bard and her mother had pulled the bard aside to discuss something. No one noticed her leave.
"Though it is spring, the nights can still get chilly this far south."
The bard's melodic voice rippled through the silent garden. Princess felt a cloak wrapped around her shoulders and looked defiantly at the hooded bard.
"I'm not cold."
"Your mother asked me to make sure you dressed warmly. I can not refuse the request of my gracious hostess."
Princess turned with a huff and kept walking. The bard followed her.
"I don't need to be followed like some little kid," Princess said with her nose in the air.
"I noticed you didn't seem to enjoy the stories I told tonight. Your mother has told me that it was because you missed your usual storyteller."
"That's right. His stories are many times better than yours."
"Oh?" There was a current of amusement in the bard's voice. "I've heard of the story you have been told over the last several nights. I too know it though there are some differences."
Princess looked up at the bard. "You didn't tell it tonight."
The bard walked past her and sat on a white stone bench. "No. There are reasons some stories aren't told, told at least as they truly happened."
Princess walked up to the seated bard. "Are you saying that the story he told me wasn't true?"
The bard's slender shoulders shrugged. "Truth is what you make of it. But you tell me what you heard, and then I can tell you what is different in the one I know."
Princess climbed onto the cool smooth bench. "Alright."
She quickly summarized the story Zelgadiss told her and when she finished she gave the bard a defiant look. "So what do you say is different?"
Though Princess couldn't see the bard's face very well with the hood and soft moonlight, she had the impression that the bard was smiling.
"Not much different. I suppose he changed, or more accurately, left out certain portions to make it more appropriate. Bedtime stories should end happily even if real life isn't that way."
"I'm old enough to tell the difference."
"Perhaps then you'd like to hear what actually happened?" Princess's mother came silently upon them like a ghost.
Princess nodded empatically.
Her mother seated herself gracefully on the chair next to her daughter and nodded to the bard. "Then let the telling begin."
The bard looked away, tilting her head to look at the starry sky. "The difference lies...right when the Prince Gourry was going to slash Zeigram with the combined Ra Tilt and Sword of Light."
The Sword of Light in Gourry's hands brightened as it absorbed the power of the Ra Tilt. With a smug smile, Gourry brought the combined blade and spell crashing down on Zeigram.
Zeigram's only eye widened as the sword ripped through his magical defenses. Roaring in anger, Zeigram vanished, leaving the prince cutting only air. He reappeared a safe distance away, clutching his face. Crazy laughter began to echo eerily through the mountains.
"What an interesting use," chuckled Zeigram as he removed his hand. His stone mask fell to the ground, sliced in half. Turning his face to his opponents, he grinned but focused on Lina. "Not quite what you were expecting was it?"
Lina sank to the ground, her legs unable to support her. She stammered, tried to say something, but no voice could give sound to the name on her lips.
Gourry tipped his head to the side looking at the Mazoku. "But he just looks like any other guy."
Zelgadiss looked up from removing the barbed wire that was wrapped around the Princess Amelia. The face under the mask was as pale as his own had been before the transformation. The red-slitted eyes glinted with malice and evil. Zeigram shrugged off his large black cloak, revealing the black leather armor he wore underneath. Silver hair shone brightly under the sun's light.
Was this what Lina saw last night? Zel wondered as several pieces from the mysterious sorceress's cryptic past fell into place. "Reilin?"
The Mazoku laughed. "Now there's a name I haven't used for a long time. And from the lips of someone other than my betrothed."
"Miss Lina, you're betrothed to a Mazoku?!?" Amelia screeched.
"Wait, doesn't betrothed mean that she's engaged to marry him?" Gourry asked, looking back at Zelgadiss.
Reilin, the Mazoku formerly calling himself Zeigram, looked mockingly at the ageless sorceress whose silent tears trickled down her young face. "What? No greetings? No 'I've missed you so much'? Not even a hug or kiss?"
"...why..."
The single word held in its entirety yearning, confusion, disbelief, lost love, fear.
"A little history lesson then," Reilin chuckled, summoning a vision that all present could see. "Over a hundred years ago, I proposed to my dear adventuring partner at a masquerade ball where she dressed as the Swan Princess. However, my dearly beloved just happened to tick off a Mazoku who decided right then that this was a perfect opportunity for revenge. So I was captured as bait and my heart went off the next day to rescue me. Details get so fuzzy after a century but only two important things happened. Lina lost against the Mazoku and would have died if the Knight hadn't appeared to save her. The other thing was that I died, or it would be better to say that I was reborn."
"As a Mazoku," Zel said quietly. His mother had told him about this kind of thing.
"Very good, son of Metallium," Reilin bowed mockingly at the Lord's son.
"So what are you trying to accomplish now?"
Reilin turned a calculating eye to his human love. "Why...just to help my dearly beloved get her heart's desire."
He walked up to the frozen sorceress.
"Wait just a minute," Gourry yelled. "I don't get exactly what's going on but - "
WHACK!
Sylphiel, Zel, and a now healed Amelia ran up to the prince who was rubbing his head.
"What happened?"
"I ran into a wall."
Zelgadiss put out a hand and felt the tingling magic shield. "Damn it, he's set up some sort of barrier."
"Leave it to me!" Amelia jumped up onto a rock. "By the Star of Justice, I will vanquish this evil that prays on the lost maids of innocent maidens."
"But if this guy knew her a hundred years ago, wouldn't that make her a grandma?" Gourry muttered. Everyone ignored him.
"Flow Break!"
Zelgadiss still felt the barrier hold.
"Just stand there quietly." Reilin threw a look at them. "Your turn will come soon enough."
"Lina! Do something! Don't just sit there!" Zel yelled at the still stunned sorceress.
Reilin smirked. "Do something? Like what? Surely you don't mean for her to attack me? Traditional greetings between loved ones surely haven't changed that much."
He bent down, tilting her face up to his, and kissed her hungrily. The four outside the barrier could only look on in shock as Lina seemed to respond in kind.
Reilin is dead.
But he was here now. The light-haired fair-skinned man that haunted her dreams, always visiting her under the silvery moonlight.
This is nothing. Only a shell of what used to be.
Lina could feel his lips moving away and she reached up to grab him, to keep him from leaving her again.
What it feels isn't love. Only lust and a desire to possess.
Hot burning tears streamed freely down her face.
Over a hundred years ago, you held him dying in your arms.
Lina's arms tightened around his neck.
His blood stained your clothes even darker than your hair.
Gentle fingers threaded themselves through her long hair.
At his last breath, he looked at you with love.
One hand traced down her face, across her collarbone, and downward.
He looked at you with his green eyes when he died.
Lina's eyes opened wide as searing pain raced through her shoulder.
"Lina!" Zel cried as the sorceress's shoulder exploded in blood.
With a gleeful smile, Reilin sent another blast at the sorceress, slamming her into the invisible barrier. Blood streamed from the hole in her shoulder. Clutching the wound, Lina struggled for the words of Recovery all the while hurt and betrayal swimming in her eyes as she looked at Reilin.
"What..." Lina coughed up the blood in her throat. "What are you doing this for?"
Reilin spread out his arms in a shrug. "Isn't it obvious? I'm here to give you want you've always wanted."
"Killed?" A bit of Lina's defiant spark lit up her eyes.
"Hmmm...not immediately," Reilin contemplated. "Power."
"Oh gods," Zel whispered, realizing what Reilin was planning on doing.
"I have more power now than you ever did. I, your magicless sword-swinging partner."
As he spoke, Reilin carelessly through balls of energy at the emotional drained sorceress. He was toying with her Lina knew. The blasts always clipped her, burned her, but never did one hit her enough to end her life. He wanted to feed off of her pain, her despair, before breaking her. And then, he'll kill her, taking her lifeless body and infusing it with the dark energy of the Ruby Eye Lord, creator of all Mazoku.
"Come now Lina, it was what you always wanted right? Why you were always dragging me from here to there. Always searching for more magic, more power. And now it's right here before you. All you need to do, is say 'yes'."
"Flow Break."
Reilin snarled as the barrier cracked and splintered. "Impossible."
"Oh I wouldn't say that." SD Xelloss smiled smugly, sitting in the air cross-legged.
"Figures. It would be a fairy. Annoying imps."
"Flame Breath!" Filia chanted.
Fire erupted and enveloped the Mazoku.
"Lina! Just what were you doing going off without me? How am I supposed to help you with your quest if I'm not here?" Filia scolded.
"Perhaps you should be healing her, rather than yelling at her," Xelloss pointed out with a grin.
Filia swatted him away with her mace before chanting Recovery on her severely bleeding client. Amelia and Sylphiel rushed up to Lina.
"Lina, are you alright?" Sylphiel asked, adding her Recovery spell.
"Are these real fairies?" Amelia poked at Xelloss.
"Stop poking the geniune article," Xelloss murmured.
Reilin stood in the inferno blazing around him. He looked at the 'heroes' with this burning red eyes. "And you really think this will stop me?"
He idly snapped his fingers and the flames were gone. The Mazoku looked over Zel, Gourry, and Amelia in amusement as they stood between him and his goal. "You aren't seriously thinking of fighting me are you?"
Amelia struck a pose and pointed a finger at Reilin. "You have proven your evil time and time again. I, Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune, shall bring you down with the mighty Fist of Justice. Visfarank!"
Her fists glowed with magical boxing gloves. Everyone else sweatdropped. Reilin passed an eye over to the two men.
"And what do either of you have to say?"
"It isn't proper to pick on girls. Grandma always said so," Gourry smiled, his Sword of Light blazing before him.
"I won't stand around and let you kill people indiscriminately," Zelgadiss added. "Astral Vein."
Red spiritual energy crackled up and down the length of his long sword.
Reilin flourished a bow. "After you then."
"Your highnesses, please wait for my signal," Zelgadiss said softly between the chants of a spell.
Gourry looked back to make sure Sylphiel, Lina, and the fairies were close by. "Let her rip whenever you want, Zel."
"Gark Ruhaad!"
Astral wind lashed outward from the small group, blowing down trees and even buffetting Reilin.
"Go!"
Gourry and Amelia dashed in, attacking Reilin from both sides as Zel attacked him from the front. Amelia landed on punch before Reilin grabbed her by the arm and swung her into the prince. With supernatural speed that blurred even to Zelgadiss, Reilin had materialized a sword and used it to block Zelgadiss's blow.
"How about a little match? Sword to sword." Reilin smiled, forcing Zel's enchanted blade back toward him.
"I'm so sorry your highness," Amelia bumbled, scrambling off of Gourry.
"Amelia!"
Amelia and Gourry looked over to the healed Lina.
"Miss Lina, you're alright!"
"What's the highest spell you can cast? Amelia."
"Eh? Um, Bram Blazer I think."
"Good," Lina struggled to get on her feet. Her wounds may have been healed but she was still drained from those Recovery spells. "Cast it on Gourry's sword. Gourry, I want you to then attack Rei-I mean the Mazoku. Amelia, you'll fly Sylphiel out of here. Zel will take Gourry."
"Lina what are you planning to do?" Sylphiel frowned.
Lina winked. "Don't worry. I'm just going to create a distraction to give everyone time to regroup. These two fairies are going to help."
Zelgadiss was knocked to the ground by a strong swing from Reilin.
"Amelia now!"
"Bram Blazer!" Blue energy shot straight from Amelia's hands to the waiting sword.
"Here I come!" Gourry shouted, wielding the now blue light sword.
"Humans have such strange urges to announce themselves to the enemy," Xelloss smiled.
"Useless," Reilin sneered, blocking the human's clumsy attack with his blade.
"Not quite," Zelgadiss brought his hands together right in front of Reilin. "Elmekia Flame!"
A wide pillar of light slammed into Reiling's chest, tearing through his Astral Side. He slashed angrily at the chimera but he was already gone, flying away with the prince. The princess was also doing the same with the priestess. Reilin wiped away the trickle of blood as he faced the only person left.
"Rats leaving a sinking ship?" he smirked.
"Not quite," Lina retorted, tears stinging her eyes. "...let those who stand before us..."
"Oh please. That didn't work before, now did it?"
"...by the power you and I possess..." Lina winced, struggling to keep the Chaos Words clear. "It didn't work when I aimed at the Mazoku."
She lowered her arms a fraction. "Dragu Slabu!!"
The red destructive power of the Ruby Eye Lord hurled itself into the ground beneath their feet, causing it to erupt, boulders and dirt flying everywhere.
Reilin stood unperturbed on one of the flying pieces of rock. "And what is this supposed to accomplish?"
"A mere component of the Lord of Nightmares..."
Lina leapt from rock to rock, her chant lost in the roaring explosion.
"...could release understanding upon the world..."
The gems on her wrists, her cape clasp, and her belt began to glow.
"...frozen into the dark knife of annihilation. With our power, with our essence..."
Sylphiel froze as she heard the words. The same words she had heard Lina chant to cast a spell that was barely within her ability to cast.
"She can't be using that spell...she's too weak now..."
"...together, we can destroy all who cross our path..."
Lina could see him now, he who once meant everything to her, through the blur of her tears.
"Spirits of the gods, deliver your smiting blow..."
Sylphiel tried to pry Amelia's hand away from her arm, desperate to go back and stop her friend.
"Lina! You can't cast that spell!!"
"LAGUNA BLADE!"
Darkness from nothing crackled into existence between her hands as she leaped toward him. Reilin knew she was coming, he had to have known about this spell. Darkness ripped through her as he countered with his own blade of dark energy. The darkness that consumes everything and leaves nothing clashed against the darkness that lay within all human hearts.
Looking into the soulless eyes, Lina could see her death there. Unless she struck him with the blade soon, her spell would end. She was already coughing blood as she tried to hold the blade of nothing together.
"Filia! Xelloss!" Lina gasped between mouthfuls of blood. Reilin's form was disappearing. She couldn't let him teleport away now!
The two fairies appeared, one on each side of the two combatants locked by their swords.
"Cooperating? New concept, hm? Filia." Xelloss smirked.
"Just cast the spell already." Filia growled.
Between the two fairies, a white pentagram appeared and Reilin's form solidified.
"Can't run away now. Annoying imps indeed." Xelloss smiled infuriatingly.
Annoyance flickered across the Mazoku's face before it grinned a toothy smile at Lina. "Can you really kill me? Love."
Lina bit through her lip as Reilin doubled his energy release and spears of darkness ran through her. He had no qualms about killing her now. If he didn't, her spell would.
"I loved you," Lina whispered as she willed the last of her strength into the Laguna Blade.
The evil red eyes widened in horror and disbelief as the spell blade sliced through its own and then through itself into the astral plane.
"I...will not die...alone..." snarled the Mazoku as it grabbed onto Lina's arm, completely releasing its remaining energy into her.
An explosion that could be felt all the way in Saillune rocked the mountains.
"LINAAAAAA!!!" Sylphiel screamed. She vaguely noticed another voice screamed with her.
"Miss Lina..." Amelia gasped.
"Well don't just stand there," Gourry ordered, every inch a prince. "Take us back there."
Zelgadiss and Amelia hastily complied, flying the four back to the now smoking crater. Landing on its rim, the four looked frantically for any sign of Lina. But there was none.
"They never found her?"
The bard shook her head. "Zelgadiss probably didn't want to scare you. This isn't exactly a story you tell to children. The four returned very subdued to Saillune and as you know the treaty between this country and Saillune will be ten years old by tomorrow."
"Today then is the day Lina Inverse disappeared?" Princess asked, looking up into the bard's dark hood.
The bard gently patted the girl's hand before standing up, her hood slipping back to reveal purple hair cut to her shoulder. "For the last ten years, even the Knight could find no trace of her sister. The is only logical conclusion is that Lina is dead."
Princess leaned back in her mother's lap and played with a strand of her dark hair. "So Zelgadiss went to visit Lina's grave?"
Her mother nodded, tears glimmering in her eyes. "As he has done every year for the last ten years. Thank you for taking the time to visit us, Luna."
Luna shrugged. "It's all I can do, visiting the people who last saw Lina alive. But...you are happy now? Sylphiel."
Sylphiel hugged her precious daughter close and nodded. "I love Gourry and our daughter. I love my home and my country. But sometimes, I just wish that Lina was here to share it with me..."
Moonlight streamed onto the gravestone, revealing the name carved into its face. Zelgadiss, dressed as he was the night of the ball ten years ago, knelt before the stone. From underneath his silver cloak, he withdrew the delicate bouquet of flowers and laid them before it. There he knelt, holding his nightlong vigil before the only marker that symbolized her passing. And as always, when he opened his eyes to the rising sun the following day, the flowers he had laid were gone.
Smiling, Zel stood up, slightly sore from spending the entire night in one position. His black stallion trotted up to him and Zel mounted him. Someday, when Gourry didn't need him anymore, he'd go and search for her. But until then, he comforted himself with these annual trips.