Normally, Beatrice would be surprised to have a guest cross her door before the sun was fully up. To see that guest actually be one she expected to still be asleep upstairs, dressed only in his pajamas, and carrying a boy with wings, as well as tracking in a bit of snow, only set her mothering instinct to red alert.
"Just what were you doing outside at this hour in THOSE thin clothes in the snow! ...and shoes! You're not even wearing shoes! You're going to catch your death of cold." In a bustle of activity, Beatrice managed to conjure a pile of towels and thick blankets, fluffy slippers and mugs of warm milk. "Honestly, you'd think you were old enough to know how to take care of...yourself..."
Zelgadiss kept a neutral expression at the innkeeper's wife's shocked expression. She hadn't really seen him last night and it wasn't as if he went to sleep with a hood and mask handy. But he didn't have time to deal with it.
"I need gauze and splints. In my room," he said shortly, walking past the middle-aged woman and up the stairs. Behind him, he could hear her stirring to life again. He didn't know whether she was going to get what he wanted or run off screaming 'Monster' in the street.
In his room, he carefully put the 'boy' down on his bed, careful not to jar the wings too much, he suspected one of them might be broken. Well, a fall from the room was bound to break some bones. But what was this...child doing outside? And why did he have wings? And why did he find him right after he had that weird, nostalgic dream?
Wait, nostalgic? Why the hell would it be nostalgic?? And just why is he going out of his way to help a kid, albeit with wings, who he's never seen before in his life??
Zelgadiss sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.
Why did he always get stuck in these messes?
"Ano...excuse me but here is the gauze, my husband is looking for some splints right now," Beatrice ventured hesitatingly from the doorway of the room. "Is he...I mean, how badly..."
"There's a bump on his head and I think one of his wings is broken but other than that, he looks fine." Zelgadiss looked in distaste at his damp pajamas. Since he was up, he might as well get properly dressed. He gave Beatrice a wary look. "If you'll excuse me for a moment..."
Beatrice though wasn't paying any attention to him. She had made her way to the side of the bed, looking at the child with wide eyes. A hand coarsened by years of work brushed back the child's brown bangs. Her lower lip trembled.
"I'd like a little privacy please...," Zel muttered, ineffectively trying to get the matron's attention. This was his room after all.
"Daniel! Daniel, you're back!! I'm so relieved!!!" cried Beatrice as she suddenly embraced and wept over the unconscious child.
Zelgadiss nearly facefaulted. Daniel? This was her son?!?
Lina downed the contents of her mug and slammed it on the table. Her eyes took in everyone present, which was Amelia, Gourry, Beatrice, and her husband. "Okay, let me get this straight. Zel woke up this morning and found a kid with wings on the ground below his window. He brings him in and then you recognize him as your missing son that you wanted us to find yesterday. Perhaps you thought it was a terribly insignificant little detail but I think the fact that your son has wings is out of the ordinary enough to be mentioned!!"
"Lina-san, you shouldn't speak so loud. People outside will hear you," Amelia pleaded. She was a bit in awe of the child with white wings, even if one of those wings was currently bound by a pair of splints and gauze. He still looked like a little angel. "Perhaps they were embarrassed by it."
"But he doesn't have wings in that painting," Gourry pointed out.
"That doesn't mean he doesn't have them," countered Lina even though Chibi-Lina was admitting that that was a pretty weak argument. It was better to question the source. She turned to Beatrice. "So why does your son have wings?"
Beatrice looked discomforted, her hands wringing her apron underneath the tabletop. "Actually, Daniel doesn't have wings. He's a completely normal, rowdy, little boy."
"Those certainly look like wings coming out of his back to me."
"I don't know how he got those...but I am not mistaken! That is my Daniel! He's not a ghost or angel or devil, he is my little boy and I won't stand to hear anything said against him!!"
Once again, Beatrice had them speechless. A mother's fury can overshadow even a dragon's rage. Of course, they were also a bit lost as to what exactly she was protesting now. Not one of them had mentioned the possibility that the child upstairs may not be human.
Lina scratched her head. "Well, it doesn't look like we'll get anything straight until 'Daniel' wakes up. Amelia and Gourry, you two go look around town and see if you can dig up anything about the other missing children. I'll stay here and keep an eye on our angel boy until he wakes up."
"Lina-san," Amelia looked at the sorceress narrowly, "why are you the one staying behind?"
"Hey, someone has to be here to ask the boy questions. And knowing Zel," Lina gave the staircase a significant look, "he'll probably scare the poor kid. Despite what he says, I swear that he gets a kick out of pulling the 'cold sword-wielding sorcerer' act."
"You probably just don't want to go outside in the cold," Gourry muttered. He sweatdropped as the shadow of a chair that an annoyed Lina was holding fell over him. "Um, well, not that there's anything wrong with wanting to stay warm...or something..."
"Then it's settled," Lina grinned widely, putting the chair back down, much to Gourry's relief. Amelia and Gourry didn't know the real reason she was excluding the chimera from the search. Her feminine intuition told her that it wasn't just chance that Zel woke up early and found that boy.
Without really waiting for the other two to leave, Lina sprinted upstairs, shivering, as the upper floor wasn't as warmly heated as the lower one. She knocked once on Zelgadiss's door before opening it. "Hey, Zel."
"What?" he asked quickly, though not quickly enough to keep Lina from noticing him hiding something from her view. She slipped inside and shut the door securely behind her.
"Well?"
"Well what?" the chimera repeated irritably. "I asked first."
She grinned. He sounded almost... childish. Lina leaned across him and plucked the object he had been looking at when she first peeked in. "Why were you looking at this feather? It's one of the boy's, isn't it? I didn't think they were falling out this quickly."
"It had already fallen -- " Zel abruptly shut upped.
"Hmmmm." Lina looked at the feather though that really didn't tell her much. All she could guess was that it was one of the boy's. Other than that, it was completely normal for all she could tell. "You know, I find it kind of hard to believe that you woke up this morning, opened the window, just happened to look down and saw this boy there."
"Are you implying that I lied?" he asked evenly, breaking the neutral mood by trying to take back the feather.
Lina danced out of his reach, coming to a stop by sitting next to the 'angel' on the bed. "No, I'm implying that you're not telling us everything. Now I don't mind leaving Gourry or Amelia out of the loop, but I do mind when it's me. You may be a relatively early riser but not that early. And there's the matter of your 'frost bite' dream a couple nights ago and this whole missing children incident."
Zelgadiss crossed his arms. He hadn't told Lina about what happened in that dream nor was he planning on tell her on what woke him up so early this morning. Was she suspecting him of having something to do with all this? A bitter smile crossed his lips. "You think I'm responsible?"
"Responsible? Hell no. We know you, Zel, and besides, you've been with us longer than the time these kids have gone missing. I think you may know something about this, even if you don't realize it. For example, perhaps your dream..."
"Know me? How can you know me when I don't even know myself?" he muttered under his breath to himself. Unfortunately, Lina's hearing was too good. She tipped her head to one side to observe him.
"What's that mean?"
What did it mean? It meant that since his dream this morning, he's slowly realized that he remembered very little of his life before he met Rezo. It meant that he was becoming highly suspicious that for some reason, his memories were taken or sealed away from him and that for some reason, cold, winter, and white feathers were tied into it. It meant this morning when he first saw the boy in the snow, he had seen himself there.
How could he explain all of this?
Since he couldn't, he did the next best thing. He told Lina everything. Well, not everything everything, just everything about the two weird dreams and a bit about his doubts. Funny how he could open up with Lina and not with anyone else.
Lina herself was a bit surprised about how close to a personal disclosure Zel came to. Usually, they just kept a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about each other's pasts. She had to agree that people don't normally not remember things before they were ten but there were a number of reasons that they could forget.
"So basically, you think that this kid might have some connection to your strange dreams and missing memories. Funny that it should come up now of all times." She tapped a finger on her chin as she thought. That 'female' in Zel's dream disturbed her and the fact that the dream transferred into reality suggested that Zel's mysterious voice was someone very powerful. If everything was connected, then was Zel getting these dreams because they were close to this person?
"Ma...ma..."
"Eh?" Lina turned around to look at the other person sharing the bed. The little boy stirred, rubbing his face in the pillow. "Are you awake? Don't move too much or you'll hurt your wing again."
The brown-haired boy turned his green eyes on her. Those eyes grew as wide as saucers at seeing the stranger. "Who are you???" he screamed, wings instinctively stretching out. But the movement sent waves of pain from the injured wing such that he was forced to curl into a ball to protect himself. "Who are you?? Where is mama??"
"Hey, calm down. We'll call your mother in a minute," Lina tried to reassure the child. She gave Zel a glare whose meaning was very clear. Get Beatrice while she tried to keep the boy from panicking anymore. "No one is going to hurt you. I know my friend looks scary but that's all just a façade."
Lina pretended she didn't hear Zel's snort as he left. Instead, she kept a wide cheerful smile on her face. Young kids could be scared easily and when they were scared, it was harder to get their trust. If she wanted to ask the kid any questions and get the answers, she was going to have to get this boy's trust.
"We found you out in the snow," a little white lie, "and your wing was broken so we brought you inside to fix it. How does it feel?"
"...it hurts."
"That's because you moved it. You can't use it until it gets all better. The less you move it, the faster it will heal. Understand?" Lina winked, as if she was sharing a really important secret with him. "In fact, I even have some 'magic candy' that makes you feel better. Do you want some?"
The boy perked up at the sight of the shiny candy Lina held out but he didn't move to take one. Either he was still wary of her or he was taking her advice very literally. Seeing how still he was holding himself, Lina was willing to bet on the latter. So she dropped a piece in his hand.
He smiled happily.
"Daniel!" Beatrice burst in, making a beeline to her missing son, almost mauling Lina who scrambled aside. "You're awake! Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere? Where have you been?"
"Who are you?"
"Daniel, don't you remember your mama? It's me, your 'mama'," Beatrice reminded him, the only thing keeping her from sweeping him into a bear hug being the white wings.
"You aren't my mama! Where's my mama?!" the winged boy demanded, confusion and fear growing in his round eyes as this large strange woman kept insisting that she was his mama. "My mama is tall and beautiful. You're not my mama!!"
"Daniel, what's wrong? What are you -- "
"Why don't you tell us more about your mama?" Lina asked sweetly, drawing the frightened boy's attention back to herself. They still didn't know whether this really was Beatrice's son or some facsimile but if he was made to distrust all of them, they'd never find out the truth. Beatrice was on the verge of another hysteric attack and that would definitely not help matters. She just hoped Zel would catch the drift and remove the matron from the room. "She sounds like a very nice person."
"Oh, she is!" He smiled to the nice lady who gave him the candy. Her funny looking friend was taking the scary lady away. Why did she look like she was crying? And why did he feel like crying? He wanted his mama. "My mama is tall and beautiful and she's a queen and-"
"Does she have a name?" Lina asked.
"She's called the Queen of Winter."
At the doorway, Zel froze. That name rang a chord deep within him. He could not connect anything to it, other than that he had heard it somewhere before, a long time ago.
"Ne, Neechan?"
"What is it?" Lina looked down at the boy who was pulling on her sleeve. So far, she had learned that the boy called himself 'Snow Angel' which was what his 'mama', the Queen of Winter, called him and all of the others like him at their home. He didn't really know where that home was except that he could always find his way there. He wasn't sure why he was out here by himself, or how his wing was broken.
"I want to go home."
"But you said you didn't know where it was right? And even if you did, you can't go home alone. Something might happen to you." Lina was beginning to suspect that there was something unnatural about the boy (wings excluded) but that unnatural factor didn't change the fact that he was only a child.
"You can take me home. You said you know magic. That means you can fly right? If we fly there, we'll reach home."
And there was this insistence that though he didn't know where his home was, it would be there whenever he went there. Either the boy had no sense of direction or this 'home' was magically displaced. The latter thought intrigued her.
"Are you sure? To be honest, I'm not too crazy about being cold," Lina chuckled nervously. "And if we don't find your home soon out there, I'm going to turn right back around to where it's warm."
"Oh, that's alright. As long as I'm with you, you won't feel cold," the boy said confidently. Lina thought it was funny to see such a small boy so puffed up with pride. "It's a gift from mama. None of us feel cold even if we're laying in snow and we can make someone else we're with not feel cold either."
"Really?" Lina asked skeptically.
He nodded firmly.
The window rattled, shaken by a strong gust of wind. The two looked outside to see the previously clear sky covered by clouds and rapidly swirling snow. With this kind of weather, no one was going out anywhere.
"I hope your two friends were inside before this storm hit," Beatrice worried, wiping the tabletops for the fifth time. The lack of recognition and resulting rejection from the boy had shaken her deeply. She was sure it was her Daniel, she couldn't understand what had happened to him.
"No one in their right mind would be outside in this weather." Zelgadiss watched the swirling snow outside the window, his reflection staring back at him. Talk about your freak snowstorms, coming out of nowhere and just smack dab right on top of you.
But sometimes, he just wondered. How would it be like to be in the storm? Not fighting against it but a part of the wild, freewheeling tumbling without a care in the world. To not be worn down by life's pitfalls and responsibilities, to be a child...
The building creaked under the force of the storm battering at it. It was like the storm was an intelligent being that was trying to force its way inside. But that's ridiculous. Right?
"I'm going to see how Lina...and the boy are," Zelgadiss uselessly informed Beatrice. He was getting jumpy, something that was unusual for him. He wasn't the type to get stir crazy, especially not after such a short amount of time. But something about this storm struck him as...not right.
He had looked in after he had escorted Beatrice downstairs. Lina had been getting only splendidly with the boy. Like minds think alike? He smiled at that thought, Lina would hit him for sure for that. But if anything, though he may think she's acting irresponsibly, he never thought of her as a child. In fact, it was almost...
"Zel?"
Acha...he thought he had kept still enough not to be noticed. Guess he was wrong. Clearing his throat needlessly, Zel stepped inside. Belatedly, he remembered that he wasn't covered up. Children took his appearance less well than did adults. The boy was staring wide-eyed at him.
"I was...just checking up on how you were. The two of you, to see if you were alright," he coughed, a bit embarrassed at being caught. After all, Lina Inverse had faced down two Demon Lords. Why would a snowstorm bother her? The only nerves being calmed here were his.
"Aww, were you worried?" Lina teased even though her cheeks were warm. He rarely expressed his concern unless it was one of those life-or-death situations. Okay, now she was beginning to feel worried. Trying to switch the topic, she asked about Gourry and Amelia.
He gave the same answer he gave Beatrice downstairs, hesitating at the doorway, unsure of whether he should go in or not. Just to be doing something, he let his eyes roam around the room, falling onto the snow-battered window and the sharp, angular face peering in through it.
Face?!?
"Who are you!!" In a blink of an eye, the chimera was at the window but somehow the face had vanished even quicker. There was nothing but the storm's hollow cries and the snow frozen against the glass panels.
"Zel...?" Lina looked at her friend warily. He wasn't the type to call wolf though he could be paranoid at times. She was a bit more upset that he had upset the boy. "What is it?"
"..." He looked hard at the window, as if willing the face to appear again. It appeared easily in his mind's eye, perhaps too easily for something seen only in a moment. The coloring was difficult to tell but seemed to consist of ice blue fading to white. The face was all pointy and angular, from the chin down to the sharp goatee tipping a sharp chin. But it was the eyes that stood out the most. The clear eyes had been looking at him. Or so it appeared. "I'm not sure."
A white feather twirled in his fingers, a motion that a detached part of his mind was in charge of. Zelgadiss only sat there, in a chair in a corner with a good view of the window, the door, and the bed on which Lina and the boy slept. They were in unspoken agreement that the boy wasn't to be left alone, just in case he tried to 'go home' on his own in the middle of the night even with the storm still raging unabated outside. Lina was quite willing to stay and Zelgadiss made the excuse that they could take turns staying awake.
Lina was sleeping without a care in the world though the clinging of the boy to her was highly embarrassing at first. She had apparently made quite an impression on him. Zel couldn't help thinking how much the two sleeping together looked like a mother sleeping with her child.
Just what is wrong with me? he wondered. His thoughts had been running in very odd directions these past few days. Well, okay, it was a lot longer than only several days but he had never really paid much attention to it before.
His breath was freezing in the air. Zelgadiss pulled the blanket tighter around him, but not tight enough to impede a need to move quickly. That face in the window...he was sure it was going to come back. Who was it and what were they after?
Perhaps he should warm the room. It couldn't be good to sleep in such cold temperatures. Lina and the boy... Zel looked at them. They looked like they were fine earlier, but now Lina looked like she was shivering a bit. And the boy had lost even more feathers.
"You can't live without my protection."
That voice again! Faded, like in a memory. But he was awake right now wasn't he? He had never heard it outside of his dreams... And why did it come to him just as he was wondering about the boy? Why-
The window suddenly burst open, the full fury of the winter storm howling into the confined room, leaving snow and ice on all it touched. In the midst of it, Zelgadiss saw that face again, now fixed to what looked like a sharp, twig-like body of ice.
"You should not have returned."
The voice grated like breaking ice, echoing in his mind as if it was searching for something. This thing knew him and...he knew it. Somewhere, sometime that he couldn't remember. It knew him, but it hadn't come for him. It turned away and reached out a hand of long talons to the occupants of the bed.
Something inside of Zelgadiss told him, no reminded him that he was not to get in this creature's way. He was always supposed to obey like, like he would obey its master. But he didn't, couldn't remember who that master was.
Instead, he followed another voice, leaping into the snow and ice that was swirling to land around the sleepers to take them away to a place of ice, cold, and...