Zelgadiss stirred. He had tried to grab on to Lina and the boy before the creature took them away. Somehow, he had been afraid, very afraid that if he didn't, they could, would disappear forever. However, he knew he held nothing now. Had he failed then?
'You should not have returned.'
What was that supposed to mean? In order to return, he'd need to have a place to return to. He didn't remember ever coming through this place before, but is that what the creature meant? Or did he mean returning in the sense of meeting it again? Just where had he seen it before?
"Are you awake?" A smooth, cold hand brushed the bangs from his brow, the fingers trailing down his face in a loving manner. "You were restless in your sleep, did you have a bad dream?"
He knew this voice.
"Come now. Open your eyes and tell your mother all about it."
Zelgadiss obeyed unquestioningly, like any child obeys his mother. He was in a room of ice though oddly enough, the cold didn't touch him. Seated on the edge of the circular nest of white in which he lay was a tall, elegant lady with long flowing opal hair. The eyes that looked at him reflected concern and caring and sorrow older than words.
"You...?"
"I'm your mother of course," she said kindly, cupping his face in her hands. "Now, why don't you tell me about your bad dream."
Dream? This had to be dream, not whatever happened before. He knew he should be worried about where he was and who this woman was and where the hell was Lina. There was this odd weight on his back and...weight?
From the side of his eyes, Zelgadiss caught sight of pure white, feathered wings. And they were coming from his back. Zelgadiss's jaw dropped, his hands moving on their own to confirm what his eyes saw. And if his jaw could drop lower, it would have. His hands, his arms, his face, his entire body, was flesh again.
What the hell?!?
"I...I'm...my body...how..." he stammered.
"Do you hurt somewhere?"
"Don't touch me!!" Zel snapped, backing away from this strange, no familiar woman. He felt a sense of déjà vu but he couldn't remember from where. "Who are you? Where am I?"
Shock and pain crossed the woman's eyes, instantly making him feel guilty. Guilty? What for? He didn't even know her! Right?
"Zelgadiss," she said soothingly. "I am your mother and this is our home. Remember? You are one of my Snow Angels."
Snow Angels? Now that did sound familiar but it didn't make any sense. This didn't connect.
"I'm not your anything! I was a chimera, I've been one for several years, I've been traveling with...friends, I -- "
She put a finger to his lips, silencing him. "Zelgadiss, I'm your mother. You've never been outside of our home without the company of the other Snow Angels or my servant. How could you go alone? You're only a child."
Zel opened his mouth to protest when the realization hit him. He was small. He just didn't have a pair of wings and a body of normal flesh, he was a child. How did this happen???
The woman looked at him sympathetically and drew him into her arms, as any mother would comfort her child. "There, there. I know all of you dream of growing up someday and having strange adventures, but your place is here with me, your mother. I won't let anything or anyone hurt you ever. Here, you're safe with me, the only one who truly loves you."
Zelgadiss felt his eyes growing heavy. There was something lulling about her voice, her words though he couldn't make them out very clearly anymore. For some reason, everything she said made sense. What had he been talking about? All of that pain, it was only a dream. After all, she said so.
She laid the sleeping 'child' back into his nest. A mother's love for her children is great, surpassed in intensity only by her fierce protection of them. She would not let anything happen to them. She held love only for them, as they should love only her.
"You've come back. And I will not let anyone take you away, my child."
"Fireball!" Lina wanted to scream in frustration as her spell fizzled away into nothing against the icy pillars keeping her trapped in a corner of this ice room. But her teeth were too busy chattering and it was hard enough just to concentrate on casting a spell. "Oooh, when I get my hands on that witch..."
She was still haze on where this was and how she got here. All she knew was that she was supposed to be sleeping in bed, back at that inn, with the winged boy clinging to her. It was embarrassing, she was too young to be a mother(!), but also kind of pleasant in a way. Not in that way!! She didn't have a perverted interest in young boys or something. It was just the...warmth.
Well, anyway, where was she? Oh yes, about getting here. When she first woke up, she found herself laying on an icy floor, the winged boy still holding on to her, and Zel holding on to the both of them for dear life.
They must have looked like a nice happy family...aaah! Why was she thinking of that at a time like this?? The readers don't need to know about those kinds of things!!
So Zel asked if she was alright, Lina thinks she stammered something coming out as an affirmative, before he let go of them and looked around. There was a strange look in his eyes that she couldn't place and then she appeared. The witch.
She stood before them and called them her 'Snow Angels'. When she said that, the little boy woke up and tried to fly over to her, happily crying 'Mama'. So the witch was this 'Queen of Winter' person. Lina failed to see a family resemblance. Nor did she understand why the Queen used the plural term.
That is, until she beckoned to Zelgadiss and he started walking toward her.
Now, it wasn't that Lina was jealous that this Queen of Winter person was tall, elegant, slim, and beautiful to perfection with apparently tons of power to boot. But there was a spark of something that went off as she saw Zel quietly obeyed the witch's command. Hell, he was never that obedient with her!
She had called his name and he seemed to falter, signaling to Lina that he had to be under some kind of control spell. Heh, well, she's broken him out of one before. Lina ran to give him a flying tackle.
Or rather would have if she suddenly hadn't been knocked all the way across the room into a wall by a powerful gust of chilling wind. Bars of ice immediately rose up, leaving her trapped there as the witch took the two away.
Zelgadiss never even looked back.
"Ooh, when I get my hands on him...," Lina grumbled, glaring at the offending ice columns that were imprisoning her. "Where the hell is this place anyway?"
"This is Niflheim, the land of ice and cold, where lies one of the many gateways to the realm of the dead."
Lina looked up at her captor. Oh, she was beautiful alright, as beautiful and cold as ice. How fitting. She didn't see how anyone could see this person as a mother, or at least, as a loving one. The fact that she took Zelgadiss away was also a strike against her.
"How appropriate then, that someone like yourself calling herself the Queen of Winter lives here." The lady wasn't going to rise to the bait. And Lina was doing her damn hardest to keep from shivering. No way she was going to show weakness before this witch. "What did you do to Zel?"
"That is of no concern to you."
"Like hell it isn't! He's my friend and he isn't the type to just bow and kowtow to some strange lady just on her say so!!" Lina seethed, anger clouding the warnings in her body that the temperature was dropping rapidly. "Wha-What are you do-doing to him!"
"He is one of mine. And you, you are not welcome here." The Queen of Winter turned around and walked away.
"Hey, I'm not done with you yet!!" Lina tried to run to the bars of her prison only to find her feet stuck. No, it wasn't just her feet. Her body had been trying to warn her. While she had been arguing with the witch, she had slowly been covered with ice. And now, it completely engulfed her.
Zelgadiss!!
Zelgadiss rubbed his eyes. He looked around the room but there was no one. Strange, he thought he had heard someone call his name. But only the Queen of Winter and her servant knew it and it wasn't either of their two voices. So who was it?
He wondered why he wasn't with the other Snow Angels. The Queen always liked having them together in one room. So why was he all by himself? Not that he minded, he didn't really like being with the other Angels. He always felt...different. Like he wasn't really like them. So he made his own playmate, out of snow and ice.
Lina couldn't remember the last time she had ever been this cold. Cripes, she was going to need a month of basking in on a beach down south to be able to feel warm again. Or maybe a week at a hot springs resort.
She hated being cold.
Because it was too much like being alone.
Not just being in a place with no one else around but completely alone, when no one cares.
If only it would warm up. Why couldn't she get warm? It was so dark here... She was shivering.
Wait, shivering? If she was shivering then she could move. And she could feel, if only a little bit. Small hands touched her cheeks and she felt the sting of a warm breath across her face. Ouch. So must have been how Zel felt. The tingling numbness was all over her as the blood began to flow to her outer extremities again.
What had happened to her?
Oh yeah, that witch turned her into a living popsicle.
"Neechan? Are you alright?"
This voice, it was that little boy. But he was one the witch's 'dear' Snow Angels. Was this a trick?
"Neechan? Neechan, can you hear me?" He took a deep breath. "NEECHAN??"
"Wha!! Don't yell in my ear like that!!" Lina yelled, almost jumping up except that her muscles still weren't properly working yet so she kind of jerked like a boneless mass. She was glad no one she knew saw that. "Where am I?"
"Still in Niflheim, still in the palace of our Queen," rasped a voice like breaking ice. Lina looked to see some kind of ice man crouched in the far corner of the room. He just seemed to radiate cold. Her 'guardian angel' was hovering next to her, his broken wing probably fixed by his 'mother'. "But she will not look for you here."
"And that's supposed to make me feel safe? Who the hell are you?" Lina demanded, wrapping her arms around herself as she shivered still. She gave the angel an accusing look. "I thought you said that with you, I wouldn't feel cold."
"Normal, unmagical cold," the ice creature corrected. He held up a forearm of pure ice, ending with sharp talons. "As you can see, I am not normal."
"No kidding," she muttered. "I don't think I'm unfrozen because your ice queen had a change of heart. So what gives?"
"The Queen is not herself, has not been herself for awhile," sighed the creature, the air temperature immediately dropping about ten degrees. "However, she herself is not evil. She has just forgotten."
"Um, yeah, that's nice and all. But what does that have to do with me and getting my friend out of her clutches?" Lina reflected that that sounded soooooo cliché.
It glared at her, much like her sister did when she wanted Lina to sit down, shut up, and listen. So Lina did just that.
"What are you doing?" The Queen of Winter glided in to the private room she had set aside for her lost child returned once again. He had always liked to make imaginary playmates out of ice though she tried numerous times to get him to play with the other Angels.
"Making a friend," Zelgadiss replied absently. Usually, his 'friends' would be a mismatch of whatever struck his fancy at the time. But this time, he seemed to have an image of what his friend looked like. He didn't know where the image came from, just that this was his very important person.
"...why did you make a girl?" she asked neutrally, looking carefully at the sculpture. It was the exact image of the girl outside. But he should have no memory of her or anything else.
Zelgadiss tilted his head to one side to think. "I don't know," he said finally. "I just did. She needs a name. The right name. Perhaps..."
"No!" With a wave of her hand, Zelgadiss's ice sculpture shattered. The child's wide blue eyes turned to his 'mother', shock and something else reflected in them. The Queen of Winter immediately regretted her hasty action. "I'm sorry, little one. But you shouldn't always be playing with imaginary friends like that."
Zelgadiss still looked downcast. "But...she...Lina..."
"Don't ever say that name again," the queen snapped, gripping the little angel tightly by the shoulders. He was so caught by the intensity of her clear eyes that he didn't notice how little he actually felt the grip.
"Hey, who are you to decide whether or not he says my name or not? It's not like you're his real mother," came the arrogant snort from behind the queen. Zelgadiss looked around his 'mother' at the person who dared to speak so to her. He had never seen another 'adult' here. She quirked an eyebrow as she saw him. "Hmph, so that's what you looked like before Rezo turned you into a chimera? Pretty cute. But then, all kids look cute."
Zelgadiss didn't know why he felt embarrassed by this lady though he liked her immensely. And she looked just like his ice friend. Maybe the queen hadn't actually shattered her but made her alive!
The Queen of Winter stood up to her full height, pushing the Snow Angel behind her as she faced Lina. The girl should have been frozen and dead, not standing here now, albeit slightly shivering. Still, if she wasn't dead now, she soon would be. In these halls of ice, the Queen of Winter's power ruled supreme.
"You've got a lot of nerve kidnapping children and brainwashing them to make them your kids," Lina growled, hands on fists. "You're killing them just because you can't get over your own child's death! You of all people should understand how their mothers' feel when their children are gone!"
"How dare...How dare you question me!!" Sharp winter winds whipped around the angered mistress of this palace. "You who have never even been a mother! How can you know, how can you presume to lecture me on what to do? I was the one who took in these children who died alone and unwanted in the harsh cruel winter. No one else! I gave them love, I gave them a home."
"Oh, sure, it's all fine and dandy that you bring dead children spirits here but I think you're overstepping your bounds when you go around taking children who are still alive and turning them into your brain-washed worshippers!!"
"Shut up!!"
The winds suddenly broke off from their mistress and raced toward Lina, cutting her with their hundreds of slivers of ice, buffeting her to the ground with the larger chunks.
"Neechan!!" cried Daniel, flying to help her.
"Stay back!" Lina ordered. She was covered with cuts and bruises. "Is that all you can do? I've gotten worse from my sister when we're just playing around. What's wrong? You've already tried to kill me once. Why don't you try again? Or is that something you don't want these kids to see?"
For the first time, the Queen of Winter noticed the entire host of Snow Angels floating and watching from all corners of the room. In all of their eyes was the shock of their kind, gentle 'mother' being so harsh.
"Your majesty, please. Remember who you are and why you are doing this. Release the children whose time has not come. They will only continue to die, remaining this close to the doors of death." Jack Frost appeared amidst the floating angels. Some of the angels looked like little, rosy-cheeked cherubs. But others, like Lina's little friend, were pale with dark rims under their eyes.
"I am right! I am only doing what is in all of your best interests. I'm the only one who can love you and you all must only love me! I won't allow anyone else to be in their hearts!"
"Lina! Look out!!"
Something slammed into her and set her sliding across the floor.
"Are you alright?"
Lina gasped, partially because of the bruises that were hit and partially because of what she had been saved from. Those ice spikes planted where she had been a moment before looked really sharp and not good for a person's well being.
"Are you alright, Lina?"
"ZEL?!?" Lina shrieked. This wasn't little kid Zel with white wings, this was grown-up chimera Zel, her Zel. Aaah!! Why was she thinking like this? "Zel, why are you...how did you..."
Zelgadiss blinked and linked at his hand. Blue, rough, and rocky again. He wasn't sure what to think but his mind was clearer than it was before. Was it all an illusion then?
"Why? Why won't you forget her? Why is she more important to you than your mother? How can you care more for her than your mother?!!"
"Eh?" What was that witch talking about? Lina knew she was speaking figuratively about being Zel's 'mother', Jack Frost had explained it to her before, but what did she mean that she, Lina, was so important to Zel?
"I'm not a child anymore. I cannot go back to the past. I've made my choices and I'll live with it," Zelgadiss said quietly, looking back at the Queen of Winter. "All mothers have to let go some time. I thought you did so when I left with Rezo."
"I..."
"You said you would deny me, us, nothing. The others, the ones who truly belong here, will never leave you. But I and the ones who are still alive, you know very well our fate if we remain here."
Lina felt her fingers and toes going numb again. Some of the Snow Angels weren't flying anymore, their feathers falling like a light snow. They were shivering as the deathly cold began to touch them again. The living were not meant to be here.
"I am leaving."
Lina could barely squeak as Zelgadiss picked her up. Not that she felt she could actually walk considering how cold she was. She didn't know why Zel was still so warm though, and it was toward that warmth that she leaned.
Without looking back, Zelgadiss walked out of the room, through the parted mass of children who were no longer Snow Angels. These children looked hesitatingly between Zel and the Queen. The Queen of Winter stood there, head bowed, fists clenched tight.
"...go."
They looked at each other unsure.
"I said go! Leave! Go back to where you came from and leave me alone!!" she roared, the cold wind forcing the children to flee the room. The lonely Queen collapsed onto the bed, her face buried in the folds of her arm. Jack Frost alighted by her side.
"Your majesty..."
There was no path open to the living to enter or leave Niflheim.
"...go, my children," the Queen whispered brokenly. "Do as I have taught you. Guard the wanderers of winter from the cruelties of cold and death. Guide them to where the light shines for them, casting warmth and light."
When the storm cleared early the next morning, Amelia and Gourry immediately left the safety of the private home they had been forced to retreat to and went to check on their friends. But on the main street of the small village, they saw instead a group of children, all of the missing ones. Parents woke up to the clamor of voices and ran outside in hastily donned robes and coats to cry over their missing children, now returned.
Amelia and Gourry immediately descended upon Zel and Lina, the former carrying the latter. Beatrice was overjoyed when Daniel returned to her, letting the four escape upstairs away from the overly grateful families in order to tend Lina's injuries.
The village leader declared a daylong celebration and people quickly got into the spirit of things. Only the two people heavily responsible for the reason of celebration did not attend. Lina had had enough of cold and refused to budge from the big, comfortable armchair right in front of the fire. Zelgadiss was never big on parties anyway.
"So that Queen of Winter took you in when you were kid? You're not dead," Lina pointed out. She still had a lot of questions and Lina wasn't one to let her curiosity go unsatisfied. "Did Rezo save you from her or what?"
"I don't know why she took me as I certainly wasn't dead though I probably wished I was. It's hard for a kid to live alone. Besides, I wasn't with her long, at least I don't think I was." Zel looked at the changing, flickering colors of the fire and the crackling log. "Snow Angels as you've been told are essentially guardian angels during the winter months. I was watching over someone when Rezo came. I chose to reveal myself to him and learned that we were related. Naturally, I wanted to go with him."
"And she let you? That queenie was acting really possessive back there."
"She changed," he said simply. "She let us go now and that's all I care about."
"Well, whose to say she won't try to steal you again?" Lina insisted.
Zel grinned teasingly. "Ah, Lina. Are you concerned for me?"
"Ba-Baka!!" Lina blushed. "I just don't want to have to go back to haul your stony hide out of there. I hate the cold!"
"As I recall, I was the one carrying you out."
She sputtered, trying to find a good comeback. "Well, I suppose that's only right since you seem to care about me so much, or so the queen said." Lina batted her eyelashes at him, determined to win this teasing game. "What? Don't tell me you've fallen in love with me?"
"And if I have?" Zel grinned widely, cocking his head as he got up. "I'm going to get something to drink."
Lina stared slack-jawed at him but it wasn't until after he left that she managed to sputter, "What kind of answer is that?! Zel, get back here!!"