Lina had but one source of information at her disposal, but it had been sufficient in the past: her intuition. Intuition, coupled with her powers of reason and deduction, proved a formidable intelligence network for her, and now she needed it at its peak efficiency
Sylphiel's disappearance was both unnerving and annoying. Lina held no love for her either; their mutual antipathy had galvanized the moment Gourry had proposed. She suspected that Sylphiel had dragged her out of New Sairaag and healed her against her own wishes, no doubt doing only what Gourry had asked. No doubt, given the chance to do so, Sylphiel would kill her outright. Still, the situation at hand hardly left room for petty squabbles. Lina knew that she needed every available magic user in the world, especially those with defensive powers like Sylphiel. Even in their scrape with Copy Rezo, the then-immature Sylphiel had shown flashes of what she was capable of. Five years older and wiser, she had become a force to reckon with. If the world was to survive, she and Lina would have to fight together, not against each other.
But where had she gone? She hadn't heard anything about her, perhaps because she had never bothered to ask, but she guessed that she hadn't strayed too far from New Sairaag. Lina knew her to be the more stationary type, and she didn't discount the possibility that Sylphiel had latched on with the Sairaag settlement. If she hadn't stayed with them, then she must have stayed with another. Lina simply couldn't picture her as someone who would be wandering out by herself.
Rumor conceded that the Sairaag settlement had last been seen around the base of the Oscura mountain range; that rumor was only two months old. Assuming Sairaag's survivors carried a lifestyle not unlike those of most other settlements, they probably moved no more than one month ago. Picking up their trail would be challenging, but not impossible, especially since the Oscura mountains were passable and offered reasonable security from monster attacks. It was logical to guess they had gone into them.
Finding Zelgadis would probably be the bigger challenge. The last rumors she had heard about Zelgadis was that he had been caught in the city of Lagrimas when the monsters wiped it out. Some of the survivors she had spoken to from the Lagrimas settlement swore that they had seen some blue skinned man being killed off by a group of Leaches, but there were others that likewise swore that they had seen him make it out of the city alive. Wounded, yes, but alive nonetheless. What no one had been able to specify was how he had died, or in the other case, how he had been injured. None seemed to know that he was, in fact, a human-golem chimera, so it was logical to conclude that those that might have seen him take a direct hit from a monster blast would have assumed the blow had been fatal. Furthermore, those that claimed to see him injured mentioned that they could see no blood on him. Seeming to disbelieve themselves, they suggested that his wound seemed to be leaking a powder-like substance instead of blood. Lina had said nothing to them.
But she conjectured now that Zelgadis had at least survived the destruction of Lagrimas. She also knew he was a survivor and, more importantly, a loner. His life as a chimera had forced him into the latter, and by extension, the former as well. She figured that he, like her, had chosen to remain apart from any settlement, and that he too was wandering around aimlessly. In any case, she figured that since his last known position was in the vicinity of Lagrimas, he was at least still on the same continent. That was a start. But where had he gone from there? She pictured a map of Lagrimas and its nearest cities and thought about it. Near that city were two cities just as large and populated: Coron and Miranda. West of Lagrimas lay a mountain range too treacherous for anyone with any semblance of sanity to cross. With Coron to the north and Miranda to the south, the only other thing near Lagrimas was the ocean to the near east. Assuming that Zelgadis had neither sprouted wings, gills, or had gone out of his mind, Lina knew that he had gone next to either Coron or Miranda. But Coron was a coastal city, so the same ocean would have stopped him in his tracks there too. Which meant that Miranda, and the thousands of acres of wooded lands directly south of it, was the most likely spot in which to pick up Zel's tracks.
Lina had concluded this the morning after she left the Jenna settlement. Judging from the Jenna survivors, they were somewhere around the Midas province, meaning that she was still a good two weeks' walk away from the Lagrimas province. Beyond that it was about another two days to Miranda and its neighboring woods. In other words, if she were going to find Zelgadis and try to save Myra and the Jenna settlement, she would have to hurry.
Two days later, Lina reached the first of the natural markers that confirmed she was heading in the right direction. At the foot of a series of hills - she couldn't remember the name - she sat down to rest up before the next series of strenuous climbs. Unpacking some of the sweet potatoes given to her by the Jenna folk, she quietly ate them while thinking about where and when she'd pitch in for the night.
Solitude such as hers had made the routine routine enough. She either didn't notice or didn't care that she traveled with a precision and calculation unbecoming a woman who, only two years before, had been as jubilant, carefree, and at times obnoxiously capricious as Lina Inverse had been. The day's routine had been reduced to a series of motions intended to maximize survival in the most efficient means possible.
It was this withdrawal from all things emotional that had Lina ill-prepared for the sound of a man's voice directly behind her.
"Who are you that walks alone at this late hour?"
Lina's eyes widened. Her mouth, half full with sweet potato, swallowed abruptly. She was sitting down; she couldn't reach for her sword without seeming too obvious. The man's voice already bespoke hostile intentions, and there was no need to stir them up any more than necessary.
"I asked you a question," he continued. "Who are you?"
The sound of a sword being unsheathed cut through the dry air.
"A wanderer," she replied.
"You think that's the answer I want to hear?!" the man suddenly yelled. Lina instinctively threw herself forward. The sound of steel slamming against the rock she had been sitting on confirmed that her reaction had not been unwarranted.
She quickly jumped onto her feet only to have to throw herself out of the way again as the madman continued his attack. She rolled to a kneeling position as he pressed on.
"Who are you?!" he continued to yell. By the look in his eyes, Lina could tell that he had gone mad. And yet, he looked oddly familiar.
She finally had time to draw her sword, just in time as the man slashed at her again. The loud ring of metal against metal was deafening, but Lina held fast. She lifted herself to her feet and, using the man's own pressed blade, pushed herself away from him. Standing two meters away from him, she looked hard at him and desperately tried to remember where she had seen him before.
"Who are you?!" he yelled anew as he swung his sword over him and let it come down full force on Lina's defending blade. "Don't mock me!! Who are you?! Tell me or die!!"
Two more swings. Even Lina couldn't take too much more of this; the man's madness had lent him considerable strength.
"I don't want to hurt you," she said, more to herself than to him. Her mind was racing frantically. She knew him. She was certain of it. His face, his skill, was recorded somewhere in her memory.
"Then die like the beast that you are!" he raged as he began a series of forward swipes that were as controlled as they were lethal. Lina retreated several steps.
She realized she was quickly losing the fight. With each attack defended, her sword was pushed closer and closer to her. It didn't help that half of her mind was busy uncovering long lost memories at the same time she was trying to coordinate her defense. But on the final of the man's attacks, her own sword, pushed back in defense, had come only centimeters from her own face. Enough was enough.
With a vehemence not seen in her since the beginning of the war, Lina discarded the metal blade off her sword hilt. She clutched the hilt with both hands and looked furiously at her opponent. Gourry, no doubt, would have been proud of her.
"Light, come forth!"
Attuned to her command, the Sword of Light shone forward. Her first time using it, she had bumbled and panicked at the sheer power emanating from its glow. Now, her trained and strong hands held it, commanded it, wielded it with no small skill.
The attacker saw something as well. For, just as he was about to launch another series of strikes, the glow of the light blade seemed to shine across the lurid mist of his own maddened mind and stopped him in his tracks.
"That sword," he muttered, eyes gazing in awe.
Lina, too, stopped. Just as he had seen something in the Sword of Light, so too did she see something new in his eyes. The same look she had seen on a man seven years ago when pride had conceded to honorable defeat at the hands of a worthier foe. The same look on a man seven years ago that she thought she would never see again.
Zangulus.
Sitting together, eyeing one another with a mixture of wonder, suspicion, and disbelief, Lina and Zangulus shared the sweet potatoes.
It surprised Lina how calm the swordsman had become moments after she had brandished the Sword of Light. It would be too much to chalk it up as another of the sword's miracles, she knew that much. It did, however, suggest that Zangulus, while mad, was only partially so. Maybe he too had spent too much time away from human company, more than her even. Solitude will make even the strongest of men and women mad, that much she knew. It seemed logical to conclude that such was the case with Zangulus.
Taking a bite out of her last potato, Lina went through all the motions necessary for a person about to initiate conversation with another person on the verge of losing it again. How could she start conversation mildly?
"Tell me," she began, "where have you been for the past few years?"
Zangulus' look froze her. Wrong question.
"Were I to tell you," he hissed, "you'd go mad too."
Lina swallowed a piece of potato. "You're assuming I haven't already?"
He snickered. "What do you know?"
Hey, I only have chronic nightmares and was witness to the deaths of a couple of thousand people in the space of a few seconds. How about you?
"Enlighten me," she said non-chalantly. Her brief stint as delicate psychiatrist was over.
Zangulus rose to his feet and looked away from her. She rolled her eyes; he always had had a flair for the dramatic and the cliche-ish. "Remember Delinde?"
"Delinde? Small mining town just beyond the Oscura Mountains?" Yeah, she knew about it. At least she thought she did.
"I was there when they came." He was silent for a moment, probably recollecting some not-too-pleasant memories. "They needed fighters. I was hired."
"And you made it out alive? Miraculous." Her comment wasn't meant to be derogatory, merely factual. Sorcerers themselves stood only a 30% chance of beating a monster of average strength; mere swordsmen and conventional soldiers hovered over 0%.
Zangulus, however, didn't need to be reminded. "Not miraculous, you idiot! Not in the least!"
"That's not what I meant, of course," she tried to sound calm, keeping a close eye on his hand as it rested upon the hilt of his sheathed sword. "What I meant was that I heard the city hadn't fared too well in its defense. With you at the helm, I find that hard to believe."
He sat back down. As he did, Lina realized she was now dealing with a man whose emotions changed with the drop of a hat.
"Flattery won't do anyone any good," he said quietly. "I wasn't interested in saving anyone. They met my price, and I accepted. Did you forget I was a mercenary?"
She merely shook her head, not wanting to say anything to destabilize him again. Nice Zangulus, nice.
"The lot of us entrusted to defend the city didn't last a minute," he continued. "There was no way we could fight them. Our defeat was so quick, the Delinde people hardly got their money's worth."
Lina simply nodded. There was no need for her to visualize the carnage, nor to ask him about specifics. She had seen that type of slaughter too many times. Of course, how he had survived did intrigue her.
As if hearing her thoughts, Zangulus' eyes lifted and locked onto her. "Gourry didn't destroy the Howling Sword, you know?"
Her attention was jarred by the mention of Gourry's name. Her mind quickly recollected the almost epic sword fight between Gourry and Zangulus, and how the latter's demonic Howling Sword had been shattered by the Sword of Light.
"That's right," he continued, noticing the added attention in Lina's eyes. "He shattered it, but he did not destroy it. Replacing the blade was simple. This one," he grasped the hilt of his sword, "wouldn't shatter quite so easily."
"But does it also have the original's power?" Stupid question, she knew. Of course it did. She just wanted to keep him talking.
"Hmph. A sorcerer refocused its energies. The Howling Sword's miasma is too powerful for it to simply dissipate like that."
She nodded. She was lucky, she supposed, Zangulus hadn't gotten all that serious when he attacked her. She remembered the hard time even an expert swordsman like Gourry had had with the sword's attack.
"With the Howling Sword, I made my escape," he resumed his original story. "Once I realized I was the last living man on that field, I directed its energies towards the ground in front of me. I let it build up its power so that its discharge would be powerful enough to engulf a living being."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Surely he hadn't beaten a horde of monsters like that.
"Moments before they got to me, the sword discharged its energies onto me. I knew it might kill me, taking in so much of the sword's directed energy, but I also knew that, were I to survive the discharge, that it would also cover me with demonic miasma. You know those monsters can't attack anything bearing their dark energy. Even if I didn't survive, you've seen what they do to their victims; death at the hands of the Howling Sword would be merciful."
"At which point," Lina chimed in, "you were knocked out unconscious, and the monsters simply ignored you before taking out the town."
He nodded silently. "When I awoke, it seemed days later. By then, everything was burnt to the ground. Everyone was dead. All I could see were the ruins of Delinde and the corpses of hundreds of people."
Lina closed her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. She wasn't quite sure why.
Zangulus slumped. She looked up at him. So. He too felt emotions other than the need to fight. "I stayed there for several days looking for survivors. But you know, not a person or a pet or a bird survived. It's as if there had never been life in Delinde at all."
Lina chose not to say anything. It seemed Zangulus was having a hard enough time coping with the memory without her offering little insignificant clichés about how sorry she was and all. More than likely, simply having listened to him would prove far more therapeutic than all the comforting words in the world.
True enough, Zangulus resumed moments later with renewed vigor. "It was then that I began wandering, keeping a low profile, avoiding confrontations with those things whenever possible." He paused. "I haven't had much contact with people either."
No kidding. "Why haven't you latched on with a settlement?"
"What's the point in that? Why live with a people who will be dead within the year? May as well reside with the corpses at Delinde."
"Perhaps, but you probably stand a better chance with them than on your own."
He laughed. "Delinde was destroyed nearly two years ago. I've been on my own since then. I've outlived several settlements, you know."
Zangulus continued to laugh to himself, though she could tell it was that type of laughter that was more intended to hide sorrow than to show mirth.
Lina got up and walked to the edge of the nearby cliff. The sun, it seemed, was going down, so there was no point going any further today. On top of this hill, they'd have some semblance of protection and cover from attack, meaning that it would be the best spot to pitch in for the night. Having shared that story with Zangulus, in any event, had downed her spirits, and she knew that the best antidote for that was to simply rest and sleep it off. To walk on and brood upon it would only make things worse.
"Where is Gourry?"
Zangulus' sudden question ripped through Lina in a manner worse than the Howling Sword ever could have. For the second time today, a torrent of emotion swept through her with the very mention of his name. It seemed to make things worse that Zangulus, seemingly oblivious of Gourry's fate, would want to know everything.
She tried to sound as calm as she could without seeming forced. "Gourry is dead."
"Impossible," Zangulus' shock was evident. "How could Gourry be dead?"
She took another deep breath. She wasn't liking this conversation anymore. "He died when New Sairaag was destroyed. Two years ago."
"But," he continued to fumble, "he could have won with that sword of his. That sword could..." He stopped. He eyed her suspiciously, wondering how it was that she had come into possession of Gourry's Sword of Light.
Before he could think too many negative things about Lina, she let him know what he needed to know.
"The Sword of Light has been in Gourry's family for generations, and now I am the one continuing that line. He gave it to me before he died. I didn't realize it at the time, being that I was unconscious, but he secured it to my belt right before joining in New Sairaag's final defense."
"But why would he give it to you? How is it that you continue his bloodline?" Zangulus' eyes froze upon her. He knew the answer before she said it out loud.
"Because he was my husband."
Neither one of them spoke much for the next hour or so. In that time, while it had been mutually agreed that the night be spent there, both were busy setting up their makeshift sleeping arrangements. Lina, for her part, used her cape for both cushion and blanket; carrying anymore than she did already would weigh her down too much. Zangulus, still sporting a navy blue cape himself, had pretty much assumed a similar arrangement.
As the dark ruby-like glow of the apocalyptic sundown engulfed the two, Zangulus lay down, turned to his side, and seemingly went right to sleep, leaving Lina alone with nothing but the crimson skies and her thoughts to accompany her. By then, she was starting to get over the grief of being asked to recount Gourry's death, and had been looking forward to conversing a bit more with this once former foe. Certainly, she had wanted to ask him if he'd join her in her search for Sylphiel and Zelgadis, now that his swordsmanship would make him a powerful ally. Looking over at him and concluding that he had fallen asleep, Lina sighed and thought about nothing in particular.
Until she remembered something stashed away in her pant pocket. Something that she found herself willing to look at again and again despite the several times she'd already done so. She looked at Zangulus one more time and decided to read Myra's letter in the interim.
Looking upon it again, she could begin to make out more of the words, for indeed, almost half the letter seemed faded. What she couldn't read she imagined, and so, for the next half hour, she pieced the distant message back together again. Quietly reading to herself, she engulfed herself in the written words, realizing that the letter was the closest link she had to remembering what it was like to be human.
My dearest Myra,
I can't begin to tell you how much I miss you. It seems only yesterday you were staying with us. It seems that close from having had you here to make our lives all the more beautiful. Your grandfather and I are very happy that you were able to spend those weeks with us, and hope that you'll want to do so again next year during the Equinox festival. Remember that night during the festival when you ate two candy apples and then had a tummy ache? Well, your grandfather and I bought one at the market two days ago to remember you. We divided it into three parts, one for each of us, and one for you. It seems that we'll be seeing things that remind us of you for quite some time. You asked us before you left if the chickens would eat that bird seed you bought at the market but never had the chance to feed to them. Well, you'll be happy to know that they devoured it quickly and eagerly. The bag finished up pretty quick, because those silly chickens just kept eating and eating. To say nothing of the squirrels and the sun flower seeds you left behind. We had squirrels hanging around our home for two days waiting for more. You would have loved them. Grandpa and I are hoping to visit you and your parents sometime next month, now that the Jenna Harvest festival will be a good chance for your Grandpa to buy some things he'll need for next year's harvest. I'm not promising anything, but we'll try our hardest to be there, if only for a couple of days. I'll write another letter for you next week. I promised you I would write frequently to make you feel better, and I'll continue to do so. Give mom and dad a big hug from both Grandpa and myself, and remember to keep an eye out for the squirrels at dawn. You remember our story, don't you?
Take care of yourself Myra. We love you so very very much.
Grandmother Faith
Lina finished reading the letter and noticed, only then, that Zangulus had not fallen asleep. He was, rather, sitting up, looking at her, studying her. She quietly met his gaze and asked, "Something interesting?"
"I find your remembrance of things past quite admirable," he answered as he shifted his gaze to the letter in her hand. Calmly, she folded it and placed it back in her pocket.
"Why is that?" she continued to make conversation so long as it made him talk; he looked too creepy simply looking at her.
"Because within the year, we'll all be dead. I find it fascinating that you could lose yourself so much in an old letter. Whose is it?"
"A friend's."
Silence.
"And did this friend mean a lot to you?"
She tried her hardest not to look troubled. "She does now."
"Funny," he smirked as he lay back down on his cape. "Last time I saw you, you were wild, capricious, so much like a little girl even as you tried so hard to be a woman."
Lina herself almost smiled. Zangulus remembered her all right. "I'm glad you have such fond memories of me."
"I wouldn't call them fond," he continued, "so much as intriguing. When I pursued you and Gourry, I was more interested in facing him in battle. You, however, were always something of an enigma. You struck me as someone whose skills could defeat the strongest enemies, but whose temperament could cause your fall before the weakest. When we faced each other, I thought you didn't have the mental discipline to be a true warrior."
Lina nodded, half agreeing with him, half humoring him. "The peculiar thing is that I thought much the same of you. Your single-minded pursuit of Gourry was nearly your undoing. Truth be told, I thought you could have beaten Gourry, had you worried more about the fight itself than the pride behind the fight."
Zangulus smiled. It seemed so unusual to Lina to see him smile without the cynicism and the latent menace.
"Yes," he agreed, "we were both so young back then. It seems so long ago."
For the first time since they had run into each other, Lina felt like talking to him. Conversation, up to this point, had been more geared towards bringing Zangulus back to reality; she hadn't cared all that much to know anything about her former enemy. Now, however, realizing that humanity was slowly creeping back into his tired form, she wished to know more about him, about what he had done since they last met, and about his remembrances of Gourry. She moved so that she could sit down facing him.
"Gourry," he began more solemnly, "he was a good warrior and an even better man. I would have liked to have met with him again. I am genuinely sorry for your loss."
"He died as the great man that he was," she added quietly. "There isn't a day I don't think about him and what he did for me. It's the one thing I've sworn to remember at all costs."
There was a pause. Both of them knew something in common.
"You're having trouble remembering too, eh?" Zangulus asked, the question itself revealing his side of the story
Lina closed her eyes so that she could envision the sky as it was before the apocalypse. It once shone a beautiful blue color, she knew, but she could no longer remember exactly how it looked. Opening her eyes and taking in the dark ruby glow of the apocalyptic night sky, she realized that the crimson skies, now 2 years old, had contaminated her memory of reality.
"Yes," she finally answered. "I can't remember the names of cities. I can't remember what the sky looked like. I can't remember what it was like to laugh at a really good joke. I can't remember what it was like to wake up in the morning and have something to look forward to."
"It's been two years since anyone on this Earth has lived a normal life," he said, the look in his eye bespeaking a torrent of mental images being recollected, "and it's only natural that we all eventually succumb to this, the worst of amnesia. When do we forget how to be human, if we can't even remember what it was like to live as one? I can't even remember how Delinde was before it was destroyed, nor can I remember what it was like growing up there. It's all gone. And nothing but a profound emptiness remains. By the time we die, we will have been completely drained of everything we once were."
With those words, the cause of Zangulus' self-imposed isolation became evident. "Your family was in Delinde, wasn't it?"
"Yes," he said, grating the word through his clenched teeth. "My mother was there. That's why I returned to Delinde. She was so happy to see me; it had been three years since I had been there last. I left with Delinde's soldiers the morning of the attack, and she made me promise her that I would return safe. I never saw her alive again."
"You kept your promise, didn't you?" she asked, genuinely feeling sorry for him.
It took him several seconds to reply. "Yes. I returned safely to her. I buried her in what remained of our garden. From then on, I was on my own."
"We all carry our scars, don't we," Lina said, more to herself. "That's why we thought we lost."
"I have lost, Lina," he sighed. "I not only lost my only family, but now I'm losing her memory. Without memory, we are nothing, for without memory, we have no past. What good are we without a past? That's why it is so important for you, Lina Inverse, to never let go of that memory you have of Gourry. Remind yourself of him everyday, even if it hurts you."
Lina smiled at him, a smile that mixed sorrow, warmth, and satisfaction in a single curvature. She had never imaged Zangulus to be so human after all; she had remembered him as little more than a madman with too much testosterone. Now, she was happy to have found him, for she was certain now, more than ever, that he would be a powerful ally for the coming fight.
"Maybe we have lost a past," she finally spoke, "but that doesn't mean we can't still have a future."
"Meaning what? We're all dead."
"As long as we're still breathing, and as long as we still know how to fight, we're a long way from death, Zangulus. I was as resigned as you are now just a few days ago, but I've realized that the only real defeat is the one we submit to ourselves."
"But haven't you seen how hopeless this war is? It was never even a war! Just a massacre."
"There is no worse fight than the one that isn't made."
"Rhetorical nonsense. You surprise me, Lina." He pointed a finger down at her shoulder armor lying next to her. "You were part of the Dragon Army, weren't you? That was our best hope of fighting the monsters, and it was wiped out in a matter of seconds. What can a single sorceress and a swordsman do that the Dragon Army couldn't?"
Lina looked at the faded insignia of the Dragon Army and instantly recollected the massacre, and the blunders, that had befallen it. "The problem with the Dragon Army was that sorcerers were never meant to be grouped together as a fighting force. The Magic Users' Association thought too conventionally, thinking that substituting sorcerers for soldiers would make a difference. But it never would have. I was opposed to the idea from the beginning, but panic got the better of them."
"And you have a better idea?"
"Anything would be a better idea than the Dragon Army. We need to fight the monsters in a way that doesn't put all of our eggs in one basket. We need to fight them in a way that will maximize our powers while not canceling them out."
"As enthusiastic as you are, you're being too optimistic in believing that even a sorceress with your skill can fight them alone."
"Who said I was fighting them alone?" she smirked. "I was actually searching for Zelgadis and Sylphiel when I ran into you. You remember them, don't you? The golem-chimera and the shrine maiden?"
Zangulus nodded. "I was wondering if you were thinking about them. Zelgadis will be a good ally, but that Sylphiel girl seemed to be too feeble a sorceress for this."
"She's come a long way since then."
"All the same, there's one more sorceress that will be of some help. I can't be sure, but I encountered her in the Sentry woods region. She could still be nearby."
"The Sentry woods? That would be on the way to the Oscuras, wouldn't it? Maybe a day off, but in the way nonetheless. Who is she?"
"I'm not sure of that. We fought briefly - I'm not sure why - and she seemed to handle herself quite well. I was almost compelled to think she was a relative of yours or something."
"Is the 'I'm not sure why' supposed to mean that you started the fight? No doubt you greeted her the way you did me?" Lina smiled. Zangulus grinned. Yep, that was it.
"But to go searching for someone we're not even sure of," she continued, "might take up too much time. I wasn't even aware that any magic-users other than Zelgadis and Sylphiel were still alive. What makes you think this mystery woman can help us?"
"Because I've led a warrior's life, and can tell a good warrior when I see one. When she faced me, she handled herself with the skill and ferocity of a tempered fighter. When I tried to use the Howling Sword's blast against her, she countered with a spell attack not unlike your fireballs. She disappeared after that, but I don't think it was because she was scared of me."
"Assuming she's still alive," Lina nodded, "she sounds like someone who could help. It might be worth the time to look for her."
"I still think the idea is suicidal, though. Even the four of you couldn't face the monsters."
"It's no less suicidal than just wandering around aimlessly looking for death, Zangulus."
"Which is why there will be five of us there."
Lina smiled again. She was liking him more and more by the minute. "I was going to ask you if you'd join me for the fight."
"And I've given you a preemptive answer, Lina Inverse. This fight will end badly, but I suppose you're right. Better to die in battle than to die in fear."
"I would give you my spiel on the pointlessness of that 'I'll fight even if I die' cliché," she said as she lay back down on her cape and yawned, "but I'm getting sleepy, and we've got a long way to go tomorrow."
She could hear him laughing lightly.
"Guess you haven't changed all that much after all," he said before lying back down himself.
For the first time in a long, long time, Lina almost felt like laughing herself.