The Twins
Lina yawned and stretched, blinking herself awake.
She could feel Xellos behind her and wiggled back
against him, crooning quietly as the still sleeping
mazoku instinctively curled his arms around her
protectively. It was quiet out in the house, it
smelled to Lina like it was still fairly early
morning, most everybody was probably still asleep.
Somebody was awake, the last guard duty probably,
tapping a steady but quiet rhythm as they paced the
front room. Bored, Lina took the time to sort out the
various scents and pegged the watcher as Amelia. Right
now that essence of tense watchfulness was mostly
emanating from the justice-loving princess.
Lina hadn't fully forgotten that the slayers had
left her behind once, but she trusted them with her
life. They had reasons for what they did, reasons that
she could understand. That didn't change the fact that
they had left her behind when they thought she might
become a burden. She was anxious to get this buisness
finally over with, then she could find some spot with
good hunting and settle down to raising her children
with Xellos.
Lina gasped when the pain flashed by, and she felt
Xellos waking up.
"Lina-chan?"
She'd been having small pains off and on over the
past couple of months, once or twice in the very
recent past she thought that labor had started. This
felt different, definitely more painful. She realized
that this was it, even before she felt the wetness
between her legs.
"Its starting," she said.
"You're sure," Xellos asked.
"This time definitely."
"Why are we giving up now," Martina whined.
"Seriously Master Reginald, they said she was close
by. You haven't even thoroughly searched the area."
"It doesn't matter," the staid mazoku answered.
"They'll come to us, otherwise they are of no
concern."
"That is not what I wish, they've humiliated me!"
"Do you wish to conquer the world or not?" Martina
did not answer. "Because in one week's time you'll be
married to Prince Philoniel, and with that title you
can conquer the world."
"Hmmm, yes, I must keep a check on my priorities,"
Martina agreed. "The world it is then, and after that.
After that I shall finally pay back all them for their
treatment of me. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! But
why in a week? Could you not just pop us over there?"
"I could but that would arouse suspicion," Reginald
answered. "And the prince has been snooping around
enough already. Remember, he will not believe that his
daughter is anything but an innocent victim in all
this."
"Don't worry about that, I'll have Philly ready to
crack that freak stone-boy's flesh."
"That is just what we want." Reginald smiled at the
haughty princess, her hair dyed all black again.
Amelia winced as Lina cried out again, she almost
tripped and spilled the hot water Sylphiel kept asking
for. Fortunately she had become much less clumsy over
the years and pulled out of the stumble without losing
a drop.
"Here's the water," Amelia averted her eyes from
the sight before her, embarrassed. She caught a brief
glance at Xellos sitting behind Lina. The mazoku was
supporting her physically and emotionally, a look of
deep concern and concentration was fitted over his
face. The princess was suddenly certain that despite
Zelgadis's misgivings that the mazoku did love the
small were-fox whose claws were now drawing rivelets
of blood in his bare arms.
"Just set it down there," Sylphiel said. Of them
all Sylphiel proved to be the only one with any
experience in childbirth, though until now that had
been limited to aiding senior priestesses in the
process. "I'm going to need some more clean towels by
the time this is over, and tell them to keep the water
coming."
"Hai Sylphiel-san," Amelia said and hurried away.
Filia was keeping Val Garv out of the way, and with
the exception of Xellos, who refused to leave,
Sylphiel had forbidden the men entry. Besides they had
their own tasks to perform. The end result was that
Amelia was doing all the running.
Lina was handling the pain better than Sylphiel had
expected, much better. Maybe after it was over she'd
have to ask Lina about it. The priestess washed her
hands in the most recent batch of hot water and
quickly went back to the task at hand.
In the front room Amelia was collecting a pile of
clean cloths to carry back to Sylphiel. She nodded to
Gourry as she passed. The blonde swordsman was moving
between cleaning the used bowls that Amelia brought
back, keeping the fireplace blazing and filling the
clean bowls with hot water out of a large pot on the
fire. Amelia looked up at the ceiling, knowing that
Zelgadis was sitting on top of the house and watching
all the approaches to the house.
The chimera was worried, this was outside his
experiences and there was plenty to worry about.
Lina's kids were half-mazoku, and he had heard stories
about the difficulty of such births. There were
several logical falicies with this worry that he had
repeated to himself several time. This didn't help, he
might love Amelia, and Lina might not completely trust
him ever again, but she was still a friend.
"What's wrong with Rannaur-san?" Val had never
gotten into the habit of calling Lina by anything
other than the name she had been using when Xellos had
first brought her in the buggy.
"There's nothing wrong with her," Filia answered.
He had been paying a great deal of attention to that
part of the house the cries were coming from.
Actually, Filia was surprised that he had held off
asking anything until this point. "She's having a
baby."
"Will I ever have a baby?" he asked, he sounded
terrified of the possibility. Filia laughed.
"No, only females have babies, and besides that
you're a dragon," noticing his confused look she
clarified. "Dragon women, like me, lay eggs, much less
painful I gather."
"Mommy," he looked up at her, ignoring the sounds
of childbirth across the house.
"What is it Val?"
"Are you ever going to lay an egg?" Filia blushed
and almost lost control of her form.
"Well, I don't know about that," Filia said, she
hadn't expected that question.
"Why not?"
"Well....I'll explain it when you're older," she
said. Then added under her breath. "Or else Xellos
will."
The day was almost past when the first baby cried
out, it was another fifteen minutes before its cries
were joined by a second infant.
"You name her," Lina said to Xellos as she cradled
both babies as well as she could. Swaddled in some of
the cloth that Amelia had gathered up, there were two
babies with black furred fox's ears. Lina knew that
they both had tails as well, the girl with a thin
covering of purple fur, and the boy's with Lina's own
red coloring. Both were tipped with a little puff of
silver, and sprinkled with strands of the other's
coloring. The shock of hair on their heads was
similarly colored, and Lina knew that both would fill
out over time.
Lina looked up to see Xellos and her brow crinkled
a little. The blood and other scents were doing a lot
to overpower her senses, but when she tried she could
detect a touch of fear in the mazoku's scent.
"Anything wrong?"
"No," he said, too quickly. "Everything's fine, I
was just thinking about Regin, that's all." Amelia and
Gourry were sitting a little to the side, now that
Sylphiel had relaxed her command. The priestess was
somewhere getting rid of the used cloths and the
afterbirth, and probably cleaning herself up as well.
Zelgadis was still on guard and Filia was still
keeping Val away from the scene. Amelia and Gourry had
set up a crib that had held Val until he outgrew it.
"Well, we'll take care of him," she declared
confidantly, that explanation did make sense. "We
always do, now name her."
"Only if you name him," he responded playfully.
"Deal. Now stop wasting time."
"I'll name her," he thought for a moment. "Xina."
"That's familiar some how," Gourry looked up to the
ceiling and tapped his jaw in thought.
"I think its a cute name," Amelia said.
"Thank you for your support, your turn," Xellos
said to Lina, smiling.
"Well, this little one is," she thought about it
for moment. "Xalan. Is that too silly, naming them
both X's?"
"They're wonderful names," Sylphirl assured her as
she returned. "But now, all three of you need to get
some rest. So let's let them have some quiet now." And
with that, Sylphiel was back in command, gently
ushering everybody out of the room. She then
transferred the already sleeping twins, one at a time,
over to the crib. By the time she was done, Lina had
also curled into an exhausted slumber.
"Well?" Zelgadis asked as Amelia touched down on
the roof beside him. "How did it go?"
"She had twins, just like she said," Amelia
answered. "A girl Xina, and a boy, Xalan." Amelia
shivered.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Hmm, oh I'm fine," she said. "I was just thinking
about what it will be like when I have to go through
that."
"You'll do fine," Zelgadis assured her, they leaned
against each other and watched the setting sun.
"You've survived the slayers haven't you?"
"You're right, I could handle anything after that,"
she giggles kissed his stone lips, surprising him. "We
are engaged now."
"True," he agreed, and slipped his arm around her
shoulders.
"What's Xellos doing?" Amelia pointed out the
priest on the ground below them. As they watched he
vanished away.
"That's a good question," Zelgadis said. The odd
behaivor ruined the romantic mood for both of them,
and they settled for just watching the sun go down in
silence and close to each other.
"You called, Master?"
"Don't be smart, Xellos. You cut me off."
=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
Signed
He of Too Many Names (Thrythlind/Thryth/Luke/Hyperbole/Pika/Pooka)
http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints!
http://photos.yahoo.com