The Feast before the Storm
Lina yawned and stretched as she woke up. She
blinked sleepily and disengaged herself from Xellos
gently. The spell of blood was still strong in the
room, at least to her it was, but there was also the
lingering scent of healing. Lina shrugged that puzzle
off. She didn't remember entering that state of forced
wakefulness and enhanced awareness, but she had
certainly dropped off fast enough after all the
festivities.
Lina stepped quickly over to the crib and peered
down at her children and was filled with a quiet sense
of wonder. Sylphiel had obviously cleaned them up and
they lay there looking clean and fresh. They even
smelled fresh, she realized as she filtered out the
rest of the room. She leaned over, resting on the edge
of the crib and sighed.
Xina's ears laid back in irritation, Xalan's ears
shortly followed suite. Lina cocked her head and heard
a faint grumbling, or rather two such sounds. Then
both children blinked awake and barely a second later
began wailing. Lina winced at the loud, piercing sound
and then reached down to pick them up.
Xellos snapped awake behind her and immediately
scanned about for the problem, relaxing as soon as he
noticed Lina carrying the twins with a gait that
demonstrated both half-panicked urgency and precise
caution. Having been around while Val Garv was just
infant he recognized the scene, of course dragons had
different needs than humans and the species related to
them, but that didn't change the similarity.
"Could you hold Xina for a moment," Lina asked,
handing over the wailing purple-haired child. Xellos
blinked and obliged while Lina sat down on the bed
with Xalan and the opened the front of her dress,
which had obviously
seen better days by now. "Okay, I can take her now."
"You were already awake?" he asked sitting next to
him and back against the head of the bed. Lina was
nervous, this wasn't her first time feeding them, she
had done that soon after they had given birth, but she
was still very very new at this.
"Yep," she answered. "I hope it didn't wake
everybody else up too."
Gourry and Zelgadis stood with swords drawn
scanning the area for about five full seconds before
they finally realized that it was just Lina's twins.
They breathed a sigh of relief and replaced their
swords.
"Looks like dawn is coming soon anyway," Zelgadis,
turning to face Gourry. The blonde swordsman had
already fallen asleep. The chimera face-faulted and
then rolled his eyes as he stood up again.
"Well I can get some practice out of the way then,"
he said, stretching as he walked outside with his
sword.
Amelia had woken up to the sound of Xina and Xalan
crying, as had Sylphiel, though the priestess had gone
right back to sleep upon identifying the source of the
sound. Amelia stretched, blinked and then watched the
odd image of a shambling Filia, eyes half-closed, open
the door to the room she was sharing with Val Garv and
start walking to the kitchen.
The princess followed her out of curiousity for a
little while, then pulled ahead of the zombie-like
dragon-maid and waved her hand back in front of
Filia's face.
"Filia?" the dragon-in-human-form showed no sign of
recognition for a moment. Then she blinked in
confusion.
"Huh, what?" she looked around, noticing that she
was no longer where she had fallen asleep. She blushed
slightly and looked confused. Then Lina's kids quieted
down. "Oh, Ra...Lina's twins."
"Are you okay?"
"Fine, I'll go back to bed now."
"Uhh, okay." Amelia shrugged and walked towards the
front room herself, noticing that Zelgadis was draped
on the couch or about the floor like Gourry, she
walked outside. She found him working a sword kata
behind the house, out of sight of the road.
Amelia sat down quietly and watched as the chimera
twirled his sword expertly. Mentally she edited out
the sword and imagined the interplay of stone flesh
and muscle under the baige travel clothes. The thought
sent a pleasant shiver over her flesh. Then one of his
manuevers turned him about to where he could see her
for a moment. He blinked, lost track of what he was
doing and landed hard on his back.
"Oh!" Amelia rushed over to check on the chimera,
and managed to get there as he was sitting up again
and rubbing his back. "Zelgadis, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, you just surprised me," he answered
back, embarrassed. Her initial concern over with, the
rather comedic image of Zelgadis twisting off his feet
and crashing to ground overwhelmed her. She burst into
semi-hysterical laughter leaning on Zelgadis's
shoulder as the laughter kept coming.
"I'm glad you think this is funny," he said
tightly, though when Amelia looked up she could see
him smiling as well. She found the idea Zelgadis even
hiding laughter nearly as funny as him landing on his
back, her laughter didn't calm down for several
minutes.
"Its almost here," Amelia said, quietly. Zelgadis
nodded, all of them had been adventuring long enough
to recognize the taste of approaching battle. They
gathered together closely and watched the rising sun.
Sylphiel's return to sleep had been partial and, as
the sound of laughter worked its way from outside,
short lived. Seeing that the sun was rising anyway she
got dressed and walked out into bulk of the house.
Filia certainly had a large house, though then again
she was a dragon, she'd want a large dwelling, even if
she spent most of her time in human form.
She found Gourry draped across the floor, sleeping
in his armor, drawn sword in his hand. He had probably
woken up when Lina's kids started crying, and then
fallen asleep again without putting his sword in the
sheath.
Sylphiel rolled her eyes, walked into the kitchen
and started cooking. She and Filia were going to
remain behind with the three children, but that didn't
mean she couldn't feel the coming battle, and cooking
would get her mind off of it. It would also probably
wake up Gourry.
In the last couple of days she found that the
kitchen was kept incredibly well stocked, though that
made perfect sense to the priestess. After all under
this roof lived two dragons and Lina Inverse. Of
course dragons could thrive without food for days,
even when they needed to eat they could just swallow
dirt or whatever else is at hand and be perfectly
happily. The point was dragons still preferred to eat
vast amounts of meat and such and Filia's stores
reflected that. And Lina Inverse of course had an
appetite to match any dragon.
Sylphiel tried to imagine what was like to feed a
pregnant Lina and shivered. It was a wonder that Filia
hadn't been bankrupted by the effort.
"You know, that smells good," Sylphiel smiled up as
Gourry entered into the kitchen and sat down at the
small table in the middle of the room. She put a large
bowl of some meaty substance in front of him. "What's
this?" he asked smelling the thick substance.
"Something I picked up recently, haven't tried it
yet." Sylphiel said.
Gourry spooned a bite into his mouth and decided it
tasted pretty good. He swallowed ten more heaping
spoonfuls before the after taste hit him. "The girl
who showed me the recipe called it April Fool's Chili.
I think her name was Discordia"
Gourry's eyes had shrunk to pin pricks and while he
was trying to talk, nothing was coming out but quiet
gasps. The swordsman stumbled outside to the water
pump and started vigourously pumping out water into
his mouth until the spice burn cooled down. Then he
walked back into the kitchen and sat down again still
fanning his mouth.
"It's supposed to be pretty hot, so I think you
should eat it fairly slowly," she checked her various
dishes a moment and decided she had some time to sit
for a little while. She bowled at a little of that
"chili" and moved to sit across from Gourry, noticed
his red sweat drenched face and glanced nervously at
her bowl of chili. "Gourry, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I was just very hot for some reason," he
asnwered. Then he looked at his bowl of chili and
looked back at her. "What's this stuff again?"
"Chili," Sylphiel said, rolling her eyes and using
the short version.
They both looked at their bowls, shrugged and
started eating. Again it took a while for the
aftertaste to hit, and then they were both rushing for
the water pump.
As both were desperately swallowing water, their
lips met. Both of them blinked in surprise, and
Sylphiel blushed madly. Then they both moved forward,
really kissing this time under the dwindling flow of
water.
"Oh," they heard a surprised gasp. Sylphiel, blush
returning in full force, to see Amelia in her night
clothes walking around the corner of the house with
Zelgadis-san. "We're sorry."
"Princess Amelia, I'm surprised," Sylphiel
responded. "It isn't lady-like to be walking around in
your night clothes." Amelia and Zelgadis arched an
eyebrow.
"And kissing under a water pump in full view of the
road is," Zelgadis asked.
"Uh, I have to go check the food," Sylphiel
responded, dodging the answer. She stood up and walked
into the house looking like a soaked, human tomato.
Amelia and Zelgadis turned their glances to Gourry.
"Excuse me," he said. "I have to go finish my...."
he grasped at the word, scratching his forehead.
"....chili." Then he went inside as well.
"We should probably be inside too," Zelgadis said,
not specifing the bed-dressed Amelia.
"I wonder what chili is," Amelia asked as she
walked inside.
"Hot! Hot! HOT!" they both turned and sweatdropped
to see Xellos working the water pump furiously. It was
only a moment later that Lina came rushing by, tail
swishing madly and ears extended in full alarm. The
were-fox kneeled next to her mate and greedily
swallowed as much water as she could.
"I'm guessing that everybody is waking up,"
Zelgadis said. "Shall we go have breakfast?" Filia ran
by carrying a gasping Val Garv, Zelgadis and Amelia
had to dodge her whipping tail.
"M..m.m.moovaahh," Filia managed to get out past
spice burned tongue.
Xellos and Lina, spice burn down to a managable
level got out of the way and settled for fanning their
mouths while Filia and Val Garv cooled their mouths.
"Let's eat slowly," Amelia suggested, finally they
managed to get inside and walked to the kitchen. They
sat down at the table and stared suspiciously at the
bowls of what looked like a meaty stew Sylphiel
quickly set in front of them. Looking up they saw
Sylphiel cooking and, most disconcerting of all,
Gourry taking very small bites of his bowl of chili.
"Uh? Do you want to go first?" Zelgadis asked.
"Not sure, how about you?" Amelia responded.
Zelgadis gulped and took a small bite.
"Hey, this isn't bad," he said, and spooned out a
larger bite.
"Really," Amelia asked. She took an experimental
taste.
"It doesn't hit you..." Sylphiel turned around to
see Amelia pause in her normal rate of eating at about
the same time Zelgadis dropped his spoon.
Then both were rushing outside. "...right away."
Sylphiel finished apologetically.
"What do you make this stuff out of, Sylphiel,"
Lina demanded as she and
Xellos came back in and sat warily in front of his
bowl of chili. The priestess took a glance at the
recipe on the counter, shoved it into concealment and
giggled nervously.
"Your highness," Philoniel turned to regard the
herald, an apprentice probably. "Lady R'Lyeh has been
found, she has sent messages that indicate her to be
about five days ride from here."
"This is excellent news," Philoniel declared. "The
cause of justice will always be victorious!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
"She's travelling here now with Master Reginald of
the temple of She with a Thousand Young," the shouted
last part of the message cut off his laughter.
"Any word on my daughter or the other slayers?"
Philoniel asked.
"Lady R'Lyeh sends word that your daughter is still
being held captive by her old companions and that she
alone escaped them."
"I see," he arched an eyebrow and looked to the
captain of his guards across the room. The soldier
nodded understandingly.
"She also wishes for the marriage to take place
immediately upon her arrival, so that you might," and
his voice took on a quality of dictation. "confront
these traitors of justice with all the force of your
love."
"Good, find the court herald and make
arrangements," he told the herald. The boy bowed and
left the room to run on his assignment. "We play their
game for now."
"Why not move against them?"
"There is no proof of wrong doing anywhere," he
answered. "Without proof it would be unjust to act."
"I understand, your highness" the man bowed. "It
remains in the slayers hands for now then?"
"For now," he agreed.
=====
"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
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