Unconditional
SEQULE WARNING!!!!
A young, eight-and-a-half-year-old Miracle-Hope Inverse sat under a tree. Her hip length hair held up like always with her mothers black headband. Over her right ear she wore a charm-gift. She had found the amulet-changed- cloak-clasp hanging in her room the day after she had met that one 'monster' guy.
She wore a blue shirt that matched her hair. The shirt was styled after what she had seen her mother ware, it was sleeved down to the elbows and had a white trim all the way around. She wore red pants and knee high black boots. She had archer's gloves on and a bow and quiver attached to her back. In her right hand she held a staff that could be made for walking. Attached to her left hip was a bag that she used for carrying things.
The tanned bag was an odd design. There was one rather thick strap that came over her right shoulder... that's what she sowed her quiver onto. And it had another thick strap that went around her waist. To that strap she attached her sword that her Aunt Luna had given her, the one that she had no real knowledge on how to use. The bag itself had a blanket in it, her money pouch, some herbs and potions, and a doll that her mother had made for her a long, long time ago.
She was camping just outside the town of her razing, she practiced with her three weapons for hours each day until she was good enough with them that she could get by. You see, not to long ago, Luna had been called out to go and fight someone named Grausherra. No one from either side had survived. Now Hope was just a nuisance to the people of the town. She had no one actually in charge of taking care of her, so everyone was trying to hand the duty onto someone else. She finally decided about a week before that she was going to leave this place as soon as she had gathered up enough strength and supplies.
She heard something up ahead, someone was coming. Hope drew her bow and an arrow, she charged the arrow up with magic, and nocked it, ready to shoot the intruder. To her surprise and delight, who walked through the bushes was the man that was old friends with her mother.
"Hey Mister! It's you!" The man blinked a time or two at the girl standing there with the bow, clearly 100% ready to shoot if that was what was needed.
"Please Hope, my name is Zelgadis... Zelgadis Greywers." Zel informed.
"Zelgadis... hmmm... yep, that sounds like a name." she announced as she returned her bow and arrow to her back.
"I'm glad you approve..." he said, almost bitterly.
"Really? Oh good!" Hope ran up and gave Zel a quick hug then turned back to the fire that she had been preparing.
"Aren't you worried, kid, that I'll attack you or something?" Zel asked skeptically.
"Nope! Your a friend of my mothers, I don't have to worry about you!" She smiled up at him from her place by the firewood.
Zel looked at her worriedly for a moment. "Had it ever crossed your mind that I may have lied?" he asked quietly.
She gave him the most innocent and naïve look he had ever seen in his life, "Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?" she asked. Clearly her mind didn't go there, she couldn't grasp the concept of someone doing something wrong when they say they are doing something good.
"Your getting ready for something, aren't you?" Zel asked as he sat on a fallen log.
"Yep! As soon as I am better with the sword I'm going to be heading out!" she announced proudly.
"You're going on a journey? At your age?" Zel was clearly worried over her safety and wellbeing.
"Well, no one here is looking after me since Auntie Luna died, so I'll die too if I stay here. I'm going out to find somewhere where I can be me and still be someone who grows and improves." she told her father flatly.
"This world wasn't made for children to be travelers! You will get attacked and hurt and possibly even killed if you go off on your own!" Zel was trying his hardest, and failing miserably, to keep the worry and concern out of his voice.
Hope smiled up at him from her place across the small encampment. She got up and ran over to him, clambering onto his lap she rested her arms around his neck and said to him, "See? I told you that you wouldn't lie! It's just not right!" she said with a nod.
"Where do you come up with this stuff, kid?" Zel asked after he had calmed down from the shock of the whole thing.
"What do you mean by that? This is just what makes sense, silly! It's what's right! Can't you tell that?" there was a bitter pain in her voice as she asked him the question.
"Well, yes, of course it's right, but aren't you ever concerned about someone lying to you?" Zel asked, no longer concerned about keeping the fear for the girl's safety out of his voice.
"No. You wouldn't." She told him, mater-of-factly.
"How can you be so sure?"
"You don't look like it." she said it so easily, said it so naturally, said it like if that was the most obvious assumption. It was unnerving how, in a split second, her eyes had become as old as time, then just as fast reverted to the young energetic youthful soul that was too new to the world to know better.
Zel could tell the little girl was saying the truth, he felt strong power around the girl, not all of it fully from her. Zel felt a tugging at his heart for the girl. "I'll tell you what, you can come and travel with me until you are ready to travel on your own, would you like that?"
"Hmmm... yep! By the way, when did your face change? It didn't use to look like that." Zel blushed slightly, but replied that he had noticed that he had become cured not long after they had met. As he sat there, it took little more than a moment or two and Hope was asleep in his arms.
[Poor little one... she must be so exhausted! I will let her sleep.] Zel whispered a small healing spell to get the aches and cramps out of the young Inverse' muscles.
***
It was bright and early, nearly at the crack of dawn. An exuberant little girl raced down the road, no fear of danger entering her young, quick-paced heart. Soft eyes watched from behind in an inward joy and love as they watched the little form excitedly run ahead.
Zel nearly called out to her, warn her not to ware herself out, for they had a long walk ahead of them, but he stopped himself. He would do no actions to dim the excitement nor the newness that the world seemed to hold for his young traveling companion. [She will learn...] he thought to himself as he continued on behind her, almost reliving with her the wonder that the world could bring to those who looked on to it with new and unknowing eyes.
The way that she seemed to anticipate what was around every bend, under every rock, hiding behind every tree. She would stop every few meters and wait for him to get so close, then run ahead again.
[When I was still a child,] Zel mused to himself, [I had hair that very hue, and her pale skin humph! both Lina and I shared that quality. Her face is her mothers', but her smile is mine, her energy definitely came from Lina, as do her blood-ruby eyes.]
"Zelgadis, how long till we get to the next town?"
"Maybe another hour or two."
"So far?" her nose crinkled in distaste. "But Zelgadis, we've been walking since sunrise!"
"It's only been three hours."
Hope stopped for a minute or two to count the time off on her fingers. "That will be four hours at least! Do you know that's over half a school day? School is only six hours long!"
Zelgadis found that he had stopped moving. That sounded so much like Lina, it nearly terrified him. Forcing his face into the calm mask that he had warn most of his life. He looked over his shoulder and saw a little Lina staring back at him, looking therowly exasperated.
As he stared at her in shock, a thought drifted into his head. He was pushing her. He was traveling like she was an experienced traveler. Or even worse, like he was alone! He had always moved faster and longer and harder than the others could keep up with, even the ever-energetic Lina, and now he was doing the same thing to his daughter who had joined him on her first ever adventure. "Are you saying your tired?" the question was woven with worry.
Hope pondered the subject for a moment. She was indeed Lina's child. Finally, after much trouble in trying to figure out the answer as if she was being quizzed in a test, she replied with "No." and then as if it were an afterthought, "Not unless you are."
The last statement was quiet, like she didn't know how good his hearing was, like she was trying to keep all hush-hush about the fact she was starting to have trouble keeping up. Zel smiled knowingly at her, she was like him right their, never letting anyone see how week you could be. Or was that also like Lina? "Well, lets stop here and make a bit of breakfast, if that's ok with you..."
Ruby eyes that were not only her own lit up a little and she forced her pace to catch up to him as he wandered off of the road and into a bit of a sheltered area under the branches of the tall spruce and holly trees that surrounded it.
His purse was rather pleased when he found that she had inherited his appetite. He couldn't be asking her to pay for her own stuff like he had done with Lina, she was just too young, but he had doubted how long he could go supporting someone with an appetite like that the young lady who had once stole his heart had.
After they finished their small meal and rested their limbs a bit, they began walking again. This time Hope made an effort to keep in time with him for a while. But as the time drew on, and a good fifteen minutes passed without a single word, she furrowed her brow at him, pouting and putting her hands on her hips.
He glanced at her at her sudden change in stance and attitude, but decided against asking her what was wrong now, working hard not to laugh at her comical expression, but he couldn't help but smile. When she realized that he was fully aware of her impatience for his attention and he was just playing with her by not giving it, she gave a mock scowl, and said, "You don't talk too much, do you Zelgadis?"
As if noticing the belonged silence for the first time, he blushed slightly. "I'm sorry, I suppose I've been traveling alone for so long, that I forgot what silence usually sounds like." He told her.
"But. if you're traveling with no one, then don't you know what silence sounds like all the time?" she asked, not sure she understood his answer.
He smiled kindly. "When alone, you hear things, things that you wouldn't hear when in groups. It makes up for the nothing-sound and is far from silence. Sound is everywhere around us all the time, but you just have to know what to listen for." he told her.
She blinked, trying to figure out if she understood what he had just said. Then, getting determined to see if she could be as travel-worthy as he seemed to be, she shut her eyes tight, and focused all her senesces on the sounds. Fist there was nothing. Then, she heard the song of a bird in a near by tree. Then the reply of another bird, and even more birds farther on. Then the wind through the leaves and tree branches, their shuffled footsteps, the water of a near by stream. Then it went on, to the sound of their breathing, the sound of her heart, of the squirrels, and dear, and the other forest beasts.
Hope's eyes became alit with a fire of excitement as she opened her ruby orbs to her unknown-father. "I hear it! All over the place! All around us! The wind, the animals, the water! The forest. it's so alive!"
He couldn't help but smile. She was fast. It had taken Lina a week to figure out that riddle. This girl was no laughing mater, no matter how she may look at first sight. That much, she had in common with her mother. The childish façade was only skin deep.
***
"Here we are. Lainalten. Not the best of anything, just average in everything." Zelgadis announced.
Hope looked around at the town, half awed, half disappointed. "It looks like Karthwasten Hall." Hope told him. Then went on, "are all towns like this?"
"Wha? No, no. Most are very similar, but each has it's best qualities and personality. And being that we're in Skyrin right now, the towns and cities are all rather similar. But in other countries, other climates, the towns change rather drastically." Zelgadis explained to the young girl that walked at his hip.
"So, where are we going right now?" Hope asked, noticing that Zelgadis seemed to know exactly where he was heading.
"Well, I had to bring a sword of mine to be repaired, so while I was to be waiting, I decided that I may as well go see what you were up to, but now I have to go get my sword back again. Then we'll check out all the weapon and armory shops in the town, to see what sorts of armor and weapons they have for you. Then we'll go and visit the Mage's Guild to get some more potions and see if they have any marks or torcs or something of the like to give you an advantage. Then we'll need to check around at the Inns and taverns to see what sort of work there is in this town, so that we can pay for any magic supplies we need, and still have enough money. Finally, we'll get a room in a nice tavern and get a nice hot meal and then go to bed for the night."
"That's a lot of stuff!" Hope stated, crossing her eyes.
"Well, if it makes you feel better, tomorrow, after we do even MORE job hunting, I'll give you a good hour of sword training practice. Then we'll check around for any possible quest leads and then if we can't find any, we'll go on to the next town and do it all over again." Zelgadis told the eight-and-a-half-year-old with a smile.
So, first chapter of the sequel. What do you people think? Do you like the way I've got him living now? He's been "Cured" if you will, but there's a trick to it. You'll find out about it in a later chapter, I don't know which yet, but if you can guess what I'm thinking of, or give me a good enough alter-idea, I'll give you the preview to the next chapter. How do you like Hope? What do you think that "Power that isn't quite hers" is? If you can guess (or at least come close) to that one, I'll give you the preview to another AU story that I've kinda got stuck on. It's more D&D then even this one'll be, and I didn't even kill the main character. yet. really, when it's me writing it solo, that is SUCH an accomplishment! But anyway, I'm trying to make this story a little less supreme-being then the Anime was, and expect Zel to at least once in a battle convert back to the berserker that he was made to be originally. Well, I'm running out of things to say right now, so Shade and Sweet Water from the Wonderful World of ElfQuest and the bizarre mind of WolfStar_SCA. EQ RULES!
A young, eight-and-a-half-year-old Miracle-Hope Inverse sat under a tree. Her hip length hair held up like always with her mothers black headband. Over her right ear she wore a charm-gift. She had found the amulet-changed- cloak-clasp hanging in her room the day after she had met that one 'monster' guy.
She wore a blue shirt that matched her hair. The shirt was styled after what she had seen her mother ware, it was sleeved down to the elbows and had a white trim all the way around. She wore red pants and knee high black boots. She had archer's gloves on and a bow and quiver attached to her back. In her right hand she held a staff that could be made for walking. Attached to her left hip was a bag that she used for carrying things.
The tanned bag was an odd design. There was one rather thick strap that came over her right shoulder... that's what she sowed her quiver onto. And it had another thick strap that went around her waist. To that strap she attached her sword that her Aunt Luna had given her, the one that she had no real knowledge on how to use. The bag itself had a blanket in it, her money pouch, some herbs and potions, and a doll that her mother had made for her a long, long time ago.
She was camping just outside the town of her razing, she practiced with her three weapons for hours each day until she was good enough with them that she could get by. You see, not to long ago, Luna had been called out to go and fight someone named Grausherra. No one from either side had survived. Now Hope was just a nuisance to the people of the town. She had no one actually in charge of taking care of her, so everyone was trying to hand the duty onto someone else. She finally decided about a week before that she was going to leave this place as soon as she had gathered up enough strength and supplies.
She heard something up ahead, someone was coming. Hope drew her bow and an arrow, she charged the arrow up with magic, and nocked it, ready to shoot the intruder. To her surprise and delight, who walked through the bushes was the man that was old friends with her mother.
"Hey Mister! It's you!" The man blinked a time or two at the girl standing there with the bow, clearly 100% ready to shoot if that was what was needed.
"Please Hope, my name is Zelgadis... Zelgadis Greywers." Zel informed.
"Zelgadis... hmmm... yep, that sounds like a name." she announced as she returned her bow and arrow to her back.
"I'm glad you approve..." he said, almost bitterly.
"Really? Oh good!" Hope ran up and gave Zel a quick hug then turned back to the fire that she had been preparing.
"Aren't you worried, kid, that I'll attack you or something?" Zel asked skeptically.
"Nope! Your a friend of my mothers, I don't have to worry about you!" She smiled up at him from her place by the firewood.
Zel looked at her worriedly for a moment. "Had it ever crossed your mind that I may have lied?" he asked quietly.
She gave him the most innocent and naïve look he had ever seen in his life, "Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?" she asked. Clearly her mind didn't go there, she couldn't grasp the concept of someone doing something wrong when they say they are doing something good.
"Your getting ready for something, aren't you?" Zel asked as he sat on a fallen log.
"Yep! As soon as I am better with the sword I'm going to be heading out!" she announced proudly.
"You're going on a journey? At your age?" Zel was clearly worried over her safety and wellbeing.
"Well, no one here is looking after me since Auntie Luna died, so I'll die too if I stay here. I'm going out to find somewhere where I can be me and still be someone who grows and improves." she told her father flatly.
"This world wasn't made for children to be travelers! You will get attacked and hurt and possibly even killed if you go off on your own!" Zel was trying his hardest, and failing miserably, to keep the worry and concern out of his voice.
Hope smiled up at him from her place across the small encampment. She got up and ran over to him, clambering onto his lap she rested her arms around his neck and said to him, "See? I told you that you wouldn't lie! It's just not right!" she said with a nod.
"Where do you come up with this stuff, kid?" Zel asked after he had calmed down from the shock of the whole thing.
"What do you mean by that? This is just what makes sense, silly! It's what's right! Can't you tell that?" there was a bitter pain in her voice as she asked him the question.
"Well, yes, of course it's right, but aren't you ever concerned about someone lying to you?" Zel asked, no longer concerned about keeping the fear for the girl's safety out of his voice.
"No. You wouldn't." She told him, mater-of-factly.
"How can you be so sure?"
"You don't look like it." she said it so easily, said it so naturally, said it like if that was the most obvious assumption. It was unnerving how, in a split second, her eyes had become as old as time, then just as fast reverted to the young energetic youthful soul that was too new to the world to know better.
Zel could tell the little girl was saying the truth, he felt strong power around the girl, not all of it fully from her. Zel felt a tugging at his heart for the girl. "I'll tell you what, you can come and travel with me until you are ready to travel on your own, would you like that?"
"Hmmm... yep! By the way, when did your face change? It didn't use to look like that." Zel blushed slightly, but replied that he had noticed that he had become cured not long after they had met. As he sat there, it took little more than a moment or two and Hope was asleep in his arms.
[Poor little one... she must be so exhausted! I will let her sleep.] Zel whispered a small healing spell to get the aches and cramps out of the young Inverse' muscles.
***
It was bright and early, nearly at the crack of dawn. An exuberant little girl raced down the road, no fear of danger entering her young, quick-paced heart. Soft eyes watched from behind in an inward joy and love as they watched the little form excitedly run ahead.
Zel nearly called out to her, warn her not to ware herself out, for they had a long walk ahead of them, but he stopped himself. He would do no actions to dim the excitement nor the newness that the world seemed to hold for his young traveling companion. [She will learn...] he thought to himself as he continued on behind her, almost reliving with her the wonder that the world could bring to those who looked on to it with new and unknowing eyes.
The way that she seemed to anticipate what was around every bend, under every rock, hiding behind every tree. She would stop every few meters and wait for him to get so close, then run ahead again.
[When I was still a child,] Zel mused to himself, [I had hair that very hue, and her pale skin humph! both Lina and I shared that quality. Her face is her mothers', but her smile is mine, her energy definitely came from Lina, as do her blood-ruby eyes.]
"Zelgadis, how long till we get to the next town?"
"Maybe another hour or two."
"So far?" her nose crinkled in distaste. "But Zelgadis, we've been walking since sunrise!"
"It's only been three hours."
Hope stopped for a minute or two to count the time off on her fingers. "That will be four hours at least! Do you know that's over half a school day? School is only six hours long!"
Zelgadis found that he had stopped moving. That sounded so much like Lina, it nearly terrified him. Forcing his face into the calm mask that he had warn most of his life. He looked over his shoulder and saw a little Lina staring back at him, looking therowly exasperated.
As he stared at her in shock, a thought drifted into his head. He was pushing her. He was traveling like she was an experienced traveler. Or even worse, like he was alone! He had always moved faster and longer and harder than the others could keep up with, even the ever-energetic Lina, and now he was doing the same thing to his daughter who had joined him on her first ever adventure. "Are you saying your tired?" the question was woven with worry.
Hope pondered the subject for a moment. She was indeed Lina's child. Finally, after much trouble in trying to figure out the answer as if she was being quizzed in a test, she replied with "No." and then as if it were an afterthought, "Not unless you are."
The last statement was quiet, like she didn't know how good his hearing was, like she was trying to keep all hush-hush about the fact she was starting to have trouble keeping up. Zel smiled knowingly at her, she was like him right their, never letting anyone see how week you could be. Or was that also like Lina? "Well, lets stop here and make a bit of breakfast, if that's ok with you..."
Ruby eyes that were not only her own lit up a little and she forced her pace to catch up to him as he wandered off of the road and into a bit of a sheltered area under the branches of the tall spruce and holly trees that surrounded it.
His purse was rather pleased when he found that she had inherited his appetite. He couldn't be asking her to pay for her own stuff like he had done with Lina, she was just too young, but he had doubted how long he could go supporting someone with an appetite like that the young lady who had once stole his heart had.
After they finished their small meal and rested their limbs a bit, they began walking again. This time Hope made an effort to keep in time with him for a while. But as the time drew on, and a good fifteen minutes passed without a single word, she furrowed her brow at him, pouting and putting her hands on her hips.
He glanced at her at her sudden change in stance and attitude, but decided against asking her what was wrong now, working hard not to laugh at her comical expression, but he couldn't help but smile. When she realized that he was fully aware of her impatience for his attention and he was just playing with her by not giving it, she gave a mock scowl, and said, "You don't talk too much, do you Zelgadis?"
As if noticing the belonged silence for the first time, he blushed slightly. "I'm sorry, I suppose I've been traveling alone for so long, that I forgot what silence usually sounds like." He told her.
"But. if you're traveling with no one, then don't you know what silence sounds like all the time?" she asked, not sure she understood his answer.
He smiled kindly. "When alone, you hear things, things that you wouldn't hear when in groups. It makes up for the nothing-sound and is far from silence. Sound is everywhere around us all the time, but you just have to know what to listen for." he told her.
She blinked, trying to figure out if she understood what he had just said. Then, getting determined to see if she could be as travel-worthy as he seemed to be, she shut her eyes tight, and focused all her senesces on the sounds. Fist there was nothing. Then, she heard the song of a bird in a near by tree. Then the reply of another bird, and even more birds farther on. Then the wind through the leaves and tree branches, their shuffled footsteps, the water of a near by stream. Then it went on, to the sound of their breathing, the sound of her heart, of the squirrels, and dear, and the other forest beasts.
Hope's eyes became alit with a fire of excitement as she opened her ruby orbs to her unknown-father. "I hear it! All over the place! All around us! The wind, the animals, the water! The forest. it's so alive!"
He couldn't help but smile. She was fast. It had taken Lina a week to figure out that riddle. This girl was no laughing mater, no matter how she may look at first sight. That much, she had in common with her mother. The childish façade was only skin deep.
***
"Here we are. Lainalten. Not the best of anything, just average in everything." Zelgadis announced.
Hope looked around at the town, half awed, half disappointed. "It looks like Karthwasten Hall." Hope told him. Then went on, "are all towns like this?"
"Wha? No, no. Most are very similar, but each has it's best qualities and personality. And being that we're in Skyrin right now, the towns and cities are all rather similar. But in other countries, other climates, the towns change rather drastically." Zelgadis explained to the young girl that walked at his hip.
"So, where are we going right now?" Hope asked, noticing that Zelgadis seemed to know exactly where he was heading.
"Well, I had to bring a sword of mine to be repaired, so while I was to be waiting, I decided that I may as well go see what you were up to, but now I have to go get my sword back again. Then we'll check out all the weapon and armory shops in the town, to see what sorts of armor and weapons they have for you. Then we'll go and visit the Mage's Guild to get some more potions and see if they have any marks or torcs or something of the like to give you an advantage. Then we'll need to check around at the Inns and taverns to see what sort of work there is in this town, so that we can pay for any magic supplies we need, and still have enough money. Finally, we'll get a room in a nice tavern and get a nice hot meal and then go to bed for the night."
"That's a lot of stuff!" Hope stated, crossing her eyes.
"Well, if it makes you feel better, tomorrow, after we do even MORE job hunting, I'll give you a good hour of sword training practice. Then we'll check around for any possible quest leads and then if we can't find any, we'll go on to the next town and do it all over again." Zelgadis told the eight-and-a-half-year-old with a smile.
So, first chapter of the sequel. What do you people think? Do you like the way I've got him living now? He's been "Cured" if you will, but there's a trick to it. You'll find out about it in a later chapter, I don't know which yet, but if you can guess what I'm thinking of, or give me a good enough alter-idea, I'll give you the preview to the next chapter. How do you like Hope? What do you think that "Power that isn't quite hers" is? If you can guess (or at least come close) to that one, I'll give you the preview to another AU story that I've kinda got stuck on. It's more D&D then even this one'll be, and I didn't even kill the main character. yet. really, when it's me writing it solo, that is SUCH an accomplishment! But anyway, I'm trying to make this story a little less supreme-being then the Anime was, and expect Zel to at least once in a battle convert back to the berserker that he was made to be originally. Well, I'm running out of things to say right now, so Shade and Sweet Water from the Wonderful World of ElfQuest and the bizarre mind of WolfStar_SCA. EQ RULES!