A/N: The other day I spent an afternoon watching half the Slayers OVAs and most of the movies. And then I wrote this. I had originally intended to do a Five Things challenge, but it didn't work out that way. Might still do that later on, though... This also wasn't supposed to be dark, but it didn't work out that way either. You've been warned.

Warnings: Character death, violence and sexuality, some OOC-ness. Pairings are Lina/Gourry, Lina/Zelgadis, Lina/Amelia, Lina/Naga, Lina/Xellos, Lina/Filia with a lot of Xellos thrown in, and one surprise. ;)

Disclaimer: Slayers ain't mine, etc. etc. The quote in the second story is from Nicholas Rowe's play Lady Jane Grey.

But For the Grace of God
by Pandora

1. Fame

Lina's footsteps echoed hollowly through the shadowy entrance hall. Her posture was casual, the set of her features serene, but her hands were clasped just a little too tightly behind her back and the air was thick with an almost tangible simmer of anticipation. It had taken her years, but she was finally there. Wolfpack Island. After all the planning, all the research, all the blood and the violence and the senseless deaths, she had breached the domain of her last and greatest foe, and she was finally going to force the Beastmaster to own up to her actions.

The Mazoku Lords had been operating largely unimpeded for over a thousand years, so it was no surprise that they had forgotten to be cautious about butting in where they didn't belong. Since the dragons had been hunted nearly to extinction their greatest threats had been each other, and it had been a great shock to the entire race when Lina had defeated the Hellmaster. She had almost expected them to seek revenge for the incident, but arrogant as they might be, they weren't completely stupid. All but the most foolish and ill-informed mazoku had stayed out of her path after that, content to wait for mortality to take its toll on her. All but Xellos Metallium, that is. Lina had never known if Xellos' actions had been approved by the Beastmaster or if she simply didn't care, but she should have known better than to let it happen.

The dying screams of Lina's companions still echoed in her memory, urging her on. The road to this moment had been very bloody, and she'd lost every one of them along the way. At least she could take satisfaction in knowing that they had died with her name on their lips, loyal to the end and willingly sacrificing themselves so she could get to this moment. Just this one last battle, and it would all be worth it, all her plans come to fruition. Even if she couldn't take Zelas out without sacrificing herself, at least she'd die knowing that she'd shown the Mazoku Lords why it wasn't wise to fuck with Lina Inverse. That was all that really mattered now.

The shadows deepened as she reached her destination, but Lina felt right at home. Ancient tapestries decorated the walls with scenes of unspeakable violence and torture, but after what Lina had been through she didn't so much as wonder at their value. Her footsteps echoed in the stone silence, and though the oversized doors ahead were elaborately carved and designed to intimidate they caused not a tremor of trepidation to cross her expression. Quite to the contrary, as she drew near her lips curved into a grim smile, while an almost unholy edge of anticipation lit up her eyes and drew out their vibrant hue, as red as blood; her pale skin seemed almost luminescent in the darkness; and her long bright hair swayed gently with her stride. Her clothing, both more revealing and more intimidating than the styles she had favoured so long ago, brought the whole 'evil sorceress' look together with liberal usage of black and red. People had feared her throughout nearly her entire life, and now she finally looked the part. Now she was willing to give people a real reason to fear her, human and mazoku alike. Everyone knew her name these days, but only the most foolish treated her with anything but respect. She might have been horrorified to know she'd become this, once, but Lina had long ago ceased to care. This was who she was now. This was all she had left.

The next time she left this place, however, she might have a little more.

The doors swung open slowly but soundlessly. Lina let her hands fall to her sides and stepped inside with a smirk. Zelas sat alone on a raised dais in the center of the vast room, and examined her with the cold intelligence of a wolf.

"Welcome, Lina Inverse," she said coolly, golden eyes meeting red in a gaze that made the air crack. "I've been awaiting your arrival."

"You know why I'm here then," said Lina, smile widening fractionally. "To finish it."

"Are you sure that's what you really want to do?" questioned Zelas, looking almost sad. "There's still time to stop this madness, you know. Once you kill me the power of this world will be thrown out of balance, and the consequences could be disastrous. While it has always been the dream of the mazoku to see the world destroyed, it won't be nearly as much fun if most of us aren't around to see it. And besides ... in truth, I've always enjoyed the pleasures this world had to offer. So did you, once."

"That was a long time ago," Lina said quietly. "Don't get me wrong, Zelas; despite everything, I do feel some affection for you. Although it was only to suit your own purposes, by having your Priest keep an eye on me you saved my life more than once. You seem the most intelligent of the Lords I've faced, and you're by far the least annoying. That's why I saved you for last, and gave you time to build up your defenses and strike against me if you so chose. But in the end you just weren't strong enough without Xellos, were you? You destroyed my minions and dismantled a few of my plans, but without him you couldn't even get close to your real target. And so it's come to this. But after all, you'd have done the same if you were capable, wouldn't you? You talk about balance and the fate of this world, but given the opportunity you wouldn't be able to resist your true nature any more than I can, would you?"

The ice of Xellas' countenance thawed a bit as she smiled wryly in acknowledgment. "He loved you, you know."

"I know," Lina replied, expression softening into something almost wistful. "But he should have known better than to turn me into a mazoku without putting a reliable check on me. His ability to think like a human was one of his greatest assets, but in the end it tainted him, made him foolish. That was your greatest mistake, Beastmaster, and that's why you're going to die now." The smirk came back full force with a wildly vicious edge, and black energy crackling with gold filled the room as she raised her hand for the final strike.

2. Fortune

Lina had always wanted to marry into royalty, but she'd never pictured anything like this.

The castle's library was impressive, and contained many valuable first editions as well as numerous rare magical texts that could be found nowhere else. The rooms were lavishly decorated, the beds feather soft. The food was amazing. Lina's every need was attended to, her every whim granted. But for the first time in her life, that wasn't enough. Her mind kept wandering during her studies, her surroundings had long ago ceased to impress her, and the best efforts of the castle's many master chefs tasted bland and unappealing. People had been asking Lina if she were feeling ill, but she had been brushing off their concerns by claiming that she simply hadn't been sleeping well lately. It was true, but she knew that that wasn't the real problem. Lina was well aware of the source of her affliction, and it wasn't anyone's business but her own.

Falling in love with Amelia had been slow and sweet, a compilation of shared smiles, unacknowledged blushes and chance encounters. Every time one helped the other out of a bind, every time Amelia stumbled and fell into her arms, every time Lina felt down and Amelia just happened to be the only one who could cheer her up, her feelings grew a little more. They grew when she was poisoned and the others were cut off by a nasty bandit gang seclustered in the surrounding hills, Amelia the only one left to care for her. They grew when the princess awkwardly, blushingly admitted her feelings for the first time, and they grew when Lina finally admitted to herself what the building warmth in her breast had meant and silenced her friend with a kiss. They grew every night when she snuck into Amelia's room down the hall, and her lover welcomed her with a gentle kiss and cheeks flushed with anticipation.

Unfortunately, Lina had discovered that being in love wasn't nearly as sweet as falling in it. Prince Phil wasn't getting any younger, and lately he'd been giving rather unsubtle hints that he hoped to see his daughter choose a suitor soon. Amelia had been very hesitant to tell anyone about their affair, and Lina understood - to a point. Prince Phil would not be happy to learn that his little girl had chosen a mate who was not only a notorious bandit hunter but was incapable of giving her any heirs. Their friends, however ... they would have understood. Well okay, Gourry may not have understood per say, but he would have accepted it. Amelia had begged her not to say anything, however, and Lina had respected her wishes.

Lina absently ate a bite of the entirely too bland stuffed pheasant, and gazed across the hall to where Zelgadis sat next to Amelia at the head table. Zel looked up from his meal to say something to the princess with a wry expression, and her face lit up as she laughed. The Prince had been pushing those two together lately, probably figuring that as Amelia's only close male friend (who wasn't dumb as a post) he was the best candidate for potential son-in-law. Lina knew that it wasn't like that between her friends but she couldn't but feel jealous, watching them laugh together at the front of the hall while she was stuck at a tiny table in the back with Gourry. Maybe Prince Phil sensed that there was something funny about her relationship with his daughter and was trying to separate them. Maybe he just didn't like her table manners. In either case, she really had to do something to get her mind off of these things.

Of course, Lina thought as she slipped into Amelia's bed chambers later that night, it might help if she tried a solution that wasn't also the source of the problem. Amelia greeted her as sweetly, as coyly, as lovingly as ever, however, and for the next few hours the various worries and insecurities that had been plaguing her went out for lunch while she reminded herself of why her inner turmoil was, in fact, entirely worth it. What Lina would not subject herself to for fame or fortune she would do for love, and gladly.

Afterwards they lay side by side on the bed, Amelia resting comfortably against Lina's shoulder, basking in the afterglow. It was times like these that Lina treasured most about their relationship and she wished more than anything that it didn't have to end, but when the sky started lightening she knew that it was time to go. She extracted herself from her dozing lover with a sigh and started pulling on her nightclothes.

"Wait," Amelia said sleepily as Lina started to go, "there's something I need to talk to you about."

Lina stopped and sat back down on the bed, tilting her head curiously. "What's up?"

"Lina, you know that I love you more than anything, right?" she asked tentatively.

"Uh-huh," said Lina with a 'get on with it' motion, the night masking the slight glow of her cheeks.

"And I wish that we could tell everyone about us, that we could be together forever. I want that more than anything, Lina. But..." she bit her lip, looking distressed. "Daddy expects me to marry soon and start ... well, securing the lineage of our family by having heirs of my own. Everyone does, Lina. It's my duty as the future ruler of Seyruun."

Lina looked down at the floor with a sinking feeling in her breast. The stones were icy cold under her feet, chilling her from head to toe now that she'd vacated the warm blankets. "And?"

"I'm so sorry, Lina..." Amelia said tearfully, "but ... Zelgadis-san asked me to marry him this evening, and I said yes."

A jolt shot down Lina's spine even as she sat there still as marble, and she felt almost like she was falling, or sinking in an ocean of cold water.

"I don't feel about him like I do you, but I love him as a friend, and I know that he'll be a good king one day. As for children and his condition, well ... we have the best healing mages in the world here, and if anyone can sort that out it's them. And it's what everyone expects me to do, and he loves me, and..." Amelia stopped, realizing she had started babbling. "Well? Say something, Lina!"

"So that's it?" she asked emotionlessly. "You're going to marry him, and I ... what? Pretend all this never happened?"

"No," cried Amelia, "I would never want that, never! You ... you're the best thing that ever happened to me, Lina. I couldn't bear it if we had to part. I just ... can't be with you, not openly. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be with you at all! We ... we can just keep on doing like we have been. It's not perfect, I know, but at least it's something."

Lina finally looked back at her lover, who was weeping openly, crystal tears falling down her cheeks nearly as jarring as the torn expression on her face. But Lina said, "and what about Zel? You're just going to sleep with me behind his back for the rest of your life?"

The broken thing in Amelia's eyes seemed to fracture a little further. "I ... Lina, I..." she looked down as if she could no longer bear the sight of Lina's face and completely broke down, sobbing miserably, looking wretched and ashamed and as if she badly needed a hug. There was something equally damaged crying out within Lina, however, and she ignored the impulse and stood to go.

"I have to think about this," she said quietly and left the room, ignoring Amelia's hoarse call of her name.

The next day Lina had dark circles under her eyes and avoided human interaction like the plague, even having her breakfast sent to her room rather than eating in the main hall like usual. She stayed in bed all morning and slipped down to the Hall of Portaits in the afternoon, where nobody ever went. On display there were paintings of everyone who had ever ruled over Seyruun or been born into the royal family.

Lina walked down the hall slowly, examining each long dead man and woman, until she reached the portrait of Amelia's long lost sister, Gracia, firmly ignoring the one to the right depicting the person she least wanted to see at the moment. Gracia had disappeared several years ago, and was the spitting image of Naga. Lina had wondered if it were possible that the two were in fact one and the same, but in the end she'd preferred to think that it was just a weird coincidence than that Naga might be a princess.

If Naga had been a princess, however, she would never have been content to mindlessly go along with whatever was expected of her. Naga had never done anything that she didn't want to do, not even when restraining herself would have been the safer and saner thing to do. If it had been Naga Lina had fallen for, Naga who was being urged to marry and provide heirs, Naga who claimed that she loved Lina above life itself, there would have been no agonizing over whether to choose love or duty. Naga would have laughed superiorly, remarked on how sad it was that her own people were so close-minded, and declared that she loved who she loved and there was nothing to dispute. And if they couldn't accept that, she'd have simply left and gone adventuring with her former partner once more, leaving her unfortunate father to find a more suitable heir. That's just how Naga was.

Lina couldn't imagine the sorceress ever submitting to her position, either. Naga would never have allowed her lover to put her in second place. Lina could almost see the expression on Naga's face if presented with the compromise that Amelia had suggested the night before, the raw distain and incredulity. Being smugly superior was what Naga did best, after all, better than anyone, and that ability to make someone feel lower than an insect with a mere glance was something that Lina envied now. Naga would have looked at Amelia like that, laughed to show how utterly ridiculous she found the very thought, and followed it up with some cutting remark that managed to convey both her shock and her pity. And then she'd have left. Maybe she'd even have informed Amelia's father about the affair on her way out, just to keep things honest, and helped herself to a few of the kingdom's riches, just because she could. No regret, no remorse, no confused, twisted feelings. Just a somewhat unfortunate end to a briefly entertaining relationship.

It was strange, Lina mused, gazing into the eyes of the lost princess, but now it seemed that Naga had had the right of it all along. In a way stupid, selfish, arrogant Naga had been smarter than anyone Lina knew. She hadn't truly trusted or relied on anyone but herself, and she had kept herself largely untethered by both morality and responsibility. Her trust in herself, however, had been absolute, and maybe that was why she had always seemed so carefree. No matter what was thrown at her Naga was always back up in a second, laughing as though amused by the world itself for thinking that anything a lowly planet could do could possibly touch her. Ultimately, Naga was all that Naga really needed or cared about. Oh, she had saved Lina's life more than once, and had always had her back when the chips were down, but Lina had no illusions: Naga'd have sold her down the river in a second for the right price, and occasionally had. Lina had done the same herself a few times.

That's right, Lina hadn't cared about much besides herself either, once. Had she really changed that much over the past few years? Had she really become the kind of person who might consider spending her life as some kind of ... mistress, sleeping with a married woman behind the back of a friend? Had she really sunk that low, lost that much of her pride? Was her self esteem really so broken that she envied Naga, of all people? The very thought was like a splash of cold water across her face. Yes, she thought with disgust, that was who she had become. Someone who envied Naga. She could almost understand, suddenly, why so many people they'd met along their travels had come to so admire her companion, even seeking to emulate her. No shame, no regret. That sounded like paradise right now, and she suddenly found herself hating Amelia for bringing her to this with a ferocity that surprised even she.

And yet...

Despite it all, her feelings for the little (well, not so little anymore) princess couldn't be denied. It didn't even make sense anymore, it was painful and confusing as all hell, but she loved her, damn it all, really, truly loved her. She had thought, once, that she might have loved Gourry, but what she'd felt for him had been but a pale imitation of what she felt for Amelia. How could she leave her lover, however much pain was being caused to her, now that she'd felt this way? And yet what of Zelgadis? The insult to him if she stayed would be even worse than to her, and for that alone she knew that she'd never be able to forgive herself. Hell, Amelia would never be able to forgive herself. How had things become such a mess...?

"Leave all for love," she whispered sadly, recalling a play she'd once attended as a child. It had been extremely boring, but her parents had insisted she stay and behave herself, and for fear of Onee-sama's wrath she had been forced to sit quietly through the entire thing. There was this one scene in particular that she recalled now with surprising clarity. These two friends had fallen for the same woman, and one of them found out that the other had gotten engaged to the lady in question behind his back. Despite how close their friendship was supposed to be (or, perhaps, because of it), and despite having known that his friend would never deliberately harm him that way, the man immediately saw the engagement as a betrayal and declared that the two were now enemies. "Thou hast done me much injustice," the betrayer lamented afterwards, and Lina murmured it now with him, expression distant and unhappy.

"For I have borne thee true, unfeign'd, affection;
"'Tis past, and thou art lost to me for ever.
"Love is, or ought to be, our greatest bliss;
"Since ev'ry other joy, how dear soever,
"Gives way to that, and we leave all for love."

Damned if she did, damned if she didn't. Doomed to sacrifice her pride and betray one of her closest friends or leave behind sweet, lovely Amelia and the deepest, most uplifting feelings she had ever experienced.

Again she looked into the haughty princess'es eyes. Where was Gracia now? Where Naga? Had Naga ever felt anything like this, she wondered; was a person that self-absorbed even capable? Was it better to live a happy life revolving around material gain and cheap gratification but devoid of meaningful relationships, feared or respected but never loved? Or was it better to live painfully on the knife's edge of misery and bliss, shamed and bereft of virtue yet emotionally rich in ways that many people could only dream of?

It was one of the most difficult decisions she'd ever had to make, in many ways even worse than having to choose between the lives of her friends and the possible destruction of the planet. But Lina had always been one to act according to her impulses and desires, and even in a situation like this she could be no different. By the time she left the hall late that evening she knew what she had to do.

#.#.#.#.#

Amelia lay listlessly on top of the covers, staring blankly at the far wall as though the bare stone held the solution to all her problems. Lina stood motionless, drinking in the soft lines of her lover's body for some long minutes, before stepping into the moonlight spilling through the window onto the cold stone floor. "Lina!" Amelia gasped, jumping up. She stood before the subdued redhead and gazed up at her with distress. "I didn't think you would come," she said brokenly. "You were missing all day. I thought maybe you'd..."

The princess trailed off and they stood that way for a while longer, gazing searchingly into each other's eyes. Finally Lina looked away and said, "are you certain that there's no other way? You're really going to marry him?"

"I wish there was. You don't know how much I wish that I could just forgot about all this and go off with you again. I wish things could just go back to the way they used to be, that I'd never come back here. But they can't, and I did, and so I must. I'm so sorry, beloved."

Her sweet voice was so broken, so fragile, that Lina only wished to take her in her arms and kiss her until all her pain had gone away. But instead she continued to look down at the stone floor, something desperate and guilty burning inside, and said, "and Zelgadis? How would he feel if he knew that you'd promised your heart to me? You were always talking about justice, always so determined to right every wrong. How is this just? If you're not true to your feelings you'll be betraying both of us; worse than that, you'll be betraying yourself. I understand that you need to put the needs of your kingdom before your own, but even so, how can you do it?"

"I know," said Amelia, tears falling silently, "it's not right, and it's not fair, and it's not just. It just wasn't supposed to be this way, Lina. I was supposed to have fun adventuring and then fall in love with some nice boy, a prince hopefully, and we were supposed to live happily ever. But then you came along, and you were so brave, and so bright, and suddenly everything went all wrong... And I don't know what to do, Lina, because I can't give you up, I just can't, but I can't let my father and my people down either. And poor Zelgadis-san, he loves me so much. If things were different, I... But this is just the way it happened, and I'm doing the best I can." She sniffled and shivered visibly with the intensity of her distress. "What else can I do?"

"We could tell them," Lina said quietly, gazing down blankly. "You never know. Prince Phil might not be happy about it, but he always struck me as a pretty open-minded, optimistic guy. And Zel would understand, I think, if we told him before this goes any further. All this lying, all this deception ... it isn't right. But these feelings we have ... I don't see how they could be anything but right. So let's just tell everyone, Amelia. At best, your father will be happy that you've found someone you love and your people will learn to accept us; at worst, we'll be rejected by everyone we know but at least we'll still have each other. So, what do you say? Can't we give it a try?"

She looked up again, finally, and the stark horror she saw in her lover's gaze struck her like a slap in the face. "But Lina..." she said hoarsely, "I mean ... for Ceifeid's sake, just think of the scandal! The way everyone would look at us, the things they'd say... I guess you're kind of used to that sort of thing, but I'm not. Ever since I was a kid, everyone's always been going on about how sweet and pure I am and stuff, and if they knew... I'm sorry, Lina, but I'm just not as brave as you are. I have too much to lose."

"I've already lost everything," Lina muttered, then said, "and if I went to your father right now and told him everything? If I told Zelgadis that his fiance doesn't really love him? How would you feel then?"

"Lina, what..." gasped Amelia, teary eyes wide with hurt.

"I want you to withdraw thirty thousand gold pieces from the treasury and give them to me, tonight." Lina said coldly. "Then I'll leave and never darken your door again. If you refuse, however, I'm going to tell them. I'll tell everyone. I'll tell them how sweet, innocent Amelia let me deflower her on the ground in the woods and did the same to me, and I'll tell them about every gasp, every moan, every time you screamed my name in pleasure. I'll tell them how you intended to marry a man that you don't love and betray him with not only your heart but your body. And you'll be left with nothing, Amelia, not even me."

Amelia's eyes were huge and lost, shocked disbelief echoing through every taught line of her body. Lina stared back coolly, uncaring and unmoved. Even as the moment stretched on and everything within her screamed for her to reach out and pull the wounded girl into her arms, tell her that she didn't really mean it, of course she didn't mean it, and everything was going be alright, she let not a shimmer of compassion show in her eyes. Finally, Amelia let out a broken sob and her tears started falling faster as she looked away. "Fine. If that's the way you want it," she said, her voice sounding hoarse and defeated in a way that Lina had never heard it.

#.#.#.#.#

She had entered Seyruun on a gorgeous, sunny day, and had been gifted with no portents about what was to come. Now she left in darkness, way lit only by the full moon above, and she hoped that this was a sign that things would get better from here on out. The large sack of cold jingled cheerfully against her back but Gourry was still sleepy and confused due to her abrupt demands that he wake and get going, and he didn't even seem to notice it. His long blond hair was a mess and his shirt was on backwards, but he followed her unhesitantly as ever.

Lina felt numb inside, as though her heart, after being torn over and over over these past weeks, had become numb to the pain now that it had finally been broken. Bah, love. Who needed it? It had been nice, for a while, feeling like she had become a better person somehow, someone deserving of warmth and admiration rather than merely fear and respect. She had changed so much, these past years. Not just because of Amelia, but because of Gourry, Zel, Filia and Sylphiel and even Xellos in a weird way. Every person she had met along her journey, every time she had been compelled to put her life on the line for another or help someone out of love rather than greed, her soul had been reforged a little more. She had become a stronger, deeper person for her experiences, and that wasn't a bad thing. But she had also become very foolish somewhere along the way, and had forgotten the things that were important to her. She had started adventuring because she wanted to become a better sorceress and gain fame and respect for her deeds. She'd wanted to try new foods, build her fortune, acquire magical artifacts and learn new spells. She'd wanted fun and excitement; she'd wanted the confidence of knowing that nothing could hurt her, neither physically nor emotionally, because she was Lina Inverse, damnit, and there isn't much you can do to a sorceress with the power to destroy the Mazoku Lords themselves. She'd wanted the ability to make people pay for hurting her, in any form.

Never again. Never again would she allow anyone to distract her from her goals in life, to bring her that low. She had been foolish to think that she could be happy living like that, a shadow of her true self.

Never again would she let herself fall in love. It was impossible to imagine ever feeling that way about anyone besides Amelia, anyways.

She needed nothing but the coins jingling merrily against her back, good food and soft beds ahead of her as far as the eye could see, rare magical texts and hot springs. A good partner at her side, worth his weight in gold for his loyalty and his swordsmanship even if he was dumb as a post. Thirty thousand gold was enough to make her a very rich woman for a very long time, though of course it was just a drop in the bucket for the royal family of Seyruun.

She had finally realized, however, what Naga ... no, Gracia, for all her faults, had understood long before she and Lina had ever met. Some things, you just need to be free to enjoy, and loving others is pointless if you forget how to love yourself. As Lina left the city for the last time she reveled in the feeling of the night air against her skin, and felt both happier and more broken than she'd been in weeks.

3. Intelligence

She had never expected to spend her life doing this sort of research, but Lina had come to expect the unexpected. After years of friendship she had broken down and directed all of her energies into helping Zel find a cure for his chimerism. Deep down they had both known that he wasn't going to find his cure in some secluded shrine or cave, but for his lingering, desperate hopes that a miracle might yet be just around the corner and her unfulfilled lust for adventure they had avoided this inevitability for years. Even when Amelia had offered her friend the support of her kingdom's resources after taking the throne he had gruffly refused, saying that he wanted to keep trying on his own for just a little longer. They had all known better, of course; after Gourry had settled down with Sylphiel Zelgadis was the only one Lina had left (Mr. Mysterious Mazoku and his brief and usually disastrous cameo appearances didn't really count) and he hadn't wanted to leave her alone, even if it meant giving up an opportunity to find his cure. Now it was her turn to repay him. Self centered as she may occasionally be, Zel had stuck by her through thick and thin longer than anyone else, and he had earned her friendship, her loyalty, maybe even her love, a hundred times over. Now that she'd let him into her heart she was going to get him his cure if it was the last thing she did.

She made no secret of the fact that she didn't really enjoy this type of work, however. She enjoyed research and magical experimentation as much as the next sorcerey genius, but she had always avoided the kind that involved dangerous chemicals and live test subjects. Chimeras like Zelgadis were few and far between for a reason; excluding freak accidents the creation of one required the blending of multiple schools of magic, and could be magically, intellectually, and morally taxing to the extreme. Just thinking about all the work that must have gone into the creation of Zel's body gave Lina a headache, and reversing it was twice as hard.

"Hungry?" a voice broke into her thoughts, and she looked up from the heavy tomes before her.

"I was 'hungry' three hours ago," she griped, "I'm starving." She carefully cleared a spot on the table for Zelgadis to set down a heavy tray laden with fresh meat, bread, and fruit, and began devouring the meal before it had even touched the table.

Zelgadis raised an eyebrow with a faintly amused expression and left the room briefly, returning moments later with a mug of hot coffee. "Oh? You've only been eating five or six courses at most meals lately; the cooks have been wondering if you've taken ill."

"It's those damned mazoku," Lina grumbled around a mouth full of finely braised mutton, gesturing towards a particularly dreary looking cage in the corner. They had summoned a pair of lesser mazoku the previous week for study, but they were proving to be more of an irritation than an asset. They had performed extensive experimentation on both and suspected that the wounds sustained by one as a result would soon prove to be fatal, but both were sucking up their captors' negative energies as enthusiastically as ever. Their mere presence seemed to increase the negative output generated by the two mages; Zelgadis hated mazoku on general principle, and Lina didn't like the idea of giving anyone a free meal.

"We'll be done with them soon enough," Zel replied. "I think we've gotten all the data out of them we can for now, and I don't like them being around anymore than you do. I just want to try a couple more things, and then we can get rid of them."

"Yeah, I guess," Lina grumbled. "It's not just them, though. We'd better get a major breakthrough soon, because this whole thing has been making me sick lately." Her gaze swept over the other cages in the room now, and the enthusiasm with which she devoured her meal slowed as her appetite visibly waned. There were rats barely able to function because their skin had been turned to stone and most of their joints had fused together; rabbits with large, painful looking protrusions jutting out of their bodies at random and inhibiting their ability to eat, to move, to touch each other; less recognizable things, hybrids that could have had no possible practical function; squealing, bleeding things that had been tampered with internally, creatures that seemed to be wearing some of their vital organs on the outside. It had all sickened her from the start, but it was unfortunately necessary. The simplest way to find a cure was through trial and error.

"Yeah," Zelgadis muttered gloomily, gazing tiredly into his cooling beverage. "Me too." He allowed himself a sigh, then determinedly set his depression aside and looked back up at his partner. "Did you find anything useful in that book on the fusion of white and shamanistic magic I gave you?"

"Mm, maybe," said Lina, perking up and stuffing some more bread into her mouth. "I think we're on the right track regarding the use of white magic to stabilize the transformation and direct the unpredictable effects it can have during and just after the process. We might want to talk to an expert, though; neither of us are very good with white magic. Golumns either, for that matter, and we're definitely going to need to do some more work with those. Amelia's sister was really good with that stuff, you know," she said reflectively, "though neither of them would be my first choices for consultants."

"Yeah, asking Amelia to come down here would not be a good idea," he agreed with a shudder. Then he cocked his head to the side and shot her a smirk. "So you're admitting that there are things even the great Lina Inverse can't do?"

"Of course not!" exclaimed Lina, looking outraged. "Lina Inverse can do anything she damned well sets her mind to! ...It'll just take longer, is all. I want to find your cure as soon as possible so we can go back to adventuring."

"Me too," he replied, smile softening. "I'll ask the attendant to give me a list of potential consultants after he gets back with those books."

"In the meantime, did you want to test out the new treatment we were working on for the bird-fish?"

"No, not right now. It's worth exploring later on, but it's too similar to things we've already tried. I'd like to start moving in a different direction. With all the dead ends we've run into, trying the same sort of things over and over, it's starting to feel as futile as it did while we were adventuring. I want to try a process that fuses shamanistic, black, and chaos magic to remake a specimen from the ground up, like we were discussing the other day."

"Are you sure?" Lina questioned, eyes widening. "It's an interesting idea, but you know how dangerous it could be if something goes wrong. We're not even completely sure what will happen."

"We're never going to get a breakthrough if we keep playing it safe," he said firmly. "Even if it fails the information we gain from the results could change the course of our research."

"If we live, at least..." she muttered. "Okay, if you're sure. But let's be careful. We'll spend the rest of today going over the particulars of the experiment and try it out tomorrow afternoon."

He frowned a bit, and she could tell that he didn't like the length of the delay she was suggesting, but in the end he agreed.

#.#.#.#.#

Lina slept fitfully that night. The air was stifling, and as they were underground to keep out contaminants she couldn't even open a window to let in some fresh air. The test subjects never shut up, and their tortured cries discomfited her in more ways than one.

#.#.#.#.#

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" she asked him again the following day. "We've done all the preparations we can for now, but it would be safer if we waited for the attendant to get back with those books, did some more research on it and worked our way up with less risky experiments."

"I'm sure," he said determinedly. "You know as well as I do that the less risky experiments aren't guaranteed to give accurate, let alone useful, data with this kind of thing. We're working in uncharted waters here, and it's not going to make much of a difference whether we do it now or after another six months of research. At least this process uses the branches of magic we're most experienced in."

"With chaos magic experience doesn't always help," Lina muttered unhappily. "This is dangerous stuff, Zel. I'm serious. There's no telling what will happen, not really."

"If anyone can do it, Lina, it's you." He gave her a small, tentative smile, and Lina found herself reluctantly smiling back. For all the problems with their research, smiles had seemed to come more and more easily to Zel over recent months. That, more than anything, made her endeavors worth it. "Now let's get started. I can almost smell that cure."

Lina turned back to the table and finished mixing an oddly coloured serum while Zelgadis retrieved a whimpering monkey with the scaly skin of a snake and unnaturally gleaming red eyes. It was one of their more successful chimeras. Completely impractical of course, but it would serve well enough for their experiment.

Lina poured the chemicals into a test tube and fed the serum to the squirming chimera while Zel held it in place and massaged its throat to make sure the creature swallowed. The little animal was silent for about ten seconds and then started shrieking as its skin shuddered oddly and small cuts and abrasions marking where it had scratched at itself began to spontaneously heal. "Quickly now," Lina murmured. Zelgadis brought the squalling creature to the ground and Lina pinned its shadow with a small knife made of orihalcon, holding the subject in place.

Then the pair stood facing each other across a modified pentagram, the chimera pinned at the center, and began to incant the spell they'd developed. Risky, yes, but it was unlike anything they'd tried before and was likely to produce some interesting results no matter what happened. It was unlike anything anyone had tried before, actually. As Zelgadis had said the day before, they were truly in uncharted territory now, and Lina had to admit to herself that it was exciting.

The first stage of the experiment went well. They called upon the power of Shabranigdo together, not something one would expect to be useful in medicine, but in this instance it just might be the key. The demonic energies called out to the mazoku in the chimera, placating it and making it more malleable even as it became less stable. Zel was the expert in shamanism, and he was able to use his power to strengthen the subject and make it more responsive to the treatment, a rather intriguing example of how magic could be twisted to perform functions normally thought to belong to other branches. Then came the hard part. Lina called upon the power of L-sama Herself, and while it was in a far lesser magnitude than she was accustomed to it was difficult to work with as ever. The power flowed through her as she neared the end of the incantation, and she felt like she could see right through the little chimera, down to the very core of it, the strange mix of monkey and snake and mazoku made one, black and shamanistic energies lighting it up like a sun. At Lina's urging that sun began to burn even brighter, flesh melding, churning, power transforming. Although the different components that went into the hybrid had become so thoroughly one that there was no separating them, somewhere deep inside the core the of the creature the monkey remembered what it had once been, and that was what she needed to reach. Just a little deeper ... deeper...

Suddenly the pressure reversed, and she was being drawn in rather than pressed back. Sweat beaded her brow as she struggled to control the energies. She wanted to tell Zel that something was wrong, but it was taking all of her focus just to keep from falling into the abyss, sinking into the core of something that should never have been. She had successfully cast the Giga Slave twice, something no other living mortal had dared to attempt; she had been the focal point of a fusion of indescribably powerful and normally incompatible magics when she had overseen the defeat of Dark Star, but this was different. It wasn't just the power involved; it was completely unnatural, twisting in ways that she hadn't anticipated and tearing her apart bit by bit even as she dug her heels in harder than she ever had.

"Lina...?" She looked up at Zel now, and she knew that his expression was one she would never forget. Uncertainty, hope and desperation, slowly giving way to fear, despair, dawning horror. She knew that he would never forget her face either. He had never seen her with terror written on her features. Resignation shaded her eyes as well, and as her heart came close to bursting she finally let go and allowed the magic to take her. Then she screamed. And screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and kept on screaming until it all went dark.

#.#.#.#.#

She woke to a foreign sound, Zel's soft, broken sobs, and indescribable pain. Was this what he'd felt like when he'd awoken from his transformation? Worse, probably; at least she'd been aware it was a possibility. For him, it had been a betrayal.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Oh gods Lina, I'm so, so sorry. I never wanted this to happen. Oh, Ceified..."

"It's okay, Zel," she croaked, feeling like she hadn't seen water for days, "I'm okay."

"No, you're not," he wept brokenly. "Please forgive me, Lina. I'm so sorry ... I was willing to give anything for a cure, but not like this. Not you. Ceified..."

It took a great deal of effort for her to pull herself up. It felt all wrong inside somehow; everything ached and burned. She studied herself dispassionately in the reflective surface of a large beaker on the table. Her distorted reflection showed a monster. Slit nostrils, silky red hair turned into a coarse, bright mane. Her eyes were still the colour of blood, but now they seemed to glow, more catlike than even Zel's. Her lips had thinned, face stark white and scaly. Fine red fur framed her face and continued lower down, absent at her hands at a glance and probably elsewhere.

She tore her gaze from the strange creature in her reflection and went back to her friend, crumpled brokenly on the floor next to the ruined pentagram. It was cracked and shiny there, as though the tiles had been exposed to intense heat. "It's okay, Zel," she whispered, putting her arms around him carefully. His stone skin felt too hard against the sensitive skin of her new hands but too cool and smooth everywhere else. "We both knew that this was a possibility. All that's changed is that when we find the cure we'll have to use it on both of us."

"Oh, Ceiphied..." he rasped, shaking with the force of his tears. He let out a sob, but seemed to be trying to pull himself together. "No, you're right, of course. We'll find that cure, Lina, I promise. And when we're both human again I'm going to spend the rest of my life making this up to you."

"And don't you forget it," she said softly. "It's okay Zel, really. Please don't cry. This time we may have hit another dead end, but I'm ... I'm sure a major breakthrough is just around the corner." Unnoticed by the chimera she held in her arms, a tear of her own fell down a scaly cheek and disappeared into brilliant orange fur.

4. Happiness

She had promised to write, but between the bandit gangs that seemed to be throwing themselves in her path, and the adventure that was finding her with more frequency than ever, she'd had precious little time for letters. Even more taxing on her time was, of course, Naga; more than anyone Lina had known, the other sorceress demanded her full attention. Gourry had probably already forgotten about the promise he had so determinedly extracted from her by now anyways, the jellyfish-for-brains. She had parted from him three weeks ago at the newly rebuilt Sairaag. As much as she cared for him, Gourry didn't have the Sword of Light anymore, and he wasn't getting any younger. And she ... well, Lina wasn't getting any older, and probably wouldn't for a good long time. So when they'd visited Sylphiel last month she and Naga had put a great deal of effort into pushing him and the shrine maiden together. In the end he'd been too dense to make a move on her no matter what they did, but somehow Naga had convinced him to take a vacation there anyways. Lina still wasn't sure how she'd done it, but she hoped that Gourry had finally gotten a clue and that he and Sylphiel were happy together now. They'd be good for each other, Lina knew. The shrine maiden had always kind of rubbed her the wrong way, but she could give Gourry all those things that Lina would never be capable of. Unconditional love, patience, and understanding; a stable home life ... children... There wasn't a lot of information on the effects of wielding Nightmare magics, but Lina privately suspected that she was no longer capable of creating life. The power she had gained was more than worth it, but Lina still felt a little sad about that. Someday she might change her mind, but there would be no taking back what she had sacrificed for her ambitions.

Now it was just Lina and Naga again, just like old times. She had to admit, she kind of missed Gourry, but it was probably better this way. Gourry and Naga had never really gotten along. It was unusual for Gourry, who seemed to like everybody, but somehow he'd never really warmed up to her. Naga had written him off as a pretty face almost from the start, although Lina suspected that her distaste for the man had started after Gourry's initial typically thoughtless exclamation over her cleavage, when it became evident that he was otherwise unmoved by her looks. Naga couldn't stand to see a handsome man so thoroughly immune to her charms.

Heh.

"Lina, what are you doing? If you keep dawdling like that we'll never reach the hot springs by nightfall."

"Hai, hai." She walked faster to catch up with her companion. "The specialty of the town is wild pig. I can't wait to try it!"

"I can almost taste it already," whimpered Naga, a glazed look stealing over her eyes.

They ended up racing to town, and not only did they make it before nightfall, they had time for a proper dinner before they hit the hot springs. Adventuring had been profitable lately so they had enough to get the best the restaurant had to offer - whole roast wild pigs, scalloped potatoes, freshly baked herb bread, yum! Naga drank down enough brandy to fell twenty men, and by the time they left for the springs she was well on her way to being drunk.

Naga leaned heavily on her companion on the way there, and Lina was in good spirits that night so she allowed it. With a good meal in her belly, a (sometimes) good friend at her side, and plans to soak in the springs for the rest of the night, she felt more content than she'd been in a good long while.

When a rather good looking young man had taken it upon himself to hit on Naga along the way and suggest she ditch the 'kid' Lina's mood had almost done a 180, but before she could blast the fool into oblivion Naga had staggered upright, laughed in that unique way she had of making a grown man feel approximately two feet tall, and told him, "It's really sad how beautiful men are always so lacking when it comes to brains. She may look like that, but this is Lina Inverse, the rival of Naga, the White Serpent! I'm afraid I simply can't waste my time with someone who judges others solely by their appearances, and can't even tell a child from a powerful sorceress!"

She had to hand it to Naga; only she could insult her so thoroughly while effectively defending her. The man turned bright red and stuttered incoherently as she and Naga left him behind, Naga still treating the villagers to her trademark laugh. Lina decided to let the insults go this time, probably because of that curiously warm feeling that had made itself home in her breast. (Perhaps from the brandy she'd had at dinner). She had missed having someone who respected her like that, even in such an odd, arrogant way as Naga did. Gourry would never have defended her like that. Not on purpose, at least. He always had her back when it counted, but respect? Not from him, not really. Fear, maybe. Anyways, hearing her name always seemed to put people on edge, and this time was no exception. The whole lot of them started looking ridiculously nervous, and the busy streets were nearly deserted by the time they past the next building. Just this once, though, Lina didn't really mind.

They had the hot springs all to themselves that night. "Ah, this feels good," sighed Naga, leaning back against the side of the spring.

"You said it," Lina said happily. "Nothing like a hot spring at the end of a day of travel to unwind."

They relaxed there in silence for several minutes, enjoying the heat and the quiet companionship. Then Naga said, "Ne, Lina ... how do you feel, really, about that swordsman we ditched in Sairaag?"

Lina's eyes shot open and a blush stained her cheeks. "H-how do I feel about Gourry? What do you mean by that?"

"I'm just curious, is all," Naga murmured drowsily, one eye sliding open to to gaze at Lina inscrutably. "You traveled with him for several years, did you not? Longer than you and me were together. He's such a strong, handsome man, and so protective of you. Surely there must have been something between you two."

"Me and that jellyfish-for-brains?" Lina exclaimed defensively, blush darkening and spreading down. "No way! We're just friends, Naga, nothing more."

"Is that so?" said Naga carelessly. "Hnn. I thought so."

"What do you mean by that?" her expression shifted subtley to expose her growing ire rather than mortification.

"Oh, nothing, really. I was just thinking that men like that are usually more interested in women like that pretty shrine maiden we left him with."

Lina twitched. "Yeah, well he couldn't make a move on her either. That idiot's too stupid to spare a thought for anything besides his own stomach."

"Hmm," hummed Naga non-committally.

Lina sunk into the water up to her nose and scowled.

#.#.#.#.#

Unfortunately, that was just the first in a long series of such remarks that Naga took to making over the next several weeks. It was always, "hmph, did you really think you could hurt me with that attack? Whatever you may have heard about Lina's previous partner, he's settled down with a nice girl in the city now. Today you have Naga the White Serpent to contend with..." or, "what a pity. Such a handsome young man, but such a fool. Speaking of which, Lina, I wonder if your Gourry has managed to express his feelings to the shrine maiden by now...?" or even, "come now, what's with that dreary expression? You're not still thinking of that swordsman, are you? Knowing him, he's probably forgotten all about you..." Lina didn't know why Naga had developed such a fixation on a man she had previously barely seemed to notice, but it was getting under her skin. She was actually getting kind of nervous about writing to her old friend. While she did miss him and wanted to fill him in on all the good food and profitable adventures she'd had these past weeks, if she wrote him he'd probably remember to write back. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know what he'd been up to. It wasn't that she didn't want him to be happy with Sylphiel, but the realization that he might actually be kissing her, falling in love with her, at this very moment was proving to be far more disturbing than she'd imagined. She found herself finding excuses to avoid writing that letter, day after day. Luckily, Naga was a better distraction than anything Lina could have devised herself.

Every time Lina had a free moment Naga was there, wanting to go out to see the local attractions, to find a nice place to bathe, she'd felt like someone was watching her a while back; maybe they should do a quick sweep through the woods to check for bandits? Whenever Lina forcibly reminded herself how long it had been and worked up the determination to finally fulfill her promise to one of her best and oldest friends, and remarked, "Say, Naga, do you mind if I stay in tonight? There're some things I really need to catch up on..." Naga would only become more insistent, and despite herself Lina ended up forgetting about her promise to Gourry every time. By the time Naga was through dragging her around she always fell right into bed and a deep sleep, not waking until it was time to get going the following morning. To be honest, she hadn't consistently slept this well in years.

It was strange, but although Lina's fuse certainly hadn't gotten any longer since they had first traveled together and Naga was as irritatingly arrogant as ever, they seemed to be getting along together better than they ever had before. Their arguments were still frequent and heated, but they were also a lot more playful now, the (somewhat) affectionate bickering of two old friends. After all those years traveling with Gourry - not to mention certain other annoying people - Lina supposed she just couldn't take offense to Naga's insults the way she once had. Naga insulted everyone. If she ever stopped Lina would be worried about her.

They went out together every night while they were in town, and on the long journeys between they would play traveling games, practice magic together, and sometimes even just talk. It was nice, having someone to talk to. Gourry had never been much of a conversationalist (hah!), and Amelia ... well, best not to go there. Zel had been pretty good for that sometimes, but there were some things she just couldn't talk to him about (mostly relating to girl stuff), not to mention being gloomy as hell. She and Naga had always thought alike, and dense though she may be the busty sorceress had a quick wit and an inquisitive mind that came out readily given the right topics.

After a while they started sleeping together for warmth, like they'd used to sometimes. Lina had never really felt comfortable doing it with the others, even Amelia, on all but the coldest of nights, but it was kind of nice with Naga. They would talk together for hours sometimes during those long, cool nights, lying side by side looking up at the stars.

"I was a princess once," Naga murmured drowsily on one such occasion.

"Eh?"

"It's true. I lived in a big castle, and I was heir to the throne."

"Yeah right," Lina scoffed. "Naga 'the White Serpent', a princess. Tell me another one."

"No, really," said Naga, smiling nostalgically.

Lina glanced up at her and raised an eyebrow. "You're serious."

"I hated it there. My father was an idealistic buffoon, my little sister his brainless disciple. My mother was the only one who really understood me, and she passed away when I was just a girl."

"You're really serious," said Lina disbelievingly, eyes widening.

Naga nodded thoughtfully. "After her death there was nothing there for me anymore. I didn't want to become Queen. My life would have been nothing but boring parties and the latest fashions, and I'd never have been allowed to learn anything but white magic. My father was all about justice and 'good prevailing over evil,' fool's dreams. I didn't want to limit myself to a single school of magic; I didn't want to be protected and pampered. I wanted to go on adventures and find a name and fortune of my own away from all that faux idealism." She looked down at her companion and smiled triumphantly. "So I did. And I never looked back."

Lina chuckled. "Naga, the princess. I can't believe it," she said wonderingly, than added quietly, "at least that explains the ego..."

They lay for a while longer like that, arms barely touching. The sky was clear that night, and the stars very bright. After several long minutes Lina glanced up at Naga to make sure she was still awake, and said, "I came from a merchant family. We owned the general store in our hometown, and we lived pretty simply, I guess. My problem was kind of the opposite of yours. Onee-sama was the one everyone loved. She was pretty, confident, and a powerful sorceress. Growing up, everyone was always telling me that I should be more her, when they noticed me at all. Later on, it was even worse... She never had any formal magic training, but a local sorcerer saw that we had an aptitude and got us both started. Onee-sama was always good with magic without even trying. I tried to keep up with her, and I was getting pretty good just experimenting by myself, but one day she had this freaky vision-thing and Ceified named her His Knight. It was completely unbelievable, but she got scary powerful after that. My skills couldn't even compare to hers anymore.

"It was infuriating. Everyone loved her. Everyone. And I was nobody. The only times anyone looked at me were when I was being punished. No one cared about my accomplishments, no matter how hard I tried. I could make a good sale, drive up the price more than two hundred percent, and no one would care. Onee-sama could hang out in the store during her lunch break and sell three times the goods for four times their worth. And, well, I guess I was kind of jealous, you know? I couldn't stand always being in her shadow, and it didn't help that she treated me like dirt half the time. So one day I decided that I had to get even with her. I had to make everyone see that she wasn't some perfect goddess. So I...

"I improvised a spell that could project an image over the entire town, and I..." Lina's voice dropped to a haunted whisper, trembling in a way that Naga had never heard before. "I used it on Onee-sama while she was bathing. The entire town saw her naked."

Naga broke out in surprised laughter. "That must have been quite a shock. No less than I'd expect from Lina Inverse."

Lina couldn't tell if that was supposed to be an insult or a complement, but she smacked Naga for it anyways. "It's not funny! I thought she was going to kill me. I really did. Do you know what it's like to be chased down by your own sister? That power ... I knew she was strong, but I never really understood how strong until that moment. The air itself felt like it was crushing me; it was like having a high level mazoku after you. She really wanted me dead; I could feel it. So I ran.

"No one ever came after me. Not Okaa-san or Otou-san or even Onee-sama, if only for revenge. I'm not sure they even noticed I was gone, to be honest. Maybe they still don't, heh. So I traveled alone for a while, and then I went to the University. I was too young to attend, technically, but after they saw what I could do they had no chance but to accept me. I got a formal education in magic there, sped through it faster than people twice my age, and graduated as the most powerful sorceress of my year. But I knew that I could still never match Onee-sama with my current level of skill, so I decided to keep traveling and honing my skills. I guess I thought that maybe if I could surpass her magically and make a name for myself people back home would finally notice me and realize that I had just as much to offer as Onee-sama did.

"Only ... it never really worked out that way. I've been all over the world, defeated a piece of Shabranigdo, learned spells powerful enough to destroy the planet. But I guess ... it'll never be enough, you know? Not if I train for another hundred years. So I just never went back."

"It's been a long time since then, hasn't it?" Naga murmured, serious once more. "They're probably not angry anymore. They probably miss you. And besides, you're one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world -- after me, of course -- and if you two were to get into a fight, Ceified Knight or not, I know who I'd bet on."

"You'd lose your money, then," Lina said bleakly. "You know, a couple years ago, these Golden Dragons figured out that something bad was going to go down, so they were scouting for powerful sorcerers who could help them, you know, save the world and all that. Onee-sama was the first one they went to. They came to me second, but only because she was busy and recommended me, and they were still pretty wary. And the letter she sent me -- I tried to avoid it, but there's no avoiding Onee-sama when she wants to get a message through. I didn't even stand to make any money out of that whole business, but I had to do it, because she told me to. All the letter said was 'Just shut up and do it!' Sorcery genius or not, ignoring a threat from Onee-sama is bad for your health.

"And sister or not, she would make good on it, I have no doubts about that. Maybe she didn't come after me after the shower incident, and okay, she's done me a favour or two over the years, but I swear, Naga, it's like she doesn't have a soul. And maybe ... maybe there's something wrong with me too, avoiding my hometown for all this time because I'm afraid of my own sister, but I just can't go back. I can't."

Lina's eyes widened in surprise as her companion put one arm around Lina's shoulders and pulled her close. The other woman started laughing, quietly but as confidently as ever. "Oh, Lina. Have you learned nothing? It doesn't matter where women like you and I came from. Does anyone ever talk about who Rezo the Red Priest played with as a child, or what the parents of Lei Magnus did for a living? Of course not! They're legends, Lina, just like you and me. Legends need have no homes."

"Yeah," said Lina, the corners of her mouth tentatively curving upwards. "I guess you're right."

Naga had never made a habit of being right before, but the years seemed to have matured her. That night, under the stars, Lina finally understood that. This thing between her and Naga, it wasn't some weird fluke. It was just friendship. They had both grown up while they'd been apart, and now they could finally enjoy the things that made them good together without ruining it with stupid fights and rivalries. For the first time in nearly a decade, lying in Naga's arms that night, Lina felt like she was home.

Somehow, she got the feeling that Naga felt the same.

#.#.#.#.#

The weeks just flew by. Lina and Naga had always worked well together, but in the past they'd allowed themselves to get distracted by petty arguments and had rarely seen a decent profit for their efforts. Now they were almost always in harmony, and it was paying off. She'd never made this much traveling with Gourry, a snide voice pointed out in the back of her mind. She absently told the voice to kindly shut up.

In one week they slayed three demons, collected the bounty on a notorious thief, and reunited a wealthy viscount with his vindicively ambitious wife. They made enough money to purchase a small country, and spent it all over three days of feasting and an afternoon at a store boasting several rare texts and magical artifacts. They saved the son of a rich merchant and managed to extract several hundred gold's worth of goods in payment, then repeated the maneuver three days later with the niece of a famous chef. They located a huge nest of bandits and hit jackpot. Went on a treasure hunt in some ancient ruins -- they were getting so much loot that they couldn't carry it all! Lina started researching the creation of pocket dimensions. Failing that, she was pretty sure she could cobble together a spell to summon Xellos with Naga's help. The fruitcake hadn't been around much lately, but she suspected he knew a thing or two about the subject of her research and the irritation it would cause her to get any useful information out of him might just be worth it if she could carry a fortune in her pocket.

Times were good. Adventure lay behind every corner, opportunity at every crossroad; she was rich, well fed, and had added a couple of killer new spells to her reportoire. Naga still bugged the hell out of her sometimes, but in a lot of ways she was the perfect partner. The only real problem was that ... well, she wasn't Gourry. While Naga functioned as an equal, Gourry had been like an extension of herself, and it wasn't until he was gone that she realized how important he'd been. However much fun she'd had, his absence was like missing an arm or a leg, unforgettable.

That night she was determined to write that letter even if a rampaging dragon decided to flatten the tavern (knock on wood). Gourry had stuck with her for years through situations that would have had most men fleeing for the hills, and he'd never asked her for a thing but to let him be there. Keeping in touch with him was the least that she owed him. She left the baths ahead of Naga, claiming she was tired. Naga had gone rather heavy on the brandy that night and would probably be out of commission for a good while. Lina took out the necessary items, sat down at the desk, bit her lip in concentration, and, finally, put pen to paper.

Dear

A hand clamped down on the feather and jerked the pen from her hand. "--Wha? Naga? What the hell?"

"I knew you were writing him," she said triumphantly, still wet from the baths. She was wearing nothing but a towel, and her hair hung in wet, heavy tendrils down her back. The brandy had given her cheeks a healthy flush, and she smirked at Lina knowingly as she held the pen out of reach. "Your loyalty is admirable, Lina dear, but is that buffoon really so deserving of it?"

"W-What? What are you are talking about?" questioned Lina, twitching irritably.

"Let's go out tonight," the other woman said suddenly, brightening with anticipation. "I hear the bar around the corner sells the best sake around these parts; they were talking about it back in the last town--"

"I told you, I'm tired," Lina interjected with a scowl. "But feel free to go yourself."

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Lina," Naga pouted. "Come here." She threw the pen aside and yanked the smaller sorceress from the desk. Before she knew it she was lying on Naga's bed as the other woman blew out the lone candle and settled down beside her, long, graceful arms reaching around Lina and pulling her back against the other's body. Lina could only lie there, rigid with confusion, disbelief, and increasing irritation. She could feel Naga's oversized chest pressing against her back, separated by nothing but the towel and Lina's thin nightshirt.

"Don't write to him," said Naga suddenly.

"What? Why? You're acting really weird Naga, even for you."

Naga laughed. Lina could feel the vibration all through her body. "Sometimes I forget that you're still a child, Lina Inverse. To the mature observer my behavior is perfectly understandable."

"Why you--" Lina struggled to turn so she could deal the infuriating sorceress a good blow, but Naga's arms held her tight.

"That fool doesn't deserve you, don't you see?" said Naga with the tone that meant that it was painfully obvious -- except to everyone who wasn't Naga, of course. "He's just another pretty face with nothing behind. His skills in swordplay aren't bad, I must admit, but he couldn't conjure a Flare Arrow to save his life. To be so presumptuous as to think he could play guardian to the rival of Naga the White Serpent -- the very thought makes me laugh!"

"Please don't," muttered Lina, eyes wide and confused. "Come on, Naga. He may be a jellyfish-for-brains, but Gourry's a good guy. Heck, he's saved my life nearly as many times as you."

Naga snorted. "That only goes to show how lax you let your skills get while I wasn't there to sharpen them!"

"Naga..." she shut her eyes in exasperation. "Don't you think you're overreacting a little?"

"And I see your skills at sorcery aren't the only ones that you let go in my absence. Even after all this, you still don't get it."

"Get what?"

"This," she replied simply, and demonstrated by giving her rival a very unmistakable kiss on the lips. Lina's eyes widened in shock. "Do you understand now?" the sorceress murmured huskily.

"Naga..."

Then Naga's soft mouth was moving against her a second time, and the towel had slipped open, and the warmth that had been brewing in Lina's chest over the past few months had ignited into flame. She stopped thinking about her promises to an old friend, Naga's strange behavior, or the fact that they were getting the nice bedspread wet. In fact, she didn't think much of anything at all for a rather long time.

"So you understand now?" Naga said afterwards as they lay together in drowsy satisfaction, limbs comfortably entangled.

"Yeah," replied Lina, "I get it."

"He loved you," stated Naga, sounding almost offended. "He would have stayed with you forever, I think, until he died. Such foolishness I simply couldn't tolerate. To think that a mere swordsman like him, a nobody, presumed to steal away the rival of the legendary Naga the White Serpent. At the very least, he could have been a little more considerate ... he'd have grown old before you got out of training bras, and where would you have been then?" She ended her tirade in a growl and clutched her lover to her chest just a little tighter. "The nerve of some people, honestly!"

Lina rolled her eyes. "It's okay, Naga. I get it now. Really."

Sorry, Gourry.

Whatever might have passed between them, he would be happy with Sylphiel, she was sure of it. She just hoped that he wouldn't be hurt when she broke her promise. But they were different kinds of people now, and they needed different kinds of things out of life. Staying in correspondence with him would only make things harder.

Lina smiled ruefully as she allowed herself to relax into Naga's surprisingly comfortable embrace. She would deal with the consequences of her revelations later. For now, it was just good to be home.

5. Beauty

Filia was one of the strangest people she'd ever known, and that was saying something. She seemed fairly intelligent, at least as well mannered and educated as Zel, but the woman's holier-than-thou attitude made Lina hesitant to engage her in conversation. She was as tall and annoyingly busty as Naga with the arrogance to match, but beneath that serene exterior lurked a temper every bit as nasty as Lina's own. She had such an odd personality, Lina had mused when they started traveling together, especially for a priestess. She found herself oddly intrigued by the priestess on more than one level, and was unable to help herself from surrepticiously examining the woman when no one was looking.

Xellos was the first to notice, of course. "Awfully testy this morning, isn't she," he remarked to her one day after recovering from his mid-morning argument with the woman in question and subsequently being reunited with the business end of Filia's mace. He had popped in directly behind her, close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek, and so she sent him flying for the second time that morning with a reflexive Fireball.

Neither of them mentioned the incident when he reappeared in the early afternoon, but later on when she caught herself staring again he fell into step beside her and stared right along with her. "Does she have something on her face?"

"Eh? No, of course not." Lina tore her gaze from the oblivious priestess and stared pointedly ahead. For about ten seconds. Damn.

"Fascinating creatures, the Golden Dragons," said Xellos, sounding almost amused. "I've always found humans more interesting myself, but they're still quite an interesting subject of study. Did you know that when a dragon is enraged her strength increases nearly ten-fold?"

"Really?" said Lina curiously, glancing away from the other woman again to look up at him with interest.

"Well, judging by Filia-san..." he chortled. "Haven't you noticed? She complains when she has to carry too much, but when she's cranky she strikes me with the force of twelve good men! Then again, maybe she's just lazy..."

Lina sweatdropped. "Ah, right..."

She walked faster, intending to take her usual place at the front of the group and put this weird new Filia-watching hobby behind her, but Xellos spoke again before she could get that far. "Seriously though, the Golden Dragons are an interesting species. I don't think the humans know much about them anymore, but they used to be a subject of much study."

Lina slowed again and looked back at him warily. "Oh?"

"In their true forms they can get more than one hundred and fifty feet long from head to tail, and more than one hundred tall. They're the largest of all the known species of dragons. There were some powerful warriors among them in their peak, but I can't imagine they've stayed in top form after all this time. A pity, really; fighting the silly creatures was always quite entertaining. They were a relatively prosperous, civilized -- well, for dragons -- race, but their arrogance was over the top." Xellos laughed. "Dear Filia-san here is just the tip of the iceberg. They were a far more pleasant race before they got so full of themselves, but a couple thousand years ago they..."

They talked together in that fashion for the rest of the afternoon, and to her surprise Lina found herself rather enjoying it. It was both the longest and the least aggravating conversation she'd ever had with Xellos. Zelgadis started shooting her strange looks later in the afternoon, but luckily Filia never seemed to notice.

It was weird, but they got along a lot better after that. Xellos started openly traveling with them with more and more frequently and for longer periods of time, and during those long, uneventful days of walking they would discuss magic, social trends, literature, and everything else under the sun that Lina found fascinating. Dealing with her friends' reactions when they started noticing her sudden good rapport with the mazoku, of course, was not so fun. Zel was concerned and suspicious from the first, Amelia happy that they were getting along but worried that consorting with a mazoku could have a bad influence on her friend, and even Gourry, clueless as he was, seemed to sense that it was a bad idea. Filia seemed tentatively concerned at first, then angrily disapproving. When he traveled with them the priestess tried to avoid even looking in his direction, which actually wasn't so bad because it meant that Lina could study the other woman to her heart's content without having to worry about being caught. The golden shimmer of her hair, flawless pale skin, hourglass figure and hint of tail peeking out from beneath her heavy skirts were all subject to Lina's scrutiny day after day. She didn't know what had spawned her sudden fascination with the other woman, but she couldn't seem to stop.

#.#.#.#.#

"So, Lina-san," Xellos started casually one evening as they sat by the fire together, the mazoku keeping her company during her watch. "I've always been curious. Just what exactly is the nature of the relationship between you and Gourry-san?"

"W-what?" Lina exclaimed, colour rising. The object of their discussion shifted in his sleep and murmured something indecipherable, and she lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've been traveling together for more than two years now, isn't that right? Surely there must be something between you."

"We're just friends," said Lina shortly, scowling into the fire.

"Really? That surprises me, Lina-san. Gourry-san must be made of stone to be around a woman like you for so long and not notice your charms."

Lina looked up at him incredulously. "Eh? Er ... well yeah, obviously. But I never thought you ... that is, what are you getting at? It's not like you to throw compliments around unless you want something."

"You wound me, Lina-san. I'm merely stating the truth. You're intelligent, beautiful, and one of the most skilled sorceresses I've had the pleasure of meeting. Gourry-san may not be the sharpest sword in the armoury, so to speak, but I'm surprised he's never noticed."

It's a trick, Lina thought shrewdly even as she turned away to hide to glow of her blush. Xellos is never this blatantly complimentary unless he's trying to manipulate you. "Yeah, well, that's Gourry for you," Lina muttered and decided to be extra wary of the mazoku over the next few days.

#.#.#.#.#

The following day, however, he engaged her in a conversation about rare delicacies he'd encountered throughout his travels, and in the end sufficiently distracted her enough that she forgot all about her suspicions. When he brought his face close enough to kiss that night she didn't even feel the urge to pound him because they were deep in a discussion about how historically, Black and White magic weren't always as incompatible as most people believed, and he backed off right before she might have started becoming uncomfortable, perfectly natural. The night after that he placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her against him, but she didn't Dragon Slave him because her mind was humming with the information Xellos had shared with her regarding ways demonic energy could be used to create weapons more powerful than the magic itself, and really, it was an awfully cold night...

When he kissed her a week later, however, slowly and deliberately with an intimacy that he had no right to, he had gone too far. She turned bright red, broke away with a shocked squeak, narrowed her eyes, and started incanting her favourite spell. Unfortunately, this time she was distracted by a predatory smile and a second, longer kiss. Lina's rage reached critical mass about halfway through, but the by the time he pulled back she had forgotten what she was angry about.

#.#.#.#.#

"Xellos," Lina panted, eyeing the location of his hand with a disbelieving expression, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Don't worry, Lina-san," he said, smiling at her with a disarmingly guileless expression. "I promise I won't bite! Not unless you want me to, that is...?"

"What? No! Come on Xellos, this is ... this is too much. We shouldn't even be doing this. What if the others wake up?"

"I put a silencing spell up," he said smoothly. "Don't worry; I'll know if anything approaches the camp."

"That's not the whole issue..."

His soft, clever hands had her bare from the waist up almost before she knew it, and she shifted uncomfortably in the night air, cheeks burning hotly. This wasn't right, she knew it wasn't. So why wasn't she Dragon Slaving him right now? His long fingers traced a path across her exposed skin that made her shiver, and he made little soothing sounds that somehow managed to turn her on even more. Oh yeah, that's why. "Just trust me, Lina dear. You'll like this, I promise."

Their kisses had been growing increasingly deeper and more lingering since they had taken up together, but she knew she wasn't ready for this. Especially not with him. Even so, as always he was managing to distract her from her concerns. Her half-hearted protests were uttered into the softness of his lips and the hardness of his kisses, forever lost to his insistence. Before she had entirely understood what was happening the rest of her clothing had been discarded, dead leaves and broken twigs crunching uncomfortably against her back. His soft words and touches smoothed over everything, however, and soon he was touching her in places that no one else had ever dared venture before, awakening sensitive spots that she had been only vaguely aware existed. Oh L-sama, what was happening to her...?

"You know," he panted, "mazoku don't usually mate with with creatures outside of their species. We don't engage in the carnal arts often, but when we feel the urge it can get rather ... intense."

Although the subject wasn't entirely off topic, at the moment Lina wasn't very interested in discussing the mating habits of mazoku. "Shut up," the groaned crossly, drawing him in for another kiss.

Xellos pulled back, however, and continued, "it can be dangerous for us to mate with other species, especially humans. If I'm not careful ... I could tear you apart right now without even meaning to."

Lina froze and stared up at him with wide eyes. "Xellos, what...?" she stammered, feeling a sudden jolt of fear.

He kissed her neck soothingly. "I've never tried to do it with a human before, but you're my favourite. You know that, right?" he kissed her possessively and she flushed, but continued to lie still, waiting to see where he was going with this. "It's okay if I'm careful, you see. It's simply a matter of staying in control. It will be difficult, I admit; you have no idea how difficult... But for you, I can do it. You don't have to have to be afraid, dearest. I would never willingly hurt you."

Even then, flushed and shivering beneath him, Lina had enough sense to be sceptical of that statement, but having been assured that he wasn't going to kill her she had more important things to think about at the moment.

Oddly enough, as he brought her to the first of several mind blowing climaxes that night the image of Filia flitted through her mind, shimmering golden hair and pale skin, full lips and hourglass figure. It was very important that Filia never know about this, she thought fleetingly, but the reason was all jumbled up in her mind and forgotten in the next kiss.

#.#.#.#.#

He was almost always there now, beside her, talking and laughing and throwing her brief, wolfish smiles that the others wouldn't understand but made her temperature rise and her knees feel oddly weak. And Filia was always there too, walking up ahead or asleep by the fire, stiff and disapproving and so strangely attractive. What was happening to her these days? She had barely spoken to Gourry for weeks, and he actually seemed a little put out. Zel kept trying to talk to her, asking her if she knew what she was doing, and Lina still didn't have an answer.

#.#.#.#.#

"You like Filia-san, don't you?" Xellos murmured against her one night as they lay together under the stars.

"Filia? Yeah, sure. What about it?"

She felt him smile against the curve of her neck. "Not just as a friend or a companion. It's more than that, isn't it?"

Lina flushed uncertainy. "I ... I don't know what you--"

"It's okay," he said. "In truth, I kind of like her too."

"Eh?" Lina looked down at his silky violet hair, all she could see of him at the moment, and tried to work out if he meant what it sounded like he meant.

"You've been distracted lately. You're curious, aren't you? But I bet if we talked to her, you might find that she's not as unaffected by you and me as she likes to pretend. That's always been the way of the Golden Dragons, to say one thing and do another. The more she acts like she doesn't like you, the more likely it is that she feels intrigued, deep down."

Lina frowned, but before she could voice her uncertainties his lips were moving against hers again and his hands were resuming their endless quest to map out every inch of her naked skin, and her train of thought was lost once more. She'd really have to ask him to stop doing that...

#.#.#.#.#

In the end the Trickster Priest's increasingly disturbing powers of persuasion were too much for even Filia to resist. He started drawing her into their conversations, subtly at first but with increasing boldness. Zelgadis' suspicion seemed to increase ten-fold, and Lina wryly thought that for all his angst and obsession, he was probably the sanest one out of them. However, Filia was just as intelligent and interesting as Lina had suspected (after Xellos coaxed her into easing up on her holier-than-thou attitude, at least) and Lina found herself enjoying the conversations between the three of them even more than those between just her and Xellos. It was harder to do her Filia-watching with the priestess walking right beside her, but Xellos took care of that soon enough. By the time they had reached the next leg of their journey they were all in bed together, minus the bed of course, and if anyone had told Lina six months ago that she'd be in a three-way relationship with a dragon priestess and a mazoku priest she'd have laughed in the unfortunate messenger's face and blown him into the stratosphere for having the audacity to tell such an outrageous lie.

Being with the two of them was a study in contrasts, Xellos' dark purple hair on Filia's shining gold and Lina's somewhere in the middle, bright and bloody. Xellos was all hard grace and slender lines, Filia soft, ample curves, and the power coiled within their skin, light and dark, dragon and demonic, called out to something deep within her. Sometimes she just wanted to run, run fast and far away to a time before any of this had happened, but more often she wanted to turn that vibrating, explosive power on the world and let it all burn, burn, burn, flame to ash, until there was nothing left but skin on skin, flushed cheeks and hungry gazes, and no need to stop and feel that awful burn of shame and disbelief. It was scary and dangerous and far too intense, but it was so good, achingly so, and sometimes she hoped that their journey would never end.

Filia grew more subdued during the days though, and when they next stayed at an inn Lina took it upon herself to get some one-on-one time with the beautiful blonde and ask her what she thought about all this.

"Oh, Lina-san..." said Filia with distress, looking almost sick. "I ... to tell you the truth, I really don't know how this all happened. He may not be as awful as I'd first thought, but that monster single-handedly murdered most of my people. He nearly committed genocide on my entire species, Lina, and for us to be like that ... it's not just blasphemy, it's a betrayal of my entire race."

Lina nodded understandingly and sat next to Filia with a sigh. "I figured it was something like that. Believe me Filia, I never thought I'd be doing something like this either. Before all this started I never even thought of that fruitcake like that, to say nothing of you and me..."

"Do ... do you think he's put some sort of spell on us?" pondered Filia, sounding almost hopeful.

"Unfortunately, no. He's just very persuasive ... and talented."

Filia looked down at her hands neatly folded in her lap, crystal tears threatening to spill from her brilliant blue eyes, and she looked so lost and distraught that Lina found herself leaning over and pressing her mouth to the other woman's before she'd even realized what she intended. Xellos had proven time and time again that good conversation and gentle touch could wipe clean the mind of the most resistant companion. The conversation had hit a wall, but the second method seemed like a good idea just then. Filia resisted at first, but her defenses seemed to crumble even faster than usual and in no time at all they were sighing and moaning against each other as helplessly as ever.

It was very different than with just Xellos, or even with all three of them. It seemed more tender and cleaner somehow, as though a great burden had been lifted from the back of Lina's mind and she was finally able to feel the pleasure of their joining unadulterated by her misgivings. Although they were both relatively inexperienced the passion they shared that night was greater than anything either had ever felt before. Somehow, this just felt right. Like casting a perfect Fireball, so easy and exhilerating that she must have been born for it.

#.#.#.#.#

After that they started meeting together in private every chance they got. Lina wasn't sure whether or not her friends had noticed yet, but somehow she couldn't quite bring herself to care. Her and Xellos had been as disturbing as it was unavoidable, but her and Filia was another matter entirely. In some strange, unexplainable way it felt like they were made for each other. Xellos certainly knew, Lina had no illusions about that. He hadn't said anything so far, but somehow that fruitcake always knew. She didn't think that he would mind, but with him you never could tell.

#.#.#.#.#

Filia was one of the most beautiful, incredible people she'd ever known. So when Lina noticed that the priestess was missing when she woke during the night Lina's heart clenched just a little. Lina had done it alone with Xellos even more times than she'd done it with Filia, period, but somehow the thought of her gorgeous lover doing the same made something in Lina's chest turn to lead. She knew that she should really just go back to sleep, let Xellos and Filia have their time together, but in the end she had to get up and go in search of her lovers.

It was quiet in the woods. Too quiet. Not a bird called, not a mouse scurried through the underbrush. When Lina stumbled upon a small clearing not far from their campfire she understood why.

Blood dripped from every leaf, every twig and every flower. The grass was slick with it; chunks of gore littered the ground. In the center of the clearing lay a mess barely recognizable as something that had once been human - no, L-sama, dragon. And Xellos stood there before it, still as marble and naked, covered in Filia's lifeblood from head to toe.

He turned to her with an unreadable expression, open eyes gazing right through her. The moonlight brought out their inhuman gleam and turned the blood black as pitch, though that did nothing to hide what it was. Compared to what she saw in his eyes the fluid was bright red as cherries.

Funny, in all the time she'd been sleeping with him he'd never opened his eyes while they were together, had he? Not even once. Strange how she'd never noticed.

"I thought I could keep control," he said quietly, and she could hear his feet squishing obscenely on the wet ground as he approached her. Every instinct Lina had screamed for her to run, but she stayed motionless as stone as he came less than a hand's breath away from her, barely a tremble passing through her rigid posture. She could smell it all over him. Sharp and metallic, the scent of death. But then, he had always smelled sort of like that, hadn't he? She'd just never realized what it reminded her of.

"I thought I was doing fine," he repeated, slip pupiled eyes piercing her deeply enough to examine her very soul even as she was abruptly reminded of his lack of one. "I don't know what happened. Everything was going fine one moment, and then all at once the sensations got to be too much for me. I ... I suppose I went a bit crazy. I knew I was hurting her, but I couldn't stop. It was like a haze took over my mind, took away my ability to think. My mind didn't clear until it was ... over. Until it was too late."

He reached across the slight distance between them and took her hands in his, held them to him tightly. She wanted to tell him not to touch her, that he was getting Filia's blood on her hands, but her voice seemed to have fled along with her ability to move. "You understand, don't you?" he said softly, the subtle edge of desperation in his voice sounding almost genuine enough to be believable. "It wasn't my fault. I never wanted to hurt her, just as I'd never want to hurt you." He kissed her gently, the salty-metallic taste filling her mouth and making her feel ill, pulled her against him, and her clothing soaked through in the front. He drew her further into the clearing and she came, and it was before her and inside her and all around her now, Filia ... Filia... No...

"I love you, Lina, as much as my species is capable. You understand that, don't you? Filia was dear to me, but I'd never let this happen to you. It ... perhaps it was a mistake, taking Filia alone." He pressed their foreheads together intimately, but they were standing before the ruin of Filia's corpse. "But I'm sorry, Ruby Eyes am I sorry," he breathed. "You understand, don't you, Lina? You'll forgive me, right?"

Numbly, Lina realized that she would.

6. Love

"Hey Lina, how come you don't use magic anymore?"

"How come I don't what?" she murmured absently, barely looking up from the book she was reading.

"You keep saying it's 'that time of the month', but it's never lasted this long before," said Gourry with a frown. "I haven't seen you use a spell for ... like, weeks, I think."

"It's girl stuff," Lina said sternly. "You wouldn't understand."

"Oh. Well ... okay then, if you say so." he conceded, though he still looked troubled.

#.#.#.#.#

"Hey Lina!"

"What?" she barked, blocking two strikes that would have sliced her open and ducking a third.

"Any chance of your magic coming back about now?" Sweat rolled down his forehead as he fended off a dozen opponents at once. He hadn't really gotten used to his new sword yet and these Red-whatchyamacallit guys were pretty tough.

"I'm a little busy right now!" she called back irritably, running one of the large, strangely dressed beastmen through with her sword and agilely darting away from the others before hurriedly scaling a nearby rock face. Her pursuers attempted to follow, but a few carefully aimed rocks delayed them enough for her to scramble to the top.

"Maybe you could just try--" Turn, duck, block, thrust, step back, block above, attack--

"What?" she grunted as she pushed a large boulder to the edge of the cliff. Her remaining attackers had recovered and were again attempting to climb after her, but as they neared the top she rolled the boulder over the edge. It sent them back to the ground and landed on top of them with a spectacular thud, permanently taking them out of the fight. Unfortunately, however, several more quickly rushed to take their place. Lina's gaze swept over the battlefield before she abruptly turned and started executing Plan B.

"I said, maybe if you just -- Lina? Hey, Lina?" Gourry instinctively dodged three would-be killing blows and scanned the landscape before spotting his partner beating a hasty retreat from the fight.

"Come on!" she shouted over her shoulder.

"Hey Lina, wait up!" He quickly plowed through the remaining beastmen and took off after her, their attackers in hot pursuit.

#.#.#.#.#

"So why can't we just Raywing there again?" panted Gourry as he climbed the sheer rock face.

"Remember, Gourry? That time of month. No magic. You got it?"

"Ah ... okay, I guess," he agreed, though he actually sounded quite confused. "And why ... (gasp) ... why do I have to carry you again?"

"Hmm, I don't know, Gourry. Why do you think?" quizzed Lina, tightening her hold on him as the wind picked up and threatened to blow them off the side of the mountain.

"Um ... is it because I lost our supplies?" he guessed tentatively.

"That's right!" Lina growled, whacking him over the head and nearly sending them both plummeting to their deaths. "Now stop asking me stupid questions and and climb faster!"

#.#.#.#.#

"Hey, Gourry, how do you feel about me?"

"What do you mean, Lina?"

She sighed. "Just answer the question, jellyfish brains."

"Well, we're friends, right?" he said, sounding confused. "So, I guess I ... like you? Except when you're yelling at me and hitting me and stealing my food, though. No offense, but sometimes you can be kind of mean."

She hit him over the head with a chair. "How can someone not take offense to something like that?"

#.#.#.#.#

"Ah, hey, Lina..."

"No, Gourry, it's still not back."

#.#.#.#.#

"Say Gourry, have you ever thought about ... getting married?"

"Huh?"

"You know ... an exchange of vows sealed with a kiss, a nice house and few kids, all that junk? Marriage, Gourry. You do know what that is, right?" She rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Oh yeah, marriage! Of course I know about marriage, Lina."

"So then, have you ... you know, ever thought about doing it?"

"Um ... not really, I guess."

"Why not?"

"I'm your guardian! I couldn't just get married and leave you alone!" he exclaimed, sounding shocked by the very idea.

Thump!

"Hey, Lina, what are you doing down there? Lina? Um ... are you okay?"

#.#.#.#.#

"A nice Dragon Slave would sure come in handy right now!" said Gourry hopefully, risking a glance back at the creature that was steadily gaining on them.

"Tell me about it," Lina growled in frustration. "You'd better come up with something quick!"

"Eh? Why me?"

#.#.#.#.#

"You know, it's my twenty-first birthday today."

"Really? Why didn't you tell me your birthday was coming up?"

"So I'm not a kid anymore, Gourry. You know that, right?"

"Um, I guess. I dunno Lina, you still kinda look like a kid to me!"

She let out a long-suffering sigh. "Don't you ever feel something more than friendship for me, Gourry? Even just a little?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

Lina reached into the pouch at her belt and pulled out a pair of strangely glittering black rings carved with tiny runes. "You plan to spend the rest of your life looking out for me, isn't that right?"

"Yeah, of course! What kind of man would I be if I let a little girl travel all alone?"

"Yeah, yeah. So, if you plan to stay with me anyways, what do you think about ... making it official?"

Gourry continued to look clueless. "What do you talking about, Lina?"

A vein pulsed in Lina's forehead. "I'm asking you to marry me, you idiot!"

Gourry's eyes widened. "You want to ... marry me?"

"That's right," she said flatly, scowling irritably.

"Really?"

"Yes, really! I want to continue traveling with you for another ten years or so, until I get tired of that and we settle down together in some boring little town, where you'll get a simple but well paying job and I'll start a business selling people overpriced goods that they don't really need. I want to have your idiot children, and watch them raise little idiot children of their own. L-sama knows why, but I love you, Gourry, and so yes, I want to marry you. I've thought the matter through extensively, and I'm sure. All you have to do is say yes."

"I thought that the man was supposed to propose to the woman...? At least, that's what my dad--"

"Idiot!" She gave him a none-too-gentle smack upside the head.

"Okay, okay!" he whimpered placatingly. "I think ... yeah. Let's get married."

Lina sighed in exasperation. It was the best she could have hoped her, she supposed. At least she'd managed to get the point across in the end.

#.#.#.#.#

The ceremony was beautiful. Amelia went all out, giving them a wedding worthy of royalty. Gourry's smile was more radiant than she'd ever seen it, and while she couldn't help thinking wryly of the empty head it concealed she found herself having a hard time believing that she had really ended up with such a gorgeous man. The junk the priests always drabbled on about during these ceremonies had always bored her, but this time it might as well have been fine poetry. Everything was perfect. No mazoku turned up to crash the party, no mysterious strangers barged in with pleas for her help saving some village or retrieving an artifact from a haunted cave. There were just happy faces all around, and none so happy as hers.

She even managed not to flinch when her new husband slid her ring onto her finger.

#.#.#.#.#

Lina gazed affectionately at her partner, best friend, and husband from across the table. It had been difficult, but in the end it was worth it. It had made her sad for a long time, knowing that Gourry was going to die one day while her lifespan stretched out into eternity, but after admitting to herself how much she loved him she'd known that there had to be another way. It wasn't a solution she was happy with, but in the end it was all she could live with. For that man she could do anything, even renounce her other great love in life, her magic. In the beginning it had hurt more than she could have imagined, not to mention nearly getting them both killed on multiple occasions, but she had persevered and her hard work had eventually paid off.

She eyed the crows feet developing at the corners of Gourry's eyes wryly. She wasn't quite there yet, but give her another year or ten and she would be. Over the past several months she had experienced violent mood swings, decreased appetite, loss of energy, and even a couple of rather serious fevers. It had been incredibly painful and disheartening. She had also grown two inches and another cup size.

Her wedding ring was made of orihalcon, specially designed to drain away her magic. It felt like she was losing a vital part of herself, and the loss was more devastating than if she'd lost a couple of limbs or maybe an important organ, but if it meant that she could be with Gourry, bear his children, and eventually grow old and die with him, it was worth it. She would do anything for him. This was just the proof of it.

"Hey Lina, if you aren't going to finish that, can I have it?" asked Gourry, gesturing towards her nearly untouched dinner.

"Hm? Yeah, go ahead. I'm not hungry."

7. Power

"What is it you desire?" The voice emanated from all around her, from inside her, the vocal equivalent of the maelstrom of light and shadow that whirled about her. It was chaotic, patternless, yet strange images were formed within its depths. She saw herself as a princess, a demon, a priestess. Everything she had been, might have been, could yet be. Each slipped away before she could fully comprehend what was being shown, but she found herself feeling vaguely repulsed somehow, like she'd just witnessed something awful but it hadn't sunken in yet. The shifting chaos between looked far more attractive in comparision, simple, infinite powerful if she could only work out how to harness it.

The Giga Slave. Even now, with all the power she'd gained and the spells she'd learned, it remained her last and most devastating attack. Unfortunately, it was also the only one she had sworn never to use. Whatever might be said about Lina Inverse, she was unwilling to gamble with the fate of the world. She had been through all manner of desperate situations, braved battles that had nearly proved fatal for her and her friends on numerous occasions, but she had never again attempted to wield that incomparable power. Until now.

The first three times had been different. The first casting had been tentative, uncertain; she hadn't been entirely certain what would happen, only that if it worked she'd have a powerful new offensive spell. She'd had no idea just how powerful, however, and by the time she was halfway through the casting she'd realized that it was more than she could handle. The strain had nearly killed her, but she'd persevered, and gotten her first taste of what chaos magic was capable of. Then she'd fallen into a coma for several days. The second time she'd known better and had channeled the spell through the Sword of Light, and while it had still drained her of everything she had its true nature had remained concealed by the conduit. It had seemed like just another spell, similar in a fashion to the Ragna Blade that she would learn later on; difficult to cast and immensely powerful but seemingly dangerous to no one but herself and her opponent (and, okay, possibly a few innocent bystanders, but that was besides the point). The third time was much easier in some ways, infinitely harder in others. She had been fully aware of what the consequences of her failure could be, and would have been scared witless if she hadn't been so focused on her casting and her purpose, her cold, focussed rage at the Hellmaster for daring to play with the lives of her friends. The magic had come willingly, as though it had recognized her touch, and she had held it firmly in her bare hands, as intimately as a lover. She had never remembered much of what happened after that, but she was fairly certain that it wasn't this.

In a single moment of desperation she had once more turned to the most dangerous spell in her repertoire, once more grasped bare handed power that could destroy the planet. It had not just come willingly to her this time; it had seemed almost eager, excited, and she had come closer to losing control than she wanted to think about. In the end, however, she had forced it to comply to her will, and she was certain that she had cast it perfectly. Almost certain, at least. For if this wasn't the Sea of Chaos, where was she?

"What is it you desire?" the voice repeated, and the storm shifted faster and faster, dizzying in its intensity. "Fame and fortune, love and happiness, beauty and intelligence, power beyond what any man has ever known. Just ask, child, and it is yours."

"I already have all those things," said Lina, glancing around. But there was nothing but the chaos, beautiful and terrible as its Lord, and the awful possibilities it reflected weaving in and out. It was too much for any human mind to comprehend all at once, and she fought the urge to close her eyes.

Suddenly a shining figure formed out of the chaos before her, radiant as fire and very tall, a woman beyond beauty with long bright hair and eyes in shadow. She seemed at home in the whirling chaos, almost as though she were a part of it, and Lina's lips parted in shock as she gazed at the woman through widened eyes. There was only one person who could be at home in such a place, and Her name reverberated through Lina's soul. The Lord of Nightmares reached out and touched Lina's cheek, fingertips so soft they burned, movement impossibly graceful. She seemed somehow amused, and She smiled, the expression so beautiful and terrible that it could create life, destroy worlds.

"How about immortality?" She offered, and the stunned sorceress glimpsed eyes of brightest gold as She pulled Her Chosen into a searing kiss.