A/N: Well, here's an idea I'm pretty sure no one's proposed before.. no, not the well. What? Well, you'll see. Special thanks to my bf, without whose fragmented dream of Lina and her friends and a wish that couldn't be granted gave rise to this plotbunny. Timeline is somewhere after Try, but before Revolution. Apologies that Xelloss isn't in this more.

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Lina Inverse sulked, in the bright midafternoon sunshine. The warm sunlight played off of her brilliant crimson hair, catching sparkling embers like flame in it's waving length. Her slight, delicate features were cast in a pout as she sat in the shad of a large oak tree, and her dainty hands were folded over her petite chest. As she sat there, pointedly ignoring the field of beautiful wildflowers, swaying in the wind, the soft laughter as Amelia and Filia played with tiny Val, and the pleasant breeze that danced through her hair, one thought kept humming softly through her mind...

...What the hell had all that been about!?

She re-crossed her arms and screwed up her face in concentration. Everything had been going so well! Their party had managed to track down the barely even acknowledged as mythic Well of Wishes, an enchanted spot that was said to be able to grant any request imaginable. Even Xelloss' appearance in their midst had barely phased Lina (or even Filia, for that matter), as they'd realized what the incredible crystalline cave they were standing in really was.

Faint light glowed from the glassy walls, refracting in a gentle prism of colors, as they approached what Lina first took to be a lake. Looking down into it's depths, even with the faint illumination that carried all the way down it's quartz walls, she could not see the bottom. Infinite, inky blackness was all that looked back up from the farthest depths below.

A faint apparition of a slight-figured, almost elfin woman with hair so long that it seemed to drag the floor had coalesced in front of them, and with infinite kindness yet a calculating expression on her face, she asked them what they wished for.

Immediately Lina perceived why Xelloss had really come along on this expedition. The well itself might have faded into obscurity so thoroughly that a mere handful of ancient, worm-eaten texts even mentioned it, but still the world's wisdom held that wishes were notorious things. Notorious because they had a habit of coming true in inconvenient or unexpected ways, and causing wholesale disappointment. The Beast Lord's general/priest was here to feed off their seemingly inevitable disillusionment. And doubtless, that sort of thing was one large reason why the demons and monsters allowed this place to exist in the first place.

Fairly trembling with fearful anticipation, Filia abruptly stepped forward. "I... I have a wish.." she began in that refined but still child-like voice that she had. "My people, my race.. destroyed that of young Valteria." She cradled the dozing infant in her arms gently, hot tears of shame threatening to fall from her eyes. "As penance for this atrocity, I have decided to care for Val myself, as the last of my clan." The golden dragon's brilliant sapphire eyes shot up to the apparition of the woman, desperation apparent in their watery depths. "Someday I will have to tell him about all this.. my wish is to know what to tell him! ...and... how.."

The faintly-glowing woman smiled, and Lina found herself very glad that none of her other friends had leapt forward to make thier requests instead of Filia. Filia's request was for words, not for world-shattering miracles. Speaking of which, she began mentally going over how to ask for more money than she could ever spend without being crushed or drowning in the stuff, or without being killed in some other way before she could spend her haul.

The well-keeper nodded at Filia, and with a soft smile asked "Do you love him?" Filia's heart-wrenching expression told all that needed to be said. The woman's smile grew wider. "Then your course is clear. Tell him the truth." At Filia's shocked expression, the woman shook her head. "Love and truth will see you through, when dealing with this young one." Lina took note of how the princess of Sairune's eyes sparkled with justice upon hearing this declaration and suppressed a groan.

Filia, clearly not quite convinced, bowed and stepped back, hugging little Val's sleeping form close. Lina, frustrated with her mental attempts at sorting through her own request and whipped a few pieces of paper and a stick of charcoal out of her cloak and frantically began scribbling ideas, growling softly as she scratched them out as unusable one after the other.

Xelloss had sulked then, disappointed that Filia's exchange had gone so well. "Goodness, this is turning out to be much duller than I had anticipated. Perhaps Zelgadis can manage to make something... interesting happen."

Whether he meant to or not, the trickster priests' words had the effect of making the chimera pause and reflect on all the ways that "I want to be the way I was before, no matter the cost!" could go wrong. Once he had started, he froze. His mind working as tirelessly to describe all of the possible bad outcomes to him as Lina herself would assault a banquet of dragon cuisine.

Sensing his turmoil, Amelia edged forward. "Could... could I ask a question?" she pleaded, eyes shimmering anew with some tremendously just cause. The vision of the woman giggled softly and nodded. With a relieved gasp, Amelia stepped fully to the front of their little party. "I have almost everything that I could ever want and need, but I do have one wish."

"That is good, one wish such as this is all anyone, human, dragon, monster or otherwise can have," she was answered by the impassive guardian of the well.

Amelia nodded, frowning slightly. "My wish is to know, is there some... attainable, non-corrupting way that exists by which Mr. Zelgadis can be changed back into a human without being killed or falling victim to some evil influence?"

Zelgadis's eyes widened. Lina looked up at the carefully-worded question with a start. Beside her, Gourry made a soft, confused sound as he tried to work through all the conditional phrasing. The woman smiled. "Yes, and that is the only answer I can give to you, princess." Amelia made a happy squealing sound and had giddily hopped up and down, clapping her hands until her joy finally made Xelloss vanish from their presence, making sounds as though he was going to be violently sick to his stomach.

The chimera stumbled awkwardly towards the princess, grabbing her hands and staring into her eyes as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. "Amelia? W-Why? Why would you give up your wish for me like that?" Amelia laughed at the question as though it were the silliest thing she'd ever heard. "Because I care about you, Mr. Zelgadis!" Her cheeks grew red and she looked over his shoulder instead of directly into his eyes. "I.. care about you a lot."

Now Lina was the one who felt like she was going to vomit. She scratched out another unusable idea.

Zelgadis eased himself in front of the ghostly apparition of the woman, still clutching one of Amelia's hands for moral support. "Please tell me, what is the way that you told Amelia about? The way that I can become human again?" The blonde smirked a little at him. "I can tell you. It will not be fast, and it will not be easy. You must first seek out an old wizard who lives far to the north of here, in the Calchak mountains. You must have realised that the curse did not break like an ordinary spell would with the death of the one who cast it."

"That is because YOU partially cast it as well. You aided your grandfather, by giving him your full consent to the spell. You lent him your existing power. Such a curse cannot be broken without killing you. However..." her smile turned a bit mischeivious. "It can be.. changed. The conditions can be altered." Zelgadis bowed formally to her, whispering many thanks as tears welled in his eyes.

Lina cursed mentally and scratched out another of her ideas, even as she glanced up at the revelation that there actually was a cure out there somewhere, attainable for Zel. She was as surprised as everyone else when Gourry suddenly stepped forward, scratching his chin in confoundment. Something deep inside herself screamed in protest, wanting to grab the big dumb jellyfish before he said something that got them all turned into sausages or something. Or perhaps worse, if something happened just to him... She lurched up, trying to grab for him, but her legs had long ago gone to sleep, and she landed in an ungraceful heap in the floor.

The blonde swordsman paused in front of the faint vision of the guardian of the well, staring at her as though he thought he should know her from someplace. Finally he shrugged, and gave her the sort of honest, frank look that usually preceeded asking someone where the bathroom was. Instead, it seemed he had a request.

"I guess, I'd like something too. I want to be able to remember stuff. I.. kinda feel like a burden sometimes since I can't really remember a lot of things. Can you fix it so that my memory is better? Maybe almost as good as Lina's?"

The breath Lina hadn't realised she'd been holding went whooshing out of her lungs. Gourry was safe, and honestly, she wouldn't mind him being a bit quicker on the uptake, either. There was silence in the crystal chamber, and Lina raised her head to see the blonde woman regarding Gourry with a sad, somber expression before shaking her head.

"I cannot grant that wish."

Gourry looked more disappointed than upset. "Why not?"

"Because," the woman sighed, "I already granted you a wish, and this one would countermand it anyway."

Back in the present, under the shade of the oak tree, Lina fumed. That jellyfish had claimed to have no clue what the guardian of the well was talking about, and it was only after chasing him all the way back to this clearing, several miles from the mouth of the well's cave, that Lina had recalled that she'd never made her wish. Well, not that she'd figured out how to do so safely yet, anyway. She'd managed to laugh at the incident after nearly fireballing herself and Gourry for the oversight. She'd sworn she wasn't leaving until she'd figured out how to make her own wish, and they'd all laughed at the obviousness of her statement.

The group had spent the evening watching the stars, Filia soothing little Val, and Amelia and Zelgadis sharing more than a few quiet smiles when they thought no one was looking. At one point, Gourry had sneaked an arm around her, and given her shoulder a gentle squeeze while giving her that look that turned her insides to melted butter. She'd squeaked and looked away, even as she allowed herself to lean against him. He'd chuckled softly and ruffled her hair. And it was the most perfect evening that any of them could recall in a long time.

But still, the incident at the well bothered her. So here she sat in the shade, brooding.

The sound of heavy hooves and a soft beastial snort made her roll her eyes. Great, now some stupid cow was going to stink up her nice pretty sulking spot. She didn't turn to face the bovine intruder, instead concentrating on watching Filia and Amelia encourage little Valteria to walk on his wobbly legs. Nearby, Zelgadis sat in the sunshine, reading an atlas with rapt facination, doubtless planning his route to the mountains of the north already. And Gourry... she noted the ends of his blue boots sticking out of his tent. Figures, that jellyfish had dozed right back off after getting dressed.

Something bumped her shoulder, and she groaned. "Stupid cow, leave me alone!" she growled, shoving the questing snout away without gracing it with a glance. "My hair's not on the menu, now go eat some nice grass before I fireball your ass and make you into a steak!" The snuffling snout retreated. Lina leaned back against the tree, wishing she knew why the incident with Gourry and the mysterious well guardian bothered her so much.

So Gourry had been to the well before, but didn't remember it. Nothing too odd about Gourry not remembering something. And apparently what he'd wished for was the opposite of a good memory. Which meant he'd been trying to escape recalling something bad, most likely. He was always so serious about protecting her.. did these bad memories have to do with an old girlfriend? A strange feeling of jealousy sprang into being with that thought. It was all speculation, why would she feel jealous of the idea that maybe, at some point in his life, Gourry had perhaps had a girlfriend.

"I bet she was tall, a princess or something.." Lina growled to herself, positively fuming with anger over the image she was conjuring up. "With long, gorgeous, naturally curly hair, and really well-developed... probably wore dresses all the time and had some prissy name like Victoria or Millicent or something... with big green eyes and... and..." Her rant was cut off as the snout from before shoved against her shoulder, sending her sprawling.

"Alright cow, get ready to be a crispy critter!" she roared, shoving herself upright once more and preparing to call forth a fireball of retribution. Her indignation was gone in an instant as she saw her attacker, though. There, inches from her face was the curious face of what appeared to be a unicorn. She blinked. The creature didn't vanish. She pinched herself, the unicorn's head tilted sideways as if trying to figure out what she was up to. Finally Lina let herself fall forward into the sparse grass in shock. She wasn't dreaming, there was actually a real, live unicorn standing in front of her.

She watched as the large creature wandered away and explored the shady clearing, apparently taking in all the sights and sounds, as well as a few smells, of their setting. The situation was so ridiculous that she felt the urge to laugh out loud. She'd spent the last few minutes so engrossed in worrying about imaginary people that she'd had to be knocked over by a near-mythical creature before she'd even noticed it.

She rolled back into a sitting position, watching the animal as it grazed idly on a few blades of grass. It was much larger than she'd always heard unicorns were, standing as tall as any draft horse she'd ever seen. Then again, when was the last time mortal eyes had beheld such a creature? It's coat and the long trailing mane and tail were a nearly uniform shade of white gold, and the single horn that rose, spiralling from its' forehead was only a few shades darker. Large, dark blue eyes that seemed full of wisdom tempered with fathomless sadness glanced over to her, their depths appearing as bottomless as the Well of Wishes had.

Damn it, she'd figure out a way to make a profit off of this thing if it killed her! It was well-known that it called forth unimaginable ill-fortune- sometimes even instant death- to kill such a creature, but perhaps she could capture it. Huge piles of gold sparkled in her mind's eye and she scooted forward.

She reached towards the beast, cooing softly to it to try and entice it closer. It's ears pricked up, and it eased back in her direction with a nonchalance that seemed oddly purposeful. "Aha, GOTCHA!" she cried, grabbing for it's outstretched head. Instead of latching on to the unicorn, she ended up back on the ground as the beast ducked away. It made a whinnying sound that was awfully close to a laugh as she stumbled back upright.

"Oh now it's on! No mutant donkey with an overrated tumor on it's head gets the better of Lina Inverse!"

She rushed the creature, probably not the wisest thing to do, but it danced effortlessly out of her grasp. Instead of fleeing, it pranced victoriously just out of her reach, taunting her with that amused whinny. Lina's temper flared and she cast a spell.

"RAYWING!"

The group in the clearing looked up to see Lina come shooting out of the forest hot on the heels of what they initially took to be an enormous palimino horse. More oddly, Lina was screaming about how it was going to pay for some indignation that it had visited upon her person. The pair charged around the meadow, the four-legged equine somehow managing to stay just ahead of the super-powered sorceress until she over-compensated for a sudden turn and lost control of the spell. Lina crashed into the ground, covered in grass stains and a few minor bruises. Amelia gasped as the object of the dragon-slayer's pursuit casually cantered back over to her.

"Mr. Zelgadis! Miss Filia! Look!" she breathed, captivated.

"I thought unicorns were extinct!" Filia gasped, "I've never heard of any living ones back home!"

Zelgadis put his book aside, and joined the two women in staring at the odd sight. "There are rare sightings, but most are hoaxes or wishful thinking. I've.. I've never seen one before, myself."

The group burst into laughter as a loudly-protesting Lina was picked up by the back of her cape by the golden-white animal, and hoisted effortlessly into the air, carrying her playfully about the meadow. Lina Inverse, who had taken down three pieces of the dark lord Shabranigdo, destroyed two of the high-ranking demons of the land.. was being hauled around like a toy as she flailed and shrieked.

Finally the unicorn seemed to have had enough, gently setting Lina down before her friends. Amelia's eyes shone as she reached towards the animal. "Hello, I'm Amelia! Ohhh.. you're SO pretty Mr. Unicorn!" The unicorn gave an uncomfortable gutteral sound, shying away from the princess' outstretched hand.

Lina leapt back up from the ground, and pointed at her tormentor. "Alright, Amelia! Let's get 'im!" Amelia startled. "Get Mr. Unicorn? But why, Miss Lina?" Lina fumbled for a reason for a moment, then slammed a fist into her palm with realisation. "Because if we don't, we don't get to pet him! Or possibly borrow a few strands of magically-infused hair.." she trailed off, giggling, picturing the piles of money that she could get for even a single strand of the flowing tail that trailed the creature. Convinced, Amelia squealed. "Let's do it!"

The unicorn reared, seeming to chortle at their idea, then took off at a gallop across the meadow as they gave chase, laughing. Zelgadis and Filia watched, amused. "To think, a unicorn came to Lina, of all people." Zelgadis sighed. Filia giggled delicately. "In my land, the tales say that unicorns are the servants of the Lord of Nightmares herself." Zelgadis' eyebrows quirked in curiousity. "The dragons of course serve Ceipheed, the monster race serves Shabranigdo, and so it was told in our temple that the unicorns served the greatest lord of all."

"Then why do your legends say that they died out?" Zelgadis asked, genuinely curious now. Filia shrugged. "The old tales don't really elaborate much on that. The most commonly-held interpretation is that L-sama recalled them back to herself as the need for them vanished."

The chimera glanced back as Amelia and Lina tried a flanking manuever on their quarry. "My grandfather, Rezo, once told me a story about unicorns. He said that they were visitors from some other plane. Another of the four worlds, perhaps." he shrugged. "I suppose they could both be true, though." Oblivious to the peculiar goings-on around him, Val snoozed in the sunlight next to his adoptive mother. He cared not for sorceresses, chimeras or unicorns, and only stirred when Xelloss appeared and Filia squalled in protest.

"My kind know a few stories about unicorns too, Miss Filia.." he fairly purred, leaning towards her face and enjoying the way she shrank back away from him in fear and revulsion. "It is said among the monster race that the unicorns are why the golden dragons thought so highly of themselves." Filia grabbed her mace and swung, nearly hitting Zelgadis as the monster flickered out of the way. He reappeared perched on top of her weapon, calmly sipping a cup of delicious-smelling coffee to better annoy them both. "You see, unicorns had magic that dragons could only dream of. But the golden dragons were, as you know, a very jealous race, and wanted to rule all of the dragon races. Now, since they were closest in supposed 'purity' and appearance to the unicorns, the golden dragon clan leaders decided that they should obviously be the supreme dragon race."

Filia glared at him, discarding her mace to force him to move.

"Not going to deny it, Miss Filia? What a shame!"

The dragon retrieved her weapon and sniffed indignantly. "I haven't ever heard such a story, and I have no time to spend listening to the rancid words of raw garbage like you!"

Xelloss twitched as she picked up a now-fussy Valteria. "Ooooh, it's okay little one! The bad smelly monster's not going to get youuuu." she cooed and played with the tiny ancient dragon's hair, causing him to giggle. At the joyful, innocent sound, Xelloss turned several shades of green and retreated to the astral plane. Filia giggled and twirled around with the baby.

Lina laughed as the unicorn leapt over Amelia as though the princess were a stationary shrub and it weighed no more than a feather. The princess yelped and dove aside, abandoning the chase as Lina and the unicorn left the meadow behind and went rushing into the woods. She followed closely as the pale beast wove effortlessly through the closely-spaced trees and leapt gourges that she wouldn't have dared think it could pass over safely. So intent on watching it was she that she slammed into a large tree that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

There was no pain, everything just faded quickly to black.

She awoke to a now-familiar snuffling noise and a headache the size of a dragon. She opened her eyes and stared up at the curious unicorn. "You're going to be the death of me, pal." She raised her aching body into a sitting position, and waved to the animal as though she were dismissing it from her presence. "Fine, have your precious freedom. Be gone, then." She looked up as the long face drew closer to her, and startled. The deep blue eyes stared into hers, full of familiar compassion and concern.It's forelock fell over it's eyes, shading them but still allowing their earnestness to shine through.

The long golden horn touched her shoulder gently, and she gasped at the feeling of relief that washed over her, but found herself unable to look away from those eyes. Those incredibly, impossibly familiar eyes..

"Miss Lina! Miss Linaaaa!"

The unicorn backed away, bobbing it's head towards her as if in farewell before turning and galloping off into the thick trees soundlessly. Lina stared after it long after it had gone, and only Amelia grabbing her and shaking her back to the present roused her from her gape-mouthed stupor.

"Miss Lina, what happened?"

Lina fumbled for an answer, finally settling on "I lost him." before struggling back upright and limping back in the direction she had come from. "I'm going back to the well. The rest of you wait at camp."

"But.. but Miss Lina, shouldn't we wake up Mr. Gourry first?"

But Lina was already gone. At the first break in the trees, she unleashed a raywing spell and went hurtling through the air, back to the cave where this whole confusing mess had begun. Her mind was in a whirl more violent than the churning winds that made up her flight spell.

The familiar apparition of the guardian appeared as she stormed into the cave. "You have a wish now?" the woman asked, and Lina resisted the urge to dragon slave her, the well, and the whole damned cave.

"Yeah, I have a wish, alright. I want to know.. just what the hell is Gourry? What is he REALLY?"

The woman's smile faltered a little. "So he changed back, did he? I suppose now it's up to him to decide what he remains as."

"Enough with the riddles, I want to know what the hell's going on here!" Lina roared, her aura practically crackling with magical fury.

The guardian sighed. "Long, long ago, I was visited by a singular creature. He was one of the last ones left, who had not been called home by our lord. He had lived through the creation of the gods and monsters, had seen the War of the Monster's Fall, he had seen all the great rises and falls of civilization, and it simply broke his compassionate heart. He asked me to change him, to let him live life as something other than a creature who could never forget all the horrors that he'd seen. He wanted to be reborn as a human, so that he could be carefree and finally have the ability to put all that he had lived through behind him."

"The conditions of the spell were, that when he thought he was completely content as a human, that he would turn back into a unicorn for a day and then with his memory of everything, even his time as a human, he would decide the form that he would live out his days in." The woman looked up at Lina, and the sorceress felt fear prickling through her very being. "Since you've seen him in his true form, I should warn you. If he decides being human is too unpleasant, he will be lost to you, I'm afraid. He may have come to you to say goodbye."

Lina turned and bolted from the cave, running as fast as she could from the idea. Gourry was just Gourry, he wasn't some magical creature! So what if his resistance to being blown up was almost impossibly high? So what if she and most other high-level magic users could detect a good amount of latent magical capacity in him, which had enabled him to so fully control the Sword of Light? So what if his name meant 'noble unicorn' in the old tongue of Elmekia, his homeland? It was all coincidence! It had to be! Her aching muscles protested the excessive movement, and finally something inside of her gave in.

She collapsed into the tall grass and sobbed, recalling every unpleasant thing that had happened to them, every unkind deed and action that she'd ever visited upon him. There was no way that a person or beast capable of remembering all that would come back to her for more.

It was a sullen Lina Inverse who stumbled into camp that evening, eyes red and puffy from crying and clothing unkempt from where she'd fallen sobbing into the underbrush several times on her journey back. She'd walked the whole way, not having the heart to cast a spell to speed her journey back to the inevitable. She still hadn't cast any healing spells upon herself, because she honestly felt that she didn't deserve to feel any better physically than she did emotionally.

"Miss Lina!" Filia gasped, rushing over to the sorceress and guiding her back to the campfire. "What happened to you? You look awful!"

Lina shook her head and let out a weary sigh. Amelia brought her a blanket, and looked anxiously at Zelgadis before sitting down next to the infamous bandit-slayer.

"Miss Lina.. we're so glad to see you're okay!" She began casting a healing spell as she spoke, and Lina slumped in relief as her aching muscles relaxed. "Um.. Miss Lina? You didn't see Mr. Gourry on your way back, did you? His things are still here, but well... we haven't seen him all day long. We're starting to get worried."

That did it for Lina, she buried her head in her hands and began to sob. So it was true then, Gourry was gone. He wasn't coming back this time, or ever again.

Amelia cried out in alarm as her friend came apart at the emotional seams. "Miss Lina! Miss Lina, what's wrong?" Thankfully, as the princess' voice became higher with stress, Lina blacked out.

She wasn't sure how long she was out for, but the first gentle rays of morning light were peeking into their camp when Lina's eyes opened again. She crawled out of her tent, clasping her arms tightly to herself as she shivered in the cool morning air. The clear sky was promising a beautiful day, but to her it was bound to be a meaningless one. Travelling the world? Seeing new sights? Eating herself sick? It all seemed so meaningless if she was going to be doing it alone.

"Good morning, Sunshine."

Lina startled at the voice, whirling around to see Gourry, the human Gourry, prodding the fire idly as he watched her. He gave her his happily clueless grin and looked baffled when she raced across camp to throw her arms around him and weep.

"Hey, hey Lina.. it'll be okay, I didn't lose all the firewood in the river! We'll have breakfast, I promise! It'll just be a little bit late.." He patted her shoulders awkwardly, unsure of how to comfort her.

"You.. you jellyfish! The guardian of the well told me everything!"

Gourry blinked, amazed. "Everything? Like.. everything, everything? How did your head hold it all?"

She slapped his arm in frustration, then immediately looked like she regretted it profoundly. "Gourry.. why did you come back?" He grinned at her, gentle blue eyes sparkling. She could see tiny flickers of the immense depths she'd seen the day previously, but it was like an ocean had been drained until it was a mere pond. Hints existed of what had been before, but now there was an entirely new thing established upon the precedent of the old. His thoughts and memory might not run as deep, but they no longer tormented him.

"Well gee Lina, I just went for firewood!" he sighed, exasperated as though he was having to explain something mindlessly simple to her, "And anyway, I belong here, with you! Haven't I told you that before?" The memory of something similar, gold shining on blackness, and the amusement of something infinitely powerful flickered in Lina's mind. She shook her head at the absurdity of her life and hugged him. He seemed content to remain there, with her.

She couldn't believe how lucky she was.

--

A/N: So there you have it. Did you see it coming? Unicorns are mentioned once in the Slayers anime that I can recall, in season 1 as Lina, Gourry, Amelia and Phillionel arrive in Sairune. Lina crawls into a primitive trap baited with a unicorn's horn, much to Gourry's amusement and consternation. Obviously the world of Slayers is practically lousy with magical beasts, but why not emphasize one more? Other than his steadfast honesty, huge mane of hair, and basically pure heart, I'm not sure where the connection between Gourry and a unicorn came from, but hopefully someone out there enjoyed it.