A Slayers Fanfic
Disclaimer (applies to full story): The most important characters in this story belong to people other than me, although I think anyone who holds a character in her heart owns that character just a little bit (in a completely nonlegal sense of course). I thank the true authors for creating such enjoyable characters and such an entertaining world. I hope they won't mind me sharing the humble daydreams their stories have inspired in me.
Warning: This story stars Zelgadis and Amelia. The other main Slayers characters appear only in cameos and fond recollections. Anyone who feels that any Slayers fanfic not starring Xellos or Lina is boring, this is not the fic for you. Everyone else, I've packed this story as full of Slayers silliness and mayhem as I could. I hope you enjoy it.
Zelgadis tugged his hood further forward over his face before knocking politely on the door. His keen ears detected grumbling and approaching footsteps before the door was opened by a grey-haired but powerfully built old man.
"Are you Cazeno the Sorcerer?" Zelgadis asked him.
"No, no. Old Cazeno died sixteen years back. I'm Endo the Sorcerer."
"Perhaps you can still help me."
"Certainly. Come in."
The house was just as small on the inside as it had looked from the outside and it was filled with magical paraphernalia. Zelgadis noticed a divining rod and a basket full of enchanted gems as he was guided to a battered chair by the fireplace. Actually, he wouldn't mind living in a house like this when he grew old.
As soon as he had reseated himself in his usual chair, Endo went straight to business, "Tell me, stranger: who are you and what magical help do you seek?"
"My name is Zelgadis," the younger man replied, "and I seek information on transformation spells."
The old sorcerer noted the way his guest kept his face and body carefully concealed under a pale-coloured cloak and loose, pale-coloured clothing, which hid everything except his eyes and a tuft of spiky, silvery-violet hair. The skin around his eyes was dark and...scaly? Endo refrained from commenting on it. Instead he remarked, "Transformation spells were more Cazeno's thing than mine. Still, I picked up a few things working with him for so long. I was his apprentice, you know, and then we worked as partners for twenty years after that."
"I just want to consult his books."
"His books, hmm. I'm afraid I got rid of most of them after he died -- the advanced transformation theory stuff, anyway, which I presume are the ones you want.
Under the concealment of the cloak one of Zel's eyes twitched. "Got rid of?" he repeated.
"Yes, I gave them away. They weren't much use to me since I was never very interested in transformations. I prefer working with inanimate objects."
"Where. Are. The. Books. Now?" Zelgadis gritted out.
"In the Library of Seyruun, I presume. At least that's who I gave them to."
"Which library?"
"The one in the palace, of course. That's a good place to look for the information you want in any case. The Seyruun palace has one of the best collections of magic texts in the world."
"Thank you. I'll do that."
"Oh, don't go so soon! It's been ages since I last had a chance to talk with a fellow scholar of magic."
"Good bye." Zelgadis let himself out.
Seyruun palace. It figured. Zelgadis had been avoiding Seyruun, and especially the palace, for the last several months, ever since he and his friends had defeated Dark Star and then gone their separate ways.
He didn't have to go now. Cazeno's spell books would probably prove as useless as every other magical text he had consulted since the day he had fallen under this curse. Cazeno had been a mediocre sorcerer at best. Still, it was his only lead at the moment and it was irrational to avoid Seyruun without any better reason than that he didn't want to face Amelia again.
He didn't even have any good reason to avoid Amelia. She was, after all, his friend. She had some annoying personality traits, like unshakeable cheerfulness and an obsession with justice, but those were things he had long since learned to ignore. If all he had to worry about was her personality, he would have been happy to see Amelia again. However, there were a few other problems, like that adolescent crush she had on him, and the fact that she was the heir to one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world. And her father was even more crazy than she was. Somehow the thought of visiting them made him nervous.
Zelgadis arrived at his inn. He slipped quickly and quietly up the stairs to his room.
Well, there was no reason why he had to see Amelia just because he was in Seyruun. He would be spending all his time in the library, so if she didn't visit the library he might not meet her. It was a faint hope. Zelgadis' appearance made him easy to spot. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to see Amelia again. He did miss her occasionally. She was a good partner in a fight, and for some incomprehensible reason she liked his chimeric appearance.
Zel walked to the mirror and uncovered his face and hair. He stared morosely into the room's small mirror at blue stone skin, complete with inset pebbles around the eyes and chin, and wire hair. Only his eyes were still human. How hideous, he thought. He had been like this for almost three years now, and each passing day increased his frustration and despair. He replaced his face coverings and left the inn.
His friends had never cared. That was the main reason he had traveled with them so long despite their immaturity and many eccentricities. That, and the way they tracked him down every time he tried to walk out on them.
They had been an odd group. Their leader had been Lina Inverse: fiery haired, fiery tempered and quite possibly the most powerful sorceress alive, but as selfish and short-tempered as a child. Gourry Gabriev was the only one still travelling with her. He was an extraordinarily talented swordsman with the intellect of a child, or possibly a puppy. The last member was Amelia, the self-proclaimed Champion of Justice, barely more than a child in years and still a child in innocence. Zelgadis had been the only mature member of the group. Other companions had joined them from time to time, some more annoying than others, but the core of the group had always been Lina, Gourry, Amelia and Zelgadis.
Zel stepped onto the dusty highway. There was no reason to stay in this town any longer. If he moved quickly he could reach Seyruun in a little over a week.
When Zelgadis arrived in Seyruun the streets were packed with people. They were strolling about, talking, laughing, dancing, shopping and licking ice cream cones. Zel tried to fade into the shadows. It was just his luck to arrive on some Seyruunese holiday he had never heard of.
He pulled his hood further forward over his face and asked a passing man, "Excuse me. Could you tell me the reason for these celebrations?"
"Sure," the man replied, "It's Princess Amelia's birthday. If you go out to the main road there," he pointed, "you'll be able to see the whole royal family ride by any minute now."
Zelgadis had never thought to wonder when Amelia's birthday was. "She's what, fourteen years old now?"
"Sweet sixteen." The man gave Zelgadis a friendly smile and walked off.
Sixteen, hmm? That meant that she had been fourteen when he first met her. She had acted ten. She had matured a lot during their later adventures, but Zel suspected that she would still be the same annoyingly immature girl he remembered. Zelgadis was twenty-one, not that age meant much to a chimera. No one had celebrated his last birthday, not even himself.
Zel made his way towards the palace through the crowds along the main street, which was less tightly packed than the narrower side streets. He did not intend to watch the parade, but the crowd suddenly became impassably thick as the sound of music and cheering approached. He turned to look.
There were dancers and musicians, followed by soldiers in crisp dress uniforms. Then came Amelia in a shining white dress, riding a shining white horse and waving to her people. The massive forms of her father and uncle framed her on each side, but Zel's eyes were glued to the petite princess.
It felt good to see her again. He made the most of this opportunity to watch her without having to deal with her. Zelgadis always thought of Amelia in the serviceable but plain sorceress' costume she wore while travelling. He had only seen her dressed as a princess a few times before and had forgotten how well it suited her. She looked truly lovely. The royal regalia gave her an air of dignity that she tended to lack in day-to-day life. That low cut dress really showed off her figure. He had known that she had curves in all the right places but he hadn't realized just how generous those curves were.
"Zelgadis-san!" Amelia cried in amazement and delight.
She flung herself off her horse and pushed her way into the crowd. Zelgadis tried to melt backward into obscurity, but it was too late. Faster than he would have believed possible Amelia stood before him, bouncing with excitement. Zelgadis cringed. Hundreds of hostile and curious eyes were staring at them.
Amelia's huge, vividly blue eyes were wide with delight. "What are you doing here? I'm so glad to see you! Are Lina-san and Gourry-san here too?" She glanced around nervously in all directions. Her hair was just as short as Zelgadis remembered it but Amelia herself had grown. She was at least as tall as Lina now and she seemed to have grown a bit in other directions too.
"No, they're not here. I haven't seen them in several months."
Amelia relaxed in relief. Lina and Gourry were her beloved friends, but they would undoubtedly have somehow ruined her birthday celebrations and probably destroyed a large fraction of Seyruun in the process, judging by what happened the last few times she had met up with them.
"I'm here to use the library," Zelgadis continued. "Oh, and happy birthday."
Even after relaxing, Amelia was still exuberantly delighted. "All the libraries of Seyruun will be devoted to your search. If the information you seek can be found, I swear by the honour of Seyruun we will find it!" She ended her speech with a finger thrust heroically at the sky.
"Uh, thanks."
"Come to the palace after the parade and I'll introduce you to the librarians."
She hugged him and jumped back onto her horse. Moments later she was riding away slowly into the distance. Zelgadis blinked.
Zel had to admit that it was easier to get into the library with royal support. After Amelia's glowing endorsement of him the librarians let him look at even the restricted books with only mild protests. Of course they still stared curiously at the freak.
Amelia walked into sight. She had changed into a much less formal dress than the one she wore in the parade. She flashed Zelgadis a smile before going to a shelf near the back of the library and pulling out a stack of books. She dropped the books on the table in front of him.
"I'm sorry I can't stay but I have a lot of things to do before the celebrations tonight. You will come to my feast and ball, won't you?"
"I'll be pretty busy here."
"Please?" She gave him a pleading look of utter cuteness.
He felt his will start to cave in. "Maybe."
"My birthday celebrations will be so much more fun with you here!"
She dashed off.
She came back.
"By the way, you can stay in the same room you had the last time you were here. I'll have everything you need sent there."
She dashed off again.
What did she mean by "everything you need"? Not important. Zelgadis turned his attention to the books she had brought.
He was surprised. The books Amelia had chosen all contained detailed information on chimeras with the relevant passages neatly bookmarked. He could easily believe that she had handed him all the descriptions of chimeras worth looking at in the entire library. Even more surprisingly, the detailed, insightful notes, which he found sandwiched between the third and fourth books, were in her handwriting. There wasn't any information in them that really helped him but she had saved him days of futile searching.
He shouldn't be so surprised. She was a well-educated princess and a skilled sorceress. Of course she had research skills. Even so, he wondered when she had done all this work and why.
A short time later a librarian tapped Zelgadis on the shoulder. "Excuse me, sir. We're closing the library so that everyone can go to the feast."
"May I stay in here? I promise I won't harm any of the books."
"I'm sorry, sir."
Zelgadis wanted to protest but he decided that would be better not to offend the librarians. He needed their help, for now. Besides, they would probably kick him out anyway. He closed the book he was looking at and stood up.
"You have time to change before the feast," the librarian suggested helpfully, "It's not for another half hour."
Then why were they closing the library so early? Zelgadis acknowledged the suggestion with a grudging nod. The sun was setting outside the palace windows as he walked through the corridors to his room.
"Everything you need" turned out to include a formal Seyruunese suit suitable for a ball. Zelgadis held it up against himself. It looked like it was even the right size. He hung it back up in the wardrobe, brushed some road dust off his cape and went to find the feast.
Zelgadis was impatient to get back to his books but he had to admit that it was truly a feast fit for a princess. He had a gourmet side he rarely indulged or even acknowledged. The delicate flavors and rich textures of this banquet made him feel...almost happy. What made it even better was that his tablemates were at least pretending not to stare him.
At the high table Amelia was chatting happily with various relatives and visiting dignitaries. She was wearing a ball gown now and looked, if possible, even more beautiful than she had during the parade. Prince Phil's laughter boomed out, audible even over all the other noise in the crowded room.
Crown Prince Philionel el de Seyruun, Amelia's father, was the de facto ruler of Seyruun since the king had been on his deathbed for years. He was a massive man with a face that was more bristling black beard than face. He looked like a bandit, or possibly an ogre, and he was just as tough as he looked. Zelgadis had once seen him destroy low-level Mazoku with his bare hands. Despite this, he was a devout pacifist. Amelia's devotion to Justice was only a pale shadow of her father's. The people of Seyruun loved Prince Phil. Rulers of other countries trusted and respected him. Amelia was completely devoted to him, and he seemed infinitely proud of her. It was the most openly loving parent-child relationship Zelgadis had ever seen. Zel wasn't sure whether to be sickened or envious.
Philionel's brother Christopher was sitting further down the table. He had just a moustache rather than a full beard, but otherwise he looked like a slightly smaller version of his elder brother. His personality was much quieter though. Zel idly wondered how Amelia had ended up so much smaller than the rest of her family. He could sympathize. He came from a tall family too.
Finally one of the librarians left the dining hall. Zelgadis immediately got up to follow, but he had one more thing to take care of before he could return to his research. He didn't want Amelia to think he hadn't known about her birthday. He walked over to Amelia's seat and dropped her birthday present in her lap. "Here." He was halfway to the door before she had time to turn around.
Amelia stared at his receding back in surprise and then looked down at her lap. There was a piece of paper lying there. She unfolded it and read, 'This is a time reversal spell that Rezo used as the equivalent of a healing spell for inanimate objects. It was one of Rezo's favorite spells. Maybe it will work better for you than it has for me.' Below that were the instructions for casting the spell. All the writing was in Zelgadis' precise hand. Amelia folded up the paper again and tucked it away in her dress. She would try it as soon as she had time. What an interesting present.
Amelia woke bright and early the next day. "I'm sixteen!" she thought happily, stretching. Usually the day after a birthday was kind of a let down. After weeks of preparations and a day packed full of festivities, suddenly she would have absolutely nothing to do. Today was different. Today she had Zelgadis.
She dressed quickly, ate a light breakfast and went straight to the library. As she had expected, he was already there. It was impossible to tell whether he had been there over night or had just arrived a few minutes ago. There were books and papers spread across the entire table, some neatly stacked, others spread open on top of each other.
"Have you found anything yet?" Amelia asked, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table from Zelgadis with a relatively clear line-of-sight to his face.
"No. I went through the books you gave me." He nodded to where most of them were restacked off to one side. "Now I'm looking at the works of some of the sorcerers I tried to find during my travels but couldn't." The one he was looking at right now happened to be Cazeno's. The man had been fresh in his mind.
"How can I help?" Amelia tried to figure out which stack was the 'to read' pile.
"You want to help?" Zelgadis looked unenthused about the idea.
"Of course! It is only Just to help a friend."
Zelgadis remembered the quality the research she had already done. "You can stay for now," he decided, "but promise that you will leave me alone if I ask you to."
Amelia reluctantly agreed.
Zel handed her another of Cazeno's books. "Skim this. It's transformation spells. There probably isn't anything useful in it, but tell me if you find anything unusual."
Amelia didn't have much background in transformation spells so it was slow going. After an hour, by which time she felt she had grasped the essentials, she found something worth copying out.
Zelgadis, who had glanced through and discarded five books in the time it took Amelia to page through half of one, glanced up. "Have you found something interesting?" he inquired.
"It's a spell for breaking 'low powered and non-specifically targeted' transformations. It looks like the sorcerer who owned this book used this spell a lot." There were several stains on the page and the spine of the book was broken in that place from being held open too often and too long.
"My transformation was very high powered and specifically targeted. How does this help me?"
"It doesn't. I just want to learn the spell."
Zelgadis rolled his eyes. At least she wasn't actually slowing him down.
Lunch would have been sandwiches in the library but the librarians wouldn't let them eat over the books. Instead, Amelia dragged Zelgadis and the food to a nearby balcony with a spectacular view of the city, which was completely wasted on the moody chimera.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Amelia asked.
She was sitting on the parapet, sandwich in hand, heedless of the ten-story drop below. Zelgadis was leaning against the palace wall, eating as quickly as possible so he could get back to work.
"I'm trying to learn how to unmake a chimera. As far as I can tell, no one has ever studied this before. There are no spells for it." He punched the wall in frustration, causing the plaster to crumble and several bricks to crack. "I'm studying transformation, curses, healing, chimera making techniques and anything else I can think of, trying to piece together enough theory to create a cure. I'm also looking for information on the Demon Beast Zanaffar because I think Rezo was researching it at the time he turned me into a chimera. What is really frustrating is that he was using the Clair Bible, and you know what a complete failure our quest to find the Clair Bible was."
"We did find several copies of it."
"All of which were destroyed before I could look at them, although of course Lina got the information she needed."
"Cheer up, Zelgadis-san," Amelia exclaimed, jumping off the parapet (on the side which did not lead to a hundred foot drop), "If we work hard and never give up, we are sure to succeed because Justice is on our side!"
Zelgadis followed her back into the library. Their whole lunch break had lasted less than ten minutes.
By the time they retired for the night, their stacks of discarded books were piled table-high on the floor. The librarians gave them some dirty looks. They had gone through all of the promising books on transformation and set aside the best of them for later, more detailed study.
"Good night. See you tomorrow morning," Amelia said as they left the library.
"Wait. I haven't decided whether I want your help or not."
Amelia waited. She would join him tomorrow no matter what he said, but there was no point in starting the fight until after he tried to kick her out.
Zelgadis considered. Amelia hadn't been much help since she knew nothing about transformation spells, but she hadn't slowed him down either. He had expected that with her boundless energy and enthusiasm she would spend all her time distracting him. Instead she had quietly poured all that energy into the research. In fact, her confident enthusiasm kept him from getting bored or discouraged. The work seemed to go more smoothly with someone else working with him, regardless of how much work she actually did.
"I do want your help. See you tomorrow," Zelgadis finally said, much to Amelia's surprise.
Amelia smiled as she climbed into bed. Her head was spinning with new information. She had never thought much about transformation spells before but they were really interesting. Today had been much quieter than yesterday yet in an odd way it had been just as much fun.
"You know that there are other libraries in Seyruun. Would you like to look at some of them? I know one that has a lot of information on chimeras, although I don't agree with everything they say." Amelia frowned cutely.
"Maybe we should finish with this library first," Zelgadis suggested.
"You said that we've looked at all the likely stuff here and we just have to go through the unlikely stuff now. Why don't we look for likely stuff somewhere else instead?"
Zelgadis considered that. It did seem like a good suggestion. How unusual! Was Amelia finally developing some sense?
He abandoned that thought when he found out were she was trying to take him. "The Holy Order of Natural Purity?" he repeated in disbelief, "Amelia, those people kill chimeras on sight! You want me to try to walk into their head temple?"
"If I go first and explain that you are the victim of an evil sorcerer and you are trying to return your body to its natural state, they'll be happy to help you. They only hate people who voluntarily allowed their bodies to be deformed in a misguided search for power."
"Um."
"Don't worry. I told them about you when I was there before. The high priest said he would like to meet you. He's very nice."
Zelgadis really hoped Amelia knew what she was doing.
He watched from around a corner as she stood at the door of the temple for several minutes talking to various people. Finally she beckoned him over.
"Welcome, Zelgadis Greywords," said the high priest.
To Zelgadis' great surprise the temple's holy texts turned out to contain a great deal of useful information, if one skipped over the rants about the evils of altering the natural human body and ignored the stomach-tuning language in which the processes of chimera creation were described. Amelia wasn't very good at ignoring. She started weeping over the books so Zelgadis made her read some inoffensive healing texts instead. They stayed in the temple until the light started to fade.
"That was...very helpful," Zelgadis thanked the high priest, "May we come back tomorrow?"
"Certainly!" the old man beamed.
After that Zelgadis listened to Amelia's suggestions.
"Zelgadis-san, I can't help you with your research this afternoon. Some ambassadors have arrived and I have to meet with them. There's a banquet tonight, but you don't have to come unless you want to. Is that okay?"
Zelgadis' first reaction was a sense of betrayal, but he quickly suppressed it. For the last eight days Amelia had been devoting herself to his research from morning to night, but of course she had other things to do.
"Of course," he assented, "Go do whatever you want."
Amelia nodded happily and left.
The work went more slowly without Amelia, but the hours still passed quickly enough. Amelia reappeared shortly after sunset, carrying a plate of food. She correctly assumed that he hadn't eaten dinner yet.
"Some princes from a neighboring kingdom is going to visit Seyruun soon - the week after next. We're going to have a ball to welcome them," Amelia informed Zelgadis, "You're invited."
"I don't want to spend an evening being stared at by curious and frightened aristocrats," Zel protested.
"I'm going to make it into a masquerade. That way no one will know that you're a chimera."
That was hard to argue against. "I'll probably be too busy with my research."
"You can take one evening off, can't you? You don't have any time limit on using the libraries."
"I want to start searching for my cure as soon as possible." It was a weak argument so Zelgadis changed the subject, "Do you always have so many balls? You had one just a week ago."
"Yes," Amelia sighed, "There have been a lot of them lately. It's because I'm of marriageable age. They're a way for me to meet people."
"Doesn't it annoy you to have people shoved at you like that?"
"No, not really. There's no pressure for me to choose anyone, at least not yet, and dancing is fun!"
Zelgadis smiled at her innocent enthusiasm. "Have you found anyone you like yet?"
"No, not really," Amelia replied, blushing. Not as much as I like you, she added silently. She really had tried to get over her crush on Zelgadis, but it was hard when no other man she had ever met (with the exception of her father) interested her half as much as he did. Few had his intelligence. Fewer had his intense personality. None had his style. She would rather wade through mud with Zelgadis than dance with anyone else. Of course she would rather dance with him than do either, thus the invitation to the ball.
"I'm finished eating. Let's get back to work," Zelgadis interrupted her thoughts. He wondered who she had been thinking about with that dreamy expression on her face.
As the days passed, Amelia spent less and less time with Zelgadis and more and more preparing for the princes' visit. However, she always managed to spend at least an hour or two with her friend. Two mornings before the princes were scheduled to arrive, she walked into the library only to discover that there were no books piled around Zelgadis' table. The only things on the table were dozens of pages of notes and Zel's elbows.
"What are you doing?" she asked curiously.
"I'm condensing my notes into categories of potential techniques for reversing the chimera creation process," Zelgadis answered distractedly. "Most chimeras are grown in nutrient tanks or sewn together using a combination of magic and surgical techniques. A few are created by transformation spells as I probably was. The transformation method is less messy but requires more magical skill."
"Yes, I know," Amelia reminded him. "Can I help?"
"Not with this." Zelgadis considered telling her that he didn't need her at all, but that would be a waste of a good research assistant. "I've heard rumors that there is a magical spring somewhere in this region. Try to find out more about it."
"Okay!"
Amelia knew exactly where to find information on hot springs. It was a place she never went without a good reason, but this reason was good enough. She searched through her bedroom closet until she found what she was looking for: a small white box containing a key. She went down the hall to the door next to hers and unlocked it.
For the first time in over a year, she stepped into her sister's room. It was rather dusty but otherwise just how she remembered it. There was a white canopy bed with carved snakes twining around the bedposts. There was a half-open closet containing frilly dresses and tall boots. There were paintings of knights and dragons battling on the walls. There was a makeup table. On the makeup table, behind the brushes and cosmetics, there was a row of books pinned between unicorn-shaped bookends. One of those books was a comprehensive guide to hot springs. Amelia pulled it out and absent-mindedly sat down in the dust beside the bed to page through it.
Author's Note: The first two chapters are rather slow. Things pick up once they hit the road so, if you liked this chapter at all, keep reading!
I imagine that if you've had any significant exposure to anime and its fanfiction, you've probably already picked up a few Japanese terms but here's an explanation of all the Japanese I use just in case. These are all appended onto the ends of names in order to be more or less formal.
-san -- basic polite honorific like Mr. or Miss
ex. Zelgadis-san = Mr. Zelgadis
used by: Amelia and Xellos for everybody, Slyphiel and other polite characters for most people (Lina, Gourry and Zelgadis practically never use it, which makes them unusual)
-chan -- affectionate diminutive
ex. Zel-chan = Zelly
used by: pretty much nobody in Slayers (although it's used a LOT in Slayers fanfiction for some reason). People in other series (and real life) use it for girls, small children of both genders, and sometimes close friends and family
-sama -- honorific indicating great respect and/or love.
ex. Zelgadis-sama = ...uh, complicated; see next section
used by:Eris (Lord Rezo), Slyphiel (Gourry, dear), Martina (Master Xellos), most people (Lord Christopher). Note that it can indicate love, as in the first three, or be a formal title without emotional implications, as in the last.
I don't think I use this one, but it's good to know anyway.
-kun -- less cutesy diminutive than -chan
ex. Zel-kun = Zel, buddy
used by: not many people in Slayers. I think Dilgear may use it when he's trying to annoy Zelgadis. In other series (and real life) it's used for boys the way -chan is used for girls.
And that is all the Japanese you need to know to read this story.