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Dragon's Tail
a Slayers fanfiction by Rann Aridorn
Lina Inverse slumped into the inn, bone-weary. She nearly collapsed
into a chair, sighing.
'I'm almost too tired to eat... I'll only have twelve helpings
tonight,' she decided, leaning her head back, long, shining orangish
red hair falling over the back of her chair and swishing softly. It was
times like this, after long, weary days on the road, that she became
aware of just how many oppressive pieces there were of her sorceress
uniform. Feeling as much as hearing someone walk up beside her chair,
Lina assumed it was a waitress and didn't bother to raise her head. "I'll
start off with two helpings of whatever the house special is."
"Well, I'd get it for you, if I worked here, Lina-sama," replied a
soft, slightly teasing, and very familiar voice. Lina blinked and opened
her eyes, sitting up and looking up to a smiling face, sparkling blue
eyes, and long blonde hair.
"Filia!" Lina cried happily, hopping to her feet with her weariness
forgotten, shaking the dragoness' hand exuberantly. "It's so great to
see you! You can buy me dinner while we reminisce!"
A large sweatdrop appeared on the back of Filia's head, her smile
turning somewhat rueful. "Why am I not surprised?" But Filia did indeed
sit down, having to take a few moments to arrange it so that she wasn't
sitting on or crushing her tail. Lina always wondered why Filia could
take such perfect human form, but could never get rid of the tail. But
it didn't matter! She was gonna get someone else to pay for her food!
In due course, an actual waitress arrived, and Lina placed her
exhorbitant order, while the bemused Filia merely ordered tea. The food
arrived quickly, and Lina quickly began wolfing it down in her trademark
manner. Between bites, she actually remembered that Filia being here,
alone, raised some questions that she wanted answered.
"So, Filia," she began, around a mouthful of smoked beef. "Where's
li'l Valgarv?"
"Oh, well, you see, I met another dragon... just called himself
the Eternal Dragon, or something like that. But, we made friends, and he
said he knew someone who would watch over Valgarv while I did a little
traveling." Filia smiled, sure that her charge was in good hands.
Piccolo sat in his meditation pose, looking flatly at the little
humaniform Ancient Dragon clinging to his antennae and dangling in front
of his face.
"I am not amused," he informed the baby solemnly.
"Travelin', huh?" Lina mumbled, taking a swig of ale. "What're
you travelin' for? Got a quest or something?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, I have. Being the last golden dragon
is..." Filia paused, putting a hand to her face and taking a moment
to compose herself. "Well... it's just unacceptable. So, I decided that
I'd go to a shrine to L-sama and ask an oracle what I should do about it."
"Wow, musta been a quest in itself," Lina replied, a bit impressed
despite herself. "Hardly any shrines to the Lord of Nightmares actively
kept anymore, let alone with an actual oracle."
"Oh, it was. But during that time, I had little Valgarv to keep
me company, so it wasn't so bad." Filia smiled sincerely, then sipped
at her tea before continuing. "The oracle told me that there was one
person in the entire world that could help me continue the Golden Dragon
race. One who 'bore the seed of the creator'. There was more, but..." She
blushed delicately. "It's... rather embarrassing."
"Ohhhh, prolly techniques and stuff, hm?" Lina surmised, brunt
as always.
Filia blushed further. "Well... yes."
"Mus' be interesting stuff. Wish I had time to hear it but boy am
I tired and I gotta go get a room I'll see you around Filia!" Her meal
well and duly mooched, Lina stood and strode off towards the innkeeper's
counter. She really did like Filia, and would have helped her, but there
just didn't seem to be anything in it for her. Besides, you pick up
one traveling companion, and you eventually pick up a half-dozen more,
and a group that size tended to put a damper on her bandit killing. 'Eh,
I'll catch her later. It ain't like she's just suddenly gonna find the
person she needs by chance in some inn, she'll be on this quest for
awhile.' "Hey, innkeeper! Gimme a room!"
"I'd like a room as well, please," added Filia, stepping up behind
Lina and startling the diminutive sorceress slightly.
The innkeeper glanced at his book. "Mm, sorry, just got one left."
"Oh dear." Filia looked at Lina. "Lina-sama, do you suppose it
would be possible for us to share the room?"
Lina heaved a sigh, but really couldn't see any good reason not
to, or any way she could just snatch the room for herself. Besides, it
honestly would make her feel bad to kick her friend out into the street;
it'd probably keep her awake, and she just didn't need that. "Yeah, sure."
"Wonderful!" Filia chirped happily, putting her hands
together. "I'll pay, also."
A little something in the back of Lina's head twinged; when her
traveling companions started OFFERING to pay, something was amiss.
"One... bed..." Lina grated, a muscle in her forehead
twitching. "That innkeeper KNEW the room only had one bed, and he-"
"Well," Filia interrupted in a reasonable tone. "They are single
rooms, after all. We should have thought of that."
Lina grumbled, putting her hands on her hips, trying to think of
ways she could convince the dragoness to sleep on the floor, when her
thoughts were interrupted by Filia's addendum of "The bed's large enough,
we should both be able to sleep in it without being crowded." Lina perused
the bed for a moment, and gave a grudging nod, again not seeing any way
that she could reasonably decline.
Sighing, Lina swept her cloak off and hung it on the coat stand,
then sat down in one of the chairs to pull off her boots. 'Not like it's
the first time I've slept in close quarters with a woman,' she thought,
remembering long-ago wanderings with her friend/rival/annoyance Naga. That
one night when they'd been besieged by a sudden blizzard, and they'd had
to take shelter in a little cave. They'd had to sleep VERY closely that
night, to conserve body heat... naked bodies pressed together underneath
cloaks as their clothes dried nearby. Lina's cheeks colored as she
remembered what that had led to. 'None of that,' she admonished herself
furiously. 'Youthful indiscretion... experimentation... whatever... it's
not gonna happen again. Especially not with Filia. I doubt she could
say the word "sex" without blushing herself into a coma.'
Lina finished pulling her boots off, then stood and made her way
to the bed, noting idly that Filia was now wearing nothing but a white
bra and panties. She blinked a bit in surprise as Filia started to take
off the bra. "Er, Filia, what are you doing?"
"Oh. They're clean sheets, so I didn't want to get them dirty with
my clothes."
"... Oh." Lina resumed her movement toward the bed, fully intending
to sleep in her clothes like she usually did.
"You know, most inns charge extra if you get the sheets dirty... and
since I'm not the one getting them dirty."
Lina paused again, then heaved a deep sigh and began the rather
complex series of pulling things off and unfastening other things
that it took to get her sorceress garb off. 'Well, at least we won't
get cold.' Finally getting everything off, Lina shook her hair out,
and looked at the bed, finding Filia already in bed under the sheets,
her back turned towards Lina, the dragoness' tail making for an odd
addition to the relief of the human form created by the sheet, twitching
around a little as if a little restless before sleeping. The redheaded
sorceress cupped her hand around the candle's flame and blew it out,
the room suddenly cast into shades of blue and black. Lina slipped her
petite nude form between the sheets, settling in laying on her back, hands
behind her head. She stared at the ceiling, waiting for her weariness to
overcome her. She could feel the dragoness' warmth radiating from where
she was apparently already asleep, the top of her outline rising and
falling steadily. Lina almost yelped and jumped out of the bed as she felt
something warm and with a strange smoothness unlike human skin, thinking
there was a snake in the bed, before she realized that Filia's tail had
just brushed against her leg. With another sigh, Lina settled back down.
Sleep didn't want to come. Lina had slept alone for a long, long
time, and now that she was laying so close to another person, her body
was begging her to just snuggle up to that warmth and feel smooth skin
on smooth skin. She sighed again, memories surfacing that she usually
tried to convince herself didn't exist. Nights after that first, where
they'd held one another again, and the sex had been slower, but even
more intense... it was lovemaking, she admitted to herself. Sometimes
just holding one another... talking... Naga had run away from a very
conservative, law-minded family that she felt had been stifling her, and
she had ambitions of creating a spell as powerful as Lina's developing
Giga Slave. It was always after these little soul-searching talks that
Naga was at her most loving and most passionate, though she was always
a very passionate woman.
Lina rubbed her legs together, starting to feel both hot and a
little chilled at the same time, a flittering feeling in her stomach
and heat between her legs. Filia's presence seemed to be all the more
accutely felt, and the occassional brushes of the dragoness' tail sending
little tingling all through her legs.
The redhead's arousal died down somewhat as she continued her
trip down memory lane. The things she was feeling for Naga, the emotions
and wants that The White Serpent had evoked in her, they had managed to
scare the girl who was already gaining a reputation as a fearless bandit
killer. One morning, when they woke up, she'd told the raven-haired
woman every little thing about her that was annoying and angering, and
berated her for following her betters around like a stupid over-endowed
dog. Naga, in tears, had begged Lina to tell her what she'd done wrong,
what she could do to fix their relationship, that she loved her and
would do anything to make it better.
"Relationship?!" Lina had screamed in the other sorceress'
face. "Who would ever have a relationship with a useless moron like you,
let alone LOVE you?! Nothing EVER happened between us!"
'And then I just stormed off and left her there, sobbing beside
the road,' Lina thought disgustedly. Occassionally, over the years, when
she had allowed herself to admit that the relationship had ever existed,
Lina had wondered if her intentionally as-cruel-as-possible breakup
with Naga had contributed to the White Serpent being not only off her
game but also somewhat off her rocker. 'Not like whatever freaky family
she had hadn't already done enough damage... I had to go and ruin what
was probably the best thing to ever happen in her life.......... what
could've been the best thing in my life. Oh, dammit, now I'm not only
sleepless, I'm horny, guilty, and maudlin.'
Her body cried out for a touch, any touch, with an undeniable voice
of need. Biting her lower lip and looking over at Filia, Lina began to
slowly inch towards the other woman. 'I can always tell her I just rolled
over in my sleep...' Gently, gradually, she pressed herself up against
Filia's back, feeling her breasts press against the smooth muscles. She
draped an arm carefully over the dragoness' side, and raised her leg so
that she could put it over Filia's tail. Feeling no overt reaction from
the sleeping woman, Lina breathed a sigh of relief, snuggling further
in. Finally, she felt drowsiness start to steal over her, but just
before sleep could claim her jumbled mind, she felt Filia shift around,
the strange sensation of the draconian tail sliding out from between
her legs bringing her all the way back to wakefulness. She opened her
eyes, only to find herself looking directly into the dark blue pools of
Filia's own eyes. Before she could stammer an explanation or draw away,
she felt the dragoness' arms slip around her, and her tail curl lightly
around her legs.
"Lina-sama," Filia murmured in a tone that sent little excited
shivers up and down the redhead's spine. "I must ask a great favor
of you."
"Y-yeah?" Lina whispered, licking lips that had suddenly gone dry.
"Please..." Filia smoothly rolled them both over so that Lina was on
her back, the dragoness with her hands on either side of the sorceress'
head, golden hair falling like a canopy around them. "Help me save my
race from extinction. Be the parent of my child."
Lina's eyes widened, much like a startled woodland animal about
to meet its fate at the wheels of a coach. "Filia?!"
"I was told that only one with the power of the Lord of Nightmares
inside me could give me a child that was full-blooded golden dragon. That
that child would breed true no matter what, as would her children. You're
the knight of the Lord of Nightmares, Lina-sama... you know you are."
'A... parent...?!' Lina's mind was panicking, when suddenly,
that little voice of conscience, so often battered into silence, rose
up with the force of a hurricane. 'Listen to yourself! Listen to how
selfish you're being! You've been selfish your entire life, but this
takes the cake! You have a chance to save an entire RACE from dying out,
and you're not going to do it just because you're afraid of having kids
or getting chained down!'
Lina took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment, then
opening them and looking at Filia, nodding once. "Alright... tell me
what I have to do..."
"Make love to me," Filia replied in a whisper, leaning down and
capturing Lina's lips with hers, blue eyes sinking closed, crimson eyes
following suit a moment later. Lips soft and warm and yielding against
one another, tongues meeting in a hot, wet dance of need. Lina's hands
entangled briefly in the spun gold of Filia's hair, somehow slightly
different than human hair, then let her hands trail down across smooth
skin, finding the point where the dragoness' spine became her tail,
tracing fingertips across the draconic hide. Filia arched her head and
gasped loudly, proving just how sensitive her tailbase was. Lina smiled,
her eyes half-lidded but smouldering.
"I'll do it on one condition," Lina modified, her voice having
sunk into something much like a purr.
"W-what?"
A sudden shift and roll, small muscles proving just how deft and
strong they could be, the canopy of gold replaced by one of shimmering
red.
"I get to be on top," Lina replied with a sultry little smirk that
showed off one of her fangs.
Panting, they both lay on their backs, sweat covering their skin
and making their bodies shine in the waning moonlight. Lina's small
breasts heaved with every breath, her eyes staring somewhat unfocused at
the ceiling as little aftershock shivers flickered through her. Spent,
she rolled onto her side with her back to Filia, trying to focus her
thoughts enough to wonder what tomorrow would bring. But then she felt
arms encircling her and pulling her close, soft breasts against her back,
and it was enough that she could snuggle back, held in the larger woman's
embrace, and sleep.
Lina moaned quietly as she sat up, putting a hand to her
head. Various parts of her body were insisting she get up and take care
of them, while others were demanding that she lay down and go back to
sleep. Very gradually, the memory of last night's events filtered back to
her, and nature's calls were forgotten for a moment. Lina looked around,
finding herself alone in the bed. Filia's clothes were gone as well. With
a soft sigh that was part disappointment and a very tiny amount of relief,
Lina flopped back on the bed, letting her arms splay out to the sides,
her hair fanning out around her. Jarred loose by her bouncing on the
bed, a piece of parchment drifted off the headboard and down onto Lina's
face. Blinking, the sorceress set up, taking the parchment and reading
Filia's practiced, beautiful script.
'Dearest Lina, You have done more for me than I ever thought anyone
could. You have given me more than our child, which already grows inside
me, you have given me your heart, even if only for a night. I assure you,
for what you have done for me, you will always have mine. I wish that
I could have stayed, could have done more than watch how beautiful you
are as you sleep, but my people have rituals for these first days of
conception, and what good would it be to keep alive the blood and not
the culture? But you'll be there when our child is born, I just know it.
I love you, Filia ul Copt'
Lina smiled, reading the last few lines over again a few
times. 'Yeah. I will be there. But first... it's time to make up for some
of this selfishness, if I ever can... maybe crow won't taste too bad.'
Five months later...
Filia stepped off the gigantic green dragon's snout, smiling
gratefully to him. "I'll just be a few moments," she promised, stepping
into the small hut before her.
Inside, a scant few toys somehow managed to make the place look
like it had things scattered all over the place. A naked, dripping
toddler scampered around, squealing with laughter at the top of his
lungs, while a harried-looking man with green skin and antennae chased
after him, growling that he had better get back in the bath or else. The
toddler, however, spotted Filia and seemed to fly across the room with
a delighted screech. "MOMMYIMISSEDYOU!"
Filia laughed, catching Valgarv and spinning him around once
before hugging him tightly. "I'm sorry I had to be gone for so long,
Valgarv. Mommy had some things she needed to take care of." He nodded
with the honesty and understanding that only comes with being almost two,
and stuck his thumb in his mouth. Filia turned towards the green-skinned
man, only to find him holding a bag out to her, having apparently
packed everything Valgarv owned into it in part of a minute. "Thank
you so much." She took the bag. "For everything. I hope he wasn't too
much trouble...?"
"Just tell the Eternal Dragon that he owes me a buttload of wishes,"
he grumbled in reply. Sweatdropping, Filia walked to the door, still
carrying Valgarv, and the toddler's keeper, er, watcher followed along
behind. Filia was performing remarkable feats of dexterity, getting
clothes on a squirming toddler while not putting him down, and stepping
aboard the snout of a giant green dragon.
"Guess what, Val-chan?" Filia said with a smile as she managed to
get his shirt on.
"Whatwhatwhat?!" he cried gamely.
"Soon, you're going to have a little brother or sister," Filia
supplied, placing a hand on the curve of her stomach beneath her dress.
Valgarv looked down to where her hand was, "ooooooo"ing around his
knuckles. As the Eternal Dragon slowly rose into the air, the toddler
popped his hand out of his mouth to wave to the white and black-clad
figure standing below with arms folded over his chest.
"Take care of yourself, kid," Piccolo murmured, almost fondly,
as he watched the dragon and its passengers disappear into the distance.
Lina Inverse strode into town, confident of her quarry's
whereabouts. It had taken her all these months, following cold trails and
vague rumors, relentlessly tracking her objective with a relentless fire
that made Zelgadis' search for the Claire Bible look like a hobby. It
took only a few questions before she was directed to a little bluff on
the other end of town, past a small forrested area. Trotting off along
the path, Lina soon came to the place she'd been directed to. Stepping
out of the copse of trees, Lina saw just who she was looking for.
Tall, generously proportioned, but strikingly beautiful, especially
in this moment where she wasn't putting on her act, but was instead
gazing out across a striking view of the land, forrests, fields,
and towns spread before her like a painting given as offering. Long
raven hair billowing in the breeze, matched by the flapping of a dark
purple cape. Creamy skin, barely hidden by the scanty black leather top
and bottom. Somewhere over the years she'd lost her jewelry and spiked
shoulderguards, having replaced them with a silver tiara with an ovullar
obsidian set in the center, and a belt made of golden circles set with
round red talismens that hung low on one hip.
Naga the White Serpent was as beautiful today as the first day
that Lina had ever seen her.
The sorceress stepped on a twig as she approached, and Naga whirled
around, the almost idiotic smirk coming to her face as recognition set in.
"Well, if it isn't my long-recalcitrant little sidekick!" The
raven-haired sorceress threw her head back for her trademark
laugh. "OHHHHHHHHHH HOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
"Naga," Lina whispered as she stepped closer, the sincerity and
other emotions in her voice catching the other woman by surprise. Naga
stared uncomprehendingly as Lina stepped closer, closer than they'd ever
voluntarily been in many years, the short redhead looking up into the
other sorceress' blue eyes. "Just... lemme talk for a minute. I've been
rehearsing this for months, and it still ain't easy. Okay?"
Naga nodded, a strange expression on her face, as if suspecting
what Lina was going to say, but never having actually expected to hear it.
"I made a horrible, horrible mistake all those years ago. I got
scared, and I let my fear control me. I ruined something good... make
that two something goods. I screwed *our relationship*, which was
the best, hell, the only really good one I've ever had, the only one
that could have actually meant anything, all to hell. And I ruined your
life. Well... maybe not ruined your life, I dunno." Lina lowered her head
for a moment, rubbing at the back of her neck. "Maybe that's me bein'
egocentric again... I've been trying to work on that, honest." She
looked up again, sighing, trying to continue. "What I'm saying is,
I messed up bad. I tried to pretend what we had never existed."
"You... hurt me," Naga said slowly, in a vulnerable and soft tone
that Lina hadn't heard since that fateful day. "You said that what we
had DIDN'T exist... that no one could ever love me."
"I was so, so wrong, Naga." Lina took one of the other woman's hands
in both hers and held it to her chest, crimson eyes starting to shimmer
with unshed tears. "I didn't mean those things. And I was more wrong than
anything that has ever been to say them. I would give twenty years of
my life to be able to take those words back... because they've already
cost me more years of happiness than I care to think about." She raised
Naga's black-gloved hand to her cheek, a single tear escaping and falling
between the blue-eyed sorceress' fingers. "I love you, Naga... I loved
you the day I said those horrible things, I've loved you every single
day since, and ever since I allowed myself to see how much I loved you,
it's grown with every moment."
"... I love you, too," Naga admitted, her voice threatening to
break. "I had to keep finding you... if only to be near you... I tried
to be the stupid moron you'd called me, and it helped to numb the pain,
and the booze numbed the rest."
"I can never make it up to you for all those wasted years,"
Lina sniffled. Then, firming her jaw, she exclaimed, "But I can sure
as hell try!" With that, Lina tossed her cape back over her arm, and
smoothly knelt down on one knee, keeping hold of Naga's hand, and saying
her next words with all the care and solemnity of a Giga Slave.
"Naga the White Serpent, will you marry me?"
To be continued... maybe... ^_~
Comments:
Okay, to clear timeline questions up!
First, this fic takes place after Slayers Try, about a year. Filia
would have started her quest for an L-sama shrine almost directly
after the end of Try, found the oracle after six months, and taken
maybe another six months to find Lina.
Second, Lina and Naga's relationship breakup took place maybe seven or
eight months before they ever appeared in the anime together, and
their adventures take place about a year or perhaps more before she
ever met Gourry or Zelgadis and the rest. So, figure maybe five, six,
seven years? between their breakup and this story. And yes, that would
mean Lina was pretty dang young when she and Naga started having sex,
but hey, girls grew up fast in midevil society. ^_~
... Anyone wanna make cracks about the DBZ crossover? Hm? <gestures
dramatically to Lina, who's charging a Giga Slave> Anyone? Anyone? No?
Arright then. ^^
And yes, I'm a right bastard for leaving it off there. Muahaha,
etc. n.n
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