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Kitsune Lina
Reunion Amelia looked from Lina to Zelgadis and sweatdropped.
"I think that it's fairly obvious what he did, Zelgadis-san," she said, blushing.
"That's not what he meant," Xellos said tightly.
"What did he do?" Zelgadis repeated, glaring at Xellos but not addressing him.
"What makes you think he had to do anything?" Lina asked. The chimera's glare slackened a bit and he arched an eyebrow at her for a moment.
"But, Lina what are you doing with a m..."
"Mazoku," Lina suggested, her ears were laid back and the bushy tail swished irritably.
"Monster," Amelia corrected.
"Isn't that just perfect then?" Amelia looked away. "Last time I saw you, you were pretty certain I was a monster."
"I was wrong."
"Ran...uh...Lina, perhaps you should sit down," Filia's comment was accompanied by the supporting touch of Xellos's hand on her shoulder. She reached
up and grabbed the hand in her own and looked up at the trickster.
"I'm fine," she said reassuringly, eyes fixxed on Xellos's. Zelgadis didn't miss the volumes that passed within that look.
"This is your choice then?" Zelgadis asked.
"If anybody was seducing anybody, I seduced him," Lina said still smiling up at Xellos. The mazoku laughed, but Zelgadis merely hmphed, he didn't believe
that it would have taken much seducing to get together with Xellos.
"But how did this happen?" Amelia asked. Lina smile turned impish, one of her sharp canines peaking out over her lip. She half turned to face Amelia.
"Sore wa himitsu desu," she said, before meeting Xellos in a series of small kisses on the lips. "I think I will sit down now." That phrase had clenched it for Zelgadis, she certainly loved the mazoku, but that proved nothing about Xellos.
"To think that I thought you were dead, and here you were under my nose the entire time," Filia said as Lina sat down in couch and leaned back against Xellos. "When did you get a tail?"
"How are you like this, now?" Amelia asked. "During the day."
"I like this form," Lina said, ears twitching happily.
"This form?"
"Lina's a were-fox," Amelia explained. "And she's apparently already learned some control."
"A what?"
"Already? It took me more than a year to figure it out."
"Yes, well enough the small talk," Zelgadis commented, finding his own chair to sit down. "We have problems, Gourry and Sylphiel are tracking part of it right now."
"What problem would that be?" Xellos asked.
"Martina." Xellos and Lina both turned silent and adopted similar anger filled expressions.
"Where is she?" Lina demanded. "Which way?" Sylphiel asked as Gourry examined the ground, he followed the fleeing princess's tracks a little ways and then stopped.
"She turned off here," Gourry said, ignoring the tracks that continued on around a nearby bend. He stood up and looked around rubbing a piece of bark between his fingers. The blonde yawned, this princess knew a lot of the basics very well. She could compete with some of the kids back home.
"Up that oak and down over there." Gourry pointed somewhat absently while Sylphiel tried to figure out how he knew all this. She half wondered if they were actually on the crazy girl's trail or not.
Gourry usually seemed quite out of touch with things around him, until now Sylphiel thought his only real skill lay in sword-fighting. She'd never thought of him as a master woodsman before. He walked quietly over to the indicated spot and turned about in a circle and then looked off to left.
"How do you know she went this way?"
"The tracks going around that bend are deeper than the rest, she walked back on them. There was some oak bark in some of the tracks, which means they got there after the tracks were made. There's only the one oak and the grass over here is fairly well crushed, after that she got fairly careless and just walked that way." He sounded like he was treating the question as a test of some sort.
"Oh," she suddenly felt very much out of her depth. It was about an hour later without any more tracking acrobatics that Gourry stopped and looked at a section of crushed grass.
"Uh oh," he scratched his head.
"What's, 'uh oh'," Sylphiel asked.
"Are you sure you want to go on?" Gourry asked. "There's a lot of people here."
"Gourry, dear, I couldn't find my way back if I wanted to."
"Did you just call me dear?" he asked confused.
"Uh, uh," the priestess blushed. "Yes, I guess I did."
"Do you like me or something?" Sylphiel's blush deepened.
"Why...do you ask?" Gourry shrugged and started following the trail of crushed grass.
"Well I always thought you were nice too."
"Really?"
"Yeah, your the best cook I know." Sylphiel face faulted and then climbed back to her feet.
"Thank you, I think." They topped a hill and suddenly it wasn't necessary to follow the trail any more.
"Hey look, its those bandits again," Gourry noted non-chalantly.
"Perhaps now would be the best time to go back and get everybody else," Sylphiel suggested.
"You know, if Lina were here we could just fireball them from here I bet," Gourry said. "Though she's never really liked sitting back and playing it safe."
"I thought Zelgadis-san said that Lina was a were-fox," Sylphiel said. "She couldn't still cast magic then could she?"
"Oh yeah, forgot about that," Gourry said. Suddenly the sound of barking dogs ranged from the camp below. "Hmmm, let's run now." He turned around picked up Sylphiel in a swift motion and turned back down the forest. "You were bringing Martina here and you let her escape?" it seemed to be Xellos's turn for righteous anger. "She knows Lina's alive! And she can lead that bastard right too us!"
"You know about Master Reginald?" Amelia asked.
"From a long time ago," Xellos confirmed.
"He's mazoku? How powerful?" Xellos and Lina looked at each nervously, the were-fox nodded.
"Stronger than me." Xellos admitted. "We should get out of here."
"Even if this Reginald is mazoku, Martina isn't," Filia said. "You have some time, and Lina's getting close to her time."
"I'm staying," Lina declared. "They're almost ready."
"They?" Zelgadis asked.
"Two heart beats," Lina said, she rubbed one of her ears then. "I can hear better than you now."
"Are you sure?"
"I trust you," she looked at Zelgadis and Amelia then, questioningly. "I think I can trust them." The other two shifted uncomfortably, Zelgadis knew they deserved that. They had virtually dropped her like a piece of junk when she lost her magic.
"We are standing right here," Amelia commented. Lina fixxed her gaze on Zelgadis.
"So, what's your point?" she looked to Amelia. "Is that side of the room comfortable?"
"Lina you don't think..." Zelgadis laid a stone hand on Amelia's shoulder and shook his head when Amelia looked back at him.
"What else would she think?" the chimera asked her.
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