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Kitsune Lina
The Twins Lina yawned and stretched, blinking herself awake. She could feel Xellos behind her and wiggled back against him, crooning quietly as the still sleeping mazoku instinctively curled his arms around her protectively. It was quiet out in the house, it smelled to Lina like it was still fairly early morning, most everybody was probably still asleep.
Somebody was awake, the last guard duty probably, tapping a steady but quiet rhythm as they paced the front room. Bored, Lina took the time to sort out the various scents and pegged the watcher as Amelia. Right now that essence of tense watchfulness was mostly emanating from the justice-loving princess.
Lina hadn't fully forgotten that the slayers had left her behind once, but she trusted them with her life. They had reasons for what they did, reasons that she could understand. That didn't change the fact that they had left her behind when they thought she might become a burden. She was anxious to get this buisness finally over with, then she could find some spot with good hunting and settle down to raising her children with Xellos.
Lina gasped when the pain flashed by, and she felt Xellos waking up.
"Lina-chan?"
She'd been having small pains off and on over the past couple of months, once or twice in the very recent past she thought that labor had started. This felt different, definitely more painful. She realized that this was it, even before she felt the wetness between her legs.
"Its starting," she said.
"You're sure," Xellos asked.
"This time definitely." "Why are we giving up now," Martina whined. "Seriously Master Reginald, they said she was close by. You haven't even thoroughly searched the area."
"It doesn't matter," the staid mazoku answered. "They'll come to us, otherwise they are of no concern."
"That is not what I wish, they've humiliated me!"
"Do you wish to conquer the world or not?" Martina did not answer. "Because in one week's time you'll be married to Prince Philoniel, and with that title you can conquer the world."
"Hmmm, yes, I must keep a check on my priorities," Martina agreed. "The world it is then, and after that. After that I shall finally pay back all them for their treatment of me. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! But why in a week? Could you not just pop us over there?"
"I could but that would arouse suspicion," Reginald answered. "And the prince has been snooping around enough already. Remember, he will not believe that his daughter is anything but an innocent victim in all this."
"Don't worry about that, I'll have Philly ready to crack that freak stone-boy's flesh."
"That is just what we want." Reginald smiled at the haughty princess, her hair dyed all black again. Amelia winced as Lina cried out again, she almost tripped and spilled the hot water Sylphiel kept asking for. Fortunately she had become much less clumsy over the years and pulled out of the stumble without losing a drop.
"Here's the water," Amelia averted her eyes from the sight before her, embarrassed. She caught a brief glance at Xellos sitting behind Lina. The mazoku was supporting her physically and emotionally, a look of deep concern and concentration was fitted over his face. The princess was suddenly certain that despite Zelgadis's misgivings that the mazoku did love the small were-fox whose claws were now drawing rivelets of blood in his bare arms.
"Just set it down there," Sylphiel said. Of them all Sylphiel proved to be the only one with any experience in childbirth, though until now that had been limited to aiding senior priestesses in the process. "I'm going to need some more clean towels by the time this is over, and tell them to keep the water coming."
"Hai Sylphiel-san," Amelia said and hurried away. Filia was keeping Val Garv out of the way, and with the exception of Xellos, who refused to leave, Sylphiel had forbidden the men entry. Besides they had their own tasks to perform. The end result was that Amelia was doing all the running.
Lina was handling the pain better than Sylphiel had expected, much better. Maybe after it was over she'd have to ask Lina about it. The priestess washed her hands in the most recent batch of hot water and quickly went back to the task at hand.
In the front room Amelia was collecting a pile of clean cloths to carry back to Sylphiel. She nodded to Gourry as she passed. The blonde swordsman was moving between cleaning the used bowls that Amelia brought back, keeping the fireplace blazing and filling the clean bowls with hot water out of a large pot on the fire. Amelia looked up at the ceiling, knowing that Zelgadis was sitting on top of the house and watching all the approaches to the house.
The chimera was worried, this was outside his experiences and there was plenty to worry about. Lina's kids were half-mazoku, and he had heard stories about the difficulty of such births. There were several logical falicies with this worry that he had repeated to himself several time. This didn't help, he might love Amelia, and Lina might not completely trust him ever again, but she was still a friend. "What's wrong with Rannaur-san?" Val had never gotten into the habit of calling Lina by anything other than the name she had been using when Xellos had first brought her in the buggy.
"There's nothing wrong with her," Filia answered. He had been paying a great deal of attention to that part of the house the cries were coming from. Actually, Filia was surprised that he had held off asking anything until this point. "She's having a baby."
"Will I ever have a baby?" he asked, he sounded terrified of the possibility. Filia laughed.
"No, only females have babies, and besides that you're a dragon," noticing his confused look she clarified. "Dragon women, like me, lay eggs, much less painful I gather."
"Mommy," he looked up at her, ignoring the sounds of childbirth across the house.
"What is it Val?"
"Are you ever going to lay an egg?" Filia blushed and almost lost control of her form.
"Well, I don't know about that," Filia said, she hadn't expected that question.
"Why not?"
"Well...I'll explain it when you're older," she said. Then added under her breath. "Or else Xellos will." The day was almost past when the first baby cried out, it was another fifteen minutes before its cries were joined by a second infant.
"You name her," Lina said to Xellos as she cradled both babies as well as she could. Swaddled in some of the cloth that Amelia had gathered up, there were two babies with black furred fox's ears. Lina knew that they both had tails as well, the girl with a thin covering of purple fur, and the boy's with Lina's own red coloring. Both were tipped with a little puff of silver, and sprinkled with strands of the other's coloring. The shock of hair on their heads was similarly colored, and Lina knew that both would fill out over time.
Lina looked up to see Xellos and her brow crinkled a little. The blood and other scents were doing a lot to overpower her senses, but when she tried she could detect a touch of fear in the mazoku's scent. "Anything wrong?"
"No," he said, too quickly. "Everything's fine, I was just thinking about Regin, that's all." Amelia and Gourry were sitting a little to the side, now that Sylphiel had relaxed her command. The priestess was somewhere getting rid of the used cloths and the afterbirth, and probably cleaning herself up as well. Zelgadis was still on guard and Filia was still keeping Val away from the scene. Amelia and Gourry had set up a crib that had held Val until he outgrew it.
"Well, we'll take care of him," she declared confidantly, that explanation did make sense. "We always do, now name her."
"Only if you name him," he responded playfully.
"Deal. Now stop wasting time."
"I'll name her," he thought for a moment. "Xina."
"That's familiar some how," Gourry looked up to the ceiling and tapped his jaw in thought.
"I think its a cute name," Amelia said.
"Thank you for your support, your turn," Xellos said to Lina, smiling.
"Well, this little one is," she thought about it for moment. "Xalan. Is that too silly, naming them both X's?"
"They're wonderful names," Sylphirl assured her as she returned. "But now, all three of you need to get some rest. So let's let them have some quiet now." And with that, Sylphiel was back in command, gently ushering everybody out of the room. She then transferred the already sleeping twins, one at a time, over to the crib. By the time she was done, Lina had also curled into an exhausted slumber. "Well?" Zelgadis asked as Amelia touched down on the roof beside him. "How did it go?"
"She had twins, just like she said," Amelia answered. "A girl Xina, and a boy, Xalan." Amelia shivered.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Hmm, oh I'm fine," she said. "I was just thinking about what it will be like when I have to go through that."
"You'll do fine," Zelgadis assured her, they leaned against each other and watched the setting sun. "You've survived the slayers haven't you?"
"You're right, I could handle anything after that," she giggles kissed his stone lips, surprising him. "We are engaged now."
"True," he agreed, and slipped his arm around her shoulders.
"What's Xellos doing?" Amelia pointed out the priest on the ground below them. As they watched he vanished away.
"That's a good question," Zelgadis said. The odd behaivor ruined the romantic mood for both of them, and they settled for just watching the sun go down in silence and close to each other. "You called, Master?"
"Don't be smart, Xellos. You cut me off."
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