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Kitsune Lina
The Feast before the Storm Lina yawned and stretched as she woke up. She blinked sleepily and
disengaged herself from Xellos gently. The spell of blood was still strong
in the room, at least to her it was, but there was also the lingering scent
of healing. Lina shrugged that puzzle off. She didn't remember entering
that state of forced wakefulness and enhanced awareness, but she had
certainly dropped off fast enough after all the festivities.
Lina stepped quickly over to the crib and peered down at her children and
was filled with a quiet sense of wonder. Sylphiel had obviously cleaned them
up and they lay there looking clean and fresh. They even smelled fresh, she
realized as she filtered out the rest of the room. She leaned over, resting
on the edge of the crib and sighed.
Xina's ears laid back in irritation, Xalan's ears shortly followed suite.
Lina cocked her head and heard a faint grumbling, or rather two such sounds.
Then both children blinked awake and barely a second later began wailing.
Lina winced at the loud, piercing sound and then reached down to pick them up.
Xellos snapped awake behind her and immediately scanned about for the
problem, relaxing as soon as he noticed Lina carrying the twins with a gait
that demonstrated both half-panicked urgency and precise caution. Having
been around while Val Garv was just infant he recognized the scene, of course
dragons had different needs than humans and the species related to them, but
that didn't change the similarity..
"Could you hold Xina for a moment," Lina asked, handing over the wailing
purple-haired child. Xellos blinked and obliged while Lina sat down on the
bed with Xalan and the opened the front of her dress, which had obviously
seen better days by now. "Okay, I can take her now."
"You were already awake?" he asked sitting next to him and back against
the head of the bed. Lina was nervous, this wasn't her first time feeding
them, she had done that soon after they had given birth, but she was still
new at this.
"Yep," she answered. "I hope it didn't wake everybody else up too." Gourry and Zelgadis stood with swords drawn scanning the area for about
five full seconds before they finally realized that it was just Lina's twins.
They breathed a sigh of relief and replaced their swords.
"Looks like dawn is coming soon anyway," Zelgadis, turning to face
Gourry. The blonde swordsman had already fallen asleep. The chimera
face-faulted and then rolled his eyes as he stood up again.
"Well I can get some practice out of the way then," he said, stretching
as he walked outside with his sword. Amelia had woken up to the sound of Xina and Xalan crying, as had
Sylphiel, though the priestess had gone right back to sleep upon identifying
the source of the sound. Amelia stretched, blinked and then watched the odd
image of a shambling Filia, eyes half-closed, open the door to the room she
was sharing with Val Garv and start walking to the kitchen.
The princess followed her out of curiousity for a little while, then
pulled ahead of the zombie-like dragon-maid and waved her hand back in front
oh Filia's face.
"Filia?" the dragon-in-human-form showed no sign of recognition for a
moment. Then she blinked in confusion.
"Huh, what?" she looked around, noticing that she was no longer where she
had fallen asleep. She blushed slightly and looked confused. Then Lina's
kids quieted down. "Oh, Ra...Lina's twins."
"Are you okay?"
"Fine, I'll go back to bed now."
"Uhh, okay." Amelia shrugged and walked towards the front room herself,
noticing that Zelgadis was draped on the couch or about the floor like
Gourry, she walked outside. She found him working a sword kata behind the
house, out of sight of the road.
Amelia sat down quietly and watched as the chimera twirled his sword
expertly. Mentally she edited out the sword and imagined the interplay of
stone flesh and muscle under the baige travel clothes. The thought sent a
pleasant shiver over her flesh. Then one of his manuevers turned him about
to where he could see her for a moment. He blinked, lost track of what he
was doing and landed hard on his back.
"Oh!" Amelia rushed over to check on the chimera, and managed to get
there as he was sitting up again and rubbing his back. "Zelgadis, are you
okay?"
"I'm fine, you just surprised me," he answered back, embarrassed. Her
initial concern over with, the rather comedic image of Zelgadis twisting off
his feet and crashing to ground overwhelmed her. She burst into
semi-hysterical laughter leaning on Zelgadis's shoulder as the laughter kept
coming.
"I'm glad you think this is funny," he said tightly, though when Amelia
looked up she could see him smiling as well. She found the idea Zelgadis
even hiding laughter nearly as funny as him landing on his back, her laughter
didn't calm down for several minutes.
"Its almost here," Amelia said, quietly. Zelgadis nodded, all of them
had been adventuring long enough to recognize the taste of approaching
battle. They gathered together closely and watched the rising sun. Sylphiel's return to sleep had been partial and, as the sound of laughter
worked its way from outside, short lived. Seeing that the sun was rising
anyway she got dressed and walked out into bulk of the house. Filia
certainly had a large house, though then again she was a dragon, she'd want a
large dwelling, even if she spent most of her time in human form.
She found Gourry draped across the floor, sleeping in his armor, drawn
sword in his hand. He had probably woken up when Lina's kids started crying,
and then fallen asleep again without putting his sword in the sheath.
Sylphiel rolled her eyes, walked into the kitchen and started cooking. She
and Filia were going to remain behind with the three children, but that
didn't mean she couldn't feel the coming battle, and cooking would get her
mind off of it. It would also probably wake up Gourry.
In the last couple of days she found that the kitchen was kept incredibly
well stocked, though that made perfect sense to the priestess. After all
under this roof lived two dragons and Lina Inverse. Of course dragons could
thrive without food for days, even when they needed to eat they could just
swallow dirt or whatever else is at hand and be perfectly happily. The point
was dragons still preferred to eat vast amounts to meat and such and Filia's
stores reflected that. And Lina Inverse of course had an appetite to match
any dragon.
Sylphiel tried to imagine what was like to feed a pregnant Lina and
shivered. It was a wonder that Filia hadn't been bankrupted by the effort.
"You know, that smells good," Sylphiel smiled up as Gourry entered into
the kitchen and sat down at the small table in the middle of the room. She
put a large bowl of some meaty substance in front of him. "What's this?" he
asked smelling the thick substance.
"Something I picked up recently, haven't tried it yet." Sylphiel said.
Gourry spooned a bite into his mouth and decided it tasted pretty good. He
swallowed ten more heaping spoonfuls before the after taste hit him. "The
girl who showed me the recipe called it April Fool's Chili. I think her name
was Discordia"
Gourry's eyes had shrunk to pin pricks and while he was trying to talk,
nothing was coming out but quiet gasps. The swordsman stumbled outside to
the water pump and started vigourously pumping out water into his mouth until
the spice burn cooled down. Then he walked back into the kitchen and sat
down again still fanning his mouth.
"It's supposed to be pretty hot, so I think you should eat it fairly
slowly," she checked her various dishes a moment and decided she had some
time to sit for a little while. She bowled at a little of that "chili" and
moved to sit across from Gourry, noticed his red sweat drenched face and
glanced nervously at her bowl of chili. "Gourry, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I was just very hot for some reason," he asnwered. Then he looked
at his bowl of chili and looked back at her. "What's this stuff again?"
"Chili," Sylphiel said, rolling her eyes and using the short version.
They both looked at their bowls, shrugged and started eating. Again it took
a while for the aftertaste to hit, and then they were both rushing for the
water pump.
As both were desperately swallowing water, their lips met. Both of them
blinked in surprise, and Sylphiel blushed madly. Then they both moved
forward, really kissing this time under the dwindling flow of water.
"Oh," they heard a surprised gasp. Sylphiel, blush returning in full
force, to see Amelia in her night clothes walking around the corner of the
house with Zelgadis-san. "We're sorry."
"Princess Amelia, I'm surprised," Sylphiel responded. "It isn't
lady-like to be walking around in your night clothes." Amelia and Zelgadis
arched an eyebrow.
"And kissing under a water pump in full view of the road is," Zelgadis
asked.
"Uh, I have to go check the food," Sylphiel responded, dodging the
answer. She stood up and walked into the house looking like a soaked, human
tomato. Amelia and Zelgadis turned their glances to Gourry.
"Excuse me," he said. "I have to go finish my..." he grasped at the
word, scratching his forehead. "...chili." Then he went inside as well.
"We should probably be inside too," Zelgadis said, not specifing the
bed-dressed Amelia.
"I wonder what chili is," Amelia asked as she walked inside.
"Hot! Hot! HOT!" they both turned and sweatdropped to see Xellos working
the water pump furiously. It was only a moment later that Lina came rushing
by, tail swishing madly and ears extended in full alarm. The were-fox
kneeled next to her mate and greedily swallowed as much water as she could.
"I'm guessing that everybody is waking up," Zelgadis said. "Shall we go
have breakfast?" Filia ran by carrying a gasping Val Garv, Zelgadis and
Amelia had to dodge her whipping tail.
"M..m.m.moovaahh," Filia managed to get out past spice burned tongue.
Xellos and Lina, spice burn down to a managable level got out of the way and
settled for fanning their mouths while Filia and Val Garv cooled their mouths.
"Let's eat slowly," Amelia suggested, finally they managed to get inside
and walked to the kitchen. They sat down at the table and stared
suspiciously at the bowls of what looked like a meaty stew Sylphiel quickly
set in front of them. Looking up they saw Sylphiel cooking and, most
disconcerting of all, Gourry taking very small bites of his bowl of chili.
"Uh? Do you want to go first?" Zelgadis asked.
"Not sure, how about you?" Amelia responded. Zelgadis gulped and took a
small bite.
"Hey, this isn't bad," he said, and spooned out a larger bite.
"Really," Amelia asked. She took an experimental taste.
"It doesn't hit you..." Sylphiel turned around to see Amelia pause in her
normal rate of eating at about the same time Zelgadis dropped his spoon.
Then both were rushing outside. "...right away." Sylphiel finished
apologetically.
"What do you make this stuff out of, Sylphiel," Lina demanded as she and
Xellos came back in and sat warily in front of their bowls of chili. The
priestess took a glance at the recipe on the counter, shoved it into
concealment and giggled nervously. "Your highness," Philoniel turned to regard the herald, an apprentice
probably. "Lady R'Lyeh has been found, she has sent messages that indicate
her to be about five days ride from here."
"This is excellent news," Philoniel declared. "The cause of justice will
always be victorious! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
"She's travelling here now with Master Reginald of the temple of She with
a Thousand Young," the shouted last part of the message cut off his laughter.
"Any word on my daughter or the other slayers?" Philoniel asked.
"Lady R'Lyeh sends word that your daughter is still being held captive by
her old companions and that she alone escaped them."
"I see," he arched an eyebrow and looked to the captain of his guards
across the room. The soldier nodded understandingly.
"She also wishes for the marriage to take place immediately upon her
arrival, so that you might," and his voice took on a quality of dictation.
"confront these traitors of justice with all the force of your love."
"Good, find the court herald and make arrangements," he told the herald.
The boy bowed and left the room to run on his assignment. "We play their
game for now."
"Why not move against them?"
"There is no proof of wrong doing anywhere," he answered. "Without proof
it would be unjust to act."
"I understand, your highness" the man bowed. "It remains in the slayers
hands for now then?"
"For now," he agreed.
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