Nightfall's Nest

The Slayers world and characters are property of Hajime Kanzaka and Software Sculpters
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Fill the Gutters With Gold

by Nightfall

Chapter 8: Illusions Take No Morphine

Which demonstrates that screaming and fingernails are unnecessary componants of catfights, and in which Zelgadis begins to become aware of the flaws in his understanding of power.

Startled out of a three-foot universe, Zelgadis whirled to face her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xellos turn away, arms wrapped around his chest and hiding under his hair. Supposing he ought to thank Amelia for rescuing him from whatever Xellos had been about to pull, he tried to slide a note of kindliness into his tone.

"What is it, Amelia?"

Looking as though she were about to burst into tears at any moment, she said, "Lina-san kicked me out of the room. She said she and Sylphiel-san wanted to talk."

In a stifled voice that only too clearly knew it shouldn't ask, Xellos queried, "Ah, Amelia-san, when you say Lina-san kicked you out...?"

She sniffed loudly, rubbing her bottom. Black-clad shoulders silently began to shake. Zelgadis sighed. "What do you want me to do about it?"

She sniffed again, hopefully. "Could I stay in the study with you?"

"Amelia! Of course not!" He didn't have to fake his shock. Although it wasn't exactly news that their sweet, winningly klutzy little princess was a ruthless, self-centered bundle of budding hormonal bad news who, compassionate and idealistic as she was, honestly believed that rules were there to serve her purposes, he hadn't thought she'd be this obvious about it.

"Why not?" she asked with huge, hurt eyes.

He looked to Xellos for help, but the supposedly reformed purple idiot had sat down on Sylphiel's wooden floor with his face buried in his knees, laughing too hard to make any sound except for the occasional little sobbing gaspy noise as he tried to pull air in. Relief of tension, Zelgadis supposed.

Gritting his teeth, he set out to explain the blindingly obvious. "Amelia, you can't sleep anywhere near me or Gourry without Lina there, you know that. Your father would skin me alive and--"

"Break all his knives," Xellos suggested helpfully between snickers, voice muffled and unstable.

"--Use me for plate mail!" Zelgadis finished. Xellos, curling him tighter into himself, laced his fingers firmly over the back of his neck and howled quietly into his knees like the full moon would answer. "Will you shut up, fuzz-for-brains?" he hissed. "It's not that funny!"

"It is," the flake on the floor managed, "from where I'm sitting, Zel-kun."

"Stand up then," Zelgadis snapped, and Xellos was off again. Definitely relief of tension.

But he was pulling in great weeping breaths now, and Amelia had apparently been entranced over the idea of Zelgadis-armor when they'd had their aside, and didn't seem to understand that those sobbing noises really meant he was laughing his skinny ass off at her. She looked righteously at Zelgadis and accused, "Xellos-san understands my troubles."

"Better than you think," Xellos wheezed, beginning to compose himself.

"But where will I sleep?" she wailed.

"Here," he said, wiping his face dry with long fingers and standing up. "In the kitchen. If we use a tablecloth, you can even have a canopy bed. I'll get you some blankets and things." He exited hastily, without looking at them.

Amelia was sulking, and Zelgadis felt no desire to break the silence. He heard Xellos knock politely at the bedroom door and ask about blankets. He heard an outraged Lina demand that Xellos give an innocent girl some privacy and Sylphiel say, in a teasing tone, "But I thought you knew where everything is, Xellos-san?"

Xellos made the arch noise that meant an unlikely opponent had scored a point off him and he was delighted about it. "I just wanted your permission, Sylphiel-san," his voice smiled, and Zelgadis didn't have to look at him to see the happy pout.

He succeeded in making her giggle, and she asked if he wanted help finding them. Lina said no, he didn't, he was just spying. He admitted the truth of this (that he didn't want help, not that he was spying), and thanked Sylphiel with, Zelgadis was sure, a deep, mock-grateful bow.

He came back loaded with two soft blankets, a pillow, a quilt, and a spring-green tablecloth, looking exactly like himself. Zelgadis needed only one look at the mild little smirk to know what the answer to any question he might care to ask would inevitably be.

Amelia looked up, and her eyes widened at once. "Xellos-san! What happened?" He held out the blankets, puzzled. "But you're bleeding!"

He set the blankets down on the table and slipped a brief, confused glance at her out of the corner of his eye. "Where?"

There were dark spots on the blankets where he had held them, and Zelgadis caught a flash of red as his hands came down. "Your hands," he said.

"Your face," Amelia corrected.

"Oh?" He reached up to touch his face, stopped, then turned his gloved hands palm-up, and stared. It looked as though he had tried to pet a porcupine. His face froze, and he reached under his thick bangs to touch his temple. "Oh," he said again.

Zelgadis was suddenly afraid that he understood. He reached up to touch his own wire hair, and his stony fingers came away damp. He sought Xellos's eye, but Xellos had his gaze fixed on the wall, and a poor excuse for a smile plastered on his lips. The silence became heavy and terrible.

Amelia suddenly clued in, and gasped.

Xellos blinked, animated himself, and, for no reason that Zelgadis could see except to avoid having to look at anyone, picked up an already-washed plate and turned to the sink again. "We really should learn not to jump at people, right, Amelia-san?" he said cheerily. "You get bruised, and I get all scratched up. You'd almost think they didn't like it." Inexplicably, as first one dry plate and then another got a totally unneccessary going-over with a damp sponge and moved to the drying rack, Zelgadis felt his face heat.

Amelia, who usually only jumped at blood relations and people she didn't like, relaxed. "You shouldn't jump on poor Zelgadis-san, Xellos-san," she scolded. "But since you've already been punished, I'll forgive you."

Zelgadis's teeth clenched. He couldn't touch anyone without hurting them--people couldn't even touch him. Not even Xellos, the one person whose ability to bounce back he'd never questioned, could come near him now and walk away unscathed. And what business was it of Amelia's anyway? She was a good student and a good partner and about as close as he got to having a friend, but did that give her the right to forgive people who hurt themselves on him?

Xellos, who had bowed deeply to deliver grateful thanks with well-buried sarcasm, straightened up and caught Zelgadis's eye, only his mouth smiling, asking a silent question. Zelgadis wasn't aware of answering, but something flickered at the bottom of newly deep purple eyes, and in an instant the concerned irritation turned to anger.

He had seen concern on Xellos's face before--usually false, but he had seen it. The anger was unprecedented. Getting picked up by the collar and shaken like a bad dog only made him loudly pity your lack of self-control, and even Filia had only ever managed to royally piss him off.

An oblivious Amelia went on sadly, "I wish I could heal you, Xellos-san, but white magic can never touch the evil people whose hearts are withered and black with cruelty and hatred for all that is bright and good! That is the way of Justice!" She had cheered herself up considerably by the end of this speech.

Xellos's expression didn't alter at all. It didn't have to. He was furious. His smile had acquired sharp corners and menacing edges, and it boiled in his eyes, a cold flickering, wind ripping at violets.. Zelgadis kept from backing away by only the smallest of margins. How many Golden Dragons had seen nothing in the world after this?

When outraged eyes came back from whatever dimension they'd been scorching to focus on Zelgadis's again, he closed them, breathed, wiped his face clean, and turned to Amelia with a cordial expression. "Someday, Amelia," he said pleasantly, "you're going to find out the true meaning of justice. I won't be able to enjoy it properly myself, now, but I'm going to make sure my former master is there to see it. She's about to have a bad decade or so, and I'm sure the entertainment will be most welcome.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go kill something for you all to eat tomorrow. Maybe I'll torture a fluffy baby bunny to death with your little pink knife while I'm out, just for kicks. Good night, Amelia-san, Zelgadis-san."

He put his cloak on and walked to the door, holding one bloody palm up and flatly announcing, "Recovery." They had just enough time to see a ball of pale silver-blue energy gather in his hand before the door swung gently shut. A mazoku could never have called up white energies like that; would have been sweating in pain just from their touch.

Harsh, Zelgadis thought, half horrified and half in admiration, and okay, yes, overkill, but possibly justified. He wondered where Xellos had learned to make exits like that. He wondered if he could take lessons.

Amelia had made her bed up faster than he would have thought possible, and was already curled up under the table in an unhappy little bundle. Feeling that no more needed saying, he spread the tablecloth, turned out the light, and went into the study. He sat down in his broken bookcase of a bed, and began to read.

Xellos had been gone for hours. Zelgadis was about ready to give up when he heard the front door open quietly. He quickly set the book down, blew out his candle, and pretended to be asleep. He heard Xellos doing something in the kitchen without turning the light on, and then careful, booted footsteps approached.

He heard the liquid scrape of soft leather moving against itself and boots coming off. Then Xellos had climbed into the bookcase and curled himself around him. He was cool from being outside, but not nearly as cold as he had been before; not heavy, but a sure weight on Zelgadis's chest, not the empty shell he had felt like all those times Zelgadis had plucked him off his feet by the front of his shirt. The short hair was chilled and damp in the warm room, and he smelled more than ever like sweet thistles.