THE
CRYING STONE
CHAPTER 2: THE LEGENDARY ZELGADIS
by Ashe Rhyder
"Lina!" He rasped as he embraced her. It had been too long since
he had last seen her; he couldn't dam up his emotion any longer. Some part of
logic was trying to tell him it couldn't be real, but he ignored that message
with fevor. "I've missed you so much!"
"Pardon me, but up... do you mind?" The girl asked squimishly.
"I don't even know you!"
At this, he drew back in shock. His slanted blue eyes widened and filled
with a mixture of pain and embarrassment.
"Lina... it's me... Zel... " He clasped her hands between his
own. "You... you don't remember?" The tone that lay under his initial
confusion was one of heartache.
"I'm not Lina. My name is Cerina Esrevni." She pulled away, her
red eyes following him warily. "Who're you?"
"Zelgadis Greywers." He slumped against the tree trunk as if the
weight of the world rested on his shoulders.
"_The_ Zelgadis Greywers?" Her eyebrow raised in disbelief.
"No way!"
"What, you've heard my name before?" He looked up miserably.
"Any five year old knows the name of The Chimera! One of the three
who put down Shabranigdo, the others were Gourry Gabriev and the Dra-matta, Lina
Inverse." Cerina grinned. "But... what are you doing here?"
"Does it matter?" He sighed.
"Sure it does." She took a canteen out of her pack, and uncorked
it, taking a healthy swig before offering him some. "When I was younger,
this old bard used to come by the village and tell stories about the Bandit
Killer and her friends. To be able to meet one... after so many years!"
"It makes no differ..." He paused, looking around rapidly.
"What. What year is it?"
"Um... about thirty years after the death of the last Queen of
Sairoon, Ameria Wil Telsa Sairoon. She reighned until the age of eighty
three." Cerina counted mentally. "The Hero Gabriev died about fourty
years ago, and the Mazoku Metallium hasn't been seen for half a century, at
least."
"I've rested here for one hundred years?" His slit-pupil eyes
widened, his expression became more disheartened as he buried his face in his
hands. "Something must be terribly wrong. No one has found this place
except the fruitcake... Xellos!" Before Cerina could ask what was going on,
Zelgadis lept to his feet and shouted the Mazoku's name out loud.
"XELLOS! YOU SADISTIC FRUITCAKE NAMAGOMI, SHOW YOURSELF!"
For a long time, the only reply was the silent cry of the wind in the
trees.
"Very well then, we shall have to find him." Zelgadis scowled,
walking over to his sword and unsheathing it from the ground. He wiped the soft
earth from the blade and slif it into the scabbard at his side, then stared at
the jewels on the ground. For all the calm he portrayed, the sight of the
Dra-matta's death spot shook him up enough to make him fall to his knees.
"One tear each year... one gem for each yeear she was gone." He
whispered as his trembling fingers brushed across every stone.
"Zelgadis." Cerina spoke, and he hastily swept the one hundred
jewels into a bag.
"Let's go." He rose to his feet and tucked the pouch into a
sub-dimension within his cloak. He faced the willow a final time, lifted two
fingers in a spell concentration, and sharply said: "FLOW BREAK."
The green and flowery facade that had been covering a dark, barren, and
dead landscape shattered. All the color was drained from the environment, the
life withered from the plants as the shirveled back into twisted masses of
carbon.
"What happened here?" Cerina drew in a sharp breath, and
Zelgadis sighed.
"When Lina was dying, I was desperate to save her. " He snarled
through his pained expression. "I was so upset that I summoned up the life
energy of the very earth and transferred it to her, hoping it would heal her or
at least help. It didn't."
"Oh. So that's why it looks like... this." She gestured to the
bleak landscape.
"Yes." He nodded, then touched the ground where his sword had
impaled it with those same two fingers. There was a burst of power, and a simple
red flower sprang up. He let a single tear fall in the center of the blossom,
then finally turned and began walking away from the clearing, Cerina following
closely.
*L-sama protect me.* She thought as she flanked him. *I don't think I'm
prepared for this big of an adventure.*
