Lina mumbled in discontent. She was outside alone and it was raining. It wasn’t just a light drizzle it was pouring buckets. She wasn’t sure how she had been able to have had been separated from Gourry but she didn’t care and this point. All that she wanted was to get to someplace where it was dry and she could eat and sleep without having to worry about anything. But there was a problem with that. She wasn’t anywhere near of a town or a place that she could take shelter in that she knew of.
She shivered dripping wet as the night air breezed bye chilling her to the bone.
"Too… cold… hungry… tired…" Lina grumbled right before she tripped on a tree root that was sticking up from the ground. "Ow!" She landed on her side, twisting her ankle on the fall down. "Damnit!" She rubbed her ankle and swore under her breath. Now normally in a situation like this Lina would use her magic to heal her injuries. She wouldn’t be wandering around in a forest alone and she wouldn’t be freezing to death.
Earlier that day in the morning…
"Lina where are we going so early in the morning?" Gourry whined and pouted as she dragged him off into the woods outside of a town that they had been staying at.
Lina wasn’t listening to him she was looking at a map that she was holding in her hands.
"Liiiinnnnnaaaaa…." Gourry whined some more and looked up just to see a large rock almost the size of a boulder smash right into him.
Lina dusted off her hands and threw a tired glance over to Gourry. "Would you please shut up! I’m trying to figure how to get to this place on this map!"
Even though he had been squished and flatten Gourry got up and was walking next to Lina like nothing had happened to him. "What map? Whatcha looking for Lina?"
"I already told yesterday and this morning! Are you telling me that you forgot again?!?!?"
Gourry just looked at her sheepishly and Lina rolled her eyes. "Alright then I’ll explain it to you again. But can you at least try to remember this time? I got this map two days ago when I traded for some coins with this guy who runs a magic item shop. Anyway the map is supposed to lead whomever follows it to a special orb that grants people one wish."
"Oh I get it! You want to follow this map, find the orb and make a wish!"
"That’s right."
"What are you going to wish for? A bigger chest?"
This time Gourry was smashed with a large boulder instead of just a large rock.
After following the map for a few hours Lina was about ready to scream at the top of her lungs and destroy stuff in frustration. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t follow the map properly. At the beginning the map had been very accurate. Everything that was on the map corresponded exactly with their surroundings. But then after a while things started to go weird. The map got less accurate to what they saw around them, making them going around in circles.
"We’re lost aren’t we Lina?"
"No we aren’t lost! There’s no way that I could get us lost." Lina said in a not so confident voice. An invisible person cackled away. "Who’s there?! Show yourself!" Lina demanded getting herself ready in a fighting position.
"My feisty one, aren’t you?" A creature cackled as it appeared before them floating in the air.
"Who are you and what do you want?!" Lina demanded again and the creature only smiled mischievously.
"Who I am? Not important. What I want? Why I want to ‘play’ with you of course." The creature stated right before it began its attack.
Lina and Gourry parried the creature’s attacks not being able to do more then that. The creature was too fast. But finally there was an opening and Gourry took it slicing his sword right through the creature.
"Ha got you!"
"Think again." The creature grinned as what should have been a gaping wound healed up in a matter of seconds. The creature was a monster, and since Gourry didn’t have his sword of light he was defenseless against the monster.
"What realized that you can’t hurt me? Well too bad. Doesn’t matter anyways I didn’t come here to play with you." The monster smiled evilly and with a large force of energy Gourry was sent flying into the air.
"Gourry!" Lina went to ray wing over to him only the monster knocked her down.
"Oh no, I didn’t go through all this trouble just for you run off on me." The monster sent a shockwave through her and as a result she passed out.
Later on when Lina opened her eyes she wasn’t in the same place she had been during the fight. She was in a totally different forest. And what was worse something was blocking her magic powers. She couldn’t even get out a single light spell. ‘Probably that shockwave that that damned monster shot through me. Great can it get any worse?’ Lina grumbled in her thoughts and then all of a sudden it started to rain.
Present time
"Too… tired… to deal with this…." Lina lay down on her back closing her eyes. A rational part of her told her that she should get up and that if she stayed like this she was going to fall asleep. But the other part of her told her that she was only resting her eyes and body for a few minutes and that there was no way she was going to fall asleep.
A minute later Lina was asleep.
Lina tried to open her eyes as she started to wake up. She was in someplace warm and she was dry. She silently murmured in content and started to go back to sleep when her rational part of her mind reminded her that she was supposed to be outside in the rain. She jolted up opening her eyes. What she saw before her was a small cabin of some sort that had a table, chairs, the bed she was laying in, a fireplace with a man tending to the fire whose back was to her.
The man feeling eyes staring at him turned his head towards Lina. What Lina saw surprised her.
"Zel?"
"So you’re finally awake. Lay back down in case you hadn’t noticed you’re sick." Zelgadis said while he came the bed and felt her forehead. "Good your fever is gone. Here drink this." Zelgadis handed her a cup with some warm broth in it. Lina took it and drank it slowly even though she didn’t want to.
"Um Zel how did I…?"
"End up here? Well I was traveling around this area when it started to rain. Luckily before I had headed out to this area I had known about this little cabin, so as I headed off towards it when I found you unconscious laying on the ground all wet and with a fever. So I brought you here. How do you feel?"
"Ankle still hurts."
"What’s wrong with it?"
"I think I sprained it or something when I tripped."
"Why didn’t you just heal it?"
"Can’t. I can’t cast any magic right now."
"It’s not… um that time is it?" Zelgadis asked with a blush, ended up being hit by a pillow for his question.
"No it’s not that time of the month!!!!!!!!" Lina fumed with a very red face.
"Okay if it’s not that, then what happened?"
Lina went into way too much detail explaining what happened talking a mile a minute, normal thing for Lina.
"Well okay then, um I guess we should see about your ankle."
Lina went to move her leg from under the covers for Zel to heal when she finally noticed what she was wearing or rather what she wasn’t wearing.
"WHAT THE HELL?!?!?" Lina was laying there in practically just her underwear.
"Lina before you overact-"
"Overact?!?! WHERE’S MY DAMNN CLOTHES YOU PERVERT?!?!?" Lina bashed him over the head only realize that’s not always the smarted thing to do to a chimera who is part golem. "OWWWW!!!!" Lina cried out in pain holding her right hand.
"Here let me deal with that." He took her hand and casted a healing spell on it. With that done he dealt with her ankle. "You know when I found you were soaked to the bone and with a fever on top of that. I couldn’t just leave you wearing wet clothes like that, you’d just end up getting more sick."
"Yeah sure…" Lina muttered. "Can I have them back now?" She glared at him.
"Um sure I guess they must be dry now." Zelgadis went and retrieved her clothes from near the fire and handed them to her. Lina snatched them from Zelgadis and changed quickly while he looked away. She scowled looking away with her back to him as she lay in the bed.
An uncomfortable silence passed by the two of them. Zelgadis was staring at her and Lina was aware of it. Even with her back turned she knew he was staring at her. It was one of the reasons why she wasn’t talking. But the silence was driving her mad.
"So why were you traveling out here?" Lina asked softly turning herself to look at him.
"I don’t know I guess I was sorting out some thoughts."
"You were searching for a cure?"
"I was before, lead came out as being hoax nothing more, just like all the other leads that I’ve looked up all these years. I guess I wanted to be alone."
Another silence passed by the two of them.
"What about you?"
Lina looked at him in a bit of confusion. "What do you mean? I didn’t plan to end up here."
"I meant, why were you searching for that orb?"
Lina lowered her eyes. "I don’t know. Just wanted to see if it existed I guess."
"But if it is real and you had found it, what were you going to wish for?"
Lina didn’t say anything she just stared at the floor.
"Lina?"
"In all honesty don’t know what I would have wished for. There are many things that I could have wished for. Anything from money to food to fame. But what would you have wished for in my position? A cure to your curse?"
"Naturally."
"What a waste of a wish…" Lina said under her breath figuring that Zelgadis wouldn’t hear her. But he did.
"And how is my wishing to be cured a wasted wish?" Zelgadis demanded walking up to her staring her right in the eyes looming over her.
"Well why did you end up in this situation anyway? You wanted power, you wanted to be stronger. And that’s just what you got right? Well why did you want it? Because you weren’t strong enough, you felt weak. So tell me after receiving the power you so greatly desired why would you want to be changed back and made weak again?" Lina matched his stare.
"Are you blind? Look at me and tell me what you see." He sat down at the foot of the bed while Lina sat up and stared at him.
"I see a person who needs to wake and realize that things aren’t as bad as they seem. And if you can’t see that then you’re truly blind. Do you want to end up like Rezo? Has the thought ever occurred to you that you’re starting to act like him? Becoming obsessive over your curse like he was his blindness. Well Zel I’m not going to let that happen to you so deal with it! So you don’t look like everyone else. Who cares! You’re unique! And so what if some people call you a freak? That doesn’t matter, those people are just stupid and idiotic who just feel good when they put others down making themselves feel superior."
Zelgadis was silent for a very long time. He didn’t know what to say to her.
"Um you should get some sleep Lina." He finally spoke getting up to walk off but Lina grabbed his hand pulling him over to her.
She didn’t know why she did it but she hugged him. Maybe it was because she felt that he need he needed a hug but in any case she startled him. But he smiled a rare smile and hugged her back. They released from the hug and they both just stared into each others eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Neither was aware of how they had inched together till somehow they found themselves kissing. It was a small but sweet kiss that left them both smiling at the end.
"Lina seriously, get some sleep." Zelgadis moved a few strands of hair from her face.
"Whatever. Good night."
"Good night."
And with that Lina went off to sleep and Zelgadis was left wondering how ever was going to be able to fall asleep. ‘Who would have thought that something like that would happen?’ He mused smiling lightly tracing where his lips had met with hers.
A creature watched the small cabin from the trees. It was the monster that had sent Lina to this forest and robbed her of her magic powers. ‘Well looks like my plans worked out after all.’ The monster’s body changed forms to that a very familiar smiling form of a certain trickster.
