On The Edge Of Twilight


The day was beginning to end. It was his favorite time of day. Xerross watched the red sun sink into the purple horizon, and smiled as his imagination got busy yet again. The image of Lina bending down to kiss him was just too enticing an image not to imagine further.

His pleasant reverie was interrupted by the shrill voice of Princess Amelia yelling from below his tree-perch.

"Xerross-san!" Amelia said, waving her hand wildly in the air. Xerross winced, her screeching tearing into his sensitive ears. They could probably hear her in Wolf Pack Island, he thought, resisting the urge to extinguish her right there and then. Instead, he plastered his usual smile on and peeked over the edge of the branch. "Yes, little Highness?"

Unsurprisingly, Amelia somersaulted into the air, with the agile thought of landing next to him. She missed the branch by a few feet, and would have crashed to the ground if Xerross hadn't caught her by the back of her cloak. Hiding a sadistic grin, Xerross let her dangle for a moment before pulling her up, then suffered a long tirade about the goodness of justice.

When the little clumsy princess' positive energy grew positively nauseating, he interrupted her, instead of causing her great bodily - and possibly fatal- harm. "Excuse me, Princess, but I'm certain there was a reason why you risked great danger and possible harm in looking for me in these wild forests so far from your friends and camp..." No harm in laying it on a little thick, he thought grimly. Anything to shut her up.

"Oh yes! Thank you so much for reminding me, Xerross-kun!" Amelia began to hunt around in her cape, then gave a happy little squeal when she found what she was looking for. "Miss Lina asked me to give this to you!" she held out a carefully rolled piece of paper, bound by a strand of red hair. It had been unopened, but Xerross didn't expect it to be. Reading other people's mail and invading a person's privacy would go against the little justice freak's "Code of Justice".

Though Amelia had been annoying beyond description, Xerross recognized the logic of having her deliver the message. Zelgadiss would have read the contents, and possibly never given it, and Gourry would almost certainly have lost it or forgotten what he was supposed to do. Xerross accepted the letter and turned it over in his gloved hand, glancing at the princess with his 'closed' eyes. He knew that the princess was deathly curious, he could probably bite the emotion from the air and chew on it for hours from it's intensity. But he pointedly did nothing but tuck the letter away into his bag.

Finally getting the hint, Amelia's shoulder's slumped in disappointment. "I guess I'll leave you alone to read your letter, Xerross-kun. Well, good-night!" She started to hop off the branch, when Xerross murmured "Levitation," so that she simply floated to the ground.

Big mistake. "Oh thank you! Xerross-kun! I knew you would be won over to the side of goodness and justice someday! It just goes to show how powerful the power of love and justice goes! And just to show my appreciation, I'll sing you a special song, just composed for you!!! In front of everybody, just to prove that you've been won over to the side of goodness!" The overenthusiastic teenager started to skip around in sheer delight, then hopped onto a stone, striking one of her ridiculous poses. "Yes! I, Princess Amelia Wil Tesla Sairune, have turned Xerross into a follower of Goodness and Justice! I have won him over to the side of Love and Caring! And to commemorate this great Triumph over evil, I will compose a song of his good deeds!" she announced to no one in particular.

Her unwilling audience was quietly banging the front of his skull against the tree trunk, near tears, not because of joy - that was the furthest thing from his mind at this grateful pronouncement, but rather, of depression, and sheer nausea.

I just wanted her to forget about the letter...I wonder if there is any way to corrupt her... then heaved a sigh of relief when he heard Amelia's voice recede into the distance. Thank goodness that's over with... he thought, raising his abused head and peering into the gloom. He shook his head to clear it a couple of times, then remembered why the saccharine princess had sought him out in the first place.

Slipping the little scroll out of his bag, he slid the hair-ribbon off the paper and onto his finger like a ring. Unrolling the brief message, he began to read.

Xerross,

I won't be able to make it for tonight's lesson. Want to spend some time to myself.

~ Lina

Not make it for tonight's lesson? I wonder what's so special about tonight? Xerross wondered, pursing his lips unhappily. He stood, tucking the precious note away with the hair. Deciding to find out for himself, Xerross vanished, just as the silvery moon began to rise.

The moon was reaching it's zenith when Xerross finally found Lina. She had sequestered herself, far away from her friends, in a little moss-carpeted clearing by the stream. She had her back turned to him, her black cloak devoid of her shoulder guards, as still as a statue.

Carefully hidden, Xerross waited to see what she would do.

He did not have to wait long, for after a few moments had passed, she let the cloak fall. Xerross raised and eyebrow and opened his eyes. Lina wasn't wearing her usual attire, but a pale golden dress, the type one might see on any farm girl during the summer. He hid himself even deeper into the shadows when she turned around, and murmured the words of a spell.

Soft, shimmering mist crept across the moss carpet, iridescent and almost powderlike. She smiled gently in satisfaction, then cast yet another spell.

Taking her place in the middle of the glowing, moon-lit mist, singular piano notes began to play a wistful, tune. To each note, she danced a single movement, until she ended up back where she had started. The music paused, then resumed, more complex accompaniment joining the first set of notes, again piano. As the music became more complex, a violin concerto and flute joining the first instrument, so did her dance. She moved like a ghost, silently and gracefully, a bright vision of color against the black, white and gray of night. She spun, a nymph embodying loneliness, dancing a whirling, waltzlike ballet, her fiery hair like rosy mist, the silk of the dress like gauze against her slender, etheral form. Xerross watched entranced, as the mist around her rose in serpentine spirals to curl around her enticingly, like semisolid ribbons of crystal and gray color. She held out her hands, as though dancing with an invisible partner, who led her through the steps and lifted her up into the air as she sprang with deerlike grace.

The music reached it's climax, then suddenly, Lina spun to a halt, as though her imaginary partner had vanished. The music became more quiet, like the last bits of rain falling during a bright new dawn. She pirouetted, without a care, then found herself face to face with Xerross.

Hypnotized by her dance, the Mazoku Priest had hopped into the clearing when she had stopped momentarily. Wordlessly he held his hand out to her, his amethyst eyes open, his lips parted slightly, his gaze burning. He held no thought of the possible consequences, indeed, he seemed to have forgotten that she might just blast him into the stratosphere.

Lina smiled instead, almost seductively, and swept past him, her arm cocked as though to wrap around his waist, but not touching him. As though in understanding, Xerross danced with the diminutive sorceress, swinging into a circle, and twirling apart, their hands just touching, his gaze never leaving hers. For her part, Lina seemed almost happy she was dancing with a real partner, not some ghost from her mind. The dance consumed the dancers, making them one, though they never really touched, always sweeping apart, and yet constantly returning to each other, the joining never completed. They danced, neither the leader nor the follower, graceful puppets to the strings of the music, the mist swirling, caressing them like a lover.

They danced, like twin butterflies dancing around a flower, until at last Xerross lifted her up and tossed her into the air. She caught his hand, and landed gracefully in an arabesque. They wrapped an arm around each other's waist and spun around each other, gazes locked as though that were the ribbon, the cord, the chain, that bound them to one another.

Both the music and the dancers slowed to a gentle waltz, slowing even more until only the mist gave them the illusion of movement, Lina gazing up at Xerross, and he gazing down into her crimson eyes.

Lina only blinked once when he kissed her, his lips capturing hers, his arms sliding around her waist and pulling her against him. She mimicked how his lips moved against her own, still drunk from her dance, and accepted the warm tongue that slid into her mouth. As Xerross explored his newest treasure, claiming every part of her lips and tongue, he felt her own slim arms almost shyly slip around him, small hands pressing him close, as her body melted against his.

Finally realizing what was happening, Xerross pulled away slightly, ending the kiss, and gazed down at Lina, a small smile forming on his lips, knowing it might be his last for the night before she beat him unconscious.

Lina smiled, her lips rosy, her cheeks flushed, her eyes warm and inviting. Xerross touched her lips with his fingertips, feeling their softness as they moved against them, felt a small hand touch his cheek tenderly in reply, then he felt her almost weakly pull him down again for another kiss. He clasped her to him, until the blood beat in his ears was almost a roar, and his knees were giving way, so that he might draw her down with him, to lie in the soft, inviting moss, that he might show her...

He did sink down to the ground, but Lina did not fall with him. She stood gazing down at him, her eyes mirrors to her heart, her expression otherwise unreadable. To Xerross, she was a thousand miles out of his reach as he knelt before her, awaiting her next command or gesture.

Lina smiled suddenly then, as though she decided something. "...Thank you, Xerross." she whispered at last, and was suddenly gone, her cloak wrapped around her, like the mythical wood nymphs. Only the slight movement of the bushes betrayed her passing.

Xerross did not follow her. He did not even move, the emotions, some familiar, some unknown to him, raging through his being. With Lina's leave-taking, the mist vanished. The music had long ago ended, but for him, it would play forever.


Author's Notes

Just a little side note: the piece that they danced to is the orchestral version of Parasite Eve's Main Theme, just so you know.


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