Lina was not in a good mood.
VERY much not in a good mood.
The day had started off fine, with no bandits, Gourry, revenge-crazed sorceresses, Amelia, or ogres in her room. Having to share the room with Titavi had been the one off note, but no real problem, as Titavi was fun to talk to. This had lasted for all of the twenty minutes it took Lina to get up, go into the bathing room, and settle into the water for a nice morning bath.
The rest of the females of the Greywers family, along with their Sailuune cousins, had then descended upon the bathing room. For an hour, Lina had sat there, stunned, as the others discussed everything from the students to the best way to style their hair to Titavi's upcoming labor in a few months. And then Teirys had offered to scrub Lina's back for her, chattering all the while on how large her family was becoming, about the marriage prospects she and Titavi had come up with for her brothers ... about how so-and-so from the villiage was just perfect for Zelgadis, all calm and sweet-natured, a truely nice lady for him.
Lina had abruptly stood up, and stormed back to her room, too upset to stay in there any longer without fireballing everyone. Only to find all of her clothes gone, and a green dress lying on her bed for her to wear. She had sworn, cussed, thrown flare arrows down the corridor ... but eventually put the dress on, seeing no other option available other than going about in the nude.
Right now, she was storming along the line of the roof, waiting for lunch to be served, trying for once to not upset her hosts by throwing a fit in the middle of the dining room. A gust of wind whipped her dress around her legs, and she absently batted it back down to avoid showing off anything that shouldn't be.
"Wait a minute ... why am I up here? Why am I up here where it's windy and cold?"
Xellos stared mutely out of the window, just barely hearing Elkin tinker about behind him. He idly tugged at the sleeve of the new shirt he was wearing, still gazing out on the grounds below. Elkin sent a brief bout of profanity into the air after a clunk was heard behind Xellos. Both the feel of the new shirt and the sound of the swearing were completely lost upon Xellos, as he felt wave upon wave of emotion pound at him from Firia.
This was a living hell.
Emotions, true emotions, something which he'd only had a somewhat iffy grip on to start with, were being shoved down his throat in a way he couldn't ignore. In an entirely personal way. And on top of that, he also had to deal with the re-awakening of his own, much too human, emotions.
Aishiru .... heart of my heart
Aishiru .... the other half of my soul
Aishiru .... one who completes me
Aishiru .... I am nothing without you
Mockingly, the versus of the pledge danced through his mind, taunting in their simplicity. Aishiru, the pact of lovemates, the pact of life, of two who are one soul, who are also one in two. It was truely something to laugh at, that he, the most powerful of the Mazoku other than the five lords, was bound in Aishiru-pledge to a dragon. One sided Aishiru pledge at that.
A mrowling hiss caught Xellos's attention, and he turned around .... to end up eyeball to eyball with the most demented-looking calico cat he had ever seen. For some reason, this feline had turned the normal feline inscrutiability into maniac energy ... Xellos spoke calmly to Elkin, glimpsing that the half-dragon was watching his pet and Xellos. "This your pet?"
"Yup. That's Karmie. Or the Karminator, as we sometimes call her."
"Has she ever picked a fight with a mountain lion?"
"No ... a few spats with Kitten, but Kitten's too playful and gentle to really fight Karmie."
"I'd bet on Karmie over the mountain lion."
That cat
was
still alive? ...
....
.... ....
This could
be
trouble ....
....
....
...
....
....
....
...
oh dear.
She
could see
him.