Xalan and Amethyst stood among the Sailoon guardsmen in a bit of an anxious silence. Xalan poked at the meat as it cooked on the hastily erected spit.
"Your father saved the world you know," she piped up suddenly.
"Mom mentioned that," Xalan nodded.
"Oh the slayers are great heros in Sailoon," Amethyst suggested. Xalan heard that snicker from before again and looked to see one of the guardsmen. Other than that occasional snicker, he seemed on the surface to be a loyal guardsmen. Like Lina, though, he could smell the anger on the man that was lacking in everybody else.
"My father doesn't say much about them...." she suddenly started glancing about, avoiding Xalan's face. "I guess...I know why now."
"No one else ever mentioned..." Xalan stopped and sniffed the air. "Lots of visitors today." he muttered.
"Are there too many of us?" Amethyst asked. Then her slightly less acute senses caught the scent too. "Is this friend or foe?" Her guards finally caught on to the situation.
"Stay back your highness," one of them said. "If this is a bandit of some type we'll handle him." Xalan did not fail to notice that they formed a small wall between him and the princess. He rolled his eyes, but then the owner of the scent appeared at the end of a tremendous leap. The human, he smelled human at least, then seemed to float lightly to the ground.
"Princess Amethyst's troupe I hope," he said.
"State your name and business," Xalan noted the fine elven silks and scratched his head.
"He doesn't much look like a peasant," Xalan said, turning around. Before the guardsmen could react he had leaped over their line and was jabbing forward with his staff into the angry guardsman. Pushing the man back before they overcame their surprise.
"Hey, stop him!"
"What's going on?" Amethyst asked suddenly, as her guards surrounded and tried to engage Xalan. Two of them broke off to engage the dark haired swordsman, who simply leaped over them and froze in mid-air standing more than a swords length above their heads. "All of you stop this right now."
"Amethyst, that guy was trying to stab you," Xalan warned as he parried and dodged sword thrusts easily. He was finding it easy to stay alive, doing it without hurting any of these other guardsmen was proving somewhat difficult now.
"Don't be silly," Amethyst declared. "He's my guard, besides the dagger wouldn't get through my skin." A dagger flew to the newcomer's hand and he turned it over in his hands as he continued to hang out of reach. She pointed shocked. "That's an enspelled dagger." Her face had a shocked expression before she turned an angry glare on the traitorous guardsman.
"I thought it might be," he said, drfiting slowly to the ground. "Perhaps we could save all this for when my employers get here. I'm sure they've realized that they aren't going to find me before I warn you."
"Die freak!" the traitor shouted, revealing his intent for all to see he charged Amethyst with sword drawn. The loyal guardsmen stopped fighting Xalan and turned to intercept him, they didn't need to. The angry golem tossed a dagger at the man.
"Shadow snap!" she shouted as the dagger sank into his shadow and anchored the man into his place.
"About time," Xalan muttered.
"You dare to raise a hand against your princess," despite her expression, she sounded more aghast and shocked than enraged. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"You freak, looking for why your mother died," he tried to hit her with his sword but couldn't get close enough to her. The loyal guardsmen stared at him smooth, standing between him and
"What does this have to do with my mother's death?"
"Perhaps we should wait until we deal with the other bad guys first," Xalan suggested. At the statement the newcomer looked up from examining the dagger and blinked as if he was just realizing that they were there.
"Oh yes," he said. "My employers."
"Your mother died in child birth!" Amethyst stared in shock as she processed that information. "You claim to want justice, justice sees you dead, monster!!"
Lina knew where her daughter was heading. The only way she could hope to get to Sailoon any time soon would be to talk to a certain dragon. Lina growled quietly to herself, she had thought her problems with Val Garv would have been over when he got zapped into a baby. Of course she hadn't counted on living around Filia any time soon. She hadn't planned on having kids any time soon either. She certainly hadn't planned on her daughter taking a liking to someone that had almost destroyed the world.
Lina stopped, catching the scent on the air, a lot of men carrying oiled steel. She could guess where they were going, suddenly her suspicions about the angry guardsman were a great deal stronger. Xalan was an excellent warrior, she didn't quite understand how, he just was it was like he pulled the techniques from the air. Still there were a lot of people coming, and she wasn't sure about Amethyst's ability to fight. Knowing magic and swordcraft was one thing, using it quite another.
On the other hand she had to catch up to her daughter before she convinced Val to give her a quick lift to Sailoon. She was certain that Xina would find some way to trick or persuade the dragon to do it. Of that Lina had NO doubt.
Xina really was a great deal like Xellos, though she a lot more scatterbrained and impulsive than the mazoku had been. Still, she had that same way with words. Her son seemed to have inherited Xellos's forethought and cautious attitude. He had a tendency to take responsibility on himself that wasn't initially obvious in Xellos.
The choice was thankfully taken from her as she heard the dragon's wings striking air above her and the forest. She looked up and saw Val's dragon form cruising past in blur towards Sailoon.
"That takes away that, option," Lina said, then she cracked her knuckles. "So I guess its time to re-earn the title bandit-killer then."
"My mom is going to kill me when she hears about this," Val asked in what Xina assumed as a irritated manner. The guess was made uncertain by the fact that he always sounded irritated when he was in dragon form.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-two, why?"
"And you're still worried about what your mom is going to do to you?"
"Which reminds me." The dragon grumbled as the countryside rolled along below.
"Reminds you about what?"
"Where should we go to get the herring on the way back?" Xina hmphed, she would have crossed her arms, except that she was hanging on to Val's back at the moment.
"No one is ever going to let me forget that, are they?" she mumbled to herself, hoping that it would be lost in the wind.
"Why should we?" the dragon answerred just to let her know that he heard.