Disclaimer: Slayers? I wish!

A/N: Good God, this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. But I feel justified. I wrote this just after the end of a monstrously difficult quarter.

The first seeds of this idea actually came from just the face-value issues regarding Zelgadis' condition. I mean, it's one thing to look at an anime character who's supposed to look monstrous (when in fact they have a very appealing character design). That isn't to say that I think he'd be necessarily ugly in real life, but I do think he'd be a bit more uncanny and surprising than a lot of people seem to think. Not just that, I saw some people on TV tropes complaining about how Zelgadis' motivation of trying to find a cure for himself to be largely steeped in vanity. This shocked me, because based on his characterization that falls pretty flat—as that shape of his is a physical, awful reminder of his past with Rezo…but on an even worse level than that, as a writer, I started to try and imagine what it would be like to be in Zelgadis' skin. It was not happy imagining.

In any case, I wanted to explore that and his interesting, rather unusual dynamic with Amelia. In doing so, I apparently felt the need to abuse and twist on an old cliché. I'll only do it once, I promise! This takes place just after the end of Slayers: Next.

Enjoy! Feedback much appreciated, especially given that this story has a lot of "winter survival" content. I researched it for the purposes of this fic, but if anyone notices some error, let me know!

For Granted

(c) DeskRage, June 2012

Part 1

The choice was stunningly simple.

The snow around them was already half a sword-length in depth and deepening fast—cascading to the ground in curtains so thick Zelgadis could barely see the disaster in front of him. Driving wind, gritty with grains of ice slashed across the frozen wastes, hardening the broken river ice in just seconds like nothing had happened and the cold—

Oh, the cold. It was dark and deep, having already nearly frozen his left sleeve to his flesh. This was bad. He could feel the it sinking down past his thick skin, seeking to settle into his bones. And if it was this bad for even him...

"A-Amelia…"

Her teeth were chattering so hard that the sound was like a death rattle, and she was so numb she apparently couldn't feel that she'd bitten her mouth on the inside, blood darkening her tongue and freezing on her bluish lips. Her thick winter gear was heavy with freezing water, leeching out her life as neatly as a fatal wound. But unlike such a wound, he knew no magic to fix this.

The choice was so simple. Freeze to death or…there was no time.

"You—you're going to have to…"

The original destination had been Kratos, one of the many small city-states enfolded in the Alliance of Costal States. It was famous for white-washed domed buildings, warm blue water and cuisines bursting with fresh fish, tomato and roast lamb. The people were welcoming, gregarious, and like in many prosperous port towns, shrewd businessmen. A large portion of their bustling open-air markets were devoted to the sale and trade of magical objects, from the charmed trinkets to the occasional artifact of real power.

However, all of these elements made it a popular destination not just for the adventurous and the industrious (Lina and her companions), but also for "fat-pursed tourist idiots" and honeymooners.

Martina and Zangulus were among the latter group. Normally, Amelia wouldn't take issue. She was more inclined to welcome it. After all, they'd travelled together before, and in the aftermath of the victory over Hellmaster, the idea of a nice, relaxing vacation, even if it was a small one brought a sigh of pleasure to her lips.

But Martina and Zangulus were married now.

Like everyone else, she'd been surprised, but couldn't help but find herself genuinely congratulating her, and even wishing her the best in her new life. It just didn't seem appropriate for their party to go with them to the city they planned to celebrate their first weeks of married life together.

But somehow, an equation that featured Lina, Martina and "honeymoon" seemed like a surefire recipe for disaster. Exploding disaster. Amelia cringed at the thought—she wouldn't wish that on anyone.

At first, she'd expected Lina to treat the revelation as an act of war, and possibly even insist on going to Kratos anyway. But she'd surprised everyone, flipping the map upside down and jabbing her finger at a tiny spot teetering on the border of Lyzille and Dils, declaring that they were going to the northern city of Hysode.

"I thought you said you wanted to see sun and go scour the magic markets," Zelgadis said as he watched Lina drag a perfectly diagonal line between Kratos and Hysode with an expensive-looking fountain pen, "From what I hear, it's a frozen wasteland."

"One man's frozen wasteland is another's paradise!" Lina replied. "Besides, that's a pretty dreary description—it's supposed to be a tourist town, like Kratos! They've got great snow, famous hot springs, and best of all," she leaned conspiratorially across the table, "There's an old rumor I heard about it once. The river Hysode is one of the oldest in the world, and legend has it that there's a huge cache of enchanted treasure at its bottom. Think of the possibilities! Also, they make this killer quiche that I've wanted to try for a while."

Zelgadis made a face. His eyes wandered a little to the left and his gaze turned inwards. The corner of his mouth tightened just that fraction of an inch, and he shifted his weight on the chair so it was leaning on the left side. Amelia's chest suddenly tightened. He was looking for an excuse to go off on his own again. She couldn't understand it, why he seemed to need a pretense for curing his body to do nearly anything—even when it was barely tangential to what was going on. He himself always let it hang in the background when things got serious, so why must it be a precursor, when everyone knew the real reason he stayed with them?

She'd known him, Lina and Gourry for almost two years now (two years next month, anyway). Lina and Gourry she didn't have to worry about—they had each other, after all. But Zelgadis, when he was on his own made her fret and twist her hands. Not that he couldn't take care of himself, but the thought of him being alone—something she could barely fathom— just seemed so unbearably sad.

It was unconscionable! There was no justice in letting him subject himself to that—even if she was only delaying the—

"Now stop right there, Mr. Zelgadis! You mustn't be so single-minded all the time!" She jabbed her finger at him. "We just saved the world from a powerful fiend! We've been on the road, fighting and rescuing for a long time, but even heroes of justice need a break. It wouldn't be right if you went off on your own before that happened, and…and you never know, there might just be something that you could—"

"I'm sorry, but allow me to interrupt before you contradict yourself," Zelgadis said flatly, fixing her with a gaze that was as focused as it was angry.

Amelia stopped, face flushing. He was right, of course. She felt small and shabby, having almost attempted to dangle that single-minded goal she had just admonished him for like a golden carrot.

Silence pooled around them, so thick Amelia could have cut the word 'awkward' into it with a knife. No one moved for a second. Amelia swallowed, scrambling for words, but instead of bold and inspiring, like she hoped they'd sound, they came out in a slightly strangled gurgle. She twiddled her thumbs.

"It—it just wouldn't be as fun if you didn't join us, Mr. Zelgadis. I mean, it wouldn't be the same without you."

She could feel Lina's eyes, Gourry's confusion and Sylphiel's surprised interested all at her back. Zelgadis, who was facing everyone was blinking at her like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Finally, Zelgadis placed his hand on his forehead. "Well, far be it from me to stop you people from having fun..." But he was looking directly at her through the gap in his fingers when he said it.

"All right, now that we've got that sorted out," Lina said loudly, standing up and nearly knocking her chair over, "Let's get while the going's good."

They set off on the journey within the hour. But on the road, Amelia found herself hanging at the tail end of the group, staring at Zelgadis' back as they walked, trying to quell the squirmy feeling in her guts and wondering when she'd become so selfish.

"For the road to a tourist town, this sure feels like we're in the ass-end of nowhere! I am freezing!" Lina growled as she stomped after Gourry, having taken the initiative to break snow.

"We should be there very soon, Ms. Lina. The new snow's just slowed us up a little, that's all. We just have to keep following the Hysode River," Sylphiel said. "Maybe once we arrive, we can get some clothes more appropriate for the weather." She puffed and shivered, drawing her cloak tighter, "I don't think we thought this out very well."

On the seventh day of their journey, Amelia still refused to begrudge the warm sunny coast of Kratos to Martina, even though she would have really liked to be able to feel her fingers and toes apart from the fiery numbness. Her clothes had the same grimy, cold texture as drying off with a damp towel, uncomfortably sweaty in places from earlier attempts to try and break snow for herself. Breath fogged and swirled in front of their faces as a tiny breeze, dry and brittle with cold teased through.

However, despite the discomfort, the beauty of this placed stirred up an old song in her heart. Without really thinking, she started humming it, her mother's old lullaby she couldn't remember the words to. The snow glittered and gleamed like spilt sugar in the pale sunlight, rolling before them in gentle hills. Icicles hung like diamond spears from the bristling boughs of stubborn evergreen trees, bark frosted with silver, and even in the tiny ice swirls curling across the surface of the frozen river that wound alongside their path, she found some childish wonder. Focusing on the beauty and goodness of things helped keep the discomfort and cold at bay…at least, in theory.

"I think it's wonderful," she announced, trying to keep her teeth from chattering as she spoke. "I've never seen this much snow before. What about you, Mr. Zelgadis?"

She turned around to look at him—as he'd been bringing up the rear.

"Riveting," he muttered. He was goose-stepping gingerly in the others footsteps and keeping his eyes focused on the ground, features twisted by a grimace of concentration.

Amelia dropped back to walk alongside him. She frowned. Even when walking in Gourry's footsteps, he still sank almost knee-deep into the snow, prompting stifled little snarls of annoyance.

"I guess…you don't like snow much, do you?"

"Well, it's not really the snow," he huffed, "It's—AUGH!" His foot seemed to catch on something underneath the ice. He tripped—and disappeared into a deep snowdrift with a shunking sound.

"Mr. Zelgadis!" He'd been completely swallowed by the drift, except for a few sharp silvery strands of his hair. The others turned in the direction of her cry, just in time for Zelgadis' hand to burst of out of the ground and shower her with snow. He started to claw his way back up, but as he did, Amelia noticed a splash of crimson darkening the area around his chest and shoulder.

"Mr. Zelgadis, oh no! Are you—"

"It's not mine," he grunted, hauling himself upright and glancing back at the hole. Amelia and Sylphiel gasped.

Half-buried in the snowdrift was the screaming death mask of a man. His arm had been ripped off at the shoulder, the skin around his neck and chest shredded as though by some feral beast. In the hand that was still intact, the man had been gripping a long curved knife. He'd been wearing a pack of supplies on his back—that too had been torn to ribbons and stained. The snow around him was pinkish where the blood had soaked through, where the blood on his face and limbs was still wet, if dark and gummy.

Amelia recoiled. Her nose was numb, but for some reason, perhaps to compensate for that fact, she could almost imagine the smell of death here.

"Who could have done this?"

"Nothing human," Zelgadis replied, folding his arms.

"Where'd this poor guy come from?" Gourry asked, leaning over to look, gaze focused and pensive.

"He may have been a traveler like us. More likely and knowing our luck, he's from Hysode, and we've just walked into some serious trouble." Lina stroked her chin, eyes focused and bright.

"We mustn't leave him like this," Amelia said, recovering from the initial shock. She swallowed. "That wouldn't be right."

"I agree," Zelgadis nodded in her direction. "But we'd better be on guard now."

The job was a meager one, but it would have to do. The smoke purples and cold reds of twilight were already smudging the horizon. The wind, as though sensing the night began to stir, whistling insistently and stirring up flurries of snow. Soon, the temperature would drop to dangerous depths. They covered the man back up, and bound two sturdy shafts of wood together to make a grave marker—so that at least the man's fellows, if he was from the village, could find him and finish the job according to their customs.

It was Sylphiel's idea that she and Amelia say a prayer for the dead man. Amelia didn't know which god the people of Hysode worshipped, but maybe the dead man's soul would appreciate the thought, if nothing else.

"Looks like he died alone," Gourry said when they finished.

"I don't think so, Gourry." Lina had walked over the lip of what looked like a gentle slope. Her voice was grim.

When they caught up to her, they saw why.

Below them were three stakes, driven into the snow, from which three limp figures hung. In the light of the dying sun, their shadows stretched eerie and blue-black across the rose-stained snow, seeming to even reach the edge base of the low ridge they were standing on.

Behind the grisly display, about a standard mile in the distance, lay the town of Hysode, neatly clustered around the road leading in.

"That's weird. The lights are on in the town," Lina said.

"The buildings don't look damaged, either," Zelgadis added.

Lina sighed. "Looks like we've got no choice. Come on."

They slid down the ridge, blood pounding, cold limbs forgotten.

There were two men and a woman. Each of them had been mutilated in some twisted fashion, but most prominent was the woman, central to the two men. Her head lolled at an unpleasant angle, staring out at them through gory eye sockets. Her scarred breasts were exposed through the tears in the destroyed clothing, stiff with frozen blood. A vindictive wind tore through, teasing at limp strands of her long dark hair with a fiery hiss.

One of the men was literally strung up by blackening innards, those that weren't dangling to the ground. Up close, they could see now each of the victims had been impaled twice, once through the back, and once through their arms, leaving each figure frozen in twisted agony.

A frost that had nothing to do with the weather gripped Amelia's heart. She was a blooded warrior, seen death and dealt death in the name of justice. She was not a child. But she honestly couldn't think of a time—nor wanted to—when she'd seen violence that reached into her guts and churned them like butter. Stinging bile rose into her throat. She was barely able to force it back.

"This is horrible!" she moaned. "It's inhuman."

"No doubt," Zelgadis growled.

"These people are in plain sight of the town…" Sylphiel whispered in horror.

Gourry frowned. His voice was grim, eyes hard. "Why has no one come to bury them?"

Lina's eyes narrowed. She was thinking, and there was a flicker in her eye that told Amelia she was onto something, but she was distracted by the ring of cold metal.

Zelgadis had drawn his sword. "We have to cut them down."

Gourry nodded, and similarly drew.

"STOP!" a man's voice rang out in panic, muffled by the snow. Everyone looked up. Three shapes that looked vaguely like horses were plowing through the snow, kicking up great clumps of it. "Stop, please stop, you fools!

The riders stopped just short of the party, and Amelia realized that they were not horses, but enormous goat-like creatures, with wide curled horns, stiff shaggy hair and short, stern beards, puffing hot steam from their wide red-rimmed nostrils. The men on their backs resembled them in everything but the horns.

"How can you say that?" Amelia shouted.

"'Fools?'" Lina demanded, pointing at the travesty behind her. "These are your people, right? You don't seriously expect us to just leave them strung up on display like that."

The man astride the leading goat creature, characterized by his grip on a staff with a red lantern dangling from it and golden broach fastening his cloak, wasn't even looking at her. He and the others were looking around, shifty-eyed and fearful.

"Please," he said, "I will explain. But we must get away from here—if you value your lives, follow us!"

The air inside the inn was warm, but there was something about the air in here that seemed to stretch it thin and cold, like spilled soup, despite the fire roaring in the hearth. The common room, already large by Zelgadis' standards, seems especially enormous. About two dozen large, well-worn round tables and their accompanying chairs loomed unused in the background. The tinny banging of a single cook's pots and pans echoed sadly from the kitchen, betrayed only by the yellow light spilling through a crack in the door from just beyond where the low staircase leading to the second floor receded into nothing. The smell of dust festered like something dead in a puddle of standing water.

He and the others sat clustered around the fireplace, each holding mugs of some kind of strong tea. The three men, having introduced themselves as Gris, Fiebras and Durand of the local council, faced them. The one who introduced himself as Gris kept glancing uncomfortably in Zelgadis' direction, looking, then shifting away, before looking again—that same, stupid look that people had when observing a cripple, or his stupid, stone-studded face. Zelgadis' stomach tightened. His fingers itched to pull his mask up, but doing so now would be even more embarrassing. He glared at Gris once before looking away like he didn't care. He shouldn't—Durand was the one with the staff, and so far had been doing the talking, leading Zelgadis to conclude that this man was the one with actual rank. No need to pay attention to the other one.

"We're very sorry that you had to see that," Durand apologized, dipping his head to them.

"So are we," Lina retorted, sipping her tea. "You'd better have a pretty good reason for leaving them up there like that. Start talkin', Pops."

At the mention of the victims, Durand's face twisted in grief. "You have had the unfortunate luck to visit us in a time of crisis."

Believe me, this is nothing new to us, Zelgadis wanted to say, but bit it back. He was too interested in the point to deter the old man with remarks like that.

"We're nothing but a peaceful city, welcoming to travelers and visitors alike. Our hope is that all who leave us do so with warm memories of this place and her people." He folded his hands over his staff, "Then one day, about two months ago, both travelers and locals started disappearing in about a six mile radius surrounding Hysode. When they did appear, it would be at least a mile away from where it happened, and…" he trailed off and shook his head.

"They were killed?" Gourry finished for him.

"Yes," Gris sighed. "Almost all of them were defiled or disfigured in some fashion."

"'Now hold on—you say almost all of them?" Zelgadis frowned.

Durand nodded. "Yes. No one travels around here alone. Locals and visitors alike are encouraged to travel in groups of two or more—in a place with winters such as these, it is the safest way. But whenever these creatures attacked, they would always leave one survivor, unharmed."

"One survivor?" Amelia repeated, clearly confused.

Lina narrowed her eyes. "Let me guess: that one survivor would always be dropped off within walking distance of Hysode."

"Yes. How did you—?"

"But we didn't find a survivor," Gourry protested, rubbing his temple.

Amelia's eyes widened. Her shoulders hunched imperceptibly, the muscles in her back tightened. She gripped her tea and looked up. "Yes, we did. The man we buried. He was the survivor."

Zelgadis straightened, having caught on, recalling the curved blade in the dead man's hand. "I see. The man we buried was left alive, but he went back to avenge the deaths of his companions." It made sense. Amelia's deep sense of justice and balance (however brittle and short sighted it occasionally was) did lend itself to such logic, and in this case, she was right.

"But why?" Sylphiel asked in confusion. "Why leave them alive?"

"I'll tell you why. The perps of these crimes are monsters."

"How did you figure that out?" Durand said in surprise.

"Simple," Lina replied. "There's only one reason for them to leave a survivor—to go back and tell all of you that someone has died. Everyone connected to that person would come out, cry and grieve and generally be miserable."

"Worse." Gris put a hand over his face, as if to shield himself from what he was about to say. "Over the course of about three days, they destroy the bodies. They'll scatter them all over the six mile radius."

"Proving my point. Now, tell me, what do monsters feed on?"

"Of course. Monsters feed on negative emotional energy. So when all the people come out to bury the dead, the monsters reappear and chase you all back here or maybe even kill another person, and the whole town is enslaved to fear. Scattering the body parts just adds to it and prolongs the suffering." Amelia said, clenching her fists.

"That explains why this place hasn't been smashed to bits already," Zelgadis concluded. "It's a fear-farm." He had to admit, this was pretty creative. Although it did speak volumes about the monsters here. Usually, the weaker the monster, the less sophisticated they tended to be—and this was a well-thought out scheme that could last indefinitely. Or at least, until the town died, or the monsters got bored.

It was at this point that the cook brought out several bowls of a thick stew made with what smelled like smoked meats, cabbage and root vegetables. While Zelgadis couldn't exactly begrudge the councilmen for the gesture, they had to be out of their minds if they thought anyone was going to be hungry after what they all just witnessed, warriors or not.

Scratch that—anyone except Lina, who'd started to shovel stew into her mouth the moment the bowl hit the table.

"Truly amazing," Durand said in awe.

"Indeed," Zelgadis sighed under his breath.

"What did you expect," Lina grunted through a mouthful of stew, "From the beautiful sorcery genius Lina Inverse?"

Zelgadis could only make out what she said based on the facts that one, he was expecting her to say something along those lines, and two, the number of syllables in the gobledegook she actually spouted. When it was clear that her intended audience hadn't understood her, she swallowed, brandished her spoon and repeated herself.

"The famous Lina Inverse! The spirit of the Water Dragon King smiles upon us!" Durand clasped his hands eagerly.

"That's right!" Lina said proudly.

"They must really be desperate if they're that happy to see her…" Gourry whispered pensively in Zelgadis' ear.

"Despite her terrible reputation…"

"Too right…"

"What was that?" Lina flung her empty bowl of stew across the way, hitting Gourry square in the face. Once he dribbled to the floor on impact, Lina promptly grabbed Gourry's bowl as well.

The usual negotiations, as they were, went as swiftly as could be expected.

There had never been much of a question in Zelgadis' mind as to whether or not they were actually going to fight the monsters and free the town. Given that this was a tourist town, and a wealthy one if the state of the buildings, furnishings and clothes of the people who lived here, they were obviously in a position to tempt Lina to help.

Besides…

He shifted his gaze from the haggling parties in various states of distress to Amelia, who had gone very quiet. Her eyes were uncharacteristically hard, lidded unfocused, her knuckles having whitened at the joints. A thin sheen of grease was forming on her untouched soup.

Even if Lina hadn't agreed, Zelgadis got the feeling that Amelia would have put her foot down. And Lina would never turn away from a friend.

He was testament to that.

"All right. So the terms are these: we'll go kill the monsters, you'll give us this much, if we find the treasure in the lake we get go keep it and you'll put us up for five days for free afterward. Sound good?"

"Lina, don't you think that's a bit much?" Sylphiel whispered in Lina's ear. "It's not as if these people can say no…"

"Shut up, Sylphiel, this is business! Right, boys?"

The 'boys' in question could only agree. Zelgadis rolled his eyes. Shrewd business woman indeed. Far from Lina being heartless—her heart was just in her stomach most of the time. He almost suggested she give them a break when Lina started to talk again,

"Right! You three, make sure you have the gear set out for us before daybreak! We'll need every ounce of daylight we can get if we're going to get the drop on those monsters."

"Daybreak?" Amelia looked up. "You mean we're not going now?"

Lina turned to look at her. Her voice softened, adopting the "teacher" tone Zelgadis occasionally heard when she was trying to be reassuring and rational at the same time. It rarely worked. "Amelia, be reasonable," she began, "First off, it's way too cold to try and fight a monster or monsters in territory we don't know—at night, in deep snow. We'll have a better chance during the day, when we can at least see our enemy."

"But this isn't right!" Amelia stood up, eyes bright. "Those foul creatures are getting away with the vilest kind of cruelty. Tormenting and desecrating the dead, scattering them all over…what about their families? What about justice?"

"Justice isn't always served immediately, Amelia," Sylphiel said quietly.

"And if we're going to administer it, we need to be in a position to do so," Zelgadis added.

"You too, Mr. Zelgadis?"

Zelgadis was taken aback. He didn't expect her to turn to him directly. He bristled. "Now, look…"

But taking her in now, noting the crease in her brow, the look in her eye, the set of her mouth…his thoughts fragmented momentarily. In that moment, she'd already turned away and stormed up the stairs.

Zelgadis sighed after her, shaking away the residue of his momentary lapse. What had that been about?

Whatever. He knew now what was coming next.

He didn't bother trying to sleep. What he did do is set out his winter gear and inspect the contents of the pack the councilmen had left outside his door (they'd each given them one). It was identical to the one they'd found on the first dead man. Had he been superstitious, this could have been interpreted as a bad omen. There was a tightly rolled thick woolen blanket, a straw-thin, collapsible hollow rod thing that stretched out almost six feet when he extended it but compressed into about six inches otherwise, flit rocks, sturdy candles, a small lantern, a tough length of thin rope, a brightly colored red ribbon, and some dried food supplies crammed in. Strapped to the back was a tiny shovel.

Even with everything inside, it didn't feel terribly heavy to him. But it did strike him as a little strange. After all, the theory was that they were simply going to go out and kill the monsters. This gear would do little more than slow them down in a fight. But then again…

The howling wind outside drummed against the window. Little pellets of ice and rock pattered against it like the insistent tapping of a witch's talons.

Given what was about to happen, he supposed he should be grateful for it. If something were to go wrong—and it always, invariably did—they might need it.

He considered the snow clothes that had been given to them. They consisted of a bulky pair of boots and trousers, another shirt and a heavy cloak. He sighed through his nose. Now he knew that these people didn't have a clue. This sort of thing should go in the pack if it was going to be used at all, at least for fighters.

Zelgadis himself was a special case, though. He'd only need the cloak to block out the worst of the wind. Anything more would limit his mobility—already compounded by the snow's depth and his own weight, thanks to the density of his skin and bone, damn Rezo—even more.

Actually…he grimaced. It was thanks to what Rezo did to him that he could afford to go out without the extra protection. He ground his teeth and tried to visualize locking the thoughts away. He fastened the cloak, strapped on the pack, and crept down the stairs to wait, situating himself by the dying fire in the hearth.

He didn't have to wait long.

By the time the feeble flames shriveled into little more than red coals, he heard the tentative creak of a door. Furtive footsteps padded along the length of the hallway. The attempt at stealth was rather undermined by the subtle shift and clank of the contents of a pack and the heavier, slightly more awkward step of its bearer as she snuck down the stairs.

He glimpsed her when she reached the landing. Bulked up by the winter clothes and shouldering the pack, she seemed comically tiny.

She tripped on the last step, falling heavily to the ground with a thick thud. She froze. Even from his place in the shadow, Zelgadis could imagine her holding her breath, listening for any potential disturbance. When none was forthcoming, she started to pick herself up and inch towards the door.

It was at this point that Zelgadis emerged from the darkness.

"You're not seriously planning to go out there alone."

She squeaked and reeled backwards in shock, pack rattling noisily as she recoiled. Her eyes were wide and guilty. "M-Mr. Zelgadis!" But it only took her a moment to regain her composure. She swallowed, her eyes crystalizing into a stubborn resolve that screamed out that there was nothing anyone could do to convince her that what she was doing was phenomenally stupid.

Stupid, maybe. But he couldn't help but consider a strange stirring in his guts, a soft settling of something inside—like there was something broken or displaced, and Amelia's action was pushing it back into place. She did that a lot. More so than anyone else, there was something pure about Amelia—naïve and occasionally foolish, but it was there, and it was familiar.

She set her mouth. "Yes. I'm going to take down those people and bury them before those monsters can do anymore unspeakable things to them. They may be dead, but they still matter, and there's nothing you can say that will stop me."

"Moron." He sighed. "Does it look like I'm trying to stop you?"

She blinked. Her eyes widened when she finally noticed the winter cloak and the pack, her face split into a wide grin.

"Thank you, Mr. Zelgadis."

Listening to the wind outside, Zelgadis wondered if she wouldn't perhaps retract this sentiment inside of a few minutes.

Somehow, looking at her huge, ridiculous starry eyes, he doubted it.

"Come on. Let's get this over with."

When Lina woke up with her face squashed into the floor, she realized exactly what had happened.

First, she'd fallen off the bed. That much was obvious. Secondly, Amelia hadn't been there to stop her from rolling off. Three, Sylphiel was utterly useless as a sentry.

She sat up, rubbing her cheek. "Dammit!" The sheets were rumpled evidence of Amelia's quick exit. Lina had guessed what was going to happen. Sylphiel, who'd said she wasn't sleepy offered to stay awake and keep an eye on the princess, and Lina had stupidly taken her up on that. Sylphiel wasn't as used to travelling as they were, and after a week of tromping through the mountains, the poor girl was probably sore in places she didn't think she could be sore in. Lina thought back to her early days of travelling—God, when she was thirteen? She remembered being sore in her arms of all places after hiking a mountain and being surprised, the sharp ache in the arches of her feet after literally walking an entire day, the heaviness and stiffness of the neck that came with sleeping in rough, lumpy patches of dirt and trees. All child's play, now.

Though Lina had to admit—for someone closer to tourist than full-time adventurer, she hadn't heard even a peep of complaint out of her. She was a trooper, if nothing else.

But all that was definitely beside the point.

"Sylphiel! Wake up!"

Sylphiel started awake. The moment the sleep left her eyes they filled up with gray apology. "Oh no! Ms. Lina, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Get dressed!" Lina didn't stay to listen to the rest of the apology. She threw on her clothes and ran out the door.

She kicked the door open to Gourry and Zel's room with a crash. Predictably, Gourry, tangled awkwardly in his sheets, didn't move. One look confirmed what she had already guessed—Zel's bed on the other hand, was already neatly made up. His sword, pack and snow cloak were gone. He'd left behind some other things too, like the snow clothes, but seeing that he'd neatly folded them back up, she figured it was intentional.

While it did ease her fears about one thing, the fact remained that both of those idiots had obviously gone off to take the dead bodies down. Zel probably guessed what was going to happen—as Lina had—and accompanied Amelia rather than try and stop her. The difference was that Zel had better timing.

Speaking of timing, she wasn't sure how long they'd been gone. She patted the sheets on Zelgadis' bed—cold as stone. Great. He either hadn't even tried to sleep at all, or they'd been gone for a while. She hoped it was the former. She had no doubt that Amelia and Zelgadis were capable, but fighting monsters was always a dirty, dangerous business. They almost never got out unscathed except by the skin of their teeth. Even low class monsters like Siegrim had been trouble.

Here, they were dealing with at least two of them, who displayed an open savagery that surprised even her, and she had a pretty good idea of the depths to which monsters could sink. She was a realist, after all.

She finally managed to wake Gourry by overturning the bed.

"What happened?" he slurred, rubbing his head.

"Dawn's come faster than we thought." Lina snapped, throwing his clothes at him.

"It has…?"

Mentally, she cursed herself. She shouldn't have fallen asleep. No, Amelia shouldn't have been so reckless! Those bodies out there were just bodies, those peoples weren't there anymore, so why-?

Well, because Amelia. Amelia and her principles. And Zelgadis, for not being able to screw up the guts to tell her no! She ground her teeth together. She'd always privately thought of him as a turtle—for all his facades of toughness and skin closer to stone than flesh, his insides were still soft and very human. Especially towards a certain big-eyed, crazy little princess.

Despite the situation, a knowing smirk almost twisted its way across her features. He probably thought no one noticed. Nothing escaped Lina Inverse!

"Mr. Zelgadis is gone too? How did they escape without us knowing?"

"Never mind that," Lina cut her off and headed for the door, "Those monsters are bound to show up, and if we don't want our friends to end up like those guys, we'd better hoof it."

"But what about these?" Gourry lifted the snow pack. Lina shook her head.

"We're only going to be gone long enough to drag those idiots back here! We don't need anything slowing us down. Come on!"

The wind was starting to pick up.

It was hissed and teased their heavy winter cloaks, like a cat finding itself with a very stupid mouse between its paws. It stretched out its claws, pulled back, batted snow at them, but hadn't gotten vicious yet, despite the fact that he could barely see what he was doing now.

This is stupid, he thought as he cut down each of the stakes with his sword. The bodies each hit the ground with a soft whump, one by one. They couldn't remove the stakes without making an even bigger mess of the bodies, but in their early attempt to do so, Zelgadis noticed that at least one area of flesh on the backs of the victims were completely unharmed—except for crudely carved runes that seemed to spell out…

"Sadluyok? Tonrar?" Amelia read them out slowly. "These aren't…?"

Zelgadis shook his head.

They'd gotten here before the monsters did. But knowing that almost made it even harder to sheathe his sword again. The blade slid back with a frosty rasp. We're sitting ducks out here.

But still, even as they dug makeshift graves as fast as they could—the snow kept trying to refill the holes—he couldn't help but feel a grim sense of closure as the desecrated bodies disappeared into the earth. This had been the right thing to do.

When the snow had swallowed the last body, he stowed his shovel and staggered over to where Amelia was. She was shivering—but only a little, the physical exertion of shoveling snow like a deranged mole kept her blood warm—but a small, sad smile lifted her features.

"Now they can rest," she said. Zelgadis nodded. It was getting hard to see the town through the thickening scrim of snow. None of the lights had been turned on (to discourage this very sort of venture), and the dark shape was smudged as though by the careless thumb of a painter. If they didn't hurry, they wouldn't be able to find their way back, even in flight.

"Let's get out of here."

"I think not."

A low rasp of a voice rattled in the quickening winds. Zelgadis', who had been tense and anticipatory already was almost relieved that the monster had finally shown up. Almost. He didn't draw his sword, instead falling into a ready-casting stance. The voice gave the impression of coming from nowhere, and to any other ears, might have even seemed ephemeral. But he could feel the vibration of sound in the snow before them—the ripple of something big shifting in the ice.

Maybe he could surprise it.

"Dam Brass!" A sphere of red light burst from his palms, plowing through the snow with a familiar rumble that almost-but-not-quite hurt his ears and shook the ground. A screeching howl split the air. Something huge and sinuous thrashed around beneath their feet. Reflexively, Zelgadis grabbed Amelia and dove out of the way, just as the snow they'd been standing on exploded in a shower of ice and frozen dirt.

A Monster slithered out of the snowy crater with a reptilian rasp and a strange popping sound, like crackling bones. It loomed up to a height of what Zelgadis guessed to be about fifteen feet at least—fifteen feet of what looked initially looked like the torso of a hideously deformed human skeleton, and the lower half of some hellish, slowly decaying python, although a moment's scrutiny was all he needed to realize that desiccated gray flesh was stretched painfully over blackening bones that poked through the hide around the mouth, spiny ribs and hands. The skeleton's bones were wretchedly elongated, the hands huge and ending in frost-tipped, scythe-like talons crusted with the black brown of frozen blood. The mouth was full of saw-like teeth, the lower jaw jutting out like that of an angler fish.

"It's not nice to take away other people's toys, you know," The monster said. As it spoke, a sickly red light bloomed in the darkness of the skull's eye sockets. "We even marked our names on them to let everyone know."

"Toys?" Amelia snarled. "You've killed and desecrated the bodies of innocent people! That's unforgivable! You've dared showed your face to us, and now we'll show you no mercy! Your names don't matter. Elmekia Lance!" A shaft of burning white light speared towards the monster with a shriek, which raised a claw and batted at it like a hellish cat.

It turned out to be a mistake. The shaft of like sizzled through the Monster's hand, drawing from it a high pitched scream of pain and anger.

"Our names matter more than you think, you little witch," it grated, a viscous miasma rising off its injured hand. "They'll be the last thing anyone remembers of you when we use your bodies to write them out!"

"Not likely, fiend!" Amelia replied. Emboldened by her small victory, she launched herself at the monster, fist glowing.

The monster screamed, brandishing its claws. "Tonrar!"

Zelgadis had been waiting for this. He'd been trying to pinpoint the second Monster, stirring somewhere in the snow in front of the first one. It was trickier, but as soon as he sensed it coiling up to attack, Zelgadis plunged his hand into the snow, sending out a crackling pulse of magical energy.

"Dug Haut!"

Jagged spikes of frost-hardened earth speared out of the ground with brittle cracking sounds, sending up a wall of snow and with it, the howling form of another serpentine beast. This one fell to the ground with a flurry of ice, but righted itself with alarming speed. Tonrar—its companion had to be Sadluyok by process of elimination— had the upper half of some kind of beast, a bear or something similarly toothy and enormous.

"How adorable," it said, clacking its teeth together. "A man and a woman? Those fools are practically doing our jobs for us."

What could it possibly mean by that? Zelgadis flung a Flare Arrow directly at its face. The monster dodged and launched itself towards Zelgadis', black maw wide open. Zelgadis moved to dodge, but in shifting to the left, sunk several feet into the snow. He didn't even have time to curse before the monster's blow punched him several inches into a boulder several yards behind him with a loud crack, crushing the air out of his lungs.

"Mr. Zelgadis!"

His world went black for about a second. When he blinked back, he lurched unsteadily to his feet, just in time to see both monsters send crackling beams of blue-white energy at Amelia, who immediately brought a ward to bear—only for it to blast to bits under the combined onslaught.

"Amelia!" He charged towards the blast, the forms of the monsters writhing just visible within the dissipating vapor. As soon as he was close enough to make out the form of Sadluyok, he leaped.

"Astral Vine!" the incantation had barely left his throat when he brought the imbued blade down, aiming for the skeleton's glowing red eye, when Sadyulok reached into the fog and pulled Amelia's limp form up to shield his face.

Zelgadis' strike faltered mid swing as his breath snagged in his throat. Before he could recover, cold, viselike claws clamp around his torso and crush him into the ground. Even in the numbing cold he could feel the talon's blade-like edges pressing against his ribs, seeking to draw blood but stopped by his stony skin. Zelgadis thrashed furiously, but with Tonrar's claw pinning his chest down. There wasn't much he could do except try to stab at the Monster's wrist with his sword. But as soon as his fist tightened enough for the strike, Sadluyok spoke.

"Drop that sword, or I will tear this girl in half."

Amelia had just come to, struggling similarly against Sadluyok's grip.

"You two are much stronger than the humans who usually blunder out into our wilderness," Tonrar added, leading more of his weight onto Zelgadis' ribs, who was struggling to breathe as the Monster pushed him deeper into the snow. Something inside the pack snapped. "But no matter how strong you are, you are still just humans. The man's strength always falters when his woman is involved. And the woman is no match for us."

My woman? Had the situation not been so dire, he might have been embarrassed. He also might have pitied these two. Was that just him, or could he hear a familiar voice, chanting something against the strengthening winds?

"You have no idea what's going on in the world right now, do you?" he choked out. Best keep them still and distracted. Amelia seemed to notice it too, and stopped struggling—as though she'd given up.

Monsters' strength was always their greatest weakness. In trying to wring negative energy out of their victims, they had to keep them alive as long as possible when they could afford to. That wasn't the case here.

"What was that?" Tonrar growled, learning his face into Zegladis'.

"The most powerful human alive," Zelgadis wheezed, "is a woman."

As if on cue, Tonrar exploded with a scream in a roaring torrent of red flame. A blistering wave of heat seared Zelgadis' body for an instant before dissipating—a heat so intense that he couldn't breathe even when the pressure pinning him down gave way. But in a moment, it was as if the Monster never was, leaving nothing but an ashy impression in the snow where he used to be. And even that disappeared a few seconds after the attack dissipated entirely.

In the same heartbeat, he heard Amelia's voice, "Elmekia Flame!" The blazing light blast a sizzling hole in Sadluyok's chest, who dropped her with a shriek of fury. Amelia righted herself instantly backed into a defensive stance next to Zelgadis.

"It's Miss Lina!" Amelia said, glancing behind them.

"I noticed." Lina, Gourry and Sylphiel were all charging towards them—each brandishing their preferred weapon. In the howling winds, kicking up curtains of snow, Zelgads could barely distinguish their forms.

"Amelia! Zelgadis!" Lina's voice rang out, all but stolen by the now crippling winds. "Move it or lose it!"

"The rest of the party," Sadluyok snarled. "Seems I have no choice."

Lightning fast, the monster buried itself in the snow.

"You're not getting away!" Zelgadis growled. "Amelia!"

"Right!"

"Dug Haut!" they shouted in unison. The ground stirred and cracked around them again, sizzling with magical energy and vibrating with what felt like solid impact. Predictably, the force of the attack hurled the monster out of the snow, but instead of surprising or even hurting it, Zelgadis realized too late what had happened.

"I wasn't trying to escape."

Sadluyok had coiled its length in a circle around the two of them, and when the Dug Haut forced it upwards, it rode the wave of force snatched them it its claws as quick as a striking snake. Zelgadis knew what was coming next, but the blue light gathering in his hand wasn't going to be quick enough.

This stupid snow! The wind kept blowing it into her face and eyes, making it damn near impossible to see. That Burst Flare had been a lucky shot, only because for some reason the monster was stupid enough to stand still. She had barely been able to see it.

At this point, she and the others were close enough to see the attack had been a success, but even then could barely tell what was going on—even about fifty feet away she could hardly see, and even flying it was as though they couldn't get there fast enough.

By the time they could make anything out clearly, the remaining monster had already grabbed Zelgadis and Amelia. Its outline was already blurring as it hissed something out at them—she could see the beginning of a Bram Blazer flickering to life in Zelgadis' hand, the crackling white flame of Amelia's Visvanfrank, starting in her own—

Just as they disappeared in a puff of viscous smoke, blown away by the blizzard winds.

"Damn you!" Lina screamed at it. "Come back here, you ugly bastard!"

The shrieking winds practically tore the words from her mouth and dashed them into nothing. Even so, that didn't stop her.

"Amelia! Zel!"

She skidded to a halt where they had disappeared. They were gone. And in a few minutes, the blizzarding skies would erase even what was left of the battlefield.

To Be Continued...