Slayers - Ancient Grudges Unravelled 2
Title: Ancient Grudges Unravelled
Author: Shaded Mazoku.
Email: herukatto@hotmail.com.
Part: 2/?
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine at all. They belong to… …Someone else. I’m merely borrowing them for my own amusement.
Warnings: Violence, torture, sex, violent sex, bloodplay, yaoi.
Rating: PG for this chapter, NC-17 for the entire fic.
Summary: Chasing an artefact lands Lina, Gourry, Zelgadis and Amelia in a town ruled by magic-hating priests. They decide to stop their reign. However, this might me harder than it seems. And a certain trickster priests seem to have an agenda of his own in the town.
Pairing(s): Xelloss x Zelgadis.
Fandom: Slayers.
*Chapter One*
Even though he’d gone to bed feeling exhausted, Zelgadis was still the earliest riser of the group. Probably because once he’d been awoken by something, in this case the window slamming shut, he just couldn’t go back to sleep. Thankfully, he worked just fine on little sleep. One of the perks of being part demon, and also the grandson of a compulsive early riser. He was used to working on low sleep reserves.
He was very grateful that while their appropriated “home” was stocked only with the most basic of food, much to the rest of the group’s despair, it was stocked with plenty of coffee, though. He could function with minimal sleep, but coffee made it a lot easier. It also made dealing with fanatical priests, the inability to use magic, and a town where everyone stared even worse than usually a lot easier. It even helped when dealing with severely annoying mazoku priests, though Xelloss never had the decency to show up until after the effects of the coffee had long since worn off.
Then again, Zelgadis mused, decency and mazoku only ever went hand in hand if the mazoku had a hidden agenda. The more open and friendly a mazoku seemed, the larger part you’d find yourself playing in their schemes. One more reason not to trust a friendly, smiling mazoku. One more reason in a sea of such reasons. Let the others be beguiled by fake friendliness. Zelgadis had seen with his own eyes what being mazoku meant. After what had happened with his grandfather, he wasn’t about to trust anything mazoku-related. That included Xelloss.
He was on his third cup of coffee by the time the other three came downstairs, walking straight past him and into the cupboards, rummaging for food. Knowing all too well that they wouldn’t be in the mood for listening until they’d eaten, Zelgadis largely ignored them in favour of his coffee cup.
Finally, Lina leaned back. “OK, I’m full,” she said, sounding sated. “I really wish we had better food, though.” She caught sight of Zelgadis’ expression, and grinned at him. “What’s the matter, Zel? You look even dourer than you normally do.” ¨
Putting his cup down, Zelgadis met Lina’s eyes. “I ran into Xelloss last night,” he said calmly, the rage he’d been feeling during the encounter long since gone.
“Xelloss? Here?” Lina bit her lip. “That can’t be a good sign.”
Zelgadis nodded in agreement. “Indeed not.” He shifted his gaze, looking down into his cup. “He didn’t feel like telling me what he was up to, of course.”
Lina grimaced. “Of course.”
It was a well known fact that getting any kind of information out of Xelloss required either a crisis of some sort or the use of very high level spells. The first was thankfully not available at the moment, and the second was impossible due to the magic detectors in the town. It wasn’t like anything less than the Ragna Blade was going to do much damage to Xelloss, anyway. And he wasn’t likely to stand still long enough to be hit by that.
“That’s bad news,” Amelia piped up, looking down at her plate.
Snorting, Zelgadis finished his coffee. “Xelloss is the personification of bad news.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room, all four of them sitting quietly, thinking. Even Gourry seemed to be affected heavily by the situation. The effects of the fanatics’ teachings were always tearing on their minds, even when they didn’t think about it. Adding a mazoku to the mix… …It was a recipe for some sort of disaster, and they knew it.
“Think we can track him down?” Lina said after a long while, looking around the table at her friends. “I’d prefer at least trying to make sure he won’t be getting in our way.”
Zelgadis sighed. “I’ll try,” he said. He was certainly a good deal safer out among the city crowds than the other three, considering how hard he was to harm, and the fact that he could manage quite well with only a sword. Gourry was a decent swordsman even with just a metal sword, but he lacked the natural armour Zelgadis had. There were some benefits to being a chimera.
Lina nodded. “The rest of us will do what we have been doing every day, then.” Gathering information of all kinds, discrediting the priest and generally subtly rebelling. They had to take care not to be caught, though if they were, the back-up plan was to fall back on Amelia’s status as the Seiryuun Heir, since even a zealot movement wouldn’t want to start a war with Seiryuun and its allied countries. They seriously hoped they wouldn’t get caught, though.
Zelgadis got up, and retrieved his sword from where he’d put it against the wall yesterday, strapping it back on his waist. He put on his cloak, tugging his hood and mask up to hide as much of his appearance as possible. Though he’d started to give up his disguise in the towns they travelled through, he figured it safer to hide in this town.
Once he was as covered as he felt he could get, he headed out into the town, wondering just where he was supposed to look for Xelloss. The “where would I be if I was an evil mazoku priest” approach was pointless, because not only was Xelloss generally highly unpredictable, but it was also a way of thinking Zelgadis was unwilling to even attempt. He didn’t want to know how a creature who could gleefully kill nearly an entire race or banter with his “friends’” lives thought.
Of course, since Xelloss seemed to find it a good idea to pass himself of as one of the fanatic priests of this town, he could technically go ask the temple guards or something like that. It shouldn’t be too hard to track down a purple-haired man. The problem was that the guards were likely to take him for mazoku at the first sight and attempt to kill him because of that. Frankly, Zelgadis had no desire to attempt to explain his condition to anyone, especially not while they were trying to kill him.
He spent the better part of the morning looking for Xelloss, with no luck. Though some people he talked to claimed to have seen him, none had seen him recently. Then there was the fact that most people scowled and threatened to call the guards whenever he mentioned the priests, much less mentioned looking for one.
Finally, he decided to take a break, settling down on one of many benches near the town square to just watch the crowd and consider his options. So far, the only luck he’d had was to learn that the priests rarely left the temple alone, but usually stayed in groups. Of course, this was hardly likely to apply to Xelloss, who was for all intents and purposes almost impossible to kill, or even harm, unless you had a really powerful spell up your sleeve.
Zelgadis sighed and leaned back, his gaze flickering over the crowd around him. He wondered if they all agreed with the priests’ teachings or if they were just afraid, too worried that they and their loved ones would be hurt if they didn’t accept the newly imposed rules. Fear was a most effective way to control people, after all. So the crowd might be willing followers, or frightened subjects of an unwanted reign. Zelgadis made a note to ask Xelloss about that if he ever found him. A mazoku would know such a thing.
A sudden flash of black cloth and purple hair caught his attention, before disappearing in the crowd. Zelgadis got to his feet and chased after it, his stone body a great advantage when trying to get through a tightly packed crowd. As he came closer, he could see the trailing braid and narrow sash around the head, positively identifying his prey. His demon part made him faster than a normal human, and let him catch up quicker than most people would. He reached out, grasping Xelloss’ cloak and tugging at it determinedly.
“Xelloss!”
The priest turned to face him. The same did two other priests and five temple guards Zelgadis hadn’t noticed because he’d been so focused on catching up to Xelloss. The guards immediately pointed their halberds at Zelgadis, seemingly furious that he dared to touch one of the priests.
Zelgadis took a slight step back, letting go of the cloth in his hand. This wasn’t good. While the halberds shouldn’t be able to pierce his skin, there were five guards and only one of him, and though he couldn’t be wounded by their weapons easily, they could still overpower him, since he couldn’t use spells to get away unless it was the last resort. He directed a angry glare at the captain of the guards as the man pressed the tip of his weapon to Zelgadis’ throat.
“You dare…” The captain begun angrily, but was cut off by Xelloss, who tilted his head in the manner of a blind man listening closely, and smiled at Zelgadis as if though they were close friends.
“Zelgadis?” He asked, reaching out to touch Zelgadis’ face gently. Zelgadis would have hoped that he would cut his fingers on his wire-like hair if he didn’t think Xelloss would enjoy that. Xelloss merely kept smiling, of course.
“I was wondering where you’d wandered off to,” the mazoku continued, turning to the guard captain. “Please put your weapons down, captain,” he said. “Zelgadis means me no harm.”
The captain looked sour, but he did as requested, indicating for his men to do the same thing. “You know this… …Creature, holy one?” He gave Zelgadis a nasty look. “Looks like some sort of monster.”
Xelloss merely kept smiling. “I do indeed know him,” he informed the man. “I hired him as my personal guard before coming to town, but we got separated in the crowd.”
Zelgadis had to fight not to look as disbelieving as the captain did. He wasn’t quite sure what Xelloss was trying to do, but it wasn’t what he’d expected. Then again, by now, he should have learned to expect the unexpected from the priest.
Leaning on his halberd, the sharp tip buried into the hard-trampled earth beneath them, the captain looked first at Zelgadis again, then at Xelloss. “Why in the world would you hire something like that?”
Xelloss looked up at the guard, and Zelgadis suddenly realised that his eyes were open under the sash. Never a good sign. “Zelgadis is a perfect example of why we resent magic, captain,” Xelloss said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, another bad sign. “He was cursed with his current appearance by his grandfather, who had gone crazy from using magic.”
The other two priests, who had been watching the exchange between the three in silence, suddenly looked at Zelgadis with interest rather than the initial hostility. The older of the two, who had to be ancient by the looks of him, gave him an ‘everything will be alright’ type of smile. “Poor young man. That must have been a hardship indeed. Well, you’ve come to the right place.” With that, he turned away and resumed the talk he’d been having with the other priest before Zelgadis had interrupted them.
The guards snorted, but went back to trailing after their charges.
Xelloss, still smiling that infuriating smile of his, moved his hand from where it was still on Zelgadis’ face to his arm, leaning on him as if he really needed someone to guide his steps. In reality, what seemed a light touch was a very forceful one, and would have left a human terribly bruised, as he dragged Zelgadis along.
“Do play along,” Xelloss murmured silently, barely loud enough for Zelgadis to hear, even with his excellent hearing. “It’ll be beneficial to the both of us.”
Zelgadis supposed that he could pull away and run, but he had gone looking for Xelloss, and he did realise the obvious benefit of what Xelloss had told them; as his “personal guard”, he’d be allowed entrance to the temple without being questioned. Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be successful in pulling away, because Xelloss was a lot stronger than he was.
Though he had eased the force of his grasp on Zelgadis, Zelgadis was still acutely aware of the mazoku’s hand on his arm, because even through the double layers of his sleeves and Xelloss’ gloves, and his stone skin, the slender hand felt surprisingly hot, and Zelgadis wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the feeling to go away, which bothered him far more than the fact that he was apparently heading into the lion’s den.
Author: Shaded Mazoku.
Email: herukatto@hotmail.com.
Part: 2/?
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine at all. They belong to… …Someone else. I’m merely borrowing them for my own amusement.
Warnings: Violence, torture, sex, violent sex, bloodplay, yaoi.
Rating: PG for this chapter, NC-17 for the entire fic.
Summary: Chasing an artefact lands Lina, Gourry, Zelgadis and Amelia in a town ruled by magic-hating priests. They decide to stop their reign. However, this might me harder than it seems. And a certain trickster priests seem to have an agenda of his own in the town.
Pairing(s): Xelloss x Zelgadis.
Fandom: Slayers.
*Chapter One*
Even though he’d gone to bed feeling exhausted, Zelgadis was still the earliest riser of the group. Probably because once he’d been awoken by something, in this case the window slamming shut, he just couldn’t go back to sleep. Thankfully, he worked just fine on little sleep. One of the perks of being part demon, and also the grandson of a compulsive early riser. He was used to working on low sleep reserves.
He was very grateful that while their appropriated “home” was stocked only with the most basic of food, much to the rest of the group’s despair, it was stocked with plenty of coffee, though. He could function with minimal sleep, but coffee made it a lot easier. It also made dealing with fanatical priests, the inability to use magic, and a town where everyone stared even worse than usually a lot easier. It even helped when dealing with severely annoying mazoku priests, though Xelloss never had the decency to show up until after the effects of the coffee had long since worn off.
Then again, Zelgadis mused, decency and mazoku only ever went hand in hand if the mazoku had a hidden agenda. The more open and friendly a mazoku seemed, the larger part you’d find yourself playing in their schemes. One more reason not to trust a friendly, smiling mazoku. One more reason in a sea of such reasons. Let the others be beguiled by fake friendliness. Zelgadis had seen with his own eyes what being mazoku meant. After what had happened with his grandfather, he wasn’t about to trust anything mazoku-related. That included Xelloss.
He was on his third cup of coffee by the time the other three came downstairs, walking straight past him and into the cupboards, rummaging for food. Knowing all too well that they wouldn’t be in the mood for listening until they’d eaten, Zelgadis largely ignored them in favour of his coffee cup.
Finally, Lina leaned back. “OK, I’m full,” she said, sounding sated. “I really wish we had better food, though.” She caught sight of Zelgadis’ expression, and grinned at him. “What’s the matter, Zel? You look even dourer than you normally do.” ¨
Putting his cup down, Zelgadis met Lina’s eyes. “I ran into Xelloss last night,” he said calmly, the rage he’d been feeling during the encounter long since gone.
“Xelloss? Here?” Lina bit her lip. “That can’t be a good sign.”
Zelgadis nodded in agreement. “Indeed not.” He shifted his gaze, looking down into his cup. “He didn’t feel like telling me what he was up to, of course.”
Lina grimaced. “Of course.”
It was a well known fact that getting any kind of information out of Xelloss required either a crisis of some sort or the use of very high level spells. The first was thankfully not available at the moment, and the second was impossible due to the magic detectors in the town. It wasn’t like anything less than the Ragna Blade was going to do much damage to Xelloss, anyway. And he wasn’t likely to stand still long enough to be hit by that.
“That’s bad news,” Amelia piped up, looking down at her plate.
Snorting, Zelgadis finished his coffee. “Xelloss is the personification of bad news.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room, all four of them sitting quietly, thinking. Even Gourry seemed to be affected heavily by the situation. The effects of the fanatics’ teachings were always tearing on their minds, even when they didn’t think about it. Adding a mazoku to the mix… …It was a recipe for some sort of disaster, and they knew it.
“Think we can track him down?” Lina said after a long while, looking around the table at her friends. “I’d prefer at least trying to make sure he won’t be getting in our way.”
Zelgadis sighed. “I’ll try,” he said. He was certainly a good deal safer out among the city crowds than the other three, considering how hard he was to harm, and the fact that he could manage quite well with only a sword. Gourry was a decent swordsman even with just a metal sword, but he lacked the natural armour Zelgadis had. There were some benefits to being a chimera.
Lina nodded. “The rest of us will do what we have been doing every day, then.” Gathering information of all kinds, discrediting the priest and generally subtly rebelling. They had to take care not to be caught, though if they were, the back-up plan was to fall back on Amelia’s status as the Seiryuun Heir, since even a zealot movement wouldn’t want to start a war with Seiryuun and its allied countries. They seriously hoped they wouldn’t get caught, though.
Zelgadis got up, and retrieved his sword from where he’d put it against the wall yesterday, strapping it back on his waist. He put on his cloak, tugging his hood and mask up to hide as much of his appearance as possible. Though he’d started to give up his disguise in the towns they travelled through, he figured it safer to hide in this town.
Once he was as covered as he felt he could get, he headed out into the town, wondering just where he was supposed to look for Xelloss. The “where would I be if I was an evil mazoku priest” approach was pointless, because not only was Xelloss generally highly unpredictable, but it was also a way of thinking Zelgadis was unwilling to even attempt. He didn’t want to know how a creature who could gleefully kill nearly an entire race or banter with his “friends’” lives thought.
Of course, since Xelloss seemed to find it a good idea to pass himself of as one of the fanatic priests of this town, he could technically go ask the temple guards or something like that. It shouldn’t be too hard to track down a purple-haired man. The problem was that the guards were likely to take him for mazoku at the first sight and attempt to kill him because of that. Frankly, Zelgadis had no desire to attempt to explain his condition to anyone, especially not while they were trying to kill him.
He spent the better part of the morning looking for Xelloss, with no luck. Though some people he talked to claimed to have seen him, none had seen him recently. Then there was the fact that most people scowled and threatened to call the guards whenever he mentioned the priests, much less mentioned looking for one.
Finally, he decided to take a break, settling down on one of many benches near the town square to just watch the crowd and consider his options. So far, the only luck he’d had was to learn that the priests rarely left the temple alone, but usually stayed in groups. Of course, this was hardly likely to apply to Xelloss, who was for all intents and purposes almost impossible to kill, or even harm, unless you had a really powerful spell up your sleeve.
Zelgadis sighed and leaned back, his gaze flickering over the crowd around him. He wondered if they all agreed with the priests’ teachings or if they were just afraid, too worried that they and their loved ones would be hurt if they didn’t accept the newly imposed rules. Fear was a most effective way to control people, after all. So the crowd might be willing followers, or frightened subjects of an unwanted reign. Zelgadis made a note to ask Xelloss about that if he ever found him. A mazoku would know such a thing.
A sudden flash of black cloth and purple hair caught his attention, before disappearing in the crowd. Zelgadis got to his feet and chased after it, his stone body a great advantage when trying to get through a tightly packed crowd. As he came closer, he could see the trailing braid and narrow sash around the head, positively identifying his prey. His demon part made him faster than a normal human, and let him catch up quicker than most people would. He reached out, grasping Xelloss’ cloak and tugging at it determinedly.
“Xelloss!”
The priest turned to face him. The same did two other priests and five temple guards Zelgadis hadn’t noticed because he’d been so focused on catching up to Xelloss. The guards immediately pointed their halberds at Zelgadis, seemingly furious that he dared to touch one of the priests.
Zelgadis took a slight step back, letting go of the cloth in his hand. This wasn’t good. While the halberds shouldn’t be able to pierce his skin, there were five guards and only one of him, and though he couldn’t be wounded by their weapons easily, they could still overpower him, since he couldn’t use spells to get away unless it was the last resort. He directed a angry glare at the captain of the guards as the man pressed the tip of his weapon to Zelgadis’ throat.
“You dare…” The captain begun angrily, but was cut off by Xelloss, who tilted his head in the manner of a blind man listening closely, and smiled at Zelgadis as if though they were close friends.
“Zelgadis?” He asked, reaching out to touch Zelgadis’ face gently. Zelgadis would have hoped that he would cut his fingers on his wire-like hair if he didn’t think Xelloss would enjoy that. Xelloss merely kept smiling, of course.
“I was wondering where you’d wandered off to,” the mazoku continued, turning to the guard captain. “Please put your weapons down, captain,” he said. “Zelgadis means me no harm.”
The captain looked sour, but he did as requested, indicating for his men to do the same thing. “You know this… …Creature, holy one?” He gave Zelgadis a nasty look. “Looks like some sort of monster.”
Xelloss merely kept smiling. “I do indeed know him,” he informed the man. “I hired him as my personal guard before coming to town, but we got separated in the crowd.”
Zelgadis had to fight not to look as disbelieving as the captain did. He wasn’t quite sure what Xelloss was trying to do, but it wasn’t what he’d expected. Then again, by now, he should have learned to expect the unexpected from the priest.
Leaning on his halberd, the sharp tip buried into the hard-trampled earth beneath them, the captain looked first at Zelgadis again, then at Xelloss. “Why in the world would you hire something like that?”
Xelloss looked up at the guard, and Zelgadis suddenly realised that his eyes were open under the sash. Never a good sign. “Zelgadis is a perfect example of why we resent magic, captain,” Xelloss said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, another bad sign. “He was cursed with his current appearance by his grandfather, who had gone crazy from using magic.”
The other two priests, who had been watching the exchange between the three in silence, suddenly looked at Zelgadis with interest rather than the initial hostility. The older of the two, who had to be ancient by the looks of him, gave him an ‘everything will be alright’ type of smile. “Poor young man. That must have been a hardship indeed. Well, you’ve come to the right place.” With that, he turned away and resumed the talk he’d been having with the other priest before Zelgadis had interrupted them.
The guards snorted, but went back to trailing after their charges.
Xelloss, still smiling that infuriating smile of his, moved his hand from where it was still on Zelgadis’ face to his arm, leaning on him as if he really needed someone to guide his steps. In reality, what seemed a light touch was a very forceful one, and would have left a human terribly bruised, as he dragged Zelgadis along.
“Do play along,” Xelloss murmured silently, barely loud enough for Zelgadis to hear, even with his excellent hearing. “It’ll be beneficial to the both of us.”
Zelgadis supposed that he could pull away and run, but he had gone looking for Xelloss, and he did realise the obvious benefit of what Xelloss had told them; as his “personal guard”, he’d be allowed entrance to the temple without being questioned. Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be successful in pulling away, because Xelloss was a lot stronger than he was.
Though he had eased the force of his grasp on Zelgadis, Zelgadis was still acutely aware of the mazoku’s hand on his arm, because even through the double layers of his sleeves and Xelloss’ gloves, and his stone skin, the slender hand felt surprisingly hot, and Zelgadis wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the feeling to go away, which bothered him far more than the fact that he was apparently heading into the lion’s den.