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Birth Rite	By : tsutsuji Category: +S to Z > Slayers Views: 6413 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Slayers, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 21
- 22
- 23
Birth Rite chapter 22: Bad Language
Author: tsutsuji
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Chapter Summary: Xelloss has a strange night, an amusing morning, and then a rough first day as Xelloss-sensei, Professor of Lost Languages.
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Xelloss remained by the fireplace, watching the flames and listening to the rustle and scratch of pen on paper, punctuated by sounds of Zelgadis absentmindedly finishing off fish stew and steamed kale the kitchen had provided. When Zelgadis pulled Melly's ancestor's journal over and started leafing through it with a determined sort of sigh, Xelloss thought it might be high time he distracted the studious chimera before he got too far involved in his studies.
However, it wouldn't do to interrupt such a session of thought and study just yet. If he started something more "interesting" before Zelgadis had had his full thinking session, it was just as likely that some random idea would bubble to the surface of his mind, demanding to be talked out or written down at the most inappropriate moment. It had happened once or twice before, and today, he supposed, Zelgadis had quite a lot to think about.
On the other hand, Xelloss had ended up with not very much to think about at all. There was clearly no threat in the old ruins -- non to his race and none to Zelgadis, which was all he really needed to know -- and nothing much else of interest to him in those old ruins. Horror clung to the black stones but there was no power in them aside from the power to terrify mortals. Now that he knew that, they were nothing but a curiosity to him. He'd been asked by the Acting High Priestess of the Golden Lord to help discover what force or being could have attacked and terrorized a stranger to the village, so he felt the pull of duty to attend to the question, but he really had no idea what it might be or where else to look for the answer. He was only a stranger here himself, after all.
So, as far as he could see, there was little for him to do now except, once again, to watch Zelgadis go about his own business. At the moment, that business had turned to busily writing away in the tattered notebook he always carried, and then to leafing through Melly's ancestor's translated journal with a grimace of determined resignation, as though it was an unpleasant tasting medicine he knew he had to swallow.
Eventually Zelgadis pushed his supper dishes out of the way, but he was not done pondering yet. The plain wooden chair creaked and cracked and wobbled, clearly not built for a stone-bodied chimera's extra weight, so he gathered paper and notebook, pen, his cup of tea, and Melly's ridiculous book, and went in to spread his study session out on the bed instead.
Xelloss didn't follow. He watched the chimera quietly through the bedroom door, hiding his gaze behind his bangs and half-closed eyelids and firelight shadow. Zelgadis frowned, gazed at the book, and tapped the tip of the pen against a stone on his chin. Xelloss guessed he must be trying to string together the questions and speculations that had accumulated in his mind about Wyndcliff and its mysterious ruins, especially since Plover's rescue, but what the chimera muttered next baffled him.
"He likes books, doesn't he."
This puzzling statement was followed by a grin that was surprisingly sly and devilish. Xelloss couldn't imagine what thought could be so intriguingly naughty that had to do with liking books (and not with him).
"D'you think there's a temple rule against writing down lore?" Zelgadis mused aloud.
The question seemed only vaguely directed at him. Nevertheless, Xelloss decided to take this as an invitation, though perhaps not the kind he might prefer from his chimera lounging on a bed. It was enough of an excuse to leave the fireside and wander in to stand next to the bed, where at least he had a better view.
Zelgadis leaned back against a stack of pillows, with pens and sheets of paper spread out around him, one knee bent up as a prop for his notebook, and Melly's ancestor's book laid open on his other leg. Not a particularly seductive pose, Xelloss supposed, but that shouldn't have stopped him from diving upon the chimera and thoroughly distracting him from whatever he was puzzling over now.
He was not sure why he didn't. Instead, he tilted his head to the side and gave serious consideration to the question. It was true, he remembered, that they were in a place that held the oral tradition above all, and looked on the written word with suspicion.
"I suppose there might be," he answered finally, "since they keep books locked up with spells and secret passwords! But they do also train scribes, and we were told that Marcus could provide transcripts of any passages you might wish to read, so I suppose simply making the markings on paper that correspond to a given piece of lore would not... ah, but you're not talking about official temple lore, are you, Zel-san?"
It had finally occurred to him how Zelgadis' thoughts had led him from the ruins on the point back to Myona's story, and further back to the day before and the boy's fascination with old books in the Library of the Asmalaths.
"Books and scrolls are ephemeral enough as it is," Zelgadis said, taking on the lecturing tone of a Loremaster, "but oral tales are more fragile and fleeting than a moth in an autumn wind! It wouldn't be right to let such a..." he paused and grimaced, "... such an elaborate tale only live and die with its storyteller, would it?"
"Are you practicing a speech for the Temple Loremasters just in case there is such a rule?" Xelloss asked. "You don't need to convince me! I very much doubt the Golden Lord has anything against the writing of books. As I've said before, the accumulated written words of human knowledge are as fine a source of chaos as any demon's scheme!"
He sat down and sidled in next to Zelgadis on the bed, and peeked over his shoulder at the open journal page. There were only a few terse lines with question marks at the end. As he'd guessed, Zelgadis had been trying to marshal his thoughts about the ruins and the attack on Plover into some kind of revelation, but without success. The last line, however, was simply "Myona's story???"
Xelloss wondered if Zelgadis thought some part of that tale might be relevant to Plover's condition. He didn't see how it could be, but he couldn't disagree that there was no answer to the matter, not in plain sight, anyway.
Zelgadis turned over to a blank page and freshened his pen, and after a moment's pause and a mighty frown of concentration, he began to write. This time, instead of scattered notes, the words came out of his pen onto the page in flowing lines. They were mostly Myona's words just as Xelloss remembered hearing them hours before, with an occasional embellishment from the chimera's own imagination.
Silently, Xelloss sat next to Zelgadis and watched the tale unfold again, silently onto the page this time. It was intriguing; Zelgadis' emotions were a quiet, steady hum, with an odd sort of anticipation in them, as if he was intent on solving a puzzle. Xelloss closed his eyes after awhile and let the subtle shifts of emotions drift across his senses.
He did indeed have rather peculiar and very particular tastes for a mazoku, now that he thought about it.
He paid no attention to the passing of time while Zelgadis wrote and he did nothing but sit next to him and sense him in like this. When the initial rush of excitement began to fade, he barely noticed. Eventually he realized that it had become too faint for him to recognize the distinctive flavors of emotion any longer, just as the fire had faded to embers in the cottage hearth and the pen had stopped moving in the chimera's hand.
Zelgadis had fallen asleep, pen in hand resting on the page.
Xelloss frowned. How late had it become while he was just sitting here? Much later than he'd thought. Through the haze of the magical aura around the Temple, he sensed that very few people were still awake anywhere nearby.
That didn't mean it was too late for that bath he and Zelgadis had been talking about all day. He grinned at the thought of awakening the chimera to an assault of lovely physical stimulation, and the bath and other more interesting activities that might follow. That was certainly the course their evenings had taken ever since they'd left Seyroon, and several mornings and afternoons as well.
He released just a little bit of astral power in his fingertips, the kind of power he knew would be felt as heat to stone skin, and left fine trails of soft fire across Zelgadis' cheek, under his chin and down his throat, and back up to warm his parted lips. At the same time he shifted on the bed so that more of his weight pressed against the chimera's body, and shifted his leg to rub sensually against Zelgadis' thigh.
The chimeras' breath deepened, a sigh warming Xelloss' fingers. Zelgadis stretched a little, turned toward him, tucked his head onto Xelloss' shoulder, pressed his face into the crook of Xelloss' neck... and settled there, relaxing against him with an even deeper, sleepier sigh.
It took Xelloss a few more seconds to realize that he was being... cuddled. Far from awakening into arousal, Zelgadis had gone even further into sleep, deeply relaxed and utterly content. Xelloss had to peer awkwardly down his nose to see the silver-haired head resting so snugly against him, but for some strange reason, he couldn't bring himself to dislodge it.
It certainly would not be the first time he'd awakened Zelgadis to some unexpected stimulation. In fact, the sensual side of their relationship had begun in this very way on the journey to Shimer's shrine - waking the chimera with a kiss one morning and then, on another memorable night in an inn, doing so much more than that - although, at the time, he could tell himself what Zelgadis had believed, that he was only doing it to arouse the most negative emotions. That charade had not lasted long, not in his own mind at least. It had taken him some time longer to convince Zelgadis that he desired the sensual contact for its own sake.
So, waking Zelgadis up this way was hardly a surprise anymore, and definitely not unwelcome. Maybe that was why, this time, Xelloss did nothing of the sort at all.
It was strange enough that he'd resisted chimerical temptation this morning after he'd noticed Zelgadis casting a healing spell on himself - a level of concern for a mortal's well-being that he couldn't really justify even by the most liberal interpretation of his orders. It must certainly be even more strange to set his own desires aside like this for his chimera's comfort, he thought. It really should be even less satisfying than the empty darkness of the ruins, but it felt more like a selfish indulgence to just shift a little more so that Zelgadis could rest more comfortably against him.
He might have to make it up to Zelgadis later for standing him up, so to speak. For now, however odd it might be, letting Zelgadis sleep was the only task Xelloss needed or wished to do.
----
By the time gray daylight filtered through the curtains in the cottage windows, Zelgadis had slid down until he slept with his head resting on Xelloss' thigh, and he had begun to dream.
It didn't seem to be one of his usual nightmares, dreams that always seemed to Xelloss to involve breathless running and as much rage as terror, and that sometimes had the chimera whimpering Rezo's name in his sleep. This dream seemed to hold him frozen in its grip, groaning softly and emanating waves of horror and disgust.
For a moment, Xelloss wondered if Zelgadis had somehow contracted the nightmare like a contagion from visiting the black stones. He pressed his palm over the chimera's forehead, watching his brows twitch and nostrils flare as he tried to gather breath to run, or fight, or scream, somewhere inside the dream. The touch didn't wake or soothe him. Xelloss leaned closer to whisper his name and coax him awake.
Before he'd spoken, Zelgadis woke up suddenly, eyes flying wide open and breath stuttering as his mind slammed back up into the waking world.
"Xelloss!" he cried out, and went stiff.
In the flare-up of dream-induced emotions, Xelloss couldn't tell if that shout was one of anger or fear, accusation or relief. He backed off just a little, at least giving Zelgadis room to breathe. He could fairly hear the chimera's heart racing.
"I was wondering if I should awaken you from your nightmare, Zel-san," he offered in as mild a voice as he could manage. "You seemed almost on the verge of going wherever our friend, professor Plover, has gone!"
An exaggeration, he hoped. Zelgadis might not even have heard him, for all he could tell, or at least, not register what he'd actually said. He was too busy catching his breath and bringing himself up to speed on reality.
"You do that every morning, don't you?" he grumbled finally. "I should have guessed. You must love my bad dreams!"
Accused of something so close to the truth, Xelloss recoiled a little and pressed his lips into a pout.
"Just as I've said so many times, Zel-san, you humans manage to create a great deal of delicious fear and rage and other dark emotions out of absolutely nothing at all! I can hardly help it if I notice such things, can I?"
"Huh," Zelgadis snorted, a snort of dark laughter. "Of course not. You are a mazoku, after all, as you are also fond of pointing out."
"Well, I am," Xelloss said, ratcheting that pout up to an even greater level of woebegone.
Zelgadis took a deep breath and visibly willed his emotions to settle. Xelloss was on the verge of asking, for once, what he was dreaming about that was so heart-poundingly terrifying when Zelgadis shuddered.
"Zel-san?" he asked instead.
Zelgadis shook his head, either trying to clear it or refusing the question in Xelloss' voice, but then he asked a question of his own.
"That... that thing. That mazoku in the story. The way it... sprouted...."
Xelloss moved back a little more, quirking an eyebrow. "You were dreaming about that?"
"It wouldn't really happen like that, would it?"
Suddenly Xelloss comprehended how the words Zelgadis committed to paper last night grew into unsettling images in his dreaming mind. He might have to thank Myona all over again.
"Hm, like what, exactly?" he asked innocently. Fortunately Zelgadis winced just then and so missed seeing his mouth twitch, hiding a grin.
"A mazoku getting all bloated up with negative emotions and just, just..." Zelgadis hunched up and shuddered, and the wiry hair of his long bangs flopped stiffly as he shook his head. "Ugh, just exploding all over the place like that!"
He shuddered again. Xelloss had to cover his mouth delicately to keep from giggling.
This time, though, Zelgadis was watching him and picked up on the gesture. His eyes narrowed.
"I knew it. You enjoyed watching me squirm the whole time Myona was telling that story, didn't you? And he knew it, too! Pft," he spat. "You make a great team, the two of you!"
"Oh dear, Zel-san, don't be jealous! It only shows how well Myona-kun understands our relationship!"
It took a second for that to sink in, and then of course it only added a wave of mortification to the chimera's turmoil.
Seized with a terrible inspiration, Xelloss realized that he could probably get an even more horrified reaction out of this conversation, if he was quite unmerciful about it. After his various disappointments the day before, he decided to go for it.
"But to answer your question, Zel-san, why, of course it could!" he crowed. "How do you think we are all created, hm?"
The grimace of disgust that earned him was gratifying. Zelgadis actually reared back from him, as if seeing his true form for the first time. Of course, the chimera had already seen his true form, on the psychic level at least, and had not found it anywhere near as horrifying as this revelation seemed to be. The expression and the emotion that went with it were so wonderfully, ridiculously human that Xelloss had to stifle his laughter.
"Well, naturally, in my case it was not quite as simple as that, as I'm sure you can imagine," he went on. "Not that I actually remember it, of course, but I'm sure the moment of my creation was much more splendid and elegant. It would have to be, wouldn't it?"
He slid in closer to Zelgadis, holding his gaze as he painted as vivid a picture for the chimera as he could.
"My Mistress, being one of the most powerful mazoku in the world, naturally did not need to accumulate an excess of miasma from a mere flock of posturing humans in order to create me! But where else do you think we come from? You know that a mazoku creates another out of its own being, Zel-san; even the Sorcerers Guild has this information correct, as far as it goes."
"Yes," Zelgadis conceded reluctantly, "I know, but... like that? You could just torture someone to create enough misery and then just..."
He waved his hands in outward moving circles, indicating an explosion of little mazoku.
Xelloss tipped his head, hiding his amusement as he considered this. It was a rather simplistic view of the process, but not entirely inaccurate.
"I could not, not at all easily, and not without permission and on orders from Greater Beast-sama," he admitted. "However, the basic idea is quite correct. Of course, in my case, I would hardly need to torture a random bunch of ridiculous human beings, would I?"
He leaned in to grin into Zelgadis' face. He simply could not resist carrying the chimera's question to its most logical and, he hoped, most horrifying conclusion.

"It is entirely possible - in theory at least! - that I could absorb enough miasma just from your beautiful, terrible, dark emotions, my dear, sweet chimera, that I could one day create an entirely new mazoku out of it all! And just think of it!" he went on rapturously - and recklessly, driven to dangerous abandon by those very same dark emotions roiling at his proverbial fingertips. "If that were to happen, it would be as if we'd created it together! You could even say that would make you the father of my child! Or, hm, perhaps," he went on, finger to his chin as Zelgadis' jaw dropped further and further, "considering our usual positions, it might be more apt to say you'd be the mo-..."
He broke off abruptly. The chimera's face had gone red as coals in an oven. There was a moment of what Xelloss guessed a storyteller might describe as a stunned silence.
And then, with the inevitability of happily-ever-after in a fairy tale, Zelgadis let out a yell that was probably heard all the way back to Mystport, and blasted Xelloss off the bed and right across the room.
Xelloss never stopped laughing, even when he hit the wall and slithered in a heap to the floor. Kicking his feet and clutching his gut in the greatest fit of giggles he'd had since he could remember, he squinted up to see the glorious picture his lovely joke had produced. Zelgadis clutched his own face, still molten red behind his fingers, eyes winced shut. His other hand stretched out toward Xelloss, forefinger wavering as he shook with fury.
"Don't. You. Ever. Ever! Suggest such a horrible thing again!" Zelgadis rasped. "EVER!"
Xelloss was laughing far too hard to promise any such thing.
"Not if you ever expect to share my bed again," he added viciously. He pulled his hand away from his face, and the glare he leveled on Xelloss was even more potent than that hasty, miniature Elmekia Lance he'd lashed out with a moment ago.
In the face of that terrible threat, Xelloss decided it might be prudent to stifle his laughter, at least for the moment.
"I am sorry, Zel-san," he choked out, "but you did ask! You're always complaining that I won't give you a straightforward answer, and when I do, this is the thanks I get!"
An answer that was only strictly true in theory, as Zelgadis should know, really, so he didn't bother pointing it out. There was a reason Xelloss had been obligated to do Phibrizo's bidding, after all, and if Zelgadis thought about that, he might realize it was because the great Hellmaster could not so easily replace the priest and general he'd lost.
Zelgadis clutched his head and shook it, probably only at himself this time. He had asked, after all.
"The next time I ask you about something like... like mazoku reproduction, consider it a rhetorical question!" he groaned.
With the greatest show of contrition he could muster, Xelloss peeled himself off the floor and went to fetch his quivering chimera some breakfast. All things considered, it did not seem a good moment to initiate any of their usual early morning intimacy nor to suggest a practice battle session. Either activity could certainly be interesting, but under the circumstances, might just as likely lead to them getting scolded by the Acting High Priestess for breaking the rules again.
Which was a shame, he reflected, since he'd passed up a chance at all of that last night.
"I suppose," he said mournfully, as he handed Zelgadis his coffee exactly the way he liked it, "this means you're still going to hold out on that bath you promised yesterday? My my, you've become such a terrible tease, Zel-san!"
Zelgadis watched him sidelong, still suspicious as he took his first sip. The coffee and the statement both sank in a moment later. He blinked and frowned.
"Huh. I did, didn't I?" he said, sounding as much startled as sorry. "Mind you, that's no excuse for - for what you just said," he went on.
He glared over the rim of his coffee mug, but there was just enough doubt and regret in his voice that Xelloss dared to hope for a quick and complete reconciliation after all.
"Perhaps I did get carried away," Xelloss conceded, and somehow managed not to ruin that with another giggle. "However..."
He was as startled as Zelgadis was by a faint tap on the door. He hadn't sensed anyone approaching, thought that was possibly because he'd been too busy getting blasted and laughing his ass off, but even now he couldn't tell who might be visiting them this early. Except, he realized as he peered out the window into bright, clear daylight, it was really not all that early anymore.
When he got to the door, he was a little surprised to see Myona standing there. Heavily cloaked and hooded against frosty morning air, the boy stood at the door with his head bowed, dark hair falling over his eyes. He didn't look up when Xelloss opened the door to him, and didn't speak, and hesitated a moment after he was invited inside before shuffling through the door. Xelloss had a feeling he would not have knocked a second time. Belatedly, he thought that might have been just as well.
It was too late to simply send him away again now. Zelgadis had already half dressed while Xelloss had busied himself making his breakfast, and now came out to say good morning, almost visibly quivering with curiosity. He peered closely at Myona and asked if everything was all right at his mother's house, and whether Professor Plover had recovered enough to speak.
The only response was a twitch of a shoulder and a monosyllabic report that Plover's condition had not changed. Xelloss exchanged a questioning glance with the chimera over the boy's head, but after waiting another few seconds in hope of more information, Zelgadis simply shrugged and went to finish dressing.
Myona stood huddled and silent in front of the fire while Xelloss quietly whisked away the remains of breakfast. He went over to stand next to the boy, watching the embers glow in the fireplace.
"I do hope you - and Dream Master - don't mind that we visited the ruins yesterday," he said quietly.
Hearing this as he came back out of the bedroom, Zelgadis raised an eyebrow and watched for Myona's response. The boy did nothing for a moment, only stood staring into the dying fire. Then one shoulder hitched and he tipped his head to look up at Xelloss.
"What did you find?" he asked.
"Not very much, I'm afraid," Xelloss admitted.
He was almost certain Myona's mouth twitched then, in a smile or a grimace, he could not tell which, with the boy's emotions as muted as ever.
"Maybe another time," Zelgadis said, "you could be our guide there as well."
This time Myona definitely smiled, the very briefest of smiles, before his face went expressionless again.
"Maybe," he said softly.
"Well, at any rate," Zelgadis went on as he gathered up pens and paper, "you're still welcome to come with us to the Mala's library. It's not really necessary if you'd rather not, but we'd be glad to have your company. Ready to go?"
Myona shrugged again, one thin shoulder rising and falling under the heavy cloak. Zelgadis chose to take this as a yes.
"Good. Come on, then! Might as well get Xelloss-sensei's torture started!"
"Zel-san!" Xelloss whined. Indeed, what else could a day spent entertaining Shuno and Melianthus be called? Zelgadis grinned at him.
Myona showed no reaction to this, but Zelgadis didn't seem to expect him to, except to follow them out the door and then, at Zelgadis' gesture, to lead the way back to Melly's house.
The morning was clear, bright, and cold, the sharp autumn sunlight bringing out what little color there was left in the forested hills behind the village. The sunshine also inspired a bustle of activity in the Temple grounds and the village, Xelloss noticed as they followed Myona's path out to the northern point. It was still fairly early, and chill enough that the humans' breath made brief puffs of steam in the air, yet there were already temple residents and people of the village out in gardens, yards and shop doorways, raking leaves and sweeping dried mud off walkways, and generally taking advantage of the better weather to be industrious.
It almost seemed a shame to keep Myona inside a dusty old library on a day like this, he supposed. Even Zelgadis sniffed the air and gazed up at the sunlit mountains behind the village as if he was considering adventure. Myona barely raised his head to gaze over at the hooked point this morning, though. It might be just as well that they could give him something else to think about for awhile, Xelloss thought.
Dulcinea opened the door of the mansion to Xelloss' knock, and left it for them to close while she went back to the household task they'd interrupted. At the moment, that task involved dumping Melly's questionable flower arrangement into a bucket of trash and jamming a fresh bunch of flowers into the vase in its place. Xelloss was certainly no expert on the subject, but he thought that her haphazard clump of a randomly picked blooms and greens looked far more decorative than the mess that Melly had been fussing over when they'd first arrived two days ago.
They had paused in the front hall, uncertain whether to go right in to the library or wait for Melly or Shuno to greet them, since Dulcinea had obviously decided that particular duty was outside her job description. Just as she turned away to leave the room with her bucket of wilting flowers, Melly popped out of the same door she was aiming for. Dulcinea drew back with a soft, disgruntled exclamation. Melly would have walked right into her, his attention entirely concentrated on the four oranges in his hands.
For a moment, Xelloss wondered if this was The Mala's idea of brunch for his house guests. Then Melly, still walking forward with halting, jerking steps, tossed first one orange into the air, and then another, and then tossed the third one with one hand while he attempted to catch the first on its downward arc with the other hand. However, that hand still held the fourth orange, so when he caught the first he dropped the last.
Dulcinea had backed up to stand near their group where they'd stopped, next to the ornamental table that held her flower arrangement, and Myona had edged forward to see why they were all standing there. He glanced at the flowers, one eyebrow rising and the other dipping as he seemed to ponder its appearance there on the table.
"Not an improvement," he murmured, turning back to watch Melly instead.
To Xelloss' faint surprise, Dulcinea heard him but only shook her head. "Is it ever?" she muttered in reply.
Melly dropped another orange.
Myona rolled his eyes, and Dulcinea rolled hers, and their eyes met. She blinked and he froze, caught in a rare moment of agreement on something.
A second later she turned and stalked away in a huff, muttering something about creeps and weirdos under her breath. Myona ducked his head and shuffled back behind Zelgadis.
Melly had now managed to keep one of the remaining two oranges in the air and catch the other for a couple of rounds before he fumbled and dropped both at once. Beside him, Xelloss felt Zelgadis let out a briefly held breath, and then the chimera made that awkward coughing sound recognizable to all the world as stifled laughter. All the world except the Mala, that is.
"Ah, Xelloss-sama! And Zelgadis-san!" Melly said, finally noticing them. "So good to see you again. Lovely morning...isn't it?"
He peered past them, squinting at the sunlight streaming in the windows, as if he wasn't certain whether it really was a lovely morning or not. Ignoring the fallen oranges rolling around on the floor by his feet, he came over and took Xelloss by the arm.
"Shuno is waiting for us in the library, eager to begin our lessons, Xelloss-sensei!" he said.
Xelloss managed not to wince or cringe too visibly, but Zelgadis let out a snort of laughter that time, which, of course, Melly didn't even notice. It was entirely aimed at him anyway, Xelloss guessed, and turned to give Zelgadis a piteous look.
Zelgadis had snatched up the nearest three of the fallen oranges, and now casually began to flip them into the air and catch them again with his nimble fingers. After a second of practice, he had them flying through his hands in a perfect circle of gold, without even a hint of magic to keep them going.
"My my," Xelloss said admiringly. "Chimera of many talents!"
Myona and Melly both turned and watched him for a moment as well. Myona's face lit up with fascination for the first time that morning, and even Melly seemed to register a faint sort of admiration in his vague smile.
Then he turned and started to walk away, still hooked to Xelloss' arm.
"Come, now, Xelloss-san; Shuno has picked out some excellent texts for us to begin our lessons with, I believe!"
Xelloss could almost literally feel Zelgadis' smug amusement poking him from behind as he let himself be led away to the library. His chimera really would make a very good mazoku, he thought wistfully.
________________________________________________________________________
Zelgadis supposed he probably should not have upstaged The Mala like that, but he couldn't help showing off a little bit for Myona, especially when it inspired the first spark of life he'd seen in the boy's eyes that morning. He tossed one of the oranges to Myona as they reached the library and got a brief grin in return. In their portraits on the wall, Melly's parents looked quite unimpressed.
By the time they entered the library, they found Xelloss already besieged by his students. Whatever else he'd been trying to do a few minutes ago, Melly was now firmly attached to Xelloss, huddled close beside him at one of the long library tables with one hand hooked around his arm. He leaned over to look where Xelloss pointed at the page of the book in front of him, and Shuno crowded in to see from the other side, frowning.
Xelloss glanced up and greeted Zelgadis and Myona with a crooked, rather desperate smile - or was there something else in it for a moment? Zelgadis didn't get the chance to be sure of it because Melly tugged on his arm just then, and Shuno shook his head and added his own pointing finger to the mazoku's.
"That's the definitive form of 'climacteric,' not the pre-emptive form," Shuno insisted.
Xelloss laughed awkwardly, rubbed the back of his head with his free hand and nodded
"Now that you mention it, you're quite right, Shuno-kun! I may be just a little rusty on the grammar," he said. "Please forgive me for any lapses. I will certainly try to do better!"
Shuno shrugged and jabbed his finger at another place on the page. "This. I don't know this one, what is it?"
"Ah, let's see," Xelloss said, "mmm, yes.... the best translation for that would be, ah, 'ripening,' I believe."
Zelgadis suppressed a smile. How often did he get to see Xelloss on the spot like this? Not since they’d t traveled with Lina and the dragon priestess had he seen the mazoku cornered and sweating this nervously.
He left the mazoku to his fun, such as it was, and headed for the pile of books Melly had left from the day they were last here. At the top of the pile was the far more colorful version of the Asmalath ancestor's journal, along with the all the books that had supposedly been of interest to Professor Herringull. Myona had followed him and now stood at his elbow, staring down at the Herringull collection with his lower lip caught between his teeth.
Zelgadis could not help but glance longingly at the shelf where The Warp and Weft of Spellweaving was tucked securely among the other older books. He supposed he should make a better show of studying what he claimed to be studying before he gave in to the lure of that old treasure. He picked up the verbose version of Melly's ancestor's journal.
"I'll start with this," he announced, without much enthusiasm.
Myona, standing with his back to the group at the other table, wrinkled his nose at the book. Zelgadis caught his eye with a twist of his mouth to indicate that this was certainly not what he really intended to study.
Myona smiled his distant, odd little smile and wandered away. For the next few hours, while Zelgadis settled in to read the ancestor's journal and lessons began in earnest at the other table, Myona drifted around the library, running his fingertips along old bindings and gazing dreamily at all the treasures on the shelves.
Zelgadis had not read far into this translation of A Chronicle of The Flight From Skye before the lurid prose nearly had him groaning out loud. He felt his eyes glazing over; in spite of the overwrought description of the destruction of the island and the frantic journey of the sorcerers, it managed to be even more boring than the dry version he'd tried to read back at the cottage. In fact, his attention was frequently drawn away by what he overheard of Xelloss' lessons in the ancient language.
Shuno had managed to find a written approximation of "The Making of Worlds" in the old tongue. At least, that's what it sounded like from the strange grocery list of words and phrases Xelloss translated for him and Melly. As far as Zelgadis could tell, it was meant to be a comparison of different worlds and the various types of beings that dwelled in them, but some of the strings of words made bizarre enough combinations that they even made Xelloss pause and stammer. Was there really such a thing in all of Chaos as a transient golf spear, or a red-roofed, soft-shelled, chicken-fingered nestling crystal, Zelgadis wondered? He didn't think he even wanted to know what a pileated gut-mucker was.
Shuno, naturally, didn't seem to notice or care how randomly the words flowed, and Melly simply nodded along and repeated the strange list without any sign of connecting them to any meaning at all. As the day wore on, though, Zelgadis began to realize there might be some kind of method to this meandering madness after all. The tome Shuno had picked might fail completely in the realm of storytelling or being informative, but as a first lesson in a foreign language, it was a great introduction to vocabulary.
His own study of the ancestor's journal and the rest of Herringull's collection were not even that enlightening. Several of them told essentially the same story, and others merely speculated about specific aspects of the tale, or compared them to elements of Beast Tribe legends in a way that managed to discredit both. He could see where she'd developed a great deal of her anti-Skye theories out of them, in spite of the fact that several of them tried very hard to prove that the Asmalaths had descended directly from refugees of the great lost city. The harder they tried, the less likely the whole idea sounded.
Myona prowled around in the background, shadowy and silent like a library ghost. After awhile, he grew bold enough to pluck a book from a shelf now and then and take a closer look at it. By the end of the day, after the gray sunlight had slanted across the tables and then began to fade from the tall windows, the boy had quietly gathered a nice little jumble of books and scrolls and loosely bound manuscripts at the corner of Zelgadis' table. He'd picked one to read, and sat curled up over it with his hair falling forward to hide his face.
The lesson table was quiet for the moment; Xelloss had set his students to copying some of the ancient writing, though this didn't give him a break from their many questions as they both required constant assurance that they were doing it right. Zelgadis stood up to stretch, and then walked to the far end of the table to peek over the boy's shoulder. He was a little surprised to find him engrossed in familiar old tales of the seven Beast Tribes. In fact, Myona had chosen to read a version of the tale of Arin, the Hero King of the Hawk Folk.
"Huh," he said quietly. "You should ask Xelloss for his version of that story sometime."
Myona tipped his head to look up at him, eyebrows curling with curiosity. "There's a mazoku variation of it?"
"Well, there's a Xelloss variation. He told me that story on the way to Shimeria. That's why we ended up here, because his story got me thinking about the Beast Tribes and Skye."
Myona blinked slowly and nodded, the corners of his lips twitching. His gaze drifted from Zelgadis to the books he'd gathered, and then his attention was drawn back the tale of Arin.
Most of the rest of the books in Myona's little pile, however, were not beast tribe stories, but books of magic. Magical theory and history and recipe lists of spells, Zelgadis saw at a glance, with just enough of legends and tales among them to make the collection look random and innocent. Exactly what he would have picked off the shelves for himself if he'd spent the afternoon browsing instead of slogging through the Asmalath family's alleged history.
He made a soft sound of surprise. Myona beamed up at him for a brief moment and, conspiratorially, Zelgadis beamed back. He was pleased that the boy had been distracted out of the gloom that hung over him this morning. More than that, he was truly looking forward to coming back to the library tomorrow.
Xelloss, on the other hand, looked somewhat the worse for wear by the time lessons finally came to an end, which finally happened when Dulcinea stomped a while later and reminded Melly that it was time for dinner - and that there wasn't enough for guests.
"Didn't think you'd all still be here," she grumbled, with a particular glare in Myona's general direction, and muttered something else about "gluttons for punishment" as she stomped back out.
As frustrating as his reading had been so far, Zelgadis thought that description applied more accurately to Xelloss. However, the mazoku was once again looking fairly pleased with himself when he left the lesson table a moment later. Melly and Shuno gathered up their notes and headed for the door one after the other, each murmuring a string of words in the lost language. Badly pronounced words, Zelgadis thought with a wince, but he could hardly blame them for that. The old language had not had any native speakers for hundreds of years - unless, as some claimed, it was the secret language of demons, but Zelgadis had never given that theory much credit, and he'd now seen that even Xelloss had to dig parts of it out distant memory. Besides that, it could be something of a tongue twister, and was full of slithery, sputtery sounds that often came out as if the speaker had a lisp.
It took him a moment to notice what they were reciting, evidently committing to memory lists of words that Xelloss has given them.
"Shplrk, shplrkell, uh, shplrkellsh, ahshplrkellsh," he heard Shuno repeat in the words of the ancient language. "Shplrk, shplrkell...."
A moment later Zelgadis' brain provided the translation: Come, will come, is coming, has come....
He had a feeling he knew why Xelloss looked so smug.
"I don't suppose that verb has the double meaning in the old language that it does in ours?" he asked quietly, eyebrow raised, after Xelloss strolled over to him.
Xelloss put a finger to his chin and tipped his head, so very predictably. "Hm, now that you mention it, I suppose it might, although I can't say I've ever seen it used in that context..."
He trailed off as Melly wandered by, absently bumping into a table as he recited his own declension of an adjective, so automatically and with such poor pronunciation that Zelgadis doubted he even knew what he was saying. Zelgadis did know, however, and he thought it might be just as well if Melly didn't.
"Hoh, hohhohk, hohhohkuh... oh dear, what is the next one? Ah yes I remember - hohHUHkuh!"
(Hard, harder, extremely hard... much harder!)
His bland voice even managed to get the emphasis right, which could only mean he was copying Xelloss' own pronunciation exactly. Zelgadis pinched the bridge of his nose and raised both eyebrows at Xelloss, who shrugged and rubbed the back of his head.
"Hm, I suppose my mind started to wander toward certain other matters," the mazoku admired, far more sheepish than any mazoku should be able to be.
"Nothing to do with our conversation this morning," Zelgadis growled as they follow the oblivious students out of the library.
Xelloss' face was blankly innocent. "What conversation was that, Zel-san? I don't remember any particular conversation of interest from this morning!"
"Good start on never bringing it up again," Zelgadis muttered.
The damn mazoku actually fluttered his eyelashes at him, at once innocent, beseeching, and suggestive. Zelgadis pretended to ignore him.
Considering Xelloss had started his day by getting himself blasted into a wall, he really did seem to be a glutton for punishment, Zelgadis thought. He'd brought it on himself. The worst of it, putting up with Shuno and Melly for days to come, Xelloss had taken on for his sake.
He decided he should demonstrate his appreciation of that with a practical, in-context application of "shplrkellsh hohHUHkuh," just as soon as they got back to the privacy of their cottage.
---
Coming up: an awkward encounter at the dining hall, and a fitting end to the day.
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Birth Rite