Kokoro
by Elizabeth, Trickster Priestess

"Hate hate hate hate HATE this."

Lina muttered the mantra to herself as she made her way to the river. She, Gourry, Zelgadiss, and Amelia had been travelling together, on no particular quest (well, except maybe Zel's quest to get his normal body back, but that was a given). Currently, they were several days away from any town.

And, of course, Lina would have to get her "monthly visitor" now.

"Hate hate hate HATE HATE HATE...," she muttered. Town or no, she absolutely had to have a bath. Thus, she was trekking through the woods to the closest river while the others prepared supper. Lina winced as a particularly painful cramp seized her.

Finally, Lina reached the river. She quickly stripped and stuck a toe in the water. The toe was promptly removed with a screech at the water's freezing temperature.

"Fire BALL!"

Lina frowned as a very puny fireball hit the river. She was more powerless than she'd like. She tested the water again. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't freezing either, so Lina shrugged and hopped in.

@}-`---

Zel sighed. Lina was certainly in a Mood, and he was pretty sure why. Probably for the same reason she hadn't toasted Gourry when he made a particularly untactful comment, Zel reasoned with a blush.

Suddenly he was painfully thirsty. Water, he must get water.

Gourry was already drinking from the canteen, with Amelia nearby urging him to hurry. With a sigh of relief, Gourry relinquished the canteen. Zel allowed Amelia several gulps before snatching it from her, ignoring her squeal of protest.

In the back of his mind, Zel realised there was something strange about all three of them getting so thirsty at the same time.

The rest of his mind recognised this when he noticed the strange aftertaste the water had...but by then, it was too late.

---`-{@

Lina felt much better. A bath was just what she'd needed.

Cheerful again, she returned to the camp. "I'm back!" she announced.

"Who cares?" Amelia asked listlessly. She and Gourry were seated near the fire. The little princess was staring dully at Lina, but Gourry hadn't looked up from the empty spoon he kept putting in his mouth as if there were actually soup there. Lina didn't see Zel.

"Excuse me?"

"I said 'who cares,'" Amelia repeated, now cross.

"You'd—ACK!" Lina screamed as someone grabbed her waist and spun her around. "Zel! What do you think you're doing? You scared me!"

Zel made no reply. He only regarded her with an expression Lina had never seen on him before. His eyes, pupils nearly obscuring his blue irises completely, seemed to...devour her; he was looking at her like he thought she'd taste good. It was disturbing, to say the least.

"Zel?" she ventured, getting a very bad feeling.

He removed one hand from her waist and brought it up to her face. He caressed her cheek with what Lina could only describe as violent gentleness; the motion itself was tender, but there was a barely controlled undercurrent of violence to it. Lina swallowed hard.

"Ah, my sweet temptress. This ends now." Zel's voice was low and held the same gentle violence of his caress.

"Te–temptress? What? What ends now? What are you talking about?"

Zel laughed, the sound decidedly villianous. Villianous, and dangerous. "Don't play the innocent with me. I know better."

"I—I really don't." Lina was getting really frightened.

Zel's eyes narrowed. "That is impossible. You must do it on purpose."

"Do what?"

"Attempt—and succeed—to seduce me."

"WHAT?!"

"Come now, none of that. That sweet smile with which you tease me, the tight outfit you wear day after day, the way you seem not to care that I'm a Chimera. Thousands of little things you do to keep me following you."

"I...I didn't..." she whispered, reeling.

"Of course you did. You've seduced me completely, body mind, and heart. Don't you want to enjoy the fruits of your labours?"

"Yu–you're crazy!" she said, her voice a shocked whisper.

"And you drove me there," he replied calmly as he removed her cape.

"What are you doing?" Lina was on the edge of panic. "You wouldn't—"

SHRRIPP!

"You would," she mouthed as he ripped off her tunic. "Help me!" she yelled to Amelia and Gourry as she futilly struggled against Zelgadiss' hold.

In the corner of her eye, Lina caught Amelia's glare. "Why? What he said was true."

Gourry said nothing, still using his spoon to feed himself imaginary stew.

Oh gods, Zel was going to—going to—!

There was a bright flash of light. When Lina's vision cleared, Zelgadiss, Amelia, and Gourry lay unconcious. "Thank L-sama," she whispered.

"Or you could thank me," suggested a cheerful voice.

Lina whirled around. "Xelloss?!"

@}-`---

Poor Lina-chan. She looked as if someone had informed her that up was actually down.

It had worked even better than he'd expected. He'd known the herbal mixture he'd put in the group's canteen would cause hallucinations and such, and he'd known it would cause Stone Boy to become violent because he was part demon. Xelloss hadn't, however, anticipated just how Zel-kun would exibit that violence. Xelloss would have to remember to thank Stone Boy some day.

"Lina-san," Xelloss said gently, trying to draw her attention away from her unconcious companions.

"He...he was going to..." Lina-chan's voice was uncharacteristically weak. "How could he...?"

"Lina-san."

Lina-chan finally looked at him with her huge eyes, totally dazed. "Get me away from them," she requested weakly.

Ah, her dispair and pain were exquisite...but it would be even more pleasurable when he'd alleviated them, for the greater prize would then be his.

He reached an arm out to her. She studied it for several long moments, regarding it as if it might suddenly turn into a snake and bite her. Then she accepted it, grasping his hand like a lifeline. He made the slightest motion to pull her towards him, so slight it could be explained away should it spook her.

To his delight, however, Lina-chan moved forward and clung to him. She was definitely trembling, Xelloss noticed. He would see to fixing that soon enough.

At the moment, he had other matters to attend to. He teleported the both of them to one of the nondescript dwellings he had in various places all over the face of the world. A slight motion and a fire sprang to life in the fireplace.

Lina-chan pulled away from him, but he wasn't terribly disappointed. She may pull away now, but soon, soon she wouldn't...

---`-{@

Lina'd thought she could always trust Gourry to watch her back, yet he hadn't lifted a finger. She'd though she could always depend on Amelia's obsession with Justice, yet she'd done nothing when Zel had tried...had tried... And Zel! If someone had warned her yesterday that Zel would...come after her...she'd have laughed and told whoever-it-was that Zel would never do something like that. Except he had.

And now she was L-sama knew where with Xelloss, a mazoku who'd gone so far as to threaten her with death. How the mighty had fallen.

But...she could rely on Xelloss, in a way. She knew he'd always have his own agenda, and that he'd always have secrets. He had always been like that, and he always would be.

Lina was sitting on a large, comfortable cushioned chair next to the fire, wrapped in Xelloss' cape. She absently rubbed her hands together in front of the fire, although she wasn't physically chilled.

"What will you do now?" Xelloss asked quietly, either appearing or walking up behind her; she hadn't noticed which.

What would she do? She certainly couldn't travel with the others now. "I don't know. Travel alone again, I guess," she said, thinking aloud.

"Aww, Lina-chan, you're gonna make me leave?" he pouted.

Like she could make him leave if she wanted to!...and she didn't want to. "What, you plan on sticking around, Mister Mysterious Mazoku?"

"You're on a quest?" he asked.

"Well...no."

"Then could we not travel together, and when some pressing business arrises, deal with it together?

"....." That didn't sound too bad. "I guess we could try that for a while...but no promises."

"That's all I ask."

@}-`---

It felt as if his head would explode. Zel sat up cautiously, mindful of his aching head. Why was he on the ground? What had...

Then Zel saw a piece of Lina's torn tunic, still in his hand, and became ill. It was several minutes before he finished emptying the contents of his stomach.

"I was going to force myself on her," he whispered, horrified. Self-loathing consumed him. How could he have done such a thing?

Wait. The water, the way he and the others had gotten so thirsty...the water must've been drugged! There was no other way to explain it. But who...?

A flash of memory. A glimpse of purple before the world exploded in a burst of light.

Xelloss.

Zel growled unconciously. That damned mazoku must've orchestrated the entire sick thing. Lina was probably with the preist even now, and only L-sama knew what he was doing to her.

"Zelgadiss-san? What happened?" Amelia asked groggily as she sat up.

"We've been manipulated, once again, by Xelloss. And, dear gods, I don't know how we can fix it."

---`-{@

"Lina-chan, would you like something to eat?" Xelloss asked Lina out of the blue.

That's right, she hadn't eaten yet. Then again, she hadn't been hungry.

She was hungry now that she'd calmed down a bit. Much as she hated to admit it, it was kind of nice to have someone who was stronger than she, who would protect her.

Well, actually, not someone. Xelloss. She wondered distantly if that was significant. The rest of her was busy anticpating food. "Yeah!...this will be edible food, right?"

Xelloss chuckled at that and nodded, and Lina grinned. He motioned for her to follow, and she eagerly trailed after him.

She was a little surprised at the room he led her to. All she'd seen of this place thus far had been simple, but this room certainly wasn't! It was an extravagant dining room, dominated by a large wooden table surrounded by matching chairs. The walls were adorned with tapestries, primarily in different shades of purple. The strangest thing, however, was the fact that there was a wide variety of food already on the table. It couldn't have been there long; Lina could still see the steam coming from the hot dishes.

"Where'd all this come from?" she asked as she took a seat.

"Ah, that is a secret."

Oh well, food was food. And this was great food, Lina discovered as she sampled one of the dishes. She then began eating in earnest.

Lina was eating the last bites of her meal when Xelloss asked, without any trace of flippancy, "Do you want to talk about what happened?" He situated himself in a chair next to Lina's and looked at her with surprisingly obvious concern.

"No; there isn't anything to talk about." It was really simple, after all: her "friends" had just betrayed her in a way more horrible than simply trying to kill her. Anyway, she couldn't put what she felt into words; she barely knew what all she was feeling, herself.

"Surely you don't expect me to believe that?"

Lina frowned. "I don't want to talk about it," she informed him, hoping he'd drop the subject. He'd already seen her vulnerable once tonight; she didn't want an encore performance.

But, of course, he wouldn't leave it be. "You may not want to, but perhaps you need to, ne?"

He wouldn't leave her be, would he? Well, she was strong. She could do this. "Fine," she said, a bit flatly. "What do you want me to say?"

"Perhaps you could say how you feel?" he asked mildly, repeating his earlier question.

Damn. She wasn't going to get out of this. "What do you think? I'm furious!"

Xelloss cocked his head to the side very slightly and looked at her as if he expected her to continue.

Lina slammed her fist on the table and rose. "I feel betrayed, okay? Everything I believed just got turned on it head. I'm confused because I just can't understand how this happened. And I'm hurt. Is that what you wanted to hear?" She felt herself trembling slightly, though she couldn't tell if it was from anger or fear or something else.

"It's less that I want to hear it and more that you need to say it."

She blinked. She...she had needed to say it, to let it out. The trembling was getting worse, and Lina put a hand on her chair to support herself.

Xelloss rose and put his arm around her shoulders, steadying her. She looked up at him; he was regarding her with his violet eyes, smiling almost gently.

Lina was known as impulsive; she rarely bothered to fight her urges. So, when she was struck with the strange impulse to kiss Xelloss, she went with it. She'd planned on just kissing his cheek, a gesture of appreciation and affection. At the last moment, however, she changed her mind and kissed him full on the lips.

She thought she may've surprised him with the gesture. She knew she'd surprised herself. This was just what she needed, more confusion. She blushed bright red and looked away.

"Why, thank you, Lina-chan. That was most pleasant," Xelloss told her.

She mumbled something akin to "you're welcome," still not looking at him.

"Well, then," he said, thankfully dispelling the tension, "why don't we go sit next to the fire again?"

"Good idea," she agreed, grateful for the excuse to move.

This time Lina led the way, and the two returned to the den, where the fire was still burning strong. Lina climbed onto her chair and wrapped Xelloss' cape around her tightly, not realising that as she did so she smiled.

@}-`---

Lina-chan had dozed off soon after sitting down. The poor thing was totally exausted by the mental and emotional strain of the day.

Xelloss watched her, a true smile playing at his lips. Yes, more satisfying than having Lina's pain and dispair was having her heart.
 

~_~