My Bloody Valentine
Chapter Five
By: Dove the Unoriginal
Slayers (c) TV Tokyo and some other people. The title comes from a WeiB song, which belongs to Koyasu and Project Weib. This story takes place after Slayers TRY.
I dove in to make a splash
Woke ya from your dream
Nodding off out on the grass
It made me think about us
~~ Truly, Truly (by Grant Lee Buffalo)
Valgarv was now staring at the floor as if it had suddenly turned
into Ceiphied and Shabranigdo curled up inside a pair of fuzzy
mittens.
Her… It had really been her.
Xelloss fell silent. Valgarv was thankful for this as he weakly
leaned against the wooden structure that had stood between him and
the rest of the room earlier. He calmly throttled himself mentally
for not having the sense to remain strong enough to at least follow
her or ask her to wait, once his mind started working properly again.
But soon he felt too weary even for ritual self-damnation.
He was startled when Xelloss spoke again, noting the odd tone that
Xelloss used when he referred to him as Val-kun. It was not purely
said to be disrespectful or mocking, let alone the quiet anger he
could somehow feel hidden underneath those two things. He could
almost swear there was a touch of… spiteful kindred in Xel's voice.
"You know, I did that for you, Val-kun."
"… What?" Val finally spoke, his throat constricting dryly as if he'd
been asleep for a thousand years.
"That man. I scared him for you. You know, I think you've been down
there so long you've grown dense. Well, denser."
Valgarv shrugged weakly. He understood what Xelloss meant now. He had
been too out of it to do more than sip dryly at the fear that was
left in the area, but it was enough to perk him up just a little
despite the fact he couldn't quite get over seeing Filia there and
then gone again just as suddenly.
"I wish you hadn't. Filia… left."
"Oh, she'll be back. She always is. Just wait a little while,"
Xelloss said calmly, pleased that Val was actually talking after so
many years of being prodded and having said nothing in reply. The
trance Val had been in was really starting to irritate Xel, until he
felt like just ripping the damned half-ryuuzoku's head off and making
an end of it.
Valgarv took on a faintly hopeful look at those words and struggled
to understand what else Xellos had been saying earlier.
"Why was she here? You said she was here… I wasn't hallucinating, was
I? I've seen her before… so many times. And then I'd scare myself
awake with that thought and there was nothing there," Valgarv
murmured slowly, as if just remembering such things were painful and
the thought of it being another dream would be too much for him.
Xelloss simply laughed, shaking his head with an uncommonly snide
bemusement.
"Oh my. Well, she was as real as a human can be."
"Human?" Val frowned a little. No, Filia had always been a dragon.
Hadn't she?
"Yes, a human. This is not the Filia from your imagination. She's
flesh and blood and just as much another one of the cattle to feed
on."
"You sound rather bitter. I don't think I've ever heard you like this
before," Valgarv stated softly in mild surprise and renewed interest.
Even in a state where he'd ignored Xelloss completely, he was certain
he had never detected this before.
"Yes, I'm bitter. While you were asleep I've stayed awake most of the
time and I'll tell you I've never been so bitter before in all my
life."
"How can you be bitter? Because Filia is back?"
"No, it isn't that. Forget about her. While you were busy sitting
there, stupidly eating your own emotions because you were too hungry
and frightened to let yourself die again, this world decided to leave
the both of us behind," Xelloss explained, angrily settling himself
down onto what had once been Zelas' favorite stool. It had only held
up over time because it was once made out of ornately curving metal
and the pillow on top had long since grown into a new crushed velvet
covering of thick moss.
Valgarv stayed where he was, unsure of his legs and not seeing
anything else particularly comfortable to sit on except maybe the
floor. He vaguely smirked. It was a quiet, introspective one that
barely appeared on his face as he realized he'd been sitting on a
hard floor for so long that comfort really shouldn't matter by now,
he was so numb.
Numb… oh, Lord of Nightmares… he could barely feel his body and was
amazed he'd recovered enough of his senses to stumble around at all.
What was he even doing still standing up? His legs were bent at the
knee and resting up against the old pile of rubble that had once been
her wooden dais to support her most beautiful chaise lounge.
Xelloss watched Val with a smirk that spoke of a sardonic, patient
disgust, "You've really let yourself fall apart. Why did you even
bother?"
"Bother with what?" Valgarv asked tiredly, finally deciding that the
floor was better than nothing. At least it had somehow cracked in
many places and grown it's own damp bed of soft foliage.
"Staying here, moping and half dead already."
Valgarv didn't have an answer for that. He closed his eyes, because
it felt like the next intelligent thing to do even though he was not
going to sleep and could see Xel perfectly without having them open.
"That's it. I'm sick and tired of this. Do you know how long I've
been here? Do know how long I've been keeping a watch over this
place? It wasn't for you though. I just had some hope that one day
you'd actually say something and then I could give you the silent
treatment in return. But you know I actually felt sorry for you? I
haven't gotten a response in 255 years, since the last time you just
sort of grunted at me when I asked you how long you planned on
twitching like that, and since then everything else that could
possibly go wrong… went … WRONG."
"What ever happened to `It's a secret'?" Valgarv asked, sincerely
surprised at these lengthy outbursts.
"Don't. I'm not even telling you what happened to that, suffice it to
say that phrase is now good and dead. You're going to get a piece of
my mind since there's nothing left to do," Xelloss said with a slow
sort of hiss, like a cat who had been stepped on repeatedly and was
about ready to strike the next foot that got too close.
Valgarv tensed and remained quiet, never having seen the priest in
such a bad mood before. He was surprised at how quickly he himself
was beginning to recover just from the hostility alone and imagined
Xelloss wasn't doing it on purpose, he was just good and angry for
once.
"… Zelas is gone."
Valgarv looked around the room and winced faintly, "I …see. What
happened?"
"Decay. I didn't bother keeping the house in good health. I wouldn't
have stayed here at all but do you know what? I was very CLOSE to
her. To Zelas-sama… To Zelas… And now, everyone else is gone too so
it isn't as if I actually could go to them when the unthinkable
happened, if I had wanted to," Xelloss added with a disturbingly
forlorn sort of pain in every part of his body.
"What? Who is gone?"
"The others, the other mazoku lords. They're all gone," Xelloss said
with an empty, sullen expression as he watched Valgarv like a lean
hawk searching for some sort of weakness in it's prey.
"What do you mean gone?" Val asked with vexation and general
confusion. He had the odd feeling that Xelloss was actually…
*blaming* him for all of these things.
"Gone. As in ruined, not there anymore, a part of the Sea of Chaos,
gone bye bye. You know, the sort of thing that happens when you just
don't exist."
Valgarv tried to chew on this piece of supposedly, if Xelloss had
anything to say about it, bitter fruit but found he was barely
grasping it by the husk. It wasn't that he didn't understand… it just
seemed too unreal to actually hear about it happening. He now felt he
understood what Xel meant by unthinkable before his mind returned to
it's original occupation from before.
"But Filia…"
"She's fine. Don't worry about her. She'll be back tomorrow. Hmph…
maybe I can get her to feed both of us when she shows up," Xelloss
said with a vindictive sneer.
"… Please don't," Val whispered, all of his weariness starting to
return and draining his strength as the thought of actually facing
her again became a reality that was both alarming and yearned for. He
wasn't sure what he would be facing when he saw her again but he
didn't think he had the ability to talk to her, now that he had
gotten over the initial shock and gentle desperation.
"Oh please, spare me your sentiments. You've let yourself sink lower
than you think. You were eating the bare minimum for survival, with a
small snack every time you started to really sink into the pits of
hell and decided you'd had enough self-pity for a reward," Xelloss
added mockingly.
"Why do you care?" Val asked. He felt too confused and tired to
grimace, though Xell's comment cut him to the quick.
"I still can't believe you're still here when Zelas is not. That's
all."
"Then that makes two of us because I can't believe *you're* still
here, when Zelas is not," Valgarv grumbled, feeling his patience
wearing thin. He started to wish Xelloss was back to his
usual `secrets' and would just leave him alone.
Xelloss fell silent, his strained expression falling flat before a
wry, bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, "I… really can't
say anything to that. Hmph."
"Isn't that a secret?"
"I told you… to hell with the secrets. There's hardly anything to
keep a secret right now."
Both of them noticed the faint cry of birds outside in the hazy, warm
rays of light that barely spilled in through the windows despite the
house's own natural shade. A heavy silence settled over everything
within for the rest of the day.
~~
To Be Continued…
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