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Slayers Starboard

Chapter One: Getting the Band Back Together

(Certain characters copyright H. Kanzaka / R. Araizumi, obviously. If I ever even considered claiming that those were my own characters I'd probably be thrown into a small cell where I'd be forced to eat my own testicular fortitude to live.)

Check out the web center with fanart, *exclusive side stories* and more, at --> http://pixelscapes.com/slayers/starboard <--

Part One

Life moves fast. Don't blink, or you'll miss it.

It's because life moves so fast that people would be better off sitting down and thinking about it from time to time. A little orientation to keep yourself on course is just the thing to ensure smooth living; and it's an orientation that never ends. After all, the questions are endless. Why bother having a life? What's life giving you? What do you want out of it? Things like that.

For those who don't ask those questions... they tend to pop up and bite you in the tush when least expected. Let's say you wake up one morning, expecting another round of the same old same old. Get up, get ready, go to work. Come home, relax, go to bed. Repeat. A nice, pat cycle.

But, unknown to you, that cycle gets interrupted when, for no adequately explored reason, your pet dog has a heart attack or an asteroid flattens your house or you spontaneously combust. Then your life gets way complicated, and you've got no choice but to ponder it for a few.

The break can be like opening your hall closet and having six years of accumulated troubles dump on your head. Problems unseen ring the doorbell bearing fruitcake. Your old friends drop in from out of the blue with new problems. Your past enemies sneak up to whap you one upside the head. The longer you waited, the worse it'll be.

When that happens, you're left with little choice but to cope as fast as you can and make sense out of it... a sort of forced self-comprehension, a spontaneous exercise in revelation. Breaks in the cycle hit hard, and they hit fast.

One day, they hit Lina Inverse.

Morning.

It's no surprise that most inns have windows facing the east. When the stars wink out and the sun rises, that light floods right into the inn room... brilliant rays of the dawn streaming through the sometimes-slightly-warped-with-age glass, playing off the furniture, illuminating a room once darkened. It's a wonderful way to wake up, to face the challenge of a new day.

It's true that the light woke Lina Inverse up that morning, but there was nothing poetic beyond that. She slowly got herself from dreamy sleep to a more alert state, doing some quick stretches, yawning, the whole deal. Lina slipped out of bed, into her slippers (hence the name) and shuffled her way to the table (stock inn furniture).

Clothing laid out from the previous night, so, change. Tights, tunic, gloves, boots, belt, cape. Everything in its place, the same outfit she always wore. Brush on the table, so, brush. She made sure her hair had none of the night's tangles, and was curled just the right way in just the right places.

Toothpaste on the toothbrush, so, scrub. Wash up, apply a wet towel, get the day's dust off your body; a full bath could be had later that night, if need be. Out the door, knock on Gourry's door to make sure he was getting up, down the stairs, to visit the smallest room. Breakfast. Pay the tab. Toss the fireballs into the bandit cave and wait for them to run out screaming, zot a few as they get away, Gourry can handle the strays and head into the cave and take the loot. Sort it into bags for later appraisal and stockpiling...

"Lina?"

Lina Inverse looked up, alert for the first real time that day, as she paused in stuffing fistfuls of gold into her sack.

Gourry Gabriev, her long time partner in crime (not that stealing from the bad guys was much of a crime) was busy lifting his pack... or rather, trying to lift it. It chimed and jingled with each attempt, but was simply too heavy; and for a musclebound swordsperson, that had to be pretty heavy indeed.

"Jeez, Gourry, what'd you grab? Lead bars?" Lina asked, with a little chuckle. She dumped another handful from the bandit's treasure chest into her pack.

"No, it's just that... nngh!" He hauled the pack up onto his back, trying to ignore the delightful array of popping sounds his spine made. "With the.. gh... last two camps we raided, and the five before that and the ten in the city-state to the north we got, we've got a lot of stuff, you know? It's getting heavy. Can't we drop it off somewhere?"

"I don't trust banks," Lina responded. "And beyond that, what can be done? Bury it somewhere and draw a map, X marks the spot? Get real. Nobody really does that. I'll just use a levitation spell to make my bag lighter!"

"...oh. I hadn't thought of that."

"Yes, well, I am a sorceress, you know," Lina said quite proudly. With one hand and a low mumble, she cast a spell to make her bag glow slightly and float an inch or two -- with the other hand she took another load from the treasure chest. Efficient use of your time was everything, after all. "I think they ripped off some family; there's a whole set of matching china and silverware in here..."

"We should probably find who they swiped it from," Gourry warned. "These are stolen goods. We could get in trouble."

"Hey, ownership is ten tenths of the law, okay?" Lina said, waving a small handful of jewelry at him. "Besides, I don't see any identifying marks here. Just markless rings, bracelets, lockets, and--"

It would be a good idea to discuss time right now.

Time can be a very unusual thing. Everybody innately knows it just flows from point A to point B, the most predictable thing in life. It flows at a constant speed, with no slowdowns or speedups. But humans, humans can change their perception of time. Time is, after all, nonexistent outside of the sphere of human perception.

When Lina examined the locket she had dug out of a pile of ill gotten gain, time did two things for her. One, it stopped. It had been travelling at a phenomenal rate as of late, blurring on by in a haze, and this one moment had tossed that whole affair into an eternal moment of sharp relief. Two, once the moment had passed (eternal or not), it resumed a more normal pace for Lina, just as it was meant to for the last eighteen years.

Gourry was totally unaware of this, of course, as he was too busy attempting to get a particularly annoying bit of wax out of his ears.

He felt the bag go 'whumph' against his chest, as Lina pushed the floating sack over to him. On top was the small locket she was previously examining.

"...just turn it over to the authorities or something," Lina said quietly. "We've got enough money right now. You can handle mopping up operations here, right? Just shovel the rest into that bag."

"Huh? What?" Gourry asked, trying in vain to get back up to speed. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Aren't you going to help?"

But Lina was already walking away, not paying much attention.

Gourry was not the sort of guy to just go 'Sure thing, Lina!' and start gleefully shoveling away treasure after something like that. He wasn't a bright man, but he knew when something was amiss.

He plucked the item off the top of the pile. It was a pretty ordinary looking thing, a locket in the shape of a diamond; not a lover's gift. He popped it open, and checked the inscription inside.

All it said was 'Happy 18th Birthday!'.

Lina sat under a tree just outside the burning wreckage of the bandit enclave. In the distance she could hear bandits fleeing in terror and so on, but didn't care much about it. Instead, she looked up at the sky, at the sun.

Well, not at the sun. She wasn't interested in going blind. But she wondered if she could actually notice it moving across the sky, if she waited long enough...

Part of her was surprised to see Gourry approach. Part of her wasn't.

"Get all the stuff packed?" she asked, looking over to him. "It's approaching dinnertime and I want to get moving--"

"Lina, is it your birthday?"

That surprised all of her. "How'd... oh. The locket. Well, if you must know... yes, actually. I'm eighteen years old today."

"That's great!" Gourry said, having a seat next to her. "Hey, happy birthday! I guess you're not the same scrawny little breastless kid I picked up at the roadside three years ago--"

The Roaring Elbow to the face was obligatory. "Gourry, I almost forgot it was my birthday! If I hadn't seen that stupid locket I'd probably have gone days before remembering. I mean... it is the twentieth, right? It is my birthday?"

"Yaff," Gourry said, before re-aligning his jaw.

"I've totally lost track of time," Lina grumbled. "Gourry, how long have we been doing this?!"

"Uh, doing what? You're not going to hit me if I answer wrong, right?"

"Raiding local bandit gangs! I mean... okay, three years or so... and for me two years before that but what I really mean is recently. We hit, let's see, this town and the one to the north you mentioned, and the one before that before we totally cleaned it out of the criminal element, so--"

"Four weeks and five days," Gourry stated. "And about nine hours and twenty minutes if you want to get specific."

And lo, Lina looked at him funny.

"I have kind of an internal clock," Gourry said, a small note of pride sounding in that revelation. "Never fails me."

"...riiight. Anyway, four weeks. I had no idea... actually that's not as long as it felt, but... Dammit, Gourry! Where am I going?!"

"Aren't you're sitting in one place right now?"

"In more ways than one, yes!" Lina exclaimed, getting to her feet. She brushed some grass off her cape. "You said it yourself, we've got so much loot we can't carry it. I'm eighteen years old and there's got to be more going on with my future than this. I've got goals, you know. I want to be rich, and fed, and the most powerful and terrifying-- err, respected sorceress in the world!!"

"I thought you already were?" Gourry asked.

"I mean, how are you taking this?" Lina asked. "Constant road travel, never really doing much beyond what we do, sort of aimless and everything..."

Gourry shrugged. "I don't mind, really. I've got pretty much everything I need right now. Never really thought much about it."

"Okay, 'never really thinking' definitely doesn't surprise me," Lina said, shaking her head. "But I hate sitting around whining and crying about things. I can't abide by that kind of behavior. So, I hereby propose we go into town, and purchase the largest damn birthday cake money can buy!"

Tastebuds flickered lightly with anticipated bliss. Gourry stopped himself from drooling. "...how big?"

"Taller than me!" Lina decided, getting a good pace into her feet, walking away from that tree. "C'mon. And then we can find something to do with our lives. Something's bound to turn up eventually, anyway."

At first, when Lina made her Happy Birthday Girl Request, the innkeep simply laughed.

After Gourry opened up one of their backpacks full of loot, he stopped laughing and immediately got baking with a blood oath that the cake would be complete before the last bite of dinner was gone. Given Lina's usual appetite, that wouldn't be real hard, but given Lina's usual speed at consuming mass quantities, it in fact would be quite hard.

The innkeep was up to the challenge, however, and delivered. The cake was indeed taller than she was, and considerably thicker. Most would have been content with that... but not Lina. She wanted more.

It was four layers of your most awesome and inconceivable fantasy made sugary sweet. Gobs of pink/yellow/white icing (guaranteed to rot teeth from fifty paces) were heaped on the finest, fluffiest cake mortal eyes had ever witnessed. The bottom layer... yellow cake, simple, pure, wholesome. The middle was a racy little devil's food cake, dark brown and rich with flavor with a U.

But the top layer... the top layer was illegal in nine countries. It was cheesecake, but cheesecake that cheese would weep in joy to be a part of. Cheesecake with an upwards of fifty thousand calories, packing enough carbos to fuel a twenty man army. It had to be magically compressed into a superdense wad of confection using arcane arts only taught by men in hooded robes and golden egg whisks to the top five Iron Chefs of the world. Enough candles lined the thing to illuminate the room better far brighter than the sun was.

He'd even sculpted a little Lina Inverse figure out of butter to pose on the top of the cake dramatically.

"I guess it's adequate," Lina struggled to say while using every remaining drop of her willpower to avoid screaming 'BANZAI!' and pouncing. If she did that, the price might go up. "Although you got my face wrong..."

"Ma'am," the chef spoke with words true, "There is not a chef in a thousand mile radius who does not know your face. And not all of them saw it on wanted posters. I would stake my reputation that the likeness is so accurate, that if you yourself were creamy and yellow--"

"You can stop right there," Lina ordered, before things got weirder. "Okay. I'll pay what we agreed on, no more."

She took a large scoop and delved into the bag of goodies, and then dumped the pile of gold and jewelry into the chef's apron. He thanked her profusely, and then left.

"You know, whenever I had a birthday, mom would just make me a cupcake and stick a little candle in it," Gourry commented, temporarily paralyzed as his brain issued more timeshare to his salivating tastebuds than his spinal column. "This... this is probably a fire hazard, you know."

"I like my food dangerous," Lina said, whipping out a well polished fork and knife. "You know, I was really upset about this whole growing-old, wandering-aimlessly-in-life sort of thing before, but there's just something about a dessert that ranks as one of the thirty wonders of the world that cheers a girl up! Gourry... savor this moment. You may never see a more perfect--"

"HANDS UP, EVERYBODY! THIS IS A ROBBERY!"

Lina twitched.

Three burly men with neckerchiefs around their faces so as not to be easily identifiable had, of course, busted into the inn while she wasn't paying attention. Crossbows were drawn. One even had a cheap pistol he probably bought off a shipment from the New World.

No, Lina thought. Bandits are not going to ruin this moment for me. If I die, I die a happy woman. She advanced, grating her knife and fork together, ready...

The lead bandit kicked the cake over, shoving it aside to address Lina.

"HEY! What did I just say!?" he demanded to know. "I said, HANDS UP, you little witch!"

"................................" Lina said, as she began to glow an unearthly red. Gourry immediately dove under the table, seeking cover.

The bandit waved the pistol right in Lina's face... and got a good look at the open bag of shiny gold objects. "Holy crap! Just look at all the gold in that bag! Hey, if you know what's best, kid, you'll make a generous donation to us... hey, I said hands up, not hands out..."

Lina's voice was deathly quiet, as she chanted. "Darkness from twilight, crimson from blood that flows, buried in the flow of time..."

"HALT!"

The sharp, high pitched cry momentarily knocked some sense back into Lina, before she blew an entire city to kingdom come.

"You with evil in your hearts can never be forgiven!" a spooky, yet oddly unintimidating voice echoed from the rafters of the inn. "Ones who could spoil a bright shining day of an innocent girl must be punished in the name of justice! THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND PREPARE TO BE JUDGED!"

Amelia wil Tesla Sailoon plunged from the rafters a flying figure of nobility and heroism, sailing right past the bad guys and crashing face first into the remains of the cake, bonking her cute little head on the floor and getting knocked out instantly.

This was familiar, Lina thought, the moment of absurdity temporarily distracting her from her righteous annihilation of the dessert mashers. Her brain had long ago learned how to cope with this sort of thing; most people would sit around going 'Huh?' and 'What?' and 'I'm confused, what's going on?' when surprises fell out of the sky, but not Lina. She knew exactly what to do.

Step One: While the bad guys are distracted, lay the smack down.

Twenty short and intensely painful seconds later, the screams that filled the air finally cut out when the lead bandit submitted to Lina's devastating crippler crossface submission hold, before she could pop his head off his shoulders. That task complete, she could loot their pockets, and then proceed onward in her plan.

Step Two: Ensure Gourry's safety and/or sanity.

"You okay, Gourry?"

"Huh? What?" Gourry asked, peeking out from under the table. "I'm confused. What's going on?"

Close enough.

Step Three: Check Amelia's pulse.

This was harder than initially suspected. The cake was an inedible shambles, splattered all over the dirty wooden floor of the inn... but it was also white, pink and yellow, and Amelia herself was also white, pink and yellow. It took a few slightly messy moments of searching before Lina even found the young girl.

Still, the pulse was strong and sure, even if the eyes were rolling around in her head like marbles.

"Okay, here's the plan," Lina said, brushing the rest of the ruins off the dessert tray, and gingerly dumping Amelia onto it. "I'll wheel her back to our room, clean her up and revive her. Gourry, we've still got to make a supply run before the sun sets, so you go do that while I do this."

"...um... okay," Gourry said, having enough focus to parse that. "But you're the one who usually does the shopping. Why don't I take care of her, and you--"

"Because she's going to need a change of clothes."

"I'll be right back," Gourry said, turning an about face and marching for the door.

Shaking her head, Lina wheeled the cart on, making sure to roll it directly over the three bent bodies of the bandits on her way.

Time passed. It had a habit of doing that.

Eventually, the stars in Amelia's head were replaced by the real ones. Her eyes were still a little fuzzy, which was normal after getting a near-concussion, but she could make out the night sky... brilliant pinpricks of light scattered across a midnight blue cosmos. Beautiful.

'By the way, you're in excruciating pain' her head reminded her, and that was pretty much the end of that. She squinted her eyes shut in agony not unlike eating a gallon of ice cream in under a minute, tearing her eyes away from the bedroom window... then sat up entirely too fast, which didn't help.

"Oh, you're awake?" Lina said. Or rather, said 'Oh', 'You're', and 'Awake' separately so she could finish taking two quick bites of a small piece of cake. Friends were friends, but food was food.

"...I kinda blew it, didn't I?" Amelia asked. "I should know better, I just can't resist a good high vantage point from which to strike fear into the hearts of my enemy... and when I noticed you were in the inn too, and they were accosting you, Lina-san--"

"Hey, hey, I know how it is," Lina said, putting the empty plate aside... and fetching a fresh one. "Don't worry about it. Here, have some cake. It's not as good as the one that got wrecked, but I managed to exchange the free-of-charge elimination of those robbers for it. I also put some pain relief herbal powder in this slice for you."

"Thanfff," Amelia thanked, already shoveling away forkful after forkful before Lina was done presenting it to her. "Mmm. Good! Nee, Lina-san, I didn't know you were eighteen years old! Wow, time really flies, huh?"

"Tell me about it," Lina sighed, leaning back in her chair. "And that makes you, what, seventeen? It's been months since I saw you last. What're you doing out here? I mean, bumping into you like this... it's gotta be some random fluke. You weren't in your pretty little princess duds, so it can't be on a royal mission..."

"Daddy doesn't know I'm out here. I... aahh!" Amelia panicked, dropping her plate (Lina made the save). "I almost forgot!! Where's my stuff?"

"It's at the foot of the bed," Lina replied, curious. "Wh--"

Amelia whizzed past her, headache or not, and winced at the cake-covered costume. Picking her way gingerly through the mess, she pulled a small bag out of the pile... and sighed, in relief. "I was worried this was open, and that'd just ruin everything!"

A light prickle started at the hairs on the back of Lina's neck. Something was up. Something that would probably lead her on some crazed adventure halfway across the world to face terrors unimaginable. She'd gone so long just doing filler schtick that it was like a man dying of thirst in the desert smelling someone mixing up a nice pina colada...

Of course, she only realized this on some subconscious level, one that prompted her to set the cake aside, and quickly join Amelia to discover what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was over a piece of paper with five symbols on it. Amelia checked it front and back for signs of icing damage, but it was dry as a bone, and about as white. Freshly pressed paper, not ancient manuscript.

"I'm on a quest, Lina!" Amelia said with Much Joy. "I'm off on a quest all by myself! Well, me and one other person who invited me on it in the first place..."

"Quest?" Lina asked. Curiosity was currently meowing and pawing lightly at the rocking chair. "Who're you going on a quest with, if it's not Phil?"

She took a better look at the paper. Lina couldn't immediately understand the symbols, but there was some clear handwriting at the bottom of the map. Something about meeting up at a specific island, and some stuff, and some stuff, blah blah, signed........

And then Lina freaked out.

1 baker's doz. hyperaccela gsu
34 QV9
6 day sx ration pak
12 UW pair sets
2 cateen -- comp. Water
1 bot. h.rinse
10pak meat jerky (4gourry)

Other than that last one, Gourry couldn't make heads or tails of Lina's shorthand-enriched shopping list. He wandered the aisles of the franchised dry goods store aimlessly (totally unaware that most of the items were readily available from the magic store next door) and just grabbed stuff that seemed to be what Lina had in mind.

For instance, he was busy buying her a dozen pairs of underwear.

It was the only word he could think of that contracted as UW. But he didn't know too much about girls or what they wore, and relied entirely on the suggestions of the nice clerk he'd asked... namely, frilly, lacy, somewhat transparent things. The clerk suggested Lina would really like those. Of course, she also kept snickering under her breath, which was a bit odd, but Gourry just assumed she'd learned a funny joke earlier today and couldn't get it out of her head. Happened to him all the time.

He was busy studying a pair of panties in the dim store light, wondering why there was a hole in the middle of them, when he was neatly beheaded.

Or rather, would have been beheaded if he hadn't ducked and let the sword swoosh through the air where his head was. Some things just got to be instinctive when you lived a life of danger and combat and dinner. He let the shopping basket fall (but carefully, to avoid spillage), and drew his... sword.

For a brief moment, Gourry felt a pang. This new sword he'd gotten since losing the Sword of Light was decent, but just that. It was a sharp bit of metal. Nothing else. Something in him just cried out at how uninteresting his sword was, but he pushed that down; not something to dwell on in the middle of a fight with...

The fight abruptly halted, frozen in mid-attack stance.

The attacker gave pause, seeming to notice Gourry for the first time. Gourry did likewise. Confusion settled in like light snow, or in Gourry's case, a falling sheet of ice.

"...Zelgadis?" he asked. "What're you doing here? And why'd you try to cut my head off?"

His opponent coughed lightly, unsettling the cloth mask he wore under his cloak's hood. "It seems we have a misunderstanding. I was hired to take revenge for a local group of thugs who were attacked earlier today in a restaurant..."

"Oh, those guys," Gourry said, peeking behind Zelgadis to see the three heavily bandaged men, who were quietly trying to shrink away. "Hi! I'm surprised to see you up and about so soon! Most people just sort of groan and roll around in pain for days after Lina gets them-- uh, Zelgadis? You can put down your sword, ne?"

"...they've promised me a cure," Zelgadis said. "We have to fight."

"But Lina already shook them down, they don't have anything."

Zelgadis peered behind himself, at the bandits who were trying to retreat without looking like they were retreating. "...is this true?"

"Ah... yes?" the stupidest of the three said. "But we do have a cure for, um, whatever you said was wrong with you, it's just, ah, not here--"

One expert swipe of a sword, and the bandits were buried under recently liberated racks of women's shoes, and that was that. Zelgadis let out a sigh of disappointment, as he sheathed his sword, and flushed that plan out of his mind.

"You really thought those guys had a cure for you?" Gourry asked. "Lina bashes me for being dumb all the time, but I wouldn't be that dumb."

"I had nothing better to do," Zelgadis spoke. "And I have had no leads whatsoever towards finding a cure since we last parted ways. I suppose... I figured it couldn't hurt. Even if it was unlikely..."

"Sounds bad," Gourry summarized. "It's good to see you, though. Hey! Let me finish up my supply run here, then you can come back to the inn we're staying at. I'm sure Lina would like to see you too--"

"No," Zelgadis quickly said. "No. No way. We've done this before, haven't we? I meet up with you after a long absence, and I'm almost instantly wrapped up in some adventure where I end up being gunfodder or a human anchor or some other supporting role. I don't mean to be unpleasant, Gourry, but I don't have time to kid around here."

"But it's not even close to bedtime."

"I mean in general," Zelgadis said quite patiently. "You've known me for how long, Gourry?"

"Uhh.... let's see. Okay, umm.... errrr... it was-- no no, it was before that, ah, give me a mi--"

"Three years or so," Zelgadis answered for him. "And four years for me in this curse. Four years of disappointments... and four years of being sidetracked. If I'm going to get myself cured I have to devote everything I have to it, and that means not risking some grand jaunt with Lina Inverse. Therefore, I must decline. I will take leave now, and perhaps we'll see each other again one day."

"Jeez, Zel, you don't have to get so melodramatic," Gourry laughed, proving he knew big words like 'melodramatic'. "I'm not saying you have to stay with us, just drop by for the night! Amelia's back there, too. She just showed up today. It'll be fun! The whole gang together for a little while."

"I don't know..."

"Didn't you just say you had nothing better to do?"

"...I suppose I don't," Zelgadis agreed, although it was an agree with a strong tone of defeat. His shoulders took on a degree of slump. "You have a working man's wisdom, even if you're probably just quoting my words back at me. I've got no leads. No idea of where to go next. I doubt that situation will change within one day, either, so I have nothing left except to waste my time away in this manner."

"That's the spirit!!" Gourry cheered, giving Zel a few hearty slaps on the back in encouragement.

"I have one question, however, before you lead me off to what may very well be a terrible decision on my part."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you have so much lingerie in your shopping basket?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! ... ... okay, I'm done now," Lina said, catching her breath. "Amelia, please tell me I'm hallucinating and I did not just see that name on your little paper thingy there."

"What, the name Gracia?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

"Gosh, Lina, I didn't know you knew my sister!"

"--sister?" Lina asked, a second degree of shock setting in. "You're NAGA THE WHITE SERPENT'S SISTER?!"

"Is that what she's calling herself now?" Amelia asked.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!"

"I don't see what the big deal is," Amelia mused, rolling the paper. "I know she had a bit of a scary laugh, but Gracia was the gentlest, kindest, finest white sorceress I ever knew. Why, the acts of generosity she was capable of--"

"Generosity? White magic?" Lina aksed, swapping rapidly in and out of 'Mind-Numbing Terror' and 'Light Conversation'. "PHEW! Cripes, Amelia, you had me scared for a second there. The Naga I knew was a loudmouthed, nasty little braggart who relied entirely on black magic and shamanism. We've got to be dealing with two different Gracias here. I know Naga's real name is Gracia, but... well, she never did tell me her family name..."

"Oh, I get it!" Amelia chirped. "Naga was our mother's maiden name. What a clever alias for her to use in her adventures! If I knew, I would've listened for news of her. I haven't seen Gracia since I was ten!"

"...let's take this from the top," Lina said, trying to get a handle on things. For someone like her to have a panic attack was unthinkably bad. She needed to get a grip... "You said your sister (who may or may not be my self declared strongest rival, Naga) invited you on a quest. She told you to show up on Ordinary Island, where she'd meet you, and she sent you those five symbols as some sort of hint of where you were eventually going?"

Amelia unrolled the paper again. "Yeah, but I haven't been able to translate them. It's not a cuneiform language I'm familiar with--"

There was a knocking without.

"Lina! Look who I found!" Gourry called from behind the door... before dragging Zelgadis in by the elbow for his grand dramatic entrance. "It's our old buddy, Zelgadis!"

"...yo," Zel greeted unenthusiastically, before a young princess clamped herself around his body, threatening to crack stone with sheer joy.

"Zelgadis-san!" Amelia shrieked. "I haven't seen you in ages! Gosh, it's so great to see you again! Are you well? You're still a chimera? That's too bad. Ne, do you want any cake? We've still got some extra pieces..."

"OI! Hush up over there, I'm translating!" Lina shouted, before turning back to the paper. She allowed the three to engage in wacky greetings, and tuned out the noise.

Lina was onto something here.

She was obviously no stranger to quests. They had a habit of sneaking up and grabbing her at inopportune moments -- but for a change, this was an opportune one. If there was something here, something she could fill her time with and put a little effort into, something that would make her immediate future have some meaning, it would be worth it.

Plus... there was the sender. True, the shock of hearing about Naga after not thinking much of her in so many years was strong. Naga was a loudmouthed braggart, as she'd said... but Naga was not stupid. At least, not about certain things, such as magical lore and history. If she was 'onto something', then Lina wanted to be onto it too, since it probably involved...

"Gold!" Lina shouted.

The three others looked over from some comedic position where Amelia was tugging on Zelgadis's cheek like an old auntie and Gourry was sheepishly laughing at the whole affair. The magic word had been spoken.

"It's the second symbol," Lina said, pointing it out on the paper. "The triangular pile of circles, with the split eights above them, magical iconography for 'infinity'. Basically, it means 'Infinite Wealth'."

Gourry peered at the paper oddly. "Is that some kind of comic strip?"

Lina patently ignored him, and walked over to show the two in the room who would understand her big words. "Amelia, I think this is part of an Elven poem. The Elves wrote poetry in five by five grids of cuneiform. This must be a fragment of the whole, just the first line..."

"...excuse me, what's going on?" Zelgadis asked. "I just got here."

"We've got a quest!" Lina declared.

"Oh no, not again," Zel groaned.

"Check it out, check it out! Okay, the first symbol, the twin triangles over a jagged line and below the sun? That's 'Island'. There's a hazy line modifier next to it, meaning 'Mists' or clouds. The second is 'Infinite Wealth.' The third here, the five pointed magical star, with the split eights, that's 'Infinite Power'."

"...an island of infinite magical power?" Zelgadis asked, a tiny dinky immaterial sliver of hope creeping up there into his voice.

"And the fourth, this one's unusual," Lina continued. "It's an inverted archway with the non-inverted central scythe. That one's obscure, but if I know my Elven cuneiform, it's Death's Door."

"Meaning those who seek infinite wealth and power on the hidden island will face certain death," Zelgadis decided. "Terrific."

"No no no! It's inverted. That means the door swings the other way," Lina said. "It means 'Reversal of Death'. With no modifiers, I'd guess that's unconditional, too. Amelia... your sister is onto something. There must be more lines to this poem describing the location of the island... of course! I know what this island is -- she's found the Island of Mists!!"

"The Island of Mists?!" Amelia and Zelgadis and Gourry simultaneously shouted.

"What's the Island of Mists?" Gourry added.

Wobblewobble, went Lina.

"How could you not possibly know about the most mysterious mystery in the world?! ...no, of course you wouldn't know. I momentarily forgot who I was speaking to," Lina said, her momentum of explanation shuddering to a halt. "Look, Gourry, there are tons of hidden temples and lost cities and magical doo-dads hidden under the stone table in the crack of doom or whatever, right?"

"Sure, if you say so..."

"Okay. Each of those has some mystically dramatic legend behind it, like, 'If ye follow the third star towards the crescent moon in the valley of the shadow of death there be this power/thing/whatever ye seek' yadda yadda. You follow?"

"Uh-huh," Gourry nodded, his head making a light rattling sound.

"Riiight. But you see, each of those legends has something specific in mind. Like, a staff that reigns down black acid on your foes, or a magic lamp that produces a Wash that grants three Genes or something. It's usually worked into the story."

"So... this Misty Island thing is like that?"

"No! I'm getting to that! The Island of Mists has no story! It's a legend so vague, yet so defined, that it has to be true. Nobody knows what it does because supposedly it can do anything!" Lina said, pointing. "Money! Power! Control over death! Nobody's ever seen the island and nobody knows exactly what's on it, but it's rumored to have just about anything your heart desires. Heck, a lot of folks didn't think it existed, but that didn't stop people from questing all over the world trying to find it."

"They should look for where they put it last," Gourry said, knowingly. "That's how I always find my boots when I lose them."

"...I'm going to ignore that," Lina decided. "My point is, Naga's got a lead! Nobody's ever had a lead before! At least, not one that wasn't sold on some shifty street corner for five gold that turned out to be something bogus like dance instructions or a recipe or something. We've got here the first genuine proof that the island not only exists, but we might be able to find it!"

"Right!!" Amelia interjected, feeling she should be part of this. "My dear long lost sister has discovered the most amazing find in our era! In the spirit of exploration and truth we shall journey to Ordinary Island and begin our quest for the ultimate power! I did some research in the family library; the island is in the Architypicos Archipelago, on the fringes of the New World. We can just charter a ship, and go there!"

Adrenaline pumped through Lina's body like a vast pumping system of adrenaline. "This is great!" she declared. "Finally, something to do with my time! With this much treasure, I can meet my life's goals and retire fat and rich-- err, rich and well fed! Ne, Zelgadis, you want to be cured, right?"

"Y--"

"This island will have something that can do it, I bet!" Lina declared, pointing to the paper for extreme overemphasis. "Amelia! You want... what is it you want, actually?"

"To spread love and justice throughout the world!!" she decided.

"...right, well... I'm sure it can do that, too!" Lina declared, not wanting to lose her head of steam. "Folks, we have got one for the history books here! This is going to be terrific! Are we together? Are we together?!"

"What are we doing again?" Gourry asked.

Dishes fell off the shelves downstairs from the massive tremor sent through the inn, when three bodies hit the floor facefirst.

"...well, that killed the mood," Lina stated, as she weakly pulled herself up. "Besides, there's no way we can get started tonight. It's too late. Amelia, Zel, get rooms at the inn here, and we'll set out in the morning. Okay?"

"Hai, Lina-san!" Amelia cheered.

"I already have a room at the inn on the other side of town," Zelgadis said, raising the hood of his cloak. "There's no need to be here until tomorrow. I bid you farewell. I pray this is not another wild goose chase."

"Trust me, trust me," Lina said. "I know my legendary legends. This is the closest thing to the real deal I've seen for the Island of Mists. And at the very least we can enjoy a luxury sea cruise! I'm rich now, you know, we can afford it."

Gourry scratched his head. "But after that cake you got today, we spent a lot of that money, Lina--"

"Relax, we have enough!" Lina said. "Now, out, out. I need to get plenty of rest if I'm going to go march towards my destiny tomorrow morning."

She hustled everybody out the door, exchanging various good nights and happy smiles and that whole bother, then closed it. Silence. Peace at last.

Lina stretched out. It felt... great. Just this morning, she was going nowhere fast. Now she was going somewhere fast. True, it might not pan out, but she had a hunch, and learned long ago to trust those hunches. This was just what she needed to ignore the fact that she had nothing going on in her life...

She noticed she still had the paper in her hand. Totally forgotten in the frenzy. With a little chuckle, she set it down on her bedside table, and started to change for a good night's sleep.

Lina was hopping on one foot to get her slippers on when she happened to glance at the paper and notice the fifth symbol she hadn't translated.

After a quick check of her memory and the semantics of Elven cuneiform, she loosely translated it as a single modern word.

'But...'

Part Two

There are very few conditions under which time may be reversed, and all of them deal with the perception of time itself. Memory structures are temporally indexed; you can revisit the past, in a sense, by 'thinking back' to another time. Those with excellent mental focus can relive any time in their lives, moment to moment... however, humans are usually so focused on the present that their ability to remember things becomes spotty.

Still, as said, there are conditions. For example, if the conscious mind is unable to skip backwards with crystal clarity, that doesn't mean the unconscious mind is limited similarly. Dreams are often perfect spyglasses into the past... it's the act of waking that makes them flawed and scattershot.

So, that night as Lina slept in her luxuriously comfy expensive inn room, her mind went back to another time and place. She had spent many nights in many inns, all around the world; but this particular night in the past had a significance. She'd eaten an excellent sixteen course meal, allowed herself to have some wine, said a few things she never would have said except under duress, and then never saw her partner again.

The mind reels backwards, travelling in time without truly going anywhere...

...the inn had cleared out. Night had settled in, an unusually clear night with the stars twinkling away, and the dinner hour was long gone. The only people who would be at an inn dining hall at this time of night were folks with nowhere else to go -- but this wasn't the sort of place where drunks hung out to slosh the night away, it was a pretty respectable place. Not that Lina wasn't enjoying getting completely drunk there.

It was one of the things she never could do at home. Being fourteen had some disadvantages, such as small stature, incomplete physical development, and adults not wanting to give you the cool stuff they were entitled to. Of course, Lina always regretted it the morning after, but every month or so she enjoyed at least one night of getting crazy.

But her partner... that was another story. She got blasted at least a few times a week; she could also drink about five times as much as Lina could before starting to completely embarrass herself. Not that Naga the White Serpent seemed to care about public humiliation, and not with the 'Battle Bikini' she wore, not with her loud and obnoxious voice.

"To us!" Naga shouted, trying to clack her mug against Lina's and missing by a good six inches. "Victors of the day! Triumphant against the odds! And stinking rich, too!"

"You know," Lina burbled, giggling a little to herself. "I didn't honestly think that temple was going to have any treasure. The inscriptions were so cliche that I figured they were just public relations hype..."

"Lina, Lina, you're so naive!" Naga proclaimed, waving her no-no finger. "You must learn to trust my inshti.. insss... my guts when it comes to treasure sniffing. Naga the White Serpent can detect power and profit from milesh away! OOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOO!"

"Ohhh, I trust it, I trust it," Lina said. "Never been wrong before. ...'cept all those times it was. But I trust it. Yeah. Yoooou... heyy. You know--"

"Of course!" Naga replied. "I know all!"

"I'm sherious here!" Lina snapped back. "I was jus' trying to say, you know... when you first showed up, sayin' you were my rival and burnin' down my inn room... and you kept coming back for more an' eventually we figured it'd be best to just partner up... I didn't wanna."

"Are you eating this?" Naga asked, poking an unfinished portion of roast chicken.

"Never hadda partner before," Lina continued. "Gotta strike out an' make a name for myself! Not my sister... me, me! I'm no little kid. Who needs anybody else?"

"Hear hear!" Naga said, only half hearing it. "Right! People make you weak!"

"No, not right! That's what I'm saying here. ...it sucked when I first started out. Boring. ...lonely. But you beena good partner, Naga. A moron and a klutz and a jerk sometimes butta good partner in the long... when you... you know, like everything. Yeah."

The clock on the wall chimed in the silence that followed that. Naga focused her eyes a bit, trying to get a bit of clarity, as she studied Lina's expression... curious, now.

"...what are you saying?" Naga asked. "Lina, Lina, you really can't hold your liquor. I think you might want to call it a night."

"Dammit, I'm tryin' to be nice here!" Lina barked back. "I'm just sayin' I'm happy I'm travelling with you. I hated going alone... I like it better like this. You're a good friend. You know... I mean... I care. About you. And all that. Wanna make somethin' of it!?"

Naga sat back. "Lina... we're rivals. I've said that so many ti--"

"Shyeah, okay, drop the pretense, got it?" Lina interrupted. "We've been real partnersh for, like... long time, and you know it. You like it too, don't give me that routine. Wouldn't have it any other way. Well?... don't just shit there and shtare, say what you're gonna say."

Lina didn't realize it at the time, but hindsight is 20/20. Naga's voice had changed when she gave her response. It wasn't the haughty White Serpent speaking.

"I do care about you," she had said.

"There! Ha! Knew it!" Lina mocked, woozy and wobbling. "See? Good. Yeah. So, everything'sh good. Heeyy... let's... let's go knock over those thugs in the next town. Hear they gots some stuff. Yeah. It'll be great. You and me, together... we'll really kick... some..."

Time stopped for Lina, right there, as she passed out in her food. She slept peacefully for the next ten hours.

When she woke up, she was in her inn room, in her bed, tucked in nicely, and completely alone. Naga was gone, and never came back.

Of course, on waking, she completely forgot what had gone on the night before. She shook off her hangover, went on to journey by herself for a few weeks, feeling like something was missing... then eventually met up with Gourry. The rest was history.

But on waking in the port city -- present day and present time -- to set off on her Island of Mists journey, she also forgot what she had just dreamed. Dreams are often perfect spyglasses into the past... it's the act of waking that makes them flawed and scattershot.

People like organization. When you have dozens of sailing vessels coming in and out of port every day, brisk trade and tourism flowing freely like water and hundreds of people at the docks each day, you need one central point to manage the whole mess. In this case, the Shipping Office.

In the middle of the docks lies a small building of invaluable resource. On every wall are chalkboards, updated every hour with ships currently in dock, items they're trading or services they're requiring, departure times, and so on. A crack team of filing clerks runs messages to and from ships, to maintain those boards. Any time you need to know what's going on, in, around, and down at the docks, you go to the Shipping Office.

So, after getting ready to face the day and eating a breakfast that rivaled most holiday feasts and doing a little extra shopping to cover for Gourry's consumer ineptitude, Lina made a beeline for the Office. With the others, of course. Her steps were confident as she walked the road towards tomorrow with her head held high.

"How come you're walking so funny, Lina-san?" Amelia asked, curious.

Except for one small problem.

She'd gone through her last clean pair of underwear, and didn't have time to do laundry... which meant she had to delve into the pile Gourry had purchased for her. If she chewed him out for that fiasco in front of the others, though, it'd be pretty embarrassing... especially if someone found out that there were only eleven pairs of the frilly little things in her luggage. Lina could justify this by saying she had no other options and she was eighteen now anyway even if her body had an uncanny habit for not growing in ways she wanted, but she'd never say that aloud.

"Here we are!" Lina declared, switching topics as she stopped outside the Shipping Office. She pushed the door open, letting the noise of the crowd inside wash over her. "I scoped this place out when we first got to town! Anywhere we need to go overseas, we can find a boat that's going there here. It's kind of confusing, so everybody split up and take a wall. Look for a ship going for... Ordinary Island, right, Amelia?"

"Right, Ordinary Island in the Architypicos Archipelago," Amelia said, squeezing past a sailor walking out of the building. She eyed a rack of brochures nearby... specifically, one with the island chain name she'd just quoted off. "Hey, literature!"

"I'll take the far wall," Lina said, pointing to the distant chalkboard. "Zel, you take the left. Gourry, the right. Remember, money is no object! I've still got plenty after my morning supply run, and I want to go there in style!"

"Undoubtedly," Zelgadis said dryly. "I'll just be happy to get there in one piece. We've had bad luck with sea travel, after all."

Amelia absently followed Zelgadis, paging through the glossy pamphlet. "Ne, Zelgadis-san, this is very interesting! It says the islands were named after famous explorer Archibald Typicos, who named them when he first explored the region over a thousand years ago!"

"That's nice," Zelgadis likewise absently replied, as he scanned the chalkboards.

"They've been locked outside the god-sealing shield for centuries, but were opened up for trade and tourism to us last year when the shield fell," Amelia continued. "There's hot springs, and ancient civilizations you can explore, and lots of trading posts with magical goods, and... wow, there's just a lot of stuff out there! It makes sense we'd find treasure in such an area. Sis really did her homework on this..."

"I'm not seeing Ordinary Island on any of these shipping logs," Zelgadis said, frowning a bit.

"'Ordinary Island is your first step towards tourism in the Archipelago,'" Amelia recited. "'The perfect place to stretch your legs and purchase souvenirs of your journey! Although it recently has been superceded by the larger rest stop facility on Flat Island, its rich tradition extends back hundreds of years...'"

"In other words, nobody goes there anymore," Zelgadis said. "Your sister could have picked a better meeting place, Amelia. I doubt we'll--"

"GOT ONE!" Lina shouted, from across the room. She hopped up and down, waving her arms, to be seen through the throng of sailors and traders. "I got one I got one! Come look!"

Ye noble adventuring party gathered in front of the far wall, as Lina pointed out the hastily scribbled entry.

"There's some luxury cruise liner on a one week tour to Ordinary Island, Pleasant Island, and Monster Island!" Lina declared. "Check it out... they're offering three room suites, fine dining, entertainment, and a smooth ride the whole way through!"

"It's amazing that they could cramp so many zeroes into the Travel Price box on the chart," Zelgadis commented. "Lina, can you actually afford that for the four of us?"

"It'll probably take the rest of our money... but it'll be worth it!" Lina said, rubbing her hands together in Evil Delight. "No more camping on the roads and eating dried fish for us, gang! We're doing this adventure in the lap of luxury for a change. Gourry, go grab the bags from the inn, we've got to get on this... what's it called?"

"The 'Titanic'," Zelgadis read.

"Right. We've got to get on there before all the good rooms sell out! Let's go!"

Hours later, long after the sun had set, a tiny life boat scraped up on shore of the city it had previously left. It rocked gently against the sands, before halting.

All four passengers in the boat sat in grim silence.

"Okay... so... it sank," Lina said, wanting to break the awkward moment. "It could've happened to anyone."

"I'm surprised it sailed for so long before anybody realized the ship had no rivets," Zelgadis spoke, in the classic 'I told you no good would come of this' tone. "Or a rudder. Or a main sail. Or a captain. You'd also think they'd notice the captain and all the investors bailing out ten minutes after launch with bags of ticket money."

"If I ever meet those guys again, they're gonna taste Justice!" Amelia declared, standing up (and rocking the boat in the process.) "We won't let this setback defeat us! We must press onward in our journey, overcoming all obstacles set in our way with the passion of--"

"Who're we trying to kid?" Lina interjected. "I mean, seriously, guys. This was doomed from the get go. All of us meeting up entirely by accident and immediately off on some great adventure? Not to mention that we're after a mystery island with nothing but a piece of paper and now a complete lack of money to keep us going."

"But Lina-san--"

"Since I've already leeched every bandit gang in the area, we aren't gonna find any more money!" Lina continued, getting quite perturbed. "The adventure is a bust. I should've known better than to get my hopes up about this... ah, forget it. I'm ranting by now. C'mon, Gourry."

"What? You're leaving?" Amelia asked, shocked.

"Hey, say hi to Naga when you see her," Lina said. "If you see her. I don't see us getting out to that island at this rate. I should've stuck to what I do best, raiding bandit camps... no matter how boring it gets. Seems like it's destined to be my life's calling. Gourry, you got my bag?"

"I think we should try again," Gourry said.

"...eh?"

"Let's go back to that office thingy and find a boat," Gourry said. "It can't be that hard. Surely there's some trading ship that needs a crew, right? We can work our way to the island."

"'Work'?" Lina repeated, in proper disgust for a four letter word.

"Lina... I know you don't want to go back to raiding camps," Gourry said. "Not after what you told me the other day. Okay, so maybe we won't get huge rooms with soft beds and good food, and we might have to put up with hammocks and beef jerky and daily toil or something--"

Lina whimpered.

"--but it's better than what you were doing," Gourry emphasized. "I saw how you reacted when you were talking about that Misty Island thing last night. You were really excited! Come on, let's not give up now. What do you say?"

She looked from Gourry to Amelia to Zelgadis and back again. Gourry's cheerful little grin... Amelia nearly at tears, moved by the dramatic optimism of Gourry's words... and Zel, looking right back at her. He didn't need to say a word; Lina understood. This was the only lead he had at a cure. He was going to endure whatever needed to be endured to investigate.

"...you guys are serious about this, aren't you?" Lina asked. "Okay. I'll admit... I don't want to go back to the same old same old. Gourry has a point, in his dull and pointless little way. But guys, come on, this is not going to be like a typical journey. We could get stranded on an island with no way to leave, or lost at sea, or have to eat bad food! Do you really want to risk that? ...no, you do. It's obvious. Okay... I'm with you. I'm dreading this extensively but I'm with you."

"HOORAY!" Amelia cheered, hopping up and down. "Let's go! I just bet there's a ship out there we can use!"

"Can't it wait until after a good night's rest?" Lina whined.

"You just finished explaining at great length why we won't be finding any more money. We can't afford another inn," Zelgadis said, climbing out of the life boat. "Unless you'd like to camp out here on the beach...?"

Lina pondered sand. She pondered sand that can get into the worst places. She pondered her pajamas, and the underwear she had on and dared not show anyone.

"Boat. Yay," Lina said joylessly. "Let's go."

The starlit night has been a popular subject for poets. Witness the majestic spread of the heavens, the way the tiny pinpricks of light twinkle in the midnight blue... the soft white glow of the moon across the plains, or reflected along the ocean waves. Watch how the gentle flow of the waters plays with the moon's image, a dancing light that reflects and illuminates all...

The reason for this is because poets are largely unemployed and have no job to wake up to in the morning. One could argue that they have a more satisfying existence because of this, once you pushed aside the starvation aspects, but that still failed to aid in Lina's situation.

Tradesmen such as the kind that would hang out at the docks are not typically up and about and busy at this hour, unless they're climbing the shady underside of the career ladder. They certainly wouldn't be busy maintaining the chalkboards of the Shipping Office... and in fact would likely lock the doors and go home to have a good sherry and a long night's rest.

"Locked," Lina complained, as she rattled the doors for the second time. "You know, that's the problem with the service industry; it never serves me the way I want it to. Can we see the boards through the windows?"

Zelgadis scraped a stony finger along the 'glass' of the window, or rather, the half inch thick layer of sea salt, grime and dirt. Instead of making an indentation in the caked on crud, it managed to scrape his finger. "I don't think these can legally be considered windows anymore. Either we come back tomorrow... or we have to break in and hope there's a board entry we need. It could take awhile to search."

With a tired sigh, Amelia's shoulders slumped. "That's too bad... I was hoping we could get right under--"

A sickening crunch of old wood snapping sounded as Lina kicked the door in.

"Waah! Lina, that's breaking and entering!!" Amelia yelped. "It's illegal in all civilized countries!"

"Do you want to go see your sister eight hours earlier than you normally would or not?" Lina asked, swinging the door open.

"Well--"

"Then a little B&E it is," Lina decided in advance. "Besides, we're not taking anything. Gourry, you and Zelgadis get in there. Don't use too strong of a light spell, we don't want to alert the natives. Amelia and I will play lookout for the cops."

"Anoooo..." Gourry said, peering left and right suspiciously. "Lina, the docks aren't a safe place at night. I don't think we should leave two young ladies alone out here like this. Someone might try to take advantage of you!"

Lina stared at him. "You can't be serious, Gourry."

"I am! I mean, you might set them on fire or punt them into the sea or break their arms and then it'd raise an ruckus," Gourry explained.

"...oh. Okay. We'll be good," Lina promised. "Now hurry up, okay? The future waits for no one. And try to find a ship with a nightly banquet!"

Zelgadis issued forth his 'Why Me?' exasperated sigh. He'd perfected over the years of travel with Lina... just the right pitch on the exhale, the perfect slump to the body, and of course slowly closed eyes. Of course, it never deterred Lina, but by this point it was habit. He wandered into the office, waving Gourry in, and closed the door behind him.

Leaning casually against the wall, Lina pretended like she was a young girl in a sorceress's costume who had a perfectly good reason for hanging around right outside a broken door and nobody had to give her a second look. And if they did, she'd just have to make them stop looking in a quiet way. It was a good, stealthy strategy.

"Nee, Lina, I'm really glad you're going with me on this quest," Amelia spoke aloud in her cheerfully musical voice, not quite understanding this whole quiet-and-unnoticeable thing. "I don't like going out on trips like this alone, you know!"

"Yeah, whatever," Lina said quietly, hoping she'd get the gist.

"And I'm glad you're so interested in going to meet up with my sister again! You two must have been really good friends. Although you kind of seemed scared when I mentioned her last night..."

Rolling her eyes annoyed-like, Lina flat out gave up on inconspicuousness. "Yeah, well, Naga was a scary lady. She had a creepy yet highly stereotypical black leather wardrobe, a tendency to make huge golemns that more often than not turned on us, and her laugh could paralyze an elephant."

"Oh, so she did take mother's wardrobe before she left!"

Lina's brain did somersaults.

"Still, that doesn't sound a lot like the Gracia I knew," Amelia said. "She was always such a kind and gentle soul. We were training to be priestesses, you know. White magic experts. But... well, there was a family crisis... and she left. But I'm very happy I'm going to see her again! Aren't you?"

"Look, Amelia, to tell the truth I'm not just going for Naga," Lina explained. "Lately, I've been... man, how do I put this. In a rut?"

"Father said rutting was very unladylike."

"...uh. Anyway, you know, I've basically just been smacking bandits around for months," she continued. "I don't even know how long. There's got to be something more to life than that, you know? Anything. A good, solid quest for some mysterious power and unimaginable wealth is just the thing to get me back on track!"

"So... you want money and power?" Amelia asked.

"Well, duh. Of course!"

"Oh," she said, a little deflated. "Okay. I'm sure we'll find that too, Lina-san."

"I'd hope so! What other reasons are there to go risking our necks in some totally unknown part of the world against horrors unseen except for loot?" Lina asked.

"But if you just wanted that, couldn't you keep beating up bandits?" Amelia asked, not fully understanding. "It'd be less risky. I mean, you know you can do that easily."

"...that's different," Lina said. "Totally different. Different things on so many levels I just can't begin to explain it. You'll understand when you're as old as I am."

"I'm only a year younger!"

"Yes, but I'm a year older. That's how it works, you see."

"But... that means I'll never be as old as you are at any time."

"I know. Life's weird, huh?"

Before matters could get any more esoteric, there as a knocking without, and Zelgadis had returned from his majestic journey into the building of darkness and doom.

"Got one," he said simply. "But you're not going to like it."

It wasn't a bad ship.

In fact, it was a reasonably impressive ship. This was not some rich man's pleasure yacht, it was a light cargo vessel made for high speed long hauls. There were only two sails instead of the heavy duty three but everything about the ship spoke of streamlining and optimizing; the cargo hold, hidden below the waterline, was deep enough to tote that barge and lift that bail while the bow was assembled perfectly to slice through the water. Definitely a good ship.

The problem was the cost. Or rather, the barter.

"It won't be that hard," Zelgadis explained calmly. "We just have to be the ship's crew while the captain ferries goods to Ordinary Island. Said so in very plain words on the board. I know a few things about sailing, so I can show you the ropes. Somewhat literally."

"We have to work?!" Lina repeated for the third time since finding out.

"You knew we probably were going to have to," Zelgadis said, grabbing the rope ladder and hauling himself up. "Don't act so shocked. It'll only be for two or three days until we get to the island, anyway."

"Zelgadis-san is right!" Amelia cheered. If she had little fans, she would have waved them; symbolically she was waving them anyway. "A few days at sea... crisp and cool ocean air, sunlight and a little hard work are just the thing to get us all ready for an adventure!"

Lina waved her hands madly. "I've been fighting bandits for months! If that hasn't gotten me in shape, nothing will!"

Leaning on the ship's railing, Zelgadis looked down on Lina in more than one way. "We could always leave you here to resume your daily struggles against the forces of evil while we go get rich and powerful at the Island of Mists."

"Fine, fine," Lina said while standing next to Zelgadis, having climbed the ladder in a flash before he was even done his sentence. "Let's go. GOURRY! Get the lead out! Don't forget our luggage!"

"I'll admit... this is a rather odd ship," Zelgadis said, turning around to get a better look in the dim light of the moon.

"What's so weird about it?"

"The rigging," Zel explained, pointing to the crisscrossing ropes that connected the sails to the ship. He spoke with an odd curiosity, rather than his usual uncaring tone... "There's more of it than usual, and it's all interconnected. You could probably control the sails more efficiently with fewer adjustments this way... one single adjustment to change both pitch and angle of the sails. Plus, assuming that is the steering wheel up there, it's very small and has a complex locking system. I've never seen anything quite like it. Whoever set up this ship must not have wanted to expend a lot of effort to get it going and pointed the right way."

"A man after my own heart," Lina noted. "Zel, how'd you learn so much about ships, anyway?"

"...I was Rezo's navigator," Zelgadis said, voice getting stiffer. "So, I had to oversee things whenever he wanted to travel by sea."

"Oh. Ah... so! Where's the captain?" Lina asked, looking around. "I guess there's no crew if we're the lucky bastards, but there's got to be a captain. I want to barter this deal and go to bed."

"He'd be in there," Zelgadis said, pointing to a small door to the rear of the ship. "Traditional captain's quarters. But he's probably asleep--"

*WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMMM.*

"OI, open up! We're your new crew!" Lina shouted. "We don't have all night here, you know!"

The door shook with each pounding, but was made a sturdy oak. However, the tiny hidden door in the top of the door was not... it creaked open, the flap of wood swinging lightly in the breeze after being knocked open. Curious as to what it was, Lina peered through it, into the darkness of the small room...

There was a rustling of what sounded like clothes, and a waft of air. Lina leaned away from the door a bit.

"AWK!" a sound echoed from inside. "Whaddye want?! I'm trying to sleep here! I've got a long haul in the morning. If you're here to rob me, I've got hidden crossbow turrets pointed at ye right now!"

"You do?" Lina asked, curiously... but decided curiosity killed the cat, and got right to the point. "I just came to cheerfully inform you that your new crew has arrived! We want passage to Ordinary Island and we're... gh. Willing to work to pay our way!"

"Really? Pull the other one, it's got bells on," the voice squeaked. Lina finally got a good picture of it... probably some scrawny little guy, very irate, but anybody would be after being woken up. She would be. "We ain't leavin' until tomorrow, so piss off! Besides, some little girl ain't gonna be enough to handle this ship alone!"

"Little girl?!" Lina scowled, brushing up an imaginary sleeve... and remembering this was too important to blow off. "Ah... but I have two strapping young swarthy dogs with me, and a young maiden who's... uh. An excellent chef!"

"'Swarthy dogs?'" Zelgadis mumbled.

"Oh?" the voice asked. "Strong lads and a good cook? How strong, exactly?"

"Strong? One's got muscles of stone! And he's a fully qualified sailor, although he doesn't wear the funny white hats."

"...ah, whatever," the captain grumbled. "Nobody else has been applyin' for days and I want to shove off as soon as possible. I'll take it. But only if ye start now! What'll it be, lad, can you cast off and at least get us to sea? Heading's twenty degrees west north west. The combination lock to the wheel is 316."

"I can handle it, sir," Zelgadis said.

"Great. Now leave me alone so I can get some goddamn sleep! AWK!" the man shouted. The tiny door snapped shut, presumably with him knocking it closed.

Lina balked. "What an irate guy."

"Look who's talking. Besides, he's the captain," Zelgadis said, grasping the ladder and scaling up to the stern deck. "I don't feel like being thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean, so you might want to try to treat him with a little respect. Unlike how you treat most people."

"HEY! I treat people with plenty of respect!"

"Gourry!" Zelgadis called over, ignoring Lina. "I'll need your help. We've got about two hours of work to do before we can get to bed. Are you up for it?"

"Sure thing!" Gourry called from across the ship. "Ne, Lina, you and Amelia should get some rest! We'll take care of things!"

"First sensible thing I've heard all day," Lina agreed, stretching her arms over her head. "Zelgadis, where are the bedrooms on these things?"

It wasn't a bad...

Okay, maybe it was.

Lina prodded her 'bed'. It swung lightly, but that could have been the simple rocking of the boat as the guys above cast off. Yes, her luxury accommodations would in fact be a simple canvas hammock strung between two supports, in the underbelly of the ship -- thankfully not in the cargo hold, but it was just as damp and dark.

And, because privacy was something you'd only get in a civilized vessel, the four hammocks intended to sleep herself and her companions were all in the same area.

At first, Lina wanted to complain quite loudly. She turned to face Amelia, and... saw that Amelia was unquestioningly getting ready for bed, and even humming a happy little tune as she did so.

It was a painful realization. Amelia wil Tesla Sailoon, a royally-raised Princess with a P who had all the luxury she wanted in life wasn't at all concerned about the situation. Lina, who was used to road travel and a variety of inns ranging from 'dank' to 'dismal' to 'demoralizing' was the one who had been whining and complaining all night that things weren't going her way.

Not that she'd say aloud that she was whiny. No no, Lina Inverse didn't whine; she 'told it like it is' in a proactive sort of way. But she did mentally smack herself one and attempt to elicit a promise from herself to be more cooperative. After all, it couldn't get any worse.

But that would be after she hung up a sheet by the ceiling so the ladies would have a nice private area. She wasn't in the mood to give the likes of Zel and Gourry a free show.

Yanking a stiff sheet off the available pile of bedding, she got some clothespins together from her pack (which also had a length of rope, a tinder box, and a towel; four items no adventurer should go without) and set things up.

"Hey, Amelia, do me a favor," she requested as she worked on the barricade.

"Hai, Lina-san?" the younger sorceress asked, brushing her hair the mandatory one hundred strokes for added beauty and less morning tangles.

"I've been having kind of a lousy night, and I'm dead tired," Lina said. She adjusted the sheet; there. Hopefully it'd be opaque enough to work. "So just let me sleep in tomorrow, okay?"

"I think the captain might want us awake early to get to work..."

"Gourry and Zel can handle things," Lina said, hauling herself into the top hammock, and trying to settle in. "Oh, and by the way, you're doing the cooking."

Amelia almost dropped her hairbrush. "Wh-what? Me? But... but I don't cook! I mean, not a lot... I can cook, just--"

"Eh, you'll do fine," Lina said, ignoring the concern. She snuggled up under a blanket, and almost immediately drifted off. "No problem..."

And so, she rocked to a gentle sleep, where she dreamed she was on a swingset back at her childhood home, going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down until she was about to be violently ill, which is the point where she woke up totally seasick.

It's said that any job well done is achieved by one part determination, one part enthusiasm, and three parts skilled work. In Amelia's case, it was more like three parts determination, five parts enthusiasm and three eighths of a part of skilled work. This tallied up to far more parts than should be the case, rendering the entire analogy moot, or quite possibly less frightening than the actual end result.

Zelgadis tiredly poked at his pancakes, wondering if they were going to explode. He knew a few things about nutrition, and how food is processed into energy upon digestion. If that was true, these had enough stored potential energy to level a city.

His companion should probably have been equally tired, as he was up for the better part of an hour getting the ship pointed in the right direction and secure; but two of the pancakes had already gone down his gullet, and Gourry was now visibly vibrating. "WOWAmeliawhatdidyouputinthesetheytaste GREAT!!!"

"Oh, it's nothing!" Amelia giggled, brushing some wrinkles out of her 'Kiss the Cook' apron. "I mean, I know the recipe called for all that flour but flour tastes yucky, so I decided to do them out of sugar! They're so much yummier this way! Ne, Zelgadis-san, do you want another muffin? Or a cup of my specialty mix orange juice?"

If stone skin could pale, his would. "Ah... no thank you, Amelia. I'm quite fine with my coffee."

The gally door swung open... and in staggered Lina, looking as green as the Magical Taste Delight Sprinkles(tm NearlyFoodCo) Amelia had laced her meal with.

"...coffee," Lina said. "I need something in my stomach. Everything that was there is now floating in a thick layer just outside the porthole near my hammock. Gourry, if I ever agree to ship travel again, stab me."

"OkayLinayougotitnoproblem!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"And more coffee for Gourry, I think," Zelgadis added. "Lina, don't worry. Some people get simply seasick until they get used to being on a ship. It'll pass in a day or two. And if it doesn't, please point the other direction before vomiting, it's very hard to get my cape clean."

Lina sat/fell into a waiting chair, and accepted a cup of coffee from Amelia. She sipped it, tried to keep it down, and focused on something else to get nice and distracted. "So, Zel, how's the voyage going so far? You two hit any problems?"

"No problems whatsoever," Zelgadis spoke. "Launch was quite simple; the captain had a spot reserved near the front of the docks so we'd be easily out and gone. I have to admit, his technique is very interesting. We've been making minor course adjustments this morning to compensate for the wind drift during the night, and he's proven quite knowledgeable about how the ship works."

The blessed java worked its wonders, as Gourry went from 'blurry' to simply 'twitching occasionally'. He took a deep breath, and nodded to confirm Zel's words. "Yeah. He's not what I was expecting, but boy is he smart about all this boat stuff. Kind of unsociable, though..."

"I'm just glad to hear we're in capable hands," Lina said, relieved. "So, when do I meet the guy?"

A sharp whistle echoed, making Lina's headache 1.24 times worse. She turned to look at the hollow steel tube that made up the intership communication system, source of the noise.

'Feed time's over!' the captain announced. 'All hands on deck, this means you!'

"About now, it seems," Zelgadis said, before draining his cup and setting it down.

Amelia pouted, holding up a tray. "But you haven't tried my Amelia-chan Specialty Morning Bagel Wonders!"

"I'm not up for mourning anybody," Zelgadis commented. "Which is what may happen if we don't listen to the captain's orders."

"Or if we eat your bagels," Lina added.

The captain of the ship surveyed his new recruits with an eye that suggested he would be quite partial to kicking the wheels and making sure everybody had a full set of teeth. His unwavering little black eyes studied each person in the lineup in turn, before addressing them.

"Okay, listen up, monkeys," the captain started, in his shrill tone. "Welcome to the S.S. Lightfeather! Ye are my new volunteer crew. Ye are here of ye's own decision, and I'm expecting ye to work ye's little butts off in return for this free passage!"

The assembled personages remained silent. So, he continued.

"If I didn't need yer muscles, I wouldn't have ye aboard. I'm not interested in being yer best friend or yer preacher or substitute father figure! I'm simply a trader by life's callin' and I've got a hold of supplies to get to Ordinary Island. We will have a highly professional relationship! I'm yer commander, and I expect to be treated with the respect the office demands! When I say jump, ye jump! When I say pull that rope there, ye pull! When I say walk the plank, ye walk! I expect nothing less than fast reactions and loyalty from my crews... Ye in the purple! What're ye starin' at, girl?!"

"'Ye' is staring at you," Lina Inverse said, eyes still wide.

The captain's eyes narrow. "What about me?"

"You're a parrot!!"

Zelgadis quietly groaned. The captain, however, did nothing quietly; his cheerfully bright blue and yellow feathers rustled, ire rising like a balloon.

The parrot 'pointed' to the tiny white paper hat on his head. "What do ye call this? Maybe it's not the size ye monkeys wear, but it's a captain's hat! The hat is what ye should see, not the one wearin' it. I am yer captain! I'm the one who's gonna get ye to that bloody island, and if ye've got a problem with that ye can damn well swim there instead, missy!"

"Guys, how can you possibly take this seriously?" Lina asked, looking to her companions for support here. "We've got a birdbrain running the ship! A talking one, but he's still--"

"Quit talking back to the captain, Lina," Zelgadis quietly ordered. "He's not done speaking yet."

"But--"

If there was one art Zelgadis had mastered, it was that of nonverbal communication. He wasn't a telepath, but he knew exactly how to shape his reactions to people to get the reactions he wanted to his reactions. In this case, he was giving Lina his best 'Shut up, this is important and you're whining' look.

Which, in turn, triggered off that promise Lina had made to herself last night, whether Zelgadis was aware of that or not. Lina shut up. The reaction to the reaction was all that mattered.

"That's better," the captain said, after things had quieted down. "And for yer information, Missy Inverse as your friends say ye be named, I be a parrot indeed. A bloody talking parrot, har har, what a great gift for a ship's crew by some moronic monkey sorcerer! But that's neither here nor there. All ye need to know is I'm Phinneas Lightfeather, yer captain, I know this boat like the back of my wing and I'm getting ye where ye want to go for free. Any objections to that?"

"Free is good," Lina decided, gritting her teeth.

"Right. Now, the readin' of the rules," Captain Phinneas said... using his foot to hold out a slip of paper so he could read it. "Rule number one, obey the captain! But we've gone over that 'un. Rule number two, obey the captain. Rule number three, if ye want to mutiny and take over the boat don't forget the hidden crossbows I can use at a whistle. I ain't no weak bird. Rule number four, if any, and I's mean any of ye goes 'Polly wanna cracker' it's a keelhaulin'! This concludes the readin' of the rules. Are there any questions?"

"How long until we reach Ordinary Island?" Lina asked, instead of asking 'How long do we have to put up with this?'

"Be about two day's sail from here," Phinneas said. "Usually three, but thanks to yer friend Zelgadis's pretty damn impressive navigational skills and our night headstart, we'll be there in no time. I'll say this, and that's that ye's got the best cookin' and sailin' skills I've picked up from volunteers in awhile."

"He liked my bagels!!" Amelia cheered. "I'm so happy!"

"'course, I don't know what skills ye got," Phinneas said, hopping a bit on his perch and directly addressing Lina. "Yer menfolk are good backs for the riggin' and Zelgadis is a right smart one, and the wee one can whip up an excellent pastry. What do ye do, Missy Inverse?"

"It's Lina," Lina corrected. "And I do magic! Amazing spells and craft the likes of which you've never--"

"Magic? Damn. Got no use for that."

"No use for--? I could cast wind for the sails!!"

"Wot, and break the masts? They were made to handle natural wind," Phinneas said. "Well, it don't matter to me. Ye three will do just fine, this ship doesn't need much to get it goin'. As for 'Lina', well, do as ye wish, just don't sink the ship or get in my way."

"Deal," Lina agreed firmly. Anything to keep her away from that... thing.

Lunch came and went without being particularly eventful. The four of them ate at one table; Phinneas perched nearby, nibbling on a bit of the sweetened ham Amelia made sandwiches from. While the meal was cavity inducing, Lina was just too hungry to pass it up, and it's not like there was anything wrong with it other than having a high potential for causing a stroke.

Work on the ship was fairly easy. Every now and then the bird would bark an order from his micro-sized steering wheel perch, and Gourry and Zel would halt their card games or other chatter to go adjust things. Amelia tended to stand at the very bow of the ship and pose; if she fell off she'd probably be sucked under the hull and spat back into the wake in a few mangled pieces, but thankfully this did not happen.

Lina, however, took Phinneas's words to heart... she wasn't going to get in his way. At all. She took up post in the Crow's Nest (there had to be a pun there somewhere) and just watched the ocean go by. Quietly. Without too much change, since it was just big and blue and endless. Exciting. Yay.

About an hour after lunch, when the wind was steady and no immediate demands were on his time, Zelgadis joined her.

"Aren't you bored up here?" Zelgadis asked, scaling the ropes to join Lina in the small basket at the top of the main mast.

"Eh?" Lina asked, distracted from the waters by his voice. "Of course I'm bored. But the sooner we get this done, the better. Consider it a sort of time-killing meditation."

"What's your problem, Lina?" Zelgadis asked. "Not only are you shunning the captain, but you're shunning us in the process. I don't get it."

Lina stared at him quite amusedly. "How can you ask that? I mean, isn't it obvious? We are being led by a talking parrot, Zelgadis! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever... well, I hate to use absolutes, but it is absolutely ridiculous! I signed onto this journey thinking we'd be off on some grand adventure, something to shake things up -- not a farce. Is it too much to ask that--"

"So it's Phinneas?" Zelgadis asked, cutting the diatribe off. "That's it? I'll be the first to admit his social skills are considerably lacking."

"Hah! To put it lightly!"

"But I take great offense to you disrespecting him as the captain."

"...huh? When did you turn into a bird lover, Zel?"

"You don't get it, do you?" Zelgadis asked. "Lina, put aside that he's a parrot for a moment. Here you have someone who by being non-human draws ridicule, mocking and misunderstanding like flies to honey. He's clearly just as intelligent as we are, even if he's abrasive, and he knows what he's doing with his job -- but because of what he is, you're treating him like an inferior. Some sort of creature. Stop me when any of this starts to sound familiar, Lina."

"It's not sounding familiar."

"Then maybe you need to live your life in stone skin for awhile," Zelgadis said. "Then you'll know what it's like to face that kind of discrimination just because of your appearance. You're judging him entirely because he's a parrot, forgetting that he's an experienced sailor who's hauled cargo thousands of miles in his lifetime, forgetting that he's got far more authority than all of us combined when it comes to ocean travel. I've only logged a few hundred and that was as a glorified chauffeur; he's staved off pirates, traded with ports of call and amassed a small fortune. Did you know any of that?"

"Uh... no," Lina said, a bit surprised. "He's rich?"

"If you'd have taken the time to talk to him, yes, you'd know he's quite rich," Zelgadis said. "Three bank accounts on various islands. Feel free to dislike the man's attitude, but as long as you don't laugh him off just because he's a magically enhanced parrot, you'll get along fine with him. See those guys below? Gourry's just too nice (and dare I say too thick) to care much. And Amelia's too excited about our quest to care. Myself... I respect the chain of command. I've been a soldier of one form or another for a long time, you know."

"So you are really, honestly, truthfully, totally okay with this par... this captain?" Lina asked.

"Until he gives me a reason not to trust him, I'll take what I've seen of his skills at face value," Zelgadis said, folding his arms in a confident poise.

"Yeah, well... you're lucky. He likes you," Lina said. "And Gourry has big muscles and Amelia apparently satisfies his sweet tooth. Me, I'm just some conjurer he's got no use for. I don't like that."

"We're outside the fallen god-sealing shield, Lina. It's the outer world. You remember from our last trip out here with Filia; these people are not magical heavyweights. They've found other solutions to the lack of magical lore available in these lands. The few cannons Phinneas has do just fine."

"Cannons?" Lina asked, perking up. "What does he need those for?... hey, look, another ship."

"What?"

"Behind you," Lina said, pointing towards the frothy wake trailing behind the ship. "It's kind of faint, but there's a ship back there."

Zelgadis frowned. He swung over the edge of the crow's nest, one handed, and grabbed the rigging. "Encountering another vessel out this deep into the ocean is usually not a coincidence. Lina, announce it to the captain; I've got to get down there, we're probably going to have to move fast."

"Me? But he--"

"You wanted to be useful, didn't you?" Zelgadis asked, as he climbed down.

Lina pondered her options. Or lack, really. Zel was right, this was the thing to do. She leaned over the nest's railing, spotted the parrot at the wheel of the ship, and called the event in her best imitation of nautical terminology.

"Hark, captain!" she shouted. "Bogeys off the port thingy! Evasive maneuvers!"

The tiny white hat wearing bird peered up. "What're ye babblin' about?!"

"...there's a ship behind us," Lina translated.

That got his attention. He motioned for Zelgadis to take the wheel, and proving that wings do have a certain advantage in traversing a ship's facilities in the vertical direction, he flew right up to the nest and perched on the railing.

Phinneas whapped a wing against the telescope. "Take a look at it through that and tell me what flag it's flyin'."

"Yes sir," Lina said, half meaning it. She rubbed her glove against the lens to clean it of seasalt, and peered...

The ship wasn't much bigger than this one. It didn't bob on the ocean waves, clearly cutting right through them -- it was definitely headed for them, and at great speed. She tilted up a bit, to check the flag.

"Looks like... a pair of snakes twisted through the eyeholes of a skull," Lina said. "Sheesh, how gaudy can you get? As if the death imagery wasn't enough, you have to toss in reptiles--"

"Wot's the color?"

"What does it matter?"

"Just tell me wot the color is, missy!"

"It's white on black," Lina said. "Why?"

"PIRATES!" Phinneas squawked, flapping his wings madly. He spiraled down to the command deck, shrieking all the way. "Bloody hell! PIRATES, PIRATES! BATTLESTATIONS! We've got to pick up speed now! Hard to starboard, let's zag on 'em! MOVE!"

The ship lurched, as Gourry let out the sails to catch extra wind. Lina nearly got tossed from the crow's nest as the ship angled off the side, Zelgadis whirling the steering wheel to give it a sharp turn -- but Lina voluntarily let herself be thrown from the nest, as she slapped on a Levitation spell and floated down to join the action.

The pirate ship was gaining fast. They'd picked a cloudy area with a lot of fog to emerge from; the distance Lina had assumed they had was an illusion. There was no way to avoid interception at this point; the front of the pirate ship was still facing her. They'd changed courses perfectly to adjust to the turn.

Phinneas perched on the Command Perch, issuing orders. "Gourry, stay by the ropes! Zel, I'll need yer muscle on the wheel. Amelia! Can ye handle cannons?"

"I was shot out of one once," Amelia said, getting nervous.

"It'll have to do," Phinneas decided. "Bloody hell. I don't have the firepower to take on pirates right now. If we can't outrun 'em..."

"Excuse me!!"

All eyes turned on Lina... Lina, who had assumed a more natural stance for her. That of the 'devilishly amused girl with one hand on her hip and another holding a small glowing orange ball of magical whoopass'.

"Pirates are basically sea-going bandits, right?" she asked.

A voice boomed across the waves, as the pirate ship drew nearer. Someone had gotten their hands on a megaphone, and was quite pleased to be six times louder than god.

"*Attention, trading vessel!*" the voice announced... haughty and female. "*This is the captain of the Highwater Serpent, freelance pirates at large! Run the white flag of surrender and prepare to be boarded, or we will open fire! Open your cargo holds for us to loot and offer no resistance, lest we run you through!*"

"Yeah, they're bandits," Lina decided. "And here I was worried I'd have nothing to do while at sea... FIREBALL!!"

She flung the wad of compressed elemental power through the air... it screamed across the sea, kicking up a steaming wake of evaporated water in its path. The pirate ship, being large and wooden and as maneuverable as a herd of cows, obviously was not going to be able to dodge it.

An explosion rocked the waves, kicking up enough water to splash onto the main deck of the S.S. Lightfeather. The front of the pirate vessel had been blown to driftwood; the fireball burned away cleanly in the humid air, but it had taken a good chunk of the ship above the waterline with it.

"Victory!" Lina posed... and got a faceful of feathers.

"ARE YE DAFT?!" Phinneas screamed. "We could've negotiated with 'em if ye hadn't blasted them! Now we're committed to brawling this out! This ship was not built for--"

The roar of cannon fire was unmistakable. The first shot punched right through the ship and out the other side, taking the sheet Lina had tacked up between the hammocks with it. It splashed a few dozen feet away.

"*That was a warning shot!*" the woman boomed. "*Hands up, or the second one takes out your main deck!*"

"My clothespins!!" Lina yelled, watching them sink to the ocean floor. "Do you know how hard it is to get the little squeezy ones with the springs in them?! Oooh, this sea hag is gonna get it! Get the ship closer!"

Phinneas boggled. "What?!"

"Hey, you can sail this ship and run it just fine during peaceful waters, but I've seen the inside and outside of more magical battles than you've got feathers!" Lina declared. "I've wiped out Mazoku Lords! Trust me when I say this -- if we get close enough then they don't dare to use cannons. It'd blow up in their faces too! Folks, we're going to board the pirate vessel, defeat the enemy and take whatever loot they have!!"

Zelgadis seemed mildly amused. "You propose we pirate the pirate ship?"

"Call it my modus operandi," Lina said with a grin. "We--"

The next cannon shot screamed just past her ear, and exploded a hundred feet out to sea.

"Okay! Fine! Good!" Phinneas warbled, panic setting in. "No other choice now. Ye'd better be as amazing as you claim ye are, Missy Inverse!!"

There is a problem with evaluating amazement factor. By logic, there are only three parties capable of witnessing Lina Inverse in action... one, Lina herself. She already knows she's amazing and thus requires no convincing. Two, you have an outside observing party, which was Phinneas's position... but this is problematic. Sure, you can go 'ooh aah' at the pretty special effects, but there's a third party that can truly appreciate them first hand. The victim.

Thus, the only real way to get a good idea of what Lina Inverse is like in action is to be the one on the receiving end. It's therefore important to go back approximately five minutes in time and also change viewpoints in order to truly comprehend the matters at hand.

The fog was a positive boon. The Highwater Serpent had not been very profitable lately, as the last two raids resulted in one escapee and one weak draw, but this one was quite promising. They would have the advantage of surprise.

The captain stood at the bow of the ship, watching through the hazy mists as they approached the latest soon-to-be-volunteer for the Keep The Crew Of The Highwater Serpent Rich fund. The wind brushed through her long white hair, and that plus the leg-up pose made her look like something off an oil painting. Granted, it would not be an oil painting with much color.

That's because she preferred basic black and whites. There were all the layers and coats and the obligatory large hat with a feather in it, but aside from some gold trim there was no color to these garments whatsoever. She just had a thing for basic black and white, and it worked with her hair, which made the whole thing twice as stylish; if it was humanly possible for her to be more graceful and stylish.

After all, someone had to look good on this boat. The men were, well, men. Big and hairy and nasty looking and not going to appear on any pinup calendars. The only other woman on board...

The captain glanced down (since said woman was shorter) and asked. "Miss Kristen, what see you in today's prey? I require information before we begin the primary assault."

Her companion tugged a spyglass from the bottomless depths of her oversized sleeves, and peered through it at the distant vessel. "The flag is a simple green slash on a white field, mid-sized canvas... I recognize the pattern. That's the S.S. Lightfeather, ma'am."

"The Lightfeather?" the captain asked, adding a little chuckle. "Terrific. We've found the Bird Boat! It'll be no threat whatsoever, and odds are the cargo will be rich indeed!"

She turned sharply on the excessively stylish heel of her nicely stylin' shiny leather boots, and addressed the crew. The ship started to emerge from the mists, and it would soon be time.

"Men, we have hit quite a load!" she announced. "We'll probably take this one without a single loss. Then, it's on to Dark Island, and flagons of mead and ale or whatever you may want for everybody, on me!"

"Three cheers for The Lady of the Mists!" a voice sounded in the back. And there was much hooping and hollering and meaty arms waving and that sort of thing, which The Lady ignored as she returned to studying the distant ship.

"It will be quite good to dock and have a pleasant inn stay," The Lady said. "I swear, if I don't get a bath soon, I'll stink worse than the crew."

"You don't smell too bad, ma'am."

"You shouldn't try to issue compliments, Miss Kristen. You're just not very good at it."

"...yes, ma'am."

"Megaphone, please."

The megaphone was produced from Kris's other sleeve. The Lady adjusted the valves on the contraption, so it would amplify her voice to its proper status in this world, and issued the proclamation.

"Attention, trading vessel!" The Lady addressed. She tossed her hair back dramatically, because it didn't matter if they saw the gesture; it was the principle of the thing. "This is the captain of the Highwater Serpent, freelance pirates at large! Run the white flag of surrender and prepare to be boarded, or we will open fire! Open your cargo holds for us to loot and offer no resistance, lest we run you through!"

"Very merciful of you, ma'am," Kris added.

"The last thing I require in life is to earn the sign of the blood," The Lady said with utter distaste. "Now, we... what's tha--"

The fireball impacted solidly into the front of the ship. The figurehead (which The Lady had changed recently to a chiseled naked male physique to replace the rather chauvinistic statue which once adorned the Serpent) was vaporized; wood blasted back from the resulting explosion, which also knocked her flat on her stylish butt.

Dust and smoke filled the air. The Lady liked to think herself so amazingly cool that she had her own personal climate, but she panicked nevertheless for a few brief moments, grappling for a toehold, trying to get to her feet, to assess the situation...

Which thankfully was not a disaster. Most of the crew had fallen down, but nobody was hurt... Kris was simply sitting nearby knocked a bit silly, and hadn't been injured.

But regardless... this would not stand.

"FIRE CANNONS!" she ordered.

The crew was well trained; they didn't need further goading, they didn't need more time to recover. A cannon was aimed and fired immediately; The Lady fetched the spyglass to observe the damage...

The ball simply punched through their hull without exploding. There wasn't even a chance of it springing a leak. This raid was going from a cakewalk to a pie in the face. She tossed the spyglass, and resumed her work on the megaphone.

"That was a warning shot!" she shouted, trying to cover up the unfortunate dud cannonball... she cast a concerned glare at Kristen for that one. "Hands up, or the second one takes out your main deck!"

"...I'm sorry, ma'am," Kris apologized, dusting off her shirt. "But we didn't have enough money to buy the high grade ammunition you requested..."

The Lady's face fell. If only it was something she could hand out a punishment for... but luck was fickle. "Very well. But next time, inform me, please! We have to take control of this situation now, before they get any funny ideas. Men, one more shot, and this time... aim for the main deck!"

The Highwater Serpent rocked from the concussion... and this one skimmed right over the railing of the other boat and splashed down on the other side. At least it exploded properly when it hit the water.

"You're all getting a dock in the treasure share!" The Lady announced. "Honestly, people, this should not be difficult! But I suppose at least it can't get any--"

"They're coming about, ma'am!" Kris shouted.

"What?" The Lady asked, turning to look... and to see the ship approaching. Head on. At high speed. With seemingly little intention of stopping. "Quick! Fire, before they're too close!"

Two fresh cannons were rolled over and aimed; the first shot did strike the side of the boat and blast a chunk out, but it wasn't high enough to sink the thing. The second shot...

The second shot was knocked completely off track by some freakish blast of wind. The Lady gaped at this appalling violation of the laws of physics just long enough to miss the S.S. Lightfeather ramming them head on.

Both boats collided, but thanks to the fireball damage, the Highwater Serpent was the one to feel the worst of it. Before anybody could react, people were swinging over onto the pirate vessel on ropes and a hand to hand battle was on.

It was inconceivable -- utterly inconceivable! But The Lady wasn't going to pout or stamp her foot, she was going to fight. She slammed back the chamber on her personal sidearm, loading a led pellet into the pistol's firing shaft, and took aim at one of the interlopers--

The bullet fired in a brief cloudy haze of gunpowder, and went 'ptang!' off the odd gray boy's skin. He paused in his swordfight with one of the men to just look at her funny. Despite the lack of dialogue, The Lady got the distinct impression the boy meant to say 'Excuse me, I'm busy here'.

She drew her personal knife (since one of the few things a woman could rely on in this day and age was a nice hidden blade), and stalked into the fray, calling out. The men could handle the battle; she had other things to attend to. She had her first mate to find, after all.

But something was wrong. There was lightning on one side of the fray where there clearly was no storm; snow blew over from the other wise when it was clearly spring. Then it hit her... magic. The assailants were using magic! How the bird had found that kind of hired guns was a mystery that could wait. She shoved a blonde-haired swordsman aside into a small group of her crew, and found...

A short girl with white and pink robes healing an open cut on Kris's head. Both looked over her, pensiveness showing; they didn't know what she was about to do next.

Neither did she. Until she did. Although she wasn't sure why she did what she did. She dropped the knife grabbed the nearby discarded megaphone, and spoke.

"*HALT! Everybody, cease and DESIST!*" she ordered. The fighting slowed, but wasn't stopping, so she went a little further. "*We SURRENDER! That's more than enough of this madness!*"

That stopped things. Everybody looked confused, her crew and the thugs who had assaulted her alike... all except for one.

A redhead marched silently from the crowd, to confront her one on one. Perhaps she wasn't the bird, but there was a mutual understanding between the two; we're the leaders here, it's our job to discuss this matter.

"You're surrendering?" the redhead asked.

"Of course," The Lady of the Mists replied. "We clearly have underestimated your power, and luck is not on our side tonight. We've swallowed losses before... in fact, if you are intent on killing us and taking our ship and all in it, you will find yourself sorely disappointed. No doubt one with the sign of the blood as you will simply be content to slay us all, however."

"The what of the what? We're here to loot you, jeez, not slaughter you," Lina said. "If you're down with that, we'll just help ourselves to your ill-gotten gain and part ways. I like it. Gets me back aboard before dinnertime without a single scrape!"

"You're... stealing what we've rightfully pirated?" The Lady asked. "Are you some sort of thief-taker?"

"No, I'm Lina Inverse. You didn't recognize me?"

Kris got back to her feet, wobbly-like. "L-Lina Inverse?!" she exclaimed. "The legendary bandit killer? The enemy of all who live? The Dragon Spooker!? Ma'am, she's very, very bad news!"

"Must not be excessively bad, I've never heard of her," The Lady said. "Very well. Take what you wish. This is a large ocean, and we will accept the black mark and recover from it in no time at all, Lina Inverse. I'm surprised you would waste your time lying in wait in these distant waters for ones such as we to attack you. It must not be very profitable."

"Oh, we weren't after you," the (in her opinion) overly lanky blonde-haired man said, with a smile. "We're actually after this thing called Misty Island or something--"

Lina elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "If you could open your holds for me, please, miss Fashion Plate Pirate Captainess? I'd like to get on with things."

The Lady scoffed. She wouldn't deign to bow to this woman's demand. She snapped her fingers, two of her men sliding up behind her.

"Neidhart? Bulldog?" she addressed, not needing to check to see who had come at her call. "Do this nice little girl a favor and show her the cargo hold. But know this, Lina Inverse. Take no more than eighty percent. That is the law of the sea. Any more... and I don't care if you do know magic, we will fight you to the death."

"Deal," Lina agreed.

Off they went. The crew parted like a sea with some guy wearing sandals waving his arms apart, as the four attackers were led below decks.

Kris adjusted her clothes a bit. It didn't help improve her dignity rating, as she stood a bit sheepish next to her captain.

"I'm rather disappointed by today's events, Kris," The Lady warned. "You're going to have to make things right, you realize."

"Yes'm."

"You may start... by using your resources to locate me a magic tutor."

"Uh... ma'am?"

"This is not over," The Lady stated, tightening one of her leather gloves. "No one makes a fool of me and avoids the consequences. I do not care if Lina and her companions are monsters... I will find a way to defeat them. I will hound them to the ends of the earth... and seeing as how they're headed in the same direction we are, that will not be a problem..."

She slipped the golden case from her coat pocket, to make sure her most precious cargo was not missing. The one thing she would fight to the death for with Lina Inverse... an ancient yellowed slip of paper, clearly a strip torn from a larger sheet. It had five cuneiform letters on it.

"Mark my words, Lina Inverse," The Lady spoke despite Lina Inverse not actually being there. "You have now met your strongest rival. This is far from over."

The heavy sack of Goodies slammed to the planks of the Lightfeather's main deck. Lina let out a girlish little laugh of glee, as she ran her fingers through the gold doubloons and trinkets within.

"Well, that's the end of that!" she declared. "We're rich enough to buy a boat now! If this is that crazy lady's idea of 'not much loot', I'd love to meet her when she's loaded!"

A parrot cleared its throat.

Lina looked over.

Phinneas held out one wing, fluffing two feathers together. The universal sign language token for 'Gimmie'.

"Seein' as how ye couldn't have done that feat without my ship," Phinneas explained, "I believe I've got a cut of the booty comin' to me. Cough it up, Missy Inverse."

"HEY! We're the ones that did the fighting while you perched around here like a wallflower!" Lina accused. "You're not getting diddley!"

"Hidden crooosssbooows..."

"Fireball-roasted chicken."

"Damage to my hull."

"Five percent."

"Twenty five!"

"Ten."

"Twelve and a half."

"Done," both said.

"Huh?" Gourry said, whose grasp of economics usually didn't go father than making change for a ten spot.

The rest of the trip to Ordinary Island was filled with sea serpents, sirens on isolated rocks, whirlpools, hurricanes and at least one full-scale armada battlefleet. Or rather, nothing actually happened whatsoever.

The Lightfeather was a considerably easier boat to live on, mind you. Somewhere in the mess of battle, Lina and Phinneas had settled scores enough to co-exist. The wind was strong, and the hours clicked by like clicking hours, time speeding forward easily in the stillness of the ocean, in the dead of night.

Games of cards were played, people talked, everybody had a reasonably good time and then before anybody knew it, it was time to dock.

Ordinary Island proved to be... ordinary. There was a garishly painted yellow building which sort of slouched in the middle of the island, and there was an extensive dock system (completely devoid of boats save for a small supply craft). Lina was so totally underwhelmed by it that she ignored the island as Gourry and Zelgadis went through the motions of docking the boat.

"I think we've gotten off on the right foot here," Lina said, leaning back against the railing while chatting with Amelia. "Okay, so there were some problems at first... but hey, that's to be expected. A little bag of gold here and there can smooth over any worry."

Amelia studied her handwritten note over and over. "I'm just glad to be here, at last! I hope Naga's chartered a good boat to take us on the rest of the journey. I like this ship, but without your clothespins, I have to go change in the galley..."

"Never underestimate the power of the common clothespin," Lina spoke reverently. She glanced behind her... and frowned a bit. "I don't see any other boats here, Amelia. Maybe she's booked us to leave in a day or two?"

"Sister was always very organized," Amelia said. "What? Don't look at me like that, she was. I already know she... changed a bit, when you met her."

Lina cupped her hands, to call out. "OI! GOURRY! How's it going?!"

The four below looked up. Four, because there was Gourry, Zelgadis, Phinneas, and the guy who apparently ran Ordinary Island singlehandedly. "Everything's good, Lina!" Gourry called back, giving the thumbs up. "We're docked and ready, and Phinneas has negotiated us a room for the night!"

Amelia rushed up to the railing, to see. "Ano! Mister! Has the..." she paused, to consult her paper. "Has the 'S.S. Fiasco' arrived yet? There's a passenger on there we're supposed to meet!"

"The what?" the man asked.

"S.S Fiasco!"

"Oh. It sank six months ago, a few miles from here," he replied.

...Amelia's grip on the paper tightened.

"What?" she asked, hoping she misheard that.

"Spectacular wreck, I saw it one night through my telescope," the man continued. "Just... WHOOSH. Whole ship went under. Musta had a busted seam in the hull. No survivors. Why do you ask again?"

Her knees wobbled. Her legs got weak. Lina quickly supported her, but it was not going to help; total system collapse.

"...the... the letter must have gotten to me late..." Amelia said, dark realization settling. "She must have sent it long ago..."

The fainting spell put Amelia down. Lina kept her at least a bit upright... but was having trouble, herself. She coped. She got a handle on it; she was Lina Inverse. She didn't freak out.

...even if Naga was dead.