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Notes: The whole fic is set in pre-Christian Europe, possibly during Roman occupation. (the song is Tonight and the Rest of My Life, by Nina Gordon.)
Down to the earth I fell
He'd been engaging another swordsman when the sudden cold blow knocked him on his face in the turf, half-stunned. He was still realizing what had happened - the wound was strangely painless, until his assailant stepped forward and wrenched the blade from his back.
With dripping wings
A thunderbolt of purest white pain screamed up his spine and fanned at the base of his skull, the back of his eyeballs. Gourry gritted his teeth, expecting to lose his head with the next blow, but instead he heard Zelgadis calling his name.
Heavy things won't fly
"Gourry!"
Having dispatched the axeman, Zelgadis "The Stone" Grauwort stooped to get an arm around his comrade, to drag him from the fray. "Oh, gods, Gourry, I'm sorry..." The Northman gasped and winced as he was hauled up.
"Zel, my back! – ah - Put me down, leave me be!"
And the sky might catch on fire
"I won't fail you twice!" Zelgadis snapped, half-carrying his friend from the battle into the concealing woods. "Gods, Gourry, I'm so sorry - I should have been there!"
"Zelgadis, put me down!" he demanded, gripping the smaller man with pain-ridden strength, and was set down carefully in a cool thicket.
"I should have been - watching your back - " Zelgadis choked, falling in a heap beside him.
And burn the axis of the world
Gourry relaxed slightly; there was less pain, now that he could rest his head in this shadowed grove. The grass was very soft... ... His back twinged when he reached up and clasped Zelgadis' sword arm.
"You just tell them - it wasn't cowardice!" he urged.
"No, it wasn't, Gourry... I wasn't watching your back - I can't ever forgive - "
"That doesn't matter!"
That's why
I prefer a sunless sky
"None of us were cowards!" Gourry hissed. "You just tell them that!" His fist tightened on his friend's arm; his legs had been numb since the impact, and now his hands were fading as well. It was getting hard to see, but he thought the other man nodded. "Don't forget, Zelgadis..." and then he was distracted by a completely new sensation.
To the glittering and stinging in my eyes
It was a breathtaking relief he'd never known he craved, like a good swim after a hot, hard day. There was no pain at all now; it was such a delicious dreamy feeling ... yes, very much like swimming.
He could see Zelgadis kneeling next to something - a shadowy shell of himself, imperfect and broken, at that.
That's not me. It was meant to be, but it isn't now.
Zel, don't be sad! It's not really me!
Feel so light
This is all I wanna feel tonight
Zelgadis didn't seem to hear him ... but Gourry was sure he'd figure it out on his own. In any case, he had a new distraction to deal with, and it was shiny ... golden.
It had the huge, soft, white wings of an owl.
It had gently curling tresses, drifting like dreamfire.
It was a woman.
Feel so light
Tonight and the rest of my life
Her eyes were red as blood, but more brilliant. More brilliant than her smile, even...
"You come with me," she decided, still smiling, and when she touched his face he panicked, worrying stupidly if he'd shaved that morning. Her slim white arm - all of her, so soft - slipped around his neck, and he felt like a coarse, cumbersome oaf again, thrice over. She gathered him in, his head nestled over her heart, and stirred her great white wings...
Gleaming in the darksea
She didn't have a fabulous gravity-defying bosom, but it scarcely mattered. She even smelled beautiful ... he would have told her, but he suspected she already knew, his arms twined around her back, her slender waist.
Something tugged at the back of his mind...
I'm as light as air
"Zelgadis!" he remembered suddenly. "He thinks it's his fault!"
"Don't fret on it," she advised, cupping his head.
"He's hurting himself - I want to help him - "
"Be patient, Gourry," she sighed, and silent, snowy wings swept around him.
Floating there breathlessly
"Who are you?" he dared to ask.
"Valkyrie..."
"I mean, your name..." he corrected. She glanced down at him in mild surprise.
"Lina..."
And they held each other all the closer.
When the dream dissolves I open up my eyes
"Where are we going?" he wondered next.
"Asgard."
"... Valhalla?" he guessed hesitantly. She laughed, and it was the most beautiful part of her.
"No, better than that, Gourry," she smiled again. "Freya wanted you very much ... you're going to Folkvang."
I realize that
Everything is shoreless sea
"Lina ... you won't ever leave me, will you?"
She laughed again, not missing a beat of her windless wings.
"Not if I can help it..."
Weightlessness is passing over me
The drizzle could not extinguish his shoddy pyre, at least, although it did make the fire very smoky. Zelgadis knelt in the mud before it, all thoughts stifled and smothered with misery ... except the most painful ones.
Ah, Gourry... It's all my fault. Scalding tears streamed silently from his good eye, and even his blind eye - the scarred, hidden one - ached moistly.
Feel so light
This is all I wanna feel tonight
He didn't feel the cold, or the wet, or the smoke. Grief and blame jabbed at him like bone sticking through a wound.
Ah, gods, it hurts. It hurts like my arm was cut off -
I deserve all of it
Feel so light
Tonight and the rest of my life
The wind was negligible, and the smoke from the pyre rose almost straight upwards. It billowed slowly and furled itself into a column. Zelgadis looked on blankly, numb and yet horribly not-numb.
A plume of sparks breezed airborne, and the cloud shifted...
Everything is waves and stars
The drift and change of the cloud was gradual; the perception was almost immediate. The mercenary's mouth fell open slightly at the shapes taking form.
The universe is resting in my arms
Immense, downy owl's wings, unfolding around -
It's shaped - it looks like a woman!
- with wings?
Her hair was like fire, and her arms held another shape -
Gourry!
I feel so alive
This is all I wanna feel tonight
How closely they held each other, with his head on her chest... How she seemed to incline her face...
Oh, Gourry - a valkyrie!
His eye blurred with fresh tears as the vast phantom wings beat once, soundlessly surging skyward, and when he could see again, there was only shapeless smoke.
I feel so light
Tonight and the rest of my life
Oh, Gourry, wherever you go ... be happy...