Slayer03

   Dusk had fallen over the city of Seiruun. The many sounds of people and children had like
their makers retired, to be again the day after. Only the deep hissing of the iron refineries
and the high sharp clangs of the blacksmiths carried through the dark along with the
chimera?s steady foorsteps along the cobblestone streets. His dessert cloak hooded him
from what light was left from the moon and the few softly burning lanterns. He should
have no problems until the castle where he would see her again.
   It was silent on these streets but it was not peaceful like the valleys outside the
city. Seiruun was a city of war; a place for blood as it had been when Zelgadis had first
arrived here, as he had always known it to be. Zelgadis approached the castle gates.
   The castle of Seiruun stood tall and strong, with spires of pear stetching towards
the heavens. Even the castle was silent at this hour, despite the glow of candle light that
bled from the windows of the workers that never slept; her light was on aswell.
   "Great," Zelgadis thought, "I was hoping to sleep this night but she?s been waiting
for me. Does she ever sleep? Is she even human anymore?" He shook his head to clear his
mind as he approach the four gate guards, who upon sight openned the gate just enough
so that Zelgadis could comfortably glide through. As soon as he had passed the doors they
closed and latched the enterance with a deep strike of metal on metal.
   Zel was now in the topiary where he could watch the shrub marrionettes play in
their stillness. The topiary maze was vast, but not long for someone to pass through if one
knew the way through. It was another tactic to devert the enimy incase of attack. Another
pariniod scheme, but it was functional and estetically appealing to the people, maybe
pariniod was too strong a word.
   Upon enterance of the castle Zelgadis found a cold pal that spread over him and
his aura, it was always there but he had never gotten used to it. The pal wasn?t magic of
any sort it was simply the harsh feel of a nessesity born structure. The decore was utterly
bland and distant and it remained such throughout the entire citadel. Depressing was far to
dull a word.
   Zel strode with certain confidance through the corridors of the dim fortress with
only his footsteps as his companions. He slid through the darkness of the corridores. With
a cat like grace, until he would reach his final destination the thrown room.
   As Zelgadis had heard, this room was once a place of great finesse and beauty. The
thrown room was a collage of ivory and blush that gave it, even in the most pitch dark a
glow of warmth and comfort. That was of course, like much of the worlds stories, how it
was before the time of the Masacre. The Queen was the only survivor of the war from her
line. The castle was a reflection of herself, and it seemed to bleed from the thrown room.
   Finally Zel openned the doors of the room in discusion to face his queen, Queen
Amelia. Who stood near the thrown with her eyes so instensly on him that it made him
wish to look away, but he had met far more feirce a gaze than her?s so he continued to
stare at her as he walked down the blush carpet towards her seat.
The eyes that Queen Amelia wore were as blank an unreadable as any he?d ever
seen on either human or mazoku. Even the ivory dress with it?s frills and folds that
complemented her delicate figure didin?t provide an illusion of warmth from her. They told
a story of pain and blood and death, that would of made most humans flee from
themselves, but there she stood with her body no older than it?s twenty-fifth year, and her
eyes which wore the face of the ancients.
   The Queen finally sat in her thrown which was a chair of white marble and crude
sharp angles, and then she spoke. "I trust that you have succeeded in your mission Lord
Greywers?" Zelgadis kneeled then nodded sharply, presenting the scroll of tactics in
question. "That is excellent work, you serve me well, as you always have, and for that I
am grateful." Zel let a little shock at that last sentence slide into his face, and as soon as he
had allowed it he vanquished it. She saw his face though, and she smiled ever so slightly,
then continued, "I apologize for keeping you up until this dark hour Lord Greywers and I
shall let you retire, in the hopes that I will not require your services again until you have
fully rested." With those words she walked to the still kneeling Zelgadis and took the
scroll from him, then turned away.
   With the scroll in hand, she left the room leaving her decifles to retire. Zelgadis
stood slowly, still in minor shock from the humanity that brushed her speach just then.
"Somethings happening," Zelgadis muttered to himself, as he walked to the exit of the
blush and marble theme, "I wish I knew what."

   Queen Amelia strolled through the corridors of the ill lit castle. Refusing to look at
the plans in her fatigued state she opted to get to them straight in the morning. Gods I?m
tired, Amelia mused as she entered her bedroom.
The queen?s bedroom was a petite little storr, to better keep it warm. The colours
were drab ranging from light tan to grey, but it didn?t matter much; she hardly spent time
here. Amelia knelt down beside her bed, and prayed to the gods for a dreamless sleep. Her
prayers were never heard, but Amelia always tried in the hopes she would be freed from
the rosary of death and blood that filled her mind as she fell into her slumber.
With her prayers made she decended to her covers and sheets, and she decended to
the wails and screams.

   A metallic smell filled Amelia?s nostrils, blood. She openned her eyes once more to
see the infermery, the place of her childhood. Oh Gods, she thought, another scirmish
lost! Amelia stood, now with a full view of the countless bunks of the bleeding, the dead,
the screaming, the children. Crimson stains were the moteif of this room; it was
everywhere, on the floor, the ceilings, the walls and the people. Everyone was drenched
with blood and thicker things. She had to hurry.