A Simple Game

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Slayers characters or anything else in the Slayers world.

                It was dark outside.  That, of course, didn’t stop the revelers that celebrated the Winter Solstice.  They capered through the narrow cobblestone streets, drinks and lovers in hand, sprigs of winter greenery stuck in their hair.

          With a small, sad smile, Filia turned from her kitchen window and back to kettle of tea she was brewing.  Silly little dragon, she chided herself.  Making your tea.  Always making your tea.  With a glance at the candle marks, she got two cups down from the cabinet and waited for a moment longer before picking up the hissing pot and carefully, ritualistically pouring the steaming liquid into the cups.  Another small smile and she placed the kettle back on the hot stove.  Then, she sat down and waited, not touching her cup.

          As if on cue, her quest arrived, lips quirked in a grin.  With a fluid ease that came from many years of practice, he leaned his staff against the counter and pulled out his chair, sitting down.  It was as if, with that one motion, Xellos released a great amount of tension.  Smile dropping, he grasped the cup and brought it to his lips.  A sigh escaped him as the hot tea relaxed him.  Filia, silently sitting across from him, sipped her tea as well, eyes never leaving him.  Xellos felt her gaze and looked at her, smile returning.

          “So,” he began, setting down the cup.  “Another year gone by.”

          “And where has it gotten us?” Filia replied, voice tinged with bitterness.

          “Same place as last year.  Nowhere.”  The Dragon nodded in agreement.

          “Another year goes by…sales are made…people die.”  Filia drained her cup and stood abruptly.  “Can I get you a refill?”  Xellos raised an eyebrow.

          “My, we’re staring early this year, aren’t we, Filia?”  They both knew that the first cup was free.  From now on the drinks would likely be more bourbon than tea.  The former priestess firmly grasped the neck of the decanter, sloshing the bottled liquid suggestively.  Xellos finished his cup of tea and held it out to her.  Eyebrow quirked, Filia took the cup and turned to fill them.

          “We start earlier every year, Xellos,” she murmured, almost belatedly remembering to save room for the tea.  Once the mixtures had been made she turned back and carefully carried them to the table.  Her gaze was frank as she handed him his cup.  “If I remember correctly, it was you who started early last year.”  Xellos smiled again and raised his cup as Filia sat down opposite him.

          “Touché.”  Filia’s cup met his halfway.

          “Here’s to remembering,” she murmured.  Their cups touched with a dull “thunk.”  Filia’s cup reached her lips before Xellos’s, and it was his turn to watch her.  When he spoke, quiet voice breaking the silence, Filia jumped slightly.

          “How many years have we been doing this?”  Filia set down the cup and propped her chin with her hand, thinking.

          “L-sama…it’s been so long…I think it was the year after Lina died.”  Xellos nodded.

          “Oh, yes.  That’s right.  Lina.”  Xellos took another sip as Filia regarded him suspiciously.

          “Don’t tell me that you had forgotten.”  Xellos tsked when he saw her expression.

          “Now, Filia, I thought we were past that ‘suspicious’ stage.”  Filia continued to regard him with the same expression.  Xellos sighed.  “Of course I didn’t forget.  I just wanted to see if you remembered.”  Filia smirked.

          “Now, Xellos, I thought we were past that ‘competition’ stage.”

          “You know, you’re getting wittier in your old age, Dragon.”

          “And you’re getting slower in yours, Demon.”  Their sparring seemed only courtesy as the two calmly sipped their drinks.  They sat in comfortable silence for a long while, just listening to the youths still celebrating heartily, occasionally refreshing their drinks with more bourbon.  By the candles, it was nearly midnight.

          “They’re so young, so…innocent,” Xellos whispered.  Filia nodded.  “They have no idea about wars or death.  They live life everyday as if it were new…as if the harsh realities can’t touch them…”

          “Jealous?”  Xellos chuckled bitterly, taking a swig of his bourbon.  He ignored the dregs of tea still in the bottom of the cup.  Filia poured him some more from the rapidly emptying decanter.

          “Of course I’m jealous, Fi-chan.  Who wouldn’t be?  Could you imagine being that young again?  Frolicking in the meadows, or whatever it is that young dragons do?”  Filia snorted, shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

          “‘Frolicking in the meadows’!?  Is that what you imagined I did when I was young?”  Xellos shrugged, chuckling a little at her reaction.  Filia’s laughter stopped abruptly as she leaned forward, sapphire eyes suddenly dark.  “Let me tell you what I did when I was young, Xellos.  The path for a priestess is grim.  Especially when your father is a priest.  There aren’t many options for you.  Endless drilling, endless punishment when you mess up.  Constantly being told that you’re not smart enough, not fast enough.  Not good enough.  Never as good as your father.  ‘Frolicking in the meadows,’ indeed.  I never saw the light of day when I was young.  And you wonder why I hated you.  Why I couldn’t accept you as anything but what I had been told.  When you have something beaten into you for most of your life—it is the truth.  There is nothing else.”  Her eyes didn’t soften.  It appeared as if the alcohol might be getting to her.  Xellos knew better.  This was genuine Filia.  “When I met you—you threatened everything that I knew to be the truth.  You didn’t seem at all like they said—the murderer of my race—not dark, not hulking, not radiating evil…it threw me…confused me.  And then…then I discover that my race is no better than the Mazoku.  Our cause was supposed to be ‘righteous’…but our methods are the same.  Kill it if it threatens.  We just deemed ourselves right and you all wrong.”  Xellos raised an eyebrow as Filia finished and took a long draught from her cup, slamming it down.

          “I really had no idea.”  His voice was so soft, so…understanding.  Filia snorted again.

          “Oh, please.  Don’t pity me.  That background got me where I am today.”

          “And where is that?”

          “Spending every Winter Solstice for the last hundred and fifty years getting drunk with my mortal enemy.”  Xellos raised his cup in toast.

          “Can’t think of any way I’d rather spend it.”  He threw back the cup and drained the rest of the liquid.  “What number is this?”

          “Dunno.”  Xellos shrugged and rose to his feet, still fairly steady.

          “May I take your cup, my dear dragonlady?”  Filia rolled her eyes and handed it to him.

          “You and your manners.  I’ve always wondered…why would Namagomi need manners?”  Xellos didn’t even twitch.  Two hundred years of hearing it and one finally gets used to it.  Instead, he shrugged.

          “Everyone has their peculiarities, Fi-chan.  Even you.”  The ex-priestess hung her head over the back of her chair to look at him.

          “Are you talking about my tea?”

          “What else?  In the middle of a dangerous situation, you just sit right down and pull out that tea set and begin to drink away.”  Filia giggled a little, cheeks pink.

          “I did do that, didn’t I?”  Xellos returned to the table, two glasses filled with bourbon in hand.  Filia rose from her chair and followed him into the living room, just like they did every year.  Filia sat down, taking the glasses from Xellos while he put another log of wood on the dwindling fire.  A moment later, he joined her, accepting his glass.

          “You know,” Xellos said, eyes gleaming mischievously over the rim of his glass.  “I’ve always wondered where you kept that tea set of yours.”  Filia went a little redder.  Her eyes returned the gaze, turning just as mischievous.

          “Now, my dear Demon, you must know that that is a secret!”  Xellos chuckled.

          “I suppose I deserved that, didn’t I?”

          “For far too many years.”  She gave him a Look again.  “Besides, you’re one to talk.  You were just as bad with the tea.  That means that you have two vices to my one: manners and tea.”

          “Well we both know well that manners are not a vice of yours.”

          “It’s not my fault I have a bad temper!” Filia protested, not really angry because she knew his words were true.  Xellos continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

          “Perhaps your other fetish is…maces.”

          “Maces?”

          “Well, there’s mace-sama, and you did open up a shop for pottery and maces, did you not?”  Filia held her head high and replied loftily.

          “It was weaponry, not just maces.”  Xellos leaned closer, a wicked grin on his face.

          “Hmm.  Quite a dilemma, then…perhaps it’s…garters…”  Filia went bright red, despite the fact that the bourbon had made her very mellow.

          “Nani!?!?  How dare you, Namagomi!”  The Mazoku wagged a finger at her.

          “Yare, Yare, Filia.  Getting touchy so easily?  Come on,” he chided.  Filia let out an angry breath.

          “Xellos…” she warned.  “I’m not that drunk.  A lady has her secrets.  My other vice will have to remain my secret.”  Xellos pouted.

          “Oh, Fi-chan you’re no fun.  I can keep secrets…” he wheedled.  Filia shook her head, firm in her decision.

          “Not this time, Xellos.  ‘Nother refill?”  He nodded.  She picked up the decanter that had magically appeared by her hand and topped their glasses.

          “You know,” he said after a while.  “We do this every year, right?”  She nodded.  “And every year, we learn something new.”

          “’Bout what?”

          “About the world, about our selves, about…each other.”

          “That we do, namagomi.  When did you stop being bothered when I call you that?” she asked suddenly.  He shrugged.

          “When did it stop bothering you when I call you Fi-chan?”  Filia glared at him.

          “We’re not going to slip into answering questions with questions, are we?”

          “I don’t know.  Are we?”  They locked stares for a good two minutes before Xellos looked away.  “I stopped caring when you stopped caring.”

          “Who said I stopped?”  It was Xellos’s turn to give Filia a frank stare.

          “You did.  You stopped five years after we started meeting every Winter Solstice, same as I did.”  Filia smiled to herself, forgetting to put her defenses back up.

          “Ah yes.  I remember.”

          “That was the year we discovered that we didn’t have to hate each other all the time.”  Filia’s eyes twinkled.

          “Just most of the time, right?”

          “Right.”

 

          Nearing one o’clock, Filia’s two decanters empty, Xellos produced another bottle of alcohol from inside his bag.  Shoes and a cloak lay forgotten on the floor.

          “Why do we do this?” Filia asked, showing the first signs of being sloshed.

          “Do what?”

          “This,” she said, waving one hand around.

          “What?  Why do we meet like this every year?  Or why do we drink ourselves into a stupor every year?  Or why we—“

          “Why we drink so much every year.  I mean, what does it accomplish?  It doesn’t change anything, past or future.  So why do we do it?”  Her voice was slurred.

          “It’s fun?”  She glared at him.  Xellos, slumped in his spot on the couch, stared up at the ceiling.  “Maybe we do it because we want to forget the past.  Forget the atrocities we’ve seen and done.  For one night a year we can be just two drunk people having a reunion, reminiscing, and celebrating Winter Solstice.”

          “Instead of a prudish Golden Dragon who’s an ex-high priestess and a namagomi Mazoku who’s the General/Priest of a demanding mistress?”

          “Yeah.  Basically.”  Filia snorted.

          “If they could see us now.”

          “Who?  Our elders?”  Filia imagined the Supreme Elder and her father watching her right now.  She giggled.

          “No, stupid,” she laughed.  “Our friends.”

          “Friends, Filia? We don’t have friends.”  Whereas Filia was nearly too fuzzed to be bitter, Xellos was just starting.  The Dragon looked sympathetically at her comrade-in-drink.

          “Xellos…you know that’s not true.”

          “Sure it is Filia,” he sneered.  “Who do you go out to dinner with?  Who do you sit down and have friendly chats with?  Name them!”  Filia’s face went slack.

          “I…I…”

          “See?  You can’t.”  Filia glared at him.

          “Stupid Namagomi.  I meant our friends from the Darkstar campaign.”  After a moment of thought, she added softy,  “You’re the only one I could name as a friend, now.”  The bitterness came back, nearly full force.  “I don’t go to dinner.  I don’t talk with anyone except customers…and you.  Ironic, ne?  The enemy of my race is the only one I name ‘friend’.”  Xellos glanced at her, studying her features in the firelight.  After a few minutes he replied,

          “They would probably die of shock just seeing us voluntarily in the same room together.”  Filia chuckled.  He was right.  She could just see Lina’s face right now…jaw on the floor…mumbling something incoherently.  Zelgadis would arch an eyebrow and make some comment.  Amelia would beam and say something about justice prevailing.  Gourry wouldn’t even remember who they were.    Filia listened to the memories in her head, replaying the events and her friends’ reactions and mannerisms.  Her heart began to ache as she thought of them…thought of their dying days.

Lina had been nearly seventy when she died…still fighting bandits with Gourry.  Their children had grown and left them many years ago when it happened.  A bandit had finally gotten the best of her.  Gourry killed himself after bringing her home to Zephilia for burial.  He was buried beside her.  Filia remembered the light that had shone so brightly in Lina’s eyes and jellyfish Gourry’s moments of brilliance.  She thanked L-sama that she never had to watch those lights die.  Her brief glimpses of aging Lina had been enough to dishearten her.

Amelia died at a ripe, even ninety—survived by Zelgadis who, after her death, went back to looking for his cure.  He, at least, hadn’t changed when she last saw him at a hundred and twenty.  He survived his only child, but he never returned to Seyruun.  Except, he told her, once a year, in the dark of night, on the anniversary of their marriage.  Not long after visiting them, he took a clue Filia had given him and found his cure.  He died less than a year later.

Her Val had hatched two years after the Darkstar campaign.  He left her when Zelgadis came by…showed him the way, actually.  He was the one who told her what happened to him.  He had stayed for a while after that, but never lost the need to wander.  He left for good last year.  This was the first Solstice he hadn’t been with her in the morning…he was always out while Xellos was there…

“FILIA!!!” Xellos shouted at her.  Filia jumped, loosing her grip on her glass and yelping.  The glass shattered on the ground and Filia whipped around to face the Mazoku.  Her eyes were wide and she panted, hand over her heart.

“What in the Hell did you do that for!” she shouted.  Xellos regarded her calmly.

“You weren’t exactly all here.”  Filia took a deep breath.

“Don’t do that!”

“Sorry.”

“Like hell you are,” she muttered under her breath.  Filia looked down at the floor, judging the damage done.  Luckily, the glass was only in a few large pieces.  She quickly picked them up and felt around for any other small shards.  She sighed in relief.  “Well now I have an excuse to drink straight from the bottle,” she murmured, picking up the decanter and taking a swig.  Louder she said, “I was thinking about things… You know,” she added.  “I think I know why we do this.”

“The drinking?”

“Yes.  We can’t change the past or the future, but we can change the present.”

“Change the present.”

“You were right.  I mean, the past will always be there, looming over us.  But for now, for the present we can regain what those kids feel.  That there is only today.  We can feel like there is no tomorrow, no yesterday.  Live life day by day.  Isn’t that what you wanted?”  Xellos nodded, thoughtful, snagging the decanter from her and taking his own swig.  “Hey!  You’ve got your own glass,” the Dragon protested, snatching it back.  Xellos looked at her, eyes open and staring.

“You’re right.  It is to get that feeling back.  What were you thinking about?” he asked, changing the topic.  Filia blinked.

“The past.  Lina and the others…Val.”  Xellos looked around.

“Val?  That’s right.  Where is he anyway?  Home at dawn again, I suppose.”  Filia slowly shook her head.

“No, not this time.  He isn’t coming home this time.  He’s gone.  Left for good.  This is the first time since you and I started this that he won’t be home at dawn.”  Xellos continued to watch her—long golden hair pulled back except for her bangs and the wisps that escaped.  The black robe she wore was slipping, exposing a good deal of her shoulders.  She didn’t even notice.  Her large blue eyes were beginning to tear up, though she was obviously trying to hide it.  “He’s not coming back…never…”  Xellos made a soothing noise in the back of his throat and he held open his arms.  Filia sniffled a little and scooted closer to Xellos, letting him hold her.  Comfortingly, he stroked her back and hair.

“Come now, Fi-chan.  Surely he’ll come back for visits.  Maybe not often, but he’ll come back.”  Filia sniffed again, closing her eyes and resting her head against Xellos’s chest.  Warm…so warm…comforting…  Deep in the back of her mind, the miko in her screamed, ‘MONSTER!  He’ll kill you given the chance!  Monster!  Mazoku!  Murderer!’  Filia slammed the door on that voice, knowing that she could be named the same.  Her race was a murderer.  Only instead of death and destruction being in their nature, like it was in the Mazoku, her race did it by choice.  Because they feared the power.  If anything, she was worse.  But as she felt Xellos’s arms clutch her tighter, she shoved the nagging thoughts away.

When Xellos’s spoke, his voice seemed far away, even though it rumbled in her ear pressed against his chest.

“Filia…do you still hate me?”  Filia blinked.  Before she could even think about it, she replied with the answer she would have given before.

“Yes.”  She felt him stiffen for a second before loosening up again.  His next question startled her.

“Why?”  Filia blinked and tried to sit up.  Xellos’s grip on her arms tighten though, forcing her to stay where she was.

“Xellos…let me go,” she demanded, getting angry.

“Not until you answer me.”  Filia struggled a little, but Xellos wrapped his arms around her tightly.

“Let me go,” she hissed.  Taking a deep breath, she added, “And then I’ll tell you.”  One moment.  Two.  Three…Xellos loosened his grip and let her go.  Eyes never leaving his, she fumbled around for the bottle.  Her clumsy hand finally found the neck and she clutched it, bringing it up and taking a large draught.  She didn’t even bother putting it down, choosing to keep it in her lap instead.

“I…I hate you, Xellos,” she started, not really knowing where to go.  Xellos snatched the bottle from her lap and took a swig of his own upon the discovery that his glass was empty.

“I gathered that,” he said dryly.  Filia winced at the biting tone she heard underlying his words.  “I want to know why.”  Filia couldn’t help it.  The way he was acting…so self-righteous…Like a Dragon, one part of her said.  Shut up! she hissed to herself.  She began to get angry again.

“Why the hell do you think, Namagomi!” she shouted.  “You murdered my race!  You’re a Demon!  You’re evil!”  Xellos bared his teeth at her, anger rising as well.

“You have no right to preach to me, Filia ul Copt!” he growled.  “You’re no better than me!  Your race killed the entire tribe of Ancient Dragons.  You yourself helped to kill the very last Ancient Dragon,” he sneered.  Filia’s nails dug into her thighs as hot tears began to slide down her cheeks.

“Dammit, Xellos!  I know that!  Go ahead, hate me!  I hate me too!  And why shouldn’t I?  I’m everything I despise.  The one person I could make it up to has left for good, and I’m stuck!  I can’t just stop hating you!  It doesn’t work that way.  I wish it did, but it doesn’t.”  Xellos was silent, staring at her.  Filia refused to meet his gaze, keeping her head down.  She began again, “I mean…every year I get closer…closer to accepting the truth—that I have made it up…that I don’t owe anything else to the Ancient Dragons.”  Her voice turned harsh again, but the anger seemed to be focused inward—as if she were angry at herself.  “And then you show up.  Every year, you come along and mess everything up in my head.  I just get so damn confused and…and…” she sniffled.  “And I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  I’m so confused.”

Xellos just stared at her curiously.  No matter how long he knew her, Filia had always been an enigma to him.  He supposed she felt the same way concerning him, but Xellos wasn’t used to it.  He was used to being able to sort everyone into a category, and if not in a neat little box, then at least he understood them.  But not Filia.  Even after two hundred years of knowing that her race was wrong, and that they had done terrible things, she still kept to their standards and morals—except for this one time of year, when they met.  Then, she would shine through her Dragon exterior and Xellos would catch a glimpse of the real Filia.  Outside she had mellowed with the years, inside, she was still the feisty girl he had met two hundred years ago.  It was almost as if nothing had changed.  She was still the only one living or dead who could get him angry.  The only one who could break his calm.  That was another part of the mystery that he had yet to figure out—why he always got so damn flustered around her.  Why she was the only person who knew what buttons to press to make him angry.  Of course, the same could be said about his ability to piss off Filia.

Xellos took another swig and set the bottle down.  Then he scooted closer to Filia, voice soothing as he once again gathered her into his arms.

“Shh, it’s okay.  I’m confused too.”  Gently he brushed her golden hair out of her eyes and wiped her cheeks with his thumb.  Filia sniffed again and leaned into his touch, a low rumbling starting in her throat as he began to scratch her head.  “But, Filia, this world is confusing.  After millennia of living here, I thought I had everything figured out.  And then I started traveling with Lina-tachi.  And then I met you.  They taught me things about being human that I had forgotten.  I used to be human, you know.  It had been such a long time ago though, I had forgotten how they think, how they react.”  Filia chuckled slightly.

“Of course how they reacted to situations can hardly be deemed as normal for the rest of the human species.”  Xellos laughed too.

“True.  Very true indeed, Filia-chan.  And then, I met you.  You were so typical of your race…” he could feel her tense up, but she reigned in her temper, curious as to where he was going with this.  Xellos smiled.  She never ceased to surprise him.  “You were so typical—proud, arrogant, self-righteous, and so temperamental—though I think that last one was just you.”  Filia began to growl low in her throat, nails clenching and digging into Xellos’s chest and leg.  His eyes rolled back in pleasure as he suppressed a moan.  “But Filia—“ he continued a moment later.  “You were different.  Under your Dragon…you were kind and compassionate—so different from the rest of your race.  They thought themselves right all the time—that they could do no wrong.  But you realized that they were wrong in what they did.”  Filia looked up, ceasing to growl, curious at the change in Xellos’s voice.  He wasn’t mocking her or being snide, she realized.  “And then you did something no Dragon—Golden or otherwise—had ever done before.  You tried to change things.  You tried to make everything all right—to correct the mistakes made by your race.”  He freed one hand and put it under her chin, forcing her to look up at him.  “I was wrong to say that you were no better than me.  You rose above your race and what they had done.  You tried to make up for it.  I never did that.  You were right—I am a monster…destroying, killing.  I killed most of your race.  I never apologized for it, I never felt sorry about it.”  Until I met you, he added silently.  “But Filia,” he continued out loud, “I am Mazoku.  This is what I am.  It is my nature as it is your nature to transform and do white magic.  You can’t help it, just as I cannot help but revel in the suffering I cause.”  Filia interrupted him.

“Do you enjoy the suffering you cause me when you show up and tear me into confused little shreds?” she asked, voice whispering in his ear.  Xellos stopped and thought about it for a moment.

“No.”  He could feel her blink.  Felt her long, dark lashes brush against his cheek.  Suddenly, Xellos became excruciatingly, painfully aware of the Golden Dragon that lay against him.  Every place their bodies touch became a burning point on his body.

“I…I don’t hate you…” Filia began, warm breath still tickling his ear.  “Not all the time…” she said.  “But…it’s in my nature to hate your kind.  I can’t help it.  But I don’t hate you when you’re here,” Filia added.  “I can’t hate you when you’re here.  Even when I try to.”  Xellos didn’t say anything, choosing instead to just smile.

“You know,” he said a few minutes later.  “Val isn’t coming back this Winter Solstice.  So, perhaps I don’t have to leave at dawn.”  Filia pulled back to look at him, blue eyes wide, trying to hide the buried hope she felt rising within her chest.

“Would you want to stay…with me?” she asked very, very softly.

“Would you want me to stay with you?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps they would always be enemies the other 364 days of the year.   But this one evening they could put aside that ingrained hatred—and just be…themselves.

 

Owari

By Filia Umbrae