When Zelgadis woke up, he knew there was something wrong. For one thing, he was lying in the grass in a field when he should have been asleep in a soft bed at an inn. Second, sitting next to him was a well-endowed woman with purple hair over her eyes, wearing a waitress uniform and reading a book. Third, and most unsettling of all, Zelgadis found that he was wearing a dress. A blue dress with a white apron, high white socks and black Mary Janes, to be exact. Plus a black bow tied in his hair, with a knot that seemed to be stronger than steel, as Zelgadis found that he couldn�t untie it.
�Where the hell am I?� the chimera demanded, leaping to his feet and looking around for whoever might have dared to put him in a dress. The girl next to him glanced up at him--or at least, Zel thought she glanced at him, he couldn�t see her eyes so he really couldn�t be sure. At any rate, she put a finger in her book to mark her place and turned her face to him.
�Zelgadis-chan,� she said in a very stern voice, �sit down and stop shouting. It�s not ladylike.�
�I�m not a lady!� Zel sputtered angrily.
�Yes, yes, I know, you�re only a girl,� laughed his companion. �Now, why don�t you go make a daisy chain and stop pestering onee-chan?�
Zel�s mouth dropped open. While he was taking this new information in, and pondering the entertainment value of daisy chains, a golden blur hopped by him. Zel turned to look at it, and his mouth dropped open even more. A few flies even managed to fly in and be swallowed before he could close it.
A little golden rabbit was standing a few feet away. It wore a white priestess outfit and had a long, lizard-like tail with a ribbon around it. The strangest part, though, was that its face was unmistakably Filia�s. She pulled a large golden watch out from under her skirts, where her mace would usually be.
�Oh dear!� the Filia rabbit cried. �I�m late for the Queen�s croquet match! How awful! I�m in such trouble! Oh dear!�
As Zelgadis watched in growing confusion, she pulled a tea set out from somewhere, he had no idea where, and made herself a cup of tea. Somehow, a plate full of those little tea cookies appeared as well.
�Um, excuse me?� Zelgadis took a step towards her.
The gold rabbit looked up at him, then pulled her watch out again.
�I�m late!� she moaned, and stuffed the half-full cup of tea in his face. �Hold this, please. Thank you.� She dashed off.
�Wait a minute!� Zelgadis ran after her. He was nearly within an arm�s length of the rabbit when she darted down an oddly oversized rabbit hole.
Zelgadis walked over to the edge of the rabbit hole and glanced down it.
�This is a rabbit hole?� he muttered, sweatdropping. It was large enough that Filia could have gone in as a dragon and had room to spare.
Then came the dilemma: should he follow after Filia and end up who-knows- where, or remain in the field where it was obviously perfectly safe? Zelgadis glanced back at his �sister,� then at the hole. He shrugged. It was this or daisy chains.
�Raywi--� A book sailed through the air and hit him in the head. As Zelgadis toppled down the rabbit hole, he heard the other girl yell,
�Zel-chan! Stop playing with the rabbits! You�ll get your dress dirty!�
Zelgadis fell. And fell. Then, for a nice change of pace, fell some more. He fell so much that he got bored halfway through and calmly finished up the tea that Filia had given him.
�This is the longest rabbit hole I�ve ever seen,� he muttered. �I just know someone somewhere is having a good laugh at this, and when I find them, I�m going to kill them.�
He was entertaining thoughts of what he would do to said person, and was in the process of mapping out a very bloody and painful execution involving a sword and playing cards when he began to fall faster. Which might have been a nice change, except that his dress kept billowing up and he had to work to keep his skirt down. Which became hideously annoying as it reminded him that, yes, he was in a dress, and yes, he did look rather feminine.
�But not enough that you could mistake me for a girl,� he said in wounded tones to no one in particular. Zelgadis was so busy keeping his skirt from flying up that he didn�t see the ground approaching until he landed right on a soft feathery pillow. And, as always happens when one lands on a soft, feathery pillow, feathers blew everywhere and obscured everything. There were so many feathers flying about, it was like a farmer chasing his chickens through a tornado. Zelgadis had never seen a farmer do this, though, so he missed the colorful simile. Instead, he began to sneeze. He wasn�t allergic to chicken feathers, it was simply that people always sneezed when feathers blew everywhere and he didn�t want to offend the stereotype.
The feathers flew around for a while more, played tag with each other, and generally had a nice spring formal before becoming bored and returning into the pillow from whence they came. Zelgadis quite politely stood up to allow them easier access to their pillow, and, as the last feathers floated back inside, the chimera was at last able to see where he had landed.
It was a room. A very dull room, too, with doors of all shapes and sizes everywhere, but nothing else. Not even some nice floral wallpaper to brighten things up. In the middle of the room was a glass table, and on the table were all sorts of different keys. Curious, and eager to get out of the room and find some decent (and manly) clothes, Zelgadis began to sift through the keys.
Unfortunately, it seemed that someone had placed the keys on the table simply to annoy Zelgadis, since almost none of them were the right size to fit any of the doors. Those that were the right size were naturally the wrong shape. Zelgadis finally found one working key, though, of course, it was the key to the smallest door in the room. He had to crouch down to unlock the door, which made Zelgadis very nervous because he was afraid someone might be able to see up his skirt. As he opened the tiny door, he reflected that, should anyone look up his skirt, if it was a man he would have to use a non- destructive spell so he could steal the pervert�s clothes. That decided, he opened the little door and peered inside.
There was a tiny garden on the other side of the door. It looked like the perfect breeding ground for hay fever, but Zelgadis figured that it was that or stay in the room. But he was far too large to enter the room, and he didn�t know any spells which would shrink himself. He leaned against the table and considered the prospects of simply blowing the wall to all hell with some incredibly destructive spell. That was when his elbow bumped a little glass bottle, sending it tumbling over the edge of the table. The chimera caught the bottle and took a look at the label. He briefly reflected on how those last two sentences rhymed, then turned his attention back to the bottle.
�Drink me,� he read aloud, for the benefit of the audience. �Hmm. Maybe it�s poison.� He opened the bottle and sniffed the contents. It smelled like cherry cough syrup, which, he decided, meant that it was probably poison. Though the bottle was asking him to drink it...
�Hmmph,� Zelgadis snorted. �Like I would be stupid enough to listen to a bottle.�
�Oh, so you�re too good for me, is that it?� To Zel�s immense surprise, the bottle began to rant in a high-pitched, slightly nasal voice. �You think just because you�re such a pretty little girl you don�t need to listen to the ugly old bottle, is that it?�
�I am a man,� Zel growled, trying to figure out how exactly one would strangle a bottle.
�Sure you are. Listen, babe, I know a girl when I see one,� the bottle said. It added sadly, �You know, most little girls are sweet and trusting and listen when the bottle says �drink me.� They don�t sit and whine �No, no, I mustn�t listen to the bottle! The bottle is eeeeevil!� But you just want to be contrary, don�t you?�
�I don�t think--� Zelgadis began, but the bottle interrupted him.
�You�re not supposed to think! You�re supposed to follow orders! Now, down the hatch!� The bottle leaped up and swiftly poured some of its contents into the chimera�s open mouth. Zelgadis coughed and sputtered, and the next thing he knew, he was three inches tall and the bottle was humming smugly next to him, at least twice his size.
�What was that for?!� the chimera demanded angrily, stamping his Mary Jane clad feet, his face turned up in the cutest little petulant pout you ever saw.
�Now you can go through the door,� the bottle told him, sighing happily. �Get going, toots.�
Zelgadis started grumbling under his breath, but he headed towards the door anyway, only to find that it was locked again.
�Now where�d I put that damn key?� the chimera muttered.
�It�s back up on the table,� the bottle said helpfully. �And little girls shouldn�t swear.�
Zelgadis had given up on correcting the bottle about his gender anymore, as he was feeling rather ridiculous talking to a bottle. Instead, he glanced up at the glass table, now far out of his reach, and, sure enough, there was the key atop it.
�This shouldn�t be too hard,� Zelgadis said. �Raywing!�
�Hold it!� Zelgadis had barely jumped into the air when the bottle came crashing down on top of him, pinning him to the floor.
�What are you doing? Let me up!� the chimera demanded, trying to get to his feet under the bottle�s weight.
�You can�t fly up there!� the bottle complained. �You�re doing this all wrong. You need to eat the cake to get up there.� It gestured with its neck towards a plate of cake just within arm�s reach of Zelgadis. A sign in front of the cake said �Eat Me.� Zelgadis took a moment to reel from the thin sexual innuendo, then glanced back up at the bottle.
�Why do I have to eat the stupid cake? Get off me!� He struggled to get up, but the bottle had him pinned.
�Not until you eat the cake,� the bottle stated petulantly.
�I�ll give you something to eat,� Zel hissed. �Fireball!�
The bottle very calmly craned its neck and poured some of its contents over the fireball, which was extinguished immediately.
�Eat the cake,� it said in dangerous tones.
�All right, all right! I�m eating.� Scowling disagreeably, Zelgadis grabbed a handful of cake and started eating. No sooner had he swallowed the cake, which tasted like sawdust with frosting, then he found himself growing. And growing. And growing until he was at least ten feet tall.
�How is this better than the way I was?� Zelgadis asked the bottle, which had hitched a ride on his shoulder while he was growing. �Now I can�t get in the damn door!�
�So you�ll have to drink me again,� the bottle said blissfully. �Then you�ll have forgotten the key again, of course, so you�ll have to grow again, and soon you�ll get dreadfully frustrated and start crying.�
�I doubt it,� Zelgadis said with a feral smile. �I�d had enough of this. I�m blasting through that wall and no bottle is going to stop me. Ahem. Fire--�
�Sam! Sprinklers, now!� the bottle cried. Immediately, water began to pour from the invisible roof. Zelgadis glanced upwards and wondered where they had installed the sprinkler system.
After a few minutes of sprinkling, the water stopped and Zelgadis found himself up to his ankles in water. Worse, his dress was sopping wet and his bow was flopping to one side. He glared at the bottle on his shoulder.
�You damn stupid bottle! I don�t know if there is a way to kill you, but if there is, I�m going to find it!� the chimera swore. �I�m going to break you into little--ulp!� Zelgadis never got to tell the bottle what he would break it into, because it took that moment of ranting to pour the rest of its contents down his throat. The chimera dropped the bottle as he shrunk to about two feet tall and found himself in the middle of a small lake.
Naturally, he sank like a stone in a dress, which is pretty much what he was.