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A Slayers Prequel Fanfic Family Ties
Dregs watched from a safe distance, the way he always did; the way he had for centuries now. And yet, as he sifted his pliable, charcoal-skinned body into the forest shadows that were shrinking even as the sky filled with unearthly light, he found his growing dread tinged with an unsettled curiosity. What in the name of the Dark Lord are you doing in there, Red Priest? Dregs was a Mazoku who enjoyed the simple things in life. Pain, suffering, despair... Like all Mazoku, he fed on these dark human emotions the way a tick bloats itself on the blood of an unwitting beast. Which is why Dregs had found his assignment of the past few centuries so pleasant. Follow Rezo, his Master had told him, ages ago. Watch him. Report anything unusual. And so he did. It was something he was good at, after all, skulking in the shadows, keeping ever out of sight; never confronting (which was fine with him, since he hated confrontations), but always watching, always staying just out of range of the Red Priest's powerful senses. And it didn't really matter that he had to keep his distance. Rezo was so full of pain, so full of constant anguish and yearning bordering on agony for something just out of reach... The priest's dark emotions always extended far beyond the field of his acute warning instincts. Thus, without even knowing, Rezo kept Dregs well fed and quite content through the years. So content, Dregs didn't even mind the endless monotony of his assignment. Follow Rezo. Watch him heal people. Feed off of his despair; despair so powerful that it drowns out the joy of those whom he cures. Follow him to one of his many households, watch him study magic with a furious intensity that never fails to leave him frustrated and unfulfilled. Watch him always return to the Tower of the Dark Lord and pace the halls as he agonizes within himself over whether or not he should give in to his decision to resurrect the Dark Lord Shabranigdo and put the entire world at risk just to unseal his blind eyes... Same old same old. At the moment, however, Dregs' monotonous assignment had unexpectedly taken a turn for the interesting. Here, at the home of Rezo's offspring, power flashed from behind the dark windows of the large house, and the white stone walls seemed to gleam under that boiling sky. Rezo was working some serious magic within his kindred's home, though what spell he might be casting that could cause such turmoil in nature, Dregs couldn't begin to guess. He'd never felt anything like it before. And, for the first time in centuries, he was very, very worried. This qualified as something "unusual," he was certain of it. And that meant that he was going to have to report this to his Master. The thought made him cringe. The silent shadows around him writhed in response to his distress as he cursed Rezo silently. Centuries of relative peace and quiet, enjoying the pleasures of the mortal world, and now he had to return to Hell.
Rezelle, Hellmaster's general and second-in-command, giggled and tossed her mane of golden ringlets with a flip of her head. Her sweet little gingham pinafore -- a perfectly adorable fit on her five-year-old body -- was stained with her own bloody hand prints. "Are you sure, Lord Fibrezo?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer. It was all part of the game. Fibrezo laughed with delight and gestured to the huge creature before him -- a gold dragon, the size of a house, pinned to the stone floor of the Great Hall with huge granite spikes through his wings. The once-mighty dragon's scaled flesh was lined with innumerable pairs of parallel cuts, deep and thin, that oozed blood; his great faceted eyes were open and strangely sentient, though clouded with agony and the first glimmers of encroaching madness. "See?" Fibrezo replied. "He's still got life in him, and if we're careful, he'll last a long time yet. Years, maybe." "We don't have to be too careful, I hope," Rezelle said, pouting, sticking out her lower lip. "Of course not." Fibrezo reached out and patted the dragon's shredded golden flank almost affectionately. "Now let's go again!" "Pardon, M-master," whispered a hoarse voice from the bone-encrusted doors of the Great Hall. Fibrezo turned, sudden impatient anger flaring within him at the interruption, to see a pathetic excuse of a Mazoku peering timidly with watery yellow eyes from behind one of the doors. Even across the hall, he could see his minion's gray form trembling in fear. "Stop sniveling and come out where I can see you," he snapped. "What do you want?" Dregs stepped cautiously from behind the door and cast a nervous glance at the flayed dragon. "I... I... I just n-needed to..." "Boring!" Rezelle chimed in, her eyes glinting maliciously towards the hapless minion. "Come on, Lord Fibrezo, let's play!" "B-but..." Dregs gibbered in terror as the Hellmaster's young face pinched in a frown that was directed at him. "But I n-need to t-tell you--" Fibrezo's eyes narrowed, and there was a great flash of light. When the light faded, Dregs stood silent in the doorway, encased in a great crystal shard. The frozen Mazoku's watery yellow eyes were wide in unblinking terror. Rezelle turned away from the sight indifferently as she reached down to heft her little snow sled -- a common human-child contraption that Fibrezo had adapted for Mazoku Lord purposes -- over her shoulder by the strap tanned from human skin. "Wonder what he wanted to say," she said conversationally. Fibrezo shrugged, then lifted his own sled from the floor, noticing with a pleased eye how the razor-edged runners still dripped blood. "It can wait until after we're through playing. If I sat around and waited for him to stutter out his message now, I'd be an old man by the time he was finished." And, as they both began to climb the hill of living, blood-slick dragon flesh with their sleds on their backs, they both laughed at the joke.
As the last of his sealing spell faded away, Rezo looked with his astral sight at the face of the infant cradled in his arms, and knew that he had made a terrible mistake. He knew, not because he could see the pallor of the child's skin, though if he could have, he would have seen that Zelgadis' face had taken on a definite greyish hue. He knew because of his aura. The child's aura was now a low, weak flicker where, only minutes before, it had been blazing and brilliant to behold. Zelgadis' aura was too weak, Rezo realized with dismay. In his attempt to seal all of the infant's power away from the prying senses of his enemies, had he gone too far? Yes... he could feel now, with his inner vision -- vision that had found and eliminated the sources of illness and disease, both physical and magical, within the bodies of countless human beings -- that a piece of the child's very soul had been caught up in the sealing spell... No... Rezo shook his head, feeling the last of his cool composure slip away... and again, he felt the tears seep from his sealed eyes. He had only meant to make the boy normal. Not less than normal. Not less than whole... And this boy was his... No. Not anymore. Never. What right did he have to claim ties of family, of affection to this innocent newborn when he had just condemned this formerly-strong child to a half-life of frailty? How foolish was he to imagine, even for a moment, that he might be able to give love to this child? He knew, from long experience, that he was only capable of destroying those he loved... He could sense his daughter on the bed behind him, sleeping dreamlessly, still in the thrall of his spell. She hated him. Well, he mused grimly, she would hate him more when she discovered what he had just done to her only son. And perhaps she would tell her son why he wasn't strong enough to play with other children, why he was so much more susceptible to illness, why he was so weak... Perhaps she would teach her son to hate him as well. Slowly, tenderly, he placed the now-listless infant in his mother's arms. "I'm sorry, my little Zelgadis," he whispered. "But it's for your own good." Not enough. Never enough. The tears were still drying on his cheeks when he fled the house on foot, too exhausted and grief-stricken to use his magic to escape. He no longer cared if anyone saw him or recognized him. If word got around that the honorable Red Priest had stricken a day-old infant with an incurable magical illness, it was only what he deserved. It was only the truth, after all. I swear this now, Zelgadis, he thought as he ran, and the thought was his only comfort amidst his wrenching guilt that threatened to send him to his knees in despair. I swear that when you are old enough... when you are _safe_ from those who would hurt you... I will break the seal.
To be continued. Back to Krista's Very Own Fanfics
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