The Secret-Keeper's Lectern

Xellos rotates his new shoulder in the also-new joint, getting the feel of it. This is how his life (if you choose to call it that) seems to go these days. You spend months preparing yourself to face off (face off, like a raw, green fool of a martyr) against one of the handful of beings more powerful than yourself (face off against, because no one else can do it) with nothing up your sleeve but a trick sparkler of an antihero and her bag of toys, save the world against all species instinct (because you were made for more than hunger), learn to feel the aching oppression of a falling barometer in fresh and exciting new ways.

It's not that he's getting too old for this. As mazoku go, he's in his prime. And a demon's gotta do what a demon's got to do (even if no one else but Zelas-sama and Luna-dono knows why). It's just that sometimes what a demon's gotta do bites scaly gassy unwiped festering dragon tail and sucks hard.

And you can't put it off, because sometimes the immediate future presses so hard, so blazing-bright, there's no looking away from its gaping maw, not for more than a quick glance to maintain your peripherals. And that would be fine, just fine, except that, in those quick glances, you can see the cold storms gathering, watching your distraction, building up, making plans, using the unhampered time they've been blessed with and wasting none. And even that glance is almost more than you can spare.

It's a secret. It's a mystery. It's enough to make a guy wonder. Even the most faithful of priests.

Xellos rotates his new shoulder in the joint, casually presses a devout kiss into the flat rock tucked secret in his palm, and sends it skimming across the Sea until the waters close over it one last time.

Xellos kisses a hope and a prayer into the flat rock he's just formed from the sand, as diamond from coal, and sends it skimming across the Sea, watching the golden sunless godlight shimmer on dark waters.

original post

War of the Monster's Fall
He's been lashed--verbally, and with salted rope and with white holy fire--for this one. Which is monstrous unfair, anyway you look at it, ahaha, monstrous. Guard, they said. Not the job of a Priest, really, not even here, where mostly it means seneschal, but they were stretched tight, and he'd by the Eyes guarded! All those beautiful, righteous, golden-shining flying lizards, those overbearing philocidal genocides, trying to ambush his new home at four in the morning... And this after doing a job on the first one whose thoroughness he can admire with his new detachment, but still has no desire to see repeated.

Not in general, and not here. Didn't Zelas-sama save him from what they thought at the time was the despair of an empty world? Had she not opened her home and her power to him, given him new purpose? Had she not even, unusually, merely removed his heart rather than destroying it when she claimed it, and given it into his own keeping to feed on and make a weapon of and stave off the death-of-reason of a mazoku's hunger with, that he might better serve her? Was her home itself not beautiful, alternately tasteful and wild, and well worth the protecting? So, all right, she'd caught him when he wasn't thinking straight, and he wouldn't have chosen this for himself, then, if he'd had the brain to understand the offer. That only meant her skill as a hunter and a trickster was to be respected and emulated and taken, always, as a joyful challenge.

So, he'd guarded. And if the manner of it surprised them all, had taken the General in particular by surprise (to think that the mild little ever-smiling priestlet from the shadows could be so fervent in the defense of a master he'd served for barely a hundred years!), well, that only proved that he wasn't fit to hold his post. Not that it had needed proving. It's all very well to run your troops like the pack they are and count coup when the game is political, and Xellos supposes that General had served well enough in relative peacetime. But all the fronts had been shrinking, infiltrators had been sneaking onto the island--dragons in human form, on his master's fertile soil!--and no one else had seen this ambush coming?

No, no, his predecessor had had to die. For all their sakes. He made it quick, though--nearly as quick a death as he'd given those who meant to perform the massacre rather than be it, who'd meant to paint the ground ether-black and not curl and spasm in the air, bright gold against pure blue, and rain green ichor and brilliant scales as his pointing finger swept along their formations and stopped their hearts. It took almost all the power he'd then been granted, and left him too limp to do more than smile with the exhausted, empty cheer of the thoroughly revenged when the wolves brought him in front of Zelas-sama to be punished. All those deaths, taken so quickly, how much power she could have taken from him if he'd had the patience to trick and trap and torture instead.

But it was worth it, even though by the time he recovered from being disciplined it was clear that the dragons left behind had (of course) completely failed to learn anything from the incident, other than not to try him. Something, that. Incompetent-san was no longer around to threaten Zelas-sama with his incredible lack of strategy and inability to gather information, and his detailing of the evidence behind these and certain other opinions earned him the (snarled) chance to 'prove he could do it better.' Besides, he couldn't have drawn it out, he's sure; he'd been firmly taught the impoliteness of playing with his food. Come to think of it, that's a lesson other people around here could stand to learn, ne...

Xellos would like to invite everyone to meet someone who put up with him (more and less graciously) for a very, very, very long time!

This person was Xel's partner (and alternate ally and political opponent) when he was alive the first time, and in an effort to kick-start their novella again, I've picked him up for Voices In My Head. For the sake of Xel's sanity, he will not be appearing in Margate, either as Cesare's Miquel does or otherwise, but everyone with the exception of his greatgrandson is more than welcome to come chat. No offense meant to Zel's player; her other characters, should they wish to talk to him, wouldn't find Xel dumping them headfirst in the ocean tied to a cruise ship noisily blaring hip-hop for the sake of everyone's sanity.

I would, in fact, love for people to talk to Rezo; he's the narrator of the story and I'm hoping that if his voice gets stimulated enough again, he'll be able to kick aside the giant roadblock that Xel is sullenly being. It's also very possible that the story might at some point get posted on his journal, school and RL and patience permitting.

So, without further ado, Akahoushi [Red Priest] Rezo Greyweir.
total_eclipse

[Also, Xel says that Alex-kun's post as Margate Troublemaker is being thoroughly usurped by BadMakeupJob-San; is he just going to sit still and take that?]

A couple of posts of mine on this journal appear to have lost all their comments. ALL OF THEM. These were some long, pertinent, interesting threads which I am appalled to have lost. Has this happened to anyone else?

Cont'd from here.

Xellos trails along after Ivanova-san, reminding himself sternly that he's dealt with far more impossible people. He's 100% positive that ducking into one of those little photo booths not only could be a lot more fun than that, but is actually meant to be, especially off-season. Really, if his hair weren't tied back, he'd be tempted to rend at it.

He's been fiddling with his old glasses since they left the booth. He's going to need them, or the frames, at least, and they're in perfect condition, but... Come get them when you belong again to the twilight, he'd said, and have the right to wear a yellow cloak. He does, and he does, and it still feels like cheating, the real, soul-sickening kind, to have their weight on his face, having put them there himself. How disgusting, how very nearly treacherously hollow, to be able to see clearly with no one to see for, to be only his own eyes.

He follows Ivanova-san with a tranquil smile.

Some quotes from season 2, by request. Sorta (g). Significant chunks of episodes 28, 32, 39, and 45 are under the cuts.
All quotes transcribed by me from subs translated by Neil Nadelman. Slayers belongs to Software Sculptors and the Kanzaka/Araizumi team.

( Let me introduce myself--I'm no one to be suspicious of... )

Xel: (sipping tea) It would appear that you’re under some strange spell.
Zel: Xellos! You—( When did you show up?! )


Xel: But Miss Martina is a very good person! Once she decided to get her revenge [on you], she hasn’t wavered! She’ll use any means to get it! That’s why she works so hard at her part-time jobs! Such ruthless and single-minded devotion to a goal is quite admirable!
(Later)
Xel: I’m going to go buy us some food. Why don’t you two go on ahead? ♥

Xel: (scolding) Now, this is no good! It’s not very honorable for Mazoku to take hostages, is it? You should have more pride! ♥
( Later... )

( So you interfere yet again, Xellos! )

The Claire Bible, on the Lord of Nightmare
Theirs is an existence too large to comprehend , but I will tell you what can be told. The mother or all darkness. The true Lord of the mazoku. One who longs to regain their original form. A darkness beyond blackest pitch. Deeper than the deepest night. One who shines like gold upon the Sea of Chaos. A void within everything. The source of all chaos. One who has dominion over all terrible dreams. In short, the Lord of Nightmares.

At first glance, it looks like a college dorm room, the walls plastered floor-to-ceiling with enormous posters, except for two spaces for a desk and bookcase, empty but for the blueprints taped to them. A closer looks shows they're not posters, but tapestries. Some, arguably the most beautiful and certainly the maddest, are clearly by the same artist, and the rest are ( something of a mélange. )

The beds have been pushed together since Holmes showed him the room, their blankets each opened along a seam and sewn together with small, neat stitches to fit the doubled frame. At the end of the room the second bed had taken previously, the workbench stands, already in use to finish making itself, finished except for most of the drawers. The few already in place, although no locks are in evidence, don't open.



The note proped on its surface, letters formed painstakingly in purple ink and otherwise looking precisely like an oversized version of printed type, reads:
Ne, Holmes-san, Iago-san--which spark you?

( An album about work )

( Messing around )

( Mentoring (see what I have to deal with??) )
Dumb Guys (Oh, Gourry-san), Mercurialgirl [added 12/13/07]

( I don't know you anymore )

Because backstory helps. A bit. Probably. It could happen!

( Being an account of the creation of the world, as understood by the Shadow Guild and told in their style by the priest who more or less survived them. )