Xelloss found himself cuddling one of Zelas's wolves, which he recognized as the one he had been scratching behind the ears the day before. After he had asked Filia that question, neither had spoken. Aside from the sounds of her cooking and eating, and his sipping his tea, they had sat in complete silence until Filia left, just as quietly, to go open up her shop.

Xelloss had been left in her kitchen, with only the drip of water onto her dishes in the sink for company. He had finished his cup of tea quickly, and then headed back to Wolf Pack Island to report to Zelas.

However, none of this explained to Xelloss exactly why he was now cuddling one of his master's wolves. Beastmaster didn't really disapprove of him being affectionate to her wolves, but he had always felt a bit awkward about it. He could barely remember the last time he had actually cuddled one of them.

The wolf he was cuddling started washing his face, and Xelloss suddenly remembered exactly when he had last cuddled one of the wolves. It had been back when he was a young mazoku, when he had always called Zelas 'Mother' and just before he was sent on his first true mission for Zelas and the only one he had never managed to complete.

There was light, cheerful laughter from behind him. Xelloss looked up to see Zelas, cigarette in hand, laughing at the sight of her priest and one of the most powerful mazoku around getting licked by a wolf. "It's been a long time since I last saw you doing this, Xelloss-chan," she said with a smile as she sat down beside him and started scratching behind the wolf's ears.

"Mother, I thought I'd take the time to report back to you, while Filia-san's busy with her shop," Xelloss started, not quite noticing that he was once again calling her 'Mother'... It just felt right, sitting there with a wolf draped in his lap and her beside him.

Filia sat and sipped tea in her shop, her thoughts only occasionally being interrupted by a customer. She did not feel like she had woken up yet, and the feeling had gotten worse since Xelloss had left, or rather since she had left Xelloss behind. Xelloss had always had the effect of a small rock in her shoe, making her feel more awake and aware than she had any right to be. The tea wasn't anywhere near as good as simply having Xelloss around.

Not having Xelloss around also gave her the chance to feel guilty about what she had done the night before and that morning with him. She could, though with some effort, rationalize away the times when she had, in her sleep, used him for her own pleasure. The real problem was that the two times she had agreed to perform that act with him.

She had already been in dangerous moral ground before, when she had simply been interested in him sexually. Filia had been taught that sexual desire for another of her race or a suitable elf, and in very rare cases a human, was fine as long as it was not acted upon outside of a proper marriage, with the ceremony performed by a priest of the Fire Dragon King. To even feel such desires, however, for any of the Mazoku was a terrible, sinful thing.

The fate and condition of a dragon who acted on such a perverse desire had, apparently, been too horrible for words. Filia's teachers, who took an almost mazoku-like delight in describing in fine detail the punishments both in this life and the afterlife of those who transgressed against all the other rules had always, always said so. That, as the last of her clan, she was probably quite safe from being punished by her clan for such an atrocity didn't quite make up for the dread.

It did not help in the least that, on top of everything else, her dream had started becoming much clearer. She could sort the images into three main groups according to their general time period now, though she didn't know what order each image took within its group.

The first group was that of the far past, just before the Demon King of the North had appeared and the Water Dragon King's demise. The image of the dead Knight, which had been joined by an image of him alive with companions, belonged to that one, as did the one of Xelloss and the blond woman. She knew that these were important, because they were behind her goal being what it was and part of its cause.

The second group belonged to the present, of images of the tower in the desert and of the red-haired and golden-eyed man who ruled over it and the jewel that lay within. Now, she could see that he had servants, creatures of solid shadows shaped almost like humans, dogs, horses, and mixes of the three. The place called to her, and the voice was clear that she was to go there and perform some kind of task.

The last set of images were new and of the future, and while they were not very clear at all, their message was quite clear. All of them were about destruction, and while Filia could not make out the specifics, such as why the tower and its treasure were important or what she was to do, she knew that failure carried a horrible price.

On the other hand, she might get away with having made love to Xelloss if the world was destroyed, but she doubted that would be a good reason not to save it.

"...and then I came back here, to report to you, Mother," Xelloss finished. While he had told his story, Zelas had finished several cigarettes and the wolf had fallen asleep in his lap, head hanging into Zelas's lap.

It was, really, almost comfortable.

The Beastmaster took a long, thoughtful drag on her cigarette before speaking. "So you can taste in her emotions love -- romantic love -- directed at you, but it doesn't show in her behavior and she did not say anything about it when you asked her about her feelings?"

"Yes, Mother," he replied, wondering why she was asking that.

"You might consider trying to get her to admit to those feelings." She paused. "Xelloss-chan, do not even consider trying cooking anything for her."

Xelloss sweatdropped. Zelas-sama still remembers that? "Yes, Mother. I won't."

"Good."