Thank you, WD, Kioku, and Ludacris for reviewing...
     To WD: I don't know, actually, exactly how it would feel for 
Xelloss if it was significantly more love than lust or any other 
negative or neutral emotions.  It's rather like lemon juice: a little 
tastes good, but a lot is hard to stomach for most people.
     There are wolves in my area of the country, or rather they've been 
released into the wild.  I may have seen one, actually, in the wild.  It
 looked miserable, the poor thing.  (I love wolves.  Normally, they're 
lovely creatures.)
     To Kioku: Well, all these chapters are only as long as they want to
 be, and no longer.  You're welcome, I guess.
     To Ludacris: Thank you _very_ much for the complement.  I work 
rather hard to keep the citrus from getting smutty; smuttiness would not
 suit this story in the least besides not being that erotic.  (My goal 
is to have the citrus in this story as erotic as possible, while staying
 within FF.net's rules and in the bounds of good taste.)

     Slayers is the creation of Hajime Kanzanka and Rui Araizumi.  I 
don't own it; they and a lot of other people do.  I'm not making any 
profit off of this story.
     All lyrics used in this story are from the songs of This Mortal 
Coil.  The original version of _With Tomorrow_ was performed by Gene 
Clark, and is copyright Clark / Davis & Rondor Music (Londod) Ltd.

+===+ +===+ +===+   +===+ +===+ +===+   +===+ +===+ +===+

Mr Somewhere
+=== A Slayers Fanfic by Ryo Hoshi
05 +===+ Ruddy and Wretched

                 It was more like a dream than reality
     I must have thought it was a dream while you were here with me
           When you were near I didn't think you would leave
             When you were gone it was too much to believe
                                 -- With Tomorrow

     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 
_dis_approve 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*_."

+===+ +===+ +===+   +===+ +===+ +===+   +===+ +===+ +===+

     I do not think all the clans of golden dragons are alike in 
philosophy, and given that the ones seen in NEXT and TRY look physically
 different I tend to treat them as different races of the same species.
     At least here, the clan that follows the Fire Dragon King are being
 treated as being very _formal_.  They're not exactly religious to me, 
since I doubt that the Fire Dragon King himself would have approved of 
what examples of their behavior were given in TRY.  They don't actually 
worship their god as much as they worship the forms and the ceremonies.
     Basically, they don't actually care if you _really *believe*_ or 
not as long as you perform all the ceremonies and outwardly observe the 
taboos.  It's a very hollow thing: they don't actually care if you 
choose to act in the spirit of their professed beliefs.  If you, like 
the Ancients, do not follow the proper forms they will persecute you.
     (Side note: I am of the belief that only the followers of the Fire 
Dragon King were actively involved in the slaughter of the Ancients.  I 
also suspect, from the flashback in NEXT, that only the followers of the
 Water Dragon King actually _fought_ in that war, but that's for another
 time.)
     Anyway, they place the most emphasis on having the proper person 
preside over any ceremony.  If the priest happened to recite, say, the 
lyrics of baudy ballads with the utter and complete conviction that they
 _were_ the words of the ceremony, or was a bit on the dead side...  
Well, if he was high-ranking priest such minor problems would be 
overlooked.

     Comments, questions, and dark chocolate are welcomed and found very
 encouraging.