It was a dusk so like many dusks before, softly waning sunlight transforming the air into a maelstrom of mist and night-thriving insect life that curled and twisted outward from the great trees as though fearfully attempting to eschew them all at once, so dark and forbidding their shadows seemed. The first brilliant hues of the sun's exodus had faded to a rosy purple shade, the shade of violets in the moonlight, scattered by the leaves until their once coherent beams were ramified into a pattern that was beginning to congeal to a cool blue as the Earth's turning on her axis stole the very substance of the light away. The wind twined lithely around tree branches heavy with all the life of spring blooms, over the thick moss on the north side of the towering oaks that had stood since the beginning of time, and arrowed through the hearts of those that marred its perfect sweep along the quiet grove of endless peace.

They were without motion, thought or utterance for a time that seemed to stretch beyond eternity. Neither felt the need for words just yet. Words were empty, useless, without meaning, for what was between them transcended what mere speech alone could convey. It was a pain so intense, so raw, that the woods hushed in recognition of the wrenching apart of two souls long in denial, long silent, and long joined in bonds of friendship once thought as tenable as the heart of the Earth herself but now revealed to be as weak as a ghosting feather of sweet scent, lost on the breeze of change.

The dun-colored cloak billowed in the breeze, spreading out behind the chimera like the sand of a desert dune, harsh and unforgiving by day and by night. Another cape blew the opposite way, molding its red and black lining to its wearer's thighs as though it had been painted on by an unskilled brush. The hindbrains of both who stood there were screaming to leave, prevent what was imminent and inevitable, but the two once-friends knew they could not.

"So," said Zelgadis, the first to break the cold silence they shared, "fate has placed us again on opposite sides. This time I fear I cannot join you. My cause is my life. I follow my orders." His dark eyes grew sadder than his foe had ever seen them. "And so I must kill you, Lina."

Lina looked him in those sorrowful eyes and asked simply, "Why?"

And he answered, "It's not something I can explain."

"But it led you away from the path you tried to follow for so long, the path—" she choked “—the path Amelia wanted you to follow. You betrayed her, gave her over to your so-called cause without a word. You killed her. She loved you," Lina added softly.

"Shut up!" he snarled. "Don't talk to me about Amelia! She hung off me like a leech, trying to get me to join her! Is that love, Lina? Is it?"

The grief in her eyes grew to match his own. "If you don't know what true love is, I can't help you understand it, Zelgadis." She forced reluctant lips to call him by his full name; she was no longer his friend, though her heart ached to know it.

There was a moment of silence. No more words were necessary.

Zelgadis led with an explosive spell Lina had never seen, without the fanfare or flourish he had used to add to all his magics. Lina barely deflected it, shocked at its strength, never having realized the full scope of the taciturn chimera's power. She cast a Flare Arrow, a pitifully banal spell that was all she could dredge up in an instant, which he countered disdainfully and without a pause sent back her way. They tossed spells at each other like the petals tossing on the wind, none hitting home, none doing more than draining a tiny bit more energy from the one who cast it. It was an even match, as neither gave nor gained an inch.

Abandoning his magic abruptly, Zelgadis drew his sword. The edge glinted even in the swelling, pulsating darkness, and sent icy fear through Lina. While she knew she would eventually win a sorcerous bout, there was no question that she could never best him with a blade. He circled in, weaving a pattern around her that dizzied her senses and drove her to distraction as she tried to follow its confounding intricacies and failed.

He attacked without warning, breaking his own deadly dance in a flurry of speed that caught her off-guard and with her defenses open. A gash opened up on her abdomen, only natural dexterity saving her from being cleaved in two at the waist. She hissed as pain flared and splashed in the slash and pulled her little knife, knowing it was inadequate to the point of being laughable but needing a weapon to counter his.

It seemed a timeless struggle, never-ending, leaving both unsure of even where it had begun. One would toss a spell or a stroke, the other would turn it aside or suffer the consequence that came with failure to do so. The encounter most closely resembled a dance as both combatants wove and spun and wove again, the world narrowed to only each other.

A surprise hit took Lina from behind, on the back of her thinly clad knee, slicing tendons and biting into bone. Blood gushed from the wound and she toppled gracelessly to her face. Exquisite agony ripped the sorceress's being, crippling her mind as surely as the cut had crippled her body. Zelgadis stood over her, blade at the ready, eyes hard as flint and half as human; they were the only things visible to her as the sun's last rays temporized into oblivion and the darkness swallowed the world as its sup. Lina knew she had lost, but she didn't know why. She hadn't used her full strength; he had. Every time she had tried to cast a fatal spell, something in her mind or heart had stalled her and prevented her from speaking it.

"Go ahead, Zelgadis." Even to her, her voice sounded rough and tired, like the distant cry of the raven. "You win. Kill me." She closed her soulful eyes and waited.

No sound broke through save the rustle of leaves above, the blossoms drifting from the heavens to settle on the still figures below. Lina wanted to crack open one orb but feared he was waiting for just that. She idly wondered how so non-germane a thing as blossoms could hold her attention. The not-knowing-when was maddening. She fairly shrieked within her mind for him to just do it.

She was not afraid of death, not after staring Her in the face so many times, but at the hands of one she had considered a friend—one she had hoped was more than a friend . . .

Suddenly she knew what had stayed her hand.

The shing of metal brought her eyes open with a snap. The chimera slid his sword the rest of the way into its sheath and turned away. His face mirrored her own for the grief it held. "I—can't." He spoke more to himself than to her.

She kept silent, sensing the internal war he fought and hoping he would come back to himself, but as his face went hard again she silently prepared herself for a spell. "I will kill you, Lina!" he told her again. She made no sound.

As the sword left its holder a second time, she enunciated the words in her mind, their potency only increased by the fact that they were left unvoiced. Her head and his blade rose in the same instant, and she held her hands out before her.

"I love you," she said softly.

His eyes went wide.

"Dragon Slave," she whispered.

The world exploded.