A Face to Meet the Faces that You Meet

"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."
-- T. S. Elliot, "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"

It was their first night back as a group, and Zelgadis and Amelia had drawn first watch. They both sat, backs to the campfire, and to one another, eyes staring out into the night, listening to the other three in various states of slumber.

Amelia was being quiet. Normally it was all Zelgadis could do to remind her that watch meant Ôbe able to hear if someone approaches'. He stared off into the night for a while, trying to figure out how to ask her the reason for her silence.

It wasn't as if she hadn't been talkative before. While they were eating dinner, she had told a rousing tale of her adventures with the fishmen, and the people at the Village of Justice, with only the occasional comment from Gourry. There had been hand gestures and everything, until Lina nearly was hit by a drumstick, and told off Amelia for being careless with good food.

But, now that they were alone, she was quiet and subdued. It could be due to her crush, he thought. Even if he might not show it, he had noticed the way the princess acted around him. And really, though he might not admit this to anyone, he found it flattering.

"Copper for your thoughts?" he finally spoke up. He had intended to speak softly, but the sound carried in the quiet night.

"What?" He could hear Amelia jump. "Oh, Mister Zelgadis, it's you."

"Know any other chimeras on watch with you?" Zelgadis smiled faintly, knowing she wouldn't see it. "Are you going to tell me what you are thinking or not?"

"Well... it was about the marriage temple, where Mister Jillas tricked us," Amelia began.

So that's what was bothering her. Zelgadis had thought the entire thing was silly even before it was revealed as a trap. He and Lina had joked about it halfway up the mountain. Amelia, however, had been rather upset the whole way up, and relieved when the trap was sprung. "What about it?"

"Well, you were so casual when you were with Miss Lina..."

"I was joking," he said brusquely. "It was just another silly thing we've had to do because some locals have some weird tradition. And it wasn't like it was that hard Ð I didn't even have to kiss her. Just because some old priestess who was really a pyromaniac foxman in disguise said we were married didn't make it so." He heard Lina sneeze in her sleep.

"It... well, sometimes appearances are important. Not like how we look or anything, because we can't help how we're born or things like that," Amelia added that last sentence in a hurry. "But, how we act in public -- that kind of appearance. If I'm out, walking arm in arm with a man, people are going to assume that we're courting, whether I want them to or not. So, if I am going to go arm in arm with someone, I want it to be someone I like. Not that I don't like Mister Gourry, but he's more like a big brother, not a boyfriend. Besides, he's with Miss Lina."

Well, that certainly made up for the silence. "You shouldn't let something like that bother you," Zelgadis said.

"But you do it, too, Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia said.

"I do not. I don't care what people think I'm doing," Zelgadis protested, crossing his arms.

"Then why do you keep acting all tough and bad-"

"Amelia, language!"

"-guy-like," Amelia finished, as if that was what she meant to say. Maybe it was Ð sometimes you couldn't tell with her. "That was how you once were, but now you aren't like that. So why do you act like you still are, except to keep up appearances?"

Zelgadis was about to protest, that he really was a cold-hearted sorcerer-swordsman, but he could already see Amelia cheerfully and politely tearing into that belief, taking it apart like Lina took apart a meal (but with better manners). "If I acted nice and friendly, people would just think I was suspicious."

"And being Mister Antisocial isn't suspicious?" He could hear the smile in her voice. "I think you do it because it's safe and comfortable. You don't have to deal with challenging people's ideas about you that way Ð you show them what they want to see. Mister Zelgadis, I'll make you a deal. I'll try to not care about how it looks to strangers when I'm around you and Miss Lina and Mister Gourry, as long as I know what's going on, if you promise to try being nice to the people we meet."

Zelgadis stared off into the darkness. "I'll think about it."