Author's Notes: Thank you all for the wonderful reviews first of all!! Secondly, I'm sorry about the whole 'rape' thing. I figured it would take a lot of anger and abuse to pull powers from a past life into the body of Lina Inverse the reincarnated ^^; I still don't know what to do for the coupling…. I probably should stop playing around with the Val/Zel idea and go with the Lina/Val. After all, the fic is kinda set up that way ^^; Or I could make it a Xellos/Lina… Ok.. for those who asked for it…. Here's Zel and Val! ^^;V

Of Black Chains and Scarlet Letters

Link 3

Valterria broke off into a run. He didn't know how to deal with the fact he could destroy an entire building just by getting angry. Filia wailed in the background for him to come back so they could talk about it. 'Like hell I wanna talk about this!' After an hour of mindless running, Valterria realized where he had ended up….

Zelgadiss was running after his friend after a few moment of realizing where he must be going. 'I don't even think he remembers….' It took Zelgadiss a lot longer to end up at the large rock quarry. The two boys had met there when they both were about six years old.

"Hey! What are you doing here at my secret place?" A small child yelled at the other boy sitting on his rock.

The other boy just growled at him and kicked a stone down into the quarry. "I found this place first! Leave!"

The boy with teal hair growled again and stood up. "I really don't care if you 'found this place first' I'm staying here for a little while and you will just have to deal with it." His voice was deeper than a normal boy's was and his eyes were yellow.

After a few silent moments, one of the boys decided to be less hostile. "What's your name? I'm Zelgadiss Graywords. My family used to own this quarry," he said as he started to climb over to the other boy.

The other boy just looked up at him with sad eyes. The depth of the sadness he saw in the golden eyed boy shocked Zelgadiss. Missing his next step, he screamed and started to fall. Another scream was heard as black feathered wings exploded from the other boy's back. He flew down and caught Zelgadiss before turning back up and bringing them a small distance away from the quarry. "My name is Valterria," the boy with wings sad before he passed out.

Zelgadiss was sure that Valterria didn't remember sprouting wings and catching him. When Val had awakened, Zelgadiss tried to ask him about his wings. Valterria had asked what his name was and said he didn't even remember coming to the quarry. They were both kids at the time and so it didn't really matter to them. They had been friends ever since.

But this was different from that time. Val had done something destructive without thinking. Zelgadiss always remembered that he must had had some special powers from that day. 'What did his mother mean when she said they could just move again?' Just as he thought that, Valterria came into sight. He was on the same rock from all those years ago. "Terry?" Zelgadiss said with concern as he started to climb over to Val. There was no response from him as Zel made it to the rock. He noticed there was something different about Valterria. His eyes were narrower and he had a large horn on his forehead.

"Terry, why do you have a small horn on your head?" The young Zel asked his friend.

"What do you mean?" Val said and ran a hand over his head.

The horn was gone!

Zelgadiss blinked as the world changed back to normal. He always had flashbacks and dreams during the day of memories or people he didn't even know. For fear of even more rejection, he never told anyone. Valterria had a horn of his head again though. It was really large this time and he had some orange marks on his arms and face. Two on each side and the were parallel to each other. "..Terr-"

Valterria snapped his head forward and glared at Zelgadiss. "Valgaav. Call me Valgaav," he snapped at his friend. The aura around Valterria shifted and became very dark and serious. It was if his whole nature had shifted. The name was giving and strange flashback as Zel backed away for a step or two.

Zelgadiss passed out and Valgaav caught him. 'I'm sorry… I just found out myself… I can't be like I used to…. But.. who is Valgaav… who am I…?'

"I will kill you Lina Inverse!"