Author's Notes: I'm a little confused as to the lack of feedback on my last update. I want everybody to know that I feed off those reviews. If you don't review, I'm not likely to update(lol even though this is, like, five days after my reviewless chapter). Let me know what you think! If you like an aspect of a chapter, I'll try and reincorporate it later in the story! Anyway, here's a nice angsty chapter. lulguylove 3

Zelos didn't stop flying until they reached a building in the middle of over-grown woods. Fang frowned in confusion.

"What are we doing here? This place is completely flooded with…" he searched his head for the words.

"Flourishing flowers and funky fun?" Zelos waggled his eyebrows at Fang with a grin.

"…"

"That's the point," the smile dropped as Zelos began his intellectual reciting. "The abbey here is abandoned and the woods around here cover it quite well from anybody who might be looking for us. We need to blend in if we're going to be training," he walked over to the building and he tried the handle with no success in opening the abbey.

"Damn it," he scowled.

"Just break in," Fang suggested.

Zelos looked at him before looking back at the abbey. The redhead with what, Fang had always thought to be, low morals seemed torn inside.

"Alright," he finally said before he spun and delivered a nice swift kick to the wood of the door.

It collapsed and thunked to the dusty ground inside the abbey.

"We'll be sleeping in there, but you should get used to the open air," Zelos told him.

"What does that even mean?" Fang asked.

"It means, DON'T CHILL IN THE ABBEY," he turned swift and poked Fang's nose, "It's gross and stale in there anyway," the redhead scowled, letting his arms fall to his side.

"… Are we going to start the training now or later?" Fang asked dryly.

"I guess now if you really want to," Zelos shrugged.

"I don't really want to do anything," Fang confessed, leaning against the abbey's walls as he stared up at the sky. He let his wings stretch out nice and wide. Zelos's icy eyes watched him for a moment before he nodded.

"That's alright. You can rest."

That was unlike Zelos to give in so quickly to something Fang wanted to do.

"Zelos, you alright?" Fang inquired.

"Hmm?" Zelos looked from whatever he'd been looking at to gaze at Fang in surprise.

"I asked if you were alright. You seem a little preoccupied," Fang evaluated.

The redhead smiled, warm and nostalgic, "Yeah, I'm alright. I'm just thinking about the person who lived in this abbey a long time ago."

"Another long lost friend?" the teenager pressed tentatively.

"My sister."

"Oh," taken aback by that, Fang looked back up at the sky before he took a seat in the grass.

"She died from her disease before any of this started happening… I'm sort of glad, y'know?" he took a seat down where he had been standing in the doorway of the abbey. He smiled nostalgically, "I'm glad she didn't have to get hurt in the war or anything."

Zelos picked up a piece of grass in his fingers, "She was my half-sister. Her mother… Her mother was nuts," he began to tell Fang. Zelos had no idea why he felt like talking about it but for some reason it felt safe enough to talk. To let Fang in on what was running around in his head. "She killed my mother. It was an attempt to murder me but her aim was shit. She hit my mother and killed her. Seles's mother was executed and Seles was sent here," he pointed over his shoulder into the doorway as he looked from the grass back to Fang, "to this abbey."

He let his hand fall back to his lap where he started picking at the blade of grass, "After the joining of the worlds and the elimination of the title of Chosen One, she came to live with me. It lasted a little while, but…" his hair fell into his face as his head fell further down between his hunched shoulders.

Fang decided not to press and to let Zelos continue in his own time.

Zelos finally lifted his head and he gasped softly. Fang had been examining a tree across the small opening space of the abbey so he had to turn his eyes back to Zelos to see what had got him off guard. He figured Zelos had seen an enemy of some sort.

Zelos had tears falling down his cheeks and a hand lifted to cover his mouth in a strangely child-like manner.

"But she died. She died-d," Zelos cried, shaking his head. "It took so long-g, Fang," he was saying, "She suffered s-so much. In the end, sh-she was begging-ing me," the older man took a sharp breath as his chest hitched up slightly before collapsing into more shudders.

Fang's face had softened considerably now.

"She b-begged me to kill her," he croaked out. "Over and over. I-I… I-I'm not new to watching people d-die, Fan-Fang," Zelos gasped again, wiping at his eyes frantically as though that might make the tears stop. "But-t… But that's not watching-ing… not-t… not-not watchi-ing…" He leaned forward again as he cried. His shoulders quaked as his hair shielded his face from the teenager.

Fang didn't know what to do. He'd never seen Zelos so upset, except for, perhaps, the initial running away from King Irving.

He got up from his spot and walked over to Zelos slowly, making sure to make his steps known so the older man knew he was coming near and wouldn't attack.

Slowly, he knelt down and put a hand on Zelos's shoulder, giving it a soft rub to soothe him. "I couldn't-t do it. I cou-couldn't kill her," Zelos turned away from Fang slightly as he trembled.

"I don't know anybody who would blame you for not doing that," Fang said, soft.

The chosen of Tethe'alla whimpered and let his body be controlled completely by the quaking sobs. Fang rubbed his back kindly, staring up at the sky now. He blinked back a few tears that had budded and took a deep breath.

After about ten minutes of crying and whimpering, Zelos started to get his composure back.

"I'm going to go for a walk," the swordsman mumbled, standing up and wiping at his eyes.

"Crying is nothing to be ashamed of, Zelos," Fang gently informed the mess of a man in front of him.

"I should have been done crying ages ago. I'm too old for that shit," Zelos snapped at Fang, his voice cracking towards the end.

"… Then go take a walk. I'll be here when you get back," Fang said in an annoyingly patient tone that made Zelos want to put him through the wall.

"You better be," Zelos glared at him, "I need you to help me kill the dragon."

Then the red-head skulked off into the woods to be alone.

Fang sighed and looked down at his sword. He drew it from it's sheath and ran his finger slow and careful along the shimmering blade.

Never before had he had the opportunity to really wield and understand a weapon while he had been with the flock. They fought hand-to-hand because they had to. To bring weapons into the whole thing? Well, they were more likely to hit each other's wings than to actually nail a bad guy.

One time, he'd gotten his hands on some guns. That had been completely violent and vicious. Something that he appreciated having notched in his belt as an experience, but not something he'd go back to willing. A gunslinger with wings? That was a little too fantastical in his book.

He stood up from where he'd been knelt down before and he brought the sword out into a fighting position. Something he had seen in pictures and movies before. It felt strange, so he was sure he was doing it wrong.

Slowly, he let his hands guide the blade down to slice through the air. The breeze whooshed helplessly under the metal and Fang's eyes narrowed. It'd be so easy to hurt somebody with a weapon of this caliber. He wondered how long it took to master something like a sword. He wondered how long Zelos had held a dagger in his hands and he wondered if he ever used the blade to hurt somebody he now regretted hurting.

Remorse didn't seem to be a forte of the redhead's personality, Fang would have said an hour ago. But after that display of an emotional breakdown? Well, he'd have to recall that opinion. Zelos had had a soft-spot for his baby sister.

He let the blade sink into the dirt and he leaned against the hilt while looking over the outside of the abbey. It probably hurt like hell to come to this place for Zelos, he realized. It had to remind him completely of his sister.

Fang was glad he didn't have anybody to worry about anymore like a family. It simplified matters a lot.

He knew that, when he had fallen down the hole and ended up in Wonderland(he had begun calling this world that, since they were so much alike anyway), he had left nobody behind.

Sure, if the flock knew they would have been upset. The glorious part of it was, though, that they didn't know. They had no idea where he had gone so they couldn't worry about him slaying a dragon in Wonderland because, for all they knew, he could have been in Egypt uncovering mummies.

A little part of him was sore about that though. He was like Zelos in that manner; that they both were almost completely alone.

… Maybe he didn't have to hurry so much to go home. After all, Fang hadn't had anybody to talk to before Zelos in at least four months.

And, even though Zelos was kind of an asshole? Fang liked him well enough.

Now, he wasn't exactly positive whether those feelings of friendship were being returned but he figured that, since Zelos had the decency to help him out so much, the Tethe'allan didn't completely hate him.

… At least, he hoped he didn't.