"Lina? I was... hoping we could talk." Zelgadis pulled the red headed sorceress aside, his expression far more grim than usual.
"Sure, Zel." She shrugged. "About what?"
"You." He murmured. "I need to know..." He paused, unable to finish whatever statement was on his stone lips.
"Know what?" She prompted him, growing frustrated when he mumbled something incoherently and fiddled with his slender fingers.
"Do you love Gourry?" The seriousness in his voice was all the stopped her from laughing out loud.
"Love him?" She repeated quietly, thinking over the idea. "Yes, and no. I love Gourry as one loved a dear friend, like you, Zel."
"Like me." His tone did not change with his next words. "Figures. You love Xellos, don't you?"
"What?" She gasped. "I - "
"Don't." He shook his head. "Let me finish. You've said that you don't love Gourry, at least not like that. And you've let Xellos do things, little things, that no one else could get away with. Lina... please don't lie to me. Do you love Xellos?"
"What do you want me to say, Zel? That I do love Xellos?" She snapped. "Why do you have to know these things? What business of it is yours?"
"I... just want to know the truth." The chimera bowed his head, the only other movement being that of his slow breathing. "Lina, I need to know why... why our paths have crossed. Do..."
"I don't know, Zelgadis." She shook her head. "I don't know if I love Xellos. But I do know that Gourry is just a close friend."
"Like me?" He asked, looking up as she nodded. "Thank you."
"For what?" She blinked, preparing to leave. Grief flashed across his face, then vanished.
"For answering." His half lidded expression gave him an air of exhaustion as he leaned back in his chair. "For letting me know why destiny threw us all together."
"Why did it, Zelgadis?" She questioned flatly.
"Everyone else admires, or quite possibly loves you." He snorted, standing and brushing past her. There was a gentle tug on her hair, but she passed it off to be a strand caught between them. "That is why your destinies have not separated from each other."
"What about you?" She inquired. "Why is your destiny woven in with ours?"
"It isn't, anymore." He paused at the door, placing his hand on the frame for balance.
"Zelgadis?" Lina approached him, and he jerked away calmly.
"This is where our destinies unwind." He spoke softly, so low that only she could hear. As the words hung in her ears, she saw a crimson stream flow from his wrists.
"Zelgadis!?" She cried out, and the others raced up to him. "How did you - " He held up his bloody hand for silence, paying no heed to the startled screams of the others. Suspended between his first two fingers was a single strand of fiery red hair that gleamed of enchantment.
"From unending pain I take," the volume of his voice was almost non-existent, and Lina almost missed the rhyme, "a thread my earthly ties to break." In an instant, the chimera had run off.
"Zel!" Lina yelled, darting out the door as Xellos phased in.
"Oof!" Xellos was promptly trampled as the red head tore after the shaman. "Lina, where are you going?" He shouted after her.
She found it rather easy to track him by the trail of blood he left. He was laying on his back, eyes closed, and ivory clothing covered with his life's nectar. His breathing was shallow, and it was obvious he didn't have long. His mad dash had only served to increase his pulse, and the amount of blood he lost.
"Zelgadis." Her voice trembled drew close. His eyes cracked open, the glacial gaze unfocused.
"You weren't... supposed... to see me... like this." He groaned, turning his face away.
"Why, Zel?" She begged, falling to her knees beside him. "You're my best friend... Let me heal you - " Even though it probably cost him another minute of life, he grabbed her hands.
"No." He choked out. "This is... my choice." His blood made his grasp slippery, but Lina held on tightly.
"Why?" She pleaded.
"Couldn't be... just a... dear... friend." Cutting short the last moments of his life, he leaned up and kissed her cheek.
And then he died, the thread of broken destiny still in hand.