All Slayers Characters are copy rights of their respectable owners, Lin and Rou are mine though.

Chapter 8:
Filia sighed as she saw the Valtierra, now as a full grown human male help Jiras and Grabos arrange the vases and pots around her store. It had only been a year and a half since the Dark Star incident, but dragon children grew so fast that in their first year they usually became fairly well grown. After that though Dragons won't show much of physical aging until they are in their later years. Just for convenience Valtierra preferred to take the form of a human male.
Filia felt as if Valtierra was her own son and seeing him help around the store willingly made her feel as if she were going to burst with pride. Filia wished that this happy life would continue on forever.
Just as Filia had started to go off into a state somewhat like a trance Val called to her.
"Filia!! Come here!! A guy fainted at the front of our store!!"
"WHAT!! I’m coming!!" Filia picked up the hem of her skirt and ran towards to where Val was. He had the man slumped over his shoulder. "Do you know what’s wrong with him?" Filia asked Val as she helped him bring the man inside.
"Hunger" He replied, than added a little unsure, "…I think."
"He must be treated immediately. Jiras, Grabos!! Please make something to eat, FAST!!!!" The fox-man and the lizard-man scrambled from the store into the kitchen to grant Filia’s ordered request, they both knew first hand WHAT would happen to them if they dared to disobey Filia. If she got mad she was as bad as the infamous Lina Inverse.
"Val, please lay him down on the couch." Filia requested, her mind panicking. She was a priestess and to preserve and save life was her duty, but more beyond that what would other people think if someone died in her house, she might lose valuable customers.
Jiras brought in some food to eat and a cup filled with water. Filia took the cup and pressed the tip of it against the man’s mouth, sliding the liquid down his throat. Filia hoped she was treating him correctly, she never had the training in treating a man who fainted out of hunger. Please Recover!!! Filia prayed as took the bread and cut it up into small pieces and let it slide down his throat with the water.

For that whole day Filia cared for the man non-stop so Val ended up taking over the duty of the store. He started to wonder how Filia had managed to memorize the price of every single item in the store. There were at least five hundred vases, three hundred maces and a lot of other miscellaneous things.
He noticed that there was no record of the prices of the items they sold so Val quickly reached the conclusion Filia had memorized all the prices. Val was impressed at her memory. As he marveled over that fact, he felt someone tugging on his shirt.
Assuming it was Jiras or Grabos asking him to help them he turned around thinking what was the problem now. He was surprised to see a girl with black hair and purple eyes holding one of the vases and smiling up at him.
"Excuse me but…how much is this?" She asked as she showed him the vase she picked out. It was a black vase with pictures of flowers carved into it with gold. Val took it and looked at it, attempting to calculate its worth in his head. It wasn’t chipped or broken in any place, it seemed fairly strong, the design was unique and beautiful…
"It’s fairly expensive." He muttered.
"I guessed that. I wanted to know the exact value of it." She replied.
"Um…I think it would be….seven hundred gold coins…roughly." Val replied.
"Seven hundred…" The girl muttered as she took the vase back and studied it. "I guess it is the correct price…" She sighed and handed him the vase and reached for her bag. She took out a fairly good sized sack and handed it to him. "There should be seven hundred gold coins in this sack."
Val took the sack and went to the money weigher, one of Jiras’s invention’s. It was a good idea, Val thought, since with the money weigher he didn’t have to count seven hundred gold coins. He checked it and nodded when it was the correct amount.

Lin watched as the attendant of the store wrapped her purchase and puts it in a bag. She had heard from her master that Lina’s eighteenth birthday was coming up and Lin decided to get her something.
She remembered hearing from one of the travelers in the inn she worked at while she posed as a human that this store had a great selection of antique vases and the owner had a keen eye for them. She heard that the owner was a woman so this man in front of her couldn’t be the owner.
He was smart though. Lin noticed it when he calculated the worth of the vase. He probably hadn’t memorized all the prices of the vases but that was understandable since there were at least three hundred selections only with vases. He was quick on using that thing that looked like it weighed things and Lin was quick enough to notice that THAT would need some level of intelligence to work with.
He was also fairly cute. Lin decided, though personally not her type. His aqua-marine colored hair was slightly longer than his shoulders and it suited him well. His gold eyes were intense when he was concentrating on the vase but now they were calm.
Suddenly a thought occured in Lin’s head. She had heard the people in the town amazed by how the man who lived here tolerated the owner’s temper tantrums. Lin’s mind was spinning now, intelligent, good looking, tolerates temper tantrums, perfect for Zelas!!
"Excuse me but what is your name?" She asked as he handed her the bag with the vase in it.
"Ah~…Valtierra Copt." He replied somewhat surprised by her sudden question.
Lin was going to take Lina’s advice of being straight forward. "Are you currently going out with anyone?"
This surprised Valtierra even more. He wasn’t used to people he just met asking him personal questions. "Um…why do you want to know?"
"Curiosity." Lin replied. "Oh, and my name is Lin. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Um…sure.." He replied as he carefully took her hand that she offered. "And uh…no, I am not going out with anyone.."
"Do you wish to go out with anyone?!" Val shook his head at her question and Lin’s smile widened.
Perfect. Lin thought. Now how to get him to Wolf Pact Island without getting Zelas mad at her…

Rou felt more alive than he had in the past few days. He felt his stomach getting some food and that was a pleasant feeling. He willed his eyes to open and was surprised by what he saw. He saw a beautiful woman with magnificent blue eyes tending him.
"You are awake!!" She breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the floor next to the couch he was laying on. "I was worried that you’ll die."
"Where am I?" He weakly asked as he slowly sat up.
"Please lay down, your body hasn’t recovered yet." She advised him and pushed him down. Rou was surprised at the strength she held, and she didn’t seem to have that much form what he could tell.
"You are in my house. You fell at the step of my store out of hunger, do you not remember?" She asked and Rou shook his head. The last thing he remembered was looking in a store that sold maces.
"Well, at least you are feeling better, aren’t you?"
"Yes, I am. Thank you for your kindness." He replied. The woman smiled.
"My name is Filia Ul Copt, I own an antique store."
"I’m Rou. Rou Tiut or the Elves." Rou replied and laid his head against the pillow but suddenly shot up.
"Ro-Rou-san?" Filia asked surprised at the sudden intense glare in his eyes. Rou wasn’t paying attention to her though.
He felt it, the presence of another elf, the same one that he was in his past life. His sixth sense sensed the presence. There was one thing he didn’t understand though, all of his kind in his past life had been killed, he saw them all die….all but one.
IMPOSSIBLE!!! It had been five hundred years since that time. She was most likely dead now. His infant sister, she was the only one he hadn’t seen die. It was still impossible though, even an elf infant can’t survive on its own.
"Miss Filia, does an elf live in this house?" He asked with in an intense voice.
"No. There is a fox-human, a lizard-man, and two dragons." Filia replied truthfully. "There shouldn’t be any elves around here, I haven’t seen their tribes."
"I felt it though…" Rou muttered. "I felt the presence of another elf!" He ran past Filia and followed his sense until he got to the store. When he reached the door that connected the house and the store and looked beyond it he stopped dead in his tracks.
A girl stood there, a girl with long black hair with purple high lights, a girl with purple eyes. Color drained from Rou’s face. That face, that hair color, those eyes. They were all of his… "Mother…" in his past life.

Lin and Val turned around and found a man with long brown hair and gold eyes. He stared intensely at Lin and muttered the word mother. Lin eyes studied the man and she felt a sudden rush of familiarity towards him. Although that was impossible, she had never seen this man in her life.
"Who…are you?" Lin asked as she carefully walked towards him. Subconsciously she knew that she knew this man. She wasn’t sure where though but she felt that it was right for her to be with him, he gave her a sense of security, the feeling very similar to the one she had when she was with Xelloss.
"Rou Tiut of the elves. Who are you?" He asked as he studied her. Now that he had a better look he could tell that she didn’t represent his mother in his past life to every detail. She seemed a lot younger in age, her eyes were rounder, and her hair color was darker. Yet she resembled her very well.
"Lin." Lin replied. "One who serves Ju-shinkan Xelloss-sama." The moment Lin said that a scream echoed through the store and next thing Lin knew she was dodging a mace.
"YOU SERVE XELLOSS!!!!" A woman with blond hair demanded. "GET OUT OF MY STORE!!!!" She started waving her mace uncontrollably. Lin grabbed the bag that had her present for Lina so that it won’t get crashed by her mace.
"Filia, Filia calm down!!" Val screamed as he attempted to pin down the enraged dragon. Val wasn’t sure but something Lin said had angered Filia to the extreme. It was up to him to keep her from transforming into her dragon form and Val didn’t think they’d be able to pay the bills.
"Let go Val!! I must vanquish this abdomen that serves that raw garbage!!" Filia screamed.
Lin grabbed her ribbon by her right hand and undid it, allowing her hair to fall loose. She slashed it towards Filia, binding her hands. "WHAT DID YOU CALL XELLOSS-SAMA!!!!???" Lin demanded. She had never let any one get away with insulting her master, and she wasn’t going to start now.
The two glared at each other. Val sighed and went about putting the vases in place. Rou just stared at the two not comprehending what was going on when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"No pay attention. Ane-san mad wise not go near." A fox advised him and then went back to behind the door. Rou sighed and decided to follow the fox-man’s advice. He walked over to the man that was talking to Lin before Filia and Rou interrupted them.
"Who’s Xelloss?" Rou asked the one thing that had been bothering him.
"The name sounds EXTREMELY familiar, but I don’t know exactly who it is." Val replied and crossed his arms thinking. "I’ve never met anyone by that name, and today’s the first time I heard it but it is REALLY familiar." Val continued to wonder where he had heard the name but couldn’t think of it. "Oh well, probably some guy Filia hates and Lin likes." He decided and went back to stacking the vases.
"You know Lin well?"
"No, today’s first day I met her. Never seen her before in my life." Val replied not even turning around. "Any way, at least Filia’s not transforming into her dragon form, we’ll still some what safe."
Rou wondered what kind of place he wondered into. There were dragons running stores in a human town, a girl that looked like his mother in his past life, and a fox-man and a lizard-man chatting along with human neighbors. This was a weird place.

"Zelas-sama, have you seen Lin?" Xelloss asked as he walked into the Beast Master’s study. Zelas looked up from her book and shook her head.
"I saw her this morning but not since then. Is she not in her room?"
"No." Xelloss replied. He learned to keep himself alert when the ex-elf that worked under him disappeared. It meant she was up to something. "Xeres and Rakuma were fed but other than that I don’t know where she is."
"Maybe she went to visit Lina-chan. Lin certainly does like that human sorceress." Zelas suggested and went back to reading her book.
"No, I was with Lina till just about half an hour ago. Lin can’t be with her."
"Hmm…Well, I wouldn’t know. She’s probably window shopping in the human town or something…don’t worry too much." Zelas suggested.
"Probably." Xelloss shrugged, but if Lin was in the human town just window shopping why did he have a nagging feeling of something not good.
"Xelloss, you worry too much. She’s safe and I would doubt she’s trying to set you up." Zelas sighed and put her book away. "Besides you did tell her Lina’s birthday was coming up, maybe she went to buy something for her."
"Could be…"
"By the way Xel-kun, talking about Lina-chan’s birthday have you gotten her something? Eighteen is the legal age for marriage in Zefiria you know." Zelas teased. "A ring would certainly be nice."
"Zelas-sama, Lina isn’t interested in marriage, she hates the idea of being tied down." Xelloss replied to his master.
"Hmm…Well, when you guys do have a wedding let me plan it. It’s going to be the grandest wedding on the face of this world."