Author's note: This fic has been in my head for more than six months. This week's chapter gave me the perfect excuse to type it down.
Disclaimer: If any of you were doubting about it, let me clarify that I don't own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does.
Despechado
by OlieGoldenWolf
Despechado/a: Argentine slang word that refers to a person that is so heartbroken, they are capable of doing anything to take revenge. It literally means "chestless", meaning that somebody ripped their heart out of their chests.
The battle camp seems endless as Mavis flies over it. There's countless soldiers underneath her. The Alvarez army outnumbers them a hundred to one, that's for sure. The Fairy Tactician has never been scared of numbers, she knows more than well that there are plenty of ways of winning a war. But she also knows that winning requires sacrifice, and she's not willing to let not even one of her soldiers die. Not this time.
The sight of the main tent appears in front of her and takes her aback for a second. It unfolds itself haughtily, made of expensive fabrics of reds and whites and golden. Luxurious and magnificent. Zeref has changed his tastes since the last time they met. Mavis doubts for a second. Worries appear in her mind, that maybe the humble boy she once fell in love with might have disappeared forever, crushed under the impossible weight of the cruellest curse. But she still needs to try and find him. Try to make him listen to her. There's no other option left.
She trespasses the cloth of the tent with ease. Physical barriers haven't stopped her in more than a century. Zeref is standing over a short bench as two maids work on dressing him with the most elegant robes she has seen in a long time. There's a man with white hair talking to him by his side, and by the rigid posture and sharp look in his eyes, she can say he's a man of the military.
Zeref notices her as soon as she enters, his gaze quickly flicking towards her before returning to the man in front of him with a pleased smile.
"I think it's enough for now, Invel. We'll keep discussing this later. You are free to leave."
Zeref steps down from the bench and waves to the maids to dismiss them. They obey with a respectful bow and disappear behind the tent's door.
"But Lord Zeref," the man protests. "There's still too many things to decide..."
"Invel." Zeref cuts him out with eyes so cold they make Mavis shiver in her corner. "I'm telling you to go. Are you about to disobey my direct order?"
The man, Invel, shuts another protest before it can come out of his mouth.
"Forgive my insolence, Lord Zeref." He bends forward by his waist. "I'll come back when the troops are ready."
Zeref doesn't answer and doesn't watch him leave. Instead, he turns around and walks to the second half of the tent, which is hidden by a silk room divider that falls in graceful folds. Mavis follows him warily. The exchange that took place in front of her was short, but her perceptive eyes took every tiny piece of information they could from it. It was enough to tell her that Zeref wouldn't give a thought to sacrifice his subordinates; and if that's his attitude towards his allies, little hope is left for his enemies.
She still needs to try. She cannot lose hope.
"So, is this what things have come to? Am I going to be forced to stand your ghost haunting me for the rest of eternity?"
Mavis' lips tighten before answering. She needs to be careful with her words. His tone was mocking, no doubt meant to pierce her pride, and when he turns around there's laughter in his eyes. An evil kind of it.
She ignores his condescends and steels herself for the upcoming conversation.
"I'm here to talk to you. To ask you to stop this war."
Zeref lifts his eyebrows in what looks like genuine surprise. Mavis knows better than to believe his acting. A smile breaks on his face then, a big one that makes the corner of his eyes wrinkle, and it would look innocent if it wasn't for the thousands of lives that are hanging from this discussion.
"Mavis, is that serious talking? Do you honestly expect me to do it?"
"I'm prepared to beg. To do anything, really."
His laughter stops as he takes the look in her eyes.
"By the Gods. You are serious."
"Of course I am." Mavis realizes her hands are closed in tight fists and takes a deep breath to let them open. "This non-sense needs to stop."
"And you just expected to come here and talk me into acquiescence?"
"I expected to come here and reason with you. You are the most intelligent man I've ever met, Zeref. Please, you need to understand." She takes a step closer to him and looks up with big, pleading eyes. "Nothing good can come from this war. What can you honestly gain from it? Only sorrow and despair for both kingdoms."
Zeref looks down at her with an expression Mavis cannot quite decipher. His eyes are so black that it's almost impossible to tell where the pupils start and the irises end. They look so empty of emotion… only cold calculation left behind. When she thinks she started to find some understanding in them, he closes his lids, and that condescending smile is there again, destroying all the progress she thought had made.
He walks past her as if she was not there.
"I've been preparing this war for decades now. I'm not about to stop it just because a dead spirit tells me to." He heads towards a writing desk and examines some maps that are resting over it, not even sparing her a miserable glance.
"Don't you have a thought for your soldiers?" Zeref's attempts to ignore her don't mine her resolve. She follows right behind him like his new-found shadow. "The ones that are dying at the battlefield by your own orders? Those who have a family left behind at their home in Alvarez?"
Zeref cackles then, a loud and healthy laughter that has him throwing his head backwards.
"Mavis, haven't you looked around at all?" He turns his head slightly to look at her from the corner of his eyes. The mercilessness she finds there makes her wish he never had looked at her in the first place. It pains her deep in her soul to see the face of the man she once loved so much twisted in that ruthless expression. "Haven't you noticed the lack of death nearby? How everybody is so alive?"
He's been bending towards her as he talked, and Mavis found herself cowering. Not from him, but from the flick of madness in his gaze. It takes her a moment to follow his train of thoughts.
"The curse…"
"You sure remember how it works. How could you forget when you suffered it in your own flesh?" Zeref straightens again, looks at her one last time before going back to his cold attitude. "The more one loves, the more it will be taken away from them. The answer to the curse is easy enough."
"The less you care… the less you feel for the living things around you…"
Mavis doesn't want to finish the phrase. Doesn't even want to think about it.
"Ankhseram Gods have a funny way of thinking, wouldn't you agree?" Mavis doesn't answer. Zeref continues. "I couldn't care less about the lives of this people. Of any of them. They are pawns to me. Tools to reach my goals. Nothing more, nothing less."
And thus, this is the way the curse completely destroys you, Mavis thinks. Takes everything away from you, isolates you, and as it tears from your hands everything you ever cared for, it slowly drives you into madness. And when enough time has passed (not enough to let the wounds heal, because the tearing is a constant process of attaching yourself to the smallest thing, only to have it destroyed in front of your eyes. No, only enough time to undermine your sanity, to break the pillars of your morality by the force of perpetual loss and have it slip away between your fingers), then the curse of eternity will allow you to see yourself become the thing you used to hate the most. A heartless monster that doesn't care about life at all.
"What's that look of horror on your face, Mavis? Have my words shaken you a little? Can I offer you, perhaps, a glass of water?"
There's the mocking again, and it hurts more than Mavis thought it would. Mavis doesn't need water. Dead people don't have physical needs. Zeref knows it.
After staring at each other for a while, Zeref sighs and seems to decide he doesn't want to keep losing time with this conversation anymore. He grabs the book of E.N.D in his hand and Mavis wonders how she didn't notice it sooner resting over the desk.
"I have things to do. A whole continent to conquer. What are you even doing here, doesn't you army need you?"
"What do I need to do to make you stop this?"
He stops just before walking outside the tent. Mavis is there, she appeared right in front of him and won't let him move an inch without giving her an answer. But he only smirks down at her and lifts an eyebrow.
"You know, Mavis. You being here trying to negotiate is proof of just how desperate Fiore's army is. Have you already realized there's virtually no way for you to win this war?"
"If you don't care about senselessly spilling the blood of your soldiers then…" Mavis halts for a second. This was the one thing she didn't want to say. But it's her last card and she's out of options. She swallows before continuing, forces the words out of her mouth. "Then do it for me. If you ever loved me, if you ever cared about me, then stop this war in honour of the love we once had."
As soon as she shuts up the atmosphere changes completely. For the first time since she entered the massive tent, Mavis gets a reaction out of Zeref other than his patronizing smiles and cold indifference but she's not sure if she wants to be faced with this… this anger. She can feel the temperature dropping, the lights dimming, the air thickening almost oppressively. Zeref's figure looms over her. She notices how his jaw pops in place, how his hand tenses around the book of E.N.D.
She doesn't let any of these intimidate her, and stand her ground without dropping his gaze. She can pinpoint the exact moment in which his eyes turn from cold black to furious red.
"That's your weakness, isn't it?" Mavis voice rises over the deafening silence around them. "…Zeref?"
And then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the dark aura vanishes in a snap. Zeref head falls, and his black bangs hide his eyes from her. He takes a deep breath before lifting his head again. The wicked smile in his face chills the blood in her veins.
"Do you honestly believe such a thing of the past would affect me?" His word drip cruelness and his eyes pretend to be cold, but she can still see all the spite and pain he's trying to hide in them. "Do I need to remind you of just how much time has passed since you died?"
Mavis wants to answer, want to latch to the hurt she saw in him, because if Zeref is hurt then he's not invulnerable. But he doesn't let her and instead delivers her the final blow, words coming out with all the intent to stab the deepest in her heart.
"You are just a memory of the past, Mavis. A poor ghost that tries to interfere in a world that isn't her own anymore. A weak ghost, at that. Haven't you realize?" He walks right past her, and Mavis shivers when his physical… material body passed right through her. "You are fading away."
Zeref walked out of the tent, leaving Mavis alone. The fact that he didn't bother in checking if she went away or not speaks about how little concern he is about her presence. Because he knows Mavis wouldn't be able to do anything, even if she tried. Mavis knows it too.
It hurts. Like someone is twisting a knife in her throat.
The spirit looks at her translucent hands, and can see the floor of the tent through them. She tries to take up flight, but finds herself too weak to do so. So she just falls on her knees and she watches as her tears start to wet the floor.
She's fading away. And as her strength disappears, so does her hope.
Author's note: I'm convinced that Zeref is just a really hurt and angry ex-boyfriend. The guy needs therapy, that's all. Oh, and this fic was pretty much inspired by the song "Just One Yesterday" by Fall Out Boy (maybe inspired is too much of a word for it. I was just listening to the thing when the fic came to my mind).