Most of the core members of Fairy Tail could recall with great nostalgia the years of their youth where they didn't matter much, what they did and didn't do, to the older generation, and could just be kids taking the lower level jobs, traveling around Fiore, kicking ass and fucking shit up. It was part of the whole mage experience. The freedom intertwined with thoughts of grandeur. One day,it would be you going on S-Class jobs, not being around for months at a time, having legends and stories passed around about your many accomplishments.
It was a time for great experimentation, learning of all sorts of spells, but relevant and irrelevant to your core magic. Away from home, you could either spend your days screwing around or you could actually try and learn something. Try and be something. Make a name for yourself. Natsu didn't become the Salamander overnight anymore than Erza became Titania. It took years of practice and skill honing. It didn't matter how much innate ability one possessed; it matter if they assisted in it's growth.
When they were coming up, with very little parental guidance (a complete absence of it, honestly, for the most part), these things were sought after by them all with little to no resistance. Parents themselves now, however, many of the things that they looked back fondly on seemed awfully irresponsible and dangerous and...and…
This was mainly a problem for the others though. Gajeel, heh, he was raised with even more freedom than the others had been. He didn't have Makarov waiting around for him, to make sure that he got home from a job eventually, to worry about whether or not he was safe. Nope. After Metallicana split, it was just himself looking out for himself.
Now. He didn't want that for his son. Locke. No matter how many times he loudly proclaimed that. No. He wanted Locke to know that he was right there with him, even if he wasn't around. He didn't necessarily voice this very well, but he wasn't too good at talking good, so that was okay, he figured. The boy understood, didn't he?
Maybe.
Locke was the oldest of all the slayer kids, something that Gajeel had some pride in. Not to mention the only boy. For a good while, at least. That meant that Gajeel was getting his legacy passed on, unlike the other slayers (although Natsu now had two sons, but they hardly counted for nothing, Gajeel was certain). That meant that he would be the first to learn magic, the strongest of all the others, the best at everything. He'd teach him some magic, Gajeel was, and the kid would probably be interested in some stuff on his own, and he'd be S-Class by the time he was a teenager. Before his old man, maybe, even, and that would be a bit demoralizing, but even more so invigorating.
Gajeel ahd big dreams for his son. From the first time he held him, he knew, Locke was gonna be something special.
Locke, however, didn't feel this often as he was growing. One of his biggest obstacles in growth was, in fact, Fairy Tail. Or at least the environment it provided him. Maybe in any other guild, or even any other place on the planet, he could focus on getting stronger and better at his own pace and develop his skills in accordance to need. This wasn't allowed for the boy, however, because he was constantly at odds with one of the people Gajeel had long counted out.
"The Dreyar girl," he remembered growling to Locke a lot when he was a boy, "isn't your friend."
Not really. That's what he tried to hammer home to the boy when he'd come home bloodied from a fight with her.
"She's your adversary," he'd insist to Locke who'd only shake his head.
"No," he'd say around a bloodied lip. "She's my friend."
Far from it.
It was all his stupid mom's fault. That's who Gajeel blamed it on. Levy. She'd told Locke when he was young that it was his job to look out for them. The girls. Haven, the oldest Dreyar girl, Navi, Natsu's brat, and then the youngest Dreyar girl, Marin. He was the oldest and the boy and that meant that he was supposed to make sure they were okay.
Only Haven was never okay.
She was in a perpetual state of not being mentally sound. Gajeel should know. He was usually stuck in it as well!
"She's," he grumbled more than once to Levy, "not good for him."
It was true. Very true. Haven wasn't too bad of a friend, when they were toddlers. But somewhere around the age of six or so, she just turned into this impossible to deal with brat who had parents who only indulged in this and allowed her to bully his poor Locke. Which Gajeel was pretty pissy about, at first. Then he got more pissy at Locke for not defending himself.
"Just," he growled more than once, "hit her back."
But he wouldn't. Not at first. Not when they were little. Locke saw her aggression as just needing to be even nicer to Haven, in order to get her out of that state. It was annoying. Gajeel never thought he'd wanna see a little girl battered and bloodied, but he did that Dreyar girl.
Oh, man, he might have even hated Haven, maybe. For Locke's sake.
He would learn that it was acceptable to fight her back though, Locke would, eventually. Not that it meant much. Locke was older and bigger, but Haven had more heart, and when they fought, even before either had hit ten, they seemed rather even. There were stretches of time where the two of them seemed to spend everyday they were around one another quarreling. And if not quarreling, then certainly bickering.
But you ask the kid what he fucking wanted to do that day. Just ask him. And he'd only say, "Go play with Haven."
Arg!
"They're just kids, Gajeel," Levy would tell him with a bit of a frown though he knew that she too wasn't too fond of the little girl. No way was she. "Kids fight. Gray and Natsu used to fight every single day, I think, when we were kids."
Yeah, but they were two boys. Two boys should do that. Push one another. Haven wasn't pushing Locke. She wasn't helping him grow. She was making him look like a big weanie! She was...was…
"Annoying." Locke started to call her that eventually, as he got older. "Haven's annoying."
And she was. Very annoying. It got old, eventually, always arguing with one another. Boring, even, maybe. IT got easier to just give in to her. Both he and Navi agreed.
They spent a good chunk of time together too. He and Navi. She was different from Haven though. Gajeel really didn't think about her that much, other than when she was hanging around his house. Becuase then he had to smell the fucking Salamander, if not be around the Salamander who seemed unable to let his fucking daughter do anything without him, and that was annoying too. For different reasons.
Navi didn't fight. At all. She didn't like it. So Gajeel saw her of no interest. The worst thing she did was distract Locke, honestly, from training. She had these dumb things called interests and friends and junk that didn't even know magic or nothing. Gajeel did not want her influencing Locke to go down that path. The lazy path. The path where you didn't become an S-Class wizard and eventually cream Haven and her stupid Master father both. No. Locke had a destiny to fulfill. A legacy to uphold.
He didn't have time for 'friends'. They would only get in the way!
"Says," Pantherlily would tsk often, "the man who has no friends."
This would only enrage the slayer though, as the boy would laugh at this, and insist that, yeah, he did have friends. And even if he didn't, well, it was only 'cause he never wanted any! 'cause he was a serious mage!
Eventually though, Gajeel's many rants and raves just became kind of commonplace for Locke. He hardly listened, even, really. It was still a heavy burden on his shoulders, the wants and desires of his father, and he did want to eventually, become all those things. S-Class. A serious mage. He just...he didn't wanna sacrifice his friends for those things.
It felt like a tight rope a lot. It was some time after his eleventh birthday that his parents (and the Master) began letting him go on real jobs, alone jobs, far away jobs, all on his own. It was an exciting time. He knew he was ready.
This was hampered, once more, by the fact that Haven wasn't given such freedom. She was allowed more serious jobs though (it was kind of what led to him being allowed such things), but she had to have him, Navi, and Erza's student, Ravan, to accompany her. Or at least, Laxus gave him eventually, Locke.
Which meant that Haven needed him to not go out so often, ion his own, solo jobs, because she wasn't allowed to yet, and was that really fair? Yeah, probably, actually, but she didn't feel that way and, well, she was his friend. His best friend. It was a weird friendship, yeah, one that ended with both of them bandaged up more often than not, but when they were out on jobs, they had other things to focus on. Other things to take their aggressions out on. So they were much less likely to do that to one another. Beat one another up.
They had monsters and bandits to do that.
But Gajeel was very judgmental about all this.
"What are you? Huh? A serious wizard?" he'd grumble to Locke often. "Or some sort of duo?"
But...why couldn't he be both?
Because it hadn't been, for him. For Gajeel. Both hadn't been an option. He was by himself his whole adolescence. The entirety of it. This left an impression on him that true growth came from solitude. True growth meant finding it from inside yourself. Taking your hardships and facing them alone. All your demons.
Haven (and Navi too, in a certain was) was a damper on this. Gajeel wanted his son to break away from them, finally. Haven especially. Fine, okay, he'd given in. It was kind of cute at times, watching Locke argue and fight and get all bloodied with them (again, mostly Haven), but those days were over. They weren't kids anymore.
If his son was ever going to be a man, than he needed to hurry the hell up!
It would happen, anyways. The separation. As mentioned before, Locke was older. Which meant that he experienced all the firsts before the others. And puberty aided in the separation.
He and Haven had always been, more or less, the same size, but he started growing far taller, far faster. He was getting stronger too, physically, much faster. It was getting harder for her to keep up with him, in battle, and he could feel it, honestly, Whether she would admit it or not, once, when they were doing their typical quarreling one day, and she'd had him on the ropes, maybe, sort of, but it only took one punch. A real one. With real force behind it. Enough to actually knock her out.
Haven looked so betrayed, later, when things had settled some. After Laxus and Gajeel were done bitching at one another about the whole thing and, eventually, Locke was allowed to go up to the infirmary to see Haven.
"I'm sorry I gave you a concussion," he offered, but she only snorted and refused to look at him. "I guess I didn't know-"
"My head," she argued back, "hit the ground, which knocked me out. Not you. And I don't need your dumb apology, Locke."
But she wasn't so keen on fighting, brute strength to brute strength again. No. She made sure to fry him, always, before he had a chance to land a clean blow on her. A safe plan.
"Maybe," Levy suggested gently though, that night, to Locke, "you and Haven cool it for awhile, huh? Master won't be too happy, you know, if you seriously hurt Haven."
"It looks like bullying, anyways," Lily offered up, thoughtfully, to the boy, "when you're so much better on her, but keep fighting with her."
This wasn't true, of course. And no one that saw the two of them would ever feel that way. Arguments between them always started because of Haven's sour attitude and, more often than not, Locke was just defending himself. He went a tad overboard that time, fine, but in no way was he bullying Haven.
He did feel bad though, for her, that day. They'd injured one another quite harshly in years past, ended up bandaged, black, and blue, but he'd never actually hit Haven that hard before. He'd never wanted to. And she hadn't him (though, he wasn't so sure that was only because she couldn't). No. This was a line in the sand. A clear, obvious separation.
And man, Gajeel couldn't feel more pumped to see it.
He tried hard not to let on to this, when Laxus was on his ass about the whole thing, but seeing the Dreyar brat, there, passed out, really filled him with some sort of glee. She'd finally gotten what she deserved. AT the hands of his son. His boy. His man. Locke was going to be done with the Dreyar girl, finally, and move on to bigger and better things.
"What do ya mean, Locke?" he complained the next morning when, instead of heading out on a job (it was under the suggestion of Master Laxus, who didn't wanna see him the next few days; he was pretty pissed, Gajeel felt, for a man whose daughter spent her days just hoping to body the other children as badly as she was currently), Locke only planned on going over to the Dreyar house. Where he wasn't invited. "You're going to see Haven? The Master ain't gonna like it!"
"He will when he sees that I've come to apologize again."
"The girl don't want an apology!"
Yeah, but he wouldn't feel good about what had happened until he'd more than offered it up.
He was right, his father was. The Master was not pleased to see him. At all. Neither was Haven. But Locke had used some of his hard earned jewels to buy donuts for the house and, well, Marin and Mirajane were pleased, anyways.
"I didn't mean to hit Haven that hard, Master," Locke told him when he left. Laxus was headed down to the guild at the same time and, though he was still kind of pissy over the whole thing, he allowed the boy to walk with him. "Honest. We were just fighting."
"Yeah," Laxus grumbled. "I know."
"Then-":
"Haven's my daughter, Locke," the man told him simply. "There's never going to be a time when I'm happy to see her like that. Ever. At all. I'm never going to root for anyone to be better than her. I'm never going to be okay with seeing her unconscious from being beaten up. What kind of father would I be then?"
Locke only kicked at the ground as he said, "I won't do it again."
"No. You will."
"What do you mean?"
The man could only shrug as he continued to not glance at the boy. "Haven's not going to stop. She's never going to stop. Not until she's better than you. Even if it means getting knocked on her ass like that a thousand times, she's never going to accept that you're better than her. Until you're the one that she's having to apologize to, she's never going to quit bothering you. So if that bugs you, Locke, as much as your father makes it to, then tell me right now. I'll keep you two away from one another. Because if not, I'm not going to tell her to stop, I'm not going to let her stop, trying to be better than you until she actually is. And I don't want you to stop either."
He only swallowed, the boy did, as he looked up, finally, at the slayer. "It doesn't bother me, Master. Fighting Haven, doesn't. Haven doesn't either. She's annoying, but… I want to be stronger than her, too."
"Good." Laxus finally glanced down at him and Locke wasn't sure if he'd ever gotten that, if he ever would again, the Master's full attention. Grinning at him toothily, Laxus told him, "Between the two of ya, we might be the strongest guild for years to come. Now go pick a fuckin' job. I'm tired of seeing your face."
He picked a nice long one. As he hoped, when he got back, Haven was at least somewhat happy to see him again. At least, she and Navi had been waiting for him, so that they could take a job. And, unfortunately, Ravan was as well.
Locke figured his golden years as a growing mage (or at least what his parents referred to as a gold years) would feel a lot better if the other boy was constantly hanging around. His mother told him to never hate anyways. At all. It wasn't the Fairy Tail way. But damn it, he hated Ravan so much. He'd never felt that, honestly, before he met the other boy. Hatred. But Ravan drug it out of him. Every damn time.
"Why can't ya just fight him? Huh? Like you do Haven?" Gajeel would complain a lot when, instead of sparking this from his son, Ravan just sparked...something close to anger, maybe, but not quite. Resentment? No. He had nothing to resent Ravan for. He was just a poor, dumb orphan who was lucky Erza was a generous person. No one liked him. At all. How could they? He sucked. He was stupid and dumb and felt like he was better than everyone else because...because… Because why? Huh? Locke had never been given a concrete reason from the other boy about why he felt that way. Just that Ravan felt as if he were better than them, him, honestly, it felt like, and that meant he could act like an ass towards them constantly.
While still needing their help just as frequently.
It was more than a bit ridiculous.
If it were left up to Locke, Ravan would have been excommunicated by that point. If not from Fairy Tail (he didn't have that kind of authority, after all), then certainly their friend group. And Navi would have no objections. She told Locke frequently that Ravan creeped her out. Even more so as they got older. No, if it were left up to the two of them, the other kid wouldn't even be an associate.
It was Haven that, for some reason, kept him around.
She used to hate him just as much as Locke did. Maybe more. Locke was pretty sure she still did. But with each passing year, it felt less like that mattered. Locke wasn't...jealous or anything. Because he was still definitely Haven's best friend and then, maybe Navi, maybe nobody, but Ravan certainly wasn't anywhere close to even being a regular friend.
Not really.
But they had their own thing going on, Haven and Ravan did. Something Locke didn't understand and, even when he complained about it, Haven would only get angry with him for bringing up. She seemed to constantly find reasons that Ravan just had to follow them. Just had to go out on a job with them. Just had to be there, with them, when they went to do anything. They trained together, even, Ravan and Haven did, when Locke wasn't around, and yeah, you should train against everyone, especially someone you viewed as an enemy. Locke and him tussled a lot, even.
But…
"I just don't trust Ravan," he told Haven, once, more than once, even, probably, but that time in particular he remembered. "At all."
His fourteenth birthday was coming up and he and Haven had just returned on a job. Not wanting to be home just yet, but having blown most of their jewels (it was why they were fearful of returning home; their parents wouldn't be too pleased), were hiding out for a few days in Natsu and Happy's old house out in the forest. It had become the children's clubhouse of sorts and they all filtered in and out as they pleased. The other boy had been there, in fact, when they arrived, hiding out from Erza (he too was on thin ice with his guardian), but he and Locke had quickly gotten into an argument over something dumb with the other boy. Ravan and he fought for a bit before the swordsboy ran off. Then it was just Locke and Haven.
They roasted hot dogs over the fire pit outside, the pair did, listening to all the sounds of the forest that surrounded them. It used to scare them some, when they were younger. All the noises brought out by the night. More than once, they'd spooked themselves so badly they all went running through the woods, back to their respective homes.
But they weren't kids anymore.
At least they didn't feel quite like it.
"Trust him with what?" Haven asked with a frown. She was a bit beaten up, from the job, and hadn' been too interested in tussling with the boys that day. She let them fight it out and had only sat there, at the fire pit, waiting for which would join her. "Do you have some sort of big secret, Locke?"
"No. You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"I don't," he reiterated, "trust him."
Haven only shrugged though, staring into the flames. "You shouldn't trust anyone."
"I trust my mother. And my father. And Lily. And-"
"They don't count."
"I trust you."
She looked up then, at him, but still only shook her head. "You shouldn't."
They stared at one another for a long few moments before both looking off.
"You shouldn't," she added, "trust anyone. Anyone can hurt you. At least Ravan's upfront about it."
Still, he only shook his head. "He just gives me a bad feeling. He always has."
"It's not like he can beat us. Or will ever be able to." She even smiled, maybe. Or maybe the fire was causing shadows to play tricks on him. "Ravan's not even a real wizard. If it wasn't for Erza, he wouldn't even be allowed in Fairy Tail. I'm not afraid of him. And you shouldn't be either."
"I'm not."
"Then-"
"You don't have to be afraid of someone, Haven, to know that there's nothing good about them. And there's nothing good about Ravan. At all."
But she didn't answer and they had bigger things to figure out, anyways (like how they were going to explain to their parents they'd blown all their jewels on toys and candy). Ravan might be a threat, maybe, but a distant one if he was anything. Haven wasn't worried about him and she frequently insisted Locke not be either.
His whole life wasn't filled with his friends (at non-friend). A good portion of it was, yeah, but he did take jobs on his own. Spend time on his own. He trained with his father a lot too. But a more subdued part of his life, that he didn't bring up a lot (especially around his father) was spent out in the woods. Not at the clubhouse though. Rather, he'd go deep into the woods with another mentor, to train in a different way.
Wendy was the only person he knew that had an extensive knowledge of healing magic. Though a lot of her spells were relegated to Dragon Slayer magic, she assisted him where she could and seemed to even enjoy it a lot. She was gone just as much as a normal mage and he didn't wanna bother her, when she was actually home from a job, but the woman insisted to him that she enjoyed their training.
"The guild will always need a medic," she'd remind him with a grin. "If for some reason I'm not around, let's hope you are, huh?"
He knew he'd never be as good as her at it, but...yeah, he hoped he'd be of help, someday, if he was ever truly needed.
His friends needed him frequently, anyways, out on jobs. Haven had a knack for pushing herself (and them) past limits and boundaries. This led to many medic worthy moments. And regardless of what his father felt, he could grow in both his iron magic and his medical side. They weren't separate. They were connected, within him. That's what mattered.
Even though his father constantly sneered and griped, he figured even the man would have to admit, he wasn't half bad, being who he was currently. He only continued to grow. Mature. Took jobs. Alone and with the others. He tried very hard to always do the right thing. By his friends and his guild.
"What more do you want?" he found himself carping to his father a lot throughout his youth, but especially in those later years as their training seemed to only get more intense and the man seemed out for blood, even, at times. It was that intense. He was always that intense. A lot of the time, Locke felt like his father wanted nothing more than his death. Maybe that was it all along. His father wanted to raise him up, as powerful as can be, just to beat him back down. Destroy him.
Was that it?
No.
He always had to remind himself of that when, whenever he questioned his father oft his, the man only snickered in his own special way, gloating over his fallen son.
"I want," he'd growl at him, though it was through a grin, "you to be stronger, Locke! Stronger than everyone. Do you not want that? Huh? Do you wanna be stronger? Or not?"
It would take a lot, sometimes, but he always forced himself to do it. To shove up. To push up. To growl as loud back at the man as he could, "I do!"
Because if he didn't, he might forget. Because if he didn't, he might miss a step. He might not make it. He might get lost along the way or give up entirely. So long as he yelled it though, each and every time he fell, stumbled, or forgot himself, then he'd be fine. He'd end up back on track. Where he was meant to be.
In those golden years, the only thing that rang true, no matter what, was that he had to keep fighting. If he didn't...if he didn't, then there'd be no one to keep Haven in line.
And they couldn't have that.
Five chapters, one for all the kids to get them all aged up (with Marin and Kai being together in one, the twins being covered in Navi's chapter, probably, and then Ajax kind of tacked in between Haven and Marin's stuff). I was going to separate them all into their own one-shots, but they'll probably all have the same feel to them and reference one another, so it's probably best to do it this way. The kids will be spit out somewhere in their late teens at the end of this, but we'll probably go back and more in depth cover some stuff that got glossed over with random one-shots, later. Right now, I'm just trying to race to the last two big stories. All the other stuff can be filled in later, you know?
