Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.

Pairing(s): eventually Natsu Dragneal x Zeref

WARNINGS: violence, alternative history, shounan ai (boy/boy pairing); you have been warned so don't like, don't read

The Will to Live

By V. Shalyr

Part I: A Different Past

1. An Unusual Encounter

When the knights arrived in the village to kill him, Zeref was half tempted to stay and let them try on the slim chance that they would actually succeed. Barely more than a hundred years after being cursed with immortality and he was already tired, and compared to the rest of eternity, a hundred years was but a drop of water in the ocean.

In the end, however, he didn't linger in the village because the farmer and his family who had given him shelter for the night had been good to him. Any sort of confrontation would only cause them trouble. Instead, Zeref thanked his hosts and left before the heavily armed men and women marched past the village boundaries. He really shouldn't have stayed with the farmer's family at all, but he'd been alone for so long that he felt as though his mind was slipping away from him. It had been a selfish decision, and it was possible that his time under their roof, however brief, would cause them trouble in the future.

He walked a ways into the woods before letting himself think about all this, and he watched the trees die around him. The sight always left him feeling cold and empty, but in this particular instance, it would serve to decrease the potential damage he might have caused. The knights would sense his magic and know that he was no longer in the village. Hopefully, they would attempt to pursue him right away and refrain from interrogating the villagers.

Zeref would wait for them farther away in the woods—see what new spells they might have come up with to try and destroy him.

When he continued on his way, it was amidst a shower of withered leaves and the silence of a forest whose creatures knew that something deadly had just come a little too close.

That made the second such danger to pass by today.

The deer lay on its side upon the riverbank, its glassy eyes staring sightlessly at the rushing water that it hadn't quite managed to cross before its neck had been broken by a well-aimed kick. It was a decently sized animal, and Natsu decided with some satisfaction that it would make for good eating. One of the benefits of being human was that a man didn't need to eat as much as a dragon did.

One of the drawbacks, he thought as he took out a knife and began skinning and gutting the carcass, was the lack of efficient claws. Hands had their advantages, of course, but nothing beat a good set of claws for disemboweling prey. Oh well, the knives and daggers he'd taken from those stupid humans would serve for now. Pity none of them had had any swords.

Natsu had just made the first cut in the deer's soft hide when he heard shouts in the distance. He couldn't make out the words, but the tension and fear in them were obvious. Hell, Natsu could smell the fear even from this distance.

He eyed the deer carcass wistfully then sighed. None of the creatures around here would dare to steal his lunch, and if any of them did, they'd be next on his menu. He might as well go see what all the ruckus was about.

The source of the commotion lay in a large clearing some distance away from the river. More than a dozen heavily armed men and women had surrounded a slender boy with disheveled black hair and skin so pale it looked almost unnatural. Despite the fact that the boy was unarmed and wore no armor, the smell of fear in the air was not coming from him but the adults around him.

The knights all held unsheathed swords, and four of them had placed themselves at the four cardinal points of the clearing. These particular knights carried gemstones set in the hilts of their blades, all of which blazed with power. Four shimmering walls of light ran from gem bearer to gem bearer, caging the boy within a four-sided prison. There was so much magic in the air that Natsu could smell that too, an almost acrid tang that told him the spell at work was a dangerous one—one meant to hurt.

"Hey! What do you lot think you're doing?"

The knights jerked in surprise at the interruption, and Natsu seized the opportunity to charge the man standing at the prison's eastern corner, calling up flames as he went. Natsu hit the guard at a dead run, delivered a punch to the man's gut that doubled him over and then wrenched the sword from his grasp. To his credit, the knight struggled valiantly to hold on to his weapon regardless of the pain and only let go when the metal burned white hot, fire searing through the leather of his gloves and scorching the skin beneath. As soon as he had a hold of the sword, Natsu broke it in half over his knee and dropped the two halves of the blade to the ground.

The prison of light vanished, and there was instant pandemonium. The knights didn't seem to know whether to keep their weapons aimed at the boy or to turn and face this new threat. Natsu cracked his knuckles and glared at the lot of them.

"It's really pathetic, you know, the whole bunch of you ganging up on someone like this."

"This is none of your business," one of the other gem bearers snapped. His white and silver garments were somewhat fancier than the others, and Natsu assumed that meant he was the captain.

"Maybe not," Natsu agreed, "but it would be pretty rotten of me to just sit back and watch. He's not even fighting back, and you're trying to kill him."

This seemed to give the knights pause. What, had they been so frightened that they hadn't even realized that their victim wasn't trying to escape?

"This boy is an abomination," the captain said at last.

Natsu didn't like his tone one bit. It was the tone people used when fear and hate and prejudice had all become mixed together into something ugly.

"Yeah?" Gold and white flames flared about Natsu's fists, and the air around him began to distort from the heat. "Well, I think what you lot are doing is pretty abominable too."

The knights took several steps back, alarmed. Even for wizard fire, these flames were unnaturally intense. They glowered at this unwanted intruder, but nothing would change the fact that their fourth artifact now lay in pieces in the dirt.

"We'll remember you," the knight captain said, returning Natsu's glare with one of his own. Then he signaled his team to retreat.

Natsu didn't let the flames fade until the sound of their heavy boots were well out of earshot. Then he turned to inspect the remaining occupant of the clearing.

The boy did not appear to be relieved. He didn't appear to be all that happy either. If anything, the expression on his face was faintly puzzled.

When he spoke, it was to say, "You shouldn't have stopped them."

Natsu frowned. That was not the reaction he had expected.

"What's that supposed to mean? You should be thanking me. You do realize they were trying to kill you, right?"

The boy nodded. "I was waiting to see if it would work."

This was such an incredibly ludicrous response that it took Natsu several long seconds to process it. When the words finally registered properly, his frown darkened into a scowl.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" He grabbed the boy by the collar of his black robes and shook him hard. "They were going to kill you, and you were just going to stand there and see if you died? How crazy do you have to be to do something like that?"

"I'm not crazy," the boy said, unperturbed by the rough treatment.

He wasn't even tense, Natsu realized, which was just abnormal for someone being shaken by the neck by a complete stranger. Looking into the boy's large, dark eyes, Natsu had to admit that he didn't look like someone who had lost his mind. The boy looked young, but he had the eyes of someone very old.

Natsu had never seen eyes so full of sadness before, and the sight made him hesitate. If the boy wasn't crazy...

He gave his head a frustrated shake. This whole incident had just been bizarre. He was irritated—and hungry to boot. He refused to stand around in this clearing and argue.

"Come on," he said, letting go of the boy's collar and turning him around so he could push him ahead of him back towards the river. "I was about to have lunch. You can explain to me what just happened here while I eat."

Zeref was... confused. Yes, confused was a very suitable word for it. He couldn't even remember how many times various groups of wizards and non-wizards had attempted to take his life. Not once had anyone tried to help him.

The strange young man directed him to a spot on the riverbank and waited for him to sit down before turning his attention to the carcass of a deer nearby. While Zeref watched, he set about preparing the deer to be cooked—which he then proceeded to do with Fire Magic.

Whoever this person was, Zeref could say for certain that he was no ordinary wizard.

"So?" the stranger prompted, biting into the venison despite the fact that it was still steaming. "Aren't you a bit young to be wandering around out here in the wilderness by yourself?"

"I'm more than a hundred," Zeref said, not seeing any point in lying. "I think that's old enough."

The stranger raised his eyebrows. "You are, huh?"

There was something odd about his eyes, Zeref thought. The eyes that surveyed Zeref from beneath wild, spiky hair were sharp and narrow, the pupils so thin they looked almost slitted. Come to think of it, Zeref thought he'd seen those eyes change during the fight earlier. And were those fangs? Zeref felt like he'd seen people like this before somewhere, but it took him a moment to connect the dots.

"Are you... a Dragon Slayer?"

The young man considered the question.

"Well, you're half right."

"Half right?" Zeref repeated, bewildered. How could he be half right about this?

"For all intents and purposes, I'm currently basically the same as a Dragon Slayer. But I'm actually a dragon, so if you want to get really technical..."

He trailed off, shrugged, and tore into another piece of deer meat.

"But how is that possible?"

"Asks the young-looking human who says he's more than a hundred years old."

He had a point.

"I'm cursed," Zeref said, seeing no reason to keep this a secret.

"Yeah?" Natsu grinned. "What a coincidence. So am I."

This conversation was starting to get very strange. Zeref wondered if he was the only one who thought so.

"But dragons are notoriously resistant to magic."

"Yeah. Surprised me too." The young man gestured with the venison in his hand. "You can eat some of this too if you want. There's plenty for two."

"Thank you, but I'm... not hungry."

"Suit yourself."

The stranger took a few more bites of his food before going on to explain.

"A group of wizards was trying to kill me. Ran into them when I was practicing turning into a human, and they thought trapping me as a human would make it easier. Don't know how they managed to make it work. They must have had some crazy magic amplification technology in order to actually cast a spell on me that lasts this long. My magic generally burns away other magic in no time." He smirked. "Whatever the case, they were wrong. Wonder what they thought the whole point of training Dragon Slayers was. They're lucky I decided to be merciful. Those dumb bastards couldn't tell the difference between a good dragon and a bad one."

"I assume that means you consider yourself one of the good ones."

"Well, yeah. They're still alive, right? At least I think they are. I was a bit angry, so I didn't really check. But if I'd been one of the bad ones, I'd have finished them off even though they were just stupid and not evil. Hell, I could have just eaten them at the start and saved myself the trouble. They would have made a decent meal."

"I see."

Zeref glanced back at the deer's remains. This young man certainly had a Dragon Slayer's appetite. The dark-haired wizard had never seen food disappear so fast.

"Well? What happened earlier? Why were those knights after you?"

"It's because of my curse."

"That's not really an explanation."

No, Zeref supposed that it wasn't. Still, he'd never had to explain this to anyone before. Nobody had ever hung around to ask.

"It's my magic," he said finally. "I have a magic that takes the lives of everything around me—people, trees, other animals—anything that comes too close to me."

The corners of Zeref's mouth tugged downward, and he looked down at his hands resting in his lap. "This magic, I can't control it. I can't blame them for being afraid."

Natsu was relatively young for a dragon, but he still had more than a century's worth of experiences. Despite that, he had to admit that it was startling to see the grass close to the wizard simply wither away. So that was what had happened to those odd patches of dead vegetation he'd seen while traversing these woods.

Now he could understand why those knights had been so afraid.

Still, the boy just looked so miserable. Even though all this death wasn't intentional, he obviously felt an immense amount of guilt because of it. Natsu wondered how much pain the wizard had to be in to face his own death with such indifference.

Huh, he and this strange wizard might actually be about the same age.

Natsu polished off the last scraps of deer meat and stood up.

"Tell you what, I'm actually searching for this wizard that I've heard is the absolute authority on breaking curses. Why don't you come with me? Maybe she'll be able to help both of us."

The boy's brow furrowed.

"I've never heard of such a wizard."

"That's because she's a bit of a recluse and mostly keeps to herself. My dad told me about her, but unfortunately, he only had a general idea of where she might be right now. She's not big on talking with dragons."

If Natsu hadn't been watching him so closely, he might have missed the flicker of emotion that passed through the boy's dark eyes. That sure looked a lot like hope to Natsu, and he felt rather pleased by the sight of it.

Still, the wizard hesitated. "Are you sure that would be all right? It's not safe to travel with me."

"If you're talking about those knights, I can handle them no problem."

The boy shook his head. "I know that. I was talking about my magic."

"Oh, that." This time, Natsu grinned. "I wouldn't worry about that. We dragons are very resistant to magic. You said so yourself, and Fire Dragons like me are especially so. I might not have met anyone like you before, but I've heard of curses like yours. I'm quite sure that I'll be fine."

And the boy would just have to trust him on that because that had definitely been hope in those eyes and Natsu wasn't going to just let him go back to wallowing in despair. Traveling was more fun with a companion anyway, and Natsu hadn't met anyone this interesting in awhile.

"Right then." Natsu picked up the bloody deer hide and set about scraping the insides clean of residual fat and flesh. "We'll just take this with us and sell it to a tanner in the next town. I haven't really needed money, but you never know. And human restaurants can make some awesome dishes."

"For a dragon, you seem to know a lot about humans."

"Yeah." Natsu didn't pause in his work, but a slight frown made it onto his face. "Dad thinks it's important to understand humans. He says that the time of dragons is coming to an end, whatever that means, and that we need to rethink how we live if we want to coexist in peace."

He shook his head and glanced back over at his new traveling companion.

"Anyway, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name's Natsu. What about you?"

The boy took a long moment to answer, and when he did, it was in the uncertain voice of someone who still couldn't quite wrap his mind around what was happening.

"Zeref. My name is Zeref."

Around them, the woods were silent. Most of the wildlife had fled, and those that hadn't were tucked safely away, hidden in their respective dens and burrows. Only the trees bore witness to this peculiar chance encounter, and of course, they weren't going to tell a soul.

TBC...

AN: The first part of this story is going to be an alternative history for my favorite couple set semi-shortly after the end of the Dragon Civil War and Zeraf's curse. The second part will take place after the start of the original Fairy Tail timeline.

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