The apartment was still when Lucy woke up that morning. All three of her children, husband, and the resident Exceed had taken off for their usual locations. The guild hall, at least once a day, for all of them, for a meal or two, and then off to train for the little boys with Ajax, Lisanna's son, and whichever one of his many aunts and uncles he managed to coerce into teaching them things that day, while Natsu and Happy were just a liable to waste the day drinking or actually do something useful, like pick up another job. Navi seemed to take to hanging about as well, in those days, but less for the drinking aspect of things, but more the stories she heard from the regular drunks the bar produced.

But Lucy didn't feel much up for it that day. She stayed in bed as they all departed and her daughter checked to make sure the woman wasn't feeling ill, but she just assured her this wasn't the case with a bit of a wave. Sometimes you just needed that extra rest.

"Lazy," Happy muttered, annoyed she was getting to be desperately what he wanted for himself. But Natsu said they had to hurry down to the hall because he was starved and they were, once more, without food in the apartment. The Exceed's growling stomach agreed and, well, he could always be lazy up at the bar too.

There was something nice about it though, that the woman didn't get often. Rejuvenating. Her apartment was in a constant state of instability and activity that, when she awoke to find this not the case, she could hardly help, but to go rush and sink into the tub for a bit, alone, and relax.

It had been a year of growth.

Since Navi had returned from the ill-fated Incidio misadventure (though she wasn't sure if it could be classified as such, considering it's competition), things around the apartment changed in little ways, mostly, but in big ones also. The boys were given a bit more responsibility around the house which seemed to just include things that were already expected of them, but were now enforced whether their mother was out or not. Through their father, this time around, rather than their mother.

"And Navi isn't going to clean your gross fish bag for you, Happy," Lucy ordered and the Exceed was rather down about that, but Navi only patted him on the head a week later when he inevitably left one in there a little too long and got the fabric all stinky again.

"Just because I want to," she assured him as she took care of it for him. And he agreed. She didn't have to. But her doing so anyways was what made it special.

Her presence in the hall stifled for a bit as well. Like all the other kids, Haven's departure affected Navi in a certain kind of way as well. She was somewhere between Marin, who was better for it, and Ravan, who missed her in a weird way, but recognized the girl's need to do her own thing. Live her own life. It didn't mean that sometimes, when she was sitting around the hall, Navi's eyes didn't drift around the room, trying to find her. Haven. Place her. But then she'd feel silly because months were going by and she was long gone.

Things were speeding by for the boys too. Though they were rather young, there was nothing more they wanted than to learn magic. Any magic, really, and for awhile, Natsu just worked with them on concentrating it, meditating with it. Feeling what it meant to tap into the magical well inside of them. During those months, the boys considered what they wanted to wield and Natsu was so pumped for it.

"It'll be like when Navi used to go out on jobs with us," Natsu snickered to his wife and Happy a lot, "but better now because there'll be two of them. Two sources of fire. Ripe for the taking. Imagine it! Never will go hungry again."

But as with most things, if one hopes for them a little too much, they'll never quite come out the way you always wanted.

Because one of their son's did want to take after his parents. Just the wrong one.

"Your first," Lucy giggled as they stood in the tiny magic shop, "key."

Iggy didn't nod along, he was too focused staring down at the ones that sat behind the glass case, up at the counter. The man behind it named off each silver key by way too long names that he hardly understood, but he said one, finally, that he caught on to.

"I want that one," he told his mother with a sharp nod of his head. "Can I?"

It was a little expensive, but how could she say no?

She'd taken him out, just the two of them, that day to shop for one and, as he held it tightly in his hand, she could tell how jittery the boy was. He clutched the cool silver key in his one hand as he held tight to his mother's with the other and kept glancing down at it as they went alone, as if certain that it would disappear wtihout every ounce of his attention.

Lucky was out still, with Navi, like Lucy wanted that day when they arrived back home. The boy had a passion for teasing his twin or making jokes out of things, all things, all the time, which she didn't want this to be. Iggy was very serious about it, coming to her with his desire to become a celestial mage. She cautioned him over it, about the importance of choosing a magic that meant something to him, but he only insisted that yes, this is what he wanted.

And how could she deny him that?

"Do you remember?" she prompted that day as they stood alone in the apartment living room. "Iggy? What you have to say?"

Of course.

He'd only heard her say it a billion times.

"Open," he yelled loudly and held his silver key out with pride, "Gate of the Canis Minor. I summon…Nikora!"

He felt it for the first time, she could tell, as Iggy's eyes popped open a bit more. His magic forming and dispersing as he slashed the silver key through the air. Then there he was, in all his glory.

"Wow!" He fell to the floor immediately, the pink haired boy did, to gather the little red dog...blob...spirit into his arms as it shivered with delight. "This is so cool!"

Lucy only giglged though, standing over them. "Remember, Ig, you gotta make a contract."

"Oh, yeah!" Gently, he moved to set the spirit back down as it shivered and grinned up at him, as if uncertain. "Um… What days can you be summoned? Uh… Do you have a name? Or-"

"You can name him," Lucy told him softly and Iggy frowned over at her.

"She," he corrected as the bright red doggy nodded over at the woman. Lucy had her doubts that, not only this didn't really matter, but also if spirits had a true need to be gendered, but…

"Of course," she giggled. "Sorry."

"I'll call you," Iggy was saying then, to his spirit, who just went back to beaming at him, "uh… Hakatoby the Great Water Panther. Like, from the comic?"

"I-Iggy," Lucy tried, but just as quickly, he was patting the spirit on the head.

"But I'll call you Hak for short," he assured the creature and it gave a thumbs up in the affirmative and, well, it was love from then on.

Iggy tapped up the schedule he and Hak devised on the fridge and was very careful to only summon her at the specific times listed. Lucy told him that there was no greater bond, not in the entire world, than a true celestial wizard and their spirits.

"You have to put your entire faith in them," she imparted on them, "so that they will you. Respect them. Always. And they'll never let you down."

Iggy agree and, as far as first spirits went, he thought there was none better than Hak.

His brother though thought that celestial magic was pretty boring and tame and dumb and Natsu just knew it, his boy Lucky, he'd be the one that would come through. Would take after him. His boy. His son.

"Gray's gonna teach me how to do maker magic."

Until this left his mouth and Natsu could only blinked as his own hung agap.

"What do you mean? Huh? Who wants anything to do with ice? When you could-"

"Not ice, Dad," Lucky shrugged some before slamming a fist into the other and his eyes seemed to glow. "I'm gonna make stuff out of light."

"Light?" Natsu groaned. "What does that even mean, Lucky? How can you even do that? Fire is light!"

But it wasn't the same.

And he wasn't sure, really, what he even meant. He imagined himself, like, crafting the sun itself and blasting people away with it. Lofty goals, but Lucky took after his father heavily. Anything was possible. Anything. Just so long as you threw your all into it.

Mrs. Mirajane, the boys' typical babysitter, sat with him sometimes and looked over magical tomes for anything that would be helpful, anything that could teach him something, anything. And he didn't make the sun, the first time he smashed his hand into his open palm and, like Gray told him, imagined just what it was he wanted to create, believe it, in his heart, that he could, but as he yelled out, "Light Make...box?"

And he sounded uncertain of himself, but there it was, a blinding, yellowish, whitish little cube, in his palm. That he'd made. And as Gray nodded at him, Lucky only beamed. It was puny and small, but he'd crafted it.

That was all that mattered.

As annoying and tiring as they all could be, especially the twins, Lucy found herself thinking mostly of her family as she soaked in the tub that late, lazy, morning, and it was with her daughter in mind that she found herself running quickly through the streets of Magnolia, all the way to the guildhall.

It had been after her bath that she decided to go downstairs and check the apartment mail box. She really didn't think anything of it, didn't expect much, and was a bit surprised when she stared at the letter in her hand at first, surprised by it. By the address and the name assigned to it.

"No," she whispered before a grin spread across her face and she dug right into it. "Really?"

She felt like a little girl again, or at least the teen she once was, when Fairy Tail was her everything and the only thing that brought her joy. But the joy was placed differently that day and she could only think of the glee Navi would have once her eyes too fell over the letter.

The twins saw their mother rush in, but were fearful she'd found out about what they were hiding under their beds (it definitely wasn't a shoe box full of firecrackers she'd confiscated last time they almost blew the house up; nope, no way) and kind stayed silent over at their table with their best friend Ajax, who was happily boasting about this cool new back flip he'd learned, off the roof of his Uncle Laxus' place. Iggy had summed Hak and she seemed to be the only one listening, but that was because Ajax, a true lover of animals (and he seemed to consider her one) was never without a treat for the spirit.

But she didn't come to reprimand them, rather, stopping before where her daughter sat with Locke, the man sharing all that had happened on the job from which he'd just returned.

"Navi," Lucy said excitedly as her eyes were alight and she clutched something in her hands. "I have something for you."

Locke frowned, just from the glee the older woman was expressing, but Navi just stood up and held out her hand in curiousity.

"I didn't tell you about it because I was afraid I wouldn't get a response or something, but remember how you've always wanted to go to the capital? And see where the Grand Magic Games were held?" Lucy was quick to hand over the letter. "Well, I wrote to Queen Hisui and-"

"T-This is a letter from the..." Navi couldn't even read it then as she began to shake, just from the thought. "You really wrote to-"

"Well, we do have a history together and I thought, even if it was just-"

"I can't believe you-"

"She's invited," Lucy went on because she had a feeling her daughter was only going to continue to freak over the entire concept, "us to the Capital. To speak with her."

"Actually," Locke spoke up then. Navi had dropped the letter in her surprise and he took over reading it, "it says here that she's invited Fairy Tail to the 21 and under tournament and-"

"21 and under what?"

"Natsu," Lucy complained as he came out of nowhere to snatch the letter and look it over himself. "It's not about-"

"It says that she's disappointed," the slayer went on, "'cause she always invites us but we never go. What's this tournament? Does anyone-"

"Dad gets invited to that every year." Marin was by, serving drinks and shrugged at them a bit as she passed. "He never wanted to go because he didn't want Haven to embarrass the guild."

By either being a super sore winner or loser. She definitely would have been. Laxus still stood by that. Or sat by it, over where he was, at his Master's table with Freed, going over paperwork.

Locke frowned some, at the mention of the girl, but the Natsu only snorted.

"So 'cause you didn't want your daughter to succeed, you didn't want ours to either? What's the deal, man?"

"Natsu," his wife warned that time, but he was rushing over with the letter to Laxus then. "You get invited by the royal family to the capital and you just-"

"I ain't takin' anyone in this damn place anywhere," the slayer snarled with a fronw. "That tournament is a farce. A bunch of little brats get together and battle it out for jewels and a title. The brats around here are better off getting a title and jewels from jobs. The cost of going alone is just too much to-"

"We'll all cover our own cost, Master." Lucy was coming over then, but her tone was much more respectful. Snatching the letter back from her husband, she said, "I don't really care about the tournament, but Navi and I are going to go and visit with her if that's-"

"Do whatever the fuck you want. I-"

"Oi, boss, what about poor Ajax, eh? He's under twenty-one, ain't ya, kid?"

Laxus groaned as Bickslow was at the table then.

"I am!" Ajax was leaving the twins behind then to rush over as well. "Uncle Laxus, don't you remember that back flip I did off your house yesterday? I'd kick a bunch of butt in a tournament!"

"But Navi and I," Lucy kept up as the slayer just glared at his body guard (not his nephew; he loved his nephew...sort of), "can go, right, Master? I mean-"

"Let everyone go, Laxus." Mirajane, finally, arrived from behind the bar to refill her husband's ale and take the letter herself, to give it a once over. "At least Navi and Lucy, to speak with the Queen. You don't deny the Queen. And I've told you for years that we should let the kids participate in the-"

"What kids, Mira?" He gestured about. "Most of the teens are out on a job. Like they should be. And you have to be down there to report within-"

"I'm here," Ajax insisted to his master. "Please, Uncle Laxus? I can do it! I'll flip right over the competition."

"Yeah, boss," his father insisted. "He'll flip 'em right off!"

"It does appear, Laxus," Freed offered softly as Mirajane passed the letter off to him finally as he'd been staring at her expectantly before, "as if you are stifling, or have been stifling, the children in the guild. Not allowing them to get their names-"

"You think I entered tournaments? Huh? People leanred to fear the name Laxus Dreyar through my own-"

"Let," Mira told him then, darkly, "Ajax go."

He snorted again, but the boy knew that one well. It was the 'giving into my wife' one that his uncle had down so well.

"A master has to go though," the slayer griped, "to the tournament. And I..."

He was going to inform them that he didn't want to. Go to the capital. At all. For the year of growth the Dragneel's were having, the Dreyar family was stuck in a standstill. If not regression. Laxus spent most of his days in his office, drinking, and Mirajane hadn't spoken to him kindly, truly, since...since…

"We can all go." He decided it suddenly. But it wasn't the shining smile of his nephew that made him say this. Rather, it was as his gaze leveled on his wife and he thought about it, the two of them in the capital, away from the daily grind of the guild and, maybe, even able to go out, to dinner or something, and then...then…he realized it was for the best. "Anyone who wants to pay their own damn way can. Enter. If you want. Fine. Whatever."

He shoved up then, to head off to his office, while Ajax just rushed back over to the now animated twins as they two were certain their parents would foot the bill for them to take their mediocre skills all the way up to the capital just to lose.

But there were learning in loss.

And a lot more in a meeting with a queen…

"You could enter. Locke."

The man blinked as he'd sat once more, back down to his food, frowning some as Marin came over to refill his drink.

"You're not twenty one yet," she pointed out. "You know. You could enter and-"

"That's kid stuff. Tournaments." He even snorted, but, suddenly, did raise his head and say, "But I might go. Still. I've never been to the capital before. And Navi will wanna hang out with someone other than her mother, I bet."

"And father and brothers," Marin added.

Then, together, they both mentioned, "And Happy," as the Exceed came flying in from downstairs, interested in all the commotion.

"Where ya been, little buddy?" Natsu complained a bit. "You missed it! The boys are enterin' a tournament!"

"I was with Carla and Wend- What?" The Exceed fell out of the air, right onto the table they'd tall gathered around. As Lucky only grinned and Iggy snuggled Hak, the Exceed scratched some at his head. "Are you sure that…uh...Natsu-"

"And I," Navi informed him as she came over to pat her brothers each on their heads, "am going to meet with the Queen."

"Yeah, Navi, that's great, but- Wait, what exactly all did I miss?" the feline asked and Lucy, finally back with the letter, came to place it in her daughter's hands once more.

"The train, probably," Lucy told him. "We're all paying our own way. And unless you have some jewels in that satchel of yours-"

"Natsu, Lucy's bullying me again."

"How is it bullying to expect you to-"

"A tournament." Natsu punched the air in excitement. "I'm getting fired up just from the thought!"

"It's not for you, you know," his wife pointed out. "And I don't want you causing any problems in Crocus."

"Problems?" He snickered. "No way. I'm just going to support my boys. And you, Nav. I'll be on my best behavior."

"Why," she grumbled, "do I doubt that?"

Experience, probably.

Marin was pretty happy too though, as she told Erza and Kai all about it over dinner that night. She'd arrived at the Scarlet house to find he pair of them arguing a bit as the teenager insisted, without a doubt, that he was completely capable of putting together dinner all on his own.

He wasn't, but Erza and Marin were gulping down the hot mess of a soup he'd presented them with little complaints.

Recently, Kai had gotten an independent streak. Sort of. Mostly, he started to do his own laundry and pack his own lunches when he was planning on leaving town to go fishing. Erza marked this down as an improvement, at least, and tried hard to be supportive.

Which, at the moment, meant eating a salty bowl of boiled potato water.

"Wow. The Queen, huh? You met her before, haven't you, Erza?" Kai sighed at the thought. "I hear that she's, like, one of the most beautiful women in all of Fiore. But then, I also hear that about you sometimes, Erza, and, well-"

"Do not make me send you to bed without dinner, Kai. In front of your friend."

But he only snickered down at himself as Marin hummed.

"I'll go," she was quick to inform the two of them. "To the capital. It'll be my first time and there's a lot I wanna see there. Not to mention, I have to support Ajax. And the twins. And… Oh, wow, we don't have anyone to fight in the older teen category. Locke said no and most everyone else eligible is out on jobs or-"

"I am looking at two more eligible than any other," Erza said simply and Kai's snickers stopped.

"Erza," he started, but she only shook her head.

"One of you," she insisted, "must compete. It is only right. Do you not wish to fight for the honor of your guild? Does Fairy Tail not inspire you? Win or lose, to show your face in front of so many, proudly wearing the emblem, should be a point of pride."

Not to mention, she couldn't figure a way to get out of having to hold down the fort back in Magnolia for Laxus, who she had no doubt would ask (and she always did what her Master asked...even when he was a bit of an asshole master…), other than Kai competing.

"And Marin," she went on as she leveled her gaze at the girl, "this will be one of the few times you are able to truly test your limits of your Dragon Slayer Magic. Do you not wish, even a little, for such a chance? I understand meekness, but not cowardice."

"Marin's no coward," Kai insisted. "She's as tough as anybody!"

"And yourself?"

"Oh, no, I'm a big coward, Erza, so-"

"Kai-"

"W-Well, I've never been in are fight before," Marin whispered softly then. "And I don't think that my father will-"

"One of you," the woman ordered them that time, gaze heavy, and neither considered her a master, not really, but still, they felt as if they were being scolded by one, "will enter."

And that was final.

There were not many days to get it all together, but eventually, a select few of Fairy Tail found themselves boarding a train bound for the capital city.

As Laxus and Natsu suddenly were reminded why going to the capital sucked so much (by vehicle, at least), the others were spread out across carts. Marin sat with her Aunt Lisanna, Uncle Bickslow, and Ajax, the little boy regaling them all with different spells and tricks he knew. Her Aunt Evergreen and Elfman were going as well, to support their nephew, as well as Freed, though he sat with Laxus and Mirajane. The couple weren't speaking, as they typically didn't, and Freed only fretted over his Master as Laxus braved the long train travel with the best stoic face he could pull.

He was just glad his daughter was too busy with her cousin to notice…

"Erza, can't I go sit with Marin?" Kai whined, openly, as she forced him to sit beside her and go over a big book of magical spells. "Tournaments aren't crash courses. This isn't going to help me with anything!"

But the woman knew no reason and, ugh..

The twins spent the long train ride giggling at their father and explaining to their mother, in great detail, just how great they were getting, at their magic, and Iggy had full faith that he and Hak could pull off anything.

"You nervous?"

That's what Locke asked Navi as they sat alone, away from all the others, just by themselves. She sat beside him for once and it felt weird, wrong, but it took Navi a few moments to pinpoint why. Then she just sighed, staring heavily out the window.

"A little," she admitted and he laughed, softly, at her.

"You should be, I guess," he said. "Going to see the Queen of Fiore and all."

"Thanks, Locke."

"No, I just… It's pretty cool, isn't it? It's easy to forget all that they did before. Our parents."

Navi hummed, thinking, before saying, "I just don't know what I'll ask her. If I can ask her things. I hope she lets me write about them. Her experiences and… I shouldn't think about that stuff, I know, get ahead of myself. I should just be glad that she's willing to see me. What do you even wear? To meet a queen? My mom said we'd go shopping, when we got to Crocus, but-"

"You'll be alright, Navi." He sounded certain, Locke did, as he patted her on the head softly. Just once. Then his hand was falling to his lap once more. "Nerves are good, prepping is even better, but I know it won't matter anyways. You'll meet with the queen, have tons of new material to write about, flesh out your stories, and maybe, soon, you'll try and wrap it up? What you've been working on? Do you think?"

"Maybe," she sighed softly as her eyes drifted back out the window, watching all the passing scenery. "I just wanna get it all right. That's all."

"I'll be the first to read it," he promised, but he was distracted then, with the notebook before him, as he began glancing over some writings he had there. Not fiction, like her. Or nonfiction. Whatever. No. Just spells. Lots and lots of spells. "Think I can get it signed?"

She smiled at her reflection. "If you're willing to wait in line for it, yeah."

And it was awkward sometimes, just the two of them, but they were still them. Different, but not so much that it wasn't still there. Their friendship. It was buried a bit, maybe, in those days, but nothing a good trip to the pride of Fiore couldn't fix.

It would be the best decision of her life, Navi was sure, going to Crocus would be. And all because her mother wrote a little letter. A pipe dream of a letter. Navi would have questioned the odds, but she remembered before she did, that she was a Dragneel; they knew no odds, only successes.

Short little five chapter where we'll give Navi some time, just a bit, to close up her story as she'll fade out some, in the final arcs. Not to mention, the twins and Ajax deserve some attention before we finish up. I'll go back eventually, of course, and give them some one-shots and things, to flesh them out, but for now, this is their moment.