Shoutout to filiiadcorblog for the "flight" prompt that sparked this ficlet! I really love this pairing.
Takes place during the second timeskip, while the Raijinshuu were members of Blue Pegasus.
When he first spotted her, it was deep in the Worth Woodsea, surrounded and coated in dappled golden sunlight and the shifting shadows of leaves. Dressed in ghostly white, her ephemeral form was composed - a creature of moonbeams and night skies, so out of place and yet so much at home in the sun-drenched woods.
Her heeled boot was firmly planted into the spine of the unconscious dark mage Freed had been hired to capture.
Freed landed some distance from her - the undergrowth not especially dense underneath the giant trees. Feet touching the forest floor, a careless snap of a twig under his boot alerted her to his presence. She glanced towards him, though her eyes soon slid away in a swift dismissal. Instead her attention focused behind him.
"Pardon me, miss," Freed stated carefully, his gaze not wavering in the slightest. "I hate to intrude, however… that man beneath your boot happens to be a criminal of some note, whom I have been hired to return to the authorities."
Her violet eyes returned to his, the corners crinkling in mirth, and a smile swept across her face. A laugh, pure in tone, fell from her lips, ringing out across the glade.
Freed had spent enough time in the company of Mirajane and Evergreen to know when to fear a smile. Instinct put his hand on his sword before conscious thought could prompt the action.
This mild display of aggression only seemed to delight the pale, silvery woman. "Relax, darling!" she crooned. "I won't bite." Her eyes twinkled merrily, a cruel tilt to her smile. "Unless you ask me to, of course."
The appraising way with which she regarded him filled him with embarrassment. Freed raised his hand to his mouth and coughed, hoping to disguise his discomfort. "That will not be necessary."
"Pity." Her eyes then fixated on his upraised limb; a short, harsh intake of air between her teeth following shortly thereafter. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed, raising long, delicate fingers to her lips in delight. Her grin widened in malicious glee. "What are the chances?"
Freed peered at her in wary confusion. "I beg your pardon?"
"A green haired pony coming to visit me in these woods! That certainly does bring back... memories." With that, she stepped off the wanted mage, the feathers on her dress swishing softly with her movements. "My name is Sorano, pony-boy. What's yours?"
He kept his eyes leveled carefully on her face, and not on the trailing hems of the dress - meant to catch the eye and distract from its wearer. "Freed." He did not offer a surname, as she had not proffered her own.
An odd emotion – one Freed could not quite place – passed over her face, but then it shifted, much like the shadows of the rustling leaves. "I see," Sorano murmured. "Tell me, pony-boy…" Her hands reached out towards his face, the cool pads of her fingertips brushing against his flushed cheeks. Freed found himself unable to move, unable to step away as her fingers slid past his cheeks to meet behind his head. Jade strands curled around her hands, winding to her whim. Her arms rested on his shoulders, her chest pressed into his jacket, as she peered lazily up into his eyes. "Where might a fallen angel such as I find a pair of wings like yours?"
Understanding flooded through Freed at her words. The Dark Ecriture had yet to be dispelled, and the wings remained against his back. So that was what she had been fixated on when he'd arrived. They had no heft to them, being formed of rune magic alone, and he had honestly forgotten about them.
"You see…" she went on, not waiting for his response, "I have always wanted wings like yours, ever since I was a little girl. Such freedom, you must have - to go wherever you desire. Although, I must admit that I am… curious. And intrigued. It hardly seems fair that a pony should have wings more suited to a fairy."
Ice crept through his veins, chilling Freed to his core. He tried to move, to break free of this dangerous woman's grip, but not a single muscle so much as twitched.
Spellbound…? When had she…?
Wistfulness adorned her expression next, her expressions as fluid as moonlight and shadow. "I heard from a little red birdie that there were no more Fairies though. Isn't that sad?"
Freed swallowed thickly. "It is. Though I have always been more of a demon, either way."
Her smile widened. "Tell me, pony-boy. If I were to rip off your wings, could they be mine? Might I be the one able to soar?"
"No," he responded, words springing to his lips unbidden. "They are born of my magic, as much a part of me as my hand that bears the Blue Pegasus guild mark. You could try, but they would never be yours to own." Freed's gaze bore into hers. "Stealing the freedom of another will not grant you freedom in turn."
"I see. Then might I... borrow your wings?"
The suggestion took Freed aback a bit. She was… negotiating with him?
Not one to let an opportunity pass by, Freed contemplated the request. "I could cast the Dark Ecriture on you," he reasoned. "However, the duration would be limited, and the range does not exceed my own line of sight."
Sorano unwound herself from him, retreating a pace. "Allow me to try them out then, the next time we meet. I am afraid I must be going for now, but someday... I would very much like to see what the sky feels like." In her gaze at that moment, Freed did not see the crystalline, opaque amethyst he had before, but instead he glimpsed, for just a split second, the sky – open and vast, saturated in the melancholy of sundown.
"Seems a fair bargain to me," he agreed, though he suspected that she valued what she was to receive far more than he did. "Though I must know… what sort of magic did you use on me just now?"
Coyness danced across her features, though she only hummed in reply, her light footsteps carrying her away into the woods like a wisp. "I didn't use any at all," she sang softly. At the edge of the undergrowth, she paused. "Oh and… Freed?"
Startled that she was now using his name, he responded, "Yes?"
She was silent for a moment. Then she half-turned to face him, her cheeks dusted with red. "You have a lovely name. Take good care of it, will you?"
With that, she disappeared into the woods, like the wraith she appeared to be. Leaving behind naught in her wake but an unconscious man, and a flushed Blue Pegasus mage.