Even after the time skip, I still own nothing

lll

13 years later

One of the best things about not having a regular work schedule is that I can sleep as late as I want. Usually that means I roll out of bed at around 10, and today was no exception. I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. I had moved out of the Fairy Tail dorms into my own apartment about 6 years ago. Business as one of the only devil slayers in Fiore could be very lucrative, so I had more than enough to afford my own place. I received a non-insignificant amount of specific requests to deal with demons, and even on standard jobs, just having the title of devil slayer brought notoriety.

After a quick shower and some breakfast/lunch, I dressed myself in my usual attire of a red V-neck t-shirt, black pants, a comfortable pair of dark shoes, and a gray jacket with red stripes on the sleeves. I always rolled the sleeves up to my elbows, and when asked, I would say it was so I could proudly display the devil slayer tattoo on my right forearm and the black Fairy Tail guild mark on my left. In truth, I just hated the feeling of clothing on my wrists, but I thought the other answer sounded better.

I grabbed a book I had borrowed from Levy off the arm of my couch, intending to return it once I got to the guild. One of the main reasons I had chosen this apartment (aside from how close it was to the guild hall) was that it had a large living room with handmade bookshelves installed in the walls and a fireplace. Of course I turned the room into my library, and was more than a little proud of it. My apartment wasn't especially big or well furnished, outside of some trophies I had acquired on jobs, and I didn't need it to be. I spent most of my time at the guildhall, and I just needed a small, quiet area to sleep and be alone when I wanted.

Leaving my apartment, I began to make the 5 minute walk to the guildhall. As I was walking, I noticed a couple girls looking and giggling at me. I smirked to myself. I knew that I had an appearance that was sometimes seen as attractive to the opposite sex, and had no qualms with that. I paid them little mind and continued walking, only to hear a voice from behind me,

"Umm, excuse me… are you Casteel Raekin?" I turned to see who had addressed me and identified the girl standing in front of me as one of the girls who had been giggling and looking a moment earlier.

"Yes, I am." I smiled politely at her. She looked to be a few years younger than I was. She had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and was on the shorter side. My smile immediately fell when I saw what she had in her hands. A copy of Sorcerer Weekly from two weeks ago.

Sorcerer Weekly had been receiving flack about their 'unequal portrayal of men and women,' which of course meant that their pages were flush with attractive female wizards, often in revealing clothes no less. To combat this, the publication decided to do an issue to celebrate male wizards. This is how the 'Men of Fairy Tail' issue had come to be. They could have picked any guild. They really could have picked any guild. Hell, the guys at the Blue Pegasus guild would have probably been more than happy to do it. But no, they chose Fairy Tail. Almost no one who wasn't on a job wanted to do it, but Mira became very excited at the prospect and as a general rule, no one can say no to Mira. The male wizards who weren't on a job, and were therefore suckered into it were myself, Gray, Loke, Elfman, Alzack, Jet, and Droy. Technically speaking, Laxus, Freed and Bickslow were there, but they all mysterious disappeared the morning of the shoot. The title they wanted to use was, "The Shockingly Cool Men of Fairy Tail" so guess which lightning and ice wizards they wanted to use for the cover. Neither Gray not I wanted to be on the cover, but Mira insisted that it would be great. If that wasn't bad enough, Gray had forgotten to wear a shirt to the shoot, which gave the photographer the idea to have us both be shirtless for the cover. He said, and this is a direct quote, that it would be "SOOOO COOOOOOL!"

That cover was currently staring back at me from the girl's hands. I looked back up at her and forced the smile back onto my face. The whole issue was incredibly embarrassing to me, and to make matters worse, people kept bringing it up to me, just like now.

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe its really you!" The girl squealed. I wanted to point out that Magnolia wasn't that big of a city, and that she was two blocks from the guildhall, but that seemed like it would be rude, so instead I kept the smile plastered on my face. "Could you, like, sign my copy of Sorcerer Weekly?" she seemed like she was going to hyperventilate as she asked me, which genuinely confused me, because I'm not that big a deal.

"Yeah, of course." I choked out. She squealed again and rooted around in her purse for a pen and handing the it, along with the magazine to me. I took them, and stared at my own image. The photographer had wanted our guild marks to be plainly visible, which wasn't an issue for Gray since his was on his chest. Since mine was on my forearm, I was asked to put my hand on the back of my head, to highlight it. Aside from that, I had my right arm bent at the elbow, and coated my right hand in lightning, while Gray did the same thing with his left hand, subbing ice for lightning.

I couldn't help but stare at myself. I had short, light brown hair that always stuck up and to the right, light blue eyes, a fair complexion, an angular face, and a straight nose. I had kept up with the training schedule my mother had taught me, although I moved it to later in the day so that I could sleep in, so I was in great good shape, with a toned, athletic build. Though I had an aesthetically pleasing face, my natural expression was described by Levy as unapproachable, while Cana preferred to say that I had resting bitch face.

Giving a gentle sigh, I signed the magazine and handed it back to the girl, giving her one last smile and turning on my heel and marching to the guild in a slightly lesser mood than I had previously been in.

lll

A short while later, I entered the guildhall. I surveyed the room marveling with no small amount of fondness, the seemingly paradoxical mix and violence and fellowship that flowed through the common area on a daily basis. I spotted Levy sitting at a table, reading a book and absent-mindedly nodding along to the conversation that Jet and Droy seemed to think they were having with her. I made my way over the table and announced my presence by placing the book on the table. The gentle thud caused the trio to cease their activities and look towards me.

"Finished." I said plainly to Levy, before turning to nod at Jet and Droy, thus acknowledging their presence. On an interpersonal level, I liked both Jet and Droy; they were both good friends, and made for good conversation. However, I found their shared enamor of Levy to be a bit grating. It must be difficult for them to both share an infatuation for Levy, I understood that much. My problem lied with how they both seemed to treat her as an object rather than a person within their infatuation. Furthermore, at a certain point one of them has to man up and be upfront with her, but I found their refusal to do so to be quite irritating.

Levy looked up at me, "Already? I loaned that to you less than a week ago."

I shrugged, "I read fast."

She shook her head at me, "I keep telling you that you should take time with books. The faster you go, the more you miss." She sighed, "Anyways, what did you think?"

"It was interesting and well-written, but I fundamentally disagree with his main assertion." I let my sentence hang in the air, waiting for her to prompt me for more details.

"I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise; you disagree with everything."

"I do not." I replied quickly

She quirked an eyebrow at me, "You disagree with my statement about you disagreeing with everything? Please tell me I don't have to point out the irony in that." She had me dead to rights on that one.

"Fair point, but doesn't the reason I disagree matter more than the fact that I disagree?" I asked, not quite ready to let the point die.

She smiled and rolled her eyes, "I think the fact that you disagree with everything puts your reason for disagreement under suspicion. You're a contrarian, so you'll find a reason to disagree, rather than come to one naturally. Like how an alcoholic will find a reason to drink."

"Leave Cana out of this." I joked with a smirk.

"You always deflect with humor when you know you're wrong." She explained with another eye roll.

"I deflect with humor because I'm funny."

"Not as much as you think."

I couldn't think of a witty retort to that one, "So are you going to ask me why I disagree with the author?"

She smiled and leaned back in her chair, "I don't think so. I know you desperately want me to, but its fun watching you squirm."

I posted my hand to my chest and staggered back in mock hurt, then turned to Droy, "Droy, I think you'll be interested to know that I disagree with the author because I think he builds his arguments on a faulty premise. I think he underestimates the breadth of deism during the reformation, and discredits its spread in the subsequent centuries."

Levy had been trying to ignore me, but at the conclusion of my statement she turned to me, "You know that's not what he was saying! He was just trying to explain the foundations of deism, not track it through the ages; that wasn't his premise!" she exclaimed.

A broad smile spread across my face and I pointed towards Levy, "I knew you were interested in why I thought he was wrong! I win!" I started to back away from the table as I made my declaration.

"Win? Win what? This isn't a competition!" her voice started raising as I moved further away from where she sat.

"You're only saying that because you lost!" I quickly turned and jogged to the bar so that she wouldn't be able to get the last word in.

I took a seat at the bar, and politely asked Mira for a drink. As I took my first sip, I heard a voice from behind me,

"What's up, cover girl?" Cana said as she took a seat next to me and ordered three drinks of her own.

"Isn't alcohol supposed to give you memory loss? When is that going to start to kick in?" I asked, a little sour that the damned magazine cover was being brought up again.

"Don't worry; I plastered my walls with the cover so I'll never forget it." She joked.

"Well that's more than a little creepy."

"What can I say? I feed off of shame and despair." By this point, I had barely made a dent in my mug, while she had just finished her second.

"Apparently you're not the only one; some girl asked me to sign her copy on the way over here."

"How sweet, you have fan girls. That means you've finally made it in life." She punched me playfully in the shoulder. I thought about giving her a little zap, but decided against it.

"Oh joy, just what I've always wanted." I stated dryly before taking a drink. "By the way, have you taken any jobs recently?"

She shook her head after finishing off her third drink, "I gave myself last week off."

"And the week before that?" I inquired.

"What was the week before that? Actually, what's today?"

"The 25th"

"Really? Did I miss an entire week? Maybe I should stop drinking so much." She punctuated her sentence by ordering three more drinks. "What about you? Have you any jobs recently?"

"There was supposedly a demon up north that someone offered 250,000 jewel in exchange for taking it out, and I went to go take care of it. The problem was that someone had beat me to the punch."

"Dear old mom?" She asked, giving me an odd sort of look.

"Yeah. There wasn't much left when I got there; it looked like the entire countryside was scorched." I had never realized how big a deal Treia Raekin was until I came to Fairy Tail. She was the most well-known devil slayer on the continent, not that there were many to begin with. Whenever she came to visit, it was like a celebrity had come to the guild. Everyone loved her. True to her word, she had come to visit from time to time, but her visits started to become more and more infrequent, to the point that it was more likely I'd run into her on a job. It had been about a year and a half since I'd last seen her.

"Well that's…something." Cana responded before taking a long swig of her mug.

"Yeah, something indeed." For a moment, we sat and drank in silence.

"So…want to get trashed and find some trouble?" She flashed a mischievous smirk as she asked.

I chuckled, "You do know the way to my heart, don't you."

"Damn straight" she agreed. We both downed the rest of our mugs and ordered more before hearing a louder than usual commotion. In unison, we turned to see Gray and Natsu brawling in the middle of the guildhall.

"Looks like Natsu is back." I thought aloud as the brawl started to drag more and more people into the fray.

"Looks like he brought someone with him too." Cana stated, pointing to a blonde girl with a sideways ponytail, "She's cute. Think she's Natsu's girlfriend?"

I scoffed, "Doubtful. He was raised by a dragon, right? Do you think he was ever taught about the birds and the bees?"

"If he was, I'm sure it was an abridged version." I laughed heartily at her joke.

"She looks uncomfortable, let's go introduce ourselves." I sat up and started to walk over to the girl, avoiding flying debris as I went. Cana rolled her eyes and followed me.

"Hi, I'm Casteel." I stated warmly as I reached her, extending my hand to her.

She looked at me and shook my hand, "It's nice to meet you, I'm Lucy." Her expression changed suddenly and she tilted her head as she looked at me, which made me a bit uncomfortable. Her eyes then lit up, "Oh my gosh! You're Casteel Raekin! I loved your feature in Sorcerer Weekly!" my eye twitched at her comment and Cana burst into laughter.