It had been four days since the trio arrived, and the storm was beginning to pass. The wind didn't blow quite as strongly and the air was starting to lose its icy grip The frozen water at the edge of town had become a tantalizing place to play, and the children were now carefully venturing out onto it.
The two girls had become comfortable being in the guild again. They already knew most of the guild members, and they got along well with the new ones also. Athena took a special interest in Wendy. Most of the time, she would sit in the back and watch the happenings of the guild, then Wendy would come over and sit with her. They wouldn't talk most of the time, just sit and watch. Mirajane, however, still refused to talk to the girls and wouldn't go anywhere near them. This confused many of the guild members. Before the girls had left, Mirajane and Meshiro had been almost impossible to separate. They were the best of friends, and they had hit it off rather quickly when the Strauss siblings had first joined the guild. Now, Mira barely looked at them.
Even though the family had been resting for the last few days, Meshiro continued to look worse. She had bags and dark spots under her eyes and had grown even paler. When she was in the guild, she would laugh and chat with those around her and pretend that everything was fine, but she didn't get up very often. It was as if she was too tired to stand. Most of the guild had begun to notice this, but whenever her diminishing appearance was brought up, Meshiro would skirt around the subject and change it as quickly as she could, so everyone respectfully stayed silent on the matter. It was rather hard for them though and the sisters began to notice that many people seemed to be keeping a close eye on her as if they were afraid something was going to suddenly happen.
With the roads beginning to open because of the warming weather, the guild was happy to see some requests coming in again, so the guild hall was quite empty now, as many teams had gone out that morning to start a job. The trio hadn't left on one and was sitting in the guild hall. Nab sat on a bench near them chatting with Meshiro. Akajii was silently glaring at the bar as Mira cleaned glasses and organized wine bottles. Athena sat in a corner, carefully watching the activities of everyone.
"-Then we told the villagers that we had relocated the monster instead of killing it, so they kicked us out," Meshiro explained.
"Wow! I can't believe they would do that! You guys worked so hard to convince it to leave, and how do they thank you? They kick you out. That's harsh." Nab exclaimed in disgust. "Did they at least pay you for it?"
"Well no..." *cough* "But we wouldn't have wanted them to anyways. If you had seen how strongly these villagers wanted this monster destroyed you would have understood. They didn't care anything about it and I don't think they ever even tried to negotiate with it either." She took a sip of water and cleared her throat. "Any money they would have given us would have been soiled by there evil intentions, and it would have left a black stain on the Fairy Tail Guild's good name." *cough* "Besides, it's not as if we were in need of the money. We just wanted to help them. But it seems the monster needed our help more. I just hope he is doing OK and keeping his promise to us to stay away from human villages from now on.
"That does make sense." Nab agreed. "I think you guys did the right thing."
"Thank you. That's very sweet of you to say."
"Ahh, no problem Shiro. I'm only telling it as I see."
The Master, who had been sitting on the counter chatting with Mira, jumped off and stretched, yawning loudly as he did so. "Well, I'm bushed." He said. "I think I'm going to head home and call it a day. Good night my children." And with that, he headed out the front door.
"Goodnight." Everyone called back in unison.
"I think the Master has a good idea. It's getting pretty late. I should probably start heading home soon too." Nab said.
"OK Nab" *cough* Meshiro replied softly. "Be careful out there though, there's still a lot of ice on the ground."
"I will. Night everyone." Nab called as he grabbed his coat and waved to everyone on his way out the door.
Now the only ones left in the guild were the twins, Athena, and Mirajane, who was busying herself by putting the last of the glasses away. The guild was silent, except for the sound of glass tapping together. Akajii continued to glare at Mira intently while she purposefully avoided eye contact with the trio and Athena watched the snow that had gently started falling outside the window. After a while, Akajii looked away towards the window as well.
"We should probably leave" She stated. "Before the snow starts to getting-" Akajii stopped short. Looking over at Meshiro she asked slightly concerned, "Are you OK?"
*cough* "Yeah, I'm fine." she lied through a wheeze. "I'm...*cough*...just a little tired."
Athena got up and padded over to the ailing girl sniffing her down then pushing her nose against her cheek. "You're obviously not fine." She growled after she pulled away from Meshiro's hot cheek. "I told you to stay at the hotel this morning, but no, you had to come, so now you're running a fever, probably from overexertion. Why do you never listen to reason?" Mira had stopped putting away the glasses now and stared at the ongoing scene, concern flashing in her eyes.
"Hey, I get that you're worried," Akajii protested. "Believe me, I am too. But I don't think your getting angry is going to help the situation." She looked at Meshiro. She was holding her chest, wheezing in each breath. "Do you think you will be OK to make it back to the hotel?"
"I don't think she can travel right now," Athena stated firmly. "We should have left sooner. Meshiro, why didn't you tell us you were feeling like this. You know what holding off does to you."
"I think we should have kept a closer eye on her."
*cough* "Guys...*wheeze*...please..." Meshiro pleaded to deaf ears.
"I was watching her. I just think that, by now, she should know better than to-" She broke off abruptly. Meshiro had started coughing harder. Her face was even paler and she had beads of sweat dripping down her entire body. The girl slid heavily off her chair to the floor. She covered her mouth with one hand and held herself up with the other, trying desperately to get a breath in between coughs. To the bickering girls horror, they saw her hand was covered in blood.
"Athena, where is her medicine? It is in your pack?" Akajii asked now overtaken by concern.
"Yes, in the farthest pocket on my left side" She replied quickly
Mirajane, seeing the danger in the situation, had run over to help. "What can I do?' She asked.
"Get a cold rag and some ice. She's running a fever and we'll need to bring it down if we can stop the coughing." Athena said, now standing so close to Meshiro that her tail was touching her back. Mirajane ran to the back, grabbed a bucket and filled it with ice. Then she whipped a rag out of a drawer and sprinted back to the girls. Meshiro was lying on her back now, barely conscious, her breath coming in short ragged gasps. Akajii had grabbed a vial and syringe. Carefully filling the syringe with the amber liquid contained within, she stuck it in Meshiro's arm and plunged it. Meshiro laid motionless on the ground for a few agonizing moments, the seconds ticking at the rate of an eternity. Her breathing changed ever so slightly, and the watching group breathed a small sigh of relief. Mira put the rag on her forehead and some of the ice around her, trying to cool her off.
"Is she going to be OK?" Mira asked nervously.
Akajii stared at her for a long moment then replied, "I hope so, but it's a little too soon to tell." Too concerned for her sister to allow her anger to continue.
"Should we get her to a hospital?"
"No," Athena said in a low voice. "She can't handle the journey, and right now, it is probably too cold for her outside. The air would only aggravate her lungs more and her condition could worsen."
"What should we do now?" Mira asked.
"We'll stay in the guild for the night. There are beds upstairs right?" Athena asked. Mirajane nodded silently. "Good. We'll bring her up there. We'll need to set a watch for the night though to make sure her condition doesn't worsen. I'll take the first watch. Akajii you take the second. Mira, You can go home." She added, giving the girl a hard stare.
"No." She said firmly. "I'm going to stay here tonight as well."
Athena stared at her for a few moments then lowered her head. "Very well." She said simply reaching down to sniff at Meshiro again. "Come on, let's get her into a bed."
