A share of memory

"As the flow of impressions slowly became less, Natsu Lucy and the others slowly opened their eyes again. They blinked a few times and looked around.

"What the..." Gray said as they mustered their surroundings. They were not longer standing in the hallway in front of the crystal, but in the middle of a small port town. The sun was already slowly going down at the horizon. The last light daylight spread its warmth on the land while a soft wind blew from the ocean, bringing the salty small of the sea to them.

"Where are we Lucy...?" asked Happy Lucy confused and landed on her shoulder.

"I-I don't know..." she admitted and looked around, searching for any hint on where they could be. It was a casual port town, even though something seemed odd. It seemed much older than the other towns, yet still new. Beside that there was nothing special. She went on the street and turned to the sea.

"Oh my…" she said and her eyes widened. "What is it?" Natsu asked and the others went to her. They looked down the street, then they saw him. About a hundred meters away from them was the young man they just saw in the crystal.

The scars which were all over his body had disappeared together with the patterns. He wore clean blue trousers, together with a pair of black boots and a black shirt. Around his wrists he wore black leather wristbands, on his trousers hung a silver chain and around his neck a necklace with a silver, ornamented cross. He was walking with his hands crossed behind his head and a smile on his face. He was talking to another person on his right. His companion was taller than he was, about 1.95 and had short, brown hair. He wore black trousers and boots together with a shite shirt and a coat which showed a blue bird pattern.

The Fairy Tail mages exchanged a short look, then Erza stepped forwards and walked up to the two men. "Excuse me?" she said but they didn't pay any attention to her and walked past her.

"Ah, I missed this little town, ya' know?" the blond haired man said to his companion with a happy voice as he passed Erza and the others by. The taller man looked at him and rose one eyebrow.

"Yeah, me too..." he said and gave the blond man a knowing look, "but I'm pretty sure that you did not really miss the town that much, not even the guild. It's more that you missed a certain someone, hun, Masaaki?" he said with a mischievous smile. Masaaki's face turned slightly red before he began to laugh loudly.

"Is it really so obvious, Takao?" he asked after a moment but the look he earned by his friend was enough of an answer.

The two men continued to walk through the town and left the mages behind. Erza's face turned deep red from anger and she ran after the two, stopping just a few meters in front of them.

"Hey, you!" she called and pointed at them but the two men did not notice her. Instead they walked straight into her. Or at least they should have but instead they simply passed through her as if she were a ghost. Erza looked confused and turned around looking at them.

"Wh-What was that?" she said as her friends caught up to her and looked at Levy.

The blue haired girl thought for a moment while everyone else waited for an answer. "Well... one explanation would be that we are trapped in some kind of illusion spell…" she said contemplative. Then she shook her head. "No this cannot be an illusion spell; this exceeds everything I have ever heard of. It is absolutely perfect! I mean, the warmth of the sun, the feeling of the wind, the scent. Even small things like the shadows of the flowers are perfect…" she finished and pointed on the flowers on the side of the street. A few moments later she knitted her eyebrows.

"However…" she said silently and the Mags looked back at her. "A few months ago I read a book about ancient kinds of magic, which are mostly forgotten by now. There was one of them…" she thought a moment about it.

"They called it 'Memory Share'. It is an ancient magic, even older than your Dragon Slayer Magic, which allowed the user to share their memories with other people by having physical contact. The other person would then be able to experience the same things the user did, like a bystander and since we actually had physical contact with him in some way this could actually be the real thing." she finished her explanation and the group became silent.

"And how do we get out of here?" Gray asked after a moment and looked at the blue haired girl.

"I don't know…" she admitted. "But I'd say we follow those two, maybe we can find something out. If I am right, he had reasons why he wanted to show this. I think we should find out what happened. Maybe then we will find out how to get out of here."

"You are right..." Erza said after a moment, "let's follow them!" They nodded and then ran after the two men, who had already gone quite far away. They caught up as the two stopped at the other side of the town, in front of a large bright brown wooden building. It was two floors high and at the end it divided in two wings. One to the left, one to the right. At the point where it divided stood a large tower. The entrance was made of two tall and heavy wooden doors which showed the same pattern which was on the tall man's coat. On the door arc stood the words "Mage Guild: Peristia Heart."

"Finally home..." Masaaki sighted after a moment as the two walked along the way to the doors. They placed their hands on one door each and exchanged a short look.

"Ready Takao?" Masaaki asked grinning.

"Ready!" Takao responded. "Push!" he called and the two pushed open the doors, which slammed against the walls with a loud crushing sound.

"We're back everyone!" Masaaki called as the guild members turned towards them. As they recognized their friends, they greeted them loudly. Some of them came over to welcome them personally. The Fairy Tail Mages continued following them.

"This is kind of like at home don't you think so?" said Lucy smiling and looked at Natsu who began to smile. "Yeah, you are right!" he agreed.

The inside of the building was a very bright place. A lot of windows were placed in the walls which let in the slowly fading daylight. From the doors one could see through the whole guild, from its entry to the large pedestal at the back where the building parted into its wings and the tower. Two wide stairways lead up to the upper floor, one from each side. On the walls of the tower hung two large request boards. In front of the pedestal was a large bar and in front of that, above the large guild symbol on the floor, stood many long tables where the members were gathering around.

Masaaki and Takao had already sat down on at the table, surrounded by the others. One little boy pushed through to them and smiled at them.

"Oh, hey Viole!" Takao greeted him as he noticed the brown haired boy.

"Hello Takao!" he responded and looked at him with an eager look in his eyes. "How was your mission? Did you fight against monsters again?" he asked excited, waiting for interesting stories. Masaaki and Takao exchanged a short look, then Masaaki began to laugh.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this time we did nothing like that..." he said to the interested young guild member. The boy and some of the other young mages let out a sound of disappointment.

"You know, we actually had to escort someone, from Hargeon Port all the way up to Crocus. Can you guess who it was, Viole?" Takao asked the boy. He knitted his eyebrows and started to think. Behind Takao's back Masaaki put two fingers on his head.

"A demon maybe?" he asked and Takao began to laugh together with the guild. "No, no demon, try again." This time Masaaki opened his quite long hair and held his hang as if a women was carrying a handbag. Then he drew the shape of a crown on his head.

"A princess?" Viole said and Takao nodded smiling. The guild began to laugh and Masaaki tied his hair together again fast.

"Yeah that's right, we were escorting the princess to the capital, and not just that, but also a large treasure." he said with a blink in his eyes.

"How does she look like? Is she really as beautiful as everyone says? Did someone try to attack or rob you?" Viole asked interested.

"Well, yeah she was quite beautiful, but in my eyes the stories are..." Masaaki began but was interrupted by his partner.

"Of course Masaaki does not think she is even close to 'her', you know?" Takao said with a blink in his eye and everyone began to laugh as they understood what he aiming at. In the meantime, Masaaki's face turned deep red, what made them laugh even more. The laughter was suddenly interrupted by a loud crushing sound. Everyone stopped immediately and turned into the direction where the sound came from.

"What happened?" Happy asked curious. "Someone entered." Said Lucy, who felt a strong magical force.

The group divided and created a path to the two men who had already stood up. They looked to the person who now stood in front of them and bowed down.

"We are back, Master Hisao!" the two of them said with a respectful voice.

Master Hisao was a tall, old man with short white hair and a short white beard. He wore a long white coat with the black guild sigil on its back. Three little silver chains were attached to each arm and a golden line went along the edges of the coat. The guild master mustered them with his old, wise eyes.

"You are early, I did not expect you to be here before next week, Masaaki, Takao... How did you handle the mission?" he asked them with his deep voice.

"It was no problem at all, sir!" they told him as they rose up again. "We were not confronted with either attacks or robberies during the whole journey, not even once. Because of this we arrived very early at Crocus. The king gives you his best regards, and thanks you for your help, that's what he wanted us to tell you." Masaaki told him and waited for his reaction. Master Hisao mustered them for a moment, then he began to smile.

"I did not expect anything less from two of my best mages. Well done, I'm proud of you, young ones!" he said smiling and the two mages began to smile as well. "Welcome home you two." he finished and nodded at them before he turned around and went off to the guilds tower.

Suddenly the world around the two mages flickered and they found themselves behind Takao.

"What happened?" Gajeel asked surprised and looked at the small blue haired girl.

"I think we just changed the perspective…" she said.

Takao and Masaaki sat down as they heard a snapping sound. They looked up to the pedestal where Master Hisao was looking down on them. Besides Takao nobody had seemed to have heard that.

"Takao, I wish to speak you later, please come to my office when you have some time free. Celebrate your coming back, but before you go to your wing come to me" he finished and before the mage could say something there was another snapping sound and the white haired man turned around and went up the tower. Takao looked after him for a moment, then he turned back to Viole.

"So, where were we?" Takao said to go back to the topic they just had.

"Masaaki has a crush on Mizuki!" Viole called and the whole guild began to laugh loud while Masaaki's face turned red again.

"Right! By the way," Takao said to his friend suddenly, "didn't you forget something?" he asked and gave him a questioning look. Masaaki's eyes widened as he understood what his friend meant. He jumped up immediately.

"Nah, I mean…" he started but Takao interrupted him immediately.

"Just go!" he called and the blond haired mage ran through the guild building to its back door. Takao smiled as he looked after his friend, as he was out of sight he turned around to the other guild members again. "So, the princess..." he said and went on where they had stopped before and the world flickered again.