Meredy have only one goal and one wish in life: to make Zancrow acknowledge her and to stay by his side.
Meredy cannot remember much of her life before Grimoire Heart, but Zancrow was the one who saved her from all the senseless destruction. He rescued her, convinced Ultear and Kain to bring her back to the airship when he could have just left her there, and had a heated argument with Master Hades to keep her in the guild. He eventually agreed to Zancrow's proposed arrangement of keeping her in the guild after noticing Meredy's potential as a mage. Meredy knows that Grimoire Heart is a dark guild, but she doesn't mind. To her, home is where Zancrow is. If Zancrow wants to stay in Grimoire Heart, she will stay as well. If he leaves, Meredy will follow him without hesitation. If Zancrow told her to jump, she would ask how high. If he asked her to kill, she will do it with a smile on her face, even if things had never got to that extreme before. She can tell that Zancrow is protective of her in his own way even if he does not show it blatantly. You have to read his body language, understand the meaning hidden in the few words he spoke. It took a while for her to learn how to spot it, but it warms Meredy's heart that in his own silent way, Zancrow is taking care of her in the best way he knew how.
Even the occasions where she managed to get an accurate read on him are rare. Zancrow is a master at masking his emotions and even better at misdirection due to his job as the guild's spymaster, but Meredy would like to think that she is the best at understanding Zancrow. The other members certainly don't understand him as well as she do. Ultear seemed like she understand Zancrow to an extent as well, but it's obvious to everyone that Zancrow doesn't like Ultear very much even if they can work with each other professionally. Zancrow never spends time with anybody else in his free time unless it's strictly necessary.
Zancrow just seems to hate everyone, period. The hate he emitted constantly is so strong that Meredy sometimes think that Zancrow simply hates the world.
When Meredy was first brought to the guild, Master Hades had put Zancrow in charge of taking care of Meredy, including teaching her basic things like how to read and write. Zancrow didn't protest at being assigned as Meredy's babysitter although Meredy did catch a slight twitching of his fingers.
For reasons unknown, Zancrow had never looked Meredy in the eye initially when they first started living together. Master Hades had kindly arranged for Meredy to live and sleep in Zancrow's room. She knew she was getting preferential treatment, the grunts in the guild had to share rooms, anywhere from four to eight members per room. Only the top members of the guild get their own rooms. The higher you are up in the food chain, the lesser people you have to room with and the greater privileges and privacy you can enjoy. A kid like her would never have the luxury to share a room with only one other person, and a high ranking member to boot, if it wasn't for Zancrow's intervention. She realised that to earn herself a permanent spot in Grimoire Heart, she have to prove her worth to them and to Master Hades.
And to Zancrow as well, if she ever wanted to earn his acknowledgement
Zancrow doesn't speak much, he only spoke when necessary. The other members of the guild reassured her that it is no fault of her own when they saw her crestfallen expression when Zancrow doesn't seem to want to talk to her. They told her Zancrow is a quiet person that spends his free time away from the other members of the guild to train in his magic. No one knows much about him, the only one who can claim to know him best is Master Hades himself since he was the one who introduced Zancrow to the guild. Zancrow appeared punctually for every of her lessons in the guild library as he sat down to teach her about everything and anything he knew, but make no attempts to do anything else outside of lesson materials. Meredy barely had time to interact with him outside lessons since he disappeared to somewhere else once the lessons are over. She would not even catch a glimpse of him if he was on missions. On an ordinary day, Zancrow would wake up early and turn in late. Meredy barely had the chance to talk to him even when they roomed together. Zancrow will just glance at her to see that she is alive and well and then proceed to do his own thing.
Meredy soon realised that Zancrow knew a lot from their lessons. History, geography, math, language, music, arts, sociology, and even psychology. He seems to know a little about everything and Meredy tried very hard to absorb the information Zancrow presented her with. If Zancrow could learn all of these, she can too! She will prove her worth to him!
If Meredy thought that the lessons were hell, it was nothing to what Zancrow knew about magic when he starts to teach her about it. It was like he had devoured every single book about magic sitting on the shelves in the library of the guild. Her head hurts just trying to remember the information Zancrow told her to memorise before the start of their every lesson.
The moment Meredy had access to her magic, Master Hades came over personally to teach her a form of Lost Magic, Maguilty Sense. Meredy was excited, if Hades had acknowledged her worth, then she is one step closer to getting Zancrow to acknowledge her!
She earned her spot in the guild only about one and a half years after getting inducted into the guild. The guild had a tradition, an event held once every year where any guild member who wish to be promoted to the upper echelon will have to take. It's called the Devil's Pit, which took place in a deserted mountain valley in Fiore. It's basically a free-for-all battle royale. Any and all type of magic is allowed. Lethal force is allowed. No one will be held responsible for any deaths. It is a contest where only the strongest survives and a few members die every year in the Devil's Pit. The last one standing, or those who had displayed outstanding performance will be promoted and given a higher status in the guild. Every single high ranking member in the guild had taken part in the Devil's Pit before.
Meredy could tell that Zancrow was worried for her from the way he glanced at her with his eyes. Meredy was the youngest member in history to take part at six years old, way too young to be engaging in a life-and-death brawl. Meredy felt giddy with happiness that Zancrow actually cared for her and returned a bright smile when he shot her worried looks. Zancrow just muttered "Don't die" before turning away and walked up to his seat up on the spectator's stand.
Meredy took all 89 contestants down within ten minutes with Maguilty Sense. All she had to do is to link everyone's sense of pain together with her magic (except for hers, of course). The moment someone unleashed the opening salvo and his attack connected onto another, the pain felt by the victim will be felt by everyone who was connected by Maguilty Sense. No one knew what was going on and the battlefield descended into a mayhem, each member inflicting pain on the entire group and the whole battle spiraled out of control. Meredy didn't have to do anything but stand back and watch as the other participants won the Devil's Pit for her.
Every high ranking member in the guild have their own teams which they sometimes have to lead on missions. Meredy was promoted to be the second-in-command for Zancrow's team for her outstanding performance in the Devil's Pit. Meredy couldn't have been happier when Zancrow congratulated her.
It only took Meredy three years before Master Hades deemed her eligible enough to start going on S rank missions for the guild. Despite her young age, Meredy had gone on countless missions for the guild, but none of them are too hard for her. Most of them are to gather intel, a skill that Zancrow had imparted to her personally. She had seen combat, but none of her opponents can stand up to her, not when she has been trained personally by both Master Hades and Zancrow, who only went on the most dangerous of missions due to his power and status. Meredy is no stranger to death even if she hadn't killed before. Zancrow had told her to leave the killing to the other members of the guild, which she obeyed. She knew of Zancrow's dislike of killing, which is a well-known fact across the entire guild. Caprico had told her that when Zancrow first joined the guild, many of the grunts laughed at his 'cowardly behaviour' for being unfitting of a dark mage, but a large serving of black flames from Zancrow shut them up quickly. Caprico had admitted to Meredy that in terms of pure raw power, Zancrow had the most destructive magic out of the Seven Kin of Purgatory and he is the only one who can match Ultear, the strongest member aside from Master Hades, in a head-on fight.
Meredy could see Zancrow's face scrunched up slightly in distaste when he heard she will be going on a solo S Class mission on her own, and Meredy felt her heart dropped in disappointment. She fiddled with the sleeves of her shirt, is what she did still not enough?
"She's still too young to be going on these missions, Master Hades. She's only eight-"
"You were also eight when you started to go on solo S Class missions as well, Zancrow. Each and every one of you here are prodigies in the use of magic. You had only a single year to train in your magic before going on such missions then, Meredy had three. She is now a member of the Seven Kin of Purgatory like you, why are we treating her any different?"
Meredy could see Zancrow visibly clenching his fist from where he was standing. Meredy looked down onto the floor, did Zancrow think that she is still too weak? Why? After all the training she's been through, it still wasn't enough to gain his acknowledgement?
"If you are so worried about your little protege, then you can accompany her on this mission. However, you can only interfere when it is absolutely necessary. As a member of the Kin, Meredy needs to experience for herself the dangers of an S Class mission. This is final." Master Hade's voice reverberated across the room in the tone that brook no argument. Zancrow lowered his head in acknowledgement at the order he was given.
"Understood, Master Hades."
Meredy lit up with joy at the unexpected arrangement. Her first solo S Class mission! With Zancrow watching her too! Granted he will only be tagging along to supervise her, but they can finally go on a mission together! Just the two of them!
When Master Hades finally left the room the newly formed Seven Kin of Purgatory released a breath they had been holding all these while. Ultear had been made leader due to her strength and seniority in the guild. The position of leader had been a close tossup between her, Zancrow, and Azuma, but Zancrow had immediately declined the position of team leader and Azuma simply wasn't interested. Meredy may be strong, but she is the weakest in strength among the seven of them. Ultear had smiled and told her that it is because she is still young. Many mages only start to reach the peak of their strength in their twenties, and only the strongest of mages are able to grow past their peak and continuing growing their magic throughout their entire lives, like what Master Hades did. Aside from Zancrow, Ultear is the only one who had treated her with genuine kindness and is more open about it with her actions. It's just that they only have time recently to interact with each other due to their previous difference in status and acts of kindness from Ultear to her were rare as a result. They will probably have time to interact more now that they are all part of the same team.
Meredy bounded up to Zancrow excitedly, who still have the same expressionless look on his face as he watched her made her way to him.
"Zan! Zan! Can you believe it?! We are finally going on a mission together!"
The room suddenly fell uncharacteristically silent and Meredy was instinctively on alert. She looked around nervously, did she do anything wrong? Maybe she should have walked up normally instead of jumping around?
"Oh shit." Rustyrose whispered out.
That was the only warning Meredy got as black flames erupted violently from Zancrow and blasted the entire group backwards. Meredy was standing way too close to Zancrow and she would have been fatally injured if Ultear hadn't intervened and got her out of there in time. Rustyrose created a shield that blocked the brunt of the attack and the rest of the Kin hid behind the shield. Zancrow's eye gleamed ominously in a blood-red colour as the flames swirled in rage.
"Zancrow! Snap out of it!"
Azuma's words seemed to snap Zancrow out of whatever had enraged him as he visibly tried to reign in his uncontrollable powers. A few seconds later, the unruly black flames disappeared, leaving a very charred and destroyed room.
"Do. NOT. call me Zan ever again." With a harsh glare Zancrow shot at Meredy, he stormed out of the room, leaving the remaining Kin to stare at his departure in silence.
"Th-That was a close one." Kain muttered out as he wiped the sweat collected on his forehead.
"You can say that again." Azuma chipped in as he crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked towards Meredy, who is sporting burns all over her body and trying very hard to not whimper in pain. "I was expecting for half the ship to be destroyed before we got him under control."
"You got lucky, Meredy." Rustyrose said as he walked towards the exit with his hands in his pocket. "The last time I called Zancrow by that name he nearly burnt me alive, Master Hades had to intervene. You are lucky that Zancrow managed to control himself this time."
"Didn't anyone teach her not to say that particular nickname in Zancrow's presence?" Azuma grumbled as he watched Ultear restoring the room with her magic back to the time before it was partially destroyed.
"From the looks of it, no one had bothered to educate her on this particular issue." Caprico said as he pushed his glasses up with a single finger. "It is an oversight on our part. I'm surprised that it took three years for this mishap to happen, considering that Meredy had no knowledge about Zancrow's peculiarity."
"Save the talk for later, right now we need to treat Meredy's injuries." Ultear said as she carefully carried Meredy in her arms and walked out of the room. "Rustyrose, I need you to bring me the salve. I trust that you still remember what it looks like?"
"Will never forget about it." Rustyrose grumbled as he made a turn towards the infirmary whereas Ultear carried Meredy into her own room. Meredy had gotten her own room the moment she became Zancrow's second-in-command, much to her dismay since it means she will be living separately from Zancrow, but she had shifted to a more luxurious room beside Zancrow's when she was promoted to be a member of the Kin and she now also have her own squad to lead now.
Rustyrose soon arrived bringing a small container, whispered something to Ultear, and left quickly. Ultear locked the door of the room and proceeded to help undress Meredy, showing the full extent of her injuries. Meredy can't help but hiss in pain when Ultear applied the salve onto her burn wounds, but watched in amazement as her wounds healed at a visible rate. Her wounds are still not fully healed, but the results were obvious.
"Stop gawking." Ultear said in amusement. "This salve was created by Zancrow specially to treat the burns inflicted by his magic, the effects it have on the burns are extraordinary. Rustyrose nearly lost his life once when he stupidly called Zancrow by that nickname when we told him not to, and we had to do something about the burns he received lest he died. Master Hades wasn't pleased." Ultear continued talking as she began to wrap Meredy's injuries in bandages after applying the salve. "The flames of a God leaves their mark on their target, it is not something that can be easily removed or cured if you don't have healing magic. No one in this guild is capable of healing magic, it's just that rare. To get around this issue, Zancrow had used his own blood as the main ingredient in creating this salve, successfully saving Rustyrose's life and prevented him from getting permanently disfigured."
Meredy stared at the small bottle of salve in shock. That was created by Zancrow's own blood?! It doesn't even remotely look like blood!
"I don't know how Zancrow managed to create such a salve or how he thought of using his own blood as an ingredient. He never shared anything about it, so don't bother asking." Ultear continued as she finished wrapping up Meredy's injuries. "But what we do know is to never address him by what you just called him. He will fly into an insane rage and the only one who can stop him single-handedly is Master Hades. Even Master Hades don't know why Zancrow had such a reaction and Zancrow never told us why he reacted like that either. The first time that happened he had killed the grunts who had addressed him as such. Painfully. We thought it was because the grunts were mocking him as Zancrow had only just joined the guild at that point in time. It was only the incident with Rustyrose that we realised that addressing Zancrow with that nickname is a trigger for him to lose control."
Meredy listened intently as she took the information in. Why had she not know about this in the three years she spent in Grimoire Heart? But more importantly...
"Do you know why Zancrow does not want to be addressed in that manner?"
Ultear gave a sigh as her eyes softened. She helped Meredy in dressing herself as she spoke.
"I have a suspicion, but nothing can be confirmed unless Zancrow tell us the reason himself." Meredy leaned in as she try to listen carefully the words that came out of Ultear's mouth next. "It's probably a similar reason on why I told you to never address me as 'Ur'. Ur was my dead mother's name."
"Dead?" Meredy asked cautiously.
"Some day, I will tell you the story." Ultear said as she helped Meredy to lie down on the bed. "I don't think Zancrow is named after his father or anything like that, but if I were to hazard a guess, someone close to him used to address him by that nickname. That person is probably dead, since we all know that Zancrow don't have any known living relatives left."
Meredy's eyes widened in shock at Ultear's speculation. If what Ultear guessed was correct, then what Meredy just did had just dragged up unpleasant memories for Zancrow.
No wonder he was so angry.
"Zancrow always appeared to be calm, but beneath the calm exterior is a heart filled with rage. You will realise that when you finally see him in battle on S Class missions. It is obvious from the way he fights. I don't know what he is angry at, but whatever it is, either it is someone that he cannot defeat, or is something that cannot be undone. He is constantly forcing himself to remain calm, otherwise, he will be burning everything around him into ash if his emotions are not kept in check. The result of that is his expressionless mask, and it is why he is always like that. It's to protect the people around him from being needlessly burnt. Don't mistake his aloofness for being uncaring. It's obvious Zancrow cares a great deal about you."
Meredy looked down dejectedly.
"But... he never said anything much outside of our lessons and work. He..."
Ultear placed the bottle of salve in Meredy's hand.
"This." She emphasised as she wrapped Meredy's fingers around the bottle. "Is not the same salve that we used for Rustyrose. It is definitely an improved version and this bottle had never been opened before this. Even when I have been in this guild for so long, this is the first time I had seen it. In fact, Rustyrose told me that Zancrow had met him on his way here and instructed him to bring you this particular salve instead of the one we used for Rustyrose." Meredy looked back down at the small bottle she held in her hand. "No matter how Zancrow may act around you, it's obvious that you matter a lot to him. Don't you find it strange that he took a year and a half to complete your education when slightly more than half a year was all he needed? He didn't want you to enter battle at such a young age and bloodied your hands. We are a dark guild, what we really do isn't pretty. The missions you had been on, while hard, are relatively tame in comparison to what we do on a regular basis." Ultear sucked in a breath before continuing. "Don't you find it weird that Zancrow convinced Master Hades to let you participate in the Devil's Pit before going on your first mission? He wanted to delay the time when you went out on your first mission, but you exceeded his expectations and cleared them way too fast. We were expecting you to fail it. He wasn't expecting you to pass with flying colours. None of us did, even if we expected you to survive. Don't you find it strange that all the missions you went on thus far were missions that see very little combat despite your strength? Zancrow had pushed for missions with lesser hazardous elements to be assigned to you instead of the more bloody ones the rest of the Kin went on. Don't you find it out of place that he suddenly taught you how to gather information instead of how to battle? He taught you his knowledge and experience to convince Master Hades that you are better off as an information agent maintaining our information network than as a frontline battler." Ultear cupped Meredy's face with her hands as she spoke softly.
"Don't you see? He wants to keep you safe. You matter a lot to him."
Meredy could not control her feelings any longer and broke down in a sobbing mess as Ultear patted her back comfortingly. To think that after spending so much time trying to get Zancrow's acknowledgement, she was so blind as to not realise that Zancrow had did more for her than she would thought to be possible.
She had no need to earn his acknowledgement, Zancrow had acknowledged her a long time ago. He had did things for her to make her life in a dark guild as comfortable as possible. He gave her knowledge and the ability to protect herself. He taught her how to face adversaries and survive. He tried his very best to ensure her safety even when the jobs dark guilds like theirs took are not even remotely safe.
He had always been watching over her like a silent protector.
"Shh... it will get better, everything will be alright." Ultear comforted her as she lay down beside Meredy, who had curled up as she cried. Ultear gave Meredy a comforting hug.
"Everything will be alright."
Meredy ran into the guild's infirmary. Due to her injuries, she wasn't able to take on the mission she was given by Master Hades. She wasn't present for it, but Ultear had informed her that Master Hades was furious at Zancrow's behaviour. He punished Zancrow by beating him ruthlessly into the ground and then made him complete the mission alone. On top of that, he gave him another mission to exterminate one of the dark guilds that had refused to submit to their rule as a warning to the other dark guilds.
Both S Class missions were to be completed within a short span of a week.
Meredy only knew of it when Ultear visited her in her room after all is said and done. While the burns have healed, the damage to her body hadn't fully recovered. The salve is good for treating external injuries but the flames of a God is corrosive and eats away at her magic as well as giving her phantom pains. She has to wait until the magic in her body had replenished naturally to have a full recovery. Meredy was bedridden throughout the entire week, unaware of what went on. She had assumed that her mission with Zancrow had been postponed and nobody had informed her of the change in plans.
Zancrow simply cracked open an eye from his position on the infirmary's bed when he sensed Meredy's arrival. He looked at her injuries which was still covered in bandages and salve. Once satisfied with what he saw, he closed his eye after a short while. Meredy stared at Zancrow's beaten and bruised form, his shirt had been removed for the nurses to wrap his injuries with bandages.
Meredy had never seen Zancrow so injured and exhausted before.
"You shouldn't be running around with those injuries of yours."
Meredy was brought out of her thoughts as Zancrow spoke with his eyes still closed.
"Y-You are injured!"
Meredy exclaimed as she rushed to Zancrow's side, but not quite knowing what to do.
"Yes, I can tell." Zancrow replied dryly. "How are your burns? Is the salve working as intended?"
"I'm fine! But you-"
"And I will be fine as well. This isn't the worst I had experienced." Zancrow interrupted as he finally opened his eyes to look at the young girl. "You will find that injuries are a common occurrence when you go on solo S Class missions. You are still too young to be suffering those injuries."
Meredy looked over Zancrow's injuries and immediately knew that he was lying but she didn't voice it out. She can deduce how Zancrow got most of his injuries simply by looking. It seems that Master Hades hadn't been lenient with his punishment, she recognised these marks anywhere.
"I'm-I'm sorry." Meredy cried out as she hugged Zancrow and cried into his chest. "I-I-"
"Not your fault." Zancrow grunted out as he patted Meredy's head. "Should have told you beforehand not to address me by that name. The only people who used to address me like that were my family. They are dead."
Meredy felt even guiltier as she buried her head even further into Zancrow's chest.
"You don't need to feel bad about it." Zancrow reassured her. "I tried to reign in my temper whenever some bumbling idiot tried to get the best of me when he knows my default reaction to it, but the results were never pretty. You didn't know, so it's fine." The both of them let a comfortable silence hang in the air for a short while before Zancrow spoke up again.
"I'm sorry, for everything."
Meredy's head shot up in alarm.
"Zancrow! If anything, I'm the one-"
"No, I'm truly sorry. I wasn't able to stop your city from getting destroyed. I never wish to see another orphan." Zancrow gave another sigh and he just looked so tired, like he had truly given up on trying to live. "You don't understand now, but I will tell you everything when you are older. I promise. I'm not sure if you will forgive me then, but I want to let you know that I'm truly sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry for." Meredy said resolutely as she continued to hug Zancrow. He has always been her pillar of support, even when she was unaware she had one. "You saved me."
Zancrow gave a very hollow laugh.
"Don't speak too soon. I am a true dark mage, you haven't seen half of what I did even if I purposely went on the tamer missions. I had done way worse when I went on the violent ones. You are always too forgiving, Meredy." Zancrow said as he wiped off the tears that flowed down Meredy's cheeks earlier with his thumb. "You aren't suited to be in a dark guild with your kind and bleeding heart. I would have sent you off to a legal guild if I could, but I never had a chance."
"I wouldn't want to even if I could." Meredy mumbled just loud enough for the both of them to hear as she tightens her hug on Zancrow. Zancrow had never been a fan of hugs and she's milking every chance she gets now that he have no strength to dodge or resist. "Cos you wouldn't be there. I just want to be with you."
Meredy repeated her words again in a whisper as if in a prayer, but she's sure Zancrow heard her with his enhanced hearing. God Slayer Magic does give the user enhanced senses, a fact she knew very well from their spars when Zancrow trained her ruthlessly.
"I just want to be with you."
