Natsu paced back and forth through the guild hall. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back. And Forth. For hours. Erza was about ready to slap him.
"They should've been back by now," Natsu grumbled.
"Chill out, Natsu," Grey said, leaning against a table. "Eva and Lucy can take care of themselves, y'know."
Erza sighed as Natsu began to wear a hole in floor. "If they aren't back by sunset, we'll go looking for them, alright? And, Grey, put some clothes on."
Grey looked down and was properly horrified to discover he was no longer wearing pants.
"I wouldn't worry about sending out a search party," Mira said. She was wiping down the bar and pointed out the open guild hall doors. "Here they come now."
Sure enough, as the sun was beginning to die, Lucy was walking up the lane with Loki, who was carrying Eva. She was covered in his suit jacket, fast asleep.
"I'm going to take Eva up to the infirmary," Loki told Lucy as they walked into the guild. He headed up to the second floor, expertly avoiding Natsu. Once in the infirmary, Loki laid Eva in a bed in the corner of the room, by the windows. He covered her with a couple of blankets, making sure she was tucked in and grabbed his jacket, walking back out of the room.
He passed the glimmering apparition of First Master Mavis peering around the door frame. She shifted in and out of focus, a sign that she was nervous.
Loki stopped and smiled at Mavis. "She blames herself, you know."
Mavis looked up at him.
"She'd love to see you. She's missed you like crazy," Loki continued as he continued downstairs.
Mavis nodded, a determined look on her face as she watched Eva.
Eva tossed fitfully in the infirmary bed. She woke up, gasping for air.
She sat up in the bed, the cool night breeze coming in from the open windows sending chills down her spine. Eva stilled, she thought she heard something coming in through the window.
"Come to me, Eva." A dark, chilling voice echoed through the darkness. Eva knew that voice, it haunted her very existence.
She stood, gathering a blanket around her shoulders and looked out the window. Standing in the grass, staring at her, was the very person she had been waiting to see again for centuries.
The breeze ruffled his black hair, covering eyes as black as death, eyes she loathed. Eyes that were staring straight up at her. Zeref.
He beckoned Eva to follow him and turned, walking into the forest. Eva blinked and found herself standing on the grass outside the guild hall, staring after the Dark Wizard. Her feet began moving of their own accord toward the forest. Toward Zeref. Probably toward her demise.
The woods were dark and dense, only slivers of moonlight filtered through the thick canopy. Eva lost track of time and after a while she walked into a clearing where Zeref was waiting for her. Eva tried to speak but no sound came out.
A strong wind suddenly beat down on the clearing, bending the trees nearly in half. Eva looked up and saw the large black body of Achnologia. The dragon landed and roared.
Eva covered her ears but she could still hear Zeref's voice clear as day in her head. "Come to me."
Then Achnologia opened his mouth once more and a ball of flames erupted from him. Eva had no control of her body, so she was unable to dodge the ball of fire headed straight for her. Eva opened her mouth to scream…
…and woke up.
Eva sat up in the infirmary bed, panting. Sweat made her clothes stick to her body. She took a few deep, calming breaths and felt her heart beat slow. She looked around the room, the darkness was only penetrated by slivers of moonlight shining through the windows. She sighed in relief. It was only a dream.
Something near the end of the bed caught Eva's eye. "Mavis?" she asked quietly. "I must still be dreaming."
Fairy Tail's First Master shook her head, walking over to the side of Eva's bed. "No, you're not dreaming."
"Then how? How are you here? You're – you're dead," Eva said, tears coming to her eyes.
Mavis looked at the floor. "When the competitors for the S-Class competition were trapped on Tenrou Island, Zeref's power woke my spirit. I doubt he meant to do it, but luckily I was able to save the island and the members of the guild within Fairy Shell."
Eva launched herself at Mavis, wrapping her in a tight hug. "I missed you, sister."
Mavis was surprised at first, but relaxed and returned her little sister's hug. "You're not mad?"
Eva pulled away and looked into her sister's eyes, hands still resting on Mavis's shoulders. "At first I was furious. How could I not be? You threw yourself between me and Zeref and because of that he killed you."
"There was no way I was going to let him hurt you," Mavis said, staring at Eve with a smoldering fire in her eyes. "I didn't care if I died as long as you lived. When I woke on Tenrou, I immediately scanned the memories of the guild members and found that you had gone missing. No one knew if you were alive or dead, so I decided to come back with the guild to look for you. I tried to track down Zeref, but there was no sign of him or Achnologia after the events on the island."
"I have a feeling that we'll see Zeref and Achnologia soon enough," Eva said with a shudder.
Eva laid back down on the bed and scooted over to the far side so Mavis could climb in with her like they did when Eva was still a child.
Mavis crawled into the bed and Eva cuddled up next to her. She could still smell the honeysuckle from the meadows outside Magnolia where she and Mavis used to train and the forests where they would go looking for sprites when they were much, much younger. All of these scents were embedded into Mavis, even in this form. Eva didn't care that Mavis didn't have her physical body anymore, she was just happy to have her sister back with her once again.
"I remember laying like this those first few days after Blue Skull attacked Red Lizard on Tenrou," Eva mumbled quietly.
Memories of having to hide Eva in Red Lizard's guild hall for the two years she had been "working off" their parent's debt surfaced in Mavis's mind, as well as the quiet life the pair of them lived with the apparition of Zera, Red Lizard's guild master's daughter, who had died the night of the attack. Mavis had unknowingly created the illusion that Zera was still alive and both she and Eva had believed it for years.
Their life hadn't been all that bad, Mavis mused as she stroked her little sister's hair, thinking back on the photograph hanging in Makarov's office of her, Warrod, Precht and Makarov's father standing in front of Fairy Tail's first guild hall. Eva had been the one that insisted on taking the photograph to commemorate their very own guild and now Mavis was glad she had. How quickly things changed after that.
If Precht and his band of treasure hunters hadn't come to the island in search of the Tenrou Jade, she and Eva would probably still be on that island, completely oblivious to the world around them and Fairy Tail would never existed, let alone achieve the amazing things they've done.
"You're forgetting that if we hadn't left, you wouldn't have had the opportunity to cast an incomplete Fairy Law and you wouldn't be stuck in the body of a thirteen year old," Eva mentioned, her head buried in Mavis's dress.
"It was worth it," Mavis told her. "Even if it looks like I'm the little sister."
Eva giggled. "I still have some big shoes to fill."
Mavis smiled. "You've already filled them. From what Makarov has told me, you stayed with the guild all this time and protected them. I hear they still call you the Fairy Slayer."
Eva looked up at her sister. "Only the older wizards know me as the Fairy Slayer. There was little need for my abilities in the years before I disappeared. As far as the younger generation knows, I'm either one other dragon slayer or they don't know I exist."
Mavis patted the top of Eva's head. "They'll know you soon enough I think. We'll need your talents against Zeref and Achnologia."
"Did you have the dream too?" Eva asked.
Mavis nodded. "Every night since you came home."
Eva sighed and hugged her sister tighter. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. I didn't want to have to be me again. I never wanted to have to be the Fairy Slayer again, but it's my duty to protect Fairy Tail and Magnolia."
Mavis stroked Eva's hair. "Don't worry. This time we'll be together."
A few hours later Makarovs was on one of his late night walks when he stopped and checked in on Eva in the infirmary. He was pleasantly surprised to see Eva curled up next to Mavis, fast asleep. Mavis had fallen asleep, her hand still tangled in her sister's hair.
Makarov walked over to the bed and gently covered the two sisters with a blanket and left, smiling to himself.