Well, 2018 is almost over, so I guess the first thing that needs to be said is Happy New Year everyone! I hope no matter what kind of year you had, the next one tops it in wonder, joy, and strength. And good health! Which is something I've been missing for literally the last four months. :( Like a few days after I posted my last chapter, I came down with...something. I don't even know what to call it but it kept me from eating (imagine my super angry face here!)

Yeah... it hasn't been fun. I've also been to one funeral and prayed fervently for a family member who quite literally had brain surgery. But at least I got to eat my own birthday cake and didn't feel nauseous on Christmas. Yay?

So yeah. Tough year. Which is probably why I really wanted to get at least one more chapter up before 2019. It's not very long, but important. Hee hee... ;)

Hoarded

Ten: It's a Message in a Bottle, Except Not

"I got you a few things while I was out."

Levy looked over at Lily across the dinner table that evening. "Oh?"she said, not sure what to expect. "First a book from another Earth and now things? You'll spoil me if you're not careful, Lily." She smiled at him, only a trace of bitterness hidden in the back of her throat.

He gave her a lazy smile in return. "If a whole palace full of servants couldn't do it, I doubt I can," he told her before taking another bite of their wild leek and duck soup. If tasted quite good, but Levy suddenly didn't feel so hungry as her eyes flicked to the open archway. Gajeel didn't appear in a wild rampage, so she hoped that meant he hadn't heard. Although what's he going to do if he does learn I'm a princess? Kidnap me again?

Levy shook her head and tried to look normal as Lily said, "It's nothing fancy, just some clothes of your own, some paper, a new quill-"

"A magic quill?" Levy sat up straight in her chair.

Lily nodded with a cheerful smile. "Since it was Gajeel's fault yours it unsalvageable, I figured it was only fair. This one's orange though. I couldn't find a blue one. I hope that's all right?"

She could practice the finer points of her magic again and maybe even get a message out to someone that could help her get out of here. She would have taken an enchanted stick.

Levy beamed and nodded rapidly. "More than fine! Orange is my favorite color."

"Good." Levy sounded pleased. He bent his head over his soup bowl, and then said just a little too casually, "I hope there was no one in town waiting to hear from you. It feels ridiculous to make them worry so much over a broken quill."

Subtle, Levy thought, wondering why Lily didn't just come right out and ask her if anyone had known she was coming here. And then she realized it was probably for the same reason her first instinct was to lie.

She managed to ignore her guilt long enough to give Lily a weak smile. "No," she told him the truth. "Nothing like that. I cut all ties when I left home to keep Mother from finding me."

Lily had the decency to look sorry on her behalf, but Levy saw the relief when he curled his tail around the back of his chair.

"My apologies," he told her, and Levy thought he meant it. "I know how much it hurts when those we love betray us."

Levy nodded, mutely accepting his understanding as guilt constricted her throat. She dragged her spoon around her bowl, wishing she had lied. At least then she wouldn't be trying to trick him with the truth.

...

The guilt wouldn't leave her even after she and Lily had gone their separate ways for the night. You're being ridiculous, Levy scolded herself as she lay in bed, staring blankly up at the crags in the ceiling. What were you supposed to do? Reveal all your plans like a two-bit villain in the spotlight? You can't have them watching the town or they'll stop whoever Freed sends to get you out.

The new quill waiting on her bedside table drew her eyes like a magnet. It stood there quietly in its stand, the inkwell capped tight next to it. She'd sent the message before she'd crawled into bed. Freed Justine did indeed have a fair amount of rare books in his collection, as befitted Fable's royal librarian, but what she hadn't told the dragon was that he'd given her one before she left home – slipped it into her pack somehow when she wasn't looking.

He must have realized I was reaching my breaking point. Levy smiled as she shook her head. Always was annoyingly perceptive that way...

She rolled over onto her side and pulled Freed's last gift to her out from under her pillow. The book was small enough to fit even into Levy's diminutive pockets, and bound in dark green quillin hide leather and, like the quillins themselves, was semi-telepathic. Anything she wrote in this book would show up in its twin, still safe in Freed's enchanted bookcase in the palace.

Levy ran her fingers over the bumpy hide of the cover, and then flipped through the pages. Only a third of the miniscule pages had been used, most in handwriting she didn't recognize. Freed's jumped out at her at the end. The magic in the book couldn't be repeated – namely because the quillin were now all dead as dodos – so he'd only used it twice. The first one said 'west gate at false dawn' in cheap ink and a hasty scrawl, with large drops of ink splattered on the inner corner. Probably from his time in the Thunder Legion, Levy thought as she turned the page.

I am always here, Princess.

The finely written glyphs stood out in brightly colored ink, perfectly crafted unlike the ones before. Levy had found them when she found the book hidden away in her belongings. She'd been in a few tight spots since she'd given up being Princess Levy of Fable for Levy McGarden, wandering wizard, and had even felt tempted to call on Freed's help, but usually the very idea of palace forces arriving en masse to pull her out of the fire was enough inspiration to find another way.

Only this time I can't outwit dark guild criminals or solve an ancient puzzle to get myself out of here.

Which led her to the next page, the only one she'd ever used. She didn't have any fancy inks, and fortunately didn't need any for the magic to work. She could have sent her message in blood if she'd felt morbid or desperate enough, just so long as she used a magical instrument to write it.

Like her pen.

I almost wish Lily hadn't brought me that new one! She sighed explosively as she looked at her new orange quill again. This was all a moot point without a quill to write with.

The point certainly wasn't moot now – it was made. In big bold strokes because she'd been afraid she would lose her nerve entirely if she didn't.

The Tempest caught me up.

Levy's eyes traced over the familiar lines of the two glyphs. It wasn't so much a code as a private joke of theirs. Her mother had a soft spot for overdone period dramas from Ca Elum. She always had to bring her handkerchiefs to dab her eyes in the second act; Levy brought hers to hide the fact she was in stitches before intermission.

They were just so hysterically awful. Levy and Freed would mock them in the privacy of the library, where her mother seldom came, putting on parodies of them with curtain costumes and over the top Elumese accents. But their favorite one to hate was by far The Lady Tames the Wind.

"Leave me to this Wind, dear brother, lest it turns a tempest that swallows Ca Elum!" the leading lady begged her warrior brother to leave her to her new fiance, the conqueror Wind (whose name was a product of a very poor translation on some poor sap's part). The lady was anything but resigned to her fate however as she whacked one of her fiance's bodyguards with a serving tray and kicked the other in the groin with her five inche heel. They ended the scene by carrying her bodily off stage as she shrieked after him in semi-harmonious tones, "Let the tempest catch me up alone!"

Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Levy had always thought so. She scowled at the blank rock wall. Like you're one to point fingers.

She quoted the overdramatic player whenever her mother tried to drag her away to meet new suitors and she wanted Freed to make excuses for her to avoid them. Her mother probably suspected what her little code had meant, but she didn't know. But then, that was part of the unspoken message as well: Get me out of here, but for both our sakes, do it quietly.

I can't have a whole army showing up in Oak Town. Lily might have the patience to wait them out, but Gajeel doesn't. He'll give himself away like he did with me and then what?

It was meant as a rhetorical question, but Levy knew exactly what would happen if her mother's forces saw a furious armored dragon bearing down on them, smoke trailing out between teeth as long as pikes.

Or worse... Levy squeezed her eyes shut and latched onto anything to distract her form the blood-soaked image in her head. Freed will tell Makarov instead of Mother. That's probably even more likely given the trust he has in the old man. He and Laxus both served in the Thunder Legion too...

She'd weighed the risk of the wily old man getting involved before she'd sent her message, but hadn't seen a way to avoid it entirely, not without breaking her own code anyway.

You didn't have a choice, Levy tried to tell herself sternly even as she buried her face in the end of her pillow. If Makarov finds out, well, no one alive is more cunning. Most of the courtiers have no idea what he really does. They still think he's some kind of jester.

The thought didn't make her snicker like it usually did. And Freed won't tell Mother. He knows better. And he's smart. He'll understand to tread carefully.

Outside and down at the bottom of the keep, Gajeel snorted so loud it sounded like a train coming off its rails. Levy looked up, but didn't startle. Dragons were noisy sleepers.

Very, very carefully I hope, she thought as she lay back down. Otherwise...

She couldn't stand to think of 'otherwise'. She tried squeezing her eyes shut again, but she only saw the aftermath clearer: her mother's soldiers and Makaro's wizards mourning their dead even as they celebrated conquering the last of the dragons and rescuing their missing princess.

"Stop it," Levy hissed at herself. "It won't turn out like that. Now stop borrowing trouble and go to sleep."

She rolled over back to the wall, her back to Gajeel and Lily sleeping outside her room, and forced herself to ignore the guilt gnawing inside her gut, saying she'd somehow betrayed them.