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Disclaimer: As always and forever: FT belongs to Mashima Hiro-sensei.
The Thirteen Keys
Chapter IX – Fairies gone missing
"Lucy, wake up! Wake up!"
She could discern the panicked excitement in his voice, however, she was just too sleepy to care. How long has she been asleep? Three, maybe four hours? It definitely wasn't enough, and she definitely wasn't going to let her 12 years old protege take her away from her precious sleep.
"I don't want to, Sting. Just let me sleep, okay?"
"But you have to see this! They are saying the main members of Fairy Tail disappeared along with Tenrou island!"
That made her all her sleepiness suddenly disappear. It was that time already? How could she forget? She had been waiting for it ever since she left the guild, seven years ago. With one swift motion, she was out of the bed and getting stuff inside her bag.
"Go get ready, Sting, we are going on a field trip."
Sara couldn't remember being more relieved than when Lucy walked into the guild that afternoon. Everything was a complete riot ever since the island went missing. Everyone went looking – the Council, other members, Blue Pegasus, even Lamia Scale. But no one found even a trace of them.
Master Makarov, Laxus, Cana, Erza, Jellal, Natsu, Gray, Juvia, Gajeel, Levy, Lisanna, Mirajane, Elfman, Evergreen, Bixlow, Freed, Wendy, Happy, Charle, Lily and even Guildarts. They all vanished along with Tenrou Island.
"Lucy! I never thought I'll be so glad to see someone! Do you have any idea what's happening?"
Lucy smiled and hugged her tenderly.
"Calm down a bit, okay? They are all fine, but a long time will pass before they come back."
"How long is a 'long time', Lucy?"
Lucy could see the near desperation on Sara's eyes. Her son had disappeared, after all.
"Seven years. The whole island is now under the protection of the first master, Mavis. She casted Fairy Sphere to save them all. They're alright, I promise you that, but the coverage lasts seven years before it can be broken. Oh, and another thing, they won't get any older."
Sara had to sit down again to take all that information at once. Seven years was an awful amount of time. It would be extremely hard to keep on Fairy Tail's ordinary life without them.
"You need to assume the master post, Sara. Only you can do that."
"Me? Are you nuts? I got nothing to be a guild master, I've been taking care of kids for most of my life!"
"That's exactly why you are perfect for this, Sara. I'm sorry, but you have to do this. Everyone here knows and loves you. You can keep anyone in line. And more than that, you are Laxus' mother."
"Oh, fairies. I didn't ask for this, Lucy."
"I know you didn't. But you have to."
Lucy stood up in one of the tables and asked for everyone's attention. Silence immediately fell on the guild building – something as heartbreaking as the situation they were in.
"Everyone pay close attention to me. The Tenrou Island group is not dead. They will return to us, but it'll take some years."
Lucy saw the excitement in everyone's faces, the hope reappearing on their eyes. She was so glad she was able to do this for them, reassure them all their family wasn't dead – a luxury they didn't have the previous time.
"We will have to be very patient about that." she continued speaking. "In the meantime, we will have to stick together, work harder, keep Fairy Tail's reputation as it always was – for the sake of our nakama. I know its hard, but we can do it!"
"But, Lucy, who is going to take the responsibilities of master? Master Makarov is our ideal master, and Laxus was supposed to be his successor." Wakaba reasoned.
Lucy smiled.
"Well, I suggest Sara. It's a temporary job, after all."
Everyone started talking again, debating, seeking solutions and explanations for everything that was happening.
"So, who votes for Sara?" she asked after a few minutes.
All hands were raised.
"Well, looks like we have our fourth and temporary master!"
Whistles and shouts filled the guild, as it was always meant to be with Fairy Tail. Lucy got down and sat next to Sara. Sting had also taken a sit, and was timidly watching everyone.
"I can't believe you talked me into this." Sara complained. "I'm so going to make you work for me."
Lucy laughed.
"Well,I'm fully occupied with watching over Sting, so..."
"Hey! I'm not that troublesome!" he protested.
"Good use of the word 'that', sweetie." She chuckled.
Sara grinned at Lucy.
"You heard the kid, Lucy. He is not that troublesome, so I'm definitely going to pester you for seven years to come."
"You see why I tell you not to get into adults' talk, Sting?"
"Hmpf." he arrogantly turned away, pretending he didn't care at all.
Sara laughed.
"He is a good kid. You raised him well."
"Thank you, Sara, I appreciate that." then, she turned to Sting. "Hey, why don't you go introduce yourself to Romeo? He looks like he needs a playmate right now."
"Do I really have to?"
She sighed, and then messes with his hair.
"Come on, having some friends doesn't hurt, you know."
Defeated, he walked over to Romeo, leaving Lucy and Sara alone.
"So, is he already on Sabertooth?"
Before leaving, seven years before, Lucy had told Sara everything about Sting and Rogue and how Yukino and her hoped to build a better Sabertooth…
"You're going to raise one of the Dragon Slayers yourself?" Sara asked. "Why not bring him to Fairy Tail like Natsu and Gajeel?"
"Because he doesn't belong here, Sara. His home is Sabertooth."
"Isn't your friend the guild's master?"
"Yes, she is. But I feel like I should do this for him. I saw how he ended up, Sara. It wasn't pretty. I want to give him his best shot – he deserves it."
Sara smiled tenderly.
"You have a golden heart, Lucy, but are you really sure about this?"
"Thank you for your concern, but yes, I'm sure. I want to do this."
"Yes, he is. Yukino is taking care of Rogue, and they are already best friends, is quite cute, really."
"What about their Exceeds?"
Lucy frowned.
"That's something I don't really understand. Charle managed to find Wendy even though she wasn't at Cait Shelter, but Lector and Frosch didn't appear yet. I worry, but I can't even know how to begin to search for them. Crucis can't find them, because they aren't human nor stellar spirits, so it goes beyond any contracts a spirit ever had with a human." she sighed.
"I'm sure you'll find them eventually."
"I hope so. It's weird to think of Dragon Slayers that don't have Exceed partners."
Sara smiled.
"Don't you worry about this. So, Mirajane told us you prevented Lisanna from dying."
"Not exactly. I prevented her from being sucked to Edolas."
"Oh, yeah. Natsu and company told us about that. Does it really exist? This world Edolas, I mean. I thought… Well, I have no idea what I thought."
Lucy laughed.
"It's quite real. I'm glad they managed to do this all on their own. Same with Nirvana and Oración Seis."
"Oh, yeah, they're doing great. They have Jellal on their side this time." Sara chuckled. "For everything you told me, he seems of more help than your old self."
Lucy pretended to be offended.
"How dare you, Sara? I'll find a way to avenge my old self for this commentary."
"Oh, don't be such a drama queen, Lucy darling."
"Hmpf."
"Ah, so Sting got that from you, huh?"
"Well, he's been with me since he is five, after all."
"That's really cute. Do you feel like he is your son?"
"Sometimes I do, yes." the warm smile on her lips, however, was short-lived. "But then I remember he will be a teenager, and then an adult, and I'll forever be trapped in this seventeen form. How can I be someone's mother like that? I may be wiser, but I'll never look wiser."
Sara took Lucy's hands on hers, running her thumbs on them.
"Try not to think like that. When the time is right, you can simply tell him. If he feels what you feel about him, he certainly will understand."
"Thank you, Sara." Lucy replied, applying returning the reassuring pressure on her hands. "I'll take that into consideration."
Sting sat with his legs crossed in front of Romeo, with no will at all to play with someone almost half his age. He really didn't have the patience.
"So, Lucy is your mother?" Romeo asked curiously. "I didn't know she had a son."
"Mother? What's that like, to have a mother, I mean?" Sting asked back, genuinely puzzled about what a mother was supposed to be. He had a father once, and he was all he knew in the beginning of his childhood, until Lucy appeared and forced him to live with her.
"Hmmm… a mother is someone who takes care of children. She cooks delicious food and get you bedroom cleaned, and tells you stories before you go to sleep. Fathers do that too, but I don't live with my father anymore, so he can't do those things for me."
Sting was even more confused. So, mothers were like fathers, but female? Was that what Romeo was trying to say?
"I don't know… I guess she is."
"Don't you call her 'mom'?"
"No, I call her 'Lucy'."
Romeo just stared at him, not knowing how to deal with that piece of information.
Sting just shrugged.
"I don't see how this is important, anyway."
He got up and walked back to the table, his hands hidden on his pants' pockets.
"What about Natsu?" he heard Sara ask Lucy, her voice whispered as if no one else was meant to listen.
He got even more curious. Lucy had never told him she had something to do with the Fire Dragon Slayer he admired so much – except, of course, that they were from the same guild.
"What about Natsu, Sara?"
She tried to sound dismissively, but Sting saw something on her eyes he had never before witnessed. She seemed… in pain.
"Nevermind, the look in your eyes just tells me everything. That's why you never came here anymore, right?"
Lucy's smile was a faint and distant one.
"He looks like the Natsu I know now. I can't possibly stay around with that happening."
"He asks a lot about you, you know. I dare say he misses you."
"Don't be silly, how can he miss someone he barely knows?"
Sara shrugged.
"I don't know. I only can speak for what I can see. And that's how I see it. Somehow, he finds your absence weird, even though a long time had passed since you walked away to look after Sting."
Sting also didn't know that. Lucy had abandoned Fairy Tail for his sake? Why would you do that for someone she didn't even knew? But she did know him, didn't she? That day she found him wandering on that city, all dirty and hungry, she had called him by his name – Sting Eucliff. Lucy had always known who he was. And it was the first time he caught himself wondering why.
Sara prepared the guest room at Fairy Hills to Lucy and Sting. Due to the huge children population they used to have, and since only Sara was in charge of taking care of them, Fairy Hills became a mixed dorm, with a level for the girls and other for the boys. Even as they grew up to be teenager, the organization was still the same, and Sara never had to worry about their behavior – she had raised them well enough for them to know they shouldn't do anything stupid around her. Of course there were occasional escapes to the boyfriend/girlfriend room, but they all respected each other's privacy, as Sara had thought them to.
As they made themselves comfortable in the room, Lucy noticed how awfully quiet Sting was. She had never seeing him like that before. Being quiet was Rogue's thing not Sting's.
"Are you alright, Sting?" she asked, her tone clearly transmitting how worried she was.
He looked up at her face, his brows frowned as if he was doing some very hard thinking.
"Are you my mother, Lucy?"
Lucy was taken aback by the question.
"Well… That's really up to you, Sting. I think you are my son, but only you can say if I am your mother or not. It's really a question of feeling."
"I don't know how this feeling should be. I never had a mother."
"I know that. That's why I don't mind not being your mother." she smiled softly at him.
His brows frowned further.
"The feeling I had for my father is different from what I feel about you. I guess it means I don't think of you as my mother?"
Lucy chuckled.
"Why are you so concerned about this now, Sting? Taking care of you is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, you are my family now, as I'm sure I am for you as well. That's all that matters."
He nodded, suddenly feeling less troubled.
"You are my family."
She smiled.
"See? That's what's important."
With this weight lifted from his hearted, he hugged her.
"I love you, Lucy."
She hugged him back lovingly.
"So do I, Sting, so do I."