If the guildhall moved on from Haven's excommunication gracefully, her death passed over it with little to no concern. Nothing changed because nothing had been affected. Sure, the Master wasn't around as much, but he'd been falling into alcohol steadily over the course of many years and wasn't much of one anyways. A master. And his wife wasn't hanging about, but it had been awhile, since she was the white haired woman that people expected to see behind the guild. No. She'd been replaced, slowly but surely, and now it was Marin that stood there, and hadn't she always?
S-Class came and passed with a half assed attempt at it, from the Master, that garnered no new members to the elite rank and time marched forward, into the winter. How it always had. How it always would.
Navi officially moved out of her parents home and into her own, many towns over, too many towns over, and Natsu was trying to figure out how he and Hap could do it, make sure to pass through the town after each and every job, while her mother only remembered her first nights. In her new place. And how the only thing that kept her from missing home was keeping busy, constantly. An easy feat, in Fairy Tail, but she had her doubts about the execution elsewhere.
"You can come home whenever you want," her mother reminded with a grin as Lucky and Iggy took care to set the set the cards they'd made for Navi there, on her coffee table and wow, she had her own coffee table. And desk. And apartment. That she would pay for.
So she smiled back at her mother and agreed, but only partly because, already, she felt like she was home.
When her book dropped, not soon after, Navi found distraction in that. Not the book itself, but the post production side of things. Locke though did loose himself. In it. He sat up, the first day he got back from a job to find a signed copy waiting for him in his mailbox, to read it straight through. It took till dawn, and he didn't hate it, but…
There was something so much better. In the mix-matched, half remembered, almost war like stories of listening to the guys up at the hall drunkenly recall. While Navi had found inspiration in her mother's methodical journaling of accounts, Locke found the life Navi breathed into the stories lacking. Too polished.
Not everything had to line up, be true, make sense, be corroborated; that wasn't how legends were made.
Ravan liked it though.
Winter was fucking cold and maybe Haven was right, he was a spoiled little shit as roughing it out there, in the forests, wasn't for him. He sat up miserably most nights, beside the fire, easily falling into the roll of watchmen for Jellal and his team. Their team, maybe, now. Guild? He didn't know. It all felt so numbing and like he was just going through the motions, but everyone in the group seemed broken and hollow and it was easy to fall in with them because no one seemed to expect much out of him.
He was just there because he was Erza's adopted son. Who harbored some sort of powerful magic.
It would almost be funny. Ironic, maybe.
He was basically what he'd hated them for, all those years. The slayer kids.
Fucking sick.
The cold was really setting in though, those past few days, and Ravan should hide it out, late at night, under the warmth of his sleeping bag, but he just couldn't sleep. Often. Or much at all. He didn't like his dreams or the thoughts that came to him as he fell into them, and it would go away, eventually.
That's what Jellal told him.
Ravan didn't ask, but the man offered it, one night, as the guy sat around the fire as well, long passed the others, though he was going over a map of some sort.
"It'll still come to you. Sometimes. Randomly. Somehow that's worse. But your nights and sleep are easier, most days. The more time you put between yourself and...whatever it is, Ravan, that you've done." The man hummed some, from the thought. "But it does go away. Everything does. Time doesn't heal wounds, like people say, but it puts distance between you and them. And everything erodes with distance."
When Navi's book came out, the next tim ehe was near a bookstore he thought might have it, he was sure to pick it up. He didn't binge it, like Locke, but found himself reading it on the coldest nights and the stories weren't as imprinted in him, as they were the others, and the connection, the cohesiveness, was much appreciated as his life felt less and less so.
Mirajane found herself glancing over it, somewhat, as she'd bought a copy to be kind, towards both Navi and Lucy, but enjoyment felt distant from her. With most things. Still, the train ride was lengthy and, as her brother sat beside her, silent and saturnine, she found the stories kept her interest a bit better.
She'd come to Elfman just the afternoon before and requested something of him that he couldn't deny her. Canceled, even, the plans he'd made. Just to do it.
"I'm ready," Mira told him though her voice trembled a bit. "I want to go see her."
So they rode out that day, to do so. He was running over in his mind, Elfman was, the memories he tried to suppress, hoping he could recall with ease the location. He wanted the experience to be as cathartic for his sister as possible. Getting lost would kind of distract from that..
It wasn't as difficult as he feared, however. Finding the place. Rather, it was the intense recollections that he'd tried so hard to forget and he felt sick, not like a man at all, as they walked through the woods that afternoon. It had snowed recently, but not that day, but was still nice and white in most places, the deeper they got, as only small critter tracks littered the pearly mounds.
At the sight of the stone there, facing the edge of the cliff, snow littered atop and around it, Elfman broke. He cried, just as he had, when he picked the spot just for his niece. Mirajane only continued on as he hung back, weeping into his hands.
Before the grave then, Mirajane's eyes traced the zigzag her husband's bolts had left, etched into the makeshift grave stone as she bent down, getting her dress covered in fluffy white snow.
"Are you okay? Sis?"
She didn't glance up as Elfman's boots crunched over the frosty ground and instead just kept staring, down now, as she laid a hand over it. The grave. Blinking, she thought tears might fall, but none came, and Mira didn't know how she knew, but she just did. She knew.
"My daughter's not here," Mira told him, softly, as Elfman nodded his head.
"I know," he agreed. "She's...in a better place or whatever. I just…I liked it here. Overlooking the rest of the forest. Above everything else. Haven was always above everything else."
"No." Shaking her head, Mirajane lifted her eyes to the muscular man as she insisted, "My daughter's not here. I would feel it, Elf, if she was. I would feel her. She's not… I thought that I would feel something. But… Haven's not here."
Perhaps she meant spiritually, perhaps she meant metaphorically, but what Mirajane didn't realize as she stood and Elfman came to pat her on the shoulders was that she was corrected. She was no longer standing over her daughter's grave.
It had been a beating. All those years. Waiting. Going through henchmen after henchmen, waiting endlessly that was certain to come. And when it did, they descended, a pair of them, shovels in hand, to dig at the just a day before pact dirt. They even got caught, just about, when Ravan returned for him bag. But he didn't go over to the nearby grave. Lost in his own self, noting Haven's not being there, maybe he kind of hoped that...that..well...
"What exactly," the female of the pair of gravediggers asked, following Ravan's departure, "is the point of all this? Have you ever asked?"
"You don't ask questions. To the boss." The man even shook his head. "If he wants ya to know, he'll tell ya."
"Awe, come on. I'm out here, about to have to fucking pick up a dead body, and I can't even know what we're doing with it?"
"Tell ya what. Just for you?" He grinned, the man did, as he tossed dirt over his shoulder. "I'll tell ya everything. See, years ago, this lady down here, the boss captured her. When she was a just little kid. Things didn't go as planned, but, uh, he put some kinda...spell on her. Fed it to her. Something. A potion. See, she was supposed to get a lacrima put in her. By the boss. Get all powerful and strong. Then, eventually, he'd kill her. Or she'd drop dead of somethin' else. Either way, he needed the body still warm, ya know? To extract it?"
"So this dead woman down here has a lacrima in her?"
"Not exactly."
"But-"
"He just needs her body. That's all I've been told about it." The man wiped at his brow and remarked, "Just be glad, huh? This spell, it preserves her. And will for a few more days. If we didn't get to her in time, man, it would stink. Ya ever dug up a grave before?"
Frowning some, the woman tried to not think much about it as she whispered, "It's my first."
"Dead body too? Man. How privileged are you? Been dealing with the dead my whole life. It's how I ran into him. The boss man. There's certain...talents of mine that he found useful. These past few years."
"How long have you been on this job?"
"Huh?"
"To wait around. For the woman to...die. How long have you-"
"'bout a year. I was doing some other...less desirable things."
"How much less desirable can you get? Defiling a person's grave?"
"Do you really want to know?"
She really didn't.
They worked for what felt like hours until, finally, there was a peek of her, the blonde, right there. Not bloated or excreting any of the disgusting liquids a body might, in such a state. No. Just perfect. Like the boss had said it would be.
"Ah, now here she is. The prize."
They had to work together, to get her out of there, the man and the woman. She was extremely skittish about the whole thing and, honestly, was more than a bit bothered by the request. She'd only just recently joined up after having been seduced by the boss man, on power, mostly. What he could offer her. If she just proved her worth some.
Before, he'd speaking of something different, but now, as he awaited the arrival of his granddaughter, Ivan hardly cared about the sacrifice the woman was soon to make.
"So," the woman asked after the man had her then, Haven, hiked over one shoulder, "do we...put the dirt back? In the hole? I mean, what if they come back? For her? Or what if they come to dig her up? Eventually? Does that matter? Are we gonna put her back eventually or-"
"It was kinda lucky. When I first got this job, I mean, everyone who got it, before me did, it was gonna be trickier. Than this." He positioned Haven just so, on his shoulder, so she would fall off. Dead weight was a lot to shoulder. "Break into a morgue or rob a graveyard. That sort of thing. But nope. This dope, right here, dies out in the middle of nowhere. Forces her poor family to dig a grave. Leave her in it. Couldn't have had it written up better if he tried, the boss couldn't. And having you so nearby, to help me dig the body up. What luck."
"So...what do we do now? I mean, take her back, but we have to fill in the hole first, right? Like I asked? Or are you just gonna ignore me."
"I'm not ignoring you." One hand was on Haven, holding her still, while the other rose then and, as the other woman stood before the once more empty grave, he had the perfect angle for it. "I dunno if her family will come back or not, ya know? Who does? If they'll dig her up. The boss man, he doesn't know either. So he had me take ya out here, you know? As a safety measure."
"What? I don't understand." But she did. Or she was starting to. "I- You can't do this to me. You can't. Ivan said that I would be useful to him. That he needed me. My magic. I-"
"Yeah, maybe he did. Before." Raising a hand, he made held up a finger pistol, literally. Just his forefinger, outstretched, towards her. "Bang."
A tiny, green magic circle appeared and a a bullet jumped out, striking the blonde woman right through the heart. She fell back, in great agony, into the grave she'd freshly robbed.
"Shit." The man above her realized something then. With her dead, no one was around to fill back in the hole. Groaning, he was quick to set Haven back down on the ground as he grumbled some, rushing to get it over and done with.
He needed to get back to Ivan.
Once finished, he was a bit winded, but determined all the same. Hiking Haven back up on his shoulder, he held tight to her with one hand as he used his second famed skill, teleportation, vanishing into the thin air and appearing, once more, in the lair of his lord liege.
"Quick! Quick!" Ivan didn't even greet him. Just the sight of him, there, with her. Haven. His granddaughter. It gave him a start and a fear, as, finally, he was so close, so very close, to putting his plan into fruition, and yet so, so far, and every second mattered, every moment. He'd dedicated years to this. It couldn't fail him. "Take her to the room! It's been prepared. I've fetched the mages who will work on her. Lay her down, gentle, gentle, on the table. Look at her. My granddaughter."
As the next few days, weeks, and months would be emotional turmoil for the girl's true family, the estranged member felt much the same. He would stalk around the lair, demanding updates and frequently launching into the story. The tale. Of how he came to decide the only way to get what was his, what belonged to him, was through his oldest granddaughter's death.
He actually didn't know about it. For a few years. He thought Haven had been given the lacrima, after Laxus disappeared with it, and as he'd already used the spell, undetected, he imagined if she grew into adulthood, the recklessness of the guild combined with the fire he'd felt, inside of her, would lead to a quick turn over.
But then he found out.
"That moron. Laxus. My son." Ivan grumbled this frequently, to the workers in the lab, as he stood around in the basement, where the transition took place. Tireless work. All to get Haven prepared. And ready. For what was coming next. Well, not Haven exactly. "He gave it to the younger one. The weaker one. What a waste. I thought. But then I found something out. Something quite interesting. She participated in a tournament, the white haired one. It wasn't much, but she held her own. My lacrima, it flourishes, inside of her. But I needed a way to get it back. How. How to get it back. How to reclaim it. I am not...what I once was. To go against my son again… No. I had ot have someone who he would never harm. He could never kill. Who the white haired one would never harm. And that, my dear granddaughter, is where you will come in."
He couldn't speak to her. Not directly. Though her body began once more to draw breath, in the days following her arrival, it was in vain. Through magic he'd long held and hoped would labor some sort of a promise, he brought her back to life. But not her. Just enough of her. A carcass. A shell.
"The soul's gone," he sighed one day as she laid there, nude beneath a sheet, on a cold metal operating table, done for the day it seemed. Reaching out, he stroked her warm cheek fondly. "The mind. Just an empty vessel. And what, my dear, do you think I should fill the hole with? Hmm?"
She actually helped him, in her final year, Haven did. Without knowing it, of course. The magic she thought she was using, to access the God Slayer Lightning, had far more a hand in the demonic than originally thought. She wasn't possessing something, but rather, as the blackness took her eye and tried in vain to climb inside of her brain, she was opening herself up to possession. Which was perfect, for Ivan. Her body already being accustomed to it.
Possession.
Just an empty vessel. One that smelled just like her. Haven. Had all the scars, even the final one, that was supposed to claim her life. Access to her memories, just floating all about, Ivan was sure, waiting to be taken over. In limbo.
"When you're strong," he told the shell of the woman frequently, "you will go and reclaim what is mine. It grow more and more powerful every day. Crave it out. Rip it out. And if he tries to stop you, take the first one that was stole from me as well. From my son. Your father. Imagine the power. You'll hold them both, in your hands, two of the most powerful lacrimas ever in existence. I wonder, if from hell, my precious granddaughter, you will look on and be jealous of your body doing without you what you never could. At any cost necessary."
More powerful.
Every day.
He wasn't wrong, anyways.
About the power.
Growing.
Every single day.
On the first of spring, it stood, in fact, in waist deep water as the sun rose slowly against the dark sky. Marin. There. Alone it felt like, in the cool waters of the early dawn.
She wasn't alone though. Out there. No. They were on a vacation of sorts, that Erza paid for. Following a bout of a few successful jobs, the woman felt back to her old self and wanted the two teens to feel the same. So she took them from the hall, promising Marin they wouldn't be gone for long, and rented out a lake house for a weekend.
"So you can still train," Erza told her with a grin and a nod, as she knew this was important to the girl.
Every day.
Every single day.
Better.
Stronger.
Raising a hand there, with her eyes closed, in the still waters, she could feel it bubbling up inside of her. Her lacrima. Her power. Limitless. How Haven always wanted hers to be.
Erza watched, from the deck, sipping at her coffee as the skies lightened and the day truly began. She'd intended to glance over the final few chapters she had left, in Navi's book, but her attention was taken by Marin and only Marin. It was silent, her observations, but this changed when Kai came yawning through the back door to tumble into a deck chair.
"Why do you both get up so early?" he groaned as he threw an arm over his eyes. Still, peeking around it, he glanced down at the lake below, where Marin stood all alone, contorting water with ease.
And he fell silent too. For a good bit. Erza thought he might be sleeping once more before, eventually, he posed a question.
"Hey, Erza? Do you think..." Kai swallowed some, leveling his thoughts. "I think that Marin's great and strong and...but… Do you think she can really ever do it? What she says? Be as strong as them? Her father and Gajeel and all the other slayers? Or even...better?"
Letting out a long, deep sigh, Erza bowed her head before letting a soft smile grace her lips. As she looked to the teen, his arm dropped completely and he took notice of the honesty laced in her tone.
"I always have."
This settled Kai, who fell back into his chair and Erza only continued to watch, from her elevated position, not realizing how true her words had to be. Needed to be. For what was coming for the girl, would soon be upon the girl, would come relentlessly and tirelessly. Reclamation would soon be upon them.
So Marin had to be those things. Better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter. More powerful than she could dream.
It was the only way any of them were to survive.
