A/N: Thank you so much to Miss Rune, shorttypink and Jellawesome777 for their reviews on chapter ten and to premara for their review on chapter 1! :)

I apologise for my random update schedule but believe me when I say that even though it's finally the summer holidays, time still seems to fly by faster than expected and more things still have to be done. :P

RxExR! :)


A Chapter from the Past

Chapter 11 - Arrival on Rose Island

"We've finally made it." Gray said with a smirk as he jumped off the ship and onto the shore.

"I think this is the farthest I've ever been away from Magnolia." Erza looked around at the small bustling town that stretched out in front of them.

"Same here." Wendy said softly as Erza helped her off the ship.

"Ugh..." Was all Natsu had to say as Lucy made Gray and Jellal heave him onto the stone slabs of the small port.

"It looks beautiful." Lucy smiled as she took in the tranquil setting, it reminded her of the island that she had been staying on before going back to Magnolia.

"Juvia agrees." Juvia began to help Old Sam with their luggage.

"It's a small place but we're all happy 'ere." Old Sam said as he gave Juvia the last of their luggage. "Come on, the major's waitin' to meet ya." They followed him through the streets as they walked towards the town square. The streets themselves were narrow and winding, but the colourful banners at the side of the road removed any feelings of claustrophobia. The people stared at them curiously as they bustled about their work, carefully keeping their distance from them.

They ignored all the stares, and in some cases even glares, and concentrated on following Old Sam through the maze of streets. As they might be here for quite some time, it would be better if they knew their way around the town as opposed to getting lost each time.

"We're 'ere." Old Sam stated and they looked at the large building looming in front of them. "This 'ere is the town 'all where the mayor stays." The doors opened up to admit them into the building.

Erza turned around. "Thank you for everything." She said with a smile directed at Old Sam and he merely nodded in return.

"No problem, Miss Erza. Take care of yourselves now." And with a wizened smile and a wave he turned around and headed back the direction that they had come before vanishing into the labyrinth of streets once more.

All of them turned back around and entered the building, Natsu having to be supported by Lucy and Gray since the boat journey had affected him a lot worse than the train ride. He was still a bit pale and his stomach was still turning summersaults.

The doors swung open and admitted them into the inside of the hall before they were led upstairs by a grave looking official. Wonder filled each and every one of them as they took in the splendor that surrounded them. This town was not poor and the insides of this very house showed that.

"The Fairy Tail mages." The official announced and they stepped through the door into the large office of the mayor of this town.

"Welcome." A large rotund man stood up and smiled at them with nothing but inherent curiousity in his eyes, mixed with a good portion of worry. "Thank you for responding to our request so quickly." He smiled at them and gestured at the chairs for them to sit down.

"Thank you for your welcome." Erza responded. "I was wondering though what our job actually is though, the request itself did not offer a lot of information."

The mayor sighed as he sat back down himself in the plush chair behind the desk. He suddenly looked tired, as if he were carrying the world on the back of his shoulders. In a sense he was as he was carrying the responsibility for all of the people of this town.

"Before we start, let us get the introductions out of the way and then I will answer any questions you may have after telling you what has happened." He smiled tiredly. "As you may have already guessed, I am the mayor of this town. My name is George Rowen."

"Erza Scarlet." Erza replied.

"Jellal Fernandes." Jellal said as he stood behind the chair that Erza currently occupied. He was unsure whether people in this region of Fiore were also acquainted with his crimes or whether they would be ignorant of them as they preferred to stray away from anything magical.

"Lucy Heartfilia." Lucy smiled at the man in front of them.

"Natsu Dragneel." Natsu managed to groan out. The mayor raised an eyebrow at him.

"Motion sickness." Lucy said and the mayor nodded, it explained the poor man's pale face and lack of strength.

"Gray Fullbuster." Gray looked merely bored, the journey had been long and he wanted nothing more than to either a) get into a warm and comfortable bed or b) finally go on this quest.

"Juvia Lockser." Juvia felt shy again. She always did when she was being introduced to new people. Being in Fairy Tail had done tonnes for her confidence but that didn't mean that she was suddenly a very self-assured young woman.

"Wendy Marvel." Wendy said, smiling brightly. The last seven years in itself had done wonders for her.

"And I am Charle and this is Happy." Charle said as she gestured to Happy. The mayor looked surprised at the fact that she was a talking cat.

"Hello!" Happy exclaimed and grinned, the mayor sent a tentative smile back.

"Okay, well it is a pleasure to meet all of you." The mayor said kindly and then began to tell them what would be expected of them on this quest. "In it's most basic terms, this mission merely requires you to exterminate the monsters that have been plaguing us for the past month."

"But it isn't that simple, is it?" Jellal asked quietly.

The mayor sighed heavily. "No, it isn't. The monsters reside on the mountain that you probably saw when you arrived in the harbour. They rarely actually leave the mountains but within the last week we have had more than one attack on the town. However the real problem does not lie in them existing there, as far as we know they have always been there but it's only been in the past month that they have started to seriously hinder us."

"Is there something in the mountains that you need?" Wendy asked, her eyes bright with curiousity.

The mayor nodded. "Yes, for one we have our second stream of fresh water up there which we haven't been able to access in the last month, and therefore our water supplies are beginning to decline. But more important than that is the fact that we cannot access the fields of herbs that grow up there. As we do not employ magic here, we are completely reliant on the herbs and their healing properties to make our medicines and to help us get better. And with the recent sweep of that illness through the whole of Fiore... well, you can certainly say that our medicines are all gone and we had our first two deaths three days ago because of that. We already lost people before to the illness but now we lost those two who could have been saved due to a lack of medicine. And then there were the casualties in the attacks. We are getting desperate, the townspeople even agreed to the council's suggestion of calling in mages to exterminate the monsters up there, you must believe me when I say that it cannot really get any more desperate than that."

"Do you have any idea why the monsters have been acting up?" Erza asked, being one of the first to start thinking things through more clearly.

"No, we don't have any concrete evidence on why the monsters are acting up." The mayor replied.

"But...?" Jellal was pretty sure that the ending of that sentence held a 'but'.

"But the townspeople of course have their usual suspicions. And it really doesn't help when people like Sally and her group are spreading those ridiculous rumours." Anger flashed through the mayor's eyes, anger that was obviously aimed at the aforementioned group.

"What rumours?" Gray asked, this being the first time that he involved himself in the discussion.

"The rumours of the dragons." At that Natsu and Wendy perked up considerably.

"Dragons?" Wendy asked with hope in her voice.

"Yeah." The mayor sighed again. "But my daughter will be able to tell you more about those tales, no matter how foolish they may be. She's practically obsessed with the ideas of dragons and their stories..." He trailed off, looking slightly annoyed. "Rogers here will bring you to my family home, the Rowen estate, where you will be invited to stay during your mission here. While I would normally say that you could take as long as you wanted to get ready for your mission and getting everything together, I beg of you not to take too long, this situation has already dragged on for long enough as it is."

"Of course." They all nodded and bid their goodbyes and were led away by the man that they now knew to be called Rogers.

It didn't take them very long to reach the estate that they were staying at. The town hall had been pretty central and by travelling in a small coach (much to Natsu's everlasting dismay) they quickly reached the outskirts of the town where the Rowen estate was situated.

It reminded Lucy a lot of her own former home, the Heartfilia estate and she briefly lost herself in the memories as she gazed up at the grand building, snapping out of it when she heard Natsu's groan next to her.

It wouldn't be until dinner however before they got the answers that they had been hoping to hear from the mayor.

~.~.~.~.~

The evening came quicker than expected. They had all spent the afternoon either resting (Gray and Natsu, although for completely different reasons), unpacking (Lucy, Juvia and Wendy with assistance from Charle and Happy) and getting provisions (Erza and Jellal).

The gathering of provisions by Erza and Jellal had given the two of them a much needed chance to catch up on what had happened to them in the last seven years. Although the conversation was basically dominated by Erza's tales, seeing as Jellal had spent the last seven years in prison. And he wasn't really willing yet to talk to her about what had happened to him during his time in jail.

Natsu was still resting due to the extent of his motion sickness, although he was somehow quite sure that without Lucy there that it would have been even worse. Gray on the other hand was merely tired from travelling the past two days and because he knew that once they had set off that they might not be able to get the rest that they needed.

Lucy, Juvia and Wendy had decided to unpack the things that they wouldn't need on the actual trip onto the mountain. As they hadn't known any specifics about the mission that had packed quite a number of things that they wouldn't need and after the mayor had assured them that they would be able to leave some of their things on his estate, they had decided to sort out their things. Happy and Charle were assisting them where they could, although they were more caught up with each other than anything else.

And thus the evening rolled in quicker than expected and they all found themselves downstairs in the dining room to eat their dinner with their hosts. The mayor himself would be there, as well as the mayor's family which included the daughter that he had briefly mentioned. They were all interested to hear in what she had to say and about the rumours as they had no idea what the rumours actually entailed.

"Everyone, these are my wife, Juliette," The mayor gestured towards the woman sitting to his right, "And my son, Arthur, and my daughter, Alice." The two people he had just introduced nodded at them, the younger woman wearing a bright smile on her face and a curious twinkle in her eyes while her brother looked at them more suspiciously.

"And these are the mages from Fairy Tail that came to help us out, Erza Scarlet, Jellal Fernandes and Juvia Lockser on your right here," The mayor began to introduce them to his family, "And Gray Fullbuster, Natsu Dragneel, Lucy Heartfilia and Wendy Marvell on your left. The two cats are Charle and Happy." Charle and Happy returned the introduction with a smile, broad in Happy's case and small in Charle's.

After the introductions had been made they all settled down for dinner and polite conversation was all that passed between them. The suspicion and censure that they had been objected to on their journey through the Azure region was present the most in Arthur's eyes, Juliette merely observed them with a sense of aloofness while Alice was the only one that seemed excited at them being here. It was only after the desert had been finished that the talk around the table turned to the reason why they were there in the first place.

"So you will be setting off tomorrow?" Juliette asked with some interest now in her eyes.

"Yes," Erza was the one who replied, "We have managed to get nearly all of our provisions for the journey today, we will simply be going over any plans tomorrow morning and smoothing things over before setting off in the afternoon."

Arthur and his father had left after dinner to 'attend to some business' so only Juliette and Alice remained to talk to them.

"Do you know anything about the monsters at all?" Alice asked curiously and Lucy shook her head.

"No, but your father mentioned that apparently someone called Sally had been spreading rumours about the reasons behind the monsters' sudden change in attitude."

"Sally Carmicheal is a vulgar woman," Juliette said with disdain, "She has nothing better to do but spread rumours all day. She even campaigned against my husband when he first went for the position of mayor, she said that he didn't have the capabilities to become mayor and that as a member of the Rowen clan he should remain with his books."

Erza looked surprised. "He mentioned though that people believed her."

"People will believe just about anything nowadays." Juliette said with scorn in her voice. "She comes from a family that were known to have the power of foresight and now, even though she has not an ounce of talent in her body, people still believe anything that she will say merely because her mother and grandmother before her were known to predict the future accurately."

"What are the rumours though?" Jellal asked, feeling rather curious himself.

"That the monsters are being influenced by dragons, that they are doing their bidding by eradicating us humans from this island and then from the world." Alice said softly.

"And each day her rumours get more ridiculous!" Juliette's eyes flashed. "Now she's accusing my husband of being in a pact with the monsters, as shown by his lack of reluctance to work with mages, as mages are spawns of the devils just like dragons are!"

"What?" Gray managed to choke out.

"Exactly." Juliette agreed. "Mages are not spawns of the devil, they are born as normal people and she's only trying to get back at Harold and me because he fell in love with me and broke of their arranged engagement to marry me." Her eyes contained anger at the woman who was trying to poison the people with her lies and Wendy got the feeling that she could be a very intimidating woman when she wanted to be.

"There are old stories though that state that mages were the children of dragons and as the monsters apparently look quite reptilian, people are thinking that they are baby dragons or mages turning into another form. The people are starting to panic and that's why the rumours are getting more and more out of hand." Alice added.

They all looked at one another. "Well Wendy and I are known as dragon slayers and were basically raised by dragons and we can assure you that dragons aren't all bad." Natsu decided to say and Juliette's and Alice's stunned silence met them.

"You met an actual dragon?" Alice breathed, looking at them in wonder.

"They were basically our parents." Wendy added. "We were orphans and the dragons took us in and taught us their magic. We also know other people who were raised by dragons like us and everyone's dragons vanished fourteen years ago on the seventh of July, X777. None of us know what happened to them or why they vanished but we can assure you that they are gone as we haven't been able to find them so I highly doubt that dragons are behind the attacks from these monsters."

"Well, that's certainly good to know." Juliette stated while Alice was still gazing at them.

"The man who brought us here, Old Sam, mentioned that apparently this island was the origin of all dragons?" Erza asked and Juliette and Alice nodded.

"Yes, at least, that's what the old scripts and the hieroglyphs in all the ruins in the mountains state. We don't know where the scripts, the scrolls or the hieroglyphs came from but the written pieces have been in the family for centuries, and the hieroglyphs have probably been there even longer." Juliette replied.

"Maybe you guys can find some links to your lost dragons here." Alice stated and suddenly her eyes lit up. "Mum, I could accompany them, I know the mountains better than most anyway, and I could show them the hieroglyphs. The stories never made that much sense to me but maybe they will understand them."

"I don't know sweetheart..." Juliette looked at her excited daughter, her brows furrowed in worry.

"I don't think that would be the best idea if the monsters really are as dangerous as you say they are." Jellal said and Erza nodded.

Alice twirled around to face them. "But I know roughly where the monsters rest, I could show you where to go and therefore make that part of your journey a lot easier. And I've always wanted to see how mages work, they all forbid us to talk about it in the open here, they hate magic." Her fists clenched. "My best friend had to leave town because she had magical powers and the people wouldn't accept her." She looked straight into their eyes. "Please let me help, I really want those monsters to be gone and find out more about the dragons." Her eyes were pleading.

"You know that Arthur cannot find out." Juliette pointed out.

"Arthur's a stick-in-the-mud." Alice stated calmly. "And he's been an ass ever since the situation with the monsters started. He's studied the ancient texts just as much as you, dad and I have and he still insists that magic is something evil. With this we can prove him wrong and maybe get him back to the way he was before." Determination flickered in her eyes. "And although dad may hate the idea of what I want to do, he knows that I'll do what I think is right anyway."

Juliette sighed. "Okay, I'll tell your father after you leave tomorrow." Alice's face brightened. "But I think you still need to ask some people if you can even join them first." She stated, an amused smile on her face.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." She turned back around to face them. "Can I please accompany you so that I can help? I'll promise not to be too much of a nuisance."

"Okay." Erza said after some deliberation. "We need all the help we can get but we can't promise to keep you safe all the time as our main objective is to get rid of the monsters."

"Yes, of course." Alice grinned and then began to run towards the door. "Thank you sooo much! I'll go and pack now." And with that she was out of the door and running down the corridor to her rooms.

Lucy smiled as she watched the younger woman leave. She remembered her own enthusiasm when she had first set out into the world years ago and watching someone else so similar to her act in a nearly identical manner filled her up with nostalgia.

Natsu looked over at her and smiled and she returned the smile, barely able to keep down the blush that threatened to taint her cheeks at his gaze. Maybe this mission wasn't going to be so bad after all. And maybe she would be able to forget her many problems until this trip was over.