Chapter 13

What it Means to Be A Heartfilia

Many miles away, Lucy and Freed landed in a heap on the floor of a deserted library. With a grunt, Freed managed to get up and dust himself off before lending a hand to his companion. "I hate it when you do that, Lucy," he scolded her lightly.

Lucy rolled her eyes dramatically and she dusted off her worn out jeans. "We would have landed on our feet if you hadn't been resisting like a stubborn little two-year-old."

"Pft…" Freed huffed indignantly but otherwise ignored her little jab. He looked around at the dust covered room. "Where did you take us to this time?"

Lucy smiled sadly as she looked around. "I took us to my home. Welcome to the Heartfilia Konzern, Freed."

For weeks, Lucy and Freed hunted through the shelves of the Heartfilia library, following her mother's lead. Besides the Master, no one in the guild knew where they had run off to. All anyone knew, was that they left to collect information for their private mission.

It wasn't until three weeks before Christmas that they found anything. They'd finally given up searching the library and had moved on to other parts of the house. Today, they were searching her mother's private study.

After nearly three hours, Freed stumbled on the Heartfilia family tree at the same time that Lucy discovered her mother's private journal. He was about to toss the tree aside when something peculiar caught his attention. With a furrowed brow, he turned to Lucy with a question forming on his lips. "Lucy," he said as he scrutinized her list of ancestors.

"Hmm?" Lucy hummed absentmindedly as she thumbed through the journal she'd found.

"Were you aware that all the women in your family appear to die before thirty?"

Lucy frowned and looked up at her companion. "What are you talking about?"

Freed brandished the roll of old parchment at her. "I found your family tree. All the women seem to pass away before they reach the age of thirty."

Lucy scurried over to the Rune mage and carefully looked over the family tree in his hands. "You're right," she said in shock. "That's strange. Do you think the disease is passed down through the female line?"

"It seems that way," Freed mused. "But the truly odd thing is that it looks like it only appeared in your family line about five hundred years ago." He pointed to an ancestor named Lucinda Heartfilia who died at the age of twenty-eight in the year X285.

Lucy's frown deepened. "I wonder… if it's genetic, why did it randomly start with Lucinda? Why not before her? Could she have had a genetic mutation or something?"

Freed hummed in agreement as he continued to study the tree. Lucy couldn't help the feeling of dread that now filled her. Instinctively, Lucy knew that they had found the answers they'd been seeking. What could this mean? Why was it only the women who died so young? What piece of the story were they still missing?

Lucy was pulled from her thoughts when Freed asked another question. "What's that you have there, Lucy?"

"Huh? Oh!" she said with a shake of her head. "It looks like it was my mother's private journal."

Freed perked up instantly. "Perhaps she wrote about her own discoveries in there?"

Lucy's eyes lit up. "Yeah! You're right! Maybe she did." Hurriedly, Lucy flipped to the last entry in the journal in excitement. Instead of finding hope, Lucy froze at the words she read.

"What is it?" Freed asked in concern when he saw her begin to shake. "What does it say?"

Lucy looked up at him with wide, panicked eyes. She was pale as a ghost. "It's not a disease."

Freed inched closer to the Celestial mage and peered at the page of the journal in question. There were written, plain as day, only two sentences for the entry dated sixth July X777.

'It's not a disease. It's a curse.'

Freed, too, went pale at the discovery. He indicated, to Lucy, the date, and said, "Lucy, isn't that date the-"

Lucy nodded with tears forming in her eyes. "Yes," she whispered. "It is. My mother… she figured it out… and died the next day… She was too late…"

On instinct, Freed pulled Lucy into his arms and held her tightly. He did not like seeing her in pain. For several minutes, the pair stood there in silence until, finally, Lucy pulled away and wiped her cheeks.

"Thanks, Freed," she said quietly. She straightened her jacket and let out a determined huff. "We should go back to Magnolia now. I think we've found what we were looking for."

Freed nodded and they left to go gather their things to return home.

It was on the train ride back to Fairy Tail when the new reality of the situation finally hit them. They'd just finished consulting with Grandpa Crux.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," said the spirit of the Southern Cross. "But my records of the Heartfilia family only go back to Anna's time, I'm afraid. From what I can gather, there isn't much known about the family prior to that. I apologize."

Lucy sighed. "It's all right. Thanks anyway."

Lucy stared out of the train window grumpily while Freed studied her family tree closely. After nearly an hour, Freed growled in frustration and shoved the offending document away from him. "This is ridiculous!" he seethed. "It makes no sense! If it really is a curse, what could have caused it? Why is it only the women? Why haven't we found a record of it before now if it's been happening for half a millennium?"

Lucy froze and looked at Freed with wide eyes. A record… "That's it!" she shouted.

Freed started at her proclamation. "What is?"

Lucy dug out her communications lacrima as she spoke. "A record! There has to be a record of this somewhere, right?"

Freed frowned. "You would think," he said bitterly. "But if there was, you'd think we would have found evidence of it by now."

"That's because we've been looking in the wrong places! We thought it was a disease, so we've only been looking for proof of a disease. But we were wrong! It's not an illness at all. It only looks that way! We need to look into records of curses that present themselves as something else."

Freed nodded in understanding. "But, Lucy" he hesitated. "We're running out of time to find the solution. Researching curses will take time. Perhaps more time than we have left. And even if we do find out what curse it is, we might not be able to do anything about it. Not all curses are reversible."

Lucy flinched. "I know that, but we don't have any other choice. For now, this is our only option," she sighed. "I'm going to call Hibiki. Hopefully he can use Archive to help us with the research."

They were silent as the waited for the Blue Pegasus mage to answer his comm. lacrima. "Hello?" came the smooth voice of the Archive mage as his handsome face appeared in the orb before them. "Lucy? Is that you?"

Lucy smiled warmly at the flirtatious man. "Hey there, Hibiki. Sorry to bother you so suddenly."

Hibiki chuckled lightly. "You're not bothering me, Lucy. I'll always have time for a beautiful lady like you. What's up?"

Lucy rolled her eyes but smiled at him anyway. "Well, to be honest, I was hoping you could use Archive to look something up for me? If you aren't too busy, that is."

Hibiki smiled at her. "I'd be happy to help you, Lucy. What do you need?"

"Well," Lucy hesitated as she glanced nervously at Freed. "It's… it's something personal and I'm going to need your word that you won't speak of it to anyone."

Hibiki's smile faltered. "What's going on? Has something happened? Are you all right?"

Lucy sighed in frustration. "I'll tell you the whole story but first, I need you to swear that you'll keep it quiet for now."

Hibiki frowned but nodded his agreement anyway. Lucy took a deep breath and explained everything to the single member of the Trimens. He listened quietly with wide eyes until she was finished. With a little help from Freed, Lucy also explained what they'd learned from her mother's journal and family tree. When they voiced how they suspected that is wasn't an illness at all, Hibiki's face paled considerably.

Without a word, Hibiki began to search through Archive, furiously looking for Lucy's ancestor Lucinda. What he found did not serve to comfort them. In fact, it sent them into a state of alarm and fear.

"It doesn't look good, Lucy," Hibiki said gravely. "According to the public records of Fiore, Lucinda Heartfilia was engaged to a man named Jareth Nightshade. Apparently it was supposed to be some kind of business deal between their families but Lucinda broke the contract and eloped with another man. Jareth tried to win her back but failed. An old eye-witness report claims that he vowed to get revenge by casting a curse on her and any of her female descendants."

Lucy gasped and exchanged looks with Freed. "What kind of curse are we dealing with? Is there a way to break it?" Freed questioned.

Hibiki shook his head sadly. "It looks like he designed the curse himself. Those kinds of curses were outlawed a few centuries ago. There isn't much information available on them today. Maybe, if you could find a descendant of Jareth's, they might know how to break it. Unfortunately, I can't find another mention of him in Fiore's historical or public records. It's likely that he either left the kingdom after he cursed Lucinda, or he lived the rest of his life under an assumed name."

Silence hung in the void between the three mages for a good long while before it was broken by the conductor announcing that they were approaching Magnolia Station.

Lucy said her good-byes to Hibiki as Freed gathered their things. "Thanks for everything, Hibiki. We really appreciate your help."

"Don't thank me, Lucy," said the handsome man. "I practically just handed you a death sentence."

Lucy sighed and looked at him with a small, sad smile. "Hey, now! Don't be like that, Hibiki. I'm not dead yet. Besides, you said if we find one of his descendants, they might be able to help break the curse for us. You gave me some hope."

Hibiki shook his head. "That's not a guarantee, Lucy! Besides, finding them isn't your only problem now!" Freed and Lucy looked at him questioningly as the train began to slow down. "Curses are serious business, guys. They're nothing to mess around with. They're very, very dangerous and difficult to handle. If it's not dealt with properly, it can hurt more than just the person it's meant for. And you've already risked a lot by containing it in a lacrima that's meant for diseases."

"I had no choice! I didn't know what is was!"

"I know, but that lacrima wasn't designed to hold a curse! They're not even stable enough to hold a disease! That's why they were outlawed here! You need to be very careful, Lucy. The curse has probably already weakened the lacrima. You might not have as much time left as you think."

Twenty minutes later, Lucy and Freed found themselves standing in the doorway of the guild, shouting at each other, while the rest of the guild looked on in awe. Thankfully, Lucy had had the sense to place one of her sound barriers around them so no one could hear their fight. After a good ten minutes, Lucy ended their little shouting match and stomped off to get a drink from Mira at the bar with tears in her eyes.

Lucy sat at the bar in one of her sound bubbles while talking to someone on her communications lacrima while Freed sat across the guild with his team, his arms crossed and eyes glaring steadily at Lucy's back. No one dared ask either of them what was going on.

A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry it took me a little longer to get this chapter up. Life got a little busy there. Anyway, I know this isn't a particularly interesting chapter, but it was time I added some more info on her condition.

Now, I want to take this time to thank all of you for sticking with me this far. It's getting close to the big conclusion and I want to warn you all that I have not decided if this will be a HEA or a kind of tragedy. Now, I'm not trying to discourage you from finishing the journey with me, but I did want to forewarn you that I haven't decided how I'll end it yet.

I'll leave it here for now. It's time to work o chapter 14. I'm on a role tonight!

~Andromeda