Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.

Pairing(s): Natsu Dragneal x Zeref

WARNINGS: violence, alternative history, shounan ai (boy/boy pairing); you have been warned so don't like, don't read


The Will to Live

By V. Shalyr


29. Echoes

Porlyusica raised her eyebrows when her gaze landed on the dark-haired wizard seated at the breakfast table.

"What's the matter with you?"

Era jerked his head up from where he'd been about to fall asleep in his oatmeal, blinking dazedly in the healer's general direction. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

Porlyusica shook her head. "You should either eat that or go to bed."

Era looked back down at his unfinished breakfast, seemingly surprised to find that it was there. He picked up the spoon and slowly began to eat.

"You should take better care of yourself, even if you are immortal," the healer observed.

Era shrugged. "Natsu says that too. Honestly though, I simply forget sometimes. I was working on something and lost track of time."

"Working on what?"

Porlyusica had to admit to being curious. These were wizards after all, and extremely knowledgeable ones at that.

"Natsu and I found an additional wing to this library."

"Really?"

Era nodded and gestured with his free hand towards one of the archways leading off the second floor.

"It's behind the tapestry of the waterfall. The door opens the same way as all the other doors around here. The greenhouse chamber doesn't have any plants in it anymore, but it's still a sight to behold. They layered the vegetable beds to make watering them easier, and the spells for channeling sunlight are still working. It's like being able to see the sky even though the place is underground."

"And exploring all this kept you awake?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Era replied, and the healer thought he looked almost embarrassed. "We found another door that won't open. The carvings upon them that are meant to be magical are difficult to distinguish from the carvings that are not, and parts of the masonry are damaged."

"In other words, it's stuck," Porlyusica said dryly, "and you didn't sleep because you spent all night trying to open it?"

"Basically, yes."

Somehow, she wasn't surprised.

"I assume you've compared it with the doors that do work?"

"Hmmm?" Era stirred his oatmeal, pushing what was left of it to one side of the bowl and watching it ooze back. "Yes, I have. Actually, I think I've almost gotten it figured out. There appears to be a lull in the storm, so Natsu's gone out. I'm going to fix the door while he's away, and we'll see what's inside when he returns. Are you interested?"

"The two of you can tell me about it when you find out."

For her part, the healer thought that after she ate, she'd take a look at this greenhouse room he'd mentioned. If it had been well designed, she could probably find a good use for it.

.

When the intricately carved door slid aside, it revealed a chamber completely unlike any other room in the library. The two wizards lingered in the open archway, surprised and admittedly impressed.

The floor of the oblong chamber was a pure, snowy white that emitted a faint glow like moonlight. The chamber's walls glistened in this light, the soft iridescence glimmering in shifting waves across the clear water that flowed in a constant, thin curtain down across the dark blue stone.

The cool smell of fresh water and damp rock filled the air, and when Zeref took an experimental step forward, he felt the faintest tingle of magic upon his skin. At the same time, a wall of runes written in blue-white light materialized upon the air, dividing the long chamber at its midpoint to form two square spaces. Upon closer inspection, the wall of runes consisted of not one but three layers so that the individual marks became difficult to distinguish, blazing like a network of tiny, oddly shaped stars. When they peered past this seemingly insubstantial and yet impassable barrier, they could see a complicated magic circle carved into the floor beyond, although a fragment of the pattern appeared to have been removed, leaving a roughly triangular indentation.

"Did the wizards here make this?" Natsu asked, squinting through the web of tiny lights. "It certainly looks like a magical artifact if I've ever seen one."

"I think so."

Zeref placed a hand on the magical barrier and gasped. His vision blurred and the steady hush of flowing water was drowned out by a cacophony of voices.

"We should never have created it in the first place," someone was snarling, voice hoarse from too much emotion and overuse.

"I agree. I say we destroy it."

"No! We've put far too much work into this!"

"That's right. We've made far too many sacrifices. I can't believe you're getting cold feet now."

There were so many voices, arguing, shouting—making demands—and growing louder and more chaotic by the second. The chamber faded in and out of focus, distorted by shadowy figures that Zeref couldn't quite make out. He received the general impression of movement mixed with a bewildering wave of intense emotions—frustration, anger, shock, fear, and grief. This was followed by an intense, stabbing pain that sent him reeling back away from the wall of runes. He could smell blood now too, an insidious tang of copper that overwhelmed the clean scent of the water and made his stomach roil with revulsion.

Strong arms caught and steadied him, and the confusion of shouts and screams became distorted and stuttering.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Zeref wrenched his mind free of the scene of violence with a gasp and found himself staring wide-eyed into Natsu's concerned face. His heart hammered in his throat, and he thought he could still smell the blood—feel it even, drenching his robes and spilling across the white, white floor. With that blood had come memories, fragmented and confused—and tainted with anguish that raked at his own heart with its painful intensity.

"You're shaking," Natsu observed.

His hands were on Zeref's shoulders, and the wizard noticed for the first time the fading wisps of black fog in the air around him.

"I think," Zeref said slowly, struggling to recollect himself, "that someone was murdered here."

And it had been murder—not a duel or an attack by outsiders.

"That's probably why they abandoned this place. It wasn't just a simple argument."

He paused for a moment to regulate his breathing before continuing, "Do you remember what I told you about the original inhabitants of this library? About them wanting to use magic to change the world?"

"Yeah, I remember. You mean these lunatics actually went and tried to build something that would let them control the way everyone in the world thinks?"

"Apparently so, and this," Zeref gestured around them at the chamber, "was it. The wizard who was killed did a lot of the magical work on this place, so when he was killed here, the emotions of the event left... echoes."

Echoes that still made his skin crawl.

"Which you probably picked up because you're really perceptive when it comes to magic," Natsu concluded.

The shadowy fog had finally dissipated.

"Most likely, yes." Calm once more, Zeref indicated the wall of runes—still glimmering as before but somehow more sinister now than beautiful. "That barrier, the victim cast it before he died. I expect that's the main reason no one tried to use the artifact. They couldn't get to the magic circle to activate it. The spell's grown weaker over time, but it's still quite strong. It must have been very impressive when it was first cast."

"Guess we'd better leave it alone then, huh?"

"Yes."

Zeref shivered. Had this chamber always been so cold? Certainly, the water running down the walls would carry away quite a bit of warmth.

"Do you mind if we go sit outside for awhile?" he asked, looking from the glimmering barrier back to Natsu's face.

"Sure. It's still raining, but the cave with the waterfall door should be dry. Want to bring a book?"

Zeref nodded. The dragon had taken a liking to listening to him read out loud, and he was more than happy to oblige. It was such a luxury to have someone to talk to while he read, someone he could share and discuss his thoughts with.

So they left the strange, white room, shut the elaborate door behind them, and went outside, grabbing a book and a blanket on their way. They had done this enough times already to have a favorite spot where they could settle themselves—a place from which they could watch the waterfall and where an angle in the cave wall prevented them from being easily spotted from the doorway. And when they paused to talk only a few chapters into the story and their conversation wandered elsewhere, that was okay too. Natsu regaled him with tales of a forest he'd once flown past where he had ended up fighting with all sorts of carnivorous flowers for his meals. It was puzzling how these plants could devour entire wild boars and make all that protein disappear into orange blossoms and green leaves. Zeref liked listening to Natsu's stories just as much as—if not more than—he liked to read, and by the time the gray daylight on the other side of the water veil had faded to midnight blue, Zeref had mostly managed to forget about the bloody crime that had occurred downstairs, the echoes of hate that sank like ice into his bones, and the sickening stench of copper made worse by the enclosed space and the moisture.

Mostly.

After all, it had all happened a long time ago. Not only that, but it had happened to someone else. Someone he didn't really know.

Then again, if Zeref was that good at letting things go, he wouldn't be who he was. And even if he hadn't known the person, he had an unpleasantly good imagination.

.

Zeref jerked awake, his eyes snapping open as his consciousness struggled free of confused but vivid nightmares that seemed to be a mixture of the murdered wizard's memories and his own painful shards of recollection from the early days when he'd still been struggling to understand and cope with the curse. There had been so many visions of death that the horror and dread of it had finally bled together into a numb coldness that seeped into the very marrow of his bones. He had learned—really, truly learned—what despair felt like and just how powerless magic really was to change people's lives.

Zeref dragged his eyelids up, blinking in the darkness of the room they had chosen to make their own in the library. It was one of the smaller rooms that could be found in the collection of living quarters, but it had stood out to them because of the mural that covered one of its walls. Like all the other living spaces, the magical lights in the ceiling brightened and dimmed with the sun outside, and by their glow in the morning, the mural was a spectacular landscape of clouds with half a dozen colorful boats sailing through this ocean in the sky. The artist responsible for the fantastical scene had suffused the image with a lively, playful energy that was at once cheery and wistful. Zeref wished he could see it now so that its bright colors could replace the dark flickers still grasping at the edges of the shadows before his eyes.

"It's still bothering you?"

The quiet question from behind him told Zeref that his bedmate was awake.

"No, it just... brought up some things from the past."

"You mean your past?"

Zeref nodded, his cheek sliding against the cool pillowcase. It was almost weird how often he'd been able to sleep in an actual bed lately. Surreal even. Practically normal.

"It's been a long time since I've thought much about it."

"I know you don't like to talk about it," Natsu said, thinking back to the start of their travels when they'd first begun exchanging stories.

"No, I don't," Zeref agreed. He was quiet for a moment then added, "I've accepted the fact that I can't change the past and there was nothing else I could have done, but it's still a bad time to think about. I am... not good at letting go. Then again, I suppose it's the past that makes us who we are. Even if we were to forget our past experiences, it's difficult to imagine that those experiences would not still influence how we feel and behave at least a little. It's not that easy to change the people we have already become."

"Do you think that's a bad thing?"

Zeref thought for a moment.

"No," he said. "After all, that's essentially what it means to learn, isn't it?"

Natsu sounded amused when he replied, "You know, before I met you, I never realized that anyone sat around and thought so much about these things."

"You might be surprised," Zeref said wryly. "I've known more than a handful of individuals who spend a great deal of their time asking such questions about the world."

"Yeah? Can't say it sounds like a healthy pastime."

"You might be right about that," the wizard admitted. "Although they also tend to be the people who go on to make the kinds of discoveries and inventions that change the way we live. Of course, whether those changes are for the better, it's hard to say. Sometimes, no matter how hard you work and how good your intentions, everything just goes wrong."

"And sometimes, things go right even without people trying," Natsu pointed out. "A lot of times, things just don't go the way you expect. It's practically a rule of the universe. It doesn't have to be bad."

The dragon wizard gathered the boy closer to him. "Have I ever told you about the marshmallow fruit trees?"

"The what?"

"Well, that's just what I call them. They probably have a proper name too. They're these trees you get in some places further south that grow bunches of fruit that taste like marshmallows—if you can crack the shells open anyway."

"Is this something you dreamt about, or something you've actually seen?"

Natsu snorted. "I'm not making it up. There used to be a giant grove of them by this human village."

"Used to be?"

Natsu's reply was laced with rueful regret. "I stopped by for a snack one time, and it turned out that if you roasted them, the shells got all sweet and crunchy. I, uh, wasn't as careful as I should have been and ended up burning the whole grove down. No one was hurt, but it was such a shame—the trees being as rare as they are. I felt guilty about it for days. But you know, I flew past there a couple years later, and the entire area had been turned into farmland. Turns out the ash from those trees was special and the villagers were able to build a bunch of new farms because of it. Before that, they'd fallen into hard times because their crops hadn't been growing well, so the fire turned out to be a blessing for them. You really can't know how some things will pan out."

"I suppose they weren't angry then?"

"Nope. I was going to apologize because Dad insisted that it was the right thing to do even though the grove wasn't technically theirs, but when they saw me, they gave me a sheep and did a funny dance. It was kind of strange, and I ended up just leaving again. Turns out their local deity looks a lot like a dragon these days."

Zeref chuckled. He could imagine how befuddled the dragon must have been. Humans could be strange about superstitions and customs.

"There," Natsu said, sounding very satisfied with himself. "I knew I'd get a smile sooner or later. I think I'm getting rather good at this, don't you?"

"Yes, you are." Zeref turned his face towards him even though, unlike Natsu, all his eyes could pick out were shadows. "I forget that you can see in this darkness."

"Well, it's almost never really completely dark. Human eyes just aren't that great at taking advantage of what light there is."

Natsu propped himself up on one elbow so he could look down into the other's face.

"You don't get much color in this kind of darkness though."

"Hmmm, I suppose you wouldn't."

Natsu brushed a few errant strands of inky hair out of the wizard's eyes so he could see them better. The expression in them right now was rather soft and slightly bemused, since he could sense Natsu studying him but couldn't actually see him doing so.

"It's still raining," Natsu said. He could hear the rhythmic patter of it upon the earth, faint and far away—and smell it too. It was a clean, fresh smell, and mixed in with all the other scents was the mellow and slightly sweet undertone of old forests and autumn leaves. It reminded him of the person next to him and made him want to smile too.

Zeref shifted a little self-consciously after several long seconds had ticked by.

"Please either do something or lie back down. You're starting to make me nervous."

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Natsu smirked and leaned down so that his next words were murmured against the other boy's lips. "I vote that I do something."

And then he kissed him—softly at first then fiercely when Zeref responded after only a moment's hesitation. Natsu thought he tasted not unlike the way he smelled, although the dragon wouldn't have been able to describe it if asked. He was no poet and had never been that great with words. It was enough for him to know that he liked it, just as he quite liked the little sounds he managed to coax from the other wizard's lips—a hitch of breath when Natsu's hand found its way under the loose tunic that Zeref had begun wearing to bed, a soft gasp when Natsu shifted to exploring the delicate line of his throat with his mouth, the scrape of teeth that were a little too sharp to be entirely human making Zeref tremble.

Natsu could practically hear his partner's frantic heartbeat, and he grinned into the hollow just above the boy's collarbone.

Tentatively, Zeref moved to tangle his fingers in the other wizard's tousled hair and asked, voice a little breathless, "You're going to choose after I have a nightmare?"

Natsu chuckled, and Zeref squirmed a bit at the odd sensation of it against his throat.

"Like I said," the dragon murmured, his breath hot against Zeref's ear as he shifted to pin the wizard more firmly underneath him, "stop me if you're uncomfortable."

Zeref nodded shakily, trying to ignore the warm shiver that ran down his spine. He didn't tell the dragon that he had already resolved not to.


TBC...


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