A/N: Hello, everybody! This is something like a sequel to the Mira and Gray oneshots from 'Tales Over A Frozen Lake'; you should read them if you want to understand this one. Actually, I had this written a bit earlier, but I was sure I have already uploaded it - how could I forget? Before I forget anything else, this is dedicated to WolfFang1011 for inspiring me to write it - and in fact, making me start Fairy Tail!
The door opened. Gray walked on autopilot through the empty guild hall - most people had already gone home. He sat - heh, more like fell - in a chair opposite the bar. He had overdone the skating today - never before his legs had felt as heavy as stone.
"Good evening, Gray!" Mira waltzed in behind the bar, her fluffy white scarf brushing it. She took a bottle from the floor and poured it in a glass. "The usual, right?"
Gray put a hand in his pocket and took some jewels. "How much was it?" he asked Mira as he counted them, "I never manage to remember."
"Free for you, only today." Before Gray could protest, Mira pushed the glass in front of him. "As a thank you for spending so much time making the ice. I have forgotten the amazing feeling when I dance on skates." Mira spun and walked out of the bar. "Drink it or I'll tell Cana you are wasting tasty alcohol."
"And I thought the days of Mira the Menace were over." Gray made few ice cubes in the glass and took a small sip of his drink. "What, next time I go naked in winter, you will call Erza?"
"I could, my love," Mira replied, "I could." She took her place at the stage and looked at the empty tables. "Everybody else went home. I guess only demons stay up in the night." Mira winked at Gray.
"Your jokes are getting slate." Gray took another sip. "Plus, Cana will be here any moment for her nightly round of drinks."
Mira glanced at the stairs to the basement where she stored all barrels of alcohol. "No, this time she decided to take it for home. Lucy's home most likely."
Gray nodded. "Did you send her home so that she won't see me drinking for free?" Another little sip. His drink had warmed, but he didn't have the power to cast another Ice Form. Not even little ice cubes.
"I should send you home, too. Your eyes are barely open." Mira joked — maybe. With her, Gray could be sure only when she used Satan Soul — then she was serious.
"I'm going there. I wanted to check here first because it rarely stays open so late." Oh, why hadn't his tried mind made the connection earlier? "You have stayed here for me?"
Mira closed her eyes and nodded. "I said I had to thank you. And what is another hour or more? Plus, I had to put the chairs back in place, check food and drinks to restock, clean thoroughly… " She laughed. "All in all, I had work to do. So I decided to do it today. If you don't like it, I can shovel you out and close the place for tonight." The evil grin on her face told Gray she wasn't joking. Maybe.
"But now I have to thank you back. Can I treat you to a drink, too -" Once again, Mira stopped Gray before he could take his money.
"Don't sweat it, Gray. I have more than enough fans to buy me everything." Mira had taken a guitar from somewhere and sat on the chair on stage. "But there's a little favor I can ask of you if you want to help me so much."
"Just say it." Gray nodded to her and did the best imitation of leaning possible on a bar stool.
Mira played few notes in the guitar - cold, fiery, familiar. Gray frowned. Where did he know them from?
"I didn't get to do my daily show today." Mira had transformed her coat in an elegant white dress. "And I can't sing to myself in such a huge place. Can you be my audience for the night?"
"This sounds like I'm getting more and more gifts, Mira. But if you want it…" Gray let his eyes rest for a moment and listened as Mira began playing her song.
Ah, where had he heard it? Note after note drew landscapes of winter, of dead trees buried under heavy snow. Gray could see the darkness spreading and poisoning the pristine white. Every long-drawn tone bleached the colors further. Then Mira began singing.
That song! The demon hunter that had become a monster. Ah, so that's where he had heard it. Gray listened, his eyes closed. On the edge of dreams, he saw himself, chasing Deliora. Fighting. Losing himself in power. Stopping being a human. Mira began the last part - dying…
"Wait!" Gray stopped her before she could finish the song. "It shouldn't end like that." The monster had to die. He could not live with the humans, not again.
"Should it?" Mira looked at Gray as if he had sworn he would wear heavy jackets for the rest of his life. "Oh!" She blinked - "I have sung the other version a few times. I don't like it much, but the customer's always right and all that stuff… Plus, if I sang only my favorites, you'd be listening to one song only." For a second Mira touched her chin. "Two at most, if I felt charitable."
"You can't change stuff like that. The monster cannot return to the humans - he will only hurt them." Sleep had ended pushed in some distant corner of Gray's thoughts. "He has chosen to be a demon. He has to die."
"I've always wondered how you see it." Mira left the guitar and sat next to Gray. Her dress had become a coat again. "But this is a folk song. It grows with the people, following their changes. Who'd stop me and Gajeel from saving the demon?"
"Gajeel?" Gray imagined him and Mira together, changing the lyrics for hours so that they felt authentic. "How have you convinced him to help you?"
"A girl does not reveal her secrets, Gray." Mira's smirk showed everything Gray wanted to know - nothing. "But every monster hopes to be saved, does it not? Isn't this Fairy Tail? We give a home to every monster who seeks redemption instead of letting them drown in their loneliness?" Her eyes closed for a moment, a slight frown crossing her face.
"And what if the monster does not want salvation?" The question Gray had always feared asking. Shadows sneaked in his mind, eating his sanity by the second. He would hurt his friends. He would betray them. He would kill them. What else could a demon do? Mira somehow knew whenever it happened. That's why she always joked about demons. 'I am a demon, too. I am also the same old Mira who loves everybody. You are the same Gray that will never betray us.' Yet no matter how much she tried the darkness somehow won.
"Monsters always want to be saved, Gray. No matter how much they convince the others. Or themselves. There's always that one person that will not abandon you. All you need is to find your light."
Mira broke all Gray's barriers. Maybe because he was starting to feel drunk. Maybe because she knew the pain of fearing yourself. "I will kill them. I almost killed Natsu - what stops me from trying to kill everybody?" Great, now he admitted it. Gray turned away and stood up, ready to leave. Return to his lonely home and count seconds until sunrise. He could not torment Mira with his problems.
Mira pulled him by his sleeve. "I used to fear exactly the same - losing control to the demons. Forgetting who am I. That's why Erza promised she would always stay stronger than me. If I ever forgot who am I, she'd punch sense back in me." Another light laugh. "You can find someone to whom you can always lose. Someone you trust to keep you grounded."
Someone like that? Who would agree to work as Gray's watchdog forever, ensuring he never went too far? No, he already knew the answer. Everyone in Fairy Tail would say "Yes!" if he asked them.
"Thanks, Mira," he said after a short pause. "You know exactly how to talk a monster to death."