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Chapter 20: The Vision

The first I see when I wake up is Erza. Her face is hanging over mine, upside down. Her hair falls over her shoulders and the ends caress my cheeks. She has the saddest look in her eyes.

I realize my head isn't leaning against my backpack, which I decided to use as a pillow the night before. I'm resting in Erza's lap. Not only that: she's holding my face in her hands.

Still confused I notice Natsu, Gray and Lucy standing around us, Happy floats above their heads. They all stare at me, and everyone looks sad.

The sun is already out. For the first time in a while I slept without waking up in the middle of the night after the nightmare.

Then it hits me. Right. I probably should've mentioned something about the recurring dream. I might've been talking in my sleep. That probably freaked them out, but they don't have to look all that sad about it.

Erza's gaze doesn't change, not even after it's clear that I'm awake. And as sleep fades away, I realize I'm breathing real fast. My chest is pumping up and down and I try sucking in as much air as I can, as if I just spent over ten minutes under water. I feel then that I'm sweating. My skin is soaking wet. I might literally look like a fish that swam too far towards the shore.

Everyone here probably thinks I'm in complete panic, but I'm actually quite calm. As if my mind and body are disconnected from one another. I have to get my breathing under control first, but as soon as I think that to myself I get the urge to take a look at my hands. And when I do, I see they're burning. Black flames are dancing between my fingers, right in front of everyone. They're exposed.

So I kinda do freak out now. I close my eyes and breathe in loudly through my nose. The flames seem awfully cheerful, like children being chased around the room by their parents. They know how stressing this is to me. I don't want the Fairy Tail mages to see the flames. I'd prefer it if they never saw them in the first place, and I know that's stupid to think if we're really going to Bosco, but I want to prevent it as much as possible.

But here they are, in bright daylight.

I continue to take deep breaths and call for the golden magic. The flames are surprisingly easy to subdue in that moment and that's strange. I'm not even completely focused; they just give up.

I still have my eyes closed, I don't see it happen, but I know they're disappearing. Maybe in thin air, or they crawl back into my skin. My body stops acting as if I'm dying and connects with my mind.

Erza doesn't let go of me and when I look at her again her eyes haven't changed either. She is sad. The others aren't moving either. I feel uncomfortable with them just standing around and watching. It's like they walked in on me taking a shit while naked.

But my main focus now is Erza. I carefully place one of my hands on top one of hers, a hand that is holding my face. I'm not sure what I mean to do with this. She looks like she needs reassurance of something. 'It's alright. I'm OK.'

'Don't lie,' she says softly.

'I'm not.'

'They've gotten worse.'

I think she's referring to the nightmares. I pull my hand away and sit up. My shirt is soaked and glued to my back. I turn to Erza. 'They haven't. They've always been like this.'

'Always?' says Gray. 'You've always cried your eyes out in your sleep?'

I quickly turn to him, just to make sure he's not joking. I'm still bad at reading jokes. He's deadly serious, the sadness that was over him earlier has turned to confusion.

'Cried in my…' I repeat softly. With my fingers I slowly touch the skin around my eyes. Though everything about me right now is moist, I can feel tears. I look at my fingers, as if I need to see it myself to make sure.

'We found you like this,' Lucy says then, 'and they...the flames were there, so we didn't know what to do.'

By now, the cat is a little more out of the bag than it was before. They know what the flames look like, they know it's evil, but they don't know they belong to a dragon and they don't know about you. I still feel I have things to hide, so my first instinct is to act casual in order to avoid further suspicion. The suspicion being their weird looks I don't know what to do with.

I clear my throat and attempt to shrug. 'To be honest: this is a first for me as well, but trust me when I say it wasn't any different than usual.' Right as I finish that sentence I know I haven't made it any better. 'I mean, normally it's not that bad. Generally. It's just a dream. Don't worry about it.'

Yeah, you and I both know that's not true. My nightmare is some screwed up memory, but as I sit there opposite of the Fairy Tail mages I just think down playing it is for the better. The flames are not bothering me now; I'm fine.

'Didn't look like it, though,' says Natsu then, and that's the first he's said since I woke up, 'I've never seen anyone as much in panic as you just now.'

'Yeah,' says Happy, 'I have nightmares sometimes too, but they're not nearly as bad as yours.'

It's almost as if they're asking me what I dream about. I don't feel like telling them at all.

I look back at Erza. Her eyebrows are wrinkled. She wants to ask me a million questions, but knows I won't answer in front of the others. We need a moment alone, some space where we can shout at each other for keeping things to ourselves, for leaving things unspoken, just like the night after Lisanna's funeral. But who knows when we'll get that moment.

I mean, I already know, I lived through it and am now telling you about it, but at that time I had no idea if we could ever have a normal conversation again. We went through hell and at one point she didn't know who I was.

I turn around, so I can sit face to face with her. I have to say something. 'I swear, I have no idea why this happened. The dream was the same as always.'

We've known each other for years, and when you know someone long enough you'll recognize earnesty. And I hope that she still does, even with the tension that is still left between us.

For a second I think she might get angry at me. I see she is swallowing something down, maybe an insult about how I always try to do things alone and by that disrespect her, but when she speaks she's calm. 'Fine. I believe you.'

I don't know what kind of signals that sends to the others, and I don't really care. I stand up and let my hair hide my eyes as I search through my bag for a clean shirt.

'I'm just…' I say, when I've found one that doesn't smell that bad and a cloth I can use to dry myself, '...gonna wash up.'

I turn away from the group and start walking in the direction of the stream.

With the way I smelled that morning, I should've stayed in that water for about a week. It seems the nightmare used up all the bodily fluid I possessed to make me sweat. There was no time, sadly. I wasn't sure how far the morning had progressed, but we couldn't waste too much daylight.

I just put my head under water a few seconds and splashed some under my armpits and on my chest. I washed out the shirt I wore while I slept and made a mental note to ask Natsu if he could gently dry it for me. Once he stopped looking at me strangely.

When I'm done I sit down beside the stream, granting myself a few seconds of peace. Today we're entering Bosco, a land where dark magic roams freely. I feel uneasy, to say the least.

I stare into the water. There's too much movement to see my own reflection, but I'm sure I look terrible. Pale, skinny, sick maybe. I wouldn't believe me either if I said I was OK.

That's part of the uneasiness, I think. I'm not a stranger to long travels, but I'm not used to travelling with these people. It's a big difference compared to travelling with Mystogan; he never addressed anything he knew would make me uncomfortable, which was basically ignoring all problems.

But now I have Gray, Natsu, Happy and Lucy around me. Gray has stopped judging me and instead became very, very interested in my well-being. I thought I'd solved that after telling him a bit more about the flames, but after my dramatic nightmare panic attack I guess we're back to square one. Natsu, together with Happy, can be a handful too. It wouldn't surprise me if Natsu asked me to battle him someday, because that's just the kind of person he is: always proving to himself he's the strongest (and to be honest: he probably is).

And then there's Lucy. She's been part of Fairy Tail long enough to have started believing in the whole "if you have friends, you can do anything"- kind of...well, crap. And she's desperately trying to be my friend, and I don't mind that she does, but I wonder how that has changed after this morning.

To sum it up: I feel like the way I woke up that morning has made me look weak in the eyes of everyone. Weak and helpless, someone who's suffering, someone who needs to be taken care of. And again: I just don't know how to deal with that.

Same old, same old. But this is important. It's part of the reason I'm telling you this story. I want you to know what kind of person you created.

Which brings me to the next thing that happened.

So picture this: I'm sitting at the bank of a stream in the middle of a forest. For some reason I look to the other side of the stream. There, between the trees, I see a familiar face, illuminated by golden light. My mother's here.

Yes, the mother you killed.

A few heartbeats all I do is look at her. I need time to process.

When my confusion is blown over, I jump to my feet, as if stung by a bee. There are so many interesting questions I could've asked, but in the moment I just went with what first came to mind. 'Why are you here?'

She smiles at me. Though her mouth isn't moving, I hear her speak. Her voice echoes in my head, as if she's using telepathy. She says: 'Is that how you greet your mother?'

Unlike last time, she's staying where she is. I want to go to her, see her up close. Ever since she first appeared before me and told me she was proud of me, I've wanted to see her again.

'Sorry,' I say, 'I'm just...surprised.

She smiles at me and it feels only natural that she does. 'You don't think this is real, do you?'

Last time there was barely a conversation, so I feel a bit shocked when she speaks this direct. 'I don't. Sorry.'

'Don't apologize.' The light around her dims a little, and before I can blink twice she's crossed the stream. Now she's only a few paces away from me. 'I understand. But I will prove to you that I am real.'

She slowly raises her hand. The dress she's wearing has long sleeves that reach all the way to the ground. When she moves the fabric falls back slowly, revealing tender, gentle skin, also surrounded by golden light. She points her finger straight at my face, just above my eyes.

Some of the golden light leaves her and crosses over to me. My heart skips a beat and I resist ducking when the light reaches me.

'Breathe,' my mother says.

I realize I'm tensed up. I carefully suck in a bit of air through my mouth. The golden light surrounds me and a curtain is lifted on reality. In a matter of seconds the forest has disappeared. I can't hear the stream or feel the grass anymore. I see metal plates, chunky cupboards, a round ceiling, small windows.

'This is…' I say.

'The Mystogan,' my mother says. She's now standing beside me, her hands folded together so her long sleeves are connected. She's still glowing. 'Our airship. Our home.'

That was its name. Mystogan, and my friend took it as his, with my permission. Thinking of him and how crushed he was the last time I saw him stirs up some emotion, even more than I'm already feeling standing inside a vision of my former home, so I push my friend out of my mind.

The face of my mother is still calm, but she seems melancholic. I can't imagine what it's like to be a ghost version standing in your own home.

'Is this a memory?' I ask her, because that's the first that comes to mind.

She nods. 'Mine. You can explore if you like.'

I hesitatingly take a step forward. There are no sounds, I hear nothing I would expect to hear inside an airship. No trembling tubes or rattling engines; it's completely quiet. I take another step and bend down to look through one of the small windows.

There are clouds for as far as I can see. The sun is only poking halfway through. I've flown plenty of times myself, but I'd never been that high.

'That's pretty,' I say softly, as not to disturb the silence.

'Yes,' says my mother. She's still standing in the same place.

I straighten my back and turn away from the window. For a second I think about motion sickness. I'm not feeling any, then I remember none of this is real.

Everywhere on the walls hang wooden cupboards, which is odd in combination with the metal plates the ship is made out of. The cupboards all have distinct forms and sizes, some seem accidental and others experimental attempts. Some are squares, others triangles but with four corners, and a few have a diamond shape but with uneven edges. Altogether these cupboards create an unsolvable puzzle on the wall, a mosaic without a hidden image.

I walk past it, letting my eyes go over each individual variation. My mother stays in the same place, but follows me with her eyes. She seems to be waiting for something. After a while, she says: 'Your father always had the desire to be good at crafting. He went to any supply store we came across and bought tools he didn't know how to use...it's a miracle even we managed to fly this ship for as long as we have.'

I feel a smile appear on my face. I once saw my dad in the vision Mystogan helped me see years before. He had a gentle expression, but other than that I had no idea what kind of person he was. I never imagined him to be such a...dad.

'So he was a bit of a dork?' I ask my mother.

'You could say that.' And from just that I can tell she loved him very much.

I continue through the cabin till I stand in front of a ladder. It goes up, the cabin we're standing in now is in the belly of the ship. Above should be the control room.

'Can I go up?' I ask, just in case. My mother just nods and something tells me this is where she meant to go from the start.

I climb the ladder and when I poke my head through the hatchet at the other end, she's already standing there.

Everywhere I look there are buttons, small monitors and meters. There's a window in the front, and three chairs. Two of them are facing out the window, one of them has a handle in the armrest. The third chair is situated in the wall, facing the opposite wall. This one is much smaller than the others.

'That's mine, right?' I ask my mother. She nods, but doesn't say anything.

There's no way I fit in the seat right now, so I position myself beside it, facing the same direction I did when the ship crashed down. I could point at the parts that got ripped off first, and what I looked at next.

Slowly but surely the atmosphere in the control room starts to change. The sun pokes out above the clouds and shines in through the window at the front. It blinds me and after I've blinked a few times someone's sitting in the chair with the handle in the armchair. I only see the back of his head, but I know it's my father.

A few heartbeats I just stare at him. I want to ask my mother if he can hear us, but when I quickly glance at her I know she won't hear me. Her eyes are empty, because that is her deceased husband.

I don't move. I could go over and watch his face, but for some reason I don't. After a few blinks my mother is sitting in the other chair. Not the golden one, but the one that belongs in this scene. I imagine all of this is a combination of my mother's memory and her imagination.

Her hair is purple, the same as I saw it before.

I glance at the golden mother again. Her mouth hasn't moved this entire time, she always speaks in telepathy, but now she seems to press her lips down even more than before as she looks at herself and my father.

Then she looks over her shoulder and I follow her gaze. A small boy comes running towards the seats. There still isn't any sound, I don't hear his feet on the metal floors of the ship. When he passes me I see he presses a small plushy against his chin. The thing is so chewed and wrinkled it's impossible to tell what animal it's supposed to be.

The boy stands still between the two seats and pulls my mother at her sleeve. And I just think: that's us. The three of us, a family.

The atmosphere changes again, the sun isn't as bright anymore. It's a different day. My father is steering the ship, my mother is walking back and forth, biting her nails. The little boy stands near the hatchet leading to the cabin. He follows his mother with his big eyes. He's too young to understand what is going on, but he's old enough to know his parents are distressed and he shouldn't get in their way.

I don't know how I know this. I was only three years old at the time, but in this vision I feel connected to the boy I'm looking at. He's terrified.

The lights all around the control room start flickering, the needles in the meters are shaking and turning like crazy, but there still isn't a single sound. My father is pressing all kinds of buttons and shouts something empty over his shoulder. A shudder goes through the ship and the vision gets distorted. Smoke emerges and for a second it's unclear what's happening.

Next I see my mother putting the little boy in the seat in the wall, fastening three belts around him. I'm standing close enough to see the sweat on her face and if this wasn't a vision I'd be worried I was within her personal space. But this is a vision, and I stay still.

My mother kneels down before the little boy in his seat and takes his face in her hands.

This part is new to me. In my memory the ship is already breaking apart by now, but in my mother's memory we have a final moment together.

She stares at the little boy intensely. And slowly but surely, a golden light forms around her. Even if it's just a vision, I feel the magic. It's an insane amount of power, unlike anything I've ever felt before. There is still a hint in there of the golden magic I possess, but it's not nearly as strong as this. My mother was crazy strong, is what I'm saying, which comes as a surprise. The old man from Snowtown only told me she was an archaeologist.

The golden light now surrounds the boy as well. At first he's completely covered by it, then it travels inside of him from every angle, centering in his chest. The place where I now wear my guild mark.

My mother presses a kiss on the little boy's forehead, and then sits down next to my father. What comes next is the nightmare, which I know by heart. Their home falls apart around them. The boy is crying and somewhere in the chaos he loses his plushy.

'I've seen enough,' I say to the golden version of my mother.

'Of course,' says my mother. As the metal plates of the control room start ripping apart left and right, the entire vision disappears. For a moment there is only light, then we're back in the forest, standing at the bank of the stream.

I feel dizzy and quicky sit down before I fall. I touch the grass beneath me, the actual sunlight. My mother, the golden one, stands beside me.

After I've processed what just happened enough to ask questions, I get back on my feet.

'So it's you.' I know that's not a question, but she still answers.

'Yes. I hoped I could protect you from the Dragon.'

That means you, obviously.

'I failed,' my mother says then, her eyes towards the ground. 'I was foolish to think I could do anything. I wasn't an experienced mage. I had power, but no idea how to handle it.' She looks at me. 'But you do. And that makes me so proud.'

Flashes of the times I used the magic go through my mind: the first training match against Gray, enhancing the power of my weapons on missions, all the way to the point I healed Jellal. I just told the magic what I wanted it to do, and it listened. There's not much "handling" in there. It's always been a desperate call for help.

'I...I only…' I stutter.

A smile reappears on my mother's face. 'Don't cut yourself short. You've come farther than I have.'

I must've fully awakened it at the Tower of Heaven. Somehow. I look at my hands, as if the magic will appear there if I want it to. Nothing happens, of course. 'You know what I use the magic for, right?'

'Yes,' she answers, 'you trick the flames of the Dragon to think of anything as fuel. A very crafty solution.'

'But there has to be more we can do, right?'

She hesitates before answering. 'I came to warn you, Riku. Things are about to get worse.'

I drop my hands and stare at the grass. Just when I was about to feel positive. 'You mean the nightmare?'

'Everything.' She pauses. Very slowly she raises a hand, and this time we're standing close enough for her to touch me. With an index finger she pushes my chin up. 'But that is only because the power of the Dragon is getting weaker. The flames are distressed.'

And for the first time since I woke up I check on them. I concentrate on my stomach and I feel them smoldering, but only softly. Since my mother appeared I haven't felt them and even now it takes effort to sense them.

'They come at me when I'm weakest,' I say, 'because they have no choice.'

'Yes,' says my mother, 'you've gotten stronger.'

My mother lets go of my chin. It strikes me how real her eyes look. So full of life, even though she isn't. It must be the golden magic that has brought her here before me. The golden magic she gave me.

'No,' I say then, 'we have.

She smiles and though her mouth doesn't move more than that, I hear her chuckle. And in those real eyes, I see tears emerge. Golden tears, and they glitter as they cross her cheeks.

'It's a shame I can't hold you,' she says, 'I can't cut your hair, or read you a story. Though you're probably too old for that.'

And just like that, there's a lump in my throat, but I can't look away now. This is my mother, she is here now, and I have to cherish every second. 'But you're here now.'

'And I'm not going anywhere.'

There's still so much I want to know about her, but we both feel this meeting is coming to an end. She's told me what she wanted to tell me, and I should get back to the others. The light that surrounds my mother slowly fades and her image breaks apart in a million glittering dust particles. They travel towards me and gather in my chest, where they've always been from the beginning.

I take a deep breath and turn my head to the blue sky above. Tears stream down the sides of my face and in this moment I can take on anything in the world.

When I return to camp, everything's packed up already. I was gone way longer than necessary. Lucy pretends to read a book, Happy and Natsu play with sticks, Gray is leaning against a tree with his eyes closed but not sleeping and Erza is swinging her sword around a little further away from the others. They're just waiting for me to return and even though they don't really respond when I walk to my bag, I know they're keeping a close eye on me.

I've already decided to go to Bosco regardless of what I just learned about the flames. Even if they're getting weaker, they will never go away completely. They're easier to control, so the possibility of a takeover is slim, meaning I have less to worry about. I can go along on this silly adventure, maybe get things sorted out with Erza.

But first I have some explaining to do.

I clear my throat, giving the others the sign they need to stop pretending to be busy. And even though I want them to listen to me, I feel a bit anxious when they are. 'I, uh…'

When I don't finish that sentence, Lucy says: 'You were gone for a while. Everything alright?'

'Yeah,' I answer, 'I'm sorry about earlier. I should've said something about the nightmares. I mean, Erza knew, but I had no idea it was gonna be this bad.'

And when I say this I realize I'm not apologizing to her, but to the others, the ones who don't really know anything.

'Are you, perhaps, stressed over Bosco?' asks Lucy, which is a logical explanation considering my tantrum from the day before.

I shake my head. 'No. What I'm trying to say is...Erza was right. It's worse, and it will get worse. But that's only because it's getting better.'

Now they just look confused, Natsu especially. He even goes as far as to raise his hand as if he's in class. 'I don't get it. Is it the nightmares, or the flames, or both?'

'The nightmares, for starters.' And for this part, I turn to Erza. 'The flames are getting weaker.'

Her eyes widen. The sword she's holding slips between her fingers and hits the grass with a soft thud. She can't believe it. 'What?'

I nod. 'Yeah.'

Natsu, who's standing closest to me, gives me a shove. I'm so surprised by it I nearly fall over, but I somehow know he meant it in a friendly way. 'That's great news!'

Erza slowly steps towards me, her face still in disbelief.

Just a side note about what this means for us: remember the festival of the supermoon? That day and night Erza and I felt closer than ever before. Right after, your flames drove us apart again. We never managed to repair that damage.

'But…' says Erza once she's standing in front of me, 'how do you know this?'

It might be too complicated to explain my mother appeared before me. Not that I don't want to tell Erza, I guess I will at some point, once we have a moment alone together. 'I...had a vision.'

She can tell by just looking at me there's more to the story, and she knows not to ask further. Instead, she pulls me into a hug. I feel a bit startled at first. The chestplate of the armour she wears sticks painfully in my torso, but I don't complain. She sighs against my shoulder. 'This is great news.'

I like having her this close to me. For a moment everything's fine. I almost forget the others are still around us, as they were earlier when I woke up so dramatically.

Erza lets go of me. 'What about Bosco?'

'Oh, we should definitely go,' I answer, 'we've come all this way.'

She smiles at me gratefully. 'But it will get worse?'

'Yes.' And for this part I turn back to the others. 'It's gonna be bad. But just know it looks more terrible than it is. Trust me: I'll be fine.'

And this time, I'm not lying.