The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
From the Roots of Yggdrasil
"What do you want to talk about?" Lucy began hesitantly.
Zeref didn't answer, at first. He sat across from her in an armchair, just as he had the last time he had opened up to her – except that had been a battered chair in a scorched living room, and this was a brand new, not-yet-comfortable replacement. He stared at his hands, unmarked, unwrinkled, the hands of someone who had yet to experience the harshness of the world. They could not have been more deceptive.
"What do you want to know?" he asked.
"You don't have to do this-" she protested, startled, but Zeref just shook his head.
"I do, Lucy. I do."
She wasn't sure that she wanted to hear what he had to say any more than he wanted to say it, but if he had the resolve to see it through, she wouldn't be the one to undermine him. She thought for a while about her first question, and in the end, it didn't come out as a question at all. "Natsu's a demon."
"Yes," he said.
"END."
"Etherious Natsu Dragneel."
"Why?"
At this, he glanced up, perplexed. "Why…?"
"No, that wasn't a question," Lucy corrected herself, shaking her head. It was, if anything, a lament that things had turned out this way. Every time they became closer, something happened to complicate their relationship tenfold. She focussed on the more pressing issue: "Will you undo what you did to him? He's been in a coma ever since you did something to- to that book."
"I don't need to," came the quiet response, subconsciously trying to avoid drawing the attention of her ears in the same way his downward glance and withdrawn posture were trying to avoid the attention of her eyes. "He's not like the other demons. I can affect him, but not control him, not really. He will throw it off on his own soon enough. It's better for him if he does."
"It isn't normal, how much he hates you," Lucy observed. "It isn't… natural."
"No. It isn't."
"You did that to him, too."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I thought it would be better this way."
Those burning eyes flashed through her mind: a sheer hatred that went far beyond anger, her best friend's fist striking her down because she happened to be standing between him and Zeref. "Better for whom?" she demanded.
But she regretted it the moment she saw Zeref flinch from her accusation. No, she knew he wouldn't have done it for no reason. He was rarely emotional, and before she had got to know him better, his emotions had rarely been honest at all.
Gentler, she added, "Did you do it so that he would kill you? Like the Tartaros demons?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure." His brow furrowed, gathering shadows, and then he said, "I wanted to ensure that no encounter between us would ever be pleasant. If he attacked me on sight, or despised me too much to listen to me, or couldn't even hold a conversation with me without it degenerating into insults and violence… if it was clear that there was no chance of reconciliation between us… maybe then I wouldn't love him, and my curse wouldn't kill him before he could kill me. Maybe then I would know better than to hope for an outcome I could never have. I spent years and years and years with the Book of END, embedding that artificial hatred so deeply that, even if my resolve broke, I would never be able to get it out again."
"That's awful."
"I know."
"Natsu doesn't know what he is, does he?"
That startled a harsh laugh out of him. "I imagine he does now."
"But even the other demons didn't know," Lucy pressed. "Mard Geer held the Book of END as he fought Natsu, and he still didn't realize."
"Natsu's not like the other demons."
"You said that before," Lucy frowned. "Can you elaborate?"
"He is part demon, part human."
"What does that mean, exactly?"
He considered how best to explain. "The Etherious demons are entirely made of magic. If they die, they can be recreated from magic, as long as their books exist. By contrast, Natsu is a fusion of magic and life – of magic in both its forms, if you prefer. If his book is destroyed – or cut off from my magic for a prolonged period of time, such as when you sent it to the Celestial Spirit Realm without understanding the consequences – he will die just like the other demons… but if he dies, he can't come back, because his body is human; it's real. But as a result, his life is his own. He is able to grow and develop. He lives as a human, believes he is human… I suppose it is up to you to decide how much the truth matters."
"It doesn't matter at all," Lucy said fiercely.
Zeref didn't react.
"Besides," she added, "I've always known he wasn't entirely human. He may look normal, but he was raised as a dragon, manners and all."
To her surprise, this earned a tiny nod of agreement. "I suppose. He is as much a dragon as he is a human or demon."
"Did Igneel know?"
"Yes. He and the other dragons knew, along with Anna. They were the only ones. I wanted to keep it that way until the end."
"You didn't think Natsu had a right to know everything you just told me?"
"I don't know," Zeref admitted. Knowing him, there wasn't more of an answer than that, either.
"Okay," Lucy sighed, changing tack. "If his body is human, then how did he end up becoming part-demon? I mean, you weren't just… experimenting on random people to try and create stronger demons, were you?"
"No… it wasn't like that at all."
"Then how? Why?"
"He was born human," Zeref whispered. "He died human. And in the end, I brought him back to life in the only way I knew how."
"You-" Lucy started, and stopped short. "That's- then he's your-"
"Yes."
Silence.
And then the questions exploded: "How? That's not possible. That doesn't make any sense! How can Natsu be a demon you created and also your dead brother from four hundred years ago – and why doesn't he know about this, or you, or anything? You gave up so much for this, for him, so why do you insist on keeping this a secret and making him hate you when I know it isn't what you really want-?"
"Lucy," he said, bleakly, and she quietened at once. In retrospect, it was surprising that he wasn't angrier at her reaction. "I will answer your questions. I will tell you the rest of the story… but there's something I need to do first."
"Okay…?"
"It is Anna's story every bit as much as it is mine. I need to… to ask her permission before I can share it with you in full. I should have gone to see her a long time ago… and I think she'd want to meet you, too…"
"Where is she?" Lucy prompted, when he tailed off again.
"A village called Aster, near the north-west coast."
"I've never heard of it. I don't think I've even been to that part of Fiore. Have you?"
"Not for a very long time," he admitted. "Not since it was part of Carligne."
"What happened to the kingdom of Carligne?" she wondered. "It's just that, well, you said you grew up there, and I was wondering why it no longer exists."
Zeref stared at his hands for a very long time. "It was destroyed during the Dragon Wars," he said, at last. "As any history book will tell you. I haven't been back since. However, I believe that the coastal city of Brevirim still exists today. I will be able to find Aster from there."
"Then we'll make that the next stop on our quest," Lucy decided. "I'm pretty sure one of the addresses Mira gave me was for Brevirim."
He looked at her as if she'd made her announcement in one of the few languages he didn't understand. "Quest…?"
"Yes. You know, the whole reuniting-Fairy-Tail thing that we were doing before we got dragged into Arlock's plot to take over the world. We're far too close to our goal to quit now!"
"I… well… I thought you wouldn't want to, any more."
"Of course I want to!"
"With me?" he asked uncertainly.
"We have a deal, don't we?"
"I understand if you want to terminate it. Things are different, now."
"What, call the whole thing off when I've almost completed my end of the deal and you've made no effort towards fulfilling that one favour you owe me? If you think you're getting out of it that easily, you've got another thing coming!"
Her attempt to liven the mood only deepened his unease, as if he couldn't believe that she was daring to be so flippant after everything he had just revealed. Hastily, she added, "Of course, if you want to go alone, that's fine too. We can resume our quest later. If you want to, that is."
"No… I won't go on my own. I'll find some excuse to back out, like I have been doing for years."
"Then we'll go together," she promised. "Here's to the start of a new adventure!"
"I… don't think it's going to be much of an adventure, per se," Zeref warned.
"You say that, but I can't even walk into a pub these days without being kidnapped by the mafia," Lucy sighed. "Let's set off first thing tomorrow." She jerked her head towards the bedroom. "I'll sleep on the sofa again. You go back in there and get some rest."
"I've spent the past three days asleep," he objected.
"You're hurt."
In response, he pulled aside the shoulder of his robes, giving her a glimpse of the unmarked skin beneath. "Immortal, remember? It hasn't even scarred."
"Not on the outside," she countered. "Besides, I'm pretty sure you own most of this house now. You definitely get first pick of furniture to sleep on after you bought it all for me."
She could pinpoint the exact moment he decided arguing with her was more trouble than it was worth. As he vanished into the bedroom, she smiled, but it quickly faded.
It didn't matter how much she tried to pretend. They both knew that things between them would not go back to how they had been before, especially once she'd had a chance to think everything over.
The secrets dragged out into the light would not return to their cages, and unlike the previous times he had told her about his past, he had not chosen to share this part of himself with her. Fate had forced him into it. She could not begin to imagine his resentment, his helplessness, his frustration – or how they would make him act.
Tomorrow, things would change irrevocably between them… and yet, as she settled down on the sofa, she was warmed by the thought that at least they were going to get one last adventure together.
"Oh," remarked Lucy.
"Oh," agreed Zeref.
"That's… well…"
"Indeed."
There didn't seem to be any crickets around, but the cawing of the seagulls as they circled overhead was a good substitute.
Lucy wondered, "Why is it that when I'm alone, I have to deal with mafia warfare and raging demonic consciousnesses, but when you're around, it's all responsible adults with real jobs actually living at the addresses I have for them?"
"Beats me," Zeref shrugged unhelpfully.
"Maybe your determination to be Fairy Tail's enemy has made you an anti-Fairy-Tail-mage."
"And what, pray tell, is one of those?"
"Kind of like a normal mage, except one that repels trouble, rather than attracts it."
"I hardly think that's true," Zeref rebutted, leaning against the railings beside her. "I merely attract trouble of a different kind."
The perpetual breeze of all coastal towns ruffled his hair in a way that made Lucy oddly jealous. Her hair was a tangled mess, despite having picked the twin ponytail defensive formation before entering the fray. Somehow, he managed to make being windswept look like poetry.
Maybe she should invest in archaic togas. They turned billowing into something elegant, quite unlike the minor jolt of panic she felt every time her short skirt tried to do the same.
"Well, I suppose I shouldn't complain," Lucy mused. "This may have been the least exciting adventure ever, but after the battle against Arlock, I'm actually kind of relieved that the biggest crisis here was only having five minutes to explain all the details of the reunion to Alzack and Bisca before they had to go and meet a client. Still, this means we've got the rest of the day to spend on what we really came here for."
Zeref shook his head. "Not now. We'll go tonight."
Though the words seemed casual, the sudden sombreness behind them threatened to overshadow the almost-normal mood that had settled back between them, and she made the split-second decision not to press him. She didn't want to ruin what could well be their last trip together. "If you're sure."
"I am," he assured her, relaxing once more at her concession. "After all, you just made me fork out for two extortionately priced hotel rooms for tonight. There's no way we're leaving the north coast without having got our money's worth. Well, my money's worth."
"You're the one who said you had more money than you knew what to do with!" Lucy defended.
"Has it occurred to you that maybe I've reached that position of financial stability by not renting a sea-view balcony suite in the most expensive hotel in every town I visit?"
"Beautiful scenery does wonders for the soul," Lucy assured him. "After everything we've been through recently, it's basically therapy."
Zeref did not look impressed.
"In the meantime," she continued, "an accident of planning appears to have stranded us in a gorgeous seaside town, with nothing to do until sundown."
"So I've noticed."
"And there's only one thing to do in a situation like this…"
"I think so too," Zeref agreed, eyes bouncing back the glint of sunlight from the sea.
"Time to hit the beach!" Lucy proclaimed, just as Zeref said, "Let's visit the Dundas Estate!"
They stared at each other.
"Visit the what now?" Lucy checked.
"The Dundas Estate! No?" When her shaking head finally managed to convince him that the alien wavelength upon which he operated was not shared by the majority of sane human beings, he gestured expansively. "The Earl of Dundas owns a vast estate just outside Brevirim. He's an avid collector of old books – the third most impressive private collection in the kingdom, by general consensus – and the rumour is that if you can convince him you're a worthy scholar, he will let you visit his library no questions asked!"
Lucy blinked at him.
"…I take it that's not what you suggested," he finished lamely.
"No, I'm a normal person, so I suggested hitting the beach."
Zeref gave an exaggerated sigh. "So much for my hope that you were simply being rude about the Earl's wife."
"Zeref, I am not spending my free afternoon watching you read books!"
"But he's rumoured to have the genuine Aubergine Grimoire!"
"…Say that again; I think I may have misheard you."
"No, no, the Aubergine Grimoire is a famously mistranslated edition of a thousand-year-old spellbook! Translation errors render most of the spells useless – except perhaps for sheer amusement value – but by all accounts a handful of the mistranslations accidentally produced really powerful runic spells which I want to investigate-"
"You've had four hundred years! You could have visited the Estate before now!"
Turning to the ocean once more, he pushed back his shoulders in what might have been a defensive gesture. "I don't come to this part of the kingdom very often."
"Well, I don't often get the chance to visit beautiful beaches!"
"Do I strike you as the kind of person who would enjoy going to the beach, Lucy?" he asked reproachfully.
Lucy folded her arms. "Did you consider whether I was the kind of person who enjoyed traipsing through bookshops where half the languages are dead and the other half liable to land anyone speaking them in prison before you and Levy dragged me round Bishop's Lace?"
"Hmm. There's nothing for it, then. We'll have to split up."
"Not a chance. If I let you go to a library unaccompanied, I won't see you for another decade."
Zeref opened his mouth, and then thought better of it. "I suppose I can't argue with that. Shall we flip a coin for it, then?"
Lucy snorted. "Yeah, right. You'll just stop time and fix the result, or something."
"How rude. I am offended by the mere implication."
After a moment spent scrutinizing him intently, Lucy decided… well, not that he was trustworthy, but that the resonance of her celestial keys would alert her to any attempts at subterfuge. When she caught the coin on the back of her hand, it displayed a resounding 'heads' for beach.
"…Oh," Zeref said.
"I hope you've got some swimming trunks in that portable library of yours," Lucy grinned.
He glowered at her, but it was half-hearted. Even better, he seemed willing to accept defeat gracefully. "Very well. Let's drop our gear off at the hotel, and then I suppose we can go to the beach."
All the way back to the hotel, Lucy was beaming. A beach trip was always wonderful, but going together would be even better. Truth be told, she was looking forward to spending time with him outside the constant travel and stress of their mission. After what had happened in Malva, and the revelations lurking on the horizon, the thought of having a few hours to simply relax was heavenly.
She leaned contentedly on her balcony as he disappeared into his own hotel room, watching the sapphire waves beckon from below, wondering what she could do to make up for him missing out on a trip to the Estate…
The first drop of rain broke upon her head with an ungainly splat.
"You have got to be kidding me!" she shrieked, shaking her fist at the enormous grey cloud above the town.
The enormous grey cloud which had apparently rolled in from nowhere, amidst a sky that was bright blue literally everywhere else.
Three seconds later, she was hammering on the door of Zeref's room. "Open the door this instant, Zeref!"
He did so. "Is something the matter, Lucy?" he asked mildly.
"It's raining," she ground out.
"Oh dear. It seems the heavens have passed judgement on your beach trip plan, haven't they?"
She did not move from the doorway. "If I entered your room right now, what would be the chance of me finding a weather-manipulating magic circle sketched on your floor?"
His smile broadened. "Since I know full well you can't tell apart a weather-manipulating magic circle from anything else inscribed in Eridanian, I'd say next to zero."
"Stop rewriting reality just to mess with me!"
He pouted. "Aww, but it's so much fun…"
Huffing, she ran a hand through her hair. She had forgotten how much questing with him felt like trying to get a troublesome teenager with the power to bend the universe to his will to fall in line. Which, in a way, was exactly what he was. For him, maturity was a choice.
That in itself was remarkable, how he sometimes acted the age of his body and sometimes the age of his mind, but unlike when his curse struck him, he was always in full control of it. She had friends who were immature, but he was both ten times more childish and a hundred times wiser… when he chose to be. Sometimes, it was wonderful. Sometimes, she got the worst of both worlds.
She wondered what could be worrying him so badly that he was having to try so hard to act carefree.
"Oh, forget it," she sighed. "We'll go to your library."
He fell into step beside her at once, launching into the history of the Aubergine Grimoire with the ebullience of the spring's first robin. By the time they reached the hotel's entrance, it wasn't merely raining – there was a torrential downpour going on outside. Lucy couldn't help feeling that it was washing her hopes – and her sanity – away.
"Oops," Zeref remarked.
Wordlessly, Lucy pulled out the umbrella that she'd had in her bag ever since Helvola Village.
Zeref eyed it optimistically.
Lucy held it further out of his reach. "Oh, no. You made there be a rainstorm, Zeref. You can walk in it."
"Spoilsport."
Arriving at the Dundas Estate soaked through despite her umbrella's best attempts to protect her, Lucy did not think anyone could have been less pleased than she was at this situation.
She had not counted on the Earl of Dundas.
The Earl of Dundas, it turned out, didn't seem to care that his library had received a personal visit from the most famous scholar of magic in history. In fact, he didn't even allow Zeref to get a word in edgeways.
Instead, he saw a sodden, bedraggled mess of a stranger gleefully announcing his intention to read the Earl's most precious books while his dripping robes slowly flooded the parlour, and he had them both immediately thrown out of his house.
Lucy thought she could learn a lot from the Earl of Dundas.
"Isn't karma a wonderful thing?" Lucy breezed to her companion, who was still sat in the mud where the estate guards had thrown him. "You know what would cheer you up? A nice, relaxing trip to the beach."
Zeref grumbled, "I don't know, I tend to find vengeful murder works pretty well."
"My idea comes with ice cream."
"Alright, fine, you win! We'll go to your stupid beach!"
"It'll be more fun in the sunshine. Just saying."
There was a frustrated growl, but if he was resorting to annoyed noises instead of words, at least it meant he couldn't refute her logic.
As it turned out, getting the Black Mage to the beach was one thing. Getting him to enjoy it was another matter entirely.
When they arrived, the first people to venture out after the unexpected rainstorm and thus with free choice over where to set up their sun loungers, Zeref still managed to find the darkest, coldest patch of shade to sit in and sulk. When Lucy tried to encourage him to relax or sunbathe or change into more appropriate clothes for the beach, he ignored her. When she bought him an ice cream – with her own money, no less! – he cheered up just for long enough to eat it, and then immediately resumed being moody.
In the end, she left him reading a book in the shade of some palm trees. That was fine by her. He had lost the coin toss fair and square and still tried to weasel his way out of it; she wasn't going to feel bad for him today.
After the sun had warmed her bones and the waves had carried away her concerns for the immediate future, Lucy reached not for a surfboard or tanning lotion, but for her celestial keys. Beach training camps were, after all, a Fairy Tail tradition.
Capricorn came at her call, and they bowed to each other and commenced sparring without a word. She sensed more than saw Zeref's attention flick to her when he felt the pulse of summoning magic, but it returned to his book just as quickly. And very soon, she was too focussed on their hand-to-hand combat to care if he was watching. By mutual consent, she and Capricorn let the battle escalate in a measured way – she summoned Taurus to aid Capricorn, and compensated by allowing herself to draw the Fleuve d'étoiles; only several minutes later, when she called Scorpio to make the battle three-on-one, did she enter Star Dress, selecting Scorpio's form to nullify his environmental advantage.
By this time, she'd drawn quite a crowd. Embarrassed by the attention that she associated far more with Natsu and Gray's training battles than her own, she tunnelled away through the sand with Scorpio's power and hid in the shadows next to Zeref. He gave her an unimpressed look, but to her surprise, he neither gloated about it being her own fault nor complained about her presence. They sat in peaceful silence, broken only by the occasional turning of his page, until the spectators had dispersed and she was free to return to her impromptu training ground.
Having learnt her lesson about trying anything flashy, she found a quiet spot and sat cross-legged on the sand. Her eyes drifted shut.
At first, it was just like sunbathing, only the warmth of the power inside her mattered far more than that of the sun overhead. The more she focussed, the more her physical form and her magical core came into alignment. With every heartbeat, she observed it ripple; with every measured breath, she heard it hum in contentment.
And yet she was increasingly finding her attention drawn outwards, away from the blissful nothing of relaxation.
Not since she had first begun to learn meditation under Capricorn's tutelage had she found it so difficult to concentrate on her own magic. It was as though her own magic didn't want to be isolated – it wanted to be part of the world around her, to hear and listen and feel.
Though her eyes were closed, and the sounds should have been muted by distance, she could perceive it all so clearly: the welcoming warmth of the sun and the whoosh and sigh of the ocean; the glee of seagulls and the louder glee of children and the sheer freedom of bare feet on hot sand.
The cove would have been beautiful even if no humans had ever stumbled across it – the ocean timeless, the greens and golds so vivid, the little curve of sand smiling up at the heavens – but because they had, this beach in this moment had become so much more than a mere quirk of geography.
It was relaxation for some and excitement for others, escapism and entrepreneurship, the focal point of restoration and energy. It was creative fuel for those with buckets and spades, an arena for those who relished the challenge of beach volleyball or training battles, a glimmer of light to motivate city-based adults through another working week, a summer that children would look back on with fondness, a weekend getaway, a way of life, an idyllic dream. The sky always seemed vaster when it stretched across the ocean, blue and blue melding into a brightness that shattered all boundaries.
And in that instant, she could feel it.
Life.
Life, as Zeref had spoken of it; life that was magic and magic that was life. Her own magic was vibrating in resonance with the world around her – and she barely dared to breathe, lest the motion of her lungs break the moment. Everything here was part of it, reality and concepts and nature and wishes and the living creatures who gave them meaning, coming together to form something so much greater than the sum of its parts.
There was only so far that introspection could take her. The true origin of magic was here, all around her.
The world was brimming with a power she couldn't touch, but she knew there and then that it was every bit as real as the magic which summoned Celestial Spirits and defeated gods…
"You feel it too, don't you?" she whispered, without opening her eyes.
"I told you," came the equally quiet response, "I'm not really a beach person."
She smiled faintly. Without being able to see him or hear his silent feet on the obedient sand, she had somehow known Zeref was there in front of her, finally tempted out of the shade.
"I don't think that matters," she told him sincerely. "If you stopped believing in it, you might become unable to see it, but that wouldn't make it go away. I know you're smarter than that."
He didn't respond to that.
"I can feel it," she continued, "but I can't use it. It's definitely magic, but it's like it's a different kind of magic – one that I can see but not reach; feel but not do anything with."
"I would advise against trying," came the musical response, "unless you want to end up like me."
That broke her out of her meditative state. She blinked up at him in shock. "That's what cursed you?"
"Following a long string of very deliberate experiments I should have known better than to attempt," he amended wryly. "Don't worry; it is impossible for anyone to accidentally do what I did to myself. It is perfectly safe to observe. I think it wants to be noticed. It just cannot be contained or controlled."
"I am not sure I would have been able to see it on my own. It is one thing to listen to and understand a place, but something else entirely to perceive those things as another kind of magic," she murmured. "If your curse is a side effect of getting too close to this – to life that is magic and magic that is life – why does it cause death? It seems to go against everything that this magic is."
Slowly, he nodded. "And that is exactly why it has been labelled the Curse of Contradiction by those who have seen it in action and lived to tell the tale. Do not expect to find purpose in it so easily, Lucy. It is not some logical punishment handed down by a supreme being, although many have ascribed it to such. In that sense, the name fits it perfectly."
Then he thought about it, and added, "However, if life and the One Magic are merely different ways of looking at the same thing, then by stripping away all life in my vicinity every time I draw too close to it, by destroying the exact sensation you are feeling right now… then, intentionally or otherwise, it ensures that I can never touch the One Magic again."
To her surprise, his voice became warm again, almost wistful. "I have come to understand that it is not a magic that is supposed to be used. It is a magic that is simply supposed to be… because being is what makes it magic, rather than changing or commanding or destroying, like the form of magic we are used to in our lives."
"You have a beautiful way of looking at the world," she murmured. He didn't respond, but it didn't stop her from smiling up at him. "What are you doing here? I thought you were sulking."
"I grew tired of it," he said easily. "I would have been more amenable to the idea of visiting the beach if you had told me you intended to make it into a magical training camp."
"It's nothing as serious as that," she protested. "I'm just meditating, that's all."
"Mm. May I join you?"
"Please do."
He sat opposite her, adopting a mirrored position to hers on the sand. Lucy forced herself to close her eyes. All of a sudden, reaching that same state of awareness felt a hundred times harder. No matter how hard she tried to extend her senses, physical and magical, there was something about the man opposite her which seemed to catch and hold all her attention.
He had always had that way about him, from the moment they first met, but this was different.
As he carefully let his barriers down, the sense of his magic opened up around her. It was as she remembered from their contact in Malva – vast beyond comprehension, written in a language she could not read but still somehow understood, humming with the frequency of the universe – a void that was anything but empty, bursting with impossible fluctuations of life. She listened to it, to life as he perceived it, letting her own magic flow in time with his, that man whose love for the world and its magic was as paradoxical and inconsistent as he himself was.
His hands slipped over hers. The sun, always so much closer over the ocean, emphasized through contrast the cool, gentle curl of his fingers around hers.
"Thank you for rescuing me from Arlock's trap," Zeref said, out of the blue. "I don't think I ever said it. I am grateful to you for bringing me home."
Her fingers tightened around his. "Always." The waves rolled on, their magic sang to the ocean's somnolent rhythm, and she felt brave enough to admit, "I didn't think you would ever forgive me for stealing your book."
"I didn't think I would, either. I really did go there to kill you."
"I was terrified of you," she confessed.
"Yes, I am told I can be quite frightening," came the amused response. "To tell you the truth, Lucy, I didn't much fancy trying to untangle the chaos in which you had managed to once again embroil yourself. I wanted to put an end to it as quickly and efficiently as I could."
Recalling how the mere sense of his presence had frozen all the combatants in their tracks, she nodded. The fact that he was capable of acting that way when he wished it shouldn't have surprised her. The legends must have come from somewhere, after all.
And yet this – peaceful contemplation with her hands in his and the sound of the waves in their souls – it was as much a part of him as that terrifying Black Mage, and that was what Avatar hadn't been able to understand.
"I can't blame you for that," she agreed. "Though, I'd rather not go through it again. Your eyes were the worst. Seeing them go red like that was horrible. You just… didn't look like yourself any more."
"Mm." Lucy opened her own eyes in time to see his flash a burning crimson, a jarring dissonance against his smile, before they melted back into their usual, beautiful black. "It's strange, isn't it? If I transformed into a huge, demonic beast, no one would bat an eyelid. Yet a tiny piece of illusion magic has people who should know better running terrified from a threat they believe they alone have noticed."
Then, unexpectedly, he added, "And yet you trusted me despite it."
His thumbs traced gentle patterns over her knuckles, and it was difficult to think about anything but that, until he spoke again.
"Perhaps it was fortunate that I arrived in Malva when I did. I saw how hard you were fighting to protect the Book of END, even without fully knowing what it was, and I knew that you hadn't meant any harm to me by your actions. You have always taken stupid risks when your friends are in danger. That is just something I have had to learn to accept about you."
"Sorry," she said, grinning.
"No, you're not."
"…Alright, I'm not. But I am grateful that it is something you have decided you can accept."
"How could I not, after seeing the stupid risks you took for me in Malva?" he replied softly, and her heart fluttered in her chest. "Still," he continued, in a more disgruntled tone, "I feel as though I have had to compromise a lot more than you have on this quest. I don't think it has been very fair."
"That's because you're the one who needed me, not the other way round," she teased, before growing sombre again. They both knew it wasn't quite true. This journey was something neither of them had known how much they needed until it was almost over. "I will never not be glad that you chose me for this quest, Zeref. No matter what happens tonight."
"I don't think I could do this for anyone but you, Lucy."
There were no words she could have said that would have meant as much coming from her as those did coming from him, but her fingers were entwined as closely with his as his were with hers, and she held tight to that as the world rose and fell around them.
"Zeref," Lucy spoke at last, forcing herself with great reluctance to disturb the peace. She pulled her hands out of his, and – on the third attempt, thanks to her numb ankles – managed to get to her feet. "It's probably time that we left."
"Oh?" His eyes opened like curtains rising before that sly and sparkling nightscape she had missed so much. "The allure of the beach is not sufficient to hold your attention for an entire afternoon, then?"
"I'd happily stay here for longer, but… well, it's been a few hours, so I was thinking we could give the Dundas Estate another try."
That got Zeref to his feet. "Oh, is vengeful murder back on the table?"
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, and very graciously not use it as an excuse to withdraw my offer of reconciliation," Lucy glared.
He didn't respond straight away; she couldn't tell if he looked sceptical or annoyed. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two. Knowing him, he was probably wondering what game-theory gain she could get from this now after she had been so opposed to it earlier.
"I mean it," she emphasized, before he could voice whatever logical yet utterly stupid theory he had come up with. "I know you don't like being in this part of Fiore, which holds so much of your history. If we leave, not even the Dundas Estate's library will be enough to tempt you back… and I don't want to be the reason why you miss out on that. If you're still interested in the Grimoire Cookbook, or whatever it was you mentioned earlier, let's go and see if he'll let us take a look. I'll come with you and stop the library from swallowing you whole."
His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "I'm sure you haven't forgotten that the good Earl of Dundas had us forcibly thrown out of his estate this morning, and with vengeful murder still off the table, I suspect he might pose an obstacle to your plan."
"You're the self-proclaimed genius mage. I'm sure you'll think of something." Lucy waved her hand. "And if you can't, I saw a party shop in town that's bound to sell false moustaches."
He didn't smile. "You'll hate it," he warned her. "You'll be very bored. He won't have a single book in a language you'll understand."
"So?" she rebuffed. "I'll cope. Honestly, Zeref, don't overcomplicate this. The world is full of people who like different things, and it doesn't stop them from spending time together, does it?"
She was expecting gratitude, or perhaps for him to brush it off; she received neither. An odd expression touched his face, and he murmured, "Different, in all the ways that don't matter."
"I'm sorry?"
"It doesn't matter. Lucy, I…" Zeref stared out over the sea for a moment, before seeming to realize that this made him look a bit too much like he was appreciating their seaside surroundings, and dragged his attention back to her. "I appreciate the offer, but I need to stop making excuses, and do what it is that I came here to do."
Her eyes widened. She'd known he was nervous. He had been all afternoon. The rapid switches between solemn and flippant, the exaggerated childishness and maturity, the closeness and forced distance clashing even more so than was normal for him – they were all proof of that, as he tried to hide his anxiety behind all his masks at once. Everything he had revealed to her weighed so heavily on him… and nothing more so than what was still to come.
And she was no different. She had indulged him all day. Why hadn't she argued with him when he had postponed going to find Anna until this evening? Why had she prioritized meeting Alzack and Bisca, and then going to the beach?
As much as she wanted to know the truth, she also knew it would destroy what they had – more thoroughly than Arlock's attempt to torture him; more conclusively than the promise of the First of September dividing their short-lived team in two. She was terrified of losing that, of losing him.
She didn't want things to ever change – but he needed to change. After four hundred years of getting nowhere, circle after stagnating circle, he needed this more than anything.
She had come here to support him. It was time for her to act like it.
"I can always write to the Earl of Dundas," Zeref was saying, "but while I'm here in person…"
"Okay," she said, and smiled with all the reassurance she didn't have, because he was stronger than she had ever given him credit for. "Lead on."
Needless to say, Lucy was not expecting Zeref to lead her to a florist.
She definitely wasn't expecting him to take a look around the shelves, clearly disappointed by the selection, and then proceed to track down another florist at the other side of town.
After a good hour of this, Lucy had stopped trying to measure her bemusement in practical terms, and Zeref was the owner of a hard-won bouquet of white, blue and lilac asters.
Considering the trouble to which he had gone to obtain them, she was therefore even more perplexed when he stared at the bouquet for several long minutes before saying, "Okay. We can go back to the hotel now."
She had a feeling that the task he had been putting off for so long wasn't buying flowers.
So, she said, "Zeref, if you want to go back to the hotel because you're genuinely tired, or if you really believe that it's the best thing to do, that's fine. But if you're wanting to call it a night just as an excuse not to do this thing you've already put off for long enough, then please rethink it. I know you're not a coward."
"If I wasn't, I would have gone back a long time ago," he admitted, face pale. "Will you come with me?"
"Of course."
He didn't volunteer any more information, and she didn't ask, but when she held out her hand, he took it without hesitation.
She let him lead her out of the seaside town and back inland. The skies cycled through a whole range of pinks and oranges before settling on indigo, fading to give greater prominence to the descending heavens. Lucy wondered how far they were going. The road they travelled wound its way deeper into the countryside. Passing vehicles were the only source of light, and it had been a while since she had spotted more than the odd farmhouse by the side of the road.
In fact, there were so few signs of life that she wasn't altogether surprised when Zeref turned from the road completely, forsaking passably maintained tarmac for a completely wild meadow. All light fell away as the rumble of the road did; the moonless night was impenetrable.
Here, Zeref paused, summoning a sphere of gentle light into existence above his palm. This he stared at, as if entranced, until Lucy prompted him, "Zeref? Are you alright?"
Only then did he snap his hand out of hers. He turned just as quickly, striding away from her with a resolve he hadn't shown for hours… only to stop suddenly, as if the darkness had become substantial. He stared up at the skies, and took a long, shuddering breath without speaking.
Concerned, she took a step towards him, but he flung up his hand to stop her. "Lucy," said he, "from here on out, you have to stay at least this far away from me. Promise me you won't get any closer."
The shiver of portent became an icy torrent down her spine. He thought his curse was going to go out of control.
She gave a firm nod, trying to convince him that he did not need to worry, for she understood the danger and would not take any unnecessary risks. "I will."
"Please, take these for me." He passed her the bouquet of asters, little flowers he did not trust himself not to destroy. She held them protectively to her chest as he set off again, and she trailed a few paces behind.
Although he occasionally glanced back at her as they walked, he never spoke except to tell her she was getting too close. In turn, she did not ask about their journey through the dark, or their destination in the middle of nowhere, or the half-crumbled buildings they sometimes passed, so thoroughly fused with the moss and branches that the stray glint of starlight on broken glass was the only indication that they were not a natural part of the forest.
The abandoned dwellings grew more and more frequent, until Lucy could not shake the impression that they were walking down a street paved with grass. At the end of the pseudo-road, where a living city would have boasted a palace or monument, this silent settlement was crowned by a gargantuan oak tree.
She had never seen anything like it before. It had expanded outwards more than vertically, enormous boughs dragged back to earth by their own weight. Several distinct canopies of leaves hung over it, each in a different shade of silver. Branches enclosed their monster of a trunk in a twisting, gilded nest.
The sheer scale of it was staggering. It was so large that Kardia Cathedral itself would fit comfortably within its cage of branches. Not even the sword of a giant could separate that great Gordian knot of a tree, nature's statement of dominance upon this forgotten land.
"That's incredible," Lucy breathed. "How old do you think it is…?"
It was a rhetorical question, and yet she received a response nonetheless. "Four hundred and thirty-one years old."
"Whoa." Then her mind made the leap, and she demanded, "Zeref, you're not telling me you planted this tree, are you?"
"No," he told her, although the faint smile that usually accompanied her misunderstandings never came. "But I knew the man who did."
"Who was he?"
"A professor I met at the Mildian Academy of Magic, by the name of Gregor Heartfilia."
"Huh," Lucy remarked. "That's a coincidence."
Zeref said nothing.
"It's… not a coincidence?"
"No."
"I don't understand."
Zeref was silent for so long that she wondered if he was hoping the great oak would answer for him. "You asked me once," said he, at last, "why you were my first choice for this mission. It is true that my research indicated that you were the person most likely to both accept it and succeed in it… but I was also curious about you. I wanted to meet the current Heartfilia mage… perhaps the last true Heartfilia mage. I didn't think I would get another chance."
"Another chance for what?" Lucy whispered.
"A very long time ago, I promised to watch over the Heartfilia line… but I never did. Not once, not for any generation. After everything that happened, everything Anna and I did together, I just walked away. I think… I think I wanted to be involved, just once. I wanted to meet you in person. And I am very glad I did, Lucy, but I can't pretend it didn't hurt, taking on all that regret."
Above, the constellations watched and waited, more stars in the darkest of nights than Lucy had ever seen before, and she knew she and Zeref were the only living souls here.
"Zeref," she began, "why are we here?"
When he tore his gaze away from the tree, she could see tear tracks running down his cheeks like falling stars. "I can't get any closer. Lucy, please… will you do it for me?"
And when she glanced at the flowers in her hand, she understood.
With a single nod, she entered the network of branches. Immediately, all the sounds of the night fell away. The rustle of leaves stilled, the roaming wildlife quietened; the tempo of the world had changed, and it hummed at a pitch just outside the range of human hearing.
There was magic here, and it wasn't the magic she knew, or even the magic she and Zeref had discussed on the beach. At her hip, her celestial keys were radiating a gentle warmth. The great oak's canopy stretched out above her, yet it was not dark, for it seemed every leaf filled the spaces between the stars.
She had always looked up at the stars, ever since she was a child. Now, for the first time, she felt as though the stars were looking back.
Lucy placed the bouquet of flowers at the foot of the tree – no, not just a tree. A grave.
There she remained, half-kneeling, her head bowed and one hand upon the rough bark of the trunk.
"These are from Zeref," she whispered. "I think… no, I know he's really sorry for not having come before now."
The ancient tree did not respond.
Someone did, though – someone whose sing-song epitaph resounded mockingly from somewhere above her head. "Here lies lonely Anna Heartfilia, forgotten by the world she changed, abandoned by the one who led her to this fate. She's been so lonely these past four centuries, with no one to visit her but me."
"Who's there?" Lucy shouted back, scouring the knotted branches for the source of the voice.
A laugh echoed horribly around the silent cage. "How much hatred can grow in four hundred years, do you think? No wonder our friend the Black Mage does not dare to enter her tomb."
"Come out and face me!" she challenged.
There was a rustle of material, the scratching of non-human claws, and a gnarled black shape jumped down from the network of boughs. The earth shook beneath his feet. As he straightened, she caught a glimpse of wild hair and wilder eyes, a necklace of fangs like a second mouth open wide, a cloak like ragged wings and scales that reflected everything but starlight; a man who wasn't a man at all.
She was frozen in place, her heart sealed off, her courage snuffed out. So cold was she in that moment that death's clammy hands would have been a welcome warmth. It was every battle she'd lost, and an excuse for every one she'd won. It was Aquarius's key shattering, Loke's key damaged beyond repair, Bishop's Lace screaming as it burned, Gray's blade through the heart of her Gemini twin, Mira's laughter as she tried to kill her sister, Natsu walking away, everyone walking away, left to cry alone in the ruins of the guildhall…
At her side, her keys burned fiercer. She curled her hand around them, their resonant warmth subduing the hysterical palpitations of her heart just long enough for rationality to get a look in. She knew this feeling. She had felt it before – only once, but once was enough to ensure she would never forget that day.
The day on which death had seemed certain.
The day on which her guild had accepted defeat; had bowed its head before an unbeatable enemy; had held hands at the end and prayed that wherever death took them, they would be together.
The day they had fought the Dragon of the Apocalypse.
"Tell me," Acnologia purred, "are you the one who opened the Gate into this age?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucy retorted, with all the bravery her keys could grant her.
He flashed her a fanged smile. "Oh, I rather think you do, Heartfilia girl. Are you the one who opened the Eclipse Gate?"
What? Technically, she had, but… nothing had come of that fiasco at the end of the Grand Magic Games, had it? It was confusion more than stubbornness that pressed her lips together.
"No matter," he said. "I am going to kill you anyway. You, and the rest of your accursed line."
She believed him.
"Why?" she cried in desperation. "What did we ever do to you?"
"What did you…?" His pupils narrowed to crimson slits. One by one, the stars above winked out. "You made me like this!"
"I didn't-" Her mind whirled in proximity to death. "How could we have-?"
"You took them from me!" he shrieked. "I made a vow! I would not rest until the dragons were dead, all of them, and you stole the last five away from me! Four hundred years I have waited! Four hundred years without peace! Four hundred years of agony, and you are going to pay for each and every minute I have suffered-!"
The shriek became a roar, and the roar was a command to the universe to submit to his will. Her guild had not been able to overcome this fear when they had been together; alone, she did not stand a chance. From between his jaws burst the same fatal light that had sunk Tenrou Island-
-and Zeref was there.
He appeared in a whirl of magic and took the bolt of energy through his heart. He staggered, fell, died- and then, a heartbeat later, wasn't dead at all. He pinned the dragon-man with eyes as dangerous as the darkness which thrashed around him.
His curse was completely out of control. That gleeful void sucked the starlight from the sky, the rhythm from the air, the ageless life running through the roots around them… his magic ran wild within the cage of branches, but he did not.
Unlike the last time he had lost control, there was no trace of panic in him. There was only room for one emotion in his presence, and it was fury; a sheer burning rejection of everything about the situation into which he had appeared.
"You will not!" he howled.
A snarl tore through the air, and Acnologia leapt forwards, into the maelstrom of death. Darkness lashed against skin that was scales, repelling the life-eating curse like it was rain, like it was harmless.
The predatory wind howled at fever pitch. The dragon-man smirked his mad smile in the heart of it and did not die. He opened his maw, horrid light gathering, power building, shaking the world to its core. If this immortal insisted on standing in the way, he would use a blast big enough to destroy everything at once.
Zeref's eyes flashed as he raised his hand towards the blackened heavens.
If the earth had cowered from Acnologia's power, then now it screamed.
The roots and branches of the tree blazed with the silver of the absent stars, galaxies upon galaxies of magic converging upon the here and now, upon him. Space stretched thin beneath the weight of his magic; time stuttered, afraid to tick on towards its own demise – and at Lucy's hip, her keys were searing with such heat that she had to throw them aside.
Beneath that pressure, even Acnologia's advance halted.
The dragon-man's gaze turned to the Black Mage, trembling beneath the impotent rage of his curse and the power to rewrite the universe that he held in his hands despite it, and then to Lucy.
Time seemed to pause. Her heart paused with it.
"You will not," Zeref hissed.
In a blur of shadows, the dragon turned and bounded away. For a moment, there was the sense of something enormous, something far greater than a man, something that could crush her with a thought – and wingbeats clapped like thunder, and the Dragon of the Apocalypse was gone into the night.
The last breath of cursed wind brushed around the grove and vanished too. Light and darkness alike winked out; the universe was allowed to breathe again.
Zeref did not move as he stared after the departed dragon. His shoulders rose and fell with too much effort. The physical manifestation of his curse had gone, but that didn't mean he was alright.
"Zeref?" she whispered.
"Don't come any closer," came the thin whisper back. "I'm not… I shouldn't have done that…"
Lucy's heart lurched. No one else could drive back the Dragon of the Apocalypse in one moment, and yet be so fragile, so vulnerable, in the next.
Her fear of death was gone, but she was deathly afraid for him, as he reached out his palm and touched the trunk of the ancient tree.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, tears welling up once more. "I'm so sorry…"
Starlight had returned to the world with the dragon's departure, but the tree had not regained its colour – neither its natural earthen palette, nor the silver with which it had blazed when Zeref had channelled the power of the grove. Boughs contorted at unnatural angles. The winds of death had stripped away a forest's worth of leaves. The living nest of branches was now a black and twisted cage, never to grow again.
It had thrived for four centuries, that huge oak, in this graveyard of a village forgotten by human history… and now, at last, it had joined in death the one it had watched over all this time.
She understood, then, what Acnologia hadn't until it was too late: it had never been fear of this place that had kept Zeref away. He wasn't afraid that the past would destroy him; he was afraid that he would destroy it. Acnologia had been foolish indeed to challenge him here.
"I'm… I'm so sorry, Anna…"
"She knows, Zeref," Lucy said. "She does. I know."
At the foot of the tree, there was a light.
"Zeref," she urged him. "Look."
Brighter it grew; brighter, until not even he in his desolation could deny it. The flowers Lucy had placed upon the grave were shining.
"They didn't die…?" he murmured.
"No," Lucy answered. "And nor did I, although I should have done, shouldn't I?"
Because he had come here to protect her. Because he had saved her life. And she knew that their quest had been the last thing in his mind at that moment, just as it had long since ceased to have any bearing on how she felt towards him.
With a scattering of petals, the little specks of light swirled around the grove: blue and white and purple, and one of purest gold. That one settled onto Lucy's upturned palm, a smooth, surprising weight. Her fingers curled around it protectively.
The others rose towards the sky. Asters, star-flowers, returning home at last.
Zeref watched them go with a child's wonder.
"I don't think it's the tree that matters, Zeref," Lucy reflected. "Or the grave, or the relics of the past. You are the one who gives them meaning. You are the one who remembers. You are the one who keeps her alive."
She turned to meet his gaze. "Tell her story, Zeref. Tell yours."
Although he was watching the lights return to their rightful place amongst the heavens, it was to her, and not the distant stars, to which he made his vow. "I will."
A/N: After 50 chapters, about 400k words, and just a few days short of a year, we have finally reached the halfway point of the story! Well, in terms of chapters, we're slightly over halfway, but this marks the official end of the first half. As the last chapter showed, there is still a lot to be resolved from the Avatar part of the story - Natsu, Gray, Jellal, Levy, even Jerome and Avatar themselves, not to mention Zeref and Lucy and the imminent Alvarez invasion. However, before we get to the Alvarez part of the story, it's time for the past arc.
Next week will be a very short prologue chapter, because after all these long and quite intense chapters over the past month, I need a week off! Then the past arc will begin in earnest with the story of Zeref, Anna, Igneel, and the fateful events of four hundred years ago. As promised (/ warned) way back in the notes to Ch1, this is a significant proportion of the fic (around 12% by word count) - and now that you've seen for yourselves how long this fic is going to be, you may have a better idea of what I was getting at back then. I'm not sure exactly how many chapters it will run to yet, as about half of them in the first draft were over 10k words, and exam season is coming round again, so I might end up splitting some of them in half in order to continue posting weekly. Or I might not. We'll see.
Thank you all so much for your support thus far, you guys have been incredible! There is still so much more to come in this story, and I hope you can enjoy it until the end. ~CS