A/N: Well hey there. Long time no see. Thanks for being patient-had a lot going on. Including finally getting a new job? And the horse I'm training is actually doing really well? Idk, it's confusing and I'm trying to keep from letting things go to my head. I also got sidetracked by a few trashy fantasy series that Bookstagram kept bludgeoning me with, and-gotta say-wasn't all that impressed with most of them. Oh well. I did, however, go off the deep end on one and there might be a little pocket story popping up for it on my account in the next couple weeks.
We've officially begun my sidequest arc, which is both terrifying and exciting. So if names and places seem weird. . . it's not you.
Thank you to all my reviewers and the new friends we've added since my last chapter! Housekeeping:
tiabaldwinDBZ: omg I hope I didn't make you late! But I'm so glad you found this engaging enough to binge!
primadonnalouise: hah! Well good, he needs a hearty thrashing once in a while ;)
IILittle SII: Thanks!
Guest: Ah, my love! I've missed you! And nah. . . I think I'm the late one this time 'round. Mmmm the rubble scene was one of my faves to write. Actually the first two scenes in my head for this story were the Aconolgia fight and a round for the GMG, so that was one of the first parts of this story that I wrote. Hope you like this one! Taking a little time for world building, but we'll get into silliness soon.
tiffanyblue89717: Thanks!
LightningDragonRoar23: Aw, thank you! Happy to talk character development in DMs, because I will go on for a whiiiiile.
nosserate: Aw yissss.
Tohka123: Thanks!
Ok, on with the show! As always, please fave and review-I love getting y'all's feedback.
Seven years.
Gone in a moment.
The trip back to Magnolia was quiet—partially from sheer exhaustion, but mostly from the exam participants as they tried to grapple with the reality they'd face when they got home. What was home? Was it still standing? Had their landlords all thrown their belongings out on the street with no one there to claim them? How had their parents and friends and families worried?
Talia spent the majority of the trip just staring at the wood-paneled ceiling of her quarters. The dragon slayers either heaved their innards over the side of the ship or stayed locked securely in rooms barely fit to be called broom closets. But it was the door that mattered. The door that cut them off from the rest of the world. A moment to reconcile, a moment to brace against what might not be there when they returned. Or whom.
Seven years.
She hoped her Aunt Orla hadn't worried too much. Or Niamh, her cousin. Goodness, the puppies would be grown and calm and refined by now, a good ways into middle-age. She wondered if the old shepherd dog would still be around.
And seven years of that empty lot. The city probably reclaimed the title with nobody to stand up for it. A shame—she could've gotten some decent money for it. Not that she had any idea where the deed was.
The heels of her palms flopped against her eyes with a quiet smack. She still didn't have any money. Now it was going to be even harder to find an apartment.
She tried not to think about the darker possibilities. Her Aunt's health had never been great. And Niamh had started thinking about moving to a larger town—had she actually done it? Would she have taken Orla with her? Or was she on that remote farm alone with the dogs and sheep and hens?
Talia shook the thoughts from her head and tried to focus on the rhythmic rocking of the ship, hoping it would lull her to sleep. At least her nightmares would be familiar. But the world they were about to walk into. . . it might not be.
And home was. . . different. The guild hall shuttered and shuffled into the haphazard building at the edge of town. Everyone was so ecstatic to be back, but all Talia could feel was a shadowy dread. It felt like she hadn't been gone from Blackthorne more than a week, but that time sat heavily in her bones. She had no way to contact them—she had tried to convince Aunt Orla to get a communications lacrima, but had no idea if she ever did. Everything was. . . wrong.
She looked up to the sky, those fluffy white clouds passing lazily overhead. She was behind the guild hall—hiding, for lack of a better word. She didn't want to join the merry reunion inside. It didn't feel like she deserved it. She had abandoned those friends for a year and now inadvertently abandoned them for seven more. Almost a decade. And seeing all the financial and reputational issues they clearly had while her group was frozen on the island. . . none of it would have happened if they'd just been there. If she had just been there.
Talia pulled her knees up close to her chest and covered her face with her hands. She let the despair settle on her, weighing her down, down into the soft earth. Tree leaves rustled on branches nearby, and the hens clucked in their pen. But everything just felt so far away. Like she wasn't real. The world just kept slipping on, through her, without her.
She couldn't feel time; it slithered through her as easily as water through fingers. There was the sunlight, warm on her skin, the grass under her prickling and dewy. She knew they were there; she could feel them. But that didn't mean she was. Everything just kept passing.
There was the deep thump of a large body settling down beside her in the grass. She didn't move her hands from her face, but she could feel the warmth of the fabric against her bare arm. She leaned into him.
Neither Laxus nor Talia spoke or moved for a long while. Talia, her face in her hands, Laxus looking blankly ahead. And each of them tried not to think, not to plan, not to examine the past or future or the work to be done. They just sat, trying to remind themselves of the feeling of the world. Trying to remind themselves that heartbeats did something other than just plunk around in their chests. They watched the shadows grow long in the waning afternoon. Watched those dark spots encroaching ever closer in the grass. Proof of time. That the world spun on, that life hadn't stopped for them.
Laxus sighed as the light turned golden.
"Guildarts re-instated me."
"Guildarts?" Talia mumbled through her hands, still not looking up.
"Apparently the 'Guild Master' title bounced around a bit in the deliberations. It's back to the Old Geezer now. Another thing that did and didn't change."
The quiet returned for a moment. Talia took her face out of her hands and looked the field before them. Her eyes were red and raw, but dry.
"I need to go back to Blackthorne," she said quietly. She saw him nod in her periphery.
"There's apparently some new Game the kingdom is putting on in a few months. Gramps wants us to enter."
She turned to him finally, eyebrow quirking. "You and me?" He shook his head and met her eyes.
"No, the Old Man would pick a team of five. But we've got three months to train and prep for it. The prize money should get the guild back up on its feet."
At least something had an easy fix.
Talia looked to the grass in front of her and shuffled her booted toe against the strands. "I don't know if I can be here for that. I need to go and check on my Aunt."
Laxus hummed in acknowledgement, but some part of the tone led her to believe he saw through the half-lie.
"When will you head back?"
"Mid-morning tomorrow. I don't have many jewel left, so I'll have to walk."
One of his impressively arched eyebrows raised. "That's over a week on foot."
He knows where Blackthorne is? The thought skittered against her dull and tired mind.
"Yup." She popped the 'p'.
He was thinking beside her—she could practically feel the gears turning. But she didn't care. She was weighed down and sinking into the quicksand of time. Drawn down toward the thin little neck of the hourglass, feeling the sand cave around her as she fell deeper and deeper.
A hand in hers pulled her up to stand and out of her spiral.
"Come on, let's get some food in you. You're even paler than normal."
The evening passed quietly once she returned to Mira's apartment. It was dusty, but otherwise unchanged. Mira stayed in the lounge chair in the living room, reading, as Talia drifted off on the couch. At some point in the early night, Mira shook Talia's shoulder lightly and pulled her out of sleep with her own name.
"You were whimpering," the deamoness said quietly, her blue eyes not showing surprise, but a quiet concern. "Have they gotten any better?"
Talia nodded her head slightly, still not entirely awake. "I've seen most of them before by now," she mumbled.
That didn't make the nightmares any better in Mira's mind. But she did have a way to help. She nudged the sleepy redhead off the couch.
"C'mon," her usually bouncing voice was quiet, maternal. "Let's get you a proper night's sleep." Talia allowed her sleepy self be guided into Mira's bedroom just as she did when they were children. It was the only way they'd found to keep Talia's nightmares at bay—either prompted by her screaming or in preparation for an upcoming job. Talia let Mira's smaller form curl around her under the covers. Little muscles in her forehead loosened, and the tightness in her lungs slowly unfurled. She drifted off to a quiet, blackened sleep.
They didn't talk in the morning. Mira knew where she was going. She just packed a few small meals into a bag and laid it on the counter. Once Talia's bag was packed and shouldered, they walked together to the new Guild Hall.
She did tell Freed, though, when she saw him at the Guild Hall with the Thunder Legion. He politely wished her luck, and said that he'd look forward to seeing her soon—that, maybe, next time she'd take him with her. She smiled, but there was little light in it, and told him that Blackthorne might be too quiet for his sensibilities. She shouldered her pack after saying goodbye to the Master, and walked out the door.
Laxus strode onto the driveway as she neared the main road. She looked him over in confusion—he had his travelling pack over one shoulder and a mischievous smile that crinkled his scar.
"You didn't think you were gonna leave without us, did you?"
Talia cocked her head slightly, not understanding.
"Took you long enough!" called Bickslow from the Guild Hall, his own pack on his back, "Ever and I had a bet you'd be late." Talia turned back to the building, bewildered.
"Of course Freed had no doubts of your questionable punctuality," Evergreen's sharp, clipped voice was there too. Freed was leaning, arms crossed, against the doorframe, bag at his feet.
Talia's eyebrows scrunched as she looked from one guildmate to the other—nothing quite computing properly.
"Well hurry up, train leaves in half an hour." Laxus met her eyes as she brought them back to him.
"Where are you all going?"
"Blackthorne."
Confusion still prickled across Talia's skin, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she swore she felt the Old One snickering.
"Why are you—what?"
"Unless you'd rather walk the week?" He flashed a set of five train tickets in his hand, turned on his heel and walked back the way he came—toward the heart of Magnolia and the train station therein.
Talia, Laxus, and the Thunder Legion were finally in Blackthorne. Or, as close to Blackthorne as they could get by rail. It would be another two hours on the dirt roads by foot. As the train finally came to a creaking halt, Talia looked down at the blonde mage whose head rested in her lap. His skin was still clammy, but now that the train had stopped, she expected him to be back to normal soon. He was laid on his back, left foot on the floor of the train car for balance, while the other foot perched on the seat, knee leaned against the seat-back. His arms rested comfortably on his stomach beneath his coat, which was strewn over him like a blanket. He dozed restlessly for most of the trip—the motion sickness of a Dragon Slayer nothing to be trifled with. Talia herself had modulated between sleeping and trying to fend off pointedly giddy looks from Evergreen and Freed.
It hadn't helped that she fidgeted absentmindedly while she watched the land change out the window. Especially when that fidgeting found her fingers running through his hair, making all sorts of trackless, unconscious patterns. She hadn't even noticed when she started, only coming to the realization when she felt two pairs of shocked eyes staring at her from across the car. Her hand had stopped at that point, but an uncomfortable groan from the large body before her forced pity to overrule her shyness. No one in the car said a word for most of the train ride, but she had a feeling she'd be getting an earful when they were back on solid ground—especially if Freed and Ever got her cornered.
People in the rest of the train car began to shuffle about finding their luggage, and Talia pressed her hand softly to his shoulder: "Laxus—good morning, sleepyhead," his eyes opened groggily and she smiled down at him, a few strands of her golden-red hair sliding over her shoulder. "This is our stop, 'cmon." She nudged him playfully. He groaned and brought a hand to his face, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He lifted himself off her lap and sat up in the seat beside her. She couldn't help but miss the contact once it was gone. She pushed the thought aside and stood to stretch. Freed and Bixlow had already grabbed the bags, and the former held out a familiar beaten up black backpack to her. They all travelled light, which was good considering how far they had left to walk.
Blackthorne was not an exciting town. The buildings were old and worn, the rock and brick as much a part of the structures as they were of the surrounding landscape. The town itself barely consisted of more than a few cobbled blocks huddled together against the wind off the sea. It was an old town, a simple town, and It neither wanted nor needed much.
"So this is where you stayed while you were gone?" asked Evergreen. She was trying to be polite, but being this far away from proper civilization was uncomfortable for her. It had been a long walk from the train station, and the landscape had only gotten harsher and sparser as they went. This far out, she would have almost expected people to be living in caves—had there been any at all. But this land was almost flat, as if some old god had taken a rolling pin to the earth but gotten sidetracked just before it was perfectly level.
"Not quite," Talia replied, absentmindedly, "I stayed on a small farm a few miles outside of town." Evergreen blanched further at the idea, but Talia didn't notice. She could just hear the whisper of waves against the shoreline, though they were still a ways off. The air was cool and clear here; the grey sky seemed to shrug off the heat of summer and temper the sun's glare. Tall, pale grasses of wheat and barley hissed on the breeze as they nestled against each other, but the more overwhelming sense was the simple quiet.
Aside from the group's footsteps, there were hardly any sounds at all. A hawk flew somewhere overhead, its screech a rare one. There was the odd skittering of small mammals and, once, the keen eyes and flickering ears of a herd of deer, but the rest simply existed in a quiet stillness. There didn't seem to be any amount of sound that could fill the space—the sky was too vast, the land too broad.
"Is there an inn or somewhere for us to stay?" voiced Freed as he eyed the grey clouds warily. He didn't much enjoy the idea of camping out in the rain, but the clouds here seemed to keep their sensibilities to themselves, and he couldn't figure out if they leaned one way or the other.
"Mrs. McCleary runs the inn—or. . . at least she did when I was here last," a tinge of worry crept into her voice. Being gone for seven years must have brought changes, even to a town as stubborn as this. "But she's also the one people trust with their homes if they'll be travelling a while," she continued, "It's a rather singular set of people, here, but if they think well of you, they'll open up their whole world and shuffle you right in. If we're lucky, someone will be out of town and entrusted her to let."
Laxus raised an eyebrow and adjusted the pack on his shoulder. "'To let'? Since when did you start talking all old-school?"
Talia flashed a quick smile. "It's an old town with an old people. And this far away from the rest of the world, old habits die slow if at all."
Their path turned to cobblestone as they entered the town, and though it was simple and old, it was clean and tidy. The heather was trimmed neatly into hedges, little purple and white flowers peeking out of the green bushes. Store signs were either clean and polished or worn to a faded recognition—if you didn't know what it said, it just proved the age and hardiness of the establishment. The inn was just one of these. A hearth-fire had been etched onto the hanging sign decades ago, and the gilding had clearly worn off, but homeliness radiated from the warm glow inside the windows and the smell of fresh bread wafted out the open door.
It was a simple place—a few tables and their respective chairs and a bar from behind which all business was conducted. A heavy-set woman with ruddy auburn hair was set putting away dishes as Talia walked up and greeted her by name.
"Och, aye!" exclaimed the woman, now clearly none other than Mrs. McCleary herself, "Well tha's a face I ain't seen in a good long while! Ow've ya been, li'tle lass?" Her accent twisted and rolled along her tongue, and the Thunder Legion had a difficult time keeping up. Talia just chuckled politely.
"Up to odds and ends, as usual. Would you happen to know if there's any place to let for a bit? My friends and I are in need of a couple months away from big city life." Mrs. McCleary's dark blue eyes studied the odd group with a friendly scrutiny.
"It'll do you all good. The Shays 're out this season, off to visit some family out west I believe. Their place should be big enough for the five o' ya." She rummaged around under the bar for a moment before producing a set of keys. "D'you remember where their house is? It looks a good bit different now, they finally got it updated the way Creena always wanted—all open and modern and such. Not my style, mind you, but they seem happy with it."
Talia smiled. "That'll do lovely. Thank you." The keys landed in her hand with a jingle. "Have you any news of my Aunt Orla? I've been away and out of contact longer than I should've."
The innkeeper scoffed and gave Talia a stern, if teasing, motherly look. "And after all that fuss you made about them gettin' a communication lacrima. Took 'er a year, but Niamh finally convinced ol' Orla. You'll be dropping in tomorrow afternoon I imagine?" She gave the expectant look any time-worn mother has when waiting for a very specific answer to her own question. Talia dutifully nodded. "Good. I'll let them know you're comin', then. And you ought to know better than to show up emptyhanded." She eyed Talia with a newly critical scrutiny then turned it quickly to the boys of the group before returning to Talia. "And there better be no surprises." She gave a pointed took to Talia and Evergreen's bellies.
"Mrs. McCleary!" Talia's screech was strangled in embarrassment and surprise. She heard the Thunder Legion struggling to cover their laughter in half-hearted coughs and ill-stifled bubbles in throats. Her surprise twisted into a grumble. "No, no surprises. And it hasn't even been that long."
Áine McCleary had seen a good many years, and more people passed through the doors of her inn than she could recall. But she knew what it looked like to be lost. It was the look Talia had when she first came back to Blackthorne eight years ago, and a different shade haunted her eyes now. It wasn't the fragile, empty look she started with, but it was clear that the years hadn't healed her the way they should've.
At least she wasn't alone this time. When Talia had first walked into her inn, Áine would've thought the faintest breeze would've toppled the poor girl. She was thin and white as a sheet and freezing from the bitter, wet snow that had been blowing through the town all day. But no matter how many blankets she wrapped the girl in or how close she settled her to the fire, warmth couldn't break through. She knew what kind of wound left that mark. She didn't ask. She watched the girl all night, just staring blankly into the fire.
No daughter of the Mordha clan would be left alone to suffer if she could help it. And, as the months passed, she watched the light come back into the girl. The flush of hard work brought color back into the freckles along her arms, and the light caught something in her eyes when the fiddlers were in town. She brought one of the shepherd dogs with her most of the time, the companion seemed to do her good.
And now she came bearing friends. Members of that guild of hers, by the look of them. She looked them over once again and gave a light snort of laughter. They were painfully cityfolk.
"You all be'ter have brought some simpler clothes that that," she eyed Freed's carefully pressed red coat, "Because you won't be keepin' those pre'ty things clean with our summer rains."
Freed and Evergreen paled a bit, but Talia, Laxus, and Bickslow sported mischievous smiles.
"I tried to warn them of that on the way here. Not sure they entirely believed me."
Mrs. McCleary turned back to Talia, that homely, warm glint still playing in her eyes. "Well, you all best stop by Shaugnessy's on your way to the house to pick up some food. Unless you'd like to eat here?" Mrs. McCleary raised an eyebrow and gave a light glance to a table by the window.
"Thanks for the offer," Laxus rumbled, "But I think we'd all like to get settled. I'm sure we'll be back before the week is out."
His voice brought Mrs. McCleary's eye to him, and he felt the scrutiny in the storm clouds there. But whatever assessment those grey eyes made, she kept to herself. The only hint was a little hum in the back of her throat.
"Orla's been on a kick fer cherries recently," she suggested to Talia after another glance over Laxus's large form, "David just got some fresh ones in to the shop yest'erday. Be good to make somethin' with 'em for Orla and Niamh."
Talia nodded obediently and ushered the group out of the inn with a warm thanks and promise of return to its keeper. Once they were set off down the street, Bickslow asked the obvious question:
"So how long does it take to get used to that accent?"
"I don't know how you understood any of it, truly," snipped Evergreen. Talia chuckled.
"A while. She's got one of the heavier, older accents, though. Not everyone will need that much decoding."
But they followed the older woman's suggestion to stop by the grocer, loading up on various food items and especially cherries. Talia declared she had some sort of recipe in mind, but that didn't stop the group from snacking on the sweet treats on the last leg of the way to the house.
It was a large house, and Talia could see why Mrs. McCleary didn't approve. The updates were rather modern, and cut oddly against the quiet, ancient landscape that marked the edge of what Bickslow jokingly dubbed the "suburbs" of Blackthorne—one of the last houses on the edge of town before the fields threatened to eat the sky in its vast entirety.
The key fit into the lock with a click—thank Mavis—and the door swung open to a wide, airy living room. A staircase leaned against the back left wall, and the second floor consisted of bedrooms that looked out over a railing into the open living room below. Talia knew there was a kitchen somewhere off to the right, but her memories of the house were hazy as she'd only really been inside of it once before.
Freed offered to take her bag to a bedroom for her while she and Bix unpacked the groceries. Ever announced that she'd be taking a shower, as if it was a last vestige of proper society that she couldn't bear to suffer without. Laxus rolled his eyes, grabbed Bix's bag and followed Freed upstairs to the bedrooms.
"We should start training in the morning," Laxus's voice reverberated through the quiet house. "before we head to. . . wherever we're going."
Talia stuck her head out of the kitchen. "You all are coming along?"
"We came all this way," added Freed from the upper railing, "May as well, if it's all right with you." He couldn't see it, but Talia shrugged as she set to work on the cherry clafoutis—a sweet custard cake packed with cherries and a hint of almond. Bickslow put away the vast majority of the groceries as she began pitting and chopping the cherries.
It was the welcome resonance of knife against cutting board, the crack of eggshells, the whisking of eggs, the rhythmic strike and scrape of fork against mixing bowl. Now that they were inside, Bickslow had removed his helm and his scraggly blue hair jutted out in all different directions. His hand rand through the unkempt mess as he opened a soda and took a long swig.
He watched Talia prepped the dish and preheated the oven to her specifications. He eyed her hands, practiced and sure in each movement of the recipe.
"You've made this a bunch, huh?"
The spoon in her hand paused its stirring, the batter pale and smooth. Her fingers clenched and released against the wooden handle. She kept her eyes on the bowl and her voice was quiet, the little, self-assured smile dissolving from her lips.
"It was one of Dimitri's favorites."
Bickslow leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, but there was no tension in the movement. She returned to mixing the batter.
"His soul always had a funny color," Bix offered, more a reminiscence than a real statement.
"How so?"
"It got a little . . . warped, I think." He shifted his weight. "He always had this kind of musky green that would leech in. Never quite figured out what that meant."
Talia added in measured amounts of powdered sugar and flour, mixing thoroughly before adding in an obscene amount of halved cherries.
"Most souls look like their people in one way or another," he gestured upstairs, "Laxus looks like a storm cloud, the lightning crackling blue and gold and lighting up in fissures within the different greys. Evergreen is mostly green with a gold shimmer. The gold twinkles more when she's riled up." His smile flashed. "Freed is purple, of course. It looks a lot like his runes."
She carefully poured the batter into a set pie tin, careful not to make a mess of the counters already.
"And mine?" She didn't look at him, but she felt those seith eyes on her, prodding and poking under her skin.
A laugh bubbled up his throat and bounced his words. "Yours makes me think I need glasses."
A small smile came back to her face as she opened the oven and placed the clafoutis inside.
"It's. . . shadowed. Like my eyes can't quite focus and it's blurry. But you're more colorful than most." He grabbed the batter bowl, dragged a finger through the pale liquid and stuck it in his mouth. "You've got silvers and greens and reds."
Talia snorted. "You saying I look like a Christmas tree?"
Bix chuckled right back. "Not quite. It's more like. . ." he sobered a bit, and his voice became still and quiet. "Like blood on tree leaves. And there's a silver shimmer that catches the light." He reached into the drastically reduced bag of cherries and popped one in his mouth, careful to avoid the pit. She was processing the information and still hadn't met his eye.
"Did you know, then?"
He went to the freezer and opened the door, pulling out a frozen pizza. He had planned to save it, but now that they'd stopped walking, his stomach was making its opinion known. He opened the box and peeled off the plastic.
"Sort of. But souls are a private part of a person." He placed the pizza on a baking tray and threw it in the oven, one rack under the clafoutis. "Not really my place to tell. Besides, it's not like yours was broken or anything."
Now she turned to him, a dish rag wiping off the cherry juice that stained her hands.
"Can you see that? A broken soul?"
He nodded and gave her an odd look out of the corner of his eye.
"Honestly, I was expecting yours to be . . . worse off after everything. You had a bit of cracking around the edges, but that seems to be gone now."
He watched her furrow her brows, those green eyes unfocused on the floor tiles.
She rubbed a spot on her chest.