The Blue Pheasant Flies On

Chapter 6: Settling In

A/N: Sir Godot's taking a break from beta-ing so this is unbeta'd

Porlyusica's Hut

Kuzan and Ur shared a look as the old pink-haired woman continued to rant to her house about what idiots the two Ice Mages were. After officially joining the guild, Makarov had recommended that the two have their burns examined by Fairy Tail's Medical Advisor to ensure that they were healing properly.

They were regretting their decision to listen to him.

Porlyusica was an old lady that was quite vocal about her hatred of humans and the many "idiotic things they believed were proper medical treatment." She had taken one look at Kuzan and Ur's ice legs and immediately ordered them to strip off their pants so she could get a better look at them. Then she got a glimpse of Kuzan's hand and got rid of his shirt. It was nothing short of a miracle that the sight of his scars didn't give her a stroke. After they told her that their burns were self-medicated Kuzan suspected that they might have at least given her an aneurysm.

Porlyusica began to go on and on about the proper treatment of burns and scar contractures and the risk of infection and more medical jargon that flew over their heads. Kuzan's knowledge of medicine consisted of "if you get hurt go to the medic" and he hadn't needed to use that in years. Ur had gotten offended when Porlyusica started out, but the old bat had silenced her with a look and the unspoken threat of a broom being shaken in her direction, so she silently decided to be the bigger woman and dropped it.

All of which led to Kuzan and Ur sitting in their underwear on stumps that were definitely not made for people who were just short of ten feet tall. His leg was almost up to his ears and Kuzan decided that Makarov could make up for putting them through this torture by teaching him how to shrink down far enough that he wouldn't have to hear his good knee cracking in his ear ever again.

Porlyusica finished measuring some pale liquid out into something that looked suspiciously like a cauldron before giving the whole thing a stir. Apparently satisfied, she stopped her ranting long enough to fill several jars with the cauldron's contents before turning to the two adults and shook her broom at them, "Listen up, idiots. Since you two decided that you had the medical know-how to take care of some of the worst third degree burns I've ever seen instead of stopping at a hospital like sensible people, you've gone and gotten the areas permanently scarred." She pointed at Kuzan, "You won't have feeling in your right hand again. The nerves are destroyed, and I'm frankly surprised you still even have that hand. Same for your side, shoulder and what's left of your leg What did you do, go swimming in a volcano?" She turned to Ur before he could answer, "As for you, your leg was cauterized instantly. It's burnt at the end and that's it. That's why you two aren't feeling the effects of having a hunk of ice pressed against your legs, the area's already dead." She gestured to the jars, "Those are a healing balm for your burns. It will help keep away infections and will keep your skin moisturized so you don't drop dead of dehydration. Put this on first thing in the morning and again at night. I'd tell you to not to overexert yourselves, but I have better things to do than waste my breath on idiots that aren't willing to listen to their doctor."

"We aren't idiots—" Ur began to protest only to duck as Porlyusica swung her broom at her. Kuzan still got hit for his crime of sitting next to Ur when Porlyusica was trying to hit her.

The old woman shoved her broom up under Ur's nose. "You're members of Fairy Tail, aren't you? You're all a bunch of reckless idiots without an ounce of self-preservation in your bodies who make a habit of ignoring their doctor. Now leave. You're as good as you're going to get, so get out. I hate humans." Porlyusica shook her broom at both of them and they quickly gathered their things and made to leave only for the old lady to start yelling at them again.

"Not like that! You're not walking on those legs until they've properly healed."

"Do you have crutches for us to use then, bat?" Ur snapped. Her normally even temper threatening to snap.

"You're the ones with Ice-Make Magic, make some!"

Kuzan sighed as the argument that Ur had been dying to have since they first walked into the tree-turned-hut started and the two women began to hurl insults at each other. He made himself a chair that he could actually sit in and got comfortable. He wasn't getting involved in a spat between the two stubborn women until magic started flying.

"The nerve of that old bat! She acts like we're a couple of kids that can't stop picking at a scab! I think I know how to take care of an injury!" Ur ranted as they walked back to Fairy Tail on their ice prosthetics. Crutches her ass. They ditched those the second she stepped out of the bat's house. "I've broken a leg before, it isn't that hard to deal with! This is even better! Now I don't need a stupid cast!"

Kuzan made a sound that he hoped Ur would take as agreement and let her continue to complain. She hadn't taken Porlyusica's dismissal of her basic first-aid well, especially when she had started mentioning her disbelief with how her students managed to survive with her. That's when Ur tried to freeze her solid and he made the tactical decision to pull her away before the hut turned into a winter wonderland.

They walked into Fairy Tail and grabbed a spare table. Ur looked over to where Gray and Lyon were talking to the only person in the guild near their age, a brown-haired girl named Cana who used some kind of Card Magic. She was a tad disappointed that there weren't more kids around their age since that was one of the reasons she chose to join a guild, so Gray and Lyon could be with people their own age. Lyon especially needed to make friends ever since that incident with Deliora. She had watched the scowl that he tried to wear anytime he saw her or Kuzan disappear when they had been traveling with Mary and Amelie and again after Pause joined them on the train. As long as he had friends, Ur was sure that Lyon would let go of that anger inside him. He might never get over her perceived betrayal as the strongest, but Ur would rather he hated her and was with friends that kept him happy than being consumed by the desire to be better than her. Lyon still listened when they trained, but everything she said he'd question and every method she outlined he'd try to do on his own. He had stopped using both hands and dug in his heels when she berated him for it, justifying his choice with not-so-subtle barbs about how Kuzan didn't use two hands with his Ice Magic and he was stronger than Ur. She had to keep an eye on him before his stubbornness got him killed.

She just wanted Gray to be happy and to stop with his damn stripping. Her fault her ass! Lyon didn't have that problem and she had been training him longer than Gray. It was how her grandfather taught her father, how he taught her, and how she taught them, and he was the only one that had ever stripped outside of training. Damn brat was going to get the Rune Knights called on her.

Even now she watched Gray somehow lose his shirt while in the middle of saying something to Cana. The girl pointed out that it was gone and he cursed. Without his shirt, his dark blue guild mark could be seen on the right of his chest. Ur knew that Lyon's silver mark was on the opposite side because he didn't "want to share another thing with Gray," or so he claimed. Her own guild mark was in the middle of her chest, just below the base of her throat. It also happened to be the exact opposite position of her old Snow Angel mark and in a very dark purple that bordered on black instead of white.

"Bel— jewel for your thoughts?"

Ur picked up the drink as it slid towards her and took a sip. Hot tea. She turned back to Kuzan. "Do you even have a Jewel to spare?" she jokingly asked.

"I don't have a Jewel period. That's why I grabbed this," Kuzan unfurled something she hadn't seen in years. An S-Class job poster with a lot of zeros on it.

She took the offered poster and read over the request. "Haven't even had the guild mark for a day and already taking a job. Talk about jumping into the deep-end feet first," she muttered. The job was to take care of a couple sea monsters that were disrupting trade routes between Fiore and Bosco. High risk, large reward, time-consuming, someone had failed to complete it before, mages were injured, at least one had died, pretty standard S-Class mission. "You want to start with this?"

Kuzan shrugged, "Work with what you know. And I've killed a few dozen Sea Kings in my days. These can't be worse than that." Kuzan took the request back and shoved it into a pocket. "I'm actually surprised that they're offering this much for something as simple as this." It did make it easier for him to make a lot of money though. He'd have enough for the essentials—clothes, sleeping mask, a bike, place to stay, etc.—and plenty left over to coast on for a couple of months. If S-Class jobs were like this, then he could consider this his retirement plan. Do a big job every couple of months and spend the rest of his time relaxing.

Ur rolled her eyes and sipped her tea. "Not everyone finds jobs like that easy, Mr. Demon-Killer. Us mere mortals have to break a sweat when killing monsters."

Kuzan snorted at Ur's dry tone and that she'd consider herself one of those mere mortals. She was hands down the third strongest Fairy Tail member he had sensed. If she was a Vice Admiral, then Gildarts and Makarov were on the level of the Admirals and he hadn't even seen them fight besides that time he tried to cut Gildarts in half when he first met him. "I've got to pay back my debt somehow."

Ur frowned at him. "Kuzan, you don't owe me anything, I've told you that. You saved me and my students from Deliora. If anything, we owe you."

Kuzan waved off her concern, "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the trip here. I can't let you spend all your savings on this poor old man."

The tension left Ur and the corner of her mouth turned up in a small smile. "Emphasis on 'poor' I see. How do you plan on paying for the journey down to the coast, Kuzan-ojisan? Do you want to take out a loan from this poor woman's savings?"

Kuzan gave a mock bow, "Thank you for your generosity to this old man, little woman." He stretched his hand out as part of the bow and it was no coincidence that his arm was parallel to his head and showed that even while sitting down and with his head bowed, Kuzan was still taller than Ur.

Ur playfully slapped his hand away from her head and Kuzan let it shatter into ice before withdrawing it. "Call me little woman again and we'll see how tall you are after I even out your legs," she warned him. The two shared a chuckle at the exchange and lapsed into a moment of silence as they finished their tea.

"I do want to sincerely thank you, Ur. You saved me from dying in the mountains and let me stay with you despite not knowing anything about me or how I ended up there. You even paid for everything while we were traveling. There aren't many people that would be that kind to a stranger." Kuzan bowed his head seriously this time, his forehead touching the table. "Thank you."

Ur lifted his head, "There's no need for that, Kuzan. I could never turn my back on an injured man. As for traveling, you saved my life and the lives of my students. It was the least I could do. Besides," Ur smiled at Kuzan, "that's what friends are for, isn't it?"

Friends. It had been a while since someone had called him that. Sure, there were people he was friends with in the Marines, but that was mostly a subordinate-superior or teacher-student relation. Most of his friends were ultimately people he spent time with because they worked together. He couldn't really think of anyone that he could call a true friend. Even with Ur he hadn't been sure what they were. To hear her call him a friend was… nice. It was something that he hadn't felt in a long time. Again, he found himself thinking that maybe it was a good thing he lost to Sakazuki. He absently scratched the bright blue Fairy Tail guild mark that was placed over where the new Fleet Admiral's fist had gone through his chest as he smiled back at Ur. "Yeah."

They settled in a comfortable silence again and watched their new guildmates for a minute before Kuzan asked, "Can you tell me something?"

"What?"

"How do I actually accept this job?"

Ur stared at Kuzan incredulously, "You grabbed a job without knowing what to do with it?"

"I know what to do with it: I bring it to you and ask for advice."

Ur rolled her eyes at him and groaned but couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her. Soon the chuckle evolved into laughter and Kuzan joined in. Ur hadn't realized how much she missed this, being part of a guild.

It was good to be back.

The days soon began to blur together as the new Fairy Tail members settled into a routine. Ur was staying in Fairy Hills' female dormitory until her new hut was finished being built and Kuzan, Gray, and Lyon were staying in the male dormitory on the next hill over. When she wasn't training them, Ur took Gray and Lyon out on jobs to help them afford rent and get experience doing the various types of jobs and fighting other people. Occasionally she'd arrange spars for them against other guild members. Mostly Cana and sometimes Makarov's grandson Laxus. She even managed to bully Macao and Wakaba into fighting with them once or twice. Ur would fight them as well if she ever thought they were getting overconfident and to make them work on their teamwork.

Lyon and Gray butting heads became a common occurrence in Fairy Tail, one that the guild found hilarious and Ur found the constant source of a headache. Lyon was becoming more obsessed with becoming powerful and surpassing her, no matter how hard she tried to get him to drop it. He had quickly latched on to Laxus when he learned that the blonde teen was actually stronger than most of the guild and was the favorite to become the next S-Class. Their relation gave Ur hope that she could save Lyon from his obsession.

Honestly, it was stressful dealing with the two of them sometimes. Lyon was being a stubborn little brat about her not being the strongest, but she was confident that he'd get over it. Mostly confident. Somewhat confident. She'd kick his ass a little harder in their next spar, maybe take him and Gray on a more dangerous job later that week. Nothing too extreme, just a little monster hunting. As for Gray, he needed to lighten up. Maybe she'd start hitting him with an ice cube when he was being moody. Or start leaving him alone with Cana some more. She was good for him.

At least she had Kuzan to help her work off some stress.

Ur's back arced as she avoided Kuzan's sword and transitioned into a backflip that took her out of his range. Her own sword was held defensively in front of her as she watched him carefully.

The two Ice Mages had taken to sparring with each other as no one else currently in the guild besides Makarov could put up a challenge. When you could freeze Macao's flames with a wave of your hand there wasn't anyone eager to test their luck.

Currently, they were working on adjusting their fighting styles to compensate for their missing legs and Kuzan's burns. Fortunately, they were able to get their prosthetics to weigh the same as their limbs, so their balance was mostly fine, but they did walk with limps and Kuzan couldn't bend his knee anymore, but he was trying to find a way around that—something about modeling it after a real prosthetic. He had been fine on the trip to Fairy Tail, but his mobility was noticeably hindered and he had powered through several things that he shouldn't have since he never stopped acting like an Admiral at full strength. Ur was also using the training to get stronger. She might not have let her training slack and had grown stronger during her retirement, but there were still people stronger than her out there and she was more likely to encounter them now that she was working again. Kuzan being one such example.

Ur's sword was discarded, and a trail of thorns was sent at Kuzan only for the former Admiral to block with a wall of ice. He leapt on top of the wall and formed several spears around him that he began to fire at Ur. She started to dodge to the left but was forced to make a shield before they overtook her. She replied with a barrage of ice arrows that he countered with his own ice darts. "Hey! You're supposed to be moving!" Ur yelled at him. She then formed a giant hammer over Kuzan's wall and dropped it on him.

Kuzan hopped off the wall and was forced to keep moving as miniature spiked geysers erupted around his feet. He attempted to form another platform, but Ur broke that with another hammer. "Arara," he muttered before touching the ground. The ground quickly froze over and he finally managed to stand in place for more than a second.

Unfortunately, it only lasted for two seconds before one of Ur's Ice Geysers broke through his Ice Time Capsule and managed to spear through his good leg, destroying it in a shower of ice shards. Ur panted a bit, but still managed to smirk at him from across the clearing. "That's my win."

"So it is," Kuzan agreed. He headed over to where they had left their bags after his leg quickly reformed and clicked his teeth when he saw that they were frozen over. "Give me a second." He held his hand out and concentrated for a bit before dispelling his magic.

Ur took a seat next to the bags and tossed him a water bottle before grabbing one for herself. "I still can't believe you never had to dispel your magic before." She had been shocked to discover that Kuzan didn't know how to dispel magic last month. He had been about to throw away his lunch after accidently freezing it before Ur asked him what he was doing. The entire concept of dispelling his ice had never occurred to him.

"I told you that I mostly practiced at sea. No one cares if you dropped a bunch of ice into the ocean, it's just water," Kuzan reminded her. "Other than that, it would break apart on its own or melt."

"What did you do if you froze someone?" she asked.

"Like I said: melted or broke."

Ur winced at the memory. With his relaxed approach to everything and penchant for naps since he had bought a sleeping mask, it was easy to forget that Kuzan had been a high-ranking military officer. She hadn't gotten used to the casual way that Kuzan treated death and debilitating injuries as an everyday occurrence. She was no stranger to death and injury, but the nonchalance that Kuzan had about it was slightly concerning. He had mentioned a war after he first woke up and she suspected that he had grown desensitized to violence a long time ago. Hopefully, the fight he had been in before she found him was the last time he'd have to use that mindset.

Kuzan's voice jolted Ur out of her thoughts and she quickly glanced up at him. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I said that you were fighting pretty aggressively. Lyon actin up again?" he repeated. Ur tended to hit harder and attack more recklessly when she was angry about something. Her face and body never showed it, but her fighting style was completely different. Those geysers of hers shouldn't have been able to punch through his ice that quickly or easily and judging by the way she had been panting, they had taken a lot more magic to create than normal.

Ur groaned and dramatically flopped back and draped an arm over her eyes. "Yeah. I lectured him about using two hands again, but he wouldn't listen, again. He doesn't care about his creations' stability, only their strength. I tried to explain that stability is a part of strength, but you know kids, if it doesn't make it hit harder then it isn't stronger."

"Is he still beating Gray in their spars?" Kuzan asked.

"Yep. Really not helping my case since Gray's using two hands to cast. It's hard for Static Ice-Make to match up with Dynamic Ice-Make at a young age like them." Ur unconsciously slipped into her teaching tone, "You need to train your body as well as your magic reserves. You're limited with your range—an arrow can't change direction in midair like a bird can. Swinging a hammer can hit a lot harder than dropping one over your opponent if you're strong enough. Gray's still a year younger than Lyon and that matters a lot at their ages." Ur let out a sigh, "I wish there were more kids their age in the guild. Cana can't beat Lyon and Laxus is a teenager—he might as well be an adult in Lyon's eyes."

"You'll figure something out," Kuzan assured her.

"I hope so. He's just drifting away so fast. I feel like I'm losing him," Ur finished in a small voice.

"Like Urtear" went unsaid, but they both heard it. Ur's ultimate fear, losing one of her students. She said that they weren't a replacement for Urtear and she meant it, but they were something far worse. The kids she never had. He knew that Urtear had been unplanned, but that didn't' meant that Ur didn't want kids, or that she would have stopped at one. Gray and Lyon filled that gap. Kids that she could raise that were just younger than her first child, young enough that she could have had kids the same age in another life. A replacement for a hole that she probably didn't even know was there. The thought of losing one of them was like losing her child, a feeling that Ur was already too familiar with.

Kuzan changed the subject, "So how is your hut coming along?"

"Pretty good. Builders say that it should only take a few more days to finish. I'm glad you convinced me to take that extermination job. Housing prices really shot up since I bought my last hut."

"That might just be because you insisted on making it bigger than your last one and added magic protections," he pointed out.

"Maybe." That was most of it, but prices had gone up since her last hut was built. She had her new hut designed to let an almost ten-foot tall visitor walk in without hitting his head on anything, but that was kind of irrelevant since Kuzan had finally gotten the hang of the Shrinking Magic he guilted Makarov into teaching him. He was still taller than average, but now he didn't hit his head every time he walked through a door. Another reason why they were only doing some light training. Kuzan need to get used to the fact that he was now three and a half feet shorter.

The height difference wasn't as much of an issue as it could have been. Kuzan mostly froze things from a distance, but he could fight up close and insisted on practicing that to a degree. He wasn't a master swordsman in any sense of the word, even among the Admirals—Kizaru was better than him—but he had been taught the basics when he first joined the Marines along with marksmanship. As an admiral-level fighter he was faster and stronger than most people and his Haki made his ice saber far harder and sharper than every sword without a name. He was staying shorter if he wasn't sleeping so that he could practice moving in this new form. He found himself ducking through doors and overestimating his reach and stride more often than not. It had led to several humiliating moments much to his annoyance and the guild's amusement. His eventual goal was to be able to shift between heights at will without it affecting his movements, but for now he would be content with winning against Ur.

His new height also let him find clothes that he could wear off the rack. He had on a white V-neck under a gray jacket, black pants, and black shoes to go with his navy sleep mask. He still had his old outfit in his room, but that was all he had to wear for his natural size.

"How's the life of a mage treating you, 'Frost Giant'?" Ur asked with a sly smile and Kuzan groaned.

"That's still a shit name." The Marine's system of giving their Admiral's codenames based on an animal and a color was better than that. Hell, the people in the Bounty Division were better at giving epithets than the Magic Council apparently was, and they called one of the Supernovas 'Captain'. "Is there really no way to change it?"

"Nope. Every S-Class mage gets one and that's it. The only way to get it changed is to take the title of 'The Strongest Man in the West,'" Ur told him.

"Who's that?" Kuzan idly considered challenging the man. If only to see how he stacked up against the heavyweights of this world. This system was a lot less defined than the Yonko and Marines.

"Gildarts."

Yeah, fuck that. He wasn't throwing down with a man straight out of every Marine's darkest nightmare. The guy destroyed his arm just by blocking his sword, he didn't want to see what he could do with his fist. He saw what Whitebeard had done to Sakazuki, the Admiral had been in the hospital for weeks after the war. There wasn't a lot that could be done to fix 'got punched by an earthquake.' Gildarts magic was close enough to the Gura-Gura no mi that Kuzan didn't feel like testing it.

Ur chuckled at his face. "It's not that bad," she assured him.

"People with non-shitty names don't get to talk, 'Ice Rose.'"

"You don't have to use it. It's just a stupid nickname," Ur said.

"It's more than a nickname. An epithet is an identity. It's unique to a person and says something about them. There can be hundreds of people with the same name, but there will only be one person known as 'The Beast' or 'Dark King' or whatever title they give you. It can even turn something as simple as 'Red Hair' or 'Straw Hat' into a symbol. That's what you will be known as across the world. More people will know the name Ice Rose instead of Ur Milkovich, and that's what will matter. If Ur is known as the kind teacher who cares for her students like family and will help some random person she found in the mountains but Ice Rose is a frigid bitch who eats monsters for breakfast and picks her teeth with their spines, then people who never met you will assume the latter without ever learning about the former."

Ur was surprised at Kuzan's explanation. That was a lot more thought than she had ever put into an epithet. She always just saw it as something the Council assigned to spread popularity. "So, what is your problem with 'Frost Giant' then?"

"I've met giants, doesn't matter if they're Marines or pirates, they all share a strong sense of honor and bravery. They'd rather die than go back on their word and will never back down from a challenge. The blood of warriors run through their veins and is the source of their pride." There was a faraway look in Kuzan's eyes as he talked about giants that Ur recognized as him getting lost in memories. The moment passed and he returned to the present. "I am nothing like a giant and it is an insult to their legacy that their race is used in my epithet."

Ur didn't know how to respond to that and just kept silent. Kuzan didn't expect her to. Giants were the only race that Kuzan had respect for in its entirety. Those that didn't respect them were the ones that mocked their values of honor and fair combat. Kuzan respected their beliefs, but he didn't follow them. More than a fair share of giants had died to his ice without ever seeing his face. He was a Marine, a soldier, not a warrior. Honor was not something that lasted long in the fight against pirates. Pirates would agree to anything and then go back on their word just to gain an advantage. He had heard and seen plenty of examples of that happening. Your honor as a Marine tended to become more and more flexible over time and soon you'd end up fighting like a pirate anyways. The only difference was that your flag was white while theirs was black.

"Well, you can't do anything to change it now, so maybe you should change yourself."

Kuzan was surprised at Ur's words and she elaborated. "You said that you're nothing like a giant, right? So, what if you started acting like one. Do something to make it less of an insult to them." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know anything about giants, so I might just be way off the mark here—"

"No," Kuzan interrupted. "You might be on to something." But it would be hard. He had fought with honor before losing it to the pirates. Maybe in a world without them he could find that honor again or, at the very least, some semblance of what it had once been. It could be a start.

"Great! In that case, you can start now. Break's over." She offered a hand to Kuzan, "Now get your lazy ass in gear so I can kick it around the clearing."

Kuzan grabbed the hand and let himself be pulled to his feet, "Good luck with that. There's no honor in letting your opponent strike you from behind."

The air in the clearing dropped again as the two ice mages went at it again.

A/N: Yay. More Kuzan and Ur stuff. Not a lot happened in this chapter and I'm not really sure why it came out that way. If anyone's curious about how Kuzan's first job went, he showed up, said that the sea monsters couldn't hurt a baby Sea King, then froze them solid in under a minute. Nothing interesting about that, is there? Next time our favorite redhead makes an appearance. Looking forward to that. Until then, later.