Hello! I decided to update early because~~~~~I'm too excited! Anyways, hope you enjoy.
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"Do you trust them?"
Aki smiled faintly.
Of course she isn't going to say she trusts us, even if she said so for our younger selves.
It was already more than she could have hoped, the kind celestial mage saying that she wanted to get to know them. And all those nice things… She cringed at the thought, knowing they didn't deserve it.
It was only natural, that they take care of and love Natsu. It was base-humanity that they were apologetic- no, it was even more fundamental. They had felt bad for all their deeds while still monsters. It was simply natural. So, too, were natural, all the things the kind celestial mage had said. Nothing to be praised for. Nothing to be forgiven for. Merely…
"Absolutely. I trust them as much as I would anyone in Fairy Tail."
Aki froze, forgetting everything in the wake of those simple words.
"Leafy?" Natsu asked, waving his hand in front of her face curiously.
"S-sorry, yea-what?" Aki stammered, rubbing fiercely at her face.
"What's wrong?" he pressed anxiously.
"I just-" she started, but a loud, hostile voice cut her off.
"Who the hell cares if they're upset or why?" Gray, standing across the fire from them, challenged. "They-"
Natsu's fist connected with his face, forcing him backwards. "I told you to leave them alone!" Natsu snarled, his lit fist pulled back, eager for a fight.
Gray wiped at his mouth, spitting sideways. "Why the hell are you so hell-bent on defending them?!"
"They're my siblings, exhibitionist!"
Lucy had joined them, pulling Aki backwards lest she get caught in the crossfire. Wendy, too, was on her feet, glaring pointedly at Gray, her hand held up to her chest. Erza was hanging back, observing the situation.
Happy was cheering Natsu on, but Carla was nodding approvingly as Gray shouted, "Those wingless eggs" —Natsu's eyes flashed at the insult, and Lucy, too, bristled— "created Deliora! They made Lullaby and who knows how many other demons! They created the R-system!"
"Why, you-!"
"Do you know what happened to Deliora, then?" came a calm voice. Everyone turned, searching for the source, and found that it belonged to none other than Zeref. He was still sitting by the fire, watching Gray with mild curiosity.
Gray seemed rather thrown off, seeing as the two hadn't responded to any of his insults previously, but quickly regained himself. "Flap yeah, I do! He's dead! And-"
"How?"
"How what?!"
"Well," Zeref amended calmly, "who defeated him, and also, how did they?"
"Where is it now?" added Aki, surprising all three girls; her face had gone entirely blank – a marble effigy of the girl that had been laughing just a minute ago.
Gray seemed to be taking the more offence by how impassive they were acting, turning red with fury. "My teacher gave her life to stop Deliora! She used iced shell to freeze him for eternity!"
Zeref blinked. "Iced shell?" he repeated incredulously, sharing a glance with Aki.
Gray snapped, striding forward and pulling Zeref up by the neck of his old-fashioned robes. "That's what I said, ain't it?!" he snarled, face inches from Zeref's.
Erza stuck out an arm, blocking Natsu before he could attack the ice mage.
"What?!" Natsu demanded, glaring at her. She shook her head, and he, naturally, as is to be expected, of course, as surely as any could guess, completely and indignantly ignored her.
She grabbed his wrist before he had made it two steps past her, stopping him even as he started hurling insults at Gray; she wanted to see how the two former Black Mages would act, and why their faces had suddenly become stone masks.
"So, where is it now?" Aki was asking, tone as lifeless as her face.
"Why, so you can go and bring it back to life?" Gray spat.
"No, we need to retrieve the book so that no one finds it-"
"-and thinks 'hey, I wanna try some of this black magic stuff,'" Zeref finished, slipping out of Gray's grip with a practiced ease.
"You're welcome to join us if you want to make sure we don't do anything else," Aki offered, making her way towards Zeref.
"Hey-!" Gray started furiously, but it was Wendy who dashed forward, grabbing Aki's hand.
"Aki, don't go!" she begged anxiously.
Aki merely blinked at her, bemused.
Not wanting the situation to escalate any further, Lucy stepped in. "Aki, Zeref, you're scaring us a little because you're acting like robots," she explained carefully. When they just tilted their heads, she sighed, shaking her own head. "You look like you don't care, like nothing mat-ters… Oh…"
'The only way to not kill was to not care.'
Of course they would revert to it.
"Lucy?" Erza asked quickly.
Natsu used her momentary distraction to wrench out of her grasp, darting forward and whispering something in Zeref and Aki's ears.
"Wait-!" Carla cried, flying towards where Zeref, Aki, Wendy, and Natsu were standing, but they were already gone, leaving nothing but a ripple of magic in their place.
"Wendy!"
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"Wow!" Natsu marveled loudly, attempting to pick himself up off the moonlit beach they had appeared on.
"Is this your first time teleporting?" Aki asked curiously. She and Zeref had remained on their feet, watching the two prone Dragon Slayers struggle.
"Yeah!" Natsu managed to stumble to his feet only to promptly stumble sideways and collapse again. "That wasn't at all like transportation, so why do I feel so sick?" he added feebly, accepting his union with the sand.
"This isn't the time for that, Natsu!" Wendy cried, alarmed. She ran forward, grabbing Aki's hand earnestly. "You've got to take us back! If you just disappear with us, everyone will think that you kidnapped or killed us!"
Aki blinked up at her, tilting her head. "Yeah, they probably would think that," she concluded eventually, sounding as though she had been told that a curio was from the eighteen hundreds, rather than the eighteen tens.
"So-"
"But that isn't important," she interrupted happily.
"We need to get to Deliora's book as soon as possible," agreed Zeref, bending and pulling Natsu to his feet.
Aki nodded, smiling happily. "We need to get any Book as soon as we can. Especially Deliora, if he really was defeated; he is the Demon of Destruction—he exists to destroy. If he's defeated, then we can make sure he isn't revived or something."
"But-!"
"Come on, Wendy, relax!" Natsu grinned, slinging an arm around her shoulders.
Wendy stared, dumbstruck, at the Dragneel siblings. After a minute, she realized: She was outnumbered three-to-one against people with the cumulative common sense of an anime character.
"So, why did I feel sick?" Natsu was asking, looking from Aki to Zeref.
"Let's walk and talk, okay?" Aki suggested. "We're not exaggerating when we say we should get our books as soon as possible. You said you've been here, right? So-"
"-lead the way, Natsu," said Zeref.
"No problem!" Natsu picked Aki up and put her on his shoulders, causing the latter to dissolve into happy giggles. "So," he repeated, starting into the forest, "why did I feel sick?"
Wendy watched their backs, bent slightly forward and mouth hanging open, for a couple more disbelieving seconds. Then, shaking herself, anxiously wondering what to do, she hurried after them; someone had to watch the toddlers- ahem, capable mages.
"-first couple times anyone teleports they feel a little sick," Zeref was explaining.
"After one gets used to it, though-" Aki continued.
"-they won't experience any sick feeling. Unless they try to teleport further than their magic is capable of carrying them-"
"-or further than the distance dictated by the Lori-Loxley effect."
"I have no idea what any of that means," said Natsu.
"I didn't expect you to, Natsu-nii-chan," Aki sniggered. She yelped as Natsu bent forward, throwing her off balance.
"Don't worry Natsu, we don't love you for how smart you are," Zeref chuckled, dodging as Natsu aimed an attack at him.
"Yeah, well, sorry I didn't invent time travel!" Natsu retorted, sticking his tongue out and folding his arms with a huff.
"Actually, in battle, you're the quickest thinker," Aki chirped, leaning forward to rest on his head, arms crossed under her chin.
"Yeah, you and Aki used to have mock battles."
Natsu perked up excitedly. "We used to fight?"
Aki laughed. "I could never beat you, not once."
"We should fight, then!" Natsu said, starting to practically jump forward rather than walk.
Aki beamed as they bobbed up and down, her own eyes sparkling rather mischievously. "After we get the book we should. But don't think I won't be able to beat you now," she added slyly.
"I'll beat you easy!" Natsu returned easily.
Zeref shook his head, smiling faintly. "I wouldn't underestimate her, Natsu. She's unbelievable with magic; I haven't beaten her in a long time."
"You two fight as well?" Wendy asked curiously, having decided that the best viable option was to just go with it for the time being. And besides, she was curious.
Aki faltered. "Well…"
"Well, what?" Natsu asked, turning his head to look up at her.
After a moment of fidgeting, she said evasively, "We- we've fought…"
"And?" Natsu pressed, eyebrows raised.
"It, uh, it doesn't really… it doesn't matter, right?" she stammered, straightening and peering through the trees.
"Actually," Natsu said, annoyed, "we're family."
Both flushed brilliantly, but both Natsu and Wendy didn't notice or didn't mention it.
"I can't remember anything about you two! I want to know you both! And I can't do that if you don't tell me anything!"
They hesitated, but gave in. Shifting uncomfortably, Aki muttered, staring determinedly at her hands. "Well, we fought usually when we- when we-"
"Couldn't think straight," Zeref mumbled, watching his feet.
Natsu immediately lost his hype. "Oh… Well," he restarted brusquely, "you can have a proper battle, then."
Aki nodded slightly. As the awkward silence stretched on, Zeref, not liking the discomfort on either of his siblings' faces, tried, "When we were kids, too, Aki fought with me constantly."
"Really?" Wendy blurted, shocked.
"I did not!" Aki snapped, glaring at him. "l did no such thing!"
He sniggered as she leaned over, attempting to whap him over the head but finding she couldn't reach. "You did," he snorted. "You would come up with the worst lies, too. Trying to trick me, saying you cared more about, I don't know, food, than- Ow!" Zeref said indignantly, rubbing his head affectedly where Aki had managed to hit him.
She stuck her tongue out at him now, eyes closed and cheeks puffed.
"What did we do back then?" Natsu asked, lurching forward so that Zeref's retaliatory swipe fell short. Wendy nearly forgot their situation enough to laugh along with him as he straightened. Nearly.
His question forced Zeref and Aki into an instantaneous truce, and they both answered emphatically, "Books."
"We'd go to the library all the time and take the books," Aki continued dreamily.
"You and Aki would distract the librarians while I grabbed them."
"You stole them?!" Wendy gasped, looking scoldingly at Aki.
"No…" Aki said guiltily, sweat-dropping as Wendy raised her eyebrows. "I mean, we always returned them in the end, so-"
"We're here!" Natsu announced, and they looked ahead to see the wooden palisades of the demon village of Galuna Island.
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When they reached the gate, the moon high in the sky, the villagers, who recognized Natsu, ushered them to a house to stay the night – or however long they were planning to stay. There, Natsu collapsed instantly onto the tatami, Aki trapped beneath him – though she seemed to love it – and Zeref, too – though he seemed to enjoy it rather less.
While extremely adorable to Wendy, she couldn't sleep yet. No, with the three Dragneel's asleep – rather, one asleep, trapping the other two, who refused to bother him as though he were a cat and they needed to use the restroom – she was finally able to do something productive and common-sense-ical.
Asking one of the villagers who had welcomed them for a way to contact Fairy Tail, she received a nod.
"We could send a message fairly quickly," the akuma lady said, her voice rather scratchy and wispy, though still quite sweet; it was the kind of voice Wendy associated with the nicest of grandmas. "It will still take about a day to arrive in Magnolia, though."
Wendy sighed internally. If everyone didn't kill the two former Black Mages as soon as they got back, they would learn exactly where Natsu got his tact from. His 'tact.' The 'tact' that didn't exist in the Dragneel bloodline, apparently…
She didn't want to bother the villagers with that, though, and she especially didn't want the villagers to know who Zeref and Aki were. So she beamed. "That's fine; thank you so much. …Uhm, where should I go to do that?"
"Oh, just over here." The woman led her to what looked a bird coop. "We send messages – urgent messages, I mean – by Thornsright Hawks," she explained, entering the menagerie. A few hawks opened a sleepy eye to look at them through the gloom, a ruffling of feathers sweeping through the relatively cramped space. "Here you go, just write your message on that."
"Thank you so much." Wendy took the pencil and paper, and the woman left, leaving her alone. Looking around, she sat down on a crate next to the dimmed gas lamp.
Dear
She deliberated how to address the letter.
Dear… dear… Lucy? No, Erza? No… Master? Maybe… uhm…
She grumbled in frustration; if she was already stumped, what in the world would she say when she actually got to telling them what was going on?
Curse my awkwardness.
Eventually, she managed:
Dear Everyone at Fairy Tail, Don't freak out! Natsu and I are absolutely fine! We are on an island that the residents call "Galuna." Natsu said he did a job here before, but he also said it was S-class. He's not S-class yet, is he? And not before now, because the trials… I don't know. (I'm sorry! .'(Д)'.) I don't know if it's big enough to be on any maps, but they say that it's far east of the port of Hargeon. There's only one village on this island, and the villagers are akuma, but not mean ones. They're quite nice, really. Zeref and Aki are just really worried about someone getting the book. I'm sure that they didn't mean to freak anyone out by suddenly teleporting us here, or any harm; they haven't done anything to us at all. Natsu collapsed on them and fell asleep They went to sleep in the village, and they plan on looking for clues tomorrow. Aki and Zeref wanted to go out and search right away, but Natsu fell asleep on top of them… Please, please, please don't freak out! I know this letter isn't going to arrive for another day, but we are fine! Please don't be mad at them. Honestly, I think they just don't remember how to interact with people anymore; they're just out of practice. q(^rJ^)g Carla, don't worry. Besides the initial surprise of it, this sounds like it could be a fun adventure! It actually feels a lot like the other adventures we've went on with Fairy Tail! Zeref and Aki will fit right in, don't you think?*-..-*-'…*\( ^ v ^;)/*...'-*-..-* Lots of Love, Wendy(*^-^*)タ~
Looking down at her work, Wendy just hoped that Gray wasn't the one to receive the note.
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The next morning found all four in the forest, Aki once again on Natsu's shoulders, Wendy half asleep, and Zeref grumbling about Natsu's 'still-as-loud-as-a-Morgill's' snores.
"You had to fall asleep on me?" he groaned, rubbing his back.
"He fell asleep on me, too, Zeref-nii," Aki said reasonably, holding back a snicker when he shot her a look. "It was really nice, admit it," she wheedled. "Just like we used to sleep. Well, kind of…"
"How did you used to sleep?" Wendy asked curiously.
"They'd hug me to sleep, usually," Aki said happily; Wendy nearly died, her heart…
"Really?" Natsu asked, looking up at her; she nodded.
"I guess that's why you like to hug Lucy so much, Natsu," said Wendy. "You're used to it."
"You hug someone besides me?" Aki said in mock hurt, laughing when he reached up and scruffled her hair.
Abruptly, Aki's head shot up, knocking Natsu's hand away. A second later she had slid deftly down his back.
"Leafy?" Natsu asked casually, trying to hide his disappointment with her absence from his shoulders; her weight felt right to him somehow.
She didn't respond, tilting her head up, nostrils flaring.
"It's definitely still here, Zeref-nii," she said intently, eyes shut. Natsu recognized the action from experience and lifted his own nose, drawing in deep breaths.
When she didn't elaborate for a full minute, Zeref prompted, "Where?"
Aki frowned, eyes scrunching even further shut. "I can't… tell, exactly," she muttered. Without warning, she broke her solemn position, throwing her hands up. "Lizard tails!"
"Aki!" Wendy reprimanded.
Aki pouted, but didn't respond, instead grouching, "I just- I flippin- I-" She took a deep breath, but it didn't seem to lessen her frustration as she stomped her foot. "I've never met a dragon, okay! I can't use it properly!"
"Use what?" Wendy sighed patiently; she was starting to appreciate that the four-hundred-year-old Black Mage really was just an eleven-year-old. She actually liked the feeling of not being the youngest in a group, a feeling which she hadn't felt since joining Fairy Tail. Or earlier, now that she thought on it… she decided not to think on it.
"Dragon Slayer magic, obviously!" Aki answered in a whine, flapping her hands at her.
"If you need Dragon Slayer magic, I-" Wendy started, but Aki ranted over her.
"Of course Zeref-nii would be the one to meet them! No! No, no, no! I had to stay behind 'cause I was too unstable at the time! Stupid!" She kicked a rock. "Flipping-" She stopped as Zeref tipped her over.
"Aki, calm down. You're missing something obvious."
Rubbing her head, Aki looked up at the other three sulkily. "And what's that?"
"We have two-" Zeref started, but Natsu, who apparently hadn't heard the exchange and was more like his twin than probably anyone realized, interrupted him.
"I can smell something funny…" he muttered, nose high in the air.
"What-" Zeref started again, but his two younger siblings had apparently still not learned to not interrupt him in four hundred flipping years, and Aki cheered–
"That's right!" She leapt to her feet, raising her fists as though she were lifting a dumbbell. "You're a Dragon Slayer! Jeez, I'm such an idiot!" She slapped a hand to her forehead, then forgot, dropping it and asking excitedly, "Where is it coming from, Natsu-nii-chan?"
Natsu dropped to his knees, sniffing the ground. "The trail's heading towards the temple, I think," he muttered, starting to crawl forward.
"Lead the way, Natsu-nii-chan!" Aki whooped, jumping onto his back and punching a fist in the air. "Let's go!"
Natsu didn't object to her weight on his back – on the contrary, he seemed to enjoy it just as much as she did. He took off, still on his hands and feet, Aki laughing maniacally.
The terrifying silhouette was soon swallowed by the trees, leaving Wendy and Zeref alone.
Wendy looked at Zeref awkwardly. After a minute of silence, she suggested, "I guess… I guess we should go, too?"
Zeref didn't look at her; in fact, he seemed not to have heard her at all. He was staring off at where the two children- ahem, capable mages- ahem, children was the right word, thank you very much, had disappeared into the brush.
She frowned. Though he was more subtle about it, he was still as eccentric as his sister; just as broken by four hundred years of torment.
"Zeref, shouldn't we follow them?" she tried again, waving a hand in front of his face. She jumped as he lurched backwards, eyes widening as they darted between her and the forest.
After a minute, he seemed to relax slightly, and Wendy, who had frozen on instinct, asked softly, carefully, "Zeref?"
He was blinking rapidly, staring at her. After a couple seconds, he seemed to shake himself, croaking, "Y-yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
He stared at her, apparently confused. "Yeah, I- I'm fine…"
Wendy felt her heart clench. Was this how he – how they – had lived for the past four-hundred years? Terrified by the presence of other people who, for not understanding, feared and hated them? Afraid not even for themselves but for the lives of those who ostracized them for what they couldn't control? And she had been one of those people, just a few days ago…
"Let's follow the others," she suggested gently, pointing in the direction the other two had vanished.
Zeref nodded meekly, not meeting her eyes as they started walking. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"No worries," Wendy forced herself to say cheerfully, hoping to reassure him. "After you were" —she caught herself before directly mentioning the curse— "after, ah, all that happened, it's to be expected that you might have some trouble, you know, adjusting." She smiled at him. "If I can, I'd like to help you and Aki."
Zeref frowned. "Help us?"
"Yeah…?" Wendy spoke tentatively, wondering what he had latched onto now.
He was silent for a minute. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why help us?"
Wendy looked at him incredulously, but, as she realized he wasn't messing around, her expression shifted to one of dismay. "Because you're both my friends, of course! And," she added energetically, "because deserve to be helped!"
"Deserve to be helped?" Zeref seemed unable to comprehend what he had heard. "Friends?" he blurted, looking at her, then instantly away – though Wendy couldn't fail to see his panicked expression before he had.
"Of course!" she stated confidently. "You and Aki-chan are my friends! And I'm sure Lucy feels the same way!"
"Oh…"
He looked down again, and they fell into an awkward silence that lasted until they caught up with Natsu and Aki.