So begins A Mage's Mark.
Content warning: Casual mention of suicidal thoughts.
Alrighty, I decided not to make it a series, instead posting it in it's entirety here. That said, ya'll are in for the long run. Hehe...
Also, all the content warnings are going to be significantly lighter now; I got all the heaviest angst out of me (for) now, so it will be gentler, and I can mention smaller things.
{-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-}
A week later, they boarded Erza's commandeered pirate ship, Aki on Natsu's back and Zeref hobbling beside. Natsu had wanted to carry him, too, but Zeref had insisted that he could walk fine. This was, for the most part, true, so Natsu had been forced to let him be. Nevertheless, he stuck close by Zeref's side, clearly ready to catch him at a moment's notice.
On the deck of the pirate ship stood a couple tables and some chairs, which Erza had ordered the pirates to place, and Natsu deposited Aki in one, Zeref half collapsing in another.
"It's weird, being physically tired two weeks after getting hurt," he commented wearily, reexamining his damaged hands.
Aki nodded. "It's weird feeling pain two weeks after getting hurt… Oh," she added, seeing Natsu looking queasy, "Natsu-nii-chan, come over here." He wobbled over, and she took both his hands, closing her eyes. "トロイア."
A whiteish light misted around her, and Natsu's pained face quickly melted away. Blinking in shock, he jumped up – he had been practically slumped on the floor – pumping his fists joyously. "Hey, this is just like Wendy's!"
Wendy, who had sat down close to Aki, looked at her inquiringly. "It really is. What magic was that?"
"It actually is your Sky Magic, Wend." Aki snickered at their confused faces. "Well, I can't use it expertly or as well as you do, but I can cure basic motion sickness."
"What do you mean?"
"Because she hasn't been trained by a dragon," Jellal suggested, remembering their conversation during the Grand Magic Games. "Right?"
Aki beamed. "Correct. I haven't even met one."
"That reminds me," Jellal started uncomfortably, "sorry about trying to catch you during the Grand Magic Games."
Aki blinked, then threw her hands out in dismay, shaking her head furiously. "You shouldn't be sorry! I mean, I wasn't exactly nice- it wasn't- it- I- don't- it-" She made several faces, seeming to think of things to say, getting a syllable in, then changing her mind. "Back then- I mean- I- It- it isn't-" After 10 seconds, she gave up, planting her face into the table. "Interacting with people is so much harder than I remember!"
Lucy grinned. "I don't think you ever thought about it as a kid, actually." Aki looked up at her, chin still resting on the wood. "You didn't care in the least what other people were thinking."
Aki waved an impatient hand, and Lucy couldn't help but chuckle at the familiarity, though she made sure to accompany the gesture with a scowl. "Oh, I know that. I mean, I used to know how to say what I wanted to, but now everything happens so quickly, I don't know how to keep up."
"You must not be used to having much happen?" Wendy tried.
Aki mumbled something unintelligible, and Zeref snickered. "I'd like to see you explain something, Zeref-nii," she shot, not lifting her head. "Like Alvarez?"
"Oh, yeah, the mini you's mentioned something about Alvarez," Natsu commented, and everyone looked to Zeref, who had stopped laughing.
"That wasn't nice, Aki-ki…"
Aki sniggered.
"What about Alvarez?" Lucy asked, restraining her own chuckle at the expression on Zeref's face.
He sighed resignedly, but, before he could do more than open his mouth, Aki chirped, face still firmly planted, "He runs the place! The whole 'Emperor Spriggan,' and what not."
"EEEHHHHH?!" nearly everyone shouted, gawking at a now scowling Zeref.
"It's not just me," he muttered sulkily. "Aki-ki's Sluagh, the Empress."
Aki rolled her eyes, looking up only enough to ensure he saw. "Yeah, but I hardly ever do anything; it's your game."
"Game?" Natsu asked.
Aki twitched, but was silent; Zeref looked extremely uncomfortable, shifting in his seat and saying tonelessly, "It had to be a game, so then we didn't care about…"
"Ah." Lucy, yanked from her astonishment by the sadness kicking into being in Zeref's eyes, nodded, smiling as he glanced up at her. "You had to, or else it would be dangerous for people, right?"
He nodded mutely, resuming his examination of the floorboards.
"So you're both rulers of a whole country?" Lucy continued peppily.
"Alvarez is a large military power, too," commented Erza.
"Yep." Aki finally picked her face up off the table, a hint of a smirk on her lips. "I mostly just like messing with Invel, but Zeref-nii's into it."
"That was the point," he grumbled, pouting.
"So that's why little you's said you had to take us to Alvarez," Natsu said, realization dawning across his face. A look of excitement followed, and he started eagerly, "We should go now-"
"NO!" Lucy and Erza shouted, Erza hitting him over the head.
"Are you trying to make this whole debacle happen again?!" Lucy shrieked at him.
"There wouldn't be any cultists at Eldrich," Aki said blithely.
"That isn't the point! Geez, you're as bad as Natsu!"
"It would be fun-" Zeref started, but Lucy interrupted him firmly.
"Not until we get back to the guild and you've both talked things over with Master." She spoke in a significantly less aggressive tone than she took with Natsu, thinking that the two four centuries old siblings weren't at fault – unlike Natsu – for having no common sense- ahem, no, social skills- ahem, no, self awareness- ahem, no, tact. She nodded to herself; tact.
Both ex-Black Mages looked rather uncomfortable, fidgeting and staring down at their scarred hands, but, before she could ask what was wrong, Natsu was already going off about wanting to go now, and Erza was stepping in to knock him out.
"Jellal." Everyone looked to Aki. She didn't meet any of their eyes, staring at the arm of her chair. Fidgeting uncomfortably, she mumbled, "I-I'm sorry for the whole Grand Magic Games thing, too."
"What do you mean?" Jellal asked, plainly confused.
"I mean… I th-" She gasped slightly. "-threatened you a fair… few times, and I-I wasn't…"
Jellal shook his head. "I don't care about that."
"You're both apologizing," Lucy observed, vaguely amused, "so maybe you can call it even?"
Aki chewed her lip, eyes darting around the ship, but Jellal assured, "It's fine, Aki. Lucy's right. I'm off, you're off. We can move on."
"Thank dragons almighty!" Everyone jumped in the air as Erza took to her feet, punching Jellal 'lightly' in the shoulder; he winced, but she didn't seem to notice. "You've taken a step past idiocy!"
"Erza-" Jellal tried weakly, going faintly pink.
Erza ignored him, still beaming. "You can move on! Good boy!"
"What are you, a dog?" Natsu snickered, smirking when Jellal shot him a look.
"He liiiiiiiiiiikes her," Happy said slyly behind his paw.
He blanched in fear when Erza glowered at him. "Shut it, cat."
"She liiiiiiiikes him."
A tick mark appearing on her forehead, Erza summoned a sword, and Happy — rightly — panicked. "I didn't! I didn't say anything! I didn't!"
"Then who did?" she demanded, stepping forward.
"I did."
They all looked around and promptly fell over.
"It's true, though," Aki continued amiably. "If all it takes is me saying that you both liiiiiiiiike" —she rolled her tongue, smiling earnestly— "each other for you to acknowledge it, then Edo if I don't."
"You're lucky your injured, Aki-chan," Lucy sighed, "Erza would kill you."
"What?" Aki seemed genuinely confused, looking from one to the next. "Why?"
At this, Natsu burst out laughing, Zeref sniggering appreciatively, both patting her on the head.
"What?" she squawked indignantly, batting Zeref away – she couldn't mind anything Natsu did.
"You're a lot purer than anyone realized, Aki-chan," Lucy chuckled, blinking out of her stunned state and chuckling.
Aki blushed slightly, frowning. "I'm not pure, by any means," she muttered, looking down at her hands again. "I just don't see any reason to deny love in the world, if it exists…"
"Exactly."
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"I remember you said you could use all magics," Jellal prompted a few hours later, after lunch, addressing Aki.
Aki smirked playfully. "I can use every magic except one," she said proudly. "Though," she added, abruptly bitter, "I'm not yet entirely sure that I would ever want to use it."
"Aki-ki," Zeref sighed, patting her on the head, "we don't know-"
"Yeah, yeah…" Aki scowled. "Still, the stupid *mutter* and *mutter* and then *mutter*-" She snorted, rolling her eyes and huffily crossing her arms. "Anyways, it's called the One Magic-"
"One Magic?" Lucy blurted, startled. "My mother used to tell me stories about that. She said it was love."
Aki faltered, plainly confused. "I… suppose that could work," she said finally, watching Lucy with unnervingly unblinking eyes. "But," she continued with more life, shaking herself, "I'm not saying what it is or isn't, only that I can't use it."
"Why not?" Lucy asked.
Aki pouted at the floor, chin on her chest. "Because if I could then this whole dragon's horde of *mumble* and *mumble* the stupid *mumble* I tried *mumble* learn *mumble* BLEGH!" she finished, looking extremely sour.
"That magic," Zeref took over in an accustomed way, "was the source of the curse."
"But-!" Lucy started, horrified, looking desperately between them. "But mother said-"
"It isn't necessarily evil, Lucy," Aki sighed, simmering down again. "It- well, my theory is *mumble* stupid *mumble* and *mumble*– No." She took a determinedly deep, calming breath. "Not ranting, not ranting… Question, quest… Right, my hypothesis- well, first, do you know what the One Magic is theorized to be?"
"Isn't it supposed to be the origin of all magic?" Erza answered, Lucy silent.
Aki nodded. "That is the general idea. There isn't any chance any of you know white hole theory, is there?" she asked hopefully, though with pronounced doubt – doubt proved well founded as they all shook their heads. "O-ho drigs, okay, uhhhh-hmm. I… I hypothesize that One Magic is, well" — she nodded to Lucy "to use your mother's words, 'love.' 'Love' is infinite. It includes life and death, affection and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, anger and compassion—you get the idea. It equates, essentially, to infinity. Infinity encompasses all – that is the prerequisite to be never-ending. Normally, it wouldn't be possible to affect the balance; it would balance itself – no, it doesn't need balancing," she corrected. "If you think of it as balancing, then it isn't on the 'balance board''" —she made quotation marks— "it is the balance board, as well being everything upon it. Anyway, our studies brushed-" She snorted, followed by a short coughing session.
"-and by brushed, she means-" Zeref said preemptively, and Aki finished–
"-totally submerged us in it, and – now, this is the part I don't get – " she added, "somehow upset a balance that shouldn't exist. We travelled further down a path within the realms of life and death – a metastable balance linked to the One Magic only insofar as any theory is to another – than could be supported by the 'mass' that exists in the One Magic – we created something from nothing. You might think it's because of bringing Natsu back, but we brought him back a good few decades later."
"It cursed you before you had even done it?" Lucy interrupted.
Both twitched at the word 'cursed,' but Aki simply nodded, continuing, "S-so, somehow, our…" She shook her head, and Lucy made a mental note not to mention the curse around them. "Our… the studies- they- or we, tore a- a hole in the- in the- in the-"
"Fabric," Zeref supplied quietly, having done enough head shaking for the both of them.
Relief flooding her face, Aki nodded, her rhythm picking back up. "-in the fabric of existence, in the One Magic… It added to infinity." She stared around at them, conflicted and dubious. "I can't properly explain how nonsensical that is – it's saying that the sky is blue and red and green at the same time, but not mixed together or separate; it just doesn't work. Though, that is what the- what it was, wasn't it?"
She didn't wait for a response, continuing, "So our studies broke something in the One Magic – existence, reality, love, whatever you want to call it. Reality, and so the One Magic, doesn't like being incomplete or compromised, so it forced that corruption on us, the sources. Always seemed like a sort of sick joke," she said bitterly, a battle warring in her eyes. Natsu gave her hand a light squeeze, and she smiled painfully up at him.
After a minute to recollect herself, she resumed, "Our other theory we developed from what scraps remained within the vicinity after the fact, though, again, this was hindered by the fact that we weren't…" She trailed off.
"We didn't get back to the place for some years," Zeref spoke, not meeting any of their eyes, but staring at the horizon as for something to do. Glancing at Aki again, he said softly, "Ankhselam."
Aki immediately bounced back, saying energetically, even more so than before, "At Mildian we were told that it was a curse from Ankhselam, but I still don't believe that." She sniffed dramatically, exaggeratedly sour, and Zeref sweat-dropped. "Dean Nestor and his blah blah blah. He wasted our time and his own… Instead, we researched what might have caused such a thing, and we managed to trace it back to a source that, well…" She glanced at Zeref, who returned a lofty look.
"You started down a road of trying to explain One Magic with our theoretical explanations" —he placed great emphasis on the letter— "for why our studies in thaumaturgic reanimation might have caused a curse far beyond any known capacity in a single language that wasn't Botvian, not me," he said in a single breath.
She scowled at him before turning haughtily away, crossing her arms again. "Fine! So, the source. The source. The… Well, it wasn't so much a source as- as everything… Maybe I'm going the wrong way trying to explain this…" She eyed them, then began slowly, "We were tracing the Scintillas-"
"The what?" interrupted Lucy.
"Scintillas," Aki repeated. "Scintillas are, in this context, the remaining threads of magic."
"Ah… right," Lucy said.
Aki continued, "So, tracing the Scintillas, we got to a point that lead us to literally everything in the known universe. If we ran, well, we'll call it a test— if we ran a 'simple' test— please don't ask me to explain the results," she interrupted herself pleadingly, almost crying, " if we ran a 'simple' test it would come out with multiple answers; more specifically, literally all of them. In this allegory, 'X'" —she made quotes again— "would equal every number, and, if it were possible…"
She struggled with herself. "Still not… okay, um, somehow," she spoke deliberately, "or, no, if- you- blerghbleh," she grumbled, closing her eyes. After a minute, she opened them. "Okay, you could equate the results of this test to getting the answer forty two while taking a philosophy test. The only thing known of in thaumaturgic theoretical physics that could result in this cross-existence answer is the One Magic. One magic is reality, so forty-two and philosophy are both included in it, see? That's the only thing that makes the faintest bit of sense– no, I'm not saying it makes sense," she hurriedly forestalled as Lucy opened her mouth, "just that it makes slightly less non-sense.
"Regardless," she said briskly, apparently choosing to ignore their confusion, "the conclusion of it all is that One Magic cannot be the c-c-" She cut off, blinking rapidly. "Cannot- can't…"
"The One Magic can't be the reason?" Lucy tried helpfully.
Aki latched onto her words, nodding emphatically. "Exactly. One Magic cannot be 'it,' and 'it' cannot be anything but One Magic."
A couple minutes of silence followed her lecture, during which she stared at her feet, and everyone else – besides Zeref, who looked smug – stared at her. "That makes no sense," Natsu finally deadpanned.
She shrugged. "That's the simplest I can make it. And, Lucy," she added kindly, "to make it clear, One Magic isn't evil; it isn't good, either. Like an animal, good and evil isn't a thing it can be. It is our existence—everything, therefore nothing, all powerful, and wholly inaccessible to anybody, despite being everybody."
Lucy nodded anxiously, but Natsu bluntly pointed out what was on all of their minds. "That makes less sense."
"Well, Zeref-nii, you can add a tally to your wins!" Aki griped, banging her head against the table.
"OI!" Natsu shouted indignantly, jumping up and grabbing her head as she made to repeat the action. "Don't-"
"I don't careeeee!" she moaned, a drop of blood trickling from her nose.
"Stop hurting yourself!" Wendy rebuked, hurrying forward.
"I tried, okay!?" she burst out, glaring out of the corner of her eye at a smug Zeref. "You always win these! And I keep forgetting that I stay injured," she added whiningly to Wendy.
"And that that isn't a good thing," Zeref contributed casually, still looking superior.
Natsu scowled at him.
"What do you mean?" asked Wendy, glancing up from her work.
"Well, we have been wishing for almost four hundred years to die, so," Aki said matter-of-factly.
Wendy squeaked. "Oh, don't say that. Don't say it."
Aki blinked at her, bemused. "What are you talking about?"
"It's not a good thing, wanting to die," Lucy explained, sweat dropping.
Aki looked at her, then away, Natsu finally having released his hold on her head.
It would have been better…
For us… For the world…
She glanced at Zeref as Natsu started talking again, trading silent words.
If you weren't here, Natsu, we'd…
{-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-}
So? What did you think? Geez, I need a chill button augh.
Zeref, you smug jerk. (。 ︿)ツ Zeref, you're so nice for your sister! இ௰இ I hope I managed to tackle both sides of the true sibling experience.
I can't keep track of the question thing, so (ง •_•)ง
Either way, thanks for reading!