The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
The Laws of You and Me, Part 2
-Wendy of Lamia Scale, Cana of Pinewoods Residential-
"I'm sorry, Lucy, but I'm a mage of Lamia Scale now!"
Needless to say, Lucy's time in Marguerite Town was not shaping up to be much better than her journey there.
Zeref had refused point-blank to come into Lamia Scale's guildhall with her – "that's what I hired you for" – and while she agreed that it was a good idea not to go around proclaiming the Black Mage's involvement in her guild's reunion, she was really starting to hate it whenever he made a good point. At least seeing Wendy again had cheered her up. Maybe it was a side effect of possessing such powerful support magic, or maybe it was just her smile, but the young Dragon Slayer's ability to light up a room with her mere presence had not been diminished by her time away from Fairy Tail.
She hadn't changed one bit – right down to the way she had dashed across the guildhall's foyer upon spotting Lucy, only to trip and fall flat on her face. There had been a fond smile plastered to Lucy's face as she helped her friend back to her feet.
Lyon had been there too. The arrogant villain Lucy had met long ago upon a cursed island had matured into a dashing and respectable mage, courteous to anyone he considered an ally. He led the two friends through the guildhall. The old stone architecture and elegant, creeping vines gave Lamia Scale's home a more formal appearance than Fairy Tail would ever be able to achieve, but the atmosphere was just as relaxed.
It was there, over tea and cakes, that Lucy explained to Wendy and Lyon her plan to reunite Fairy Tail.
And it was there that said plan was resoundingly shot down.
Even Lyon looked taken aback by Wendy's rejection. He and Lucy stared at the girl in astonished silence. Wendy was stood up, but only so that she could bow deeply and sincerely. Just as the evening sky could not banish the sun's scarlet until it was long past the horizon, her long hair failed to fully conceal cheeks flushed an embarrassed red. She clasped her hands together in front of her. There was a clumsy bandage wrapped around her left wrist, stained with a streak of crimson; perhaps she had bound it herself. It was the curse of a Sky Magic user to be the only one who had to endure unhealed wounds.
No one seeing her for the first time in that instant would have suspected her of being an exceptional mage and powerful ally in combat. Yet it wasn't her Dragon Slayer powers giving her strength now, but her own courageous heart and unparalleled conviction, as she repeated, "I'm sorry, Lucy, but Lamia Scale is my home. They took me and Carla in when we had nowhere else to go. They've been so good to me, and I can't abandon my friends here just like that."
The fact that Lucy hadn't accounted for this possibility was wounding.
The fact that Zeref clearly hadn't accounted for it either cheered her up again.
In the end, it was Lyon who snapped free of the paralysis first. "Don't feel like you have to stay on our account, Wendy," he said, waving his hand as if to indicate that it was no big deal. Lucy knew it wouldn't fool her. Even discounting the fact that Wendy had spent almost a year getting to know this man, Lyon couldn't pull off acting dismissively nearly as well now as he could back on Galuna Island. He cared too much and they all knew it.
Regardless, he insisted, "You belong with Fairy Tail. We've always known that. In fact, we consider ourselves fortunate that we had you for as long as we did. I think Toby and Yuka had bets on how long it would be before you set off on a quest to reunite Fairy Tail yourself."
"It's not like that!" Wendy protested. "I'm happy here. This is my home now. Fairy Tail doesn't…"
"Doesn't what?" prompted Lyon, when the young Dragon Slayer's voice faded to nothing.
Exist, Lucy finished numbly. Fairy Tail doesn't exist any more.
"Nothing," Wendy mumbled, shaking her head.
At last, Lucy managed to find her voice. "That's okay, Wendy. You have to do what's right for you. I didn't come here to try and kidnap you, or anything. If you want to stay with Lamia Scale, that's entirely your choice."
To her dismay, her brave-faced concession didn't seem to encourage Wendy much. "I… I don't know…"
"Well, there's no need to rush into anything," Lyon interjected. To Lucy, he added, "Why don't you stick around in Marguerite for a few days? Have you ever been to our Day of Thanksgiving festival before?"
"I haven't, though I've heard good things about it from the others at the Weekly Sorcerer."
"Why not stay until the parade tomorrow night, then? That'll give Wendy a chance to talk things over with Sherria and Carla."
Wendy gave the older mage a grateful smile. Lucy thought it was no wonder Wendy was so reluctant to leave, when she had such responsible people looking out for her here.
Suddenly uncomfortable with that line of thinking, Lucy jumped on Lyon's change of topic. "Where is Carla, anyway? I can't remember the last time I saw the two of you apart."
"She's… in the guild's infirmary. She'll be okay," Wendy added hastily, before Lucy could start worrying – that, too, hadn't changed about her. "She just needs to rest."
"Couldn't you heal her, Wendy?" Lyon wondered.
"It's not that kind of injury. She just… passed out, while we were on a mission." In a gesture so slight that Lucy almost missed it, Wendy's hand closed over her bandaged wrist. "It was probably to do with her visions. I'm sure she'll be fine once she's woken up."
"You're going on missions on your own now, Wendy?" Lucy marvelled, and this time, the shy flush that crept across the girl's cheeks was the right kind.
"Well… usually Carla and I go with Sherria, but this morning we got two jobs at once which requested a sky-affinity mage, so Lyon suggested that Sherria took one and Carla and I took the other. It wasn't a difficult job – there wasn't any fighting or anything – and, well… we decided we would race to see which team could finish first. Sherria's not back yet, so I guess we won."
Lucy inquired, "What did you do?"
"Oh, nothing that impressive!" Wendy protested, waving her hands. "Sherria went to our local station for the Royal Carrier Pigeon Fleet, because some of the birds had broken free and were causing havoc. A birdwatcher reported something similar happening with the nesting eagles on the cliffs nearby, so that's where I went with Carla, since we could easily fly up there. Once we reached them, it was quite easy to calm the birds with the right kind of Sky Magic."
"Did you find out what caused it?"
"No… I could smell something odd – it was sort of human and not human at the same time – but I didn't know what it was. I would have investigated, but I had to come back to the guild because- because of Carla." Wendy glanced anxiously from Lucy to Lyon. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Not at all! It's just that a similar thing happened to me on the way here. I wanted to ask your guild about it, actually," Lucy added.
Lyon nodded for her to continue. She wondered if he was always this mature, or if he was trying extra hard for Wendy. Either way, she had no doubt it was good for him.
"On the way here, we- I mean, I hitched a ride with a passing farmer, and when we got close to Marguerite, the horse suddenly went wild – he tried to pull us into a river, and then he charged at the wagon and tried to trample his owner to death. There was a mage hiding nearby, and I'm pretty sure his magic was the cause, but he fled before I could capture him. The farmer said that there had been multiple accidents on that road recently, but no sightings of bandits or any other culprit. Trained animals suddenly turning on their owners would explain that. I was wondering if your guild had encountered similar situations – and it sounds like this is exactly what Wendy and Sherria were dealing with today."
Slowly, Lyon nodded. "We've heard the rumours about accidents on the road," he pondered. "We would have looked into it, but… well, we're the only mage guild for miles around that hasn't been at the Games this past week, and between the deluge of job requests and our preparations for the Day of Thanksgiving, we simply haven't had the time. This does sound concerning, though. I'll tell the rest of the guild to keep an eye out for any suspicious behaviour, especially involving animals. Now that you mention it, we have received a lot of animal-related job requests over the past few days, haven't we, Wendy?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah…"
"Wendy, is something wrong?"
"No. Nothing. It's fine."
"WENDY!"
The shout came from outside, yet the door immediately burst open, as if blown inwards by that shout alone, and a tornado of feathers and energy bounded into the room. It screeched to a halt in front of Wendy, clamped its hands down on the girl's shoulders, and exclaimed, "I can't believe you got back before me!"
"I'm sorry! I- wait, Sherria, what happened to you?"
Lamia Scale's other Sky Slayer was a mess – and that was a diplomatic way of putting it. To be more precise, she was as exhausted as if she'd run a marathon; her dress was torn in so many places it looked as though she'd got into an argument with fairy-tale birds; and her hair… well, that looked so much like a bedraggled nest, what with the twigs and leaves and worse shoved into it, that a pigeon might be tempted to claim squatters' rights.
Which wasn't, actually, too far from what had happened.
"Pigeons happened, by the looks of things," Lyon answered, trying not to laugh as he plucked a puffy grey feather from Sherria's hair.
"It wasn't the pigeons!" the girl objected. "Okay, it was a bit, but I got them contained pretty quickly. The worst part was when the Birdmaster decided that they were so far behind their schedule for the day that he wouldn't sign off on the job unless I helped to pass on some of the messages that the rogue pigeons had waylaid! He wouldn't even let me have a shower first! I've been all the way to Alchemilla Town and back looking like this!"
Lyon raised his eyebrows. "A message so urgent they couldn't have sent it by courier overnight?"
"Don't ask me," Sherria sighed, with an exaggerated eye-roll. "It was all in military code. Who else but the Royal Army would use carrier pigeons these days?"
"I'm sorry, Sherria," Wendy ventured bashfully. "If we'd been together like usual, Carla and I could have flown to Alchemilla and back in no time."
"Nah, don't worry- Wendy! You're hurt!"
The Dragon Slayer's attempt to hide her bandaged wrist behind her back only succeeded in hooking her friend's attention.
"Let me see." Refusing to take no for an answer, Sherria unwrapped the bandage, revealing a nasty crimson gash. "Oh, Wendy, why didn't you show me straight away?" she chided, healing the wound with a gentle touch of sky-blue magic.
"You… didn't really give me the chance," Wendy sighed. "Besides, you look far worse than I do."
"This is nothing. If I'd known the eagles were going to be so vicious, I'd definitely have come with you!"
"It wasn't the eagles! They weren't aggressive, they were just scared!"
"Uh-huh. And if the eagles were really kind and gentle creatures, how did you get that wound?"
"I, uh, cut it on a rock. While I was trying to climb up the cliff."
"You were climbing? Why didn't Carla fly you- hang on, where's Carla?" Sherria glanced around, saw Lucy, and did a double take. "Hey, Lucy. I didn't know you were here."
"Hi, Sherria."
"Hey, Lyon. I'm back, by the way."
The ice mage gave a faint smile. "We noticed, Sherria."
"Anyway," the bubbly girl continued, turning back to Wendy, "where is Carla?"
"In the infirmary."
"In the… Wendy, why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"Because I've still not exactly had the chance, and besides, healing magic won't work-"
"It might if we combine our power! We won't lose anything by trying!" Sherria grabbed her friend's thankfully now-uninjured hand and dragged her off, heedless to her protests.
Lyon and Lucy exchanged glances before heading after them. Sorry, he mouthed to her, but she just smiled. She had missed being in a guild. It didn't matter that this wasn't her guild; it lightened her heart all the same.
"Oh, by the way, Lucy," Sherria informed her. "Don't freak out when you see Carla, okay?"
"Okay…?"
Lucy did not, in fact, freak out when she saw Carla, although that was less because of Sherria's advice to remember her manners and more because it took far longer than it should have done for her to associate the unconscious human girl with the white winged cat she had once known. It was only when the two Sky Slayers put their hands together over the girl's hospital bed that Lucy was forced to acknowledge the inconceivable, and when she did, she began to see traces of the frost-furred Exceed in the human girl. Her skin was as pale as her fur had been; her taste in cute skirts hadn't changed; she retained her elegant feline ears, and her fingernails were sharp claws.
What stuck with Lucy, however, wasn't the fact that Carla had somehow learnt human transformation magic, or even that the combined healing powers of Wendy and Sherria were having no effect on her condition. It was the flash of rusty red she'd seen as the cat-turned-human had twitched in fitful unconsciousness.
There was dried blood beneath the nails of her right hand.
"I don't think it's the kind of injury that can be healed with magic," Wendy was informing Sherria, now that she could get a word in edgeways.
Lyon backed her up. "You said it might have been related to her visions, right, Wendy?"
"Uh, yeah, maybe. It could be a side effect. I'm sure she'll be fine with a bit of rest."
"Yeah, I think you're right," Sherria agreed. "All we can do is wait." Then, with an impish smile to Lucy, she added, "Sorry to drag you into all our guild's drama, Lucy. Why are you here, anyway? Come to see how much better our festival is than Fairy Tail's?"
With an effort, Lucy dragged her attention away from Carla. "I'm actually on a quest to reunite Fairy Tail."
"Oh, really? That's great! I mean, I'll be really sad to see you go, Wendy," she added, patting her teammate's shoulder, "but it's about time Fairy Tail came back! This past year has been far too quiet. Even Lyon refused to participate in the Grand Magic Games without you-"
A flustered Wendy was waving her hands vigorously. "Hang on, Sherria! I haven't decided anything yet!"
"…You're not leaving?" Sherria's surprise was as obvious as Lyon's.
"She's taking some time to think it over," Lyon explained. "It's a big decision, after all."
"Yeah, of course."
But Sherria's smile wasn't quite as broad or as bubbly as before, and if Lucy could notice that, then Wendy, her best friend and the most empathetic person Lucy knew, certainly could.
Just as when she'd discovered they were going to be walking everywhere, or when Zeref had refused to help in the battle on the road, Lucy got the distinct impression that this mission was going to be a lot more difficult than she'd anticipated.
"You're back," Zeref remarked.
"Correct," said Lucy.
"Without Wendy."
"Also correct."
They stared at each other.
Lucy hadn't exactly been in a hurry to return to her teammate. In fact, she had procrastinated to a grand total of four cups of tea, three tales of valour from Wendy and Sherria's past year of adventures, two practice matches against Lamia Scale mages to help her back into the swing of things, and one whole-guild debate on the order of the floats for Lamia Scale's parade before her concern about what trouble the Black Mage might get up to when left to his own devices drove Lucy to bid the Lamia Scale mages farewell.
In retrospect, Lucy's instinct to not leave her teammate unaccompanied had been a hangover from her time as a guild mage rather than anything specific to travelling with Zeref. Fairy Tail mages plus boredom minus responsible supervision invariably equalled disaster. Sometimes it equalled disaster even when they had responsible supervision, much to Lucy's dismay.
But there was a reason why it was Fairy Tail, and not the immortal death-mage, that was commonly regarded as the biggest troublemaker in modern Fiore – and Lucy thought it might have had something to do with Zeref having more patience than every member of Fairy Tail put together.
She found him exactly where she'd left him: sat on a bench in the middle of Marguerite's picturesque town square. After ten months in Crocus, the Blooming Capital, Lucy found herself unable to honestly call any other city 'beautiful', but she supposed Marguerite was nice enough. It was more traditional than Magnolia, which had abandoned the idea of permanence when Fairy Tail first moved in.
Marguerite was a warren of weathered stone and polished timbers, of low buildings and cobbled streets. Lamia Scale's parade route was easily guessable from the fact that only a handful of roads were wide enough to accommodate the elaborate floats – along with the crowd that the Sky Sisters' concert was bound to draw, much to Sherria's delight and Wendy's sheer panic. The town square epitomized old-fashioned orthodoxy: benches bearing plaques of remembrance; a fountain depicting Marguerite's first mayor; a whole horde of pigeons. (Lucy's hand had gone automatically to her hair upon spying them, though brief observation assured her that these birds, unlike Sherria's, were more interested in scavenging food than nesting in her hair.)
Zeref was sat on one of the benches with his back to the roaring fountain, writing into a notebook balanced on one knee, though it disappeared into a hidden pocket before she could get a good look at it. A few passers-by gave him odd looks, but most walked on without noticing him. Individuals in odd dress attracted far less attention in a town with a mage guild than without. Classical robes were by no means the most peculiar of the outfits – sometimes costumes – worn by practising mages, and Lamia Scale was no exception.
In fact, Zeref looked perfectly at ease in the town square, as if he would happily remain there all day. He was so well-behaved, it was infuriating. Couldn't he at least look a little put out by how long it had taken her to return?
Maybe that was why her response to his question had been a little less helpful than normal. Not that that fazed him either, mind. He tilted his head slightly, ever the picture of innocence, and pointed out, "We've only been on this quest for one day, Lucy. You can't possibly have forgotten our goal already."
She glowered at him – which was, of course, exactly the reaction he wanted. "Of course not. I asked Wendy if she wanted to come back to Fairy Tail, and she said no."
"She said no?"
"Go and ask her yourself if you don't believe me."
"She said no," Zeref repeated, a fact rather than a question, leaning back against the bench and frowning up at her. "That, I did not foresee."
"That's because you can be stupid sometimes."
"I beg your pardon?" he said sharply.
"Well, it's not just you, since I got a bit caught up in the adventure too – but this is why I was so surprised this morning when you suggested going after Wendy first. She's a mage of Lamia Scale now. She's moved on; she has new friends and a new home. Of course she's going to be reluctant to leave all that behind. I'd just assumed, when you said that you wanted to get Fairy Tail back together, that we'd start by seeking out those who, you know, don't have other commitments."
"I see." He gave a grave nod, though it did little to hide the gleam in his eyes. "So, what you're saying is that we should have started by finding the losers like you who were unable to move on with their lives?"
"Okay, first of all, that was uncalled for," Lucy huffed, though there was a part of her that wondered if Zeref really didn't like being called stupid. "Secondly, I did get a new job, thank you very much. I liked working for the Weekly Sorcerer. I only left because you blackmailed me into joining your ill-conceived quest."
"I suppose you did do some excellent work for that magazine," he mused.
"…Oh. You really think so?"
"Of course. I particularly enjoyed that forest-themed photoshoot you did… what was it called, Autumn Nymph?"
"Tha… wha… YOU SAW THAT?" Lucy shrieked, sending an entire town square's worth of pigeons up into the air at once.
He raised his eyebrows at her. "If you're going to do a pin-up photoshoot in the kingdom's premier mages' magazine, you've got to expect that people are going to see it, Lucy."
"People, yes," she retorted. "Not you!"
"Do I not count as a person, now?"
"I just thought you'd have been too busy making deadly magic weapons and plotting world domination to read magazines," she shot back.
"Well, you thought wrong," he smirked. "Never let it be said that I am all work and no play… although I must admit, I do like how you managed to combine the two."
Lucy scowled at him. "Jason approached me, by the way, I didn't go out looking for a modelling job – and I thought, why not try something new? If Mira can do it, I can do it, and I'll show that damn cat that I have sex appeal, thank you very much – and then they didn't even see it because they were in the goddamn mountains the whole time, and you of all people had to go and see it instead…"
Lucy tailed off, suddenly aware that a street full of pedestrians were staring at her. With a sheepish glance around, she shuffled over to sit on the bench beside him – and to have a good go at sinking into it while she was there. "I meant I liked my reporting job," she muttered, as the disappointed onlookers dispersed and the pigeons began to warily return. "Don't pretend you didn't know that."
"I did know that, but this was more entertaining."
Lucy heaved a sigh. It was difficult to believe that she had been terrified of this man twenty-four hours ago. He wasn't supposed to be like this. And although she hadn't discounted the possibility that this was all some sort of act designed to lull her into a false sense of security, it really was hard to be afraid of someone who was clearly having so much fun teasing her.
"So," Zeref continued, gazing up towards the darkening sky. "To return to the matter at hand, the problem we have is that Wendy is too attached to her adoptive guild to leave overnight, right?"
"Right. Got any ideas?"
"Well, there's one obvious solution."
"And what's that?"
"Eradicate Lamia Scale."
"…Yeah, I don't even know why I bothered asking you."
"No, see, it's a good idea," he insisted. "If we destroy her new guild, she'll run straight back to Fairy Tail!"
"Yeah, it wasn't your logic I had a problem with," Lucy sighed. "It was more, you know, your astounding lack of consideration for other people's lives."
"Yes, that is one of my strengths," Zeref agreed.
Fortunately, after she failed to dignify that with a verbal response, he lapsed into blessed silence, and her mind drifted once again to Wendy. On one hand, she wasn't prepared to force the girl to do anything she didn't want to, through emotional blackmail or otherwise. On the other hand, while she was certain – almost certain – that Zeref had been joking about eradicating Lamia Scale, he was also quite possibly the only person in the world with the power and the lack of conscience needed to carry out that threat, if he felt it was the only way to get what he wanted.
He had assured her that he had no intention of harming any Fairy Tail mages until the guild was back together, but she doubted that that protection carried over to their allied guilds. Then there was the way that both Lyon and Sherria had assumed that Wendy would leave as soon as they heard about Lucy's quest, and Wendy's refusal to do so, as well as Carla's mysterious condition…
But what she kept coming back to was what Wendy had said. Or, to be more precise, what she hadn't said.
"Fairy Tail doesn't exist any more," Lucy murmured.
Zeref cast her a curious glance. "Hmm?"
"That's what Wendy was going to say to me, before she stopped herself. I know, because I felt the same way." Sighing again, she rested her elbows on her knees, chin on her hands, and gazed out across the plaza, thinking aloud. "When Fairy Tail was disbanded so suddenly… it was awful. We lost our guild, our livelihood, and our home all in one go. But how much worse must it have been for Wendy? Not just because of how young she is, but because it's not even the first time that her entire guild has disappeared on her without warning."
Her companion said nothing. She wondered how much he already knew about Wendy – about everyone in their guild. Far more than he ought to, that was for sure.
"You know," Lucy said softly, "Wendy has been in Lamia Scale for longer than she was ever in Fairy Tail. It only seems the other way round because we went through so much in that time. Here, she has a home, friends, responsible adults looking out for her, and most importantly, she has stability. If she left with me – well, Fairy Tail doesn't exist any more. There's just you and me on this lunatic quest, with no guarantee that we'll even come close to succeeding. We're asking her to give up the life she loves for nothing but uncertainty. If I were her, I wouldn't want that either."
"So, what are you suggesting?"
"I want to show her that Fairy Tail still exists. I think that if we can find some other members of the guild and start to bring them together, we can prove to Wendy that Fairy Tail is still very much alive… and just as much a home as Lamia Scale is. If she still wants to stay here after that, then that's her choice, but I at least want to show her that Fairy Tail is a viable option, and that our guild's spirit remains strong."
Lucy glared at him, expecting some sort of mocking comment for her conviction, but he just nodded. "That sounds sensible. Fortunately, there are a handful of other members of your guild in Marguerite, who may be more inclined to leave their current lives than Wendy."
"Really? There are more? Wendy was the only one I knew."
"Yes, there are more." A faint smile, laced with smugness, touched his lips. "How many people will I have to find for you before you accept that I have a highly sophisticated intelligence network at my beck and call?"
"Alright, alright," Lucy grumbled. "Who are we going for next, then?"
"I thought that your friend Cana would be a good one to start with."
"Cana's in Marguerite Town?"
"Yes. Well, a little way out of the town proper, but close enough that we can get there and back this evening."
Cheered immensely by the thought of seeing Cana again, Lucy jumped to her feet. "Then let's go!"
"Not so fast. To get close to Cana, we're going to need specialist equipment."
"Specialist equipment…?" Lucy echoed.
Really, though, she should have guessed. It was always good practice to take a bottle of whisky along when confronting a wild Cana.
Zeref sent Lucy to purchase a bottle of Mirror Blue from the local off-licence. It was probably the first time that Lucy hadn't minded being sent to do the legwork. His resigned expression as he'd justified his reluctance – "Lucy, my body is stuck at fourteen years old. No one is going to sell me alcohol." – had made the extra effort worthwhile.
"Don't you have ID, or something?" she had teased.
"Mmm, yes, a four-hundred-year-old birth certificate will convince them, I'm sure. Best case scenario, they accept that it's genuine, realize who I am, and call the Rune Knights on me anyway."
Perhaps it was because she'd laughed, but Zeref declined to offer any kind of explanation as to where Cana was or what she was doing as he led them out of Marguerite Town. The clustered houses fell away beneath the fading light of day. As pleasant as the countryside was to view under the fiery sunset – every bit as picturesque as the centre of the town, just in a different way – they had yet to come across anything other than fields and the occasional grand farmhouse, and Lucy simply could not imagine Cana working on a farm… unless, of course, it was a cider farm.
Yet it was not a farm that they reached right as the sun's great eye slipped below the hills. In fact, it was the only building in sight that wasn't a farmhouse.
Situated on the edge of a smattering of pine trees was an enormous country manor. Once the home of some wealthy local landowner, it combined the regal spires and gargoyles of a cathedral with the arches and classical pillars which would have perfectly camouflaged Zeref and his archaic dress sense, all finished in elegant sand-coloured stone.
It wasn't too dissimilar to the mansion in which Lucy had grown up, but with one major exception: the manor house and its immaculate grounds were enclosed by a three-metre-high barbed-wire-topped wall.
Lucy and Zeref stood on the main road, staring down the manor house's forebodingly long driveway. Wrought iron gates, the only opening in that towering wall, blocked their way forward.
Even more unusual than the building itself was the sign proudly displayed next to the road.
Lucy looked from the sign to her smug companion, then back to the sign. "That's where Cana is?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Pinewoods Residential," she read.
"Yes."
"Pinewoods Residential, Drug and Alcohol Abuse Intensive Rehabilitation Facility?"
"Yes."
Lucy rounded on Zeref with a shout that could have startled the sun back up into the sky. "SHE'S IN REHAB?"
When it came to breaking into secure facilities, Lucy had more experience than most.
For a full ten months, she had managed to steer clear of that dubious grey mire where morality, legality, and the duties of a guild mage intersected. Even her investigative reporting for the Weekly Sorcerer had been entirely above board.
Unfortunately, her time as a good, law-abiding citizen had not been enough to erase months of running with the biggest troublemakers in the magical world.
It was safe to say that breaking and entering came with the guild mark for Fairy Tail mages. Saving the world usually necessitated breaking into the hideout of whichever villain was trying to end it – whether that meant infiltrating the castle of a parallel world's king or storming the front gates of a guild full of demons – and the fact that her old guild didn't usually go out looking for apocalyptic plots vigilante-style never seemed to stop them from coming face to face.
Furthermore, all her practice of breaking out of the places in which she'd been wrongfully imprisoned before she'd experienced her first lawful arrest had to count for something. In fact, hadn't her very first official job as a Fairy Tail mage been to break into Duke Everlue's mansion?
So it was fitting, Lucy supposed, that her first real job since returning to Fairy Tail would also involve breaking and entering.
But that didn't mean she had to like it.
Nor, incidentally, was nostalgia enough to stop her from complaining about it.
"Bloody Zeref," she muttered, as she swung her leg up and over the wall.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't Zeref's fault that Pinewoods Residential only accepted heavily vetted visitors on one day each month. Still, it was difficult not to blame him when he had been so darn gleeful about the fact that she was going to have to break in if she wanted to talk to an inpatient. His now-familiar refusal to help hadn't redeemed him any in her eyes, either.
Cancer, standing on Lucy's shoulders, had managed to safely clear a section of barbed wire from the wall; Lucy, standing on Cancer's shoulders, had managed to climb to the top. Now she was straddling the wall, while Zeref sat cross-legged at the foot of a nearby tree, almost indistinguishable from the shadows. They had waited for night to fall properly before making their move – and this far from any settlements, it hadn't taken long for the last of the sun's light to fade. Darkness wrapped him in a shroud of concealment, as if the sliver of moon was conspiring to keep him hidden from its glow.
She could, however, hear the clinking of the bottle perfectly well as he helped himself to the whisky she had bought. She could smell it too; it reeked of her father's study on the day her mother had died. She could not comprehend wanting to drink it.
"Oi, kiddo," she hissed down to him. "Aren't you a bit young to be drinking?"
She sensed more than saw the flash of exasperation in his eyes as he screwed the lid back on. "Catch."
It wasn't enough warning. She managed to wrap her fingers around the neck of the bottle, but only at the cost of her balance. Before she could right herself, gravity jumped in and tugged her eagerly down on the far side of the wall.
Long-dormant battle instincts kicked in. She was able to cushion the bottle's fall with her body, mostly by passing the impact through to the topiary bush which had cushioned her fall. The leafy squirrel sadly did not survive the collision.
As she rolled to her feet, clutching the bottle like a sword and mouthing curses upon her companion, she heard a voice too close to belong to him: "Did you hear that? Right where the boss said, too!" It was accompanied by running footsteps and the scrunch of gravel, neither of which were good sounds to hear while breaking into a fortified garden.
Cursing inwardly, Lucy hurried on, her head down and shoulders hunched over. She dropped to her hands and knees behind a low hedge, trying to work out where she had ended up. She had scaled the wall at the back of the mansion-turned-rehab-facility, in the hope that the gardens would provide more cover than the wide open driveway at the front. The lawn was dotted with statues, fountains, and decorative trees which, allied with the dim and deceptive moonlight, ought to give her a good chance of reaching the manor – and the inpatient she was trying to rescue – unnoticed.
Unfortunately, the appearance of two silhouettes cut that chance dramatically. She paused, watching them approach in dismayingly clear greyscale, weighing up her options. She had left her satchel with Zeref, but she had her keys and her Fleuve d'étoiles – though she was reluctant to use them. This wasn't an evil villain's hideout she was breaking into. It was a place designed to help some of the most vulnerable members of society. Just because she was currently travelling with a dark mage didn't mean she was one, and she wouldn't resort to violence against ordinary people who were only doing their jobs unless she had no other choice.
"I didn't hear anything," grunted the other guard. "And I certainly didn't smell anything."
"Me neither, but have you ever known the boss be wrong? Look-!"
Lucy's breath caught in her throat as the guards spotted the deformed squirrel bush. They knew she was here – but that was also her opening. As they examined the damage, she made a break for it, the trimmed grass muting her footfalls. She skidded to a halt behind a statue of some former owner of the mansion, his hands on hips and chest puffed out to display imaginary war medals, and she ducked back down again.
"We know you're there, intruder!" called the first guard, a combination of bluff and legal obligation. "You're trespassing on private property! If you don't turn yourself in at once, we will use force!"
What sort of rehab facility is this? Lucy wondered, making a mental note to never check herself into an institution that openly described itself as 'intensive'. Her fingers twitched towards her keys.
There was a brief shimmer of starlight, and Loke materialized beside her before she could so much as touch them. "I've got your back, Lucy," he grinned.
"As usual," she whispered, smiling back. Recalling Zeref's criticism after her fight with the beast controller earlier, she added, almost vindictively, "Loke, you'll keep coming to help me, right? Even if I don't have my keys?"
"Lucy, you insult me. Of course I will."
"Always?"
"Always. Well, unless I physically can't."
"Can't? What could possibly stop you from appearing?"
She had spoken in jest, given how he'd popped up just to cause trouble more than once in her life, expecting her confident friend to laugh it off with a boast about his dedication. He didn't. Instead, he seemed to struggle with words for a moment, and when he did smile, it was a little too forced, and a little too late. "Nothing can stop me right now, that's for sure."
"Loke-"
"I'll be your distraction. Get ready."
Without hanging around, he broke cover and ran back towards the wall. Shouts of alarm quickly followed, and as the guards set off in pursuit, Lucy seized her moment – shimmying round a pond, vaulting a bed of roses, and sprinting across the gravel as if Master Makarov was chasing her with a bill for damages.
She sensed the attack before she saw it. By the time the crackle of electricity reached her ears, she was already moving, half-lunging and half-rolling across the lawn. Violet lightning scorched through the grass, burning black gashes that sunlight would turn a sickly brown.
More bursts of magic sparked against her senses, and she threw herself forward again, the bottle of whisky held tightly to her chest. She burst through a clump of reeds – and found herself nose-to-surface with a pond.
The part of her that had lived a comfortable, if unhappy, life for the past ten months screeched in protest at the thought of getting wet.
The part of her that had spent at least as long as an active mage, which had walked alone through hell and faced the apocalypse unflinching, shattered that protest in a heartbeat.
But there was another part of her, a sensible middle ground, which had found its voice when Team Natsu was no longer there to shout over it. That part of her recognized the advantages of bravery but also acknowledged that jumping into water while being targeted by magical lightning probably wasn't the smartest idea she'd ever had, and it was that which caused her to scramble backwards.
Unfortunately, that sensible part of her had not seen the root perfectly placed to trip her up.
She went down. The bottle of whisky went up. A bolt of violet lightning went between them both and straight into the pond. It burst black and purple in her vision like an accelerated bruise, blinding, and suddenly there was someone upon her, driving her face-first into the ground and twisting her right hand behind her back.
There she lay, pinned and helpless, and Loke was already distracted with the other guards.
Antares is bright tonight, Lucy thought numbly.
Echoes of power ran through her body: enticing; anticipating; a conditioned reflex to being trapped and alone. She forced it back. She would not. Not while Zeref was watching. There was a wall between her and him, she knew that, but he could be listening or observing her with magic, and she had already given too much away by revealing her proficiency with Star Dress…
The pressure on her back suddenly vanished, and a dark shape sailed over her head. Lucy blinked in confusion as her former captor leapt through the air, intercepted the falling whisky bottle, caught it with a neat mid-air somersault, and landed with both arms raised; a gymnast seeking applause. The shadowy figure scrutinized the bottle in the moonlight – and then, to Lucy's astonishment, proclaimed in a female and distinctly familiar voice, "Ha! Mirror Blue! I knew it! You two owe me a thousand jewels each!"
It seemed Loke had escaped back to his own realm, because the two security guards were approaching from over Lucy's shoulder. The first threw his hands up in surrender. "Way to go, boss."
Sulkily, the other grumbled, "A lucky guess. There's no way you can smell someone opening a bottle of spirits from the other side of the compound – let alone identify the brand!"
"Can too," retorted their boss. "No one opens a drink between here and Marguerite without me knowing about it." She proceeded to prove it by swigging straight from the bottle. "Ah, that's good stuff."
The first guard gave a polite cough. "Still, putting aside the fact that you have the senses of a Liquor Dragon Slayer, what about the intruder you captured?"
"Oh, yeah." The boss set the bottle down with no small reluctance and strode over to where Lucy still lay. "Alright, 'fess up. Who paid you to smuggle in the booze? Was it Basir again? Fool's got more money than-"
At last, shock gave Lucy the courage to interrupt. "Cana?"
"…Lucy? Is that you?" She dropped into a crouch as Lucy pushed herself into a sitting position. The two girls stared at each other, finding their own disbelief reflected in the other's moonlit eyes. "It is you! What the devil are you doing here?"
"Looking for you! What are you doing here?"
"I work here!"
"You… work here?"
"Yeah! I'm Head of Security for Pinewoods Residential! What did you think I was doing here?"
"Well, I… I just assumed…"
"Lucy," Cana began, looking her dead in the eye, "did you think I was here to detox?"
It occurred to Lucy then, as she fumbled for words, that at no point had Zeref ever confirmed or denied that her friend was in rehab. He had only ever asserted that she was here in the most literal sense… and then let her assume whatever she wanted. While making no effort to correct her.
As Cana burst into hysterical laughter, loud enough to wake the wildlife for miles around – and certainly loud enough to be heard by a so-called teammate on the other side of the wall – Lucy collapsed back onto the grass and stared up at the sky. "That bastard."