The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Hubris et Orbi, Part 8
-Momentary Masters-
"Twelve."
"Thirteen!"
Across a desk piled high with papers no one else in the world would understand, Anna Heartfilia and Zeref Dragneel glared at each other.
"Twelve is more stable," Anna argued.
"Thirteen is more powerful – and we're going to need all the power we can get to send seven humans and five dragons through time!" Zeref countered.
"There's no point having more power if it's unstable! You're suggesting something that's asymmetric, irregular, and ten times more complicated mathematically for negligible gain!" She threw her arms wide in frustration. "You've seen the same readings I have; you know full well that twelve is the optimal number to stabilize the time vortex-"
A shadow fell across the study, silencing the argument at once. Outside the window, the usual panorama of fields and farm animals had been replaced by a close-up of a giant, onyx-black eye set into a plate of metal. It blinked with a loud shutter-snap, and a serene voice asked, "What's up, kids?"
"We're having a professional difference of opinion," Zeref answered, at the same time as Anna said, "He's being a bloody moron."
"Very professional," the metallic dragon agreed sagely, while they glowered at each other once more. "What is it this time?"
It wasn't clear if Anna's frustrated huff was at Zeref for being so damn obstinate or at Metalicana for the interruption, but as she was unlikely to give a civil answer either way, Zeref took up the mantle. "We can't agree on how many foci our time travel magic should have."
Another ponderous blink. "I thought you were doing eighty-eight."
"We are doing eighty-eight," they both said at once – Anna with slightly more snap, admittedly, and when Zeref gave her a look, she reluctantly let him continue on his own. "Our construction of World Magic demands eighty-eight, one for each constellation which makes up the stellar sphere. We have no say in that; our magical framework must exist complete or not at all."
"However," Anna interjected, "we don't need all eighty-eight – representing everything that is and ever could be with World Magic – in order to travel through time. We only need a subsection that encapsulates the concept of time, here being the twelve which represent the signs of the zodiac, measuring the annual movement of the sun along the ecliptic."
"Or, alternatively, the thirteen which represent the constellations of the zodiac, which also mark the path of the ecliptic," Zeref amended.
"Why would we want to base our eternal magic on the completely arbitrary positions of stars?" Anna demanded. "The tropical zodiac is regular, precise, scientific; it's based on the equinoxes and the solstices and the apportionment of the solar year into regular segments! It's a far more stable foundation for our magic!"
"But no one cares about the tropical zodiac! It's the constellations which are embedded in our culture – the myths, the heritage, the actual physical constellations that we can look up and see!"
Anna snorted. "That's rich, coming from the man who couldn't tell Leo and Pisces apart until I showed him how."
"Yes, so I went away and learnt about them, because that is how fundamental the constellations are to the magic we are constructing! Concept and belief are everything in magic!"
"The One Magic, yes. But World Magic is inherently unimaginable, reachable only through the most abstract of mathematics! There is no place for something as unscientific as belief in World Magic!"
"But the magic we're creating to manipulate World Magic with is a tool, a manifestation, of the One Magic! It has to be, or we wouldn't be able to use it at all! And the One Magic demands belief!"
"So, since either will work, we might as well keep the mathematics simpler and use twelve!"
"Or thirteen!"
"Alright, I'm deciding," Metalicana announced calmly, and with absolute certainty, as if he couldn't imagine either of them arguing against him. "You're going to do twelve zodiac elements."
"Thank you," Anna said, her eyes glittering.
"No, wait, that's not fair-" Zeref tried to object.
"And then," Metalicana overrode him, unfazed, "you'll do a thirteenth, for the extra constellation, and you'll make that one super-special."
"…Huh," Zeref remarked. "That might actually work. Strengthening the magic by strengthening the concept, but keeping it separate to make the time travel magic easier to stabilize. The anomalous nature of the constellation Ophiuchus would become a tangible source of power."
Anna grumbled something under her breath, but if she were disagreeing, she certainly wouldn't have been so quiet. Instead, she glared at the dragon. "Why'd you have to get involved? If we wanted the opinion of lay observers who understand none of the detail, we'd have asked for it."
"Your argument was disturbing my nap," came the cool response.
"Don't sleep outside my window!"
"Yes, it does appear to be the loudest place in all Carligne, doesn't it?" Metalicana mused. "You're setting a terrible example for the children."
Anna's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"
The dragon flicked a piece of non-existent dirt out from between his razor-blade talons. "I'm just saying, it's not exactly a surprise that Gajeel and Natsu fight all the time when they have you two as role models."
"Have you lost your mind?" Anna exploded. "They fight all the time because they're being raised by moronic dragons who think that testing their own strength is more important than learning to read or write! Our civilized debate is not responsible for the fact that you are raising a bunch of miniature barbarians!"
Metalicana gave a drawn-out sigh, like the hiss of escaping steam. "Ah, as always, you are the very picture of politeness."
Anna glared at him again. "You know, I can't for the life of me see why your foster son finds you so annoying."
"Really?" the dragon blinked innocently. "Everyone else can, and I had you down as being smarter than most of them."
"Shush, you."
Anna and Zeref's plan was to take place in three stages.
First, they would create a magical framework based on the eighty-eight constellations; a manifestation of the stellar sphere which separated the living firmament from the infinite expanse of World Magic beyond. If all went to plan, the magic they created would act as a bridge or interface between them. Through it, they would be able to bend inhuman World Magic to their will – and with it, gain some power over the laws of space and time.
The second stage was far simpler, at least in theory. They would bind their bridging magic to Anna's body, and through her, the Heartfilia bloodline. Zeref had volunteered himself as the anchor, but early experiments had shown that it would not take; his body was too corrupted by its contact with the One Magic to host an interface of World Magic.
Anna had no objections to it being her. Her only initial concern stemmed from the fact that her daughter Eloise would be tied to this magic as much as she herself would be. Still, as their plan began to take concrete – well, mathematical – form, she talked herself into it. Eloise wouldn't have to use the magic, only pass it on to children of her own. She could still choose to inherit the farm rather than becoming a mage, if she wanted, and it wouldn't affect their plan at all.
The third and final stage was to construct a physical device capable of using the magical interface they had created to tap into World Magic and open a portal to the future. They had some rough ideas – they had tentatively agreed on the concept of a door rather than a mode of transport; a permanent anchor rather than something ephemeral – but it was safe to say that they would cross that extradimensional bridge when they got to it.
After all, if they were unable to create that bridging magic in the first place, it would all come to nothing.
That was why they were currently stood in the middle of the deepest, darkest forest in all Carligne.
Admittedly, it wasn't all that dark at the moment, as Igneel had had to burn a large chunk of it away in order to land when he had dropped them off. Sunlight poured through the still-smoking hole in the foliage; the border between clearing and forest was sharply demarcated by its brightness.
They weren't here for the atmosphere, anyway. They were here because there were no other human beings in a several-mile radius. Even though they were merely skirting around the edge of the One Magic this time, Zeref wasn't taking any chances after what had happened at the Academy.
Ritual magic was a means of invoking power beyond what should have been possible, of controlling the uncontrollable, of achieving an outcome too complex to be done through one's own innate command of magic. A ritual could not be undone. Something was given in exchange for something else: a tool allowing humanity to wield a fragment of World Magic in return for the destiny of the Heartfilia family.
Anna and Zeref had devised the ritual circle together, and now they inscribed it together, taking turns, one scoring the runes into the ground while the other diligently checked it to their notes. It was the culmination of several years' work, and it took many hours of patiently tracing symbols onto the ground before both were satisfied that it was complete.
When it was finally finished, Zeref took his place in the centre. He would bear the brunt of any recoil from the One Magic; he had already paid the price, and had nothing more to lose. Anna stood off-centre, by his right hand, in a gap between the concentric rings. It would, hopefully, be enough to shield her from exposure to the heart of magic if they went too far.
"Are you alright?" she asked, softly, in the early evening's stillness.
It took him several moments to answer. "Yes. I was just recalling the last time I attempted something like this."
She reached out and squeezed his hand, glad that they were close enough for that. "It won't happen again, Zeref."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I know that at least the half I did is right." At his exasperated look, she added, grinning, "Plus, we're not trying to break the laws of magic. We're only trying to encourage it into a different form."
It must have been the hundredth time one or the other of them had made that argument during the process, but he nodded, encouraged nonetheless. "Are you ready?"
Her heart leapt. "Ready."
And it began.
Within seconds, she understood why it had been important for Zeref to take the lead. He called forth the magic at the heart of life with confidence; he reached out to the power beyond the ken of mankind like an old friend. As the wind groaned and the earth quailed, he stood tall with more certainty than she had ever seen in him.
When the growing magic became too strong to be contained through willpower alone, he commanded it in the ancient languages of power. Each syllable came to life as a lashing whip. It was like trying to bind a hurricane in chains – and yet there he was, not a large figure, not imposing, not even sure of who he was half the time, but it seemed that even the storm might bow to him.
With agonizing slowness, the first circle of runes began to glow. Then the second, and the third, and once all the inner circles were alight, Anna opened her heart and mind to the maelstrom and let her own voice join the chant. Immediately, the pressure bore down upon her, too, but she did not falter any more than Zeref had. The certainty of the numerical proofs she had checked time and time again was her shield.
The sun was setting, honey-like amber flowing horizontally through the trees, but the light in the clearing was rising. Every single rune on the ground blazed. Magic pushed at the boundaries they had set, for limitations were an entirely new concept to something so wild, but to no avail. The ritual was holding; the calculations had not lied. All they had to do now was close it off-
The lights went out.
Rather, it seemed as though the world went out.
There was no better way to describe the sudden absence of everything: no light, no sound, no movement. Gone were the winds of magic buffeting at her skin, gone was their majestic ritual circle, gone was the smell of the burning earth – gone into the void of pure black that yawned above, below, and to each side.
Panic hit. Only the knowledge that one must never leave the circle until the ritual was complete held her in place, just in case reality was still out there somewhere. With her feet fixed firmly to the nothingness beneath, she reached out – and Zeref must have been doing the same, because their hands met and linked instantly.
"Don't let go," he warned, and she wasn't sure if she was hearing the words in her ears or in her mind, but she was so relieved to have something in the nothingness that she didn't care.
"I wasn't going to," she retorted. Whether he was referring to their shared magic or his hand, her answer would be the same.
As if in response to their refusal to break, all the lights came on at once. Except it wasn't the returning sunset – it was a pure, brilliant whiteness, emanating from all directions at once. It blinded her more effectively than the darkness, but it was a good kind of blinding, one that could be overcome with determination.
Forcing her eyes open millimetre by millimetre, she saw that the void was alive with stars; constellations traced along the inside of the celestial sphere. It encircled her and Zeref, a barrier between the real world and the unrealness beyond.
They held tight to each other's hand in the heart of the universe. All the while, the magic surging around them grew stronger and stronger. It settled into each of the constellations and drew power from them in return. The myths she had grown up with, the ancient tales that had given them their names – they were the life that let the magic be.
And then there was a voice.
It was ponderous and magnificent, as if the universe itself had been given a mouth, and it asked, "Who are you…?"
Within the nest of stars, Anna looked at Zeref, and Zeref looked at Anna, and when it had become clear that neither of them had spoken, it only left one explanation.
"Did… the magic just speak to us?" Anna checked.
"Huh," Zeref remarked. "That's new."
"Anna, this is a problem," Zeref said.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Anna gazed innocently up at him from where she was lounging in her favourite armchair.
"I'm talking about that-" He pointed to the trembling white dog-like creature in her lap, purring contentedly as she scratched its head; "them-" to the blue humanoid figures floating around the room, peering curiously at the furniture; "that-" to the ceiling, where the sound of splashing suggested that Aquarius had either found the bath, or made the spare room into one; "that-" to the ram-horned girl in the corner with a book, who seemed to shrink deeper into the fluffy pink pouffe of her own making; "and them!" he finished, with a wave towards the kitchen, where Leo and Scorpio and countless others were arguing over the proper way to use the oven.
Anna followed his gaze around the room, and then said, "I'm still failing to see this problem you mentioned."
"Anna! How can you not see that this has turned into an utter disaster?"
"An utter disaster!" someone echoed cheerfully, in a voice identical to his own.
Startled, he turned to see an identical copy of himself beaming from a few paces away. "Stop it!" he shrieked, swiping at his twin. It reverted into two blue creatures, who dodged the blow easily and flew away, giggling. Zeref glared at Anna. "Send them away!"
"No," she rebuffed. "Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my Spirits."
"Your- what?"
"Celestial Spirits. We took a vote, and that's what they decided they wanted to be called."
"We are not calling them anything! We are getting rid of them and- send them away!"
"Alright, alright, no need to shout in front of the kids," Anna grumbled. Raising her voice, she called, "Okay, you lot, leave us alone for a bit, would you?"
The unearthly creatures surrounding her dissolved into golden light, leaving behind a silence that slowly spread through the Heartfilia household as the message did. They had picked today to carry out the first ritual because Darryl had taken Eloise to visit his parents for a week. It had been easy enough for Anna to get out of the trip; her in-laws were so traditional that it was almost criminal they hadn't been born in Aster, right down to their haughty disapproval of pretty much everything that came into Anna's mouth.
"Anna," Zeref said, with a little less anger than before, but no less steel. "This is a problem. The magic wasn't supposed to come alive. We should have had eighty-eight tools with which to harness the power of World Magic. Instead, we've got eighty-eight living, breathing… things!"
"Spirits," she corrected. "So?"
"We need to get rid of them and start over."
"I'm sorry?"
"We can't do much about the big one, the one who spoke to us in the in-between place, because it's a fundamental part of the working interface between our existence and World Magic, but-"
"It is a he, and he's called the Celestial Spirit King," she explained patiently. "We took another vote, and that's what he was crowned."
"It doesn't matter what it's called. What does matter is that it's probably fine to leave that one where it is, since it's stuck outside of our reality. But the others, the ones who can take physical form and run around in the real world – we have to get rid of them."
"We can't," she objected.
"Yes, we can! Until we complete the second ritual, the magic isn't bound. We can still get rid of it and start again. I was thinking that we could use the stars themselves instead of the constellations this time. That would give us far more elements to spread the magic over, which should stop enough of it from accumulating around any one point to become conscious-"
"You're missing the point," Anna cut in, and this time her voice was a cold-iron blade that could have shattered his into pieces. "We can't just get rid of the Spirits, because that would be murder."
"Oh, come on, they're not really alive."
"Of course they are! They are conscious, sentient, living magic with personalities, feelings, and independent thought! Just because they were born from an excess of magic rather than a flesh-and-blood parent doesn't make them any less real!"
"They're only manifestations of magic!" Zeref protested.
"They are so much more than that! And I don't understand why you have a problem with it, anyway. I know it wasn't exactly planned, but Zeref-! We accidentally created magic so powerful it gained consciousness! I'd have thought you'd be over the moon at a discovery like this!"
Softly, he shook his head. "In any other situation, certainly, but there's too much at stake here. Imagine what would happen if King Carlos discovered we had created a magic that had come alive!"
Anna snorted. "Are you honestly frightened of that foolish king?"
"I'm not – but I'm not always going to be around to deal with his soldiers, am I? For us to travel to the future, this magic has to exist unbroken, its secret kept, for as many years as it takes for our goal to be realized. That's going to be twice as difficult if the magic itself is capable of blabbing!"
"I trust the Spirits not to tell," Anna shrugged.
"No." That single word rang out with cold, clear authority. "They have only existed for a few hours, and as you said yourself, they are all unique with independent thought. You do not know every single one of them well enough to be able to trust them with something so important."
Still, she argued, "They were born from the magic we created. Our purpose is their purpose. They won't do anything to jeopardize our goal."
"Yes, but do not forget that this magic will be tied to your bloodline," he warned. "What if one of your descendants proves to be dishonest? What if these creatures of yours are forced to make a choice – like non-sentient magic would never have to – between their purpose, and the will of the one to whom they are bound?"
There was a long moment of thought, heavy with the respect that years of partnership had brought, the respect that was sometimes the only thing able to make her stop and think. "Okay," she conceded, at last. "If you have any suggestions that don't involve massacring an entirely new species of living magic, I'm listening."
"I will bind them, like my demons are bound."
At this, she laughed out loud. The atmosphere of wary respect shattered into derision; her fist came down hard on the arm of the chair. "Take away their free will, you mean? That's just another way of killing them!"
He glanced away. "It's not like that-"
"No, that's exactly what it's like," she interrupted, eyes gleaming dangerously. "Your demons should be as alive and free as my Spirits, but you suppress their personalities, control their actions, and enforce certain lines of thought upon them through those damned books until they are incapable of realizing that they are slaves! As soon as you don't want them around, you return them to oblivion, only allowed to live when you need someone to run errands for you!"
"They are mine!" he snarled suddenly. "And they failed me! I have the right to do with them as I please!"
"No, you don't!" Anna snapped back. "And you have no idea how lucky you are that you are physically unable to control Natsu in that way!"
Zeref's eyes widened, yawning voids that swallowed his rage at once. "Natsu- even if I could, I would never do that to him-"
"Yes, because you know it's wrong," she sighed. "And I won't let you do it to my Spirits."
Cautiously, and with none of the avid clarity of before, Zeref said, "Perhaps we could find a middle ground? A compromise between you, me, and… them." When she didn't immediately snap at him, he continued, "If they were in agreement, we could get them to take a magically binding oath never to reveal the truth about themselves or World Magic. The circumstances under which they would be able to take form in our world would be restricted. They would retain their free will and agency in all else."
"Is that possible?"
"Ordinarily, no, but they are beings of magic, not yet fully bound to reality. I think I know how we could incorporate it into the second ritual."
Anna made a show of drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair, but if he could compromise, so could she. "Alright. I'll talk to them and see what they say."
Anna's Spirits had no objections to her proposal. They would never deny her anything, Zeref thought. He wanted nothing to do with them, but she took them as they were, as if there was no limit to the size of her family. She formed attachments through sheer force of will, her own self the only magic she needed.
Would the demons love him like the Spirits loved her, if he ever set them free?
He already knew the answer. That was why he envied her.
Zeref had led the first ritual, but the second was all Anna's. Hers was the blood offered in sacrifice. Hers was the right to change the world.
She did not stand on the ground, but in mid-air, on a platform of pure sky. Her arms were open wide as she trembled with a power no mortal should ever have tried to contain. Eighty-eight lights surrounded her in a halo of silver. They recreated the stellar sphere in miniature, each constellation a perfect representation of where its real-world counterpart lay, though the brightness with which they blazed put the real stars to shame.
That was his Anna. Never to be outdone, not even by the gods themselves.
One by one, the faux constellations turned to arrows of light and pierced her through the heart. He felt his own heart twisting in pain as her body jerked and bent, and yet not a sound passed her lips, for she was far stronger than he had ever been.
When the last arrow of light was buried in her soul, she fell to the ground amidst a metallic hailstorm, and he was already running, needing to be there for her as she lay panting in the feeble moonlight.
Later, he would learn that the dully glimmering objects around her were keys. That was the physical form granted to the constellations by the binding: twelve gold, seventy-five silver, and one the same deep black as his eyes. The Celestial Spirits, the name given to the consciousnesses that had emerged from a magical interface so powerful it had brought itself to life, officially came into existence as a new and unique kind of magic, bound to the keys and to Anna's bloodline.
All he cared about right then, though, was the smile on her face and the light sparkling in her eyes, far brighter than any mere moonlight; the light of the stars as they gazed upon the earth with love. "We're doing it, Zeref. All we need to do now is build the Gate. We're changing everything."
"Yes," he managed to say, smiling through the tears of hope, her hand clutched tightly in both of his. "We are."
Birds chirped tunelessly, spades crunched as they turned over soil, goats bleated as they tried to drive the pigs or sheep or cows or whichever unruly farm animal it was this time out of their grazing territory, and, above it all, a dragon was whistling.
Darryl raised his head as the shadow of widespread wings fell over him, sighed, and returned to his hoeing. From the adjacent flowerbed, where Anna and Eloise had been transplanting flowers – her daughter's puppy-dog face being the only thing that could get Anna involved in the running of the farmstead – there came the sound of rattling trowels and laughter as mother and daughter downed tools and raced each other to meet the incoming dragon. Zeref was already there, waving the white dragon in to land with one hand while shooing goats out of the way with the other.
Weisslogia circled once, still whistling, and then touched down lightly on his rear paws, so as to protect the load he was carrying in his front two: a man-sized lump of darkly glittering rock. "Maginium ore, fresh from the mines at Diarade Point, as requested!" the dragon announced proudly.
"Thanks, Weisslogia," Anna praised. The dragon preened, although not as exuberantly as he might have done, because Eloise had already begun her usual game of trying to climb up his tail and onto his back, and he didn't want to dislodge her. To Zeref, she added, "So, what do you think?"
"Yes, yes, you were right," he muttered, running his hand over the ore and shivering with a mix of distaste and delight at the cold feel of it trying to leech the magic out of his body. "This will make the perfect framework for the Gate."
The sight of a dragon was not nearly enough to faze Darryl these days, but the sight of a dragon depositing a giant rock in the middle of his farm apparently was. He jogged over to them, hoe still in hand. "You're not building it here, are you?" he demanded.
"Of course," Anna told him. "This is the only piece of land I own."
Her emphasis on the word I didn't go unnoticed, but Darryl persisted. "Do you really think it's safe?"
"Look, we've been over this," Anna sighed. "I know you don't understand magic, but there's nothing dangerous or radioactive or whatever about the Gate – otherwise there's no way I would build it so close to our house; how stupid do you think I am?"
To everyone's surprise, Darryl stood his ground. "That's not what I meant. You got another one today."
"Another what?" Zeref asked, looking between them, but neither paid him any attention.
"I told you to throw them in the fire," Anna hissed.
"That's not going to get rid of the problem, Anna!"
"What are you talking about?" Zeref interrupted, louder this time.
"None of your business," Anna scowled.
She was a lost cause, so Zeref glared at her husband, his eyes flashing red, and Darryl prudently decided he would rather sleep in the spare room tonight than chance the wrath of an angry immortal. He pulled an opened envelope from his pocket and handed it over, stoically ignoring Anna's fuming.
Zeref skimmed the contents of the letter, and then said, without looking up, "How many of these have you received?"
"A few," she shrugged.
"That's the seventh," Darryl said.
"It's not a big deal!" Anna protested. "It's an invitation to present my scientific findings at the king's stupid garden party, that's all."
"It's not an invitation, Anna," Zeref observed, turning it over in his delicate hands. "It's a threat."
She folded her arms. "It's not a threat until he sends his soldiers to my front door, and that didn't work out so well for him last time. I honestly thought he had forgotten about me, until the first letter inviting me to visit the palace came through the door a couple of months ago."
"King Carlos must have some mages serving him who aren't entirely useless," Zeref reflected. "Perhaps one of them sensed the binding of the Celestial Spirits and deduced that you are the only mage of any renown in the vicinity."
Anna scowled and said nothing.
"Isn't that a good thing?" Weisslogia ventured, peering down at the group of humans with Eloise perched on his head. "You'd actually be getting some recognition for all your hard work, wouldn't you? And maybe even some treasure!"
"Funding, Weisslogia, it's called funding," Anna sighed. "And it would be a good thing, if the invitation had come from anyone else. But King Carlos is not the kindly patron that he pretends to be. He labours under the misconception that being king makes literally everything in the kingdom his, including both knowledge and magic, and he uses the Dragon Wars as an excuse to steal it to line his own pockets while doing nothing to improve humanity's situation."
"Oh," the dragon acknowledged sadly.
"If I go, in all likelihood, he'll try to take the keys we created and force my Celestial Spirits to serve him. But there's a fair chance he'll try to enslave me, too. If he gleans any indication of what we've achieved here, or what we're going to achieve, he'll imprison me and force me to create our time travel magic just for him – while hiding it under the veneer of the ever-generous patron, allowing the country girl to use his own private laboratory."
Weisslogia made another sympathetic noise, the best he could manage with Eloise dangling from his snout.
"But the king knows where you live," Zeref observed. "And he seems determined to get what he didn't last time. He could send his soldiers here at any moment."
"There's no reason why he would," Anna countered. "Aster is very isolated, and he doesn't know what, if anything, he has to gain. We've been very secretive about our research these last few years. For all he knows, I've retired from magic entirely and become a farmer. That's why he's trying to trick me into going to him, first."
"There's still a risk," Zeref persisted. "Darryl's right; we can't build the Gate here."
Darryl looked thrown by the fact that Zeref had actually agreed with him on something; Anna just seemed irritated that her research partner had betrayed her. Seeing her expression, Zeref added, for the sake of compromise, "We could build the Gate in the forest – nearby, but not somewhere that it will be stumbled upon by accident. Perhaps near the dragons' camp. Even if the soldiers do come, they won't start a fight if they can't see anything worth taking."
"Nothing worth taking?" Darryl echoed darkly, nodding towards Weisslogia just in time for Eloise to slip from the dragon's nose with a yelp – straight into the still-materializing arms of Leo the Lion.
The uninvited Celestial Spirit cradled the young girl with an adoring look upon his face. "Don't worry, Princess," he said grandly. "I, your Lion Knight, will always be here to catch you!"
"You'd have to find a way of keeping him away, for one," Darryl added, in a tone of voice that implied he'd very much like for that to happen even in the absence of any soldiers.
Anna whacked Leo on the arm. "I told you to stop summoning yourself!"
"And let my beautiful princess fall to the ground? I think not!" Leo retorted, affronted, and Eloise giggled, tugging at his shaggy mane of hair. "Besides, I could probably pass as human. Explaining away the dragons would be much more difficult."
As Darryl groaned softly, Anna's gaze dropped – but when she looked up again, her eyes were harder than Weisslogia's scales. She snatched the letter from Zeref. "There's only one thing for it, then. I'll have to make it very clear to King Carlos what will happen if he dares to lay a hand on my family."
Zeref's eyes widened. "No! All you'll do is draw his attention to you!"
"But as you just said, I already have his attention," she countered, waving the letter. "Sure, maybe nothing will come of it as long as I keep ignoring him and hiding out in this pointless village…" Her eyes flared in the sunlight. "But why should I just accept that keeping my research out of the public eye is the only reason why he's not already stolen it from me? I think it's time to take a stand."
"He's the king, Anna," Zeref argued bleakly. "He's got an army; he's… he's not someone we want to antagonize."
"Well, I am not someone he should have antagonized. For far too long he's bullied those who have tried to keep the light of innovation alive. We don't have the great Academies to protect us any more, we don't have an international network of support, and because of that, he thinks he can just take and take and take. But we are not powerless, and it is about time someone stood up to him. I think I'll go and reply to the king's generous invitation in person."
"Anna, please…"
"I'm not asking you to come with me, Zeref. I can handle this on my own."
He shook his head in despair. "Of course I'm coming with you. I don't think this is a good idea, but I think it would be even worse to let you do it on your own."
"Ooh!" Weisslogia exclaimed, hopping excitedly from side to side. "Can I come too?"
"Why?" Anna wondered.
"Because this king sounds like the kind of evil villain I've sworn to destroy!"
"I'm not destroying anyone," Anna shot him down flatly. "I'm just going to politely tell him to piss off."
"Aww…" The white dragon's head dipped. "Well, can I come anyway? I've always wanted to go to the capital city!"
"Well… I suppose having a few dragons around isn't going to hurt my case," Anna granted, and Weisslogia beamed. "Right, round up the dragons! Let's show that moronic king what happens to those who threaten our family!"
They soared to the capital like the crusading heroes of old – if those heroes had been in the habit of taking their children into battle, that was. Eloise, having one sensible parent, remained safely at home with a highly disapproving Darryl. The dragon-children, unfortunately, did not have one sensible parent between them, and thus the dragons' glorious charge was accompanied by the chorus of children screaming in delight from the backs of their foster parents.
Zeref and Anna rode at the front with Skiadrum. The shadow dragon had climbed his way back through the ranks of their respect after Rogue had proven to be a quick learner, requiring minimal intervention from Anna during his early childhood. Igneel and Natsu, against their express wishes, had been relegated to the back – Zeref always insisted on a healthy distance between him and Natsu, just to be on the safe side – along with Metalicana and Gajeel, mostly because of the iron dragon's unpredictability. They were ninety-nine percent sure he wouldn't decide to prank them during their big moment, but still.
Grandine had the three younger children together on her back. This was partly because she was deemed to be more responsible than Weisslogia – who was known to still roll over and crush Sting in his sleep on occasion – and partly because, as a sky dragon, she could manipulate the currents of the air around her, which was far safer for her young passengers than natural flight. Not that this stopped Weisslogia from flittering about her anxiously, getting a snap of her jaws for his trouble every time he got a little too close.
They made quite a sight, soaring over the capital city. Soldiers hastened to the battlements of the outer wall, only to stare, dumbfounded, as the dragons swept over them without a backwards glance. Horns heralded their arrival with a discordant jumble of notes; the guards had no code sequence for a situation like this.
Street by street, the city stopped and stared upwards. Wonder and fear spread like a wildfire before them. Zeref gripped Skiadrum's spines a little tighter as an unexpected thrill surged through him. It had nothing to do with him, it was the five enormous dragons flying in formation that intimidated the men below, but he was on their side, one of them, and the knowledge left him almost light-headed.
He remembered holding the soldiers who had tried to attack Anna's house in his power, but that was different – he'd been on his own, doing something wrong, something Anna had snapped him out of right away. This time, he wasn't alone. This time, with the dragons around him, it felt so right.
Anna gave the shadow dragon a nudge as they angled their flight towards the grey-walled castle, jolting Zeref out of his reverie. "Straight into the Hall of Audience, please, Skiadrum," she asked pleasantly.
Zeref waited patiently for one of them to realize the problem with this request, and when neither of them did, he voiced it himself. "Anna, you do realize we're not going to fit through the doors, don't you?"
"Who said anything about the doors?"
The roof of the main hall grew closer.
"Zeref," Anna added, irritably, "are you going to shield us, or what?"
"R-right," he stammered, and a wave of his hand brought a near-invisible forcefield into being around them just as the fully-grown dragon dived head-first through the roof of the castle.
They fell like a bolt of lightning: a roar, a strike, and catastrophe. The shadow dragon dropped into the grand hall amidst an avalanche of stone and ruin. All four claws sank silently into the tiles below, wings folded, tail curled – the very picture of non-aggression to anyone who knew the first thing about draconic behaviour, but admittedly probably not to a dragon-hating king whose ceiling had just been destroyed.
King Carlos III was a small man in a very large throne. The stone dust trickling from the ceiling turned his pale face paler. His eyes bulged out, almost as large as the rubies in his crown, taking in the void of blue where his ceiling used to be, the nightmare that was making itself comfortable in the middle of his throne room, and the human woman on its back.
"King Carlos, I presume?" Anna greeted him from atop her lofty perch, a throne of true power.
The king raised his hand and pointed at her, light skittering from the gemstones on his shaking fingers. "G-G-Guards!"
Igneel cracked the ground at Skiadrum's right and let loose a terrifying roar. On his back, Natsu bounded to his feet and did the same. The sound lashed at the still-standing pillars, punched through the window at the far end of the hall, and cowed the guards, who managed no more than a step towards the intruders before deciding that the oversized throne would make better cover.
Glancing wildly left and right, the king tried, "Someone- someone call a Dragon Slayer!"
At the rear of the hall, a sentry tried to obey, but one step was the best he could manage, too, before falling back to his post with a whimper. "Aww, Gajeel," Metalicana pouted, from his position in front of the exit. "I told you not to do that evil glare. Look, you're scaring the humans."
This was met by the thwack of iron on iron. "It's you they're scared of, you great metal oaf!"
Overhead, Grandine perched on the edge of the hole in the roof. The three children on her back leaned forwards, eager to see what was going on. Rogue and Wendy each held a fistful of Sting's shirt in their hands, just in case. Weisslogia landed on the other side of the hole, perfectly lined up for an evil-smiting holy breath attack, just in case Anna saw sense and let him do his hero's duty.
The king, though, could not take his eyes off the woman who jumped from Skiadrum's back onto a carpet scarred by talons. "What- what is the meaning of this?" he blustered.
"Oh, don't worry," Anna said airily. She patted Skiadrum's snout, casually turning her back on the king as she did so; the dragon rumbled his amusement at her deliberate disrespect. "We mean you no harm… as long as you afford us the same courtesy, that is."
Then she turned to the king at last, whipping out the invitation so quickly that he flinched. Her false smile did not slip. "I was so excited to receive your letter that I had to come here at once, to give you my answer in person. I hope you don't mind me bringing this lot along. The invitation did extend to my plus-one, but my husband is on babysitting duty, and the rest of my family couldn't agree on who should step in for him, so I invited them all."
The king's mouth worked soundlessly.
"Oh! I'm being rude," Anna added grandiosely. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Anna Heartfilia, a discipline-leading researcher in World Magic and semi-intangible mathematics." She tossed the letter into his lap. "Though, of course, you knew that, because why else would you be interested in the owner of a tiny farm?"
An admiring smile tugged at Zeref's lips as he leaned forward on Skiadrum's back, chin on his hands, watching his confident, commanding friend hold the attention of the room in a way he never could. She had always been brilliant, bursting with enough passion for both of them and then some, but today, she blazed.
"Now, I consider myself to be a fairly good citizen," Anna continued. "I pay my taxes – on what little earnings I receive after the huge levy you impose on textbook royalties, that is. I let my farmland out to my resident tenant farmer at no cost for the production of food. I provide the support and resources for the charitable animal shelter that operates out of my home. Not to mention, I'm also currently engaged in a mission to save all of humanity. So imagine my surprise when I received this from my illustrious king – the seventh in a string of thinly veiled threats against my home and my family unless I agree to serve as your pet mage for the rest of my life."
"I- I am simply offering you my royal patronage-" the king blustered, and her bark of laughter brought silence faster than a whipcrack.
"Granted, I'm reading between the lines a little here," Anna shrugged, "but given that the first time you sent soldiers to fetch me, they were given authorization to use as much force as necessary, I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption. Do you think I haven't heard about the pressure you're putting on the printing-houses to reveal the names of their biggest contributors? Do you think news of the disappearances hasn't reached me, just because I live and work outside the main scientific community?"
"Lies! Lies, spread by the dragons to cause discord amongst our ranks- guards!"
Igneel snapped his jaws warningly, and none of the soldiers moved a muscle.
Anna placed her hands on her hips. "You're our enemy, plain and simple. You have been since before your soldiers ran screaming from my house. You declared yourself our foe the very first time you elected to seize ancient knowledge as your own private plaything. And that was a very foolish thing to do, because even if you called all your Dragon Slayers and servant-mages and soldiers together, you still wouldn't stand a chance against us. A dragon can level a city on its own; what do you think happens when five of them put forward a united front? Their children may be young, but they are quite feral, I assure you. And as for my research partner… he may not look like much, but he could annihilate you in an instant, if the mood took him."
It took a moment for Zeref to realize she was talking about him, and he ducked down behind Skiadrum's spike. Only after a few seconds of silence did he dare to peek back up again, to find her beckoning for him to join her.
Anxious, he froze, but she beckoned again, and he swallowed and slid down from the dragon's back. He had been quite happy avoiding attention, knowing that he would only detract from her incredible presence.
But he could see the soldiers shying away from him, too. All because he stood by Anna's side.
Just like last time, they were afraid of him – but unlike last time, it was for all the right reasons.
Anna smiled at him, and when she took his hand in hers, he had never felt so strong.
"We could destroy you," she continued. "But we won't. And do you know why?"
The king squirmed beneath their gazes.
"Because you're nothing," Zeref said quietly.
"Our enemy is the war itself," Anna agreed. "The flames of war, the Dragon of the Apocalypse who spreads them, and the hatred that continues to feed them. We are going to change the future of our world. You are no Acnologia – you are just one more petty temporal lord. You are so, so small. History will remember our names long after yours is a mark on the wall of some ruined chapel."
"How- how dare you?" King Carlos spluttered. "You're just a farm girl and a bunch of kids who think you're important because you've sold your own kind out to the dragons!"
A low rumble came from behind them. The king shrunk back into silence.
Another tingle of electricity shot down Zeref's spine. Why should they run and hide from greedy, ignorant fools like this, who had done nothing to earn the power they felt they were entitled to; who had only served their own interests as their kingdom descended further into despair? He and Anna, they had no need to bow to men such as this. They were important. Not because of magical strength or immortality, but because they were friends with dragons and had tamed the frontiers of magic and were stood here united. His heart thundered with a sudden, dizzying confidence.
"You are nothing," he repeated, "and we would not have bothered with you, had you not threatened Anna's family."
Igneel gave a threatening snarl. "My family too." His declaration was joined by a chorus of roars and hisses and proud declarations from the dragons and their children; they resounded through the ruined hall and soared skyward.
"This is your one and only warning, King Carlos," Anna announced, with grave finality. "Our research belongs to us and us alone. If you so much as think about harming our family in order to get it, we will return the favour a hundred times over."
Wheeling around, she reached for the familiar joint behind Skiadrum's wing and scrambled up onto his back. "Well, that's about all the time we can afford to waste on you," she breezed, helping to pull Zeref up behind her. "We've got the laws of magic to rewrite. Let's go, Skiadrum."
Obligingly, the shadow dragon sprang into the air. A single giant wingbeat blew half the assembled guards off their feet, and then they were above the grand hall, out in the open sky. One by one, the other dragons assembled around them. Over the faint sound of chaos igniting in the castle far below, Zeref could hear Gajeel complaining that he had had to wake up from his nap just for that, along with the familiar, fond, and painful sound of Natsu complaining that he had come all the way to the capital and hadn't even got to fight any soldiers.
Weisslogia barrel-rolled overhead with an enthusiastic cry. "Wahoo! Time to go sightseeing! I want a photo in front of the castle!"
"You should probably have mentioned that before I collapsed the roof," Skiadrum pointed out with a sigh.
"Nah, we can still find a good angle!"
To Anna, Zeref warned quietly, "We probably shouldn't linger here too long. Even a buffoon like him is likely to have one or two powerful Dragon Slayers in his service."
"Nah, he won't bother us again." She waved his words away with a yawn. "He wouldn't dare. Honestly, we should have done that years ago." Then she frowned, eyes narrowing like fissures in the earth, dark and deadly. "Though, I don't know what you were playing at in there."
"What?" he asked, taken aback; she had wanted him to stand with her, hadn't she?
"Anna's family, you said. And when the other dragons were backing me up, you didn't join in."
"I…"
"They're your family too, Zeref."
He was silent for a moment. They watched as a diving Weisslogia was distracted by the flashing of a tourist's lacrima-camera, skidded through a fountain, and crashed head-first into an ice cream truck – much to the terror of the owner, and the sheer delight of the white dragon, who opened his jaws and let the contents of the freezers tumble in.
Zeref stuck his bottom lip out. "I don't think I want them."
Anna gave a sympathetic sigh. "Yeah, me neither, but it looks like we're stuck with them."
"What ho, evil wizard?" boomed a mighty voice.
Zeref tensed as the crimson streak resolved into a dragon bearing down on his seated form, his gaze flicking immediately to the dragon's back.
"Natsu's with Gajeel and Metalicana," Igneel answered the unasked question, deflating. "You know I wouldn't bring him anywhere near you without permission."
"Right," Zeref murmured. "Thanks."
The dragon sighed. "You know, it's no fun when you don't play along."
Zeref tilted his head to the side. "Begone, tiresome monster, and leave me to my villainous work in peace?"
"Nah, that doesn't sound right. You were never so polite."
"Sorry," Zeref said, and then shook his head; there were too many important things on his mind to use up valuable brain cells trying to understand this dragon. "Do you need something?"
"Not really." The back-and-forth swish of his tail belied the dragon's words – as did the way his opalescent eyes seemed magnetically drawn to the structure Zeref was using as a backrest.
Ever since he and Anna had finished building the Gate, Zeref rarely spent much time apart from it, as if he thought someone would steal it away the moment his back was turned. It was an unwelcoming thing, a paradoxical doorway to nowhere by day and a twisted and unshining monument in the moonlight, and he alone didn't seem to mind its imposing presence in the clearing. Anna had said it was because he saw its magic more than its form, and she was probably right.
After a patient few seconds, Igneel glanced away and admitted, "I was just wondering if the Gate was ready to be used yet. Only, it looks pretty done, and every moment we spend in the present gives Acnologia another chance to find us…"
"It is done, more or less. We just have a few final tweaks to make, and then it should be operational. However, it is going to need extensive testing before Anna and I are ready to declare it usable." As the dragon opened his mouth again, Zeref raised a hand to forestall him. "If you want to throw yourself head-first into an experimental portal, Igneel, you can be my guest. But I am not letting Natsu anywhere near that thing until I am absolutely sure it is safe."
Igneel considered this for a moment, and then shrugged with his wings. "Yeah, can't argue with that."
"There's no need to worry," Anna seconded, coming up behind them and patting the dragon's flank. "Acnologia won't find out what we're doing. We'll be ready to go soon."
Encouraged, the dragon beamed at them both and scampered back into the forest.
"He does have a point, though," Anna added, to Zeref. "We should calibrate the Gate sooner rather than later. Do you have that dragonification ritual you invented?"
"Not on me." After his and Anna's argument that fateful day in Skartown, he had hidden the papers bearing the details of his ritual away in shame in his study, where they had been gathering dust ever since. Even though Anna had subsequently come round to his way of thinking, Zeref had never found the time to go back to them. That part of the plan was already complete, and his time had been better spent on the parts that weren't.
"Go and get them," she instructed. "We'll need to know the exact atmospheric conditions required to stabilize the ritual so that we can calibrate the Gate for our jump. I can finish up here."
He nodded and stood, but his gaze fell once more upon the Gate and seemed to hang there, suspended in time even though it was not yet active.
He heard more than saw Anna moving to stand behind him. "What's wrong, Zeref?"
"Nothing's wrong." It didn't fool her. Nothing ever did. "It's just… it's real, now, isn't it? The magic is complete. The dragons are preparing to go. We're actually doing this. If everything goes to plan with the testing, in a few weeks' time, we're going to step through that door into an unknown world, leaving behind everything we have ever known."
"Not everything, Zeref." She squeezed his hand gently.
He took a deep shuddering breath, still gazing up at the Gate. "I don't know how I ever thought I would have been able to do this without you, Anna."
"That's because you don't see what I do." At his quizzical look, she only smiled. "Zeref, I look at you right now, and I see a man with the universe in his eyes and the threads of the future tangled around his hands. I see a man who faced down Igneel with courage and empathy, who reached out to the world that had shunned him, who rewrote the laws of magic for the sake of those he loved. Honestly, I don't think there's anything you can't do. The hard part for you is getting your unruly mind to focus on the task, and I think you've finally worked out how to do that for yourself."
"I am not so sure," he protested, anxious, though she ignored it.
"That reminds me. I have something for you."
"For me…?"
"I wanted to give it to you right before we crossed to the future, but perhaps you need it now." From her pocket, she retrieved an object covered in cloth, near-weightless and small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. "It is a reminder of why we are fighting, both of us. It is why you need love and anger and jealousy and protectiveness more than you need to avoid the consequences of having them. That understanding is all your own, but I hope that this will help you remember it in your darkest moments."
The moment she placed it into his hand, he tried to unfold the cloth, but her hand pressed it down again. "Not now. Wait until I've gone."
"Is it dangerous?"
"No, but you are," she said ruefully. "I don't want you getting too emotional on me. Now, go and get your notes for the ritual. When you're back tomorrow morning, we'll start the testing for real."
But Zeref didn't return the next day.
Or the day after that.
Or the day after that.
By this point, Anna was starting to grow concerned. Though he often struggled with doubt, Zeref hadn't had a full-on relapse into apathy and detachment for years… but she didn't know what else could have prevented him from returning.
She hadn't made up her mind whether to send one of the dragons to check on him when she was jolted awake in the middle of the night by the sound of Zeref screaming her name.
Still half-asleep, she was not sure if it was a nightmare or reality until an explosion from downstairs confirmed it as the latter. Despite still having a key, Zeref had blasted the front door straight off its hinges, and even now she could hear his feet pounding like war-drums on the staircase. By the time he burst through the bedroom door, she was fully awake and on her feet.
Muttered swearing came from the other side of the bed as Darryl groped for the lamp, but, for the final time, Zeref and Anna both ignored him completely. "We have to go," Zeref gasped out, between frantic snatches of breath. "Now."
"What is it? What's happened?" she demanded.
"Acnologia knows. He's coming for us all." When he lifted his gaze to hers, it was dark with dreadful finality. "Weisslogia is dead."
A/N: Sorry for missing last week. Been struggling with this a lil bit recently. Next chapter should be up at the normal time. We're in the home stretch of this arc now! ~CS