A/N: If anyone is getting that feeling of déjà vu again, the flashback in this chapter picks up immediately after the flashback in Chapter 21. ~CS

The Scars That Make You Whole

By CrimsonStarbird

Between Heaven and My Life, Part 1

-Pretending to be Wise-

Everything looked different in the daylight.

Sunbeams pierced through the huge oak's leafless branches, separating the tree from its shadows in a way the starlight had not been able to do. The only darkness that clung to it was that of its own limbs, starkly, unequivocally dead. Natural light drew out from the forest the dark green of the crawling weeds, the old grey of the sagging buildings, the lilac patchwork of lichen, the flashes of brown fur from animals who could not understand why humans had returned to this place.

But the ruins of the village of Aster didn't just look different in the light, they were different.

Daybreak had swept away the enchantment of the night. That primal magic, as far beyond their comprehension as it had been beyond their control, had vanished from this place. The grave was just a grave; the tree that watched over it was just another dead thing in this forest of ruins.

Lucy knew they were no longer welcome here.

They walked in silence. Zeref led the way, finding invisible paths through the undergrowth, and Lucy trusted that in this, at least, he knew the way. Not a word had passed between them since night had ended and day began.

It wasn't until they reached the road that he stopped. There was more traffic along it now than there had been last night. Horse-drawn carts and other old-fashioned vehicles rumbled back and forth, unaware of what lay off the beaten path.

Zeref asked, "Can you find your way from here?"

Lucy nodded, but not happily; she heard what he wasn't saying as much as what he was. "You're leaving?"

"I must."

"Stay," she beseeched him.

He only shook his head. "I am truly grateful to you for listening to me last night, Lucy. I needed to say all that, and it needed to be heard. But now… I have to go."

"Will you come back?" When he did not answer, she pressed, "What about our quest?"

"We have done all we need to do. The guild will do the rest on its own."

So it's really over, she thought. Still, she found herself trying, "What about the problem of my keyless magic supposedly tearing a hole in the universe? We were going to investigate the Eclipse Gate during the Summer Ball at the palace. Won't you come back for it? For the sake of the mystery?"

Anguish twisted his expression, though it did not have the impact of last night, and it passed quickly into quiet despair. "I don't know, Lucy. I'm sorry."

After a moment, she forced herself to smile. "I understand. You know where to find me, and you will always be welcome in my house, whatever the reason. You'll need to pick up your books when you're ready, if nothing else."

He didn't nod, let alone make any attempt to return her forced smile. He didn't respond to her words at all. He kept staring at her, and his eyes were more inscrutable than she had ever known them.

"Zeref?"

"I'm sorry, Lucy," he said, again. "I know there are things I'm supposed to say, but… I just can't reach them right now."

"Go on. It's okay. I understand."

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but in the end, he just nodded wordlessly. Then the road was suddenly empty, with only the discordant reverberations of her celestial keys to prove that he had ever been there at all.

Lucy had told Zeref she understood, and she did, but that didn't make it any easier.

A week ago, this would have been so simple. Back then, she hadn't known the depths of his pain, and he hadn't been a man willing to share it with anyone. She would have said they were friends; he would have insisted the fact that they were soon to be enemies was all that mattered, regardless of whether he believed it himself.

Calling themselves teammates was a safe compromise, because it meant something different to the two of them, allowing her to express the comradery she had learned from her guild and him to make it clear to his cursed magic that this was nothing more than a job.

Those words were no longer sufficient.

He knew it as well as she did. They couldn't carry on the way they were any more than they could become something else. How stupid it was to even think it, how risky, how reckless; there was no way it could end except in pain. It had to be better to get it over with here and now than drag it out.

And yet she thought about last night, and about Malva, and about everything they had been through together – and she knew that once, just once, before they parted ways for good, she wanted to be able to hold him when he wasn't crying.

Zeref did not know if the stone garden was a new addition to the grounds of his palace, or if he had simply not been aware of it before.

What little time he did spend in Vistarion was usually confined to his office, or if he was lucky, the state dining hall. He was invariably too busy catching up on duties and meetings to wander aimlessly around the grounds. Away from his empire, he had the time and the lethargy to appreciate beautiful nature, but here there was always something to do.

Even today, he had only come to the garden because the person he was looking for was within.

Built of stone and water, it was a grey and tranquil place, lit by the tip of a sunrise he had already seen once today from Fiore. His feet crunched on the pebbles, despite his best attempts to tread quietly. It matched the disquiet murmuring of his thoughts.

An ever-so-familiar magic was flowing down the paths and swelling within the pools. It was everywhere at once: the same pitch as the songbird's trill, the same sedate tempo as the unfurling rose petals, the same encompassing solitude of the stones, the same silvery dance as the trickles of water; it was alive in all the things in which life could not normally be perceived. It did not force beauty upon the world, but drew out the beauty it already had.

There was no one else around to disturb it at this early hour – and there wouldn't be for quite some time, given that Invel, whose arrival usually kickstarted the palace's working day, was still in Fiore. The magic was allowed to breathe at its own sedate pace, undisturbed by duties or to-do lists or the worries of men.

It was, Zeref thought, the very embodiment of the One Magic. He had drawn closer to the One Magic than anyone, but he had done so as an enemy, and been punished for his transgression. The man at the heart of this ever-empathetic magic had come to it as a friend, respecting the boundary Zeref had disregarded and being loved for it in turn. Perhaps Zeref should be jealous, but he couldn't resent something so filled with love any more than he could blame magic itself for his own poor choices.

He found the source of that beautiful power at the very heart of the garden. August sat cross-legged upon a slab of stone, ringed by benches and geometric sculptures and the occasional burst of green leaves. His staff was balanced across his knees.

The elderly mage's eyes opened as Zeref stepped into his field of vision, and then widened. Zeref raised his hand to indicate that there was no need for him to get to his feet.

"Your Majesty," he acquiesced softly. "I was unaware you had returned to Alvarez."

"I haven't," Zeref corrected him. "And if anyone asks, you never saw me."

Curiosity flashed through the magic around them, and then was quashed, brought to heel as firmly as it could ever be. August nodded and did not ask. He merely waited to see if he would be told, with no expectation that he would be.

Endless, endless patience in this garden of stone.

Zeref shifted from foot to foot, struggling for what to say. Coming here had seemed like the obvious thing to do, but now that he had, he just felt silly. "Am I disturbing you?"

"Of course not," came the complacent response. As if August would have said anything else. The sense of his magic faded as he left his meditative state, though it did not vanish completely, as it never did for him, no matter how hard he tried to suppress it. "What can I do for you, Your Majesty?"

Again, Zeref did not answer at first. He sat on a stone bench, linking his fingers and letting his hands rest in his lap. "I… have a bit of a problem," he confessed. "And I can't talk about it with the person I normally talk about my problems with, because this time, she's the problem. So…"

"So you came to me for advice?"

"In the absence of any better options, yes," Zeref scowled, at once defensive. "I don't want to bother Invel while he's in hospital, and he wouldn't understand anyway; Ajeel doesn't know the meaning of discreet; and I'm not sure Dimaria's way of dealing with relationships is really my style…"

August was looking at him in a way that gave Zeref the uncomfortable feeling that he had misunderstood the question, but all August said was, "What is this problem?"

"It's…" Words whirled upon his tongue, each one stupid and childish and not befitting an emperor, let alone a man of his age and legacy. He wondered why he had ever thought this would help. "It doesn't matter," he said abruptly, getting to his feet. "This was a stupid idea."

He was almost out of sight when he heard August say, "What's the name of the person you've been with these past few weeks?"

Zeref paused, perplexed by the question, but not frightened by it. The last thing he wanted, after the pain and comfort of last night, was to pretend that none of it had happened. "Oh… it's Lucy. Lucy Heartfilia."

"Then, I think the answer to your problem is Lucy Heartfilia."

Silence.

"What? No!" Zeref exclaimed. "That's not an answer! I haven't even asked you anything yet!"

August gave a tiny shrug.

"No!" Zeref insisted. There was so much indignation in his voice that it would not have looked out of place if he had stamped his foot. "You can't say something so ridiculous out of nowhere and pass it off as great wisdom! You may have everyone else fooled with your grey hair and your beard, but it won't work on someone who remembers when you were this big and refusing to eat your broccoli!" He held his hand down by his knee and glared in challenge. "Besides, I know better than anyone that age does not automatically bestow wisdom."

"That does not mean it is unobtainable," came the mild response.

Zeref scrutinized his oldest ally through narrowed eyes. "Regardless, this is nonsense. You don't know Lucy, or my relationship with her, or even if what I was going to talk to you about had anything to do with my relationship with her."

"True." And just as Zeref started to think he had made his point, August added, "But I have seen how you've been acting, these past few weeks. I've seen you smile. I've seen you relax in a way you're never able to do in Vistarion. And, of all things, you have not only acknowledged that you have a problem, but you're seeking advice from other people about it."

"Yes, I'm beginning to recall why I don't normally do that," Zeref bit back.

"I will not pretend to be wise," August continued, "but I do stand by what I said."

Zeref shook his head, though he did sit back down. It wasn't the pose of an emperor, because this wasn't the sort of conversation an emperor should have. Instead, without thinking about it, he drew one knee up to his chest and rested his chin on it pensively, both arms wrapped around his shin.

"It's not as simple as that," he said eventually. "Even the question isn't as simple as that."

"She's good for you," August remarked.

Zeref almost choked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I don't know if she's a friend to you, a confidante, or something else, but she's good for you."

"In your opinion," Zeref retorted, still off-balanced by the other's boldness.

"I have nothing to offer you but my opinion, since you clearly think little of my wisdom," came the mild response.

Zeref snorted, and then shook his head again. "Even if you're right, it doesn't matter. We're enemies. Or at least we will be, very soon." Sighing into the stillness of the morning, he let his forehead fall forward onto his knee. "I feel backed into a corner. There is no way this ends except in disaster. All I can do is try to mitigate the damage."

Only silence greeted this.

When it came to August, though, there was no such thing as true silence. His face may have been impassive, but rebellion ran hard through his ever-present magic, like diamond struck by a hammer. It was clear that he strongly disagreed with his emperor's words, but it seemed he would not argue his corner.

Zeref found himself wondering why not. Was it out of respect? Certainly, it was unusual for August to speak against him, but he was already being unusually audacious that morning.

No, Zeref knew why. August was sentimental, romantic. He gave great weight to emotions – both his own and those of others – and let them dictate his actions. It wasn't that he didn't consider the consequences as much as he measured them against a completely different yardstick to Zeref, and the conclusions he drew from doing so were often as bewildering to Zeref as they were insightful.

Zeref accepted this. After all, there was no point in having advisors who thought the same as he did.

Sometimes, though – times like this – it didn't help at all. August would have him do what he felt was right in his heart, regardless of the consequences, because he had not made the mistakes that Zeref had, and he did not have anything of his own at stake. It was too fundamental a difference between them to be overturned by mere words. So August did not try to force his own point of view, but instead showed that he remained willing to listen despite it, if it would help.

Still, Zeref appreciated the effort it must have taken for August to hold his tongue on the matter, to accept that his own personal view might be counterproductive to the conversation. Zeref did not know what had driven him here – except, as he had said, that he could go nowhere else – but while hoping for answers had clearly been a mistake, the small measure of solace he felt from trying was reassuring. There was something humbling about August's earnest desire to help, something painful, knowing that he had done nothing worthy of such feelings, yet unable to deny them.

"You don't have to fight," Zeref said impulsively.

"I'm sorry?" August inquired, thrown by the change of topic.

"When the war begins," Zeref murmured. "I won't make you fight if you don't want to. I don't mind if you want to sit this one out."

The old mage stared at him for an inscrutable moment, and then asked, "Why?"

Zeref bristled. They both knew full well why; he'd be damned if he was going to say it. Instead, he said, choosing his words with care, "I know it will be difficult for you."

Slowly, August answered, "There is nothing difficult in fighting for you, or for my friends, or for my country."

"You know what I mean," Zeref scowled.

"I am not so sure that I do."

There was a rare edge to August's voice, as far as possible from the gratitude that should have been there. "Fine," Zeref snapped, getting to his feet. "If that's how you want to be, then fine. You will fight and kill and die for me."

"Of course I will."

The complacency of those words only irritated Zeref further. His gesture had been thrown back in his face; the sense of peace that had compelled him to make it was gone.

Turning on his heel, he would have marched angrily from the garden had a soft voice not stopped him.

"I can do that for you easily," August told him, "because, despite what you may think, I have no ties to that place or that guild. My entire life is here, with you. But yours isn't, is it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Zeref said shortly.

"I don't believe that this is about me at all. You need me to accept your offer, because if someone else is reluctant to go to war, it would justify your own reluctance. You want someone to tell you that it's okay not to do this."

"That," Zeref growled, his voice a deadly whisper, "is out of line."

August bowed his head a little. "Your Majesty."

It was acquiescence and apology, but one Zeref would not have received had he not demanded it. August accepted that he was wrong to have spoken out, but not that what he said was wrong.

"Do not forget your place," Zeref hissed. "You have no right to speak to me like that. Do not presume you understand what I want or what I will do to obtain it."

"Then I shan't." August spoke calmly, not cowed by the implicit threat. "I will merely observe that, were you anyone else, I would tell you that it is the height of stupidity for a man who is beholden to no one to fight a war he doesn't want out of some twisted sense of obligation. If you know it will make you unhappy, don't do it… is what I would say to him."

"Yes, but this hypothetical man of yours hasn't spent centuries building towards this one critical moment," Zeref snapped back.

"If you have the right to plunge the entire world into war for your own selfish reasons, then you certainly have the right not to do so," August retorted. "Hypothetically speaking, of course."

Zeref opened his mouth to argue, and then closed it again. It was terrifying how easily this man could see through him. It always had been. He knew far too much – things Zeref knew he had never told him, things he couldn't possibly have worked out on his own.

And yet, it didn't bother him as much as it might have done.

The thought that someone knew him so well wasn't unpleasant. It was frightening, but also comforting, just as he had felt beneath the stars in Lucy's arms; the safety of knowing that they had already seen the worst of him, and he had nothing more to lose.

"You're right, I can't make the choice for you," August was saying. "But at least I can remind you that you have a choice. It's alright to change your mind." Then he smiled, and added, "It's alright to change."

"You're doing it again," Zeref scowled.

"Doing what?"

"Pretending to be wise."

"Maybe I'm not pretending."

"You must be, since this has been the most unhelpful conversation I have ever had in my life, save for its use in reaffirming my belief in the pointlessness of these conversations."

Another faint smile, warmer than the rising sun. "That's because you'd rather dance around your problems in awkward metaphors than actually talk about them. But, that's okay. It's a start. No one expects you to change four centuries of habits overnight."

"Maybe you don't," Zeref grumbled, and August smiled again.

"She's good for you."

"I know. That's how I know it's going to end in disaster."

"Why are you so fixated on how it will end? You're living now, aren't you?"

Zeref narrowed his eyes. "I suppose that's another meaningless statement you're going to try and pass off as cryptic."

There was a rush of fondness in that old magic, so strong Zeref's chest ached in sympathy with it; undeserved, unasked for, but not, in that moment, unwanted.

All August said was, "It wasn't supposed to be cryptic."

"Well, it certainly wasn't wise."

"Maybe not, though I live in hope that if you have grown up enough to acknowledge that you have a problem and seek advice on it, you will one day come to understand the value of such simple words, too." There was a pause, and then August said, "Your Majesty, may I make a very selfish request?"

"What is it?"

"That, if you still can't decide what to do about your problem, you pick the option that will let you stay as happy as you have been these past few weeks."

"Happy?" Zeref echoed, startled. "I'm not happy! I'm frustrated, and confused, and I've got to pick between whether it'd be better to be hurt now or later!"

"I know that," August told him softly. "But before you met her, it seemed like you were hurting all the time."

Zeref glanced away as the stones hummed happily around him. That was quite enough thoroughly unpredictable conversation for one day – his fault, he supposed, for coming here as himself, rather than as the emperor they were used to. Space twisted around him, and he vanished. Off to somewhere quieter. Somewhere less confusing.

Even so, he knew his thoughts would follow him there, and he wondered if not being able to run from them was a curse or a blessing.

The solitude was quick to return to the garden of stone, although the peace was not. Closing his eyes, August tried to settle back into a comfortable position, but the stone slab beneath him had grown new ridges and his bones were a little too old to do this for prolonged periods and the birds were louder than he had realized… all of which were more logical explanations for his inner restlessness than the one he knew to be true.

He wasn't sure he had ever been so frank with his emperor before.

No, that was a lie – he had, once, seventy-six years ago, as he had faced his emperor across the silent sand of a silent Colosseum and refused to do what was demanded of him.

But on that day, he had had no choice.

This felt different. He had seen his emperor in a good mood before, certainly, but never had he been so… open. So responsive. So human.

And maybe this time, this time, he was going to stay that way.

Vistarion, X716

The spell was called Ars Magia.

It was ritual magic: something given, something taken away. The gift bestowed was the resonance of atmospheric magic, which, used properly, would superheat the air and kill all living creatures in range without fail. The price was the caster's life. It left nothing behind but melted earth and grotesque corpses, and even the ancients had branded it forbidden.

Many years ago, an immortal who despaired of his own existence had sought the ritual out – not for the devastation it could bring, for he was capable of far greater devastation all by himself, but for the cost of using it. He did not care how many people died, as long as he was one of them. It was an old magic, older than he was, and powerful. The hope that it might kill him was slim, but he had already tried everything with better odds.

It did not kill him.

Unable to overcome his immortality, Ars Magia joined the list of magics that had failed him, and he moved on. Less than an hour later, he was back to building his empire and planning for the future, having already forgotten just one more failed suicide attempt.

Centuries later, a lost child who could speak in tongues he had never heard and recite word for word books he had never read, tried to invoke that very same ritual. Through a quirk of magic, he had inherited not just genes from his parents, but also flashes of their memories – and amidst the scattered visions of his father's life, he had seen the failed attempt to use Ars Magia. The boy did not know what the ritual would do when invoked. As far as he was aware, the purpose for which his father had invoked it – the termination of his own life – was its only purpose, and that was all he needed.

The boy had not inherited his father's immortality.

The ritual would have taken his life and obliterated the town around him, had it not been stopped by a passing mage, who had pulled the boy out of the ritual circle and devised a counter-ritual on the spot.

A passing mage, who also happened to be his father.

Who, despite not knowing it himself, had offered the boy a home, a teacher, a life; had reached out to the boy who had nothing and given him everything.

Ars Magia was an awful magic. He knew that now, thanks to his strict instruction on ritual lore.

But at the same time, it had brought them together.

The boy had wanted it to end his life, and in a way, it had. It had ended that life of running and hiding, of fear and hatred, of not knowing who he was or why he was or why he had to be.

It had taken his lonely existence as the sacrifice, and in return, it had given him someone to love.

For twelve years, he had devoted himself to the man who had saved him. He had learnt magic and politics, forged alliances and practised strategy, and as he had progressed from gifted to exceptional, from important to irreplaceable, that man had come to depend on him in return.

Looking back, it was almost like a dream. They weren't family, not in the way he had always secretly longed for, but they were together, and for a lost boy, that had been enough.

Perhaps it was a dream.

Perhaps Ars Magia really had killed him, and this was… somewhere else.

Perhaps there would be greater dreams ahead.

That was the thought August clung to, as he passed though the city gates.

The guards saluted him as they would an officer of the highest order, immediately raising the gate without having to be asked, never mind that curfew had begun at the sun's first kiss to the horizon and a land not yet unified was a dangerous one after sundown.

They hadn't heard yet, then.

No one seemed to have heard.

Not the stablehand or the young soldier August considered his closest friends, who had already opened the bottle of moonshine they had been saving for his ascension to the ranks of the Twelve; they waved away his insistence that he had failed the final trial with the drunken certainty that it was all a bad joke.

Not the palace guards, who had bowed to him like they bowed to His Majesty, for they assumed he was second in importance only to him, now.

Not the strangers who stopped to congratulate him on the street, ignorant of the true nature of the emperor's final trial but convinced that he had passed it nonetheless.

He had stopped correcting them a while ago.

Through the gates he walked, out into the darkening world, and he did not stop until the city was out of sight – and out of the reach of even his prodigious magic.

The spell was called Ars Magia.

He understood it now in a way he hadn't, back then. He knew not only how to cast it, but how the casting of it brought such destruction into being; how each scratch on the ground contributed to the single precise pattern that invoked it; how those ancient words could unweave what was and change the trajectory of nature.

Last time, he had had to draw each rune with chalk and bloodied knuckles. This time, he held the entire ritual in his head, and burnt the rune circle into the short grass in a blast of fiery wind. That had been a favourite trick of his father's – the first technique, perhaps, that he had taught his son in person, rather than by unwitting accident.

Symmetry, at the start and end of everything. It was almost too perfect. Just like the last twelve years had been: too much of a coincidence, too much of a dream. He had been too young to realize it back then. Now, he knew better.

August stood in the heart of the smoking ritual circle, pressed the end of his staff into the ground, and grasped it with both hands. Magic murmured around him, soft and understanding. At his command, the circle would ignite. This insignificant corner of the world would blaze and burn out, taking with it the only living thing around: himself.

His own worthless, forsaken life.

Magic flowed down the staff, filling the scorch-marks on the ground one by one like channels diverting a mighty river. Light came first – barely visible below a fiery sky – and then the heat. It was mild to start with, as the air slowly picked up the vibrations, only to be shaken back out of their dangerous rhythm by convection currents of their own making.

Then he bent his will to it, and even the wind fell in line. Magic sank its claws deep into his heart. He relished the sound of the point of no return whooshing past his ears. It was out of his hands, now. Nothing lay ahead but nothing itself, twelve years too late, coming home to it at last.

A jolt ran through the circle.

His eyes flew open. Panicking, he tried to force the atmosphere back under his control, but the magic slipped through his fingers like a knot coming undone, like the world he had bound to his command coming free.

The air stilled. The heat vanished. His heart beat once, tentatively, and then took up its old, hateful rhythm again as if nothing had happened.

A voice snapped, "What do you think you're doing?"

For a moment, August almost, almost, hoped, because he was a gullible, sentimental fool.

But there was nothing kind about his father's voice. Nothing concerned. He turned to look into eyes that were as angry as they had been when he had refused to complete the trial, and that hope was gone.

"I'm leaving," he retorted. "Like you told me to."

His emperor made a swift, sharp gesture towards the rune circle he had negated. The sunset's light flashed a warning in his eyes. "This isn't exactly what I had in mind."

"That's odd," August replied, just as coldly, "since it seems to be your preferred way out of everything."

He saw the other visibly bristle, felt his anger like it was a tangible thing, and he could not stand it. After what His Majesty had tried to make him do in the arena, after he had treated August's tears and his love like they were nothing, the thought that he would intervene now was the greatest insult of all.

He would not listen to another word from that hypocrite.

He would not take another minute of this life at his side.

It unnerved him how easily His Majesty had undone the ritual circle, but then again, he'd already known the counter, hadn't he? He had worked it out when he had saved a little boy's life twelve years ago – right before he had taken him in, given him a home, and trained him, all in the hope that the boy could one day be tricked into killing him.

Well, His Majesty wasn't the only one who had learnt since then.

August swept his arm out and a fourth circle of runes appeared to encompass the three already there. He understood this magic, now. The extension was a spell of his own devising, born of those few seconds of rebellious hate. There was no pre-devised counter-ritual. Not this time.

His emperor's eyes sharpened; master of magic that he was, he understood perfectly. "Stop this," he commanded.

The words sent a shiver down August's spine, but it was nothing compared to the fire of his magic as he re-ignited the ritual. He almost laughed. "You have made it very clear that I am no longer your servant, and therefore I have no obligation to obey you."

"Then I will make you," His Majesty snarled.

His next words were in another language entirely. Words of power tugged at the ritual August had improvised, testing it, picking apart its structure. Although his eyes never left August's, his fingers sketched out runes of his own with the air as his canvas, runes which came and went too quickly for August to glean any understanding of their purpose.

He couldn't. Surely. Not even His Majesty could counteract an enhanced ritual he had not even seen before that moment.

But as the magic latched onto August's soul, dragging him once more beyond the point of no return and into the enchanting inevitability of beyond, his once-teacher gave a triumphant cry and slammed his palm onto the circle.

The magic came undone with a sigh. Its energy fled, and the desperate soul which screamed to be taken with it was abandoned once more to its fate.

Spitting with rage, August rounded on his emperor, only to be met with equal and opposite fury. "You may not," His Majesty hissed. "Your life belongs to me."

"You had my life!" August howled. "I would have done anything for you, anything except what you asked of me, and you threw it away! You didn't want me! So no, I do not belong to you, and I will not obey you!"

"You don't have the right," he spat. "You can't simply choose not to be mine. Only I get to decide when you die, and until I do, you will live."

"Make me." Another layer flashed into existence around August's circle. Then another, and another, written into being as quickly as he could think of them. It didn't matter what each addition to the ritual did – whether it turned day into night, dragons into toadstools, the sky into poison, or ripped the souls from every living creature in the vicinity. All that mattered was that the cost of each spell was his life. Not until that moment had he realized how easily such terrible magic came to him.

The earth itself screamed with his pain, and it seemed his emperor was the only one unmoved by it.

"Very well," came his cold response. "You will not take from me what is mine."

His gaze swept across the glowing array – death in ten different incarnations, and counting.

Then there was no more time for arguing, only casting and counter-casting, calculating and recalculating. Every other muttered word was a number with some tangible legacy, equations which unravelled in the sketchbook of his mind. Reading. Interpreting. Finding answers where there should have been none.

Lines of light spiralled out faster and faster beneath August's feet – a spell too vast, too complex, to be perceived as a whole. It was all his emperor could do to throw together a counter to each separate consequence as it took effect. Each element took him a little more time to solve; every added layer let August heave their mental tug-of-war an inch closer to his final destination before the magic bound into his still-living heart was forced to release him again.

It was far easier to invoke a ritual than to counter one.

Far easier to kill than to protect.

Sweat was running down his emperor's face. Blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth as his lips worked their way through alphabets never meant to be uttered by man. He did not blink, but he did not see what was in front of him, either; his pupils roved separately through reams of imagined calculations. His hands trembled so uncontrollably it seemed he was making each new symbol appear through willpower alone.

And he died.

Over and over again.

Rituals which took a life as payment were always those which wrought great destruction in return. The air burned, the earth crushed, nightmarish visions seized him and swallowed him whole. More than once, the raw magical energy simply tore him apart before his curse sewed him back together again.

Yet His Majesty didn't scream. He didn't have the breath to waste on screams. Black wind whipped around him, fierce retaliation against this abuse of his immortality, but not even that could make headway against the storm of magic. No punishment could scare him off. No pain could stop him, as he dispelled, in a mere ten seconds, a ritual curse that scholars had spent lifetimes trying to understand, and he did it with blood seeping from his eyes and his own ribs poking through his chest.

And August made the mistake of looking at him.

And when he looked, he saw how hard his emperor – his beloved father – was fighting to keep him alive.

August couldn't understand why he was doing it.

In that moment of distraction, when he was thinking about that rather than his magic, the other broke through.

With a final, desperate cry, His Majesty pressed both hands into the ground and the entire ritual winked out.

The runes were no longer in a circle. The field in which August had first made his stand had been, at times, a writhing desert, a toxic swamp, a floodplain of lava, a metallic hell, and it was now a barren and disjointed wasteland; the charcoal corpses of burnt-out runes were scattered across crags and chasms as if they had crawled there to try and escape this madness.

August watched as his emperor attempted to get back to his feet, only to collapse again. He remained on his hands and knees, shoulders heaving as if the air he breathed was still noxious, unable to so much as raise his head in triumph.

His Majesty had ended the bastardized casting of Ars Magia, but he hadn't won.

It was a battle of attrition, and phenomenal though his power may have been, the cost of spontaneously creating counter-rituals was greater. All August had to do was invoke the simplest form of the ritual once more, and it didn't matter that His Majesty knew how to counter it. He no longer had the strength to do so.

But August could do it any time he wanted, now.

It could wait until he got his answers.

"Why?" he demanded. "Why are you so insistent on keeping me alive when you don't even want me?"

The other wiped blood from his mouth and did not respond.

"Are you going to apologize?" August challenged. "Tell me you forgive me? Promise that you'll never try to make me kill you again, as long as I come back with you?"

A wild cry took flight over the wasteland. "I don't want you back! I want you to leave and never return! I don't ever want to see you again!"

"Then what does it matter if I die?" August howled back. "You won't have to see me either way!"

"I don't care if you die! I just don't want to be the reason why you die!"

There was a brief and bewildered silence.

"You're the only reason why I live," August pointed out. "Of course you'd be the reason why I die!"

"Well, I don't want that!"

Tough, August thought, but the flame wasn't yet formed upon his lips when His Majesty raised his head. The infinite blackness in his eyes held him in place far better than any anger.

"You told me," His Majesty rasped, "that you wouldn't seek to stop me from ending my own life. You only objected to being the cause. Well, I refuse to be the reason why you die. If you expect me to accept your terms, you have to accept mine. Do you understand, August?"

"No," he said, because he didn't, not at all. "Why do you even care about that?"

"Because I promised that I would look after you. And while I am terrible at keeping promises, being the very person responsible for your death would be too great a betrayal even for me."

Uncertainly, August asked, "Promised… who?"

"Mavis, of course. I swore it upon her grave. Because I couldn't do anything for her, not any more, but I could do something for you."

"Then," August began, and faltered. "You know- that she's-"

"Your mother?" There was a bark of laughter – harsh, but more because of the rawness of his throat than any kind of malice. "Of course I know; do you think I'm blind? You have her eyes. And… you look so much like her. I suppose not so much now you're grown, but when you were a child, you really did." His head fell once more, and he whispered his next words to the ground. "Sometimes I can feel her magic in yours. It makes me so sad… and so relieved, in a way I can't describe. Like it's not quite so bad that she's gone."

"Why-? If you knew, why did you never say anything?"

"Why would I? I don't want to have this conversation even now. I knew you must have recognized me from the memories you inherited through her magic, but if you weren't going to bring it up, it was easier to pretend I didn't know."

"I was always too afraid to bring it up!" August exclaimed. After twelve years of silence, the words came out in a giddy rush. "I thought you'd push me away for sure if you knew! I've always thought it was a curse, that I could be so close to you but could never tell you the truth. But if you know- and you're okay with knowing- that you- that you're-"

"I think I'm okay with it. I just… will you tell me one thing? I don't know if you'll know the answer, but depending on what you have of her memories… you might."

"Of course!"

Unable to bring himself to look up, his emperor stared at the ashes and the dust below him, and asked, "Was it before me, or after me?"

"I… I'm sorry?" August stammered, thrown.

"No," he said, thoughtfully, answering his own question. "I don't think it could have been after. Once she realized that I was right and she really was cursed, she would have run away from other people, not towards them. But when I spoke to her, she was so excited that Yuri was about to be a father. If she herself had been with child, she would definitely have mentioned it. So all I can think is that she was pregnant when we were reunited, but she didn't know about it yet. It took me a year to find her again, and in that time… well, by then, she would have known that her curse would kill you if she kept you. That's the only situation under which she would ever have given you up, I know it."

He steeled himself and glanced up. "Am I right?"

August stared. Stared at the desperate need to know glimmering in his emperor's eyes. Stared at the earnest soul within.

And he laughed. It was bitter and painful; the sound tore like sobs from his throat as he screwed his eyes shut, caught somewhere between a grimace and a smile. "You are so close, and so very far away. As you always are."

August raised his head to the sky, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. He hadn't cried once in twelve years, and now today, it seemed as though he couldn't stop. "You have it exactly right," he lied. "It was before she met you again, and she didn't know at the time."

"And… your father…" It was clear that he didn't want to ask any more than he could stop himself from asking. "If you inherited memories from him as well, then you should have been able to find him, but you haven't done so… so I presume he's either dead, or doesn't know about you, and isn't the kind of person to accept you even if he did."

"Dead," August said shortly.

"I see."

The silence was so deep he thought he would wither away before His Majesty found the courage to break it.

"I can't do it," murmured his emperor. "I can't be your family, and I certainly can't be your father. I always knew that, and yet… I wanted to try away. I thought that if I could do something for you, maybe Mavis would be able to forgive me, when next we met… and now look at what my selfishness has done."

"You've done so much for me," August insisted, blinking back the tears. "I love you." And then, on impulse, "I have always thought of you as my father."

"I'm happy to hear that," came the soft response. "But you have to understand that I can never love you back."

August closed his eyes. "I do understand."

"Do you? I will use you and I will hurt you, far more so than I have today. You will only have a safe home here for as long as you are useful to me."

"I know. I do." Because, for the sake of this man – who believed him to be the child of the woman he had loved and another man, but had taken him in anyway – he could tolerate all that and more.

"Then, knowing that, do you still want to come back with me?"

August had been hoping for that invitation, but… "Will you promise not to try anything like that again?"

"No. I can't do that, not even for you. But I can promise that I won't involve you again. Can that be enough?"

When August hesitated, he added, "You frighten me. You always have. You can see straight through me; I cannot explain to you how much that terrifies me. Today, you tore me apart in front of eleven people I needed to impress, because I cannot count on their loyalty the way I can count on yours. I was scared. That's why I acted like I did."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," August responded, feeling his heart lurch with guilt. "I just want to understand you."

"That's what makes you dangerous," he murmured. Then, stronger, he asked, "Will you come back with me?"

"Yes. Yes, of course I will."

"Thank you."

As if a spell had been broken, August stepped out of the dead ritual circle and hurried to where his emperor still knelt, exhausted, in the wasteland of their struggle. "You're hurt, let me help-"

"Don't." The word flashed out like a blade. "It isn't a good idea for you to come close to me right now."

"Oh," he said, feeling silly.

"And I'm not hurt. It's all in my head." His body had healed long ago. The weakness was entirely in a mind being constantly torn in two. "It doesn't like it when I abuse its power to save lives instead of taking them. Especially when my motives are… personal. I want you to stay with me. I must pay the price for that."

"I love you," August murmured, wishing he could do more for the man who was suffering for the impudence of daring to care about him. "Thank you for… for giving me back my life."

"Go back to the palace. Get some rest. We're going to war tomorrow."

"I will be there, Your Majesty." It was with great effort that August managed to turn away from his still-kneeling emperor, and even then, he didn't manage more than one step. "Your Majesty… may I ask you a very impertinent question?"

There was a sigh of resignation. "I asked one of you earlier, so I suppose you may."

"When we first met, did you… did you ever wonder if I was your son?"

"Of course I wondered," came the terse response. "Who wouldn't? But, it's impossible. She died. So rather than wasting time on what could have been, I asked instead what I could do with what was." His eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Please forgive my curiosity." He bowed deeply. It was a common act in this place, yet it was also one of the most heartfelt things he had ever done. "I will join the army at sunrise, Your Majesty."

Vistarion, The Present Day

August had never forgotten what his emperor and father had told him that day, although neither of them had ever spoken of it again.

Their relationship hadn't been perfect over the years. They were emperor and servant first and foremost; sometimes they failed each other, sometimes they disagreed. All too often, His Majesty was too wrapped up in his own problems to do more than expect perfect obedience from those around him. He rarely treated August differently from the others, save by virtue of his ever-increasing power and experience and loyalty as the years went by.

And August didn't want to be treated differently. He didn't want to draw attention to anything that would disturb His Majesty's delicate and necessary mental equilibrium. He understood better than anyone what it meant to love a man so cursed. He would be the servant and the weapon that His Majesty needed him to be. He would remain always at his side.

He had found his peace a long time ago.

His father never had.

In the garden of stones, August got slowly to his feet, alone. "I want you to be happy," he told the bench where his father had sat and struggled to ask for help. "It's about time that you allowed yourself to love again."

With a smile, he set off back towards the palace – towards another day of war preparations, which, for the first time, he allowed himself to hope might prove unnecessary.

Oh, he would fight the war if he had to. As he had told His Majesty, it would cost him nothing to do so, because it meant fighting for the only family he had ever known.

But it would cost his father a great deal, and August could only hope he would realize that before it was too late.

There was a letter waiting for Lucy when she stepped into her house in Crocus.

It wasn't the elegant black script she had grown familiar with – handwriting honed in a time when it had been considered an art – and she wasn't sure whether that made her feel upset or relieved. Banishing the thought, she slid the note out of the envelope and began to read.

Lucy-

Word has spread. Our friends have told the story of Fairy Tail's revival in every town they passed through on their way to Magnolia. Those of us who are here already have sent letters to those who have not. Forty of us have assembled at the guildhall, with more arriving every day.

You did it, Lucy.

We're all looking forward to seeing you again.

Mira

P.S. We'll be finished by the First of September, don't you worry.

The postscript confused her until she found a small photograph in the bottom of the envelope. It depicted the Fairy Tail guildhall. Well, it wasn't a really a guildhall, not yet; it was two-and-a-bit storeys of poles and breeze blocks, lacking a roof, windows, and anything to declare it the home of Fiore's greatest guild, save the achingly familiar backdrop of Lake Magnolia.

And yet she could feel her guild's spirit calling to her in every hand-laid brick.

They were rebuilding. All of them, together.

That was her guild, and she had not realized how much she had been looking forward to seeing Fairy Tail back together until she found herself blinking away tears.

She wanted to be with them.

And yet…

The reunion wasn't officially taking place until the First of September. Many people weren't planning on returning until that date, having business from the past ten months to wrap up elsewhere. Lucy hadn't intended to return before then either, but equally, she had assumed she would be questing with Zeref up until the death. Now, it seemed her quest was over, and Zeref was…

Well, she didn't know where Zeref was, or if he would come back.

She hoped he would, though.

Enough that she slid the photograph and the letter back into the envelope, set it on the dresser, and did not run for the first train to Magnolia.

She would wait until the Summer Ball, she decided. On one hand, she felt certain he would return for the ball. It was the only way he would solve the puzzle of what her magic may or may not have been doing to the fabric of reality – and if there was one thing Zeref couldn't stand, it was knowing that there was something about magic that he didn't know.

On the other hand… why, of all things, did it have to be a ball? Why couldn't the Eclipse Gate have been built in a dungeon filled with monsters and traps? Adventuring together was just what they did. By contrast, infiltrating a ball together had… connotations. Connotations which hadn't mattered in the slightest back when they had come up with this plan, but which might matter now.

Lucy was going to go to the ball. Alone, if she had to. Princess Hisui had been kind enough to grant her an invitation; Lucy would not shame her by refusing to show up.

But if she was there alone, the very next morning she would make tracks for Magnolia and not look back.

Before she knew it, the Summer Ball was at hand.

Lucy was ready. In fact, she was so nervous she had been ready at least an hour beforehand – nervous about the upcoming high-society event, because she hadn't belonged in a place like this since she had run away to join Fairy Tail, but also about the increasing likelihood that she would be facing this challenge alone.

Not that that had stopped her from looking her best. A navy-blue ballgown hung from a single shoulder; the servants of the Heartfilia household had ensured that she knew how to dress, even though she had not had reason to do so for a long time. She had her mother's jewellery, too: silver and sapphires for her wrist, and matching chains ending in a star apiece for her ears. How long they had been in her family, she did not know, but after everything she had learnt from Zeref, she was willing to bet it had been more generations than even her mother had guessed. Despite this, she left the matching necklace at home. The acorn of the Aureum Oak, still hanging from her neck on its ethereal chain, meant more to the Heartfilia family than any wealthy heirloom.

One more glance in the mirror, one more moment fiddling with the clasp of her bracelet, and then she could put it off no longer. Zeref wasn't coming. She had to go on her own.

There was a knock at the door.

She hurried to the door as quickly as her legs would carry her – her ability to fight in a floor-length dress was second only to Erza's – and threw herself at the latch. And there, on the doorstep, was…

Not Zeref.

In fact, she didn't have a clue who it was.

She stared, dumbfounded, at this blue-grey-eyed stranger, wearing a suit that might have been made for a royal ball but would have looked utterly ridiculous on her actual date, who was still nowhere to be seen.

"Miss Heartfilia?" the stranger asked.

At last she found her voice: "Who the hell are you?"

If her tone bothered him, this mysterious gentleman gave no sign of it. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he swept into a bow that belonged in an illustrated book of fairy tales. "My name is Invel Yura," he said. "His- I mean, Zeref sends his apologies for being unable to attend the Summer Ball tonight, and has requested for me to accompany you in his place, if you are willing."

Lucy stared.

Then she stared some more.

Then she screeched, "I'm sorry, what?"