The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Between Heaven and My Life, Part 4
-Cost and Consequence-
The second time Lucy woke up, Zeref was gone.
That was okay. He had warned her that he might have to leave; that distance might well be the best way to manipulate his own emotions into letting her live. Considering the lengths to which he had gone to not even sleep in the same building as her at the start of their quest, she couldn't exactly complain that he hadn't stayed beside her the whole night. She swallowed her disappointment, got out of bed, and took a shower. As she had promised, she would not push him for more than he was able to give.
Not that she hadn't hoped for it, though. So when she stepped into the kitchen to find Zeref sat at the kitchen table, pen in hand, five books representing five different stages in the life cycle of a book – from 'latest edition bought on his shopping trip with Levy' to 'should be in a museum' – open in front of him, the happiness that came flooding in was so simple, so right, that she could not imagine a single thing she wanted that her life did not already have.
Leaning on the doorframe, Lucy took a moment just to watch him work – doing his own thing, but doing it in her house, in her life. Not because he had to, for the quest, but because he wanted to. "Zeref?"
He didn't react. Knowing him, he probably hadn't heard her. Trying not to smile – and failing miserably – she approached him. He didn't notice her until she was close enough to reach out and touch him, and then he noticed her all at once, a flash of instinctive fear melting into warmth like an ice cube thrown into an oven. "Lucy. Sorry. I had a thought and I needed to write it down."
Lucy let her eye run pointedly over the multitude of books baring their secrets to him, and the pages and pages of his own notebook he had filled already that morning. If not for her glimpse of his sleeping self, too real and true to have been a dream, she would have doubted he had slept at all.
"And that thought led to another, and another, and…"
"It's alright," she smiled. "It's more than alright."
To prove her point, she wrapped her arms around him from behind, hoping to return to him the same sense of sanctuary she had felt beside him last night – only to immediately regret it as he tensed like startled prey. She let go at once. It was easy to forget that he wasn't like everyone else; that there was nothing normal about this relationship.
"I'm sorry," she murmured guiltily. "I forgot that you don't like being touched."
He twisted to regard her with solemn eyes. "It's not that I don't like it. It's not like that it all. It's just a very old fear: if you're close enough to touch me, you're close enough to die. My first reaction to that is still to run, even though I'm much better at controlling it now than I ever was. It's… the product of a time when the only people who came close enough to touch me did so out of ignorance, rather than through choice."
He took hold of her arm and tugged it almost teasingly towards him; she stepped forward and let her arms slide around him again. This time, she wouldn't have noticed the flicker of hesitation if she hadn't been looking out for it, as he brought all his formidable willpower to bear against that unruly instinct and relaxed into her.
"I'll be more careful," she promised, because if it meant she got to hold him more often, she would do whatever it took.
He murmured his thanks. They lapsed into silence, marked only by the rhythmic scratching of his pen. She didn't understand its dance, but she knew the steps very well indeed – the skips of inspiration, the scurrying of his fingers as they struggled to keep up with the tempo of his thoughts, the pauses as he waited for the music to change, the inspiration to hit.
She wondered aloud, "Is this about that hole in space?"
"Mm."
"That one's not in your writing," she pointed out, indicating the open notebook next to the one he was using.
"It's Anna's. I thought that if anyone understood the consequences of World Magic, it would be her."
"May I see?" He nodded, so she let him go – without reluctance, because he was hers now, and she could have him back whenever she wanted – and picked up the notebook, turning it wondrously in her hands.
To Lucy, Anna was nothing more than a character in a story. She may have been Lucy's ancestor, and the source of her magic, but it was so long ago that it was difficult to feel any direct connection to her. It was history, but it might as well have been myth.
Now, she held in her hand something that had once belonged to Anna – something that was real. She couldn't read those archaic letters, but in another way, she could. This was the script of someone who had little care for formality, ten times messier than Zeref's. It wasn't about trying to get published or winning the respect of her fellow scholars; it was about ruthlessly hunting down the truth.
In those pages, she saw an imprint of the woman Zeref had described to her: a woman who had been proud, incredible, unashamed, and inspirational; who had been everything to Zeref, and who had done more for him than anyone before or since.
Lucy wished she could have met her.
Blinking back tears she did not want to have to explain, she pressed the notebook quickly back into Zeref's hand. "It's in very good condition, for something four hundred years old," she deflected.
"I've had it in my Requip Space all this time. The concept of entropy doesn't really exist there, so yes, it was preserved well."
Bemused, she pointed out, "But the other books you keep there are…"
"I use those ones on a regular basis. I take them out and swap them with books in my library; sometimes, I even lend them to others. Most of them had owners before me, or were lost for some time before they came into my possession. But Anna's notebook… I never forgot I had it, but perhaps I was as afraid to acknowledge it as I was to get rid of it."
"Does it… have the answer you're looking for?"
"Not in and of itself, although it did get me thinking. When I first saw the hole in space with my own eyes, my first thought was, what is on the other side? What could possibly be beyond reality? Now I wonder if a better question isn't, what is between our reality and other realities? And I recalled Anna's observation, the one that started everything."
He flicked through the notebook to a page that looked the same, to Lucy, as any other – covered in mathematical notation she could almost follow, and archaic runes she couldn't follow at all. There were, however, more crossings-out on that page than any other, annotations in different colours of ink, and even comments in Zeref's handwriting.
"The space-between-time term," he explained, tracing his finger over the page with unconscious reverence. "The mathematical phenomenon that made no sense in reality. We named it that because, at its core, it had dimensions of space when it should have had dimensions of time, and dimensions of time when the equation was transformed to describe space instead. It was the breakthrough that kicked off our entire investigation into World Magic. But what if it's more than a mathematical anomaly? What if it does have physical meaning? What if, in the model of the universe we've created, there is something between this world and other worlds like Edolas? A physical something beyond the stellar sphere? A place of nothing or of magic or of void, and that is what I sensed through the hole that you – we – may have torn in space?"
"…Right," Lucy said, because it was probably the right thing to say. "Wasn't that what you were saying last night, though?"
"No. Last night, I was speaking purely conceptually. There's a difference between conceptual reality, mathematical reality, and physical reality. Yet I think we may need all three to reach the truth."
"I'll take your word for it."
"…Sorry."
Sheepish, he glanced up at her. She had to fight not to roll her eyes; she would sooner cut off her own foot than stop him from speaking so passionately about the one thing he was allowed to love without repercussion.
"Anyway, maybe you can fill me in once you've got a bit further. I've got errands to run in town. If I don't go shopping now, there won't be anything for lunch."
Zeref stared down at his appropriated workspace, and then stood up decisively. "I need to go shopping too. I need some more books."
"Don't you have enough books?"
"What a ridiculous question."
Lucy had naively assumed that they would be going out together, but apparently the kind of books the Black Mage was looking for were more likely to be found at the end of a universe-ripping dimensional hop than any of the high street chains. He disappeared off to some mysterious place, and she went into Crocus on her own. He still wasn't back by the time she finished her errands, but she was sure he wouldn't be long.
She was just drafting a letter back to Mira informing her that she wasn't coming straight back to the guild – while trying not to give any hints as to why – when the doorbell rang, and she skipped over to answer it eagerly.
She should probably have learnt by now to be a little more wary.
The person on her doorstep was a similar height and build to Zeref, but that was all they had in common. Her jade-green hair was woven with a string of silver and crystal beads, reminiscent of the tiara she had been wearing at the ball the night before but a lot less likely to draw attention. The long coat she wore was doing an admirable job of concealing her regal dress, although the fact that Arcadios was stood a few paces behind her in full armour ruined the effect somewhat.
Lucy stared at the princess standing on her doorstep with a feeling like the house, the street, and even Crocus itself was crumbling around her, leaving nothing but a void beckoning her to fall. "Uh oh…"
"You know," Hisui remarked, bemused, "a lot of cultures have very different ways of greeting princesses, but I've never encountered 'existential dread' before."
Lucy swallowed audibly. "Your Royal Highness, I am so sorry-"
Hisui waved away her words with a smile. "May I come in?"
"…Yes, of course."
Arcadios gave her a mistrustful look, but remained outside, one hand on his sword. As Lucy stood aside in a vain attempt to make her uninvited guest look invited, she couldn't help reflecting on the fact that she had lived here alone for ten months and not a single weird thing had happened. Then, the moment she'd signed up for a Fairy Tail quest again, her house had been trashed by a Dragon Slayer, repaired by the Black Mage himself (who had pretty much moved in now, books and all), visited by the mysterious man the princess had called Lord Invel Yura, and now it was currently playing host to the heir to the Kingdom of Fiore. Maybe, if Lucy played her cards right, she could get her landlady to pay her for the appreciation in value.
Something for her to consider once she had talked her way out of summary execution by the state, that was.
"Look," Lucy tried, seizing the initiative while the princess was still removing her travelling coat. "I'm really sorry about what happened at the ball. I can explain."
The princess arched one eyebrow in a way that had to have been taught – and presumably by the same person who had taught Erza. "Can you?"
"…Probably not. But I can try?"
Hisui sighed, swan-like; graceful and surprisingly dangerous. "First, let me say that I am relieved to find you alive and well. I was very worried about you, Lucy. I thought I had put you in grave danger by sending you that invitation."
"You were worried? Why?"
Even the princess's disbelieving looks were terrifying. "Because, Lucy, shortly after my ball was interrupted by a powerful and uninvited stranger with a clear interest in you, both you and he disappeared entirely! Not long after that, I received word that two guards had been knocked out and intruders had gained access to the Old Workshop! In other words, a Celestial Spirit mage vanished just as someone broke into the room where the Eclipse Gate used to be – given our history with that device, Lucy, why do you think I was worried? It's a bad day indeed when you having been kidnapped for ransom is the best outcome I can envisage!"
"…Oh." Lucy sat down heavily, head in hands. The princess remained on her feet. "Okay. Right. That bit, I can explain. The person who broke into the workshop was me. I'm so sorry. I needed to investigate the ruins of the Eclipse Gate."
"So that's why you asked me for an invitation to the ball?"
Lucy nodded, ashamed. "I'm really sorry. It sounds ridiculous, but there's a hole in the fabric of reality and we needed to use the ruins of the Eclipse Gate to track it down before anything dangerous could come of it. If it wasn't so serious, I would never have deceived you."
"I suppose I shall stop worrying that the present is about to be attacked by dragons again, then," Hisui sighed. "Lucy, why didn't you just ask me for permission to see the Gate?"
"Would you have granted it to me? Honestly?"
The princess's rebuttal died on the lipstick-red of her lips. "No, probably not. I have been lied to too many times about that Gate by people I trusted, and it very nearly brought disaster upon us all. I think I would have kept even you from it. However…" The almost-sympathy faded from her voice as quickly as it had arrived. "I might have allowed it, had I known what the alternative would be!"
"I'm really sorry about attacking your guards, and I did try not to hurt them too much. And if it helps, we're well on our way to understanding what has gone wrong with the universe-"
"I'm not talking about the breaking-and-entering, Lucy! I'm talking about the part where you turned up at the Summer Ball with Invel freaking Yura as your plus-one!"
"I… what? Was that a problem?"
"A little bit of a problem, Lucy, yes! Now, if you're dating him, that's your business, not mine, and I did say you could bring whoever you want – but you could at least have given me a heads-up!"
"Okay," protested Lucy, "that one wasn't my fault, I swear! Even I didn't know I was going to the ball with him. I first met him about five minutes before we entered the palace, after my actual date stood me up and asked Invel to take me in his place."
The mage and the princess stared at each other for a painfully long time.
"That is the most unlikely thing I have ever heard in my life," Hisui sighed. "But it's true, isn't it?"
"Yeah. I honestly hadn't met Invel before that moment. I don't know anything about him, other than his name – and before you recognized him, I wouldn't even have put money on it being his real one."
"It is," the princess said shortly, and nothing more.
"I don't suppose you'd like to elaborate, would you?" Lucy ventured.
"Lord Invel Yura," Hisui responded heavily, "is the Chief of Staff to the Emperor of Alvarez."
"Alvarez? As in, the western empire?"
She nodded. "He's probably the second most important individual in their government – or perhaps the first, as far as Fiore is concerned, since their emperor has very little to do with diplomatic affairs. I know Lord Yura because myself, my father, our allied kingdoms, and the Magic Council have spent the past few years trying to convince him and his own council that Ishgar would be more useful to them if they allied with us rather than annexed us."
"…Oh."
"Oh? Is that all you have to say? You're a reporter, aren't you? You should know this!"
Lucy threw up her hands. "In my defence, the Weekly Sorcerer is less international politics and more Twelve Sexy Reasons To Learn Take Over Magic."
There was a brief pause. "What, really?" asked Hisui's eyebrow.
"It was just twelve photos of Mira posing in her different forms," Lucy sighed sadly. "Jason got a lot of complaints for that one, mostly from people who didn't realize you actually had to go out and beat the demons you wanted to take magic from…"
When Hisui's expression didn't lessen, Lucy continued, hastily, "Anyway, back on topic – I knew the empire wasn't exactly our best friend, but I didn't know things were that bad."
"That's because we've been trying to keep it quiet," Hisui admitted. "Things calmed down at around the time your guild disbanded – diplomatic channels were re-opened, military ships were no longer seen prowling around naval trading routes, that sort of thing. We thought that maybe they'd realized they owned enough of the globe, and had decided to leave us alone. Then, in the past month or so – and this is what we've been keeping from the press – relationships have deteriorated completely. The ambassador in Crocus refuses to hold an audience with us. All attempts to communicate with the palace in Vistarion are met with silence. Trade has ceased. There are warships out there, Lucy, on the very edge of international waters, ignoring entreaties, ignoring threats, just sitting there, watching, waiting."
She paused to ensure, through the most severe look she could muster, that Lucy was not about to repeat that information to anyone. Only then did she add, "So yes, Lucy, you turning up at the palace with Alvarez's Chief of Staff in tow was kind of a big deal."
"Right," Lucy agreed weakly. Suddenly, Invel's protestations that this was a bad idea made a lot more sense.
She felt almost sorry for him. Zeref had landed her in a lot of awkward situations since their journey had begun – with the skill of a four-hundred-year-old strategist and the glee of a child – but that one didn't just take the biscuit; it passed a law making all biscuits in existence his property with immediate effect.
Her reaction must have been an understatement too, because Hisui had taken up pacing. Up and down, up and down, as if the answers could be dug out with enough persistence. "The thing is, Lucy, it wasn't Invel that worried me the most last night." Up and down. "It wasn't even the fear that someone might have been trying to travel through time again." Up and down; therapeutic for the pacer, unnerving as hell for the watcher. "It was that man who came for you halfway through. I presume, since you weren't in fact kidnapped, that he was your actual date for the night?"
Before the ball, Lucy would have said no, they were just teammates, investigating the Eclipse Gate together. Now, she felt vindicated in nodding, although this wasn't quite how she'd imagined acknowledging to the world that she and Zeref were together – towards a justifiably angry princess who Lucy thought was a friend but was probably well within her rights to have her hauled off to jail.
"If it helps," she ventured, "I know exactly who he is, and it isn't a problem, I swear."
"Do you?" Hisui's tone was darkly commanding, more than her father's had ever been. "Invel Yura deferred to him, Lucy. He doesn't do that to anyone. Kings, popes, colleagues, diplomats; no matter who he faces, Lord Yura is always coolly polite and nothing more. But he deferred to that man. And there's only one man in the whole world he should consider his superior, a man who has been detached from international affairs for so long that no one but his own advisors know who he is or what he looks like. Does that not worry you, Lucy?"
It hadn't, until she mentioned it.
It still didn't, not really, because Hisui didn't know that the man who had crashed her party was the Black Mage, and anyone who owed the terrifying, legendary Black Mage a favour would surely defer to him as Invel had. There was a perfectly rational explanation for it. There was no need to jump to such an extreme conclusion.
Was there?
She tried to laugh it off: "Surely you're not saying that he's-"
"I'm not saying anything. I was hoping you could tell me something, but if you don't know either, then I suppose I am back to square one."
"He's not- I mean-"
"All I know, Lucy, is that a man with power over Lord Yura somehow obtained the invitation belonging to the Ambassador of Alvarez and used it to gain entry to the palace, quite possibly to be with you; and that when our soldiers went to that same ambassador's residence this morning they found it empty, every official and servant disappeared into thin air. We are already this close to war with said ambassador's nation, and what I really need to know is this: is there anything you know, anything at all, that might, just might, be able to stop this from becoming a full-blown international incident?"
"…No," Lucy admitted. "I don't think I can help. Only to say, maybe, that I was told by someone I trust last night that it wasn't going to cause an international incident. I was joking at the time, but I think he might not have been. I know that's not much of a reassurance to you, but…"
When the princess sighed, it was the sigh of the entire kingdom, and every man, woman, and child whose futures were intertwined with hers. "Well, if we're lucky, all sides can agree that this was a humongous mess and collectively decide never to speak of it again," she said mournfully. "Fortunately, that seems to be Invel's preferred outcome, too."
"For what it's worth," Lucy spoke up, "what happened wasn't Invel's fault at all. He was roped into it entirely against his will. I'd feel a bit bad if he ended up in the dungeons because of me…"
"Oh, don't worry. We're trying to avoid a war here, not start one; as soon as we've reached an agreement, he can go. In fact, the sooner he's out of my kingdom, the better."
"I really am sorry for the trouble this has caused you…" Lucy tried, well aware of how woefully inadequate those words were.
"Don't worry about it," spoke the future queen, with a shrug stuck somewhere between dismissal and grace. "Unless we end up at war over your dating life, in which case you'd better hope Alvarez gets to you before I do."
As Lucy gave a strangled smile, Hisui pulled her into a brief hug. "I'm glad you're alright, Lucy," she said, and then she was gone.
Shortly after Hisui and her guardian knight left, Lucy opened the door a second time to a much less frightening sight, and wouldn't the Lucy of a month ago have been astonished to hear her say that? Smiling as much to herself as to Zeref, she beckoned him inside. "You just missed a visit from Princess Hisui."
"Mm. I saw her knight outside your door and decided another lap around the block would probably be good for my health."
She laughed, because it was expected of her, but she also said, because it was true: "You should have come in."
When he looked a little uncomfortable at this suggestion, she added, "For instance, you could have reassured her that you didn't murder the real Ambassador to Alvarez and his family."
There was a pause. It was her turn to feel uncomfortable. "You didn't, did you?"
"Of course not. He's been wanting out for a while. I asked him for the invitation, and in return, I gave him my airship so that he and his household could return home." To her sceptical eyebrow, he added, "Technically, it was Invel's airship, but he stole it from me in the first place so don't feel bad for him."
"And you can't just explain that to the princess and put everyone's minds at ease?"
"Putting people at ease is not really what I do, Lucy," he responded lightly. "It's very rarely in my best interest."
"So I've noticed."
At this, he set down the bag he had been carrying, Requip Space full again already, and walked towards her. He did not stop until he was close, unusually close for him. Part of her – the part whose heart was sparking from mere proximity; who had always found his attention thrilling, even when it had promised danger – wanted to throw caution to the wind and kiss him until neither one of them cared about the words which had or hadn't been spoken. Another part of her saw the darkness in his eyes, and heard it in his footsteps. She wasn't afraid, but she knew when to be serious, when to listen.
"What's wrong?" Zeref asked her.
Until that moment, she hadn't known for sure. There was an authority in the question, and it was the same authority that had silenced an ostentatious crowd as he had swept into someone else's palace like he owned it.
She remembered Hisui's words – and, more importantly, Hisui's fears; not so much that he had disposed of the ambassador whose invitation he had stolen, but that he was, himself, the only one to whom Lord Invel Yura would bow his head.
Lucy had thought it ridiculous, because she knew the true identity of the intruder, and he was Zeref, her Zeref. The Black Mage. That was all.
Unless he was both.
Memories kept flashing unbidden through her mind.
Invel's reaction when she'd remarked that she'd thought Zeref was done keeping things from her – and everything else he had said, everything else he had done, before and after Zeref had appeared.
Zeref's spy network, incredible in its scope and thoroughly mundane in its methods; the perfect weapon for a hostile foreign power.
His casual remarks about his people, his other armies.
Consequences, consequences, consequences.
Not ridiculous, after all.
"What else did the princess say?" Zeref persisted, barely an inflection to suggest it was a question, because it wasn't, not really; he already knew exactly what Hisui had said.
Lucy's mouth was open, a rebuke on the tip of her tongue: is it true; are you really; why did you lie to me?
But she stopped herself without speaking any of those barbed words. He hadn't lied. Granted, she had never thought to ask, but he had never claimed to have told her everything either – nor had she asked him to do so.
He had given her so much already. Wasn't he allowed some part of himself to keep, like she had her guild?
And he had been willing to give it up for her.
He had known the consequences of going to the palace, but he had done so anyway, for her sake. He had deemed a stolen moment with her lips on his and their hearts in each other's hands more important than a secret he had spent years creating, nurturing, protecting.
She saw the darkness in his eyes, and knew it wasn't dangerous to her, but to himself. She would not, could not, take that from him.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
"Of course it matters."
Lucy raised her head and looked him in the eye, through the shadows to the anxiousness and fear and self-doubt they were hiding. "Not to me. If you want to tell me, you can tell me when you feel ready. If you don't want to tell me, it won't change a thing between us. You have given me enough of yourself, Zeref."
He heard. He understood. There was a moment when the darkness melted away, and he looked at her like she was everything, every hope and every sanctuary and every small act of kindness he had ever received, a love incomprehensible in its magnitude.
Abruptly, he turned away and was gone. Where he had been standing was only twisted space. Her celestial keys were vibrating unhappily, and the air trembled, a tension that dissipated with very great reluctance, as if it wanted her to realize just how close it had come to tearing her apart.
But it hadn't, and it had gone too quickly for her to fear it. Too quickly for her to feel anything but the depth of his feelings for her.
It was much later that he came back. The sky was dark beyond drawn curtains; the hour when she would have opened the door to a stranger's knock, had she not been hoping for his return, had long since passed.
He looked so broken, standing there on her doorstep. It was difficult to believe this was the same man whose mere presence had silenced the Summer Ball.
With tears in his eyes, he apologised for leaving – and, more, for coming back. For the danger he was putting her through. For acting as though this was still possible, after the secrets and the lies and the sacrifices.
She told him she'd always known it wasn't going to be simple.
"We could stop this," Lucy reflected, when he had calmed down enough to listen. "Being together, I mean. We could ignore the way we feel, ignore what we both know, and force ourselves to act like nothing more than teammates again. But if you stopped with the intention of protecting me, that would be just as dangerous, wouldn't it? The only way to remove the element of danger is for you to leave and not come back. I don't want you to leave. I want to be with you."
"I know," he whispered, not because it was all he felt, but because it was all he was allowed to whisper. "I know."
Ten months with no contact from anyone she loved, and now it seemed Lucy couldn't go more than a day without someone turning up on her doorstep.
It was safe to say that she hadn't been expecting anyone that morning. If she had, she would have made more of an effort to get out of bed at a reasonable time. It wasn't even that she was tired, only that her bed was where Zeref was, and he was worn out from wrestling his own unruly magic into line. He seemed content to lie there with her, drifting in and out of sleep, sometimes talking, sometimes listening, sometimes mumbling as her hands wove through his hair.
Then some hateful soul had gone and rung the doorbell.
If not for the fact that yesterday's unwanted visitor had been the princess of the realm – not someone she wanted to leave out on the doorstep – Lucy would probably have ignored it. With a groan, she staggered to her feet and embarked on the laborious quest of making herself presentable.
Zeref was clearly very amused by the whole affair. When she glared at his unabashed lack of solidarity, he sighed and got to his feet. The air around him shimmered, and when it dissipated, he was dressed in his usual robes.
"That's not fair!" Lucy exclaimed. "I thought you only had books in your Requip Space!"
"It's mostly books," he assured her, although he was making no attempt whatsoever not to look smug. "You could always use Star Dress."
"What, and walk out of my bedroom dressed for battle? That'll only draw attention to the fact that I clearly wasn't appropriately dressed beforehand." He was smiling as he perched on the edge of the bed, as if this awkward domestic trial was one of the best things that had ever happened to him, and she huffed. "You know, you could always make yourself useful and answer the door yourself."
"Given that your visitor is likely to be someone from your guild, that's probably not the best idea you've ever come up with."
He sounded so normal about it, so much like it didn't bother him, that it took a moment before she registered the meaning behind those simple words; the emotion that was almost entirely concealed behind the teasing. They were together, but they couldn't tell people. How would she explain it if Erza walked through the door, or Gray, or Master Makarov-?
"I'll stay out of sight," he was saying calmly. "If it looks like they're going to be here for a while, I'll head out."
Lucy swallowed. After everything he had risked by coming to the Summer Ball for her, was she going to treat their relationship like it was something shameful, something that had to be kept apart from everything else she loved?
"This isn't how I want to do this," she blurted out.
"It's necessary," he told her, reaching up to touch her cheek. He wasn't pretending it didn't bother him, she realized. He was accepting it, and putting it aside for the time being, for her sake. "Let's take things one step at a time."
She was almost glad that the doorbell chose that moment to sound its annoyance at being ignored, before she could say something she wasn't allowed to say.
Pulling the bedroom door almost closed behind her, she went with some trepidation to greet her guest. Fortunately, it wasn't an irate princess on her doorstep, but Levy, who smiled up at her brightly. "Hey, Lucy. Glad you're here; I wasn't sure if you'd be back in Magnolia already."
"No, not yet. Had… some things to finish off, first," Lucy evaded.
Levy gave her a slightly shrewd look as she entered, but didn't comment. Trying to divert her attention, Lucy inquired, "Uh, is Gajeel not with you?"
"Nah. He's still not been home since he ran off after Avatar. At some point, he's surely going to figure out that the reason why he can't find them is because they've all been apprehended already… but in the meantime, he may have the uniform of a Rune Knight, but prison is still the last place he'll think to check for his enemies."
"Honestly." Lucy rolled her eyes. "What can I do for you?"
"Actually…" Levy ventured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, an unexpected sign of anxiousness. "I was looking for Zeref. I wondered if you might know where to find him."
Lucy glanced up in surprise. Her heart was suddenly hammering. Should she? It's necessary, Zeref had assured her, but surely Levy was the one person around whom it wasn't necessary to keep their relationship a secret. Levy already knew they'd been travelling together – and had already decided that Zeref was her friend. This would be as good a first step as any, no?
"As it happens, I do," she said, before her courage could fail her. "He's in my bedroom."
"Oh, is he now?" Levy asked, eyebrow raised.
"I mean," Lucy stumbled, cursing her dreadful choice of wording, "we didn't know if you were going to be friendly or not, so he had to hide while I got the door…"
It was too late. The shrewd look was already back in full force. Sweet and deadly, Levy asked, "So, just to clarify, he wasn't in there before the doorbell rang?"
"Uh…"
"Your t-shirt is on back to front, by the way," Levy told her cheerfully, stepping into the house.
With a groan, Lucy fixed her top and wrenched open the bedroom door. "Alright, time to come out, your book club has arrived."
Zeref gave her a withering look, which only prompted her to grin. And yet, as he turned to their guest, Lucy saw the fond expression slide smoothly off his face, melting into a neutrality that was sharply unnatural and yet entirely at home there. A few weeks ago, Lucy thought, she would not have noticed anything unnatural about it at all. He liked Levy – Lucy would not have revealed his presence to her otherwise – but he would not let her in the way he let Lucy in, not yet, and her heart fluttered at it.
"Hi," Levy ventured.
"Hello," Zeref said coolly.
Levy seemed to take a deep breath, suddenly more nervous than she needed to be, though Lucy had a feeling Zeref preferred it that way. "I wanted to run something by you. Do you mind? I'm sure you could point me in the right direction, give me an idea of which books would be able to help, that sort of thing…"
"I don't mind," he said. Lucy, who had had no doubt he would agree, was already indicating for them to sit at the dining table.
"Great! So, I was reading the third part of Byzanthryne's Daemonaic Compendium, you know, the part contrasting natural demons with magic-born demons – and that mentioned something you'd written, only it's not something I'd heard of, not even as a passing reference in all the related works I've gathered these past few days. Maybe it's missing, or something, but I figured you'd probably at least remember what you wrote, or where I can find more information…"
Zeref said, in a careful tone, "Why?"
"I'm just curious!" she evaded. "I hate when there's a reference I can't follow, when I'm not seeing all sides of the argument – especially when I know the answers are out there! I have to know, or it will bug me forever!"
"Levy," he said, and Lucy could feel the flash in his eyes without having to see it. "The piece you are referring to is something I wrote in a dark time from a dark place, and it was a severe oversight on my part that it ever fell into anyone else's hands. I do not believe you are unaware of what it contains. Byzanthryne outlines the theory well enough, if that was truly all you were after. It was I who went beyond speculation – and that is not something one would ever seek out of mere curiosity. So I will ask you once more, and this time I suggest you answer me truthfully: why are you seeking out magic rumoured to be able to create life?"
"Tell him, Levy," Lucy interrupted. Her friend looked up with a nervous smile, and she repeated, "Tell him. He has more reason than anyone to be wary."
Levy glanced between them and sighed. "Alright. I'm sorry. I should have probably started with this, but… don't judge me, okay?"
She reached into her handbag and pulled out an old-fashioned radio. The Solid Script word 'SILENCE' was wrapped around it like a shawl.
Levy's gaze flicked towards Zeref. "Also, please don't tell him who you are."
Apparently taking bemusement for agreement, she peeled off the word as though it were a sticker, shaking it until it disappeared into sparks of magic.
Almost immediately a voice boomed out of the radio, crackling with snark. "Oh, I'm allowed to listen now, am I?"
"If you're good," Levy told him pointedly. "I've brought you to see a couple of friends who might be able to help."
"I can't see anyone, can I?" the radio grumbled back. "No thanks to you and this so-called promise of yours- hey! Put me down!"
Zeref did not. "Fascinating," he murmured, turning the machine over in his hands. "What are you?" Ignoring the bursts of outraged static, he ran his thumb over the tiny runes pressed into the base of the radio, a far neater solution than the sprayed-on graffiti Levy had gone with the first time round. "Containment, but not binding?"
"I wanted to stop him from getting out again and causing mischief," Levy explained. "I'm not responsible for the fact that he became a disembodied spirit in the first place. He did that himself."
"Mischief?" Lucy echoed, with a level of dubiousness that she thought the other two were sorely lacking. "Levy – please tell me this isn't the same robot who tried to kill me in the junkyard in Alstonia!"
"I would love to tell you that, Lucy, but unfortunately…"
"Oh, I remember your voice!" the radio cried. "You're the one I hit with a wrecking ball, right?"
"I- uh- well-"
Zeref tore his attention away from the device in his hands just long enough to make it clear that no, he wasn't going to swear vengeance upon the one who had done such a thing to her, because her embarrassment was just too amusing. "I miss all the fun," he remarked, giving the upside-down radio a shake.
"Would you stop that?" the radio demanded.
"Tell me what you are," Zeref countered.
The radio blew a raspberry.
"His name's Davos," Levy explained, "although during his time as part of Avatar, he went by D-6. As well as a possessed radio, he's been a wrecking-ball-wielding crane, and a humanoid robot courtesy of Arlock's surprising skills as a mechanic. Before all that, he was a man who tried to make himself functionally immortal through the use of a ritual, which would have removed his soul from his terminally ill body and let him take over the body of another. It backfired, and his soul became trapped in the machinery."
"Such rituals are forbidden for a reason," Zeref commented. Lucy knew him well enough to hear the steel in his tone, although whether it was a result of the talking radio's dalliance with dark magic or the fact that he had failed at it was not so clear cut. "I would ask what this has to do with you or me, but I fear I would not like the answer."
Levy told him anyway. "I want to try and give him a body back. A human body – or, well, something living, at any rate. Arlock promised that he would, but never did, because he preferred holding that promise over Davos to ensure his loyalty."
"Why would you do that for him? You owe him nothing, and this magic is not without consequence."
"That's the thing," Levy sighed. "The only magic that can help him is esoteric at best, and downright illegal at worst. He fell in with Avatar because he believed it was the only place where he could find someone both willing and able to do what he wanted. It was entirely selfish, and nothing can justify the way he was willing to go along with their plans in the vain hope that you- I mean, that Zeref might reward him by granting him a body of his own."
"Don't remind me," Zeref muttered, with a very real shiver.
Levy continued, "I've been thinking a lot about Avatar since the battle ended – and more importantly, about why so many ordinary people supported their general aim. I wanted to show him that it isn't only dark mages who can and will use magic like this, forbidden though it may have been deemed by the authorities. I thought that if I could do it, it would mean more than just beating Arlock or the next dark cult that comes along."
The radio beeped. "She also said she wanted to prove she was better than Zeref."
"I did not!"
"Did too. You said you wanted to do what he couldn't."
"I never said he couldn't do it! Because he definitely could! Absolutely! But it's just your image of Zeref, being some almighty god who grants more wishes the more people you murder in his name, that couldn't do anything for you!"
The smug crackle of static was unheeding to her embarrassment. As Zeref leaned back in his chair, amused, she added frantically, "I mean it, stop twisting my words!"
"Can't help it," Davos retorted. "They're the only thing I can twist at the moment, since I don't have any hands, and it doesn't look like I'll have hands any time soon either, since you're sat around chatting rather in a library doing the research you promised me."
"Trust me, this man basically is a library," Levy muttered. Then, to Zeref: "Will you help?"
"Doesn't coming to me for help defeat the whole purpose?" Zeref wondered.
It was Lucy who answered. "No. It doesn't. Levy's right."
He looked at her, and he looked at Levy, and all four centuries of his life were speaking at once as he said, "You can't change anything by proving to one criminal the fallacy of his belief."
Levy raised her chin bravely and looked him square in the eye. "Then maybe I am trying to prove I'm better than you."
A moment, a long moment, that not even Davos dared to break.
Zeref raised his hands in surrender. "So, how are you planning to help him? I'm sure you realize that bringing his old body back to life is out of the question."
"I… hadn't even considered that," Levy blinked, much to Lucy's relief, and probably to Zeref's too, though he hid it far better. "I wouldn't dream of messing around with life and death; everyone knows it's impossible. But he's already alive, isn't he? He can think, and remember, and talk… it's getting him not to do those things that's the challenge. So it wouldn't really be creating life, would it? I've been able to move him between metal-based appliances without any difficulty, so I thought, if his disembodied spirit could be moved into something organic…"
"Interesting," Zeref mused. "I see now why you were looking for me. Show me what you've got so far."
When she hesitated, he added, "You wouldn't be looking for that research of mine unless you had already reached a certain point, and the ritual held no power for you, and you wanted to know why."
"Well… fine." Nervously, as if handing over a dissertation to her supervisor, she pulled a sheaf of papers from her bag and slid them towards him. "It's not my normal kind of magic. I've mostly put it together from things I read in books…"
His eyebrows rose. "A book on standard ritual notation would probably have been a good place to start. Honestly, it will take as long for me to interpret this as it would to start from scratch myself."
"Yes, well, we weren't all born in the Age of Academies," she said, a little testily. "I didn't have a teacher. I had to make do." Then, as if realizing who she was snapping at, she added, "Sorry. I didn't mean to waste your time, or…"
Zeref waved it away. "Maybe you could talk me through your logic first, and I'll look at the detail later."
"Hold on," Lucy interrupted warily. She wouldn't have done, except for the feeling that, no matter which language the two of them spoke in, there was danger in those words. "How long is this going to take, exactly?"
The two of them looked at each other. "Probably a while," Levy admitted. "Maybe it would be better if I left it with you and came back later-"
"No, don't worry about it," Lucy said. "Take your time. I'll take Davos for a walk."
Ignoring his cries – "I'm not a dog, you know!" – Lucy snatched up the possessed radio and strode to the door. Levy shrugged, and turned her attention back to the papers at once; Lucy had a feeling that she wouldn't spend too long questioning an opportunity to discuss her research with the Black Mage himself.
And before the past few days, she thought Zeref would have been the same, but now she could feel his gaze on her until the moment she left the house. She had sensed it a lot recently, ever since the terms of their evolving relationship had permitted it, but this was different. This was a question, a suspicion, perhaps even an accusation – and she was in no hurry to return and explain herself to it.
"You're wasting your time. I won't help you."
The warning hit before Lucy had even closed the door behind her. She asked, distractedly, stupidly, "What?"
The radio crackled in irritation. "I'm not going to tell you where Avatar's remaining hideouts are. Or the aliases of our inner circle – if any of them are still alive after your lot have done their thing, that is. Plus, I don't feel pain, so you can't make me tell you. Like I said, you're wasting your time."
There weren't many people out in the student district of Crocus this morning, but there were enough to notice a stranger having an argument with a radio. Turning down the volume dial, and forcing a smile at the passers-by until they moved away, she shoved the radio into the top pocket of her coat and set off down the road. "I'm not going to interrogate you."
"Going to destroy me, then? Take revenge against the last member of Avatar you'll ever get your hands on? Crush me beneath your foot? Throw me into the river and see how much of this machine has to rust before I also dissolve into nothing? Your friend will be upset if you ruin her experiment, you know."
"I'm not going to destroy you," Lucy told him tiredly.
"It would be preferable to listening to you gloat."
"You know, Davos, you're not a very nice person."
"I'm not a person at all, any more," he pointed out.
"That's no excuse for how you treat others."
"I need an excuse?"
Lucy shook her head in despair. If she could choose one person in the world to save, it wouldn't be him. He wasn't cruel so much as he was utterly uncaring of others, and that could be just as dangerous, if not more so.
That wasn't the point, though. Not Levy's, and not hers.
Avatar had been more than a few dark mages in a creepy hideout. Theirs had been a broad church indeed, with a roof stretching over the garage of an engineer, the offices of a lawyer, the staff room of a local school, border to border, coast to coast. Some believers were evil, but some were good, and the vast majority were simply, imperfectly human. They had been drawn together by the promise of a different magical world to the one the Council offered, unaware of the price Arlock was charging them.
Levy was trying to show that there was another option.
That they didn't have to throw their lot in with criminals to get the freedom they sought.
Lucy found a bench by the side of the canal and sat down. Gone were the days when the canals had been used to transport the future in and out of Crocus. Now they were silent, unmoving, too thick with silt to see the mass of leafy weeds below, which reached up and curled back on themselves as if they did not dare to break the surface. The only people who passed this way were joggers, often with dogs in tow, too concerned with their steps-per-minute to notice one young woman talking to a device that shouldn't have been able to talk back.
"Davos," she began, setting him down on the bench beside her. "How did you end up like this?"
The red power light switched on. "I told you," he grumbled. "I tried a ritual and got it wrong."
"Would it be possible to replicate what you did? I mean, if you had your body back, and access to any books you needed… do you think you'd be able to do it again?"
"And end up as a radio-haunting ghost again? Why would I want that?"
"Just answer the question, Davos."
"Nah. It was a fluke. Arlock said the recoil should have killed me permanently. If there was any reason behind what happened, it was more because Mercury was in the house of Mars on a day beginning with M than any particular skill, if you catch my drift."
"Oh."
"Why? What does a good, law-abiding, dark-cult-bashing mage like yourself want with illegal soul magic? Nasty stuff, that. Would've been my victim if it wasn't me."
Lucy ignored this. "What were you trying to do?"
"I was dying. Or, rather, my body was. Genetic incurable heart condition. I heard about this magic that could permanently transfer my consciousness – my mind, my soul, me, whatever you want to call it – into another's body. I mean, yeah, okay, their soul would vanish and that wasn't particularly fair, but how was it more fair that I should die instead? Anyway, a friend put me in touch with Avatar, and through their contacts I found fragmented records of a ritual that would supposedly do what I wanted. I chose a victim with a good-looking body, tried to cast the ritual, failed, should have died, but my aura was yellow that day and hey presto, I'm now a talking radio."
Leafy tendrils waved silently in their watery prison; muted drumbeats pounded from the earphones of the man who jogged by, as if by drowning out the sound of his own footfalls he could convince himself he wasn't exercising at all. The radio whined static, unhappy with the world's subdued response to his tale of woe.
Lucy said, "If it had worked, you'd have… been in someone else's body? Forever?"
"Someone who wasn't dying, yup."
"And what about your magic? Would that have moved with you?"
"Nah. I had to pick a new host with magic of his own. I found the perfect body. Young man, dashing good looks, decent shadow magic; had just moved to a big city to join a guild. No one would miss him. In the end, I was the one no one missed."
Dials twitched and whirred, and Davos added, astutely, "Why are you so interested, anyway? You're not also dying of an incurable inherited disease, are you?"
She wasn't.
But Zeref was.
Not dying – quite the opposite, in fact – and not inherited, although his family had been the cause. A disease, a curse, rooted in his body and his magic.
What if there was a way to get him out of it?
What if they could take the ritual that had backfired on Davos, and fix it – with all his skill, surely Zeref could get it to work – and let his mind and soul and memories live on in an un-cursed, mortal body?
He could live, truly live, like he hadn't been able to in four hundred years. As free to love as any other human being, steady in mind and heart, finally allowed to be himself, rather than one of the many men he had to try and be to suppress the curse.
But someone else would have to die for it.
Could she draw up criteria like Davos had; young, handsome, powerful? Pick out their face as if the crowd were a catalogue, a lovely second-hand outfit, and who cared if its first owner wasn't quite finished with it yet?
A weight sank into her heart.
"You are dying, aren't you?" Davos interrupted. "Or maybe someone you care about?"
"I need to think. Be quiet, or I'll mute you."
"Not all of us can enjoy the view, you know," he grumbled. Unseen hands twisted a dial, flicked a switch, and the local radio station began to play through his speakers, sounding a little like it was passing through the twilight zone to reach them. She didn't mind. Not even the sound of a radio singing along to its own music could distract her.
What if she could find a volunteer?
If someone willingly gave up their own body… but surely the only people who would do that would be those who were dying anyway, or those caught up in a terrible moment, who needed help more than they needed a facilitator. Assessing whether or not someone was capable of making that decision for themselves would be no different than making the decision herself.
Wouldn't it be justified, though? He had killed before, and would kill again, whether he wanted to or not. His curse enabled him to kill when he desired it and forced him to kill when he didn't. Allowing him to escape it would be beneficial for all humanity.
Not to mention, the things he would be able to do if his mind was his own! Advancing the study of magic, researching like he had once done alongside Anna; he could – and would – help people, like he was willing to help Davos, like he had helped the Dragon Slayers so many years ago.
And maybe her feelings for him would not have to be a blazing thing, burning through the brightness of a lifetime in the few weeks they had left.
Maybe they would be allowed to become something steady, something unending, something that all her friends could come to accept the way Levy did…
It wouldn't even have to be her decision. Zeref wouldn't have the qualms that she did. He had suffered enough. If she told him her suspicions, he would get the information out of Davos, he would fix the ritual, he would find an appropriate host, he would be the one to go through with it, and she wouldn't have the power to stop him even if she wanted to. It would be on him, not on her.
And the next time they met, he'd look like someone else, but he'd be free.
But she knew that if she made him aware of this option, he would go through with it. Telling him was no different than doing it with her own two hands.
It would always be on her. She would know it every time she looked at him and saw not the endless dark eyes she had fallen in love with, but someone else, someone whose life she had decided was less important than his.
How could she live with that?
But how could she let things go on as they were?
Her thoughts moved in circles, still and stagnant as the old canal, while the weeds swayed maddeningly below, never quite mustering the resolve to break the surface, but ever there, waiting.
"Lucy?"
She looked up with a start. Time must have passed, because the sun had progressed through the sky, although the water in the canal hadn't moved and neither had she. Davos was broadcasting a comedy panel show, though it was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was laughing loudly over the jokes. That might have been the hundredth different jogger passing by, or it might have been the same one, training for a marathon back and forth along this short stretch of canal.
And Zeref was there, watching her, those black eyes taking in everything and giving nothing away.
"What?" she asked, snappish before she could rein it in. "Is everything okay? Levy-?"
"She's leaving. She doesn't want to be away from home for too long in case today's the day Gajeel finally returns. So, she's going to need her radio back."
"Oh. Right."
"'Bout time someone rescued me," Davos grumbled, retracting his aerial with a series of clicks that sounded uncomfortably like a man cracking his knuckles. "Have you found a way to fix me, then?"
"Not yet. Levy has some interesting ideas, but that's all they are right now – ideas. Even if it's possible, executing them is going to be complicated. If you want to live again, be patient."
Lucy handed the device back to Zeref. He took it, but his fingers lingered on hers. "What's wrong, Lucy?"
"Nothing."
"Lucy."
"I just want some space to think!" she burst out. "I always leave you alone when you need it; why won't you do the same for me?"
A pause, as she waited to see if the match would catch upon gunpowder or be swallowed by the darkness.
"Fine," he said shortly, and turned on his heel. Space realized he was in the wrong place and moved him to another, with no fanfare to announce its mistake, only the unhappy reverberations of her keys to assure her that she was alone once again.