The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Too Long We Stared Into The Sun, Final Part
-No Regrets-
Up close, the palace at Vistarion was both terrifying and incredible. To Lucy's magical senses, the entire building hummed with power, almost as if they weren't stone walls enhanced with magic but walls of magic hidden behind a modest veneer of stone. It was a symbol of both temporal and magical power – everything, so she was coming to realize, that the Alvarez Empire was – and she wondered how blind Zeref must be, to look upon the towers he had built and think that he hadn't changed, that he wasn't worth saving.
Those feelings weren't going to help her locate Master Makarov, however, so she pushed them away and summoned Gemini instead.
Immediately, Marin sprung up in front of her with a demented cry: "Surprise!"
Lucy yelped, tripped, and fell backwards into the bushes. Marin broke apart into two giggling blue creatures who dived aside as she flailed at them from the ground. "Don't do that! Geez!"
They swirled around her affectionately, grateful she had rescued them from Marin's magic, and she sighed. "Do you know where Master Makarov is?"
"Yep!" they chorused.
"Then-"
A sudden chill swept over her.
It was as if she'd been doused in liquid nitrogen – an intangible cold, an inexplicable fear, a shadow so dark her heart forgot how to do anything but stare in horror. She swept Gemi and Mini up in her arms and shrunk back further into the bushes, offering quick thanks to the fickle gods of coincidence that she was not visible from the courtyard proper. If she had been, she might already be dead.
She felt the same terrible awe that she had felt when Zeref first introduced her to his incredibly powerful allies on board the airship – except Zeref wasn't here, and they weren't on the same side any more.
This wasn't Levy and Cana's antics in the harbour or evading soldiers in the streets any more.
This was, in a word, death.
"Where are you?"
The voice rasped like a tongue drawn along bone, a dry rustle of plague-infested rags, a grave walking. Every breath rattled with the patter of black rats' feet; every step of his own released an exhalation of bone dust from the ground, the earth's final breath.
This man – this monster – would kill her, Lucy thought, simply because it would be harder for him not to kill her.
"I know you're there, little mouse. Come out and play."
Cold saturated her muscles. It was getting harder and harder to breathe; her lungs no longer seemed to care.
She curled her fingers around her keys, drawing strength from their ever-present warmth. She knew that she would have to fight, exhausted as she was, against him and everyone whose attention the battle drew. She had done her best to avoid brutal open battles, but it seemed her luck had run out. The thought that she could somehow get inside the palace without having to face any of the empire's most powerful generals was, in retrospect, laughable, not worthy of one carrying the title of Guild Master.
The tip of her finger found the end of Cancer's key by touch alone.
She had to strike now, before death infected her.
Now, before she couldn't move at all.
"Bloodman."
The voice that spoke was deep and rich and it swept across the courtyard like a summer storm. Lucy could see little from her hiding place, but she watched an inhuman foot freeze inches above the ground at the sound of it. Its owner found that flood of crackling warmth as inhospitable as Lucy had found his deadly aura.
"August," the thing called Bloodman hissed, drawing out both syllables in undisguised annoyance.
"What are you still doing here? Your unit has already been ordered to depart for Ishgar."
"You must have felt the teleportation alarm tripping too. Someone's here who shouldn't be," he rasped. Lucy could hear the delight dripping like poison from his tongue. "How could I pass up a chance to hunt the little mouse who dares to sneak into our palace, just to sit in an airship and wait hours and hours for the order to commence the attack?"
"You will do it because I am telling you to," August stated. "Return to your airship at once."
The pause hummed with all the static of the storm.
"And the intruder gets to go free?" Bloodman challenged.
"I will deal with them myself."
There was another rebellious pause. Bloodman, Lucy thought, was far bolder than she was.
August snapped, "Go, Bloodman, or the first battle of the war will be between you and me."
There was a sickening hiss, the rustle of a filthy cowl, and then the unholy presence seemed to fold in on itself and vanish.
The pressure lifted at once – yet Lucy still could not breathe. Gemi and Mini trembled against her. She had no doubt that August knew she was there. She could feel his magical presence entangling curiously with hers, like a child with no concept of boundaries; just as he could not hide his magic away from the world, nothing magical could ever be hidden from him.
She had swapped a powerful enemy for one in a class all his own – the very last person she ever wanted to fight. Zeref had told her, once, that if anything were to happen to him, she could go to August, and he would help her… but that had been back when the two of them were on the same side, loved by the same man, and now-
She started at the sound of footsteps. Footsteps heading away from her. The feeling of his immense magical presence slowly faded from her senses.
The courtyard was once again empty. He had let her go.
At first, she could not move. Gemi and Mini tried to pull her to her feet, chirping at her curiously, but to no avail. Instead of relief lifting her spirits, it felt as though a new weight had settled into her stomach. This would have been so much easier if they were fighting faceless dark mages, whose names she wouldn't even learn until the papers printed the results of their trials. But these were people she knew. People she liked. People who had risked their lives to fight Acnologia alongside her and Zeref. People who, even in the face of imminent war, were still willing to extend to her a wordless trust…
Her Spirits tugged at her again, urgently. Swallowing down the thought before the despair could swallow her, she let them lead her through the palace grounds. She had a job to do.
With most of the guards combing the streets outside looking for her, it was easy for Lucy to slip into the Summer Wing, where – according to Gemini's stolen knowledge – long-term visitors to the palace were housed. Low to the ground, she crept from window to window, until her patience was finally rewarded with the sight of her diminutive Guild Master.
He was sat in an armchair, scrutinizing a document with the kind of troubled look usually reserved for fines with a certain number of digits before the decimal place. It was so normal that it stopped her in her tracks. Just for a moment, she could pretend that it was a penalty notice from the Magic Council rather than a faked diplomatic agreement, and this was a luxurious suite in Era rather than an elegant prison in Vistarion, and the guild had never disbanded and nothing had ever changed…
But things had changed, and whatever may come, she wouldn't take it back for a second.
Makarov's head jerked up when she knocked on the window. His jaw dropped when she waved. And when she gestured for him to let her in – well, if he wanted to pretend he just had something in his eye, she was happy to pretend to believe him.
"Lucy!" he exclaimed, once she'd wriggled in through the window. "How? Why? Where's-?"
"I'm on my own; it was safer that way," she explained, brushing the rest of the questions aside. "I'm here to take you home."
Maybe the succinct approach wasn't helping, or maybe he was suffering withdrawal from not having had anyone from the guild to talk to this past year, but his feet didn't budge and his mouth didn't stop. "How did you find me?"
"Honestly?" Her thoughts flickered over Zeref and Hisui and the Summer Ball and Mest and imminent war, and she figured that the full explanation probably wouldn't help his incredulity any. "I worked it out in about the most long-winded way possible. I'll explain later. We really need to go."
Makarov blinked once. Twice. Then his brain seemed to catch up, and he objected, "I can't leave. Not now. I am this close to getting an audience with the emperor-"
"No," Lucy interrupted, calm but firm. "I'm sorry, but you're not. The emperor has no intention of negotiating with you, and if you're still here at midnight, you're going to be in serious danger."
"What-?"
"Alvarez are about to attack Fairy Tail. Their army is already in position."
The words hit him like a hammer blow. Before her eyes, she could see him wither, age finally claiming what his indomitable vitality had denied it for so long. She saw, in that moment, how earnestly he had been trying all this time, knowing his guild would hate him for it, knowing they wouldn't understand, and sacrificing it all anyway for the chance to keep them safe… and it had all been for nothing.
"It's not over yet, Master," she promised. "But we need your help to defend Magnolia. Please come home."
"Very well," he conceded. "I'll trust you for the time being. Back out the window, is it?"
"Ah, no, we can't go back that way. The whole city is on high alert because someone blew up a freight train."
The Master gave her a suspicious look.
"Why does everyone just assume it was me?" she protested. "Anyway, I do have a plan to get us back to Fiore, but unfortunately it requires us to go deeper into the palace."
Deciding that the best thing to do was take charge, by virtue of her superior grasp of the situation, Lucy marched to the door of the suite and wrenched it open. "So if you happen to know where- oops."
There in the corridor stood Invel.
Never mind that he carried no weapons and restrained his magic fully. One stern glance informed Lucy that the Chief of Staff of the Alvarez Empire was even less likely to let her walk away than Bloodman had been.
Lucy swallowed.
"Lucy," Invel said, disappointment and accusation rolled into one.
She gave a nervous smile. "Invel. Fancy seeing you here."
"Lucy, I will deal with-" Makarov did a double take. "Wait, you two know each other?"
"Sure. We went to the Summer Ball together," Lucy answered.
"Indeed we did," Invel confirmed stiffly.
Makarov's eyes bugged out.
"Besides, that's nothing. He and Cana have formed this cute society where they meet up to steal boats and go on great seafaring adventures in them. Oh, Gildarts is out for your blood, by the way," she added to Invel, whose cold-as-ice façade was not quite good enough to hide his wince. "I would bring a wig or something to Fiore if I were you."
"Noted." Invel gave a terse nod. "However, and as much as it pains me to be doing this when there is a good two weeks' worth of paperwork on my desk, I'm afraid I can't let you walk out of here with Makarov."
Lucy sighed. "I was worried you were going to say that. Unfortunately, I also have a job to do, so I'm afraid that you will have to stop me by force."
Now she began to feel the cold. It wasn't the chill of death she'd felt in the courtyard, but the brisk, business-like snap of winter, as invigorating as it was dangerous, as sharply alive as it was lucid.
"Understood," Invel said. "Know that this is nothing personal, Lucy. I am only doing my job."
"Likewise," Lucy replied. "I do not mean any disrespect to you or your emperor by raising my hand against you here."
Invel inclined his head briefly.
"Lucy-" Makarov began, as if he could encompass her physical condition and her fighting power last time they'd met and the magnitude of the frosty power swirling through the hallway in that one word.
Her gaze did not leave Invel's. "Don't worry, Master. I've got this."
For the umpteenth time on her 'stealth' mission, Lucy lifted her keys from her belt. Frost began to spread from Invel's feet. They regarded each other across the wintery hallway in silence.
Each one waiting for the other to make the first move.
Each one hoping the decision would be made for them.
And in the end, it was.
"Stand down, Invel."
The command rang through the not-quite-battlefield.
It was the voice Lucy had been hoping and dreading to hear in equal measure since she had first set foot on foreign shores. Once, long ago, she had feared that voice, before she had grown used to it, and even come to trust it. Then she had loved it: its confidence, the weight of its feelings, its ability to set her at ease or provoke her or make her feel so appreciated in a few short words – and until that moment, she hadn't realized how hollow her life had been without it.
How much she had missed it.
How much she had lost, when she had lost him.
Although Invel was careful to show no emotion at the intervention, the wintery breeze disappeared with suspicious swiftness. "Your Majesty," he greeted, with a respectful bow.
The Emperor of Alvarez was dressed in clothes not too dissimilar to the robes he'd worn to the ball, enhancing what little authority his too-young body could muster. His eyes were unreadable, but his voice was soft. "Hello, Lucy."
"Hello, Zeref," she responded, as neutrally as she could.
Behind her, Makarov stammered something unintelligible.
And then Zeref sighed. "One warship sunk, another on fire, chaos in the imperial port, the railway network paralyzed by terrorist activity, and the entire palace in lockdown – I should have known it was you."
"Most of that wasn't my fault!" she retorted automatically. "The exploding train wasn't me at all, and I specifically told Levy and Cana that this was supposed to be a stealth mission – it's not my fault that they decided to trash the port anyway-"
She cut herself off abruptly.
The thing was, the emperor whose city she had cut a great swathe of destruction through didn't look angry at all.
In fact, he looked as though he was fighting very hard not to smile.
"Four hours and thirty-one minutes to midnight," said he. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."
Lucy swallowed. Unsure of how to react to emotions she hadn't been expecting, she tried to laugh it off. "I was a little worried that you wouldn't factor the change in time zones into our agreement."
"Of course. I don't intend to leave Vistarion until midnight, and I will not give the order to commence the invasion until I do. I'm not an entirely unreasonable man, Lucy."
"I know," she said, and she didn't think she had meant two words more in all her life.
His lips almost twitched into a smile. "That being said, I do have half a mind to bill you for the damage to my capital city."
"Fine," she retaliated, before she could stop herself. "We can knock it off the rent you owe me for freeloading in my house when you were secretly loaded the entire time."
"Ah, what a frightening thought," he remarked, eyes sparkling. "Perhaps I shall have to let you off, just this once."
Amused, Zeref let his attention sweep across to Makarov, who had spent most of their conversation with his jaw on the floor. "Hello, Makarov. I must apologize for not having come to see you before now, but I have been somewhat preoccupied rounding up your wayward guild."
"B-But you, you're-" the poor Guild Master struggled.
"Mm. Well, I'm sure Lucy will explain everything to you on the way home." Dark and deep as the night, his gaze flicked back to her. "Presuming, of course, that you have a way home. After all, if you're still within the empire's borders at midnight, you're fair game."
"Of course I've got a way home lined up," she muttered testily.
"Oh? Please tell me it isn't the same way you got here. Are you trying to bankrupt every insurance company in Vistarion?"
Lucy glowered at him. That was another thing she hadn't realized how much she'd missed. "You still owe me a favour for helping you reunite Fairy Tail."
He tilted his head, considering. "True. Have you finally decided what it is you want from me, then?"
"I want your airship. The one we fought Acnologia in. Or another, if you've not repaired it yet."
"We've repaired it." Zeref nodded thoughtfully, ignoring Makarov's incredulous expression. "Very well. Come with me, both of you."
It was easy for Lucy to fall into step beside him. Frighteningly so.
For days now, she'd been alone and thought nothing of it. Yet the moment she was back in his presence, it was as if they were questing across Fiore once again, the war a distant shadow, nothing else mattering but the present. It took conscious effort for her to not cross that burning inch of space between his hand and hers, as she was forced to remind herself that that wasn't who they were any more.
Makarov struggled along behind them, though Lucy could hardly blame him for that. He had been out of the loop for a very long time – and no one could have predicted just how far this loop was going to unravel. Dragging his feet through the mire of dreams, he trudged along like he was expecting an attack from everyone he passed, never mind the wide, respectful berth they were giving their emperor and his companions. (Invel, sensibly, had taken the opportunity to flee back into the embrace of his paperwork.)
"I heard they made you Seventh Master," Zeref said suddenly. "Congratulations."
"Thanks," Lucy said, caught off-guard by the unexpected compliment. "We had a guild-wide democratic election, and I won the most votes. That must be quite a novel concept for you over here."
"Ah, the infinite wisdom of the people," Zeref countered smoothly. "Tell me, do you think they picked the best person for the job?"
"Hey, I rescued Master Makarov, didn't I?"
"Physically, perhaps," he mused. "Mentally, I suspect he will need several rounds of therapy once you've finished explaining all this to him."
"And whose fault is that, now?" she glared, and his lips twitched again, utterly unapologetic.
"Besides, you've not 'rescued' him unless you're outside the empire's borders at the stroke of midnight. How are your piloting skills, out of interest?"
"It didn't look that hard," she rebuffed. "Pull to go up, push to go down; if Invel can do it, so can I."
"Mm. And how many vehicles have you destroyed already today?"
"For the last time, none of those were me!" she huffed, before turning away with a shrug. "Besides, there's nothing to worry about. I'm a Fairy Tail mage. I only destroy things which belong to other people."
Zeref laughed. It was a wonderful sound; it made her entire body feel lighter.
"You're still you, aren't you?" Lucy said impulsively. "I thought you'd be different, being here, but you're not."
His smile faded. He picked up the pace, not looking back at her as he strode down the corridor, cold and growing colder as he snapped, "Do you want your airship or not?"
The compound into which he led them was almost bare. A handful of engineers scurried between empty bays, most of their charges already having left to join the attack fleet positioned somewhere over the ocean. Only a few of the larger airships were left, including the imperial flagship, which gleamed like a black diamond from its artificial dock.
All trace of the damage Acnologia had dealt it was gone. It was almost offensive, how easily it had been repaired.
And yet she couldn't deny how impressive it was, either; how efficient and practical and astonishing it was that Zeref had a department of mechanics working on his ship in his palace in his city in his empire.
She found herself murmuring, "It's incredible, what you've done." His gaze flashed to her like light caught on the edge of a knife, and only when he saw that she was in earnest did it reluctantly soften again. "How – how – did you manage to create something like Alvarez?"
A shrug. "Time and patience."
"That's not really an answer. It's one thing having the resources, but it's quite another working out what to do with them. Even if you gave me eight hundred years, I would never be able to manage something like this."
Zeref scrutinized her for a long, disquiet moment. "That's because you would never find yourself with nothing to do," he said, at last. "Even immortal, you would always have a reason to live."
Before she could ask him what he meant by that – because, whatever it was, it mattered – they had arrived at the airship's dock. There was nowhere else to go. Their brief, final encounter had come to an end.
Zeref instructed, "Place your hand on the lacrima."
At the end of the dock, in front of the huge black behemoth of a sky-vessel, stood a small pedestal with an orb of crystal attached to the top. Not entirely sure what to expect, but trusting him no less than she had before, she did as instructed.
The lacrima flared red. Pain stabbed into her palm. She tried to jerk away, but Zeref had placed his hand over her own – and it wasn't the force that held her there, but the unexpectedness of it, as his fingers slipped so naturally between hers.
Belatedly, she realized that the pain had vanished, and the alarm-bright red had melted into white. The airship's engines began to whir. Mechanical restraints peeled away, allowing unfettered access to the open skies. Now that Zeref had forced the great magical beast to accept her as its authorized master, it was eager to take flight once more.
Yet his hand was still on hers.
"Zeref," she murmured, wonderingly.
At that, he seemed to come back to himself, stepping away and letting that small distance speak for him. "Go."
Makarov cast her a sideways glance. She nodded to tell him it was okay – she would be okay – and he hopped on board the airship with evident relief.
Lucy herself did not move. She couldn't. In and out without attracting Zeref's attention, that had been the plan, but she hadn't thought for a moment that it would be like this between them – like nothing had changed.
She hadn't anticipated how much seeing he didn't hate her would hurt.
"Time's running out, Lucy," Zeref remarked. "You'd best get going if you want to reach your guildhall before my army does."
Lucy said, "Don't do this."
Instantly, his expression darkened. The flash of crimson in his eyes was far more vivid a warning than the lacrima had tried to give her. "And there I thought we had a tacit agreement that we weren't going to talk about it."
"Things have changed."
"Because you're scared?" His sneer was almost frightening. "Because it's real now, and you've finally had to face up to the fact that you and your friends can't win?"
"Because I've been in the basement!" she overrode him, and he stilled at once. More gently, she continued, "I saw what you did, Zeref. Fairy Heart is no more. There's no reason for us to fight."
"My desire to eliminate your guild never had anything to do with what may or may not be in your basement."
"Well, if that's true, I'm sure Master Makarov will be happy to confirm it for me," she dared.
Zeref's eyes narrowed, but he didn't speak.
Softly, so as not to frighten him away, she murmured "You don't have to do this."
"Of course I don't have to. Unfortunately for you and your friends, Lucy, I want to."
"I don't believe you. You don't do things without good reason – and you're not the kind of person to be motivated to such destruction by spite or hatred. You're better than that."
"It seems you misjudged me," he told her coldly. And then, encroaching upon bitter: "And it seems I misjudged you, too. I've kept my word to you right up to the end, and you have not. You promised me that if I had to go, you wouldn't follow me. You promised you would understand – that you wouldn't come looking for me – and yet here you are!"
"I…"
She closed her eyes. She remembered making that promise like it was yesterday, although it had been lifetimes ago, drunk on the headiness of loving and being loved, young and foolish and believing that their silence on the topic of the future might somehow prevent it from ever coming to pass.
She'd always known that she couldn't save him.
"I know," she whispered. "I promised I would let you go when the time came; I know I did. But I had to try. I don't want to lose you."
"That's funny. You didn't seem to care much at all when that was how I felt."
"Zeref, I am so, so sorry for what I said to you. I know Yukino's death wasn't your fault. I was upset and scared; I acted without thinking, and I would give anything to be able to take it all back. I should never have put you in that position. When Loke's key broke, I should have consulted with you – but instead, I acted on my own. And in that moment, I forgot the most important thing. My life isn't mine to give away. It belongs to my friends and my family… and to you. You had every right to stop me. And, as selfish as it is for me to say this… I am glad that I am still alive."
Zeref said nothing.
Softer, but with no less feeling: "I don't blame you for Yukino's death. What happened that day was misfortune upon misfortune, nothing more. If you believe that anything we ever had together was real, then please, believe that."
"Of course I believe you, Lucy." It was almost in exasperation that he shook his head. "I knew you'd be like this. It's why I love you, after all."
Those words brought a lump to her throat. "Then- please-"
"No. It doesn't make a difference. No matter what I do, I don't change, my curse doesn't change, my life doesn't change. It was always going to end this way; I never promised you more than that."
"Your life can change if you let it!" she burst out fiercely. "You don't have to do this!"
"I tried not doing this!" he spat. "Look where it got me! I lost everything! Everything that I had been working towards, everything that I had hoped for, I threw it all away – and for what? This war is all I have left of who I am, and I will not let you take it from me!"
"That's the last thing I want to do," she murmured. "I would never do anything to hurt you."
"Then walk away like you promised me you would, and face me with honour as the Master of Fairy Tail."
Lucy bowed her head. "Very well. I gave you my word, and I will respect your decision. I have given you enough chances to change your mind."
She turned away, towards the airship and home – and then back, so abruptly that sparks seemed to zip through the air around her. "But it won't make me stop loving you, so when you finally realize that you don't have to be this desperate villain any more, you know where to find me!"
"No," he snapped. "I've made that mistake too many times already in my life. I will not make it again."
At that, she bounded fearlessly forward and seized the front of his robes, dragging him closer. "It wasn't a mistake!" she shouted. "Maybe it's not what you want any more, and that's okay. People change. Circumstances change. But it wasn't a mistake. I may have promised you that I would walk away when our time was up, but you promised me that, no matter how bad things got, you wouldn't forget the truth of my feelings or of yours. You promised me you would remember how right it felt, you and me, living for that moment, together. And you promised me that when things had to end, when we both finally faced up to the pain we always knew this was going to bring us, you wouldn't forget the joy and the love that we both knew would make that deal worth taking!"
As her vision began to blur with tears, she managed to murmur, "No regrets, remember?"
And to her amazement, she saw him give the first genuine smile she had seen since they'd met in this unlikely place: small and sad and so very beautiful. "Yes," he whispered, and when he blinked, the voids of his eyes were alight with a thousand tiny stars. "No regrets."
"Thank you for letting me love you," she whispered.
There were, in that moment, no words for how much she wanted to hold him tight and never let him go. To kiss him until there was no more room for tears between them. To hear his heartbeat right beside her, and to know that however far she went and whatever dangers she faced, he would always be there when she came home.
To leave all this behind, wars and curses and immortality and despair, and find a place where they could just be themselves, together, free.
But sometimes love didn't mean a happy ending, and there were some fates that even the strongest of hearts couldn't overturn.
"I guess I'll see you on the battlefield," Lucy said, and her last smile to him as she turned away and boarded the airship was the hardest battle she had fought since their quest had begun.
Long after the imperial flagship had departed from Vistarion in the hands of his empire's greatest foe, Zeref still stood alone on the dock, his hands fisted tightly around his robes, wet trails still glistening upon his cheeks.
Even though there was no longer a trace of the novice pilot zigzagging her way across the sky, he didn't trust himself to move.
For a moment, his resolve had wavered.
For a moment, he had wanted nothing more than for her to hold him like she used to, safe within a blanket of understanding and empathy that no other had dared afford him. To feel her perfect skin, surely too beautiful for one such as him, beneath his fingers; to let the delicate turmoil of his emotions melt away and think of nothing but her.
To place his heart in her hands, knowing it would be far safer with her than it was with him, for he could always trust her when he couldn't trust himself.
In that moment, if her lips had dared to cross those few inches between them, he would have welcomed her as he once had, and gladly.
And he knew, in that moment, that if she'd asked him one last time to stop this pointless fight, he would have done so without hesitation.
The weakness of his own resolve terrified him.
After everything he had done, after all the choices he had made, after all the bridges burnt and friendships shattered and futures now closed to him because of his own stupidity, he had still almost failed to stop himself from making the same mistake.
He knew that love couldn't save him. All it ever did was open him up to deeper torment. He had loved and lost more than the universe itself, and he was still alone, still cursed, without even the sliver of hope that Fairy Heart had offered him.
He had let his heart have too much sway over his rationality in recent times, and now he was paying the price.
An idea came to him, and in a flurry of determination, space warped around him and melded seamlessly into the office of his Chief of Staff.
He did not notice Invel's flinch at his sudden appearance (quickly hidden) or the uncharacteristic spike in his magical presence (suppressed in record time) as he perceived a threat and dismissed it just as quickly. Concern and curiosity radiated like a physical wave from the corner of the room, alerting him to the fact that August was also present.
The lacrima atop Invel's desk was projecting into the air an image they had clearly both been watching before he had intruded: an array of slow-moving dots that marked the position of every airship in the Alvarez fleet. Zeref found himself wondering which of them was Lucy's ship – if it was outside the empire's borders yet – if she had changed her mind and returned to him – and he turned his back on the image with an effort.
"Your Majesty." Invel greeted him with a bow. "What can I do for you?"
"Is everything alright?" August added, making up in raw feeling what his words lacked in formality.
"No," Zeref said shortly, although he said nothing more on the matter. In fact, he turned his back on his oldest advisor entirely. "Invel. I need you to listen to me very carefully, because this is important."
"I'm listening," said he, perplexed.
Zeref took a deep breath. "I do not think I am capable of leading our army in this battle."
"Of course you are!" Invel protested at once, eyes widening, but Zeref was having none of it.
"These past few weeks, my curse has been affecting my mind more strongly than it ever has before. It makes me doubt. It twists my patterns of thought beyond recognition. More and more often, I look back at my actions and find them in contradiction to things I know to be true. My current lucidity will not last. I fear that I will lose control of my mind and my actions entirely."
Invel was staring, speechless. Never had Zeref broached the subject so openly with him. Only very recently had he started admitting to any weaknesses at all.
"This is an order, Invel." Slowly, clearly, so that there could be no misunderstanding. "From here on out, if I tell you to do anything that contradicts our goal of conquering Fiore and destroying Fairy Tail, you are to disregard it. It will be the curse speaking, not me. You are hereby ordered to ignore any future instructions from me which might jeopardise Alvarez's ambition, irrespective of the circumstances. Do you understand?"
"I-" For perhaps the first time in his career, Invel stumbled over the words and had to start again. "I understand, but-"
"Furthermore," Zeref cut in, "in the event that I begin to act in a way that threatens Alvarez's military success, you are to assume direct command of the army yourself. You will have absolute authority. I trust you to lead our nation to victory if – when – I can do it myself no longer."
"I'm flattered, Your Majesty, but it shouldn't be me. There are others with far more military experience than I – others whom our mages and our people will expect to see taking command before me." His gaze flickered to the corner where they both knew August still stood.
"It can't be August," Zeref said bluntly, without turning to look. "He won't do it."
After all, he didn't need to look. They understood each other far too well.
"But you will," Zeref continued, his black gaze boring into Invel's. "You told me, when we stood in the ruins of Fairy Tail's guildhall, that if I did not have the conviction to wage this war, you would do it for me. If I could not bring myself to fight them, you would fight in my place. I am asking you now to uphold that promise."
"I… I will, Your Majesty. I am honoured that you would entrust this to me."
Zeref nodded once, then raised his voice, addressing the other man in the room still without deigning to look at him. "August. In the event that this comes to pass, you are to obey Invel as you would me, no matter what he asks of you. Do you understand?"
"I do," August acquiesced.
"Good," Zeref said shortly. "Prepare yourselves. We leave at midnight."
As he turned to leave, his gaze fell once more upon the radar-projection, and this time he could not resist asking the question. "Where are Lucy and Makarov? Have they left the empire yet?"
If the speed at which Invel jumped to his feet was any indication, he was immensely grateful to be given such a mundane task. "We've been tracking the ship you gave them. They're just…" His finger flitted back and forth over the glowing dots of the image, yet did not find a suitable branch to roost in. "Oh, it's gone. They must have moved out of our range."
"Into international airspace, then," Zeref sighed. He wasn't sure if a weight had been lifted from his chest, or if there was a new hollowness where there had once been a flesh and blood organ, but at last her path was set, and so was his. "Okay. Good. I will see you at midnight, then."
In the wake of His Majesty's departure, Invel thought that his office had never been so quiet. The slow circling of the radar did little to fill the silence as the emperor's Chief of Staff and his unofficial second-in-command judiciously avoided each other's gazes.
August stared at the radar screen as if he was trying to blow it up without magic. Invel shuffled some papers, and then threw them down in irritation.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" It came out a little angrier and a lot more informal than he had intended, as a hundred different emotions that a man of his position was not supposed to express overwhelmed him all at once. "It should have been you he asked, not me."
But August simply shook his head. "No, he's right. Even after everything, I am not sure I could do what he asks." Then, after a moment, he added, "Rest assured, if it comes to pass, I will not hesitate to defer to you as our leader. You have my word on that."
That unbegrudging concession stole the anger from Invel at once; he rubbed at his temples. "I appreciate it. It seems we will have more than just Fairy Tail to contend with on this campaign."
"And as if that wasn't enough…" August's gesture towards the lacrima projection seemed light-hearted, but the look he gave Invel was another matter entirely. "I can't see the flagship's signal at all."
"I know," Invel said, letting his head fall fully into his hands at the unspoken accusation.
He had let His Majesty believe that it meant the ship must have left Alvarez territory, but the two of them, who had been following its progress closely ever since it had first started to move, knew that the ship had barely left Vistarion when their emperor had interrupted them.
They were all too aware of the ship's top speed. Not even a professional pilot could have made it to international airspace in that time.
But it was clear that His Majesty had enough to deal with right now.
How was Invel supposed to tell him that, before it had even reached the coast of Alakitasia, the signal of Lucy's ship had just winked out?
A/N: Oh dear, oh dear. It's all going wrong for everyone and the war hasn't even started yet. The Alvarez War will begin properly next chapter - though whether that chapter will be next week or the week after will depend on my level of exam stress. See you in a fortnight at the latest! ~CS