A/N: Re-uploaded due to error after doing a bit of spell correction. Sorry everyone. This is the prequel to Guiding Ache, Your Family Awaits and Fever Dream (in that order, unless you read them stand-alone).

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.


If only in a dream

"Farewell ... Mother."

Irene jolted awake, heart pounding and limbs protesting. One hand automatically shot up to her chest which burned with the pain of a wound she could not find.

"Wh-what was that?"

She panted from exertion, eyes wide and mind racing with the shadow of events she couldn't fully recall anymore. When the pain lessened to a dull ache, her hand fell down to her stomach. It was rounded just enough to give away the secret of a new life.

"That... It felt so real. Almost as though it were truly happening."

The ache in her limbs was nothing new, but even it felt wrong somehow. It wasn't the pain she'd come to know from having her monstrous self squeezed into the magic-woven skin of her old human form, no, this rather felt like the aftermath of a long and trying battle. In fact, it had the rather sobering resemblance of the aftermath of Belserion's death.

"It can't be and yet..."

Her remaining hand took up the position the right had abandoned, a part of her still expecting to feel the slick warmth of blood weeping onto her fingers.

"I know that wasn't a dream."

She grit her teeth, eyes falling shut in contemplation.

"I tried to kill my daughter." The words tasted of copper, though perhaps that was simply the delayed nausea.

"I nearly killed my daughter," she corrected with a grimace, "but she was stronger than I had ever dared to hope."

She could see the fight in her mind's eye, the remnants of her dream. No. It was an echo of a distant memory. It would have been so simplistic. It had been simplistic. Kill Titania of Fairy Tail. Destroy his Majesty's enemies and bask in the twilight hours of a ruined world.

Is that why she was here? Had Fairy Tail fallen to the Black Wizard?

No, she finds that unlikely.

One of his goals had been death and if they had felled her, they would have found a way to fell him as well. He may be immortal, but she had been the strongest woman of the Alverez Empire, possibly even in all of Ishgar judging by what they considered to be a worthy pass for a Wizard Saint.

She created Dragon Slayer Magic. She blazed through the battlefield like the fires Belserion effortlessly breathed. She survived three years of hell at the hands of her own people. She killed her husband and became a dragon. When they hunted her down, she caused the destruction of her kingdom.

She researched various forms of enchantments hopelessly for four hundred years, with only one purpose to her wretched life. She planned to use a newborn as a vessel of rebirth and then went on to torture humans as a means to vent her bitterness at the world. Compared to that, mass murder had seemed almost expected.

All in all, it wasn't difficult to guess why she was deemed a true Spriggan.

And yet the sight of her daughter had stolen the wind from under her wings and doused the fire raging in her heart.

That scarlet hair had haunted many a dream until eventually she stopped trying to sleep, instead accepting exhaustion whenever it fell down on her. When she saw the young woman draped over the shoulders of a Fairy Tail wizard she had thought deliria to be a side effect of Universe One, but no. It was her daughter.

The world never did seem to tire of tormenting her.

Granted, she had extended her own suffering by drawing out the fight. Taking over Wendy Marvell's body could have easily been the end of it all. She could have cut ties with the Empire and fled out of the reach of the Dragon King, but she owed her allegiance to Emperor Spriggan, had taken an oath to assist in his wishes and of course her pride would not allow her to be outdone by the Wizard King, no matter how impressive he may be.

Well, no, that's a lie. At least in part.

She believed Erza might be able to kill her if she were Wendy; hoped that it might make her angry enough to kill them both. She should not have underestimated the young Dragon Slayer. With her power, she may even have succeeded in killing Irene if she'd truly tried.

Perhaps that is why she shed her human guise. After all, taking her true form is a bit over the top when your foes are little more than a set of human girls. She could have ended both their lives with a single step. Had she flicked her tail any harder Erza would have had more than just a few rattled bones.

So why had she gone through all the effort of calling forth a damned meteor that would have wiped both herself and all of Fairy Tail from the face of the warped continent?

Seeing the Queen of the Fairies in action certainly made her question her daughter's humanity, but no, she could sense neither dragon seed nor latent dragon blood. It was pure force of will.

That katana of hers had quite the bite and trials of the day should have wrecked havoc on her body and mind, but even when she stared death in the face – as she must have so many times over the course of the invasion – her daughter still retained the ability to be happy. To smile.

"Her smile..."

It truly was pathetic. For her, Irene Belserion, the mother of Dragon Slayers, former queen of Dragnof and strongest woman wizard of the Spriggan Twelve to be so completely unarmed by a smile?

Without trying, her daughter had won the battle with one single gesture.

She could have simply left or surrendered, she supposes, but then death would have awaited her either way.

"August would have killed me for my betrayal and if not him, his Majesty or even Acnologia..."

Tears of frustration began to fall and Irene pulled her legs up, resting her head on her knees. She scowled, wiping at her eyes, but the last of her anger had seeped out of her as she had held Erza's sword. Her nerve had left her too.

"My child." They were words she had often used, had been the main reference to the baby growing in her womb. "For years, you were my only reason to endure this world." She has no doubt she would have fallen to her madness much earlier in her desperate search for her lost humanity had it not been for her daughter.

"The threat it posed to your life was all that stilled my hand."

Somewhere along the line, she had forgotten why she had so desperately fought to remain alive for that apparent eternity in Dragnof. She forgot what it was that drove her dragon seed to early maturity; what called her inner beast to break its shackles and harden her belly against the iron that pierced it.

"I promised," her voice sounded flat despite the tremor it carried and she could not be certain if it came from the overflow of emotions or the need to shut them out. Unbidden, her eyes stung with a renewed onslaught and her lashes stuck together as the tears spilled over, her arms moving to wrap around her stomach. "I promised to protect you."

In her head she laughed at her newfound well of tears. By the time of the invasion she had surprised herself when a few slipped down her cheeks as she confessed her maternal love, having believed herself to have grown incapable of the act. Perhaps it was because at this point in time, she had yet to run out.

"I failed." There was no denying that. "First I put you in danger for my own selfish gain. Then I tried to force your hand." None of her plans worked. For better or worse, she had failed in every regard. "And yet, you still retained your light." It had been even more blinding than the first time. That same naive happiness of an ignorant babe was reflected in the eyes of a full grown woman exposed to the hardships of a cruel world and its weight was crushing.

She had failed to be a mother. But she would not fail to keep her promise. "Nothing should be allowed to ruin your smile. Not danger, not destruction, not a Spriggan, not my-" Her tears cut her off and after a few moments of forcing composure over herself, Irene began to chuckle, cold and hallow.

"The irony is I had been chasing death for a while."

She just never imagined it would be at her own hand.

"My actions did not even register until I saw the look in your eyes."

It felt like minutes ago, Erza's gaze piercing into her with horror and confusion. She had smiled then as her body descended, truth escaping past her lips like her blood did from her chest. Now she smiled her Red Angel smile, the one void of happiness and mirth.

"Rung was wrong. I did not become Acnologia. I became something worse."

She allowed herself to dwell on the thought as she untangled her arms, forcing her body upright. Everything hurt, from her head of untamed hair down to her toes, but even as her legs shook, she somehow managed to pick herself up.

She took slow steps to the nearest window and imagined the breeze to be chilly, but she would never know as it slid past her cheeks with nothing more than a feather light touch she barely even noticed.

Somewhere in the distance, beyond the dark horizon cast by the night, she could see a guild hall in her mind. In the vision it was situated next to a lake, the sun shining down on the flapping emblem beneath which the doors stand wide open, welcoming anyone who requested sanctuary.

In the same moment, she heard her daughter's adamant voice somewhere in the back of her mind, proclaiming her ties with the greatest of conviction.

"Your family." She frowned, pushing down the ache that suddenly bloomed in her heart, all while cradling the small life she carried with her. "I should be offended, but I saw Makarov on the battlefield and the sacrifices he was willing to make."

Her expression turned wry, a smirk tugging at her lips. "He's not the worst person you could have watching over you, considering your father did turn out to be a bastard. And I am a rather selfish creature, you know."

Selfish, beaten, broken, battered, insane... But never has she been called an oath breaker.

"I still owe his Majesty, but perhaps I shall turn my sights onto the Dragon King instead of the Empire. He should be made aware that the Queen of Dragons intends to reclaim her kingdom."

Little Wendy and the other Dragon Slayers she had sensed came to mind. Though not all members of Fairy Tail, they had stood together against the Empire.

They had stood with her daughter.

"After all, it would be such a shame for you to lose your family due to his bloodlust."

She may never be able to find redemption nor has she ever considered seeking it, but she knows whether in this life or in the former, the best gift she could give her daughter was the chance for a future Irene could not provide, but this time she would not force it. She will stay and continue to keep her promise until it is time to say goodbye.

At least she had the opportunity to come to know her daughter, if only in a dream.


Read, review and favorite - Irene deserves some love!

Until Next Time

- Lyrical-Light