Homeward Hours

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Nine – What is Wise and What is Easy

"And what, pray tell," Zeref drawled, "is this?"

Lucy looked from him to the sleek, ribbon-tied box in his hands, and then back at him.

And there she'd thought it was obvious. "It's a box of luxury chocolates," she said.

Zeref's arched eyebrows didn't seem to consider that much of an answer. "And why have you given it to me?"

"Because a box of luxury chocolates is the most standard gift it's possible to buy," Lucy shrugged. "No one ever buys luxury chocolates except as a gift. Since you misinterpreted the last gift I got you so badly-" She waved her hand towards the unburnt half of the picnic bench, which was somehow still standing upright on the safe side of the Fairy Sphere, "-I decided that this time, I would get you something you couldn't possibly twist into anything other than a gesture of goodwill."

Zeref turned the gift-wrapped box over in his hands like he'd never seen artisan chocolates before. "I see. Is there any particular reason for this gesture of goodwill?"

"It's to say thank you. If you hadn't told me about the Master, it might have been too late by the time we found him. The doctor said he could have died if they hadn't operated when they did."

"It is almost inevitable that he will suffer a relapse," he said neutrally. "Sooner or later, it will kill him."

The doctor had said much the same; Lucy raised her chin defiantly. "Doesn't change what you did."

He turned the box over again in his hands, ignoring the rattle of disgruntled truffles against the lid, and said nothing.

"In the interests of full disclosure," Lucy added, "I feel as though I should mention that the chocolates are also a bribe."

His gaze flicked up to her, though she was pleased to see that he actually looked more interested than annoyed. "What for?"

"I… was rather hoping you'd do something for me." When he didn't immediately shoot her down and vanish back into his house, she felt encouraged to continue. "The thing is, the Master isn't going to be released from hospital until the day before the S-Class Trials."

"So? That's good timing, isn't it?"

"In a way. But, unfortunately, while the guild is able to hold S-Class Trials in whichever way it deems fit, said Trials now need to be approved by the Magic Council in order for the promoted mage to officially accept S-Class jobs. Seeking approval requires a whole load of paperwork, including, amongst other things, submitting a full plan of the challenges the candidates are to face to the Council in advance."

Zeref frowned. "Is that a normal regulation?"

"No," Lucy sighed. "But the Council don't like us."

"Don't trust you, more like. They're probably trying to make sure that you've not found some sort of loophole to promote me to S-Class."

"Don't look so smug about it," she warned, rolling her eyes. "It's not too late for me to send you back to them."

"Oh, I rather think it is."

His words were light, as if he was merely being his usual argumentative self, but Lucy didn't miss the fact that he had finally admitted that he preferred being here to that hell the Council had designed for him. "Yeah," she conceded. "They can't do anything about it. There will be an outright catastrophe if they tell people about you, and we're too popular for them to denounce without good reason. This is their petty little way of getting revenge – inflicting us with more admin."

"Can't blame them," Zeref shrugged idly.

"Hey, whose side are you on?"

He eyed her for a moment, shrewd and thoughtful and seeing something that perhaps she didn't without four centuries of experience behind her, but after a moment's consideration, he simply shrugged again. "Not yours. Haven't you learnt that by now?"

"I'll be having those chocolates back, then," she huffed.

For all his earlier disdain, Zeref did not hand back the chocolates. "What does all this have to do with me, anyway? Your passive-aggressive war with the Magic Council is hardly my problem."

"Well… it's about all the paperwork we now have to do in order to hold those S-Class Trials."

Evenly, Zeref observed, "Paperwork sounds like something Makarov could do from a hospital bed."

"Yes, but it isn't something he's allowed to do. The nurse has eyes like a hawk and a draconian interpretation of the word 'rest'. She's thrown me out of the ward twice already just for mentioning the Trials."

"So?" Zeref asked, again.

"Sooo… for the S-Class Trials to happen, someone has to put together the proposal for the Council's review. And the only person who knows the details of the Trials the Master has planned…"

"Is me," Zeref finished flatly.

Lucy managed an awkward smile.

"I have no interest in helping your guild, Lucy."

"Please?"

"No."

"…Is there anything I can get you that might be a more effective bribe?"

The box turned over again in his hands, but his eyes did not leave hers, capable of piercing straight through the ever-glowing barrier. "Why do you care? You're not part of the S-Class Trials."

She gave a nervous twitch. "I'm… just trying to help my friends, who are all hoping the Trials will go ahead…"

It was almost paradoxical, she reflected, how he could be more intimidating during a civil conversation than when actively trying to break down the Fairy Sphere.

He wasn't an emperor any more – cut off from the world he once sought to rule; the champion of nothing but dust and dirt – and even in the brief chaos of the war, it had been difficult to reconcile the image of an emperor from overseas with the mysterious, sinister and reclusive Black Mage of her own kingdom's history. But as he waited, deliberately, for her to tell the truth, there was something in him of the man who had once ruled half the globe. Prisoner he may have been, but she was the one unable to meet his gaze.

"It's… the Council approved our Hundred Year Quest application," she muttered. "Currently, we're not planning to leave until after the S-Class Trials, but if the Master has to cancel them… well, Natsu has been talking about leaving tomorrow. I'm not ready to go that soon! I thought I'd have weeks to work things out – to think about whether I really want to spend months, if not years, away from home on a journey hardly anyone has ever come back from…"

She still couldn't bring herself to look at him, though her sigh probably said everything she was trying vainly to conceal. "At least holding the S-Class Trials would give me a bit longer to get my life in order. So… yeah. It would be a great help for the guild if you could get the Trials authorized for us, because it's a tradition, and everyone is excited for them to go ahead… but you're right. I didn't come here to ask on their behalf. They have no idea you've even been helping the Master plan the Trials. I'm here for my own selfish reasons."

"I see."

"Sorry. I shouldn't have asked you." Nervously, she glanced up. "Are you going to tell the rest of the guild?"

"How am I going to do that, when my only other visitor is hospitalized?" Zeref asked, sighing. "Pass me the forms."

"You'll help?"

"It would be a shame to let all the work I've put into designing the Trials go to waste. I'll prepare the application, and then all you need to do is get Makarov to sign it."

"Thank you." Lucy passed the papers through the barrier, taking care not to let any part of her hand enter the Fairy Sphere. "I… really mean it."

"For the record," he continued, as if she hadn't spoken, "books are a far more effective bribe than chocolate."

"I did consider it, but I didn't think I'd be able to find one you didn't already own. But I knew for a fact that you didn't have any chocolate, since I've been doing your shopping…"

"Ask me in advance next time. I'll put together a wish list," he told her airily, already flicking through the official documentation she had handed him as he turned away. "You're fortunate that I'm bored enough to do this one for chocolate."

"Thank you," she said, again, and to her surprise, he even raised a hand in acknowledgement as he headed back indoors.

It was somewhat frustrating that, after all her efforts, it had been the Master who seemed to have succeeded in getting through to him. While she'd been trying to befriend him the same way she would have done anyone else – by being earnest and working hard – the Master had found some common ground between them, and seemingly earned some measure of respect from their enigmatic prisoner in the process.

Then again, Zeref hadn't been going to help. He'd only changed his mind after she'd explained the situation with the Hundred Year Quest. Come to think of it, last time she'd brought the Quest up in conversation, back before Makarov had collapsed, it had prompted him to close off entirely and become aggressive. Maybe he thought celebrating victory in a war by going on a ridiculously difficult quest was as silly an idea as she did. Either that, or he was opposed to anything that might make Natsu happy, as Natsu seemed to feel towards him.

She hoped it was the former. It would be nice to have an actual sensible friend, for once.

It should have been a sign that Lucy's life was starting to stabilize.

Zeref seemed weirdly happy to have something to do. Though she had no idea how long this helpful mood of his would last, knowing that he was focussed on something completely harmless meant that she could stop constantly worrying that he was going to break down the barrier and wreak vengeance on her guild at any moment. For his part, the Master was over the moon that she had found, in his words, some sucker to deal with all his paperwork. (She had begged him not to repeat that phrase in front of their temperamental prisoner.)

Yet, despite the fact that Natsu showed no interest in going anywhere near the house in the forest, it seemed that his and his estranged brother's moods continued to be diametrically opposed. If Zeref was content, Natsu was on edge; if Zeref had shown a low propensity for causing trouble over the last few days… it was only a matter of time before her increasingly volatile teammate picked up the slack.

After his tearful confession to her in the infirmary, Natsu seemed to have opted for a policy of pretending Zeref didn't exist. Certainly, he'd not shared what he'd told her with anyone else, and on the couple of occasions that she had dared to suggest he might want to try talking to his brother, she had been quickly and aggressively shot down.

Well, that was Natsu's choice. Besides, if she was being honest, she had just got Zeref settled into a non-murderous state, and she didn't particularly want to trigger a confrontation that could cause him to relapse into silent, seething hate. If Natsu wanted to carry on ignoring Zeref, that was fine by her.

What wasn't fine by her was the way he seemed to expect everyone else to ignore Zeref, too.

Given that she was going back and forth between his house and the hospital at least twice a day with various forms for the S-Class Trials, Natsu's mindset was causing a smidgen of tension amongst their team.

She had even explained to him that she was helping Zeref and the Master coordinate the S-Class Trials – against Zeref's wish for his involvement to be a secret – in the hope that it would win Natsu over, but it had only worsened his mood. Zeref had lost the damn war, he'd said, and had no right to get involved in the business of the guild he'd almost destroyed. When Lucy had tried to explain that the Master had enjoyed being able to discuss the Trials with someone experienced yet independent, Natsu had stormed off.

It made her long for the last Trials the guild had held, back before Tenrou Island's disappearance, when Natsu's obsessive enthusiasm had cheered everyone's spirits despite the onset of winter. Though he had accepted the nomination this time, he had done so begrudgingly, clearly resenting the fact that the Trials would delay the Hundred Year Quest. In fact, Lucy had a hunch that if Gray hadn't put his foot down about his own nomination for the Trials – and Erza hadn't solidly backed him up – Natsu would have skipped the chance to become S-Class entirely.

She could feel his eyes on her every time she slipped out of the guildhall to take some more papers up to Zeref. She was embarrassed to admit that the first time she'd noticed this, it had left her with a warm and fluttery feeling inside… but it was starting to get irritating.

She could go where she wanted and speak to whom she liked. Sure, he'd never tried to stop her – not explicitly, anyway, and she knew he thought he was being subtle when he tried to rope her into far-flung missions or convince her that the Master needed rest – but it was the knowledge that he was silently tallying up every visit she made that left her feeling uncomfortable. She didn't have the heart to tell him that she was only doing it half the time to get away from his incessant planning for this stupid Quest.

She'd even tried going on a few jobs with Gray to try and get away from it all, but unlike Natsu, he was taking his training for the S-Class Trials very seriously. After two near-death encounters on one mission, and a third when Juvia misunderstood the reason why she had her arm around Gray as they'd hobbled back into the guildhall, Lucy decided she would be safer at home.

Not that she could blame Juvia. She, like Lucy, had been surprised to learn that Team Natsu was taking on the Hundred Year Quest so soon – only a few weeks after she and Gray had officially become a couple. Lucy would have given her place on the team to Juvia in a heartbeat, if she hadn't known how badly the rest of her team – maybe Gray excluded – would take it. So Lucy had stepped back from jobs with Gray too, and let the couple enjoy their time together while they could.

But going on a job just with Erza was a suicide mission, and going alone almost as bad, and that was how she found herself sat on the half-a-picnic-bench outside Zeref's prison.

She hadn't called him when she arrived, so it took him a while to notice her, and longer still for his curiosity to overcome his general dislike of doing anything that could be construed as friendly. Therefore, she had been working on her novel in the peace and quiet for about an hour before he finally emerged from his house and asked, with typical welcoming warmth, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to get out of the guildhall for a bit," Lucy answered him truthfully.

"So you decided to come and sit in my garden?"

Though pleasantly surprised by his assertion of ownership – of, perhaps, belonging – she hid it behind a cool expression. "I think you'll find Fairy Tail owns this land."

"Fairy Tail owns Tenrou Island, too," came the sullen response. "Why don't you go and intrude there instead?"

"It's not very convenient," she shrugged. Which was the truth, even if it was skirting around the heart of the matter: that only Natsu would think of looking for her here, and not even he would act on that thought.

That inscrutable inky gaze pierced through the barrier, saying everything and nothing all at once, and she wondered if he'd guessed. Hastily, to deny him any chance of commenting on it, she added, "I'm not here to bother you. You can go back inside."

"You're already bothering me," he sulked. "Why stop now?"

It wasn't a friendly response, but there was something uncharacteristically human about it. Something that made her stand up impulsively and push the picnic bench forward. Half of the half that remained intact now lay on his side of the Fairy Sphere, with that ever-present golden wall shimmering down the middle.

Zeref had watched in silence as she'd shoved the bench, and he still watched in silence as she sat down again. She, too, was silent, resuming work on her novel, not disturbing him any more than she already had: a quiet invitation, from which he could walk away no questions asked.

He'd never responded well to her efforts in the past.

Today, though, he sat opposite her without a word and resumed working on his and Makarov's proposal for the Council.

And there they remained for the rest of the afternoon, writing in the early autumn breeze, silence filled by pen on paper and little paws on bark and birdsong on the heavenward wind. Although still on opposite sides of the barrier, for the first time, it felt like they were in the same world.

Really, though, she should have known.

The easier her relationship became with one of the brothers, the more of a struggle it was to hold on to the other.

It was only a matter of time before this tentative accord fell apart.

The S-Class Trials were a complete disaster.

No, the disaster occurred before the Trials had even started. Natsu hadn't even made it to the guildhall when Zeref finally achieved what he'd been threatening to do since day one: he found a way to escape the Fairy Sphere.

There he stood in the middle of the street, in this pleasant city, on this gentle morning, a mocking smile beneath cold-burning eyes.

Blocking Natsu's way to the guildhall.

Blocking Natsu's way to the future.

Just like he had been for weeks.

But this time, he wasn't just a doubt in the back of Natsu's mind, an ever-present fear shadowing his dreams and lengthening his nights, an obstacle preventing him from enjoying the peaceful days he had been fighting for, a guilt he could not fully understand tying him to the fate of a brother he neither remembered nor wanted.

No, this time, Zeref was right here in front of him.

It was a chance to set things right.

To redeem himself.

To protect his guild for real, this time.

So Natsu had thrown himself at his enemy with everything he had. It didn't matter that he had thoroughly been defeated the last time they fought. It didn't matter that Zeref's immortal body healed almost immediately from any wound Natsu managed to land on him. It didn't matter that, while Zeref held the accursed Book of END in his hands, he could dispel Natsu's magic with ease.

The pain Natsu felt as he was struck down again and again didn't matter. The exhaustion that seemed to tie his hands behind his back and leave him wide open didn't matter.

He was going to win this time.

He had to.

And, watching, Lucy had felt her heart break at the exact moment Natsu realized that it was all in his head; that the S-Class Trials had already started – and ended.

Lucy had read the documentation she'd been ferrying back and forth between the Master and his co-conspirator; she knew what response they'd been hoping to get from their candidate. If Natsu had prioritized trying to warn the guild about Zeref's supposed escape, or luring the Black Mage away from the guildhall, or seeking help, or buying time to think of a plan, or anything that wasn't throwing himself over and over at an enemy he categorically knew he couldn't beat… well, then, he would have been the one celebrating right now.

Instead, a mildly disappointed Gajeel was clapping the back of a shellshocked Gray, to the tentative applause of an equally shellshocked guild, who had automatically assumed that the one who had defeated Zeref, ended the war, and saved Fairy Tail would get the promotion.

But Natsu knew full well that he had done none of the things for which everyone revered him.

And it was so painful for Lucy to watch.

Zeref was prepared for Natsu's anger.

He had been ever since he had bluntly spelled out Natsu's biggest weakness to the meddlesome but ultimately wise Guild Master, knowing what the consequences would be. Even if Lucy had not divulged his involvement in the Trials to Natsu, he knew the Dragon Slayer would have worked it out. None but the two of them knew what had happened during their final battle, after all.

Zeref had overseen the training of many mages in his time, some of whom had been just as impulsive and haunted – though none quite as personal to him – as Natsu. He knew how Natsu would take what happened in the Trials. He was prepared.

Overprepared, one could say. He had even entertained the possibility that Natsu's anger might hurt him. It didn't, of course. He had long since become numb to the fact that his brother despised him.

Rather, when Natsu stood on the other side of the barrier, a blaze of blame and betrayal in his eyes, it was easy for Zeref to be calm.

"You did this," Natsu accused.

Zeref watched him impassively. He did not know why the burning of others with emotion made it so much easier for him to control his own. Maybe because it looked so childish from this point of view.

Misinterpreting the silence as denial, Natsu spat, "I know it was you."

"I am flattered by the level of influence you believe I have over your guild from inside my prison, but it is entirely up to your Master who is promoted to S-Class." He spun out the words into a lazy drawl.

"But you're the only one who knows-" Natsu stopped himself short; would've hit the barrier with his fist if not for the fact that he would have passed right through it. "It's not enough that you're here leeching off my guild after what you did. It's not enough that you're abusing Lucy's kindness, occupying all her time, and endangering her life with your stupid requests. You just couldn't resist a chance to humiliate me in front of the guild, could you? It should have been me. Everyone was expecting it to be me, even Gray. But no, you couldn't even let me have that! You had to steal it away from me-"

"The others expected you to win because they didn't know any better," Zeref told him coolly. "You should have known better. You knew you didn't deserve it."

"It's not like Gray beat you either!" Natsu snarled, hot and fierce and frighteningly wild.

"He came closer than you did."

"Because you cheated with that goddamn book-"

"No, Natsu." He slipped so easily into a tone that all his Alvarez mages would have recognized, unfamiliar though it was to Natsu, who had never had any respectable authority figures in his life. "Not because of anything I did, but because of what he did. Gray knew that neither his Ice Make nor his Devil Slayer magic would be able to stop me, so he went away and thought about it, and by the time we came face to face, he had come up with something that would: Iced Shell. Not only that, but he had thought about the cost to be paid by him and his friends if he used said magic, and had developed a solution to that, too."

"An appalling solution-"

"But a solution nonetheless. Would it have worked on me? I do not know." He had wondered, often, if being trapped within the ice would be preferable to his current predicament; whether a frozen eternity would pass in the blink of an eye, or whether he would be awake and paralyzed until the buzzing of his own mind drove him insane.

"You, though – you did not stop to consider whether your magic had the power to defeat an immortal without Igneel's gift. You did not seek out new spells or new tactics; you did not ask for help, but rather told your friends not to follow. You did not factor in how your existence as END or our history might make me a different opponent to those you have faced before. You came at me in the same way you come at all your enemies: without thought, without reason, without anything to back up your determination. And when that didn't work, you didn't even change tactics, let alone ask for help. You merely put more effort into doing the exact same thing.

"So, no, Natsu," he concluded, with a flash of the authority that had once silenced an empire. "It was not up to me who received a pointless promotion in your guild's Trials. However, based on my experience of fighting the two of you – between one man who relies on his strengths and another who works to overcome his weaknesses – there is no doubt in my mind that Makarov chose correctly."

Long-dead grass crunched beneath Zeref's feet as he stepped up to the barrier, nothing more than an inch of shimmering magic between them, daring Natsu to cross the line, to strike him down, to come within reach of his own power. "And the thing is, Natsu, if you had asked Makarov why Gray was promoted ahead of you, he would have told you the exact same thing. But you didn't ask him, did you? You came straight here, desperate to blame me for your own failings."

"Because it's your fault!" Natsu howled. "You should be rotting away in a prison somewhere after everything you've done, but instead you're here, and the price has been my friendships, my future, my happiness! You just can't let me be, can you? You won't stop until you've driven me away from my real family!"

This time, Zeref was the one who took a step back.

It shouldn't have hurt.

He had even prepared for it, naïve and optimistic, as if none of the past four hundred years had happened.

But there was something about the way that Natsu had brought it up so unexpectedly.

Something about the way that Natsu never acknowledged their bond except to beat him with it.

Fairy Sphere glimmered between them, like the gold of Mavis's hair, like the golden dawn that had flooded his senses when she'd held out her hand to him and said, Let's go together…

The breeze felt dry and mocking against his palm. There had been no warmth there since the moment his hand had slipped out of hers.

Abruptly, he turned on his heel and let a flare of magic transport him the few metres or so into his house, walls snapping into place between them, so that he would not have to look at that ignorant, victorious, savage grin.

The doorbell rang.

There weren't many things that could startle Zeref – reflexes being a waste of energy for an apathetic immortal – but the sound of a doorbell he didn't even know he had was apparently one of them. The lacrima he had been spinning between his hands rolled off the kitchen table and hit the ground with an artificially safe thunk.

He raised his head warily. Only Fairy Tail mages could pass through the barrier, and none of them were foolish enough to walk right up to his front door. Well, except perhaps for Lucy, in one of her exhaustingly reckless moods – but she would call him on the lacrima first, and that had been dormant all afternoon, no matter how much it had spun beneath his fingers.

It was curiosity that drove him to open the door. On the far side of the Fairy Sphere, Makarov's arm returned to its normal length in time to give Zeref a wave.

"What do you want?" Zeref snapped. The flicker of intrigue that had motivated him to get up for the first time in hours had shrivelled at such a mundane explanation, leaving behind a simmering irritation.

"After what happened today, I thought you might want some company," Makarov told him cheerfully.

There were no words that could sum up the stupidity of that statement, so Zeref slammed the door shut instead.

The doorbell rang again.

And again.

Shoulders slumping at the realization that he would have to go outside again to remove the doorbell, Zeref steeled himself against the barrage of nonsense to which he was about to expose himself, and opened the door.

"The thing is," Makarov continued, as if he hadn't been interrupted, "I've been doing this whole leadership thing for a very long time-"

"Not as long as me," Zeref cut in coldly.

"Granted, but long enough to know what it's like," Makarov finished, entirely unfazed. "And that's the hardest thing: you know that you're doing the right thing for them, but you also know that they'll likely never understand that, and they'll certainly never thank you for it. Natsu needed to see that today. I don't know if it will be enough to get through to him, but we had to try, no matter what the cost to us. But while his pain is allowed to be righteous and deafening, ours must be quiet and wise, for to admit it would be to break the façade which the kids need to guide them."

From his wheelchair on the far side of the barrier, the Guild Master met his gaze with understanding and wisdom – wisdom that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with experience, all of it gained in the last ten years of his life, raising children that weren't his own in an age of monsters.

Zeref despised how much those words resonated.

How much they made him miss Alvarez: not the weapon it had become for him at the death, but those steady days of teaching and consulting and guiding, amongst young mages who looked up to him and old ones who stood unwaveringly at his side.

It shouldn't have hurt, but the events of today had left him raw.

He said, brusquely, "How long did the doctors give you?"

Makarov's expression did not change. "Six months," he answered, without hesitation. Just as calmly, he added, "I am told I have you to thank for the fact that I have any time left at all."

How easily the old Master had batted back the pitch meant to throw him off-balance only irked Zeref further. "I am also the reason why you overused Fairy Law in the first place."

"Nope, I'm pretty sure that was my decision," Makarov breezed. "Though, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone else that that was the cause just yet. I know Lucy knows, but the guild should hear it from me first."

After a moment, Zeref gave a terse nod.

"Thanks," Makarov grinned.

He had done nothing worth being thanked for; his irritation was flipped on its head once again. Emotional turmoil was something he was used to, thanks to his curse, but this felt more like confusion than inconsistency, not knowing how to feel rather than being certain that the wrong thing was right.

"I'd give you twelve months," he said impulsively. "Maybe closer to eighteen. I cannot feel your magical presence from within the barrier, but I remember it, and I know the magic you abused far better than your doctors do. The corruption will resurface, but they underestimate your ability to fight it, I think."

Makarov wasn't fast enough to hide his surprise, but he was able to school his features into a relaxed expression. "That is good news. I've doubled my life expectancy by coming here." He rested his hands in his lap and gazed up at Zeref with a mischievous expression. "So you can't possibly have a problem with me spending some of those extra hours keeping you company."

Zeref very much could, but Makarov didn't give him a chance, adding, "Lucy isn't going to call."

The words startled him as much as the doorbell had. He had bombarded the cabin he now called home with every magic-sensing spell he knew within the first few days of his imprisonment, and he was certain there were no enchantments or magical tools hidden here with which the guild could spy on him. How had the old Master known why had he been slumped in front of a dormant lacrima for the last few hours when he hadn't truly known himself?

Brushing his reaction away, Makarov told him, "She's a bit preoccupied trying to cheer Natsu up, so you're stuck with me, I'm afraid. On the plus side, you don't have to explain yourself to me. I get it."

Zeref hesitated.

The forest trail must have been very difficult to navigate in a wheelchair, alone.

"Don't you want to hear how Gray responded to the challenges we designed?" Makarov nudged.

"Oh, alright," Zeref sighed, taking his now-familiar place on what remained of the picnic bench.

A/N: So Zeref has found a hobby he actually likes, and a friend who kind of gets him, and it seems he's actually starting to calm down and even be a bit helpful. On the other hand, Natsu's policy of pretending Zeref doesn't exist and trying to get on with his life is going to be less and less effective as Zeref starts interacting more with the guild. Something is going to have to give... ~CS