Homeward Hours

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Twenty-Four – Salvation and Damnation

Nervous wasn't the right word to describe how Lucy was feeling on her way up to Zeref's house. Not apprehensive, either. She knew that Zeref wasn't going to do anything hurtful or dangerous on purpose, and she was pretty sure he wouldn't do so by accident, either; she couldn't clearly recall the last time he had relapsed into a harmful mental state. She had even called ahead to ensure that he was feeling up to this. It would have been an easy way out, and he'd chosen not to take it.

It was going to be fine. Logically, she knew that.

Perhaps the problem was that she had put too much pressure on herself for it to be more than fine.

"Zeref?"

"In here, Lucy."

She followed the sound of his voice into the guest house. As he rose from his chair to greet her, she could see her own anxiety reflected in his eyes. It seemed she wasn't the only one who had put too much pressure on herself today.

The mutual understanding made it easier; her smile, as she stepped forward, was genuine. In her arms, she held a warm bundle of cloth with the utmost care. "Zeref, I want you to meet Felicity Layla Dragneel. Felicity, this is your Uncle Zeref."

"Hello," Zeref murmured.

His hand was pressed against the inside of the barrier – not to try and reach through, she thought, but to brace himself, to stop himself from trying anything more. He did not so much as blink, like he thought his newborn niece would disappear if he did, like he only had a few precious seconds to memorize her rosy cheeks and tiny fists before reality snatched her away again.

Felicity stared back at him, still and serene in her mother's arms. Then she wrinkled her nose and closed her eyes.

"Sorry," Lucy smiled ruefully. "She's just tired. She's met a lot of people today."

"It's probably the most welcoming reaction I've ever had upon meeting someone for the first time," Zeref murmured. There was a strange tremor to his voice, as though he was about to laugh and cry at the same time.

"Are you alright?" Lucy asked.

He shook his head, slowly, and then suddenly he crumpled against the Fairy Sphere. In the blink of an eye, darkness filled its dome. Waves of it crashed, writhed, thrashed against that invisible wall.

Lucy did not flinch. Zeref had promised he would control his curse as much as he could, and yet she found herself strangely pleased that he had proven unable to do so.

At last, it receded, leaving him shaking against the barrier. His shoulders were hunched, his eyes screwed shut; he was the very picture of defeat.

"Lucy," he rasped, "please, take her away from me. She shouldn't have to see this."

"No," she told him simply. "She needs to see it. She is going to grow up understanding that the only reason why you aren't there for her in the same way as the rest of her family is because you have a curse, an illness, that physically prevents it."

"Lucy-"

"No," she repeated, more firmly. "She is going to know you, Zeref. All of you. The good and the bad; why you are feared, and why you are loved."

"And how does Natsu feel about this?"

"He's fine with it." At his suspicious look, she explained, "He's getting there, Zeref. He is. He agrees that it wouldn't be a good idea to try and pretend that you don't exist, only for her to find out the same way he did when she's older. He wants her to be able to make her own choices. Sure, he may be hoping that she chooses to have nothing to do with you, but he'll respect her decision either way."

Not even Zeref could argue with that, it seemed. Or perhaps he'd wanted to, but Felicity had started making soft burbling noises at him, and she'd be able to win any arguments without words for quite some time yet.

With an effort, he dragged his gaze away. "How are you doing, Lucy?"

"I'm alright. Tired, but Levy tells me I don't even know the meaning of the word yet."

"Natsu's… looking after you?"

"Of course he is," she said, with an exasperated smile. "Though, what would you do if I said he wasn't?"

A shrug. "Probably tell him he's doing a great job. Hearing that from me would prompt him to change his approach… and it's not as though I can do much else to help from in here."

"I suppose not. It'll be useful to have a babysitter who never has any other commitments, though," she joked.

"Any time, although I'm not sure that's a particularly good idea, given that I also wouldn't be able to help her if anything went wrong." Zeref gestured needlessly around the guest house, at the shared living space that was nonetheless split between his side and theirs by an impenetrable barrier. His voice was light, but the sentiment behind it wasn't; she suspected he'd been thinking about this for even longer than she had.

"We'll work something out," she promised him. "Besides, as about half the members of Fairy Tail can attest to by this point, there's one thing you can do very effectively from inside the Fairy Sphere, and that's teach her magic."

Another rush of uncontrolled emotion bombarded the inside of the barrier, but not before she heard his whispered words: "It would be an honour."

With Felicity having been born so close to the annual Grand Magic Games, Lucy and Natsu both decided to skip the competition and stay at home with her. And by 'home', they meant Zeref's guest house, which had a huge screen and specialist equipment that hijacked a better, smoother, higher-definition feed from the Games each year, as he and Warrod continued to improve their experimental technology.

By day, they cheered for their guild, while Felicity alternately drove them mad by wailing and then giggled with such wonder that they immediately forgave her. By night, sometimes they'd go home, but sometimes they'd stay over, getting some much-needed rest while Zeref kept an eye on the baby. There wasn't much he could do to comfort her from his side of the barrier – besides panic and wake Lucy with a lacrima call – but at least she had the peace of mind of knowing he'd only bother her if it was necessary.

That was what he was doing tonight. He had pulled his usual armchair right up to his side of the Fairy Sphere, only a metre or so away from her crib as she squeaked and mumbled her way through mysterious dreams. There was, as usual, an old book open on his lap – though, less usually, he was reading from it aloud rather than making his own archaic notes in the margins.

"…and they all lived happily ever after. You know, I find it fascinating how these northern folktales tend to use the water element, such as the kelpies in this story, to represent freedom and the wild. It's far more common round here for the fire element to take that role. I wonder if a similar pattern can be seen in fire and water magic users – if there's a greater tendency for northern water mages to favour chaos and destruction in the spells they invent than the southern water users-"

"Is this story-time with the Black Mage?" a familiar voice cut in. "If the stories don't put them to sleep, the commentary definitely will."

"Can't argue with the results," Zeref said calmly, closing the book. Sure enough, Felicity was happily asleep in her crib. "I think she likes me."

"Only because she's too young to know any better."

"Quite so." Zeref's gaze flicked up as Natsu stepped fully into the lamplight. Shadows fought for dominance with the rings around the Dragon Slayer's eyes. Zeref should have known better by now, but he asked anyway: "Are you alright? I thought you were asleep."

Natsu ignored this. "I didn't know that story. The one you were telling her." It sounded more like an accusation than an observation, though that was hardly unusual when those two conversed.

"It's from this book Levy got me a while back," Zeref explained. He held it up, a gesture of good faith, letting Natsu read the faded gold lettering on the front. "Folk tales from the northern region where she grew up. It's fascinating to compare them to the more common stories from…"

Seeing that Natsu had already lost interest, Zeref tailed off. He watched his brother pace through the shadows, wondering why he had asked if he wasn't interested. No, the real question was why Natsu was here at all. He may not trust Zeref, but he trusted the Fairy Sphere, and after the first few weeks of parenthood, he was also willing to trust anyone who offered him a decent night's sleep.

Then, without warning, Natsu wheeled around. "Do you remember any stories from when you were growing up?"

"Uh-"

"I bet they were pretty different to the stories people tell their kids today."

"I suppose they were," Zeref frowned.

"Because I don't remember," Natsu continued. "I've got nothing from before Igneel, and he didn't exactly know enough about human culture to tell me fairy tales."

"I remember."

"Then what do you need the book for?"

Felicity gurgled a sleepy question from between them, as if to ask why the lullaby had stopped.

Natsu immediately went to fuss over her, leaving Zeref to wonder if this was a very roundabout way of Natsu asking him for a favour.

It wasn't that Zeref remembered being told the folk tales of his home, as such. He had outgrown them long before he consciously recalled having done so; he preferred to read to himself textbooks that his parents would never have understood.

But he remembered listening as his mother had told them to his baby brother. Remembered teaching Natsu to read with a picture book of dragons and heroes. Remembered in full the history to which Natsu did not have a connection.

"Are you gonna tell a story, or what?" Natsu snapped, jolting him out of his thoughts. "I'm never gonna get her back to sleep at this rate."

"I- I guess so." There was a pause. Natsu didn't move. Zeref asked, "Are you… going to stay?"

"Like I'd trust you alone with my daughter."

As if he and Lucy hadn't done just that for the past three nights in a row.

Still, Zeref could let him have his pride. "Well, my favourite was always the story of the dragon with the diamond scales…"

At first, he spoke tentatively, worried about how Natsu would react. But Natsu did not react at all. He sat down beside the barrier, facing the crib as an excuse not to look at Zeref, and he said nothing, looking for all the world like he wasn't listening at all.

But long after Felicity had fallen asleep, there was one person still paying attention to the old story – to a piece of the childhood he had lost four centuries ago.

Felicity was four when it happened.

"We've misplaced Larry again," Lucy was saying apologetically. "Do you mind if I check the guest house?"

Ah, Larry the Stuffed Unicorn. Both the greatest birthday present Felicity had ever received, and by far the most infuriating. Before, she'd been happy to sleep with anything sufficiently cuddly. Now, it was Larry or no sleep at all, even at nine pm on a summer's evening.

"Not at all," Zeref said.

Sighing, Lucy trudged over to the guest house and disappeared inside.

In the garden, on opposite sides of a near-invisible barrier, Zeref and his niece regarded each other appraisingly.

"Aine?" he said, without preamble.

Her forehead wrinkled with the intensity of her concentration. "Fog."

"Elthrarir?"

"Darkness. Night-darkness, not evil-darkness."

"Good. Ruk?"

"Earth."

"And…?"

"Oh! Castle defences. Those super-big walls!"

"Ramparts," he said, with a smile. "Very good. You've been practising."

Felicity beamed at him and held out her cupped hands.

"Unfortunately, your mother says I'm not allowed to bribe you with sweets to learn Ancient Antharki any more," he explained sadly.

She gave him a look as though he was stupid. "I'm not going to tell her."

"She'll know, trust me," Zeref sighed. "Also, please can you stop hiding Larry at my house? She's starting to think I'm in on it."

Felicity puffed her cheeks out and gave him a suspicious look.

"Seriously, what's taking her so long?" He glanced uneasily at the guest house. "Where did you put that unicorn? Maybe I should go and see if-"

He had only taken a few paces towards the guest house when Felicity made her move. With a wicked glint in her eye, she made a dash for Zeref's cabin – and to the stockpile of treats he had been building up for his niece's visits until Lucy had put her foot down – and he rolled his eyes and pretended not to notice her antics… until his brain made the connection.

She was inside the barrier.

A handful of steps, and she'd slipped through the Fairy Sphere as if it didn't exist.

To where he was.

To within range of his curse.

"Felicity!" he shouted. "You can't be inside- go back-"

She giggled as she ran on, thinking it was a game – a game like she played with her father, her mother, her perfect, normal family.

Which never should have pretended to include a person like him.

He took a step back, desperately trying to keep his magic under control, even as he knew that same desperation was going to kill her.

He screamed for Lucy. The three seconds it took her to emerge from the guest house were three seconds more than he could cope with; he twisted on his heel and reappeared atop its roof. It was as far as he could physically get from the child. For a darkness that could fill the whole dome when it wanted to, it wasn't far enough.

Lucy's shriek told him she'd understood everything. She was already hurtling through the Fairy Sphere, snatching up her daughter, sprinting frantically towards safety – as dark wind flooded the clearing.

Zeref didn't know what happened. He didn't want to know. Couldn't. His eyes were shut; he was curled up in a ball atop the guest house's roof, unable to acknowledge the world, the consequences, the passage of time.

"Zeref, it's okay," Lucy murmured.

He didn't look up.

"Zeref. We're both fine. It's okay, it wasn't your fault."

Slowly, he uncurled. They were stood on the far side of that shimmering wall, Felicity clutched tightly to her mother's chest. The girl was trembling, but Lucy's gaze was steady as it locked onto his.

"It's okay," she repeated. "You can come down."

It took him three attempts to form the teleportation spell correctly. Even then, he couldn't bring himself to approach the barrier. How was he supposed to trust it now?

Lucy was preoccupied with her daughter, the mother's blend of concern and reprimand. "How many times have I told you not to enter the dome? You have to do what your Uncle Zeref tells you, or you won't be allowed to visit-"

"She can't come back here, Lucy," Zeref cut in with sheer, icy finality, the cold darkness at the end of the universe. "You know it's too dangerous if the barrier can't keep her out. Why didn't you tell me you'd given her the guild mark?"

"I didn't!" Lucy shot back.

"What?"

"She doesn't have the guild mark, Zeref," she replied, as cold as he was, if not colder, at the accusation of having put her own daughter in danger. "Natsu and I aren't going to force her into anything. She's not joining Fairy Tail until she's old enough to make the choice for herself and know what it means."

"But… that's not possible." It was his turn to flounder. "She walked straight through the Fairy Sphere. Only people with the Fairy Tail mark can do that. Unless… it's somehow failing…"

Cautiously, he stepped forwards and pressed his hand against the barrier. It was as substantial to him as ever. Besides, it had blocked his curse mere moments ago, with Lucy and Felicity just a few centimetres clear. He swallowed. Somehow, that confirmation didn't comfort him.

"Maybe she has an innate magic that lets her bypass magical barriers?" Lucy suggested.

"Not possible. Not only does no such magic exist, but I have also mathematically proven in three independent ways that no such magic ever can exist. Fairy Sphere is the ultimate protection spell. If it were possible to break out, I'd have done it years ago."

"Then how did she pass through it?"

"That's my question," Zeref said quietly. "I'm going to call Jellal and see if he'll help me with some tests, since he doesn't have the guild mark either. Until we've got to the bottom of this, Felicity can't come anywhere near me."

Lucy's concern deepened. "Zeref-"

"No, Lucy. She's too young to understand the risks. You have to keep her away from me." Glancing at the child with her face still buried into her mother's chest, he found that the next words came even easier. "It would be better if she thinks of me like this. Like the villain that I am. You should tell her-"

"Shut up, Zeref," Lucy interrupted tiredly. "There is absolutely no reason why she can't still visit you. It just means I have to be more careful about watching her. Seriously, don't overreact."

"But Lucy-"

"No. You are absolutely not using my daughter as an excuse to relapse back into depression. You're part of this family, and we'll face this obstacle the same way we've faced all the others: by standing together, not running away."

And that was that.

After all, Lucy Heartfilia had been getting her way around here long before she had become Guild Master.

Despite substantial testing by the greatest minds in Fairy Tail and their allies, another five years passed without a breakthrough in understanding the Fairy Sphere.

On one hand, Zeref's fears were unfounded: it was as strong as ever, and entirely impenetrable to him and his magic. From within it, he was able to continue interacting safely with his friends, and if those who were parents now kept a closer eye on their children around the Fairy Sphere, it didn't lessen their determination to visit him. On the other hand, the fact that Felicity's actions remained unexplainable only increased Zeref's concern, and further strained the few interactions he had with his brother. Not even the arrival of Natsu and Lucy's second daughter, Emilia, had been able to restart the healing of that broken bond.

Still, Zeref was entirely used to that. In truth, he found very little worth complaining about as he continued to help Lucy with the guild's affairs and taught magic to those who asked for it, the calm wheels of his life turning on.

And then, one day, Felicity turned up outside his house alone.

Zeref was outside at the time, experimenting with a new spell that had slightly too high a chance of backfiring for him to attempt it indoors. When he became aware that he was being watched, he gently let the half-constructed magic circle fade. No sudden movements. No explosions. She had seen enough of that from him already.

Still, there she was. A good way short of the Fairy Sphere, sure – but neither Natsu nor Lucy were anywhere to be seen, and she knew she wasn't supposed to be here without an adult present.

"Hello, Felicity," he said evenly.

She shuffled her feet upon the dry forest floor. "…Hi."

"Are your parents around?"

A shake of her head sent blonde locks dancing; she took after her mother far more than her father.

"You know you're not supposed to be here without them, Felicity."

"They went looking for the prisoner."

"Ah." About half an hour ago, a prison wagon conveying a dangerous dark mage had gone missing close to Magnolia, the guards found dead on the road. The Magic Council had alerted all the nearby guilds; Mira had called to let Zeref know. He had assumed she had been the one to call because Lucy and Natsu were out on a job of their own, but apparently it had more to do with the fact that they'd joined the hunt themselves. Typical heroes, always dashing off without thinking of the consequences. "All the more reason for you to not be here."

Felicity ignored this. He could see her mother in her clear as day as she looked him square in the eye and demanded, "Why is Emilia better at magic than me?"

"She isn't," Zeref answered, perplexed.

"That's what Mama says. It's just a lie. She thinks it makes me feel better, but it doesn't. Not when Emilia's there throwing twice as much fire around as I can, and she's a baby!"

"That's only because she takes after your father," Zeref shrugged. "Honestly, she couldn't have picked a worse role model, but I live in hope that she'll grow out of it."

This earned him a glower. "Hey, Dad's amazing!"

"He's an idiot," Zeref said bluntly. "You're not. You're certainly smart enough to realize that affinity for a certain type of magic does not equate to affinity for all magic."

"It's the only type of magic that matters to Dad."

"It isn't. He's fought alongside – and against – many great mages in his time, and I know he respects their ways of doing things. I suspect he's just excited that your sister appears to have a similar magical affinity to him, and he's expressing it in a very clumsy way-"

But it was always as things were starting to go right that they went so very wrong.

A man stepped out of the trees. A monster of a man. They didn't need the tattered orange rags or the five-digit number branded on his neck to know that he should never have seen the light of day; the hunger of the condemned blazed in his eyes. He had worn magic-suppressing cuffs for so long that a band of pale skin embraced each of his newly bare forearms.

Despite his size, he was fast. Fast enough that one burly arm was already around Felicity's neck.

She shrieked before his grip tightened, stifling the noise.

"Well, look at what we have here," the escaped convict gloated.

Zeref's eyes flashed. "Let her go."

Noticing him for the first time, a disturbing smile spread across the man's face. "Or wh-?"

He didn't finish the word. Zeref gestured, swift and merciless.

A lance of black death splashed against the inside of the Fairy Sphere and dissipated harmlessly.

The energy was gone before surprise had had a chance to replace the convict's smile. "Oh?" he wondered, seeing the transparent barrier for the first time as it trembled in the wake of that strike. "I'd heard the rumours of Fairy Tail's secret prison, but I'd never dreamed they were true! Too bad for you," he added, eyeing Zeref without sympathy, without any fear for what he found there. "I escaped from my prison."

It was almost enough to make Zeref lose control.

Trapped behind the barrier, he had never felt so powerless. Not since the first time Makarov had collapsed while visiting him, and he hadn't been able to get through to Lucy-

Right. The lacrima.

His fingers dropped to the crystal in his pocket. Silently, he sent an urgent plea for help to Lucy, and another to the guildhall. The former responded at once, but he didn't know how far away she was. There was no answer from the latter. He didn't know if there was anyone left in the guildhall to get his message, or how long it would take them to get here.

All he could do was wait.

He wanted to slam his fists against the barrier and scream at the world that had stripped him of his power.

But what would that achieve? Nothing. He knew the barrier was impenetrable. There was only one thing he could do: if he couldn't fight, he could damn well buy time for those who could.

That was the plan, anyway, but he could barely hold the fracturing pieces of himself together, let alone come up with anything clever to say.

"Get away from her," he growled.

"Why? Is she your plaything?" The man squeezed a little tighter, eliciting another squeak of fear. "Not any more, my friend."

Felicity was staring at Zeref with wide, terrified eyes. She'd not looked nearly as scared when he'd lost control of his curse and almost killed her. It wasn't just fear this time – it was abandonment. He was doing nothing, while a stranger slowly choked her to death.

Did she realize that the barrier was stopping him from saving her? Did she understand that he would have ripped apart heaven and earth in that moment if that was what it took to protect her, were it not for the accursed Fairy Sphere?

Where the hell was Lucy?

"The forest is crawling with guild mages," the escaped convict mentioned offhandedly. "She's my ticket out. They won't dare hurt me while I've got her. And, you know," he added, casually lifting her with the arm around her neck – grinning at the way her feet flailed – and running his free hand through her hair. "I might keep her."

"You will not!" Zeref snarled. Loud as thunder, but with no lightning to back it up, no storm, no power, nothing but empty threats.

He was used to living in this prison. The size, the confinement – they hadn't bothered him in years.

Now, it felt as though thirteen years' worth of claustrophobia was hitting him all at once.

He struck at the barrier. The muted thwack was barely audible over the prisoner's laughs, Felicity's gasps. Surely there was a way to pass through it – his own niece had managed it at only four years old! But it had never yielded to him before, and it did not do so now, heedless to the fact that one of its own was slowly suffocating metres away from it.

How had she done it? How?

He'd been asking the same question ever since Felicity had pulled her little stunt five years ago. There was no latent magic in the guild mark that could be unintentionally passed down through childbirth. Blood had no effect, and nor did marriage. Age was irrelevant. Past membership of the guild didn't grant one access any more than the promise of future membership did.

No, all his tests pointed to one simple truth: only current members of Fairy Tail could pass through the Fairy Sphere-

Oh.

A single missed heartbeat.

A moment of time, dilated.

"Oh," he breathed. "Clever, clever Mavis…"

So that was where he'd been going wrong all these years.

He closed his eyes.

Didn't think about Felicity; didn't think about the criminal he would have sold his soul for the chance to strike down.

Instead, he thought about the guild, whose faith and power and unity formed the golden globe of his sanctuary. There wasn't a single mage in it he didn't know by name. He thought of all the reports he'd written for Makarov or Lucy to sign; thought of how the Magic Council would react if they knew their improved relationship with Fiore's most troublesome guild had been built on the back of his efforts. It wasn't just administrative problems that they brought him, but interpersonal ones, magical ones, conflicts needing an independent adjudicator or problems that only four hundred years of wisdom could solve. His lacrima rang constantly. It wasn't audacious for them to ask, or generous for him to help. It was just normal.

At some point over the last thirteen years of incarceration, he had just quietly become part of Fairy Tail life.

The sense of fulfilment whenever someone asked him to help them learn new magic.

The pride when Natsu had finally made it to S-Class.

The satisfaction when the Magic Council dropped charges against the guild based on a defence he had written.

The sheer crazy joy as he and Lucy and Natsu and Felicity and Emilia had watched Fairy Tail bring it home at the finale of the last Grand Magic Games, when none had screamed as loudly at the lacrima as he, nor cried so much when they'd snatched their last-minute victory.

Because, no matter what the law said, being part of a guild had nothing to do with whether one had a stamp on their skin or not.

The Fairy Sphere hummed around him. He had heard it every day for the past thirteen years, but this time, it was different. He did not hear it with his ears. He felt it in his soul.

The convict's eyes narrowed towards Zeref. "If you try anything, I'll snap her-"

This was when Felicity decided to prove she really did take after her mother more than her father, by using the distraction to kick her captor in the groin.

He dropped her with a shriek. "You little bitch!" he screamed, as blue light throbbed around his raised fist. "I'll kill you!"

He was fast, but Zeref was faster.

Silently, calmly, he commanded the Fairy Sphere to disappear, and it did. His hands fell into the familiar gesture. Throughout his life, he had invoked his death magic more times than he cared to remember, but he had never meant it as much as this.

The convict's magic winked out, and he fell to the ground, unmoving.

Stillness reigned over the forest clearing. Silence, too, bereft of the Fairy Sphere's quiet buzzing for the first time in years. It seemed that Zeref's shoulders were the only thing to move, as they slowly rose and fell in the aftermath of bringing his cursed magic to heel. His heart hung by a delicate thread of purpose in the void.

All of a sudden, he felt so exposed. The Fairy Sphere hadn't come back. He didn't know how to make it; the reverberations deep within his soul had disappeared when it had.

And in the emptiness, fear lurked.

His prison was no longer secure. Now that he knew how to control the Fairy Sphere, it could not keep others safe from his curse, from him. The life he had just started to cherish could never again be his.

"Felicity!"

Lucy's shout tore through the stillness, perhaps a blessing, perhaps a curse. She was a blur as she crossed the clearing, sweeping her daughter up into her arms, checking that she was unhurt.

"Zeref! What happened?" she demanded. Care for her daughter, answers from him; that was how it ought to be, he supposed. "Is that- what happened to the Fairy Sphere?"

"Put it back up," he said tersely.

"Zeref-"

A scream: "Put it back up, Lucy!"

"Right, okay," she muttered. With a brief moment of concentration, she restored the familiar transparent dome around the circle of dead grass that marked out his territory. "Now, tell me what hap-"

The only answer was the sound of his front door slamming.

Every curtain being drawn.

A lacrima that rang and rang all night, unanswered.