Homeward Hours

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Twenty-Nine – Closure

Needless to say, the Magic Council were not happy with Fairy Tail's choice of Guild Master.

Considering how the annual conference of Masters had started, it had ended on an unexpectedly amicable note. Once Zeref and Natsu had explained the developments of the last few years, and their earnest plans for the future, the representatives from the other guilds were still nervous around Zeref, but nevertheless willingly shook his hand as they parted ways. Still, it wasn't entirely surprising that word of that afternoon's dramatic encounter – and therefore Fairy Tail's decision – reached the Council four days sooner than planned.

However, the Council, being a huge and bureaucratic institution, had a certain way of doing things, and it would take more than the former would-be conqueror of Fiore taking charge of the guild who were supposed to be imprisoning him to change that.

And the Council's way of doing things involved automatically issuing a summons for the Guild Master to attend a hearing in order to resolve the issue.

The missive stated in no uncertain terms that the Master was supposed to go immediately, in person, and on their own. Zeref's eyes had lit up with glee as he read it. With the Guild Masters, Natsu had been there to stop him from going too far. It was important to remain on good terms with their allied guilds, after all. But when Mira had suggested that perhaps Natsu should go with him to the Council too, Natsu had simply laughed, and waved his brother off from the guildhall doors.

They only started to worry once time dragged on and Zeref didn't return. Not that they thought he was in any danger, mind, but they all knew that the fate of the guild hinged upon his actions.

When another hour passed without word from him, Mira went in search. She knew she'd found him when she noticed the familiar golden dome shining around the little house in the woods. He preferred not having the Fairy Sphere pressed so claustrophobically against his skin when he didn't need to interact with others, not least because it entirely prevented him from using magic. Usually, when he was at home, he let it return to its normal form. He could control it easily enough from the right mindset. That was how she knew it was safe to call out to him, and he reluctantly came out to meet her in the guest house.

"What happened?" she asked gently. It was clear from his decision to avoid the guild on his return that something had, and his melancholy expression only seemed to confirm it. When he didn't respond at once, she teased, "Did they disband the guild?"

"No, of course not." Exasperation flashed through his eyes, making that distant darkness seem a little closer, a little more human. "They have no power over me and can pin nothing on the guild, and I made sure they knew that."

"Then why aren't you celebrating that fact with us at the guildhall?"

Again, he didn't answer. Mira frowned internally. Her relationship with Zeref was a lot less personal and more professional than Lucy's had been. She didn't understand him like Lucy did – or like Natsu did, not that he'd ever admit it – but although she couldn't guess at what was bothering him, she had been working with him for a long time, now. She knew when she needed to back off and when she could risk pressing him further.

"You know," she needled, "Natsu should have told you, when you accepted the position of Master, that you wouldn't be able to keep things away from the guild so easily any more."

"It's a personal matter."

She raised her eyebrows. "That came out of you talking to the Council?"

"They made a couple of good points."

"The Council did? Another thing Natsu should have told you was that you aren't ever allowed to admit that the Council has a point. Fairy Tail has a reputation to uphold!"

"Mira."

Reluctantly, she quietened.

"I've been hiding since the war ended."

If she was surprised that he would admit it so readily, she gave no sign of it. "Not any more."

"Yes. But the point is, outside of the Council, the Queen, and a few of the other guilds, no one knows I'm alive. It was easy to keep it that way, when I was confined to my house and not interacting with anyone beyond the guild. From now on, it won't be so easy."

"Planning on making headlines on day one, are you?" she grinned. "Even for a new Master of Fairy Tail, that's something of a record."

"Absolutely not. You, Natsu, Laxus, Erza – you'll continue to be the famous faces of Fairy Tail. Although I will be spending a lot more time in the guildhall, I don't have to leave it or otherwise be an ambassador for the guild. But that doesn't change the fact that it will only take one client walking into the guildhall with a job request to recognize me, and the whole world will know."

"And we're not afraid of that," Mira reminded him. "We'll stand by you no matter what. We knew what we were letting ourselves in for when we…"

She tailed off as the implications of his words finally hit her.

The whole world.

"Alvarez," she realized.

"Yes."

"You don't think they'll take it well?"

The incredulous look he shot her had the impact of a physical blow. "I led them to defeat in a war I began for my own selfish reasons. Good men died for my worthless cause. Then I dropped off the face of the earth, leaving them with the challenge of rebuilding the international relationships I'd shattered… only to reappear thirteen years later at the head of the very guild I'd driven them to ruin against. No, Mira, I am not expecting them to take it well."

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "What I do know is that I have to go and talk to them. At least that way, they'll hear it from me before the rumours reach them."

"That's a very mature approach," she commented sincerely. "When are you going?"

"First thing tomorrow morning, I think. At least that gives me tonight to try and work out what to say…"

"If I may offer a word of advice," Mira spoke up. His gaze flashed to hers on the far side of the barrier, and then nodded once, grudgingly. She continued, "Atonement isn't supposed to be easy. But you have had it easy. Lucy reached out to you of her own accord. The rest of us went along with it, not because we thought you deserved it, but because we loved her. Then, once you had us on your side, it was easy to sway the other Guild Masters and bully the Magic Council into accepting it. You didn't have to do a thing."

His eyes narrowed. "So?"

"So, maybe it's about time you tried apologizing." With a shrug, she got to her feet. "Do try not to get yourself thrown in prison. The irony of having to start a war with Alvarez to rescue you would be unbearable."

Zeref arrived in Vistarion at the break of day.

It was the height of summer, and the sun arose before anyone else in the city. Silence mingled with the light and shade. There was no one else in sight; the streets were all his, and yet not his at all. His feet knew the way, but he followed them like an imposter, someone else's memories of someone else's city.

It hadn't been an accident, arriving here so early. It wasn't as though he'd forgotten about the time difference when he'd teleported to the other side of the globe. Rather, he knew there was no chance of him being able to maintain the Fairy Sphere this far from the guild's heart, alone. He wanted to reduce his exposure to the inhabitants of what had once been his capital city, just in case he lost control.

And… there was somewhere he wanted to go before he entered the palace.

Slowly but inexorably, his silent footsteps carried him towards his goal. Truth was, he didn't particularly have a plan for getting inside the palace. He knew from his last incursion that the wards wouldn't let him in without a fight, and though he was familiar with the servants' entrances of old, it was unlikely he would make it through without attracting attention – and that was assuming nothing much had changed in all these years.

And even if he could make it safely inside, sneaking in for a confrontation in the throne room would be a power play. It had worked well for him and Natsu against the Guild Masters, but that wasn't the impression he wanted to make here. He just wanted to talk. He just wanted… not to have to do this at all. If only Lucy and Natsu and the rest of his guild had let him keep hiding…

Well, if he couldn't think of anything, he'd cause a fuss at the main gates until someone who recognized him came along. All he needed was their attention; he could explain himself later.

The place he needed to go first, however, wasn't guarded at all.

At the side of the palace, technically within its grounds but without battlements or wards, for it was open to all, was a graveyard.

It wasn't for the royal family. After all, when he had first approved the plans for it, many centuries ago, it had not crossed anyone's mind that they might one day have an emperor who grew old and died.

No, it was for those who had died in his service. It was a place to honour those who had dedicated their lives to the empire; it was a final home for those who had left their families behind to serve a greater cause, and had nowhere to return in death. It was a memorial for the founders and the heroes of the empire.

It was pointless, as far as he had always been concerned. The dead were dead. They were no longer of use to anyone.

Still, he didn't have to see the point of it to understand the merits of letting them build it.

He didn't have to share their compassion to be able to manipulate it.

It was easier, in fact, if he didn't.

So they'd gone away and built it, and the fact that he had graciously funded the project made up for the fact that he'd never set foot inside it, not even to declare it open to the public. Just another glaring absence of humanity that no one had ever questioned from their immortal emperor.

In the light of dawn, the graveyard looked almost sacred. The pale sunlight and long shadows had made the empty streets of Vistarion seem hollow, but here, the gentleness of it made white marble glow, added a layer of richness to the silence, rendered it complete. It belonged here. An ethereal light to lead the ghosts back home.

Like the city, it was devoid of people at this hour, and yet, for a place devoted to the dead, it overflowed with life. Yes, there were headstones, statues, memorial plaques – but there were just as many flowerbeds, topiary bushes, fruit-bearing trees. All of them had been tended to with as much care as anything in the imperial palace, anything that was his. They flowed together, death and life, past and present.

Many graves had fresh flowers beside them. He found himself wondering who put them there. Relatives? Charities? Official caretakers? It bothered him that he didn't know. He told himself that if there was a policy for palace staff to tend to the graves of the empire's heroes, it had probably changed since he had been in charge, so it didn't matter anyway.

His feet felt ugly on the peaceful lawn.

At the heart of the memorial garden stood an obelisk of white stone. On it was carved a list of names.

The names of everyone who had died during the failed invasion of Fiore.

Who had died for him.

Who had given their lives for his ambition, ignorant to what he was truly planning to do with Fairy Heart… something he hadn't even been able to bring himself to carry out, at the end of things.

Perhaps it would have been better if he had turned back the last four hundred years.

Perhaps then their deaths wouldn't have been so pointless.

His cursed magic had taken many lives in his time, but this was somehow worse. It hadn't been an accident. Not an uncontrollable curse, not a god's overly zealous revenge. He'd known what he was doing when he committed them to an international war for his own selfish desires. When they had heard the order and obeyed, they had done it for him.

And in the end, he had walked away.

Now here he stood, on the brink of a happy ending, with a family to return to and a guild that supported him in defiance of what he had done in the past.

He'd been given a second chance.

And what did they get? Their names chiselled into an obelisk he hadn't even known existed until he came here today. Abandoned by their leader. Forgotten. Everything for which they'd died had been thrown away.

His gaze flicked across the stone, picking out the names he recognized from amongst a frightening number he didn't.

"I'm sorry," he whispered numbly. "It's not fair. It shouldn't be me standing here. I don't- I can't-"

"Well, would you look at that," a voice rang out from behind him.

Zeref whirled around, blinking back the tears. Slowing to a stop in the gardens behind him was a very familiar figure – from newspapers and official photographs, that was. It had been many years since they'd last met in person, and although Zeref didn't change, the same could not be said for everyone else.

He was tall, strong, tanned; a figure that towered over others and eyes that made them feel safe. A thin layer of sweat gleamed over muscles that knew the value of hard work. He was wearing loose jogging bottoms and a vest top, while a sweatband struggled to keep his unruly hair out of his eyes. To anyone who glimpsed him on the street, he would have been just another athlete out for his morning run – which, really, was the point. That was where he had come from, and it would always be a part of who he was, no matter how much time he spent on the throne of an empire he'd never imagined he would inherit.

"You know," he continued cheerfully, removing his earphones and shaking out his hair, "when I got a call from a certain guild in Fiore telling me to come here, I couldn't work out why they kept stressing that I had to not freak out. Now I see why. The dead walk! Do you come in peace, O spirit, or do I need to call an exorcist?"

Zeref stared. He wasn't sure what else to do. He wasn't ready for this, not here, not with the pain this place had unexpectedly woken in him so very raw and fresh. A murmur escaped his lips: "Ajeel…"

The other's eyebrows rose. "That's Your Majesty to you."

It was then that Zeref realized he had no idea where he stood with this man. The Ajeel he'd known had been barely more than a child: brash, confident, powerful in magic but understanding little of anything else; not his first choice of successor, had he had any kind of say in it.

But the man in front of him had been at the helm of the Alvarez Empire for thirteen years. More than that – he had steered it successfully through the biggest changes in its history: the opening of its borders, the formation of new alliances, the reparations for the war, the first tentative steps into a future that was all their own, no longer dictated by Zeref's selfish desires.

Before he could say anything, Ajeel gave a theatrical sigh. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm joking, obviously. Like anyone has called me that in thirteen years of being in charge. It's just weird. I honestly don't know how you put up with it. I know you weren't born to fancy titles either."

"No," Zeref said, too bewildered for anything else.

"You survived, then."

"Yes."

"How?"

"Still immortal."

"Then why'd you pretend you were dead for so long?"

The fact that Ajeel seemed genuinely curious rather than accusatory threw him yet again. "It… it wasn't my choice. Not at first."

"And after that?"

Zeref thought of the mailbox Fairy Tail had installed at his house so long ago, giving him the freedom to communicate with the outside world if he wished… which he had only used to order goods by post and correspond with the Council and receive the latest magical research journals. He remembered, vividly, the first time he had broken out of his prison and come to Vistarion, only to turn around and walk away again.

Honestly, he admitted, "It seemed like it would be better for everyone if I kept my head down and let things carry on the way they were."

"Well." Ajeel's expression shouldn't have been unreadable – he wasn't supposed to be good at this, and Zeref was supposed to be the best there was – but nothing about this encounter had gone the way Zeref had been expecting. "Why show yourself to me now, then?"

"Because you were going to find out anyway, very soon. I wanted to tell you in person before that happened." Before he could lose his nerve, he added, "I'm going to be the next Master of Fairy Tail. It'll be made public over the next couple of days."

After a startled moment, Ajeel threw back his head and laughed. "Is this what they call karmic retribution?"

"It's not a punishment," Zeref told him, finding it surprisingly difficult to fight back a smile. "It's what I want. And… it's what they want, too."

"Well," he said, again. "Seems you've also had an interesting few years."

"You could say that, yes."

"Well, I appreciate you coming to tell me in person. I'm sure we'll meet in an official capacity soon enough – you probably know that I have to go to Fiore quite a lot, and I usually end up dropping in at Fairy Tail too. Now, if that's all…"

He was halfway through putting his earphones back in before Zeref managed to break out of his paralysis. "Wait-!"

"What?" Ajeel said, with the kind of disapproving look unique to those who had been in charge for longer than they cared to admit. "No offence, but if you want to actually sit down and talk about things, you should probably make an appointment. Mirajane has a direct line to my lacrima from your guild. I get why she sent you in person this time, but my Monday morning runs are pretty much the only time I get to myself these days, so I'm usually very strict about that, when I'm not being haunted by my not-actually-dead predecessors…"

Zeref knew all that, but at the same time, he couldn't comprehend walking away without having said what he had come here to say. He took a deep breath. "I'm s-"

"Don't."

The word cut across him like a sword strike, spilling the frightened exhale from his chest. "But-"

"I don't want to hear it."

"But-" He tried again, needing the words to be said, to be heard.

"Look," Ajeel sighed, shoving his earphones back into his pocket in resignation. "Stop for a moment and think. What, exactly, are you about to try and apologize for?"

"For the war," Zeref said, frowning as he spelled out the obvious. "For forcing you to fight."

"You didn't force us. Especially not me. I wanted to fight; you wouldn't have been able to keep me away if you tried. We were there on that field for Alvarez, for each other, for ourselves, for our pride, for our glory. For you, yes. But not only for you."

"Because that is how I created Alvarez to be! I wanted an empire that would fight for me. From the very start, I shaped it to believe it had a right of conquest, to think itself above other nations, so that there would be no objection when I ordered it to take up arms for my personal cause-"

Ajeel gave an exaggerated growl. "Ugh, give it a rest. Maybe the others would buy that, but I've been in charge for thirteen years. The Twelve, the senate, the governors – they're not stupid. It's not so easy to make people think in a certain way. If we wanted to be a pacifist nation, we would have been. I mean, look at Brandish. She didn't want to fight in your war, so she didn't. It was as simple as that. Don't act like none of us have any agency. I mean, how arrogant must you be to think it was all because of you?"

"For the defeat, then," Zeref tried, fumbling for the certainties that had been plaguing him all this time, finding them elusive and strange. "We should have won, but-"

"Our enemies were stronger than we thought. Nothing wrong with that. We had a lot to learn from defeat."

"But I could have…" Zeref swallowed, not knowing how to explain that he could have won, if he'd had the courage to use Fairy Heart.

Ajeel eyed him for a moment, almost dangerously sharp. "Then perhaps we were weaker than we thought," he said with finality. "Nothing wrong with that, either."

"I abandoned you," Zeref tried. "Made you rebuild on your own in the aftermath of my mistakes."

At this, Ajeel snorted with mirth. "You mean, let us start over? Let us push the blame for the war onto you alone, and rebrand ourselves as a new, friendlier Alvarez Empire on the international scene? Let us forge alliances without your reputation dragging us down? It made it an awful lot easier for the other nations to accept us and move on from conflict. Honestly, I can't thank you enough for staying the hell away these past thirteen years."

"But it would have been much easier for you if I hadn't built up Alvarez's reputation like that in the first place!"

"Not at all. Do you know how easy it is to negotiate a favourable trade deal when the counterparty has no idea how long your newfound amicable streak is going to last? Even now, they're still a little bit scared of us, and it makes negotiations so much more fun."

"But…" he floundered, lost in the flood of effortless refutations. "Doesn't it bother you that I'm joining Fairy Tail? The very people we lost to?"

"Nah. They're good people. Even more so than I thought, if they're willing to take you in."

"Yes… they are."

"You made mistakes, sure," Ajeel asserted, before he could come up with another protest. "But so did we all. We went with you because we wanted to; we all had to learn the same lessons as you. Maybe, if you'd shown up six months after the war, I'd have been mad, but… you know, we're getting on just fine. Alvarez is strong, and so much of that is thanks to you. We're not gonna forget that, just because you died, or moved on, or whatever."

He jerked his head towards the white obelisk that loomed behind Zeref. "The only people you need to apologize to are them. And you know that, don't you? That's why you came here first, even though you know the dead can't absolve you the way the living can. As long as you don't lose sight of that, they're not gonna hold it against you."

Tears prickled in Zeref's eyes as he regarded the monument to the fallen. "Mira was right, wasn't she? I really do have it far too easy."

"Too easy? I'm not sure about that."

He shook his head. "I don't deserve any of this."

"Why not? You built Alvarez from nothing. By doing so, you gave purpose and hope and a future to so many people you have never met. Maybe you did it for yourself, but you didn't have to be a good ruler. In fact, it probably would have been easier if you'd been a tyrant. Death magic and immortality – yeah, you could have done that effortlessly. You chose not to."

"It was just an experiment," Zeref whispered numbly. "I wanted the challenge of doing it properly. To see if I could. That's all."

Ajeel just shrugged. "You can justify it however you like, but for those of us who knew you personally – who learned magic from you; who freely fought alongside you – it's not gonna stick. You were kinder than you had to be, and not as cruel as you could have been, given the curse you lived under. Despite knowing better than anyone how unfair the world is, you were always fair to us. I know things are different in Fiore, but here, you are remembered fondly. You can see for yourself, if you want. Keep walking down that path there and you'll reach your tomb."

His eyes widened. "I have a-?"

"Obviously. We thought you were dead, not on an extended vacation in Fiore."

Zeref shifted uncomfortably, resisting the urge to glance over his shoulder for a glimpse of something he knew he was too far away to see. He wondered why this possibility hadn't occurred to him in thirteen years of pretending to his empire that he was dead. He wondered why it scared him so much.

He didn't want to see it.

It wouldn't have been right.

"Want me to tear it down for you?" Ajeel asked, light-hearted but still razor-sharp.

"Please."

"Alright, then."

"And… you'll find a way to break it to the others?"

"I'll tell them about you. You might get a few angry visitors over the next few days, but I think they'll mostly be okay with it. We've moved on, you've moved on. None of us want to drag this back to where we were before." The concession came easily, but still Ajeel's gaze didn't relent. It was a glimmer of how this young soldier had been able to take control of an empire at the turning point of its history; it was a dangerous glimpse of how much he had learnt, how far he had come for his nation. Offhandedly, he remarked, "You look a lot better."

"Do I?" Zeref asked, thrown.

"Saner, I mean."

While Zeref would be the first to admit that sanity had not always been his strong suit – as was to be expected of a man suffering from the Curse of Contradiction – he had always tried so hard to keep that madness out of Alvarez. By treating his empire as an experiment, he was able to spend time here safely; by leaving whenever he felt like it was getting too much, he hid his instability from those he needed to impress in order to retain control. "I was always sane."

"No, you were always controlled. You showed only what you wanted us to see. You were firm and fair and commanding, but never emotional, never impulsive. You rarely lost your temper, and when you did – well, it was terrifying from the receiving end, but looking back, it always had a purpose. It was calculated. Nothing ever upset you, only pushed back your plans. Gods know, I can't get through a single day in this job without wanting to bash people's heads in, but you never seemed to get annoyed. You were always in control."

"Was that a bad thing?" Surely that was far better for a leader than someone who lashed out constantly, as he had done when Fairy Tail had first taken him into their custody.

"People like that are the most frightening of all," Ajeel reflected. "You've gotta wonder just what they're hiding that is so bad they don't ever risk letting it out."

Then he shrugged. "But, I don't get that impression from you any more. When I look at you, I feel like I can see all of you."

"Is that… good?"

"Yeah. Without a doubt. You created Alvarez when you were in such a dark place. I can't wait to see what you're capable of now that you're free."

"Not exactly free," Zeref pointed out, perplexed. "I am still cursed."

"But surrounded by people who understand it and adapt to it, rather than expecting you to adapt to them, am I right? People who don't make you hide it, but help you work through it? Yeah. Let's just say that I'm gonna make sure we stay allies with Fiore for a very long time."

Zeref finally surrendered to his smile. "I look forward to it."

"Well, then. Guess I'll see you on my next official visit." With a wave of farewell, Ajeel jogged off into the distance, a few more minutes of escaping his duties before he returned to the palace to face the day.

Alone again, the smile slipped from Zeref's face as he turned back to the obelisk. "I am sorry," he murmured, to them and them alone. "I will do better, this time. I will do right by my guild."

"Hello, Lucy."

Zeref settled into place opposite the headstone. The drapes of his archaic robes, which he was determined to keep wearing until they came back into fashion, were tucked neatly underneath him.

The sun was setting. Over Magnolia, the sky was a glorious pink-orange, like a bowlful of punch at one of Fairy Tail's parties. It was strangely fitting. That was how they liked to send off the deceased in the guild, after all.

Perhaps, in some cultures, twilight was a symbolic time – one where the veil became thinner, and the voices of the lost could once again be heard. If so, Zeref paid it no heed. He wasn't here chasing ghosts.

No, he arrived as the sun went down because that was his agreement with the caretaker of the graveyard. It closed to the public a little before dusk, and he was permitted entry for a further half-hour after that, where he could be guaranteed privacy – and could let the barrier down, could let his emotions out, without fear of harming anyone.

These visits had become so normal to him now that he sometimes struggled to recall why it had taken him so long to see the point of them.

He was here because it focussed his thoughts and helped him remember.

He was here because it brought him peace.

He was here because he could say things to the dead that he couldn't say to the living, and once said, they seemed to press on him a little less heavily.

"I finally went back to Alvarez today," he began, and then stopped. Yes, he had, and while he thought she'd be proud to hear him tell of it, she was gone. There was nothing to be gained from recounting the story to an etched slab of stone. He couldn't get validation from the dead, and nor did he need it; he had heard and understood every unexpectedly wise thing Ajeel had told him.

Except for one thing, perhaps.

"Ajeel said I was free," he murmured. "I'm not, though. I'm still cursed."

The circle of dead grass around him was proof of that. It always looked like that by the time he left; Warrod would come by at some point and restore it.

"My magic still kills when I don't want it to. We haven't found a way of stopping it, only of mitigating it. There are very few places I can risk going without the Fairy Sphere, and it's likely I'm only ever going to be able to leave Magnolia for more than a few hours at a time if the whole guild comes with me. Even with the shield up, I can't truly touch anyone – I can hold their hand, but I can't feel it.

"But… well, because of it, I can spend time in the guildhall. I can stand in front of the Council. I can go to the market and buy my own groceries – and I can do it without having to pretend not to care. It prevents me from using magic of my own, but you know, I've found that I just don't miss it. It's a small price to pay to be able to love. Maybe I'm not free from the curse, but I'm not held back by it, either."

Maybe it was an obvious conclusion, but he felt a little happier for having said it out loud.

"Then there's the fact that I'm still immortal."

He checked himself, then, and frowned. Behind the arch of the headstone, the setting stone seemed to mirror him.

"Or, at least, I presume I'm still immortal. I don't see why anything would have changed on that count. But I don't know, because…" His words, which had fallen to a whisper, became determined again. He would never be able to admit it – to declare it – to another member of the guild, because they wouldn't understand, but being able to say it to himself made him feel strong.

"Well, let's just say that I can't imagine I'll be testing that any time soon. And with Fairy Tail standing between me and those out there who still despise me, I don't think I'm likely to end up in genuine danger, either. So, maybe I'll never know for sure. And I can't say that my continued immortality is a nice thought, but… it doesn't scare me as much as it used to. So maybe that's something. Not quite free from endless life, but free from the fear of it, perhaps."

Here, he paused. The last sliver of sunlight paused too, waiting to hear what he had to say, a little bit of liquid amber ready to absorb his thoughts into its surface and preserve them.

"The final part of my curse is the part I have always had the most difficulty explaining," he murmured. "To me, it is so simple, but no one ever believes it until it's too late. Even you didn't, Lucy. I told you the Curse of Contradiction was inside my head. I told you I was unstable: that some days I would hate you no matter how kind you were to me; that as we became closer, it only made it more likely that I would turn on you. It wasn't until I broke out and nearly killed you that you started to take it seriously."

But.

But.

"When did it last happen?" he whispered. "When did I last act without reason? When did I last turn on my friends or lose myself to inconsistency? I find that I do not recall. I find that… that others are turning to me for stability and reassurance."

His hands twisted in his lap and then were still.

"I think that's what Ajeel meant," he said. "I am not free to live a normal life, and I am not free to die. But perhaps I am free to be myself. It was never about breaking the curse or surpassing immortality or rewriting my own life, was it? Maybe all I ever needed was people who understood and supported me through the life that I have."

A reluctant smile touched his lips, as the words she would have said if she could came to him anyway. "I know. How many people would have reached out to me over the course of my life, had I given them the chance? I suppose it wasn't just help that I needed, but to be forced into a situation where I had no choice but to accept it. I am beyond lucky to have met you, aren't I, Lucy?"

He'd known it for a very long time. Far longer than he'd have cared to admit. But saying it out loud, acknowledging the debt he would never be able to pay off – though he'd never stop working towards it – made him feel a little bit better.

For four hundred years, he had taken the easy way out. By refusing to get close to anyone, he never had to deal with the pain of loss. He'd felt it once, when he'd clutched his little brother's lifeless body to his chest, and decided he would rather rewrite the laws of the universe than have to go through it again.

But Warrod had outlived everyone with whom he had grown up, and considered it not a curse, but a blessing, that his own magical longevity had meant he was able to be part of their entire lives. To him, it was worth any amount of pain.

Zeref thought he was beginning to understand that. The longer he lived this life with Natsu and Fairy Tail, the more he allowed himself to love, the more he was exposing himself to the inevitable pain of mortality… but it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to share this life of his with those who-

"Oi! Zeref!"

Reluctantly, Zeref glanced over his shoulder. Natsu's head was just visible over the wall that ringed the cemetery. Zeref did not question why Natsu had never come inside, just as Natsu had never questioned why Zeref felt the need to spend time here.

"You're gonna be late!" Natsu told him impatiently.

"…Late for what?"

"The party, duh!"

Zeref's brow furrowed. Mentally running through the list of guild birthdays yielded no explanation. Cana wasn't due back from her Thirty Year Quest for at least another week, and it wasn't the anniversary of the guild's founding, or Tenrou Island's return, or their first ever victory in the Grand Magic Games…

No, he was drawing a blank. "What party?" he was forced to ask.

"What do you mean, what party?" Natsu demanded. "You've been Guild Master for a full twenty-four hours and the Council haven't closed us down yet! That's a new record! We've gotta celebrate!"

Zeref rubbed tiredly at his forehead. "Natsu, by that logic, we'll be breaking the record every day. Even for Fairy Tail, that's too many parties. How do you expect the guild to afford all that?"

"Eh, that's your problem. My problem is getting the guest of honour to the party before Gray eats all the barbecue. So hurry it up, because if I miss out on Mira's bush berry shrimp because of your lazy ass, there's gonna be hell to pay."

With a sigh, Zeref hauled himself to his feet. He glanced back at the headstone, intending to apologize, but paused. Lucy wouldn't want him to be sorry about this. She would want him to seize the opportunity with both hands – to take that step forward and live, just like Natsu was doing. Besides, he'd heard excellent things about Mira's barbecued shrimp.

So he went to join his brother, and what would no doubt be the first of many parties as the Master of the world's most fun-loving guild. Never in his extended, lonely, and tormented life had he imagined he would find himself in this position, but now that he had, he knew he wouldn't change it for anything.

A/N: Just the epilogue to go now! Thanks for all your support throughout this story, and I hope you'll join me next week for the finale. ~CS