Picture them in their underwear.
Someone had told her to do that once, and she had to admit it was utterly horrible advice. The thought of all these lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, even the king, perched so royally on his throne, in naught but their skivvies somehow made her feel naked. Perhaps it was the way they looked at her, disgust and outrage stirring behind their barely concealed, cordial gazes. Their eyes all the same glassy stare that cut right through her skin. The young lady wondered if they even possessed the capability for individual thought or if they actually were all just well-dressed drones.
The young woman curtsied gracefully before her king, trying to breathe as deeply as possible in her restricting corset while the rest of the court cast their disapproving glares at her. This was hardly the first time she'd requested an audience with the king (and it certainly wouldn't be her last), but she couldn't help how her heart pounded furiously. She wasn't an impetuous person, a seeker of the lime-light, or even a proper rebel, but she knew she was lucky to be in such a position of relative power and thus it was her duty to speak for those who couldn't.
Still, she wasn't a fool. She knew her efforts would be fruitless. That didn't mean she could just give up, though.
"Lady Heartfilia, I admit I have almost grown accustomed to our monthly visits together. Perhaps not much can be said about your sense of propriety, but your perseverance merits a gold star," the king mocked, and a hushed snicker spread across the room.
Lucy blushed violently.
"Your Grace, I have come again on behalf of the mages of this country, those who protect your people against the dark prince's merciless demons. I receive boxes of letters each week from hard-working wizards across this land, all of them begging only for equal protection under the law! They save the citizens of this kingdom time and time again, and yet they are discriminated against in their own homes. Without equal rights you are treating them like slaves."
The young lady spoke fervently, but calmly. As a woman, she knew the dangers of being too angry, too shrill, too passionate. But she also knew the twin dangers of being too docile, too quiet, too passive. It was a balancing act, and the heels didn't help.
"Lady Heartfilia, each month you have brought up these ridiculous concerns and each month I have told you the same thing I'll tell you now. Mages and humans cannot have equal rights because they are simply not equal! The mages possess a power far beyond what humans do, I think we are all in agreement about that. Therefore we humans need something to keep their power in check, otherwise it will be a matter of years before they take over us all and subject us to their will," the king said scathingly.
Lucy opened her mouth to retort, but the annoyed monarch cut her off.
"You, my dear, are different, naturally. You have been raised amongst good society, taught to appreciate what humans have to offer the world. Those mages, though," he said, gesturing widely to somewhere outside his palace. "They are not so cultured. Our laws are all that keep them from becoming like him."
They all knew who "he" was, and the comparison made Lucy's blood boil. How could this fool of a king think that the people who defended his kingdom were anything like the monster they defended it from?
"Your Grace, with due respect, I think you are wrong. The inequality the mages suffer at the hands of your laws only serves to make them resentful. If anything, it is this injustice that would cause them to—"
"Lady Heartfilia," the king interrupted. "As always I appreciate you coming here in a courageous display of ignorance, and while I would love to explain the intricacies and effects of the laws of this great kingdom to a little girl like yourself, I'm afraid our audience is getting rather bored. Perhaps you should stick to something a bit more appropriate for your position. Maybe needlework?"
There was another round of snickers and sneers from the nobility and Lucy flushed, both in embarrassment and anger. She curtsied curtly and exited the room in a swish of silk, tears stinging her eyes.
Why do I subject myself to such ridicule?
She hastily made her way through the castle to where her carriage awaited her. She knew that this evening she would get another lecture from her father threatening to lock her in her room, as if the humiliation she suffered at the hands of the king and his cronies wasn't enough.
She stared blankly out the window as the streets of Crocus passed her by. Shops and homes and people flashed as blurs of brick and color, with a number of those familiar green signs smeared in: No mages permitted. That, she supposed, was why she did it. Not just because she herself was a mage, but it seemed inexcusable that the people who kept them all alive and free from the black mage's grasp should be excluded from such simple pleasures as being able to enter any shop they like, or eat anywhere they pleased.
Lucy understood why the humans did it: fear. Zeref was a wizard gone bad, so what was stopping the others? Still, this seemed like the wrong answer, and as the only mage member of the nobility, she had a responsibility to fight for those who were too busy fighting the king's battles to fight their own.
She sighed (as heavily as her corset would allow) and closed her eyes, willing her outrage to settle at least for a moment's rest.
Predictably her father had been furious. So furious, in fact, that she got a full two minutes of chastisement before he sulked back into his study and continued to pretend she didn't exist. Lucy picked at her dinner before finally retiring for the night and slipping into a light, uneasy sleep. Her mind just kept replaying the events from earlier that day. The laughing, the repugnant glares, the demeaning insults. It all made her feel so helpless…
She woke up suddenly, her eyes begrudgingly adjusting to the moonlit room. It was still dark and out of her window the stars were twinkling brightly. The celestial mage often spent time just staring up at the stars. She wasn't powerful enough to keep her gates open for long, but staring up at their sparkling gaze made her feel like she was somehow in their company. Perhaps it was pathetic, but they were her only friends.
"Lady Heartfilia," said a low voice from the corner of her room and she would have screamed if she hadn't gasped it back, sending her into a slight coughing fit.
"Who's there?" she yelled as intimidatingly as she could between coughs while her voice shook.
She groped for her keys on her bedside stand as a form emerged from the shadows. A man. He stepped into the soft light of the full moon and smiled slightly at her, and the urge to scream built up in her again. She froze as she heard her keys hit the ground after accidentally knocking them away. She could barely breathe as she eyed her strange midnight visitor.
He wasn't particularly tall, but his stature was perfectly formed for his height and his stance was confident, relaxed, princely. He wore all black clothing, which matched his similarly raven hair and eyes. His skin was pale in the moonlight, and from what Lucy could tell he was handsome. Very handsome. Lucy was acutely aware that she was in her nightgown. She was also aware that she was completely unarmed.
Not that it would really have helped against him.
"Surely I don't really need an introduction," he drawled, the words dripping off of his lips as he slowly stalked over to her.
Zeref. The most powerful dark mage of all time, the enemy of Fiore, leader of the demons that tortured and tormented her kingdom.
"W-what are you doing here?" Lucy asked, trembling slightly. Even from across the room she could feel the power practically rolling off of him. Her hands clenched her sheets uselessly.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm here to see you," he said as he stepped next to her bed, his dark eyes watching her intently.
Very smoothly, he knelt down and picked up her keys, jingling them amusedly before setting them back on her nightstand. He smiled as if trying to ingratiate himself to the horrified mage, and pulled up a chair from her desk, sitting down on it like it were a throne.
"W-w-why?" was all Lucy could manage to stutter out. What on Earthland could an all-powerful, centuries-old mage want with her?
"I've been watching you, Lady Heartfilia, and I must admit you've interested me," he said, his voice almost a purr.
Lucy instinctively pulled her covers up around her as his gaze pierced into her. He chuckled.
"I don't mean your body, my lady. Though you are admittedly beautiful, I'm afraid I haven't felt something as basic as lust for centuries now. No, what interests me is your devotion to the mages of this land."
"My…devotion?" Lucy parroted, completely confused and terrified.
"I have seen how you go before your king and fight to have the rights of mages recognized, and I have seen how your efforts have only been met with humiliation and rejection."
Lucy was quiet as she met his black eyes.
"You're an exceptional young woman, Lady Heartfilia. I'm only sorry that you are placed at the mercy of those who turn their attentions away from you."
"I don't need praise from a man like you. All you've ever done is destroy everything good with this war of yours," Lucy said, finding her voice and the last withering sample of her courage.
"Is that so…My lady, do you know why I fight this war?" he asked, standing from his chair and pacing amongst the shadows.
"Because you're evil?" she quipped, her eyes attentively following his black form.
He gave a small amused laugh.
"That is what your king would have you believe, isn't it? But no, I fight in self-defense," Zeref replied from the edge of the shadows of her room.
"Self-defense forced you to create demons that terrorize and kill thousands of people? Forgive me if I find that hard to believe," she said coldly, her boldness growing with each moment.
"I understand why you might think that, but I assure you, I was not the one to start this war. From the beginning all I have ever wanted was to live in peace as a mage. It is your rulers who have consistently found that to be unacceptable," the man said, pacing through the moonlight and back into shadow.
Lucy said nothing, but just glared at him, so Zeref continued.
"This war began over four hundred years ago, as you well know, at a time when magic was viewed with extreme suspicion, even more than now. All mages at that time were seen as threats, heretics, but it wasn't until I revived my brother that the king turned his eye to me, seeking to harness my power for his own use.
"The king then was greedy. He had been trying to convince his council to fund a campaign to invade the surrounding countries for years, expand the empire, but they had refused on the basis that it would be expensive and they were sure to lose. With my power, though, he saw an opportunity to finally press forward without his council's approval.
"He sent his men to get me from where my brother and I lived at the time," he said, his voice filled with memory. "Natsu was still just a boy then, though as a demon he was ostracized by the town's people. We lived on the edge of civilization, just the two of us. When the king's attacks first began after I refused to serve him, I sent Natsu to live with the dragons while I began establishing all of this, out of protection. As I dove deeper into black magic in an attempt to defend myself and my brother, I was cursed with immortality, forcing me to live through centuries of this fighting.
"Over the years, your king's obsession with me has carried down from generation to generation. Some want my power, others want to eradicate me, but all are ill-content to leave me alone. However, since then my objectives have changed. In fact, my goals today are not so different from yours, my lady."
"Mine?" Lucy asked, disgusted at the thought of her beliefs aligning with this monster's.
"For centuries your kings have sent mages to fight my demons, and for centuries they have been alienated if and when they return home. Unthanked, uncompensated, unequal in the eyes of the law. I want to make things better," he said.
"You could start by not attacking them," the young lady spat with all the tenacity of someone fully-dressed.
"Unfortunately it's not that easy, Lady Heartfilia. Your government only allows mages the scarce rights they have because they are a necessity to their survival. If I were to stop attacking, the king would no longer have a use for mages, and they would quickly be shoved back into the shadows of society from which they are just beginning to emerge. In a way, you have me to thank for your ability to practice magic openly." Zeref grinned slyly at her.
"I will thank you for nothing," Lucy said with a snarl.
"Just as well."
He sat back down in the chair and looked at her while she tried to sort through everything he'd said. It was a fantastic tale, if any of it was true.
"What does any of this have to do with me?" she finally asked.
Zeref gave a small smile.
"What indeed…," he said, his eyes plunging into her own. "Goodnight, Lady Heartfilia. I'll be in touch."
At that the room began to darken immensely, the kind of stifling darkness even light couldn't pierce, and the young lady knew he was gone.
Lucy's eyes flung open and she gasped for air as if she'd been held underwater. The dream played over and over in her mind. It was so strange, so real, the kind of thing that seemed outrageous even for her imagination.
Until she saw the black rose sitting on her bedside table.
She froze, her eyes wide as the color drained out of her face. A chill ran down her spine as if nails were raking down her neck and her hairs stood up on end.
He was here. Zeref was here.
She felt sick with fear as she stared at the rose like it was a giant worm, a curse. Then she remembered his parting words.
"I'll be in touch."
Fear was too dainty a word for what coiled in her stomach and nipped at the back of her mind. Luckily the sensation was cut ever so slightly by something else: curiosity. She didn't know what would possess the king of demons to visit her in the middle of the night and give her a history lesson, but whatever it was, he had definitely caught her attention.