Lisanna and Elfman were the friendly Strauss siblings. Mirajane was an unholy terror, pun fully intended. She had made S-Class in the year that I had been with the guild, still behind Erza's record age of 14 but impressive nonetheless. She never really addressed me that much. She just called me quiet and boring and I was inclined to let her believe that. I doubted that she'd hurt me, even if I annoyed her. But Mirajane was the kind to stick to an idea that she had gotten into her head until it was forcibly beaten out of her. I was definitely not capable of that and probably never would be.

I tried very hard to be neutral towards the white haired siblings. Lisanna I knew the best because she had a crush on Natsu and Natsu had decided that he was my big brother. Not that he actually put this into words, but his actions were pretty easy to interpret.

But then one day came when the three Take-over siblings intended to go on a job. We had said goodbye, and I had gone and sat with a grumpy Natsu for a bit until Happy cheered him up. After that, I headed outside. It was way too nice a day to waste inside! I found a nice sunny spot and was working on a translation assignment Freed had given me when I suddenly froze, words pouring through my mind.

Lisanna isn't coming back from this job.

I blinked and shook myself. The very idea was ridiculous! Mira was the newest S-class mage and she'd never let anyone hurt her younger siblings! But the feeling of foreboding persisted. The words formed an actual voice that repeated the words in my head.

Lisanna has died. Lisanna is gone. It wasn't malicious or frightening. It was just a bland statement of fact accompanied by the strange blue glow. I tried to beat back the notion but it always slipped back in in spite of everything I tried to do to keep it out.

And it just kept on growing, the vague whispers rapidly evolving into a full blown tale of what had and would transpire.

I saw a beast type monster that was too big and powerful for Elfman to fully assimilate. He went on a rampage, the beast not feeling any pain or growing tired. The battling wills within the same body elevated its already incredible strength to new dangerous levels. Mira exhausted herself trying to help her brother and stop the monster after already having fought it for hours. She was beaten, and had to retreat. Lisanna had no prayer of stopping it with force, so she tried to talk Elfman down. Find the man inside the monster.

The beast swatted her aside without hesitation.

Her eyes were glazed and distant.

"Mira...where are you...? I can't see you."

"I'm right here! Lisanna!...Lisanna!? LISANNA!" I was shaking as the story finished forming in my mind. I stumbled to my feet and raced inside the guild hall, feeling like I was about to be sick. I needed to tell someone. To talk to someone. Get this nightmare out of my head...

Master looked at me within furrowed brows when he saw my pale face and tears.

"What's wrong, Fae?"

"Did someone make you cry?" Happy asked, hovering nearby and poking my cheek. "Natsu's eating didn't scare you again, did it?" I swallowed.

"I...I had a...dream or something...I think it came from my magic..." I quaked. "I don't want it to be real..." But I was terrified, horrified, because I had this bleak resignation that it was real. Lisanna was gone. Makarov's face was very serious as he leaned forward.

"What did you see?"

-vVv-

I was a shaking mess for awhile, trying to baffle my way through what I had just seen. Because once Mira and Elfman came back without Lisanna, I knew that it was real. I had known that Lisanna was gone from the very instant she had left the world.

It hit everyone hard. Mira and Elfman didn't speak for a while, everyone seemed subdued and sad. I was left to my own thoughts as everyone grieved and I used this chance to tackle what I had discovered about my magic.

How had I known that Lisanna had died? What was going through my head?

There had been a distinct voice then. Bland and analytical. Informing me of a change in my life, but what had prompted that voice into speaking...?

I fell into meditation and tried to write out everything that had been going through my head at that time. I didn't really know what was going on in my head until I read what I wrote so I foresaw the use of many, many notebooks in my future.

I finally tracked down the trigger then.

There had been that feeling, of something shifting and pulling away from me.

Life is a story. My magic could tell that Lisanna was no longer part of it, thus the feeling. When the feeling didn't get it across to me, didn't get me to accept it, it showed me reality.

The future was constantly shifting and changing. But the past was concrete and immovable.

-vVv-

"-thousands of different possible futures. It's why people with Foresight tend to be so...weird." I said lamely, talking out my theory with Makarov. "But once something happens, there isn't anything that can be done to change it. Dozens of possible outcomes are narrowed down to one. The past is a story that can be read under the right circumstances. There is only one truth and one fact, though it might look different from different perspectives. I felt Lisanna leave the story of my life..." I looked down at the papers that still covered my work space. The story blurbs I wrote out even now sometimes caused some image to appear, made a sound or invoked a feeling.

"I don't think Rune Magic is the right way to identify what I have, master. I think I have something more like Story Magic, but runes are just the only way it can express itself." He had listened to me, rubbing his beard thoughtfully.

"I suppose it is possible, Fae. Retrocognition in any form is a highly prized branch of magic, but also a very uncommon one to possess in and of itself. If you have one form, there will likely be some inclination towards other areas of unnatural senses as well, though it will never be as strong as this...Story Magic."

-vVv-

It was weird.

I stared at Mirajane who was wearing her hair down and unlike her usual ponytail. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked like she had pulled on whatever was closest at hand for clothing. She was distraught over Lisanna, we all were in our own way, but now she had a different problem that was bothering her.

"I can't use my magic!" She growled, obviously almost ready to scream and bite someone's throat out. "It's not coming through at all!"

"It isn't unheard of for trauma to alter a wizard's capabilities, Mirajane." Master said calmly, eyes glinting with sympathy. "Only time will tell if you will regain access to your powers."

"But what am I supposed to do!?" She yelled in frustration, drawing the eye of almost everyone in the guild hall. "I can't be a wizard if I don't have magic! I can't do jobs, I can't even sense ethernano properly! I'm useless!"

Useless. The word hit me with tremendous impact.

Useless. I couldn't defeat the monster. Useless. I let my brother try and use Takeover on something I knew he couldn't handle. Useless. I just sat there and let my sister die. Useless. I can't stay here anymore if I can't work. I don't belong in a wizards guild if I can't call myself one.

I couldn't do much about her grief. That was something she had to handle on her own. But about the magic...

I examined the S-class girl. Freed had visual magic, powers that revolved powerfully around his eyes, that let him place runes in midair or reflect their effects on himself. He just thought it and he could place them anywhere in his line of sight with his bare hands, or his sword. But another thing that his Dark Ecriture could do was detect if someone had magic and approximately how much. I didn't have the same inclination towards seeing magic but if I could...

A burst of noise from Mirajane made me shake my head irritably as the distraction tried to force its way into my mind. I began to hum as I chased after the thought I had just had. The potential...

With the sound of my own voice drowning out everything else, the tug of magic came back in full force and my eyes brightened with an idea.

I grabbed a piece of paper and my stylus and began to write, choosing the first words that came to mind. My penmanship and ability to write in my runes had improved greatly to the point of adding articles and other grammar.

Let everything magical that is seen through this be marked. I grimaced at the clumsy phrasing, writing a few words to make the paper a little more sturdy. I couldn't stop now. The runes would only accept magic for a limited amount of time and I had to finish...

I wrote this around the borders of a piece of paper, then quickly grabbed a knife and cut a hole through the middle wide enough to see through. I then pushed some of my magic into the script that edged my makeshift window and felt it come to life, the flimsy material stiffening to the strength of cardboard in my hands.

I lifted it and gazed through it, focusing first on Makarov.

Sure enough, there was a definite glow of...something around him. He also had a faint pale sort of shadow surrounding him that looked much bigger than he was. Titan Magic. Very strong. I turned the frame then towards Gray and Natsu who were bickering once again, something that happened much more frequently ever since Lisanna had died.

Gray's power was a pale blue white that clung closely to his skin in frosty patterns. Natsu's aura raged and flared like a bonfire. It works... I let out a breath of relief, then turned the frame on Mirajane, now that I was certain it would work.

She was crying while Master and a couple others comforted her.

But around her, there was still the definite glow of magic. The dark evil that she took on herself and controlled to spare others. It seemed to be suppressed, pulled deep inside her. But there was still magic there.

I approached the group, digging up the words that I would need while the music still thrummed in my head.

"Mira. You don't have to leave Fairy Tail. Even you didn't have magic, we'd never want you to do that." The older girl looked up at me, her blue eyes still reddened with tears.

"I don't have magic, Fae..." She whispered, all anger leached out of her, leaving only despair behind. I smiled and shook my head.

"Yeah you do." I offered her the frame in my hands. "You can use this to see magic. Your Takeover has been buried, but you still have something else you can use anyway you want." Mira stared at me before taking the frame with shaking hands and looking through it to gaze around the room...Then she held her own hand before her face and looked at it through the lens I had provided... It only lasted a few more minutes before my magic ran out. I wasn't good enough to add a feedback loop so that the ethernano in the air could continue to power the script after I closed it off. But it had done its job.

Tears trickled down her face again as I hugged her, settling onto the floor beside her. I didn't say anything else. But I saw several pleased smiles on the faces of the onlookers as Mira's arm went around me and she hugged me back.

-vVv-

Exploring this new avenue of power, viewing my power as a complete story instead of individual commands, did help me master some of it more quickly. The only downside the that was-

"Levy! I wasn't done writing that!" I cried, running after the Solid Script Mage as she raced ahead, eyes eagerly devouring the portion of the Hobbit that I could remember which I was jotting down. I had barely finished the first chapter and was only just writing the song! Or paraphrasing it anyway. Back to the original problem: Levy had caught me midway between finishing the dwarves description of a certain fire-

"Gah!" She dropped the manuscript as it burst into flames. "What the heck!?"

"I was writing about fire!" I exclaimed, hastily trying to beat out the flames. "When you came and pulled it away so suddenly I infused it with magic without thinking!"

"Ice Make-Dome!" Gray's cold crystalline blue ice closed around the papers on the floor, smothering the flames before more damage was done. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks Gray."

"No prob, Fae."

"What gives Ice-for-brains! I was gonna eat that!"

"You'd have eaten Fae's story too and I want to read it without needing to cut your stomach open!" I sighed as the pair began to fight, quickly sucking in another half a dozen or so guild members, including Elfman. He had responded to Lisanna's death by forcing himself to open up and change his previously meek attitude into something more forceful and overbearing. Mirajane didn't have her Takeover anymore, and Lisanna was gone, so that left him as the only Takeover wizard within fifty miles of Magnolia. He was...branching out through necessity. Unfortunately, he seemed to think brawling in the guild hall was an excellent training method.

To be fair, it probably is...

I needed Natsu to actually get my papers out without them getting soaked or blowing them up, so...

"Natsu, the story has a dragon in it." He whipped around, ignoring the fight behind him, eyes shining as he bared his teeth in a big, bright grin.

"Really!? I knew you were an awesome kid, Fae-chan!"

"That's nice, could you please-?"

"Yeah sure, hang on."

I chuckled, rubbing the back of my head as I thought of Smaug. He was certainly as awe-inspiring as I thought Igneel would be. But from what Natsu said, he wasn't nearly as nice. And that was an understatement of the century.

I'll probably have to reconsider Smaug's motives beyond him being an evil dragon. I mused as Natsu happily melted Gray's ice before flinging himself back into the thick of the fray. I picked up the slightly damp pages and organized them, noting what had been damaged. Maybe have Sauron curse him with greed? Nah, that isn't in the story. I can't change it. It isn't right without Smaug being a stereotypical evil Red Dragon. Then again, he is the bad guy and not much detail is gone into for the antagonists...There's plenty of backstory that I could go into. I don't think copyright extends here from...wherever it's from.

-vVv-

I wanted to focus on writing out the whole saga of the Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth, but a certain big brother figure was very much focused on the dragon. He was insistent that if I was gonna write a dragon as the villain, I had to at least know what they were really like.

Eventually, as I wrote down what he was saying, visualizing the immense firedrake, I realized that Natsu was deviating from general information...

"-said maple fire always tasted too sweet for him and pine made it all sticky! He hated it whenever I snuck some of those logs on!"

He was telling me about Igneel, not dragons.

He's been faced with so much doubt over the course of time that he treasures up the memories in his heart, where no one can ever steal them or laugh at them. Natsu had told about his foster father before. But only in passing. Flashes of pain and anger whenever someone dismisses the existence of dragons. To have someone willing to listen and believe, if only for his sake, would have been an answer to an unspoken prayer for the teenaged Dragon Slayer.

Natsu just kept right on talking about Igneel, the way he moved and flew, bringing Natsu to love the sky and freedom. Teaching him how to fish, hunt and live in the natural world and among humans, as best as he knew. Kindling a fire in his belly and heart.

I started a clean page, writing down the impressions and feelings I got from Natsu's words about how much he loved and respected his father. Natsu was a part of my story, yes. But was this enough of a part of him that I could see it with Retrocognition...? Was the second degree relationship enough for me to make something of it?

I closed my eyes as my hand moved automatically, thinking, visualizing and imagining...

A massive scaled form was flying against a orange lit sky, his heavy hide a dark maroon and cream on his under parts, clawed hands looking gnarled and old, but capable and kind. He was gazing at some point on the distant horizon, eyes fixed and focused, glinting the same way Natsu's did when he sensed a good fight coming.

Too...too small.

The King of Fire Dragons roared, making the walls shake at the immense sound. Suddenly the image was plastered over the ceiling, making it seem as though the roof had vanished and leaving only sky in it's place. Igneel was hovering now, still gazing at something in the distance, but with Natsu's grin on his scarred, scaled face. His wings pumped, causing a powerful gust of wind to blow over us, sending loose papers, empty mugs and dishes crashing to the floor.

The guild exploded with talk, laughter and cheers.

"Nice one, Fae-chan!"

"Fae! What did I say about-!"

"What the hell!"

"A dragon!?"

"That's so cool!"

"Fae!"

"Dad...?" Instantly, the whole hall fell silent. Natsu looked like a little kid, staring at the image of his father. The first time he had seen anything like him in five years. Natsu had never looked so vulnerable before and I instantly felt like a tactless little girl for dredging up something as painful as Natsu's abandonment in front of everybody!

He loves him. Natsu is his son. No parent ever forgets their child.

The mighty beast looked down then, looked at all of us. But his eyes settled on the trembling Fire Dragon Slayer. And it wasn't an image that looked down. A shallow, empty copy that came from my magic. It was Igneel who looked at Natsu. Right at him. I could feel the pressure of his gaze, the unspoken measure of how proud Igneel was of him. How happy he was with the family Natsu had found.

"Natsu..." The voice moved through the air like a low roll of thunder.

Just there after, the image ended and only the wooden ceiling of the guild hall was left in it's place. I slumped forward, exhausted. I would have been pleased with myself normally.

But, normally, Natsu didn't look like he was barely an inch away from crying. I tried to get up from my seat, move over to him, hug him, apologize, do something to try and make up for my trampling all over an old wound with no regard for what it might do to his feelings.

"Natsu-" The Fire Dragon Slayer wouldn't look at me. He just shook his head and walked out without a word, tension in every line of his shoulders. Happy flitted behind him.

"Natsu? Natsu, what's wrong?"

"Oi!" Gray sounded indignant as he helped me stand. "She burned out all of her magic power for that-!"

"Quiet, Gray." Erza's hand fell on his shoulder as she looked after Natsu once the door swung shut behind him. "Natsu knows Fae didn't mean any harm by it. I don't think she was even aware of what she was doing."

-vVv-

Natsu was sitting at his favorite spot by the river. The flying blue cat was hovering a distance away, wringing his paws in anxiety.

"He's not saying anything, Fae!" He complained, tail poofing out in agitation. "Lisanna always talked him out of his funk whenever he missed Igneel before! What're we gonna do!?" I scratched the cat's ears.

"I'm gonna fix it." I told him simply.

This place was where he usually went to catch fish for Happy, since the days when Natsu actually had the money to buy enough fish from the market to satisfy the ravenous cat were few and far between. But there was a certain heaviness to his usually warm, ever moving aura, an obvious lull in his spirits. I approached, knowing he must have heard me coming, and smelt me since the wind was blowing from behind me. I sat down next to him and gazed out over the rippling water. The river was moving slowly right now. Natsu'd probably get a good haul if he cast a line towards the farthest river bend...

Focus. I reprimanded myself, bringing my mind back to the issue at hand.

Natsu was hurting.

I had caused that. Even if I hadn't meant to do so.

This was my mess and thus my job to fix it.

So what did I say to a boy who was missing the only father he had ever known? Who feared that he would never find him? Who feared that he had been abandoned?

"I'm sorry." I told said, staring at my feet on the riverbank. "You were telling me all about him, and he sounded so amazing...I just wanted to see what your dad looked like. I'm sorry, Natsu..."

There was no sound but the river gurgling in it's banks for awhile.

"Why're you apologizing?" Natsu asked in a low tone.

"You're upset, aren't you?" I asked, leaning forward to try and get a look at his face. He lifted his head and looked at me, flashing a smile that showed a bit of sharpened canine.

"Nah...It just caught me off guard. You really got something special if you can make him come to life like that with just a couple stories." He ruffled my short, messy hair before pulling me in for a hug. "Don't worry about it, Fae. It was good to see him again. I'm not mad, or angry or anything."

The relief coupled with a younger body and the quiet bonding between us brought tears to my eyes. I don't know how what I would have done if Natsu had been angry with me...Natsu didn't mention these as we just watched the river flow for a while.

Then he proceeded to show me how to catch fish barehanded, which eventually turned into a splash fight after we amassed enough for a meal.

It was approaching dinner time when we returned to the guild hall triumphant in our hunt, Natsu bearing me on his shoulders with me holding a string of fish with a drooling Happy clinging to my head.

"Alright, Sara! We got some fish for ya! So let's get some food going cause we're hungry!"

This brought on a murmur of comments from various onlookers.

"That's Natsu for ya."

"Kinda surprised he didn't just torch em."

"Food fixes everything brother!"

"Amen to that!"

But in general, the sentiment I felt was relief at hearing the loud, brash youth sound more like himself.

-vVv-

Gray brought in a new prospective guild member when he came back from his job. I couldn't stop staring at the guy. The first thing he did was go up and flirt with Mirajane! Well at least he's got the semi-suicidal tendencies down pat. That's gotta be the number one thing we look for. I was somewhat sarcastic as I thought this, but I was not without evidence. Gray and Natsu constantly picking fights with one another, anyone who harmed Erza's strawberry cake, etc.

It was still new that Mira wasn't acting like a punk-goth with a nasty attitude. To have someone flirt with her, and have her not respond with violence was throwing me for a loop! I wasn't the only one. To those who had seen her in action, Mira would no doubt always remain the She-devil with the reputation to match. She was already developing this terrifyingly sweet smile that made the oldest and roughest of the guild snap to. Erza, on the other hand, tended to corral the younger generation through a combination of fear and absolute trust.

Gray introduced his companion as Loke. A young man around his own age with gingery hair and brown hazel eyes, and who he very clearly got along with. But what was disturbing me, even as Mira placed the guild mark on him, was what I was hearing from my Retrocognition...

Despair. Complete and utter. The resignation of a condemned man walking towards the gallows.

It was something I had been getting more and more the longer I stayed in the guild hall. I confided to Makarov that it felt like a tremendous invasion of privacy to be able to discern people's pasts like this and that it might earn me some hatred. It had already almost ruined my relationship with Natsu.

"It's part of your magic, Fae-chan. And since it emerged so early, it will likely play a very large part of how you develop as a wizard. I will not deny that there are some who would shun you for this ability, but among our fellow guildmates, that is something I can promise you need not fear."

I did my utmost to ignore Loke as Gray took him around the guildhall, introducing him to a few prospective partners for taking jobs, or just showing him around and explaining the bare basics of guild life. I noticed that there wasn't a single woman that Loke didn't flirt with. I can tell that this is gonna get old fast. And at the same time, I was dreading what would happen when Loke met Erza... but at least it would be funny!

A small hand tugged on my pant leg under the table and I looked down to see a pair of coal black eyes blinking up at me.

"Fae-nee!" Romeo giggled, having abandoned the toys that had previously kept him entertained. "Up!" I smiled down at him.

"Ok, Romeo." The toddler was usually left at the guildhall whenever Macau was working. Ever since the man's divorce, he had been coming around more and more often. And since I was usually... overlooked in the day to day hubbub, minding Romeo and keeping him from getting hurt usually fell to me and, lately, Mirajane.

I reached down hauled him up to sit beside me. He wasn't satisfied with this and climbed into my lap and slapped a pudgy hand onto my paper.

"Story?" I glanced around furtively. I had started telling Romeo a story, Beauty and the Beast actually, complete with illustrations and images. The concept wasn't new. In fact, the edition here went into a lot more detail about the enchantress and gave the curse several different layers that each had to be broken within a certain time limit. But the fun cartoonish images that I visualized for the simple story I told had delighted Romeo when I first started it. If I was speaking, I didn't need to use paper to get the images I wanted. This was using my magic in a way that...hadn't technically been approved of so I tended to try and keep my audience small.

"Alright." I exhaled slowly, reaching into the warm blue glow in my mind that I identified as my magic. We were already placed in a corner of the guild hall so I directed the images to play themselves across a wall. "I believe we left off after Maurice was sent away from the castle by the Beast..."

The pictures were achingly familiar even as I made the story play out, narrating some portions and inventing play by play dialogue for others. Romeo took it all in with wide eyes and rapt silence.

I paused to take a breather after I finished playing through the sweet bonding time between Bell and the Beast. And to let my magic power recover somewhat from the songs and subtle background music I was making.

Someone applauded behind me. I jumped and turned abruptly, almost causing Romeo to tumble out of my lap.

"That's awesome, Fae!" Gray complimented, he was already missing his shirt, though thankfully his pants were still on. "I don't get why you're so shy about your stories, they're amazing."

"I know, right?" Levy gushed from to the side where she had also been listening and watching. "Our little Fae is a natural storyteller!" She said with a wink at me. I wanted to sink into the ground when I noticed just how many people had been observing me entertain Romeo.

"It's a good talent to develop." Mirajane said, offering me a cup to juice to wet my throat. "Illusions and Transformation magic are pretty underrated branches but they can be really effective. Especially if you're into entertainment."

"How long were you guys watching?" I asked, trying not to fidget under the scrutiny.

"Around the time that we saw how much of a bastard Gaston really is." Cana remarked, downing another bottle of wine. Her magic is extremely dense and powerful to the point where it could harm her physically. That's right, Cana drank like a dehydrated horse for medical reasons. My Retrocognition had revealed this some time ago, although it kept popping up. By constantly having a foreign but not overly dangerous element in her system, she was forcing her magic to dedicate a large portion of itself towards keeping her healthy and hydrated. In addition to keeping all of her organs in peak working condition, Cana was also enhancing her general durability, strength and stamina at the same time. It was just the nature of her magic. She had a crap ton of the stuff! Most other wizards could settle with regular routine magic use, and in Fairy Tail's case, a good brawl. But not Cana. And not her father, Gildarts. And boy hadn't that been a spit take moment when I read that off of her. And pretty confusing, too, since Gildarts, as far as I knew, was completely oblivious to the fact that he had a daughter...

"Fae-nee!" Romeo tugged at me. "More!"

"Your Fae-nee needs a break, I've been keeping it up for almost an hour!" Ok, so I may have made the Beast's castle more akin to Hogwarts in some of the things that were animated and that Belle had to interact with as she explored her spacious prison.

"Give it a little time." Mira comforted the four year old. "Fae-chan just needs to get her strength back before she can keep telling you your story. How about a snack?" The kid went off clutching Mira's hand as they headed for the bar.

"Anyway, Loke, this is Fae, I think I told you about her." Gray gestured the wizard over to where I sat even as he grabbed me in side hug and ruffled my messy aquamarine hair.

"Gray, have you been telling stories about me?" I asked, pouting up at me. I was rewarded by a flash of indignation. Apparently I was a cute kid. So I was going to have to milk this for as long as I had it cause puberty would play merry hell with me.

"Only good things." Loke said, grinning down at me, offering a hand. "Nice to meet you Faerun-chan." I took his hand and shook it, smiling back.

"Call me Fae, Loke. Everyone does." He leaned in slightly, peering at me through his tinted glasses. "Something wrong?" He settled back, his smile still there and curious now.

"Just something I've noticed. Fae-chan, has anyone ever told you your eyes are the same color as etherion?" I blinked said ice blue orbs up at the newcomer.

"Say what?" How would he know what etherion looks like? My answer came almost instantly, from the cool voice that had informed me of Lisanna's death.

Because he's been around long enough to see just about everything. The Zodiac was first and foremost an idea, and an idea can basically live forever.

But what does the Zodiac have to do with Loke? I asked the voice in frustration.

"Exactly the same." Loke affirmed, drawing my attention back outside of my mind. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and smiling down at me in a way that actually felt real instead of what I had gotten off of him at first. "They're gorgeous. You guys are gonna be beating off the boys with a stick when she grows up." This last was addressed at Gray, who Loke had apparently pegged as my big brother figure. Not inaccurately. The only flaw in the idea was that I had more than one. I shivered as the temperature plummeted around the ice Wizard.

"Like hell!" Gray snapped, pulling me closer to him, which only made me shiver even more. "I'll freeze the bastards into a glacier before they can try for Fae!"

"Then Natsu'll send em sky high" Happy chimed in!

"Followed by Freed trapping them in a rune barrier and slowly siphoning out the air." Levy said cheerfully.

"And that's all before Erza has her say!"

"That's not funny!" I cried, squirming. All of these somewhat morbid protective measures were things that I knew very much that my friends could and would do if I was harmed. And that gave me a nice big warm fuzzy even as I shuddered in horror. "Isn't that a little overboard?!"

They all looked at me blankly and I sighed.

"Right. Forgot who I was speaking to. Carry on." Overboard is Fairy Tail's default setting. I squirmed and managed to grab Gray's hand.

"Gray, no taking your pants off please. I want to keep my innocence as long as I can."

-vVv-

Loke looked at the little girl under Gray's arm with a genuine smile.

He always had a soft spot for kids. All Celestial Spirits did. So hearing about Fae from Gray had been a pleasant surprise since he hadn't figured that children were inducted into guilds...

"Fae's not a member. Not officially. She's one of us where it counts though." What struck him about the girl was that glance into her eyes had revealed that she was not an ordinary child. There was an age behind her admittedly striking eyes that he felt kinship with. Someone who had seen more than their appearance suggested.

The former Celestial Spirit grinned at her with a spark of genuine mirth that he hadn't felt in a long time in the mortal world.

"If yon Princess wants to keep her innocence, I shall be glad to lend my assistance!" he said dramatically, falling to one knee and clasping her hand and grinning at the look of surprise on her face. "Oh Fairy Princess, bless your humble knight's quest to preserve your purity!"

A little over the top?

Yes.

Worth it?

Absolutely. The girl burst out laughing, bright eyes and face lighting up with joy and mirth. And that made his guilt heavy heart feel a little lighter.

Gray was right...

"There's something about Fae...She doesn't know where she came from, but she knows where she wants to go. You can't help but feel inspired by the little squirt."

-vVv-

Loke was soon integrated into the guild. Gray took great pleasure in setting off the Welcoming Brawl. A brutal free-for-all that ended with a huge party. Fairy Tail's way of celebrating and welcoming the newcomer as well as gauging their skills to know what to ask them for on team jobs. What could you say? It was a foolproof way of breaking the ice. The list of awkward topics was a short one after trying to punch someone's teeth out.

I considered this even as everyone patched each other up and slapped Loke on the back, who had acquitted himself well in the showdown.

How did I know about the Welcoming Brawl? I could distinctly remember that no one had ever spelled it out to me that's what this was for. To the average onlooker, it just looked like a messy barroom brawl. Although an unusual number of people were laughing. And if you looked closely, there were two buds who might be slugging it out one second, and are toasting one another the next even as their superficial wounds fade, bolstered by their magic.

But the Welcoming Brawl thing was starting to interest me...

No one had told me about, it but everyone knew exactly what it was...how far could I go with this?

-vVv-

"So Fae-chan, what's on your schedule today!" Makarov asked, taking a break from the daily property damage reports.

"I wanna learn all the guild rules." I said cheerfully, which made the guild master look at me somewhat suspiciously.

"Are you sure, Fae? That's some pretty boring stuff, if I do say so myself-" I laughed.

"Not the stupid rules that the Rune Knights enforce! The fun ones!" I pointed at the bar where Erza was being given a wide berth as she enjoyed a slice of strawberry cake. "Like 'Don't damage Erza's cake'."

The tiny old man looked at me somewhat surprised.

"What makes you say that is a rule? The idiots wreck it all the time."

"And she beats the tar out of them, they're fine within a few hours and the whole thing repeats." I agreed with his sentiment cheerfully. "Those kinds of rules, master. That and I want to know how they came to be rules."

"Of course it involves storytelling, why should that be surprising?" The old man shook his head before smiling. "Have at it Fae-chan. I'm sure you'll get lots of interesting tales."

-vVv-

Do not under any circumstances try and make Freed get a haircut.

"He did that? Really?!" One of the older guild members, a mostly retired fellow named Salchow, nodded sagely at me.

"That he did, Fae-chan! And to this day, no one dares chew gum in his presence."

-vVv-

Don't call government officials out on being lying, untrustworthy bastards. At least not in public!

"Somehow it doesn't surprise me that Natsu did that..."

-vVv-

God cannot alter the laws at a whim, and you are not his prophet.

"Gray has his own section in Magnolia's public indecency regulations? Again, that really doesn't surprise me."

-vVv-

I learned a whoooooole lot about my guildmates in very short order. Everyone I talked to had some kind of story. And each story brought an additional little flash of insight to their past. For example, I got almost all of Laxus' childhood out of Makarov! Hard to believe that the utterly massive wizard had once been even shorter than the guild master once. And he was a really cute kid!

Wonder when he and Freed are gonna come back...? I'd once again finished the work Freed had left for me, and then some. If he wasn't gonna be around to wrangle my imagination then it would be his fault whenever I ended up doing... stuff.

"Fae, what are you plotting?" I quickly schooled my features as I looked up at Mira's question. The girl had taken almost a complete turn in personality over the course of the last year since Lisanna's...death. She had abandoned the harsh, brash persona and was now much softer and nicer all around. She was picking up work as the guild's secretary and barmaid.

"A surprise for Freed." I replied glibly.

"A surprise that involves fireworks?" She asked sweetly, pointing over my head. The sparks of colored fire were still lingering in the air for my consideration. Whoops. Where did they come from?

"No...but they would fit really well and-!"

"Fae...no."

-vVv-

A/N: This is about two years before the start of the show, for anyone who's interested. Check the timeline on the wiki for more details.