I scared a lot of people when I cried in my sleep the entire time I was at Porlyusica's clinic for observation after our excursion to Edolas. For various reasons. Only one of which was the fact that I had every memory of Mystogan that I could muster playing in my head on repeat to try and avoid feeling the pain of realizing he would never walk through the guild hall doors again.
The other was seeing Lisanna's distressed departure from Edolas, revealing that she wasn't who she said she had been. And then the reunion between her and her siblings that had been years in the making. The joy I felt at their small family being made whole again served to counter some of my sadness. But not all of it.
Happy took me through the Anima, taking full advantage of his limited enchantment from Wendy to get me to Porlyusica as fast as he could. Everyone followed the magic, and the Exceed, through the portal until Edolas was empty of magic power.
Back in the ethernano rich environment of Earthland, my momentary stall and near death experience became little more than a vague memory. Porlyusica still gave me a bottle of supplements to take regularly.
"I don't want to see you back here again, girl." She said, glowering down at me in a way that conveyed the disapproval and cold affection of a worried great aunt.
"I'll try to make the gap between my visits longer, promise." This assurance didn't seem to be what she was looking for as she seemed to be incredibly unsatisfied even as I left her hut. Cubellios was waiting outside with Simon and Jellal. The latter was still dressed vaguely like Mystogan. Because as far as anyone outside the guild would know, once we gave our report to Master, there had only ever been one Mystogan. Jellal Fernandes was still presumed dead after the Tower Of Heaven blew up.
The sight of someone so much like him, yet not him hurt. I wound my fist in the cloak I had been wrapped in when I returned to Earthland and managed a smile at the pair of them. Mystogan's cloak. The memories wafted around me like a comforting hug.
"You've been discharged?"
"I'm not in danger anymore." I replied, letting Cubellios wind around my shoulders in a cool hug. "I'm supposed to take it easy on the magic use for a few days and have supplements for a month. But I'm good to come home now."
Lisanna is coming to the guild hall.
Oh that was something I was not gonna miss! Everyone's reaction to her and the living proof that we had had the crazy adventure that we'd said. Simon and Jellal hadn't known her, but I wanted to be there to capture the moments.
"Let's get moving then." Simon scooped me up and placed me on his shoulder, starting to walk back to the guild hall with firm measured strides.
"I'm not a cripple, Simon." My tone had a bit of a childish whine to it.
"Humor us, Fae." Jellal said with a tone that I knew all too well-
Stop. Missing him is alright. But Jellal is your friend too. Don't pit them against each other, don't compare them. Not even in your head. It's not fair to anyone to do that.
"Happy was beside himself when he flew to inform us of your condition. Everyone he told was. Only Erza reminding everyone of Porlyusica's visiting hours and conditions kept them from being camped out here waiting for you."
"What did you tell everyone when I didn't show up for work?"
"They seemed to buy you'd stayed up all night finishing a spell. We're waiting to break the news to everyone until after we've filled in Master Makarov." I pouted, slumping against Simon's head. Slightly depressed and not all that surprised that people had bought the story without so much as missing a beat.
"I'm not that bad..."
Cubellios nosed me.
:Hatchling, you are terrible at minding yourself when your curiosity overwhelms your common sense.:
"Don't make me regret teaching you to understand people-speech." I told the Violet Dracne.
"I find it rather satisfying that you of all people are getting lip." Jellal admitted, smirking. (Yeah, I couldn't see his face, but it was in his eyes!)
"What are you talking about? I didn't sass you at all!" Referring to the Tower of Heaven had gradually moved away from being a taboo subject after our mutual misadventures with the Oracion Seis. (I had no idea that obstructing arrest was such a good bonding activity. Though I hoped I wouldn't need to do it again.) We were still feeling out what was appropriate to laugh about and what wasn't. Simon and Erza were our measuring sticks in that regard. If either of them went stiff, we changed the subject.
"Oh indeed, because pointedly ignoring me wasn't cheeky in the slightest."
"I had limited cards to play and talking back would only have fed the possessor's ego." He conceded that with a nod, but continued
"Perhaps, but you proceed to, when we next speak: Put my mind back together after prolonged etherion exposure, and discover a groundbreaking alternative to a Unison Raid with a technique you learned mere moments before."
"You showed me that spell, and gave me the key to destroying Nirvana. It's looking like all that is on you. That seems all to be pretty cool, how was any of that sassy?" My tone was more than a little snippy and could be seen as rude by anyone who didn't know me well. Only Simon's low chuckles kept me aware that he was listening to Jellal and mine's conversation and knew it was done in complete understanding. We travelled the comparatively short distance to the guild hall with this filling the silence with Cubellios even interjecting some comments. (I had barely managed to persuade Porlyusica to let me activate the translation spell again. I believe she had only allowed it because she knew that human contact and communication were critical for people who had been in Cubellios's situation.)
-vVv-
The guild hall was fairly quiet when we entered, Mira had called in and said she would be late the day before and some of the temp workers from Magnolia were hard at work keeping up with the demands for drinks and food. Most of the guild hadn't arrived yet. But Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Happy were all there. The winged cat flew to me in an instant, settling in my arms and purring up a storm as he clung to me. The twitch of his tail let any keen observer know how stressed and worried he had been.
"I'm ok, Happy." I assured him softly, scratching his ears.
"You gotta be more careful." He told me, his short arms wrapped around my neck. "I don't wanna think about you..."
Dying? Yeah, me neither.
"I'm always gonna get hurt, Happy. And as long as I'm a wizard, there's gonna be the chance of dying. But everyone has that in the work that we do. The important thing is that I'll always have the guild with me. As long as I've got Fairy Tail, I'll always have someone to watch my back." I smiled at the Exceed's watering eyes. "You saved my life, Happy. Again." In the Tower of Heaven when we had fought our way down to Erza and the others, and now when I was helpless and dying.
He didn't say anything, but he buried his face in my neck again and purred all the louder.
Simon set me down at my table gently, moving me like I was nothing more than a large doll.
"I'm so glad you're alright." Lucy moved first, wrapping me up in a tight hug as Cubellios lifted herself onto the table to be out of the way for the greetings and relieved reactions.
"We all are." Gray added, moving in to ruffle my hair and not so subtly check me over for visible injuries. I knew what he was looking for and unwrapped my arms from Happy to show the gloves Porlyusica had given me.
They didn't look like much, but they were meant to restrict my magical output until I had had a few days of steady ethernano levels before I was clear for regular magic practice again. People didn't joke about Magic Deficiency, in whatever form it was found.
"I'm just gonna be doing some writing and brainstorming for a few days." I admitted. "No magic until Porlyusica says so." It was going to be a long couple of days, to say the least. On the upside, the restricted magic meant I wouldn't have Morgana reminding me every couple of minutes that Mystogan was gone.
Not that I need her help. I'm pretty great at remembering that all on my own.
Makarov's tears when Lisanna walked back into the guild hall were healing in their own right. The guild was his family and the people who had grown up here were his kids. We all knew it and felt the same in regard to him. It wasn't a prodigal child turning from the error of his ways, but it was someone coming home that he never expected to see again.
The thought made my mind drift down a new avenue. What was Laxus up to nowadays? Being exiled from a guild brought a certain stigma with it. It made finding work a lot harder too since the freelance notice boards had mostly undesirable or poor quality jobs on them. Without the backing of a guild negotiator, people felt a lot more willing to try and get one over on the wizards they wanted to have work for them.
I wonder if he's had any contact with anyone from the guild. Being exiled didn't mean we couldn't talk to him, it just meant he wasn't one of us anymore. Not officially, at least. Part of me would always view him as my guild mate.
I'll take the days I'm out of magic use and use them to write letters!
The members of the Oracion Seis I had met and wanted to help and Laxus. I grabbed a sheet of paper and began to write furiously, listing the people I had to contact and what I wanted to say to them in summary. I was moving on with life.
Or I was trying to.
-vVv-
Lisanna looked around the new guild hall, so different from the one she had seen for the last two years. Edolas Fairy Tail had been constantly on the run, hiding and not wanting to be seen or noticed. This new hall was twice the size of the one from her childhood, which meant it was four or five times as big as the Edolas hall. And everything about it screamed loud and clear that they knew who they were and they weren't hiding it. High ceiling, bright lights, a large stage, lots of laughter and noise.
But the faces she saw were familiar and dear. The first people she had known. Macao and Wakaba were laughing about something together, the former drinking and the latter smoking as Romeo shirked his school work and tried to use a minor fire spell he had swiped from his father at some point. Macau either hadn't noticed or was subtly encouraging his son to experiment. Cana, downing alcohol by the barrel, matching Gildarts cup for cup, and watching him closely though she sat with her back half to him. Natsu and several other guild members had been enlisted by Mira to help set up for her Welcome-back Brawl, because she knew it would be pointless to try and avoid it.
And over by the same scarred, ink blotted table was Fae, bent over pages of paper and some books and scribbling furiously. Only now she had a large purple snake dozing on the table as well. Even as Lisanna watched, the girl had to lift up a heavy scale covered coil to reach the pages she wanted. With her was the mini-Wendy and the white Exceed. And it seemed normal. Fae would smile when someone made a comment or did something amusing. But she didn't laugh. Her joy was hampered and it was more than her needing to restrict her magic use. Lisanna knew what that felt like. Part of herself that she had needed to lock away and not touch or even think about. It was like hobbling yourself. That wasn't what Fae looked like though.
Fae looked like she was trying not to look around the room. Only looking up from her work when someone nearby called her attention.
She knows someone isn't going to be there and doesn't want to be reminded of that.
It was a trap she had fallen into herself. First in Edolas when she had wanted to look around for Mira or Big Brother Elf. Now here. She was trying not to look for Mirajane, for Lucy Ashley and Natsu Dragion.
She was home...And it she had left home behind at the same time.
The party was in full swing and Lisanna wanted to enjoy the reimmersion into her life as a Fairy Tail wizard. But it was when someone knocked Erza's cake and the true carnage began, she crept away to regain some composure.
Erza is nothing like Knightwalker. She reminded herself firmly. She'd never actually hurt any of us. But for however comical a reason, her wrath had been roused and with it came a lot of bad memories.
The outdoors were dark and quiet, the only sounds spilling from the windows. It was cool, Lisanna ran her hands down her arms, coaxing a warm, almost invisible fur to grow on her skin, a gift from her friends among the Edolas foxes. They were experts at natural camouflage. With the fur came enhanced ears, and suddenly Lisanna heard a soft, almost noiseless sniffle.
She glanced up to the roof where she saw a vague, dark shape.
Fae had disappeared when the Brawl started, but Lisanna had figured that she had simply gone into her bunker to wait out the chaos until someone broke away who could escort her home. But it seemed not.
Lisanna flexed her arms, calling on her magic to shift the limbs into wings and carry her to the roof. It responded eagerly, the power of the animals she had befriended surging to life. Even her feet had tried to shift into talons and her hearing had tried to sharpen.
Not that much. Lisanna told the owl spirit she held within her. I'm not hunting anything. I'm...going to visit a sad hatchling. This made all the animals within her croon, chirp or whimper sadly in their own tongues. Many of them were familiar with Fae, and all were partially influenced by her protective, loving feelings towards the girl.
She got so big and it was only two years since I last saw her.
When Lisanna had first heard her voice, she thought for sure it must have been some kind of dream. But then her Edolas guild mates had muttered in surprise and she tasted the distinctive magic. The flavor of Fae's soul as it touched the world. It had been weak and unpracticed when she had known her. It was much stronger now, more determined and mature. But seeing Fae like that, bruised, hurt, bloodied in some places but still so determined to fight... Lisanna's desire to hide had snapped like a dry twig in the face of that sight.
She lighted on the roof and let her owl change her eyes as well to give her better night vision.
Fae was wrapped in Mystogan's cloak and a sad serpent. And she was crying her heart out into her knees, curled up as small as she could manage. Cubellios lifted her head, but gave no sign that she would prevent Lisanna from approaching.
Lisanna settled down beside Fae, looping her wing around the girl and pulling her close, nuzzling her hair gently.
"I...I miss him, Lisanna..."
"I know." Her eyes pricked lightly.
"Why does it hurt so much?" Fae asked, scrubbing her eyes. "I know he's not dead. But I can't hear anything about him anymore!" She had taken off her medically assigned gloves. Which explained why she had left the party as soon as people would assume she was safely under cover.
"Fae, put them back on. You know why you need them right now."
"But I can't hear anything..." She sobbed. "I hate not hearing anything. It's like when they had suppressor cuffs on me! It's like-...Like-!"
"It's like wearing a thin blindfold over every sense you have." Lisanna's heart broke for what Fae was experiencing. Both the grief of absence, and the restriction on her very soul. "You can still see and hear...but some of the life has gone out of every color, every sound, taste and smell. It's not what it should be, no matter how hard you try and make it right."
She was experiencing deja vu wherever she turned. Whether from her childhood or from the life she had embraced as fully as she could in Edolas. The faces were there. But instead of the shy Natsu she was now used to, it was the loud, aggressive Natsu who roared and started dancing when the music started up instead of the shy wallflower who laughed until he got the hiccups. Instead of the brash, harsh Lucy, this one was sweet, friendly and the moderator for Natsu instead of his primary frenemy. Lucy and Levy were best friends here instead of trying to kill each other. Bisca and Alzack were doing the same song and dance number around their feelings that had been going on for three years before Lisanna...left.
The girl under her arm shook, curling down a little tighter. Cubellios looped herself around the Animal Soul Mage too, including her in her lithe embrace.
"I know how much you care about Mystogan, Fae. He was like your big brother. He looked after you, he loved you. He-" Lisanna swallowed. "-he had a special part of himself that he only showed you." Lisanna, hypersensitive to all the power around her, felt as Fae's magic brushed over her, investigating the lines. She mentally opened that door to her, letting her read what she was thinking and feeling. Words were all well and good...but words weren't enough to bandage a wound this fresh.
Fae's relationship to Mystogan mirrored the relationship Lisanna had with Mirajane back when her sister was still vehement in establishing herself as the She-devil. Oh there were differences. Mira had been sharp to the point of insult towards their guildmates, only truly showing affection or gentleness towards her siblings. Mystogan had been distant and aloof, barely spending time in the guild hall during daylight hours unless he needed to collect a new job. But then Fae had changed that. She had brought him out of his shell. He always wore a physical mask, but the metaphorical distance he carried with him shrank. He let her in.
And he was now gone.
Just like Lisanna had been separated from her own sister. And that had been the most crushing, lonely feeling in the world. It had always been them, the Strauss Siblings against the world. And she was now alone without them...The Take-over Trio was no more. Edo Mira and Edo Elfman had been good to her. They had loved her. But they had never been able to take the place of her brother and sister. They were simply too different for that.
Fae's shoulders slowly stilled, her barely audible sobs quieting into unsteady breathing. Lisanna wrapped her other wing around Fae, a soft comforting churr vibrating through her chest. The combination of all the fragments of animal souls she had collected trying to comfort her in their own way.
Then Fae went still, her tears suddenly stopping cold. Lisanna paused, looking at her with some worry.
"Fae?" Her head came up abruptly, looking at the spot in the sky that the Anima had been in, and there was thought whirling behind those blue eyes again. Like Erza when she was coming out of a rare introspective mood. Three dots in a row pulsed faintly over her head.
"You're showing something up here again." Lisanna said, wanting to giggle. It was something she had always thought especially adorable about Fae. When she wasn't focusing on it, she would literally display everything she was thinking or feeling in some sort of visual medium.
The girl absently waved her hand through the minor illusion to dispel it, a smile starting to curve her lips. It was good to see, but there was also this look in her eye... Lisanna would cautiously label it as 'challenge accepted'. It was practically the same as Natsu's, only the fire was pulled deeper, less visible on the surface.
"What are you thinking of now?"
"My next set of wings." She turned back to Lisanna with a smile and hugged her tightly. "I'll be ok, Lisanna. Thanks for...for helping me." The older girl returned the embrace with a smile, pushing away her animal transformation to allow fully human limbs to hold her little friend.
Then Fae went still again in her 'I just had a creative breakthrough' posture that was entirely her own. She whooped and gripped Lisanna all the more tightly.
"That's it, that's it that's it!" She sang happily, almost bouncing with glee. "Lisanna, I've got it! I've got it! I've finally figured it out!"
"What now?" Fae's eyes were aglow with her magic as she pulled back, practically dancing on the roof with glee.
"How to let Cubellios be human again!"
-vVv-
Part of my slow going process in freeing Cuebllios from her cursed state was the issue of memories. She would lose her memories of Eric and she didn't want that, had outright refused to accept the solution, as I expected her to. And since I wasn't going to act without her express consent, I had been trying to find a way to let her regain her human form while keeping her memories of her time as a snake.
It was a combination of Freed's situation and Lisanna's magic that had sparked the idea.
Freed had been cursed with Dark Ecriture by his brother. But he had since adapted it and made it an integral part of his magic. He had found a way to master his curse. Since Cubellios hadn't had any magic as a human, this hadn't been the immediate solution I was looking for.
Lisanna however had sparked my ultimate idea.
Her magic's entire premise revolved around shifting. Being a human and taking on various animal traits and characteristics. She had a strong sense of personal identity that let her remain in control of her faculties and think like a person. Because like all Take-over magic, the users ran the risk of being overwhelmed by the beings they attempted to use it on.
Cubellios didn't have that sense of identity because her curse was meant to attack her sense of self by cutting her off from touching it. But the shift was the important part, the physical change...
Cubellios had, over the years, been growing her internal magic in response to the curse. That was how she was able to adapt as much as she had, changing size and growing wings or any other additional features as she wished. And, since coming to the guild, she had even mastered growing or shrinking to new sizes because she had observed Makarov do the same! (He was only about three feet tall normally because he was constantly charging up his Titan magic. Otherwise, he'd be...more normally proportioned.)
She's already been merging the curse with her magic until she had control it. I just need to find her old identity and link the two together! Reconnecting her with her human element will let her master the Curse with her own personal Transformation magic! Figuring something out to do that was my present focus after I added a parseltongue translation feature to the collar she wore to help maintain her body temperature. This let her hold actual conversations with more people than just myself. (Freed busted me for taking my gloves off when I brought him the new runes to check over.)
-vVv-
I was kicking around the guild hall, unhappily glowering down at the purple runes drawn onto my arms which forcibly prevented me from removing the gloves for at least 24 hours.
"Darn Freed." I muttered, slumping onto my desk and doing my best not to give into the childish impulse to throw a tantrum.
"He's only trying to make sure you don't hurt yourself." Jellal said from just beside me, kind eyes smiling over the edge of his mask.
"But I wouldn't! I'd be careful!"
"Unless someone you care about needs help. In which case, your definition of 'careful' changes into 'I am at least 60% sure that I won't die'." I sighed, tension flooding out of my body as I was forced to acknowledge his point.
It's not that bad, It's at least 75% if not 80!
It's 65%.
Betrayed by my own inner voice...
"She's been silent for too long." I defended myself to Jellal, knowing I was scowling and not caring. I may have been annoyed at being punished like a child with my suppression gloves. But I would do so again in heartbeat if it meant Cubellios could actually interact with the guild as a whole instead of just me. She had rarely ever been so happy, currently lounging before the fire and engaged in passing conversation with Wakaba.
"I know. I'd have done much the same." He eyed my gloves then with a tiny smirk. "Did you know that there are only about four different types of suppression magics?" I glanced at him, an answering smile on my lips as I recognized his attempt at distracting me.
"Really?"
"Yes. People have tried for years, but only four patterns or spells have been consistently used due to the unpredictability of the others."
"And suitability for mass production is a factor in any patented spell."
"Indeed."
We stared at each other for a second... I then waved a hand.
"I don't have my cheat right now to guess where else you were gonna go with this." This made the masked wizard laugh warmly.
"One of two places. Either, we explore how to disable said spells-"
"That sounds promising..."
"-or we make a better one." I knew confusion was running rampant over my face and he gave a modest shrug.
"Our last combined spell could easily qualify as a topic worthy of dissertation. I'm interested to see what else we could do if we put our heads together."
Oh now that...that was an intriguing proposition.
I am so down!
Ready to comply.
I barely flinched internally.
Please don't invoke the Winter Solider, it feels wrong on literally every level. Even if it does have a certain level of accuracy for our situation-just don't.
Understood. The sentiment remains.
"...Both? Disabling first because safety?" Jellal nodded, amusement still flickering behind his eyes.
"Very wise choice. It'll only be theory until you're cleared to get hands on, but I'm sure some of the guild members have a set or two of cuffs we could work with."
"Gray's got a collection from all the times he's been arrested for public indecency!" A blast of steam emitted from a furiously blushing Juvia made my hair ruffle.
"He...He does?" Her voice was little more than a breathy squeak.
Why...oh...Ohhhh. Probably shouldn't have said that and put that thought in her head. But I didn't know she was there because Retrocognition is limited right now. Hindsight is 20-20 I guess.
I began to giggle at her expression, thanking the stars that Gray wasn't here to hear about this. I made a mental note for him to check over his place to ensure that she didn't get any bright ideas. I may not have had my magic to tell me what she was thinking or planning, but some things you just didn't need magical insight to infer.
"It does not surprise me that that is the case, nor that you know about it." Jellal said, rising as the room began to fill with a truly impressive amount of steam. "I think we might be less distracted outside."
"We'll certainly be drier." I agreed, waving to Cubellios who was now speaking with Bisca and Alzack and making them both blush. It seems they had discovered that being an animal meant she had no filter about their obvious attraction to each other. "At least she's stopped being mopey since we came back from Edolas." Natsu had spent a long time laughing about Edo-Gray, who apparently had as big a crush on Edo-Juvia as our Juvia did on Gray. The shock had made Juvia revert to her old outfit in a depressed slump.
"Hey Juvia, do you think that you could keep up emitting steam for a couple hours?We've been having this idea for a day long sauna event..." Ever the efficient and cunning businesswoman, Mira had materialized by Juvia with her most charming, sweet, and utterly devious smile on her face. I drifted closer to Jellal, suddenly grateful that I couldn't be asked to do work like that. Gildarts had already been roused from his usual seat at the bar and put to work doing...I didn't actually know. That was weird and uncomfortable.
I glanced down at the gloves on my hands with a new idea in mind.
I liked being informed, but having Morgana constantly telling me updates in the middle of the night was the reason I occasionally looked like a zombie in the mornings. If I could take that idea, and alter it so that only priority messages made it into my dreams...
-vVv-
Thanks to Jellal's rather informed tutelage, I got a crash course in how to slip out of regular and magical handcuffs with minimal or no magic available. It only occurred to me later that he was taking his role of 'Mystogan' seriously and teaching me useful skills without seeming as though he was taking his counterparts place. Mystogan and Freed had both been my teachers. Jellal just felt like a very well informed senior lab partner.
"This would have been really useful a couple of months ago." I remarked, slipping out of our practice cuffs once again.
"Better late than never. I was comatose back then. The most I could have taught you then was breathing techniques for restful slumber." Thinking to my usual troubles of insomnia, I mused quietly:
"That would actually be useful too..."
Having Jellal as a teacher figure differed greatly from my experience with Mystogan. And not just in the sense that we didn't have a longstanding relationship. He had live magic experience, being an actual wizard himself. Mystogan had been an expert in magical tools, but Jellal had been thoroughly educated by people who didn't really give a damn about the questionable ethics of some spells. What's more, he was a natural born genius. He had to be, to be a believable Wizard Saint at his age. Mystogan had been great for talking theory and scouting materials. Jellal had a grasp of the spells needed to make something actually work. And his experience with both rituals and curses let me put together a prototype of my cure for Cubellios within a few days of working with him compared to months of fruitless labor prior.
-vVv-
The purple serpent examined the circle we had put together with a critical air.
:This is meant to change my form?:
"Not yet, no." I corrected her. "All this is gonna do is let us learn your human name. Once we have that, we can make a new spell that lets you change into a human form again." I shifted, unable to conceal my dissatisfaction from her patient green gaze.
"I can't figure out a way to remove the curse that made you like this without also removing your memories of Eric. And since we don't want to lose those, that means the curse has to stay at least on some level."
:I understand.: She had been quite distressed at the idea of forgetting Eric and that had made me scrap the original plan of simply dissolving the curse with Master's help.
"What we're trying to do long run is remind your body that you're still human. You can think, you can communicate with the right translator, and you Transform your body even in snake form to suit what you need or want. Which is a characteristic of human magic. The curse can't suppress that, only your memories and ability to take a human form. It's why you've never been able to manifest hands, legs or a human voicebox, but why you could give yourself wings!"
:I did attempt to change my body to be able to speak. It was one of the first things I tried when I became capable of altering my shape.:
"The ultimate goal is to rewrite the curse so that you can turn back into a human. Once we manage that much, your magic will settle, and it will be in charge of your curse and your body rather than the other way around." Like Freed had used his Rune Magic to control and set limits for Dark Ecriture, Cubellious could accomplish the same thing. She just needed a little more help in getting there since her curse had been laid down by a professional wizard and not a petty loss of control from an angry child.
Jellal finished placing the components we had needed into the previously made places for them. All of them were geared on amplifying my ability to read the past. The circle had come to my mind pondering over the concept of identity. I had spent hours the previous day carefully writing out every basic building block I could think of in Cebellios personality without going into her animal name or referencing her identity as a snake. The simulations I had run mentally indicated this had a strong chance of working.
Approximately 74% chance of a successful retrieval of information. Morgana supplied helpfully. Since there was only a .07% chance of setting everything on fire or otherwise endangering us, Jellal and I had decided it was a risk worth taking.
"I think we're ready, you two. Cubellios, if you would come right here please." He indicated the center most circle in the large diagram. The snake nosed me affectionately, producing wings and lifting off the ground to avoid disturbing our ritual circle by slithering over it.
"Once Fae and I begin, you will need to focus all your thoughts on the early days of you as a snake. The earliest memories you have. Keep those in your mind, focus on them. Can you do that?" The snake nodded confidently, coiling herself into a neat pile.
:It was a confusing time. Nothing made sense and I was so very angry at myself for reasons I cannot recall.:
"Most likely, you were frustrated at your inability to communicate or live as you were used to." Jellal said, closing the circle around her and stepping back. He would walk the outer edge of the circle and I would mirror him on the inside. Since this spell was designed to help me see what I needed to, I had to be the one directing it. Jellal was just helping provide power now that all the boundaries and commands were written down.
I flexed my hands, open to the air again after Porliyusica allowed me to take off the medical suppression gloves and begin practicing again. My magic responded eagerly after days of disuse. It felt like I had more of it now that I had had before.
So do near death experiences actually help you grow your capacity for magic?
I shall refrain from answering that. Morgana's carefully neutral tone almost made me laugh as I drew up my power, laying my hand against Jellal's on the outside of the circle.
"Remember: If your mind is clear, your words don't have to be." I nodded at the reminder, taking a deep breath and beginning to speak.
"Names have meaning. A name is intrinsically linked to a sense of identity. It conveys to the listener in some part who that person is." As I spoke, Jellal and I began to take mirrored steps, walking clockwise around the ritual. His golden yellow power formed the outer circle, bleeding into my amber magic, following the lines as I laid them out, telling the story.
Natsu would always invoke the image of fire to me. Happy would be a sensation of freedom and the smell of fresh caught fish. Lucy, the kindle of keys and the brightness of her smile. Erza, the strong clang of metal and the faint ache of muscle fatigue.
"Names have power. To recall a name is to recall the person it belongs to and all that forms their character. To invoke it is to draw out that character and bring it to life in the mind of those who hear."
Cubellios: Loyal. Patient. Observant. Kind. Willing to change. Compassionate in spite of not knowing who I was-
My steps faltered at the complex thought, almost ruining my concentration. Jellal had to pull me along for a step, keeping me on track.
"Steady. Almost there." His whisper was soft, canted to not disturb the rhythm I had started when I began the words of the ritual. Amber light trailed behind me, showing where I had been walking, already forming into the words that I needed to complete the spell.
"Names are eternal. For though we gain new ones as life progresses, each marks the dawn of a new era in our lives. A new page in our story." The circle was completed. I turned exactly at the place where I had started my walk with Jellal, and faced Cubellios, reaching for Morgana's instinctive touch with history.
"Show me the name by which Cubellios was called when she lived as a human. Seelie Arts: Soulgaze."
The world dropped away around me until all I saw was Cubellios. Then I looked past her physical form and deeper still.
What I saw was hard to describe. It was as though each concept of everything I saw was laid out before me. Everything that made the girl in front of me who she was.
I saw her kind heart as easily as I'd see that someone had blond hair. I saw her crushing loneliness like a heavy beam across her shoulders. I saw the resilient spark of her innermost self that refused to bow to the tormentors around her. The curse telling her day in and day out that she was nothing more than a dumb animal.
I saw a woman with dark purple hair, and very familiar green eyes.
I saw Kinana.
I was back in reality not more than a few heartbeats later. The circle in which Cubellios lay was now adorned with my circle, beneath her, supporting her. Completing the entire ritual.
"The name you do not know, but your soul has not forgotten is Kinana."
The transformed woman's eyes widened with recognition. She drew in a deep breath, sides expanding, scales rising and falling in rapid succession as she shivered in response to being told her name and feeling the echo of rightness inside her.
The circle we had drawn went dark, my own circle, unsupported by the larger array, also winked out. I was tired from the spell, but not nearly as much as I would have been had I attempted to do this on my own.
In short, I felt like dancing.
It worked!
"Kinana." I repeated, unable to stop smiling. "Kinana! We did it! We found your name!"
And Morgana was already delving into the brief, dim history. There wasn't much to see, Kinana had been young when she was transformed. She too had been in the Tower of Heaven, but had not shown even a spark of magic, in spite of stemming from a family that had produced several wizards.
The Curse was cast with malicious intent, but it was originally meant to see if a non-wizard could be a useful asset if given a specific, sufficiently strong curse. Kinana was considered a failure because the torturous aspects of the Malignant Cost robbed her of too much ability to communicate. It was mistaken for a Baleful transformation, believing she had been robbed of her intelligence. She escaped before being terminated. That was how she met Eric.
I ran forward and hugged Kinana around the neck.
"We found your name! I know you! I know what happened!" I pulled back and looked up at her with eyes I could literally feel shining with excitement. "I can turn you back into a human!"
Snakes didn't cry. But Kinana wound herself around my shoulders in a small viper like form and tucked her head under my short fringe of hair at the back of my neck. And if her breathing was a little off, and if she shook intermittently, then so what?
I also hugged Jellal.
"Well done Fae." He congratulated me. "You know, it occurs to me that this ritual circle could be applied to just about any spell you want if you have the time to set it up. The extra focus would make any spell you use much more powerful." I giggled, holding my rune syllabary to my chest. "Oh, I am so far ahead of you right now! Look at this!"
I tapped my syllabary and adjusted a tiny etched circle on the top. It lit up and I flashed it on the ground, showing the precise copy of the ritual we had just used.
"I still have to set up something to project it, and I need almost perfectly level ground for the proportions to stay good, and of course there's the material components to worry about. But if I swap the focus circle in and out, I've already written some other plugins for story night to make things look and feel 3D! And that's not even going into some of the other applications!"
"...You are a terrifying little genius, aren't you?"
"Not really. It was Simon's idea, with casting shadows and all that." I looked up at him, brimming with determination and confidence at our resounding success. "So: We've got a name and identity. Now, we have a curse to lift!"
:Fairy child.: Kinana's hiss made us both looked down at her, curled in a close embrace around my neck. :Who do I address in order to become a proper member of your family?: Jellal actually processed what she meant first.
"Cu- Kinana: Do you want to join Fairy Tail? Officially?"
She nodded firmly, eyes bright with fervor and determination.
:I will always love and care for my friend for his companionship, and for helping me retain my mind. But you all have done much the same. I want to be one of you, no matter what skin I wear.:
I will admit to squealing in happiness and hugging her tightly.
"If you're getting a mark maybe he'll let us get one together!"
"Fae, no-"
"Fae, yes! I'm asking. Let's go, Kinana!"
-vVv-
It took all of four seconds for Makarov to process what the snake was asking him. And it took less than half a second for him to order a party to welcome our newest members.
"What the hell! I've already agreed to let another cat in! Pardon me, Lily, Exceed! Let's go ahead and add Kinana to the roster as well!" He threw back the booze in his mug with a roar of laughter. "Give the registration people a headache to remember!"
People took to Kinana's name with ease and were soon toasting her, including her easily in their conversations. I was taking a break from serving about two hours into the celebration, which showed no sign of slowing down anytime soon, and was watching the impromptu eating contest between a quartet of members I was less familiar with and a group of men from the town who were coming to try their luck.
"You are Faerun, correct?" The voice was one I had heard before, but not so often as to term it as familiar. I looked down to see Pantherlily looking up at me, sized much more like a regular Exceed instead of his massive man sized form.
"That's me! Would you be offended if I said you looked cute like this?" He let out a short breath, jumping onto the bench and then to the table beside me.
"I have been told that many times this evening already."
I spied his guild mark on his back in white, which stood out starkly against his fur.
"Sorry, but it's true."
"I take no offense over the opinions of others." He said, settling down next to me. "Maintaining my larger form cost me a lot of energy. I only did so to maintain the respect I got from my peers and soldiers."
Yeah, it's lot harder to respect someone if they're less than three feet tall. Not everyone can pull it off like Master does.
"I hear that. Some days I wanna find a way to copy Titan Magic just to be able to not get overlooked. Or at least to reach the top shelf." He chuckled, tail tip twitching languidly to betray the true depth of his amusement. I spoke up first.
"I'd have thought you'd go on with the rest of the Exceed to find their eggs." He shook his head, folding his arms and sitting straight.
"I can think of no place I would rather be than in the guild that took care of my prince for all these years."
And to look after the child said prince regarded so highly.
The thought of Mystogan didn't hurt as much anymore. Instead of a sharp stab, it was merely a dull ache. My smile showed more happiness than pain when I looked at the scarred, tough, round eared Exceed.
"We're glad to have you, Pantherlily. Welcome home."
And home it was.
A companionable silence fell between us as Natsu and Gajeel got into a semi pointless argument over...whose cat was superior. Happy crept away from the confrontation with downward cast ears and crawled up behind me, using me as a shield.
"I don't wanna fight, Lily, Fae! He'd tear me to pieces!"
"Even if I were inclined to do so, I believe you would not be so easily defeated as that." Pantherlily stated, looking at the blue feline. "I might have superior combat experience and physical strength, but your speed and maneuverability would make for a long battle. There are many ways to win a fight." Happy didn't look like he had expected that kind of support.
"Pft, men, talking about fighting just for fun." Carla sniffed disdainfully as she approached, Wendy was working to cover for me and give me my break. "I should hope that you two aren't as bad as they are?" She was referring to their respective Dragon Slayers who were already throwing punches alongside playground insults, both grinning like fools the entire time. Morgana was keeping a mental tally of the blows landed and calculating the amount of time it would take for a brawl to break out.
"Nuh-uh." Happy said, peeking over my shoulder and looking down at Carla. "Natsu's the one who fights all the time. I'd rather eat some yummy fish to have a good time!"
"You say that as if you didn't instigate three Brawls yourself." I teased, shaking my shoulder.
"Did not!"
"The scorebook does not lie." Both the relative newcomers looked at us in confusion.
"Brawls that have a scorebook? That sounds oddly...organized." Pantherlily spoke slowly, trying to unravel what we were talking about.
"It sounds like an oxymoron." Carla snapped, paws on her hips.
"Both of your statements are accurate." I admitted. "Welcoming Brawls are standard for any newcomers, helps the current guild roster get a feel for how the new person will fit and with who."
"Sounds like the free-for-all mix up we used in my squad in Edolas."
"It sounds barbaric, though I suppose I do see the value in knowing what skills your allies possess and how they use them. Especially in combat given how this guild takes so many jobs that require them to fight." Getting Carla to admit this felt like a tremendous victory. I almost hate to spoil that tiny bit of concession from her.
"Yeah, there's that...but you are right that it keeps on happening because people really like to fight. It helps blow off additional energy and keeps the stupid vibes contained to our hall instead of outfield work. And the Rune Knights hate breaking up Fairy Tail bar fights. So, I think the Second Guild master had the idea of keeping score so it becomes a guild-member activity rather than a civil disturbance. We haven't had one in a while, so, this could get crazy pretty fast. Just remember, if you don't want to fight: duck under my table if someone shouts 'Jethro Marshal'." I glanced over to where Wendy was giggling helplessly at a story Reedus was telling with his paint palette and brush. "Might want to pass that on to Wendy, too, Carla."
"Why of all the uncivilized, monstrous things-!" The white cat stalked off. I felt Happy's blissful little sigh against my neck and couldn't resist.
"You loooove her~" I even used a little magic to mimic his voice. I felt justified whenever I could get in a little payback for Lucy and all the times Happy had said the same thing about her and Natsu. I winced when his claws dug into my shoulder through my clothes.
"That's not funny!" He whined. But he jumped down and followed Carla all the same. An aura of infatuation surrounding him as he went. I leaned down to Pantherlily.
"I'm the only one who sees the hearts floating around his head, right?"
"I see nothing." He conveyed concern with his carefully neutral tone. I sighed.
"I'm perfectly fine. My magic causes occasional hallucinations like that. Don't worry about it."
"That could prove to be fatal if you were to become distracted in a critical moment." The dark feline's tail twitch was the only thing that betrayed the true depths of his worry. I patted his head fondly.
"Don't worry, Lily. I've got enough of a grip on reality that it never becomes a problem. I only let myself see them when I know I can relax a little bit. Like in the guild hall or on jobs with people I know can protect me if I get distracted"
"I'm glad to hear it. But I must inform you that your telling me to not worry will not stop me from doing so." The dark eyes of an incredibly perceptive cat looked up at me and into me. I remembered then that Pantherlily had been a commander of soldiers and had probably seen more than his fair share of people haunted by violence or traumatized by grief.
"I get that, and I appreciate the concern. But I'll be fine, I promise." His brow furrowed.
"It was your presence and actions that so endeared my prince to this guild and these people. Even in the brief time I spent with him and with your clone, I can tell how close you are. Such a bond as that does not allow for painless separation. What are you doing to hold that grief at bay?"
'And how long will it work?' is what he isn't saying.
I pulled up my legs into a crossed seat, propping my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands.
"I don't know how much you've picked up about me in the time you've been around us: but I love my magic. It has the potential to do literally anything if I can think up a way for it to feasibly work and if I have the power to see it through."
"A tremendous gift." A nice, neutral non-answer that prompted me to give more information. Man this cat knew his stuff on how to get people to open up to him!
"When I first broke through here in Fairy Tail, I had to figure out what my boundaries were. What I could do. But the one thing I wanted to do most was fly." I smiled, circling my little finger in the air and producing a tiny orange butterfly that fluttered around the pair of us. "I spent hours and hours trying to figure it out. I came up with a lot of useful stuff in the process. Like shock absorption runes to prevent me from hurting myself if I fell even an extremely long distance. And eventually kinetic energy storage runes to give me a boost in strength or speed if I tapped into them. I organized my script's alphabet, learned how I can apply my power... I figured out dozens of vital steps towards becoming a better wizard: All because I wanted to be able to fly."
"An admirable goal. But if you've discovered that gift, and have taken a major step towards freeing your friend from her curse, what is your focus on now?"
"I was obsessed with getting those wings, and I learned so much along the way. So now I'm focusing on a different kind of wings. A new goal." The butterfly I had made flitted around to land in the palm of my hand as I reached out to cup it gently.
"I've seen that a door between this world and Edolas is possible. In dozens of the different stories I have in my head, dimensional travel is either something that is difficult yet doable, or laughably easy with the right tools. I just need to pick a way and chase it until I get there." I dissolved the butterfly with a small flicker of my fingers as I looked down at a now very worried Pantherlily.
"I'm not gonna be stupid about it. I know the Anima took an incredible amount of energy to do what it did. There's no way I'd be able to open something like that again without burning through all of my power that I'll ever have in my lifetime."
Third Origin.
No doubt relevant, but not now, 'Gana.
"So that's how I'm coping, Lily. Whatever Mystogan said when he sent me home to save my life, I'm not treating it as a goodbye. I did not leave him in a grave. He's still alive, and so am I. We'll probably have seen each other again, maybe fifty or sixty years down the road when the country's Research and Development people get curious enough to wonder. But I'm not content to wait that long." I glanced at the ceiling, up to the exact point where I could still visualize where the Anima had hung.
"I can make any key that I need too...It's just a matter of opening the right door."