As Torine walks away she looks back at Erza again. "She not only looks so much like her, but she also laughs like her," Torine says in her mind, looking away, then shaking her head. Lowering her head, her smile fading as she continues her thoughts, "but she's, not her."

Lost in thought she bumps into someone. Someone small enough to bump heads with her as she walked into them. Raising her head to see who it was, finding a blue-haired girl who wasn't much shorter than she was, holding an open book to her chest with one hand and rubbing her forehead with other. The girl smiled though, blushing, before releasing a small nervous giggle. "Sorry about that," Levy says, "I'm not very good at paying attention to where I'm going when I'm engrossed in reading. Your name is Torine right?"

"No it was my fault I should have been paying more attention to where I was going and not lost in my thoughts," Torine said to the girl, smiling, and trying to figure out why she smelled almost familiar. "I'm Levy, nice to meet you," Levy says outstretching her hand to be shaken. I that moment the sent clicked in her mind. Torine shook Levy's hand, "Oh! You must be Gajeel's mate." The words caused Levy's face to redden more. "N-not exactly. I-its a bit hard to explain, but we are close just not in that way," she said stumbling on her words before adding in a whisper that if Torine hadn't had such strong hearing she wouldn't have heard, "at least not yet."

Torine smiled and apologized, "sorry, I just assumed since you both smell so similar." Levy nodded her head accepting the apology before looking down at the book she had in her hand reminding her of the work she was putting off for this introduction, "Oh right! I should probably get back to my translating work."

Curiosity peaked Torine looked at the book in Levy's hand. It seemed to be quite old the title printing had started to fade long ago and only a slight impression of the word was left in the extremely faded leather that was fraying at the spine and corners of the book. Looking closer the bearly visible word Torine's heart pounced. "That's ancient Dragnofic!" Levy jumped at Torine's outburst but grew excited when the words registered in her mind, "you mean you know it?" Levy questioned the woman eagerly.

"W-well yeah, of course, I grew up in Dragnof," Torine says rubbing the back of her neck. "Really?" Levy asks even more excitedly. When Torine nods she drags her to the nearest table to sit and begins to berate her with questions, "What was it like living in such an amazing place, like Dragnof? What did you do? What area were you from? When did you leave? Is that how you knew Irene? What was it like living with dragons?"

Torine began to laugh, "Woah, Woah, Woah, slow down there. I'll answer all of your questions. Just give me a minute to process them." Levy waved a hand down in front of her signaling she was calming herself. Torine chuckled a bit more shaking her head. "Well.. It was a beautiful place in its prime. Dragons and humans living and working together peacefully, something that was thought of, at the time, to be impossible," Torine's smile grew somber thinking of her long gone home. "What do you mean in it's prime?" Levy said looking questioningly at her. Torine sighed, "Some humans got greedy. They couldn't simply live alongside the dragons. They felt they deserved to be as strong as the dragons. Even though they outnumbered the dragons. Especially the royal family they wanted to be equal to the dragons they ruled beside. Not that any of them would admit it to the dragons"

"Royal family, you mean Irene don't you?" Levy said softly. Torine shook her head, " No it was her parents, Erza's grandparents. Though I understand why you would assume that," she smiled. "Irene genuinely cared for the dragons. She only started working on creating dragon slayers when the war between humans was to the point that there was no end in sight."

"So Irene really was kind at some point," Levy said amazed. " Yeah, she was the kindest person, often thought to have a heart of gold. No matter what people took from her she continued to be kind. At least until her own magic took the one thing she cared about the most, her humanity and safety, along with it her sanity," Torine said somberly looking at Levy, who shook her head.

There was a moment of silence between the two before Levy spoke up, "so, what did you do?"

"Like the many generations of my family before me, I was a royal guard. Each royal family member had at least one personal guard," Torine spoke enthusiastically. Levy practically had stars in her eyes romanticizing the job, "Wow, that sounds amazing. Working alongside the royal family."

"It's not as fun as you would think. We were trained to be the ultimate knight. Going through rigorous training and schooling as soon as we could walk. Often waking before the sun rises to study, then not going to bed till long past dark to train. Only taking breaks to hydrate and eat. That's all before you're assigned someone to guard," Torine dramatically explained. With all the romanticizing ruined Levy exclaims, "that's horrible." Torine nods in agreement. Disgust now no longer present on her face it was replaced by curiosity, "So, who did you guard? Was it Irene?" Torine smiled shaking her head, "No actually it was..," she stopped taking a small glance to Erza, rethinking what she was going to say. "It was her sister."

Levy looked at her confused, " With what I've heard, I thought Irene didn't have siblings." Torine thought of what she was going to say, quickly as to not arouse any suspicion, "in a way that is true she was only her adopted sister after all. Though she was still related by blood, she wasn't her sister by birth."

"So she was Irene's cousin?" Levy asked even more confused than before.

"Um.. no, but it's hard to explain really. It's a lot of detail that I don't feel like getting into right now," Torine began to sweat, a bit nervous with so many questions on the topic.

Levy notices the woman's distress with the topic so she decides it's best to leave it. Deciding to ask one last question before doing so, "One more question about it. What was her name?" Torine blushes pausing a moment and to Levy's eye seemed to be looking into space. Though if she were to follow Torine's gaze it was obvious she was looking at Erza. "Her name was Rosa," she finally said.

author's note: Hello! Next chapter is out yay! With this one, I also had some trouble because once again it was perfect the first time I wrote it and had trouble rewriting it. But at least this one came out faster than the last time this happened. Even with all of that, this one I feel is almost as good as the last. I know a lot of it(if not all of it) was pure dialogue, but I promise it is important to the story. Thank you everyone who is reading and favoriting and thank you aquarius marvell for commenting it really made me smile knowing people are enjoying it and that drives me to continue!