And this one almost ended up being about Panther Lily.

I own nothing.

Zen was looking for a book in the stacks when he saw it. The nice ass was barely covered by a short skirt. Just above the skirt, on the woman's lower back, was a tattoo of a black cat wearing a witch's hat chasing after a bird made from stars. The rest of the woman seemed to be hiding beneath the study cubicle.

"You alright there?" he asked.

The woman jumped. He cringed for her when he heard her head hit the table.

"Shit," she cursed when her bag of contraband candies scattered everywhere.

She turned to look at him and he found himself cursing that the bands that shielded him from a celestial spirit mage's compulsion didn't come with a proximity alert.

"Ow," she moaned feeling the goose egg that was forming on her temple.

"Here," he said, his fingers brushing the bump on her temple and channeling his magic to heal it.

"That's a nifty trick. Thank you," she said with a smile.

"Glad to help since it was slightly my fault."

"It was mostly your fault," she corrected as she dropped down to clean up the candies before one of the matrons found her with them. Her cheeks flushed when her stomach grumbled.

"C'mon. Let's go get some real food in you."

They only ended up going as far as the café that took up the first floor of the library.

"What's the story behind the tattoo?"

Lucy sighed. "I started here as a sophomore after an incident at my old university. I went to the Rollston School of Business at CU. I was the only mage. Between that and how I look, I was bullied. They don't think highly of working mages and it didn't matter that my last name was 'Heartfilia.'

"Anyways, after a bad incident that involved Leo summoning himself to protect me, Natsu and Levy came to check on me. I'm pretty sure the general idea of the tattoo was Levy's idea but Natsu designed the cat with the hat to represent me and it chasing after the freedom that my magic was supposed to have." She flipped her wrist so that Zen could see a second bird made from stars. "We got matching ones- his is made from flames- when we turned 18. We aren't caged birds."

"I was," he said and saw the way that her eyes automatically glanced to the bands on his arms. "You know."

She nodded. "All celestial mages are warned. There's only a few of us here since most would rather go to the Acadame."

"I spent some time there too."

"I wanted to go but my dad refused to let me go to Bosco."

"You're an adult."

"Yeah, but he pays my tuition. Pick your battles."

He nodded, accepting that answer. "I heard a rumor that you have a list of potential dates for the dance."

She choked on her bite of salad. "Where did you hear that?"

"Around. So, it's true?"

"Erm…" She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Yeah. I'm about a third of the way through and none have lasted more than a few hours as a yes."

"Why? I'd think you would have a line of half the school," he said, glancing her over.

"Laxus and Natsu. They growl and any guy runs away." She groaned and dropped her head onto the table.

"And where do my brothers and me rank on this list?"

She turned her head to look at him. "They don't."

"That's interesting since we're Boscan and my brothers have no preferences so short of already having dates, they should be showing up on everyone's predictive algorithm. Unless you crossed them out yourself."

"You know I don't use predictive algorithms," she said, ignoring the second part of his assumption.

"Why don't you like techs?"

"You weren't there when your brother kidnapped me to help Cris, right?"

"No. We weren't sure how you might be affected by his pheromones, so they sent me to stay with my sisters."

"I had to create a potion to stabilize him. Which you didn't have all the ingredients that I normally would have used so I had to figure it out as I went. When you rely on the tech, there's no imagination. If I hadn't been there, Kaleb probably would've found a recipe online and realizing that he didn't have all the ingredients, probably gone to the market since Whitman's closes at nine, got less than stellar quality ingredients, and who knows how much damage could have been done in that time.

"Magic is a craft. It's an artform. It shouldn't be put in a box."

Zen smiled slightly. "You might've just made a convert out of me."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Her face lit up and he was cursing himself. He didn't want to be part of his brothers' friendly rivalry over the woman. Vander thought it was too much work to contend with and Farron hadn't gotten his nose out of a book long enough to realize that it was almost time for the fall dance. Bickslow wasn't willing to go up against Laxus on top of everyone else.

"You know, maybe you should try going with one of us. At least, we wouldn't be scared of your guardian dragons. I mean, hell, Cris will growl right back."

"Are you asking?"

"Maybe."

"I'll think about it. First, I want to see how long my current date lasts."

Before she could walk away, Zen asked, "Were we on the list?"

"Of course, you were."

Remember, this is an AU where all the dragon slayers (except Cris and Emi) spent significant amounts of time at the Heartfilia Konzern. And aren't from 400 hundred years in the past. Imagine how Natsu might be if he'd grown up with some structure.