Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail

On the train ride back to Magnolia, Hisui played with a loose flap of the envelope she received, thinking about which part of her information network would be the most relevant. Recalling what happened to her at her city's festival, she decided to tug on the biggest lead she had.

"Karie, you said that those hounds take about three years to mature right?"

"Correct, is there something wrong?"

"Was there an incident three years ago that had a sudden disappearance of our hounds? Or maybe demand to breed them increased?"

"I can't recall everything to the second, should I have someone look into it?"

"Please do." Karie took a small lacrima from her pocket and got to work.

"Fi?" Hisui poked a white flower jutted out her hair. "Can you wake up?" A high-pitched yawn followed by a ticklish feeling in Hisui's hair told Hisui that her spirit wasn't really in too deep of a sleep. The flower reversed in age, turning back into a bud then blossomed again. This time, a cute face that was rubbing her eyes popped out Hisui's hair.

"…yes? What's…up?" Fiore asked.

"How much do you know about poision?"

"Depends…if it's from a plant…I" A yawn. "know everything. From an animal, forget about it."

"How long does it take for poison to lose its effectiveness?"

"You're asking me to solve something without giving me all the details, what was the poison extracted from? How was it stored? What form was it in? The list goes on."

"We don't exactly know."

"Then give up, as amazing as I am, I can't travel back in time to find out, try another method to achieve your goal."

"But I have nothing else to work on."

"Wait." Fiore firmly ordered. "No one that's attacking the country will stop after doing this little damage, this person will continue, you can gather more information then."

"But it's so frustrating! I can't do anything about it. Haven't you encountered something like this before?"

"Many, to the point where you can't glean any valuable information from them. They're all so different from each other." After a pause, Fiore frowned. "They do all have something in common."

"What is it!?"

"They all got caught in the end."

"Fi! You're not helping!"

"I said that so you won't be the first one to fail. You'll be fine."

"That's easy for you to say, you don't have to worry about these kinds of things."

"Who said?" Bouncy words turned cold and firm. "I don't want some bastard ruining this country. If I see this place collapse, what's the point of me dying for it? I've seen every state of Fiore, good and bad, and if I wasn't bound to the ruler by contract, the ones that led the country to shame would have been destroyed by me instead of by proxy. The only people I want ruling are those who truly love this place, you and Carol are among the top, I don't have enough information to judge that Dragon-slayer yet but, I'm taking a liking to him. More importantly, I'll trust your judgement."

"You know about—"

"Of course I do!" Fiore grinned, returning to her bubbly state, propping her head with her hands and kicking her feet in and out of Hisui's hair. "Any girl would be curious if a guy calls another girl out for a talk. When you can control plants like me, having multiple pairs of ears is a piece of cake!"

"What can't you do?" Hisui groaned.

"Let's see…cooking, sewing, going easy on people…ummm...give me more time to think about it."

"Never mind." Hisui sighed in defeat, the need to treat the sudden headache in her head was more urgent.

Every time Hisui sat back in her office was a different experience, previously it was resignation. Swinging open her office door, everything was just as she left it but a few small details. A fresh batch of unread mails sat patiently on her clean desk. Next came the reports that told her of the major developments in her absence. Progress to projects that's far too young for revealing. Finally, was her schedule for the week. Flipping through it, and seeing her timetable loosely packed, Hisui smiled. For now, she was free for the day, her crew was getting more efficient. Hisui sat at her desk, going through her mail, holding it with her right hand and taking notes with her left, all the while thanking Karie for training her to be proficient with both hands.

When Hisui was finished, she quickly made changes to her schedule—creating conflict in her head. In a flash, the time she could spend with her friends just got slashed in half, wincing when she heard a knock at the door. It was a sound that she couldn't recognise, it wasn't Karie as the knocks were too rough and had a longer interval between each beat.

"Come in." Hisui pulled a blank paper expecting to take notes from listening to her visitor's problems. To her surprise, the person had lovely pink locks and a muscular body. "Natsu? Is something wrong?" She looked at her friend with worry in her eyes, glancing to the cat on his shoulder in hopes to pick more information.

"Not at all, why do you ask?"

"Well…how do I say this? You never knock, so I thought that something happened."

"You noticed!? Yes! It's paid off!"

"Aye! Erza would kill you if you didn't." Happy chimed.

"What has?"

"Natsu ask Erza and Lucy to teach him to be politer and have more etiquette."

"You did that…for me?" Without knowing, a smile formed at Hisui's lips.

"Sure!" Natsu grinned. "You told me to be more serious right? So I told Happy about what happened and asked him for advice."

"Then I suggested that Natsu should learn manners."

"I must say, I'm very impressed. I was planning to teach myself but, since you're already working on it, I suppose, I don't have to." Hisui said, disappointed that she didn't get to see Natsu's awkward period. "Did you have anything else you want to show me?"

"Not really, Happy said that I still haven't mastered it yet."

"Natsu still starts fight with random people." Happy snickered.

"Hey! He was being a jerk."

"But that's the opposite of having manners. Hisui, you sure want an idiot like Natsu?"

"You bastard!"

"While he may be silly at times," Hisui started, getting out her seat to meet Natsu, "simultaneously, it's his charm." Placing a hand on Natsu's cheek, Hisui continued. "Change is scary because people are afraid to lose the things that they loved, what they are familiar with. So promise me this Natsu; no matter how much you've learned in preparation to share the throne with me, you'll never lose your charm points. Because regardless of how important the things are you'll learn in the future to be beside me, it's not worth it if you lose what made me come to like you in the first place."

"I promise I won't."

"Good, please keep your promise."

"Who do you think I am?"

"You're right, I was being irrational."

"I do have something to ask you."

"Go on."

"Can you teach me the other things that I need to know?"

"Are you sure? We can leave it for another day. Things can get complicated really quickly, just the idea of teaching you politics might be the hardest thing I have to do."

"Please! I can't just wait like this, I want to stand beside you."

"Even though we're not together yet? We might shatter, and you'll waste all your efforts."

"Why would I worry about something that won't happen?" Studying Natsu, intently, Hisui lowered her hand.

"If you're so determined…is next week alright?"

"You bet!"

"I'll say this first: I don't know how free I'll be every week, you might be spending most of your time learning by yourself, is that fine with you?"

"No problem, I'll just ask Lucy or gramps."

"I'll see you soon."

"See you later!"

At the sound of her door closing, Hisui smiled, she finally gets to spend more time with Natsu. She took a quick glance at her timetable. Finding out that she still had free time, she asked Karie to fetch some textbooks.

Arriving at Fairy Hills, Hisui—with her books in tow—sprawled on her bed with a sigh. Nothing really came to mind when her back reach the blanket, rather, she felt more at ease seeing her desk than her own bed. It was just a place of rest for her.

"This is your room? Quite dull…" A mature feminine voice rang in Hisui's ear; pollen tickled the nose.

"Fi? Sorry but, I'm too tired to deal with you." Hisui rolled over to meet Fiore sitting on the bed, playing with her rich green vines for hair.

"Now you're just treating me as pet," Fiore pouted, "I'm not that much of a pain!"

"Hard to believe when you're acting like that."

"Have you read the letter yet?"

"I haven't, I was planning to read it here."

"What do you think is in there? A confession?"

"Why are you never serious?" Another headache started to run laps around Hisui's head.

"Just open it." Tearing open the envelope, Hisui gingerly pull a fine piece of paper.

"Want me to read it?"

"Sure."

"Your Highness, once I heard that the death of His Grace was no strike of misfortune, I sent some trusted people to do an examination about the Duke's death and came back with some key information.

"The method of assassination is poison, specifically from a plant called One's Mercy." Fiore sucked her teeth. "What's wrong?"

"We now know that the guy is rich, or at least someone with a good deal of money is a part of this plan." Meeting Hisui alertness, Fiore continued. "One's Mercy is a rare plant and can only be sourced from the wild—in a single place. While it can be hard to extract, the toxins in the flower results in a near natural death, so only experienced people performing the autopsy can tell if something is wrong."

"And I assume the place it grows in is dangerous so it's even harder to procure?"

"You're catching on. What else does the letter say?"

"Though the assassination was already done, it might be worth while to send people to investigate who was the one that sourced the plant, so I send men to find out, but no word came back.

"I implore Your Highness to be vigilant in your objective. One way or another, information seemed to have been lost, what I gathered have no correlation with each other. Until I make sense of the information I have gathered, I will omit them from any correspondence. Best of luck." Hisui folded the paper. "That's it, there's no name written on this."

"Well," Fiore hummed, "the sender is quite interesting, who gave it to you?"

"A middle-aged man, and I don't remember who he is even after seeing his face."

"I thought your Carol taught you not do that?"

"I only saw him once when I was young, that's all I can gather, he did call himself a bottom-feeder, most likely, he's serving under someone, and the letter didn't even tell me who." A groan filled the room.

"Don't get too caught up in this person, clearly they won't help that much if they won't even disclose their name." Fiore glanced around the room, lighting with excitement when she saw a flower by the window. "You didn't tell that you had a Moondew!"

"I didn't think it would that big of a deal."

"Of course it's big! You've been having nightmares?" Fiore checked Hisui for bags under her eyes.

"I rarely do, the worse was having nightmares for nearly a month when mother passed. This was a gift from Natsu."

"Do you know what happens when it blooms?"

"It bears fruit."

"One that is really sweet. More importantly, it's filled with magic, eating one will replenish your magic instantly." Fiore folded into a sad smile then sprung to repulsion. "During my time, people would abuse kids and set up Moondew to harvest their fruits, we were in a war after all, the army was desperate to get any advantage they can. When I stopped the practise, a generation of children were scarred." Fiore's sentence sunk in, neither said anything.

"I prefer this side of you Fi," Hisui said softly, "not the spirit that refuses to grow up, but the one that I could depend one for knowledge and experience."

"Then everything would be meaningless, people grow faster when they experience things for themselves. Also, I might slip something that you wouldn't want to hear."

"Is it about how you became a spirit?" Fiore didn't answer. "Well? First Queen of Fiore?"

"Last Princess of Bilard." Fiore corrected. "My rule was short, and it wasn't officially recorded into history, expect the royal family's records"

"But that one day was the most important in Fiore history, I wish I could tell everyone what really happened."

"I think this version is fine; a Princess was sacrificed so that a new country could be established. Such a minor detail isn't worth changing what's common knowledge for generations."

"Then what don't you want to slip out? Is it really how you turn a human to a spirit?"

"It's something like that, I don't really mind telling you about that kind of stuff, some parts of it anyway, you wouldn't be able to re-create it regardless. Some other things, I rather not slip."

"I will find out sooner or later."

"Only through one way; me telling you. You're not ready yet. Besides, you'll get distracted if I told you, just focus on your job for now, I'll look for the right time."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

I really need to get a consistent uploading schedule, I'm afraid it's only going to get worse because my school is going to take more of my free time, so please bear with me. I do have a reason for uploading so lately.

I was planning to write a Christmas special. And since I don't really have the best record of doing things quickly, I decided to finish the special before writing this one. So for once in my life, I should be able to upload a new chapter when I want to.

I'm also backing myself into a wall with all this development. If I don't make the villain as cunning as I made the led up suggest, it's going to suck. And here's where I bitten off more than I could chew again. I'm not too good with those kind of characters. Hopefully I manage to do a good job on this arc. After this, I should finally be able to focus on the romance. So for the people that came here for the relationship between Natsu and Hisui, I have good news! You won't have to deal with all this slow shit. Hopefully.

And that's it! I hope you'll enjoy the next chapter, thanks for reading this chapter.

Have a nice day!