Hello, my pretties. My master's thesis is done! Excuse me while I go drink a really large bottle of wine. And make peach cobbler. And eat said cobbler…

Lucy glared at Draco with her hands on her hips. As soon as she'd arrived back in the canyon, she'd dropped her bag and demanded an explanation from the dragon. Yukino was lingering behind, hoping to stay out of the crosshairs between the wizard and dragon.

"There was a reason that it had to be a celestial wizard and not some random whelp like the others had taken."

"Wait. A celestial wizard or a Heartfilia?" Yukino asked.

Draco started making a grumbling noise that Lucy recognized as the sound he made when he was trying to be evasive.

"Oi."

"It had to be a descendent of the twelve original celestial wizards. The others married. Names were lost. Only the Heartfilias kept their name throughout the generations."

"Oh," Lucy murmured.

"What is he talking about?" Yukino asked.

"Nobody teaches history anymore," Draco grumbled, reminding them both of some of the older guild masters.

"The first celestial wizards were a tribe in what's now Bosco. They worshipped the skies and managed to make the first silver keys. To protect the keys, they helped create the contracts that bind wizard and spirit. Some spirits, like Horologium, had multiple keys made because of their usefulness. There's multiple Nikora keys because there's many little dogs.

"The Zodiac got jealous because the silver keys were going on adventures. The Spirit King decided to give a single golden key to twelve of the wizards who best loved and protected the spirits. That viewed them as partners."

"No one thought to treat spirits as objects yet," Draco muttered. "It was a seith mage that first said that since celestial spirits don't have souls should they really matter.

"It made it easier to incite war between wizards and the celestial world. Those that sided with the seith mages used their spirits as shields. Most celestial wizards tried to protect the celestial world."

"What happened?" Yukino asked.

Draco sighed. It sounded like thunder rolling through a mountain. "The Spirit King created archangels. To be honest, I think they were on awful idea. He wanted them to protect the wizards but also fearful of them, he made them practically servants to the celestial wizards. They were like human celestial spirits."

"What happened to them?"

"It's been hundreds of years since there was one. They have to be born and the last one, Gal-something, had lots of children but no archangels."

"You always avoided telling me, but how are you still on Earthland?"

"During the last Dragon King Festival, when Acnologia lost his humanity, your ancestor asked me to ground myself here. The Celestial King holds my key until it is passed to my dragon slayer.

"My dragon slaying is unlike the others. It's like an ever present stardress. You will have access to it as long as my key is near you. It can never be taken from you or simply dropped. If your other keys are taken, it'll reappear in your hand. It shouldn't take long for you to learn it since you've achieved your stardresses."

"Does this mean it's time for me to start training?"

"Yes."

Lucy stood up and started dancing, her fists punching the arm.

"Tomorrow. Spend some time with your friend."

Lucy and Yukino ended up spending the rest of the night asking Draco about the other keys, their personalities, and a rough estimate on how many keys possibly remained to be found.

-oOo-

The next two months were grueling. It had taken Loke two days to realize that Lucy had trouble with the dragon's roar unless in danger. Her implicit trust, while gratifying, was turning into a hinderance.

A system was put in place where Yukino would pick jobs for Lucy then send them through her spirits to Lucy's. The payments were used to maintain her belongings held by Sabertooth.

Once she got the hang of the roar, her other attacks followed rather quickly. Her most prominent one was a simplified version of urano metria as well as the second part, urano graphia. Urano graphia channeled the power of three lost constellations.

It was in the early hours of the morning that Lucy heard Loke and Draco arguing.

"She isn't ready," Draco said, his voice even deeper from his annoyance.

"The king thinks she is."

"He's a moron."

"He's still your king."

Draco made a grumbling noise like thunder. "It's not our fault that she's annoying."

"Who are you talking about?" Lucy asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"The Spirit King has an offer for you," Loke said before Draco could interject.

"Hm? What?"

"He will return Aquarius to you if you retrieve a set of keys."

"What?" She leapt onto Loke, gripped his shoulders, and shook him. "What keys? Where are they?"

"The Spirit King wants you to retrieve the Ptolemaic Royals," Draco said, hoping his charge would recognize the name.

"Oh." She stepped away from both Loke and Draco. "Nobody's seen those keys in hundreds of years. There's versions that say they never existed."

"They did. Your ancestor, Anna, hid their keys at the Spirit King's request. He didn't want to destroy them because then he'd be stuck with Cassi forever with no escape."

"What did they do?"

"Cassiopeia's master became infatuated with her. To the point that he tried destroying all other keys, so he didn't have to share her. Anna stopped him, but the damage was done. However, Perseus, Cepheus, and Andromeda refused to allow their keys to be separated from Cassi. The four keys rarely don't share a master and arranged their contracts around their bond."

"So, where are they?"

"No one knows. Anna wouldn't even tell the king," Loke replied. "I'd start at Academe Celestine. After all, Anna was born and raised in Bosco."

Lucy nodded softly. She'd also be the first Heartfilia to attend since there'd been a falling out with Anna and the celestial mages that made up the Star Gazer tribe in Bosco.

She remembered her parents arguing about her going to the school. It was the best so of course Lucy should go there. That was Jude's opinion with Layla. After her mother died, when she'd bring it up, he'd shoot her down. Part of her wished it was to honor her mother's opinions but honestly, it was because he wanted to keep her under his thumb.

"Where are you going?" Draco asked when he realized that Lucy was walking away.

"Tomorrow's going to be a long day. I'm catching a bit more beauty sleep."

Draco harrumphed again when he realized that she was siding with Loke. As she slept, he breathed as much of his essence, his magic, into her. Her age meant that she'd never have some of the more noticeable physical traits like the sharpened canines. Through the fluidity of her magic, he imagined she wouldn't acquire traits that could be supplemented be a key. The strengthening of her second origin meant that she'd be able to summon more spirits, but he'd hoped he'd have more time to prepare her.

The sun wasn't quite up when Loke reappeared with his key for Lucy. Draco waited for Lucy to wake and pack.

"It's time for me to go, hatchling."

"What?" He gently nuzzled her with her snout. "I must go. Leo has my key."

"You're returning to the celestial realm."

"Yes. I would have liked more time to train you, but I don't think that it's likely we'll have that time for a long while."

"Thank you, Draco," she said, crying into his snout as she hugged him.

"Chin up. It's time for a new adventure. Don't summon me too soon. I need some rest."

"Go away you damn reptile," she said with as much bite as she could muster.

He chuckled as he disappeared in the bright sparks she was familiar with. Suddenly, the valley seemed so much emptier and she couldn't wait to leave.

So, if you noticed, Desna's Bosco is about to make an appearance along with the Pradesh family. If you're old enough (aka 18+) you should go check her out as well as Pradesh week.