DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in Fairy Tail, all rights to those characters belong to Hiro Mashima. The only parts of this story I own are my character, Rose Jay, and the plot. I do not make any profit from this fanfiction; it is solely intended for your reading pleasure.

"MAKAROV!"

My voice rings in unison with Diana's as we enter the guild, putting the guild hall into an eerie silence as we make our way towards the master. Everyone steps aside for us, giving us weird looks, but it was all masked by an overpowering wave of fear. I felt a rush of pride at this in spite of myself, and I knew Diana felt the same way. Most of these Fairies know and fear who we are. They must have heard whispers of a new class of wizarding level taking the world by storm.

"How might I help you two girls?" Makarov asks, sitting on the front counter, his staff perched in the crook of his crossed arms.

"We've come to join the guild," Diana says happily, giving him a short wink.

"But first," I interject just as the master waves forward a woman with long white hair from behind the counter. "We need to talk to you. Privately. If that's alright with you."

By the time we finally start to settle into the guild, people start fearing us less because of our power, but more so because of our skills. Nonetheless, we manage to make a fair number of friends, the most important of all being Loke. He's a very interesting member of the guild, in the sense that he's not human at all. He's a Celestial Spirit. Specifically, my True Zodiac brother, Leo the Lion. What Diana and I can't seem to understand, though, is why he's living in the human world, and how long he's already been here. The last time I talked to him, he had a contract with a rather peculiar Celestial Wizard. His physical presence in the guild alone is really unnerving me. Whatever the case might be, I can't shake this sense of dread that something went horribly wrong between my True kin and his last contracted Celestial Wizard.

I walk over to him and sit on the bar stool next to him, but he refuses to look at me.

"Hey, Loke," I start, leaning forward so I can at least look at his face. "Can I ask you something?"

No answer. I know he heard me, because he visibly curled in on himself a little bit just now. I decide to press on gently, also making sure that I take care not to mention anything about his, Diana's or my own identity. Though I'm fairly certain he already knows us too well.

"I'm curious as to why you joined Fairy Tail alone." I drop my voice to a whisper before continuing. "Last I heard, you had a partner during your time in the Blue Pegasus guild. I wanted to know if you could tell me-."

"What happened to her isn't really that important to you, is it, Rose?" Loke grumbles, standing up and walking away. "Follow me. Bring Diana with you."

His words had been harsh, yet he had a point. I have a feeling he's been waiting for me to ask him about his past, as if he's trying to lift a heavy weight off his shoulders.

"Rose?" Diana asks, looking at me curiously, taking a swift glance at Loke waiting by the front door of the guild. "Are you two going somewhere without me?"

"No, Diana," I whisper, my expression blank as I try reading Loke's eyes for any sign of strong emotions. "The three of us are going to lift a heavy burden from our friend's heart."

"Oh, awesome! I never knew it was that serious," my sister says in awe, falling in step beside me. "I hope getting rid of the weight will fix up that slouch of his. Someday it's going to end up ruining his back."

I can't help but laugh at her statement, and I feel a flare of hope when I notice Loke doing the same.

"I sure hope it does help," he laughs, giving Diana a smile that I can sense is painfully fake, but I'm thankful she doesn't take notice of it. "I really need my back."

We walk out behind the guild to a small beach where we have a quiet place to talk about what happened without a huge risk of being overheard. I can tell that Loke knows who we are and that we know mostly everything about him, but he doesn't show it until we sit down on the sand, a cool wind coming off the water. It's almost like he's reliving the agony of what happened on the day of Karen's death.

"Leo," I say bluntly, flinching a bit when he snaps his horrified, memory-glazed eyes to look into mine. "We both know about Karen and what happened to her."

"We also know why," Diana adds, her own eyes tearing up a little bit. She was a great Celestial Wizard, but one with an attitude worthy of the Celestial Spirit King's books nonetheless. "We're not blaming you for it, either. You did the right thing, sticking up for Aries. What happened to Karen was her fault, and hers alone."

"The King wouldn't listen to us no matter what we told him," I whisper, lowering my gaze to look at my hands, which are reflexively clenching into fists.

Loke looks from me, to Diana, and back again. "You mean you guys tried to defend me? That's impossible, you've been exiled from the Celestial World permanently!"

"Only recently," Diana snaps, slamming her fist into the sand, which made little emphasis to her point. "We still had access during the event of your charges."

"Which brings us to your exile, Leo," I step in, holding his gaze for a moment before he goes back to staring at the sand. "We need to know how long you've been wasting away your Celestial power in the human world."

There's a chilling silence before he finally answers, although it's not at all what I wanted to hear.

"Two and a half."

"Months?" Diana gasps, her eyes widening when he refuses to answer. "You've got to be joking. You can't have been here for two and a half years already!"

"In any case," I interrupt, giving Diana a warning glare before she loses it for something pointless. "We've come to offer help, Leo. We can give you more power, or we could set you up with a Celestial Wizard-."

"No."

Diana, however, has other plans. "Ice-Make Prison!" He's trapped.

"I can't take any power from you two," Loke chokes out, on the verge of breaking down at the thought of his past. "I'm being punished for what I did, and I intend to pay the ultimate price. I've no intention of contracting with another Celestial Wizard for those very reasons. And Rose-," he turns to face me with yet another painfully fake smile, or was it a genuine one? "You're my Rogue kin. I do hope that when my time finally arrives, you will honor my passing."

The realization dawns on me a moment before it happens, and the holographic Loke disappears, leaving myself and Diana alone. The ice cage melts into water and returns to my sister, passing into her body through her hand, returning a small portion of the power she used. I smirk and give her a mocking look of disapproval.

"Show off."