Sorry if it seems very choppy and doesn't flow well- the last time I tried to write first person- I realized a tad bit too late that 10 chapters equated to about two days and hah, that was not a good time. The reason why the chapters don't flow well is because the events or actions just stops there and isn't supposed to be continued on, so the reader can have a chance to use their own imagination to fill in what happened there since I thought it was something very small and wasn't going to be seen as a plot hole. Well what I'm trying to say is sorry for jumping around so much.

Walking out of the funeral was easy, the duo dragon slayers just needed to look as indifferent and straight-faced as usual and casually blend into the crowd. It wouldn't have mattered if anyone had noticed them anyways, they were Sabertooth after all. No one questioned Sabertooth.

The whole ceremony was long and tiring, with one white dragon slayer's attention drifting to all the wrong places. An action that Rogue would always manage to pull him out of every time.

Sting remembered one particular moment; while the priest was preaching over their former Bunny Girl's thought projected dead body when his eyes refused to stray from one misguided figure hidden under a dark cloak in the back.

What's she doing standing in the wrong crowd...He caught himself thinking before realizing just why this whole thing was happening. The blond then caught Rogue frowning beside him- seriously he was starting to think that was the only facial feature the shadow dragon slayer was ever capable of. They didn't exchange any words at first until his partner discreetly jabbed him in the side whilst muttering for him to pay attention. Sting remembered letting out a low growl in response despite his partner's warning.

Then the Crocasian Knight Squadron made their rounds honoring the not-so-fallen mage and he knew that he wasn't the only one surprised to see the former celestial mage of Sabertooth standing over Lily's body.

"Yukino?" It was barely a whisper, but she managed to catch it nonetheless and saluted like any other good soldier would and offered her condolences in a flat voice before her superior pushed her on. He was a L'arc Sibyl mage, Sting remembered instantly after he watched her superior pay respects to the body and then to him and his partner, he knows the secret.

Not like grandpa would remember it, Sting thought with a scoff as he and Rogue descended down the stairs of the Domus Flau. Ever since the silver-haired, gray eyed Acting Lieutenant Colonel entered Lily's hospital room to apologize in place of the Crocasian council that he wouldn't like him. And he was right; the guy was just too self-righteous, too soft-spoken, too blah for him to like. Not to mention the fact that his scent was all over Bunny Girl the day they lost her and found her dressed in a body suit and he discovered that she had a tail.

Sting could only groan and hold his head in one hand as the memories of what transpired upon his arrival in Lily's hospital room came back to him like a bullet.

"Do you think. That given all the mishaps in the Games lately. They- we would welcome you with open arms when you were never who you said you were in the first place?"

He really hadn't meant for it to come out as harshly as it did, but once he saw Lily- or Lilian or whatever this girl was' crestfallen face, he couldn't stop himself. He and Rogue had already formulated a plan to announce her death once they set out of the room, and deep down he knew that she knew that it was what was best for her too. He wasn't a fool; he knew she was going to be excommunicated as well after her private talk with Gemma. She was weak, a bunny.

She wasn't a tiger like them.

"You know what I'm talking about, right?" He nodded robotically as his eyes drifted to Lector who looked like he was waiting for an answer, "we can't meet each other after this meeting."

"B-but..."

"No buts. We don't know a Lilian Evan Orelohr and you don't have the slightest clue who Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney are."

The Exceeds didn't know of their little charade, they didn't need to know. As long as they weren't involved with her anymore then she was as good as dead to them. Or at least that was what Sting kept telling himself.

They were rounding the corner to the exit when Rogue had stopped suddenly, holding onto a strangely quiet Frosch.

"She was our nakama, Sting." He said in a straight voice as people passed by them, giving them weird looks.

"Sympathy is for the weak," the white dragon slayer replied in return, looking his partner straight in the eye before going right up to his face and muttering, "seriously? You did the same thing when Yukino was expelled from our guild."

"This is no different," the shadow dragon slayer retorted, and then he nudged his head to the exit, "I wonder. Sting, what exactly is your twisted definition of weak?"

With a final glare, he stepped down and turned to look at what Rogue had tried to show him to prove his point. He could almost hear the smirk playing on his partner's lips as he walked away.

Bunny girl...

An hour or two must have passed since I left the funeral. For a while, I felt a familiar pair of magic signatures following from behind me but they quickly disappeared after I went further into town. A small part of my mind wondered just who the magic signatures belonged to.

There's no way...

I sighed and dropped onto a bench, curling up and trying to take as less space as possible even though I had the whole thing to myself.

I might as well introduce myself back into L'arc Sibyl, I shut my eyes and let a soft groan escape from my lips, leaning slightly forward so the cloak still completely swallowed me, that is if Emily hadn't spread the news already.

My head was starting to pound painfully as I reminded myself that I was now guild-less and where my guild mark was placed on my shoulder was now just another patch of bare red skin. Even thinking about it made me want to cry.

"Lily Harvard is dead from this day forth. We know your track record, your friend told us all about you, so don't go picking up this identity in the future or else we will have to hunt you down for using an old friend's name in vain."

The way Rogue had said it, if not for the fact that it was longest sentence I had ever heard him say, broke my heart. Now they knew how much of a screw-up I was, and even put it upon themselves to make sure it didn't happen again. The thought of them defending Lily Harvard made my stomach turn, did I really become that much of a coward in their eyes in that one moment? Was I just downgraded before my eyes or was it because they accepted this new person way faster than I could. Or was I just 'the girl Lily was before having her identity crisis and now we don't want to associate with her anymore' to them?

I shuddered under the cool breeze as I let my eyes open and relax as my blurred vision began to readjust and focus to the Crocasian backdrop. Azalia must've had an ulterior motive for changing me back to normal the way she did- we never did like each other as little kids. I didn't care for how she figured out how Lily Harvard was actually Lilian Evan Orelohr, and even though I was going to seek her out for a way to change me back anyways, I felt like nothing was adding up.

There was only so much I could speculate before I was pulled out of my thoughts by a fast-moving blur, maybe a leaf or something and I felt my mind's eye readjusting to my surroundings. I was still out of it when I realized there was someone- a girl leaning a bit too far over the edge of the bridge, her feet just tippy-toeing from the bottom stone bar as her long black plaited hair just dangled beside her head as she struggled to look at something below the bridge.

There wasn't any hesitation when I ran up to her screaming, "No! Don't, it's not worth it!"

Oh the high gods must've had it in for me because my foot fell asleep the moment I went up to her and causing me to falter and trip forward onto her and so causing her to fall down the bridge and bringing me down with her when she grabbed onto my cloak to gain her balance.

I didn't realize just who I bumped into until we both emerged from the shallow river and I felt a pair of eyes glaring right at me.

I was about to whip my head and apologize vigorously when my eyes set on the young Sabertooth teen in front of me.

Seira...

"You thought I was about to commit suicide," she deadpanned after a moment of silence, breaking the little staring contest I had somehow initiated and made her way out of the river. Her tense shoulders and the slight shake in her step didn't go unnoticed though as she made her way to the river bank and tried to dry herself. I was still padding my way to the riverbank when I heard her sneeze.

I didn't waste even a second to quickly dry my cloak with a few muttered words and put it around her small curled up frame. I watched as she accepted it and wrapped it closer around herself with a small "uh.. thanks..."

"Lili-ann... Lilian." She must've caught me stumble with my own name because she smiled that fake smile of her's, "I'm Seira. You know I had a friend named Lily."

"Really?" I sat down beside her, staring at the river silently. She avoided bodies of water like the plague; the funeral must've really shaken her up.

"Yeah..." She turned to stare at the water with a blank expression and I felt my heart wretch at the sight, "she died today."

It was barely a whisper but I heard how her voice croaked a bit when it escaped her lips and suddenly she was up, my dark cloak pooled at her feet as she turned to me with those strong eyes of hers, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you, I-"

"Sit down," I cut in evenly, as I patted the spot beside me, "You were the one who looked like she was about to jump."

"You're the one jumping to conclusions," she retorted, "the water was shallow anyways."

"Wouldn't have known that until you fell"

Seira stared at me then, looking like she was trying to sort out her emotions as she decided the best course of action. She was always like that; she was a strong independent soul. I wouldn't be surprised if she left without another word.

So I tried to seem like I wasn't expecting the opposite when she sat back down beside me, "you remind me of her, you know."

I only 'hmmed' in acknowledgement as I tried to look anywhere but at my former guild mate and best friend. It took everything in me not to confess right then and there.

"Lily... she uh, her funeral was this morning," the dark-haired girl whispered beside me, and I snapped my head to stare at the dark-haired girl who was now playing with her fingers.

Play the part of a concerned stranger, I kept telling myself, play the part. Be the actress you used to be.

"I-I'm sorry to hear about your loss," Stop wrecking yourself, I'm right here. I'm a horrible person. I'm so sorry for doing this to you. To everyone.

"She was my best friend; she was so special to me..." Seira then curled up in my over sized cloak, muttering and murmuring slurred sentences as she tried to hide from the world. My eyes watered at the sight as I wrapped an arm around her and whispered into where I supposed to ear was,

"I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want you to wreck yourself over her death."

"How could I not. She was my..." She let the sentence hang in the air and glared into the distance from under the cloak. I sighed as I pulled her out gently and looked her over.

"Well, for starters. Maybe you should try to settle down a bit, confide in your friends a bit more." I offered as I patted her head, muttering the drying spell once again. I tilted my head and smiled, "Hmm?"

Seira didn't say anything at first, didn't say anything until someone had tried to skip a pebble over the surface of the river from the bridge, and even then it was in the most hushed voice I had ever encountered in my life, "my mom... she drowned in a river sort of like this one."

For all the years I've ever known her, she never did say anything about her parents; for her to warm up to a stranger so quickly must've meant-

"She was trying to protect me but hah, she did a pretty bad job..." She let out a small laugh as she uncurled herself from the ball she made previously and stretched out her legs, scratching her head awkwardly in the process, "my dad. He was never the same after that."

"Really now... how so?" I turned my body towards her curiously, letting the blond ringlets catch with the breeze as her dark eyes searched mine before continuing.

"He got more violent after my mom's death," her eyes were downcast and I was about to stop her when she picked herself back up, "he always beat me and my sister and then one day, the beatings were so bad that when I woke up the next morning, my sister was dead and my dad nowhere to be found. And now... now I'm a"

"a wanderer?" I offered and she nodded as she went back to playing with her fingers. It didn't even occur to me that I was letting on more than I was supposed to know from a random concerned stranger who just pushed her down a bridge.

"I'm scared that he might come back and harm everyone I love and..." she swallowed, willing herself to finish her sentence but the only thing she knew would come out were long awkward stammers and hitched crestfallen breaths. I wrapped an arm around her once again, comforting her with hush whispers as she looked like she was trying not to cry.

I destroyed her once. I didn't need- didn't want to destroy her again.

I was about to fake an appointment or something when she stopped muttering and looked me straight in the eyes, and asked in a straight voice "Can I call you Lily just for a little while?"

I nodded despite myself, forgetting about my plan for not dragging this on longer and the strained feeling in my chest seeing her lost face as she grabbed my shoulders and practically screamed in my face, "I'm so sorry, Lily! It's all my fault. I shouldn't have made you choose where your loyalties lied like that. It's all my fault that you... that you..."

And she broke, hugging the life out of me as she sobbed into my shoulder, sobbing over my old name over and over again. I hugged her back with downcast eyes as her words came back to me with a crash.

"Lily, you can't have both. It's either Sabertooth or your old guild- it's either staying here with your new life and the one you're totally crushing on or it's going back to L'Arc Sibyl. Back to your old life."

She didn't know who I really was; she knew of my double life, knew of my history, knew me but not me. And her ever so loud heart wrenching sob made it harder for me to hold onto my secret the longer I held her.

She was a strong girl, such a strong and independent girl. Seira was everything amazing and it was just too hard seeing her like this. So broken up. I've honestly haven't seen her this distraught since Gemma had cooked her deer for dinner a few years ago. And that deer had been with her ever since forever.

And finally I broke too,

"Seira, I-"

"Oi, Longhorn! You here?" I froze involuntarily as his voice rang in the air around us and felt Seira pushed me aside and handing me my cloak before Sting had appeared magically beside us. Her tears were already long gone and there was no hint of her crying her heart out when she turned to the white dragon slayer and asked what he needed her for.

"Master called for a meeting after the service and I was sent to find you," he said nonchalantly, as if things like that happened everyday and I felt my heart drop as I tied the cloak back onto my shoulders. By the way he was standing, you can just tell he was refusing to acknowledge my presence.

"A meeting? What for?" Seira asked in amazement before Sting shrugged and she turned to me, waved and ran off.

Something in me made me want to follow after her, a single lone thought of Master Gemma's punishment for being late to those meetings and I found myself walking in the same direction she headed off to when I felt a strong grip on my arm.

"Sabertooth members only." Sting growled as he pulled me eye level to him, I was so close to his face that if I hadn't felt intimidated by his angry aura, I would've blushed at our proximity. But this was different, I wasn't Lily Harvard anymore. I was Lilian Evan Orelohr and I wasn't allowed to crush on Sting Eucliffe. Wasn't. Wasn't. Wasn't.

"Do you hear me?" I let out a small squeak when he yanked my hand furiously, and for the first time I noticed how much his features changed when he was angry. His eyes dilated to cat-like slits, his eyebrows furrowed, veins popped and his voice had more of a deadly tone to it.

Tears threatened to spring from my eyes as I nodded as the realization bloomed on me that he was going to injure me. Nothing was protecting me from him; I wasn't from his guild of strong mages, was hardly even a mage with my depleted magic power and I wasn't Lily. As Lilian, he had all the right reasons to be cruel to me. I was a stranger that he didn't like after all.

He let go of my arm with a hiss and stalked off, hands in his pockets, throwing me one last dirty yet pained look before disappearing after Seira.

I wasn't a tiger anymore. I swallowed the realization down and tried to push it to the furthest part of my mind as I gathered myself and quickly ran to the direction of Emily's magic signature. Trying not to trace the spot where my guild mark used to be with my fingers. I was just a weak bunny to him.

Tigers don't pity bunnies. Never.

"En. En! Open up!" Emily knocked furiously as we both stood outside his hotel room in the empty hallway. We were still in our PJs when she suddenly woke up with some 'glorious idea' and ushered me out the room with a pillow. I yawned tiredly as I slouched against the wall and was practically about to start sleeping standing up when the door opened and a grumpy En wiped his eyes as he muttered for Emily to go back to her room and that he would feed her later.

She did have trouble sleeping after I returned with a dejected expression on my face and all but ditched my cloak by the door. I wasn't going to tell her why though I had an idea that she knew exactly what happened. I just wondered why she chose the moment she was finally able to have a wink of sleep to start her master plan and drag me out of bed when we only had so much time to rest.

If talking to En was supposed to cheer me up then she was seriously going to need to look through those picture albums again.

"No, I'm not hungry. En. En!" It must've been my heavy eyes because I swore I saw the normally polite Emily swat at his head then, "this is important!"

"What's more important than my beauty sleep?" He grumbled and I struggled not to snort then. My god, he could be such a drama queen sometimes.

"En!" I heard the moon dragon slayer complain and I closed my eyes against the wall. It was starting to get strangely comfortable, nothing would happen if I just closed my eyes for a bit right?

I was wrong.

Someone was definitely out to get me.

"LILIAN?" He screamed in surprise, and my eyes snapped open to glare at the bowman in front of me. His girlish scream probably woke up the whole inn.

"God, do you have to be so loud, you freaking-"

"Holy hell, it really is you." I heard En whisper in relief before entrapping me in his vice like grip and lifting me up with ease as he laughed and twirled around in circles with me still in his arms. Which did wonders to my tiredness because now I was just fully awake and pissed out of my mind.

"En. Zato. Put. Me. Down. Right. Now," I growled as I clung onto his shoulders and ducked whenever my head got too close to a ceiling light. He was doing this on purpose. He was so doing this on purpose to spite me.

En only laughed as he dropped me suddenly and pulled me into a big bear crushing hug, one where I had learnt to quickly wiggle my way to his shoulder for air while he squished the rest of my body like one would a teddy bear.

"Lilian. Lilian. Lilian." He kept saying happily against my ear, running his hands through my hair and my back and everywhere he knew would annoy me before I slapped the back of his head and he only laughed and repeated his mantra. I let my head rest on his shoulder after a while, when his grip loosened and he began to shake a little.

I pretended not to notice my own tears stream down my eyes as I stared with downcast eyes at the L'arc Sibyl guild mark tattooed onto his bare back.

I didn't need a guild to belong to, the optimistic side of me whispered wholeheartedly as En began to whimper.

But everything wouldn't have gone so out of proportion like they had if I just stayed and sorted out my problems with them in the first place.

But it really wasn't L'arc Sibyl I wanted to belong to, was it...?

sorry, it seems a bit rushed and long. Hahah, I had trouble writing it again.

Review?