Winter has finally started here in not-so-sunny Michigan. I hate winter. With a passion. Driving is terrible.

I don't own Fairy Tail.

~MM~

Eisenwald in general has never really been afraid of anyone. They don't fear the military, they don't fear the mage guilds, and they don't fear the darkness in their own minds. They especially don't fear that – they thrive on it.

But Kageyama thinks that there probably is something that they all fear even if no one ever acknowledges it. It's not even so much a something as a someone and he hangs over them like Death over War, demanding his dues and directing the battles in order to fill his realm. Erigor doesn't tolerate failure anymore than he commends honor; the cuts on Kageyama's ears heat to his blood and it's a siren song. He will not fail again and if the Fairies think that they can take down Eisenwald and Erigor, then they have never had fear rule their lives.

Kageyama is the first in line when the Fairies burst into the station – his target is one of them specifically, but any of them will do. He won't fail again. Death looms like a shadow and Erigor is laughing from where he leans up against the train, still warm and hissing and hardly cooling from the run they put it through.

The station is clearly divided and while Eisenwald sits on the side of order and Fairy Tail stands amongst the destruction of futile resistance, Kageyama can feel bloodlust and the desire for annihilation seeping from his allies and steeping in the air. The kettle is waiting to whistle on the stove and Erigor is the one with the teacup, poised and waiting. Death is his companion, a crumpet settled between two long-nailed, skeletal fingers and waiting to crumble.

The air shivers and gasps and feels poisonous. Fairy Tail will not take their triumph. Kageyama draws it all in and feels the shadows around him roiling against the pavement, waiting for his call and command, bubbling under the strain of muscles twitching and flinching at the want to move.

Kageyama is dialed in on a head of rose fire settled on the shoulders of starlight. He's pale with motion sickness. Kageyama's shadow is impatient with the promise of retribution, shaking under his hold at the remembrance of the flash of power that he saw on the train.

Erigor is monologging as Kageyama watches and watches and waits for the fire Fairy to open his eyes realize where he is. The blonde set him down minutes ago, engrossed in Erigor's psychopathy and absentmindedly shaking out her arms. He knows her, recognizes her, and the conversation on the train is flooding back to him. He remembers the way that Salamander had looked at him when he mentioned Mirajane; his glare had turned the light spilling on him into a sharp shine that had glinted hard and had looked fit to cut a diamond. The knife-light had nothing on his eyes, though, when Kageyama had mentioned Salamander's most recent partner. His eyes had burned something living and terrible that brought out the hazel in them and darkened the shadows on his face heavier than the light was piercing. He'd looked like the embodiment of War, muscles livid and tensed, teeth bared in warning and signs of weakness obliterated and long forgotten – inhuman, that's how he'd looked.

Kageyama has rarely known fear, and that singular emotion has always been reserved for the tea table shared between Death and Erigor, who was something of the other's disciple. Now he watches as War saunters up, ablaze and reeking of confidence.

He will not fail in this. He will not fail in this. If War – if that Fairy – thinks he can force a seat at Fear's table, thinks he can sit with Death and his right hand, then there's something else coming for him. Kageyama will be the first to draw blood in this battle – he doesn't fear War, only Death.

His eyes find the girl who is out of place – the blonde one, the one wearing heels and a flimsy tank top. She is not dressed for battle and he is no longer jealous for the sanctioned guilds because his guild has no need for prettily clothed sacrifices. She makes an excellent one; she is loud and vehement and every part the sacrificial maiden. Her blood will paint the stones.

Kageyama's shadow boils and he feels the itch under his skin, the swarm in his ears is a piano wire in the wind – distantly, he hears Erigor finish his part and then Kageyama implodes – reaching, stretching, he claws out at the starry girl, righteousness in her eyes, her name has something to do with light, something bright and shining and waiting for a tragic slash to the neck. He will cut her throat, first, then he will slice through the veins in her wrists and ankles. Maybe he'll bleed the arteries behind her knees and in the bends of her elbows, too. She'll die faster and the screams of War will follow her into Death's domain.

Titania swears and it is music to his ears – he's close enough to feel the heat of her skin, close enough now for his shadow to seduce hers and hold it fast; she can't move even if she wants to. He is close, close, close and blood hums in his ears, heady, and the roar of his allies behind him chants for blood and she is not a warrior but she came on the battlefield and honestly, she should have known better if she hadn't wanted to die, and then there is a pop and his blood subsides with the voices of Eisenwald the Fearless.

War walks up to the table and sends his fist crashing through, laughs, and Kageyama is afraid.

He has stared Death's disciple in the eye, but never the Shinigami itself, for all that Erigor claims to be, and he doesn't know how to stand up to something so inhuman when the air around him crackles with anticipation and he's picked a fight he can't finish, tried to kill the thing War fights for, tried to give War's token to Death and how does he get out of this?

Salamander cuts cleanly through his shadow before it touches the sunlit girl, the only thing the sun shines on without looking like it's about to cut her in the presence of her protector. Lucy, Kageyama thinks, Lucy is her name then War beckons, swagger and promise in his luminescent eyes, and Kageyama's blood sings a warbled, wavering tune, because he is afraid.

~MM~

I dunno what this is. Actually, this is me getting back into this whole writing spiel, so forgive me if it's substandard.

Thanks all of you who followed/reviewed/favorited last chapter, you're the heart of this update.

R&R please!