AN: Thank you once again to quiet-a-riot for all your help and encouragement. And MorriganFae for explaining how to post a new chapter.
Warning: Very mild swearing.
Things took shape like this; Lucy noticed a pattern. Eventually.
Lucy was so tired.
From the final stages of repair work. From the ever increasing number of jobs she was taking to fill her days. From rigorous training with her (remaining) spirits. And from the lingering feelings of loss and loneliness.
Even thinking about what made her tired was making her tired.
After the initial shock of the guild disbanding had worn off, Lucy had called out Scorpio as a means to check on Aquarius; he'd answered positively (in a sense, but pissed off at Lucy and threatening her bodily harm was good and healthy by Aquarius standards as far as Lucy was concerned) and gone back to the spirit realm quickly. The confirmation that her oldest friend was none the worse for the broken contract relieved Lucy to the point of tears. It soothed a part of her to know Aquarius was fine and ornery as ever, even if she wasn't with Lucy anymore.
Still fighting tears of relief and nostalgia she'd then summoned Capricorn and requested they resume training. She would never again allow herself to be so complacent. She was ready to be stronger than she was. Ready to step up and not need rescuing anymore.
No one should sacrifice themselves for her ever again.
And she was going to start by asking what that power was that the Stellar Spirit King had given her during his battle.
Capricorn had listened to her questions and her reasons and proceeded to explain about star dresses, and that Lucy now had the blessing of the Stellar Spirit King to have the power of the stars themselves.
From then on every day, after work, they would focus on first regaining, and then training with, the Aquarius star dress.
As the days went by, Lucy found she disliked having much time to think. She took to spending any free time training (like Na- no). She often wore the Aquarius dress while working to get used to the feeling of another magic layered on top of her own. Her fellow workers didn't comment. For several, the sight of her swimsuit clad body doing heavy labor was the highlight of their grueling day. It said a lot that Lucy barely noticed or cared.
Many times she had gone just outside the town as soon as the work teams trudged home for the day and trained until Loke had needed to carry her home. It was at this point that the concern of her spirits had turned into real worry that she was overdoing it. But she also seemed grimly satisfied and almost at peace at such times. Loke had seen enough in his existence to recognize that, for the moment, she needed the driving pace.
Several days after regaining the Aquarius form, standing together in their preferred training ground, she had asked Loke to lend her his power.
"I love the form and magic Aquarius left for me, but I need to be stronger. Better. I can't be complacent like I was before, Loke. I can't just settle for this one star dress when I can earn many. Please, lend me your power and teach me to wield it properly."
Lucy stood strong and certain before him as she made her request, coated in a layer of sweat from her workout and glowing in the light of the setting sun.
He hadn't even considered saying no; had in fact been working up to offering his power himself (he simply hadn't worked out the proper lines to use in his offer) and jumped at training without a second thought (he then spent a significant amount of time bragging to his fellow spirits).
And she had excelled, gaining full access to the Leo star dress and Regulus magic as she had the Aquarius form a mere ten days before. She had even already begun looking into the Capricorn star dress (Capricorn didn't brag outright, but he did have a hint of smugness about him for a few days).
But the sadness and self-doubt lingered. Lucy remained unhappy even when celebrating success. She held doubts about her ability to be a good master (the day Lucy had admitted that one to Loke he'd arranged a multi spirit intervention; happily, that seemed to have stuck), a good fighter, or a good mage.
Loke, and all of her other spirits, found it very worrying. Hence why he persisted in talking her through her feelings and adding reassurances like he was now.
No matter how tired she was.
She had really hoped her most negative emotions would start to become more bearable by now, but no, the sense of grief and loss and helplessness remained as sharp as ever when she meandered through newly repaired streets of Magnolia.
Or even when she sat in her own home having tea with a dear friend, as she was now.
"Loke, tell me. Will it ever get better? Can I get better? Is this my punishment for needing to resort to what I did?" Lucy puts her face in her hands "I'm trying so hard to make up for my weakness, and to fix it! But is this all there is anymore? All I can be without Na-" she cut herself off, unable to stand the reminder.
Loke looked at his master sadly from across the table and shifted, thinking of how to lighten the mood. He considers flirting but immediately discards the thought. She wouldn't appreciate it at this moment, or even be riled up.
He opted instead for gentle sincerity.
"Princess, I promise you this isn't punishment. These feelings are perfectly normal considering everything you went through and I promise it will get better someday. You are strong, and one day you will overcome this loss. And if you don't-" Loke put on a smile and sat a little straighter "Aquarius would have it be known that she will send the mother of all waves at you when you see each other again, for failing to shape up."
Lucy allowed herself a small smile at the mental image as gloom hovered. She missed Aquarius. She missed everyone. She even missed the spirits she still had with her when they left after missions or training. It was part of why she did so much of both these days.
She shifted in her chair and distractedly sipped her tea as she kept her attention on the celestial spirit sitting across her kitchen table.
"And Princess? You aren't weak. I understand you feel that way but try to trust me when I say you are one of the strongest masters I've had. And all of us who contract with you have been impressed with progress you've made in your training." And worried she would hurt herself or burn out, but none of them quite knew how to broach the subject, or even if they should considering the circumstances.
His smile faded momentarily before coming back with more warmth.
"In addition, despite the circumstances we've also enjoyed the extra time we've gotten to spend with you in recent days."
Lucy finally smiled for real at this and Loke congratulated himself for it.
It was the truth. He honestly hadn't noticed how much of the fighting that brat Natsu did until he wasn't. Or how relatively few chances there were to summon during smaller battles when he was. Loke wasn't about to elaborate on this particular silver lining however. He saw what it did to her.
Team Natsu remained one of her sorest spots. One she could barely bring herself to mention aloud and sent her into the worst brooding. He could always tell when Natsu (and Happy too he supposed) were on her mind from the single minded intensity she focused on whatever task she found to distract herself with. And she got that focus far more often than he liked.
Loke sipped his tea and contemplated their missing companions as he waited for his master to respond.
Lucy considered Loke's words and tried to cling to the remaining cheer brought by the conversation as it slipped away. The sun was shining, a cool morning breeze flowed through her window, one of her dearest friends was here and even being serious with her for once, and still the negativity clung to her mind like dark cobwebs.
"Let's go on a mission today. I know we usually join the last repair crews but I think I'm ready to try a Regulus attack on a live opponent." And she always felt better when she left town. That fact tugged at her somehow and she absently made a note as she contemplated her job options.
It came to Lucy later that it wasn't just missions and wasn't just her. She wasn't the first to note that leaving town past a certain point cheered one up immensely, but she was the first to fully take notice of how her own mood and that of the town itself consistently varied even street to street.
"Is it just me or does this block seem… happier, to you."
"Every block we walk together is happier than the last Princess."
Lucy glared at her friend.
"I'm serious Loke. We walk this route every day, and every time we pass from over there to here it's like the activity doubles. Even I think I feel a bit better whenever we come this way."
"For real? Why is this the first you've mentioned it?"
If anything at all made her feel better Loke wanted to know about it asap.
"I thought it was wishful thinking, but that talk we had the other day made me think about how much better I feel anywhere but here and now I can't stop gauging my feelings whenever I go anywhere." Not an easy thing to do under the circumstances but in this case her brain's habit of latching onto small details served her well.
Ignoring Loke's unreadable look she started to think out loud as they continued walking.
"I think I'll experiment. Ask around to see if anyone else notices, maybe see how many spirits I can summon at once at the training ground and compare it to summoning by my apartment. If I'm right and some areas are different than others then the effect should be measurable and there does seem to be an element of energy level to it…" Lucy trails off as she considers the possibilities.
She hoped this wasn't all in her head.
"Whatever you say Princess. I'm happy to spend an experimental date with you touring the town anytime. In fact, one of my favorite café's is open again, why don't we-"
Lucy kicked him in the shin without looking.
Lucy decided to start with the head foreman of the crew she worked with. He was a solid man, and not too prone to trusting mages, but he'd been okay with her once he'd established that she wasn't strong or explosive enough to bring an already damaged building down on their heads by mistake.
(The story went that as a younger man he'd hired a mage from Fairy Tail to stand guard on a project outside of Magnolia. The day it was finished and everyone was supposed to go home the mage had walked right through the newly reconstructed guard tower without even noticing. It had then transpired that said mage was what took the original tower down to begin with. All of the workers from out of town laughed at the story; Lucy and those native to Magnolia had unquestioningly accepted it as fact).
He was known to all as Boss, and was one of the most trustworthy and experienced builders in town. He also happened to be in charge of the last area undergoing repairs. If anyone would notice a concrete difference in how he felt at work vs anywhere else it would be Boss.
Lucy wasted no time when she arrived at the work site before approaching Boss and asking the questions she had prepared the previous day.
"Good morning! How are you? How is everyone? Have you lost anymore laborers since yesterday? On average how many new people do you lose and hire in a week? Is that different than usual? Do you feel better when you leave the site? Even compared with other sites? Have you at all noticed a tendency to feel better or worse in general depending on which street you happen to be on?"
There were a lot of questions.
Boss gave her a tired and somewhat bewildered look, but answered to the best of his ability.
Lucy left the work site at the end of the day having questioned everyone in the same manner as they worked together. It had taken some coaxing. Everyone was tired and few felt like socializing on the job. Some workers were quite annoyed by her questions, but she'd gotten answers from most.
She knew she was onto something.
Shaking her head and planning her next steps, Lucy reached for Loke's key even as she made for home. She wanted to report her findings to someone.
Lucy continued her experiment.
It took a few days of experimentally walking around town and interviewing people (who she was sure must have thought she was crazy for going around accosting strangers on the street to ask them about their feelings) but she finally marked a specific pattern.
The closer one got to the scenes of the greatest destruction (thank gods there weren't many of those), the worse the feelings of general negativity got. Construction crews and businesses worked slower and experienced far greater turnover in these areas. Lucy had personally experienced that even, being one of the only original crewmembers left besides Boss to still be working these repair jobs. (It was why they started paying her).
The streets nearby the final repair site, located in the area surrounding the (former) guildhall, were the worst. The whole area was under populated even during the height of traffic. The few people there were unhappy no matter what they were doing, sad and lethargic and occasionally angry. Work on the area was still incomplete after weeks of effort. Most citizens actively avoided the place (though admittedly that could also be because it was an eyesore).
Perhaps the biggest clue that something was wrong, Lucy noticed that her own magic was weaker inside Magnolia. She couldn't, in fact, summon as many of her friends in her apartment as she could at her preferred training area, and she couldn't sustain her summons for as long either.
Lucy had no idea what to make of it. So she did what she always used to before she had friends to ask about things. She called Crux. And then, because these weren't the days before she had friends anymore, she also called Loke and Capricorn. (She desperately missed Levy).
With her spirits arrayed around her living room watching her Lucy began to speak.
"Alright everyone, first some background. As you know this town was attacked almost five weeks ago-" had it really only been that long? "by the demonic guild known as Tartaros. Since then everyone but me moved on and repair work has almost been completed. It struck me not long ago that the rest of Magnolia is feeling as awful as I have. Even more recently I decided I felt better in some parts of town than others. I decided to test this as well as I could."
She took a deep breath and paced in the limited space. Loke looked mildly amused, but he was genuinely interested in her results. Capricorn was as serious as ever as he waited for his master to finish. Crux floated in place and looked dead to the world.
"I've been working on my experiment and these are my results. All of Magnolia is depressed. All of Magnolia is perpetually tired. I can't summon more than two gold key spirits at a time in this apartment without passing out." Loke and Capricorn both sat up in alarm; Lucy waved them back down.
"I can manage four while training. I'm the only mage left in Magnolia, which kind of explains a few things. Boss can't hold onto even experienced labor for more than three days before they quit, which is very unusual. They seem to just lose heart he says."
She took another deep breath and continued with a slight wobble in her voice. "Suicides are up. Everything just gets worse the closer you get to the guildhall. It's like the whole town feels exactly as bad as I do. This can't be normal! Even after something like that!"
Lucy paused in her tirade and breathed. Her audience looked worried and thoughtful. Except for Crux, who appeared to be sleeping.
Or he did before he suddenly yelled into the pause, startling everyone.
And then he started to talk.
Somewhat surprisingly Crux had an answer quickly. For him anyway. Lucy was relieved by that; she hated to think she actually was going insane from the emotional turmoil.
The answer was that Magnolia, and much of the immediate countryside, had been corrupted by demonic curse energy.
The demons and weapons of Tartaros had done even worse than they knew.
When they attacked the town, their demonic curse magic left residue. A lingering curse which fed on the fear and despair in the air and sank into the ground and air of the town like a stain, leaving an ever present, invisible miasma of misery.
It was a bit like what happened at Galuna, when the magic pollution caused by the moon drip ceremony caused mass confusion in the native people. Only not like that at all because this was much more dangerous and wouldn't be nearly so easy to get rid of.
"Well that's just fucking perfect. Princess, I really think you should consider leaving Magnolia."
Loke was not happy to hear about the magical pollution exacerbating his master's misery. He wanted her away from it.
He then noticed the dark look on his master's face. There was a level of stubborn determination there that he hadn't seen in too long, but mixed with a look of guilt he's come to recognize and hate in recent weeks.
Loke braced himself for whatever came next. The last time she had worn a look like that was right before starting her weeks long stint in construction and stubbornly remaining in this miserable town filled with memories that made her sad long past the point where she should've left for her own mental health. And was now apparently cursed.
"How do I help?"
And Lucy would help.
In any way she could.
Because that was all she could do, and she needed to do something. She was so tired of feeling helpless. It's been five weeks now since Natsu and Happy wandered out of her life (she finally had to face that). Since Fairy Tail itself had left. She was long since the only (former) member still in Magnolia now that repairs were almost done and she still can't let go.
"Please tell me how I can help."
Loke sighed in fond resignation at the request, not at all surprised. He leaned back into the couch more comfortably and mentally prepared himself to support his Princess in any way necessary.
In the his chair Capricorn did much the same, quietly cataloging what he knew of curses and what they could do to defend against them.
He shifted in mild agitation.
It really wouldn't do to have his master keep being affected by this curse, no matter what else happened.
Lucy sat down impatiently by Loke as they waited for Crux to respond once again.