8th: Sweet Dreams

Summary: They weren't her children but she loved them just the same.

She lay awake as her pupils already slept. The moment was bittersweet to her because no matter how dearly she loved Lyon and Gray, she would always remember her daughter, her tear, the proof that she had lived.

One day, she hoped, their story would be told. She believed firmly that both Gray and Lyon would make it, that they could do what she hadn't been able to do … that they would leave the village and join a guild. She hoped for them to find a guild where they would meet friends and maybe even love. Guilds were wonderful places after all and she sometimes regretted that she hadn't joined a guild when she had been younger.

One day, when their story would be told, Lyon and Gray would be among the lucky mages who could pride themselves for being maker mages. Ur knew just too well that many of her former comrades had left the path, they had retired and they hadn't taught pupils.

She knew that they would regret their decision once it would be too late but this was life. Life meant a constant flow, things were lost and things were gained, and while she had cursed this flow many times – especially after Ultear's death – she had learned to accept it because she couldn't change it anyway and it was smarter to carry on even when it hurt than to mourn and stop living altogether.

Once in a lifetime, every human being had to face loss and she prayed that her pupils wouldn't have to face it for a very long time because she didn't want to see them sad again. She loved them because they had both taken the chance to change their lives when the opportunity had appeared in front of them. To make a chance was important for mages. Ur had once known a mage who had been always on a job. He had been an S-class mage from Fairy Tail and they had recognised each other as people who were driven by an invisible force. She didn't want her pupils to end up like this but she would accept it if it would be their choice.

Change was important, especially for mages who created. They needed to understand the concept of change in order to form many different things quickly after each other. At the same time, they had to be stable because if they wouldn't be stable, they might get carried away and this might end pretty ugly. Magic had to float through the mage's body like a steady yet unfaltering river and she hoped that they understood what she was trying to teach them.

Maybe it was the pride of a teacher but she could imagine how she tell the other mages of her generation that she had been the first to see Gray and Lyon, that she had been the first to know that they had been cut out to be something wonderful and strong … that she had been the first to see two diamonds in the rough and that she had polished them so that they shone bright enough to rival the stars on the nightly sky above them all.

She believed in them. She believed in their strength and their will to pull through when it would be rough. And she believed, no, hoped that they wouldn't make her mistakes and that they would find true love. She might not be their mother but she loved them all the same and just like a mother would hope for her sons to find a decent woman, she hoped for the same … and she sighed because she knew just too well that her boys would be probably denser than everyone else.

Sometimes, she was worried for Lyon. He wanted the power to defeat everyone while Gray only wanted to beat Deliora. Lyon was talented, there was no doubt, but his ambition might be the death of him one day because he had the power but the goal he used it for was a wrong one. Lyon was brilliant, she had to admit this much, but it wouldn't get him anything because he lacked a true goal. She predicted that Gray would be able to wipe the floor with his fellow student in a few years and while she wasn't happy about the fact that her students would fight each other seriously she had to deal with the facts and she was quite good at things like this.

Ur had never been driven by the wish to be famous. She didn't want to be recognised as a skilled mage and she sure as hell didn't want people asking for her autograph. She only wanted to make the best out of what she had and this life was enough for her. She had lost her daughter but she had her pupils who made her so proud that she nearly burst – which would be a pretty pathetic end for someone like her but maybe, she would be able to fix herself with ice magic like minor injuries she received during their sparring.

She blew out the candle and closed her eyes. "Sweet dreams and goodnight, boys," she whispered softly as she slowly drifted asleep.

Up next:

9th: Star gazing
Summary: It had been too long since she had been able to watch them but they were still perfect – but her siblings were just as perfect and far closer.