Chapter 20: A Matter of Linguistics

Levy loved language. It was just a fact of who she was, and it always had been. She loved the way different accents shaped vowels and consonants. She loved the nuances and connotations. She loved the different writing systems. She loved being able to open ancient tomes and decipher meanings that no one had been able to comprehend in years. She loved decrypting rune spells. And most of all, she loved learning new languages. Levy's mother had been from Bosco, so she had grown up speaking two languages. Some of her favorite memories of her mother were of her teaching Levy to read from an old Boscan book of children's stories about fairies and sea monsters and dragons. Already being bilingual it made it all the easier for her to pick up new languages. Levy could speak four languages fluently, order dinner and avoid getting arrested in three more, and read and write in nearly eight, which came in very handy when one of your team's specialties was research.

But some of her favorite languages were the extinct ones. Those were much, much harder to learn. Often no one had heard them spoken in hundreds of years. And to Levy it seemed such a shame, because words were alive in their own way. Having someone read and understand them gave words life. To her, unread books always looked so lonely and sad. So anytime she saw an opportunity to learn an old, forgotten language, Levy grabbed it with both hands – even if it meant dragging Jet and Droy halfway across Fiore to do so. They had learned to recognize and dread that special look in her eyes that she got when she got a lead on learning another dead language.

There was a whole section in the guild library dedicated to books and scrolls written in languages nobody could read. One of Levy's goals was to someday be able to read them all.

So there was always a little part of Levy's brain on the lookout for alphabets that she didn't recognize or letters put together in an unusual way (which couldn't simply be put down to bad or creative spelling). It wasn't something that she was necessarily consciously aware of doing, but she was always checking.

And that was why Levy couldn't help but glance down at the job notice sitting by Gajeel's elbow as she walked past. She noticed that he'd made a few notes on it as most wizards did – usually about directions, train times, or speculations on what they might need to bring with them. It took her three more steps to realize that she didn't even recognize the alphabet he was using. Or, to be more accurate, it was an alphabet she thought she'd seen on some of those illegible books in the library. Levy froze, one foot still in the air.

On the one hand, Gajeel still made her a little nervous. She trusted him not to kill her these days and to protect the guild – the snafu with Laxus and the Battle of Fairy Tail had helped a lot – but their first meeting was still painted vividly in her nightmares. On the other hand, though… new, unknown alphabet.

A very short war was waged in Levy's head. The 'new alphabet' faction won.

Levy backed up and took another look at Gajeel's notes. Yup, that was definitely an unfamiliar alphabet.

"Ya need something, Shorty?"

Levy blinked as she realized that Gajeel was staring at her, but she was too distracted by the almost graceful flow and dip of the new letters to feel particularly embarrassed or nervous.

"What's that written in?" she asked, gesturing to his notes.

"Drrrakt Aye'yeen. Old Script." He paused, his brows furrowing together. "You'd probably call it 'Draconic.'"

Levy's eyes went wide.

"You can read and write Draconic?"

Jet and Droy would have recognized that dangerous light shining in Levy's eyes. Gajeel didn't know her well enough.

"Can speak it, too, for the most part."

"Can you teach me?" Levy latched onto his arm, temporarily forgetting that this was the man who had terrorized her team and nailed her to a tree, because shiny, shiny ancient languages were incredibly distracting. It also made her entirely miss the very faint pink tint that the tips of Gajeel's ears had taken on and the slight stammer when he next spoke.

"Y-ya want me to teach you?" Gajeel, unlike Levy, had not temporarily forgotten about their extremely unfortunate first meeting.

"Well, yeah!" Levy chirped, beaming at him. "How else am I going to learn Draconic?"

"You actually want to learn Draconic." Gajeel sounded doubtful.

"Yes." Levy gave him her best 'I'm cute so just let me have my way' pout that always worked on Jet and Droy. Apparently it worked on Gajeel, too. She could see him starting to crack.

"I ain't ever taught anybody something before…," he trailed off. His resolve – what little there had been – was definitely wavering.

"Well, how did you learn it in the first place?"

Gajeel raised an eyebrow at her.

"Metalicana smacked me in the head with his tail every time I got something wrong. Somehow I don't think that's gonna work for you."

She ignored the sarcasm. Her priority right now was securing a new teacher to bring her one step closer to her goal.

"I guess we'll just figure it out as we go then!"

"Yeah, I suppose…."

"Great! When you get back from your job, we can start."

"Wait! What? I didn't agree-" protested Gajeel.

Levy cheerfully ignored him.

"There are some books in the guild library that I think are written in Draconic – maybe we could start with those."

Gajeel sagged slightly in the face of her enthusiasm.

"Ah, hell, why not? We can start when I get back from this job."

"Wonderful!"

Gajeel shook his head and stood up. He stuffed the flyer in his pocket. Levy was sad to see the unfamiliar letters disappear but was buoyed by the promise that they would return.

"Well, serreik rae, kyleem." Gajeel shot Levy a grin that suddenly made him appear younger and a little friendlier.

"What does that mean?"

"It means, 'see ya, shorty.'" And Gajeel turned to leave, giving Levy a half wave over his shoulder as he went. Several members of the guild who had been within hearing rang stared after him incredulously.

"Did metalhead just call Levy 'kyleem'?" Natsu asked as the guildhall doors closed behind Gajeel. He sounded surprised. "Why's he throwing around terms of endearment?"

"How should I know?" grumbled Gray, who was sitting next to him.

But Levy wasn't paying attention to them.

Levy was floating on a happy cloud of new language. Later she would probably be embarrassed and possibly a little bit mortified by her actions and the fact that she was going to be spending extended periods of time with Gajeel of all people. Jet and Droy were definitely going to pitch a fit. But for now Levy basked in the magic of new letters and words. Hopefully Gajeel's job wouldn't take him the whole week that the flyer had estimated, because Levy couldn't wait to get started.

A/N: Dragons having their own culture is one of my favorite Fairy Tail headcanons and definitely has nothing to do with my degree in anthropology. Totally.