A/N: I've almost finished writing Lacrimosa! I had a huge surge of inspiration and managed to knock out a lot of chapters, so it should be updated regularly from this point on- every Monday.

Even Gajeel had become suspicious over the few months, and he always watched Elfman with sharp eyes whenever he headed for the estate's exit. Levy remained intentionally unaware of the situation, ever the one who preferred her own business to that of others. Lisanna had attempted to follow him into the forest at one point, but he'd managed to lose her when she became more interested in a rabbit that crossed her path. Mirajane continued to worry, but with the investigation of the priest's murder and the prince's coma issue still underway, she had little time for anything but it.

"You ought to stop coming here," Ever would chide every time he came, but her warnings became less stern and more habitual with every passing visit.

"Why?" he would ask.

She wouldn't say anything after that.

"What do you do when you go out?" Lisanna asked at dinner every day.

"Practice," Elfman responded- his answer was always automatic.

"With what?"

"My ax."

"You've got to be better than Erza at this point, with all that training you're doing." She rested her cheeks in her hands. "Let me come with sometime."

"You've got better things to do."

"Do I?"

"Probably."

She never ceased to pepper him with questions, but, as it turned out, she did have better things to do, and it came in the form of playing with the the stray cats who liked to meander around the kitchen area for scraps.

"Why do you keep coming?" Ever asked. "It's not like there's anything exciting here. Don't you have sisters to take care of? Professional knight stuff to do?"

Elfman stopped fiddling with the leg of a broken chair and looked towards the ground. "I don't know."

"That's a poor excuse."

"I just like it out here, maybe."

Rather, Elfman admitted to himself, he liked it out in the woods with Ever. It was quiet, peaceful, and she wasn't a bad cook, not to mention the fact that he didn't have to hear anything about priests and princes and murderous traitors in her cabin.

"It is nice out here, isn't it?" she mused. She shook a tablecloth from a basket and began to fold it, looking out at the trees as she did so. "Winter's going to roll around soon. I can hardly believe it."

The leg to the chair was still wobbly, but Elfman ceased focusing on it to look at her from the corner of his eye in the most discreet way possible. "Why not?"

"I've been out here for almost six months," she replied quietly. "I thought I wouldn't be here so long."

It struck Elfman then that she hadn't been a hermit her whole life, lurking in the woods and collecting herbs and flowers daily. She had never spoken of anything outside the forest, save for her friend who was never there when Elfman showed up, and he was curious.

"Where did you live before you were here? What did you do?" he asked.

Ever set the tablecloth down on the table and reached into a basket for another thing to fold. Her lips pursed and she looked intently at the creases in the skirt she held, her eyebrows furrowed and a slightly worried expression on her face. "I lived in the capital," she said finally. "I worked as an herbalist."

The capital of Magnolia was a lovely city, Elfman knew. He hadn't been there since the murder of the priest, but he remembered the tall and flowering trees, the bustle of people in the town, and the smooth stone of the castle. It wasn't much different from the town where the estate was, but it was so much bigger. Livelier.

"Any particular reason you left?" he pressed.

She sniffed and tugged on a stray curl. "I like my alone time, which you, sir, have been violating an abhorrent amount as of late."

He grinned and leaned over the seat of the chair, muttering "sorry," but both of them knew it wasn't a genuine apology at all. She threw a blouse at his face, huffed, and went back to her laundry, though a tiny smile was stretching at the corners of her mouth no matter how she fought it.

Ever had the prettiest smile in the entire world, he decided.

Mirajane cornered him in the kitchen the next day, feigning a casual attitude as she stared intensely at her brother's cookbook. "Hmm… Big recipe you're using."

Elfman coughed to the side and proceeded to mix the batter he'd concocted. "Not really. Just enough for two, maybe three people."

She looked up at him with her chin pressed against her fingers, a wary and heavy look in her eye. She was so tired, he realized, and guilt then struck him. She had enough to worry about with the murder case, which had dragged on six months too long, and now he was probably causing unnecessary and trivial worry with his disappearing act. He felt guilty, really, but the thought of not going to see his angel in the forest was almost sickening to him at this point.

"Who are you going to feed this cake to?" Mirajane asked.

Elfman fumbled for an answer. "Gajeel."

She stood straight up and looked dubious, but shrugged and went for the door anyway, not without taking a swipe at the bowl for a treat. Elfman huffed and jerked it away from her, putting on his best fake-mean-face, and she laughed and went on her way, leaving her brother with a sweaty forehead and pounding chest.

Great. Now he had to make an extra cake for Gajeel.

"I don't see what the point of dragging me up here is," Ever muttered. The wind pulled at her hair and she whisked a hand over the side, tugging every unruly strand back to its place. She had selected a fitting dark blue dress for the day and a heavy gray sweater to brace against the oncoming winter winds- she looked like an angry goddess in the pestering breeze.

The wind picked up as they climbed the hill, and while Elfman was not bothered by it at all, Ever had to do her best to keep her hair from billowing every which way and to not stumble over every rotting log in her path. During a particularly nasty patch, where she tripped over a rock, he offered her his arm and took every care to guide her up carefully. She looked graceful, had all the airs of a queen, but she was much too clumsy for her own good.

Her hand squeezed his forearm as she stepped over a small flower and he balanced his bag in the other hand, focused perhaps more than was necessary on her wellbeing. The hill was growing more green than dying brown and gray, and there was much more proper footing as they went towards the top. At the first opportune moment, she let go of his arm and took caution on her own, but soon accepted his help again when a stream came in their path.

"What's in the bag?" she pestered.

"You'll see," he answered whenever she asked.

The spot he had picked was nice, if he did say so himself. A lone tree, crooked and tangled, rested near the top of the hill and shaded a thick patch of grass that hid patches of wildflowers. Levy had proved very helpful when he asked her about an ideal spot for a romantic picnic, and her eyes had glittered with the enthusiasm of a very young girl.

As they reached the top and she huffed and puffed, Elfman gripped the bag a little tighter and swallowed any feeling of residual embarrassment he still had. He'd already dragged her out of her comfort zone with the promise of flowers and pulled her up a steep hill in a ferocious breeze, and there was no going back.

"What was the point of climbing up that godforsaken hill?" she gasped and he jumped.

His heart pounded and he felt like he was sweating buckets- disgusting. She'd recovered and was hovering right behind now, her arms crossed over her chest and a wary look on her face. He swallowed, mustered up every bit of courage he had, and took a firm step towards the tree.

"I-I, uh, wanted to take you on a picnic."

Ever remained quiet and he didn't dare to look at her. The seconds stretched much too long, but the fact that she wasn't laughing encouraged him an appropriate amount. He heard the grass scrunch as she shifted and imagined that she was thinking very carefully about the words she would use next.

"What did you pack?"

Was this it? The defining moment? Elfman coughed and mumbled, "Sandwiches" as quietly as possible.

"Is that all?"

"There may be a cake in here. It may be kinda smushed."

There was a sigh and he turned to see her put her hands on her hips. "Well. If you bothered to make something and plan this, I guess it would be kind of me to indulge you."

Phase one of mission: Complete.

The wind had fortunately thinned out and turned into a comfortable and fluttering breeze. She helped him spread the blanket he'd removed from his bag, which had been stolen from Gajeel's room because it was the softest blanket in the entire castle, and sat on it and played with flowers while Elfman removed the meal from his bag.

Was this a date? Did she see anything romantic behind it? Elfman hoped that he wasn't being too forward- Ever seemed like the exact type of girl to pull away as soon as she felt things were too forward or too fast, which was rather unfortunate for Elfman; forward and fast were possibly the only things he knew and he had never attempted, even vaguely, to court anyone before.

Oh, boy. This felt like a disaster in the making.

She set aside her flowers in favor of a sandwich as soon as he settled down. He made it a point to sit across from her, right in the way of the wind, but he doubted she noticed. The herbalist seemed most intent and focused on her sandwich, which Lisanna had cluelessly helped to make. Did she really think he was going to eat 10 sandwiches all on his own? It was almost insulting, but later he had to begrudgingly admit that his track record all pointed towards "Yes, my older brother will, in fact,eat 10 sandwiches on his own and it is not weird at all. It can happen."

"What's the occasion?" she asked while she reached for a bag of crackers.

"Occasion?" Elfman echoed stupidly. He dug around his mind for an answer. The options he came up with were either a) tell it to her straight and admit to feeling for her or b) come up with a stupid, lameass excuse.

Unfortunately, Elfman specialized in b-style answers.

"Are you ever going to talk?"

"I like to eat outside!" Elfman blurted out. She stared blankly at him, a cracker hanging out of her mouth, and he shoved half a sandwich inside his mouth to avoid any further questions.

The rest of the picnic was peppered with small talk here and there, but Elfman was focused too much on not looking like a pure idiot to speak properly; Ever was much too distracted by consuming three sandwiches and two apples to care.

He pulled the cake out of the bag, winced at its appearance, and was immediately assaulted with the burning question of, "Did you make that?"

"This?" It had been a pretty cake when he packed it, with a pure white outside and drizzled with strings of chocolate, but now it looked more like something one could find on the forest floor. "Y-yeah. I promise it looked better before, but the climb was a little rough, so-"

"Wow!" Her eyes sparkled and her hands clapped together eagerly as she regarded the mess. "It looks so great! I'm totally impressed, Elfman."

Ever had given him plenty of praise in the past months, whenever he helped out around her house, caught an elk to cook for dinner, or successfully learned how to do another type of stitch in a knitting project, but no praise had ever made him feel so fulfilled and warm as when she complimented his awful, ugly mess of a cake. It made him so stupidly happy that he felt he would melt.

"You made it all by yourself?" she asked again as he attempted to divvy it up.

"Why the surprise?" he defended.

"I knew you were a good cook, but I had no idea you could do baking and stuff like that," she explained. She didn't bother with the plate he offered her and instead took the wad of cake he handed her in her hands, holding it with a certain sort of reverence that he did his best not to laugh at.

"My sister taught me," he told her as she took a bite. "I'm not as good as her, but-"

"It's delicious!"

"What."

The look of joy on her face was purely idiotic, but the most endearing thing he had ever seen in his life, and he rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. She'd made a messily-woven flower crown that sad in her lap while he'd been setting up for the picnic and it didn't make him feel any better at all.

"You should bring me more of these," she claimed. "I'll eat all of them if you won't."

His cheeks burned and he took his own bite of the cake, mumbling something under his breath that she was much too absorbed in her slice to hear properly.

"Say it again?" she asked.

Elfman coughed and turned the cake in his hands. "You learned something about me, so why don't I learn somethin' about you? It's only manly."

Her eyebrow twitched at his inappropriate use of the word and she stayed quiet, considering it. She finished her slice of cake and was started on a second when she finally responded with a muttered "sure."

"Why'd you move out here?" he asked, leaning forward. He hadn't asked her in months, and now that she was less wary of him, maybe just a little more trusting, and also deliriously happy and high on cake, she would respond.

Her second slice vanished and she wiped her hands against a cloth. Her eyes remained glued to the ground as she weighed his request, and she finally sighed and shut her eyes. The grass beneath her bent as she leaned backwards on her hands, staring up at the sky. Elfman looked up with her and observed a thin and wispy cloud that was travelling particularly fast in the wind.

"I'm afraid I wasn't in a great situation before I came out here," she began slowly. She closed her eyes as though in deep thought and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "I was being used, you see."

His heart skipped a beat and he busied himself by starting to pack up the remains of the dinner in his bag. They'd only left two sandwiches untouched- he'd give them to Gajeel as thanks for the blanket, which he'd also have to wash. "How so?"

"There was a man," she continued, "as there always is."

Elfman kept cleaning, but stole a look at her face- she looked oddly at peace while she gazed at the sky. He found it painful to look at her and focused on something else.

"There isn't that much to the story. He used me- got me in a real bad situation that got me in a lot of trouble. I came out here to hide from all of it."

"Did he hurt you?" he asked. He wondered if he had ever used so quiet of a voice.

"Yes, he did."

He gripped a plate in his hand and found he could not stop the shaking. The edges of it cracked quietly and he shoved it in the bag, swearing up a storm in his mind.

"I owe it to that friend of mine, really do." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and stared at the bark of the tree. "He's saved me a lot of times. He's the reason I'm out here. I don't think I'll ever be able to thank him well enough."

"But what happened to the guy that hurt you?" Elfman demanded. His hand still quivered.

Ever jumped slightly at the ferocity in his voice and stood, brushing tiny bits of grass and petals off of her skirt. The flower crown fell to the ground and she left it there. "I imagine he's safe and sound, but I try not to worry about it.

Elfman threw the bag over his shoulder and stood, pulling up the corner of the blanket. "Aren't you scared that guy will come after you? Why don't you worry about it?"

She took the other side of the blanket and pulled it towards her until he released it- she began to fold. "Well. I think I've encountered someone who helps me not worry about it."

A cold hand rested on his cheek again, such a familiar touch. It was so feather-light, so gentle, and it only barely woke Elfman up. Moonlight filtered brightly through the window- the curtains were yanked to the sides and tied, allowing it to enter the house completely. Two blankets had been drawn over him to cover him entirely, and Ever sat next to him and stared away to the wall.

They'd gotten back to the house late, and though she had pestered him to leave to make it home in time, he'd ignored her in favor of staying nearby. By the time he felt it was time to leave, it was too dark to travel. At some point he must have decided to stay there for the night and she had indulged him and made him comfortable, though he'd chosen to sleep on the ground.

"Staying here was a real idiot move, y'know?" she scolded.

He was still half-asleep. He chose to close his eyes again and listen to the sound of her voice.

"Your sisters are probably going to get worried, you big moron. I don't want to get in the way of your family life."

She stayed quiet for a few more minutes and barely touched his hand. He struggled to not twitch.

"Elfman. You're a nice guy. You've been so attentive to me these past months. I'm pretty grateful to have met someone like you."

He huffed and turned a little. Her fingers leaped away and she coughed into her hand, waiting a while to check if he was awake.

"I'm angry that you keep coming back. It's given me a lot of good memories, and they're surely going to hurt later. After all-" Her hand rested atop his and wrapped around it. "Our goodbye is fated."

With a deep inhale Mirajane watched her brother from the window of her office. He was wandering into the forest again, as he'd done so frequently over the past few months, and there was a hefty bag slung over his shoulder. Again. She had to wonder what he kept in those bags, where he went, and why he was always gone so long. Last week he had even been gone all night and showed up towards noon the next day with a guilty look on his face.

She was an older sister. Of course she was worried. The age difference between them was just less than a couple of years, but hadn't she practically raised him? That he was so obviously keeping secrets from her flipped her stomach and made her viciously ill. She had to worry about the murder investigation, she had to worry about overseeing her bit of the kingdom, and she especially had to worry about her siblings, and it was all feeling too heavy on her shoulders. Mirajane was just one young woman, after all, strong and knightly as she was.

"Your Grace?" a guard asked. He was a tall, well-built man, one of her bodyguards for the past months since the murder. King Makarov had asked that every High Knight keep a capable guard close until the case was closed, for extra measures. "Is something wrong, your Grace?"

Mira turned from the window, her snow white hair tangled and messed from a night of bad sleep, and she twisted her hands together. Her wide sleeves frisked through the air as she paced and wrung and paced some more. He watched her anxiously, along with his shorter and skinnier partner who clung to his guard lance anxiously. They watched her with concern that they didn't bother to veil. Everyone loved Mirajane. Everyone worried about her. She wondered, with her next thought, if she was even worth it.

"I want you to follow him," she said suddenly, so much so that she wondered if she'd actually said it.

The guard tilted his head just a bit. "Your Grace?"

"Elfman. My brother." She clapped her hands together in front of her stomach, as though praying. Oh, how horrible she was, invading his privacy in what could be a very deep way. It made her almost as ill as the worry. "I'm so worried about him."

He rubbed at his chin and glared in thought. "Your brother, the one who's been disappearing for these past months? It is oddly suspicious."

"Yes," she whispered hoarsely. "I didn't want it to come to this, but I don't know if I can keep on like this. I already have the murder on my plate, all the normal work, I can't keep worrying about what he's doing." She waved a hand and huffed. "I-it's probably nothing more than solo training, but, please, I want to know for sure. So, can you please?"

A look of doubt never crossed his face. He straightened up and saluted her with his fingers to his brow. "Your Grace! As you please!"

They left the room and she watched with a twisting stomach and aching head, watched out the window as they followed his path into the forest.

Oh, gods, what had she done?

In a castle a forest away, a cleric leaned over her patient, scrutinizing his face with a certain anxiety. The crown prince was slimy and, if she were being quite honest, a bit disgusting, and having to lean so close to check his vitals was not her cup of tea.

He'd been asleep for so long- five months and 27 days, if she was going to be exact, and his murderer had still not been caught. She remained hidden, and it rather miffed the cleric, but she also felt a bit happy about it. Evergreen. The taciturn and lovely personal knight of the equally quiet Prince Laxus, a young lady who always caught a clumsy maid when she fell and made as little trouble and hassle in the infirmary as possible. They had always liked Evergreen- castle staff, that was. She had the elegance of a queen and a quiet sort of caring. The cleric had been deeply troubled when she'd heard about the situation with the priest.

The young woman had to wonder if the dilemma was even entirely true, but she kept to herself. She was just a cleric. Law-keeping and justice weren't in her job description. In her job description, however, was watching over crusty old princes and constantly holding healing staves over them, even though they were crusty old princes who had a habit of staring too long at her and her friends' buttocks when they were not in six-month-long-comas.

"No change," she whispered to herself as she stood straight. She reached for a clipboard with his personal papers on them, prepared to write the same-old answer (weak vitals, weak breathing, no signs of waking) and then a wiry hand clapped around her wrist.

She screamed loud enough to wake the dead as Prince Ivan stared right at her.