July 3, x777

"WHAT?!" Two voices assaulted my ears. I made a show of cleaning one out with my pinky.

"I'm taking a few solo jobs," I repeated myself. "Why are you freaking out? I'll be gone for like, a month, at most. I even bought a communication lacrima to call Gramps so he doesn't freak out if I'm gone too long." Cana crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, looking at me like I was in the wrong, while Levy simply pouted at me.

"And why can't you bring any of us with you?" Cana asked somewhat testily. I rolled my eyes.

"What's the big deal? I've not traveled on my own since I ran into you on the way to Magnolia, I just want to see how well I can stand on my own. It's not like I can't call Laxus for help if I end up too deep." I requipped the "Call Laxus" card Cana had made for all of us a month ago. He grumbled about saving our own asses for once in our lives, but he'd still taken it without much complaint. His newly created lightning travel was the fastest way of reaching us if we actually needed help, after all. Cana begrudgingly backed down, Gray nodding along with her.

They understood how it felt, feeling like you had to prove yourself, after all.

"But you'll be gone for so long!" Levy was still pouting, however. "There was a translation job in Shirotsume that I wanted you to take me on!" I smiled and ruffled her hair, getting a blush and puffed cheeks in return.

"Don't sound so spoiled, Levy. You can go with Gray or Cana, you know? They can leave Magnolia without me now." Levy sighed.

"Cana will get bored and complain and Gray will get us kicked out for stripping." She stated bluntly. Cana shrugged and Gray growled at her.

"What'd you say?!"

"Oooh, tell us how you really feel, Levs." I said with a wince, "That was brutal."

"She's not wrong though, translations are boring, and Gray…" Cana waved towards him.

"Solid Script: Clothes!"

"Damnit, Levy! Stop doin' that!"

"I'll stop when you stop traumatizing us every five minutes!" I snickered into my hand.

"Calm down, Levy. Just because Gray is an exhibitionist-"

"Helio!" I dodged an ice lance with almost casual ease, ignoring the yelp of it hitting someone else.

"-doesn't mean you can't ask Laxus to take you instead." Levy sighed, but nodded.

"At least he won't snore or get us kicked out."

"Hey! I don't snore!"

"Yeah ya do."

"You do."

"You didn't need to agree with her!" Cana shouted. Gray and I both shrugged.

I shook my head, "Anyways, we're getting off track. My point is, that I want to go out and see a bit of Fiore by myself and prove I can do serious mage work on my own, alright? I'm not suddenly becoming a solo act or anything." I pat Levy's head. "Tell ya what Levs, I'll take ya on whatever job you want, so long as Master approves it, when I get back, alright?" She crossed her arms and pouted, but nodded all the same.

"Fine…" I smiled at her.

"I've gotta finish getting all my luggage together, but let's hang out tonight, alright? My train leaves bright and early tomorrow morning, so I won't even have time to come here before it departs."

I wasn't really lying about my reasoning, I did want to explore Fiore on my own. As much as I love these guys, I couldn't just rely on them always being by my side. I needed to prove that I could stand on my own.

The fact that this trip just so happened to be at the beginning of July and would be taking me in the direction of a certain non-existent guild, however…

Well, that was just a lucky coincidence, wasn't it?

July 6, x777

The stack of requests I'd grabbed were from all over Northern Fiore, from Oshibana to the coast and even one in Shirotsume. Some of them were simple, like exterminating a few magical pests from an old house, and some of them were a bit more complicated.

Tomorrow I'd be hunting a few magical creatures native to the Worth Woodsea and harvesting bits and pieces of them for a client in Clover Town. Right now though, I was lying in a clearing, watching the stars, counting the constellations I could find as my watch ticked its way to midnight.

Tick

Tick

Tock.

Well would you look at that, it's the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year, which means if I've got the time and my orientation right…

There! A streak of blue light caught my eyes as I just barely caught it through the trees as it arced through the sky from the south, flying over the mountains to the west and landing somewhere to the northwest of the forest.

I had my bearing, and if I was lucky, then I might just run into a certain someone with her.

I'd need to be a little cautious, and possibly wear my tank top with the guild's emblem on it to blatantly advertise my affiliation with Fairy Tail, but if all went to plan, well, Mystogan promised to take Wendy to a guild, did he not?

Might as well extend the offer to both of them simultaneously.

July 15, x777

My trek through the Worth Woodsea hadn't been the fastest, but I'd gotten through it all the same. I'd already harvested all the monster parts that my client wanted and I'd even taken out the gorian that a woman who lived out near the edge of the forest had placed a bounty on as well.

I was two jobs down and just under two weeks into my trip. I still had the monster parts to deliver and a few jobs to do, most of them roughly in Northern Fiore. Getting all the way to the coast to finish the collection request would be a slog, but at least I had a couple of more exciting ones to look forward to.

Exasperation with basically being a courier aside, it and the rest of my jobs -fighting involved or not- put me in the area I needed to be. That, and doing a variety of jobs was probably better than just throwing myself at Monster Hunts and other combat requests and burning myself out. The last thing I needed was to pass out for a day from exhaustion and miss the entire reason I came out here after all.

Speaking of which, I kinda hope I run into them soon…

As much as my cover story wasn't a lie, it was getting a little boring out here all alone.

Damnit Fairy Tail, you've infected me with your socialness! I was almost regretting not bringing anyone with me!

I sighed quietly. Maybe going solo really wasn't what it was all cracked up to be.

Seriously, how do they deal with the silence? I was so used to people being with me, that having no one by my side, talking, bickering or nearly running into something because they were reading instead of paying attention was becoming unnerving.

Part of me said that was a good thing, that my more introverted instincts were being eroded by my friends.

Another part of me really missed being able to go days without speaking to anybody.

The rest of me wanted to get to the next village so I could do my next job, and lamented the fact I couldn't have just hired a carriage to take me there.

Just as I was about to return to my totally not melodramatic moaning, I heard a shout from the top of the next hill, and before I consciously realized it, I was speeding up to see what was going on.

My next destination had posted a Monster Hunt request , maybe the monsters had saved me some time?

Cursing the lack of cover to allow me to get a proper hand on the situation, I crested the hill, and barely managed to brace myself as a small child ran into me.

I looked down and was greeted with a small blue haired girl looking at me with teary brown eyes.

"Mister, run!" She shouted, her voice choking with sobs. Before I could ask what it was she was running from, my unspoken question was answered by a howl.

I looked up from the crying girl and was greeted by a pack of three shaggy green dogs, each the size of a small cow, lining up with almost sinister expressions, if dogs could manage such a thing.

The village I was headed to had sent out a request to find and eliminate what they believed were a pack of Cù-Sìth that had gotten a taste for people.

The Cù-Sìth, aforementioned shaggy green dogs, were evil little bastards about their hunting practices. Terrifying their prey with loud barks, infused with just a tiny amount of their innate magic power to make it that much more terrifying. Legends said that if you weren't safe by the third bark, you died of terror.

While that might be true for more skittish animals, like rabbits, it was a bit more complicated for humans. The fear might kill a frail old civilian, or someone with a weak constitution, but for the average person, it was more like the fright of their life, or in the case of even the weakest wizard, just a very loud, albeit unsettling, bark.

For them, the real danger was what came after.

Though they very much preferred their prey to die of fright, Cù-Sìth were excellent hunters. Mouths full of sharp teeth, perfect for ripping through flesh, and steps that were more reminiscent of a feline with their supernaturally silent tread, if the barks didn't kill you, you would likely suffer a far more violent fate soon after.

They weren't very powerful, but they tended to travel in small packs, and their supernatural stealth made them dangerous for any civilian or low class mage.

I didn't have time or the space to be fancy about this. I told the girl to stay behind me, and simply jumped into action with nary a thought once I confirmed she'd listened.

A Flare to the muzzle of the biggest one caught its attention, its growl menacing as its eyes burned like coals.

Another growl and three loud barks later, and their previous prey was forgotten, solely focused on me and me alone.

"Fusion!" The spell impacted the one on the left, it flew backwards with the force of the explosion, the smell of burning flesh accompanying its pitiful whines.

Dropping all pretense of intimidation, they broke off from one another, to flank or flee, I didn't know, but I wasn't about to let them do either.

A couple more Fusions and some mercy killings later, I finally got a chance to really look at who I had saved.

The little blue haired girl, curled up in a ball and just now letting her sobs die down, looked up at me with large brown eyes.

My heart nearly stopped at the sight of what could only be a five year old Wendy Marvell with tears running down her cheeks.

"T-thank you…" She said quietly. I smiled at her, squatting down and giving her a small smile.

"No problem. My name is Helio Dart. I'm a Fairy Tail wizard. Who are you?" Instead of answering, she shot up to her feet, previous tears forgotten, and began looking around in a panic.

"Jellal?!" She shouted out. She turned back to me with a terrified look on her face. "Please Mr. Dart, you're strong right?!" She didn't even give me time to nod before she continued speaking. "Please help me! There were more of those things trying to fight my friend!" I scooped her into my arms without much thought, my sudden focus the only thing keeping me from cooing at the adorable little 'eep' she let out.

"Which way?"

A shaking finger giving me directions, I took off as fast as my feet could carry me.

It didn't take long to reach our destination, with the fire her words had lit under my ass fueling me.

Pushing through tall grass and vines, the sounds of combat getting louder the closer we got, I got my first impression of Edolas Jellal.

He was standing over a whimpering Cù-Sìth, at least six other corpses littered about our surroundings. He gave it a cold look, and without a hint of mercy, used his magic staff as a bludgeon to crush its head.

"Jellal! You're okay!" Finally noticing us, or rather, noticing Wendy, Jellal's expression changed to a far warmer look as he smiled at her, quickly catching the girl in a hug as she jumped out of my arms to run towards him. The look disappeared when he registered my existence, though.

Expression turning cold, Jellal stared at me with a wary glare as he slid himself in front of her.

"Who are you?" He asked, he had a commanding tone that rivaled Erza at her worst. I held up my hands in peace, but my words were interrupted.

"Jellal, why are you being so mean?!" She asked, her cheeks puffed out and her tone angry. "He saved me and helped me find you!" Her eyes were practically glowing with hurt as he faltered.

"Wendy, we don't know who he is. Not every stranger you meet will be friendly." He cautioned her. Wendy's glare turned into a pout at his tone.

"Not every stranger we meet will be mean either!" She grumbled at him. I cleared my throat to regain their attention.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Helio Dart." I gestured at the emblem on my shirt and turned to show them the mark on my shoulder. "I'm a Fairy Tail wizard." I smiled brightly at them, "and I believe you might have done most of my job for me."

Jellal's expression went from wary to flat.

"Thanks again for saving me, Mr. Dart!" Wendy said excitedly, practically skipping along the road as she danced between Jellal and I. I smiled at her, noting Jellal's fond expression as well.

"You're welcome, Wendy." I reached out and ruffled her hair, getting a giggle and a gigawatt grin. "Please call me Helio, though. Jellal and I are the same age." She nodded up at me, cheeks rosy.

"Okay Helio!" Then she ran a little ahead to pick wildflowers. I grinned at her enthusiasm before turning to Jellal.

"Excitable little thing, isn't she?" Jellal nodded with a small smile, his earlier wariness seeming to evaporate under the force of Wendy's sheer wholesome energy.

"Yes, she's in much higher spirits than she was a few days ago." At my raised brow he kept speaking. "We're traveling together so Wendy can find her mother. She was very… subdued until recently." I nodded along.

"I see, hopefully we'll be able to get some information out of the villagers. What's she look like?" Once again, I was playing my most hated role of acting ignorant, but I had little choice in the matter.

Wendy, who we'd caught up with as she began tying the flowers together, answered instead. "Grandeeney is a sky dragon!" She said excitedly, taking a second to suck on the end of her finger when she stuck herself on a particularly hard flower stem. "She's really pretty! She's big and white and covered in really soft feathers!" Her eyes glittered as she talked about her mother. Her smile dimmed though, as she kicked the dirt. "She disappeared a week ago." Wendy said sadly. "I met you guys though, so it's not all bad!" Her smile was smaller now, but it was present. "Do you think we'll find someone who saw her?"

I patted her head again, getting a happy hum as I answered. "Maybe, A big white dragon would be hard to miss. We'll ask around, alright?" Wendy smiled up at me.

"Mhm! Thanks Helio!" Deciding that conversation was over, she looked back down at her flowers, returning to her work of tying them together.

I looked over at Jellal, who looked somewhat troubled, even as he smiled at Wendy. "I'll be glad to help out too. I've still got a few jobs in the general area, so I can stick around for a bit." I pulled my map out, "This'll help out a lot more than aimlessly wandering as well." I teased.

"It's not my fault there wasn't a map of Fiore just laying around when I left." He lightly grumbled.

Which was a fair point, considering his origins, but since he wasn't exactly reading me in on Edolas and the Anima, I didn't have to concede it.

"Sounds like someone isn't a very good planner." He rolled his eyes and punched me in the shoulder.

It hurt quite a bit, surprisingly.

Even without internal magic, it seemed Edolas citizens had about the same amount of strength as the average wizard instead of the average civilian.

I rubbed my arm and smiled at him. "Well, you're gonna be stuck with me for a bit, so it won't be a problem for now."

After we'd properly introduced ourselves, I'd asked Jellal if I could travel with them. Seeing his hesitance, I amended my statement that they at least stick with me until the next village, seeing as he'd inadvertently done most of my job for me. With Wendy seemingly trusting me, and my reasonable offer of two thirds of the job's pay, he'd not seen much reason to object. Especially since I had a map, and he'd been forced to use old nature beaten road signs.

When I offered to make lunch with some of the beef I had bought in the last town I'd visited, his reluctant agreement turned enthusiastic to let me travel with them for at least that long.

Turns out Jellal wasn't the best cook and he and Wendy had been subsiding on charred meat and whatever nuts and berries Wendy had known were safe to eat.

When I pulled out a small box of spices and my camp stove he almost started drooling.

After that, we'd not exactly clicked, but we had a decent rapport building. Wendy helped smooth over any stumbling steps, as she was just too adorable to make upset with any argument that might crop up between us.

We'd see how it would develop over the next day or so we had together.

"Helio! Jellal! Look what I made!" We looked down at Wendy, proudly holding up two little flower chains. "They're bracelets!" She quickly grabbed Jellal's wrist before he could object and began tying it around his wrist before doing the same to me.

"Thank you Wendy, it's beautiful." Jellal said, a soft smile on his face.

"Thanks Wen, I love it!" She grinned at us both before grabbing our hands and tried to pull us up the road.

"Come on! I want to hurry so we can ask if anyone's seen Mom!" Jellal and I shared a look, and allowed ourselves to be pulled along by an overexcited little dragon slayer.

I knew it was futile to ask, but somehow Wendy's sheer earnestness and hope almost made me believe we'd find someone who'd seen her dragon.

Still, I knew the reality of the situation, and could only hope Jellal and I could comfort her, even if we couldn't shield her from the inevitable disappointment.

July 17, x777

Oh my God, fuck these people.

Our journey to Poppy Village had been without much excitement beyond that of an energetic five year old. Jellal and I got to know each other and I had to resist teasing him too much for his lack of basic knowledge about Earthland. At one point, when I got him just a bit too wound up, I taught Wendy how to play I Spy, and made the journey just that bit more fun for her.

With my guild mark and the request shown to one of the passing villagers, we'd quickly been taken to their mayor who had been more than happy to pay out the 150,000 jewel for the request with a hearty thank you for getting rid of the problem so quickly.

A bit much for such a simple job, considering the C ranking, but when you're over a hundred miles away from the end of the train line, and even further from the nearest legal guild, you have to pay a lot more to make the trip worth it.

If that had been all, it would have been a nice, but not very memorable little place.

That, however, was not all.

Oh no, Jellal and I exited the mayor's office to collect Wendy where we'd left her on a bench with a magic toy I'd "forgotten" was in my requip space, only to see her crying silently into her hands.

While we'd been having our exceptionally short meeting with the mayor, a little boy had sat down with her, and upon being asked if he'd seen her Mom, had called her crazy and stole the toy I'd given her.

The boy's mother, while she had made him give it back and scolded him for stealing and calling her crazy, still called her a liar when Wendy had asked her the same question.

I get that dragons haven't been seen in hundreds of years, but to see a little girl crying and call her a liar instead of just playing along and telling her you hadn't?

That was just the start of why I was seriously contemplating arson though, because oh boy were these people greedy as hell.

Jellal, being from a completely different dimension, obviously didn't quite know the value of the jewel, and upon realizing this, the owner of Poppy's general store was determined to take him for a ride.

Luckily, I was there to ensure he got his money's worth, and a silent warning that involved leaving burnt, hand shaped holes in his countertop as Jellal browsed his wares got the message across.

With that out of the way, we had to look for Wendy, only to find her outside, having been dragged out by the boy from earlier along with his friends who were bullying her for getting him in trouble.

'I will not cripple children, I will not cripple children, I will not cripple children.' I chanted as I comforted the once more crying Wendy while Jellal went off on them.

Thankfully for Jellal and I, they'd been cowed into submission when I'd held out a hand coated in magic as he was yelling at them. Turns out magic scares little schoolyard bullies quite well.

I did not need the scolding I'd get from Gramps for beating up a bunch of kids if it hadn't.

I made sure to tug the ringleader's ear extra hard as I made him take me to his mother after Jellal forced him to apologize to Wendy.

Fortunately, with that snot nosed little brat out of the way, and Wendy comforted and sucking on a lollipop on Jellal's shoulders, we left Poppy village behind.

If anyone sent a complaint to the Magic Council for either situation, I'm sure Gramps would understand once I explained.

The scolding would be worth it either way.

"So, where to next Jellal?" I asked him as I held my map up for him.

He'd bought his own in Poppy, but he couldn't exactly hold it at the moment, on account of the five year old still on his shoulders.

"Which way are you headed?" He asked instead, I looked at the map, finding where we were before I traced a path that led to Cedar, a seaside town on the northern coast of Fiore.

"My next request up this way is a couple days from here, in Cedar. It's nothing exciting though. I'm just delivering some monster parts I harvested in the Worth Woodsea to a hospital there for research. After that, I'll probably hire a carriage to take me to Shirotsume for my next one before I finish up in Oshibana and take the train home to Magnolia." I told him, tracing my path for them. I smiled, "You're free to tag along for as long as you like. Running solo's not all it's cracked up to be."

Jellal hummed, clearly thinking it over, before Wendy patted him on the head from her perch on his shoulders.

"Helio's our friend, right Jellal?" He nodded, a tad ruefully to my eyes, which prompted her to continue. "Then let's go! Traveling with just you is great, but two friends sounds a lot better than one!" Jellal closed his eyes, but smiled all the same.

"You heard her Helio, lead the way." I couldn't hide my excitement as I whooped in joy.

"Alright you two, follow me!" I grinned, getting a matching one from Wendy and a small smile from Jellal as he rolled his eyes.

I know he'll be leaving sometime soon, but at least this way, Wendy won't be left alone again. Be it by Jellal or Roubal.

This time Wendy will have a family that will never let her down.

In this world, Wendy Marvell will grow up as a Fairy Tail wizard.

A/N: Oh you guys have absolutely no idea how long I've been waiting to write this chapter! Helio with Wendy and Mystogan has been a thing since Solar Flare was just a short two sentence summary in my FT ideas doc, before I'd even decided Helio's name or magic.

Whether it be running into them after he lost Sun's Valley, or here, where he went searching for them specifically, they were always going to travel together. I am so very excited to finally reach July 7th, x777 and getting to write five year old cinnamon roll Wendy Marvell.

As always, thanks to obliviousss for his input.

I'll see y'all next time!