Fairytale of Doom
By CrimsonStarbird
Chapter Thirty – The Day Beyond This Night
Juvia found Gajeel up high amidst the graceful curves of the castle's towers.
Few people would have thought to look for him here after he had vanished from the team planning session; at heart, he was a dragon of the earth and its core, but the ground floor was where everyone else was, and he often sought out rafters and rooftops when he wanted to be alone more than he wanted to feel at home. Although – deliberately or instinctively – he'd stayed away from the elements of the Tower of Heaven fused into the architecture, the night had worked its magic upon the stone, needing no otherworldly help to transform it into a place of shadows and secrets.
Gajeel sat amongst a row of gargoyles. Though he lacked their wings and horns, his wild hair and powerful, brooding posture gave him the most intimidating silhouette of them all. And in a way, that was all it was: a silhouette, an illusion, the fearsome Dragon Slayer visage hiding a heart torn to pieces.
Juvia blew a soft note on her harmonica – G for Gajeel, she thought fondly – to announce her presence. When he didn't react, she took it as an invitation to sit by his side. Far below, the torches of Gaston's army swirled like restless stars around the castle walls, giving her the dizzying sense of being upside down as she stared into the gloom.
Even if she had been able to speak, Juvia would still have waited patiently. The silence was Gajeel's, if he wanted it. Companionship offered, not forced. There wasn't much she could do for him, but she could at least do this. With her voice stolen away, listening had become so much more important – to Gray and his final decision, and also to the friends that needed her.
"I don't know what I did wrong," Gajeel said suddenly. "Was I not romantic enough? Too aggressive when defendin' her? Too stupid to be able to talk to her about all those brainy books she loves?"
His hands fell into his lap. "Maybe the fact that I don't know is the problem. I shoulda seen that she was unhappy, right?"
Juvia had scavenged a set of blank flashcards and a pen from the castle, and she needed them now, printing him a heartfelt message in rushed letters: at least Gajeel didn't know. Juvia did, and kept pursuing her dear Gray anyway.
Because she had known. He'd turned her down enough times, rebuffed her advances, shied away from her romantic gestures. She had clung to the moments he was kind to her, overlooking how he was kind to all his friends beneath that cool exterior; she had been determined to interpret as love the deeply hidden care he had for all his guild, his family.
She had been so sure their love was destiny: water and ice and the snow that had brought wonder to her waterlogged world.
She'd forgotten that Fairy Tail mages made their own destiny.
Gray had had a choice, and he hadn't chosen her.
It didn't hurt as much as she'd thought. Some part of her had known for a long time, and it had finally broken free of its confines, a raging black hole that sucked up all her feelings before they could spill over. She was glad of it. Laxus had been right; she could break down later. There were more important things to worry about right now – like the Dragon Slayer beside her. He needed the support more than she did.
Gajeel grunted, "Ice Prick's an idiot for sayin' that to you."
Juvia shook her head. She did not have the words to explain it, though, and the pen remained static in her hand. Gajeel watched it for a moment, waiting to see if she would speak in the only way she could, and then his shoulders sagged.
He said, "When you were attacked by the rose in that basement, d'ya remember how it said that you were… clingin' to your feelings for Gray because love proved you weren't a bad person, or some such nonsense?"
Slightly hurt that he would bring it up, Juvia wrote: Gajeel told Juvia not to listen to the stupid rose.
"Oh, yeah, you shouldn'ta listened, coz it doesn't know you at all, and yer an awesome person really," he said hastily. "But… while it was wrong about you, it might've accidentally been right about me. After everything I did to her, maybe I needed Levy to love me to prove that I was redeemed. Maybe I was so focussed on that as my perfect ending that I never realized it was tramplin' all over her own."
Juvia tried to interject – to allay his fears, to tell him he was overthinking things, to make him take his own advice about that goddamn rose – but it wasn't only her lack of a voice that gave her pause. Despite Gajeel's airy reassurances, she herself believed there was a grain of truth in the words the rose had whispered to her. How could she deny that Gajeel could feel that way while she did?
No one else had been through what they both had. If anyone understood her feelings, it would be this unlikely lump of iron.
"Levy deserves someone better. Someone who gets her, and likes her for her," Gajeel mused ineloquently. "Guess people like me aren't cut out for happy endings. Once a villain, always a villain."
Juvia jumped to her feet. She had promised to listen to his heartache, but not to sit there passively while he tore down everything that he – and she – had been trying so hard to build from Phantom Lord's wreckage.
She couldn't let that happen.
She uncapped her pen and began to scribble fiercely onto her cards.
"Uh… Juve?" Gajeel prompted, after a good minute of this. "Is there somethin' you wanna say?"
Juvia kept writing.
"I'm gettin' a bit worried now," Gajeel joked, or maybe it wasn't a joke.
Geysers blazed in Juvia's eyes. She flipped the first card, which spelled out, in capitals, REPEAT AFTER JUVIA.
"…Huh?"
The next card read: I am not a villain.
"I know yer not, Juve," Gajeel blinked. "Yer one of the best people I know."
She rolled her eyes. Picking up the pen, she jabbed it against the first message.
"Oh, you want me to read it out?"
Furious nodding.
"…That seems a bit silly, Juve."
She would have growled if she could have done.
"I mean, I can read perfectly well, I don't need-"
Juvia blew a loud, shrill note on the harmonica. Hissing, Gajeel covered his sensitive ears and gave her a reproachful look. It didn't work. She was possibly the only person in the world who would neither be intimidated by him nor fooled by his softer moments; she knew him far too well for that. And if he continued ignoring her, she would damn well make him regret that Dragon Slayer hearing.
"Alright, alright…" he grumbled. "You just want me to read this, right? 'I am not a villain.'" Then he winced, as if expecting the gargoyles to start laughing at him. "Happy now?"
No, Juvia most certainly was not. Across the same card, she scrawled: LOUDER.
"…"
She blew the most discordant note she had worked out how to play.
"Ow! Juve! Right, fine, I am not a villain!"
That was better, although the way he shrunk back into himself, clearly trying to work out if the other Dragon Slayers had heard his shout, clearly not believing himself entitled to it, wasn't good at all. She flipped determinedly to the next card.
"…We're not done?" Gajeel sulked.
The harmonica politely informed him that they weren't.
"Alright, sheesh… I am a good guy."
Flip. "I have worked hard ta make up for all the bad stuff I did in the past."
Flip. "I am a better person than I used to be, and no one can take that away from me."
Flip. "Just because I didn't get the girl doesn't mean I ain't a hero!"
Flip. "It's just a harmful stereotype anyway!"
Flip. "I'm gonna be the greatest bard there is!"
Juvia raised her fist into the air. Gajeel was standing too, now, needing no prompting to shout the words she gave him.
"We're both badass Fairy Tail mages!" he roared, and her heart warmed, because she'd written it in the singular for him, and he was refusing to leave her out. "A failed relationship isn't the measure of our worth! This is where our story starts!"
Even the torches of the army far below flickered at his bellow. When he turned back to Juvia, his eyes were bright with it, exhilarated, alive.
That was more like it. That was the Gajeel she'd hoped to see when they had first come to Fairy Tail – the Gajeel that had outgrown their dark legacy and was ready to stand in the light on his own.
Smiling, she flipped over her last sign.
Gajeel punched the air and hollered at the moon: "Thank you for givin' me back my voice!"
Juvia's hands fluttered anxiously. He hadn't been meant to shout that one; it had been a message from her to him, for saying the things she couldn't, the things they both needed to hear…
But Gajeel shook his head. "Our voice, Juve," he insisted. "We've always been in this together. We're the ones who got dumped. Now, we're gonna show them what we're made of."
She gave him a high-five. He wasn't the only one who no longer felt like the balcony was collapsing beneath him. They could hold each other up, just for a little while.
"Right, then. Let's do what we do best, and go find some villains to beat up!"
Lucy had gone to find some attire suitable for a ball in the bedrooms of the Beast's Castle.
Then again, the word 'gone' downplayed the moment somewhat. With her back straight, her head held stiffly, her gaze fixed on some point on the far wall, Lucy's every footstep sounded a heartbeat drawing closer and closer to the gallows.
Yet she went anyway, with grace and with resolve, into her own personal hell for the sake of her friends. Though none of them could fully grasp her pain at this turn of events, they recognized the gesture well enough.
It might have been a noble moment of sacrifice, had Cana not whooped, proclaimed herself Lucy's Fairy Godmother, and dashed off after her, cackling. Erza had gone as well – probably out of morbid curiosity.
The others were gathered around the dining room table, trying to solve the more pressing matter of the army camped outside their front gate. Lucy could be the most beautiful, sweet, and innocent Cinderella in the world, but if they couldn't escape the besieged castle, she would never make it to the ball.
"In the original story, Gaston's mob is defeated by the enchanted objects and driven away from the castle," Levy was explaining. "But that's all he had in the story: a mob of villagers. This time, he has an entire army behind him. Nor can we sit tight for a few days and hope he'll give up. Even without the urgency of the situation…"
Here, she chanced a glance at Natsu, who was sat with his arms folded. The only sign of his impatience was the fingers drumming on his arms; a display of restraint which, coming from the impulsive Dragon Slayer, passed right through 'impressive' and into 'scary'.
Levy continued, "They have siege weapons, too. Laxus reported that he had seen them wheeling a battering ram up through their encampment in the gloom. As soon as day breaks, they'll bring it to bear against us. The castle defences won't last."
Gray asked, "Could we try reasoning with Gaston? I know he's a villain, but in the story, he's motivated by jealousy towards the Beast, which surely isn't applicable here."
"How do you know that?" Levy demanded.
He'd avoided the question before, but now, with so many secrets already brought to light, Gray just sighed. "Because the guild used to put on movie nights in the basement. We watched all the classics on rotation. Laxus came to some, and occasionally the adults would drop in, but mostly it was Gramps's way of keeping me and Cana out of trouble for two hours on a Friday evening."
"Why didn't I know about this?" Levy's eyes were wide with betrayal.
"Because it stopped before you joined," he shrugged. "Erza was never interested. Natsu came to a few, but didn't really have the attention span for films, especially ones about princesses. He'd talk over them or start fights. Laxus stopped coming pretty quickly; said the films were for kids. And I…"
He tailed off, but everyone was looking at him, and what was this little kernel of guilt compared to the heartbreak still echoing in the silence? "I didn't want to be teased by Natsu or looked down upon by Laxus," he admitted. "So, I quit too. It was too expensive to hire the lacrima projection equipment for just Cana, so Gramps cancelled the sessions for good. She must have kept watching them on her own, at the cinema or something, since she's so familiar with them all. But me, I only know the older ones. The ones that Cana and I grew up with, I know really well. The more recent ones, like that Frozen Cana mentioned, I don't know at all."
"There's nothing childish or girly about those films – they're just good stories!" Levy exclaimed, outraged. "The fact that men think a film with a fully clothed female lead is beneath them is part of the problem!"
"I know," he sighed, in a tone that suggested he was inwardly begging her not to launch into a rant. "But… it's harder when you're a teenage boy, alright? I wish it wasn't, but it is. The guild wasn't exempt from it when I was growing up, and I don't see why that would have changed since."
Levy folded her arms. There was a dangerous look in her eyes, one that Lucy would have known to back away from – and one that her travelling companion of late seemed to recognize too, judging by the faint smile that touched Jellal's lips as he watched her. "Well, that's something I'll have to fix once we're home," she vowed.
"But we're getting off topic," Gray reminded them. "Reasoning with Gaston. Any thoughts?"
"He forced Erza into a wedding dress, tied her to a chair, and tried to marry her without her consent," Laxus recounted flatly. "Yes, I have quite a few thoughts. Anyone else?"
"Guess we'll rule that out, then," Gray conceded. "Any other ideas?"
"Leave Gaston to me."
The solid tones of the Iron Dragon Slayer rang out with purpose – a purpose that had been absent since his and Levy's unexpected breakup, now back with a vengeance. Juvia had to jog to keep up with his long strides as he swept through the dining room towards the war council.
"Like I said, I've got a score to settle with that guy." Gajeel gave a wicked smile. "A musical score. Gehehe!"
There was an awkward silence as no one else laughed at his pun.
"Ah, that classic showdown, Gaston versus Li Shang," Gray muttered under his breath.
"Who?" Gajeel blinked.
"You, apparently," Gray pointed out. "Then again, it's not like I haven't been a complete disgrace to one of the most badass fairytale princes myself…"
Now, even those who had been distracted by Gajeel's entrance were once again thinking about Gray and Juvia, Gajeel and Levy, heartbreak and pain. What did one say in a situation like this?
Gajeel's fearsome visage deflated. "What, none of you are fired up for the showdown of the century?"
Levy swallowed. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped forward, out of the safety of the pack. "Gajeel," she ventured. "I know I owe you an explanation…"
"Yeah," he acknowledged. There was something so gentle to his voice; iron that had softened and yielded and, in losing its brittleness, found a new kind of strength. "But not right now. We've got a villain to defeat and a day to save."
"But-"
"I ain't gonna hold you back, Levy."
She flinched at the sound of her name. Not 'Shrimp' any more – not the name that had been demeaning, and then teasing, and then filled with affection as the man who coined it had changed. They were shedding that past and that future, and going forward as equals.
He continued, "And I ain't gonna be held back either. Leave Gaston and his army to me. All you need to do is find some way of gettin' out of the castle and far enough away that they can't catch you."
Without giving them a chance to object, he turned away, punching his fist towards the sky in a call for action. "Candlestick! Clock-Face! Muster the troops! We've got the show of our lives to put on! Gehehe!"
And, still cackling, he sprinted out of the dining hall with a wave of animated furniture at his back.
The others were staring after him. Disbelief mixed with the kind of resignation that appeared whenever that white-suited, guitar-wielding demon appeared on stage, knowing there was no point in running from the madness, as the doors would already be locked.
Only Levy moved, her numb feet carrying her after him of their own accord. "He can't- not on his own-"
A figure stepped into her path: Juvia, calm as the ocean and every bit as unmovable. On her card was written the words, trust Gajeel.
Levy seemed to flinch back again. "I know," she pleaded. "I do, but… there's a whole army out there, and the way he was talking, it was like he's not planning to escape with us! I can't let him do that, just because I've hurt him-"
Juvia crushed the card in her fist. Just as her outbursts of love towards her dear Gray had been sudden, so too were the eruptions of her anger. The curse that silenced her could not stop the burning in her eyes, the thunder of her foot on the ground, the shuddering of the ocean as tectonic plates shifted somewhere beneath.
She pointed furiously from Levy to the guild mark on her thigh, and even though she had destroyed her own method of communicating, the message was clear: It's not about you. It's about his guild.
You were never the only thing he was fighting for.
You are not his redemption.
Levy fell back, hanging her head.
"Guess we'll have to trust in whatever crazy plan Gajeel and his army of furniture is cooking up," Gray interjected, with a slightly too tense nod towards Juvia. "An old castle like this is bound to have secret tunnels we can use to escape; we can check with the animated furniture later. The hard part is going to be outrunning Gaston's army all the way to the Glass-"
Just then, the doors to the dining room burst open. "Hey, guys!" Cana exclaimed, hurtling inside. "Look what we've found!"
And she brandished an object… which, disappointingly, was not the keys to a magic-mobile.
There was an awkward silence.
Even Lucy, staggering into the room while wrapped in what looked like a bedsheet – "Don't run off while I'm changing!" – couldn't quite break it.
Laxus drawled the words they were all thinking: "You've found a white stick?"
"Oh, how little you know, Mr Dreyar," Cana grinned. Twirling, she called back, "Bring in the pumpkin!"
Erza strode through the doors, a large pumpkin tucked under her uninjured arm. She set it down on the end of the dining table with a pleased huff and stepped away.
The white stick spun dizzyingly between Cana's fingers. "Watch and learn, greenhorns."
She whipped around and lunged, jabbing the stick towards the pumpkin, a champion fencer in a last-ditch leap for victory, as she cried, "Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!"
There was a flash of light. Where the pumpkin had stood, there was now an enormous carriage – which immediately collapsed the table beneath it in an explosion of food and splinters and glitter-laced wreckage.
Several people shrieked. They'd all grown used to this world which favoured relationship drama over the magical battles of their home, and the savage survival instincts that had been left back in the Alvarez War suddenly kicked in with a vengeance, hearts hammering as they scrambled to safety.
As the dust settled like the final curtain at the end of a magic show, Cana took a sweeping bow. "And that, my friends," she proclaimed, gesturing grandly at the ruined carriage, as one wheel spun uselessly in the air and another rolled off down the corridor, "is our way out of here."
Gray crawled out from behind the armchair where he had taken shelter. "A bit of warning next time, maybe?" he wheezed.
However, a touch of brightness was returning to Levy's eyes as she brushed herself down. "You've found the Fairy Godmother's wand!"
"Damn right we did!" Cana grinned. "I've been promoted to Fairy-in-Chief and Makeover Artiste Extraordinaire!"
"Someone save me," Lucy muttered, trying to shake dust off the sheet she was wearing whilst still preserving what little modesty she had left.
"But how did you get it?"
"Well, funny story," Cana breezed. "See, there weren't any ballgowns in Belle's wardrobe that would suit our Cinderella. There's the classic gold dress from the Tale As Old As Time scene, of course, but you can't wear solid gold with the Heartfilia hair. So we thought we'd spruce up one of the other dresses we found – you know, add some sequins and accessories and make it suitable for a royal ball. Now, I know half of you are novices when it comes to fairytales, but that's actually what Cinderella does the first time: her Wicked Stepmother says she can go to the ball if she finds a suitable dress, and Cinderella, with the help of her mice and bird friends, does up her mother's old dress so she can go in that. It just felt right, you know? So there I was, singing to keep our spirits up: the Work Song from Cinderella, Whistle While You Work from Snow White, while Grumpy over there ironically refused to join in…"
"I'm not pandering to this stupid fairytale!" Lucy huffed, folding her arms. "I agreed to go to the ball; isn't that enough? Besides, I think I look great in gold…"
Cana ignored her. "Anyway, then I got to Cinderella's classic A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes, and Lucy finally joined in-"
"It was Mama's favourite, okay?" Lucy scowled into the bedsheet.
"-and a flock of little birds appeared at the window, carrying the wand between them!"
"…Seriously?" Gray blinked.
"Oh, yes. They were twittering about how happy they were that Cinderella had returned! I suppose their story is back on track at last. Or perhaps the fairytale universe has finally acknowledged that we're the heroes, and is doing its duty to help us out. Anyway, this is definitely going to come in handy – not least because I can now bibbidi-bobbidi up a dress that suits Lucy's complexion!"
Laxus interjected, "How about bibbity-ribbity-ing us some weapons that we can use against the army outside?"
"No can do, rookie. The Fairy Godmother's wand only does pumpkins to carriages, mice to horses, rags to ballgowns – that sort of thing. It's no use in a fight."
Cautiously, Jellal raised his hand. "I could definitely see how being able to turn a pumpkin into a massive carriage mid-throw might help us win a fight."
Levy snorted. Laxus and Gray were looking at him with interest – perhaps reappraising this man they hardly knew beyond him being Erza's childhood friend, or perhaps re-evaluating the way they looked at this whole world – but Cana just shook her head.
"Amateurs," she said sadly. "The magic of a good fairy mustn't be used to cause harm."
They looked as one towards the wreckage of the dining room table.
Cana coughed. "Anyway, we need to follow the moral rules of this world, lest it take our magic away from us again. And didn't I overhear Gajeel saying he had a plan to deal with the army?"
"He has a plan, yes," Gray answered doubtfully. "He just hasn't told any of us what it is…"
"Nah, it'll be fine. Li Shang's a resourceful general, remember? Let's focus on how we're going to make our own escape."
A/N: Just a short bridging chapter this time as we move into the final part of the story! (From here on out, we'll finally start getting some resolutions to relationships!) Thanks for all your support so far, and I really hope you like what is to come! ~CS