Underneath a clear blue sky, a new life came to be.
A small village off the coast of a dark endless ocean held its back to rolling hills of emerald green. Its air was cold and crisp. It smelled of salt and pine. Each house had been crafted from planks of oak. The ground had long been supported by carefully lain stone.
It was a land beaten by snow and ice for seven months of the year before being scorched by the unrelenting sun for the next five. The people were rough and sturdy, being given no choice to be anything otherwise. If the boons granted by the ocean were unkind when the livestock did not thrive, hunger would follow behind.
With hunger comes weakness. With weakness comes sickness. With sickness comes death.
The newborn babe had not the strength to cry.
Her mother barely had strength to breathe after a difficult labor. Her eyes were beginning to lose their vision. Her long hair as blue as the dark northern ocean was matted with sweat.
After coughing blood for the past year, it had been doubted if she were fit to even have a child at all. There were nights where she could not sleep because the coughs that tore themselves out of her lungs would not allow it. There were days where her flesh felt like fire burning her from the inside out. There were times where the pain made death seem like sweet bliss.
But despite the cruelty of life, she endured.
All for this moment...
The fragile woman smiled at the little bundle in her arms. Her vision was hazy from the sickness and from the tears. Her nerves had burned out, leaving her with anarchic sensations. If she had to speak louder than a whisper, her heart would not be able to take it. Yet in this moment, nothing could take away the crescent curve of her lips.
A chance to love...
There were no more humans on this land. The war had drove them all away. The men died to blades, teeth, and talons. The woman and children fled to farther away lands, so that they may perhaps escape the carnage. It was doubtful if many of them would survive the many months at sea.
Shivering, the mother held her child closer to her, hoping to share whatever warmth she had.
The foundation she had braced herself against shifted and moved to curl around her better. Soft white feathers over a silvery, insulating layer of scales had been providing whatever warmth they could. Vast and mighty wings like that of an angel had been protecting her from the rain, snow, and sun.
Neither the cruel ice of Ymir nor the hungry flames of Surtr could ever harm her here, for she was being tended to by a dragon.
A dragon that commanded the skies and heavens.
Wholly blue eyes with vertical pupils stared at both the woman and her child. Joyful and contented memories that would never again be reflected in the future played in her mind. She had come to this place to die. A quite and peaceful place that had not yet been reached by the bloodshed that slaughtered all life indiscriminately.
Instead, she found a lonesome, pitiful woman expecting a child.
She did not look after them out of some noble sense of morality or rigid duty or meaningless honor. This was simply the nature she had chosen to possess.
"This little one is even smaller than you."
Her voice was kind and seemed to find joy in that life simply was.
The mother continued to weakly smile as she let out something between a laugh and a cough. "Aren't all newborns the same? Or are you just teasing me?"
Shaking her head to shake off snow and ice, the dragon named Grandeeney made a sound that was not quite a purr nor a hum. Her tail flicked back and forth, catching the attention of the infant.
"I suppose both claims suffice. My own children surpassed me in immensity within years of hatching, so I'm not one to talk."
Eyes widening, the mother gasped. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were a mother as well."
"The families of dragons are not as tightly knit as those of humans. None of my mates have ever seen the faces of my children. Nor have any of my children remained near my nest. All for the best, I suppose. Our kind has always been rather territorial as well."
Grandeeney looked back at the woman and tilted her head quizzically.
Her expression was one almost like crystallized laughter.
"What is the cause of your amusement?"
She brushed a lone braid of hair behind her ear, "You said those things just now, but I can tell you loved them all dearly."
The dragon snorted regally, coming frightfully close to blowing the town and hills away on accident.
All over the world, the lands had been drowning in blood. It seemed like it was finally the end of it all. Natheless, this moment was the exception. The waves were nonexistent. The wind had been at rest for the first breath in a long long time. Even the sun had retreated in the distance, offering a gentle light without the blinding.
But even this moment would not remain in eternity.
The mother's heart began to slow down.
It happened so calmly and gently, Grandeeney nearly lost it among the ocean's ripples.
Soft glowing light embraced the woman, a light of healing and miracles. Power that could repair fractured fields of bones. Intensity that could recover endless rivers of blood. Hope that could heal all ailments. The blessing that could end all suffering. Her heart began to regain its rhythm
"...please stop..."
The mighty dragon of the heavens ignored her.
"...you'll die..."
Grandeeney's pure white body hid scars beneath her feathers. Scars that tore through her flesh and reached her soul. Scars that would never heal until they ripped her life away. One last curse that would never fade.
To heal the dying, she would need to die instead.
"It was always inevitable. My hope is already lost... This is fine." Her voice lost its warmth as she devoted the life force she had remaining towards this sacred task of healing. "A child needs its mother."
The mother took one final precious look at her daughter. She inherited the dark blue hair she had long been praised for. Her eyes were those that would always naturally be innocent and pure. She was born. She was alive in her arms.
This world had let her be.
Her mother couldn't ask for anything else. Everything that had ever happened was perfect, all the suffering and blessings, the war and death, the cruelty and sadness, the stories and lies, the storms and tragedies, the accidents and mistakes, every single thing, because it had allowed for this sole fleeting instant to pass.
Through each day of pain, there was only one thought that let her survive. A thought she had each time she rested her hand over her womb.
'I love you.'
Her heart stopped.
She continued to hug her daughter as the life faded away from her body. "My future and my past, my everything, if she can grow up healthy and surrounded by love, I'll have no regrets."
This was her final plea.
The dragon did not want to listen. She did not want to continue. Death was already arriving for her as well. The world had no need of her anymore. But despite this acceptance and denial, she could not say a word. She too, had felt these wonderful, whimsical emotions.
"...What will be her name?"
On that day, the dragon became a mother once more.
Over 400 Years Later...
"Make sure you bundle up properly and always carry a light lacrima wherever you go. Sleep when the sun sets and make sure to wash yourself properly after you wake up and every time you get dirty. Be kind and respectful, but don't go anywhere with strangers... Oh, come here! Let me hug you once more before you leave!"
The calm and steadfast advice became a hectic sob as she was held tight yet again, the armor making it just a bit uncomfortable, but the emotions behind it were never unwelcomed. The beautiful knight with red hair nearly had to be pried off by their resident barmaid when all was said and done.
"Don't worry too much about what Erza says. You'll do fine. Just be yourself and you'll make us all proud as always."
She was handed a package filled with freshly baked goods from the local bakery for her trip. A small bag of sweets neatly tied by a ribbon was secretly given to her as well. The hand that rubbed her head was cold, but it was gentle too.
"Please call us if you get in any kind of trouble. We'll be there for you in a heartbeat no matter how far away you are."
The side of her face was pressed against a generous bosom as she was pulled into another loving embrace. This one was much softer and sympathetic. The older girl sifted her hand through her hair to smoothen out the loose strands and fix the red clips that held them up in twin tails.
"Goodness, child! You'll be late if you let these people hold you all day. If you aren't going to leave soon, then you might as well-"
The girl was the one who hugged first this time, rubbing soft white fur against her face as she said her gratitude and goodbyes.
"You can have this fish plushie I got for Christmas."
She put the tiny pillow in her bag that was becoming dangerously full as it was.
"I know you don't believe me. But you've grown up a lot."
She was picked off the ground and embraced that was filled with warmth and unabashed care. A hug that left an unrelenting sense of safety. Even if she was in a far away land, she wouldn't forget this feeling, this scent of the one who was her big brother in everything but blood.
"Come home safe..."
She nodded, "I will."
And with that, Wendy Marvell, the youngest dragon slayer of Ishgar, left on her first quest that would be hers and hers alone.
Many towns and villages are founded near resources. Bountiful land, generous crops, and of course, mines. Simply put, mines are places in the ground where desired resources can be uncovered. Anything from gold and jewels to coal and iron can be found in the earth. It's not uncommon for generations of a family to make a living off such a place, nor is it uncommon for such a place to be the support of an entire town. Their importance is valuable enough to reach the attention of the Kingdom's ruling body itself.
Hence, when such places are threatened, the threat is sought to be dealt with immediately.
Two weeks prior, the mayor's son was attacked by a large sort of monster while inspecting one of the service shafts. Luckily, due to a cave in, he made it out with few injuries, but the mine was forced to shut down.
It had taken a week for the request to be handled and distributed to the Kingdom's mage guilds. It had taken another week for the girl who accepted the request to travel to the town by train. By then, the food she had been packed was already finished.
Though they were initially shocked by her age, thankfully, she was well enough recognized in due part to her participation in a grand tournament as well as her guild's overwhelming fame and notoriety across the continent.
Before she would continue on with her task, she was invited for dinner at the Mayor's house and granted a room at the town's finest inn as a thank you.
Once she was rested from her long trip, she had embarked to deal with the monster in early morning when the sun had just started to rise.
The mine was even bigger than the town itself. A giant basin that could have resembled a dried out great lake if not for the neatly organized tunnels and terraces along with the abundant mining equipment. It's air smelled of coal and soil.
A cold breeze carrying the stench of a wild monster blew past her, telling her what she needed to know. The monster was hiding in the largest tunnel. If possible, she would rather render it unconscious and take it to a forest where it wouldn't cause trouble. Problematically, she didn't know what the creature actually was.
She was told beforehand at the guild that it was likely one of two beasts, a Vulcan or a Rock Eater.
Although it was morning, light was unable to enter the cave. She had to hold up a lacrima to illuminate her surroundings with a blue light. Her visibility extended for two meters around her. Past that was inky darkness.
Her footsteps echoed throughout the caverns and stone.
Wendy took deep breaths to calm her nerves.
Then a drop of water fell on her neck from the tunnel's ceiling.
...and she screamed, "Waaah!"
A high pitched scream that could potentially make someone deaf.
But after feeling her neck, she settled down and blushed. At the very least, she was happy that nobody saw or heard her. Since that was the case, she could pretend like it never happened.
'You would've heard it if something was actually here,'
Wendy rubbed her ears and listened for any signs of a monster.
All she could hear was the clattering of rocks.
She had been walking through the tunnel for a while now, each step taking her lower and lower. A pang of hunger suddenly struck her belly. The air was hot and hung with the stench of burnt almonds and cigars.
Coming to a dead end, the girl would have turned back if not for the wind that suddenly blew against her hand.
Looking up and raising her light, there was a gaping hole in the ceiling of the mine shaft.
The scent of a monster came from above.
She still only heard the sound of rocks creaking.
Making a decision, she threw the light lacrima up into the hollow cavity to stretch the reach of its light. Black shadows became a ghostly blue.
It was right above her. A fleshy maw of teeth and massive incisors. The rock eater had the appearance of an insect with hundreds of legs. Its singular eye reflected the light from the lacrima. The monster was motionless.
Swallowing, Wendy took a slow step back as the lacrima clattered to the ground. When she let out a breath, the carnivorous insect crashed to the rocky ground of the tunnel, kicking up black dust and fumes.
She pulled her leg back for a swift kick before stopping.
The stench of decaying guts flooded the tunnel as all that remained of the monster was its severed head. Its blood and stomach acids continued to leak from the ceiling after it finally fell to gravity away from its nest.
'Just what happened to-'
Wendy was slammed through the countless layers of stone and wood. Blood sprung out from a scrape on her temple, trickling down the side of her face. She pushing against the earth with her legs and shifted to the side just as a shapeless entity ripped through the air where she had just escaped.
Something seemed to grip her stomach, twisting it cruelly.
For this was not the first time she had faced such a creature.
This was not the first time she smelled such a malevolently inhuman scent.
This was not the first time she had bared witness to such a nightmarish amalgamation of flesh.
The monstrous aberration emerged from the stygian abyss, its otherworldly presence suffocating her every breath. A grotesque, unnatural hexahedron body, bathed in an eerie, nigh-translucent glow, manifested as an affront to the laws of nature. Each facet of the unholy form seemed to pulsate with a sickening, ethereal energy, giving the impression that it existed at the intersection of the world of the living and hell.
From the gelatinous, almost insubstantial flesh of the beast, long spines and nightmarish tentacles writhed and coiled, extending outwards with a malignancy that defied earthly anatomy. These appendages, like the tendrils of some eldritch horror, twitched and slithered with a sinuous grace, each movement suggesting a sentience that echoed the tormented wails of the forgotten.
A gargantuan maw, grotesquely disproportionate to the rest of its horrific visage, hung perpetually agape, revealing rows upon rows of oversized, nearly human teeth. This ghastly mouth, an abyss of voracity, seemed to defy the very concept of closure, as if it hungered insatiably for the essence of life itself. The air resonated with an unholy symphony of guttural moans and discordant whispers emanating from the ceaseless void within.
Devoid of eyes, the demonic entity moved, the very fabric of space seemed to contort and writhe in agony, as though the creature itself was a blasphemous fusion of the living and the dead. Its presence was that of something that died yet rejected death.
A cursed scrap that sought to plant its seed in the world once more.
"You!?" Wendy raised her arms to defend as the demon came barreling towards her once more. Her back broke through underground pillars of bedrock as her feet tore through their earthly support.
The demon howled at her with a sound that should never have existed.
But despite the fear that ran through her body, her eyes became like that of steel as her hands curled into tight fists. Her toes dug trenches in the ground as she stood her ground and braced her body for something that could have only been described as an indiscriminate force of nature. A malevolent dance of ominous clouds that appears with little warning.
"Sky Dragon's Roar!"
Winds purer than the rain and snow manifested from nothing and formed into an agent of annihilation, something that could tear through the lands like the wrath of an ancient god. The destructive twirling tempest reached incredible speeds as it rushed through the underground space to rip apart everything in its grasp. A vortex that scars the earth and shakes the heavens, the tornado left a sound like a dragon's roar echoing through the caverns.
Met with such an overwhelming force, the monstrous demon could only be repelled and repulsed as its very body nearly gave away. The pain caused it to writhe and squirm. Its mouth opening wider as its protrusions only grew more violently.
"Sky Dragon's Claw!"
Wendy swung her leg down on the hellish exoskeleton, unleashing mighty winds that blew away everything before them right at the moment of contact. In the wake of the devastation, the land began to tremble.
Something snapped in the home of Tartaros.
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This world was no longer suitable.
Thorns sprung out of its bloody throat as if they were slaughtered lightning and carved through the flesh of the girl's thigh.
Unwilling tears began to form in her eyes from the pain, feeling the shredded tissue and falling blood, but she pressed on. The pain didn't matter. The fear didn't matter. She had promised to come home.
Wendy wielded her magic in the palm of her hand. A celestial disk of everchanging winds began to form. Its ever changing pattern mimicked the setting sky. Her dark blue hair turned to the color of cherry blossoms as her eyes did the same. The weightless chakram of ferocious tempests was the essence of her fighting spirit. It grew until it dwarfed even her physical body.
The demon turned blood red and began to twist and deform, tainting the essence of creation around it, seeking out that which was cruel and forsaken.
Upon their clash, time and space itself collapsed.
Wendy's eyes fluttered open, and a disorienting haze enveloped her senses. Blinking against the dappled sunlight filtering through the dense canopy overhead, she found herself lying on a bed of scattered moss, surrounded by towering trees whose trunks reached skyward like they wished to touch the clouds. The strangely thin air was thick with the earthy scent of damp soil and the sweet perfume of wildflowers.
Her body felt heavy and uncooperative as she attempted to sit up, the ground beneath her seemingly unsteady. She fell when she attempted to rise above her knees, hitting her head against the trunk of a tree.
'Ahh!'
She cradled her head in her hands. It was when she opened her mouth to gasp that she realized the horrible sickness she felt. A feeling of weakness overwhelmed her body as if its intrinsic lifeforce had been stolen. Dizziness swam in her head. Her mouth was dry.
The hunger in her belly was so great it was on the brink of devouring itself.
She hastily covered her mouth before she could retch. Her usually keen vision wavered in and out of focus. The sounds of the forest were overwhelming, like countless nails forcefully being driven into her ears.
A chill alerted herself to the pitiful state of her clothes. The simple flowing green dress with a crossing pattern she enjoyed had been reduced to rags. The red hair ornaments had broken and were scattered over the ground. All of the lacrimas she had carried in case of emergency had shattered and become useless.
Wounds were apparent all over her petite body, scratches and cuts and marks and bruises. A numb pain continued to lacerate through her leg. Soot covered her skin and further delved into her open injuries.
"W-Where am I?..."
Breathing in the air to try and replenish her strength, Wendy coughed uncontrollably as the air was forced from her lungs. The air was thin and polluted. The ambient magic was abnormally weak. It was like trying to feed off dirt.
She crawled towards to sound of running water and frantically drank from the river until she couldn't anymore.
Finally, she at least had the strength to stand, even if only unsteadily.
If she could find a place to heal her wounds, then she could focus on returning home. Then everything would be good as they always were.
Now that her senses had settled, she could hear the sound of many people off in the distance. More than many, there were hundreds... thousands... even more... so much more some ways away.
Supporting herself against the trees, Wendy put one foot in front of the other and slowly made her way through the woods. When the trees thinned out, she saw a white paved road that continued past green hills. The sounds grew stronger.
After hours and hours of trudging along the path, she was met with a sight that made her breath stop.
Standing on the outskirts of the colossal city, her eyes widened as she took in the sight of a sprawling metropolis encased by a massive circular wall that seemed to stretch past both horizons. The wall's intricately carved details and towering turrets spoke of grandeur and wealth.
As the girl observed from her vantage point, she could see the city's districts laid out like a mosaic, each section separated by wide canals that crisscrossed the urban landscape. These canals, bustling with life, served as both transportation arteries and sources of commerce. Trade ships glided gracefully through the waterways, their colorful sails adding a vibrant contrast to the city's stone structures and modern architecture.
The air was filled with the hustle and bustle of a thriving metropolis, and the distant echoes of various activities reached the girl's ears. The scent of exotic spices, the melodic calls of street vendors, and the distant hum of untraceable conversations reached even her own dulled senses.
At the city's center was an elevated land possessing even higher and mightier walls than its surroundings. A grand and majestic palace adorned with beautiful golds, greens, and whites stood strongly at the heart of it all.
Just a little while later, she had reached one of the city's entrances.
The standing guards noticed her immediately.
"Hey, kid! What happened!" One of the men asked as he rushed over towards her with his partner.
Wendy brushed down her hair with both hands and tried to look as presentable as she could while dressed in rags, barefoot, starving, vastly injured, covered in dirt, dusted with soot, and on the brink of exhaustion.
"Sor.. sorry," She stumbled over the first word. "...I got lost and I don't know where I am..."
The guard rubbed the back of his head, unsure how to deal with her.
"Do you..." she hesitated. "Do you know where Ishgar is from here?"
Both of the men grimaced, "Is that some new settlement?"
'Oh... oh no... Oh no nononono-no!' Wendy instinctively hugged herself as she felt her heart squeeze itself.
It would be a long time before she could return home safe.