I had had any number of covert meetings over the years. Most of the time, they were done because someone had a curse or problem they wanted solved but didn't want to have on public record. All jobs that were formally sent through the guild system were, after all, recorded and filed in the national hall of records. And not even just curses. The runaway boy I had found, Razc Portu, had come from a family that was desperately trying to social climb and having it be known that their son was a troublemaking runaway was just...Unheard of.
I was mostly ticked off because I got paid not for bringing him back safely, but for doing so discreetly. I had complained incessantly to Jude about this trait. That his parents were more worried about their reputation rather than the actual cause of why the boy had run.
A combination of seeking attention and validation and dissatisfaction with his emotional connections with his parents.
"That's the nature of the beast, Faerun." My chief patron said with a sigh and a look of regret and shame. "And you will remember, I wasn't that different. I'm the one who paid Phantom Lord to retrieve Lucy, even against her will."
The reminder left a sour taste in my mouth, assuaged only by the genuine remorse on his face. While Lucy had gone to put her father in his place about interfering in her life, she had kept it between them and had not gone public with the information. And since Phantom Lord had been trying to avoid incriminating themselves in the matter on paper, there was no official record of it either. If Fairy Tail hadn't been working with him now and clearly been on good terms with him, the nasty rumors circulating about Jude's ability as a parent, a person, etc, would have been much worse. And since he still had good standing, and talked Fairy Tail up for the jobs we could take as much as he could,the news spread by word of mouth in his social circle that I could be trusted to keep information to myself.
Oh boy if they knew even a fraction of what I hold back... Just looking around the room, I saw two affairs, a terminal illness that was being kept secret from everyone, the shadows of old bruises from abuse. Not to mention the pall that hung over absent fathers, absent mothers, disillusioned children, ambitious second cousins and assistants...
What would they be doing here?
It was something I did to bring me to my 'happy place'. Speculating what chaos my friends would bring to a given situation.
Half formed illusions, visible to my eyes only, scattered around the hall. The projected what-ifs of what they would be doing.
Natsu would taken over the refreshments table and demand the party goers do something ridiculous to pay for admittance. Happy was fluttering around that chaotic tangle, judging their performance. He would subtly hint that he could be bribed with seafood and be constantly fed by people trying to preserve their dignity for the remainder of the night.
Gray would probably have lost his shirt and at least one shoe by now. While keeping his coat on. Somehow.
Erza would be swamped by admirers and potential clients alike. Right up until she then noticed what Natsu was doing. Then she would make her way over to get him to stop holding the food hostage.
Lucy would likely blend in seamlessly as this was her old social circle. But she would also be struggling between the decision of monitoring Natsu or running damage control on Gray's stripping habits.
I miss you all now more than ever.
Thinking these happy thoughts helped distract me from the depressing, sobering and the amusing and somewhat frightening realization that I could probably puppet the whole dang country if I decided to go looking for trouble right here in this room.
You know...people really are dang lucky that I am too lazy to want to run a country.
Laziness is not a characteristic you are often accused of possessing.
Fine. People are lucky that I...am indifferent to the appeal of having civic authority.
That is more accurate.
Jude had kept up the habit of bringing one or two Fairy Tail wizards with him on high level business escorts. And once my own reputation had a few years of reinforcement behind it, he kept me on a semi regular escort commission. That was where most of my networking happened. Not on official record, but privately done in these social gatherings.
"Miss Fae!" A young voice suffused with brilliant joy like a dancing sunbeam.
And sometimes, I even see someone who makes the pandering and sweet talking worth it.
"Kellye."
The little girl, much taller than she had been when I first met her, crashed into me with innocent enthusiasm and a childish giggle. Her freckles had been plentiful when I first saw her, but now they were even thicker and more widespread. Proof of her time spent outside. She had also gotten much, much taller. Her whole appearance seemed brighter and happier.
The Pooh doll has been good for her. Morgana mused, using our contact with the girl to skim through hours and hours of playtime spent outdoors, rain or shine. And just as many inside, imagining her way into the mental construct of the Hundred Acre Wood Pooh could guide her to. Her isolation was a thing of the past. Pooh had been her companion through the lonely hours of her life and she now had what I would consider a proper childhood behind her. A life where she didn't have to wonder, worry or be afraid of what someone might do to her next.
"I only got your last letter yesterday! Did you really go all the way to Stella just to get the sea shells to break Sir Alvin's curse?" I chuckled, ruffling the girl's hair.
"I think you mixed up a couple stories there, kiddo. Stella has no ocean border, so I wouldn't be going there to get sea shells. And Alvin is a Lord, not a knight, and lives in Seven, not Stella." Royalty was related to royalty and nobility all over the place. And odds were that if I left the country, it was because some cousin of Victor's or another had heard of me and wanted to secure my services. Lord Alvin, a Viscount in Seven, the country just north of Fiore, had run afoul of a minor itching curse. And when I say minor, it really was minor. Barely more than a tickle. But he was uncommonly sensitive to magic and curses alike. He had enough mental fortitude to not scratch during the day. But he had been scratching himself bloody in his sleep and had been chafing, literally and figuratively, against restraints designed to keep him from doing that. I agreed that the notion that wearing a straightjacket to bed was ridiculous and had agreed to make the trip out there to get an assessment and see what could be done about the curse.
I could have sworn I told her it was Lord Alvin in that letter.
You did. But a Viscount doesn't hold the same ring to it that a knight does in a child's imagination.
Kellye had written to me some months after I had first met her in halting, childish handwriting thanking me for Pooh. Her sincere gratitude had rung through those notes and touched me very deeply. Her new friend told her many wonderful stories, but she wanted to hear more. She wanted to know about me.
She wanted to know how I met Kinana. How I knew I had magic. The first time I had used it. What the most beautiful thing I had ever seen was. My favorite spell was. She wanted to know everything...
I think I have a fan...
It must have been stating the obvious since Morgana did not even deign to comment on that thought.
Thus I had found myself with a penpal. Every letter gave me a flicker of insight into how her life was going. Not just what she wrote, but what the letters conveyed to me. Since they were meant to transmit information, a lot more psychic residue stuck to them than other objects, giving me more things to read than what could be conveyed by her developing writing skill.
Kellye had gained human confidants in the house butler and staff who would often help her when she wrote her letters to me. With penmanship, getting stationary, identifying an unfamiliar word, and so on. They likewise helped her avoid Tara's tantrums
Her sister's behavior was getting worse and better at the same time. The red flags I had noticed in her personality were only getting bigger. It had to be all about her all the time and she had no time or room for someone in her life that didn't hold the same view. Tara was getting older, and thus was expected to behave herself more, her parents finally catching on to some of her more petty moments. But the additional scrutiny largely just meant she was just getting smarter about how she caused trouble. Kellye had managed to keep Pooh from being seen as anything other than an insensate toy by her sister and parents. She said the maid that cleaned her room, the butler and the night cook were the only ones who knew he was anything more than a homely, humble stuffed bear.
But Tara still did everything she could to outshine her younger sister. Writing, music, dancing, conversation, academics, everything a young noble girl was expected to be learning how to do. Kellye, being younger, quite simply could not compete with her. Tara knew it and did all she could to lord it over her.
So, while Kellye's home life was not ideal...it was still a childhood. And there were people close to her that made sure of that.
She had stepped back from her enthusiastic tackle-hug and was gazing up at me with wide eyes.
"Oh...what did you need the seashells for then?" Questions. I loved it when this little girl had questions.
"I was getting them for my friend, Wendy. You remember what I told you about her?" Kellye nodded, bouncing eagerly on her feet.
"Yeah! She's the Sky Dragon Slayer and your doctor! She's one of the only people in Fiore with healing magic!" Almost word for word what I had written to her about my friend.
"You got it."
"But why did she need seashells?"
Because Wendy had come across someone with some pretty horrific scarring from an accident in a glass blowers shop. He had lost his left eye and much of his face, and had more scars than skin on his arm. The man had been abandoned by his family, his fiance, and had lost part of his ability to work due to the scar tissue hampering his reflexes. The eye had been relatively easy to replace, but not even magic could make scar tissue built up over years vanish overnight. At this point, it might even be easier to remove the mangled limb and give him a prosthetic but that would set him back in his creative skill by decades.
Yeah, creative editing time. Those weren't details for a kid to know. I didn't want those images in Kellye's head.
"To make some medicine to help one of her patients."
When making a potion, a medicine or anything that involved different material components, there was an element of storytelling to it. Everything meant different things or had different effects on the world and the concoction they were in. So, a magical moisturizer, for example, could make use of things like aloe gel for the natural effect, and ground cactus spines because the plant was so good at retaining water that it was now part of it's integral makeup in the world. It also brought in a protective element to the spell, making where it was applied a little more resistant to damage.
I drifted back through the memories as I described my search and the theory behind it to a thrilled audience. I didn't use illusions, but you would think I was by how she was looking at me.
I described the crystal oysters from the northern coast of Seven. They were renowned for producing the most beautiful pearls in the world and having almost translucent shells so you could see the sea floor beneath them.
And the small, shrimp-like crustaceans, called glimslips, were considered pests because of their ability to soften and reshape hard matter to suit their needs, and a frustrating habit of doing so on dock posts, anchors... they were worse than barnacles. But at the same time, their reefs, made with a stunning, uniquely variety of materials, all preserved by the handling process to last under water, were some of the most intricate, beautiful things I had ever seen. 100% worth rigging an enchantment to breathe underwater and bearing with the cold.
The shells turned pain or irritation into something beautiful and valuable. The glimslips for redistributing unwanted matter.
Wendy and I hypothesized that a salve created with those as primary ingredients, alongside physical therapy, would help reduce his scar tissue and restore his nerves without surgery. Thus, letting the man recover to a point where Wendy and Porlyusica could reduce the needed amount of prosthetics and let him start to get his life back from a much better standing.
The oyster's tendency to create beauty with a substance similar to glass to help the craftsman's body and memory remember his old skill, letting him adapt to his prosthetic eye. The glimslips natural softening magic to smooth the external and internal scarring and reshape it back into his natural skin.
Writing the story of the ingredients and what parts of it we wanted to tap into on the bottle would hopefully help reach the goal we wanted.
Kellye's eyes shone, her butter yellow dress making her look like sunshine incarnate.
"That's so cool Miss Fae!"
I have had fans gush before, but this is somehow way more embarrassing and satisfying at the same time.
A mutter ran through the crowd carrying a current of hot gossip. You developed a sense for something that was getting attention in a crowd like this, where people didn't want to be overt about what they were snickering about.
I tracked it back to its source and spotted the now 12 year old Tara glaring at her sister from across the room, trapped by her mothers side. Kellye seemed to be innocently unaware of the hostility directed at her. And I would not be the one to inform her of that.
"What have you been doing, Kellye? You said you had finished basic history and wanted to learn more."
"Yeah! I love history! It's fun to see what happened back then and what's the same now and what has changed."
I caught Jude's eye to check on him, he was my client for the evening after all, and he gave a small nod with a sad smile as he looked at Kellye. Likely regretting that he had spent his time with lesser matters when his daughter had been Kellye's age.
I was used to people staring at me. And they did with sidelong glances, some calculating and some fond and smiling as Kellye took me by the hand and started explaining the history of the estate we were at. She got most of it, but not the dirty details.
The ReQuiem family had undergone a terrible tragedy. Most of them had been lost to a plague, leaving only a handful of survivors. Among them, our host, Ohdran ReQuiem. Jude was speaking to him about expanding the goods transport routes through his land.
The country was divided into various guilds, or categories. And there was potential for overlap all over the place.
There was, of course, the Magic Council which oversaw not only the wizards and guilds, but also the production of magical tools. They were also a semi independent party in national affairs, thus while they had status, they weren't nobility. Most of the army was either led or supplied by the guilds built up around the country. Heck, the Rune Knights counted as a guild, just a state sponsored one since they acted as the national police.
There was nobility, or the people who owned most of the land in the country. This had a bit more weight in national affairs. Since they owned most of the ground, they were the ones in charge of producing raw materials in bulk. Food and other wholesale items that helped fuel the nation's industry. Several of them had likewise gained their titles by using the third party of the countries system: Craftsmen.
Craftsmen really was a general term. For example, I, as an author, fell under the title of 'craftsman'. Because I produced something for public consumption. In this case, media. Crafting was an area where wizardry could often overlap, since there were plenty of guilds that specialized either in the use of magical tools or the production of the same. A member of a craftsman guild could step up into nobility through the purchase of land and the title that accompanied it. A wizard could do the same, but not that many did. At least, not ones that I would associate with.
The last area, and the one that Jude operated in to secure his land and wealth, was in being a tradesman. Shop owners and so on. The Heartfilia family fortune was made off of a combination of investment banking and running the logistics of shipping other people's goods around the country.
The ReQuim family business was something especially dear to my heart: They were part of the nobility of Fiore and had been for a long time. But they primarily produced paper and fine inks. Their goods had taken a hit since the addition of the printing press and mass produced paper to the market. They had bounced back by changing their marketing strategy to target the upper classes of Fiore with luxury ink and parchment for formal documents.
All this, and whatever Kellye was telling me about the events that had taken place in this house and on this parcel of land, flashed through my mind. The details imprinting in my brain and quietly being filed away to process later. I would pay for this by needing to sleep more later, but I had a handle on it for right now.
I had learned about that drawback the hard way. After a long session of working with the Nirvit scroll from Master Raoul, I had decided to take a nap without precautions in place. I woke up to a very loud White Dragon Slayer in my face. After I finished thrashing Sting for breaking into my apartment and kicking him out again, I had a talk with Morgana to try and figure out why I hadn't woken up when my wards sounded.
According to her, she had been so focused on processing the things I had learned that she had not noticed Sting was there for a...very long time. He had been trying to wake me up for more than three hours to no avail.
"Miss Celeste! As I live and breathe." The cheerful greeting drew me and Kellye out of our talk and back to reality.
The man that approached me was comfortably built. Suggesting he likely had a desk job and was not especially active in his work, but was decently healthy anyway. His face was lined with both laugh and frown lines, though the latter were being emphasized by his smile as he approached. I nodded politely to him, my hand still claimed by Kellye, who looked around at the man curiously.
"Lord Thain." The man had been a patron of my book signing event in Minstrel and was also a fan of Story Night, which unfortunately was becoming more and more of an exclusive access event than my just having fun sharing a story with friends and locals. He was a high ranking member of the Craftsman's guild. He ran a number of publishing firms around the country, thus I had worked with him regularly under the name of Bella Phantasia. But we had never had a face to face meeting, I had done most of my interactions with him through Jude.
Why is he talking to me? What did I do? The book signing had been a resounding success, but I was so nervous now that someone else might have caught onto my pseudonym now that I knew that Ultear had...
It was a minor thing, but it still stressed me out nonetheless.
"It has been too long!" He extended a hand and I shook it politely, taking just a cursory glance-
Genuine motives. He does not know you are Bella Phantasia. Morgana reported from our brief instance of contact.
Since Jude had made a habit of inviting me to events such as this, I had developed a personal safety precaution. Morgana would do as quick and thorough a dive on the person's information and motives as she could pull off with a handshake. I was mostly screwed if the event was formal enough to require gloves and an evening gown, but luckily Jude was reasonable about what he invited me to.
This would be so much worse if I had to register Retrocognition as an actual spell. Since it was a passive effect of my magic, I could exploit the loophole and stay unobtrusive yet informed.
"I've been looking forward to your next performance! I had the chance to attend your debut performance of the Tribe of Nuska and it was stunning!"
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. It took a lot of work to prepare." I studied the Nirvit's scroll every now and then as I had gotten better at creating magic totems to act as keys for specialized skill sets and powers. And sometimes, I could look beyond the plain knowledge that Master Raobul had given me and see the origin stories of the people who had created those principles. The Tribe of Nuska, a smaller group within the nation of the Nirvit's, had specialized in spell weaving, an ancestor to the modern Unison Raid. They had done this by infusing their magic into thread and weaving them together on massive looms to form intricate patterns, or as embroidery stitching on already finished pieces.
"What's a Nuska?" Kellye asked me, fearless in the face of the stranger as only some children could be.
"They were some of the first users of Holder Magic. You know, like Celestial Spirit Mages use keys?" She nodded, her understanding. "Well they used things like weaving, sewing and embroidery." It had been an invaluable resource for me to tap into in my totem creation efforts.
"That's cool!"
"I agree." Lord Thain said with a warm smile to the little girl who pulled back shyly but smiled in answer anyway. "Miss Celeste has taught people a lot about the Nirvit's and how much their skills in magic have shaped our own."
"She taught me too." Kellye chirped. "She taught me how to not be scared and how to make friends so no one ever has to be alone!"
Oh my fudge, if she keeps being this sweet I am going to cry.
"Indeed." His eyes lifted from my companion back to me. "I confess, I approached you to ask what more you had to teach us about the Nirvit's and if I might look forward to another paper on the subject."
"You read that?" The theater performance had been accompanied by an academic paper to clarify what had been highlighted for dramatic effect and what was simply fact.
"How could I not? It's not every day that a promising young storyteller comes out as a well read historian as well as an entertainer." Well this was all kinds of flattering. Most people only knew me as an entertainer or a curse breaker within Fiore. It was nice to have other areas of my work be acknowledged.
"Well, I haven't finished compiling everything, but I was planning on publishing a few more essays regarding the Nirvit's less well known history." In particular where it related to their magic. It was kind of my speciality after all.
"Marvelous! I will be eagerly awaiting your next release. No matter what form it might be." He said with a wink and a smile that curved his whole face around it.
"I will keep that in mind, Lord Thain." The room was now more focused on our interaction than they had been when just Kellye had been speaking to me. Or perhaps because Kellye had been speaking to me.
Lord Thain was a major patron of the arts, books, music, theater, everything. He himself was also a playwright. But Kellye's family were from the noble faction, the landowners. Not quite rivals but definitely not allies. And my being a wizard, a reportedly neutral party, seen with the child of a noble and the recently ennobled Thain...
As soon as Kellye left my side, I knew that the vultures would descend for information and gossip. Eager to know which side I favored. Fairy Tail had long been the pinnacle of true neutrality in the political game. And I was one of Fairy Tails most well known faces because of my entertainment work, as well as academic papers. If they caught a whiff that Fairy Tail was looking to enter their Game, it would become a feeding frenzy centered around us. Favors be called in, leverage exploited. We would be further torn apart.
Nope. Not doing that. Initiate: Escape plan Beta.
Plotting route... Recommendation: the Stone garden.
"Hey Kellye, doesn't this estate have a rock garden?"
"Yeah! People from Mescya make them all the time! They've made them for a realy, really long time!"
I let Kellye tug me from the room before anyone could break away from their own conversations to come and grab me. But their stares followed me all the way out of the room. It would only delay the inevitable. Maybe if I could find a reason to be outside the country for a few weeks, let this settle down...
Got away safely...
Success!
-vVv-
I was only in town to meet Ultear and Meredy. A place where they could pass more or less unnoticed. It wasn't the sort of place I wanted to be, but allowances had to be made. Simon had met and made an impression on the owner of this restaurant, so this was a place we could meet to discuss more sensitive matters.
It wasn't a hole in the wall dive. It was thoroughly middle class. Nice middle class, but still middle class. Family run for generations and located in Jasmine, it had a high turnover rate of clients, making new faces here hard to spot.
With permission from the owner, a pleasant man named Jamison, I had selected an out of the way table and scribed the underside with wards against eavesdroppers. It had been a regular point of contact between myself and Ultear for face to face meetings ever since. We didn't have them often. It was risky for her to develop a pattern of movement.
After a...very painful conversation, which felt oddly reminiscent of my talk with Jellal covering much of the same subject matter, we had come to an accord. Ultear wanted to atone for the pain she had put people through in pursuit of a fruitless and deadly cause. Awakening Zeref had been her whole life...and finding that Zeref had been awake the whole time, that he had been actively holding back from using his power for the sake of all living things around him...
The memory of his tears stung my heart with a dull pain through a thick veil of secrets that kept most things pertaining to him hidden. The Nirvit's scroll had revealed the fact that he was cursed, but not how he had come to be its victim or how to potentially lift it. But even without that, that kind of agonizing guilt and sadness...
It wasn't his pain that resonated the most with me though...
It was knowing that those tears were the first he had shed in decades. Zeref did not have the luxury of tears, expressing himself or feeling emotion. Instead he existed in a state of self induced apathy. A precarious balance. The world was held hostage by his curse. And if he didn't do exactly the right thing, then people would die. He would feel them die.
And when I tried to see how he would feel them die, there was a big black wall of nothing. Secrets too deep for me to delve. Not without more puzzle pieces to put together a framework for me to base my search off of.
Ultear had done her own research on the Curse of Contradictions. Her conclusion, her fear, was that the blast that had killed the rest of Grimorie Heart had been controlled. Zeref had been in complete command of that power...meaning he had for the moment, completely disregarded all value for and of life. And the nature of the curse, plus how long he must have been laboring under it meant regaining the precarious equilibrium he had existed in, while possible, was... not likely.
Yeah, you can't not accidentally bring on the apocalypse and not have some guilt. Even with a newly revived conscience.
I had read in our last encounter that she had gained immense sympathy and understanding of the grief Ur must have gone through believing her child was dead. And she had gained that because of Meredy and the relationship they had developed over years together. She had also gained a fierce determination to not allow Meredy to die. Ever. In a less practiced wielder of Arc of Time, I'd worry about her going Curse in her newfound determination. But Ultear had been well... trained, for lack of a better word, to not let that happen. Curses, while powerful, were notoriously unpredictable. And her handlers did not want unpredictability.
That was why I was here. To touch base with her, see if she had gotten wind of Zeref's potential location and verify that she was still on secure ground in terms of not becoming or laying out Curses. (Arc of Time had become a Lost Magic not only because it required an immense amount of power to use.) She had asked for an in person meeting so she either had something to tell me or needed something from me in answer. It was going to be a potentially high stakes conversation.
Harry Potter had dealt with massive blowback when he proclaimed that Voldemort had returned.
If the Magic Council got wind Zeref was alive and active, the country and several beyond it would be plunged into a mire of fear, irrational thinking and overreaction.
For perspective: Moldyshorts had terrorized a community for a few decades. Zeref's legacy was centuries old in some areas.
That was why I was here.
So why do I need to deal with this? I tried not to glare or show any real concern. The people surrounding me were members of Sabertooth. And they were being pains in the ass.
"Can I buy you a drink, Fairy Princess?" A dull ache flashes through me. I tried not to glare at the speaker.
Suddenly, I hate that name. No...I hate you.
That name was for my family to use, not these people. It was not an insult. But it sounded like one coming from him.
"I'm a minor." I deadpanned.
"Old enough to fight." He said with a cringy wink. I fought back my wince. Barely.
Being a guild wizard meant you were old enough for light alcohol. And the general rule was that meant you were old enough to be flirted with. Decent people didn't if you were obviously younger. Most wizards were capable of saying no, with impunity. Actually, the only people who bothered wizards tended to be other wizards. Part of the whole official stance of political neutrality we had.
But this creep was still hitting on a 15 year old. Most men still wouldn't have been so blatant about their attention when I was this young, no matter how much I had grown in recent years...
"Leave me alone, please."
Right...
My guild emblem, required by my status as a probationary wizard, was predominantly displayed on my belt. They knew full well I was Fairy Tail.
It is why they are targeting you.
Targeting. That implied very not good things were their goal.
Full dive on their history.
If they were going to be trying to pick a fight, then I would at least want to know why.
Morgana pinged back to a minor event only a few weeks ago. When I had been meeting with Jude to pitch the official transcript of The Hobbit to him. We had been at a reserved table in a nice restaurant, not the best table but nice nonetheless. The owner was one Fairy Tail had worked with before. He had been out on the floor for some other reason but he had stopped to talk to me when he recognized me.
The gathering job for Red Truffles.
A medicine gathering job essentially. They were consumable as food, but the bright red, extremely rare fungi were also used in potion making. A special commission that had come to Fairy Tail due to Wendy's work and her clinic. The owner had been suffering under some severe conditions, which were generously censored by Morgana honoring patient confidentiality, and my completing the job had landed us the upgraded table. But reflecting on it, I saw that someone had been glaring at me angrily throughout the affair. I had ignored it and Jude hadn't felt it. There were some connections between that incident then and my being heckled right now.
Who was it?
The daughter of Sabertooth's guild master, Minerva.
And that name brought an onslaught of minor, petty infringements and cattiness in childhood that swelled to arrogance and cruelty in adulthood. I didn't feel intimidated. What I felt was mostly anger and pity. Anger that she would do things like this and pity that someone had taught her it was ok to behave like that.
"You're not such hot stuff anymore, Fairy. You don't have the credit to make us leave." I met his gaze then. Just a flat level stare.
Roll to intimidate.
You are a young woman facing down grown men alone in a not too upstanding establishment. Intimidation requires reinforcement.
"I have more credit here than you have manners. I will say it again. Leave." Asking them would put me in a position of deference to them. They were already assuming superiority. Anything I gave, they would use to trample me.
She's here.
Whatever else the man had been about to say or do was cut off by a woman's hand placed on his bicep. Manicured nails, which to my eyes looked briefly like talons, just barely grazed his skin.
"Is there a problem? We've been waiting for our table for over 20 minutes now." I met the newcomers' gaze.
Batten down the hatches.
Aye aye captain.
Suddenly it made sense why I had gotten so much detail about the sort of person Minerva was just through the minor connection. It wasn't that she had just had recent contact with my heckler. She was here herself.
"Something is wrong with the service. We've been waiting this whole time."
"Perhaps we can seat ourselves. This table doesn't appear to be in use." Minerva stared at me, clearly daring me to protest.
I'm outnumbered, the hostess is distracted, the owner is busy across the restaurant and probably can't afford to alienate Sabertooth with them buying up so many patronages for businesses.
There were four of them, counting Minerva. Starting a fight here would have a lot of collateral damage and be pretty poor repayment for the support Jamison gave our guild.
"I think you need your eyes checked then. I am clearly right here." I said evenly.
It was a gamble.
Fairy Tail's rep had taken hits with the Tenrou group's absence, but Sabertooth had taken off like a rocket in recent years. Bluntly, they had much more to lose than I did right now. Standing my ground and making them take the first swing might get me a bit dinged up since I would probably have to lose this fight. But it would clear me in the eyes of the law and win sympathy from onlookers. Simon and Mest had worked too hard for me to set us back by letting my temper run wild and punching these bastards faces in like I so dearly wanted to-
Wait...That's not right. Outright physical violence isn't what I do. My only experience with revenge had been Zero/Brain. So...yeah, if I were truly angry at these people: My first instinct wouldn't be to punch them. Definitely do something, but not via a direct blow.
Emotional manipulation magic detected.
That's why...
Morgana guided my eyes to the side, to a small almost mousy looking girl sitting at the bar with her back mostly turned towards us, but she was fixed on the drama unfolding. Lots of people were, so she went unnoticed. Almost part of the woodwork of the table she sat at.
Probationary Sabertooth guild member. Her magic is part of the Darkness branch on the side suited to emotional counseling and psychology.
If she was a probie, then Sabertooth could effectively cut her loose if I called her on her magic and not suffer as much blow back. Most likely they were taking a leaf out of my book as how I was a probationary member, but acting as a full one in spite of some laws being more lax towards those in my position to account for inexperience.
Sabertooth was also known to not be gentle about letting people go if they were ejected from the guild. If she was rejected from their ranks, there wouldn't be many other good places she could go with a rejection from Sabertooth on her record. Another reason for me to not call her out because that would feel terrible and lead to potential problems in the future.
This is set up so they can confront me and have me feel like I lost no matter the outcome
I could follow the compulsion and yell or kick the confrontation into a fight. Thus damaging my and Fairy Tail's reputation.
I could identify their Darkness Mage. Even if it meant she would get cut from Sabertooth which I would then feel guilty about.
I could involve the public. Draw attention and make myself look like a victim, which my pride rankled and and did not want to do.
Or I can move and find another place to meet with Ultear.
If it was for a table, it wouldn't matter at all. There was nothing special to it other than the runes I had placed on it.
If it was about Fairy Tail conceding to Sabertooth, it would be infuriating, but it was what it was. We didn't have the clout or membership to match them right now.
Minerva's eyes glittered savagely as she smirked, looming over me. Waiting for me to break the silence. Or just break.
This encounter however...was not about any of those things.
This was about facing down a woman who had every reason to be happy, confident and secure in herself, appearance, status, everything. Yet she felt insecure because of me, younger, less powerful, very much not as alluring, me. This wasn't a Fairy Tail thing either, this was personal for her. This whole city wasn't a place either of our guilds normally frequented, this was a premeditated confrontation. And she had stacked the deck every way she could to come away from this encounter feeling like she beat me.
This wasn't about a table, reputation or pride.
This was about facing a bully who would not stop hunting and harrassing me if I so much as wavered right now. She would do everything in her considerable power to tear others down to try and make her own pain go away. And there was a lot of pain that I could feel in her history, even if I couldn't see the details of why or how. Just that she had a lot of it and it was what had made her who she was today.
You don't get this nasty without some major trauma behind you.
Another reason that motivated me even more: If I buckled here then my friends would likewise be targeted once she was satisfied that I was not a threat. I was one of the most prominent names in our guild right now. If she could make me back down, then she would feel compelled to prove that she was superior to everyone else as well.
My guild family is worth standing up for.
Or in this case, remaining seated.
All of this was concluded in a few seconds.
I gave her a friendly smile, following up my previous comment about her eyesight...
"I can recommend a fantastic optometrist if you are interested." If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit. My cheerful, open tone seemed to disarm most of the Sabers, Minerva's brow tightened fractionally.
Back up has arrived.
The Darkness Magic trying to rile my temper suddenly vanished as a nondescript dark haired woman slid into the empty seat between myself and the Sabertooth probie and blocked line of sight. Another woman approached me, looking very smart and professional in business-like attire.
"Miss Celeste, I apologize for my tardiness. I hope I did not keep you waiting for very long...?" Not even the heavy Desier accent that Ultear was putting on could hide her smooth, practiced voice. She had spent a lot of time infiltrating high security areas and doing it in such a way that she was above suspicion.
But I could also taste that she was selling something here. A cover. A false identity. I took up those threads she had laid out, sending the threads spiraling into a familiar pattern...
What story are we telling here, Ultear?
"Not at all, Ms. Chroni. I was able to order for you as well while I waited. Shall we resume our negotiations?" And this could be a brutal follow up to my blithe obliviousness to Minerva's scheme. She was no longer important, thus she was being ignored.
Ultear, her striking magenta eyes and dark hair now black and dark blue respectively, nodded, glasses acting as a focal point in her features. She looked like a professional, and the bag she carried likewise added depth and validity to the story we were creating out of nothing but assumptions and a few words.
"That sounds delightful. Thank you for thinking of me."
Professional business meeting? Yes, but also over a meal. Addressing me formally and politely, deferring to me even. Polite smalltalk. She was the one coming to me, She was giving me power in the scenario and authority. And from the careful hidden twist to her lips and twinkle in her eye, she knew exactly what she was doing.
A meeting with an agent or editor of some kind. Foreign. Not someone Sabertooth wanted to get involved with. For all that they were the new big name inside Fiore, they didn't have many international contacts yet. If any. It was a risk, the table the Saber's had set up so carefully had been upset and a new game laid out.
Minerva will retreat until she has something to guarantee her victory.
A valid assessment.
Ultear had given me so much to work with here, I wouldn't even need to use magic to sell this in such a way that they would have to leave me alone.
"Coming out this way is the least I could do with how far you've travelled. Please, have a seat." I gestured to an open chair before I let my eyes slide back to the Sabertooth party.
"It was a singular experience to meet you all." Not a great one either. But I don't need to say that. But the dismissal was clear. And it wouldn't be defied.
You may have taken the #1 Spot in the country...But you don't have the guts to keep going right now. They had their pride, and they were right to have it. They were a very powerful guild in numbers and strength and their standards for their wizards were raising the bar for every guild in the country. But their ego and their national connections were still too new to try and cause trouble in front of a foreigner who exuded authority like Ultear was right now. Authority, but speaking to me like I mattered. Contradictory, but enough to make them pause.
My absent Fairy Tail friends would have had very mixed results in this scenario. But then again, if they were committed to talking to me, then it wouldn't have mattered if the king himself walked in to see me. They wouldn't back down until they got what they wanted and damn the consequences.
"Likewise." Minerva answered my farewell, eyes moving between me and the disguised Ultear with calculation and frustration in equal measure. "Good afternoon, ladies."
And with that she retreated. A tactical withdrawal. They didn't even pretend they were there to eat, they just walked out of the restaurant. The dark haired woman who had broken the probationary member's line of sight to me and weakened her power gave a subtle hand signal behind her back.
Meredy. I tapped the tabletop twice. Under the table, lines of runes glowed amber suddenly as my wards were up and in place before speaking.
"Would it be too corny to say you have impeccable timing?" The Arc of Time Mage smirked, hands folded neatly before her.
"I believe you said it best: A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to." The line drop from something that I had introduced to this world made me laugh. It felt like a massive relief after the frustration that the spell had been inducing in me. I glanced down at my hand, surprised to note that I was trembling slightly.
A Darkness Magic inflicted Status Effect.
You know this isn't a video game for you to just describe it like that. It was probably more that probie, now staring into her cup with obvious shame and defeat on her face, had been triggering my flight or fight response.
She was expecting you to choose 'flight' and avoid the conflict altogether. It confused her somewhat when you held your ground without losing your temper.
Ultear reached out, seemingly to adjust the table's center piece, but actually touching a finger on the back of my palm.
A soft pink mark glowed on my skin for a brief second before it faded and took the last emotional spell effects with them. Meredy's work.
"Thank you." I didn't doubt that if, on the off chance that Ultear's surrogate child and partner couldn't hear me, the woman before me would pass my gratitude along. She nodded simply, pulling out an official looking folder from her bag and sliding it across to me. We had something to discuss now that there was less chance of eavesdroppers.
"We've found more than a dozen locations." The papers that the folder contained had nothing to do with what she was talking about, they were just there for show. The folder itself contained the history I was looking for.
A series of areas in Fiore that had undergone a sudden, unexplainable blight on their flora or fauna. Aka, places where Zeref's Curse had been unleashed for some reason. I could see them burning in my minds eye on the mental map Morgana helpfully created for me. One of the papers, which was listing overland shipping routes and figures for the material needed to make and sell books, had a map attached to it.
"Do you have a timeline?"
"Approximates only."
"Anything recent?" I met her gaze and saw a flicker of frustration that she covered by her polite mask.
Guess not.
I pulled a pen out of my hair, I had gotten into the habit of storing at least one writing utensil in my hair for ease of access, and examined the map again. I let a finger tip brush one spot on the map Morgana had marked to get a read on the exact date that Zeref had passed through there...Then I wrote down the date and moved on to the next one.
Ultear might have used Arc of Time to discern a moment when the plant growth of a given area had been halted or wiped out. And she could probably tell by turning it back in a given area that it had been localized and recent enough to not be from a natural disaster. But she couldn't have an exact time...
Which is what she was bringing to me. She wanted to get an idea of where Zeref had been and if he would be revisiting any of the places he had been before.
I was frowning slightly by the time I finished. A server was waiting a polite distance away with drinks and food. I lowered the runes with three taps and she came forward. The polite pleasantries passed in a blur as I digested what I had read and what it meant.
Once we were behind protections again.
"Zeref has not been to any of those locations for more than 20 years." I tapped one spot. "He spent a significant amount of time up here-." The cursed area here had been smaller. "-on the edge of the Nirvit's territory. That is where he lived while they were working on him. After that, there is a long space of time before the next spot pops up because Nirvana was actively absorbing the Curse of Contradictions." That time in history was a vague blur still because there was still that massive secret covering how someone managed to curse a Wizard as powerful as Zeref...Because I had been able to tell that he had not invited it on himself, someone else put that on him. Something else...
"Likely Nirvana gave him a measure of peace. Since throughout all this, he didn't write any Books." The Books of Zeref. The reason his name was held in such fear and loathing even centuries after his supposed death. The lore varied with what these books actually were, whether they caused demons to be born from humans' negative emotion, or the books were demons themselves.
"About 200 years ago, the surges picked up again and happened with more frequency. The most recent, barring what you saw on Tenrou, being here." I laid the map down on the table and indicated one mark on the coast. Morgana shifted in the back of my mind and I gave her a measure of attention even as Ultear worried her lower lip with her teeth, losing a hint of her perfectly crafted cover to her anxiety.
'Gana, what is it?
That is not too far away from where...we were born.
I did remember a vague smell of the sea in those blurry memories. No name still, no faces. Not clearly.
Just that whoever Morgana had been originally, she had been happy while she was there.
But...if Zeref had passed by that place...I might want to take a look around for any curses that might be lurking there. The Curse of Contradictions was practically sentient in it's directed malice. It was meant to torture Zeref. You couldn't create a Curse like that without a lot of hatred. And that wasn't even a strong enough word for making something this powerful that had lasted, bare minimum, for centuries.
"This is probably the last spot where Zeref stood on Ishgar's ground before moving to Tenrou Island." And the fact that he had even known where the island was was something I really wanted to know and couldn't for the life of me find any reason why...
Why had he been on Tenrou? What had he been doing there?
I would have assumed the worst if I didn't still have the mental image of a young man with dark hair and eyes, and tears running down his face as his heart visibly quaked as he stared at-
A featureless expanse of grey blocked the connection of what he had been looking at.
But the grief still rocked through me as fresh as it had been when I first saw the impossible.
My magic had a habit of showing me humanity in every enemy or former enemy I had faced. From Gajeel and Juvia first, to Minerva not even a few minutes prior.
Zeref's story made him out as something between Satan and Pandora, maliciously unleashing demons and curses on the world. A monster. A devil to be feared, hated and forgotten as quickly as possible.
That kind of nightmare seemed unstoppable. Unkillable. But it took seeing a human trait to make people believe he could be one day stopped. Usually seeing them wounded or vulnerable.
And the image of Zeref with tears streaming down his face was definitely vulnerable. And not too long after that, there had been a small wash of dark magic. Something he saw had triggered his emotions...
So what was he looking at? Or was it someone he saw?
I couldn't tell and probably wouldn't be able to without walking Tenrou's grounds. Whatever had caused it, people had died for the secret and a lot of time had passed since it was even spoken of.
"Can you...and Meredy go back here?" I asked, staring at the spot where Morgana said we had been born. "Something happened here that triggered him. It was the largest surge of Black Magic in the country since the Books of Zeref were last opened. I...feel like there is something else around here. It might not be related to Zeref at all but-"
"You do not need to explain." Ultear said softly. "I know the kind of things Black Magic can work, even if it is left alone."
"I am certain that Zeref has not set foot back in Fiore since Tenrou." And that rang true in my mind. The Black Wizard was not going to be someone I ran into on the street or even through my next hermitude traipse through the woods in search of some key component or spell ingredient.
"What about Stella or Iceberg?" I shook my head, tracing the spots on the map.
"I didn't find anything on my last visits and I looked for any times his story might have intersected with those countries' histories. He seems to have spent most of the last 400 years in and around Fiore. Or if he wasn't here all the time, something kept drawing him back."
There was no real rhyme or reason to those Black Magic zones. No sense of purpose other than the one in Nirvit territory. And the only other one that resonated as odd to me was the one by the seashore. I wouldn't be able to get a more detailed read on why this was important unless I went there myself or if I got some first hand, real time reports. Or as close to that as I could manage.
"We will look into it." Ultear said, turning her attention to her food with a sigh. I glanced up at her...
"I hope you two will stick around for a bit." I said, lightening my tone and trying to deliberately lighten the mood. "6:30 is the best time around here, hands down." A tiny snort, a rueful glance.
"Is it now?"
"An argument can be made for 11:59:59." I said blandly. "Second to noon."
The snort became a tiny chuckle.
"Where do you come up with these?"
"I'll happily tell you, but it is second hand information."
Ultear's smile grew a little.
"Fae..."
"Sorry, I'm not trying to tick you off. Just make you smile." I finished this with a smile.
Puns. They were generally a terrible form of humor, but for breaking tension...I had found few methods that were nearly as effective without someone jumping on a table and starting to dance.
And now she was giggling, smiling at me warmly.
"You are incorrigible." And that tone was one I had missed. That fond amusement blended with exasperation that most of my adult friends had at one point or another directed at me.
"I thought we were in Fiore." Take that Hades, you haven't ruined her life so much that someone can't still make her smile!
And you haven't ruined my life so much that I have stopped wanting to make people smile.