Fairytale of Doom
By CrimsonStarbird
Chapter Thirty-One – Tale as Old as Time
It was not quite dawn. Overhead, lighter patches swirled within thick indigo as the morning struggled against its silky oppressor, but the night's silence still reigned over the world below.
Gloom had favoured the defenders. The curse-imbued environment around the Beast's Castle was unpredictable even to those who had maps of the old Rose Kingdom; the castle backed onto a cliff, the steep valley behind unassailable even in peacetime, while the forest guarding it from the front was wild at heart, the paths treacherous, the gates listing perilously. Though the Glass Kingdom's reinforcements, swelling the ranks of Gaston's mob until it could better be described as an army, had brought with them siege weapons, the darkness made them unwieldy. It was a risk the invading force did not need to take.
And so they had waited.
Gaston was not a patient man. As his men disassembled their camp and began mobilizing their siege engines, he paced back and forth in front of the castle's gates, cursing the tardiness of the sun.
It was fortunate for him that his chosen opponent wasn't a patient man either.
"Oi! Gaston!"
There upon the battlements, what he had taken to be just one more ugly gargoyle had shed its camouflage of shadow. A man stood tall, bolder than the watery pre-dawn light gave him any right to be, looking down at him triumphantly.
"You," Gaston snarled. "I should have known were hiding out with Belle and her kidnappers." Then he laughed. "This is perfect! Revenge upon you for interrupting my solo number in the tavern will be the perfect appetizer for reclaiming my bride and restarting my wedding!" Turning to his mob, he commanded, "At-"
"Not so fast!" Gajeel interrupted. "That's not you lookin' to hide behind yer massive army, is it? I thought you were a man!"
"Gaston's the manliest man around!" LeFou piped up, poking his head around Gaston's hulking body. "He's not afraid of a pipsqueak like you!"
"Excellent!" Gajeel laughed, pointing at Gaston with twice as much flair as Cana had managed with a genuine magic wand. "Then let him prove it! Gaston, I challenge you, man to man, just you and me! We'll settle our differences… with a sing-off!"
"…Huh?" blinked Gaston, who had been halfway through drawing his sword.
Unfazed, Gajeel continued, "If I win, you've gotta turn your army around and leave my castle alone!"
"And if I win?" Gaston challenged.
"Then I will give ya back… yer wallet," Gajeel smirked, extracting his prize from their very first encounter from his trouser pocket. Then, with a magnanimous wink, he added, "And yer pride."
A vein bulged in Gaston's forehead. "Or, I could just destroy your castle's paltry defences and take back what's mine! With this army behind me, I have no need of your pathetic singing competition!"
"Well, screw you, we're doin' it anyway!" Gajeel announced. "May the best bard win!"
He leapt back from the battlements and vanished into the interior of the castle.
A growl tore from Gaston's throat. "That beast has made off with my wallet! And he's sheltering the kidnappers of my future wife! I won't rest until his head is mounted on my wall!"
Whipping around, he drew his sword fully. The army was poised, ready for his command, as dawn pressed its curious face against the window and the serenity of night waited with bated breath for the hammer to fall.
"Light your torches!" he bellowed, and his men burst into motion. "Mount your horses! Screw your courage to the sticking place!"
"We're counting on Gaston to lead the way!" cheered LeFou.
The soldiers took up the chant as they wheeled a gigantic battering ram up to the castle gates. Those once-grand doors looked so flimsy next to that steel-helmed tree trunk, ripped from the ground by a giant and transformed into an earth-shaking weapon. "Through the mist, through the wood, where within a haunted castle, something's lurking that you don't see every day…"
"It's a beast! One as tall as a mountain," Gaston cried. "We won't rest 'til he's good and deceased!"
"Sally forth, tally ho, grab your sword, grab your bow, praise the Lord and here we go!"
(Up high in the main keep, Cogsworth was peering through an old arrow slit in the wall. "I must say, this is a decent musical number that Gaston and his chorus are putting on."
Lumière thwacked him round the head – or what passed for it, on a talking clock. "'Ow dare you? Zat's our rival in stardom you're praising!"
"You're far too into this," Cogsworth sniffed. "It's unbecoming.")
Outside, the chorus rose to a crescendo as the battering ram bore down upon the castle. "Raise the flag! Sing the song! Here we come, we're fifty strong, and fifty Frenchmen can't be wrong… let's kill the beast!"
The battering ram drew back and swung forward. The doors barely flinched.
"Kill the beast!"
Back and forward again, and this time the doors quivered.
"KILL THE-"
Thud.
A spotlight blazed into existence within the castle grounds.
Then another.
And another.
All of them were pointing towards the highest tower, where a platform was slowly ascending, shedding light and glitter in its wake.
"What the…?" Gaston muttered.
For throughout the night, when anyone else would have been drilling murder-holes above the drawbridges and stretching rugs over deadly spiked pits and preparing cauldrons of boiling tar, Lumière, Cogsworth, and the rest of the castle crew had been rigging up the set for the performance of a lifetime.
Now Gajeel stood, his snazzy white suit putting the fading stars to shame, his hands still and poised over the keys of an enormous grand piano.
And he began to play.
"Tale as old as time…"
Gaston's unintentional entry for the sing-off had been energetic and rabble-rousing; a song that a crowd could pick up and sing without realizing the dark import of the lyrics. Gajeel's was not. His rich tones carried the words most powerfully alone – and it was the words which caught and held their audience.
"True as it can be…"
Then he seemed to pause. His fingers twitched over the keys, and then descended again with new surety.
"Sometimes, in the end," he sang, "you're better off as friends, and all that that may mean."
A murmur rose from the crowd. The battering ram seemed to have paused mid-swing, gravity and momentum not running the way they ought to have done, just as the lyrics hadn't gone the way the listeners had expected.
"Just a little change," he continued, soft and yet so loud. "From the path we're on. Our future fades away, leaving me to say, where did it go wrong?"
From the top of the tallest tower, Gajeel was in plain view of the whole besieging army. And view him they did: enemy soldiers on all sides of the castle who stared, entranced, at this dazzling yet sombre contradiction; the hero of his story who sang of the side of love usually reserved for lesser mortals.
The only man who wasn't listening was the one who had written his own definition of love, and it turned the most beautiful girl in town into his trophy. There was no such thing as rejection in his world, because the target of his affection was not entitled to free will.
"What are you waiting for?" Gaston snapped at his spellbound men. "Get your crossbows! Take him down!"
Yet still the only person who moved was Gajeel, who stood as the music did, voice rising in a lament, a cry. "But love's not this prize, that one good deed will earn! The ending can't be known! Nothing's set in stone; we all must live and learn!"
It wasn't like his usual performances. There was no alcohol, no theatrics, no locking the audience in, no kidnapped Lucy forced to dance alongside him in a bunny outfit.
Instead, Fairy Tail's greatest bard simply held out the pieces of his heart for all the world to see.
And when he did, not one member of his audience was giving the castle the attention they should have been.
A tear trickled down Levy's cheek.
She couldn't wipe it away. If she bent her elbow back far enough to touch her face, she had a feeling she would become wedged in this tunnel for good. Only the knowledge that Laxus had somehow made it through ahead of her gave her the reassurance to keep dragging herself forward on her stomach through the dark.
She'd have to hope that the tear simply evaporated before she emerged into the open.
And that Gajeel's voice – which cut through the solid rock around her as easily as it did her heart – didn't elicit any more of them.
Enquiry with the talking furniture had revealed that, like all good fantasy castles, this one came equipped with multiple escape routes in the event of an attack. The Beast had had no need for an escape route in the original story – which was for the best, as there was no way his transformed self would have fit into the secret tunnel they were taking. In fairness, it wouldn't have been any of their first choices either, but it was the best plan they had given the circumstances.
As Levy reached the end of the tunnel, Cana seized one of her wrists and Juvia the other, and together they hauled her out onto the ledge. She barely had time to appreciate the vast empty space above her shoulders before Lucy pressed them down, forcing Levy to duck behind one of the boulders, which had been strategically added to the ledge by the Beast's savvy ancestors. There she remained, catching her breath.
The ledge protruded barely a couple of metres from the cliff face, and it wasn't a great deal wider. It clung to the rugged cliff in the shadow behind the Beast's Castle. Below, a slope far too steep and aggressive to climb ran down to the bottom of a valley, which might have been a lake in eons past.
The escape route down the cliff was, as a worried Cogsworth had warned them, intended as a last resort. It was impossible to climb up, but also too dangerous to climb down during a siege. Even with the abseiling equipment concealed beneath one of the fake boulders, they'd be sitting ducks as they descended the slope.
And, although the apparent impassability of the slope meant that there were far fewer soldiers at the rear of the castle than anywhere else – and fewer still since, bored by the lack of action, a good number of them had wandered round to the front in order to get a better view of the concert – there was still row upon row of gleaming armour in the valley. They hadn't noticed the Fairy Tail mages gathering stealthily on the ledge yet, but it was only a matter of time. If they tried to climb down, they'd be stuck full of crossbow bolts before they made it halfway.
That was alright. They weren't planning to climb. While the escape tunnel was far too narrow to get any kind of vehicle through, it was just about big enough to roll a pumpkin down.
Puffing and panting, the largest pumpkin they'd found in the castle's pantry popped out of the tunnel, followed by an exhausted Gray. While Cana helped him to his feet, Natsu and Laxus caught the pumpkin before it could roll too far and held it steady on the edge.
"Levy!" Cana hissed. "Let's go!"
Right. Levy drew the Fairy Godmother's wand from her belt. The tip trembled, shedding little flecks of magic like icing sugar onto the ground below.
They would only get one shot at this.
There was so much that could go wrong. Their element of surprise would burn up, and-
"Levy!" Cana insisted. The rest was said by her impatiently whirling hand.
Levy didn't move. Why had they given the magic wand to her in the first place? Good fairies couldn't cause harm, and it seemed all Levy herself had done in this world was hurt those closest to her…
On his stage at the pinnacle of the world, Gajeel launched into his second verse.
"Tale as old as time," he crooned. "Song of highs and lows…"
He sounded so calm.
So steady.
Somehow, he'd found his balance on the wreckage of their lives – no, he'd piled those fragments ever higher, building a tower to the stars.
"Bittersweet and strange, finding people change," he sang, conviction and hope and a refusal to see this ending as a tragedy. "Learning to let go…"
Levy took a deep breath.
Steadied herself amongst the ashes of her burning soul.
Then she raised her hand, and with the perfect twirl of someone who had watched Cinderella a few too many times, she whispered, "Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!"
In a halo of silver light, the pumpkin transformed into a beautiful carriage.
A beautiful carriage that was far bigger than the ledge upon which they were balanced.
Fortunately, having several members on their team who preferred to think rather than simply do for once, they were expecting this. The team leapt into action. Natsu and Laxus seized the rear wheels and hauled them as far back onto the ledge as they could. The front wheels spun in empty space, eager to hit the road. Juvia, Jellal, and Gray surged forward, grabbing hold of the wrought silver ivy that decorated the back of the carriage.
For now, their strength was more than sufficient to defy gravity's command.
Levy tried not to think about what would happen when they started populating into the carriage.
A cry rose up from the valley below. Levy's heart plummeted like the carriage was trying to. Of course the soldiers would have noticed the materialization of a giant magical carriage…
Except, they weren't looking at the ledge. They were staring right over their heads to the celestial stage, where Gajeel was standing at his grand piano. The spotlights had dimmed, but still, somehow, he was glowing, far less afraid to rise than the uncertain dawn.
"One thing is as sure, as the rising sun," he belted out gloriously. Far to the east, the sun finally broke the horizon, bathing the man at the top of the world in its rays. "You taught me how to love, and by the gods above, that won't be undone!"
So much for one secret tear in the tunnel. Levy felt them streaking down her cheeks; dropping one, two, three quiet thuds onto the stone beneath.
"Princesses, in!" Cana yelled.
The command forced her back to reality. Clutching the wand tightly, she scrambled into the carriage after Lucy, followed by Erza and Cana herself. With the added weight of four extra people, the carriage listed forward, yearning to be set loose down the slope.
Gajeel's voice soared over the castle. "So I'll raise my voice, as our story ends…"
"Dragon Slayers, in!" Cana's shout came from far closer to home.
Natsu let go first and clambered in, followed by Laxus. The Dragon Slayers had to go next; with their motion sickness, they wouldn't stand a chance unless they were safely inside the carriage when it started moving. Still, that left only Juvia, Gray, and Jellal holding back a carriage filled with people, arms straining beyond their limit.
"To wish you all the best…"
"On three," Gray ground out, and the other two didn't have the spare energy to nod.
"As you carry on life's quest…"
"One, two-"
"And I'll always be your friend!"
"Three!"
They let go. Jellal sprung forward like an uncoiling panther, reaching the open door, whereupon Laxus hauled him inside. Similarly, Gray leapt and managed to get both arms wrapped around the decorative metal ivy at the back of the carriage. Juvia stepped forward as the carriage began to roll… and then paused.
"JUVIA!" Gray screamed, detaching one hand and reaching for her as gravity wrenched the carriage away.
Juvia shook her head slowly, taking a step back.
The gentle reprise of Gajeel's chorus drifted down to them: "I wish you all the best, as you carry on life's quest… and I'll always be your friend."
Then the roar of acceleration overtook them, and Gajeel's last and greatest performance was over.
"No!" Lucy shrieked, fighting her way through the mass of bodies in the carriage, trying to reach the door. "Juvia- we can't leave her-"
Laxus seized her by the collar and pulled her back inside. "She made her choice," he snapped. "We have to go!"
Not that they could have done otherwise. They half-fell, half-slid in gravity's greedy embrace, racing down the slope faster than the wheels could turn. Every loose stone they struck pitched them into the air – and it felt like the whole cliff face was made of loose stones. The Dragon Slayers weren't the only ones groaning, as they clung to each other and to the carriage for dear life. If not for the riotous applause following the end of Gajeel's performance, there was no way the enemies wouldn't have heard their screams.
Gajeel.
"I should have stayed with him," Levy sobbed. "I should have-"
"No." It was Erza who spoke up firmly. "It is best for you not to drag it out."
"But-"
"He promised to always be your friend," Jellal added. Neither he nor Erza were looking at each other, but one thing, it seemed, remained in perfect agreement between them. "If you intend to offer him the same courtesy, then give him some space."
"But he and Juvia are facing that whole army alone…"
"We agreed that we couldn't defeat Gaston's army even with all of us together. Your presence, or lack thereof, would not affect the outcome." Jellal's words sounded harsh, but they were practical. Her head would appreciate that later, even if her heart, right now, did not. "All we can do is hope that they can hold them off long enough for us to make a difference elsewhere."
"And hope that we make it, too," Cana added, interrupting their solemn moment with a grin that bordered on maniacal. "Brace for impact!"
"Impact with what?" Levy sniffed. The scenery was nothing more than one terrifying blur passing their window, but they should have been heading towards the centre of the valley, where there was nothing around for them to hit… except for the army.
To be precise, those members of the army who had thought camping out round the impassable rear of the castle was a cushy job worth taking the worst view of Gajeel's performance for, and who now found themselves directly in the path of a speeding pumpkin-carriage packed with eight Fairy Tail mages: the very definition of out-of-control.
Soldiers flew like skittles. Tents and ballistae, fully armoured men and villagers still weeping at Gajeel's emotional performance – nothing was safe. With four princesses inside and a ball to get to, the carriage was an unstoppable force.
Their enemies weren't stopping either, though. Even with Gajeel's show having drawn much of the rear guard away, there were still countless soldiers before them. Now that they had levelled out along the floor of the valley, every man bowled away by the runaway carriage stole a little more of its momentum.
"We're losing speed, and fast!" Gray shouted, from the rear of the carriage, where he was still clinging on to the outside. "It's time for Phase 2!"
"Alright!" Cana cheered. "Classic Princesses, assemble!"
"Wait, you were serious about this?" a green-cheeked Laxus managed to utter from the floor.
Cana cleared her throat pointedly. And then, as though whatever Gajeel had was contagious, she began to sing.
"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream. I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam…"
Laxus make a choking noise that they generously decided to interpret as motion sickness.
Still, the mechanics of this world cared little for his logic. No longer was the pumpkin-turned-carriage surfing solo through a sea of enemies. As Cana sang, mice and bunny rabbits and tiny little birds flocked towards them, an escort of gentle fur and colourful feathers, the entourage of all good fairytale princesses.
"It's not enough!" Gray reported. "Keep going!"
Drawing herself up to her full height, Erza added the verse Cana had taught her in preparation. "There's something sweet, and almost kind. But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined…"
Not even Levy's own messy emotions, softened by the tears still glistening upon her cheeks, could stop her from wincing at the methodical butchering of one of her favourite songs. And she was lucky that she wasn't one of the team members currently having flashbacks to Prince Frederick's ode of love to Yanderica.
Still, perhaps the furry critters felt at home amongst Erza's wooden acting, because they kept coming, squirrels keeping pace in the trees alongside and birds fluttering through the open window. If the army had been confused by the shiny silver cannonball of a vehicle, then now they had lost all grip on reality – but soldiers standing shellshocked in the path of the carriage would still bring them to a halt eventually. To make matters worse, the foes they had scattered back along the path were starting to regroup. Soon, they would be surrounded.
"Still not enough!" Gray bellowed.
"Lucy!" Cana shouted.
"I hate being a princess!" Lucy swore. "Fine, I'll do it!"
With the expression of a woman reflected in the guillotine's gleam, she raised her head. "A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you're fast asleep. In dreams, you will lose your heartaches; whatever you wish for, you keep…"
Never had a beautiful ballad been sung with such anger. Yet if she had ever needed proof that she was a bona fide princess, like it or not, it was the woodland creatures that flocked to her resentful call. Squirrels on one side, rabbits on another, mice leading the way, and a guard of little birds swooping overhead.
"Levy, now!" Gray shouted.
"Right!" She wiped away her tears with the back of the hand still holding the Fairy Godmother's wand. Bracing herself with the other, she leaned out of the window. The wind clawed at her hair as she took careful aim with the wand.
She tried to steady herself again, as Gajeel had done, through the slipstream of their own reckless charge into the unknown. Counterintuitive though it was, seeing the fearless chaos that so often characterized Fairy Tail's adventures replicated here helped to ground her. If the world still looked upside-down, then one way or another, her life must have been the right way up.
"Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!"
Her aim was true. A beam of light shot forth and engulfed the swarm of mice accompanying the carriage. Then they weren't mice any more, but a legion of horses, all suddenly harnessed to the vehicle without breaking stride. They embraced their equine forms with relish. Once again, the passengers were thrown to the back of the carriage as they accelerated at a frankly alarming pace.
"Al-right!" Cana crowed.
"I hate that that worked," Lucy muttered.
Cana gave her an impish grin. "Looks like you're going to the ball after all, Cinders."
This only made Lucy's scowl deepen. "How come Levy didn't have to sing, anyway?"
"Because she's Mulan. We were trying to summon mice, not Huns. Besides, would you rather be stuck back there? Gajeel's probably doing an encore of Best Friend right now. Be glad you're out of hearing range."
It had been intended as a joke to lighten the situation, but Levy couldn't bring herself to laugh. She glanced over her shoulder. With the enchanted horses in the driving seat, they were rapidly drawing away from Gaston's army. They wouldn't be caught, now… but they also couldn't go back.
Bathed in morning sunlight, the distant shape of the castle was looking more and more like the final page of a storybook.
The closing of a chapter.
The ending of an era.
"Please be okay, Juvia, Gajeel," she murmured.
It was so… quiet.
That was what happened when all the other Fairy Tail mages departed from a place, Gajeel supposed. Most of the staff and servants had evacuated – and those who hadn't could turn into literal statues just by standing still. The air was drawn as tense as a drumskin, ready for the first blow to fall. Not even a Dragon Slayer could pick up any signs of life.
Only his own heartbeat.
Bruised, battered, but beating until the very end.
Gajeel didn't like the silence. It made him want to snatch up his guitar and fill the world with the sounds of home… but he resisted. He'd just given the performance of his life. That was how he wanted to be remembered.
Wham!
Something struck the far side of the great double doors.
They were here.
So, Gaston was refusing to honour the clear result of the sing-off, and had recommenced his assault upon the castle. The scoundrel.
Well, not that Gajeel could complain. He'd probably have done the same.
…No, that wasn't true. Gajeel had let the woman he loved go. He and this villain couldn't have been more different.
Wham!
The doors bowed, but held.
Gajeel glanced at the sword in his hand. It was the best he'd been able to find in the Beast's armoury, though it was a far cry from his Iron Dragon's Sword. For all the good it would do against an entire army, he might as well use it as a snack.
He could extol the virtues of music as much as he liked, but in the end, it would always come down to this: a tired man, a borrowed sword, and nothing but a splintering door between him and a thousand sharpened stakes.
Alone at the death.
Wham!
He wasn't sad. How could he be, when the others had got away safely because of him? Besides, he'd already defeated his member of the Spriggan Twelve back home. He'd done his bit. Once the others got back – which they would – it would be their turn to finish the job and save the guild.
He wished he had got to see their victory for himself. But he still believed in it after everything else he believed in had been taken away, and that would have to be enough.
Then it wasn't silent any more. There were footsteps – not from the valiant doors, but from behind him.
He whirled, sword raised. He had assumed the battering ram had been the biggest threat, but if they had managed to break into the castle elsewhere…
No. That was no enemy. He knew those footsteps like he knew Metalicana's wingbeats or Pantherlily's snores: steps that bounded through puddles as raindrops splattered all around. Though her shout was silent, she'd called out to him enough times – in anger, in annoyance, in encouragement, in trust – for him to hear it in his heart. Gajeel!
"Juvia!" he exclaimed. "What're you doin' here?"
She said nothing, only raised a battle-axe she had lifted from the armoury on the way past and pointed towards the doors.
"You idiot!" he fumed. "You should've escaped with the others! What's the point in both of us dyin' here?"
The only answer was a touch of her hand to his shoulder.
The point was that the castle was no longer silent, empty.
The point was that he was no longer waiting for death alone.
The point was that he'd given away his love, given up the proof of his redemption, stepped back and let the guild go on without him, and there was still someone willing to stand by him, even as the gates of hell opened.
His shoulders slumped. "Thanks for stayin' with me, Juve."
Her smile was the brush of a wave upon sun-kissed sands: gentle, serene, complete.
"I mean it," he added. "Not just at the end. You've always been there. Through dark and light, loneliness and redemption, happiness and heartbreak. You saw the worst parts of me, and still chose to stay. You… saw good in me long before anyone else did."
A friendship that had never been conditional on him joining Fairy Tail, on him constantly working to put the past behind him, on redemption.
A friend who had never held the fact that he'd walked the wrong path against him, because she knew how easy it was to make mistakes; a friend that took the wallet thief and the rude houseguest and the banter and the not-so-legendary bard along with the self-sacrificing hero.
A friend who had picked him up when he was down, despite her own broken heart, despite the fact that he had never stopped to ask if she was okay, despite the very self-centeredness that had led to the ending of his own relationship. Through trials and heartache, she'd still come back – and he knew, in that moment, that she always would.
Every setback each of them suffered only made their friendship stronger. Neither of them needed the love of a prince or princess to prove that they were good people. They'd hold each other accountable; keep each other on the straight and narrow.
Wham!
Daylight punched through the doors. Gajeel could see the battering ram, now, as it drew back for one final strike.
"This is gonna sound stupid," he started. "And if you get yer voice back, you ain't never allowed to repeat it to anyone… but friends forever, yeah?"
Juvia beamed as she nodded.
Wham!
Gajeel raised his sword. Juvia hefted her battle-axe. They stood side by side as the doors caved in. They'd survived Phantom Lord; they'd faced up to their sins; they'd got through Tartaros and helped win the Grand Magic Games and defeated members of the Spriggan Twelve; they'd lived through love and longing and heartbreak and come out even stronger.
And in that moment, when they stood together, outnumbered a thousand to one and with no miracles left to save them, it seemed like the two best friends could even get through this.
"CHARGE!" Gaston bellowed.
And he did just that, bursting through the doors with the soldiers at his heels… into a hall that was somehow, inexplicably, empty.
A/N: Is this the most ridiculous thing I've ever written? It's definitely a contender. Yes, I was having SO much fun writing this, why do you ask? Tune in again next week as our runaway princess finally makes it to the ball! ~CS
