Fairytale of Doom

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Thirty-Nine – And the World is Somehow Shifted

Of course, Gray had not really run away.

It wasn't in his nature to flee from a fight, and besides, if Cana honestly thought he would leave her to suffer, then she didn't know him at all. Especially not when it was his fault that Ursula had been able to ambush them. He had not picked a very appropriate time or place to start questioning the meaning of love.

No, he wasn't the kind of man who would run away like that.

He kind of wished he was, though.

That way, he wouldn't be going through the hell he was right now.

The thing was, he was an ice mage. He knew water. He knew the way it shimmered on the surface of his ice creations; he knew the way it ran slower and slower and then became crystal in his hand. Even now that he stood at the peak of his craft, he could still marvel at how something so fluid and free could become strong and rigid under his command.

This… was not water.

Or, at least, it did not have a high enough percentage content of pure water to be described as a waterway. Ursula was wrong, and Cana was right. In a medieval castle like this, he wouldn't be surprised if the aristocrats' restrooms, the kitchen waste chutes, and even the stables emptied into the underground canal… which was not a thought he particularly wanted to have as he was swimming through it.

The important thing was that Gray Fullbuster was a fairytale hero. He just didn't want anyone looking too closely at the nature of his heroics.

But Ursula had seen him flee on land, and would no doubt be expecting him to return that way, because no one in their right mind would jump willingly into that filth. Fortunately, sanity was not a quality that Fairy Tail mages were known for. There was enough water to be buoyant, which was good as long as he didn't look too closely at the things that were floating along with him. Long strokes cut him a path beneath a surface too thick with grime to ripple at his passing. Closer, closer…

He sensed more than saw a tentacle twitch within inches of him, and he made his move. Like a hungry shark after a mouthful of giant octopus, he seized her tentacle and used it as a springboard, lunging from the water and latching onto her back. Startled, she tried to swipe at him, but he grabbed another tentacle and wrapped it around her own neck like a noose, pulling with all his might against her strength.

Ursula spluttered. Another tentacle landed a solid blow on his side, knocking the breath out of him. She took the chance to rip him from her back and fling him away. Luckily, he flew in the direction of the walkway – or perhaps not luckily, as the stone showed none of the mercy that the filthy water might have done as he came to a painful halt.

Cana's shout of warning cut through his daze. He rolled aside as a tentacle cracked the ground where he had been. Throwing caution to the wind, he flung himself out into the void again and slammed his elbow into the tentacle holding Cana.

The whole limb gave an involuntary spasm. He heard Cana's cry as she was released, falling fortunately onto the stone path rather than the waterway. Luck was still not on Gray's side, however. He slipped straight back into the water – the water that was filled with dirt and grime and thrashing tentacles.

Virtually blind, he lashed out at everything that moved. There was no up and down, only pummelling on all sides. If only he could have made himself an ice blade – but he had nothing but his fists and feet, and they moved too clumsily through the swamp-like water. Ursula had no magic either, no giant size or storm-summoning trident, but this was still her territory and he couldn't even breathe…

A force seized his ankle and wrenched him upwards. He broke through the surface and gulped down air, too focussed on his roiling stomach and jerking lungs to care that he was upside down.

There was a crazed look in Ursula's eyes, matching the foam that writhed around her limbs. "It's because of your meddling that I wasn't able to claim the Blessing of the Fairies that fell into my lap. It's your fault that I had to throw my lot in with those other villains!"

"Maybe you shouldn't have tried to steal magic from other people in the first place," Gray wheezed.

"Gray!" Cana shouted. "What's the plan?"

There was a pause.

"You do have a plan, right?" she demanded. "Tell me you didn't just run back here to lose in a mud-wrestling match with Ursula!"

"Of course I have a plan," he muttered, thinking fast. All the blood rushing to his head seemed to be muddying his thoughts. "It's, uh… that if Ursula wants to take Fairy Glitter from you so much, why don't you show her how it's supposed to be used?"

"I don't have it any more!" she yelled back, waving her bare arm above her head. "Zeref pulled it out of me when he was trying to reunite Fairy Heart, and then the villains took all our stuff to power their Magic Mirror, remember?"

"I don't think that matters," he grunted, with effort. "Fairy Glitter isn't a shield or sword – something that anyone can pick up and use. Laxus learnt Fairy Law by memorizing how his grandfather did it; there are books in the basement explaining how to cast Fairy Sphere. But you're the only person in the whole universe with the ability to use Fairy Glitter."

He was warming to his last-ditch theory now, talking himself into it with every word. "Bluenote couldn't just learn it – he had to try and take it from you by force. You alone have earnt it. It is yours. It is not just a spell: it is the shape of your courage and your heart."

It had taken courage, he supposed, for him to throw himself at Ursula with no plan beyond an unpleasant skinny dip. But it took an entirely different kind of courage for Cana to be open and honest about her feelings without any expectation that they would be returned, or any certainty that this was the fairytale-endorsed route to her happy ending. Gray could fight frightening opponents; he'd done it many times before. He couldn't even imagine himself doing that.

It took so much heart to face the world like she did. She embraced everything that came her way, be it a princess dress, a tavern full of gambling thugs, or the Fairy Godmother's wand. She was the only one of their number who had been optimistic about the prospect of finding true love here. When the role of Fairy Godmother had come up for grabs, she had seized it; when he had needed to get his feelings about Juvia straight, she had become the wise mentor… and through it all, she had never stopped being someone whose ease and laughter brightened any journey.

And she did it in defiance of personal circumstances that would have left anyone else burdened and depressed.

She'd lived in the shadow of her absent father; she'd failed the S-Class Trials so many times that she no longer had any faith in herself; she'd had no luck in love, meeting useless guy after useless guy while her uncooperative heart remained set on a man who hadn't even noticed, and yet… Cana loved life. She tackled the challenges it threw her way with a smile.

While he took his pain and sealed it behind gloom and ice and a lack of emotional expression, she held herself up to the light and marvelled at the little rays of laughter and joy that filtered through. She was always the first to the party, and she'd never let it end while someone else needed that escape.

It was a kind of courage that he couldn't comprehend.

But one that he needed in his life.

He hadn't done enough, when they'd met the fake Juvia and Cana had doubted her own relevance. Maybe it was just so obvious to him that he couldn't understand why she couldn't see it. At least now, he had one last chance to tell her that he believed in her.

"Both of those things are still with you," he added. He'd never been good with words, but those he did speak, he truly meant. "Therefore, so is your power. On Tenrou, that spell was the First Master's belief in you. Now, let it be mine."

Cana folded her arms. "Well, that's great, except I don't have any magic. None of us do here."

"Fairy Heart created this world. Mavis's magic will answer you, if you have faith."

"Says who?"

"Can you not just tr-"

A tentacle struck him across his bare chest.

With the dangling weight of his head and arms, his muscles couldn't even contract. Helpless agony streaked across his torso.

"Enough of that," Ursula chided. "There will be no happy ending for you two fools."

"Like hell that's any of your business," Gray spat. With the last of his strength, he swung himself upwards and locked both hands around Ursula's tentacle. He had the hands of an artisan, dextrous and strong.

She shrieked and released his ankle. He had been prepared for the weight to fall upon his hands – but not for how weak he was, or how unresponsive his body.

His grip failed. He fell.

This time, he didn't even make it to the water. Ursula's next blow catapulted him over the surface and straight into the tunnel wall head-first.

He didn't remember the impact, or the fall, or closing his eyes, or reopening them. Had he even reopened them? He thought he had, but the blotchy darkness that covered most of the world wasn't going away. Someone was whispering, their words drowned by the buzzing in his ears.

There wasn't time for this. He was in danger. Cana. Ursula. Why wasn't his body responding? He was moving his arms, right? Why couldn't he feel anything?

Desperate now, he sent those familiar commands to his hands: a shield, a spear, an igloo, anything. But there was nothing. Nothing except pain, as Ursula smashed him into the ground once again.

His vision fled as his head smacked back against the wall. He felt so unexpectedly fragile. One mantra repeated over and over in his mind: don't be concussed, please don't be concussed… Was the fact that he was asking the question proof that he wasn't, or was his inability to think of anything else proof that he was? The only answer was another strike, slapping any remaining common sense right out of him.

"Accept your ending already!" the sea-witch hissed.

Then there was light.

It cut through his sagging eyelids, parted the fog around his brain like a misty mountain sunrise on fast forward.

"That is enough!" Cana shouted. She flung herself into the void like a bright pink comet, her right arm blazing as gold as Princess Aurora's hair. Unlike Lucy, who had never managed to shake her regal upbringing, or Erza, who would always be a warrior no matter how pretty a dress she donned, Cana was the best of both worlds: someone with the enthusiasm to accept them both and the open-mindedness not to see them as contradictory.

It was little wonder that not even this twisted tale could take the magic of her heart from her. No matter which life was thrust upon her, she made it her own.

The power of the fairies sang. A column of light intense enough to erase the façade of reality descended from the portal she opened. Caught within it, Ursula gave the horrific cry of a denizen of the abyss exposed to sunlight for the first time.

She burned. Cruel dreams disintegrated in the light, until they were nothing more than dust on the wind.

The light flickered out. The frozen scene launched back into motion, starting with a thundercrack of sound and a tidal wave rolling out from the point of impact. Water – if one could call it that – sloshed around Gray's legs where he was slumped against the wall.

He didn't care. Cana had done it. She had shown the power she held inside her – the power that Ursula-as-Juvia had tried and failed to convince her that she didn't deserve.

It was a shame, he thought, that all those who had watched her fail to win that exact same victory against Bluenote back on Tenrou hadn't seen it… but he had. And he wouldn't let her forget it.

As much as he might want to forget his own role in it, he reflected wryly, as he watched Cana pick her way distastefully along the newly reflooded walkway towards him. Her high heels sure were coming in handy. It was almost enough to make him wish he had some, not that it would have made much of a difference by this point. He didn't think he would ever feel clean again.

Cana gave him a crooked smile. "Nice rescue."

He harrumphed. It probably didn't sound as dignified as he'd hoped.

"Still," she added, the texture of her voice changing a little, softer, smooth as a good sipping rum, "your poorly executed plan aside, I'm flattered. You actually jumped into a sewer for me."

"Yeah, well… you'd do the same for me."

She snorted. "No, I wouldn't."

"Sure you would! …Right?"

"Nope. I like you, but not that much. It's grossing me out just thinking about it. Next time we get ambushed by an enemy, either we fight them on land or you're on your own."

They stared at each other: Cana, who knew the strengths, weaknesses, and exact limitations of her heart, and was comfortable with them; and Gray, who had struggled to understand the surety of her feelings even before he had taken multiple blows to the head.

He gave up with a sigh. "Well, at least I wasn't wearing any clothes that might have been ruined."

"Yes, the single well-thought-out part of your plan," she grinned. "And after all that, I still ended up saving myself. Lucy will be so jealous."

"Well… that's kind of the point. Not about annoying Lucy," he amended hastily, "but about you not needing anyone else."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He let his head fall back against the wall – more gently, this time, though by this point it probably didn't matter. "I think I've always felt that way. Not that you're someone I don't worry about, but that you're someone I don't need to worry about, because you can look after yourself better than anyone else I know."

"…Is this the concussion talking? You haven't forgotten that Erza and Natsu are also 'people you know', right?"

"There's more to life than just battles, Cana," he sighed. "When Erza joined the guild… I wasn't drawn to her because she was shiny or new or exciting. It was because she had no one. She knew nothing about guilds, and even less about cooking or shopping or living; she pushed away everyone who might have helped. She was always so desperately, terrifyingly alone. She needed someone to reach out to her."

Cana's expression was strangely imperturbable. It was hard, when she was sober. At least drunk Cana was expressive, if not honest.

Idly, she remarked, "You didn't reach out to her. You picked a fight with her."

"Erza, Natsu, Juvia… that's pretty much how all my friendships start," he dismissed.

The words except ours seemed to hang unsaid between them. They had met already in sync, and drifted apart with an equal lack of fanfare.

He explained, "Some part of me thought that Erza needed me. And that same part knew that you didn't. You loved annoying Laxus, finding some kind of affection in his irritation; you had friends at that ballet school in town; Gramps and the others were always eager for your divination magic; and you had good relationships with so many clients, because no one wants to hire a ten-year-old to fight monsters for them, but your skills with reading cards and reading people won you so many repeat customers. There were a lot of people who cared for you, and none for Erza, not until she learnt to stop shutting them out so vehemently. I thought you'd be fine. Nothing ever seemed to weigh you down. You could handle everything, and Erza couldn't."

He shifted optimistically against the wall, but decided he was not up to standing yet. Besides, the still-submerged parts of him found the alternative too chilly. On one hand, he'd picked a terrible place for a heartfelt conversation… on the other, the environment and his own head injuries meant he had no easy way out once he had started, which was probably for the best.

"I was an idiot," he admitted. "Because no one can be that strong. Everyone needs someone else to rely on, to be there for them and them alone from time to time. But I completely missed how much the matter of your father and the S-Class Trials was dragging you down. We were all fortunate that Lucy was far more perceptive than me, and stood by you. Still, when all was said and done, Cana, it was you who faced your demons and opened up to your father. You dealt with it yourself, with that resilience that so many overlook. And they won't overlook it any more, because that is the fuel that feeds Fairy Glitter – and we're not always great in this guild at talking about our feelings, but we all speak the language of magic and ultimate destruction.

"So," he concluded, "That's why I jumped into the sewer without a plan. I knew that if I could just remind you of the inner strength you'd forgotten – just as Lucy and the First Master did on Tenrou – you would save yourself. Life has never frightened you, Cana. You are far too bold and bright for it to get you down."

"That's…" she started, and then stopped. "That's the soppiest thing you've ever said."

"Just paying you back for earlier, O wise Fairy Godmother," he smirked, surprised to find that he didn't feel embarrassed.

"I think you'll find that my speech had a lot more panache."

"And a lot less… sewage," he agreed diplomatically.

"Hmm… alright, once we're home, I'll buy you a drink. Then we'll be even."

"…Sure." He wasn't about to turn that down. Cana bought other people drinks once in a blue moon. She'd usually drunk them herself before she made it back to the table.

That was what he liked about her, though. There was no posturing, the way there sometimes was around competitive Natsu and stoic Erza. Cana always laughed with him, not at him.

They weren't a perfect team. They weren't smoothly in sync, like they used to be. The more they'd grown up, the more complex life had become. But they were still in it together, after all this time, and he never wanted that to change.

"Not just a drink, though," he added.

"…I'm sorry, but I don't think your sewer-diving was impressive enough to warrant two free drinks," she told him suspiciously.

"No, not that. I mean… I want to try this. You and me."

Because, honestly, he had no idea if they were a perfect match or this was his pre-determined happy ending. He didn't think that Cana did, either. If she had, she wouldn't have gone on all those dates or wholeheartedly believed she could have found love elsewhere.

But there was no objectively right or wrong way of doing this. They could only act on how they felt, and what they wanted.

And now that he finally had the power to choose his own future, he wanted to go on more adventures with her and only her.

He wanted her to share in his achievements and laugh with him through his mistakes, so they wouldn't stay hidden inside where they could fester.

He wanted that laid-back attitude that counterbalanced his own so well; someone who could tease a smile from him without making light of his melancholy moods, because she could understand them without bowing to them, having already beaten her own.

He wanted to watch princess movies with her without feeling guilty for liking them – and then go knocking back cocktails with her at a bar afterwards, without feeling guilty for that, either.

He wanted to be able to love life like she did.

He thought he might be able to do that, if she were part of it.

Cana sniggered. "Such a romantic way of putting it."

"I notice that's not a 'no'," he replied coolly.

"It wasn't a no," she confirmed.

No, it wasn't particularly romantic. Honestly, though, after years of having Juvia's unwanted romance shoved in his face, he thought he could do with taking a step back and working out his own way of doing things. There wasn't only one way of falling in love. Juvia's way hadn't worked for him – or for her, in the end. Maybe this would suit him better: a gentle sun thawing the last snows of winter. Snowdrops quietly sprouting, dewdrops capturing rainbows at the tip of a melting icicle, until he blinked and suddenly it was spring, the frozen world once more suffused with life.

Maybe it would happen. Maybe it wouldn't. There was only one way to find out, and for once in his life he was going to take a leaf out of Cana's book, and seize the opportunity in front of him with both hands.

Of course, saying it was one thing. Doing it was another entirely. How did one start a relationship when it wasn't moon-struck head-over-heels divinely preordained love at first sight?

At least, with Cana, he knew he could always just ask. "So… what do we do now, exactly?"

"That's the beauty of it," she shrugged. "We can do whatever we want. Fast, slow, taking each day as it comes… we're not a fairytale prince and princess, expected to have everything sewn up with a nice little wedding before the end credits. We've got time to figure it out." Then she snorted. "Honestly, I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to know exactly what they want from a relationship at our age."

It would be odd, he thought, being with someone who wasn't throwing herself at him at every opportunity. Not that he could blame her – the smell would have put even Juvia off right now.

Still, it was… freeing. Knowing that she was comfortably her own person, with her own goals and interests, so he didn't have to be her everything. He couldn't get things wrong with Cana, not while they were both learning. When everything else was falling apart, with the war and END and Natsu risking all their lives to save Zeref, he knew he would be able to rely on her.

"A movie night," he blurted out.

"I'm sorry?"

"That's what I want. When we're back, and this stupid war is behind us. Let's have a movie night, just like we used to. That… that can be step one."

"Sounds good to me," she grinned. "I'll bring Frozen."

"And some frozen cocktails, I hope."

"Now you're talking!"

Something to look forward to. One bright, calm, cheerful, meaningful, but also entirely low-pressure moment at the end of the war.

Peace was good, of course, and he wanted his guild to be free from the threat of Zeref and Alvarez… but they were such great, intangible things, beyond the reach of one mere ice mage. This, though? This little moment, just for them? That was something real.

"That's a promise," he murmured.

"Shall we go?" she asked, holding out her hand to him, and he knew she wasn't just talking about leaving the sewer.

He took her hand, and the future it offered. "Yeah."

He was going to survive the Alvarez War. No more self-sacrifices, not even to defeat Zeref. He was going to reach his future and discover what awaited him and Cana there. Maybe it wouldn't be perfect, or work out long-term… but finding out would be half the fun. He'd fight for that opportunity with all the strength he had.

It had been so long since he'd looked at the future with anything other than resignation. He didn't know how to express this new, strange anticipation.

That was alright, though. Cana understood.

For far too long, she had thought of herself as everyone's second choice. Now, as Gray's future opened before him, she was the first choice he had made for himself in a very long time.