Chapter 115:
Laxus didn't sleep. He wasn't sure he could have if he'd tried. He'd just stood transfixed by the storm. He was glutted, full to brimming and stepping carefully so as to not spill over his edges, and yet each flash in the sky had him enrapt with wonder. The others moved around him, taking light steps, as if being spotted by him would cause them to be struck themselves. All except for Irena who asked him if he was still bleeding, if he was hurt, did he need anything?
He smiled at her, half blitzed out of his mind from the energy snapping all around him, inside of him, through every electrified fiber of him, "I'm fine. Thank you."
Did he sound strange? All he could hear was thunder rolling around him and Irena barely hid her nervousness beneath her smile. Not that it mattered. Laxus could feel her energy, buzzing and fitful, and he felt everyone else's as well. All of them buzzing. All of them keeping their distance. All of them afraid.
His eye throbbed.
The sun had just begun to alight the mountaintops when he felt Rut's approach. Erandi peeked at him, half-tucked behind the massive chameleon who somehow seemed larger. Rut crossed his arms and sniffed the air near him, gave him an intimidating look over.
"What is it?" Laxus asked.
"The small one thinksss you're a god." Rut said, still examining him in his animalistic way.
"I feel like one." Laxus said.
His presence was snapped so wide still. He could feel the movement of living things around him, each caress of leaves against the humid sky, the singing of the old forest always there and always on a frequency he couldn't hear. Like one of those leaves, his pores were open and soaking up the world around him. Is this what Gajeel felt when he was out in nature? Is this what he was so obsessed with? This simplicity? This overwhelming everything? Was this what it was like to eat iron pulled from a rust-colored mountainside? He wished he could be on the back of a dragon.
His eye throbbed.
"You're wearing your hair like this, now?" Irena was saying, "You'll need to take care of it. Drugstore shampoo isn't going to cut it."
"You and I view hair differently, darling." Davian replied.
Laxus blinked and looked over at them. Irena's frown was evident, her brow furrowed and arms crossed as she watched Davian pensively. Rameses was laying at her feet, dark eyes surveying the forest. Laxus wondered if the dog was ever not working.
Davian was wrapping himself up in something, some sort of shift. The fabric was navy and black hued, embellished in shimmering silver. He twisted it one way and then another, then dropped half of it and started over. Irena was holding a pin in her hand, a large silver circle that was decorated with jade flowers. Blue and silver... that was new.
Rut's growl shivered the air, "Like a child."
"It's been a few years," Davian snapped back, "And what do you wear? A cloth?"
Rut bared his teeth, "Whatever I want."
"Well, I don't have that luxury, do I?"
Rut glanced to Laxus like he might understand, "It wantsss to be a priest but doesssn't know how to wear the cloth."
"You should help him," Laxus said. His eye throbbed.
The chameleon sighed like it was some massive request. He slouched over in a huff, his tail thrashing to the side as he went and nearly knocking Erandi over in the process. The boy staggered and flailed out a hand that Laxus caught so he wouldn't fall. It was a shock. For a second, Laxus felt like he could taste the terror and shame from him, and suddenly the boy snatched his hand back. Laxus blinked through the lightheadedness. Erandi's hands were clutched together and he shrank back, eyes wide, speaking quickly as he did. It wasn't hard to figure out what he was saying.
"T's fine..." Laxus said. He hesitated a second, and then reached out and ruffled his hair. "You didn't mean it. It's fine."
Erandi froze at first and then relaxed. He melted like a terrified kitten being shown affection for the first time and had just realized that the hands that held it meant no harm. The tiniest smile pulled at the corner of his mouth and he straightened. Laxus crossed his arms, then, satisfied in the hope that maybe now the boy wouldn't be so afraid any longer. He watched for a moment as Rut showed Irena how to wrap the cloth, where to pin it, and how the folds should lay over Davian's shoulder, when he felt a tug at his shirt. He glanced back to Erandi who seemed to have realized that he now had Laxus's attention and didn't know what to do with it. He made a motion with his hands, pointing to the sky and back to him, and Laxus just gave him a blank stare in return. The boy made a huffand then tried again, this time making little explosion sounds when he motioned to the sky.
Laxus glanced up to the sky and back down again, "Ahh... this?"
He held out his hand and summoned his magic. A sphere formed. Tendrils of electricity sparked and jumped off of it, between his skin and the sphere. The boy's eyes widened in awe. He smiled and held out his hand to touch it, only to be shocked once he got close and jump back. Laxus chuckled and closed his fist, smothering it. Erandi's face fell.
His eye throbbed.
He took in a breath, gathered the energy in the air. An enormous power carefully contained. Like a giant whispering, Laxus cupped his hands to his face and breathed something into life. Into life. Perhaps it was alive in the same way an echo was. The spark of electricity took shape, four limbs and a serpentine neck, two wings, and it flitted around the two of them with a frantic and frenetic spirit. Erandi's eyes lit up and he grinned, spinning around in order to keep sight of the tiny dragon as it danced around him and up above the tree line before disappearing in a crackling snap. The boy grinned widely.
"Erandi, you should change as well," Davian said, watching carefully from where he stood, arms outstretched as Rut finished his work. He nodded towards the camels, "Vestigre."
Erandi, remembering himself, schooled his excitement and clasped his hands together in a way Laxus had seen Davian do before. He bowed slightly and muttered a word he took to mean thank you.
His eye throbbed and he instinctually pressed his palm to it and rubbed it. The pressure eased some of the pain.
He couldn't stay like this. He was too open. Too big. Even now, hours after he'd eaten so much lightning, his vision continued to shift from his own to that of the spectrum, everything arcing with its own individual color and beating with life. Like stars waiting for him to outstretch his hand to touch, he felt them brush against him and it made his own hum. He needed to bring himself back down from this height but was a bit at a loss as to how.
Gajeel would do this sometimes, wouldn't he? He'd taken him to a clearing, once, when things had been too much while he was sitting in the guild. What an eternity ago, that was. The sun's light had been speckled across the ground then, too. Gajeel often searched out the quiet, and even Natsu occasionally would take to himself when things became too much. Was this what this was? Had he finally reached his pinnacle? He highly doubted it.
"You going to be a minute?" Laxus asked everyone and no one at the same time. He felt the energy shift around him. His power rippled over everything and back again, magic as alive as he was breathing. "I need... to do something."
"Everything alright, love?" Irena asked.
"My eye hurts." he said, "I'm going to find someplace quiet."
"Your eye hurts?" Davian asked. "In what way?"
Laxus sighed and turned his back to them, "I'll be back."
He stepped off the trail and ignored the calls not to go far. Rut would find him if he went too far, he was certain.
A line of ants marched up a tree, carrying flashes of green away to a nest he couldn't see. The birds screamed their songs and he felt where they went, flitting to and from branches, huddling together, finding food. Monkeys raced overhead, causing a raucous as he went by, warning each other of the intruder that might cause them harm. He stepped through encroaching branches and a group of butterflies startled from where they'd been puddling on the ground. He kept walking, eyes catching things they normally wouldn't. But when you feel so much, it's equally hard to miss and also easy to be overwhelmed by it all. He'd felt this way before. Gajeel had shown him how to cope. He just needed a quiet place.
There was a stone surrounded by stones, the remnants of something that had long fallen apart. He walked up to it, stared at it. Lightning consumed his body and he alighted on top, taking a moment to turn and look around him before crossing his legs and settling down on top of it.
His eye throbbed.
They'd sparred. They'd barely been able to stand each other and yet Gajeel had seen him struggling and taken him to a place of refuge to help him. He'd been injured, by Laxus no less, and for the first time he'd been able to peek beneath the man that presented himself to Fairy Tail and see what was underneath. Just like he had done so long ago, Laxus closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. In a soft voice Laxus hadn't yet grown to love, he'd said Look at me.
This time, Gajeel wasn't here. It was only him.
He straightened his spine and opened his eyes. He felt his own breath, the deepness of it and how his magic beat the world around him in time like the waves of the ocean pounding the sand. White hands gripped everything, dragging some of it back to him, pushing some out, and the things that scurried beneath it were blanketed by tide. He felt the muscles of his shoulders, his back, how they coiled and released, and let them rest, pulling his head back to feel the sun against his skin.
He breathed in, and his magic breathed out, and his eye throbbed a little less harshly.
Ahh he knew this. He was a kid again, regaining control of too much power for his small body to manage. His magic was so large and he had to find a way to make it all fit inside him.
Gajeel's eyes had darkened in the clearing. He hadn't told him what Laxus had done to him. He hadn't said that the reason he was losing sleep was because of Laxus's uncontrolled violence, the power that was too much, the rage and need that bloomed and blotted out his reason. He'd let Laxus get angry, he'd let him threaten him, and still kept his lips firmly shut. Because you don't need to know.
But he did, didn't he? He couldn't fix something he didn't know was broken. He couldn't solve a problem he didn't know was there. How was he supposed to understand if he didn't know? He needed to know more and Gajeel was still refusing to tell him.
A pang lanced through his chest and his eye throbbed gently.
Gajeel was still keeping secrets, still hiding things. He'd never spoken to him about Kahli, a dark stain on so many things now. Even after that day in the safe house when Davian had mentioned him, Gajeel never brought him up after that. When they'd gone to Edelweiss, he'd snuck out to see Hajime and never told him, and even Hajime had only made one mistake to allude to the happening. If Davian had never come to their house that day, Laxus never would have known. And the recording lacrima...
He took a deep breath in and tried to push the thoughts to the side but they continued to simmer there, below the surface.
Gajeel was keeping secrets. What seemed ages ago now, Laxus had told him that would be fine as long as he asked for help when it became too much, but he never did. Even when he was taken to prison, he refused Gramps' aid. Who knows what he could have done to sway the Magic Council. He had friends in high places, after all.
A dark thing spread across his chest as he tried to turn his mind to something else. It settled there at his sternum, eating quietly at him.
How many times had Laxus asked about that day and Gajeel refused to speak on it? He never actually said what had happened. It was just vagaries. He never even admitted to Laxus that he had been raped, although he knew it was naïve not to assume. The fact that Davian wanted to know exactly what had occurred bothered him. If it had been a ritual, if Gajeel had bartered his life for revenge... well that would be important, wouldn't it? Just like Kahli waiting in the darkness, the cold staring eye of his camera on him without his knowledge, and Hajime helping when there were things that would kill you for getting too close, and the recording lacrima with the evidence of what happened that day still on it... it was important and Gajeel was hiding it.
Because you don't need to know.
He heard a noise and opened his eyes, startled. Rut was stepping into the clearing. His energy brushed quietly against Laxus's edges like a crocodile slipping smoothly into a river. His was quiet violence and a façade of docility. He crossed his arms as he stared up at him, his yellow eyes catching the light like polished coins. The lizardman took a cautious step towards him and turned to look over his shoulder. Davian appeared shortly after, his feathers out and long and his hair braided into them. It was at that point that Laxus realized he had far more scars than he'd previously thought. They covered his legs, now that he could see; the cloth he was wearing ending nearly his middle thigh. His right arm was now adorned down to his wrist.
Too late, Laxus realized he had made little progress at all in getting himself to a less domineering state. He made no move to speak, just sort of stared down at them and processed their existence. His eye throbbed. He winced.
"How are you feeling?" Davian asked bluntly, one black-claw-tipped hand resting lithely on his waist, "You still look... different."
Laxus had deactivated the dragon force hours ago, but he was aware some things still weren't quite back to normal. True, the scales were mostly gone but he could feel them just beneath his skin, an itching sort of sensation like a sweater that was too tight. He looked down at his hands and sensed a savagery there that wasn't before. His nails were pointed, which was new, and not in the way that meant they simply needed filed. They were honed and they were curved not unlike talons, and an ugly color of yellow. The sights and sounds around him were sharp, although he couldn't tell if as an image or a knife. That didn't make sense… Things were more in focus and he sensed a threat lingering everywhere; a predator stalking where he couldn't see.
Laxus blinked, realizing he'd never answered the question just as he realized Davian had approached with a look of concern turning down the corners of his mouth.
"This is new... sort of." Laxus said dumbly.
Davian blinked, his incomprehension and fluster clear on his face, "New?"
"When I was a kid, after Ivan put the lacrima in my eye, there was a while where everything was too much. My body couldn't contain it all. It started... well... it's like that but also like when Bianca hit me with that potion... things changed then. Gajeel showed me how to handle it..." Laxus said the words slowly, trying to process, to string it together into something that would make sense to Davian… or himself, "I read a book one time where someone who only saw in black and white saw color for the first time. Everything is the same and different... and the color is bright."
Davia frowned, "What happened?"
Laxus shrugged, "I ate lightning."
"And it was like that... the last time you did it?" Davian asked.
"It wasn't as bright and it didn't stick around." Laxus shrugged hopelessly, a demure smile sliding across his face that showed teeth that felt too sharp. He stopped and his smile fell as he experimentally ran his tongue over the point of his canine, "I don't know, Davian."
"Perhaps you were a late bloomer." Davian said.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?" Laxus asked.
"A little... and a little not." he said, tilting his head to the side, "We are on a time schedule. I need you to come down... please."
"Please?" Laxus mocked, sliding down from his perch and landing hard on the balls of his feet.
"Yes well... I'd hate to make you angry right now. I don't know if you've noticed, but your magic is... excessive... compressive..." he paused, thinking, "Possessive?"
"Oppressive?" Laxus offered.
Davian huffed, "Oppressive."
"Right... yeah, I know." Laxus sighed, "I'm trying to make myself smaller." he stuffed his hands into his pockets, "T's not working."
"Can you not just...? Expel it?" Davian asked, turning to walk back towards the path. Erandi was waiting in the trees, a ball of nervous tension that fell into step as soon as they walked by. Laxus noticed the absence of Irena immediately. She must have been told to stay behind.
"I could level this half of the rainforest, if you'd like." Laxus chuckled a tad too darkly, "Send it everywhere, maybe, light this place up like a fireworks factory…"
"Oros above, something is wrong with you," Davian's eyes darted over to him, "What happened to you last night?"
Laxus tried to bring up the memory in his mind's eye. It was all such a blur, he hardly understood it himself. The noise he made was supposed to be a sigh but came up somewhere he didn't expect, somewhere in his throat, and turned out more like a growl. Davian's head snapped to him and he looked him critically up and down.
"Gajeel and I, when he was in prison, talked about stuff we could do with our magic once. It was just supposed to be some fun. Dumb ideas that you don't really take seriously. He told me that everyone has iron in their body, which I kind of knew, and he can taste it in your blood like a fingerprint. He can track it if he has to... if he knows what he's looking for. I think that's why he likes the scent of it. It's... intimate."
Davian's eyes grew large as he listened. He made a noise like a scoff, revealing his teeth in disgust. Nonetheless, he was still intimidated. Laxus could sense it in the air around him like the buzzing of flies.
"Lightning magic is like that, as well. I could always feel residual magic that way. Like... if Hajime used his magic, I'd be able to tell it was his just from how it felt."
"That makes no sense to me," Davian admitted, a bit of wariness slipping into his tone.
"S'pose it wouldn't. You're not a magic-user... whatever," Laxus dismissed. His lip turned up slightly at the memory of he and Gajeel talking, of the simplicity of it. He chuckled a bit, "Hajime told him once that every living thing has a bioelectric field and that he'd considered using it in a fight. I thought it was sort of a stupid idea. It's connected everything in your nervous system, your spine, your brain stem. It could kill you just to disrupt it, let alone use it against someone, if you didn't do it right. But it's in everything, so I thought I could learn to recognize it, at least, and if you or someone like you was hiding in the dark... I'd know."
"Oros's Teeth," Davian said, "You mentioned bioelectric fields in the Madame's tent... that it was the same as Virale."
"I told you last night I did something stupid." Laxus glanced over at him. Davian's eyes grew impossibly larger at the implications Laxus laid bare before him, "It was like... hitting a nerve just right. I just… lit up."
Davian stopped, staring at him pointedly, "You... what? Used your field? We... well, we saw a flash-"
"I didn't use it. I disrupted it... I tried to align it with Father's, to take my magic back from It."
Davian just stared at him, uncomprehending, "I-I... I don't understand."
"That thing you do when you touch people, Davian. When you tap into their Virale?" Laxus stated plainly, "I can tap into it too. I did it to Father... and it hurt."
Davian took a large step back from him, recoiling, "You connected to It?! Laxus...!"
"I told you, it was stupid," Laxus replied, a restrained smile pulling across his face. He couldn't really place the look on Davian's face, if it was horror or awe or interest, or a mix of them all, "And it almost killed me. I don't think I would have made it past the night if it wasn't for that storm."
"You... did...? Did it work?" Davian said, breathless, "Did you take it back? Your magic."
"No." Laxus laughed bitterly, "It just fried every nerve in my body."
"But It... left. You made It leave. How did you do that?"
"Hell if I know," Laxus snarled, "One minute, I felt like... like I could hear... and the next, I was laying on the ground feeling like I was going to die."
"What did you hear?" Davian pressed.
"Well, I didn't hear... I felt... I don't know." Laxus grappled with the memory in the way one might with a bar of soap. He couldn't get a proper grasp of it, and it slid through his hands but didn't quite fall away. When he thought about the haze, the blazing light, and the teeth... everything fled him, "I think I know why Kahli clawed his eyes out. It was worse than looking Tzopilotl in the face."
"You saw It?" Davian gasped, "Laxus... no one has ever...!"
"I know, Davian," Laxus stopped him with a cutting glance, "I know. It hurt."
Just then, Laxus heard it. Something in the air sighed and he stopped in his tracks, listening for it again. The deep breath in, the sigh back out. He straightened his spine and looked around. His magic took on an edge of ferocity that made the chameleons cringe. Erandi shook in his fear. Rut hissed. Davian was alarmed all over again.
"What is it now?"
"You didn't hear that?" Laxus asked, "Isn't it your god?"
"Oros isn't speaking to me currently," Davian snapped, "Tends to just appear when it suits Him."
"Right." Laxus muttered, eyes drifting to something in the trees. He got that feeling he had when he was in the Bloodgood Atheneum, a feeling like he was missing something, like he needed to figure it out. The edges of his vision snapped with static that he couldn't quite get under control. It jumped from the air and hissed against his skin. He stepped from the trail.
"Wait! I told you, we're on a time schedule! I need to get you to the temple at noon."
"What was this place?" Laxus mused, slipping down into a ditch and making his way back up the other side. He kept his hands in his pockets, taking in the sight that stretched itself before him. It used to be... a building, perhaps. It looked like the remnants of walls, anyway.
"How could I possibly know that?" Davian snapped from where he stood on the path.
Laxus shrugged as his eyes fell on a grand tree. He couldn't tell of they were vines or roots that sprawled out around the trunk like hundreds of octopus tentacles twisting and writhing together. He enjoyed old trees. He always wondered what sort of stories they would tell if only they could speak. This one in particular was shading one of the stone walls, protecting it from torrential rain and the unforgiving sun. It was relatively intact compared to the rest of the place. Beneath the thick and twisting vines, Laxus could make out something... like a pattern.
"I implore you, Laxus, we need to get moving." Davian called, agitated.
"Oi, Rut, you think you're strong enough to tear these off?" Laxus asked, not looking back over his shoulder. He felt rather than heard Davian approach. The quiet rage rippled about him like a red tide invading his space. It made his chest feel too tight.
"This is a sidetrack we don't have time to be on."
"Last time I felt this way, I found a grimoire in the archive of a library that showed me how to make a dragon slayer lacrima." Laxus said calmly, though some part of him rumbled off in the sky. "You want to stop wasting time? Tell Oros to speak plainly instead of sending me on wild goose chases."
Davian hissed, "As if I could tell a god to do anything."
"You bicker like children..." Rut snarled, grabbing onto the vines and tearing them down. They almost came off as one tangled mass, excluding some that still clung resiliently to cracks in the stone wall. When it was revealed, Davian stepped back, made a sign, and cut his hand. The ambrosia of blood made Laxus's lip curl. He noticed that Erandi didn't come within the fallen walls.
"So... It's important, then." Laxus mused.
It was a relief depicting some sort of ritual. The circle and the symbols he traced his eyes over, the same circle carved onto Davian's skin. In the center of the circle sat a chameleon with vacant eyes, his ears split with thorns, sitting in a pose of meditation. Mirroring him was another dressed in regalia not unlike what Davian was wearing, except that he had a skull covering his face and bracelets of bones on his wrists and his ankles. He held a golden knife in his hand that penetrated the chest of the one in the circle. Symbols filled the spaces around them, symbols painfully similar to Draconic. Laxus decided when he got back home, he'd finally ask Levy teach him to read it.
"You missing some pieces to your outfit, Davian?" Laxus asked. His silence spoke for itself, "Is this the ritual you're doing today... to sever me from Father?"
"No," Laxus could sense his nervousness. He didn't understand why it was there, "No this is to become the Aurincarae."
Laxus's brow furrowed, "It is?"
"Yes. It's, well, so..." he huffed, trying to straighten his thoughts. He motioned to the chameleon in the circle, "The old Aurincarae, once the next in line is chosen, is to teach all they know to the next in line. When it comes to pass that the grimoire of the next in line has been filled, the rituals have been taught well, the circle is meant to transfer the life from the old to the new. It is the renewal of the cycle, and the old wisdoms are passed on. Death. Rebirth. The Cycle. Forever."
The silence between them screamed as the two stared at the wall. Laxus traced over the visage of the two men with his eyes, how they looked into each other, neither screaming even though one was stabbing into the chest of the other. He could feel the unflinching bite of it. Something at the borders of his massive expanse coiled darkly out of sight, tracing hungry eyes on them as they traced the figures above them. Laxus stared and thought that none of it made sense.
"This is what it means to be the next in line, hm?" Laxus said quietly, a sound like smoke drifting lazily from a fireplace and killing the ones that slept too close to the hearth.
"I suppose." Davian replied. Laxus knew instinctively his eyes were on the knife. "Is it better, I wonder, to become the thing you fear so much or to be quietly devoured by it?"
"You're going through with it, then?" Laxus asked.
"There's little point in fighting it anymore." Davian's voice was a breath strangled out from his lips, almost a gasp, "I just pray it doesn't end with me so changed that I no longer care for those that are close to me. If I hurt Irena, or Serrill..."
"I'll snap you out of it," Laxus said, confidence bleeding into each syllable like something dying, "I did it when you took down Rut, didn't I? Just don't get angry with me if I backhand you."
Davian chuckled, a small smile on his face, "You are... ostentatious, Laxus."
"Gajeel is ostentatious. I mean what I say," Laxus replied firmly, "I'll find a way to make it right."
"Do you never bite off more than you can chew?" Davian said kindly.
"Not yet." Laxus said, "Things have gotten dicey before, but I've always found a way. I'm a Fairy Tail Mage. It's what we do."
"You've said that to me before, I think."
"I did. And what came of it?" Laxus challenged.
"Well... I suppose you kept your word." Davian sighed, "That gives me some comfort, if I'm honest, even if it is disillusioned... Thank you."
Laxus's head listed to the side as he stared at the relief, "Doesn't really make sense, does it?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"Father wants you to be Aurincarae? That's what all this is about? Forcing you back?" Laxus crossed his arms, "And It needs to kill Gajeel to do it?"
"I suppose. I'm not sure, really." Davian said, misery bleeding into his tone, "I wish I could tell you more, Laxus."
"Does it hurt?" he found himself asking. Davian turned his head to look at him, curiosity and concern enshrouded in the dark edges of his face.
"I... don't know. I don't think so. Not for me."
Laxus shook his head. His eye throbbed.
"The grimoire... had a ritual in it to make a dragon slayer lacrima. It looked like this... sort of. The symbols," Laxus touched the stone, traced the outline of one, "They were the same. It said the dragon had to be in immense pain before its life energy could be drained and transferred into the crystal..."
"Did it?" Davian said, "I guess... I guess I'd have to look at it."
"I don't think It wants this." Laxus said, then shook his head, "It wants to live forever."
"It can't live forever. That's the problem."
"Hm?" Laxus asked.
"It is trapped in the in-between, the space I told you of, between this world and the realm of the gods? Spirits are not meant to reside there. They can't survive. They have to move on. Otherwise they just… decay."
"Decay?"
"Yes… so the cycle must restart, for all our sakes… for everyone." Davian said with conviction, "If it doesn't, things will only continue to get worse."
Laxus took in a deep breath, "I don't think that's what it wants, Davian."
Davian gave him a sharp look and hissed, "Are you an expert on the divine, now?"
Laxus's hands were back in his pockets. He was thoughtful, staring at the wall in front of him, tracing his eyes over the faces, stoic in their depiction, as if nothing were the matter at all.
"I felt..." Laxus started and stopped again. Thinking too hard about it made his eye throb. His voice became small despite the roll of thunder through his being as he tried to grasp what was so desperate to flee him, "I felt it... somehow. It's hard to wrap my head around now... I just… I felt like I was on fire."
"Are you alright?" Davian asked, again, what felt like the millionth time.
"When I think about it…" Laxus closed his eyes, tried to concentrate, "It… It needed to find a way to live forever… It was so hungry…"
"Laxus," Davian started, raising his hand to put it on his shoulder but staying the action before their skin could touch, "Don't… don't push yourself. It was… a harrowing experience, I'm sure."
"Yeah…" Laxus sighed, letting the memory go. "You guys ever have anything to do with the dragons?"
Davian hesitated, "Only as much as they had to do with us. They looked down on everyone, us included."
"It wasn't until after the Dragon Wars started that all that changed, hm?" Laxus mused.
"Yes... and we were mostly out of the picture by then. Relegated to the underground." Davian sighed, turning thoughtful.
Laxus wasn't sure why he felt the need to, but again he reached towards the wall. There, intermingled with the symbols, was a serpent with a gaping mouth. Its body ensconced the whole of the relief, the feathers ringing its neck and trailing down its body almost as clear as if it had been chiseled yesterday. Oros had made this ritual. A god of creation from destruction took the life from his most devout follower and transferred it into the next divine mouthpiece, to speak on his behalf, to rule his people. Wisdom that was supposed to be passed on forever.
"It wanted my lacrima… didn't it?" Laxus asked.
Davian hesitated, "I… think so."
"Why?"
"I was told it was to… bring It into being, but I'm not really sure. I'm sorry."
Here they stood in the ruins of a kingdom, rotting inside the forest that claimed it. The only bastions left seemed to fill the sole purpose of sacrifice. Laxus felt like he should be able to quantify something from all of this, but just like the memories from the night prior, his mind couldn't wrap around it. How was it that Oros both seemed to be twisted in everything and yet also pushed to the farthest reaches of this place? A god banished from his own realm.
"The mages' genius was an obsession with order, the fierce denial of darkness, unreason, chaos. The illogic of it... frightens you." Laxus said, remembering words Oros has spoken to him when he had possessed Davian's body. He felt Davian's stare, his unsurety. "When you taught me to use Virale, you said it was base, raw... pure. Oros said that the dragons were different. Like mages, they had a passion for order but knew not to deny the unseen world, darkness, and barbarism."
They were all that was left of the dragons, now: he and Gajeel and the other slayers. They were different, not just wizards but also the remnants of chaos that used to reign on Earthland in a time when man hadn't yet conquered everything, when they were still at the mercy of the world and its monsters. Were things better now or just emptier?
"I don't think this is Father's end goal, Davian. I don't know what it is, but I don't think It wants this. Whatever It wants, it's worse."
"Yes, well..." Davian cleared his throat and straightened. He said a bit pragmatically, "Oros does, and He is my god, not Father."
Laxus sneered over at him, "That was pretty ballsy of you."
"I suppose it's easier when the sun is out," Davian sighed, immediately dropping the act, "And speaking of which, it is getting high."
"Right."
Laxus did not immediately follow Davian from the clearing. The expanse of him was still surging so large and rampant, his eye still throbbed with the tension. Standing there, staring at the ritual circle on the wall and its striking similarity to what he had seen in the grimoire, Laxus considered the lacrima. He couldn't simply release his grip on his magic, as Davian had asked him earlier. To do so was dangerous. It would mean sending his unrestrained power out of him, arching lightning bolts that tore into anything in its mad search for equilibrium. The idea occurred that he could put it in a lacrima. He'd done so with his lightning magic before, when he had so long ago created the Thunder Palace that he would have used to destroy Fairy Tail whilst too blinded by his own ambition to realize the mistake he was making. He'd just never done it with his dragon slaying magic before. Manipulating the lacrima had always intimidated him. The pain, the possibility of going blind, it had always made him shy away from using it. But the only time such a thing had harmed him was when he was young and he'd trying taking magic out of it. When his body too small and too unaccustomed to true power, trying to contain it had nearly ripped his face apart. Putting his own magic inside shouldn't be nearly as... unforgiving.
Laxus breathed in deeply through his mouth, let it out slowly through his nose. Control. He had to be in complete control. He knew his magic intimately. He could do this. After everything he'd been through, he could do this.
The scope of his influence, the heavy presence of it, shifted and swirled under his call, snapping to attention and charging the air with electricity. Like a thundercloud, its foreboding weight made the world darker as it coalesced around him. Laxus's eye throbbed, warm and bleeding through his face. His mind's eye held it there, gently feeling along its edges. He clenched his fists and activated it, feeling the entire side of his skull pulse with its response. Lightning crackled around him, an anxious manifestation as he focused on funneling it all into his lacrima.
"Laxus!" Davian yelped, "What are you-?"
A snappish wave of his hand was the only response Laxus could give him as he concentrated. Blinding light erupted behind his eye as sizzling energy was whisked into the crystal. It was like it had its own gravity, and once his magic became close and potent, it was spirited away. He felt heat, he felt pressure, and something else, something not quite him and not quite there but also large and looming, yawning like a cat in a sunbeam, or possibly a grave, as his magic shifted from his being and into the lacrima. Once it started it picked up speed, faster and faster, as the power that had previously been unfurled like the petals of a great and beautiful flower suddenly closed and folded in on itself. There was a crack of thunder overhead and suddenly it was gone.
Laxus's eyes fluttered open and he stepped back from the stone. He could feel the lacrima behind his eye hum with the energy he'd placed there. He rubbed his thumb along his scar, wiping a tear away that had escaped from the pressure of so much energy running through him. His eyes fell on Davian who had recoiled from him at some point, looking at him in the same way a rabbit might stare down a fox or stoat. Rut as well was back away from him, his body between his own and Erandi's in a purposeful way. Laxus shrugged it off.
"I'm ready." he said, running his tongue over his teeth again, now much more familiar to him than before. He held his hands before himself, checking them over before putting them back into his pockets to head for the road.
"You… you're back to normal." Davian stated dumbly, not moving.
"Seems like it."
"What did… what did you just do?" He demanded.
"I put it away… in my lacrima." Laxus said. He glanced back to Davian who just stood, staring, "All the extra magical energy from eating lightning. I put it in the lacrima."
"Oh, silly me." Davian hissed through his teeth, "That makes so much more sense."
"Lacrima store magic…"
"Yes, yes," Davian dismissed, waving his hand exaggeratedly, "You just changed. Physiologically. Right in front of us."
Laxus stepped around Rut and Erandi, climbing his way back to the path. He looked expectantly at them, waiting for them to follow. Rut snuffed and followed, nearly knocking Erandi out of his way as he went.
"That's it?" Davian asked, "You're just moving on from that like nothing happened? Haven't you been obsessing over your area of deficit as a second generation dragon slayer and you're not even going to investigate what just happened?"
"I know what happened." Laxus said, crossing his arms.
"Th-then explain!" Davian demanded, "Two seconds ago it felt like you were bent on suffocating the entire forest in static electricity and now-"
Laxus furrowed his brow at him, confused and agitated, "Eating lightning made me change, Davian. Because of the lacrima, like any other dragon slayer, my body turned it into raw magical energy. There was too much and I couldn't get it to... I don't know how to make that kind of magical power fit into my body. So I transferred it into my lacrima, the same as any wizard could do with any lacrima."
"That's... how? How can you just change?"
"I'm not Porlyusica, I don't fucking know." Laxus snapped, "What do you want me to say? I ate lightning and my body made it into more magic than I've ever felt in my entire life. It changed me, and then I put it in the lacrima and somehow, I changed back. I know what happened. I only ate lightning in the first place because I was desperate. I wouldn't normally be that reckless."
"You talk as if..." Davian stared at him, "You… don't always use dragon slaying magic?"
"No. I take after my great-grandfather. He was also a lightning mage." Laxus said, he held out his hand and electricity spidered across his skin, "This power is mine. I don't need dragon slaying magic to be a wizard. It's just… something else I can do."
"Why wouldn't you?" Davian said.
Laxus scoffed, even more confused now, "What the hell? Did I imagine the part last night when I was holding you up in the river while I ate lightning?"
"That's... that was..."
"That was... what it was, Davian." Laxus said, a derisive edge to his tone, "Fucking insane. I completely lost control. You're lucky I remembered you were there or you could be dead right now."
"Control?" Davian frowned, "You can't control your dragon slaying magic?"
"I can control it..." Laxus muttered, "Mostly."
"Mostly?!"
Laxus rolled his eyes and turned to begin walking the direction they had before, thoroughly done with the conversation. He heard Davian yelling after him and scrambling back up to the path.
"I'm confused." Davian said, catching up in a huff.
"It's not really any of your business." Laxus said, a weight to his words telling him to drop it.
"So you can inquire on my dead mother and things I tore from your other half in confidence, but I am not to ask about why you refuse to use magic that is obviously an asset to you?" Davian argued, his tongue flashing out in his anger.
Laxus stopped his march abruptly, "I told you I wasn't playing games with you last night."
"And I am not now," he said, crossing his arms, all angles and rigid lines.
"Goddamn, Davian, is it really worth it to press this one?"
"You don't think it seems terribly important?" Davian insisted.
"Not really, no." Laxus growled. When Davian didn't make a move to relent, he curled his lip, "Didn't you and I have an understanding about loss of control issues?"
Davian stood his ground, unwavering despite what he'd said. Laxus gave him a hard stare, took in a breath and held it. He, too, crossed his arms but tried not to look down on Davian too harshly.
"Alright. Fine." Laxus said, looking Davian straight in the eye, "When you hurt Irena, when you broke her arm, how did you stop?"
"That hardly seems relevant." Davian said, his lip curling slightly in a snarl.
"Did she beg you to stop? To let her go? Did she scream?" Laxus asked calmly, though his stomach twisted in a way that made him feel nauseous, "Is that what made you snap out of it? Because it was pretty easy to shock you back to reality when you took down Rut."
Davian's eyes narrowed.
A sardonic smile pulled at the corner of Laxus's mouth, "Ask me how I stopped when I went after Gajeel."
Davian became still and understanding bloomed slowly behind his eyes.
"I stopped when I was done, Davian." Laxus said as smoothly as he could muster. Davian's lips became a tight line, "It's always been that way. The first time I tried using dragon slaying magic, I was a kid. There was all of this… I can't even call it rage. My body couldn't contain it. Whenever I've used it to fight, it's worse. This red noise builds until I can't control it. I'm sure you've heard about when I decided I was going to take over Fairy Tail by force. As soon as I activated it... it started. Reason just... disappears. It wasn't going to end until someone stopped me, and the only reason they could was because I used all of my magical energy on a spell I didn't cast properly."
"A-ah..." Davian looked troubled, and his eyes were on the ground as he turned over Laxus's words in his head.
"You remember it, hm? When I ate lightning? How it felt? I just get sucked into the rush of it… as if nothing else matters. And the more it builds, the harder it is to realize what I'm doing." Laxus said, and Davian chanced a look at him, his response clearly written on his face, "I never judged you for your fear of losing control but how many people can you really hurt, Davian? One? Two, maybe, before you figure out something is wrong? When you remember who you are?"
Davian's eyes widened and he looked stricken.
"How many people do you think I can hurt? How many do you think I could kill if I couldn't make myself stop? If I just forgot not to pull my punches?" Laxus asked, his voice betraying darkness and the consideration he'd put into this when he was alone with his thoughts.
"Pull your punches?" Davian said, incredulous.
"God's alive, Davian. I'm not just any mage. I control lightning." Laxus said, bemused, "Lightning is about as raw as magic can get. It can kill easily. And I'm not just some run of the mill wizard like Hajime is. I could level the entire city of Magnolia if I wanted to, and I almost did once, with just lightning magic. Not dragon slaying magic, just my regular shit. I can't lose control, and for some reason, every time I use it... it happens. I know what passion is, I know what rage is. It's worse, somehow, than both. I don't think anymore, just feel. I can't concentrate. And when passion is the thing that can send a wizard past their limits, how bad do you think it could get for someone like me, who already has a massive amount of magical power, to not have enough reason to stop? If I can't think enough to know when I've gone too far? And even worse, I can regain my power whenever I want if I can just find a source of electricity or lightning? A scary thought."
"Quite," Davian said, a quiet to his voice that spoke of fear and disappointment.
"I already have to deal with the memory of Gajeel begging me not to kill him because I was out of my mind, and the memory of Zahir dying in my hands... I'd rather not chance it happening again."
"I see," Davian sighed, defeated, "I'm sorry."
Laxus's severe expression softened and he smirked a bit, "I'm starting to understand why I could never intimidate you before."
"Oh?" Davian said, startled.
"You have no idea what you're dealing with when it comes to wizards, do you?" Laxus asked, not trying to be cocky even though he knew it sounded that way. He started walking again, this time with Davian at his side.
"I beg pardon?" Davian hmphed, "I work with wizards every day. I know plenty. You're all showy and domineering."
"Showy," Laxus hummed.
"Very much so." he reiterated. "The aliases, the flashy casting titles, and the monologues. Do they give you a course on that when you're becoming a wizard? Or does it just come naturally with magical affiliations?"
Laxus raised a brow at him, "You heard me monologue?"
He opened his mouth and then paused, "I suppose not you. But we've also never fought. How do I know you don't turn into a mouthy villain?"
Laxus chuckled, "That's usually how you can tell how serious someone is."
"By how much time they invest in their inane villain speech?" Davian quipped, rolling his eyes.
"By how quiet they are," Laxus said, and Davian gave him a quick look up and down, "We're all like dogs, yeah? The little ones bark the most."
They fell into silence. As they walked, the path began to grow wider and more manicured. It made Laxus feel as if he were walking backwards in time. Large statues marked their way, sentries carved with garish mouths that were open and baring teeth. Men with the heads of jaguars, great birds, lizardfolk, and serpents guided them to the looming shadows of two massive pyramids, now rising up above the trees before them. Perched atop each was a temple, and Laxus could clearly see an altar on the one nearest them. A second, far larger, overshadowed the first in an intimidating way. He couldn't make out as much detail on it, whether from distance or illusion, he wasn't sure. It, too, was gleaming with gold in the sun. He squinted his eyes but it was like a mirage, both there and also shivering in the heat of the day.
It was a marvel how the sprawling compound had been out of sight for so long. Now that they were getting closer to it, Laxus wondered how he could have possibly missed it. How interesting it was that the trees could hide so much; that if he hadn't had Davian to guide him here, he could have walked right past it into the rainforest and never known it had existed in the first place. Where there others that had made that same mistake? Rut had said that the forest was made to confuse. Perhaps that was why it had gone so long without being discovered.
"Have you ever considered that that is your problem, Laxus? The reason why you're different from the other slayers?" Davian asked, "Because you don't use your magic like they do? That is... according to my memory your other half hasn't used any other type of magic. It's all dragon slaying techniques, correct?"
Laxus paused and considered, "I hadn't."
Davian was thoughtful again and chanced another tentative look at him, "Do you always pull your punches?"
"Hmph."
"Doesn't that... bother you?"
"It's mostly second nature, now. I have to think... I have to try to hurt someone otherwise." Laxus said, unclenching and re-clenching his fists. He wasn't sure when he'd balled them up in the first place. His knuckles popped and he felt a bit better. "I have to want it."
"Have you ever before? Tried?"
Laxus sighed. The image was visceral. Gajeel clutched there in his hands, screaming as Laxus let loose volley after volley of lightning. He remembered rage and the finality of a decision. He remembered the arch of a spine in a last-ditch effort just to get him to stop, to get the rage to abate even if it turned into something else. Gajeel's hands had glided up his stomach, and the smell of fear had made him dizzy. Laxus shivered because thinking about it made chills rush up his spine. His scalp prickled.
"A couple of times." Laxus said at length, "I don't like to think about it."
Davian's voice was detached, "It's a little funny. You pull all your punches... your other half seems to go right for the throat. You're opposites in just about every way."
"He's had to." Laxus said simply, "His whole life, it was either him or the other guy. I never had to worry about that."
"What does one such as yourself even worry about?" Davian thought out loud.
Laxus snorted.
"Well, you're the one going on about how you might as well be a god on this earth." Davian defended himself, crossing his arms.
"You're not the first person to say something like that to me." Laxus replied, realizing too late how jaded it sounded. He'd let slip just a little too much weariness and now Davian was concerned again, "I worry about a lot of things... what is happening that I don't know about? What happens if I can't find a way to stop this ritual? What if Oros, if that is who keeps leading me places, is after Gajeel just as much as Father is? What if I'm doing the wrong thing? What if I'm actually making things worse?"
"What if I'm too late again..." Laxus's voice dropped a bit into his throat, "How many times have I been too late, or almost too late? What if I figure it all out, find a way to stop it, and I'm just... I'm too late."
He sighed and let his eyelids flutter closed, letting the feelings go. When he opened them again, he drew them up to the shadow of the Temple of the Sun, to the low moon and its fullness in the daytime sky… to its startling closeness to the sun.
"Well... you don't seem to let it get to you," Davian stated from his side, "Which is a feat."
"I can't." Laxus said, furrowing his brow as he looked at the sky, "Magic is tied to emotion, remember?"
"A-ah..." Davian had a distressed look on his face, "That sounds... exhausting."
"You get used to it." Laxus replied slowly, "Is there going to be an eclipse?"
"What?" Davian's gaze snapped heavenward. A whine that turned into a hiss escaped him, "Oh why wouldn't it be?!"
"Eh?" Laxus said, exasperated, "It's… just a natural thing ain't it?"
Davian scrubbed his face, visibly angry. Rut stood next to him, a brow raised.
"Doesss the Favorite Son not keep track of the ssskies?" he grunted.
"Am I a Calendar Priest?!" Davian snapped back at him, "No! I took the Rite of Service!"
"Alright, I'll bite. Why is a solar eclipse bad?" Laxus asked.
"The Other World is near." Rut said cryptically.
"The Other World… the place where Father is?" Laxus asked, mulling over his words as he said them.
Davian's voice was pitiful, angry, and miserable, "We spoke briefly of the in-between realm, where the Aurincarae can meet with the gods on somewhat equal footing? That it can be invoked under certain circumstances?"
"Yes." Laxus said, "In Madame Guéneva's tent, that was how we spoke to Tzopilatl."
"Celestial alignments are also such circumstances… and it's so much more potent…" Davian whispered, "Laxus, I know you are a powerful wizard but please be careful, I beg you."
Laxus blinked, a bit surprised, "I'll be fine, Davian."
"Yes, but… you're about to be alone… with Orotrushit… during a solar eclipse." Davian hissed.
"A dreadful prospect, truly."
The three of them whipped their heads to the source of the voice that had just spoken. Behind them on the path, standing just out of reach of Erandi, Orotrushit stood. The boy's eyes snapped wide with sheer terror and he scrambled to hide behind Laxus. Orotrushit's lips were set into an unsettling grin, his teeth carefully concealed. He was dressed similarly to Davian, though his robes were trimmed in gold. The same tattoos on Davian covered him even more extensively, down both of his arms and stopping at his wrists, covering legs down to the ankles, wringing his throat, and of course crossing over his patched eye. At his waist, a skull mask decorated with a great frill of sacred feathers was tied. His lips were painted in metallic gold.
"Welcome to The Temple of the Sun and the Moon," he grinned viciously. With a sinuous and languid twist, he bent to the side, looking around Laxus to where Erandi was hiding, "Well hello, little lost one. Does your courage flee you now that you're in the shadow of the temple?"
Erandi stammered through something and Davian bared his teeth. "Don't be cruel. The boy is terrified."
"One of my few talents," he replied, bringing his gaze up to center on Laxus, "Ah… this is the one we're here for, hm?"
Laxus squared his shoulders, "I'm not in the mood for your dramatics. Sever the connection and we'll leave."
"Straight to business. I do like that... saves me a bit of effort." he said slowly, stepping closer and with purpose, "Do tell me, when were you first touched?"
"When I was... touched?" Laxus repeated, his eyes darting to Davian whose face was painted with disdain.
"Your nightmares, Laxus. You said they started over a year ago? When Aeleora was killed?"
"Aeleora? Right... that's what you called her." Laxus muttered, "Yeah, a couple days after."
"So long ago?" Orotrushit's eye widened, "It's a wonder you're alive now. What a strong wizard indeed to have been fed on for so long and still be with the living... ahh... but you'll have to be more specific."
"More specific?" Laxus asked, incredulous.
"Oh, it's quite my fault... I was in a little bit of everything in those days," he said, his head listing to the side, his pupil shrinking into a razorblade as he stared somewhere off over Laxus's shoulder, "In a child, in quite a few men, a dying woman... votive candles, and screaming... there was quite a lot of blood everywhere..." he blinked a couple of times and centered his gaze on Laxus, "I simply don't remember."
A sickening feeling fisted into Laxus's stomach. Something black and aching spread itself across his ribcage, "You were there."
"Of course," he chuckled as if Laxus should have known, "Aeleora asked me to be there. She needed my expertise, not for anything interesting of course. Just how to put a man to sleep."
His expression darkened.
"She, too, didn't know the right questions to ask... they very rarely ever do, it seems. Though, I did try to tell her. It killed her, the poor, insensate poppet. She was warned what happens when you dabble in things you have no business being in." his smile faded as he spoke, his eye filling with something Laxus recognized as violent. He took another step towards him, and another, making a wide circle as he did, "But this doesn't answer our question, does it? When, wizard, were you touched? I cannot sever the connection without knowing."
"How in the hell am I supposed to know?" Laxus snarled through his clenched teeth.
"I don't often forget things. Insignificant details, perhaps, but bodies are things I do account for, especially ones that bleed. And I do not remember you in the slightest... how strange."
Orotrushit rounded him, his hands clasping tightly behind his back. Laxus felt it when his gaze moved from him, and snapped his head around to watch as he approached Davian. Again, his eye was distant, hurling itself off into the rainforest like the answers were there in the leaves. He took in a deep breath through his teeth.
"He'll have to come to the temple. Can't be helped but I suppose it would be a lie if I said I didn't prefer it that way," his voice was far away, "Changes things... but does that matter?"
"That's not my problem, is it?" Davian snarled back at him, "You gave me your word."
"I did. And unlike you, I am not a liar." Orotrushit said, his face splitting into a wide grin as he did. He tapped a finger at his lips and looked up at Rut, "You should be dead, though, shouldn't you? And yet, of all places, you're here."
"Would you like to give it a try, little thing?" Rut growled, baring his teeth.
Orortrushit tapped at his lip again, narrowing his eye at him, "Interesting. Does it matter...? I think not. I think it will be just. Fine."
He pointed to Erandi, "He needs a bath. And you..." he raked his eyes up and down Laxus again, "Well, I'll need a good look at you. Unpleasant, but I'm sure you'll grit through it, hm?"
He lifted his hand to gesture loosely at the massive pyramids before them.
"Meet me at the Temple of the Sun," he said, all teeth, "I have some business to attend to. Try not to take too long. The eclipse it just after noon and, well, I'll be preoccupied then."
Laxus winced as he felt the world around him shift and become thin. Orotrushit was stepping back into a rift, vanishing as he passed the threshold. His eye began to glow and he tilted his head slightly as he gazed at Laxus again. His smile disentigrated, and somehow the look of him was even more chilling than before. His eye sparkled darkly, reminded him far too much of Bianca just before she died, and then, he vanished. In his absence, it felt like all of them let out a collected breath.
"You shouldn't say his name," Rut rumbled at Davian's side, "It summons him."
"Noted." Davian replied, miserably.
"That's not a glamour, is it?" Laxus asked, looking over at Davian who was staring blankly ahead, "When he disappears?"
"No... that's... no. He travels the in-between," Davian said, "You can't be in it for very long. It... it decays you. But it's where Father is and he is very, very close to Father."
"And he was there... that day when Gajeel killed Bianca." Laxus breathed, "Was he the one that let him out? The other person there that Gajeel talked about?"
"I don't have those answers for you," Davian said, "But it wouldn't surprise me... especially if Gajeel summoned It by mistake. It would have been him who would enact Father's desires."
"What's in it for him? Why would he do that?" Laxus growled, "To what end?"
"Like me, he has little choice," Davian replied gently, "He is God's Hunger."
Laxus furrowed his brow, "You have a choice."
"I have limited choices. He has less than I. He already chose his path."
Laxus clicked his teeth, "He's still an asshole."
"Absolutely," Davian sighed, "Come. We should get moving."
Author's Tomfoolery:
His favorite line was the one formed outside
When they trade in confessions for lies
A beast in the business of selling forgiveness
And buying salvation with wine
And he cries out to God, "How can you claim them all
When I know that they are all mine?"