Jellal Fernandes awoke groggily, feeling out of place with pain shooting through his body. It was becoming an all too common occurrence. Staring up at the ceiling, he realised, for a few seconds, he had no idea where the hell he was. It came back quickly enough. He shuddered at the thought. What is wrong with me? Why… He turned to his side, towards the door, when he heard a sigh of relief. The same young girl as always was there. What is her name again? I… On some level, she unnerved him. She looked familiar, and had even before he had grown accustomed to her presence, Meredy, and Ultear's. Even more strange, he was sure, had been the urge to hug her and tell her everything was and would be alright the first time he had come to. The young girl perked up, seeing he was awake, and she ran over to tightly hug him, startling him for a moment. It were as if she could read his thoughts. His head began spinning. Why is my mind so foggy? Why are my memories so impossible to understand or…discern? Things would be so much easier, if they were able to be… Unsure of why, but nonetheless feeling oddly paternal towards her, he hugged her back. It felt right for her to be happy to see him alright.

"I'm glad you're feeling better, well, more fully, anyways," The girl told him when she sat back. "I was worried when you didn't wake up."

"I guess that's being sick," He mumbled, rubbing at his eyes. "I don't know what happened the last few days. It was almost like…almost like it had been when I first came to here."

He flinched when a pristine, white cat flew into the room and sat down on the girl's lap. He probed his forehead, trying to remind himself it weren't an uncommon occurrence. It was no use.

How can anything feel common or uncommon when just about nothing makes sense anymore, and hasn't in what feels like forever?

"Hi, Carla," The girl's gentle voice cut into the silence. She affectionately scratched at the cat's ears. "How are you doing?"

"I'm well, child," The cat replied. Jellal pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Are you okay?" The cat turned pointedly to the girl. "You know how using your healing can drain you."

The girl hanged her head in shame and stared at her hands, only every so often glancing to Jellal in concern.

"Wendy!"

Jellal grit his teeth, recognising the sound of Ultear's voice cutting into the quiet. Something about her has felt so…wrong. Since I came to, she has refused to let me out, saying people are looking to harm me. Yet she is also hunted, and this – Wendy – and Meredy are the only people who can go out undisguised.

How long will it be until I can take on some sort of disguise and go out? If people are hunting us, why aren't we constantly on the move?

Why would anyone be searching for us to begin with when all the family we ever knew abandoned us and left us for dead?

"In here!" The girl called. "Jellal's awake!"

Rustling and a few curses could be heard in the other room, but, soon enough, and, with about as much tact as she could manage (which was not much), Ultear stepped in with a tray she all but dropped onto Jellal's lap. Pancakes and juice were before him, and food had never smelled so good. Wendy smiled encouragingly at him, but Ultear pursed her lips.

"Your brother is in town," Ultear told him, her hands on her hips. "Siegrain hasn't figured he would be better off away from Magnolia, and he is also too blind to see you're already here. We are already here. For once, his naïveté is in our favour."

"Sieg is here?"

Something in his mind stirred, before anger began to rise in his chest.

"I'm telling you this because I want you to be extremely cautious. Don't even answer the door, because all of us have a key," Ultear shook her head, more than able to put a pin on his feelings. "He would see you dead without thinking twice."

Wendy turned to her. "Why are they so fixated on us? We haven't done anything wrong!"

"Child, please, understand, they are the reason Jellal was harmed to begin with," Ultear said, crossing her arms. "Wouldn't you agree they need to be punished? They're only building our case to do so for us."

Wendy bit her lip. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

Ultear sighed. "Wendy, dear, sometimes people have to suffer in retribution for the pain they have caused you. Meredy can tell you something about that later. She has more than enough stories of her own."

Wendy hugged her cat a little tighter, and the creature didn't protest.

"Keep her safe," Jellal coughed out. "She did save my life, after all."

Ultear raised an eyebrow but nodded, saying nothing.

I have nothing to say, after all.

"Mother, please. I'm not a child. You've been telling me the occasional odd thing about this woman you and father knew for months, and it's hard to fathom with the way you're telling it."

Heather Annabelle Nuvelle Fiore stared intently at her daughter, caught somewhere between annoyance, exhaustion, and anger, though none of which were directed towards her daughter. How did you grow up so fast? Already, you're twenty three, and you'll be twenty four in January. If your father had his way, you would become queen in just two years from then. I hope you don't worry. You're luckier than we were, and ought to take life at your own pace as much as you can. Her gloved fingers somewhat shaky, Heather set down her drink on the end table next to her. Her daughter beside her, Hisui eyed her nervously, as though she felt she shouldn't have said anything on the subject. Nevertheless, Heather sighed, standing up, and pulling an old photograph album off one of the shelves around them, in the palace library. When she sat down next to her daughter again, her hands were still shaking. Eventually, she managed to bring herself to open the photograph album, leafing through its pages until she found some of what she had been looking for. It gave her pause in a way she wished it hadn't. Suddenly, she felt sick, but pushed the thought and feeling down as far as she could.

Irene. It had been almost thirty years since they had seen her last, yet Heather could not bring herself to believe it was the last time she had been in Fiore. Were she still in the country, now? Or had she truly left years ago? The thought made her fingers curl. You told me, once, that my children should be yours. And that was the last time we had spoken. Toma never did believe me when I brought it up. I can't blame him, you were one of our closest friends before he and I married. But he was never going to marry you. She closed her eyes, just for a few seconds, trying to restrain her emotions. Hisui was still silent, waiting for her mother to say something. It was unnerving for her to be so quiet. Heather was rarely quiet, even in the moments where others would be. She took a glance at the photographs, somewhat stunned by them. Her parents had never been the tallest people, but this woman they were with was nearly as tall as her father. Her mother, petite, looked even younger than she had been beside her. She must be around Evergreen's height, just about 5'9". Mother is only 5'1". Perhaps that's why the image is so striking. After all, this woman…she can't be more than an inch or two shorter than father. It's jarring.

"This is her," Heather finally said, struggling to mask the bitterness in her voice. "Irene Belserion. She was a close friend of mine and your father's, for years. As I already told you, I believe she took your brother. Whether or not she killed him, I doubt we'll ever know. But I wouldn't put it past her. There's little I would."

Hisui glanced to her. "I don't understand."

"I don't either," Heather turned a few more pages. "She had left, the first time, before your baby naming. I thought, for a while, she hadn't even known I was pregnant with you when she left. But she certainly did later. Of that I'm certain. Truthfully, she seemed to resent you, my first born child, your father's and my heir."

"You said she thought Freddie and I should have been her children, didn't you?" Hisui pressed. "Did you ever figure why?"

"No," Heather said darkly. "In part because our family's search for your brother was ended far too early in vain because of a constitutional restriction on the monarchy your father and I became unable to protest."

Hisui raised an eyebrow. "What was that?"

Heather hesitated, her gloved fingers anxiously tapping against the old photographs.

"There is nothing more we can do, your majesties. The ruling is absolute."

Toma had sighed. "Are you certain? There is nothing we can do to get around it?"

"Unfortunately, that is the case."

"So, we're without choice?" Heather had bit back the feeling of wanting to fall down into tears again. "If we want to give Hisui any semblance of a chance of understanding, of seeing the world, we have to declare him dead?"

"The succession of the royal family must be up to date at all times. The courts have decided it to be most likely your son is dead. As awful as it is, our hands are tied."

Toma had broken down. "We have no choice, then," He had finally said through tears. "It's not fair to her if we don't guide her, if we don't bring her with us as our heir."

"That's why you and father had to give up on finding him?" Hisui stared at her mother in disbelief. "It was because of me?"

"Don't think of it that way, darling," Heather had set the photograph album aside and tightly embraced her daughter. "We did what we had to in order to…to ensure things would be able to continue. We had his records sealed so no one could alter them or do something of a cruel dangling of false hope before us. And we could not bear to let people make images of him showing what he would look like as he aged."

"Well, I suppose that explains why you and father closed the palace gates completely in the aftermath. Why you only ever let me spend time out in the world if we were on a formal state function," Hisui shook her head, standing up and starting to leave the room. "And that was the loneliest time of my life."

"What are we even doing, now?"

Natsu yawned, and laid down on the grass just outside the RV Erza had – apparently legally – acquired for them. Lucy, sitting on the edge of the bumper, looked just as exhausted. Gray was pacing around the trees, swearing every so often when a bird would fly just a bit too close to his head. Happy was chasing anything that flew near him. And, then, there was Erza. Even after they had parked for the night, she had sat almost motionless in the driver's seat, only slightly leaning over it. Perhaps this is what they mean when people say there are moments when, because you're in too deep, it feels easier to just swim down, and let yourself drown. They had job requests with them, all things they were doing day by day. But they were the alibi. The lie. She swallowed hard. No. Siegrain cannot be right about this being a pointless, wild goose chase. But was it ever meant to be this hard? Was it ever meant to go this far? She reached over, grabbed one of the many, random pencils she had brought for the purpose. She snapped it, shaking. I have never been much of a crier, so why does this get to me? She closed her eyes. Then, she forced herself to look up at the stars.

"You didn't have to be here," Erza finally said, sending Natsu a pointed look. "None of you did. So…why are you?"

Natsu eyed her strangely. "Because we care about you, and this means a lot to you. Besides, it's a lot less boring than just keeping up with more normal jobs."

"Well, we are doing that," Gray dryly remarked, brushing himself off when he came back from in the trees. "It's just not all we're all doing," He turned to Erza. "But he's right. We weren't going to let you do something like this on your own. Especially not after that damn meeting with Siegrain."

"Ugh," Natsu groaned. "Do we have to keep talking about that Council jerk?"

"You were the one who said he had every reason to be pissed at Jellal," Gray reminded him. "But I'm with you. He's a condescending jackass."

Erza managed a small laugh. "Please, if it ever comes up, say that to him."

"And let him take the honour away from me?" Lucy joked, hopping off the bumper and walking over to join them. "I thought we agreed I have first pick on insults towards Siegrain."

"You have wittier ones than that, I'm sure," Erza winked at her. "You're a writer, Lucy. Don't act as though it doesn't give you an edge when it comes to creative ways to tell people exactly what you think of them."

She turned pink. "I –" Lucy awkwardly began.

"Speaking of which, I'm sorry I accidentally picked up and started reading that draft of yours," Erza paused. "Although I quite enjoyed it, and you ought to keep going with it."

Lucy smiled. "I never stop. I hope you know that."

Silence befell the four, though only lasting mere seconds, all of them startling at the rustling of trees in the wind, and a few branches smacking against the top of the RV.

"We're going to be back in Magnolia in two months whether we have answers or not," Gray frowned. "I hate to say it, but that's a lot less time than I thought it would be."

"It always is," Lucy shook her head. "But this is definitely one of the worst things to be at want for nothing but time."

"Think about it this way," Natsu put in, waving at a rather hyper Happy while the blue, winged cat continued to chase birds. "We're trying to do something for Erza, and we're going to still be together whether this goes to plan or not."

Erza sighed. "I know you're right, Natsu," She said. "But I can't bring myself to think of what will happen if this doesn't pan out. If we don't find him, someone else will, and that person will almost certainly have horrible plans for what will become of him."

Not quite able to make herself look at them, Erza slammed her door into the RV shut as quickly as she could without giving herself too much time to think. Part of her wanted to scream, but she couldn't. She wanted to cry, but couldn't quite bring herself to. How did everything come to this? We were just kids, we didn't deserve any of it, and now we're scattered and in the worst scenarios possible. Who was manipulating you, Jellal? I need to know. Otherwise…otherwise they'll…you will never… Her fingers clenched around the steering wheel, and Erza let herself curl over it again, just a little, closing her eyes. Why can't I ever clear my mind when I need the peace most? She held onto the steering wheel tighter when she felt herself starting to shake. Then, she startled, sitting up so quickly she nearly smacked her head into the back of the seat. She said nothing when Lucy slid into the passenger seat and closed the door to the RV. Briefly, Erza let herself smile, seeing Natsu, Happy, and Gray laughing just outside. And to think a year or two ago I wouldn't have thought it possible for them to get along. Everything felt warmer, brighter, for a moment, when she caught a glimpse at the sunset.

Then, everything felt as horrible as it had been since that night in the Tower again.

"Are you going to be okay?" Lucy gently asked, sat down next to her and reaching over to rest her hands over the red headed mage's. "Or –"

"You asked me when we first left Magnolia what the catch to all of this was. And…I think I've found it. Maybe the catch is in the lesson," Erza frowned when she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. "Nobody is to blame but my own reflexion."