July 15, x777
Jellal had expected a lot when he crossed over to Earthland, abandoning his crazed father and brother and hijacking the anima so he could leave Edolas.
"Jellal! Look, it's a little froggy!"
The last thing he'd expected was to immediately find a little girl in the woods, lost and alone, just like he was. He wasn't the best with kids. He'd been in charge of caring for his brother and messed that up royally, but he couldn't leave her alone. So he let her travel with him, and it worked out well for both of them so far.
"Oh! Look, Jellal, it's crawling on my hand!"
She was curious, clumsy, kind, and timid, all wrapped together. She reminded him a bit of his brother, back before the miracle happened, back when he would search the apple orchards for secrets or tinker with magic tools. Wendy had that sense of wonder that his brother had lost; it was as refreshing as it was nostalgic.
"Careful, Wendy. If you scare it-"
"Ew! It peed!"
"...never mind."
However, the trade-off was that she had a knack for stumbling into trouble.
"Here, let me see," Jellal said as he kneeled beside Wendy, sitting on the ground and staring at her hand disgustedly. Her nose scrunched as she pouted and watched the culprit hopping into the dark surroundings of the forest they had camped in for the night.
You betrayed me, froggy...
Wendy huffed as she watched it disappear into the surrounding forest, the slight crackle of the nearby fire highlighting the yellow stain on her hand courtesy of Froggy. Wendy's ears prickled and then turned red as Jellal took her hand and muttered, "Wow, it peed a lot. We might have to cut it off so it doesn't get infected."
"Hey!"
"I'm just messing with you," Jellal said with a slight smile, taking his gloved hand and wiping away the yellow spot. Once he was done, he pulled his hands back and let his gloves buzz with purple magic, shaking the piss off, "There, all gone."
Jellal showcased the palm of his black glove, piss-free, as Wendy looked at it with wide eyes. Her head bobbed as she reached out and touched the dry fabric with a soft and mesmerized murmur.
"Are you sure you don't have magic..."
"I'm sure, Wendy," Jellal replied with a soft roll of his eyes, pinching Wendy's outstretched finger as he let a bit of purple energy pass through his gloves, "My gloves let me control vibrations."
The magic isn't with me; it's with my gloves.
Jellal watched as Wendy's eyes widened in silent understanding, and her finger began to tremble slightly. It was not enough to hurt, just a dull buzzing, until eventually, a surprised breath escaped her in the barest hint of a laugh: "It kind of tickles..."
Jellal's gloves are funny...
Wendy chuckled as she felt her finger start to numb like it was falling asleep before she looked up and realized the error of her ways. She saw Jellal's eyes light up in realization before she tried to run, only to get caught. A gloved hand caught her stomach and tickled her mercilessly.
"Ah! Sto—Pfft! Haha! Jellal! Haha!"
Wendy laughed as the funny gloves tickled her to tears, her eyes closed as she laughed until they eventually stopped, and she sat breathless on the ground, crippled from the sneak attack as she mumbled, "No... fair... meanie..."
"What was that?"
"Nothing!" Wendy called out, eliciting a laugh from Jellal as he walked over and stoked the fire, tossing a few branches in it as he called out to her, "It's about time to go to sleep, Wendy. We have to walk a lot tomorrow if we want to reach the next town."
Jellal glanced at Wendy, who stood up on shaky legs and nodded. Her smile was bright as she dusted herself off and walked over to the forest, pulling a few giant leaves to use as blankets like they always did. With a small smile, she asked, "I can't wait to see the next town. Do you think they'll have good food?"
"Probably," Jellal said uncommittedly as he walked over and picked a few of his leaves, set up his leaf bed, and made conversation, "So far, the food in this country has been incredible."
"I know. It's a lot better than the fish Grandneeny, and I used to eat," Wendy said as she made her leaf bed. Her eyes were downcast at the thought of her lost mother before she shook herself out of it. She finished crafting her leaf bed and slid it closer to Jellal's. She slept better when she knew he was close by. "Is it better than your old country, Jellal?"
"Yes, definitely," Jellal said with a small smile. One would think royalty would get the best food, but when everything had to be tested for poison, it was hard to get the freshness of a home-cooked meal. "The street vendors are better here."
"Ooh, yeah, they were the best! Especially those veggie sticks with the grilled cucumber. What were they called again?" Wendy asked with furrowed eyebrows. She had eaten one from a vendor in the previous village but forgot its name.
"Ka... Kibosh... Kabosh... Kaboom?"
"Pretty sure it was called a Kabob, Wendy."
"Oh yeah," Wendy mumbled in realization, a small chuckle escaping her as Jellal patted her head and turned to his leaf bed. As he turned to the night sky above, Wendy lay down on her own, looking at the starry sky with a bright, wanderlust smile. "Do you think they'll have more kabobs at the next place, Jellal?"
"Hopefully."
The two talked for a bit longer, watching the stars up above as they drifted slower and closer to sleep. The stars shone overhead, and eventually, Wendy asked with a low murmur tinted with the desire for sleep, "Hey, Jellal..."
"Yeah, Wendy."
"...do you miss your old country?"
Wendy had always wondered where Jellal came from, his strange tattoo, and why his body couldn't hold magic. She'd asked before, and he had told her that he came from a different country, somewhere far away, but he'd never elaborated further.
"...sometimes."
It seemed like a touchy subject.
"Sometimes I miss it," Jellal said with a small sigh, his downcast eyes lingering in the sky overhead as he tried to trace them. He wondered if Edolas had the same atmosphere or if there were some differences that he had yet to notice. He wondered if this world that was so similar yet so different from his own was reflected in the stars above.
"But that's behind me now."
Every night, Jellal looked at the sky and remembered when he and his brother used to do the same. The two of them would sneak through the palace and camp in the grass of the palace gardens where the guards wouldn't notice.
"I'm never going back there."
Once upon a time, they would watch the stars and trace them behind the giant floating islands in the sky. Once upon a time, they were just brothers and twins, and it was them against the world that seemed so keen to weigh on their shoulders.
"So there's no point in thinking about it..."
Those times were gone, burned in the attack that killed their only friend and nearly killed his brother. It would have killed his brother if it wasn't for the miracle that saved him from the brink of death. The gift that 'blessed' his brother and turned him into the ruthless warrior their father had always wanted from an heir, a tyrant in the making.
"I'd rather enjoy my time in this country instead."
That's why Jellal wouldn't go back.
"Besides..."
There was nothing left for him there.
"If I went back, I wouldn't get to have Kabobs anymore," Jellal said as he tried to inject a bit of optimism into his dull tone. The seconds ticked away as his words were met with silence, and right before he was about to turn to see if Wendy had fallen asleep, he heard a shuffling and felt a small head bump into his side. "Wendy?"
Jellal looked to his right, seeing the little girl lying beside him with her lead blanket wrapped around her as she snuggled closer and murmured, "I don't think... I don't think it's a bad thing..."
Jellal watched with wide eyes, instinctively curling a gentle arm around Wendy as she murmured with a mixture of sleepiness and compassion, "I don't think it's a bad thing if you miss your country."
The words seemed to be meant to be comforting; at first, he thought they were sympathetic, but as they rang through Jellal's ears and he watched Wendy start to drift off next to him, he realized there was a subtle difference to sympathy. It was reflected in the near silent words that escaped Wendy's lips on her path towards sleep, "I miss my mom all the time..."
Wendy was saying these things, even as she fell asleep, because she understood it.
"I don't think... it's a bad thing..."
She understood the feeling of missing your family.
"If... you... miss..."
That alone made Jellal feel a little better, lifting him out of the loneliness that sunk in with the knowledge that he was alone in this world. It made him look at the little girl curled up asleep by his side and smile, whispering a few words before he started drifting off to sleep: "Thanks, Wendy..."
Jellal was alone in this world and couldn't return to his family, but even then...
"You make me miss home a little less."
Even then, he was grateful for the little girl who stumbled into his life and made it a little less lonely.
July 15, x778
Mystogan woke from an old dream, staring at a cold wood and straw ceiling. He lay in a small bed with a head full of buzzing sounds and a body that felt like it had been through a meat grinder, yet the most jarring thing of all was that the right side of his body felt light.
Where am I...
It felt incredibly light.
What happened?
Mystogan felt odd, like entirely out of place, but as the remnants of the dream, a long-passed memory, started to fade, he regained his bearings. He was sitting up in the small room full of beds that had been deemed a hospital room, ignoring the stray bandages and herbs lying around and finally getting a complete picture of where he was and what had happened to him before he passed out.
I was dying, but now... I'm alive.
The last thing he remembered was bleeding out in the dirt, but now he was alive. Still, he was confident he should've died, and if he didn't, then that meant...
Shit...
That meant he had been healed and knew only one person could do that.
I have to-
"Jellal?"
A quiet sound, a tiny whisper of recognition, cut through the silent room and froze Mystogan's troubled thoughts to the bone. His eyes widened as he took a closer look around the room. Now that he had collected his bearings, he looked at the few beds beside him. Most were empty, but two were taken. The one to his left was taken by Siegrain, Earth's Siegrain, sleeping soundly and heavily, and the one to his right...
"Hey Wendy..."
The bed to his right held the not-so-sleeping and not-so-quiet Wendy, looking at him through glassy brown eyes that teetered between hope and worry. Hesitation laced in her hands that reached out slowly but stopped halfway through, although from where Mystogan was, it looked like they weren't stopping out of fear but out of uncertainty. She didn't know what to do now that the stressful battle was over; he was in front of her and not going anywhere anytime soon.
"...it's been a while."
He wouldn't get far in his state if he wanted to.
"Thank you for healing-"
Mystogan grunted as he felt a small head slam into his chest, his eyes tracking downwards in confusion as he watched a head of long dark blue hair. Wendy's face buried in his shirt as Mystogan watched in stunned silence, his left hand reaching up hesitantly to move her before he heard a soft, scared murmur from Wendy's trembling throat, "I'm sorry..."
Mystogan froze as he heard a set of slight, nearly silent sniffles escape Wendy's throat. His eyes softened as he watched her hand slip towards his empty sleeve, hesitantly grabbing it with shaky white knuckles. His mind flashed back to some of the few moments in their month of travel when she would wake him up in the middle of the night because her nightmares woke her up.
"I ran a- away, and you- your a- arm."
Mystogan didn't want to be the reason she was making such a scared expression.
"I- I couldn't-"
"It's not your fault, Wendy," Mystogan said without room for question, his left hand softly taking her grip and peeling back the tiny fingers one by one. Her hands moved to his shirt, and he pressed his left hand against Wendy's hair, rubbing circles into her head to calm her trembling. He murmured, "What happened to my arm is entirely on me."
Wendy was young...
"So don't cry..."
Mystogan needed to remind her of that.
"You did nothing wrong."
Mystogan watched as his words hit her ears, and her shoulder shook. Wendy broke down as he silently comforted her. His fingers rubbed the back of her head until she could catch her rapid breaths. His shirt was stained with tears as she murmured something so low he almost missed it.
"Then why..."
Mystogan watched, dawning with understanding as he felt her grip tighten around his shirt and her shaky breath hit the air, "Why did you leave?"
Wendy's voice was trembling, and her body was small and shaking, but he heard the desperation in her words, "Wha- what did I do? Why- why did you..."
It had haunted Wendy for months after he left and never left her thoughts. The guild and her new friends had numbed it, but a part of her always wondered why...
"What did I do to make you leave?"
Why did he leave her...
"I- I can fix it! If you tell me, I can fix it!"
Why did he go away...
"I can fix it... So please..."
Why...
"Tell me what I did wrong."
Why did everyone she loved leave her alone?
"Tell me why-"
"It wasn't because of you, Wendy."
Wendy's eyes widened as she felt a slight tug on her shoulder; her head pulled back as she met a pair of brown eyes that conveyed nothing but honesty.
"It was never because of you, Wendy... don't..."
Honesty and a deep sense of guilt.
"Don't ever think it was because of you."
Wendy felt sobs well up in her throat as she tried to choke them back down. Her eyes were tearing as she watched those brown eyes tilt towards her and saw something she'd never thought she'd see, "I never would have left you if I had the choice."
It was a trail of tears that streamed across twin scars and a red tattoo.
"I'm sorry I made you think that Wendy."
Wendy had never seen him cry before...
"I'll tell you everything. So please..."
She had never seen him shed a tear, even when he talked of his home or hinted at his old family. He was always the strong one, an immovable wall that protected her from monsters in the woods or bandits that would pop up during their travels.
"Please promise me you won't blame yourself for something like that again."
It was jarring, but for some reason...
"Can you do that..."
It made her feel relieved.
"Wendy?"
Mystogan watched as his words echoed through Wendy's ears, her head slowly nodding as she closed her agape mouth and latched on to his words. Her eyes were wide and observant as he took a deep breath and started from the beginning.
"Remember when I told you my name was Mystogan now?"
The very beginning...
"Well, that isn't a name from this world."
When he was the first prince of a kingdom that had conquered the world it was named after.
"It's from my world..."
He had a brother who loved him and a friend who would play stupid games with them.
"It's from my home."
Mystogan told Wendy a story of a boy, a prince, who had seen his friend die in an attack on the capital city. It was the story of a boy who watched his brother suffer grievous injuries from that same attack and was only saved because of a miracle. A miracle that left the boy's brother with a 'blessing' that corrupted his view of the world and tainted it beyond repair.
"I am from the world of Edolas."
The boy's story began with him abandoning his family only to stand in their way when he realized they had chased after this one's bountiful magic.
"A world where magic is dying."
Wendy listened to every single word.
A few hours later, after Mystogan told Wendy of his past and history, he sat on his bed and listened to her light snores fill the air. His hand coursed through her hair as he spoke to the other slumbering room resident.
"Sorry to disappoint you..."
The one that had woken up about halfway through his explanation and pretended to stay asleep.
"I know you were expecting your actual brother."
Mystogan turned his head to the bed to his left, watching as Siegrain, Earthland's Siegeain, opened his eyes dully and sat up. Mystogan watched as his brother's doppelgänger spoke quietly about his true feelings, "It's alright..."
It didn't take a genius to see they weren't on the happy side of things.
"It makes sense how you aren't my Jellal."
Mystogan watched respectfully, letting Siegrain process everything as his brother's doppelgänger took a small breath. The bruises and bandages that littered Siegrain's torso shifted as he ran a hand through his hair and turned to Mystogan with a quiet question.
"Is it true that everyone has a doppelgänger in your world?"
It seemed to be tinged with a bit of hope.
"So far, yes," Mystogan said with a sharpened gaze, keeping his voice flat as he saw the dark thoughts that crossed Siegrain's mind, "However, they aren't the same people. Most of the time, they even have opposite personalities."
It was easy to connect the dots on why Siegrain would be hopeful; Mystogan would know.
"If you've lost someone..."
He had spent much more time than he'd like to admit over the last year looking for his friend's Earthland doppelgänger. The one who died years ago, as far as he'd found, she didn't exist in this world; that or she was dead and gone already. Either way, it made all too aware the heartbreaking desire one would have when learning of Edolas.
"You won't find them there."
Mystogan knew better than anyone how easy it was to search for the dead in a world where it looked like they were still living. Thankfully, his warning seemed to get through to his brother's doppelgänger, who gave a small, devastated sigh before nodding and dropping the entire conversation. The silence stretched as Wendy's snores filled the air.
"My brother is probably a horrible person..."
Siegrain's tired and pensive words cut the silence.
"I've sort of gotten that impression."
Mystogan's words cut the tension.
"Does that mean your brother is also... the Edolas version of me is also..."
It was a casual conversation, but the unsaid words came and went, leaving the two with a new sense of connection.
"Yeah, Rain's... not the same person he once was."
These two lost souls had been born opposite of their twins and were now separated while traveling on entirely different trajectories.
"Do you think Edolas, me, and Earthland you..."
It was a horrible thing to experience.
"...I don't know."
The knowledge that your family, your closest family, has done horrible things and could continue to do them, even if you try to stop it. That was the feeling Siegrain had to accept, and it was enough to drain his already tired body past its limits.
"I need some rest," Siegrain said tiredly. He let the words sink into his chest before lying back down and closing his eyes to hide from the warring thoughts.
"Thanks for letting me know about Edolas."
It really was a horrible feeling.
"You deserved to know."
It was a daunting and crushing feeling.
"...night Mystogan."
At the very least...
"...night Siegrain."
It wasn't a feeling he had to experience alone.
Ten minutes passed, and Mystogan was almost the only soul awake in the small healing chamber. His left ear tinged with Siegrain's snores, and his right tinged with Wendy's. The small view he could see from the window to the outside world showed him the dawning sky and rising sun.
"You should get some sleep, kid; you've had a long night."
The voice of the older man sitting on an empty cot nearby, having watched the entire thing from the comfort of his invisible illusion, didn't startle Mystogan. He had sensed the older man show up about the same time Siegrian woke, but he figured it was OK if Raubol knew of Edolas.
"Or do you Edolians not need 8 hours?"
Mystogan owed him for taking care of Wendy.
"We prefer 8 hours; my mind just isn't tired yet," Mystogan said with a sigh as he ran his fingers through Wendy's hair, his eyes low as he watched the world outside the window. It was funny how some things looked the same; the sun looked the same, but the sky was different. There were no floating islands, no angels; it was just a clear blue sky tinted with the pink and orange of sunrise.
"I don't know how..."
This sky, this world, was so beautiful compared to his old one, yet it wasn't better per se. It was just a different kind of beauty that came with limitless magic, with mages in every corner of the world and still growing. It was a world that flourished with the beauty of ethernano and its abundance.
"How am I supposed to tell her..."
Mystogan was the only one who could protect it.
"That I need to leave again."
Mystogan had to protect this world from his family, father, and brother, but he didn't want to leave. He missed Wendy; he missed not being alone, and he didn't want to go back to hunting down portals, even if he knew it was his responsibility.
"What should I do..."
When did closing those portals seem so daunting?
"I don't know-"
"Why did you leave Wendy with me, Jellal?"
Raubol's sudden question cut through Mystogan's warring thoughts, his eyes trailing over to the old man who looked back with a slight smirk, "Oh, sorry, you go by Mystogan now."
It was an odd question, but the answer was easy.
"So, Mystogan, why did you leave Wendy with me?"
He did it to protect her.
"I had to close the anima portals," Mystogan said tiredly as he gazed out the window before casually explaining the anima, "They can form anywhere in Ishgar, and depending on their strength, the time between could be a month or a week."
Anima originally was a natural phenomenon that used to happen around Edolas. Portals that would randomly pop up and suck things up or spit them out from the either of the two worlds. Mystogan's father had learned how to control it and turned it into a weapon. All those random portals had become exclusively controlled by King Faust, and older magic had always been his target.
"With Wendy's magic, she might get sucked into one of them and not be able to get out."
Mystogan was lucky now. The last portal had been big and would take at least a month to recover, but many of the earlier ones were small and erratic. He had to travel all the time to try and beat them, which meant if he took Wendy, he probably wouldn't be able to keep an eye on her.
"I can't let that happen to her."
Mystogan was just too busy to watch her all the time, so he left her with Raubol because he didn't want to risk one of the portals targeting her lost magic or her accidentally going near the portals when he wasn't paying attention. That would have been a disaster, and he wouldn't have forgiven himself.
"I can sense that you have a lot of magic... an absurd amount of magic."
Also, Raubol sent Mystogan's sixth sense for magic off the charts, so he knew Wendy's safety would be guaranteed with the older man watching over her.
"I figured you could protect her in my stead."
That was all. Obviously, if Mystogan had thought Raubol was a bad person, he would have found someone else, but Raubol seemed genuine. So Mystogan left Wendy with the older man.
"Why suddenly ask me about that?"
Mystogan didn't see why that was on Raubol's mind; it had happened a year ago, and Raubol had proved that Mystogan had made the correct decision.
"Oh, no reason."
Mystogan didn't know why the older man was bringing it up-
"I was just curious whether you'd known I was a ghost or not."
Mystogan's thoughts, which had been going smoothly, took a sharp turn to the left. His eyes went wide as he looked at Raubol with utter shock. The older man chuckled before glancing out the window with a cheeky smile on his aged lips: "Ha! Your face is priceless! Pretty neat, huh?"
Mystogan swore it took a few seconds for his brain to restart. His eyes narrowed as he asked, with complete and utter seriousness.
"You're... a ghost."
"Yup."
"Like ghost, ghost."
"The ghostliest of ghosts."
"...okay."
Mystogan had trouble wrapping his head around it, but it didn't seem like Raubol was lying, so it must be true. In which case, he may have accidentally left Wendy with a ghost a year ago, but that was fine because it was a friendly ghost, and the other-
"Ooh, I should mention that all the other guild members of Cait Shelter are ghosts, too. I'm the ghost guild master of a guild of ghosts. Try saying that five times fast."
Never mind, Mystogan had left Wendy with a bunch of ghosts. Friendly ghosts, to be fair, but it still wouldn't have been his first choice when looking for someone to care for her. He would have probably looked at other guilds before Cait Shelter and its inhabitants...
"Wait..."
It's ghostly inhabitants.
"Why are you guys a guild if you all are dead?"
Mystogan furrowed his brows as the questions circled his head. His eyes trained on Raubol, who smiled at him and spoke with a slight chuckle, "Oh? Finally, asking the big questions, huh, well, the answer is the same as yours, and might even have an answer to that dilemma you're facing."
Raubol smirked as he watched Mystogan tilt his head in confusion before Raubol clapped his hands, and the air above him shimmered. The illusion of a different time, a time that existed ages ago, was shown before speeding up to show the years that had passed.
"I have been in this forest for over 300 years, protecting the lock to a weapon that could destroy the world as we know it."
The illusion showed a single tree growing into a grove and then a forest. The forest grew and burned, thriving and dying. All the while, Raubol stood alone in the center, occasionally summoning members of his old tribe to pass the time but otherwise doing nothing but waiting.
"So I have stood here and waited for centuries."
Raubol had waited, unchanging, while even the earth around him had become a completely different landscape. He waited, and beyond the fleeting mages he'd encountered over the years and the few of his tribe that he brought back when the silence was deafening, he was alone.
"Yet I never once thought of creating a guild..."
Loneliness wasn't a burden; it was a punishment—one he chose to shoulder for his crime of creating Nirvana. It was so easy to bear that weight before Wendy showed up.
"Until you left Wendy to me..."
She changed his mind about the need for a guild in the middle of nowhere.
"Then I realized that the loneliness I had grown used to was suffocating."
The illusion flickered, showing a scene of a crying child who had sparked that desperate need. The girl who had convinced him to create Cait Shelter, a guild where she wouldn't be lonely.
"I think you understand that loneliness better than anyone."
The illusion died, and Raubol held Mystogan's thousand-yard stare before offering the banished prince a long-overdue choice.
"Mystogan, I'm not asking you to take her with you, at least not now. I understand it could be dangerous when she's still so young."
The choice that Raubol should have given the boy when he left on his lonely journey a year ago.
"So, instead, I want you to consider an alternative."
Raubol was an old soul, older than most kingdoms, yet even he had made a simple mistake: mistaking maturity for readiness or acceptance.
"I'll work on some magic that could ease your burden so you have more time to yourself. Enough time to travel further than your next destination in the timespan between each portal opening."
Raubol should have been able to spot when a child was shouldering too much to bear; he should have intervened, but he didn't.
"In return..."
Now, he needed to correct that mistake.
"Join my guild."
Raubol had created this guild, nestled in the middle of nowhere, to ensure that Wendy wouldn't have to feel the same loneliness he'd felt over the centuries.
"You can seal your portals, and in the time between, you can return here to Wendy."
The same loneliness that all the Nitvit tribe had felt for centuries.
"You are a good person, Mystogan..."
Cait Shelter was a place where the loneliest of souls could gather.
"You don't have to be alone anymore."
Raubol didn't see why they couldn't make room for one more.
"Just... think it over," Raubol said with a soft smile, fading from the room and leaving a small trinket behind as he left Mystogan with a shell-shocked expression. His wide eyes remained glued to the spot Raubol had vanished from and the small item the old man had left for minutes on end before he let out a near-silent chuckle and murmured with a small smile, "Huh..."
It was such a simple item, yet the sight of it filled Mystogan with fear, confusion, and hope all at once. To the point that he knew he would spend the next couple of hours staring at the wooden stamp with the emblem of a cat on its end—the same symbol that was on Wendy's shoulder.
"What an eccentric old ghost."
The guild mark of Cait Shelter.