Chapter Thirteen

Juvia worried the straw between her lips, her eyes darting from one place to the next. "It's quite warm for October, isn't it Gray-sama?" she offered weakly.

Juvia was on a date. A highly anticipated, cannot-believe-it-is-actually-happening date. And it was going badly.

She had been on her fair share of bad dates; a particularly memorable one that involved a toupee that turned out to be a ferret, came to mind. Yet, even that had been less awkward than the one she was currently on.

She eyed the boy sitting across from her, equally ill at ease. He pounced upon the conversational gambit. "Yes! Quite warm!" he faked a bright tone.

"Yes."

"Yeah."

The pair lapsed into silence again. Juvia's eyes drifted to where her left hand had been lying limply on the table for the past forty minutes. Left because Gray was right-handed. She had made it so easy for him. Why were his hands still in his pockets? He was sitting down! Her cheeks puffed out as her internal monologue went on a diatribe on the unfairness of the world. Meredy had warned her that her expectations were to high. So, she had lowered them. Considerably. And it was still excruciating.

"So. Here we are," Gray said for the tenth time.

Juvia wanted to scream. She bit her lip and smiled vaguely at Gray.

The two of them nearly collapsed with relief when a blur of red and grey dashed into the café. Finally, something to talk about.

"One strawberry cheesecake. To go," she barked at the man behind the counter.

"Hey Erza!" Gray called, "come join us!"

"Ah Gray. Juvia. I did not see you there." She leaned over the counter and caught the baker's eye. "Do not bother packing it, I have changed my mind. And I will take a cup of tea as well."

She dragged a chair outside to Gray and Juvia's table and dropped a heavy binder on it. Juvia squeaked and snatched her hand away just in time. "I am so sorry Juvia, I did not see your hand there!" Erza exclaimed.

'That would make two of you,' Juvia thought bitterly. How had he found a way to make their date worse? Gray-sama really was remarkable.

"Erza-san, you look like you are really busy," Juvia said politely.

"All the more reason to take a break!" Gray declared, his eyes taking on a somewhat manic gleam.

"I suppose I can spare a few minutes. I am helping organise Levy and Gajeel's wedding." Erza tapped the binder smartly.

Juvia watched numbly as Gray and Erza fell into easy conversation. Her Gray-sama was even flipping through the binder and offering suggestions.

What was so wrong with her that Gray-sama could not talk to her like this? She felt metaphorical rainclouds start to gather overhead. Meredy's voice echoed in her ears, telling her not to be so harsh on herself. This was a first date and given Juvia and Gray-sama's history, it was bound to be awkward. It would be fine. It would be fine!


"I am going to collect some timber next; Mira and Levy want to see a few samples before they settle on a final wedding canopy. I wonder if Natsu will be free to help."

"Why bother fire-freak? Juvia and I are free, we'd be happy to help." He needed to have taken his foot out of his mouth about five minutes ago, but somehow, he kept going, "It would be nice to help them have a romantic wedding!"

This last sentence was so uncharacteristic for him that Erza cocked her head and gave him a strange look.

Juvia's chair scraped along the cobblestones as she stood. "Meredy and Juvia are going on a mission this afternoon." She checked her bare wrist. "Yes, Juvia is already quite late. Juvia will see you later, Erza-san. Thank you for the date, Gray-sama." She smiled brightly.

Gray pretended not to notice the tears suspended in the corners of her eyes.

The words filtered into Erza's brain a second too late. "D-d-date?" Her head snapped from Juvia's retreating back to Gray's face and back. "W-w-wait! Juvia!"

Gray put out an arm to stop her from chasing Juvia down. "Let her go," he said gruffly.

"Why did you ask me to join you if you were on a date?" Erza glared at him.

"I don't know," Gray whined, burying his head in his hands. "Let's just get the bill and go."

Later, as Erza hefted 80 board feet of timber onto a cart, she ventured to ask again. "It is considered impolite to invite a third person to your date, Gray."

"Have a lot of dating experience, do you?" he quipped, placing a much smaller pile of logs on the cart beside her.

"Do you?" she replied softly.

Gray turned away to hide his reddened cheeks. A few misconstrued pictures in Sorcerer's Weekly and his close friendship with Loke had earned him an undeserved and inaccurate reputation as a ladies' man. Truth be told, Juvia was his first girlfriend and he had no idea what to do with her.

"I'll talk if you tell me why you are suddenly organising Gajeel and Levy's entire wedding."

"I am not organising the entire wedding. Mira is the real mastermind…" her voice tailed off as Gray gave her a sceptical look. "Fine," she said.

Gray turned back to his work with a satisfied snort. Erza had selected a few trees from the edge of East Forest that she considered suitable. He swung his ice-axe into a thick wooden trunk, the dull rhythm of the work lulling him into calm.

"I am sad."

He almost swung the axe into his foot.

"All the time," Erza continued. "I am sad all the time. This," she gestured abstractedly, "helps."

He stared at her awkwardly as she calmly continued chopping a felled tree into logs.

"So," she said, "your date with Juvia."

Gray stripped off his shirt and heaved the axe into the tree again. "I didn't know what to say to her. It's what she's wanted for so long and when it came down to it, I just- I choked. Maybe I made a mistake. I don't think I can do this."

"Idiot." Erza's armoured fist swung into the side of his head. "Do you not know that the stakes are equally high for her?"

"Ouch! What the hell, Erza?" Gray grumbled, rubbing the side of his head.

"Go to her and apologise. Try again." She gave the tree trunk a hard shove and it broke away cleanly. It fell to the forest floor with a thud. "Do something you are more comfortable with. Take on a mission together. Whispering sweet nothings into her ear on a sunlit terrace is not you. Be who you are, not who someone else wants you to be."

She stepped over the fallen tree, neatly avoiding its branches. "And put some on clothes while you do."


Summer coalesced slowly to autumn; the honeyed days hardening to burnished amber. Time sludged slowly by, its heaviness reflected in Erza's eyelids every morning as she woke to an ebbing sun. The same heaviness she felt in her heart.

But one morning her eyes snapped open with the first brush of sunlight. She sprang out of bed and ran to the window to see dawn breaking out over Magnolia and for the first time, in a very long time, she could breathe easily. Gone was the weight that had been pressing into her chest. Gone was the sheer tiredness that had embedded itself, bone deep in her limbs.

Erza had heard people say that time heals all wounds. She did not think she was healed; she remained terrified that the gnawing void lurked, hiding underneath the scar tissue that was growing over her heart. But she knew that it was enough. Whatever this was, whatever this feeling was; it was enough.

She went to the guild with almost a skip in her step.


"OK, I play Vijeeter. They use 'Dancing-jutsu' which raises the attack of all my cards on the field, allowing Laxus to cast Red Lightning, which should annihilate all your cards. So, hah! I win!" Gray threw down his cards triumphantly.

"Not so fast," Cana said, "I play the 'Nakama Power' card, which combined with my Natsu Dragneel that is already in play, means all your cards are defeated. I win!"

"'Nakama Power' doesn't even make sense!"

"Sorry, I don't make the rules." Cana shrugged insouciantly.

"You literally do. This is your card game!"

"Don't worry Gray-sama! Juvia has invented a new card game for us. It is called 'Gray-sama Love Love!'"

"Wow Gray, didn't realise you were into that kind of kinky stuff."

"Kinky Gray-sama?" Juvia's cheeks flushed red as a banner of images scrolled through her mind. "Ju-bin!"

"What are you thinking about, Juvia? Stop! STOOPPP!"

Cana's lips curved into a silent smirk as she took a drag from her bottle of wine. She left the embarrassed couple at their table and took a seat at the bar.

"That was pretty naughty of you, Cana," Mira said, pointedly placing a wine glass on the counter.

"You'd know, wouldn't you?"

Mira blushed prettily at Cana's wolfish grin.

"Mira would know what?" Erza asked, walking up to the duo, Wendy and Charle in tow.

"Nothing. Mira knows nothing!" Mira replied hurriedly, polishing some glasses with renewed vigour.

Charle hopped onto the counter and sniffed. "Looks like Juvia's proclivity for the third person is contagious."

"And so is Nab's work-shyness. How long have you guys been back anyway?" Cana asked.

Erza puffed out an irritated breath. "A month."

"We are waiting for Lucy-san to finish her research," Wendy added.

"It's nice to have you back though. The guild is certainly livelier with you all here."

"Don't speak too soon, Mira," Cana said. She pointed to the staircase that lead down to the library. Lucy stood on the top step, peering at the guildhall over the top of her Gale Force Glasses. Her face brightened when she spotted Erza and Wendy. "Looks like their little holiday is up."


Lucy patted the stack of documents in front of her. Towering piles of paper filled the room, each of them glowing with green magical energy. "I convinced Lyra to sneak these out of her mother's library, they- where are Natsu and Happy?"

"They went fishing with Lisanna. What are these?" Erza flicked through a few pages. The letters scurried over the sheet, rearranging themselves into inky black fractals.

Plue waddled up to Lucy and handed her a folder. "Plue, plue plue."

"Thanks, Plue!" Lucy passed the folder to Erza. "These are the Rules of the Quest." She gestured towards the glowing mountains of paper. "I have summarised them in this folder."

"That's way too much to read and remember!" Gray complained, leaning over Erza's shoulder to peer at the file.

"Um, Lucy-san. Could you maybe summarise the rules?" Wendy asked timidly.

"I was hoping Natsu would be here, so I wouldn't have to repeat this," Lucy sighed.

"I'm here. I'm here." Natsu walked into the room, Charle and Happy hovering behind. "Happy and I came as soon as Charle found us. What's happening?"

Happy gave a little shriek and hid behind Natsu's head. "Why is all this paper glowing?!"

"Maybe someone painted them with glow-in the dark paint!"

"That's stupid even for you, ashface."

"What was that? You want to go, snowflake?"

"Boys, you better not start fighting again!"

"Scary Erza!"

A stressmark appeared on Lucy's forehead as the group devolved into its usual nonsense. She slammed her fist onto the table. "The least you can do is listen to me. I have been in this library for A MONTH! A WHOLE MONTH! I have been sleeping here, eating here, washing up in that tiny sink because this guild is full of perverts who spy on the girl's bathrooms-"

"Yeah, you stink," Natsu said, sniffing the air.

Lucy threw a book at him. "Any. How," she bit out. "I have simplified the Rules to four key points. First, and this is the most important, if we do not do any Quest-related activities for two months then we will be disqualified from the Quest. For us, this time period ends in exactly 4 days."

"That's not a lot of time," Charle said.

"We can't get back to Giltena in four days!" Worry knotted Gray's brow.

"We still have Jellal's map. Mount Zonia is only a day from here," Erza interjected.

Charle huffed. "There's no way of telling if that lead will pan out."

"What other option do we have?"

"What about the stone tablet?"

Lucy shook her head. "I translated it, but it is in some kind of code. My best guess is that it is some kind of date, but I still have not cracked it."

"Mount Zonia then. We don't have another choice. Gildarts went there when he was on the quest as well," Gray said.

"Alright! I'm all fired up!"

Happy tugged on the hem of Natsu's shirt. "Take it easy, Natsu! You can't go overboard, or the poison will flare up again."

"There's another thing," Lucy chewed her lip, "there is a whole subsection of the Rules solely devoted to Deals. Like the one the Snake Guardian offered us. If we are disqualified from the Quest then the Deal is off. That is to say, if we do not drink the Potion of Abdication before the time limit is up in 4 days, we do not get anything. Natsu will die." Her voice broke on the last word.

"Hey," Natsu said gently, "Don't worry about it." He placed a hand on Lucy's hair and leaned his forehead against hers. "I told you. We'll always be together."

"I-I don't want you to die!" Lucy buried her head in Natsu's shirt, her hands tightly gripping the collar.

"Me either!" Happy burst into tears and crashed into their hug.

"No one is going to die," Erza said gently, "now let's get going. There is a midnight train to Geranium Town. That's only a few hours from Mount Zonia." She tilted her head toward the door and the other four of them filed out, leaving the family of three to their embrace.


Lightning flashed through windows that were rattling in the wind. One by one, the candles in the small mountain cabin were extinguished; allowing the moonlight from the calm night outside to illuminate the room.

"Now what do we do?" the woman yelled over the sound of the howling wind.

The man held up a hand, using his cloak to shield himself from the worst of the onslaught. "I am not sure. It is a Lost Magic. There was not a lot of information in the books!" A table turned somersaults in the hurricane, heading straight for the woman. "Watch out!" He pushed her out of the way with just a second to spare.

"I have to go in!" he said, pointing at the gaping black hole in the centre of the room. The area around it seemed askew, as though someone had peeled a painting away, leaving that part of the room hanging like a flap. A gale rushed forth from the aperture, the blades of air sharp enough to slice.

"I'm coming with you!"

"You can't!"

"You ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time. I am not letting you go alone!"

"Listen to me," the man said, ducking to avoid a flying portrait as it hurtled past. "You need to be here to form the link when my signal comes through. That's the most important part." He gripped her shoulders and looked at her with eyes that were squinted closed from the force of the wind. "Trust me to do my part, just as I trust you to do yours. We will succeed."

The woman nodded at him, determination lining the firm set of her mouth. "I trust you," she said.

The man squeezed her shoulders once before turning towards the fissure. Her hand shot out to grab his arm. "Be safe," she said.

He pushed his way through the cutting wind, hands raised to protect his eyes. He stopped inches from the hole and turned to look at her one last time. His cloak blew up behind him, forming an eerie halo around his body. The woman met his eyes and mouthed something to him. He could not hear her, but he recognised the three words. He tugged his hood over his head and leaned back, allowing the darkness to swallow him.

The wind stopped and the flap closed; sutured precisely with the most delicate of hands. In a few moments, it was as though he had never existed at all.


The train chuffed through the starlit night, leaving puffs of steam and smoke in its wake. Lucy leaned against the carriage window, gazing unseeingly into the darkness beyond. Her fingers idly played with Natsu's hair, his head resting in her lap as he slept.

"Um, Lucy-san," said Wendy, "earlier you said there were four key points to the rules of the quest, but you told us only one."

Gray shifted in his seat, turning his attention to them. Opposite him, Erza slept soundly, her arms wrapped around the sleeping forms of Charle and Happy.

Lucy pursed her lips and turned away from the window. "The other three are less urgent, but still important. The second of the four is that the Guardians are forbidden from killing the Questers at the first encounter. We already knew this because Tiger told us this. This means that the next time we encounter the Snake Guardian, we must be extra careful."

"It also means that our best strategy with the Guardians is to complete the task and obtain the key on the first encounter," Gray mused.

"Correct. We have been lucky so far that most of the Guardians have not required us to do battle, but we are not even halfway through. I do not think we will be so lucky in the future."

"Hmm. And what about the last two?"

"These are somewhat more interesting ones." Lucy absentmindedly tugged on one of Natsu's locks of hair, causing him to grumble and shift in his sleep. She smoothed his brow gently and continued, "The Deals made by the Guardians are set up as a blind trust. They have no idea if or when we fulfil the requirements and the Deal is completed. This is an extension of another Rule; the Guardians are not aware of when the Quest is taken or abandoned."

"The Guardians simply wait here on Earth until a new wizard takes the quest?" Wendy asked.

"Yes. Those that have already returned to the stars must wait there until there are new Questers. However, since there are long gaps between the Questers, there is no way for those remaining on Earthland to know if anyone is currently on the Quest or not. They can find out if someone new takes the Quest because the other Guardians return, but until then they have no knowledge."

"So, the Snake Guardian will not know if we abandon the quest or not. Or even if we take the deal."

Gray scratched his chin contemplatively. "Seems like something we can use to our advantage. As far as the Snake knows, we have left the continent and could have quit the quest."

"Yes," Lucy agreed, "the last thing is that the Guardian must issue their Task on the first encounter with the Questers, otherwise they automatically forfeit their key. Since we do not have the Snake's key and we have already had our first encounter, this means that a Task has been issued to us."

"That's crazy! The Snake didn't give us a Task!"

"Ssh!" Lucy glared at him, turning her head pointedly towards their sleeping comrades.

'Sorry,' Gray mouthed.

"Lucy-san, is there anything in the rules that specifies how the task should be given?"

"Good catch, Wendy. The Rules do not state that the Task must be issued explicitly. Anything the Snake may have said to us, or even vaguely hinted at, could be the Task. There are a lot of different Rules and it seems like a key to completing this Quest successfully would be to take advantage of the loopholes in them."

Wendy looked perturbed. "But Lucy-san, didn't Vega-sama say that Aconologia was punished for something like that?"

Lucy considered Wendy's words. "Maybe the real key is finding a way to walk the fine line between the two."

Gray looked over at Erza and saw her lips press themselves into a thin, unyielding line. Her eye cracked open and she met Gray's gaze. He turned away to look out of the window. "Yes," he said sardonically, that's something we're good at."


Natsu walked out of the bakery, his arms laden with brown paper bags. He pulled a bun out of one and tossed it to Gray. "Breakfast. Catch." He distributed the rest of the bread and chomped down on his own food. "There were some men talking in the bakery," he said as he chewed, "they said there's a monster in the forest near Zonia."

"Finish chewing before you speak," Erza scolded sternly. "Lucy, is there anything in the rules that mentions that a Guardian must remain only in Giltena?"

Lucy wiped her mouth before speaking. "No, but since the Guardian Beasts require so much magical energy, I don't think they would venture far from Giltena. The other continents don't have enough Ethernano to support them."

"Still, it does not mean it is impossible. Isn't Mount Zonia also called the Sacred Mountain? And it snows continuously on the mountain regardless of what time of year it is. That's certainly suspicious," Charle pointed out.

Gray spotted a passer-by and decided to ask her. "Excuse me, miss. Do you know why that mountain has snows all year around?"

The woman gave him a disgusted look. "Ew no dude, I just live here," she drawled. Then she looked him up and down and turned to walk away. "And put some clothes on, pervert."

Gray looked down at his body and squeaked. "My clothes!"

A few hours later, the wizards were ankle deep in the thick flurries near the summit of Mount Zonia. Lucy's teeth chattered as she sheltered with Wendy, Charle and Happy inside Horologium. "How much farther?"

"You know, you wouldn't have this problem if you would wear more clothes," Natsu grumbled.

"Hey! This is a cute outfit!"

Gray rolled his eyes and hurried to catch up with Erza. She was standing on a crest of land, looking at something in the distance. He looked over her shoulder to the map in her hand and then up at the landscape beyond. "Is that it?"

Erza rolled up the scroll with a snap. "We are here."


The beast rumbled around the dark cavern; his eyes accustomed to the intense darkness. Pointy teeth gnashed in frustration as he hit yet another dead end. There was power here. He could smell it. He just needed to find it.

A memory sprang into his mind. A duo of wizards striking him down. Lying on the ground. Defeated. "Never again!" he roared, slamming a clawed fist into the cave wall. He just needed to find it. Then he really would be the strongest.


A/N: An update! Could it be? My thesis is turning out to be even more work than I expected but hey, that's that grad life. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. It means a lot to have people tell me the characters are spot on because that is the hardest thing to do. You have kept me going through this (frankly) difficult time of my life. Really. It has meant more to me than words can say 3

A/N 2: I promise I wasn't just slacking all these months y'all. I was actually very busy, writing four fics for the Grayza fanzine! Check out their tumblr and download it when it's out. I don't have any oneshots up on my profile yet and obvs I can't cross-post the ones from the zine here, so I'd love if you read them. I'm pretty proud of some of them. (And there's a very explicit lemon in one if that's up your alley).

A/N 3: Just a few more chapters and then the real Grayza fluff will strong. Please send me energy y'all. Just need to finish this Zonia bit (and a smidgeon more). Also the three words the woman says to the man in the middle of this chapter? NOT 'I love you.' I've left a few hints as to who they are and what they are doing in the text, I'd love if you give me your theories! Same with the beast I mentioned at the end of the chapter.

Thank you for reading, reviewing, faving/following! Please leave a review if you feel like it. Hope to see you VERY SOON.