Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Though our name has changed, our purpose has not.

Our Lady, who of all She chose, entrusted us with this task.

We do hereby keep our oath, our vow, our promise.

We are bound to this duty till the Sun rises once more.

We shall keep the Night full of light.

            Lucy Heartfilia landed, the first flight on her own, at Magnolia’s train station as if she were returning from a long journey, and not about to embark on one.

            From up above, the town was gentle on the eye under the blue, brightening sky and seemed of a storybook’s front page. She stepped into that book as she landed, her brown boots and slight heel clicking against the gray cobblestones painted with the dawn’s young vigor in plum, scarlet, and tangerine. The train station bustled with people passing along the street to race the clock ticking above the entrance, each hand waving people in and out of the building. The ground shook, finals calls, arrivals, and the grinding of the train as it chugged and whistled, and Lucy took a step back to read the crowd.

            There were people in their fine, bright clothes, wide, sun hats over their heads racing towards the entrance with wild shrieks that were echoed by the train’s shrill note, and they would be going to Akane, of that she had no doubt. Another group was coming out, dressed comfortable and with little on them as they stretched their hands towards the cloudless sky and meandered towards Magnolia, a day trip to Crocus perhaps with a midnight train to bring them back. Many were staggering, slow, and tired with yawning mouths of a train chimney that rose up, up, up, and walked on. Lucy loved the train and had raced towards them many times to meet the schedule posted on a rotating board beside the ticket booth. A set of old speakers crackled and popped and Lucy could feel a train arriving before she saw it from the north road.

            I won’t be leaving this way for my adventure, and I doubt I’ll have the chance to take the train with everyone again for a long time, Lucy thought and clutched Cloacina, her family’s key staff, tighter. She wouldn’t be fighting to secure a booth to fit the many cakes Erza brought and laid across their laps, she wouldn’t talk with Gray about the guild gossip, and she wouldn’t fight with Natsu over the window so he didn’t throw himself out. She memorized the face of the gates, the buttery smell to the air and coffee, tea, and smoke that hung around the station.

            In her grip, Cloacina towered over her and the octagram, obsidian fixture began to glow. People passing took note as it shimmered with silver-gold light pressing and rippling within the obsidian frame and bleeding out at the same time. The dust it produced, which created a beautiful tail in flight, fell over Lucy and the street below. The teeth of the large, extended key were formed into small, white flowers, myrtle, and the wings of doves from which they bloomed. Having just landed, the staff was already eager to fly again, to chase the horizon and wind, to travel. Lucy pet the pale shank she had sat along for hours, silver and gold patterns winding the body up and down. The magic of the staff produced hands, invisible but solid to her, that grasped hers as tight and like a child asked to go this and that way, it begged and pleaded and cried for it hadn’t flown in so long. The staff elicited empathy from Lucy, who could feel the ache it held to fly, to rise, and for so long had been locked in the vault.

            Soon, soon we will be gone from here. I promise. But please, please, I know I have taken so much time, but not yet. We will soar and when we are done I will keep you with me to fly even more, Lucy thought and the scepter knew her mind. It’s warmth in her hands, the hands it curled around her that had kept her upright for hours and hours and comfortable, safe, settled in her. The magical artifact of Heartfilia, older than perhaps even Lucy knew, couldn’t speak, but it felt and understood and passed that sense back to her through their fledgling bond.

            Lucy kissed the staff, having loved it since she was a child the first and only time she saw her mother holding it for Lucy to touch the wood, to chase the stars along the shank with her small hands and fingers.

            Soon it will be us and the skies of the Beyond and all our friends in the skies above. Lucy was both excited and terrified, and brushed hand along Eureno’s body. The golden, twin-headed snake belt carried her key ring in one mouth and twisted around her exposed waist. The peridot eyes couldn’t blink at her, but they carried their mistress’s shine. Ophiuchus’s key, set between Virgo and Aries, caught her eyes as she thought of the journey ahead.

            The snakes laid their heads down against her skin, settling, and Lucy returned to her moment. She had so few left in Magnolia. A sadness near grief, bittersweet, welled in her throat, poked the back of her eyes, as she came to terms with the fact that she would not see her home for a very, very long time. She had known a long time that she would embark on the journey every woman in her family did, though her circumstances were much different.

            First steps were difficult, breaking the spell that peaceful clamor of the train station and the adventures it conjured, but Lucy took that step all the same and headed for Magnolia proper. She wanted to give herself the day, the next, but shame bit at her heels in time with ticking clock at her back.

            Just…today and tomorrow. That’s all. Then I’m coming for you all. I promise. Lucy’s feet grew heavy, but she continued till the streets began to thin along the canals and branching roads. She walked along the water’s edge as she always did and followed the gentle slopes of the road without much thought for where she should head first. Magnolia was a garden blooming, spreading, and growing somehow both perfectly set along the mechanical structures under the streets yet wild enough to surprise you on certain streets. The Cathedral District, the Market Quarter, the Lake Quarter, Magnolia Park, Merchant’s Trust and a tangled brush between.

            The canal workers pushed along the bottom of the water with their long poles; working before sunrise and after it set. Under the stone bridges they ducked their heads and let their force carry them while holding the lines straight back. Already they sang such sweet music, low and clear as the water, and their voices harmonized in greeting as they passed one another, their song broke off to greet Lucy who they knew well. They were eager to line their small, loaded barges beside Lucy and offer a grand seat of a single plank of wood at the bow with flourish. But they knew where they were going, and Lucy was undecided in she didn’t know where to begin.

            I don’t want to go where I must just yet. An hour more, two hours…I know I’m already so late, I’m so horribly late. Lucy closed swelling eyes. Her keys rattled at her side, the sounds of their gates full in her head to drive away the town’s if she wished. But she didn’t wish that.

            I want to remember it. But perhaps I shouldn’t. When I return, how different will you be? How much will I have missed? Lucy wondered and the thoughts sunk like stones into her feet that slowed along the canal’s edge. Her feet clicked and clapped, the solid, wood heel of her boot meeting stones, and she was called back to hours before in the Heartfilia Vault, the mountain that beat, beat, beat like a massive heart had been locked within some secret, deep chamber.

            Lucy stopped and raised a hand to the cropped, blue bomber jacket’s front. An interior pocket was well hidden from without, covered by an exterior, square pocket closed by an orange triangle and star button closure. Her heart kicked as she heard the scratch of the lining. Her breath shook at the rustle of the paper she’d folded and hidden within. It made no noise at all, barely a sound, but it whispered, and that whisper was a shout too. Her hand tightened on the outer pocket. Her nails were soft, rounded claws of blue, silver, and gold. They were too blunt to cut through the jacket, but she felt she could then and there.

            Her hands twitched. Her fingers still felt the paper’s edge, a cut along one finger it had left her with that had bled and stung not half as much as the contents. She had seen it so much the night before, all she’d seen when she closed her cinnamon eyes.

            Lucy almost said his name. Secrets were expected in families, she supposed, and she knew hers had more than most. But this one had shocked her too. I never would have thought it. I never allowed myself to think it.  

            But she didn’t need to unfold the paper to look at the truth. Lucy crouched and leaned over the water, met her own strange gaze. A stranger looked back at her, a woman with her face and eyes and nose. She’d known the water would distort her features, but there was an honesty to it of how she felt then.

            She didn’t wish to comprehend all that she saw with new eyes, with new knowledge.

            Lucy didn’t wish to reckon with how much she did comprehend. How, beneath it all, the relief broke through, a pleased feeling that made her feel awful for its existence.

            How cruel am I to be pleased? Lucy asked herself, and a tear from her gaze further distorted the view of herself. It would never do enough again to make her unsee the truth. I don’t know if I should be pleased, either. Am I awful for that though?

            A flutter built within, something with wings, and she wished to smother it. But Lucy knew what it was like to fly, and couldn’t deny that feeling to anything. It would be cruel. She warred with herself.

            Nothing could answer her questions.

            Only the winding, twisting, whirling, reeling, spinning curl of her mind remained as she tried to lead her thoughts this and that way. Each time, she ended up back at that truth in her that she wished to flee. It wasn’t right, it was, she was horrible, it was alright. Her head dropped into her chest to groan, eyes screwed shut, and it was all she could do not to scream.

            Cloacina began to shimmer again and its dust settled over her and the watery vision of herself. It granted them both a fine layer of silver and gold that then was carried off by the water. Lucy smiled, tears spilling off her nose, and gripped her knee tight with one hand. She saw herself crowned in the shimmer, both her and the other her twinkling with sun, water, and the stars. Even with the day along the water, night’s radiance and soft light shone with soft, loving beauty.

            Are you telling me I’m still beautiful? Lucy thought with some amusement at the staff’s whimsy and wishes. She butted her head against its body. Well I never thought I wasn’t. Just that…I see so much clearer now into the past and the present before me. The future is still a mystery.

            Lucy stood straight and drew her right hand along the staff’s body as if it needed comfort. Her head canted against it and she blew all the air from her lungs. Little had remained with how difficult breath came and went. But out it all went and nothing good came back. She frowned and looked up and down the empty street. Where to go?

            Home? The guild? Shopping for all she would need? She cast her gaze in all the different directions.

            If I go to the guild now, I will not wish to do anything else but stay with them forever. Lucy had a habit of lingering in the guild as long as she could before jobs, at the bar with Mira helping with the daily prep, organizing the library for Levy who’d taken leave from jobs, helping the Master with paperwork that her team often made the most of. For a moment more, and the one after that, she would cling and curl around her safe, precious home.

            But that wasn’t an option.

            “Lucy!”

            Lost in the furious tunnel of her thoughts, Lucy hadn’t felt the approach of another as she might have. But the shout was warning enough for Lucy to brace, feet planted along the water’s edge, as Cana crashed into her from behind. Their faces were reflected in the water as Lucy bent. Cana looked so happy to see her, and Lucy brushed her eyes clean. The smell of timber and bourbon enveloped Lucy, the tanned, strong arms of the other mage holding her tight. She felt rightly awful for how she’d flinched. She hadn’t wanted to see Cana, she realized, and felt even worse.

            “Good morning, Lucy,” said another, richer and masculine.

            No, he’s who I didn’t want to see. Gildarts stood a few steps away, without his black cloak covering him. He was a tall, older man with rich dark brown hair, almost orange with how warm it was under the sun. He wore it pushed from his face, a note of a facial hair along his chin and jaw. She must have been quite out of her senses not to feel his magic, the force it pressed along the world. The man was a hammer that could crack the world around him and it laid heavy on those around him.

            “Morning,” Lucy said and untangled herself from Cana’s hold. Lucy summoned a smile to her face like she would have years ago as a chill crept up her spine and held her shoulders tight.

            “Come on, now, Lucy,” Cana said and whined, eyes plum-dark and eager with wriggling fingers held aloft. Plainly, Cana hadn’t begun to drink yet, but it was an early hour and the other woman rarely drank at home. “You been gone on a job a week. Let me hold you.”

            “Oh, you said something about that,” Gildarts said aloud though spoke to himself. Cana shot him a harsh glare and the man flinched, panicked. “No, no, I remember everything you say, Cana! I swear!”

            Clearly, Cana had no reason to fear her father, and she took shots at his shin with her open-toed shoes. They were light kicks, no more than taps, but Lucy felt each like a slap to her wrists and curled her hands tighter around the staff. Gildarts smiled at his daughter, ducking his head low, and it was sweet, wonderful, everything that Lucy had ever wanted for Cana and Gildarts. The dearness of their relationship wasn’t lost on her for even a moment, how precious, but up close, right then, Lucy hoped they didn’t see the cracks she felt in herself.  

            “Lucy was gone a week! I told you so many times she was called to the Council because Natsu and the others were complaining so much. You gave each of them a job because of it,” Cana said without an end to her rapid taps to his shin.

            “Oh yeah,” he said with understanding. He looked again to Lucy. “So you got a staff from them for the work? Looks pretty old. Mind if I see?”

            Lucy yanked Cloacina from him with real fear. The staff was ancient magic, older than the Veil, and she felt quite protective of it. She’d seen what the man did to walls and ancient wizards alike.

            “Yeah, cause someone is gonna trust you with something so fancy,” Cana muttered to him with a grin.

            “Sorry, Gildarts,” Lucy said and stepped a little further from him. “It’s actually not something from the job. More something I need for it, so it’s rather precious. A family heirloom actually. The Council were watching over when I could inherit it and begin a special job every member of my family takes. My mother wasn’t able to continue the work after I was born, so there seems to be quite a bit of concern around me heading off and starting.”

            “Everyone thinks I just break things all the time. I’ve been walking through town without an issue,” Gildarts said and pouted. There had been talk about the town of reworking the great, mechanical contraptions that shifted the city out of Gildart’s way for how well he’d gotten on without breaking things. Grand festival displays, some thought. But there was still a touch of fright when Gildarts approached a neighborhood, the parks, stalls and stores, as if at any moment he might forget himself and break the world to pieces as he’d been purported in his younger years.

            They never go into details about how bad it became for the entire town to need to move out of his way, Lucy thought.

            “When ya leaving?” Cana asked, ignoring her father.

            “Tomorrow night is when I should leave. I’ll be gone…a long time, I believe.” Lucy took a deep breath that caught around her heart and held it. “I need to get somethings together for the long journey. And make some arrangements for my things.”

            “By yourself?” Gildarts asked with a sharp eye on her. “And I sent the kids away. Shit.”

            “Knowing your group, they’ll hound after you the moment you’re out of reach and be at your side within a day or two of your travels,” Cana said and flipped a hand through the air.

            “Not this time,” Lucy said and stepped back along the edge and onto the open air above the canal. She let Cloacina go as the two’s alarm reached her, but already the staff had slipped under her, unseen hands holding tight, and lifted. Lucy’s leg shifted aside, a hand over her denim skirt. At her will, the staff returned her to earth.

            “I’ll be going a bit further this time, and this is a family job. I’m not being paid.” Lucy drew her hands over the staff. “The council has never told my family what to do.”

            “Very nice,” Gildarts said with a hand to his scruffy, burnt-orange chin scraps. “I promise I’ll be gentle, swear on my life, but that’s a piece of work right there. You can see the age to it. Must be near three hundred or more years old.”

            “Older,” Lucy replied and clutched it with both hands between them and her. “And Cloacina is still taking in my magic at the moment. We’re getting used to each other. I don’t really want to risk her being thrown off. She’s already tugging my hands this way and that if I don’t keep a good grip.”

            “Enchanted and with a personality?” Gildarts whistled appropriately. “Must be a big job to need something like that. Why don’t you walk with us to the guild? Erza might be there now. She’s been biting at that board. I was thinking I might head off on a big one myself soon. Cana, you could always—”

            “I’m good,” Cana said and rolled her eyes. But there was something very pleased in her small smile, and Gildarts cast his arm across her tanned shoulders. They were a sweet pair, but Lucy’s eyes began to sting. She swallowed, wincing at the scrape of it.

            “No, I’m not going to the guild just yet. I wanted to go into the market,” Lucy said quickly before her eyes began to show. She’s always been such a horrible crier, she knew.

            “It might be too early to buy anything, though, yeah?” Cana asked and a touch of worry seemed to fill her eyes. “I can come with you though. We could get breakfast. Need something to hold my stomach down. Tell us about this job.”

            “I can tell you about the best people to buy from if you really need some hardier supplies,” Gildarts said and went with his daughter. They approached her together, and Lucy stepped further away. Cana’s worry tightened her eyes.

            “No, no, you two were heading to the guild. I don’t want to hold you up. And I flew the whole night to get back. I’m pretty beat and I’m not feeling that up for company. You two would have a much better time without me,” Lucy said and in her hands Cloacina tugged her toward the open air once more. Her smile veered with the motion and pulled the curtain of her performance. She yanked Cloacina back to her, and Eureno began to twist along her exposed waist.

            In her mind, she felt Ophiuchus’s dark gaze press behind her eyes, the coil of her great body shifting over the earth of her Celestial domain. Sometimes the spirit was so quiet, so burrowed within Lucy’s mind, that she forgot the Snake Bearer was always there, always watching. Lucy stepped back again, her boots hissed over the stone.

            “We can walk you home then,” Cana said with deep frown across her pretty face. “You do look kind of worn down. We could go shopping together later when the stores are properly open. Ditch this old man.”

            “You looked a little out of it when we came up. Sorry we didn’t notice,” Gildarts said in sync with his daughter’s every wish. “You’re usually the first to notice anything. I know sometimes I can slide off your skin wrong. Those senses of yours are usually keener than a wyvern is to bite.”

            “Yeah, it’s not like you at all, Lucy,” Cana said with concern. It made Lucy feel worse. But she couldn’t find the words to soothe them, to set things right, as she often did. “Come on, we’ll walk with you.”

            “No,” Lucy said like a bark, like the first crack of a wall before it fell apart. She flinched at her own voice. Her keys rattled along her waist, tied to the twin-headed snake belt pulled tight around her skin. Ophiuchus’s gift to her writhed against her stomach, heads lifting to flash their peridot eyes from their golden chain body.

            “Hey, Lucy—”

            Lucy cut Cana off, her voice bleeding, and said, “I just have…there’s a lot to do and I don’t really want…you should go to the guild. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

            The words were strange shapes in her mouth, as strange as her face she saw behind them in the window of the homes lining the canal streets. People didn’t speak to their friends like that, and regret piled in behind the words. She wished to take them back and opened her mouth.

            Lucy choked aloud and covered her mouth.

            “Lucy!” Cana shouted with such horrid concern. Lucy stepped back again on to the open air and the staff caught her.

            “I’m…I’m fine,” Lucy said as her voice splintered. “Sorry. I just…I need to go. Bye.”

            The staff didn’t know Magnolia; it knew how to fly. Lucy didn’t need to hold on, balanced on the firm, warm wood. Invisible hands reached up from within the staff to hold her, to keep her safe. But the feel of hands, even ones of concern, brought back memories she’d tried for so long to forget, and she asked the staff to land. It set her down within the Market Quarter, between two brown stone buildings.

            Lucy huddled within the shade of the buildings, though there was little shade to find with Cloacina lifted above her with light surging through the obsidian star and rings around the eight points. The scepter was trying to soothe her, stardust settling like snow along Lucy’s wet lashes. Cloacina wished for her peace, her joy, and Lucy was incapable of fulfilling it. She was miserable, the tides having been let loose, and all the worse for the guilt she felt for leaving Cana and Gildarts in such a manner.

            They’re going to be worried. I should have acted better, like myself, Lucy thought and slid down against the wall to bury her head in her knees. She sobbed into them, dry and painful. Her last days in Magnolia and she was crying, ruining people’s morning. She gasped hearing the paper in her jacket rustle. She didn’t know why she took it. She clutched the front of her coat and pulled apart the heart snap buttons to reach inside.

            The paper was thin, and her hands shook and almost dropped it. Perhaps she should have let it fall, but she gripped it tighter between two hands as the staff hovered over her with its pale, shimmering dust across the brown-worn parchment. Such a small thing, a handful of words tucked within.

            This has nothing to do with my work, Lucy thought. Even if I can’t forget, I shouldn’t make it anyone else’s problem. I shouldn’t think of it at all. The Bronze spirits need me, the guild is going to worry.

            She had tried to tell herself the same thing many times in the night. Lucy found them no easier to believe. She leaned her head back against the wall and brushed her face with her jacket sleeve, sniffing. Her throat hurt, her eyes stung, and she felt so awful. The snake cord wound its golden body up hers, over the pink, sleeveless top she wore beneath the jacket. One head dangled her keys from its mouth over the scar between her breasts from the dagger that had passed through Future Lucy and caught her too.

            “I’m sorry,” Lucy whispered and kissed their small, diamond shaped heads. “I’ll get up. I will.”

            “Need a hand?” Loke asked as small chime filled the air; she smiled at the sound as she always did, a joyous one, but it was washed from her face under the weight of her crying. Through the haze of tears, she looked up at him. His

            The first thing she’d noted was that he’d changed his suit again. He kept adjusting it. His black slacks were the same, but his shoes had golden buckles across them like a bit. The white shirt and red tie were covered by dark, long coat with wide lapels and a stiff, raised collar with a golden cream lining that brightened his auburn mane and brought out the gold and red hints to the pretty color. He’d pushed it back from his face, laid his ears back to tuck them into the style though they still peeked along the back and twitched. His hand to her boasted gold rings on each finger, wide bands, and she placed her shaking hand in his.

            “My bride is radiant as ever,” he said and raised her hand to kiss the back of her knuckles. His lips were soft and warm on her skin with the slightest hint of his fangs.

            Lucy said nothing. Her throat was too tight, choked and dry. She closed her eyes, reliving the memories of the first few weeks of the guild disbanding. Aquarius’s loss, the separation, had gutted Lucy and she’d been incapable of speech. But Loke had held her hands and needed only her thoughts that he could then pass to others. She’d felt so helpless that first week in Crocus. Lucy didn’t wish to return to that state.

            “Liar,” Lucy said and croaked.

            “A lion never lies,” he said gently. The golden lion of the zodiac didn’t ask questions.

            “I must look a mess,” Lucy said and her free hand tugged at the nest of her golden hair. Flight and free flowing locks were a nightmare of tangled ends.

            “There has never been anyone more perfect,” Loke replied. He brushed the tears from her eyes, then his knuckles grazed her cheek. Even the backs of them were worn with scars from war, battle, skirmishes from before he’d been what he was then—a star burning against the night yet gentle in her smeared vision. His hand cupped her cheek, rough pads of his fingers moving back and forth beneath her eye. He was warm. She loved the warmth of his hands and released her head into his hold.

            “I feel a mess then,” Lucy whispered and closed her eyes. “I am a mess.”

            “Day blushes to raise itself above you.” Loke’s smooth voice settled around her, his unseen smile clear in her mind. “Stars fall from just to pass through the night of your eyes.”

            That made her laugh, and she opened her eyes and, head tilted in his gentle hands, said, “You always have a line.”

            Her love for him, her friend and dearest, golden lion, turned even his worst lines sweet and fond. She felt his rings across her cheek, but they weren’t cold at all. Loke had tried to gift her his rings before, the many, many that he had and she didn’t know how many pieces of glittering, buttery gold were in his possession but it seemed he always had one a little different from the last. She’d not wanted any of them. She liked the shine off him, the way Regulus and all his stars caught on his golden rings or his hair.

            “You are the greatest muse of beauty. Only a heart locked from love and wonder could stop itself from conceiving a thousand verses at a glance.” Loke’s smile sounded wider and she opened her eyes to see the edge of his fangs exposed and a twinkle in those adoring, gold eyes. “I make a thousand and one, however.”

            Loke robbed her of words but left laughter that spilled from her salty and struggling mouth, and she pulled her hand from his to step into the safe, warm hold of his arms. He was taller than her though she’d shot above the rest of her team in height, and her head settled against his shoulder and over the folded, plush lapel of his coat. His arms wrapped her shaking body, his head turned and his nose brushed her hairline. He had a scent like wide, open field of tall grass baking in the sunlight and rose musk. Her hands settled on his back, over his white shirt, and the paper was pressed between her hand and him.

            “Thank you, Loke,” she whispered and her eyes grew dry. His arms held her right where she was, but she couldn’t remain there.

            He’ll be with me. My spirits will all be there. I will never be alone again.

            “We have a job to do, Loke,” Lucy said and leaned back, hands along his solid waist.

            Silver and Gold, their pure metals, were uncorruptible, unharmed, by the world of the Veil or the Beyond.

            But Bronze tarnished, and only a Heartfilia could purify them. Every five years, a Heartfilia was meant to cleanse them, help them remove the buildup, but Layla had been too sick, then dead. Twenty-five years had passed since the Bronze Spirits had known relief, slaked their corrosion as the dark pursued their annihilation, their assimilation with the Abyss. Lucy was the last Heartfilia and had to wait, had to keep them waiting, and she was horrible for making them wait more with her stupid, selfish hand clinging to the paper that poked Loke’s side.

            “I know,” he said. “I’ll be with you the entire time. I promise.”

            “I need to pack.”

            “Virgo is already doing so.” Loke had taken charge, she thought, and he was good at it when he wished.

            “I need to head out. I need to help them. But I…Loke…” She shook her head. “I’m supposed to focus on them, yet here I am thinking of myself.”

            They deserve better than me to help them. Mom didn’t teach me how. She taught me their names, the names of the lands and locations and routes between them. The allies we Heartfilia have in the Beyond, outside the King’s domain, but not how to help them. What if it’s too late?

            “It’s not too late,” Loke said and his hand under her jaw made her look up to him. His mind brushed hers, all her spirits so close she could feel them, could feel Virgo across town at the apartment but still with Lucy. “The Veil is still intact, Lucy. They’re still holding on.”

            But for how much longer can they? And while I’m here like this? She wished she had crumpled the paper, torn it, ripped it, but she still held it between her fingers and wouldn’t let it fall.

            “The Bronze were always strong. I know you wouldn’t think so little of a spirit, and I’m sure, even now, they worry most for you. And for each other. And they will fight till the last, and I know them. Their last is beyond defeat,” Loke said and spoke aloud to her thoughts.

            “Really?” Lucy asked and forced the words out again.

            “A lion never lies,” he said again and smiled for her. She wanted to believe him, but that didn’t mean she could allow herself too much time. Tomorrow evening she had to leave.

            “I need to get some things together before we leave,” Lucy said and cleared her throat. “And I need to tell the master…tell everyone that I’ll be gone for a long time. Longer, I think, than any other in my family has needed to take for this adventure.”          

            “You’re likely right there,” Loke said. His agreement settled a weight over her, a new one but not unexpected like the rest. She took heart in his honesty and gave his side a squeeze before she let go. “Shall I stay close? I’m always eager to carry your bags. Though Virgo may smite me and take the honor for herself.”

            “No, no,” Lucy said. She took a deep breath of the market’s air that came to them through the thin alley, and she brushed the back of her denim skirt of any filth she’d not noticed while sitting. Then, she raised the paper to Loke. “Do you want to see?”

            “I see only you, Lucy,” he said and pushed the paper away. His mouth tugged towards teasing, a fang a little sharper but no more threatening to her than the rest. “I could tell you that you’re as lovely as rose blushing in morning dew, with eyes of such warmth the sun shall be lost in them, dreaming to bloom—”

            “That’s enough.” Lucy laughed and something fixed itself, righted a chair in her mind though the place was still a clamor. She placed the paper back into the jacket’s inner pocket.

            “But I wrote them all down,” he said and dropped his fluffy ears back against his auburn head.

            “You can tell me on the road.” Lucy took hold of Cloacina once more and held the end off the ground. And that too made things a little better. Since she’d first held the staff there was a sense that she’d discovered to have been missing a limb all her life though she’d not know till then. Without it, she was still fully capable, but there was a gap, a space she then knew existed.

            “Would you mind heading to the guild and telling the master? The council should have sent him the mission, bare as they left the details. I’m…I’m gonna pick up somethings and then I’ll head over.”

            “Of course,” Loke said but she could feel him in her mind brewing his words, and she lingered with him in the shade of the day. There was a spot of trouble between his brows that she wished to soothe, but let him think in peace. “You’re thinking that you’re unfocused, Lucy, that you’re letting us down, failing, because you’re thinking of something else. But you aren’t. You’ve been given a heavy task, and then to the top something new and unexpected came down. And it matters to you, no matter what you try and tell yourself. You need to deal with what feels heaviest to be light enough to fly, to raise your head high as you did when you demanded the King change his mind. That’s the courage you had when you saved me, and I have no doubt you’ll be able to help the Bronze. But only after you make some headway on the other important matters you’ve found.”

            “Yeah,” Lucy whispered. I’m still not sure where to start though. It’s all so fresh.

            But that wasn’t right either. She knew where to begin, but needed to find the courage to take the first step, the step she’d taken years ago and been too ashamed to keep walking.

            “Are you cold?” Loke asked gently and removed his long coat to settle over her shoulders before she’d said anything. It went to the back of her knees, heavy too, and her hands were covered. She laughed, one single breath she expelled. He’d done much the same when the guild disbanded, when it was them on the road, her walking away from a different home than years previous. But then it had been his silver-gold lion skin, an old treasure of his he’d wrapped her in.

            “Thank you,” Lucy said and her voice was louder, stronger. She felt braver wearing his coat, the lion’s aegis, and smiled.

            “Of course,” Loke said. She felt his gaze as they parted, felt the way his mind brushed hers like a hand open if she needed him. And she had his coat.

            The Market District led to all others in Magnolia, a real hub of activity like the train station. But at so early an hour in the day, and the sun had risen then, it was less crowded than the train station but twice as full with carts, stalls, and vendors setting up their wares before the colored, wooden stores that had begun to open their prismatic shutters and drag out their chalkboards to write the day’s offerings in a variety of scripts. They were set along Magnolia Park, flowers beginning to bloom and dew fresh on the grass.

            The walk was pleasant, a fresh breeze down through the trees and among the people that wasn’t so chilly. She greeted the many shop owners she knew who offered breakfast, pastries, and drinks but Lucy’s stomach was still a lead bubble and she was nauseous as she considered her destination. She felt no rush though and let herself follow the market crowd, the chatter, the excitement of the burgeoning season. She let herself, for just that moment, she would share it with everyone.

            The Harvest Festival. Fantasia. Lucy would miss them. So she imagined them and slowed even further, then tucked herself between two stalls and out of the way as Ms. Mally tittered about boats on the canal full of lanterns, the boatmen dressed in their best and not their everyday to gift flowers to every person they passed, raising their oars high to hand wreaths and crowns to those on the bridges. She caught the tail end of conversations, other spurred by the energetic talk and sweet air, and let it take her into the future she’d not see for herself.

            I won’t see this Fantasia. Perhaps not even the one after depending on how long I must go. Lucy knew she’d not be able to speak of her journey, the Beyond that all others save the Heartfilia had run from into the Veil’s safety. The safety of which was only maintained by the Bronze spirits’ sacrifice. They’ll have many stories to tell, and I won’t be able to say a thing save that I missed them, that I wished every day that I was home with them, that I was there in those memories.

            “Lucy!” A familiar voice shouted and Lucy’s head whipped up to find Erza charging towards her, arms laden with supplies, needs, and more than a few wants given the plethora of boxes with fine, embossed stickers holding the delicious treats within. Lucy stopped and waited as the other woman came closer, red hair flickering with fire when the sun touched her hair. She stopped before Lucy, warm and beautiful.

            “You’re back from your job with the council already?” Erza asked with eager joy foiled by her many, many bags and boxes. The knight mage agonized over her purchases, then looked up at Lucy like she needed to apologize for the oversight.

            “No,” Lucy said, then paused to take a sour breath deep but it tightened around her heart. Shaking her head, Lucy continued, “I needed to…come back before I left officially.”

            “If you’re shopping, I’d be happy to help,” Erza said excitedly. “We can buy anything you need here and I’ll be happy to share a snack or two with you. That new bakery I was telling you about opened and I got a few things.”

            “I think you got everything,” Lucy said and laughed. The sound was still a little strangled by her throat, but it was true and she could feel it.

            “Yes, but only one of each. I was listening to what you said about restraining myself before I know if I like them. Your fridge has so little space, Lucy.”

            “Well maybe you should store them in yours?”

            “But then we wouldn’t share them together.” Erza shook her head at this, but her stern mouth twitched with the promise of laughter.

            “Yeah…together,” Lucy whispered and had to look away. Erza was the most radiant woman Lucy had known. Lucy loved her friends so much, the fierceness of that feeling seized her, the absence of Erza already present though they stood together in a crowded street.

            “Are you alright, Lucy?” Erza asked, and maneuvered her treats and sweets aside, setting some on a vendor’s table to take Lucy’s face in her hands, the vambraces catching the light and shining with her. Lucy stared, entranced, then smiled with a burn to her eyes.

            “My job…I’m going to be gone a while. Would you…would you just walk with me right now?” Lucy asked and cleared her throat, lifting a hand to dismiss the tears before they fell. She didn’t want to cry again. But she had always been so weepy it seemed a foolish thought that she could stop herself.

            “Do you want to talk about it?” Erza asked and didn’t refuse her. Though Lucy worried about the treats, suddenly guilty and wishing to take up some of the load, Erza only commandeered a cart from a familiar vendor to load them, then fell into step with Lucy.

            “I can’t really…speak about the job,” Lucy said quietly. “It’s not even a job really. My family…there are oaths we’ve kept for a long time. Things we don’t talk about. And it’s time that I fulfill one. I knew it would happen, of course, I knew I would…have to go away for a while.”

            “How long?” Erza asked and frowned.

            “I don’t know.” Lucy’s lips pressed together, a tight seam to hold all her thoughts. She said, “but it will be a long time, I believe. My mother, and her mother, and so forth back have usually taken a year with the work. And. I expect there will be complications because I was meant to do this years ago, for the first time, not long after we went to Tenrou.”

            “I could come. Natsu and Gray are away on missions, Wendy is visiting Cheria, but we could call them all back and depart once—”

            “I have to leave as soon as I can, Erza. I can’t wait. Not anymore. I’ve left…some very precious friends waiting already. And…I have to go alone. You can’t go where I go.”

            “I can go anywhere if you’re there,” Erza said stiffly, offended that Lucy would imply she couldn’t do something. She tugged Lucy closer. “Nothing could stop me from being there with you.”

            “That’s sweet. But…please believe me when I say…only I can go,” Lucy said and reached down to take Erza’s hand and thread their fingers together. The other woman’s hands were warm, rough but always kind.

            I won’t be able to do this for a while. Lucy led them on. There were many flower stalls, but they continued till Lucy found the right one, and bright, fragrant petals were snatched by the wind and the floral haze curled in Lucy’s nose. A tired, older woman tended the stall, and she yawned and greeted them with a tender smile while wrapping arrangements on her side. Lucy picked up an arrangement of soft, pink peonies that smelled of lemons and peppercorns and when she closed her eyes she could imagine smoke with the scent. She added lilies to them, asking the stall owner to wrap them in the matte, plum paper with a golden tie. Erza didn’t ask where they were going.

            “I’ll need to tell the Master I won’t be here for Fantasia. I know…I was going to get a big role this year. Was gonna try for S-Class too. I’ll have to wait again. And…Levy,” Lucy said into the flower’s soft, round petals. The paper crinkled in the crook of her arm. Sunflowers weren’t yet available, so she’d chosen her second favorite though it was a hard choice. Peonies had been Shakky’s flowers, Lucy recalled, and smelled the rich scent of the Empress she’d known and loved as a child.

            I wonder if she’s still alive. I know she was a warrior. They all were. Her tales of the sea, of hunting, would lull me to sleep.

            “When do you wish to depart?” Erza asked and Lucy could hear the edge of her thoughts, already planning to leave with her no matter what Lucy said.

            “I need to make the arrangements for my apartment and pack. I should start getting everything together tonight and break my lease tomorrow.”

            “You’re letting the apartment go?” Erza asked and her voice had raised with the alarm.

            “I’ve been thinking of moving out for a while. We’ve been doing pretty okay on money and…honestly, it hasn’t felt like my place since we got back from Tenrou, I tried to…ignore the way it felt like Jude was there, that he had been there in a place for us, but sometimes I wish he’d never paid for it.” Guilt ate at her for it, shame too, because he had tried. He had done something. But it made her teeth ache with how hard she clenched her jaw; his presents to her were stuffed in her closet, half-opened and covered by spare blankets. She’d found one with a dress too small for her, a dress she’d have fit into at thirteen, styled like her mother’s.

            I don’t need money, fancy clothes, or a big house, Lucy had said years ago after going back to confront him. It was unfair, she felt, to hold him to those words when he’d had no way of being there with her, that he had died before she’d returned. Gifts had spoiled to her long ago, rotten and weighted. And now I know you weren’t even honest with me. Maybe you just wanted to keep Mama’s secret or thought you didn’t have to say. I’ll never know.

            “You can’t bring everything with you, can you?” Erza asked.

            “No, but I don’t need all of it. And a lot of the furniture came with the apartment.” Lucy shrugged and tried to dislodge the feeling of hands on both pressing down, pressing her smaller. But she walked straight and carried on. She knew what she had to do, and she had too little time to do any of it right.

            The stars have waited and suffered enough. She led Erza toward the Cathedral District. The roads were softer, smoother, and Erza’s cart of treats only squeaked over broken stones rather than rattle over the cobbles.

            In the wake of that guilt, Lucy confessed, “The Heartfilia have our own resting grounds, you know? A mountain we can only enter by ourselves when our bodies have ticked through time eighteen years. My mother brought me there where I was a child, no more than five, and she carved my name into the stones within and let me press my hands into her name that rested beside mine. Not many use it. The last was my great-grandmother, Astra, who was interred.”

            “A mountain? Is it the one that you mentioned by the estate?” Erza asked softly. “The grounds were so beautiful, but the mountains were eerie and radiant all at once.”

            “That’s right. Inside our names are kept there within the night. Our names glitter and shift when carved into the rock as if constellations. My mother’s journal from before I was born was there, tucked under her name. It’s tradition to keep a log when you perform our role. To inter your memory and name, if not your body.”

            “Do you think your mother would prefer to be interred there now that you have access?” Erza asked.

            “No, she made her own arrangements before she passed. It was all in her will.” Lucy thought whether her mother would have set it in the will if Lucy had been old enough to open the vault, for there was no other. Lucy had one memory of her grandmother, Estelle, of holding her hand and following her mother into the vault, out through the gate contained within, to meet the Kuja.

            They turned up the lane towards the cathedral gardens with wide, pebbled roads over dirt between the brilliant, emerald grass that was trimmed and straight. She had not come this way often, and it still felt strange to know both Jude and Layla rested in Magnolia. His work had been in another town. She tried to think fondly on the idea that he had brough Layla here for Lucy. It was a kind gesture.

            Through the gardens and up a soft slope, they came to an oval patch of short, gray stones laid within the confines of small footpaths. Decorative trees, not very tall but private, rose around the smaller cemetery further from the cathedral itself, and the wind whispered through the small, vibrant leaves. Erza left her cart and followed Lucy to the graves. They were warm in the sun, their names softly spelled in looping script, with small glass medallions set into their surfaces. Layla’s name was crowned by the Heartfilia’s eight-pointed star.

            Beside her was Jude Kosmer. He had abandoned her family name after he’d begun to rebuild his life. Lucy was pleased to know this. Heartfilia never changed their names, and they rarely let a partner take it when married.

            He did try, Lucy thought to herself and once more tried to sweeten the presents he’d gifted her, the letters he’s written—the apartment he’d paid for years that had laid empty, collecting dust.

            She did believe that in the years she’d been presumed dead by most that he’d changed, finally changed. He even might have softened to the idea of her. The dark ink on singular sheets of parchment, so like her mother in that he’d not written much at all, on pale wings she’d unfolded to find a man unknown to her with a soft, regretful voice. His face in her mind was incapable of speaking like that, though she tried to manipulate the memory of him, his shade in ink. The man on the page had been one his colleagues had mourned, who had offered her condolences and cried for a friend lost to them, and they had imagined that Lucy must have felt the same as them, stronger than them.

            He did try to love me, Lucy thought as guilt clawed the back of her neck, fingers tight and her head shoved down. She placed the flowers on her mother’s grave, then twisted her hands around her wrists to work out phantom pains and aches, bruises and blood.

            Jude hadn’t been capable of loving her when he knew she was alive—when she had lived in his house and loved him enough that it could feel like he loved her too; when she had learned to blame herself for the bruises on her hands and forearms, accidents the maids and staff had said and pulled her away. Surely it had been her fault, she had told herself too, repeating Mrs. Spetto’s words. She had stood too close to him, lingered too long, asked him a question, walked into his path, cried too loudly, cried at all where he might hear or let him see the aftermath.

            She had learned not to tell him that his business partner had said something strange to her again, that she didn’t like it when they grabbed her hands, touched her hair, held her head in their large, moist hands.

            Lucy plucked a flower from the bouquet for her mother. Not the peonies, never those would she give to Jude. Those had been Shakky’s flowers, the ones the Empress had in her mother’s room when they visited. Flowered chives with purple petals and rosemary she laid on his grave. He had changed, she believed yet wished belief was knowing. The man his colleagues had mourned was a stranger to her like the one’s he invited into the estate, the one’s he promised her too, screamed at her till she said thank you for the strange compliments that made her feel sick, dirty, scared.

            Business had been all he cared for, the only thing for him, and she’d thought in her childish mind, hoping and wishing for a smile, a nod, a look without hatred, disdain, dripping in fury, that if she’d been good for business, she’d be good for him.

            Rising back up, twisting hands around her aching wrists, she knew the truth that burned acid up her throat.

            Jude Heartfilia had loved her when she was gone from his life, a simple girl he could gift dresses and dolls too like she was still seven or eight. That was the girl he could pretend was his: silent as death. A girl who wouldn’t ask if he believed her, if he’d known about everything. She closed her eyes, saw him standing over her in that wide street penniless and destitute, road weary and dirty. She’d shouted, driven him away, had sworn not to feel for him anymore.

            And even then, stood before his and her mother’s graves, her anger and frustration couldn’t drive away all the years she’d loved him to keep love alive in a dark cage. As a child, she too had loved an idea of him, the man she saw at a distance who would speak with her mother and give her a smile even though they were talking about grownup things, business and schedules and doctors’ visits. Her hands stilled, skin pink.

            Had it been so easy to hurt me because I wasn’t yours? Lucy wanted to ask, her throat bubbling acid that she swallowed back. Would it have mattered if I was yours and yours alone? Or would nothing have changed?

            There were no answers, save the one she touched in her jacket’s pocket. She turned her wet eyes to Erza, who watched over her with concern and love and put her arms around Lucy like it was the easiest thing to care for her. Lucy cried into her friend’s shoulder, shaking and still feeling those phantom pains on her clean hands that dug into Erza’s shirt. Erza’s hands were firm and careful, yet told her that Lucy was safe, loved, and wanted.

            And, at last, Lucy whispered, “Jude wasn’t my father.”

            “No, he wasn’t,” Erza said without hesitating. Lucy laughed, her breath heaved.

            “He would say it; he would say I wasn’t his. And he was right.” Lucy took a deep breath, and said, “he had the chance to be my father. But he wasn’t.”

            They make me feel like family. Something you’ve never done, Lucy had said years ago when she had left him after Phantom Lord’s assault. Her right hand itched, twisting into Erza’s shirt.

            “Thank you, Erza, for coming with me.” Lucy pulled back though her fingers were still quite tight on the other woman.

            “I’d go anywhere with you,” Erza said and smiled with her gentle heart worn bare and open on her lovely face. Shadows from the trees along the area dappled her freckled face, swaying like soft hands wishing to hold her. Lucy did just that, sighing, and intertwined their fingers once more. She felt stronger with Erza, more capable. The other mage had never thought less of her, doubted that she could do something just because Lucy hadn’t before.

            “I need to go to the guild. Tell the Master about the work. Would you come with me?”

            “I’m not leaving you. I’ll help you get ready too. We’ll eat cake and pack,” Erza said sweetly. They walked home hand in hand, Erza’s cart trundling behind them and Lucy’s staff glittering across the earth.

            Magnolia wasn’t so large, and before noon they stood before the guild. The wind from the lake behind it was sweet and chilled as it brushed Lucy’s ruffled, golden hair from her face. It had little smell, the lake that it, but it would have been hard to tell with the way the guild emitted the aroma of barbecue, liquor, and timber. The guild always smelled like they’d just rebuilt it again, though the current building had been with them for months. Lucy supposed it was some new record in her many years as a Fairy Tail mage, and wondered how long after she was gone it would maintain that course. She had to laugh at such a ridiculous thought, and knew she would think of them often in such ridiculous ways while she flew across the open seas or passed by a bar.

            Perhaps I shall cause some trouble, Lucy thought then dismissed the idea.

            The guild was a towering building they’d redesigned even more into a castle with two large towers with crenelations along the top and stained, glass windows she’d been allowed to design. Star studded glass, rotating up the spires as the windows shifted along the stairs, glowed a gentle yellow, warm and inviting, even at late hours when the place was empty. Stars they could follow home, could see from a distance, she had thought when they’d all sat and discussed the work. Fairy Tail’s flag laid limp from its pole atop the highest spire, the orange fringe moving but not taking off with the light breeze. The stones were light gray of a promised storm, rather than the imminent threat, and a second story balcony dug into the building itself with colorful umbrellas and wrought-iron chairs and tables. The upper balcony doors were open, similar to the windows on the first floor. Though, as Lucy looked, she discovered the windows weren’t open. They’d been broken. She groaned affectionately and shook her head, as she so often did to discover Fairy Tail had done what it always did—some amount of chaos.

            “I heard there was an altercation,” Lucy said tenderly as if to keep such knowledge to herself. “What was it this time?”

            “It was more than just them.” Erza snorted and shook her head. “Juvia was in a right state too. She nearly drowned everyone. She came back from her job in Thistle and then had to go right back out when Gildarts got to them all and put jobs in their hands and told them to go. But Master Nook is rather backed up with orders at the moment from the mayor. We’ll have to wait a moment on repairs to the windows and some interior bits.”

            “Fantasia is approaching,” Lucy said forlornly and wished again to be there for it. But it was day, and the only star was Cloacina who longed for the skies. It was for the best that she understood some wishes weren’t to be. Next time, she promised herself.

            Loke sat with Cana and Gildarts, and she thanked him for that mercy as the two didn’t rise as Lucy entered. Cana already had an array of bottles, drinking heavily in the morning hours as the light touched her warm face. She had more than she often did in the morning, and the cups had begun to stack onto Gildart’s side of the table.

            Lucy looked at everything. Everything she had known. Her head leaned onto Erza’s beneath her. Most of the tables were empty, and it was rather silent for so late in the morning. No one crowded around the job board, no one was fighting, and only a low hum of activity came from Mira who stood behind the bar speaking to a supplier for orders with a large, well-marked book set before her and notepad. The crystal chandelier lit with magic above them, and there were new breaks along its frame, some scorched or broken bits. She sighed and could imagine the chaos.

            There’s not a day when something isn’t in need of repair, of fixing, replacing. I’m sure much will change. They’ll replace things I’ll never even know existed because they’ll be broken and gone before I’m back. They’ll have new stories I won’t be part of, new adventures, new friends. It would be like her first year in Fairy Tail and coming into a guild where everyone had known each other for years, had grown up together. What would everyone do without her? She was sure they would get on fine. They’d done it before.

            Atop the bar, the Master waited with an easy grin and a tankard as large as him clasped in one hand. The old man’s thirst for drinks began as early as Cana’s and sometimes Lucy wondered if that was where the other woman got it from. There was a long history of merrymaking and spirits in the guild, with a well-known brewery not located far from them that bore the Fairy Tail mark. He raised his drink up in greeting, and a dash of pale, yellow ale and foam fell onto the bar’s dark counter.

            Before him, Laxus groaned at the drink now on the papers set before him. He dabbed at them with a towel, then shot Lucy and Erza a look far more concerned than his grandfather’s. He set his pen aside, gathering the papers to place them farther from the master. He was dressed in a maroon, sleeveless top, his fur trimmed coat on the seat beside him to stop anyone from sitting with him while he worked. He was a hard, muscular man. His blonde hair was pushed from his face, save one tuft. And the scar across his right eye seemed more pronounced to her.

            It’s only a scar. Nothing more.

            “Good morning, Lucy,” Master Makarov said and placed his drink down. Laxus moved it even further away. “Loke already went ahead and filled me in on the details of some large mission of yours. And the length it might take.”

            “Yes, I know I was meant to fill for Mira this year in the parade for Fantasia, and I’m very sorry—”

            “These things happen in the work, dear. You know as well as I that we don’t live easy lives, only ones we hope to make the most of,” he said with gentle, bright eyes. His health seemed well-enough, his eyes clear and alert, and she hoped they would stay that way till she returned. “Though he, and the missive the Council sent, were rather bare on the details.”

            “It’s barely even a job,” Laxus said with a low growl, warm and protective, and his hands were large across the page she could see bore the council’s symbol. “No time, no pay, no details, no location. But the one thing they do say is you’ll be going alone, Blondie.”

            “I’ll have Loke with me.” Lucy cast her gaze his way, and the lion rose from the table with the other mages and approached. She released Erza’s arm too, her keys jingling, and held the Cloacina with two hands before her. “And all my spirits.”

            “There’s a note. A small one. Only saying that you should be gone before the week is out. That seems rather quick for a job so long. And demanding,” the Master said with an annoyed voice. “Who do those council bastards think they are to tell one of mine when they should leave or not? I can have a talk with them, Lucy, don’t you—”

            “It’s fine, Master,” Lucy said and came forward to soothe the older man’s furrowed brow. “This is a rather time sensitive matter, but I can’t share many details. But I’ve known since I was very young that I would need to go away for this work. Every woman in my family has done this.”

            “It’s a family matter then.”

            “Your family’s work is that much of a concern to the council?” Laxus asked with suspicion.

            “Mostly, no. We’ve never needed to worry about the council’s involvement before, to my knowledge.” The knowledge she’d cleaned from perusing the interred tomes of the Vault had gifted Lucy little save the weight on her shoulders. “But…I’m a special case now. I was meant to perform my duty years ago, very long ago it feels now. The work was already delayed quite a bit with how sick my mother was and it’s exacerbated the situation I’m going to aid.”

            “And they can’t find someone else?” Laxus asked.

            “No. I’m the only one. This is a Spirit matter. And I can’t say much more than there are certain keys my family is directly responsible for,” Lucy said and considered each word, what was acceptable to disclose in the face of their concerns. “The council only knows that we perform a task that takes a long time, usually a year. But my mother’s poor health meant she wasn’t able to upkeep the work after my birth as others have before her. Meaning…I expect the work will take more time to deal with the exceeded deadline.”

            “That’s all?” Laxus asked. “You really aren’t giving us much to work with.”

            “If this were any other job, and one not to do with my family so personally, I’d try and tell you everything I could. But the oaths of the Heartfilia go a very long way back. And it’s time I fulfilled my role,” Lucy said and Cloacina’s crown flared for a moment. The light had the others blinking from the sharp radiance, but Lucy’s eyes had no such issue from sharp light or full darkness.

            “Will you have any other assistance?” The Master asked. “Do you require any aid from us before you leave?”

            “The Heartfilia have maintained old alliances with certain parties I cannot disclose.” It was hard to say though if they would still be waiting for her though. The Veil could only be left by a Heartfilia with Cloacina. “But I do need to rush to leave. I wish to end my lease before I go and that’s a lot of stuff I need to move out and clean.”

            “I can help,” Mira said. She’d come to stand behind the Master and Laxus as they spoke, a notepad still in her hand with her looping, diagonal script seen from the turned over pages. “I’m having a light day of work, so everyone should be able to care for themselves in my absence. Your land lady too is familiar to me and I can make sure she doesn’t try anything. I’ll have to collect everyone’s keys though.”

            “How many copies did you make?” Lucy asked with a laugh that broke from the split door of her mouth.

            “Only a few for everyone,” Mira replied.

            “A few for…okay.” Lucy shook her head. She had little left in her to deal with that knowledge as Mira smiled and turned on her heel.

            “Someone is gonna need to guard the place for when the other troublemakers get back and try to beeline it there,” Laxus said and growled. “Don’t need them causing trouble for you while you’re gone.”

            “I’d be more worried trying to explain it to them,” Lucy said forlornly. “I wish I could have told them all in person. I know this one is still going to try and sneak after me.”

            “I won’t be sneaking. You can’t run from me,” Erza said with a glower. Lucy laid her hand on Erza’s arm again.

            “Erza, I really can’t take you with me. It’s sacred work, secret to my family,” Lucy said. “And I need you here to make sure I have a home to come back to at all.”

            It was best to give Erza tasks to hold herself to rather than chasing Lucy, an impossible feat even for the Fairy Queen. They couldn’t know of the gate between Veil and Beyond, their safe haven and the world mages had fled nearly a thousand years in the past with a war at their heels ready to swallow them.

            Lucy reached up and brushed the scarlet hair from her dear friend’s face. I will see this color at dawn and dusk and think of you, Lucy thought as the soft, long strands slipped from her hands. The Knight and Queen to her Princess.

            “Do take care of your hair while I’m gone too,” Lucy whispered and they shared a gentle smile. “I won’t be here to cut it for you.”

            “Cut it for me while we travel together to do these sacred, secret things,” Erza said, still unconvinced. Lucy realized that one seeing the blockade in her path, the vault itself, might deter Erza.

            “Alright,” Lucy whispered and they shared a quiet moment, one Lucy recognized as the last for a long time. The wish to stay rose once more, but fell aside with some coaxing. The Master called the guild members who were present to attention, his voice and size growing to command, and Lucy stepped aside for him.

            “Brats! Lucy is heading off on big work! She needs you all to be the best you can in her absence, if not for my sake! Make sure you send her off big!” Makarov shouted and roused the few within the guild’s walls to turn their way and offer her small smiles. And it made Cana and Gildarts rise from their chairs.

            Still, Lucy felt unsure of seeing them and she clutched Erza’s arm tighter. Loke fell along her other side, beneath the scepter’s silver-gold shimmer that made his ears twitch. The movement disturbed the slick, straight line of his mane, his ears meant to stick back and down like two extra pieces rather than ears.

            They are family. The ache you feel now will not compare to missing them if you part on such horrible feelings, Lucy told herself and smiled when father and daughter came close.

            “Seems like you found company to help you,” Cana said with some bitterness. But she looked up at Lucy from under her dark lashes, and sadness in her eyes made their depth turn to starless night. Lucy’s shame tripled with all the other boiling thoughts in her head, and she tightened her grip on Erza who had taken a step forward. She pulled the knight back into step with her.

            “I didn’t mean to take off like that. I’m sorry for worrying you,” Lucy said and lowered her head. “I was a poor friend for making you feel like that.”

            “You had me running,” Cana said as her spirits seemed to brighten. “Made it here to the guild and almost started a manhunt for you. Then Loke came in just as we were about to send out the troops.”

            “Thank you, Loke,” Lucy said and looked up to him. He nodded, but there was a sternness to his eyes when he stared at Cana.

            “Is there anything you want to take from my gear pack?” Gildarts asked and ignored the heavy air. “I take solo, long work all the time. So I could give you some of my staples or my suppliers’ names.”

            “I think I’ll need to replace my camping gear. Virgo has the tent, but the smaller things like magic burners and skillets. Mine are pretty cheap.” Lucy thought of the Kuja and other allies beyond the Veil, but she wondered if they would have much for her in terms of supplies or aid other than shelter. “I’m just not sure about how to get rid of my apartment’s smaller items. I don’t think I want to keep all the things.”

            “Moving too?” Gildarts asked and whistled. “Well when you need a place to crash when you get back, I’m sure the guild can offer a bed or two for a while.”

            “I’m sure I’ll find a place so long as the guild is here,” Lucy replied and smiled. “But I need to get started. There’s never enough time, but there’s even less now. Virgo is at my place now probably sorting things for me to go through.”

            “I’m going with you,” Erza said first. “I want to see what you’re packing too.”

            So you can try to figure out how to come with me and what you’d want to bring based off my own supplies? Lucy smiled. The knight’s eyes were bright stars that showed the line between her every thought. Lucy knew the stars too well to be fooled.

            “I’m coming too,” Cana said and stepped forward. “You’re not getting rid of me this time.”

            “Actually, I was hoping to ask one of you…to ask Levy if she would take my manuscripts and books. I don’t see her here today. Are Gajeel and Lily in town too?” Lucy asked.

            “He’ll be in Clover right now,” Gildarts said and again looked rather regretful. “He was also part of the dust up a few days back. I just packed them all up as far as I could send them.”

            “Lily is here with Levy,” Cana said and shot her father a simmering look.

            “Cana, go tell Levy,” Erza said and wrapped her arms around Lucy so tight she squeaked.

            “Why me?!”

            “You have a problem with following my orders?” Erza asked with a low growl to her voice. Lucy hated how grateful she felt as Cana bent to the Fairy Queen’s order. Gildarts laughed.

            “Fine! I’m going! But if Levy cries on me, I’m making you pay for my next twenty rounds!” Cana yelled while turning to the door.

            “I already said I’m not leaving you,” Erza muttered like a child.

            “Let’s get going then. I want to make some headway before Mira comes by too,” Lucy said. She turned to Loke then. “It might be a bit crowded with so many at my place.”

            “I can go gathering,” Loke said and his smile was rather perky. “Get some lunch too.”

            “Are you sure?” Lucy asked.

            “I have treats,” Erza said and motioned to her cart of sweets.

            “I meant food,” Loke replied. “Lucy has hard travel ahead. Not a train ride.”

            “We can still eat sweets,” Erza said and glared.

            “We can eat both,” Lucy said and shook her head. “Sweets, a nice, hearty meal, and then sweets. We can save some for Levy and everyone too.”

            This appeased Erza, and she settled her pretty face into a smile once more and tugged Lucy back out the door.

            Her apartment was the same as she had left it, but it was strange to her new eyes as she took in the single room and kitchen. She really didn’t have much of her own save the books, writings, and clothes. A gilded, triplicate folding mirror set on her vanity behind the bed’s header. When the light shone in the morning, the angle of the sun slanted into along it to light her face and see the small bobbles, pins, and makeup set atop. A jewelry box, the letters she’d written to her mother, some plates and bowls for when the food wasn’t being eaten by the others before she could. She pulled Loke’s coat off her and set it on the hook by the door, then went to remove her own cropped jacket and shrugged it half off before she felt the interior pocket. She slipped the coat back on while Erza was still getting her sweets from the cart.

            Held hostage by a coat. Lucy could have laughed at herself, but there was nothing funny in the contents of the paper save the way it made her look at herself. Erza moved ahead of her into the open space and then the kitchen with the confectionary boxes piled high.

            “Good morning, Princess,” Virgo said, appearing from the bathroom with a few towels. “Will you be wanting a bath? I’ve been packing many of your less used pieces to store in my realm.”

            “Not yet, Virgo. I’ll get started on gathering my papers soon. Do you have my carrying pack? I don’t see it by the door.” It should have been where she’d hung Loke’s coat.

            “Yes, Princess. But, if I may, I have never gone with a Heartfilia on this job. As such, I’ve been preparing for this day for a very long time and would be pleased if you would allow me to arrange your carrying items, pack, and travel garments. I have begged the King a boon for this occasion, and he was very gracious and wished for me to pass along a gift from him to you. He seemed in very high spirts, might I add.” There was a delighted shine to Virgo’s cerulean gaze, hidden slightly behind the veil that fell forward from her pearl and lace hairnet and band. Her loafers were shining, the skirt’s hem around her calves fluttering without wind as her magic gained an energetic twist.

            “You’ve never been?” Lucy asked and sat on the bed’s edge before the window. The pink comforter rose around her like a cloud, and the sun fell across her back while she ran her fingers over Loke’s key and felt him across the city. It was hard to gauge where he was, where he’d chosen, but she could guess given his heading and familiarity with the city. The fish market where all the canals met and fresh catches found their way into the nearby restaurants.

            Virgo placed the towels beside Lucy’s feet. “I can count my number of holders on one hand. And not one has been a Heartfilia save in those times of the Eclipse Gates use.”

            “If it would make you happy, please, go ahead. You know I’ll always support any change you wish to make,” Lucy said. “But, as for the travelling pack, so long as you let me go over some items to make sure they’re how I like, then I’m okay with you making the arrangements. You also make such wonderful garments. I admit. Flying was thrilling, but I really wasn’t prepared. I’ll need Cancer to help me untangle this nest.”

            “Shall I see to it that the others know of your wish to see them?” Virgo asked plainly. “Capricorn, Aquarius, and Cancer?”

            “Yes, please,” Lucy said stiffly. Her hands tightened over her knees. She would feel something speaking to them, she knew but not what. Erza returned from the kitchen with a full fruit tart set on a large plate and a few smaller ones and forks she placed on the coffee table. Erza called it a light snack while cutting half the tart for herself. Lucy took a smaller piece, her stomach still not quite settled but determined to eat. The crust was shortbread, buttery with a touch of salt too, and the fruit were still quite fresh over a whipped bed of custard.

            They began in earnest with Lucy cleaning her desk papers and Erza and Virgo began sorting, piling, and collecting Lucy’s things. Her wardrobe was the first to face a culling. Virgo was quick in deciding before Lucy what should stay or go, and the spirit seemed so pleased with her work that Lucy let her have the reins. Erza paid attention to every choice Virgo made, and asked questions about the choices, about travel climates, distance, time. Virgo, however, was a wall and not one intimidated by Erza in the slightest.

            Mira came first around and helped Lucy in breaking her lease with the land lady. Guild mages had special rules on boarding and leasing given travel demands and risk. And the Land Lady already had a few prospective tenants to take over. No one ever knew if a mage would make it back from work, so she’d been sure to have a replacement lodger in her files. Lucy had paid out her month already, and the deposit had been gone years ago after the first fire Natsu had set off. Lucy felt lighter having let the lease go.

            Her key ring would be one lighter when she left. Mira dumped a whole bunch on the woman’s desk with a smile of sugar. Lucy’s eyes widened at how many there were, and more of the guild still out on work.

            “I made forty backups that I never distributed in case anyone lost theirs,” Mira said as an explanation for the mountain of keys. Lucy no longer wanted to know how many keys she distributed to each guild member if those were backups. They returned to find Loke setting bags of food on the counter. He sat by Lucy’s legs as she ate, his head on her knee, and chimed in as Erza and Virgo held up final, special pieces from Lucy’s wardrobe for consideration to take or leave. Lucy tugged at Loke’s soft ears.

            It wasn’t long after that Levy and Cana appeared at the door. Cana held the door for Levy, whose stomach showed first before her. Her green tank top rose along her bump. She was seven months along and her eyes were red. She came in and everyone made space for her in the one sitting chair Lucy kept before the coffee table. Levy sank into the plush, sun-softened, mauve cushions.

            Loke gave Lucy’s knee a squeeze then rose and cleared their plates and drinks. He returned with water for Levy.

            “Lily will be here soon,” Levy said to start. “Cana told me you’ll be gone a very long time.”

            “I will. I’m so sorry,” Lucy said and came around the table. “I had hoped I wouldn’t physically be eighteen till after, but it’s here now and I need to go.”

            “I know. I know you wouldn’t go without it being critical. I know but.” Levy’s voice broke and Lucy fell to a knee before her. She looked up with a desperate plea to Lucy. “We didn’t pick a name. We’ve tried so many. We have lists out my ass and still…she’s gonna be born and you won’t know what her name is.”

            “I’ll be back—”

            “Of course you’ll be back!” Levy shouted with a flash of anger. “But you need to know the baby’s name before you go so you can start thinking of her that way even before she’s born and especially around the time you know she’ll be here. So we are going to figure this out before you go or I’m calling her Lucy.”

            “I’m not going to be dead,” Lucy said and tried not to laugh. She touched Levy’s knee and gave it a shake. “And I’m asking you to not implicate me any more in your relationship with Gajeel. We are already going to be struggling when your daughter asks one day how you two met. And I’m going to be implicated. If you name her after me…I am her Fairy Godmother, don’t do that to us.”

            Soft peals of laughter fell from Levy’s mouth, and the others joined in.

            “That actually made me want to name her Lucy a little,” Levy said and covered her snorts by turning away and coughing into her elbow.

            “I’ll beg you not to. Or I can say that I will be a negative character witness on Gajeel out of spite if you name her after me. She’s going to look at you sideways.”

            “She was going to anyways,” Levy said and dismissed the words. A devious light curled in her eyes though, and Lucy leaned back for the blow. “What can I say? I’m so short, I like a man who raises me up.”

            Lucy’s horrified laugh filled the room. “No!”

            “Nailed into a wall, nailed to a tree. I am who I am.”

            “Levy!” Mira cried. “The baby will hear!”

            “The baby is inside me!” Levy cackled and Cana joined in with her. Loke chuckled into his hand beside Erza. The knight had such wide, unseeing eyes.

            “Do not name your child after me, Levy. I will find a way to legally change it if I get back to baby Lucy. We’re not doing it.” Lucy shook her head. “We can choose a few names from those lists. I was still going over my papers and I think I have one still in here from the guild. But are you okay with taking my manuscripts and papers? Oh, I need to call Jason and the paper about me being away too.”

            She kept remembering things she needed to do. More to the pile.

            Levy agreed and they began to sort the documents, discussing baby names as they did, while Mira began to clean, Virgo packed, and Cana, Loke, and Erza moved larger boxes of Lucy’s discarded items out onto the street to take off later once they had it all. Laxus came by with a spare cart to load them. From the canal, the workers called to Lucy with concern and she had to go and tell them she’d be gone a long time but would be back.

            The day passed quick, and Lucy stomach sank with the sun.

            In the evening, after Levy and Mira left, and Erza went to get some things to stay over, Lucy excused herself from Cana and Virgo to head out for a store she wanted to peruse and make that call to the paper. She pulled Loke’s coat back on as she stepped out the door.

            The streets were being lit by the boatsmen as Lucy crossed the cobbled streets. She followed her normal path from her residential district to the market court. It was a stop-end street rounded at the end into a circle all the shops formed. At the center was a tree, strung with lights, and Lucy passed beneath its wide, long limbs as she walked towards one of her favorite shops. Cloacina flew from her hand and settled within the boughs.

            The shop was rather small, and smaller than those around it. The flower shop to its left was overgrown with hydrangea’s that spilled over the street and over the dark wood and grease-smeared windows. A small, brass bell hung above the door, the sign had fallen off a few weeks back and hadn’t been replaced so it seemed much abandoned save a pale, thin light from within. Lucy brushed a hand over her jacket pocket, then touched a key and whispered, “Capricorn.”

            Lucy opened the door, the bell chimed, and a clipping step followed her in. The small, old woman pressing her books behind the counter didn’t look up. The dark counter covered her head as she bent before her books, and there was little in the shop save for books and the strong smell of leather. Master Witt was deaf, older that Master Makarov, and she never much cared for people in her shop or not so long as they paid. She’d made many of the guild’s record keeping books, personal diaries, and other pieces. Lucy had gone with Mira to the shop for the first time years back, when Master Witt was still in her eighties like Master Makarov, and she was of the same quiet, focused form that she’d been then too.

            Lucy stepped across the stone floor, her steps rather loud in the quiet, but matched by Capricorn’s hooves. He picked up a few smaller notebooks with sturdy, stiff covers, his fur stark white against many when he did, and a pleasant smile touched his thin mouth. Every Heartfilia kept a journal, but all of Lucy’s at the apartment were full, half-full, or marker inside with a slew of ideas and snippets for stories. Lucy’s hand brushed forward, the coat’s sleeves reaching past her knuckles and falling back, and took hold of some of the sturdier ones like Capricorn preferred but larger. Capricorn had found a small, brown leather piece while she continued to search. He followed her till she stopped before a wall furthest away from Master Witt. The woman’s couldn’t hear, but Lucy still felt rather exposed.    

            The tails of his suit jacket brushed forward as he stopped, then closed behind him like a beetle’s shell. “I have been thinking of replacing my old one. A new notebook for some new poetry. And one for you too. Layla-sama used an accounting book, I recall.”

            He chuckled, warmed by memories, and she smiled and said, “She wrote like it was one too.”

            “Save one detail, I believe?” Capricorn asked and picked up the small notebook and flipped through the hard, thick stock of pages. He often wrote with too much force of the page, pushing his words right through. “I’m sorry if you thought I should have told you the truth. I didn’t realize till Cancer and Aquarius began to speak that you had no idea about the man.”

            “Is this one of those things where…you guys don’t want to talk about her?” Lucy asked, voice growing small and she picked up a brown journal, small spells written at the leather border to distort the writer’s script when perceived by others. She put it back. One day, another Heartfilia might read it after all.

            “After we returned from Layla’s voyage, and after she delivered you, we were all dismissed from her service. Mine, especially, kept me far from you despite my vows.” Caprcicorn’s thin tail thwapped against the floor with his displeasure. She looked up at him with concern, uncertain if she should comfort him but wanting to. “And then I had no reason to think of the man at all. There could be no other…father. Jude, you may not know, was incapable of having children. An accident when he was younger. It was the barrier between him and Layla’s marriage. He knew she needed to have a child, and he wanted her to pursue that. When she came back pregnant, she wasted no time in finding him.”

            “She loved Jude that much?” Lucy asked.

            “Perhaps. Layla-sama never spoke to me of him much. Most of what I knew came from Aquarius.”

            “Did you know him?” Lucy asked and then whispered and didn’t specify.

            He reached into the front of his twin-tail suit jacket, gleaming and shiny as his fur and oiled horns and hooves that tapped, tapped, tapped on the ground. The small notebook of poetry, familiar dark exterior, he flipped through and cleared his throat as he often did. His jaw clicked as he rolled it and began to speak.

            “Our tides did meet, once/ a rush sweet as your salt skin / parting split desire.” Capricorn cleared his throat again and closed the notebook. “I wrote that after your mother and him parted. Layla-sama laughed at such sentiment for such a brief affair as theirs. I cannot say, though, that I knew him. As a point of security, I was close by, watching, but I was never summoned and gave privacy as required for the…connection they shared.”

            “I can tell by the entries, Capricorn…the nature of their relationship. I know what they were both interested in. Though…I don’t think I realized my mom was ever one for such an affair. You don’t have to be shy about it, but if you’re uncomfortable, we can stop.”

            “I am only wishing to speak with care, Lucy-sama. I cannot say much of the man save that he was rather handsome and they met by pure chance. But she never spoke to me of him. And, like most Heartfilia who I have accompanied on this quest, your mother rarely summoned me. It’s a matter of protecting magic to not summon in public and…my form only changes so much. It is hard for me to go unnoticed.” Capricorn’s tail slowed and stilled on the floor and his pointed nails stuck in the cover of his poetry book.

            “I see…but surely you could still be with me so long as no one saw how you came to be there, yes?” Lucy asked as a rush of panic cut open her soft belly.

            “Of course…but…spirits like myself are strange to the eyes of the many. Aquarius, Cancer, and myself were poor companions to your mother as we were…desired for our rarity.” Capricorn’s feet stilled, all of him so very still, so ill-fitted and off that he appeared not even alive for a second, yet his shades reflected the heat of the small, orange lights above. “There are places you shall see, find yourself in, that do not take kindly to us. Cancer and Aquarius, in particular.”

            “I’ll be sure to keep you all safe.” Lucy swore.

            “And we shall keep you safe too,” Capricorn said and returned much to life at that word of his he’d sworn to her mother that she knew was much shared by his fellows. “A long road do we all walk in the night, no matter how close the destination may seem with the sight of a map. But we who wander, we who wonder at the night, shall never walk alone. I am sorry I couldn’t share more, Lucy-sama. This is a great shock, I’m sure, and it came at a most injurious time.”

            “Will the others know more?” Lucy asked and placed her hand on his arm. He covered her hand.

            “Perhaps. Aquarius-sama may find the conversation difficult, as you know.”

            “Yes.” Lucy held his arm tighter and sighed. “She still loves my mother. Even now.”

            “We spirits love for a long time. And in many ways. What I shared with your mother was an oath to keep me, to guide me, in the years to come though I did lose myself briefly. And now I have found the way again in you, Lucy-sama. But it was not so for Aquarius. Their connection, much like your own, will be with her forever.”

            With that, Lucy gathered up her notebook, one of midnight blue with a soft, thick cord to bind it and she paid for a new notebook that she handed to Capricorn. He would need it for the venture ahead. She carried her purchase back and stepped into her place.

            Virgo looked up, holding a plum bandana-top, backless, with golden paisley swirls along the triangle formed cloth. Cana was nowhere to be seen, and Lucy did breathe easier still. She would need to address her properly. She was still being an awful friend.

            “Welcome back, Princess. Did you purchase what you required?”

            “Yes, I did. Every Heartfilia needs a journal.”

            “Yes, a logbook is a good idea,” Virgo said and returned to folding with vicious quickness.

            “I probably should have been keeping one all along. All the things we’ve gotten into. All the troubles and adventures.” Lucy laid her hand over the cover. “My life has been quite the adventure so far. One I hope continues. It would be a shame to forget anything. To let it slip away.”

            “The memories aren’t the goal,” Virgo said and stopped her work to look ahead at the wall. “They just happen.”

            “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Virgo.”

            “Of course, Princess.”

            “I’m going to take a bath.” Lucy rose and set the journal aside.

            “Do you need me to assist you?”

            “No, and…I’m going to call Aquarius.”

            “Understood. I shall secure the luggage then as a precaution.” Her voice was so serious and firm that Lucy laughed. But it was not unwarranted.

            It was difficult to take off her cropped jacket, Lucy found. It was no lighter after speaking with Capricorn, but she placed it over a chair. Her hand lingered over the soft, smooth fabric.

            Who are you? Should I care? But, of course, should matter or would matter, it made no difference in the matter of her feelings.

            The bathroom was scrubbed clean, Mira having come in with a strong detergent that lingered in the air and bloomed when the hot water poured from the wall into the deep, porcelain tub. The window was covered with a solid, pink curtain. She turned on some of the cool water, ensuring it wasn’t steaming and was about to call the spirit when she appeared.

            Water spilled over the tub’s edge, rushing towards the drain in the floor. Aquarius sat in the tub, her aqua hair catching silver in the harsh, bathroom lights and her mermaid tail curled up and over the side. She was much too large for the tub,.  

            Lucy figured, of all the spirits her mother had befriended, Aquarius was likely to know the most. Close as the two had been, close as Aquarius still held Layla like a wound she pulled open to bleed, to remember. Water’s memory ran red as blood, as the passion that Aquarius stirred to at the memory of Layla. But it still hurt, and that hurt had been Lucy’s to bare for years.

            “Stop.” Aquarius raised her hand and thrashed her tail about, complaining about the size of the tub while more water sloshed over the side and over Lucy’s bare, painted toes. The meager water left in the pool whipped, warred, whirled, and washed up, up, up, the sides to fall over with all the rest and the pipes began to squeak, water pressure building with the irritation of their mistress. Aquarius had turned her head from Lucy, towards the window. Lucy took up a wide tooth comb to pull through the mermaid’s aqua hair that never tangled.

            “I didn’t want to know him,” Aquarius said after a moment and the arrogance of her voice was thin, pulling back to reveal the deeper, sunken in insecurity that laid bare beneath it all. “I didn’t like him and I still don’t. I would see them together in Water 7, one of the few places where it wasn’t safe but also not particularly dangerous for those that look like myself. The entire island is built around their canals, water elevators, fountains, pools. I could go anywhere, be summoned anywhere…not that Layla did.”

            Aquarius’s hands clawed the side of the tub.

            “I summoned myself, opened my own gate, to watch them. Layla…she glowed around him. But I never asked her about him. What she thought of him.” Aquarius’s storm locked eyes filled with frustration, a touch almost green.

            In time, Lucy had understood without needing to ask, to reopen the wound that sat in the shallows of Aquarius’s temper, the ire and anger—the unfulfilled wish. Lucy’s hands stilled, comb finished with its sweep, and considered this too. Aquarius’s anger with Lucy had long been a source of tension, for misunderstanding, the hurt of losing someone you loved so much that it had become a twisted, wrought barb to wield and brandish at anyone around you.

            “He’s likely already dead,” Aquarius said and her tail slapped down with the huff of her breath, agitated movements stirring the pooled water as she gnashed her teeth “The Beyond isn’t a soft place. And he didn’t live a soft life. A wanted man, a pirate, and with all the world gunning for him and his.

            “But Layla liked him. He was her type.” Aquarius looked aside, away from her image in the water that peered up in memory, reaching for a boat and Lucy’s mother, a shadowed figure across from her.  Men who would keep moving after her, that would get a job done. Though he was the loosest of her…fixations. Rather laid back for her, honestly. Less brittle or…insecure as Jude too. He just wanted the fun, the thrill. He likely never thought of Layla again after she moved on.

            “Don’t go expecting some fairy tale.” Aquarius’s words bled out into the tub and thickened.

            “I’m not,” Lucy said and laid her hand on Aquarius’s twitching tail. The blue and gold scales, the thick, golden rings piecing the sides that ran down the length, were majestic and shimmered under the water, catching each piece of light and refracting, correcting. In the dark, the scales retained their shine, deep in the dark of the water they glimmered with a star’s light in each.

            Aquarius took her hands and pulled Lucy into the tub. Lucy was sat in her lap, much too large for such a thing anymore, but the familiar scratch of scales, the warmth of Aquarius’s soft, large body and the smell of the sea, of salt and sand, carried her far away from the small bathroom.

            Over the years, as Lucy had grown as a mage, Aquarius had grown too, growing larger, longer, fuller as if the magic she’d been connected to with Lucy had enabled her to return to her original form, her real shape. Brandish had helped Aquarius too, made her large for a while to remind her of days long ago when she was a mermaid not contained to the shallow waters of the Celestial Realm. But when she had the oceans, a whole world.

            The world Lucy and her would go together into.

            “Get a bigger tub for your next place,” Aquarius said after a while. “This one is too tight.”

            “You got it,” Lucy said and laid her head on Aquarius’s shoulder.

            From the bath, Lucy toweled her long golden hair with too small of a towel that had been left behind and wore a simple, thin robe of pale, sky blue alone save mismatched socks she’d found. She hated the feel of bare floors under her feet, and there were no more rugs or mats to stand on. She’d felt worse, but there had always been a coarseness to the apartment’s floors that prickled her skin. Her legs were a warm, deep pink like her fingers and that peeked from the long sleeves ends. She sat before the vanity on a low, plush stood she’d bought to replace the bare one the apartment had come with, and looked at herself in the foldout, triple mirror. The mirror was rather dark, old, and she’d found it while out shopping with Erza some years ago too. Gilded, wooden filigree framed the heavy piece she’d paid too much for at the time. But the joy she’d gotten from looking at herself in it daily had paid her back.

            She stared at herself, towel and hair pooled before her in the mirror and working out the water. She sat up straight and turned her head from side to side. She pushed back her bangs from her face and smoothed all the hair back to hold it at the base of her neck, then she drew forth a long piece free and to the front.

            Do I look like him? Lucy asked herself and let the shadows and light stretch across her face. The damp towel on her lap slicked the robe to her skin. She tilted her head back a bit, smirked. The hair piece she’d freed was much too long and hung too limp down her face where it slipped over her breasts where the robe began to pull apart. She reordered herself and reached for the cosmetics she’d left out to lotion and apply her skincare.

            It was herself she saw, still warped, when she looked in the mirror after. She really hadn’t ever looked like Jude, she’d begun to see, and that wasn’t so painful as it made her wonder how she’d never questioned before. Her pale skin and smattering of freckles from days in the sun over the bridge of her nose. She touched it, feeling the bones so thin. This, and this, and this, she traced and considered what no one had ever told her but left her to find.

            I thought someone would tell me the truth. And…mom did…Lucy’s feelings struggled to grow and show their colors. They had no names, only the same green shoots as all her other complicated, messy feelings, and they left her stranded in her mind not wanting to crush any before knowing how they would bloom. Loke’s words continued to ring in her head, a soft push to accept what was. Her courage grew from him.

            Finally, she unspooled the great magic and laid a hand across the keys on the vanity, silver and gold. A fine thread reached across the great distance between the physical and celestial realms, a star flying back to the heavens. Rushing, reaching, reaching, reaching, the magic ended as key and gate were reunited, and the turn ushered in a rush of sensations as a bell chimed and she felt the presence of Cancer before the golden light he formed from was seen in the mirror’s reflection.  

            The crab spirit was dressed differently than normal. Twists were short and hung around his angular, sharp face with golden ear cuffs of crab claws peeking out behind two longer side pieces. Half his dark hair was up in small tail. His shirt was dark pink with short sleeves from which his many crab legs came from behind and clicked. He smiled at her in the mirror and placed his scissors on the vanity before her, reaching over her shoulders. Then he took her hair in his hands, still damp, and ran his thin, gentle fingers through the length. She had a great deal of it. 

            “Something practical will be necessary. But new. Easy for you to do on your own too.” Cancer reached forward for the wide, flat brush on her vanity and began to pull it through her ends, holding the very bottom to not tug her scalp. “Not too tight either. Length?”

            “I know it’s a bit overgrown…but I really like how long it is at the moment.” The hair went well past her hips and settled along her thighs; but she’d felt, as she looked in the mirror and the champagne-gold color in the light, that she looked much different with it from the girl she’d been when she’d ran away from home with it cropped at her shoulders; or the girl who’d been aide to the Queen for a year while the guild disbanded and worn her hair much like her mother, too much at times, with it up in a bun. “Mom liked to keep my hair one way.”

            “It was the only style she knew how to do,” Cancer said with teasing fondness unlike the others. The reverence, the unreturned love, were not present with Cancer, only someone who missed his friend. “Layla had one look, one style, and she gave it to you. Then Jude reinforced it. The dresses too. Sometimes it scared me how much you looked like her. But you weren’t meant for Layla’s strict, sleek look. Layla always wanted to look older. She wanted to see herself at an age she believed she’d never get to be.”

            “She wanted to grow up since she was young,” Lucy said and recalled the nights she could with her mother, her warm body holding Lucy while they stared up at the sky, pointing. Reaching. Lucy closed her eyes and could see the stars of that final night, the ones Lucy had made and strung over her mother’s sickbed. Layla had reached up for them, her hands shaking, crying. Then she’s gathered Lucy into her thin, waning arms and grown cold after the warmest, softest words of love she’d pressed into Lucy’s head.

            “Yet she never let her hair grow out.” Cancer shook his head. He began to part Lucy’s hair and clipped sections up to leave only the very bottom out. “She was a rigid, strict woman. She’d been like that since she was a kid too. Always so serious, so particular about the details from her appearance to her day-to-day, minute-by-minute routine. She wore more hats when she was young. She burned easily from the thinness of her skin. It was a very rough time for her on her quest.”

            “Really?” None of her mother’s previous spirits had spoken of her so much.

            “In many ways, she hated it. It was without a solid order, though Layla had planned it for years trying to get the timing and order of it all right in her head for the most efficient routes and timetables. Everything she’d planned, all her detailed order, was gone. The Beyond is a wild, lawless place with little rhyme or reason to it.”

            “Oh she really would have hated that.” Lucy was certain of that. Her mother’s greatest joys had come in planning, in making the day into everything she wanted it to be and on time. Her itinerary book had been well-loved, finely structured and set up to find everything she might ever need. Jude had relied, like the rest of the company, on her mother’s planning skills, her eyes for details and efficiency. “She would get antsy if things were off in her schedule.”

            “She’d always been like that. She learned to be around her medicine schedules and treatments. They used to wear her out, exhaust her, and she would lose a day or days from a lack of strictness with the time. She became sure to always, like clockwork, ensure her time was handled. Or it would be lost.” He sighed sadly. “She had so little time.”

            Cancer plucked his scissors and began to carefully cut and feather the ends of her hair. He spent time to cut her hair where he could have rushed; he’d always been quick, efficient, precise, but his soft smile in the mirror, taking time, made her almost want to cry. She’d always been weepy, and she laughed to herself when finding him in the mirror behind her.

            As her first spirit, Lucy’s relationship to Aquarius had been rough for many years, fraught with anger, grief, and insecurity. Yet Aquarius was the first friend she ever made of the stars, her hand open and reaching and grasped back.

            But Cancer had never been so harsh; he’d been firm with her though. As a lonely child, he’d walk the empty gardens with her for hours, though she’d not spoken much for fear he’d turn sour and cold like her father or Aquarius. Then, when the time came, he’d tell her he needed to return to the Celestial Realm. He’d been the first to teach her of contracts, of the limits of Celestial Spirit Mages and the threat of spreading herself too thin; he never apologized for having to leave, but he never let Lucy apologize for asking him to come for no reason.

            Cancer snipped carefully, lifting her ends into the light as he sheared through them. He wrapped his fingers in bands of gold hair, a small smile etched on his face. He said, “Layla did act young, for just a month, though. I remember it fondly. It was the month she called me the most, a young woman going on a date, a night out, a morning in. Perhaps I should say she acted her age, but it was so strange on her to my eyes.”

            He pulled a clip from her hair and a golden sheet feel behind her and into his waiting hand.

            “That month was the month, of course, you were conceived,” Cancer said with a small laugh. “That man had an affect on her that I’d never seen her have with anyone else.”

            “Was she happy?” Lucy asked quietly as if speaking too loudly might make the story stop.

            “Happy was a term for it. That was part of it. Free, I think, would be better. He made her feel free,” Cancer said and his voice was warm even with a whisper of grief. “I’d known her for years, since she was thirteen, but she called me everyday she could while we were in Water 7. She was meant to be resting on her journey. Like I said, she didn’t do too well out there, and she’d been feeling like she needed time to rest, to recuperate. She stopped by the island while on her way to the Kuja who would have given her succor and relief for however long she needed. And then…she just stayed there. One day, then the next, then a week, two, three. I can’t say she rested much.”

            Lucy tried not to duck her head with a blush. The words weren’t explicit, nor had her mother’s account been verbose—Layla Heartfilia was no writer. Cancer laughed at her, his smile growing wider in the mirror, and that made Lucy feel calmer.

            “She bent her hard rules, she deviated from her schedules, and she had fun.”

            “Sounds like it,” Lucy said before she meant to. Cancer tugged a strand of her hair with a teasing look. She found the face in the mirror, reaching a hand up to touch her nose, a little easier to see rather than looking only at Cancer.

            Bending the rules? Lucy wondered how Jude would have felt about Layla doing that for him; she remembered his ire, tamed when Lucy was around and Layla was there, when he would find them in the gardens at night, reminding her mother of the days ahead, of treatments and schedules. Lucy had felt guilty then; she had felt guilty for many years for asking for one moment more with her mother, just one and maybe one more, when she should have been resting, recovering, working.

            Perhaps she’d asked for too much, Lucy had thought for a long time. But when she remembered her mom, she was happy, smiling, reaching her hands to the sky or taking Lucy’s. Lunch parties in the gardens, magic lessons, piano recitals at midnight, lightning storm puppet shows when Lucy had been scared of thunder. Not once, in all those years, had Layla told Lucy no, had someone else take care of her. They had, after all, so little time. One moment, followed by one moment more was all they could wish for then.

            You didn’t tell me everything, but I heard what you always wanted me to hear, mom.

            On the other hand, Jude remained in her memories without such softness. He’d been distant, working and away, but he’d been kind, easy to be around. After Layla, he was a fortress, tall and imposing, with all weapons pointed out and used as often as he’d found the time in her presence.

            Cancer began to hum, his fingers massaging her scalp with enough force to pull her back.

            She remembered calling him for the first time. The first time he’d stood before her, crouched low, and placed his scissor sword across the floor, shield aside, she’d thought he was a hero. Her hero. His soft hands had laid flat on the floor, the room empty with the door swinging behind the swift moving older man who’d followed her from the estate party.

            Cancer’s hand curled over her shoulder and lightly pushed to let her release the tightness she’d wound them up to near her ears.

            “Would you mind…continuing? I’ve been wanting to know more.” Lucy sniffed and began to pull her hands through the keys at her hip. In the mirror, Ophiuchus’s eyes flashed a moment from within her own, the snake coiling tight and close as Eureno slithered up her leg and around her waist. There was a low rumble too—Loke.

            “They only spent three weeks together. A brief affair. But one that provided us all with a wonderful little lady,” Cancer said with affection. She flushed and pulled herself with his help from those haunted, dark halls. “But I can’t say I was the biggest fan of him in all regards. He was still a pirate. And one with growing infamy to him and his crew. Not that the papers in the Beyond can be trusted. But he was also much older than Layla. She was twenty at the time, but he was, I believe, nearly a decade older than her.”

            “Oh…that’s…and she was nineteen when she left on the quest, wasn’t she?” Lucy asked and her smile fell, a touch of unease in her.

            “Yes. Of course, Layla didn’t mind. She liked him. But she didn’t see a future with him. They were a brief affair only and not one where either wanted the other long term.

            “The crew he was with were getting a new ship in Water 7, something special they were to call home. I only really knew, from Aquarius, that he was acquainted well with their shipwright, a Fishman like myself, and a mermaid. Beyond that, we didn’t ever learn much about his fellows.”

            “But he was good to her? And friendly?” Lucy was glad.

            “He was,” Cancer replied and she didn’t think right then of asking for more. She knew her mother had been cared for, even if the man didn’t remember Layla. She could be thankful for the way he’d let her mother experience something new.

            Cancer split her hair into two parts, pinning up one side and leaving her bangs to brush over her eyes. He was quick, down to almost the end of her back with the first braid, before holding up the last six inches of hair with a thoughtful look. The legs along his back moved, clicking together like one might steeple their fingers. “Virgo asked me to keep in mind she made accessories for you, for your hair in particular, of course. She mentioned in particular some hair ornaments. But flying with them…the extra few inches free can tangle with salt and wind. Perhaps the braids should be higher.”

            He was speaking to himself, but Lucy felt a flutter of excitement at his words.

            “Virgo does seem very excited for the trip. I’m sure she’s made some wonderful pieces.”

            On the other side of her head, Cancer lifted her hair up toward the crown of her head rather than the other braid that loosely sat near the base of her skull. His voice had grown lower, then disappeared as he thought and frowned. She sat still for him and waited. Virgo and Cancer had grown rather close, enjoying a more non-combative role in Lucy’s life.

            A small chime sounded, and Virgo appeared beside Cancer in the mirror. She held a lacquered, dark box as large as the vanity, and set it down. The dark wood, blue and black, was varnished with a thick layer containing flecks of gold and beneath it were stars that seemed set into the ocean’s surface and not the sky at all. It was lovely with a rich, salted scent too. Virgo pulled the golden latches free and displayed a treasure trove of bobbling hair ornaments, jewels, and accessories. The pleased gleam to the Maiden’s eyes burned across the mirror’s, her gloves hands with chains grasped tight before the long, pale pink apron she wore.

            “Princess, Lord Cancer, I have brough the accessories I have made. I would be most pleased with a fair assessment at my first attempts of such crafts,” Virgo said and lowered her head.

            Cancer frowned, his thin eyes brows narrowed, and said, “I didn’t think you’d use—”

            “I used the available means afforded to me,” Virgo interjected. “They are mine to do with as I please, after all. And I would be most pleased if Princess would find joy in them.”

            “Virgo, they’re wonderful,” Lucy said and was near breathless. She reached ahead to touch, but found the pieces too precious. The Maiden had produced the finest creations, though it was rarer she failed. And each was just as Lucy preferred: bows of near every hue; clear, gelatin stars of many points, silver and gold, purple and blue, pink and red; bells, each of a high, tinkling voice singing as they rang; hearts, small and large, some with bows and others with stars; short and tall bands of metal to wrap the ends of braids. Her hands drifted over them all with indecision for how each bounty caught her eyes, her attention and adoration. They were the cutest little things, most no larger than her thumb at the largest save some of the hair ties and bows. She looked at Virgo in the mirror, watching her straight back and chest puff.

            “These will do nicely. Not too much weight to them to worry about.” Cancer leaned forward over Lucy to check them and smiled. “Are there any you wish to try now?”

            Virgo’s gaze grew expectant, shining, and Lucy grinned.

            The metals were smooth, silver and gold, and she with a slight chill to them. Her fingers prickled, like a child she felt and was warm enough for the metal to heat. She took up some small pieces, bells no wider or taller than her nails, and they sang to her when they moved. Lovely music came and gently swelled in the room, a memory of every time she called to them, when the stars came to her. She held them up to Cancer.

            “These?” Lucy asked.

            “Of course,” he said and took them from her hand. He strung them all along the braids, a great ring of them at the braids end that he then let fall and coil in her lap. She smiled and gave the rope a jostle and the air was full of singing. A touch of merrymaking, she thought, to brighten her days and nights at sea when she alone could be perched on Cloacina and fly.

            Yes, a touch of brightness and the sound of stars.

            Lucy didn’t sleep that night though she was meant to; she tried telling herself to sleep, to close her eyes, to rest, but her eyes were open and she was still awake. Not even Erza’s presence in the bed, pressing Lucy into the wall under the curtain covered window, had kept her from sleep this long before. She didn’t wake Erza; the other would have stayed up with her if she knew and then been tired come morning and the day ahead, and everything is Lucy’s head would be just as crowded and thick with a mire of thoughts she tugged at with a wary mind. Her wrists ached. Sleep was further than the stars.

            There’s no hope for me like this, Lucy thought and pinched her eyes shut.

            Outside, she could hear the water breaking against the canal side with soft slaps and the whisper of its waves; street light crept in through the sliver of her curtains that never quite closed right. Erza was warm, softly snoring, and deep in dreams that flicked behind her eyelids. Lucy saw perfectly in the dark, she always had. And she could feel the whole, sleeping city in her mind, wrapped, safe, and home. There were pockets of activity like the small entertainment quarter that had begun to expand, she sometimes heard the distant murmurs of groups walking home together and the intimate, close tether of their joy.

            Lucy recalled the silence of Tartaros; her expanded senses and awareness gutted as the town went quiet, their pleas and cries cut. Aquarius’s thoughts she’d not meant for Lucy to hear so loud in the rush of fighting, then her silence too.

            Rising from the bed, Lucy saw her keys on the vanity behind the bed. She brushed the window curtains aside where the greater amount of light wouldn’t disturb Erza, and looked out on the warm streets and the stars in a cloudless sky.

            Eureno, would you get the paper from my jacket? Quietly, Lucy asked the twin-headed snake that was curled beside the keys. She lifted both her heads, green eyes flashing a moment, and flashed across the room to the jacket Lucy had left draped over the back of the wooden chair. Lucy sat back, down by Erza’s feet and in the streetlight, and opened her hand for the snake to place the folded paper within. Eureno then climbed up her arm; her cool body coiled around Lucy’s bicep, heads atop her shoulder. They had no eyes to close, no skin to shut, but the peridot grew duller till they were sleeping once more.

            The folded paper was still rough in her hands, and thick enough that no light passed through it when she held it up and the streetlight fell across it. Her hands shook and she unfolded it once, twice, and saw the man himself. Her shaking hand brushed his features then pulled away and folded it again. Her head knocked back against the window sill, a dull ache.

            Maybe I’ll never meet him. Maybe he’s already dead, like Aquarius said. It’s a dangerous world and he’s a wanted man, a pirate. Her thoughts were dull and lifeless as the paper clutched between her hands. Neither the warmth of the streetlight nor herself could make the man real, alive. There was no power that could make him those things but his own continued survival and a chance to meet, but she wasn’t able to understand her feelings still. Did she want that?

            Lucy would never wish a man dead, of course, but to meet him loomed in her mind. Still her feelings were small, closed buds tight and dark against the earth. They hid themselves, or perhaps she had done that. They crowded her feet like waves against the shore and left her incapable of moving save to look about. She looked again at the bounty and brushed the questions it posed in bold, script as ‘WANTED’ and ‘DEAD OR ALIVE.’

            Lucy didn’t know anything.

            The paper was returned to her jacket, the zipper holding it closed tight, as Lucy rose from her bed with ease. Erza always slept well and deep by Lucy’s side, roused only by her name or the smell of pastries or her regular, early rise. She shrugged on the blue bomber jacket over her pajamas, taking her keys, and slipped on a low pair of shoes by the door as she left that apartment behind. She walked to the water’s edge and could hear the boats bobbing along the canal, bumping the low set docks with solid, continuing slaps.

            He probably wouldn’t want me anyway, Lucy told herself after catching a look of herself in the disturbed waters. The streetlights were too warm along the shallow, shifting waters and her image splintered and shifted. She turned away. Her legs itched.

            A soft chime didn’t surprise her as she looked to her right and found Loke. He shrugged off that long, dark coat and placed it over her shoulders again, and it was chilly then, and walked at her side as she wandered. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. But his mind and hers touched, open on both side, and she stretched out her hand and took his. He held onto her as she drifted.

            They walked all night along the canal streets, and she wasn’t alone.

            The afternoon of the next day, dressed and ready to leave, there was a knock at the apartment door. Lucy had been standing before the bathroom mirror, looking at herself. The image was much clearer than those in the canal’s surface, clearer than it had been when Cancer had done her hair before the vanity. The crowds had dispersed from her room to let her prepare in peace while everyone readied to send her off, to help her. She’d had nothing to do save sit by herself and think. Her thoughts had turned, in the absence and space, back to the image she’d stored in the pack under water bottles, first-aid supplies, snacks, changes of clothes, her journal, pens, glasses case, a toiletry bag, and self-care items.

She couldn’t burn the image any more than she could wash it from her eyes when they closed. She’d been drawing her fingers along her short, thin nose, raising the thin brows she dyed darker so they didn’t fade into her face. Is this like his? She asked over and over till the bell rang, then a knock, then the bell again.

            Lucy was so shocked by the sound she threw herself back from the mirror as if accused. Her heartbeat quickened, stomping at her ribs and skin, till she followed it towards the front door. The apartment was empty save the last of what had come with it, exposed and open without decoration. She had nothing to hold onto but her own hands working the tight, aching sting of her wrists. She’d known in an instant, her awareness wide and precise, who stood on the other side as she gathered her courage from the embers of guilt. So little time and she’d pulled away from Cana’s every attempt to be near, so Lucy pulled open the door.

            The one time anyone has ever knocked, Lucy thought and felt a forlorn smile stitch her face into the image of pleasantness.

            “Hello, Cana,” Lucy said quietly and stepped aside to the let other into the empty, overexposed apartment.

            “Don’t you look pretty. Saw it only a few hours ago but really, with your hair done too? Shit. And no bed for me to show you how much I appreciate this look of yours,” Cana said in an attempt for a semi-joke. Cana’s rough, erotic humor was still sincere in desire.  

            “I think you spent more than enough time in it,” Lucy replied with a short, silent laugh. “I don’t have much to offer. Most of everything is gone save some water.”

            “That’s fine.” Cana took a seat on Lucy’s bare bed and pushed herself back towards the window. Lucy sat on the edge and handed back the glass she had left. Cana held it with both hands and looked out the canal side window.

            “I saw it last night but…you parted with your dad’s gift,” Cana whispered. “You keep his letters?”

            “Wasn’t sure what to do with them,” Lucy said evenly. “I thought about chucking them. It was too late for him to be my dad. I could never quite believe the words he wrote, and I don’t want to keep forcing myself to try. I’ve raised his corpse from the grave so many times to try and make his features form the soft look one would need to say them, but it’s not him. It’s not the man I knew.”

            “You would have had that chance if I didn’t drag you into the exam with me.” Cana’s gaze slid down. They’d had this conversation before.

            “Maybe,” Lucy said and shrugged. Her shoulders felt lighter. “But I don’t think he would have changed if I was around. He wrote those letters for a dead, little girl. Some little girl. But not me. He wrote them because I couldn’t make him face himself and all he’d done while I was gone from his life, and that must have made it easier to move on, to start over.”

            Lucy’s hand curled around Cana’s ankle, light, and said, “And I was right where I wanted to be with you.”

            “Why are you comforting me?” Cana asked, almost angry. “You’re the one…I hurt you, didn’t I?”

            “No, no,” Lucy said. “It hurt to see you and your dad, but that had nothing to do with you. You know how happy I am for you, you know that I love how he loves you so dearly. So clearly for everyone to see.”

            “I’m not questioning that, Lucy,” Cana said louder. “I’m just asking you to be honest about me robbing you of your dad—”

            “His name is Rayleigh,” Lucy said and her hand tightened on Cana’s ankle.

            “What?” Cana’s voice flooded with confusion.

            “Rayleigh. It was in my mom’s…journal from nine months before I was born. No one told me, so it was just waiting for me there to find out on my own.” Lucy felt shocked at herself for saying it aloud. She brough a hand to her mouth. “Mom had a month long…fling…with a man while she was out doing the work I’ll be taking on. Jude was apparently incapable from an early injury of providing her with children. Jude…he used to say I wasn’t his. I thought he was being cruel, that he was saying it because I messed up or because he just wanted to hurt me.

            “He was the only one to tell me the truth. And then he tried to pretend like I was his,” Lucy said and her voice scraped her tongue till it bled out upon them both. “Like all he’d said and done hadn’t happened.”

            “Oh shit…Lucy, I’m—sorry isn’t the word.” Her confusion felt close to Lucy’s feelings. Silent, overwhelmed, and reaching, Lucy had tried a hundred words for her feelings. They had begun to settle, but they weren’t quite yet. But Loke was right that she’d begun to feel more focused as she’d given her feelings attention.

            “I don’t know the word for it either.” Lucy pulled her hand back into her lap to stare at them across her thighs. She was wearing gloves, deep, midnight blue that stopped at the second knuckle of each finger. She flexed them, heard the fabric shift all the way up her arms where they stopped by her bicep, under the formed curve of her exposed shoulder cap. “I was a few hours into the truth when I saw you and Gildarts though. And I am sorry, with so little time, I spent it away from you. I should have been better—”

            “Screw that,” Cana said harshly and pulled herself from the window to Lucy’s side. She covered Lucy’s hands with her own, tanned and with small, pale scars from the slice of card papers, small scars, and where she often wore a multitude of colored rings. They were warm. She should have held them more. “I get it now. Not all of it, but…shit, Lucy. That’s a lot.”

            They were silent for a moment, a moment they both seemed to need. Cana’s gaze had drifted back, frowning and gnawing at her lip.

            “Do you…know anything else about him? Rayleigh?” Cana asked.

            “Not really. Mom kept a picture of him. Blonde, mean-looking. She had a type.” Lucy blew the breath for her mouth, the shallow remains in her lungs collapsing.

            “You gonna try and find him?” Cana asked. There was no expectation behind the question, just curious.

            “No,” Lucy said and shook her head. “I have a job to do. Spirits to take care of. And I don’t have much to go off even if I did. You and Gildarts knew each other for a while, your mom and him were together. I’d just be a stranger to him; he might not even remember my mother either.”

            “That’s true.” Cana sat with her on the edge of the bed. “That would be a real shock. I always knew, even before mom died, that Gildarts was my old man. I knew who to look for and where. He’s a slutty old man, but he remembers the names of the women he was with. It’s horrific to hear about, but I that’s kind of rare.”

            “Yeah. He…Rayleigh…I just don’t know how to feel. About my mom. About all the things in the past. Part of me might want to meet him, but I don’t think I do either. I just heard his name. And now I have to think about meeting a man who helped…produce me.” Lucy groaned and tried to lighten the air. “I feel…everything and nothing. What can I really feel for a concept of a man? It’s like a well I thought was dry and overrun has some water at the bottom after I’ve gone to search somewhere else. And I did find water, I found home, but that well is still there too. And…my brain keeps thinking.”

            “Mine did too,” Cana said with a small smile. “I thought of Gildarts everyday when I was living on the streets, headed to Fairy Tail to find him. I was always thinking about him, and…when I met him he had no idea who I was. And who he was changed in my head, too. Wasn’t a fun time, as I think you know.”

            “Even if he knows I’m Layla’s daughter, even if he…remembers her…I’m not the age I should be as his kid.”

            “Didn’t think of that.”

            “Like I said…I think of everything.” Lucy sighed and took in the scraps of air she could.

            “Do you look like him? Can I see a picture?”

            “No, I left it at the vault.” Lucy lied, and felt a sliver of guilt for that too. But the Beyond’s language, the Wanted Poster, were too telling for where she was going. She never should have taken it from the Vault to begin with and into the Veil. They were forbidden materials that risked the Heartfilia’s mission being discovered—a sacred duty of the highest secrecy within the Veil. I didn’t think when I took it. I just…did.

            “Do you look like him then?” Cana asked again.

            “I think…I think I have his nose,” Lucy said and drew her fingers over the bridge as she’d done in the mirror. Cana reached up and pinched it.

            “A fine nose, indeed.” Cana laughed and gave Lucy’s head a shake. Lucy slapped at her wrists. She didn’t appreciate the fine shake that sent the bells along the braids into a clamor, small, high peals ringing up, up, and around them.

            “Cana!”

            “Mine now,” Cana said and kept hold with a smug, little smirk on her pretty face framed by dark, cedar brown hair.

            “Stop it!” Lucy dislodged her tight fingers and covered her nose with a hand, the other fending off Cana’s assault. They both began to laugh. Their hands tangled together and the laid back over the bare mattress to stare up at the exposed, dark timber sheered at places and the popcorn ceiling stained with smoke demarcations and water stains.

            “I told Erza that Jude wasn’t my dad,” Lucy said plainly. She frowned. “I don’t think she got what I was saying. More like she thought I meant he wasn’t a good father to me and therefore wasn’t my dad. I didn’t tell her of Rayleigh. Would you mind…keeping this between us?”

            “Of course,” Cana said and leaned over to kiss her cheek, her full lips almost on Lucy’s own. Her hair fell in a curtain over Lucy, and she couldn’t see the sun beginning to move down. But she felt it. She felt the end of an adventure, and the beginning of the next like a new story following the last page of a book.

            I’ll find the words eventually. Lucy hoped she would with time.

No. That is a lie, my Lady, and I’m sorry for it. I am sure you would forgive me. It is not you alone I see. I see you and the Captain, I see Damascus, I see my sister, I see my daughter and imagine her own daughter, and the daughter after, I see Emet, I see the Queen. I see the stars. You have all been the greatest night my eyes could see as it takes me. When I look up, all I see are the friends and family who have made this life, terrifying as it has been at times, something I will never forget. Something we can never let be forgotten.

            A long road stretched before Lucy, and she chose the longest one out of Magnolia to begin. The door of her old apartment was locked, and she considered it might have been a mistake with her simple, iron key laying over the midnight blue of her fingerless gloves. But it was done. Her apartment had been cheap, close, and cozy—too tight at times for how many people would crowd in at odd hours. Her memories were priceless, however, and those couldn’t be locked behind a door and left. She slipped the key into the square mailbox where it clattered against the metal and settled, silent.

            The Cathedral bell rang as Lucy stepped down from the front step, and she smiled at its call. The depth and clarity were keen to her ear, yet still so different from those strung in her hair, hanging along the twin braids. The bell had reminded Lucy of her summoning, the call that went out and reached the Celestial Realm, and she always checked around her.

            A light, chill breeze of spring brushed her hair to one side and the bells in her hair sang light and clear. Her pack hung from Cloacina’s bow, the leather looped around the rings circling the star, and the staff leaned across her shoulder as she walked. Her boots were tall, midnight blue with dark, silver plates over her shins that wrapped behind and under the short, raised heel. A small, silver barb at the back of the heel matched the metal point the toes came to. They clinked when walking, a beat added to the bells ringing in the wind.

            Only that morning, after barely sleeping with Erza tucked in beside her and taking all the space, she’d been paraded before a panel of friends, Levy carried over by Lily, to decide her travel attire. Erza’s eyes had been keen, lit with intrigue. Lucy imagined when she came back that Erza’s own wardrobe would boast similar pieces.

            Virgo’s enthusiasm for the road ahead could be read clear as a confession in every garment. She’d almost vibrated, whirling Lucy from one to the next while basking in the praise of the guild and Lucy’s own appreciation for her. The travel outfits were, to Lucy, almost too special to wear on the road. But they were firm and durable against her body, yet light and soft along her skin. For every climate, every occasion. Lucy laid her black, short travel cloak over her arm and the material shimmered at points with silver thread. They were all so magical.

            The raiment Lucy wore then was shifting midnight and royal blues wrapped in darkened silver and black. The short skirt split to the hips, hem brushing the tops of the tall boots, and showed the slip of dark undershorts beneath. The bodice was sleeveless and held her tight and upright with a stiff, high collar cinched in the back with a velvet bow. Long strands from the ribbon tickled along the exposed skin shown from the window panel across her shoulder blades. Constellations of moles, freckles, and small scars decorated the open panel of her skin that ribbons and the ropes of hair brushed over as she strutted down the street. Simple, silver studs, a wide, blue headband, and Eureno hugging her waist were all she wore beside.

            Like Cloacina, Eureno tugged Lucy forward with an eager pull. The second head rattled Lucy’s key ring with aggressive head bobs. The Kuja waited, oldest allies of the Heartfilia, they seemed to promise. Lucy wondered if that were true, if they still waited.

            Perhaps they don’t believe anymore that a Heartfilia will step through the gate. It’s been years since I was meant to appear to them, and even longer since we last met. No one could explain these circumstances. I wonder how Shakky is getting along, Lucy thought and continued her winding, looping path.

            If she looked back, she didn’t know what she would do. So she kept moving, kept walking, because there was no other choice. There were so many she wouldn’t get to say goodbye too, but, she told herself, it wasn’t goodbye. She’d be back.

            She arrived at the train station and took a right and down the road towards where the wilderness began.

            Distantly, she heard chatter and joy brightened like a star against the coming night. Cloacina began to shimmer, soft light falling behind them into the wake and wind.

            All those who could waited at the town’s border for her. There was a cart, Loke in the driver’s carriage with the reins of the lionsteeds. The others stood on the dirt road and waited, arms lifted and calling for her. She smiled and raised her hand in greeting before running to them. The bells in her hair called out and they welcome her into their arms.

            “It should be a few hours to make it to the mountain,” Loke said from above. It was a rather small carriage, she noted. Not everyone could come, though she’d not doubt they would have tried. But Levy on the bumpy road was a disaster, Laxus was far too motion sick, the Master cramped and ached on long rides, and Mira was still in charge of the bar and emergency reports. Lucy held them the tightest in her goodbyes. With Gildarts, she was tamer and thanked him for his aid in supplies and rush orders. He smiled and wished her a joyous adventure.

            Ther was still no name for the girl that would be born while Lucy was away, but Levy seemed much calmer then.

            “Give me something to read when you get back,” Levy whispered and kissed her cheeks.

            “Something just for you,” Lucy promised in return.

            Erza and Cana climbed up into to the cart. Loke offered his hand to Lucy and lifted her. She settled in the back with the other two on padded bench.

            “Will you two be able to get back alright?” Lucy asked.

            “I’m coming with you,” Erza said and pointed at her bags stuffed under the benches. Lucy pressed her smile tight at the sight, like they really could. Cana laid her head on Lucy’s bare shoulder, arm around her waist. Loke waited for her.

            “It’s time to go,” Lucy said and they shared one look. The cart lurched at the lionsteeds burgeoning march. Lucy waved from within, under the growing dark of night. Tears slipped down her face, but she smiled for them. Cloacina glowed brighter tucked behind her, but it seemed content not to fly at the moment whereas Eureno twisted tighter and tighter, faster.

            Underneath all the magic the Heartfilia had placed within the staff, there was a core, a tendril of the first thing it had been. Cloacina wished for wind and seas, open skies and horizons.

            They travelled for hours, and Loke’s handle of the lions was firm and swift as they charged over the expanse of land. Lucy’s hands were clasped tight in the others’, and she held back just as strong and her hands sweat and trembled. They spoke of plans for the future, plans for when Lucy—and Erza, the knight added—returned, of S-Class, the Grand Magic Games, Fantasia. The night was rather chilly, but Lucy was warm pressed between them.

            In the midst of their travel, there was a shift in Lucy’s head and Loke halted the lions.

            “What is it?” Erza asked and rose, summoning a sword. Lucy tugged her back to the seat.

            “The King,” Lucy said and released her hands and rose.

            “He wants to speak with Lucy. Privately.” Loke frowned. The stars began to whirl above, yet the wind stopped. Bells pealed down her back as she brushed them from her shoulders, and called Cloacina to her hands to wait at edge of the cart. The sky tore, a clamor of bells, and the air collapsed and swelled as the King arrived.

            “Old friend, you embark on the oldest journey,” he said as way of greeting in his deep, echoing voice. “You go where I cannot see you into the night.”

            “What?” Erza asked aloud.

            “I know I’m rather late, Your Majesty,” Lucy called above to him. He was a giant shining against the radiant night cloak that made the veiled sky. It was his original cloak, so her family said, that formed the barrier of the Veil. The twelve Bronze Keys treated as tent spikes to hold the Veil over them and keep them safe form the Abyss and Beyond.

            “You have come, and you go, old friend. These are what matter. I will not hold you long. Come. I must share a word with you,” the King said and knelt to offer his massive hand for her. She spared a glance back at her friends.

            “I’ll be back soon.” Lucy stepped into his open hand, Cloacina burning bright along her side, and laid a hand on his curled finger pads to hold as he rose. He didn’t just stand, he rose into the air and began to ascend. Lucy’s hair sang.

            The King stopped above the clouds and held her aside while he looked to the horizon, to the East.

            “I have favored you highly in our many years of friendship, old friend. Friendship does not seek a return, as you know, but I would ask a boon of you all the same.” The King’s voice was wistful, wishing.

            “Anything I can,” Lucy said firmly.

            “Tell me of the seas out there,” he said and there was a great sigh of relief from his mouth she’d never heard before. “I cannot see through the Veil. I guard, and I watch the horizon and wait. Many of my old friends do much the same. But they hold the seas in their gaze. I miss them.”

            “What would you like to know?”

            “Everything.” He laughed. “A King’s greed, I fear. But the sound of them I do miss. Or is it the sun’s rise I wish to see more. The sea of stars reflected on the water at night, a silver expanse of the moon when it shines.”

            “It sounds lovely,” Lucy said and clutched his finger’s pad tighter.

            “Lovely memories, yes.” He shook his head. “I have beheld the Morning Star, I believe. The promise of its rise like the sun. Tell me that you see it there too.”

            “I will. I promise,” Lucy said. She’d never heard him speak so.

            “I had another thing to tell you. Heed this warning. I am anchored here till the time comes I may leave my post. Should you be so pressed by outside forces and think to ask my aid, I will not be able to ride the stars to your side. The zodiac will still break, but it will be only loss.”

            “I did wonder. Then…do you think I will need such strength?” Lucy asked and twisted her hand around her wrist.

            “Time moves forward. The Abyss never ceases to crave, to devour. I fear my old friends do wallow in deepest, darkest night without light by themselves,” the King said. “I do not know how this will have tempered or changed them. Be wary, Old Friend. But you cannot give up on them.”

            “I won’t. I’ll help them.”

            “I know.” He smiled and his great mustache shifted overtop.

            “Would you also wish for me to pass on a message?” Lucy asked.

            “There is no need,” he replied and beneath his dark helm his eyes did shine brighter. “They will see you soon, and see the mark of my hand on your magic. Of our friendship. I believe that will be enough said.”

            “I understand,” Lucy said, half-understanding.

            “I shall return you now. I wish, Old Friend, I could grant you the boon of the Knight’s company on your long journey. But that is not a law even I can change. You must go with only the Night,” the King confessed.

            “I thought as much,” Lucy said and shook her head. Bells tolled around her. “Erza is so sure she can come, but this is older than any of us.”

            “Yes.” The King’s solemn word resounded over her head. “I shall return you now to them. Your journey has yet to truly begin.”

            The King’s cape blew aside as he descended. He laid his hand once more beside the cart, and Lucy stepped off and back into the fold of her friends.

            “May the stars ever light your way forward and hold you in their gaze,” the King said.

            “Thank you, Mustache-Man!” Lucy shouted and his smile flashed as he returned to his realm. The stars reordered themselves above, and Lucy sat back on the bench. Cloacina still vibrated in her grasp. There was no telling if the staff would launch itself to the stars if she didn’t keep a proper hold. “Soon, soon.”

            “Must be big for the big guy himself to come down,” Cana said and pulled her flask. She drank deep as the cart began to move again.

            “I see you—we have a great journey ahead,” Erza said, correcting herself. A furrow shoveled her brow deeper and she crossed her arms.

            “You know I would bring you if I could,” Lucy whispered. Erza didn’t respond. They moved on, on, and on.

            The closer they got to the mountain, the more Lucy began to feel the beat of it replace her own heart. She shivered, hands tight around the staff, and saw the mountain of her family rise overhead. Its dark crown rose in three tall peaks that reached for the sky. The cart rolled up the narrow paths, and it clunked over the unhewn, rarely travelled roads till they grew too narrow. Loke pulled them to a stop where he could turn the cart around, then they climbed down. Lucy walked in front and the staff blazed and beat with the mountain the same her.

            Loke knew the mountain, though he’d not been inside. The others didn’t.

            “What is that?” Erza asked.

            “We don’t know,” Lucy said. “But it is of my blood, my family. It lives in me.”

            “You’re being way too cryptic,” Cana said with a tremble to her voice. Lucy heard her curse and the thud of her silver flask against the hard earth. But Lucy didn’t turn back. She walked forward like night marched.

            “Scaredy cats,” Loke whispered and laughed.

            “What did you say, Loke?!” Cana shouted.

            “I am not scared!” Erza yelled like they hadn’t heard the blade she’d summoned slice the air.

            “There are no foes here, Erza,” Lucy said. Then smiling to herself she added, “only the dead.”

            “You’re a brat!” Cana cursed more colorfully.

            The mountain sloped steeper and up, the road narrowed further. The air grew colder too. Lucy still didn’t slip on her cloak, hung over her arm. Her bare shoulders and the slivers of her thighs prickled tight as a bird’s plucked flesh, and it grew difficult to breathe, to even know if you drew breath at all when the mountain beat so strong and drove all feelings save for it from the body. Loke seemed rather unconcerned, standing close at her side as he did and offering his hand at her elbow as it grew stronger, closer, and inward. His green coat with the golden, furred lining covered him and she could only see the line of his eyes cast forward, sometimes to her, as they walked. It was a very, very long road.

            Lucy checked on the other two, who were slower and careful. Have anyone save as Heartfilia and their Stars been this way? Lucy supposed someone must have, but they wouldn’t have stayed long. Erza’s steeled gaze bared its edge at the ground’s every kick, her teeth grit while she walked; Cana clung to Erza’s arm with a worried look up, up, up to the peaks and the road ahead. She’d shoved her flask away.

            The Heartfilia Vault then appeared over the next slope. Lucy marched, Loke followed, and the others kept quiet.

            The Gate was massive. A round, sealed door of night stone without any seams set into the mountainside. Lucy walked right up to it. Not even Cloacina’s light could breach the surface, but when Lucy touched the smooth stone a shimmer lit beneath her palm.

            “Open, Gate of the Heartfilia,” Lucy whispered and kissed the stone. Then she stepped back. The night stone flared and with the Heartfilia’s eight-pointed star radiating from the center. The star grew larger and larger till the searing lines cut through the stone and the rock pulled into the mountain by each point. Lucy’s stomach fluttered at first, louder beat that tore through the air and out the stone gate. A dark expanse welcomed her, deep and lightless as the stone had been. But it was a dark curtain that covered even the air, a wall of darkness. Cloacina tugged at her hand.

            Let’s go! Let’s go! The staff seemed to scream and delight.

            “One moment,” Lucy whispered and soothed the staff with a firm hand drawn over its shaft. She pulled her ring of keys from the snake cord’s mouth, and slipped the belt off her.

            “Why are you doing that?” Erza asked as the belt disappeared.

            “No spirits may enter the mountain. No Silver or Gold. I’ll take the whip too, Lucy,” Loke said and offered his hand.

            “The keys alone are fine. I just can’t summon them there,” Lucy said and placed her things with him. Her keys ring she tugged over her wrist and their thin fingers brushed through hers. Every spirit of hers pulled close, the night watching.

            “We…we should be off then,” Erza said and mustered herself courage to put one foot in front of the other. She made it to the door and hit a wall. “Come on now!”

            Erza slammed her fists against the dark, but it didn’t even shudder.

            “Erza, this is where we part,” Lucy said softly. The other’s heart was so gentle, she knew, and precious. Lucy’s own was called to the dark, the mountain, the Night Beyond. It was time.

            “I said I’m going with you!” Erza shouted with anger. Lucy came up behind her, loving her more for each attempt, and pulled her fist back to cradle and hold.

            “You will be,” Lucy said. “You are always with me, Erza. Your faith in me, one of the first to ever believe in me. Do you think there has been a day where you haven’t been with me since we met?”

            Erza’s arm trembled, her lip quivered. And under the starlight she was so beautiful with her fierce, gentle love and devotion. Lucy hadn’t thought of kissing her in years, but it filled her mind then as teary stars fell down her freckled cheeks. Lucy kissed her hands, her fingers, and smiled at the blush that came over her.

            “I need you to believe in me even more now, Erza.” Lucy confessed, heart placed into Erza’s hands. “Have faith in me like you always do.”

            “Always,” Erza whispered and lunged to wrap Lucy a hug tight enough, close enough, they could have been in the same skin. “You are the most wonderful mage I know. Your open heart is too powerful for anything to eclipse.”

            “I love you, Erza,” Lucy whispered and turned her head to press a kiss to her constellation dappled cheeks.

            “I love you, Lucy.” Erza tightened her grip.

            They parted and Cana took Erza’s place before her and the dark. She shot the wall a worrying glance, hands twitching, but she came closer all the same and wrapped Lucy in her arms.

            “Whatever happens, do what makes you feel satisfied. Fuck good or bad, right or wrong,” Cana whispered. “Whether that be connection or release, or something only your big brain could think of, you deserve everything you want.”

            “And if I don’t figure it out?” Lucy asked

            “That’s okay. It’s okay if you don’t know. So long as you’re okay with that. But if you aren’t, if there’s something you want, I hope you don’t wait like I did. But…be careful. Be very careful.” Cana pulled back and grabbed Lucy’s face, kissing both her cheeks closer than most would get to her mouth. “You hear me?”

            “I always do.”

            “Good. Now take this.” Cana pressed the silver flask into her hands. “It’s cold. So don’t even think about not taking it. That’s my best drink!”

            “Aye, aye,” Lucy said and laughed before placing it into her loose pack. She stood a moment before them, and Loke came to her side. He drew his hand up her arm and tapped the bottom of her chin.

            “See you there,” he said and winked, then winked out of the physical world.

            “Be safe on the walk back, okay?” Lucy cautioned them. “You might hear something pretty loud.”

            “As if this couldn’t wake all the world’s dead?” Cana asked and gestured to the open door. “I think they keep them all there!”

            “Just my family’s dead,” Lucy said. “And only a few of them.”

            “Don’t make it worse!” Cana shouted and scooched a bit behind Erza.

            “I’ll see you when I get back! Tell everyone to not be stupid without me there!” Lucy shouted and turned on her heel before she chose to linger one more moment, and then the moment after that. She breathed deep. She walked to the dark curtain and through to the other side.

My Great Lady, Kindly One, Sovereign of Dreams, I do swear myself to you for all of time. I have done so since the day you took my hand, the day you named me. A name that will never be uttered again, that I dare not speak as you have ordered. My daughter will recognize me, of course, and she will weep to see me so changed, so different, but it shall still be me. And I shall not be alone forever, I believe. I trust. There will come another worthy of the name you bestowed me with and find me.

And, from such a height…perhaps I might even see Damascus.

            Inside the mountain, into the vault proper, the beat engulfed her as it pumped along her veins, her own heart, and joined with the promise in her she’d taken on. Where she walked, the night stone flared, then swam ahead like silver and gold fish. She followed them deeper.

            Cloacina flared bright as a star and lifted the dark veil. The mosaics on the wall shimmered from the passing light’s gaze on them, Lucy’s own studied each.

            Here is my duty. The oath of my family I now come to keep, Lucy thought. Twelve mosaics for twelve bronze keys, six on each side, were divided by protruding, night stone arcades set along the wall to frame them in their domains. Each arch came to a point, an octagram with the northernmost point extended. The Heartfilia Star.

            Lepus, Lupus, Cetus, Aquila, Phoenix, Pegasus, Monoceros, Equuleus, Centaurus, Canes Major, Draco, and the Leonid. Each mosaic remembered the Bronze Oath that kept the Veil safe, that had tied down the Celestial King’s cloak. Each one gazed up, they were all central in their friezes, and their eyes were on the Heartfilia. They were running, fighting, praying, performing, kneeling, yet each one had their heads raised high. Stars rarely had the chance to look up at the night around them and seek a light.

            We are the stars sworn to their service, their aid, we are their champions so they may champion and keep us all safe during this long war with the Abyss.

            Lucy couldn’t stop to admire them, each small tile shifting a thousand colors and then darkened as she passed and took Cloacina’s gentle, bright light away. The mountain called to her, the oath, and she would meet them all soon.

            The hall was long and each step she took vibrated. She clung to her staff. She would have run, she thought to do just that, but there was something sacred about walking these halls. She remembered her mother walking ahead of her with the staff, her grandmother, Estelle, holding her hand, when they passed through the gate when she was five as a proper introduction to the Kuja. They had spent a month there, a month where Lucy had known the friendship of other children. She had cried when they returned to the estate, to the empty gardens and tutors. She had asked her mother when they would go back, when they would see the Kuja again.

            One day you will, her mother had said with a smile. She had known she would never make it again.

            Where the mosaics ended, two paths diverged to their own chambers. The right led to the proper Gate, but the left went to the Planetarium. Lucy went left. The mountain didn’t try to correct her course. It loved each Heartfilia that came within, and those yet to be born. The passage’s ceiling lowered, tightened. Cloacina just cleared the ceiling. She wondered if there had been any particularly tall Heartfilia who might have needed to duck when even the scepter didn’t. But she wouldn’t know.

            The Planetarium once more opened the ceiling and it rose high and wide in a dome rotating with stars that shone down over the vault. But along the walls the night stone was hewn, and where a chisel had been taken the stones glittered and shined. Each name set into the dark was a constellation, stars forged, and Lucy found her name on the eastern wall after Layla’s, after Estelle’s, after Astra’s, and so on. Under each plaque was a small cubby, not very tall or deep, for journals to be kept. Most had four or five, perhaps even six, seven, eight, chronicling their adventures in the Beyond, tracking the times and state of the world.

            Layla had one. Lucy ran her fingers across the thing, leather spine of the account book. In her pack, the bounty of Silver Rayleigh remained.

            “I’m off, mom,” Lucy whispered, the sound nearly lost to the beating, beating, beating. But Lucy heard herself. Just the thought of talking to you makes me feel stronger, surer. “I’ll tell Shakky your goodbye to her if I can.”

            Layla’s name continued to shine. Lucy laid her bare finger pads into the grooves of the stone. She pressed hard till she felt the teeth of the rough particles of light. They bit at her skin, nipping and kissing. Rocks weren’t known for such soft sentiment, but Lucy felt her mother’s presence all the same. Then she went and greeted the rest of her family. Her fingers trailed smooth stone, then rough, hewn names, then smooth stone, and went back in time with them, east to west, around the round room.

            Lucy. Layla. Estelle. Astra. Yvaine. Robin. Celene. Castor. Hellen. Skylar. Lucina. Zora. Livana. Anna. Esther. Ciara. Lucina. Laila. Roxanna. Dawn. Blake. Lilith. Stella. Lucia. Felis. Asteria. Aurora. Vesper. Elena. Lucine. Aster. Selena. Diana. Iliana. Helen. Phoebe. Hesper.

            The first name, the last Lucy came to, was Hesper Heartfilia. Hers was the first etched into the dark of the mountain, it was she who made the oath with the Bronze Keys, who bound them on the earth and physical realm. Near a millennia had passed, and every Heartfilia had done their part in keeping Hesper’s word. The words set above her name.

Through the Night,

I do vow to upkeep the spirits of Bronze,

I take up their burdens, their suffering, and seek to soothe their pains.

I cast my life to theirs, my line to their lives.

This oath I do swear, I shall keep the Night alive.

This oath I do swear, I shall light the night so bright.

The Night shall not know silence, She will know laughter, joy, dance, song.

The Night is beautiful, strong, and radiant. Each light of Her night is a Sun itself.

I do vow to greet the Night first, and when we rise we promise the Sun shall return.

This oath we do swear, They shall live.

            Lucy raised her hand up, palm upturned and open, and made the vow her own. Her words echoed out, louder and louder, till they would reach the mosaics, the spirits, and they would know she was coming. Lucy left her hand up a moment, her right hand, and smiled before taking it back to curl over her heart.

            Beside Hesper’s name, also below the Oath, there was another plaque. It was the same night stone, the same as the empty plaques after Lucy’s. Lucy placed her hand over it, felt the beat of the mountain. Hesper hadn’t been the first of her line, of course, she was only the first to swear and start the journey. But there had been those before her. Those unnamed were laid within that unhewn plaque, Lucy believed.

            When she was done, she cast a final look around and found her name across from her.

            “I’ll be back with a story,” Lucy said to all her family and left.

            There were a number of other hidden chambers through which the mountain beat. Many of the Heartfilia interred were kept in a mausoleum further down and deep into the mountain. But she had no reason to visit, though she thought it might be nice to do so another time. When she returned, she supposed.

            Back down the right corridor, Lucy arrived at her destination—The Gate Hall.

            It wasn’t a gate that many would think of. It wasn’t stone nor perfectly crafted.

            The Gate was a tree. It was sprouted from the floor, the deep rivers of roots dark and shining beneath the crystalline waters that formed a pool that rose up around the base of trunk. The ceiling rose higher than the Planetarium and disappeared into the dark above that not even the tree’s radiance could reach. Lucy stepped forward and onto the constellations decorating the rim. Stone steps crossed the pool to the Gate that shimmered along the massive, smooth twilight trunk.

            The tree was of the moon’s disposition and gentled the mind. Weeping branches brushed the water’s surface, as if a great mane of hair had been cast all about. The leaves were a thousand colors of night off the white branches: black, blue, pinks, purples, and gold. The curtain moved as Lucy approached and stepped beneath the branches. Her skin tingled with promise, the air growing heavy around the portal. She grasped the keys in her hand, taking theirs, and breathed deep.

            Cloacina grew silent, watching her without eyes.

            “Let’s have an adventure,” Lucy said.

            The Mountain kicked, and Lucy went through the gate.

My name may have changed, the name you all so fondly called while making my teeth ache from smiling, but I am still the woman who sailed with you all, who fought with you, who loves you even now as I plan the finale of my life. I will always love you all.

But I love you most, my daughter and you who shall be hers, and you who shall be hers, and so it goes that our line shall continue. My heart beats for you.

~The Journals of Hesper Heartfilia (12 Years Before the Veil)~