Chapter Text
I'm going to stop with recommendations until the cliffies are over.
As for this chapter - sorry it's kinda late, but it's because it's longer than usual. You can thank Snowfire for the corpse Ellaxus angst (Quotev), and XBnemesisx for Hisui announcing Elle as a Lady at he r birthday party (Fanfiction). I took these base ideas from their comments and ran for it, and it made this monster. Enjoy it, guys. :)
Chapter Sixty - Happy Birthday, Hisui
A few days after Jet and Droy settled in, there was a knock on the door.
I blinked in surprise as I opened it. "Laxus?"
"What happened?" he asked.
I stared at him. "What?"
"What happened?" he asked, sounding more upset. "You've barely been by the guild. What's wrong?"
Was that true?
I thought back over the past few days. I hadn't gone to the guild. Actually, after visiting Porlyusica, I sort of holed myself up in my house.
I wish I could say I didn't know why, but it's not true.
"I saw a dead body," I said.
Laxus froze, this time blinking at me. "What?"
"With Jet...I saw his parents, and Droy's parents. And they were dead. I'd never seen a dead body before...not even my own..."
At my last words, Laxus's face tightened, and he stepped inside and pulled me into a hug.
"It's understandable, Elle, but shutting yourself out isn't going to do anything but make it worse. Come by the guild."
I looked up at him (nearly a head taller than me), and nodded. "Okay."
On the last day of July, we got a letter in the mail.
Jet and Droy, naturally, were confused upon seeing it, considering it's fancy envelope and curling script.
I, on the other hand, wasn't too surprised.
Now that Ame was back, it only stands to reason she would spoil her little princess...you know, literally.
Is literally the right word in this situation? I mean, she's not making Hisui spoiled or rotting or anything, but Hisui is a Princess...
Jet stared at me. "Ellen-nee? Are we really going to the Princess's Birthday Party?"
"Yes," I said.
"You know the Princess?" the two of them shrieked.
"I know the King and Queen, too," I said, rolling my eyes.
The next day, August 1st, Lucy and Brandish came into the guild. "Guess what Ellie-nee?" Lucy yelled, tackling me. "Guess what guess what guess what?"
"You got an invitation to the Princess's Birthday Party?" I asked.
Lucy's mouth dropped in shock and she jumped up and down before tackling me again (which was odd because I hadn't even realized she had gotten off of me). "Oh My Stars, that's so cool! Ellie-nee, how did you know that?"
"Why are you surprised by this, Lucy?" Laxus asked, coming up next to us. "She knows the future, I think we've all agreed on that by this point."
"To be fair, I didn't know this was coming," I said. "It was just a reasonable guess, considering we got an invitation too, Lucy and Brandish are still members of the guild (and the Heartfilias are pretty prominent), and the Fiore Royal Family knows that they don't spend a lot of time at the guild."
"So when do we leave?" Cana asked.
"This evening," I said. "Though I'll probably take Laxus ahead."
"Thank you," he said, starting to look green.
At least he wasn't so much of a stupid tsundere this time that he tried to cover up all of his motion sickness.
Laxus and I left that evening and arrived at the castle, where we were given attached bedrooms of part of a suite, the rest of which would be filled when the rest of the guild arrived.
"These beds are really fluffy," Laxus said, flopping down on his bed. I stood in the doorway, watching him.
"Come on, compared to Aries and Cana's fluff?" I joked, flopping down next to him.
I sank down immediately.
"Okay, so maybe I changed my mind," I said.
"Does any of this seem a bit odd to you?" Laxus asked.
It was still a bit odd trying to get used to Laxus's voice - now that it had finished cracking, it had gotten a lot lower.
"Nah, the invitation seemed pretty clear."
"But they told us not to bring anything fancy," Laxus protested.
"They're probably going to dress us up again," I commented. "It's likely that they don't want some people to look poorer or less well-off than others, so they're trying to even things out. Which is good, considering that the only thing fancy enough for this is the dress I got two years ago."
"Yeah, but it still fits you," Laxus pointed out.
I groaned. "Ugh, please don't remind me. It only took Virgo a couple of minutes for it to be tailored perfectly. Last time around, I could pass for a teen at this age."
Laxus snorted. "Yeah, you're just tiny now."
I kicked him, which was a bit odd laying down, but I managed.
"I'll get bigger eventually," I muttered.
"Nah, you should stay this size," Laxus smirked over at me. "It makes me feel like I could take you on any day."
I pushed him off the bed.
"Ow! Elle!"
Later that night, everyone else arrived, and after dinner I ended up visiting Hisui, with Lucy by my side, because she wanted to see them again.
"Ellie-nee!" Hisui yelled as the door opened.
"Hey, sweetheart," I said, scooping her up as she ran for me. "How have you been?"
"It's my birfday!" she smiled, lisping over the last word.
"Well, you've got to wait a few more hours," I said. Hisui was born around 2 or 3 in the morning - I honestly couldn't remember, it was so wild that night. "But yeah! How old are you going to be?"
"Two!" Hisui proclaimed happily. She turned to Lucy. "Lushi-nee, I'm turning two!"
Lucy gave a little giggle, playing with Hisui's hair, which reminded me of the small cut Cana had when her mom died.
I looked over to Toma and Ame as I put down Hisui so she could play with Lucy. "And how have you guys been?"
Toma shrugged. "You know, same old. Though, I had to commission a new stadium because of a destructive guild..."
I blushed, and he and Ame laughed.
"I already told you, it was fine," he said. "Ella, you asked before the fight started whether or not we had runes built in - you were preparing us. Our runes just weren't strong enough."
Lucy cleared her throat, and we turned to look at her. "What's Hisui's favorite animal?"
"We're not quite sure," Ame said. "She tends to like mammals, though."
Lucy nodded, pulling out some keys. "Open, Gate of the Hunting Dogs! Canes Venatici! Open, Gate of Hare! Lepus! Open, Gate of the Fox! Vulpecula!"
The spirits appeared, and suddenly, four furry animals were in the room.
Hisui squealed, and made her way to Lepus, who was the closest.
"Maybe you should get her a spirit," Lucy said, coming up next to us. "Not now - I'd wait a few months, but if you get a Canis Minor, she should be fine."
She turned to me. "Hisui is one of the bloodlines, right?"
I nodded.
"What magic is it?"
"Sun Spells," Toma answered. "I never had the affinity for it - sometimes, Magic acts odd. Probably because it new you were coming."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Ella, Planetary Magic was considered Lost. Even though you wield it, it's still technically considered a Lost Magic. But you are not only quite talented in it, but you are quite powerful for your age as well."
I blushed a bit.
"And you, Miss Heartfilia. You are, as I've come to know it, the most powerful Celestial Spirit Wizard in existence."
He turned back to me. "Are there any other powerful Stellar Spirit users in your generation? Or will there be?"
Guess he completely believes me, now.
I nodded. "Definitely."
"Then it is likely the magic skipped over me, giving Hisui what would be mine, so she would become more powerful."
He turned to Lucy. "While it's true that you will never become as powerful if you learn the wrong type of magic, Hisui should be fine with a few silver keys if she wishes. In order for her to ever get strong enough to wield a golden key, however, she'd have to practice many, many years. Far longer than it took you."
"I was able to summon Loke, though," I said.
Lucy shook her head. "Even then, I think it was mostly Loke's own power. You didn't really do it, Ellie-nee. If you were to try and summon a gold spirit you're not contracted to that couldn't leave their gate on their own, you'd probably pass out."
Damn. I had actually been proud of myself for that. And even so, I had nearly passed out trying to summon Loke.
And if it was for anyone who wasn't properly attuned to the magic...
I thought back to the other timeline. How long had it taken Yukino to learn that, if it wasn't her magic?
But I smiled to myself. Yukino wouldn't really lose her spirits - she'd still get to spend time with Pisces and Libra when I give those keys to Lucy. And Lucy already had Ophiuchus. Yukino would also get stronger with her new magic, and be able to defend herself better.
But some small gate keys, maybe for both Hisui and Yukino, would be good.
"Maybe you could get Hisui a small collection of silver keys," I said. "And maybe we should give her some like Serpens, too, so she can defend herself. Just in case."
We said goodnight and eventually left - though Hisui didn't want us, or the spirits, to go. I told her that the faster she goes to sleep, the faster she can see us the next morning for her birthday, which seemed to help.
"You look wonderful," the maid gasped, playing with my dress.
"I wasn't nearly this fancy last time," I said, looking at myself in the mirror. "And the last time was a formal ball. Isn't this just a birthday party?"
"Nonsense, this is perfect," the maid said arbitrarily, sitting me down and fixing my hair.
"At this rate, we're going to be late," I said, pointing to the clock.
The maid tittered and continued with my hair and makeup.
I must admit, she did a good job. My dark purple curls were pulled up behind me and tumbled down in a beautiful updo. The dress was a beautiful gold, with cream accents for the ruffles.
I'm going to change my statement from the previous ball.
Now, I felt the most beautiful I have ever been in my lives. In addition to that, the make-up managed to make me look a bit older, around thirteen or so. Still way younger than in my previous life, but it was older than I was, so I was alright with it.
"Well, you're all done," the maid said, stepping back. "Now, how about you go to the party, alright?"
She lead me through several hallways to the ballroom, where we peeked inside.
Maybe it was a bit rude of me, but... "See! They've already started!"
"Hush, dear, it will be fine," the maid said, signaling to Ame, who saw the two of us and nodded.
"Alright, in you go!" the maid said, pushing me into the room.
I stumbled forward - I was wearing heels, which made me a few inches taller - and Hisui's voice shouted from across the room. "It's Ellie-nee!"
People turned to look at me, and I noticed that the members of my guild seemed especially awed at the sight of me. Laxus, especially (who was only a few feet away) seemed to be staring at me.
Ame cleared her throat and nudged Hisui, who looked down. "Sowwy." She tried to mimic her mother's clearing of throat. "Annowncing Lady Elle of Faiwy Tail!"
Absolute silence. Then...
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?" was shouted in unison.
"Elle?" Laxus was laughing. "A Lady?"
"Shut up!" I shouted, punching him.
So...apparently I had become a Lady. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but Ame and Toma thought they should surprise me during Hisui's birthday party, which became a celebration for both of us. I felt a bit bad for infringing, but when I mentioned that this was Hisui's special day, she demanded that my gift to her was to share the party.
I think that was the point where I hugged her for several minutes straight.
She's just so sweet and adorable!
Ame said that they were unsure whether they wanted to knight me or give me a position of nobility, so they decided on both. I was to be considered a Lady until I was of age, when I would become a Dame.
But you can't really call a twelve-year-old girl a Dame.
Well, I mean you can, but it doesn't really work...
So for now I'm a Lady, which, according to the guests and just about everyone except Laxus, I could pull off.
Later that night, after dinner, I cornered Laxus.
"Dude, what the hell?" I asked him.
"What?" he grumbled, looking away.
"Laxus, seriously! What the fuck is wrong with you tonight?!"
"I thought Ladies weren't supposed to swear," he muttered.
I growled, legit growled at him. "What is your problem? You should be happy for me and shit!"
He glared and looked away.
"Are you jealous?" I asked. "Is that it?"
"No, I - I'm not jealous!" He glared back at me. "But now you're nobility and you're gonna move into the castle. What are you doing talking to me?"
I stared at him in surprise. "What the fuck? Laxus, I don't care about being a damn Lady. I'm a Fairy Tail Wizard, dammit! This is just something on top of that - like how Master is a Ten Wizard Saint! I might need to go to a few more balls or shit, but I'm still the same! I'm still living in my house in the woods, I'm still going on missions, and I'm still your best friend, dammit! So what, I'm a Lady now? That just means that I need my dragon, alright? Side by side, remember?"
His face relaxed, and he smiled back at me. "Side by side."
I smiled. "Good. Now..." I spread out my arms and lifted the dress. "Indulge me. I'm a Lady now, and I'd like a dance, kind sir."
He snickered.
I glared at him.
Laxus sighed and held out a hand. "May I have this dance..." I glared at him. "...my Lady."
"Yes, I would," I said, taking his hand.
Even as a child, I still wanted to be a Princess for a bit, just like every other girl. But a Lady is close enough.
It was only a week into August when something came up.
Lucy, Brandish, and Cana ended up going on a lot of jobs together.
I couldn't help wondering if it was because of their level of power.
It's hard to see it in the series, but certain people, like Gildarts or even Laxus, would hold back on their magical power when surrounded by allies. If their allies weren't strong enough, you could damage them from their magical pressure. That's why, except for under extreme circumstances, things don't match up. When Laxus first tried to take over Fairy Tail, during the Fantasia parade, he went full out, on a completely different level. Certain people tend to perform better when it comes to pure magical power when they don't have to worry about holding back for the sake of their friends, even though the spirit of your friends beside you can make you stronger than you are.
Lucy, Brandish and Cana were definitely some of the strongest of the younger kids. If Levy was there, or even Juvia, they'd probably have to hold back a bit more.
The three were on a mission to stop some sort of monster that was destroying things in Willow Village when they realized the monster was something else.
Lucy's signal card went off, and I stopped training and disappeared to their location (no doubt leaving behind many confused guildmates).
"What's wrong?" I asked her, appearing out of nowhere.
"Duck!" she yelled, grabbing me.
I hit the floor just as a vase flew over my head.
"We need Bickslow!" Cana yelled.
"Bickslow?" I asked. "Why?"
"They're lost souls," Brandish said, increasing the size of a shield in front of her. "And we're having trouble trapping them."
"Got it," I said, disappearing.
I popped back into the training room.
"Where did you go?" Laxus asked.
"No time," I said, spinning to look at Bickslow. "Bickslow, we found some lost souls!"
He perked up. "Really?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I think there are two. I've got the puppets. Ready to go?"
He nodded, and Papa flew over, extremely excited.
"We're ready," they said.
I grabbed both of them and popped back to the girls.
And once again, straight into a battle zone.
"Shit," Bickslow said, watching everything go flying. "You said there's two?"
"Yeah," I said.
"It would be hard to subdue one," Papa commented. "They're both pretty far gone."
"Well, go for one first," I said. "The girls and I can keep the other distracted."
Bickslow took a deep breath. "Alright. Got it."
The other girls made their way over to us, and we all crouched behind an enlarged shield. "What's the plan?" Cana asked.
"Bicks is going to go after one, and we're going to distract the other one," I said, requipping out the two puppets that Bickslow would need. We had already put the lacrimas they needed inside the puppets.
"Ready?" I asked him.
He nodded, and his eyes started to glow.
He peeked over the shield and grabbed one of the souls with his eyes, bringing it to him and back around. The other one started to get more agitated.
Cana threw a card over to the other side of the room, and it emitted a flash that showed where the other soul was. Unfortunately, the light only lasted a few seconds.
"Scutum!" Lucy yelled, and a shield with a face on it popped up. "See if you can keep it contained!"
"I will try, Miss Lucy!" the shield cried, and rune walls similar to Freed's started popping up.
The soul buzzed angrily about being trapped, and it picked up a vase and threw it. Unfortunately, it sailed through the rune walls and hit Scutum in the face. Luckily, Scutum is a shield, and didn't vanish with one measly hit.
The soul got angrier, and tried going through the shield itself, but it was trapped. Scutum also updated his rune walls to stop physical objects from coming at them.
And then the soul stopped freaking out and came to the wall.
"Lucy, can you put down the barrier, I need to pull it through," Bickslow's voice crept up to us.
Lucy nodded to Scutum, who dropped the shield, and we all relaxed.
"Thank you, Scutum!" Lucy said happily.
"No problem, Miss Lucy!" the shield said happily. "With your power reserves, it wasn't very difficult!"
"Bye, Scutum!" Lucy waved to him.
"Goodbye," he said, doing what seemed to be a bow (or really just a shield bending in half, which was an odd sight).
He vanished and returned to the Celestial World, and I turned to the girls. "I'm actually surprised you guys had this much trouble with them."
"It's not that we had trouble with them…" Cana said. "We just…hmm…"
"We wanted to make sure that it was done right!" Lucy chirped up. "So Bickslow could get more souls! We didn't want to ruin it, or anything."
"Thank you, Lucy," Bickslow said, coming forward, and he held out his arm to gesture the new souls. "May we present Pepe and Pipi!"
"We were twins in real life!" Pepe said happily.
"Thank you so much," Pipi cried. "It's so nice to not be so angry all the time!"
"Well, you guys ought to get your reward. I'll return Bickslow and check up with you in a bit."
I waved at them and brought Bickslow back to the training room, and then disappeared before they could interrogate me, too.
They could go after Bickslow easily enough.
I returned to the girls, and Cana was straightening up while Lucy talked to the requestor. Brandish was sitting off to the side, an odd look on her face.
"What's wrong?" I asked her, sitting down.
Brandish was quiet a bit, before she began to speak. "I felt rather useless, Nora. I wasn't able to really fight."
I paused a bit, thinking. "Sometimes it's kinda like that. There are times where we can't fight the main fight – we can only help the ones who can."
Slowly, she nodded. "I see."
"There's almost always a way you can help, or give support. Sometimes, just by being there, it's enough."
"Thank you, Nora," she said, giving me a soft smile.
I smiled at her. "Well, you guys seem to be doing fine, so I should get going."
I waved at her, and vanished.
Bickslow spent his time trying to coordinate attacks with his souls. He wasn't having the easiest time of it, but he was trying, and it was working.
Everyone else found things to concentrate on, hoping to improve their skills, though most people were simply working on their finesse and magical power. A few people were trying to learn things in particular.
Of course, Jet and Droy were just trying to learn how to use their magic in the first place. Jet seemed to continually have a problem where he couldn't stop running once he started unless he ran into something. The only one who had a chance in stopping him was Laxus, because of his lightning.
So we had him run off the trampoline and into the foam pit. At least he doesn't have a swollen head anymore from banging into the wall repeatedly.
Juvia was concentrating on trying to control mud, though she was having trouble with the thickness and weight difference from regular water. She was also trying to be able to extract water from other things, but that seemed to be even harder for her.
Erigor was working on taking someone's oxygen, so they could pass out. Right now, it looked like it took a lot of energy from him, but he seemed to be doing well enough.
Laxus was working on how well he could control machines with his lightning, though most of the time he just ended up crashing the system or simply breaking it.
Freed, Levy and Cana mostly spent their time around Gray and Lyon, trying to find more ways to keep their clothes on.
It wasn't working.
Enno and Nab were concentrating on Nab's family magic, and while he still wasn't amazing at it, he was doing a lot better.
Evergreen started practicing magic with her new birthday gift - I had given her the snake pendant I had found at one of the Celestial sites, after Makarov cleared it, and it could transform into a snake they could control.
Though they weren't around, Lucy and Brandish were practicing as well. Lucy was concentrating on her astral projection, so she'd be able to find her gates without her keys, and Brandish was working on shrinking things inside of other things – like how she would shrink tumors and other issues. She couldn't shrink wounds yet, though.
I was working on teleportation, because I seem to have gotten rusty doing that (or carrying large amounts of people, at least), and Astral Projection.
You see, Virgo had mentioned that Lucy could find the gates by astral projecting, going onto the Astral Plane, and then continuing over into the Celestial World.
If I can reach the Astral Plane, maybe I can unlock my astral container that Corvus mentioned. Maybe I could deal with power more easily, too, and I wouldn't have to worry about these damn bracelets.
August was a pretty calm month, until the last week, when things went horribly wrong.
Nothing was supposed to happen this year. X775 was supposed to be a blank year.
It wasn't.
Yukino's Celestial bracelet went off.
Which means it was time to go to her.
Which is fucking ridiculous, because she would only be two and a half.
But I went anyway, and her town was on fire.
Though I was still able to read the town name on the burning sign, and it sent a horrible lump down my throat;
Rosemary Village.