Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wendy woke up.

Waking up wasn’t fun. Her head was pounding and her hands were aching and there was something not-quite-right about the air.  Before opening her eyes, (the sun was far too bright through her eyelids, and she resisted rubbing them with her claws) she breathed in.

She jackknifed into a sitting position.

She opened her eyes before shutting them again with a hiss. Her tongue flicked out of her mouth-

( -taste the clouds and fog and mist, feel the fur and ferns equally, you are the ever-reaching Sky, my little marvel- )

-and ran across her lower lip.

There was dirt on her mouth, and Wendy took a moment to let her skin settle and flicker her eyes open.

Her eyes slipped open the barest amount.  The sun was too bright for Wendy.  A cloud rolled overhead, shading her face temporarily, and she glanced around.  Her vision – tinted that washed-out blue of sunblindness and blurry from sleep – didn’t tell her much.  Wendy’s legs were covered in dirt and scratches (which she felt more than saw) were present on every exposed part of her body.

Wendy looked like she had been tossed out of a carriage at top speed.

Wendy scraped her hand over her dress, attempting to get the dirt out from under her nails.  It didn’t work.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted, and she was able to see farther than the few feet around her.

Shreds of fabric – her dress, someone’s jacket, something that smelled like a sock – and Exceed fur were scattered on the ground around her.  Wendy herself was sitting in a trench dug into the side of a hill.

It looked like a crash site.  With the scent of blood heavy, and the magic-shorn dirt, Wendy was surprised she was as uninjured as she was.  She was sitting a meter or two (or four, distances were still beyond her sun-weak sight) below the grass and surface, settling into the head of the crater.

The source of the impact.

There was water in the trench, likely from a recent rainfall. 

Wendy’s body (or at least her lap) was covered in a solid two centimeters of untouched, muddy earth.  Still water filled the imprints she’d made with her body.  

She twisted to look at where she had been laying, and it only confirmed her fears.

She lifted a hand to run through her knotted hair.  ( -why are her muscles so sore? what was she doing?- )

Wendy’s hair was soaking wet and there was water slowly drying on her lips.  She was in a trench that felt so, so familiar - a childish dream, an old memory that’d faded.  She’d woken in a trench like this the day she had lost Grandeeney.

A slow, clumsy panic overtook her.

She mutely stood, holding back grunts of pain.  The muddy earth wall became her support as she headed for the steep trench exit.

Her crash site (- not again, not again! she’d just gotten used to Fairy Tail and Gajeel-san and Natsu-san and, and, and- ) was larger than she’d first thought.

The ruined earth and shorn roots spread out all around her.  Wendy was in a clearing of her own making – dozens of trees were missing limbs and trunks and roots even weeks after the crash.  Wendy could make out a clear path from the distant sky to where she’d woken. 

Wendy coughed violently.  Splashes of brackish water and blood covered her hands. The salt was old and faded – ocean-fish-magic like Tenroujiima.  The rainwater was clear and fresh.  Despite her unsteadiness, she steadily moved forwards.  Wendy ignored how deep the water was where her head had been lying.

( -drowningdrowningdrowning breath - )

She could tell that the salt was from her gown – soaked through from the seaside battle as it was – and that she was covered in battle-sweat and there’d been flying and ocean-breeze and-

The earth and water must be getting to me, she thought.  Wendy was made for the sky, after all.  For open air and tree canopies and mountain peaks.  She does not do well surrounded by water and earth.  She doesn’t do well post-battle missing her kith and kin.

The world brightened.  Wendy was too thankful for the sun to close her eyes again.

The trees around her (- deciduous, the type that can withstand lightning strikes and her mother’s winds -) were gently spreading their pollen.  It wasn’t too bad for her sinuses, as there were seeding trees absorbing the pollen.  A gentle breeze blew around her, shaking her dress, and it carried the sound of a waterfall.

She doesn’t want to be near the water.

Wendy turned in a slow circle.  Uphill or downhill?  Towards water or away?

Away, she decided, but there’s a lake uphill, judging by that waterfall, and I’m pretty sore.  Her limbs were lead-laden and clumsy.  As she looked at her surroundings, she felt concern.

Wendy didn’t remember being being thrown, but that was what must’ve happened and if that was what must’ve happened then it did -

Her bare feet – why are they bare? where are her shoes? – clipped against a loose rock and sent her careening downwards.  She tumbled like gravity could hold her and her magic flexflexflexed – adrenaline a pounding heart a battle that didn’t happen – into a sharp burst of air.  Airwindskymagic wrapped around her and let her float to the earth.

Wendy froze as her feet hit the ground.

The magic didn’t feel right when she touched it.  Old and dragon-y and reminiscent of her mother ( or her mother’s mother, says the wind, because this magic is far too old )  and almost like Natsu-san.  Or Gajeel-san when the rain hit his skin right and he reeked of rust and anger and an old woman on a hill who faded into mist whenever Wendy turned to look at her straight on.

It was too old for Grandeeney, though.

Grandeeney had been a fairly young dragoness, at maybe-800-closer-to-600, but her scent had never belied her youthful nature.  Wendy remembered a scent that flickered with age and an age gone by.   The world as Wendy once knew it had always felt bone-weary.  Tired stones, and tired trees, and tired rivers.  Magic had never been so exhausted.  Magic had been jittery and young and starlight on a small spring.

The stones here were old too.

Not quite as old, not quite as weary, but dyingdyingdying in a way that Wendy was familiar with.  A world waiting to be remade.  A world that had waited for a thousand years and would wait for a thousand years to change ever so slightly.

The magic was dying as well.

Wendy could feel the weakening air, threatening to let any dragon suffocate.  There wasn’t enough magic for most creatures to survive.  There was hardly enough for Wendy.

Wendy closed her eyes and looked deeper.

Underneath the corpse magic, the ancient magic, the ocean that had Been since the beginning of the stars and the singing of the heavens, was a familiar spring of starlight.  Young, new, changed.   It was the magic Wendy had grown up on.  The magic she’d fed on.  Older creatures would struggle to switch to it.  Slumbering ones would starve without knowing.  Little hatchling Wendy and Little hatchling Grandeeney would have grown up on it.

Would grow up on it.

Wendy could feel the power of the Old Magic around her, but the world was dying and from this dying world and dying magic would come her world and her magic.

Her head spun.

Even the very composition of the air echoed this is what once was, but we are dying, and the new will rise above us .

Thoughts, wonderings, Wendy’s mind was a whirlwind.  She wandered and stumbled and bruised her toes and scraped her fingers her claws against the trees that supported her weight.  Wendy hit the ground, and belatedly realized that she was starving; her magic was slow and heavy, her tongue felt of rot, what little baby fat she once had had long vanished, and her limbs were thin things of bone and skin.

She couldn’t pull herself to rest against the tree.

Her world faded into blurring lines.  The piercing sounds of half-sleep were muffled by dirt.

-- -- --

Liquid trickled across her lips, and in response to her panic her magic twisted, flexed, the pushed.   Wendy woke up.

Someone was above her, and they darted back in shock as the wind easily lifted Wendy to her feet.

Her vision went blurry.  She slipped out of her fighting stance and her body went numb.

Something-  some one shoved bread of some sort into her hands, and she slowly lifted it to her mouth.  It wasn’t flavorful.  It had very little yeast, and was a thick and solid loaf of unfamiliar make.  The wheat was a different variety than the one used in the majority of Western Fiore.

Food in her stomach – no matter how little nutrition it offered – was enough for her body to decide its purpose was done and she returned to her silent slumber.

-- -- --

Something nudged her forehead, and it woke Wendy just enough for her hearing and a little sensation to return.  Even though their voices were strong and powerful – rolling and twisting in a way far different from twittering Fioran, the only language she knew – she could understand them. 

The wind carried many secrets. 

One of those was True Understanding.  Spoken language was just words and sounds that vibrated the air and were given meaning by agreement and people.  Though she’d never learned another language, Wendy figured that this would be her second.

The general meaning or idea carried over:  wellbeing-hunger-question-desire-question.   The words were odd and weighty.  They were slow and heavy and vibrated low in her chest.

Wendy opened her eyes and sat up.  She hunched forward, slightly nauseous.

Fioran had never been so… filtered.

Fioran was like a sharp and piercing bird’s cry, able to carry clearly for a mile or two.  The lowest ranges of Fioran buzzed in her fingertips and when she hummed the on words that needed it, it barely reached the lower sections of her throat. Gajeel spoke the deepest Fioran on the regular.  The change in octave made an accent that didn’t carry over to other languages, as they didn’t rely on pitch and key and notes to get their points across.

Even Gildarts didn’t speak a very deep Fioran; whistles through the air and slower trills and some vocal-heavy loan words, sure , but a deep sound?  Gildarts spoke in a soft tenor and the deepest part of his regular speech was his booming laughter.

Every part of Fioran was pure: the unfiltered native language of the Sky.

This filtered language did not have the variations in words that came with a two-note trill on the long E versus a trill that coated the letters before and after the E.

It did not have trills, it did not have purrs or clicks or chirps or birdcries.  It was solidly a vocal language that dipped into low tones she’d only heard in foreign songs.

Wendy couldn’t speak their humming, filtered language.  Not yet.

She began with a low rumble that she’d heard Gajeel make when he was hangry.  Lower the head in submission, eye contact because humans like that, and a meaningful gesture towards her mouth, but don’t bare the teeth because Wendy’s teeth were very sharp and dangerous and threatening.

The people flinched, so the meaning clearly came across wrong – likely a cultural thing – but one did reach for a previously unnoticed bowl of stew and handed it to her. 

Wendy attempted to soften her face – a difficult feat when she felt her skin on her cheekbones, and the barely visible, opal scales on her cheeks (usually mistaken for freckles) enhanced her inhuman features, and she knew it’d been weeks since she last ate.

She didn’t know just how long these people had been watching her, but she did know hunger.

While she didn’t really need to eat more than once a week, and she could live without food for almost two months (she was still growing; Grandeeney could make it four), she preferred eating once a day at lunch and was well aware of how empty her always-full stomach was.

If she didn’t eat, Wendy’s magic would be tired out first.  A week-and-a-half with that alone.  Then, when she couldn’t make more magic to sustain herself artificially and could no longer draw magic and energy from the air around her, her body would use up her fat stores.  That was sped up slightly (- by battle weariness and no magic and being half submerged in mud and water -) so it could’ve been only four weeks, or as many as six.  Finally, her muscles would be cannibalized and when they were gone her organs would begin to fail.  The two month mark.

Not reached, luckily.  But it was a close call.

The food filled her stomach, and she breathed in deep and directed the magic to her stomach.  She gently massaged her stomach with her healing magic.  Though she couldn’t use it on herself, poking and prodding wasn’t technically using it, and with things like Dragon Magic, the technicalities – her belief in loopholes – was all that really mattered.  Her stomach stretched open, and her brain kicked into top gear, and she felt hunger .

-- -- --

Wendy went through seven-ish more bowls of soup.

It was hard to keep track.  Instead of bringing her a new bowl every time, they had two bowls made of hand-carved wood that were exchanged.  By the time she’d emptied one, the next one was waiting for her, filled with the hearty stew.  Eventually, she sipped the last of one bowl and looked to the next and she didn’t reach for it.

The energy circled through her body and spun and flicked her hair in a mini-cyclone of joy and contentment.

The people were speaking to each other, muttering and casting glances her way.

A soft, non-magical breeze hit her face.  Wendy’s head snapped towards an open window- wait.  Not open.  Not a window.  It was a cut in a cloth flap that let a cool breeze drift over the sweltering – how had she just realized how hot it was? – camp.  She was surrounded by maybe twenty people of varying ages. 

The oldest had silver-gray hair and deep wrinkles in his face, and he looked younger than the Master by a decade or two, but he felt like a centennial, and Wendy trusted her gut.  The youngest was also a man, one around Laxus-san’s age.

The people who’d fed her and watched over her comatose body wore dark clothes.

They were covered in dirt, and that definitely made the clothes appear more dull, sure, but there weren't even any lingering dyes from the initial production of the clothes!  No faded reds or stubborn blues.  Not a hint of green or yellow or the metallic threads used for magic embroidery.  Only brown and black and white and hints of a pale purple-brown she recognized as a type of completely natural hair dye one of the girls in Fairy Hills used.

Their hair was oddly textured, too.

A nearby woman had soft blonde waves Wendy recognized as those from the richer, Southern side of Fiore, but wore a thick work dress made of worn leather and hardy woven cloth.  The hair was sort of taken care of.  Wendy couldn’t smell any soaps on it, but instead the thick scent of boar-oil told her that the woman used a boar bristle brush and did not wash her hair.  Yet another thing common among the upper class, but her skin was greasy and smudged with dirt and her face looked as if it had never seen a beauty parlor as she had deep acne scars and no makeup to hide them.

Everyone’s hair had at least a little curl to it, though the men’s was cut short and hard to tell, and the women around her mostly wore their hair in tight braids or covered by cloth or gently curling to their hips.  Fiorans had fairly straight locks, and wearing your hair long and down was a sign of power and prestige (- stuck-upness , said Gray-san. i’ll fight ‘em all , said Natsu-san. oh, I just like my hair like this , said Lucy-san. of course! and your hair is even longer than mine, said Erza-nee -) for both men and women.  Even Fioran men wore their hair longer than most others could stand. 

The air was thick with the scent of unwashed humans, and Fiore had a fairly high count of individuals whose magic enhanced their senses, so strong scents weren’t liked and someone not bathing for as long as this group was not a well-thought-of person.

How far was she?  Another country?  Was she even in Ishgar?

( She was, the wind said, Ishgar just doesn’t exist yet. )

-- -- --

The travelers were pretty nice, though it took Wendy a long time to get used to the patterns and cues she had to use to communicate what she wanted.

She did manage to pick up that they were traders, and were going to a town to sell their wares.

They didn’t like when she growled, and to communicate that she was hungry they insisted on the softer Fioran chirps.  Birdsong, it seemed, was an acceptable tongue for these strange people.  Once she ate, it didn’t take long for Wendy to switch back over to a more regular schedule.  She ate at lunchtime – though a woman who appeared far too motherly for Wendy’s tastes attempted to feed her at breakfast and dinner – and slept nine hours at night.  Or, what she assumed was nine hours.  No one had possession of a clock.

A type of machinery that required no magic and had been in use for almost 1,000 years, last Wendy checked.

So there was a good chance she was still in Ishgar and it wasn’t an Edolas situation.  Which- Well, it wasn’t a fun realization, but at least she just had to learn time travel.

Almost two weeks of traveling in oxen-drawn carriages later, and they’d finally arrived at what one could call a paved road.

It was mostly giant, gray stone slabs that were laid evenly to create a clear, permanent path, but it was a road.  There was no cement, or asphalt, and between the rough-hewn stones was nothing but dirt and weeds.  It wasn’t cared for in the usual sense, and the wagon seemed to jump half a meter at every pebble in the way.  Eventually, two of the younger traders leapt out of the wagon, grabbed some pine branches – with plenty of bristles still on – and swept the road in front of the wagon.

It made for fewer bumps, and did protect the wooden wagon wheels from chipping, so Wendy supposed that this was a pre-planned action.

It didn’t make her any less nervous when one of them would dart by the hooves of an ox to sweep a (sometimes imaginary) pebble away.

Finally, their luck ran out. 

( of course it did )

(luck always ran out when Fairy Tail was involved)

The young man – the one around Laxus-san’s age, with honey-gold hair and soft brown eyes – tripped.  He slipped on a stone he’d just pulled away from the lumbering oxen.  The beast had blinders on, of course.  It had to, in order to not react to the racing young adults acting like they were her age.  This just meant that it didn’t see that he hadn’t gotten out from underfoot.

(it just meant that Wendy was the only one who could help)

The man – boy – scrambled back like a crab, and Wendy could see the wild panic in his eyes.  The driver – too slow, too late – yanked on the oxen’s reins.  The oxen jolted, its front hoof came up far too high, and in that almost-slow-motion view of pure panic, Wendy could see everything as it would be.

The boy would’ve been out of the way if the driver hadn’t panicked, the oxen wouldn’t have leaped as high if its blinder hadn’t slipped off slightly and it hadn’t caught sight of something skittering just out of sight.

(Wendy wanted Natsu-san and Gajeel-san)

The hoof fell.  The driver paled.  The boy screamed.

Adrenaline filled Wendy’s veins as she rushed forward.  The oxen’s hoof was firmly planted in the mess that-was-once the boy’s leg, but she’d pushed heavier things before, and even stubborn Natsu-san could be moved.  She wasn’t too careful in pushing it away, but some distant part of her understood that it was needed in order for them to continue their journey.

His bones were less sticking out, and more covering the ground.  His skin was flayed, his pants torn, his boot miraculously okay.

Wendy may not’ve known his name, but she’d traveled with him for over two weeks.  It was his people that had cared for her while she was unconscious.  She needed to return the favor.  Wendy closed her eyes.

Magic flowed from her, the winds spun and twisted.  She could feel the rain that’d fall tomorrow morning, the sounds of owls hooting and sweet nightingales singing.  The stars were open to her.  Their healing light flowed through her.  The gentle wind of the mountain peaks, far above the clouds.

In this state, she was pure.  None could reach her, taint her.

(alone, alone, always alone, my little marvel)

And nothing around her would remain tainted.

On the other side of her closed eyelids, blue, pure starlight filtered through.  Morning dew and soft clouds.  A cushion for his pain, an antidote for his woes.

The solidness of human flesh and bone – creatures of the Earth that they were – was blown and pushed and twisted by the mighty winds.  Pieces fell together, and though she couldn’t replace his clothing, couldn’t remove the trauma – not without permissions, this will never change – she could remove the growing sickness in his marrow and ease the phantom of pain in his heart.

Wendy breathed her- his- its- the- Iamtheworld - final breath and let her eyes flicker open.

Not much time had passed, but it’d been a while since she’d healed, and she’d grown used to being one instead of being all.

A unique problem to have, but she was the Sky and everything in it.

-- -- --

The following days were filled with awe.

Her patient followed her around, and cared for her every need.  Not the way it was supposed to be, but it made him feel better.

Her company was no less shocked by the encounter, but they all responded differently.  Some kept their distance and watched her with wariness and awe , while others flocked closer.  The minor scrapes that they’d built up from traveling so long were presented to her joyously, and their eyes were filled with childish light when she healed them.

Wendy’s magic had always been special – she was a Sky Dragon Slayer, after all, a child of the Skies themselves – but to see people so overjoyed to have her in their company and see even the most mundane of magic usage filled her with dragonish pride.

Slowly, as they ventured onwards, more and more buildings came into view.  They weren’t too far off, as it was morning when Wendy first saw them, so they’d likely make it to their destination close to suppertime, or sunset.

Around noon, they’d stopped at the top of a hill, and Wendy watched as the company stared in the direction of the village unseeing.

She walked to them at a more sedate pace than was normal for her, and used some of the many words she’d learned.  

“Where?  See?  Town?  I see.”  A woman responded to her.

“The town is there, affirmation.   We cannot see such distance, worried-nervous-unsure.  Raiders, death-destruction might await. ”  Wendy hummed in understanding and let her sight fade slightly.

It was a unique trait of Sky Magic, but she was far better at it than most.  Wendy could see through clouds and rain and fog, and greater distances than most.  The most limiting factor to her sight was the curvature of the planet, and even that could be overcome with a clever application of magic and water to reflect and mirror the world in the distance.

Without her magically enhanced sight, the village was covered by heavy mist.

She could barely see an eighth of her previous distance.

( how do people live their lives so blind?! )

It was disconcerting, not having the giant expanse of the world to comfort her.  Freedom, and instead she was faced with close walls and blurry lines and daunting barriers.  Easily, she sucked in air – magically, non magically, it didn’t matter when she was breathing – and let her lungs inflate.  Her ribs cracked slightly as they expanded beyond their usual boundaries and then pushed a little further.

She was a vacuum.  She was inescapable. 

She reversed the flow of the wind.

Some air was still lazily floating towards her, and it seemed startled by the sudden push and race outwards.  Vibrations and dancing and racing laughter.  The wind was alight with energy as it was finally given direction by the sky.

The fog appeared to cartwheel out of the path of the building wind.  A straight path of clear sky and soft grass and shining air.

The town was revealed near-instantaneously.

Sunlight shone down and the world seemed that much brighter.

Her company cheered up rapidly, some giving her comforting pats on the back, or hearty shoulder-punches.  The remaining journey was cheerful and lively, as the whole crew basked in the sun and danced in the lingering mist.  It wasn’t that far of a walk before some townsfolk came running to greet the party.

Most of those greeting them were young children who were treated in the way that a parent traits a child.

Wendy hadn’t realized that this was where the traders’ families were.  Or, at least some of them.  Some adults followed along more sedately.  A woman giving a warm hug to her husband, children darting around their father’s knees, an elderly couple greeting some of the youngest in the troop – the boy she’d healed, the blonde woman, a man who was slightly older than the both of them.  The three were siblings, she belatedly realized.

Huh.

She missed her own siblings.

Of course, there was Gajeel-san and Natsu-san, who she’d been raised with when she was really young and then separated from.  It was hard to call them nii-san, though she knew they wanted her to.  But they weren’t her only siblings.  Gajeel-san had told her about shy, sweet Ryos-nii, her otouto, and Natsu-san had told her about the shining light that was Sting-nii, who was just barely younger than her – five months!. 

Being the middle child (and only girl!) was kinda hard without her younger siblings around, but Wendy did her best.  She tried not to mention Ryos and Sting to Gajeel and Natsu.  They felt bad enough that they'd only just reunited with her.

Wendy wasn’t usually that introspective (though she was certainly more so than Natsu-san), and for a minute she thought there was something in the air that was making her think more of her (missing) family than usual.  She opened her mouth to taste the air, and was greeted by a strangely familiar scent.

Magic.

Dragon Slayer Magic.

More people settled into the streets to greet the company, and the scent grew stronger and stronger.  Her eyes darted through the crowd of people, looking for the features that Natsu-san had described to her.  Blond hair, an’ pretty eyes, and bright colors all the time.

She couldn’t see any boys her age from her place on the ground, so she released a burst of magic – a signal seen as easily as a bonfire – and skipped to the top of the wagon.  Loud gasps and rushed exclamations filled her ears, almost drowning out her thumping heart.

“Sting!  Where are you!  I can tell you’re here!”

A form – blonde hair – ran through the crowds and stood in the cleared space around her wagon.

A boy wearing bright blues and daring reds – Fioran colors – stood tall before her, looking up with gleaming hope.

“Wendy Marvell,”  he cried back in screeching-scratching- desperate Fioran,  “is that you?”

Chapter Text

Sting was.  Not having a good time.

He’d been having a picnic with Rogue when a wave of magic came from the distance and struck him in the side.  Which- painful.  That hurt.

Then, he’d woken up in the middle of the woods somewhere like he was a hobo, and he couldn’t find Rogue, and he’d had to find his own way around.  He’d been picked up by a nice hunter, who’d been injured by some bandits (he was pretty sure) and Sting had used his limited first aid knowledge to fix him up.  Apparently, this was some “miracle work” and he’d been highly praised as a healer.

Sting had been sheparded off to the nearest town – with no magic users, no map, no plumbing – and installed as a healer.

All he was doing was Purifying bandages and wounds and they were treating him like some sort of god!

… He didn’t really mind that part.

He’d been there for almost a month, and had been greatly enjoying the free food and shelter in exchange for some, in all honesty, pretty light magic usage.  Sting’s biggest issue was learning the language, as nobody spoke Fioran or knew how to write.

Life went on, and Sting occasionally ventured into the woods to try and find Rogue.  Or any competent mage.

Some caravan traders were on their way into town and younger children ran out into the streets to greet them. 

There was a scent in the air.  Carried gently through the wind.  Spreading and spreading and searching in an unnatural fashion. With intent.   Magic usage.  A wizard.

Sting left his door frame and sauntered onto the dirt road casually as his mind flickered through the various wind mages he knew of.  His feet settled into the confident goingtorule walk that Sabertooth taught him.  Being a Sabertooth wizard required a certain level of confidence to be presented towards other magic-users, no matter how much he wanted to crawl into a well-defended corner and spy on the foreign mage from the shadows with Rogue.

A casual, haughty stride for the healing god who took residence in some podunk, magicless town.

Who could it be?  Perhaps someone with a Magic Stave, or a Magic Ring, or some other form of Holder Magic.  Sting didn’t know of any powerful wizards – and whoever it was was definitely powerful, magic clogged the air and he could taste it as easily as the color white – who knew pure Air magic except for Aria of Phantom Lord. 

Wind magic was slightly more common as a first magic, and even more popular as a second or learned magic, but most used it to supplement their own, or the wind was a side-effect of their magical attacks.  Erigor, the Death God of Eisenwald, had strong enough magic, but he’d been arrested by Fairy Tail almost a year ago.

A few mages from Dullahan Head, over half a dozen from Fairy Tail, and a few rogue wizards.

Some in Lamia Scale, and Mermaid Heel had one or two but none particularly noteworthy. 

There was a huge crowd gathering around the caravans, which he wasn’t surprised about.  He stepped forward, hidden slightly by the blacksmith’s massive form.  Suddenly, a burst of magic - a deliberate signal - exploded from the center.  It wasn’t an attack, didn’t harm anyone, barely did more than cause a slight breeze.

But a familiar girl skipped into the sky with purple-blue hair and a vibrant green dress – torn and restitched, faded and loved, patched up and beautiful – in a Fioran style that made the skirt flare out in a manner no one here needed to use. 

Wendy Marvell.

The wizard from Cait Shelter who’d fought the Oracion Seis.  A girl only a few months older than Sting, but on par with Lucy Heartfilia, a Celestial wizard who kept up with Natsu Dragneel.

A wizard who claimed the title of Sky Dragon Slayer.

Her dress caught the wind and poofed out as the bursts of air under her feet slowed and she began to sink down and submit to gravity.

Such immense control of her magic.  Her dress did not twist and flip and reveal what should remain hidden, but stayed cupped like an upside down bowl.  Her hair did not tangle like the hair of the magicless around him did, but softly flowed.  Her fingers lightly twitched and danced, controlling her descent as her feet gently settled on the roof of the wagon.

This was a wizard of the Sky.

She called out, in the same commanding Fioran – same undertones, same whistle-sharp trills, same vibration through his skull – that generals used to lead their armies.  He felt compelled to obey her call. 

“Sting!  Where are you!  I can tell you’re here!”

He darted forward.  Under the arm of the blacksmith, around a mother and her children, over a wagon.  Finally, he came to a stop and called out in his mother tongue.  He recognized this girl now,  “Wendy Marvell - is that you?”  Her eyes narrowed on his form, and he watched as scales flickered across her cheeks, reflecting sunlight like opal. 

-- -- --

Sting sat beside a fire.

On the fire sat a pot.

In the pot was stew. 

Across from him was Wendy Marvell, Fairy Tail mage and self-proclaimed Dragon Slayer.  She was a few months older than him, a famous and powerful mage, and somehow she knew his name and recognized his scent.

Not- That’s not suspicious at all.

Wendy shifted slightly, and sucked in a swift breath.  “What- What have you been doing here, Sting-kun?”  Her eyes didn’t meet his – they bored into the bottom corner of the room – but he knew if they did they would be sharp and piercing.  Far too similar to Rogue’s to be coincidental.  Far too similar to his eyes for comfort.

“I don’t really know, Miss Wendy.   One minute I was with Rogue and the next I was waking up here.  There was a wave of magic from the Southwest, if that tells ya anything.”  He watched her brow furrow, and the glimmer of realization and horror painted itself across her face.

“We were fighting a battle.  Fairy Tail, but mostly me, Gajeel-san, Laxus-san, and Natsu-san.  It was against a dragon - Acnologia.” 

That name shot faint memories of pain through Sting’s spine, but he wasn’t sure where it came from.  He’d never known a dragon called Acnologia, and he was sure he’d remember a name that Wendy spoke with such true terror.  “He was awe-inspiring.  He bat away the Master like he was a fly, didn’t even deign to speak with us, Sting-kun!  All of Fairy Tail’s S-class mages, taken down in a single blow!

“It took the strength of four Dragon Slayers to even cause him pain.”

Sting wanted to deny it, but he remembered very little of Weisslogia and it had been almost a decade since he’d seen a dragon, and the memories of Fairy Tail’s… adventures were strong in his mind.

(Across his soul, through time and space, with the holy sight of his

father and with the burning agony and the freezing cold of time, Sting

could tell.  If the various exploits of Fairy Tail hadn’t been fresh in his

mind, if he hadn’t just read about how the entire town of Magnolia got

zapped with magic power, and teleported to who knows where, and

then reappeared with only the guild remembering what happened, if he

hadn’t been told of the terrors Oracion Seis could’ve caused if Fairy

Tail hadn’t stepped in, how one, non-S-class team of theirs could’ve

one-v-oned S-class wizards from another guild, how they had so many

S-class wizards, and could have so many more-

If he hadn’t just come from that picnic with Rogue, from the idolizing

stage of his childhood where Fairy Tail was the coolest - Sting knows

that he wouldn’t have believed her.

He knows that he would’ve thought nothing of the strength of this “Acnologia.”)

“Okay,”  he whispered with a final heavy breath,  “I believe you.”

-- -- --

Believing, Sting found out, was harder than saying it.

Wendy was smart, though, and Sting had always been more brawn than brains.  They’d pieced together her memories, and Sting used his outsider perspective to fill in the gaps.  The story Wendy remembered went like this:

Fairy Tail was on the island of Tenrou, its holy land and the location of their S-class trials.  Every candidate brought a non-S-class partner, and every S-class wizard was in charge of testing the candidates.  Wendy was there to help Mest, Gajeel there to help Levy, Natsu was there as a competitor, with Happy to help him.  Laxus was there to test them – he’d been S-class for years.

They fought and battled and moved towards their final goal.

Grimoire Heart – a dark guild – attacked them.

Natsu was fighting a Fire God Slayer, and he lost at first and came back with a vengeance to win. He used the God Slayer’s flames and passed out from the effort.  Wendy worked to heal him, and when he woke up he ran off to chase a familiar scent.

The fight raged, opponent after opponent, location after location. 

Then Wendy was faced with Hades – a healer on the front lines – and Natsu could use Lightning and Fire together and bore the power of two dragons in one form.  Then there were demons surrounding them and the world was horrifying and she couldn’t fight anymore.

Zeref the Black Wizard arrived.  A myth made true, a man whose name was whispered with reverence in the shadows and terror in the light.  He said that he’d never died.  Announced that Acnologia would show himself.  Vanished once more.

It seemed fine, then.

No enemies in sight, and the Guild alive, if shaken up.

The Black Dragon of the Apocalypse appeared.

Nothing could be done.  Not a scale was damaged, not an eye batted at their fiercest attacks and most desperate fighting.  The Apocalypse did not care for their fear and dread, did not care that they wanted to live.  Fairy Tail ran out of magic.

A guild known for its powerful magic and never-breaking spirit was out of magic and prepared for death.

This guild known for family joined hands so at least their graves would be together, if they could not stand by each other’s side in life, and gathered one last time.  Teary smiles and longing glances and too tight hands.  Words flickered through Wendy’s bones.  Magic words that bore a weighty power, spoken by an unfamiliar, feminine voice.

Fairy Sphere.

A child’s voice, but with so much strength behind it it should’ve belonged to an old woman, or a war general, or a queen.  A second voice spoke far more rushed.  Male, hurried, angry.

Cast-off: Link.

And then Wendy was in the forest, and Sting watched a wave of magic reach over the land to find them.

A fantastical story, but a true one.  Heh.

It was a fairytale .

-- -- --

After that long, long day of detective work and mourning, Sting and Wendy did what wizards do best:  they took jobs and ignored the past until it came back to bite them.

Healing was easy.

Sting could clean the wounds better than Wendy and he was better with more mental issues, while Wendy could easily fix the largest of gashes, and reattach recently lost limbs. She managed to regrow three fingers on a woman’s hand, and he managed to heal an old hermit man who’d gone mad and was reliant on a village woman who made his meals.

People began traveling to them to get healed, but it was clear that the journey wasn’t easy.

Within a week, they’d charted a course and gathered a list of patients that needed healing but couldn’t get to them.  They’d packed their food and the spare clothes they’d been paid with.  They gathered a boiling pot, and cooking utensils, a spare sword – too heavy for either of them to swing yet, though Wendy could pick it up.  They’d sent messengers ahead of them to tell all where they would be and when.

When the morning sun shone bright and clear, almost a fortnight after Wendy’s arrival in the town, they started down the path.

It was a five day journey.

Mornings were spent in silence, with gentle birdsong and the sun's rays to wake them.  They usually spoke Fioran in the quiet times.  It didn’t feel right for the tongue everyone spoke here to be used in the peaceful forest at dawn or sunset or night.  Only in the harsh light of the overhead day did they brave through the stumbling language, and they knew they were probably getting a lot wrong, but Sting was able to teach Wendy enough to get by.

Sting found it interesting when Wendy told him how she knew of him.  He had no memories of her, and the name Natsu Dragneel (the great Salamander) only held awe for him.  He didn’t remember Gajeel at all.  Wendy knew Rogue’s old name – the one he only used as a hatchling, and didn’t ever tell anyone – so Sting figured that Natsu and Gajeel simply remembered more.

He wondered what it would’ve been like to be raised with two more older brothers and a sister.

He wondered if Rogue remembered.

They stumbled across a hunter on the fourth day – what is it with the hunters here and getting lost and injured? – and fixed up his arm (caught in a bear trap) and let him stay with him til they reached his home village.  They arrived earlier than expected on the fifth day, as they’d reached the village not long after dawn instead of well into the evening.

They were welcomed with a hearty lunch, half a dozen patients, and the messenger ready to head to the next town and speak of their arrival.

-- -- --

Sting glanced across the bonfire to look at Wendy.

Her hair was unusual in these parts – for its color, length, texture – and many children gathered around her to lift strands in the air and watch it glint in the firelight.  Wendy’s opal scales sparkled fiercely and enhanced her sharp smile, and Sting had to wonder if his own scales were just as beautiful.  Her’s looked like stars scattered over her cheeks.

They didn’t have mirrors here, there weren’t many pieces of metal that were smooth enough to reflect light, and most water they came across was running.

Wendy’d told him his scales were a bright white, but he wasn’t sure of what they looked like.  If they fit him.

Sting wasn’t even aware his scales were visible.

Usually, Rogue would mention them when he ate too much magic and his dragon showed through all the more.  Wendy said she’d never seen him without them.  The villagers flinched slightly from his gaze.

They left two days later, and the messenger raced ahead of them on horseback to reach the next town.

They were eight days away from their next destination, and the messenger would reach it in four. Four days to warn the people that the dragons were coming to heal the sick.

There was a joke in there somewhere, Sting was sure of it.

Frosch would’ve liked it.

Days passed in a soft blur.  They began spending longer and longer in each town in order to treat the hordes of patients coming to them.  Once, a man came to ask them to heal his wife, who was too sick to leave their seaside home.  He came with a spare horse, and Wendy and Sting easily abandoned their previous plans to head towards the southern sea.  It took almost a week for them to reach her, and Sting easily found out that it was just an allergic reaction to a new species of lobster in the area.

By then, fall was upon them and winter was looming threateningly in the distance.

The cold didn’t bother either Sting or Wendy.  Wendy’d grown up near the cold mountains and snow eight months of the year, while Sting just enjoyed all the white around him.

He didn’t need to eat as much, she didn’t need to burrow in what warmth they could get.

They continued journeying, though their stops were now filled with frostbite and colds.  They headed back north, following the base of the mountains to the East, and turned to wandering until they came across a town.

-- -- --

Sting sat against a tree, and let his eyes drift partway closed.

A film covered his vision, tinting it white and slightly blurring his view of Wendy.  She was on watch.  It was the middle of the day, but they’d both found it easy to travel during the night.  Tonight would be a full moon, and with all the snow on the ground the world would be lit up quite well, never quite reaching the midnight shades of summer.  Here, in the warm sparkling sun, Sting found it difficult to stay awake.

His magic was full and heavy. He was bursting with the energy of the pure snow around him.

Sting’s draconic laziness took hold during rare moments like this.  Wendy was kind enough to stay on guard for him, as the snow didn’t affect her in quite the same way.  If anything, the crisp air kept her awake like coffee.  When Sting regained the ability to move he’d be able to run for a good hour or two, though Wendy seemed to be vibrating so hard she might outpace him.

That was fine.  They both knew the path to their destination.

They were both going to be heading to a larger town – 20 houses, two separate stores, a mayor, a blacksmith – that they’d been through around a month back.  Normally it’d be a little longer before they passed through, but the town resided on a connecting point of a loop they were using that crossed through six other villages and a few lone farms. 

As Sting recharged and let the sun sink into his scales skin, he heard Wendy call out in distress.  His eyelids – both sets – were open near-instantly.  Sting felt his nails sharpen in agitation, and carefully registered the situation.

There was a weird wolf attacking Wendy.

It had matted gray fur, and torn ears that looked far too small for its head. Its skin was sickly, almost rotted at some parts, and its nose was sunken in the manner of a dog’s skull. The shadows clung to it, though it was day, and Sting was repulsed by the sickly scent of decay-rot-hellfire-earth. 

This was not a normal wolf. This was a demon.

Sting lunged forward, with the sole of his thick boots digging into the snow and dirt.  He ran faster on all-fours, and it was instinct to let his hand claws dig into the cold beneath him and drag his body forward at speeds that outpaced horses.  He landed on the demon’s spine, near its raised hackles, and stopped his face near inches away from his skin.

Sting’s jaws were open and Sting was repulsed by his instinct  ( ewww, I almost bit this thing! Who knows how long it’s been dead!?!) just long enough for the demon to buck and tear him loose.  He came away with long fur stuck in and under his nails, and with barbed (?!?) bristles poking through his unprotected palms and arms. 

Sting gagged on the scent of curdled blood and maggots.

His distraction was long enough for Wendy to recover from the surprise attack, and she too leapt up behind its scruff.  She wasn’t nearly as bothered by the rot, and plunged her claw into it’s spine.

The demon thrashed wildly as her sharp claws tore its flesh.  Gore was launched throughout the clearing, and Sting had a bare moment to mourn the loss of the pure white snow before Wendy let out a startled yelp.

The creature had managed to twist its head far enough around to bite at her thigh.

Bleh, agh, gag.

Sting once again pushed himself to his feet, and let his shoulders click against his arm sockets as he rolled them.  His sprint towards the beast was on two feet this time, and instead of jumping he charged its hindquarter.  That was the least rotted part of the beast, and he didn’t flinch as the creature tried to kick and scratch him.

Its skinless tail wasn’t flexible enough to do much damage, but it was still a solid bone that could hit him and Sting did not appreciate getting a vertebrae to the eye.

That was going to bruise.

Sting let his claws sharpen further, and dug his hands into the point where the leg met the pelvis.  He wrenched it towards himself, and let a smile slip free when he felt the pop and watched as the creature slipped downwards.

The demon was still huge, even though it was now lame. 

It had to be over six feet at the shoulder, because its spine barely sloped downwards and Sting still had to reach up to dig at its back.

He heard a sharp growl from Wendy, and watched as she reached to the howling creature's neck and snapped it. As quickly as the fight had begun, it was over.

-- -- --

“Hey, Wendy.”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you skinning the demon?”  Wendy turned towards Sting. Her sharp claws were covered in too-dark blood that went up to her elbows.  Her eyes gleamed like a cat’s, and her opal scales made the surrounding trees look like there was a disco ball somewhere. 

She turned back to the demon wolf and wrinkled her nose slightly before turning back to Sting.  “This is just a wolf, Sting-kun.  What do you mean?”

Sting paused.

Thought back..

“Ah.  Um.  Maybe it was- possessed?”  His question pitched higher, and his ears turned red as his shoulder scrunched up against them. He turned away from her piercing gaze, but Wendy was not one to let her prey escape.  She’d even dragged the demon’s corpse with them to their next resting spot so that she could clean it and keep it as a coat.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They fell back into comfortable silence.

The fire was dimming slightly when Wendy spoke up again, this time in the language of the village people. “How did you know?” Sting startled at her voice, and by instinct responded in the same tongue.

“It’s fur, it looks dead.  Like a corpse,”  his breath hitched and pushed through his indecision,  “it smells like one too.  Death and old blood, rot and fire.”  Curiosity bubbled in his bones, and he spoke again before his nerves got the better of him.  “What does it look like for you?”

“Huh?  Oh.  It, um-”  her tongue darted across her lips and her eyes moved nervously, eying the creature like it would come back to life and finish the job.  She took a steadying breath.  “It looks like a normal, giant wolf.  Heh.  It smells like one too.”  The smile she aimed at him was a far cry from her normal smiles – too toothy, too jaded, too haunted – but it was close enough.  They’d spent too long in solitude.

Too much time apart for two dragonlings meant to be in a giant flight.

No parents, no older brothers.

They were children.  They weren’t meant to be left alone.

-- -- --

They stayed in that clearing for another few days.  Enough time for Wendy to scrape off the pelt with as few holes as possible, and enough time for Sting to fill a bag he’d gotten from the last town with enough dried meat and goose feathers to cover the cost of tanning the hide and buying thread.  Somewhere between removing the flesh and burying purifying the pelt with his magic (again), it stopped smelling of rot and merely reeked of untanned leather.

Sting made a needle from the demon’s bones, and though the wolf meat wasn’t edible he did put the rest of the bones to good use.

His knife - another thing Sting had received from a previous town for his services - he used to carve the bones into various things.  He made toys, utensils, bowls, plates, and a boomerang, though it wasn’t very good.  All of the bone was shoved into Wendy’s bag, and the hide was tossed over her shoulder.

Almost a week after fighting off the demon wolf, they began the trip to the next town.

Chapter Text

The villagers stared at them in horror.

They’d arrived a week late, with the corpse of a warg – the demon-wolf – with them.  The bones were worth a lot.  Not many could kill demon-wolves.  Most ran away from the sheer size and horrid scent of the things.  Sting kept two of his bowls, and two spork-like things he’d managed to form.

Neither of them really used plates, so they easily gave those and the rest of the utensils up for a lower price.

The toys, however, were too costly for the peasants of the town.  Sting was given the general direction of the nearest nobleman’s house, and he gleefully repocketed them.  He may not need money, but a dragon never turns down more gold.

Or copper, as that’s what they were being paid with.

And another sword, which neither of them could use.

The goose feathers were given to a household of nine, who used them to re-fluff their pillows and add to their clothing and earrings, and repaid them with canned jams, bread, and an old hand mill that needed a new gear.  He sold some of the dried meat for a bigger bag.  Wendy easily returned a few of the coins for some very good quality thread – sky blue and snow white, perfect for them both.  The leather was tanned for a few more coins.  Finding a leather-tanner was fairly easy, as most people wore leather here, and plenty was needed.

The nobleman’s house was quite a ways off their regular route, but if they could get a good night’s stay out of it and get the carvings off their load, it would be worth it.

Not like they didn’t have time.

It was all they really had.

-- -- --

Sting was skipping a few steps ahead of Wendy, as she was slowed down by their load.

It wasn’t that heavy, but she was attempting to sew the demon skin while walking, and her pace had slowed dramatically because of it.  She was only a few months older than him, but times like this – with only them and their inhumanness and the beautiful trees and old-magic sky – it was easy to imagine she was older.

Sting ears flicked forward as he caught a sound.

Humans. People. 

They were still a ways off, but it sounded like an unexpected village.  He turned to face Wendy, and his exuberant cry was silenced by the look on her face.

“What’s up, Wendy?  It’s just a bunch of people,”  he let out a little laugh, but it sounded forced even to him.  The unintended lie sat heavy on his tongue.  “We can fight ‘em off if we need to.”

That sentence rang as pure, and gave him a glimmer of confidence.  It was all he needed, really.

“Ah, well- Sting-kun.  The air just doesn’t feel right.”  Her bare feet kicked nervously at a pebble in the road, and her lips pursed into a thin line.  While both were nervous, and there was something in the air, Sting felt that it was familiar.

Granted, that wasn’t always a good thing when you lived the life of a battle mage.

Sting was about to recommend they turn around and investigate from a distance when a voice called out,  “Halt! Who goes there!”

The man who spoke was tall, with a shorn scalp and fancy (for the region) robes.  He had a stern countenance and the shadows rested heavily upon him.  A crown of rubies and twisted, raw metal circled his head.  His robes were a softened leather that was dyed white, and he had a simple stripe of actual cloth that had been hand-painted with designs.  His skin was deep, deeper than most they’d come across, and carried the slight shine of scented oil.

Rose oil.  Huh.

Sting shook his head – man, was that scent distracting – and tuned back into the conversation.

“Sir, we are travelers from a, a Sting, what’s the word for a distant village.  You’re better at this tongue than I am. ”  The man’s eyes turned curious, and Sting startled as the two both turned towards him.

“You speak a different language.  It sounds like the cawing of the eagles and the twittering of the thrush.”  It wasn’t a question, but Sting answered it anyway.

“Yes, we come from a distant village, called Fiore.”  Sting had a split-second to decide how much information to give the weirdo.  “We are part of a battling force.  I am Sting Eucliffe, and this is Wendy Marvell.  I am named for my bite, and she for her magic.”

The man’s eyes turned harsh.  “The girl is a witch.  You are her guard?”  His head tilted predatorily.  Sting definitely said too much.  He was always getting chastised by Rogue for saying too much.  The greeting he gave was the one that he’d been taught by the first villages, when he’d been asked to tell a story and had mentioned that he got his name by biting his father, making him bleed, and then promptly crying because he’d hurt his dad.  Of course, Weisslogia had calmly said that it “barely stung” and the name stuck.

Normally, the greeting was fine.

Most of the commoners in the area greeted each other using how they were named.  Mosren, who caught mice as a child;  Vois, who’s good at singing;  Brackley, a falconer;  and Brent, who lived off of brent geese and potatoes for almost two years during his childhood and was the only one in his family who survived the malnutrition.

Surprisingly, he still enjoyed geese.

Ahh, distractions.  Back to the stranger.

Before Sting could signal to Wendy ‘ danger, run, we’re-about-to-die ’, the man’s face suddenly softened and turned warm.  He let out a big grin – such white teeth! – and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.  “We welcome magic-users!  It is a wonder you have made it this far North, the elves might send their troops to us, as they dislike magic-usage.”

Yeah, Sting didn’t like getting armies sent after him, so they might have to turn arou- wait.  Elves.

What.  The heck. 

Something of his and Wendy’s confusion must have shown on either of their faces – probably both, based on the man’s gleeful appearance, because the man’s tone was one of condescension and I’m-better-than-you.

Ugh.  Boring.

Or maybe not, as they were led to a very ornate mansion.

The strange man never looked back to see if Sting and Wendy were following him, but his pace slowed whenever Sting scuffed his feet in the earth dramatically or Wendy’s stride shrank into a slow glide.

He wasn’t tracking them by sound, then, as even Sting had difficulty hearing their feet padding onto the soft – but not mushy - ground.

Magic?  A possibility, and it was never too good to just toss it out because no one had shown evidence of magic.

Two more men rushed forwards, both wearing ornate, white leather and hand-painted cloth.  They eagerly greeted the stranger – though he wasn’t a stranger to them – in a fast tongue that Sting couldn’t follow.  After a few pointed looks and swift back and forths, the younger of the two new men bowed twice – once to Wendy, once to Sting – and the elder of the two nodded his head deeply and bent his knees in an almost-curtsy.

The men kept up the procession, and the rest of the journey was silent save for the whisper of wind and curious birds.

The path under their feet turned to crude gravel, and the sound of a lively town faded into hearing.  As houses – no taller than two stories, clay and stone and wood, dirt floors, no glass in the windows – began to surround them and the townspeople looked on curiously, Sting began to feel an itch under his skin.

Like new scales just before shedding, like a powerful lacrima under his tongue, like sweet iron and blood dripping on his teeth, like the sword on his back clicking against his claws.

There was something very wrong with this town.

A girl raced past him and just barely didn’t run him over, but her scent was faded and her skin buzzed unpleasantly and all Sting could taste-feel-sense were the three men ahead of him and Wendy.  She seemed just as disturbed.

As the girl “left” his hearing range – far too close, only a few steps behind him and already she was blending back in with the crowd and gone – Sting let his eyes sharpen and his lips part.  His eyes caught on the too-blank, not-detailed face of a woman who was haggling with a fish merchant.  Her argument was vague, and then-

Wait-

“I’ll only pay four pieces for the whole batch!”

-there’s no scent of fish-

“Four!  Are you mad, woman!  I’ll go broke!  Seven pieces!”

-not anywhere nearby-

“I’ll only pay four pieces for the whole batch!”

-in fact, all I can smell is-

“Four!  Are you-”,

-rose oil.

Before the salesman had even finished his line, for the third, fourth, fifth time, Sting’s fist had landed on the back of the head of the ebony-skinned man with white-leather robes and a strip of colored cloth.

The illusion shattered with a burst.

The world rocked and twisted, and Sting felt sick to his stomach.  In slow-fast-instant motion the buildings toppled like façades.

Some hit the earth and reenacted whatever disaster caused the destruction of the town in the first place.  Thick stones fell into divots made long ago, and the land shook around them.  There was no longer any magic for the stones to anchor, so they left their illusioned positions and resumed their half-buried placement.

Other houses folded in on themselves, pure illusory power collapsing like a dying star.  A few creaked and moaned and didn’t fall, but their windows were far more crumbled and their straw roofs sank in.

The townspeople fell to their knees, recalling some long-lost horror.

Blades stuck out from chests, and blood coated the softer fabrics.  Limbs fell to the side, and blood soaked the earth and sank in far too quickly.  Weeds sprang up like lightning, some through the corpses, and the world turned twisted and wrong.  A twisted walnut tree held up a wall that Sting was pretty sure had just been flickering in-and-out of existence.

The scent of wild animals and corpse-rot, new growth and decaying branches, mold and soot.

The scent of men, bathed in expensive oils and perfumes, permeated the air.

Not the three Sting could see, but hundreds.

There was a magic-using army here.

-- -- --

Sting pivoted and twisted – an inhuman motion made easy by a more draconic spine – til he was comfortably back-to-back with Wendy.  Wendy had done a slight side shuffle to meet him halfway and had chosen a more human-looking fighting position to start in.  Sting’s claws nearly brushed the ground, and Wendy’s hair flickered in a forbidden breeze.

They didn’t look that scary, of that Sting had no doubt, but it was an effective start.

Two twelve- thirteen- Two twelve-to-fourteen year olds with tattered cloth clothes and too-tiny limbs, not even capable of swinging the swords on their backs.  They’d both set their well-cared-for, if old swords on the ground with their packs.

Actually, maybe it was unsettling.

Wendy’s arms and legs were almost skeletal, and her eyes were too big, and her hair was a strange shade of blue that changed whenever you stepped slightly to the left.  She had silver-opal freckles along her cheeks that made it look like she had gotten into some glitter and hadn’t managed to wipe it off.  At night, the glitter effect was more reminiscent of stars.

But, Sting conceded, if you had never seen glitter before, it probably just looked like stars.

The scales now continued onto her shoulder blades and covered her exposed back.  They behaved fairly similarly to freckles, though they didn’t go away even in the dead of winter-almost-spring.

The humans puffed up like fearful cats (sorry, Lector).

The first rose-scented man stomped heavily forward with his hands raised to cast a spell. 

-- -- --

The army was defeated.

Sting and Wendy fled the area, turning towards the nearest village.  At first, not much seemed off, but then a rose-scented boy ran into the town yelling about wild demon children and-  Well.  Wendy and Sting very quickly decided that the woods would be a better option.

The woods didn’t last long.

Someone spread word about two devil children to the surrounding villages, and the rumors had gotten out of hand.  It started off as two wildings that burned down a village and caused a windstorm, and escalated to a wild tribe that kidnapped children and left tornadoes and earthquakes in their wake.

Rapidly, the number of villages they were safe in dropped.  Even if half the town welcomed them, the other half was just as likely to burn them out in the middle of the night.

They snuck through towns in pitch black, when they could see and humans were blind.  They healed who they could, and were ten miles away by the time the sun rose.

Sting and Wendy crept north, following the mountain range to their east.

Life was peaceful.

They experimented with their newfound durability.  The odd magic of the world made them tougher, made their scales stronger, and their fangs sharper.  Wendy and Sting pushed each other off cliffs and rolled in the mud.

Like kids.  Like hatchlings.  Like younger siblings left unsupervised.

Wendy missed Natsu-san and Gajeel-san.

Sting missed Ryos.

They marched ever northward, slowly outpacing the mobs and the rumors.  By the time fall came around again (how long had it been? how long had they wandered?), the towns they ran into only ever heard vague musings about Southern tribes of wild children from traders and merchants.

Their peace came to a head in summer, when Wendy found a creek.

It had crystal clear waters, and burbled along like a painting. 

The stones underneath the water were smooth and ripe for skipping (which Wendy took joy in holding over Sting’s head; he still couldn’t skip stones), and the foliage along its shores was thick and green.  The two stripped down before leaping into the water, each racing to find the best spot.

Sting ran his hands along the white stones before shoving a handful in his mouth.  Wendy ignored the crunching noise (boys are such messy eaters) in favor of breathing in the scent of water and sun-warmed leaves.  And fish.

Fish.

“Sting,”  she called.  “Sting!”  She shoved him the second time.  

He grunted at her, “Mph?!”

“There’s fish in the water!  Good fish.  I think it’s trout.”

Sting swallowed, “Seriously?!  We haven’t had much besides squirrel the last few days!  Have ya seen 'em yet?”

They stood, silently and still.  Predators, watching.

Scales flashed in a shallow pool.  Wendy lunged.  When her head breached the water again, Sting was hovering near her, stabbing his claws into her prize so it didn’t slip.  The trout was decently sized.  It probably would’ve fed two men with the size of its filets.  Wendy only shoved Sting away from her fish and started chowing down, head first.

Just as she was reaching the fins, which she didn’t want to eat, Sting crept close to her with his own fish.  His was slightly bigger.

They ate a couple more, making certain that they wouldn’t need to eat for another week before settling down.

Most people and animals didn’t like staying near water too long for a reason:  predators always came by for a sip.

Wendy and Sting settled there for the same reason:  they were the predators.

All they had to do was wait.

-- -- --

Wendy dozes, her eyes wide open and her vision foggy with half-sleep.  She doesn’t blink.  She doesn’t dream.  She thinks on what happened the day before, and the day before that, sorting them into her impenetrable memory so that she won’t even begin to forget for a hundred years yet.  Wendy thinks about her time in Cait Shelter, running the faces of ghosts through her mind and turning them over.  Re-examining them from every angle she’d ever seen them.

These are the faces she would draw one day for her mother.  She’d ask her mother to send spells of well-wishing to wherever spirits lie in the beyond.  Wendy had never learned a spell that could do so.

Wendy remembers her second first meeting with Natsu, when she decided that she would never let herself forget a face again.  She remembers Gajeel and how familiar he used to be to her.  She remembers crying about never finding Ryos or Sting.

Wendy dozes.  Wendy does not dream anymore.

Dragons don’t have dreams.

As Wendy rested, Sting lulled himself into a state of calm.  Even while stretching his ears, he couldn’t make out a single human-ish sound.  The woods were quiet.

Perhaps that’s why he startled so when there was suddenly a platoon of glowing not-humans riding quiet not-horses and carrying intricate and ancient weapons.

He could not hear them, but his eyes said that there were twenty not-men right in front of him.  Sting leapt from his fluffy moss on the shore, splashing water at Wendy to wake her up.

They’d both been sunbathing, which meant their bags were half a dozen paces away under a tree, and most of their clothing was neatly folded with their demon-wolf pelts.  Wendy was quick to her feet, but her eyes were still sleep-fogged, blurry in a way that Sting knew meant her inner eyelids were sealed shut.

Wendy stumbled into a rough stance, letting out a deep growl.

The nearest not-man (still on his eerily silent horse) said something in a bell-like tongue, clearly expecting a response.  As he spoke, his horse paced, turning in agitation. Sting growled at it instinctively.  The horse lurched, and its rider’s hair flipped back, revealing sharply pointed ears kind of like Wendy’s and Sting’s.  Though, theirs were less “pointed” and more “slowly turning into the highly flexible, deerlike ears that dragons possessed.”  In addition, the not-men had a very annoying glow to their exposed skin, like magic was burning in their veins.

Sting and Wendy had a similar effect from their highly reflective, light-colored, and minuscule scales.

Sting chirped at Wendy, letting a confused rumble build in his throat.  “I think they think we’re like them…” he said in Fioran.  “Do you think they know the village language?”

She relaxed slightly,  “Probably.  That speaking one said something about being like them, and that we trespassed.  I think.  The forest is being cagey and stopping the wind from speaking with me.”

Sting gave Wendy an incredulous look.  “Why can the forest stop you from talking with the sky?”

She pouted at him.  “How am I supposed to know?  I’m the one not getting spoken to.”

As they whistled at each other, the not-men’s faces changed and morphed. After an uncomfortable silence with the only sound being a distant bird (“I have food, I have food!”), the same not-man spoke in Fioran.

“Art thou of the House of Man?”  he asked.  “Twas believed that thou were of our Home, or another like ours, and hadst wandered upon Rivendell waters.  We beseech thee to state clearly your desires.”

What.

Sting’s eyes went wide in confusion.  So did Wendy’s.

Sure, they knew, in that distant kind of realization, that they were somewhere in the past.  They mentioned it a few times, whispered words on how to leap through time, how they’d been pulled so far back in the first place (it was supposed to be impossible, they both knew), but to hear it.

To hear Fioran spoken in an ancient manner with an ancient cadence by an ancient people was…

Frightening.

“You speak Fioran.”  Wendy recovered first.

“You sound so old. ”  Sting said second.  Wendy slugged his arm.

-- -- --

The not-man was a creature called an Elf.  The Elves were long-lived, manlike beings capable of magic and extraordinary feats, like reincarnation and ignoring the curvature of the planet.

Sting and Wendy discovered this because they decided (out of childish curiosity) to gather their belongings and hop on the backs of the horses.

Only a few of the elves could speak Fioran, though they all knew the village language, Westeron, and spoke Sindarin amongst themselves.  The elves lived in the Great House Rivendell, which consisted of a large amount of mountains, valleys, fields, and rivers (of which they happened to rest in a tributary river that the elves patrolled).  The trees in the area were sentient and capable of whispering to the elves.  They’d done so, and alerted of “two pointed-ear child-things wreaking havoc in the stream and eating all the fish.”

An accurate description, all things considered.

Peacefully, on horseback, Wendy and Sting enter the beautiful gates of Rivendell.