On A Knife's Edge [Job - Nessa]

Job Details:

Arcadia cartwheeled a couple times over in delight. Her last cartwheel lead straight into a couple forward handsprings. The young slayer had plenty energy to burn lately.

A few steps later, the same girl tripped herself up over an old tree root poking up through the forest floor. She fell face first to the ground. Arcadia dusted herself off as she rose back to her feet. Then, as if to prove to herself that was just a fluke, Arcadia slowed into a forward round off. Finishing with arms raised, she counted that as a small victory. It was as good a place as any to cap off her fun little tumbling show.

She could scent they were entering prime vulcan territory in the East Woods. It was probably time to start paying more attention to the job at hand. With both girls recently proven themselves growing in skill, the kind of job that once might have been the among the most challenging and dangerous, seemed like a good way to kill an otherwise slow and lazy afternoon.

If they were careful, a few pervy vulcan apes should prove breezy workout for a team of Fairy Tail wizards. They and the citizen of Magnolia reportedly in the vulcan's clutches should all be home in time for dinner.

She laughed and hopped up onto a log, playfully turning it into a balance beam. "This is gonna rock. I can smell them already." Arcadia pulled two ballet-style leaps down the length of the log, finishing up with a twirl. Hopping down from the log, she smiled back over her shoulder, "Thanks for taking me under your wing, big sis!"

Arcadia staggered a step or two, her bright and deep green faerie eyes suddenly narrowing ever so briefly into draconic/feline like slits. Her eyes widen back to normal human roundness, and Arcadia shakes her head clear. ”Woah... first time today. It's nothin' to worry about though. I been feeling a little peppy and weird since I accepted the lacrima my mom gave me. It's kinda long story either her ghost or she had the foresight to leave me this book in the guild library... a book older than Dragnof. It had notes from my mom in it. That's how I learned to make those shadow puppets. Anyway I kept on studying her notes, until one night a few days ago, I realized..exactly how in theory I could use my mother's ice magic to recreate every one of those spells. When I realized that... that book vanished in the same magic my mother's note glowed with and gave up a dragon slayer lacrima. I could feel my mom's power in it..so of course I accepted it. ..but I haven't quite mastered any of the magic I can feel that came with it...and I also been feeling a little weird since then. I'm sure it'll clear up once I master the extra magic.”

The young slayer paused a moment, reassessing the direction the scent of the vulcans was coming from. She held up a hand, ”I think we've gone too far, or they're on the move.“ Dropping down to her hands and feet, Arcadia sniffed around more like a hound. She also scuttled around a lot like a gecko, and she moved rather more efficiently than one would casually think possible. The pale blonde slayer scuttled back and forth, narrowing down where she had lost the trail.

Hitting the vulcan trail again, she pushed herself back up off her hands. She waved back to Nessa, ”This way. We're def getting closer now.” Arcadia hurried along, following her nose after the pervy apes. She slowed down, again holding a hand up and lowered her voice. Pointing through some underbrush ahead, ”Through there. I can hear and smell them now... how should we do this?”

WC: 636
Arcadia's Total WC: 636/500
Total WC: 636/1000

OOC Notes:

Nessa's WC: 512 / 500
Total : 1148 / 1000

Arcadia nodded, moving  more slowly as she approached the underbrush. She bent the light around herself and Nessa, so that their images appeared in the clearing ahead of them. The image of Arcadia ran recklessly ahead to draw the attention of the three Vulcans standing in the clearing. The young slayer drew up  shadow and crafted about 7 shadow-Arcadias and 7 more shadow-Nessas to fill in the clearing. The Arcadias ran interference, while the Neassas spread out around the perimeter, looking to be preparing some spell.

She lowered her voice, ”They can't see us for now. But stay as quiet as possible until your ready to strike, or they might pickup where you really are. We should be able to sneak in easy enough now.”

Arcadia went in low, sneaking in around behind the chaos her shadow puppets and refracted images had created in the clearing. The three Vulcans certainly seemed distracted enough, though one roared when its fist quashed one of the shadow-Arcadias, dispersing it back to shadow. That's when the real thing had her remaining shadow clones  send a rain of icy darts. None of them were real, but they made for a real surprise when Arcadia's very real icy darts were flung from her fingers along with the shadowy flurry of darts. The confusion helped disguise which direction the real darts had come from.

The confusion helped disguise her next to volleys of  icy darts from her fingers. Out of nine flung, seven found their mark. Two darts in the two Vulcans farthest from Arcadia and three in a tight grouping in the Vulcan closest to her.  Meanwhile the Vulcans manage to snuff out two more shadow clones, and were getting increasingly frustrated.

Arcadia made sure to have have the shadow-Nessas mirror big sister's actual movement best she could observe them from the periphery of her gaze. While Arcadia and her clones, one of which, ever stopped moving.  They made for multiple bobbing and weaving targets.  Though she only had four more shadow clones to go, so she decided it was time to set the apes up for Nessa. She roared at the ground, as did her clones, with the real whirling torrent of freezing mist and icy shards leaving a slick coating of ice around and under the Vulcan's feet.

She had two of the shadow-Nessa break off from the perimeter and join the four remaining shadow-Arcadias to rush as a group to draw the three Vulcans close together. One at a time, the big apes fell flat, the icy ground underfoot being dangerously slippery. The shadow clones and Arcadia all dispersed in different directions out into the surrounding brush.

The three Vulcans, still grouped closely together now, did not get up to chase though. Instead, each one had a dumber than usual look in its face, like they'd forgotten entirely what was just happening.  The clones ducked down, poised to rush back in. She left the area clear, to let Nessa's magic do its thing and for anything else Nessa may wanna or need  less chaos to bring.

She whispered, ”They won't forget about us for long..and they can always decide to hate us all over again before they do remem- rememb- rember u AHHH us.”

Arcadia doubled over, clutching her chest. Once more her deep green eyes were narrowing into draconic/feline-like slits, and this time it did not subside. The young slayer fell to her hands and knees, slowly growing covered in ice. Quite the inopportune time for an acute surge of new magic through her, but now hyperactive Dragon Seed could consider the best time.

The Vulcans were luckily still trying to figure out what was happening, the memories of their attackers temporarily masked from conscious thought in metaphorical shadow.

Target Word Count Reached

Lineage:

UA's:

Health: 500
Magic Power: 600

Spells

Refraction, Duration 1/1
Shadow Puppets, Duration 1/3
Ice Dragon Frozen Claws, Duration 1/2
Ice Dragon Roar, Duration 1/1
Cerebral Eclipse, Duration 1/5

Magic Power: 480

Target Word Court Reached.

Arcadia as Ice Dragon Wyrmling:

Arcadia screamed, her body soon covered completely in ice... No covered was the wrong word. Her whole body had turned to ice, inside and out, as light shone through in place the way it only would through pure ice. The ice form continued to grow, taking on the shape of dragon wyrmling, no bigger than an average draft horse. A light cloudless flurry of snow began to fall around the immediate area as Arcadia completed her transformation.

Gone were the sparkling and intelligent faerielike green eyes, replaced by dead, feral eyes of ice. The transformed slayer spread her icy wings and roared at the Vulcans just now getting to their feet. Arcadia's shadow clones were left frozen with the last conscious command sent to them, which left them kneeling and hiding in the bushes. There was no spark of recognition in Arcadia's feral gaze when she turned to glance at Nessa. It was the Vulcans' movement that drew her attention away, and sprung the ice wyrmling to return to the fight.

She took to the wing and roared another whirling torrent of freezing mist and razor ice shards. The roar no more powerful than the last. Arcadia dove down from the twenty freet she had risen to hit the weakest of the three. The bulk and strength of her icy transformation knocked her target Vulcan to the ground, and she finished it off with a savage bite to its throat.

There were still two Vulcans remaining, however, who began to pound on the ice dragon wyrmling with all their pent up fury. Arcadia growled, turning her icy draconic head to seize hold of one Vulcan arm in her jaws, flipping the ape off her back and partly rolling across the clearing. The other remaining Vulcan tried to grapple the horse sized ice dragon.

Maybe the only good news was there was some separation between the two remaining Vulcans.

Target Word Court Reached.

The feral ice dragon growled, and it would seem the Vulcan had the upper hand. After all as badly wounded as the Vulcan was, he had the wyrmling locked around the chest and held off her forelegs. In truth, the two were locked in a stalemate.  The Vulcan could not afford to adjust his grip, because Arcadia  would come close to whipping her deadly jaws around on the Vulcan anytime he tried. As long as the Vulcan held her locked around the chest, the ice wyrmling couldn't get her icy teeth into any part of the ape.

It was something of a titanic struggle, as it seemed the first one to tire would be the one to lose. The Vulcan slowly shifted its feet, slowly turning itself and Arcadia around. The ice wyrmling growled in feral frustration, finally thrashing her wing and tail. She managed to knock the Vulcan off balance and backwards. Together they fell backward, with Arcadia rolling over to go for the Vulcan's throat. It's massive hands  catching her jaws before they  could clamp down.

Their struggle resumed, though the odds massively shifted in Arcadia's favor, it seemed almost inevitable that she would  close her  deadly icy jaws around the Vulcan's throat. The Vulcan used a surge of desperation to roll to one side and throw the ice wyrmling off to crash sideways into a couple small trees. The angry ape was back up on his feet, and charging the wyrmling while she was vulnerable.  Without getting up, Arcadia inhaled and unleashed one more great roar of freezing mist and razor ice shards. The badly wounded Vulcan didn't make it three steps after being enveloped again the ice wyrmling's whirling roar. Rising back onto all fours, Arcadia closed in on the fallen Vulcan, and made doubly sure it wouldn't get up again with one more savage bite.

The savagery of the fight had been a keen contrast the gentle snowfall that continued around. In wintertime, the light snow it might be considered picturesque. None of the snowflakes lasted, melting the instant they hit the ground.  The fight could have gone so much differently too without Nessa gravely wounding the first one Arcadia took out, the ice wyrmling would have endured far more pounding of angry Vulcan fists for far longer.

Ordinarily, Arcadia would show much more gratitude to such an invaluable ally who likely saved her life. The wyrmling's icy eyes still held a dangerous, feral gleam. Nothing but pure animal instinct in them. She crouched low, ready to pounce, but too cautious to approach Nessa and the remaining Vulcan.  It would be difficult to gauge if the feral wyrmling wasready to pounce the Vulcan, Nessa or both.


Fortunately, the wyrmling was wary of  pouncing a wizard displaying the kind of power Nessa was. She growled and scented the air in Nessa's direction. Those wild icy eyes briefly cleared into Arcadia's usual faerie green, and the wyrmling's entire feral demeanor faded briefly with that subtle shift.  Arcadia's young voice sounded from the ice wyrmling's maw, sounding scared, ”B-b-big sister....what's going on?”

The wyrmling flinched, the moment of clarity in her eyes fading along with the faerie green being once more supplanted by a pure feral icy glint.  The feral wyrmling hunched its shoulders and poised its wings, once more ready to pounce.


Target Word Count Reached

Target Word Court Reached.

Watching the Vulcans sink and be swallowed up by the earth, the feral ice wyrmling was startled back a few steps. Her dull icy gaze focused bacck on Nessa and she opened her wings in full to make herself seem that much bigger with warning hiss.

The local weather slowly began to reflect the ice wyrmling's prolonged agitation, for now it was just a small gathering of clouds where it was already snowing. A brief gust swirled the  drifting snow about, a light dusting beginning to stick around the trees and forest floor around the wyrmling.

She keenly listened to Nessa as she cautiously circled around a few paces. The sound of Nessa's voice stirred another moment of recognition in the wyrmling's dull eyes. Still listening, the ice wyrmling stalked toward her friend.  She scented the air before dropping her head.

The gather clouds began to clear away, the area's previously more mild climate reasserting itself, except for a gntle snowfall remained with or without clouds. None of the new snow  was added to the light dusting of snow.  Arcadia folded her icy wings, raising her head with the faerie green of her eyes now  more solidly in place.

The oldest of the three sisters that had been taken by the Vulcans, shepherded her two younger sisters on out of the cave the Vulcans had been found in front of. After everything they'd been through and just watched from the cover of the cave, were looking understandably pretty freaked out.  The eldest sister looked on over to Nessa, “Th-thanks you for saving us.. Ithink it's best if I get my sisters out of here. We'll be heading straight back to town.”  The eldest sister looked on at Arcadia, and hurried her younger sisters on back toward Magnolia.

Arcadia  opened her icy maw to say something, but she decided it was better to let the three sisters go. She again hung her head before lifting her faerie green gaze back to Nessa, ”Th-..” The horse-sized wyrmling lowered her body of living ice to the ground, curling her legs  up under herself. ”thankyou... I .. I can't  believe I almost.... I.. shoulda known... but it was like... watching myself from so far away. But.. I h-heard your voice and followed your scent back.

The young wyrmling laid her head down on the ground, continuing to calm herself down to maintani control. ”It's gotten worse way faster than I coulda thought. My dragonifcation isn't supposed to happen like this.  Not this fast.  I- I can't turn into the same kinda monster Acnologia did!  And I almost j-just did...”

Tears ran down her icy cheeks, I don't know if I'm strong enough to fight this. Not by myself.. I... don't think I could've found my way back without you here even this time... but... I can't ask you to help. N-not until  I show you... This is not the first time.”

The little wyrmling lifted her head, focusing deep green gaze back on Nessa, fear quicking through her voice still as she tried to explain, ”I don't know about dragon slayers that came about after Dragonof, but those of us taught by the dragons then... we all slowly turn to dragons from our magic. That's what turned Acnologia into the monster that betrayed me and my Mom. I... I've thought I would be stronger than that weak-willed traitor...but now I don't know. I've never been turned dragon before..but I've felt...that wild push before. When I first woke up in this future... Th-thats what I need to show you.”

Arcadia  glanced around the forest, ”We might get there in a few hours if we fly It's back where Dragnof once stood. I.. I can probably give you a ride there, or if you prefer maybe one of your Valkyries could fly you there with me.”  Arcadia stayed low to allow Nessa to climb on her back or summon a Valkyrie ride, if she agreed to go.



Target Word Count Reached

Target Word Court Reached.

Arcadia rose gently, tensing before leaping upward, and spreading her icy wings. She beats them to power her way up into the clear sky. The gentle snowfall travels with the ice wyrmling and her rider. The trees of the East Forest quickly fall away as the little dragon climbs in altitude.  She circles  around, climbing until the border between forest and Magnolia comes into view. All the streets and buildings and the geometric patchwork of the surrounding farmland blending together.

Assured she was a high enough to more easily navigate around mountains she would come across, Arcadia set off toward the east of Magnolia in general. Only have a general idea of where her home lay from Magnolia, Arcadia's flight path as not a straight one as she navigated from landmark to landmark, sometimes veering more north than east and sometimes more south.

Landing once or twice tor est or let her rider stretch, three or four hour flight time had changed the ground below greatly. Their flight had lead up  through some rather rugged mountains with the forest turning completely alpine. Some of the peaks though force Arcadia to climb higher still as her flight path possibly carries her far enough east to leave the relative safety of Fiore's eastern borders behind. For a brief time, the flight passes over peaks capped year-round in snow well above the tree-line.

The rugged mountains dropped swiftly away onto a high vast and relatively flat plain. A few trees dot the high plain, but Arcadia banked to follow the edge of the rugged mountains until they began to curl around the plain.. A place where the plain began to give way to forested hills.  It is here where  something  that was only visible from such a high bird's eye view become visible. The ice dragon began to circle above,  as from this vantage point one could make out the scarred outline of an ancient city far below. A city once called Dragnof. From the ground, it would be easy to miss, unles you happened to come across one of the few ruined towers that poked above the earth. The rest of the ancient city lay buried. On the far side of the city where forest rose back up into the curling arms of the mountains lay a large glacier.  

Arcadia began to circle on around, spiraling back to the ground. As the glacier drew closer, despite being worn by time and clearly  having been partially quarried, it very much resembled a dragon made entirely of ice ice that doesn't melt much like the ice wyrmling Acadia now was only  full size, dwarfing many of the trees around it.  Seeing the outline of her old home from above, the younger mage choked up. There other remains of dragons  that could be made out from these heights among the hidden ruins.

The ice wyrmling bobbed her head toward the terrain below, ”I guess... this is where I grew up... Dragnof. Or what's left of it. That large glacier down there... was my mom.”

She swooped down and pulled  up into a gentle landing at the foot of the glacier. If Arcadia was not there to point out the features of her mother's wings, legs and partially demolished face it would be easy to dismiss the glacier as a naturally occurring thing despite the lack of snow around it. The gentle snowfall followed the wyrmling on down to the ground, and only ceased when Arcadia managed to resume her human shape. She did wait to drop Nessa off back to the ground.  

The snowfall cleared up as soon as Arcadia was her usual self again, the ears in her faerie green eyes did not. “Hi, Mom... I brought a friend. You'd like her. This is Nessa.” Wiping her eyes dry on her forearm, she turned back to the older mage, ”I'm kinda glad to bring someone from this future to see my old home, but that's not why we came.”

Arcadia's waterworks wouldn't turn of despite her fight to stop them. “I'm afraid you and Aven...  or the Fairy Tail won't want me around after this, because from what I can tell everyone in my new home and family are the kid of good people don't kill or anything horrible like that. But over here is what's left of camp of treasure hunters... and I killed them.  All of them.”

The young mage lead the way to a part of the glacier where a relatively recent encampment lay buried under a landslide of quarried dragon glacier ice. A tearful young slayer turned back to Nessa, using her shadow clone magic to recreate the story she was about to narrate in miniaturized scale. ”I think I've told you a little about how Acnologia betrayed my mom and me.  See Dragnof was proof dragons and humans could as equals. Acnologia was one of the first and best slayers  and a hero in our war against the dragons who wanted to keep dragons as the only rulers of all Ishgar. So he was my hero, 'cuz I wanted to be just like him fighting for mom and Dragnof.

The Kingdom and City of Dragnof lived again in miniature on the ground through her shadow magic. The view from the approach above recreated as Dragnof grew from ruin while she narrated the set up. A great, gleaming walled city that stretched far with farmland that stretched even further beyond the walls.

The scene zoomed in onto where they now stood, what had been a great tree-filled park on the walled city's south side. Among the trees the great ice dragon, Khione Glacier walked again dwarfing the miniaturized Arcadia. The view zoomed in on the little speck, training against stacks of rocks with faces painted on them. ”My mom would often train me here. It was big  park then, a lot South Gate Park really.”

The mini-shadow-Arcadia quickly hugged the shadow recreation of her foster mother's leg, before she was lovingly coaxed to focus back one the makeshift combat dummy of stacked stones. Using her frozen breath and her bare fists and feet, the mini-Arcadia pummeled on the stack until it finally crumbled into a pile of smaller stones. Mini-Arcadia looked quite proud of herself when she finally triumphed over her immobile foe.  ”It was a very normal day, until Ancologia showed up in the park. I had heard the rumors that was turning against even the dragons who taught him, but I didn't really believe them... so I was pretty excited  to see my hero had come to visit me and my mom. But Khione Glacier... probably sensed he was not here for a social visit, because she sent me to wait in my little hut, telling me to wait until she called me over.”

Like Nessa had seen back at the beach fair, the figure of Acnologia, walked in miniature out onto the grassy field Arcadia was training on in the park. Mini-Arcadia started to rush excitedly toward her hero when Khione Glacier silently cautioned mini-Arcadia to stay back, and as narrated she went back to a small hut at the edge of the grassy clearing.  The great dragon of ice walked out to meet the man, each exchanging words  that can only be guessed before combat launched the two ever higher into the air over the park. Arcadia's foster mom had the seeming opening advantage, but Acnologia prolonged the fight until he had placed spell circles all over the great ice dragon, and activated them just as Khione Glacier was about to get what would have been a fatal bite. The circles activated ripping the great dragon's soul from her body, sending her hurtling back down to the park below. Anologia had transformed into his terrifying dragon form by the time the two crashed back into the ground. Mini-Arcadia rushed out of her hut, roaring ice and frozen mist to no affect on  her transformed and one-time child hood hero.

Ancologia looked surprised that someone else was there at all, and before he could crush the mini-Arcadia, her mother used the last of her magic and life energy to shove the traitor off of her, and cast an  ancient protective spell over her foster daughter. The gold light filled the miniaturized scene and left a miniaturized scene of the way the park now stood, forested right up to the foot of the Everlasting Glacier that had been Arcadia's mother in life. ”Except my mom never called me over. Acnologia attacked her, and they fought up into the sky, and at first I thought Mom was gonna win. But he pulled some trick that I swear tore her soul free.. Then with whatever she had left, Mom cast that ancient spell Sphere on me. I guess  I'm telling you this all again, so you hopefully don't hate me so much when I tell you why I killed those treasure hunters.”

The miniaturized shadow scene zeroed in on the treasure hunter encampment as it looked before being buried. In one tent, Mini-Arcadia sat with her arms tied behind her back and ankles bound together. ”I'm sure they're the ones who found me when my mom's Sphere spell finally wore off, because when I woke up, I was already tied up in one of their tents.  They were here cutting parts of my mom into small blocks of ice... ice that never melts is kinda valuable I guess. But that's MY mom and they were desecrating her to sell jewel.  Plus, no matter how much time had actually gone by, it only felt like mere moments to me... so I was sure these were Acnologia's allies come to divide their spoils. The fact Dragnof was missing made me more certain they were. And they only laughed when I begged them not to cut my mother's ice up. That was the first time I felt that wild...push me. And I listened..so when they went to bed that night, I managed to break the ropes binding my arms, and suck up the glacier. They'd stacked the blocks they had cut from up higher just above their camp to be brought down the next day. I made sure  Mom got  revenge for their desecration, tipping the tacked ice until to came crashing down on their camp.”

As illustration, the shadow miniature of the Treasure Hunter encampment was crushed under a landslide of quarried ice blocks. Hanging her head, Arcadia dismisses her shadowy visual back to the shadows, ”I went down and made sure they were all dead, so they could go back and tell anyone else about what they found here. They're notes told me they'd been following legend of a glacier that never melted for years...so I destroyed all their notes, and hoped no one would come looking for them or know where to look. I... I took one block of ice with me..one of my mom's eyes...in case I failed.. I wanted to make sure I could give some part of her rest that would never be disturbed... that..that's still in my room at Fairy Hills. But the worst part is... even if  that feral drive hadn't started me on all of that I'm sure I'd do it all again. There's no way I'd let anyone desecrate my mother's final resting place just so some nobles can have a few ice cubes that never melt.”

The younger mage finally reaches the point she has been driving to, dabbing at her faerie green eyes and looking up, pleading to Nessa,”That's why.. I have to tell you this now. If this feral thing gets much worse, that I could do something that terrible without any provocation or any need to rationalize. I need my third family...you.. to keep that from happening. Please don't let them throw me out of Fairy Tail. I know if anyone else had done..anything like this... I wouldn't have any right to condemn them. Not when things aren't always so clear cut. I just hope...you and Aven and Master Sorano all feel the same way. I might not pull back the next time without you in my corner.”



Total Word Count Reached

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Arcadia squeezed the older mage in return, Nessa's sisterly care and concern greatly easing the young slayer's upset. She tried to dry her faerie green gaze on the back of one hand when Nessa backed up, and began sharing a side to Fairy Tail the young slayer never would've dreamed. The way the friend's she'd made on the Rune Knights regarded it and the other independent guilds versus ones with legal status should've been a clue.

It wasn't because Fairy Tail didn't know the secret handshake to be on the Magic Council's good list. A girl with no control..a girl Arcadia could not help but wonder if she was about to be putting her third family through all again. Listening longer to Nessa though, new tears trickled down her fair cheeks. These were quiet tears of joy and relief. ”Th-they have? Sweet. uh..that's not what I meant. It's not good that they've killed... it's not good that I did. It's just... I was so scared. Scared to lose my new family. I don't think you get that many chances to find what you can call family. Third is the charm though, right?” She offered a hopeful smile.

Fairy Tail, Third Family, at her back she would not be the second girl with no control, because already she could feel the resolve infuse itself in her through her very breath. The young slayer bowed deeply to Nessa, ”I swear I won't waste... this third chance. I'm sure Acnologia's weakness was... he did not have the friends or family I somehow found... and will need, especially when it gets stronger.

Arcadia relieved, but drained, found a rough old stone not far from the ice slide. She settled to sit on the edge, curiously running her hand over the worn edges. “I don't think I noticed how much this block or any of this place resembled what used to be buildings or my old home when I first woke up.”[/color][/i] She glanced around the wilderness that had clearly reclaimed her old home for ages. ”Did you find out what happened to that girl? Or how Fairy Tail managed to... avoid being forgotten... like this? I like to think that whatever happened after... he turned against us, that a whole kingdom of dragons and people had a never give up spirit too, but Fairy Tail clearly made it back and Dragnof is dust. Maybe sometimes fighting isn't enough... I dunno what I'm saying, but I'm glad Fairy Tail made it through all that. I dunno where else I would go. I doubt I could repay Fairy Tail for everything its given me, but I will try.”



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Arcadia sniffed and rubbed her faerie green eyes dry one more time. She took a deep breath, and rose back to her feet. The young slayer took a slow look around, "I pretty glad they did too. By all rights, I should be dust with the rest of these ruins. Though I hope I never meet that girl. That is if she still lives."

She rose from the rough, old block of stone, stretching out her arms and back. Smiling to the older wizard, she gave a quick hug in thanks. "Thank you. Thank you, big sister. For coming here with me, for sharing all of... that. I do wonder how I've not had some last of that story before from residents of Magnolia. Fairy Tail going dark sounds like a big deal. But... that's not really important."

The pale blonde slayer took one more look around at her old home. "Never thought I'd get back here so soon. That's why I took one small chunk... of my mom that the treasure hunters had quarried... an eyes. I took with me to make sure I could find at least one place she could rest in peace some day It's still in my room at Fairy Hills."

Her faerie green gaze came to rest back on the bulk of the glacier that remained intact, "I think she would've really liked you." She went to pick a bunch of wildflowers, and laid them at the base of the great glacier. The young girl hugged part of the glacier recognizable as a large foot, "Seeya back at home, Mom. Hmm and maybe back here now that it's not a weeks long journey on foot."

Arcadia turned back to Nessa, "Let's go back home, and... would you mind getting us there? Not sure I'm ready to voluntarily turn myself dragon."


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