A Foot in Darkness and Light

The morning was certainly off to a rather unorthodox start. Saffron had mustered for training as usual, annoyed to be up so early when she was a civilian and no longer a soldier, but present nonetheless. Vandrad was there to greet her at the training room as usual to begin the day. In the months since she’d come to Fairy Tail, the blonde had found herself a mentor surprisingly quickly in the older, grumpier man. He knew what her magic was, or at least the type of energy, and had been the only one in her whole life so far that had been able to truly set her on a path of learning to control her abilities. Not just control, but grow. So while she almost always presented herself on the lazy and sarcastic side of things, her actions had proven themselves to far overshadow her words, betraying the woman as being much more hardworking and determined than her attitude would otherwise suggest.

It had allowed for quite the working relationship between the two of them, with Vandrad being an exceptional teacher despite his more anti-social mannerisms, and Saffron being a surprisingly willing and attentive learner almost in spite of her blasé temperament. Vandrad was relentless with the workout schedule, which honestly drove Saffron up a wall some days, but day after day she continued to show up regardless. So it was a surprise, then, when she shuffled her feet into the room with a wide yawn only to find that Mercury and Mura were missing and only Vandrad waited within. The ace wasted no time in informing her that there was a change in lesson plans for the day, which was more than a little odd, but if it shook up the routine a little Saffron was happy to go with it.

An hour later she was waiting for him at the front desk, and soon they were boarding a train with Vandrad giving her very little by way of explanation. And Saffron had tried to get more details out of him about this mysterious little field trip he was taking her on, but the shorter man had simply told her she would know what she needed to know once they got where they were going. Rolling her eyes only a little, she accepted that she wasn’t going to get any more information and instead just enjoyed the relaxing ride into Hargeon. Vandrad led her through some of the back alleys of the city once they arrived before bringing them up a staircase and onto a rooftop. Her purple eyes narrowed in thought toward the odd set up that awaited them there, her keen observation already picking up on what had clearly been set up as a vantage spot for people to look down from the space without being easily seen by anyone else around like some kind of sniper’s nest.

Still, she remained silent even as Vandrad pointed toward the spot where he wanted her to sit, a set of binoculars waiting for her. Putting the lenses to her eyes, Saffron looked across the way to see an older lady working on a beautiful garden, the woman elderly enough to certainly be a grandmother. Why this woman was so important to spy on was beyond her, but her mentor would leave very little to mystery about it. He informed her plainly that the woman was about to be assassinated by a member of their own guild. Saffron frowned in confusion, pulling the binocular away to look at Vandrad as he explained that Saffron wouldn’t recognize the guild member due to their disguise, but they had been hired by a member of the competition that the woman regularly competed in – and won – to take her out of the game once and for all.

It was then that he revealed to her that their guild was not entirely what it seemed to be on the surface, and was in fact a mercenary guild at its heart. While there was a side to their operations that was perfectly legal and innocent, there was an entire other sect within the guild that pulled decidedly darker missions that the rest of the guild wasn’t even aware of. Vandrad freely admitted that he wasn’t particularly keen on this aspect of the guild’s operations, seeing no purpose in it, but there were plenty of others within their ranks that did and he’d long since accepted it as part of their mission. They didn’t discuss such ventures with newer members like herself of course, out of concern for protecting the guild, but as Vandrad saw it she had earned enough trust and tenure to know the truth. As he saw it, she was no stranger to war and the atrocities that were present in everyday life, and knew that sometimes bad things just happened and that was just how the world operated. So her instructions were simple: to merely sit and watch as the woman was killed, doing nothing to interfere with the operation, and in so doing proving her loyalty to the guild as a trustworthy member.

She sat there for a long moment just staring at him, her emotions at war within her as she processed what was happening and what he was tasking her to do. In the end her military training took over and her feelings practically shut down entirely as she slowly turned away from him with a slight frown and put the binoculars to her eyes once more. Saffron was remarkably numb and emotionless through the entire ordeal, dutifully watching as the act was played out before her eyes, the woman laying dead in her garden with a small river of her blood watering the foliage. Only once the Fairy Tail assassin was gone did she finally set the binoculars gently down, her careful and precise body language a stark contrast to the emotional turmoil that had stoked back to life within her once everything was said and done.

His own abilities allowed him to sense what she was feeling, though in truth that wasn’t necessary. Though Saffron’s eyes didn’t change color with every fleeting emotion that passed through her, they did flicker with different colors whenever she was feeling a particularly strong emotion. Usually it was red when she was angry or frustrated, but at the moment something new had occurred. Or at least, new to the prince’s experience. There was a ring of red toward the center of her eyes betraying her anger, but the rest of her irises were a new color that he would not have seen yet: green. From his senses he would easily be able to surmise that this was the color of intense disgust. She refused to look at him, sitting in tense, wordless silence as she processed the event and did her best to keep from exploding.

If Saffron took note of the uncharacteristically soft tone of the prince’s voice, she didn’t show it, whether by her own expression or her inner feelings. She remained as stoic as ever as Vandrad explained that the guidelines for their guild required that this rite of passage be done through a more involved manner than merely telling someone that the guild housed assassins. It was one thing to be told and another entirely to experience, and to a point Saffron truly did understand that. It wasn’t just about the newer recruit knowing; it was also about testing them to see if they could be trusted with the knowledge. Saffron may go through life with the cavalier and carefree attitude of a rebel without a cause, but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew that how she reacted here would likely define not just her future with the guild but whether or not she walked away from this encounter alive. After all, what option would Vandrad have if she refused to accept these new rules except to kill her to prevent her from becoming a risk of exposure?

But despite her anger, she remained silent and listened as Vandrad continued on to speak of his own trial, when Mura had revealed this darker side of the guild to him. Supposedly there had been a former member that had gone rogue and had her sights set on bringing the guild down, and by the end of it their guild master had tasked Vandrad with ending the woman’s life himself. Vandrad had done so without question, admitting outright that killing wasn’t something he was overly bothered with thanks to his time in the army with Bellum. However, he had decided in that moment that the way Mura had set his trial was not the way that Vandrad himself planned on bringing others into the fold, should such a task ever befall him. He assured her it had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in her, her abilities, or her experiences. Simply put, he just saw it as unfair to put someone in that kind of position without giving them the chance to understand the choice before them. It maybe wasn’t how Mura would have wanted something like this to be done, but Vandrad had made an executive decision and was sticking to it, regardless. He only hoped she would understand, even if she despised him for it.

“I’m not upset with you,” she told him, finally speaking up with an irritated snap, though true to her words her ire would not seem to be directed at him. He was just doing his job. “I’m not a child. I may not have known much about the world beyond Bosco before I left, but it’s not hard to do a little research. I know that Fairy Tail used to be a dark guild and that their reputation with the Council is iffy at best these days. Only a moron would think that all the things that earned them that black mark are gone just because they aren’t viewed as an active threat anymore. That’s not what’s bothering me.”

Finally turning in her chair to look him in the eyes, she gestured aggressively to what remained of the crime scene before them. “What was the fucking point of that?” Saffron demanded to know. “I don’t claim to be an assassin, but I was in the military. I know how the world works. Sometimes people are paid to kill other people, whether rightly or wrongly, and I can live with that. There’s all kinds of dumb shit like war and politics and economic strife and all other manner of quality of life bullshit that people fight and die for all the time. But that?”

“Some wrinkly old self-entitled hag was annoyed that someone was better than her at gardening, and for that this woman had to die? That’s stupid. In fact, it’s more than just stupid; it’s insane. I can get behind being part of a group of contract killers, but couldn’t we at least have some fucking standards?  At least in your trial, the woman you had to kill had it out for the guild. You were defending your comrades. But this? I mean, what was this even worth? What was the point?” With a barely contained growl – despite everything, she was making a conscious effort to keep her voice down so they wouldn’t be noticed – Saffron turned forward in her seat again and crossed her arms tight over her chest in aggravation.

Finally, after a moment she sighed, still angry but also a bit dejected. “When I joined the Defense Force, I knew I’d wind up having to kill someone eventually. And I knew that if and when I killed someone, they weren’t necessarily going to be outright evil, malicious villains whose deaths were justified. They were going to be people like me, people with homes and families that they were trying to protect and return to, people that just thought that what they were doing was right in situations where half the time there is no right or wrong; just victory and defeat, and the power to control the narrative once all is said and done. But all that was still in the name of something meaningful and impactful. This was just… stupid.”

He let her speak her mind unimpeded, allowing the blonde haired woman to get her frustrated thoughts and emotions off her chest. When she finally finished speaking, there was a long moment of silence as he considered her words before he gave her his reply, his voice still as soft and patient as it had been before. He told her that there was nothing meaningful or impactful about war, no matter how one spun it. People were simply creations of chaos and violence was their default nature. According to him, there was no telling the truth behind any action taken. All they would ever see were the surface details, and while that may appear shallow to those on the outside, the unseen details could be far more complex than they appeared – not just for those who hired Fairy Tail mercenaries to kill people, but also for the mercenaries themselves.

Saffron didn’t even bother trying to hide her rolling eyes as he suggested that the person who had hired them to kill this gardener may have done so for reasons that ran far deeper than either of them understood, but to her credit she did continue to listen to what he was telling her and did not appear to be brushing him off. And she was truthfully surprised when he openly admitted that he… agreed with her. It was then and only then that her gaze flicked back to him, some of the color draining from her eyes as her temper began to fade, the natural violet hue of her irises returning to their normal form. The simple fact was, Fairy Tail never knew all the facts of any contract they took on, and they never would. That was just part of the business, and as much as Saffron hated it she did understand that. Frankly, it wasn’t much different from being in the military. She had to take orders all the time that she didn’t necessarily understand or agree with, and aside from a few bumps here and there she had done her duty as asked, regardless of the lack of information.

The point remained that not everyone held the same standards that the two of them shared, and at its core Fairy Tail’s main goal was to be a welcoming home and safe haven to all individuals, no matter their backgrounds. She didn’t need to be happy with it, but she did need to accept it as he had. Saffron regarded him silently for a long moment before her eyes trailed slowly away once more. She considered his words carefully for some time, knowing that he was going to need an answer from her before the trial was over as to where she would stand, and she refused to give him an answer without thinking it over thoroughly and being honest about her decision, both to him and to herself.

Eventually, her posture relaxed somewhat with resignation, her body loosening as she shook her head. “Fine,” the young woman told him, her tone more amenable than the single word would otherwise suggest in nearly every other circumstance. “I don’t like it, but… I’m not going to argue it either. It is what it is, and as long as it doesn’t affect me I can live with it. Just don’t expect me to participate any time soon. At least, not for something like this.” She nodded to the crime scene where the old woman’s corpse was still resting in her once prized garden, yet to be discovered by authorities for presumably several hours. Saffron wasn’t going to close the door entirely on being paid to kill someone, but even if she couldn’t expect the entirety of the guild to hold herself to her own standards, she could and would hold herself to them.

There was another significant span of silence where her mind was turning over his words. A new emotional turmoil was simmering quietly within her, this one different than before. Some anger, yes, but primarily it was more along the lines of sorrow. Without really realizing what she was doing, Saffron had disentangled one of her arms from her chest, holding the robotic limb before her gaze and looking at it with a somber countenance. “Do you really think that it was all meaningless…?” she asked him quietly, her purple eyes taking on a noticeably more blue tint. The Bosconian had sacrificed her arm, nearly her life, to take a stand in a dispute that didn’t even involve her own country, knowing that the outcome of the skirmish between Bellum and Pergrande would affect far more than just the two primary nations. She had killed people, robbed them of their lives and the chance to return to their loved ones, all under the conviction that they were at least fighting for something important. And yet here he was, a noble to the very nation that she had almost died to support, implying that all of it had been for nothing.

It was strange. When Saffron had first returned home from the skirmish between Bellum and Pergrande, and had been told by the medics that no amount of healing, magical or otherwise, would be enough to restore the limb she had lost, the young woman had sunk into an extremely deep depression. Fighting was the one thing she was good at, and her strongest skills fell in line with things like boxing, cage fighting… the general use of her arms. She was a proud and confident woman that loved to be in shape and even intimidate some men with her brawn and muscles, but all of that had come crashing down after she’d lost her limb and survived only by sheer, dumb luck.

The blonde had been honorably discharged from the military and sent back home to her parents where she had shut herself up in her room for months. The few times she did show her face, she really only came out to eat or silently do chores, maybe watch a show or two on the lacrivision. But everything she did felt numb. She’d just been going through the motions, consumed by self pity and dejection as her life felt like it had lost all purpose and meaning and fulfillment. It had been hard on her, and even when she had received the prosthetic limb that she now wore the only thing she could do as she stared at the robot limb was wonder: What was the point? Sure it would give her some mobility and independence back, but it was never going to be the same as what she once had, at what she had taken for granted her entire life thus far.

A while she had taken great strides in moving past her injury, eventually forcing herself to move forward and stop being such a baby, that didn’t mean it wasn’t something she still struggled with. Oh, she loved her synthetic arm. Once she had finally worked up the courage to put it on and start getting used to it she started to realize that in a way she was more capable with the robotic limb than she ever would have been with her original one. It was a beautifully crafted piece of technology, and by now it felt so natural to her that at times she forgot that she was technically an amputee. But the kind of trauma that she endured would never simply go away, and while most days were easier to cope with what had happened now that a significant amount of time had passed, even now she realized she still had moments of weakness and insecurity about it, triggered by his implication – whether intentional or not – that what she had gone through held no meaning.

With a soft sigh she heard him reply with a gentle but resolute “no” in answer to her question. More than that, he apologized for what he had said, claiming that it had been unnecessarily disrespectful over a serious matter that should not be brushed off as lightly as he had done. Saffron listened as he explained that the fight they had both participated in did have meaning: to try and stop things from getting out of hand to the point where far more than just the people of Bellum and Pergrande would be affected. Instead, where his comment had come from and what it had been aimed at were those politicians and oligarchs that operated behind the scenes, putting the lives of everyone but themselves on the line to solve their petty squabbles. By this point in his life, Vandrad had been exposed to so much violence and warfare that he was fairly desensitized to it, but as he put it that did not give him an excuse to speak as arrogantly as he had.

Saffron sensed him looking at her and she instinctively drew her own gaze up to meet his eyes, her expression unreadable. The prince affirmed that they had fought to maintain balance, and that was important, he was merely concerned that the efforts that people like her put in would amount to nothing simply because the wars between people with money and power would never truly stop. Saffron didn’t even realize that she was absentmindedly rubbing the spot on her arm where the synthetic limb attached to what was left of her bicep as she thought his words over. But eventually, she gave him a soft nod. “I know what you mean.” Then, after another significant pause, she looked back up at him again, her eyes their natural violet hue. “Thank you.”

Several months later, Saffron was back in the training room at Fairy Tail getting a private workout in while she listened to some gym appropriate tunes. A great deal had happened since Vandrad had exposed her to the darker, more secretive parts of the guild. While Saffron had yet to participate in any mercenary activities since then, her new status within the guild allowed her certain privileges, including accessing certain areas of the guild hall that she had always known were restricted but she had simply assumed it was for the guild leaders; Mura, Vandrad and Akeya. And to be fair, that wasn’t entirely wrong, but she earnestly hadn’t a clue before then of the kind of operations that were taking place behind closed doors.

But frankly, that entire experience was nothing in comparison to the things that had happened more recently. Vandrad had been attacked and nearly killed. In the process his magical core had been completely destroyed, stripping him of his magic and leaving him barely more than a cripple. When Saffron had heard the news she honestly wasn’t sure how to process it. Since the day she had met Vandrad it was obvious that he was a man that took as much – if not more – pride in himself when it came to his fighting and strength. He was a bonafide slave driver when it came to training, waking up early every day to run her and Mura and even Mercury through the ropes. He had latched on to Saffron like a hawk the moment he saw someone that seemed as dedicated to staying in peak condition as he was. And Saffron moan and groaned and dragged her feet, but the truth was that her actions were more dedicated than her words, and it did not take her long to settle into the routine that had already been in place before she had joined up with the guild, and even if he was a bit prickly at times she did appreciate his efforts to train her and help her understand the magic that she had all but given up hope on ever learning to really control.

So it had shaken her to her core the first time she’d seen him after his attack, the blonde at a true loss for what to do or say. It was obvious how much it hurt and frustrated him, even if he didn’t say so out loud when Saffron was around. However, unlike how she had reacted when she’d been injured so long ago, Vandrad did not take long to start trying to get back on his feet, stubbornly determined to gain back what he had lost. Saffron wasn’t sure that he would ever really accomplish that. When Mercury had pulled her aside to explain the diagnosis, Vandrad’s fate seemed pretty set in stone, but all at once it dawned on her that whether or not he did get his abilities back wasn’t important. What mattered was that he was refusing to let this overwhelm and overcome him like she had done for so long after she’d lost her arm, and after all this time he had spent helping her she had realized it was her turn to return the favor.

That was why she had taken it upon herself to almost swap roles with Vandrad, making sure to be at the training room every morning to help him move at a steady and reasonable pace, monitoring to make sure he didn’t go too far while also making sure she was there to help challenge him to keep pressing forward. Given her own intimate experience with a crippling physical recovery, she could empathize with where he was coming from and did her best to give him the kind of support that he needed, the kind that matched his determination to grow and move past his obstacles without being pitied or treated like he was incapable of taking care of himself. It was going to be a long, long road to recovery. Longer even than hers had been by a long shot, but Saffron planned on stepping up to the plate to be there as much as he and his surprisingly newly engaged fiance needed.

Yet even that had come to a screeching halt far sooner than anyone had expected. Saffron was just starting to settle into the new routine when she’d wandered into the training room to find Vandrad wasn’t there. It had not taken her long to figure out something was up, and after contacting Mercury the Silver Wolf ace agreed that something was very, very wrong. And thus had begun the fruitless search for Vandrad that had turned into a full blown investigation. Saffron could have stayed out of it, really. She wasn’t all that involved in Vandrad’s personal life, truth be told, and while they had spent a great deal of time together over the last several months she had still viewed him as more of an authority figure rather than something like a friend. But it wasn’t her nature to just sit by and let others do the work. She had skills and training that would be useful, so once she learned from Mercury that they were running a multi-pronged search, Saffron didn’t hesitate to offer her assistance.

It was an offer that put her in a position to meet a lot of very powerful and important people very quickly. Before she knew it, she was face to face with Vandrad’s parents, including the infamous Ashen Dread – a woman that Saffron practically idolized just from the stories alone. Not only that, but she also met Serilda and Mythal, the leaders of the Rune Knights and two of the four Gods of Ishgar, who she had no idea was Vandrad’s adoptive brother and soon to be sister-in-law. She’d spent practically an entire week living at the du Wolff’s estate in Bellum with the prince’s family, keeping herself available to run missions with anyone that asked for her help and taking on whatever tasks were requested of her in the search. It had been a bit awkward at times to watch as time went on and the cracks began to show through the otherwise brave faces of his family as despair and hopelessness began to settle in. She felt more than a little out of place, given that she really wasn’t a part of the prince’s familiar inner circle. There were times that she kept to herself or stepped out of the room if she sensed that someone needed a moment to collect themselves, but otherwise she just coasted through as best she could. And to the credit of his family, they all made it very clear through the entire process how grateful they were for her efforts.

But then Mercury had been kidnapped as well, and that had only complicated matters further. Saffron had been stunned to silence when Gren and Themesycia had revealed the news to everyone, and it was at that point that the blonde was well and truly at a loss for what to do next. From there things only got more and more convoluted as it came out that Mercury wasn’t as human as she looked. Not only that, but apparently she wasn’t even native to Earthland at all but, much like Hosrius and Grubar, was from another planet entirely and supposedly under the thumb of some tyrannous group that had enslaved her people decades prior. Add to that other details she had gleaned from spending time with the du Wolffs and the rest of his family, things about gods and demons and secret societies and organizations…

Frankly, by the time Vandrad returned as mysteriously as he’d vanished, Saffron had simply stopped trying to understand everything that was going on around her and simply focused on just being there to do things when people asked. Whatever business all of them were mixed up it, it was clearly complicated and way over her head, and she didn’t want to get in anyone’s way to try and ask about it, so she just hung out until they needed her. Eventually, they had worked out a plan to get Mercury back and against all odds the kidnapped woman and the rest of her people were liberated from their servitude. Saffron had allowed herself a day to recover in Bellum with everyone else after the trip and battle across space, but she had still felt like the odd one out of the close knit circles. As such, she had taken her leave fairly quickly to head back to Fairy Tail and giving Vandrad’s family privacy in which to recover.

And that was where life currently found her: minding her own business in the training room, getting in her reps and passing the time with a decent workout as she tried for the millionth time not to think too much about all the weird shit she’d been exposed to within the last week and a half. Things were more or less settled back the way they should be, and that was all she needed to know.

The music was loud enough in her earbuds that she didn’t hear the door open and close to the training room. Saffron was completely oblivious to Vandrad stalled in the doorway even as she sat at one of the benches doing curls, the dumbbell in her hand rising and falling carefully with each rep as she bobbed her head to the tunes playing in her ears. It wasn’t until the man sent his bag across the room that she was finally alerted to the fact that someone had joined her, the blonde woman nearly jumping off the bench, somehow managing not to drop the weight in the process. Her neck snapped to look at him wide eyed and the moment she registered who it was she let go of the breath she’d been holding.

“Fucking hell, dude. You scared the shit out of me,” Saffron told him as she tugged the buds out of her ears. She was busy setting the dumbbell down when he posed his query. It was more of a comment, really. Blinking in confusion, she looked back up at him. “Uhh.. Well I’m a chick, so I feel like that comes with the territory.” It was right after that in which the intent of his words dawned on her, the realization obvious on her face as she glanced back down at the dumbbell for a moment in thought. “I mean, probably. I guess. I haven’t really thought about it all that much.”

Well, that sounded uncaring. With a sigh, she lugged the dumbbell back to the rack and shelved it. If he was in here talking to her and bringing this shit up, then it seemed likely that her workout was over, at least for the moment. “I mean, I’ve thought about it. Hard not to with all the shit that happened. But honestly it was all a bit… over my head?” Saffron wandered over to where her water bottle was and took a big swig to quench her thirst and buy herself a moment of thought.

“A lot of shit happened at once. I had a lot of information coming at me from all sides, and most of it I didn’t really have enough context to understand. After a while, a lot of it started to feel like things I shouldn’t know. I mean, in less than twenty four hours I found myself grouped up with a bunch of really important people that are a lot more powerful and influential than I am. Nobles and military leaders, Gods of Ishgar, members of super secret celestial hunting groups… Wasn’t exactly how I envisioned myself meeting and spending a week with one of my biggest idols.”

A dry smirk tugged on her lips and she shrugged lightly. “At some point I realized that everyone else was coming from a place I didn’t know anything about, and it was easier to just… sit back and stay out of the way until someone asked for my help and pointed me in a direction.” In truth, Saffron felt like she had helped very little during that hectic week. She was certainly a capable young woman, and she had plenty of confidence in herself, but there was no denying that in comparison to those whom she had been spending all that time with she was little more than an extra pair of hands. “I’ve got a lot of questions, sure. Enough that I wouldn’t really know where to start. But, it’s not really my business.”

Saffron would certainly ask questions if he felt like indulging her, but it was obvious that she didn’t feel like she was owed answers. As such, she wasn’t going to press her luck or pry without a true invitation. For all she knew, this was just him trying to be polite about personal things he didn’t really want to talk about but felt obligated to acknowledge. She moved back over to the bench and sat down, electing to treat this as a break. After a moment, she looked up at him quietly, choosing to meet his eyes in an effort to convey her sincerity as she spoke up again. “I am glad you seem to be back in shape, though. I don’t know what the hell happened to you or where you were, but you’ve got your magic back and you’re walking around without any trouble. I understand what a relief that must be, and I’m happy for you.”

Then, after a moment, “I’m also definitely taking full credit for it, since I’m clearly a massage therapy prodigy.” Saffron grinned up at him, breaking the tension with a bit of humor and taking another sip of her water. A bit of sobriety returned to her after that as she gently asked, “How’s Mercury holding up? And all of her people?”

“Hey, you said it. Not me.” Saffron tossed him a slight smirk as he chastised her only to turn things around on himself and teasingly point out his own hypocrisy about not being on one’s guard.

From there, the conversation took a somewhat more serious turn as Saffron voiced her thoughts regarding the last few weeks of events, with the blonde more or less admitting that she had simply done her best to be as available as possible without trespassing on ground where she didn’t belong. It had been an awkward and sometimes uncomfortable position to be in, but she was glad that she had done it. And frankly, she knew that everyone else was grateful too, as Vandrad’s family had been more than forthcoming with their appreciation toward her efforts during the time she’d been around. But once everything had more or less settled, Saffron had elected to leave rather than overstay her welcome in a time when the rest of them probably just needed to recover with one another.

At the end of her small speech she offered a slight subject change, asking about the wellbeing of Mercury had her people. The Silver Wolf ace was basically the only one that Saffron knew on a decent level going into things, and while Mercury had kept up a brave face for most of the time that Vandrad was missing and had never really seemed to lose her cool, all it took was a cursory glance for Saffron to recognize a woman that was throwing herself into the mission in order to stay focused and not drown in despair. And to everyone’s credit, no one called Mercury on it. Hell, nearly all of them were in the same boat. Out of everyone present, Saffron had the least emotional attachment to the situation, but that certainly didn’t mean that she didn’t care or wasn’t worried the whole time. She simply wasn’t a part of the inner circle, and thus her relationship with Vandrad was more superficial than what he had with the others.

Vandrad confirmed that the Xocili people were adapting, something that was sure to be a process for anyone that moved to a new location so far from home. That was wasn’t even including the decades of abuse and slavery they had endured at the hands of the Nazru. Surely, they would be recovering for a long time to come. Saffron nodded her head in understanding only for Vandrad to take his answer a step further. She frowned as he opened up to admit that there was something plaguing Mercury, something that she had not spoken to him about yet. Whatever it was, it was hurting her more than she was willing to express. It troubled Vandrad greatly, but he’d taken a stance to wait for her to come to him, not wishing to force the subject until she was ready to talk about it.

Saffron was quiet as she contemplated what he told her, her own thoughts twisting this way and that as she turned the information over in her mind. Truthfully, Saffron had always sensed something kind of dark about Mercury. The woman was friendly enough, and there was no denying that the two women got along remarkably well – even if Saffron wasn’t as blatantly flirtatious as Mercury was. But they both were very similar in personalities and mannerisms, and Saffron had enjoyed getting to know the woman through their regular workout sessions with Vandrad and Mura. That being said, it had never surpassed Saffron’s awareness that Mercury almost never talked about herself, at least nothing more than shallow surface details. In fact, Mercury was almost always disarmingly charming, keeping the focus on everyone else and often brushing off questions about herself and underplaying her abilities as a warrior. While Saffron hadn’t been in the military long enough to outright recognize the tactics of a well trained spy and assassin, she was smart enough to pick up context clues that had always made Mercury seem somewhat off to her, like there was something dark and dangerous bubbling beneath the surface of camaraderie that was otherwise there at all times. Now that she knew the truth of Mercury’s origins, the behaviors of course made much more sense and the knowledge of the alien’s history clicked a lot of things into place for Saffron.

However, that didn’t seem to be what Vandrad was talking about. Whatever was ailing Mercury, it seemed to be something other than the life long traumas and abuse that the lavender haired mage had endured all of her life; something fresh that had wounded her so deeply that even decades of desensitization and defense mechanisms weren’t enough to cover it completely. Before Saffron could finish forming enough thoughts on the matter to engage the subject fully, Vandrad turned to face her. He informed her that he was a private man, something of which Saffron was already acutely aware. The ace admitted that he had hidden much of his own life from her, not so much out of mistrust as simply conceding to the demands of his own defense mechanisms that he’d learned over the years of his life.

Yet it seemed that he wished to invite her in further, stating his feeling that she had done more for him than he’d ever expected anyone in the guild to do. More than she should have, or so he felt. And as far as he was concerned, there was little about her actions that could be read as mere duty to him as her mentor. Her actions had been that of a friend, and he was ready to treat her as such, offering her a chance to ask her questions and become more involved in the things that were going on in his life. Saffron may have felt like it wasn’t her place, but he had decided to make it her business rather than leave her feeling like an awkward fifth wheel.

She stared at him for a long time with an unreadable expression, the blonde’s brain scrambling to process this abrupt and unexpected change in the prince’s behavior. “Oh,” was her only dumbfounded reply. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful or didn’t appreciate the weight of what he was doing, nor was there any shred of her that didn’t feel similarly that they had transcended the former boundaries of their relationship with one another. Far from it, in fact. The simple fact of the matter was that this was new territory for the two of them, and a far cry from the normal and comfortable method of interactions they’d had with one another in the months since she’d joined Fairy Tail. The blonde was silent for a long time as she scratched the back of her head awkwardly and glanced aside in thought before finally leveling her gaze back at him.

“Alright, but if we’re doing this – and we’re doing this – let’s do it our way, yeah? I’m with you on an emotional level, but let’s face it: this is all becoming very sentimental and uncomfortable very quickly, and I don’t really know what to do with that. So can we at least like.. I don’t know, punch each other or something while we do this? Cause if we don’t get some sense of normalcy back in here, then I’m gonna wind up getting sentimental when all I came here for this morning were gains, and I don’t think we’re there quite yet. You get what I’m saying? Assuming, of course, that that old, crippled body of yours can keep up with a young whippersnapper such as myself.”

Neither of them were the most affectionate of people, at least not in the traditional sense. Yes, their friendship had grown stronger than either of them expected, and Saffron was all for letting that foster into something even stronger, but that didn’t mean that they had to stumble and tiptoe awkwardly around one another like middle schoolers experiencing their first foray into the baffling burdens and realities of adulthood. Presuming he was in favor of her proposed approach, Saffron would take one more swig from her water before setting the bottle aside and clearing the bench and other items out of the way so they could have some room to start a light spar.

Taking a stance with her fists raised in front of her face, Saffron started things off with a few moderate punches, not really looking for a test of strength with the man so much as a steady endurance workout that kept them both moving. “So I guess I’ll start with: What the hell happened? I only got vague information from what that other guy told your parents; Scorch or... Splurge... whatever the fuck his name was. All I took away from it was that you tried one time to work out without me there to yell at you about pushing yourself too far, and the universe punished you for it, and now I get to never let you live that down.” She smirked.

Oh yeah, this was much more comfortable territory. Vandrad stretched himself out with a few quick shakes of his limbs and a quip about the hypocrisy of Saffron calling anyone a cripple. A big grin crossed her face, not unlike the kind he saw from Mercury on a daily basis, and soon they were squared off and throwing jabs at each other at a comfortable pace. He corrected her misremembering of Scourge’s edgelord supreme name before admitting that he really wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. All he knew was that some mysterious force had taken over when he’d been trying to activate his magic and all hell had broken loose.

“I’m giving you the look, and you’re just gonna have to live with it,” she replied when he pre-emptively chastised her for the stink eye she gave him, the blonde deftly blocking the small handful of strikes he sent her way. From there the movements of her body drifted into autopilot as she listened to his story. Apparently whatever ability he’d activated, it had thrown him into another world. Specifically, the world his family had come from as the du Wolffs, much like Mercury and her people, were not originally from Earthland. Saffron was far too busy moving around the mat to put much effort into her facial expressions, but that was certainly something to ponder. It seemed that more and more of her friends were turning out to be extraterrestrial. How odd.

Unfortunately, life on his home planet was far from simple. The ruling body was strict and brutal, the prince having been arrested and thrown into an arena for whatever crime he had committed. But before then, they had at least done the respect of having him healed by a woman who turned out to be his aunt, and whatever magic she had it allowed her to completely heal all of his injuries, including the damage that had been done to his magical core. It still took some time for him to fully recover – several months in fact. She must have finally made a face then as he quickly explained to her that time on that planet didn’t move at the same rate as it did on Earthland, meaning that what had been merely a week for the rest of them had been months for him.

And things only got worse from there. He didn’t go too deep into details, but apparently the entire world had been in peril and it was only right when the entire place was about to go up in flames that he’d somehow managed to purposefully activate the same ability that had taken him away from Earthland in the first place. Through it, he’d returned both himself and what remained of his people to this world, saving them all just in time to learn that Mercury had been taken. “Yikes. No wonder you look so worn out. Or maybe that’s just the beard. Makes you look older. Not bad, mind you. Just older.”

Saffron could admit that Vandrad was a handsome man, and frankly she was a fan of facial hair on most men, but he was not her type. Way too old for her. And honestly, it weirded her out that Mercury was so into him when Mercury was the same age as Saffron – roughly half Vandrad’s age. “Yeah, it was pretty bad after Mercury got taken. That was honestly the last thing any of us expected. I mean, none of us knew what she was, of course. Save for your dad, apparently, but he didn’t know that she was a slave or that there was any possibility of someone coming after her. Though I guess that does explain why she went A.W.OL. for so long with training. I take it she was trying to keep her distance because the guy that kidnapped her had already shown up at some point?”

Presuming he confirmed that, she’d give a nod of understanding before throwing a series of jabs and a quick kick at him. “Honestly, I felt really bad for your family. It was hard enough for them when it was just you they were looking for. Once Mercury was taken, it was like the life had been taken out of them. Both of you were gone without any way for any of us to reach you. We all felt pretty useless and hopeless, and considering how strong most of them are it was obvious that they didn’t really know how to cope with that feeling. There’s nothing worse than just having to sit back and wait cause there’s nothing you can do.” Frankly, that had been one of the hardest things for her to witness, was watching all these people that greatly overshadowed be overwhelmed with helplessness. It wasn’t a pleasant sight to behold, and it had made her feel all the more useless at the time herself.

“So, you said that you brought the rest of your people back with you? I don’t remember seeing any of them when you came back. Your aunt must have some pretty powerful magic to have completely healed your magical core. But how did you wind up getting arrested? Did you try to pick a fight or something?”

A small snort released itself from Saffron’s nose. “If you wait for Mercury to have her fill of it, you’re going to be sporting the beard for the rest of your life.”

Vandrad confirmed that Khelben had been sent by the Nazru to spy on Mercury and make sure she was doing her job. As soon as Mercury had realized who the guy was, the alien had pushed Vandrad and most everyone else out of her life in an effort to try and protect them by making it seem like they meant less to her than they really did. Unfortunately, when Vandrad was attacked and nearly killed by Sabine she could no longer deny herself and chose to betray her masters and abandon her mission to return to his side. It was a story of love if there ever was one, and despite her outward mockery of all things lovey and cliche, Saffron was a romantic at heart. Her idea of romance just didn’t involve stupid archaic traditions and meaningless gestures meant to invoke more emotion than actual caring.

They didn’t linger on the topic. Instead they moved on to talk a bit more about where he had disappeared to and what had happened to him while Vandrad was gone. He explained that the Rhaegarians – his people – didn’t have magic. However, they had innate abilities that were synonymous with magic, each person having their own unique power that they referred to as Blood Markers. His aunt Cyrene’s Blood Marker was the ability to repair any and all bodily damages, even bringing someone back from the dead as long as she got to them within five minutes of their passing. And that, apparently, was how his magical core had been restored. Saffron raised her eyebrows, visibly impressed, but otherwise said nothing as he continued to answer her questions.

He wove her the tale of how the ruling family of Rhaegar had been tainted by greed and pride, as many in positions of power and authority were wont to do. It drew rebellion from the people let by a man that had allied himself with Vandrad’s grandfather. Unfortunately, when the time came to support his ally, Vandrad’s grandfather instead disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As far as Vandrad could put together, that was when his family had made the jump to Earthland, though there was no concrete evidence to confirm how or why. The rebel leader had perished because of it, leaving his son Xavier to carry on the mission in his absence. Xavier had been successful, but his rule began with grief and bitterness in his heart for the loss of his father, and it had corrupted him just as much as the greed of his fallen enemies. He blamed Vandrad’s family for the loss of his father, and so when people saw the tattoo of the du Wolff crest on Vandrad’s back it had been enough of a crime to arrest him for treason, where he was thrown into the battledome to answer the supposed crimes of his family.

However, thanks to the healing done to his magical core, Vandrad’s magic had returned to him and he managed to break both himself and other prisoners out of their incarceration. From there, it was a long and arduous battle to protect themselves against Xavier and his attempts at killing them all. Vandrad’s own rebellion was gaining traction quickly, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to properly see it through. The Rhaegarian leaders that had ruled the planet before Xavier had selfishly set the planet’s destruction in motion as a final “if we can’t rule, no one can” hail mary. The scowl on Saffron’s face and the slight hue of crimson that tainted her eyes told Vandrad exactly what she thought of such a childish action. Vandrad had attempted to broker a temporary truce with Xavier to save the planet, but in his own stubborn pride the man had refused, and Vandrad was forced to kill him.

Saffron shook her head. “How stupid,” she muttered, unable to find the sense or honor in putting the lives of an entire world at risk just because someone didn’t get their way. In the end, she elected not to linger on it. There was nothing that could be done about it at this point anyway. “Well,” she said, blocking his incoming kicks and punches, “I’m glad you made it out in one piece and that you were able to save as many of your people as possible.”

It was hard to know what to say against a story like that. “Sorry about your planet, bro” seemed a bit of a weak sentiment in the face of things. A few punches later she chuckled. “Man, one of these days I’ll make some friends that are actually human.” It really was remarkable to realize that half the people she knew or met within the last few months of her life weren’t natives to Earthland, or at least carried some bizarre blood in their veins. “I imagine your mom set everyone up on the island with Mercury’s people? Bet that place is filling up faster than she expected. Do they seem to be settling in okay?”

It seemed Vandrad shared her sentiments about the seeming lack of actual full blooded humans in their lives. As she asked a bit more about his people, he explained that while he had been successful in transporting them to Earthland, he’d had zero control over where they landed, meaning that all of them had been scattered about the planet. And unfortunately, many if not most of them had been found by the Dread Masters before anyone friendly could locate them, the sinister organization rounding them up and holding them hostage. The only reason They were discovered at all, it seemed, was because there had been an attack on the stronghold where they were being kept.

He must have seen the slight frown on her face that indicated she wasn’t sure what he was referencing. As she twisted her body and shifted her feet with the patterns of the spar, Vandrad explained that it had only taken a week since the liberation of the Xocili for the Masters to strike against Vandrad and his family and friends. In a three pronged attack, they had come at Vandrad, Mercury, and his family at the same time. Thankfully, it sounded like things hadn’t quite gone according to plan. Scourge had been working his way toward betraying the order and used his attack against Vandrad to make that final leap, pushing the prince’s magic beyond the brink and helping Vandrad regain much of his lost strength. At the same time, he had organized a way to make the attack on Mercury less effective than it was originally intended to be by finding a way to limit the number of individuals that had moved to attack her.

Once both battles had been concluded, the three of them teamed up and essentially wiped out their main headquarters, which was where they had ultimately found the rest of Vandrad’s people. And while most of that had been relatively good news – attacks and kidnapping certainly weren’t swell, but they had survived and also saved a lot of people – the story wasn’t all rainbows. The Masters had also attacked the “other order”, the one that Vandrad’s father was a member of. This was the part of the story where Saffron really had to pay attention, particularly when he started throwing out names she didn’t know like Chishan and Wanda, people who had apparently almost died alongside his father. Not only that, but the attack on his Bellum home had more or less been successful. None of Vandrad’s family had been killed, but the entire estate had been completely and utterly destroyed.

It took a moment for that knowledge to really sink in, Saffron’s attention half on trying to decipher all the information coming her way and half on their sparring. It was only a few second later when he was wrapping up the story that it hit her and she planted her feet, raising her hands and jabbing the tips of the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other hand for the universal sign to call a time out, bringing their spar to a stop. “Whoa whoa, hold on. The entire estate was destroyed?” she asked, her eyes wide in shock. “Dude, that’s…” Her voice trailed off, the woman unable to conjure appropriate words for the situation.

“That really sucks, man. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how devastating that was for you and your family. I know I’m not the strongest or most skilled person around in comparison to the rest of you, but seriously: If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

After the matter had settled for a couple long seconds she shook her head softly. “All these weird shadow organizations and shit… that’s the part that really gets over my head, I think. It’s all so convoluted and crazy. I only picked up some bits and pieces of information about all that when I was with your family. Shit about gods and demons, and people that shouldn’t exist. When I left Bellum, my biggest worries were just trying to identify my magic and finding a way to live on my own in a completely foreign country. I’m not even sure I ever really believed in things like gods. At the very least, I never pictured them as individuals that took the time and energy to interject themselves into our lives. It all just kind of made me realize… I dunno, how small I am in the grand scheme of things I guess.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not trying to make this about me or throw some kind of pity party. All I’m saying is just that I think it’s going to take me a while to understand all that shit. It’s intimidating as all hell, but.. If it’s all real then hiding from it isn’t going to do me any good. So, whatever you need, count me in. I’ll do my best to catch up.”

Vandrad did acknowledge how big of a deal it was that his childhood home was gone, but Saffron didn’t miss the way that he almost completely brushed the weight of the issue off onto his family. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t affecting him as much because he was a much more guarded person, and perhaps to a point that was true, but to Saffron it just sounded like he was so used to keeping everyone and everything around him at arm’s length that he just didn’t know how to cope with it, and thus went into denial. She would know; she’d been there plenty of times before, and while she didn’t claim to be the most empathic person in the world she liked to think that she was relatively well adjusted and at least in the realm of “normal” when it came to understanding her own feelings. Vandrad, by his own admission, was not.

And it was for that reason that Saffron didn’t call him out on it. Not because she didn’t have the inclination or the courage, but more because: what would be the point? He’d figure it out in his own time, and nothing she did or said was likely to make a difference. Not a positive one, at least. So she elected to leave it alone, nodding at his acceptance of her offer to assist him and his family with anything that they felt she could be useful toward.

By now the spar was more or less over. Saffron used the lull in movement to open up a bit more about her thoughts concerning everything with the Dread Masters and the Order of Souls. It was all immensely confusing and Vandrad did little to protest that notion, agreeing with her outright that it was all more than a little bullshit. At the end of the day, it was entirely understandable that she was as overwhelmed by it all as she admitted being, and he almost seemed a bit relieved to speak the sentiment out loud to someone who was on his wavelength. He then follow up by stating he would have to go out of his way to make sure she never met Ruzatz, a figure he claimed was a demon of the more seductive persuasions whose tastes were rather indiscriminate. “Yeah, can’t say I see myself sleeping with a demon any time soon. That’s gonna be a big ol’ pass from me.”

On the conversation continued, with Vandrad assuring her that she had nothing to be sorry for, and once more pressing upon the difficulty of the topic at hand. Not only was it something that would take time, but it was also a reality so complex that by the time they felt like they were breaking ground something else was sure to come up that shook up all previous understandings and brought them back to nearly square one. But that being said, he was grateful for her willingness to be there, and told her in plain terms that her actions and efforts during one of the most difficult times in their lives had not gone unnoticed by him or his family. It seemed his mother, in particular, had taken a special liking to her and more than likely Saffron could expect to receive invitations to all the family gatherings in the future. In an instant her cheeks turned the slightest hint of pink  and she pulled her ponytail over her shoulder to gently, almost sheepishly play with her hair. “She talks about me? That’s, uh.. That’s sweet.”

And it was most likely the thought of her biggest idol praising her when Saffron wasn’t around that distracted the Fairy Tail wizard enough to not sense what was about to happen. As he took a step toward her, the blonde’s brain all but completely errored out, eyes going wide as she pulled back only the slightest bit out of confusion and instinct before she found his arms wrapping around her in what had to be the most painfully awkward hug she’d ever received in her life. “Uhhh…” She stood there in uncertainty her emotions a roaring mixture of embarrassment but also a deeply buried sense of pleasure or affection of some kind. Just as inelegantly, she raised her arms and very lightly patted him on the back in a fumbling attempt to return the gesture before he did the same and finally put both of them out of their misery by releasing her.

When he pulled back, he would see that not only had her blush increased tenfold, but so too had her eyes turned a deep pink hue. Luckily for Saffron, she wasn’t the only one; his own face was quite red with discomposure. Before the moment could really find a way to settle, he assured her that he was never going to do that ever again, and that this was a one time thing that only felt appropriate based on the circumstances. “Okay, good. Not that I’m against hugs or people touching me or anything, but if we could just… you know… never, ever talk about that again, that’d be swell.”

She cleared her throat a bit, regaining her composure as her eyes returned to their purple state. “Anyway… thank you. For taking the time to talk to me and giving me the chance to answer questions. It does mean a lot to me. And if you do ever need or want to talk about anything, I’m always gonna be here, yeah?” After meeting his eyes briefly to make sure he understood that she was being sincere, her gaze panned to the clock on the wall. A sigh escaped her. “Alright, I gotta go get cleaned up. I’ve got a job I need to go take care of before it gets too late in the day. Catch you for training tomorrow?”

Gathering up her things, she headed toward the door only to stop before she could fully exit. There was a pause, a slight hesitation before she turned back to look at him. “Hey Vandrad? I know you didn’t ask for my advice, and I’m not saying you have to take it but… About Mercury? I think… I think you should consider talking to her. Asking her about what’s bothering her. You know her better than I do, so you would have a better idea of what’s best, but… I just know from personal experience that when I’m struggling with something really difficult, it’s hard for me to ask for help. And given what I now know about her past, it wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t know how to ask. Sometimes we all just… need a little push in the right direction, you know? Just give it some thought.”

She would wait only long enough for him to acknowledge her thoughts before giving him a solemn nod and leaving the room.