Fairy Tail: Swallow the Fire

36. Moonlight

"Ah."

"Mhmm. They're too young for the three of us to go on missions together, Elfman being thirteen and Lisanna twelve. Or at least, the well-paying ones. Being S-Class will help me reassure them until we're older."

"Are you planning on quitting wizard work at the guild in the future or something?"

"Not necessarily. I've thought about it, and I don't want to do it my entire life, but Fairy Tail has become family, whether I like it or not. But I don't think Elfman is cut out for guild work."

"What makes you say that?"

"He's too shy, and timid. He doesn't have enough self-confidence in himself to master Beast Soul and is stuck using a partial transformation in his right arm. He has talent as a cook, though, so I was wondering if I could see him go to culinary school."

"And Lisanna?"

"I...have no idea." Her chest rose as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, locking eyes with me as her baby blue eyes still mirrored the moonlight. "She has practically already mastered Animal Soul and loves travelling with everyone on jobs and seeing the world. I doubt she would quit mage work anytime soon."

"And you?"

Instead of giving me an immediate answer, she looked back at the sky before furrowing her brows and turning her attention back to me.

"You're going to laugh." The seriousness with which she said it caused me to snort which caused her to throw her hands up in exasperation. "See? You're already laughing!"

"Sorry! Sorry! Just wasn't expecting you to say that! I promise I won't!"

"Rgh! Fine. I want to be a singer in the future..."

"Well, that's a lofty goal, but I won't discourage you."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Seriously. In a past life, I aimed to study the cello and even planned to learn the violin, so...it'd be hypocritical of a wannabe musician to discourage the other."

"So why'd you stop learning?"

"My mother."

"Hmm, well she sounds like a bitch. Did you run away or something?"

"No. She died."

"Oh...well I'm sor-"

"And may the cunt rot in Hell."

The venom that dripped from my words left her a bit stunned, leaving the two of us to simply watch the winter night sky in peace, a low wave of heat emanating from my body to keep her from getting cold.

Alas the two of us had to leave.

"Well," I started as I stood up, "if you don't pass the promotion trial then I'll show you the illegal way I earn all my money."

"You do something besides reading?" she gasped, "and it's illegal!? They grow up so fast..."

"Oh, shut up."

"Well, now I'm certainly tempted to fail just to see what this is," she said smiling.

I wished her luck on the trial, although I doubted any of them would actually be promoted to S-Class simply because everyone sounded too young for the notoriously kind-hearted Makarov to allow them to go on such high-risk missions.

Still, it would probably reinforce his opinions of them all in the years going forward.

Several minutes after she flew off, I took off my jacket, wrapped it around my waist, let my own four wings emerge from my back and took flight back towards Oak Town.