VERiTY (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

11. Guild Shenanigans

-

Laxus was leaning over his shoulder and Cana's head was in his lap. Eir slumped against the tree, unable to move. It'd be a crime to wake them up.

He tugged his coat over Cana's shoulders and set a hand in her hair, running a finger through deep brown locks. She murmured something sleepily and curled in tighter.

Laxus was on his other side, half his fingers curled into Eir's, his body taking up the whole of the older boy's arm as if he was claiming possession of it. Eir gave his hand a squeeze and Laxus's fingers closed over in instinct.

This is bad. He's spoiling them. They're acting like babies.

But this was fine, he guessed. Peace, quiet, and full of warmth. It was something there wasn't much of in his past life, when he and his siblings ran themselves ragged just trying to afford a life. There were donations, there were kind neighbours, but it was never quite enough for a restful sleep.

Maybe this was a blessing, this life. A life of peace, of love, and of family.

And just maybe, he's allowed to enjoy this.

A few years down the road, Eir would find this scene as a picture in Reedus' books. All three sleeping soundly, a picturesque image. He would then yell really hard at Reedus about it, chasing him across the guild with his face flushed bright red.

A few days after that, Eir would hang it up in his room.

-

"You're quite proficient with a staff."

"Yeah. I'm better with a staff than a sword."

Eir spun the wooden pole around his arm, from his front, to his left, around his back and then swung it to the front. Then he straightened, plucking it to the left and planting it on the ground upright.

"Had training for it?"

"Something like that."

In a world of mages, weapon users were quite rare. After all, why use a weapon if you can just blow the useless lump of steel away or defend without one?

In his past life, Eir joined clubs.

He never really wanted to, but there was always a friend that wanted him to try things out. The Wushu club was versatile. He only learned part of the spear's routines there, but the swords practiced beside them, so he knew those movements too.

He hadn't learned enough to be useful in a proper battle, though. He dropped out of the club after a year to work, and then quit school entirely a few months after that. However, paired with wind magic, there really wasn't much he needed to polish.

"Ready?" the Lamia Scale mage before him asked.