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Chase the Wind and Touch the Sky

Summary:

I will explode, you'll see me rise
You may not even recognize
I just can't wait for this reveal
Exploring, now I’ve opened up a door
Finding so much more in me
When I look inside, I'm liking what I see

Wendy had carried on after Grandina's disappearance. She had endured the loss of Mystogan and Cait Shelter. She would survive Fairy Tail's disbandment, too.

In fact, she would do more than survive.

The sky wasn't the limit. It was her domain to rule. And she was eager to begin her reign.

Chapter 1: When the Sky is Falling Down

Chapter Text

At this moment, there are 6,470,818,671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. Others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men, at war with good. And some are good, struggling with evil. Six billion people in the world. Six billion souls. And sometimes, all you need is one.

- Payton Sawyer


The departure of the last known dragons in Earthland was heartrendingly beautiful, their forms dissolving into countless motes of scarlet-hued light, floating upward and swiftly out of sight. It was fitting, in a way. Dragons were empyrean creatures, rulers of the blue expanse they claimed as their domain. Even in death, they refused to be earthbound.

Wendy allowed herself a few moments to weep quietly at how short the fulfillment of her seven year long wish had been, before other recent events clamored in her mind for their chance at acknowledgment. Just today, she and Carla had breathed their last words to each other, bracing for oblivion, only to be snatched out of death's jaws at the last moment. She’d awoken under the watch of a man whose face was now lined with seven missing years of grief and remorse, but who’s kind eyes and gentle touch remained the same. She had gazed at the instruments of their world’s destruction, stared down her own despair, cut her hair, witnessed the dragons return to triumph over their enemies, saw Natsu’s father fall, and finally watched her mother rise.

She would’ve gladly cried until her tears ran dry, until the unfeeling void at the pit of her stomach began to abate, but Wendy knew the luxury of grieving wasn’t afforded to healers. The scent of hurt, of blood and pain and suffering, burned in her nose as she drew a fortifying breath. She had wounded, battle-weary comrades to attend to.

“There ya go, half pint.” the gruff, rasping commendation, along with the steadfast, grounding palm atop her head, gave her a place to start.

The bones in Gajeel’s right hand were a spider web of fractures, the end result of “punching some sturdy fucker in the face” he attested. If he thought Wendy was oblivious to the lingering dampness in his eyes, or the way his gaze intermittently roved over to where Levy was standing beside him, his expression infinitesimally less guarded and brooding, well... she wasn’t about to inform him otherwise. She gave his hand a squeeze once the bones were mended, not trusting her voice to convey what needed to be said, as fellow Dragon Slayers. As friends.

The gentle pressure of his much larger fingers around hers returned the sentiment in equal silence.

It didn’t quell the frisson of pain in either of their chests, but Wendy hadn’t really expected it to. She’d long since grown accustomed to the slow, crawling ache of her own injuries healing over time. Such was the price of being a healer. The knowledge that, for once, she wasn’t the only one with pains deprived of her magic’s restorative touch sat heavily in her stomach.

She had no remedy for a broken heart.

Numbly, Wendy began making her way through the crowd of mages, instinct drawing her towards the most heavily wounded. She soon found herself kneeling over an unconscious Lightning Dragon Slayer. Laxus was fighting to draw in air past the blood coating his lungs, and it looked as though a battering ram had been driven into his sternum. It was a sobering sight, seeing the titan of a man almost suffocating under his own weight.

Wendy could feel the expansive scarring left behind by the Barrier Particles as she drew the fluid from his lungs, guiding him to roll on his side when he began hacking up the foul refuse. Shortness of breath. Respiratory issues. Intense chest pains. Heart failure. Laxus had thrown himself atop the proverbial grenade- inhaling the majority of the fumes from Tempester’s suicide attack- in a desperate bid to save his teammates and the surrounding townspeople. And for his efforts, his body might never fully recover from the trauma it had been put through.

A seething, protective anger reared up within her-

Those demons dared to harm her precious people?

- which she ruthlessly tamped down. Her friends didn’t need a wrathful Sky Dragon. They needed a composed and focused healer.

Just think of a quiet, cloudless sky... serene and peaceful...

Moving on, Wendy left behind a gentle gust of fresh air for Laxus’s aching lungs.

She had taken care of an additional two broken bones, four stab wounds, an expansive burn, and a damaged spine in the minutes it took to reach her next high priority patient.

Half of Gray’s body was black as pitch, as though his flesh had been charred. The knowledge that he’d most assuredly be dead had that been so, not leaning against a broken wall in a would-be casual pose, kept Wendy’s panic at bay.

“I like the new look.” his right eye obligingly held shut as Wendy worked to mend the abrasions spanning the side of his face, it was with his purple, faintly glowing left eye that Gray appraised her now chin-length bob.

Making pointless conversation to skirt having to put words to the horrors they’d both witnessed? It wasn’t a permanent solution, but Wendy wouldn’t begrudge him this coping mechanism.

“Thank you. Your’s is certainly... something.” even as she spoke, the black markings were receding from his skin, flowing like ink towards an intricate crest on his left forearm. Something indeed. As it passed under her fingers, Wendy was uncomfortably reminded of the specters summoned by her Milky Way spell. Residual Thought energy was unobtrusive at the best of times, but she could just barely detect a faint echo of will, the signature of another soul, within this new magic of Gray’s.

His right eye opened, this one unable to conceal the raw redness left behind by prior tears, and any questions she might have posed quickly died on her tongue.

Who had hurt him? What miserable creature had heaped additional suffering onto this already scarred soul? She would tear them-

The glow emanating from Wendy’s hands waned ominously, forcing her to grit her teeth as she cast about desperately for her control.

Cloudless skies... soft breezes... keep ahold of the healing magic...

“Don’t push yourself too much, kid.” Gray’s voice was innocently cautious, and yet, Wendy almost wanted to laugh derisively at his pronouncement. She couldn’t afford to not push herself to her absolute limits. No one else in the guild was capable of doing what she could. As long as there was even a whisper of ethernano within her body, what choice did she have but to use it to ease her comrade’s pains? It wasn’t as though she needed it; her wounds would heal with time. Better she exhaust herself than leave her friends to suffer when they needn’t have to.

Wendy opened her mouth to reassure the Ice Make wizard when she felt it. A shift of air pressure. It registered as a blip, a signal, like the work of some internal barometer that attuned her to the slightest fluctuation in the surrounding atmosphere. She felt it in the same way she could feel people drawing breath, air currents sweeping and coiling, storms forming and dispersing. It had long ago become second nature for Wendy to close herself off, to disregard the overwhelming tide of sensory input, but it seemed her floodgates had buckled some under the combined weight of recent events and her own growing fatigue.

Air was rapidly being displaced a few yards away, a pocket of space expanding within already existing space in a bold act of defiance towards physic’s laws. The sensation almost reminded her of Mest’s teleportation magic, but where his appearances were notable for being nearly instantaneous, there was now what felt like a lingering rift hanging in the air.

This warning- received and processed in the space between heartbeats- was enough for Wendy to whip her head around and observe a strange shimmer appear in the air, like an up close heat haze. It expelled two figures with little grace into the ruined courtyard. One was easily identified as a bruised and beaten Erza, with hardly an inch of skin not marred with lacerations or other wounds-

This was unacceptable... Whoever had done this to Titania would feel the recompense of Wendy’s fangs in their throat...

Keep calm... Keep your head... Healers don’t tear throats out...

Don’t claw at the eyes of those who tried to harm what was her’s...

- and leaning heavily on the other newcomer.

Dark, braided hair... Features that might have once been coldly regal, now strewn with black markings... Clawed fingers cupping Erza’s shoulder...

The stranger’s scent reached Wendy’s nose just as her eyes fell to the guildmark displayed proudly on their left hip.

In that moment, Wendy forgot that she was a healer. Forgot that she abhorred using her magic to inflict harm. Forgot that she was exhausted, and injured, and all of thirteen years old. Forgot everything save for all the heinous acts Tartaros had committed against her guild. They had caused Wendy’s family unimaginable suffering, such that she truly questioned whether or not a full recovery was even possible. They forced her to watch her guild contend with the kind of pain she was helpless to alleviate.

Someone bearing the mark of the guild that had hurt her loved ones so deeply stood before her, holding hostage the woman who’d brought her into her new home.

Cloudless skies be damned. The dragon under Wendy’s skin wanted blood.

It almost surprised her when she actually got it.

It was barely a thimble’s worth, easily overlooked, beading sluggishly from the shallow cut Wendy had left behind with a wild swipe at Minerva’s cheek. In the next instant, a listless Erza had been released into Wendy’s arms, and the woman turned demon had retreated several yards away.

The ease with which Minerva relinquished her hostage made the Sky Sorceress wary. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t stooped to such tactics, and even lower, at the Games. Wendy wasn’t nearly so arrogant as to believe her scratch had been enough to intimidate her foe. It had been a lucky shot, made from the right side where Minerva now lacked an eye. (Wendy didn’t know if she was more disturbed by her own ruthlessness, or the fact that Minerva’s new guild had sacrificed one of her eyes while transfiguring her.)

“She needs healing. Badly.”

Wendy knew that. It was her job to know these things. She could smell the hurt that had seeped into Erza’s skin. She knew which of her wounds were fresh, and which had been with her beyond this past day. She knew the characteristic rings of abraded skin left behind by heavy shackles. She knew the neat, orderly slices across her stomach, tallies of every failed attempt to break the indomitable Titania. It didn’t stop her eyes from going wide, because she didn’t know Minerva was able to express anything other than contempt in regard to Erza.

She almost sounded... concerned.

“So will you, if you don’t clear out now.”

There was a timbre of unfamiliar magic curled around Gray’s voice, sharp and heavy with finality, that seemed to resonate in Minerva’s very bones. Now the ex-Sabertooth mage looked intimidated. From her periphery, Wendy saw her teammate advance to her side, his left forearm brandished like a warding sigil.

In a blink, Minerva was gone, her departure heralded by the same disorienting sensation of compounding space.

Wendy violently shook off the vertigo, along with any musings she might’ve had on Gray’s new abilities, as she began tending to the first Fairy Tail mage she’d ever treated.

It was challenging work, correcting the disordered chaos that had become her nervous system, cruelly remade to send almost constant messages of pain to her brain. Tracing her magic along Erza’s neural pathways, Wendy was able to reorient them away from perceiving every physical stimuli as intensely painful. It wasn’t until she worked her way up to Erza’s face, that Wendy realized both her optic and vestibulocochlear nerves had been muted. Erza had been fighting while blind and deaf, with her physical senses attuned to only recognize greatly magnified pain.

Somewhere along the course of this war with Tartaros, such feats of strength no longer felt like the heroic overcoming of odds. It just felt like cruelty. Why was her guild the object of such ire, the custodian of such duty? Why did the world seem so intent on testing them, pitting them against foe after foe? Crisis after crisis? Why had Wendy been made to accept what should have been her death alongside her oldest friend, because it was either that or the end of the world? (She wasn’t even fourteen yet. She wasn’t ready to die.)

Physical exhaustion was only partly responsible for the tremors running through her hands as she withdrew them from Erza’s person. Her palms and fingers ached with how much she’d been channeling her magic, and her mind was growing hazy. Still, she persisted. There were many more wounded to treat.

Lucy’s leg was burned and blistered (what worried Wendy more was the dull, yawning voids of loss behind her eyes). Juvia had been infected with Barrier Particles (more than once, the rain woman choked out an apology into her hands that Wendy knew wasn’t meant for her). Alzack had broken his forearm (she had to maneuver to heal it when she realized the man was not going to lower the arms he’d wrapped desperately around his wife, Auska huddling between them like she might have in the aftermath of a nightmare. Wendy sent her into an easy, dreamless sleep when she’d heard the child’s frightened whimpers). Mirajane was covered in nearly as many scratches as Erza (Wendy cursed her heightened hearing when the Strauss sisters began murmuring to their despondent brother, quiet coos of “It wasn’t your fault.”). She had yet to even see Natsu...

She was healing Jet’s shoulder, with half a mind to double check the bandages she’d applied to Droy’s thigh, when the darkness that had been slowly encroaching on the bounds of her vision closed in, and her consciousness was snuffed out along with the light in her hands.

Wendy didn’t hear the panicked calls of her name as she wilted, a delicate hydrangea- what with her scrawny limbs and mop of blue on top- lying sprawled out on the ground.

She didn’t hear when Carla, quiet but utterly uncompromising, declared that she would take her back to her room at Fairy Hills.

When next Wendy awoke, it was to a world where the guild Fairy Tail no longer existed.

Disbanded... The muttered words of a wizened, tired old man did what countless enemies had failed to accomplish... put an end to their guild.

Erza, even in the aftermath of the debasement she’d endured at Tartaros’s hands, had kept a stiff upper lip, and took it upon herself to square away the financial matters of each resident of Fairy Hills. They had a week before the law dictated that the city of Magnolia gained ownership of all property held by their guild. Wendy had always been prompt and fastidious in handling her rent, and thus was allotted a sum of 75,000 Jewel in back payments.

It sat where Erza had left it on her kitchen table. Wendy refused to touch it.

Her obstinance extended to her packing as well. Within the first day they’d received notice, Carla had collected her things- mainly Exceed-sized clothing and packets of the tea she was so fond of- and stored them neatly in her bag. Both of Wendy’s suitcases sat empty in the middle of the room.

Carla had been understanding the first two days, but Wendy doubted her benevolence would extend past her third day spent with minimal excursions from the company of her bed.

Wendy knew she had to get up. The world wasn’t going to stop turning on her account. She was going to have to move on, forge ahead like the rest of her friends.

They weren’t family anymore. Not with Fairy Tail gone.

She had started with nothing more than once before. So what if, this time, she didn’t have another home waiting in the wings with open arms, ready to receive her? That kind of luck couldn’t be counted upon excessively.

Etymologists define the name Wendy as one meaning ‘friend’. Perhaps that was all she was meant for... Families had a habit of not sticking with her, after all...

A series of knocks sounded behind her door. Wendy was tempted to ignore it, until...

“Wendy, it’s Mest. Please open up. I was hoping to talk to you before I... head out.”

The Sky Sorceress couldn’t help but smile faintly at his attempt to phrase things more delicately. Mest was far more tender-hearted than his pensive, solemn demeanor would suggest.

Casting off her shroud of covers, Wendy quickly gave up on looking at all presentable- with her hopelessly mussed hair and rumpled, days-old clothing- and padded across the room to let her friend inside. Her awareness of her own unkempt appearance redoubled when the door swung open to reveal Mest; his heavy, somber attire immaculate and arranged with an impeccable neatness that might have impressed even Carla.

It was in this moment, her first time meeting face-to-face with someone wholly unaffected by the dissolution of her guild, that Wendy realized she hadn’t a clue what to say. Should she endeavor to assure him that she’d be alright? (Could she manage to, despite having failed to convince even herself?) Avoid the topic entirely? (Perhaps they could talk about the weather? Except, she’d spent the past few days without even glancing outside...) Question him? (So, Mest, have you considered finding a new career path after the bombing massacre at your headquarters?)

Thankfully, Mest spared her from having to make the first move when his eyes, wide with distress, flitted to her left arm.

“Wendy, have you not changed your bandages?”

The girl blinked, head slowly swiveling to glance at her arm, bound in a cocoon of crooked, yellowing bandages. While she had prevailed in her duel against Ezel, she hadn’t escaped without more than a few injuries courtesy of the blade wielding demon. Among other less serious wounds, mainly pertaining to her hands and feet, her left arm had been marred by a pair of deep gashes. The pain had barely registered during the battle, and in the aftermath, with Mest having bandaged the worst of it while she was unconscious, Wendy had paid her own injuries little mind.

Mest, it seemed, took great umbrage at her casual disregard. Thus, it was in short order that Wendy found herself seated on the edge of her bed, while Mest knelt before her, carefully unwinding the bandages wrapped around her arm.

“I’m sure you know as well as I do, if not better, how important it is to keep your injuries clean and free of anything that might cause infection.” Mest chided, not unkindly, as he examined the state of her now bared arm. Wendy already knew he wouldn’t find anything amiss- all it took was a glance to confirm that her wounds were healing normally- but she allowed him to fuss over her all the same. At least one of them could do something productive...

“You’re right,” Wendy kept her eyes fixed on some point over his shoulder. “I’ve just been a little aimless, now that...”

“That’s understandable.” Mest kindly didn’t force her to elaborate. From one of his coat’s many pockets, he withdrew a roll of medical bandages, and set about reapplying her wrappings. “I know I was- feeling lost, I mean- for a while, after the attack at the Council’s headquarters.”

Despite knowing it wasn’t his intention, Wendy felt a measure of shame burn in the pit of her stomach. Mest had borne witness to the wholesale slaughter of the upper echelons of the Magic Council, surviving only by chance and still just narrowly escaping with his life. Had he taken refuge in his bed? Ensconced himself away from the world?

Had he too feared he might disappear?

“‘For a while’?” Wendy fisted the fabric of her skirt in her right hand as she fought to keep her voice steady. “How did things change?”

There was silence for a moment, and Mest lowered her left arm, neatly bandaged once again. Then, he reached out to place his hand over hers in her lap. Wendy drank in the sight of it: easily larger than her own, rough and calloused from extensive use, digits nimble and dexterous. Her eyes traveled up his arm: previously on the lanky side, now filling out thicker underneath a heavy black sleeve. His shoulder: a previous habit of poor posture betrayed by the slight hunch it was held at.

Finally, Wendy forced her eyes up to Mest’s face. The amount of care she saw directed at her from within captivating blue-green irises- even while being tempered by those seven ever-present years of guilt- was second only to the ardent gleam of something Wendy could only describe as pride.

The sight further stoked the shame boiling in her core. She didn’t deserve an ounce of Mest’s admiration. From their brief stint as partners in the S-Class Trial, to her acclaimed goal of tackling the country’s worth of Faces head-on, Wendy’s performance had been severely lacking when it came down to it. She didn’t have Natsu's overwhelming strength, or Erza’s indomitable will. She wasn’t broadly versatile in her abilities like Lucy, or clever and innovative like Gray. She was just a shy, scrawny little girl who’s greatest contribution to her guild was patching them up so they could carry on fighting. If she were to call herself a dragon, her bite would be even more pitiful than her roar.

“I decided to follow the example of you and your friends.” he said it with more warmth than Wendy suspected any Council member had ever used in reference to members of her guild. “No matter the odds against you: an attack by the Barum Alliance, the Magic Council’s vendetta, the Grand Magic Games... you’ve faced dark wizards, dragons, demons, and you prevailed against them all.”

“No we didn’t!” some of the anguish Wendy was fighting to hold behind her teeth slipped through the cracks in her voice. It wasn’t fair of her, she knew, to expect Mest to be able to relate. To know the feeling, like a cold draft on the back of his neck, every time he thought of how fragile the foundation of his life truly was. How could Wendy explain to him the way her chest ached with the prospect of leaving behind yet another home, another piece of the heart she couldn’t seem to refrain from opening to those around her? “We didn’t win this time, Mest. We all fought so hard, we all sacrificed things in this war, and in the end, we still lost. Tartaros is gone, but so is Fairy Tail. It’s over. I lost my guild again.”

Mest’s smile faded, replaced by something more somber. Quietly, he moved to sit beside her on the edge of her bed. Wendy’s eyes didn’t lift from her lap until she felt the warm weight of Mest’s arm settle around her shoulders. It was a comfort she wasn’t sure she deserved, but accepted greedily all the same.

“That’s right. I forgot that you’re familiar with this.” this time, Mest was the one with his gaze trained on a stretch of floor in front of them. “The pasts of guild wizards are often less than pleasant, but to have already lost one guild, and now another... I’m sorry, Wendy.”

“It’s not your fault.” Wendy sniffed, blinking valiantly against the growing prickle in her eyes. “It’s just... I’m not sure how I can move forward on my own. I’ve only ever been a guild wizard. It’s all I know. Am I supposed to just try again in a new guild?”

“Possibly.” Mest employed the same tone that Carla used- warm, but decidedly pragmatic- when she tried to deliver her coolly logical deductions in a more kindly manner. “Many of us are going to have to strike out on our own, shortly. To succeed at that, you need to consider what it is you want, and what you’re capable of. You have to play to your strengths.”

Play to your strengths... Wendy glanced at her hands. Like nearly all mages, she was capable of wielding her magic for combat, (not that she’d ever particularly enjoyed doing so). What set her apart from the rest, however, was her aptitude for the restorative and healing arts. In all her life, she’d only ever come across one mage who was capable of anything similar...

“Take me, for example,” Mest went on. “What I want, I’ve decided, is to restore the Rune Knights. My familiarity with the organization, and my skill at gathering information, are well suited to my goal. I’m going to rebuild them, the Knights and the Magic Council, from the ground up. Make it better than it was, better for the people it’s supposed to serve. Its purpose, helping to oversee and guide the mage guilds of Fiore, is too important to just fade away. And, honestly,” here, a warm look made its way onto his face. “I think the same applies to your guild. Fairy Tail is much more than just some group of mages on a roster. It’s made up of some of the most extraordinary wizards of this age. All of you, you’re already legends in your own right. That isn’t going to go away just because your guild disbanded. I expect the Sky Sorceress will fast become a favorite among the mages the new Rune Knights partner with.”

Wendy’s eyes widened. The origin of her moniker had always mystified her. She knew neither where it had come from, nor how she, a little girl from a non-existent guild, had even garnered the attention necessary to be bestowed a title. Salamander, Titania, Black Steel. Those were the appellations known throughout wizarding circles both light and dark. The kind of titles used to instill fear in their enemies and trust in their clients. That Mest would invoke hers with such assuredness...

“Tell you what, I’ll even stake something on us seeing each other again.” Wendy was brought out of her reverie to see Mest fiddling with the clasp of his earring.

“I’m rather fond of this, to be honest. I’ve had it since I was a child.” he confessed, successfully removing the piercing from its place on his earlobe. It was a relatively understated piece of jewelry; a thin, elongated pendant that hung from a ring of metal. And yet, it was apparently something he’d owned since before they’d even met. “But if you’re in need of proof that I believe what I’m telling you, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

Wendy couldn't bring herself to smile, not yet, but the easy grin on Mest's face still caused something to lighten within her chest, and she obligingly tucked her hair behind her ear, allowing Mest to implement the earring.

“This time next year, I’ll be back for that.” he informed her jovially, rising to his feet. “And don’t worry about me needing to find you. I’ve carried out more than a few manhunts in my time with the Rune Knights. You could leave the country, change your na- oof!

“I’ll look forward to it.” Wendy would admit to some potential overzealousness on her part in the way she launched herself at her friend, almost tackling him in a hug. She’d always been a rather tactile person, and it was far easier to let a hug speak for her than attempt to verbally express the myriad of emotions surging within her. And if she happened to be blinking away any excess moisture in her eyes while she hid her face against his chest, well, it was no one's business but her own.

She felt a chuckle rumble within Mest’s chest, and his arms descend around her to return the embrace. Wendy took a moment to commit everything she could- his scent, his voice, the feel of his magic- to memory. She’d have to keep an eye out for it a year from now.

He was coming back. No one had ever come back to her before.

Eventually, the two friends parted, and Wendy showed Mest to the door. It wasn’t until he disappeared around the bend of the hall that she returned to her dorm. The two barren suitcases in the middle of the room caught her eye, and her hand curled into a fist. Mest’s words had given her a perspective she hadn’t considered, and already, a plan was forming in her mind.

She wanted to help others. She’d known this since the very first time she had called upon her magic, mending a bird’s broken wing under her mother’s guidance. But it wasn’t enough, being able to ease the pain of others. She wanted to protect, to stand in the way of any harm that might come to those dear to her. She wanted to be strong enough to keep her loved ones safe.

To that end, it was clear just where she had to go; where she could both undo some of the lingering damage left behind by Tartaros, and hopefully gain the insight she needed to further improve her abilities.

There was a certain measure of doubt, an inkling of apprehension towards what lied ahead that was impossible to shake. No one, not even Carla, could be wholly certain of what the future held in store for her. But Wendy hadn't fought alongside her friends through every battle and catastrophe that followed their guild like a loyal hound dog without developing a certain disregard for whatever forces might try to stand in her way.

Let the world attempt to stop her. Just let it try. She was the Sky Sorceress, Wendy Marvell, and she dared anyone to try and arrest her climb towards the heights she knew were hers to claim.

With that proclamation held firmly in the forefront of her mind, Wendy set about gathering up her belongings. It was far more than she’d been left with after her time with Grandina, and Mystogan, and Cait Shelter. Back then, she’d retained nothing more than the clothes on her back.

This time, the various trinkets- indelible evidence of the home and family she had fought for- amassed into a satisfyingly-sized heap on top of her bed.

Her own treasure hoard...

With the utmost care, Wendy packed away the purple hair ribbons Lucy had given her while easily waving away the questions about her rent. Erza’s pocket knife, gifted to her after her first mission (along with two mandatory weeks of lessons on proper form and technique with a blade). The pale pink scarf Natsu had eagerly presented her with at the very first sign of winter. An ornate iron comb that Gajeel had passed to her- something he’d crafted for practice that he supposed she might enjoy- with carefully maintained disinterest. The darling, heeled Mary Jane shoes Levy had given her with a proclamation of solidarity as a fellow girl lacking in stature.

These mementos- and the memories attached to them- pained her as much as they invigorated her, but Wendy couldn’t bear to leave them behind. She had no desire to forget even a moment of her time with Fairy Tail, and would take every sentimental scrap she could get.

She’d make them all proud, Wendy promised inside her head. Them, and herself.