The change began so quietly that even Aelius didn't notice it at first. It wasn't like the snapping of a cord or the turning of a key—it was more like the last trickle of water finally draining from a cracked vessel. For days, his body had been a battlefield unto itself, every muscle locked in stubborn ache, his ribs shifting like splintered timber when he drew breath, his legs heavy as lead weights. But sometime deep in the night, as the wind outside brushed at the shutters and the dark crept deeper into the corners of the infirmary, that long, slow siege came to an end.
It began in his fingertips. He felt them flex against the rough blanket, not with pain, but with… strength. Not much, but enough to draw his notice. A faint, strange warmth spread through his arms, chasing away the dull, ever-present stiffness. When he shifted in the bed, his chest didn't burn. His breath came steady. And when he tested his legs—first a cautious twitch, then a more deliberate movement—he realized they obeyed without protest.
It was done. He had healed.
Aelius lay still for a moment, staring at the dark ceiling, the realization washing over him. His injuries, the lingering venom of Nehzhar's wounds, the invisible weight that had pinned him to this bed—it was all gone. The scars were still there, yes, and the memory of pain remained carved into him, but his body had mended. The long, bitter wait was over.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The cold wood floor bit against his bare feet, startlingly real after so many nights of numb detachment. There was nothing waiting for him when he healed; his cloak was little more than threads, and his mask, most of the remaining shards had to be pulled out of his skin, the ones his magic didn't expel immediately. He was more annoyed at the hassle it would be to get a new cloak—or three—than he was at nearly dying. Not that he'd ever admit that aloud; the last thing he needed was some self-righteous fool talking at him until he wished he hadn't bothered surviving..
No matter. He could replace gear. He could stitch a new cloak. But right now he wanted to be alone, at home.
He rose to his feet, slow but steady, his hand resting on the wall for balance until the feeling in his legs caught up to being whole again. The infirmary was quiet—no rustle of pages from the front desk, no clink of glass from the shelves. A faint blue light leaked in from the windowpanes, painting everything in the muted hue of predawn. He moved toward the door, his steps silent out of old habit.
He didn't get far.
The door to the hall opened before he even touched the handle, and Porylusca was there—arms crossed, her expression caught somewhere between smug and irritated. She had a way of looking at people that made it feel as if she'd been waiting for you to make exactly the mistake you were about to.
"Don't bother," she said flatly, her voice low so it didn't carry through the sleeping wing. "I knew the moment you could walk again you'd try this."
Aelius stiffened, his hand falling back to his side. "I'm not running," he said. "I'm going home."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're leaving this bed, in the middle of the night, without so much as boots on your feet. Call it whatever you want—it's still the same foolish impulse."
Before he could answer, another figure stepped into the hall from the shadows. Makarov. The guild master's presence was quieter than Porylusca's, but there was no mistaking the steel in his gaze. He didn't bother to hide that he'd been expecting this too.
"I told her you'd try," Makarov said simply. His voice wasn't accusing, just… certain. "You're predictable in that way."
"I don't need to be here," Aelius said, though his tone was restrained, his words careful. "I have my own place. My own obligations."
"And you'll get to them," Makarov replied, stepping closer until he was between Aelius and the open door. "When you're ready."
"I am ready," Aelius insisted.
"You're healed," Porylusca corrected sharply. "That's not the same thing."
The three of them stood there in the dim light, the air heavy with a kind of quiet stalemate. Aelius didn't raise his voice, didn't try to force his way past. He wasn't a fool—he knew Makarov could stop him with barely a thought, and Porylusca would happily make sure he ended up back in the bed whether he liked it or not. But the urge to move, to get away from this place, pulled at him all the same, as if his very bones were whispering that the time to leave had come.
He looked past them to the hallway beyond, then back at the two who blocked him. They knew. They'd known this would happen the moment his body finished mending. And they weren't going to let him take so much as a step out that door tonight.
With an irritated sigh, Aelius spoke again, his voice carrying the gravel of exhaustion and the bite of barely restrained temper. "I'm not going to run off—or go charging after Nehzhar like some idiot drunk on vengeance. I'd lose this time… worse than I did before. And I'm not in the mood to hand him another victory wrapped in my own stupidity.
"You're really going to do this with me?" Aelius asked, his voice even—no bite, no scorn, but the kind of tone that demanded they actually consider the question rather than dismiss it out of hand. His eyes flicked briefly toward Porlyusica, then back to the guild master. "You know I can't be handled like the rest of the guild. You've seen it. I'm not someone you can shove into place and expect to stay there."
Porlyusica's mouth opened slightly—ready, perhaps, with some curt remark—but he didn't give her the pause to insert it.
"I'm not saying that out of arrogance," he continued, calm and steady, as though laying out an unchangeable truth. "I'm saying it because it's the reality we've all learned by now. I don't take to being herded. Not by her—" another brief glance toward Porlyusica, "—and not by anyone else here."
Makarov's frown deepened, but Aelius's gaze remained fixed on him, unflinching. "And I think you know—both of you—that you're not going to stop me if I decide to walk out that door. Not physically. That's not me making a threat—it's just… the truth. And I think we all know it."
The room was quiet for a moment. Even the muffled sounds of guild activity outside the office door seemed distant, swallowed by the weight of the statement. Aelius let that space exist without filling it, giving them the time to process the blunt honesty of what he'd said.
Finally, he straightened—not that he'd been slouching, but there was a subtle shift, a readiness in his stance. "I'm not looking for a fight here. I'm not trying to make this harder than it has to be. But I've got things I need to do. Out there. And every minute we spend dragging this out is another minute lost."
He looked at Porlyusica again—not challenging, but clear. "You want me to stay? Convince me with something other than orders. Otherwise… just let me go home."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't posture. He didn't need to. The words hung in the air like stones dropped in still water—simple, heavy, impossible to ignore.
Aelius let the words hang for a moment, not as a challenge, but as if they were simply the most obvious conclusion in the world. His tone had dropped into something quieter—less the sharp edge of irritation and more the weight of weariness settling behind every syllable. "Even if I wanted to, what would it get me? I'm not in any state to fight him again. Not now. Not for a long time. If I went after Nehzhar right this moment, it wouldn't be a rematch—it'd be suicide. And I've already given him more than enough of myself to carry away."
He glanced briefly at the two of them, Master and Porlyuscia, as though gauging whether they were going to argue. They didn't. Their expressions stayed as they were—stone-faced, watching him without so much as a twitch of disagreement. The silence stretched, just long enough for him to know they had nothing to say.
"Yeah," he murmured, voice almost carrying a dry sort of finality. "That's what I thought."
Without another word, he stepped past them, his boots sounding too loud in the stillness of the hall. He didn't look back, didn't offer a parting glance or gesture. The muted light caught the faint scuff of his coat as he passed between them, and then he was gone—leaving the silence exactly as it had been, save for the faint echo of his retreating steps.
The door closed behind him with a muted click, the quiet of his home settling around him like a well-worn cloak. The air inside was still cool from the night, carrying that faint, clean scent of pine and water drifting in from the lake. His boots made almost no sound against the wooden floor as he crossed the main room, the faint creak of old boards greeting each step—a familiar chorus that belonged to no one but him.
Aelius pushed open the sliding door to the back deck, the hinges giving a low, tired groan before the world beyond spilled into view. The lake stretched out before him, a broad mirror of molten glass, ripples shivering across its surface where the faintest breeze played. The fingers of sunlight crept over the far tree line, gilding the water in fractured bands of gold and amber.
He lowered himself into the chair at the deck's edge, leaning back just enough to feel the wood cradle his weight. The chill of dawn brushed his skin, but it didn't bite—just lingered, a gentle reminder that the day had not yet decided what it would be. His gaze fixed on the horizon, watching as the sun inched higher, its reflection smearing across the lake like a painter's stroke left too long in water.
Somewhere beneath the deck, he could hear the faint tap of water against the posts, the lazy rhythm of the lake breathing in and out. A bird called from somewhere deep in the pines, its voice carrying across the open water before fading into silence again.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just sat there, watching the slow, inevitable rise of the sun, as though the moment might stretch out forever if he refused to acknowledge the passage of time. The world could wait—just for now.
A few minutes later, Aelius rose. The boards beneath him gave a faint creak, the sort that only came from years of weather and sun—or because Aelius messed up the laying process when he built it—the sound carried softly across the still water. He'd never call himself sentimental, but he could admit—to himself, at least—that mornings like this had a kind of rare peace to them. The lake caught the sunlight now, not yet bright, just a pale shimmer rolling over the glassy surface as the horizon burned faint gold. Mist clung low to the shoreline, curling in tendrils between the reeds and drifting lazily toward the deeper waters.
But the moment wouldn't last.
The guild would be stirring soon, the corridors filling with the inevitable racket of voices and boots on wood. It wouldn't take long for someone to notice his absence, and he could already guess which faces would appear first—Levy, with that mixture of concern and curiosity, and Erza, who would turn it into a mission on principle alone. Calling it a "hunt" might've been dramatic, but given they knew exactly where he lived, the challenge was less in finding him and more in how quickly they'd decide to interrupt his morning.
And with that, his peace would end.
He stepped back inside, closing the deck door with the quiet precision of someone who'd spent a lifetime making sure doors didn't slam. His boots whispered against the floorboards as he crossed the main room and descended the narrow staircase to the basement. The air cooled as he went down, the scent of damp stone and faint traces of old alchemical work settling around him.
The basement was dim, lit only by a pair of wall sconces casting thin arcs of light across shelves lined with glass jars, wrapped bundles, and metal tools. In the center of the room sat the cauldron—massive, blackened, and solid enough that even the air around it felt heavier. Its surface was etched with faint runes, the grooves filled with shadows that seemed to shift if you looked at them too long.
He approached it slowly; it had only been a few days, but it almost felt new to see the place again. It was him, getting attached to this place more and more. His fingers brushed the cold metal rim, and for a brief instant, the hum of dormant power stirred beneath the surface, like a heartbeat muffled under layers of steel and stone.
Then, with a practiced flick of will, he sent it to his Requip space. There was no sound, just a light flash and the sudden absence, the empty patch of floor where it had stood. The air felt lighter immediately, though the faint tang of whatever it had once held lingered, refusing to disperse.
Aelius stared at the space left behind for a long moment, the weight of what he was about to attempt pressing against his ribcage like a leaden hand. It wasn't the act itself that unsettled him—gods knew he had done worse things in darker places—but the reason for it. That was the part gnawing at him.
The notion of willingly listening to his grandfather—of giving that withered tyrant even an inch of ground in his thoughts—was bile in his throat. He hadn't imagined such a thing since the day the old man had vanished, leaving only ruin and whispers in his wake. Every instinct screamed to discard the idea, to scorch the thought before it could root. And yet… here he was.
With a slow, deliberate breath, he lowered himself to the floor, the movement fluid, practiced. Crossing his legs, he set his hands in his lap—palms upward, fingers loose, a posture of openness that felt almost alien to him. The shadows in the room seemed to shift at the edges of his vision, curling in subtly, as if the act itself drew the walls closer.
His eyes closed.
The first step was to still the body. That was simple enough; stillness had been his shield for years. The harder part was quieting the mind without allowing the wrong things to rise. He began to sink inward, layer by layer, into that strange architecture of thought and memory that only he knew how to navigate.
He was not looking for comfort or for the calm emptiness of a meditative trance. No—he was hunting. Hunting for any trace, any discordant chord that would tell him whether Nehzhar's words had been true… or poison carefully brewed to corrode him from the inside.
The taste of the name alone left a subtle itch at the back of his mind, a reminder of his defeat, of the weight in his chest when he'd realized he'd been played—not because of the loss itself, but because he'd allowed himself to be drawn along by Nehzhar's tricks. That was the real wound.
So he began to turn over the days in his head, one by one. Not diving into the depths, not tearing at locked doors, but simply rewinding the reel since he'd first returned. Every encounter. Every word exchanged. Every flicker of suspicion. He wasn't searching for some grand revelation—just a ripple out of place, something too sharp or too smooth, a thread that didn't match the weave of the rest.
Faces passed in sequence: guildhall light spilling on familiar figures, stray arguments and quiet moments in the dark, the lingering scent of rain on stone streets. He let them roll past without forcing the pace, letting the rhythm of recollection work on its own.
And then—there it was. Exactly where he'd suspected it would be, like a bruise he'd been prodding without realizing.
At first it seemed small. Barely worth noting. The images of him standing over Angel, or Evergreen—ready to finish it—and instead… stepping back. Not out of mercy, not truly. He'd told himself it was tactical restraint, the cleaner choice, the way to avoid trouble later. It had felt right at the time.
But now—now that his mind was clear of noise, without the thrum of adrenaline or the weight of others watching—he could see it for what it was. The hesitation hadn't been his.
Another memory followed. He saw himself explaining, of all things, why he was doing what he was doing. Words spilling out he never would have bothered with before. Justifications for actions that didn't need them. Concessions wrapped in logic. Convincing others to understand him—when he had never cared for their understanding.
Not even his grandfather, with all his iron-handed dominance, or his infinite patience, had been able to make him do that. The old man had only ever sharpened his edges, not dulled them. But this…
This had been Nehzhar. The subtle shift in impulse. The quiet pressure to hold back, to speak where he would have stayed silent, to spare where he would have cut clean.
The realization slid into place with the cold certainty of a blade locking in a sheath. And the moment it did, something inside him snapped taut.
His jaw clenched. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He could almost feel the smug curl of Nehzhar's influence, lingering like a stain. It wasn't just manipulation—it was trespass. The parasite had reached into the marrow of him, taken his instincts and dressed them up in its own will, and then left him to believe they'd been his choices all along.
That infuriated Aelius. Not in the sharp, hot way of a moment's anger, but in the deep, grinding way that promised violence—slow, deliberate, and without compromise.
His fingers tightened in his lap until the joints ached, breath deepening, steadied by force of will alone. This wasn't something he could excise with meditation. It wasn't something that could be reasoned out.
No—this was going to be answered.
The words sat in his mind with the weight of a chain, dragging the heat of his fury down into something far colder and far more patient. As much as it burned to admit, the truth was unavoidable—he wasn't strong enough. Not yet.
Aelius was no stranger to dangerous foes. He had fought creatures bred from nightmares, mages whose power could shatter the ground beneath entire cities, and killers who moved through crowds like smoke. Each time, the ending had been the same: they fell, and he remained. Some took minutes, others months—but they always fell.
Nehzhar had not.
The memory of the fight was still too vivid to dull. The crushing presence in the air, thick as oil, that seemed to seep into his lungs and slow his movements. The way each blow—no matter how perfectly placed—felt as though it landed in mud, swallowed whole without impact. Every attempt to rally his strength had been met with a pull, subtle and constant, dragging his focus off course.
The memory of the fight was still too vivid to dull. The crushing presence in the air, thick as oil, that seemed to seep into his lungs and slow his movements. The way each blow—no matter how perfectly placed—felt as though it landed in mud, swallowed whole without impact. Every attempt to rally his strength had been met with a pull, subtle and constant, dragging his focus off course.
"And the peanut gallery has arrived," Aelius murmured, eyes sliding open with deliberate slowness. His voice was flat, almost bored, but the faint edge beneath it betrayed that he was still chewing on thoughts far darker than he let show.
The hinges above groaned, and the heavy cellar door creaked open. Boots struck the steps in precise, disciplined rhythm, each one a warning in itself. The scent of steel and polished leather came first, then the flash of crimson hair catching what little light the narrow stairwell offered.
Erza was not in armor this time, but the posture, the controlled precision in her march, carried just as much weight. Her gaze was sharp, fixed on him as though she intended to drag him back upstairs by the collar if necessary.
"Knew you'd run here," she said, voice level but carrying that restrained heat he knew all too well—the kind that came when she was one push away from turning polite words into an order.
"I'm glad," Aelius replied without looking away, "makes it easier for the next person who comes down here to try and talk me into something I already told them not to do." He tilted his head slightly toward her without truly shifting his posture, the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth not quite qualifying as a smile. "Scarlet, I vividly remember you being there when I told Natsu that if he went down here, the guild would be down one more member. You as well, Levy," he added, his voice rising just enough to carry past Erza toward the second, quieter set of footsteps hesitating at the top of the stairs.
Levy's answer was silence, though the pause before she followed Erza down said enough.
Erza's jaw tightened, but her eyes didn't leave his. "You left the hall the moment your legs worked again," she said—mild on the surface, but the way her tone clipped around the words betrayed how much it bothered her. "No word. No explanation. Just gone."
He let the statement hang there, neither denying nor confirming it, before answering with a calmness that was almost needling in its restraint. "I didn't see the point in lingering. My legs worked. I could walk. So I did."
Her eyes narrowed, not at the words themselves, but at what they implied—that she was trying to press against a wall that wasn't going to move.
A gentle hand came to rest on her pauldronless shoulder, fingers light but steady. Levy stepped down to stand beside her, the quiet contrast to Erza's looming presence. Her voice was softer, but there was no mistaking the intent behind it.
"We were just worried," she said, as if speaking it plainly might cut through the tension.
Aelius let out a slow breath through his nose and rolled his eyes, the movement exaggerated enough that it was clearly for their benefit. "Worried," he repeated, tasting the word like something that had been sitting in a glass too long—flat, without bite. "Scarlet glaring at me like I've kicked in her door and burned her favorite chair, and you—" he gestured lazily toward Levy without shifting his seated position "—trying to smooth it over like this is the first time I've walked away from a room the moment I could. Tell me, exactly which part of this is new?"
Levy hesitated, her expression flickering with the urge to argue but failing to find the right angle.
"None of my actions," Aelius continued, leaning back slightly as though settling in to explain something they should have already known, "are out of character. Not the leaving, not the silence, not the fact I didn't stop to take a bow and assure everyone I was going to be fine." His gaze shifted between the two of them, steady and unblinking. "I don't stick around when there's nothing more to be done. I don't invite questions I'm not interested in answering. And I certainly don't waste time proving to people I'm still alive when they can see that for themselves."
Erza's arms folded, but she didn't interrupt.
"You think my walking out the second my legs worked again means something? It does. It means I'm me. Same as I've always been." He shrugged once, a small, deliberate gesture. "If that worries you, then you haven't been paying attention."
Levy's hand slipped from Erza's shoulder, not out of defeat but because there was nothing more to soften without making it worse. The silence that followed was heavy—not hostile, but weighted with the knowledge that neither of them was going to move him from where he stood, physically or otherwise.
Aelius reached for the flask at his side, uncapped it, and took a measured sip. "So unless you've come down here with something useful," he said finally, "I suggest you stop trying to read between lines I've drawn in ink thicker than either of you can scrub out."
It wasn't dismissal in tone—though it might as well have been—it was simply the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned.
Aelius exhaled slowly, the kind of sigh that carried more annoyance than exhaustion, and let his head tilt back just enough to look up at the low ceiling. "I was doing something," he said at last, each word weighed down with the implication that it had been far more important than whatever had dragged them down here.
He uncrossed his legs in one smooth motion, palms pressing briefly to the floor as he pushed himself upright. The movement was fluid but deliberate, as if to remind them both that his legs worked just fine now, and that their arrival had interrupted him by choice, not necessity.
"But," he went on, dusting an invisible speck from his sleeve, "since someone doesn't know how to knock…" His eyes flicked to Erza with just enough sharpness to make the target clear. "…it's been ruined."
He started toward the far side of the cellar, not in a hurry, but with the kind of pacing that said the conversation was already over in his mind.
"Not that it matters," he added, a faint curl at the corner of his mouth. "To be fair, I got what I wanted."
The tone was infuriatingly casual—too calm for the tension in the room—leaving it unclear whether he was being deliberately vague or simply refusing to elaborate. Either way, it had the effect of making the interruption feel even more pointless, as though they'd barged in just to confirm they couldn't change anything.
"Come on," Aelius said, already moving toward the steps, his tone clipped but not without a faint undercurrent of dry amusement. "We can continue in a less cursed place."
He didn't slow as he passed them, brushing just close enough that they had to shift aside to give him room on the narrow stairs. The scent of old dust and stone clung to him from the cellar, mingling with something sharper—like cold metal left too long in the rain.
His footsteps were unhurried, deliberate, each one tapping against the worn wood as he climbed. He didn't glance back, didn't check to see if they were following, as though the matter was settled simply by him deciding it was.