Tenrou Island, despite its apparent and growing fetish for imminent disasters and unexpected encounters with mages of tragic pasts, surprisingly, had its moments of… quiet. I found one such interval of unsolicited peace seated upon a smooth, curiously warm stone which, according to the weathered inscription generously covered in moss (likely to make life difficult for the candidates), was, nothing less than, the tomb of the legendary First Master, Mavis Vermillion.
A sacred place, legends said. To me, at that moment, it was a surprisingly comfortable stone, excellent for naps and, more importantly, it emanated a tranquillity that contrasted pleasantly with the usually chaotic, noisy, and high-probability-of-unnecessary-explosions environments I was accustomed to frequenting.
There was a subtle warmth emanating from the stone beneath me, an ancient magical vibration, like the pulse of a slumbering heart, that sent a light tingling sensation through my legs. And, almost immediately, that familiar, rather irritating feeling of being watched.
Not in a hostile way, like when the Master's spoilt grandson, Laxus, would stare at me with his eyes sparking with pure, childish irritation because I wouldn't bow to his electric 'grandeur'. This was a different… observation. Softer. Almost like the gaze of an overly curious mother watching a particularly eccentric and unpredictable child trying to assemble a five-thousand-piece jigsaw with their feet. Strange. And, I must admit, rather invasive for my taste in privacy.
(Well, well. Could it be Mavis herself, or rather, in spirit? A particularly curious ghost of the First Master, hovering about, inspecting the candidates with a spiritual pair of binoculars and silently judging our wardrobe choices?) I reflected, internally, with a hint of amusement. No… the feeling was more substantial, more present, than that of a mere spectre or a hallucination induced by fish of dubious provenance.
It was a conscious presence. And I, with my numerous and varied forays into astral planes, conversations with entities that would make an experienced psychiatrist resign and open a flower shop, was well acquainted with this sort of… conscious magical projection. A signature of refined, subtle, and very ancient power.
(Eos, my dear, efficient source of possibly useless but occasionally amusing information, do we have any readings on this… observant presence that seems to have a particular interest in my contemplations on the futility of searching for tombs on tropical islands?)
[Analysing aethereal fluctuations in the vicinity of your current location, Azra'il,] Eos's voice sounded in my mind, precise and devoid of any enthusiasm. [Detecting a concentration of Ethernano with a unique and considerable signature approximately three metres north-west of your position. Energy level: Consistent with a magical entity of great power, of a benign nature, but with a curiosity that borders on the clinically diagnosable. Source: According to chronological markers, spectral signature, and the slight, subtle decay of residual spiritual particles… it's old. Very old. Bloody ancient, to use a less scientific terminology more aligned with your peculiar and frequently imprecise vernacular.]
I rolled my eyes at the last part. (Your ability to add unnecessary comments at the end of every analysis remains impeccable, Eos.)
I looked in the direction indicated by my AI companion. At first, nothing but the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, thick as slumbering serpents. I closed my eyes for an instant, filtering out the forest noises, concentrating on the sensation, the energy. A deep breath. And then, I activated what, in one of my more… memorable and visually impressive incarnations, had been called 'The Six Eyes'.
For a brief moment, my own blue eyes shone with an overlay of silver light and a deeper, almost indigo hue, as if multiple spectral lenses were aligning into a vision that transcended the veil of the mundane, allowing me to see the weaves of magic and the colours of the soul.
And then, I saw her. Clear as day, despite her translucence. A small blonde girl, almost a child, with a surprisingly youthful appearance for someone who should, technically, have been dead and decomposed for many, many years.
She floated shyly between the roots of the large tree, almost hiding behind a trunk like a startled fae, her simple white robes seeming woven of moonlight and mist. Observing. And she was staring back at me with immensely large, vivid green eyes, wide as a barn owl's that has just discovered Father Christmas isn't real.
Not with the intensity of one trying to intimidate or challenge. More like someone who has just been caught red-handed playing at being a spiritual spy and doesn't know where to run or how to disguise her aethereal glow. Adorable. In an astral, slightly comical way.
"You… you can see me?" the blonde girl, Mavis Vermillion in the flesh, or rather, in the spirit, I presumed, because who else would it be, a lost tourist from the beyond? she asked, her voice a shocked whisper, almost a squeak of surprise.
I raised an eyebrow, the very image of pure, bored incredulity stamped on my face. "No. Not at all. This is all just a complex, highly detailed hallucination, likely brought on by the multi-eyed, suggestively-tentacled fish Happy and I had the dubious pleasure of ingesting last night. I am, in fact, having a deep, meaningful conversation with a talking mushroom. Of course I can see you, child. You're not exactly subtle, floating there like a cemetery lamp with a severe case of shyness and an urgent need to interact with the living."
Her eyes widened even further, if that were possible, which I, honestly, didn't think was physically or spiritually feasible for a seemingly aethereal being. It looked as though her green eyeballs were about to pop out of their sockets and go rolling through the forest.
"That… that wasn't supposed to happen…" she stammered, her spectral hands rising to cover her mouth in a gesture of pure shock and perhaps a little shame. "Hardly anyone can see me like this… in this partial state, so soon… At least not without me wanting them to. And I didn't… I didn't do anything. What's wrong with me?"
"Believe me, blonde apparition," I sighed, with the weariness of one who has had this conversation many times in many different realities, "there's a lot I see in this one that I would fervently prefer not to. Naked people at inopportune moments, demons discussing the quality of tea, politicians trying to be honest… the list is long and unsettling. Consider yourself just another interesting, though somewhat predictable in your surprise, addition to my vast, growing collection of 'oddities that insist on interrupting my peace and my tea'."
"Sorry…" she murmured, looking genuinely embarrassed, shrinking a little between the roots, as if she could become invisible just by force of will. "I didn't mean to frighten or… be an oddity. I was just… curious." She tilted her head, her large green eyes analysing me with an intensity that was slightly reminiscent of a sentient system encountering a particularly complex code or an interesting temporal paradox. "Your aura is… strange, Azra'il Weiss. And so… sad. A deep sadness, like a dark ocean under a starless sky. I have never felt anything like it in my entire… existence. Or non-existence, as the case may be."
I paused for an instant, the name 'Azra'il Weiss' hanging in the air between us, as unexpected as a penguin in a volcano. (A strange aura? What a peculiar compliment coming from the ghost founder of a guild of remarkably noisy, mass-destruction-prone mages. And sad? Well, she wasn't entirely wrong, though 'chronically bored with occasional existential crises' would be a more accurate description. And how in the blazes did she know my full name? I certainly wasn't handing out astral business cards.)
"I admit that 'strange' is an adjective that has been attributed to me with some frequency, usually by individuals with a less than desirable comprehension capacity or a particular taste for life's dull predictability," I commented, a faint, ironic smile, the one I used to mask boredom or surprise, touching my lips. I could feel Happy's curious gaze on me, probably wondering if 'strange' was a new kind of fish he hadn't yet tasted.
"But what intrigues me more, little blonde apparition with a remarkable talent for astral observations, is how you seem so well-informed of my nomenclature. I don't recall us ever being formally introduced. Or has my fame as a connoisseur of exotic teas already spread across this island's spiritual plane?"
Mavis seemed to grow even more translucent for a moment, as if the direct question had caught her off guard. She brought a spectral hand to her mouth, her green eyes wide like a squirrel caught stealing nuts. "Oh! I-I… I said your name, didn't I? S-sorry! It's just that…" She hesitated, looking at the Fairy Tail mark I bore discreetly on my neck, a detail I had almost forgotten amidst so much insular eccentricity. "The guild mark… it resonates. To me, every member of Fairy Tail is like a little star connected to a great constellation. It's a magical bond, something I left as a legacy. And through that connection, I can feel your essence, the… the melody of your souls. Some are soft, others more turbulent… and yours, Azra'il… your star is different. Ancient. Complex. It shines with a kind of light that… I can't explain. As if it existed long before me. And… your name came with that light. Not as words, but as a memory… a feeling I simply recognised."
(A constellation of noisy mages, with occasional black holes of common sense. And my star 'shines with an ancient, complex light'. What a poetic, rather alarming way of saying I'm an old weirdo with a lot of secrets. At least she didn't say 'dusty',) I reflected, but her explanation had a certain… magical logic that made sense in the context of a guild founder. A spiritual connection with her members through the mark. Fascinating. And slightly invasive, if I were to be honest.
"I see," I said, my tone a little less sarcastic, genuinely intrigued by this revelation. "A… soul connection, then. Through a tattooed symbol. How quaintly magical. And it explains a lot about the canine loyalty of some members of this guild."
She smiled shyly, a little more at ease now that the gaffe had been, in a way, justified. "It's more than just a symbol, Azra'il Weiss. It's a bond. A bond that transcends time and space. And your bond… your 'melody', as I said, is very strong, but also very… veiled. Like a song heard from very far away, through a thick fog." Her gaze fixed back on my eyes. "That's why I was curious. Your aura… it has that sadness, like a long shadow from a winter that never ends. But beneath it, there is an unexpected kindness, a strength that isn't just about power, but about… resilience. And there is a resonance… almost as if you've harboured other voices, other songs, within you." She tilted her head again, like a curious bird. "It's sad… very sad, somewhere deep down… but it's also gentle. And strong. Like an ancient blade, sheathed for a very, very long time, but still dangerously sharp. Still able to cut."
"Azra'il-chan?" Happy's worried voice pulled me from my analysis of the First Master and her unsettling ability to read auras like an open book. The little Exceed was staring at me with his head tilted, his round eyes full of confusion. He clearly didn't see our new… floating friend. "Who are you talking to? Is there someone else here besides us?"
"Ah, don't you worry about it, Happy," I said, giving him a reassuring smile that probably only made him more worried and convinced of my impending madness. "Just a minor bout of schizophrenia induced by the stress of the exam and, possibly, the side effects of that multi-eyed fish of yours. Nothing major. It usually passes after a few hours or a good existential scream into the void. I'm just having a stimulating conversation with my inner demons about the nature of reality. A typical Tuesday."
"W-what?!" The First Master, or rather, the projection of Mavis, looked genuinely offended, her aethereal cheeks taking on an almost imperceptible rosy hue, like the dawn in a winter sky. "I am not a bout of schizophrenia! And I am most certainly not an inner demon!"
I ignored her for a moment, focusing on calming my feline partner before he had a panic attack and tried to drag me off to the guild psychiatrist (if we even had one, which I highly doubted, considering the general sanity level of the members). Happy, bless his confused little blue heart, seemed to accept my bizarre explanation with alarming ease. He was probably already used to my eccentricities and externalised internal monologues.
Mavis, however, recovered quickly from the offence of being compared to a psychiatric condition or a resident malignant entity in my psyche. A small smile, one of those genuine, childlike smiles one almost forgets how to make, especially when one lives for too long, lit up her face.
"You can see me… because of those special eyes of yours, can't you? They are… different." She floated a little closer, curiosity overcoming her initial shyness and recent indignation. "People can usually only see me under very specific conditions, or when I consciously allow it with great effort. In fact, I thought I was completely invisible to all the participants in this exam."
"My dear, spectral founder," I said, crossing my arms and staring at her with an air of mild impatience. "Whether you allow it or not, here you are, floating picturesquely between the roots like a fairy with navigational problems. And my eyes, shall we say, have a rather extensive, frequently irritating history of seeing things that, for the comfort of all involved, would prefer to remain comfortably invisible. It's part of the charm, or the curse, depending on the day."
Mavis tilted her head, that analytical gaze returning, but this time it didn't fix on my aura as a whole. Her large green eyes seemed to focus on something more… intimate.
"It's not just what your eyes see, Azra'il Weiss," she said softly, her voice taking on a more pensive tone, as if she were talking to herself. "It's what they reflect. I see… so many ages in them. So many songs. Some sad, others full of a cold fury, and some… a few rare ones, with a melody of an almost forgotten joy." She paused, and I felt a shiver run down my spine, not of fear, but of an unexpected vulnerability. It was as if she were reading the pages of a book I kept under lock and key, even from myself. "It's like looking into a very, very old night sky, full of stars that have already burnt out for the rest of the world, but which still shine in your memory."
I blinked. Slowly. Very slowly. Her words, spoken with that almost childlike simplicity but with a depth that belied her aethereal appearance, hit me with disconcerting accuracy. (So many ages... So many songs... I really have seen stars burn out...) She couldn't know, not really. But her spiritual intuition, or whatever that ghostly gift of hers was, was brushing dangerously close to truths I kept buried under layers of indifference and time. She was seeing the echoes. The fragments. The weight of what I had once been, what I still carried. It was a different perspective, but equally invasive.
(Interesting. Genuinely interesting, Eos. The little First Master has a keen nose for souls with… excessive mileage. Or perhaps she's just poetically inclined and got lucky with her guess,) I thought, trying to maintain my facade of regal composure, though inside, an old familiar feeling of being dissected by eyes that saw too much was beginning to cause me slight discomfort. It was like having a particularly insistent archaeologist poking at your personal ruins with a fine brush.
"Well, well, First Founder of Fairytales," I began, forcing a tone of lightly condescending amusement, seeking to break the intensity of her gaze and the uncomfortable accuracy of her words. "What a poetic, dramatically perceptive analysis for someone who appears to have… well, let's just say, stopped ageing at an age when most are still learning to tie their own astral shoelaces." A small, mocking smile played on my lips. "Should I start to worry? Are you going to start reading my fortune in tea leaves or predict my tragic, inevitable future by looking at the entrails of the next bizarre fish my cat decides to present me with?" I shifted my weight, crossing my arms. "Because, you know, this ability of yours to 'see sad songs and burnt-out stars' in others' eyes is a rather… morbid talent for such a young, seemingly harmless apparition. Are you sure you're not the one trying to frighten me to steal my tea recipe?"
"W-what?! Frighten you? S-steal your tea recipe?!" Mavis recoiled a little, her aethereal features contorting in a mixture of genuine surprise, confusion, and a hint of offence. Her spectral cheeks took on that adorable rosy hue again, like two little clouds of cotton candy at dawn. "B-but why would I want to steal your tea recipe? I… I can't even drink tea! Or eat anything!" She gestured with her little translucent hands towards herself, as if to emphasise her incorporeal nature and her lamentable exclusion from gastronomic pleasures.
"A-and I just thought your eyes were… very expressive! And full of… history! A very long and complicated history, like one of those enormous books Makarov keeps in the forbidden section! I-I'm not trying to frighten you or do anything bad! I swear on the first light of Fairy Tail!" She seemed genuinely distressed at the idea of being seen as a tea recipe thief with sinister intentions.
"Ah, 'expressive' and 'full of history'," I repeated, savouring the words, my smile widening. "What a delicate way of saying I look old, tired, and likely haunted by a legion of bad decisions. I appreciate the subtlety, First Master." I inclined my head.
"But, speaking seriously for a moment, if that's even possible in a conversation with a talkative ghost and a cat who thinks I'm schizophrenic… this 'curiosity' of yours could be a little… dangerous, don't you think? For you, of course. Some stories are better left unsung, some stars better left forgotten. Poking at others' pasts can bring to light things that not even a spectral founder would wish to see." My tone, though still with a touch of irony, carried a veiled warning. A warning she, with her intelligence, would likely understand.
The large green eyes of Mavis, which previously shone with an almost childlike, analytical curiosity, softened instantly. The shrewd glint gave way to a gentle, almost motherly understanding that caught me off guard. She didn't seem offended or intimidated by my warning; instead, a small shadow of sadness, or perhaps empathy, crossed her aethereal features. She floated back a little, not in fearful retreat, but as if giving me space, respecting the boundary I had drawn.
"I understand, Azra'il Weiss," she said, her voice now low and incredibly soft, devoid of any malice or insistence. "Some songs are indeed too painful to be sung aloud, and some stars carry a light that burns too brightly to be stared at for long."
Her gaze was no longer that of a strategist analysing an enigma, but of someone who recognised a familiar pain, even if of a different nature. "Forgive my indiscretion. Curiosity, at times, speaks louder than prudence, even for one who should have learned all of time's lessons by now." A small, melancholic smile touched her lips. "I did not mean to cause you discomfort. It is just that… there is so much in you that resonates with the very ancient, the very lived. Things I thought only I, in my… particular condition, could perceive."
(Ah, so the little blonde apparition also has her own abysses of melancholy and loneliness, beneath all that childish, strategic energy. What a surprise. Or perhaps not so surprising, considering her history, her current state,) I thought, the earlier pang of irritation dissipating, replaced by a more… thoughtful curiosity. There was a depth to her that went beyond legend.
She seemed to read my thoughts, or perhaps just sensed the change in my own aura. "Do not worry," she said, with a reassuring nod. "I shall ask no more questions about your 'burnt-out stars'." But curiosity still shone in her eyes, now tempered with respect. "But you are right about my methods of observation. It wasn't my intention to be… intrusive. It is just that you are the first person, besides certain guild members at very specific moments, who can see and interact with me so… clearly. And my eyes, well, they don't just see what's on the surface. And yours…" she looked back at me, but this time with an almost reverent gentleness, "...are truly extraordinary, Azra'il. And very beautiful, like fragments of the sky from a forgotten world."
The compliment, coming from her after that moment of tacit understanding, sounded different. Less like an analysis, more like a sincere observation.
"Azra'il-chan, are you really alright?" Happy's voice, now a little closer and laden with genuine concern, cut through the quiet. He had returned, dragging his luminescent fish, and I didn't even want to think from which stagnant puddle or forgotten fissure in the middle of those ruins he had managed to conjure such a delicacy, much less how he had conducted his fishing expedition while I was engrossed in conversations with spectral royalty. He was probably wondering why the tree had now stopped giving me psychiatric advice. "You went so quiet all of a sudden. And that tree isn't talking to you anymore, is it?"
I sighed, a sound that was almost a smile. Feline practicality always anchoring me back to reality. "I'm fine, Happy. The tree and I had a… spiritually enriching conversation about the dangers of poking at the past and the importance of a good cup of tea." I glanced at Mavis, who was floating with an air of one discreetly enjoying the scene. "Perhaps," I whispered to the First Master, a glint of amusement in my own eyes, "we should continue this fascinating discussion on the nature of souls and the aesthetics of my eyes on another occasion. Before my partner decides I really do need an intervention with calming herbs and a long chat with a guild healer who specialises in delusions."
Mavis laughed, a light, crystalline sound. "I understand. He is a good protector." Her smile widened. "I shall be around, Azra'il. The exam is ongoing, and there is much to observe. And I… would like to talk more with you, when it is opportune. About stars, songs, and, who knows, even tea recipes."
With those words, her aethereal body began to grow more translucent, like frosted glass in the light, until she dissolved completely into the forest air, leaving behind only the feeling of her magical presence, now warmer, less curious. She was still there, I knew, the small, surprisingly understanding First Master. Observing. And waiting.