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Year:X776
The rain off the coast of Rosemary Village was a total mess.
Erza dragged her boots through the mud, her lungs burning with every single breath. She was only ten years old, wearing a piece of rusted armor she'd scavenged from the beach, and her fingers were caked in dry blood.
Her right hand was pressed flat against her face. Blood was still leaking through her fingers because the cultists at the Tower of Heaven had literally gouged her right eye out of her skull before Grandpa Rob sacrificed himself so she could run.
"Fairy Tail," she kept thinking, trying to focus through her blurry vision. "Grandpa Rob said it's a place where people are actually free. A place with a bright sky."
Her legs gave out right as the dirt road hit the town cobblestones. She fell hard into the mud, but right through the rain, she saw it—a massive wooden tavern with a flag waving a fairy emblem on the roof.
Erza forced herself up the steps and slammed her body against the heavy doors. She took one step into the warm room, her brain shut off, and she hit the floorboards face-first.
When Erza woke up, she was in a quiet infirmary bed with thick white bandages wrapped around her head, covering the empty socket.
She didn't wait around. She got out of bed, limped out of the room, and followed the noise down to the main tavern floor.
The hall was pretty quiet. A tiny, bald old man with a white mustache and a master's coat was sitting at the bar counter, looking down at her with a frown.
"You're awake," the old man said, his voice surprisingly deep. "Easy, kid. You're safe. This is the Fairy Tail guild. I'm Master Makarov."
Before Erza could answer, the front doors were kicked wide open with a loud slam.
"I'm back from the north, and I brought snacks!" a loud voice shouted.
A guy in his early twenties walked in wearing flashy white-and-purple robes. He had a lazy smirk, a green-gemmed staff over his shoulder, and a paper bag full of fresh apples. He was literally humming an upbeat tune as he strolled past her.
"Merlin, stop slamming my doors!" Makarov yelled, a vein popping on his forehead.
"Calm down, old man," Merlin chuckled. He stopped, his gold eyes locking onto Erza. "Who's the tiny knight? Is she trying to look like a tin can?"
Before Erza could move, Merlin bounced over, pulled a red apple out, and tried to balance it right on top of her head.
"Don't touch me!" Erza snapped, slapping his hand away and glaring up at him with her single good eye.
Makarov let out a long, exhausted sigh and dropped his chin into his palm. "Just ignore the idiot, Erza. That's Merlin. He wandered out of the mountains three years ago, signed up as a senior member, and has been making my life a living hell ever since. The Magic Council even forced a Wizard Saint title on him just to keep tabs on him, but he mostly uses the medal to scrape mud off his boots."
Erza froze, her jaw dropping slightly. She looked from the tiny old Master back to the smiling guy in the fancy robes. This guy? A Wizard Saint? One of the ten strongest mages on the continent? He looked like a complete slacker.
"Anyway," Makarov sighed, pushing himself up from the counter. "Let's go up to my office, kid. We need to get you out of those damp clothes and talk about what happened to your eye."
Upstairs in the office, Erza sat in a huge leather chair that made her look tiny. Makarov sat behind his desk, while Merlin just leaned against the window, staring out at the rain with his goofy smile completely gone.
Erza took a breath and told them everything. She talked about the slave labor at the tower, the whips, the cells, and how they cut her eye out when she tried to rebel. Her voice cracked when she mentioned Grandpa Rob burning his own life to dust to shield her from the magic blasts.
By the time she finished, Makarov was slamming his fists onto his desk, his eyes full of angry tears. "Those absolute bastards... using kids for dark magic..."
Merlin didn't say a word. He walked away from the window, his gold eyes staring at her. The childish attitude was completely gone.
He knelt right in front of her chair so they were eye-to-eye.
"You fought hard, kid," Merlin said, his voice dropping into a calm tone. "You've dealt with a lot of garbage no kid should have to touch. But a knight shouldn't have to look at the world through a broken lens."
Erza blinked. "What?"
Merlin reached his hand into his white robes. A soft golden light suddenly spilled out from under his coat, and he pulled out a heavy blue-and-gold sheath covered in ancient lettering.
The second the sheath appeared, the depressing mood in the room completely vanished. The air smelled like fresh grass and spring breeze.
Makarov nearly choked on his tongue, staring at the thing as a massive pressure filled the room. "What the hell is that, Merlin? The magic rolling off that thing isn't even human!"
"It's called Avalon," Merlin muttered, giving Erza a small smirk.
Before Makarov could yell at him to explain, Merlin pressed the blue-and-gold sheath straight against Erza's chest.
Erza's eye went wide. The sheath didn't hurt—it just felt like pure warmth poured into her chest. In a second, the metal sheath turned into glowing gold dust and sank right under her skin.
"Ah...!" Erza gasped, grabbing her chest as a massive wave of energy hit her veins.
Her exhaustion disappeared. Her fever broke. Right in front of Makarov, the thick bandages on her head started to glow. Under the cloth, a warm light started leaking out. Erza gasped as the empty socket stopped throbbing entirely, a brand new eye completely forming under the cloth in a split second.
Erza tore the bandages off and dropped them, blinking rapidly.
She could see perfectly out of both sides. No pain, no scars, completely healed.
"Are you completely out of your skull?!" Makarov yelled, slamming both hands on his desk. "You can't just grow a whole eye back out of nowhere! Not even the best healing mages in the capital can do that!"
Merlin stood up, throwing his staff back over his shoulder and putting a hand behind his head as his lazy smirk came back.
"Eh," Merlin shrugged, chuckling. "Just something I found during a random dungeon dive down south a while back. Don't worry about the details, old man."
Erza sat frozen, touching her new eyelid. She looked up at the white-robed Saint. He was a reckless idiot to everyone else, but he had just handed her life back.
"Thank you..." Erza whispered, tears finally hitting her cheeks. "Thank you, Merlin."
"Don't get sappy on me, kid," Merlin laughed, reaching out and ruffling her messy red hair. "Just focus on getting big and strong. This guild is going to need a tough knight to keep the idiots in line."