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Lion's Pride	By : Rhov Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 10067 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima. I make no money writing this. I do it for my own pleasure. Any lyrics are my own or I received permission from the artist.

Chapter List
- 29
- 30
- 31
"The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in." - W. H. Auden

Chapter 30

Truth in a Fairy Tale

"The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in." - W. H. Auden

Chapter 30

Truth in a Fairy Tale

Levy, Erza, and Wendy all wore Gale-Force Reading Glasses, flipping quickly through books while Natsu, Gray, and Happy ran back and forth through Fairy Tail's massive library, bringing arm-loads of books and taking back any that were finished.

"I never realized there were so many fairy tales," Wendy exclaimed as she flipped through her storybook.

"Didn't you read any as a kid?" Levy asked in surprise.

"Do you realize how many of these involve slaying dragons? Grandeeney never would have allowed those sorts of stories!"

Levy looked over. "But you're a dragon slayer. You'd think stories like that would be...I don't know, research."

"To do what? Kill my mother? No way! Besides, the magic Grandeeney taught me is different from other dragon slayers. It's more about healing than destroying."

"I suppose that's true," Levy realized. "When you were in Cait Shelter, didn't they have fairy tales?"

The little girl thought back. "Master Roubaul told me legends, but I guess they must have been unique to the Nirvit people, because I don't recognize any of them in these books."

Gray groaned wearily as he brought five more thick tomes and dropped them heavily onto the table. "Levy, are you sure there's a clue in these? I mean, they're kids' stories."

"I don't know for certain," Levy admitted. "When you guys were talking about lion hearts, I was reminded of a story I read as a child. I don't remember who wrote it, what book it was in, or the title, only a vague memory about a lion who gave up his heart to be with a girl. Fairy tales have elements of truth. Maybe it can give us a hint on where to start looking for this Royal Key."

"We should ask Lucy to help us," Wendy suggested. She set aside a book, picked up another, and began to rapidly flip through it.

Natsu came with more books and a pout on his face. "Lucy has enough worries. Every time I visit her, she smells like salt water, so I know she's been crying. Let's leave her alone for a few more days."

"Natsu's right," nodded Gray. "I think it's best if we let her focus on her baby while we do the research."

Erza paused in her reading, flipped back a few pages, and read the story slower. "I think I found it." The others rushed over to her as Erza removed the glasses so she could read normally.

The Heartless Lion

Once upon a time, there lived a princess who was under the spell of an evil witch. The witch was a cruel woman who beat the princess and made her live worse than a slave. She even tried to kill the princess many times.

One day, while walking in the fields surrounding the witch's fortress, the princess met a lion. She was scared, but the lion spoke gently to her.

"Fear not, princess. If you hug my mane, I will protect you."

"No!" cried the girl. "If I get too close, you will eat me."

"Upon my pride, I promise not to harm you."

The princess was scared, but she wanted to be protected from the witch, so she hugged his mane. He was warm and purred gently. After that, the lion followed beside her every day. When the witch came to beat the princess, the lion stood in the way. When the witch sent demons to attack in the night, the lion fought them and kept the princess safe. She came to trust the lion, although she feared his beastly nature.

One day, the princess became sad. She had been a prisoner of the witch for so long, and she missed her family.

The lion said, "Please do not cry. If you give me a kiss, I can free you."

"Oh dear, no!" the princess protested. "If I get too close to your mouth, you will eat me."

"Princess, we have been friends for so long, but I have not been honest. I am under a spell from the evil witch. A kiss will break the curse. Then we can work together and get free. Please princess, upon my pride, you can trust me."

Believing the lion, she gave him a kiss. Instantly, the beast turned into a handsome prince. Seeing him made the princess very happy, and they immediately fell in love.

Suddenly, the witch arrived in anger. "Who changed the prince back from a lion?" she demanded. She saw the princess shivering. "You did! For undoing my spell, I will have your head."

However, the lion-prince knew magic. He grabbed the princess, and they disappeared from the witch's fortress. He took her to a peaceful land filled with flowers. They married and were very happy. However, the prince was doomed to fall under the witch's spell once more. To prevent this, he traveled to a wise sage to seek a solution.

"The witch's spell lingers in your heart," the sage told the lion-prince. "Unless you remove your heart, you will never be free."

The lion-prince refused. He feared that if he lost his heart, he would stop caring for the princess. Still, he dreaded the witch's influence.

One day, the evil witch made him return with her magic and imprisoned him. She changed him back into a lion and kept him in a cage.

"You are a beast, and you will always be a beast," she cackled as she tormented him through his prison bars.

"I am not a beast," he roared. "I am a proud prince, and I love no one but my princess."

"Then I will find your precious princess and kill her so that you will belong to me again." With that threat, the witch left him alone in his cage.

The lion-prince roared and paced, but he could not escape. He feared for his beloved princess and was prepared to do anything to save her from the witch.

Remembering the sage's words, the lion used his mighty claw and cut out his heart, leaving only a single piece, the part that loved the princess. Instantly, the curse lifted, and he was a prince once more. He left the witch's fortress and never returned. He put his heart in a magic box and hid the box in a cave on a far southern island, so no one under the stars would find it.

The witch saw the empty cage and searched for the lion, but since her magic over him was undone, she never found him or the princess ever again. The lion-prince returned home feeling worried. He was now heartless, and he feared he might feel no love for his beloved princess. However, when she rushed out to greet him, he felt a leap in the place where his heart once was. That tiny piece he left intact held all of his feelings for her, and he swore she would be his only love for all eternity.

The princess and the heartless lion-prince lived happily ever after.

The End

"That's it!" Levy cried out. "That's the story of Loke."

"Aye!" Happy agreed.

Wendy had a tiny pout. "But knowing it's Loke makes it sad, since we know it wasn't happily ever after between them."

Gray hummed as he looked over Erza's shoulder at the book, accompanied by drawings of each scene to help children to understand. "But Loke isn't a prince, and Naomi was never a princess."

"Well, you guys said Loke used to be a king, right?" Levy reasoned. "In fairy tales, kings are old and princes are young. A good writer follows the archetypes of the genre," she explained as if this was elementary. "Little children aren't as interested if bad things happen to normal people, but it's more tragic if it's a prince and princess. In this story, the role of royalty was transferred from Queen Kefira, who is only called an evil witch, to the Celestial Spirit Mage, who in this story is a princess. That's not important," she said, swishing the minor detail away before pointing hard into the book. "The thing is, it's about a man who was also a lion, a wicked witch, a damsel in distress...hmm..." She tapped her glasses up her nose and skimmed through the story again. "He put his heart in a magic box and hid the box in a cave on a far southern island, so no one under the stars would find it. That's our Spirit Key."

"But south from where?" pouted Gray. "Queen Kefira lived in Kohinur. That's halfway around the world. Are we expected to search every island from Fiore to Kohinur?"

"Obviously, this is pertaining to south from the country of origin." Levy took the book out of Erza's hands and flipped back to the first few pages. "Oh! Children Tales from the Land of Kohinur. So yep, it looks like the island where Loke hid the Key to the Heart of the Lion is on an island south of Kohinur."

"Kohinur," Natsu whined in complaint. "That's so far away! Wendy, you better come with us so you can use Troia to keep me from getting sick. Looks like this is going to be a very long quest."

Erza hummed and walked over to a globe in the library. "If we're traveling to Kohinur, we might have to wait a little. There are trade winds out that way that would make traveling by boat difficult."

"Boat?" Natsu moaned, feeling sick just imagining it.

"What about a train?" asked Gray.

"Tra-a-ain?" Natsu groaned louder.

"That might be possible," Erza mused, inspecting the globe. "It might take longer by train on average, but it's much better than waiting for the winds and spring storms to subside."

Natsu was wavering and turning green. "Stormy seas...boat..." He hiccuped and covered his mouth in illness.

Gray glared at him. "Don't get sick just thinking about it."

Just then, Lucy walked into the library and was startled to see them all standing around. "Oh? I see Levy and Erza in here a lot, but I didn't think Natsu even liked reading."

"How mean!" he snapped, forgetting his sickness as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I know how to read. Igneel taught me."

"Mean Lucy!" Happy joined in for Natsu's defense.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. "I never said I thought you couldn't read; I said I didn't think you liked reading enough to spend a nice spring day here in the library."

"Lu-chan!" Levy cried out happily. "We found a clue to the location of that Spirit Key Loke wants."

Lucy's eyes widened, and for a moment she looked terrified. A split second later, she had a casual smile and gave a flippant wave at the idea as she walked past them. "He doesn't want it," she said dismissively. "He only said if I'm in trouble, I could use it. But I have you guys, so I don't have to go on some silly wild goose chase."

"But..." Levy looked down at the book. "I thought you wanted to search for the Regulus Key."

"Yeah!" shouted Natsu. "I wanna make Loke stronger, so I can fight him."

"Aye," agreed Happy. "Then he'll be a super-duper awesome grownup cat."

"Don't be idiots," Lucy sighed, grabbing a book from a shelf. "Loke just panicked when he told me that. He probably wasn't supposed to say anything at all. You should forget about it."

"But Lucy," Wendy began sadly.

"No!" she snapped. That shocked all of them, and they stared at her. Lucy rubbed out her head and tried to calm herself. "Look, I have a baby to think about now. I can't run off on adventures like you guys. I don't think any of you could find that key anyway. Loke said only I could, and I don't want to, so just...give it up already," she yelled and stormed out.

"Lucy," Happy pouted as they watched her flee.

Erza's eyes narrowed, and after Lucy was gone, she muttered, "Something's up with her."

"PMS?" asked Natsu.

Gray realized it, too. "She's hiding something. She was scared."

"Precisely," Erza nodded. "You guys mentioned something about the Celestial Spirits weren't supposed to use those Royal Keys unless it was a dire emergency."

"Yeah," Natsu frowned, thinking back. "That snoring gramps said it was an ultimate sin."

Erza's face went even more stern. "I see. If that's the case, then it might be that if she tries to look for the Regulus Key, Loke could be killed to keep him from gaining more power."

"That's horrible," Levy gasped. Her eyes dropped to the fairy tale book. "Then I guess we shouldn't bother. I don't want Loke to get into trouble because of us."

Gray stared a little harder. Something felt off with Lucy. He decided to follow her and hurried out of the guild building. He kept his distance, tracking her through the streets of Magnolia, all the way to Bisca's house. Lucy paused in front of it but did not knock. Even keeping his distance, Gray heard the voices of Luke and Asuka inside the house. With a sigh, Lucy went past and continued on to her old apartment. Gray thought she had given up on it, but Lucy pulled out a key and unlocked the door. He knew how to break in, so Gray went to her bedroom window, stealthily opened it, and climbed inside. The place was surprisingly clean for a house that had been abandoned since last summer.

"Thanks for cleaning it again," he heard Lucy say. "This is the rent for this month. I might miss the next few months, but I'll pay you in full when I can."

"You're a good girl, Lucy Heartfilia," Gray heard an old woman say. "If I waited seven years to have you pay all that was due on your rent, I can wait a few months while you take care of your baby. Are you planning on moving back soon?"

"Not yet. With my baby's father gone, I'm under guild protection again."

"I see. Well, return when you can. That husband of yours isn't bad looking, and I'm sure he could help you with rent."

"Oh! He, uh...he's not my...never mind," sighed Lucy. "When he returns from his, um, mission, I'll ask him about moving back here. I miss this place."

"I'll hold it in wait a bit longer, only because you've somehow managed to keep paying rent. I don't like empty houses, though," she said in a grouchy voice.

"I know. I'm sorry. Thank you, landlady."

Then Gray heard a door open and shut. He slipped out from the bedroom and saw Lucy standing in the middle of an empty house. All of her furniture had been moved to the dormitory, and only a few things were left behind. She jolted at the sound of footsteps, but relaxed when she saw it was only Gray.

"Sneaking into my house," she chided. "Boy, does that bring back memories!"

"How are you paying for this?" he asked in concern.

"Natsu slips me some of his money. I told him he didn't have to, but he said he doesn't want to lose Team Natsu's training room." She laughed with a sniffle and shook her head at the craziness of her beloved friend.

Hesitantly, Gray began, "Lucy, about the Regulus Key—"

"I told you, I don't want to search for it," she said harshly. "Loke will come back. I trust him, and I trust the Spirit King to make this trial as quick as possible. I'll wait." She held her head up bravely.

Gray found a slip of paper on a crate and a pencil. He scratched something down on it. "Are you sure you don't want him to be stronger? You know what Crux said. He'd be the strongest Celestial Spirit. That'd be a huge power-up to you as a mage." He slipped the paper over. On it, he had written: Are we being watched?

"I don't care about something like power," Lucy snapped. She took the pencil and wrote back: Yes! "I want Loke to be safe, that's all. Even if he's stripped of his magic completely, so long as he can return to us, then that's fine."

Gray crunched up the paper. "If that's your decision, of course we'll abide by it. None of us want Loke to get into worse trouble. We want both you and him to be happy together. Sorry we butted into your business without asking. We just wanted to help."

"I know, and I'm glad everyone is concerned for us." Lucy smiled sadly, feeling truly lucky to have such loyal friends.

"Feel free to let us know when you need assistance, either with the baby or with paying rent on this place. I'll tell the others to stop researching this."

"Thanks," she muttered with a wary pout.

He nodded in a silent goodbye and began to turn out of the house. Gray only got three steps before Lucy grabbed his arm.

"Wait!" She looked around her room, glaring at the corners. "It's gone. I don't know what it was, but I felt it following me for a few days now, watching me. Some sort of Celestial Spirit, from how it felt. A spy is my guess. Loke probably got in trouble for telling me about the Regulus Key, so they were spying on me to see if I'd go after it. That's why I had to tell all those lies."

"Lies?" asked Gray. "Then you do want to go after the key?"

"Of course I do! That evil woman Kefira is also after it. I'm not going to let her get Loke. It's bad enough that I've lost him to the Spirit King, but I refuse to lose him to some bitch like her. Even if Loke comes back home this very day, I'd still go after that key, if only to make sure no one else ever gets it. But we need to lie low for a while. I picked this up at the guild." She showed him a sheet of paper.

Gray read through it. "A job?"

"I want to go on a mission tomorrow, purely so I have an excuse to call out my Spirits. If they think I'm going back into my usual routine, they'll tell the Spirit King and he'll forget about the matter of the Lapis Lazuli Key."

Gray nodded with a smile to see that she was not giving up. "I see. I'll show this job to Natsu and Erza. It sounds easy, but you'll still have to call out a Celestial Spirit."

"Right! And if all the Spirits are gathered for this trial, then the Spirit King will know right away. He'll be off his guard, and that's when we can leave!" she declared with a gleam of defiance in her eyes.

Meanwhile, in the Spirit World

The Celestial Spirit Telescopium, the Telescope, appeared before the Spirit King in a puff of smoke and light. "My liege," he said, and the awkwardly shaped Spirit bowed his horizontally tubular head. "I bring news. Despite being tempted by her compatriots, the Spirit Mage Lucy Heartfilia has publicly declared she shall not seek the Regulus Key. She is resting her hope in your benevolence, my esteemed king."

The mustached Spirit nodded solemnly. "I had sincerely hoped she was wise enough to leave this issue alone. It seems I was right about her. Lucy is not the sort to foolishly do dangerous things."

Seated with dozens of other Celestial Spirits all waiting in a courtroom, Aquarius gave a soft scoff. "He obviously doesn't know Lucy very well."

Sagittarius looked over with concern. "Moshi-moshi! Do you think Lucy-dono will seek it out?"

Aquarius kept silent and just smirked. She knew it was best not to speak her mind. She had been Lucy's Celestial Spirit since the girl was a child and barely able to summon her for a couple of minutes. Aquarius had always felt annoyed by the frail girl, but at least she gave lengthy vacations and did not pry into her love life. Aquarius did not want Lucy to lose her keys, only to end up with an owner who saw her as a mere tool. She despised those sorts of Humans.

Aries bit her nails fretfully. "Where's Leo? Why isn't he here yet?" She looked over to Capricorn. "You guys already fetched him, right?"

"Yes," the Goat frowned, still feeling guilty about the scene of familial love he had witnessed and, essentially, destroyed. "It's been many hours. I don't understand the delay."

"Simple, ebi," said Cancer. "Each hour here is almost four days in Earthland, and Leo knows this, ebi. This is the Spirit King's way of mentally torturing Leo. As he sits, he realizes how much time is passing with Lucy all alone. The guilt will weaken his sense of pride and tame him a little, ebi."

Aries pouted and folded her arms. "I don't like this at all."

"Nor do I," Capricorn whispered. He felt that justice needed to be served, but this...this wasn't justice! This was revenge. The Goat had not been aligned with the Royal Stars, so he did not understand what sort of power was involved. He only knew that he had observed fear in the Spirit King. With Leo desperate enough to send Lucy off to seek that ancient power, the worries the Spirit King had were now justified. Leo was being punished with this delay in the trial. However, if Leo was going to be punished by stripping away his magic anyway, what purpose did the delay serve besides tormenting both Leo and Lucy?

"We don't like this, either," Gemi and Mini said together.

"Pu-puun!" Plue agreed, looking as upset as the Canis Minor could with his silly face.

Scorpio also frowned with his arms folded angrily. "Yeah, but what can we do? We are too weak to stand up against the Spirit King."

Lyra urgently hushed him. "Don't even talk about that! You'll also get in trouble."

Still, the Celestial Spirits who loved Lucy were anxious and angry. It was bad enough that they knew what this trial was for—to strip away Leo's immortality and magic—but the delay was purely cruel.

Taurus began to tap his cowbell. Inside it was his fragment of the Aldebaran Key. He had not thought about the Royal Stars in a long, long time. Now this whole problem with Leo and the Regulus Key made the Bull disturbed. He kept tapping the bell, letting it ring mutely, until Capricorn grabbed his hand.

"Do you wish to get in trouble, too?" the Goat warned in a stern whisper.

Taurus put his hand down and refrained from the nervous tapping. There was nothing they could do but wait...and wait...and wait.

Back in Earthland

The next day, Lucy and the team went to a nearby town where Blue Pegasus had partied and left magical booby traps scattered through a hotel. No one from their guild felt well enough to clean up, since all of them, even Master Bob, had hangovers, so Fairy Tail went to aid them.

They arrived to see mages being carried out on stretchers. Some had injuries from brawls, but most appeared to be in pain from hangovers. They saw Master Bob about to be taken away in a wagon with his bald head cradled down in his hands.

"Master Bob!" Lucy shouted and waved.

"Shhhh!" came dozens of pained hushes.

The cross-dressing master silently pointed to the hotel. Curious, they began to walk to the entrance when they heard a joyous cry.

"Oh, my lovely Erza!" They turned to see Ichiya leaping forward, rather nimble for a man of his age. Erza cringed back in disgust. "Your perfume is..." He suddenly collapsed and vomited.

"Wow, do you smell that bad?" Happy asked, and Erza shook her fist at him in a threat.

"Ichiya-sensei," little Eve cried out. Although he looked like he was also suffering with a hangover, he and Ren rushed to assist their team leader over to a waiting wagon. "We're very sorry about that, ladies," he grinned specifically to Erza and Lucy, completely ignoring Gray and Natsu.

"We'll make it up to you for such humiliation," Ren assured them. "But...it's not because we like you or anything," he added in a grumble.

"Let's go," Erza growled, and she escaped as quickly as she could.

They went inside the posh hotel, where the staff took them upstairs to a dark room. They knocked and after a long delay a man answered. He wore a rumpled suit, the jacket off, his tie loose and askew, and two buttons had been ripped off his wrinkled shirt. Despite shading his bloodshot eyes against the morning's glare, they recognized Hibiki Laytis.

"Shh!" he hushed immediately. "Come in and close the door. Too bright." Hibiki retreated back into a partially demolished hotel room with the shades pulled shut and the lights low. "Sorry for asking this favor," he whispered, his eyes hooded as he sipped some medicine. He gave a low, wry chuckle and scratched his messy blond hair. "Guess we went as overboard as Fairy Tail usually does."

"I'm rather shocked by all this," Erza had to admit in disappointment.

"I know, we all are. It was supposed to be a private gala for Master Bob's birthday, but the whole guild turned up. Ichiya-sama made his special Parfum Piña-colada Punch. That stuff should be illegal," he muttered, looking sick just remembering what must have been an insane night of drunken debauchery. "We were told that if we don't get this place clean before tomorrow, they'll charge us an insane fee. Some local lord is having a party here tomorrow, so they need the hotel to be spotless or they'll lose his patronage. To make it worse, one of our young guild members set traps everywhere. It'll take a mage to disarm them. Master Bob realized it was cheaper to hire another guild than take the fee."

"We'll get right to work," Erza nodded. "Happy, fly around and find all the magic enchantments placed on the ceilings. I'll search for ones in the floors and walls. Natsu, your job is it take any magic devices we find, take them outside," she emphasized, "and burn them. If you make this place even a little more messy, so help me..."

"Whoa, got it, got it!" he assured. "I'll be good."

"Gray and Lucy, start cleaning. When we clear a room from traps, you move in and clean."

"Oh joy," Lucy mumbled, although she knew this was a simple mission, not at all the caliber worthy of their team.

"I'll find the cleaning supplies," Gray offered.

The others all left, leaving Lucy alone with Hibiki. She looked over at him. He was much older than her now, but still surprisingly handsome. Perhaps even more handsome! More than once she had wondered, if she had picked Blue Pegasus instead of Fairy Tail, would she have fallen for someone like him? He had dated Karen Lilica, after all, so he was into Spirit Mages. Plus he reminded her a lot of Loke, so much so that it made her a little sad now.

"You and Karen's old Spirit, Leo," he said, pulling her out of her thoughts. "I heard you two got married."

"Oh!" Lucy squeaked, and she blushed. "No, we didn't, but we have a baby."

"A baby?" he cried out, yet his voice hurt his head. He had to hold it and spoke softer. "I didn't think it was possible for Humans and Spirits to have children."

"I guess it's not supposed to be," she muttered. "Luke's a bit...special. Hey, Hibiki, you have access to a lot of information, right?"

"My Archive Magic lets me store and access quite a large database," he nodded.

"Do you..." She looked around, trying to feel that spying presence she had sensed earlier, but she felt nothing. "Do you have information on the Key to the Heart of the Lion?"

He looked up in a jolt. She guessed from his stunned face that he knew something. After a moment of staring at her hesitantly, he finally said, "Get me medicine to cure this hangover and I'll look it up. With my head pounding this hard, I won't be able to do anything. Sorry," he shrugged apologetically.

Lucy nodded in understanding and pulled out a Gold Key. "Open the Gate of the Maiden! Virgo!"

Hibiki flinched at her loud voice, and then at the noise as Virgo drilled up from the floor.

"I await my punishment, Princess," she greeted.

"Virgo...well, first, how is the trial going?"

"Ah, you mean Brother's sentencing. It hasn't started."

"What!" Lucy yelled.

Hibiki grabbed his head. "Easy, easy," he moaned.

"It's been a week," Lucy reasoned. "Are they still waiting for something?"

Virgo stared at her blankly. Lucy waited, but it seemed like she simply would not speak.

"Is...Is he in trouble?" whispered Lucy. "Are they not even going to let him have a trial?"

"Brother will be punished," she assured. "The Spirit King delayed the trial to observe you."

"Observe...?" She paused as she realized what Virgo meant. The spy! "Because of what Loke said?"

"Brother should not have told you about his other key," she frowned. "He is being punished for it."

Lucy covered her mouth as she felt like screaming. Punished? How? Was he being tortured? Loke had told her a little about what happened the last time he was imprisoned, including being hurt by the Spirit King. She felt like sobbing to think how much more he might suffer on her account.

"Did you call me to interrogate me?" Virgo questioned, her face still a blank expression.

"Wha-? No, no, I...I need your help. We have to...to clean this place." She tried to stabilize her mind. "I need to find medicine for Hibiki, so I want you to help Gray to clean up. Oh, and please don't make holes in the floor," she added quickly.

"I understand, Princess." She walked away normally.

Once she was gone, the tears hit Lucy too suddenly to stop them. She fell to her knees and sobbed. Hibiki hurried to her side and, without even knowing what was really wrong, he hugged her.

"I don't want him to hurt anymore," she cried, grabbing hold of Hibiki's shirt as she wept. "It's all my fault. Everything that's happened...all my fault. They want to make him mortal. They want him to die! I...I don't want that. I used to think I wanted him to be Human, but I can't let them sentence him to a slow death because of me. He's my Spirit, my friend, the man I love. I can't let him die because of me. I'll do anything, anything, to save him."

Hibiki's face tightened as he heard the desperation in her voice. "I think I understand now." He stood, and a bright projection of a console formed in front of him. Immediately, he began to type in information.

Lucy looked up in surprise and wiped her tears. "I thought you can't work your magic with your head hurting so badly."

He smiled down to her flirtatiously. "The tears of a beautiful woman are the best medicine for a man."

Her cheeks went pink. "Sheesh, you really are as bad as Loke."

"I know what you're looking for," he admitted, "and I think I now understand why you want it. The Regulus Key."

That gave Lucy a jolt. "You know about it?"

"Karen was interested in it too and had me look it up. I should still have the information in my archives. She wanted it as a way to get stronger and force Loke to stop his self-exile. She died before I found its whereabouts. Your goal isn't for greed, but to make Leo strong enough to fight for his freedom."

"Yes, exactly," she nodded eagerly.

"Unfortunately, not even the Spirits know where the Royal Stars hid their Lapis Lazuli Keys."

"You even know about the Royal Stars?" she gasped in amazement.

"Of course. Mythology often hides clues to facts. Where even the Spirit King can't figure something out, often just a little research can make it all clear." He tapped one more button, and a story came up on his screen.

"The Heartless Lion," Lucy read. "That's the same fairy tale Levy was talking about."

"And the line that gives us the map." He highlighted it, and Lucy read it aloud.

"Remembering the sage's words, the lion used his mighty claw and cut out his heart, leaving only a single piece, the part that loved the princess. Instantly, the curse lifted, and he was a prince once more. He left the witch's fortress and never returned. He put his heart in a magic box and hid the box in a cave on a far southern island, so no one under the stars would find it." She hummed as she considered those written words. "A magic box. A cave on a far southern island. That's not really a map, Hibiki. It's hardly even a clue."

He chuckled as he tapped in more information. "Do you know anything about children's stories from ancient Kohinur?"

"Of course not," she pouted. Was he trying to make her look stupid?

"They were, for the most part, written by two sources. Who these two myth-builders were is a mystery, but there are theories for one of them. In the halls of the Shaman-Queen Kefira..."

Lucy's eyes immediately widened at her name.

"...there lived a woman who was both a mage and a writer. She left behind a large amount of literature before vanishing one day. Her style of writing and the style of sixty percent of the fairy tales from ancient Kohinur fall under the same pattern of dialect and morpheme combinations with an idiosyncratic lexicon. Of course, you have to study the documents in the vernacular as opposed to transliterated versions common today to observe the syntax similarities."

"Huh?" Lucy asked, totally lost now.

"Basically, the style is exactly the same, which gives good evidence that this mage is the same woman who wrote those fairy tales, and her name is..."

Before the information could appear, Lucy spoke the name aloud. "Naomi!"

Hibiki looked back at her, shocked she got it before his grand reveal. "Oh! So you know about her?"

"I know she and Loke...they..." She could not bring herself to say they were lovers.

"Right," he nodded, sensing her emotions. "Onoyasumaro No Naomi, Celestial Spirit Mage under the patronage of Yamataikoku No Kefira, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Kohinur. One day in the year X375, Naomi vanished, and with her the Key to the Lion. That makes her the obvious writer of this fairy tale. Of course, very few people knew anything about the Royal Stars and the Heart of the Lion, so the story made no sense beyond a cute fairy tale. However, being Leo's lover, Naomi likely knew exactly where he hid the Key to the Heart of the Lion. If she gave any hint at all, it would be in this story, the tale of the lion losing his heart."

"If she knew, then why did she never use it to free him?" Lucy shouted in outrage.

Hibiki looked over in confusion. "Free him?"

"He was taken from her four years later, imprisoned in the Spirit World, just when she learned she was pregnant. She had to raise..." She shut her mouth quickly. Letting him know about Zeref was probably unwise.

"Oh? Did they have a child?" he asked.

"Research it for yourself," she grumbled.

He shrugged off the matter. "In any case, she probably couldn't search for it. The last part here shows that: 'no one under the stars would find it.' Now, for a woman who was a Celestial Spirit Mage, isn't that an odd phrase to use? No one under the stars."

"Which means Humans can't find it," she realized. "But Loke said, of all Humans, I could find it. Why would he tell me that?"

"Because, Lucy, you have an advantage no other Human has." He smiled down to her. "You have a baby who is above the stars, a half-Spirit child. Your son has the Lion's inheritance within him. He could find the key, but obviously he's too small. He'd need his mother. That means you're the one who could find it, but only by using your son's instincts."

"So why didn't Naomi use her son to find the key?" she demanded. She was beginning to hate this woman for not trying harder to free Loke.

"Maybe she never realized he had that ability. Or maybe she tried going after it and failed. Even more likely, she probably died before the baby grew up enough to be able to travel with her. See, Naomi vanished in X375. You said Leo was imprisoned four years later after learning she was pregnant. That means her baby must have been born around X379 or X380. Yet in X391, at the Battle of Kohinur Keep, the Great Spirit Mage Cheveyo obtained the Leo Key. It was in Queen Kerfira's possession at that point, not Naomi's. One can only guess how she got it."

Lucy felt a shudder down her spine. "She killed Naomi for it."

"That means the child couldn't have been more than eleven years old at the time of his mother's death. That's pretty young to be traveling on a quest, especially since the world was embroiled in Zeref's war."

"No, that's more than old enough," Lucy realized softly.

If Zeref had matured at the same rate Luke was, then he would have been fully grown in six year. Plus, he was the one who started the whole war; however, she could not tell Hibiki that it was Zeref they were talking about. She knew from history books that the monsters and demons began appearing in X384. That meant Zeref was taken from his mother around the age of four, twisted into evil, and reigned in terror for the next seven years through what was the darkest period in Earthland's history.

She paused as a terrible thought came to her. Kefira must have kidnapped Lucy because she wanted her baby in order to find the Key to the Heart of the Lion. It explained why Kefira claimed she wanted to 'keep her safe,' but she had not cared if Loke was hurt bad enough to force him back to the Spirit World. Even if he was imprisoned there, if Kefira waited until Lucy delivered the baby, she could use him to find the Regulus Key and bring Loke out that way.

"She'll be after him again," she realized with a tremor.

Kefira wanted Luke for some reason, and now Lucy figured it out. She wanted the Key to the Heart of the Lion, and she needed a child of the Lion to find it. This time, when Kefira came for Luke, she would have no qualms about killing Lucy. She might even kill her purely out of jealousy. Before Hibiki could ask what she meant, Lucy thought of something else, something that gave her a small spark of hope.

"Just before the Battle of Kohinur Keep, were there any major battles on islands south of Kohinur?"

Hibiki inputted that query and waited for the information to come up. "No, but...but the final battle...oh wow!" He brought the information up onto the main screen so Lucy could see. "The final battle between Zeref and the Great Gathering was on—"

"Hoshinoue Island," Lucy gasped, reading the screen. "Hoshi no ue. Above the Stars."

Hibiki nodded with a smile. He always felt giddy when his research produced results like this. "The Great Gathering—when numerous armies of men, dragons, Exceed, plus the twelve Zodiac Spirits, all fought Zeref and his demons—took place on Hoshinoue Island. No one under the stars would find it. Which means you need someone above the stars...and you need to go to a land above the stars. She left the clue right there in her story."

Lucy glanced at a side screen that still showed the fairy tale's text. "Thank you, Naomi," she prayed softly. Then she looked to Hibiki. "Don't let people know about this. If anyone learns that I'm searching for this, Loke could be killed."

"I understand." He shut down the Archive Magic and stumbled to a chair. "Now, no offense, but I really do need something for this hangover."

"I'll make sure you get the best herbs in town." She gave him a kiss on the cheek in thanks before racing out.

Hibiki chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Why do I always fall for girls who are taken?"

Outside, Gray shouted down to Natsu. "Yo, flame-brain! I found a rune-infested chair for you to burn." Then something was tossed out of an upper window and smashed onto the courtyard below.

"You ice bastard! That almost hit me."

"Oh darn, did I miss?"

Hibiki blocked his ears from the ensuing argument. "Why...why did we hire Fairy Tail of all people to clean a mess?"

End of Chapter 30

Rhov's Corner:
I love writing children's stories. I tried to illustrate a picture book of "The Heartless Lion," but my drawings were so bad I gave up.

"Onoyasumaro No Naomi" - Finally Naomi has a surname. Like Kefira, it is written using the feudal Japanese "no" to signify the clan. I took her name from Ō No Yasumaro, who wrote the "Kojiki," a book about the myths and legendary history of Japan.

Hoshinoue Island — hoshi no ue — 星の上 — above the stars

In the Oración Seis Arc, we learned that Roubaul (Master of Cait Shelter) created Nirvana in X384 to stop the wars ravaging Earthland. The events involving Roubaul of the Nirvit Tribe and the terrors of Zeref both happened 400 years ago, so I'm assuming they were the same wars. That means, in my story, Zeref was 4-5 when Nirvana was created, but times that by 3 (since he aged faster) he was physically 12-15. That's about the same age as Wendy, so Zeref was old enough to use powerful levels of magic. I'm assuming the manga's 7-year timeskip was for an important reason. If those years, X784 to X791, represent Zeref's 2nd reign (his awakening on Tenrou Island to his eventual downfall) and mirror his original reign 400 years ago (big assumption here), then the Battle of Kohinur Keep and Cheveyo getting all 12 Gold Keys to defeat Zeref on Hoshinoeu Island would have happened in X391. Zeref was 11 years old, but aging at three times the speed, it'd give him plenty of "adult" years to create many monsters and demons, tossing the world into chaos and war. Am I right on this timeline? Doubt it. But this is my fanfic, so until Hiro-sensei pays me to write for him or gives me the secret manuscript hidden in the bottom of his sock drawer that contains all of his plans for "Fairy Tail," I'll make up my own damn history! ^_^
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Lion's Pride