This is my take on Sorano's thoughts in chapter 444. Let me know what you guys think!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.

Sorano didn't know what to expect, when she finally swallowed her pride and called for Mest. She knew who would be coming with him. Who else would stick their noses into matters that are really none of their business? Just one guild, and one team in particular.

Waiting for them to arrive, once they had she couldn't stop the impulse to hide. It was instinctual. So she sat, upon the cold, stone throne. Hidden from sight while they marveled at the temple.

When she could take the interminable waiting no longer, she activated the ship's concealed mechanism. Reverting to its true form, the temple rushed across the open sea, startling the circling schools of brightly coloured fish.

The former dark wizard had to admit that Erza immediately blaming Mest for the commotion was what really gave her the courage to reveal herself. She'd spent some time with the Requip Mage over the past year, and although they weren't friends she could tolerate her.

So she gathered her courage, and made her entrance (there was no way she couldn't not make an entrance. She lived for flair and pomp). This had always been her style, and falling into the old routine of false bravado and self-conceit, riddled with cutesy gestures – ones that she had never fully understood, truth be told – and her cheeks flushing with embarrassment and the need to pretend that everything was completely okay. That she hadn't fucked up spectacularly, and that now she desperately needed her former enemies to clean up her mess.

"Truth be told," Sorano boasted, "I owe Mest one so I told him I'd lend a hand this time. It's not like we've become best buds or anything."

It unraveled unexpectedly, this mask she wore, with a simple statement from a blonde that even after eight years was still an eyesore.

"Thanks, Angel," Lucy stated quietly. "Or… S-Sorano?"

Sorano froze, mid-speech.

What the hell?

What in Earthland was Lucy Heartfilia, beloved darling of the Celestial World, thanking her for? She just caused an entire island to disappear – a fact pointed out by the mage's own friends. And it didn't even track with what she'd been saying!

Then the way she was looking at her. Sorano couldn't stand it. Kindness, and forgiveness, and genuine gratitude and just all around goodness that Sorano could only aspire to.

What the hell was wrong with the blonde?

She didn't deserve to be looked at like that. She didn't even want it.

Reaching out to the blonde, Sorano hooked the string of her bikini top, lifting the fabric. As she pulled on the flimsy material, she leaned in and allowed an all too familiar cruel smile grace her face. The expression felt natural to wear, still, an easy mask to slip on.

"I'm the one that killed Karen. Don't you forget it," Sorano reminded her, and in turn, reminded herself.

Lucy wasn't allowed to forget that fact, because Sorano herself wasn't. It was something she was going to have to live with every day. Although she didn't see eye-to-eye with Jellal most of the time, Sorano had come to agree with the man's ideology over the past year.

No matter how much you atoned, sometimes you just didn't deserve forgiveness.

Not when you were a monster, and angels did not exist.