OKAY. Update, here at last. With no prewritten chapters so this might be the last one for a while (grumbles). Apologies for the delay, nanowrimo happened and then LIFE happened and then my muses all went screaming off into the ffxv fandom and that makes it really hard to finish a chapter in any other fandom. Still, hope you all enjoy this!

Psst, I also have a tumblr if you want to drop me an ask or read my snippets of FFXV and other fandom insanity. Link is in my profile!

Review Response:

Dear Questioningreadr, hi! Hmmm do you now? We shall see :D.

Dear Masimagine, hello there! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I have no intentions of stopping this story, I'm just- slow. *shrugs* anyway, enjoy the next chapter!

Dear Quest, greetings! Okay one, Erza is clearly THAT scary if the whole guild fears her, but for the record, no, Wren is not and will not be afraid of Erza :).

Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or any references made in this story. The only things I own are my OCs and the plot.

...

Chapter Forty-Four: Old Secrets

(2 years, 4 months, 1 week, 4 days since joining Fairy Tail)

...

The dig site in Viridian Forest was less a dig site and more of a carefully cordoned off section of an ancient city that had been painstakingly cleared of foliage so that the ruins themselves could be examined. The actual ruins were massive, taking up most of the jungle-like forest itself, though it was easy to miss if one wasn't looking hard enough at the terrain beneath the moss and dirt. The wall and the palace within were impossible to miss though, crumbling monoliths to a lost era that cast shadows on all but the tallest of the towering trees.

Erza wondered if that was why the dig site was focused around the palace rather than anywhere else in the forest. It was simply the easiest —maybe only— part of the ruins they could identify as potentially interesting at a glance beneath all the trees and vines and flowering things.

Pauz made a low noise as they headed down the path toward the biggest tent in the site, "Magnolia's climate isn't really conducive to jungles. I'll bet its because of these ruins." Wren-sama made a curious gesture and Pauz elaborated, "These ruins are at least five hundred years old and are thought to have been abandoned around four hundred years ago. Nobody really knows what happened prior to that time or why it is, as that was when so many civil wars broke out and wiped out most historical records worldwide, but places likes these are almost always magical focal points. Areas overflowing with ambient magic that twists the surrounding area into some kind of unique environment not usually found in its given climate. Overgrowth and rare plant life is a common symptom of a ruin built or abandoned in that time period."

Pauz smiled, "It's actually really exciting to be here. Mages aren't usually allowed near places like this in case they destroy something."

Erza mentally chewed on that information as she took in the site. Inside the first courtyard of the palace, all the green things had been removed, leaving it bare and rocky and dusty while workers carefully chipped away at things or moved things or dusted things off. The sun was cold and bright through the top of the tree canopy and the sounds of work coupled with the smell of dust and sweat were… Erza pressed a hand to her sword hilt, just to remind herself of the present.

She was grateful that these ruins weren't a tower. She … didn't think she could've handled that.

Fingers brushed her wrist with a feather touch and Erza somehow was no longer surprised to glance down and see Wren-sama looking up at her with a worried expression. Erza shook her head, knowing the silent question when she saw it, "I'm fine." Wren-sama's hand pulled away, but she stayed close as they arrived at the big tent.

The woman in charge of the site was a very short, curvy woman. She greeted them with a cool sort of smile Erza didn't really like and didn't even blink at the thought of children arriving to do her job. She led them out of the tent and further into the old palace, pointing things out and explaining what they'd uncovered so far as they went. Most of it went straight over Erza's head save for a few bits that sounded like things straight out of Rob-jiji's stories, but Wren-sama looked just as lost so she didn't feel too bad about her ignorance.

The artifacts and scrolls were still in the same room in which they'd been found. The woman in charge —she'd called herself Ibis hadn't she?— explained that they'd been afraid to so much as move them until it could be determined that there were no traps attached to the items or location. People had come and gone from the room without trouble, but none had dared to move the items in question.

Erza eyed the room as they entered it. It was round and big. Very big. Big enough to fit at least a third of Rosemary Village into it and then stack the other two thirds on top of each other to reach the ceiling. The walls were shelves and there were crumbling old stairs leading up and up to different levels of the … chamber? Chamber felt like a better word. But for all that the entire chamber was one great bookshelf, there were hardly any books or scrolls or items left. Erza wondered if the items had been stolen until she spotted the faded scorch marks on sweeping sections of the walls. Oh. A fire. That would explain it. It must have died out before it reached the items everyone was so excited over.

Ibis-san led the way up wooden scaffolding that was clearly new —it looked just like the ones Rob-jiji had been put in charge of building every time the tower got taller-, no, don't think of that— until they reached a level of shelves above the scorch marks. There were ten old scrolls, each as thick as Erza's leg, and a tiny stack of much thinner scrolls that looked as fragile as silence. In a little alcove not far from the scrolls were a few items she couldn't determine the purpose of. They looked appropriately old and mysterious though. Maybe even made of precious metals, but they were too covered in dust and rust to tell.

Pauz and Levy looked like they were moments away from crying, but they were also smiling, so Erza assumed it wasn't a bad thing —could crying be a good thing? She didn't really know—. Ibis-san insisted on staying with them to oversee the handling of the items even as Pauz and Levy fell into a babble of words and terms Erza couldn't hope to keep up with. Something about languages and records and maybe a blood key as they waved their pens over each item and examined the resulting magic glow.

She knew that the glow proved that the items were magical though, or at least warded by magic. So it was probably a good thing nobody had tried to move them.

After half an hour of standing awkwardly off to the side and wondering why she'd agreed to come when she was so far out of her depth, Wren-sama tapped her wrist and motioned for the door. A few more motions and a slow session of signing later and Erza slunk off down the hallways, emergency calling card in pocket, to explore. She felt a bit bad, going off to explore when that wasn't part of their job, but Wren-sama had suggested it —scouting the area for trouble, if Erza read the kanji/sign mix correctly— while Wren-sama stayed behind to guard Levy and Pauz —judging from the look Wren-sama gave Ibis-san, she didn't like or trust the chilly woman any more than Erza did—.

The palace was very quiet away from the main dig site. Once the sounds of muffled chatter and the clack of tools faded away, the silence seemed to become a presence all its own. Erza walked softly, wary of making any excess noise in a place like this, with hallways so tall and broad and a silence so heavy. I wonder if all palaces are like this, she mused as she trailed cautious fingers over old stone, so huge you could fit buildings inside the hallways of another building. Or maybe it was just this one. It was at the heart of some kind of … magic focal point after all. Maybe … maybe it would be alright if she asked Pauz or Levy about it later? They always seemed eager to answer questions about those sorts of things. Or maybe Wren-sama would know, she was … very patient with Erza. More so than Erza could really comprehend considering Wren-sama was only Millianna's age and Erza was a guild newcomer.

She rounded a corner, not sure where she was going —only vaguely aware of the way back, but that was alright, she had the card and could follow it if she had to—, then stopped with a startled noise. The current hallway ended in a chamber without doors. Far bigger than even the chamber with the scrolls, it was long and rectangular, with an archway entrance that seemed to swallow Erza up as she tentatively stepped through it.

The walls had huge gaps where windows must have been once, or maybe they were always supposed to be open air like that. But the once stately shapes had been ripped open and ruined, chunks of rock scattered everywhere, and ancient scraps of heavy fabric still fluttered dolefully in the stray breezes. Perhaps it was because of so many years exposed to nature, but Erza couldn't help but think that the fabric looked like it had been shredded by huge claws.

Erza wasn't even aware that she'd been walking further into the massive room until her booted toes met the edge of a step and she realized with a jolt that she was on the far side of the room from the door. There was a stone platform just in front of her, raised up above the rest of the room by four steps so long and wide that four or five people could have stood shoulder to shoulder on each one without fully touching. At the top of the platform was a broken stone chair, the seat still there, but the armrests fractured and the once towering back sheered in half and left to crumble behind the rest of it.

Somehow, Erza found herself in front of the chair before she could think better of it, fingers trailing the old armrest in curiosity.

The stone tingled beneath her hand, a whisper of magic-recognition-age before she yanked her hand away and stepped back, hand on her sword in case she'd just set off some kind of trap. Nothing happened. She watched the chair, then scanned the room. Nothing had changed. The wind still blew, soft and lonely, through the gaps in the walls and the old fabric still fluttered. The dig site must have been somewhere nearby, yet no sound of it breached the solemn quiet. Erza eyed the chair, gaze catching on the faded symbols she only now spotted engraved along its edges. Curiosity poked her and she rested a few cautious fingertips on it once again, ready to leap back the moment it turned against her.

The feeling stirred again, old as the stones. It reached for her, and she held fast as it brushed up against her senses as if in search. The stone of the chair seemed to warm just a bit beneath her fingertips, welcoming and knowing, and for a moment she could taste scented candle smoke, hear whispers and muffled laughter, like the chamber itself remembered-.

"My queen."

She jerked her hand away and whirled, sword sliding free of its sheath with a rasp. There was no one there. Erza exhaled slowly. Tried to calm her nerves. She took another breath in, and suddenly remembered … Rob-jiji, one of his stories about magic. He had said, once, that there were places in the world where the magic still remembered things people had long forgotten. He'd said that if you were at just the right time, standing in just the right spot, you could remember it too, even if it had happened long before you were born. That must have been what happened, so there was nothing for Erza to fear. It was something rare, but not impossible. Erza just…

She had never expected it to happen to her.

She turned to face the chair again. Froze. The old lettering that was worn and faded into the stone of the chair was no longer almost invisible. It was painted a dull scarlet, a dimmer, dirtier color of her own hair. Her heart lunged into her throat, but even as she watched, the color leached away and the symbols blended back into the chair like nothing had happened. Okay … okay. No touching strange chairs. Maybe that was what Pauz had meant about the researchers usually keeping mages away. She hoped she hadn't broken something somehow with her own curiosity. But then, the chair had been broken to begin with, so surely she couldn't do anything to make it worse?

Erza decided not to test that theory. She skirted around the chair with all the wariness one would normally give a sleeping predator or guard. She turned to face the wall behind the chair. She'd thought she'd seen a painting on it from the archway and so long as she didn't touch it, it should be safe to look at.

Her heart stopped as her eyes found faded scarlet once more. After a moment of panic where she squeaked and clutched her breastplate in astonishment, she realized that the red was not from symbols that should not be touched. It was just very, very old scarlet paint on the stone. There was a figure there, in old clothes that looked like a dress, but dim memory of the times before the Tower told her were actually something traditionally worn by both men and women. Rosemary Village had been out of the way, but there had still been visitors every once in a while for the harvest festivals and such, when everyone dressed in their best —which had been the same "best" outfit of their great-great-great-grandparent before them or more—. Many of the villagers had dressed like that on the special days.

She could also still remember that one very pretty man who had come every year, dressed in ancient finery, hair black as ink, face done up to look white as bone while his lips were painted rose red. The one who told stories of ancient eras and a brave princess who rescued people from the backs her dragons.

Which was why, as Erza took in the painting in its fullest, she was both surprised and not to realize she recognized it. Sort of.

He never told us that the princess had red hair, flitted through her mind as she drank in the fine robes and tranquil expression, the figure of a brave princess —queen?— standing atop a mountain, four fierce dragons flying around it like great sentinels. At her right side was her chosen raiju beast, all long claws and lightning teeth and storm-cloud mane —tamed, whispered memories of the storyteller who had always smiled so nicely at her, not by her sword arm, but by her fierce compassion for her people—. At her feet was her golden kitsune trickster, fangs bared in a mischievous grin despite the weathering of the paint, a reminder of the tale of how she'd outwitted even the trickiest of foes, won the loyalty of an entire clan of kitsune by her clever wordplay alone.

But most eye-catching was the princess's hair. Red so deep that even the trials of time could not rub the scarlet tinge of it from the stone. So vibrant in the sunlight that streamed in through the broken walls that it almost looked alive. A vibrant, unashamed scarlet that flowed like a river from the princess's head until it merged with the depiction of the rising sun. A symbol of hope, the storyteller had told her once, of how the princess had rescued her people from dark despair and guarded the light of their peace all the days of her life.

It looked a lot like Erza's own hair actually. Only longer, and not so tainted by mixed memories of happiness and sorrow and betrayal-.

"You look a lot like her."

Erza whirled around, sword tip coming to rest in the direction of the voice without hesitation. The woman raised her hands placatingly and smiled, soft and unafraid, "My apologies. Did I startle you?"

"Who are you?" Erza didn't know any of the workers here, but if the scrolls Levy and Pauz were translating were valuable, then the woman could easily be a thief and a risk to the job —jobs were important, Rob-jiji and Laxus-san had both told her that Fairy Tail's honor hinged on their ability to complete any job no matter the danger—.

Hands still raised and smile still in place, the woman tilted her head, "Please, call me Yuriko. I'm an archeologist and researcher investigating these ruins. You are one of the mages that were called in to look over the ancient scrolls and artifacts discovered here, yes?"

Erza hesitated, then lowered her sword tip, "Yes. Why are you here? Shouldn't you be back at the dig site?"

Yuriko-san lowered her hands with a shrug, "I'm not a heavy lifter. I thought it would be more useful if I began mapping out the rest of the palace. At least the places that aren't caved in." Yuriko-san slowly walked past Erza to stand in front of the painting and Erza examined the stranger for signs of trouble. She was a very tall, curvy woman. Straight black hair that tickled just past her shoulders, blue eyes that looked a bit like they knew too much about everything, and practical clothes for running around amid dirt and stones. She wasn't like Ibis-san at all really. But then, Erza was nothing like the other mages in Fairy Tail, so she supposed that was no way to judge an archeologist either.

"Such a beautiful painting," commented Yuriko-san, "to think it has lasted all these centuries despite weather and nature. The painters must have used only the finest magic paints."

"Magic paint?"

Yuriko-san gave her a brief, pleased smile, "Of course. Royal paintings like these were always done with magic-infused paint to help preserve them. Some paintings even used to have enchantments that let them move across the walls like living things." She looked back up at the painting, "Though this one would not have been enchanted in such a way. It would have detracted attention from the throne and the ruler herself."

Yuriko-san's fingers traced the air just above the red pigments, "Do you know that even today, there are places where red hair such as this is considered a sign of great destiny? All because of this woman, whose name has been lost to time. So many old legends of bravery and kindness and wisdom, yet the hero of all those tales does not even have a name anymore. She is only known as the-."

"Dawn Princess and Dragon Queen," finished Erza softly. Yuriko-san gave her a look that was surprised, but also pleased, and Erza looked away, "A traveling storyteller used to come to our village every year and tell us about her."

"The storyteller had good taste then. Not many people remember those stories anymore."

Yuriko-san tilted her head to one side, then turned away from the painting, "Will you accompany me, little mage-san? I would explore this palace more and you look like you are quite handy with that sword."

Erza didn't want to do that at all, but she still didn't totally trust this woman and it would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on her. That, and there was a persistent nudge of curiosity about this place, curiosity that maybe this woman who seemed to know so much could answer, "Alright."

Yuriko-san smiled as she led the way down the giant steps again, "Thank you, Mage-san."

"Erza," she blurted before she could think better of it, "Erza Scarlet."

Yuriko-san hummed, "A fitting name. Scarlet-chan, then?" When Erza didn't protest, Yuriko-san nodded to herself and led the way out of the giant chamber and back into the towering hallways, "Let us see what secrets we might uncover then, Scarlet-chan."

Despite Erza's best efforts to remain aloof, Yuriko-san was very easy to talk to. She led the way from room to room, giving a soft commentary about the things she could identify in each one. They both marveled at the sheer size of everything, almost every room was large enough to fit a multistory house inside. "It's almost like the people here were giants," murmured Erza.

Yuriko-san laughed softly, "Or maybe dragons. Surely a Dragon Queen would want to keep her loyal beasts close by. Perhaps the palace was built with her pets in mind."

For all that the comment was a joke, Erza couldn't help but wonder if it was true. The rooms and doors —those that weren't collapsed and scorched beyond recognition anyway— looked large enough to house dragons.

Eventually, the topic wandered away from strictly the ruined palace around them and to the researchers. From there, it inevitably swung to the mages who had come to answer the job request. Erza weighed every word carefully, but Yuriko-san was oddly easy to get along with. There was something about the woman's air that reminded her of Rob-jiji and the others from the Tower. As if … as if there was a part of Yuriko-san that would have fit in perfectly in the background of the memories Erza wished she could forget. Like she would understand if Erza ever told her about it —not that she ever would, she could never tell anyone, not ever—. But the feeling was enough that she found herself airing tentative opinions about her new guild and the people inside it. Especially Wren-sama, who baffled her at every turn.

"She has her own team, and she has been at the guild far longer than me, yet she keeps going out of her way to say hello, and introduce me to people, and tell me about what goes on in the guild and what to expect even when I haven't asked." I don't understand why, Erza barely kept from adding. She didn't trust Yuriko-san enough to admit that.

In the middle of inspecting another long, tattered piece of fabric hanging from the old walls, Yuriko-san chuckled, "It sounds to me like Wren-san is only trying to be a good senpai."

Erza paused, "Senpai?"

Yuriko-san smiled, "An upperclassman of an institution. In this case, it means someone who has been a member of the guild for a longer period of time and thus has more experience, but isn't an official title, such as your guild Master. A senpai will sometimes, though not always, take a less experienced member, or kohai, under their wing and teach them the ways of their shared organization. Wren-san is your senpai and you are her kohai, and from what you've said, I say she is taking the position most seriously."

Senpai… Senpai… Erza rolled the word over in her head a few times, "Then … isn't everyone in the guild my senpai?"

"Technically. But as Wren-san is the one making such an effort to teach you, she is the only one you would call that. If you wished to, of course."

Erza absorbed the information. So … it was a special title of some kind. Unique from sama or san. Erza glanced up at Yuriko-san, "Do you have a senpai?"

Yuriko-san faltered and there was pain in the line of her shoulders even as she smiled, "I did once." Blue eyes looked ahead of them, but Erza didn't think they were actually seeing the bend in the hall, "That was a long time ago."

Erza didn't have to know what had happened to understand why Yuriko-san was sad just thinking about her senpai. She nodded awkwardly, unsure what to say. She didn't have to puzzle over it for very long though.

The explosion kind of changed her priorities.

Both of them stiffened as the walls around them trembled faintly, and Erza whirled in its direction, already mentally checking where that would be and concluding the worst when she felt her magic card buzz frantically in her pocket, "My teammates!"

"And the artifacts," muttered Yuriko-san grimly, "come, Scarlet-chan, and prepare for battle. I do believe we have unwanted company."

They ran for the dig site, Erza barely keeping up with her shorter legs as Yuriko-san almost seemed to fly down the halls.

It seemed to take forever and yet no time at all to hurtle around the final corner and into view of the room Erza had left the others in. Dust floated like smoke and she could hear the rustle of pages and a furious roar that sounded oddly like Pauz. Erza charged inside, sword clenched in one hand and her free arm over her mouth to keep out the dust as she tried to see through the debris, "Pauz! Levy! Wren-sama!"

There was a blur of light and sound and Erza barely had time to raise her sword in defense before it crashed into her and drove her back. She staggered under the force, managed to side-step and let it crash into the wall instead, magic? Levy's voice echoed a command for wind through the room and the dust was swept suddenly aside as if by a giant hand. Levy lowered her pen from her latest spell, blinking dust from her eyes as she huddled behind a large piece of fallen shelving. Pauz was out in the open, his book open and pages whirling around him like angry hornets as he screamed unintelligibly up at a…

Was that a wolf-man? She'd thought those were just stories. But no, there was a giant wolf-man standing on a flying carpet, snarling down at them while two girls who looked like genies straight out of Rob-jiji's stories whirled around the carpet giggling. "Stop them already!" Oh. There was Ibis-san. Stuck on the far side of the room from the door, yelling indignantly as several wildly dressed figures tried to get past Pauz's hornet pages to the scrolls and artifacts.

Thieves! Erza shifted her grip on her sword and charged the nearest one with a yell. The man turned at the sound of her voice, howled as Erza's blade bit his outstretched arm and drew blood, "Get back, thieves!"

The man, who was wearing some kind of strange mask made of feathers and bells cursed at her and jangled a stick with bells on it at her angrily, "Little-! Bell Scream!" The jangling of the tiny bells suddenly amplified until it sounded like the clanging of Magnolia's cathedral bell, then even louder until it was pulsing in her head like a thousand echoing metal heartbeats. She breathed past the nausea, tried not to stagger as the man lashed out for her spinning head. Erza ducked under the blow, swiped with her sword despite the fact that there looked to be two of the man now —she'd had worse, she'd fought worse, this was nothing compared to That Day—.

Blackness roiled out of the floor like spilled ink, Grabbed the jangling stick and snapped it in half before belting the man in the face with the bell half. The splitting headache faded as the sound of the world returned to normal and the man clutched his broken nose with a yowl. Erza took her chance and rammed her sword hilt into the man's stomach, forcing him to bend down enough that she could belt him over the head with the flat of her blade —killing would be better, but she didn't want to kill anymore, not again, not if she could avoid it—. The man crumbled and Erza spun in search of another one.

She caught a glimpse of a man sneaking up on Levy while the bluenette fended off another two with the word "vines" and another word of "arrows". Erza reached into her magic, followed the instinct that had been with her since That Day, and threw the item that dropped into her hand in place of a sword. The shovel surged forward like a much larger, stranger version of Levy's arrows and slammed into the space between the man's legs with enough force to make it flip up into the man's screaming face a moment later.

That was two down. Pauz had already downed three, Levy another two. Counting the wolf-man on the carpet and the genie girls, that meant there were six thieves left-. Check that, five left, one of them had just gotten knocked out cold by Yuriko-san's swift kick to his face. All they had to do was take out the rest and the crisis would be over. The wolf-man suddenly howled, loud and furious and chilling and the two genie girls finally joined the fray.

Pauz was thrown against the wall by some kind of magic blast from one while the other whirled and snatched a flickering shadow out of the air, trapped it in some kind of clear bubble as it turned into a hissing Wren-sama. Erza snatched up her shovel and made to throw it again, quickly used it to block the snake fangs coming for her throat instead. The snake's teeth sank into the wood and jerked, almost yanking the shovel out of her hands as the impossibly long reptile tried to retract back into its master's sleeve. The man smiled at her, thin and cold as his other sleeve writhed with a second large snake that went slithering toward Levy, "I recommend surrender, young Mage. There's no need for anyone to get hurt so long as we get what we want."

Erza pulled on her magic and the snake recoiled as the wooden shaft of the shovel became the sharp edge of a steel sword. With a sweep of the blade, she drove it back, buying enough time to sidestep the startled thief and drive her blade into the body of the snake trying to breach Levy's hasty word wall. The snake made an eerie, ugly noise as its body separated halfway down its coils and Erza forced herself not to shudder as she yanked the blade free and faced the thief again, "We will not let you steal from this place!"

"You might want to rethink that, Little Hime!" Giggled one of the genie girls, "You don't want anyone to get hurt, do you? Especially not your friends!" Erza froze as the genie girl swirled her finger and the bubble in which Wren-sama was trapped bobbed higher. The second snapped her fingers and the dazed Pauz was lifted into the air in another bubble of magic.

Erza glared even as her mind bounced between panic and a desperate attempt to think. Two members of Fairy Tail were now captured and she couldn't fight without risking them getting hurt. But she also couldn't let the thieves get away with the scrolls and the artifacts because that would go against the rules of Fairy Tail. But she couldn't be the reason Wren-sama and Pauz got hurt —she couldn't be the reason behind someone's pain, not again, not again she'd-never-survive-it—. Levy was frozen as well, her expression twisting with suppressed tears of frustration as she clutched her pen. Levy was too young to make that kind of decision but Erza wasn't-. She couldn't-.

"Alright." Yuriko-san's voice cut into the tense silence with a serenity that felt supremely out of place, "You win. Leave the children here, unharmed, and you can take the artifacts and scrolls."

The wolf-man sneered down at Yuriko-san from his carpet, "And then you'll be free to chase us down? I don't think so."

Yuriko-san tilted her head and actually smiled up at the wolf-man —it wasn't a nice smile, that was the smile Rob-jiji gave the guards when they pushed too far and later ended up falling to their deaths from faulty scaffolding, a smile that promised poison—, "Well, if it is reprisal you fear, I would not recommend taking them. They're mage children. They have a guild that will be more than happy to hunt you down if they go missing."

The snake-thief scoffed, "Like we're afraid of some two-bit light guild-."

Something niggled in Erza's memory, something she'd overheard in the guild hall at some point that was important to this situation —something about Fairy Tail being one of the most powerful and feared light guilds, something about their reputation— and she was shouting on instinct before her brain could catch up, "We're from Fairy Tail!"

All the conscious thieves froze. Even the wolf-man on his carpet faltered and stared at her. Erza rolled up her sleeve with a clumsy hand so they could see her mark as proof, "We're from Fairy Tail, not some 'two-bit light guild'."

For a moment the air was so heavy she was afraid she'd ruined everything. But inside the bubble Wren-sama was grinning and Levy was showing off her mark as well and finally one of the genie girls laughed out a coarse curse that was at odds with her bubbly tone. The wolf-man shook himself and then snarled, a flash of teeth in a furry muzzle, "Fine. Leave the kids."

The genie girls lowered Pauz's and Wren-sama's magic bubbles at a wave of the wolf-man's hand. Then the wolf-man smiled and Ibis-san screeched as a magic bubble snapped into place around her and jerked her skyward, "We'll take her as insurance instead!" Levy made a noise of protest and Erza gripped her sword with white knuckles, but Yuriko-san raised her hand in a signal to stay still and the magic bubbles around Wren-sama and Pauz weren't gone yet, so Erza could only watch helplessly as the thieves gathered up Ibis-san and their prizes and fled through the new hole in the roof.

About a minute after the thieves had gathered up their unconscious members, their prizes, and their hostage and disappeared from sight, the magic bubbles dissolved and Wren-sama rolled free to check on Pauz. Pauz blinked dazedly around, like he wasn't sure what was going on. He grunted as Levy tackled him in a hug, blinked over the top of Levy's head at Wren-sama and then Erza, "Wha-. What happened? Did we win?"

"Not quite yet, Mage-san," Yuriko-san answered as she calmly picked her way through the dust over to them, "they managed to leave with their prizes and Ibis-san."

Wren-sama tilted her head at Yuriko-san, curiosity in her eyes. Then she looked over at Erza, who swallowed and shuffled obediently forward, "This is Yuriko-san, Wren-sama. She's a researcher here to explore the ruins. We were exploring together when we heard the battle." Erza dropped her gaze to the floor in shame, "I'm sorry. I should have been here when they first came. I shouldn't have let them catch you-."

Wren-sama reached out a slow hand and gently patted Erza's arm. Erza glanced up from her shoes and saw no accusation or anger in her eyes. Wren-sama gave a tight smile and shook her head, signing something too complicated for Erza to completely catch, but seemed to be along the lines of how she didn't blame Erza for what had happened. Levy crowded close a moment later, "Wren-chan says it's not your fault, and she's right! You didn't know those thieves would come, and you fought really well once you got here! You saved me from that snake!"

Pauz was eyeing the hole in the ceiling, but he still said, "I don't really remember the latter half of the fight, but they're probably right, and I shouldn't have lost my head like that. Either way, there's nothing we can do about it now, we just need to figure out how to fix this."

Wren-sama rubbed her temple like she was trying to come up with a plan, but then Yuriko-san raised a hand for attention and smiled —it was that poison smile again, the one that promised trouble, but Erza didn't think it was going to be trouble for them—, "Actually, if all of you do not mind cooperating and following the lead of a humble researcher, I believe I have a plan that might work."

Wren-sama narrowed her eyes and gestured, Pauz adjusted his big glasses as he translated, "Wren-san wishes to know what this plan entails first, and if it will be dangerous for the rest of us. We might be mages, but we are still children." Pauz made a face over that last bit, like he disagreed but didn't dare add his opinion.

Yuriko-san nodded, "Of course. I would be happy to explain, though perhaps we should relocate. The other researchers might arrive to check on the commotion soon and I doubt they will just let us run off into the jungle."

Erza frowned, "You think they will try to stop us?"

Yuriko-san shrugged, "Perhaps not stop. But they will insist on a detailed explanation of everything that happened, and then will no doubt insist on having a say in what we do next to rescue Ibis-san and the stolen items. That will waste valuable time. Don't you agree, Wren-san?"

Wren-sama eyed Yuriko-san warily, then turned to Erza and flicked her fingers in a single question, "Trust?"

Erza froze. Wren-sama was asking Erza if she … trusted Yuriko-san? Wren-sama wanted Erza's opinion on the matter before deciding? She fumbled with what to say for a moment, because she didn't really trust anyone, not since leaving the Tower, but she also didn't think Yuriko-san deserved to be treated as an enemy. Did that count as a form of trust? Maybe not. But Erza had to give some kind of answer, so in the end she settled for a careful, "I … do not believe she is with the thieves. She has an interest and a … fondness for these ruins. It would be in both our interests to retrieve the stolen items. I think."

Wren-sama nodded, short and sharp, then gestured for Yuriko-san to lead the way. Erza fell in step with Pauz and Levy as they all left the room to find somewhere more private to discuss Yuriko-san's plan and tried not to fret over her words. Over whether she would be proven wrong. She hoped not. She … liked Yuriko-san. She didn't want Yuriko-san to turn out to be either a hindrance or an enemy —fingers holding her too-tight-too-tight, a voice that once gave comfort spewing cruelties for not following him into madness—. Most of all, she didn't want her words to somehow get everyone else hurt.

She fidgeted with her sword hilt and hoped fervently that her first job in Fairy Tail wasn't going to end up being her last one too.