Because I'm absolute trash and back on my bullshit, and because it feels like this story won't get out of my mind very soon, I started writing this. And if you're here, it means that even for a split second, you were interested in what this story might be, for which I am infinitely grateful. To all readers new and old, welcome to Heartlines! I hope you enjoy! Warnings:
Chapter-specific warnings: swearing, graphic descriptions of violence, minor character death
HEARTLINES
A Fairy Tail story
CARD ONE: The Burning Tower
Scene I.
"We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it."
—Richard Siken
It wasn't even past noon yet and Gray Fullbuster was already balls-deep in trouble.
"Get the boy!" came a shout, a menagerie of howling thugs hot on his tail.
It should not have come as a surprise. Getting into trouble, that is. A satirical twist on the Universal Law of Attraction. Gray Fullbuster gravitated towards trouble like a moth to a Lacryma, and in turn he attracted trouble just as equally. Simple as that. It was the curse of Fairy Tail mages: their touch unavoidably drove everything towards entropy and when suddenly given direct orders not to cause any destruction, even the most obedient ones would find it hard to forget their roots.
The ramshackle houses blurred into one as he took alleys and side streets, zigzagging his way across the slums. Black filled the edges of his vision, the only sound he could hear was his own heartbeat. The pain leeching on his muscles and lungs felt exquisite. He burned hotter in his adrenaline and ether high, than any flame a fire mage could conjure.
This was it. The home-stretch, the finish line, the light at the end of the tunnel. The pain, the sleepless nights and the all the times they'd risked life and limb, they were all boiling down to this day. Him and his team were threading metaphorical no man's land now. Fiore had not spit out a single wizard in three generations who managed to get this close to completing it. The hundred-year quest.
Whatever reward awaited them at the end of the road, it was within reach now, he could almost graze it with his fingers. And it would be rightfully theirs, gloriously soaked in three years' worth of their blood, sweat and tears.
Initially, the quest itself had sounded ridiculously easy. Hunt down and retrieve a long lost family heirloom —a book —for a powdered Fiorean dandy, who'd been so far up his own ass, that he'd refused to meet them in person, only through messengers. Turns out that no one knew where fate had tossed the book since its disappearance, however a whole network of dark guilds and other illegal organizations was dead-set on finding it before his team would. Not a huge surprise, considering the book's ludicrous price on the black market. It had taken them three years to ferret out the book's current location: three years of searching, solving cryptic riddles, beating up and interrogating criminals who had come across it, trashing dark guilds for information, and raking through black markets. Unsurprisingly, one of Fiore's most infamous crime lords has been sitting on it for the better part of the century, but, credit where it's due, the old twat had kept it hidden well enough.
The only thing left had been to break into the crime lord's estate on a sheltered island town and steal it back. The crime lord was not even a wizard. And yet, here Gray was, fleeing from a town's worth of furious assailants, under broad daylight.
Apparently, he and his team forgot to take three facts into consideration. One, the crime lord lived within the walls of the most impregnable mansion on the continent, two, he'd amassed enough wealth and power to hire complete mercenary guilds to prowl the grounds of his estate, and three, the island was his. Every single person here, women and children included, was a pawn on his chessboard.
A loud bang sent him careening into reality again. A building went up in flames a few blocks away.
Gray cursed and slid into an alley. Natsu, damn him, had no sense of discretion, but admittedly, that's exactly where the Dragon Slayer's talents lay. According to Erza's plan, Natsu's job was to divert attention from Gray by any means possible and Ice Mage had to admit his friend did his part with admirable excellence. The town was in a complete uproar. The cacophony of gunshots and the clash of weapons crashed over the streets like a flood, and somewhere in the distance a bell was tolling.
Sewage and puddles of excrement littered the alley and Gray tried not to puke from the smell. Smoke blossomed from the building Natsu set on fire. It painted the sky a muddled grey and darkness descended upon the town. Gray internally cursed Erza for choosing such a shithole for a meeting point and made a mental-note to give their self-proclaimed strategist a tongue-lashing later. Then he sagged against a wall, perhaps he could allow himself a minute of rest. He loosened the buttons of his coat, panting. Exhaustion was starting to catch up to him, he could feel it creep into his bones.
The Compact Communications Lacryma vibrated in his pocket, happily signaling that he'd reached his destination. They had decided on a place in the abandoned district near the docks, a small square flanked by rundown buildings. Their ship was nearby and once they left this island, they could return to Magnolia. To Fairy Tail.
Three years had passed since they embarked on the hundred year quest and they had not set foot in the guild since. They'd bid their farewells in high spirits, but Gray knew it was guilt that had forced them all to leave Magnolia, escape Magnolia really. Grief echoed in his chest, sustained on its own reverberations. His thoughts wandered to the town, to the people who had lost their homes in the war against Alvarez or Acnologia's rampage afterwards.
Magnolia had been rendered to dust through it all. Not for the first time. And as long as his guild thrived, definitely not the last.
Sometimes he wondered if they deserved the public's lionization, if they truly deserved to be called heroes. They did protect the country from Zeref and his dark forces, but at what cost? Restorations were costly and proceeded at snail speed. The country and the crown were spiraling into a financial crisis, the king's health had been declining for the good part of the year, while Queen Hisui was yet too untried to handle all of this alone.
Suddenly Gray became acutely aware of the object weighing down his other pocket. The book they'd stolen was the first handwritten copy of The Voyager of Worlds, an crib tale known by all. It was a heavy book, bound in deep blue leather, decorated with whorls and swirls and vines, and spanning a good five-hundred pages. It was also an ancient book, a true masterpiece of wordsmithery, but Gray hadn't the slightest inkling of how old it could be. Surely a few hundred years had passed since it had been written, yet its owner kept it in immaculate condition, almost to a point that the Ice Mage had started questioning its genuineness. He also found it oddly controversial for a crime lord to mollycoddle a book of all things. But honest to goodness, he too would pamper any book if it fetched as good a price as this one did.
He felt them before he heard them: strange, unfamiliar sources of ether that did not belong to any of his teammates. Squelching footsteps echoed in the alleys. The next moment, all exits from the square were crowded with a few dozen scruffy swashbucklers.
Their cover had been blown.
Gray sighed. His life just had to be miserable this morning.
Gray took stock of his surroundings. The walls were too slippery, any window too high for him to reach. Surely, he could summon something to lift himself with but that would open him up to attacks even more, and these people were bound to carry guns with them. No Maker Magic —not even Ur's —could match the speed of a bullet used wisely.
"Yer cornered, boy." the one who seemed to be the leader of the group quipped. He was one hell of a despicable thing if Gray was honest with himself: A beard like wire, the puffy red nose of an alcoholic, grease and dirt stains all over a shirt that barely covered a belly most men get with age.
Briefly, Gray wondered how he would have turned out —a homeless, piss-poor, starving rat, not much unlike the residents of this abject little town —had not Ur and Lyon found him among the charred rubble that day. Had not Ur's principles and sacrifice steered him onto the right path.
"Show yerself." the man demanded.
There was no need to hide any longer. Gray flipped back his hood. Recognition flared in those eyes and a whisper of his name shuddered across the crowd. They murmured anxiously amongst themselves, like a flock of unsettled animals. It seemed like they'd been kept in the dark about which particular pack of wizards they were up against.
"Pre'eh far from home, ain't ya, airy-fairy?" their leader spoke again. Gray's eyes swept over the men gathered. A local gang, most likely, some of the brown-nosing pawns of the crime lord.
Gray shrugged, mocking. "By your leave, gentlemen, I do not plan to stay long."
"All cloak 'n' dagger in an alley, wonder what ya been doin'." the man grinned.
Another man, more like a big slab of meat spoke. "Got sticky fingers, this one. Ya ganked somethin' that's ours, ya lil' thievin' pixie." He was a muscle-bound behemoth, really. Gray never considered himself a small kid, but this man was easily twice his size.
"This?" Gray lifted the book with a grin and pinched his chin in mock-contemplation with his other hand. "Stealing something back from a criminal… what does that make me? A reverse-thief? I'll have to think about the nomenclature later."
The swarm of men grumbled as one, as if he had personally offended each of them.
"Ya got nerve, ya lil' runt. That book's belonged to the family of our boss for ovah a centureeh." their leader spoke again. His brogue of the common tongue was heavy, Gray could barely make sense of what he was saying. "Yer tossin' round a billion Jewels. Give it to us and there'll be no violence."
The Ice Mage sighed. His role in this heist had been to stay hidden, lay low and smuggle the book out to the docks while everyone else bustled. He wasn't really sure why Erza had chosen him for the job, like most people who'd grown up in Fairy Tail, subtlety had never exactly been his forte, but it had been Erza's choice and he had no better alternative to offer. Nevertheless, his ambushers were right, he was cornered now and a fight would be inevitable. He could already hear Erza's complaints inside his head. "Don't you know what 'subtle' means, Gray? Beating two dozen men into a coma is not 'subtle' in any sense of the word!"
"Or, you know," Gray answered, pocketing the book. "you could just let me go. And avoid paying half a million Jewels for medical bills while you're at it. Seems like a good deal to me."
The leader pulled out a knife from his belt. The Ice Mage almost rolled his eyes. Did he really want to stab him with a knife? Gray could make thousands of those in seconds, all different in design. Could these guys get any more mediocre?
"Are you sure you want to be using that?" Gray pointed at the flimsy weapon. "I thought you knew who I am."
In all its condescending nature, it was true. After the Grand Magic Games and the war against Alvarez, his face and those of his teammates had been exhibited throughout Fiore like five unflattering parade balloons. Billboards, magazines, advertisements, apparel, and don't even get him started on the action figures. Undressable action figures. Little had changed in four years. Everyone and their mother knew who Gray Fullbuster was.
The gang leader spat on the ground. "Ya got a mouth on ya, lil' fairy. 'Course I know who ya are. Half my clients wanta' skin ya alive. I also know a stuffed ma'am in Bosco who'd pay ackers for yer prettyboy face. Yer outnumbered, give up before we clip yer wings." He twirled the knife between his meaty fingers with the experience of the man who did not use it to only cut pockets open.
His CCL* vibrated again, this time with increased frequency. It must be Erza calling. Damn it, he really should not be wasting time here. At noon, the ship will sail to Hargeon, either with them on board or without.
He clicked his tongue.
"I'm really not in the mood for this, guys." he pulled out the phone, grinning. "You see, I really should answer this. It's friend, Erza, and she gets pretty mad when she's ignored. You must be familiar with her: red hair, can change her armor at will, can split a mountain with a slash, the usual Fairy Tail stuff. If this doesn't ring a bell, the name 'Titania' definitely should. She really isn't someone you want to anger."
"Ya got spunk in ya. If ya won't give me the book, we'll take it by force. I'll make sure to wipe tha' cocky-ass smirk off yer face along the way."
In a blink a dozen men were on him like starved vultures grappling for their prey. They lunged at his legs, his chest, his neck. He dodged them with otherworldly calmness, blocking their punches and kicks with his bare fist. Magic, raw and unforgiving burst from his palms, leaving cool steam and hail and snow in its wake. The turbulent, fiercely primordial stream of it hummed under his skin, beneath his fingertips, behind his eyeballs, between his ribs.
With his magic he hurtled the men across the square. His ice lances tore through the air quickly, cutting through cloth and flesh and bone. A growl came from behind him and Gray pivoted on his heels, slamming a fist into another attacker's jaw. It sent the man staggering back against one of his comrades, both of them tumbling over in a tangle of limbs.
He hit the damp ground before he felt the pain, only having seen his next assailant from the corner of his eye a second too late. A sharp kick to his back, easily knocking him over. Pain erupted behind his eyelids in a flurry of stars. He was no match against the man's bulk. Instinctively he rolled over, right before a meaty fist could bash his head in. The man swore, splintering his knuckles on the sharp, cracked cobblestones. Gray wasted no time to take the opportunity. Pressing his palms against the ground for support, he kicked the man in the belly, then gave his bollocks a generous boot as well.
He hummed in approval as the man collapsed, screaming in pain. "That should knock you out."
Catching him off-guard, the edge of a blade hurtled a hair's breadth away from his face. His magic —a sensing, feeling and very much alive thing inside him —noticed the threat before his mundane senses could, tugging on his muscles, screaming at him to move, move, move. Gray cursed as another blade split the skin of his shoulder in a rush of blood. The world flashed red, and agony tore at him.
The leader of the group grinned, fiendish, several knives levitating in the air around him. His teeth reminded Gray of sweetcorn. A stark, vivid yellow, even beneath the shade of the alley.
"Piss-tier Telekinesis." Gray rasped. How original. "Honestly, I didn't have high expectations but that's just a new low." He pressed a hand against his shoulder to stall the bleeding with his ice. The kiss of the cold was familiar, a soothing salvation against the ache of the wound.
How pathetic. Natsu would give him hell for getting wounded by a telekinetic of this man's calibre.
"Looks like we're alone for now." the man quipped, twirling another blade with his fingers and not paying any heed to the Ice Mage's mocking words. He had been right. His two-dozen men lay whimpering on the ground, nursing their wounds like stray dogs, the rest pinned immobile against the walls by his ice, or unconscious. But for how long? Given the size of the town, reinforcements would come sooner rather than later. He had to make this quick or everything they had been working for in the past three years would go to shit.
Gray lifted his fists. His shoulder screamed in protest. "Splendid. I've always preferred to fight one-on-one."
His shield was up before the knives rained down on him. The ice was thicker, sturdier and he almost felt a jolt of pity at the sheer ridiculousness of the knives bouncing off it like rubber balls. Gray released his hold on the ether and the shield shattered at his will. With all his weapons proven useless, the man was stunned into silence. It was easy to land a punch in his face. His nose made a horrifying crunch when it broke and he screamed in agony as a fountain of blood erupted from his nostrils.
"Ya fucking cunt, I'm gonna cut ya up." He shrieked and staggered on his feet as if he were drunk. Spitting blood, he used his momentum to shoulder into Gray, sending him off-balance. His back hit the ground again and he groaned as the wound on his shoulder tore open. The man pinned him down with his weight easily, his ruined nose dripping blood over Gray's face. When he grinned at him triumphantly, his teeth were stained crimson. The Ice Mage flexed against his confinements but the man was bigger, broader, heavier.
"Not so strong now, pixie dust?" he laughed, spitting into Gray's face. The wounded arm throbbed excruciatingly.
Gray grinned through the pain. Blue light erupted from his right hand.
"You must be a huge dumbass to underestimate a Fairy Tail mage." With a loud bang, a hammer made of ice plunked down upon the thug's head, rendering him unconscious. It was just in time that Gray whipped away his own head, narrowly missing the assault of the hammer himself. The weapon splintered into a million crystals as it hit the ground. He sighed in relief against the sagged body of the man.
One-handed maker magic really was a wild-card. Every time he'd been forced to use it, he almost ended up killing himself in the process, this time being no different. The ocean must be restless now, Ur turning in her grave upon seeing him use the blasphemous technique. How Lyon managed to get by with this half-baked hocus-pocus for years was beyond Gray's understanding.
Throwing the body off himself, he dusted his clothes off.
"Owned by a telekinetic? Perhaps it's time to renounce your S-class certificate, Fullbuster." The grin on Natsu Dragneel's mug was positively insufferable. The Dragon Slayer had doffed his vest, billowy trousers and precious scarf for the success of the heist, and crouched atop the wall attired in all black. Dressed in similar fashion, Erza, Lucy and Wendy stood next to him with Happy and Carla flapping their wings in the air.
"It was not a fair fight, you asshole." This tosser had the audacity to taunt him! It was Gray who'd been left him to his own devices against two dozen men, not allowed to use his magic to its full extent, unless he wanted to attract attention and compromise the success of the mission thoroughly. "I fought two dozen men unarmed while you guys ran amok in town."
"Excuses." Natsu swatted him off. "But you're paying for dinner nevertheless. Can't wait for Mira's spicy chicken wings."
"Gray." Erza addressed. "I called you on CCL."
The Ice Mage gestured at the heaps of unconscious men sprawled across the square. "I was preoccupied." He wiped the gang-leader's blood off his face with a grimace. "Thank you for your concern. Not to be that kind of guy, but you couldn't have chosen a shittier place to meet up Erza. The enemy found me real quick."
"That's exactly why I'd called." A ship's horn boomed at the docks. Erza sheathed her sword. "Now let's get going." His upbringing stopped Gray from flipping Erza the bird, but the look he gave her would've been enough to start a hailstorm.
Lucy clapped her hands eagerly. "Home, sweet home! I'm coming!"
A chill ran down Gray's spine at her words. Home. The word sounded almost alien to his ears.
He wondered what awaited them across the sea. The guild would be a mess as always. Mirajane would be smiling kindly behind the counter, her sister expertly twirling around with steaming plates of food and foaming kegs of beer. Gajeel and Laxus would be arm-wrestling at a table with Shadow Gear and the Thunder God Tribe cheering them on. Reedus would be drawing a portrait of Laki, and Cana would be running the table in Legenca, beating Macao and Wakaba to bankruptcy, while getting absolutely hammered. And Juvia, sweet Juvia, would be around his neck immediately, showering him with tears and kisses. And somewhere, in one of the forgotten, dusty corners of the hall, someone would be playing the damned fiddle.
Yes. He smiled fondly. Maybe it really is time to return to Fairy Tail.
A cold gust of wind swept across the streets. It carried with it a lingering scent of the sea. Across that sea lay Fiore, lay Fairy Tail. It was the scent of home.
But the air was portentously heavy with something else, something magical, something he couldn't quite name, as if he'd inhaled lead powder. It reminded him of the uncanny pressure before a particularly massive downpour, the calm before the storm.
Then there was a reverberation in the back of his mind, a gentle susurrus at first, a white noise melting in on itself until it crescended into a distinct frequency. A disharmony tainted the vibration, a borderline-maddening oscillation of pressure-waves, until it turned into one simple, defined command, melodiously archaic and violently raw.
Later, when Gray would recall the events for his mission report, he would not be able to tell which came first: the explosion or the screams.
The bodies of the men he'd rendered unconscious blew up at once. In a reflex innately ingrained within his nervous system, he threw himself to the ground. Blood and pieces of flesh splattered on his clothes. He tried cover his face, but he found, to his horror, that he was paralyzed to the bone.
A suffocating stillness suffused the small square. Smoke drifted by, and a rat scurried across the passage. A hooded figure came through the smoke, no more than a sliver of darkness.
The Ice Mage struggled to breathe under the pressure of the figure's ether. How couldn't any of them notice such a suffocating aura? Neither of them were Sensor Mages, but even the most incompetent wizard would have sensed a presence as prominent as this, even from the other side of the town.
Gray lay sprawled on the ground, curled in a near fetal position. His heart drummed deafeningly in his ears. The smell of cooking flesh was deceptively savory. It would sit snug in his nose for days afterward, teetering him to the brink of throwing up every now and then. There was a repulsive, mangled, thing in the back of his mind, a tiny malignant monster, clawing against his sanity: fear that threatened to snatch his breath away. He trembled at its touch, jounced to the very core. His magic roiled in return, in an arcanely intimate manner, run, run, run, while you still can. He found he couldn't, as if his legs were made of ice.
The figure spoke with a man's voice: "Thank you for tracking down and retrieving the book for me, fairies. You saved me a great deal of work, you know." There was a white mask under that hood, devoid of any marks and expressions.
Erza, ever the quickest to overcome her inertia, addressed the man, while Gray struggled to find his voice. The Ice Mage was stunned to see that the usually composed woman's face had gone chalk-white. Her voice was deceptively soft, so unlike her usually unwavering tone, barely a whisper. "What the hell did you just do to these people?"
The man spread his arms in a theatrical gesture. Gray did not fail to notice the leather gloves covering them. Not a single inch of the body beneath was visible to the naked eye, if the Ice Mage did not know better, it even could have been a demon plucked straight from one of Zeref's books. No, the distinct tremor of his right arm was absent, —that's where the power of his late father was nestled —the creature lurking beneath the mask could not be a demon. And Zeref Dragneel was dead, not an inch of his cursed, immortal body left behind.
No, it had been a human who murdered all these men.
"Titania," the stranger addressed. "Your beauty truly is a sight to behold. Although I must say, being scared out of your wits is a good look on you. I will cherish this memory deeply." for a second Gray could have sworn he heard the smile in the man's voice. The masked face turned towards the charred carcasses on the ground.
"Such sad and weak creatures." he marveled. His mask did not alleviate the utter detachment he expressed towards death. "They had no place in the new world, they needed to perish. Demolition must always precede reconstruction."
Despite all his efforts to avoid his eyes, the sight burned into Gray's mind like a brand. The combustion reduced the bodies to mere husks, their faces contorted in a ghastly rictus, all of them beyond recognition. The irrevocability and incontrovertibility of death propelled into him with the force of a shooting star. The men he had fought minutes ago were dead. His vitriolic abhorrence to them evaporated in an instant. Suddenly he wished to know all of their long and tortured histories; he wanted to feel the pain of separation as they were torn from the physical world by their deaths, their souls streaming out of their bodies like tears. He could not see this again… this inalterable one-sidedness, this unavoidable massacre… Not after his mother and father and Ur. Not after Deliora.
"What are you talking about? You sound like…" Erza breathed out.
"Like Zeref." said Gray, staring in horror at the man. He was taken aback by the weakness of his own voice. Indeed, the masked wizard's words bore a distinct similarity to the Black Wizard's teachings.
"Zeref was but a prophet. His life was as much of a proof of the One God's existence as it was an example for us to follow."
Instantly, Natsu was back on his feet, hurtling towards the man with a burning fist."You rotten bastard, what sort of shit-talk is that?" he snarled, his green eyes flashing alarmingly. His voice did not lose its fire even in the face of death. "You torched dozens of innocent people for an idea?"
The man lifted a palm against Natsu's heedless onslaught. Natsu yelped as a muscle spasmed in his leg, sending him face-first into the ground. His body hit the cobblestones with a hollow thump.
"My time's been cut short, so I will have to deal with you later, Etherious-boy. Although I must say your brother's work on you was impeccable, you truly were his magnum opus. But don't worry, I am not done with you just now. Behave until next time, okay?"
Gray's magic howled like a caged beast deep within his core. But he could not move. Could not breathe. The masked wizard had paralyzed them all with his wicked magic. Despite all his efforts to flex against the invisible binding, his body did not budge. The dark ether had slithered into his very core, tainting the marrow of his bones, the coating every fibre in his muscles and dissolving within the synovia of his joints.
Footsteps echoed in the alley. When the boots stopped in front of his face, the man crouched down. His long cape fanned out around him like a halo of darkness. A hand lifted Gray's face by the hair. Up close, the man's eyes were visible beneath the mask. But those eyes… they were dark but nothing like Gray's own. Undeniably human but also nothing akin to anything he'd ever seen. His irises reminded him of galaxies where all the stars had been snuffed out. Staring into them was a discovery in itself, a journey into an occult, primordial secret.
Those eyes closed in deadly mirth as he praised: "Devil Slayer. You guarded the book so well —good dog."
"Son of a bitch." spat Gray.
"Hush now, you." he chided. "That's not how you talk to your employer."
"What? Employer?" The realization broke over Gray in a crushing wave. A ripple of numb pain erupted from his heart and rushed to every part of his body, a rattling hollowness, voracious and all-consuming.
How did they not realize?
Of course. They had been led on. For three damned years they'd been lied to and made fools of and none of them noticed.
In that moment Gray realized —not for the first time in his life, and in retrospect, not for the last either —that while many things were within his scope of influence, even more were not. The world did not operate on a simple, equivalent and meritocratic system. Even the planet itself spun on a tilted axis. Bad things happened to good people, all the time. Ambiguity came to the suffering, death came to the brave, sickness and misfortune came to those who followed their soul's desires. Rightful judgement rarely came upon sinners, and no matter how much work and pain and effort you put into a goal, it can slip through your fingers in a blink of an eye. All that you've strived for can be reduced to nothing.
The cards had been stacked against them all along. They'd worked their asses off for three years for a lie.
"Who… who the hell are you?"
"That is of no significance to you." came his answer. The Ice Wizard's mind pulsed again, the sound amplified from the flutter of a hummingbird's wings to the cacophony of a marching band in a span of a second. "Lift." the man commanded.
As if hooked on strings, his body was lifted into the air by an invisible force.
The gloved hand reached into the pocket of Gray's coat. When he withdrew the book, his other hand clamped down on the Ice Mage's forehead, vice-like.
"I was only supposed to leave the demon-boy alive." he indicated towards Natsu with his head. "But I've been watching you all for three years, and you intrigue me. I've decided to spare your lives. Your souls are eclipsed in darkness. And when the Day of the Reckoning comes, use that darkness as your light to guide you home. Now scream."
And Gray screamed.
Author's note:
Good Lord, I did it. I'm done with this monstrosity of a chapter. And if you're reading this, I even mustered enough courage to publish it.
Oh, sorry for my terrible manners. My name is Aetherish and welcome to the first chapter of *drumroll* Heartlines! I have been planning this fic for years, no joke. Long before FT had ended, I just never got around to writing it.
I was a tad bit (translation: tremendously) disappointed with the ending of FT and how some characters, character arcs and relationships were treated. This fic is set three years after the manga left off and I've decided to turn this story into a sort of fix-it where I give some of the characters a more proper send-off. Yes, this also contains an OC/Canon pairing, but it is not the main focus of the story. However, this story will contain numerous OCs and a lot of original content sewn into the canon lore, so if it's not your cup of tea, I kindly ask you to leave now, instead of leaving a nasty comment in my inbox. I did a lot of prior research and worked hard to make my characters canon-compliant, yet be able to bring something new into the world of FT, so hopefully you will be able to enjoy this story just as much as I enjoy writing it.
Since you're here, that probably means you've read the first chapter and now have a grasp of the story's tone. Heartlines will be dark and a bit more high fantasy-esque than FT usually is. Expect graphic descriptions of all kinds. Also, the Hundred Year Quest they are working on in this story has nothing to do with the one in the ongoing Hundred Year Quest spinoff by Atsuo Ueda. I know that story is canon material but I never really liked it and I'm not up-to-date with it. Traces of the lore from it might make it into this story, but the plot itself is not canon in this fic.
Anyways, thank you for being here and enjoy the ride!