An alcoholic haze wafted lazily through Fairy Tail's brand new guild, now two weeks since their Grand Magic Games victory and the celebrations were only just beginning to settle down. A fortnight of the most reckless partying in guild history had started the moment they flung open the shiny new guild doors. The townsfolk and fans were excited and somewhat scared to join the bizarre and destructive festivities of their new heroes, however their inhibitions were soon put to rest with the free-flowing alcohol and the infectious energy of the mages. It wasn't long before lasting friendships were forged between them and the mages of Fairy Tail; magic and non-magic users now united in a way they never had been before. In the mornings the guests would leave thoroughly exhausted while the Fairy Tail mages buzzed on through the days with interviews, photo shoots and appearances. The constant clamour had now subsided to a general buzz of animated chatter from familiar and unfamiliar faces that filled the main hall. It seemed as if the last two weeks were finally taking their toll on the insane mages of Fairy Tail. The request board was now 3-papers-thick with jobs, and a majority of them requested specific mages that were admired from the games.

Mira was currently organising the requests into piles based on the mages whose talents were sought after. She thought to herself that she may need to add a "mage requested" column to her request record book in addition to the "date received", "requester", "request", "reward", "completed by" and "date completed" columns.

Erza's request pile was in the lead, with Natsu and Gajeel's not far behind.

'Tch, why does Erza have more requests than me?' Natsu grumbled.

'Because you have a reputation for destroying the cities that you take requests in!' Lucy huffed, knowing all too well of Natsu's talent for whittling away request rewards.

'Yeah you sure demonstrated that when you destroyed the stadium floor in your match against the twin dragons, dumbass!' Gray snickered.

'Hey that was Sting's fault! But I could have easily done it too!' Natsu retaliated.

'That's exactly the problem!' Lucy butted in but was long forgotten from the conversation as flame and ice flickered and morphed around the rival mages. Natsu was omitting a childish snarl with flecks of spittle flinging onto Gray's face and sizzling against his cold skin.

'Pity your hot spit has better accuracy than your chaotic attacks!'

'Hey I don't see you defeating real-life dragons ice-prick!'

'Only because you hid behind Atlas Flame's legs like a little baby!'

'Baby? You were the one losing to baby dragons!'

With that Natsu burst into a fit of laughter but Gray was frozen still in remembrance of that battle. He looked down, put his hands in his pockets and risked a quick glance over to Juvia. Ever since her glimpse at Gray's death Juvia had been keeping a distance from him by avoiding the parties and only working on solo missions. When she was there he got the occasional furtive glance from her but she would always look pained, guilty even. The seven-dragons battle signified a victory laced with many painful memories of what-may-have-been for some mages of Fairy Tail, and none more so than the memory shared by Gray and Juvia.

Natsu, having not gotten the verbal (or physical) backlash that he was expecting from Gray, looked to see his friend with a strange dumb look on his face.

'Idiot what's wrong with you?!' He asked as he closely inspected Gray's glazed expression. He got no answer; instead Gray began to walk away without so much as a glance back at the befuddled young dragon slayer.

Meanwhile a crowd had gathered to watch Mira as she placed each request upon its respective pile. Each careful placement was met with loud cheering or booing while Cana shouted out the betting odds for the mage with the most requests, punctuated with loud gulps of ale. The equally inebriated punters took no notice of how haphazardly her odds were changing: one minute Erza 5:1 and Natsu 1:40, the next minute Erza 1:100 and Natsu 100:1. Along with the piles, jewel upon jewel stacked up in Cana's ample till which uncannily resembled a blue bikini top. Amid this chaos little notice was taken of the guild's master who sat on the edge of the bar with his head leaning in one palm. His eyes were closed, lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed as he seriously pondered over Erza's lead (he had placed a significant bet on Natsu). When it finally came to him he jumped to his feet and raised his arm in excitement, 'I've got it!' he proclaimed. He was not loud enough to be heard over the general buzz however the guild became deafeningly quiet but for a few echoes of the previous chatter. All faces turned to the little master. Lucy noticed that his pose resembled the popular Fairy Tail stance that had an eerie way of gaining the attention of all those with the guild's stamp. Realising that he now held everyone's attention Macarov thought he might as well enlighten them.

'It's because she has breasts,' he declared and brought down his arm to point directly at Erza where she sat. All heads rubbernecked in the direction he pointed, saw the guild's Titania then rebounded back to the master in confusion.

'The reason she gets the most requests,' he clarified, very pleased with himself.

Eyes locked back on Erza, a few chins dragging along the floor. With bated breath they awaited her reaction to this blatant disregard of her unrivalled skill. She had been sitting amongst the guild's chaos, slowly devouring a slice of strawberry cake the size of her head, largely unfazed by the unofficial request competition. She took the master's words into consideration, then with a slow nod of her head and an agreeable 'mmm,' she concurred.

The onlookers collapsed in disbelief.

'You are very perceptive master,' she began, 'my armours are specifically designed to complement my feminine figure in order to attract more clients, allow me to demonstrate.' The Titania stood up and ex-quipped into her famous Heaven's Wheel armour.

'As you can see the breast plate reveals an ample amount of the bosom, this armour is mostly used for long range attacks so the exposed area is not at much risk of damage like it would be in close-range combat.'

Most of the guild members were now ogling the mage as she began to run through the specifications of her entire armour inventory. Natsu was confused as to why Erza bothered; she just looked scary in whatever armour she wore. Beside him Macao and Wakaba were talking in hushed tones without taking their eyes off the spectacle and Natsu decided to listen in. 'This is my favourite, she looks like a true dominatrix,' Wakaba said as Erza donned her Black Wing armour, to which Macao replied, 'she can dominate me any day!' they both laughed. What this meant Natsu had no clue, only that they said it in the way that all perverted things are said. When he asked them what a dominatrix was it only made them laugh more. The two adults didn't look like they were going to finish laughing any time soon so Natsu left having become annoyed and bored.

All the while Lucy was amused by the whole situation; she often found she was the only one to see the humour in the Titania's tendency to take things literally. In times like these Lucy felt like she was looking down at characters in one of her narratives, as she seemed the only one to grasp the ironies and subtleties of the scene before her. As she watched Erza Lucy envied her impregnable confidence. For mages such as Erza, Natsu, Gajeel and Gray, fighting ran in their blood, whereas for her it was more of a means to an end. She felt a slight pang of jealousy that even a dunce like Natsu had such a natural fighting intelligence, when she would have to stay up all night to plan fighting strategies half as good as his. She yearned to join them, up in their own class of power that gave them the freedom of impulsivity and recklessness.

As she placed the last request onto Natsu's pile Mira was glad that Erza had momentarily diverted the guild's attention; the boy-dragon's pile had caught up with Erza's so she knew the punters would insist she counted them a dozen times over. Instead she took her chance to duck out of the crowd for a quick break. In doing this she saw the only face not glued to Erza and walked over to her.

'Lucy is anything wrong?'

The celestial mage looked to Mira and put on a smile, 'Erza has such a natural talent, just like Natsu and Gray, it's like they were born with it,' Lucy sighed, she only meant for this to convey her genuine admiration for her friends but Mira could sense the underlying despondency.

'None of them were born with it,' she assured Lucy, 'Erza worked hard at her powers because of the guilt of leaving her friends at the Tower of Heaven, Natsu trained relentlessly with his father, and Gray put all of his heart into his magic in hope to avenge Deloria for destroying his homeland. And it may not look like training but they've all been fighting each other since they met because they found worthy opponents that they could learn from.'

'Oh, of course you're right! I don't know what I was thinking,' Lucy laughed awkwardly, Mira nodded and swished back behind the bar to pour herself something strong before returning to the daunting piles of paper.

Lucy couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed for thinking all of those silly thoughts; of course they weren't all born with their skills. She resolved to stop making excuses. It was up to her to train harder than ever before so she could fight without fear, side-by-side with her teammates. The thought got Lucy all fired up. At that moment she felt a familiar warm weight thump across her shoulders.

'Oya Lucy what are you doing sitting by yourself?'

'Natsu! I've decided I'm going to train hard so I can get as good as you and Erza!'

The immediate image to enter Nastu's mind was Lucy in heavy armour waving around a sword with fire spurting from her mouth.

'Scaaary,' he shuddered.

'Don't think weird thoughts!' Lucy shouted at him.

Brushing the terrifying image away he remembered something; 'aw yeah we never finished our training before the games, I know! I'll train you! It will be Natsu-sensei's boot camp from hell! We'll have fire-pits, fire-rings, fire-balls, fire-works, hot coals, fire-spirals, fire-rain, that's when I shoot fire balls down from the sky, fire rings.'

'You already said fire-rings!' Lucy didn't quite see the appeal of Natsu's training regime, 'you know I think I'll just ask Caprico again, he was the one that helped my mother train, he'll know how to make me strong.'

'Mmmm, sounds boring,' Natsu rested his chin on her shoulder.

'You don't have to come, in fact I think it would be good for me to train alone with my spirits.'

This didn't really sit right with Natsu; they were a team and they should stick together, but after he voiced this concern Lucy remained obstinate.

'Natsu this is a journey I feel like I need to take by myself to really get to know my spirits and learn more about my powers.'

'Ok if it's that important to you then you should do it, but don't take too long,' he huffed.

'Mmmm,' Lucy nodded her head. Her heart was beating fast with the prospect of it all. There was fear for going on an adventure without her teammates, excitement for forming stronger bonds with all of her spirits, there was a strange pulse of loneliness when she pictured Natsu, but ultimately her heart beat passionately for the new Lucy she would become.

That afternoon, after telling everyone of her plans, Lucy stood in front of her door and reached for the one normal key that always looked out of place amongst her ornate spirit ones. Unlocking the door she entered her cosy apartment. At that moment she saw the room with a dizzying clarity. The afternoon light coming through the window was bright and illuminated hundreds of tiny dust particles in two beams separated by the wooden window panel. The edges of her furnishings seemed sharper and the room felt strangely small, as if it couldn't contain this expanding feeling she had. The last time she had felt this euphoric sense of clarity and resolution was a hard moment to forget; it was the moment she decided to run away from home.

She breathed in deeply.

'Open, gate of the ram,' she felt the familiar gust of wind as the spirit materialised from the spirit realm.

'How meh I be of service Lucy-sama?'

'Please Caprico I want to become much stronger so I can learn to fight without fear,' she looked at him with a determination that he recognised from his time in Layla's service. He realised she was now ready to take the next step in her journey as a celestial spirit mage.

'Ah, there is a limit to what I can teach you, if you wish to progress faster I have heard of an extremely powerful celestial spirit mage that has been able to unlock the true power of all of his spirits. Even his silver-key spirits found strength that many of us gold-key spirits couldn't imagine.'

'Whoa sounds amazing! I didn't know such a celestial mage existed,' said Lucy.

'Yes well he has retired from his guild and works as a freelance mage so he is quite difficult to track down. I gather that he also has a habit of lending a few of his spirits to villages in need until they can pick themselves up again.'

'That seems a bit reckless to me,' Lucy pondered.

'It is a little peculiar but he always returns to them and knows that they are strong enough to fend for themselves if anything goes awry, hmmmm.'

'What is it?' Lucy asked.

'I am simply thinking of how you meh find him, I meh have to ask the Spirit King where he his,' Caprico reasoned.

'Oh please let me come with you! I would love to go to the spirit realm again.'

'My lady I could but you must remember the difference in time flow.'

'Hmmm, well, if I'm only gone for say one hour… let's see… based on the last time we were there… that would be around,' Lucy took a moment to do the arithmetic whilst tapping her chin with her index finger, 'four days in our world, that would be alright, I might even get to avoid the guild clean-up from all of our parties!'

'As you see it my lady. It is an honour that you would dedicate your time to visit us in the realm we proudly call home.'

'All right!' she pumped her fist.

She spent the rest of the evening advising her spirits of her visit, all of whom were very excited and agreed to inform those that she could not call out on that day. Virgo thought the hour would be best spent undergoing some sort of punishment and Taurus wanted to choose the spirit realm clothes that would permit Lucy's entry. Caprico sensibly advised Horologium to teach Lucy about the complicated dimension of time and how it differed between the mortal and spirit realms. It was the first time Lucy heard Horologium talk so much. He began in such a way that Lucy felt like they could be there for a while; his eyes were closed and he had one finger raised in the air like a shy student answering a question.

'Lucy-sama it must be understood that time as a quantifiable entity is an unfamiliar concept in the spirit realm. There is no night and day, there are no weeks and there are no years. For us spiritual beings time is not something you can count out with hands on a clock or sand in an hourglass. Our understanding of time is that your mortal realm is dictated by what we call "Chronos", and ours by "Kairos". That is to say your world follows time as a sequence of events whereas we are guided by opportune moments that we respond to. For us time is defined by the moments that occur as we interact with events in the spirit realm and more importantly the moments that call us into the mortal realm,' he went to continue but Lucy interrupted him.

'Wait, but what about what Virgo said, that one day in the spirit world equals three months in my world? How did she know it was one spirit realm day if you can't measure time?' Lucy's head was spinning.

'She must have been trying to simplify things, we cannot know how long we were in the spirit realm that time, only that the event equated to three months of mortal time.'

This posed quite an issue if Lucy didn't want the same thing to happen as when they lost three months of their training camp, heck she'd already missed out on seven years of time in Earthland.

'So if we can't measure how much time we are using while I'm in the spirit realm how can we stop me from missing out on too much Earthland time?'

'Well, I propose that I stay in the mortal realm for the four days that you agreed upon and then I will come and alert you when you must come back. On the other hand your objective may take very little mortal time in which case you will be the one returning to me.'

'Ah! That's a great idea, are you sure you'll be okay in our realm for four whole days?'

'Yes very sure, my power has increased significantly as you have been improving your magic, four days will be easy if I do not strain myself.'

'Well alright, if that is okay with you, thank you so much Horologium you have always been there for me in tricky situations like these!'

Two pink circles appeared at the three and nine o'clock positions of his face, 'it is my honour Lucy-sama, just call me out when you are ready to come to our realm,' he was about to vanish before things got too sentimental but Lucy had one last question that came to her.

'Horologium, if you can't measure time in the spirit world then why do you, a clock, come from that world?'

'Oh, well, as you know, we are manifestations of the magic of the stars so when I am in the spirit realm you can see me as a constellation in the night sky. For centuries mortals looked up at my constellation and began associating me with "Chronos", or "time", so my celestial magic eventually took the form of a pendulum clock.'

'How interesting! Thank you, I'll see you tomorrow then.' Horologium sighed in relief as he disappeared; one second longer and he may have burst from embarrassment from telling the precious Lucy-sama his life's story.

That night Lucy looked out her window up to the stars shining in the sky and thought of all of her amazing spirits. She dreamt of the spirit realm in all of its splendour and shine, only there was one thing stopping it from being perfect. In her dream state Lucy felt a slight sense of coldness, or maybe it was not so much coldness but a lack of warmth, a feeling of something missing. It lingered just below the thin membrane separating the conscious from the subconscious so she could never quite grasp the essence of it. She awoke the next morning with no recollections of her dream but the indistinguishable feeling remained. She put it down to nerves and began preparing for her adventure.

She arrived at Fairy Tail early in the morning, as she was eager to quickly notify her friends of her four-day absence and be on her way. The sight she was welcomed with was nothing unusual to her. The mages and commoners were sprawled out on the floor in piles of limbs and snoring faces. Mira was gliding around the floorboards with a mop humming, not making any effort to stop the mop from sloshing into the comatose party-goers' faces. Lucy giggled as she felt like she was seeing just a glimpse of Mira's demon side peeking through her angel-like persona.

'Ah Lucy!' Mira exclaimed, 'how are your training plans coming along?'

'Well I'm going to go to the spirit realm just for a little while to learn where I can find a very strong celestial spirit mage.'

'How wonderful, just don't forget about the time difference.'

'Mmmm don't worry I've got that all figured out!'

Lucy had a quick scan around the guild and took no time to spot her partner's spiky pink peaks. He lay on his back and his head rested on Droy's soft pudgy thigh, which made her wonder whether he picked whom he would pass out on. This question was answered when she inspected the rest of his body. The hem of his pants and boxers were caught on a nail and were now halfway down his bottom on one side. Lucy figured he must have been lying on the floor and then dragged himself up to rest his head on Droy. Her gaze lingered over his exposed lower abdomen where she saw the top of some course darker pink hairs. She hated to admit that her partner looked fairly sensual when he was exposed like this. Heavens above she thought she was over this phase of being attracted to Natsu, but then she is given this visual. She couldn't help but follow the taut pelvic muscles as they descended into the region that was so unknown to her. She was at the age when she was beginning to hear stories from her drunken friends (mostly Cana) about sexual encounters and her current view was surely bringing some of those stories to the forefront, now featuring Natsu's body. Although truthfully she could only picture his body doing those things to her, when it came to his face she could only imagine his immature antics; something like 'whoo I'm riding Lucy kakakakaka!' as he spanked her hard on the behind. That was enough to stop her thoughts in their tracks.

Natsu awoke to the distinct smell of Lucy and when he opened his eyes there she was, looking very intently as his stomach.

'Ohayou Lucy,' he said groggily as he scratched over the area that she had been inspecting.

'Ah!' Lucy sprung up quickly, praying that Natsu hadn't caught her in her brief moment of virginal curiosity, 'ohayou!'

Natsu slowly hauled himself up and did up his loose belt. Something provocative about this action made Lucy choke on her own spit.

'You alright, weirdo?'

After she finished coughing and gaining her composure she got down to business.

'Natsu I'm going to be away for four days, I'm just going to talk to the Spirit King about where I can find a very strong celestial spirit mage to train me.'

'I'll come with you,' he stated as if it was a given fact. For one heart beat Lucy felt that indeterminate feeling she woke with dissipate with the thought that she could just bring Natsu with her. However her passionate vision of her own personal quest overcame that thought and she stayed firm.

'I told you yesterday I want to do this myself and it will just be talking. You wouldn't want to waste four Earthland days listening to me talk with the Spirit King, would you?'

Natsu thought that did sound very boring when he could just stay here and fight bad guys for four days instead. Though he did think it a little odd that she was so adamant to go by herself; things are so much more fun when your best friends are with you.

'Yeah okay say hi to moustache man for me then!'