Acnologia flew for years. He was the Dragon King, his stamina was unmatched, and his grief was immense. He wanted answers, he wanted vengeance, but those were dangerous subjects that came with collateral damage and casualties. The monster he'd tried to control demanded retribution, and his choices were to feed the beast or starve it.

"You are nothing more than a beast. Like all the humans there ever have been or ever will be. Do you understand what that means, child?"

He was caged under giant claws, his back on the earth as a single silver digit pinned him there, its razored tip lightly searing into his chest. There would be blood when the pressure left him, not enough to kill him - never enough to kill him - but always enough to hurt. He was too small to push it off, though he knew better than to try. 

A toothy maw leaned closer.

"It means that when you are starving, you will kill to eat. When you are dying, you will kill to survive. When you are hurt, you will bite and claw and scream because you must. You will always be violent. You will always kill. It is your nature, I simply give you the means to be better at it."

He flew, he had to.

He flew and flew, circling the ocean and never daring to rest his wings lest this draconic form find energy for more unsavory actions. His skin and scales rippled with angry grief and he knew the type of monster he was. He would not risk sullying her name - he would not stray from the man she had loved. The human he'd once been. For her - for himself - for spite or love or whatever you needed to call it.

He flew over the grand oceans, beneath and above the clouds. Every ship, every harbor, every tree, even the smell of land seemed to plague him in her memory - curse his inadequacies. The nights were the worst, at times he had closed his eyes to block out the stars so he couldn't find the constellations that she would point out. It didn't help. Every time he closed his eyes there was a memory pressing into his mind.

Onshore, man could hear the cries of a mourning dragon, though as the dragons vanished, so too did the knowledge of what miserable creature would make such grand howls.

He lost track of the days - the years he'd spent aloft. Time and space seemed to meld together as he kept between sky and sea. He'd go until he could go no longer. He'd mourn until something stopped him - until he had reason to - until the beast whose skin he donned no longer wanted to make the world hurt as he did.

"You were not born to kill." Grandeeney rested a wing on his shaking scales, guarding him as she looked over the carnage. Her gaze was cold as her wings spread further, she'd always had the grandest wingspan. For the first time, she used it to hide him from sight. Pathetic - so pathetic - but he was curling in on a body he was not yet used to, shaking and heaving through the worst of the transformation. Hissing through the blood in his teeth. And Grandeeney was safe. All paranoia and fears be damned he knew that at her side, even like this... he was safe.

"You were born to live and then forced to kill for it. You were not born for this, Acnologia, I swear it. I swear it."

He'd tried, once, to figure out what had happened to her. To Grandeeney. To any of them. He'd gone back to the caves of his brothers and sister... but their empty homesteads buried him deeper into his mental grave. There was no Igneel to tease. No Metalicana to wrestle. No Skiadrum or Weisslogia to separate from their bickering. There was no Grandeeney to laugh with.

There was no Anna.

Even Zeref seemed to have moved on.

And that had torn him apart even worse - to be alone, alone, again. Worse, to be alone with no reason or closure. What had happened? Why? And would he ever know? The questions clung to him like Anna's blood, and soon he was certain that if anything drove him mad - if anything brought the true Dragon of the Apocalypse back - it would be those questions.

So he kept flying. He flew, telling himself that if he sensed a change in the air, he'd leave. If he sensed the eclipse gate open, he'd return. He'd learn what happened from his brothers and sister - if they were even alive. He'd act then... he'd find the truth then.

But nothing ever changed. Nothing called him down from the sky or out of the fog he lived in. He was allowed to... rot. Not truly, but it felt like it sometimes. The blues of the sky and the sea blurred like bleeding watercolors and the clouds were his sole comfort. Memories and thoughts twisted and churned whilst all that once felt alive began to waste away. Scales grew brittle, sides grew thin, eyes clouded, bones stiffened, and he let that dangerous thought rest in his skull.

Dangerous... dangerous thoughts.

That his end would be poetic if he let it happen. All of it. King of the Dragons dies in the sky: no power on Earthland was ever able to tear him down. He'd fly as a corpse, perhaps he already was. Rotten and wretched, a ghost with nothing to hold on to, but unable to rest.

"You look dead on your claws!" Igneel laughed, playfully batting at Acnologia's twitching tail. His voice was distant  - he was forgetting, always forgetting but always remembering - his smile was bright. "I know just what can liven you up! Come! Let us wrestle!! May the best king win!"

Igneel had cackled even when Acnologia pinned him down. Warm to the touch... how many times had they wrestled? Had Igneel won any of them? He must've... right? What had he said when he won? Probably something smug but he couldn't remember...

He couldn't remember anymore...

At some point, whilst he was more comatose than alive, his body began to fail. It started with muscles seizing, wings trembling, and lungs heaving. The winds were not as gentle as he'd once thought them. His body was not so grand anymore. Even the King of the Dragons has limits and when he was blown off course by a storm he found himself thrown into the ocean.

He had that thought, before fighting the waves, about sinking; about easing into death in the cool of the water and ending his damned lineage there. What a pathetic end fitting a pathetic regent. There's no telling what prompted him to fight, to start swimming with the last remaining strength of the greatest of dragons. All that matters is that he did: he struggled, following the wild currents to a small island and pulling himself onto its shores. 

It was a herculean feat, but to feel solid ground on his claws again was... oh it was glorious. With the storm raging above him and the waves crashing against his scales, he lay his head in the trees just on the edge of the shoreline. In the chaos and the fury of thunder and wind, the mighty Dragon of the Apocalypse finally closed his eyes to the pelting rain and slept.

────── {⋆❉⋆} ──────

"Relax, Zera, it's not gonna wake up now, it's been days," a small voice is what stirred him from his slumber. The voice... and the fact that someone was climbing up his face.

An... interesting choice on their part.

His body still ached and his eyes were so heavy that peeling them open felt like a terrible hassle. For a moment, he just lay still, assessing his surroundings with his other senses. The tip of his tail was underwater - that water was the ocean based on how the waves lapped at him. His lower half was draped over sand which was pleasantly warm, while his upper rested between bushes and trees. It was... nice, his face was shaded from the warm but brilliant sun while the rest of his scales basked in it. If it weren't for his numb tail in the water, he would've fallen back to sleep.

His stirrings were not gentle, and there was a small gasp as he pulled his tail out of the surf and contemplated opening his eyes.  There was no danger prickling at his scales and so he felt no need to startle. The most pressing aspect of his situation was the immense magic power on this island, warming his aching body and filling his drained mana pools, feeding him with the warm milk of Earthland's lifeblood. Whatever this place was, it was a hotspot of mana and raw energy.

Someone pulled on one of his more sensitive frills and he hissed. Right. Someone. Currently climbing on his crown. Pulling on his plated scales and balancing on his frills. Rude and annoying. His eyes slowly opened and whoever it was froze in their endeavors.

"Uh oh..." he heard them mutter as they so rudely put more weight on one of his scaled frills. Everything was already so sore...

"What are you doing?" he asked, dangerously.

"Sorry!" the stranger chirped and a pang of guilt struck Acnologia's core at the fear in such a squeak. The human scrambled off of him, backing away as he lifted his head to regard this... curious assaulter.

It was a child. A small child, a true young mortal... and Acnologia wished he was better with children to guess her age. She was definitely younger than 12... wait... 15... wait... 10??? Long blonde hair trickled down her back like a waterfall. Small bangs framed her curiosity-filled green gazen. She was standing in awe, donning a layered pink that seemed surprisingly clean, just as her hair was. She was also completely barefoot, despite the stones and brambles about.

He sat up, slowly, both because he didn't want to scare the girl and because he was not feeling pleasant in his skin. Every muscle screeched and groaned, exhausted to their limit which was something he hadn't experienced in a long time. Even his scales pulled unlovingly at his nerves until they screamed. He felt empty, like a casket awaiting its corpse. Heavy and empty.

He looked back at the child and recognized she was standing very still; fearful. Ah, yes. He had... well... growled.

"I... apologize for frightening you," he tried to rectify.

In response, she nodded for a long while before she bowed. "Yeah! What Zera said - I'm very, very sorry for climbing on you! That was rude."

Acnologia looked around, puzzled.

"Yeah, sorry... Hi! I'm Mavis! This is Zera," the young girl grinned as she gestured to the space behind her.

Acnologia cocked his head curiously, trying to glean what he could from the space. Was it a hallucination? An imaginary friend? A curse?

It was something. This entire island thrummed with mana, which anyone could guess by just looking at the abnormally tall tree the island had formed from - it seemed familiar somehow but Acnologia couldn't figure out why. There were more pressing things anyway, like the concentration of magic behind the human child: illusion magic, he guessed from the scent.

So she was an illusion mage... but had created illusions for... herself? Acnologia blinked and his draconic eyes narrowed, picking apart the mana around him.

The longer he focused, the clearer it became; another young girl, this time with an expression of fear and brown hair done up with what must've been red ribbons. She was distant, distorted - immensely hard to make out even with Acnologia's trained senses.

"HEY!" the first girl suddenly pointed at Acnologia and his plated crown frilled for a moment in curiosity. "You TALK!" she cried.

All he could do was chuckle at the simple naivete in that statement.

"All dragons speak," he explained as he began to stand. "Some choose not to, and some do not speak human languages."

He then stretched his legs, his wings, and his tail, each one aching and shaking from fatigue. His mind was sharpening, the cloudiness of the past years fleeing.

"Really!?" she asked eagerly, coming a little closer, much to the chagrin of her illusionary partner whose lips moved but emitted no sound.

"Yes," Acnologia nodded before he shifted back into his human form.

Then the young girl's jaw dropped.

"YOU CAN TURN INTO A HUMAN?!" she cried - no, she screeched.

Acnologia winced at the cry as he began to stretch his shoulders and pop his back. So much was out of alignment he heard more than seven cracks with one back stretch. Flying for years would do that to you. He looked himself over and winced at how gaunt he looked, with too many angles and edges even if he was still mostly muscle.

He could almost hear Grandeeney' scorning him... And Metalicana... gods, after watching his nest-mates starve he'd be livid...

"Think you're immortal or something?" the iron dragon growled, slamming nails against stone: "You pull some dumb shit like that again, and I'll pin you to a rock with so many stakes you'll forget you could ever move to begin with!!"

Oh yes, Metalicana would not stand for such a lack of self-care. He'd be cruel with it: harsh and forceful which often had the opposite of his intended effect... but the iron dragon would care. He always had, even if he'd been horrifically bad at showing it...

The child, now fearless, ran closer, gasping at the large indent in the sand where his dragon form had once been. The sound of her awe chased some of the heavy fog away, and it was strangely amusing to watch her grin in amazement, turning to him with eager questions:

"Can all dragons turn into humans, too?"

"No," he chuckled. "Just certain ones."

"So... are you a special dragon?" she asked.

"I am a dragon slayer," he answered. "And sometimes, dragon slayers become dragons."

"Whoa," the girl gawked. "So what were you doing on the beach for so long?"

"Resting."

"Like... sleeping?"

"I was..." Acnologia tried to find the words to quantify an exhausted unconscious likely near-comatose state."Yes... sleeping."

"For days!? You've been here a while! Like two whole weeks!"

"I was..." he coughed to clear his dry throat. Ah yes, dehydration, right. "I was... quite tired."

"Oh... why? Were you running from something?"

"No, just flying."

"Were you flying a long time?"

"Yes."

"Like... days?"

"Longer.

"A... week?"

"Longer."

"Longer than a week!? How long can dragons fly? Do you need to eat? Can all dragons fly for a long time? Can dragon slayers fly longer than dragons? What are dragon slayers anyway - why would they turn into dragons? Don't they kill dragons?"

"Child, you are... endearing, but we are strangers, and -" he made the mistake of standing up and planning his escape. Immediately he fought against a dizzy spell, steadying himself in the sand as dark spots danced in his vision and his body revolted against him. The child sensed his weakness - she must've.

"Oh! That's right, silly me: I'm Mavis, of the Red Lizard Guild of Tenrou Island!" she jumped to his side and stuck out a hand to introduce herself.

"That is... not... what I meant -"

She did not pause: "I'm eight years old! I can read and write! I'm a scholar and I'm gonna be a mage someday! Also, I love games! How old are you? And do you like games?"

"Much older than eight," he blinked. "And... I am... I am not in the mood for games."

That only seemed to feed her eager grin. "So you must know a whole lot!"

"Well..."

"And I bet, since you can fly, you've been a bunch of places!!"

"Well," he supposed: "Yes."

"Great! Tell me. I want to know everything!" Mavis asked politely, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the woods. At least she tried, Acnologia held fast, unsurprisingly. It was comical, watching such a frail little thing throw her entire weight into pulling this man after her.

"Tell me!" Sonya grinned as she pulled on Anna's dress. "I want to know everything Mom wrote!"

And Anna laughed as she sat on the grass, opening the letter with a teasing slowness: "Hmmmm... Well, it says here that she hopes you're brushing your hair."

"I am! Acno helped!"

"And that you need to eat all your dinner,"

"I did! Ask him! I did!" she pointed to him, and he couldn't help but smile. His hair was a mess of an attempted braid, evidence of their hair-brushing ritual. There was a tattered pink bow in it, somewhere.

"Good, she'll be glad to hear," Anna smiled, pressing the letter between her palms to straighten the parchment: "She also says she'll be home soon. And she'll give you a big hug, like all good Mother's do -"

He blinked and the memory was gone, and the girl was still trying to drag him away.

"... What are you doing?" He asked, staring incredulously at the hand this child had just snatched. She hadn't stopped pulling, her feet digging trenches in the beach's sand until Acnologia gave in. She stumbled for a moment but eagerly held tighter and skipped along, leading him who knew where.

"Tell me everything! I want to know everything about everything!" she began to skip along and Acnologia's tall strides easily stayed in tandem with her.

"I... I am not exactly -"

"I'm sure you're super hungry - and tired! You were asleep for a long time, so you can come to my place and eat and rest and -"

"HᴏΓᴅ," Acnologia tried to intervene. "You should not bring strangers to your house, child."

"But you're not a stranger!" she grinned. "I just introduced myself!"

"Yes. I know your name, but you do not know of me."

"Alright; what's your name then?" she chirped.

Acnologia ran a hand over his face and tried a new approach.

"Where is your ИᴇƧᴛ - your parents? They have a say in inviting strangers home. Strangers who are dragons, no less."

The look in her eyes immediately informed him that he had made a grotesque error.

"Um..." Mavis began nervously. "See... uh... well, I don't have parents..."

"I apologize," Acnologia rectified quickly. "What about your... guardians? Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents?? Family friends??"

Each offer only had Mavis shaking her head with a long-settled acceptance.

"Child, who do you live with?" Acnologia demanded.

"Zera!" Mavis smiled proudly as she gestured to the illusion behind her who was looking more and more concerned with each passing minute.

A beat. Her smile was Sonya's toothy one. The sand was covered in blood. The trees were cave walls.

A blink and it all was gone.

"Dear Zeref," Acnologia cursed softly, rubbing a trembling hand over his face. He was being pulled into the woodland and he numbly let the blonde child lead. What choice did he have?

"Not Zeref, Zera!" Mavis grinned.

"No - no, that... that was an expression. So... to be certain, there is no one else on this island to look after you?"

"Nope! Just me and Zera and the whole island!" she answered too happily.

Acnologia stood dumbfounded for a moment. Eight was ridiculously young for humans, and to be alone... here? There were worse places to be, sure -

A mountain pass. A drake's blood covered his small hands as he climbed and climbed, just trying to get OUT! He's... nine? Eight? He has always had to guess. Will always have to. The gravel was loose, and the stones were firm but his hands were slipping, leaving crimson trails like pen marks in a ledger. The drake's sister was below, crying for vengeance, wailing through a bleeding jaw and a slow death as she pushed herself into a vengeful chase she will not survive. She chased anyway. And he climbed: slipping, stumbling, screaming -

"So Mr. Stranger-Dragon-Slayer, have you seen any fairies?" the girl asked as she continued to lead him through the woods.

"Fairies?" Acnologia echoed numbly, as he blinked through his epiphanies and memories. The fog had returned with a vengeance.

"Yeah! Fairies!"

"No... I have not."

"Awww," Mavis frowned. She then looked critically at Acnologia. "Do you think there could be fairies?"

Acnologia couldn't help but laugh wearily at the exuberantness of the girl: "I know full well all sorts of things are possible, so fairies would not be outside the realm of possibilities."

Mavis nodded thoughtfully before launching into another round of questions.

"If there were fairies - do you think they'd have tails? How many dragons have you seen? Are those tattoos or magic markings or paint? Can I touch them? Whooooaaaa they feel like scales! Can you transform into a dragon at will? If you eat a whole bunch as a dragon and then transform into a human - does the food stay the same size and make your stomach explode? What do you eat? Meat or fish? Have you ever eaten fish before? Do you like fish? What's your favorite food? You eat MAGIC? How does it taste? If you eat a bunch as a human and then turn into a dragon, does the food grow with you or is your dragon form just SUPER hungry??"

She was the sole survivor of the Red Lizard guild, he learned over the next few hours between the constant questions. She had a knack for illusion magic. A natural-born talent that had borne questionable coping mechanisms... she hadn't even realized she'd created Zera. And Zera? The girl seemed something more than a simple extension or fabricated reality. There was a level of questionable sentience it seemed, as Zera was nervous whenever Mavis prompted her and Acnologia to interact (which became a very horrifying game of how-long-can-I-preserve-this-child's-mental-state starring the constant failure, Acnologia).

Zera knew what she was. She must...

Luckily, the longer he hung around Mavis, the clearer Zera became. They managed to keep up the charade that Acnologia didn't dare break through rough lip-reading and blessed interruptions from Mavis. At least through that first meal.

"Hey!! I just realized that we don't know your name!" Mavis cried long after their lunch and their meeting. "We're still strangers!!"

The Dragon King laughed at that before finally relenting...

The strange girl was smiling at him - no one smiled at him - the sun made her hair gleam just as brilliant as it did. A golden key jingled on her belt and her eyes gleamed with eagerness, but a type he'd only seen in her gaze on these strange meetups. Something happy, something warm: "Do I get to know your name yet, dragon-boy? So we're not strangers anymore."

He'd earn himself a new mark for disobeying, but he smiled and gave it to her anyway. Names have power, but for once he didn't think he'd mind -

He didn't want to be a stranger anymore...

"Acnologia. I am Acnologia."

"Nice to meet you Mr. Acnologia," Mavis greeted with an eager grin.

"Just Acnologia, please," he corrected. "No - no honorifics, ever."

Zera asked something and Mavis nodded.

"Probably. But... hmmm, do you like nicknames?" Mavis pondered.

Acnologia braced himself: "I am not... adverse? to them."

 "Hmmm...What about Logi?"

"Absolutely not." 

"Logi, don't be so proud!" Skiadrum chuckled, rubbing his head against the white dragon's neck. "It's unbecoming."

Wiesslogia raised his head, stubbornly, looking away from everyone in faux offense: "Unbecoming!? I am hardly a proud dragon -"

"Liar," Acnologia, Metalicana, and Skiadrum all chided in tandem from where they studied. As if they'd rehearsed it.

Skiadrum had laughed so, so warmly that the offended squawk of Weisslogia had been nothing more than a strangled purr.

"A lovely liar, my Logi," the shadow dragon had purred, as he always did to Wiesslogia.

"As long as I am yours," Weisslogia's voice had lowered into a rasping croon.

"Oh my gods! Do you two mind? We are working!" And Acnologia had cried incredulously, slamming the book in his lap shut, as if the two bothered him - they hadn't... not really. The two cackled at his cry.

"Like you're one to talk, King! If I have to hear another nickname exchange between you and Anna I will claw out my own ears!" Metalicana cried in outrage. Logia and Skia only laughed harder.

"You're all insufferable," Grandeeney had chuckled, no real malice in her tone. "Single or not."

"Ohhhhhkayyyyyy... Can we call you Acno?" Mavis asked once inspiration struck her.

He thought for a moment, the name panging with memories... he forced the fog away before it could settle.

"PLEASE?" Mavis pleaded. "If you don't like Logi or Acno we could call you Gia! Or Gi-gi... or Ac... Nolog??? No, that sounds bad..."

The Dragon King sighed because there was no way he could conceivably say 'no'.

"It is acceptable," he relented. "My family called me Acno."

Mavis cheered and he was struck by how... authentically happy she was.

He blinked and Sonya smiled at him from Mavis' face. He flinched and the ghost was gone. Maybe it was just that childish naivety. Maybe it was the shadows that already hung under her eyes. Children who had seen too much carried a strange sort of light to them - especially those who shone brighter than the sun.

He knew, in the depths of his bones and the pit of his heart, that Anna would've loved Mavis. She loved teaching - she'd teach the village children about the stars and the grass and the trees and words and governments and histories and math. And Mavis wanted to know it all.

There wasn't much of a choice for the Dragon King at the end of the day; he was painfully simple. A lost beast seeking purpose. He needed to rest. He needed to recover. He needed to hide. 

Mavis needed... something. Not him, but something more. He couldn't leave them, and he had no reason to - nothing demanded his attention, nothing called to him without a wail of grief accompanying that call. This was... a near-heavenly distraction in a blessedly isolated place. It felt like an invitation, somewhere that encouraged him to live again - to remember but forget all at once.

"So... you never answered Zera," Mavis asked softly. "How long are you going to stay?"

"Well, how long will you permit me to?" he asked with a small smile.

"FOREVER!" Mavis cried with glee.

"Forever," Anna breathed, resting her head on his shoulder. "I promise you that."

He forced a smile and stilled his hands: "Forever is a long time."

"Perfect! You can answer all my questions then!!"

All Acnologia could do was shake his head: "I do not know you all that well Mavis, but I fear it will be impossible to answer all your questions."

[Sure, you may be dramatic, but are you Sir I-literally-sprinted-until-I-passed-out-because-I-don't-trust-myself-with-anything-more-than-three-minutes-of-actual-grief Acnologia?

Mavis: Ayo! Free Dragon!

Zera: Mavis, I swear to the gods, do NOT climb on the Dragon!

Mavis: I'm climbing the dragon.

Zera: MAVIS! GET OFF THE DRAGON!!

Mavis: You're mad! You're mad! I'm on top of a Dragon's head and you're not!

Zera: GET OFF THE FUCKING DRAGON - 

Acnologia: Who is this lost child? Where are your parents? Who is this illusion?

*Acnologia has unlocked the achievement: Mavis' tragic backstory*  

Acnologia: