Chapter Text
Sting stopped just outside the biggest inn in Magnolia, looked at the sign welcoming him to the annual Wizard Guild Master Convention, and tried to convince himself that he wasn't nervous. He wasn't, not really. He was doing a pretty good job as Master, he thought - everyone in Sabertooth seemed pretty happy, and he'd been doing it for almost six months now, so if anyone really had a problem with him then it probably would have already come up.
He'd been a bit surprised to receive the invitation to an annual Fiore Guild Conference that he hadn't known existed, but he supposed that it made sense to have some sort of yearly debrief. Presumably Jiemma had attended in the past, and Sting just hadn't known about it. One of the many, many things that Jiemma had never bothered to share with the guild.
Sting shook his head, growling slightly. He didn't want to think about Jiemma, not right now. Sting was the Master of Sabertooth now, and it didn't matter what Jiemma might or might not have told him. All Sting had to think about was the conference ahead of him. He was sure meeting the other Masters would be a bit awkward, but he could weather that. Sting usually got people to like him quickly enough, and this situation would probably be no different. He could get through the conference, establish the Sabertooth reputation as a friendlier guild, and get a few tips on being a guild Master from the older folks.
"This is gonna be fun," Sting told himself. "You got this!"
He wished Rogue were here. He knew that Rogue thought he was a good Master. He said that a lot, and Sting trusted that he was telling the truth. Yes, he was dating Rogue, and he had been for most of his tenure as Master, but Rogue wouldn't lie to him just to spare his feelings. And if he was here, Sting would probably have a lot more fun at this conference, which was almost guaranteed to be boring.
Rogue had offered to come, of course, but Sting didn't think that was allowed, and he didn't want to look bad in front of the other Masters. Sabertooth was still a force to be reckoned with, even after the change in leadership. Sting was pretty sure that he could prove that, and honestly, he thought he was doing a pretty good job so far. After all, he was the youngest Guild Master in Fiore, and that had to count for something.
Sting took a deep breath and walked inside the inn. The invitation he'd received had told him which areas were set aside for the conference, and he'd also been informed that the inn would be reserving rooms for each of the Guild Masters attending. Sabertooth was nearby, but Sting still appreciated the courtesy, especially since the conference lasted two days, and each day started late and ended early.
Sting had arrived at the hall about fifteen minutes before the first event was scheduled to start - a roundtable discussion simply updating the other guild masters on any new business from the year. This had been about as early as Sting could have made it - he'd had to meet a plumber who was coming to the Guild Hall to check out a steadily growing leak in the corner, and he hadn't been able to move that earlier because Olga had wanted to run some sign-up information for this year's Grand Magic Games by him, and he hadn't been able to move that earlier because Rogue had been having nightmares about Frosch dying again and Sting had wanted to make sure he had time to eat breakfast with him.
Honestly, he was pretty impressed he'd made it on time at all - he knew from his experience installing the pool in their Guild Hall that handymen were practically always late. But as soon as he walked into the inn, he realized that fifteen minutes early had simply not been enough.
He was clearly the last one there. He knew this because there was a check-in table at the front with name tags and paperwork for all the Guild Masters, and Sting's was the only one still left. The woman running the check-in table seemed kind of annoyed. But Sting just hadn't known any better, and he didn't think that was fair. He made sure to be extra polite to her, just in case the real reason she was mad was because Sabertooth had once done something to her.
All the other masters were mingling in the hotel lobby. It was clear they mostly already all knew each other, and they had largely formed little groups. Sting wasn't sure how comfortable he would feel barging in on a conversation that was in full swing. But that was alright. He would have plenty of time to chat with all the Guild Masters later.
He spent the next fifteen minutes standing near the wall, and trying to look friendly enough that no one would be intimidated to approach him. No one did.
About ten minutes after Sting had arrived, the other masters started to make their way into a conference room, and Sting trailed along behind. He couldn't tell if there was somewhere he was supposed to sit, so he politely waited until everyone else had sat down and then took the last empty seat.
He ended up next to Mirajane of Fairy Tail. He blinked. Last he checked, Mirajane wasn't a Guild Master, unless he'd somehow missed something very big….
But no, Makarov was here on her other side. Now that Sting was looking around, he could see Hibiki of Blue Pegasus was here too.
Damn. So Sting probably could have brought Rogue, he just hadn't known to.
That was okay, he could handle this just fine by himself. It was probably better that Rogue was at home anyway, because then at least he could avoid the (likely) stressful and boring conference.
Sting put the half-filled out paperwork on the table in front of him, trying to subtly turn over the top page so it looked less like he'd been extremely late and possibly more like he was prepared to take notes. The chatter around the rest of the table diminished, and Goldmine, who Sting recognized from the Grand Magic Games, cleared his throat.
"Okay, can we get this started? And hopefully also finished, and move on to the drinking?"
Sting still wasn't entirely sure what exactly they were getting started, or what he should be prepared to say. Everyone had probably noticed by now that Jiemma certainly wasn't here, and they must know why Sting had taken his place, so was it more or less awkward for Sting to acknowledge the situation?
"Hold on just a minute," Makarov said. His eyes were closed, and Sting had thought he had fallen asleep at the table, but apparently he was paying attention. That probably shouldn't surprise Sting, since he was the Master of Fiore's once-again top Guild, but he really had looked asleep. Makarov continued, still without opening his eyes. "We have a new face at the table. Introductions may be in order."
This was Sting's cue. He thought about standing, but then decided that it might appear too formal. Still, sitting was probably a little too familiar, considering that they didn't actually know who he was yet.
Sting pushed the chair back and got to his feet before he could overthink it any further, nodding towards Makarov. "Uhh, thanks, Master Makarov, sir. I'm Sting Eucliffe, of Sabertooth, and I just wanna say before we get going that Sabertooth is officially under new management! Master- uh, Jiemma- is gone, permanently. I've been the Guild Master for about six months. I know that we weren't exactly always the most popular Guild, so I want to say sorry if Jiemma was ever a dick to any of you! Um, we do things differently now."
Standing up had probably been the wrong move. Possibly, so had formally acknowledging Jiemma's departure. All the other Guild Masters probably already knew that, and now most of them were staring at him with various looks of confusion or outright distaste.
Jiemma probably had done something to most of these people. That wouldn't be surprising, considering the way he'd treated even his own Guild. But Sting…Sting felt his mind sliding away from Jiemma. He couldn't think about that too hard. All he could do was apologize and start forging a way forward.
There was a long silence. "Thank you, Sting," Bob, the Blue Pegasus master, said politely.
"Thank you," Makarov said as well.
The master of Lamia Scale - whose name might have been Hag - made a grunting sound in the back of her throat. No one else gave him any sort of acknowledgement.
Sting sat down hastily.
Makarov cleared his throat. "With that out of the way, I think it's time we can get started on some of the business we have to discuss. If anyone has updates from this year they'd like to go over, we can now…."
Sting was trying very hard not to be embarrassed, and he was also trying very hard not to think of Jiemma. That took up his brain for a little while, and he didn't really pay much attention to the first few minutes of conversation. Probably, it would be better if he didn't say anything until he got his feet under him anyways.
By the time Sting felt like he could properly follow everything again, the talk had mostly turned to budgeting. Sting felt confident about this, because he handled the budget for Sabertooth pretty much entirely by himself. Then again, he probably would have felt a little better about it if he actually knew how to do math. But he was able to make all their payments on time, mostly, and he was pretty sure it wasn't a requirement for masters that they had gotten much formal schooling….
Goldmine asked how much money the other guilds put into advertising for jobs. Sting started to laugh, and then some of the other masters started answering seriously and Sting realized it hadn't been a joke.
Sting hadn't known he was supposed to be advertising. He thought jobs would come when they came, and that was that.
And then, Bob threw out the number of jewels that Blue Pegasus put into advertising. And it was astounding. It was as much money as Sabertooth made all together in a month, from all their jobs combined. And worse, the other guild masters were nodding along, like they thought this was a very reasonable sum of money and this was about what they were spending too.
Sting hadn't realized Sabertooth was a poor guild until this conversation. But it seemed like, after Jiemma, the other guilds were working with numbers that were somewhat outside of Sting's range of imagination.
Sting didn't think that was a good sign. But he hadn't been involved in the financial aspects of Sabertooth at all, up until six months ago. There was only so much that he could have learned in that frame of time, and this conference was supposed to be helping him with that.
Still, he was starting to wish that he'd known some of this sort of thing before he'd dropped what was now looking like quite a large sum of money on the new pool. Had Jiemma been counting on the prize money from the Grand Magic Games to keep Sabertooth afloat? Sting realized with a sudden shock that he didn't actually know. And there was no way to know that, unless he revealed to all the other Masters that he had no idea what he was doing.
Sting felt the situation start to slip out of his control. When he'd taken over the position of Master, there had been plenty of people who had tried to stop him. He was too young, too inexperienced, too much of a pushover, too reckless, too stupid - the list went on. But he'd done it anyway, because he believed that Sabertooth could become a real family for him, and Rogue, and Yukino, and all the others with nowhere else to go. And he'd been doing okay, or he'd thought so, and if he failed now then he was going to prove all the pessimists (Minerva) right.
Sting was not going to let that happen. He took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. He would just ask for a little advice, without showing his hand too badly, and he could get Sabertooth back on track.
"How many jobs do you each usually take a month?" Sting asked, making his voice sound as friendly as possible. He was considered S-Class in Sabertooth, which meant that he could take pretty high level jobs, and for the past six months he'd only been taking on the hardest, best-paying jobs. It did help him drive up revenue, but the jobs themselves were exhausting, and he didn't know how the other masters handled it. Still, if they were all taking four or five jobs every month, Sting was sure that he could manage balancing Master duties and an increased workload as well.
"How many jobs Fairy Tail completes each month?" Mirajane asked brightly. "It's-"
"I actually mean how many jobs each of the Masters take each month," Sting said.
Instantly, he wished he hadn't. From the frozen faces around the table, it was more than clear that none of the other Masters were taking jobs. And even worse, Sting had just accidentally told them all that he still was.
Sting mentally cursed himself for opening his big, stupid mouth. Rogue was right, he did talk too much, and now he had no idea how to salvage this conversation. He should have guessed that most Masters didn't take ordinary jobs like the wizards in the guilds, and they were all looking at him, and Sting knew what they were thinking because he was thinking the same thing.
He was in over his head.
Makarov thought the new kid from Sabertooth had been doing admirably up until the second he'd opened his mouth. At that point, two things had become clear. First, and more importantly, he really did mean well. He wanted to right the wrongs that had been done to the other guilds by Sabertooth's ex-master. He wanted to stabilize his own guild again, make sure they had enough money, his people were happy, all that important stuff.
Secondly, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
If he was being honest, Makarov really felt for the guy. When Makarov had first started running Fairy Tail, he'd probably known more but meant less well, and he really did admire the fact that Sting had jumped in with both feet to try to make his guild a better place.
Also, Sting reminded him of Natsu. His nervous smile, the strong set of his shoulders, his too-loud voice - he was clearly a Dragon Slayer through and through, and Makarov would be the first to admit he'd always had a soft spot for Dragon Slayers.
But he told himself he had plenty. He did not need to take another young Dragon Slayer under his wing, especially not one from another guild.
Natsu would have been terrible at mastering - hell, any of his Dragon Slayers would have been, but that didn't mean this kid was. He was still new, and Makarov would give him another year or so and he'd probably be running this thing. There was nothing to worry about.
"Typically, Masters don't take any jobs on themselves," Bob said politely.
Sting nodded earnestly. He jotted something down from a notebook he'd produced from his pocket. Makarov thought that from the dent between his eyebrows and the way he was gripping his pencil, it was possible he was about to have a crisis or something.
"Unless there's some sort of world-ending crisis or something," Goldmine said. "Then, of course we're gonna help out. Speaking of, I know we've all been through a lot this past year, but what have you all been taking as your salaries? Any increases? I been thinking of giving myself a raise."
Everyone at the table chuckled. Sting laughed nervously, eyes darting frantically around.
"Obviously, Fairy Tail has gotten quite the boon this year-" a few other masters exchanged slightly annoyed glances, but Makarov could tell it was all in good fun - "but I've been thinking about just putting that money back into the guild hall, giving it a few more upgrades. The kids deserve it, after all they've been through."
"I've been thinking about taking a slight increase myself," Bob said. "The cost of inflation, and all that-"
"Wait, wait, wait," Sting said. "You guys have enough money to be giving yourself sal-...raises? That's…."
Sting stopped himself there, his eyes wide, by clapping his hand over his own mouth.
Makarov didn't know if he'd realized just how badly he'd put his foot in his mouth, or if he was simply so overcome by the realization that a Master was supposed to get a salary that he'd snapped. Either way, Makarov hoped that the poor kid would stay silent, just for a minute.
Sting looked down at the table, the dent appearing between his eyebrows again, and Makarov stopped thinking quite as much of Natsu. As much as he loved the fire wizard, Natsu would have never, for a moment, struggled with the idea of a Master getting a salary. In fact, he'd probably manage to accidentally embezzle so much money from the Guild that Fairy Tail would go bankrupt in a few years.
Of course, Natsu probably didn't know the meaning of the word "embezzlement," but that didn't matter. He'd be doing it all the same. Most of the Dragon Slayers would be. Hell, most of Makarov's wizards (with the dramatic exception of Erza) would be.
But Sting hadn't. Apparently, he wasn't going to take money from the guild even now that he knew that was the typical way to operate. Against his will, Makarov found himself softening towards the boy, despite his strict reminders to himself that the kid was part of a rival guild. He did seem to need a lot of guidance, yes, but if he could just keep his mouth shut for the rest of the meeting, possibly the rest of the conference, he would learn a few things.
A few seats away, Sting swallowed loudly and took his hand away from his mouth. "I mean…of course. That makes sense. I just, um, I mean, things are tight this year, what with losing the Grand Magic Games and all-"
Makarov bit back a very loud and very dramatic sigh. Of course the kid hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. He was a Dragon Slayer, through and through. None of them, not even Wendy, were known for their restraint.
"I think Ji- um, the previous Master might have been counting on the GMG winnings a little bit more than he- we, should have been. But next year-"
Makarov rarely, if ever, felt embarrassment, firsthand or second hand. He was the Master of Fairy Tail, after all. It was something of a defense mechanism. But hearing Sting continue on, and on, and on, was making him want to vanish into thin air so he didn't have to hear this horrifically painful conversation.
He couldn't handle it any longer. Sting needed help, now, or he would never make it through the conference. If this got any worse, he might even quit the job, and Makarov didn't want to see that.
Makarov pulled out his own notebook, which he occasionally brought in order to write down any particularly excellent gossip that he'd heard that year. He was too old to take notes on the actual meetings at this point, and personally, he felt that might show weakness.
But it was coming in handy now. Quickly, he scribbled a note to Mirajane and handed it to her.
For the love of God, please get him to stop talking.
Her forehead creased as she deciphered his admittedly terrible handwriting, then she nodded.
Makarov watched as Mira leaned towards Sting. Natsu had rather terrible hearing, but he wasn't sure whether that was a Dragon Slayer thing or more of a Natsu thing, and he could only hope Sting didn't share the same affliction. Mira was whispering so quietly that even Makarov, seated on her other side, couldn't hear what she was saying, so Makarov could only hope Sting was able to.
Apparently, he could. Because after a moment, Mira shifted her weight back to center with a small sigh, and Sting looked down at the table. He picked his pencil up, like he might try writing some notes, and then set it back down. He blinked a few times.
Then, Makarov had the rare pleasure of watching him slowly turn fire-engine red. He was blushing so hard even the tips of his ears were crimson.
Makarov wasn't sure how it was possible that everyone at the table wasn't noticing how red Sting had gone. But no one said anything, at least, so Makarov was pretty sure he had helped the situation.
Sting spent the rest of the meeting in silence, occasionally looking around the table but mostly looking down at the notepad he still had open in front of him. Makarov wasn't sure how much he was paying attention, but honestly, watching the kid was kind of keeping Makarov from paying attention either. If he had time after the meeting, before the drinks started getting passed around, Makarov resolved to tell the young dragon slayer he thought he was doing a pretty good job. And he did. Most people wouldn't have even attempted to lead a guild so young, and, well, if there was a little embarrassment that was probably part of the job.