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As she blew out the candles she couldn’t help feeling like she signed her life away. She had turned 16 in this house. Fiorean law no longer held power over her father. She would be married off — possibly as soon as tomorrow.
The servers took away the cake before she even got a chance to taste the whipped cream with her finger. It was ceremonial after all; she wasn’t supposed to enjoy this day, as much as she was supposed to comply with the rules of the festivities.
The string orchestra continued playing at a lower volume as her father raised his glass in a toast.
“Today we have gathered to celebrate the birth of my heir. I am also taking the opportunity to announce that we from this day on will be accepting marriage candidates, to make sure our next generation of leaders persist from the mightiest of breeds. For Lucy.”
Jude raised his glass as Lucy’s heart sank through the floor. That was it. No padding, no fluff, no pretty synonyms to make the blow softer. She was cattle to be bred, and this was her future. Ballroom festivities, functions for the people with money, contacts, or both, and she was never to open her mouth to voice an opinion on anything other than china patterns and centerpieces again.
Tears prickled in her eyes, and she felt her feet swell from the tiny shoes she’d been forced into. The dress was too tight, she couldn’t sit, walk, or dance without worrying a seam would burst. So she silently traded her non-alcoholic champagne for an alcoholic glass, and swallowed the beverage along with the guilt that came bubbling up. Her mother wouldn’t like this underage drinking. It would sadden her greatly — Lucy knew, yet she took another big sip. Mother wasn’t here right now. If she were, Lucy wouldn’t be seeing her life end, before it even had the courtesy to start.
The orchestra picked up where they left off on their symphonies, people resumed their awfully long conversations about what land to buy, who had cheated who in an insurance-related business transaction, and which recent divorce had gotten into the gossip magazines this month. Right now it seemed like Enow Pride and his ex-wife Iduma had wrapped a newspaper company each, resulting in contradicting numbers when it came to asset values, bank accounts, causes, and prenups. One paper said one thing, the other something else — Lucy swore she heard someone with a pompous accent describe the affair as a gory comedy , which almost made her slip out a giggle.
It was Lucy’s birthday party, for all intent and purposes, but somehow she had only uttered a handful of words the entire evening. Polite hello ’s combined with awkward smiles and wobbly courtesies, and a thank you for the only couple that had congratulated her on her birthday today. Bob and Bobette Grace — not married, but a sibling pair that had missed the window of marriage when they were teenagers, and now lived in small annex-areas that connected to the mansion their parents had lived in before they passed away. Lucy liked Bob and Bobette. Interesting characters, almost like Tweedledee and Tweedledum from one of the stories she had read as a child.
It was them who approached her after Jude’s toast.
“Gorgeous party, sweetness, completely gorgeous,” Bobette cackled, bearing an impressive resemblance to one of the oldest hens in the coop where the Heartfilia household got their breakfast eggs.
“Yer dad outdid ‘mself, so I say,” Bob agreed. He always leaned backwards quite a bit, Lucy noticed, as if he was balancing out his protruding stomach.
She didn’t even get to open her mouth to answer before Bobette cut in.
“Though I suspect the star of the evening had something to do with it!” Her hand caught Lucy’s cheek in a tight pinch as her chest swelled with a bubbly giggle.
“Oh psh! Y’know that ol’ man just wen’ ahead and hired some fella to do the work for ‘im. Gives yous too little credit, lassie!” Bob’s breath stunk of whiskey and cigar, but Lucy smiled bashfully at him anyways.
“Bobby!” The bosomous woman screeched, “I spot salmon puffs!” The poofy dress swung from side to side as she waddled off in an impressive speed. Bob perked up too, almost standing vertical as he fell into a step right behind Bobette.
“Happy birthday, hen,” Bob mumbled before going out of ear shot. Lucy was left in the dust.
She picked up the voluminous skirt and walked in the opposite direction. She needed fresh air, desperately. Swiftly avoiding the spotlight, she slid across the waxed marble floor on much too slippery heels. Body guards loitered at every corner, but no one seemed to notice her as she sneaked out of a side door, facing a part of the front garden.
As soon as she made it out she kicked off her shoes, abandoning them by the entrance. The wet gravel path was cold and a bit uncomfortable against the soles of her feet, but she preferred it over the shoes that had been digging into her heels the entire evening. She softly made her way into the rose garden, breathing deeply to cleanse her head from the heavy clouds of smoke that had been sneaked into the house. The “no smoking” policy was rarely enforced anymore — it was simply no use.
Lucy had a goal in mind: the gazebo, just short of a kilometre away from the mansion. It was the focal point of the rose garden she was walking through, and had a dry place for her to sit. The path wasn’t lit, however, so she carefully let her fingers run along the wall of leaves that mirrored the map inside her head. Occasionally she’d catch on a thorn, making her hiss and suck on the wound. An injury she’d gladly take if it meant she was getting closer to her place of sanctuary.
When the last diverging rose bush made itself apparent, Lucy knew she had made it. The footing changed from gravel to stone path, and eventually to a couple of wooden stairs. She carefully stepped in, not to run straight into the round table that the gardener had placed in the middle of the gazebo.
Her dress poofed when she sat down. When she was younger she loved these dresses — frilly, pink, and sickeningly sweet. The more she bore resemblance to a cake, the better. Back then she hadn’t been introduced to the corset though, and now the reality came crashing down. She couldn’t breathe. She actually felt lightheaded, but for all she knew that could partly be due to her first taste of alcohol.
Deep breath in. Nighttime had brought dew, and it smelled heavenly. Still, the tight fabric around her torso was suffocating her, so she caved in — untied the lace in the back and forced the tight bust to open up. The immediate warmth that rushed to her ears told her that her lightheadedness indeed was from the lack of oxygen, and not the tiny percentage of alcohol that had been in the champagne. She almost wished she’d smuggled a bottle with her — it was her birthday after all, and she might as well spend it as she liked. Drunk in a gazebo. Half a giggle escaped from her lips. She hadn’t known she could imagine a scenario sadder than the one she was in right now, but clearly her imagination was wilder than she first would have thought.
She leaned back, poking her head out the half wall, letting it hang upside down while she kicked up her feet onto the table. The night sky was a deep blue, so deep an untrained eye might’ve called it black. Little specks of stars made themselves apparent, and once she saw a couple of them, it was like the entire vault of heaven opened up in front of her. The view left her speechless. Clusters of stars dusting the dark canvas, twinkling in a way that made it look like the sky got bigger, closer. If she didn’t let her eyes ground themselves by catching the edge of the gazebo roof, she would have believed that the sky was actually going to fall on her — they were living, breathing; cells in a bigger organism. Well, she called them cells, but in reality they were all bigger than she could wrap her head around. So far away that they looked like nothing more than snowflakes on a dark surface.
Lucy smiled as she started to identify the abstract blobs. She could quickly point out the north star, and soon enough she saw the constellations weave together in the grand quilt. Ursa major — the big dipper — was the easiest to spot. Then, after squinting a little, ursa minor. Orion stood out; proud with his blinged belt and bow in a high arch, coincidentally pointing towards Taurus, the bull. Her mother had told tales about him. Apparently he was a perverted guy with foul language, the owner of his key was allegedly just as bad.
Her gaze continued to observe the intergalactic wonders, and speaking of — there was Cassiopeia, angled in a way that resembled a big M. He was indeed a wonder, if her mother’s stories held any truth to them. The vainest constellation that had a key connected to him — he’d spent eons playing gods for non-magic folks in Bassir, who apparently more often than not used him as a bad example, rather than anything to blindly worship.
The last star in the M figure flickered weak for a while, making it look more like a N if she turned her head a little. Only for the faintest moments though — soon the M was back in full power. Perhaps Cassiopeia took a quick nap in the celestial world; he certainly was cocky enough to make the time.
Looking at the stars sometimes eased the lonely sensation that pressed down on Lucy. Her mother had taught her everything there was to know about the colourful people that embodied the stars — after all, Lucy was to inherit her keys. For all intents and purposes she supposed she had. Though, Aquarius felt more like a godmother than a spirit at her disposal, and she only recently befriended Cancer since Spetto had misplaced his key up until a month ago. These were the only golden keys she possessed, and those weren’t the ones who made the skies feel crowded on a night like this. She had also inherited Pyxis, Horologium, Crux and Lyra; all spirits she could spot easily in the sky when their constellations were visible, and all spirits she had gotten to know better as she trained her celestial powers in secret.
And those stories then. Long, complicated backstories for each constellation, aging back hundreds of thousands of years, containing token celestial mages throughout history that had shaped society. Layla had told them all in great detail, leaving no human or spirit out, resulting in night skies that spoke to Lucy so loudly her ears almost hurt. Lively, crowded galaxies, where no spirit apologised for the space they took.
While she didn’t feel completely alone in the night thanks to the myriad of stories and folklore she held in her head, she supposed the stars sometimes made her feel lonely in a different way. A silent, secret way that not even her celestial spirits knew about. Because despite all these people — the spirits she already knew, and the spirits she wanted to get to know — she found that at the end of the day they were all over a billion miles away. Some even a billion lightyears away. And though she could summon Lyra for a calming melody, or Crux for facts that should have been lost a thousand years ago, she found that whenever she was without her keys she was as alone as she had been the day her mother died.
Perhaps that was the feeling that loomed over her right now. She was surrounded by life, both on earth and in the galaxy; still, she was alone. If only someone would come join her — a mosquito, a frog, a fallen star the size of a pebble — anything so she could know someone was alive out there. Not like the stuffed people in the ballroom a stone’s throw away; they were zombies, undead beings walking around and putting disgusting things like oysters and snails in their mouths in the name of “exquisiteness”. No, they were mere puppets under whoever had the most money at the time. Lucy wanted to meet someone alive; adventurous, dangerous, fun .
She waited for a while — ten minutes, maybe fifteen — but then her butt started to tingle and numb, so adamantly she stood up. She needed to walk again, let the blood in her body circulate a bit before she beckoned on a frostbite.
Since her eyes had adapted to the darkness it was tremendously easier to navigate the rosy maze. The smell was magnificent, and for a while she understood the appeal of making every perfume and body lotion smell as such. However, with every breath she took the heavy scents filled her head, and soon she felt a headache pressing behind her eyes. She hurried her step. The air no longer felt dreamy, but instead intoxicating and oppressing.
Lucy’s new destination was the bench that stood facing her mother’s grave. Normally the walk there was only five minutes, but that usually included shoes and proper lighting. Both of those which she had neither. She slowly, but surely, made her way across the gravel. Sometimes she attempted to walk on the grass, but the dew was unpleasantly cold, and she feared she would step on a slug or a salamander — who knew what slimy creatures lured in the landscape.
Suddenly her eyes caught something odd. On the side of the road she walked on, laid a vibrant, soggy bundle of paper. She blinked. It was a magazine of some sorts — provocative and lewd, with a near-naked woman on the front. She was wearing a bright pink “bikini”, Lucy assumed, as she had only read about them in newspapers before. But the wild ocean behind her and the sand that clung to her clean shaven legs seemed to imply that she indeed intended to bathe in such attire.
Quickly Lucy threw a glance over her shoulder. It would be completely scandalous if any of the party attendants — or even a household staff — found her like this; barefoot, dirty, corset unlaced, with a near pornographic gossip magazine in her hand. Forget getting married off — she would be shipped off to a monastery to repent her sins for such a scene.
But the coast was clear, and Lucy found herself tiptoeing quickly toward her mother’s resting place. When she finally reached the bench, she decided to hell with keeping her dress clean. She plopped down behind it instead, where some bushes shielded her from view in case anyone walked past. There was, however, a small window through the crown of the bush, that allowed for moonlight to shine in. She even got a little view of the stars from her position.
“Not so bad for a resting place,” she breathed.
Before opening the folds, she let her eyes find the twinkling stars above her again. She was certain Aquarius was peering down on her, judging her childish manoeuvres to flee the stuffy party. It almost made Lucy giggle in defiance.
That’s when she saw it. So fast, so faint, she barely registered it in her mind. A star fell, right before her eyes. It had fit so perfectly in between the leaves on the bush — like it was purposeful. A fallen star, just for Lucy.
Her mind flashed to earlier this evening. The little flame on the stubborn candle, that almost refused to go out despite how hard Lucy blew on it. She hadn’t made a wish. Back then it hadn’t crossed her mind — her dress already left her sipping for air, and the fancy, shimmering wax that the candle was made out of seemed to scream at her to get it over with before the oxygen-deprived room killed it ahead of time. Then, when the cake and the candle got swooshed away, Lucy didn’t have time to think about what proper celebration she should have practiced.
And now the universe was giving her a second chance. A wish on a falling star. But Lucy didn’t know what to wish for! Here she was given a second chance, and naturally she was stalling even this one. Time felt like it was running out though — how much time was a person given to ponder on the wish she wanted to settle on? Was there a rule, some guideline she should know how to follow?
A sentence lingered in her head. A second chance. Was that something she was allowed to wish for? She didn’t want money, and wishing her mom back to life felt too improbable to even be an option. Other than that there was nothing she really wanted, apart from a second chance at life. Just one more go — even something as little as a sign, telling her to leave Jude and the ballgowns and the promises of marriage and the busty Bobette and the bulky Bob. She wanted to lead a life with adventures, magic, and fun. A second chance to find a place that she could call home, people she could call family. She closed her eyes.
“I wish…” she breathed, heart pounding through her chest in excitement, “... I wish for a second chance.”
Silence.
The beating of her heart still pounded in her ears when she finally glanced through her blackened eyelashes. In front of her were only the edgy letters that spelled out Sorcerer’s Weekly in big, bold colours. Nothing new. She looked up at the stars again. What had she expected? A flash of light? A sound, perhaps a bell, indicating her wish reached the higher ups? A booming voice confirming her business transaction?
No, a wish was silent. One couldn’t hear the flame on the candle, nor the fall of a star. One couldn’t make out the wings of the ladybug when it fluttered away a lively summer day. One didn’t hear an eyelash fall on your cheek, nor the thoughts of a child’s prayer. Wishes were silent, and that didn’t change just for Lucy.
She looked back at the magazine in front of her. She had been so giddy about it earlier, almost skipping to the spot she was sitting at right now. Even if the wish was a dud, she could still enjoy the rebellious action of reading this salacious publication.
The woman on the cover still had that seductive smirk — a practiced face, she supposed, but nonetheless charming. She flipped to the first page. Seemed to be a table of contents, along with small, framed pictures that she assumed were meant to give a clue on what “tankini” and “top 10 hottest mages” was all about. She skipped a few pages forward.
A double spread caught her eye. “Greatest guild in Fiore” — Prophecy or Gossip? The bold title was accompanied by a photograph of a flag on the top of a building, where a white emblem clad a bright orange fabric, hemmed with golden details.
Fairy Tail . That was the name that popped up repeatedly in the article. The reporter had talked to a member for insight in the job as a wizard, and though that seemed to be mildly interesting, what really caught her interest was the interviews of the “up and coming” group.
They were her age. She squinted to see the text, to make sure she was reading it right. Lucy’s age. Between 15 and 17, working as fully fledged mages in a real wizarding guild. Her heart fluttered. She could be part of it. A working woman, living on her own, making her own money, no dead-beat husband, child marriages, stale parties with empty shells for people. Just freedom, with her peers.
In the dim light she couldn’t identify a single face — everything melted into different hues of gray and blue, except for in one picture. Short, wild, pink hair. So vibrant she could almost see it glow. When Lucy closed her eyes to fantasize, she could see it. The world where she would find Fairy Tail, join their disreputable forces, and fight alongside that pink tuft of hair.
Suddenly, distant voices drifted through the cooling night air — attendants slowly making their way home from the party. Lucy pressed herself against the rough bark of the bush for a moment, heart pounding as she pushed off from the bush, skittering away from the path, careful to stay unseen. The grass was slick and chilly beneath her feet, but she barely noticed; years of practice had etched the route into her memory. Without hesitation, she darted toward the vines curling beneath her window — her secret escape, mapped out through countless past getaways.
Clutching the worn copy of Sorcerer’s Weekly tight against her chest, she felt as though it was a beacon of hope. Sixteen had always been the age that marked the end of her life — the day she signed her autonomy away to whoever caught her hand in the golden cuffs called a “wedding band”. But now?
Sixteen was no longer the end. Turns out it was just the beginning.