Fairy Tail: Beneath a Falling Star

Chapter 16 – Threads of the Forgotten

Year X782

The road wound downward in slow turns, hugging the edge of a quiet valley. The morning fog had begun to lift, but its memory lingered in beads of dew across the grass. Caelion walked alone, the weight of the ruins still clinging to his mind like mist.

His boots met cobbled stone as he reached the edge of a town—not large, but lived-in. Weathered signs creaked in the breeze. A stone bridge arched gently over a sleepy river that divided the outskirts from the heart of the settlement. Smoke drifted lazily from chimneys, and the bells of a chapel sounded in the distance, marking the hour past noon.

Caelion paused on the bridge and looked back.

The hills behind him still held the shadow of the forest. And beyond it, veiled by fog and distance, the ruins—the ones he hadn't known existed until yesterday—still watched silently.

He turned forward and crossed.

The town's name was Willowwake, as etched into a cracked wooden sign at the inn's entry. A woman with gentle eyes and a tired voice took him in for a few nights after he showed her the parchment the man on the road had given him. She offered a small meal, a cot near the kitchen, and a mug of honeyed tea.

"You're not the first to wander in from the west," she'd said, eyes narrowing. "But you're the quietest."

Caelion only nodded.

That night, while the rest of the inn slept, he sat beneath the awning and pulled the journal from his satchel. The one he kept for quiet thoughts, training notes, sketches of magic sigils, and unspoken memories. He flipped past drawings of stardust trails and orb formations, past feather markings that reminded him of Seraphine, until he reached a blank page.

He dipped the pen and hesitated.

Then, he began to write.

"There was a gate. Not grand, but old. The kind that forgets what it was guarding.

I passed it at dawn. The fog curled like smoke around broken stones and sunken walls. The columns—ribs of a body long dead—stood even in ruin. I thought of bones. I thought of what they were holding together.

I felt the magic before I saw the symbols.

Ancient. Not just old, but knowing. Like it remembered something I hadn't lived yet."

He paused, chewing on the end of his pen. Then slowly, added:

"I saw the glyph again. The one I remembered from watching Fairy Tail all those years ago.

A mark burned faint into the stone—stylized, spiraled, half-worn. I couldn't read it, but I recognized it.

I think it's tied to Zeref."

The name sat heavy on the page. Caelion stared at it, heart stilling in his chest.

He hadn't spoken it aloud in this world.

Hadn't dared to.

In life before, Zeref had been a name woven into dark history—a man cursed by immortality, the creator of demons and the Book of E.N.D., the storm behind wars and empires. But now, in this world, that name was more than myth. It was memory. Real. Waking.

He turned to a second page and tried to sketch the shape of the glyph he'd seen at the base of one of the crumbled columns.

Curved lines… circles nested inside a crescent… an overlapping triangle. His hand hesitated as if the lines resisted being reborn.

He'd only caught a glimpse, but it reminded him of something not shown in the anime.

Not directly.

Something from a light novel he'd browsed out of curiosity before he died.

It was described as a "Binding Sigil of Arxium", once part of Zeref's hidden research during his time studying ancient magic systems—before the curse had fully consumed his heart.

Even back then, before Tartaros, before Alvarez, before Acnologia, there had been whispers of Zeref's attempt to preserve knowledge. Not just destroy it.

And now, here, Caelion had walked through one of those whispers.

He leaned back on the bench and looked up.

The stars were beginning to show, faintly, through the pale veil of evening. They looked the same as ever—but they always did, even when the world beneath them changed.

He whispered to them, almost without realizing.

"I'm not chasing him. I just want to understand…"

A breeze passed through Willowwake, stirring the wind chimes and ruffling his coat. He reached for the scimitar on his back—one of the twin blades gifted by the merchant. It still hummed faintly with stardust enchantments, reacting to his quiet thoughts.

The scabbard felt warm.

As if his magic agreed.

The next day, Caelion wandered the town's edges. Willowwake sat between two hills, its heart built around an old square with a dried-up fountain and a crooked statue of a mage no one remembered. Children played near it, laughing and chasing sun-motes, unaware of the fading past beneath their feet.

He stopped at the library—one of the few buildings made from clean stone, though its roof sagged and ivy crawled down its walls. Inside, the smell of parchment and aged leather welcomed him.

The librarian, a wizened man named Joren, squinted at Caelion's request. "Old ruins west of the ridge? Aye, they've always been there. But few speak of them. Folk call them the Breathless Hold. No birds sing there. No animals linger."

"Was there ever a name for who built them?" Caelion asked.

Joren paused, pulling a dusty tome from a low shelf. "Not certain. But this mentions something curious."

He flipped through, landing on a chapter titled "Faded Sanctuaries of the Western Highlands." One illustration caught Caelion's eye.

A symbol etched beside the name Arxium.

His heart skipped.

The text below mentioned it briefly—an archaic institute for magical research, rumored to have existed before the founding of modern guilds. It was said to have disappeared overnight, erased from most records.

"A lot of fairy tales and nothing else," Joren muttered. "No one's proved it was ever real."

But Caelion wasn't listening. His fingers brushed the glyph drawn in the book.

The same as the one in the ruins.

It was real.

That night, he sat at the edge of the river.

Lanterns flickered behind windows. Frogs sang quietly. He held the book on his lap, open to the sigil, and stared into the water's dark reflection.

Zeref.

Arxium.

What are you still hiding?

His magic pulsed faintly in his palms—stardust drifting upward, responding to the quiet tension in his chest.

He wasn't ready to speak this to anyone.

Not yet.

But something had begun.

And even if the world wasn't asking him to chase it…

…it was offering him the thread.

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(A/N): Curious if people have questions or anything?

There's probably going to be a reminder at the end of chapter just to remind people to vote, comment, give feedback, ask questions, etc.

But question of the day, How has your week been?