Shane wandered along beside Erza without any real direction. His eyes drifted over the dazzling stalls around them, but his thoughts had already sunk back into last night's filthy black lake.
"Fairy…"
He rolled the word around in his head again and again.
Of course, the "fairy" he was thinking about wasn't the little mysterious creature on Fairy Tail's crest—the symbol of "curiosity and exploration of the unknown."
He meant something far more specific: a particular race from myth and legend.
Not only did different worlds define "fairies" differently—different mythological systems didn't even agree on what the concept was.
For example, in the vast cosmology of Eastern myth, the origin and essence of "yaoguai" (often translated loosely as "spirits" or "demons," but closer to "things that have become sentient") usually rests on the rule that all things can possess spirit.
Birds and beasts, flowers and trees—even inanimate things like stubborn rocks and objects—under certain conditions, over long years, can awaken intelligence, shed their original shell, and take human form. That is "becoming an essence."
The core idea is that nature's myriad beings, through long "cultivation," actively evolve toward a higher form of life.
It's dynamic. It rises upward.
At its root, it's the notion that all beings can walk a path toward transcendence.
But in the West, the concept of fairies or fae (Fairy) is almost the opposite.
Their source is often traced back to pre-Christian nature spirits and ancestor beliefs. After Christianization, fairies were "demoted" into a mysterious race parallel to humanity.
That shift shaped later depictions: fairies are typically seen as an ancient group that existed before humans, embodiments of nature itself—dangerous, untouchable, supernatural beings—not ordinary creatures that cultivated their way upward.
They are static. Stable.
They represent an "otherworld" that overlaps with human society but follows different rules—defined by boundaries and taboos.
So which concept did the silver-haired girl—born from that lump of flesh—belong to?
Shane, who had literally been attached to that thing, watching from a first-person perspective for who-knew-how-long, had a lot to say on that.
He hadn't sensed even a trace of that "striving upward, changing oneself" will.
It had simply existed there—like a phenomenon—accepting its situation, assimilating the environment around it.
Until Aurora "granted" it a body.
No question. That silver-haired girl's legend comes from a Western framework.
Shane settled on that conclusion.
But the moment he did, an even bigger confusion followed.
"Deep ties to dragons… a spear user… a fairy by race…"
Each of those traits alone wasn't rare in mythology. Put together, they should point somewhere very clearly.
Yet Shane racked his brain, flipped through every Western myth he could remember, and still couldn't name a famous heroic spirit who perfectly fit all three.
He tapped the back of his hand, muttering to himself.
"If I only look at 'Western fairy' as the new key… there are tons of candidates…"
His gaze drifted to the Fairy Tail merch hanging at a nearby stall, and names surfaced one after another.
Like the Irish myth figure Leanan Síde—also called the fairy lover.
In legend, they're stunningly beautiful, and they specifically seek out talented poets, musicians, or artists as lovers.
They're said to bring their partners endless inspiration and creativity.
But the price is that they drain the lover's life force, leaving them to burn brightly and die young.
"Burning your life to create art… cruel and romantic—a muse of inspiration…"
Shane shook his head.
"Doesn't match the vibe of that flesh-lump at all."
Then there were the most numerous and archetypal nature spirits of Greek myth—nymphs.
Nymphs are minor goddesses: personifications of mountains and rivers, plants and birds, springs and groves.
They're often immortal or extremely long-lived, but their fate is tightly bound to their "source." If the tree they embody withers, if the spring dries up, they weaken—or die.
"That black-mud swamp… if it were some kind of corrupted water nymph, I could almost buy it. But where's the dragon element? Where's the spear?"
Shane's brows knitted tighter. He felt like he was assembling a puzzle missing the critical pieces.
Then a spark flashed through his mind.
"Wait…"
"Water… fairy… contact with humans… transformation…"
He suddenly remembered a legend—obscure, but… it might actually graze the edges of what he'd seen.
A water-fae tale from France and the Low Countries: a spirit with a fish tail or serpent tail—
Melusine.
There are many versions of her story, with different details depending on the text.
But the most widely shared core is strangely consistent:
Melusine appears near deep forest rivers or sacred springs—beautiful, noble, and possessed of extraordinary power. She marries a human noble through a contract, and helps her husband build castles and gain wealth.
But she has one absolute taboo:
Her husband must never spy on her bathing on Saturdays.
Because on that day, she reveals her true form—half woman, half serpent… or half fish.
It sounds like a fairy tale, but it usually ends as a tragedy.
Once the taboo is broken and the husband sees her true form, she lets out a piercing scream and transforms—often into a dragon or serpent—flying away and leaving an eternal curse on the family.
"Damn…"
Shane sucked in a sharp breath. Even his pace slowed.
Dragon-serpent. Water-fae. Transformation.
Aside from "not using a spear," these keywords were disturbingly close to what Lancer had shown so far.
"At first I got misled by 'dragon' and 'martial mastery'—so I kept guessing along the lines of 'dragon-slayer hero' or 'dragon knight'…"
"But what if they're not a warrior at all… and instead a fairy with dragon-like traits?"
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it felt—his heartbeat quickening.
"And that woman named Aurora…"
He recalled the elegant, richly dressed figure, surrounded by attendants.
"She looked obviously high-status—maybe a queen, maybe a great lord. That would fit Melusine's 'contract with nobility' perfectly!"
"It still doesn't explain the twin lances… but this is the closest match I've had so far."
"Should I just gamble on it?"
His fingers unconsciously clenched.
But the hesitation barely lasted.
The next moment, he threw the idea away.
No other reason—it was too forced.
Melusine's delicate figure and perfect beauty did fit a water spirit.
But she didn't feel like the sort of existence that would grant him that near-absolute martial skill.
And Lancer's manifested armament—the brutal twin lances after the second release, and those terrifying mechanical dragon wings that moved like wind and thunder—
No matter how he looked at it, they didn't match "water fairy" at all.
A Noble Phantasm is the distilled embodiment of a heroic spirit's legend—its crystallized truth.
Visions could be misleading or incomplete.
But the Noble Phantasm wouldn't lie.
Shane chose to trust what the Noble Phantasm was showing him.
~~~
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