Saxe's eyes widened in awe at the sight of the Fairy tail guild hall in all its glory. It was a tall, three story building, more like a two story building though, and it had small towers besides the exterior of the second floor. The third floor, which seemed to be more of a lookout turret, was circular and it had a cone-shaped top. There was also a pole with a flag that had Fairy Tail's guild mark on it, a symbol that reminded Saxe of a wing.
Eliana turned back to him from where her and Elpis stood at the front of it. She smiled at his face and he knew his expression must have been somewhat amusing as Elpis also had a slight smile on her face.
"Are you coming?" she asked, gesturing for him to hurry up and follow them.
Saxe quickly nodded before running forward to stand at her side as they opened the doors to the guild hall. It was fairly late in the night as they had been farther from Magnolia, the town that housed the Fairy Tail guild, than Eliana had expected. He wasn't expecting anyone to be in the guild hall but sure enough, once the doors were open, many loud voices assaulted his ears. He actually thought one of his eardrums pop from the level of voice that was coming from inside the guild. There were people, guild members, he guessed, of all ages and sizes. It seemed like every single one of them was talking to the other at once, and he wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. He could see many interesting people in the guild, who he hoped he might meet later, but there was one who stood out to him. She had red, scarlet hair and was wearing a full set of armor, despite being in the middle of a conversation with another person, who seemed to have stripped while they were talking with each other. Saxe's eyes widened at the two of them. "What kind of guild is this?" He asked himself, wondering mostly about the man who was almost naked in front of his entire guild, but it didn't seem like any of them cared, or even really took notice that he was naked.
Elpis saw him staring at the scarlet haired woman and the mostly naked man. "That's Gray and Erza. Gray uses ice-make magic, and don't worry about his state of dress, that's just a bad habit of his; stipping in public. He grew up training with close to no clothes on in the cold and that's probably where he picked it up from. Erza's actually a Requip mage and one of the strongest members of the guild. She's pretty famous for being able to requip her armor and weapons in the midst of a battle. You should've seen her in action, it's pretty magnificent. She's also an S-Class mage. You might actually want to talk to her, if you want to become a Requip mage, I mean. You might be able to learn a thing or two, Saxe-kun."
Elpis turned away from him and left him staring at the woman in armor even longer, his eyes lingering on her for quite some time. Eventually he turned his eyes away from her and both twins, Eliana and Elpis, led him to the bar counter, where a well-dressed woman with white hair was casually talking to a few people around the bar. When she noticed the trio approaching the bar counter, and her eyes landed on Saxe, she smiled at him. She looked over to Eliana, who stood at Saxe's right with Elpis on his left hand side, looking bored.
"Who's this little girl?" asked the white haired woman, referring to Saxe, still smiling.
His face flushed with embarrassment and he looked down at his shoes while Eliana grinned at him, smiling at his embarrassment. Elpis was also grinning at him, her blue eyes glittering with muted laughter.
"This here," said Eliana, ruffling Saxe's purple hair as his face reddened further, "is Saxe. He's a boy even though he looks like a girl. I find him to be really cute, actually. Me and Elpis-san found him while we were heading back to hand in the S-class job we finished. We figured he was kidnapped and was going to be sold to someone. We freed him and brought him back because, as you can see by looking at his neck, the people who kidnapped him welded a magic-nullifying collar on him. Elpis-san wasn't able to free him from the collar so we figured we might as well bring him back here and see if any of you guys could get it off, which I'm almost sure somebody like Natsu or Gajeel could easily burn or bite it off of Saxe's neck, though i wouldn't trust those two to leave you unscathed with their magic."
The white-haired woman tilted her head before offering a hand out to Saxe. "I'm Mirajane Strauss," she said, "but my friends call me Mira. What were you doing that got you kidnapped? Weren't your parents looking out for you?"
Saxe looked down at his feet again, but he shook her hand quickly. "I don't really have any parents..." said the boy, looking up at Mira through teary eyes.
Mira smiled affectionately and walked around the side of the bar, approaching the trio. To his surprise, she leaned down and wrapped Saxe in an embrace. His eyes widened and tears began to flow out again.
"I know how you feel, Saxe-chan. I know how hard it can be to grow up without parents and how hard it must have been for you. Who taught you magic?'' She pulled back then and looked at him in a friendly manner.
Saxe wiped his tears away and looked back at her. "I was taught Requip magic by a mage named Hitomi Todorin. She was a former member of Lamia Scale guild actually. She was the closest thing I had to a mother and she trained me for two years before I decided to go out and explore a little. I've pretty much been alone since then, but I've practiced with my magic every day for a while. I even learned how to requip into armor and clothes, although I've been told that it's almost impossible and very few Requip mages have ever pulled it off. I've even taken down a few bandits and other mages before, although I'm not in any guild. I'd consider myself to be fairly powerful, but definitely not as strong as an S-class mage."
Saxe was actually surprised that he had said so much. Usually he was very shy with new people, so his new sociable tone was a change to the regular. He wasn't really sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was becoming so sociable.
"May I see the collar, Saxe-chan?" asked Mira
"Sure," said Saxe, "just try not to hurt me or anything, please." At those words, Mira gently reached out and turned him around so she could see the back of the collar. Mira then grasped the collar, her hand wrapping around the back of the collar, her fingers tickling the hairs on his neck. From what Saxe could see, it was easily fit into her hand and she was able to hold it . The silver collar sort of frightened Saxe and he didn't really want to touch it with his hands, even though he knew that it wasn't going to bite or anything, as all his magic had already been suppressed. He felt Mira's hands let go of the collar and he turned back around to look at her. She had an expression on her face that told him that she was thinking about the predicament he was in.
"I'm not sure what we'll be able to do with getting this collar off, but I think Gajeel can probably bite it off. It seems to be regular metal with just a little bit of nullification magic in it. You should bring little Saxe here," said Mira, ruffling his purple hair, "to the master. He might have some alternative ideas on the matter and I bet he wants to meet you."
Elpis and Eliana nodded, taking Saxe by both his hands. This fetched a few curious glances from some of the people in the guild. They were probably wondering who this child was and why he was there. The curiosity didn't help with the noise level in the Fairy tail guild hall as Saxe could tell it wasn't going to die down until the guild members had either fallen asleep or had fainted from drinking too much. That was another thing he noticed, actually. Many of the guild members seemed to be drinking alcohol, which wasn't too surprising or alarming but it did say that they loved a good drink, which Saxe found amusing.
Eliana and Elpis both led him up and set of stairs placed at the back of the main hall for the guild. The three of them walked up in silence until they came to a well-made wooden door. Elpis knocked on the door and Saxe heard a gruff tone saying "come in." The girls both walked into the room, opening the door as they did so and Saxe was, of course, brought in with him.
The room was much more spacious than I had expected it to be. It had a number of storage containers and filers. There were also many lamps placed throughout the room so it was fairly bright. There was a desk in the center of the room and behind it sat an old man in what appeared to be a mobile chair. He was fairly small but he looked to be fit. If Saxe had to guess, he would think that this was the guild master of Fairy Tail. He seemed to be writing a report on a sheet of paper but he looked up once he saw the three of them. He seemed to look at all of them at once and his eyes locked onto Saxe who found himself staring right back at him. The gaze he held was strong and prideful, despite the mobile chair.
The man cleared his throat and spoke in a gruff tone, eyes still fixed on Saxe, "Who're you, kid?"
Saxe was slightly surprised that that was all he had said, but he answered nonetheless, "I'm Saxe Todarin. You're Makarov Dreyar, yes?" He asked this in return to the man's previous question, taking an educated guess as to whether this man was the master of Fairy Tail. He certainly seemed to be him and Saxe hoped his hunch was correct.
The man closed his eyes and let out a strong, bellowing laugh. "You're a smart one," his laughing seized and he looked back to Saxe. "Yes I am Makarov Dreyar, but everyone around here just calls me Gramps. But you, Saxe Todarin, you're the Violet knight, correct?"
Saxe actually had to take a step back and the girls both looked confused as to what was happening between the eight-year-old and the old Guild Master. Saxe was just dumbfounded. 'How did this man know? How could he tell who he was? This wasn't good. If he knew, would he refuse to help with the collar, knowing what secondary magic he favored?
Saxe gave a slight nod while Elpis and Eliana were both looking back and forth at the two in confusion. "How could you tell who I was, Makarov?"
The old man's eyes crinkled and he smiled, "You're aura flared brightly as soon as you walked in, but I didn't sense any magic on you, so I found that odd. Then it all made sense once you came in here with that collar on. It isn't surprising that none of my children knew what you go by when you fight. I'm also guessing you can't use your battle form right now since it is Transformation and Requip magic, right? So I would assume this is your regular form. Another thing I know about you is that you aren't in a guild. Surprisingly enough you aren't even from a well known line. I've read about you in the papers recently, actually. You were the one who took down Midnight Venom, right? The Dark Guild? It was all in the paper, every single bit of it. And they mentioned you without knowing too much. Where, do tell, did you find him, Elpis and Eliana?"
The two girls looked between each other sheepishly before Eliana stepped forwards, "Well Gramps.. We found him on the return journey of our S-class job, which we completed fully. We saw a wooden wagon being pulled by two men on horses. It was a fully enclosed contraption and we found it odd. When we stopped to ask the men what they were doing and where they were going, they attacked the two of us. We went a little overboard and Elpis killed one of them while I knocked the other one unconscious. It wasn't too hard to do and we later found out that they were part of a dark guild anyways, so no harm done really. It was later when we went to take a peek in the wagon that we found Saxe-chan tied up and collared in it. Elpis wasn't able to freeze anything off with her two magics even though any regular metal would've been completely frozen off. So the two of it decided it would be best to bring him back here and get the collar removed because if we weren't able to do it, one of our guild members would be able to. Also, we didn't want to just leave him out there all alone with anybody to care for him. We had no idea he was a strong mage."
Saxe looked at the two of them. While he didn't know them very well, they had saved him from whatever his fate would have been had he not been rescued, and he was very grateful for that. Then again, he wasn't sure what would happen to them or if the old master would punish them. He watched as the old man scratched his beard, a pensive look on his features.
He looked at the twins for a little while before sighing, "Well done on the S-class quest. Be sure to collect your reward for that. If you would please leave I would like to speak with little Saxe here alone. Thank you for bringing him up to me."
Eliana and Elpis began to leave but not before, to Saxe's surprise, the two of them each hugging him. "It'll turn out fine..." whispered Elpis in his ear. Her soft tone instantly put him at ease and he felt his muscles relax. She ruffled his hair once more before exiting the room with Eliana.
Saxe turned back to face Makarov, a neutral look on his face, "What is it you need from me, Makarov?"
Makarov sighed before looking at Saxe once more, "Please call me gramps, kid. Makarov makes me seem old. I also do have a proposition for you, Saxe," Makarov paused and studied Saxe's expression. Saxe was indeed intrigued as to what this proposal could be but his face betrayed not the slightest emotion. Makarov slowly closed and opened his eyes before continuing, "I will remove that collar for you, and in return, you will join Fairy Tail. I hate the idea of an eight year old walking around by himself on the continent, no matter how skilled they are, no offense, of course."
Saxe's right eye twitched. 'Join a guild?', he thought, 'I can't say it's ever appealed to me... but I do need to get rid of this stupid collar... '
Saxe sighed, "I don't really have a choice, do I?"