The Ring Master | Jellal Fernandes [1] ON HOLD

29 | The Weight Of The World

SIX YEARS AFTER TENROU ISLAND DISAPPEARED

It was overcast in Magnolia today. The weather reflected the ever-growing feeling of depression in the small guild hall on the top of the hill. Fairy Tail has lost most of they members and the ones who remained were still desperately clinging onto the hope that their friends were still out there. However, there was one who was already over it. Well, in her eyes at least.

With a low creak, the guild doors were pushed open gently, the light from outside filled the gloomy guild, casting a large shadow of a figure. The shadow stepped forward, shrinking in size as Halay was revealed. She held a sack in her hand and an exhausted smile on her face. "Hey guys." She greeted as she trudged through the hall, leaving small amounts of mud in her track.

"Hey Halay." Kinana smiles back as she placed a shot of coffee in front of her, noticing the large, dark bags under her dead teal eyes. Halay smiled thankfully, quickly throwing the liquid down her throat, feeling it burn. "How are you doing?"

"Same old, same old." She answered, cracking her neck side to side, her short hair itching her neck as she did so. "Is the old man here?"

Kinana nodded, pointing to a small table in the corner of the room. "Right over there."

Halay smiled, placing the glass back down and moving over to the greying man. She dropped the sack down on the table, coins clanging together on impact. Macao looked up at her in surprise, watching her as she slipped into the opposite chair. "Here. That's the next three months of rent paid." She told him as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Macao raised his eyebrows in shock of the number, opening the sack to make sure she wasn't lying. She wasn't. "How long did it take you to get all of this?" He asked.

"Three days." She answered quickly.

"I thought they were week long jobs." Macao closed the sack up and moved it off the table so he could see her clearly. She looked more exhausted then the last time he had seen her and that was a little under a month ago.

"They were." She sighed, her gaze drifting from his and looking around the tatty guild. "I did them in a day."

"Can I ask you some personal questions?" She asked her, watching her closely as she sunk into the chair, stretching herself out.

"If you're going to ask me if I have a boyfriend then the answer is no." She replied with a small smile on her face as she tried to keep the conversation lighthearted.

Macao wasn't having any of it. " I'm serious." Halay looked back to the man and motioned for him to ask the question with her gloved hand. "How long do you sleep for?"

"Eight hours." Halay answered, clenching her jaw in annoyance as she knew where the conversation was leading.

"A night?"

"In the last two weeks." She stated harshly, her voice hard and angry. Macao opened his mouth to reply when she stopped him, placing her hand over his mouth. "Before you tell me it's not healthy, I don't want to hear it. I already have Reed bagging in my ear and Dimitri is starting to do it too. I've had enough of people telling me what I can and can't do." She removed herself from him and sat back into the chair.

Macao sighed as he watched her struggle to keep herself awake. "You can't keeping doing this to your body."

"Whenever someone tells me I can't do something, I like to prove them wrong." She replied, as she sat up straight. She tapped the table as she stood, reminding him, "Three months, don't waste it on anything else."