Six months after Rook fell out of another world, Magnolia had developed procedures.
The eastern market rang the brass bell when he landed somewhere he shouldn’t.
The western market used a red flag because Rook had stolen its brass bell.
Fishermen covered their baskets whenever a large shadow passed overhead, and the butcher kept a second ledger devoted entirely to wyvern-related expenses.
Nobody had agreed on what counted as a wyvern-related expense.
Rook had eaten the first ledger.
That morning, the eastern bell rang three times.
Alastor looked up from his breakfast.
“Bakery,” he said.
Zestial listened to the distance between the chimes.
“Too far north.”
“Fish market?”
“Wrong bell.”
A fourth clang sounded, followed by a woman shouting something about her chimney.
Al pushed away from the table.
“Residential district.”
Rook swept past the guild hall’s windows with a string of laundry caught around one wing.
“There he is.”
Erza rose before Al could take a second step.
“I’ll assist.”
“You can’t fly,” Al said.
“I can climb.”
“That wasn’t what I was worried about.”
She was already marching toward the doors.
Al followed her outside while Z finished his toast.
Makarov watched him from the bar.
“You aren’t going with them?”
“Rook isn’t hurt, nobody’s dying, and Al’s already moving.” Z swallowed his last bite.
“I’ve got a water pump to stop before it develops another opinion.”
Makarov lowered his mug.
“Another?”
“The first one was poorly expressed.”
From somewhere beneath the guild hall came a metallic bang.
A pipe shuddered inside the wall.
Makarov looked down.
Z stood.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen yet.”
He ran for the cellar.
Scout followed him.
Forge grabbed his tool roll and followed Scout.
Medic watched all three disappear through the cellar door.
She calmly picked up Z’s abandoned plate and moved it away from the edge of the table.
The floor jumped.
Medic caught the plate before it fell, placed it farther from the edge, and resumed eating.
By then, everyone in Fairy Tail had learned that Z’s inventions usually worked.
They’d also learned that this wasn’t always reassuring.
The pump had begun as a solution to an ordinary problem.
Magnolia’s poorer streets relied on public wells, and carrying enough water for cooking, washing, and bathing consumed hours every week.
Z had designed a compact lacrima-driven pump that could draw water through underground pipes without requiring a mage to operate it.
The first prototype had filled a bucket in less than a second.
It had also launched the bucket through a ceiling.
The second had flooded the guild’s cellar.
The third worked beautifully for nine consecutive days, which was why Z distrusted it.
He found Scout crouched beside the main valve.
The gray Palico had one paw pressed against the pipe and an ear tilted toward its vibrations.
Forge had already opened the pump’s outer casing.
“What happened?” Z asked.
Scout answered without looking up.
“The return valve’s sticking.”
The small translation badge fastened to his scarf flashed.
A flat artificial voice followed a moment later.
“The retreat door is becoming stubborn.”
Z winced.
“It still hates mechanical terms.”
Scout looked toward the lacrima on his scarf.
“I also hate mechanical terms.”
The badge announced, “I despise metal vocabulary.”
“That was closer.”
Forge pointed inside the casing and spoke.
His own badge took several seconds to respond.
“Pressure enters but refuses to depart.”
“That one was right,” Z said.
“It’s easy when I use small words.”
The artificial voice produced, “Small speech prevents foolish crystal.”
Scout snorted.
Z knelt between them and examined the mechanism.
The valve wasn’t merely sticking.
Mineral deposits had collected around the hinge, and the pressure chamber had begun forcing water backward through the intake line.
He reached for a wrench.
Forge slapped his hand away and passed him a smaller one.
“I knew that,” Z said.
Forge’s ears angled forward.
The translator flashed.
“He claims knowledge after correction.”
Scout leaned against the pipe.
“He does that.”
“I can understand both of you without the badges.”
“That’s why we know the translation’s accurate,” Scout said.
The device rendered it as, “Your annoyance proves success.”
Z decided not to argue.
The translation badges had started with a name.
Six months earlier, three mornings after the Palicos arrived in Magnolia, Makarov had tried to add them to the guild’s records.
He’d sat behind the bar with his spectacles balanced low on his nose and his pen suspended over three empty lines.
“Full names,” he’d said.
Scout had answered first.
His name in his own language had been swift and musical, formed from two chirps, a rising trill, and a final sound no human throat was built to reproduce.
Makarov had tried to write it phonetically.
Scout had looked at the result as though it had insulted his ancestors.
Al had leaned across the bar, “You asked whether his grandmother was a ladder.”
“I didn’t say anything about a ladder.”
“You didn’t mean to.”
“I used every sound I heard.”
“You didn’t hear most of them.”
Makarov had turned to Z.
“Can you spell it?”
“Not with this alphabet.”
Scout had taken the pen from Makarov, and wrote Scout across the first line.
The letters were uneven, but readable.
Makarov examined the word.
“Is that your name?”
Scout pointed to himself.
“Scout.”
“He says part of his name sounds close to it,” Al explained.
“He’s also tired of watching people hurt themselves when they try the original.”
Scout nodded firmly.
Z looked at him.
“You don’t have to make it easier for them.”
“I know.”
Scout took the pen again and underlined what he’d written.
“He likes it,” Al said.
“That would’ve been useful information first.”
“I thought the ladder was more important.”
“That means he really is named Scout?” Erza had asked.
Al had nodded.
“Not exactly.
It’s closer to the one who finds the path before anyone knows they’re lost.”
Makarov had studied the writing.
“Scout.”
The Palico had considered the word and repeated it.
“Scout.”
His accent had roughened the single syllable, but everyone understood it.
“You don’t have to change your name,” Z had said.
Scout had tapped his writing, pointed toward the unfamiliar streets beyond the guild doors, and then touched his chest.
“He isn’t changing it,” Al had translated.
“He says Scout is what the same name means here.
Close enough, anyway.”
Scout had taken the pen and written the word again.
The letters were uneven and the last one leaned too far to the right, but they were his.
Makarov had moved to the second line.
Forge had given his name.
Makarov’s pen hadn’t moved.
“Again?”
Forge had repeated it slowly.
The name included a purr rolled beneath two separate syllables and ended with a click produced against the back teeth.
Z had attempted it once.
Forge’s expression had gone blank.
Al had looked away, but his shoulders had shaken.
The Palico pointed toward the hammer hanging from his belt, mimed striking hot metal, and said, “Forge.”
Makarov wrote it down.
Z frowned.
“That’s your trade.”
Forge nodded.
“He thinks Makarov asked what he does,” Al said.
“I asked for his name.”
“I know that.
He doesn’t.”
Forge and Scout exchanged a quick conversation.
Halfway through it, Forge looked at the record, then around the guild hall.
Several people had already started calling him Forge because nobody could pronounce his actual name.
His whiskers twitched.
“He says it’s funny,” Al translated.
“What’s funny?”
“You’ve all been calling him by his job for three days, and nobody realized it.”
A few guild members suddenly found other things to examine.
Makarov started to cross out the word, but Forge stopped his pen with one paw.
“Forge,” the Palico repeated.
“You want to keep it?”
He pointed toward his tools, then toward the workshop Z had allowed him to occupy.
“He says it suits him here,” Al said.
“He’ll use his proper name with Palicos and Forge with everyone else.”
Makarov left the word in place.
Medic stepped forward before he could ask her.
She gave her actual name, watched his expression, and then pointed toward the satchel of herbs at her side.
“Medic.”
“That’s also a profession,” Makarov said carefully.
Medic nodded.
“She knows,” Al said.
Medic pointed toward Forge’s entry, tapped the empty line beneath it, and repeated the word.
“Medic.”
Forge said something to her.
She answered without looking at him.
Al laughed.
“What did she say?” Z asked.
“Forge told her she didn’t have to copy him.”
“And?”
“She told him his new name was less embarrassing than his old one.”
Forge’s fur bristled.
The two Palicos launched into an argument that nobody except the brothers could follow.
Scout climbed onto the bar and moved the inkpot out of their reach.
Makarov waited until the shouting stopped.
“Medic, then?”
She nodded and took the pen from him.
Her handwriting was considerably neater than either Scout’s or Forge’s.
“They aren’t abandoning their original names,” Al said.
“These are just the names they’ve chosen to use with people here.”
“Names everyone can actually pronounce,” Z added.
Forge pointed at Z and rattled off a sentence.
Al grinned.
“He says that’s rich coming from Zestial.”
“People can pronounce my name.”
“They can.
They just prefer Z.”
“That’s different.”
All three Palicos looked at him.
Z sighed.
“Fine.
It isn’t that different.”
Makarov entered Scout, Forge, and Medic into the guild records.
“Family names?”
The three Palicos stared at him.
Makarov stared back, then quietly drew a line through each remaining space.
Forge had folded his paws.
Makarov had rubbed his forehead.
The matter could’ve ended there.
For Z, it had only identified another problem.
The Palico had spent most of his first three days examining every hinge, blade, lock, and cooking pan he could reach.
He’d repaired two stools, dismantled Macao’s belt buckle without permission, and improved one of Z’s hammers before Z realized it had been taken.
However, Al and Z could understand the Palicos as easily as they understood each other.
Everyone else required gestures, guesses, or one of the brothers standing nearby to interpret.
Scout, Forge, and Medic could go wherever they pleased.
They could accept work, earn money, rent rooms, refuse requests, and make their own decisions.
None of that meant much if they couldn’t tell another person what they wanted without borrowing someone else’s voice.
Z had entered the workshop after breakfast.
He’d emerged near sunset carrying a recording lacrima, three lengths of copper wire, and the clasp from one of Erza’s discarded belts.
Forge had followed with soot across his face and the expression of someone who’d helped willingly but had acquired several regrets.
Al had looked at the cloudy lacrima fixed inside its metal casing.
“What’s that?”
“A translator.”
“You built a translator in one day?”
“I built something that’ll eventually become a translator.”
“That’s a safer answer.”
Z had fastened the device to Scout’s scarf.
“Say something simple.”
Scout had examined the wires pressed against his chest.
“Your machine smells burned.”
The lacrima had flashed.
A distorted voice had emerged.
“Your turnip is experiencing smoke.”
The guild had fallen silent.
Forge had covered his mouth.
Al had failed to hide his laugh.
Scout had tapped the casing.
“That isn’t what I said.”
The translator had crackled.
“This furniture denies accusation.”
Z had opened the casing and adjusted a copper contact.
“It’s confusing context.”
“It’s confusing words,” Al had said.
“It recognized that Scout spoke.”
“So can a door.”
“A door can’t isolate recurring sounds.”
“Neither can that.”
The first translator understood thirty-two words, mistranslated seventeen, and rendered every reference to fish as either breakfast or property.
Z dismantled it before bed.
The second version lasted four days.
The third caught fire while Medic was wearing it.
She wasn’t injured, but she refused to test another until Z wore it himself for an entire afternoon.
Forge redesigned the casing because he thought Z’s version was ugly.
Scout created lists of phrases they’d need in the city.
Medic insisted upon an emergency-release clasp and tested it by yanking each prototype off Z’s shirt.
Al supplied the meanings.
The Palicos repeated words until the lacrima distinguished sounds that Z couldn’t hear even when he knew they were present.
By the end of the first month, the badges could translate warnings, requests, directions, prices, and the names of common objects.
Questions sometimes emerged as accusations.
Politeness regularly vanished.
Anything spoken too quickly became a lecture about vegetables.
They kept improving.
Every translation played the Palico’s words first and the Fioran meaning second.
The Palicos could hear both, compare them, and practice the sounds for themselves.
The badges hadn’t been made to replace learning.
They’d been made to give the three of them a voice while they learned.
By the sixth month, Scout rarely activated his for ordinary conversations.
Forge used his whenever customers discussed technical work.
Medic kept hers close because misunderstandings involving dosage weren’t funny.
The badges still struggled with jokes.
Scout considered that a design flaw.
Z considered it evidence that jokes were structurally irresponsible.
Now, beneath the guild hall, the water pump groaned again.
“Close the intake,” Z said.
Scout twisted the main valve.
Forge braced both paws against the pressure chamber while Z removed the corroded hinge.
A stream of water struck him in the face.
The translator clipped to Forge’s apron flashed.
“Predictable.”
Z wiped water from his eyes.
“You could’ve warned me.”
“I did.”
“You said the valve was sticking.”
“You didn’t ask where the pressure would go.”
The badge translated, “Failure belongs to the wet person.”
Scout sat down because his legs had stopped supporting him.
By the time the pump was repaired, the eastern bell had stopped ringing.
That meant Al had either caught Rook or the owner of the bell had given up.
Z emerged from the cellar soaked from the waist up.
Scout walked beside him carrying the damaged valve, and Forge followed with a page of alterations he wanted made before the pump entered public use.
They found Medic near the guild doors treating a baker’s scratched arm.
Al sat on the street outside with one hand pressed against Rook’s snout.
The young Rathalos lay on his stomach, wings folded tightly against his sides.
A collection of shirts, stockings, and bedsheets had been gathered into a heap beside him.
Erza stood over the pile with a written inventory.
“You missed one sock,” she told Al.
“I didn’t steal any socks.”
“Rook did.”
“Then tell him.”
Erza turned toward the wyvern.
“You missed one sock.”
Rook blinked at her.
“He can’t understand you,” Al said.
“He understands tone.”
“He understands that you’re loud.”
“I’m speaking clearly.”
“To something that doesn’t speak the language.”
Rook opened his mouth and released a low chirring sound.
Al looked down at him.
“No, that isn’t permission to eat the evidence.”
Erza crossed another item off her list.
“What did he say?”
Rook gave a defensive chirr and tightened one claw around the sheet.
Al studied him.
“Judging by that face, he thinks the sheet attacked first.”
“There’s no wind,” Erza said.
“I didn’t say it was a convincing defense.”
“There’s no wind.”
Rook grumbled and refused to release the sheet.
Al scratched beneath his jaw.
“He’s sticking with his story.”
“You invented the story,” Erza said.
“He looks committed to it.”
Six months of healing had done more than close the wounds beneath Rook’s scales.
He’d gained weight, strength, and enough confidence to turn half the city into his territory.
His once-damaged wing now carried him over Magnolia’s rooftops.
His fire gland had recovered too, though Al had forbidden him from testing it anywhere near buildings, crops, forests, wagons, laundry, people, livestock, or anything described by Z as expensive.
That left the river.
The fishermen had objected after Rook boiled part of it.
He’d stolen nine pies, two hats, a wheelbarrow, Macao’s boot, and an entire string of sausages that Wakaba still described as a personal betrayal.
He’d returned the wheelbarrow.
Nobody knew why.
Al had spent the first several weeks keeping Rook close while the wing healed.
Once Porlyusica declared the bone sound, Al began taking him beyond the city each morning.
They practiced short flights, controlled landings, hunting only where local farmers had requested help, and returning when called.
Rook had mastered four of those things.
Landings remained a matter of interpretation.
“Is anyone hurt?” Z asked.
“The baker caught Rook’s rear claw when he took off,” Medic said.
Her translation badge repeated the answer, although she’d spoken the words clearly enough that Z barely noticed it.
He crouched beside her patient.
The scratches were shallow.
Medic had already cleaned them and was tying the bandage.
The baker looked at the soaked boy.
“What happened to you?”
“The pump.”
“Did it explode?”
“No.”
A pipe burst beneath the guild hall with enough force to rattle the windows.
Z looked back at the building.
“The direction was wrong,” he said.
Al snorted.
Forge produced a charred pencil and added something to his list.
Medic finished the bandage and addressed the baker directly.
“Keep clean.
Change cloth tonight.
Come back if hot, red, or swollen.”
Her pronunciation was deliberate, but every word was hers.
The badge remained dark.
The baker smiled.
“I will.
Thank you, Medic.”
Medic’s ears lifted.
She accepted three jewels for the treatment, refused the five he offered afterward, and packed her supplies into a leather satchel she’d bought with her own earnings.
Makarov had offered each Palico a room above the guild.
Scout used his when the weather was poor but often slept in the loft over Z’s workshop.
Forge rented a corner of Aldren’s smithy and insisted on paying for it through repairs.
Medic divided her time between Magnolia and Porlyusica’s home, though Porlyusica claimed she’d never agreed to an apprentice.
Medic continued arriving.
Porlyusica continued teaching her.
Neither acknowledged that this constituted an arrangement.
Scout spent his mornings mapping the streets, alleys, roofs, and drainage tunnels of Magnolia.
Within two months, he knew routes the city guard didn’t.
Shopkeepers paid him to carry urgent messages.
Lost children learned to look for the gray Palico with the green scarf.
More than once, he’d guided drunk Fairy Tail mages home and left them sleeping in places he considered appropriate.
Nab had awakened in a chicken coop.
He still didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it.
Forge repaired household tools for people who couldn’t afford replacements.
He charged merchants properly, charged wealthy clients more when they were rude, and accepted meals from families who had little money to spare.
He spent whatever remained on metal, tools, and the small collection of polished stones he pretended not to collect.
Medic treated burns, cuts, stomach aches, and one unfortunate case involving Wakaba, a pepper, and a bet nobody would explain.
She studied plants with Porlyusica and helped Z test local substitutes for medicines they remembered from elsewhere.
They came and went without asking either brother’s permission.
They joined guild meals when they wanted company, disappeared into Magnolia when they didn’t, and returned with stories that belonged entirely to them.
The city had stopped seeing three strange creatures following Zestial.
Magnolia knew Scout, who could find any address before the messenger finished describing it.
It knew Forge, who insulted damaged tools while repairing them.
It knew Medic, who could stare a grown mage into admitting that his wound hurt.
It also knew Rook.
Mostly through the bells.
“Can he keep the sheet?” Al asked.
“No,” Erza said.
Rook lowered his head onto Al’s lap and shut his eye.
“He’s emotionally attached.”
“You can’t feel that.”
“I can see that he’s lying on it.”
“That proves he wants to lie down.”
“He carried it across six rooftops.”
“That proves theft.”
Al looked toward Rook.
“She’s got you there.”
Rook made a quiet rumble and tightened one claw around the red sheet.
The owner arrived several minutes later.
She stopped at the sight of a Rathalos lying in the road, three Palicos inspecting her laundry, and Erza holding a list of everything that had been recovered.
“I believe this belongs to you,” Erza said.
Rook opened one eye.
The woman looked at the sheet beneath his head.
“He can keep that one.”
Erza frowned.
“It was stolen.”
“It’s torn.”
Rook’s claws had opened several long rents through the fabric.
Z studied the damage.
“I can mend it.”
“It smells like him now.”
Rook exhaled smoke through his nostrils.
The woman stepped backward.
“He can definitely keep it.”
Al scratched beneath Rook’s jaw.
“Congratulations.
Crime paid.”
Erza pointed at him.
“Don’t encourage that conclusion.”
The market bell rang again.
Everyone looked toward Rook.
He remained exactly where he was.
A second ring followed from the northern district.
Scout climbed onto a rain barrel and studied the rooftops.
“That isn’t for him.”
His badge repeated, “Different disaster.”
A column of water erupted above a row of distant houses.
Z stared at it.
The public pump prototype had been installed three streets north.
Makarov stepped out of the guild and followed everyone’s gaze.
Water hung in the air for one brilliant moment before falling across several rooftops.
“Z.”
“I can fix it.”
“You said that one was stable.”
“It was.”
Another surge shot into the sky.
Forge looked at Z.
His badge flashed.
“It learned from its father.”
Al folded over Rook’s neck, laughing.
Even Erza’s mouth twitched.
Z pointed toward the distant fountain.
“You helped build it.”
Forge straightened his apron and started walking in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?”
“Lunch.”
“You can’t abandon me now.”
The translator considered Forge’s response.
“Observe me.”
Scout jumped from the barrel and followed him.
Medic collected her satchel, accepted the recovered laundry list from Erza, and fell into step beside them.
Z looked at Al.
Al glanced down at the Rathalos using stolen cloth as a pillow.
“I’m supervising a criminal.”
“Erza?”
“We still haven’t found the missing sock.”
Z turned toward Makarov.
The guild master took a slow drink from his mug.
“I’m too old to run toward water.”
“You can use magic.”
“I’m too old to use magic toward water.”
The northern bell rang for a third time.
Z sighed and ran.
Forge allowed him to reach the next corner before turning around.
Scout and Medic followed, their laughter carrying down the street as a mixture of chirps and imperfect Fioran.
Rook watched them go.
Then he lifted his head and noticed the unattended laundry pile.
Al placed a hand over his snout.
“No.”
Rook’s eye shifted toward a blue shirt.
“I’m serious.”
Rook looked at Al.
Al looked at Rook.
The wyvern lunged.
Al caught him around the neck, and they rolled into the street beneath a tangle of damp laundry.
Erza shouted about maintaining order while the owner laughed hard enough to brace herself against the guild wall.
Above northern Magnolia, Z’s pump launched another glittering column into the afternoon sky.
People shouted.
Children cheered.
Forge’s translator loudly accused the plumbing of treason.
Six months earlier, Magnolia had received three talking cats it couldn’t understand, a wounded wyvern it couldn’t explain, and two brothers who’d already changed more than anyone realized.
Now Scout’s maps hung in the guard station.
Forge’s repairs sat in a dozen homes.
Medic’s remedies filled a shelf in Porlyusica’s cottage.
Water reached streets where carrying it had once consumed half the day, even if it occasionally arrived from above.
The changes weren’t grand enough to enter history.
They were only woven into ordinary mornings, market complaints, repaired hinges, bandaged hands, and names spoken correctly because someone had taken the time to ask.
For now, that was enough.
At least until Rook escaped Al’s grip with the blue shirt in his mouth.
The eastern bell began ringing again.