➵

It was supposed to be another day at Fairy Tail, but everyone seemed to be in some sort of frenzy, only those still new to the guild were confused. Lucy, ever the first to speak up and ask, turned to Mira Jane, who held a clipboard in her hands.

"What's going on today? Is it some sort of festival?" Lucy wondered before she let out a startled scream and ducked out of the way of an incoming chair. When she was back on her feet she stared with wide eyes at an annoyed Erza. The redhead was barking orders to everyone around her, which in turn caused them to shrink in fear before they eventually scampered off to follow her directions. "Whoa! What's with Erza?"

Mira only smiled brightly. "Today's Dealana's birthday!" She explained. "We try to throw her a party every year, but something always goes wrong."

"And every year, we still try to do something to celebrate even when disaster is inevitable." Cana added from where she sat leisurely on a table cradling a barrel of booze. "Face it, Mira, Dealana's birthday is cursed."

"I don't know, things might just change this year." Mira replied, her kind smile never wavering as she moved off to help Elfman with a few more decorations.

"Wow, I didn't realize Dealana's birthday was such a big deal." Lucy mused. Turning to Cana, she asked, "What did you mean by her birthday being cursed?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it can't be that bad, right?" Wendy chirped. The sky dragon slayer looked rather excited to celebrate her friend's birthday.

Cana shook her head. "No, you don't know Dealana's birthday. Every year something goes horribly wrong. The surprise is ruined, Dealana goes missing, one time Natsu sneezed and set off a chain reaction that incinerated all the decorations." She listed off, counting her fingers before her gaze returned to Lucy and Wendy. "All my fortunes get messed up every year on this day. There's nothing good that comes from trying to throw Dealana a birthday party, no matter how hard Erza or the Thunder Legion tries."

"Woah..." Lucy shivered, feeling slightly creeped out. She pondered over it for a bit before she and Wendy decided to ignore Cana's warning and do what they could to help Erza and Mira in setting up.

➵

Back in town, specifically the Magnolia Park, Dealana was curled up on one of the highest branches of the large tree that stood proudly in the center. She leaned against the trunk and closed her eyes, her ears filled with classic rock n' roll from Laxus' headphones.

Today was her birthday, and as much as she adored everyone's efforts to throw her a party, she felt that they just needed to accept the fact that it never ends well. Dealana didn't really care about things going wrong, she barely cared about her birthday as a whole. It wasn't something that she celebrated with Arashi growing up and it took years before Lisanna managed to get the young dragon slayer to fess up about which day it was.

This year would be no different. That's what Dealana chose to believe and at the end of the day, she wouldn't be disappointed. She'd be grateful for the effort her guildmates put into the special day, but that didn't change the fact that her birthday was cursed.

"Pipsqeuak? What are you doing in a tree?"

She almost missed it, but she opened on eyes to peer down at a confused Gajeel. She paused the song and pulled the headphones down to rest around her neck before answering.

"I'm waiting for the inevitable disaster that happens today."

"You're making less sense than Salamander, kid."

Dealana sent him a look before she hopped down from the tree, using a cloud to levitate herself down to the ground. "Today's my birthday," she told him, but she cut him off when he opened his mouth, "but my birthday is cursed, so there's no need to celebrate."

"That's why everyone's acting weird in the guild hall. I thought it was another festival." Gajeel mused and Dealana nodded.

"If your day's cursed, what are you going to do?" He finally asked, the older dragon slayer must've felt slightly awkward in the silence that fell between them.

Dealana shrugged. "M'not sure. Probably wander around until Erza or someone finds me and brings me to the mess of a guild hall." She answered. "How do you normally celebrate your birthday?"

"I can show ya." Gajeel offered. Immediately, Dealana narrowed her eyes at him.

"This isn't some sort of thing Erza or Ever set you up to do, right?" She questioned, skeptically.

Gajeel only smirked. "Even if it was, I wouldn't tell you, pipsqueak." After another beat of her scruntinous gaze, Dealana gave in with a shrug.

"Ah, why not?"

➵

"I really should've expected this." Was all Dealana could say when she'd allowed Gajeel to lead her away. It was the metal junkyard that Gramps had dragged her to when they recruited the iron dragon slayer to Fairy Tail.

Gajeel gave a shout of laughter before swooping down to grab a piece of iron to each. "It's not much, but I always enjoyed the peace and quiet from everyone else back at Phantom." He explained through bites of metal.

Dealana nodded and began to look around. Before she hadn't really paid much attention to Gajeel's secret buffet, but there were heaps upon heaps of iron. If she was being honest, it was actually pretty cool. Everything was shiny and it all caught Dealana's eyes.

She began to walk around and explore, leaving Gajeel to watch, thoroughly amused by the way Dealana's eyes would light up everything the sun shined on a different piece of metal. It was like watching a cat follow a laser, her gaze leaping from one place to the other her feet barely making a sound against the ground as she darted between iron heaps.

At one point, Dealana was so far in her little world of fascinating shiny things that she unleased a burst of lighting that began to crawl up and down the mountain of metal before it finally found refuge in the ground.

Dealana snatched her wrist back in surprise before looking to Gajeel with wide eyes. "I... What did I even do?"

"Dunno," Gajeel hummed. "Do it again."

Nodding, she turned back to the metal heap and hesitantly reached out to touch the shiny piece of iron. Once again, a burst of lightning sparked from her hand and the bolt of magic danced around the heaps of metal. Her eyes followed its path, utterly fascinated.

"That's so cool!" Dealana grinned, her eyes shining. She reached out to do it again and Gajeel just watched her. It was then that Gajeel remembered that though she was powerful and smart, Dealana was still a child. It was incredibly amusing and dare he think it, adorable.

Later, after Dealana had exhausted a good amount of her magic power just messing around with lightning and iron, she lay relaxed on a cloud while Gajeel was perched on a large piece of iron, both looking up at the sky. At some point, Gajeel had reached over and put something heavy on her head. It was a ring of iron with bolts or screws at points that made it seem like jewels on a crown.

She raised an eyebrow at his antics, but the older dragon slayer had merely snorted in laughter. Dealana knew that she probably looked silly, but she accepted it and laughed along with him.

"I'm counting this as a birthday present, thank you very much." She told him, crossing her arms over her chest and holding her head high in mock contempt. She couldn't hold her expression for long before she burst into a fit of giggles, Gajeel even snickered a bit.

They didn't really talk much, they just watched the clouds drift slowly across the sky in comfortable silence. Dealana occasionally wiggled her fingers and reshaped the clouds into the faces of her friends only for them to distort into really weird monstrosities that Gajeel found amusement in. It was nice and peaceful, which was odd on a day like today. Her birthday was supposed to be cursed.

'Maybe this year will be different.' Dealana thought before they both realized they'd have to head back soon.

As they were about a mile or so away from Magnolia Town's gates, Dealana's nose twitched. She scrunched her nose up before glancing at Gajeel, who'd come to the same conclusion. Someone was following them. Still adorned in her iron crown, Dealana's eyes flickered about, searching the shadows with her heightened senses for any sign of the stranger's whereabouts.

Suddenly, Dealana felt someone tug her backwards roughly by the collar of her hoodie. Where she once stood, a burst of violent magic struck the ground, melting the dirt with a bubbling hiss.

"Thanks for the save." She said to Gajeel as they stood back to back, prepared for whoever was trying to attack them.

"You had fun, got a crown, and now we get to bash some skulls," he listed off. "Are you sure your birthday is supposed to be cursed?"

"Huh, I guess this year's just different." She mused before the familiar crackling sound of lightning filled her ears as thunderstorms wrapped themselves around her arms. "Whoever you jerks are, I suggest you either scram or show yourselves!" She shouted.

A group of around a dozen or so hooded figures emerged and dotted the tree line, a few of them spreading out onto the open road in order to confine the two dragon slayers within a circle. Despite having the advantage in numbers, Dealana could tell that their magic power was nothing combined to her and Gajeel's together.

"Heh, I recognize these chumps." Gajeel said as Dealana's heterochromatic gaze landed on a peculiar guild emblem on one of their attackers. It was the side profile of a snake with a drop of what Dealana assumed would be venom hanging off the prominent fang. "Venom Guard. They're a mercenary guild."

"Woah, a mercenary guild?" Dealana frowned, looking to the silent mercenary in front of her. "What's the deal, man? You should know that you aren't walking away from this with all your limbs."

They only laughed, prompting a quiet growl to rumble in Dealana's throat. The most extravagantly dressed attacker stepped forward and removed his hood. It was a man with a generic face, brown hair and brown eyes. There wasn't anything noticeably stand-outish about him, which probably made him good at his job. No one would expect anything.

"We're not here for you, little brat. We're only here for Black Steel." He admitted, making shooing motions with his hands. "Why don't you run along while you have the chance."

Dealana raised an eyebrow at him. "Why would I do that? Gajeel's my guildmate. Why are you after him anyway?" She looked to Gajeel with a curious expression. "You pissed someone off, didn't you?"

Gajeel immediately took offense. "I did not! Shut up and let me beat these goons to pulp."

"Without me? I think not." Dealana said as matching smirks spread across their faces. And so, with one covered in iron scales and the other wielding storms like deadly ribbons, the two dragon slayers proceeded to beat the snot out of the supposedly skilled mercenary guild.

When they were finished and standing amongst the defeated forms of the mercenary wizards, a few of them still twitching slightly from the after effects of Dealana's lightning, the sky-blunette adjusted her crown from where it began to slide off her head. Gajeel held a crumpled flyer that was mildly singed at the corners.

"I think Jose put a bounty on my head." Gajeel huffed in laughter.

Dealana frowned before tilting her head slightly. "Wait, seriously?" She navigated the sea of fallen bodies and pulled Gajeel's arm down whilst simultaneous standing on her tip toes to be able to catch a glimpse of the flyer. Sure enough, a less than pretty picture of Gajeel's ugly mug was plaster on the flyer promising a hefty reward for whoever cashed him in.

"Huh, what do you know, you did piss someone off." Dealana stated.

"Ah, shut up, pipsqueak!" Gajeel groaned, pulling her into a headlock and ruffling her hair until she managed to squirm out of his hold. She huffed as she tried to smooth her hair back down and readjust her iron crown.

"Rude. Maybe I should try and turn you in for the reward." She teased.

"I'd like to see you try."

Dealana opened her mouth to fire back a retort when she realized that the sky was turning golden like molten lava. It was beautiful but it also set off the panic bells in her mind. "Crap, we're going to be late!"

With a flick of her wrist, Dealana conjured two oval-shaped clouds and hopped nimbly onto one before looking back to Gajeel. "Want to have a cloud surf race back to the guild?"

Gajeel eyed the cloud skeptically before giving in. It was her birthday after all. It took him a minute to get a feel for traveling by cloud, but the iron dragon slayer was impressed by the fact that he didn't get motion sick like he'd expected. It wasn't long after that the two dragon slayers were speeding towards Magnolia, Dealana showing off a few cloud surfing tricks along the way.

They finally touched down in front of the guild hall and Dealana turned to Gajeel, her smiling face turned serious. "Whatever happens, I think that this is the least cursed birthday I've had." Gajeel looked at her in confusion before she said, "Now, to jinx everything, shall we head inside?"

Taking a deep breath, Dealana pushed open the doors to the guild.

Chaos. The guild hall was filled entirely with chaos and the sound of Cana and Gajeel's amused laughter. Like the many years before, everything went to hell and any plan to have a proper birthday party was in ruin.

Erza was moping about how everything went wrong while Natsu and Gray were covered in cake, most likely having crashed into it during a fight. Lucy and Wendy were mummified in streamers and everyone was either out cold or crushed under broken table and chairs due to being dragged into a brawl no doubt spurred by Natsu. Dealana looked everything with an amused grin on her face before she erupted into a fit of giggles.

The sound of her laughter caught peoples' attention and they couldn't help but smile at the rare sight. Dealana wasn't one to openly laugh, sure she'd smirk and grin happily at the guild fighting whilst she sat comfortably on a cloud out of the way, but to see her laughing like this, it was innocent, child's laughter.

With how she'd grown up, Dealana was mature for her age, but it's also what made moments like these pure. There she stood, in front of what was supposed to be her birthday party adorned in an iron crown with a few scuff marks, evidence of a recent fight, on her clothes while she giggled. The fearsome Tempest of Fairy Tail was giggling and it was adorable.

Gajeel shook his head, amused but thoroughly confused by how much could go so wrong. He put a hand on Dealana's shoulder, prompting her to look up at him, the difference in their height in all its glory as he said three words.

"Happy Birthday, pipsqueak."

Dealana grinned. "Thank you."

➵

Back in her cave, Dealana was looking at the shelves carved out of the stone walls. On display were some of her treasured belongings, surprising she didn't have a lot of stuff. Her gauntlets from Erza rested next to the book of spells Arashi had left her along with the necklace she'd added odd charms to while she was under his care. Handing above the shelves by two protruding stones was the staff she'd stolen from Mystogan as a souvenir.

With a fond smile, Dealana reached up to her head and took of her iron birthday crown and placed it delicately next to the framed paintings of the guild, each painted by Reedus. She'd had a lot of fun. Even if she didn't really get to celebrate with everyone else, she'd had a blast messing around in the iron scrap yard and then beating up a mercenary guild with Gajeel, consequences with the Council be damned.

Maybe it wasn't her birthday that was cursed. Perhaps, it was just the act of trying to have a proper birthday party that was cursed. The more she began to think about it, the more she realized that there was likely never going to be a proper birthday party when it came to the Fairy Tail guild.

➵

I want to thank you all for the love and support you've shown this book. Dealana's been a huge part of my creative influence this past year and I can't help but feel so... there's really no better way to say it, but happy.