➵

Dealana and the rest of the Allied Forces were on a ship back to their respective guild following the revelation of Cait Shelter being nothing more than illusions so that Wendy wouldn't be alone. While Dealana was concerned about Roubaul leaving Wendy in the hands of people she had only met barely twenty-four hours prior, she believed that there was no better group of people to take her in.

Since they were traveling by ship, Dealana opted to float on her cloud. She was able to enjoy the sun and not have to worry about summoning any wind, the breeze was in their favor that day. She still wore the simple yellow dress and when Erza finally realized what she was wearing, the redhead demanded to know what happened to the real Dealana.

Dealana wasn't amused. The truth was, it was comfortable and allowed her to move enough that she didn't mind it much. Dealana also couldn't say no to the excited face Wendy had when the blunette presented the dress expressing how it would look nice on her.

At the moment, the Troia spell Wendy cast on Natsu finally wore off, leaving him motion sick. He begged Wendy to cast it again, but the Sky Dragon Slayer couldn't grant that wish.

"I'm sorry, I can't," Wendy told Natsu. "It only works a couple of times." She explained.

"Guess it's back to barf bags," Gray remarked, making Lucy laugh as they watched poor Natsu ready to puke over the side of the ship.

"It's times like these that I'm glad to have my clouds," Dealana commented with a relieved sigh.

"They are quite useful, aren't they?" Erza smiled at the girl.

"We're joining Fairy Tail! This is so exciting!" Wendy cheered.

"It's a good thing you already know most of your way around Magnolia then, huh?" Dealana grinned at her friend.

"You know, I've been wondering about that," Lucy spoke up. "When we all the guilds first met, you already knew Wendy didn't you?" Erza nodded in agreement.

"I was curious about that as well," The redhead narrowed her stern brown gaze at Dealana, who paled in response. "When were you planning on sharing this with us?"

"It's not that I didn't tell anyone, it's just that I didn't tell you..." Dealana trailed off seeing a flash of betrayal in Erza's eyes. "...yet. I told Mira and then you were off on a job the next day, I swear!" The sky-blunette waved her arms in surrender fashion.

"Dealana and I met when we bumped into each other coming around a corner," Wendy recalled. "I was kind of lost but she ended up showing me around and we had lots of fun."

Dealana grinned. "That was the day the Sorceror Weekly reporter came and interviewed Fairy Tail." Lucy shuddered as she remembered that day, she hadn't had the best day then.

Gray and Erza smiled at the two girls. It would be nice for Dealana to have someone her own age to hang out with at the guild. Dealana had been the youngest, aside from Romeo though he wasn't a member of the guild yet, and people worried that it would effect her in a negative way. No doubt Wendy would have Dealana a positive impact on the girl's life.

"While we're on the topic of Dealana," Erza then realized. "mind telling me what this "stunt" she pulled was?" Dealana paled yet again and moved her cloud to float out of Erza's reach while Gray explained how Dealana, despite previously being drained of magic power pushed herself to cast a spell after rolling herself of the edge of the King's Summit.

None of them could find Dealana until after the ship was docked. That's when Erza finally caught the poor girl.

➵

"Long story short, Wendy and Carla are Fairy Tail's newest members, so you better treat them well," Erza declared when they finally returned to the guild.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all!" Wendy greeted with a cutesy bow. She had everyone wrapped around her finger in seconds. Dealana stepped in when Wendy grew overwhelmed by all the masses. Evergreen managed to pull Dealana out of the fray with tears of joy at seeing Dealana wearing a dress. Seeing the Thunder Legion again made Dealana want to make a mental note to ask Freed about something Roubaul mentioned.

After dodging Bickslow's teasing about Dealana making a friend, she ended up around Juvia as she cried floods of tears overjoyed to see Gray again, which was amusing for Dealana who evaded it all by floating on her cloud.

"Gray, stop your girlfriend man, we're dying here!" Someone shouted. Gray was rushed passed in a strong current of the water.

"She's not my freakin' girlfriend!" The ice mage shouted. He wound up near Dealana who laughed.

"Aw, Gray, but she loooves you!" Gray narrowed his eyes trying to grab at the teasing Dragon Slayer, but she only floated out of reach before another current pulled him away. Dealana made her way over to land next to Wendy as Mira approached the girl.

"Welcome to Fairy Tail you two, I'm Mira Jane. Dealana told me about you Wendy, and she mentioned that she was excited to meet you, Carla." Dealana almost blushed in embarrassment. Almost.

"Wow! I can't believe this is happening. First I met Erza and now I'm meeting Miss MiraJane!" Wendy told Carla with a huge smile on her face.

"I'm guessing your feline friend uses the same magic as Happy, you mind telling us what type of magic you use?" Mira asked Wendy.

"Oh here comes my favorite part!" Dealana grinned. It was the most people had seen her smile genuinely in a long time. It was refreshing to see Dealana so happy again.

"Wait a minute! Don't you dare compare me to that furry hairball!" Carla bristled.

Wendy turned to Mira and the rest of the guild. "Don't mind her, I use healing and support magic. Actually, I'm a Sky Dragon Slayer!" Wendy revealed. Everyone gasped in disbelief unable to speak, which gave Wendy a moment of pause while Dealana gave her a comforting smile.

"Just wait for it, Wendy,"

Everyone was ecstatic and cheering, making Wendy smile a warm feeling growing inside her as she was welcomed into a new family.

During the party to welcome Wendy and Carla into the guild, Dealana would float between hanging with the Thunder Legion and Wendy and Carla. She found that reconnecting with the Thunder Legion made her feel closer to Laxus and hanging out with Dealana again made them feel the same way. Of course, the Thunder Legion also had their hidden agenda of watching over Dealana in Laxus' absence, not that she needed it it was just a comfort thing.

➵

In the week since Wendy and Carla joined Fairy Tail, Dealana had gone on and off with jobs. She preferred to work solo, but would take the time to make sure that the Sky Dragon Slayer and white she-cat were settling in.

Dealana had recently taken a rather easy monster hunting job near Malva, and poked her head in to the Bittercress Rose inn, but apparently the owner, Cress, was out on an important mission for the Magic Council. Dealana noticed the flustered state the current keeper of the tavern was in and stayed for a bit to help her out while listening to the woman go on about Cress never being gone this long and how the whatever job she was doing must be pretty critical if it's been more than three days.

The Storm Dragon Slayer had gone back to wearing her loose yellow shirt and black shorts again too, she could only tolerate the dress for so long. When she returned to the guildhall with extra jewel from helping out in at the Bittercress Rose she immediately noticed that Wendy and Carla weren't present. Now that she was looking around the guild hall, she also noticed that there was a lack of pointless fighting. Natsu and Happy weren't there either.

Heading to the bar she jabbed Gajeel in the side. "Oi, Gajeel, where did Wendy and Carla run off to?"

Gajeel finished the iron he was eating, giving the sky-blunette a glare. "How the heck should I know, pipsqueak!"

"'Cause you've been spending a lot of time glaring at both her and Natsu for the past week when you aren't on any jobs." Seeing Gajeel's expression she quickly spoke again. "Don't try a deny it, I caught you a few times and it's creepy! Where are they?"

"Tch," Gajeel scoffed. "The ice-freak came in talking 'bout a rumor. Salamander and your friend ran off after it." He finally revealed.

Dealana frowned. "Rumor? What kind of rumor would make them both run off..." Dealana's heterochromatic eyes went wide upon realization. "Dragons?"

Gajeel nodded, about to go back to his iron before he grabbed Dealana's wrist. "It's gotta be nothing more than a rumor, no sense in running off after them only to be disappointed."

The Storm Dragon Slayer scoffed pulling her wrist out of Gajeel's grip with surprising ease for her stature. "Don't worry about that, Gajeel. If Arashi wants me to find him, he'll let me know. He left for a reason and I've come to accept that unless he wants to be found, I won't find him. I'm more worried about Natsu and Wendy getting into trouble then finding our dragons." She told him.

While she claimed to give up on finding Arashi to the others, the reality was that she didn't like relying on rumor mills for information. Most of the time, the whispers and stories that came through those were exactly that; whispers and stories. If she wanted to find Arashi, she only needed to monitor the weather.

It wasn't too long after Dealana got the information from Gajeel that Erza reported being attacked by a hooded figure. The mystery person attacked and then retreated, which many of them found odd.

"Also, there was something odd about him," Erza told them. "The only way that I can put it is that he smelled wrong."

"Smelled wrong?" Lucy repeated.

"Not like a person, more like a wild animal. Even the way he breathed was unnatural." Erza explained. Dealana rubbed the scar on her nose as she thought about it all. Someone being crazy enough to attack Erza and then retreat was weird, and mentioning that whoever this creep was smelled not human was bizarre to the Storm Dragon Slayer.

The more she thought about it the more she worried that this guy could've possibly attacked Natsu, Wendy, Happy and Carla. Lucy remarked that she and Gray were with the plan to go on as if nothing happened, only to find the ice-mage missing. Dealana tried to think of the last time she saw him, but came up dry. She'd been off and on with jobs the past week and it seemed like he had been too. Maybe he left early after giving Natsu a heads up on the rumor.

Something wasn't right here and it made Dealana uneasy.

➵

Short chapter, and it's likely that the next few might be shorter than normal too, but I'm excited for the development in Dealana that this arc will offer. Any questions, comments, theories? Let me know what you think!