Chapter 1: The Spark Beneath the Silence
Caelion, Age 8 – Outskirts of the North Fiore Frontier – x781
The morning always began the same way.
With calloused hands and a bucket too big for his arms, Caelion stepped into the pale dawn light and walked toward the village well. The path was beaten earth, flanked by sleepy chickens and crooked fences that never stood straight no matter how many times he fixed them.
The bucket clanged against his leg, sloshing from yesterday's leftover water. The cold bit his skin. His cloak—a tattered wool thing a farmer had tossed him last winter—did little to fight the mountain wind. But Caelion didn't mind.
He had never been warm before. Not really.
A low mist coiled around the wooden shacks and patchy grass that made up Kreswick Village. The people here didn't ask questions anymore. He'd appeared in their woods three years ago, silent and strange, with star-like flecks of light floating from his palms and no past to claim.
"Fetch water."
"Chop kindling."
"Stay outta the way."
They didn't speak much, but they fed him. And in return, he worked. That was enough.
By the time the sun peeked over the mountains, Caelion had delivered two buckets of water, helped old Thom patch the barn roof, and swept the steps of the village's only chapel.
"Boy," barked Elsha, the butcher's wife, waving a hand. "The coop's frozen shut again. Think your sparkly magic can warm it up?"
Caelion gave a quiet nod.
He knelt by the wooden latch and closed his eyes.
A soft glow shimmered between his fingertips—no flame, just a haze of light that shimmered silver-pink, like moonlight seen through mist. He pressed it against the wood. Slowly, frost began to melt, beading into droplets that ran down the side.
"Useful trick," Elsha muttered, arms crossed. "Still not real magic, though."
Caelion didn't reply. He never did.
That Evening
He waited until the last window in the village went dark. Then, quietly, he slipped out from the hayloft where he slept and made his way up the familiar ridge trail.
The stars were already out—bright tonight, sharp against the black sky. The constellations here were different from the ones he remembered as a child on Earth, but they held the same comfort. The same quiet.
He stopped at the summit, where the grass thinned and stones jutted from the earth like ancient bones. A flat outcropping of rock overlooked the valley. Caelion took a deep breath, stretched out his arms—and began.
Stardust rose from his palms, soft and flickering.
He shaped a ring of lights that hovered in the air before him. With concentration, he condensed one into a shard—about the size of a knife. It trembled, warped, then scattered like windblown snow.
"Too unstable," he murmured.
He tried again. This time, he wove threads of light into a spiral, trying to mimic a drill. It flickered and spun—then collapsed.
Frustration curled in his chest. He clenched his jaw, forced his breathing slow. Again.
This had become his ritual. Every night, while others dreamed of harvests and guild jobs and warm beds, Caelion practiced the only magic he had—Star Dust.
It wasn't flashy like fire, or powerful like ice. It didn't roar or crack or crush. But it shimmered. It bent. It danced. And sometimes, when he got it just right… it almost looked like it could become something more.
On his best nights, he could make floating orbs hover for a minute or two, or create dazzling illusions of meteors trailing across the hilltop. But they faded the moment he lost focus. They always did.
He sat down with a sigh, sweat on his brow despite the cool night.
In the distance, an owl hooted. The wind whistled over the ridge.
He looked up.
"Why did you bring me here?" he whispered, not expecting an answer. "Why give me this if I can't do anything with it?"
The stars, as always, remained silent.
He stood on the ridge long after midnight, shoulders aching, fingertips raw from channeling energy through them. It wasn't like fire or lightning, not violent or erratic. Star Dust Magic moved differently—slow, steady, obedient to patience. It responded best when he was calm, focused, when he let the magic flow through him instead of forcing it.
But tonight, he pushed.
He needed something to change.
The magic shimmered faintly at his fingertips, tiny motes of light orbiting his palm like lost satellites. He coaxed them into shapes—a tiny ring, a feather, a spiral. The glow flickered and faltered with every breath.
His stomach growled again. He ignored it. Hunger had become another part of training. Just like solitude.
"Hold," he whispered to the light. "Stay with me."
The construct wavered. His hand trembled. A single shard of light hovered above his palm—longer than anything he'd maintained before.
Five seconds. Ten.
It faded slowly, like the last ember in a dying fire.
But it faded, not vanished. That was new.
Caelion lowered his hand and let out a soft, tired breath. A part of him wanted to scream. Another wanted to laugh. Both felt too loud for the moment.
Instead, he sat.
The grass was cold beneath him. The stars were silent above.
He tilted his head skyward.
"Is this it?" he asked softly. "Is this all I get?"
No answer. Not that he expected one.
But still, he waited.
A breeze moved through the trees behind him. He imagined it carrying whispers—messages only he could hear. Maybe a real mage would have heard them. Maybe a real mage wouldn't still be making sparkles after all these years.
He leaned back until he was lying flat in the grass, hands folded beneath his head.
"Fairy Tail's probably full of loud idiots," he murmured to the sky. "Maybe that's why they're strong. They don't ask for permission."
Another silence. Familiar. Heavy.
"I'll keep training," he said anyway. "Even if no one sees it."
He closed his eyes.
He dreamt of light.
The next day,
"Oi! Caelion! You're late!"
He turned the corner to see the smith's apprentice waving a soot-covered arm at him. Thick black smoke billowed from the forge behind him, staining the sky gray. Caelion jogged up without a word and took the hammer the older boy handed him.
"Scrap pile's a mess. Sort it by noon or I'm docking your bread again."
Caelion didn't argue. He never did.
He moved to the back, past the hissing bellows and blistering heat, and set to work. Metal scraps. Broken hilts. Bent nails. He organized them into crates, each one labeled in chalk. No magic. No light. Just hands, calloused and efficient.
He liked the rhythm. The repetition. It kept his mind from wandering too far.
By the time noon came, the sky was choked with smoke and the sun had disappeared behind clouds. He wiped sweat from his brow and leaned back on a crate, exhaling slowly.
"Done," he muttered.
No one answered.
He didn't need them to.
That evening,
He wandered farther than usual.
Past the fields, past the last fences, past the border where even the oldest maps of the village stopped.
He found a clearing ringed with silver flowers. Moonlight kissed their petals, making them glow faintly. The air felt different here—cooler, older. Sacred, maybe.
Here, he practiced.
His hands moved in slow, deliberate arcs. The starlight obeyed, blooming in bursts that hovered longer now. They followed the flow of his arms like ribbons of pale flame, drawn to his rhythm.
He shaped a small orb of light and held it in both palms. It pulsed—softly, like a heartbeat.
"Focus," he whispered.
He compressed it, trying to shape it into something solid. A dagger. A shard. Anything.
It resisted. Wobbled.
Then, for a moment, it held.
A solid spike of light hovered between his hands, trembling but stable.
He gasped—and it shattered into glitter.
Still, his heart raced.
That had been progress.
He sank to his knees, chest rising and falling. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"It's not much," he whispered, "but it's real."
He looked up at the sky.
The stars didn't answer.
But for the first time… they felt closer.
Back in the village,
The elder carpenter was telling stories again in the square, spinning tales of ancient dragons and legendary mages while children clutched wooden toys and wide eyes.
Caelion listened from the edge of the crowd.
The old man's voice rose dramatically. "And the dragons? They feared only one thing—those who bore Slayer Magic, passed down by the gods themselves!"
The crowd gasped. A child dropped their toy.
Caelion felt something shift in his chest—like a bell being rung far away.
God Slayer Magic.
His fingers twitched.
No one noticed him.
He slipped away quietly.
Late that night, alone again beneath the stars,
Caelion whispered to the void above, his voice barely more than breath.
"I'll keep going."
He raised a hand, and the Star Dust obeyed—rising gently like a shimmer of moonlight between his fingers.
"One day…"
A pause.
"I want them to know I was here."
The light danced.
And for a heartbeat, something shimmered in the sky above.
Not a star.
Not yet.
But maybe—someday.