Natsu had followed his brother back to the kingdom and list ened to how he spent the last sixty years. He learnt about how Zeref curse, about his new found powers, about the new race of demons that he insisted be called Etherious. And he learnt about his brothers suicide attempts, that had been among the most shocking news. He also learnt about how people become dragon slayers, but thats not important.

Zeref of course already knew about his exploits as they were rather hard to miss what with all the dragon corpses. They were accompanied by the Dragonovians and Natsu had learnt their names. The buff one was called Feymen, the monk was named Surasha, the ginger was oddly enough named Ginger, the annoyed looking guy was named Rung and Natsu quickly come to the conclusion that he an asshole. He was also Irenes husband.

Speaking of Irene it had been six years for her since they had last met and she was now a bubbly twenty four year old. Apperently he left far more of an impression on her then she did on him as she vividly recalled their meeting, tackling a dragon does tend to do that he supposed.

Though he rather disappointed with these so called dragon slayers. They had a piece of a dragons soul planted into them and were then trained in their new magic by said dragon, yet if you ask him they were still amateurs. Their teamwork was sloppy, their variety was minimal, their skill pitiful, their power pathetic and according to Irene these were the cream of the crop just behind her.

So Natsu of course whipped them into shape as they went. Sometimes literally forming a whip with his warriors forge spell. This also gave him a chance to subtly test its boundaries were he found he could use other magics as materials for the forge. He had found Irene lived up to his expectations while Rung wasn't even a mage let alone a dragon slayer. The other three did acceptably.

Finally after a week of slowly trundling along Natsu saw the tip of a tower far off in the distance. Speeding up to a light jog (which was a full on sprint for most people) Natsu passed the next hill and saw the city gates. It looked as dull as he had expected. Tall brick walls all the same colour in a barren stone valley a single brick pillar topped with a dragon standing watch outside the gate.

"Ahh finally we've arrived, it won't be long now". Zeref said placing a hand on his shoulder, for once not afraid of his curse. Natsu smiled, but his hand rested on his swords hilt "Yes we'll finally see them again".