a moment of peace
Characters: Gildarts Clive, Ur Milkovich
Summary: This cannot be the end. Not for them. Never for them.
AU in which Ur defeated Deliora, became a Wizard Saint, found her daughter, sealed Ultears darkness and all ended well – until she accompanied Gildarts onto a certain job.
He goes down with a laugh and her world comes to a crashing end. Her hands are already stained with blood because she has fought never as hard as today – and yet, this is futile because nothing she can do proves to have any worth, any effect.
The blow has hit him all of a sudden in an angle he has previously paid no attention to. This is funny for some reason so he laughs. He has a million regrets and a thousand questions left unsaid, unasked but he can accept this fate.
She cannot accept. It has never been her forte and it never will be either but right now, right here, she does not care because she cannot give up on him now. Adrenaline makes her vision sharp before tears can blur it up and something inside of her snaps.
He feels the claws and at the same time, he does not. He smiles, smiles because he has to and waits for fat to hand him over to death. Then, he feels something on his face, icy hands that brush his hair aside, raven eyes full of worry. But he cannot do anything to dispell this worry. He cannot speak or move because the pain is beyond everything he had ever imagined.
She screams. Her chest aches because of the agony she feels, a pain she cannot deny to be only rivalled by the pain she has when they have told her that Ultear has died. Now, looking at the state he is in, the pain is back. He cannot die here. Not now, not ever – not on her watch. She will not stand for this.
There is something cold covering his wounds, probably ice, keeping the blood from oozing out of his body. He knows she has seen his rather pathetic performance and instead of the smug laugh, a calmer smile appears on his face as he reaches for her hand.
She is no healer and she is scared out of her mind but what else can she do? She has priorities after all and one of them is to get him away from this god forsaken mountain. She has to do something, anything. And so she acts. Freezing his wounds is the first step and sending a volley of icicles at the ugly dragon above them is the second.
He is lifted up, somehow, and she somehow manages to stabilise his weight as she stumbles away. There is too much somehow in the way she operates but he does not exactly care about this. He has known that she would not abandon hm. She has never done it before and she would not do it now even though he would recommend her to ditch him here. This is no place for either of them – and that ugly dragon outmatches them both … too far away for his Crash Magic, too close to the sun for her Ice Make Magic. They are done for and when he knows, so does she. She is the brain among them after all.
She is running, well, stumbling as fast as she can. The dragon – god, how she hates that beast and how much she wants for it to die somehow even though that is just a wild fantasy because they have not even managed to put a single scratch onto his scales – soars above them, staring down at them from his mean little eyes. She is so done with it all, with the black dragon for existing, with him for getting hurt in the first place. But she cannot abandon him now. She was not that much of an ice-cold bitch.
He wants her to simply drop him and leave him there where he will get killed. At the same time, he knows that she will never abandon him, not even when it means her own death. She is too loyal – even now that she wears the cross of the Wizard Saints and should be loyal to the council and only to the council while he is still Fairy Tail's rowdy S-class mage. He rests one hand on his frozen wound and the other one on her shoulder, trying to tell her to sacrifice him for her safe return.
She has been to hell and back once before, back when she has fought and defeated Deliora. She is used to panic and fear for her own life. She knows the feeling of dread just too well and she will not surrender to it now. She is long done crying and mourning her fae because it has been all said and done before. She is done creating a reality of false hopes and empty pretences. She can no longer tell herself lies. She is tired and wary. So tired that she does not even feel it happening.
He feels her collapsing by his side, pierced by an attack she would have usually defended herself against with ease, and nearly trips. It is no critical injury and he gets rid of the beast easily. They have traded places now. He is the one with the choice at this moment but he, too, will not give up on her now. She is too important, too valuable. He will not surrender her, not now, not ever.
She is slipping in and out of conciousness , unable to process much of hat is going on. She only feels the arm that holds her – the very arm she has held onto only a moment ago. It is a calming thought that the hand she holds now holds her as well, that her faith has never been misplaced.
He finally stops as he can no longer hear the dragon's roar. He finds a cave and gently – or at least as gently as he can do it – rests her against a rock before he turns to rip his coat into shreds and clumsily wraps it around her wounds. A healer is simply not there and he hates the thought that his lack of preparations and knowledge might become the reason why she dies. She cannot die. Not here, not on his watch. He cradles her body to his chest, careful to avoid their wounds to be upset again, and simply holds her as he wraps the remains of his cloak around them both as good as he can.
She awakes during the night as he is asleep. For a moment, she is disorientated and just lost because she has no idea where she is or why there is an arm wrapped around her but she also feels safe and that alone keeps her from freaking out, from covering the entire area beneath a layer of ice. She feels the wound on her side and lowers her head. Foolishness has ever been meant to leave its traces on her body and this wound will leave a scar. She cannot bring herself to care, nonetheless, because mages with great magical power heal fast and in the morning, the wound should be mostly gone, even without a healer to accelerate the process. She only leans back, rests her head against his shoulder and sleeps again.
He wakes up to her poking his arm, trying to get him to release her. She looks like a walking corpse but she is alive nonetheless, even with her pale skin and the dark shadows beneath her eyes – eyes that seem to hold the wisdom of ages, of centuries. He releases her and helps her up as she rises with wobbly knees. He then lets her go, keeping the distance they have always kept for various reasons. He also realises that they have not spoken since the moment the dragon has appeared. They have been too busy casting spells, too busy surviving.
She coughs, breaking the silence. She has known for the longest time that he has her back and even now that they live in two different worlds
He pats her shoulder, picking up the remains of her jacket and carefully wraps it around her – not because she needs the protection against the cold but because he cares and has no other way to show it. He gets up and smiles, remembering the deal he has made with himself: the deal that he will never inquire about her personal life, that he will never ask about the scars, about the way she flinches sometimes. He will not ask because she has the right to keep some secrets to herself – and the last thing he wants to do is to turn her into a liar. He knows he is better off without knowing all the details.
He is the sun and she is Icarus. He is too bright, too warm – too dangerous for her. She always gets burned when she gets too close and so she always has to keep her distance. This is the theory, at least. In truth, she cannot stay away because even though she is a woman of the cold, a woman with a heart made of a diamond, sharp but beautiful, a lady of the ice. Because even though she loathes the way he can make her lose control, he is the only summer to her winter. She leans against his side as she takes a first step, a little wobbly but it works, and she marvels at the warmth that is literally radiating from him.
He takes her hand, carefully. They may have shared closeness earlier but this had been an emergency situation. But he leads her down the path, careful and leaving his guidance optional because he knows that strict rules will only make her unhappy and feel restricted and limited – something she loathes and he knows it. But with the choice to leave, she follows his gentle lead. Their footsteps are light and yet reminiscent of a dancelike pattern – just like the way they moved in a battle.
She squeezes his hand as she steps a little closer to his side. It feels awkward and maybe a little too familiar but she smiles to herself.
"Thank you," she says softly.
"No reason to thank me. You saved me first."