First Fairy Tail Fanfic. ^^ I hope you guys enjoy. Oh, and I don't know how this site works quite yet, I'm still getting used to the features, so I'm sorry if things are formatted oddly.
The light was fading. She could no longer see the moon's face. The pressure in her lungs was mounting, and she couldn't fight her way back to the surface. Her limbs were heavy and weak. Nothing worked. Nothing felt right. Brother! She shouted in her mind as the water swept into her lungs, sending searing salt into her mouth, her throat. She was choking. She was drowning. She was dying. Her brother, her twin, her rock, her everything, was gone. She'd failed. Her magic had failed.
A sense of peace spread over her, soothing the shattered pieces of the magickal bridge she and her brother had shared. She would be with him. They would be together, like always. She hated being apart. It was as if a limb was missing. Now, that limb was permanently missing. She knew all too well about death. She stopped fighting. Why bother? She was just ten, and though she could swim, she'd never swum in water so deep, or while she was so exhausted. She was too deep to see the moon's gleam, or her eyes had closed. She couldn't tell. Nothing mattered. She'd failed her brother and the Dark Ones had won. They'd always said that no one would make it off the island alive and they were right.
She remembered the island as it had been. Before the Dark Ones had come. It had a peaceful place. The people were farmers, who grew the best and spiciest chili peppers in all the land. They grew other spices and herbs as well, but it was the chili's that had gotten the island famous.
And had attracted the attention of the Dark Ones.
The island had made up of simple farmers and craftsmen. They had wariness towards magic. No one in the village had developed their magic beyond helping plants grow, or making it rain. They were isolated, far beyond the help of the mainland.
They'd made the perfect target.
She'd heard stories of Dark Guilds, evil mages who used their magic to harm, and to gain unfairly. But it had been a mainlander problem. Something as distant as the sun. She'd only been to the mainland once in her short life, and had found it vastly different than her quaint islands. She much preferred the small islands that wildflowers grew on that she could row too.
But it seemed that being separated from the mainland was soon to become a curse, rather than a blessing.
The Dark Guild Conquest had come to the island looking for easy cash. They took over the island, and it's economy. The people were forced to grow their plants as usual; any reduction in quality would result in severe punishment. She doubted the mainland even knew the island was under the control of a Dark Guild. The Moon's Bounty was a chain of islands far from the mainland, and people rarely visited. They swarmed the market on the mainland; all vying for the chili's and spices the island was famous for. They still had the supply, it had not faded in the five years Conquest had controlled them.
No one knew the constant fear the islanders lived in. No one knew of the arranged marriages, the forced conception in order to keep the island's population up. To keep the secrets of the island from fading.
No one knew.
No one cared.
So why should she?
Her body was at its limit. Water had filled her lungs, leaving her in agony. Her mind was fading.
She knew that date.
It was an odd thought, but as everything else faded, she kept it with her. She knew the date of her own death. July 7th, X777.
What a strange date to die on.
She didn't feel the man lifting her out of the water. She didn't feel him pushing on her chest, forcing the water out of her lungs. She didn't feel him give her his breath. She had the vaguest memory of a blurry figure, bathed in the full moon's light.
She woke on the mainland, alone.
She knew her name.
She knew where she'd come from.
She didn't know how she'd survived.
She knew she was on the mainland, but had no idea where.
She knew she hated her magick. She knew she feared it. Curling into a ball of grief, she shoved her stupid magick into a corner, locking it with a vicious twist of the key. Inside, her magick worked at the lock.
Seven years later….
Cayenne, the girl from The Moon's Bounty Islands was in the last place one would expect a girl who hated and feared magick: a Magick Guild, a good one. She was also in the last guild one would expect: Fairy Tail.
She wandered the streets of Magnolia. She knew her way around, knew every twist and bend of the streets. Knew what places were busy at what time. She knew Magnolia as well as she'd known her precious islands. A part of her ached for home. The rest of her knew Magnolia was home. That Fairy Tail, no matter the fear she felt there, was home.
She was fed. She was clothed.
She was a shell of a 17 year old girl. She couldn't look anyone in the eye. She feared so much her voice had abandoned her. Any show of magick, no matter how small, either sent her running or put her in such a state of panic that she hyperventilated. She could handle the roughest of brawls: Fairy Tail had numbed her to fighting of the non-magickal sort. She could handle shouts, drunken parties.
She couldn't handle magick. She avoided the Guildhall some days. Sometimes it was all just too much. Knowing that everyone in that building had magick. Knowing they could hurt her and she couldn't even scream. The rational part of her brain knew that Fairy Tail wouldn't hurt her. No member would dream of it. Some members didn't even know she was there. She lived in the guild, but was on the second floor. She was the only person exempt from the S-Class Only rule. Makarov knew she would never even look at the request board.
She watched them. It felt strange, watching a guild that would welcome her without many questions from the safety of the second floor. She knew they were good people: She couldn't deny it. She couldn't ignore it. But her fear was so deep seeded that she couldn't stop the reactions. She couldn't bring herself to approach anyone. The only person she'd been remotely trusting of was dead. Two years dead.
Makarov was good to her. He made sure she could buy her own clothes, could fix her own food or get access to whatever Mira was cooking. He tried. He tried so hard to help her get over her fear. She'd lost the hatred somewhere along the way. She couldn't hate what brought such obvious joy to those in this Guild of light. Yet she could still fear it, which was a constant puzzle to her mind. How could she fear it, yet not hate it?
She felt her own magick stir. It wished so to be free. She shoved it down, her breath shuddering from the fear of what was inside her. She'd failed with this magick, how could she trust it? How could she not fear it when magick had been used to do such harm to her?
Because she wasn't so sure it was fear alone that kept her voice silent. She had a feeling magick played a part as well. She couldn't tell if it was hers or a byproduct of escaping.
She was jolted out of her thoughts when she bumped into someone. She hadn't been paying attention to where she was going, but at this time of day, this part of Magnolia should be pretty empty. She looked up at who she'd ran into.
Fear ran like ice her veins.
"Hey Cayenne!" He greeted, grin wide, pink hair flying in the wind. A blonde was standing next to him, looking puzzled. Her eyes went wide, her heart seemed to stutter. Her knees felt like jelly. Her whole body shook as if she was cold. She took one step backwards, then another, then she was racing away from him. Away from the fire magick she could almost smell. Away from the pain.
She knew why she still feared magick even though she no longer hated it.
She feared it because she feared pain. She feared it because she feared the memories that swarmed in her head when she felt magic in the air. She feared the pain that magick had caused her.
She feared she couldn't control her magick should it ever get free and hurt those she cared about. It had happened before.
She would break if it happened again.