As Lucy snuck along the moonlit corridors lined with important, boring paintings, she felt for the first time that perhaps she had undervalued her strict upbringing as a socialite heiress. After all, without all those lessons on poise and grace, she was sure that stowing away into the night would be significantly more difficult. As it was, she glided silently through the shadows, stepping carefully so as to remain undetected by any rogue servants; if anyone were to see her now, there would be no denying her intentions.

She had donned a casual skirt and top combo that was sure to make her father faint from the sheer impropriety, and and she had a small backpack stuffed with everything a runaway teen could ever need. Y'know, like a few books, a hair brush, an extra pair of socks…

Okay, well, at least she had some Jewels for when she actually needed something. The only thing that really mattered anyway were the keys she kept grasped in her hand so they wouldn't jingle traitorously on her hip.

The stealthy blonde crept down to the first floor and over to a nearby window. There weren't any guards on duty, so she probably could have just opened the front door and walked out, but where's the fun in that?

The night felt different. Above her, the stars twinkled their friendly encouragement, but that didn't stop the nervous ball from forming in her stomach. She'd dreamed about doing this for years, but now that the time had come she was finally realizing just how scary it was to face the world alone. She gulped and looked down at the gleaming keys in her hand.

Dammit, they were right; she was being a coward.

And she wasn't really alone. She was a celestial mage, even if she had no training and could currently only summon a few silver key gates. Her spirits were always watching over her from their place in the heavens. She was determined to learn to summon them all and make contracts with them. The keys she'd inherited from her mother had collected dust for too long!

Sure, it had been hundreds of years since a celestial mage was last able to open one of the zodiac gates, but if there was one thing she'd learned during her tenure as a suppressed debutante it was how to be stubborn.

She would out-stubborn the stars if she had to.

Her resolve more firmly cemented, she stepped into the darkness and disappeared into the night.

Her father wouldn't realize she was gone for two days.

Lucy couldn't suppress the stupid grin on her face as she stepped into Fiore's capitol: Magnolia.

The new capitol was everything she'd imagined it would be. Bustling with life, the narrow streets were lined with vendors peddling a variety of probably-mostly-legal products. Her eyes were wide as she drank everything in, innocently oblivious to the wolf whistles that followed her down the street. Her keys jingled on her hip, as if they too were excited to be in the city and away from her stuffy mansion.

Magnolia had been designated as the new capitol after Crocus was destroyed in the Black War nearly four hundred years ago. Despite that, people still called it the "new" capitol, as if afraid to let the Flower City of old slip from memory all together. It had been a terrible battle, and a terrible sacrifice that ended the war; it made sense that people feared it be forgotten. However, there was nothing new about Magnolia, its ancient buildings a testament to the long history of her country and very sound architecture practices.

In the distance, Lucy could see the spires of the crystal palace sparkling in the sunlight like a diamond. It hurt her eyes a bit, like looking into the face of god, though she supposed that larger-than-life aspect was part of what kept the nobility alive, especially in times as turbulent as these.

Though Magnolia seemed peaceful and happy, she could feel a dark pulsing under the surface. As a mage herself, she understood well enough. Magnolia had the highest concentration of mages in Fiore, and as mistrusted as the magic users were, that was sure to cause at least a bit of tension with the non-magic locals.

The royal family, of course, tried to pretend everything was okay. Mages were good, they said, and even if they weren't, they were a necessary force in the fight against the demons that wreaked havoc on the world since their master's disappearance. Most people understood that fact even if some didn't care; prejudice doesn't abide by logic. To some, magic and mages were what had started the war to begin with; never mind that Zeref was a sick, sadistic bastard and most mages were decent people.

As a show of solidarity with the magical community after the war, the king had established the Royal Academy of Magic, which, incidentally, was the reason the runaway blonde was here in the first place.

RAM, Lucy liked to call it, was the best school of magic in Fiore, debatably in the world. They had the largest collection of magical books anywhere, which made Lucy salivate at the thought, and top-notch, experienced professors. It was common knowledge that all the best guilds recruited directly from the school, with many students belonging to different guilds before they even graduated.

Aah, the guilds~~

Lucy couldn't wait to find a guild to join. She knew she probably had a rose-tinted understanding of them from her years of daydreaming, but she couldn't help it! The thought of belonging to a magic guild, surrounded by nakama, friends, people like her, made her heart race. Helping people, fighting demons, making the world a better place with her own two hands- that's what she was born to do. Not dance around ballrooms and flirt with the wealthiest man in the room.

Her thoughts were violently interrupted as something very large and very hot slammed into her back, sending her flying towards the ground. She closed her eyes and screamed, bracing for the stony impact of the rough street, but to her relief it never came as an unnaturally warm hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her back up instead.

"I'm sorry! Eek!" a young man's voice said from behind her, but before she could turn to get a good look at him, she was being pulled into a side alleyway and shoved behind a dumpster with a stranger's hot body caging her against the wall, a hot finger across her lips in a frantic attempt to silence her stammered protests.

She looked up to see a young man about her age with shocking pink hair and wild green eyes leering at the entrance of the alley, clearly focusing in on the shouts that could be heard from down the street. She couldn't help but notice he was well built and tall; or at least taller than her, though that wasn't saying too much.

However, her brain finally managed to march past the fact that he was rather attractive to focus on the fact that a stranger was holding her hostage in an alley, and suddenly her stomach dropped. What if he killed her and sold her organs on the black market! She was sure she would die a second time of embarrassment if such a thing were to happen. Everyone had insisted that the city was no place for a young lady of her standing, and she would be damned before she let those nay-sayers be right.

The young man was so distracted tracking the voices beyond the alley that he didn't even notice the blonde shifting into an offensive stance. In fact, he hadn't really noticed her at all and had pulled her with him more by accident than anything. As such, it was quite a surprise when he took a full Lucy Kick straight to the face.

He fell back onto the ground and looked up in shock at the young woman preparing to defend herself. Before he could say anything in his defense, though, the woman began her verbal assault.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, pinky, but I'm not going down without a fight! I'm a celestial mage, and—wait! You're a student at the Royal Academy of Magic!" Lucy said as she finally caught sight of the boy's uniform, her entire demeanor changing in an instant from violent demon wench to adoring fan girl, which wasn't proving to be much less terrifying to the befuddled young man.

"Uh…yeah?" the boy said, confused by her excitement. Most people had a very different reaction to his uniform, but she was looking at him like he was her savior. This girl sure was weird.

"I'm a mage too! Or at least, I will be once I train a bit. I just arrived in Magnolia today I was on my way to the school when I was abducted by some freak, but you're not a freak, you're like me what kind of magic do you do I'm a celestial mage so far I can only open a few silver gates but I inherited a few of the zodiac keys from my mother and one day I hope to be able to open them I know no one has been able to…"

Sweet Mavis the girl can talk. The boy just stared in horror as Lucy kept the conversation going completely one sided, just babbling away to the dumpster for all she seemed to care. He glanced down the alley just in time to see his "friends" catch up with them.

"We gotta go," he said, cutting Lucy's nearly-incoherent monologue short as he grabbed her hand and led her down the alley and into another street.

The blonde barely even registered what was happening as she heard their pursuers calling after them. She let out a little scream and started sprinting.

"Get back here you brats!" one yelled angrily, but the boy just stuck his tongue out at them as they kept running.

"I'm Natsu," he yelled back at her without slowing his pace as they weaved amongst the startled shoppers and tourists. "Welcome to Magnolia!"

The pair raced through the streets like the wind until the shouts behind them faded away. After a few more minutes of twists and turns, angry shouts and ticked off vendors, they finally lost their pursuers and slowed their pace. Natsu let go of Lucy's hand, which was now a bit sweaty from how hot his hand was. She wondered vaguely if he was sick or something.

"I'm Lucy, it's nice to meet you," Lucy said, smiling up at Natsu. "What was all that about? Did you steal something?"

She eyed him suspiciously. It would be just her luck to get instantly entangled with a good-for-nothing thief.

"Of course not! Well, not exactly. I'm a fire dragon slayer, so I eat fire. They had a delicious, blazing fire pit in front of their restaurant and I had a couple bites, which apparently they didn't like. I think it had more to do with the fact I'm a mage than that I stole some of their fire. It's warm out anyway, so it's not like anyone was going to miss it," he pouted.

"That's stupid," Lucy said, but Natsu only shrugged.

"They might tolerate our presence here, but that doesn't mean that everybody is fine with mages. But I'm sure you know all about that."

Lucy nodded, but in truth she didn't know much about it at all. She'd heard that tensions were high, but to chase a boy down because he ate some fire? It seemed excessive to say the least.

"You said you're on your way to the school, right?" Natsu asked amiably.

"Yeah!"

"Then just follow me! I was headed back right now. What year are you?"

"Well, I, uh, haven't exactly enrolled yet."

Natsu stared at her with wide green eyes.

"Really? But classes start tomorrow, don't they? At least that's what Gray said, though I bet he was just trying to trick me so I'd show up all alone, the ice prick."

Lucy waved her hands, hoping to repair this "Gray's" honor.

"No, no, your friend is right! I'm just a little late, that's all. My, uh, dad doesn't exactly know I'm here. He doesn't understand…" Lucy averted her eyes a little, her tone touched with sadness.

Natsu, however, didn't miss a beat.

"That's alright! There's a bunch of people here who don't have families that support them. Some of my friends are orphans, and a bunch others are runaways too. Especially people who are born into a non-magical family. That's why we have guilds, though. We build our own families."

Lucy smiled hopefully at him.

"Thanks, Natsu."

Natsu gaped at her a bit, a light blush spreading across his cheeks while he groped for another topic of conversation.

"Have you thought about what guild you want to join? I'm in Fairy Tail, which is the best guild in Fiore. But I guess Sabertooth isn't too bad since they got rid of their awful master, though I can't believe they let that stupid flashlight take over... We're rivals, though, so don't tell them I said they were okay. Anyway, which guild you join really depends on you. You said you're a celestial mage right? That's pretty rare," he said, seemingly contracting Lucy's word vomit from earlier.

Lucy giggled lightly, glad for the change of subject as they walked briskly through the crowded streets that thinned the further away from the city's entrance they went. He led her through the streets with such ease Lucy didn't know what she'd have done without him.

"Yeah, I'm not very good though. I've never been able to train properly. I inherited some good keys from my mom, but I can't use all of them yet," she said, proudly holding up her key ring and displaying her glittering keys.

"Whoa! I've never seen a zodiac key before. There's only like ten of them, right?" Natsu asked, clearly impressed.

"Twelve, actually. I have five right now. Aquarius, Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo, and Cancer, but I'm always looking for more. Of course, I can't actually open their gates yet…"

"No one's done that since the Black War, though, right? I think my Fiorean history teacher said that, anyway. I mean, we have two celestial mages at the academy, but I don't think any of them can open the zodiac gates."

"Yeah… I dream big. Shoot for the stars. Literally," Lucy grinned.

She was fully aware that she was tackling a nearly impossible task, but just being here was much further than anyone thought she'd ever get.

"Well, the academy is the place to start! Maybe Levy can help you find some books on the subject. She spends more time in the library than the librarian."

"That'd be great!" Lucy said, increasingly glad Natsu slammed into her. "So dragon slayer, huh? I didn't think there were any dragons left to slay."

"I was raised by one," Natsu deadpanned and Lucy halted midstep.

"You WHAT?!" she screeched, causing Natsu to rub his ears a little.

"My father, Igneel, he's the one who taught me dragon slaying. He's the fire dragon king, or he was before he disappeared…"

He grabbed at his scarf subconsciously, burying his fingers in its scale-like folds.

"I-I'm sorry, Natsu," Lucy said, suddenly feeling bad for complaining about her father earlier. At least she had a father.

But Natsu just grinned at her.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure I'll find him one day. I mean, he's a dragon. He can't hide forever."

"I didn't know there were any dragons still alive after the war," Lucy said, hoping the subject wasn't too touchy. She was genuinely curious; to her, dragons were just a part of history, almost like legend at this point. To think that they aren't only real, but still alive, was hard to comprehend.

"Well, a bunch were killed in the war. But a few managed to hide away, laying low over the centuries, staying out of trouble, occasionally taking in a lost human or two and training them. There are a few of us at the academy. Sting and Rogue were raised by the light and shadow dragons. That bastard Gajeel was raised by Metalicana, the iron dragon. And Wendy's mother, Grandine, was the sky dragon."

"That's amazing!" Lucy exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

"Yeah, well, all of the dragons disappeared three years ago. We haven't been able to find them since," Natsu said, his enthusiastic tone a bit chipped. "B-but I'm sure we'll find them one day!" he added as Lucy's face fell sympathetically.

Lucy's heart ached for him. She understood loss. Her mother had died when she was young, and in a way she lost her father then too. He'd never been the same after, always strict and demanding, avoiding Lucy like the plague. Lucy thought perhaps it was because she looked so much like her mother that it pained him to look at her. It wasn't fair, but nothing in life really was.

"Yeah," Lucy said, her voice a bit softer now. "I'm sure you will."

They walked for a few more minutes in a comfortable silence. Lucy was still taking everything in, staring all around her at the various shops and homes while mulling over their strange conversation. She still couldn't believe that dragons were still around. It made her dream of opening the zodiac gates seem less impossible somehow.

"Here we are! The Royal Academy of Magic," Natsu said as they walked up to a large, light stone building.

Lucy couldn't help the stupid grin that returned to her face. She was really here. It was almost too much to believe.

The building was beautiful, as she'd always expected; it was built by the royal family after all. It stood proud and intimidating, but also welcoming in a way, its light grey stone almost sparkling in the sun. Large stained-glass windows with images of mages and dragons and demons decorated the walls.

Lucy just stood there, staring at it in awe. She belonged here, she could feel it.

"C'mon! I'll take you to the office," Natsu said, interrupting her staring contest with the heavy front doors. He grabbed her hand again and pulled her forward under the archway.

They walked down the empty halls, their footsteps echoing off the long corridors. Even if Lucy had somehow found the school on her own, she was positive she never would have found the office without Natsu's help. The school was like a labyrinth of rooms and hallways and stairs just waiting for poor, lonesome students to get lost for eternity.

"Here you are," Natsu said cheerfully as they walked up to a room with elaborate double doors: the headmaster's office. Lucy's stomach a somersault as the doors bared down on her. "I've got to go pick up some stuff, but I'm sure I'll see you around!"

"O-of course! I don't want to trouble you any longer," Lucy said quickly. "Thank you so much for all of your help."

"It's no trouble, really," Natsu said, scratching his head and blushing bashfully. "Well, I'll see you later, Luigi."

"It's Lucy!" she yelled at his retreating form, but he just gave her a cheeky smile and a wave back as he skipped off.

"Right," she said, taking a deep, steadying breath. "You can do this, Lucy."

She raised her hand and knocked on the heavy doors.

And that's chapter one! I hope you liked it. If you did, leave a review! If you didn't, still leave a review!
I'm not going to promise that I'll update with anything resembling punctuality, but I'll do my best. If this goes as planned, it's going to be a loooonnngggg story.

Anyway, thanks for reading!