A/N: A Fairy Tale fanfic. One of the very few (which is very sad indeed). It's kinda odd, probably, but I just ran with the plot-bunnies that threatened to stomp me to death with their powerful little paws if I didn't obey them. So here you are. Be so kind and review.
Disclaimer: I think I'd like to own Fairy Tail, but I don't. Karma, I guess.
Glory Days
Lucy can picture it all.
She can picture herself wrinkled and plump and probably a little senile. Definitely grouchy, but that's a given. Her house won't be big, maybe a little like the apartment she inhabits at the moment. But it'll be at ground level to spare her old bones and joints that'll ache whenever the weather changes. And there'll be a porch, because it's a necessity. And on that porch will be a rocking chair, just as necessary.
In that rocking chair she will sit and nag and menace the neighbors' brats. And the neighbors. And anyone else who dares to pass by her home.
And it will be awesome because she'll know (despite her growing senility) that she can look back on a lifetime of action, adventure and friendship. All recorded in the bestsellers she will have written throughout her life, the manuscript of each nicely arranged on a crooked shelf in her living room, next to the fireplace that will probably soot like nothing.
Maybe, every now and again, Natsu will drop in to hog her bed, with him Happy who will chatter on and on about everything that has happened since the last time they met. Or Gray will barge in to rummage through her wardrobe because, inexplicably, his clothes have gone missing again. Of course, Lluvia will be hot on his heels, never missing a chance to see her true love ... not decent. Erza will come too, because she just loves smashing Lucy's face into her armor.
And whenever her arthritis isn't too bad Lucy will go visit Fairy Tail again, to see how the younger folk is doing, how even though the active members are completely different people, everything is still the same. Then she'll smile to herself and have a drink with Mirajane and Elfman, Kana and – well, everyone else, actually. Marakov too, because knowing that old geezer he'll probably live to be a thousand years old.
That night she'll go home drunk and happy and laughing, and another story will be waiting for her to be written down --
"Whatcha spacing out for, Lucy?" Natsu. Salmon hair. Fire mage. Young. Stupid. Natsu. "We've got a mission to do!"
-- and whenever she gets wistful she'll just take one of her books out of the crooked shelf next to the sooting fireplace and read how the mages of Fairy Tail saved the world from utter destruction once again.
"Wait a second, Natsu! I'm coming!"
Yup, that's how it's going to be.