For anyone else, it wasn't a particularly unordinary day. The sun rose into a clear sky, wind rustling through the spring grass as people began to creak from their beds, mouths straining against yawns, eyes blinking rapidly against the burn of the morning. Coffee pots brewed fresh energy as curtains were yanked back to the edges of windows, opening houses up to the events that a new day brought. One by one, people began milling out onto the concrete of the streets, donned with varying expressions of alertness and weary concentration, and the minutes ticked by on clocks without pause.
Stowed up on a hill that looked over all this hustle of life day after day was the Heartfilia mansion. As the rest of the world began to set into motion around the sprawling house, a landscaper trimmed its lawns and watered the rose gardens; a maid poured steaming black tea into one of the finer sets of china that the family owned; a doctor began to pack up his things at the bedside of a little girl, her limp blond hair tumbling over the silken case of her pillow. Around her, IVs dripped various medicines and fluid in and out of her body, which had become so frail over the past two years that the pasty skin was stretched to its limits across her bones, and the mattress nearly swallowed her whole. The heart monitor had been disconnected just moments earlier, the family unwilling to hear the stagnant blare of the machine when the child's heart finally gave out.
"Is she in any pain?" the girl's mother, Anna, asked.
"She's heavily sedated at the moment, so I doubt she feels anything at the moment. She likely won't be able to talk, either, although she can still hear you." The doctor paused, adjusting the frames of his glasses with clammy hands. A maid walked in, taking time to bow to the master of the house before padding over to the window and beginning the process of tying back the heavy, velvet curtains. Little by little, sunlight began pouring into the girl's bedroom, illuminating the pale pink walls. "There isn't much time left. If there's something you want to say to her, I would do it now while you have the chance."
Tears spilled down the cheeks of Anna, and she turned away to help the maid finish tying off the window drapings. Jude Heartfilia, the girls father, regarded the doctor with hollow eyes.
"Thank you for all you've done," said Jude.
The doctor nodded, and the motion revealed a bald patch on the top of his head. "I'll be in my quarters. Come get me when—" He broke off, unwilling to say the words.
The thinning of Jude's mouth into a small, thin line was enough for the doctor to know he understood. The doctor bowed and left the room, the maid right at his heels. When the door closed, Anna collapsed against her husband, one of his calloused hands coming up to wrap tight around her shoulder. Her sobs filled the cold room, and the little girl coughed.
"M…Mom." It was the barest thread of a whisper, but her parents both heard it and rushed to her side.
"Lucy, sweetie, we're here. We're here for you," Anna sobbed, grasping tight to the cold, bony hands of her sunshine. Jude sat at the foot of the bed, face stretched low and tight.
"Don't leave me, mom."
Tears streamed from the corners of the girl's eyes. Anna, in that moment was struck with all the times the girl had cried, and how angry, red marks would always stain her plump cheeks for hours after the last tear had fallen. There were no marks left behind this time; just smooth, porcelain skin.
Anna's grip on her daughter's hand tightened thoughtlessly. "Never. Mom is going to stay right by your side for forever, okay?"
Muscles twitched over Lucy's face, and for a moment Jude and Anna had a fleeting belief that their daughter would be able to smile one last time in her too-short life—one last ray of sunlight to be cast over the darkening skies of the Heartfilias.
But in the same instant, their hopes were crushed. Lucy's chapped lips parted, her back arched up, her hand trembled in her mother's grasp. A scream tore up her throat.
"Lucy!"
Jude jumped from the bed and stood above her, hands hovering above her contorted form with no direction. Anna's weeping grew louder, her hand now bone-white in the fierce grip she held.
Lucy's head thrashed side to side, and her parents noticed a thin sheen of sweat beginning to coat her waxy skin. Her eyes were wider than they had been in a month, mind fully awake as her gaze darted around.
"Fire!" she choked, her free hand gripping the silk sheets. "Mommy, daddy, put out the fire!"
Her parents shared a fretful glance. The doctor had made no mention of this. Was she hallucinating?
"It burns."
Lucy's eyes rolled back into her head, whites bloodshot with veins of red flickering as she gurgled on her own spit.
"I'm getting the doctor," Jude declared, already striding towards the door.
And that's when it all came to an end. Jude froze as his daughter went limp in the bed. The sheets were tangled around her, her hair knotted. Her eyes had finally closed.
Everything was still. Silent. The pair studied Lucy's chest, air frozen in their lungs as they waited to see the rise and fall of it. When there was nothing there, they blinked, and waited, and hoped, and waited some more.
"Oh my God." Anna was dry heaving, scrambling to collect her little girl into her arms. The body complied all too easily to her tugs and pulls. "Oh God, Lucy."
"I'll go get the doctor," Jude mumbled. His entire body felt numb as he jerked it into motion out the door.
The whole way through the house, he could hear his wife, screeching in hysterics over and over again.
"Lucy. Please God, bring my baby back to me! You can't take her from me! I promised her—I promised her I would stay with her forever. LucyLucyLucyLucy…"
Her name dropped from Anna's lips like a satanic chant, the entire mansion reverberating with its syllables. Everywhere, the maids and butlers dropped what they were doing and clung to the nearest coworker they could find. Sunlight poured in from every window in the house, but no one in that home had ever felt so dark.
When Lucy opened her eyes, she was met with the kind smile of a beautiful woman. Long white hair framed her face and trailed down to tickle Lucy's jaw as cerulean eyes regarded the child softly.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty," she chirped. "What's your name?"
"L—" The little girl cleared her throat, which was dry from disuse. "Lucy."
"What a beautiful name. I'm Mirajane."
"Mira…jane."
Mirajane's smile grew wider as she held out a hand and helped Lucy to her feet. "Do you know where we are, Lucy?"
For a moment, Lucy looked around. She was in a grand room made entirely out of white marble, six pillars encircling her and rising high above the top of her blond head to support a ceiling decorated with a mural of stars in a black night sky. In the center of the floor, where she stood, were yellow and orange glass tiles that had been patterned out to abstractly depict roiling flames. Staring at the flames surrounding her feet, Lucy felt panic rile up in her nerves, though couldn't comprehend why. Her bottom lip began to tremble, and she had the urge to call out to someone…a woman with soft blond hair and wide brown eyes, her mind told her.
Lucy felt herself be gathered into a hug as Mirajane's curves enveloped her. "Don't cry. It'll be okay, I promise."
Sniffling, Lucy nodded into the older woman's shoulder.
"Now," Mirajane said, pulling back to beam at Lucy, "do you want to meet someone very special?"
The hallways in which the girl traversed with Mirajane all looked the same. Each one was dark, lit only by torches set into the marble walls; also on the walls were framed pages that had the wrinkles and faded script of something ancient. Beneath Lucy's bare feet, the marble flooring was plain, and you could hear the pads of her bare feet unsticking from it with each step. They took turn after turn in silence, Lucy's hand grasped tight in the older girl's when finally:
"I'm going to introduce you to our queen, but I don't want you to be nervous. She just wants to meet you."
Lucy still wasn't sure exactly where they were, but she did know how important queens were. Queens were the mothers of the pretty princesses who lived in tall towers and were guarded by dragons. Maybe they were in one of those towers right now. Mirajane was certainly beautiful enough to be a princess, and the heavily draped gown she wore was something reminiscent of regal.
They reached the first dead end Lucy had seen to that point, created by a pair of mahogany double doors. Mirajane rapped her knuckles twice against its carved pattern, and after a pause of silence she opened one of the doors and ushered them both in.
The first thing Lucy noticed was the wide, silver-paned window that encompassed the entire back wall of the room. It was the first window she had seen, and though she couldn't see much from where she stood, there was a bright light shining not too far off in the distance, illuminating the cosmos and stars that decorated the pitch black sky. Even with craning her neck, nothing but the sky was in sight; maybe they really were in a tower?
A woman cleared her throat, making Lucy blush and shrink back into Mirajane's side. The white-haired beauty giggled behind her free hand and pushed Lucy by the small of her back to take a few steps forward.
"Lucy, this is Queen Layla."
Seated in an ornately carved and bejeweled throne—which was the only furniture in the room, spare a fire place off to the side—was a woman with long, golden blond hair, large brown eyes, and a heart-shaped face that was relaxed into a soft smile. She wore a scarlet gown with heavy, gold-trimmed skirts and a tight bodice that hugged her curves; in the pile of curls pinned atop her head was a golden crown encrusted with glimmering rubies. If she squinted hard enough, Lucy could see her frail, cowering reflection within them as she admired the queen.
Bottom lip trembling again, Lucy glanced behind her at Mirajane, who gave a bright smile that leant the little girl courage. Lucy interlaced her fingers behind her back and settled into her heels.
"H-Hello."
"Lucy." The Queen beamed, her whole face seeming to glow. "Your name means 'light' doesn't it? Tell me what a ray of light like you is doing in the Underworld."
"Underworld?" The panic in Lucy's lilting soprano voice was evident, and Mirajane and the Queen shared a look above her head. Tears began to fall from her wide, brown eyes. "Isn't that where all the bad people go when—when—" she hiccuped, "when they die?"
A memory flashed through the girl's mind, the woman with brown eyes and soft blond hair that she had imagined earlier resurfacing.
"Well, although that is true…."
The Queen was speaking, but Lucy was entranced in her memory.
"Mommy?"
Beside her, Anna looked up from the novel in her lap and pushed her reading glasses up into her hair. "Yes, sweetheart?"
It was one of Lucy's better days—she'd only thrown up once, and was able to take a bath. However, she was still too weak to stand and walk for longer than a few minutes. So there she was in bed, damp hair wetting her sheets, as she poked at a bowl of watermelon.
"What's gonna happen when I die?"
Anna's mouth floundered open for moment, the color draining from her cheeks. Then, clearing her throat, she placed her mouth into a stern smile.
"You don't need to worry about that because you won't die."
Her tone belied finality, but Lucy was still curious. She bit the inside of her cheek as she stacked one cube of watermelon atop another.
"But everyone has to die, right?"
Anna's eyes flickered. A seven-year-old shouldn't be burdened with such a thought. "Who told you that?"
"Daddy."
Sighing through her nose, Anna set her book down on the bedside table and crawled into the other side of the bed. Lucy, too, set her bowl down, and then adjusted her position so that she was nestled up against her mother's side, using her bosom as a pillow. Anna's arms encircled her daughter as she began to run a single hand through Lucy's damp, tangled hair. In this position, she could feel her daughter shaking, and she realized that this was something she couldn't just sweep under the rug.
"Daddy says some scary stuff sometimes, huh?" Anna pressed a kiss into Lucy's forehead as the girl nodded. There was a moment of warm silence as Anna collected her thoughts, wondering of the least-scary way of explaining death to a dying seven-year-old.
"There are good people and bad people in the world," she began. "When a bad person dies, they go to a scary place called Hell and have to spend the rest of their lives there trying to be a good person again." Lucy nodded to show she understood. "But the good people, like you, get to go to a beautiful place called Heaven, where you get to spend the rest of your life being an angel."
The little girl gasped. "An angel?"
"That's right." Anna smiled. "One with big, white wings so that you can spend the rest of your days flying around the bright skies. Doesn't that sound fun?"
Silent, Lucy chewed the inside of her mouth again, trying to hold back the tears she could feel welling up.
"Will…you be there with me?"
At the question, Anna stiffened. Her eyes grew darker, but her smile remained where it was. "Of course I will be. I'll stay with you forever, no matter where you go."
"Promise?"
A few tears escaped.
"Promise."
Back in her reality, tears still flowed down her cheeks, dripping off her chin and onto the marble. Her mother's eyes haunted her as she began to choke on the sobs racking her frail form.
Gentle hands cupped her face, guiding her watery gaze up into a very real pair of brown eyes, just as warm and loving as the ones from her memory. Her mind grew hazy with confusion, the face of her mother fading away like ink in water as Layla's thumbs brushed away her tears.
"Oh, Lucy," she sighed. "You'll be okay. I promise."
'Promise.'
A flame of recognition flared in Lucy's heart. "Mommy?"
The Queen blinked, eyebrows knitting together. "What?"
Though the tears had previously slowed, now they flowed free again as she leaped into Layla's arms, clinging to the Queen's dress with tight fists. "Mommy. Don't leave me because I died. Don't leave me! You promised!"
"Lucy, I'm not…"
"You promised!"
Frozen, Layla stared down at the child clinging to her. As the Queen of the Underworld, she could sense the overwhelming purity in this girl's heart—it consumed her tiny body, radiating her presence outward to rival that of a star's. How had she ended up in the Underworld, a place where darkness was meant to rule? This wasn't how the ancient order worked.
But perhaps this little girl was the dawn of a new era.
Could she be what they needed to turn the tides?
Could she be the unexpected shooting star that the Seer, Cana, had warned Layla of?
Slowly, Layla's arms wrapped around Lucy's quivering form. She petted her downy blond hair and kissed the smooth of her forehead.
"I'm here for you, Lucy. Mommy will never leave you again."
The child had been put to bed in one of the numerous guest rooms the palace had. Assured that her little girl was tucked in comfortably, Layla now stood at the helm of the window that encompassed the throne room. She was staring into the portal, allowing the light to possess her eyes as she studied it.
"Are you sure it was best for you to lie to her?"
It was Mirajane who had asked. Though most wouldn't have dared utter such an objection, as the Queen's first lady in waiting, she felt it okay, if not her duty, to call into question some of her Lady's decisions.
"For now, it is what is needed. I'll tell her the truth when she is older."
"But, my Lady…"
Layla raised a hand, signaling silence. "I understand your concern, Mira. However, I acted with the interest of all three realms in mind."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
Lowering her head, Layla strode forward to grasp Mira's hands in hers. The women met each other's gaze, both with fearsome expressions.
"It is no secret that the order of this universe is slipping from our grasp. You of all people know that best, Mira. You have been loyal at my side since the day my reign began. Can you honestly tell me that I possess the same amount of control that I did that day, long ago?"
Mirajane shook her head. It was a sad gesture, full of limp, dangling hair, and twisted facial features.
"It is okay." Layla smiled, gripping her friend's hands tighter. "I know how weak I have become in the face of Zeref and his rebellion."
"No, that's not—"
"It is. I have become weak, and if things continue down the same path as they have been, then there is no hope for our future, or for the future of the other two realms.
"However, this little girl, Lucy—she has just changed everything. She will be our salvation."
"What do you mean?"
Layla released her friend's hands and settled herself into her throne. "All will reveal itself in time. For now, we continue to fight."
Somewhere else in the universe, a boy felt the fire of his fight melt away as he laid back in the dew-dropped grass. There was a moon hanging above his head, signaling that many hours had passed since he had last been conscious.
Consciousness. It was something he cursed. Feeling his chest rise, feeling his lids come down over and over in a steady rhythm of blinks, feeling the blood send pulses through his veins, he dug his nails into the dirt of the earth and cursed. Cursed his entire existence.
He had one opportunity to end himself and save the universe, and he had failed. Not only had he failed, but he had probably killed that little girl, too. Not that her illness wouldn't have killed her anyway, but at the very least she would have died peacefully in a sea of medications and sweet whispers from her parents. Instead, he had made her suffer the height of his powers as he tried to perform the sacrifice.
In the end, he had only sacrificed that girl's peace.
He ran his hands through his hair, noting how he no longer possessed the horns that had protruded from his head for the past four hundred years of his existence. The un-interrupted sensation of his hair threading through his fingers was foreign to him, but nice. For a moment, he could allow himself to feel normal, and not like the most powerful demon in the world.
For a moment, he could allow himself to not feel like a monster.
But the experience was fleeting because it wasn't truth. He was Etherious Natsu Dragneel, the most powerful demon in existence, and his brother would one day use him to bring destruction upon the entire universe.
At least, Natsu thought with a wry smile, at the very least he had thrown a wrench in Zeref's plans. For now, Natsu was stuck in Purgatory as a side effect of the sacrificial ritual backfiring, which meant that he was unable to step foot into the Underworld until the universe sought judgment over him. And if Natsu was lucky, maybe he'd somehow convince the Gatekeeper that he was worthy of being in Heaven, the only place where Zeref was unable to reach.
Natsu frowned. Or maybe he should try to go back to the Underworld to defeat his brother once and for all. Just because Zeref no longer possessed full control over Natsu, it didn't mean he couldn't still cause destruction. Zeref had plenty of other demons under his control that could disrupt the order of the universe.
"I haven't seen an expression as tortured as yours in many years, boy."
Sitting up, Natsu turned around to find a runt of an old man wearing a stern frown beneath a wiry mustache. If the man could see Natsu, that meant he was also bound to Purgatory for the time being.
"What's it to you, old man?" Natsu grumbled, turning back around to loop his arms around his folded knees.
"This universe is so vast, it can often feel overwhelming, the challenges we face overbearing. It is a feeling we all experience as we try to figure out our role amongst this life we live."
Natsu tried to act as though he wasn't listening, but in truth his shoulders stiffened at the man's words. Overwhelmed was an understatement.
"You're not alone, my boy. Especially in this realm. Everyone who ends up here is struggling with an internal battle. So try not to pity yourself too much."
Natsu snorted. "I am alone. No one can understand what I am going through."
The side of the man's hand came down hard on Natsu's head, making the boy wince. "Oi!"
"Stop acting like an angsty Earthland teenager, boy." Natsu rolled his eyes at this, but the old man continued. "I don't know what you are going through, nor do I need to know. No person's battle is the same, no person's battle is equal. But the suffering that each endures in their battle is equal. The loneliness is equal. The wandering is equal. In this respect, we are all connected."
The old man circled around Natsu so that their eyes met. "And it is that connection that binds us all and gives us the strength to fight any battle, no matter is size."
Flushing, Natsu ducked his head, unable to meet the intensity of the man's stare any longer. "Why're you sayin' all this to me?"
"Etherious Natsu Dragneel, you are not alone, my boy."
At this, Natsu's head snapped up, eyes round, muscles strained. "You know—"
"I am aware that you have a great challenge ahead of you, but I must remind you that as you take on this new journey, you are not alone in your suffering. And if you wish, I know of many others who are willing to show you that you are not alone." He paused, looking away. "The choice, just like everything in this universe, is up to you."
With that, the old man turned on his heel, white fur coat picking up wind, and began to walk away with a casual gait. For a moment, Natsu was frozen, staring at the calloused hands in his lap, which were dirty from abusing the ground in his anger earlier. Not alone? Natsu had felt nothing but alone since he had realized his true identity, his true purpose. It seemed too good to be true that were was anyone out there who could make him feel not alone.
And yet, what other options did he have? If he ignored the words of this old man, then where did he have to go? What did he have to do? He didn't have a clue.
After another moment of hesitation, Natsu pushed himself to his feet and jogged after the retreating form.
"Oi, old man! You can't leave yet. You never even told me your name."
Natsu fell into step with the old man, crossing his arms behind his head in an attempt to appear casual. Unbeknownst to Natsu, the old man smiled.
"Makarov."
Hey everyone! I hope you liked my new story-I have some big plans for it. Sorry if there is anything anyone is confused about right now-I assure you that everything will be revealed in time, but if you have a question feel free to ask!
Thank you for reading! Please review to let me know what you think, or if I should continue.
-Jess