Hi readers who may/may not exist. I haven't written any fanfiction in a REALLY long time (like since I was 14, which is why, a few years and creative writing classes later, this is a new account -.-) but I had to write this, because it would not get out of my head.
Warning: this is a multi-chapter fic, and it might take a while to get to interactions with a lot of the characters we see every episode on the actual show, so sorry about that. And my muse can be vindictive, so updates may be sporadic ~apologies~
Rated T for now, and since don't tend (fail, really, when I try) to write stories deserving of an M rating, it is likely to remain that way.
I like reviews! Please? 0.0
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I wish I did.
Hope you like!
When she was a little girl, her mother would tell her stories in the dark as they stared at the stars, and one day the little girl in the grass-stained dress asked why they burned so brightly in the sky. Her mother smiled and said:
Our home was once a dark place, child. There was no safety in the dark, and humans would hide behind their walls and fireplaces and tell stories of the monsters that roamed the night. Too many fearful nights were passed in this dark world, and the monsters had begun to snatch at those who left the safety of the light.
One night, the daughter of the Wizard King of the Iryian - for Fiore was less than an idea, then - was snatched from her bed, and for many days, her father sent his men to the forests and wild places to find her - but one cannot in the light find a monster that lives in shadows. The king cried for many months, and it is said that it had seemed his tears would never cease.
But a spark of the king's magic fell with every tear, and each was a star was born of his sadness to light up the night, so no other father would suffer as he had.
She smoothed back her daughter's pale hair from her wide brown eyes, and then reached into her own boot. To her fascinated daughter she passed a small silver key, and curled tiny fingers around the stem.
The magic grew and grew, until an entire world was born, Lucy. The magic of the Celestial Realm is now stronger than any one person, but sometimes - just sometimes - a celestial wizard can find a key that opens a door to it.
She held her daughter's clenched hand up to the stars and called into the night,
Open, Gate of the Little Dog! Nikora!
Her daughter gasped when she saw a lattice of script flash into existence around the key, and a white spirit plop onto her lap. The two stared at each other for a moment before Lucy seized her first spirit in a hug and shouted,
Plu!
The spirit tilted its head for a moment at the grinning little girl, before declaring,
Plu!
Her mother smiled, picked the little girl and spirit up together, and said dryly, I think he likes you.
000
"I think he likes you." The voice surprised her out of her daydream, and Lucy nearly fell out of her seat.
"What?" she asked, blinking at the speaker, a girl in a pink dress and perfectly coiled braids. The girl leaned in and whispered conspiratorially,
"The older Junelle brother, of course!" she sighed. "He's so handsome, and rich, too!" She giggled and fanned her face. "He can't take his eyes off of you!"
Lucy took a deep breath, and tried not to grind her teeth in a way that her father would find 'unladylike'.
"That's nice, Thea," she said politely, nodding to the sharp-faced boy from across the room, "You should talk to him."
"Me," Thea gasped, shocked, "He's the heir to the Junelle Corporation! I'm just - I could never!"
"And neither could I," Lucy muttered, turning to walk away, "Although probably not for the same reasons as you."
She left a confused Thea by the dance floor, and made her way through the crowd of people to the empty balcony, only to be intercepted by the one person she hadn't expected to talk to.
"My daughter, Lucy Heartfilia," He announced, catching her waist with one broad hand, and holding up his wineglass in a toast. The chatter of the party gradually fell to whispers as many well-dressed people turned to look at them. Lucy felt a flush climbing the back of her neck at the pressure of so many eyes on her dress, her hair - but never her.
"Today we celebrate her eighteenth birthday. She's a grown woman, now," Jude Heartfilia said grandly, flashing a professional smile around the room, "She looks like my Layla, rest her soul. Spirited, and a wizard, too." The last was said with a tinge of sourness, and Lucy had to hold back another unladylike grimace. "But my dear friends and associates, I am pleased this night to announce my daughter's engagement to Duke Janelle, heir to the Janelle Corporation..."
Lucy's ears seemed to stop working, and for a moment, her lungs did as well. Engagement? In a daze she watched the dark-haired boy with sharp cheekbones lift her limp hand to his lips and smile a predatory smile. His eyes dragged like a hand up her expensive, suddenly too-tight dress to her face, and he whispered something that she couldn't hear.
Engagement?
She had a sudden flash of another fifty years with this cold-looking boy in an echoing, cold manor in a thousand too-tight dresses and no freedom, no freedom for the spirited wizard girl who only wanted to be loved, and didn't they understand that money never fucking came into it?
She ripped her hand away and slipped as quickly as she could through the falsely bright crowd of oily congratulations to somewhere - anywhere, please - dark and quiet where she could breathe. Only to breathe.
She found herself in a dark hallway, and sat shakily down beside a window, pressing her face to the cold glass as tears made silver from her wide eyes. She fumbled for the pouch between her ornate petticoats, and clenched the small silver key in her palm.
"Open, Gate of the Little Dog!" she croaked, and like when she was a little girl, a whirl of gold flashed around the key, and her only real friend dropped into her lap. She cupped her hands, and Plu clambered up her arm to her shoulder to pat her face.
"He wants to sell me off, Plu," She whispered to the spirit, "He tries to hide it, but I know Heartfilia Konzern is having financial problems. A marriage to the heir of the Junelle Corporation would get rid of all of my father's money problems."
"Yes, it would."
Lucy whipped around, still holding Plu, to see her father standing with his arms crossed a few feet away. His face was shadowed in the darkness of the hallway, but Lucy could still see the pent-up anger in the set of his shoulders under his tailored suit.
"I have given you everything," He growled, taking a step forward. Discreetly, Lucy edged Plu off of her shoulder, and with a soft whisper, dismissed him.
"The finest dresses."
Another step.
"The best toys, the most connected friends. "
Lucy slowly rose to her feet and clenched her fists. "I never wanted any of that, father!"
"Then tell me, daughter," Jude growled, stepping up to loom over her, "Tell me what the hell you wanted that I didn't give you!"
"I-I just..."
"You just what!" he roared, seizing one of her arms. She yelped, reaching frantically for her pouch.
"I just wanted you to pay attention to me!" She cried, closing her fingers around one of the keys in the pouch, "It was always been business to you since Mom died! Will selling me make you feel better, father?"
Suddenly one side of her face stung, and she lifted a hand to touch the reddening skin. Jude glared at her and sighed, lowering his hand to his side. Closing his eyes, he took a step back and chuckled. "What you make me do, Lucy, is remarkable." His eyes darkened momentarily. "Never mention your mother before me again." She lifted her chin at Jude's appraising look.
"You caused me considerable embarrassment by running out on the Junelle boy, daughter." He held up his hand to forestall her furious response. "I suppose I am in error for surprising you with the news. But my decision stands. You will marry the heir to the Junelle Corporation and save this family's fortunes."
"Your fortunes you mean," Lucy muttered under her breath. Jude pretended not to hear her.
"To reassure the Junelle family that we are determined on this marriage, you'll need to spend the period of your engagement with the family. They leave tomorrow, so I'll instruct your maids to pack your things."
"Tomorrow?" Lucy stammered, aghast, "Father! You can't do this to me, I don't want this!"
He lightly touched her bruised cheek, and said very slowly and clearly, "Put some makeup on, fix your dress, return your mother's keys to where you found them - you won't be needing them - and then come back to the party." He smiled, and she raged inside. "This is the beginning of the rest of your life, Lucy." He dropped his hand and began to walk away. "A smile wouldn't be out of place."
In her room, Lucy paced the floor. Plu swung his feet from his seat on her bed.
"I'm not getting married, Plu, I won't!"
"Plu," the little spirit said sadly. She fisted her hands on her hips.
"Well, you don't have to sound so discouraged!"
Plu stopped swinging his legs and looked down. "...Plu,"
She sighed, and rubbed her forehead. "No, I'm sorry. You're right." She walked to the large window that overlooked the grounds. "I can't do this with just you. We aren't strong enough. We haven't been in the real world enough." She laid her hand against the window's glass, and looked out at the faraway stars. "Unless..."
The keys seemed to weigh down the hidden pocket of her dress. Slowly, Lucy pulled out the two keys. They clinked quietly in her palm as she closed her hand and pressed her fist against the front of her bodice.
"They were Mom's, Plu," she murmured, "If I make contracts with them, it'll be like she never existed."
Plu hopped down from the bed, and ran to hug her ankle. Looking up, he said firmly, "Plu!"
Lucy took a deep breath and dropped one of the two keys on the coverlet. She kissed Plu's head, and then softly dismissed him.
Alone, she held the remaining key up and said clearly,
"Open, Gate of the Great Crab! Cancer!" As she spoke, a twisting circle of script burst into reality, larger and brighter than she'd ever seen before. A fashionably dressed man with tan skin, dark red-brown hair, and bright green glasses stepped out of the fading ring and eyed her.
"Oh yeah. What are you wearing?" Lucy blinked.
"Um, excuse me?"
"You're Layla's girl, aren't ya? Look like her, you do." He paced a circle around her, and suddenly twin scissors appeared in his hands. "Can't say much for your style, girl. Too boring and stuffy." One had suddenly shot out and slashed at the bottom of her skirt. Suddenly it was layered and much - much - shorter.
"Hey! Hands, uh, scissors off, you perv!" Lucy shouted, sneaking a look at her new outfit in the mirror.
"You don't have the right parts to be my type, sweetheart," he shot back, raising his eyebrows. "Your mom was a spitfire too." His green glasses flashed with the starlight coming through the window. "You've taken a long time to call me, kid. Been what, eight years since..."
"Well, I'm calling you now! Look," Lucy said as she smoothed her new skirt, glad he couldn't see her bright red face in the dark, "I need your help."
He tilted his head, and his scissors clicked shut.
"I'm listening."
000
"Are you sure this is the only way we could do this?" Lucy asked nervously, shooting a glance at the open window. Cancer stopped snipping the drapes, and looked at her.
"Sorry, stupid question," she muttered, "Why wouldn't I want to climb out of a fifth-story window and down a bunch of tied-together sheets and curtains?"
"You asked me for a way to get out without setting off an alarm, and this is all I got, honey."
"Okay." Lucy dropped to her knees next to where he sat working. "How can I help? Wait, what did I say wrong?" she asked when she saw him stiffen.
"You clearly didn't grow up around celestial wizards." He said, hesitantly passing her a strip of what used to be a bedsheet, "Or you'd know how rare it is for a master to offer to help a spirit."
Lucy started, and said hotly, "But I don't want to just be your master, Cancer. If you're helping me run away, I'd like to be your friend, too."
His white teeth flashed in a smile as he helped her finish the knot between the bedsheet and the drapes. "I'd like that, Mistress. And I think that later we'd better put together a decent wardrobe if you're going to be a runaway. You can't sprint in a party dress."
Lucy grinned and tied the makeshift ladder to the iron decorations on the window. "Awesome!"
When finally everything was stored in a single backpack - truth be told, it hadn't been much, since everything other than her mother's keys, a few pictures, and her favorite notebook was nothing but the product of her father's bribery - Lucy leaned anxiously out of her window, and clenched the suddenly flimsy-seeming rope with white-knuckled hands.
The wind blew chills through her cropped t-shirt and short skirt, jingling the keys at her hip, and she paled when she saw the ground seem to waver far below.
"Don't look down," Cancer suggested helpfully from the bed.
"Will you stop it! Trying to focus, here!" she snapped, tentatively poking one foot outside the window. Cancer sighed dramatically, and walked over to her. Lucy eyed him suspiciously.
"Do you have a good hold, Mistress mine?" he asked sweetly, leaning on the windowsill.
"Yes, why?"
In answer, he pushed her the rest of the way out and shut the window.
"Cancer!" she hissed furiously. In answer, he grinned and waved. She almost screamed in frustration. "Freaking...annoying...crab!" she muttered as she slowly made her way hand-over-hand to the ground. Every once in a while, the wind seemed to try to shake her off the rope, and she was crying by the time she reached the bottom, but she made it.
She collapsed on the grass and attempted to hug the ground. "I will never take you for granted again," she promised.
Pushing herself to her feet, she once again summoned Cancer. "What the hell?" she demanded when he appeared, "You could have killed me!"
He examined his nails, saying, "And we could have stayed in that bedroom until morning, when your chance for escape had completely disappeared." He narrowed his eyes. "I would dismiss me, Mistress. You know the grounds better than I do, and one person can get much further without being seen than two people."
Lucy glared pointedly at him, clearly telling him that this was in no way over, and then closed his gate.
She made her way across the grounds she used to play on as a child, maybe for the last time. She circled around the servant's village, and stopped for a moment on the top of a hill almost at the edge of the Heartfilia property. She lifted the second key to the stars, and said, "Goodbye, Mom."