Disclaimer: Fairy Tail isn't mine and so are the characters. They all belong to Mashima Hiro.
A/N: This is my drabble take on FT 396. Written out of waiting for 397.
Pain. It is the first thing that is registered in her system. It is spreading fast, making her lose control over her limbs. Her legs were the first to give in, buckling down from the numbness that followed the pain. It's ironic, she thinks. How the pain is hurting her yet numbing her senses all the while.
Lucy catches her in time as she fell. She remembers calling for him and Lucy swears to her she'll see him soon enough. Darkness envelopes her and she gives in. Lucy panics as she blacked out.
Time is running short. The poison is thoroughly invading her body, slowly destroying her organs, slimming down her chances of surviving. She might not have that much left. They need to act fast and get her treated lest it be too late.
But fate does not relent as their enemy drowns them in a sea of the same element that rendered her incapacitated. Natsu and Lucy can't do anything against it too and Gajeel is also on his way to unconsciousness.
Water. She knows she's in the presence of water, her own element, but it doesn't feel right. It doesn't heal her, doesn't soothe her. Instead, it felt like it is harming her. And it really does.
She chokes. Air. She needs air. She urges herself to keep on holding her breath because her magic is failing her. But alas, she can hold no more. She coughs and unintentionally swallows a mouthful of that toxic water. She's drowning. Air. But there is none and so she lets herself plunge deeper into oblivion.
She does not dream on any longer that she might make it. If anything, she knows she's just accelerated her poisoning by accidentally drinking that water.
At the back of her mind, the only thing she regrets most is that she wasn't able to see him for the last time and that she couldn't stay by his side and care for him in the distant tomorrow as per final request by his father.
How selfless of her that even in her current predicament wherein she may not come out alive, her thoughts are not of herself but of him.