I was inspired to write this during the middle of writing Icy Waters. I've become quite taken with this pairing, and its sheer angst potential.
Once, there was a boy who turned her rain into snowflakes.
Juvia didn't remember much of her time at specific orphanages from her childhood. She'd resided at so many, transferred from every single one once the perpetual rain became unbearable, and her misery was so great, that pinning down a memory to any one of them in particular was difficult at best. They'd sort of all blurred together, for the most part. Into rain dolls, unrelenting downpours, bullying, and the knowledge that she was never going to find a family thanks to her gloominess. The adults and other children had hammered that point home long ago.
There were spots of brightness in the murk of her childhood, though they were few and far between. They stuck out in Juvia's memories, shining like beacons, preventing her from giving up all those years ago. And one of these was of a fellow child, with hair as white as snow.
He'd been her constant companion at one of the orphanages. Juvia could no longer clearly recall his face, but the warmth of his friendship was something she still treasured.
The clearest image she had of him, was on a day where the downpour fell harder than normal – mixing with normal rain and drowning everything in sight. He'd stood beside her outside in the small yard, their umbrellas overlapping. His shoulder brushing her ear, he was a little taller than her, despite being a year younger. A lifetime apart in age (or so Juvia felt at the time). To her surprise, he'd extended his arm into the torrent of water, letting it wash over his palm and through his digits in a waterfall.
Gradually, it slowed, as if it were molasses. Juvia watched with fascination as it began to freeze. So absorbed by the strange sight, that it took her a while to notice that she no longer heard the steady thrum of rain on their umbrellas. Her breath fogged in the chilly air, and Juvia finally looked around her.
White flakes drifted to the ground – melting upon impact at first, but as the ambient temperature continued to plunge, they began to stick, and pile up.
Juvia was spellbound. Such beautiful patterns in every snowflake… she could stare at them forever. Her dreary rain had become something so beautiful, and the sound of water replaced by a heavy quiet.
The children were forced back inside far sooner than either would have liked, and on the verge of hypothermia.
It was the last Juvia ever saw of the boy, shuffled off to a new place once again.
She never stopped thinking about the snow.
When they met on the battlefield, almost twenty years later, Juvia did not recognize him, nor did Invel recognize her.
If they had, perhaps their confrontation would have ended much differently, and there wouldn't have been rain, nor snow falling upon them. Instead, it would have been full of sunshine, full of warmth.
And no blood would have stained the ground between them.