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Chapter 1: A Meeting in the Snow.

They were swallowing everything whole, consuming his world, drinking away everything. The Shadows.

Someone called his name, but her voice was so faint he could barely hear her.

He had to get up.

He had to protect them.

His friends, the future, the world, all of it, he had to protect everything.

But it was so dark. So very, very dark. The dark was so strong it was… strangely comforting. Like hiding beneath the covers, hiding from the pains and miseries of life, hiding away from the whole world.

And so it was that Natsu Dragneel slipped away, into the darkness.

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"Gray, pay attention!" a hand lightly bumped the top of his head.

"Huh?" Gray rubbed the top of his head having zoned out for a moment "Oh, sorry" he apologised half-heartedly. He then immediately went back to doing exactly what had distracted in the first place, staring intently at something in the snow.

A hand bumped his head again "Gray!"

Ur, his mentor, who was wearing her 'training outfit', or her underwear as most would call it, snapped at her newest pupil as he zoned out again.

"Ow, dammit stop hitting me" he whined. That blow had been distinctly harder than the precious one.

"Then pay attention."

"Yeah, Gray, pay attention" Lyon teased his junior pupil with a smile. It was always fun to see someone not you getting told off.

"Hey, Ur?" Gray asked slowly, still not quite paying attention and not gazing in her direction.

"What?" she responded, not unkindly but none to happily either.

"Is that… a person?"

Ur turned to where Gray was pointing, as did Lyon.

"Oh" so that's what he was staring at she realised, trying to figure out if that patch of not white in the distance was a body or not, and, looking carefully, it did look damnably like a body didn't it? Ur bit back a curse, dealing with a corpse was never fun, dealing with a corpse when her two young students were nearby would be less so "Wait here" she told them firmly before making her way over.

The snow was pretty deep over here, up to the middle of her shins, and the body was half buried in it "Hey" she called grabbing him, for it was a him, by the shoulders and pulling him free of the snow.

He was warm, she could feel that just from his shoulders, and that was a good sign but it made Ur pause. He was unnaturally warm, despite the freezing cold, despite the snow, the ice and the chilling wind the body which had been lying here long enough to become buried in snow was strikingly warm, hot even.

She brushed snow from his face, revealing pink hair and a youthful visage. He was in his late teens, maybe fifteen at the youngest, and only if he was a very old looking fifteen year old, to possibly twenty, and only if he was a very young looking twenty year old "Hey" she called again, slapping him lightly on the cheek in an attempt to wake him.

Ur paused and touched his cheek again examining something this time, a scape on his cheek. In fact his entire cheek was covered in scrapes and cuts, looking down at the rest of him, and brushing away snow, half melted from his body heat she noted, Ur found more injuries on his body, including more than a few that could have been caused by one thing alone "Magic…" 'Then he's a mage?' she pushed those thoughts to one side and instead made sure he was breathing and had a pulse, he could just be a very warm corpse, a very, very warm corpse.

Confirming those two things Ur wrapped an arm around him and dragged him up, struggling with his weight "Lyon, Gray, come and help me out!" she called for her pupils who hurried over.

Lyon approached cautiously "Ur, is he…"

"He's alive, for now" she mumbled the last part under her breath.

Gray poked the guy, who was leaning heavily as Ur couldn't properly support his weight "Who is he?"

"How should I know? Now help me!"

Gray didn't move instead stared intently at the face "I don't like him."

"Gray!"

"Yeah, yeah" he grabbed the guys other arm and took some of the weight on himself while Lyon fell in beside Gray helping as best he could.

Together they managed to drag the young man all the way home, to the house they lived in with Ur which sat alone on a snowy plateau, guarded by two pine trees on either side.

They tumbled into the home, Lyon managed to trip both himself and Gray up as he opened the door while carrying a portion of the weight of this guy. That in turn caused a sudden increase in weight on Ur, who wasn't expecting it, and caused her to be dragged down into a pile with the injured man they were carrying.

Ur heard a groan, it was faint and muffled but she definitely heard it, coming from the man whose face was currently pressed between her mostly exposed breasts.

She struggled up and grabbed his shoulders again, pulling him from atop her students and laying him flat on the floor "Hey you there?" she asked, gazing intently at his face.

Bleary black eyes slowly opened up, when he tried to move his face twisted into a pained wince.

"It's okay, don't try to move" she pressed her hands on his shoulders.

Those eyes gazed at her intently, as intently as they could given that he was struggling just to keep them open. A frown marred his expression "U…Ul…"

"Hmm?" Ur paused, was he… trying to say her name? "You know me?"

But he was gone, his eyes closed, asleep possibly, unconscious probably.

Ur sighed. Whoever he was she couldn't just let him die "Lyon, grab the first aid kit would you. You know where it is. Gray, help me drag this guy to the spare room."

Though Gray grumbled he helped her and soon they had him laid atop a futon in the room that had once been her daughters but had since been turned into little more than storage space.

Ur placed her hand on his forehead, and flinched it back seconds later "Ouch… he's hot."

"Really?" Gray said sat opposite her on the other side of the futon "Doesn't look all that attractive to me, but I'm not a girl I guess."

Sighing Ur reached over and grabbed Gray's hand, placing on the man's forehead "I meant he feels hot."

"Ow!" Gray pulled his hand back, blowing cold air on the flat of his palm "Dammit, he is hot."

"Really? Doesn't look all that attractive to me" Lyon commented just now walking in with the first aid kit.

Ur almost giggled but restrained it to an amused grin. Gray and Lyon were so similar, despite having such vastly different appearances, it was almost like they were real brothers.

Gray growled "I meant hot as is heat!"

"Alright, enough of that. We need to bandage up his wounds" Ur told them, stopping their impromptu argument.

His shirt was in such a mess that she simply tossed it to one side, it was little more than a few scraps of cloth that hung precariously onto his body, and now got a good look at the variety of injuries that he was covered in.

Lyon bit back a gasp, and even Gray flinched and looked away.

His body was a mess of wounds and magic burns and scrapes, there were more than could be counted and certainly more than could be tended to.

"Lyon" she raised her hand, not moving her gaze from the man, and Lyon handed her the first aid kit.

Focusing on his major injuries was all she could right now, given that she only had what there was in the kit, and so that's what she did, ignoring the smaller bumps and cuts in favour of the more serious wounds.

It took her two hours and the entire contents of the box to finish, leaving him looking like some half wrapped mummy, his lower chest was almost entirely covered, as was one of his legs, bandages also wrapped around his forehead and one of his arms.

Ur sighed and leaned back, who knew giving medical attention took so much out of you, especially when all your experience was dealing with small cuts and bruises, sometimes broken bones, and quite often frostbite.

"Ur… what now?" Lyon asked.

"For now, all we can do it wait for him to wake up…" she glanced up at the ceiling, leaning against the wall closest to her "You guys go get some rest, I'll keep an eye on him."

Hesitantly Gray and Lyon left,

"Ul…"

Ur bit her lip, she was almost certain he was trying to say her name, almost completely certain that through the daze and the pain he was trying to call to her. But why? She had never met him before, as far as she remembered.

'Maybe he's heard of me' she wasn't exactly unheard of after all, Lyon had come seeking her as the strongest mage.

She leant over him again, brushing pink locks from his face "Just who are you?"

Okay, this is my NatsuXUr fic, the first of its kind I believe. Expect updates to be slow, I've gotten some of this written out but I'm focused on other things right now.