Different Seasons
Disclaimer: Still don't own Fairy Tail.
"Play me a song, bard."
Gray looks up thoughtfully at the blue sky and pulls out a flute from inside the tattered jacket that hangs from his broad shoulders.
"Any requests?" he asks quietly.
Juvia smiles. Hearing his voice, calm and compassionate, is her favorite music in the world. But she keeps that knowledge to herself. It wouldn't do for the kingdom to know that the princess was keeping company of a lowly wanderer.
Her prospects to accession have always been dubious given the low-born status of her late mother and the vicious campaign of misinformation run by her step siblings. There are times when she wishes to just abandon the poisoned struggle for power. But the thought of what one of her siblings would do should they be crowned as the next ruler chilled Juvia to her bones.
Murdering her in her sleep would be the smallest of the heinous crimes they would perpetrate.
So, tethered to the royal palace by honor and pride, surrounded by turncoats and schemers, to keep her sanity Juvia leaves the castle for a few months every year in guise of touring neighboring towns or hunting exercises.
On one of such outing last year she came across Gray. It had been right on the very hill they were currently lounging upon.
Unlike the men who surround her, Gray was neither garbed in expensive silk or studded with precious gems; he smells of fallen leaves and ice, and yet she finds him to be the most gorgeous man she has ever seen.
He was the only person in the world she felt truly happy to spend time with. They had met by coincidence and only after spending a month together, with minimal of efforts, they had become closest of friends.
Her outings have not yet drawn attention of the unfriendly eyes because she has carefully disguised them as regular tours of the neighboring towns and hunting exercises.
But that ruse would last only for so long. Eventually someone will notice something, by chance or design. And her happy haven would be taken away.
Gray always listens to her troubles, and offers advice when she asks for it. On days she would feel particularly crushed under the burden of her duty he would play soothing melodies that would take her far away.
Presently he is playing a song about a human king and a wayward Titan who meet by chance in a cave and later conspire to overthrow the gods.
Juvia loved that song. She felt a kinship with the king that she couldn't quite explain even to herself. Perhaps she sympathized with his great loss on some level.
In the song, the king is forced to take a pilgrimage, convinced that the gods have abandoned mankind, in search for answers. During the journey he meets with a Titan resting in a cave, banished from heaven.
The Titan tells the king all about the gods, their heaven, their luxuries and their apathy. He also shares with the enraged king ways to bring them down.
The king accepts the Titan's aid and launches an attack against the gods.
And that is where the tragedy begins.
The gods crush the king's rebellion, as expected. They take his wife and butcher his children. They kill everyone he ever shared a bond with, but curse him with immortality and set him loose to repent for his sins till the end of eternity.
But, as the king's endless wanderings are about to begin, something unexpected happens. The whole world freezes over and, along with everything else, the immortal king dies.
The gods are shocked, to say the least. How could someone they turned immortal die? Their power was absolute, their word infallible.
But that was not all. The Great Freeze that had the mortal realm in its grip was slowly encroaching towards the gods' heavenly abodes.
The heavens were in chaos till one goddess spoke- the goddess of harvest and fertility.
She was the only one who had objected to the butchering of the king's clan but had been overruled.
The goddess suggested to the vexed gods the existence of something that might be as powerful, if not more, as themselves.
The very notion was ridiculous, but so was that of an immortal being dying. So the outraged gods begrudgingly listened.
"Love," the goddess shared with her befuddled audience. "No human can live without it, and the king is no exception. But the curse of immortality prevents him from dying. So he is suspended between death and life, frozen in eternal winter."
But that made no sense, the gods argued. How could one puny man's loss not only encompass the entire world but threaten the security of heaven?
"Love is without reason or rhyme," the goddess said. "And if it consoles you, consider this as a rebellion from Nature herself to the heaven's continued indifference towards her children."
So after much deliberation the gods decide to return to mortal realm the only living member of the king's clan- his wife.
But since they are gods and cannot be seen bowing before a human they attach two conditions to it.
The first is that the wife could be born to any couple in any part of the world; the king would have to search for her on his own. She will be born and reborn for the rest of the eternity.
The second stipulation was that if the king does manage to find her, he cannot interfere with her affairs and can spend with her only three months in one lifetime. Any longer, and she dies.
The months they would spend together would be months of respite for the world from the harsh eternal winter. During those months the world would experience warmth and comfort.
The song ends, and Juvia's eyes flutter open. She had dozed off.
Smiling to herself she thinks, this must be what heaven feels like. She gazes around at the wild flowers pocking the green hill and tall blades of grass that sway with a lazy breeze.
The shade of the tree she reclines under is cool but everywhere else it's warm. A thick aroma of fresh blossoms cloaks the hill and the wind soughs through the tree.
They sit like that for a long while, without speaking, at ease.
But the blissful moment ends when Gray lumbers to his feet and announces, "I must be going now."
Juvia blinks, startled, and rises to her feet as well.
"Already?" she didn't meant to ask, to appear needy, but the words force themselves out.
He looks down at her with a soft smile on his lips. "No rest for the wicked," he says.
Juvia stares at him for a while, struggling to find the words to convey all the emotions that words of his departure raise within her- the joy, the hurt, the loneliness. Her struggle yeilds no eloquent speech so instead she hugs him fiercely.
And as she does, she could swear that the sun grew brighter, the aroma of flowers stronger and the chirping of birds much more melodious.
After a while, with much reluctance, Juvia pulls away. There are tears in her eyes but she doesn't feel any shame as she tries to blink them away.
A month is too little time to spend with him.
"Will I see you again?" she asks.
"In a few years," he brushes her tears away with the pads his thumbs.
Juvia nods. And after one long look Gray moves away.
"Farewell, Freya."
That's one of his eccentricities. Gray never calls her by her given name, and never gives a reason for it.
Juvia supposes she should mind, but if there's someone in the entire world whom she wouldn't begrudge a thing it would be Gray. Even if he has a poor taste in nicknames.
Freya was the name of the Rebel King's wife
The sun slowly slips down the western horizon and eventually sets on a warm spring day. And as a cool draft whispers through leaves overhead, making Juvia shiver, she concludes it has also been the last spring day.
Winter is here.
Juvia turns around and walks down the hill rubbing her arms for warmth.
Gray has impeccable timing. He arrives with spring and leaves right before winter. It's as if he's privy to the secrets of the gods of weather.
She prays that the next spring would arrives sooner; not realizing that Gray doesn't arrive with spring but spring comes with their reunion.
He calls her Freya because to him, in every life and era, she would always be his queen Freya.