A bird whistled, the sound having caught the bluenette's attention. Her head whipped around and decided the best idea was to follow the sound; fortunately for her, she knew birds had a good sense of direction. She looked around for the bird, and saw it fly off of a branch and through the trees. Birds. Good sense of direction. Run!
Levy started sprinting after the brightly coloured bird, the creature ducking and dodging the branches as it flew through the trees. The solid script mage found herself tripping over the many roots that seemed to leap up beneath her, puffing as she ran after the feathered animal.
All too quickly, it seemed as if the bird disappeared from her sight. Levy's eyes widened in terror, the flurry of feathers had seemed like her last hope for getting out of these blasted woods. As she ran forward, short of breath, a desperate attempt to find the winged creature again, a root reached out and grabbed her foot, pulling her to the earth.
Levy quickly fell through the air and landed on the dirt covered ground, her head barely missing the root a few inches in front of her.
"If I had been any taller…" She muttered to herself. It was then the desperation of her situation finally hit her. Levy hit the ground with her fist, tears swelled in her eyes. It was nowhere near time to cry, she could spend the tears of happiness when she got back to the guild. Frowning with determination, she untangled her foot from the root of the tree behind her and sat down. As she cleared her mind of all fears, she listened to the surrounding area.
A river! Close enough to be heard faintly. Levy grinned in relief. Where there was water, there was life, all she had to do was follow the stream! As Levy went to get up, a sharp pain reverberated through her ankle. The bluenette gasped as she grabbed her ankle, gritting her teeth and she tried to subdue the pain. Levy looked back at the root that had captured her ankle and frowned at it, before sighing as she realised there was nothing she could do about it.
Her magic was depleted from the battle she had entered into not to long before the situation she now found herself in, which meant she was in no position to do anything about her ankle. Levy sighed, she would use her headband as a makeshift bandage, at least until some of her magic had been replenished.
Levy groaned as she got up. As she looked around for a stick, she used the tree behind her as support. There was no way she was going to get anywhere without some sort of object to lean onto. When the bluenette couldn't find anything on the ground in the immediate area, she internally groaned. Levy put her foot on the ground to test how painful it would be to hobble around.
The solid script mage held back a cry of agony. The amount of pain that rushed through her ankle was nothing compared to the many times she had fought for her guild. A rush of determination surged through her body; she staggered in the direction she thought the water was.
As she hobbled through the forest, she seemed to almost leap from tree to tree off of her good ankle. It seemed to take an eternity before the blue haired mage finally reached the stream. The scenery took her breath away. The fish swam upstream against the current. The rocks were covered in a delightfully green moss. Levy noticed the weeping willows on the surrounding banks, and how their branches flowed into the water and with the current.
Levy breathed out with amazement. Becoming lost had probably been one of the best things to have happened. Along with having been one of the worst. Looking around, she spotted small town to her right, which happened to be on the other side of the river. The blue haired mage looked into the waters, she asked herself if the idea that had popped in her head was good enough to actually follow.
"Not even in the slightest…" She murmured to herself. Levy looked down at her ankle, mustering as much magical power as she could. "Solid Script: Heal!" The mage focused all her energy on her injury. She hoped with all her might her magic would heal her ankle enough to cross the inevitable stream.
There was no way she would sit down and wait another hour for her damned dragon slayer to show up. She had been there, and done that. Five hours beforehand. Then, out of nowhere, some stupid creature had to have found her before the iron eating slayer did and voila. Out of magic again.
Taking a deep breath, the blue haired mage looked towards the town for encouragement. As she looked towards it, she noticed a branch hanging from the tree. She deemed it worthy of being able to help keep her balance and stumbled over slippery rocks to get to it.
Levy reached out her hand towards the branch. The dangling brown wood seemed to laugh at her as the slight wind pushed the tree away from the tips of her fingers. Frowning, she waited for the wind to stop blowing, the stick stopped moving and landed perfectly in her hand.
The solid script mage smiled in victory as she leaned away from the tree to break off the branch. When the brand snapped off, Levy felt her ankle slip off of the rock beneath her. The blue mage's breath hitched in her throat as she fell further and further away from the tree, and closer and closer to the ground beneath her. Or the stream beneath her.
As the water engulfed her, Levy forced herself up to the surface as soon as she could. When she broke through the water into the air, she blinked several times as the water streamed into her eyes. The solid script mage had definitely not expected that to happen.
Levy tried to find something that could be grabbed in an attempt to stop herself from being washed down the river by the current. She did not like the chances of coming face-to-face with a waterfall a few hundred meters down, nor the thought of possible sharp rocks that lurked in the foam filled waters.
As her fingers scraped the bottom of the stream, she found it more and more difficult to actually reach the bottom. Her feet that had been digging into the mud were slowly coming back into the waters rather than the mud. The situation looked terrible.
Levy was suddenly whisked away from the safety of the shallow waters, the current being much faster than it had looked when she was standing above the stream. The blue haired mage gasped at the sudden propulsion, which led to water being thrust down her throat as she splashed through the rapid waters.
As Levy tried to stay atop the stream, she found her muscles were screeching in protest at the use of her injured ankle. The circumstances had started to look grim; but Levy was a Fairy Tail mage. There was no way in heaven nor hell she would let this measly little adventure be the end of her.
Not that it would ever be the end of her. The rocks she had thought might have been lurking at the bottom of the stream were jagged and thankfully above the water line, this gave Levy enough time to manoeuvre herself so she barely missed the sharp edges.
As the blue haired mage flew past a sharp rock, she turned her head to see another one approaching at a sickening speed. The chances of avoiding it completely, didn't look good.
As she tried to push herself away from the rock, her foot scraped up against a ragged point on the pillar.
Levy screamed out in pain, the shock of the injury caused her to sink beneath the waves, engulfing what seemed like more than a gallon of the murky substance that surrounded her. The solid script mage came up coughing and spluttering. The blood being lost from her foot causing her to steadily become weaker.
The blue haired girl hoped with all her might that she would be able to get to the banks safely before the darkness robbed Levy of her consciousness. When she saw the river freed of the sharp rocks, she started to push herself along with the current, not having wanted to waste a moment being stuck in the turbulent waves.
Her limbs became heavier with each stroke through the water. As she swam, she panted more and more as the effort to stay afloat increased. With each breath, new water was sent down her throat, causing Levy to choke and swallow more water, which created an endless loop.
It was when the solid script mage saw the town closer than ever before did her hopes rise, only to be diminished by the shadow that looked over her, and a quick decent into the darkness.
The first thing Levy noticed when she awoke was the warmth beneath her, partnered with an inconsistent sway. She felt a pressure on her foot and came quickly to the conclusion that whoever was carrying her had enough medical knowledge to bind a wound, and enough strength to carry her. Not that it would be that hard.
Suddenly, her carrier stumbled and expressed vividly his language spectrum, which caused levy to gasp slightly and grap on to the man's shirt, to to be exact his hair. Which caused even more 'expressive' language to occur.
The man's red eyes turning around to meet Levy's, before carrying on, not once entertaining the thought of letting her down.
"Welcome back from the dead, Shrimp."
Levy blinked from bewilderment. "H-how did you find me?" Levy inquired, the question buzzing around in her head.
"It was pretty hard considering you entered a lake, lost track of your scent." Gajeel responded huskily. "It's lucky Lily found you by the river when he did." Levy heard a small laugh to her side. She turned her head to see the exceed flying beside them, not a drop of moisture on his entire body, and suddenly being shouted at for snickering.
"What are you laughing about cat!?" Gajeel growled, before mumbling something about Lily being a damned cat under his breath.
The blue haired mage thought about this, with her entire being still soaked by the waters, there was no way that Pantherlily would be completely dry. Gajeel on the other hand, was not only wet from having Levy on his back, but if she listened carefully, aside from the crunch of the dirt and rocks beneath his feet, there was also the squelch of his feet sinking slightly into his wet boots every time he took a step.
Levy smiled slightly to herself. The dragon slayer had probably searched for Levy high and low before finally having found her, and then warned Lily not to say anything.
"Thanks, Gajeel." She said to him, head resting against his shoulder once again. She felt the red-eyed man turn his head slightly towards hers before he turned it forwards once again.
"No problem, Shrimp."
Hello again, this time a GaLe fic! I'm off school now, so maybe I'll be getting a few more fics up over the next few weeks.
How did you guys feel about this length? If you want longer, I will happily create a longer fic!
I think the next fic will be a GaLe/NaLu multi-pairing one-shot~ So look out for that.
TheiaNeko~