about the way you make me feel
Characters: Juvia Lockser, Gray Fullbuster
Summary: How it all begun.
Warning: Gruvia from a not-so-romantic-angle
Based on the following headcanon a friend had.
Juvia's body is, as we know, made of water. Ur, Gray's teacher who loved him and Lyon enough to sacrifice her life for them by sealing Deliora (and Gray's darkness), was molten shortly before Juvia first appeared. Ur's body and (as we learned later on) her conciousness became part of the ocean. Mel's theory is that Ur's strong emotions, her deep and self-sacrificing love for her student somehow got transferred into Juvia when she came in contact with the water. As Juvia does not share the past ur had with Gray but only the emotion, she is kind of confused about it at first and then believes it to be love on first sight.
Or as Mel put it: Eternally remaining within the waters, Ur promised that she would always be watching over her two pupils. To this day, it is a promise she has not broken yet. By residing in the waters of Juvia Lockser, Ur can figuratively stand by both Gray Fullbuster and Lyon Vastia, her love for the two males resounding through the Water Mage.
Dedicated to, well, Mel, Ray and Klara. You guys rock, yes.
For sixteen years, her heartbeat had been the same monotonousbumpbumpbump. No matter what had happened, it had been as steady as the rain that always surrounded her. And all of a sudden, she was looking at a stranger who was – from an artistic point of view – probably handsome but he was also the enemy and she knew better than to consider an enemy attractive.
(Even though he really was.)
But no matter how it was and no matter how she tried to estimate his skill, she could not really concentrate – and the reason that she was S-class was that she was good, no, great at concentration and intelligent and all – because a part of her was singing.
He-is-alive-he-is-alive-he-is-alive-he-is-alive-he-is-really-truly-alive-thanks-god.
And a part of her did not see him as the stranger he was, no, it was not the feeling of foreign-ness, unfamiliar-ness that usually came along with a new person, no, it was something else, something she had never felt before. Some sort of Hey-I-know-you-and-I-know-how-you-like-your-tea-feeling which was, in all honesty, the weirdest thing that ever happened to her.
And many weird things had happened to her along the years.
(Hell, Gajeel-kun was eating iron for heaven's sake.)
And there were feelings inside her chest, feelings she did not know, feelings she did not understand because she had never experienced them before.
One of them, she faintly recognised because once, it had been her dream. It was the feeling of the inner peace, of the peace of mind someone achieved after coming back home from a long absence, a feeling of belonging, of tranquillity – of home.
Then, something else.
Something she had craved all along, something she could not put into words although the key to it all seemed to be so close, she could faintly see it in front of her but it was out of her grasp.
Her lack of focus showed soon, she lost the battle and her pride as an S-class mage of Phantom Lord because this was embarrassing, it was so pathetic of her to lose against some wannabe mage from Fairy Tail with pretty ice magic, a magic that should be useless against her.
It was not. It would never be.
And this was a realisation she had no idea where she had taken it from. She never lost twice against the same opponent, usually, she did not even lose once. She had taken down Gajeel-kun, countless times, when he had been a little bit too arrogant and too confident, she had defeated all mages in her guild aside from the master and Aria.
So why would she lose against this … Gray? Her mind helpfully supplied although she did not remember ever hearing his name before. And why had she lost without even using her strongest spells? He might be older but she was at least as experienced as him, if not even more so because she was the only known water mage in all Fiore at the moment and so people were willed to pay tons of jewel just for her to take care of something.
(People who did not care if it rained while she was there.)
(People who wanted someone for the dirty jobs.)
And then, sunlight fell onto her face as happiness and warmth spread through her body, starting at her fingertips. And peace swept over her, a peace of mind she had never felt before. It was like falling through the sunlight, falling into a hidden lake high up in the mountains.
And the feeling inside her chest was understood, all of a sudden. It was some kind of deep, all-forgiving, never-failing, never-wavering,self-sacrificing love – a love she had never had experienced in her entire life, a love that scared her because she had just met him and while he had shown her the sun – and my, this sunlight was beautiful – he was a stranger.
Only, he did not feel like one.
Quite the opposite. He felt like home-warmth-belonging-coming-back-after-a-long-absence and this was actually very nice and she did not know but perhaps, maybe, loving him would be not that hard, no? He was no bad person after all, was he?
Inside her, the sense of peace settled in.