Hola! Chaos here with another oneshot! Does anyone actually read these things? Le gasp! Maybe Hiro Mashima stalks around English fanfiction and pounces on unsuspecting authors? Scary!
Just to clarify things, the super fancy looking italics are dreams! And it was all a dream…
"Ugh…" Natsu groaned and tried to curl even further into himself as if it could protect him from the bouncing of the train.
"Every single time we go on a vehicle you get sick. Even when it's barely moving! How much more pathetic can you get?" Gray said from his seat next to Natsu. He had drawn the short straw and was forced to be the one closest to the sick dragon slayer.
"Shut up, you stupid strip-" Natsu's reply was cut off as he suddenly gulped to prevent losing his lunch. Gray gave a slight yelp and tried to press himself even further into the cold window.
"Don't puke on me, idiot!" He yelled and turned to look pleadingly at Erza. "Can't you knock him out like you usually do? Then we won't have to deal with his weird motion sickness!"
Natsu glanced up hesitantly to see Erza's reaction. It wasn't pleasant being knocked out every single time they went on the train but the alternative wasn't very good either.
Luckily for Natsu, or perhaps unluckily, Erza raised an eyebrow but leaned over the gap between the benches and lifted her armored fist that had given him so many bruises in the past. He shut his eyes to brace himself for the expected pain. The last thing he heard before he fell into the clutches of sleep was Lucy's curious voice saying, "It really is strange though. That he is afflicted so badly. I wonder if he has always been like this?"
"Igneel! Igneel! Let's fly!" A young Natsu shouted as he began to crawl up the giant, sleeping dragon that was Igneel.
"Huh? Natsu?" Igneel mumbled, as he was jolted from sleep by the five year old who was currently jumping on his head. He began to stretch from his curled up position and the movement caused Natsu to slip on the smooth scales. He made a surprised yelping sound but managed to keep himself from falling off by grabbing Igneel's webbed ear. Igneel gave a small grunt of pain and a warning growl, which Natsu just laughed off. "I'm trying to teach you survival skill here, kid. When a dragon as big as I am growls at you, you should back off."
"Sure, but I'm not afraid of you! You're just a big grump in the mornings!" Natsu said cheerfully and tugged on Igneel's ear a little. The dragon just grumbled something along the lines of 'disrespectful little brat' before standing up twisting his head around to get the crick out of his neck and to make Natsu have to hug his neck to stop sliding downwards. "So what was this about flying?"
Natsu instantly started bouncing again, causing Igneel to groan inwardly about how he was getting to old for this, "I want to fly again!"
"Fly? But last time I checked, you fall to your death every time you jump off a cliff. Have you grown some wings that I didn't know of?" Igneel asked teasingly.
"No, silly!" Natsu yelled and whapped Igneel's head lightly, knowing that he wouldn't feel anything because of the hard scales. "You'll fly and I'll sit here!"
"Really?" Igneel groaned exaggeratedly. "You woke me up this early for that? And it's still raining too!"
"Too bad! It's better at night and it's not like you're going to melt from some little water! You're a big, scary dragon! Sheesh!"
Igneel just smiled teasingly as he walked over to the entrance of the cave he had took refuge from the rain in last night. "Only one little flight, then we're going straight back so you can practice your dragon slayer magic and I can catch some more sleep."
Natsu smiled triumphantly and hugged Igneel tightly.
"Alright, here we GO!" The last word came out as a roar and Igneel let loose his tensed muscles and leaped into the sky. There was a brief moment of weightlessness before a gust of air and Igneel's wings snapped open in all their glory, glistening from the rain and moonlight. Natsu clung to Igneel with his legs and thrust his arms in the air and yelled with his adoptive father, "LET'S GO!"
With that shared roar of father and son, time unfroze and Igneel swooped downwards, rustling the branches of the trees underneath him and stirring animals from their nests. Igneel flew up again, seemingly straight up at the moon, which seemed so close to Natsu. He reached his hand up as if he could pluck the circle of milky light right out of the sky. Unfortunately, because of the angle they were flying up at, gravity pulled him down and he felt his legs slip away from the warm body of Igneel. His breath caught in his throat and the green forest rushed towards him. His heart thumped franticly and he looked up at the retreating back of Igneel. "DAD!"
The wind stung his face as he fell towards the earth. Terrified, he squeezed his eyes shut as hot tears flowed out of them. Suddenly, his downward motion stopped as his shirt was jerked upwards so violently that he was afraid for a second that it would rip.
"You're more trouble then you're worth, kid." Igneel's voice said, slightly muffled. Natsu opened his eyes, tears still pouring out, and looked up at his adoptive father. Igneel was flying back in the direction of the cave with the back of Natsu's shirt held delicately in his mouth. "You really had me scared there. Next time you are moving that fast, be more careful."
Natsu remained in a shocked silence till they reached the cave. Igneel set him down gently and the young Dragon Slayer sunk into a sitting position, keeping his eyes on the stone floor. Igneel stared at him for a moment before sighing loudly and plopping himself down in front of him.
"Wipe your tears, kid. I can't do it since I'd end up giving you a concussion." Natsu stared at him comprehendingly but rubbed his eyes with the shoulder of his shirt that soaked up the tears that he hadn't even realized he was still crying. He looked back up uncertainly at Igneel.
"Done? Good. Now, most parents would give some lecture or something but as we both know, I'm not most parents. So I'm just going to say this. It was your own fault, kid." Natsu felt the tears begin to return when he heard his father say exactly what he had been thinking. "I'm sor-"
"That was probably the bad karma for waking me up this early." Igneel finished, pointedly looking at the uninteresting rock formations of the cave. Natsu stared, shocked, at the dragon before yelling indignantly, "That is not the reason! Of course someone like you would be able to put the blame on such a stupid thing!"
Igneel just smirked at him as he settled back into his nest. "Well, I am your father, aren't I?" Natsu gawked at him before he proceeded to thump the dragon's side and yell at him till he eventually also fell asleep as the sun began to rise.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A year later found Natsu tear stricken again. He raced through the familiar forest, leaping over tree roots and searching through all of the caves. "Dad?" He shouted as he clutched at his white, scaly scarf like it was going to disappear as well. Igneel had given it to him as an unofficial birthday gift only a few weeks before now. When Natsu had asked him where he got the idea for it from, he had just shrugged and said that he had feeling he would need it. Igneel had been acting strangely recently. He was always watching the horizon like he thought that someone was coming for him and there were times that Natsu would wake up in the middle of the night to hear Igneel talking to someone. But none of that had really affected anything in Natsu's happy life. That is, until this morning when he woke up and reality came crashing down on his paradise with one simple fact. Igneel was gone.
He stopped for a moment to lean against a tree, panting heavily. He attempted to stand up again, only to stagger slightly from exhaustion. He turned his face up to the clear, blue sky, feeling like he could almost see Igneel's silhouette on the horizon. He blinked and the illusion was gone, leaving nothing but a boy alone in a quiet forest. The telltale prickling in his eyes had returned and he attempted to stand again only to fall to the floor. His eyes were burning hot and his hand shook from hunger but he took one last breath before shouting desperately, "IGNEEL!"
"Natsu! The train is about to leave! We have to hurry!" Makarov shouted at Natsu from further down the street. He had started straying behind again. He had lived with Igneel in the forest as long as he could remember. He had grown up surrounded by trees and catching fish for breakfast. All of these buildings and people talking and running around were so foreign to him. Natsu was so glad that this old man had offered to let him work in his guild. Without him, Natsu would still be getting run over by people too busy to notice a lost little boy.
"Coming!" Natsu said as he ran up to the ticket booth where Makarov was waving two red stubs of paper at him. He handed one to Natsu who squinted at the blocky letters as if it could help him decipher the meaning of the symbols. Igneel hadn't been too interested in teaching him reading. He had mostly just learned survival skills and Igneel's special magic.
Makarov sighed as he watched the boy's face scrunch up in confusion and he made a note to himself to teach the kid how to read once they reached the guild. "That is your ticket to get on the train." He explained.
"Oh!" Natsu said in an enlightened tone before he adopted a blank expression. "What's a train?"
Makarov groaned and pointed at the train in front of them. "That is a train."
"Whoa…" Natsu stared in awe at the metallic behemoth in front of him. Shiny, black metal in the shape of a box was on top of wheels the size of Natsu's entire body and all connected by dirty pistons. Smoke rose out of vertical pipes and Natsu couldn't stop staring at it. Trains were the most complex things that he had ever seen.
"Come on! It's about to leave the station!" The old man said and pulled Natsu over to an open door on the side of it that Natsu hadn't noticed. They managed to find an open seat after a few minutes and there was a slight movement under their feet as they sat down.
Natsu bounced in his seat as he looked out the window at the slowly moving pistons as they began to turn the numerous wheels. He was very excited to see what it felt like to be moving as fast as Makarov was currently telling him about. But as the train picked up speed, the nervous butterflies grew worse till he was hunched over and an unhealthy shade of green.
"Huh, Natsu? What's wrong?" Makarov asked when he noticed his companion's condition.
"I don't- umph!" Natsu gagged and held his rioting stomach. The old man worriedly held his hand against Natsu's forehead before asking in the most serious tone Natsu had heard him use in the short time he had known him, "Does your stomach hurt?"
Weakly, Natsu nodded and Makarov groaned.
"It looks like you're unfortunate enough to have severe motion sickness. Actually, it's the most severe I've ever seen. Has this ever happened before?"
Natsu shook his head before leaning it against the cool glass as he tried to tame the twisting feeling in his gut. He had gone much faster than this before when riding Igneel so why was he so sick? But riding Igneel had been much different. He could feel the muscles working underneath him, the warmth that always radiated off Igneel's scales because of the fire always burning inside of him , and most of all he had felt safe. Safe because he knew that nothing that could hurt him when Igneel was around. If someone threatened him, Igneel could always beat them. If he fell, Igneel would always catch him.
This machine had none of that. Natsu couldn't control it and it scared him. Everything was so scary now that Igneel was gone. He was just a six year old boy in a strange world heading to somewhere with a man he had only known for two days. He had no control over where he was going just like with this train.
Why did you have to go, Dad? Natsu wondered as he shivered and tried to hold back the now familiar tears that were blurring his vision. Why did you have to leave me?
I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea where this came from. I was trying to write my other story that isn't even for this series and I just opened a new document and started typing. The plot bunny just sort of teleported into my mind and ran with it. I'm not really sure about the ending but I think it turned out better than the nightmare I thought it would be.
I also wrote this because there are almost no angst or family stories for Fairy Tail. It's so sad! T-T
Please review. I stayed up till three in the morning typing this in complete darkness since I'm supposed to be asleep and I have a whole chapter I still need to write for my other story. If you can sympathize with me, then review!