AN-My first published story in english. Yay us :D!
I tried to write the prompts from the grayza week as different from the other submissions as I could. Hope I made a good job at that. I also hope you find this entretaining. I'll see you guys at the end of the page ;D.
Train of Memories
The train ride was painfully slow. Due to the heavy snow falling outside, the vehicle wasn't running at full speed & the train cars were unusually gelid.
Moreover a young Erza Scarlet had to cope up with her freezing piece of armor & a certain ice mage that just made everything worse.
She might as well take off her frozen armor but she wasn't really eager to part with her shielding metal outfit & deal with the feeling of vulnerability that came with her armor-less status.
Her ice-cold companion would have to be the one to give in. She had to ask nicely first though.
"You're cold. Stop it" Ezra's request sounded more like a demand thanks to her harsh tone.
"W-what did you expect? I'm an ice mage, I should be cold" Gray answered trying to sound tough but failing a little by stuttering at the very start. Erza really intimidated him to no end.
"I know that, but right now you're overdoing it" she accused.
"I can't control it" he replied.
That wasn't a lie but it wasn't the whole truth either and she could see right through it.
"That's not true" she accused. "Right now you're as cold as a dead body; it's not funny"
"H-hey, that's mean…and I'm not trying to be funny!" Gray defended.
Erza saw he was being honest, but didn't back down with the interrogatory.
"Why are you giving off so much glacial air, anyway?" she demanded.
"I'm sorry, it happens when I feel uneasy" Gray answered clearly uncomfortable.
"Well, stop feeling uneasy, then" she ordered.
"I wish it was that easy" he hoped.
"If you can't control it then don't sit so close to me" she declared with an annoyed voice.
"Sorry" he apologized honestly.
To prove he was genuinely sorry he stood up to sit in the seat in front of her.
In spite of him being an ice mage, the weather was unusually rough for him to handle & he wasn't wearing anything aside from his underwear, which didn't help much to fight the cold.
He was unable to control the violent quiver that shook his body.
"An ice mage shivering? That's quite the sight" Erza mentioned amused.
"S-shut up, even as an ice mage I'm just a normal human being, who can get chilly from time to time" he stuttered not out of shyness but because of his trembling frame.
He brought his knees up to his chest trying to warm his body at least a little more. Even with his ability to endure insanely low temperatures this was a bit overdoing it, he was just 9 years old; for an ice mage as young as him this conditions were extreme.
By that time, Erza had already equipped a thick blanket to add over her clothed body to withstand the hostile weather.
"I thought you liked the cold" she muttered while feeling some sympathy for the shivering boy in front of her.
"Uh…eh-I…I like it, but this is a bit too much" he stammered thanks to the cool air filling his lungs.
She was aware that the weather was freaking cold. Especially since she was using all the shirts that could fit under her armor & a blanket to cover her, yet she was shivering as much as him who wasn't wearing anything excepting his underwear.
But, nonetheless, she wasn't about to let slip the fact that he had stripped & lost his clothes even if she tried nearly every day to beat that terrible habit out of him.
"Serves you right for always stripping, pervert" she retorted snuggling into the quilt.
Gray felt like crying; Erza was being really cruel right now & he couldn't find the courage to try his hand at a reply as it was.
Instead of the rude reply she was expecting from him she received an honest answer she wasn't really anticipating.
"I can't help it, it's something I do subconsciously" he half spoke half yelled, while his shaking voice revealed how vulnerable he really was.
The weakness he showed her gave her goose bumps that had nothing to do with the weather.
"My teacher tried to teach me to be one with the cold, I know she didn't mean that I should take my clothes everywhere, I don't like losing my clothes or being considered a pervert at all, but still, every time I feel the chill air in my skin I k-kind of feel closer to her" he muttered softly with so much tenderness as if recalling the happy times he spent with his teacher.
The authenticity in his voice struck a chord inside Erza. He was freezing; he was actually freezing. It was the first time she had seen the young boy fighting the cold. Even when he could endure temperatures that normal people couldn't he was still a little boy. He was only human.
"You seem to be freezing, would you like to share?" she started awkwardly holding up the edges of the heavy fabric. She had absolutely no idea how to invite him to join her under the blanket.
"It's okay; I'm an ice mage, right? T-this should be nothing to me" he replied while hugging himself tighter, he tried to look okay but he couldn't restraint his body reactions like the uncontrollable shivering or how pale his skin was turning, at least he wasn't sneezing, for now.
"The blanket is big enough for the two of us..." she offered clumsily.
He shook his head in a rigid fashion; his muscles were probably as stiff as stone due to the coldness.
"If I can't stand this weather my deceased teacher will be disappointed" he managed to choke persistently.
But Erza was having none of it. It was hard enough to open to him as it was. He didn't need to make things more difficult for her.
"Would you please stop being stubborn & accept that you are cold?" she commanded harshly.
Gray flinched a bit at her scary tone. But her face had this worried look that made him trust her.
Reluctantly he stood up from his seat & sat next to her. He moved closer to cover himself with the blanket she offered him to share.
He felt her tremble when his icy feet came in contact with the side of her thigh & he tried his best to not give off any more frosty air.
He cuddled next to her & even if she felt him shiver when his bare shoulder touched the biting metal of her shoulder pad she didn't hear him complaining.
A light smile graced her lips.
She figured it was all-right to let her barriers down just for a little while, after all he had shown her weaknesses to her. He had bared himself in front of her not only physically but emotionally. He was her comrade, if something happened he would fight alongside her. It was ok, she decided; just this once.
When she unequipped her armor he looked surprised but didn't say a thing.
She cuddled closer, expecting to get some more warmth.
"Jeez, you are certainly cold as a dead body" she complained in a gentle whisper but didn't move away from him.
"Could you stop saying that? I'm not dead" he pleaded with a soft tired voice.
He sounded so caring & gentle it was inevitable for Erza to start harboring any kind of affection for the black haired boy.
That's right. He wasn't dead. Even if his body felt frosty there was this special warmness in him; the irrefutable proof that he was alive...
That was so many years ago, yet she still held the memory dear. It was the day she discovered the peculiar warmness of a living person; that comforting heat that relaxed her and intrigued her all the same.
Despite being an ice mage he used to have the most reassuring & pleasant warmth when he was alive.
And as she held his lifeless body against her chest she could still feel that special warmth, the proof that he was subsisting was no longer in him…just the lingering warmth that remained in his body as the proof that he was once alive...
A.N.- When eating beef I used to joke around saying that if I let it cool down too much it would taste like corpse's behind...Till my mom told me that she once touched the corpse of a beloved someone. She said that when someone dies their body has this special warmth you can't describe easily but even if it's cold you know it was warm once. Even if they're not alive anymore you know they once were.
I nearly cried...& then started typing this to deal with the feeling of sadness that filled me in that moment. Hope you like it & I promise I won't write more angst like this anytime soon. There's too much sadness in the world to add up even more, but this was an exception cause even if it's sad I felt it had this unexplainable melancholic beauty to it.
Keep in tune for the rest of the prompts & if you got something to tell me do not hesitate to press that review button & type to your heart's content ;D.
Kiosé over & out