Disclaimer: I don't own Natsu nor Gray, I kind of own Nashi and Platinum but not really. I own NONE of the other characters in Fairy tail since they belong to Hiro Mashima and nobody else.
Fire and ice
Natsu and Gray started their ascent up the mountainous terrain.
The lengthy trek up the craggy mountainside and cliff face was long and odorous and they each had to practically dig their heels into the rocky terrain.
Natsu carried Nashi on his back and clenched his fangs tightly as he felt sweat drip down his face. Nashi seemed completely oblivious to her father's strain as he stalked up the mountain side with as much effort put into each step as possible. He was absolutely determined to get to the top of this mountain before Gray since they both saw a more urgent reason to get this mission finished as soon as possible, to get to the bird and to win their race and their bet.
The dragon slayer noticed that his daughter seemed very intrigued with her surroundings as she looked around and tried grabbing everything she saw, even if whatever was in her sights were far away.
Natsu couldn't wait until he could take her on more missions, especially since she had already started showing aptitude for Fire magic in spite of her young age. He couldn't wait to show her how to fight and how to defend herself and he certainly couldn't wait until Lucy, Happy, Nashi and himself were capable into getting into many more escapades together whilst they went on more Guild jobs.
The thought alone made him break out into a huge smile.
"I-Interesting sights up here, a-a-ain't there...?" Natsu huffed breathlessly, managing a weak fanged grin as he glanced up at his little girl.
Nashi cooed and giggled as she kicked about happily in spite of being strapped to her father's back with his scarf, she seemed thrilled about the prospect of this adventure and Natsu felt his heart melt into a puddle of mush whenever he saw his baby girl's reactions to every little trip they took together. She may have been half a year old already but she was still Natsu's precious little girl and he wasn't going to let anyone tell him any different, especially not when she become a grownup...which he hoped wouldn't be too soon.
He heard that, when it came to parenthood, that the years tended to fly by quickly but he hoped that those sayings were false.
Natsu continued his climb up the mountain and, as he walked, he started to feel a presence that made him feel a bit uneasy and he couldn't explain it. His smile dropped and he couldn't help but slowly duck his head in between his shoulders, this making his scarf crease and bunch up, and Nashi stopped giggling and started to be quiet. Why did he feel as though he were being followed by some dark presence...? The fire wizard's salmon pink hair started to sway in the strong winds that blew and he felt his heart start sinking into his stomach and his dark obsidian eyes grew watchful.
He kept climbing and he could hear the sounds of rocks crumbling under reach step he made.
But he could hear something else.
"Bwirdy...!"
Hearing his daughter chirp joyfully, Natsu quickly glanced up and realised that Nashi had spotted a large bird that seemed to be circling from above and he could tell that it was something special due to how large it appeared despite it being so high up and it's form silhouetted against the blazing sun. One part of him was impressed that his daughter spotted it, another part of him felt joy that it was probably the bird from the mission so he could grab that feather and finish the race before Gray, and a third part of him —a larger majority of him, in fact— felt frightened of why it was circling like that.
Why was it doing that?
In spite of the fear he felt, Natsu decided to seize the moment and take the opportunity to praise Nashi as he glanced over his shoulder and looked to her with as gentle a smile as he could muster despite their situation.
"That's right, Nash-Nash! It is a bird!" He crooned.
He felt his heart swell with pride for his daughter being so clever but then he noticed that the bird started to show indications of swooping down, and that made him shiver internally when he saw it. He didn't want this bird to pick him up because he worried that the result would be Nashi tumbling out from his DIY scarf-strap and then getting hurt and the pink-haired pyro refused to let that happen!
Nashi idly cooed as she seemed oblivious as to what was going on.
Natsu narrowed his eyes in a focused manner, changing from onyx to jade in an instant, as he clenched his fists and set them on fire with his body emitting an aura of determination. His eyes remained skyward, never taking his gaze off the shadowed form of the large bird for even a second.
"Hold on, Nashi! Daddy's gonna try and grab the feather!"
That was when the bird apparently made a dive towards both the Dragon slayer and his daughter.
Swooping down like a hawk, the bird screeched so loud that it caused the whole mountain to shake.
Natsu almost lost his balance and fell off the mountain side but he somehow kept it and jumped high into the air and he tried to grab the tail feathers of the large bird-of-prey.
It was by now that he could actually see it and tell what it looked like.
It was a giant bird with purple mixed with periwinkle blue feathers and elegant-looking crest feathers on his head that looked somewhat like a lions mane. It had a sharp beak that seemed so sharp that it made the most sharpest of swords edges look extremely dull in comparison. It had large indigo wings that had sharp-looking primary feathers, massive and sharp talons, and it had rainbow coloured tail feathers. The bird glared it's crimson stilted eyes at the two pinkettes and then let out a loud, ear drum-piercing squawk that sounded monstrous.
Natsu released the tail feathers with one hand and used it to cover one of his ears to block out the screeching of a noise that was like a cheese grater to his inner ear, the sharp noise becoming unbearable for his sharp ears. He momentarily glanced behind him to look at Nashi and realised that she didn't have any protection and just let out a loud howl of a cry but it wasn't really a cry born from pain but more from fear.
Natsu's eyes widened in panic and he cringed.
The squawk doubled with his daughter's loud crying made for a killer of a noise.
Quickly, Natsu reached behind him and shoved one of his fingers into Nashi's mouth and felt the wet grossness of saliva among other things as she suckled on it; his finger acted as a dummy to try and silence her and keep her cries muted. As she found herself sucking on her father's finger she seemed to instantly stop squalling and her eyelids dropped a bit with pure relaxed contentment.
Now the dragon slayer faced a dilemma: he was gripping on tight to the tail feathers with one hand and soothing Nashi with the other.
Now what could he do?
He looked down towards the ground below and realised that this bird had sped up their travelling process so now there was some forestland right beneath where they were flying and it seemed that this patch of green and tree life was at the upper half of the mountain, near the top. He had to snap his eyes shut and swallow to keep from getting motion sick again and to keep from having vertigo.
Regardless of that, though, he had an idea.
He knew he wouldn't be able to grab any feathers this time...
Swallowing, Natsu announced loudly, "Okay! This is where we get off!"
Without another word the pink-haired dragon slayer released the bird's tail feathers.
And down went the Fairy tail wizard and his daughter as they plummeted downwards and they fell so quickly that it only took seconds until they were tiny specks from what the bird could see as it stared down from where it was, flapping its huge wings to keep itself airborne. When the two vanished into the world of green foliage down below it let out a vengeful hiss before it turned around and flew away.
Thankfully neither Natsu nor Nashi were injured by the fall but their landing could have been better.
Onyx eyes opened when Natsu found that both himself and Nashi had landed on the top of a large pine tree and he was upside down and the fall made him feel strangely euphoric but also quite trembly so he tried to right his position as he turned himself so he could be sitting upright...but all that did was end up breaking the canopy branches that saved him and his daughter so they fell once again.
Snap! Crack! Snip! Snap!
Those were the sounds that split Natsu's ears as he and Nashi made an unpleasant tumble towards the ground below; he landed to the ground with a loud "thud" and he found himself in yet another awkward position where he was laying on his back with his head on the ground and both his legs were leaning heavily up against the large, fat tree trunk.
He leaned his head back and got an upside down view of his surroundings.
Where was he?
Before he could think anything else, though, he heard the faint sounds of familiar giggling before he felt a lump drop down from above and land on his chest.
Hard.
He yelped out in pain when his upper half shot up and he looked down at what had fallen on him and what (or rather who) he saw made his eyes widen and his jaw drop to the grass. It was Nashi whom had fallen on him and she seemed in a much better mood then earlier as she was stretching her little arms out towards him.
She must have come out of the scarf during the fall.
Natsu didn't hesitate in grabbing his daughter and pulling her close to him, hugging her tightly as relief flooded his whole body like a massive set of waves lapping over a sandy beach shore. He swallowed back a huge lump that had formed in his throat as he choked on a sob that threatened to fly from his lips that started to quiver and tremble.
"O-Oh, Nashi! You're okay..."
Nashi cooed happily as she curled herself up into a ball and snuggled closely to her father's chest, gripping on to a strand of spiky pink hair while she was at it and she started tugging. Natsu winced a bit when he felt his daughter tug on his hair but he didn't mind much, this just further proved that she was alright. In the midst of all his emotions, though, he couldn't help but feel just a tiny bit infuriated and frustrated.
They were so close to getting that stupid feather but they lost the bird! He had been so close but then stuff had to happen and now Gray had probably tracked down the large bird and beaten him; he was going to be stuck wearing lipstick for a week.
He felt his arms shake and his fangs grit tightly as his jaw muscle tightened when he merely thought about it.
"Mmmmm...!"
Nashi let out a small whine of upset as she buried her face even further into Natsu's chest, nose-first.
Natsu instantly calmed down upon hearing his baby start whimpering like that, he didn't want to stress his beautiful girl out, not when she was with him! He forced his muscles to relax and he let loose a breath from the bottom of his lungs to try and get himself to calm down from his episode of silent vengeful brooding.
"Oh. Sorry, Nash-Nash, I didn't mean to get all tense like that..."
Nashi seemed to relax at her father's reassurance.
Natsu picked Nashi up into his hands, sliding his fingers beneath her underarms, and he brought her very close to his face as he pressed his nose against her tiny button one. The fire wizard crooned softly as he bounced her up and down in his hands to make her laugh —seriously, he would spend all day trying to get both his wife and his daughter to smile if he were given the chance. He loved how Nashi's eyes were almost exactly like Lucy's and he couldn't get over how beautiful she was.
"D'awww, you're so cute! Dada wuvs you so much! Yes he does, yes he-"
"Flame brain!?"
Natsu's eyes widened and his whole face turned as red as a ripe strawberry while he fought the urge to let out an exasperated sigh when his moment had been interrupted. He knew who it was who disturbed the moment between him and his precious little treasure and he instantly felt a fiery fury because of that alone. His smiling face dropping into a huge frown with glowering eyes and he turned to face the man responsible for ruining his precious moment.
Gray was panting heavily with Platinum cradled in his embrace, the boy had fallen peacefully asleep in his father's arms and seemed oblivious to all that was going on right now. He looked as though he'd ran a marathon with his cheeks reddened and he looked as though he were about to topple over and pass out on the spot and he looked as though he were in the midst of having a hot flush even though he normally had a freezing cold body temperature.
Natsu would have laughed were it not for the annoyance he felt towards the ice-maker wizard.
"How did...how did you...get here...so fast? And what...happened to...you?"
Natsu glanced up at his own head and only just noticed that there were about a dozen leaves, twigs and tree sap stuck in his salmon pink spikes of hair, and he also noticed that he was covered with more tree sap on the rest of his body. He must have looked like a sap-covered wreck right now. He then glanced over at the breathless Ice-maker mage with a look that would put even the darkest room to shame.
He replied with a voice as sharp as a pair of scissors.
"...None of your beeswax, Ice princess."
A/N: Here's the second chapter, guys! Hope you like it! :D
Theres some more fluff in here, too.
Please review and fave.
-Chloemcg
