Day 2: Glasses.
*Warning, if you have not started reading the Tartarus Arc then think twice before reading. It contains spoilers.*
AN: That being said, I have not Finished the Tartarus Arc, so for those who have I'm sorry if this doesn't go along with how it ended.
It's kinda sad, but I like how it turned out.
Hope you like it!
!Thanks to those who followed, favorited and/or reviewed I appreciate it!
You would think that after the defeat of Tartarus everyone would be celebrating the victory, actually everyone was, but not Lucy. While the guild had a massive party with several other guilds joining them, Lucy had locked herself away in the guild library scouring for books on Celestial Magic and Keys. She had positioned the tables into a giant square with her rolling chair in the middle of it. She had open books littering all four of the tables, hopping from one table to the next in some spastic order. I had no idea why she was so hell bent on reading when we could be upstairs drinking or even better alone in her apartment.
She ignored anyone who had the balls to interrupt her; growling when they would touch a book or block her view of them. I was the only one that seemed capable of interacting with her without a threatening growl, she would usually respond with 'not now' or 'there's no time for that' when I asked her about eating or drinking. Knowing how my Bunny could be, I let her do whatever she was doing, as I stood by the door baring it so she would remain undisturbed.
As the weeks passed I grew concerned with her lack of nutrition and sleep. She refused to leave the library, demanding I go get a book for her from some store or other guild - afraid to leave her I'd call out to Levy and have her get the book; she would know be able to find it faster anyhow.
At the end of the fourth week of this behavior my patience ran out and I grew tired of not knowing what she was doing and why. When she dozed off I gently picked her up and made my way upstairs to leave the guild. When I stepped inside of the crowded hall with Lucy cradled in my arms everyone started rushing towards us before I stopped them with a jerk of my head. I could see how concerned they were, considering I felt the same thing. In the time she had been holed up she had lost a lot of weight and had the darkest bags under her eyes I had ever seen. In front of the concerned crowd was her team, their eyes reflecting what I felt inside – horror.
"Lucy?" The blue cat whispered before the smell of tears started wafting from him.
I walked as quickly and quietly as I could to the front door. Mere feet away from it she jerked awake, frantically looking around for the books she had grown accustomed too. With a feral cry she tried to leap out of my arms in the direction of the cave she called a library. Tightening my grip on her I restrained her, causing her upper body to whip back and slam into my chest. I vaguely heard something falling from onto the ground from off of her but I was so focused on Bunny that I didn't pay attention to what it was.
She was momentarily stunned from the impact - that was until she looked on the ground to see what she had dropped. In her struggle to pick whatever it was up I almost lost my balance, and had to take a step forward to ensure that we both wouldn't fall. *CRUNCH* At the sound of breaking plastic and glass everything got quiet as she froze, staring in disbelief at the ground.
"NOO!" She cried, changing her tactic from getting away from me to forcefully turning herself around in my arms to hit me.
"Bunny, Bunny stop!" I said as I felt her nails tear away the skin of my arms. With a fierce growl I released her and took a step back, grabbing my arm to stop the bleeding.
"HOW COULD YOU! THOSE WERE ESSENTIAL TO FINDING A WAY TO GET HER BACK! NOW IT WILL TAKE AGES TO FINE THE ANSWER!" After she yelled at me she collapsed on the floor,sobbing. "Aquarius, I'm sorry I failed." She whispered so softly I could barely hear her.
When I took a step towards her, her head flew up and she scrambled away from me with an arm up, "stay away from me Gajeel. Just go away." Hurt I watched her run back into the library, slamming the door closed and locking it.
"Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?!" I growled, watching as Wendy ran to me and started healing my arms
"Yo…You stepped on her Gale-Force Reading Glasses and broke them." Levy said, walking forward to gather the shattered remains.
"So? That's no reason for her to freak out like that!"
"Didn't you hear her Metal Head? She's trying to get Aquarius back, and to read all of the books she has, as quickly as possible she needed those glasses." Ice Prick said, staring at the locked door. "That would explain her new power" he mumbled.
"What new power?"
"Well when I went down to see her, when you left to check on Lily, I accidentally split water on one of her tables, almost destroying her notes. But somehow she stopped the water from reaching her notebook and flicked the water back into the cup with a wave of her hand. I tried to ask her about it but she remained quiet. What if something happened to Aquarius and Lucy, before we got there?" He mused.
"I'll ask her about it and get her another pair of glasses." I said, not understanding the severity of the broken glasses.
"Uh…Gajeel you can't get glasses like this." Levy said. "She was testing out the new prototype for the creator, since the ones we had initially bought stopped working, because the spell had expired."
"Arghh… I'll just help her read the damn books then." Stomping to the door, I pounded on it. "Let me in Bunny, I'll help you find a way to get Aquarius back." I said, waiting for her to open the door. She never was able to stay mad at anyone for very long, usually getting over her tiff within a few minutes.
"Go away Gajeel, I don't need or want help from you. Just leave me alone." I had never heard her sound so emotionless, even in the past three weeks she had had some sort of emotion in her voice but now it was like another person was talking through my girl.
"If I get you another pair of glasses will you let me help?" I bargained. When I heard no response from her, I laid a hand on the door, where I heard her heartbeat on the other side. "I'm sorry for breaking them Lucy. I promise I'll get you another pair and help you read the books." I whispered, hoping she heard me over her crying.
Abruptly turning around I went to Levy to pick her brain about everything she knew about the glasses, and where the maker of them was. She didn't know much more than the man's name, Henry Mullen. "Watch her, Lily" was all I said before I left the guild.
Finding someone with such a common name was difficult, even after I went to the council demanding a list of all of the Henry Mullen's locations. There were twenty of them, all living in different cities, some of them on the outskirts of Fiore, some in another country; it would take weeks, maybe months for me to investigate each one of them. Trying to remember where Bunny Girl had gone recently, I circled the cities where a Henry Mullen resided, that were closest to the places she had been. Seven, that's a more reasonable number.
Starting with the closest Henry I went to a run down house a couple of blocks away from Bunny's apartment. I wasn't too surprised when it was a dead end. That would make this too easy. I thought as I hoped on the train to my next destination. Hargeon Port, Akane Resort, Clover Town, and Shirotsume Town were all dead ends. I had come to loathe transportation even more than I had. I couldn't keep track of how many times I had thrown up on the unsuspecting people who shared my cabin during the train ride. I had grown so infamous for hitting people with my vomit that when I bought my ticket for another town, they would also give me a sign to put on the door of my cabin; it said 'Warning, projectile vomiter within.' At first I was upset about the sign, until I realized I would be alone for the painfully long trips, and would be able to spread out on the seats.
To be honest I aimed to hit the passengers when I couldn't hold it it. If I had to be miserable why not everyone else?
I was on my way to the last city inland, Crocous, before I would go to Galuna Island – water transportation was the worst. Checking into my hotel, I heard someone yell "Henry over hear" in the distance, swerving my head in the direction of the voice, I saw this old man waving his hands like crazy through the window. He was even shorter than Makarov, I don't know how that was possible. Running out of the hotel I looked in the direction he was waving, I intercepted Henry, who was waving back to his friend, and began my practiced speech.
"Are you Henry Mullen, the created of the Gale-Force Reading Glasses that you lent to Lucy Heartfilia, of Fairy Tail?" I droned on autopilot, ready for him to tell me I had the wrong person.
"Yes, I am. May I ask who you are young man? How is dear Lucy, does she like the prototype, I haven't heard from her in quite some time." He said.
"Thank Mavis!" I shouted, relieved that my search was over. "I need you to make another pair of the glasses, I broke the ones you gave her and now she won't come out of the library she locked herself into and she won't speak to me." I rushed out, finally able to vent a little.
"Dear me, I'm sorry to hear that, but it'll take me ages to make new frames, then etch the spell into them. I can send them to you in about a month-"
Not letting him finish I created the frame with the thinnest iron I could produce that was still durable. "Write down the inscription and I'll put it on." Impatient with his gapping mouth I growled. "Every moment you stand there staring at me is another moment I'm not with my Bunny Girl. What. Is. The. Inscription." I gritted out between my clenched teeth.
He scrambled for a paper and pen from his pocket, hastily writing out what needed to be inscribed in the bottom of the frames. After that was done I looked around the street for someone with the right size glasses and snatched them off of their face, ignoring their protests. Popping the lenses out of the stolen pair of glasses I manipulated the frames and put the glass in. "Is there anything else you need to do?" I demanded of Henry. Again with the silence as an answer, I said. " Every. Fucking. Moment."
"I..I need to say the spell so it will stick to the glasses." Henry quickly mumbled the spell, trying to prevent anyone else from hearing it. "Tha..Thats all. They should work now." He sputtered.
Should be?! Damn it, where the hell is a book when I need one? As if Henry read my mind a book appeared in his hands and he snatched the glasses out of my hand. Within seconds he was half way through the book. "Amazing, absolutely amazing. With your abilities I could make hundreds of these in a matter of minutes." Henry mumbled, finished with his book. "Do you think-"
Grabbing the glasses back I sprinted away. If I hurry I can make the train back to Magnolia and be home by tomorrow night. I didn't watch where I was going, shoving people out of my way as I went. Reaching the train station I threw money at the ticket box and hooked onto the train with an iron fist and climbed onto the train, fighting my urge to puke.
I'm coming Bunny! I thought as I passed out. I didn't wake up until the stop before Magnolia, my tiredness having caught up with me. Checking my pocket to ensure that I still had the glasses, I waited for the train to stop. Once I got my land legs back I made my way to the guild. Slamming the doors open I ignored all of the stares and followed Lucy's smell to the Library. Home. I thought when I first smelled her strawberry scent. Undeterred I broke the door down and stared at Lucy's back.
"Bunny I got you a new-" Halting when she turned around, because on her face were the glasses I had broken a week ago.
"Gajeel you're back!" Bunny said hopping over the table to hug me. "I'm so sorry about earlier! I was just so sad and mad. I didn't mean to hurt you, how are your arms?" She inspected them as she continued to speak. "Oh, good, there's no scaring."
As she spoke my mouth was hanging open. I thought of all of the train rides I had taken, all of the times I had vomited, and all of the people I had to talk to, to find the person who could make another pair of glasses for her. Still stunned, I stuck my hand out with her unneeded, new pair of glasses.
"How?" Was all I could get out, still watching her I saw her wringing her hands in nervousness.
"Well after you had left, I calmed down and felt really sorry for the way I had reacted. I tried to call you on your lacrima, but Lily found it under some of my books so I was never able to tell you that we found another way of getting another pair of glasses." When she paused I slid down the wall, taking her with me, setting her on my lap. "Well you know Reedus can make his pictures real, so we just had him draw me up another pair, and poof here they are." She looked down at the ones I had given her and turned them so she could see the design; along the top of the frames there was a dragon with a bunny tucked beneath its wings. "But I like yours much better." She said as she put them on and smiled up at me.
Seeing her smile made the horrendous trip worth it; as long as she was happy I was happy.
Picking her up I moved the table out of the way and sat down on the chair, keeping Lucy on my lap. Putting on her discarded pink glasses I gave her a kiss and picked up a book and started reading.
When she just stared at me, I glanced over the top of the book, raising my eyebrows in question.
Gulping she whispered "would you like to know what we are looking for?" Nodding I waited for her to continue.
She told me all about how she had summoned three spirits simultaneously and how Aquarius offered up, no demanded that she sacrifice her key to summon the Spirit King. She let out all of the emotions she had been holding in the past month, crying as she did. After she was done with her story she fell into a deep sleep, snoring softly as she did. Gently placing her on the ground I took off my coat and put it over her. Watching her for a moment, I thought of how strong my Bunny was, and how I would do anything to make her happy.
Turning my chair towards the table, I picked up the book I had put down, and continued to read, determined to find a way to restore Aquarius' key and reunite her with Bunny Girl.
AN: I not write a story for the next couple of days, it depends on if I have time. My mom is having her knee replaced so I have to get ready for that.
Hope you enjoyed it!
Review if you want. =]