In my excitement to post the first chapter I forgot to say: Fairy Tail is owned by Hiro Mashima. Any and all characters belong to him.
I would like to thank everybody who's already commented on this. I really appreciate it.
This chapter is far more light hearted than the last one. But there is a little blood, although it's solely for comedic effect.
And about the title. Erza is known as 'Titania, Queen of the Fairies'. And in folklore, Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', and even in Sword Art Online, the husband of Titania is 'Fairy King Oberon'. And this fanfic is about Erza finding her Oberon. Now onto the story.
Edit: I just realized I completely forgot Juvia. Oops. I feel bad now.
Chapter 2
Erza shot up. She had heard footsteps approaching her, Lucy, Levy, Juvia, and Wendy's room. Erza summoned one of her countless swords to her hand and stood up. This may be a false alarm, so she didn't want to wake the others, but she had to be prepared for the worst. Erza was the responsible one. She was the one who had to keep the others safe. She slowly approached the door. And then there was a knocking. "Erza!" came a familiar voice from outside. Natsu. Of course. Natsu. Lucy, Wendy, and Levy shot up immediately. Lucy was glaring daggers through the door at her fire breathing friend.
"Natsu, it's early and I don't want to fight you now. Let's wait 'till after breakfast." Normally Erza didn't like fighting Natsu. She knew he'd never be able to bring out even close to his full strength against his friends. Not the strength that had beaten Gajeel, and Jellal, and Laxus, and Cobra and Zero, and Faust, and Master Hades. But they could use the extra training.
What Natsu said shocked Erza to her very core. "I don't want to fight. I brought you breakfast Erza!" Natsu had never said he didn't want to fight her. It was unimaginable, inconceivable to anyone who had known him for ten or fifteen minutes. Natsu always wanted to fight the people he thought were stronger than him. It was one of his most annoying but endearing qualities.
Then Erza thought about the other thing Natsu had said. "I brought you breakfast Erza!" Never before in Erza's life, had someone brought breakfast to her simply to give it to her. It was an alien concept to her. She was touched by the gesture, so Erza opened the door. And there stood Natsu, holding a tray. And on that tray were two plates. And on each of the plates was a pile of flaming charcoal. Erza assumed it had at some point been food, but in Natsu's excitement, he had ignited it. Erza sighed. She didn't know how to react. On one hand, he was the first person she could remember bringing her breakfast to her "in bed". But on the other, it was a pile of inedible charcoal. She decided to be touched. But that didn't mean she was going to touch the food.
"Natsu, I'm grateful to you for doing this, but I can't eat this." Natsu's smile vanished. "You're probably the only human alive who could eat it. So why don't you eat it?"
"Thanks Erza," he said with a huge grin, as if she had been the one to give it to him and not the other way around. He started to suck the fire in and then the charcoal went in after. Natsu swallowed the glass of now boiling water to wash down the charcoal. "Man, now I'm all fired up!"
Erza sighed. "Natsu, I'll only eat something from you if it has never been lit on fire." Natsu nodded and ran off.
And he had left the tray behind. Silly Natsu. Erza decided to give it to him. "Hey Natsu!" she shouted at him. He turned around just in time for the flying tray to land right in his face. Erza winced inside, she hadn't realized she had thrown it so hard. And she hadn't realized she was aiming for his face. Natsu was flipped by the force of the blow, and spun most of the way around before landing, again on his face. Somehow. This was not Natsu's day. But he just shot up like nothing had happened, picked up the bloodstained tray, and ran off. Erza shook her head in wonder, how had he lasted so long.
Erza was tanning on the beach. She could see Wendy, Levy, and Lucy playing with a volleyball in the shallows, Droy floating in the deeper water alone, and Jet and Gray seeing who could swim faster. Jet had speed magic on his side, so Gray lost every time. Juvia was watching Gray. Happy and Charle were standing on in the surf.
Erza saw Happy, the magical, flying, talking, blue cat cheering near the water. She watched as Natsu walked up carrying a large pile of fish in his arms. "Fish! Fish! I love you Natsu!" He looked like his little heart was about to explode with happiness.
And then Natsu walked past him. Happy looked like his little heart shattered. Poor little guy. Then she remembered his teasing after Jellal had lied and said he was engaged. She had punted him several miles inland, but he had flown back easily enough so it wasn't a very effective punishment. This would do nicely.
Natsu kept walking until he came to Erza. "Erza, I didn't shoot fire at these fish!" he said with a silly grin. "Wanna make sushi?"
Erza had no idea how to respond. Natsu had gone to a great effort to catch these fish. And it would have taken, what seemed to Natsu, an inhuman amount of patience to not just start shooting fire at the fish. And she hadn't been able to eat the breakfast he had prepared for her. So, she would prepare some sushi. "Alright Natsu, get ready." Erza summoned a chef's knife in each hand, and summoned her cook's outfit over her bathing suit. She saw a large table near them that wasn't being used, so she would throw all the sushi on it as it was prepared. She leapt forward and started slashing. It was over in a flash. She was standing behind Natsu, and all the fish had been cleanly sliced into neat little pieces. Then small lines of blood flew off Natsu's body.
"Ow!" he shouted as a couple dozen cuts opened all over his body. Erza thought she had been careful enough not to cut him, but it seemed she had gotten careless. She hung her head in shame. She had failed Natsu. He had been nice enough to give her all that fish, and for seemingly no reason too. But she had hurt him, despite his trust. Erza was so consumed with guilt, she didn't notice the torn remains of Natsu's bathing suit fall off.
Erza looked up at Wendy and Levy's squeals. Then she noticed Natsu had, in her mind, taken off his bathing suit. So she grabbed the top of his head and pushed down hard. She buried him up to his neck in the sand. "Erza! What are you doing?!" He hollered as he started struggling from side to side and flames were shooting out of his mouth. She clamped his jaw shut, to make sure he didn't harden the sand into glass. It would be very inconvenient to have to break him out of glass.
"Natsu, you know stripping for no reason is Gray's ... I guess it's a hobby. Don't you think he'll be hurt that you tried to copy him?" Everyone around them face palmed, but Erza didn't notice. She had spoken with such sincerity that the love potion made Natsu believe her. He really thought he had been trying to copy Gray. "Natsu, I appreciate the sushi, but I can't eat your gift after doing what you did. I'm so ashamed of you, I can't bear to look at you. I'm going back to my room."
As she was walking away, Erza noticed Gray glaring at Natsu with more hostility than she had ever seen from him. Erza shook her head. She mentally reprimanded Natsu for copying Gray.
What she didn't realize was that Gray wasn't angry about that; he hadn't even heard her bring up that theory. What he was angry about were Natsu's obvious attempts to flirt with Erza. Gray had loved Erza for years. It had been bad enough when he had been carried off in the middle of the Heaven's Tower incident, and Natsu had been the one to save her from Jellal, and from the exploding tower. But now he was actually trying to get her to like him. Gray wouldn't forgive Natsu. Gray had loved her all these years, since the time he saw her crying alone by the river. Realized that when she acted tough around everyone, kept up her armor; she was just hiding her true feelings. He just wanted her to know that she could let her armor down around him. But Natsu was trying to get in the way of that. Gray hated Natsu, truly hated him at that moment.