Blood-Stained Fingers and Inky Words
The next three days passed without incident. Lucy enjoyed the time she spent with her friends, getting back into the swing of things and finally feeling like she could relax and just be a girl. Every morning she went about her usual routine, with the new addition of Natsu, who seemed to stick to her side like glue, even more so than what she considered normal for him.
On the fourth morning after waking from an entire wasted week of comatose, Lucy rolled out of her bed, unsurprised to find Natsu curled up on the opposite end of the mattress. She was determined to send him packing that day. No matter what his excuse (and he had yet to give one with any merit) he had to go. It wasn't that she disliked his company, but that she was a firm believer in personal space. Too much Natsu would tire out anybody in her position. He was loud, exhausting, and abnormally energetic. Plus, he got in the way. A lot. And she knew he didn't mean to, but that was just his personality. He was naturally a trouble-maker.
"I haven't had any time to write my novel since getting back…" Lucy grumbled as she turned on the sink's faucet in her bathroom so she could wash up. "Stupid Natsu is always around and I rarely have enough alone time to even pick up a pen, much less use it…"
Cupping her hands under the tap, she splashed the water over her face, squeezing her eyes shut as she repeated this motion thoroughly. The blonde tilted her head back, allowing a couple of escaped droplets to run down her neck for a moment, before opening her eyes to find a hand-towel to dry off with. However, before she could even begin to search, she noticed a strange red colour flicker in and out of her peripheral vision. Bringing her hands up to her face, she saw that her palms looked as though they had been dipped in a can of crimson paint. But both her sense of smell and her instinct thought differently.
She screamed before she could stop herself. Where had the blood come from? Whose was it? She wasn't bleeding, so if not hers, whose? The girl thrust both her hands into the sink, turning the water on full blast, and scrubbing as hard as she could, but the colour wouldn't fade. She registered that Natsu was at the door, yelling from the other side and struggling against the lock that separated them, obviously startled by Lucy's frightened outburst.
"Luce! Hey, Luce! What's wrong! Are you ok?" Natsu bellowed. "Open the door! Answer me at least! Hey, LUCE!" The pounding stopped when the blonde shakily unlocked the door, watching dazedly as Natsu tumbled inside and slipped on the tiled floor that had been splashed with water from the sink that had overflowed. "What's going on?" He huffed, standing back up hastily as he looked Lucy over, in case she had been injured in any way. But when he had confirmed that nothing looked terribly wrong, he crossed his arms. "That wasn't because you saw a bug or something was it?"
"B-Blood…" Lucy muttered, holding out both her hands, palms up. "I can't get the blood off…"
"Blood?" Natsu frowned at the dripping wet but perfectly clean hands that visibly shook from a strange shock. He took both her hands in his own warm ones and squeezed the smaller, more delicate fingers. "Luce, there isn't any blood. Calm down, were you dreaming or something? Look again."
"Dreaming?" Lucy glanced back down at her hands that looked so very much like a child's when compared to Natsu's, and found that he spoke the truth. There was no blood.
"See?" Natsu gave a nervous chuckle as Lucy slid her hands out of his and instantly crossed her arms, which served to conceal the shivers that still tingled in her fingers. "You're fine."
It was the kindest words Lucy would hear that day. But she knew it was also a lie. Regardless, she was glad Natsu had been around. She didn't know what she would have done if she had been alone at that moment.
"I guess you were right to listen to Lady Izayoi," Lucy didn't know what made her say this, but she felt that her suspicions was correct when she looked at Natsu's face. "She knew something like this was going to happen sooner or later, right?" She turned the faucet off and grabbed a couple of towels from a nearby cupboard to soak up the water. As she knelt down to spread them out over the tiles, Lucy felt uncomfortably aware of Natsu's eyes and her quaking hands.
"How did you know?" He forced the question. "You were unconscious when Izayoi told me to keep a close eye on you…"
"Intuition, I guess," The blonde replied truthfully. "You haven't been exactly 'normal' lately. Or the best way to put it would be you've been more abnormal than usual. It got kind of obvious after the first two days."
After a moment of silence, Natsu sighed, "Stand up," and pulled her to her feet before she could reply to this order. "Finish getting ready and then we'll talk. I'll clean up here."
"Oh, you don't have to, I can do it-," Lucy made to kneel back on the ground but was practically shoved out of the bathroom by the fire mage before she could even bend her knees.
"I looked after your house for an entire week, I think I can manage wiping up some water," Natsu retorted. Lucy smiled.
"Yeah but how much of that was Levi?" She snorted at the boy's face as it burned a bright shade of red, proving she had hit a bulls-eye in mentioning the bookworm.
"S-Shut up already and do what I said," He squatted down on the floor, turning away from the blonde as he did so, and went about with the task of mopping up the tiled ground.
"Aye, sir," Lucy saluted him in a joking imitation of Happy. Retreating to her room, she suddenly felt strained and upset, so she grabbed a brush and sat cross-legged on her bed, forcing the bristles repeatedly through her tangled blonde hair, concentrating on removing every single knot and bump. After setting aside the brush, she separated her hair down the middle and gathered the two clumps into a pair of loosely-done pigtails. Just as she finished her brief moment of priming, Natsu reappeared, keeping up an easy-going profile as he collapsed into his favourite chair in the room. Then, it was quiet.
"So…" Lucy rocked herself backwards and forwards on her mattress, never looking at the fire mage long enough to where he could comment that she was staring.
"So…" He repeated, fidgeting around his seat, as though he couldn't get comfortable. "Well, I might as well get this over with. It's not like you're going to let it go, right?"
"Right," Lucy nodded.
Natsu explained what happened the day Izayoi had destroyed the magic seal that had until then been placed upon her memory and had kept her true power in check, hidden, and under control. As he spoke, Lucy's expression slowly turned from curiosity to that of resentful understanding. "And why shouldn't it?" Natsu thought. "If everything Izayoi said is true, then Lucy's been lied to for years, on top of being mistreated, unloved, and under-appreciated. On the other hand though, she's sure to be more at peace knowing who and what her mother truly was and what that makes her. But, Lucy? A dragon's daughter?"
"I'm still not sure," Lucy finally confessed, much to Natsu's amazement. "It just seems so…unreal, you know?"
"Are you saying that you think she made it all up?" Natsu's bewilderment was plain on his gaping mouth. "There's no way-!"
"Look, I'm not saying I don't believe her," Lucy said, leaning back against the wall her bed was pushed up against. "All I'm saying is that we should just wait to see what happens. I don't exactly have a ton of resources I can use to verify whether or not Izayoi is telling the truth, but I do believe that my father did hide something from me in the past. There's too much against him to deny that fact."
"And what happened just now? What do you think that was?"
Lucy looked down at her hands, remembering the violent colour that had been splashed against her palms only minutes before. "It wasn't my blood that I thought I saw…" She mumbled, a shiver creeping up her spine. "It was someone else's…"
"Izayoi said you would start to remember things," Natsu reiterated. "Do you think that maybe it had something to do with a memory?"
"I don't know, Natsu!" Lucy proclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Look can we just stop talking about this? Let's go to the guild already."
"Yeah, ok," Natsu sighed, standing up from the chair. "Oh, is it ok that I told Master everything?" He asked. "The others don't know that your parent's were once involved with Lady Izayoi, so when you're ready or when something happens, you can tell them."
"Yeah," Lucy smiled at the responsible act on Natsu's behalf. "Come on, I bet Gray's lonely without you to fight with."
"Ha! You mean he's lonely without me there to beat him up!"
"Sure, whatever you say…"
"Hey, was that sarcasm? You know it's true, I always win!"
"No, ERZA always wins."
When the pair opened the doors to the guild, it was quieter than what Lucy and Natsu were used to. The unsettled silence lasted only a moment before Mirajane made a big fuss of walking them both to the bar and offering them something to eat or drink. Levi joined them, and although somewhat forced, managed to engage Lucy in a story of one of her recent missions that she and Gajeel had taken on.
"About time you got here, flame-brain," Gray knocked Natsu playfully on the head. "I was beginning to worry I'd have to hunt you down. We have a score to settle."
"You guys always have a score to settle," Lucy rolled her eyes as Natsu cracked his knuckles with a competitive grin spreading over his face. "Can't you just admit that you both actually like each other?"
"Me? Like him?" The two boys barked in unison. "As if!"
The noise level picked up in the guild again, as though a problem had been diverted and they could all relax. Lucy noticed everything, although she tried not to think about the looks some of the guild members were giving her. However, it was hard to ignore Levi's worried expression that lay under the light cover of a smile as she narrated her tale, waving her hands about almost too enthusiastically. When Mira set a cup of sparkling cider in front of Lucy, the celestial mage offered some of it to Levi, who accepted much too happily.
"Hey, is something wrong, Levi-chan? You're acting kind of strange." Lucy looked contemplatively at the girl, placing a hand on her friend's brow to check her temperature. "Are you feeling sick?"
"N-No, no, not at all!" Levi laughed too loudly, slamming down the drink she had taken a sip from on the table.
"Are you sure?" Lucy bit her lip, worried for her friend. "If you're unwell I can take you home."
"Hahaha! Natsu, do you hear Lu-chan? She's so paranoid!" Levi yelled to Natsu, who was brawling with Grey a few feet away. "How are things though? Are you guys going to take a mission any time soon?"
"Well…" Lucy rested her head in her hands. "Lady Izayoi paid us really well. In fact, I'm set for the next two months if I spend my money wisely enough, so no missions for me as of yet."
"Oh, I see," Levi bobbed her head, listening avidly, as though Lucy was speaking of something as important as life-or-death. "Taking a break is a good idea, very good idea. Don't want to get burned out or anything. Maybe I'll take a break too-!"
"Levi-chan, really, what's going on? You're not acting like yourself."
Levi swallowed, crossing and uncrossing her legs, averting her gaze to the floor and up to the ceiling. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say another word, Erza came up from behind them and placed a newspaper down on the bar table, her eyes dark and her mouth set in a thin line on her face.
"Read it." The red-head said shortly.
"Erza,-!" Levi protested, turning in her chair to face the woman who looked down at them with a hard expression. "Why would you-!"
"She's going to find out sooner or later, and she deserves to know." Erza said.
"D-Don't listen to her, Lu-chan-!" Levi stumbled over her words, making to grab the newspaper before Lucy could touch it, but the blonde stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "You don't have to read it-!"
Without a word, Lucy ignored the girl's protests and directed her attention to the large printed words on the front page of Magnolia's paper that read in bold, black, inky letters, "JUDO HEARTFILIA TO RETURN TO COMPANY AS PRESIDENT ONCE AGAIN".
"Hey, what are you guys looking at?" Natsu laughed breathlessly as he left a banged up Gray lying on the floor with a new set of bruises and burns. He threw his arms around Lucy and Levy both and looked over their shoulders at the newspaper. As he read, his smile slowly diminished to nothing, and he finally noticed how uncharacteristically quiet the entire guild had become. "No way…" He heard himself mutter.
"Yeah, I know. Crazy stuff huh?" Lucy commented, a smile trembled on her lips in such a weak expression that she knew it wouldn't fool even a child. "I wonder if maybe he'll try running the company a little differently than before?" She laughed then, a shaky, sad giggle that quickly cracked and transformed into a sob.
"Lu-chan…" Levi's eyes filled with tears at the stricken look in the blonde's features.
The blue-haired girl stretched out her arms to pull Lucy into a hug, but withdrew when the blonde snatched away the newspaper, knocking over her half-finished cup of cider as she did so and pushed herself out of her chair, bowling over Natsu in the process. She then ran from the guild, all the while clutching the paper to her heaving chest and entirely ignoring the shouts from behind her from her family.
Outside in the open air, Lucy ran to the edge of the walkway bordering the river that ran through Magnolia, breathing heavily as the autumn wind stung her eyes that already burned with tears. With quivering hands, she forced herself to read the article on her father. It didn't say much other than that he had been offered his place back at the company and would be making a big comeback as the president. Once she had read and reread the words, she let her hands drop to her sides, feeling the paper between her fingers rustling in the breeze, a reminder that war would come and that she would once again be put on the spot and have to make decisions she didn't want to make. She looked up at the sky, eyes bleary from the salt water that leaked from her eyes. The sun that had burned bright only about an hour earlier was now shrouded from view behind large thick clouds that made everything around her look cold and grey. Unthinkingly, she brought the paper that bore her father's picture on the front page to her face again.
She felt the vision before it happened, then waited and watched as the truth began to unfold, unwilling to fight against the scenes that began to play like a movie reel in her mind's eye.
She watched as a younger version of herself cried over a mattress that bore a lifeless figure under a wrapping of white sheets. Her father stood behind the young girl, his expression blank, unfeeling, and empty. He did not stand there for long before taking his leave and abandoning his daughter at her mother's bedside, even though the child called after him and reached too late for his sleeve. A woman approached little Lucy and tried to lead her away from the dead body, but she screamed for her mother and latched on to the mattress, desperately pleading for the corpse to awaken, to sing again, to hold her in her arms again, to speak to her again. The woman was finally forced to lift the child up and away from the bed, turning to the door as the child kicked, screamed and thrashed. Just when it looked like the war between the adult and the girl was over, a light began to seep from the youth's body like a human torch, a light that transformed into a fire that seemed to take hold of the woman who abruptly allowed the girl to fall to the ground, where she tumbled backwards to rest on her hands and knees, her body already dying down to a faint glow as she watched as the woman who had tried to take her from her mother burned before her eyes until there was nothing but a steaming piece of blackened flesh left. She realized her hands were coated in the woman's blood that had spread out over the tiled floor and under her fingers, warm and thick.
"What have you done…?" A dark, intimidating figure she knew to be her father rose up in the doorway, obviously drawn to the smell of the burning body, as well as half the house's servants. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
With her father's voice still echoing in her ears, Lucy fell to her knees, feeling a layer of cold sweat icing her forehead, as she tasted bile rise up in her throat and spew out of her mouth onto the sidewalk. She closed her eyes and knew she was falling back onto the concrete. However, instead of cracking her head against the pavement, she landed against a warm chest that was heaving almost as hard as hers was. It was by no means a comfortable place to land, but Natsu was far better than any rock she could have landed on. She looked up at his face, at his wide, dark eyes and open mouth as he yelled words she couldn't hear. Was that fear she saw in his eyes? No, Natsu wasn't ever scared. Not of anything.
The newspaper clutched in her fingers moments before now easily blew away with the wind and into the river that washed the pages of ink into the depths of the clear rushing waters. But the damage had already been done. The headline that had dug deep into Lucy's heart was now printed all too clearly against the entire Fairy Tail guild, and no amount of water could wash that away.
Ok, this chapter was extra long, just for you guys. Cuz I love you. and I couldn't find a stopping point. I had fun writing this chapter and I hope that it wasn't SO dramatic that you thought some of the drama was too unnecessary. I know how annoying that can be. Was it ok though? Oh plz b ok. So who loved that gorgeous NaLu picture on the latest FT manga update? Wasn't it just delicious? Bad news came on it though. the movie is only coming out in August next year. That's a sick piece of info to put on such an awesome picture...-.- Almost cruel. Hahaha, oh well, I'll try to be patient.
Anyway, plz enjoy, I'll b updating again soon, hopefully, if I dont get writers block. Still adore you all! MWA! 3