3. They're poisonous, remember?
Lucy wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and exhaled a satisfied sigh. Lacing one arm around her broomstick, she placed her other hand on her hip. "Alright, Natsu!" She hollered into the air. "I did it!" She lifted up her right arm as she spotted the crimson feathered raven zooming straight at her. Natsu latched himself onto the sleeve of her black glove, that extended a little higher up her elbow. The impact almost made Lucy fall over.
"Geez, you're going to rip my arm off one day..." Lucy grumbled as she moved back forward.
"That's the point." Lucy could hear his smile in his voice. She rolled his eyes, not bothering to answer.
"Are you sure this'll work?" Natsu unlatched and latched his claws around Lucy's arm nervously as she raised up her arm to stare at his beady black eyes within eye level to her.
"Oh, it'll work." She promised with a confident smile. She practiced day and night to perform this rune for a full week straight. She even had the old wizard down the road help her find it. "I think it only works if you stay in the circle though. She nodded her chin towards the incarnate, large circle design in the dirt that she created with the end of her broomstick.
"I dunno Luce. You kinda suck at magic-"
"I do not!" Lucy gasped and waved her arm around so he'd get off of it. "If that's what you think, so be it then! I don't need you anyways!" Lucy huffed at him angrily. "I got Happy-"
"Happy is mine!" Natsu jumped back on her arm and pecked her glove. "I found him first!"
"Who in the world would believe a bird owning a cat as a pet?!" Lucy countered back as she rolled her eyes.
"He's not a pet!" Natsu insisted and settled down on her arm again. "He's my friend!"
"The neighbors have been calling me the weird animal girl..." Lucy grumbled at him. "My reputation here is going to be bad-"
"It's already bad." Natsu flapped his wings towards her.
"You're really making me not want to help you turn back into a human." Lucy glowered at him. Natsu shrunk back in terror and bowed his head. Satisfied, Lucy pet his soft feathers. "Thatta boy!"
"I'm older than you." He grunted. "And you're treating me like I'm your pet."
"You're still shorter than me. And it's only by a few months anyway." Lucy waved off the age difference and treating him like a pet. She set him down on the ground. "See? You're an ant compared to me." Lucy chuckled darkly.
"I'll be turning fourteen first though- and I'm taller than you when I'm human anyways." Natsu cackled. It seemed sinister whenever he smiled when he was a bird. "You haven't even grown that much since you were six-"
"Hurry up and get in there!" Lucy stomped her foot angrily.
"Okay Princess. Sheesh." He hopped over into the middle of the circle. Lucy flipped the hair from her shoulder with one swift motion as she took a step back from the circle. She parted her feet shoulder width wide and extended her right arm out with her palm open forward.
"Alright, you ready?" She shouted as the outline of the rune started to turn into a purplish glow.
"Hurry it up!" He shouted back, his eyes wide open at her.
"Okay, okay..." Lucy grumbled as she furrowed her eyebrows together. All she had to do was say one word, what could go wrong?
"Transform!" Lucy pushed her hand forward into the rune. Natsu burst into pink smoke, just like how he would at sunset. Lucy, giddy with excitement, waited with anticipation to see the human Natsu. She'd never seen him in the sunlight before.
"U-Uh... Lucy..." She heard his voice as the smoke cleared out.
"What?!" She ran and jumped around the circle. "Did it work?!" She gazed at the smoke intensely as she saw his pink spikes emerge from the it.
Yet... something was terribly off.
"What the heck!" Lucy jumped back in surprise, almost falling down on her butt. "Y-You..." Lucy dropped to the ground as she erupted in laughter. "Y-You have hair now!" She clutched her stomach as she saw a miniature version of Natsu's human hair on the red raven. "It's... perfection." Lucy picked herself up, dusting off her fluffy purple skirt and walked over to him.
"You're a terrible witch." He concluded, his head hung down so low she felt bad for him. She cupped him up in her hands and laughed lightly again.
"Sorry, maybe I don't have enough magical energy to get you completely there." Lucy played with the tuft of rosy pink hair on his head. "At least the hair squeezed through." She shrugged as he hopped onto her right arm when she extended it out. She walked back over and picked up her broomstick.
"And you still can't fly." He shook his head in dismay.
Lucy puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. "I'll get it down! You can't even ride anything!" Lucy shot back. She dragged the soles of her brown boots across the rune, mussing up the design before they started to head back home.
"I can." He raised his beak up triumphantly. "I can fly by myself, at least I don't need some cleaning device to do it. And I'm always okay when Layla flies!" Lucy halted midway through her step and looked off to the side. She regained her composure and began walking again.
"Hey..." Natsu cocked his head to the side, gently pecking her cheek. "S-Sorry." He could feel his stomach drop.
She shook her head and aggressively rubbed at her eyes with her free arm. The broomstick almost whacked Natsu down. "Wanna go visit her grave when you become human again?"
"Hm..." Lucy cocked her head to the side and turned around to face Natsu. "Should we get her more flowers or should we just get different ones?" She crossed her arms as she waited for his answer.
He shrugged, pulling at the grass beside his feet. "Doesn't she like Daffodils?"
"You mean Narcissus's?" Lucy placed a finger on her cheek.
He rolled his eyes, throwing his handful of grass at her. "Same thing, no one calls them Narcissus's." Natsu got up from his criss crossed position to stand beside Lucy with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his white, baggy trousers.
"You need new clothes. I don't want a hobo walking around me at night." Lucy commented when she quickly over viewed his appearance.
"No way." He looked at her, horrified. He always wore the same ol' black shirt and baggy white trousers, only changing them to different sizes as he grew up. Lucy shrugged and tugged her light pink poncho around her tighter.
"I think Narc-"
"Narc-what?" Natsu smirked as he saw Lucy snap at him with her eyes.
"Daffodils-" Lucy emphasized with a hiss, "-bloom later in Spring or something. Winter just ended."
"Uh, doesn't she also like, those primrose flower things? White ones, Fairy-"
"You mean Primula Malacoides?" Lucy half smiled. She liked how he addressed Layla in present tense.
"No. I meant Fairy Primrose." Natsu snorted and turned to face his glassy brown eyed friend. "Let's go get some near the forest."
"I'll get them." She jogged up beside him. "They're poisonous, remember?"
A/N: Ahh, this is so fun to write :'^D Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I Apologize for any spelling errors tho o/ I found a bunch in the first part but I fixed 'em c^:
