"What took all of you so long?" Erza demanded as soon as Lucy's group stepped out of their vehicle, already in her swimsuit and sporting a neon orange plastic tube around her waist, bright green flippers, and a sunshine-yellow snorkel with a mask. She continued to stare straight at them, waiting for an answer, even as Jackal spilled inelegantly out onto the dirt and just laid there like a fuzzy lump.
Lucy rolled her eyes at her friend, and grabbed her luggage from the vehicle's carriage. Stepping over her unmoving boyfriend, she commented, "Mirajane may be a demon, but at least she doesn't drive like one."
"That was one time!" Erza protested with a sputter. "I was trying to catch a train! You were there, you should know!"
Mard Geer contemplated this information for a moment, before offering his two Jewels on the topic. "That sounds insane even by my standards."
Deciding to come to her friend's rescue after all, Lucy rolled her shoulder in her best approximation of a shrug that she could manage with her laden arms. "There were circumstances."
"Circumstances," Mard repeated, each of the syllables enunciated clearly.
Under his intense gaze, Lucy felt sweat beading on her skin. "Lullaby was involved."
His dark eyes devoid of understanding, Mard regarded them silently for a long, heavy minute. "Why would you try to catch up to the song of death?" he wondered aloud. "Fairy Tail has proven to be death seekers in the past, but this seems a little extreme even for your guild."
He had a point, unfortunately. "I don't know what to tell you," Lucy stated. "That's just how it happened."
"Perhaps we should carry in the luggage first," Mirajane offered, kneeling on the ground to pat Jackal on the head while he couldn't stop her.
"Are you calling Jackal luggage?" questioned Lucy, her voice rising in pitch with restrained laughter.
Mard Geer sighed heavily. Then he bent down and picked his fellow demon up by his scruff before walking towards the cabin they'd rented.
When Lucy entered the cabin, she found her boyfriend lying face-down on the bed where Mard had dropped him. At least the underworld king had been nice and had not deposited Jackal on the hardwood floor. Although it probably wasn't out of kindness, and more along the lines of keeping Jackal out of the way.
It did bring thoughts on Jackal and Mard Geer's relationship to the forefront of Lucy's mind, however. Jackal was a little out of place among the rest of the demons of Tartarus. For all of their destructive capabilities, for the most part the rest of demons didn't actually utilize them very often. Jackal, on the other hand, used his a little too often, and found much more delight in the act than in most anything else. It made him, ironically enough, a perfect fit with Fairy Tail. Not that Lucy would ever tell him that, of course.
Either way, Jackal remained unmoving. That car ride had done more damage to him than Lucy had initially thought, and he would probably be useless for a good while yet.
Which was excellent, as now Lucy could unpack the bags without his interference.