After the sun had risen high above the trees and dipped behind again on the other side, Laxus insisted they break for camp near a small stream.
"But we're halfway there!" the girl protested loudly--her legs shook, even with her upper body leaning heavily on Laxus for support.
"And I'm not going to carry you all the way there, which I will be if you try to keep going," Laxus pointed out. "Besides, this is the first stream we've come across, and streams mean food and water. We should stop here for the night."
Tears of frustration came to her eye, and she glared down at the ground. Her face was flushed.
"I suppose you're right," she admitted through clenched teeth.
He helped her sit up against a tree for support, and then he went about building a campfire. In a short while, the fire was crackling merrily. The girl warmed her hands as Laxus looked for a sturdy pole to use to fish for their supper.
Laxus selected a thin, slender sapling that was flexible but fairly strong and broke it off at the base with his hands. He dug in a pocket, lost somewhere in his signature fur coat, and produced a fishing line and hook. He assembled his fishing pole and walked closer to the water.
"What did you do with your knife?" the girl asked, pulling Laxus out of his reverie.
"What?" he asked, distracted. Laxus turned to look at her. "What knife?"
She gestured at his new pole, one end still shining with sap.
"Oh, yeah. No, I didn't cut this, I just snapped it off," Laxus said, admitting his more than human strength as though it was nothing.
"You snapped it," the girl repeated.
"Yeah, I snapped it," Laxus replied testily. "Now, any more questions before I catch some supper?"
The girl looked at him strangely, as though she were seeing him for the first time.
"Who are you?" she asked. "Why did you rescue me? Who sent you?"
Laxus sighed and rubbed his temple.
"Alright, in order: I'm the guy that saved you. I did it so I'd be able to sleep at night. No one sent me."
"I don't believe you," the girl told him.
Laxus shrugged.
"Believe what you want. I'm going to catch some fish, if I can. I'm hungry." With those words, Laxus took a seat by the stream and dropped in his fishing line with a small bug as his bait.
At the word hungry, the girl's stomach gurgled. She looked down at the ground and played idly with small tufts of grass and the twigs that littered any forest floor. She made patterns and destroyed them, anything to occupy her hands and her mind.
After a short while, Laxus had amassed a small pile of fish, each already impaled on a sharpened stick for roasting. He propped his catch around the fire to cook and turned to look at the girl. She was still moving sticks and dirt around but she stopped when she sensed his gaze; she glanced up at him.
"Are you familiar at all with the plants around here?" he asked her.
She looked around at the brush as though she was seeing it, too, for the first time; after a time, she nodded.
"Are any of these plants edible?" Laxus asked. The girl studied the plants around them for another moment before she replied.
"I'm pretty sure that these are wild greens that my mother used to prepare as a fresh salad," she replied, pointing to a patch of greenery that was wildly prolific in the area.
Laxus nodded and went about gathering the plants in silence. After he had two piles of leafy greens, Laxus turned each fish on its spit.
"What's your name?" Laxus asked the girl as he poked the fire with a stick.
She looked at him from where she sat, her knees drawn to her chest and secured firmly in the circle of her arms. She shook her head.
"What do you mean, no? Do you not remember?" Laxus queried, and the girl laughed. It was strange to hear the sound, and she looked surprised to have made it.
"What I mean," she said, "is that you haven't given me your name. Isn't it polite to introduce oneself before asking someone's name?"
It was Laxus's turn to laugh, a short barking sound.
"I guess you're right," he said. He let the matter drop.
Laxus poked at a fish testingly and nodded in approval. He removed the spits and divided the bounty in two portions, making sure the slightly heavier fish ended up in the young girl's half.
A rustling sound caused him to look up, and he frowned as he saw the girl struggling to stand up.
"Sit down," he said irritably. "I'll bring your food to you."
She did not reply except to peg him with a withering glare as she braced herself on the tree behind her. She took a few shaky steps forward and sat at the large rock where a pile of food was waiting, steam pouring off the fish. The girl looked directly into Laxus's eyes as she did so, daring him to challenge her again.
Laxus shrugged stiffly and sat at his own rock.
"Before I forget," he muttered as he started digging through yet another pocket of his coat. He produced a leaf-wrapped parcel and opened it to reveal a portion of the roasted nuts he had saved from that morning. He set half of them on the young girl's rock table and kept half for himself.
They ate in relative silence, set to the soundtrack of a crackling fire and a forest full of insects and night creatures that were beginning to stir.
"We should make pretty good time tomorrow," Laxus said around a mouthful of food. She didn't bother to reply, choosing instead to savor the meal. Laxus carried on anyway. "You said we were halfway there, which means this time tomorrow you'll be home, and I'll be on my way."
The words seemed to weigh heavy between the pair as they ate; it was just two days ago that they had become traveling companions, but it seemed odd and even jarring that they would part so soon.
"You really should go find your family and apologize," the girl said quietly. Laxus looked up at her peevishly. "I mean it," she said. "If they are your family, then they love you. If you've done something, then apologize. Things won't simply become right again, you have to make them right."
Laxus considered her words as they ate. He remembered the final Fairy Tail salute on his last day in Magnolia; the whole guild was watching him, waiting for him, wherever he went. Maybe this strange girl was right. Perhaps he should spend some time trying to correct his mistakes, to learn from them instead of running from them.
The pair finished their meal to the sound of the crickets and the night birds. When nothing was left but scales and bones, Laxus gathered the refuse and buried it a good distance from their camp to avoid bringing predators in the night. When he had returned, the girl had returned to her seat against the tall tree and her eye was closed. She appeared to be alseep or nearly so.
Laxus made a small pallet of leaves and tucked his coat under his head for a pillow. This time tomorrow, the girl would be with her family. As he drifted into sleep, Laxus wondered what his own family was up to.
--END CHAPTER--
Author's Notes: Thank you, once again, for joining me. Shoutout to my reviewers, you guys are the bomb!! I love feedback and I truly enjoy what I have gotten and any feedback you choose to share in the future. This is the second to last chapter, not much happens.Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, its setting, or its characters. I created all original characters, resemblance to any persons real or imagined is purely coincidental.