Chapter 4
Uncharted Territory
NATSU POV
I awoke to the light from the rising sun peeking through the entrance of the cave opening. Blinking a few times to remove the sleep from my eyes, I scanned the inside of the cave, noticing that the fire that I had set up last night had long burnt out. Letting out a quiet yawn, I sat up from my sleeping bag and rubbed the remaining sleep from my eyes before stretching my arms out over my head, relishing in the satisfying 'pop' sound that emanated from my back as I stretched and twisted my body. My morning stretch was finished with a large yawn as I ran a hand through my hair, knowing that I probably had a bad case of bed hair from my sleep. Not even bothering to fix it, I let my hand fall back into my lap as I waited for the rest of my body, and my senses, to wake up. My hearing had already picked up the sound of twittering birds from outside the cave, and the gentle breathing of the horses behind me, and my nose was slowly picking up the smell of the burnt out campfire, the smell of the horses, and Lucy's scent of honey, vanilla, and cinnamon. I looked over towards Lucy's bag only to notice that it was empty, her boots laying off to the side where I had left them last night. A sense of dread hit me very quickly before relief washed over me, smelling only her scent and no one else's inside the cave.
Deciding to finally get out of my sleeping bag, I wriggled myself out before attempting to stand up and follow the trail of Lucy's scent. Now when I say attempt, I really mean a 'trip over my sleeping bag a few times, trip over my feet a few times, and stumble towards the entrance if the cave' kind of attempt. Finally reaching the outside of the cave, I noticed that Lucy's scent seemed to travel up a very rocky looking slope. Grinning at the idea of a challenge, I took a run up and jumped up onto the rocks, climbing up as fast as I could, managing to give myself a few small cuts and scrapes over my knees and bare feet as I climbed. Quickly reaching the top, I found Lucy sitting on top of the cave, watching the sun and eating her breakfast. Brushing off my white pants from dust (non-existent dust) I made my way over towards her. Obviously hearing me walking towards her, she turned around to see me before smiling softly.
"Oh hey Natsu, did you sleep well?" Lucy asked, the sunlight catching in her hair and making it look like actual strands of gold. I plonked myself down next to her before reaching my arms up to the sky and yawning. The morning air was cool yet refreshing, however my body was definitely not a fan of the cool mountain air I was breathing in as I shivered slightly.
"You were up early, why didn't ya wake me as well?" I asked, turning to Lucy as she ate from a small plastic collapsible bowl filled with what I could assume was cereal or muesli.
"You looked so peaceful asleep, I didn't want to disturb you. Take it as a 'thanks' for last night. Someone put me into bed, and I'm sure it wasn't the horses" Lucy explained, chuckling lightly at the end. I laughed along too, knowing that she was implying that I was the one to put her to bed. An image of one of the horses standing on two legs and tucking Lucy into bed flashed through my mind, causing me to chuckle at the bizarre thought.
"No problem, Luce" I replied, casting her a toothy grin in response. Lucy was quick to turned her face back to the direction of the rising sun.
"Plus I wanted to see the sunrise from way up here" Lucy said, gesturing to the mountain that we would be trekking up today. I turned to my left to see the town of Rythor down below in the distance. I could make out the circular structure of the town but all of the streets seemed to blur into one big mess. Looking back towards the sun, I could see what Lucy was talking about. The sky was painted in hues of red, pink, and yellow. The way the clouds drifted near the sun were a mixture of red and yellow, making the clouds looked as though they were on fire. Another random thought popped into my head of what the world would be like if the clouds were actually made of flames. Thinking of flames, I began to salivate a little, imagining the burning sensation that fire food made in my belly. My stomach grumbled at the thought of being fed, reminding me that I was actually quite hungry. The rumble from my stomach was loud enough for Lucy to hear, her eyes quickly widening and turning to look at me as my hands flew to my stomach in shock.
"I take it someone's hungry?" Lucy giggled, holding a hand in front of her mouth to supress her laughter, which she failed at.
"Oh man, I'm starving!" I groaned, rubbing my hands against my stomach. It was then that I realised that I had forgotten to put my jacket back on, which was probably laying somewhere on the floor of the cave beneath us, leaving me shirtless (minus the fact I still had my scarf on). I couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable about sitting next to Lucy without my jacket on. Sure, Lucy had seen me shirtless, hell, naked even, plenty of times, and vice versa, but I couldn't help the feeling that I needed to cover up not for myself, but for Lucy. I shook my head slightly, pushing the thought away until it was nothing but something nagging at the back of my mind. I looked over towards Lucy's breakfast bowl, eyeing the contents of the bowl.
"Here, I brought up your breakfast as well" Lucy explained before turning to her right side to retrieve another bowl full of that muesli stuff and a spoon, before handing it to me. I eyed the bowl wearily before picking up on the smell of coconut, nuts, oats, and something sweet. Lucy must have caught me glaring at the bowl as she chuckled lightly.
"It's not gonna kill you, Natsu. It's just a bowl of muesli" Lucy explained before scooping another spoonful into her mouth. Knowing that Lucy would never give me something damaging to my health, I took a heaped spoonful of the contents of my bowl and shoved it in my mouth. The muesli was rather bland, but it was saved by the sweet taste of what I could tell was honey. The moment was quickly ruined as the muesli seemed to suck up all the moisture in my mouth, causing me to cough and splutter. Lucy was quick to run her hand over my back in an attempt to help me stop coughing. The action instead made me cough harder, Lucy's touch feeling as though it was burning me, which was a really strange feeling. After a few good pounds of my fist against my chest, I was finally able to swallow the goddamn muesli stuck in my mouth.
"Are you tryn'a kill me or something, Luce?!" I exclaimed, looking at her with wild eyes. Lucy just laughed in response to my actions.
"I forgot to tell you there's no liquid in it so you'd have to eat it slowly" Lucy explained, trying to supress anymore giggles over my antics. I turned back to my bowl of muesli, this time glaring it down as though I was in a fight to the death with it.
"Goddamn muesli trying to kill me not even one day into this request" I mumbled under my breath before taking a smaller sized spoonful than my previous attempt before putting it into my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lucy tense up as though she had heard my mumblings. I brushed the thought of before looking back out towards the sun rise. Knowing that we still had at least another two days of travel ahead of us, Lucy and I quickly ate the remainder of our breakfast in a comfortable silence before climbing back down into the cave to pack up our gear and saddle the horses. I still needed help from Lucy to saddle up Felix, but I was nowhere near as bad as I was yesterday. Once saddled and packed, Lucy and I headed off, continuing our climb up the mountain on horseback.
Lucy and I were riding side by side, with Lucy navigating us, and me on alert for anything I could hear or see. Lucy was currently playing around with the small navigational lacrima I had bought back in Rythor. The guy who sold it to me explained how it worked and everything, but I can't remember a word of what he said, which was great because now neither of us knew how to use it. About half an hour in, Lucy had a 'halleluiah' moment when she figured out how to work it, her explanation to me going in one ear and going straight out the other. Sure it didn't make sense to me, but I was pretty impressed, hell, proud even, that she had figured it out with no instructions. Still, it sucked that we weren't able to just fly over the mountains and had to go over by foot, or horseback, instead. Thinking of flying reminded me of Happy, knowing that if he was here we could have arrived at Delfieor within a day or so. I had told him that I was going on a quest with Lucy (which received countless 'You liiiiikkeeeee her~' from the fur ball) and I was gonna be back in few days. Happy was fine with it, but I can't help but feel kinda bad about leaving him behind, cause me, Lucy and him are a team.
We continued the trek up the mountain, which was beginning to seem endless. It wasn't like there was anything interesting to look at either, it was just a lot of grey and brown everywhere. Sure there were some cool looking rocks that we passed by every now and again, but it was all so boring. It also didn't help that as we began to reach the summit of the mountain, the air began to thin out. The horses began to slow down due to the thin air but continued onwards, and I could hear Lucy's ragged breath as we went up higher. I didn't really feel any effects at first, I noticed that my flames had become weak due to the minimal oxygen and would just flicker out when I lit them, but then the side splitting headache hit causing all my senses to go a little foggy. The air on the mountain became colder the higher we went and started to hurt when I breathed in, which makes sense seeing as fire dragon lungs prefer warmer air, rather than cold air fit for an ice princess.
Lucy and I reached the top of the mountain by midday. I felt like I was on top of the world, but one look behind me towards the much larger snow-capped mountains along the mountain range reminded I was still quite insignificant. Even though the sun was shining above us, it was freezing on the mountain. Mid ride, Lucy had layered herself up with her jacket and all of our blankets just to keep warm. Me on the other hand, I just used my abnormally warm body heat to keep me warm. Deciding that we should give the horses a rest before we travelled down the other side of the mountain, Lucy and I stopped for a short lunch break. Lucy was nibbling a strawberry jam sandwich while I chewed down piece of smoked beef. The entire ride up Lucy had been pretty much silent and hadn't said a word, other than when I asked her about distance and time. Lucy was sitting on a rock near the edge of the mountain, overlooking Rythor and the forest that stretched out as far as the eye could see. I walked over, sitting myself down next to her as I ate my smoked beef, watching the condensation of our breaths.
"Yo Lucy, are you doing okay?" I asked, trying to soften my often harsh voice as I spoke. Lucy looked down at the sandwich which she had taken a few small bites out of in her hands.
"Yeah I'm fine, why do you ask?" she replied blandly. I had already noticed since this morning that she had been really tensed up since we left, and even underneath all those blankets, I could still tell she was tensed up.
"You've just been really quiet since we left this morning. It's not like you" I explained looking out towards Rythor in the distance. Usually Lucy would complain about everything and anything on a trip like this, but she hadn't even complained once . It was very out of character for her.
"I don't have to talk all the time, Natsu. I'm fine" Lucy replied, a slight bite in her tone as she spoke. I did a quick recap in my head of everything that had happened since we had arrived in Rythor, making sure that I hadn't done something to make her angry or upset. It could have been any of the times I touched her like on the train, when I dragged her down the street, or when I held her hands, or maybe even that time I had made fun of her lunch. Nothing came to mind at all until I remembered what happened after we met up after looking for the map.
"I will later, but not right now, please"
I had remembered seeing her in the crowd, her smell announcing her presence to me first before actually seeing her. I remember her eyes looking a little puffy and she had this look in her eye when she saw me, it was as though she was terrified and wanted to do nothing but hide. And if that didn't tell me something was wrong, she wouldn't look me in the eye the entire time. Her body seemed tensed up and ready the run if something happened, and when I tried to talk to her, she sounded like she was about to break down. Something had happened in the time that we were separated. I didn't know what it was but I was sure as hell going to find out.
"Has it got something to do with what happened at the markets?" I asked gently, not wanting to startle or scare her. Lucy's entire figure seemed to freeze and tense up all at once, an indication that I had hit a nerve or something.
"I don't want to talk about it" Lucy replied, almost snapping back and still not looking at me. I could tell she was trying to shut me out now.
"Something happened there Lucy, I know something happened. Can you please talk to me?" I pleaded again, my voice become less soft and more frustrated due to her stubbornness. Lucy had a way of making me want to pull out my hair with her stubbornness sometimes. This was beginning to become one of those times.
"Natsu, I said I don't want to" Lucy replied again, her tone becoming more angrier as she spoke through gritted teeth. Knowing that it was going to be hard to get her to talk to me, I prepared myself for the continuous back and forth conversation until she finally talked.
"Come on Luce, I know something ha-"
"Oh my god Natsu shut up! I don't want to talk about it! Did you not hear the first few times?! I. Don't. Want. To. Talk. About. IT!" Lucy yelled, standing up from her rock to glower down at me. Without even thinking, I shot up from my seat, standing in front of her and causing her to look up at me due to our height difference. I could feel my body beginning to heat up with the anger and frustration emanating from my body.
"Bullshit Lucy! Fucking bullshit! Something happened down there and you and I both know it! I don't know whether someone said something or did something to you, but goddamn it Lucy, you are gonna tell me what happened!" I yelled down at her. My voice echoed around us as neither of us said a word. Lucy had flinched at my words and I could see the anger dissipate from her eyes and turn into sadness before she looked away from me. Knowing that I had well and truly fucked up this time, I ran both my hands over my face in anger at myself. I'd always had a short fuse, but when it came to Lucy, I would rarely yell at her like this. This wasn't like me at all.
"I'm sorry Natsu…" I could hear her softly say from in front of me. Not wanting to look her in the eyes, I hung my head down, my hair flopping down to cover my eyes.
"No Luce, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that…" I apologised, still making no attempt to look up at her. I could hear her take a deep breath and sigh.
"No Natsu, this isn't you. This isn't me. We don't act like this normally. It's the altitude that's doing this, not us" I heard Lucy explain in front of me in a soft voice. Altitude or not, it gave me no excuse to treat Lucy like that.
"Lucy, it's not okay for me to talk to you like that" I mumbled, still avoiding eye contact. I heard Lucy take a step towards me before wrapping her arms around my torso, embracing me in a hug.
"And it's not okay for me to talk to you like that either" Lucy said into my chest. I slowly brought my arms up around Lucy's body, one arm around her back and the other near her shoulders. I let my face rest near her hair as we just stood in silence on the mountain. Minutes passed and not a word was spoken between either of us. I was still mad, not at Lucy, but more at myself. Thinking over what just happened made me even more angrier, my body heating up in response to my emotions. Lucy must have felt the heat as she pulled away, trying to look at me as I avoided eye contact with her.
"I think I'm gonna go ahead and give you some time to cool down…" Lucy started, obviously talking about the continuous spike in the heat from me. Lucy knew me well enough at that point that when I was like this, I just needed space.
"I just need a few minutes.." I mumbled, my voice loud enough for her to hear. Lucy nodded her head before stuffing the remains of her strawberry sandwich in her pocket, which I assumed that she would eat later on.
"I'll ride ahead, if I come to a fork in the road, I'll wait for you" Lucy said before turning towards Aiko. I saw her slap both her cheeks lightly with her hands, probably to warm them up. In any other instance, I would've thought that was cute as hell, but right now that was not what I needed. I turned around so that I was facing towards Rythor, my back facing to where Lucy was mounting Aiko. I stared out along the horizon, waiting until I could no longer hear Aiko's hooves as Lucy travelled down the mountain. When I could tell they were out of range, I turned to my left where a tall pile of rocks laid before letting out an angry yell and throwing my fist at a rock. The rock shattered into large pieces, my hand grabbing one of the pieces before hurling it as hard I could off the mountain and through the air, not really caring where it landed. My arms slumped back to my side again and I could warm dripping from my right hand, which I could smell was my own blood. I was still riled up and I knew only one solution to help calm me down.
Sitting down on the gravelled ground, I crossed my legs and placed the backs of my hands on my knees, being careful not to stain my white pants with the blood coming from my busted hand, before sitting up straight and closing my eyes. I took a deep breath of the mountain air, holding it, before slowly letting it go. Igneel had taught me this as a way of calming me down when I was angry. He said it was meditation or something? I couldn't really remember, but I do remember that when he disappeared, I stopped using it completely, letting my emotions take control when I was angry. In hind sight, I probably should have used it more often, possibly saving me a small fortune in wall and door repairs. I could slowly feel my anger beginning to slowly die down, calmness and clarity taking its place. There was still a blazing fire going on in my body, and until I could control that, I was going to stay here and meditate.
LUCY POV
Going down the mountain was far easier that going up it. Aiko and I had made it down the mountain in around 40 minutes or so. We didn't get far before we were stopped by a fork in the road, promising Natsu that I would wait for him there. Thinking of my pink-haired partner brought up all kinds of feelings I had been working my mind through as I rode Aiko down the mountain. Part of me was a little pissed that he wouldn't leave me alone when I said I didn't want to talk about it. I was eventually going to tell him about what happened, but then wasn't the best time. Another part of me was upset that we had fought like that. Sure, Natsu and I bickered between each other occasionally, but nothing to the point of yelling at each other. Was something happening in our friendship that was causing us to act like this? I was scared whether this was going to be the first fight of many. But the last part of me was scared. I had seen Natsu mad before, but not like that. He was angry and I could feel the heat practically rolling off him in waves as he yelled, but I saw something in his eyes, and I could have been mistaken, but Natsu looked scared. About what was still a mystery to me, but I knew he needed time alone so I left him.
Aiko and I were standing in front of a sign pointing in both directions. To the left of the sign stood a dark green, luscious forest, and to the right, the path seemed to trail off towards a stretch of tall dry grass off in the distance. The sign had "DELFIEOR" written in bold letters and the sign pointed to both directions, which was super helpful. The sun was high in the sky, and I turned to look back up the mountain. Natsu had been up there almost an hour now. Sure, I understand that he needed time to calm down, but I was starting to think maybe he'd taken a nap up there or something, and so help me if he did. We had a request to complete and the trip was only the first part of it. I pondered for a few minutes whether it was worth venturing on ahead and leaving him a note to tell him to follow my scent, but realising that if we were to go through the forest, my scent would have been over powered by thousands of smells, so I decided against the idea.
I turned back to check the mountain path again, not excepting to see anything new. However this time, there appeared to a cloud of dust heading down the mountain.
'Is that a tsunami? Nah, that's the ocean' I thought to myself, trying to think of what the dust cloud could be.
'Avalanche? There's no snow. Sandstorm? No sand' I pondered on, tapping my head in confusion. I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard yelling coming from the approaching dust cloud.
"SLOW DOWN YOU FOUR LEGGED SAUSAGE MEAT"
"Or it could be Natsu.." I mumbled to myself as I caught sight of his pink hair as he and Felix came bolting down the hill at breakneck speeds. I could make out Natsu calling different commands, all of which meaning 'STOP'. The closer they became, the more I realised Felix wasn't slowing down. Knowing I had a good 10 or so seconds before they reached us, I turned Aiko and walked her off to the side slightly so that we stood off to the side of the path, out of their path of destruction. Felix galloped past us, Natsu flailing on his back, again. Seeing the sign in the middle of the road, Felix finally decided to abruptly stop, sending Natsu catapulting out of the saddle and face first into the wooden direction sign, no too far in front of Felix. I rode Aiko over next to Felix before hopping off to see if Natsu was okay.
"Are you okay?" I asked leaning over towards Natsu, my voice coming out quieter than I expected, remembering that we had just had an argument on top of the mountain. Natsu was lying on the ground, his face all red and puffy from hitting the sign at full force.
"Yeah, I'm fine…" Natsu mumbled looking away from me and not making eye contact and sitting up. I shifted slightly from one foot to the other, not really knowing what to say next as an awkward silence fell between us.
"Are we fine..?" I asked in a soft voice, knowing that Natsu full well could hear me. Natsu turned to look at me, our eyes meeting for the first time since the argument.
"Yeah, I think we are…" Natsu replied, his voice just loud enough for me to hear. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders in an instant and the I could feel the awkward atmosphere between us almost disappear.
"Luce, I'm so-"
"I don't want to hear it" I said, cutting him of and holding a hand in front of him to tell him to stop. Natsu looked at me confused, but let me continue on.
"We've both said our apologies, can we just move on please?" I said, my voice coming out louder than my faint whispers from before. I saw Natsu nod before a soft smile graced his lips.
"Of course" Natsu replied, smiling. I could hear the smile in his voice and it made my insides feel kinda jittery. Wanting to get back into our normal dynamic, I stood back up properly before cocking out my hip and crossing my arms.
"I would ask what happened but I think I already know the answer" I said, cocking my eyebrow and smirking at him as I gestured to his red puffy face. Natsu pouted like a child before looking to glare at Felix.
"I just wanted to go a little faster than a walk but Felix bolted off and I couldn't stop him" Natsu sulked, eyeing the horse in question, who appeared to be glaring back at him?
"And what was shouting 'discontinue' and 'cease' going to do about it?" I replied, trying to hold back my laughter as I spoke. Natsu had never been great with words, but some of the words I had heard him yelling at Felix as a means to stop had me impressed and surprised.
"Well he wasn't stopping I thought maybe giving him commands would work" Natsu explained as he rubbed his tomato red face, which was now slowly fading. I noticed that his right hand was bandaged up, which I was sure wasn't there earlier, but decided not to say anything about it. I struggled to hold in my laughter, still not getting over the idea of Natsu calling out absurd variations of the word 'stop'. Natsu pouted at me, sending me a glare of annoyance as I laughed
"I think that may have been rider error. Felix is a good boy, aren't you boy?" I cooed as I walked over to scratch behind Felix's ears. Felix whinnied very loudly at the act while Natsu looked off in the other direction away from Felix. It was short lived however as Natsu turned to peek, a small smirk crossing his face, before turning into a chuckle. With his face no longer looking like a squashed tomato, Natsu stood up before crossing his arms and inspecting the sign that he had face planted into just earlier.
"So which way do we go now?" Natsu asked, gesturing to the rather confusing sign in front of us. Pulling out the map and looking at the navigational sphere, I quickly entered in the coordinates before waiting for the sphere to calibrate. After a few seconds, the navi sphere calibrated itself before pointing in the direction of the forest. Natsu must have been watching as well as he nodded when I looked up at him.
"Guess we'll be taking the forest path. It seems pretty straight forward from here" I said, before neatly folding up the map and stashing it back away into my pack that was loaded up onto Aiko. Natsu and I both mounted our respected horses before turning them both onto the path leading into the luscious forest. The change in scenery was a welcome one as the landscape for the last day had been mostly grey rocks and gravel. The varying shades of greens and browns provided by the forest was like a buffet for the eyes, not to mention the refreshing, but equally overwhelming, smell of pine needles and earth. I could only imagine what our surroundings were like for Natsu.
"I wonder why that sign was pointing in both directions. It seemed pretty stupid to me" I heard Natsu say to me as we walked down the forest path. We had been walking in silence for a few minutes before Natsu had spoken up, almost as though he was trying to put what happened up on the mountain behind us and just talk normally with me, which I was quite thankful for.
"Well when I looked at the map, there were actually two paths you could take after the mountain. One went directly to Delfieor, while the other one kinda goes and winds around to Delfieor. Essentially one path is direct and the other is long" I explained as we continued onward. The tall pine trees loomed over us as we walked, blocking out the sun and casting us in their cool shadows.
"So there's a normal route and a scenic route? Still sounds stupid to me. Why add an extra path?" Natsu pondered, scratching his chin with one hand, and holding Felix's reins in the other.
"Wait, we're taking the normal route, right?" Natsu questioned, his voice sounding a little panicked at the idea that we may have accidently taken the wrong route. I chuckled lightly before shaking my head.
"Yes, well I think so. I hope so. I programmed the coordinates into the navi sphere for Delfieor and the pointer was pointing at the forest path so I'm gonna assume we took the normal path?" I concluded, shrugging my shoulders in slight uncertainty. The pointer of the navi sphere was pointing directly at the forest path so I would assume that it was the direct route, seeing as the other path headed in the complete opposite direction. But it wouldn't be so bad if we accidently took the scenic route.
"I trust you" Natsu replied, nodding but keeping his eyes fixed on the path in front of us, using his senses to detect anything up ahead or behind us. I felt my face heat up a little at his words, turning my face to look to my left at the scenery passing us by. A comfortable silence once again fell between us as we continued on wards. Neither of us felt the need to speak, more or less taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of the forest around us. To me, the forest seemed to calm me, lulling me into a very zen like peacefulness. I didn't know whether it was due to the soft lighting, sounds of birds, and the gentle breeze brushing through the trees, or whether it was the deep, intoxicating smell of pine trees that made my head feel heavy, but whatever it was, I wasn't complaining.
Natsu and I kept on walking till it was high afternoon. The forest had sent me in a very peaceful trace while it was making Natsu incredibly sleepy, the pink haired wizard almost falling out of his saddle once after accidently dozing off. Knowing that we couldn't continue on like this, we decided to stop, setting up camp in a clearing not too far away from the track. The clearing came complete with a small clear water pond with a waterfall running into it. After deeming the area safe for us to stay in, Natsu and I dismounted our horses and stretched out our cramped muscles as we reached solid ground. Deciding that there was a very unlikely chance that we would get a rain overnight, Natsu and I unsaddled our horses before setting up our sleeping bags around a small fire that Natsu had built, but not lit just yet.
"That should just about do it" I huffed out, my hands slightly raw from trying to tie up a piece of rope tightly between two pine trees to make a small makeshift clothes line. We both had not had showers or washed our clothes for almost two days now. Although I had brought and extra set of clothing, I doubted Natsu did so I planned to wash his clothes while we near the small pond.
"So nothing else to be done?" I heard Natsu call out from behind me, a slightly mischievous tone to his voice as he spoke. I was still eyeing the rope, trying to make sure it wasn't going to become slack against the two trees, and that it was at an equal height on either side.
"Yeah you're done, I still gotta fix this" I called back, flicking my hand at him and not turning around as I spoke. There was a few moments of silence before I heard running feet and then a 'splash'. I turned around at the sound to see Natsu, still in his clothes, splashing around in the pond. Noticing that I had seen him, Natsu sent me a grin.
"Come in Luce! It's really nice!" Natsu called out to me, beckoning me with his hand to come join him. I shook my head, crossing my arms as I looked at him.
"No way, I'm not going in there. Plus look at your clothes! You're gonna be sleeping with wet clothes tonight" I replied, gesturing to his now soaking wet coat and pants. Sure he could take those off, but I sure as hell was not going to let him take off his boxers as well. The idea caused some very indecent thoughts to flood my mind. I shook my head very quickly to get rid of them, the redness in my face however, still lingering. I saw Natsu shrug at my words.
"I can just dry them off, you know?" Natsu replied, looking at me in confusion as I had obviously forgotten that he could dry his own clothes with his body heat alone. I turned my back to him, waving him off.
"I'm still not going in, I want to make sure this washing line is tight. You have fun in there" I called back, before turning my attention back to the rope in front of me. I already knew Natsu was pouting at me not going into the water with him, but I wasn't exactly prepared to get a cold, let alone go swimming. Untying and re-tying one side of the washing line for a final time, I could confidently say that the line was not going to go slack anytime soon. I stood back, dusting my raw hands off from dirt, and admiring my hard work. I was so focused that I hadn't heard the very soft footsteps creeping up behind me. I shrieked as I felt two wet, and warm, hands snake around my waist before hoisting me up in the air.
"NATSU!" I yelled, wriggling from his grip as I heard him laughing. Natsu's response was to run straight towards the pond, jumping into the water and dunking me down along with him. Not even having enough time to scream, I felt the icy cold water engulfe my figure, the air almost being ripped from my lungs as I gasped in shock to the temperature change around me. I felt Natsu's arms unwind themselves from my waist as I tried to find my footing in the water. Getting my feet to touch down on the pond bed, I shot up from the water, spluttering, coughing, and wiping the water (and hair) from my face. My eyes first laid upon Natsu who stood a few feet away from me grinning, his jacket now discarded on the bank of the pond.
"Ahhhah sorry Lucy" Natsu said sheepishly as I sent him a very murderous glare. Natsu wanted me to play in the water with him, and play in the water with him I would do. I began slowly walking towards Natsu, my glare still set on him. I saw Natsu take a few uneasy steps back, now regretting what he had started. When I was in close enough distance, I placed my hands together, flat out next to each other, before using my hands as a paddle to splash, or in my case drown, Natsu with water. Grinning at my achievement, I looked to see Natsu's hair now plastered down his face, a mischievous grinning spreading from his mouth. Knowing that I was now in for it, I began trying to run away from him, the water severely hindering my movement and speed. I could hear Natsu's laughing behind me as he splashed my back. I laughed in return, turning around to splash him back. Our little splashing fight lasted about 20 minutes before I was beginning to get exhausted and Natsu suggested dive bombing off the ledge of the waterfall. Deciding I had had my fill of thrills today, I sat on the edge of water and watched Natsu do countless dive bombs, back flips, belly flops, and front flips into the water, his energy never seeming to wane.
Finally getting bored of jumping off the waterfall ledge, Natsu and I decided (I more or less instructed him) that we should both take turns washing our clothes, and ourselves, down in the waterfall. I went first, swimming over towards the waterfall and reaching a small cave hidden behind the veil of water. Using the constant stream of water as a shower curtain, I undressed myself and scrubbed myself down, using a bar of soap I had asked Natsu to retrieve from my bag for me. My wash was nowhere near as relaxing or amazing as a hot shower, but the cold water made me feel fresh. Once cleaned down, I took to scrubbing my clothes under the water, trying to freshen them up as best I could. I then changed back into my clothes, not wanting to walk back to the camp bare naked, and swam out from behind the waterfall, calling for Natsu to hurry up and wash himself down. As I reached the bank of the pond, I heard Natsu diving into the water, before a cry of excitement emitted from Natsu as he declared that there were fish in the pond. Completely discarding the idea of a shower, Natsu now busied himself with trying to hunt the fish with a makeshift wooden spear.
While Natsu was spearfishing, I had walked my way over to my bag, pulled out a set of clean dry clothes, before walking over towards the washing line. Using one of the trees near the line as cover, I changed out of my wet clothes and into my dry set which consisted of a set of clean underwear, a pair of dark green shorts with rolled up cuffs, and a dark blue singlet top. Once decent, I moved out from behind the tree to hang my wet clothes onto the washing line. After hanging them up, I turned back around to look at the pond, noticing that Natsu's jacket and pants were sitting discarded on a rock. Although I knew Natsu could dry his own clothes, I thought I would be nice and hang his clothes up for him, saving him the effort of using his power. I walked over to the pond edge, gathered up Natsu's clothing, before turning back towards the little make shift washing line. I had to re-arrange my clothing so that I could fit Natsu's clothing on to it as well. I was re-hanging my skirt up when I felt droplets of cold water running down my back.
"GAHHH!" I screamed, jumping back in surprise to the cold water. I turned to see Natsu standing where I previously was a few moments earlier, his hair dripping, completely wet, holding three large fish in his hand, and wearing nothing but a pair of red boxers. How that boy could wear red boxers underneath white pants without them showing, I would never know. My heart felt as though it was about to pound out of my chest due to fright.
"DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT!" I screeched, clutching my damp skirt I was about to hang up to my chest, not worrying about getting my dry clothes wet. Natsu laughed and shook his head like a dog, water spraying out from his hair in all directions. I tried to shield myself from the spray, shrieking as I did so, my arms and face coping most of the water that came out of Natsu's hair. A warm feeling began to flutter in the pit of my stomach as I looked at Natsu, dripping like a drowned rat and shirtless. Natsu looked different. He was still the same loveable, hot headed idiot I had come to know, but I was beginning to see things I hadn't seen before. Like how attractive he looked as his wet salmon locks flopped over in front of his vision, or how his muscles looked so much more defined in the afternoon light, or how his wet red boxers stuck to his skin like a second layer, showing off the outline of his thighs, and hung loosely off his hips showing off a very prominent v line-
'LUCY WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING! NATSU IS YOUR BEST FRIEND! STOP LOOKING DOWN THERE!' I internally screamed at myself. My eyes had drifted down towards Natsu's boxers and I was very quick to bring my eyes back up to his gaze. Natsu looked as though he hadn't noticed me staring at his crotch, but my face sure didn't lie, feeling as though it was as hot as the sun and probably as red as a tomato.
"Check out the fish I caught! No more dried crappy meat for us tonight, Luce!" Natsu cried cheerfully, jumping up and down whilst motioning to the three large fish in his left hand. I was too embarrassed at myself to even speak, let alone reply.
"Hey Luce, are you feeling alright? You like you've just gone for a run or something, your face is all red" Natsu questioned, coming closer towards me to inspect my red face, which was now deepening by the second. I forced out a laugh, moving out of Natsu's grasp before running a hand over my forehead.
"Oh, I'm just really flushed, that's all. The sun's getting to me and I'm feeling a little hot" I lied, hoping the redness in my face would just disappear already. I wasn't even standing in the full sun, so I hoped Natsu was not more perceptive than what he let on. Natsu looked at me confused, tilting his head to one side. Whether it was because of my lie about being in the sun, or whether he was concerned about me getting burnt, I wasn't about to try and find out.
"Hey, why don't we get that fire started? It's gonna be getting dark soon and I'm starting to feel a little hungry" I said, changing the topic to something I knew Natsu would be very interested in. The confused look on Natsu's face quickly disappearing, being replaced by his trademark grin.
"Hell yeah!" Natsu shouted, fist pumping the air, before running off towards the camp fire he had set up earlier in the afternoon. Letting out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding, I turned to hang my skirt back up onto the line, but not before pressing it to my face to let the damp material cool down my burning face. Hoping that my beet red blush had disappeared, I made my way over towards Natsu to gather some firewood to help with the camp fire. After gathering enough wood to last us for the night, and Natsu descaling and gutting the fish he had caught, the sun was now setting over the horizon. Neither Natsu or I could see it due to the tall pine trees that surrounded us, but the various hues of pinks, blues, oranges, and purples that littered the sky above us was a tell-tale sign that it was setting.
Natsu and I ate our glamourous dinner, which consisted of grilled fish and some bread, while we talked around the fire. Thinking back on it now, Natsu and I had been friends for two years (eight if you include the seven years we were stuck on Tenrou Island), and during that time, we had both learnt a lot about each other and heard all the stories that either of us had. But every now and again, Natsu would tell me something I didn't know or hadn't heard of before, and vice versa. Tonight, Natsu was telling me a story back before he had met me, when he and Happy had once tried to steal one of Gildarts' job requests. It was a story I had never heard before, but with the expressions and mannerisms Natsu told it with, I almost felt as though I was there when he had tried to take Gildarts' job request, only to be booted through the roof of Gildarts' hut when he was caught.
Natsu and I continued to chat long after we had finished dinner, talking about everything from our friends, to past job requests, to what we would do with a reward of 1,000,000 jewel. The moon was high above us when we both decided to maybe start getting ready for bed, knowing that we both needed as much rest as we could get. After feeding and watering the horses, and putting our left over food in a secure bag away from the camp (cause the forest apparently had bears), Natsu and I both snuggled down into our respective sleeping bags. The sky was clear tonight, the stars twinkling against the midnight blue sky. Not feeling sleepy enough yet, I decided to trace out the constellations with my fingers, joining them together with imaginary lines. Normally, I would have read a book to send my head off too sleepy land, but I had stupidly forgotten to bring one with me, so tracing the stars would be the next best thing. Natsu must have glanced over and seen me pointing at the sky.
"Lucy, what are you doing?" I heard his voice ask, breaking the silence of the forest around us.
"Stargazing" I replied softly, still picking out the constellations with my fingers. I was feeling a sense of calmness wash over me as I continued to stargaze. Memories of my mother and I sitting out on the mansion lawns on a clear night as my mother used my hand to trace out the lines between the stars, teaching me which constellations where which. It was a happy memory and one of the reasons I enjoyed stargazing so much. I was broken out of my thoughts when I heard shuffling towards me. Looking over to my right, Natsu must have wiggled his way over as he was now shoulder to shoulder with my sleeping bag.
"Why?" I heard Natsu quietly ask me as he intently watched my pointed hand make slight movements.
"First, because I'm bored, and second, because my mother and I used to stargaze when I was little. It's how I first learnt about the stars" I replied, a smile gracing across my lips as I remembered the fond memories of my mother teaching me about the stars.
"Can you show me?" Natsu asked softly, his questioning catching me completely off guard as I lost track of which constellation I was tracing. I looked over to see Natsu's deep onyx eyes staring back at me, illuminated by the stars above. I snorted slightly.
"I thought you didn't understand the stars" I said, stifling a laugh as I spoke. Natsu frowned at me in response.
"You make me sound dumb" Natsu said, huffing slightly. I couldn't see him too well in the dark, but I could tell he was pouting. Natsu was a lot of things, but dumb was not one of them. Sure, he could act like an idiot most of the times, but Natsu was incredibly smart, especially when it came to things like fighting and magic. I could confidently say that I would never be as smart as Natsu could be in a battle, but I could definitely try.
"No, you know that's not true. I meant to say 'I thought you didn't care about them" I replied, trying to re-word what I had previously said to make it sound less offensive towards him. I heard Natsu hum in response, his bag rustling as though he was moving.
"Well I don't really, but I also can't sleep and the only thing I have to do at the moment is looking up at the stars, so I might as well learn something about them" Natsu explained, placing his hands behind his head like a makeshift pillow. I felt a wave of happiness course through my body as I thought of the prospect of Natsu actually wanting to learn about the stars, the things that my magic was based on.
"Plus you seem to have happy memories about stargazing, so I wanna see why you enjoy it so much" Natsu added on, taking a deep, slow breath as he finished speaking. My wave of happiness was replaced with something more erratic that fluttered though my entire body. Natsu knew how I sometimes talked about the really good memories that I had with my mother, and the fact that he wanted to participate in something that I had only done with my mother made my heart swell.
"Okay, I'll show you" I replied, before grabbing Natsu's left wrist with my right hand, his index finger pointing out towards the stars. I was really glad that it was dark as the redness in my face was beginning to return.
"Alright see those two stars next to each other there? Well if we connect them together and draw like a big back to front 'j' underneath them, that's Horologium" I explained, using Natsu's finger to trace out the stars and draw a large backwards 'j' underneath them.
"Like this?" Natsu asked, moving his hand on its own to trace out the stars, trying to remember my movements and doing rather well at copying them. I nodded slightly.
"Yup, that's it" I replied, encouraging him to keep going. Yeah, Natsu had never had an interest in stars before, but it was nice to see him try and make an effort to understand them.
"Who's Horologium?" Natsu asked, slightly confused, probably not remembering many of the names of my silver keys, except for Plue. I face palmed with my free hand.
"He's the clock that always comes to rescue me sometimes" I explained, hoping that maybe that might give him an idea of who he was. Horologium had saved me many times, with Natsu being saved by him a few times as well, so hopefully he would know he was.
"Oh is that the clock dude that you always keep hiding in?" Natsu replied, his free hand scratching his chin as he thought
"Yes, that's him, and I do not hide in him all the time" I replied, slapping his arm lightly with my hand in feign annoyance. I could hear Natsu chuckling at my action, and could imagine a smirk was probably across his face.
"Show me another one" Natsu asked, directing my attention back to the stars. I decided to pick out one that I knew Natsu would know.
"Okay so this one's a little harder. See that really bright star there? Well we're gonna follow it up to make the head, and then this way to make the body, and then we're gonna make the legs, and then link it all back together" I explained, taking Natsu's hand and tracing around the brightest star in the sky to make an animal silhouette.
"Yeah I see it" Natsu replied, trying once again to trace it on his own, doing a pretty good job at it.
"That's the constellation of Leo the Lion, but it's really just Loke" I said, grinning at the thought of my lion celestial spirit. I heard Natsu laugh a little before waving his hand up at the stars.
"Hey Loke!" Natsu called out, waving his hand frantically at the constellation. I couldn't help but laugh at his enthusiasm, knowing that Loke would never let him live that down if he saw Natsu waving at his constellation. I continued to point out constellations for Natsu, sticking to the zodiac constellations, knowing that they would be the ones that Natsu knew better, and also because they were easier to find that some of the smaller constellations, like Plue's. We continued on to find Virgo, Gemini, Taurus, and Cancer before Natsu began to get sleepy and couldn't concentrate any longer. Letting go of his wrist, Natsu retreated his hand back into his sleeping bag, my hand following suit into my sleeping bag.
"Hey, Luce?" I heard Natsu's sleepy voice mumble next to me. I turned to look at his face, his eyes closed as he spoke.
"Yeah?" I replied back, my own voice quitter due to my own tiredness.
"Thanks for showing me the stars" Natsu replied, his voice now thick with sleep as I could tell he was beginning to doze off. I felt a grin spread across my face at his words, and my stomach flutter. It felt amazing for Natsu to not only take interest about something that was so dear to me, but to also participate in something that I had only previously done with my mother.
"You're welcome Natsu, anytime" I replied, my voice soft and gentle, as if to not wake him up, but knowing that that wasn't possible. Natsu was now softly snoring beside me, his body warmth almost seeping through his sleeping bag and into mine. I could feel it lulling me off to sleep as my eyelids became heavy and I let them drop. Natsu's words reverberated in my head, causing me to grin slightly as I dropped off into peaceful sleep.
NEXT MORNING
Birds twittered as I woke up. The sky above me was pink and orange, meaning the sun had just risen. The morning air was crisp and dew had formed on the grass, making it shimmer in the sun light. I looked over to my side to find Natsu's empty sleeping bag.
'I wonder where he went' I thought to myself before slipping out of my sleeping bag and stretching my muscles out. I was really beginning to miss my own bed as I could feel the effect that sleeping on the hard ground was having on my back. Stretching out as best I could, I stood up before looking around the camp for Natsu, a loud yawn escaping my mouth as I did so. The fire was out, Felix and Aiko were still tied up where we had left them last night, and I couldn't hear any splashing in the pond, aside from the constant noise of the waterfall. I really had no idea where he was, but I knew he wouldn't be too far away. Shrugging, I walked over towards the makeshift washing line, which was now sagging slightly, to grab the clothes I had washed yesterday. I didn't mind wearing my shorts and singlet, but I didn't feel comfortable fighting in these clothes if I had to, much preferring my usual blue button up top and white skirt. Just before reaching the washing line however, I slipped on the dewy morning grass.
"KYAAA!" I shrieked as I slipped and fell backwards into an oh-so-conveniently placed puddle of mud. I cursed as I felt my back, legs, and hair become covered in the mud. I groaned in annoyance of the fact that I had just washed yesterday, but I now also had to wash another set of clothes. I picked myself up and turned to walk back towards the pond. Once at the bank, I gingerly made my way through the ice cold water towards the ledge behind the waterfall. When I was behind the sheet of water, I undressed myself before scrubbing my clothes, trying to rid them of the mud that I had fallen into. When I felt confident that I had washed out the mud, I then turned my attention to washing the mud off my body, using part of the waterfall to wash my hair as I sung quietly to myself. I was startled when a pair of hands grabbed my waist.
"AHHHHHHH!" I screamed as I spun around, doing the first thing that came to mind, which was to slap my attacker. Natsu stood in front of me in a state of shock, now with large red welt on his face.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU PERVERT?!" I screeched, scrambling to cover my chest up with my arms. My bottom half was covered by the bubbles from the waterfall, but that still didn't make me feel any better about the situation. Natsu looked at me before his face turned as red as a tomato.
"I was gonna surprise you but I didn't knowing you were taking a shower…" Natsu trailed off, trying to look at everything but me. I huffed in response.
"Yeah well, if you couldn't see, I'm kinda NAKED HERE!" I said, yelling to emphasise my point. Natsu had seen me naked plenty of times but it still didn't make me feel better about what was going on. I looked back over at Natsu who was no longer looking at my eyes anymore.
"Oi, eyes up here!" I yelled, catching Natsu's attention as he looked up. I didn't know if it was possible, but his face was going redder and redder by the second.
"Oh sorry. So um, yeah, uh, I'm just gonna be, um, over at the, uh, camp. Bye" Natsu stuttered before diving through the waterfall and into the pond, probably to swim back over to camp. I peeked around the waterfall curtain to make sure he was over at the camp before resuming my shower, my face also still quite red from our encounter.
NATSU'S POV:
'WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING' my mind screamed at me. I had done some stupid things in my life, and this felt like one of them.
'I WALKED IN ON HER IN THE MIDDLE OF HER SHOWER! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING NATSU!?' my mind repeatedly screamed at me. That encounter had to be in my top ten awkward moments, of my entire life. I woke up early this morning, not of my own accord, and decided instead of laying in my sleeping bag (next to Lucy mind you) until my partner awoke, I would go and find somewhere to train for a little bit. I didn't know how much time had passed, but when I returned, Lucy's sleeping bag was empty. For some stupid reason, my mind thought it was a game and I had to try and find her, which is when I sort of accidentally walked in on her shower, completely forgetting that behind the waterfall is essentially the bathroom. I mean it's bad enough that I grabbed her, but she caught me looking at her boobs as well! I really was slapping myself in the face for that one, but to be fair, I caught her staring at my crotch yesterday so I guess we could call it even. She thought I didn't notice, but I could see she was looking, and that tomato shade her face turned afterwards was pretty damning evidence.
I was sitting on the bank of the pond, my red boxer shorts still soaking from my very quick swim back to shore. Knowing I should probably get myself changed and ready for the day, I sighed, picking myself up and going over to the clothesline and grabbing my clothes that Lucy had washed for me yesterday. After retrieving my white pants and coat off the line, I walked back over towards the bank of the pond. Using my body heat, I quickly dried off my boxers from any remaining water, and got changed back into my normal pants and jacket. Using the reflection of the water as a mirror, I spiked up pieces of my hair, using the heat from my hands as essentially a hair straightener. Satisfied that I looked somewhat presentable, I made my way back over towards the camp, putting my sandals back on as I reached my bag.
Knowing that Lucy had prepared my breakfast for me yesterday, I decided to repay the favour today and make hers for her as well. Breakfast consisted of the same dry muesli, with nuts, oats, and coconut. An idea flashed to mind when I remembered the raspberry bushes I had seen whilst trying to find a clearing to train in. I placed the packet of breakfast muesli back into one of the packs before jogging my way towards the direction of the washing line. Once I reached the washing line, I noticed that Lucy's usual clothes were no longer hung up, and instead were the clothes she was wearing the night before, which were now soaking wet. Knowing that they probably wouldn't dry in time before we headed off, I used my hands to quickly dry her clothes, leaving them slightly warm to the touch. Now heading back in the direction of where I had been training, I found a few raspberry bushes, all bearing plentiful amounts of berries. Taking as many raspberries as my hands, and jacket, would allow me to, I made my way back towards the camp, with just enough time to prepare breakfast, with a sprinkling of wild raspberries, before Lucy returned. I could hear her before I could see. She walked over, sitting herself down on one of the logs we had moved to use for seats before busying herself with fixing her clothing.
"Good morning Natsu, thank you for drying my clothes for me" Lucy said, as I continued to munch down on my dry breakfast. I'm sure the muesli would taste amazing if I only had some milk, but for now I was stuck with something that had a texture akin to cardboard. I cocked my head at her, raising my eyebrow smugly in response.
"How did you know it was me?" I asked in a playful tone. I was hoping she wasn't mad about what happened earlier, but I sure as hell wasn't about to ask about it, so I would just had to act normally to sus out the waters. She seemed fine so far though. Lucy chuckled slightly.
"Well they were wet when I left them and dry when I returned. Duh, who else has fire magic in these woods?" she replied, pretending to act dumb. I glared at her and then looked the other way. Remembering I had prepared her some breakfast, I picked up the spare bowl to the side of me before offering it out towards her. Lucy took it gratefully, giving me a little bow of her head as she accepted it. Now with the bowl in her hands, she inspected the small raspberries I had picked earlier, curiosity gracing across her face
"What's this?" she asked herself quietly, knowing that they were raspberries, but probably curious as to how we had them.
"Oh when I went for a walk this morning, I found a whole heap of bushes that were pretty much sagging with all these raspberries. Though you'd like em' as a little surprise" I replied to her question, giving her a small sincere smile as I could feel the confidence spreading through me. Lucy looked back up at me, our eyes meeting each other. Lucy smile was large and bright as she realised that I wanted to do something nice for her.
"Thank you Natsu! That's so nice of you" Lucy chimed, her smile almost radiating sunlight. I knew it wasn't, but to me, I felt it was. I felt all my confidence turn into shyness at her response, my face turning beet red. I quickly looked away from her smile, deciding to busy myself by pretending to find something really fascinating in my muesli. There really wasn't anything to be fascinated about in the muesil, but it was better that showing off my blush to the world. Hell, I was so glad that Gray or Gajeel weren't here at the moment, knowing the amount of chastising I would have received if they knew that the Great Salamander was blushing over a girl. But it wasn't just any girl, it was Lucy who I was blushing over, and although I would never admit it out loud, I was more than happy to blush over her.
The rest of our breakfast fell into a comfortable silence. I finished my breakfast before Lucy, due to the fact that I had also started eating before her, and began packing up gear. I started by rolling up both Lucy and my sleeping bags, attaching them both to our respective packs. Whilst I fed and watered the horses before we saddled them up, Lucy went over towards her washing line that she had spent way too much time yesterday perfecting, only to disassemble it today, folding her now dry clothes (thanks to me) before returning to where all our packs were. For the first time ever during our trip, I saddled up Felix with no help at all from Lucy. I had her do the once over to make sure all the straps were in the right places and tightened properly, but she gave me the all clear, my grin actually hurting my face as I jumped up and down in joy. My achievement had put me in a really good mood for the morning as we rode off on the horses, making sure we had left nothing behind before leaving.
We were walking down the forest path walking side by side, as the path was wide enough to allow us to do so. There were many strange creatures in the woods, many of which I had never seen before in my life, and I was pretty sure the same went for Lucy too. I could see small animals dart away from the path as we neared, and I could hear bizarre and unknown bird calls I had never heard before coming from the birds in the trees around us. My only explanation to all the weird animals was how close we were Seven's borders, although when I had a look at the map, it seemed as though Delfieor was actually in Seven's territory. That had me very confused because if Delfieor was a town in the country of Seven, then why was a guild in Fiore, a different country, given the request? It all seemed very strange to me. As I continued to mull over my thoughts, I noticed that the further we walked through the forest, the quieter and darker our surroundings became. The bird calls had stopped, the small animals near the edges of the path had disappeared, and the forest around us seemed to thicken, blocking out a lot of the light from the sun. I had my senses on high alert in case someone or something decided to ambush us.
"Hey Natsu?" I heard Lucy ask, her voice quiet as though she didn't want to disturb the silence that was around us.
"Yeah?" I replied, turning to look at her as we continued to walk on our horses down the forest path.
"What are we gonna do when we get there?" She asked me. Her voice was still quiet and she sounded a little scared. I wouldn't blame her either. We were heading through a dark and foreboding forest to a town that no one had ever returned from. I thought about what we would do when we got there. Most missions we went on, I would bust out the old 'Fire Dragon's Iron Fist' and burn all the bad guys down, but this mission felt very different. It kinda gave off a different vibe, like a 'one wrong move and you die' vibe, and the rumours that we had been hearing from the towns people back at Rythor were not helping. Somehow, I reckoned that my usual approach wouldn't be the wisest idea.
"Well normally, I would just go in, fists blazing, but this request seems very different, so don't really know what to do. Have you got any ideas?" I asked, explaining my thoughts on the matter. If anyone was going to come up with a flawless plan, it would be Lucy.
"Well, I guess we could find a quiet, non-noticeable place to camp out and do some reconnaissance and get some information about what we're dealing with" Lucy replied, thinking for a seconds before replying. Her plan seemed like a good idea, we could get a much better idea on the town, and we would be out of danger, for a little while at least. I could always rely on Lucy to be level-headed and smart.
"But what do we do after we get all our information?" I asked her, knowing that our request was not to gather reconnaissance information or to watch the town from afar. I could see Lucy's mouth twitch up in a slight smile.
"I guess we could use plan 'T' and bust in and take'em out?" I heard her reply, I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. I grinned at her suggestion, the idea of a fight sending tingles through my body.
"Yeah! I like that idea Luce, I'm gonna be all fired up!" I exclaimed, fisting pumping in the air as I said my infamous catchphrase. I could hear Lucy trying to supress a giggle, whilst I chuckled loudly, forgetting completely about the silence of the forest that surrounded us as my voice echoed and bounced off the trees. Our laughter was abruptly stopped when Aiko refused to walk any further, the echoes of my laughter eerily bouncing around as everything faded into silence once more.
"Come on Aiko, what's wrong?" Lucy asked her steed, lightly digging her feet into Aiko's side to get her to move forward. Aiko stood still in her spot, her head lowered slightly and her ears flattened against her head.
"See! Not only does my horse hate me, but yours does too!" I jeered whilst Felix continued walking onward. I turned back to see Lucy sending a glare at me as she continued to try and coax Aiko to move forward. I ended up stopping a few metres ahead of the pair as Lucy spent around 10 minutes trying to get Aiko to move. When she finally did, Aiko did not look happy about it as she hung her head low and her ears were still flattened against her head.
"Felix is a good boy, Felix loves me. Don't you-" I went to hug Felix's neck but was stopped when I noticed his ears too were flattened against his head. Lucy was now up beside me again as we both kicked our horses off into a very reluctant walk. A thick fog had begun to surround us as we walked onwards. The fog didn't feel normal. All my senses felt fuzzy and very hazy, which I knew normal fog could never do to me. I tried my best to focus on my senses, but it made very little difference.
"I don't know what's up with them.." Lucy muttered, rubbing Aiko's neck in reassurance. Lucy sounded concerned, but more than that, she sounded terrified.
"Animals can sense things we can't" I replied, looking onwards ahead towards our rapidly dimishing vision in front of us. I really hated it when I couldn't sense what was going on around me, and right now, if somebody attacked us, I wouldn't be able to sense them at all.
"Could that mean they are sensing something bad?" She asked, worry thick in her voice. I knew she was thinking about every worst possible thing that we could encounter up ahead. My mind started to wander slightly, thinking about what horrors could await us, but quickly ended that line of thinking, knowing that I could think about stuff like that right now.
"Quite possibly, but this fog sure isn't helping" I replied. Just as I had said that, something hit senses like a brick wall. The rotten stench of death was all around us, clouding up a lot of my senses. The smell of death was never one you could forget easily, it was a scent that once you had smelt it, you would never forget it. I coughed and used my scarf to cover my mouth and nose, although my scarf did little to dilute the stench. Lucy turned to me and sent a questioning look at my actions.
"What are you doing?" she asked curiously, knowing that there was something going on that she probably couldn't sense.
"All around us reeks of death. I think this is what the horses could smell" I muffled through my scarf, having sympathy for the poor horses who had spent the last 20 minutes walking through the stench. The fog around us was as thick as it could be and we could no longer see any further than 5 metres away from us. My senses were pretty much kaput at this point, my nose being clogged up by the stench, and my ears and eyes having difficulty sensing anything through the thick fog. Lucy and I heard something snap on the side of the track, startling both of us. Aiko snorted before rearing up and bolting off into the thick fog, disappearing through what seemed like a grey wall. I could hear Lucy yelping as they became further and further away from us. I kicked Felix into a gallop and chased off after them. Felix and I hit a pocket of fog where it wasn't as thick and I could see Lucy and Aiko 10 metres ahead of us, at a complete standstill.
"Lucy?! Are you okay?!" I asked, relieved that she hadn't had an accident of any kind, but concerned as she didn't turn around to look at me. I trotted Felix over to where the duo where standing in the middle of the track. I had to resist the urge to pull my scarf higher over my face as the small pocket of fog seemed to reek very strongly of death.
"What the hell happened back there? Are you al-" I was cut off when I had finally ridden up next to the due and caught a glimpse of Lucy's face. She was staring dead ahead, and her face was a as pale as a sheet, paling more and more as the seconds went by. I felt concern flood through my body as I saw her state.
"Lucy? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost" I asked, not even trying to hide the worry in my tone as I spoke. Lucy slowly turned to look at me, her wide terrified eyes staring into mine. In this moment, I felt scared, more scared than I had ever felt in my life. Lucy looked terrifying and I didn't know what was going on.
"Natsu.." she trailed quietly, her voice shaking as she tried to speak. I saw her arm rise and point out in front of us. I followed the direction that her arm was pointing into the fog to. My eyes adjusted to the fog to see a sign about 5 metres in front of us. When I realised what she had been so terrified about, my stomach dropped. The sign was written in neat black writing that read 'DELFIEOR', but what was above had my stomach trying to hurl. Above the sign sat a severed head, impaled by a spike.
A/N: Hey ya'll! Hope you are all enjoying the story so far. Sorry this chapter is a few weeks late, I've been sick lately so writing has been slow, but totally worth it cause this chapter is a whooping 13,000 words from and the original 5,000 words.
Anywayss, hope everyone is having a really good Easter holiday so far and I hope you have enjoyed the new chapter :)
- Blue xoxo