I've been writing a new one-shot, you can expect it tomorrow, but no promises. Of course, it's Natsu and Lucy, just like everything else I write. It's sad, but not tragic!
Oh and if you are a Gajeel fan and mad at me for making him evil, don't worry... Gajeel is going to appear more than once in this story.
Nothing special in this Author's Note. Except a big thanks for reviewing! The reviewers are Esme Alexis, Candy5554, Disney lovers 101, Ice and Thunder, and bluerainst0rm.
Also, thanks for the constructive criticism. I very much appreciate it, and I'll do my best to avoid saying "said" so much.
I close my eyes, bracing for impact, but it never comes. Instead I feel the box I'm in shake. Wait a minute! I'm not in a box! I'm fighting this Gajeel guy! I open my eyes and look out through this glass window. I'm in a giant brown box! I see Gajeel trying to break the glass in front of me, but it's not budging. I look to my right, where Lucy is standing, and I see her sneak through behind the box. She opens the glass window to the box and sits inside with me.
"Horologium! Return to the Spirit World!" Lucy commands it. So this big brown box is actually the giant clock guy? That means Lucy saved my life!
"T-thanks Lucy. You saved my life." I say.
"No problem. Sometimes the protectors need a bit of protecting themselves." She says. I nod gratefully and turn my attention to the window. I notice it starting to glow, and then I look over to Lucy who is also glowing. I look at my hand, seeing it glowing as well. Is this how we get back to the Spirit World?
Suddenly the view outside the clock completely changes into something more starry and colorful. The sky looks like a bright purple, but it isn't dark outside! I don't really understand what's going on, but I'm guessing this is what the Spirit World looks like.
I don't see a whole lot, because my vision starts to fade. I try to resist it as much as I can, but I can't do anything to fight the fatigue that I'm feeling. I blink a few times, trying to keep my eyes from fully closing, but the effort proves futile when my eyes don't open the next time I close them.
What seems to be hours later, I wake up on some sort of operating table. I look around and see myself being healed. It's really cool looking magic that's flowing into my body. I quickly scan for Lucy, and she's sitting on a chair next to me.
"Lucy?" I ask. She turns to look at me with a smile. "Where am I?" I notice her puffy red eyes and I can tell she's been crying. "Lucy, why were you crying? Did someone hurt your feelings? Do I have to kick the shit outta someone?"
She giggles at my choice of words, but continues to say, "I thought... I thought you weren't gonna wake up. That metal guy hit you pretty hard and I don't want to live in a world without you. So please, Natsu, don't scare me like that. I thought you were dead Natsu. You didn't wake up, not even when I opened your eyelids, you still didn't wake up."
"L-Lucy, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear! I was trying to stay awake, but I couldn't." I apologize, ended dejectedly.
"It's okay, Natsu. I'm just glad you're okay now. Nothing else matters. And to answer your question, we're in the Spirit World. I learned that this place is where the Celestial Spirits reside when they're not being summoned. So that's why you see Virgo and Horologium." She says.
"Spirit World? How'd I get through?" I ask.
"Well, we use Spirit World clothes in the castle, which we get from Virgo. Many of your bodyguard outfits came from the Spirit World, and I don't know much about your scarf, but your scarf was perfectly fine coming through. I guess dragon scales are fine too." She says.
"What's happening to me?" I ask.
"You're being healed right now, Natsu. Virgo says you'll be back on your feet by tomorrow morning. We'll be able to meet up with dad really quickly, and we'll be home super fast!" She says excitedly.
"Yup! I'm feeling better already. Who knows, maybe we can leave sooner than later!" I suggest cheerfully.
"Yeah." She says, then yawns. "That'd be nice."
"You tired Lucy?" I ask.
"Yeah, I haven't slept in a long time! We had to wake up early yesterday and I was afraid to sleep while you were out cold." She complains.
"Then come here, and sleep next to me!" I tell her.
"Okay!" She says cheerfully, before sliding onto the table next to me. It's not extremely comfortable, but I do my best to make sure she's having as good of a sleep as I can ensure for her.
Some more hours later, Lucy and I wake up on the table, and I feel back to full energy. I look over to Virgo, and see her waiting for us to wake up. Lucy is still dead asleep, so she cannot do whatever it is she wants to.
An hour later, Lucy wakes up, and Virgo begins to talk. The first thing she tells us about is how the flow of time works in the Celestial Realm. She says that one day in this place is actually 3 months in the normal world! Three whole freaking months! Does that mean Jude thinks we've been missing for three months? Oh no! What do we do? He's probably gone home by now. At least we'll be in the village, right? Then we can just contact people and get ourselves a ride back to Crocus, where the capital is.
Unfortunately, Virgo says otherwise. Apparently, Horologium is going to enter Earthland in a random spot in the Kingdom of Fiore, which is really annoying. We're not going to have any idea where to go! Virgo says that Horologium will, however, show up within 100 miles of Magnolia. So maybe we can get back to the town.
Lucy and I really want to get going back home. We know that the longer stay in here, the longer it will take us to find our home. So as soon as I can walk, we're given supplies to continue on our journey.
Some of our supplies include food and water, which I guess makes sense if we're in the wilderness. I really hope we end up in a town. Having to wander through deep forest or something stupid like that would be terrible.
Lucy and I say our goodbyes before we hop back into Horologium. I don't know if I can trust this clock guy's location. I really hope we end up in a town. I'd hate to have to walk through some uncharted lands. He travels through the gate once more, and we're back in our world. I think it's pretty cool to travel through the gate with him. My thoughts of traveling between Celestial and Earthland Realms is cut short by our arrival back in Earthland.
We're in a desert. A huge desert! All I can see is sand, for miles and miles! I'm really scared that we're extremely far from Magnolia. I want to complain to Horologium about how our destination is awful, but he's gone before I can even open my mouth. I look over to Lucy and she looks terrified. I know that I have to be brave to give her hope. So I push out all of my fears, and I extend my hand to Lucy. I smile brightly.
"Come on Lucy! Let's start our adventure home together!" I say cheerfully. She nods and takes my hand, and we begin to walk.
I don't know if we're going in the right direction. I don't know if we're leaving the country. I definitely don't know how long it will take us to get home, but I have to be brave. I have to be brave for Lucy, because if I'm not, than nobody will be. And I don't want Lucy feeling like she's alone. She's not, because she has me.
I'm looking for a path. If I can find a path, we can probably find a town. It'll probably be a while before that, so I need to find something to talk about.
"Hey Lucy, this is kind of funny. Remember how I said I was going on that adventure when I first met you? I finally am now. And look, you get to come along with me!" I reminisce happily.
"Yeah, I just hope dad isn't worried. He's probably looking all over for us." She points out sadly.
"Don't worry, if you stick with me, we'll make it back just fine!" I reassure her confidently. "All we gotta do is find a town, and we should be good from there, right?" She nods, and we continue to walk in this barren desert.
It's almost nighttime, and I heard it gets really cold in deserts at nighttime. I'm afraid that Lucy will be cold, so I have to make sure to keep her warm. As I'm thinking of ways of doing so, I hear her shriek and I turn around. She's falling in quicksand!
"Lucy hold up! I got you!" I say confidently.
"HELP! Natsu! HELP!" She shouts.
I rummage through the bag that Virgo gave me, looking for different things I could use to pull her out. I find one that looks exceptionally good. It's a magical whip of sorts, but it's made of stars. I don't have much time so I extend it using some of my magic, and toss it out to her. She grabs it, and pulls up on it. I reel her in, almost like a fish, and I hug her as soon as she's on dry ground.
"Jeez, that was close." I say.
"Thanks again Natsu." She responds.
"No problem Lucy. I told you that if you sticked with me, you'd be A-okay!" I say, giving her a bright smile. She smiles back, though it's hard to see at nighttime in the desert.
It's really late at night now, and Lucy's pretty cold. I'm holding her on my back while she tries to sleep, and I'm making progress to wherever we have to go. In the distance I see a very dim light on the horizon. Expecting a town, I run forward as fast as I can. My excitement accidentally wakes Lucy up, to which I apologize to her for. She says it's okay, and I continue on running.
As we start to approach it, I notice it looks like a pretty weird town. The closer and closer it gets, the less and less occupied it looks. When we're finally close enough to it, we realize it's not actually a town, but desert ruins!
"Hey Lucy, there are desert ruins in here, how about we find a good place to sleep down here?" I ask. She nods silently, because she's beyond exhausted. I can't blame her because she's been up very late for the past few days. We walk into the ruins quietly, and go down a floor. I make sure to avoid any traps that I come across, although most have long since broken.
I find a well insulated room that feels a lot warmer than the rest. It's old and dusty, but the floor rather clean. I use my fire to clean the floor with excessive heat, and by the time I'm done, this room looks a lot like it used to when it was first built. I lie down and have Lucy rest on me so that she gets better sleep. She's in my arms the whole night and I make sure not to let her go. I hold her like my life depends on it.
In the morning, I wake up to see Lucy going through the bag. She's eating some of the food we were given. There aren't any meats in the bag, which makes me frown, but food is food, and I'm really hungry, so I accept the bread and go on with it. We spend a few minutes eating the bread.
"Lucy, you wanna keep exploring the ruins or head out for a town?" I ask her.
"How about we explore the ruins. There might be some treasure!" She says excitedly. I nod in agreement, and we get up and start walking again. We go down yet another staircase, and now we're down far enough that there is no natural lighting. I light my right hand on fire, and hold Lucy's in my left. I don't want anything to happen to her.
Lucy seems intrigued by the art on the walls. I think it looks kind of stupid, because the people look weird, but for some reason, Lucy likes it. We eventually come up to this room that has a coffin with a wrapped up thingy in it. I think it's a body, but I'm not sure what they put in those things.
I see a gap in the floor. It's dug down pretty deep. I guess it was meant to be a pitfall trap. I look down as far as I can, and I can barely see some spikes with dead bodies on them. Suddenly, the ground I'm standing on slips, and I fall off into the pit! As I'm falling, I grab onto a rock jutting out from the wall. I quickly hoist myself back onto that rock, and I use my Dragon Slayer Magic to get back up to the surface where Lucy is. Once up there, I carry her across with me.
Of course, this deserted structure happens to have the prevalent arrow and tiled floor trap design that most places had back in these days. I use my Fire Dragon's Roar and break the launching mechanisms on each and every dispenser. Normally I'd have fun with the dispensers and the tiled plates on the floor, but I don't want to risk injuring Lucy. I felt bad destroying it because for ancient people, it was actually pretty advanced for their time.
Finally, we arrive in a small room with a pool of water. Coffins line the sides of the walls, and there's one at the back pool of the water.
I shine my light elsewhere, and I notice there's a lot more in here than just dead bodies. There's loads and loads of treasure! Inside the little pool of water, hundreds and thousands of little pieces of gold are of our eyes go wide, and then we simultaneously look at each other, smiling as bright as the sun. We explore all of the different jewels and pieces of gold. We put a lot of the more valuable looking things we could find in our bag, and Lucy kept a crown we found. I took a small scepter that had a dragon head on it. I made sure to grab a lot of gold coins to sell for extremely high values.
"What do we do with the stuff we can't grab?" Lucy asks.
"Well, we'll leave it here for now. If there are no nearby towns, then we probably won't come back for it. So just take the things you like the most." I explain to her.
"Oh alright. I think I got enough stuff, and I kind of want to get out of here. I don't want to get trapped down here or something." She says nervously.
"Yup, these things always have secret traps, so let's go Lucy." I agree, grabbing her hand, and leading her out the door. As we're walking up the stairs, a giant slab of sandstone comes down from the ceiling, effectively trapping us in. I imagine that it's one of the traps in this burial site. Unfortunately, they didn't expect me to be a Dragon Slayer, and I busted through the sandstone easily. We run outside and sigh in relief once we see the outdoors again.
"Those tombs really creep me out." Lucy says.
"Don't worry, we have enough money to last us a long time thanks to that." I assure her. "We won't need to visit any tombs for a while."
"Should we head on tonight, Natsu?" Lucy asks.
"Yep, we'll go as far as we can. If we can find a civilization today, we'll have a place to sell the gold stuff we didn't want." I say, informing her of our plan.
We wander aimlessly through the desert that day. We look around for towns, roads, and paths. Nothing turns up by sunset and we pick a good hill to camp out on top of. I lie down and Lucy snuggles up next to me. I hold her close to keep her warm, and we look at the stars in the sky. She explains all the constellations in the sky, and I ask why they sound familiar. She says it's because her spirits are named after and based on each specific constellation. It made sense to me, so I let her go back to talking about constellations until we both fell asleep.
I really miss home, Jude, and the nice people at the castle, but this adventure is really promising and sounds like it will be a lot of fun! I can't wait to continue exploring!