I couldn't even begin to tell you how much I love you guys for reading. Seriously, y'all are amazing! Your support makes me really happy. Not even kidding. XD
I keep getting the question/comment in reviews that goes something like, "I hope they recognize Lucy soon" or "When will she go back to them?" or other things similar. And I usually kind of grin at it, and reply to the reviews with, "I can't have them recognize her too soon." or with "That's for me to know and you to find out xD". I'm such a geek. Haha.
I HAD this story written out on paper…until I started to make it longer and expand upon it. Now what would have ended about three chapters ago, I'm planning on making last for at least fifteen. I've got a LOT to add in mind, and you'll just have to stick around a while to see just what, right? :]
Now I can feel you screaming at me to shut up so you can read, so here's Until She's Home Again, chapter 6.
We stood facing each other on the deck of the boat, my old teammates and I, as I held my book down at my side. Natsu was turning green from the gentle rocking motions, but stood firm while pointing a finger at me, still in his accusatory position.
"You know, if you're bothered by the boat's rocking," I said, stepping forward and using my gloved right hand to slowly push his hand down, "You should go below deck. It might not be as bad down there as it is up here."
"Ungh," Natsu groaned, holding his stomach, "don't' say 'boat' and 'rocking' in the same sentence…"
"Don't get sick just thinking about it!" Gray stepped back as the dragonslayer slumped down to the deck on his backside, looking even worse than he had a second ago. I let myself kind of grin at the familiar actions, but forced the expression to change to a smirk at the last minute because I could still feel Erza's eyes on me. I folded my arms across my chest and watched the two young men for a moment before turning to Erza. I nodded to her and started to walk past them, to head back down to my rooms, but the ex-quip mage placed an armor covered hand on my arm and stopped me in my tracks.
"Layla, isn't it?" she asked when I turned my attention to her.
"That's right. Layla Heart. I know who you guys are, but I don't think I caught your names back in town," I said, hinting that I wanted an introduction. An introduction I didn't really need, but when seeming to meet them for the first time, perhaps it was best to ask.
"I don't believe you did," Erza agreed, nodding. "I'm known as Erza Scarlet. The ice mage over there is called Gray Fullbuster. He's the dark haired one. The pathetic, sick one," she rolled her eyes, and I wanted to giggle at her but restrained myself, "is Natsu Dragneel. And the little blue cat flying over them is Happy. We are a team of mages from Fairy Tail."
"You're a very famous team," I remarked offhandedly as the scarlet haired beauty removed her hand from my arm. I turned to face her with my kind of feral grin in place as I said, "You're Titania, and this 'Natsu' fellow is Salamander, am I right?"
"Yes," the woman cocked an eyebrow at me.
"I'm so lucky to be in the company of one of the strongest teams in Fairy Tail," I let my feral grin fade into a bit of a real grin. "Maybe we'll keep meeting like this, and I'll learn a thing or two from you guys, eh?"
I winked at Erza and before she could counter anything that I had said, I was already heading below deck. I heard her call out to me, but acted as though I hadn't and made my way to my room, choosing to relax on the bed and read some more. Dryly, I wondered if this was all I was going to be doing for the entire trip back to the main continent. Just brushing my old nakama off, like it didn't hurt like hell even though it did, and keeping myself secluded in my cabin. Was that going to be all I got from this boat ride? It was only a short trip, maybe twenty-four to twenty-eight hours, if you give margin for storms or trouble on the sea, but it would still be tantamount to torturous.
My book landed with a muffled thump on the mattress beside me and I stared, subdued, at the ceiling.
"Have I really followed them back here only to run from them some more?" I asked myself, almost disgusted with the thought. I should have been up there, talking to them, convincing them that I was just a freelance mage looking to wander around and travel a bit more before I really settled down. I should be facing them without a fear in the world, with the confidence that my Layla Heart persona would hold and not waver in front of them. Yet here I was, running to a room and closing the door at the first chance I got, like a scared little girl in a thunderstorm.
The chuckle that escaped my lips then was wry, laughing at my own inner turmoil. Poking fun at the fact that I was still just as weak mentally as I used to be physically, in a way that had nothing to do with how book-smart I was but how much courage I had. I felt as though I didn't have a single brave bone in my body, thinking that my share of daring and valor had been given to Natsu, or Gray, or Erza, or maybe even Happy. Really, they all had such nerve in the face of danger, willingness to lay their lives on the line for anyone. For the guild, for their friends, and even though it had been almost three years since I left, they were still willing to do the same for me.
"Why are you guys still the same?" I muttered darkly to myself, rolling to my feet and running a hand through my wig. Their unchanging natures were just so alluring, having been away from them for longer than I cared to remember.
A knock came at the door.
"Yeah?" I made my tone sound bored, and I swung one leg across the other in case the door opened, which it did, though only a few inches.
"Miss Heart, there's a breakfast ready in our small dining area if you're hungry," the person who'd led me to my room earlier smiled at me. "And also, we're about to leave port." I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn't interested, when I realized that Erza, Gray, and Happy might be there. I didn't add Natsu into the equation because Erza had probably knocked him out for his own good. So the words that left my lips changed.
"Sure. I'll find it in a minute. I just want to relax for a little while longer," I said. "Thanks." It was more like, 'I just need to steel myself before seeing them again', but the nice man didn't know about my current dilemma and I wasn't about to enlighten him. Not on a boat where certain people might somehow walk by and overhear, and definitely not to him, because he was little more than a nice stranger.
I shook my head, clearing it of my foolish thoughts, and looked briefly around the room. I took a few breaths to calm myself, a practice I seemed to be relying upon a lot more now that I'd kind of reunited with my dearest friends. I let my eyes flutter closed as I steadied my breathing, coolly pulling Layla Heart's kind of cold façade over my features yet again. Every time I was alone, she slipped away, and I had no idea why. Perhaps it was because I wasn't so focused on keeping myself hidden away from the rest of the world, and maybe I relaxed more when I was by myself. I couldn't let it continue if I was going to be around Team Natsu, though. They had this habit of bursting into a room without a care as to what lay on the other side. And what if I was caught off guard then? Maybe even without my wig on or my contacts in?
"Stop," my voice came out harshly. I had to voice it or my thoughts would have kept running rampant. And I really did need to stop those thoughts, because it was my feeble attempt to convince myself to deviate from the path that I had chosen during my conversation with Harrah back in Reason. That was a thing I could not allow myself to do, because it meant so much to the motherly woman that I reconnect with my old friends, even if it is in a different way than she may have imagined. And I knew she hoped for more than just Layla Heart connecting with the Fairy Tail mages; she desperately wished for me to reestablish my old bonds with them as Lucy Heartfilia. She knew that I wouldn't do that, not if it was within my power to prevent it, but still she dared dream on.
I wished, sometimes, that I had that kind of optimism left in me, but now there was only pessimism.
Before I could prevent myself from doing so, I swiftly stood and exited the room, heading down the hall to where the faint smells of sausage were coming from. I wondered if they had seriously cooked aboard the ship, or if they'd just ordered food at one of the restaurants in town and brought it on, but decided that it was the former. After all, they had to have a way to serve us a warm meal for lunch, because it was included in the ticket price. And still, the ticket price was a moderate, easy to pay affair, even with all the extras they offered.
"Layla?"
I turned to the voice, finding Erza studying me from just a few feet away almost immediately upon my entrance into the room.
"Hm?" I let a questioning sound escape as I raised an eyebrow. She was currently sitting alone at the table, a plate in front of her. There were very few other guests and travelers in the dining area, and they were probably just out of season tourists at best.
"Would you care to join me?" the Titania asked, gesturing to one of the empty seats around her. "My companions decided they weren't hungry, and so Gray and Happy escorted Natsu to the cabin they are sharing."
Erza wants me to sit with her!
I panicked for a few seconds before quirking one side of my lips up in my Layla smirk.
"Sure. I'll be right back, Erza."
I sauntered over to the serving area, getting only enough food to sate my hunger, before returning to the table where the redhead sat alone, idly picking at her food. She looked up when I sat my plate down across from her and took a seat there, grinning at her in the way that this persona had.
"You look upset about something," I commented flippantly, taking a bite of the eggs on the plate in front of me. I chewed and swallowed and then continued, "I'm not the mushy-gushy girl talk sort of person, but if you feel like you need to talk to someone I'm free to lend an ear. I may not look like much," I laughed and tugged on a lock of my black hair and motioned to my clothes, "but I'm a pretty good listener most of the time."
The ex-quip mage looked at me, a piercing gaze, and I just looked back. There had been a time where I would have flinched from such a searching gaze, but not any longer.
After a brief period of silence and examination, Erza Scarlet heaved a sigh.
"Sometimes I get the feeling," she said, almost dejectedly, "that you are much more than you seem, Layla Heart."
"Oh, really?" I looked at her over the glass of water she'd begun to sip at. "How so?"
"I'm not really sure yet," Titania said honestly. "There's something about you. I suppose it's got something to do with your good intuition. After just knowing us for a few brief minutes, during the battle with that dark guild's master, you managed to correctly interpret some of the things we might enjoy when dining. A very odd sort of deduction process would have brought you to those correct conclusions, but it just shows that you're much more than you let on. And even now you're proving it to me again, by noticing the unease, or upset, that no one else can see. I don't know what it is, but something tells me you're not just on a pleasure trip."
"Tell me when you think you've got me figured out," I winked at her, a playful grin stretching across my face to hide my worry and the frantic beating of my heart. "And no, I'm not just on a pleasure trip. I'm on a quest to see the world before I'm old and grey and can't do it…well, I can't even get old and grey anymore, but you get the idea."
"You're just…resigned to your fate…?"
"I can't do anything to help it," I shrugged a shoulder, trying to get out of this part of the conversation. "I'm just trying to do as much as I can before the last day comes. I want to see more of the world. It's not like I have anywhere else to go."
The expression that Erza wore showed that she didn't even remotely agree with my train of thought, but she didn't press the topic. Instead, she slowly started to eat some of her food, and I continued to eat my own. It was a pretty comfortable silence, considering that we were technically not much more than strangers in her eyes and despite how heavy the conversation had become. The little part of Layla that had become a permanent fixture in my personality, however, wouldn't rest until I knew what was making her wear such an expression of confusion, sadness, worry, and whatever other faces were akin to those, even before the brief discussion on my condition. Because, really, such faces didn't suit the brave, fearless Erza Scarlet.
"So…" I said, sitting my fork aside and looking at the intimidating woman. "Is there anything in particular you're upset about? That you feel the need to tell someone? If so, speak up now, before I go back to my room."
Erza didn't say anything, so I took my plate to the bin allotted for dirty dinnerware and left the small dining area, leaving her behind to stare at her mostly finished meal.
The trip had been underway for about four hours when my quite time, which I had been spending reading the book I had with me, was interrupted by a knock at the door. I blinked, pulling myself away from the words, to look at the door blankly before the knob turned and it swung open to reveal someone I was slightly surprised to see. Standing boldly in the doorway, the woman looked at me with a calculating stare, then shut the door behind her and strode over to my bed, perching gingerly on the edge beside me.
"You said I could talk to you," Erza said promptly, and a light flush crossed her cheeks as she pointedly looked away.
"I did," I said, letting my eyes return to the book in front of me, "but what if I only meant it at the time? You know, when you were picking at your food and acting like someone just took the world's last piece of strawberry cake right out from under your nose, and I was bored with no one to sit and talk to while I ate my own food?"
Ouch, I thought to myself as I turned my face slightly towards my book in an attempt to hide the fact that I had flinched at what I had said. It was painful to tell Erza Scarlet to her face that we weren't really friends now, and to insinuate that we had never been so. Especially when both of those statements had been nothing but blatant lies.
"I'm sorry," Erza said monotonously as she stood up to leave once more. "I wasn't aware that your offer had expired."
My heart heaved at the kind of angry, but more upset expression that she showed me and before I realized what I was saying, I started to speak again.
"You might as well sit back down, since you've piqued my interest now. And I guess it would have to be something important, for you to come all the way down here to talk to me. I'm a mage you hardly even know, if you didn't recall. And speaking of which, can't your teammates do something to help you?"
I already knew that the answer to my question would, of course, be 'no'. I was talking about Gray and Natsu and Happy, and out of the three she would probably be better off talking to the blue feline. None of them were particularly good at talking someone through a difficult situation, even Erza. It was as if the only way they could solve problems was to beat each other's heads against a wall to try to knock some sense into them.
"I wouldn't think so," Erza slowly said, "So if the offer has been reinstated, I would much rather speak with you."
"I suppose the offer stands," I said, marking the spot in my book and sitting it aside. "So tell me, Erza Scarlet. What's on your mind?"
The redhead fidgeted with her hands before heaving a sigh.
"When you saved us," Erza said finally, looking up at me, "you heard us talk about our nakama Lucy, didn't you?"
Cue my heart either frantically beating or freezing in place. I couldn't really tell which one it had chosen to do; I just felt numb.
"Yeah," I managed, reaching up to twirl a lock of my wig's black hair around a finger idly. "You said it had almost been three years since you'd last seen her, and all that. You must really miss this girl. After all, you're practically getting yourselves killed for her sake every time you go out on a job, if the last one was anything to go by."
"We don't usually have that much trouble," the Titania said, uncharacteristically running a hand through her long, scarlet hair and clearly showing her temporary nervousness. "If it weren't for you that time, I don't think we would have made it out, and for that we're forever in your debt. If we had died there, what good would all of this be? Our mission to find Lucy and bring her back, whatever the cost may be? It would come to nothing if all of us died at once, in our moment of weakness at the hands of some two-bit fire mage."
"That stuff didn't even act like fire," I said, trying to lighten the mood just slightly by chuckling as I added, "I'm going to have bruises for a week!"
There was silence in the room for almost a full minute, and the creaking of the boat's timbers seemed unnaturally loud. I could feel the gentle rocking, and hear the soft sloshing of the ocean against the vessel. The quiet compressed upon my ears, and I spent the painfully hushed minute examining Erza's expressions.
"I don't understand you at all," she finally said, clenching a chain mail covered fist before turning to look at me. "You're cold and indifferent, but you seem to hate it when others are upset. Why else would you try to comfort me? You act as if nothing matters to you at all, and then you're kind and gentle. It's like you're hiding from something, but I can't figure out what!"
"Don't you know that it's not really polite to pry into other people's pasts? Particularly when they're strangers to you."
There goes another piece of my heart, I thought ruefully as the twinge of regret sent a pang through my chest.
"Really. You never know what kind of dark secrets they're hiding. I mean, for all you know I could have mercilessly slaughtered hundreds of innocent women and children as they slept at night. I can clearly remember just how peaceful and serene they looked before their faces were stained red with their own blood…"
I trailed off somberly, turning my head to face Erza. Her eyes had grown to the size of saucers, and she stared at me as though she'd never seen something, or someone, quite like me.
Same old Erza, I thought with a bit of glee but also trace amounts of sadness. It seems as though I can still trick her to believe whatever I say, even when I'm not Lucy Heartfilia.
I reminisced, briefly, on all of the times I had jokingly said something around her, back when I was still known as their nakama, Lucy, and just how easily she had always believed me. I had often attributed her reactions to the fact that she never expected me, the seemingly goody-goody Lucy Heartfilia, to pull one over on her. Perhaps my acting skills were better than she, or I, had ever thought. She did still seem to think of me as just a freelance mage named Layla Heart, after all.
"Jeez, I'm just kidding, Titania, lighten up," I teased a little but had the sense to continue with, "Well, I was kidding about the last part, but not about the whole, 'you shouldn't pry into strangers' pasts' bit. I really honestly think you're reading too much into my personality. You say I seem 'cool and indifferent', but then again you say that I 'hate to see others upset', but have you ever considered that it just might give me some kind of vindictive pleasure, having random people spill their guts out to me and tell me about their feelings, blabbering about how screwed up their lives are? Or maybe I've got an inner child that's screaming out for help, or comfort, and the kid makes me feel vulnerable, and I mask whatever weaknesses I have with my icy exterior?" I made a kind of weak attempt at a joke, forcing myself to shut up before I revealed too much. The 'too much' was the exact little rant that was about to tumble out of my mouth.
Or maybe I'm a really nice, caring girl, deep inside, who had really good friends in a great mage guild but then contracted this horrible magical disease. Because of my condition, I left all my friends behind because I didn't want to hurt them. And just so I didn't let anyone else get hurt, I turned myself into a badass delinquent so that no one would approach me.
If I had let that slip, it probably would have had the same result as taping a piece of paper that said, "I'm Lucy" to my chest as I threw off my black wig and took out my blue contacts right then and there. Thankfully, I was smart enough to do none of these, though some part of me wished that I had.
"I suppose you're right," Erza blushed, looking abashed. "Sorry. It's just that I feel some sort of…connection…with you. Somehow."
"Is that a pick-up line of yours?" I asked her dryly.
Really, it was almost too difficult, being so incredibly annoying and rude to the face of one of my best friends. Or former best friends.
Erza just stared blankly at me for a moment or two, most likely trying to think of how to respond to that. If I were to judge by what she said next, it would definitely seem that she chose to dismiss it.
"…I'm not interested in you like that, Layla. But I would like to know more about this condition of yours. You seem so unconcerned about it yourself, even though it's one of the most fatal magical afflictions in history. How long have you had to deal with all of this?"
"Th-" I managed to stop myself from saying my intended, 'three years', because that would almost be a dead giveaway, and altered my words quickly, "That's…don't you think that's a bit of a personal question, Erza?"
"It concerns your health, nothing personal like your past. I don't see why you should take offense that I ask."
I laughed and said, "I'm not taking offense, so don't get me wrong, I just don't like talking about it. It's enough to accept that I'm going to die from it sooner rather than later, right? So do I have to tell everyone I meet how long I've had it?"
"You've saved our lives," Erza said slowly, "and we would be very poor human beings if we didn't even try to repay the deed."
And there it was. The very reason I, as Lucy Heartfilia, had never told my nakama about my condition and had chosen, instead, to run away without even saying goodbye. Just the fact that she was willing to attempt to find a cure for 'Layla Heart' proved that my teammates probably would have worked themselves to death trying to find a cure for me as 'Lucy Heartfilia'. If I had known that helping them as Layla would have nearly the same outcome, I might have just stayed in Reason until the end of my life rolled around.
"Erza," I said slowly, flopping back on my bed with a sigh, "don't worry about it. It's taken me longer than it should have to come to terms with the fact that I'm going to die. I left all my old friends behind and created a new self, keeping only a letter addressed to them on me so that if I die unexpectedly, someone will find the message and send it. It will tell them why I left, and what happened. Other than that, the only thing you should know is that I've survived more than double the time that I should have. So really, I could go any day now. Don't fret about trying to help when there's not really anything that can be done, although I do appreciate the thought."
"Don't you think your friends would rather know from you, rather than from a letter sent to them after you're gone?" the scarlet haired woman questioned, her brows furrowed a little in what was, unless I was sorely mistaken, a bit of annoyance at my logic. "Don't you think that your nakama would rather spend your last days with you, instead of wondering where you are, or how you are?"
Oh, the irony. Erza, what will you think if you're the one to find my letter on me after I do die? Will you hate yourself for letting me fade away after having this confrontation? Jeez, I hope you won't hurt yourself when you realize that it's been me all along. Or will I somehow give myself away while trailing you guys? I don't think you're all capable of hating me, but I don't know that you'd trust me the same anymore.
I laughed a little dryly though, drawing myself from my thoughts as I replied to Erza, "You know something?"
She stared at me with her intense gaze, not amused by my reaction in the least.
"Harrah, the owner of the little café that had the strawberry cake?" I saw the flash of recognition in her eyes. "She said the exact same thing, pretty much. That's part of the reason I decided to go back to the main continent. Maybe watch over those friends of mine, even if I don't lose my nerve and tell them or work up the courage to do so. Whichever way you think takes more guts to do."
"You should tell them," Erza said instantly.
"Maybe someday soon," I mused offhandedly, then shot back, "but we weren't going to talk about me, Erza. We were talking about your unease."
"We already addressed that," the ex-quip mage said.
"Not completely. I made a joke of the 'two-bit fire mage' part," I used air quotations around 'two-bit fire mage' to show that I was using her words, "and then you started going on about me. Frankly, though, I think that your Lucy knows you care about her. And I'm sure she has a perfectly valid reason for not coming back to you. Maybe she's lost her memories, or something. Or maybe she's like me, and doesn't want to hurt you, even if she knows that being away will hurt you almost as much as knowing she's going to die."
Stupid, stupid, stupid! I berated myself mentally. I just had to compare myself to the me that Erza now knew.
And I didn't want to elicit the reaction that I did.
The redhead's eyes widened, and she practically toppled off of the bed in the second action in the last ten minutes that was highly uncharacteristic of her. She didn't fall into a heap on the floor like I would have undoubtedly done, but stumbled a few steps and regained her balance, halfway to the door. She remained doubled over slightly, standing rigidly and staring at the wooden floor. I had never seen her look quite this way, and I wanted to hurt myself for causing such a distressing scene.
Oh, crap! Did I just practically tell her? I thought to myself, watching her. Something that I had said definitely struck a chord deep down inside of her, but I didn't know what type of chord it was. I just prayed to whoever would listen that it wasn't realization.
"Erza…?" I cooed.
She slowly turned her head to face me, and the stricken look on her face froze me to my seat.
"What if you're right?" the words were an almost choked sort of whisper. It was an unsettling sound for the intimidating woman to have made. "What if Lucy did come down with something like this? What if she's…no! Lucy's not dead!"
The tears swimming in her eyes but not falling due only to her determination made me want to scream out, 'Erza, look! Calm down, Erza, I'm alive! I'm right here! Please, please calm down!' but I knew, of course, that I couldn't. I entangled my fingers in the sheets beneath me and grit my teeth, looking down at the floor and trying to find a way to remedy this wrong that I had created. I hadn't meant for the suggestion to make the strongest woman I had ever known turn into such a wreck, which just proved that I had a long way to go in learning how to handle this slightly different Erza Scarlet.
"Oh, I'm not so sure," the words that were coming to my lips would hurt me just as much as they would hurt her, I knew. "This Lucy hasn't contacted you all these past few years and if she did have my condition she'd be long gone by now. You and your friends ought to stop taking these ridiculously dangerous requests like a group of fools and let her poor soul start to rest in peace."
"No! You don't know what you're talking about! She is our nakama, one of my dearest friends! I refuse to believe that she is dead!" Erza cried, tears coming to the dark eyes that pleaded with me, begging me to agree with her words. The beginnings of regret were welling in my heart. Regret for not telling them about my affliction and then leaving them behind with hope. Because really, I didn't leave them with hope at all. I left them with a sense of desperation; lonely, miserable, and heart-gnawing desperation. A false hope, if any at all.
Would it hurt to send my letter early? I wondered. I had told Erza about the letter, but that shouldn't be enough to make her think that I was their Lucy. After all, if Layla Heart was still around when Team Natsu and the rest of Fairy Tail got the letter, how would they connect Lucy to me? The letter was only meant to be sent upon my death, so wouldn't it be difficult to trace the message to me, as Layla, if I was still alive to keep my true personality hidden?
You're being a fool, Lucy, I told myself shortly after. If I sent that letter earlier, before I really did perish, I would just become a witness to the suffering I had fled from.
The pure distraught that Erza showed made me want to choke back whatever I'd done, if only it were possible to take back words that had already been spoken. This deed was, unfortunately, far from my abilities, and I stewed in my inner turmoil. I was practically telling the redhead that I was dead, and it was killing me a little more inside. Tears welled up in the Titania's eyes, and I turned my head. I couldn't stand this any longer.
"But I suppose that she has to be out there. She's probably a hundred times stronger than I am. I mean, she was a member of the strongest team in Fairy Tail, which is arguably the greatest mage guild in the world, so she must be just as amazing as you guys. If she's even half as strong as you are, this girl is definitely still alive and fighting. If only because she knows that if she dies, you'll kill her."
"Y…you think so?"
God, Erza, how long have you been able to make such a pitiful face? Or make your voice sound so helpless?
"I know so," I said soothingly. "Besides, there are other conditions similar, and none of them are as irreversible as Magical Overflow. Chances are, if she did come down with something, it was one of the things that can be cured and she's just out there trying to deal with it before coming home. I don't know the girl, but I'll bet she's the type who cares so much about her nakama that she'll do anything to keep them from worrying about her, am I right?"
"Yes," Erza nodded, ex-quipping just her right hand so that she could wipe her eyes without the chain mail scratching at her skin or something, before returning the metal covering. "You're absolutely right. You still confuse me, Layla Heart. You confuse me, irritate me, but you also intrigue me. If I can do anything for your condition, I will. You have my word."
"I said don't worry about it," I rolled my eyes to show my persona's indifference, but Erza stood firm.
"I will do whatever I can," she repeated. Then she softly smiled before turning to stride to the door. Once on the threshold, she paused and looked over her shoulder just slightly. "Thank you."
The door closed behind her, and in a few minutes her footsteps had disappeared altogether.
When I knew that the bold, strong, redheaded Erza Scarlet, Fairy Queen Titania of Fairy Tail, was gone, I sank onto the bed, gripping the locks of the black wig tightly in both fists. My features were undoubtedly contorted in a pained grimace as I asked myself, "Why did you say so much, you idiot? Keep going this way and if you live for much longer, they'll figure you out before you die!"
Hope you liked it! Sorry there's not much action yet, and there won't be for two or three more chapters, but I'm hoping to make it more interesting then, so bear with me! Okay? :)
All Fairy Tail characters and places mentioned belong to Hiro Mashima! I'm just borrowing them for your entertainment (and mine xD)