AN: Sorry about the wait, had tons of schoolwork & a bit of writer's block, it should be back to regular updates after this chapter.
Lucy awoke to the sound of waves crashing on rocks and something licking her face. Her eyes shot open, and the first thing she saw was a mess of blue fur. She shrieked, and a hiss came from the blue fur. It jumped off her, and she saw a solid blue sky, nothing like the sunset in the sky she had seen after leaving Levy's. She must have been out for hours!
"So you're awake now," came a masculine voice from behind her. "I was worried you weren't ever going to wake up. You must have been out for a solid 16 hours. Plus, you were bleeding pretty badly on your head. Did you hit it on some rocks or something in the water?"
Lucy struggled to turn around, and almost instantly felt awful. A human had saved her. A human with bright pink hair, who was now holding the mess of blue fur. A cat, she thought. But how on earth was the cat blue? She was dying to start asking the human all her questions, and answer his, but she didn't feel like murdering an innocent human today. Lucy felt tears well up in her eyes. She hated this curse.
The human stared at her. "Are... you ok?" he asked. "Wait, can you even speak English?"
Lucy nodded. She figured he didn't know sign language, so why bother? She was an amateur at it anyway.
"Uh, ok, you can speak English. Wait, can you NOT speak? I forget the word for it..." the human asked again.
Lucy nodded again.
"Oh man. That sucks," the human said.
A faint smile dawned on Lucy's lips, and she nodded again.
"Geez, and I thought I was going to be able to talk to a real-life mermaid. Learn about the ocean and all that." The human stroked his cat. "Guess I can't do that though, right, Happy?"
The cat purred. Lucy frowned, and noticed a stick nearby. She pulled herself across the sand in an attempt to reach it.
"Hey, where are you going?" called the human.
Lucy reached for the stick, grabbed it, and turned back towards him. She wrote, 'Siren' in the sand, and pointed to herself.
The man squinted at what she had written. "Siren?" he asked, staring at her. "Wait, you mean the things that sing and lure people in to their deaths? You're one of those?"
Lucy nodded, staring at the ground.
The man whistled. "I guess that's why you're not talking to me, huh?"
Lucy's eyes traveled off the ground and onto the man again. She nodded once more.
He grinned. "You seem nice, anyway. Not the kind of person who'd kill people for fun, I guess."
Lucy grabbed the stick again and wrote, "Cursed," in the sand.
"Oh, so you're cursed with a voice that kills people. That sucks," the man said. "You probably have a really pretty voice, too. I mean, you're already pretty in general, but..." His voice trailed off.
Lucy started blushing. Here she was, sitting on the sand while a strange human talked to her and called her pretty. She never would have dreamed of this in her wildest dreams.
"So, uh, I never asked your name," the man said finally. "I'm Natsu, and you're?"
She wrote in the sand, "Lucy."
"Lucy, huh? That's a pretty name, too." Natsu said. The cat purred in his lap. "Oh yeah, this is Happy, my cat."
Lucy smiled, not knowing what else to do. An awkward silence passed between the two, three counting Happy.
Finally, Natsu spoke again. "So I guess we should get you back to the ocean. That is where you live, right?"
Lucy nodded. Natsu then walked over to her, picked her up bridal-style, and carried her over to the water's edge. He gently set her down in a spot just deep enough for her to swim away in.
"Now, be careful, ok?" he said. "There's not always someone taking a walk by the side of a river when you all of a sudden float up, unconscious."
Lucy grinned, and leaned up towards Natsu. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and dove into the deep water, blushing furiously. Natsu stared after her, shocked.
"Wow," he said to himself. "Not what I expected."
His face turned sorrowful then, and he pulled a locket out of his pocket. Opening it, there was a picture of a little human girl with blonde hair, standing next to Natsu. They were young, both around 2 years old. Both had crowns on their head.
"There's no way," Natsu said softly, staring at the photo. "No way she'll ever be replaced."
He closed the locket, and turned away from the ocean. Happy jumped onto his shoulders, and the two started back towards town.
Meanwhile, Lucy was zooming through the water, heading back towards Harugeon Bay. She got lost a few times, and had to backtrack through various rivers and ponds a couple times, but eventually made it. She spotted the shipwreck that she and Juvia called home, and quickly swam towards it.
"Juvia!" she yelled. "I'm back!"
Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Juvia shot out of the shipwreck. "Where have you been?" she shrieked. "It's been over 16 hours! I thought you were dead!" She noticed the bandage around Lucy's head. "Geez, girl, what happened?"
Lucy giggled. "I just met the most wonderful human!"
Juvia sighed. "First of all, Levy's the most wonderful human. Second of all, please tell me you didn't kill them."
"No, of course not!" Lucy said, outraged. "He's too handsome, anyway. And, I haven't known Levy for that long."
"He?" Juvia asked, suspiciously. "Who's 'he?'"
"His name is Natsu, and he saved me from the river after I hit my head. We talked, or, well, he talked and I wrote in the sand a couple times, and then we said goodbye and I kissed him," Lucy said, breathlessly.
"Hold on, Natsu?" Juvia said, stunned. "You mean, Prince Natsu?"
Lucy frowned. "He wasn't wearing a crown."
"Neither are you," Juvia pointed out.
"Yeah, because I chucked it into an abyss when I left the castle. I have no intention of being a princess again." Lucy said.
"If you marry Prince Natsu, you will be." Juvia smirked. "Actually, wait, he's the oldest, so you'd be queen!"
"He didn't have a crown! It wasn't the prince!" Lucy shouted.
"Did he have pink hair?" Juvia asked.
"Yeah, why?" Lucy retorted.
"Well, then, that's Prince Natsu. Pink hair is rare in the human world, and it's his signature trait," Juvia said. She then smirked again. "Lucy's gonna be a queen!"
"No, I am not! We talked for maybe 15 minutes!"
"Then why did you kiss him?" Juvia said, laughing.
"I... I don't know. Instinct?" Lucy sighed. "Anyway, it was just a peck on the cheek. But, he's handsome either way, that's for sure."
Juvia leaned against the shipwreck, smirking. "I prefer the younger prince, but I guess that's just me." She laughed. "Either way, Queen Lucy has an awfully good ring to it. Queen Lucy of Magnolia!"
"Oh, shut up!" Lucy shrieked, swimming towards her. Juvia dodged her, and the two started chasing each other around the shipwreck, laughing.
It wasn't until much later that they stopped, sides hurting from laughing too hard. Both went inside the ship, exhausted. They got ready for bed, and fell asleep almost the instant their heads hit the pillows.