FAIRY TAIL CHAPTER SEVEN

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything of the Fairy Tail universe. This is purely for entertainment purposes and strictly non-profit. I only borrow characters as discreetly as possible and try to put them back the way I found them.

TALKS


Feeling like I'm breathing my last breath
Feeling like I'm walking my last steps
Look at all of these tears I've wept
Look at all the promises that I've kept

I put my heart into your hands
Here's my soul to keep
I let you in with all that I can
You're not hard to reach
And you bless me with the best gift
That I've ever known
You give me purpose
Yeah, you've given me purpose
-"Purpose" by: Justin Bieber


"Well then," she said nervously. "Let's have that talk."

Natsu hid his smile. She was so adorable when she was nervous. He burrowed into the armchair and continued to watch Kiyomi in amusement as she fidgeted in the chair opposite him. She wrung her hands in front of her as her gaze flitted from the roaring fire to him then back to the fire again. It had been a couple of days since their confrontation. If he concentrated really hard he could still feel the tingle of her lips against his.

She had surprised him but he wasn't complaining, not in the least. Somehow, someway, this angel had fallen from the heavens straight onto his lap and deemed him worthy of love. He and his blackened soul, if this talk were to go right, would be bare for her to see. It scared him still to talk about that foul beast but what scared him more was how fast this tiny woman had broken down his walls. She had destroyed him completely and then continued on to renew him. With her there were no reservations, no boundaries. She had eradicated everything.

"Natsu," her voice was panicky and tense. He could almost picture the whirling gears in her mind. He made a split of a second decision. Natsu got up from his spot and made his way over to the unsuspecting Wind Mage who was now biting her lip while gazing hard at the hearth. He lifted her up, ignoring her squeak of surprise, and sat down on her seat pulling her on top of him so that she was curled against him. Her warmth instantly enveloped him and he clung to it like a dying man. Her breath stuttered against the crook of his neck where her head rested.

"Alright. Now that we're comfortable, would you like to go first or shall I?"

He resisted the urge to smirk smugly when he felt her make herself comfortable on his lap. "I'll go first. Where do I even start?" She sighed in frustration. "Do you remember those headaches I had some weeks ago? Well, I didn't go to a special doctor. Five years ago, I ran away from home and became a Wind Mage. It was then through my studies that I found out about a very powerful Spell Weaver named Kenja." Natsu stamped down on the jealousy that raised its ugly head at the fondness in her voice.

"It took me a year to track him down, the slimy bastard. When I did, I demanded him to cast a Memory Spell on me. It took two years until he finally could and that was when I found Fairy Tail. It was quite by accident really." She chuckled at the memories. "It was Happy that found me. I was wandering around like a lost little puppy when he literally fell into my lap. I didn't know it at the time but the Spell created this sort of alternate reality but only in my head. Therefore, I believed I had a certain past when I really didn't. So, as I was sitting there under a tree in the forest trying to figure out where I was going to go next, Happy, who fell asleep on a branch above me, tumbled down and straight on top of me. He took me to meet Master Makarov and that was that. I was a part of a family when I thought, at the time, that I was completely alone in the world."

"What did the spell make you believe?" Natsu asked quietly.

"Well, I- uh- it was sort of a side effect of the Spell truthfully. The past that was created was that I was orphaned as a child. My parents were supposedly murdered by bandits in our little village. I was an only child and was sent to a home for children in the mountains. It wasn't until I went to Kenja to cure the headaches did I find out it was all just a lie to make up for the memories that I was too scared to face." She looked up at Natsu sadly. "I wasn't being dramatic when I said that I was a coward Natsu. No, let me finish. I was a coward because I couldn't face my own reality. Instead I ran and hid behind a false life hoping that my real life would just crumble out of existence. I know you don't want to believe it Natsu but it is the truth. I am not someone that deserves to be put on a pedestal, if anything I deserve to be crushed by it."

Natsu looked ahead stubbornly at the fire. He refused to acknowledge the words that flowed out of such a pretty mouth. He couldn't believe such things because this was the woman that essentially saved him from the depths of his own despair. She pulled him back from the darkness that threatened to envelope him and she didn't want him to put her up on a pedestal? She deserved a pedestal so high that it even transcends the heavens itself.

"Natsu," she whispered questioningly into his neck. Her hot breath against his neck sent tremors down his spine. He finally looked away from the dancing flames and into two lovely pools of mauve.

"You know as much as I consider that particular shade of purple to be truly beautiful, I don't think that I like what it stands for." He watched carefully as the mauve color intermingled with her now more amused color of mulberry causing a medley of violets to erupt in her wide eyes. He pulled her tighter against him. "Two years ago, I took up a Ten Year Job request. It was my first one and I wanted to do it alone instead of with my team. So, in the middle of the night, I grabbed the flyer and left. It was probably stupid, no it was actually really incredibly stupid, of me to go alone on such a dangerous job but I guess I felt I had something to prove at the time. I never got to the job. I was traveling through a forest in the North when this dark figure seemed to erupt from the shadows.

"I fought like hell but it just wasn't enough. He was too powerful." Natsu's voice wavered a bit at the memory. "I spent two years in pure darkness. He kept me in this hole in the ground. I don't know how I was breathing let alone surviving. He- I don't even know how to describe to you how those two years passed. So much happened…" His voice caught and he felt Kiyomi's tiny fingers comb through his hair comfortingly. This was exactly what he was afraid of. The old wounds that he had managed to bury beneath piles of denial and repression, were finally coming back to haunt him. "It was mostly emotional torture when I think back. He used the people closest to me to hurt me. He planted images in my head. I remember the first time I passed out from exhaustion; I had tried to stay up for as long as I could but eventually my need to sleep won out. He made me think that I had somehow escaped. It wasn't until my nakama started to hurt me that I realized what was happening. I couldn't get out of my own mind." Natsu shivered violently. "Sometimes he would make me do things to them in my dreams. I would torture them and hurt them and it wouldn't stop."

Natsu took in a deep breath to try and calm his erratic emotions. "He made a mistake one day. He took me out of the pit for the first time. He told me that I was going to die. I had almost just let him do it. But then something in me just clicked and I managed to surprise him enough to fight my way out of his cave. I didn't know where I was. All that I recall is the excessive amount of adrenaline pumping through my veins, urging me forward and forward until I fainted from blood loss and exhaustion. By that time, I had made it to a town to recover enough to make my way back to my hut. And that was when Lucy found me. I didn't mean for her to find me so soon," he said somewhat sheepishly. "I wanted to get my bearings first. The sky, the light, everything was overwhelming after two years in pitch blackness. I wasn't ready to see them. I couldn't be sure it was all true. What if it was another illusion that he had set up in my mind again?

"You know what made me realize that it was real? You did. I knew that I couldn't just dream up someone like you. I knew that he couldn't either. You were so very real and unfamiliar. It was like a breath of fresh air. It was how I could differentiate between reality and fantasy. You may not want to hear this Kiyomi, but you saved me. You helped pull me through my madness. I owe you my life. You made me believe in my second chance at life. Thank you."

Natsu looked down at Kiyomi to see a lovely dusting of pink on her cheeks. "There is no point in arguing with you. You're always so stubborn." He chuckled at that and held her as close to him as possible relishing in her body heat. "Who was he?" Natsu stiffened instantly. He didn't like to utter the name. Sometimes he thinks that he can hear it.

"It- uh- h- his name is Golem."

Natsu didn't expect the gasp of surprise from the tiny Wind Mage. She pushed off of him and started to pace along the front of her fireplace, muttering furiously under her breath. He sat stock still in shock at her sudden change in mood. "Kiyomi?" She stopped mid-pace and whirled around to face him.

"Golem you say? That's his name?" Natsu winced at hearing the name again but nodded. "Tall, lanky hair, pale almost see through skin… feel free to tell me I'm wrong. In fact I encourage it."

"No, you're pretty spot on. Kiyomi, what is going on? What is wrong? How do you know what he looks like?" He asked the last question with a rising horror in his gut. The only way she would know what he looked like is if she met him. What if he had hurt her? The anger that flooded him at the thought was quite unlike him. Whatever he had been expecting to come out of her mouth, the next words she said were definitely not it.

"Well-uh- you see…" Kiyomi started to fidget again. She shifted from foot to foot and refused to look up from her carpet. "Golem is- well he's my- Golem is my nii-san."


A/N: I didn't get to post this on Turkey Day like I wanted to... sorry! Hows about you go and heat up some leftover turkey and then read this as dessert. Feel any better? Anyways, here's a little explanation for those of you that were a bit confused by my timeline and all that jazz. And can we just take a moment to cringe at the titles of my chapters. I swear I have zero talent in that department. If you've got questions, comments, concerns, mid-life crises, boy trouble, girl trouble, and all that good stuff, feel free to connect with me via the social media on my bio page. Uh, I think that's all I wanted to say. Well, I hope you all enjoyed your copious amounts of good food and that you spend an equally copious amount of time with your family. Stay flawless. Ciao. ~RiLeY~