I'm so sorry I haven't updated this in forever and ever but I couldn't think of an idea and then I just came up with this one so...yeah. Plus, I'm still partially on FT hiatus :) Or at least I'm trying to be...keep getting ideas, lol
Natsu, Juvia and Lyon awoke to the sight of one heck of a destroyed village dumped in snow. But the thing that caught their attention most once they'd acknowledged one another's presence was the huge demon known as Deliora that towered over everything and continued to destroy whatever was in it's way. All three mages knew that this was to be revealed to them at some point from the weird dreams they'd been having, so the first thing they set out to do was find where Gray was (hopefully) hiding.
They walked through rubble and ruins, Deliora's roars deafening them - Natsu most of all - until they saw something shift ahead of them. Lyon noticed it first and signalled for the other two to follow him. They passed a few dead bodies which made even Lyon shiver and gulp a lump of air down his throat. The ice mage saw something shift again before what they were looking for crawled out from under a broken wall.
Dark blue eyes darted around, small body trembling as he caught sight of the village's destroyer. The boy's breathing immediately quickened until he was hyperventilating before Deliora let out another roar that made Gray cover his ears and screw his eyes shut. Tears streamed down his face as he dared to peek back under the rubble he'd crawled out from. "Mom..." came a broken whisper. "Mom, c'mon...we gotta find Dad..."
Gray didn't receive any response from the trapped body that he could barely see but still recognised. He eventually sat back just staring at the gap, tempted to crawl back inside and wait for his life to be taken too. He decided against it and shakily stood up, stumbling forward a bit as he tried to walk, there was a searing pain in his right leg. The young boy kept stumbling forward through the streets. "Gotta...find Dad..."
The three mages followed him and soon enough, Gray found Silver. The boy instantly burst into tears again and slumped onto his knees beside the man, fingers curling up into fists as large sobs racked his small frame. "Dad..." Gray managed to crawl under his father's arm and nestled close without a care until Deliora stood nearby and roared again. Gray, suddenly filled with a vile anger, stood up and glared sharply at the demon. "Shut up... Shut up... SHUT UP!" he screamed.
The demon stopped and seemed to look down at the boy, the only one from this village that was still alive. Gray flinched as it moved to look at him directly and quickly stumbled into a run. Lyon, Juvia and Natsu followed him as Gray ran through, over and under bits and pieces of various buildings. His school, his dad's shop, his friends' houses, etc. were all in ruins with bodies piled either under or amongst them. Gray kept running, even when he tripped a few times, until a wall shook from the tremor of Deliora's footstep and crumbled down onto the boy, effectively trapping his legs. Gray shook even more, slowly losing consciousness. "Help! Somebody...anybody! Help..." he cried before his vision went black.
Lyon immediately crouched by the boy, and all three visitors watched the demon slowly walk away from the village. Gray lay motionless in his trapped position but they all knew that if they moved him then it would alter something. This is how Lyon found him when he and Ur had come to inspect the ruins.
He remembered the days where he and Ur had tried to coax Gray from his shaken and broken shell, and it wasn't until Ur had left the two boys alone one morning that Gray had decided to open up about his fears. What if someone else was alive? What if Deliora found him again? What if he was cursed in some way? Lyon hadn't known what to do other than give Gray's sobbing form a firm and protective hug, promising to protect him from then onwards.
"It's worse than I thought..." Natsu said quietly, "I didn't think it had been this bad when he finally told me about it..." Before anything else could be said, the three began to glow and eventually faded, leaving the dream.
Natsu walked into the guild that morning and looked around for his brawling partner to not find him anywhere. He went to where Juvia sat with Gajeel and greeted them both respectively before asking the water mage if she'd seen the ice mage anywhere; Juvia shook her head and only replied that it was because it was a day where Gray chose to be alone. Natsu facepalmed mentally. Of course it was, what an idiot he could be sometimes. Deciding it was even better to not go and find Gray after all, Natsu went and engaged in the usual conversation with Lucy.
Meanwhile, Lyon was currently with Gray, sat on the edge of a snowy cliff, both remembering their childhood together. Lyon had recently told Gray about what happened to his own parents and what had brought him to finding Ur. Gray was surprised to obtain such information from Lyon, and to know that they weren't much different than what they originally thought. Gray closed his eyes and subtly laid his head on Lyon's shoulder, sighing contently into the cold air. Lyon glanced at him with a smile and wrapped an arm round the younger one's shoulders, giving his onw contented sigh as he also closed his eyes.
Surely, their ice mage needed all the love they could offer him.
That last sentence is horribly placed, why did I write that? Oh, cause I didn't know how else to end it lol
