The time seemed to pass quickly for Lucy and her spirits on the mountain. Each day she started with meditation with Cancer, who firmly believed that good breathing and blood flow was the key to beautiful hair and skin. They also worked on expanding and contracting her magic and moving it from one body part to another. Then when they were done and Lucy had had her dip in the hot springs to wash off Cancer would fix her hair for the day.

The next part of her day was spent with Leo and Capricorn. Lucy would summon them in the forest and they would play a game of tag with hand to hand combat threw in the mix. She'd had a rough time admitting she wasn't an upper body fighter when they first started. Due to her large chest she couldn't extend and retract her arms very effectively and they'd had to reevaluate her whole fighting style. The end result was something that focused mostly on Lucy using her legs. She had lost count of all the bruises she'd been covered with in their first week of training. She learned a lot about her own center of gravity and how much reach and force she could get out of her powerful lower body.

After their spar through the woods Lucy would go to a cliff line she'd found on the other side of the mountain to train with Sagittarius and Scorpio. The blonde was a bit apprehensive about that at first, not wanting to upset the mermaid spirit that was so protective of the time she had with the red and white haired spirit. However, he assured her that Aquarius wasn't upset, she encouraged the blonde to get stronger so her and Scorpio could really be together again. Oh and maybe so she'd attract a boyfriend, too.

Scorpio would send discs made of sand sailing over the cliff toward the horizon and Lucy would use whatever ranged weapon the horse headed spirit had brought for the day to destroy it. She'd gotten very good with the longbow. Oddly it seemed that the farther the target got the more accurate she became. She learned to lead into the path the target was on, to take into account the wind or other weather factors. It took great patience to hit shots at such a distance, and when they'd first started Lucy severely lacked the needed calm. Now it was a matter of a few breaths, then boom. No more sand target.

The last part of Lucy's training was spent with Virgo and Aries. They taught her how to lure and trap. Aries taught her what it took to make something feel comfortable, how to make a trap not look like a trap, while Virgo taught her the actual trap itself. Lucy learned many snares and knots. Virgo even made her learn the hard way how to get herself out of each and every kind of knot she knew. They're training didn't last as long as the others because as soon as Lucy was efficiently catching her own food in the snares she set Virgo declared her a success.

This is what Lucy's life consisted of for an unknown amount of time. She had no calendar up on this mountain, nor did she honestly care what day it was. It wasn't like she had somewhere to be or anyone to meet. No, she had no guild, she had no family, and her best friend had left her with nothing but a note which made it obvious he wanted to be alone. That part didn't bother her. No, it was finding out that he'd taken the youngest Strauss sibling with him that tore her apart, but that was neither here nor there.

Lucy was purely satisfied to stay up on this mountain by herself. She had her spirits with her, the only people she could actually trust to never betray or hurt her. There was no need to go anywhere beyond the bottom of the mountain if she needed any kind of supplies. She enjoyed her secluded life, even if she subconciously realized it wasn't the most healthy coping mechanism. She knew she was punishing herself for something she had no control over, but she couldn't help but think that she'd done something wrong or not been enough in general and that's why Natsu hadn't taken her with him.

Lucy tossed and turned but couldn't seem to find a comfortable position to fall asleep. She'd let herself fall into a slump again and try as she might, she just couldn't hide it from her spirits. Virgo had wanted to find the fire dragon slayer and give him her own brand of punishment for breaking her princess's heart. Loke had wanted to track down Gray and give him an ass chewing too for not looking after the blonde better. She finally had to force their gates closed just to have peace and quiet.

Deciding she wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon, the celestial mage decided to go sit at the opening of the cave and star gaze. She felt so close to the twinkling lights up so high on this mountain. Like she could just reach up and touch them. She began naming the constellations to herself; Ursa Minor and Major, Canus Venatici, Cepheus, Lyra, Hercules. For some reason she felt like something was missing, that the night sky just didn't look right to her.

She never really realized she was falling asleep. One second she was mapping out the stars to herself, going over their stories and thinking of were their key's could possibly be hidden. Then the next second she was snoring lightly and leaning on the rock opening to the cave. She was just to far under to notice the pair of eyes that seemed to watch every breath she took.

The next morning Lucy woke with a crick in her neck and her legs numb underneath her. Apparently she'd fallen asleep leaning against the entrance to the cave and had stayed there all night. She was a bit surprised that Virgo or Loke hadn't popped out and put her to bed themselves. Trying to shake off the oddness of the whole occurence, the blonde began preparing for her day. She was going to go down into the village today and do some shopping. She'd been up on this mountain for a while now and she felt like she needed some human interactions. Not to say that she wasn't enjoying all the attention from her spirits, she just missed people.

Shortly after the dew had melted on the ground, Lucy began picking her way down the forest trail. She smiled as she passed the shrine that she'd left an offering at not that long ago. She could tell that harsher weather was on its way. All the animals were out and about gathering as much as they could to prepare for winter, and they all looked so cute and fluffy with their budding winter coats growing in.

Once the village came into view the blonde began to think of how much more in shape she was now, what had taken her most of the day to do when she'd firsts came here now only took a few hours. She was excited to see Rin again and some of the other women in the village she'd come to know over the few visits she'd made.

The sounds of a fight drew her attention as she was walking through the seemingly empty town. Alarm racing through her, she shot off toward the sounds. Her feet propelled her across the ground with newly developed muscles and she reached the other side of the village in no time. As she was going to walk around the side of a building she quickly ducked back around the corner to avoid the body that was flying her way. With a sickening crack the body met the side of the next house and fell to the ground with a resounding thud. The clothing made it obvious that it wasn't one of the villagers she'd come to be protective over, however, she was none the wiser as to who it was.

It was while she was looking over the mysterious body that there was a resounding crash behind her that shook the ground. Deciding that was a good que to find out who was getting to close for comfort to the village, Lucy donned her Taurus star dress and walked around the side of the building. She couldn't make out any shapes through the cloud of smoke but she called out anyway, "Whoever is out there, you better leave this village alone. These are good, quiet people that don't need any trouble. If you know what's good for you, you'll go back to where you came from."

Slowly the smoke was blowing away and she could see the silhouette of four people, two of which standing awfully closely in the center of the ruined clearing. She let the end of her whip drop to the ground when she saw one of the figures begin to approach her. She started to draw back to strike when a semi-familiar voice made her pause, "Lucy?"