I literally have one thing to say up here: MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAA. *Cough cough* I mean, enjoy!
Lucy had a very rude awakening. One moment, she's breathing in the warm scent of the woods, the rawness of the wind, and dealing with Happy's tail flicking her in the nose. The next? Her ears were humming with pain and there's an elbow in her face.
She'd been having a really funny dream too. In the dream, a drunken Makarov had been hanging from the ceiling by a rope, wearing nothing but a diaper and wings, he'd been shooting his 'children' with Love Arrows, claiming to be Cupid. He'd shot both Natsu and Lucy, along with three dozen others, so Lucy wasn't real sure who was supposed to fall in love with who.
Just before her rude awakening, she'd remembered that it wasn't a dream, and that it had actually happened sometime during the night.
Man, she'd been laughing so hard at that…she must have been drunk out of her mind.
"Natsu!" Came the high, girlish screech that was her rude awakening. Feet pounded, and groans from the partiers went ignored by the happy, giggling child. Before Lucy could figure out what was going on, the footsteps closed in, then, with a mighty jump, the child landed on Natsu's gut. A bony elbow to the face had Lucy sitting up and getting out the way just in time. Natsu responded with a deep 'Ooof,' his eyes popping wide, and launching himself into a sitting position, looking pained. Happy let out a loud yowl, which did not help the headaches that were starting to make themselves known, and whined about abusive children.
Lucy rubbed her eyes, trying to ignore the horrid taste in her mouth and the drumbeat that was pounding in her head. A girl of about six or seven was grinning up at Natsu, who looked highly confused. The girl was adorable, with her dark hair back in pigtails and dressed up like a cowgirl. Her grin was wide and she bounced up and down and up and down, like her excitement couldn't be contained.
"Asuka!" A voice scolded but the girl looked unworried.
"Um, who are you?" Natsu asked rubbing his head while his eyes followed the little girl's bouncing movements.
"Natsu, it is you!" The man looked like he'd stepped out of an old Western, with short black hair; a tan shall, and blue earring dangling from his ears. A woman stood next to him, with long flowing green hair, with the lower half pulled into a thick, single braid. She wore a cowgirl hat, and a tan skirt with fringe. Her top was nothing but a bikini top and a small vest that fluttered at the sides. They held hands, and it was easy to tell that the child was theirs.
"Alzack! Bisca!" Natsu's eyes widened. "You guys got old!" Neither one seemed to take offense to that, either used to Natsu's blunt statements or too happy to see him to care. "Who is on my lap?"
"Our daughter," The woman, Bisca said with a smile. "Her name's Asuka and we've told her all about you. Enough that it seems she knew you on sight," She laughed, and it sounded like it had come straight out of an old west saloon. "She wasted no time in waking you up."
"How…" Alzack rubbed the back of his head. "Natsu, it's so good to see you."
"You two had a child?" Natsu shouted. "Wait? You two…got married? I leave for a couple centuries and nothing makes sense anymore!"
Lucy snorted out a laugh, though it didn't help her head—neither did Natsu's shouting, and from the grumbles she heard, no one else liked his loud commentary either. Though he acted like four centuries wasn't a very long time, but even for demons and such, it had to be….right?
"Natsu," Asuka said putting her hands on his cheeks and directing his gaze back towards her. "Mommies and daddies get married to have kids." Lucy smiled as Natsu nodded sagely.
"Man, I'm guessing there's a story to this?" Alzack asked with a smile.
"Yeah," Natsu groaned flopping back on the ground. "But dammit, my head hurts."
Asuka frowned. "You're not supposed to say bad words." She scolded.
Her awakening may have been rude, but as Lucy laughed, she realized it was quite perfect.
They told the story once again as the Guild members started picking their aching bodies up to start the day. There was plenty of grumbling, bloodshot eyes, and killer headaches to go around. Mirajane, looking none the worse for wear, began distributing 'The Fix.' The Fix was the Strauss siblings' secret hangover cure. The concoction was thick, brick red, and looked worse than the hangover. Natsu, his headache nearly making his eyes roll, downed the goo so fast Lucy winced in sympathy for his stomach. The results were instant:
Sweat popped out on his skin, and though he was a fire demon, his skin flared with heat. His bloodshot eyes cleared, and his tense body relaxed a bit. She didn't know what was going on inside his body but from the puff of smoke he burped out, she didn't want to know.
Her symptoms were not that bad.
She watched as Gray downed his glass nearly as fast as Natsu had the results very similar. He looked more uncomfortable though, and she imagined that as an ice being, heat didn't sit very well with him; even it would cure the killer headache she'd seen brewing behind his yes.
Mira handed her a glass, and Lucy sputtered out excuses and tried desperately to tell her that she was fine. Mira smiled sweetly, but something else seemed to flicker behind the sweet face, and when a sugary sweet tone said:
"I insist, it'll fix you up good as new in a minute," Lucy found herself taking hold of the glass and staring down at the contents nervously. A thought made itself known, fighting the steady pounding of her headache.
"Uh, Mira, is this safe for humans to drink?" Lucy asked. Yeah, she was a Star Child, but she didn't know if it made her more than human enough to handle what looked to be a pretty powerful cure.
"You're not human." Mirajane said his face soft for real this time. "Besides, that cure can be used on all species, humans included."
Her feelings not quite clear—how did one come to terms that they were not human? —She downed the glass much as Gray and Natsu had. Fast and with no time to think. The cure didn't taste all that bad but it wasn't pleasant either. It kicked into her system as she imagined drugs did—with no mercy. She let out a shocked gasp as she felt it burn through her system. Sweat saturated with toxins fled her body, and she felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. She coughed, and stared at the smoke that came up.
Dear god, what was in that stuff?
It lasted only a minute, but Lucy was sure she'd never been so free of toxins in her life. She felt….purged. Natsu laughed.
"Can't say you belong to Fairy Tail until you've been baptized." He grinned at her, eyes lit with merriment. She supposed baptized was the correct term for what she felt.
"I hate that crap," Gray muttered. His skin was flushed, and he looked very uncomfortable. In fact, his hands were forming ice and she could see the vapor swirling around his form. Obviously, he was trying to cool himself back down.
"Can't take the heat, Ice Princess?" Natsu taunted. His skin was flushed a bit too—as Lucy imagined hers was—but since he was the closest thing Lucy knew to the living embodiment of flame, she supposed the heat caused by The Fix didn't bother him too much.
"Whatever, just 'cause Mira has to make your Fix three times stronger than normal doesn't mean I can't handle the heat." Gray shot back. Lucy blinked. Three times stronger?
"I can't help that the normal stuff can't compete with my body temperature," Natsu grinned. "And doesn't she have to make yours weaker than normal so you don't melt, Snow Man?"
"Shut it Fire Freak!"
"Make me Cold Empress!"
Lucy rolled her eyes at the two of them. She'd been her for a day and she was already used to their senseless bickering. It was obvious they'd missed each other, though she really wondered why after four centuries they hadn't though up better insults. Standing up, she wondered where a bathroom might be. Her bladder was in serious need of a purging.
Mirajane materialized out of nowhere—seriously, how did she do that?—and gave Lucy directions to the bathroom as she carried more Fix to some desperate people who were hiding in a corner to try and escape the lights and the building noise.
Lucy did her business, lingering in the plush bathroom as she rubbed a moistened guest towel over her face. So much had happened in so little time. She'd freed a demon, found out her best friends weren't human and that neither was she and she was literally standing in the den of mythical creatures who'd lived more lifetimes than she could imagine.
Yeah, that had hit her sometime in the night that everyone around her was far older than she.
It also hit her that she was just asking for pain by befriending them. They would stay young. Young and firm, smooth and taut, for many, many years. While she would sag with age, grow weary and old and weak.
And die in a blink of an eye for them.
Or was she now able to live a long life? Could she live centuries now? She didn't know. She was a Star Child but she didn't have a clue as to what that meant. Was she blessed with a long life? She'd been born human, and now she was more than that but what exactly did that mean? Would she have to watch herself age while everyone else remained as they were? Could she cause herself, and them, that kind of suffering? If she was lucky, she might live to see one hundred, but that was only a drop of time for them.
And if she was long-lived? Would she have to abandon the human realm, and her human friends? Would she have to watch her father age and die, knowing she would live centuries longer than him? She wasn't on the best of terms with her father…but it didn't mean she wanted to outlive him by such a huge margin.
Nothing was simple anymore. Nothing had a clear answer and tomorrow was a murky as a tar pit.
The strength in her limbs seemed to give out, and her mind hazed. Lucy stared at herself dully in the mirror, unable to react to the shadow that wasn't hers that lurked in the background of her reflection.
How was it fair that she'd been sucked into a world of monsters? She had no reason to be here. No right. She'd freed their friend, and now she could dust her hands clean of them. Why risk herself? Why risk the life she'd known for abominations such as the ones in the other room? Dirty blood, mixed lines, interspecies relationships. Consorting with demons and Mythics of other statuses. She was of high standing in the Human Realm; she knew that classes shouldn't mix. It was a rule, an unspoken rule, why couldn't they obey the rules? The vile beasts.
It was wrong. It was disgusting.
Abominations.
She should leave. Stick a knife in the Demon she'd made the mistake of freeing and leave.
A crystal clear image of Natsu, bleeding, her hand on the knife plunged deep into his chest flashed so brightly into her mind that it seemed to sear itself to her very tissues. The bloodlust that came with it slammed into her system worse than The Fix, causing her body to shake.
Something slithered up her spine, something that whispered into her head, tried to get her to give in. Suddenly, Lucy snapped back into her own head, though it felt as if something vile had been slithering around in her mind. She was cold, and she couldn't get the scream out of her throat, as she was finally able to register her reflection in the mirror.
Something was leaning over her, blocking the lights and leaving an eerie glow on her pale, hollowed cheeks. It was formless, though something like a grin had formed on what she supposed could be the head. Two thick cords had attached to her wrists, and Lucy's stomach flipped as she realized that the cords were apart of…the thing. She glanced down, and found herself ankle deep in thick black goo that she knew was also a part of the monster holding her. The towering figure retreated into the puddle—she could find no other word for it—and she swore that something laughed.
Her heart pounded, but her lips and throat refused to let the scream that was building her lungs loose. Fear was a living thing in her system, beating against her rips, her stomach, causing her heart to pound loud enough for her to hear it. Her throat was dry as dust, and her doe brown eyes were widened in petrifying fear.
A skeletal hand shot of the murk at her feet, slamming over her mouth and Lucy felt herself slowly sinking into the shadow. Something else rose from the depths, and it leaned against her, whispering in her ear.
"The ghosts of the past shall never rest."
The scream finally loosed itself, and it was ear shattering. The thing hissed, the cords on her wrists turned to chains, and the hand on her mouth tugged, her back arched as she tried to fight the thing that was dragging her down. She kept screaming, knowing there were literally hundreds of Mythics mere yards away that could beat…whatever this thing was.
The goo was at her knees and panic had her trying to bite and claw. Her mind was a wild thing now, and her screams were increasingly desperate. Couldn't they hear her?
She wasn't even sure who they were anymore. Some primal instinct told her that if she were swallowed, she wouldn't get back out. Someone had to save her, because she had no idea how to save herself. Her magick was locked behind a wall of fear, and something more, something sinister. She'd tried to reach it without even thinking about it, her fear triggering instincts she didn't even know she had.
She was still screaming as the door exploded open, along with half the wall.
MUAHAHAHAHA. You guys know I love you, right? XDD So...
So I was attempting to go to sleep when the image of Lucy being pulled into a puddle of evil goo and a voice whispering crap in her ear about the ghosts of the past popped up in my brain. ((Don't question, okay? I don't know where half the crap my brain comes up with comes from.))
I literally turned my computer back on and wrote this up for you guys! Aren't you glad? So it's now 2:30 in the morning and yes, I am posting this right now. I don't wanna wait. I wanna wake up to someone's panicked review. XD
I did mention that I love you guys, right? 'Cause I do.
*Whispers* Don't hurt me for this chappie~!
GUEST REVIEWS:
Miri: LOL. Yeah, pretty sure his name is Max and he always makes me giggle, because yes, he does look MUCH too happy with that broom up his butt. I'm almost positive that there's Max X Broom fanfiction somewhere lol.
GUEST: You're welcome. :3 *Evil laughter in the distance* Lol, I think that's finally dawning on her now. XD. Hehe. Thanks! It was fun to write. XD
