I Dare You

~ Epilogue ~

I can hardly breathe.

Even though she stood at the peak of a mountain the air felt too cold. She looked down at the frozen memorial ice crystal her guild had built for the brother they lost. Then she slowly glanced over at the red flame sculpture that had just been built recently.

It has only been three days since she felt bad in the air. Something had been wrong. When she left the comfort of her friends, at the guild, to search out the source of the bad feeling…that scene would always be burned into her mind. Her memories would forever be plagued by the overwhelming color of red. She could remember the instant rush of tears as she collapsed to her knees. The fall to the cold ice-covered ground seemed like a year-long trip. The end of the trip had brought her face to face with a lifeless, frozen, and blood drenched dragon slayer. Her entire body shook as she lifted her hand to caress his unnaturally cold cheek. She had been so used to the dragon slayer being hot as the fires that emanated from hell. This…this was sickening. Her breath caught in her throat as the tears continued to pour out. She couldn't speak, but she felt like she wanted to scream. She felt as though she had to scream; because in reality, that was all she could do.

They already had Gray taken away, but Natsu chose to go. She couldn't blame him, no matter how much she wanted to. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Natsu so upset…so completely broken…heart shattered into millions of unfamiliar pieces that lay beneath their feet. She cared about Gray too, but Natsu loved him. Even to this day she couldn't believe they would ever do anything other than fight. She closed her eyes and silently smiled to herself. As her eyes reopened a single tear fell from her one eye. She stared back at the memorials of her boys.

They were her comrades. Her teammates…her best friends…

"My…family." She whispered to the grave markers.

Erza knelt and placed a kiss next to each boy's name. She stood, turning her back to them and looked towards the sky. Erza gasped as she felt two hands on her shoulders. One was as cold as ice. The other hot as the sun. She let her tears fall once more as she said goodbye to her brothers.

(A/N) I felt like I had to do a little something to really end this story so I did an epilogue for Erza. I hope you enjoyed this short part. I had a lot of fun and cried a lot while writing this, but now it really is over. Please review. :)