A Natsu and Lucy fanfiction. I don't own FairyTail

Hello my dear followers and readers. :D

Be assured that I have not abandoned this story, but I have been focusing on my other stories... so Sorry if that displeases you. Wooooops!

Anyway, I haven't been having writer's block, but more like editor's block... I have focused on one story for a very long time and it's a bit difficult getting back into another after so long being away from it.

Anyway, I'm not giving up. And I apologize for making you wait soooooo long. :D

My bad. :D

.

.

Starlight Stalker: Castle of Einsveal

.

.

Chapter 11:

.

.

The inn was dark and creepy giving off a very musty smell, and the people who were inside weren't that different. Lucy had to stop herself from wrinkling her nose. Natsu pulled her through a few doorways and down a flight of stairs into a wine cellar. He pulled her into the room and locked the door.

"Won't people want to come in here?"

"They don't know that this room even existed anymore." Natsu said.

Lucy felt her mouth drop. 'Doesn't even exist?' "Have you put a concealment spell on the door then?"

"Yep." Natsu nodded. His attention however was focused on the floor. He knelt down and started muttering something in a language that Lucy didn't know.

'Oh, my gosh is he really using different types of magic? Is that spell casting.'

All of a sudden there was a bright light that appeared beneath Natsu and a small well appeared before him. 'Ah so he had learned to use not only invisibility magic but also concealment magic.' Natsu got the bucket that was in a corner of the room and brought it up to the well. Attaching it to a length of rope he let it down. She walked up close to pier over the edge. 'What is he doing with this?' She heard a loud splash when the bucket hit the water and then Natsu started pulling it back up. Once it had reached the surface Natsu untied the bucket and walked over to the nearby wall.

'I really don't get this.' Lucy looked on, and then felt her jaw drop in shock. Natsu threw the water against the wall and the wall started glowing a bright red colour. And with not much more effect than that, Natsu breathed on the dripping rocks with fire, chanting incantations as he did so. Lucy saw with every incantation a few more colours appeared in the wall, and before long she had guessed what it was that Natsu had been making.

"Wow! Have you really made a transportation portal?" She asked walking closer.

The glowing, moving picture on the wall seemed to have lit up as if Lucy wasn't seeing some dead picture, but was rather looking through a window that was right infront of her, only a few steps away. There was a slight breeze on her face that seemed to come from the picture itself and she studied it. It was a dark and mysterious old-fashioned castle by the looks of things and she didn't think it looked very nice, but hard and horrible. The castle had a wall around it that was shaped into an octagon, with eight towers at all the main wall joints. It was high on a cliff, or you should say high around a sharp mountain for the very peek of the mountain seemed to pierce through the main castle. The sharp, tallest section of the mountain seemed to come up right through the castle as if the designer himself had actually chosen to make it that way. The castle seemed to grow outwards from this central focus point, and from the rock silvery glimmering lights seemed to shine. The wall looked to be about forty feet high and the main radius of the wall from the mountain/castle was about three hundred meters. And then Lucy saw a green light coming from a tower off to the side of the main castle. It was crooked and bent as if years of its life had been spent not being cared for, but being neglected and beaten down by the weather.

"Yeah, I learned how to do it after travelling around from place to place. It beats having to take public transport, or risk being seen in flight." Natsu answered. He held out his hand to Lucy and nodded towards the picture. "You ready?"

She looked back at it. 'This is going to be weird.' Bracing herself inwardly she took a hold of Natsu's hand and he pulled her in. There was a rushing sensation as the world whisked past her in an instant. And she was pulled before the strange castle. She looked up and it and the sharp mountain loomed up before her going higher and higher.

'It looks terrible, and it's horrible to think this, but Natsu looks like he fits in here.'

Natsu still holding her hand walked up to the front gates, and pushed them open with one hand. She looked behind her towards the harsh landscape and couldn't see a single living thing the only thing that seemed to live here was the wild wind as it whipped her hair into her face. Natsu kept her close to him and pulled her into the castle immediately and shut the door.

'So maybe he really doesn't like it out there.' As Lucy was pulled along the corridors Natsu started filling in the questions she had started to ask.

"Look. I'm on this job at the moment and it's really important. And I would sort of like your help."

"Really? Are you sure you need it?"

"Yes, and just in case you were wondering." he paused. "I'm working with someone, but I don't know how they'll react to seeing you here."

'Great. He or worse she will simply laugh at me and tell me to get lost, and make an embarrassing example out of me.'

Natsu at last came to this one huge archway that led upwards into the tower that she had seen in the water-fire, portal, painting. She followed him up many flights of stairs until they at last came to a room with a beautifully carved little door that led into a brightly lit room. There were dashes of light in many colours in it, from purples to greens to yellows of varying tones.

"Wait here." Natsu said at first and then stepped into the room. "Hey. I'm back."

"Ah! Natsu. You're a little later than I thought you'd be. Did you find that celestial mage you said you knew." A voice greeted Natsu.

"Yeah, I did … I had …Well." Natsu stuttered a bit.

"Well, were are they." The voice asked.

"I had to go back … a little way." Natsu explained slowly and Lucy heard his footprints walk back towards the door. He opened it fully and she stepped into the room. The first thing she saw was Jellal a little more wise looking and older than he was in her time, but he looked very much the same as he ever was.

Jellal looked at Lucy in shock and turned on Natsu. "I told you I needed a celestrial spirit mage, but I didn't say anything about raising the dead. Natsu what were you thinking!"

"She wasn't dead from where I found her." Natsu growled back at him.

Jellal sat back down again and sighed. "Where did you get her from?"

"There was an alternative dimension that I was able to bend into." Natsu glared back at him. "Besides it's not like there are many other celestial spirit mages that could help us."

"That's not what I'm saying." Jellal sighed. "You might not think it matters, but pulling someone from one dimension to another can be very damaging to them."

"No. I looked into it." Natsu argued. "There were a few celestrial mages in the past that were able to, under their own power, travel back and forth through time and space. There was no reason that Lucy couldn't."

"But what about her dimension." Jellal added. "She isn't going to be there anymore. Can you even send her back?"

Natsu didn't look back at Lucy but only seemed to focus on the floor. "We needed a celestrial wizard and I got us one." He seemed to give a nasty glare at Jellal. "If you can't use her then I'll take her away again and find you another." He turned on his feet and left the room. Passing by Lucy briefly.

Lucy looked on in confusion between the door and Jellal. "What are you two doing here?" Lucy finally was able to ask.

Jellal looked back at her and smiled. "I'm sorry for my rudeness. It is good to see you fit and well." He turned around and pointed at a crystal ball in which was glowing a dead and barren land. "As to what we are doing I'll make it clear. There was a huge battle in these lands long ago and thousand died because of the curses of witches and sorcerers that came to take it." He pulled out a map, and circled half of it. It was huge. Aches and and aches of land. "This entire area has been cursed. Nothing grows and nothing has lived there for a long time. I have been studying an ancient ritual that nulls curses, and I think I can activate it, but I need someone else who uses celestial magic to aid me." He looked back at her.

'So Natsu really just brought me back for this?'

"So why is this such a secret. Why are the members of Fairy Tail talking about Natsu in a bad way?" Lucy asked.

Jellal paused and looked around. "Well, some people might say that we are in forbidden territory. These maps and places have been eradicated from public records to prevent anyone from ever treading here. I have put up a defensive barrier around the castle, but when we do leave, people with magic sensing lacrimas will be able to detect the use of dark magic on us. Not because we ourselves are using it, but because we are studying it and trying to purify it." He held up 'such' a magic sensing item and to Lucy's horror it indeed made him appear as if he was leaking with the stuff.

"What about Natsu? Is he going to be alright? What is he doing here?" Lucy asked worried.

"He's fine. I have made sure that the both of us are purified upon leaving and arriving at this castle. I asked him to come here for his powers of detection and able to sense a person's presence nearby."

"But didn't you say that no one came near here because they didn't know about it?" Lucy frowned.

"Yes, I did, but the curse here is so strong that some of the dead have the same power as the living."

"Oh." Lucy folded her arms, sat down on a large, soft purple sofa and shut her mouth in shock. 'This thing was crazy!'

She looked around in mystery and wondered what the map of magnolia might looked like if this curse was indeed lifted. She hadn't ever really been able to reverse a real curse before. Not one like this.

"So, what do you say? Are you willing to help us? It might take a long while." Jellal asked.

"How long?" Lucy looked back at him, but heard a scuffling of feet behind her.

Natsu came back through the huge doorway and walked up to her. In his hand he held out to her a plate of food which was covered in piles of delicious food. "Maybe a few years, maybe a several." Natsu answered instead.

She looked back up at him and saw that he was serious. "Natsu. I can't be away from everyone for..."

"You won't have to be." Natsu interrupted. "If you really want to go back to where you came from at the exact time you left, we can do that."

"How?" Lucy raised an eyebrow.

Natsu sat down beside her and lifting up the plate between them picked off a piece of meat took a bite from it, swallowed it, and then held the rest of it out to Lucy. "I promise, if you don't want to stay here after we have lifted the curse then I will find a way to send you back to your world/timezone thing." He said truthfully and seriously.

"So, wait... you think you can send me back to the same timezone?" she felt a huge wave of hunger hit her as the smell of the food finally started to make her feel famished.

He nodded with a frown on his face. "After you spend just a few years here then yeah. I think so. If you still want too. I came to get you from that different time zone didn't I?"

'What did he mean still want too. Of course I would want to!'

She took the piece of meat from Natsu's hand and took a bit from it. It tasted amazing just as she'd expected from the smell.

He put the plate on her lap and leaned in to kiss her neck. Just feeling his breath on her neck was almost too much for Lucy and she shuddered when he kissed her. 'Why does my neck feel so sore and sensitive anyway?'

Jellal stepped forward. "Wait a moment Natsu. If Lucy doesn't want to be here then you shouldn't make her." He walked towards the two of them and Natsu stood up and stepped away from Lucy giving Jellal some space. For the first time Lucy noticed that Jellal seemed to have been seriously injured in a fight of some kind and in his hands he was holding a strange but beautiful blue staff that was glowing from an unknown material substance. He took a few more steps forward and leaned down towards her. "Lucy." He asked kindly. "What is it that you want to do?"

She couldn't help but feel a little intrigued as to what exactly these two had teamed up to fight against and what sort of curse this thing was and how they could go about destroying it. 'And even if I do go back to my time... what exactly do I do for my friends. I have fun. I smile. I encourage. I lose a fight. I get saved by Natsu and that's the end of the story. Here... it's Natsu that needs my powers, and it's for something really important and different. We're not fighting monsters, but curses... I'm not very good at this sort of thing because I have never done this sort of thing very often. But here Natsu needs me, for two years... that is a long time, but if what he says is true and he can take me back to the exact time I left it shouldn't be a problem right?'

She rubbed her lips together thinking about it carefully. 'The point of the matter is if I leave now it will be fine. I will go about my life living with my carefree friends, relying on them too much in battles and not knowing if Natsu might or might not be having feelings for me. Or I can stay here and learn more about this Natsu..." She looked back at him standing a little way away. "and experience first hand what it feels like to use my own powers at their full, and not for a blasted enemy's plan, but to help a friend.' She breathed out a sigh.

'And the Natsu from this alternative future world actually wants me, unlike in Edolas he isn't a wimp, and unlike at home he doesn't hold back. (in the romantic sense)' She felt a blush run over her cheeks. 'I really want to see how far he wants to take me. That's not so bad is it? He is a very close friend afterall, and I have wanted him to approach me now about this subject for some time. He just didn't get the hints. Do I really want to go back to that young and stupidly innocent Natsu just yet, and leave this Natsu sad and lonely. No.'

So it was decided. "I'll stay for a few years then."

Jellal nodded. "Very well." He held out his hand and Lucy took it. "Welcome to project STARLIGHT at the castle of Einsveal."

.

.

Well, I have finally written this cool chapter. To tell you guys the truth I wasn't quite sure which way I wanted to take this story, but this seems to be the right way for now.

I hope you guys haven't decided to delete your accounts because you haven't read a chapter for this story for a while, but here goes.

I hope you liked it. :D