~She'd changed so much over the year he was gone.~

Her Journey

On the day Lucy had met Natsu and joined Fairy Tail, officially making her dream a reality, she could've never guessed, or have been ready for, what the road ahead held.

Even in her wildest dreams and most absurd imaginations, nothing even came close. Never would she have been prepared for the grueling jobs, dire situations, acute heartache, the strong sense of family, or the overwhelming joys.

And although not being prepared for whatever was thrown at her and her teammates was a little scary, she figured she wouldn't have grown the way she had. And so in a way, the unexpectedness of it all had been perfect.

The years with Fairy Tail and him had shaped and molded her so quickly and so accurately, and yet in a way, they couldn't even compare to how she was shaped in the single year that he was gone.

Sometimes she'd look in the mirror and not even recognize herself, the guild stamp on her hand seeming oddly foreign when it'd once felt like home. They were no more. The guild she loved and the thing that'd shaped her into the woman she was today, completely gone.

And yet more than that, Natsu's absence made her feel like a child lost without its parent. She felt silly, even angry at herself sometimes when she realized exactly how much she relied on him. She counted on him, she felt comforted by his mere presence, and now that it was gone, she understood the extent to which he was her other half.

Over the year he was gone she was no longer molded by those around her that she considered family. Instead, she molded herself.

She was fed up with the clenching ache in her chest when she thought of him, and she was fed up with feeling lost without her guild. And so she did something about it herself. She stood up tall, put on a strong face, and pushed herself towards who she wanted to be.

Over that year she changed. Even if she missed them terribly, or even beyond terribly, she changed into the person she'd always wanted to be. She was strong, she had a sense of self, and she made her own way in the world, chasing after her passions and making them a reality with her own hands.

And so even when she saw his face again in the arena, her heart plummeting to her stomach before shooting back up into her throat, her eyes filling with tears as she saw him once again after missing him for an entire year, she wasn't, or maybe even couldn't mold back to the Lucy she'd once been.

She felt her old self, her old happiness, bubbling to the surface again as she sat close to him, as she found her old friends, and as they began to rekindle that family vibe they'd always had. But she wasn't the same girl she was before, and she knew the others, and Natsu, could see it.

Because she wasn't constantly teetering on the bridge between weak and strong. She was her own person, Lucy Heartfilia, and she'd grown to embrace it. She'd found herself over the year that she'd felt so lost. And while it was a little bittersweet, an overwhelming sense of accomplishment came along with it, the likes of which she hadn't felt before.

And part of her knew, by the small sparkle in his eyes when he looked at her, that he was proud in his own way of how she'd grown without him.

The Sinnoh League Challenge - Route 201 part 5 - write about a journey - the journey is a spiritual one as opposed to a physical one

Maybe it's just me but I felt like Lucy is the one who changed the most over the year gap. She just seems different, more grown-up even, to me now.
And I also feel like Natsu would be proud of her, but he would also be sad that he'd missed seeing her growth.

Anyway, next drabble will be about the gap from Natsu's view this time. :D

~Foxtail-chan