***I do not own Fairy Tail, nor its characters or its storyline. I still like making them dance like silly little puppets from time to time***
How did it come to this? How?
My feet were dreary, yet moving with almost unimaginable speed none the less. They moved in that manner because I at the moment was unable to take on the foes chasing me. Yes. Chasing ME. Me ALONE.
Almost silent pads collided with soft ground again and again, together with the deep and throaty growls of my pursuers. They were many, and set on taking down me, the enemy.
"The woman named Maya Clive. She was, what to call it... a special being. She was always a drifter, though there was one place she always seemed to return to, close to a cave she claimed held dear memories. Her house was near a village, so they got to know the kind kind of woman she was. To put it easy, she was not one it was easy to have around. She disliked people, could turn violent in a heartbeat if anyone said the wrong thing, and her STRENGTH." Gildarts stopped for a moment, reminiscing over her immense strength.
One of them flung themselves at me, ripping with sharp teeth and sharper claws, trying to make me fall so the rest could have a go. I managed to shake it off without it causing more than minor damage to my shoulder, without letting go of my running pace. They howled in frustration, and the pursuit continued.
"Since she always talked about dragons, she was quickly nicknamed Dragonlady. She protected her village from harm despite her unfriendly nature, using her superior strength and blue flames. At some point, there was a child that was following this dangerous being whenever she walked through town on minor business. A little girl that had no name."
Rogue and Sting were nowhere to be seen. Why would they, after being challenged by a blonde boy that smelled of strength and frustration. A boy with a scar shaped like a thunderbolt across one eye. Sting had ordered me to take cover for the time being, and Fro and Lector had joined me in the beginning, before THEY came emerging from between the canopy, hungry for blood.
This sure brought back memories. Back to the old days, as a little girl. My legs screeched as I, swift as a hare, changed direction in the fraction of a second in a failing attempt to shake my pursuers. I felt much like that hare at the moment, though... if my memory served me right, my nickname had been nought of the sort back then. Before it truly became what was etched into my back, I was called...
"And the eyes of the harsh mother softened ever so slightly when the little one was around. The little one was called the White Fox, much like the white flames that usually surrounded her when she got excited about something. For the first time the Dragon Lady seemed content on creating more steady relations with the villagers, and things were looking up. Then the incident happened." Gildarts paused. Looking back at that time, things sure had changed. Natsu was the one to inquire about the incident first, ordering the redheaded male to continuing his tale.
Fighting had never been my thing. While I learned to counter hits, neutralising them and deeming them powerless, I was not one to hit back too fiercely.
Aw... shit. Shit shit shit Shit SHIT! River! I jumped, trying ever so desperately to make it to the other side in my shortened flight, but alas...
"Bad blood had grown between some of the people in the village and the fierce lady that came by from time to time. As such they tended to stay clear of her, and her little child. And since they stayed clear, their children were asked to do the same. And stories regarding her past were soon attached to the little girl." Gildarts said seriously.
"So what happened?" Erza asked. This was interesting. Most people knew much of the past of the other members, but other than the fact that Lucy was Northern and had some sort of connection to the Heartfilia family there was little they knew of her childhood.
I struggled to keep my head over water in the ever fierce rapids that tried to either drown me or crush me against the rocks. I had managed to relearn how to swim, but swimming through this... and to top it off, my predators still followed on silent pads, running beside the river and waiting for me to emerge from the deadly waters.
"One of the village children tried to kill the White Fox. Since Maya wasn't there, the details aren't all that.. well. I assume she was tricked to come along to play. Being from outside the village and having a mother like that, Lucy was likely alone very often. She had Odin the flying cat to play with, but... anyway. From what I heard Little Lucy was taken outside the village where she was attacked, beat up, and then held down as one of the village children cut in her true name on her back. As if that wasn't enough, they proceeded to tie up her legs, hang her upside down in a tree, and were about to..." he didn't end the sentence, but emphasised his point by dragging a finger across his throat. People stared. The room had already been reasonably quietened that day due to the injuries keeping most brawls to happen, but the atmosphere... it was cooling, as they all thought of the missing Fairy, wherever she might be. The last they had seen of her was at the resort that Loke had given Team Natsu tickets to. Their only memento would be her keys, the keys that had flown through the air close to the Tower of Heaven, right into the paws of Happy.
The scream rippled through the air as they jumped my half drowned form, trying to complete the job of ending me. I had never been much of a screamer, never saw the point, but this time I couldn't help it. Even if no one could hear me. No one would help. They never came. Back then, all friendliness was a lie, just like...
"And she snapped. Lucy is very strong. The magic within her has huge potential, but it was mostly dormant up until that point, or at least I thought... She nearly died from the force of her own magic, and was bedridden for over a week. The boy that had tried to kill her after she lost consciousness and gave in to pure survival instinct did not make it. It was soon after that I met her for the first time." he stopped for a moment, and a soft smile appeared as he remembered their first meeting, before he learned the truth.
"You should've seen her. She was the cutest little thing, about yay high and so trusting. And of course, bound for trouble wherever she went. I only stayed for a week while Maya went to take care of what she called personal business, and my little niece took me to see all her favourite spots."
My body blazed alight, white and vibrant fires making the beasts scatter, whimpering before growls once more emerged from raging throats. I managed to get up, a bit surprised by my still white flames, thought they long since should have returned to purple, dying and lethal. Then, before the predators could regroup and decide that risking my flames might be worth it, I set off running again, soon with all of them in pursuit. The flames felt hot against my skin, but not in a bad way. Like a long forgotten friend they stuck to my skin, not burning everything away, but rather protecting me, and even following behind, almost like a tail.
"I remember after the Phantom Lord incident. Lucy almost died," Gray commented, a bit muffled since his mouth was part covered by bandages.
"Her eyes turned black, and her skin turned to scales. At least partly." Erza added.
"And she punched that cannon in like it was made of glass, and not steel," Gajeel added with an amused grin.
"Is her magic truly that harmful to her body?" Master asked, remembering the same incident. To be honest he found her affinity to flames to be almost unnatural. Her body embraced it, yet almost seemed to reject it at the same time.
"No." Gildarts said simply.
The sparkling blue ahead could be nothing but the sea, and it was starting to dawn on me that I was slowly approaching familiar territory, which was not all that good with my current company. Fighting them all would be impossible though, so I formed a hasty plan B in my head. The violent river I was running next to would be impossible to navigate through, but the ocean. The ocean might yet save me from my current predicament.
"What do you mean, no?" Master questioned, wanting further details.
"Well, I suppose that it is safe to say that her true affinity is Celestial Spirit magic. Because of that, Fire magic should have its risks if used excessively. A person shouldn't really posses too many affinities, though it isn't totally unheard of." Gildarts explained.
"The thing that hurts her body to such a degree, however, isn't the fire magic.." he added.
"Not the fire magic? Then what?" Master asked.
"It is the Pact Maya Clive made with a demon, a Pact made to repress the Fire magic within Lucy. Like I said, when she was little, white flames often lit her up when she was excited. It made her different, and I suppose that Maya merely wanted to make her more normal when she made the pact... it binds the magic to her core. To her veins, her bones, her internal organs. And for a while, it worked. The White fox was suddenly only a small blonde girl stubbing around in town, taken care of like most other children. Until someone tried to kill her." Gildarts darkened. He had gotten to know those final pieces from the Demon sent to kill his niece. Demons were uncanny creatures after all, and that one likely wanted to end the deal with the end of the life of the afflicted.
"Adding to the calamity, the bind, when forced to temporarily stretch in order to be used, extracts more magic that she usually would be capable of using. So it not only wreaks havoc on her body, but drains her magical reserves to the limit. A mage void of magic..." he stopped, was about to continue when... The back door to the guild burst open with great force, letting in a... for a moment she almost looked like an animal, in the middle of a leap and with that great white tail made of vibrant flames. Few even managed to recognise the being due to the bright light, but she clearly recognised the being by the bar, something that momentarily distracted her enough to miss the main door that would have led her to the streets of Magnolia. Before they got to see her through the rising dust, however, a pack, or rather a HORDE of wolves entered through the door she had bursted through a moment before.
Things had not gone as planned. I had planned to get into the sea and swim to safety from there. But upon nearing the open waters I had realised the calamity awaiting in those alluring depths. So in the last second, while swearing mentally, I turned and started running by the ocean. And then, suddenly, the guild was nearing.
The familiar building worked against my better judgement, and I had decided to enter through there on my way to elsewhere. The hatred my pursuers held towards me would keep them from scattering in town and attacking villagers, so I felt safe for doing so, but then. By the bar. HIM.
The next I knew, I collided with a wall, and the magical potential of Uncle reached its usual peak as he strongly suggested the pack of wolves to go away without saying a word. Wolves were not stupid enough to go up against the man, so I assumed them to be leaving with urgency. At least the growls turned to whimpers, and they were clearly weakening as the distance between us increased. That, or I might be fainting. The speed I held when I made impact with the stone wall didn't make that impossible.
The warmth of my flames were ceasing, leaving me cold and gasping for air while dust slowly settled around me. It felt lonely without them there.
"Lucy." came the voice of the one that had caused me to collide with the wall in the first place. I stood there, the last remnants of my flames dissipating, staring at the man that stood before me. Red hair. So very very red. I wiped some blood from my face, weary of this new development. What did he want from me? What did Uncle want from me?
"It's been a while." I managed to utter, completely serious, and confused. My brother HAD indeed mentioned something about Uncle being part of this guild, yet... A smile spread across his face, a wide one I had always believed him to be the only one able to produce, before I arrived in Magnolia and met the rest of Fairy Tail.
"You look well, Lucy, though your luck is horrid like always." he commented, and I felt myself blush as I scratched the back of my head. This was not the way this was supposed to transpire. I was not supposed to just waltz into this place, and I was not supposed to come upon my lost relative.
"I suppose. Animals never did like me much. You know that, especially after the.. *ahem*.. incident with the wyverns." I replied sheepishly. He laughed then, a hearty laugh that made me and several others flinch, though no one moved to interrupt the two of us. Why were they so damaged, the lot of them?
"Where have you been? I heard from Master you joined Fairy Tail, but got lost a while back." the man continued. I noted Happy sitting on the counter, clutching what seemed to be my keys. The proximity to them could hardly be good for me. If Loke decided to summon himself...
"Here and there. I met some old acquaintances, and they insisted on..." I trailed off. While "talking" was the word that almost escaped my lips, the word was hardly covering, not even as a half truth.
"And then I met my brother." I added since I found no adequate word.
"And these old acquaintances of yours..?" he stopped too.
"I don't think I'll be seeing them in a while, but we did clear the air, I suppose. And I got to see Milliana again. She has really grown since the last time, and her magic is so STRONG." I mustered my first smile. Milliana. One of the many that wanted me gone.
"You know Milliana?" Erza asked. She had her cuts and bruises too, along with subtle signs of electrocution. It reminded me of the boy my brother was currently fighting. She... didn't know? But.. but... I looked around. Where WAS the contempt? Where was the hate. The rage. The very thing I had been running away from, in a way, though I never had seen myself as one to be running away from anything. I had always been charging ahead regardless of danger, but... There was ONE thing I suddenly realised that I feared more than anything in the whole wide world. More than death. More than the monster that had killed my whole village. More than the dark voice within that sometimes reared its ugly head, telling me that maybe, just maybe, Mama wouldn't come back this time. Yes, even more than that, I feared that these people would hate me.
Slowly I lifted my arms, staring wide eyed at that strange little mark there, pink of colour and seemingly insignificant. And I stared at Erza, suddenly recalling, a memory from my dark well of dark memories. I had seen her before. Little Scarlet, moving around on the working ground at the foot of that wrecked tower. So scared. So fragile. She was blinking under my long stare, confused at the sudden attention.
"You were there too. The little Scarlet Angel. Little Scarlet, fragile Scarlet. You... you were the one he always talked about. You were the one he.. loved." I said, thinking back. Of course. It made sense. In his clearer moments, when the insanity all but ceased for a few moments, she was the one on his mind. She was the final piece that kept him from drowning completely in the darkness that tried to eradicate him completely.
"What are you talking about?" Erza asked, still confused.
"Jellal. Little Jellal. So innocent, and yet so tainted. And he... didn't tell you a thing." I said, making her twinge as if in pain upon hearing the name of the person that once rescued me, and that I even now somewhat regarded a friend. Even with all the pain he had caused me, and the whole dying to have me killed thing. He was not the first, and not the last.
"Tell me?" Erza asked. She didn't know. Of course not, I had been so very different, back then. Back when my bottomless despair temporarily robbed my flames of all light.
"He didn't tell you who I am." I said, and studying my mark again. There was only one way of getting out of this, wasn't there... I tryingly licked my upper teeth, felt their sharpness, and knew that they would do.
"And that's enough." his voice was suddenly very close, and I only noted his clenched face moving towards my face before I acted on instinct. My hand moved to meet his just as my flames returned, vibrant and adding to the strength I knew I needed as his fist collided with mine, the sudden rise yet again of his impressive magical potency moving violently against mine, and the force of his almost strike crushing the ground below us, creating a round crater around us. I still stopped his hit, to the great surprise of pretty much everyone.
"Your skills have improved." he said with a smile, but I just stared at him. I knew that beating him would be impossible. I could barely neutralise enough of his power in order to manage the rest with my own physical strength, and something told me that Uncle could do much much better than this.
"What do you want from me?" I asked instead, trying desperately to come up with some kind of plan in order to get out of this situation.
"I want you to stop considering biting off your guild mark with your bare teeth for one?" he muttered silently, words only meant for me to hear. How did he know?
"And secondly, I want to hug my cute little niece and welcome her home!" he continued, and suddenly I found myself in one of his less nice my-bones-are-just-about-to-snap hugs.
"Can't.. uncle.. can't *gasp* breathe!" I moaned, and could almost hear my bones groaning dangerously from the force.
"You've grown." was the simple remark coming from Uncle while I was caught with not escape. Seeing how I had not seen him in a very long time, I would hope so.
"LUCY!" and a blue cat collided with my back, also hugging me. Where did Happy come from?
"Give the girl some space, boys. Come here, I'll fix you right up." Mirajane interrupted, and Uncle let go of me, though Happy stayed on my shoulder. I lifted my hand, stared at the pink mark that had granted me a family. A home. People I felt that I could trust beyond anything else. Mirajane made her way over, and I heard people yell their welcoming for the lost child. The lost sibling. The lost friend. How did it come to this?
I was a Murderer. A Misfit.
A Monster.
And I should never have friends.
Of course, I knew that retracting our friendship was impossible. I could not claim that I could just rem...
"Lucy?" I stopped my mental ranting when Natsu called my name, a name given by a stranger that at the time had been mourning her child. His battered and heavily bandaged body did not stop him from limping, half crawling his way over to me, catching me in a much less hazardous-for-my-bones hug.
"Welcome home." he said, and I almost stopped breathing.
FLASHBACK
"And welcome home!" she yelled, a small girl with no name, or at least her mother had claimed so. The girl herself claimed to be named Lucy. Brave little girl, daring herself up against Maya Clive, one of the scariest women Gildarts had ever met.
"I don't live here, though." he said, a bit surprised by her grand statement, said in such a happy and determined voice.
"But you do, you know. Since you're family. At least Mama says so, y'know, and families need homes. Many homes. Mama doesn't like it, she says homes aren't important, but..." the little thing stopped talking in order to take a deep breath after her speech. Then she smiled brilliantly.
"But you know, Mama can be wrong too. The old man by the river says so, see, and he's waaaaaay older than Mama. And d'you know what he says? A home is the place where ALL the family can come back and be safe. No matter if they're mad at each other, or hurt, or lost, or sad or anything. So welcome home!" she yelled her welcome again, and he could do nothing but comply.
FLASHBACK END
"Not fair..." I muttered, but gave in to temptation, like I had too many times already when it came to this guild and the people within it.
"Come on, darling, I'll get you patched up. There's a festival tonight, you see, and we need all the help we can get." Mirajane said, gently separating me from my bandaged comrade. Why wasn't I struggling to make my point? And why did I feel so warm inside as I was led away, so warm and content and... home.
***Just putting it out there, but this chapter was WEIRD. Sorry about that, but I evidently have some reading to do in order to set my accounts right. And seriously, the indecisiveness of this Lucy is going to kill me one day, in a horrible, explicit and VERY painful manner.***