Author's Note:
Hello all! It's Sunday! Well, technically it's early Monday morning, but whatever. Anywho, new chapter! Yay!
As always, HUGE thanks to all my wonderful reviewers. BIG hugs and kisses to: AshleighLeeann17, Starstruck-MJ, Trollka21, Bugseey, NarukoSon, valerioux, Leomae2.0, BlazingFringe, SistershoOk, stranger1999, jules828, Catleana, and FireShifter!
Alrighty! Let's get right to it, shall we? On with the show!
The next evening found Brandy in street clothes instead of her maid uniform – not that she actually wore her uniform that much – as Lucy met her near the kitchens.
The greenette did not look particularly happy and immediately launched into complaints when Lucy reached her.
"I can't believe you talked me into this… what a hassle. You're lucky you're my best friend."
"I'm so sorry, Brandy… but thank you, thank you, thank you… you're a real life-saver."
"Yeah, yeah… I know. But I'm going to get someone else to do it as soon as I can find a replacement," the maid grumbled.
"That's totally fine. I know you'll find the right person for the job."
Brandy sighed and groaned, "Thanks for the pressure, I really appreciate it. But yeah… I'll make sure to find someone good, alright?"
"I didn't mean…" Lucy started, grimacing a little, and then just gave up and apologized again.
"Yeah, yeah… it's fine," the other woman said with another sigh.
That seemed to be the signal to drop it, so Lucy kept herself from apologizing again. From there, they walked in silence through the small kitchen gardens, and it only broke when they reached the kitchen door.
Yajima answered when Lucy knocked, and his eyes immediately widened with surprise when he saw Brandy next to her.
"Ms. Brandish! What are you doing here with Lady Luck?"
Lucy raised her hand to indicate that she would answer the question. "Brandy has agreed to take over for me as Lady Luck when I'm gone. I figured it would make things easier on her if she shadowed me for a little while first before having to fully take everything on."
The chef looked confused and alarmed for a second, but then his face smoothed out with understanding. "Ah, I see. So your father has chosen someone for you to marry then?"
He was careful not to give away too much, and his question was generic enough that his staff wouldn't be able to figure out who she really was.
"Someone has proposed, but Father hasn't agreed to it yet. I don't know how long it'll take him to decide though, so I wanted to start getting ready now. Depending on who he chooses, I might not stick around for the wedding day."
Yajima's eyebrows arched, and he seemed both surprised and impressed. "I'm happy to hear it."
"Yeah! Good for you! If yer dad's still inta all that arranged marriage crap, skip town before he can get ya hitched to an idjit," Baldroy bellowed from somewhere behind Yajima, and a crash quickly followed.
"Focus on what you're doing! Don't get distracted… you'll drop things!" The head chef's voice was loud and firm, but not angry as he turned to scold his errant staff member.
Lucy had always thought he was more like a stern grandfather to Baldroy and Mey-Rin than anything, and she found herself smiling at their antics. In all honesty, he had been something of a grandfather figure for her too. Then, without warning, she abruptly had to fight off a few tears at the thought that she would have to leave them soon.
"Well, anyways… thank you, Ms. Brandish," he said as he turned back to them, this time addressing Brandy. "We'll all miss Lady Luck dearly, but with your help at least her absence won't be such a loss. A lot of people depend on her, as I'm sure you know."
"Yeah… I'll give it my best shot, but I'm not as motivated as Luc-" She coughed and sent Lucy a sour look when the princess elbowed her, but she quickly fixed her mistake by jabbing her thumb sideways at Lucy. "-this one. So we'll see how long I can keep it up."
"If you ever need any help, just let us know. I'm sure Mey-Rin and Baldroy would be happy to pitch in," Yajima instantly offered, and Lucy's heart lightened a lot knowing that Brandy would have help.
Brandy also seemed to perk up, and she gave the older man one of her rare smiles as she thanked him.
"Of course. Now, I'm going to have to say goodbye to you lovely ladies. My pies are nearly done and I have to attend to them. I'll call over one of the kitchen staff to help you with the leftovers."
"Thank you, Mr. Yajima, as always," Lucy replied, waving goodbye to him as he disappeared back into the kitchens.
Soon Baldroy appeared at the door carrying all of the bags of leftovers at once. Lucy 'eeped' and hurried to get the cart as close to the door as she could so he could dump his huge load in. This wasn't the first time she'd seen him use a shocking amount of strength, but it always stunned her. The blond teen looked way too lanky to be that strong, but she supposed that he was the definition of, 'don't judge a book by it's cover.'
"Don't just drop them! There are fruits and vegetables in those bags!" Yajima barked from somewhere in the kitchen, and Baldroy fumbled to hang onto the bags he was in the process of dumping.
He only let one fall into the cart, and then he carefully placed the rest – all the while making a face and giving the two women a pleading look that clearly said, 'Oops, please don't tell him I dropped one...'
Lucy sent him a smile, and didn't say anything other than, "Thank you, Baldroy, we'd better head off now."
He gave her a grateful grin in return and sent them off with a salute. "Have a good day, ladies!"
Brandy completely ignored him of course, but Lucy waved as they left. Then they made their bumpy way down the servant's path into the noble district. As they exited the small castle gate, Lucy tipped her head to the guard on duty, who eyed Brandy with a little surprise but didn't comment.
Naturally, it wasn't long before they were joined by another companion, who bounded out from his spot sitting under a large oak near the street.
"Hey there, Lucky!" Natsu eagerly greeted, slinging his arm around her shoulders in a way that very nearly choked her.
"N-Natsu! Careful!" she scolded, batting at him and straightening her hat, which he had accidentally knocked askew with his enthusiastic greeting.
As usual, he didn't look apologetic. In fact, he didn't even seem to have noticed her fussing at him. Instead, his attention had shifted to Brandy and he was looking at the other woman with bright curious eyes. For a very brief second, Lucy got a little uneasy and glanced at Brandy as well, eyeing her low-cut tank top and mini skirt with jealousy. The greenette had an extremely curvy body and was everything that Lucy imagined a man found beautiful.
It took a little doing, but by the time Natsu asked, "Who's this?" she had wrestled the stupid doubts away and was able to answer normally.
"This is my handmaid, Brandish. She'll be taking my place after I leave." Then she turned to Brandy and gestured at Natsu, poking her finger into his cheek as he leaned in. "And this dolt right here is Natsu… the guy who's been helping me so much lately."
Brandy's expression stayed basically bored, but one of her green eyebrows quirked with a little interest. She leisurely looked him up and down – twice – and then she slid her gaze to Lucy and hiked her eyebrow up again, even higher this time.
When she didn't say anything, Lucy thought that was the end of it and distracted Natsu by saying, "We should probably get going… we're a little behind schedule as it is."
His attention immediately switched back to her, and he cheerfully replied, "Alright then! Let's get the lead out!"
Brandy waited until Lucy was trading places with Natsu at the head of the cart, and then she asked, "You sure he's not your boyfriend?"
Lucy promptly tripped on thin air, and nearly capsized the cart as she stumbled forwards. When it tipped dangerously to one side, Natsu grabbed the handlebars and yanked it back upright with an exclamation of, "Whoa!"
"Yeah. Watch it," Brandy lightly agreed, and flashed Lucy a mildly amused glance.
To anyone that didn't know her as well as Lucy did, Brandy's expression would be as blank and bored as usual, but the princess easily caught her slight smirk.
Lucy huffed and fixed her with the best 'don't you dare' look she could manage, and Brandy's lips quirked as she rolled her eyes. Thankfully, she wasn't the kind of person to cause problems, so she didn't bring it up again.
As for Natsu, he was blissfully ignorant as usual, and Lucy breathed a sigh of relief that they'd managed to painlessly navigate the potentially awkward situation.
The rest of their trip through the noble district was still full of awkward and unpleasant moments though, since she had to repeatedly introduce Brandy as the new 'Lady Luck' in training… which also meant she had to tell everyone that she planned to leave soon. Seeing everyone's shock, confusion, disappointment, and grief was like a shot to the heart, and she started dreading the dull look that always came into their eyes after she told them.
It was even worse when they started to hand out food and news quickly spread about her having to leave soon. There were tears, and many even begged her to stay – which forced her to say that she couldn't and watch their faces crumple up in distress. Some even got angry and asked why she had to leave. Thankfully, the rumor-mill worked in her favor, and someone came up with the idea that she was skipping town to get away from her abusive man. By the end of the night, pretty much everyone was on the same page about why she had to leave, so she didn't have to try to explain herself anymore.
By then, her heart felt fractured and tender, and she was completely exhausted emotionally. If it hadn't been for Natsu's constant cheerful presence, she would have probably cracked somewhere along the way… but with him there she'd somehow managed to keep her façade in place. Though she grieved right along with everyone, she was unfortunately put in the position of an authority figure and had to maintain a certain amount of composure… especially whenever anyone pleaded with her to reconsider. She had to at least keep enough strength to repeatedly say no without breaking down into tears.
When all was said and done, she felt like she could happily sleep for several days straight without waking up. It was definitely with a sigh of relief that she finally dropped the cart off at the palace – at which point Brandy also said goodnight and headed off.
However, Lucy wanted a little more time with Natsu, and so she met up with him again outside of the servant's gate.
"You okay? That looked kinda rough today…"
"Yeah it was… but I'll be okay," she sighed, a little surprised that he'd noticed and touched that he was worried about her.
"You wanna go play pool or something?"
"No, I don't want to go back into town… could we just talk about our plans for leaving and get everything ironed out? I think that would help me feel better more than anything else," she asked.
He shrugged. "Sure, I'm game. You wanna go back to that spot we hung out at yesterday?"
She nodded and started leading him towards the nearby forested area, a little nervous about returning to the place where they'd confessed their feelings to each other just yesterday. But even so, it was the best place to talk about secret plans… that was the whole reason she'd taken him there yesterday in the first place. She just had to get over her discomfort and suck it up.
When they finally arrived, she immediately launched into hushed conversation, wanting to get the ball rolling to distract herself.
"Okay, well…. First of all, I'm worried that leaving together isn't the best idea."
"Huh? Why's that?" he asked, plopping down with a huff and leaning against a tree trunk.
She joined him on the ground as she answered. "If something goes wrong and somebody recognizes me somehow before we leave, you'll be in a lot of danger."
"Eh… we'll just run for it."
"But let's assume that we can't outrun them. If they catch us, I'd like for you to be able to get away. If we don't leave together, they won't follow you at all. But if they see you with me, they won't let you escape… they'll hunt you down even after catching me."
"Then we won't let 'em catch us. Problem solved."
His utter lack of concern made a blood vessel start to pound in her forehead from frustration. "Well, I care. Just think about it like this if you have to… you can't come and rescue me if they catch us both."
She didn't actually want him to rescue her, because that would just get him caught anyways, but she thought the idea might convince him to play it safe.
He rolled his eyes. "Even if they caught up with us, we wouldn't have any problems. I've got some tricks up my sleeve that always work."
That was pretty amazing if it was true, but she still thought he was seriously underestimating the power of this kingdom's soldiers. If he went into this too cocky, he'd get them both killed.
"Natsu… I'm serious!"
With a lot of obvious disinterest, he fended her off by saying, "Alright, alright… so what do you wanna do about it?"
"How about you leave in the morning and wait for me somewhere. I can come join you later that day."
His eyes narrowed and he frowned at her. "I don't like it… if something does go wrong, I won't be able to help ya out if I'm not even in the city."
"Okay, then how about I leave first and you catch up with me?"
He rolled his eyes. "I guess… but I still think all that goin' around is kinda pointless…"
"Can you please just do it for me? For my peace of mind?" she finally asked, feeling like she had resorted to begging.
He blinked, seeming taken aback, but then his eyes softened and he smiled in a way that made her stomach flutter. It was gentler than his usual happy grin, and somehow she knew it was connected to the feelings they'd talked about last night.
He heaved a sigh and finally conceded with, "Alright, you win. If it'll make ya feel better, we'll do it your way."
"Thank you…" she murmured gratefully, feeling a little flustered and breathless from the way he was still looking at her.
The air gradually thickened with tension as neither of them said anything else for a long moment. It started simply enough with them smiling at each other, but soon their eye contact got more intense and something sparked between them.
Before she knew it was happening, the atmosphere suddenly felt a lot like yesterday, and she flushed. Unbidden, her thoughts started replaying some of the things that had happened – and almost happened – in this very spot less than twenty-four hours ago. The look in his eyes and the special way he had smiled at her brought it all back very sharply… not that she needed any kind of reminder. The memory was still extremely fresh.
They sat facing each other, both their backs leaning against trees, and it was a good thing that there was some space between them. If they had been standing or were sitting any closer, she was almost positive that they would've somehow gravitated together and ended up in an embrace. She easily recognized the tingly electricity in the air from the last time they'd been in this spot.
When she started blushing, she had automatically glanced off to the side… but after a while, she risked looking back and saw that Natsu was also a little pinker than usual. He was staring intently at his crossed legs, and he kept squinting and frowning spastically – which was a little strange and funny. It almost looked like he was thinking too hard about something and it wasn't going too well.
If there hadn't been such a thick atmosphere, she might've been tempted to make some sort of lighthearted joke along the lines of, 'That much thinking looks painful, don't hurt yourself.' But with the crackling tension in the air, she was too flustered to say much of anything – never mind delivering a punchline.
After a moment, Natsu glanced up from his knees and caught her staring. That prompted her to jerk her gaze away from him again, her face flaming up like a tomato. She could still feel his eyes on her though, and she only held out a few seconds before that feeling forced her to peek back at him again. Sure enough, he was still staring, and his dark eyes sent her insides into a bunch of somersaults.
He was also flushed, and the intensity of his gaze trapped her in some kind of magic spell that kept her from looking away again. It was rare to see him so focused on anything and being the target of that concentration was both unnerving and exciting.
For a second, the tension between them tightened almost painfully… but after a few breathless moments, it fizzled away.
They both relaxed a little when Natsu sent her a small awkward grin, and she felt her lips automatically twitch upwards in reply. At her response, his smile got bigger, and soon a few chuckles started sputtering out of his chest. That kickstarted her own embarrassed giggles, and suddenly she found the whole thing pretty ridiculous.
Before long, they were both laughing freely and most of the remaining pressure drained from the air.
"Jeez… that came outta nowhere…" Natsu finally huffed as he spluttered to a stop.
"It's probably because we came back here."
"You think?"
Lucy nodded. "Yeah… I was a little nervous about it earlier, but I didn't want to say anything…"
"Why not?"
"Because… I wanted to be alone with you, and this seemed like the best place to do it…"
That confession made her cheeks heat up again, and she immediately wondered if she shouldn't have said anything. Natsu's eyes widened and he sucked in a gasp of air – unfortunately swallowing wrong in the process and choking. He flushed as well, but Lucy suspected that only part of it was from his sudden coughing fit.
"Uh… yeah, maybe don't say stuff like that right now, Luce… kinda having enough trouble as it is…"
Her blush got ten times hotter, and she quickly stammered, "N-No! I just meant… to TALK! I just wanted to… I didn't want anyone else to… I… UGH! Jeez Natsu…! Why did you have to make it awkward?!"
He busted into a round of laughs that tangled up with his leftover hacking.
"Wow… you're so red!" he giggled, and Lucy resisted the urge to go over there and smack him.
"Hey! Don't make fun of me!"
"I can't help it…!" he snickered. "You look like a tomato!"
"Oh yeah? Well I'm not the only one who's been blushing, you know!" she growled, giving him a stiff glare and bristling with indignation and embarrassment.
"Huh?"
She pointed at him, feeling just a little smug and self-righteous as she proclaimed, "You're blushing too!"
"Well yeah…. Duh. That's what's supposed to happen, right? When you're in love and stuff?"
If her redness had been decreasing at all, it immediately came back in full force at his mention of 'love' and she got flustered again.
"I guess so… yeah…" she somewhat weakly replied, feeling a little lightheaded as all of her irritation drained away.
After a little pause, Natsu chuckled and said, "It's gonna take us a while to get used to this, huh?"
Lucy huffed a soft laugh of her own at his casual delivery…. she suspected that he could probably talk about the most embarrassing, flustering, awkward things as calmly as discussing the weather. Not having filters or any sense of shame sure did come in handy sometimes.
"Probably," she agreed, swallowing thickly and shooting him a wobbly smile. "We're both new to it after all."
"Yeah! You can say that again!" he laughed, and then tapered off into silence.
For a minute or so, there was a lull in the conversation, and then Natsu cleared his throat and said, "Well… anyway…. Brandish was cool. I think she'll make a good replacement."
Lucy latched onto the new topic eagerly and quickly agreed. "She is cool…. She's probably one of my oldest friends."
"Really?"
"Yeah, she's the daughter of my mom's handmaid – who was also my nanny – so we practically grew up together. Then, when we got old enough, she became my handmaid."
"Woah, awesome. So is she the scary maid?"
"No, that's Aquarius. She's only been my maid for about a year now."
"Huh, kinda ballsy for the new maid to have a nasty attitude."
"Ha! Yeah, that's definitely one way to describe her. She's very confident and strong-willed and has that 'I know better than you' thing down pat. But she still cares, even if it's really hard to tell sometimes. She really is just like a bossy, grumpy aunt or older sister…." Lucy said with a chuckle.
Unfortunately, that mental path eventually led to her thinking about how she would have to leave Brandy and Aquarius soon, and she felt her mood droop back down to where it had been earlier in the evening. She wondered how long it would be like this, with the smallest thought making her sad and depressed – even when she'd been happy and laughing just a few seconds before. It was giving her emotional whiplash and making her feel very unstable.
Natsu obviously picked up on the shift because he frowned at her and asked, "Everything okay?"
She forced a smile on her face to try and hide the sudden sadness. "I'm fine… I was just…"
When she trailed off, he gave her a look that plainly said, 'oh really?'
"Sorry, it's just hard to imagine myself leaving them…"
He didn't look surprised at all. "Yeah, I figured that's what was wrong. You've been doin' that all day."
"Getting suddenly sad out of nowhere?"
He nodded, and she heaved a sigh, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
"Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to get away from Father, but… I'm dreading the rest. I'm going to miss them so much… Aquarius, Brandy, Yajima, Mey-Rin, Baldroy, Professor Ribbon, Tanaka… they're my family. I love them."
Natsu nodded and softly said, "I get that…. my guildmates are my family now, and there's no way I could leave them."
There was a long pause as she sniffled a little. Today had been such a roller coaster of ups and downs that she didn't know what to do with herself. Too many things were changing at once and her emotions were a complete and utter mess.
It was so quiet and she was so focused on sorting through her feelings that she jumped when Natsu suddenly burst out with, "Hey! You can come back and visit them though! Right?"
"Right…" she chuckled weakly, laughing at her own expense for being so easily startled.
"Yeah, see? So cheer up."
She nodded and tried to get her runaway emotions under control. Natsu was right, she could come back and visit someday…. this didn't have to be goodbye forever.
…
.
…
Meanwhile, Natsu was literally sitting on his hands to keep himself from reaching for her.
Today had been murder, and he'd hated watching her get sad over and over again. If there was one thing he was quickly finding out about this love thing, it was that he couldn't stand to see Lucy miserable. He hated watching her cry – though he figured he'd probably better get used to that, since she kinda did it a lot.
But he didn't blame her. Of course she'd be having a rough time… her whole life was flipping over on its ass. He'd gone through the same kinda thing when he had to leave his home, so he knew just how bad it sucked. Which was another big reason why he was so freaking desperate to cheer her up… 'cause he knew exactly how much she was hurting.
It was driving him totally nuts that he couldn't do anything to make her feel better. He was dying to hug her, but he couldn't. Ever since things got weird and romantic for a second there, he'd been having a crazy hard time keeping his hands to himself. If he touched her at all right now, there was a really good chance that he'd do stuff he wasn't supposed to, and he refused to be that guy.
He wouldn't become a cheater…. he was gonna do the right thing by both Lisanna and Lucy, even if it killed him.
Not being able to touch her seriously limited the ways he could comfort her though, 'cause Natsu wasn't the best with words. He was way more of a doer than a talker, but he guessed he'd just have to suck it up and try his best.
Thankfully she'd already brightened up a little when he reminded her that they could come back and visit, and he patted himself on the back for actually saying something right for once. But just that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to take her mind completely off her problems so she could be happy again, and he started wracking his brains for something that could do that.
He spit out the first thing that he thought of – which ended up being, "You've got lots of stuff to look forward to! We're gonna go on tons of fun adventures!"
"Adventures?"
"Yeah! You can go on missions with me, and we'll travel around and see lots of cool stuff! It's gonna be great!"
When her eyes got all glassy and she started smiling, he knew he was onto something. She sounded a lot happier when she said, "I would love that… I've always wanted to travel and see other places."
Then she frowned and asked, "But what do you mean by 'missions?'"
He winced and kicked himself. Yeah… that maybe hadn't been the best thing to say… but he figured he could tell her a little without giving away the whole story.
"I said I was in a guild didn't I? People give us missions and stuff."
Her eyes got all sparkly. "What kind of missions?"
Suddenly, he remembered that she'd said she loved stories, and he grinned as he came up with a plan to completely distract her.
"All kinds! People come to us with problems, and we fix them. Like, this one time there was a kingdom that was being overrun with giant moles, and they asked us to exterminate them."
"What?! Seriously? What happened?"
Just like he'd hoped, she was sucked into the story, and he started telling her all about it – though he left out anything she shouldn't know. He told her about other missions he'd gone on too, and ones that his friends had taken.
After a while of that she asked, "So are you on a mission now? Is that what brought you here?"
"Yeah, but it's not urgent. I can come back later and do it some other time."
"What was it?"
"Can't tell ya, it's top secret," he said with a grin, and she pouted.
Sneak Peek
"Unfortunately I must decline."
Lucy's heart was racing in her chest as she said 'no' to her father for the very first time, and she was a little worried she might pass out from hyperventilation. That would be a fine way to stand up herself… not.
The unbridled fury in her father's eyes rose to a level she'd never seen before, and she almost buckled under the fear that tried to pound her into the ground. Thankfully the adrenaline that flooded her body made her a little loopy and helped keep the terror down to a dull roar.
Well, well, well... it looks next chapter is gonna be a doozy. ;D
