Chapter 11: Quod Verum Tutum

"Ow. Ow-ow-ow-owwiiieee…"

"Shut up already, you're irritating my ears," Porlyusica grumbled as she applied more peroxide to his bare torso.

"It hurts," he whined, shifting around on the uncomfortable wooden stool while his eyes slid over to Lucy. Her prone form was on the only bed of the one-roomed home as her chest rose with the gentle breaths of sleep, her slim arms folded beneath that curtain of light gold curls— "Ouch!" he cried in surprise, recoiling as she pinched his side.

"What are you thinking?" she reprimanded, looking at him with hard eyes. He didn't respond immediately, scanning her old face and the lengthy pink hair pinned atop her head. "She's the princess, Natsu."

"I never noticed," he said wryly. She made a noise as she took a roll of dressings and started on his lower waist.

"Be serious."

"I know she's the princess, okay? It's just that she's…different. She's different from the other humans." He hesitated as she clasped the bandages tightly and scowled. "She's annoying, and sort of a weirdo, but…she knows what it's like, she understands… She naïve, but she also cares genuinely, and she stands up for injustice. She's funny too, and she has blonde hair that's soft and smells like flowers… Ouch! Why did you hit me?" he complained, rubbing the growing knot on his skull.

"To hopefully bring some sense back into the rock attached to your neck."

"I was thinking clearly until some old hag physically gave me amnesia."

"I'd have thought you smarter, being Igneel's son. He at least functioned on some sort of logic, rest his soul."

"I dunno what Dad would think of me now, but I'd like to believe I'm doing the right thing here." He raised a hand and dropped it, waving the matter away. "That knockout stuff you gave Lucy, what was that for?"

"Restoring a magic container isn't the most pleasant experience," Porlyusica responded, drifting over to a roughly-hewn wooden table filled with herbs and roots of all sorts. "I'm doing her a favor, knocking her out for it."

"You could've done me the same mercy, you know," he grumbled as he rubbed his cheek. The wound was stitched up before, but by the time he fought Laxus, it had already mostly healed. Porlyusica simply applied a balm and rebandaged it.

"I feel that pain humbles you more often than not, son of Igneel."

"Ooh, that's how we're playing it now, with the nicknames?" he said drolly, gripping his knees. Porlyusica mashed up a few strong-smelling flowers into an earthenware bowl. "You've heard about what's been happening in the kingdom lately?"

"I don't hear much, living out here. Not until today, when I've had the honor of hearing lightning strike in the middle of a cloudless day," she deadpanned, working an awkward laugh from him.

"Sort of a long story." He took her silence as an invitation and laid it on her while she mixed up a pinkish-white paste with the authentic consistency of swamp mud. "And as soon as I'm patched up, I'm gonna head out to fillet that bastard Mystogun."

"And the girl?" She scraped the mess into a beat-up cauldron, adding from a metal pitcher of creamy white liquid.

"She can go back with Laxus," he said dismissively, staring at his dirtied toes. "With her magic intact, she can fight for her castle, and I can go look for Wendy. 's simple, really."

"Then can you look me in the eye and say that's what you want?" Her voice's sudden severity startled him slightly and his head snapped up to see her glaring. His shoulders trembled a little and he felt like a hatchling all over again, two feet tall and feeble.

"I want her to…to go back to…" He strained, but his throat wouldn't work anymore. "I want…her to… I want her…"

"What?"

"I want her, I want Lucy to stay. I like it when I tell her stories and her eyes light up and she does that little smile of hers. I like her scent, I like the feel of her skin. I like it when she laughs and when she talks and I really don't deserve to be this selfish since I freaking abducted her in the first place but I want—I want Lucy," he said with a whimper like a sob. Porlyusica remained silent for a while, staring at the cauldron thoughtfully before asking (or rather, semi-nicely demanding) Natsu to make and hold a fire beneath it. "Just stare at it harder and it'll burst into flames all on its own," he mumbled as he trailed over, but unlike her appearance, her senses hadn't declined with age, and the next thing he felt was a very solid broomstick to the head. The growing welt made it a little hard to lie beneath the cauldron's rack.

"Igneel's heart was never hard to sway," Porlyusica said as she stirred the heating pot. "It seems you inherited that peculiarity from him. Fire dragons were known for their intense passions, and it couldn't be truer for their king."

He hummed, because a mouth full of flames wasn't good for speaking.

"He could hold grudges like no other, but also had a great capacity to forgive."

"Wha's your point?" he wheezed, finally having to stop and breathe.

"I can see how you've become taken with the princess, but I'd advise you against it," Porlyusica told him flatly. "For in the end, she is the princess, and no matter the pretty words she spins for you, her loyalties will always lie with the kingdom, her family. If it came to a choice of your life or her family's, you know which she would chose."

Although he was loathe to admit it, he did. Jude was a class-A asshat, as well as Fullbuster, but they were Lucy's family. No, they were nakama, an old word of his language meaning something closer than family. What was he truly to her in the end, then? A passing thought maybe. "Yeah, I get it."

"You can stop now," she said after a while longer. Natsu gratefully crawled free and took a few minutes to replenish his magic while Porlyusica grabbed a clean bowl and filled it with the thick white formula, handing it over to him.

"Treat Lucy first," he said with a shake of his head, even though fatigue had his fingers shaking against the pottery. Porlyusica scoffed as she searched her cupboards for a handful of odd green and brown roots that smelled like they should not be consumed under any circumstances and worked on mashing them up.

"She's in stable condition for now. You, on the other hand, are suffering magic poisoning from consuming not one, but two types of ethernano other than fire. It won't do her any good to have you keel over and die when she wakes."

"I'm not gonna freaking keel…" He trailed away to drink, and despite himself, he enjoyed the sweet taste of it. "Pssht, whatever. What about her?"

"She's going to be fine." She held the bowl of paste as she crouched down at Lucy's side and drew up the hem of her dress. Natsu choked up at the sight of her pale skin and especially at the contrast between the white of it and the lacy black of her undergarments.

"What the hell are you doing, you old crow?"

"Healing her as you want," she growled in response. "It seems you really have little knowledge of how magic works, if you don't know that the container is within the center of the body." She pointed at Lucy's midriff with a flat expression and Natsu let out an awkward laugh.

"Yeah, uh, I knew that. Totally." She dipped her thumb and first two fingers into the bowl and held them outstretched in the air. She etched a circle of complex magic that he didn't understand and let it hang in the air while she drew the same thing on the smooth skin of Lucy's stomach. Lucy let out tense breath, her back arching slightly as her brows furrowed. "Lucy!" He growled instinctively and stepped forward.

"What do you plan on doing, Natsu? It's going to hurt either way," Porlyusica interrupted, raising her other hand absently. "Now keep away and stay silent that I can retain my focus. If need be, step outside—you'll need to do so anyway in a moment. One of the ingredients in the potion I gave you is ipecac root."

"What in hell is ipecac—" His stomach answered the question for him as two seconds later, he was forced to run through the door lest he throw up all over her clean floor, and he wasn't willing to receive punishment of that scale. At least he regurgitated the magic he consumed, but it didn't feel any more pleasant than when he ate it. He returned inside a moment later feeling lightheaded, but his eyes instantly widened as he observed the maps of glowing magic circles hovering in the air between Porlyusica and Lucy. He wanted to ask what was going on but left her to concentrate as Lucy's head rolled from side to side in a fit of unrest. He remembered seeing her face burning with fever and his fingers twitched. An odd protective instinct washed over him and he wanted to pull her close, comfort her somehow.

What am I thinking? I only felt this way about Wendy before, and she's family. Lucy is…what is Lucy to me anyway?

The magic in the air abruptly vanished at the same time as Lucy hissing a pained breath out between her gritted teeth. Porlyusica rested a hand on her chest as her whole body tensed, which passed after a moment, and she slumped back against the pillow with a weary exhale before falling still again. Natsu, too, released the tension that had been building up in his body.

"You were right," he said eventually, voice flat. "It wasn't pleasant, not at all." Porlyusica sighed, rising to set the bowl in a washing basin.

"That may be, but when she wakes up, she'll be perfectly fine."

"Good. Then I can leave." It was a hollow feeling.

"You could, but as a healer, I don't advise it. Especially since Laxus is still prowling about searching for you."

"What? I don't smell anything!"

"You're not the most observant, are you? I grow all of my plants outside."

"So?"

"The scent of the herbs masks ours, and it works both way," she said after bashing his brains in yet again. "Especially for a hybrid like Laxus, whose senses aren't as developed as yours, it won't be easy to relocate you. But should you leave, he would quickly find and apprehend you, or worse."

"I guess you've got a point," he grumbled.

"Why not be happy? You're spending more time with the girl."

"That's what I'm unhappy about," he said, watching Porlyusica return to her table before daring to move closer, kneeling at Lucy's bedside. She was peaceful in her sleep, a small smile on her lips, and Natsu gave an exhausted sigh. His fingers dreamily traced a weird pattern on her exposed cheek before he rested his knuckles against her closest hand. "Because the longer I'm with this girl, the less I want to leave her side."

When he woke up, Lucy was gone.

"Porlyusica!" he shouted, leaping to his feet before he really understood what he was doing. The old woman was at her desk writing notes into an aged journal. "Where is she?"

"She woke before you and left," she responded without glancing up. He growled.

"Why didn't you wake me up? So I could say my goodbyes?"

"She chose to part this way, not me. And anyway, I doubt you'll go long without seeing her once again, one way or another."

"That's some shitty reasoning," he said under his breath, but otherwise didn't press the issue. It was hard, but he managed to relieve some of the tension in his bones with an exhale. "But I don't have the time to worry. Wendy is still in the hands of that bastard and I have to find her before something happens."

"I understand. But, before you leave…" Porlyusica rose to hand him a bundle that had been concealed beneath her cloak. He unfolded it to find a jacket, new canvas pants, and sandals.

"Wow, Porlyusica, I don't know what to…"

"Just get out of here before I change my mind!" she yelled, pointing at the door. He beamed, and before he left, he tackled her in a hug. "Get off me!"

"Thanks a lot!" Natsu pulled away before she could score on him with her broomstick and pulled off his ruined shorts, trying on the new clothes. They fit well, and moreover, he was wearing clothes made just for him, like a human would—the thought made him inhale in surprise before he regained his bearings. They smelled like lemon and herbs too, a scent that masked his own natural one.

"You know, I'd think you would've done better had you not been a dragon," she remarked without turning, looking through the window pensively. "Like that, you would've been free to have adventures and laugh without knowing the sadness that you do."

"Yeah, I wish that too," he said, burying himself in Igneel's scarf for a breath. It no longer smelled of him, and after all he had been through, it smelled like the forest and a little of fish and, if he took a deep breath, Lucy's scent was in there too. He let that calm him for a moment before he felt ready to move. "See ya soon, Porlyusica."

"I hope not," was all she said in response. He pushed through the door into the cold of the forest at night—had it really been that long? He didn't let that slow him down, however, as he bent his knees and jumped. He knew he wasn't one hundred percent from how much air he got, but his height still took him high above the canopies. He let the wind carry him forward as his wings unfolded, then his tail, and a particularly strong current took him over the cover of clouds. There, he was free to become a dragon again.

"Now it's left to finding that bastard Mystogun." He growled at the moon. "Although I have very little clues of his whereabouts or even what he's after… Shit! I'd have to head back towards Crocus to try to find his scent. Just have to pray I don't run into any unwanted company…"

It was a long flight, and he wished he had another voice to accompany his, but things were…better that way. As Porlyusica said, Lucy would always value her family over him, so why should he give her that much in return? He kept up the odd back-and-forth in his brain for long enough that the moon had vanished from view and he felt utterly exhausted, but he was just nearing the mountains of central Fiore, and he knew that Crocus was centered somewhere within there. He veered to the side and shrunk as he began his descent, carefully scenting the air for that odd smell.

"This doesn't make any sense," he said after a long while, coasting on the easy night currents above a stretch of rocky cliffs and sparse foliage. "It's been a while, but I should be able to smell him at least a little. Unless he used some magic to wipe his scent…? Might've been one of those stupid staves," he growled, snapping his wings in. He dropped to the ground and rolled to absorb the impact before getting to his hands and knees, sniffing the earth more closely. "It can't be completely gone…"

Finally, he caught the scent with a triumphant bark, then he found that it didn't mark a clear path that he could follow at all. Instead, it soared up to the sky and into the heavens. "What the hell?" Natsu said, dumbstruck. (Not that it was the first time he was dumbstruck.) He growled as he spread his wings and followed his stink into the sky, just below the clouds, but was forced to descend again as the sun's rays peaked over the horizon. Luckily, the scent formed a path towards the ground, right near a mudslide that led to a boggy nadir. He didn't see that guy anywhere close, but he did narrow the scent down to a bundle of blue protruding from the marsh. He gave a snort before skidding down the cliff to the edge where thick but gnarled branches grew from the stone and into the muck. He used one to fashion a long rope with a noose at the end, and lassoed the whatever to haul it to his side.

"What?" He snorted and dropped the branches to pick up the…cat? It looked like a cat, albeit bluer than he thought a cat ought to be beneath the mud coating, but cats surely didn't have big feathery wings on their back. Moreover, it reeked like Mystogun did, but it was an undertone: his main scent was of fish, and overripe fish to boot. It seemed alive, just unconscious, probably from suffocation under the mud. He briefly debated if the cat was good enough to eat but decided it was too small. He was going to leave it behind, but realized that with its wings mucked up as they were, he couldn't fly, and Natsu knew that pain.

"Well," he muttered, taking the little kitten in his arms, "I might as well find a real river that he can wash off in." He skidded down the ledges of the mountainside with a grimace. "And maybe, if I'm lucky, I can actually get a damn clue on the way…"