Author's notes at the end.

Chapter Fifteen

The Story of the Red Wyrmling

Saturday, September 19th

Natsu was slouched back against the sofa in Strauss Games' basement, a PlayStation controller in hand with an apathetic expression as his character fainted yet again trying to do a quest in Monster Hunter. Normally, he'd enjoy fighting all kinds of different monsters and there was something about accepting quests to go hunt stuff down that felt natural to him. Today, he felt as if he were only passing time until D&D started.

It was sort of what he was doing but normally, it would be more fun and get him more pumped for whatever monsters Gray was planning to throw at him next.

But he wasn't feeling it today at all. He'd only paid enough attention the group chat to know that there would be some combat as soon as they got playing again but everyone was being secretive about it – Gray saying something about it being more fun for him to find out himself or something.

He would have challenged him but he didn't really have it in him to deal with Gray being an ass. He had a lot to think about and Gray was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

"Hey, Natsu?" Lisanna called as she walked down the basement staircase, "Are you okay? Do you want anything?"

Normally, he'd be all for someone bringing him snacks but he wasn't in the mood to eat a lot.

"Nah, I'm good," he glumly answered as he mindlessly went about playing the video game on the screen in front of him.

"… Did something happen recently?" Lisanna followed up with, concerned and stepping forward with her hands clasped behind her back as she awaited a response.

Natsu grunted somewhat but remained focused on his game.

Lisanna sighed dejectedly before returning back up the stairs, leaving him in peace. Natsu definitely wasn't annoyed at her but he really wasn't in the mood to talk much about anything. He just wanted to zone out, hunt some monsters and try to get into the right headspace for D&D soon.

At least an hour ticked by as he grew frustrated with being unable to play properly as his thoughts kept circling back to the week he'd had before and the memories he'd rather not think about all over again. It was both annoying and distracting.

The sound of light footsteps against metal and his keen hearing soon alerted him that someone was about to come to check on him again – most likely Lucy if his senses didn't fail him.

He huffed slightly, not particularly keen for her to see him being so disinterested in anything. He liked being able to make her laugh and smile and see her pout when he pulled dumb pranks on her. He didn't think he was up for that at that right now and the last thing he wanted was for her to be all off with him.

The smell of her flowery perfume quickly confirmed that it was indeed, Lucy, as she descended the stairs and he only briefly looked over at her before turning back to the game. He didn't know if she was gonna ask questions or not, she hadn't said anything to him directly all week in their group chat and he didn't really know what to say to her in turn.

Fuck, he hated feeling this way. It sucked. Really sucked.

When Lucy stepped onto the basement floor, he looked over at her again and he ever so slightly gulped when he saw that she was beaming at him with a smile, looking pleased with herself and holding a bag of pretzels in her hands.

Hell, the way the afternoon light was shining through the basement window and onto her as she stood exactly in the right spot made her look like she was practically glowing. It was weird- good weird. It was just, well, a really Lucy thing – whatever that was.

"Afternoon, Natsu! It's good to have you back!" she greeted him cheerfully.

Natsu looked away, unsure of how to respond to the positive energy she suddenly brought into the room. It was nice but things also sucked at the same time. If she was happy when they played D&D, then it'd probably be easy for him to get into the game. That was at least something good.

"Yeah, it wasn't good to miss out last week," he finally mumbled back before deciding to just go back to trying to hunt monsters on the video game instead.

He hadn't gotten very far before he felt the couch shift beside him as Lucy comfortably sat herself down beside him, oblivious to his want for solitude. He wasn't even sure if that's what he even wanted but he also wasn't about to ask Lucy to leave either.

She had this thing about her, he didn't really know what it was, but it made him feel relaxed when she wasn't doing her usual Lucy fussing. In a way, it was nice that she was there but it still didn't make him want to say much.

He went back to playing the game and Lucy didn't say anything at first. She seemed content to just watch for a bit in silence. Though, after a few minutes, it felt weird as hell.

Luckily for him, she eventually decided to start talking, "So, is everything alright?"

Anticipating that she was eventually going to ask that very question at some point, Natsu replied, "Yeah, everything's cool, Lucy."

He didn't turn to look at her and instead kept his eyes glued to the screen. He didn't want to think about stuff. He didn't want to have to talk about last week or what he'd found out. With any luck, she wouldn't ask about it and he wouldn't have to come up with an excuse as to why he didn't want to explain anything. The thought of being dishonest left him feeling even more unsettled.

A couple of minutes passed and Natsu was losing more and more interest in hunting monsters. His eyes wandered over to the shelf, quickly scanning for something else he could play instead, something easy and mindless.

"Can I join in this game?" Lucy suddenly asked, sounding very sure of herself.

Natsu turned back to her and she was already reaching for one of the extra controllers lying on the coffee table. He wasn't sure if she was forcing herself to play but there was a hint of genuine curiosity in her eyes. Natsu was about to say that he didn't really want to teach her how to play at that very moment but then remembered how quickly Lucy learns things. Teaching her would probably be a good distraction. Unfortunately, this wasn't something that she could just hop into without another PlayStation, TV and her own copy of the game.

"Let's play something else," Natsu simply told her and she gave him a disappointed look. He didn't think she would mind switching to a game that they could actually play locally in co-op mode.

He also didn't think he'd need to explain that and instead he chose to get up and browse his choices on the bookshelf, avoiding any games that included being on a moving vehicle. It wasn't that he couldn't play those kinds of games, he did play some Crash Team Racing not that long ago, but he just didn't need to be reminded of how crappy it was to have motion sickness right now.

His co-op options were limited though – there was 'Dead Nation' – an oldish but fun zombie killing game although he had no clue how Lucy would feel about playing that. There was a puzzle-solving game that she might like but that genre wasn't fast-paced enough for his liking. Eventually, he settled on 'Overcooked 2' despite the vehicle usage on some levels. It had a habit of making him hungry but it would probably be entertaining enough to play for both of them.

Lucy didn't say anything as he popped the disc into the console, sat back down and loaded up the game without a word to her.

"What are we playing?" She soon asked.

"A game where we gotta cook food as fast as possible," he answered plainly, "… that other game we couldn't play together on the same PlayStation."

For some reason, Natsu noticed that Lucy's face brightened went she heard this and that original eagerness she had to play returned to her. Maybe she really liked cooking? Natsu couldn't help but smile just a little at that thought – he'd bet that Lucy's cooking probably tasted amazing. He'd have to get her to give him some of her food one day to find out.

Soon enough, they were picking out their characters and naturally, he swiped the dragon character immediately and then curiously waited for Lucy to pick hers.

"The narwhal?" He questioned at Lucy's strange choice.

"I think they're kind of cute," She merely replied.

Natsu was okay with having to sit through the tutorial level again with Lucy. Soon enough, they were playing through the next level with ease. She cooked, he got the ingredients and dropped off the finished dishes that she put together.

Several levels later, things were getting a lot more hectic and unfortunately for Lucy, Natsu was not communicating as much as he could've been as she started calling out for the different things that she needed to assemble the meals.

They got to a point where they were having to cook burgers on one level and soon, the patties were burning and Natsu wasn't grabbing enough plates, as well as accidentally having their chosen characters kept running into each other.

"Natsu, are you sure you're alright?" She asked as they barely cleared the level together with a decent score.

"Fine," he briskly answered as the next cutscene loaded up on the screen. He loudly groaned as the next level loaded up and was the one that took place on two moving trucks.

After a while of more hectic playing, Natsu figured that Lucy might have been getting fed up with his lack of saying much of anything as it wasn't long before she put the controller down and said something he wasn't expecting to hear.

"Natsu… I'm sorry if I've upset you, I'll go upstairs and see if anyone wants help setting anything up."

He stupidly blinked at her, wondering why the hell she'd thought that she'd upset him. What was currently bothering him had nothing to do with her whatsoever!

Natsu absentmindedly watched as she got up and began to walk away from him towards the stairs and he wasn't entirely sure why, but he felt himself panic just a little. It felt like he'd done something he really wasn't supposed to and normally, he wouldn't have given a damn to what anyone thought about that but this time, it didn't sit well with him at all that Lucy suddenly seemed unhappy.

"Wait, Lucy!" he blurted out, hastily putting down his own controller and waiting for her to turn back to him. When she did, he didn't like the look she was wearing at all. Lucy looked really uneasy… around him.

He'd seen her look unsure about some of the decisions he'd make in D&D for his character or the times when Gajeel would be an ass and she would look at him with worry, but he'd never seen her look that way towards him and it didn't feel right in the slightest.

Fuck, this is why he didn't want her to see him like this in the first place.

He knew he'd have to tell her why he wasn't feeling himself – it wasn't going to be fun but he didn't want her to be well… not Lucy around him.

"I'm not upset, okay?" Natsu started with, leaning back into the couch as he sought a way to say what was going on in his head without going places he really didn't want to go. It was a damn near impossible task but he'll try anyway- "Did I ever tell you anything about when I was a kid?"

Lucy pulled a confused look for a second as he felt her bewildered eyes bore into him, leaving him feeling a bit exposed. "No, I don't think you have," she answered, "but I've heard a little bit from the others last week about you in high school."

"Oh yeah? Bet they had fun talkin' 'bout that." Natsu commented, remembering Gray's mockery of his 'pyromaniac habits'. Okay, he'll admit that some of those fires weren't accidental, Gaebolg's desk for one wasn't, but some honestly were. It was like fire had a habit of following him everywhere sometimes.

"But… you mean when you were even younger?" Lucy asked and he nodded at her affirmatively.

Natsu paused for a minute, unsure where to begin. He soon figured it made sense to start from the earliest thing he could remember. "So uh, I was in foster care… a lot," Natsu said awkwardly, carefully watching Lucy's reaction.

"You were?" Lucy quickly asked, looking a little surprised but not judgmental in the slightest.

She walked back over and sat back down beside him before looking at him in a way that made it both easy and hard to explain what he was going to tell her. She seemed like a good listener but he had no idea if her eventual opinion of what he was doing with his spare time was going to be the same as many others.

'It's a waste of time and money.'

'He's gone and that's that.'

As much as he was going to hate revisiting those memories again, he found himself leaning towards the camp of actually wanting to tell Lucy as much as he was able to – he had a feeling that it might actually be a good thing.

"I think I was uh, five or six? I don't even remember my birth parents," Natsu then continued to explain as he tried to think back and suppress any negative thoughts that accompanied it. "My big brother, Zeref, had gone to go live with his new parents but I don't think that family wanted me too."

Lucy sat forward with a frown, quickly interjecting into what he was saying, "Aren't siblings supposed to stay together?"

"Yeah, I thought so but I guess not in my case," Natsu answered bitterly. "But anyway, I eventually got adopted by a man… his name is Igneel." He was already starting to feel the emotional pain from just mentioning the name of the only man he would ever call his dad.

Lucy patiently sat still, keenly listening to him as he thought about exactly what he was going to say next.

His earliest memory came to mind.

"Where's Zeref?" asked a young Natsu Dragneel as he stood alone in a room, toys scattered around and wondering why he was alone.

Nope, Natsu didn't want to revisit that. That empty room with worn toys and nobody there as well as the familiar face of his older brother missing. The murmurs of the adults behind a glass wall nearby, probably discussing stuff to do with him but he could barely make out what they were saying, even with his acute hearing. He couldn't even begin to imagine where he would have ended up if it wasn't for what happened next.

"Hey there, your name's Natsu isn't it?" Spoke the deep voice of a man, crouched down to share the same eye level with him. He wore a kind smile and had the face of someone who had his own share of pain in life.

"Yeah, who're you?" Natsu suspiciously asked. He'd been asking for Zeref for days and nobody would tell him. Now he was being introduced to yet another stranger that probably also wouldn't tell him where his big brother had gone.

"My name's Igneel-"

"What's that on your clothes?" Natsu suddenly interrupted, pointing to the fiery motif on the man's black t-shirt. It looked like a weird lizard.

"You like it? It's a dragon. Pretty awesome, huh?" Igneel replied cheerfully. "They can fly and breathe fire!"

Natsu's eyes widened at the simple explanation. He suddenly felt the need to have a t-shirt that looked just like his. "I want one too!"

The man chuckled lightly at his sudden interest, "I think I'll be able to find one in your size."

Natsu smiled, leaning his head against the back of the couch and reminiscing that first memory. Igneel was the first person to show him some real sympathy when he still had no idea where his brother had gone. Life got a whole lot better when he was told that Igneel was gonna be his dad.

The first night in his new home back then was one of the best memories he had of his childhood. His new dad tucked him into bed that evening and read him a story about some mighty dragons that ruled the lands of some fantasy kingdom. As the months passed, he had all kinds of dragon-related stuff in his room.

Natsu looked back over to Lucy, smiling widely, "Igneel was the best dad I could've asked for," he stated honestly. "He liked reading to me and telling me all kinds of stories!"

Lucy smiled back at him and he couldn't help but feel just a little better just telling her these old memories. It's not like he kept it a secret from anyone or nothing but telling her in particular only felt right- natural even.

"I had an awesome room and Igneel cooked awesome barbecue food every summer!" Natsu continued, as the memories flashed back into his mind, one by one in chronological order. He went on to explain what he could about his only father-figure- the dragon fascinations, the fishing trips just out of town (although they were boring at the time) and even fire breathing trick he could do.

Eventually, Natsu moved onto life outside of that, "I started going to school where he knew the teacher that was going teach me."

As he spoke, he looked down to take the end of the scarf that trailed around his neck and down his front with his hand, rubbing his thumb against the softness of it for a second before turning back to Lucy.

"Her name was Anna. I can't remember the rest of her name… she knew how to knit or something 'cause Igneel asked her to make it for me," he went on to explain, as he continued to feel the material between his fingertips. The scarf kept him focused on the only plans he only really had in life. Seeing and wearing it every day kept him on task. Wearing it felt as natural to him as natural as it was for Gray to occasionally strip.

"It's really unusual too," Lucy added but made no attempt to touch it as she eyed it carefully for a moment. "The stitches and pattern is nothing I've ever seen before."

He didn't really consider it to be 'unusual', but Lucy liked fashion so maybe she knew about those kinds of things.

Natsu was actually a little glad that she didn't try to touch it as he was fairly possessive over it. Too many before her had tried to grab it without asking or steal it to annoy him. One jackass in high school had wanted to burn it to make some kinda point in one way or another. That same jackass got his ass kicked.

Still, this was Lucy and she would definitely be careful with it – he could tell.

Maybe if she asked, he'd let her. …Maybe.

"Igneel really made an impression on me when it comes to dragons…" Natsu told her bluntly with no embarrassment or shame. He didn't really see why some people thought it was weird that he really liked anything to do with dragons. Gray really liked ice. Juvia really liked Gray (she was nuts for sure). Gajeel really liked metal. Erza liked strawberry cake. The list went on and on.

'Lucy likes a whole lot of things.'

Unfortunately, Natsu was soon confronting the memories he didn't like to think about in the slightest. Hell, he had spent enough time replaying them with what he could remember when he was just a kid to figure out any clues as to what had happened.

He took a deep breath and looked away from Lucy's patient gaze, "One day, Igneel took me to Anna's house and dropped me off with her and told me he'd be back soon."

He didn't realize how tense he suddenly sounded.

Natsu gripped the end of his scarf tightly as he frowned, twisting the scarf's fringe between his fingers, "But he never did."

Yeah, he was angry about that. Why did Igneel tell him that he'd be back when instead, he was abandoned at his teacher's place and never returned. Why didn't Igneel come back as he promised and he was left to live the next decade going from foster home to foster home?

"I couldn't stay with my teacher forever," Natsu said, doing his best to not get riled up from remembering everything. "I had to go to a new family… and then another… and then another."

He hadn't realized that he was to the point of digging holes into his scarf with his fingers. Heck, if he thought about it any more, there might even be tears involved and that would be embarrassing as hell.

Thankfully, Lucy's sudden touch against his arm broke him from the mix of rage and sadness that were steadily rising within him. He turned back to look at her, those large eyes of hers watching him with concern and maybe even pity.

He didn't want to be pitied.

"Hey- if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to." She gently reassured him.

He wasn't sure if he did want to keep telling her all about that portion of his life. It sucked. A lot of words about him were thrown around a lot back then between all the adults that had to 'deal' with him in the aftermath, 'abandonment issues', 'acting out', 'attention-seeking', 'anger problems'. Any label beginning with 'a' it seemed.

Natsu figured he'd just skip that bit. Lucy didn't need to hear that. He didn't need to relive it.

"Long story short, I told you about the principal once, yeah? At my old high school?" Natsu asked, relieved to have swiftly moved past that bit of his childhood with Lucy asking much at all. She dropped her hand and sat back.

"Yes – he was supposed to be really old or something…" she replied, holding her index finger to her lips as remembered the conversation.

"Yeah, he is," Natsu confirmed for her, "Well, he became my legal guardian when I was like, fifteen or something. I didn't really live with him, I mostly stayed at Gray's or Erza's place."

Neither was ideal. Gray could be bastard sometimes and Erza made him follow her strict regimes. Gramps had pretty much agreed to be his 'caretaker' until he hit eighteen. There was always the danger that he could be expelled and maybe the old principal had enough of dealing with him having a new foster family every year or so. Natsu considered himself lucky that he was able to start working quickly and get his own place when he graduated.

Natsu decided to back to the original point of why he was telling Lucy any of this in the first place.

"I didn't give up on Igneel though. I didn't want to believe he'd just leave me like that," he continued, hurrying this trip down memory lane along so he could get to the point of why he hadn't been one hundred percent that week. "I collected newspaper cuttings, looked up info online and all that about anything on him."

"Did you find anything?" Lucy suddenly asked, as if she was hoping there would be a positive outcome of some kind. She was about to be disappointed if that was the case. This wasn't really like those books she read.

"No, nothing important." Natsu dishearteningly replied.

"Oh."

Natsu shrugged, "I reconnected with Zeref again though when I was in high school. He was really happy to see me at least."

"But you weren't?"

"Well, last I saw him, we were still kids. I didn't really recognize him when we met again."

Lucy looked at him with a confused expression, sitting back as she pulled weird faces – like thinking was suddenly really tough for her or something.

"I figured you'd be happy after missing him so much," she stated, "…do you see much of him now?"

"Not really – used to for D&D for a while but he's gotta girlfriend now."

How Zeref could give up D&D to be with a girl was a still mystery to him. You could fight super strong monsters with your friends and that sounded way more fun than 'dating'. Dressing up and going out to some fancy-schmancy place to eat overpriced tiny portions of food and just talking? Yeah, that's lame. And if seeing Erza drunk was anything to go by – girls are downright annoying and scary when alcohol gets involved.

"So… did Zeref, uh, say something?" Lucy awkwardly asked, bringing his attention back to what they were originally supposed to be talking about.

"Huh, what?" He asked, unsure as to what she meant. "No… why do you ask?"

"I thought because you mentioned him that… he might be why you're… you're not yourself." She carefully and sheepishly explained. Natsu couldn't help but look at her strangely.

'Seriously, how did she come to these weird conclusions sometimes?'

"Nope, that's not it," Natsu plainly told her. "So, back when I graduated school, I still wanted to find Igneel. When I started working, I paid someone to start looking for me."

He wanted to do it himself but he hadn't had any luck on his own. He'd also thought about leaving town to go look – maybe Igneel ended up in Hargeon or Crocus? Getting motion sickness on basically everything quickly put an end to those plans.

So he had to find someone else that could help.

Natsu had to admit, the guy, 'Mest Gryder' was kind of suspicious-looking when he first entered the office of the 'private investigator'. He didn't have all the jewels in the world to spare – this was the best he could afford on his salary. After nearly three years of paying the guy for whatever information he could – nothing concrete had come of it other than some of Igneel's past.

"I found out that Igneel was separated – he had a wife and son but they weren't in his life anymore. I'm guessing she moved away or somethin' as I don't think he'd given up on his son like that." Natsu muttered, hoping to believe his own words. He had his own doubts about what he had just said. Maybe Igneel gave up on his first son and that's why he was adopted instead? … Maybe Igneel gave up on him too.

Natsu turned his head away, grimacing as if he were physically in pain. He hated those thoughts. He hated to even think that Igneel would ever do that.

"Last week I gotta call from the guy – a body that might have matched Igneel's was found," Natsu continued to explain with rising difficulty, clenching his fist tightly until he could feel his fingernails dig into his skin.

Lucy let out a small gasp but didn't intrude on what he was saying. For a moment, he spotted her hand from the corner of his eye, reaching out towards him like she wanted to touch his arm or something like before. She quickly retracted it and looked away shyly before doing so. She already did it once, what was the problem now?

"I went to the coroner's office, paid the guy to look the other way so I could get a good look at the face," Natsu went onto say quickly, not wanting to linger on all the thoughts that were running through his head at the time. With bated breath, he stated the simple fact, "It wasn't him."

If it had been Igneel, he wasn't even sure what he would have done. Heck, would he even recognize him after so much time has passed? He was kinda glad the body wasn't his dad's – it gave him hope that Igneel was still out there somewhere.

But all that thinking and the emotions that had been building up inside of him were driving him crazy. Natsu wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself after that. He felt like he'd failed somehow.

He… he needed a bit of hope or something.

"Lucy… do you think I'll ever get to know what happened to him?" Natsu eventually asked, turning to her and hoping that she could give him some kind of answer that would help.

She stared back at him for a moment and Natsu couldn't even begin to guess what she was thinking. Lucy bit her lips slightly, her big brown eyes breaking away from him to stare at the coffee table, her hair falling forwards to hide her face for a moment before she eventually returned to look back at him, clearly nervous.

It was probably asking too much of her to give him some assurance of Igneel's fate – everybody else who knew always said the same thing: that he's gotta move on or that Igneel wasn't coming back. Natsu didn't really want to give up hope of that, even if his time with adoptive father was maybe five short years and anything could have happened to him by now.

Natsu was about to tell Lucy not to worry about it, his lips parting as barely a sound escaped before she spoke up.

"I don't know, Natsu," she simply said quietly and honestly to him. She sounded as if she were disappointed with herself for even saying that. Natsu closed his mouth and found himself looking to the floor, unsure of what to say her and even more unsure of what he had expected Lucy to say to his question.

"But Igneel sounds like a really great dad," Lucy then said, causing him to look back to her and the meek smile she offered him.

Then it dawned on him.

'She didn't say that like Igneel was gone.'

Natsu stared at her, not really realizing how long he was doing it for until she began to chuckle nervously which seemed to snap him out of whatever the heck he was doing. His newest friend had just reignited a little bit of hope within him that Igneel might still be out there with a single sentence and she probably didn't even know it.

'Lucy might just be the bestest friend I've ever had.'

… He'd find Igneel someday. He wasn't gonna give up on the man who taught him so much in so little time. He wasn't the best at remembering stuff but those memories were precious. Maybe Lucy might even come up with a smart idea for him to try.

He began to genuinely grin happily for the first time all day, not really thinking about it when he grabbed Lucy's wrist, making her jump slightly before getting up from the couch and pulling her up with him so that they were both standing.

"Natsu, what are you-" she yelped, startled but he could tell she wasn't bothered by what he was doing at all. Lucy always had a way of fussing and taking ages with getting on with things, this was just an easier way of dealing with that.

"Let's go play D&D!" Natsu declared with a fresh bout of enthusiasm, tugging her towards the stairs. A quick glimpse of her face told him that she looked confused as all hell but she was probably thinking too much again.

He didn't get very far with the confused blonde before he felt some hesitation from her.

"Natsu, wait," she said, pulling her arm away and Natsu instinctively curled his fingers, not particularly liking the sudden disappearance of her wrist from his grasp. Curious as to why, he didn't bother to ask what was up or continue to try and make her go upstairs so they could continue their adventure.

He eyed her carefully as she tottered back to the couch where her bag was, digging through its contents for a few moments before daintily walking back like she was nervous about something. Both her hands seemed to be holding something behind her back but he couldn't fathom what the heck she was doing at all.

"Uh, Lucy?" He finally asked as she almost seemed to be shaking and refusing to look at him as she stood a few feet away.

"I… um…" She stammered softly, "I wanted to give you something. I was going to give it you last week and um… don't be mad at me, okay? I tried really hard at it and they sent the wrong color and-"

Natsu cocked an eyebrow towards her, even more confused than ever as to what she was going on about. She annoyingly didn't even wanna look at him as she was doing well, whatever she was doing, like she was super embarrassed about something.

Thankfully, she slowly began to move her right arm, and before long her hand was extended before him, her palm flat and his dark green eyes snapped to what it was that she was holding up towards him.

His eyes widened when he realized exactly what it was. A miniature- a painted miniature of maybe the best thing he'd ever seen – a winged cat – a tressym.

"Lucy… did you-" He began to ask, not quite believing she had gone to the trouble of painting it herself. He suddenly understood what she meant about going on about the wrong color but the longer that he stared at it, the more he came to really like it. It weirdly suited the cat a lot.

Lucy continued to awkwardly explain herself, "I painted it… I wanted to say thank you for the miniature you gave me and you were really happy about getting that tressym in the game so-"

Natsu just had to cut off her rambling, she was resorting to typical Lucy worrying again and she needed to know exactly what he thought of it already.

"It's amazing!" He blurted out, stepping forwards and leaning down to, in an unorthodox move for him, reach out and very gently brush his fingertips along the miniature's wings. Miniatures could be broken easily if you weren't careful with him and Lucy had obviously taken great care with this one.

"Do you really think so?" Lucy cautiously asked as he looked up at her, catching the way her eyes studied him as he admired the miniature in her palm.

"Yeah! You did a really good job and now we can be a proper team on the board!" He answered her mirthfully.

Lucy appeared to echo his own words to him but he didn't think much of it. She was soon smiling at him as he pulled back from her and straightened himself up.

Natsu didn't know what else to say to her. He felt happy- really happy. He felt fresh renewal for finding Igneel and Lucy had gone out of her way to get him something which he wasn't expecting in the slightest. In that precise moment, everything felt right with the world again and he knew he ought to show her his appreciation.

Then, that answer became obvious to him.

"Oh, I know!" He declared loudly, banging a fist lightly into his open palm.

In one swift move, he stepped forwards and grabbed Lucy by the shoulders, causing her to immediately tense up at the sudden contact. It didn't stop him from pulling her forwards so he could attempt to wrap his arms around her for a second. Immediately, he could smell her perfume wish he honestly wished she'd wear less of but he also briefly felt her softness and warmth too. It was nice.

Was that how he'd describe it? He wasn't sure. Nice didn't seem like the right word for how it felt.

But doing this made sense, right? When he gave her that miniature of her own character some weeks ago, she tried to give him that weird hug at the table so this would be what she wanted for sure.

"Natsu!" Lucy shrieked, pulling away sharply before he could even pull off giving her the 'weirdo hug' as he quickly coined it. He looked her over, confused as to why she jumped away so quickly from him. What was even weirder was how she was looking kinda pink in the cheeks.

"What?" He bluntly asked.

She didn't answer for a second before her eyes fixated over to her hand, "I'm uh, still holding the miniature," she quietly said. "I don't want it to get broken."

Oh yeah, she was still holding it!

He guessed that made sense. She always seemed to be aware of things like that. He'd only broken a few miniatures in his lifetime despite how careful he tried to be. They had all Gray's so that was mostly okay.

"Good point," he replied, gently taking the small miniature and grabbing her other wrist with his other hand. "Let's go play already!"

This time she didn't pull away from him and Natsu was looking forward to adventuring with his complete team on the board. Because that's what they were, a team. The best team.

AN:

In this chapter, I was really happy to get around to Lucy finding out more about Natsu as it means I can push their bond a bit more in the upcoming chapters. I figure if there's one person that Natsu thinks about just as much as Lucy, it's gotta be Igneel. I didn't want to write another backstory chapter similar to Juvia's for this – I wanted to capture Natsu and Lucy's reactions to each other.

I've actually been very slowly knitting a white scarf with a dragon scale pattern – there's a picture of it on my tumblr blog thingy if anyone wants a preview.

Additionally, I had to look up some foster/adopted children information and now Google thinks I'm planning to adopt. Thanks Google.

Also, as I flesh out more of the story and add more details for each chapter in advance – the new and updated total amount of planned chapters for this fic is around the 40+ mark. And this story is now over 100k words! I didn't realise I would be writing such hefty chapters when I started!

Special thanks to the wonderful reviewers and to all those who added this fic to their favourites/follows!

Rao hyuga 18, Sydneste, Amanny, aiyannaliszkap, Lodemai04, Le055Li0n, FairyTailxFanGirl, shortymcnugget, mushi9, Xfangirl123X and the Guest reviewer!

Next chapter: Natsu finds out what's happened to his character in D&D, Gray makes a new rule and Lucy catches up with Levy!

D&D Terms:
Wyrmling: A baby dragon