*Violet's POV*
Lucy led the way as we all awkwardly shuffled to the front of the room. I had to force myself to keep breathing. They were just children after all. Surely they would be too interested in Natsu or Lucy to pay any attention to me. But their gazes still seemed to fall on me like icy daggers.
"Let's start by going down the row and introducing ourselves." the teacher prompted. August, who was unfortunate enough to be the closest to her desk started.
"Well I'm August," he said somewhat hesitantly, "I've only been in Fairy Tail for about a month now, but I'm getting the hang of it. Oh and I use requip and archive magic."
There was a handful of whisperers, mostly along the lines of, "do you know him?" "same magic as Erza."
Happy went next and was a bit better received. Natsu followed, and this time the whispering started before he even opened his mouth. A celebrity of sorts I supposed.
But then the chatter died down, and the eyes turned to me.
I took a deep breath as I felt several moods around me shift. The students and teachers with a kind of curiosity, perhaps stronger for the fact that they hadn't seen or heard of me the way they had the others.
But the aura was different on my side of the room. Every one of them was thinking of me. Rooting for me, wanting me to succeed.
"My name is Violet," I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. "August is my brother." not exactly true, but easier to say than to explain what we really were. "And I have Silver Tongue magic."
Relief washed over my heart, and the others' at the same time. I was good at this. Half truths and manipulative words. Under normal circumstances I probably wouldn't have called my magic by it's name, but outside of magic circles the title would mean nothing. As with the lie that August and I were bound by blood, somethings were just easier when kept simple. especially for this audience. Lucy followed after me, talking about spirits and Fairy Tail. the kids nodded as if they knew the information well.
As soon as Lucy finished talking, the woman who had led us into the classroom appeared in front of her, taking charge of the conversation before even the teacher would get a word in.
"I know that we all think magic is quite...exciting…" she gave us all a sideways glance that made my skin crawl. "But we are here to learn." she turned to us. "Why don't you tell us how being a member of your little guild makes you a good citizen of Magnolia."
I felt several stomachs flip at the phrase "little guild." but not not even Natsu was stupid enough to act on it. Lucy was the quickest to recover.
"Well, the guild participates in a lot of events around town," she said, filling the silence before anyone did something reckless. "Um...who here's been to the Fantasia Parade?"
There was a flurry of movement from the students. August and I shared a sideways glance behind Natsu. Where are we going to be asked these types of questions too? Neither one of us would be able to answer them. Surely this wasn't what we signed up for. I tried to remember what the job flier had said. "Magic demonstration". I was sure of it. Was the whole reason for this because the woman in the pants suit hated magic?
"That's great!" Lucy said, "our guild puts that on, and lots of other things like-"
"This is boring." called a kid from the back row.
"Ian!" scolded the teacher.
"I wanna see a spirit." said another.
Lucy's eyes flashed from the student to the woman in the back. She made a split second diction. "All right then, but only if you promise to listen."
All the children leaned forward as Lucy's hand went to her belt, a moment later it returned with a silver key. I couldn't see Lucy's smirk as much as I could feel it. She made a flashy movement that I wasn't sure was really necessary, her magic seemed to below up from her in flashes of golden light. Was she really wasting magic energy on theatrics?
Even so...the kids seemed to love it. I was underwhelmed when Plue popped into existence, but several of the children squealed with delight, all craning over to get a closer look. Plue turned to Lucy, as if asking for permission, she nodded and he began trotting between the desks, smiling at the children like a walking show and tell.
As promised, the kids were silent, and Lucy rushed through some more random facts about Magnolia, even though she knew no one was listening. The woman in the back was glaring at her the whole time, but Lucy pushed onward, pretending not to notice.
I could feel August and Happy getting restless, growing bored as the kids ignored Lucy. I didn't even need magic to tell that Natsu was zoning out. He kept rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, as if trying not to nod off.
A few minutes passed, and I could tell that Lucy was running out of things to talk about, but the woman in the back seemed pleased, probably at the lack of proper magic being shown.
Just as Lucy was finishing up a description of the cherry blossom festival, Plue returned to her side, visibly exhausted. "Thanks for your help," she said, "you're free to go."
He nodded to her, then turned and bowed goodbye to the kids before disappearing in the burst of golden light.
The kids in the room seemed visibly distressed at his absence, but Lucy filled the space carefully, pulling out another key, there was a flash of gold in her hand, but I only had enough time to realize it would be one of the zodiacs before she summoned another spirit.
"Open gate of the lion! Leo!"
Before anyone could react, a tall man in a dark suit suddenly appeared. Between my research and the snippets of conversation I had heard around the guild I knew that he had once been known as Loki, a member of Fairy Tail before Lucy had returned him to the spirit world, but this was my first time seeing him in person.
After a moment of confusion, and perhaps having expected a fight, he relaxed and introduced himself.
The kids looked onward with new interest. Particularly the girls I noticed. Even the others seemed to be rejuvenated, as if this was a sign that the fun was going to start.
But not everyone was happy about it. The woman in the back for one and-
"Excuse me-miss Lucy?"
Our attention turned to a little girl in the front row.
"Uh yeah?"
"We still don't have everything for our worksheets."
With a start I looked across the desks. It was true, every student had a half finshed paper laid out in front of them. How were we supposed to know that?
Lucy hesitated, to everyone's surprise it was August that stepped forward. "Lets see what we can do about that." he reached for the paper, and to my surprise the girl gave it to him. The rest of us made room when he booted up his archive magic, fingers flying across the keys to type in the first question. Information poured across the screen, enough to make some of the kids go cross eyes trying to keep track of it, but August flipped thought if quickly and picked out what was relevant. "Here we go, question one, everyone copy it down."
The kids looked at each other for a moment, and then smiled and did as he asked. I saw the teacher in the corner hiding a smile. Only the woman in the back seemed displeased.
August continued to feed the kids their answers while Loki walked between the rows, making different parts of his body glow on request, and breaking pencils in half with a single finger. Happy joined him, frying around the room at top speeds, encouraging the kids to try and catch him as he walked by.
If that wasn't already chaotic enough, one of the kids in the front row had a question just for Natsu.
"uh-Mr. Natsu."
He turned slowly, blinking at the name. I felt a little smile creep onto my lips.
"Is it true that you can eat fire?"
Natsu smiled, seeming to wake up for the first time since walking into the school. "You bet I can!"
"Your teacher was showing us how matches work for science class." said the kid matter of factly. "Can you eat that?"
"As long as it's fire!" he said.
A chorus of "show us" erupted.
"Well...only if your teacher says it's okay."
All eyes turned to the young woman sitting behind her desk. She glanced over at the woman in the back, then looked away before she got a response. "Well, I don't see why not." she opened one of the desk drawers. "as long as you practice fire safety."
"Of course!" Natsu said, though I wasn't sure how much fire safety someone who was fireproof would really know.
The teacher leaned forward with the matches, and I realized that I was in the way. Not wanting to make things awkward, I reached out and took the box from her, walking it over to Natsu.
"Oh dear Violet, will you prepare this meal for me?" Natsu asked. He gave an over exaggerated bow and winked as the kids around us giggled.
I let out a deep breath, allowing myself to smile. "I would be honored."
I reached into the box and pulled out a match, lighting it on the first try. I held it out to Natsu, who called out a "thank you for this meal" before taking the flame of the match head with his bare hand and stuffing it in his mouth.
The children cheered, and the woman in the back's frown deepened.
"Show us your magic Violet!"
I froze, looking over to August, but he was in the middle of talking about requip with another group of kids.
"Well...how about I make my brother fall asleep?" I asked. I knew it was a little unfair to sign him up without permission, but he was the only one I really felt comfortable putting spells on.
"Can you make Natsu fall asleep?" asked a kid.
Natsu stiffened.
"Uh...yeah probably."
"Do it! Do it!"
I glanced at Natsu, even though all I really wanted to do was run for the hills. He stepped closer to me, again emitting that infuriatingly calming aura. It's okay. He seemed to be saying. I don't mind.
I took a deep breath and faced him, telling myself it was no big deal. I closed my eyes in concentration. Even if Natsu was willing to go with it, straight up knocking him out was going to take a lot of energy. I placed the heel of my palm on his forehead, curling my fingers to avoid touching his hair, and focused all my magic energy into one thing. All of the dreariness I had felt over the past few days, the combination of all of my sleepless nights, I balled them up and started pushing them into Natsu.
He dropped like a stone.
With a little yelp I tried to keep us both up as he tipped forward, but he was far too heavy for me, and we both ended up on the ground. The kids around us laughed, but I knew that something was wrong. It shouldn't have been that easy. Unless he was already extremely tired...I hadn't bothered to check. Could it be that I wasn't the only one missing sleep?
Desperate to sift the children's attention away from me, I moved to reverse the spell, this time gathering all the alertness I could find, giving back what I had taken from Natsu and then some. If he was losing sleep it was most certainly my fault. I would make up for it now. His eyes fluttered open, and I stumbled back awkwardly, careful to make sure he was no longer touching me. I didn't want him to know what I had seen. The kids cheered again while Natsu looked around, rubbing his eye.
I found myself yawning, worn down now not only by my own drowsiness but Natsu's. I hoped he wouldn't notice I had taken it. He got up smoothly and offered me a hand. The action appeared innocent enough, but I could almost taste his suspension. There was no way to get out of touching him. I reached up. He felt what I did, and forward, almost instinctively. He pulled me up smoothly, and I got my balance just in time to hear an alarm go off near the teachers desk.
She walked back out and clapped her hands, snapping the students to attention. "That is unfortunately all the time we have today." she said, "everyone say thank you to Fairy Tail for coming into the day." they did, and we nodded in acknowledgment.
I realized it was the first time anyone had referred to me as such, like I was as much a part of the guild as the other members around me. A few days before the idea of it might have made me feel dirty. But not now. Not today. I smiled and waved as we left the class room, happy to belong there despite the circumstances, and trying not to think about the fact that Natsu and I were going to have to have yet another uncomfortable talk.
