It was quite a gloomy night. Thick cloud covered the sky, no star was seen. Natsu grinned. What a perfect night. He had been training for this event for so long, and now was time to test his capabilities. He looked at the tall building in front of him. He easily past the guard and already in their compound. Needed to find the perfect place.

Hey, I need your help.

If his calculation was not wrong, he was at the right place and he only needed to climb up to the third floor. He looked around. Made sure that no one would be around when he started his activities. Then he jumped and climbed onto the first floor's balcony. He hid himself and made sure that his existence was not known. After that, he climbed up another floor and proceeded to his desired floor.

He entered the room quietly. It was dark. Only a small table illuminated with a table lamp, and there was a figure at the table. He squinted his eyes, tried to get a good look at the person at the table. One with shoulder length hair with some hair tied into a small ponytail on right side of her head with the rest hair loose. Her hair was blonde. He hoped that he was at the right place and there was no other blonde there. Suddenly she turned around, made him froze in his steps. She immediately ran to the door and switched on the light.

"Natsu??!!"

He breathed a relief.

"What are you doing here? Why are you sneaking into my room?" she asked.

"Well, I didn't know that this is your room," he lied. He couldn't tell her the real truth.

You've been friend with Lucy for long. Do you know which one is her room?

Why do you need to know which one is Lucy's room? You're not going to see her. You're going to investigate about your mother's sister.

Which I need some helps from the inside.

But Lucy didn't live with them.

I know. I just need to stop by the palace first.

Well, I still don't see why you need to know her room. Are you breaking into her room?

What? No. It's just that I can immediately ask her help when I arrive over there.

Are you sure you're not breaking into her room?

"I'm not breaking anything," he said under his breath. "Hey, Lucyyyy," he greeted the princess grinningly. "I just came to say hi."

"Sure. But why are you sneaking into my room?" The princess walked up to him.

"I'm in ninja mode." He brought his hands together. "Nin! Nin!"

"What do you want?" she asked, not amused with his joke.

"Heheh..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I need your help."

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. "Why?"

"Instead of asks 'why', can you ask 'what'?" he requested.

"Well, I need to know why I should help you. And why must I help you?" He stunned with her so many questions. "Oh yes, where's your girl, Juvia?"

"Juvia? Why would I bring Juvia on mission?"

Lucy went back to sit at her table. Leaned her back against the table, faced him and crossed her leg onto the other. "Okay, what should I do?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's more like it." Natsu went and sat on her bed, made the woman turned her side. "I need to see the family registry," he said.

"You don't need my help just for that," she said. "You can just make an appointment."

"No, I can't do that. This is a discreet mission. No one should know that I'm looking for the family registry," he explained.

"Odd." She tapped on her chin. Thinking. Grinningly, she said, "I'm in. Let's go." Natsu shrugged. It wasn't as harder as he'd been imagined to convince the princess.

XxxxxxXxxxxx

"That is weird," Lucy pouted.

They stood in the royal library, in the dark, only lighted by a torchlight. They were looking at a picture of a family tree but the one they were looking for wasn't there.

"There isn't anyone named Mavis in here. Are you sure she was a part of my family?" she asked.

Natsu crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, my mother is in the picture, but why not her sister?"

"Are you sure Mavis was your mother's sister?" she asked again.

"Never met her in my life. Never heard of her until recently," he said.

"Your mother never mentioned her before?"

"I wasn't paying attention." He laughed nervously. Lucy snorted.

"Why are you suddenly looking for her?"

"Can't tell you that." He studied the picture more. "Why is this one here painted black?" He pointed to a picture covered in black ink.

"Well, usually the one who married a commoner would be removed from the family tree. Maybe this one too." They looked at each other. "Maybe this is the one you're looking for."

"Could be. But I wasn't told that she was married to a commoner." Even the name was covered.

"Do you want to visit the family?" she asked. He glanced at her, not sure if that was a good idea. "But I'm not sure if they're going to talk about someone who'd no longer part of the family."

"How about…" He was still thinking, tapping on his chin. "…we see them indirectly?"

"Indirectly?" Lucy asked back. "What do you mean by 'we'?"

"Like…do you know someone that is close with the family? Like, someone who knows on the inside?" Natsu suggested.

"I'm not really closed with the family. I just met them in the special occasions." She still didn't like the idea of 'we'.

A sound of a door creaked open and footsteps approaching gained their attentions. Startled, Lucy immediately pushed Natsu down under the table. A girl with short, pink hair in maid uniform came in, switched on the light.

"My princess, why are you here in these late hours?" The girl walked toward her. "Are you having trouble to sleep?" she asked. Raised her cuffs' hands together to her chest, she said, "Are you going to punish me?"

"What? No, I'm not going to punish you. You didn't do anything wrong!" Lucy half - screamed.

"But my princess, you cannot sleep." The girl sounded pleading.

"That's because of someone else," Lucy whispered to no one. "You go to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow." The girl dismissed herself.

"Why is your maid wears handcuffs?" Natsu came out from under the table.

"I don't know. Habit, maybe," Lucy replied.

"And what the hell was punishment you're talking about?" Lucy turned wide - eyed. "Are you girls into that kind of stuff?" Her face turned bright red.

"That's enough for tonight. Let's go back. We'll look for that someone you're talking about tomorrow."

Lucy went ahead and left the room. Natsu followed her. Luckily, there were no one along the way, they reached the princess' room in no time. Natsu looked out of the balcony, planned his way out.

"You're leaving right now?" she asked. "You can stay here for the night," she invited.

He glanced at him. "It would be weird if I come out of your room with you. People might thought that I was breaking into your room."

"Didn't you break into my room just now?" she asked.

"I wasn't breaking anything," he defended himself.

As he saw his way was cleared out, he turned to her. "I'll see you later." Then he jumped of the balcony. Lucy ran to the balcony, to see him already on the ground, making his way out. He glanced back at her grinningly, before disappeared into the night. She smiled bitterly.

XxxxxxXxxxxx

Lucy walked around, followed by her pink-haired maid. They had been walking for some times now, but there was no glance of that pink-haired prince. Lucy sighed. Was he still sleeping? Or was he already went back home? Lucy gritted her teeth.

A crowd cheers attracted their attention. Some people were gathered around something and cheering. They went up to them. Maybe they'd found the prince somewhere between the crowd. It was a small street fighting ring. And Natsu was in it. Fighting. Lucy dropped her jaw. He was hit across his face, sent flying to the end of the ring. The crowd cheered louder when he climbed back grinningly on his feet. The prince laughed out loud and then charged toward his opponent. He hit the man continuously, repeatedly, not giving a chance for the man to fight back. The man pushed back with every hit. Suddenly Natsu stopped and stepped backward. He raised both his hands into the air and the crowd cheered even more. His opponent unconsciously stepped out of the ring, made him won the fight.

"Natsu!!" He turned around and saw the blonde princess. He grinned widely and ran toward the ring master and whispered something. He took his scarf from him and then ran toward the princess. He pulled her and they slipped through the crowd.

"Hey, Lucy." He grinned at her after them finally out of the crowd.

"What are you doing in there?" she asked. "Looked at you." She pointed at his bruised hands.

"Street fights. I do that all the time back home. Ah, shoot! I forgot my shoes!" He lifted his bare feet one by one.

Lucy sighed. The night he visited her, he wore dark blue shirt with a pair of white pants. Right now, that blue shirt lost its right sleeve and his pants was no longer white. At least his scarf still untouched.

They sat on a bench. They had bought him a new pair of shoes, and now they were sitting there with her bandaging his bruised hands.

"So, who are we meeting?" he asked. Lucy glanced up while finished bandaging him.

"A friend." She gave all the remaining of bandaging items to her maid. "Turned out that Mavis girl did existed. Until she took her own life more than 20 years ago. I believed at that time, your mother was still a little girl."

Natsu nodded. "And this friend is?"

"We'll find out soon. She lives somewhere around here." Lucy stood up. "Let's go."

Natsu stood up, but instead of started going for their mission, he observed Lucy up and down. "Lucy, why you looked different?" he asked.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I shouldn't dress so fancy when going for a 'discreet' mission, didn't I" she asked back. She wore a pale brown dress with matching shoes.

Natsu laughed out loud. "No wonder you looked so different. It's okay. You look good in everything. Let's go." He walked ahead of them. Her cheeks turned a bit pinkish.

"It's the other way!" she shouted. Natsu laughed again, realized his mistake. He complained that she wasn't telling him earlier. She argued him back while her face still blushed from the casual compliment. Deep down she wondered if he truly looked her that way.

XxxxxxXxxxxx

A brown-haired woman was hanging clothes by the time they arrived. Lucy and Natsu looked at each other. The pink-haired maid stood quietly behind them.

"Ah, I forgot about your clothes," Lucy sighed, made the prince to take a look at his clothes. His one-sleeve-lost shirt. Natsu grinned. He then ripped the other sleeve off and threw it away. Lucy rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Hello," Lucy greeted. Made the woman turned her way. "I'm looking for Miss Zera. Is she here?"

The woman smiled. "I'm Zera." she introduced herself. She wore a big red bow to secure her brown hair.

"I'm Lucy. This is Natsu. And this is Virgo." Lucy introduced the other two pink-haired.

"Of course I knew Princess Lucy," she said smilingly, made the blonde blushed. "May I help you with anything?"

She invited them into her house. They sat at a dining table, while Zera made them some tea.

"Do you know anyone named Mavis?" Lucy started.

"I had a friend once, named Mavis," she answered, glanced at them once in a while.

"Was she a royal?"

"She was." Zera placed two cups of tea in front of them.

"Do you know what happened to her?"

The woman stared at them. Long.

"What do you meant by 'what happened'?" she asked back. Lucy silent. Felt like she asked the wrong question. "What do you want to know? When she lived?" She paused. "Or when she died?" She paused again. Looked straight into Lucy's eyes. "Or how she died?"

"Everything. Tell us everything," Natsu cut off.

She turned to Natsu. She stopped smiling.

"Are you here because you wanted to know about your mother?" she asked Natsu. Surprised all of them.

"We looked at the family registry, but Mavis' name was removed. Why was that?" Lucy asked, changed the woman's attention to her.

Zera smiled bitterly.

"Mavis' family had a tradition of sending their children to live with the commoners. That was when I met her." She looked at Natsu again. "And her younger sister." She started her story. "The goal was to build sympathy and empathy in them, so they would become good people. One of the royal rule stated that any royal who married a commoner should not receive any help in any kind. He who chose to marry a commoner would no longer recognized as a royal and would be removed from the family registry."

"Was she married to a commoner?" Natsu asked.

Zera smiled, shook her head lightly.

"It was the opposite. The love of her life was a prince. They should be married not long before she died."

"Then why did she was removed from the family registry?" Lucy asked. Confusion written over her face.

"Because she broke that royal rule. She helped those royals who married to commoners. She helped them more than she should." A glint of sadness appeared on her face.

"And she died…?" Lucy's brows fused, asking the question.

"Some people didn't quite like her helping those people, and she'd been ignoring their warnings, so they killed her."

"But I heard that she killed herself. She hang herself in her bedroom." Lucy added.

"They made it as if she did it. She was not so weak to end her life for some sort of threats."

"How are you so sure that she was killed?" Natsu asked.

She stood up from her chair and went into a room. Not long after that, she came back to them. She showed them a few letters. Natsu opened them one by one.

"She gave me these letters a few days before she died. She might have thought something might happen to her, so she gave me these."

"There're nothing in these letters," Natsu said, put them down.

Zera chuckled.

"There are more. You need to see someone else. Maybe you'll find something if you find those letters."

"Do you know where the rest are?" Lucy asked.

The brunette turned to the prince. "You might've seen those letters."

All eyes turned to him. He stared at the woman and Lucy with confused face. "I don't think I've seen these kind of letters somewhere back home."

"I guess that we have to go back to your home to find the rest of the letters," Lucy said.

"Actually, there's another portion of letters you need to see to find out what Mavis tried to tell us," the woman spoke. "You have to go up north."

"North?"

"So the letters were sent to three places?"

The woman nodded smilingly. "I hope you can finish the puzzle. Mavis loved puzzles."

Natsu stood up. "I guess we should get going."

Zera followed them to the door. "It's been 28 years since she passed on. Please find out what happened to her." Lucy held her hands. "We will," she said, hugged the woman tightly.

Natsu was about to step out of the house when Virgo suddenly pulled him back. At the same time, a swift motion of blade almost hit the prince, but hit the girl's handcuff instead. A man appeared swinging the blade toward them. Virgo blocked his blade with her handcuffs, but every swing pushed her backward. Natsu and the others moved deeper into the house.

"Her cuffs surely come in handy!" he exclaimed. His eyes shone brightly.

Another man entered the house, followed by many more. Natsu joined the pink-haired girl against those unknown men. Lucy and Zera tried to avoid them but they came from all direction. While both Natsu and Virgo fought those people, the other girls tried as hard as they could to not getting caught.

"Take them out of here!" Virgo screamed to the prince. Natsu nodded.

He immediately avoided and ducked as much attacks as he could to reach the two woman. As he grabbed Lucy by her hand, Zera was pulled away by one of the man. Before he could do anything, the man stabbed her on her stomach. The woman fell on her knees, clutched to the bleeding belly.

"Letters…" she tried to speak between her growing pain. "…not true…" Before she could take another hard breath, the man strike opened her throat. Blood came out running, flooded her mouth.

Natsu cursed under his breath. He pulled the princess that frozen to the sight of their new acquaintance on the verge of her death. The men still ran after them even they managed to get out of the house. Fuck! Nobody ever told him that he would have company. Even at the slightest possibility! With the princess' life in his hand, he didn't know if he ever managed to come out alive. And they still running for their lives.

Sudden screams drew his attention toward the men who'd been chasing them. And he saw the men down. One by one. He looked around. Searching for any hint of the someone that just saved his life. Their lives. But nothing. He saw no one. Anywhere. He didn't stop running. He didn't know for how long he had been running. Finally they reached the city. It was then he stopped running. Looking around. Searching if they were still chasing them.

He leaned his back against the nearby wall. Lifting his hand, he realized that he was still holding Lucy's hand. Never once he let her hand go. His sight crawled up from their hands to the princess' face. She was still catching up her breaths. Sweats dripped over her head made her hair damp. He wondered what had he gotten her into. He tightened his grip on her hand.

Noticed the change, she turned to him. Saw him grinned widely. Made her wondered what made him felt so funny. They just lost an acquaintance, almost lost their lives as well. He pushed himself from the wall and pulled the princess into his embrace. He hugged her tightly. Made the princess frozen in his arms. Too shocked to even lift a hand to return the hug.

"Glad that you're safe," he whispered.

He wouldn't know what would happen if she died just now. He couldn't dare to imagine. To lose someone under his care.

He pushed himself apart from her, hands still on her shoulders. He took a few deep breaths before stated, "We're safe now. I'll get you back to your palace, then I'll head home. Got to find those damn letters." He slowly lifted his hands from her shoulders. "I'm sorry I got you into this mess."

He turned around. Ran his hands through his hair.

"Apology accepted, but…you're not thinking of ditching me now, didn't you?" she asked. "Yes, you got me into this mess. I'm not the kind of girl who would just go back to my comfort life after knowing that someone was tried to kill me just now."

"It's for your own safety."

"Then, you should know better than that when you're breaking into my room that night."

She walked ahead of him, leaving him dumbfounded.

"I wasn't breaking anything!"

"Yeah, right."

XxxxxxXxxxxx

My town, my rules.

Natsu didn't have any say in that. He reluctantly followed whatever the blonde princess said. He followed her everywhere, eyes all over the places. He still afraid that those people who tried to kill them that morning still trying to achieve their goal. Despite being a spoiled princess, she'd really good at making deals. And they managed to find a ship to sail back home. All thanks to the spoiled princess.

Natsu grinned at they stepped onto the ship. The princess stared at him confusingly.

"What?" she asked.

He leaned toward her, placed his elbow on her shoulder. "Things happened a lot today. Almost got killed. But being saved by unknown person. And now you managed to find us a way to get home. All happened in one day." He leaned much closer. She could feel his breaths blew lightly on her ear. "I think you're my lucky charm." He laughed out loud. He lifted his hand from her shoulder and ruffled her hair. "Glad I bring you along."

Lucy stared at him with her face changed colour. How could he say that so casually!!