drowning again
Let go now cause he's leaving
But she'd be fine pretending things were alright
Even while its ending keep it inside
Once upon a time...
Cana is five when she finally manages to convince her mother to teach her magic. They don't have enough money for a tutor so instead, her mama buys her a cheap deck of cards and teaches her the basics.
Card magic is more practical than powerful or flashy and the paint on the cards is kind of faded, but it still makes her smile till it hurts.
"Mama, can I ask you a question?" She asks out of the blue, interrupting her mother who was reading a book. There's no image in it, but Cana still loves to hear her mother's stories, she always changes her voice and even makes silly faces while reading them. The kind the babysitter never makes the rare times she accepts to read her stories.
"Of course sweetheart, what is it?" Her mother then takes another sip of that thing that looks like juice but isn't. The old man at the store told her it wasn't for children like her, she thought it was mean but it made mama laugh so it's fine. Cana loves her laugh almost as much as she loves her.
In Cana's world, it's just her and her mother. Always her mother.
"Why don't I have a daddy like Hana?" Something in the woman's eyes seems to break, but she continues talking not seeing, not understanding. "She's always bragging about it and he's always coming to get her at the parc! He brings gifts and twirls her around like the princesses in the books you read!"
"Of course you have a dad Cana, he just... he's not around, that doesn't mean he doesn't love you very much," Cornelia pushes the guilt aside as she passes a hand through the young girl's short, choppy hair.
Cornelia is the type of woman who smokes too much and loves a good drink, not forgetting her foul language. It's really a wonder she managed to be such a good mother to Cana. Sometimes she remembers her parent's disappointed faces as they kicked her out ('cause she was just so young and barely had any money and where the hell is the father?)
"We both love you so, so much. You're our precious baby girl how could we not?" Cana giggles as her mother leave a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "Mom that tickles!"
"I love you too mommy! I love you more than anyone else! Maybe even more than dad, but that only cause he's never around! Don't tell him though! I don't want him to be jealous!" A small smile forms on the beautiful woman's face as she closes her and Cana's favorite fairy tale book. "Since I read that story so many times how about I tell you another one?"
"It's a story about a very complicated man who fought monsters and dark wizards..."
there was a little girl...
She's a week away from her seventh birthday when her mother dies - soft smile, shining eyes, loving words and then...she's gone.
(empty eyes and pale face and not moving, not breathing-!)
After all, there's no medicine for the poor and her mother was too sick to work in her last few months. What little money Cana managed to steal in the market place is not enough (it never is), she cries for a whole week and the sky weeps with her. She leaves town the day after her birthday with what little money they had left, her cards, her mother's fairy tale book, a few pictures of herself with her mother as well as one of her father.
Sometimes Cana thinks she hates that man. Why wasn't he here with her mom? With her?
The landlady even lets her keep most of the money her mother owed her "Cornelia was a good person, I liked her. I believe she's in a better place now, take care child."
"Thank you so much, I swear I'll repay you one day." Her throat is still raw from the tears and wails, her eyes surrounded by dark circles from lack of sleep.
"Just come and visit when you find that father of yours, he made your mother happy for a while and I'm sure he'll take care of you." She clutches the rough fabric of her dress, trying very hard not to cry.
"I promise!"
She walks out of town with a wave and cheery smile which falls the moment she finds herself alone in the forest. The walk to Magnolia is a long one, three days to be exact. Which means she has to sleep on a parc bench for a night with nothing more than a sweater since the only hotel in the small town she stopped at to eat is full, at least it's summer she tells herself.
She misses her mom, with her stories and cigarette mixed with cheap perfume smell.
who loved her mother with all her heart...
It's him, she knows it is
The man in the photo, the man who made her mother smile with so much joy. Her father.
The pain in her chest slowly turns into a warmer feeling and she just wants to run into his arms to cry, because her mama is dead and her feet hurt and she still doesn't have a place to stay.
'It's me, it's Cana! I'm your daughter.' The words just won't come out as she stays still, almost like the earth stopped turning for a second. He laughs at a joke a man with dark blue hair just said, his fist banging on the wooden table harshly.
His hair is a few shades lighter than hers, his eyes darker and he has a lot of scars just like her mom told her.
"Dad..."
"And who might you be darlin'?" Oh right, she's blocking the passage entry. Blushing, Cana awkwardly enters to let the lady get in "I'm so sorry miss!"
"None of that 'miss' thing girl, call me Enno. Who are you? I'm pretty sure none of those shitheads over there have any child as cute as you." Enno is pretty, Cana decides, not beautiful like mama, but pretty. With purple eyes and hair that has some flowers in it.
"A-Actually I'm-" Cana is interrupted by the same man she was about to talk about. "Yo Enno! I haven't seen you in forever!" He's taller than she imagined, it makes her feel so insignificantly small.
"Of course you haven't Gildarts. You've been gone for eight months, you idiot!" A million ideas fill her mind, what would he do when he sees her? Her favourite scenario by far is the one where he sees her behind Enno's legs and picks her up in his arms, holds her tightly and never lets go of her ever again.
"Haha I guess I have, time sure flies by. Wait a minute, Enno is that little girl..? No way! You're a mother now?!" He...doesn't recognize her, does he? She's not as heartbroken as one would think, just exhausted and lost.
Then, she's angry. Because what about her mother? Her loving and beautiful mom?
"Of course not! How stupid can you get? She's clearly at least five or six years old and was just going to tell me her name when you interrupted us!" Enno's face goes bright red, she's pretty sure blood vessels might pop.
"Cana. My name is Cana," her whole body feels numb, lips moving on their own without thinking about anything else.
"Cana. That's a cute name and...are you feeling alright? You're white like a sheet, want to sit down?" After three days of sleeping either on the streets or in cheap motels, walking miles and miles, barely eating anything, this was the final blow.
Cana's body finally gives out, the last things she hears being very unmanly screech.
and left on a quest...
When she wakes up three days later, he's already gone. She naturally blames the tears on a headache, only half lying.
Enno offers her a place to stay for a few weeks, having realized she was basically homeless. She doesn't ask and Cana is grateful for it.
Cana likes Enno, a lot. She's kind and smells like her mom used to.
So when weeks turns into months and still sleeping on that couch, Cana is ecstatic. She even gets a pretty orange dress for Christmas and cries for like an hour. It's not her father, but it's the closest thing she can have right now.
Enno even managed to convince the master, to let her join the guild. Well more or less, she still can't do the high paying jobs alone like Enno and Macao can. The master always ruffle her hair and tells her she'll be allowed to go when she is ten.
She really loves the old man, her grandparents on her mother's side died when she was a baby so she guesses this is the closest thing she'll get. He's kind and always plays with her, she almost forgets that he already has a grandson to care about.
Even if Laxus is the member closest to her age they don't really talk. He's grumpy and his dad kind of scares her. Even if she'd never tell the master that, it'd probably break his heart.
The life of a glorified charity case is truly exhausting.
to find her father.
After a few months of being the only child at the guild, except Laxus cause he's already eleven and doesn't count, another one joins the guild. Gray's almost a whole year younger than her, but she finally get's a friend and doesn't care. Not an adult who takes pity on her, a real friend. He even trains with her and helps her make a few cards with ice attacks.
At first he doesn't say much, his eyes empty like he's lost, but she's sure hers are the same so it doesn't matter. He doesn't wear much clothes or smile often, but when he does it's beautiful.
She sleeps at least a few nights a week at his place, telling him it's to leave some intimacy to Enno and Macao. In truth she just find his bed comfortable and likes to cuddle with him.
She hears him crying one night when he thinks she's sleeping and slowly takes a hold of his hand, his eyes immediately meeting hers in shock.
"You're not very handsome when you cry, you know?" Her voice is soft, almost like she's afraid he would break from the sound of it and she shuffles closer to him underneath the covers.
"Shut up, the Gray never cries." She starts to rub circles on his bruised knuckles from training, trying to appease him. "Of course he doesn't, but he knows he can talk to plain old Cana if he needs to, right?"
He rips his hands away and Cana is afraid she hurt his ego or something, instead he wraps his arms around her tightly and weeps. Tears and snot land on her shoulder and hair as she draws random patterns on his back. He only squeezes her tighter, breath evening out after a few minutes, never letting go of her even in his sleep, she's not sure she wants him to.
"Goodnight Gray." A single kiss is left on his cheek as Cana falls asleep, her cheeks burning.
She met a boy...
So here's my character study (or something?) on one of my all time favorite Fairy tail character. Cana is probably the most underrated characters of the whole manga/anime and I love her to bits. I'm not sure if this will turn into into a two-shot or maybe a bit longer but I doubt I'll manage to update this often since I'm concentrating on my other works and barely manage to update for those so...
disclaimer: fairy tail belongs to Hiro Mashima, the lyrics to Alec Benjamin.