Hello! This is the edited and updated Chapter Two of My Name Is Lucy. This chapter contains mentions of war injuries and some descriptions of said injuries that some viewers may find unsettling. Viewer discretion is advised.

As always, thank you!

Happy reading!
~Rinn E.

[WARNING: This content contains spoilers for the show. If you haven't seen the entire show, then some things may be spoiled for you. Viewer discretion is advised. You have been warned.]

[DISCLAIMER: I do not own Fairy Tail of any of its characters. I do, however, own this story. Any republication, replication, or alteration of this content without my explicit written consent is considered plagiarism and is punishable by law. Thank you.]

After I managed to wiggle my toes, he left. The next day, I could rotate my ankles and bend my knee. The next day, my arms and shoulders. Finally, after 3 long days later, I was able to walk on my own. I've been around soldiers who've been injured in war all my life. I always helped the nurses in the infirmary, when I could. I've seen men and women with limbs blown to bits, hanging on by barely what could even be called flesh, bullet wounds and all the affects of wrong place, wrong time.

I've seen people paralyzed from the neck down, waist up, but never did I realize how hard they had it. I never realized how fragile we were, us humans. I never realized how hard it was to go from not being able to walk to regaining all that strength. I feel bad for leaving all those people behind, but I don't regret leaving, I left them in great care. As I stare at the three mud ridden bags that hold the contents of my life, I smile, pulling myself out of the spiral of old memories.

Kiana informed me that, while I was sleeping, Natsu brought them to the hospital, still covered in mud himself. He must have gone back to the mudslide when he heard me say that all my life was in those bags. I wonder how long he spent digging them all up. He's even nicer than I thought. I knew a kid like that back on the base. He was a bit abrasive at times, but most of the time he was pretty sweet. He was kind and always thought about others.

He had blond hair and blue eyes; Sting, was his name? And he was always hanging around with this other cadet, Rogue. I don't think I ever saw them apart. They must have pulled some strings somewhere along the way, making through all these years and always being in the same squad, the same deployments. Not that it matters, now, anyway. I'll never be seeing them, ever again. Besides. It's not good to dwell on the past. I have to move forward.

After I get all this mud off and leave this place, who knows where that Natsu kid might take me. Wherever or whatever it is, I can handle it. It's definitely better than going back. Determined, I get to work over a spread out garbage bag on the floor of my hospital room, first chiseling off all the excess mud before I even attempt to clean the outside or open the bag. They're supposed to be waterproof, military grade, but you never know with my father.

They could be secretly 'water resistant', just as flimsy as the uniform. After I get the exterior mud dusted off, I begin to carefully open the small duffel bag. The zipper is stuck, caked in dirt, but I manage to jimmy it open. I breathe an audible sigh of relief when I gaze upon the contents.

It's a pretty sizable bag; I have my sleeping bag, enough rations to feed a small battalion, water bottles to last me a week, a stuff sack to make a makeshift pillow, extra boot laces, a chocolate bar I stole from the canteen while the head cook wasn't looking after I bribed the soldier on kitchen duty with the promise of taking her shift. Too bad I'm not there anymore to follow through with that promise, though.

At the bottom of the bag, I found the only thing I would have been upset about. Despite from the locket I have around my neck, it's the last thing I have of my mother's. A sky blue, hand crocheted blanket she made for me when I was still waiting to be born. Not long after, she died from complications during childbirth. I think my father still blames me for her death. I don't blame him, he's right. It was all my fault.

I still think about her, sometimes, of what she might be like, what her voice was like. I know it sounds stupid, but I have this reoccurring dream that she comes into my barracks late at night, while the other soldiers are still asleep. She strokes my hair and sings to me, and when I wake up in my dream, she grabs my hand and doesn't say a word. Let's go, is what her heart tells mine and I listen.

We run through the corridors and although we're running, I never get tired, never get winded, I just feel free; like if I just hold her hand, it will all be alright. Then we're out in the courtyard, and as we start towards the forest, our feet lift off the ground, but we're still running. We're running through the air, up into the night sky, towards all of the stars and constellations, almost as if they're calling out to me, begging for me to go with them.

Then I hear my father shout up from the base, "Lucy Heartfilia! I have not given you the permission to leave! Get back down here at once!", and my heart skips a beat, and I'm filled with dread, and I stop running, but mom doesn't. My hand slips out from hers and I'm falling, and I can see her crying, reaching out for me, but she can't, and I'm falling through the air and the stars are crying with her, making it rain without a single cloud in the sky.

I can hear them in their sorrow, feel their tears on my cheek, and much like a falling star, I hurdle back towards Earth, back towards the only life I have ever known, back to my father who has never treated me like a daughter, but as a soldier, and a murderer, and a failure, and I'm falling, and my mom just stares at me, and the stars take her away, and she's looks at me with tears streaming down her face as she fades away and is added into the night sky.

I don't hear anything over the deafening sound of air whooshing past my head, and I cover my ears with my hands, curl up into a ball, and come crashing down. Then, I wake up. I'm back in the barracks. Back in the living hell I called life. Back to being just another soldier, just another person who's mother is dead because of her and her father isn't really a father to her, he's her drill sergeant and commander, her living reminder of her captivity.

Nothing is a request, it's an order, and no matter how many times that little girl sneaks away past lights out to look up at the stars, no matter how many hours she spends sleeping on the rooftop under the night sky, hoping and dreaming and praying to a god that never answered her prayers, before, that her mother would descend from the stars and cradle her in her arms and let her join her in the constellations.

That little girl knows that that will never happen, and that she can never truly escape. She will always be trapped. Always. She knows. I know. I know that there is no escape, and that my father will haunt me for the rest of my days, but at least I know that the rest of my days will be spent away from him. Away from his tyranny and his poison. He will never look for me, because he can't look for a daughter he never had with a wife she carelessly killed. Never.

I hope you liked the second edited and updated chapter of My Name Is Lucy. As per the usual, please comment or dm me and tell me anything I did wrong, things you'd like to see out of either the story or me, or any other comments, questions, concerns, or suggestions, and please don't hesitate to criticize or just tell me if I'm doing okay.

Thanks as always! I hope you enjoyed.

Happy Reading!
~Rinn E.