Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Title: Picked Up
Pairing: Ajeel x Lisanna
Requester: howlingwolvesonfire
Prompt: "Castle"
Being picked up off the battlefield, even if it was by an enemy, wasn't so bad, Ajeel decided. That the woman that had offered her hand to him was pretty certainly didn't hurt, either. When he had joined the Spriggans, Ajeel had met a wide variety of new people but none of them had had hair that shone quite so brilliantly, like the full moon on the desert sands. And none had had smiles quite so devoid of guile, either.
A smile she'd bestowed upon him while setting him down with other wounded people, and pressed some food rations into his hands. A smile freely given even after he informed her that she was helping an enemy.
"Enemy or not, I know what it's like to be alone and injured in a place far from home." That had shut him up like no threat of Invel's ever had. Mostly because he wasn't sure just what it what he even could say in response to that.
Although it did still lead to him sitting in a jail cell in a Fioran castle instead of returning to Alvarez. There was nothing his petite savior could do to stop the soldiers sweeping up the remaining combatants (though she did try rather valiantly, he felt).
But that was how it was on the losing side of war. Ajeel still remembered how his own country had been consumed by the Empire when he was younger. Given the choice between serving their conqueror and dying in a dark, cramped cell, his grandfather had chosen servitude instead and Ajeel could well understand why, now.
Dungeons in Ishgar were damper than those in his homeland, and almost as tiny. For someone like him who was the opposite of small, it was a bit of a tight fit. There was nothing for him to do in such conditions except to think. About his homeland. About the Emperor, and the war.
But mostly they kept coming back to the woman who'd lent her shoulder to an enemy. With the shining hair, and eyes the color of daylight. The most beautiful and kind person Ajeel had ever met, even with her clothes torn and covered in dirt and dried blood. Her words weren't something he'd soon forget, nor her warmth.
Ajeel really wished he'd thought to ask her name.
