"Natsu!" The blonde giggled, "wait for me!"
Lucy stumbled after him, her five-year-old legs not carrying her quite as fast as her best friend, who sped nimbly along the old wooden bridges and walkways connecting the tree-top platforms of their village.
Natsu slowed to a stop, turning to face Lucy with a hand stretched out towards her. He bounced up and down, too excited to stand still. Lucy took his hand and together they raced along the path that spiralled down through their village to the front gate on the first level.
They ran as fast as they could, dodging people, and almost causing more than one accident as they went. Ignoring the irritated shouts aimed at them, the two continued on, laughing with excitement, their little feet clattering across the sturdy wood beneath them.
"Come on, Luce! We're almost there!" He shouted over his shoulder, their hands still firmly entwined.
Running up to the group of people at the gate, Natsu spotted a tall figure in the middle.
"DAD!" Natsu cried as he barrelled through the crowd, letting go of Lucy's hand and throwing himself into his father's arms, "you're back! Did ya fight any monsters?!"
Igneel deftly caught Natsu and managed to keep his balance as he swung the boy around in a sweeping circle, happy to be home after months spent scouting the world below.
"Natsu!" he grinned, slowly dropping the six-year-old back onto his own feet, "I have to go and report, but I promise I'll tell you all about it tonight, okay, son? Can you go and find your mother and let her know I'm home?"
Natsu nodded, grinning widely, before snatching Lucy's hand back into his own and ducking through the crowd again, taking off the way they'd come. They dodged and weaved around the same people who'd shouted at them the first time, annoying them all over again.
Natsu and his family lived on the top level of the tree-top city, past the greenhouses and the kitchen and dining hall, up a ramp and over several bridges connecting the trees and their platforms around them. Their whole lives had been spent there in the tree-tops, in the Heartfilia Estate, named after Lucy's own family.
Natsu thought that was awesome; it meant that Lucy was his princess and he had to protect her at all costs to keep her safe. He liked to pretend he was a fierce dragon, guarding his golden-haired best friend from the scary world below their town.
Among the tallest trees in the forest, their world was a blur of green leaves and branches and wooden buildings sitting sturdily between the trunks of trees that were hundreds of years old. Birds flitted here and there as they sang their songs, dancing through the twigs and darting into and out of their nests.
Branches wrapped in flowering vines twisted along the bridges and walkways, climbing the sides of houses and decorating the branches above, only to disappear back into the trees and reappear further along the path. The brightly coloured flowers lured bees and butterflies and all sorts of insects with their fragrance, swaying gently in the breeze.
The children wove their way towards Natsu's house, jumping into pools of warm sunlight piercing the canopy of leaves above them and bathing the paths below, making a game of it as they ran, giggling and shouting their happiness. They really were the best of friends.
Natsu skidded around a corner and slid through the open doorway of his family's home, a multi-level wooden house, big enough to be built around two towering tree trunks.
Lucy had always loved Natsu's house; it was big and open, full of sunlight and warmth, and every time she entered it, she could feel the love it held within. The Dragneel family occupied one of the nicest houses in the village, reflecting Igneel's important role as Jude Heartfilia's right hand man.
Entering through the door, the kitchen was to the left, the sink underneath the window, and an island bench, with stools tucked under one side, bordered the path straight down the middle of the house. On the right of the open space, was the living room, the outer wall made entirely of big glass windows that looked upon all the colourful levels of the village.
Sitting atop the fifth level, right next to Lucy's house, the Dragneel's home looked down onto the main path that swept around in a large spiral, leading down to lower levels, and eventually, the ground. Every so often, other paths branched off the main one, sweeping away into the trees, leading to other homes. At night, the paths were lit by solar powered lanterns, glowing warmly in the darkness.
The trunk of a large tree stood against the far wall of the Dragneel's living room, decorated in fairy lights, their solar panel resting on the windowsill. The tree's branches twisted up and through the ceiling. The stairs were beside that tree, directly across from the home's entry, leading up to the bedrooms. While Lucy knew Natsu's bedroom like the back of her tiny hand, including all his secret hiding spots, the two preferred to run around outside, Natsu always dragging Lucy into some kind of mischief.
The stairs were built between two large, solid tree limbs; one twisting beneath the floating stairs and turning upwards to make a handrail of sorts, and the other branch twisting above to make an archway, before disappearing into the ceiling and reappearing in one of the rooms above.
Lucy really liked being there; it felt like a real home to her, unlike her sprawling house that was decorated with things that looked nice but weren't for touching.
Grandeney, Natsu's mother, was in the kitchen when Natsu and Lucy came flying into the room, babbling excitedly as they jumped around her, holding hands. She laughed, smiling down at the two children. "Hey you two, slow down! One at a time please, I can't understand you both when you're jumping around and shouting like that."
Lucy giggled and clamped a hand over her mouth, but continued to jump around with Natsu, who laughed and took a big breath, before shouting, "Igneel's back! He told us to come and find you while he went to report to Lucy's dad!"
"Oh? Is that so? I guess you'd better go tell Zeref, he's -" she grinned, ushering the two children back towards the door, only to be cut off by Natsu.
"Zeref!" Natsu shouted, spinning in his tracks to duck under Grandeney's arms, entirely missing the reason she was ushering them outside, and raced up the stairs towards his brother's room.
Grandeney sighed, waiting for Natsu to reappear, knowing it would take a second for the information to sink into his over-excited, little brain. Footsteps clattered down the stairs and he skidded to a halt in front of her moments later, with his brow furrowed.
"He's with Metalicana, fixing some pipes. You should be able to find him in the nets below level two. Be careful, Natsu, stay on the walk-way."
Natsu opened his mouth to argue, his whole body seeming to droop as the excitement left him.
Grandeney cut him off with a pointed look, "Natsu, I don't want you and Lucy in those nets, do you understand me? You know it isn't safe, and your job is to keep Lucy safe, right?"
Grandeney sighed, biting the inside of her cheek as she struggled to keep her stern expression in place. She wasn't above using Natsu's bond with the small girl to get him to follow orders from time to time, often finding the situations she had to use that leverage in quite funny.
Natsu frowned, and then lit up again, suddenly just as excited as he was before. "Yeah! I'll keep Lucy safe; nothing will happen to her when I'm around!" And with that, he puffed up his chest and pulled a blushing Lucy from the room, leaving Grandeney shaking her head as she laughed in their wake.
The two children wound their way down through the levels of the tree-top town, chattering excitedly about what Igneel and the other scouts may have found in the world below. Neither child had ever been down to the ground, but while Lucy hoped she never would, Natsu was excited to one day go down and fight the monsters that dwelled on the forest floor.
The small girl frowned as Natsu babbled about finding a real dragon, fear clouding her mind. The world below was a terrifying place, full of monsters and scary things she didn't even want to imagine. She knew that sometimes people didn't come home once they'd gone down to the ground, and they were taught in school that they should never venture there until they were adults and only if it was their job; they were safer in the trees.
"Lucy?" She suddenly realised that Natsu was waving his hand in front of her face, and she jumped, startled, when he managed to bring her attention back to him. "We found them, Luce!" he grinned.
"Oh yeah! I see them!" Lucy replied, grinning as she looked to where Natsu was pointing. In the safety nets below a wooden bridge that was suspended between two platforms by thick, knotted rope, two figures were hanging in safety harnesses, arms reaching up to fix the pipe running along the underside of the bridge above them. They might live in the trees, but that didn't mean they couldn't have modern plumbing; their village was a few centuries old, after all.
Natsu ran over to them, flopping down onto his belly and sticking his head out between the bridge's wooden slats and the rope holding them up, peering down at his older brother.
"Oi, Zeref!" he shouted, much too loudly, as was his habit. Everything was loud about Natsu, from his personality to the pink hair on his head. Zeref, on the other hand, was eerily calm, almost to the point that he often came across as emotionless.
"Careful, Natsu," Lucy reached out, placing her hands on the boy's back, trying to anchor him in place with her own body.
"Natsu?" Came Zeref's reply, the older boy leaning back and brushing his dark hair out of his eyes, as he squinted up at Natsu, "please don't fall, I'd rather not have to fish you out of the net today," he sighed.
Natsu frowned and wrinkled his nose, "that was one time!"
"And the five times before that?" Zeref stared up at him, one eyebrow raised. Beside him, their uncle, Metalicana, snorted.
"Okay, okay, but I'm not gonna fall this time! I've got to make sure Lucy stays safe, you know," Natsu grinned, glancing at Lucy, who was sitting quietly beside him, her hands still on his back, "anyway, we came down to tell you that Dad's back!"
Zeref merely nodded up at his little brother, "okay, we shouldn't be too much longer. Go on home, Natsu."
"And keep outta the trees, squirt," Metalicana grunted from his place, not taking his eyes off the pipe as he hung beside Zeref.
Natsu groaned as he got up, pulling Lucy to her feet with him, "Okay, okay, sheesh!"
Later that night, Lucy and Natsu found themselves camped out in his Living room, listening to Igneel tell of his adventures down below. They'd made themselves a tent around the thick tree trunk, its fairy lights illuminating their little fort and casting shadows that danced across the fabric walls. They'd used blankets, sheets, and cushions to create their own little world, laughing and shouting at Igneel's tales, which he edited into a story more suited for children.
Igneel wasn't against telling them of the real world below, but he didn't think they needed to know how bad it really was, especially at their young ages; it was important that they enjoyed their childhood while they could, before learning just how dangerous the world really was beneath the safety of the treetops.
"As you both know, the world as it is now, is very different from the world of our ancestors; people used to live on the land below the trees, they had giant sprawling cities made of concrete and stone, and they didn't have to deal with many of the creatures that live down there now. We explored one of those cities a couple weeks ago, it was covered in grass and trees and plants of all kinds. Nature has slowly reclaimed that town and trees were growing in the houses. You would have loved it, Natsu, you could run around without any fear of falling out of the sky," Igneel grinned, watching his son, "we wouldn't be pluckin' ya out of nets all the time!"
Natsu grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his head, "that'd be awesome, Dad! I wanna go explore it too!"
For whatever reason, Natsu didn't seem able to feel fear, and Igneel wasn't sure if that meant they'd done well in raising him, or if they'd done terribly, considering how often they'd found the boy bouncing in the nets after he'd decided to climb through the trees instead of using the walkways. Igneel thought it was lucky they even had nets, as Natsu would have been flat as a pancake on the forest floor by now, otherwise.
Once, Igneel had been crossing a bridge on the third level, only to almost have a heart attack when Natsu had come flying out of a tree somewhere above, landing in the net below. Igneel had peered over the edge of the bridge, at a giggling Natsu, and thanked his lucky stars his wife hadn't witnessed the event. Of course, she'd witnessed it on several separate occasions, grounding the boy for a month each time, even though they both knew Natsu would just sneak out his window and in through Lucy's in the middle of the night. That's what happened when your best friend lived next door. Grandeney was simply thankful that Natsu and Lucy had each other in times like these.
"Did you... See any monsters?" Lucy asked timidly. She was a shy girl, slightly taller than Natsu, despite being a year younger. Her golden hair fell down her back like a wave of silk, framing her little face with her big brown eyes in a way that almost made her look like a little angel. Luckily, she seemed to balance Natsu out, the angel to his demon, and Igneel was sure his son would've gotten up to a whole lot more mischief without Lucy around.
Igneel thought for a moment, trying to pick the least aggressive animal they'd come across, "we found a really big, blue cat, but he didn't seem too bothered by us, so we left him alone," he smiled and ruffled Lucy's hair, knowing she was easily scared. She smiled back at him, listening intently to the rest of his stories.
Lucy had always been part of their lives; from the moment she'd come along. The saying went 'it takes a village to raise a child,' and Igneel and Grandeney had welcomed Lucy with open arms, considering her part of their family.
Lucy's mother, a good friend of theirs, was often unwell, and Lucy had spent a lot of time at their house, playing with Natsu. Her father was always busy and didn't seem too interested in taking the time to raise her. He did have a whole village to run, but Igneel still thought that was slack of him. In fact, Igneel didn't like the man much at all, if he was honest.
So, Lucy often spent nights in pillow forts with their son, running around the place with him during the day; it wasn't often the two weren't together, and secretly Igneel knew they were never really going to be apart. Though, he wouldn't let Natsu know that; the small boy made gagging noises whenever he caught his parents sharing a kiss.
After hours of stories, Lucy had begun to drift off to sleep and Natsu was finally losing some of his bounciness. So Igneel said good night to the two children and quietly left them, making his way to his and Grandeney's room, hoping for the best night sleep he'd had in months.
Inside the tent, the soft glow of the fairy lights dimly illuminating their own little haven, Natsu stretched with a big yawn, and burrowed into the blankets beside his best friend, curling up around her just like he'd always done.
"Natsu?" Lucy sleepily mumbled, shifting a bit to get comfortable, "one day, can we get a blue cat?"
Natsu grinned into Lucy's back, "yeah! With wings!" he whispered excitedly.
Lucy giggled, "cats don't have wings, silly."
"Ours will," Natsu replied, breathing a sigh of contentment, and snuggling closer to her before they both drifted off into a deep sleep.