CHAPTER 24: SEVEN THOUSAND STEPS 1/2
Jellal never believed in betrayals. A betrayal was always a result of trust too absolute, too unconditional for the human mind to bear. Nothing uncommon.
He had to deal with betrayals on daily basis on his job. Sometimes it was a poor girl, whose lover had cheated on them, who wanted the boy dead. Sometimes a mother whose daughter had stolen from them, or a warlord whose enemy had accepted the truce but attacked anyway. People turned to the Brotherhood in all kinds of situations, but the most common reason was, indeed, betrayal.
Somehow, Jellal had always thought he'd be immune to such a thing.
He swung the blade all the time, spilling the blood of those someone else wanted dead. Though he had no criteria – all that mattered was that the Black Sacrament had been performed – he preferred contracts including some passion. Bloody, flaming passion. Love gone wrong, promises broken, hearts shattered. He loved to kill when there were big feelings involved in the murder.
And now he, of all the people, had fallen into the very same trap of betrayal.
High on the back of his pitch-black steed, Jellal traversed the darkened woods in search of a Wood Elf's body. His horse, Shadowmere, had an excellent hunch for blood. From the droplets Jellal had seen on the pink-haired mage's cloak, he was sure there would be some. But where, it was still left to know. Had been for days. A snowstorm, now slowly subsiding, had covered the trails.
Cursing as a tree branch whipped his face again, he wondered how Elsen had even found the mages in the first place in this damned forest. She hadn't lied when she said she was an excellent tracker, the most suitable for Jellal's request. In the tracking she had succeeded indeed, but the capturing part? She had totally blown it.
Jellal hadn't expected his plan to fail. Something had gone wrong – and he needed to find out what. As a man who always had things in control, having them spiralling out of it made his insides twist as if struck with a blade.
Perched on the snowy branches, the ravens sang their songs of death. Dozens of them hid among the tops of the thick, ancient pines, somehow restless as Jellal passed by. The cawing made him grin. Fear, showed by animals or humans, felt always good.
Suddenly, Shadowmere snorted loudly, turning towards an opening in the woods. There lay a black bundle of cloth on the ground, only partially visible among the powder-soft snow. Jellal, familiar with such sights, easily recognized it as a covered corpse. The air, despite the fresh crispness of frost and wind, reeked of blood.
"Fucking finally," he sighed and told his horse to stop. With agile movement, he jumped down and wiped off the layer of fresh snow. The frozen footsteps soiled in crimson revealed beneath it, the evidence of a fight. He sighed. There hadn't been supposed to be a fight to begin with – that's why he'd given her the damn poison which had cost him a small fortune. Maybe he should've done it himself after all, but if he did, these mages wouldn't be alive. Which wasn't what Erza had hoped.
'Whatever you decide, please, don't kill them,' had been her plea after she had confessed her mistake to him. It would've been his first choice indeed. While Erza had grown fond of her new friends and Jellal never wanted to make her sad, he had another reason for sparing their lives. He had a doubt which Erza had refused to confirm. His gut told him that one of them was the Dragonborn. It would explain why Erza didn't let him kill them, because killing them would eventually hurt his ultimate goal, but…
But there was always but.
When Erza started to talk about a disguise, so suddenly after all these years, Jellal realized she had spoken with an outsider. Keeping quiet had been a part of the agreement they had made years ago, when Jellal first started working in the Brotherhood.
It hadn't been too hard to guess who the outsider had been, even though she'd hesitated to tell at first. But the whole truth had been worse than Jellal ever believed, utter idiocy – Erza had told the boy-mage that she was engaged with a man from the Dark Brotherhood. She even told him his name. And… it had been two fucking years since that happened.
There was rarely a time when Jellal lost his cool, but at that moment he had flown into a rage. Erza had been convinced that the boy hadn't told anyone except the girl he'd recently met. It was all going straight to the Void. Their whole life was now at risk just because she had once slipped their greatest secret to a perfect stranger – something Jellal would've never believed she'd do. That was, if anything, a betrayal of short.
Though Jellal had calmed down by now, he still wouldn't understand it. Why had she told him, that boy-mage, of all the people in the world? What was so special about him? It just didn't make any sense, unless Erza was in love with him or something. He had been a beautiful boy indeed, so maybe he couldn't blame Erza for that. But Jellal loved killing beautiful boys, especially when those messed with his woman.
Because the Jarl's men hadn't arrested her yet, it seemed the mages had kept their mouths shut, but how long would they keep quiet? Would they use their knowledge as leverage against her? Did Erza even comprehend what would happen if the word ever spread? He had thought he had made it painfully clear what would happen.
Jellal's heart wrenched from the thought. It wasn't his skin that was in danger, but hers. He could retrieve into the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, the safest, most hidden place in the world, but she couldn't. She wouldn't be safe anywhere. If the Spectres ever found out, they'd capture her. They'd torture her. They'd keep torturing her until she'd break down, and then they'd kill her. She'd die broken and stripped of her dignity and honour.
And when Erza would die, Jellal wouldn't want to live another day. Not a single day had passed without her in his world, and not a single day would ever come to pass. They'd leave this world together, no matter what.
By Sithis, was he afraid? Afraid of two little mages and the words they could utter?
If he couldn't silence them by killing them, he could always scare them into silence. A little bit of frightening wouldn't hurt anyone… too much, at least. He just needed to get to frighten them first, and it seemed to prove more challenging than he had initially thought.
A few arrows littered the ground, and the smell of poison must've kept the beasts and vultures from feasting on Elsen's remains. Her bag was turned over beside her, and Jellal inspected the mages had gone through her belongings. At least she had inked the note his owl had delivered, leaving no strings attached to him. But how had it ended up like that, with Elsen lying dead on the ground and the mages free?
Jellal grabbed the edge of the cape covering her corpse and began to peel it off, as frozen blood had clued it on her clothes. The body lifted as he violently ripped off the cape. He pressed the remains down with his boot until he revealed her face and neck, and found out what had killed her. A single strike of a dagger through her collarbones, faintly missing the largest artery – a slow, but sure death.
"Impressive," he whispered.
Scoffing, Jellal stood up. A lonely, bloodied dagger lay on the ground next to Elsen, and Jellal knew it had belonged to her. To be killed with one's own weapon? That was absolute stupidity. She had once hoped to join the Brotherhood, even showed great promise, but if she couldn't even survive a friendly request, she hadn't been made to be an elite killer. Why had he ever even thought she would? Damn, he was losing his hunch with recruiting new members to the Brotherhood.
It must've been the boy who had killed her. He had that look in his eyes. Looking at the mess on the frozen ground, Jellal wondered why in Sithis's name he hadn't just murdered them to their beds in the inn at Windhelm. It would've been so much easier than this insane play of cat and mouse. He would've slipped to their room and cut their throats as they slept, making sure they'd stay silent, forever… the mere thought was enough to make him shudder.
But no, no, because his dear Erza had a good heart, he had to find another way to achieve permanent silence than spilling blood. And spilling blood was the only way he knew. He could have captured them in the inn and taken them to someplace secret for interrogation, but it would've been too risky.
How could've he dragged them out from the city without drawing attention? In no way. It would've been easier to capture a wild horse unnoticed than those fiery bastards. He knew it better than to stick his head into a hornet's nest.
And even if he would've succeeded, he would've run into another problem. Trust, if he could ever gain it with them, could always be broken. He'd need to figure out something which would keep them under control. A partnership, agreement perhaps? This for that?
In a peculiar way, he was thankful this had happened. As his sharpest rage had dulled – he was never angry at Erza, he could never be – he had thought about the mage's request. Would a disguise be an answer to the long, rueful distance in his relationship with Erza? It wasn't unheard of for an assassin to live a double life.
There were three things he must keep as a secret: his name, his face, and his occupation. No one should ever know all three of them at once, except Erza. There wasn't much he could do to his tattooed face and blue hair, but another name and career he could create. He had even got a few ideas, fueling his temptation to try it out. And damn, he didn't do so well with temptation.
It could work, but it could also go down in flames. The question was: would it be worth it, even if it did?
Jellal walked back to Shadowmere and mounted the stallion. A thousand thoughts stormed inside his head – whenever he'd manage to talk to the mages, he had to keep in mind that they were dangerous. Especially the boy. He couldn't afford to make mistakes over this subject. The folks back in Brotherhood knew nothing of this matter, and never would, so he couldn't rely on their help either. He had to solve this on his own, but not in his own way.
"No bloodshed, Jellal, no bloodshed…" he chanted as he thought while riding away, and finally a perfect idea appeared in his mind like a strike of lightning. Blood wasn't the only key to permanent silence.
Sometimes tears were more powerful than blood.
Heavy clouds of mist rolled over the village of Ivarstead as a new day dawned, the two travellers awakening to the soft light flooding through the dusty windowpanes.
Lucy turned to her side as she opened her eyes, seeing the mage had already got up. He was dressing up, layering himself into two sets of long-sleeved shirts before putting on his robes to be better protected from the cold. The next few days would be the coldest of their journey so far, and Lucy wanted to stay in the warmth of the bed for a while.
"Morning," Natsu mumbled as he tied up the laces of his trousers.
"Hi," Lucy answered and quickly turned her face away – she didn't want to give the impression that she was looking at him getting dressed. Not that he had any right to get offended about it, for he'd been the one to barge in the room when she'd been barely wrapped in a towel. She had forgotten that by now, or maybe she was never really mad in the first place. It had been an accident anyway.
The room in Vilemyr Inn was the same Lucy had stayed in with Erza, with two separate beds on the opposing walls. Though Lucy had freaked out to find him sleeping on the floor of her quarters in the College, now she thought it was safer to stay close to each other. Especially if the Brotherhood was after them. And after the many nights in a small tent, to have him sleep the other side of a room felt so far away.
"Gods, I don't wanna get up," Lucy groaned and pulled the feather blanket to her ears. Back at home, she had loved to sleep late whenever she could. It wasn't often, but sometimes Mother didn't wake her up in the morning, allowing her to sleep as much as she liked. Staying up reading all night took its toll. "Would it be so bad if we stayed here for a few more days?"
Natsu smirked while wrapping the white scarf around his neck. "Sounds good, but we're already a few days late…"
Lucy sighed, already knowing he'd say that. "You're starting to sound a lot like Erza."
"Someone's gotta fill her place," he answered, glancing at her. "Thought you'd miss her."
"Yeah, but not her killer travel schedule and early morning wakeups."
The mage packed the few things he had as Lucy stretched her aching limbs. She rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling. There was a spider's web in the corner above her, but she didn't mind mentioning him. He'd burn the whole inn to the ground, and they didn't have the money to cover that damage. Though he never admitted it, the way he spoke about spiders made it clear how much he dreaded them.
"Seriously though, we gotta get moving," Natsu said, his tone still far from Erza's commanding shouts. "So, if you could, get out of bed. We have to use all the daylight we have, and it's not much."
As much as Lucy admired his determination to change for the better, sometimes she hoped he could just loosen up a bit. She knew the Greybeards would wait for her, no matter how long it would take her to reach them. If they'd care when she'd be there, they would've given clearer instructions instead of just shouting mystic dragon language from the top of their mountain.
A letter of invitation would've been better. 'Dear Lucy Heartfilia, you are the Dragonborn. You've been invited to High Hrothgar. Please arrive in a fortnight, thank you.' What was so hard about it? As long as there wasn't a date set in stone, there was no point to hurry. But, if not for Natsu and his sometimes-annoying urgency, she'd still be in Winterhold, probably nested in the Arcanaeum with a very good book. She could only thank him for that.
"Okay… but only if you buy me a sweetroll. Or two," Lucy bargained, smiling. "Or then, fuck it, buy all of them. The gold's quite heavy in the bag anyway."
Natsu chuckled. "If you want to get rid of all the gold, then you're talking to the right man."
Lucy lifted her head from the pillow and leaned to her wrists. "Got holes in your pockets?"
"Probably," he answered. "Don't know why, but all the money I ever get disappears as fast as I get it."
Lucy smirked. "Bet it all goes to food and mead."
"Yeah, it's expensive as fuck to stay well-fed," Natsu told and paused to pick up his readied bag. "Or well drunk."
Lucy had never thought about it much, but living in poverty was, in addition to being a Breton, reason for his thinness. Her family had been one of the richest of the town, and she never had to face an empty plate. But if he wasted all of his money, he could blame only himself for that. Maybe she'd teach him a thing or two about handling the gold before it would all be gone.
"You don't look that well-fed, and haven't been that drunk after the necromancer's party..."
"Exactly my point," Natsu said with a smirk. "Anyway, I'll eat all the sweetrolls myself if you're not getting up soon." He left the room with a faint laugh, and closed the door.
Remotely, Lucy listened to him talking to the innkeeper as he bought them some breakfast. She tilted her face towards the window, but couldn't see any landscapes through the mist. Hopefully it would fade during the day, or it would be difficult and dangerous to climb the Seven Thousand Steps. She had gotten her share of challenging weather conditions already.
The day after they had clambered up the hills of Darkwater pass, a storm had forced them to stop. As the winds raged and lightning split the skies, they had found shelter in an abandoned farm. The main buildings had been burned down, possibly due to another thunderstorm, but a windmill had stayed untouched by the fire. They had stayed there until the storm passed, sheltered from the wrath of nature.
Natsu had been most frustrated by the delay in their plan – or more likely, the waiting and standing still. Lucy had welcomed the storm with open arms, because it meant she could just lay down, rest her tired legs and read the spelltomes she had with her. Natsu had taught her the Candlelight spell so she could read in the dark, and so she had her nose buried in a spell tome day and night.
She had learned to cast Clairvoyance and Frostbite, but she still needed to train more with the Fast Healing spell. She barely knew the basics of restoration, and to train efficiently, she'd need to get injured first. There weren't many ways to get hurt in an abandoned windmill. Except jumping down from the inner roof, as Natsu suggested many times when he found nothing else to do.
A little rest had done well for him too, even though he hadn't felt like it. They had stayed there for two days, and no assassin had come to butcher them when they closed their eyes. He was finally convinced that they weren't watched or followed, at least constantly. Because if they were, they would've been killed into that abandoned windmill.
The winds had calmed down and the thunder passed, but it had still rained when they finally reached Ivarstead late yesterday evening. They had found some dried rye bread and pickled vegetables in the mill, but Lucy had been starving. She'd been so happy to be at the inn. She had eaten until she felt like cracking and bathed to her heart's content, her hair and skin still smelling of the lavender-scented soap.
When would be the next time she'd get to enjoy a warm meal, or a proper bath? Probably not in a while. The Greybeards most likely didn't have a secret hot spring atop the sacred mountain. She would've liked it though, but she mentally prepared herself for more ascetic conditions for the next weeks, or months, however long it would take.
She had thought that if Natsu had been bored to death for staying two days in the windmill, how would he manage in the monastery? Would the Greybeards even let him stay in the first place? Lucy hoped they would. She didn't know what she'd do if they wouldn't.
Despite all of her worries, she was excited to be so close to reaching High Hrothgar. Yesterday, while eating a late dinner, they had talked with the innkeeper, claiming to be on the pilgrimage to the mountain. The innkeeper said it would take approximately two days to reach the monastery, but most pilgrims took the journey slowly, stopping by each of the ten wayshrines to pray and meditate. With Natsu along, Lucy probably wouldn't have that issue.
Lucy pushed herself to sit on the edge of the bed, her soles aching as she touched the cold floor. She grimaced as she stood up. No matter how careful she had been with taking care of her feet, blisters now adorned her heels, making each step painful as if walking on shards of broken mail. Trying to ignore it, she went to pick up her clothes from the rafter where she'd hung them to dry. The rain had drenched everything she had worn yesterday, but gladly her leather backpack had kept her books and spare clothes protected.
After dressing up in two woollen underlayers and green mage's robes, she put on her socks and boots, scowling in pain. Though the worst blisters could be healed with magic, Natsu had advised her not to. Healing them would make the skin soft again, and another day's walk would 'fuck them up even worse,' as he said. It was better to let the feet get used to the walking, so the skin would eventually harden naturally. Lucy mumbled silent curses as she went into the main hall with her backpack packed and ready to go.
"… then there's an occasional wolf pack or stray, but mostly that's all they have to deal with. Shouldn't be a problem for the likes of you," the innkeeper, an aged man, said while cleaning a mug. The mage sat listening on the table, his half of the food already gone. She'd been dawdling a bit longer than she thought. "Other than that, watch your footing. The stairs can be treacherous in wintry conditions."
"Did I miss anything?" Lucy asked as she sat down next to Natsu. She picked up a delicious-looking sweet roll from the plate, glad that the mage had taken her joke seriously. He had bought four of them, maybe all they had.
"A few things you should watch out for during the climb," the innkeeper replied. "Your friend here can surely fill you in later, right?"
"Right," Natsu said. "Wolves, ice wraths, trolls, goats…"
Lucy raised her brows, swallowing the bite of her pastry. "Goats?"
"There's quite a many of them indeed," the innkeeper told and laughed. "Harmless creatures, but they often mean there are wolves nearby preying on them."
And Lucy ate, failing not to stuff herself up. Her appetite had been gone for the first weeks, but now it had come back, forcing her to catch up on the energy she had missed, and the weight she had lost on the way. It was a good sign. As the food started to taste like food again instead of ashes, it meant the healing had properly begun.
While she savoured the last bites, Natsu packed some bread, dried meat, and bottled milk for them. It would last them until they'd reach the monastery, but after that, they were on the Greybeards's mercy. Then he took the cloak he'd left to dry on top of the hearth and tossed it over his shoulders, bringing Lucy's cloak to her as well.
Lucy drank the last drops of her tea, wiped her mouth, and thanked the innkeeper for the bed and the meal. She dressed into the fur cloak as she rose, storing the last bits of fire's warmth into her. Then they picked up their bags and headed outside – the last thing she did before that was to secure her bow and arrows on her back.
Lucy had to rub her eyes as she stood on the porch, barely able to believe what she saw. The whole village was enveloped in a mist so thick she could barely see the road, or the bridge leading to the beginning of the steps. The rays of morning sun pierced through the fog and landed gently on her face.
"Well, we could still stay for one more day, waiting for the mist to pass…" Lucy said and rubbed her neck. The indoors of the inn tempted her to get back.
Natsu glanced at her, lifting his brow. "Are you fatigued or just nervous?"
"Maybe both."
"Look, this isn't so bad," he consoled, not sounding so sure. "At least it isn't storming anymore."
Before Lucy could answer, a boy ran past the inn. He had black hair and red clothes, and Lucy couldn't remember seeing him before.
"Hey, it's you!" the kid exclaimed and stopped as he saw Natsu. "You're the mage! Have you seen my papa?"
Suddenly, Natsu went awkward and silent.
"Sorry, kid, but I haven't," he said then, quietly.
The child's face fell, the excitement vanishing from his eyes. "Oh… He should've come back already…"
Then Lucy realized he was the boy whose father was stuck in the troll's body by Clavicus's magic. Natsu had told her about it. She had nearly forgotten the deal they'd struck with the Daedra – if they'd bring Barbas back to him, he'd turn that man back to normal. An unsettling feeling spread in her guts. The man's family was still suffering, and they were doing anything but searching that damned dog.
"Don't worry, he'll surely come back one day," Natsu tried to console.
"I hope so…" the boy sighed. "But, what are you doing here? I don't often see the same faces twice. Are you going to the –"
"Romeo!" yelled a woman who appeared from the fog. "Don't talk to strangers, remember? Come back to work, now!"
The boy flinched. "Yes, mama…" he mumbled and hurried after his mother, leaving a hollow feeling in Lucy's chest.
Lucy stared after them for a moment, until the woman glanced over her shoulder as she felt Lucy's eyes on her. She turned at Natsu, who had his gaze tightly locked on the ground.
"Damn, I had totally forgotten about that one," Lucy sighed.
"Me too," Natsu answered. "Shit, now I remember… I asked Felrys if he could keep his eyes open for that dog. You know, back then I said I'd be going to the war. He might've found it, but since Clavicus hasn't turned the man back to normal, then those necromancers sure as fuck haven't brought the dog back."
Lucy bit her lip as she nodded. "It's more likely that they haven't found the dog. It could be literally anywhere."
"Yeah… but, we don't have the time for this now, as shitty as it is for them. And from what I understood, the man was a drunk. The boy came looking for his dad at the inn back then."
"So you're saying they're better off without him?" Lucy asked, surprised he'd said that, unsure about what he truly meant.
The boy and his mother walked to the sawmill on the edge of the town, settled by the river beneath the mountain. It was the early hour of the day, as the sun had just risen, but work was work. It had to be done. But seeing that frail woman doing all the hard labour alone with her son felt so wrong.
"Can't tell, except that the boy misses his dad," Natsu said, rubbing his temple with his left hand. "But so does every kid in Skyrim. This isn't our priority now. Or our responsibility. We should get going now."
Lucy nodded and followed him down to the road. The cobbled stones were slippery from the rain, making her fear how the steps on the mountainside would be. That worry soon made her forget about the boy and his mother. Natsu was right – it wasn't their priority. Saving the world from the dragons was.
She stayed right beside him as they walked through the village, soon reaching the bridge. But as Natsu stepped on it, Lucy hesitated.
"What's up?" Natsu wondered as he noticed she'd halted. The rushing water beneath them muffled his voice.
Lucy raised her head and let her gaze climb up the scenery. A path began where the bridge ended, and the mountain's age-old walls disappeared into the fog. She had seen the top of the mountain from afar, but now she couldn't, and ever reaching it turned into an overwhelming task.
"You say it's going to take just two days?" Lucy asked, not lowering her gaze from the massive, majestic mountain.
"Yeah," Natsu replied, nodding as he walked to the railing, peeking at the waters under the bridge "We could be there next morning if we walked all night, but we'd be guaranteed to fall. I wouldn't trust magelight when climbing those steps in the dark. Come on, now."
As he turned and left, Lucy stayed still for a moment. 'I couldn't do this on my own,' she thought, watching him reach the other side of the river. 'I can't climb this mountain without you, Natsu.'
She hid her smile as she hurried after him, a strange power emerging from the sacred ground as she set her foot on the very first of all the seven thousand steps.
If someone had told him a few weeks ago that he'd be on the pilgrimage to a monastery, Natsu would have laughed. The last time he visited Ivarstead, he had wondered why anyone would ever want to get up there. Now he knew. And now, it didn't much make him laugh.
Among the ancient pines, goats leapt with such agility which made Natsu envy them. They traversed on the rocks, sometimes looking like they were levitating on air, as there was so little ground beneath their hoofs. The goats had lived here for hundreds of generations, thus developing into great climbers.
For a moment Natsu wondered if it would've been easier to buy a horse and ride to the monastery, but he wasn't that good with horses. He had once found two abandoned horses with Igneel, who had then taught him how to ride with one. Maybe it was the fire in him the animal had feared, because he ended up being thrown from the horseback too many times.
So, maybe it was better to walk than ride. At least he could count the steps as he walked. He wanted to know if there was truly seven thousand of them, or if that was just a saying. But could he even count so far? Of that, he wasn't so sure.
At least in the beginning, it was easy to find solid footing. The steps weren't built like a direct stairway, more like low separate platforms now and then carved on the stone, most of them sunken to the ground. A steep mountain wall framed the other side of the path, and a precipitous cliff ended the other. Instinctively, Natsu stayed close to the wall, avoiding the edge as Ivarstead vanished into the mist.
He made it to two hundred steps when Lucy suddenly stopped, pointing her finger to the mountainside. She had been quiet so far, and so had he. The fate of the boy and his family bothered him, as much as he tried to sweep it under the rug.
"There's a wayshrine," Lucy said, sounding excited. Natsu turned his head, and his gaze caught a stone pillar through the fog. "The tablets established along the trail, telling about the founding of High Hrothgar. I wanna read it!"
Carefully coordinating her steps, Lucy ran to the shrine, and Natsu followed her. She crouched by the pillar and wiped the tablet from moss and fallen leaves.
"What does it say?" Natsu asked.
"Before the birth of men, dragons ruled all of Mundus," Lucy read aloud. "Their word was the Voice, and they spoke only in true needs, for the voice could blot out the sky and flood the lands."
Natsu knew the mountain was sacred for Nords, and as a Breton, he failed to feel any connection to the ground, unlike Lucy did. Climbing to the monastery was called a spiritual, eye-opening experience, but he doubted he'd feel any different afterwards. The creation myths about first men being born on this mountain by the breath of goddess Kynareth were all nonsense to him.
Lucy then took off her bag, picked up her journal and found a clean page. Quickly opening the inkpot and dipping her quill into it, she began to write it up.
"What're you doing that for?" Natsu asked with a quizzical stare.
Lucy smiled shortly. "There are ten of these tablets. I'll copy them to my notes, so I can study them later. It could be important for my learning."
Natsu peeked at the stone tablet, barely being able to read the text, the engraved letters worn out by centuries of ruthless wind and rain. Trying to pretend he'd understood anything, he just nodded and looked away.
Though, when stopped by the wayshrine, the air seemed clearer, as if it was easier to breathe. Maybe there was something sacred in the ground after all, or maybe it was just the good night's sleep that had cleared up the fog in his mind. Ironically, when the other world had been shrouded in a fog so thick Natsu had never seen anything like that. It was relieving to be finally here, on a simple path to follow.
He gazed at the goats, how they vanished into the fog and appeared again. Suddenly, they began to bleat in fear, and soon Natsu heard a pained squeal accompanied by a low growl.
"Wolves," Natsu whispered to Lucy, taking a step closer to her. The moment's peace he had just felt vanished in a heartbeat.
Flinching, Lucy laid her journal to the ground and glanced over her shoulder. She froze as she listened to the slaughter concealed behind the veil of mist.
"What do we do?" she muttered and leaned at him.
He crouched beside her. It was possible that the wolves, having feasted on the goats, would just ignore them and let them pass. But as Natsu knew those ferocious beasts, they'd never miss an opportunity to tear flesh and spill blood. A half-torn corpse of a goat slid down the path, leaving crimson stains on the stony ground.
A few glimpses of grey fur emerged from the haze, and from the barking and snarling Natsu estimated there was a small pack. Three, maybe four of them. Challenging to fight, but not overwhelming. He'd seen an overwhelming wolf pack once, and then he had just run.
Now there was nowhere left to run.
"Fight them from afar," Natsu answered, flinching back as the snarls grew louder and the beasts closed in. He summoned a flame atronach's gate upon his hands and cast the creature in front of them, a fair distance away, to attract the attention of the wolves. "Just like we've practised before."
Before Natsu even realized, Lucy summoned her familiar to aid his atronach in the battle. Another purple light flashed as the ghostly wolf appeared from Oblivion, challenging the living ones to fight as equals.
"Go, Plue!" Lucy cheered her familiar as she released her bow from the straps, drew an arrow and let it go. It was astonishing how fast she had become with the weapon – so fast that Natsu barely remembered to attack himself, for he'd got lost in admiring her progress.
Focusing back on the battle, Natsu withdrew to the other side of the mountain path, closer to the battle. If the wolves would break through the summoned creatures, they should attack him first instead of Lucy. Natsu formed firebolts in his both hands, ready for the beasts when they'd show up from the mist.
And when he saw the first hints of grey fur again, Natsu threw the fireballs at them, setting them ablaze as the flames found his targets. Though the wolves often feared fire, these were fiercer and refused to fall back so easily. They barged through the walls of flame, going full on Lucy's conjured wolf, which now looked so small beside them.
"Shit," Natsu grunted as all three of them tore Lucy's familiar into shreds with their fangs and claws. His guts twisted as he looked at their size – they were double as big as a regular wolf. "They're ice wolves. Be careful!"
Lucy's arrow hit one of the beasts. A gleam of green magic enveloped it as the paralyze spell robbed it of its strength, and Lucy took advantage of that. As quickly as she could, she shot again, and again, until she hit the wolf's head. It let out a pained whimper as the arrow pierced through its rocky skull, closing its eyes forever.
The other two, now tearing the flame atronach's arms, suddenly stopped. They turned towards the dead wolf, stared in silence as blood stained its dark grey fur. Then the beasts howled a low mournful howl which soon twisted into a feral rage.
Then the wolves charged straight at Lucy.
Natsu was sure his heart stopped beating as he watched the beasts running down the path with such a speed he could never match. She was on the other side of the parchment, alone, with only arrows as her defence. She could never shoot them both at once – while she'd focus on the other, the another would tear her apart.
And as she just lowered her weapon, Natsu wanted to scream.
"Back off, beasts!" she shouted at the wolves.
They slowed down, still snarling as if stunned by her foolishness. She had shouted away a bear, but unlike wolves, bears were cowards. Glaring at her with gleaming, yellow eyes and judging her unexpected action, they waited cautiously, giving Natsu a chance to get back to her. Though the beasts turned their heads and growled at him, they did not attack.
Lucy smirked when he came to the wayshrine. "I'm not afraid of you!" she yelled again. "Leave us alone and let us pass, or you'll be the next ones lying dead!"
The second wolf, the smallest one, put back its ears and whined. The larger one grimaced to reveal its blade-sharp fangs with bloodlust in its eyes, ready to tear apart another pitiful human. Natsu's hands trembled as he enveloped his fists in fire again.
"Lucy –"
"I command you to flee, now!" Lucy demanded and grinned, glancing at Natsu. She let a few seconds pass, and right when the wolf was about to charge again, she shouted, "Fus!"
The raw power of her voice staggered the beasts like a dragon's wingstrike. It threw them upward on the path with enough strength to steal away their balance, and in their confusion, Lucy drew her bow and shot them both into paralysis. Though it would last only a few seconds, it gave a perfect opening to Natsu to dissolve them into a sea of fire.
And if the wolves had thought they'd live if they'd just obey her command, they were mistaken. She never meant to leave them alive.
As the wolves lay motionless, but not dead on the ground, Natsu launched a series of fireballs at them. The explosions forced Lucy to fall back and hide behind the wayshrine, but he did not budge from his stance. His flame atronach, now recovered from the first assault, reinforced the counterattack, raining more firebolts after Natsu's spells.
Natsu poured all his fear into the fire, the whimpers of dying wolves burying underneath the raging blasts. And as he felt his magicka running low, was sure the beasts were dead. Grunting, he threw another fireball at them, just to be sure.
Then he halted, catching his breath.
"Think I overdid it," he sighed as the smoke dissolved, revealing two scorched corpses of a wolf. He closed the atronach's gate, and the creature retreated to Oblivion. "You okay?"
Natsu glimpsed over his shoulder. Lucy gazed at him with a strange smile on her lips as she rose up, having fallen on her back from the strength of the explosions.
"That was awesome!" she exclaimed as she wiped the dust from her clothes. "I don't know if it's because of this sacred mountain, but now I found it so much easier to speak like a dragon, the same way I did in the Palace of the Kings. Like I just knew exactly what to do."
Natsu watched as Lucy picked up the writing supplies she had haphazardly abandoned, and continued copying the wayshrine's text as if nothing had happened. It made him wonder what had happened to her. When did she become so insanely brave?
"Fucking awesome indeed," Natsu said, raising his gaze from her to the path ahead, and realized he had forgotten how many steps he had already counted. "What did the innkeeper say about wolves preying on goats..."
A/N: Hi guys, hope you liked the chapter! As this will be another large chapter, I decided to cut it from the middle. I haven't written anything of the second part yet, but I hope it won't take too long to write. This chapter was fun to write, I really liked to explore Jellal's point of view. I'm not going to have too many POV characters, but I'll give some POV's for important side characters every now and then too, instead of always having Natsu's or Lucy's point of view. Think it sometimes helps to open and explain some parts of this pretty complex plot.
I'm also exploring some time skip methods as well. I could've written a filler chapter about Natsu's and Lucy's stay in the abandoned windmill, but think that summarized enough what happened on their journey, which wasn't that important. As this story is going to be about 375-500k long I'll have to learn how to cut some filler parts, even though they'd be fun to write.
And about climbing mountains... One of the hardest things about this is determinating distances and times to travel from point A to point B. Because it's so different in the game when you can climb the steps in like 5 minutes or less... I used some real-life experience as a root of this. I've climbed summit Saana, which was around 500m above the nearby lake, 1000m from the sea level. The path was easy to go and it took around two hours to reach the top. I've decided that High Hrotghar would be in around 3-4km above sea level, and there's a path which goes there, so maybe it would take like two days.
Anyway, hope you're all doing well! Thanks for reading, commenting, and liking this story! It makes me very happy to hear and receive feedback
