CHAPTER 33: SERPENT'S SPAWN


Her hands.

Of all the obscure, otherworldly things that weaved together the moment, Natsu noticed her hands first. Burned hands, burned by his flames, red and pink and black and blue. But as if she felt no pain at all, she caressed the scaled shell of the dragon's egg, and held it in her arms as if it was the most valuable, most precious thing in the world. Her touch left crimson stains on the whiteness like she was painting unknown patterns with her bleeding fingertips.

And there were no words to describe the sight. Absolutely none.

In perfect silence, Natsu just observed her. As if his senses were suddenly heightened, he perceived every tiny breath she took, the movements her eyes made as she gazed at the egg, how she began to whisper words he shouldn't know in a language he couldn't understand. Natsu halted – not exactly, he had stood there frozen for a while already – as he realised Lucy actually spoke to the egg. Spoke, and fluently, in the ancient language of the dragons. It couldn't be anything else than that.

Lucy pressed the egg against her chest. She leaned her chin against the shell, the same way a mother holds a newborn baby. Cold shivers ran along the fire mage's backbone. There was, unquestionably, haunting, sorrowful beauty at the transient moment they shared, the moment he witnessed. Yet, there was so little he understood then, and later came to regret – for that very moment set in motion a series of events which eventually drove him to the brink of insanity, and Lucy far beyond.

A pair of approaching steps broke the tranquil atmosphere. Natsu glanced up. His head ached from the abrupt movement. The warrior and the frost mage now stood on the edge of the crater and began their descent to the bottom. Lucy noticed not their arrival. She seemed to be out of the world, lost somewhere in the other planes of existence. Natsu feared that if he'd look away for a moment, she'd disappear completely.

"So, you are the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about," said Gray.

Lucy turned towards them harshly. "Yes," she answered, suddenly fully aware of her surroundings again. Her words had a different ring to them, like a foreign accent. "That's what I am."

Gray, humbled by the presence of a hero, bowed at her. Yet somehow, Natsu struggled to believe there wasn't any mockery in his gesture. A part of it said 'Needless to say, I already knew it,' but it mattered very little right then. Gray wasn't a threat. Annoying, yes, but still not a threat. Her identity would be safe with him.

Silence fell again as Erza and Gray realised what Lucy was holding in her arms. The air, now dimming out with the setting sun, was filled with questions no one dared to utter out loud. Natsu followed the movements of Gray's gaze as it travelled from the egg to the bones of the dragon around her, and to the blood covering the ground. It was still steaming, ever rising skywards as a veil of red mist.

"Well, I sensed something like that was going on the moment you two laid your feet on the College ground," Gray sighed and eyed Natsu and Lucy. "You, Lucy, never explained why Natsu would come with you on the pilgrimage to High Hrothgar. Because if it wouldn't have been more important than fulfilling your dead mother's old wish, he would've never come on such a journey."

Natsu glared at the man. "You really should learn to keep your mouth shut when you don't even know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" Gray sneered. "If you aimed to keep her true identity as secret, then you should figure better lies. I could see right through you. I've known all along that she's somehow special, because if she wasn't, there would've been no way in the world you would have –"

"Silence," Erza commanded, exhausted but stern. "That's none of your concern now."

Gray quieted down, but the poisonous words he tried to say still lingered on his tongue. The man had never learnt to read the mood, and burst out whatever came to his little, twisted mind. If Natsu wouldn't have been so paralyzed by surprise and shock, he would've already shut his mouth with his fist. But as he stepped backwards and struggled to maintain his balance, he knew he had channelled way too much magicka into the flaming spear. There wasn't a single crumb of magic left in him after that. Gladly, the battle was already over. In this state of magicka deficiency, he wouldn't be any help to anyone – not even in shutting Gray up, which used to be his speciality.

Erza walked closer to the remains of the dragon. She brushed the bones with her armoured hands, as if to make sure it was truly dead. Her gaze stayed on the white, bloodstained skeleton for a while, hundreds of different emotions flowing through her eyes. From relief to resentment, from despair to triumph, she went through it all before she finally looked up at Lucy again.

"Lucy… You found this," she swallowed the word, as it uttering it would make it real, but she meant the egg Lucy held in her arms, "inside these remains?"

Lucy nodded slowly, but her shoulders tensed. She did not want to have this conversation, not with anyone, which Natsu found strange. The person he knew her to be would be thrilled, excited about this discovery, but now she just… wasn't. She didn't say anything at all.

"Well, that worsens the situation. The dragons are breeding, just as we've feared," Erza sighed. Her voice shivered as she shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed. "The egg must be brought to Mystogan. Examining it would prove significant progress to the research. So far, we know very little about –"

And upon those words, Lucy whole being transitioned from peaceful to defensive, close to the point of pure hostility. Natsu's eyes widened at the abrupt swift.

"It's mine," she told harshly.

"Lucy –"

"It's mine."

There was a strange shiver in Lucy's voice, a mix of desperation and determination. Erza opened her mouth but swallowed all of her words, just stared at Lucy in silence. Though the whole group's eyes were on her now, she didn't seem to care, wouldn't budge. At that moment, Natsu knew she had, for whatever reason, decided to keep the egg. Equally, he knew it would be a terrible, terrible idea.

Invisible, cold chains squeezed his insides as the seconds dragged on. Something was wrong. Natsu thought back, thought at the moment he had held her, watched how the aeons of the dragon's life passed into her, exiled deep into the darkest corners of her mind. She had slain an immortal dragon, absorbed its soul, but shattered something about herself in the process. Of course, it would have consequences, just like the last time.

Could it be that the dragon had somehow managed to remain sentient after its death, and now it was using Lucy's body as a puppet for defending its egg?

Natsu began to shiver as he realised how perfect sense it made.

If dragons were immortal, eternal, how could they even be killed? The Dragonborn was the only one who could permanently kill a dragon by absorbing its soul, but at that moment, Natsu understood Lucy had only sealed it. The souls did not dissolve, they merged into her own, and so the dragons remained immortal.

The frost dragon was still alive inside of her soul, and the battle was far from being over.

Natsu knew not how long it had been since one of them last spoke. A few minutes or an hour? The sense of time slipped through his fingers like ashes. Lucy stood within the canopy of the dragon's bones, ever holding onto the egg like it was her own. And in a certain way, it was now.

Gray, clearly not understanding the grave weight of the situation, couldn't stay silent furthermore.

"Taking the egg to some scholar, you say? Are you out of your mind?" Gray asked, harsh and ruthless. The man was as blunt as an unhoned sword. "There's only one thing to do. That egg must be destroyed. Immediately."

Natsu flinched.

Keeping her glare fiercely locked in Gray, Lucy wrapped her arms tighter around the egg and shielded it with her body. In that instant, the aura around her became so hateful, enraged, as a final warning for everyone to back off.

"No," she answered, her voice merely a growl.

Gray, like a fool he was, wasn't so easily intimidated by her. If Natsu was him, he would've already run to High Rock or beyond, just as far and as fast as he ever could. Lucy, in that state, wasn't someone to mess with.

"Do you even realise what that is?" the frost mage retorted. "It's a dragon's egg. A dragon's. One of those fucking flying lizards that just tried to kill us all. Taking that thing to the court for some research would be foolish. Who knows when it would hatch and slaughter everyone?"

Natsu, nervously biting his lower lip, pressed his hands into fists. Lucy wouldn't bring the egg to the scholar, but she wouldn't let it be destroyed – and she couldn't be allowed to keep it either, for the very same reason Gray just told. If Natsu had ever been in a situation where every possible option was just as perfectly shitty, this was it.

The warrior glanced at Gray, nodding. "You have a point," she agreed. "It could be dangerous, but…"

"That's right," Gray answered, just as harsh and heartless as before. "Lucy, give the egg to me."

And it just kept getting shittier.

"No."

"Listen to me. Give it here. I'll destroy it, and it's going to be over with. We have to move on. The night is falling, and we can't stay here forever avoiding the inevitable. You know it has to be done."

The ire in Lucy's glare grew ever more murderous, and Natsu knew he had to interfere.

"Shut it up, Gray," Natsu hissed, his voice dry and worn out. He had barely any strength left to talk. "You can't do that. Give her a damn moment to figure out what to do."

Gray cast him a long stare.

"What are you gonna do then, huh? Wait for it to hatch, and then raise the fucking serpent's spawn as if you were its mama and papa?" Gray spat to the ground. "And let it eat you as a snack as soon as it first opens its mouth."

Natsu failed to say anything back, as much as he hated it. That was, most likely, what would happen if they kept the egg. They were only human, and that thing was a dragon. A serpent's spawn, as Gray called it, a hatchling of the race that sought to end all humanity and destroy the world.

"The egg has to be destroyed, and you both know it. If not, you're more foolish than I ever thought," Gray sighed. He was growing frustrated and more aggressive in his pursuit of obtaining the egg from Lucy, and it would not end well. "I don't want to harm you, but I'll have to take it from you if you won't give it willingly."

"No!"

Natsu moved closer to her, driven by instinct as the tension in the air kept growing. His heart raced within his chest, like sensing an approaching escalation that would, in the worst case, end in casualties. Right now, Lucy was unpredictable. She had never been like that before, but now she was, and it scared him. For the first time, he was truly scared of her.

"One last time. Give it to me, Lucy, or I'll take it by force."

Then, as if an invisible thread had just snapped apart, the tension was severed.

Lucy bolted forwards, fast like a panicked animal as she tried to escape the cage of the dragon's skeleton. Natsu stood near its skull, and she sprinted to him first, like knowing he'd protect her, but then suddenly turned around.

"Seize her!" shouted Erza.

For a reason Natsu couldn't understand, and which he later blamed himself to death with, he obeyed. Perhaps at that moment, he had thought the same thing as them, that resisting the inevitable would only bring her more pain. Before she ran away, he caught her from the belt around her waist, and the sudden stop bent her forward. The egg slipped out from her bloody hands, rolled on the ground, and Gray picked it up. Lucy began to scream.

"Bring me your sword," Gray asked from the warrior. She nodded to him and walked past Lucy, and picked her bloodied greatsword from the ground. She carried it back to the frost mage, who received it without a single emotion flashing on his stone-cold face.

Kicking and screaming, Lucy kept writhing in Natsu's hold. She tried to break free with all of her strength and might, but was only thrown down from the strength of her vain struggle. When did she get this strong? Natsu thought as he wrapped his right arm around her neck and shoulders, while his left held her hands behind her back. With his knee, he pressed her down to the ground. He shivered as he remembered it was exactly the same way the Imperial soldiers had held him down while they forced him to watch Igneel die.

As Gray lifted the greatsword, Natsu realised he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to force her to watch it, but he was frozen, for a brief while brought back to Helgen, and all he could see was the blood –

Gray struck the egg once. A sickening sound of steel clinking of ice was drowned under Lucy's desperate scream. A deep crack appeared on the shell, and Gray struck it again.

And suddenly, the sight brought back a memory from his childhood, one Natsu had thought to have forgotten long ago.

When he had been little, he had helped his mother cook fried eggs. When he had cracked one egg on the iron pan, an embryo of a chicken was revealed from the inside. It had fallen on the hot pan, began to sizzle, and he had just watched in horror as his mother had taken it away with a spatula and thrown it outside for the dogs. But the vision of the undeveloped chick cooking on the pan on its own slime had stayed with him, and he had never wanted to eat fried eggs again.

This time, an embryo of a dragon was revealed within the broken egg.

Perhaps the size of a human newborn, the dragon had its tail rolled around it. It had no scales, only flesh, transparent pale skin, no horns, no spikes, no nothing. Unfinished, raw, not ready. Murky fluid flowed among the pieces of its shell. Natsu thought it was dead, but suddenly, it twitched. It began to unfold its wings, stretch its tail, and tweet. Tweet like a little hatchling of a bird, searching for its mother. It turned its blind eyes to Lucy, and her scream twisted into a heartbreaking wail. Natsu struggled to keep her still while he almost broke into tears, too.

"By the gods," Gray cursed as he stared at the abomination of a dragon. Its attempts to crawl forward failed as it collapsed to the ground, its hopeless twitching becoming even more depressing. "It's still alive?"

Gray swung the greatsword again.

The sharp steel cut the dragon fledgling in half. It jerked before stilling down, drowned in its blood as it pulsated out of it with the rhythm of its weak heart. Natsu's vision whitened and his ears were ringing as Lucy's endless scream reverberated in the air, deafening, soul-shattering, twisting into something alien which wasn't even her voice anymore.

Slowly, the tiny dragon died. The look on Gray's face was almost amused, proud, like he was a great hero instead of a monster. Natsu stared at him, hoping he could murder him with his glare only. The egg hadn't been ready to be laid, and the dragon hadn't been ready to hatch, yet it still had been forcefully pulled into the world, only to die through an agonizing death. No matter what the rest of the world's dragons had done, this one was innocent of the crimes of its race.

Lucy's wriggling ceased down. Without any strength, she hung her head down and cried. Sobs shook her small frame as the fire mage kept on holding her still. He could feel her pain, and dared not to let her go. Dazed, he watched how the dragon fledgling dissolved into a cloud of mist. It began to climb up towards the distant skies, maybe fade somewhere into Aetherius.

It dawned then that the souls of the dragons who weren't slain by the Dragonborn went back to Akatosh, their divine creator. But from there, Alduin could draw them back and bring them back to life. As the smallest of all dragon souls joined its ancestors on the other side of existence, Natsu fell lost in his thoughts, profoundly frightened of what would happen if this soul would ever return.

Then there was pain.

Sharp, tearing pain pierced the back of Natsu's right hand, the one he held below Lucy's chin. Her cries were suddenly muffled. The pain bit deeper, tore through his skin until blood burst from his veins. He tried to pull his hand away, but it was locked tight between Lucy's teeth as she bit onto his hand with an inhumane strength.

"Shit!" he cried out. "Damn it Lucy, what the –"

Insanely fast, Lucy turned her face towards him. Natsu's heart stopped racing, nearly stopping completely at the sight.

Lucy's eyes were blue. Icy blue, irises slit like a serpent's, and filled with ancient, apoplectic fury. Tears rolled down on her cheeks, past the frozen scales formed on her skin, and mixed with the blood on her lips. His blood, all over her chin and mouth and –

Lucy bolted free of the hold he had unintentionally loosened. He stumbled down as Lucy charged forwards, straight at Erza and Gray, but for a moment Natsu couldn't see anything else than the back of his hand. The pain came and went in waves as he struggled to understand what had happened. Lucy had bitten him. It couldn't be true, then it was, then suddenly wasn't anymore.

Natsu pressed the wound with his left hand. Blood seeped between his fingers and dripped to the ground. He raised his head towards the screams he heard, but his vision was blurred, his eyes blinded. The air around him grew cold from another snowstorm, a swirl of snow and frost which had Lucy's scent mixed into it.

He forced aside the clouds of shock in his mind, forced himself to see.

A snowstorm raged around Lucy as Erza held her tight on the shoulders. She was facing Gray with the same feral fury she had just confused him with. Gray stood slightly back as Lucy tried to claw out his throat, as if he was preparing a spell. Faint, green light took place around his fingers as he drew a sigil in the air and launched it at her.

What was he doing to Lucy?

The longer the thought lingered in Natsu's mind, the clearer it became that this wasn't Lucy anymore. Her hands, which just a moment ago had been burned, were now covered in snow-white scales, and layers of ice had altered her nails into razor-sharp talons. But when Gray's spell struck her, she fell quiet. Green light enveloped her and calmed down her ferocious writhing. She fell limp and stared blankly at the frost mage.

"What did you do?" Erza asked, and loosened her hold a bit.

"Used a simple Calm spell. It should… well, calm her down, but I'm not sure, since I don't get what's wrong with –"

His sentence was cut when the light wore off and Lucy charged at him again. She slashed at his face, aimed for his eyes, like her very essence aimed to eliminate him out of existence with her bare hands. Gray's calming spell had absolutely no use – she was too strong for it. No, the dragon was. Natsu had to remind himself that even though she looked just like Lucy, or almost, it wasn't her.

He should've realised it already. After killing Sahklonir, she had started to change. She had never told him what exactly happened to her psyche after that, but Natsu had still seen the changes. Not so prominently as now, but she'd grown… arrogant, which she hadn't been before. Spellcasting had become easier for her due to the increased amount of magicka. Foolishly, he had always thought she was just exceptionally talented as a Dragonborn, but it wasn't so. It was the soul of the slain dragon which fed her power.

Gray cast a hasty ward to protect himself from Lucy's attack. She tore through it like his magic was nothing but old fabric. Screaming in the old language of the dragons, she forced the frost mage to fall far back, and right there Natsu remembered what Arngeir had once told him in the old belltower of High Hrothgar. It felt like an eternity ago now.

'Arrogance is the frailty of the Dragonkind, and it's the curse of those with the Dragonblood as well. As she's soon ready for her last trial, I'd personally like to task you with a request. Growing her gift too quickly could be dangerous. The power of the Voice was misused in the past, as it had been misused just recently. I hope you can remind her of the true purpose of her gift if she ever forgets it. That's all I ask of you.'

For every dragon she'd slay, her powers would increase, and the more her mind would suffer. This time, it wasn't only about that, but far worse. Sahklonir hadn't been as strong, and definitely hadn't watched its offspring killed in front of its very damn eyes. The frost dragon was on a killing spree after losing its child, using Lucy's body as a mere marionette, and wouldn't stop until all of them would be dead.

And that wouldn't be the true purpose of her gift.

Gray fought back another snowstorm Lucy launched at his way. She spoke the words of power, the same ones the dragons had used, and unleashed a chilling cry from her throat. Gray leapt to the ground and crawled away from the direct hit – he, too, was out of power. Erza tried to catch her, but she was too fast, too strong for her to capture.

"Bolog aaz arkh dir, mal lir!"

She'd truly kill them all, and maybe that's what her words meant. What would happen to her, then? Would the dragon eventually subside to the back of her mind, would she regain control, wake up alone, and then find all of her companions killed by her own hands? That would break her. Break her completely.

Natsu grit his teeth. There was no spell he could use on her to calm her down – such things didn't work on a dragon. Even if there was, he couldn't use it now. He had perfectly depleted his magicka, but maybe he could resolve this without magic, force, or violence.

'But what's the word of an old man against the word of a friend? You, the one who walks beside her, can guide her back to the light if she ever strays from the path of wisdom.'

Maybe he just had to trust in Arngeir's judgement upon the task he had given him.

"Lucy!" Natsu shouted. She turned towards him. Good. She still reacted to her name. "It's alright. Calm down. Let's… Let's talk this through."

She listened, and he went on. Was it working?

"Trust me, I have no idea what you're going through at this moment, but please, try to calm down. No need to hurt anyone. We're friends, right?"

The last word echoed hollowly in his head. Right?

Lucy remained still, like she did not fully understand what he had said. When she stared at him, her eyes flickered with different emotions as her consciousness shifted back and forth. Warmth, rage, fear, fury. A hint of Lucy appeared and then vanished again, confirming Natsu's worst fears. The dragon she had slain was strong enough to shred through her mind and steal control over her body, all for the sake of protecting its offspring. Even for dragons, the bond between mother and child was strong enough to cross the bridges between life and death.

It terrified him to think how far it would go, and what it would be ready to do.

Anything, said a little voice in the back of his mind.

"Faaz! Paak! Dinok!" she spat out in a low octave. Natsu understood not the meaning of her words, but felt how they were filled with fury and bloodlust. Her icy eyes blazed as if he was the sole source of the overflowing hatred within her.

And in fact, he was. He had been the one who brought the frost dragon down from the skies.

Natsu swallowed in fear, stuttered, "… Lucy?"

"Unslaad krosis!"

The next thing Natsu understood was that he'd fallen hard on his back, his lungs emptied from all air. His head slammed against the stone underneath. Everything was black, he was drifting out, but fought to stay conscious. Something had trapped him with overwhelming strength, and suddenly his blood began to freeze. He forced his eyes open.

And as Lucy's ice-cold eyes stared right back at him, the only thought in his mind was 'She's going to kill me.'

She had him pinned to the ground with the weight of her body. Holding him close, she enveloped them both into a swirling ice storm, one of which had to be Blizzard. It was different from the dragon's frost breath, for this was a human spell, yet somehow reigned by the dragon. Natsu's limbs began to paralyze from the frigid cold, he felt his heartbeat slowing down, weary like he was just surrendering into a very sweet sleep he'd never wake up from.

The whirlwind raged around them, but Natsu couldn't hear it anymore. It was all getting very quiet as he began to slip away again, slip into something warm and bright and deathly. He tried to say something, maybe utter goodbyes, but all the words disappeared from his mind. He couldn't do anything else than look at her. Tears formed in Lucy's eyes, fell down as frozen diamonds, and shattered in the strength of the wind. She was there, she was aware, yet could not do anything to stop it. All she could do was to watch herself kill him.

And as frost gilded her features, Natsu remembered that this spell was dangerous for the caster too.

From what he had heard, from what he could faintly recall through his clouded mind, Blizzard was an incredibly powerful spell, elemental magic lost to the ages. Only the most skilled mages could master it, but she still used it now – no, the wise and wicked, cunning and cruel frost dragon forced her to use it. It channelled its ancient knowledge through her, drained her lifeforce and transmuted it into magicka. Her body would not take it much longer, nor would her mind. Soon enough, she'd be completely shattered, no more than dust in the wind.

Together, they had killed the dragon, and now it would take them both down at once.

And perhaps then, once Lucy would be dead, the dragon's soul could return to Aetherius and join its unborn offspring there, amend this abhorrence of separating mother from her child.

The storming winds lulled him into a deep trance as he felt his powers weakening. No matter how he tried, he couldn't fight back. She was too strong. He had expected his death to be different, always thought he wouldn't die until he would've fulfilled something, followed the red thread of fate to the end. But now, he'd be forever bound in eternal ice with Lucy, their fates unfinished, undone, a sad epitome to how fragile life was. All the signs had been so bright that he had gone blind to one detail. There was no divine protection, no insane luck. One mistake could end it all.

He descended deeper into the darkness, into the unknown plane between dream and reality. A strange light from ahead called for him. 'Join us eternally,' they said, the stars on the night sky, but there was no solace in their call, just loneliness. He wanted not to follow them, but the light pulled him from the dark, lured like a moth to a flame, and he knew the only way to fight it was to shine brighter than the stars of the afterlife.

Depleted of all magicka, Natsu still tried to summon a flame. Nothing happened. He tried again, and nothing. One of the last primitive thoughts was that the only way to fight against this frozen, immense sorcery was fire. Fire, as it was his element, had always been, yet there was nothing left on him to set ablaze. No magicka, no emotion, nothing but his mortal cord which would soon be reduced to particles of frost.

'Help me.'

And somewhere between the whirls of the winter wind, he heard her voice. Merely a whisper, the silent plea echoed amongst the stars above him, or perhaps it was inside of his head? He wasn't sure.

'I can't,' he answered, and did not know if she could hear. 'I've tried, I have nothing left to fight with.'

'You have.'

As if he had dropped from a great high, he was flinched awake, and the darkness was gone. Death passed by, or just stepped aside to wait for a while, to watch and laugh at this desperate effort to abide it. Lucy reached for the dagger secured on his belt. She took the blade from its sheath and placed it into his hold, the tip pointing at her heart. Her eyes pleaded for mercy.

'Lucy?'

'I'm so sorry.'

'…Lucy!'

With every last ounce of strength he had, Natsu forced his frozen hand to tilt the dagger away, right on time. Suddenly, Blizzard was dispelled. Lucy collapsed on him lifelessly, as if her every bone had been cracked at the same time, but she was still breathing. Natsu, on the other hand, wasn't. He stayed perfectly still, ever frozen, unable to even breathe. He just stared up to the skies above them. The stars he had just seen had dissolved into the evening dusk.

Slowly, the storm passed, and the temperature soared. The frost melted from his skin, allowing him to move, but the only thing he was able to do was to wrap his arms around Lucy. She felt so incredibly small in his arms after the tremendous power she had just unleashed. As tears welled up in his eyes, he leaned his head against Lucy's and squeezed her tighter.

'It's okay now.'

There was no response.

Even after the danger was gone, death still seemed to lurk around the corners like a lingering shade. Perhaps a part of him had died, and nothing would ever be the same. Time floated onwards, slow and fast at the same time, twisted, and he couldn't know how long he had embraced her. Too long, maybe. He loosened his hold, opened his eyes, and saw a figure standing near them.

"The ultimate calm spell: the back of my hand," said Erza's voice. "Are you alright?"

It seemed that the warrior had managed to break through Lucy's spell and knock her out with nothing else than physical force. Severing all connections between her mind and body was the only way to stop her, but Natsu hoped there wasn't any more damage besides concussion. And if she wouldn't be back to normal once she'd wake up, he didn't know what he'd do. He felt so fucking numb.

They had just almost died, and he had almost let it happen.

Erza didn't wait for him to answer his question. She grabbed Lucy from the waist and pulled her unconscious body off from his, then placed her on the ground to lie on her side. Finally, he dared to take one ragged breath.

"Yeah, I'm alright," he lied and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I guess."

Then, upon a common, silent agreement, they left the scene behind after Natsu had recovered enough to walk. He had forced himself to stand, even though he felt like fainting, while Erza carried Lucy in her arms. They wrapped her into a warm fur cloak and searched for a shelter, without ever daring to speak about what had just happened. They would, but the time wasn't yet.

As the battle had exhausted them all, worn them out both mentally and physically, they decided to stay within the ruins for the night. Just by nightfall, they reached the centre of a city and an old gathering hall with just enough shelter from the winds and the cold. Using Erza's tools, they built a fire and sat around it, still not uttering a single word.

Replenishing himself on the flames, healing his wounds, Natsu fell deep into his thoughts. He had once wondered if he could keep carrying the torch Igneel had lit, as it had now passed down to him. Igneel had been the one who guided him back to the light when he had strayed into the dark, but could he ever do the same? This time, he had failed. Failed miserably.

He stayed by Lucy's side as she stirred in her restless sleep. The frozen scales had melted away from her cheeks, the talons of ice were now gone, but she still sobbed. She sobbed, just as endlessly as she had when they had escaped the smouldering ruins of Helgen and sat together in the cold, damp forest floor, lost and broken. But back then, there had still been hope. A distant light, a dream for a better future, a new life built on the ashes of the old one.

How he hoped he would've known then that the nightmare had only begun.

Long after the warrior and the frost mage had fallen asleep on the other side of the fire, Natsu was still awake. In the faint flicker of the dying flames, he gazed at the back of his right hand. Dried blood adorned the skin around the bitemark which would certainly leave a scar. Oh, how ironic he found his talk about wearing scars as badges of honour now. This one he'd wear forever as a reminder of not being strong enough. This day, he might have brought down a dragon from the skies, but what was it even worth of when he couldn't keep Lucy safe from herself?

And somehow, he knew the night had now fallen, and it had fallen on them both.


A/N: Hi guys, hope you liked the chapter, even tho it was pretty dark and there wasn't much to like about.

Did you expect that to happen with the egg and the dragon's soul? I got this idea a few months ago when I was planning the additional dragon lore for this story. Things grew a lot, but I'm personally satisfied with the outcome. It's dark and gruesome, but as I said earlier, things are going to get gradually a lot darker. So, let me introduce you: Lucy's Dragon Force.

Another important plot point was revealed here. Others can kill dragons, as Gray killed the dragon baby. The ancient Nords killed all the dragons, even though none of them was a Dragonborn. But, whenever a dragon is killed by anyone else than a Dragonborn, its soul returns to Aetherius (afterlife) and Alduin can bring them back to life.

My reply to the comment in the last chapter who said that Natsu was too OP in the previous chapter, please keep in mind that he's the younger brother of one of the most talented mages of all history, and he has been using magic a lot longer than Lucy has. Natsu is an extremely capable mage, too.

There's so much I actually had in mind about this chapter, things I wanted to say, but now as I'm writing this note I feel kind of numb. And oh yes, fuck the power of friendship. The only thing I love more than that trope is fucking it up completely.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading and supporting!