Author's Note: Call the Vatican and alert the pope, it's a miracle - I'm posting twice in a single month. I want to say I'll be posting a third chapter this month (/shockhorrorgasp), but I rather feel like that's giving 2020 just one more opportunity to screw around with me, so let's play it by ear, shall we?
Huge thanks to everyone posting comments - it really helps keep me motivated to know that people are actually reading the story and enjoying it, so thank you. I hope you enjoy this next chapter, though this is honestly a lot of fallout of the previous chapter. Looking at one or two more chapters before the end of year two. It's a rough year for Juvia. The years get better. Generally.
Actual note rather than just author rambling: I have no idea if Evergreen or Bickslow have established last names, so for reference, I'm giving Evergreen the last name Oakthorn and Bickslow the last name Kerry.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nightmares
"Juvia!" Gray called out into the darkened forest around them, little visible in the light given off by his wand. There was no sign of the girl or the werewolves. It had them taken too long to get back out of the ravine. It had taken too long to start to look for her. Where was she?
"Lockser!" Dreyar echoed the call. He paused, listening for an answer. None came. "She couldn't have gone much further. They would have..."
"Shut up!" Gray snapped, though the unfinished statement completed itself easily enough in his mind, ringing through his head like a bell. They would have caught her by now. They would have killed her by now. It kept echoing in his head. "Shut up, just keep going!" He pressed on through the forest, Dreyar close behind. Part of him had been surprised that Dreyar had stayed. Had tried to help. He had expected the Slytherin boy to run the second the werewolves were gone and to leave Juvia to the fate that should have been theirs. But Dreyar seemed as determined to find her as he was. And he, at least, seemed to have his head on straight. Gray didn't know what the hell he was doing as he waved his wand wildly about, the light revealing nothing but more damn trees.
What was he even looking for?
He stopped, a hand running through his hair as he struggled to keep calm.
Where was she?!
"This way, Fullbuster," Dreyar called to him. Gray looked over to where the Slytherin boy motioned, to the deep gouges in the earth where claws had scoured the ground. The Slytherin boy, wand lighting his way, followed the tracks further into the darkened forest.
Gray began to follow after him, but movement from above caught his eye. He held out his gloved hand as the first snowflake landed. He turned his gaze to the sky, to the snow falling to the earth. His breath stilled. Why? Why was it snowing now? He remembered when she had been confined to the infirmary - remembered how the storms had raged against the school while she slept. What did this mean now? Was she hurt? Was she...
"Come on, Fullbuster," Dreyar called to him.
Trying to calm the rising panic, he tried to push the thoughts aside as he followed after Dreyar. They had to find her. She had to be alright. It was their fault she was in danger. Their fault she could be hurt or worse. They had to find her.
They followed the few signs they could find - tracks barely visible in the undergrowth, broken branches and disturbed brambles, Gray's growing panic as the snow began to settle over the forest driving him forward and overtaking Laxus as they cut through the forest.
She had to be close.
She had to be safe.
She had...
He came to a stop.
"What the hell?" he heard the muttered curse from Dreyar as the Slytherin boy came to a stop beside him.
Gray had no answer for him. He thought it was just a trick of the light when he first saw it, the shadows of the forest making nightmares out of nothing, but now that he was face-to-face with it, it was clear. Large swatches of the forest had been stained black. Trees, branches, grass. All black. He reached out to touch the nearest blackened trunk only to be stopped by Dreyar's grip on his wrist.
"Best leave it be, Fullbuster," the Slytherin said. "I don't think we want to be messing with this. Let's go around."
Gray nodded mutely and turned away to follow after Dreyar. He hadn't taken more than a few steps when a sound drew him back. It sounded like crying.
"Juvia!"
The sobbing, quiet and muffled, stopped, and a trembling voice called out from within the blackened forest. "Gray?"
A wave of relief washed over him. With just one hesitant deep breath, Gray crossed over into the blackened forest. He paused after his first step, his breath drawing in a sharp hiss at the unnerving sensation of the grass beneath his feet crumbling to dust. Another deep breath, he moved forward into the dark, guided by the light of his wand, pausing again for a brief moment only when he bumped into one of the blackened trees, the entire thing disintegrating at the slight impact. Dreyar cursed from behind him as the tree left nothing behind but ash to be taken by the wind. He didn't dwell on it - he had to get to Juvia.
After passing through a few more trees, they stepped into a clearing and found her sitting at the base of a massive yew, dead but not blackened like the other trees around it. Gray hurried towards the girl. "Juvia, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"Fullbuster," Dreyar snapped, the Slytherin shaking his shoulder. When Gray turned back towards him, the Slytherin pointed forward. Just visible in the light of the Slytherin's wand, the werewolves, blackened like all the rest, stayed reared up against the trunk of the dead tree, the snow slowly working to consume all traces.
In stunned silence, he turned back to Juvia, her dark blue eyes watching him intently, tears streaming down her face.
"Juvia didn't - she didn't mean to," she sobbed, her face returning to her hands. "She didn't mean to."
Gray knelt before her and reached out for her. He pulled her into an awkward embrace - not sure what the hell he should do in the situation and settling on mimicking what Ur used to do whenever one of the children at St. Rowena's was frightened or distressed. "It's okay, Juvia. It's okay." He repeated the words like a mantra, not knowing what else to say as the blunette trembled against him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dreyar approach the blackened forms. The Slytherin broke off a small branch from the dead yew and jabbed the makeshift rod at one of the werewolves. Like everything else, it scattered into ash that was quickly carried away by the frigid February wind. Gray glared at him. The boy just looked back at him, pale and grim. "Come on, Juvia. We need to go," Gray said quietly, pulling the little Slytherin to her feet as he got to his. Glancing back as he led her away, he saw Dreyar use the branch to disperse the remains of the other werewolf before following after them. "It's okay."
"She didn't mean to," she whimpered softly.
They didn't say much else as they followed the path that Gray and Dreyar had cut through the black forest to get to her. By the time they finally left the black forest behind and returned to the living forest, Juvia's whimpers reduced to quiet sniffles and then to silence. She paused then, looking up at him with red, swollen eyes. "What will they do to Juvia?" she asked, her voice barely more than a trembling whisper.
Words failed him, his mouth hanging open uselessly, while he tried to find something, anything to say.
"Nothing."
Juvia and Gray turned towards Dreyar where he stood a couple of yards away.
"We never left the thestral grove," Dreyar said. "We picked the flowers. We went back. That's it." The Slytherin boy glared at him, as though daring Gray to contradict him.
Gray nodded slowly. "Right."
Juvia looked back and forth between them before looking down, chewing on her lip. "Juvia killed them."
"You were never there. Nor were they." Dreyar set a hand on the girl's shoulder. "We need to get back to the grove. How did you find us, Lockser? Can you get us back there?"
Juvia nodded and held out her wand in front of her. "Appare Vestigium." The tip of the wand lit up, and where it shone, footprints appeared, glowing in the dark.
"Good job, Lockser. Let's go."
Dreyar took the lead with Juvia following behind and Gray staying next to Juvia. None of them spoke as they cut through the forest. Gray kept his focus on Juvia, trying to figure out what to say but feeling utterly worthless yet again. He didn't know what to say or what to do. Even Natsu would have at least done something. Anything. How the hell did he end up more pathetic than Natsu?
His self-loathing was cut short by Dreyar's curse, the Slytherin coming to a halt in front of them. "Shit. Fullbuster, do you see them?"
Gray looked away from Juvia and followed the point of Dreyar's finger to the grove and its denizens, the skeletal figures of several winged horses barely visible in the wand light. "Shit," he echoed Dreyar's curse. He didn't see the strange beauty that Juvia did. He just felt cold looking at them. Juvia slipped past both of them and moved towards one of the thestrals. The gaunt, muscle-less face leaned down towards the Slytherin girl and pressed its head against her chest. The girl leaned against it, her arms wrapped around its neck as best she could and face buried in the creature's mane. The girl's trembling seemed to ease, and her breathing steadied.
"We should head back to meet the others," Dreyar muttered, seemingly no easier around the thestrals than Gray was.
"Give it a minute, Dreyar," Gray said, watching the girl, her eyes closed.
Dreyar frowned but didn't press the issue. He did, however, move past the thestrals and go into the glade. Gray could just see the Slytherin collect the two blooming flowers within. He joined Gray again, Juvia still by the threstral. "You look like hell, Fullbuster," he said.
"Sod off."
"Hold out your arm a second," the Slytherin said. Gray, too tired to argue, held out his arm, noting for the first time a large tear in his robe, from tree or fall or whatever, he wasn't sure. "Reparo." The Mending charm set his robe to right. Gray took a quick glance at the rest of his robe, but he largely seemed to be in one piece despite all that had happened that night. "You've got some scrapes visible," Dreyar added, "but we can write it off as you running into a tree."
"Seriously?" Gray glared at him.
"You rather tell them why you really look like that?"
Gray merely grunted in response. "You don't look much better," he said after a pause.
"I tripped over into some briar patch."
"Can't I have shoved you into it?"
"Is that worth another round of detention?"
"Wasn't planning on telling Precht," he replied.
Dreyar rolled his eyes. "Sure, fine, have fun. She look in one piece, do you think?"
Gray nodded. "She didn't go tumbling down a ravine. She's been crying, though. Redfox thinks we're the cause of it, and we'll wish the werewolves had gotten to us."
"Don't really have a spell to fix that. Hopefully it's too dark for Redfox to see."
Five minutes more passed before Juvia moved away from the thestral and joined the two of them, wiping at her eyes with the cuff of her robe as she approached.
"Are you ready, Juvia?" Gray asked.
She nodded mutely. She turned into the glade and tapped the ball of light still waiting for them. It rose and drifted back through the woods, the trio silent again, following close behind. Nearly an hour later, they emerged from the forest once again to find two of the other groups, led by Precht and the groundskeeper, waiting. An agitated Redfox quickly approached them. "The hell happened?"
"Gajeel...," the girl said softly.
He pointed up to the sky, waving wildly at the snowflakes that were drifting down. The agitated motions of the red-eyed Slytherin might have been amusing had Gray not been fairly certain that he was going to be the target of the Redfox boy's rather notorious temper shortly. "What happened?!" the boy demanded to know again.
"Gajeel..."
The red eyes turned to glare at him and Dreyar. "The hell did ya bastards do?!"
"Gajeel!" The girl tugged on Redfox's arm to get his focus away from them. "It's okay, Gajeel. Juvia's okay. It's just snow."
"Calm yourself, Mister Redfox," Precht said. "You're already looking at another two weeks of detention. Let's not make it three before the end of the night. You're late, Miss Lockser." He frowned.
"She is sorry, Professor. It's Juvia's fault. She thought more of the flowers would bloom tonight. She had them wait to see if they would."
"Hrm." Precht held out his hand, and Dreyar turned over the two that he had taken from the thestral grove. "Only two this year. Disappointing, but not surprising."
"Ha! Nice going, droopy eyes!" Natsu laughed. "We got sixteen!"
"Woulda had twenty 'cept ya stepped on four of them, dumbass," Redfox growled.
"Enough, both of you," Precht said. "Thank you, Miss Lockser, Mister Fullbuster and Mister Dreyar."
Gray nodded and moved to join Natsu and Loke - Lucy still in the forest with Professor Warrod. The other two were prattling on about something. He couldn't be bothered to pretend to care. He just kept stealing glances at Juvia as she held onto Redfox's arm, leaning against him. He couldn't hear what they were saying. He could only watch while the snow continued to fall.
Juvia pressed against the glass of her favorite window seat in the Slytherin Common Room while she stared out into the lake just beyond, so close that she felt like she could break through the glass with just a little push. She sat alone - Gajeel still serving another bout of detention - with a teru teru bozu, half-finished, resting in her lap, the latest of her alternative and ultimately futile attempts to get the storms to stop again. The little doll abandoned for the moment, she sang, soft and slow, with the song that both comforted her and now terrified her. It washed over her and blocked out the incessant chatter in the Common Room, while the large tapestry that draped over the window and its little alcove kept her hidden from the Common Room and its occupants.
Safe for the moment. No one to harm her. No one for her to harm. Safe.
The lake and its song served its purpose in distracting her so well that Juvia never noticed Dreyar's approach until he tossed a folded newspaper next to her on the window seat.
Startled out of her song, she regarded Dreyar silently. Dreyar hadn't spoken to her once since they returned from the forest a few nights ago. But now, he stood before her, looking as stoic and as unreadable as he always did. Not that she ever exerted much effort to try to read him. What little he had ever said about her before the night in the forest had never been pleasant, and he had never even once spoken directly to her before that night at all. She rather expected - or maybe just hoped - that he wasn't going to speak to her again afterwards. Her immediate reaction now was to shrink even further back against the glass, half-expecting him to say that he was reporting what she had done after all. To say she was to be sent to Azkaban.
The other Slytherin, however, merely motioned to the newspaper next to her. "Bottom right story, front page."
After a moment's hesitation, she reached out for the edition of The Daily Prophet, the moving images on the page always a little disconcerting for the Slytherin girl. She was never really quite sure where to set her hands. Did the pictures mind if she put her thumb over them? Ignoring the potential etiquette issue for the moment, she followed Dreyar's directions and passed by the larger stories at the top to a small column in the lower right, apparently included as an afterthought once the more sensational stories that The Daily Prophet was known for had been given their proper due.
Her gaze lingered a moment on a couple of pictures next to the column - two mugshots of scraggly men, both probably in their late 40s with long unkempt stringy hair and haggard and drawn faces, like they hadn't eaten in several years. Or bathed for that matter. One's sunken cheeks and shallow skin almost made him seem more a skeleton posing as a person than a real creature of flesh and blood. The other, slightly more convincingly human, had no more appealing a face, scarred from forehead to chin by what seemed like a set of claws. Names were included beneath each picture, though she did not recognize either.
She turned her attention to the headline and felt the warmth in her body flee in an instant. Werewolves in the North! The article proclaimed. The paper beginning to shake slightly in her now trembling hands, she read the first few sentences that followed. Citizens in the north of Scotland are instructed to be on the look out for two fugitives after they were reportedly spotted last Sunday in the Scottish Highland city of Inverness. Both men were members of Zeref's lycanthrope army who escaped from custody during transfer to Azkaban three years ago and are to be considered extremely dangerous. Aurors have been dispatched to the area to investigate. The story went on to detail the involvement of the men in the last civil war, but the words didn't mean much to her. The cold pit in her stomach that had settled there ever since that night tightened. She felt the window seat shift as Dreyar sat down next to her. When she looked up from the paper and back to Dreyar, he was watching her carefully.
"Wouldn't waste too many nights worrying about what happened," he said eventually.
"She killed them," she replied softly.
"They weren't good people, Lockser," he said. "I knew them. They ran with my father. I promise you, they were bastards. Werewolf or not, they would have torn out your throat and would never have thought twice about it."
"That doesn't make what Juvia did right."
The boy paused. "No," he agreed after a moment's hesitation. "No, it doesn't. But you shouldn't lose sleep over it."
She didn't respond, her focus going back to the paper clutched in her hands. Names. They had names now. She wasn't sure whether that made things better or worse.
"What was it that you used?" he asked after another pause.
Hesitantly, she raised her head to meet his gaze, unflinching and direct. "A spell she learned on Inis Stoirm. It was supposed to remove her emotions to stop them from summoning storms." Her voice dropped, the next part hardly more than a whisper. "She didn't know what it would do when the spell ended. She didn't know."
"Hrmmm," was all the boy responded with. He was silent for a few minutes more, Juvia not sure if he was processing or just not sure what else to say. Eventually, however, he added, "I didn't say this before. Seemed a bad time to say it the night of. But, thank you, Lockser. For saving me and Fullbuster."
"Is that why you're being kind to Juvia?"
"I wasn't aware that I was."
"You don't like Juvia."
"Don't flatter yourself - you're not special. I don't like anyone. My only issue with you is that I didn't think you were good enough to belong here."
"And you think she's good enough now that she's killed two people?" The incredulous question was slightly louder than she had meant, and she winced, eyes flicking over to the tapestry - half-expecting it to be drawn back any moment.
"Shhhh, keep it down. Noisy enough out there, but no sense in daring someone to overhear." The boy sighed. "Right now, I think the best place for you is here. If only to make sure you don't hurt yourself or someone else. When I thought you were just a bad witch, sending you back to your island made sense. You could make potions with the St. Brigid's abbess and keep to yourself. But you're not. A stupid witch, maybe, for using spells you had no business using, but you've got talent. You need to be here to learn how to use it without hurting others around you. Basically, you're the Slytherin answer to Dragneel - congratulations," he said with a smirk. Forgetting fear for a moment, she glared at the boy. "Tch, prove me wrong. And besides, that actually was a pretty impressive stunning spell. Another year and you probably would have knocked it out cold. Not like Fullbuster and I were of any use during all of that."
"And all that's enough to excuse what Juvia did?"
"You made a mistake."
"A mistake that killed two people."
"I made a mistake that nearly killed you, me and Fullbuster. It was only because of your mistake that mine didn't kill any of us. I think I'm worse between the two of us," he said, leaning back against the window. "At least you were able to do something useful. You were able to knock out the werewolves. You were able to get us the hell out of the forest. Even if the werewolves hadn't been out there, Fullbuster and I probably would have frozen to death wandering lost around that damn forest all night. Some damn Dreyar I'm turning out to be." The scowl that settled on his face was dark and savage but not meant for her, she knew. She didn't say anything - Dreyar didn't seem the type that appreciated being consoled, not that she was sure what to say to reassure him anyways. She just waited for him to get over his bout of self-loathing which he eventually did. The scowl fading, he turned back to her. "What happened to the spell you were using last year that my grandfather taught you?"
"It stopped working at the start of term," she replied, fiddling with her latest teru teru bozu.
"You should talk to my grandfather. He can help. He's an idiot at times, but he'll be able to help somehow."
"You're not going to tell him what happened?"
"Are you going to use that spell again?"
"No," she replied without the slightest hesitation.
"Then I see no reason to tell him or anyone else. Have you told Redfox yet?"
"No," she admitted quietly.
"You planning on telling him?"
"No. She doesn't want him to worry."
"Hrmmm," was all he said in response.
They lapsed back into silence a while longer, Juvia returning back to the newspaper. After a long pause, Dreyar said, "I told Ever to be kinder to you." The panic in Juvia's face must have been obvious as the paper fell from her hands and her focus whipped back to Dreyar. Dreyar held up his hands to try to calm her. "I didn't tell her why. I just told her to lay off. I know the girls - well, pretty much everyone - hasn't been on easy on you."
"Oakthorn's okay," she responded quietly. "She mostly just leaves Juvia alone."
"Well, if she does give you any grief, let me know. Oh, and I nearly forgot." The boy fished out something from his robe and handed over a bunch of rather smashed white flowers. "Got these from a glade before the werewolves found us. Didn't want to give them to Precht in case he thought too long about where we found them. Thought you might be able to do something with them instead."
She examined the flowers in her hand critically and nodded. "Juvia can process them into reagents for the abbey."
"Good. I should get back to the others. You going to be okay until Redfox gets out?" She nodded. "Okay. See you around, Lockser." With a short wave, he disappeared behind the tapestry and left her alone in her little tapestry-shielded alcove.
Juvia returned to the newspaper in her lap - committing the names and faces to memory while her heart twisted itself into knots, Dreyar's attempts at comforting her falling short. Mistake or not, she was a monster. A murderer. She wasn't any better than the faces that scowled back at her from the page in her hands, no matter what Dreyar said. When she was sure she'd never forget either their names or faces, she set the paper to the side and returned to her teru teru bozu.
It was all silent once more. She heard nothing. Not the sea. Not the tearing of rotted bark. Not even the beat of her own heart.
She crawled out of the dying hollow. Out onto the blackened earth.
They were laying there.
Their eyes. Black. Open.
Gray and Gajeel.
Their forms twisted. Staring up into the gray sky.
Dead.
Nothing. She heard nothing. Not even her own screams.
But she felt something.
A hand on her shoulder.
Shaking.
Sound returned.
"Lockser!" a voice hissed.
Dead. All dead. She killed them.
"Lockser, wake up!"
She opened her eyes, lookup up at the bespectacled face of Evergreen Oakthorn. One of the other girl's hand was over Juvia's mouth. The other was on her shoulder.
"You're okay, Lockser. It's okay."
Juvia's heart still screamed in her chest - dead, dead, dead - but she steadied her breath, her hands going to wipe the tears that were streaming down her cheek as Oakthorn removed her hand from her mouth and shoulder and sat back onto the bed.
The images of their bodies - dead, dead, dead - hit her again, and a sob hitched in her chest, emerging as a muffled whimper.
"It's okay, Loc - Juvia. It's okay." Oakthorn ran a hand over Juvia's arm. "Do you need something? Water?"
"Ju-Juvia needs Gajeel. Please," she whimpered.
The other girl frowned but nodded. "Okay. Come with me." The other Slytherin pulled her up out of the bed, taking one of Juvia's hands in hers.
The other girls were still asleep in their beds - though Juvia couldn't imagine how - as she and Oakthorn slipped out. Oakthorn led her down to the Common Room and then straight through to the stairwell that led down to the boy's dormitories. She paused before one of the dorm doors and drummed her fingers lightly against it in an odd little rhythm. A couple of minutes later, the door opened slightly, Dreyar peering out.
"Ever, what's wrong?"
"Can you get Redfox?"
Dreyar peered behind her and frowned when he caught sight of Juvia. "Yeah. Give me a second." The door closed again. They heard a slight scuffle on the other side, and the clawing at her heart eased slightly when she heard a familiar curse from beyond the door.
The door opened again and a moment later, Gajeel appeared, looking disheveled and groggy and worried. Juvia's sob made it past her lips this time as she flew at Gajeel, her arms wrapped around his waist and face pressed against his chest, a fresh batch of tears streaming down her cheeks. "Shit! The hell happened?" he asked Oakthorn, probably assessing - rather correctly - that he wasn't going to be able to get much out of Juvia at that moment. He patted the girl's head awkwardly which oddly helped Juvia begin to calm, the shaking of her body steadying.
"She had a nightmare of some sort," Oakthorn replied.
Gajeel frowned. "I'll talk her down to the Common Room. Thanks, Oakthorn."
The brunette nodded and then headed back up the stairs that led back to the Common Room. After loosening Juvia's death grip, Gajeel led her back up the same flight. He led them back to their usual spot, pulling back the tapestry and waiting for her to climb onto the window seat before following and taking a seat beside her. Juvia pulled knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and laying her head down on them. She said nothing at first, eyes tightly shut as she tried to block out the remnants of the nightmare. Not that it worked. The lake sang, and every wretched moment came back to her. A soft sob escaped.
Gajeel, for once, wasn't content to stay silent. "Alright, talk. It's God knows when in the mornin', and we've gotta Transfiguration exam t' fail in a few hours. What's goin' on?" She worried at her lower lip. "Out with it, Raindrop. It has to do with the Forest, doesn't it? Been snowin' ever since we got outta there, and ya ain't been sleepin' the past few days either. What happened?"
She raised her head from her knees and turned to him slowly, his expression a mixture of concern, residual grogginess and the ever present undercurrent of irritation that made up his natural expression.
Would he hate her?
She was a murderer. Just like his parents. Would he see her like he saw them?
The thought of losing the only person that really cared about her terrified her and rendered her mute.
Gajeel seemed to read something of the fear in his face. His expression softened. "Whatever it is, ya can tell me, Juvia. Ya trust me, yeah?" She nodded quickly. "Come on, then."
Gathering her courage, she told him. Everything. Well, almost everything. She told him about Tristan. About the spell. About the werewolves. But she didn't tell him about the amulet and the part it played. He would have taken the amulet from her. He would have taken it to keep her safe. And maybe he should have...
And yet...
It was all she had. The only sign that someone, somewhere had given some sort of damn about her when they abandoned her. The only sign that someone at some point had cared. She couldn't give up that one link to a family she'd never known.
Gajeel stayed silent while she spoke, and she kept her eyes on the window seat she sat on all the while, too afraid to look at him while she talked. When she finished and when he still hadn't said anything, she dared a glance and regretted it immediately. Knitted brow, red eyes narrowed on her and mouth set into a dark scowl, he seemed only a moment from erupting. She had never seen him so furious. When he fought, he was always more amused than upset. When he argued, he was always irritated but not angry. Nothing ever mattered enough to warrant more than that. But now, he looked as though he'd happily tear off the head of the next person he saw, and at the moment, she was the only one there. "Ya damn idiot! What the hell where ya thinkin'? Ya coulda been killed! Do ya know who many wizards blow themselves up messin' with shit they don't understand? And why the hell did ya hide it from me?"
"Juvia didn't want you to worry."
"Well, good fuckin' job, cause I look real relaxed right now, don't I?" Flinching, she buried her face back into her knees and hugged them tighter to her chest. "Some random ass shows up and teaches you a spell and ya just trust him? I thought ya were fuckin' smarter than that! Ya know what sorta people are out there!"
"He was kind to Juvia," she said softly, the words slightly muffled by her position.
Gajeel didn't respond immediately, the only sound the grandfather clock in the Common Room announcing the hour. It chimed out its melody and then struck two before leaving the Common Room in silence once again. Eventually, she heard Gajeel take a deep breath in before exhaling loudly. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. Controlled. Almost kind. "Raindrop, I know ya ain't got much experience with people bein' nice, but when people are nice, it's usually cause they want somethin' from ya."
After a pause, she said, "He seemed sincere."
"Yeah, well, yer judgment sucks or ya wouldn't have started talkin' t' me. And ya don't know who he was?"
"He said to call him Tristan," she replied, finally daring to look back at Gajeel. The anger had dissipated, leaving behind the worry, tinged with exhaustion. "But he said that wasn't his real name."
Gajeel let out a mirthless laugh. "And that didn't raise any red flags?"
"Well, he could have just as easily told Juvia his name was Tristan. It's not like she would have known the difference."
Another sigh and he leaned back against the glass, arms crossed over his chest. "And just you, Dreyar and Fullbuster know?" She nodded. "And yer sure Dreyar ain't told anyone?"
"She doesn't think so. He seems... understanding of what happened."
Gajeel grunted in response. "And what about Fullbuster?"
"She hasn't spoken to him, but if he had told anyone, she thinks she would have heard by now."
He nodded. "Okay. Good. We keep this quiet."
"You - you don't think she should tell the Headmaster? Or maybe Professor Precht?"
He scoffed. "Hell no! Don't know what they'd do, exactly but whatever it is, ya don't deserve it."
"She killed two people."
"Two murderin' assholes. They were on their way t' Azkaban. The dementors woulda gotten t' them soon enough, anyways. If they're the only ones endin' up dead here, good enough."
A shiver crawled up her spine, a confession she didn't want to say on her lips. "Juvia could have killed everyone here," she finally admitted, head bowed. "The day you fought with Dreyar. Juvia nearly..." Another shiver. Her arms tightened around her knees. "The same thing that happened in the forest nearly happened in the Common Room. She nearly killed everyone here. She nearly..." The nightmare flashed through her mind, and a sob emerged as a whimper. "She nearly killed you."
Gajeel's expression didn't alter. No shock. No surprise. No disgust. He merely set a hand on her shoulder. "But ya didn't. I'm okay. I'm right here. Ya didn't hurt me, and ya won't. Ya gonna t' use that spell again?" As she had when Dreyar had asked, she shook her head vigorously. "Then I'm gonna be fine. So's everyone else. Don't worry, Raindrop. It's gonna be okay."
She didn't respond at first, getting little comfort from Gajeel's words. "What if they're all right?" she asked finally, voicing a thought that she was terrified of. "What if Juvia really is the next Zeref?"
Gajeel's expression went pensive, studying her for a long while before answering. "I never met the last Zeref, but I've known plenty of his zealots. I know what they were like. The kinda people they were. Ya'd never be like them. Yer sitting here cause ya can't sleep. And ya can't sleep cause ya accidentally killed two assholes that tried t' kill ya first. People with that kinda guilt make bad villains."
"What if being a Zeref is just something you can't control? Something you just are?" she asked, trembling.
A piereced eyebrow arched. "Like bein' a Redfox?"
"No," she replied quickly. "You're not like your family. You're nothing like them."
"Cause I choose not t' be. And like ya choose not t' be. No one's gonna make us somethin' we're not. Ya fucked up. Not anythin' ya can do t' change that. But ya aren't gonna fuck up again. I ain't gonna let ya," he said, Juvia giving him a weak smile. "And yer not gonna let me fuck up either. Deal?"
"Deal." She scooted over next to him and rested her head onto his shoulder. The boy set his hand on her head.
"It's gonna be okay, Raindrop. We're gonna be okay."