It may be raining, but there's a rainbow above you.

- Eagles, "Desperado"

3

With an ear-to-ear grin, Erza said, "I can't get the taste out of my mouth."

Gray shook his head. "Hopeless."

"So creamy and dreamy…"

"Hope. Less."

Luca groaned from up ahead. "The way you flirt with her is so disgusting."

Gray shook his head and thanked his lucky stars that Erza was too starstruck to care. Ever since she'd tasted the strawberry cake, she'd been walking on clouds. Not even breakfast had cleansed her mouth of the aftertaste. Only now, on their way to the aboriginal reservation, was the high slowly coming off.

"So soft," Erza muttered happily to herself, hand on cheek. "Like woven air…"

"Get your head outta the clouds. We're almost there."

Ateh was a coastal town. The winter was always busy because it was hunting season. Whaling expeditions lasted weeks on end. Luca had been badgering him for months to be allowed to go on one. Gray paid him no mind. Soon, perhaps, but not yet.

People on the street greeted him warmly, but he didn't stop to exchange pleasantries for too long. Time was essential to these people. With the hunters away, everyone else needed to work a little harder to keep everything going.

Emilie was home. She was almost eighty, so she didn't leave much. She tended to her house, played with her grandchildren, and worked. Her oldest grandson had decided to become her apprentice, continuing the family business. Though busy, she always entertained guests – Gray especially – to the best of her ability and after being told of the polar expedition, she was more than willing to make the order a priority. It would be a little heavier on the wallet, but Gray was sure the royal treasury could handle it.

"My mirror broke last month," Emilie told Gray in Isvali while making tea for them. "Imagine it! A seamstress without a mirror! Oh, it was bad. My grandson ordered one, but it took three weeks to get here." She sighed and shook her head. "It was supposed to take five days."

"Weather problems?" he asked, leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb. When she nodded, Gray frowned. "You could've asked me. I make trips to town pretty often, you know. Luca would've done it, too."

The old woman chuckled. "I know, Gray. I appreciate it. But there are people who are paid to deliver these things. It's their duty to honour their commitment." She poured tea into the kettle and placed it, along with two sets of cups and saucers, on a tray. "How does she like her tea? Should I let her do it herself?"

Gray smiled. Even at her advanced age, Emilie was still the most professional person he'd ever come across.

"Here, let me," he said and took the tray from her. "Yeah, Erza'll do it herself. She drinks too much of this stuff to not do it herself, honestly."

"Oh!" Emilie smiled. "I like her."

"Of course you do."

It was hard work, interpreting in real time. Erza didn't speak Isvali, while Emilie didn't speak Fiorian. The two women got along, too, so Gray had to translate back and forth all day. He didn't mind, but it was embarrassing. Especially when Emilie was measuring Erza's sizes.

"Ask her if she has a tight-fitting spandex suit in her requip inventory," Emilie said. "If not, I'll bring her one."

Gray squinted at her. "Why?"

"It'll make for more accurate measurements."

Oh no. "Is that… necessary?"

"Yes. Now ask her."

With a trepidatious heart, Gray conveyed Emilie's instructions to Erza, who nodded.

"I kept the suit from my encounter with the Jiggle Butt Gang."

Gray had been uninvolved with that particular incident, but he knew very well the potency of that suit. He rubbed his face, hoping that it would steel his heart for the coming ordeal, and turned to Luca for some moral support.

The boy smiled impishly and said, "R. I. P."

I hate this kid.

After they finished their tea, Emilie led Erza – and Gray – to a room with a large mirror on one wall. She took a tape measure off a hook and motioned for Erza to stand facing the mirror.

"Tell her to requip into the spandex," said the seamstress. "It's time to get started."

Erza changed immediately, and the sight made Gray groan. Oh, I am so gonna die.

Little did he know that it was only the beginning.

"Your bust level and circumference measurement will change with and without a bra on, so if you plan on wearing a bra with your finished garment, you have to decide now," Emilie said while she pulled the tape around the fullest point of Erza's bust.

Gray covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"Gray?" Erza turned back over her shoulder, brows raised. "Could you translate that for me?"

Why? Why is my life like this?

After suffering through watching Erza get her waist, hips, front and back, shoulders and arms measured in a tight-fitting spandex suit, Gray sighed in relief when they moved over to discuss the sizes of the rest of the crew. While he came away with Lucy, Wendy and Natsu's sizes memorised, at least there wasn't visual aid where they were concerned.

As he sat heavily in one of the armchairs in Emilie's living room, tired and defeated, Luca leaned in and asked, "Good show?"

"Go away. Leave me alone."

"Hey, you volunteered. Suffer the consequences."

Smug little bastard. Sometimes, Gray wanted to dunk him in the ocean. Wash away his sins. Now, it felt like dunking him wouldn't be enough.

"I'm gonna drown you, ya little shit."

Luca laughed it off. Gray dropped his face into his palm.

Things like this weren't good for his heart. The past couple of days had been rather volatile, the rises and falls extreme. It always happened whenever she was around. Always. But there wasn't anything he wanted to do about it.

"You really should tell her, Gray," Luca said seriously and Gray turned towards him. "Real talk. I hate seeing you like this. What're you so afraid of? You've been friends forever. You think if you tell her how you feel, she's never going to talk to you again?"

Gray shook his head. "It's not that."

"Then what? What's stopping you? You won't see her for God knows how long. You really wanna send her off without telling her?"

"Look, it's complicated, okay?" Gray sighed. "Never mind. This isn't the time."

Luca threw up his hands and leant back into his chair. "It's never the time."

Gray didn't bother to reply. The kid had his heart in the right place, but things were always simpler when one was young. Complications and problems accrued over age. He had enough of those to build a castle with.

"We're all done," Emilie announced upon walking into the living room. "It will be a bit challenging, making parkas for the rest without physically meeting them, but I'm confident I can do it." She smiled at Gray. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"Don't be," Luca butted in, grinning. "He loved every second of it."

Gray turned towards the boy and flipped his palm. "Why are you like this?"

"Well, why aren't you like this?"

Erza returned to her seat, thankfully dressed in her usual clothes, and tilted her head. "What were you talking about?"

With a sigh, Gray waved it off. "Never mind. We're done, so might as well get going."

"You will have lunch before you go, won't you?" Emilie asked as soon as Gray finished. "You're giving me a good contract, and it's rare I see you."

"Sure we will!" Luca punched the air. "Man, I've missed eating here!" He looked at Gray. "We're eating, right?"

Gray turned to Erza. "You wanna stay for lunch?"

"Hmm. I would not want to impose. I'm sure she has much to do."

"You needn't worry about that," Emilie told Gray after he translated. "I like having guests over. It would be my honour to host a prominent explorer." She nodded. "We respect that in our culture. It's a brave thing you're doing, and I want to wish you all the best. What better way to do so than with food?"

Erza smiled at that and bowed her head. "Then I gratefully accept your offer of hospitality."

"Their food can be weird," Gray told Erza with a shrug. "Just sayin'."

"Oh, Gray, you know me well enough to know that if it moves or is green, I shall eat it."

"Yes. You're hopeless. I know."

"Just efficient. You seldom get the chance to pick and choose what to eat."

"Yeah, yeah."

For lunch, Emilie rolled out a thick carpet on her front porch and asked them to sit. It was absolutely dark outside, so she brought out a couple of lanterns as well.

"Have you ever been somewhere that doesn't have six months of night?" Erza asked Emilie as they brought out plates and cutlery. "Have you had this all your life?"

The old woman chuckled. "Indeed. It might seem strange to you, who have the sun all year round. I'm sure it is. I've had others tell me the same. They say it's too gloomy."

"It can be," Erza replied after some thought. "I feel down sometimes, surrounded by the darkness." She sat silently while Emilie served them the food. "It's cold and dark. It can be… constricting."

Gray shot her a sideways glance but didn't say anything.

"I understand what you mean." Emilie nodded and sat down with them. "That sentiment isn't alien among our people, either."

"No?"

"Mmm." She jerked her chin at the food, silently asking them to start eating. "Many would tell you that the dark brings depression with it. We call the polar night pelerorneg. It means 'the burden'." She chuckled. "But I don't find it depressing. It's a magical time, the polar night. The light of the moon and stars is not only reflected, but magnified by the snow and ice. I think it's beautiful."

Humming, Erza looked down at her plate. Gray saw her eyes narrow. There it is. Then she looked at him.

"Gray."

"Hmm."

"There's a bird on my plate."

"Yeah."

"With… feathers."

"Mhmm."

"A dead bird. With feathers. On my plate."

"Correct."

"What… do I do?"

"You eat it."

Erza looked down at the bird, then at him, then at the bird, and up at him again.

"How?"

"Gray, help her," Emilie said, smiling, and Gray sighed. He picked up the cooked corpse of the bird.

"This is a dovekie," he explained and Erza leaned in closer. "It's common here. A delicacy. They eat thousands of these things. They cook them unplucked in boiling water with seal blubber. What you do is, you peel it." He broke off the wings and pinched the skin on the back of the bird's neck. "Like a sock."

With a single motion, he peeled off the skin gently, eliciting an impressed hum from Erza.

"Eat everything except the beak and bones," he told her as he handed it back. "Told ya their food was weird."

"They're so cute," Luca told Emilie in Isvali and the woman chuckled. Gray ignored them.

Erza held the bird tenderly in her hands before taking a careful bite out of it. She hummed, chewing slowly with her eyes closed. Upon swallowing, she sighed and announced, "Delicious."

Emilie grinned. "Eat all you want."

"I shall!"

After a hearty lunch – in which Erza had nineteen dovekies – Gray suggested that they leave before the last bus left. Buses often got cancelled on account of bad weather. Emilie reassured him that there were still three more buses.

"Go for a walk by the shore," she said with a smile. "The next bus doesn't leave for half an hour."

It wasn't a bad idea, so Gray did just that. Though not snowing, it was windy. Especially near the quays, exposed to the pounding sea, it was pretty ferocious. It threatened to pick Gray up and carry him forward several feet. Only the toetips of his boots maintained contact with the ground.

"Hey, Auntie Erza," Luca called out with a mischievous smirk. "Watch this!"

So saying, the boy held out his arms, and, propelled entirely by the wind, sailed along the on the flats of his feet.

"Be careful!" Erza called after him, but Gray shook his head.

"Don't bother," he said in her ear. "He won't be able to hear you in this breeze."

She turned to face him and cocked an eyebrow. "A breeze? This?"

Gray shrugged. "Compared to what you'll experience, yeah."

"Right."

She had her arm looped through his – a precaution lest the wind blow either of them off their feet. Gray didn't mind the closeness that afforded. Neither did he mind having to shout in her ear to beat the wind. But that close, he could feel every shift in her mood. Erza had no way of hiding it. Not from him. Not after almost twenty years of knowing each other.

"You seem down," he began, though he kept his eyes fixed on Luca and his windsurfing.

Erza nodded. "My train leaves tomorrow afternoon. It's so nice here that I forgot about the expedition for a bit."

"Mmm. You like the town?"

"Mhmm. When you mentioned it, I thought it'd be a small village – a few houses around a small bay. Maybe a chapel. A general store. A bar, if lucky." She looked around at the golden lights strung along at intervals down the street, down the houses flanking them on the right. "But this feels like a little golden oasis in the eternal night."

Gray replied with a hum. Wave after wave crashed to his left. Far enough away that the spray didn't reach him. But there was no reprieve from the haunting sound of them breaking against the rocks in the distance.

"When Deliora arrived," he began, "it just smashed through here. Decimated this place."

He felt her body get a little tense. She leaned in to listen better.

Gray went on: "Being a fishing town, they evacuated by boat. As they escaped, they saw their houses being burnt to the ground. They'd escaped with whatever belongings they could get their hands on, but now they just chucked it overboard. House keys, things like that. Wouldn't be needing them anymore, they thought."

Erza rubbed his arm slowly, saying nothing. Gray felt his shoulders relax. He hadn't realised that they'd gotten stiff.

"Anyway." He sighed. "After Deliora was dealt with, the people returned to find nothing but the chapel still standing. With their bare hands and almost nothing else, they rebuilt their town. One house at a time." He glanced at the sea. "It may not have been much. It may have been on the edge of nowhere, but it was theirs and they loved it, and I don't think I've ever admired any group of people as much."

"Oh, Gray," he heard her breathe and turned back to face her, stopping in his tracks.

"It may not be much," he told her, voice wavering, and took her hand in his. "But you're my… my best friend," he glanced down at his feet, "and I love you, and I just want you to come back safely, okay? For my sake."

It was a selfish request. Borderline narcissistic. But it was the truth. Modified, but still true. It was the best he could do.

Upon feeling a gloved hand on his cheek, he looked up, only to be greeted by the light brown eyes he held so dear. They were glimmering with some emotion he still couldn't quite place. He didn't want to, either.

Sometimes, words didn't cut it anymore. He knew that. Erza did, too, for she leaned in and gently touched her lips to his cheek before wrapping her arms around his neck.

"I'm so glad," she whispered in his ear. Even over the wind, he could hear her clearly. "So glad that you care for me as much as you do, Gray. So glad and so, so grateful." Gray put his arms around her waist and pulled her snugly into his chest, making her sigh. "It means so much to me. Knowing that you care, that you worry, it makes me feel so… so happy that my chest hurts a little."

Gray rubbed her back and just held her. There wasn't anything more he could say without betraying the real, ugly intentions he had for his concern. He closed his eyes.

"But please don't worry yourself sick," she told him and pulled away, smiling. She didn't stray far, her palms flat on his chest. "I won't be around to make sure you're eating properly."

Banter was nice. Banter was good. He could do banter. Gray had a retort about ready to go, but a sudden burst of wind sent Erza back into his chest and he held her steady. He was about to ask her if she was okay – it was reflex – but a loud crack caught both of their attention.

"Ow," said Luca, rubbing the back of his head as he rose to his feet. "Wind swept my legs out from under me, heh." Then he spotted Gray holding Erza in his arms. "I'm okay! I'm okay! Nothing serious, haha. Keep hugging!"

Sighing, Gray released Erza. The moment was gone, and the dumb boy probably had a concussion.

"This is why I keep telling you to not do this," he told Luca as Erza summoned a first-aid kit.

The boy shrugged. "Hey, you taught me how."

Erza looked at him sharply. "Gray!"

Snitch. Gray sighed again. "Is it serious?"

"No," Erza replied as she put the first-aid kit away after checking on Luca. "Might get a bump in his head, though."

"I like bumps," Luca said.

Gray pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We're going home," he said. "You'll get a matching bump on your head if I even hear you windsurfing on the way back to the bus stop."

Erza nodded. "I second this."

Luca complained, but Gray made him walk – like normal people – in front of them. Erza smiled to herself as she walked beside him, but Gray kept his hands firmly inside his pockets this time.

The journey back was uneventful. It snowed a little on the way, but not nearly enough to stop transport. Gray decided to have dinner at the inn to save the hassle. Luca, understandably, had no complaints. Neither did Erza.

Heidi was concerned at first upon seeing the bump on Luca's head, but that soon turned to displeasure upon learning how he'd sustained that injury.

"I won't let you kiss me until it heals up," she huffed and went away after taking their order.

"But that'll take days!"

"Serves you right!"

Gray shook his head. Erza covered her mouth and laughed.

"Well, that's just unfair," Luca said glumly and sank into his chair.

Erza patted his shoulder. "You love her?"

"Yeah."

Gray sighed. The L-word was thrown around way too lightly for his liking.

"Then you know she loves you too, right?" Erza went on. Luca nodded. "She would not like seeing you hurt or injured. You go places and do things where she is unable to follow or be of any help. She has to stay here and worry and wait. Think how it makes her feel if you get hurt while being reckless. Had I been in her place, I would have been much sterner."

Gray hummed. "Ditto."

Luca sighed. "I get it." He got up and started walking towards the kitchen.

Erza watched him go and turned to Gray. "Where is he going?"

"To apologise."

"Ahh." Erza nodded. "Good."

"This happens about twice a month. She deserves better."

Erza sighed. "Boys."

"You'll get no arguments from me."

After dinner, during which Luca announced that Heidi had let him kiss her, Gray led them back up the hill to the cabin. It wasn't all that late, but the day's exertions would take a toll. Besides, Erza had a long journey to Fiore the next day. He wanted her to sleep early.

It seemed to him like her stay had gone by in a flash. Hadn't it been only five minutes ago that he'd been preparing for her arrival, running around like a headless chicken? And in a few hours, he would send her off to the South Pole.

What even is time?

"Gray."

Admittedly, he would've liked it had she stayed longer. Maybe a full week. She worked so hard, she deserved it. But Erza really wasn't the kind of person to take a step back and relax when people needed her. He hated it sometimes.

"Gray?"

The world did need Titania. He knew that. And he wouldn't want to come in the way of that – not that he ever could. He was well aware of how Erza worked. Nothing came between her and the mission. There was no way she would prioritise vacation time. Not for the world. Three days at a time was all he got, and he was fine with it.

"Gray!"

"Hmm?" He looked up. "What? What is it?"

Erza, smiling, pointed skywards. When he followed it, Gray had to smile himself.

In an empty piece of sky above the mountain there appeared a translucent cloud of many colours – pinks and greens and blues and pale purples. It glimmered and swirled as it slowly stretched across the sky.

The aurora hung in the air like a luminous drape of glittering faerie light. In the depthless blackness of the countryside, far from any kind of artificial light, it seemed like the heavens had opened up and come to touch the sleeping people in their houses, rewarding them for their hard work.

It lasted for only a few minutes, but Gray stood transfixed nonetheless. After it was gone, he looked at Erza, who was still smiling up at the sky.

Sometimes, he thought, beauty doesn't have to be everlasting. Even if it's transient, it lights up your life completely. You're unable to look at anything else. And when it's gone, you feel blessed for getting a taste, however small. I get that every time you're here. Thank you. I forgot that.

When she noticed him looking at her, Erza raised her eyebrows curiously. Gray smiled and shook his head.

"C'mon," he said and resumed trudging up the hill. "We should get some rest. Long day tomorrow."