Juvia Lockser was sitting in her history classroom in Magnolia, Fiore. Her head was lying on her arms and she was fighting to stay awake while her teacher Mr. Porla droned on and on about the origins of the country.
Suddenly, her eyes were drawn to just outside the classroom window. As her brain finally understood what she was looking at, Juvia flung her head up. Outside in the snow, there was a shirtless boy waving a sword around while weird looking pigeons dive bombed all around him. She could tell he was talking, or more likely shouting, while he was attacking the strange birds.
Juvia shook her head back and forth, trying to regain her senses. The images, however, just wouldn't transform into a normal scene. She raised her hand slowly.
"Yes, Miss Lockser?" Mr. Porla questioned.
Juvia didn't quite realize that he had spoken yet. One of her classmates elbowed her, and she cleared her throat to the sound of titters and jeers.
"Um… Mr. Porla, may I go to the restroom?" she asked quietly.
He sighed. "Yes, Miss Lockser."
Juvia scrambled out of her seat while her classmates laughed again. She ignored them and continued on into the hallway. Instead of going in the direction of the bathroom, however, she ran through the halls and out the door of the school.
While she ran, she thought about her classmates and how mean they were to her all the time. To them, Juvia is just the gloomy rain girl, who gets along better with fish than with real people. It wasn't her fault that she loved fish or that it always seemed to rain when she was upset or sad. It wasn't her fault she was an orphan who has never had a real friend or any family. She sighed and shook her head to clear it. She had to help the strange boy.
When she got closer to where she thought he would be, she could hear shouting. She strained her ears to try and catch what he was saying, but it sounded like it was in a completely different language.
How odd, she thought. I wonder if he is from another country or something.
Juvia finally caught another glimpse of the boy. He was very cute in a scruffy way, she thought offhandedly. Spiky black hair covered his head, not quite covering up a thin scar on his forehead over his eyes. Eyes that were a deep, dark blue, almost grey looking framed by long lashes. His mouth, when he wasn't shouting, was set into a thin line, and his brows were furrowed.
Not that that was a surprise, she thought to herself. He must be concentrating very hard.
The most notable feature, though, was his set of abs. The muscles were very defined, cut into clear eighths. Juvia had to try very hard to pull her eyes up to his face. Once she did, however, she saw that the boy had gotten a cut on his cheek. Seeing the blood spurred her into action.
She stopped to pick up a frozen rock from the ground and jumped in front of the boy before the birds could do him any more harm. From behind her, she could hear him make out a strangled "Gahhh!"
She didn't stop though. She swung her rock at the birds and screamed at them. The boy pulled Juvia back behind him before they could dive at her.
"Stay behind me," he grunted, then swung upwards with his sword. There was a metallic shinnnk, and the birds were gone, leaving only a yellow powder that blew away on the wind.
Juvia stared at the place where the birds' bodies should have been. "Where… where are the birds?"
The boy turned to stare at her incredulously. "Where are… By the gods, girl, what do you think you were doing? I had that under control and then you just came out of nowhere, with a rock. What were you thinking?"
Juvia glared at him. "I saw you outside the window, fighting for your life. I just wanted to help you! You could act a little grateful that someone was willing to help!"
"About that. How did you even see the Stymphalian birds? Are you a demigod, too?"
Juvia looked at him blankly. "A what?"
"How old are you?"
"Excuse me?!"
The boy rolled his eyes. "Girls. I am only asking because you seem a bit old to have not been claimed yet. How old are you?"
"I am seventeen. You never answered my question by the way. Where did the birds go?"
The boy glanced back at her. "Oh, yeah. They were monsters. Stymphalian birds. They were dispelled back to Tartarus. That is where monsters go when they die. "
Juvia laughed. She had no idea what this boy was talking about, but it made so much sense to her. She wasn't crazy after all. In all her life, whenever something strange happened, like the weird one eyed man who followed her when she was 8 that suddenly vanished when she hit him with a shovel, or the time she saw a lady on the street with two snake legs, the adults in her life told her she must have been imagining things. Nobody ever believed her when she said that the man only had one eye, or the lady had two snakes where her feet should be. Juvia could hardly believe herself. But now, this strange, handsome boy could see the weird things, too.
The boy glanced around the two of them nervously. "Come on. You need to come with me."
Juvia stopped laughing. "I don't even know your name. Why should I go anywhere with you?"
He smirked at her, which looked so handsome on him that it made her stomach do a little dance. "Gray. Gray Fullbuster. Now come on. I need to bring you somewhere safe. We definitely don't need another monster to find us."
Juvia hesitated, but she reached out to grab Gray's outstretched hand. "Okay."
He smiled a full blown smile and started running, pulling her along behind him. Juvia smiled too, as she ran with Gray to start her new life.
