I ended up hating the first version of this so I completely rewrote lol. These two have always struck me as an interesting possibility.

Hope you enjoy.

Propping her head up on her palm and leaning her elbow against the table, Cana contemplated the young man sitting in front of her. His pink hair was as ridiculous as ever, debatably having never seen a brush in its owner's entire life. Cana would know – she'd been there for a good portion of it. And somehow she doubted that a dragon understood much about human hygiene rituals to begin with.

Her friend wiggled and squirmed in his seat. His dark eyes, bright with curiosity, were glued to the array of brightly colored cards spread out between them. "Well?!" he prompted, unable to take the suspense anymore. "What does it say about finding Igneel?!"

Cana sighed heavily. "Natsu, you have a one-track mind. This is supposed to be a general reading of your future, remember?" Also the cards hadn't even been turned over yet. So there wasn't much to say as of yet about the results.

Looking up at her, his face scrunched up in confusion. "I'm not sure what you mean. I haven't found Igneel yet. So it's still in my future, ergo it should be in my future reading."

"The cards aren't quite that specific, Natsu. And even if they were, we've both seen how they are about Igneel – they never give clear answers as to where he is." But it was pointless to try to talk him out of notion he'd gotten lodged in his skull that they could. As had been proven time and time again whenever it occurred to him that the answer fate had for him might have changed. Which generally happened after every failed attempt to locate the missing dragon. Cana would come into the guild and find Natsu waiting for her with a hope on his face that was honestly painful to witness. And it hurt to see that hope wither and die right in front of her every single time, and to know that it was in large part because of her words.

This time she'd managed to steer him towards a general reading instead… or so she'd thought. "Natsu, so help me if you were thinking of Igneel instead of the future in general…" He should know better. What with how many times they'd already gone through this, he had better. That only ever muddied the results even further.

To his credit, Natsu was bad at hiding his emotions and disliked dishonesty even if he did have the attention span of a flea. He flushed in embarrassment, down to the roots of his equally hued locks. "...Maybe," Natsu conceded reluctantly. "I was thinking of my immediate future and then I thought it would be nice if our reunion could happen soon… like if the one rumor about Hargeon panned out…"

Cana made a disgusted face at him. "Dammit Natsu." Then she sighed again. One track mind indeed.

The fire mage grumbled unhappily to himself, and then went quiet for a long moment. He looked down at the cards, not yet turned over.

"…Natsu…?" Cana questioned, discomfited by the uncharacteristic behavior from him. Even at his most dejected, Natsu tended to bounce back quickly. The sole exception to that being… Lisanna. Maybe all the failure was finally getting to him. It broke her heart to think of that.

"Is it weird?" he finally asked her, meeting her gaze. "To keep looking for him after all this time?"

Revulsion swelled inside of Cana's chest. This wasn't like Natsu at all. The Natsu she knew was brimming over with confidence that far outstripped anything he'd actually managed to accomplish. It was unnatural for that well to run dry, for Natsu to falter. Especially on this topic. Ever since they were kids, he'd brimmed over with assurance that he and Igneel were going to be reunited just so long as he kept looking. But then again… it wasn't like Cana didn't have some experience in this department herself.

"…Nah, it's not weird," she told him. "He's your dad, right? Makes sense to me that..." She swallowed hard. "That you'd wanna see him again. Makes perfect sense."

After all, hadn't she done the exact same thing herself? And she couldn't exactly claim full success at it, either. Sure, she'd tracked her own father down. But she lacked the same, easy self-resoluteness that Natsu exuded from every pore. If she'd even possessed a fraction of what Natsu had… then maybe her life would have turned out much differently.

Funny. It almost felt like… envy.

Her answer seemed to perk him up. "You really think so?"

Seeing the hopeful look return to his face, Cana felt something inside of her chest loosen. "Yeah. I really do." Then she cleared her throat, and broke eye contact with him, looking down at her cards. "Well, let's see the results…" Even if they were probably duds. Again.

To her surprise, the forecasted cards were anything but what she expected. "Huh," she said under breath, slightly dumbfounded. This was new.

"What?!" Natsu leaned forward, practically on top of the cards now in his eagerness. "What do they say?!"

Lifting her hand Cana gently pressed it against Natsu's chest and forced him back into his seat. "Calm down. It doesn't say anything about Igneel." That she could tell, anyway.

Natsu deflated a little, but his enthusiasm had returned all the same. "So what does it say, then?"

"Great change in your near future," Cana informed him, tapped the Death card. "One that's going to have long lasting consequences. Whether they're good or bad is up to you but…" Cana leaned a little closer to him, a conspiratorial grin on her face. "…But my personal intuition says that they'll be good."

"Really?!"

She gave him a wink. "Really."

Natsu stood up and in his haste bumped into the table with enough force to scatter Cana's cards. "Awesome! Thank you, Cana!" Extricating himself from the bench he'd just been sitting on, he waved over his shoulder at the card mage. "I'm off to Hargeon!"

Cana watched him leave, the barest of smiles on her face. Once again, she'd failed to help him find the one person in the world he wanted to see more than anyone else.

But this time, it didn't feel like she'd failed him. And that undeniably felt like progress.

Maybe the future really would change soon. And for the better.

And just maybe she'd even gain a little extra courage for herself.