Serendipity
The phenomenon of finding valuable things without searching for them, or perhaps looking for something else entirely.
"Tell me about how you met Mama," asked the boy as he sat on a rock with a burnt fish in hand in front of a dangerously large campfire. He bit through the fish with a grimace but didn't dare tell his father he much preferred his mother's cooking. 'At least she didn't burn the thing to ashes', he thought.
Across from the boy, a man sat and devoured a fish of his own. The man appeared to be about thirty and his face was hardened yet soft, youthfulness gracing his angular features despite the wear of a life lived to the absolute fullest. He paused his chewing for a moment and turned misty eyes into the forest. He watched the campfire cast ghostly shadows along the trees that boarded their clearing and he stared at the darkness behind them before shrugging. "It's not that interesting," he said and took another bite of his fish. He choked a little, thinking that if his wife were here, she'd probably scold him for forgetting to chew.
"I want to hear it anyway," replied the boy as he drew his knees to his chest.
Natsu sighed. "Alright. I went to some town, I forget where it was, because I was searchin' for your granddaddy Igneel."
The child's eyes widened at the name. Though he had never met Igneel or even seen a picture of him, he'd heard lots about him, and he'd never failed to tell all of the other children that his grandfather was a Dragon. Beat that.
Oh, and he had a talking, flying blue cat for an uncle. Double beat that.
"Yeah," Natsu said with a knowing smile as if he'd read his son's thoughts. "Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, turns out Igneel wasn't there. It was some chump usin' my name. He had all these girls around him because he used some mind control charm or somethin', I dunno." He shrugged his shoulders again and then paused for a moment as the scene played out in his memory. "Then, there was your mama. Even back then you couldn't pull the wool over her eyes. She snapped outta that trance like it was nothin'. She took me and Uncle Happy to eat. It was the nicest thing, ya know? I had a pretty girl take me to lunch. What more could I ask for, right?"
The boy waited for more of the story but all he heard was the sound of more chewing as his father dove back into his meal. He huffed, disappointed. "Mama tells the story a lot better than you do."
The older man's head snapped up. "Then why did ya make me tell it if ya already heard it?"
"I dunno," he answered. "I just like hearing it."
With that, the boy started eating his fish again. He had seemingly dropped the conversation and soon snuggled up in his sleeping bag. It had only been 5 minutes since his head hit the floor when Natsu observed that his breathing had slowed and deepened succumbing to sleep. Natsu laughed under his breath, happiness pulling his mouth up at the corners at the fact that his son's life was so carefree that he was able to fall asleep in an instant.
He threw the fish bones into the fire, stretched himself out a little and climbed into his own sleeping bag next to his son. Looking up at the stars, he pondered on the memory of a young Lucy. They were both growing older but in Natsu's mind, every new crease on her skin was another beauty mark. It made Natsu feel warm to think about the light indents around her mouth and eyes because to him, it meant that she'd smiled so many times that it was starting to become permanent. He loved everything about that woman, and she amazed him every single day. He recalled when she was pregnant with the twins and how she used to try to hide her growing stomach and softer body from him by burying herself in baggy fabrics. He never understood it because if there ever was a time where she looked the most beautiful, it was then.
And he recalled that day when he had stumbled upon her in Hargeon. He did indeed remember the name of the city. In fact, he remembered what Lucy was wearing, and he remembered exactly what he had ordered when they went to lunch. He just couldn't drop his big, tough and emotionally unbreakable dad act in front of his son. He didn't tell anyone about how he thanked the stars every night, or whoever had blessed him with such a life, for Lucy. How she had humbled him, made him cry with laugher, been his crutch in times of weakness. 'Truly', he thought to himself, 'How was she even real?' After Igneel left him, he'd carried around that rejection and sorrow for years and he could still remember the crushing weight of it on his shoulders. Natsu was a mighty dragon feared by his enemies, but it was as if Lucy was the hero to his own story and she had come to slay that beast of burden.
Yes, he remembered the time he had met Lucy very well.
It was a regular day for Nastu. He had gone to Hargeon in search of Igneel, just as he had travelled far and wide with the same goal in mind a million times before. Instead, as fate would have it, he found something else. It was the beginning of a love as rare as time was old. One that only existed in fairy tales.
Miles away in a dimly lit bedroom, a Lucy was tucking her daughter into bed.
"Mama tell me about how you met Papa again," asked the girl while bringing her hands up to rest behind her head.
"Well," she began. "It happened by chance, I guess. It was a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday."
And so, Lucy began to recount the story of how she and Natsu had crossed paths. She told her about how she knew their father was different from anyone else she had ever met which was a great statement given that she had met a handful of history's most prolific influencers. She told her about how he grasped her wrist and dragged her along to join Fairy Tail, a flutter touching her heart as she remembered how strange it was that a stranger's touch had made her blush. After that, she went on to tell her about some of the other members of Fairy Tail, some of whom the young girl had had already met. The tales Lucy crafted for her little one made the girl's eyes boggle with excitement, even though she had told these stories probably a hundred times before and the girl knew the endings to each of them anyway.
"Before I met your dad," Lucy said, stroking the girl's hair away, "I didn't think it was humanly possible to love that much."
"You love me too, right?" asked the girl through half shut eyelids. The girl knew the answer, she just liked to hear it. Children have a strange fascination with repetition.
"And then I had you and your brother," Lucy nodded, "and I fell in love all over again."
Content with that, her daughter smacked her lips together gently as she turned to her side and nestled deeper into her pillow. "Tell me more stories about the guild," she said.
"Of course."
Lucy lost track of time and she didn't realize that her daughter had fallen asleep while was still rambling. She smiled at the girl before tucking her in tightly. She left the room and turned off the light. Her daughter wasn't afraid of the dark, she was a brave little thing who reminded her of Natsu in more ways than one. For starters, she seemed to be born without an inkling of fear and it was probably because she had such faith that her father would protect her from anything that could ever become a threat to her.
Lucy went out to her balcony with a cup of warm tea in hand, knowing that somewhere out there her husband and her son were under these same stars. she thought about a time before Fairy Tail. Before Natsu. It was a dark and lonely time in her life which she had almost forgotten about, but she carried the emotional scars with pride as a reminder of the strength she needed to carry on with it. It was a time when to her, friendship and love like this was just as elusive as dragons and wizards and magic would be to those who did not know they exist. It was the stuff of fantasy; something she'd read about in her novels but never felt or even seen in other people. And she thought about how back then, she'd found it odd that the thought filled her with a nostalgia for something that was never hers to begin with.
But all that had changed when she met Natsu on that one, sunny day many years ago.
It was a regular day for Lucy. She had gone to Haregon for a shopping trip with the side quest of sourcing new keys for her collection in mind. Instead, as fate would have it, she found something else. It was the beginning of a love as rare as time was old. One that only existed in fairy tales.