"Well, I'm screwed," Lucy thought to herself, gazing up at the stone walls of the campus. "How does it look so huge?!"
With her father, Lucy had made appearances at plenty of prestigious places. Temples, auditoriums, even a few castles! She was a Heartfilia, so of course she had seen it all, but here, peering through the gates of Magnolia Academy, she found herself, well, to put it frankly, scared shitless. "This is what I want," she murmured aloud. "This is what Mom wants."
Trying to smooth the crumpled paper, the blonde took one last look at a few sentences of her mother's letter. Lucille, my dearest, Layla had written. "I know you will need a safe place to go. I know what your father will do, and I know I won't be there to protect you. Go to Fairy Tail and there, you will have a family. I'll be with you always."
And so here she was, on a Saturday morning, hoping to find her place at Magnolia Academy. "Wish me luck, mom" The sixteen-year-old pushed open the metal gates, following the signs leading her to the headmaster's office. Walking through empty hallways filled with posters and trophies and photographs of students, Lucy felt a little excitement mix with her nerves.
"The headmaster, Makarov, has been like a father to me since I was sixteen. Reach out to him, Lucille. Magnolia academy accepts students at age seventeen, but I know you will need a place to stay before that. You're bright enough to be in a school with older students, all you need to do is ask."
Reaching a large wooden door, Lucy didn't hesitate, swinging the door wide open before the nervousness in her stomach could make her do otherwise. A strange old man seated behind a desk peered at her in confusion.
"Layla?"