Happy Friday! We'll talk at the end, 'cause I don't want to spoil it.
Irina: One of my favorite quotes is: "The first sight of love is the last sight of wisdom." It can make people a little irrational. But Erza's being pretty ridiculous, so I don't think Gray's being irrational here. He is a sucker... and he's been that the whole time. He seems to be the sort of person who holds onto the past and bottles up, if that makes sense. Outwardly, he acts like he's all cool and stuff, but I think he's secretly sensitive and sentimental. I'm not sure what specific things give me that impression, but that's my read on him. Thanks again!
- K. Chandler
Not daring to breath, Gray pushed his way into the throng of bodies, not entirely sure why he was doing so.
He didn't actually want to see her. Didn't actually want to talk to her.
It was probably petty, but he was still kind of pissed at her for the hairdryer comment.
But for some reason, his feet were moving and he was following the bright red hair.
Shouldering his way past a person wearing a jack-o-lantern, Gray managed to catch up with the vision in red. She had long crimson hair pulled back in a braid that went over her shoulder. A daring scarlet cocktail dress revealed her bare back and long legs. Even from behind, she was beautiful.
Gray tried to remind himself that he was supposed to be annoyed with her. He was supposed to be trying to forget about her, but he could feel himself grinning, in spite of himself.
"Hey," he said. He reached out, tapping her gently on the shoulder. "Didn't think I'd run into you here. What happened to your mission?"
The woman spun around, her eyes wide. A shy look pulled at a pretty, but unfamiliar, face.
"Sorry…" Gray muttered, retracting his hand hastily. "Thought you were someone else."
The woman's shyness quickly melted into a brazen grin. "Sorry…" she said, mocking his tone with palpable sarcasm. She tilted her head, smiling coyly. "Looks like you're disappointed," she purred.
"No! Um… Well…" he sputtered. "I wouldn't say that," he tried, with an apologetic shrug.
But she didn't seem bothered by it, instead cackling at the expression on his face. "Flare," she offered.
"Gray."
She looked him over. Her startling ruby eyes seemed to bore through his core. "Ice-Mage, right?" she asked.
"How'd ya know?" he said.
She leaned in, placing a hand on his chest. "I can see it in your heart," she whispered solemnly. The she cackled, throwing her head back. "Kidding! I can just tell," she said, her eyes still crinkled with laughter. "You seem really chill."
This girl was beyond unhinged. And oddly enough, Gray wasn't too bothered by it. After dealing with Juvia's special brand of crazy for so long, there wasn't much that could faze him at this point. Well, except… her.
Gray pushed the thought aside. He was here to forget, not to remember.
A sudden movement made Gray jerk back, startled.
"Hey, you still in there?" Flare was asking, snapping her fingers in his face.
"Yeah, sorry," he said. Gray let out an embarrassed chuckle, hand rising to rub the back of his neck.
Flare just grinned, leaning towards him. Her eyes smoldered like embers. "Are you afraid to play with fire?" she asked suddenly, head tilted to the side again.
"Huh?"
"Come on," she said, grabbing his wrist. She pulled him towards the dance floor.
Gray cringed. "I'm not really into this sort of stuff," he said. Gray wasn't clumsy by any means, but he had zero rhythm and even less desire to make a fool of himself. They were in public, after all. But he followed regardless, not putting up much of a fight.
Gray joined the mass of sweaty clubbers in the middle of the dance floor. The music pulsed. Gray could feel the bass pounding through his chest. Flare swayed in time to the beat, her arms in the air.
Awkwardly, Gray shifted his weight from one foot to the other, cringing as he heard a chuckle behind him.
Loke waved at him when Gray turned to see who it was. The cat-girl from before was on his arm. Gray recognized her as one of her friends the Tower of Heaven.
"Let it go, Gray," teased Loke. "Let it go."
"Shut up," Gray snapped, the corners of his mouth turning down in a scowl.
"Aw, that's no way to be," said Loke. "Is it, Milli?" he asked his companion, making her giggle.
Flare put a firm hand on Gray's cheek, turning his head to face her. "Come on, Ice-Boy," she breathed. "It's not that hard." She grinned at him, performing a set of sharp movements. Her ruby eyes sparked with challenge.
Gray smirked, his competitive nature igniting in response. Flare was decisive. He liked that in a girl.
With crisp movements, he mimicked her steps. He was an Ice-Make wizard. If there was one thing he could do well, it was to imitate.
"Try and keep up," she cackled, launching into a more complicated series of steps.
Gray matched her move for move, the steps starting to feel more natural. Vaguely, Gray heard Cana whoop approvingly from across the bar. He must be getting a hang of this whole dancing business.
But that was whatever. He kept his eyes on the girl before him. Her hair rippled like liquid flame. Flare was pretty, in a wild sort of way. And nothing else mattered. Just him, her, and the adrenaline in his veins.
Gray surprised himself as he lifted her up, spinning her around. She laughed loudly, arms coming down to drape over his shoulders as he set her on her feet again.
Gray's pulse raced from the exertion and Flare's closeness.
"Are you afraid to play with fire?" she whispered, still trying to catch her breath. Her face was inches away from his. She leaned in slowly, tilting her head slightly.
Gray froze, mind whirring with memories of a very similar situation with a very different red-haired beauty. Her. He pulled away.
Gray shook his head, swallowing back the lump in his throat.
Surprise registered in Flare's eyes, her lips parting uncertainly.
"I can't risk getting burned again. I'm sorry," he said. And he meant it.
He hadn't meant for things to go so far so quickly. He wished he could turn back time so he could be a little more careful about getting caught up in Flare's unbridled enthusiasm.
More than that, he wished he could turn back time… and just ask her out properly instead of being a such a wuss about it.
Gray felt a little guilty, the emotion like a lead weight in the bottom of his lungs. Flare wasn't her. It wasn't fair to compare them. And it really wasn't fair for him to have lead Flare on like that, but this really wasn't where he belonged.
Gray retreated from the dance floor without a backwards glance.
Okay... now that we know who Mystery Girl #1 is, I can gush.
I so love Flare! While I absolutely don't buy her transition from baddie to ally, something about her post transformation personalty sort of spoke to me. She's kind of nutty, and I kind of like it. I don't usually think kooky is cute, but I really like Flare. To make her character work for Mazeverse, I had to tone back on her evil side and show glimpses of the sort of person she could become.
I had two inspirations for wanting to put Gray and Flare in a scenario together (other than the fact that I like them both and I was curious what would happen). One was that I took a fiction class back in college where we did a lot of peer read and review. One of the other students wrote a piece where the main character (a pretty ordinary middle-aged dude) fell in love with a frumpy carnival worker with a smoker's cough. I don't remember the rest, but obviously this part of the story stuck with me (I read this story once... 7-8 years ago). What stood out was that the love interest wasn't conventionally pretty, but the writer made her seem attractive in her own way. It was a really neat effect, so I wanted to try it. I wanted to make Flare, for all of her weirdness, seem attractive. Did I succeed?
The other inspiration was that I remembered a story I read on this site where Erza and Mira face off as part of their ongoing rivalry and at the end, Mira calls up all the white-haired characters, and Erza summons the other redheads. Because FT canon makes such a big deal about Erza and her scarlet hair, it never really dawned on me that Flare also had long red hair. So I thought that was fun.
But unfortunately, this fun is done-Gray's decided that Flare's not the girl for him. So on to Mystery Girl #2! Some of you have probably guessed what I'm doing, so it might not be that much of a mystery.
Next time, in [Mazeverse] Of Redheads, Warriors and Best Friends: "Don't even think about it," a steely voice declared.
Stop back next Friday for the next installment, or just follow me, Karine of R011ingThunder.