Cover by Kimbeekitty, and posted with permission.

Getting Underway

Lucy dragged herself out of bed far too early for her taste. Grabbing her clothes, she stumbled her way into the bathroom for a hot shower. Normally she preferred bathing at night, but she'd been so exhausted from packing for the trip and from the prior day's events that she'd just collapsed before she could get around to it. The hot water felt heavenly, and served to wake her up more fully.

She took her time getting ready, as her train wasn't scheduled to arrive for at least three more hours. The only reason she'd gotten up so early was because she didn't want to rush if she'd forgotten something important, and so that she could eat breakfast beforehand. She hoped that Lyon had gotten enough sleep, though she supposed he could nap on the train before it arrived in Magnolia. Which was what she fully intended to do herself, once all of her stuff was stowed. After all, even after she was boarded it would still take a good portion of the day to reach their destination.

The plan – which they'd hashed out over purchasing Lucy's gear – was to disembark, find a hotel for the night and gather more information about their destination, as well as see about what was available in terms of transportation to their client's village. Lucy did not relish the idea of a long uphill hike to it, but she knew that it was a distinct possibility given the remoteness. Hopefully the trail wouldn't be too steep, if it came to that. …On second thought, she decided, that would make the trail even longer.

She poked her stomach experimentally. Over the past year, despite lacking the exercise that mage jobs afforded, Lucy had actually gained more muscle definition thanks to the rigorous training her spirits had put her through. It was her arms that had improved most notably, due to Sagittarius teaching her the use of a genuine longbow before they attempted the one that came with his star dress. Still, she had developed her leg muscles for fighting in the Leo star dress as well. Lucy just wasn't sure how well that would serve her, since they might be different than the ones she used for long periods of walking and hiking.

These were things she probably should have considered long before now, she knew. Hopefully it would be fine, but Lucy was prone to worrying all the same.

For all of her travels prior to joining Fairy Tail, and during her year as a journalist, Lucy did not much like the walking part that came with traveling. Or the part that came with climbing up mountains. Lucy wasn't much of an outdoors person in general, honestly. She liked it well enough in theory, but she also liked having a warm bed to sleep in every night, and a hot bath in which to soak away all her aches and pains and worries.

And here she was, willingly going on a job of indeterminate length to search a mountainside for… for something. They still didn't even know what they were searching for!

Lucy hoped it wasn't like the time her team faced a wyvern for that one plant. That had been a horrible experience all around. But hopefully Lyon would be a more courteous partner, and she wouldn't end up with an abominable cold this time.

Probably a pipe dream. After all, the man had grown up with the same teacher as Gray (and had spent three years in an insane bid to melt a demon of Zeref, and had later jumped over a cliff with a bomb during their fights with the Oracion Seis) so the chances were honestly pretty slim overall. But she could hope, couldn't she?

The soft patter on her window alerted her to the fact that it had started raining during her musings. Calm spread throughout Lucy. Something about the rain was always lulling to her. Even when it shot into the ground like so much buckshot, she still loved it. The perfect excuse to stay indoors, warm under the covers with a good book? She'd take it every time. It was a luxury that making her own schedule as a mage had afforded her, and she'd missed it.

But for now, she couldn't afford to do that this time either. She had obligations to keep and a train to catch!

Downing her hot coffee in several scalding gulps, she grabbed her pack and bag with her change of clothes and slung them over her shoulders. She nearly groaned from the weight. This was not going to be fun lugging around a mountainside, but it would more than likely keep her alive so she was just going to have to deal with it. Lucy was glad that they weren't expecting much or any snow – that would be excruciating.

The bag with her winter clothing and thermal underclothes was mostly so that she didn't have to wear them in her apartment or on the train, and subsequently expire from the heat. Summer in thermal gear was not fun by any stretch of the imagination. But where they were going, they were necessary, so packed they had to be.

Once she was ready to go, Lucy exited her apartment with her poles under her arm and pack strapped securely to her. She'd pick up breakfast at the station's small store. It wouldn't be the first time, and it saved her having to do dishes or having them stink up her apartment while she was gone. Well… with the exception of her coffee cup, anyway. Which she'd rinsed thoroughly so hopefully that wouldn't be a problem.

She froze, suddenly struggling to recall if she'd put her garbage out. Then a moment later, she heaved a sigh of relief once she remembered that she had done so the night before – anticipating that she'd forget it in the morning.

Belatedly, she wondered if she should make a quick detour to the guild to make sure someone stopped by her apartment while she was gone, to make sure she hadn't forgotten some piece of garbage somewhere. Then Lucy shook off the idea. She didn't relish having a repeat of her conversation the day before, and besides she wasn't planning on being gone that long, no matter what she'd said to Natsu. After all, they couldn't carry that many supplies up with them without getting a pack animal to help them carry it all. Which, now that she thought about it, was actually a good idea. Maybe she'd bring that up to Lyon and they could discuss the pros and cons.

At the bottom of the stairs, she slipped a packet full of next month's rent money (having a steady, mostly non-dangerous job for a year had done wonders for her financial situation) and a note stating her intended absence into her landlady's mail slot. That was notice enough, she felt. And this way, if the job took longer than intended, then she wouldn't come back to find all of her stuff auctioned off.

Finally, Lucy could delay no longer, and had to brave the rain to get to the train station. And she was already sweating from the sweltering, humid heat inside the apartment building's foyer. May as well get just as wet outside and cool down.

With that thought, she pushed open the door and exited the apartment, booking it to the train station as best she could with the cumbersome equipment strapped onto her.

Lyon was jolted upright and into wakefulness by a loud noise accompanied by hushed swearing. Blearily, he glanced around the compartment. He relaxed when he made out Lucy, storing her gear in the overhead bins. "Hello," she greeted him with a sheepish smile, sliding into the seat across from him. "Sorry I woke you. I was trying to be quiet, but the gear wouldn't cooperate with me."

He smiled tiredly back at her. "That's fine." Stretching out his muscles, he was unable to suppress a yawn. "Glad we made the same train after all."

Lucy nodded. "You can go back to sleep," she suggested. "I have a few ideas about our job, but they can honestly wait until later." Suppressing a yawn of her own, she then added, "I think I might need some more shut-eye, myself."

"That sounds good," he replied, his eyes already halfway closed. But then something caught his eye, and he peered at Lucy curiously. "Is your hair wet?" he asked, confused.

"It was raining in Magnolia," she stated, leaning her head against the window and closing her eyes. A moment later, a soft snore wafted from her mouth.

That certainly was fast. Lyon felt a smile pulling at his lips. He unlatched his cape, and draped it over the slumbering celestial mage.

He was too warm anyway, he reasoned.

When next Lyon awoke, Lucy was already alert, but still wrapped up in his cape. Red suffused her cheeks when she noticed his curious stare. "It was comfortable," she justified herself.

She made no move to return it.

Which suited Lyon fine, as he was in no hurry to reclaim it.

He turned his gaze out the window, as Lucy had earlier. They had left the general area around Magnolia some time ago, the terrain steadily rising all around the train tracks. They were well into the foothills that surrounded their destination. It would only take another hour or two for them to reach their destination, Lyon realized with a start. Their impromptu nap had lasted much longer than either of them had intended.

"Do you know what hotel we're checking into?" Lucy broke the silence by asking.

Lyon shook his head and glanced at her. She still faced the window. "I've never been to Larkspur before. Shouldn't be too hard to find one with vacancies, though. It's a winter town, and it's the off season."

She nodded, shifting slightly to face him now. "I was thinking this morning, before I boarded the train… We still don't know exactly what it is we're looking for, right? Or how long it might take?" At his answering nod, Lucy continued, "It might be a good idea for us to hire a pack horse, don't you think? We might have to bring a decent amount of food and water with us. I don't know about you, but if we can't find this thing quickly, then I don't want to be stuck foraging on the mountainside." Not to mention the fact that she was beyond grouchy whenever she missed her morning coffee.

"We did agree to pack a certain amount of food, though," Lyon reminded her. "And we do have the materials to make tents and a campsite. We can always return to the client's village when we run out of supplies."

Lucy sighed. "I guess you're right. I just like being prepared, is all."

He hesitated and rethought his position once he saw her crestfallen expression. "Actually, on second thought, you might be right. Being over prepared is better than getting blindsided, right?"

That perked her up. "Yeah!" she replied. "Thanks to my time at Fairy Tail, I've learned that anything that can go wrong, inevitably will. And then so will several more things you didn't think were possible."

Lyon laughed, and Lucy laughed with him. "I can believe that!" he told her with a grin. "I've seen it firsthand!"

"Yup, we're pretty crazy." Lucy shrugged off his cape, and then held it out to him. "Thanks for this, by the way."

Taking it back from her, Lyon waved off her gratitude. "No need to thank me. I should be the one thanking you, actually." At her questioning look, he averted his gaze briefly in embarrassment. "I think I needed the distraction of all this for… a while now. Not just because of Juvia. Things have been hectic at the guild lately, with all the ongoing preparations for Sherry and Ren's wedding, Wendy going back to Fairy Tail… It's good to be on a job. It's so much more…" He frowned, unable to come up with the right word to describe it.

"Straight-forward?" Lucy supplied with a wry twist of her lips.

"That's it."

"I completely get that. It's good to have something… uncomplicated to work on." Her smile was an easy one, a reassuring thing that brought Lyon great comfort, and he couldn't help returning it.

As he had predicted, it wasn't long until they pulled into Larkspur's station. Lyon and Lucy helped each other get their packs and gear out of the storage, and exited the train. When they stepped onto the platform, Lucy repressed a shudder at the chill air hitting her, her breath coming out in white clouds. Now she wished she'd kicked Lyon out of the compartment so she could change into her warmer clothing.

Lyon was perturbed by the chill in the air, and by the gray clouds he could see beyond the shelter of the platform. They blanketed the sky, and the air tasted like winter in his lungs – too much like his childhood home in Iceberg.

It was supposed to be cooler this high up, certainly. They were at twelve hundred meters, after all. But it should not be this cold. Not at this time of the year.

Lucy shivered in earnest once they left the train station proper and the windbreak it provided. "Let's find a hotel quickly!" she suggested, picking up the pace to coax some warmth into her limbs from the exertion. She slowed down a little as Lyon unclasped his cape again and once more passed it to her. Sliding it up under her pack strapped to her back with a little help from Lyon in pulling it through the arm holes, Lucy was soon cocooned in its meager warmth. Shooting him a grin, she picked up the pace again. "Thanks! Now let's get warm before I lose my toes."

Lyon couldn't help but admire her positivity when confronting the seriousness of frostbite. Which was certainly impending for her if she continued to wear her open-toed sandals out in this cold for much longer.

After checking out three places in the vicinity of the train station, the pair finally found a hotel that agreed with both their wallets and their mutual aversion to bedbugs. To reduce costs, they booked a single room with two beds. Although Lucy was not averse to sharing a bed (her team having done that a great many times on jobs in the past), she had a feeling that Lyon wouldn't be interested in the idea. Which was too bad, as they could have saved a good amount of money that way.

The first order of business, once they entered their room, was for Lucy to hurriedly scramble out of her pack and Lyon's cape, dropping both unceremoniously onto the bed. Whereupon she scurried to the bathroom, her bag of warm clothing tight within her grasp and her toes bright red from the cold.

When she emerged, Lucy looked and felt vastly more comfortable than she had previously. Lyon had already repossessed his cape, she noticed, and she smiled at him. "Thanks for letting me borrow your cape again, Lyon. You're a lifesaver."

"No problem," he replied, as he finished folding the article of clothing and placed it on the dresser. He sat down on the bed Lucy hadn't claimed with her gear, and she went to hers. "What should we do first?" Lyon asked. "Should we secure transportation or eat first?"

A loud rumble from Lucy's stomach was answer enough. Her face began to slowly redden with her ensuing mortification.

"Lunch it is," Lyon said with a mischievous smirk.

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Lucy mumbled. Digging through her clothing bag once more, she took out her winter coat, a red puffy thing that would more than ward off the chill. Slipping it on, she also took out a green beanie, and pulled it down over the tips of her ears – which were still pretty red. Finally, she put her hiking boots on, taking a few minutes to lace them up.

The benefit of being an ice make mage was that Lyon did not have to dress any more warmly than he presently was in order to feel perfectly comfortable in the current weather. Well, that and being from the perpetually frozen country of Iceberg helped a lot. Coming to Fiore had been a great shock to his system, he recalled. He suddenly wondered how Gray had handled it, the unbidden thought catching him off guard. He'd honestly never given a concern before as to how his foster brother had fared in his life post-Ur. Any thoughts Lyon had spared for him prior to meeting him once again on Galuna Island had been devoted to the agony he would unleash on the man for killing his dream and inflicting so much pain and suffering on him. After that… well, Lyon had been extremely busy trying to settle into his new life as a guild mage, and then in the search for the vanished Tenrou Island. But it had been over a year since Fairy Tail's return and yet…

Time slipped away so fast.

But unlike with Ur, and Juvia, Lyon felt that he could still form a closer, stronger bond with Gray. He wanted to. Their present friendship was hard-won, and had survived a great deal already. It could survive a little awkwardness over Lyon's crush on Juvia.

"Okay!" Lucy announced brightly, snapping Lyon out of his thoughts. "Let's get going!"

Lyon smiled at her, suddenly and immensely grateful to have her and her mostly cheery disposition around to help keep him from brooding. Something he admittedly did a great deal of. Standing up, he agreed, "Yes, let's go find some food."