Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail
Several meetings later, Hisui has a list of participates and is now writing a letter to her father explaining her return for a meeting. As the pen scratched on the paper, Hisui thought about her return to the capital and things that happened since her departure. Though only three weeks has passed since she was appointed the mayor of Magnolia, her life was accelerating more than ever. Hisu's relationship with her Karie transform; she has more reliable friends to talk to and have fun with. After putting her preparation into a bag and sending away the letter, Hisui frowned. She's free for the first time in three weeks. The idea of a walk crossed her mind. To look at the progress of the construction for herself and not stick to the progress on paper.
The streets of Magnolia were just as lively as ever, perhaps even more so—it was the rare instance of Hisui walking the city. Greetings were exchanged from the bolder citizens while the timid ones stared at Hisui as she passed by. Large amounts of dust hung in the air and construction sounds blended with the market sounds. The streets were split into two rivers going the opposite directions, drops of water would spilt apart from the stream to see the store wares.
Turning around to a quieter part of the city, Hisui found herself walking in a park, sunbathers sat on a reclining chair or laid on a sheet of fabric to absorb the sun's rays. Adding the people having a picnic plus the couples flirting in public made Hisui slightly envious of their free time they can spend with the loved ones while Hisui was away from her father and barricaded by files and papers. Hisui found a tree to sit under before looking at the pond. Watching the birds soar into the clouds and dragonflies dance to the summer winds brought a smile to Hisui's firm face.
"Onee-chan," Hisui felt poke on her arm, looking down, Hisui saw a little girl—barely reaching Hisui's knees—with bright topaz eyes and brown hair tied into twin tails. "be happy."
"What do you me—"
"Honey! Don't run off on your own! What if something happens to you? Hi—Hisui-sama!? I'm deeply sorry for my daughter's actions. Come on honey, apologise to Hisui-sama."
"But mama, she looks lonely." Hisui looked at the girl with curious eyes mixed in with slight surprise.
"Sally!"
"It's fine." Hisui picked up the child and placed her on her lap, looking into the innocent eyes of the child's. Hisui smiled and stroked Sally's hair before looking at the mother of the child. "You must be lucky to have a child this talented, I'm sure she'll do great things for the kingdom in the future."
"Tha—thank You very much! Your words mean a lot to me!"
"I'm glad that I helped secure her future, it makes all those hours worth the trouble." Hisui set the child down and stood up. "Work hard, make your mother proud." Hisui waved the two goodbye and continued her walk.
Leaving the park took Hisui to a quiet part of the city, where trees are visible in the distance. The sounds of nature were amplified with the lesser amount of people. The kinds of people that Hisui saw primarily consisted of travelling merchants towing wagons with horses or magical vehicles. One path in particular was tickling Hisui's urge to explore. It leads deep into the woods, with a wall of trees acting as a welcome mat. The logical side of her set off alarms repeatedly, pushing against Hisui's curiosity. It was thanks to her self-defence lessons from Arcadios that ultimately drove Hisui to enter the woods without much hesitation.
Each sound entering Hisui's ears caused her to flinch or stop and look at her surroundings; the same array of trees and rocks stared back. At this time, the trail she was following devolved to roots, twigs and leaves; accompanied by the sounds of cicadas and the heart beating to the unknown.
After considering and turning down her many urges to return home—becoming ignorant to the forest—Hisui pushed on until the path returned and the surrounding ground became a leisurely walk up an incline. Most intriguing of all, was a sign worn and abused by weather. Moss covered the support; the filtered light made it barely legible for Hisui.
"Natsu…and…Happy." Hisui looked beyond the sign and saw a house in an even worse condition than the sign. It was made of stone with no straight walls—showing off the amateur work—eaten by vines and dominated by moss. The orange slates showed the same sign of damage, only white stains were added to the impressive neglection of maintenance
Hisui walked to the door knob—the only place that showed signs of cleaning. Hisui turned the knob, and to her surprise, her moment wasn't met with resistance and reward with a click.
"Natsu-san? Happy-san? Are you in here?" Hisui rejected the idea of entering the house and waited for a reply. Not getting a response, Hisui was about to leave when the door creaked open.
"Hisui? What…are you doing…here?" Natsu asked in between yawns, rubbing his eyes.
"You only just woke up?"
"I was training…yesterday…I was tired."
"May I come in? I've been walking for a long time."
"Sure," Natsu opened the door fully and stepped out of the way. "might be a bit messy." Just stepping in the house, Hisui had to be mindful of a fish bone. Followed by a stray log, Natsu prevented Hisui from meeting the ground by grabbing her shoulders.
"Thank You."
"I said that it'll be messy."
"I didn't think it'll be so bad."
"Just be careful from now on." Natsu gave control back to Hisui. Hisui looked around at the messy floor, emotions changing upon seeing more fish, plastic bags and a bucket sprawled in the floor. Looking closer, Hisui could see a path free of obstacles in the corridor leading to Natsu's living room.
Weaving pass the traps, Hisui gladly found that the living room had more space to move around. A couch leaned against a wall opposite to a bulletin board filled with job requests and other paper memorabilia fixed to it. Underneath the board of memories, was a shelf presenting trinkets and other curiosities.
"Sit on the couch, I'll get something to drink." After dodging her feet to the couch, Hisui sat down and enjoyed the relief her legs were experiencing. "So," Natsu set down a cup of hot water on a coffee table while sitting next to Hisui in one, smooth motion. "what brings you here? More like, who told you where I live?"
"I stumbled across it myself while I was the outskirts of the city. You need to make the path more welcoming, I almost turned back many times because of how eerie your path looked." Hisui tested the heat of the water before taking a sip.
"I get that a lot, but, I don't see the problem."
"Because you don't lock your doors?"
"It's not that I don't lock it, it's that I can't."
"Pardon me?"
"I broke it when I came back from training years ago."
"And you haven't replaced it yet!?"
"Who cares? No one besides the guild knows where I live. Also, I can kick a thief's ass any day."
"I suppose…"
"By the way, you're surprisingly free if you have time to come all the way out here to my house."
"That's because I finished my preparation to return to the capital." Hisui
"You're leaving? You got fired?"
"No, I'm meeting my father to present my project to him. If I succeed, I can expand the railway system."
"Yo—you hate me that much!?" Natsu backed away from Hisui instantly.
"I don't follow." Hisui drank from the cup and relished the heat traveling down her throat.
"You know that I can't stand transportation"
"Then you should be glad that I'm doing this."
"You gone cray!? I'm not going on that thing!"
"But you will have to later, you can't expect to go on foot every time. Also, by adding more train stations, you can reduce the time you need to go to places that wasn't accessible before. For example, if a place that could only be accessed by carriage and you can go there by train, won't the time to go there be reduced? So in turn, you can experience less motion sickness."
"Really!? You're the best!" The over-excited Natsu pulled Hisui into a hug.
"Yo—you're welcome…" Natsu returned to his original position, his grin still present.
"Sorry, I was too excited."
"It's fine…I didn't mind."
"Your ears are a bit red though."
"Re—really?" Hisui placed her hands to her ears and felt the warmth radiating from her ear. "It's true…wh—where is Happy-san?"
"The bastard left without me." Natsu scowled for a second and mellowed out. "Well, I guess that's my fault. I did train too hard yesterday."
"Why were you training so hard?"
"To kick Gray's ass. And Erza's, Gildarts too."
"And cause more damage than you already have?"
"That's…uhh…not a problem! I'll kick their asses before I'll break too many things."
"Do you really think it'll be so easy? From what I heard, you haven't won against Erza-san or Gildarts-san before."
"Then I'll get the stripper."
"Aren't you two evenly matched?"
"Now that I trained we're not!"
"Then I wish you the best of luck."
"I don't need it."
"It wouldn't hurt." Hisui took another mouthful of water, souring at the cooling liquid.
"It's cold? Give it here." Hisui handed the cup to Natsu, to which he topped off the cup and pointed a small flame to the bottom of the cup. Hisui looked absentmindedly at the cup, watching steam rise from the cup again. "Here you go. It's hot though."
"I don't you to tell me." Hisui pinched the rim of the cup and set it on the coffee table. "Thank You. Your magic really is useful."
"Yeah, I got it from Igneel after all."
"Natsu-san, do you think that I'm lonely?"
"What's with you all of the sudden?"
"Answer the question please."
"No, no you're not. You have Fairy Tail by your side."
"Even though that I'm not a part of your guild?"
"That doesn't mean you're not our friend. We'll always support friends, no matter what."
"Thank You."
"Why did you ask?"
"Nothing, I was just thinking about the past."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Maybe later, it's a boring story."
"I'll wait then."
"It's almost time for lunch, do you want to come with me?"
"Are you paying?" Natsu grinned.
"Not fully, I heard about your appetite from Lucy-san and saw it first hand at the party. If you want, I can pay half of the meal."
"Let's go then!"
"Do you know any good restaurants? I'm ashamed to admit that I never been around the city to eat. I've been staying in my office and ate Karie's cooking."
"In that case…I got just the place. Come with me!" Natsu took Hisui's hand and ran out the house at eye-watering speeds, not caring about Hisui's protests. In a no time at all, Hisui saw all the things she did earlier in less than a third of the time, the wind blew her hair into a jumbled mess. Though she was anxious at crashing into a tree, Natsu's excited face destroyed her doubts as she put her full trust in the man that was pulling her around like luggage. The speed that they were going at reminded Hisui of when she was running away from the palace to experience the streets, nostalgic, welcoming.
"Aaand, we're here!" Natsu stopped in front of restaurant named "Hungry Foal'. Written in white, blocky letters, restaurant made the name stand out with its black body and glass doors. "This place it close to the guild, so lots of us come eat here. Some of us are really picky about the taste, so this restaurant must be good or none of us will eat here. Come on!" Still holding on to Hisui's hand, Natsu forged into the building.
Inside, was a fairly big—slightly smaller than a hall—run-of-the-mill restaurant with nothing unique to its design. Wooden chairs were placed around square tables in groups of four—the tables sticking to the wall only had two chairs. The menu laid at the centre was the star, with no supporting characters.
"A table for two please!" Natsu told a waiter.
"You got it! Please sit over there." The waiter pointed to a table on the wall and Natsu guided Hisui to their seat.
"Have you been to places like these?"
"No, I haven't." Hisui held her head down while trying to smoothen her hair that was remodelled in the wind.
"Then, leave it to me."
"Are you ready to order?"
"We'll have two of the daily specials."
"A great choice, please wait for a short while, the food will be delivered soon."
"Hisui, how long is your trip to the capital."
"If nothing goes wrong, I expect it to last a day. Do you need something?"
"No, I just wanted to know."
"You're not doing anything behind my back are you? After what I said back in Clover town."
"Why would I? I said I was just curious. Or don't you trust me?" Hisui thought about what Natsu had done for her as well as believing in her own eyes that were trained against deception.
"I do, it's just that I get paranoid when people ask me questions like that. Nobles don't ask questions for the sake of asking one."
"Well I'm not a stuck-up bastard, I'm your friend. And I may not know much about your world but, let me tell you this. If you stay weary of everyone, you soon won't even trust your friends."
"Of course I know that, I need to be mindful of my position as a Princess. Not everyone can be as carefree as you are Natsu."
"Well," The waiter delivered two plates in front of Natsu and Hisui. "no point in talking about these kinds of things, let's eat."
"You sure are laid-back." Hisui picked up the cutlery provide to her and took a bite out of the food. "Delicious…"
"Right? Told you this stuff is good." Their conversation ended the moment Natsu started eating. Hisui smiled dryly seeing the dragon slayer showing no mercy to the plate, thinking while he did solve her envy, he just started it again.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
I really don't have anything to say this time so, let me know what you think of the story so far! Did I do a good job in balancing the two key parts of the story? Or did I fail?
Until then, have a nice day!