Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail. He just does. You should all know this by now.
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"Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise."
"Why am I wearing a blindfold?"
"Because it's a surprise."
"Where are the babies?"
"Busy."
"Doing what?"
"It's a surprise."
"Bickslow." She was whining. Sue her. "Please tell me you aren't doing this just because I'm refusing to tell you what my costume for the party is?"
"Your costume, and my costume, and the reason for the party. That's not why I'm doing it though. But if you tell me I might be persuaded to tell you where we are going."
"Not happening. Revealing the secret would ruin the surprise."
"Exactly. Watch your step. There are loose stones here."
"Are we walking up a hill?"
"Yep. Are you going to let me carry you now?"
"No way. If you are going to blindfold me I'm going to make you work for this surprise."
"Your toes, your choice, Cosplayer." Her toes weren't really suffering. He was being very careful with her. The ground began to even out. She could feel the softness of grass under her shoes, then she heard the babies chattering. *shh, secret, surprise, Cosplayer coming, shh. She giggled.
"I hear babies."
"Yeah. They suck at being quiet. They are really proud of themselves right now."
"Why?"
"The surprise." He stopped pulling her forward and she stopped walking. He stood behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist. The blindfold was pulled from her eyes and she gasped. They were on a hill with a view of Magnolia spread out before them and the sun was just beginning to set. There in front of her the babies were hovering over an already spread out picnic.
"Bix..." It was such a sweet gesture she didn't even have words.
"You like it?" She spun and jumped up to kiss him.
"I love it, Bixy." There was a big happy grin on his face.
"Good. The babies had some help from the barmaids and half the other women in the guild packing that basket, so we have plenty of food. I figured we could watch the sun set and you could teach me more about your stars." She kissed him again, more aggressively this time, until he groaned and one of his hands slid down over her rear.
"Cosplayer like? Daddy's idea. Babies make surprise!" She pulled away to smile at Pipi.
"Yes honey. I like it very much. You all did a very good job with this surprise. It made me very happy." *yay, good surprise, babies did good, happy Cosplayer. "Let's see what the girls packed for us." Bickslow set her feet back on the ground and laced his fingers with hers as they settled onto the blanket.
They ate and talked and played with the babies as the sun set. Bickslow fed her strawberries dipped in chocolate and then chased after the taste of them with his tongue. The man kissed like a god or something. He made her body sing and her heart laugh. Bickslow made her happy.
"Laxus said it should be pretty clear tonight. We should be able to see most all of the sky." They were lying side by side on the blanket now and the first stars were coming out.
"I guess he would make a pretty good barometer wouldn't he?"
"He's pretty reliable when it comes to the weather. Don't ever ask him for directions though."
"Why not."
"The man still gets lost in Magnolia if he isn't careful. Freed puts a locator rune on all his shoes so we can find him if he goes missing for to long."
"Seriously? I didn't know slayers could get lost."
"He can follow a scent trail pretty well if he tries. He just... doesn't. He'd rather wander around and pretend he knows where he is going than tap into his dragon magic. He sees it as a curse most of the time and thinks it makes him less human."
"I guess he would feel about his magic kinda like I do about high society money and grandeur."
"Something like that. He's gotten better over the past few years. Since he came back he watches the others and listens, has learned more about his magic."
"All magic changes the wizards who use it. Dragon slayer magic isn't the only magic that does that. It doesn't make him less human. None of our slayers will ever be like the Chaos Dragon, because they have us. They have family to stand beside them." She felt him kiss her hair. "Look, see that star? That's Sirius, the dog star. The brightest star in the sky, and one of the stars in Canis Major, the big dog. The little dog is right next to it. It's not dark enough to see their other stars though."
"When I was little... my... not my mom, but you know who I mean," Pupu. He meant Pupu. "She used to tell me this story. The story I told you about last night."
"The mother goddess? The one your eyes were tattooed when you were a baby to pay homage to?"
"Yeah. I can't tell it like she could, but would you like to hear it?" She snuggled closer to him so she could rest her head on his shoulder and wrap the arm whose hand she was holding around her. He chuckled. "It's like you are a little kid sometimes I swear."
"You're one to talk." He snorted. There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again.
"Before time there was only the mother. The mother was alone. She danced alone. She walked alone. She slept alone. To comfort herself she would create beautiful things. Trees and mountains and gemstones. It pained her that she had no-one to share it with and she cried. Her tears ran through the valleys as rivers and filled the oceans. Finally her wish for love brought forth children from her tears. They were small and frail creatures and she knew that she could not stay with them for her strength was to great. She swore that they would never be alone however for she would watch over them always. Even now when we look to the heavens we can see her watching. Her face shines down upon us as the sun and at night she holds us close, clothed in a dress of stars."
"Wow. That's beautiful. Sad, but beautiful. So the little curls by your eyes are to remind people of the tears she shed that brought them life?"
"Yeah. My... my real mother, she respected traditions. She wore the Mother's Tears and... and so did my sister." Those last words were almost to soft to hear. She tucked herself as close to him as she could. He didn't say anything after that, just held her tight and they watched the stars. She pointed out the stars that formed her spirit's constellations as it grew dark enough for them to show and told him the legends of how they came to hang in the night sky.
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"When Pandora opened the box and released all the evil into the world the gods couldn't bear to star and one by one they fled to the heavens. Astraea, the goddess of purity and innocence, was the last of the gods to leave earth. She became the constellation Virgo and waits for the golden age when she will return."
"I love Virgo to pieces, but I really don't think that story is true." She giggled at him. He loved that he could make her that happy with such a simple comment.
"Oh, I sincerely doubt it is true."
"Hey, Cosplayer?"
"Hmm?" She tipped her head back where it rested on his shoulder and he could see the affection in her big brown eyes. The way she looked at him pulled at something deep inside him.
"Remember our first day out from Shirotsume when I asked you if you would trust me?"
"And I told you I always trusted you and you told me about how you were really a soul doctor?" I'm pretty sure you were about to kiss me, but Virgo happened instead." He took that opportunity to pull her up far enough to give her the kiss he would have that day if Virgo hadn't interrupted. When he pulled away her face was flushed in a way that made him hungry for something Mira had definitely not packed in that picnic basket. "Are- are finally going to revisit that conversation?" Right. The conversation.
"I-I think I can help. With your nightmares and stuff. If you're willing." Her eyes grew wide and his nerves messed with his brain enough that he couldn't stop his mouth from moving. "Talking helps you know. When I talked to you it helped me. I just... I think I can smooth the edges of the scars that are making you feel broken. I know you haven't had any while we've been together, but Natsu did tell me that having someone there helps you, and Erza will be back soon. There's no way she will let you stay with me after she gets back and I don't want you feeling that way because you shouldn't and..." She had her fingers on his lips and she was smiling.
"You want to use your magic on my soul?" He could feel the blood drain from his face.
"I just... I don't want you to hurt anymore, Lucy."
"What will it feel like?"
"You... you'll let me... help you?"
"Yes. I trust you."
"It... It feels a little like falling at first, like if you lost your balance and were teetering on the edge of a ledge. You can feel me holding you though, if you focus. I promise you're safe. Just focus on me. If I experience strong emotions while we are linked you might feel those too. Like the babies feel from me. If I find a really bad scar then you might get flashbacks when I mess with it. I'll see them if you do. Everything you see and experience while the link is active I will too, so I'll know if I need to pull back or let you go. I'll get impressions of what caused a wound when I'm mending it, so if there is something you don't want me seeing..." She rolled over to lay on his chest and cupped his face in her hands.
"Bickslow. Easy baby." He was shaking. He hadn't noticed. "I trust you, Doc." He could see it in her eyes, she really did trust him. Without looking away from her eyes he dug an old watch out of his pocket and set it on the ground beside them.
"Popo, you've got the clock. 30 minutes. If I don't come out on my own before then pull us out."
"30 minutes daddy."
"The rest of you take watch. Papa is in charge. Nobody comes up here. If they are guild and insist on talking to us tell Popo to pull us out, otherwise chase them off."
"Only guild allowed."
"Right." He saw no fear in Lucy's eyes, only trust and curiosity. "Ready, Cosplayer?"
"Whenever you are, Doc." Only Lucy had ever called him that, and only Lucy had ever willingly let him do this even knowing what he was capable of. She trusted him not to hurt her, and he never would. As he let the magic flow into his eyes and light the hilltop green he heard Popo call 'time start', then all he knew was the beautiful white soul in front of him.
White wasn't a color he saw often outside of the very young. The color wasn't pure innocence as people tended to think, but more an openness. A perfect example of that was her willingness to accept Cobra as an ally the moment he was no longer actively an enemy. The only other people in the guild who shone with a primarily white light were Asuka, who was still a child, and Natsu, though the core of the fire slayer's soul was composed of blacks and reds which quite honestly caused Bickslow to be wary of diving to deep for fear of what he would find.
Then there was the shape of her soul. Most people assumed that a soul looked like a ball of light shoved in someone's chest. That was actually not often the case. Nab's was that way. The man was so content to stay right where he was that it showed in the softly churning orb of browns and blues nestled near his heart. Lucy's was a mass of long thin tendrils stretching out in every direction. Makarov's primarily dark blue soul was shaped like that, as was Laxus's deep green and gold one, to a lesser extent, though it looked more that way every day. Their very souls were stretched out, reaching for the people they cared about, connecting them together.
Her soul was moving too. Mira's did that, and Wendy's. Their souls would reach out to caress people as they passed. Lucy's though was doing it on a whole other level. Each tendril of her soul danced and reached trying to share peace and love with her friends and her family. Some were quite literally tangled around the keys that hung from her belt, and a strand stretched out to touch each of his five babies. Several bright white strands stretched between them and seemed to be anchored in his chest. He couldn't see his own soul, and he was sure he didn't want to, but he was knew looking at those strands that she had tied the two of them together.
Looking closer he could see that not only was there a rainbow of living color deep her soul's core, but each strand was pulsing with color. Evergreen had done something like this when she met Freed for the first time. She had wrapped the weeping boy in a tight hug and her soul had washed away the sickly colors of fear and pain with soothing blues and greens. Right now Lucy was literally pushing what Cobra would probably call 'sparkly unicorn shit' into him through those bright strands tied to his soul. Calming pale blues, the greens of nurture and protection, the pale pinks and purples of affection, shades of happy orange, and the bright red of passion all flickered along those strands. He caught a glimpse of gold. She was proud of him. And waves of blue. The bold royal blue that was the untainted trust she had in him.
He reached out with his magic to touch one strand and gasped in shock. Instead of pulling away at his intrusion like he expected, like always happened, the strand split into several smaller tendrils and wrapped around his magic, pulling him in. Then the emotions he had been seeing hit him and he couldn't breath. Seeing was believing, but he could literally feel how much she really did trust him right now. It was so beautiful it hurt. He felt a ripple of concern and caught a tinge of watery yellow before waves of soft green washed over him. She had felt him and offered healing from her very soul. He gently pushed reassurance through his magic and saw her soul embrace the warm brown and pull it toward the color rich core. He followed the color further in.
He dove deeper and deeper, sorting through the beautiful colors until he caught sight of a trail of sickly yellow. Fear. He followed the trail, catching impressions of loneliness as the color got stronger. She was afraid of being left alone. Again. There it was. The yellow and black wound the fear was coming from, he could see the gray rot deep inside, the result of a long festering soul wound. It had patches of stable brown and living green along the edges, new patches, not yet blended completely at the edges.
When he touched the wound he saw flashes of echoing, empty halls. In the fresh green patches he saw... A tree with red flowers? How was the memory of a tree healing her loneliness? He reached for the brown, hoping for answers, and got the shock of his life. He was looking into his own eyes and hearing his own voice. 'Never again...my Cosplayer.' His words. The tree was the one she told him about when he first told her what his magic was meant for. He was healing a wound that she had carried since she was a child. He hadn't even used his magic. He had just been himself.
He reached down and tore the dead rotted gray from the wound. It hurt. He felt the memories she had buried deep in that wound. She couldn't heal if he had left it like that. He soothed the pain by sharing a memory of his own with her. The light happy orange that came from watching her play tag with his babies for the first time. He didn't normally do it this way, but for her he would share a piece of himself.
He moved on then, diving even deeper, and found terror such a dark yellow it was almost black. There were no trails coming or going, but it was acting as a vacuum, sucking the color and light from all around it. Whatever caused this was sucking life from her. He reached out slowly to touch it. What he saw gave rise to his own terror. She was dying! Right there in their arms! Lucy was dying! How could this be happening!
Then suddenly, somehow, he felt Lucy, his Lucy, pulling him away out of the memory and he could see it from the outside. There were two Lucy's. This was Crocus, the eclipse gate. No-one had shared with the guild that this had happened, that more than dragons and Future Rogue had come through the gate. Lucy had held her future self as she died.
This memory would be hard to heal. She had been helpless here. He could fight that with her own power. He reminded her soul of past victories and used the bold purples and reds the memories created to build a wall around the life leaching terror. Right before he sealed it he fed the darkness one of his own memories, one it couldn't corrupt, because it wasn't hers. A memory of light and Lucy, beautiful, with the morning sun in her hair, looking like the angel she was. Over time that light would banish the darkness.
He continued like that, building with her own strengths and life when he could, sharing his own when needed, reopening old scars healed wrong, or not at all, only when he had to. Pepe pulled him out once when his time ran out and he only took a moment to reorientate before diving back in. Deeper and deeper into the light that was Lucy's soul prompting healing a he went.
Finally he came to her core. The bright vibrant mass of writhing color was healthy and alive. Solid, stable browns. Soothing, peaceful blues. Living, growing greens. Vibrant, happy oranges. Reds and purples of passion and power. She didn't need him here. She would be ok now. She would heal and she wouldn't feel broken anymore.
He felt Popo pulling at him, telling him that his time was up again. Just before he let himself be pulled out he was shocked to hear his own voice again, this time coming from her very core. 'With a soul love and trust go hand in hand.' He glanced around frantically as the colors rushed past him. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he had touched her soul, he saw the bold, royal blue of trust.
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To be continued