Author's notes at the end.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Knightwalker Antiques
Wednesday, October 21st
With freshly polished fingernails, Lucy zoomed in again on the map app on her cellphone to locate which street she had to turn into next. It was the night before that Lucy had received an unexpected message from Erza, stating very formally that she needed to cash in that favor for the spa day they had weeks ago by having Lucy help her out with her job – namely running a small antique store of sorts. An employee of hers had apparently called in sick and Erza was expecting a new shipment to be arriving today, hence she needed an extra pair of hands.
It seemed like a reasonable request and honestly, saying no to Erza was not something Lucy wanted to do anytime soon. It meant she didn't get to relax on her day off but that was fine as she was struggling to get motivated to write after not being able to draw inspiration from the Saturday D&D session that never happened.
She quickly figured out that she didn't have much further to walk and hurried along according to the app's directions. She was more than keen to see what Erza's store was like as she never took her for an antique dealer. Not only was her curiosity beckoning her, but it was a welcome distraction as keeping her current feelings regarding her crush in check was proving to be more and more difficult for her to do.
It was almost all too much with everything else going on – her father's interference, Levy visiting, the tournament. She resorted to pushing those feelings back into the neat little prison she had built for them prior to the harvest festival and so far it seemed to be working.
Her job was also tense too with the awkwardness of trying to talk to Yukino only to find she was mysteriously not at her desk whenever Lucy came by. It was lonely without her guidance and after two days of not seeing her, Lucy knew that Yukino had been purposely avoiding her.
When Lucy wasn't at work, she had occupied herself trying to get in contact with her father to ask him why he was now hiring someone to keep tabs on her; first trying to call him but always getting his secretary answering in his stead as ther phonecalls kept redirecting to them with the response that Lucy had received for days now – he was out of the country on business. She eventually resorted to sending him a lengthy email but she had received nothing back yet.
It made her angry to think about it, enough to make her almost stomp her way to Erza's store. She felt like she wasn't even entitled to her own privacy alongside her independence without her father needing some involvement in it. Worst of all, this newest incident came to light in front of Natsu and inadvertently got him involved in her family issues. It was embarrassing to say the least and Lucy couldn't stop thinking about it and what Natsu might be thinking about her now.
She knew he clearly wasn't interested in her based on her limited experience of how guys behave around someone they're crushing on, but a part of her was still mortified by the fact that the whole experience was just a taste of how her dad could be. It could be enough to make Natsu find any excuse to get away from her so he wouldn't be involved her awkward family affairs again.
But Lucy knew that it was silly honestly.
Natsu simply wasn't like that. He didn't even mention her dad again as he continued to hang out with her for the rest of the evening.
But would it cement that Natsu definitely would never develop feelings for someone that had such a control freak for a dad?
Lucy stopped suddenly to take a breath and try not to slap herself in an attempt to get those daft thoughts out of herself.
'Get a hold of yourself – stop thinking about what can't be changed. Natsu isn't interested like that.'
A few long breaths later, she continued on with her journey, occupying her thoughts with anything else that came to mind. It wasn't long before her cell was indicating that she was approaching Erza's store. She looked around, looking for a sign that read the name of the store, 'Knightwalker Antiques', and she quickly found it.
Lucy wasn't surprised – the store matched what she had imagined it to look like really well – an older gray brick building with red awnings. What was surprising though, is what she saw in the store windows; armor, swords, and several shields from different eras and places in the world.
'She deals in medieval-era weaponry?'
Lucy went to go inside, pushing open a heavy oak red door, and was in awe of what she saw. There were shields adorning the interior walls alongside several olden canvases with embroidered knights, battles, and castles telling stories of ancient times. Several stands of polished armor were placed around the store floor, price tags way out of Lucy's affordable range dangling from them. Then there were the swords – what seemed to be hundreds of them that hung proudly on the walls filling every inch of space that there was as well as even more swords that were placed in stands or behind a glass counter where there was a single, beaten-up cash register.
There was a stone archway dividing the store, leading to a back area which Lucy assumed was where Erza was currently as she couldn't see her in the hoard of weapons that was the storefront.
"Lucy?" called out Erza's voice, confirming her assumption.
"Yes, it's me!" Lucy called back. "Do you want me to come back there?"
"Please do."
Lucy walked through the arch and to her right, she saw Erza in a small room, surrounded by several wooden crates that looked considerably heavy. Erza leaned over into one of the crates which were open and lifted out a round shield of sorts to inspect it.
'Did she move all these crates in here all by herself?'
"I'm glad you came," Erza formally greeted her as she placed the shield back into the crate and turned to her. "As you can see, I've had a new shipment arrive this morning and it needs to be dealt with."
Lucy went wide-eyed. "You want me to move all of this?!" She exclaimed.
"No, that would be asking far too much of you," Erza replied, shaking her head. "I want you to assist me in cataloging them for the store's records."
Lucy let out a sigh of relief. That sounded much easier to handle.
"But first, let me give you a tour of the store as my temporary employee," Erza said, stepping away from the crates and walking back into the main store.
"Yeah, sure," Lucy quietly answered, still in awe of the place as her eyes were drawn back to all the weapons and armor.
Erza walked over to the cash register, giving it a pat. "This is where we deal with customers – you don't have to worry about doing that as I will assist anyone who needs it. I will, however, give you a short lecture on the weaponry and armor I stock."
Lucy, while listening, couldn't help but notice that Erza was speaking as though it was quite a common thing for people to come in and just buy ancient medieval weaponry. She couldn't imagine that she would have that many daily customers.
Erza next took her to several suits of armor on display. "I will deal with anyone interested in the majority of items here but if anyone asks, this piece here-" She indicated to the armor with several interlocking rings that seemed to make up the majority of the entire set. "-is chain mail. The other piece next to it is scale mail. These are from medieval Bosco to be more precise."
Lucy could see why it was called that what with its tiny scale-shaped pieces of metal that connected together to look like something reptilian – dragon-like even. She quickly regretted thinking that – her mind immediately jumping to think about a certain pink-haired someone. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind as fast as it had intruded. Erza clearly expected her to behave professionally and Natsu wasn't going to stop her from doing that when he wasn't even here.
"And finally, this one is plate mail," Erza stated, tapping it softly before turning her attention to the wall of swords. "Let's cover weaponry now. The majority of the shipment are swords so it will be imperative you are able to tell what type they are in order to catalog them."
"Erza-" Lucy interjected just as she started describing the difference between a short sword and a long sword. "There's no way I'm going to remember all of this, I'll need something to make some notes on."
"Oh, alright," Erza responded and pointed to the register. "There's a notepad by the register over there. Go fetch it quickly so we can continue with your lesson."
Lucy hurried over, finding it straight away and taking a small pen as well that was just lying by a stack of mail and papers. However, her keen eyes caught sight of an opened envelope just as she was about to turn back to Erza.
It looked completely ordinary aside from the inked stamp in its upper corner, which stated 'Era Prison'.
'Why would Erza be receiving letters from a prison?'
What little she about it was that it was a maximum-security prison for people serving life sentences. It was always something she often heard her dad mention whenever he was talking to prospective business partners that came across as the shady types that were definitely dealing in the 'wrong' type of business. For all his faults, her father had at least some morals and he never dealt with anyone that was doing something unscrupulous.
Lucy didn't have time to ponder, nor the guts, to ask Erza why she would have a letter from prison. The redhead in question already going back to covering all the types of swords, regardless if Lucy was ready to write anything down or not.
Frantically, Lucy began making notes, relieved that her writing skills had some use in keeping up with the bombardment of information Erza was rolling out to her.
Soon, Lucy had a list of swords with accompanying descriptions that ranged from a width of a Katana to the length of a Zweihander. She hoped it was enough notes to catalog the shipment items as, from Erza's description of the crates, the swords in the shipment arrived were grouped together randomly without labels which is why she needed to be able to tell them apart from one another. There was also a small selection of shields too in one of the crates which would also add to the challenge.
As Erza was placing a round metal shield back on its stand which Lucy came to understand was called a 'Buckler', the redhead turned to look at the single clock on the wall which was surrounded by weapons pointing towards it in a decorative, circular fashion. "It's time for lunch, you can begin your cataloging task after we have eaten."
Lucy felt her body finally relax after Erza's grueling lesson. There was so much to cover and the amount of detail Erza gave about every single sword... she really knew her medieval weaponry well. It made sense that her character in D&D was a warrior.
However, a lot of the notes Lucy had made didn't even seem relevant to the task. She wasn't sure she needed to know what the hilts were made from or what the length of the 'tang' was just to group them up. It was a good thing that it was just swords and shields that she was learning the basics of and not any other weapons – Lucy shuddered at the thought of having to cover axes, maces, or anything else as well.
Erza led her into the back room and as Lucy was about to point out that the store was unattended in the front, it occurred to her that not once during Erza's lecture that a single customer came in to buy anything.
Erza led the way around the crates to a cramped corner of the room that featured a small table with a couple of chairs that sat beside a small sink and a coffee brewer. Next to that was a mini-fridge which Erza knelt down in front of to open and retrieved what seemed to be a few homemade sandwiches on a plate.
"They're filled with cream cheese and cucumber – I hope you don't mind, I didn't make anything else this morning as I wasn't aware at the time that you would be filling in for my employee for today," Erza stated, pulling off the plastic wrap from around it and placing it on the table.
"It's absolutely fine," Lucy replied, not keen on the sandwich filling but she wasn't about to turn it down either.
"Can I offer you a coffee?" Erza then asked, already preparing the brewer with what Lucy could see was a lot of coffee.
"Um, sure," Lucy stuttered as she hoped Erza's coffee wasn't too strong.
Lucy took a seat and helped herself to one of the sandwiches, noting they were a little plain tastewise but nothing to complain about. It wasn't long before Erza joined her after placing some small coffee cups on the table ready for them as well as a small bowl of sugar.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a minute or so as they ate sandwiches before Erza spoke up.
"So I hear you're helping Natsu find Igneel."
Lucy almost choked on her sandwich.
Why did Erza have to bring up Natsu?
Lucy swallowed her food before answering. "Yeah, that's right. If he's not going to give up hope for finding him, then neither am I." Although, after saying it, Lucy realized she made it seem as if she was accusing Erza of having given up on Natsu's search and she wasn't sure how her friend would take it. Before she could explain herself, Erza spoke again.
"It's good of you to try," Erza simply answered calmly. "All of us did a long time ago – Gray, myself, Lisanna, Mira, even Gajeel at one point, but it was as if Igneel had vanished off the face of Earthland."
Lucy was relieved that Erza took no offense to her reply and felt a little more at ease to continue speaking. Luckily, talking about helping Natsu with what's important to him didn't cause her to think about that pesky crush she had developed. Her desire to help him find his dad trumped that easily. "But Natsu is determined to find him, it's all he talks about aside from food and Happy."
"I understand," Erza said. "But at some point, you have to wonder if Igneel wants to be found with what little information there is out there regarding him."
Lucy understood what Erza was saying but had trouble understanding what would be the motivation. "The way Natsu talks about Igneel makes it sound like Igneel would've never abandoned him."
Erza nodded, smiling slightly before getting up to check on the brewing coffee. "I understand why Natsu might feel that way about him – but it's not always as simple as that. I sometimes wonder if Igneel had a good reason for doing what he did."
Curious, Lucy wanted to know more. "What do you mean?"
"I was abandoned as a baby," Erza answered bluntly as she stared intently at the coffee brewer. "Don't mind me, staring at it makes the coffee brew faster." The coffee maker probably felt intimidated by her and compelled itself to work faster… somehow.
Lucy wasn't about to question that part although she was thrown off by the sudden change in topic. Erza showed no emotion when revealing quite a large part of her past to her as if it didn't bother her at all to talk about it. Lucy wasn't sure how to show that she was sympathetic to Erza's trauma if she could just deadpan it.
"I'm sorry, that must have been hard for you," Lucy said although she knew it was more of something you say to people in general when hearing of their plights, wincing at herself the moment the generic words left her lips.
"Not really, I was a baby, I don't remember it," Erza stated, her eyes not leaving the coffee brewer.
"I meant learning that about yourself," Lucy replied softly.
"Oh. Yes." Erza replied. "Well, the point I was making was that I found out many years later that my birth mother was in an abusive relationship and she was trying to spare me from my father by abandoning me."
Lucy couldn't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for Erza's birth mother. Imagining her own mom having to do something similar to her hurt to think about, alongside the thought of being ripped away from your precious baby must have been equally as horrible. Her memories of her dad had always been of him being cold, emotionally neglectful, and controlling – she didn't want to imagine what Erza's dad was like if he was the type that made abandonment the only option.
"I'm not looking for pity," Erza stated, her voice filled with more conviction and strength than before as she finally made eye contact with Lucy once more. "I'm just saying that an extreme circumstance might have caused Igneel to do something similar."
Lucy nodded, understanding what Erza was getting at.
"Do you have a relationship with her now?" Lucy asked, concerned about Erza's well-being and curious if there were a happier ending.
"My birth mother?" Erza inquired, clearly not expecting that question from her. "I see her from time to time but we don't have a bond. As for my biological father – he died in prison some time ago."
Lucy instinctively went to apologize to her but held her tongue when she got the vibe that Erza didn't particularly care for a man that was so abusive.
"But getting back to Igneel," Erza continued. "I ask myself sometimes after all the searching we did years ago on Natsu's behest whether he might even still be alive."
"Even if he's not, Natsu still deserves to know what happened to him," Lucy quickly interjected, not realizing how quick she was to protect Natsu's feelings first and foremost before suddenly holding her tongue from saying any more. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to find out about her idiotic crush.
"I agree with you," Erza said. "But I feel like all avenues have been searched. What is your next plan for finding him?"
At that point, the coffee brewer finally clicked, informing Erza it was done and causing her to grin with satisfaction. Lucy did feel like that was an unusually quick brewing time. Perhaps Erza's method really worked.
"There is one thing I want to try," Lucy said as Erza brought over the pot of coffee and began pouring it into the mugs.
"Oh, please explain," Erza commanded a little more authoritarian than she probably realized.
"Well, Natsu has a brother right? Zeref? And he's several years older than Natsu and I'm thinking he might know more than he's willing to tell Natsu," Lucy explained, leaving out the part where she thought that Igneel and Tartaros might have been connected somehow. That theory would remain nothing more than conjecture at the most until there was actual evidence.
Erza looked at her curiously, Lucy continued explaining her thought process although trailed off when she watched Erza take a sip of the coffee to which she had copious amounts of sugar to, completely unfazed by the fact it hadn't even cooled down yet.
"Go on," Erza implored, taking another sip.
"Hm," Lucy nodded. "I've never met Zeref so I would need to suggest the idea to Natsu first."
"You know Natsu rarely talks to him, don't you?" Erza asked.
Lucy nodded. "Yes, but I'm hoping Zeref might be up for a get-together regardless."
"It's not a bad idea," Erza agreed. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up."
"It's good to be optimistic though, right?" Lucy said confidently with a smile. "But you've played D&D with him before – can you tell me what he was like?"
"Of course." Erza agreed. "He played a warlock called Spriggan with a demonic pact and-"
Lucy exasperatedly shook her head. "I meant as a person, not in the game."
"Hmm. Well, let's see now… I would say that he's intelligent, calculated even – always thought out his ideas thoroughly before acting on them."
Lucy wasn't sure that was all that helpful but so far, he was nothing like Natsu.
"He could also be friendly to talk to but always kept some distance," Erza said, her mind pulling up vague memories. "He's calm too – unless he got angry about something, then he wasn't much different from Natsu in that sense."
Lucy tried to build a picture of what sort of person he was and it fit into her idea that he was someone who might be hiding something from Natsu.
"He sounds interesting…" Lucy idly commented as she put her thoughts together, forming questions in her mind about what she could ask him if she had the chance to meet.
"Oh?" Erza curiously asked regarding Lucy's idle comment. "Last I heard, he is dating someone and Natsu probably wouldn't appreciate you being interested in his brother."
"That's not what I was thinking!" Lucy thoughtlessly snapped back, noticing the sly, teasing smile on Erza's face.
Erza seemed to stifle a giggle before checking the time. "We should get back to work soon although it's been a slow day so far so how about we finish the cataloging and close up early?"
Lucy wasn't about to argue with that and agreed quickly.
Erza smiled. "Good. We could go have a look at that new clothing shop we saw in town last week after we're finished if you like – it would be a fun excursion to end the day on."
"I would be more than happy to!" Lucy exclaimed, temporarily forgetting about the sorry state of her finances. Despite Erza's intimidating nature, she loved seeing the softer, feminine side that she showed from time to time. A girl's shopping trip sounded amazing to her and was just what she needed, even if she would soon realize it was only going to be window shopping.
The week so far had been unusually strange for Natsu. He had the feeling that Lucy might be avoiding him but he wasn't certain. He put it down to it being her time of the month or something as she hadn't given him any indication he'd upset her. That was fine by him for the time being as he had received yet another text from Gray if he was gonna bother to come to the gym this week.
Natsu knew he had been neglecting it to raise Happy and hang out at Lucy's place but he couldn't help himself, he was having a blast with them whereas the gym routine had become boring in comparison.
Getting pumped and seeing how strong he had become had given him a kick before and a level of confidence in himself knowing that he would have no problem standing up to someone who would go after his friends or them becoming a victim of bullying again whilst he was around.
Lucy potentially avoiding him (and temporarily so in his mind) was maybe a good thing, he thought as he grabbed his gym clothes and roughly shoved them into his dirt-stained backpack. It was about time he got a workout.
He patted Happy on the head a goodbye before leaving. "I'll be back soon, little buddy."
Happy had grown a lot stronger since bringing him home. The little guy was much more confident with walking now and was starting to show an interest in solid food. Natsu was confident he could safely leave him for a couple of hours. Eventually, he wouldn't have to bring him to work anymore and Metalhead could stop whining to him about it.
The trip to the gym wasn't far to walk, it was an uneventful journey and no one from Tartaros made an unwelcome appearance. It was only just starting to get dark and he rarely ever saw them active before dusk.
Meeting Gray outside the gym, his frenemy was waiting impatiently, gazing down at his cell, and was already subconsciously unbuttoning his shirt from the top.
"Yo, don't do your stripping act here," Natsu commented to him with slight disgust.
"I'm not- shit," Gray protested before realizing, frantically buttoning up again. "I'm glad you finally showed up for once though."
"Huh, I would have thought you would be happier without me here as there's no one to beat you at anything," Natsu challenged, making his way inside with a grin. Working out at the same time as Gray bred competition in the both of them and a majority of the time, Natsu beat him at several of the little contests they threw at one another. While he often won lifting more weights than Gray, Gray often won their little games at dumb things like those weird ski machines.
Once changed and out on the main floor of the gym, Natsu started his warm routine and stretches. He found himself lost in thought for once. For a change, it wasn't about his dad, Lucy, or anyone else for that matter. He started thinking about the D&D game and what Gray had planned for them.
There was now a 'master' character alongside an evil dragon but he didn't have enough information to figure out if the two were one and the same.
Natsu was also curious when other character backstories were gonna be touched upon as Gray had avoided it so far. Lucy was keeping tight-lipped about her character's story but he knew that she had a noble background so maybe that was gonna play into it.
Erza had made her character's intentions early on in the campaign before Lucy had even joined – to find her childhood friends. Metalhead wasn't shedding anything alongside Juvia who was doing the same. Finally, Wendy had already disclosed that her character only wanted to serve her god and there wasn't a mystery there to be solved.
Feeling pumped up from the thought of playing D&D with his friends again after a short break was exciting for him as Natsu energetically made the decision to go beat on a punching bag for a while.
It felt good to work out his muscles in his arms as he landed blow after blow on it, unable to contain his energy as he went to town on that thing.
It was as he was vigorously punching it that he was unexpectedly approached by someone; a tall, bald man with a long-styled beard who wore an appreciative sort of grin.
Natsu stopped pounding on the punch bag for a moment, curious as to what he wanted.
"You're hitting that quite hard. Without some practice, you can perfect a much better style for yourself," the man said calmly.
"I'm fine with just beating on it," Natsu replied, unsure as to what the man was getting at it.
The man smiled at his response. "By all means, I'm not here to lecture you but I do have a proposition in mind."
"A what now?" Natsu asked, returning to punching the bag.
"I'm opening a facility that will be host to a number of contact sports including the relevant training equipment," the man explained calmly and confidently. He didn't come across as sleazy to Natsu, in fact, he seemed very polite and well-spoken.
"Oh yeah?" Natsu asked. "What's that got to do with me?"
"You might be interested in joining, even if it's just to train. It's called Jura's Dojo."
A dojo? That had Natsu's attention as he stopped throwing his punches to listen.
"So I take it you're Jura then? You know they don't like people coming here and stealing their members," Nastu said cockily, recalling the fuss the owner made the last time someone like this guy was here.
"That I am," Jura confirmed for him, politely nodding. "The dojo is invitation only. I actually came over here after talking to your friend, Gray, over there."
He pointed precisely to the location where Gray was currently working out albeit only in his underwear but he hadn't noticed that.
"You want the stripper in your gym?" Natsu asked.
"He demonstrated all the qualities I look for in members," Jura replied. "I'm extending the same invitation to you. Come visit one evening and see if my dojo might be somewhere better for your talents."
Natsu nodded. Honestly, he was happy where he was in the gym he had used for years. He wasn't a big fan of change, often needing some time to adjust before accepting something new. There were exceptions of course and he was thinking that the invitation might be one of them.
The owner of the gym charged too much in his opinion and when Jura mentioned contact sports, Natsu immediately thought of a boxing ring and how awesome it would be able to spar with someone.
As long as he didn't have to take any public transport to get to it, he might take the guy up on his offer and check it out, especially if Gray was planning to as well. If there were any weird commitments to the place, then he was out on the idea. He wasn't willing to sacrifice any more of his time out of work for it because that would mean less D&D and less time with Happy and Lucy.
But if the dojo was good… then perhaps some fresh changes in his life wouldn't be a such bad thing.
AN:
Almost at chapter 30!
If you're missing out on the gang playing D&D, it returns in the next chapter.
Thanks to the reviewers as well as the favs and follows:
rao hyuga 18, FireShifter, mushi9 (chp 26,27), FairyTailxFanGirl, NaruHina shipper and 52dreamer52 (chp 26,27,28)
Next Chapter: It's time for the last session of D&D before the upcoming tournament!
