Happy holidays, everyone! Sorry I took so long to update, I was writing one-shots and then being sluggish. But I'm back now! Sorry it's only a short chapter.
Dedicated to Kosmotius! Special thanks to Czar Ryno, WhiteWinterStar, SlightlyOff7, gwb620, artistofthemind, artificialartofficial (I wasn't sure if it would be interesting either, to tell you the truth), rebma726, and FrozenFireLight! Thanks for your reviews, guys!
Please remember to review, favorite, and follow!
Two days had passed since the job in the town floating on the ocean. There were three and a half days left in the week, giving Natsu approximately eighty-four more hours to reach Cyprus. Not that I was the one counting – Virgo appeared every hour on the hour to give me the new time.
I didn't have time to count the hours, even if I wanted to, even if I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and sleep until Natsu came to take me home. I had work to do. And with what I was doing now, I'd die for sure if I stopped to think.
As the enormous jaws crashed together inches from my ear, I cursed my luck for the thousandth time that day. I mean, seriously. Why did I always get the jobs with the oversized monsters? What was so hard about putting in a request for someone to find a lost goldfish or something? The world had it out for me with a vengeance.
I ducked and rolled to avoid the giant claw that came whistling through the air. It gouged a meter-deep gash in the ground where I'd been standing seconds before. "Anyway," I muttered to myself, staring up at the thing, "Putting goldfish aside, what the hell are you?" Whereas I had at least read about the drake, I had no experience to draw on for the thing. It seemed to be some sort of unholy mix of scorpion, chihuahua, and frog, but you never knew. I shuddered just remembering the 'mole' I'd encountered once.
I circled around the back, trying to take it off-guard, but it kicked out with its back legs. I narrowly avoided the slimy webbed feet and stumbled backward into a tree. I leaned against it, panting. The chimera turned slowly to face me, yipping and shivering. The head, neck, and front legs were all chihuahua, thin and furry. It might have been cute, but its eyes bugged out like a frog's, almost popping out of its skull. Its back half was smooth green skin and long froggy legs, and its tail was black, hard, and shining. An enormous pincer sat at the end, ready to snap my head off, poisoning my body needlessly in the process. It stared me down with its creepy eyes, and I cursed quietly. It yapped again, and I rubbed my forehead. The sound was echoing in my skull and giving me a massive headache. The chimera lunged again impatiently. I sidestepped, but not fast enough. Its needle teeth crashed together, tearing my sleeve and taking a small chunk out of my upper arm. I gritted my teeth and tore off the sleeve, wrapping it around the wound. "You want to play, buddy? I'll play," I muttered, searching through my keys irritably. "I'm tired of letting you have all the fun." Slipping a key off the ring, I twisted it in the air. "Open, Gate of the Scorpion: Scorpio!"
Seconds later, the summoned Celestial Spirit was blasting the chimera with sand and shouting 'We are!'. The sand stuck to the frog skin and dried it out, making the creature wail in pain. It slumped to the ground and cowered there pathetically until I called Scorpio off. I was about to step forward and see if the thing was okay when a shout from above made me stop. I looked up to see something swinging towards me on a vine in a bright blur.
"Leave her alone!" the blur shouted. As I watched, it let go of the vine and flew through the air, straight at me. I told myself to stay calm. I forced my furiously racing brain to slow down and think efficiently. I searched for a solution as quickly and calmly as I could.
Okay, so I panicked a little bit.
I couldn't move, I was so taken aback. My brain was screaming at me to get out of the way or something, but my feet were frozen to the spot they stood on. Giving up on moving, my brain started shrieking for help. My eyes were fixated on the object soaring towards me. As the blur got closer, it began to gain shape and definition, until I could almost tell–
There was a resounding sound of flesh hitting more flesh and the boy was flying into a tree and Loke was somehow right in front of me and his fist was glowing and smoking and my mouth made a funny sort of popping noise and then there was the sound of the boy crashing into the tree and branches cracking and then Loke was looking at me with alarm and telling me it was okay, just breathe, breathe, Lucy, oh my God your face is turning purple please BREATHE and then something hit my stomach and all the air trapped in my lungs left with a whoosh and more oxygen was sucked in and my brain slowly remembered that this was called breathing and it was necessary to life and I took another deep, deep breath.
"Oh, God," I gasped, my knees turning to water. I grabbed Loke's arm and clung to it, not trusting myself to know how to stand. "You saved me. Thanks." He smiled suavely at me, sunglasses flashing.
"Anytime, Lucy. But anyway," he continued, glancing over to where the boy was struggling to get up from the spot he had fallen, "What's his problem?" I shrugged, releasing Loke's arm and standing by myself as the strength returned to my muscles.
"Who knows... But I think you might have been a little too rough." He had collapsed on the leafy ground, and he wasn't moving. I left Loke's side and approached the boy curiously, half-wondering if he was still alive. "Hey, are you okay?" He really wasn't moving at all. I couldn't even tell if he was breathing. Getting closer, I realized he was around my age, older than I had thought. Black hair swept across his forehead and fell in his eyes, which were closed. I knelt next to him, my hand hovering uncertainly over his back. I was afraid to touch him, in case I hurt him more. Suddenly, he sat up, making me jump and fall backwards on the heels of my hands. He grimaced, clearly in pain, but then he registered me next to me. The fierce glare he gave me practically cut through me.
"You... Don't you dare do anything more to Molly!" he shouted, backing away and trying to get to his feet. He couldn't quite manage it and fell back onto the ground, getting a few fresh scrapes in the process.
"Hey, calm down," I soothed. "You're pretty banged up, you know." I crossed my legs and laid my hands palms-up on my knees to try to show him I wasn't going to do anything. After a drawn-out moment of sulky silence, he relaxed a tiny bit. I resisted the urge to tell him he was a good boy. "Okay. So who is Molly?" The guy's glare regained its animosity at my question, and he raised his arm slowly to indicate the huddled chimera several yards away. I gaped. "That thing?"
"Molly is not a 'thing'," he snapped. "She is a living creature like you and me and that spider." He pointed to a glistening black body crawling up the tree trunk to my left. I cringed and scooted away from it.
"Right, sorry. Anyway, I didn't want to fight with your pet, and I'm sorry I had to hurt it–" The brown eyes narrowed, and I gritted my teeth in frustration. "I mean, her. I'm sorry I hurt her. But she attacked me first." He sniffed, tilting his chin up.
"Molly is a wild animal, after all. Your scent probably provoked her." That does it.
"Listen closely, Tarzan," I growled menacingly, leaning forward and clenching my fist in his shirt collar. Our faces were centimeters apart, our noses practically touching. "I was walking through this forest minding my own damn business looking for magic ferns when your stupid mutt jumped me and the kids I was with. Do you know what could have happened to them?" He exhaled, glancing away from my eyes, searching for an out. Well, tough beans. There was none. "You're damn lucky they had enough sense to listen to me and go hide somewhere in the forest, but if they had gotten hurt, I wouldn't stop at hurting that thing over there. I'd have hunted you down and skinned you alive for letting your screwed up pets attack innocent passersby. Understand?" He nodded frantically. His eyes were locked to mine now, not daring to stray for a second. Loke came to stand next to me, hands in pockets. A nasty grin twisted his lips upwards. Glancing back at him to say dial it back a little with my eyes, I released the boy's shirt and stood next to him. He leaned down so his face was level with the boy's.
"What's your name, kid?"
He gulped, trying to look fierce. "Jared." I smiled at him and extended my hand, ignoring it when he flinched.
"Well then, Jared, as long as we're clear, I'll make an exception and let it go. After all, Loke here did hurt you pretty badly. You've probably got a few bruised ribs, at least." He started to turn up his nose, then paused. I laughed. "Don't worry about it so much. I'm just going to help you up. Or did you want to stay down there?" Not looking at me, he grabbed my hand and I pulled him up. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" Jared still refused to look at me or Loke, and rushed over to his pet. He laid his hands tenderly on her muzzle and whispered soothing words in her oversized ear. I turned to Loke to suggest we go look for Sam and Holland, but the words escaped my tongue when I saw him watching the scene in front of us with a strange intensity. A slow whisper of unease crawled down my spine, plucking out a haunting tune on my nerves and sending the feeling to the tips of my fingers and toes. My skin tingled with the promise of an uncomfortable situation.
"Hey, Jared," Loke called casually. Jared glanced at him resentfully. "You love Molly a lot, right?" He nodded reluctantly, like he didn't want to answer but instinctively responded. Like it was such an ingrained part of him. The familiarity I felt only made my unease worse. "What would you do if she didn't love you back?" I stiffened. What is that damned idiot thinking? Whatever Jared said, I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear, didn't want to know. I became three again, clapping my hands over my ears and screaming at the top of my lungs to keep the world from leaking in through the cracks in my walls. I was watching my father crush my childish hopes of family, listening to him roar for me to get out, seeing my beautiful, empty home blur and shatter into fragments, feeling the loneliness, hollowness, hatred settling into my new gashes and seal them up tight. The beginning of our family's ending.
Why am I seeing this now? I asked myself, hiding my eyes with a hand. I could feel Jared's eyes on me, measuring me, trying to understand my reaction to Loke's question. I didn't care. What did it matter what a stranger thought of me? It didn't. Not at all.
"That's a stupid question." I flinched, not expecting him to answer, not ready for his answer. "If I love her, she'll love me back. And if she doesn't, so what?"
"So... You're saying you'll make her love you?" Loke asked him. Even without seeing it, the force of Jared's eye-roll was enough to make the earth turn faster.
"No, you idiot. That's the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm trying to tell you that it doesn't matter if she loves me or not. I love her, so who cares?"
"Is that enough for you?" I was the one who spoke now, moving my fingers to my forehead to scrub away the wrinkles settling there. Jared stared at me blankly.
"Isn't it for everybody?"
"No," I said softly, never dropping his gaze. "Not for everybody."
Why did I leave Fairy Tail? The reason had been disappearing into the fog, vanishing without a trace and leaving me to spin hopelessly out of control. Why leave my home?
Because loving him wasn't enough.
I want him to love me back.
NATSU
Cyprus was getting closer. I could feel Lucy in the air, smell her in the towns we passed through. She was near, and my blood was on fire. Months away from her had done something weird to me – just thinking about being closer to seeing Lucy, to holding her, to being with her, was enough to make my body crackle with electricity. My heartbeat roared her name. My breaths called out for her. I fell asleep and woke up reaching for someone who wasn't there. And my cells chanted five words again and again and again, until it seemed that it had always been that way.
I love you. Come back.
I love you. Come back.
I love you. Come back.
Happy and I flew and flew and flew, counting the hours. We had three and half more days, eighty-four hours to reach Lucy and meet her deadline. Time had never seemed more precious.
I love you. Come back.
Again, sorry it was so short. I was feeling sort of blegh. But I hope you liked it! Remember to review, follow, and favorite.