Chapter 3 edited
Happy fluttered uneasily as the lights from the guild hall finally came into view. Now that he had gotten to the guild, he wondered how he would explain the situation to everyone. You didn't just come out and say that Natsu of all people was having nightmares.
He fretted silently as he entered the nearly empty guild. He was surprised that there were people hanging around so early in the morning. Mirajane was humming from behind the counter as she began prepping for the long day of service, Knob was still standing in front of the request board, and Cana had already started on her third beer stein of the day.
Several other members were milling about as well, but Happy did not spot Lucy among them. He sullenly floated over to Mira and collapsed on the bar top, defeated.
Mira noticed Happy's pouting in sidled over to him.
"What's wrong Happy? Did you and Natsu get into a fight?"
Happy shook his head as best as he could from his face-planted position on the counter. Mirajane frowned and lifted up the blue exceed, trying her best to find the source of his depression.
"Awwww… did Carla reject you?"
Happy seemed to gain an energy boost at hearing those words and puffed out his chest defiantly.
"Carla would never reject me," he yelled confidently, "I just haven't asked her yet because I haven't found the perfect fish to give her. When I do ask her, she'll be so stunned that rejection will never cross her mind!"
Mira laughed at the exceeds brashness and hoped that Happy's plan followed through, otherwise he'd be heartbroken.
Mira waited for him to calm down and then asked him why he was so depressed before. Happy's good mood disappeared as he remembered why he came in the first place.
"I was looking for Lucy, but I can't find her anywhere."
Mira quickly pulled out the request book and scanned through the pages until she came on the records. She flipped the book around for Happy to see and tapped a spot where Lucy's pretty handwriting filled the square next to the request.
"Levy and Lucy went on a request to move all the books out of an old library in Hargeon to a newer one so that the old one can be remolded. They won't be expected bask for a few weeks."
"Eeh! How big is the library?" Happy yelled; it couldn't possibly take that long to move books.
"Pretty big," Mira replied, "Says here that it's the third biggest in Fiore and is one of the oldest as well."
Happy groaned; there was no way he could wait that long for Lucy to return.
Mira smiled, stowing away the request book. She sat in silence with the exceed for a moment, letting him sulk.
"Why are you looking for Lucy?"
"Natsu has been having trouble sleeping." The blue cat replied, which was far too vague for her to properly understand his meaning.
Happy went on. "I went to her house to ask her to help, but the window was locked because Natsu used to come in through there and sleep in Lucy's bed, and then I accidentally broke it and found out she wasn't home, and now I'm here."
Mira blushed as she interpreted an entirely different meaning from the Exceed's story.
'Natsu was sleeping in Lucy's bed!? Does that mean that they were dating? They must have, but then they broke up and Lucy wouldn't let Natsu come anymore. Now Natsu can't sleep without Lucy; ooh that's so cute!'
Happy watched as Mira descended into her fantasy world, already imagining what Natsu and Lucy's baby would look like. Just as Happy made to leave, Mira grabbed the blue exceed, determined to help Natsu with his problem. Mira was going to live up to her self-appointed nickname, miss, knows-everything-about-relationships-and-can-solve-all-your-problems.
"Happy when you get home, tell Natsu that he needs to tell Lucy how he feels, and that he enjoys being with her and that he can't sleep without her. He needs to tell her that he wants to get married and have five kids, and that the wedding cake must be vanilla and strawberry." Mira shook him as she said this, emphasizing her point at each statement by rocking Happy harder.
Happy reeled at the barrage of information, his eyes rolling back into his head as Mira shook him around. He was absolutely sure that he was going to have brain damage for the rest of his life. When Mira finally released him, he was dazedly floating back to the Guild's entrance, images of strawberry cake swimming about his head.
FT
Meanwhile, Natsu was struggling to gain control of his wild emotions. An avalanche of memories kept threatening to drown him in raw emotion that they pulled the fraying strings that was his sanity. Natsu had fallen, writhing in pain as his head throbbed in harmony with his fast pulse. His brain felt like it was being shredded to pieces, as if someone had let loose a wild herd of exceeds and his head was a scratching post. He screamed as his brain seemed to split open, and clear visions began playing in the forefront of his mind.
Igneel had left again; it wasn't a very uncommon occurrence, Igneel would leave every month for a few days, and then come back. Natsu never asked where he went every time and Igneel never told, Natsu could accept his foster father's privacy and never thought otherwise.
Natsu actually used those days to go exploring; mapping out the forest outside of the cave and the path to the lake.
He couldn't help but remember the warning Igneel had given him that day, about the promise he had made. But he never remembered it for long, because his search would always inevitably turn towards humans.
Every time his father left, he would press deeper into the woods than he had the last time, always hoping to see some sign of human habitation. However, his efforts were fruitless, and Igneel would often return to find Natsu in a temperamental mood.
One day, after he had already given up searching for humans, Natsu had been wandering aimlessly through the woods. Coincidentally, Natsu happened to look up and spot a pillar of smoke rising high above the trees. Puzzled, he went to investigate.
What he found was more than he was prepared for.
Bear traps, animal skins, magic guns, and boxes of bait were all that greeted him as he approached the camp. The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils, and the creeping feeling of death made a shiver run up his spine. He wasn't at all bothered by the sight of animal skin, but something else did bother him; all the wasted pieces.
Meat had been left to rot in this camp sight. Dozens of animal carcasses had been gutted, skinned, and stripped of all their juicy meat, and they weren't even eating it. All the skins had been neatly stacked onto a wagon, most likely ready to leave for the nearest town to be sold to a tanner.
Natsu could smell where the organs and flesh of the animals had been carried off and buried so that not even scavengers could salvage the meat. Natsu could see the skins of animals that Igneel told him were rare, and shouldn't be eaten. He clenched his fist in barley suppressed anger.
How could they do this? This couldn't be the work of humans, creatures he admired and sought after so committedly. Tears began to fall from his eyes as the dragon part of him accepted the discovery and demanded he move on; but the human part of him would not let it go.
The sound of a twig snapping behind him caused Natsu to whirl around in panic. He could hear the clumsy movements of several humans drawing near. He panicked, knowing that there was no time for him to sprint into the woods. He ducked behind the wagon just as the first human emerged from the woods.
He quickly flopped onto his belly and crawled under the wagon, trying to get a better look at the creatures. There were five of them, but they weren't nearly as remarkable as Natsu had believed they would be, in fact they were kind of boring. Natsuu pouted as he realized that the humans were just like him, just larger and uglier.
However, as they began to settle in; Natsu did notice a large difference between himself and them. They didn't have wings, or even a tail for that matter. Well, neither did he… most of the time.
Natsu flinched as a pair of steel toed boots clomped down heavily in front of his face, and had to clamp his mouth shut to keep from crying out.
"Hey Bard, we ready to get a move on, I want to be back to the city by nightfall."
One of the men leaning over the fire nodded sullenly as the others in the group began to pack up. The man with the steel toed boots moved into Natsu's line of sight as he moved away from the wagon, and Natsu wrinkled his nose in disgust.
The man was huge, easily topping six feet tall. He had greasy black hair and was missing far too many teeth, and his nose looked like it had been broken a few times, and almost looked completely squashed against his face. His clothes looked like they had once been expensive, but were now tattered and worn, covered in old blood stains.
He leaned on Bard and popped a cigar in his mouth, puffing for a moment as the man next to him looked away uncomfortably.
"You see that there," the man said, gesturing to the wagon hanging over Natsu's head. "That right there is going to make me rich, and it's all thanks to you man. You worked so hard to track all those animals for me; I almost don't want to let you go."
Bard's head shot up. "What about by family?" He protested, fear prominent in his features. "You said you would let them go if I helped you on this last haul, and if you got over a 500,000 jewels profit you would let me go too."
The cigar man draped his arm over Bards shoulder and leaned in close, blowing smoke in the man's face.
"Well, you see, we were hoping that we could reach a million jewels if you managed to catch that Rainbow bird, but sadly, you didn't, which may have just hurt your chances a bit."
"But you could still get a little more than half a million with what I got you!"
"Now ya' see Bard, it doesn't work quite like that. First, we got to subtract the costs of feeding your family, the costs of buying all this equipment, the payment my men deserve for their labor and a dozen other things. The profit is really quite small, really only a quarter million."
Bard paled as he realized what a serious situation he was in. he had no choice but to comply, seeing as his entire family was on the line. The cigar man took another puff from is cigar and laughed at Bards distress.
The crew quickly finished packing away the camp supplies and loaded onto the wagon. Bard made as if to join them, but was pushed away by one of the men. He was about to protest, but suddenly one held a gun up to his chest. Bard raised his hands in the air and slowly backed away as the wagon began to move.
Natsu scrambled to flip over on his back and grab the wagons axel before he was exposed. The man with the gun stayed behind with Bard, slowly backing him up towards a tree.
As the wagon made a sharp turn on the dirt path, Natsu quickly detached himself from the wagons underside and ran back to the camp. He wanted to help Bard, but he also didn't want to be caught by these people. He crouched behind a tree to watch the confrontation between the two humans.
Bard had backed up to the far end of the camp, the gunman following in his wake. Natsu quietly crept along the edge of the clearing, trying to get a better view. Every muscle in his body was screaming for him to run; but he couldn't, he wanted to see how this all played out.
The gunman stopped in the middle of the clearing, letting Bard make more distance, but kept his aim centered on the other man's chest.
"The boss has got one more job for you, if you'll take it." The man said, a mocking lilt in his tone.
"I thought he wanted you to kill me," Bard responded, finally settling next to a large oak tree at the edge of the clearing.
"Oh don't get me wrong, he does, but where would be the fun in killing you if we didn't get one more bit of work out of you."
The man lowered his gun, casually unloading the weapons magic bullets.
"So here's the deal; you and me are going to go hunting for a particular creature. If we find it, we'll kill it, and bring it back to the boss. When we get it to the boss and if he gets a good profit on it, we'll let your family go, but sadly, you'll have to die since you know too much. On the other hand, if we don't find the creature and get a good profit, we will kill your family and drop you into the ring with a couple of Vulcans and see how long you're hunting skills last. So what say you?"
Bard stood frozen, trying to process all the information. His fists clenched and unclenched and sweat poured down his brow. He had already gone through so much to protect his family, all so he go on living with them, and now that wouldn't be an option. He would die no matter what he did.
The hunter nodded slowly, trying to assure himself as he made his decision. If his family lived, then he would be happy, even if he died in the end. They would be sad when they heard of his death, but he would rather them be sad than dead.
"So what is this creature that I am hunting down?"
The other man smiled manically as he slid his gun into its holster. The boss would be pleased to hear this. They were going to be rich soon, all because of this naïve idiot.
"You best prepare yourself, Bard. We're going dragon hunting."
Notes: Sorry this took so long, I was at my grandparents' house for most of the week and they don't have wi-fi L. Anyways, please comment or leave a review.
(P.S. I might begin to fall behind on chapter updates here pretty soon, my vacation is about to start so I'll probably neglect my writing. Keep reading everyone!)