Uuuuh, hello? Long time no see? I BLAME SPORTS ANIME!
I don't own Fairy Tail.
~MM~
Erza know armor.
She knows how to polish the metal plates she wears until they shine, bright enough to ward off the night and all the curses that climb towers. Erza knows all the chinks in her armor – the places where metal and leather come together, held by small stitches and liable-to-bend staples. She knows enough, has seen enough, learned enough, lived enough, to realize when steel has become too dull to protect her and when straps were frayed to the point of disuse.
For all that she carried herself – stoic, detached, heart held still by experiences and an array of bronze, silver, and hardened earth – Erza knew when to take off her protections and cast away her past, knew when she'd sufficiently protected herself and adequately worn out steel – she knew when to sleep and let all that she ever had been lay to rest. It's survival at its finest – when she wakes up in the morning, laying still as she had when the sky was still dark, and the feeling of small hands in her hair and the echo of insidious voices in her ears don't bother her quite as much as they usually do, it's a victory, because she let her armor go and still found herself breathing.
("Scarlet, that way I'll never forget. It's the color of your hair.")
("Give yourself to Master Zeref. Become his vessel; live only for Master Zeref and forget yourself. You are his, Erza Scarlet.")
It's more of a victory for her to think Jellal would have laughed than it is to walk into Fairy Tail carrying the horn of a beast twice her height and decuple her weight.
Her armor is cracked the day she strides into Fairy Tail and first sees Lucy Heartfilia. Her job had brought her near the coast, islands with trees warping in her vision (her eye had throbbed, phantom pains chasing phantom boys, blue in their shadows and red against their smiles – grim and fanged). Her orders, once through the door in a place where it was slowly becoming OK for her metals to rust, had been automatic at best, derived from a week away where small hands ripped at her hair, asking her if she'd bleed just as crimson as the strands (she'd yelled: "Scarlet, it's Scarlet!" but blue wisps of crepuscule didn't care).
Then she sees Lucy.
Lucy who doesn't glow under the lights of the bar and who does not look out of place, just there, and that's all there was to it. Erza sees Lucy, who is there, and that is the end of it.
(But it wasn't, because Lucy does not stand out, she does not demand attention, she does not look out of place.
Erza looks out of place. She stands out, fire-bright, she demands attention and calls for order, and she is out of place. Erza gleams under the lights of Fairy Tail. Titania. Where did you come from?)
There had been rumors of Lucy, little whisperings on the coast radiating from a port wiped off the map by fire and starlight.
("Did you hear about the new Fairy Tail member?")
("Oh, yeah, yeah! I heard she's a beauty!")
("Really? I heard she was a destructive force.")
("What was her name again?")
("I can't remember.")
Now Erza sees her and thinks She's walking on the sidewalk during the afternoon. simply because she is average and normal and doesn't stand out. But Erza knows armor. She sees the rods of iron on either side a weak spine; she spies the glamour of golden bravado resting over chests, protecting; she watches eyes gather minerals from the ground, experience melting them down into sheets of multicolored alloy. Erza knows armor, and she doesn't know Lucy, but Erza can see how the blond holds herself next to Natsu and Mirajane.
Her arms are crossed, and Erza sees tempered gauntlets. Her smile is easy, and Erza sees a tarnished helmet, war painted. Her hips are cocked, swagger and confidence, and Erza sees chainmail and swords, attack and defense linked together.
Lucy stands close to Natsu, but does not touch him. She laughs at what he says, but her eyes shift away. Lucy's arms tighten against her stomach after pulling at her hair – angry at the colored connotation.
Erza found a need for armor to protect who she was (Scarlet, Erza Scarlet, Titania, Fairy Tail) and to protect the others around her (old man Rob, Simon, Millianna, Shou, Jellal, Wally). Erza found a need for armor when she couldn't see clearly out of one eye, the other rapidly flickering in the gloom of a tower with an oxymoron title, housing a person who no longer is a human but gave Erza her name so he'd never forget – Erza found a need for armor when she realized she couldn't tell if that was a reassurance or a threat.
Lucy, Erza can tell, isn't protecting anyone. Not herself, not her family, not her friends, because she doesn't know yet who her friends are and she's not interested in protecting herself yet because something is making her armor not fit quite right. Lucy is running from someone, some place, some time. She doesn't need to hide – doesn't want to – but she also doesn't want anyone to know. Her armor is built for not knowing and for running; whimsical and carefree, conforming leather and not resolved steel. Her armor is camouflage – built to fit in without settling in and waiting to move. Where will you go next?
For not, though, Lucy is stopped. Erza thinks that this is probably the first time that Lucy hasn't been a star in the dark, the only light, because as much as she doesn't glow and she knows it, when Natsu gets a little closer and throws an arm around her shoulders, Erza catches him watching – observing. He doesn't linger against her side, moving again, always moving, but Erza sees the both of them burst into color whenever her gets close enough.
Natsu has his armor, too, but his is the kind of armor that makes him think he can jump in front of anyone, so long as he can save them, and still walk out of it.
He nears Lucy again, a poster waving in his hand. Lucy's armor cracks at his smile – like she's done it before. When the armor goes back up, it's a bit weaker, around the edges of her eyes where the lines soften out, through the ridges of her arms that loosen white knuckles, and in the breaths she breathes, softer, younger, less with the thrill of being away and more with the rest of letting go – Natsu's arm brushes Lucy's back and Erza sees stars. A solar system. All kinds of small suns, supernovas, and day-beaming celestial bodies; the constellations connect the two together, invariably.
No one is looking at Erza. All the gravity of the room has moved to the two that barely know who the other is. Erza is normal, she fits in, and there is no room for a pale light like hers in the face of a planetary system. Erza watches them for five seconds and sees more than they will ever know. Natsu will never walk away from this jump, and Lucy will never want to run again.
~MM~
OK, this was just me getting back into writing. I apologize for not updating through the summer. Evidently summers are worse than school years, which are worse now, because I'm somehow dual enrolled. I'll update when I can, thank you so much for sticking with me!