Heyo! Nice to see you again!
Ya know, I had 27ish notification e-mails from Fanfiction about all of you following, favoriting and reviewing, so thank you very much. I'm glad to see so much enthusiasm for this story.
"Lucy!" Natsu yelled with concern as he rudely barged into Lucy's apartment.
"Natsu!" Lucy said with a lining of scorn, "You're lucky I'm not naked or you'd be dead." She was wearing pajamas but still pulled her bed covers over her body as if she was. As flustered as she was, she couldn't deny her relief that he was here. Natsu ignored her and raced to the side of Lucy's bed with concern written all over his face.
"Lucy," Natsu repeated," You look terrible." He said with a straight face.
"Oh, thanks 'Prince Charming'." Lucy said with a spent tone.
Natsu brushed off the joke like he does with everything that has a double meaning. Like the time when Team Natsu was on a mission to protect some big-wig merchant and the merchant's daughter tried to flirt with the oblivious Dragon Slayer. Lucy remembered that while travelling between cities they had to stop and make camp for the night and they would take turns to be on guard. Lucy had just finished shift on guard with Erza and they were making their way back into the big tent where the merchant and his daughter were staying, only to find that the vixen had forced Natsu to listen to her sweet words for half of the night. But, fortunately, her flattery fell on deft ears as Natsu was barely staying awake. So instead of Natsu and Gray on watch, it was now Gray and Happy. Rest ashore, Lucy gave the girl a good roasting over how she had wasted not only her Father's time but Fairy Tail's time as well. Normally, Lucy would have never been so harsh but for a reason beyond her knowledge, she had.
"Erm, Luce...?" Natsu's voice snapped Lucy's mind back to the present.
"Oh, what? Sorry." Lucy croaked. "So, what are you doing here?" Lucy asked, trying to get away from that moment of embarrassment.
"I was just in the area and those guys needed me to get rid of the ice everywhere." Natsu left out the whole episode at the guild on purpose. "And then I saw you in the window and you look pretty sick so I came to check on you."
"Aw, thanks Nastu." Lucy said with a bashfully voice even though Natsu's words had no grace to call its own.
Natsu had one eyebrow raised in an almost questioning look. "You're pretty weird, Luce."
"Oh, you're full of... Achoo!" Lucy burst randomly causing Natsu to recoil back with surprise. "Uhh... Sorry, Natsu." Lucy then instinctively reached for the nearest box of tissues. As Lucy set herself on her bed, Natsu's face started to give a look of deep thought, like he was reaching for a thought at the bottom of his mind. He suddenly, but gently, put his right hand against Lucy's forehead. Lucy was stunned about the difference in temperature. Natsu's hand was like a fire lit on a floor of ice.
Suddenly, his face lit up and he snapped his fingers with success. Lucy half expected him to cry out "Eureka!" like one of those bygone scientists that are quoted by everyone under the sun. Instead of pulling that line, Natsu said something even stranger.
"You've got frosty-scales!"
...
"What?" Lucy looked as if he just spoke backwards.
"Frosty-scales." Natsu repeated. Then, it dawned on him. "Oh! That's what Igneel called it, you won't know that." He smiled to himself as if it was an inside joke with his Dragon-Dad.
Lucy sighed and rubbed her temples with her thin fingers. "You're pretty blunt Natsu. Okay, what on Earth-Land is 'frosty-scales'?"
"Well, it's when you've got a really bad cold and you're also super cold and the scales part is coz Igneel is a dragon. I had it once and that's how I know about, it was horrible!" Natsu was making over exaggerated hand motions while explaining this to his teammate.
"Surely he would name it 'frosty-skin' in your case, because you're a human." Lucy's vision was becoming hazy and she was letting her mouth run.
"Well, no, because he only ever had it himself as a dragon and not a human." Natsu was struggling to understand where Lucy was going with this. It was at that point where Lucy opened her to speak but fainted instead. Lucy was half way to hitting her bed when Natsu caught her hands regardless of the soft landing.
"Whoa Luce! What's the matter?!" Natsu panicked and gently shook Lucy to wake her, when he only got a whispered moan in response, he noticed her skeletal hands.
"Luce have you been eating?" Natsu hastily questioned her when she came around a minute later.
"Well... No because it makes me vomit..." Lucy all but groaned out.
"That's because you're been eating solids! You need to eat soup or something, it helps you get better!" Natsu scolded Lucy like a child. Lucy need used all her strength to pull herself up and head towards her kitchen. But in reality, she had weakly motioned with her hand in the rough direction of the kitchen.
Lucy woke to an old, familiar smell.
It stirred up ancient memoires of her childhood. She remembers being ill and laying in bed all day. She had been fending off boredom with her mountain of books which was now reduced to small hill. She had asked about something to eat but it was the perfect storm of the cooks being off for some reason and Lucy only being able to consume liquids. Just when Lucy had begun to lose hope in a delirious state, her mother had graciously entered Lucy's dimly lit room with a steaming bowl of homemade soup in her silky, snow white, fingers. Regardless of her sickness at the time, it had been the best meal of her life.
Instead of her mother's fair face, Lucy saw Natsu's messing haired face look straight at her.
"Lucy, have this." Natsu held out a bowl of soup that looked spookily similar to her mother's home-made broth. Lucy took the bowl with nostalgia flowing through her veins. She stilled her shaking hands and eagerly took the small spoon from Natsu's left hand, without giving thought to how she pried it out of his calloused hand. She took her first sip from the wooden spoon and was greeted with a mix of similarities and differences. The general taste was roughly the same as her mother's but it had a few too many grains of salt in and it somehow tasted...spicy. Although, it could have be the high temperature. As Lucy felt the soup saturate the sponge that is her stomach, she felt more grounded in the world, the vivid colours, and fibres of her duvet and such.
"Hey Natsu, where did you learn to make this?" Lucy asked between sips large enough to be gulps.
"Igneel taught me. He didn't really make it for me, he had to show me. Because talons and all." Natsu then held both of his arms up and flexed his hands, as if trying to wake up his fingers in the morning. "Why'd you ask?"
Lucy couldn't help but snicker at him, which got her a funny look from the mage. "Well, that's weird. It's just that my mother made a soup almost exact as the one you cooked up."
"I guess that is kinda strange. Igneel never mentioned giving or gettin' the recipe from anyone like you or your mum, or I would have remembered." Then he gave his old faithful Dragneel smile. "I guess great parents think alike." He added the cherry on top of his little speech.
"Yeah, you're right." Lucy returned with her best smile. Then she cast her gaze down at her hands cradling the empty bowl of soup. She focused on her light pink Fairy Tail insignia on right hand as she talked. "I know that my mother always wanted to meet a dragon. She always told me how they are the wisest and most intelligent creatures to have a conversation with. Just then, I thought she actually had." Lucy could feel warm tears forming at the edges of her eyes. Then it hit her that she had just suddenly dragged Natsu into one of the most personal and private thing in her life. She quickly lifted her head to apologize to him but the sudden motion sent throbbing waves of pain from one ear to the other, causing her to pause for a second.
"Ya know, she might have done." Natsu said delicate tone. He had a warm glow in his onyx eyes.
"...what?"
Natsu was shifted onto bed and closer with his legs crossed. He got himself comfortable in his position and continued. Lucy put the vacant bowl to the side, pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs around said legs. Lucy was aware how Natsu was taking this, maturely and intimately. She couldn't help but smile.
"Well, to start off with your mum was right about dragons." Natsu said with a measure of pride. "Secondly, it could have happened. The dragon version of that soup has a bunch of stronger ingredients that would make you or me super ill."
"But you're a Dragon Slayer." Lucy said a bit confused.
"Yeah but... Hm... Maybe I could have it in Dragon Force but we're getting off topic, Luce." Lucy noticed that Natsu gesticulate a lot as she watched him wave slightly above his head as he finished his sentence. It was a cute little quirk that she felt like only she knew. In reality, Lucy knew that someone like Ezra or Gray would already know that due to knowing each other for so long but that didn't take away from the feeling it gave her.
"What I'm trying to say is that making that soup for a human would be beyond him and he had to know somehow to tell him so he could show me. Also, I'm pretty sure that he spoke to a couple other humans while raising me." Natsu was tracing the seam of her duvet when he was finished.
"Thanks Natsu." Lucy's face played a sad smile. "I know it's just a shot in the dark," Natsu's face lit up with surprise, "No, it's okay, and I get it. I know you're not lying either but it made me feel better, so thanks." At first, Lucy was taken aback at how far Natsu went to comfort her only over an out-of-context mention of her mother. But then she realised it was Natsu. Natsu was the only person she knew who would do that for her.
Woop! Chapter two done! This took longer than I would have liked but hey-ho.
Heh, maybe I should call this "A Dragon's Memories" instead, amiright? Just kidding but I really like the way this story is going.
Well, see ya next time.