Author's note: About halfway through this chapter I decided I'm gonna probably keep most of the chapters for this story short (about three or four pages a piece) that way I can hopefully get them out a lot faster.
Chapter Two: New Resolve
Wendy woke up a good ten minutes before she opened her eyes. It'd only taken her a few seconds to realize that she was no longer in any danger. The feeling of a soft bed against her back was evidence enough, but it was the murmured sound of familiar voices that finally put her mind at ease.
Every bone in her body fought against her, but she slowly managed to sit up on the bed. Opening her heavy eyelids revealed a small room with beige colored walls and a wooden floor. A window on the wall to her left allowed a light, warm breeze to drift in from outside. Her heart raced for a moment as she looked around the room, but soon settled as she spotted Carla sleeping peacefully on a bed opposite her own.
A warm smile finally crossed her lips, and she fell back into the bed alongside a long sigh of relief.
"Well, that was faster than expected." Wendy turned her head right to see Lyon standing in an open doorway. The man had a solemn look on his face, and kept his steps light as he walked across the room to her bedside. "Sherria was certain you wouldn't wake up until sometime tomorrow."
She knew it was childish, but Wendy couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed. As far as she could remember, this was the first time she'd ever been alone with Lamia Scale's infamous ice-make wizard. That thought, along with the sudden realization that somebody had apparently changed her clothes while she slept, caused a noticeable blush to spread on her face.
"Sherry changed your clothes," Lyon said with knowing smile. "The stuff you had on was coated in dirt...and blood." His smile faded as he sat down on the foot of Wendy's bed. He met Wendy's eyes before speaking in a soft tone. "We...weren't sure both of you were gonna make it for a while there. What happened out there? What were those two mages doing to you?"
Wendy's fingers pulled at the blanket covering her. The last thing she wanted to do right now was relive the experience in her head.
A long silence followed as she fought against herself to speak. Even knowing nothing about Lyon's side of the story, it was clear that she owed both him and Sherria an explanation; she knew that, and yet, she still couldn't manage to force out a single word.
It was around the time when her body started to visibly shake, when Lyon stood back up and gave her a soft pat on the head. "Later," he said, turning back toward the door. "Whatever happened, you're safe now. For the moment, I suppose that's all that matters."
Wendy watched the man walk away. After taking a moment to fix her ruffled hair, she stopped Lyon a few steps shy of the door. "Mr. Vastia."
Lyon turned back to face her. "Just Lyon is fine, Wendy," he said sincerely.
"Thank you for saving me, Mr. Lyon." Wendy sat up long enough to bow as best she could. "And thank Sherria for me, too. I assume she's the reason my wounds are all healed."
"I wouldn't give us too much credit," Lyon replied. "Truthfully, we had no idea you were even in any danger. Sherria and I were just on our way to a job across town when we spotted a suspicious looking mage at the edge of the forest. When we tried to approach him, he attacked us, and the battle that ensued eventually led us to you."
Wendy wasn't quite sure how to feel about that explanation.
Lyon once again started for the door. This time, he stopped himself with one foot out the open doorway. "Get some more rest if you need it. If not, you're welcome to join us down in the guildhall. Either way, just understand that I'm not letting you take one step outside until I know every last detail about what happened to you and Carla out in that forest."
Wendy laid her head back and listened to Lyon's steps slowly fade away. The room soon entered a peaceful silence. Only the occasional gust of wind and Carla's slow, soft breathing kept her from immediately falling back to sleep.
As much as her body loved the idea of getting more rest, her mind just wasn't cooperating. Her hands were still trembling from Lyon's question. So much had happened to her so quickly, she was still trying to accept it all as reality. A million questions flooded her mind without a single answer in sight. It was simply too much to handle.
"Wendy."
It only lasted for a second, and would've been inaudible without her dragon-enhanced hearing, but the call of her name from across the room shot her up nonetheless. She threw aside her blanket and rushed to Carla's bedside. A massive weight left her as she watched the exceed's eyes flutter open.
"I'm here," Wendy said lightly, taking hold of one of Carla's front paws.
Carla's eyes wore a distant look as the scanned the room. Eventually, they landed on Wendy.
"You're okay?" Carla asked. Her voice sounded frail, as if it was on the verge of giving out entirely.
Wendy nodded, blinking furiously to keep her watery eyes in check. "We both are. I don't really know all the details myself, but Lyon and Sherria of Lamia Scale saved us. We're in their guild's building right now—we're safe."
It was hard to tell, but Carla did manage the tiniest hint of a smile. "Good. That's...that's good to..."
For a while, Wendy waited for Carla to continue speaking, only to feel her heart sink when the exceed's eyes closed and she drifted back to sleep. She wasn't sure how long she sat beside Carla after that. Time didn't matter anyone. Whatever mean twist life wanted to throw at her next would have to wait.
"I'm sorry," she whispered while softly rubbing Carla's paw.
"I really doubt she blames you for what happened."
Wendy recognized Sherria's voice, and felt a light smile tug at her lips. She was still reluctant to leave Carla's side, but the risk of being impolite was too great. Forcing her smile to widen a bit, she spun around to face Sherria. "I know, I..."
Her smile faded in an instant. Sherria was leaning against the door frame a few feet away. Two bloodshot, baggy eyes barely managed to meet her own, while a thin smile did nothing to mask the look of pure exhaustion on the girl's face. Her pink hair was a scraggly mess, free of it's usual ties, making it clear she'd just woken up. All of these features combined to form a girl that looked ready to collapse any second now, but it was a far more noticeable detail that had caused Wendy to go silent.
On the parts of Sherria's skin she could see, Wendy counted at least ten dark bruises, and at least twice as many cuts of varying length and depth. It was far from the worst thing she'd seen recently, but it was just enough to push her over the edge.
"I..." The first of what were sure to be several tears fell down her cheeks. "I'm..." She felt her legs start to give out, and preemptively leaned back and slid against the side of Carla's bed until her butt hit the floor. "I'm pathetic."
"What?" Sherria's smile faded as she entered the room. The girl stumbled her way to Wendy and knelt down directly in front of her. "Wendy," she said in a soft tone, "if this is about my wounds, there's no reason to worry. I'm just waiting for my magic to replenish so I can heal myself. I'll be fine." As she finished, Sherria reached forward and gently placed her left hand over Wendy's.
It didn't surprise Wendy in the least to feel Sherria pull back immediately. She raised her head to reveal the mad glare on her tear filled eyes, and tightened her already ironclad fists. Sherria stepped back as Wendy stood up. A fierce gust of wind stormed through the room, ripping any nearby curtains and blankets into a frenzy.
"I'm not crying because I'm sad," Wendy said, glancing over her shoulder. Even in her current state, the sight of Carla wincing in her sleep was enough to calm her down. A few deep breaths killed the wind, and allowed her to pick up Carla's blanket off the floor. "I'm mad, at myself mostly," she explained while covering up Carla as gently and quietly as she could. "If I had been strong enough to admit to myself that Grandeeney is dead, none of this would've happened."
"What does that have to do with any of this?" Sherria asked. To her credit, the girl had only taken a single step back during Wendy's tantrum, and reclaimed the step just as quickly.
"It..." Wendy stopped herself, and turned around to face Sherria's confused gaze. "It doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters now is making sure I'm strong enough to deal with whatever happens next."
Sherria's expression softened. "Well, I might not know exactly what happened to you, but it sounds like you're blaming yourself for something you had no control over."
"Exactly," Wendy whispered, before running forward and wrapping Sherria in a tight hug. The second their bodies touched, Wendy's magic surged outward, creating a bright, light-blue aura that fully enveloped Sherria's body. "I'm sorry I caused you so much trouble. I won't let it happen again."
She pulled back from the hug with a look of sheer determination on her face. "Is there anywhere close by I can use to train? There's something I've been wanting to try out for a while now."
Sherria was speechless for a few seconds, but after looking down to find her wounds completely healed, she shook away a light blush and nodded. "Y-Yeah, we have a place set up out back."
"Perfect." Wendy flashed a quick smile—her first fully genuine one in quite some time. She ran past Sherria and almost made it out the door.
"Wait!" Sherria called out.
Wendy's bare feet slid on the floor as she spun around. She started to open her mouth, only to realize such an act was unnecessary. Rather than speak, all she had to do was follow Sherria's finger to a small stand beside the bed she'd woken up in. Without saying a word, she awkwardly walked back across the room and grabbed a short, dark-blue skirt from off the stand.
^0^0^0^
Lamia Scale's guildhall had a fairly familiar design. Like Fairy Tail's old guildhall, it was a large, rectangular room with a high ceiling and wooden floor. Most of the room was taken up by two rows of wooden tables, most of which were empty at the moment. A large job request board, also mostly empty, hung on the wall beside the main entrance, and what looked to be a small bar was set up along the front wall.
A few stools in front of the bar were the only filled seats in the room. It was a tad strange for Wendy to see a guildhall not filled to the brim with loud, violent mages, but judging by the serene looked on Sherria's face as she led the way forward, this was apparently an ordinary occurrence here.
Wendy followed her friend across the guildhall. All three of the mages sitting along the bar turned to face them as they approached. Forced to look almost straight up to meet their eyes, she was pleasantly surprised to see that she recognized all three faces staring down at her.
Lyon was the first one to speak. "Should have known you wouldn't stay in bed," he said with a playful grin. "If you Fairy Tail mages excel at anything, it's recovering from a beating in record time."
The woman sitting next to Lyon, who Wendy recognized as Sherria's cousin, Sherry, shot the ice mage a cold glare. "Ignore him, sweetie," the woman said as her expression shifted into a warm smile. "We've started calling those 'Lyon compliments'. It's never phrased in the most loving manner, but he's trying his best."
"You do certainly look better than when Lyon and Sherria brought you in." The third mages deep, calm voice was unmistakable. Jura abandoned his stool and knelt down on one knee to meet Wendy's eyes. "It's good to see you again, Wendy, although admittedly I wish the circumstances behind you being here weren't so serious."
"I've been through worse," she replied. It was said mainly to relieve the worried look on Jura's face, but she also knew in the back of her mind that it wasn't a total lie. All things considered, what Sahel had done to her wasn't any worse than what she'd experienced while fighting Tartaros, or any of Fairy Tail's enemies for that matter. At the end of the day, she'd deal with it and move on, the same way Natsu and the rest of her friends had taught her. Besides, it was never the pain she went through that hurt her the most.
As Jura stood back up, his colossal form towering over her, Wendy was reminded of why she'd left her bed in the first place. After her eyes grazed over all four mages around her, she offered a deep bow. "Thank you all so much for everything you've done. I really don't want to think about what would've happened without your help." After a short silence, she stood up straight and faced everyone with a serious gaze. "So...um...If it's not too much trouble, would one of you mind fighting me?"