Ok, so originally I thought I was going to update on a regular basis, but based on the times I've updated the last 2 chapters and then this one, I guess not. So, I would like to apologize to anyone who was hoping for a regular update. I would also like to thank everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed. You all are just wonderful blueberries and I appreciate you so much (just a btw I called you all blueberries because blueberries are awesome and so are you!)! The people who leave reviews, you make me feel so wonderful! Whenever I am feeling sad, I just look at the reviews and you make me feel better. Also, I'm always taking suggestions so feel free to give me any and all ideas! They are so helpful! Anyway, without further ado, here is the next chapter!
Disclaimer: I sadly do not own Fairy Tail, just my OCs.
When the Dragneel siblings reached Magnolia, it was by far not what they had expected. What they had originally thought was going to be a full-fledged city was barely more than a full-fledged village. A few huts and the occasional house dotted the more or less bare landscape. To the left was a collection of stalls, venders standing behind or beside them to shout their prices and bargains to the crowd of people milling through. To the right was a slightly bigger building than all the rest of the accommodations. Some plants had been placed outside in an attempt to make it seem more important. Trinity assumed that it was the mayor's house.
Glancing around at her surroundings, the daughter Dragneel wondered if they were actually even going to be able to pull off Zeref's plan. Honestly, it wasn't even a plan; Zeref just said that he and Natsu would go talk to the mayor and ask for assistance while Trinity took what money she had and got them some food. Whoop-dee-do. Trinity sighed.
"Well," Zeref chirped, trying to be positive, "we all know what we must do". With that, he grabbed Natsu's hand and started towards the larger building. Trinity sighed again. She had a feeling she would be sighing a lot on this trip.
Trinity maneuvered her way through the crowd of stalls and people. She was wearing her usual red dress with her hair in a bun this time. She had changed in the bushed before they had entered the town, figuring it might be a little suspicious if she came in dressed in all black and a hood. Her genius brothers hadn't even thought about bringing clothes, let alone anything, so they were stuck in the clothes they had been wearing the night before
The market was a lot bigger than she had anticipated and it held quite a few more people than she had thought. She ducked just in time to avoid colliding with a large wooden bowl hung from the wooden beams that stretched across the top of the lane. This caused her to bump head first into a tall man who was bargaining with a vender. She rubbed her nose sorely, bumbling apologies, but the man didn't even look up. She sighed again and continued on her way, looking for food.
A few minutes later, Trinity had stopped to look at some apples when she felt a tickling on her right foot. Frowning, she glanced down to see what it was nearly fainted with fright. A large spider, bigger than her hand, was crawling over her foot. She slapped her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Her mind screamed at her shake it off but she didn't dare move, thinking it might anger it and cause it to bite her or something. Her body shook as she watched the monster amble its way over her foot. Suddenly, a hand appeared and scooped it into their arms. As soon as it was off her she leaped back. She glanced up and saw an old man carefully holding the spider as if it were a house cat. He fixed her with piercing blue eyes and started rambling in some foreign language. Her hands still placed over her mouth, Trinity raced away through the crowd, hoping her brothers were having better luck.
Zeref yanked back his hand just in time to save it from being flattened as the door slammed in his face. He blinked once, then again, shocked at the rudeness of the mayor of this town. Mayor. Weren't they supposed to be at the very least respectable enough to at least say hello before slamming the door in someone's face.
He felt a slight tug on his other hand and looked down at the face of his little brother.
"What are we going to do now?" he asked innocently.
Zeref smiled and pretended that he actually did have the slightest clue.
"We are going to have to meet with Trinity and decide then. Besides, it is getting late, and we need to be getting to bed". With that, he spun on his heels and started to walk as confidently as he could back they came, shoving the thought of how inhospitable the locals were into the far reaches of his mind. But it kept coming back.
Zeref pondered why this was. People weren't naturally mean and unfriendly, were they? What had made the people of this town particularly unfriendly? It wasn't just the mayor was it? No. Now that he thought about it, no one had approached him while they had been here. He glanced around and barely saw anyone; the people he did see avoided him like the plague. Zeref frowned at this. They seemed to be talking in hushed tones to one another, but never someone that seemed to come from outside the town. Zeref found himself turning over this thought again and again in his brain. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he was surprised to see his sister staring at him indignantly when he finally turned forward again. He glanced at her scowl and thoughts of town were immediately replaced with thoughts of why she would be annoyed.
"Oh yes!" She started, sarcasm dripping from her voice, "how splendid it would be to make Trinity go into that zoo of a market while I go dilly dallying off to the big white house! I am sure that she wouldn't mind, much less have the fright of her life!" She looked at him expectantly, her foot tapping impatiently on the ground. Zeref stared at her dumbfounded. "Uh…" he stammered after a moment. "Sorry?" he tried. Her eyes narrowed but at least her foot stopped tapping. Heaving a sigh, she held out a woven basket she had probably picked up somewhere in the market, showing him a meager assortment of apples and pears, with a small chunk of meat in the middle. He took the basket and found in surprisingly heavy.
"That should be enough to last us for the time here. I still have a few jewels left over. We could probably use that for a blanket or two; Natsu and I could share I guess. Speaking of, where is our brother?" She frowned, bending to look behind him as if he would be hiding. Zeref frowned as well, not entirely sure what she was getting at.
"I am not sure what you mean, he is right here…" Zeref turned around to where he thought Natsu would be standing, only to find empty space.
Trinity's eyes widened as she watched her brother spin around in frantic circles.
"Are you saying you LOST OUR BROTHER?" She raised her voice, shocked. Her brother was probably more responsible than both her parents combined, but he some how lost a sibling. Great! Not like she needed anything more on her hands right now.
"How do you even loose a person!? You're a special kind of smart, that's for sure," she scoffed. This time, she joined Zeref in his frantic searching.
"No, I am certain he is still here, perhaps merely playing a game," Zeref muttered absently. She could tell it was mainly meant to reassure himself, but he didn't sound so certain.
A building fear crept from the bottom of her stomach, digging a pit and reaching cool arms throughout the rest of her body. This was real. They actually didn't know where Natsu is. They lost their freaking brother. Well her brother lost her freaking brother, but now is not the time to blame! You can blame after you've found Natsu, she told herself, scampering a little further to broaden their perimeter for searching. As she frantically looked, her mind flaring with thoughts that got her riled up, thoughts about where he was, if some one took him, maybe he's—no. Don't think like that. He probably just saw a dog or something and chased it. Taking a small breath, she managed to calm her nerves long enough to sit and think for a minute. She closed her eyes, controlled her breathing, and thought, hard. She flipped through places in her mind, desperately searching for somewhere that she thought he might have gone off to.
Suddenly, she felt a gently hand on her shoulder. She glanced up from her thinking to see Zeref's face gazing down at her with concerned sadness.
"I am really sorry, Trinity. I will find him, I can promise you that." His eyes were set in determination with that last sentence. Trinity nodded slightly, feeling her panic eased. That was the effect Zeref had on people; he could make people believe and follow him so easily. It was a scary thing to think that someone was cable of that, but her brother only used it to help people, so really, it was a good thing.
Trinity took the hand Zeref offered her, and pulled herself to her feet.
"Ok," she started, her voice still shaking slightly along with the rest of her body. Her main point of focus was on making sure her nerves didn't spiral out of control, but in the brief moment of calm, she was able to think of a place she thought Natsu might have gone.
Pink hair bobbed in the wind as Natsu's feet danced across the dirt floor, blissfully hopping this way and that. He was caught in the moment, unaware that his brother and sister were worried sick over where he was. He thought that what he was doing was right, so there was no deterring him from it.
Natsu had grown bored with Zeref and Trinity not actually trying to find the stone. All his boring big brother wanted to do was go ask the locals and find a good place to sleep that night. Natsu, however, knew that the best course of action was to actually go out and look for the stone, which is exactly what he had done. It was sure to be much faster than asking around.
As Natsu looked for the stone, he played a silent game with himself. He pretended that the dirt was lava and that he could only step on the roots and stones that dotted the landscape. He thought he was doing pretty well. Not once had he stepped on the dirt, but now he was trapped on a single stone, balancing precariously on one foot. There was no close stone or root except for one about five feet away. It was his only option. Now squeezing both feet onto the stone, he bent his legs, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Finally, he took a flying leap, the farthest he could. His foot almost made it. Instead, it landed on the dirt right before it. However, the force of his jump made him swing forward, tripping over his intended landing place, and cascading down a hill on the other side.
When he finally came to a stop at the bottom, his whole body hurt. He moaned, slowly sitting up.
"Ow." He rubbed his head sorely. When he had gotten over the initial shock, he opened his eyes, and what he found made his jaw drop open.
He had fallen down a small incline that landed him in a tiny ravine, fairly wide across, with rolling green grass on either side. But what was really beautiful was the sparkling stream that flowed down the center. The morning sun made the water glisten, and cast gorgeous pinks and oranges onto the surface. He gazed in aw, the sun warming his cheeks ever so slightly.
Suddenly, something on the surface of the creek caught the sun's rays and reflected them, making Natsu quickly shield his eyes from the light. Once the light faded slightly, he crept to the edge and peered over.
It took a second for Natsu to find it again because of all the wonderful things that lay beneath the waters surface, just waiting to steal your attention. But he focused, somehow knowing it was important that he find it again.
His eyes suddenly caught on the same shine a few feet away from where he was. He eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat. He knew he was looking at a rock, but it didn't feel like a rock. He couldn't explain it, but something compelled him to lean a little closer. Something told him that he needed to touch that rock, he just had to. He found himself leaning; slowly, but surely, towards the rock. His brain was such in a daze from it's beauty that he didn't realize he was leaning a little to far off the edge. Suddenly, his hands slipped out from under him and his eyes widened as he tumbled into the water.
Something like this happened to a normal person probably just would have made their day a whole lot worse, but the trouble was, Natsu didn't know how to swim.
I-is this real? Did I actually post a chapter? I'm not dead? I've actually just been procrastinating really bad? Yup! That's me! Any way, Sorry if this chapter is a little bit shorter than usual, I just felt like this was a good place to end. Of, course, like always, I will try to post another chapter, but of course, like always, I probably will procrastinate and not post one for a while so… sorry in advance!
You are all lovely blueberries and I hope you all love this chapter! Again, I am always open to suggestions (I love to hear what you lovelies have to say!), and hope that you guys favourite and review! Okay, wait, no, stop, Sarah. Now you sound really greedy. I swear, if you guys literally just read it I will be happy! Alright, that's all! See you soon my lovely blueberries!
