According to Lucy, she must've been walking at least two hours when she finally reaches the end of the dark narrow tunnel. The forest isn't any brighter than the tunnel was, though the moonlight shines bright enough for Lucy to avoid running into a tree. The blond girl doesn't know which direction she's running, all she wants is to get away from the enemy, the castle, her dead family. The sobbing stopped a while ago, the tears however still keep running down her cheeks. 'Why did all this happen?' Lucy thinks as she keeps running up the hill. Thankfully she had her leather boots put on, though the chainmail makes every movement even harder as it already is.
Suddenly she stumbles over the roots of a big tree and falls hard to the ground. Lying there Lucy starts sobbing again, but stops as she feels her left tight ache. Slowly the blond mage raises to lean against the trunk of a tree and reaches down to see, whether she can feel anything that causes the pain. As she carefully places her palm on top of her tight, a warm and very dark liquid streams down her hand, over her fingers and drips to the ground. Lucy raises her hand to take a closer look at the liquid on her hand and stares at it in confusion. 'I'm bleeding, but how?' she thinks to herself, trying to remember how she got the wound. 'It must've been that bastard in my parent's bedroom.' As sorrow and sadness fade, anger starts to fill in their places. 'They won't get away with this' Lucy thinks and continues walking up the hill.
It's still dark but the trees have become less. Totally exhausted Lucy now walks along a cliff she has spotted a while ago. Not thinking of anything and not even looking where she's heading to, the blond mage just keeps walking hoping she would find a place she could rest for a while. Right when she thinks she can't continue, the young mage discovers a fade flickering light in the distance, though she's not quite sure what the source of that light might be. Hesitating whether she should check out the place or just turn and walk off into the other direction, she decides to go and see where the light is coming from.
Step by step the blondie approaches the flickering light, not taking her eyes off of it. The nearer she gets the clearer she sees the fireplace in a small cave. Before she could think of what her next step should be, her body moves on its own. Now Lucy stands in front of the small alluring fireplace and reaches out with both of her hands enjoying the welcoming warmth and light of the fire. Slowly she kneels down, her expression with both relieve and pain. As the blond mage starts to relax, she suddenly jolts as she sees a black mound moving. Lucy quickly turns her head staring at a … guy! And he's asleep! 'How could I've not seen him? Just how stupid can I be for not checking first!?' Lucy asks herself angrily feeling her heart pounding in her chest. Carefully, not to make any noise, the blondie stands up, ignoring the great pain in her left tight. 'Please, don't wake up' she thinks not taking her eyes off the guy close to her. Again before she knew her body moves on its own. 'What am I doing? Why can't I just leave and get away from this place as soon as possible?' she screams in her mind. Instead of leaving however the blond mage now kneels down in front of him examining his lineaments. 'He's quite good looking…'
His face is completely relaxed, with his lips slightly parted. His salmon-pink hair is one big mess. Slowly Lucy reaches out with one hand to feel his hair between her fingers, but stops in her movement. 'What am I doing?' she shakes her head to clear it from unwelcoming ideas. Quickly she glances to his eyes to make sure he hasn't woken up. As the blond girl keeps staring at the one sleeping in front of her, a feeling, that she cannot identify gets a hold of her. "Just who are you?" Lucy whispers barely to be heard. Suddenly the eyes of the salmon-pink haired guy open and keep staring into Lucy's brownish ones. His relaxed expression changes in an instant. With one rapid move he jumps towards Lucy, pinning her beneath him and holding her hands in place.
"Who are you?" he growls not taking his eyes off the girl. Lucy moans through gritted teeth and shuts her eyes tightly as the pain in her tight starts to spread through her entire body. Still looking at the girl beneath him, the boy's expression turns from wary to confused, as the smell of blood fills his nose. Now his gaze wanders from the blond girl's eyes to her tight, where the smell comes from. "You're bleeding" the salmon-pink haired boy says surprised. Again Lucy moans and opens her eyes. Her vision gets blurry as the pain's getting worse. Her wound must've torn further, when he jumped at her. The blondie now tries to focus, but it's no use. The blackness keeps surrounding her more and more, pulling her into the darkness.
"Hey. Hey, you!" the salmon-haired boy calls, looking at the unconscious girl beneath him. With a sigh he pulls her into his arms while getting up. He quickly looks at the cave's entrance, just to make sure no one else is out there. It's still dark outside, though he never had a problem seeing in the darkness. The boy then carries the young blondie further into the cave and places her on the smooth ground. Examining the wound, he then rips off a streak of her slacks with one swift move and ties it tightly around her tight, stopping the bleeding. As Lucy moans but remains unconscious, the boy's eyes wanders to her face. Tilting his head to one side, he then reaches out with one hand sweeping a golden strand out of the blondie's face. With his thumb the boy strokes her pale cheek as he breathes out. Slowly he draws back his hand and gets up to sit on the other side of the cave, leaning against the cold wall. With his arms crossed in front of his chest, the boy sits there watching her. Soon half an hour has passed when tiredness shuts his eyes and drags him into a deep sleep.
"Wake up…" Lucy whispers, as she gently places her small hand on the salmon-pink haired guy's muscular arm. Rolling from one side to the other, he mumbles something that makes no sense to Lucy. "Come on, wake up" The blond mage says squeezing his arm. With a sudden jolt and gasp he then sits up, looking a bit confused. After wiping off the sweat from his forehead he glances over to the girl next to him. "You had a nightmare, so I thought it'd be best to wake you" Lucy answers apologetically. He only nods and turns his head to the entrance of the cave. It's bright out there. The blondie then walks over to the entrance to take a closer look at their surroundings as she had no chance to do so the night before.
"You…" the boy says causing her to look back at him. "You haven't answered my question yet." He continues watching her closely. First her expression shows confusion but changes as she seems to realize what he means.
"My name's Lucy" she simply answers, hoping that would be enough.
"Natsu" the salmon-pink haired guy says, answering Lucy's unasked question. "How did you get that wound?" he asks looking at her tight.
The girl follows his gaze, thinking about what might be the best to answer, however she then turns her head, looking out the entrance again, as no answer comes to her mind, that wouldn't give away too much of what has happened to her. Still watching her closely, Natsu gets up and walks over to her. With one hand he reaches down to her tight.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Lucy snaps at him, looking shocked into his dark eyes and backs away a few steps.
Tilting his head in confusion, the boy stares at her "You're wound has to be treated, otherwise you'll get ill." He answers annoyed by her reaction. Weren't his intentions obvious? "What's your problem?"
"You could've said something…" she growls silently knowing her cheeks are slightly blushing.
"Sit down" Natsu orders not looking at her. She does as she's told not taking her eyes off of his. Carefully the boy removes the tentative bandage and takes a close look at the wound. It's gotten better over the night nevertheless he ties the cloth around Lucy's tight again. "Thank you" she whispers looking at the boy's face. With a surprised expression Natsu raises his head staring into her big brownish eyes. Quickly he looks aside hoping Lucy wouldn't notice his blushing. "Your welcome" He mutters getting up to grab a single scarf that Lucy hasn't noticed until now.
"Where are you going?" she asks curiously.
"Don't know… Maybe South." He answers looking back at her. "You?"
"I'm not sure yet." The blondie replies. "I need to find… something" she quickly adds so he doesn't ask questions. 'Though I don't know what that 'something' is supposed to be…'
"Well, in that case, good luck in 'finding something'" Natsu grins at her causing Lucy to blush even more. With that he exits the cave and walks off into the woods.
It's earlier in the morning than Lucy thought at first. The sun is up for at least an hour, still there are hardly any people on the streets. The small village is half a day marsh to the south from the Heartphilia castle, however she only needed an hour to get there. It seems like the blondie had run the day before even more than she thought that could've been possible. The last time Lucy was in the village, she visited an old man in his store with her parents. She didn't really like him. She didn't trust him, although he was supposed to be an old friend of her fathers. 'Hades was supposed to be a friend of ours too' Lucy thinks trying to restrain the anger rising inside of her. 'Still I have no choice. I need help and he's the only one in the area I know.'
Uncertain about her decision she quietly knocks on the brownish wooden door to the timeworn store she remembers. A few seconds after an old man appears in the window tugging the curtain to one side and staring with an annoyed expression on his face at the girl outside. Then he unlocks the door and opens it slightly, enough for him to peak outside. "The store is closed" he growls.
"I'm truly sorry to disturb you, sir" Lucy quickly calls, before the man could shut the door again. "Actually I hoped I could talk to you?"
A few seconds pass when the man reluctantly opens the door, signalling the girl to step inside. She gladly does so, though the disgusting smell in there is about to change her mind. The place looks rundown. The wooden floor is covered with glass fragments and mildew, and the walls are rotting as well. The little furniture the store is furnished with are about to break apart and the dirty cloths hanging in front of the window darken the place, causing an unwelcoming atmosphere. The store looks worse than Lucy has in mind, though she tries not to show her disgust.
"What is it you want?" The old man asks. The annoyance in his expression hasn't faded a bit. "I don't want you any longer here than needed"
The blondie, now feeling uncomfortable, gathers her thoughts while taking a deep breath, which turns out to be a mistake. A sickening savour starts to spread throughout her nose and mouth leaving her coughing hard.
"If you're sick, you better leave now. I don't want any trouble here." With one hand covering his mouth, the old man says.
"I'm not sick" Lucy rasps. "I have a favour to ask. I need a cloak" she adds, hoping a cloak is not too much for this old geezer to ask. The first thing she needs is a disguise. She can't risk for someone to recognize her. Thinking about her request for a few seconds, the man then replies while gazing at her impudently.
"That's a nice chainmail you have there"
"If you want it, you give me a cloak, a bag and some fresh water in a bottle" Lucy answers, knowing she can trade much more than a cloak for her chainmail. The old man growls but nods in agreement "You're quite insolent, aren't you?" he grumbles as he makes his way over to a messy wardrobe. From there he takes out a brown cloak and a leather bag.
"You can take off your chainmail in there" he gestures with one hand towards a small chamber, after giving the girl the things she asked for. "I'll get the water"
The chamber doesn't look any better than the other room. Lucy looks around her, hoping she can find a rather neat place for her newly received stuff to put down, but with no success. She quickly takes off her chainmail and examines the cloak. It is in quite a good shape, much to Lucy's surprise, the smell however is still awful. 'I need to wash this somewhere as soon as possible' she thinks as she puts it on. The leather bag is pretty shabby but better than nothing. With the chainmail in her hand and the bag on her side she returns to the room. The old man walks towards her with a bottle of water in one hand and reaches out with the other. Lucy then places the chainmail on his stretched out arm, surprised, that the old geezer is strong enough to hold it with only one hand. She knows she herself isn't really strong and needs both her hands to hold it, but this man in front of her looks so weak and frail.
Just as Lucy takes the bottle from the old man and stows it in her pouch, a loud and heavy knock makes her jerk. Quickly she glances up from her bag to the old man who still hasn't moved an inch. Instead a sneer appears on his face, exposing few decayed teeth. Sudden fear and panic gets hold of the young girl and hastily she looks around to search for another exit. In that moment the door flies open and crashes with a loud noise against the wall. Around ten soldiers storm into the room and surround Lucy with their longswords directed at her. "Well done, sir. Here's the reward, as promised" A man, probably the commander, enters the room and throws a small pouch of gold towards the old man, who catches it with ease and nods satisfied.
"I admit I didn't think it would be that easy to find you. Actually I hoped it'd me a bit more challenging, but what can I say, I do my job very fast and well." The commander laughs while walking over to Lucy. He stops right in front of her and gazes down upon her. "Hmmm… You have quite a beautiful face. What a waste" he reaches up with one gloved hand and strokes the girl's cheek. Disgusted by this gesture Lucy slaps away his hand, causing the man in front of her to laugh. The commander then raises his hand again and slaps her hard across her face. Lucy's head flies to one side, but soon she's forced to look at the commander again, as he grabs her by her throat with one hand and by her hair with the other. With one fast move he pulls her close to his face.
"You little slut will die shortly and if I were you, I wouldn't do anything stupid that would displease my executor. Pray that I have mercy on you and kill you quickly." The commander whispers. Feeling his breath upon her cheek Lucy tries to get out of his hold and bring some distance between the two of them. Her desperate wriggle only causes the man to tighten his grip around her throat and to tear her hair downwards. The girl lets out a scream as her head flies back. With her head held in position, Lucy is forced to look at the ceiling while her vision starts to get blurry as she has a hard time to breath.
"Maybe I wasn't clear enough" the commander whispers. "How about you show me what's hidden under that cloak of yours?" With that said he releases her hair, but still holding her throat with one hand, and undoes her cloak, letting it fall to the ground. Quickly he grabs her shirt by the hem and tugs it upwards. Lucy tries to fight him with all her might, although she knows, he's much stronger than she is. Tears start to roll down her cheeks while her screams become more and more desperate.
"Hey!"
Everyone in the room turns to look at the entrance. "Leave her be!" A guy with salmon-pink hair and a strange scarf wrapped around his neck stands there with fury in his eyes.
"Natsu" Lucy barely whispers.
"Take care of him" the commander orders obviously not impressed. While all the soldiers storm towards Natsu, the commander turns back to continue what he was doing before that guy interrupted him. Though barely ten seconds later he is hit on the back of his head, causing him to cry out in pain. "I said: Take your filthy hands off her!" Furiously the commander turns around to face the salmon-pink haired guy. Taken aback by the sight of all his soldiers lying knocked out on the ground, Natsu lands another hit in his face.
"Why you…" The commander wipes away the blood at the corner of his mouth and lets go of Lucys throat, causing her to fall hard to the ground. While trying to soothe her coughing she glances up at the two man standing in front of her. With one swift move the commander swings his sword, aiming for the guy's head. Natsu ducks just in time to avoid his attack, and dashes forward hitting the man in the stomach. Despite the pain spreading out in his abdomen, he manages to spin around and wound the boy at his upper arm. Natsu swings his fist landing another punch in the commander's face causing him to fly across the room and knocking him out at last.
Amazed by his great speed and fighting skills, Lucy just keeps starring at the salmon-pink haired guy, not moving an inch. "Are you alright?" Natsu turns to look at the blondie still on the floor, making her snap out of her daze.
"Yeah…" Lucy forces her head down so she doesn't keep starring at him, but raises it again when a hand reaches down to help. She gladly takes it, while blushing slightly and standing up, giving her best to ignore the pain spreading from her thigh again.
"Let's see if there's anything we could use and get out of here" Natsu says, quickly searching through the rooms. Looking around the place, Lucy notice the old man must've left with his reward, making sure the soldiers couldn't change their minds and take it back from him. She then gathers her cloak and bag from the ground and grabs her chainmail the old man left behind. She quickly gets dressed and puts on the hood of her cloak just when Natsu gets back with another bag on his back and grabs Lucys hand again, pulling her outside. Without letting go of the girl's hand Natsu makes his way through the now busy street. Though she's hardly ever been in the village, Lucy still pulls her hood even further into her face, afraid someone could recognize her.
Suddenly both freeze on spot as they see a bunch of armed men a few meters ahead of them shouting orders to soldiers to keep searching through every house and store in the village.
"You there!" One of the men calls, grabbing a rather young boy at his arm. "We're looking for a girl. Blond, shoulder-long hair, big brown eyes, your age. Guys like you would probably find her quite pretty. Have you seen her?" The boy only shakes his head and runs away as soon as the man lets go of his arm. "Useless brat" He scoffs while looking at the people around him and then makes his way through the crowd.
"This way!" Lucy barely says while she quickly pushes Natsu into one of the narrow alleys. Walking slowly in their direction, the armed man scans his surroundings with his eyes. As he walks past the back alley, Lucy quickly turns around to hide her face only to bump into the behind her standing Natsu. She didn't realize how close he's standing. For a few seconds the two of them just stand still with only a few inches away from each other and stare into each other's eyes. As she feels the blood rush to her cheeks, Lucy turns her head to her side, murmuring a "Sorry".
Natsu too notices himself blushing though he just can't bring himself to look away. Her shoulder-long blond hair seem to glisten under that creasy brown hood and her big brown eyes are kind of hypnotizing as well, not to mention her gorgeous body right in front of him. Slowly he raises one hand but stops in the movement. 'Snap out of it!' Natsu screams in his mind 'This is really not the right time for… What was I even about to do?' he thinks. Though right now her really wants to punch himself, instead he coughs and just says "I think he's gone. We should leave this village as soon as possible."
Lucy raises her head in surprise. For a second she actually forgot where she was and what she was doing there… How was that even possible? She then only nods and peeks out at the corner of the house to check whether there are any soldiers on the street. Then she nods again, signalling Natsu to follow her. The two of them move out of the alley and start walking down the busy street, blending into the crowd. Sudden shouts of soldiers behind them makes Lucy startle. "Hey, over here! I found the commander and rest of his sergeants!" They shout, making the rest of the soldiers run towards them, passing Natsu and Lucy without even once looking at them. Just as Lucy is about to turn around to make sure she's not imagining things, Natsu grabs her by her shoulders "Don't turn around. Just keep walking" he whispers into her ears.
Soon they reach the end of the street that leads out of the village and follow the road into a nearby forest.