Chapter Three
Natsu didn't like the silence that engulfed the area around him. The air was thick with tension, though he ignored it, walking alongside Chaerin with Happy sat on his shoulder who was slightly cowering away from the latter. Natsu had tried twice to initiate a conversation with the dark haired girl but every time she would answer shortly and glare ahead, not looking at him once. So the air stayed tense and no one spoke. He scowled at her, slowing so she couldn't see him, when she turned to look at him, he stopped making a face, but she caught the change and frowned at him.
"Natsu-san. . . What do you want?" Chaerin sighed, giving up and slowing down to let him catch up.
"Just call me Natsu." Natsu threw his arm over her shoulders again as he approached, resting his hand on her head and looking down at her. He knew her face. It looked so familiar, he thrust his mind back as far it would go but he couldn't quite place her. And Chaerin had the same predicament, only she knew where they met. It was Magnolia. Defiantly. She smiled a little, methodically replacing her memories of the boy. When she was ten, maybe eleven, she remembered meeting a little pink haired boy- looking for a dragon called:
"Igneel." Both Natsu and Chaerin stopped dead, Natsu was staring down at the girl not allowing her to move freely, his knuckle white from clutching her shoulder and stopping her from moving. She turned back to look at him.
"Igneel, did you say Igneel?!" he asked excitedly, his slanted eyes going wide as his hyperactive ness bubbled. "How do you know about him, what do you know about him?!"
"I don't know anything. But I remembered. We met before in Magnolia, right?" Chaerin's smooth voice broke the brightness in the air and let it shatter and be replaced by curiosity and confusion. Natsu stared at Chaerin with questioning eyes and opened his mouth to speak but she butted in. "I was lost because I had never been to Magnolia before, but you found me and helped me find my brother. While we were looking we made a deal, that I would come back to Magnolia and play the piano at your guild and that, then, we could look for Igneel together." Natsu nodded, slowly remembering the little, scared blonde girl he met while running away from Erza. But Chaerin wasn't blonde. Natsu stared at her hair for a minute before shaking his head.
"That little girl had blonde hair and her voice was way higher than yours." he pointed out, but Chaerin rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Whatever, Natsu." Chaerin walked a little faster and they continued to walk in silence.
Erza and Gray stood at the edge of the forest, trying to decide how to tell the Town that they didn't have the Jewel and that were abandoning the mission- unless Natsu got the Jewel off of Chaerin. And that seemed unlikely, why would she protect it as long as she seemed to if she could just let it go in an instant? Erza sighed, glancing at Gray and then back towards Lucy.
"Hurry, Lucy, we don't have time to waste!" called Erza, stepping out of the trees. Gray followed, not waiting for the tired Lucy that was trailing behind. He chased after the redhead who blazed ahead, stomping straight for the house of the Mayor.
"Erza, what exactly is your plan? To tell him that Chaerin's really nice and we can't take the Jewel from her?" Gray said as he caught up with her.
"No, we're going to ask why she has it in the first place. I don't know why but something about her seems off." Erza explained, "And these townsfolk aren't any better. It just seems suspicious." Lucy then caught up behind them, followed by Happy, who had been bored by the silence back with Natsu and Chaerin and had decided to fly over to Erza. Because it's always a party around Erza- always. "Hello, Happy, where are Natsu and Chaerin?" Happy told them about Chaerin and Natsu having met in Magnolia and how Natsu was convinced it was someone else. Gray laughed at that, calling Natsu a dumbass because if she could remember what had happened it had to have been her there. Only Erza was surprised at the news. The way the Town had put it, it seemed like Chaerin had come one day and snatched the Jewel away when she was really young, but if she had a brother that took her to Magnolia, where was he? Had he stolen the Jewel and asked his sister to protect it for him? Had they lived in Magnolia before settling in deserted village? Erza shrugged it off, rapping viciously on the wooden door to the Mayor's house. It echoed on the inside a little before a female voice called out:
"What, what is it that you want?" The door swung open, not revealing a person but a small tabby cat that meowed, yawned and walked out of the house through Gray's legs. Looking up past the cat, they saw a middle aged woman with dark skin, clearly spending a lot of time outdoors, appear and frown at them. "Did you kill the girl, where's the Jewel? Where's the loud boy, he owns us for the window he broke, you know?" the woman rambled, blocking the entrance with her body. "The mayor can't talk right now. . ." she finished, flinching away from Erza's hand as it raised to push the hair out of her face. Erza said nothing, noting the flinch and glancing over her shoulder. She expected Natsu to be there soon, with Chaerin at his heels.
"He doesn't need to talk," Erza replied, airily, "I'll do it for him."
Natsu and Chaerin couldn't speak. No words could come out of their mouths as they stared at what used to be a functioning Town. The remains of it barely looked like it could have been a civilisation had it not been for the people lying in piles of rubble and collapsed buildings, bleeding all over themselves. In the midst of the chaos stood Erza, barely panting, Gray and Lucy along with a brown and cream bull holding a large axe who was snorting heavily. Erza turned around to face the two, giving them a peek of the quivering Mayor, his clasped together in silent prayer for his life.
"Hello, you two, do you have your Jewel, Chaerin?" Erza asked, sweetly, as if the space around her was filled with love, butterflies and daisies. Neither of the two said a word. They slowly turned to look at each other and then back at Erza, before Natsu groaned and stamped towards the mess.
"How come you have all the best fights without me?" he complained, hitting Gray over the back of the head in his annoyance. Gray growled and glared in response, trying to hit Natsu back and starting a fight between them. As they brawled, Chaerin couldn't move, it looked like the destruction was an everyday occurrence with the mages. And Chaerin couldn't help but like the idea of that.
"Could I join?" she asked, quietly, thinking that no matter what they said, they were stuck with her. "Your guild, can I join?" she repeated, a little louder. Erza, the only one who seemed less interested in the sight of the boys fight, (Lucy trying to tear them apart but being dragging into the slapstick mist cloud herself, the bull standing aside and egging them on), smiled at Chaerin and said only one thing:
"Didn't you hear me earlier; welcome to Fairy Tail."
The guild wasn't as grand and amazing as Chaerin had pictured, though it wasn't as brutal as she thought either. Lucy had explained on the way back that recently, the guild had had a run in with another called Phantom Lord, and it had destroyed the guild. All the members were trying to put it back together. She had said something else too, but by that point they were on a train back to Magnolia and Natsu was looking sickly, so Chaerin stopped listening to Lucy and payed more attention to hilarious sight of Sick Natsu. She was wishing she had listened because the guild did not look unlike the Town she had just left. A pile of rubble of the ground, mixed in with large wooden structures. Some guildsmen were working, dragging wood and stone, fixing foundations but mostly, they sat around on lawn chairs swigging beer and laughing with each other. When they got in shouting distance of the largest crowd, Erza called out for Master. A small, elderly man in red and white robes turned to face them with blushed cheeks and drooling lips. In his hand was a bottle of empty beer, which he swung carelessly close to his balding head. As he saw Erza, Natsu and Gray, his face turned serious and slightly worried. He jumped from the pile of stone he sat upon and walked over, noticing Chaerin, who stood next to Natsu with her hands clamped together in her lap.
Makarov took in the new girl, paying close attention to her breasts. She was a black haired girl with skin the colour of very milky coffee and lightly rosy cheeks. Her head was slightly bowed, blocking the sight of her eyes and her long fringe hung just past her breasts in that position with the rest of her hair stretching further. The black leather of her jacket was dusted with silver studs along the thick wrists and padded shoulders. Underneath was a floaty cotton tank top that was a tone lighter than her jet black hair. Her legs were covered by translucent black tights. A black pair of short shorts, with the pockets hanging out from underneath, donned her hips. Her boots were knee high with glittering laces that shone silver like the studs of her jacket. She was a little shorter than Natsu who had one arm lazily cast over her shoulders, while her hands were clasped together in front of her, blocking the design on the clip of her black belt, though Makarov had no doubt it was silver.
"Hello?" he smiled, warmly, "Who's this pretty lady." The girl's head snapped up, revealing light blueish gray eyes that were nearly silver, too.
"Um. . . I'm Chaerin Park. Could I please join your guild?" Makarov smiled. So his brats had brought back another beauty. His smile became perverted and he jumped up to see her better.
"Of course. . . Fairy Tail always welcomes hot girls like you!" Chaerin's cheeks turned impossibly redder, and she buried her face without thought into Natsu's shoulder. It was only then that he realised he had his arm 'round her and let go, pushing away to go and challenge Elfman to battle. Erza smirked at the master who was still hounding Chaerin, before following after Natsu to talk to Mirajane and Cana. That left only Gray to drag the new Fairy away from the master, as Lucy left to talk to Levy when they first got back. After convincing Makarov to get back to his drinking, Gray took Chaerin's wrist and dragged her away.
"I know this place can be pretty intense sometimes, but it's best guild around." Gray explained, letting Chaerin begin to walk in step with him as they toured the grounds. "You should make a team with us, if you're not comfortable going out alone." he offered, smiling down at her, but only seeing her confused face.
"Why would I form a team with you? Do I have to go out?" she asked, looking up at him with cute and curious eyes. Gray was astonished, then he remembered. The little girl had seemingly lived alone for a long while in that Town, no one to join a guild with, but then he wondered how she survived so long.
"Have you never even heard of guilds? Basically, the non-magic folk give us mages jobs to do and pay us for it. We help each other thrive, you see." Gray lead Chaerin over to the "Requset Board", some request sheets that were haphazardly pinned to a wooden frame. "You just pick the one you want, show it to Mirajane-" He pointed to a stunningly beautiful, white haired woman who was being cooed over by Master, "And off you go, either alone or with a team." Chaerin nodded, forcefully, trying to make it seem like she understood, but she didn't. Her brain couldn't wrap around the idea of mages needing money, couldn't they just go jewel-hunting, like in caves. Gray smirked and messed up Chaerin's hair before leaving her at the board while he went to join Natsu and Elfman in the fight. She was about to leave and meet some of her new Nakama when a request caught her eye.
'REQUEST: URGENT! Basilisk on the loose! Please come to Flourish immediately! Report to Mayor's house. Reward: 3,000 J.' Chaerin walked back, ripping it from the wall and glancing over it, before smiling.
"Natsu! You wanna come on a job with me?!"