A/N: I do not own either Fairy Tail or The Wizard of Oz.
Lucy and Gray walked along the dusty path, both eyeing the houses they passed dubiously. They seemed normal enough; it's the inhabitants that were acting strange. In every cottage they passed, faces were pressed against window panes—some curious, others wary. The blue cat hovered a few meters in front of them, chattering nonstop. Lucy, after getting over the initial shock of seeing a flying, talking cat, immediately demanded information. The cat—he introduced himself as Happy—was more than willing to oblige.
Gray held up a hand to interrupt the seemingly endless stream of words pouring from the feline.
"We don't really need to know which restaurant serves which fish," he said exasperatedly. "Can you tell us about this Eligor guy that we accidentally landed on?"
"More importantly, we aren't going to jail, are we?" Lucy asked, her eyes wide with alarm. "It wasn't our fault! We didn't know he was under there! Wait a minute. We didn't even want to come here! I want to go home!" she wailed.
"Don't worry, Lucy. Eligor was a wanted man so I'm sure you won't get any trouble from the guilds about that. Not from the official ones at least," Happy reassured her. Lucy exhaled, her shoulders slumping in relief.
"Guilds?" Gray raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
"Aye! Fiore has five guilds; Phantom in the north, Blue Pegasus in the south, Grimoire Heart in the west, Eisenwald here in the east, and Fairy Tail in the center. My friend Natsu and I are from Fairy Tail but we're traveling all over Fiore right now. Anyway, each guild is ruled by its own wizard master. Phantom, Blue Pegasus and Fairy Tail are official guilds; the other two are known as dark guilds," Happy explained, bobbing slightly in mid-air.
"What do the guilds do? How is a dark guild different from an official guild?" Lucy asked. She toyed absently with her side ponytail. She and Gray plodded on, following Happy. She reasoned that he was probably taking them to this Natsu person.
"Official guilds protect the non-mages within their territories," the cat answered. "Dark guilds, however, don't care about anything like that. They just do whatever they want." He landed on the ground and let his wings disappear.
"This is my magic, Aera," he said, seeing Lucy's curious stare. "Speaking of magic, I know Gray's probably some kind of ice mage—I saw him use his magic before— but what's yours, Lucy? It must be powerful if you could beat Eligor so easily."
"I keep telling you; that was just an accident," Lucy replied wearily. "Anyhow, I'm a stellar spirit mage." She held her keys up for him to see. She explained to him how her magic worked; she formed contracts with stellar spirits so that she could summon them in battle. Happy looked intrigued. He kept stealing glances at the keys, wondering if she had a key that could summon fish.
The trio walked steadily on, Happy explaining and the other two occasionally asking questions. When they had exhausted the topic, they lapsed into comfortable silence.
"Um…" Gray began.
"Shh!" Lucy scolded. "Can't you read the mood? We're supposed to be contemplating quietly here!"
"Sorry."
Gray pursed his lips, feeling torn between not incurring Lucy's wrath—she could be so easily upset sometimes—and wanting to voice his concerns. After a few minutes, Lucy threw her hands up in surrender.
"Fine then. Out with it. What is it that you want to say so badly?" she demanded.
"Where exactly are we going?" he asked. Lucy paused; she had been busy digesting the information so she hadn't given much thought to where they were going. She looked around and noticed that they had left the houses behind and were now walking along fields of corn. Seeing him looking at her expectantly, she blushed, not wanting to admit to her absent-mindedness. She's been so scatter-brained lately, especially around Gray. She scrambled for something to say.
"Happy knows, right?" Lucy redirected the question to the cat. She gave herself a pat on the back for her quick thinking.
"I don't know." Happy shook his head.
The two gaped at him incredulously.
"You don't know?" Lucy cried. "I thought you were taking us to meet that Natsu guy!"
Happy's eyes widened. He had gotten so caught up in talking to both of them that he had forgotten all about Natsu. Without explanation, he zipped away, leaving her staring after him in disbelief.
"He left us!" Lucy spluttered. She turned to Gray. "He left us!" she repeated indignantly.
"I know. The nerve." Gray deadpanned.
They had been walking for hours, traveling in the direction Happy had flown of to and keeping a lookout for their erstwhile feline companion. The sun had set a while ago and the air was rapidly cooling. Lucy dragged her feet, grumbling about stupid cats who abandon people in the middle of nowhere. She rubbed her arms furiously, trying to restore warmth to her limbs. The action jingled the keys at her waist. She looked at them and smiled.
"Open, Gate of the Clock! Horologium!" she uttered, her hand clutching Horologium's silver key. The grandfather clock appeared in a puff of smoke. Gray coughed and waved his hand in front of his face, trying to clear away the smoke so he could see. Once it dissipated, he saw that Lucy had climbed into the clock. She was curled up, trembling slightly from the cold.
"What are you doing?"
"'I'm cold, tired and hungry. I refuse to take another step,' she says," Horologium replied.
Gray just shook his head and resumed walking. Horologium, with Lucy tucked safely inside it, trotted after him.
"Maybe we should stop for the night," Gray mused, looking around for a suitable place to settle in. He was fairly confident that he could get a fire going to keep them both warm. There was bound to be plenty of dry grass in the fields around them.
"'Now you say we stop. Couldn't you have said that earlier? Before I summoned Horologium?' she says," the clock repeated Lucy's grumbles. Gray didn't answer; he had spotted what looked to be an abandoned barn just a few meters ahead. He quickened his stride, squinting against the darkness.
"'Oi! Don't just leave me here!' she says."
They had reached the barn. Its doors were barred with a rotten piece of wood. Gray wrenched it away; it splintered into pieces under his hands. He pulled the doors open and peered into the barn's dark interior.
"Hey, Lucy. Do you have a light or something?" he called.
"No," Lucy replied shortly, climbing out of the clock and surveying the barn with mild distaste. It looked damp. She didn't like the damp. She waved her hand, dismissing Horologium with a nod in thanks.
"Guess I'll go get something to start a fire with. You stay here," he instructed, nudging her into the shed.
Lucy opened her mouth to argue but Gray beat her to it.
"It's too dark out. You're not used to walking in the dark. You'd just slow me down," he rationalized. He turned away and began walking away, leaving the barn doors open to let the moonlight in. He didn't want to have to leave her here alone but he had no choice; she would freeze to death without a fire.
Lucy fought against tears welling up from her eyes. She swallowed a lump in her throat. He didn't have to phrase it like that; she knew she was of no help in these kinds of situations. She always needed Gray; never the other way round. She sniffed, looking around the shed. It seemed that it hasn't been abandoned for long; she could still smell the horses which have been housed here. Deciding that sitting down while bawling her eyes out was preferable to doing it standing up, she toed the nearest pile of hay, checking if it was safe.
"Kyaa!" she squealed as her foor nudged something soft that was definitely not hay. A masculine groan answered her. Lucy looked closer and saw that what she had thought was a large heap of hay was actually a person—a boy—covered in straw. His pink hair was streaked with dirt and dried blood.
"Is he…dead?" she whispered to herself in horror. She prodded his leg gently. He jerked awake, struggling against the ropes binding his arms and feet together. Lucy recoiled in alarm. Her abrupt movement drew the boy's attention.
"Thank goodness! I thought I'd be stuck here forever! Could you untie me?" the boy grinned up at her, clearly not minding her shocked stare. Lucy bent down, studying the knots. She had read about this kind of knot in a book once. Drawing only on theoretical knowledge, she worked studiously at the ropes. After a minute of picking at the knot, she had him free. He sprang to his feet as soon as he was released and beamed at her.
"Gee, thanks! You're nice. I'm Natsu Dragneel," he rattled off, extending a hand to her. Just then, clouds moved to hide the moon, throwing the shed into darkness. Lucy, trying not to let her unease at the loss of the moonlight show, hesitantly reached out to grasp his hand. The instant their hands came in contact, Lucy heard a horrible squelching sound. Natsu noticed that she had stiffened at the sound and was now staring at their linked hands in horror. He let go and smiled at her sheepishly.
"Oh, sorry about that," he laughed weakly. "I think there was some horse dung mixed in with the hay."
A disgusted shriek shattered the night air.
A/ N: I just noticed that the other chapters had no line breaks! I fixed that so feel free to re-read the previous chapters if you want. To those who wish for me to post the succeeding chapters (as of now I'm working on chapter 6) please review... I'm open to any suggestions you guys might have :3