Natsu hadn't had much contact with humans, and he preferred it that way. He used to watch them when he was bored and found there ways barbaric and boring. Sure, he could enjoy a good fist fight every now and then, but killing innocents for no reason other than power and money? No thanks. Of course he tried to interfere when he could, but he had to remain invisible when doing so.
The fire spirits did not want his presence in the world to be known. For reasons he could never quite understand they kept close to him since he woke up on the cold hard ground of the forest floor. He was five or six, somewhere around that age range.
The fire spirits were not what you would expect. When thinking of fire usually you think wild and bright, but these were quiet and calm. He considered them his conscience when his own failed him.
They were small things and most of the time invisible. Natsu never got a good look at them due to this, so there shape was unknown to him. Natsu liked to imagine they were just little floating fires with eyes and mouths. They sure talked enough. As far as he could tell there were four of them.
The moment he came to earth they called him Natsu, Child of the Earth.
He had snorted at the name, even as a child. When asking why spirits of the earth didn't follow him around instead of fire they had seemed slightly put off.
"Natsu, you… Can you not sense them?" one had practically hissed.
Another piped up, "He isn't very smart, is he? Child, the earth spirits are always watching, even if you cannot sense them. After all, we do stand on them."
That had disturbed him more than anything. Natsu didn't like the idea of being watched no matter where he went, and from then on, he always felt a pair of eyes on his back.
Most of his life was spent skipping through time, looking for his father Igneel.
Natsu remembered Igneel from before he came to earth. Igneel was a mighty dragon, and they had lived somewhere strange compared to this planet, somewhere warm. The details were foggy now, but he had a feeling that Igneel had followed him to earth. And he would stop at nothing to find him.
True, he had been confused and scared upon first entering this world. He felt like something was missing, something essential. He assumed it was his father. But the spirits kept him company while he traveled.
Mainly he lived in the forest, quietly keeping watch over the people. It was a little disorienting when he went to sleep in Egypt as the pyramids were being built to waking up in Japan as samurais fought to their deaths. The time jumping was always a major pain considering how much could change in one year.
It made searching for Igneel even harder.
Once, he had walked into a town because the water he drank from the river started to taste funny. The spirits were against allowing him out of the forest but he disregarded them for the time. He was thirsty and he would not allow the spirits fear to make him die from dehydration.
Natsu knew he looked strange with his tan and tight skin, with bright pink hair sticking up in spikes, teeth as sharp as a dragons, and slanted eyes as black as the night. But he still never thought his looks would warrant the staring it did the moment he stepped into one of the stores.
One of the woman stared with heated cheeks at his exposed chest. He frowned as he noticed a giant, yellow hat sitting atop her head. For the life of him, he could not figure out why she wore such a thing, or why her dress was so tight it looked like she could hardly breathe.
He much preferred it years ago when the girls had worn simple clothing that let them move easily through the forests as they hunted for dinner. Though he supposed that wasn't as common as he thought it was.
Shrugging he turned and grabbed a gallon of water, depositing a few coins he'd robbed off a fat man outside, before stepping outside into the scorching heat. He received many stairs still, and some men even had the audacity to spit at him. He only refrained from beating the men by the spirits whispering to him, telling him not to draw more attention to himself.
After that experience he hadn't gone out to town to get anything more. He was sixteen at the time.
But despite this, he still had his curiosity's that went beyond a small child's. He wanted to know why he couldn't go live with them. He knew he still had to find Igneel, and that took precedence, but he'd like to know the reasons it wasn't an option.
So he asked.
"Child of Earth, why would even wonder of such a thing?" a voice asked by his ear. "Do you wish to go be a human?"
Natsu frowned. "You know, you guys never told me what I am. Or why you're following me. In fact, you haven't told me anything!"
He was slightly shocked to realize this, and then it begged the question, why was this the first time he was curious about it?
His questions were met with silence. This only served to make him angrier.
"Sprits, tell me now," Natsu growled.
"…Very well."
"Brother, surely you are not…?!"
"We have not much choice, and he deserves to know."
"…"
Natsu settled down against a tree in the middle of the forest, and waited for the spirits to begin their tale.
"Natsu, what you are will always be a mystery. Some will call you by your formal title, Child of the Earth, others might even go as far to call you a dragons son. But it matters not really. The only thing that is known for sure that you and the other have existed in the Before, and are still alive in the After. We know you exist to fulfill a promise, though what it is is also unclear," the spirit said quietly.
Another, one with a higher pitch, spoke. "We found you Natsu, and we knew immediately that you must be protected above all else. But we also knew you would not be able to live among normal humans."
"Why is that?" Natsu asked angrily. "If I had grown with them then I would have learned their customs, and adapted!"
"No," another whispered. "No matter how much you learned, you are too wild, too unlike them. In the time you grew they would have killed you for your strangeness. Humans are barbarians, you have seen this."
"Child," the original speaker said, "it is not only that. You seemed to radiate an otherworldly-ness. Almost like magic. We cannot let you go and disrupt this world."
"You spoke of another," Natsu muttered, eyes widening slightly. "There is another one like me?"
An uneasy silence met him, serving to only put him more on edge.
"What are you hiding from me?" he asked. Natsu glared at surroundings, looking for the spirits though he knew they would not reveal themselves.
"There was another," one of the spirits said quietly. "In the Before, but the other was not like you exactly. We know next to nothing about the other, just that they are somewhere on earth."
With that his hopes vanished. This 'other' could have been his chance to discovering what exactly this promise he had to fulfill was, and maybe even where Igneel was. But for all he knew, the other could be in a completely different time period. Natsu sighed.
"Are you mad at us, Child of the Earth?"
Natsu shook his head. "In the end, none of this helps me much, does it? It just confuses me more than before."
After that he still traveled from place to place, following his old routine of searching every crack and corner for his father. He knew it was unlikely for a massive dragon to be hiding in small caves but that did not stop him from looking. But still, resting in the back of his mind were thoughts of the 'other' and his promise.
He started to wonder that if he supposedly fulfilled this promise, does that mean his reason for existing would disappear, and with it, so would he?
The thought unsettled him. Whatever this promise was, it would have to wait. Some things were just more important.
And then one day he woke up, and the air was different.
Immediately he knew he had skipped times again. Scowling because it sent his search back once again he stood and decided that figuring out the year would be a good way to restart his search.
The woods had grown thinner than before but he decided he was most likely still in the same place as before. He happened upon a town sooner than he expected and stared in wonder. It was a small town, but buildings towered into the sky and the air reeked of something disgusting (he would learn later it was called gas). It took one glance at a piece of paper on the ground to realize it was 1878. A pleased smile lit his face, despite the scowls he received from people walking passed him. It wasn't too far into the future this time.
But, he frowned, glancing at the sky. Something was still different.
Why did he get the feeling this would be his last time to travel through time? Dismissing it as just a passing fancy he found his way back into the forest, all the while, the spirits almost begging him not to go to town again.
"Will you leave me be for just a second?" he snapped after what felt like hours of their nagging. He needed a new game plan to start searching for Igneel, and for that, he needed silence.
He could have sworn he saw their forms flicker for a second but they were gone before he could catch their shapes.
"Very well, Child of the Earth. We shall leave you for a small amount of time, but do not do something drastic."
Waving them away he stormed off into the woods, leaving the spirits behind. He wasn't truly angry at them, or anything of the like. He just had a feeling that if he didn't leave them in that second then something bad would happen, and he would miss a great opportunity. His legs moved without his permission forwards and through the brush.
And then his eyes landed on a girl.
Her blonde hair seemed so familiar, and when her dark brown eyes stared up at him in confusion it suddenly slapped into his mind like a rubber band. This was the 'other'.
"I've found you." It slipped out before he could stop himself. It seemed like his body wasn't following his minds commands. As he stepped closer he asked her name. Nervous flurries tore through his stomach though he couldn't be sure why.
"Lucy, Child of the Stars."
And then, he remembered.
They could feel the Before ending, just like all things did. Their friends had already left to go to the After, to become new people, to scatter themselves across the new world. Their friends had accepted the destiny as easily as you could imagine, knowing there was no point in fighting it.
But Natsu and Lucy were different.
They knew that the moment the Before ended and the After started, they would not be themselves. They would become something different, whether better or worse they didn't know. But they knew that the moment it happened, they would be separated.
Natsu had felt the ground shake below him but he barely noticed, his gaze and mind were focused solely on Lucy. His hands were on her cheeks, brushing away with his thumbs the tears that escaped her eyes.
"We will meet again, Lucy," he whispered. Her tears fell faster. "No matter the cost, I will find you. And we will be together once again."
"You promise?" she had asked quietly, her eyes never wavering from his.
"I promise."
Natsu couldn't hold back the grin that split his face, but he pretended not to notice the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. It had been so long.
How could he have forgotten? Everything that had happened long ago, how could he have let it get lost in his mind? Suddenly he felt like a balloon was expanding in his chest and he had no idea how to pop it.
Lucy looked at him with such longing in her eyes that it sent shivers down his back, but there was confusion mixed with it too.
"And your name?" Her voice was as soft as he remembered.
He didn't have time to process Lucy's actions when he answered. Suddenly she was there, crashing against his body as she sobbed onto his chest. He buried his nose in her hair, soaking up the familiar scent of her, and he couldn't help but whisper with a quirk of his lips, "I've been searching for you Lucy."
And it was true. Though he still wished to find his father Igneel, it all paled in comparison to finding Lucy. Natsu had always had the feeling that something in his life was missing, something essential. But he no longer felt that way as he whispered into her ear. Everything felt right once again.
"Their promise has been filled, King. The destined have found each other."
"Yes, it seems to be true."
"Pardon me for asking… but what will happen to them now? Where will they go?"
The King chuckled. "Why, continue their adventure of course! No matter where that takes them, they will always be together."
The Child of the Stars and the Child of the Earth were never seen again, though the fire spirits and the stars searched high and low. Not even the earth spirits could locate them. It was all for the best in the end. They became nothing but a legend after that, a story that humans would tell their children before they went to sleep, but to them, it would always be a story. Only the spirits and the stars knew that it was no simple fairy tale.
And so, the long ago promise was fulfilled, and never again would it be broken.
By popular demand I did a second part to this little thing I wrote. I also posted it on my tumbr "tale-of-the-fairies" if you're interested. Thank you for all of your kind reviews, they mean a lot :D
Alright, this is the end of the road for this story. I hope you enjoyed! Make sure to review!