A/N: Welp. Um...unexpected one year hiatus. Whoops. I'm back. More talk on the bottom. Enjoy. :)
Entry 1
Gray gave me this diary for my fifteenth birthday, just a day before the Tenroujima incident. Even though I couldn't bear to use this at first, I think now I'll treasure it.
It's been officially a month since I left Fairy Tail. I've been wandering places, doing nothing, seeing nothing. I'm actually not sure what to do now: after losing Mia, Fairy Tail and all my friends there had been my purpose in life for so many years.
...I should have treasured my times there more. I can still remember their laughter, their smiles. I hear it in my dreams.
It haunts me. I can't forget, I can't move on.
So all I can do for now is keep moving until someone comes and picks up the pieces.
-Ava
Entry 2
It's been 6 months.
I miss them.
I wonder if everyone back home misses me?
-Ava
Entry 3
I received an invitation from Alzack and Bisca inviting me to their wedding today. It makes me have conflicted emotions. Happiness, for them. Warmness, for not being forgotten. Wanting, to go back.
...should I go back?
I can hear Gray's voice echoing through my mind to tell me yes, I should go and if not I'm a horrible person. I can hear Natsu's, saying how fun it would be.
...I'll stop by for a few moments. It's been awhile since I've visited Magnolia.
It's been a long time since I've referred to that place as home.
-Ava
Entry 4
Isn't it how funny life changes when you're gone?
Everyone's changed, some for the better, and some for the worst. The guild has a depressed look to it, but for the wedding the streets of Magnolia are 'all fired up' as Natsu would say. He was always such a weird freak. Despite that, I still miss him.
I gave my greetings to Alzack and Bisca, congratulating them and teasing the two for a bit. They tried to get me to stay, but I didn't want to. I left soon afterwards.
Is that selfish of me?
-Ava
Entry 5
Today is the 4 year mark since the Tenroujima incident. All of Fairy Tail spent their day at the beach, staring reminiscently at the ocean where they had last seen their comrades off. After the Sun set, I finally came out of my hiding spot and sat on the sand.
And then I was struck by a very simple thought, the sound of the waves breaking and crashing triggering in my memories as I remembered the last conversation I had held there.
Gray, you broke your promise.
That's when the tears finally came rolling.
I think I feel better now. Maybe, even just by a little, I can move on now. Time's numbed the pain, I suppose.
-Ava
Entry 6
It's the New Year. Festivals are everywhere, and at the moment I'm staying in a nice town called Cecil. I think I'll head to Lavek after: the tea's amazing, I heard from Lyon.
We still keep in contact and sometimes I run into him whenever on a solo-mission. It's nice to have human company every once in a while. He's kind and smart, and I respect him a lot. He's offered a spot in Lamia Scale to me numerous times but I turned him down. It just didn't feel right: his team had enough people as it was, and I always felt a little left out when meeting them.
...it wasn't ever like that in Fairy Tail.
Magnolia's on the way to Lavek, so I suppose I'll stop by.
I get the feeling that something's going to happen soon, and my intuition is rarely wrong. Wish me luck.
-Ava
It seemed that Lyon and Ava, sometime between when Ava had excused herself to go outside on a walk and when Lyon went after her, had grown closer, Hibiki noted with reluctance as he ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. He hated to admit it, but teammates could only do so much, and sometimes Ava needed a new influence to help her. Their concern would be taken as a teammate being concerned over another teammate's well being, and that was the reason that even though their team was close, they would never be as close as Ava was with Lyon, and even Gray. He knew that out of the Trimens, however, he probably knew Ava best (no thanks to his intelligence, of course), and that was something that he took pride in.
It wasn't like the boys were over possessive of her, oh, far from that. It was just sort of like one of the games the Trimens always played against each other: who could get the closest to their female teammate? It was a given, considering their more...flirtatious manner (if Ava heard this all she'd snort and ask 'just flirtatious?').
He sighed, shoulders slumping as a wry smile came over his face as he watched his teammate bicker with Gajeel about some trivial matter-nicknames, was it? Hibiki never found the need for nicknames for his teammate (or really, anyone he knew not counting beautiful women he had just met) simply because they both didn't work and it flustered her more to just add a -chan to the end of her name. She had insisted for them all just to call her 'Ava' without honorifics, but the suffix stuck solely for the purpose of ticking off his teammate. He liked to have his own fun, after all.
"Well, like a normal civilized man at this hour, I'm going to sleep." He couldn't help but add an emphasis to 'civilized' as Laxus glared at him, still sore about basically being called socially awkward around girls by the Blue Pegasus mage.
"Don't men like you usually stay up at this hour?" Ava remarked wryly as she rolled her eyes, trying to hide her amusement from his discomfort, the smirk on her face not helping as Hibiki twitched. "I'm sure there must be some lovely ladies out there to keep you company."
"...I'm sure Laxus-san does," Hibiki said cheerfully, sparkling nearly (the habit had come from their team leader: Ichiya-sama really was inspirational) as he ignored the looks of disbelief and skepticism from his current teammates. Ah, how he loved messing with people. It never got old.
"To train." Laxus glared at him, not liking what he was insinuating.
"Alas, I believe Hibiki-san's right." Lyon gave everyone a flat look as if daring them to argue. "I suggest we get to bed." He ignored the quiet snickers from Ava and Gajeel from his comment-the immaturity was nearly infectious, and it seemed like there were few people on this team that were actually responsible.
"Okay, Lyon-kun!" Cheria cheered, grabbing Ava by the arm as she dragged her to the girls' bedroom, and Lyon couldn't help but twitch at the 'kun' added to the end of his name.
With the girls gone, all that was left was Lyon, Hibiki, Laxus, and Gajeel. He turned around to see Hibiki and Laxus engaged in a deep staring contest with Gajeel smirking in the background. His eyebrow twitched again.
This team...had a lot of work to do.
"And so I got completely drunk, no thanks to Cana of course, and began getting all of the other girls drunk." Ava laughed sheepishly, reminiscing as she told Cheria about the one time Lucy invited her to a...disastrous sleepover. "Gray and Natsu had to be called back from their mission to watch over us, but by that time Erza had already destroyed most of Lucy's furniture. She was so mad afterwards."
Cheria giggled. "I can imagine. It sounds fun to be in Fairy Tail, Ava-san."
"Fun? No. Crazy? Yes. Besides, I'm not part of it anymore." She shrugged, biting her lip.
"But you are in spirit." Seeing Ava's probing look, the pink haired girl elaborated. "Despite the fact that you are no longer in Fairy Tail, you're not exactly an exemplary example of a typical Blue Pegasus mage either. You kind of feel like a mixture of the two."
…any thoughts Ava had of her teammate being a ditz had completely disappeared (or at least partially disappeared, she thought as she sweatdropped while watching the mage fall to the floor after attempting to walk to her bed). "Thank you, Cheria."
"You're welcome!"
"We should go to sleep now." Ava stretched, tugging at her red nightdress for a moment before slipping into her bed, her head hitting the pillow as she welcomed the onslaught of sleep, her eyes shutting closed.
Waking up to the sound of yelling in the background was not the most pleasant way to start your day. Ava groaned, rubbing at her eyes sleepily as she pushed herself up so she sat on her bed, listening to the boys' voices coming from the other room. "They're as noisy as ever."
Cheria, her hair down and sort of messy, nodded in agreement. Suddenly, Cheria's eyes widened and she managed to point at the Lacrima screen and say, "A-ava-san!" Before a giant explosion rocked the earth, causing the two to fall over onto the ground.
The door soon opened, and a rather not as extravagant looking Hibiki slammed open the door, his make-up half done. He had probably rushed over to their room from the bathroom immediately to check on them without putting on the rest of his make-up.
"Are you two alright?"
"Yeah…" Ava rubbed her sore head as Cheria gave a tiny nod. "What happened?"
"It seems as if we have a few unwanted visitors." Hibiki's gaze turned towards the Lacrima Vision screen as Ava stood up, dusted herself, and grabbed her bag of scrolls and slung it over her shoulders, her gaze turned serious as she watched the screen closely. It seemed as if the intruders were trying to invade through their back door, although that wasn't boding well because Ava had prepared some Rune Magic she had borrowed from Freed a long time ago around the whole cottage just in case.
Pulling a loose green cape over her body and throwing another one to Cheria for her to cover up, Ava nodded grimly. "Let's go check things out."
"Like hell you weaklings are going to ruin our mission!" Gajeel cackled wickedly as he punched another man straight in the jaw with his iron claw as Ava couldn't help but wince, feeling sorry for the man as the Iron Dragon Slayer immediately whipped back and did a backflip, kicking another enemy in the face and still managing to land expertly on his feet.
Laxus was in the midst of the more one-sided battle as well, currently beating a poor man to a pulp for messing with his headphones. Hibiki and Ava stood back, fully content with observing and analyzing the motives of their enemies as the rest of the team quickly moved to help the two men, Lyon freezing one of the goons who tried sneaking up on him without sparing a glance at the now-frozen statue while Cheria sucked in air before releasing a giant gust of wind, "Sky God's Bellow!"
Their makeshift team, despite their differences, moved in unison, crushing the enemy.
"Iron Dragon's Roar!" Gajeel mirrored Cheria as bits of iron flew from his mouth, swirling around in a whirlwind and knocking out several of the men.
"Ice Make: Snow Dragon!" From Lyon's intertwined hands, a dragon snaked its way through the air, crushing their enemies to the ground.
"Lightning Dragon's Breakdown Fist!" Laxus smashed down upon the minions, and Ava was just glad he picked a slightly weaker move so as not to completely obliterate the enemy.
"It seems like these were lower rank minions." Ava noted duly, and Hibiki nodded in assent (although perhaps they were just normal goons: their team was a little over the top and that itself was an understatement).
"They might be preparing for something big if they just sent these mages to distract us."
At that ominous note, the two fell silent, contemplating their own thoughts. Faintly, in the background, cries of pain from their enemies sounded, mainly from the areas where Laxus and Gajeel were stationed as Cheria sighed, running back to them and sitting down despite the fact that there was still about 10 men left.
"I'm tired."
Ava patted her on the head, bending down and smiling at her. "You did good."
"Really?"
"Of course~" A bit of the flirtier side of Hibiki seeped into his voice and Ava shot him a glare- a firm reminder that flirting between teammates ruined team dynamics, and that Cheria was much too young for him- and the man promptly shut up, insteading giving Cheria a fond look and ruffling her hair. "You did really well."
A smile tugged at Ava's face at the heartwarming scene. Hibiki might not be the best at expressing his emotions, but she was glad he was getting along fairly well with the other group members (minus Laxus, but that didn't really count).
The trio watched the rest of their team fight silently with blank expressions on their faces. Finally, Ava craned her neck to look at Hibiki and asked,
"...should we help them?"
"Nah."
A/N: I'm really, really sorry. Somehow things came to things, I got distracted by other fandoms, I improved my writing, etc. etc. The list can go on and on, but basically I've been gone.
I'm back. The next few chapters are all prewritten.
To be honest, Cup of Tea was my first real multi-chapter fanfiction that I considered somewhat thought out and developed. Looking back at it now, I somewhat wince at some parts, but this was the first work I put a lot of work into. I want to finish this story, and although the end is not in sight yet, I really want to continue it. So continue it I shall.
Regarding parts of the story:
Ava: Ava was originally written on a whim. I wanted to write a character with a mysterious past, and I wanted to write a character who interacted with all the other guilds. I admit, I could have developed her character a lot more, but I do believe that she is a fun character to write with. She was feisty back in the good ol' days, mellowed out after Tenroujima, and now sort of has a flat sense of humor haha, with all sorts of fluff and fondness for her team and guilds.
Storyline: At the moment, I have no idea how far this story will go. Tbh I quit watching Fairy Tail for a while after the GMG started wandering into stranger and new territory that I sort of felt lacked the original magic of Fairy Tail at the beginning. But I'm working on it. I'd like to end it on a note that's 'final', if you know what I mean.
Romance: Currently still undecided. It's all been hints of everything, and I think that'll continue for a while.
Fairy Tail: I do not plan for Ava to rejoin Fairy Tail. She'll be Blue Pegasus till the end, since the whole point of this fanfiction was to have other guilds involved.
Thank you to all of the kind reviews. :) I really, really mean it guys. I've read each one, fangirled over each one, and probably re-read it again. (Not to sound like a creep or anything, haha.) Truly, thank you very much.
The Fairy Tail fandom was the first anime fandom I wrote for, I believe, and it's always nice to be back. I'll need a bit of catch up on all of the newer episodes, and if you guys would help me with that, it'd be much appreciated haha. ;P
Thanks for reading. :D