It was too bright, far too bright. Lucy didn't want to open her eyes any more than the sliver she was barely managing now. Why was the sun so bright? It occurred to her that it would be good to take in her surroundings and situation- she could be in danger for all she knew, lying there in the… water? Drifting back and forth with her body partially suspended, it definitely felt like water, the way it felt when she swam up to sit on the beach at Tenrou Island. Lapping waves. So, she was on shore then?
Deciding that it was time to take stock, Lucy forced her large brown eyes wide. Huh. It hadn't been too bright because it was high noon. Rather, it was evening, the sun already past set and leaving the sky's velvet violet and the horizon's simmering salmon to play across the ocean. The stars would be out soon.
She had been right about the beach, though. Part of her body rested on the sand in the shallow waves, leaving the rest of her to move with the ebb and flow. How relaxing. Except for her head, which was pounding. Raising a hand to her forehead in an attempt to soothe the pain, she glanced around. Boats in a harbor, plenty of sand leading up to a wall, and a human town above that.
A human town?! She had to move! She couldn't be seen out here in the open! Clenching her muscles to spring up, she surged upward only to fall back again when her tail failed to counterbalance her weight. Instead, it split apart in two opposite directions. Lucy gazed, shocked, at what used to be her tail. Instead of teal scales and fins, she now had two peachy colored legs, complete with feet and toes. She brought a foot as close to her face as she could for further inspection. Odd looking, this thing, she thought.
Lucy braced her hands on the ground and pushed herself slowly into a seated position. Alright, so she had new limbs; she was human. That's right. She remembered now. Mavis had sent them to land to find help from the Fairy Tail guild. Perhaps the best place to start was finding her friends first.
She stood cautiously, and felt a little ridiculous as her behind rose in the air while she maintained her hands on the ground for support, knees knocking together in an effort to keep strong. Hopefully Gajeel wasn't just hiding somewhere watching so he could make fun of her for the next year. He could be a real pain like that.
As she walked her hands up her legs to right herself, she discovered something else: a shimmering silver material bunched at her waist. Standing upright was causing it to fall down to her ankles except for the two bunches in her fists. The material continued from the cinched waist up to shoulder clasps, with short split sleeves fluttering over her shoulders. A dress. Lucy was wearing a dress as ethereal as starlight on water. Somehow, the dress wasn't nearly as wet as the rest of her, and still managed to flow gracefully in the light breeze unlike her golden hair, which was clumped and inelegant. Maybe it was the fabric itself?
Perhaps a gift from Mavis to keep up from gathering the wrong kind of attention, Lucy thought. Mermaids were known for their beauty, after all, and having men throwing themselves at her would only slow her down in her mission to find help.
High-pitched screams ended her fascination with her new apparel. It sounded like Juvia. Lucy immediately responded by cupping her mouth to call out, "Juvia! Where are you?"
Only she wasn't able to make the first syllable before a clawing sensation tore from her lungs through her throat to just behind her teeth, silencing her voice except for gasps and hacks that bent her body in half. She drew in deep soothing breaths of salty air as she straightened. What was that? From extra water still in her lungs?
Another cry of pain came from the right further along the shoreline. Lucy could see two figures closing in on a third one lying prone on the sand just out of the reach of the lapping waves. "Ju-!" Lucy tried again to speak, but only succeeded in repeating the harsh process of pain incapacitating her once again. Very well. She wouldn't call out; she would act.
Lucy took off running towards the trio in the distance. Her dress was long enough to require her to lift it from her feet so she could move faster. She could now see Juvia's blue hair, and a dress similar to the one Lucy was wearing. And two men hovering over her friend, one of them shirtless, reaching out to touch her. Not on Lucy's watch!
With as much energy from her momentum as she could muster, Lucy crashed into the first man, who toppled into the next, both landing on the sandy ground. Despite her now very sore shoulder (what was he, a rock?) and ignoring the protests of the humans, Lucy crouched protectively before Juvia, who was losing her balance while trying to roll over and sit up.
"Feet! I can't- feet- hurt!" Juvia cried, clutching Lucy's arm in agony.
Without thinking things through, Lucy pushed Juvia backwards to her elbows and pulled her feet up to inspect in the dim light, leaving the fluid skirt to fall back and expose pale calves. Those feet weren't a pretty sight. It looked like they had been shredded, dragged over some jagged edges, messy and bloody. What had Juvia stepped on? Fearing what would happen should she attempt to ask, Lucy settled for finding something to help the bleeding.
But what? Lucy looked desperately around for anything to bind the wound. Back in their home, they had seaweeds especially for wounds. But what did they use here?
A ripping sound pulled her attention back to the two men. The shirtless one now had no pants. His companion was tearing a dark garment into strips.
"What are you thinkin', flame breath?" shouted the unclad man.
"I'm thinkin' they need bandages and you don't use your clothes anyway," he replied. As the first man cursed and searched for his pants, the second handed the strips to Lucy, who grabbed them and quickly wrapped Juvia's sliced feet. She would clean them later. But first they needed to stop the bleeding and get to safety.
"What happened?" Juvia asked as Lucy worked, voice a little stuffy from her tears. At the blonde's confusion, Juvia clarified, "You have blood by your mouth."
Lucy gave her friend an incredulous look. Here Juvia was losing blood through horrid wounds on her newly formed feet, and she was asking Lucy about a trifling split lip? How ludicrous. She went back to work without bothering to answer. If she even could answer.
"It's pretty bad," Juvia pushed on, reaching a hand out. "You're taking care of me; let me help you, too."
Lucy just waved her off, focused on tying off the first foot and starting on the second. The human was still ripping the shirt and providing her with a constant stream of wrapping for the two former mermaids. The sooner they were done, the sooner they could leave and do what Mavis asked them to do.
"Uh, do you girls need some help?" a hesitant man's voice asked.
The man had asked them if they girls needed any help. But their party wasn't made of just girls. Gajeel. Where was he? Lucy sat up straighter, then stood, Juvia's foot still in her hand and making the other girl's dress slip further up her leg.
"Were you in a boat wreck or something?" came another question from the humans.
"Have you seen Gajeel?" Juvia asked Lucy as the girl alternated between darting right and left trying to see further up the beach in both directions, yanking Juvia's foot about with every frantic course change. "Ouch! Be careful, please!" the bluenette demanded as she pulled her foot away from Lucy, not caring that the end of the tightly wound bandage was beginning to flutter as the whole thing loosened. Lucy didn't know whether to finish that job or look for Gajeel.
The first man, now wearing pants again, asked, "So there's someone else too? Can we help?"
"You haven't seen him either? We need to find him. He could be hurt!" Juvia said. "And I can't move!"
"What does he look like? We can help!" insisted the other man.
Lucy met Juvia's eyes and nodded. Gajeel first, then finish Juvia's foot. She looked to the sky. No stars there. No stars there. She ran into the waves till they touched her ankles, and looked towards the horizon and darted her glance back and forth coming closer to where she stood on the shore. This time could be awful, the time between sunlight to illuminate and starlight to guide. It was so hard to find anything. She needed just one star, just one. There! Lucy smiled and raised her right hand up towards that beautiful sparkle in the heavens.
Hello, my friend, thought Lucy. Have you seen my friend Gajeel? I need to find him.
She held still for a moment, nothing moving but her dress and drying hair in the ocean breeze. She held her peace, and listened. It was hard to tune out the humans questioning Juvia, but she managed to still herself and focus her attention.
Look to your left, by the rock outcropping.
It was a silent voice, more like a caress in her mind than an actual voice, soothing and beautiful and ethereal. The voice she felt when she spoke with the stars. The stars had never let her down.
Thank you, friend, she said sincerely.
Dropping her hand, she rushed to a large group of rocks jutting out of the water just a little deeper than her calves. The water was pushing a dark, bulky figure into its lichen-covered surface. Gajeel. She grabbed him by his underarms and started pulling him back to Juvia. They were all together. They could work things out from here. If Gajeel didn't have any wounds, he'd be able to help carry Juvia when he came to. They could get on the move.
Mavis, things are so much heavier out of the water! Lucy thought as she lugged Gajeel along. He was so quick with his tail in the open ocean, easily outpacing her even at her fastest. Maybe she'd be faster than him out here on land, what with him being so big and heavy. Despite her concern for the situation, she allowed a satisfied grin of fantasy at the possibility of beating him at anything physical.
Suddenly, Gajeel was a lot lighter, making Lucy stumble back a bit. She looked up surprised. It was a man, the one who had handed her the strips for bandaging. He was helping her bring Gajeel back, easily pulling the man up in his hold despite the fact Gajeel was bigger. Maybe these men weren't so bad, seeing how much they'd given to Juvia and now Gajeel.
"Is he alright? Is he hurt?" Juvia asked as they lay him beside her. The other man had her foot in his lap, having just finished the wrapping job Lucy had started.
Lucy dropped to her knees and started checking Gajeel for wounds, running her hands along his arms since it was too dark to see clearly. No blood there. She crawled down and grabbed his feet. No blood there either. His face seemed fine. She began running her fingers through his wild mane of black hair, checking his scalp for cuts or bumps. The wild sea ride had made his hair even worse than Lucy's.
"What the- stop yanking my hair, ya crazy mermaid!" Gajeel yelled as Lucy's hand snagged on a particularly bad knot, his eyes popped wide in indignation. To Lucy's horror, the whites of his eyes started turning dark as he bellowed in pain. He clamped his eyes shut, ramming his fists onto them, rubbing furiously. Lucy grabbed at his hands to try to pull them away and see what was wrong.
Juvia made to stand and help, only to cry out as soon as she put weight on her foot and drop back to the ground. "Stupid feet! Let me help Gajeel!" Lucy reached a hand out to her, but was brought back to the thrashing Gajeel when his elbow knocked her on her rear.
"Here, stay off your feet," said the shirtless man, pulling Juvia's feet back into his lap.
Seeing Gajeel ease up on his face smashing and begin to calm down and take deep breaths, Lucy leaned forward tentatively, ready to move back should Gajeel start to flail once more. She gently pulled a hand from his face to be met with a grisly picture. Blood. The dark red liquid had been smeared about by his rubbing, and created a morbid mask around his eyes.
Lucy gasped. What in the name of Mavis is going on here? she thought. My voice, Juvia's feet, and now Gajeel's eyes… What is going on?
While Lucy was freaking out over Gajeel's eyes, his hands were busy exploring the fabric on his torso. Gathering fistfuls of the silvery stuff, he pulled higher and higher on the seemingly never ending amount of fabric.
"Why the heck am I wearin' a dress?" he asked.
She hadn't noticed before, but it was true. Gajeel was wearing a very large version of the same gown she and Juvia were wearing. It didn't fit him as well, to say the least. Lucy just stared at him a moment, appreciating the picture. She would never forget this, and if she ever got her voice back, neither would he.
"Star girl," he addressed Lucy. "Why am I in a stinkin' dress?" He spoke in a tone of indignation that close friends knew meant a storm was coming in hard. Unfortunately for him, it was nearly impossible to take him seriously in his current state.
Juvia was the one who broke the silence with her laughter, hard laughter that brought tears and gasps. Lucy could hear the two human men snorting, then laughing loudly along with Juvia. She tried hard not to make a sound.
"Stop laughin' and answer my question!"
And then Lucy couldn't help it anymore. This whole situation was just too far beyond reasonable. Her lips were burst open with a burst of air carrying the first sound of her laugh, but it was quickly replaced by that same awful ripping feeling in her throat and mouth, like some clawed hand was tearing from her lungs up through her tongue.
"Lucy! Are you alright?" Juvia reached out to her while Gajeel demanded to know what was happening and the two humans shouted their own exclamations.
As her coughs died down, Lucy placed both hands on her throat and leaned against the solid something behind her to hold her kneeling position steady. The coughing had been so intense she was lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing, imagining cool water and air bathing the burning scars in her throat, trying to mentally rid herself of the physical pain.
"You've got more blood running down your chin now," Juvia said quietly. "Is that what happened last time?"
Lucy nodded. So much for thinking the blood Juvia had seen earlier was from a measly split lip. No such luck for her.
"Does that happen every time you try to talk?" This question came from one of the humans.
Lucy nodded again.
"Oi! Star girl, I can't see, remember? Someone tell me what's goin' on!"
"It seems whenever Lucy tries to speak, she coughs hard enough to bleed, rather like my feet when I try to stand get badly cut, and your eyes start crying blood," Juvia explained in a monotone, almost like it were a clinical summary of someone else's case.
"Well, that sucks," Gajeel stated casually. "This whole thing sucks. How the heck're we supposed to find that guild now? And why am I wearin' a stinkin' dress?"
Lucy took one more long breath, and leaned back to open her eyes. The stars were out more fully now. She could see so many of them. That was nice, familiar- something to cling to when nothing else was making sense.
"Perhaps these humans could help us," Juvia said slowly, almost like a question.
Lucy just shrugged. They came on land to find humans to ask them for help; she supposed asking other humans to help them find the humans of Fairy Tail couldn't be such a bad idea. But she sure wasn't going to try to ask anyone anything for a while. She'd had enough for now, thank you very much.
Juvia turned to the human whose lap still held her foot. "Please, sir," she began with a bowed head. "Would you be able to tell us where to find the guild known as Fairy Tail?"
A snort close to Lucy's ear pulled her gaze up to her right. Oh. A white scarf around a neck. A neck connected to a face on a head adorned with pink hair. A human. She'd been leaning against one of the humans, had pressed herself further against him while looking at the stars. Oh. And it would seem his arms were wrapped around her as well. Oh. Oh, my.
"I'm pretty sure we can help you with that," said her resting pole. She just continued to stare at the juncture of his neck and jaw as he spoke. He had a very nice jawline, she noted, strong, full of self-assurance.
"Yeah, pretty easy actually, considering we are from Fairy Tail," said the other man. "We can take you with us when we go back tomorrow."
"Really? Could you?" Juvia clasped her hands together over her heart. "It would help us so much if you could arrange for us to have a meeting with a man called Makarov. Do you think that would be possible?"
"Yeah, we can do that," he replied.
Juvia gushed her gratitude for the kind man who helped her with her foot bandages and would be taking them to Fairy Tail and arranging a meeting with Makarov out of the goodness of his heart. Lucy gave a faint smile. Juvia never had any emotion halfway. If she felt it, she felt it, and so did everyone around her.
"Er, no problem," the man said awkwardly, unsure of how to react to such vehement appreciation.
"You guys have anywhere to stay the night?" asked the attractive jawline.
Gajeel scoffed. "I just got hauled outta the water by a star girl who can't talk and lyin' here blind next to someone who can't walk. Does it look like we got somewhere to go?"
"Natsu, that was pretty dumb," agreed Juvia's foot-keeper.
"Not as dumb as your face!" retorted a still attractive, if slightly less intelligent, jawline.
"That's a lame comeback, flame for brains," taunted the other. "Run out of good ideas when you tore up my shirt?"
"It's not like you ever use your clothes for more than a few minutes, ya perverted ice prick!"
Juvia blushed when she looked appreciatively at the man's well-defined torso and arms. Lucy couldn't see as well from her position, especially since it was dark, but Juvia was clearly enjoying what she was observing from closer range.
"If they're going with us tomorrow, they may as well stay with us tonight," said the white scarf. Lucy thought it was soothing, looking like it was made of scales. She missed her scales and tail and voice.
"If you two are done arguin', great," Gajeel muttered. "I don't care who's naked or not since I can't see nothin', but I want outta this woman dress now. Someone get me man clothes."
As Gajeel continued his demands for pants and Juvia berated his rudeness to the kind man who helped her feet, Lucy just sighed deeply in an attempt to keep from laughing. The exhale drew the attention of Natsu, the man of the attractive jawline. His arms around her tightened slightly as he turned his face to meet hers, and she lost her breath. Handsome even in the dark, she felt a jolt run through at the sight. Was it…
"Hello again, Lucy," he said with a blinding grin.
It was the man she'd healed with her kiss. It was the man who knew her name.
Dear Friends,
Thank you for the support and follows. I appreciate the people who took a moment to leave a review. It really is fodder for the writing soul. In other news, some business:
This story will be updated on Tuesdays, unless I suffer a fit of creativity and brilliance and post earlier. Or when I write instead of whatever else I should be doing.
I shall be adding on occasion some tidbits about mermaid folklore when pertinent to the chapters. Today's is rather a well-known one: In the original "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen, the little mermaid could not walk as a human without excruciating pain in her feet, like lots of knives and needles in her feet- but she kept walking to be with her beloved prince. She also couldn't speak. I added some details to that, and added a blind Gajeel to the mix. So here you have mer-people who have some major disabilities due to becoming human.
Also, please note that I will be reposting the first chapter with some edits. I tried editing in the little edit feature, but that hasn't worked. (I have no idea if that feature works for anyone, or if you're just supposed to repost it for every edit. If you know, let me in on it, eh? But I'll let you know when I'm going to do that. The story will continue to be updated with a new chapter at least once a week.
If you liked the story, or found something I could improve on, please, let me know in a review!
Or if you know of a great fic, or you're writing one, let me know about that. You can never have too much Fairy Tail. (Though real life might say otherwise.)
Cheers!
Anne-Marie
