Thank you for the reads, reviews, and follows, everyone! I appreciate the support!
At particular points in the story, I think it makes it extra funny to imagine Erza's Theme epic-ally playing in the background. I'll clue you in on these moments.
the strawberries
In traditional Erza style, she ignored all the warning signs leading up the narrow trail to Mt. Jasmine, quickly running right past them at full speed in her cheetah-print Flight Armor.
The mage must have looked quite peculiar to anyone that might have looked (although, undoubtedly, no sane person was up on that mountain range today), since she was quite naked despite ascending into a snowy and wind-chilled mountain.
But Erza knew no cold. She only knew her mission.
She had spent the latter half of the day making her way here all the way from Magnolia, and the sun was going to set soon. Therefore she needed to get the Goddess Strawberries as quickly as possible, and she could waste no time reading signs that warned her of any danger—because she was going to run into the danger anyway.
"I will obtain the Goddess Strawberries by the end of today!" she declared before she left the guild. She, of course, got a ton of support and hand waves from her guild members, but no one could really top Erza's enthusiasm for this personal mission of hers.
Erza was completely prepared—her magic at its highest levels yet (mostly due to her gungho attitude about desserts), she had a freshly weaved basket tucked in her arm (only the best quality baskets for the most delicate and luscious strawberries), and tucked underneath her right breast plate was the sacred book that described how to make her most perfect strawberry shortcake.
There was nothing that would get in her way today.
Except perhaps the fact that this bush of Goddess Strawberries that Levy had talked about earlier was nowhere to be found.
Erza had checked virtually every single bush on the peak of Mt. Jasmine, making sure not to fall off the crumbling rocks between the slippery and icy parts of the mountain or hurt herself on the irregular, jaggedly branched evergreen trees scattered throughout the area. Not a single bush that she had overturned had the even the slightest bit of fruit on them. Unfortunately, most of the bushes seemed quite dead.
However, Titania was not known to give up at the first sight of defeat.
In fact, she didn't even recognize this as a loss.
Despite the fact that her legs were starting to develop goosebumps in the cold air after standing still for a while on chilly mountain, she was still pumped up as ever and just as motivated as when she started her whole adventure.
(Here's a good moment to start playing Erza's Theme in your head, if you wish. Or have it playing on your computer in the background while you read this.)
There was clearly a reason why the strawberries were not showing themselves, she thought to herself.
Then a realization came upon her, and reinvigorated, Erza prepared herself for another requip.
"Kansou! Requip!" she announced, raising her arms and letting the warmth of her magic spread through her body.
"Strawberry Armor!" She closed her eyes, thought of the armor that she desired, and then waited as the quick flash of magic quickly undressed and redressed her into her new armor.
As one might expect, Strawberry Armor was an armor that Erza had specifically designed for collecting strawberries. Her Strawberry Armor consisted of a completely black leotard with thin black gardening gloves, perfect for picking through bushy leaves for fruity bits. Over her black leotard, she wore a huge strawberry costume, soft and fluffy. Her head stuck out of the top of the strawberry, and on top of her head, a cap with the strawberry leaves. The suit came with a matching pair of black mountain boots and a built-in pouch in the front of the costume.
Perfect for strawberry picking. She predicted her Strawberry Armor increased her strawberry picking levels by at least four times. By dressing up like a strawberry, other strawberries in the area would be less intimidated and be more inclined to show themselves.
Now then, it was time to search for strawberries once more!
"Come, my fellow strawberries!" she called. "I must include you in the most perfect strawberry shortcake!"
After putting on the armor and calling on the other strawberries, Erza could swear that she could hear the sugar-coated voices of the other strawberries on the mountain.
She quickly followed her strawberry senses, running up the steep incline of the mountain without a lost step. She wasted no energy in her movements, sprinting forward with all the energy that she had. She could hear the strawberry voices—smell their strawberry scent—feel the enveloping strawberry atmosphere that was growing near.
Erza made a sharp left and then ran a few hundred more meters before stopping immediately at a bumpy patch of snow that she—indeed—had missed earlier.
The strawberry-armor-donning warrior got down onto all fours and quickly brushed the icy crystals away from the bush to check if this bush was indeed the source of all good strawberry-ness, the mother-bush of the Goddess Strawberries, the queen of all sweet fruits.
And indeed, there, glistening against the snow were the Goddess Strawberries.
She took a moment to admire the gigantic strawberries, swollen to the very brim with sugary goodness and ripened to the most juicy red color.
Erza then carefully took one strawberry—the one closest to her at the time—in her hand and plucked it from the bush. The fruit of labor—practically half the size of her face—was in her right hand. She closed her eyes and brought the berry to her nose, taking in its sweet perfume.
Indeed, she thought and a smile crept across her lips, a light blush appeared over her cheeks. These were the most perfect strawberries that could only go on her most perfect strawberry shortcake. She didn't even need to know how many strawberries she needed, she just knew that she must use these strawberries.
Erza got right to work, tucking the firstly picked strawberry into the basket she bought specifically for the Goddess Strawberry collecting. But she needed to remove these strawberries from the bush, and she had do this gently and carefully so as not to mess the purity of the fruit.
She had just the solution.
"Requip!" she said, stretching out her hands again. "Heaven's Wheel Armor!"
As the white titanium plates of armor fit themselves snugly around her torso, knife blades assembled into wings reminiscent of her guild attached to the backs of her shoulders. Metal clicked on metal and sharp edge swiped against sharp edge, and by the time she opened her hazelnut eyes to face the strawberry bush, she had become the magnificent sworded fairy that the kingdom of Fiore imagined when they heard her name.
"Dance, my blades!" she called – and a circle of thin swords swirled around behind her. She pointed to the bush with her right sword, threatening the strawberry bush with the sharp tip, and all the swords behind her suddenly pointed in the exact same direction.
A brief pause, and then upon her command, all of her requipped swords hurled themselves toward the bush.
After two seconds, there was an entire circle of destruction in front of her, all the trees around the strawberry bush felled and the snow in the area blown away by the sheer wind slicing power of her mass sword attack. Surprisingly, the strawberry bush was near intact—snow and drops of icicles still hanging precariously off some of the evergreen leaves—save the twenty or something strawberries that were cut from it.
Titania's eyes turned bright—like Happy's eyes when he saw fish just within his reach—when she mentally counted the amount of strawberries that were now for her taking. She requipped into her strawberry armor once again and then got onto all fours to scoop up every single strawberry that she had released from the bush, sighing and admiring each strawberry that she picked up.
Her job was done. She looked up at the sky to check the sky and was relieved to see that the sun had barely moved since the last time she had checked it. She draped her basket, full of Goddess Strawberries, on her left arm and then started heading back down the treacherous Mt. Jasmine to make her way down and out of the Lavender Mountain Range. She happily began humming, enthusiastic about the comforting weight of the strawberries bouncing in her basket.
She was one step closer to her most perfect strawberry shortcake.
Erza was halfway down the mountain when she heard something suspicious coming at her from behind her.
Her ears twitched to get a better sense of the odd sound behind her but prepared to equip the strawberry katana that was tucked into her Strawberry Armor. Judging by the heavy tremors that she felt at her feet, whatever was coming at her from behind was a large creature.
No worries, though—whatever it was would not be able to defeat an Erza with a purpose.
"Oh ho ho ho! A strawberry woman!" a deep, low ape-like voice cheered.
A Vulcan? Erza thought, and then she smiled, remembering that Levy had told her about the friendly neighborhood Vulcans that were lived in the Lavender Mountain Range.
The scarlet-haired mage turned sharply, heeling the slippery snow-covered ground with great agility and stabbed forward with hilt of the strawberry katana, poking right between the eyes and knocking out the Vulcan that was coming at her. The Vulcan dropped down to the ground, but Erza quickly realized that this was not the only Vulcan that was surrounding her.
She also quickly realized that she quite an attraction for the Vulcans—which were notoriously known for their perverted love for women and for strawberries. As a woman dressed up in a strawberry costume that was carrying a basket of Goddess Strawberries, she was wearing red target for the creatures.
Well, there was only one way to take care of a situation like this.
"Requip!" she yelled. "Black Wing Armor!"
And before any more Vulcans took another step, she swiftly took down each and every single one of them, leaving a hard bump on each of their foreheads to knock them out for much longer than she needed to get down the mountain, barely disturbing even one of the strawberries tucked in her basket.
She rested for a quick moment, breathing in and out calmly before requipping into her Flight Armor for agility and speed. She turned around to finish her route down the mountain.
But she bumped into something else.
She gasped and whipped out a sword, backing up from the surprise offender.
"Uh-uh-uh sorry!" the surprise offender yelled, falling backwards onto the snow at her sudden and violent reaction.
And then it was her time to be surprised.
"Je-Jellal!" she exclaimed.
His eyes widened at her confirmation that she indeed knew who he was. "Er-Erza?" he stuttered, in the same manner like she did.
Erza tried to calm herself down mentally.
She hadn't seen that blue-haired man since she was a child!
Why…was he making her heart beat so quickly? Why was the sight of his familiar chocolate brown eyes making her freeze when the cold snow of Mt. Jasmine done nothing to her? Why was she feeling a mixed burst of emotions—excitement, nervousness, happiness—all tucked into a wrapper of warmth? Why did she feel a growing heat rise from her throat right up to her cheeks?
"Hisashiburi da na. It's been a long time, huh?" he said, a wide smile stretching over his mouth. He picked himself up and approached her.
She watched as he gallantly made his way over to her, recognizing his confident and strong gait. He wore mostly dark clothing, a black bodysuit with a plate of armor over his torso and a dark navy cloak over his shoulders. His hair had not changed at all—messy as ever—but now a bit longer and a bit more shaggy. His face had matured and a firm jawline had settled over his countenance. He was no longer the scrawny kid from her memories—he had grown into a tall and slim body, with broad shoulders, toned arms, sturdy legs, and a charming smile, a half-smile that carried more modesty than smirk.
Erza heard her heart grow louder in her ears as he slowed to a stop in front of her, towering over her almost a full head. She saw his eyes looking straight at her, and after a long second of staring back into his eyes, she almost fainted at his intense gaze.
"Yeah…" she said, forcing herself to not be shy and looking back up at him.
The woman that had just brought down an army of Vulcans in one fell swoop a second ago was now melting like butter in front of a man that she hadn't seen for the latter half of her life.
"So…" he said, in a dark chocolate and velvet voice that tickled her ears. "What brings you to this part of the world?"
This is something that I should be asking him too!, she thought to herself, but she found that her usual snappiness was somehow very simmered in face of him.
Her world began crumbling—no pun intended—in front of her. There was no way that she could say that she was collecting strawberries to make the most perfect strawberry shortcake—no way that she could admit that to him! But then what would she say that she was here for? What would sound like she was a normal, sane woman and not one hyper-obsessed with finding the most perfect strawberry shortcake?
"I-I-I…" she stuttered. What the hell was wrong with her voice?
Without a word, he reached forward to run a strand of her hair through his hand, gathering a few strands at his fingertips delicately. "Your hair is still as beautiful as I last remembered it," he said. "Scarlet."
At this point, Erza's face must have been as red and as hot as Natsu's flames, or at least so she thought. "Uh-uh-oh thank you!" she still stuttered.
Come on, Erza. You can take down an army of strawberry-stealing Vulcans—you can at least talk to the guy without messing up your words!, she thought to herself.
"I've missed you, Erza," he continued, a soft smile on his face. "I'm really happy to have run into you."
"I'm…I'm happy too," she said, finally getting a sentence out.
His smile grew by a millimeter, but then his expression shifted when his eyes caught something behind her.
Before she could really understand what had just happened, he suddenly glowed a bright yellow aura and dashed behind her at a speed she couldn't even measure, her hair whipping back with the wind he left behind in his steps.
"Meteor!" he said.
Erza heard the loud groan of an unconscious Vulcan from behind her, and when she turned around, she realized that Jellal had finished off a Vulcan that had she had missed earlier. Jellal strode towards her and then caught up with her, placing his right arm around her shoulders and walking them forward.
Her body stuttered, tripping a bit when trying to stay in step with him. She was very flustered, unclear about why Jellal was being very touchy with her. Hadn't they gotten off on weird terms?
Actually now that she thought about it for a moment, she realized that she didn't really remember how they had dropped off and lost all contact with each other.
Before moving to Fairy Tail, Erza grew up in the foster home for as long as she could remember. While she was there, Jellal had been one of her closest friends, the blue-haired boy that once was brave enough to demand their foster home allow the foster kids more time to read and be in the library instead of doing chores. Jellal and Erza had spent many hours together, whether they were on their own made-up adventures exploring the dark crevices of the foster home or whether they were doing the most boring of all chores.
Then the night before she left the foster home, their relationship completely broke in half.
Erza had decided to join a guild—Fairy Tail—and leave the foster home, so the night before she officially left, she decided to announce it to the rest of the foster kids. After she told everyone future plans, Jellal—who had been very popular at the time—made a loud comment that made the rest of the kids laugh at her.
To this day, she couldn't remember the boy had said but she knew that whatever he did say had been very mean and hurt her a lot. She recalled being extremely angry with him and storming away from the common area, shouting that Jellal was no longer her friend anymore. She left the foster home the next day, saying goodbye and hugging everyone before she went, but purposefully ignoring Jellal.
Despite this history, when he saw her, after not seeing him for over 10 years, Jellal didn't seem to carry any of those lingering emotions with him. In fact, it seemed like he had just forgotten everything that had happened between the two of them. Did he truly forget? Or was he assuming that they were starting on a new foot? Or maybe the only reason why she remembered was because she was the one that kept the grudge?
"Where are we going?" she asked him, bringing herself back to the present.
He looked down at her. "Well, I thought it would be first good to get you out of this Vulcan area," he said, glancing at the fruit in her basket. "The strawberries are very attractive to Vulcans."
She nodded.
"Were you planning on going back home?" he asked her.
"Yes," she replied. "I'm going back to Magnolia."
"That's where your guild is, right? Fairy Tail."
And that's when Erza realized that he might have not forgotten about what had happened her last night at the foster home at all. How else would he have remembered that she was in Fairy Tail?
"Yeah," she affirmed, quickly.
"I'll take you down to the nearest train station then."
Then he lifted his arm from around her shoulders and before the heat from his arm disappeared, suddenly, a heavy warmth draped over her shoulders. When she looked to see what had fallen over her, she realized that Jellal had taken off his cloak and given it to her.
"You must be cold," he simply explained.
She suddenly remembered that she had been in her Flight Armor this entire time—the very revealing and non-modest Flight Armor. Normally she didn't care for these sort of social conventions but at that moment, a deep blush crept over her face, and she kept her face down, cooling herself down with deep exhales to rid herself of the blush as fast as possible. Else, she hoped that it just looked like her face had turned red from the cold.
Erza grasped her basket of strawberries more tightly to her, wrapping his cloak closer to her and gratefully accepting the extra layer. Now that she was not in her making-the-most-perfect-strawberry-shortcake mode, her immunity to cold, tiredness, hunger and thirst had disappeared, and she indeed appreciate the residual warmth from his cloak.
He smells good, she realized also, when a whiff of his scent touched her nose. He smelled the same, an earthy and slightly sweet aroma that she remembered from her youth—and one that she was sure Ichiya would consider a beautiful "parfum." (Meeeen.)
Erza looked over at her childhood friend, who had indeed grown into a handsome man. Now that he had removed his cloak and placed it on her, she could very much more easily see how he had developed after all the time they had spent apart.
Even through his black clothing and the form-fitting chest plate armor covered the majority of his figure, she could tell he possessed the strong arms to carry a person in need, a broad back to shoulder the weights of the world, the hardened legs to carry him forward when everyone around him gave up, and a tender heart that could understand anyone's hardships.
She watched a cloud of heat escape from between his lips when he exhaled, wafting into the crisp mountain air, before forcing her eyes back down.
How old was she now? 26?
It had been that long and he still remembered who she was.
She could live with that, she determined and smiled to herself, clutching his cloak more tightly.
After a while, once they had gotten to the base of Mt. Jasmine, Erza decided to ask her question.
"What were you doing here anyway?"
Jellal smiled, looking down at the ground. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just had the feeling that I should be at the top of a mountain today and decided to climb up this one." He paused before adding, "It's the highest one in all of Fiore, you know?"
"Mhm," she agreed, remembering what Levy had read to her the day before.
"Did you get to see the view when you got to the top?"
She couldn't admit to him that she had not seen the view—because she had been so focused on finding the Goddess Strawberries. So she lied to him instead.
"Yeah," she said. "It was beautiful."
"Yes," he agreed. "You could see how truly big the world is. Sometimes our lives make up our entire world, but on the top of a mountain, when you look down on it, our lives are so small." He looked at her. "But maybe I was called to the mountain for another reason, huh?"
She found herself caught in his eyes for a bit longer than she would have liked to admit. She quickly snapped out of it. "I didn't need your help with the Vulcans," she stated, regaining herself.
"I know," Jellal replied. "But I got to see you."
She didn't prepare a proper response to that, so she didn't say a word, turning away and not letting him see the smile that lifted on her lips.
He was still the same Jellal after all, huh?
later
Even long after he had dropped her off at the train station, Erza still felt his warm cloak over her shoulders.
I saw Jellal today, she reminded herself.
She hadn't seen anyone from her foster home since the day that she had left to go to join Fairy Tail…
She wondered how much her friends might have changed since then, and she wondered if she was ever going to have the chance to see the other foster home friends that she had left behind. She had almost completely forgotten that she had a past before Fairy Tail, and deep down, she was glad that Jellal had reminded her that as much as she shunned her dark and lonely youth moving from foster home to foster home, she did still have something good to look back upon.
Erza gathered herself up before she kicked open the doors of Fairy Tail.
"I have acquired the Goddess Strawberries!" she announced loudly, championing her basket of Goddess Strawberries to the high ceiling of the guild.
And the sun had only just set.
"Oy, Erza!" Gray said, "I heard you went to Mt. Jasmine!"
"Gray!" she greeted him back, sitting down at one of the tables across from the half-naked mage.
Natsu and Lucy joined the chattering duo. "Erza!" they called, with Happy flying in behind Natsu.
"Natsu! Lucy! Happy!" she greeted. She showed them her basket of strawberries, posing with the sweet fruits. "I have my Goddess Strawberries for my most perfect strawberry shortcake."
"Erza, you're really going for this, aren't you?" Lucy said, in awe of Erza's determination and steadfastness for her strawberry shortcake mission.
"Mochiron! Of course!" Erza replied. "I could only let the most perfect things go into my most perfect strawberry shortcake."
"Levy told us that you were going to a dangerous mountain with lots of monsters," Natsu said, punching his hand with his other fist. "Did you run into any?"
"I did," Erza admitted. "And I defeated every single one of them. I would not let them get my strawberries…" And she paused for a long moment, watching the four of her nakama waiting for the rest of her story. "…and I ran into an old friend," she finished quickly.
"An old friend?"Natsu asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes," she replied, as a matter-of-fact. "We had a good conversation."
"Hmmm?" Mirajane's voice joined the five of them. She seemed to have floated into the conversation after overhearing Erza's story. Mirajane acted innocently, perching her head on both of her hands, elbows on the table and tilting her head to the side. "Who was this friend?"
"He was an old friend from before Fairy Tail," Erza replied, not letting Mira's prying try to stir her.
"Was this person…named Jellal?" Mirajane asked, with a smirk.
Oh, Mira had dared to do the name drop.
And just his name flustered the Queen of the Fairies. "N-n-no!" Erza stuttered.
"Oh ho ho ho, Erza!" Gray exclaimed, liking where the conversation was going.
"Dekiteirrrrrrru! She likesssss him!" Happy pffted, barely able to contain his laughter behind his feline paws.
"Happy!" Lucy warned, but Erza was already starting to quietly fume.
"What did you two talk about?" Mirajane pushed.
"Nothing," Erza replied, curtly. "We just talked. He walked me to the train station."
"A date?!" Natsu blurted.
Even Lucy couldn't help but fall into the nonsense of the other four that were pestering Erza about her friend.
"Hehh?! Erza?!" Lucy exclaimed. "You went on a date?"
""Dekiteirrrrrr—aaaaaahhhhh!"
Then Happy went flying through the window, having been punched out by a furious Erza.
So I've introduced some of the slightly AU elements. Basically instead of the Tower of Heaven, Erza and Jellal had grown up in a foster home and have past tensions for different reasons other than Jellal being possessed by Zeref. Hopefully that was clear enough!
And I know what you're thinking about the Goddess Strawberries. How the hell do strawberries grow on a really icy and snowy mountain? I don't know—but it felt right to put them in the most ridiculous place and season for this story. Hopefully Erza didn't seem too OOC either! (Though I think when around Jellal or provoked about Jellal, she does get quite flustered. :3)
But that said, I hope you enjoyed this installment! Let me know what you think!
thir13enth
**In other notes, I've recently started watching Kill la Kill (which I know, I probably should have already watched years ago, but...I just didn't have the time) and currently totally in love with Harime Nui's theme. Totally reminds me of Puella Magi Madoka Magica's soundtrack, which I pretty much absolutely loved. Almost done with the series, so if there's any total mindfucks, please spare me the spoilers!