This story is NOT DEAD! it may be a slow process, but it is moving forward.
Edited: June, 26th 2015
Juvia sat alone on a deserted stretch of beach, just east of Magnolia's harbor. The salty air and gentle sounds of waves lapping against the jagged rocks below calmed her troubled mind like nothing has ever managed in the entirety of her long life.
The full moon above her head was at it's highest point, shining in a soft white glow that bounced off her pale skin. Her sharp, cat-like eyes scanned the expanse of sea in front of her, waiting for any sign of communication. Seeing none, she sighed and stared up at the moon (the image making her think about where she came from and brought back certain nostalgic feelings), acknowledging that it was probably nearing midnight.
Lately, the water 'mage' had been having a heavily foreboding feeling. The blunette had been keeping quiet about it but at the same time, staying very vigilant of her her surroundings at all times, looking in dark corners and anywhere someone (or thing) could be hiding. Maybe the problem was hiding in plain sight, right under her nose…?
Juvia had chosen not to think about her now; she was confined to a completely separate part of space. Juvia shivered at the memories of her sister's soul haunting and tormenting her mind in her home realm all those years ago. She had endured for a while but the guilt she felt was beginning to eat away at her soul, and she needed to take a break; so she went to the Mortal Plain and built a life for herself in the form of magic (naturally).
Juvia checked the water for Brooke again. Nothing. 'Where was she? If Brooke was busy then Marlin should have contacted me in Brook's place.' Juvia remembered the last conversation she had with Brooke just a few weeks ago.
It was becoming late in the evening and the moon was shining brightly in the sky.
Our heroine sighed as she realized that it was high time for her to began her trek to the beach.
Juvia was just about to leave the guild hall when she felt an ice cold hand on her shoulder. The young woman turned and saw none other than her favorite ice mage, Gray Fullbuster. A light blush spread across her cheek bones, it was no secret that Juvia had a huge crush on Gray Fullbuster. She might not have been very loud about it like she used to be, and he wasn't as silent about it as he used to be. They were more than friends but not quite dating even though they had spent nights together on multiple occasions.
Juvia noticed that there was a job request in his hand, and when she looked up at his eyes, they were looking towards the ground more so than to her face. Juvia, not believing her eyes, could just barely see a pink tint to his cheeks.
"What can Juvia do for Gray?" Juvia beamed at the raven-haired man in front of her, she had dropped the '-sama' from his name after the Grand Magic Games- the new Juvia and everything. Gray looked up and made eye contact with the bluenette beauty.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go out on this mission with me," Gray showed her the request paper he had in his hand. It was a simple job: to stop a couple of flame-throwing thieves from terrorizing a fishing village further to the north. "The pay is well and Natsu and Lucy are out and won't be back for another couple days, Erza is on an S-class by herself and I'd rather have a partner. Do you want to go with me?"
"Uh… Juvia would love to— when do we leave?" Juvia hoped that it wasn't tonight- though she wanted to spend as much time with her Gray as possible, she still needed to contact Brook.
"Early tomorrow morning, later tonight maybe," he thought for a moment. "Is that alright with you, Juvia?" The woman just nodded in response, not trusting her own voice in that second.
"Yes," she said. Then she turned to face the door, "excuse her, but Juvia needs to go take care of some things."
"Oh, want me to go with you? We are about to go on a mission together and there aren't really any fun people here." Gray looked to the few people still left in the guild hall behind him. Only a couple of the faceless mages joking in the distant corner, Cana, being dead drunk, and Mira Jane trying to get her to go home and the two mages by the door.
"Um…" Juvia couldn't let Gray in on her secret- ever; but she didn't want to lie to him and she also couldn't want to reject him. So she settled on passive but discouraging. "If Gray wants to, Juvia just needs to go shopping. It isn't anything special, Gray," maybe he wouldn't want to go if she told him that she was just going to do boring things.
"No problem," he smirked at her then pushed open the door to lead her out. "I'll walk with you or something. It's late and a lady shouldn't be out by herself." He shrugged like there wasn't a blush covering mess not ten seconds ago, his cool guy act was so extreme sometimes it was over the top, but charming in a weird way.
"Oi! Juvia! You coming or what?" Gray reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward slightly and making her squeak. She had become so distracted by her thoughts and his amazing face, she tripped over Mavis-knew-what. Sending her straight to the gravel, face first. Juvia was beyond embarrassed. "Juvia!"
"Juvia is fine!" She could feel the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes; she sat on her knees with Gray kneeling in front of her. "But Juvia is so embarrassed now!" the young woman wailed. Gray, seeing her cry for no reason at all, couldn't help but to chuckle. "Now Gray is laughing at Juvia!" She cried even harder.
"No, no, no! It's not that! It's nothing," he wiped the tears away from her large, blue eyes. "Let's go, Juvia." He stood and reached his hand out for her to grab.
"Okay," Juvia placed he hand in Gray's larger one and set off into the night. After a few hours of walking, talking, and shopping together, Gray walked Juvia home to Fairy Hills. As soon as the ice mage left (not without coming in for further time together), Juvia showered and changed clothes. Juvia sneaked out of Fairy Hills via window, and then she headed to the beach in very short dark blue shorts, a white sweat shirt, and dark blue house flats.
The walk to the beach was relatively peaceful: the crisp night air kissed her skin as it blew by and gently rustled the leaves of the tress in the park. Billions of stars shined lined the finest of diamonds in the sky, illuminating the path to her destination.
Though the night was company enough, the young woman couldn't help but let her mind wonder back to her last conversation with her old friend. According to the young nymph, everything was well even though the citizens were becoming anxious and some what worried about their queen's absence despite being constantly assured that everything was okay and that she would be back soon. It was easy to forget about the time differences. For example: the seven years missed on Tenroujima Island was only a week for those trapped, but to everyone else in Earthland, it was seven whole years. But for the Ocean Realm, it was almost sixty. It wasn't a problem for some of nymphs, specifically Brook and the Captain of the Guard Marlin. They were a very special type of nymph that tended to have exceptionally long lives, so they were completely it was still quite a stretch of time.
"Is that true?" Brook asked. "About you coming home soon, I mean."
"I really can not say whether that is correct or not at this time- we will see what the future holds for me here. I can't just up and leave."
"...I guess so."
She felt so bad about leaving and placing all of her responsibilities onto such small shoulders. Juvia would love to go home, but simply couldn't bring herself to do so.
Juvia threw herself backwards, so she was laying on the cool sand, staring up at the night sky and bright moon. That used to be her moon, created in remembrance of her Masters. She made it raise and fall every night. Only one of the many things she missed about home.
After nearly an hour of waiting, the blue haired immortal noticed glowing ripples in the water in front of her. Juvia scrambled to get off of her back and across the sand, leaving her shoes out of reach of lapping waves; she was standing thigh deep in the water by the time she stopped. From the shimmering section of water, a face appeared. A young woman with pale skin, sharp and attention grabbing bright green eyes, but her sky blue hair was turning gray.
"Your highness," Brook may have looked older but she still had the bubbly personality she missed so much. Juvia could tell that acting in her place took a lot of her, "how have you been?"
"Juvia is fine. How are you?" Her good friend smile faltered a little bit before she answered.
"Things are… okay here. The citizens are becoming restless with your absence." Brook sighed, allowing Juvia to take in the full magnitude of the effects the high amounts of stress have had on her. The woman looked slightly thinner than before, and her normally olive skin was slightly pale. "The citizens are happier, no more riots in the streets. The One Sea is quiet, no storms to speak of. Though I just had Marlin send a small number of guards to deliver food to a few isolated villages in the Northern Lands that are going through a famine. Down South, towards the forests, there was massive earthquake so we have clean up efforts heading in that direction. But other than those two things and maybe a few others, everything is going well."
"And what the Fire Realm?" Juvia inquired, "Has Amber made any serious movements of any kind?"
"None that we have been able to identify. I recently put Marlin up to the tasks of keeping tabs on their military," Brook looked to her left, where a servant held out a piece of paper on a clipboard and a pen. After a quick read through, she signed and handed the papers back to the servant who thanked her and left. "But he has also be oddly quiet in the terms of government. Nothing has really changed, but there is just less of him appearing in public- if that makes sense." Brook smiled up to Juvia and Juvia smiled back at her.
"Alright," Juvia said. "Keep checking in."
"Yes, ma'am," the connection between the two began to dissolve, "I will connect you again during the third full moon to check up and give you another report."
"Very well, take care, Brook."
Once the connection was completely severed, Juvia began making her way back to the beach to get her shoes from the beach, then back to her room at Fairy Hills. 'Amber being quiet isn't all that strange, he never has been one for dramatics,' Juvia thought on her way home. 'But he has never been so quiet.'
Juvia arrived back at her dorm and quietly unlocked her door. She had to extra careful to avoid being caught by any of the other residents or Erza.
As soon as she was in her bedroom, she wet to the bath room to rinse her body off, grabbed a pair of pajamas then went straight to sleep.
The next morning, before the sun tainted the sky with color, Juvia pried her eyes open. She was dazed at first but then remembered that she had a mission to complete and a train to catch soon. The young woman got out of bed, stretched, then began packing her backpack before getting dressed.
Bag packed, Juvia began to dress herself. She decided to change things up a little bit and dressed in a new variation of her normal dark blue dress. Juvia wore a blue and white tight fighting bra, which she hid underneath a blue shawl, not unlike her usual one, that left her fit belly exposed. Her bottoms were dark blue with white stripes down the sides that fit some what tightly, but she could move more freely than if she was in her usual dress. Her shoes were worn, black boots. She pulled her hair back and into a ponytail, that fell almost to her butt, her bangs were out and fell to the right.
Satisfied with her appearance, Juvia grabbed her bag and left for the train station.
Gray sat at the train station, trying to stay awake while waiting for his partner.
Things used to be so simple between them, she would confess her love for him almost every day and he would ignore her, then it seemed as if their roles were switched. Now she was quiet and he was trying to get her attention. He liked her, that was a fact that he had come to terms with, but they are just friends but not just friends. Jeez, why were relationships so complicated? Well, it wasn't really complicated, it just needed to ask her officially then everything would be uncomplicated. Simple as that.
A flash of blue to his left caught his eye.
"Gray?" Juvia was calling him.
"Over here, Juvia!" She turned and looked at him, and his heart began to beat a little harder. Her outfit was different from any he had seen her in and he would be lying if he said she didn't look absolutely beautiful in it..
"Is Gray ready to leave?" She looked up at him, smiling. If he could, he would kiss her silly right then and there but they needed to leave for their job.
"Yeah, I'm ready."
It was early the next morning when they returned from their mission. It wasn't to exhausting so the team decided to spend the rest of the day at the guild before going home for the day.
Gray was off with his usual team probably drinking and start fights with and Juvia was reading her favorite book when Master called the guild to order.
"Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Juvia! In my office now!" The short man retreated back into his office.
"What did you two do now? And why did you drag Juvia into it?!" Lucy yelled at Natsu and Gray, Erza still hadn't returned from her solo mission at this point.
"Nothing! I swear!" The fire mage cried, "it was probably Ice Princess' fault anyway!"
"WHAT?! I didn't do anything!" The ice mage said.
The group continued to bicker all the way into the Master's office where Juvia was already waiting.
"I have called you four in here because I have received word that there is dangerous summoning activity going on in the southwestern part of Fiore. Gray, Juvia," the two mages perked up at their names. "I know that you just returned from a job but I really need the both of out to go out on this mission. The Council has asked that we send a small team to investigate the problem and deal with it ourselves. We do not know what these people are trying to summon but that makes it all the more urgent to be put to a stop as soon as possible. Right?"
"Yes," Lucy said. "You want us to go check this out and put a stop to it before they can accomplish whatever they are trying to summon?"
"Yes."
"How long is the mission going to take?" Gray asked.
"Indefinite."
"When do we leave?" Juvia spoke up and asked this time.
"Later tonight," he said. "Now go home and get some rest and pack. I want to see you four before you leave tonight. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," then the small group of mages left the old man's office. Natsu, Happy, and Lucy left for Lucy's apartment, leaving Gray and Juvia on their own.
"So," Gray said awkwardly, "what now?"
"Well, Juvia was going to go home and get ready for the mission," Juvia thought for a moment. "Why?"
"No reason, I'll see you later to night." Gray walked away, towards his apartment, leaving Juiva by herself in front of the guild. The woman turned around and began the walk back to Fairy Hills alone.
Later that night, the group was sent off by their master. Boarding the train, neither had any idea of what they were truly in for on this mission. Or that this was the beginning of a series of long and grueling trials...
This story is my baby, my first story and i want to make sure he is as successful as he can be. So i will be going through every existing chapter and fixing and improving any and all errors that i find. If you find any or noticed anything that detracts from the flow of the story, please let me know. Any criticism is good criticism at this point!
Don't forget to read and review guys, Thanks! (p.s: please follow me so you know when im updating or publishing anything because this summer is going to be a long one and i have so many ideas buzzing around in my head!)