Holy cheese am I glad to be back! Please R&R and I shall see you at the bottom of the page.
POV: Natsu
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or the idea of this story, I am only the writer.
A story for a friend, by a friend
Lucy's laughter fills up the quiet room causing a few of the patrons to turn and stare at us. A few even glare at us but we easily ignore them as I keep my eyes on my glowing wife whose eyes have begun to tear up. I can't help but be drawn towards her melodic laughter as I listen to her talk about her day at the emergency room.
Apparently a short old man had gotten away from a few of the nurses and was running around in his nightgown yelling, 'Fairies have tails, Fairies have tails,' while he was being chased down.
"You should have seen him Natsu," Lucy giggles while holding onto her stomach and wiping her eyes, "All the nurses chased him down all over the place but they couldn't catch him because he was so small and would slip through their hands." She continues to say already starting to calm down from her laughing fit, "Eventually though one of the doctors caught him and sedated him before he could get seriously injured or hurt someone else."
"Well I guess you had a very eventful day today," I say as I dig into my food which has been sitting in front of us for a few minutes now, "I'm glad nothing too serious happened though."
"Yeah," she sighs while leaning her head on her hand before taking a small bite of her fish. She makes a small face but otherwise continues to eat her meal, "So I'm guessing nothing much happened at the shop today," She asks and I shake my head.
"Just the usual," I mutter, "Opening up a music shop isn't as exciting as I thought it would be," I admit with a grim smile.
"After the life we've lived I doubt anything mundane will ever catch your interest," Lucy says with that mocking smile of hers, "But I'm sure that this is the longest we've ever had such a calm way of living."
She's right, other than the arguments we've been having nothing much has happened. We aren't running for our lives or being thrown out of our home. There isn't a war raging outside of our doorstep or rebellions with people tearing down the place they call home. The air isn't as deadly, but still polluted, and everywhere around the world there hasn't been much unrest.
For once the world, and our life, is as peaceful as it had been all that time ago when we were still learning to survive in a world we thought was deadly. I enjoy it because I don't have to look over my shoulder quite so often to see who will set off the next bomb or shoot the next bullet. Having PTSD about a hundred years ago teaches you to be cautious. The anxious feeling of war hardly ever leaves you, especially if you've participated in more than half the wars that destroyed this once beautiful world.
"Hopefully it stays this way just a bit longer," I say making sure to avoid the topic of last night's feud.
I want to talk about our next move but I know that it will eventually end up turning sour again. Lucy also seems to be avoiding the topic of discussion as she finishes up her food beating me at eating for the first time in a while. Usually I'm the one who finishes first and waits on her to be done but I'm not all that hungry and I want this peaceful moment to drag on just a bit longer.
"Natsu, Look," Lucy exclaims while pointing at the window beside us.
Turning I look out into the dark night to find droplets of rain being painted by the streetlamp just near the street, "It's raining," I say as I push my plate away, a clear sign that I'm done eating.
"Did you bring an umbrella?" Lucy asks and I shake my head.
"I left it back at home," I mutter making her sigh and even though I can't see her I know that she's rolling her eyes.
"You know you're supposed to always carry it. The weather is so unpredictable that it can rain out of nowhere," She says while waving the waitress over and asking for the bill.
"A little rain never hurt anyone," I mutter although that's not all that true seeming as the rain outside is acid rain. Thankfully acid rain doesn't burn you as badly as regular rain if not then everyone would be either look deformed or they would be dead.
However, even though acid rain does not physically burn humans it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect their health. There's also the fact that because of acid rain it's been hard to plant for food, but thankfully the acidity of the rain isn't as bad anymore.
"I'd like for it to snow," Lucy says just as I take out my wallet to pay for our meal and when I look up at her she's staring out of the window with a distant look in her eyes.
"Acid snow is worse than acid rain you do know that right?" I ask and she nods while pouting, "Besides, I hate the cold. It reminds me too much of that time that we were stuck on that mountain in the country of Iceberg with no supplies for a whole month."
Lucy smiles seeming to remember that day, "That was when we were living with Gray and Juvia right?" she asks and I nod remembering how much I regretted staying with the Fullbusters during the coldest time of the year instead of going on an escapade towards the country ofDesierto with Levy and Gajeel, "We should go visit them."
"Isn't it snowing in Bosco right now?" I ask and she nods, a bright smile spreading across her lips with enchantment shining in her eyes. Unlike Fiore, Bosco isn't as polluted with acid free rain and snow in their mountains. It would be a good place to go and visit and perhaps even live in, but the cold isn't my greatest forte and its more than likely that I will get bored of the white wonderland that Gray and Juvia love so much.
But truthfully I would rather take a mountain of snow than a land full of bad memories.
Puffs of white clouds escape my mouth every time I breathe and I watch them quickly disappear into the cold air. I tuck my hands under my arms to keep them warm since the animal cloth Juvia created can only keep me so warm.
"There's one over there," I murmur spotting movement a few feet away from where I'm crouching behind a bush completely covered in the white snow.
Gray brings his bow and arrow forward before taking aim at the lone deer walking just beyond the line of trees. He follows it with expert eyes before holding his breath and releasing the string. The arrow shoots through the cold air so fast that we can't see it until it hits the deer straight to the head killing it instantly.
"Got it!" Gray cheers while quickly racing towards our next meal. I follow quickly behind him making sure that I don't get in his way knowing that one wrong move will get Gray to trample over me.
I look around as Gray set to work on tying some long tough vines around the dead animal as I keep a lookout. The snow beneath our feet is the whitest color I've ever seen. I can see why Gray and Juvia had named their daughter after the cold substance and thinking of the girl only drags my mind towards my son Happy.
Shaking my head I try to keep my mind wandering to how the clean white snow is now marred with the sight of fresh blood strewn across it and how the animal's dead eyes stare at me as Happy's had stared back that time. I try to distract myself thinking of other things like how lucky we were to find a large deer after long days without seeing so much as a bird around.
With the cold weather we are experienced I'm surprised to even see any animals roaming around at all. To me it seems that with each passing day the air just gets colder and colder to the point that even the water we used to drink has turned as hard as a rock. If it weren't for Jellal's smart idea to burn the white snow that surrounds us like the grass had during the warmer days we'd have nothing to drink or survive on. Thankfully so far fire is the only thing we've been able to completely count on during this bizarre change of temperature.
"Let's go," Gray says once he's got the deer all tied up and I nod doing everything in my power to keep myself from looking down at the motionless creature.
Holding my own spear ready, I keep an eye out as we slowly make our way back to camp where the others are surely still waiting for us. I have to be on my guard because once the snow started falling and the temperature started dropping a new species of animal we hadn't seen before started emerging from the forest. Gajeel likes to call them wolves and has even taken a few of their hides to have Levy make him some clothing.
The creatures are vile and ruthless with sharp teeth, yellow deadly eyes, and fur the color of stones. They growl and bark and are very fast hunters who can take down a large animal within minutes if lucky. So far that I have noticed they don't stray too far away from their own kind making it easy for us to recognize that when there is one wolf around there is surely more to come.
My ears perk up to a noise just a few ways away and I turn hoping that it isn't the vicious beast I had mentioned before. Thankfully it's only a bird perched on a low branch wearing bright red feathers on its back. I quickly follow Gray as he too keeps an eye out because if a pack of wolves suddenly attack us to claim our food we would surely have to abandon our catch and begin the hunt all over again, and that just can't happen. Not when so many people are waiting for a meal back home where even the children have grown weak and ill.
"Hurry," I tell Gray who nods in a silent agreement as he pulls the rope even higher and tries to quicken his pace.
Our progress doesn't improve all that much, what with the grainy snow making our feet sink into it as if it were mud. There are parts in the snow that are so deep it covers almost up to our knees. Back at camp the women make sure not to let the children run off too far with fear that they might fall into the snow and somehow get lost. They're not doing such a good job since we've almost lost about five kids already after they fell into the snow while playing.
Before long camp is finally within view and I can feel all the tension I had inside the forest just disappear. The wolves never get anywhere near the camp mostly because we've learned that they hate the sight of fire and we always keep one fire burning bright in the middle of the camp to keep warm.
Jellal and Gajeel meet up with us as they too make their way towards camp with a few small catches of rabbits. They don't look all too happy with their hunt but at least they caught something. If I do say so myself today we've had a lucky day compared to recently where we had days that we didn't catch a thing. Especially since none of the plants are alive and giving its delicious fruit we have to learn how to survive with the little meat we can catch.
We all enter the camp, each one of us quiet with exhaustion, as we part ways after leaving our deer and few rabbits near the fire where Levy and Erza are already at work skinning the animals. I head on over to mine and Lucy's tent to find her giving some warmed up water to one of Juvia's children. She offered to take care of the small boy while Juvia cared for her other children who have also gotten weak from the cold.
She helps them sit up and lifts the clay cup to their mouth so that they can drink before letting them settle back down. I watch her smooth the soft raven hair of the small boy whose face is a burning red. His eyes can't seem to stay open for more than a few heartbeats before he falls back asleep and breathes unevenly.
"How is he doing," I ask Lucy as she places a wet cloth on the child's forehead.
"Not good," she says with a grim expression on her face, "He's the fourth one to fall sick," she mumbles while standing up to add a few more sticks into the small fire we have burning in the middle of the small tent, "How was your catch?"
"A deer and a few rabbits," I say while taking off a bit of my animal hide before moving to sit next to her by the fire, "It's getting colder outside," I say more to myself as I pick up another cup with water.
"Do you think it will end," Lucy asks while looking into the fire with its warmth radiating throughout the small room as the smoke billows up through a small hole in the roof, "Do you think the snow will stop," she asks again while looking at me as if I held the answers to the world.
How could I know if the snow would stop or go away? I've never witnessed snow before in my life and the only reason we know what it is called is because Gray had woken up on a mountain that was covered in the icy stuff. I'm sure that if it hadn't been for both Gray and Juvia we wouldn't have survived as long as we have in this cold weather. The only thing, though, is that not even they know when the snow will disappear allowing the green grass to return along with the animals and the food that is grown from the now bare trees.
"I don't know," I say as I stare down at my hands allowing the sound of the crackling fire to fill the cold space of our home.
{God and his priests and his kings
Turn their faces
Even when they feel the cold}
- Cold – Aqualung with Lucy Schwartz
I seriously have never had a writer's block this bad before. For the past few weeks I kept jumping between my three stories trying to write something and I'd never get past more than a paragraph before my mind went blank. Even during Spring Break I tried sitting down to write a decent chapter but it was to no avail.
I FINALLY was able to finish this chapter by some mere chance and doing what I usually do when I write an essay, I Bull S****** my way through this chapter so I'm sorry if it's anticlimactic and boring, but I just needed to get it out of the way.
Also I have decided to make this story into three parts because it makes it easier for me to plan out what I am going to write next. This means that there is roughly four more chapters before we reach part 2 of my story where we get into the real gritty stuff. Tell me what you think of this plan.
Shout Outs
Great thanks to my Fabulous Followers...
- KrispiKreme
- Midnightexcursion
And to my Fantabulous Reviewers...
- Kawaii-Turtles = Hmm... what about twins?! Double trouble would be interesting having Natsu trying to figure out which is the girl and which is the boy.
- Yuyui Hime = I agree and I'm trying to add as much Nalu as I can since it tends to lack a bit in my other stories due to story development.
- Splendora Faye = I'm leaving the aging thing a mystery. If you've seen the recent movie "The age of Adeline" you can take the explanation on how she stops aging but just attach it to my immortals, but I've already decided that not even my immortals can explain how they came to be.
Well those are all the shout outs for today.
If you are enjoying my story so far please follow, favorite, and review - remember, reviews are a writers candy - and if you have any questions or ideas you'd like to see put into this story you can also PM me and I'll gladly add it in.
Until next time my lovelies.