Bonus chapter! Bonus Chapter! BONUS CHAPTER! 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 just the writer
A story for a friend, by a friend
Closing the door behind me as I enter my house, I throw my keys on a nearby table as I make my way towards the living room. I look around expecting to find Lucy sitting in one of her favorite couches reading an old withered book but instead I find the room to be empty.
She had called earlier saying that she had left the hospital early and that she would be waiting for me at home. There hadn't been much activity going on at the shop so I had closed early before starting on organizing my littered office so that when I go back to take out my things there won't be much of a hassle.
A soft muffle noise catches my attention as I look around trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. I make my way towards the entryway and find that the soft noise if coming from upstairs indicating that my wife might in fact be on the second floor of our home. I climb up the steps following the sound of what I'm presuming is music along with what I can tell to be her voice singing something I can't quite make out.
When I reach the second floor landing the noise I had been hearing sound a bit more distinct now and I'm certain that Lucy is playing the piano. I quietly grab the handle of the door to the music/library/ office room and gently twist the knob and push the door open allowing an array of melodies swim past me like a rushing stream.
Nimble fingers dance upon white keys as a sweet melancholy tune resonates throughout the room and seeping into the walls that have never heard such a glorious piece before. The slow tune sounds familiar, but not well enough that I can put a name to it as Lucy continues to play on with her expression that of concentration.
"You used to captivate me, by your resonating light, now I'm bound by the life you left behind…" Lucy sings, her voice soft and desolate matching the sad melody that she's still playing not noticing that I'm her only spectator other than the pictures that hang throughout the room, "Your face it haunts, my once pleasant dreams, your voice it chased away, all the sanity in me…"
Lucy pauses, her hands frozen over the keys as she looks up and stares at the pictures framed on the wall in front of her. She puts her hands down on her lap and continues to stare at the pictures and from experience I know that she's thinking.
"That was beautiful," I murmur as I push myself off of the doorframe that I had been leaning on and walk over to the flustered blonde who looks at me as if she were trying to hide a secret.
"You think so," she eventually asks as she gently pulls at her fingers and stares down at the black and white keys of the piano, "I'm not completely done with it, but so far do you think it might sound too sad?"
"Not at all," I say as I take a seat next to her, "Remember what Erza always said, a song is never too sad or too happy for it to be perfect."
"That's true," she sighs before pressing down on one of the white keys repeatedly in a slow tempo, "Speaking of Erza, have you called her?"
I nod as I shuffle through a few laminated pieces of sheet music that sit on the piano's stand just over the keys, "Talked all morning before my first student showed up for class," I say as I put Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' on the stand and place my fingers in their designated keys, "She's really excited about us joining her and Jellal. She even said that they'll wait for us at the current planet that they're at so that we can travel to the next place together." I say as I slowly move my fingers up the keys letting the somber tone resonate through the small room, "She even prepared our flight through some connections that she has," I say while looking down at my hands, "We leave at the end of the month."
"So soon?" Lucy asks, her worried tone returning like the previous night when she asked about the children, "So then I guess tomorrow we should start moving preparations of our pictures and other stuff as well as calling to work that I'll be going away for some time." I nod slowly feeling the excitement within me slowly begin to build up once again, "I'll also have to call the others to see if we can meet before we leave and also, what story will we make up this time?"
"Your dad got terribly sick and you want to go and live with him to take care of him," I say after a few seconds of thinking, "I'll let you choose where you want to place your imaginary dad and his name."
Lucy thinks about it as she stares at the wall of pictures again. It's not like the other walls within the room or even the whole house that share pictures of just the two of us or with our 'group' and children. This wall holds only the people that Lucy has met and befriended throughout the years. Before moving from our home she'll take a picture of the people that she got close to and then hang it on the wall along with the rest of her memories after writing the date and the name of the person on the back of the small polaroid.
I finish my song and Lucy quickly takes over practically shoving my hands away from the keys. She looks back up at her wall before pressing down the keys in an intricate array of rhythms that quickly sound familiar. The song was from some band way back in the 1900s.
"Jude," she says as she continues to play the melody of one of that band's classic hits. It was one of her favorite songs since she first heard it. "My father's name will be Jude Heartfilia and he will live in Crocus," she states as she continues playing the song, "We weren't very close when I was younger but recently we've begun to reconcile."
"Jude Heartfilia…" I repeat while trying to see where that name sounds so familiar, "Isn't he that wealthy business man we met a long time ago?" I ask, "He was one of those residents you used to take care of when you worked at the nursery home in Acalypha, right?"
"Yeah," she says as she ends the song before tucking her hands under her legs as she looks back at the wall at the picture of said man, "He said he had lost his wife a few years before and that they weren't able to have any children. He told me that if he had a daughter he would have named her Lucy."
"Well, we should get started on gathering our things," I say as I stand up and look around the room with a grim face, "We have a lot of packing to do after all."
She nods as she stands up and looks at me before running her fingers through my already tousled hair, "You know, it's been a long time since I've seen someone else have pink hair," she says before bopping my nose with her finger and walking around me and out of the room.
We follow the boy through the fields of grass as he leads us towards his home that he claims is not far from where he had been picking berries. The boy doesn't say much other than that his name is Zeref and that he lives in a small village with his family.
"What's a village?" Levy asks the boy who looks at us as if were some strange animal.
"It's the place where I live," he simply says while looking back over his shoulder at us. His eyes land on Mavis who quickly looks away and leans in closer to me as a light pink spreads across her cheeks, "We're almost there," the boy announces while turning back around and walking further ahead.
Looking at Zeref I notice that the boy is wearing clothing much different than what we are wearing. While we still wear animal hides, which unfortunately don't really last very long, this boy seems to be wearing clothing made something that might not come from an animal. In fact, it seems that his clothing is much more comfortable and could last longer. I wonder where we can get clothing like that?
After walking over a hill through what seems like a dirt path we finally reach what Zeref must call a village. Homes made of wood from the forest stretch far around us with fields of food surrounding the whole village. It doesn't seem much different than our home back deep in the forest other than that instead of tents these people have homes out of wood with wood fencing surrounding the whole village.
People of different sizes and color walk around through the village with animals, most of which seem strange to me, are kept locked up behind their own wooden fences. All the people that I can see are wearing clothing similar to Zeref as well as shoes that do not seem to be made from animal skins or wood.
Even their speech sounds different than what I'm used to with words that I had never heard before. This place is strange beyond imagination and it frightens me a bit, but at the same time I am far more curious to learn about this new world. Maybe if we stay here for a while we may learn things like the type of new clothing that these people wear and the language that they speak.
Continuing our walk I watch the people eyeing us curiously, as if we were some strange creature that just happened to enter their own strange little world. Women keep their children from getting too close and some people even jump into their homes and stare out of holes in their walls. A few even gather in groups and whisper with one another while following us with their calculating eyes.
"Don't slow down," Zeref says without slowing his step as he walk deeper into the village, "We're almost to our destination." Without asking him what he means we continue to follow him until we reach a home that seems to be a bit bigger than the other homes, "Wait here," Zeref then says before ducking under a hanging cloth that leads to the entrance of the home and disappears leaving us standing outside with curious eyes continuing to stare at us.
A few people, however, have begun to ignore us and move on to what they were probably working on before we got here. Some move animals from where they're enclosed while others feed their own animals with what seems like leftover food. A few women weave together what I presume is what their clothing is made of with children running around them laughing and screaming. I even notice a man hit some strange object that creates an intriguing sound while another man seems to be blowing into what seems like a bone with holes in it. It sounds almost like the call of a strange bird.
"These people are strange," Makarov whispers while moving closer to Lucy who pats his head as he grabs onto her waist timidly.
"No, I think we're the strange ones here," Mavis says while tightening her hold on my hand as her green eyes search around at the faces of those who look back at us with their own curiosity.
She's right, we are the strange ones here. We don't belong in this new world that we have discovered, at least not yet.
"Why is it so important," a deep gruff voice booms coming from the house that Zeref had entered not moments ago, "Can't you see I was sleeping?"
"It's important," I hear Zeref's soft voice behind what I presume is an older man, "There's people from outside," He says insistently, "One of them has hair as pink as the flowers from the fields."
Before I know it a tall man with hair as white as the snow that falls in winter stands in the doorway of the wooden home. He's a bit taller than the doorway and his snowy white hair hangs well past his waist. Light brown eyes scan across from us shining with familiarity as if he had just found something he had lost.
"Natsu," The male seems to sigh in relief as he looks at me with what seems like joy that make the wrinkles around his eyes deepen.
I take a good long look at the man but nothing of him seems familiar to me. The last person I saw reach what I presume is an old age would be Sol, but this man seems to look even older than Sol had when she had passed away. I have no idea who this man is at all.
"Do I know you," I ask while still looking at the man trying to see where I could have known him from. His eyes do seem a bit familiar, but I can't seem to place where.
The man smiles as he walks further standing as tall as Gajeel who still remains the tallest of the group, "It would make sense on why you would not recognize me. It has been many moons since we last saw each other." Shaking my head, I can't seem to understand what this man means at all. Where does this man know me from?
"Do you know this man Natsu?" Gajeel asks as he moves up next to me with Levy following right behind him. Gajeel's red eyes look over the man seeming to size him up as he crosses his arms across his large chest.
"Father…" the man whispers, tears seeming to glisten in his eyes along with happiness.
Gajeel takes a step back clearly not expecting this man to say such a thing while making the rest of us stare in confusion. Zeref, who has also come out of the home, stares up at the old man as if he has gone crazy. I turn to look over at Gajeel but instead Levy catches my attention as she stares, wide-eyed, at the man whose smile widens at the sight of the small woman.
Levy's shaking hand covers her mouth while her other hand clutches her chest as tears begin to fall down her cheeks. Her bright eyes search the face of the older male trying to search for something we all have been searching for, but unlike us Levy seems to actually find something.
She takes a few steps forward, Gajeel even swipes for her but misses as she's gotten a bit too far for him to grab. As Levy moves closer to the man he takes her extended hand and gently holds it in his large one as he waits along with the rest of us for Levy to say something. The man even stoops down a bit to be at a closer eye level to Levy as she runs her hands down his withered cheeks.
"Amel," she whispers, almost sighing, making the older man smile and the rest of us cry out in shock.
"Amel?" I hear being whispered by a few of the others from our group behind me.
We all watch from where we stand as Gajeel slowly makes his way towards his wife and son who has changed in the many daylights that we haven't seen him. This moment is new to us all because we have never seen any of our previous children that had left the tribe before us. This moment was a beautiful… a beautiful reunion.
Yes.
This was a beautiful reunion.
{Oh how the years go by
Oh how the love brings tears to my eyes
All through the changes
The soul never dies
We fight, we laugh, we cry
As the years go by}
- Oh How the Years Go By – Vanessa Williams
So because I made you guys wait more than a month for an update I decided to update two chapters for you all. I hope you enjoyed these past two chapters and be ready because there are only around two or three chapters left before this first section of the story is finished, so stay tuned for an exciting first ending!
Also I'd like to wish all the amazing father's in the world a happy father's day!
Well that's all for today!
Until next time my lovelies!