As the sun rose over London, it warmed the cobblestone streets and the river that flows through the city. It shone on the rooftops of simple houses and the towers of the royal castle. By mid-morning, the sun's rays had brightened the entire city. Especially below in the town square where people were gathering to watch a puppet show on stage.
"Welcome! Welcome!" Cheered the gleeful puppeteer. "Welcome dear guests! I suppose you're all wondering why someone would set up a puppet show in the middle of the street, yes?"
None of the audience members said anything but some who were children nodded.
"Well believe it or not, there was a time when this area was once a place where a fair was held. A glorious fair where the poor, crippled, and outcasted could hide from the world's prejudice and create their own world of music, dance, and laughter."
A group of funny little puppets dropped from the curtains and began to dance for the audience. The people were amused and astounded with how this man was able to make these wooden figures move without using his hands.
"Among these outcasts were two dreamers whom fate afflicted."
The other puppets stopped dancing and cleared the way for someone.
"The first, a boy forced to hide part of his face for it was eternally disfigured by the horrors that human kind is capable of."
A boy puppet with bandages around his mouth, cheeks, and chin, stepped forward.
"The second, a girl who's eyes were made to never see the light, trapping her in a never-ending darkness."
A girl puppet with white eyes moved to stand next to the boy puppet.
"But although blind, the girl was able to see the boy for who he truly was. She loved him dearly, yet he boy believed he was too monstrous to be worthy of anyone's love."
The girl puppet moved to kiss the boy puppet, but the boy only distanced itself from the girl.
"Insecurity." The puppeteer said. "It has probably gotten in the way of true love more so than infidelity, for if you cannot see your own worth, how can you see the worth of one's love? And this does not just apply to outcasts. It can apply even to the most handsome man and most beautiful woman. As a matter of fact..."
Suddenly a solider puppet popped up from the stage.
"This dashing and heroic man of the royal army did not believe he deserved the love of his sweetheart, for she was a wealthy and grand duchess of England and he had not a penny or title to his name."
A aristocratic lady puppet popped up next to the solider and tried to kiss it, but this soldier also dodged the gesture of affection.
"Yes indeed, their inability to see their own self-worth, caused them to push the women who loved and adored them, and that almost destroyed not only their lives, but England as well. But I'm getting ahead myself. Let's start at the beginning."
He dismissed the puppets.
"Our story begins about ten or eleven years ago, a bloody time in our nation when good King Faust." He then produced a very mean and nasty looking puppet wearing a robe and a crown who towered over all the other puppets that trembled before him in fear. "Ruled like a merciless eagle. He over taxed his people into poverty, abused his servants, not even his family was treated kindly by him. He battered his queen and was disloyal to her, having countless affairs, one of which led to the birth of his youngest daughter, an illegitimate child who was ashamed to acknowledge. So he kept her concealed from the world. But I think no one in that castle suffered more than the king's eldest daughter by his queen."
A princess puppet and a young man puppet appeared, kissing.
"You see the king's extremely beautiful older daughter had fallen in love with a young street performer, and the two had planned to run away together. To flee this dark country ruled by a tyrant. But the king found out, thanks to his spy."
By far the ugliest and most wretched looking of all puppets took canter stage and pointed a finger at the wooden couple. The king puppet shook with rage while the princess and the youth held one another and trembled.
"The spy told the king of their secret love and he refused let his reputation be ruined by having what he called a dirty peasant for a son in-law."
The king puppet grabbed the princess and the youth, separating them, throwing the youth puppet down a hole and placing the princess puppet in a card board tower.
"He confined the princess to a lonely tower until his death and locked her lover in his dudgeon, leaving him to rot forever. But an opportunity of escape arrived for him shortly after. A rebellion against the tyrant had broken out."
Silhouettes of angry mobs appeared behind the curtain. The king puppet then disappeared behind the curtain, its shadow could be seen hanging other puppets by a noose, surrounded by silhouettes of flames.
"Rebels were hunted down and hanged but that was not enough for King Faust. He wanted to crush every chance of a rebellion ever rising again. So he resorted to burning villages, the mad man. One courageous individual attempted to put a stop to his cruel massacres but he was overpowered, captured, and hanged."
A silhouette of a hanged man, a woman, and a small child rose up.
"However the king's horrid spy was desperate to please Faust by any means, and he got the twisted idea to destroy this poor man's legacy by killing his only child, his eight year old son."
The ugliest puppet raised a scythe and torch toward the silhouette of the child.
"But the boy's mother intervened. She saved him from death but was too late to save him from getting his face cut by the blade scythe and scorched by the ashes from the torch."
When the torch and scythe came down, the silhouette of the woman grabbed the child and ran.
"She took her child and fled into a winter storm, hoping that the two of them could just disappear from London and start a new life. The wicked man could not let that be, he chased her, determined to destroy the small boy in her arms..."
Agonized screams of a child filled the winter night sky as the young woman holding him tight ran across slick streets and through narrow alley ways. Suddenly she slipped on the ice and fell. She tried to get back up but could not. She had hurt her foot too much for her to stand, let alone run.
"Mother?" The boy inquired, afraid.
"Run my love!" She told him with tears in her eyes.
"But Mother-" He tried to protest.
"Run!" She gave him one last kiss. "Run! And may the lord bless and keep you always!"
The boy reluctantly did as she said. He ran.
"Faster!" He heard her call desperately. "Faster Gray! Don't look back! Keep running! Keep running!"
Then he heard her bone-chilling scream. He still kept running. Deep down he knew that was the last he would ever see her yet he could not help thinking,
"Please don't take my mother! Don't take her away from me! Give me back my mother! Please!"
However his mother was now dead. Dead like his father. Now he was to wander the streets alone, hoping that someone would have pity on him. Tragically though, almost no one who saw the boy could feel even that for him. Mostly screams and looks of terror and disgust.
"What's wrong with your face boy?"
"He's bleeding from the mouth! Are you poxed?"
"No it's not pox. It's…Dear God in Heaven! It's worse than pox!"
"It's utterly, unimaginably hideous!"
"It's the lacerated face of Christ!"
"Keep that apparition away from me!"
"He's a bad omen! Leave this town boy!"
The crowds began to heartlessly pelt stones at him until he finally ran off in fear. The only ones there that night who could feel any compassion for him was a dirt poor farmer and his young son who was quite ill from the cold that day.
"Why are they hitting him with stones Father?" The son asked before coughing weakly in the man's arms.
"The ignorant and unfeeling fools!" His father cursed. "They saw something about him was different and people like them fear what is different. It's cruel fact of life Natsu.
"Can we not help him Father?"
"Alas we cannot." He said remorsefully. "May God forgive me, but I must get to the palace, the queen has graciously allowed the royal physician to heal you! I cannot delay this opportunity to save your life! But we shall pray for that boy."
So the farmer continued on toward the royal castle where he was greeted by the good queen and her physician. From the corner of his eye, the ill boy called Natsu could see two girls watching them with curious eyes. One girl was no older than sixteen, lovely with long red hair, the other girl was a pretty seven year old with blond curls. The older girl was the queen's beloved daughter and only heir, the younger was the queen's stepdaughter but she loved the child as her own flesh and blood. Natsu could not take his eyes off the younger girl.
"Who is it Mother?" The blonde girl asked innocently.
The queen turned to look upon the girls kindly.
"Do not come near." She said. "The boy is ill. He may infect you. Erza, take your sister to her room and look after her."
"Yes Mother." The red-head replied. "Come along Lucy."
The girls left and Natsu's gaze stayed on the one called Lucy until she was out of sight.
After the physician looked him over and gave him medicine to help him recover, he was left to sleep. But he remained awake, listening intently to the conversation between his father and the queen.
"What is it like out there Igneel?" The queen had asked him.
"It's like a war zone my lady." The farmer replied. "Dead bodies scattered everywhere I look, and anyone left alive is no homeless, starving, or ill."
"God have mercy on us all." The queen said. "Faust truly has gone mad! He's destroyed villages, killed innocents, and now he intends to take my daughter away from me! My only child!"
"Have faith my lady, he is not immortal. He will die one day and then your daughter will be queen."
"Yes. I must remember that. I only pray that she does not rule as her father does."
"She won't. You raised her, not that monster."
"Why are people so cruel to each other Igneel? Why is it so hard for them to have any kindness in their hearts?"
"I wish I knew your majesty. I truly do. All we can do is try our best to bring our children up to be what so many people now are not. Kind, courageous, and honorable."
In that moment Natsu made swore an oath. He would be kind, courageous, and honorable. He would not turn away a person in need just because they were different like that crowd had done to the boy. And swore that he would somehow play a part in changing the ways England's law. He'd join the royal army, become a soldier, and enforce true justice.