Fairytale of Doom
By CrimsonStarbird
Chapter Twenty-Two – The Dining Room Proudly Presents
The emperor was a dignified, elderly man, whose impressive beard length more than made up for what he lacked in height. Although he seemed the personification of wisdom in his resplendent yellow robes and the creases of experience on his face, he had none of Master Makarov's sharpness or fierceness. He looked like the kind of man who could have sat and sipped tea through a hurricane – which was more or less what happened when Erza entered the room.
First, she strode straight past the seated emperor to the two guards behind him, yanking up their visors with her one good hand and scrutinizing the startled men for any trace of Shan Yu's yellow eyes and rotten teeth. Once satisfied that neither was a barbarian in disguise, she whipped around and slammed the shutters closed on each window in turn. Then she kicked a bookshelf in front of the far door, leaving only the one by which they had entered, where Laxus was still hovering in a combination of shock and embarrassment. After a moment's consideration, she gave a single nod, clearly deciding he wouldn't let their enemy through without at least a warning.
Only then did she turn to the seated emperor.
Personally, it wasn't how Laxus would have chosen to make their entrance. Offering polite respect to a man who was clearly very important in this world would only have been common sense. Contrary to Erza's belief, there was more than one way to deal with authority figures, and sometimes one was more appropriate than another. It wasn't his team that was famous for causing trouble everywhere it went.
In this case, however, though the guards wavered with drawn swords – rendered uncertain by Erza's overwhelming certainty – the emperor merely gave her a benevolent smile. "You must be General Mulan. Your reputation for shaking things up precedes you."
"Good," Erza asserted. "And I am glad to find you unharmed, but we must-"
"And you must be Prince Phillip." Continuing his serene greetings, the emperor nodded towards Laxus. "It is good to finally meet you in person, and offer you my thanks for coming to our aid. I am sure your kingdom will be relieved to hear that you survived the tragedy at Tung Shao Pass."
Laxus opened his mouth to deliver some suitable response, but Erza had no time for formalities. "We are not the only ones who survived. We have reason to believe that Shan Yu also escaped, and is seeking revenge against you. We are here to protect you-"
"There is no need for that," the emperor spoke, looking up at the human whirlwind from his place on the ground. "Whether he survived or not, Shan Yu is no longer the greatest threat to this kingdom."
"No, that cannot be correct," Erza disagreed. "It is our final showdown with the villain at your festival that will open our way home."
"There are greater things at stake here than a festival – even than I myself."
"You do not seem to understand-"
"It is you who does not understand, but that is because you are young and rash and do not have all the facts." The emperor smiled indulgently. "Why don't you sit, both of you, and take tea with me? I have a proposition for you."
Erza did sit, although she declined the tea. Her one good arm rested by the hilt of her sword, as if expecting Shan Yu to burst out of the teapot at any moment. Laxus did not particularly like tea, especially not the stuff that smelled of earth and bushes, but someone had to take one for the team.
The emperor had finished one cup and started on his second before he finally began. "We have just received news that the Glass Kingdom's army is being mobilized. Their target appears to be the territory of Rozenphalia."
Erza looked blank. Before she could ask what the point was, Laxus took the opportunity to interject, "Pardon me, but as I am not from around here, perhaps you would be kind enough to explain further?"
The emperor inclined his head gravely. "Of course. You may be more familiar with its previous name, the Rose Kingdom. Ten years ago, that kingdom's prince vanished, and the castle closed its doors without explanation. The citizens were left without guidance or security. It was on the verge of civil war when we stepped in, taking the bereft Rose Kingdom under the banner of the Imperial Kingdom in order to restore law and order, stabilize the economy, and secure a prosperous future for its people as part of our greater combined kingdom. However, the rulers of the Glass Kingdom have long wanted to claim the territory for their own selfish purposes. Following Shan Yu's campaign and the disaster at Tung Shao Pass, they believe that we are weak enough for them to swoop in and annex the territory of Rozenphalia, whose people we have worked so hard to protect."
"What does this have to do with us?" Erza inquired.
"The Glass Kingdom cannot be allowed to get away with such an affront. I have had our remaining forces assemble at the border. General Mulan, by stopping the Huns, you have proven yourself capable beyond any of my male warriors. You will lead my army in the defence of Rozenphalia."
"But-" Erza tried.
"Prince Phillip," the emperor continued calmly, as if she had not spoken, "your duty to my kingdom under the treaty was discharged with the thwarting of Shan Yu's invasion. You are free to return home, and convey my gratitude and the eternal friendship of our nations to your people."
"…Right," Laxus said, with a quick glance at Erza; it surely made more sense for them to stay together, especially with her broken arm. "Given the circumstances, I would be willing to-"
"I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand," Erza overrode them both firmly. "We must defeat Shan Yu, once and for all. It is our calling as heroes, and our only way home."
Unfazed, the emperor poured himself another cup of steaming tea. "Our spies previously reported a lone figure matching Shan Yu's description heading north, to the Glass Kingdom. In all likelihood, with his own army vanquished, he will throw his lot in with them in order to get his revenge. If you wish to face him, ride to the defence of Rozenphalia."
"…Oh," Erza acknowledged. "Then it seems I must take up the mantle of General once again."
"Indeed. Head for the border and meet up with the army. Be on your guard as you travel – there have been rumours of unrest in Rozenphalia for some time."
Erza nodded, rising to her feet. "We will return victorious."
She swept out of the room like she'd entered it, on her way to turn the next poor village upside-down. Laxus hurried after her, not half as concerned by the direction this story had taken as by Erza's determination to see it through regardless. First it was march into the worst possible environment to fight an overwhelmingly large army, then it was stop a dubious act of revenge that hadn't even happened, and now it was dash off somewhere else entirely to fight a new army with only a tenuous connection to the man Erza had set her heart on defeating… and all of it at the worst possible time.
She'd already reached the stables before he managed to catch up with her. "Erza. Stop for a moment, and think about this."
"What is there to think about?" she snapped, rounding on him. "We know our goal, and how to reach it. We're wasting time."
"Do we, though?" he asked cynically. "Charging blindly after this new conflict, with no proof that it is even connected at all to Shan Yu, let alone that it might offer us a way home?"
"If you've got any better ideas, I'm all ears," she shot back at once. "But, as quick as you are to complain about my decisions, I've not heard you suggest any of your own."
He stared at her in surprise. Sure, he hadn't, but he didn't know anything about this world! Acting like he knew what was best when he very clearly didn't wouldn't help anyone. Only Erza would see acknowledging one's ignorance and lack of experience as a weakness.
"That's not what I'm getting at," he corrected, trying to bring this back on track. "Even if you're set in your path, surely you can see that this isn't the best way of going about it."
"How so?"
In their stalls, the imperial army's mounts tossed their heads and whinnied. They knew an imminent storm when they saw one.
"Your arm, Erza," he reminded her, flicking his eyes towards the makeshift splint. Everyone had noticed it, but she carried herself with such fierce pride that they had not dared to comment. "There is only so far that adrenaline and determination can take you, especially without magic. Riding flat-out to avert an assassination attempt that never happened was one thing, but you cannot lead an army into another major battle."
"I can and I will," came the blunt response.
"But with your injuries-"
"Shan Yu's final attack must be prevented, for the story's sake. If I don't do it, who will?"
"Oh, I don't know," Laxus said icily. "How about me?"
"You?"
The echo did nothing to conceal her surprise, not that it came as any great shock to him. Her view on the matter had been obvious ever since they had both turned up at the army training camp, both protagonists in this convoluted tale, and she had put herself in charge and he'd been relegated to backup – backup for which Fairy Queen Titania had no need.
It wasn't something that had started in this world, either.
She'd been looking down on him ever since she'd been chosen as Seventh Master. Chosen over him, Master Makarov's heir. Chosen over the one who had been practising diplomacy and studying paperwork over his grandfather's shoulder while she had been out destroying towns with her reckless team. And even when Makarov had been rescued from Vistarion, thanks to Laxus's efforts in destroying the Alvarez pursuit even after Erza had decided to exclude him from the rescue mission, she'd held onto her de facto role as second-in command.
He had bitten back his jealousy. The guild needed a hero, and he couldn't deny that she fitted that bill perfectly; the guild needed unity, and he wasn't about to disturb that on the eve of battle. All things considered, she had done an excellent job of rallying the guild, and he was mature enough to acknowledge that.
If it couldn't be him, he was glad it was her. There was no shame in losing to a woman who already had both 'fate' and 'destiny' on her list of defeated opponents.
But she didn't consider him a leadership rival.
She didn't even consider him an option.
"Well, why not me?" he shot back. "You may be this kingdom's hero, but I'm respected as an allied prince and strategist too. The army will follow me, and you can take the chance to rest-"
"The army will follow you?" Erza echoed in disbelief. "That's hardly the most important thing here! Being given the title of 'Prince' in a made-up world doesn't automatically make you a good leader!"
"I never said it did!" There was astonishment in his voice now, in the shiver of hay and the horses pawing anxiously at the ground. "What do you have against me, Erza? You've been hostile ever since we ended up here together. I thought we were friends!"
Even as he said it, he knew that wasn't the right word. The only way he'd have needed more than three fingers to count all his friends would be if he included Bickslow's dolls. So it had always been, both before and after the Battle of Fairy Tail.
But there was no word for someone you would risk your life for without hesitation but would do anything to get out of going for a coffee with, so 'friends' would have to do.
"Of course we're friends." It was clear from the way Erza bit out the word that she didn't find it appropriate either.
"Really? Because for a while now, you've been acting like you'd rather be stuck in this strange world on your own than with me!"
"Nonsense. I am always glad to have a comrade by my side."
"You have a funny way of showing it. You've done nothing but ignore my advice and treat me as though I am a liability!"
A flash of scarlet in the gloom of the stables; a toss of hair that could have set the wooden stalls on fire. "What choice do I have? You had your chance, and you used it to launch a meaningless kamikaze charge against Shan Yu that had no hope of making a difference!"
Irritation set Laxus's jaw like a magnetic field locking into place. It hadn't been meaningless. Just because the meaning was one Erza would never have to contend with in her successful, revered life didn't mean it didn't exist.
Not that he could say that to her.
Not that she'd had any right to say it to him, either, when it was her fault they'd been trapped in the snowy pass in the first place.
"We were hopelessly outnumbered," he tried to dismiss it. "There may have only been a slim chance that defeating their leader would have made them retreat, but that slim chance was the best we had."
She opened her mouth to retaliate, but he cut across her with a sneer he hadn't used since before the Battle of Fairy Tail. "Besides, what right do you have to complain? At least I did something! You led us into that ambush and then made no attempt to overturn the ridiculous odds, content to wait for some unknown plot device to save us!"
Erza took a step forward, and it was the step of the alpha predator, silent of itself but marked by the skittering hooves of the horses, whose stalls were suddenly too confining.
Realistically, he knew that he could take her. Magic or no magic, she'd never beaten him before. Her sword-arm was shattered, and she'd ploughed through a snowstorm without rest; sheer willpower was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
And yet he was all too aware that realistic took on a new definition whenever Erza Scarlet entered the room.
"You have some nerve," she hissed, "accusing someone else of doing nothing."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"You had your chance to be Fairy Tail's Master," Erza stated coldly. "Do you recall what happened after Tartaros, when the Master disbanded the guild? Did you notice the way that everyone looked to you to hold us together? Did you realize that they would all have followed you, each and every one, if you had only stepped into the role Master Makarov had left for you? You were so desperate to have the guild for yourself when everything was good, but at the first sign of our friends looking to you for actual leadership and responsibility, all of a sudden you were nowhere to be seen. You could have stopped the guild from falling apart. But you did nothing. You stood there in silence and let everyone walk away."
For a moment, Laxus was speechless. Gramps had had a good reason for disbanding the guild. They all knew that now, even Erza. "So, what, I deferred to the express wishes of someone with more wisdom and experience than I, and you think that makes me an inadequate leader?"
"I think it shows you don't understand the first thing about the people you're trying to lead!" she snapped back. "Deferring to authority figures isn't what Fairy Tail does! You think you're superior because you can play at politics and bow to undeserving rulers like this emperor – who, for the record, is so foolish that he didn't even allow women to fight in his army until I got the rules changed! – when the truth is, you have proven time and time again that you are unsuited for this role. You didn't understand Fairy Tail when you tried to take it over by force, and you don't understand it now, even though you still think you're entitled to it!"
"I don't…" He struggled for words. "I don't believe that I'm entitled to anything!" He hadn't, not since the Battle of Fairy Tail, and even then he had set out to win the guild through strength and blackmail, not some divine prerogative. "That's why I've tried to-"
"It was never the guild you wanted, not then and not now," Erza asserted with finality. "You wanted the glory, not the responsibility."
She turned from him and flicked open the nearest stall. The horse within tossed its head aggressively at first, but quailed into submission beneath her gaze. Even the best-trained mount had never been so still as she swung herself onto its back one-handed, making it look easier injured than most cavalrymen could manage unharmed.
Mounted, her height matched the condescension in her words. "You had more chances than anyone to prove that you were capable of being Master Makarov's heir, and you failed every time. Just because this fairytale world has given you the title of 'Prince' doesn't mean anything is different about you. In fact, since you have arrived in this world, you've been either entirely apathetic or suicidally reckless – two qualities which would destroy any guild or army with the misfortune of having you as its leader."
She touched her heels to the horse's flanks, and it began to stalk obediently towards the doors. "I am going to ride to Rozenphalia and lead the army against Shan Yu and our enemies. You may come along, if you wish, though there is no need for it. I will reach the end of this story and work out how to get us all back to Fiore, with or without your help."
And there wasn't a person in the world who wouldn't have believed her, so forceful was she, riding out to take on all challengers to her life or her assumed mantle of General.
The bitter cold of stone dug into Juvia's back as she raised her head towards the room's tiny window. Shadows pressed greedily up against the single shaft of sunlight it cast; cell bars glinted where it fell. A black shape darted across the slit of brilliant blue, a swooping bird, its freewheeling cry drowned out by the clanking of Juvia's chains as she shivered.
How had this happened?
One moment they had been taken in by an excitable talking candlestick and his bossy clock companion, offered food and shelter and hospitality beyond their wildest dreams… and the next, they were rotting away in the castle dungeons.
From the corner of the cell rose a happy, tuneless humming.
Right. Gajeel had happened.
One would have thought, after the Gaston karaoke incident, that the Iron Dragon Slayer had learned his lesson. Or maybe Juvia was the one who should have known better. How many times now had Gajeel landed her in a jail cell? There was that time he'd decided stealth missions were too boring part-way through an infiltration of a corrupt Council branch, and they'd spent three days at the mercy of the Rune Knights before Master Makarov had been able to explain the situation… that time he'd gone a bit overboard at a guild party and Juvia had been dragged to the drunk tank with him, and he'd had to buy all her drinks for a fortnight in exchange for her agreeing not to tell Levy… that misunderstanding between the respectable soldiers and his not-so-respectable fashion sense during the joint job they'd taken for a relative of the royal family in Mercurius… and that was not to mention all the times they'd been caught doing Phantom Lord's borderline-legal work, before they were inevitably let off on one of their old Master's favourite technicalities. Juvia wondered, sometimes, why she hadn't bailed on her old partner and joined Mermaid Heel when she'd had the chance.
Still, being thrown into the dungeons over a sing-along was a new one.
The humming from the corner continued, oblivious. It was marginally better than the sound of chains scraping on stone, or else Juvia might have throttled him to death already.
She and Gajeel had been ushered into the grandest dining room Juvia had ever seen. After being shown to their seats, they had been presented with menus that would have seemed excessive at a ten-course banquet, let alone a mere breakfast.
Then the performance had begun. A culinary cabaret, Lumière had called it, and Juvia couldn't disagree. There were dancing plates, singing dishes, colours and light and boldness; there were patterns surely too gorgeous to be eaten and smells so appetizing they should have been illegal. There were sausages grilled to perfection, eggs cooked in every way she could imagine, tempting pastries, refreshing fruit slices, and all of it served in time to the beat by animated objects for whom cooking and performing were true joys of life.
Yes, it had all been going so well. Juvia hadn't had the best start to her fairytale life, what with having to give away her voice just to be able to join the others on land, but it was almost worth it to reach this paradise.
Free food, impeccable hospitality, and a love of song and dance numbers to rival even Gajeel's not-so-secret passion.
And that, really, was the problem.
Gajeel had always taken the concept of rivalry way too seriously.
There Juvia was, happily clapping along to the music, eyeing up some buttery croissants, when her gaze fell on Gajeel.
His arms were folded. His face, stony. Those piercing red eyes jumped from exuberant Lumière to conducting Cogsworth to the orchestra of flatware in the same way that they would jump between enemies on the battlefield.
Before she could ask him why he felt so threatened when he should have been having the time of his life, Lumière and the gang reached a natural pause at the end of a verse.
And Gajeel struck.
Sadly, being stripped of his Iron Dragon Slayer powers had not affected his ability to produce a floating mic seemingly from thin air.
With glee in his eyes, he began to sing. "I'm your guest, I'm your guest, and I'm not all that impressed. Though your cutlery's quite tasty, your singing's not the best!"
"Why, you-!" Cogsworth fumed, advancing through the tableau of enchanted objects frozen in shock. "What sort of ignoramus interrupts a live performance?"
But Gajeel was only getting started. "Soup du jour, hot hors d'oeuvres – are these small plates all you serve? Bring the big guns! Come out swinging! Make me hungry for my dinner! Yes you sing, and you walk, but it's weird when flatware talks, and don't even get me started on the rest! But I ain't just complaining – I'll show you entertaining! So be my guest, be my guest, be my guest!"
"But- but- but-" Lumière was stuttering.
Gajeel was on the table now, having swept the dancing champagne bottles aside. With a low, melancholy chord, the lights dimmed, leaving a single spotlight focussed on the rising star.
"Life is just so boring, for a man who ain't performing. He ain't whole if there's no soul to hear his song," he lamented. "Trampled by the philistines in his guild, all his dreams of being a star were gone. Ten years he's been silent! Needing so much more than violence! Needing just one chance to be himself on stage! Most days he just lays around the guildhall… Letting others take the limelight, but now I'm here, it's time to shine bright!"
Sparks were flying from Lumière's main flame. "Zis is supposed to be my big number!"
"I'm your guest, I'm your guest; sit down, shut up, and be impressed! Pour that wine and praise divine that by my singing, you've been blessed! You provide dessert and spoons, I'll be bringing all the tunes! While your silly cups are prancing I will show you real dancing! I'll do warm, scorching hot, bringing talent to this spot, and it ain't my fault if you become obsessed! We've got a lot to do; my fan club starts with you! 'Coz I'm your guest, I'm your guest, I'm your guest!"
His triumphant finale spread its wings and soared up to the rafters.
Gajeel gave a deep bow to his dumbstruck audience.
"G-G-G-" A strange noise was coming from Cogsworth's mouth.
It didn't sound like applause.
"Yes, yes." Gajeel waved his hand grandly. "Course I'll do autographs, and I'll even help with yer choreography if you ask me nicely-"
"G-G-GET HIM!" Cogsworth exploded.
At once, the paralyzed dining room leapt into action. Champagne bottles launched their corks like cannonballs at the usurper. Feather dusters swarmed him, trying to brush – or sneeze – him off the stage. Plates were shooting one by one at his head, and spoons were catapulting every semi-solid foodstuff they could get their silverware on, and Lumière was aggressively unscrewing the ceiling chandelier above him, and the Iron Dragon Slayer was yelping and flailing amidst the storm of household objects…
Long story short, their hosts had decided that it would be best for their guests to spend a few hours cooling off in the dungeons.
Which, apparently, included Juvia. Guilty by association, when all she had been doing was enjoying a lively sing-off.
Still, that was nothing new for the Iron Dragon Slayer's longest-enduring teammate. It was almost a paradox how every day with Gajeel could be so random, and yet the outcome so predictable. If it wasn't fleeing from the Rune Knights, then it was some other kind of jail or punishment.
Honestly, she'd almost missed this. Between him basically joining Levy's team full-time and her trying to edge her way into Team Natsu to be closer to her darling Gray, she'd forgotten how fun and ridiculous and crazy adventures could be with him. Maybe, she thought guiltily, she'd been avoiding associating with him too much in the guild because, if Gray and Fairy Tail were her bright future, then he and Phantom Lord were her dark past. She didn't want people seeing them together and being reminded of everything from which she was trying to escape.
She wondered if he'd noticed. She wondered if he'd been doing the same.
Despite the clanking chains and her rumbling stomach and the ever-cycling snippets of the song that had caused both haunting her, she felt more and more of her anger sliding away. Gajeel's eyes were half-closed in the gloom, hands twitching into chord patterns where they lay in his lap, composing new verses, his head tilted back against the wall. Ever since this fairytale world had abruptly re-formed their old team from Phantom Lord, their predicament had been going from bad to worse, and yet he looked more content than he had in a long time.
Fishing awkwardly around in her pocket for what remained of her stolen serviettes and pen, Juvia scribbled down a message, rolled it up into a tube, and poked Gajeel's cheek with it until he opened his eyes. "Huh?" he grunted. "Oh…"
He unrolled the message: Did you mean what you sang back there?
"Course I did!" he huffed. "Ya questionin' my artistic integrity, Juve?"
She rolled her eyes, though she wasn't surprised when he waited patiently for her to clarify her question. Lines from his own verse greeted him: ten years he's been silent, needing so much more than violence, needing just one chance to be himself on stage…
"Oh… that." He affected a shrug. "It's just… ya know… poetic licence."
Juvia said nothing – not because she couldn't, this time, but because she didn't need to. There had never been a silence Gajeel couldn't fill, be it with song or with secrets.
"I wonder what woulda happened, sometimes, if Master Jose hadn't picked me up after Metalicana vanished," he ruminated. "I think I'da been a bard, ya know. Bit of singin', bit of thievin', bit of thuggery, livin' life on the road…"
Juvia wasn't entirely sure that was what bards were supposed to be like. Her mind presented images of a charming, flirtatious, lute-strumming rogue… but then again, if Gajeel hadn't grown up in Phantom Lord, maybe he wouldn't have turned out so intimidating. It wasn't as though he wasn't handsome – just that it took more than a jug of ale and a romantic ballad to be able to see beyond the beast.
He should probably still dial back on the thuggery, though.
"Roamin' the land, livin' off my wits, touchin' the hearts of my fans with music… but Phantom really screwed us over, didn't it? I'da been eaten alive as a kid if I'd dared show my guitar in the guildhall."
While he let the gloom of those words settle, Juvia was writing. It's never too late to start!
"Sure it is. By the time we got to Fairy Tail, I had an image. They'd let me sing, but they still found it hilarious that an ex-Phantom thug wanted to perform. I'm free to do what I want in this guild, as long as I'm cool with endin' up as the butt of someone's joke."
Then he snorted. "Which is probably for the best, since I'm crap at singin'."
At this, Juvia sat up straight. She shook her head vigorously, before making the shape of a heart with her fingers.
"Thanks, Juve," he laughed. "But we all know about yer questionable taste in music. I heard about your stint as the support act for that creepy rock dude in the Tower of Heaven. Besides, even a pro would struggle to go up against Mirajane for top billin' at the guild."
Again, she shook her head, fiercer this time, because he'd looked so alive when he'd been singing for the dishes earlier, so free, and she wouldn't let him crush his own confidence like this-
"Oh, don't get so worked up about it," Gajeel breezed, taking another casual bite out of his chains. "I like bein' crap at singin'. The harder I try to get better, the less fun it'll be. If I take it too seriously, then failin' will start to matter. It'll hurt when I get kicked off the stage, rather than being somethin' we can all laugh about together. Just like it did when…"
He paused. Juvia waited, both wanting and dreading to hear what he had to say.
"When I went from bein' the top mage in Phantom Lord to one who can't even make S-Class in Fairy Tail," he finished. "When I went from bein' the legendary Dragon Slayer of the underworld to the least interestin' of the five true Slayers with dragon parents."
His shrug wouldn't have been light even without the weighty clanking of chains. "I don't aim for bein' special any more. I aim for… bein' normal, in singin' and in magic. That way it doesn't hurt when it turns out you are."
Juvia wanted to shout at the indignity of it. If Gajeel was just normal, then why hadn't she had hundreds of friends in Phantom Lord, rather than just one grumpy Dragon Slayer who didn't mind having the cover of a rainstorm on his missions? If he was normal, then why was he the only other person from that guild of scumbags who had managed to turn his life around? If he was normal, then why was he the only person who truly knew and accepted her past in a guild that preferred to pretend it had never happened?
There was nothing normal about him, and she meant that in the best way possible. Gajeel was unique and quirky and powerful and she loved his singing, goddammit!
But she couldn't say any of it. She'd never regretted trading her voice to the sea-witch as much as she did right now.
"Yeah, I'd be a crappy bard, bein' ridiculed for the one thing that makes me special," Gajeel reflected. "Can you imagine your ability to eat relyin' on an audience lovin' my songs?"
Juvia gave a pointed rattle of her chains. Those who weren't able to eat their handcuffs didn't have to imagine it.
"S'not worth it," he continued. "I ain't subjectin' Levy or my future kids to that. They're my dream now. And they're so much more important than a few stupid songs."
As her heart melted, entirely unable to put onto paper how proud she was that fearsome Black Steel Gajeel was finally able to admit his feelings out loud, he spoke again unexpectedly.
"Still, I wish I had yer resilience, Juve."
She tilted her head curiously, inviting him to explain.
"Well, you've got a goal. You know exactly what it is: yer gonna win Ice Stripper over. No compromises, no hedgin', no matter how many times yer knocked back – ya won't give up on it. Yer not scared of rejection or failure. Yer not ashamed to go after everythin' wholeheartedly. It took me thinkin' I was gonna die to be able to reveal to Levy how I really felt. But ya try and try and… I dunno where ya get the resilience from sometimes, Juve, but I'm jealous of it."
This time, her eyeroll was so drawn-out it hurt. She enjoyed hanging out with Gajeel, honestly she did, but hearing a man who was happily in a relationship talk about her failed romantic endeavours with a kind of wistfulness was a whole new level of tactless.
He lapsed into silence, eyeing her with fake disinterest as she wrote her response. However, as Juvia saw it, she was the one who deserved a bit of cheering up after that accidental backstabbing, and if she wasn't going to get it, then neither was he. When she held up her paper, it simply read: are you going to get us out of here, or what?
"Oh, right, sure." Gajeel had already eaten through his own chains purely out of hunger, and now he bit through hers as well. Whether handcuffs or cell bars, the Iron Dragon Slayer couldn't be held by ordinary restraints.
"Thanks for the meal," he grinned wolfishly, kicking through the remnants of the cell bars and stepping out into the corridor beyond. He smacked his fist into his palm. "Time to find that stupid clock-head and show him why no one steals Gajeel's limelight-"
Juvia tapped him on the shoulder, holding up a message she had written while he'd been breaking them out: You are going to find Lumière and Cogsworth, and you are going to apologize for ruining their performance, and you are going to ask if they would be kind enough to share with us any food that may be left over from breakfast.
"What?" Gajeel yelped. "Why the hell would I-?"
Juvia pointed at her pre-written explanation.
Because those of us who don't eat prison cells are feeling pretty hungry right about now.
And it's all your fault.
He swallowed. "Right. Sure thing, Juve. Let's go find that talking furniture."
A/N: Thanks for your patience! There won't be a chapter this coming weekend, and I also might not be able to respond to anything until late next week. Normal service should resume the weekend after! ~CS