I hope you all like my first attempt at a story. It's an idea I've had kicking around in my head for awhile after reading someone else's story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail or its characters.
Splash
A foot lands on the river bank. Water drips down from above as another foot joins its partner on the bank. The person they belong to starts running along a path and up a short hill to a small brown wooden house surrounded by a garden.
"LUCY-SAN!" Juvia pounds on the door to be let in. The door vibrates with the force of her pounding. Inside the house on a shelf a small plant falls to the floor breaking the pot. Lucy who was busy pouring liquid from a small vile into her cauldron jumped, spilling out more than what her recipe called for. A small mushroom cloud of smoke billowed up from the cauldron and the liquid turned from its crystal clear blue color to a sludgy black. Lucy steps back waving her hand in front of her face, coughing. Walking over to the door she opens it.
"Juvia! That was an experiment I've been working on all week! Now I have to start all over!"
"Juvia is sorry!" Juvia walks past Lucy to stand in the house. She turns to look Lucy in the face and blanches. With a guilty look she points to her face and says "Lucy-san you have a little something on your face." Lucy walks over to the mirror on her kitchen wall and sees that her face is completely black with soot.
"Ugh" Lucy says as she grabs for a wet towel next to a basin of water and begins to wipe her face. "What was so important that you had to come pounding on my door!"
"Juvia wants you to make a love potion that Juvia can give to Gray-sama!" ~"Ahhhhh"~ Juvia puts her hands on the sides of her face and swoons. "Juvia just loves him so much that she wants him to love her too!"
"Juvia! I don't make those kinds of potions! The best I can do is look to see if there is a potion that tells you if he likes you back and even then, if I remember correctly, it's a complicated one!"
Lucy finishes wiping her face and inspects it in the mirror. Finding that she got all of the soot she sets the towel aside to dry. Walking past her cauldron in the middle of the room over to a book shelf on the back wall. Lucy reaches out to grab her Mothers potions book.
"Let me see...Mama has them labeled under Partners." Lucy flips through the pages of the book.
"Why would Lucy's Mother label it under partners?"
"Because there is no such thing as Love potions that make a person love you. It is wrong to force a person to love you. It would be fake, taking away the beauty of authentic love."
"What she does have is potions for comforting your partner...blessing your bond...fertility...Ah! Here it is! This is the one I was thinking of! Love Reveal Potion tells you what your Love feels for you."
"What does it say! What does it say!" says Juvia jumping up and down waving her arms around.
"You pour half of the bottle on yourself and the other half goes on your partner. What you do is focus your mind on your partner and your partner will glow with a color indicating what they feel for you. It has a color code right here. Yellow means they think of you as a friend, pink is crush, purple is lust, red is infatuation, and deep red is love. The down side is that you glow too and your partner will be able to see it." Juvia gets a big smile on her face and starts to blush. "~Ahhh~ Juvia is so excited!"
"Wha! I don't have any of these ingredients!" says Lucy. "They are really simple ingredients too, but getting them will be the hard part. Oh no!" Lucy's eyes widened as she looked at Juvia. "It calls for Dragons blood! That's why I remembered it as complicated! I'm sorry Juvia but there's no way to make this with how territorial dragons are. I'll never get any blood."
Juvia gasps, "Dragons blood! Juvia doesn't know any Dragons!" She crumples to the floor and starts to cry. "Juvia will never know if her beloved Gray loves her!"
"I'm sorry Juvia you'll have to see if he loves you the old fashioned way...by asking him."
"Thank you for trying Lucy-san." Juvia gets up from the floor, her head down and shoulders slumped as she starts to walk towards the door. "Juvia wait" says Lucy as she grabs Juvias hand to keep her from walking out the door. "Come sit down and talk with me awhile, tell me all about this Gray" she says with a gentle smile. Lucy leads Juvia to her small table with two chairs in her kitchen. She guides Juvia to one of the chairs, Juvia slumps down and lays her head in her arms on the table.
Lucy gets the kettle from the fireplace and takes it over to a bucket to fill it with water. She brings it back over to the fireplace and puts it in it's holder and stokes the fire to make some tea for the both of them. Grabbing some teacups and a dented tin from a shelf above her water basin. Lucy walks over to the table and sets a cup in front of Juvia and herself. Opening the tin she measures out a small amount of tea leaves into each cup.
"So, how did you meet Gray?"
Juvia turns her head on her arms and says, "Juvia had gone with her clan to the Celestial Celebration..."
"Celestial Celebration?"
Juvia picks up her head to look at Lucy, a thoughtful look on her face. "That's right, Lucy-san wouldn't know about that. The Celestial Celebration is when all the different non-human beings gather to honor the Celestial King. He came from his realm to bring peace to the world. Over time the humans have stopped coming to the celebrations and moved farther south, away from the Mystical beings. They have forgotten that everyone lived in harmony."
"They have gotten narrow minded and fearful of the Mystical Creatures too." Lucy says as she stands to check on the kettle.
The kettle begins to whistle and Lucy walks over to the fireplace. Picking up a potholder set on the mantle, she picks the kettle up by the handle and brings it over to the table. Lucy rolls her eyes "I can't even sneeze in town without people looking at me weird and walking to the other side of the street. And I'm not even a Creature!" She pours water first into Juvia's cup and then her own before setting the kettle on the table and taking a seat across from Juvia.
"So you met Gray at this celebration, how?"
Juvia gets a dreamy look on her face, "Juvia was walking within the leaving crowd when she was knocked into by Gray-sama running in the opposite direction."
Lucy snorts a laugh and covers her mouth to hide her smile.
"Gray-sama landed right on top of Juvia! Gray-sama and Juvias' eyes met and it was love at first sight!" Juvia has a dreamy look as her face turns a light rosy pink. "Juvia just knows it's meant to be."
"And the first thing you think of is to get a love potion from me to make him love you? Juvia you should try to get to know him first!" Lucy takes a sip of her tea "When did you come to the conclusion that I could make a love potion for you?"
Juvias' eyes came back into focus as she heard Lucy's question. She taps a finger on her lip as a thoughtful look comes on her face and says "Hmmm...this morning?"
"And when did you get back from the celebration?"
"This morning" Juvia smiles and says sheepishly.
Lucy sighs "Juvia, you need to get to know Gray." Juvia looks down at her tea cup, grabs the handle with one hand and with the other runs her finger around the rim. "But, Juvia wants Gray-sama to love her now."
Lucy reaches over and puts her hand on Juvias' arm. "Don't you want him to love you for real? For him to genuinely look at you, say "I love you" and really mean it?" Juvia looks up at Lucy and sighs. "Lucy-san is right, it would be better."
"Of course it would be better" Lucy smiles at Juvia and pulls her hand back to take another sip of tea.
Juvia takes a sip of her tea then sighs "Juvia should get going. If Aunty catches Juvia coming back late from the border Aunty will ground Juvia. Thank you for the tea Lucy-san."
Lucy smiles and puts her teacup down "You're welcome, I'll walk you out."
Lucy and Juvia both stand up from the table and walk towards the door. Lucy opens the door and they both start walking down the pathway towards the river. Suddenly, Lucy gasps and turns to Juvia "Juvia! Do dragons go to this Celestial Celebration?!"
"There are dragons who attend the celebration, they come in their human forms so as not to take up too much space."
"Do you think you could get blood from a dragon if you asked?" Juvia gets a hopeful look on her face. "Juvia might be able to do that! Dragons are very possessive with what they consider theirs though, so it might be impossible." They make it to the river bank and face each other.
"Tell you what Juvia, you work on getting to know Gray and get a small vial of dragons blood. I'll get the ingredients for the Love Reveal Potion and set them aside. When you have gotten to know Gray and really want to know how he feels about you, I'll make the potion for you." Juvia smiles and nods her head. Lucy leans forward with her arms open to give Juvia a hug.
"It was great to see you Juvia!"
"You too Lucy-san!" Juvia turns toward the river and takes a step forward. When her foot touches the water it turns translucent. Juvia steps fully into the river and her entire body turns clear and ripples like she is part of the river itself. She waves to Lucy and sinks into the water, disappearing.
There it is, my first chapter! It's amazing when you have a vague idea on a plot and once you get writing a whole set of new ideas get put in!
