AN: Enjoy the chapter folks! Be sure to leave a review when you finish!
Edited: 3/31/18
Once again, my ANs at the end of the chapter are NOT NEW. They are the ANs that came with the original chapter. Any mentions of future updates/other fics are from several months ago, unless stated otherwise.
Berserk
Chapter Thirteen
{i'll ask of the Berserks, you tasters of blood}
The trees whisper amongst themselves in hushed tones, low, indistinguishable voices a hum in the silence of the night, echoing through the stillness of the forest. Their gnarled branches twist together like thorns—sharp, mangled, and bare of leaves—winding and curling overhead until the sky above is nearly blackened out by the copse of wicked spines, only thin slivers of the waning moonlight flickering through the bare trees, illuminating the thicket with pale light. A thick, rolling fog hangs low over the forest floor, twisting between the trees like ghosts and swirling around the prone figure lying in the dirt. A biting chill curls through the air, fallen leaves rustling as a breeze sweeps through the woods. The fog dampens the earth as shadows dance across the ground, the scent of rain heavy in the air.
She blinks slowly, her vision remaining blurry and unfocused as her gaze flickers around what she can see of the copse. She shifts, sending messy coils of blonde hair spilling over her shoulder and obstructing her vision as she slips in and out of focus. Blinking heavily, she stares at the trees, distorted oaks appearing as hazy figures in her vision—monsters slipping from the shadows and creeping closer with every breath.
She winces suddenly, groaning in pain as her forehead throbs, a sharp, stinging ache spreading through her entire head. Something slick slides down her temple, though she hardly notices, more interested in squinting at the shadows coming to life around her.
The trees begin to quiver, bending and leaning in every direction, almost as if they were dancing—trembling with fear of something she can't see. Her eyes slam shut once more, and she whimpers softly as the whispering gets louder. The voices grow closer and closer as the trees begin to shake violently, the wind picking up and whipping the dead leaves across the ground until they begin to swirl around her.
Her eyes snap open wide and the forest falls silent once more. The voices disappear and the leaves still—trees standing tall around her, as if they had never been moving to begin with. Her fingers twitch suddenly—scrapping across the ground almost violently as her nails sink into the fresh earth, rain still falling around her. Her eyes narrow in bewilderment as a phantom, icy finger runs along her spine, prickling the bare skin of her back as pale moonlight dances across her naked arms and shoulders, the ghost of a breeze making her shiver.
Holding her breath, she goes stock still, not daring to move as her fingers freeze against the wet ground. She peers through the curtain of hair falling in front of her eyes, heart beating out of control. Around her is nothing but naked trees winding high into the air, dead leaves littering the ground in warped shapes—nothing else in sight. Just dying trees and the fog curling around her frozen form.
A low, mournful sound splits the air, a single note that disappears as quickly as it came. The trees shriek suddenly, the thicket taking up the violent cry, roaring like a northern beast. Another hum, soft and sad, and the trees echo again. She twists to the side, a hand curled around her throat and squeezing—choking.
"—drowned lover—"
The sound is cut off, a sob building in her throat as she recognizes her mother's voice.
Around her the trees rattle, branches snapping together high above her head. She startles when a twig snaps in the darkness. Her mother keeps singing, and she forces herself to find the sound through the shrieking and snarling that's built up around her.
"—come home to me."
She drags herself across the wet earth, ignoring the mud and the rain, the screaming trees and the voice in her head telling her not to look.
The smell of blood hits her first, pungent and metallic, so strong that it makes her pause, bile rising into her throat as the smell attacks her senses. She swallows it back, a sick shuddery breath tearing from her as the smell curls around her, death hanging in the air.
At the edge of the copse, she forces herself to stand. Her lips twist into a grimace as she shifts her gaze around the thicket, squinting, eyes straining to see past the fog and branches, looking for anything that might tell her where she is. Being careful not to make a sound, she curls her arms closer to herself, flinching when a twig snaps beneath her, sounding all too loud in the darkness, even with the raging storm and the bloodcurdling screams. She releases a shuddery breath, lips quivering as she pushes up on her forearms, lifting herself just enough to raise her torso from the dirt. Her head snaps around once she does, dirty hair falling in her eyes, twigs and leaves twisted among the messy curls.
Her arms quiver beneath her as she shifts, settling onto her knees, then forces herself onto her feet, legs trembling so terribly she nearly crumples back to the forest floor, only staying upright by some miracle. Her jaw clenches tightly, teeth clanking together painfully as the aching worsens, a hiss escaping through her teeth before she can stop it.
A cackling sound reaches her, and suddenly she's standing at the edge of a clearing, watching as three men in golden armor prowl around a woman lying on the ground, snarling and snapping at her as she smiles back, singing a broken song that makes her soul ache.
The men attack at once, more beast than man, the trees shriek and cry, mourning as the woman is ripped into pieces. It happens slowly, a knife driven into her chest, the blade shinning silver for only a moment, and then just a spray of blood. So much blood.
They mangle her, tearing her apart until she's nothing more than a bloody streak against the wet grass. Still, she keeps singling. The woman's head drops to the side suddenly, bloody throat torn open wide and an eye hanging loosely from its socket. Her lips are twisted into a smile, blonde hair matted and dirty with blood and dirty.
Her mother's face—her face.
Her heart leaps into her throat, choking off the shriek bubbling in her chest. A strange gurgle is all that escapes her, foreign to her ears as it crawls from somewhere in the back of her throat—low and guttural, surprised. Her hands fly up to cover her mouth as she reflexively steps back, hitting a damp patch of grass as her dress tangles around her ankles like a malevolent hand. She crashes back to the forest floor, eyes slamming shut as the back of her head makes contact with the ground.
Her head snaps back up, and she meets a pair of eyes, glowing red in the darkness. She scrambles back on her hands, dragging herself away, but the monster only smiles, revealing sharp teeth and so much red that it spills over his lips and chin. Two more peer back at her.
They're all red.
Gasping, Lucy jolts awake, fingers tangling with the sheets as she lurches forward. She gasps for breath, a sob sticking in her throat and tears burning at the back of her eyes. Outside, the wind howls, rain pattering against the window, half-open and letting in a chill. A shiver wracks through Lucy, the cold air creeping into her bones and curling through her chest. She exhales slowly, her racing heart beginning to slow, wakefulness tugging at her senses. Her eyes squeeze shut briefly, sleep clouding her thoughts.
Red eyes peer back at her in the darkness of her hazy mind—red eyes, red teeth, red hands.
A whimper escapes her, the nightmare coming back, just as it always does. She shoves it down into the darkest corner of her mind, banishing it, locking it away until it inevitably comes back. And it will come back. Something so terrifying does not so easily disappear. Not after so many years. It's a plague, she knows, like the one that afflicted Fiore for over a decade nearly one hundred years ago.
She wonders how long it will continue to eat at her, how long it continue to consume her. She wonders how long she'll continue to let it.
Beside her, the covers shift, Natsu sighing in his sleep. Lucy glances down at him, eyes roaming the expanse of his back, his neck, his shoulders, the pale scars littering his bare skin. She couldn't count them if she wanted to, there are simply too many. A crescent on the back of his shoulder catches her eye, smooth and silver, shinning in the pale light streaming through the window, and she wonders what wicked thing could have done something so terrible.
Lucy continues to peruse his back for several minutes, tracing scars and mapping the lean muscle of his arms, the broadness of his shoulders. Eventually, her breathing returns to normal, her heartbeat quieting to a whimper in its cage of bones, and Lucy inhales deeply, the tension slipping from her shoulders as she listens to the rain beating against the side of the inn.
She always has loved the rain—the smell of it, the feel of it on her skin, how it seems to wash everything away. It was raining that night. She remembers the sound of it, the thunder, how it drowned out her mother's screams, but not the singing. Never the singing. She hears them in her dreams, the singing, the screaming, the shrieking of the trees, all blurring together into one great roar that leaves her ears ringing and her heart aching.
Shaking her head slowly, Lucy releases a quivering breath, a sob bubbling in her throat. She swallows it back, running a trembling hand through her hair, working through the knots and tangles that have found her during the night. Her fingers catch, pulling too hard, and Lucy lets her hand fall back into her lap, defeated.
Natsu breathes deeply, chest rising and falling slowly, evenly save for the small hitch in every other breath. There's a steady rhythm that she's come to notice, a stutter in his inhales and his too heavy exhales, not a snore but not a sigh, something caught between. She's grown familiar with his breathing, with the rise and fall of his chest and back, the sounds he makes. It's a quiet comfort, one that she never would have expected.
The rain continues to pour outside, muffling Natsu's inhales and exhales, and settles back onto their shared bed, the cold nipping at her skin. An icy finger draws a path down her spine and Lucy buries herself beneath the thin blanket, curling close against the Berserker's back. Lucy worms low in the bed, her freezing nose pressed between his shoulder blades and her lips a breath away, warm air puffing against his skin with every exhale.
He groans, arching away from the chill she brings with her, but settles soon enough, a sigh escaping him as he lets her nestle between his shoulders, close enough to smell the blood and sweat sticking to his skin from the day before and to hear the steady beating of his heart.
Hesitating only briefly Lucy settles a hand against his lower back, her knuckles gazing his skin softly, absentmindedly. He sighs again, then shifts into her touch, his back pressed tight against her chest. Lucy's cold toes tickle at his calves where his pants have ridden up. He huffs at the chill, but doesn't wake.
Her nightmares slink back into the shadows, shifting along the walls, irritated. She imagines them hissing like wildcats, stalking around her and waiting for an opening. Lucy squeezes her eyes shut, letting the darkness surround her. For a moment, fear prickles at her skin, but Natsu is warm against her front, and his rumbling breaths muffle the echo of her mother's screams. The soft vibrations travel through his chest and into her, comforting.
When she opens her eyes, the shadows are gone, only faintest rays of light flickering across the walls.
The dawn comes too early, violent reds and burnished gold, and Lucy squeezes her eyes shut, determined to sleep, at least for a little longer. It can't be more than a few hours since Natsu crawled through her window, six at most. It's too early for both of them.
Lucy rests her temple against Natsu's spine, letting herself rise and fall with him. Her lip catches between her teeth, and she bites down harder than she means to, stifling a curse when she tastes copper on her tongue. She licks it away, soothing the split skin, ignorant to the way she's begun to trace circles against his skin with a light finger, only half aware of herself.
The steady motion of her finger and the thud of his heart through his back is what draws Lucy back towards sleep. Natsu is warm against her, chasing away the cold that seeps through the walls and the open window. She should close it, she knows, before the rain gets in.
But she only curls closer to him, lulled back into a half-sleep by the rain and the hitch in Natsu's breath. She lies there for a long time, not quite awake, not quite asleep, until the sun breaches the horizon and the rain dips into a patter. Dozing, she cuddles closer against the Berserker's back, her temple resting between his shoulders to the she rises with every breath he takes.
She finally stirs what must be hours later, the sunrise unkind as it spills into the room and her eyes. Lucy groans, whining as she burrows closer to Natsu and away from the morning chill. Wakefulness grips her firmly, winding around her mind all too quickly, and Lucy sighs as she realizes she won't be falling back asleep anytime soon. She always has been something of a light sleep, early to rise despite being a night creature. Her nightmares make sure of that.
A shudder runs along her spine, Lucy blanching as she remembers waking up in the middle of the night. She hadn't had another, thank goodness, but she knows it's only a matter of time until it comes back once more. Nothing makes it go away, not even Makarov's tonic, which has been known to send even the burliest of men into a dreamless sleep.
Resigned, she drags herself out of bed, slipping from beneath the blanket slowly, being careful not to wake the sleeping Berserker. He needs rest after what happened, she could see it in his eyes last night. Natsu was utterly drained when he crawled though the window, limbs quivering and his footing unsteady. More than that she could see it in his eyes. They were dull, hollow, and it unnerved her more than the red eyes of her nightmares.
She's never seen eyes so defeated before. And she never wants to again.
Lucy stretches when she stands, her spine cracking satisfyingly, and she turns on her heel, walking to the other side of the bed slowly. She crouches beside the bed, leveling herself with Natsu, and lets her eyes roam his face. He looks peaceful when he sleeps, not as haggard, younger even. She knew he was about her age, only a few years older at most, but he hadn't looked it, all hard lines and dead eyes.
Reaching out slowly, absentmindedly, Lucy rests the back of her hand against his cheek, knuckles stroking against his skin softly. He stills briefly, and Lucy is afraid she's woken him, but he settles again soon enough, breathing out a heavy sigh and leaning into her touch. She smiles down at him, brushing the hair away from his eyes to get a better look at the cut above his brow.
Her lips twist into a grimace when she sees it, her lips curving back over clenched teeth. The clotting has split during the night, a line of blood dripping into his hair. A lump builds in her throat as she runs a gentle finger over the split skin, her hand coming away red and sticky. She pulls back suddenly, Natsu groaning in his sleep, curling in on himself as his face twists in pain. His arm curves around his ribs, and Lucy realizes with a start that they must be broken, fractured at the very least.
She ghosts another finger down his cheek, murmuring quiet nonsense and shushing him. She stays with him until he quiets, a bitterness churning in her stomach as her gaze slips from one wound to the next. Now that it's light, she can see them better, though she wishes she couldn't. He's worse than she originally thought, and she doesn't have the supplies to help him further.
Her gaze slips to his chest where the blanket has ridden down, eyes locking on the bandage wound around his upper body. It's soaked through during the night, and she realizes it must need to be stitched as well. Her hand slips to his chest, hovering about the dirtied bandage, but not touching. Eyes flicker up to his face, his breath fanning against her, she's so close.
Jaw clenching, Lucy stands on shaky legs, moving away from him as she gathers her clothing in a fist, sweeping it all together. She turns her back to him, peeling her nightshirt away from her frame, nose wrinkling when she spots streaks of blood and sweat clinging to the once clean fabric. The worst is a large, red patch resting between her shoulder and collarbone, so deep that it looks like Lucy herself has been stabbed.
The fabric is tossed aside, disgust flooding through Lucy as she realizes just how much blood he's lost. Shaking the thought aside, Lucy pulls on her clothing from the day before, slipping her boots on over her socks, though leaving the laces undone. She pulls a new shirt from her bag, red and gold, and yanks it on over her head, liking the way the soft fabric drapes down her frame, loose around her hips, but cinched closer towards the top. A finger traces one of the gold designs sewn into the fabric, following the trail from the hem until it disappears again just below her breasts, all of the lines connecting into one point, trailing off the hem where her top splits into a "v" that ties around the back of her neck, her back bared to the air.
Blinking slowly, Lucy fixes the white camisole beneath her top, lace barely visible along where it cuts across her breasts, the stark fabric peeking out from below.
She leaves her belt and doesn't bother with her gloves, merely shoves a knife into the side of her boot and tosses her bag over her shoulder. For a moment, she hesitates, eyeing her jacket, but ultimately decides to leave it, she won't be gone for long.
Lucy glances back at Natsu once as she leaves the room, careful not to wake him, and smiles when she sees his features smooth, less hard lines and strong jaw and more of a gentleness about him. She doesn't watch him long, just enough to make sure he won't wake, then turns and leaves, letting the door shut with a click behind her.
The stairs dip and creak as she walks down them, but Lucy isn't trying to sneak about, she has no reason to hide here. As an outsider here, she must already be of suspicion, it won't do her any favors to be caught creeping through the halls.
Fiddling with her bag, Lucy doesn't notice Peg sitting behind her desk until the older woman speaks up, startling her.
"A man climbed into your room last night," Peg states offhandedly, causing Lucy to freeze in her tracks halfway to the door. She turns on her heel, staring wide-eyed at Peg, who spares her a brief glance before going back to cleaning the sharp edge of a sword that Lucy hadn't noticed before. Peg brandishes it almost threateningly, but there's no malice coming from the other woman. She glances up, quirking a dark brow and waiting for Lucy to speak, her green eyes more curious than suspicious.
Lucy's tongue becomes heavy in her mouth, sticky and thick. For a long moment she simply stares back at peg, unsure how to respond to something like that. She hadn't thought that anyone saw Natsu climbing in through her window, most already asleep by that time. It seems she assumed too much.
"I know," she responds, hesitant and a bit awkward. She shifts on her feet, suddenly embarrassed by the look Peg is giving her. The older woman smirks, green eyes twinkling in amusement and Lucy feels herself flush, aware of what Peg must be thinking.
Silence thickens the air between them, Peg simply continuing to polish her sword and Lucy fingering the strap of her bag, wondering if it would be possible for her to slip inside it. Probably, she thinks, but it might be a challenge to find her way back out. She doesn't know what becomes of the things in the bag when she doesn't need them.
Peg hums in thought after a moment, smiling. "Friend of yours?" she asks lightly, a teasing glint in her eyes. Lucy wonders how much she saw in the darkness, praying that she didn't get a good look at his armor or the blood covering his chest. She would rather Peg think Natsu is simply her bedmate, than a hated soldier of the King—former soldier, anyway.
She worries her lip between her teeth, fingers clenching tighter around her bag. She can practically feel the dark energy pulsing through the fabric, the magicked collar humming, calling too her. Her arm gives a sore ache in response, throbbing in time with the gem in her bag. Lucy ignores it, shaking the thoughts away and crossing her arms, sending Peg what she hopes is a coy smile. "Something like that," she responds simply, not sure what to call him. A friend, yes, but not in the way Peg is implying.
"He didn't look so good last night," she tells Lucy, casual, but there's a hint of steel in her words, not anger, exactly, but something sharp. Lucy thinks it might be a warning, but what for she doesn't know. Peg stops cleaning her sword, dropping it against the table roughly despite her care in cleaning it. "Thought 'e wasn't gonna make it."
Lucy flinches, remembering the blood from last night. She'll have to dump the water later, when she gets the chance. She should have done so this morning, when the ground was soaked and no one would be any wiser. Should have, but didn't. "I know," she replies, softer this time. Her voice wavers only slightly, Peg's comments beginning to unnerve her.
Peg hums lowly, giving Lucy a sharp nod. She stretches out her arms, cracking her joints and turns instead to an old book resting atop her desk. Lucy frowns when the other woman ends the conversation, but thinks it might be for the best. She turns on her heel again, heading for the door.
"You may want to find something to cover that armor, Dear!" Peg calls after Lucy, a trill to her voice. Lucy freezes, hand hovering over the knob. A cold sweat pricks at her neck, her heart leaping into her throat. "Folks 'round here don't take kindly to the King's dogs." She sneers it, though Lucy isn't entirely sure which part the woman finds disgusting.
Whipping around, Lucy bristles, baring her teeth at the other woman as hot rage floods through her chest. "He's not—"
Peg raises a hand, placating Lucy, and cuts her off. "I know," she replies gently, green eyes gleaming with something sad that Lucy can't pinpoint. "But this town's crawlin' with soldiers," she reminds the younger girl, glancing towards the door quickly. Her lips press into a thin line, highlighting the creases of her face, lines created with age. "Best get a move on, you two."
Lucy bites her lower lip, glancing between Peg and the door. "Why are they here?" she asks slowly, shifting her weight to her right leg. Her shoulder burns and she winces, once again simply ignoring the wound. There are more important things to worry about.
Peg doesn't look up, though her hands do still as they hover over her book. For a long moment, she doesn't reply, and Lucy begins to think that Peg is simply going to ignore her. Her shoulders droop, and Lucy clenches her jaw, yanking open the door without a second thought.
"A storm's brewin'," Peg calls after her suddenly.
It's what Bard told her last night. She hadn't thought much of it, figured he meant the thunderstorm last night. Perhaps, it's something bigger than that. If it is, that means they need to leave as soon as they can.
Lucy pauses, wetting her lips. "If he wakes up…" she trails off, not looking back at the woman even as she hears Peg stand and walk closer. She pauses only a few feet behind Lucy.
"I'll let him know you'll be back soon, Lass."
Lucy gives a sharp nod, then disappears out the door without another word.
AN 3/31/18: Minimal changes made in this chapter. Chapter 14 should be posted tonight.