Yo, second fanfic, but Fairy Tail
On a small hill stood a hut, one that could hold three people but no more. It was surrounded by a field of wheat on all sides, backed by a lush forest below the hill. Summer set in slowly, and children were playing outside. Two boys ran through the forest, one with ivory black hair and piercing black eyes, the older, the other with messy salmon hair and deep green almost black eyes, the younger.
"Natsu! You're going too fast! Slow down, please!"
Natsu instead of slowing sped up and widened the grin on his smug face. His messy pink hair that normally framed his round face had flown behind him, bangs fully moving out of the way.
"How about you speed up, Zeref?" Natsu retaliated. At that, Zeref groaned in annoyance at his younger brother. The forest was hard enough to navigate as it is, how could Natsu have possibly been this comfortable with it? As they ran further into the forest, the boys found themselves at a clearing full of lush flowers and rabbits. The sun danced in jubilee in the meadow, as if that was where it was born. The surrounding woods framed the area, further making it look magical, to the point where Zeref wondered if it was.
"It's so pretty! Zeref, look!" Natsu exclaimed with childlike wonder as he found a small red salamander and held it.
"Y-yeah..." Zeref concluded whilst panting like a dog. Zeref had no idea that this was here, even though he had lived near this forest his whole life. It was gorgeous, however. The salamander that Natsu held ran off to hide. The creek that flowed next to their house also was here.
As the sun began to die away for the night a gloom cast over the whole forest, as if this was soon to end. The tranquility of two young brothers running without care through the forest or at least that is what it looked like. In reality, Zerefs' face filled with dread as he made his way up to his house, it was perched high on a hill that was surrounded by corn and the forest that they had just been in. It was red and sweaty, his throat was dry and his head hurting. Natsu, however, looked happy as a lark, running through the forest was his favorite activity. It made Zeref wonder if Natsu had always known about the meadow.
"Last one here is a rotten egg!" Yelled a soft voice, warm and comforting. "Aya! You're lying, they can't become rotten eggs! One, they are my sons! Two, they are human, or at least I hope they are. They definitely came out of your womb, correct?"
"Yes Tetsuya, they definitely came out of my womb," Aya Dragneel said with immense disappointment in her husband. The hut on the hill, now lit up by a campfire, was filled with joy and laughter amongst the small family as the two boys walked in. In front of the family was a chicken only big enough to feed three people, so Aya did not eat anything but the potatoes that she had also prepared. Natsu unfortunately had a huge appetite and ate a lot of chicken and potatoes, leaving not a lot for Zeref, though he was not a big eater anyway. Their father was telling one of his stories from the gladiator ring, being the third best in the country of Fiore and the best in the gladiator town of Heliopolis. Zeref greatly loved the life he had, his younger brother whom he loved dearly, and his two loving parents. The family each explained how their day was; Aya cooking and cleaned like normal and taking care of Natsu who was not yet old enough to attend school, Tetsuya was training at the gladiator ring, and Zeref was studying ethernano on his own after school.
"There was also this 'gigantamous' cave-like thingy where I saw this super cool lizard! It was red and black with small little legs," Natsu exclaimed between mouthfuls of food.
"Oh yeah? Now where was this place with the super-cool lizard?" Their mother questioned, having never heard this before.
"Natsu, it was a meadow, and it was a salamander that you picked up, not a lizard. Mother, it was located just past the forest at the north side of the cornfield."
"Thank you, Zeref, what wonderful information!" Their mother giggled. Natsu was pouting over Zeref's nitpick over the amphibian. Zeref was only eight but was renowned as a genius. As Zeref continued to discuss his studies on ethernano and the human body, Tetsuya and Natsu looked at each other in complete confusion while Aya looked at her son intently, genuinely listening to her son's research that she helped him with.
As the Dragneels started to wind down for the night, a bright light shone from the window. It was orange and warm, lighting up the small house with the bright light. Huh, that's so odd, it should be close to eleven now, why is there so much light? I'll check on it after I put Natsu to bed Zeref thought to himself. Zeref, carrying Natsu to bed, glided through the hut. Natsu was snoring softly into his hair, which Zeref thought was quite cute.
A strange warmth filled the house, one that was not there before. The outside became a more reddish hue that filled the small hut with an unnatural warm glow. Is that… fire? Zeref thought, his suspicions confirmed when a tongue of fire manifested in the boy's room. Zeref quickly shook Natsu awake and dashed to their parents' room, trying to avoid the growing fire.
"Mom! Dad! There's a fire!" Zeref shouted to wake his parents.
"Zeref, take your mother and brother and get out of here! I'm going to try to salvage what I can!" His father said.
"Tetsuya, that's an awful plan! What are you going to do if the house collapses on you, God forbid? Just leave it, we have money in the bank, we will be ok, just come on!" his mom replied with great annoyance to her husband.
"Ok, I won-" their father was cut off mid-sentence by a roof collapsing on him and their mom, who was still in the bed. A huge dragon claw pushed through the roof, leaving a sizable hole in the roof that revealed a cackling dragon.
"MAMA! DAD!" Natsu screamed as he jumped off of Zeref's back, who was still in shock from what just happened to realize the five-year-old was moving. Zeref barely saw Natsu dash toward the dragon, who sounded like he was cackling like a madman. "You bastard!" Natsu yelled at the dragon, who just looked at him like he was absolutely insane. Natsu's cursing snapped Zeref out of his shock, his baby brother cursing?
"NATSU! GET AWAY!" Zeref shouted as loud as he could. Natsu stared angrily at his big brother, but conceded eventually and ran towards his brother. Zeref tightly gripped Natsu's small hand as they made a mad dash for the exit. As they rapidly approached the door, Zeref felt a sharp push into his back.
"Zeref, look out!" Natsu pushed Zeref out of the way of a falling beam that was covered in fire.
"N-Natsu!" He felt the soft, small hands that marked his brother slip away from his body with a sickening thud. Natsu's body from the hips down was crushed under the large wooden beam, fire creeping onto his small body from the left side. Natsu let out a pained grunt before looking at Zeref with his wide forest-green eyes, panic and pain lacing them.
"Natsu, it'll be ok, I'll get you out of here!" Zeref panicked.
"Zeref, get the heck out of here! It'll be okay, just- just one of us needs to survive," Natsu said as more flames crept onto his torso, crying out from the searing pain.
"So you want me to leave you here?! I'm your big brother idiot! There is no way I'm going to leave you too!" Zeref cried, "And I still have to scold you for saying the B-word." Natsu just chuckled softly and winced at the pain.
"I love you so much, big brother, visit that gigantamous forest for me, 'kay?" Natsu said as he pushed Zeref away, a soft comforting smile laced his lips. The fire made its way to Natsu's small round face and burned his messy salmon hair. Sweat lined his soft brows as Zeref finally turned around and made a dash for the door, coughing furiously from the smoke that entered his lounges. He briefly saw Natsu's smile fade, tears now streaming down his right eye as the fire began creeping on that side.
Zeref finally made it outside after much struggle and made a mad dash to the village for help. Dragons littered the night sky, fires raging in the corn fields behind his, now burnt, childhood home. Once he made it to the village, which already had the situation under control, he began asking anyone he could find for help. Almost everyone knew the Dragneels due to their father's popularity as a top gladiator.
"Help with what, Dragneel? We have 'nough shit goin' on here." A burly drunk man said.
"Dragons attacked my house; mom, dad, and brother are still inside."
"Sorry kid, ain' nothin' we-"
"Men! We are going to the Dragneel household. Rescue any survivors. We are looking for Tetsuya Dragneel, Aya Dragneel, and Natsu Dragneel, is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" The soldiers replied to the woman. She was lean with iron armor and the horn of a slain dragon wrapped in her messy blond hair.
"My name is General Leeara, bring me and my men to your home, little one." She said surprisingly gently.
"Let me go too! I'm a doctor and a close family friend, no doubt the Dragneels need immediate medical treatment." A man named Mr. Ojii said. He had been a close friend of Zeref's family since before his birth and had been the one to deliver both Zeref and Natsu.
"OK," the woman replied plainly.
The group of about fifteen made their way to the remains of the house, now crumbled away, a ghost of what was there just a mere hour ago. An hour is all it took for Zeref's whole life to be crumbled. Zeref at some point began hyperventilating, as the world around him became black. He never saw that they had found his baby brother, still alive.
Hope you enjoyed it. This has been in my brain for a long time but I finally decided to write it out!