Chapter 24: Malice in Memory
The snow was swirling in a thick, dense blanket around him, obscuring his sight to no more than shadows of what was hidden and burning flames that acted as bright beacons of despair through the night. Despite the fine white pattern that spun around him in a dense storm, not a single bit of it fell from the sky that night. Gray knew that. Living in the mountains perpetually capped with snow, it became something of a skill to know when the next fall was coming. None such came that night. For him, for them, it was only despair that blanketed over their humble town.
Numb. There were no feelings that registered in the small boy's mind as his eyes were locked on the towering shadow that cast itself over his home. Glowing red eyes were all that could truly be seen, save for the occasional bursts of green that warned of the impending doom that always followed. The titanic beast didn't care for Gray, never once passing a look to the body that lay stock still in the snow stained with ash and soot. With every movement of the demon, another waft of snow was tossed into the air to make the unnatural blizzard around him all the more dense. It felt as if he could just sink away within the torrent of white around him. He could use the cold flakes of ice as a padded blanket that would tuck him into the soft bed below, never to be seen again.
Who would come for him?
Mom is dead.
Dad is dead.
Even if he wanted to, Gray didn't have the strength to do anything more than shallowly breathe while his widened eyes stayed locked to the shadow that skulked over the remains of his home. They stayed there, watching the scene before him long after it had passed. Even when the snow around him settled back to an unscuffed layer over the ground, when the ash joined it in creating a fine dusting of pepper atop an ocean of salt, flames died out to leave the pathetic sooty bones of what were once homes, and the night gave way to a shining day that cared little for the events only hours prior, Gray still remained unmoved. He sat there…
…alone…
…frozen…
…powerless…
Those three words seemed to have been echoing through his head ever since Master Makarov told him of the news from Brago. Gray scoffed to himself, bitterness becoming audible through it as the same bitterness painted itself on his face. His eyes were unfocused in their staring out upon the lake that lay behind the guild hall. An arm was thrown over a bent knee while the opposing leg was extended out beside it and his left arm propped itself behind him to hold him in place. If a passerby was to look at him now, they'd probably see him as relaxed; peaceful, even. The night was giving way to the morning in a dull gray haze that would give way to a fine sunrise that he'd have a great view of upon his hill.
How could anyone be anything other than at peace with such things around them?
In truth, Gray had been in the exact same spot since the night before. It was the only place he could think of that could give him a place to be alone without threatening things around him with the anger that would roll through him. No matter how many times he swung, it was beyond Gray to shatter the world beneath him. A pity, he thought sarcastically before he rose up into a shaky stand. Dusting clothes that miraculously stayed on through the entirety of the night, Gray's mind began churning with actual thought. Productive thought. Giving the scenic lake before him one more scowl that dug trenches of strain across his face, Gray turned away and began walking back to the guild.
Master gave him the duty of curating the team that would travel up to Brago. It had to be done quickly if they were going to get there with any kind of respectable response time, so Gray had some asking to do. Not that he had a long list of names. In truth, Gray was just relieved that he was trusted to lead this mission. "I'm not going to disrespect you by giving this responsibility to someone else. You are emotionally invested, but you know the price of hardheadedness here. Better than anyone." That was what Master told him before giving him leave to process the information however he would. It was only now, many hours later, that Gray had the ability to acknowledge the weight of those words. All he had to do was not fuck it up.
There were three people that Gray would ask as a formality. They would go with him without so much as a breath of why it was so important to him. However, there was another person that he wanted to bring. One person that he knew could help him was more of a wildcard when it came to anything. Unlike his friends, the people he grew up with, and Lucy, who spent her time in Fairy Tail splitting between him and Team Shadow Gear, confidence and certainty were far from his mind as Gray walked toward the east of town. Hands in his pockets, eyes focused, Gray walked toward the training grounds that were repurposed from a regular field days ago now. When he arrived, there was nothing else to do but wait.
Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long. Leaning with his back on the rocky wall of the hill that extended alongside the eastern path out of Magnolia, Gray turned his head back toward the town and saw Natsu and Wendy, who was carrying Carla on her shoulder, walking toward him while the sun still had yet to rise. Although the words couldn't clearly reach him at first, Gray slowly heard the gentle voice of Wendy grow louder in their approach and listened as the girl's excitable words became the only significant sound around them.
"And then she flicked her wing to toss me on her back and took off into the sky so fast I could barely breathe." Wendy's hands came up and exploded away from each other at their peak to accentuate her words as she smiled up at Natsu who quietly listened. The man looked up toward the sky when Wendy's arms burst upward, a soft look taking over his face. An eyebrow rose toward Gray's hairline as he saw the expression, one so antonymous from what Gray was accustomed to seeing.
"It must be cool flying so high up. I wonder what everything looks like from up there." Wendy and Carla followed Natsu's eyes upward as they quietly considered Natsu's words, not stopping their strides as they did so. When Natsu's attention came back to the ground, however, gone was whatever softness was there a moment before in favor of a stern look as he met Gray's gaze. "Go on and get loose, Wendy. I'll see what Gray wants."
Wendy's eyes snapped down to meet Gray's with a much more surprised expression over taking hers than Natsu's. He sent her a smile that felt half-hearted to even himself, not quite able to shake his emotions enough to greet the girl properly, before she ran off to follow Natsu's instruction with an enthusiastic skip in her step. Natsu stopped where he was, only a few yards away from Gray, and simply waited. There was no demand for answers like he would expect from Mira or Erza and there definitely wasn't an attempt at carefree small talk like Lucy would try to ease whatever tension there would be with him randomly showing up. Just silent patience for Gray to state why he was there. Realizing this, Gray pushed himself off of the naturally formed wall behind him and sighed before he stood directly in front of the Demon Slayer with his hands digging deeply into his pockets.
"What do you know about Deliora?" Gray asked as directly as possible. There wasn't much of a chance a guy wandering around the lands for years would have heard of the Terror of Brago. It wasn't a tragedy felt nearly as much on this side of the border, but he needed to ask before any unnecessary details got spouted out.
Natsu let his brow furrow and his eyes fall to the ground for a moment, his mind seemingly working hard to scrounge up anything relevant to the question. To his surprise, Gray was met with a look of recognition when he looked up again. "The Demon of Destruction?" He asked with more surety than someone asking a question. At Gray's short nod, Natsu began explaining what he knew. "Big, strong, and can take a lot of hits. I don't think it's very smart, though." Natsu's eyes narrowed again and became unfocused, his brain's work practically visible to the surprised ice mage.
"Uh, right." Gray awkwardly began, cutting off Natsu's distraction as he himself tried to get his thoughts in order. "Well, it attacked some villages in Brago a while back before getting sealed away. It's back and Master is having me lead a team to meet it before it gets to Fiore's border. Do you wanna come?" Any details that would reveal the extent of Gray's familiarity over the subject was dropped in favor of a loose, barely acceptable description of the matter at hand. That barely acceptable description seemed good enough for the man across from him as it was Natsu's turn to look surprised.
"You want me to come along?" He responded with eyebrows rising slightly in noticeable surprise on a normally stern visage.
"Your magic is made to kill these things, right? Why not?" Gray shrugged with what he hoped was a casual shrug of his shoulder. In truth, having someone whose magic was designed exactly for this could only bring Gray peace of mind. A wizard much stronger than he tried her damndest and lost to Deliora, like many others. While Erza and Mira were strong, one of them also specializing in demons, Gray knew better than to think it would be enough. They weren't tasked with slaying it, not really. Master said specifically that they were to take account of its strength and come back to report back to the Council. Gray, however, had no intention of letting it get that far if he could manage it. He was going to leave it at that and wait for Natsu's answer, but Gray's eyes hardened on Natsu in an instant. "You can kill it, right?"
To his surprise, the question wasn't met with anger or anything similar. There were a dozen implications that could have been made for Natsu to bite back at him, but the Demon Slayer let a smile spread across his face. It wasn't the soft thing he gave Wendy when he was being gentle, it wasn't the subtle curl of the lips that was barely perceivable, but a wide smile that displayed white teeth and the canines that sat longer and sharper than the teeth around them. Liveliness that Gray hadn't seen from Natsu came to the forefront as excitement was visible in the dark eyes that focused intently back at him.
"Yeah, we'll kill the damn thing. You can count on it." Natsu said simply, ill-hidden anticipation fluttering within his relatively even tone. Without anything further, Natsu walked past Gray to attend to his pupil that stood in the field behind him. Before he could get too far, Gray called out one last time.
"We leave first thing in the morning!" Gray shouted, louder than he probably needed to make sure the man heard him, and only received a raised hand in confirmation before he watched Natsu join Wendy and immediately charge at her with a certain aggression that felt misplaced for simple training. Knowing he had more people to talk to, Gray ignored the startled shout of Wendy and walked away from the field and toward the guildhall.
Gray's mind was narrowed and his vision tunneled, both to the point that he hardly recognized he arrived at the guild even as he pushed through the threshold to the relatively quiet hall. It was still early in the morning, meaning only a handful of members had arrived, but he was once again in fortune's favor as he saw the three women he had been meaning to see. However, when Gray looked at the expression of his master upon the bar top, he had a sneaking suspicion that those women weren't all here just in time for him by mere coincidence and luck.
"Ah, Gray. A fine morning this is, no?" Master Makarov greeted him with a raise of a wooden mug that seemed to perpetually fill the old man's hand, whichever hand it may be. At the master's words, Erza, Lucy, and Mira all seemed to look from their respective positions at the same time. Lucy was reading a book, conveniently sitting at a circular table just before the bar, lens
covered eyes looking at him with a slightly buggy expression due to the lenses. Mira and Erza both occupied the bar directly, at opposite ends, as Mira spoke hushedly with her sister and Erza quietly sat with a plate before her. Seeing the various eyes gazing expectedly at him, Gray neared the bar and spoke up to all three of them. He didn't really care about the other members who quietly kept to their business around them or if they overheard him.
"Master has given me a mission from the Council to investigate the demon Deliora's encroachment on Fiore in Brago. Are you guys in?" He casually shifted his eyes between the three of them as he spoke, letting them all know who all he was asking. Just as he was with Natsu, his voice was tight and kept the associated emotions that came with the mention of Zeref's demon. It made his words come stiff and more formal than he was used to speaking with.
"You can stop with all the uptight talk, Ice Boy. Erza is much better at the tight-ass stuff than you are." The woman pushed herself off the bar top and walked toward him as she spoke. Gray tensed himself in anticipation of a strike, but was still taken off-guard when it was his scalp harshly roughed up by a mussing hand. Like a child, Gray's hands whipped themselves out of his pockets to slap away her hand. A deep chuckle came from the woman before she retracted her hand. "And you don't have to ask if we're in. We'll kick some demon ass any day."
"Yeah! Of course we'll go with you." Lucy said enthusiastically as she left into a stand from her table, ignoring the glasses that flew from her face to land on the table before her. It only took a moment before her face fell and a heavy frown replaced all enthusiasm. "Aw, but I'll have to pack for the cold, won't I?"
As the girl groaned and grumbled to herself, Erza had removed herself from the bar and tidied up her plate for Lisanna to take before she turned to face Gray with her arms crossed. "Will we be the only ones going? Four is a small group for a demon hunt in another country." At Erza's question, Gray felt himself stiffen slightly at the expectation of the woman's response to his answer. She was right, knowing that a group larger than the group they made for Lullaby would help cover any loss of strength in traveling, but she would also likely not be receptive to who exactly he picked to fill that gap.
"I talked to Natsu before I came here. He seemed…excited to come along." Gray responded carefully, looking between Mira and Lucy for help that they seemed keen on ignoring to watch Erza's reaction. Master Makarov, on the other hand, smiled widely behind his mug before drinking deeply, letting Gray know that he picked right no matter what Erza said.
"Is that prudent?" Came the surprisingly calm and relaxed reply from the woman still standing beside the bar. Her only visible eye trained itself on Gray without any of the heat he was expecting to receive.
"His magic is made for this. Why not?" Again, Gray tried his handle at being aloof when he was anything but. The raised eyebrow of Mira made him think that he wasn't doing a very great job at it, or he was just being paranoid.
"Very well. I suppose we will leave immediately tomorrow?" Erza's acceptance of Natsu's participation wasn't lost on any in the immediate vicinity of the conversation, with even their master quirking his eyebrow at the woman. Still, Gray was able to provide a shallow nod of clarification before Erza continued. "Pack heavily. Brago is far away already and we don't know how deep within the country we will have to go."
With that, Erza left with her customary stamp of authority that already made Gray feel as if she usurped the lead from him. He didn't mind, more so taking the time to let out a sigh of relief now that the small amount of preparation for the mission he had to do was done with. Knowing exactly what he was bringing along with him and how much he planned to take was already considered and dealt with. Suddenly, now that everything was in motion, the heavy, blanketing weight of fatigue settled itself on his shoulders. A battle with his own eyelids began just as he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder, but an unfamiliar gentleness along with it.
"Go sleep, Gray. You look like you've been up all night and we don't need our leader being carried to Brago because he was too dumb to get some shut-eye." While outwardly it would seem like Mira spoke with an edge, Gray knew her well enough to know that this was as much as she would show she cared in public. To anyone that wasn't her siblings, that is. A half-hearted nod and an awkward step to regain the strength in his legs was all he could give her before he walked back toward the door of the guild and in the direction of his home.
Sleep came swiftly and without care of the world around him. It took little more than an hour for Gray to pack for an extended trip northward. While Erza brought notoriety to herself with her proficiency with Requip magic, specifically The Knight, it was commonplace for skilled mages to have a certain degree of skill with it. Gray himself couldn't exchange his normal clothes with a suit of enchanted armor to fit the situation at hand, but he could surely store clothes and necessities that will come with a few days of roughing-it in the wilderness. Once he gathered what was needed for the mission, Gray was found sleeping in his bed a few short minutes later. The stresses of memories, the stresses of the future, and the stresses of negligence of his own body made it easy for him to sleep through the long hours of the day and into the early hours of the next morning.
When he did wake, it took Gray more than a few moments to gather himself from the sleep that felt as if it lasted an instant and an eternity at the same time. He wasn't bothered with dreams or any other intrusions on his rest, only the heavy blanket of darkness that seemed to remain on his mind as he awoke and stumbled from his bed. Groggy muscles, an aching and empty stomach, and a mouth drier than any desert were all handled with a shower and a quickly thrown together breakfast. Still, even with Gray's ambitious sleep and diligent morning routine to get himself in proper order before departing, when he walked out of his front door he was met with the same early hours he just seemed to escape. Nearly a full day of sleep left him uncomfortably maneuvering the morning hours with some discomfort, quietly looking forward to seeing the sun rise and hang overhead as he walked through Magnolia toward the train station.
Being the first to arrive at the station, it was only natural that Gray bought the tickets for the rest of the team. A sleep-fogged mind took a moment to calculate how many tickets that would be, too many faces flashing past his face before he blurted out an errant "six" before he walked back outside and waited for the others with his back against a pillar of the overhang on the platform. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he was greeted with an approaching chorus of familiar squabbling that he knew to expect when he asked who he asked to come with him.
Then he realized that the voices themselves weren't what he was expecting at all.
Lifting his head, Gray turned to the left to see what initially looked like a pair walking toward him, only to realize that there were three approaching at a calmed pace. Natsu and Wendy walked down the road that cut through the center of Magnolia with Carla sitting defiantly upon Wendy's head with her arms crossed and a glare sending daggers toward Natsu who bore whitening knuckles that clung to the sack flung over his shoulder. In response, a deep scowl was sent directly back to Carla from the man as Gray strained to hear the words being sent from one to the other.
"-she had to show you how to work the shower. AGAIN." Carla said in a tone that deviated from her more proper disposition. Frustration was clear and the scoff behind them was biting.
"I've never used one before! You think ponds and rivers have knobs to deal with?" Natsu shot back with palpable frustration, one that reminded Gray of his countless arguments with Elfman, Jet, Droy, Mira, and almost everyone else in Fairy Tail at one point or another. Wendy, meanwhile, just showed a small smile as she continued walking like nothing was out of the ordinary.
"And you expect to be called a guardian of Wendy?"
"I paid for the house and the food, didn't I?"
"Hmpf. That makes you a benefactor, not a guardian."
"Tough talk for someone having flammable fur, cat." Natsu's words became low and threatening, one that would make most quake due to who said them, but Gray watched Carla turn the other way with her eyes closed as if she never heard them. Wendy never acknowledged either of them as she met Gray's eyes and gave him a bright smile that he couldn't help reciprocate with a half-smile of his own.
"Good morning, Gray. I hope you are well." Wendy greeted just as she stopped in front of him. The girl bowed her head shallowly, just enough to match her greeting without knocking Carla off of her head in the meantime. Her greeting was enough to turn the attention of Natsu and Carla away from their argument, both allowing their faces to fall from their frustration and into the impassivity that was more familiar to them. "Sorry about them. Carla isn't a morning person and likes to take it out on Natsu during our morning walks."
Gray couldn't help the chuckle that fell from his lips, but when he went to reply to the girl's explanation he was interrupted by another voice that had snuck up while Gray was distracted by the bickering. "Wendy?! I didn't know you were coming, too."
A timid smile found its way on Wendy's face as she looked over at Lucy who stepped up to the girl's right. The concerned look on Lucy's face drifted from Wendy's to Gray's with a small question in her eyes. He knew that he never told her that Wendy would be tagging along, mostly because he didn't actually know himself. Still, he wasn't surprised to see the young Dragon Slayer by Natsu's side. There wasn't much time in the last few days where they were seen separate from each other, like the girl had herself a guardian Demon Slayer watching over her.
"Natsu told me that Gray invited us to a mission with Brago. Right, Natsu?" Wendy turned her curiosity to the other side of her to see a calmly nodding Natsu. "I was surprised when he told me, but I'll do my best to be of service!" The enthusiasm of the younger girl was enough to halt any protests from Lucy in their tracks. Big brown eyes looked at the determined visage of little Wendy and could only sigh to herself before she moved to stand next to him. There was a moment of pause as Wendy shared whispers with Carla and Natsu took a scan of their surroundings that Lucy used to lean over slightly to Gray.
"You didn't ask her to come, did you?" Lucy asked with too much surety to be a real question. Nodding to confirm her already strong suspicions, Gray watched an unsure look pass on the woman's face for a few moments. "I hope he knows what he's doing." Came a mumble that seemed more personal than a statement directed at him.
Everything calmed down for a time, a comfortable peace settling over the Fairy Tail mages on the train platform. They only awaited two more before they would be ready for their train. It didn't take long for those two to reveal themselves on the same road the rest of them arrived upon, though it was questionable to see the both of them walking together. In an interesting twist of circumstance, there wasn't a single heated comment between the two senior Fairy Tail mages as they approached. From what Gray could tell, there was quiet, serious discussion that flew between the two of them before halting upon their arrival. Gray let his suspicion of their conversation run through his mind, but none of it was allowed to show on his face as the pair looked upon the gathered group. Those two teaming up can't be good for anyone. Especially me.
"Look what we have here." Mira's taunting voice was quick to end any peace and divert attention away from whatever conspiracy she was planning with Erza, who walked to Gray's opposite side while Mira stopped next to Natus's free shoulder. The woman's gaze was focused tightly on Natsu, a blue piercing glare firing from only feet away. To his credit, Natsu met the glare with an ease that Gray could be impressed with. Even Wendy, who hadn't yet taken the brunt of such a look, seemed to shy away from it. "You show up here with a bag slung on your back and your trainee tagging along with you? I'm willing to bet you didn't even pack anything useful to bring with you."
Gray watched as Mira snatched the pack from Natsu and began rummaging through it before the Demon Slayer could get over his surprise. "Bandages, Wendy's clothes, a folded pillow, and a rolled blanket. Why the hell did you even bother packing anything?" Mira was practically laughing outright by the time she reached the bottom of the long brown bag as Wendy became progressively covered with the red tint of embarrassment from the other side of Natsu. A mysterious feeling of pleasure bubbled within Gray's chest as he watched someone new be exposed to the same irritant that he had growing up. Doubly so with both Natsu and Wendy seemingly taking Mira's goading in different amusing ways. A scowl that deeply settled itself on Natsu's face met the mirth that danced on Mira's before the man snatched his pack from her again and threw it back over his shoulder.
"Wendy isn't used to traveling too far, so we brought some things. You got a problem with it?" Natsu bit out in a grumble as his eyes sent his threatening words toward all that were gathered. Gray raised his hands in mock surrender when the man's dark eyes made their way to him, only to receive an even sharper glare in return.
"Do not worry. It may be dangerous and unfamiliar to you, but we will all make sure you are protected." Whatever light air came from Mira's teasing instantly heaved itself at Erza's stiff words. Or, that's what it felt like to Gray. Looking over to his right, Gray couldn't see any visible frustration, or truly anything aside from her usual stiff face and rigid posture. Still, the sentiment was as clear as it needed to be: Erza wasn't a fan of Wendy being brought along. That being said, while the older mages of the group felt the weight of Erza's words, Wendy seemed to glow at them.
"Thank you, Miss Erza. I hope I won't be too much of a burden to you all here." Again, Gray watched as Wendy bowed in her continued display of manners and pleasantries that was far beyond Fairy Tail and its members. The woman to his left, however, didn't see it nearly as out of place. Shocking.
"Aw, you won't be a burden, Wendy. I'm sure you'll kick just as much butt as the rest of us." Dainty fingers couldn't help but pinch and shake the round cheeks of the younger girl with only the smallest bit of resistance from Wendy. The only thing that pried Lucy from her infatuation with Wendy's cuteness was the distant whistle of their train arriving from the south. All else halted as Gray made sure to distribute the tickets that he accidentally procured correctly, before it arrived in the station.
Time and distance. That was all that separated him from a literal demon of his past. Well, he supposed that was always the case, but now both time and distance were actively being covered to ensure the two would meet again. The train ride was a long one that rode the line as far north as the tracks would take them. Fortunately, conversation flowed between them with a regularity that kept the time from dragging too much, though to say he was an active participant most of the time would be an overstatement. Thoughts of memories buried deep within him were freely running through his mind for the first time in years, closing any interest in Lucy's talk of the running fads, Erza's thoughts on consequence and responsibility, or Mira's overall aggressive nature toward most things. Wendy's presence shifted the normal balance of the conversation, with questions and curiosity steering topics differently than Gray was used to hearing and grabbing his interest to chime in from time to time. Yet, more often than not, Gray found himself simply listening with only the occasional word when it was passed his way, much like Natsu.
Their arrival at Rose Garden was a brief stop to grab insanely overpriced food before they walked straight through to direct themselves further north and toward Fiore's northern border. Coaches were lined up at every entrance of the incredibly wealthy town, but when Wendy asked if they would take one all of their answers were the same. "It's not worth the money." It wasn't because the coaches were that expensive, even if they were, but because they could set a pace that wouldn't lag too far behind what the wheelhouse would move at and they didn't have to keep the schedule of the horses that pulled it. They walked down the worn path that cut through fields of overgrown grass that stretched across land that was more flat than it wasn't. Aside from the subtle swells, one could almost see flat across the path without issue.
As they walked, now that there wasn't a cabin and booths keeping them all tightened together, the six of them, or seven if Carla was counted separately from the girl she perched herself upon, would bounce between their own conversations. Lucy and Gray would walk amongst themselves, with Mira floating vaguely between them and the pair of Slayers that lagged a few steps behind them. Erza, as always, took the lead and only fell back to speak to them when she overheard something interesting or her own thoughts came bubbling up. They walked until the light was slowly lost and the sun made its trek down toward the evening horizon. As it did, the group simply veered off the road a distance to set up a small camp that was out of the way enough not to encounter any stray passersby and travelers that would be walking the road at night.
Their camp was nothing special. Grass that swished and slid across their lower legs was stamped down with a blazing orange lacrima sitting at the center of the rough flooring ejecting light and heat the same way a campfire would. A rough circle was formed around the lacrima, spaced evenly enough that each of the mages had their own space when it came time to bunk down. As it was, Gray, Erza, Lucy, and Mira were seated with Carla lingering toward the edge of their camp as she kept an eye on the final two of their group. Despite spending a day walking, and facing down many more days just like it, Natsu still found it necessary to drag Wendy away from their camp and deeper into the empty field to resume whatever training regime they started days ago.
Gray found his own eyes following the silently observant ones of Carla as he let his packaged meal heat itself by their lacrima. In a marriage of technology and magic, in Levy's words, meals could be carried without having to worry about it going bad so long as you had water and heat. While it was geared more toward individual mercenaries, wizard guilds often stocked up on these meals for jobs just like this. Small packages sizzled around the magical heater as empty air was filled with the grunts and calls from the pair of Slayers that threw themselves at each other without pause.
Magic flared consistently, bursts of air adding to the already breezy evening with urgent calls from Wendy that carried easily through the air. Fire was rarely seen, and even when it was there was little more than a free embers that shone brightly in the darkening field, but there was no arguments as to who led the exchanges. Natsu went at Wendy with an unexpected aggression, or unexpected when it came to Wendy herself. The girl was gentle, kind, and the most polite member in what was probably Fairy Tail history. Despite Natsu's rougher characteristics, even Gray had to admit that he hadn't expected to see the man be so relentless.
Another strong gust of wind carried from the improvised training ground and Gray watched as Wendy took a heavy punch that landed mostly on her shoulder before she had to expel her magic in a spell that couldn't be heard clearly to avoid the leg swinging closely behind the punch. Natsu shrugged off the burst of wind, doing no more than snapping his loose clothing behind his body in a heavy wave. The man had closed whatever retreating distance Wendy gathered in a step with a snapping front kick leading his charge. That, too, didn't land flush on the small girl's body, but it landed enough for her to go tumbling backward. To Wendy's credit, she found her footing again almost instantly and was already preparing to fight off the next take without so much as a breath in between.
"Isn't he being kinda…rough on her?" Lucy hedged her question with some hesitation in her voice. It was clear she didn't know what to expect from training, as Dragon Slaying magic is a mystery to almost all, but she was right to question the intensity of it. "It looks like he's just beating her up."
"It should have been expected when we learned that Master would allow him to handle Wendy's training. All we can do is make sure he doesn't go too far." Erza leaned forward to jostle her food a little, turning it so the opposite side of the sturdy bag received heat from the bright lacrima. Gray mimicked her actions, knowing that Erza probably whipped these out more than he ever would. While convenient while in the middle of nowhere, Gray was more likely to just push through his travels to the next town to get fresh food. There was no evidence that Erza didn't eat these as an enjoyable meal.
Surprisingly, instead of Mira injecting her own biting comment, it was Carla that spoke up. As she talked, there wasn't a moment that the winged-feline removed her attention from the roughly sparring Slayers. "He's doing it to help her." Carla said with what was probably the first kind word she's said about Natsu that Gray's ever heard, the camp's attention quickly centering on the back of the cat's head as she continued. "She wanted him to make her strong. She wants to be able to fight when she has to. She doesn't want to be helpless. Natsu isn't helpless and he's showing her how not to be."
Carla's words were spoken so solemnly and with so much earnestness that it halted any other word from the rest of them as eyes shifted back to the training session. They were just in time to see Wendy launching a falling heel kick to drop on Natsu's head, only for it to be caught and the girl launched away with double the speed and ferocity she fell. There were no breaks, there was no pausing, and there was no chance of recovery. Go. Continue. Fight. Survive. That's all there was. At that moment, watching the young girl get back up and immediately toss herself out of the way of a violent elbow that cut right through where her head was, Gray understood. He remembered being the young kid giving his all to be worth a damn when it counted. Even if it was far too late.
Snow made his every step slower, heavier, and more draining. It reached just below his knees, just low enough that he could move around with a fair bit of control, but it was quickly showing him how weak he was as he had to move his legs into sudden action to evade a beautiful blue rose blooming into life in a burst of magic. He had been at it for hours. If he hadn't naturally had an affinity to ice magic, as most in the mountains were, he'd have lost to hypothermia long ago. Instead, he was losing to his own will as his body protested every movement, those protests slowing him enough for the outermost petals of ice cut behind his right shoulder and sending him sprawling in the deep snow from the force.
The cold surrounded him, blanketing him from any thought of heat or warmth as Gray's young body was buried within the white sea. Lungs heaved, although with less than great results due to the confines of dense white flakes around him, and his body protested the thought of pushing himself up and out of the hole that quickly filled behind him. There was a gruff call from the surface, one that his ears couldn't quite catch the particulars of, but he could get the general idea. He's heard it for months now. Instead of heeding the call, and the harsh comments that likely followed, Gray let his tired eyes fall closed. Where his body felt no warmth, just the numbing cold of the snow he lay in, his mind felt it bloom as he succumbed to his fatigue.
Then a hand roughly grabbed the waistband of his boxers and yanked him from whatever peace he had found.
"Did I tell ya it was break time, kid? I don't think so. I think I told ya to get out of the way." Ur stood above him with her hands on her hips and her eyebrow raised in questioning. Outwardly, it was probably an odd sight. A woman in her underwear chastising a boy in his boxers as another boy watched with his hands on his knees and his mouth hanging open to gasp for breath wasn't what most would call normal. It was to them. This was how you learned to properly use ice. Becoming entirely familiar with the element inside and out was the only way to access the power of one of nature's elements. However normal it was, that didn't make it easy. "Well?"
"I can barely move, U– MASTER Ur. I just need a break." The young kid, not quite a teenager, practically panted out his response but did little to impress his frowning teacher. Squatting down, Ur snatched what was left of Gray's attention that wasn't clouded by fatigue with severe eyes and a face of steel.
"You want to get strong, right?" She asked tersely, getting an immediate nod from him. "You want to put that demon down? Get revenge for what it's done to everyone? What it's done to you?" Again, Gray could only nod, though his head fell to look at the hands clenching in his own lap. "Then stand your scrawny ass up and get to it. A little ice won't bring it down. If you want to get past this you have to lose all this." Ur vaguely waved her hand to indicate the entirety of Gray, making him scowl in confusion. "All this weakness. It's got to go. Only the strong get up, only the strong crawl back for more, and only the strong can finish a job they already failed to do. So, get up."
With that, Ur stood and took her position at a spot near the centerpoint between Gray and his fellow trainee. Looking up, Gray caught the determined gaze of a boy the same age as him with wild spiked hair that was a blue so pale it was almost white, like the ice they were training to wield. Gray stood, sharing a nod with the boy opposite to him before they both charged their teacher with a battle cry.
The exhausted body of Wendy falling down a few feet to his left brought Gray from his memories, the dull thud of a dead weight distracting him from times he rarely thought about these days. Another memory of the past coming back to haunt him. Doing his best to look as if he hadn't fallen into an intense recollection, Gray leaned forward and grabbed his dinner from near the warm lacrima. Tearing open the bag and letting the smells of reheated pork, rice, and many dried out vegetables fill his nose before a fork flashed into his hand in a burst of magic. Flat flavors and rough estimates of what it should be filled Gray's mouth as he looked over to a much more fresh Natsu taking a calm seat next to Wendy. What caught Gray off-guard was the pleased look on Natsu's face that so starkly contrasted the look of fatigue that seemed to be closer and closer to falling asleep. Before the girl could, however, another pair of lighter thumps fell to the ground before Natsu.
"Don't sleep yet, Wendy. I caught us dinner on the way back." Hearing Natsu's words, looking at what was now laid before him, Gray cast an inquisitive look across the small camp with an eyebrow raised. Thankfully, he wasn't the only confused one as he gripped the tough bag of his own dinner while Natsu indicated a dead rabbit and snake that lay before him as "dinner." The Demon Slayer nudged at the laying girl, who then had the aid of Carla pushing on her slowly rising body to help her get into a rocking sit as she looked at the animals. "I usually have to look around more to find anything in these big ass fields, but these two shot in front of me while we were walking back."
As he spoke, Natsu used his fingers and fingernails, which seemed much sharper than Gray had known them to be, to start working on the pelt of the rabbit. Smoke rose and embers glinted as his fingers dug into the small animal and peeled back its fur with less than appetizing sounds coming from it. Still, Gray watched with morbid fascination as Wendy scooted closer and watched every move Natsu made and hung onto every word he spoke as he explained how to do it. Namely, by letting the animals bleed out everything if you didn't have fire to evaporate it like he did.
"Natsu! What the hell are you doing? We have food right here?" Lucy tossed one of the still sealed meals that they were going to prepare for the Slayers while they settled themselves after training, the bag tumbling uselessly to the side of Natsu and relatively out of the way of his work. Without even looking up from the leg he was working around, Natsu responded in a sedate tone of focus.
"Wendy will have to know how to do this, too. Eating a rabbit with burnt fur sucks and taking off the fur is a pain in the ass the first few times." Carefully, the man slowly and efficiently relieved the dead animal of its pelt and held it in his hand to show a mystified Wendy as she looked between the two parts of the once whole rabbit.
"Seriously, right when I thought you couldn't get any more uncouth you have to skin a dead animal in front of everyone." Carla shook her head in disappointment from Wendy's side, retaking the tone and attitude Gray was used to seeing her take with the man.
"Seriously, dude. What kind of fucked up teacher are you?" Mira asked just before the rabbit was ignited with a small blaze that was carefully wrapped around the animal's body in Natsu's hand. The flames didn't eat away or char the rabbit as one would expect, but delicately seemed to cook it like any other kitchen appliance would. Once the flames were doused, the rabbit looked as if it sat above a fire roasting along with their bags of food the whole time the group had been camped. Passing on the rabbit to Wendy, Natsu began his work on the snake with the same ease as before.
Taking another bite of his bagged dinner, Gray frowned as he watched Wendy take a healthy bite of the thigh of her rabbit. Despite the awkwardness of the handling of her food, or the oddness of the food itself, Gray was jealous to see the grease flow from the bite as the exhausted girl dug in.
"I guess I'm learning how to skin rabbits on this trip." Gray said to nobody as the silence of a peaceful meal filled the camp.
The rest of their travels followed that same pattern. They made their way north for as long as they had decent light and refreshed bodies. When camp was made, Wendy and Natsu would train and food would be eaten before settling for the night. Conversation was never pushed but was kept healthy between Mira, Lucy, and Wendy even if the other three mages were more reserved as they walked. When Mira was bored, she tended to pick fights with one of them, which Gray would usually bite on to keep his own sanity. It all felt natural. Even as the grassy fields thinned, the air cooled, and the mountains that were on the horizon came much to the forefront, nothing seemed to be a point of contention for the group.
When they got to the mountain ranges, however, that changed. Gray felt his entire being tense as he overtook the lead from Erza to walk down roads he hadn't for many years. Still, they were clear in his mind as they navigated themselves into the old roads of towns long lost. No longer did Gray feel keen on jumping at Mira's invitations to fight, Lucy's random questions of conversation, or Wendy's boundless curiosities. His silence was thick and unencroached upon as his eyes never strayed from right in front of them. Gray expected it to just appear before them without warning, towering above them all with a violent green burst of magic charging to annihilate them in an instant. While it never happened as they traveled, it always happened as he slept. Nightmares of burning villages, demonic magic, and seals of ice were ever-draining on his rest.
They never knew how far away the beast was supposed to be, they just knew it was directing itself to the south. It could have been any day that they found the titanic demon causing destruction around them and they would spring into battle. Though, that never truly came to be. It started with a flake of snow. A snowflake that flew past Gray's face to catch his attention. Furrowing his brow at the flake of snow, Gray looked up to the heavy blanket of gray clouds that were perpetually hanging above them no matter the time of day or year. More flakes burst past his vision, warning him of the wall that followed them. Within moments, all that was around him was a storm of flurries that whipped every which way and darkened the world around them further than it already was due to the overcast.
"This storm came out of nowhere! We should take cover!" Erza called from immediately behind him, but Gray was too focused to answer with any coherent words. Instead, there was a slow shake of his head in place of a true response as Gray's eyes turned upward again. While it had been a while since Gray lived in the mountains, he still knew when snow was imminent. Every winter he was asked dozens of times a day when the next snowfall would be, be it for actual information or as some kind of parlor trick. This wasn't a snow storm.
For him, for them, it was only despair that blanketed over their humble group.
I've started my first real job out in the world. Out here engineering fr. Living out of hotels is back on the menu now. Still, stories have to be updated and chapters written, even if I'm just getting to that second bit. worry not, the immediate plot points following in this story is still strong in the mind