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February 13th, X779

Lucy wasn't sure how far she could push her little corner of newly found immortality before it gave out and summoned Erza again, but she was fairly sure she'd come close. Her fingers were slick with golden ichor as she stumbled over the ruined deck, hand pressed firmly over the wound on her leg. It bled heavily, leaving a steady trail of blood for someone or something to follow. She hardly noticed.

"Gray?" she called hoarsely when she reached the door he'd vanished through only a few minutes before things had gone sideways. She still wasn't sure what had happened. They'd been traveling steadily towards where Gray claimed he could feel what he called a "cluster of gods," which just so happened to be near the cursed Hyacinth. He'd commented that something didn't feel right, that he needed to check his ship out. He'd promised to be back within a few minutes.

Instead, the Borealis has slammed into Hyacinth itself at full speed. Lucy didn't recall much about that part. Mostly a massive force, the sound of screaming metal, and pain in her leg as she ripped a shard of metal out of it.

Leaning heavily on her good leg, Lucy stared into the depths of the Borealis, stomach twisting with fear. The hair was standing on the back of her neck and chills crept down her spine. It wasn't like when she'd felt Gray nearby though. "Gray!" she yelled into the darkness, but there was no response.

So, Lucy swallowed her fear, plucked up Aquarius's key, and descended into the belly of the Borealis.

Somehow, they made it to the wreck. Natsu wasn't sure how, since he knew they all felt the difference the moment they crossed into cursed waters. Even Wendy had taken notice, hugging Charle close as the air grew thick and uncomfortable. Levy had used a fraction of what power she had left to will some plantlife to pull them the rest of the way to shore in order to keep them from entering the water. Much to their horror, the plants had withered and died within minutes.

Adjusting her diale so that it was more secure atop her head, Levy turned in a slow circle on the rocky shore and said, "Definitely cursed. I can feel it sticking to my feet. Can't you?"

Gajeel stomped a foot thoughtfully. "Wasn't cursed when I was here last time. The curse came after. I'd say it was the witch, but she left a long time ago."

"Mira wouldn't have cursed an entire town even if she was here," pointed out Natsu. He threw Wendy a look, and she nodded, stepping closer. She shivered and buried her face in Charle's fur for comfort. She'd stick close. Natsu wished she was safe on the shore, though it wasn't much better than this.

As settled as they were going to get on cursed land, Natsu took in the wreckage of the Borealis. Perhaps "wreckage" was the wrong word; the ship wasn't in too bad of condition despite the crash. Sure, the hull had been torn open as if the ship had struck an iceberg, and there was definitely some type of damage where metal seemed to have ripped apart on the deck, but the good majority of the ship was actually intact.

"Well," said Levy, sounding as excited about it as Natsu felt, "shall we then? There's a ladder over there." She pointed at a part of the ship near some tattered remains of the docks, where a metal ladder was embedded in the side of the Borealis.

They picked their way along what remained of the docks, reaching the ladder with little to no issues. Gajeel ascended first, clambering up swiftly enough to make Natsu roll his eyes. He was definitely showing off. When he gave the all clear, Natsu eyed Happy, trying to figure out how he was going to get him up. "Here," he muttered, shrugging off his coat. "Give me Charle."

He made a sling of sorts out of his coat, bundling the two cats into it. Neither were all that pleased, but at least Charle didn't seem to blame Happy for it as Natsu slung it over his shoulder and sent Wendy up next. He let Levy go third, and then went up last himself. When he reached the top, he dumped Charle and Happy onto the deck and took in the damage. His stomach twisted at what he found.

It was still and utterly silent. Seeing as the Borealis was an extension of Gray, it was even more concerning. Metal had been ripped up in some places, crumpled by the impact of hitting the–

"It doesn't like it hit land," said Natsu, puzzled. "It looks like he ran it straight into a wall."

Gajeel grunted his agreement, eyeing the damage. "Or scraped alongside it."

"Natsu," whispered Wendy, pointing. He followed her gaze and uttered a soft curse when he saw the trail of gold. There was a significant pool of it at one end of the deck. It led to a hatch that had been cracked open. Past the door, they could see nothing but the darkness beyond. Clenching his jaw, Natsu made his way towards it and peered into the dimness waiting on the other side. The trail of blood led straight down into the workings of the Borealis. When he listened, he heard nothing.

"We'll have to go inside," he said, running a hand through his hair as he looked back.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," said Levy. Natsu didn't blame her for the uncertainty written over her face or the fear that crept into her voice. None of them had ever been inside the Borealis. Atop it, on the deck, certainly, but never below. Gray never let them. He only allowed people to parade around on the deck if they were given the privilege of setting foot on his beloved vessel.

"I don't think it matters if it's a good idea or not, Levy." They had to find out what had happened – not just for Gray's sake, but for their own. Juvia would ensure they never knew peace again if they didn't. On top of that, Gray was the only one who knew for sure what had happened with Lucy's soul, and Natsu wanted answers. He'd been craving them for months now, and with what he wanted so close he could practically taste it…he wasn't about to let a dark doorway scare him away.

"Natsu? I don't think I want to go in there."

Natsu was startled by the admission. Wendy watched him nervously as she wound her fingers behind her back, as if she wasn't sure what he'd think of her statement. "Grandeeney…I can't hear her in the wind here, Natsu," she said softly as a breeze tossed her hair about, as if trying to speak with her and coming up unsuccessful. "I've never been unable to hear her before."

Natsu meandered over to where Wendy stood, giving her a reassuring smile. "You don't have to if you really don't want to." Not that he'd been planning on bringing her with him regardless. It was far too dangerous. "We need someone to keep an eye on Happy and Charle anyways."

She fidgeted with her coat sleeve, eyes on her feet. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Natsu ruffled her hair affectionately. "I'd rather you be safe anyways." He met Levy's gaze over Wendy's head, and she offered a small nod. She'd keep Wendy safe. "Why don't you and Levy go search for those supplies you wanted? Take Charle and Happy with you. If that idiot's hurt, we might need 'em anyways." Gray was a god, and he should have been okay, even if injured, but with the cursed lands they'd stepped foot onto…anything was possible right now.

Wendy seemed relieved, though there was still some guilt. "You'll be careful, right?" she asked him, looking up now. There was a desperate, fierce gleam in her eyes as she grabbed his arm and squeezed it gently. "I don't want to lose you, too. I don't want to be alone again. Lucy…Lucy promised she'd be around, but she isn't anymore. So you have to come back."

Natsu's heart ached as he opened his arms. Wendy immediately threw her own around his waist, hiding her face in his chest. Wrapping her up in a tight hug, Natsu whispered in her ear, "I'll be back, safe and sound. We'll meet back by our boat by sunfall, okay?" He ensured he was just loud enough to be overheard, sure that Levy would hear his unsaid request: get Wendy to shore if he wasn't back by then.

Wendy sucked in a sharp breath and then squeezed him one more time. "Okay. Come on, Charle," she said as she pulled away. She threw one final look at Natsu, worried, before hurrying back to where Levy waited at the side of the deck, near the ladder they'd climbed. Natsu was glad they'd hidden their things on the mainland outside of one empty backpack, which Wendy put Charle in to carry her down.

As Levy began helping Wendy down from the ship, Natsu realized Gajeel had come to stand only a foot or so away from him. "I ain't leavin' Levy alone – not here," he told him.

Natsu wasn't surprised. He'd expected it, even. "As long as Wendy's safe," was all he said.

Gajeel snorted, striding across the deck. "She ain't half bad. I'll keep an eye on her and her cat," he added over his shoulder. "Try not to get yours killed."

Natsu was briefly confused until he realized Happy had abandoned Wendy, bounding across the deck to sit at his feet. Wendy tried to call Happy back, but Natsu waved her off. He'd keep Happy with him, he supposed. He was good luck, after all, and he'd need good luck. He was willingly heading into a situation that he'd never encountered before.

"Hey, Salamander!"

Natsu glanced up. Gajeel hovered at the edge of the ship, halfway through climbing over the side. Wendy and Levy, with Charle in tow, had both vanished already. Gajeel was surprisingly serious when he asked, "What happened to Lucy?"

Natsu was taken aback, not having expected the question from Gajeel of all people. Usually he just plain out didn't care about those around him and what they felt or thought – excluding Levy. He seemed to genuinely care now though. Natsu answered hoarsely, "Levy left a cut on her neck that made her sick." He swallowed thickly, fighting back that familiar swell of pain. "She…she died before we made it to Igneel."

Gajeel considered his answer for a heartbeat, and then said, "That's why you weren't here when I came before. You didn't know 'bout Loke?"

"Wendy and I had to come from the mountains. It took a while. And no. There was a weird thing, I guess; we saw his constellation when we shouldn't have." Natsu frowned at Gajeel, tugging the scarf from his mouth. "Why does it matter? It's not like Loke' shere now. Look, I have to go find Gray–"

Gajeel rolled his eyes as if it were Natsu dragging the conversation out. Natsu considered walking away if only to spite him. "Look. Dunno if I was just seeing shit or somethin' then, but your little Favored looked pretty damn alive when I saw her hangin' around here with Loke. Can't remember what they were doing, but…"

It was as if the world had stopped spinning. Pain splintered through Natsu's chest, fresh and new, as if Lucy had taken her last breath only seconds ago rather than months in the past. "That's not funny, Gajeel."

"I ain't fuckin' with you, Natsu. Swear it on Levy's flower crown." Gajeel was entirely serious. "She wasn't human anymore, but it was her. It was Lucy."

Lucy. He claimed he'd seen Lucy. Not just her soul, but her, and she'd been walking, talking, and breathing, as she had months ago, before she'd fallen ill and he'd let Erza take her from him. He could scarcely swallow a gulp of air at the thought. At the same time, however, he realized a few things. It had been Loke who'd stolen her soul then? What would Loke want with the soul of one of Natsu's Favored? It wasn't as if he could do anything with it. Except… "You said she wasn't human?"

Gajeel swung a leg over, fully prepared to start climbing down the ladder after the other two. "Dunno what she was, but definitely not human. Didn't feel like anythin' I've ever felt before. Little like Erza's shadow, but not really." Gajeel waved him off. "I figured you should know. Levy said somethin' about Gray losing her soul, and thought it might help, I guess."

And then, Gajeel was gone, as if he'd not just changed the axis of Natsu's whole world. Natsu lunged after him, wanting better answers, but Gajeel was already gone, trailing after Levy and Wendy as they made their way up the broken docks. They even stopped to wait for him when Gajeel called out.

Natsu shoved a hand through his hair, bewildered. Gods knew when they came across other gods, and Gajeel wasn't a god like Gray, who'd never encountered a god newer to the life than he was. If Gajeel said she hadn't been a god, then she wasn't. Mavis wasn't around to do anything either. So how had the likes of Loke done anything that would even come remotely close to–

He shut down those thoughts, clenching his jaw. He wouldn't go down that road. Maybe Gajeel didn't know what he'd seen, or maybe it had simply been Lucy's soul. He refused to consider anything else. He wouldn't let that hope curl to life only to be squashed flat when he turned around.

Regardless, it was Gray he needed to focus on now.

Grimacing, Natsu turned back to the door that would take him down into the Borealis. "Right. C'mon, Happy. Let's go find ourselves a god."

Lucy had never been on a boat before the Fall. Not even a little canoe. Anything she'd expected when standing on one had come from movies – especially in a situation like the current one she found herself. She expected dangerous creatures, like the Vhalis, to be roving the hallways she limped through, or for steam to burst into her face, or for red lights to flash.

Instead, the Borealis was eerily silent. She could hear her own breathing, her own footsteps. There wasn't even a creak as she followed the metal pathways down another level, unnerved by the cavernous space around her. There was some light from the hole in the hull at least, which stretched from the top to the bottom of the ship. Lucy wondered how Gray intended to repair it – if he even could.

At least Gray was alive. She could tell simply by the way her breath puffed in front of her face, how her fingers stuck to the frost-covered railing, how her feet slipped on icy steps and metal paths. Her breath rasped in her dry throat as she tightened her fingers around Aquarius's coin.

She wasn't ashamed to admit she was scared right at that moment. Before now, in this kind of situation, she'd had backup. And not just any backup, but literal gods. At least one, if not two, who usually knew what was happening. Now…well, she was alone. So, Lucy took a deep breath and called into the otherwise silent ship, "Gray?"

Silence answered at first.

A low rumbling snarl followed.

"...not Gray," whispered Lucy, voice cracking when something shifted. She heard what sounded like fur brushing against a hard surface, the flicking of claws on metal that creaked beneath something heavy.

Definitely not Gray–

The coin blazed hot between her fingers as something seized her by the arm. A scream almost escaped her, but before it could eek out, a hand clamped over her mouth. "Not a sound," whispered a voice she knew in her ear. Gray. His breath rattled, as if he was struggling to breathe. Where his hand touched her skin stung sharply beneath the cold ice that developed.

Lucy nodded to show she understood. His hand fell from her mouth. He kept a grip on her arm, and Lucy didn't hesitate to press Aquarius's coin against his skin, so that he'd feel the heat, too. Gray ripped his arm away from it, breathing out sharply from his nose, but said nothing. Still, he seemed to recognize what she meant. Together, the pair hurried back in the direction Lucy had come as something snuffled and clawed its way through the ship behind them.

When they were far enough, Gray dropped to the metal pathway beneath them and rested his back against the railing. He gasped for breath, cursing under what little he had. Lucy crouched beside him, still worried. "Gray, what is that thing?" she whispered.

He laughed breathlessly. "Juvia said the place was cursed, remember?"

"Yeah, but a curse isn't…" She trailed off, realizing she didn't actually know all that much about curses. They'd never come up in her time with Natsu. "I don't understand."

"To be honest? I don't know much either. I've never seen it in person before. Just heard little bits and pieces from the others."

Lucy shivered at the thought. So both of them were relatively clueless when it came to curses. Great. Juvia should have offered them more information then she had, but Lucy supposed they weren't supposed to be dealing with it on their own. They'd said they would find Natsu first.

Gray let out a soft, shaken breath. "I could feel it the second we hit cursed waters," he muttered, heaving himself back to his feet with great effort. Lucy wanted to help, but decided against it. She'd have trouble getting up, too. Her injury was patching itself up swifter than anything she'd gotten before she'd entered the mountains with her friends, but not quickly enough for her to be at peak condition for what was happening. "It was stupid of me to go check it out on my own. We should have gone back out to the open sea. Juvia would have helped me out. It caught me off guard."

And whatever "it" was had clearly done some serious damage, though Lucy saw only glimpses. She knew he was bleeding; she could hear the steady dripping of blood, though it could have been hers. Gray leaned heavily on the railing he'd used to get back up. "I thought we were avoiding cursed waters," she said.

"It was an accident," he admitted. "I was aiming for the shore. The curse went out further than I thought it did."

Lucy nodded, glancing over her shoulder. Something bellowed furiously far below them and she shivered. "Let's get out of here. We can figure out what to do once we're away from the Borealis–"

"I can't just leave it like this." Gray's voice was thick with pain at the mere thought of leaving it. "This ship is a part of me, Lucy."

If that were true, then Lucy wondered if he could feel the damage the Borealis had taken when it had crashed. It sounded ridiculous, but it wouldn't have surprised her. "Well," she said, "you and I can't deal with this on our own, Gray, so let's go find help. Juvia might be willing, or Natsu, if we can find him. Then we'll deal with whatever's–"

Her words were silenced by a loud shriek that made both of them jump. Lucy found herself grabbing Gray's arm in a white-knuckled grim, trembling. Had the creature followed them? No, she thought, answering her own question; Aquarius's coin remained cool to the touch.

"The hell is that?" breathed Gray. It worried Lucy further that he was scared, too. She'd never seen the gods scared, not like Gray was now. She'd seen Natsu's despair when Erigor had carved into her like a Christmas turkey, but nothing like the sheer terror on Gray's pale face.

"I…don't know," whispered Lucy.

They listened when the sound came again, this time closer. Lucy's heart raced in her chest, thumping so hard she felt sick. "We should go," she told Gray, tugging at his arm, and he grunted his agreement.

She attempted to help him straight from where he'd slumped against the railing, but her plans went right out the window, for something hit Lucy's ankles so hard with another shriek that she hit the metal platform they stood on, made easier by the ice Gray had unintentionally crafted. Gray yelped, stumbling a step to keep his own balance when she nearly took him out in the process. "What the hell–"

Something lept onto her chest, creating a small, heavy weight that perched there. Lucy blinked back the stars in her eyes. Her breath caught as a soft purr filled her ears, and her eyes burned with unshed tears as a small, delicate nose brushed her own, followed by a little tongue that felt like sandpaper against her skin. " Happy?" she choked out, voice cracking, and she couldn't help the strangled laugh that escaped her when he chirped in response to his name. She sat up and crushed the cat to her chest with a happy sob, burying her face in his fur. He squirmed, but couldn't seem to stop purring.

"You're kidding me," said Gray, bewildered. "What's he doing here?"

Lucy stilled, heart skipping a beat for a different reason this time.

Because if Happy was close by, then so was–

It started out quiet. A soft, low hum that settled in the air. Within moments it crept to a screeching cry that pierced through the ship, splitting the air and forcing Lucy to clap her hands over her ears. It screamed at them in a way Lucy had never heard, echoing off the metal of the ship. The sound seemed to fracture off of itself and amplify all at the same time.

It was entirely different from anything Lucy had heard previously, but familiar all the same.

Natsu.

The creature hunting the gods roared below.

YOU ALL THOUGHT THE OFFICIAL REUNION WOULD HAPPEN HERE. I'M HERE TO DISAPPOINT. At least Happy found her? ;)

Writing this chapter was so fun. I absolutely LOVE stretching out anticipatory moments in big situations like this.

Thank you for all of the nice comments and concern! The dog bite is not nearly as bad as it could have been, and I'm back on track. It's always really kind of you guys to understand that real life takes a priority sometimes. I'm working hard to stay on schedule, and I'm truly grateful for everyone's patience. AND WE HIT 600 REVIEWS! Thank you so much! With that in mind...

Perhaps a reunion next chapter will show my gratitude?

Thanks to reviewers (DREAMCHASING, Meow Orbit, takeagamble27, 123kjfb, InWonderl4nd, marn-marn, xennia-x, hopelesskar, BurstingDragons, queenuly14, Sanspree, galactiaconstella, nerdalertwarning, TaraPasty, Guest #1, Jellal Frenandes, & littlepocky!) as well as those who favorited and followed!