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July 7th, X778

"It's supposed to be summer," seethed Lucy as she wrung out her hair, glaring out at the rain from the safety of the cave they'd taken shelter in. She trembled almost as badly as Wendy, who was clutching her blanket around her tightly as she warmed herself by the weak fire a very frustrated Natsu had built for them. A violent shiver wracked Lucy's body, forcing her to drop her hair and let it hang loose over her shoulders.

Natsu watched them both anxiously, clearly understanding the dangers of freezing rain now. Wendy, at least, was mostly dry thanks to the raincoat Natsu had found for her. Lucy, on the other hand, was soaked to the bone and had begun to sniffle the night before. Convection had thickened her voice, and the small coughs she'd uttered had begun to deepen.

"It's supposed to be so hot," continued Lucy as she rejoined them, "that we should be worried about water. This," she gestured to the weather outside, "is too much." Not that she ought to have been complaining about it. She'd placed their water bottles outside to fill on their own as they rested.

Wendy hid her smile and offered Lucy some of her blanket, to which Lucy thanked her quietly but shook her head. She was still pretty wet and didn't want to destroy Wendy's source of warmth.

Rather annoyed about something or another, Natsu grimaced and glanced between them. "I'm sorry I can't help," he muttered, and warmth seeped through Lucy's chest. He felt guilty that he couldn't warm the area up. She didn't blame him for that, though it'd have been nice.

Lucy shed as much of her wet clothing as she could without removing absolutely everything. Only then did she accept the blanket Natsu had been trying to force her to take since they'd discovered the small cave. "Thanks," she said, wrapping herself up and snuggling into Wendy's side. She continuously trembled despite her best efforts. Natsu frowned at her for long enough that Lucy sighed heavily. "I'm fine, Natsu."

Natsu scowled. He hadn't been able to build so much as a decent fire. The one he'd managed to craft was weak and seemed likely to go out at any moment. The wood outside had been too wet to be useful. Unable to help there, he decided to dig through their things until he found a dry, warm sweater and a spare hat that he chucked at Lucy. He did the same for Wendy, fussing like a mother hen, and Lucy couldn't help but smile at him. She easily remembered when they'd first met, when he'd been clueless about such things, and it was wonderful to see the changes.

"You know," said Lucy as she nestled her cheek against the soft blanket, grateful she'd sacrificed room in Natsu's backpack for it, "it's been about a year since the Fall, I think. I don't know for sure, but I think it's been about that long."

"Feels like it's been longer to me," said Wendy, leaning into Lucy's shoulder.

Natsu snorted. "Definitely longer," he muttered. "I didn't think it'd take us this long to figure out what was happening. And we still don't know." He grumbled about it under his breath as he dropped back down to sit beside Lucy. He pressed into her side like Wendy did. Lucy was too cold to be flustered by his proximity, instead muttering her gratitude at the warmth that seeped into her. Maybe Natsu couldn't become an inhuman radiator, but he was still warmer than the average person.

The group sat there in silence until Wendy began to doze. Her head lolled against Lucy's shoulder. Eventually, she slept soundly. Lucy let her stay there, resting her own head affectionately on Wendy's, and then glanced at Natsu when he murmured, "If we find another god, I'm going to try and see if I can touch Valhalla again."

"What? No." Lucy immediately sat up straighter, careful not to wake Wendy. "Natsu–"

He shot her a glare, self-loathing blazing in his gaze. "I can't keep helping you guys stay safe like this. The Vhalis want the gods, remember? And if we keep up like this, you and Wendy are going to get sick or killed. So I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen. I won't let it happen, Lucy." A dark look appeared on his face at the mere thought of it all, and something twisted in Lucy's gut. She remembered Erza's musings about what would happen if something happened.

About what the sun god might become if Death came for his Favored.

It was the first time Lucy found herself understanding why so many of the gods were worried about Natsu. If he did as he intended, he'd be thrown from the heavens a third time, and not necessarily to the same location he'd have initially been in. He could fall on a completely different continent, where the Vhalis were worse and could hurt him continuously. And that was before they even considered whether he'd ever be able to find her and Wendy again.

Lucy took a deep breath to steady herself and considered how to answer before speaking. She drew on her concerns, pointing out quietly, "Natsu…we don't know what the rest of the world is like, and what if you can't find our way back? As much as I'd like to be warm whenever I like, I can promise you I'd much rather have you around at all." She'd much rather freeze in the rain every day for the rest of her days then lose Natsu because he'd become impatient with being as close to human as he could get.

Natsu didn't answer right away. He thought about what she'd said before he heaved a massive sigh and grumbled, "I could do it if Valhalla wasn't off. I could choose where I fell."

"But something is off, and you can't. Besides, there's still plenty you can do, even without having all that sun god power." She made a face, still unable to believe some of the things she said even now. "I know for a fact we'd be in a world of trouble if you weren't around. Although…with the luck we've been having whenever you run off, I'd have fixed everything dealing with Valhalla for you by the time you found your way back."

"You have weird luck," he told her with a soft snort.

"You're telling me," sighed Lucy. She adjusted her blanket, finding that between Wendy and Natsu, she wasn't nearly as cold as she'd been when she'd first settled down. She shook her hair out of her face, huffing impatiently when it didn't move like she wanted it to. She couldn't move one arm for fear of waking Wendy, and she couldn't move her other without disrupting her blanket and revealing her skin to the cold again. Frustrated, Lucy gave up.

She stilled when Natsu tugged on the stray lock of hair almost fondly before pushing it back for her. His lips quirked at the look on Lucy's face. "What?" he questioned, and Lucy couldn't figure out if he was faking that innocent look on his face. She chose to decide he wasn't – simply because she couldn't bring herself to think about what it might mean if he was.

Not, Lucy told herself as she muttered about going to sleep, gently coaxing Wendy awake to get her to lay down, that there was anything to converse about. It wasn't like she liked Natsu in that way, even in the slightest. It wasn't. She couldn't let herself do that. Nor could she let that conversation become an inkling of an idea in anyone's head.

Natsu was the sun god, after all.

And Lucy was only Lucy.

"I think," Lucy said the next morning, a true smile blossoming on her face as she beamed at the beautiful shining sun that hadn't shown itself in what felt like eons, "you might be my favorite god, Natsu." It was still colder than it should have been, seeing as it was the middle of the summer, but at least it wasn't raining anymore. In fact, the sky was as blue as a tropical sea, and Lucy was so happy about it that she was practically dancing about, eager to travel while the weather was feeling so cooperative.

Hiding her smile at Lucy's behavior, Wendy offered Lucy one of the many packs of dried fruit they'd crammed into their backpacks. Lucy noted that they had to be running low on those as she accepted it. After their adventure in the grocery store, Lucy had been reluctant to go back into a town and scrounge for supplies, but she didn't think they'd have the luxury of picking and choosing where they went for supplies soon.

Lucy popped a few pieces of dried fruit into her mouth, enjoying the flavor of something she'd truly hated before the Fall. As she chewed, she began rolling up the blanket she'd slept beneath the night before. Wendy helped her, doing the same with her own blanket as she asked, "Do you think we'll see mountains soon, Lucy?"

Lucy mulled over the question for a few moments, considering. "Maybe," she said. The mountains took up a significant portion of Fiore, almost taking up the entire center of the country, so there was no reason they shouldn't soon find them. "We're traveling pretty slowly though, Wendy, so I don't know."
Wendy seemed to have expected the answer. "Maybe we'll get lucky," she said as she packed her own backpack. "I don't think we want to try the mountains when the winter comes back around. My mother says it's probably going to get colder than it did last winter if the gods don't turn to Valhalla before then."

Lucy glanced at Natsu, who stilled. He agreed, clearly, though he didn't say anything initially. Lucy spoke quietly. "Natsu, what…what will happen if the gods don't return to Valhalla and continue the work you always talk about?"

Natsu ran a hand through his hair, frowning. "Depends," he admitted. "Some of us can borrow power from Hel, like Gray can. I think Mira might be able to take a little power from there. I know Gajeel can. Gods like me though…we don't work with Hel like they do, so we can't. I'll basically be stuck like this. It won't be good though. If I can't go back, the sun will lose its power entirely. This kind of rain and cold we've been having? This will be warm if we can't get things back under control."

Lucy winced. An ice age would start if it hadn't already. "Well," she said, changing the topic, "let's get going and take advantage of the nice weather while we can. Who knows how long it'll last. Especially seeing as the direction we're heading in isn't going to be nice come winter." It would be a nightmare if they hit the mountains as winter began. Blizzards were common in the mountains, and while she'd endured the frigid cold of the lower areas of Fiore pretty well…

Mountains were an entirely different matter.

"Lucy, look, isn't that a farm?"

Lucy, in the midst of letting Natsu help her down a steep, slippery slope that took them into a dried up riverbed filled with sticky mud, yelped as she nearly fell. Natsu cursed, managing to catch her arm, but wrenched it painfully. Lucy hissed, flinching hard enough that Natsu noticed. "Sorry, Luce," he muttered, ensuring she was safely on her feet before letting go.

"I'm fine," reassured Lucy even as she rubbed the sore joint. She focused back on Wendy, who grimaced apologetically from the top of the opposite side of the riverbed. "You see a farm?"

"Yeah." Wendy pointed through the thickest of the bushes and evergreen shrubbery they'd been pushing their way through for much of the day. "Over there. It has a big red barn and everything."

Lucy and Natsu exchanged a swift look, and then scrambled up the other side of the riverbed. Lucy made sure Natsu wouldn't slide back down before looking at where Wendy was pointing to. Sure enough, there was a farm, complete with a big red barn, pastures fenced in with white panels, and a small farm house that wasn't unlike the one Natsu and Lucy had met Jura in. The property itself was overgrown with dead grass and such, and there were no signs of any livestock that might have once lived there. Lucy was a little sad about that; finding something like horses would have been incredibly helpful to them, though she couldn't say how they would have survived this long stuck in a barn.

"I'll go–"

Lucy cut Natsu off before he'd finished speaking. "For someone who complains about having little to no power nowadays, you're very keen on throwing yourself into danger, Natsu." She shot him a look, and he glared back at her. "We'll go together this time."

Lucy hadn't forgotten the incident with the gunshot that Natsu apparently knew nothing about. He still wouldn't talk to her about it. She wasn't about to repeat that situation. Not when he wouldn't answer even the simplest of questions regarding what had happened. Guns weren't something she played around with. There was a reason she chose not to carry one herself despite the dangers of the world they were in, the first of which being they didn't seem to be useful against the Vhalis at all.

Natsu looked inclined to disagree, but she ignored him and said, "Come on, Wendy, we'll check out the barn while Natsu checks out the house. If you see anything weird, come find us, okay, Natsu? Otherwise, we can meet between the two."

Wendy seemed about as thrilled with this plan as Natsu did, but she didn't argue. She only nodded and said, "Okay."

Natsu reluctantly headed off to check out the farm house after throwing his scarf at Lucy, muttering about something or another under his breath. Lucy ignored him, even as she wrapped the scarf around her neck. He'd be fine – and so would they.

The air was as still and silent as a grave as they made their way to the red barn. Wendy seemed on edge as a breeze whisked over her face, whispering in her ears. Lucy found herself to be, too, despite her earlier confidence. Maybe, just maybe, she'd been wrong. Maybe it would have been better to send Natsu in first–

No. Lucy shook those thoughts off, determined. Relying too heavily on Natsu like that wasn't fair, and besides that…

They weren't entirely helpless without him around.

Lucy plucked out Aquarius's key once more, grateful for it as it shifted into its coin-form. The metal was cool beneath her touch. "Here," whispered Lucy, passing it to Wendy. Wendy recognized it instantly and clutched it close to her chest. She was happy to have a way to tell if it was safe or not.

Lucy peeked through cracked barn doors. nothing jumped out at her from the darkness, so she dragged the heavy door open the rest of the way. Some smell that reminded Lucy of rotting meat wafted into their faces alongside a few flies that seemed to recoil from the cold, and Lucy cringed back. Wendy flinched at the smell, too. Something had definitely died in there. Whatever had called the row of stalls home was nothing but an old, rotting carcass now, sitting in the middle of the corridor. It was all they could see in the shadows.

"Right," said Lucy, shoving the door shut again. "Let's not check out the barn, no matter how nice and warm it seems, Wendy–"

Wendy shushed her, face pale. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Lucy began to ask, only for Wendy to still like a startled deer. She stared at the doors they'd only just closed. She snagged Lucy's wrist and dragged her away from the barn slowly.

Anything logical Lucy might have said fled right out of her head as with each step they took, something followed them out of the red barn. A massive nose pushed free, nostrils flared wide as the doors creaked open. It was followed by a slender muzzle and a huge, gaping maw filled with dozens of sharp teeth that were jagged and even broken in some places. The canines were longer than the rest, curling beneath the creature's chin. Its head was square and massive, ears shredded and cropped like a dog pulled out of a fighting ring. A forked serpentine tongue slid out, tasting the air.

Next came the neck, longer than it should have been atop a large, blocky canine body yet thick with muscle. A long, thick tail lashed stiffly with aggression as it stalked free of the red barn. Each paw was tipped with talons that cut the ground like butter. As the light struck it, its pelt gleamed like a sheet of metal in the sunlight of a late afternoon, reflecting it unnaturally. Its skin seemed cracked in some places, too, as if someone had thrown a rock at a windshield and the cracks had been filled in with lava that steadily dripped down the creature's sides like a volcano. Its eyes were of the same molten metal – and staring at them with hatred as its lips pulled back into a nasty canine grin.

Lucy choked on a sound of sheer terror. This was entirely unlike the Vhalis. This was a whole other level from the Vhalis. Likely worse, for the creature began to twist and writhe. Lucy cringed. It was like a scene out of the horror movies she'd once watched. Bones broke themselves beneath that metallic pelt until it was no longer a canine-like creature standing there, but what Lucy very much presumed to be a god.

A very, very angry god.

He wasn't any less terrifying in a humanoid body. He had that same viciousness, same molten eyes, same sharp, broken teeth. The piercings he sported on his face only made him look scarier, and Lucy could scarcely breathe when he took a threatening step forward. The earth sizzled and burned where he stepped.

"Wendy," whispered Lucy, voice hitching. "Go get Natsu."

The god snapped his jaws like an angry dog, teeth clicking loudly. "Hey," he rasped, and his voice sounded as if someone was raking talons across a chalkboard. It was inhuman and screechy. At the same time, it wasn't. He was chalked full of rage as he stared at the scarf wrapped around Lucy's throat. "Lady. That doesn't belong to you."

Lucy shoved Wendy behind her. "Now, Wendy."

Wendy faltered. "But Lucy–"

"Now."

Wendy faltered a moment longer, then took off for the farmhouse at a dead sprint. Lucy listened to her footsteps, never once taking her eyes off of the god before her. His gaze flickered lazily after Wendy, seemingly almost amused. Lucy lifted her chin proudly when his grin seemed to get impossibly wider. "Running ain't gonna help the kid when I take that scarf off your broken body," he told her.

Lucy raked her mind for a response, even for a name. How could she not figure out who this was right off the top of her head when Natsu had told them so much about his world?

Before she could come up with anything, the god lost his patience and lunged.

LOOK WHO'S HERE! I'm so excited for the next portion of this fic. It's one of the biggest things Bubbles and I planned for this fic from day one of its planning. It was actually supposed to come before Gray, Erza, and Jellal's arrivals, but I think it's going to fit much better here. ;)

Thanks to reviewers (xennia-x, Meow Orbit, CMenard, hopelesskar, MPrime, takeagamble27, AnimusLunari777, and Sele de la Luna!) as well as those who favorited and followed!