@ocean-mage giving candy out like it’s Halloween

Question for the Fairy Tail Fandom

I’m wondering about Goldmine, the head of Quatro (Puppy) Cerberus. This guy.

We never learned what his magic was, did we? 🤔

sonika has experienced bellatrix and m1k0 being stubborn but not usually sunflower. but they can be just as stubborn as their sisters. and sonika has experienced this as one of the instances where sunflower insisted on carrying something heavy in their arms even when there were other means they could have taken, like a cart or wheelbarrow. but nope! they insisted on carrying it themselves! even though they were visibly shaking from the weight. “nope! i’ve got it!!”

🌿Natsu Dragneel/Lucy Heartfilia

 🌿91,279k (8/50) 

 🌿Slow burn, Fantasy AU, Royalty AU, Eventual happy ending, Angst & hurt/comfort, Action/adventure, Strangers to friends to lovers, Minor Jellal Fernandes/Erza Scarlet, Minor Gray Fullbuster/Juvia Lockser, Minor Levy McGarden/Gajeel Redfox, Minor Chelia Blendy/Wendy Marvell, Natsu Dragneel & Gray Fullbuster Friendship

Summary: Princess Heartfilia was raised to die, groomed and isolated by her Elven kingdom as the next centennial sacrifice to seal The Abyss. Armed with twelve star-forged keys, her mother’s mysterious pendant, and a desperate desire to change her fate, Lucy escapes on the eve of her twentieth birthday and plunges into a world of dangerous truths and unknown Realms. The Abyssal Veil is weakening, threatening to swallow all, and a continent built on the deaths of Heartfilias must now face the most dangerous of all: her survival.

Chapter 8 of Seven Realms of Ishgar is up! You can also read it on ao3. 

I hope you enjoy this update, please let me know what you think so far! I want to give a huge thank you to @imnothereokuwu​ for this amazing commission. They did such a lovely job and brought the story to life with this piece. I’m @faelucys on twitter and sometimes give sneak peeks or talk about the next update. Feel free to say hi!

Courage was not always a heroic thing. Sometimes it was standing in place and meeting a dragon’s gaze while every instinct screamed at her to retreat.

She didn’t know what was customary for rulers of Drakhal in terms of proper greetings. Bowing felt presumptuous. Not bowing felt worse. Lucy chose to stand still in the end and hoped it wouldn’t be taken as disrespect.

Natsu remained beside her, solid at her periphery. He did not step forward or speak first. That mattered to her.

“Yes,” Lucy managed at last. “I am.”

She expected demands such as her name, her lineage, her crime. That was what power did in the world she grew up in. It interrogated and extracted. It demanded proof that you deserved the air you were breathing.

But Igneel only tilted his head down. When he spoke again, it was almost conversational. “You smell of old bindings and work.”

She almost flinched.

Natsu moved subtly at her side, biting back a comment. Lucy tried not to look at him. If she did, she might lose her grip on the composure she’d built.

“I-I didn’t come to Drakhal to cause trouble.” She was quick to reply. It was the only thing she could offer that felt both true and survivable. “I didn’t think anyone would find me here.”

Naïve, perhaps, but she had been running on instinct more than strategy for the majority of her journey so far.

Igneel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You carry a scent that does not belong in hiding. Thalrim is seeking you by way of violence.” He said, voice reverberating.

“Correct.” She answered, her tone cooling into careful neutrality. “I have no way of stopping that.”

Igneel hummed. “You asked to see The Abyss. You survived doing so.”

So Natsu had told him. Part of her tightened with the old reflex of that was private, but a larger part of her understood. Something so dangerous could never belong to only two witnesses, especially not when it concerned The Abyss. Drakhal had been keeping an eye on it long before she ever arrived to first see it. In a way, she was relieved Igneel knew about the experience.

“Yes.” She admitted. “I wanted to understand what was real.”

“What did you learn?” Igneel asked.

Lucy hesitated, her mind flickering through images too sharp to hold for long. She thought of the corridor of marble, Jude’s calm invitation turning to command, the way come here had twisted into something hungry and wrong.

She forced herself to speak.

“I learned that it breaks people.” Lucy said. Her voice surprised her with how steady it sounded. “It leans into whatever is already… misaligned. It reacts to choices. To negative emotions like panic. To—” Her throat tightened, the words bitter. “To familiarity.”

She could still feel how quickly she’d stepped toward her father’s voice, how obedient she’d been before her mind caught up. The shame of it burned hot and silent.

Natsu shifted beside her again, a bit restless, but he said nothing. The air seemed to warm another degree.

“You are afraid.” He observed. It was not a question.

Lucy’s mouth went dry. A part of her wanted to deny it, to offer the neat, practiced lie that she was fine and handling it, but there was no advantage in pretending she did not understand her own condition here. In fact, doing so previously had nearly delivered her to her death.

“Yes.” She said. Though it felt right, the admission still felt like skin being peeled back.

Igneel’s head tilted a fraction. “Explain.”

She drew in a careful breath, felt the ache bloom behind her sternum, and chose her next words, placing a foot exactly where the ground would hold her.

“I’m afraid of being decided for.” Lucy said quietly. “By those that call control protection. By anyone who believes my choices are optional if the threat is large enough.”

She felt Natsu still beside her. He made a small sound, but Lucy didn’t look at him. She hadn’t meant it as a shot at him, but she also wasn’t going to pretend the argument hadn’t happened. They’d made up. That was real. So was the memory of being cornered, however kindly.

“I’ve lived like that before.” She paused. “I refuse to do it again.”

Igneel’s eyes remained on her, molten and unreadable. He straightened slightly, his presence expanding with the movement, and Lucy had to fight the instinct to step back. He wasn’t threatening her. He simply occupied the world differently, and it made room for him without being asked.

“Speak your need. I will hear you.”

“I intend to find a way to end The Abyss.” Lucy answered, the words coming out as a vow. “Not just manage or postpone it. I don’t want to be part of a system that barely holds something back and calls that stability. I want answers.”

“This is a millenniums old problem. There have been many before you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Those people weren’t me. And I know things about Thalrim others don’t.”

Natsu’s eyes moved between Lucy and Igneel with quiet interest. Something approving touched his expression, though he wisely kept silent.

“A dangerous intent.” Igneel replied.

Lucy’s heart hammered. “Yes.”

“And foolish,” Igneel added. Lucy forced herself not to react, but then he continued, “In the way most change begins.”

Igneel’s gaze shifted, deeper still.

“In Drakhal,” He said, voice resonant and low, “We do not shelter what seeks to destabilize us, and we do not return what has not wronged us.” The statement hung there, simple and immovable. “You carry pursuit,” He continued. “But pursuit alone is not guilt, and bounty alone is not truth.”

Lucy’s pulse jumped.

“Worry not. If you had come here seeking to use my son, or to hide behind my Realm without regard for consequence, I would know.”

She believed him wholeheartedly. She was not being indulged, she was being evaluated.

“You came for understanding. Now, you intend to leave Drakhal.” Igneel said to Lucy.

“I do.” Lucy confirmed. She could not risk a Realm becoming a battleground for what followed her. “As soon as I can.”

“And you,” Igneel said, turning his head slightly toward his son without looking away from Lucy entirely, “have already decided you will follow.”

“Dad,” Natsu started, “you know it’s getting worse. Things’re changing out there.” He gestured lightly toward her. “And Lucy’s caught up in the middle of it. She’s lookin’ for answers, same as we are. What’s more, she’s the only direct link to Thalrim we have. Feels stupid to walk away when we might actually learn somethin’ for once.”

Igneel’s eyes slid fully to Natsu this time. “I see. You share the same goal.”

She glanced at Natsu as he responded.

Natsu had no reason to deny it. “Yeah, looks that way.”

“The Abyss is not a mystery to be chased lightly.”

“Good thing I’m not light about it.” He said simply.

“I didn’t ask him to come with me.” Lucy cut in quietly. “I never intended to pull him into something this dangerous, but he insisted.”

Igneel returned his gaze to Lucy.

“I know he has a Realm to take care of.” She continued, still feeling a bit guilty. “People. Responsibilities.”

Happy tipped sideways in the air. “And me!” He added helpfully.

Igneel’s eyes slid, briefly, to Natsu again, and something in his expression softened, knowing.  “My son,” Igneel said, and for the first time there was the faintest hint of amusement, “is not easily pulled anywhere he does not wish to go. He is very loud and difficult once his mind is set.”

Natsu huffed, half exasperated and half offended. “I’m standing right here.”

“I’m well aware.” Igneel returned, utterly unbothered. The blunt familiarity of it, this enormous being speaking to his grown son as if he were still a boy who needed occasional correction, made Lucy’s chest ache again with a strange, disorienting envy. She watched on with a strange detachment, noting that there was no courtly performance or distance in it.

“Lucy Heartfilia,” Igneel called. The sound of her name in a dragon’s mouth made her goosebump despite the heat. “Natsu is a person who chooses. You may warn or ask him to reconsider, but you cannot decide his courage for him.”

It wasn’t a rebuke so much as a mirror held too close to her face. She had been doing that, hadn’t she? Treating the devotion of others as a liability and preemptively taking responsibility of other people’s decisions.

Igneel did not stop there.

“And neither,” He continued, his voice losing nothing of its weight but gaining a precision, “can you pretend that choice only belongs to others.”

She stared at him.

“You have a choice to make as well, do you not?” Igneel asked. “You are a will. And you are allowed to ask yourself what you want to do next, not what you think will cause the least damage.”

Lucy’s thoughts scattered. What she wanted and what she had to choose were hard to align cleanly, the space between them filled with consequences she could not pretend only applied to her. She had been trained to optimize for sacrifice, for containment and acceptable loss.

But what did she want? It certainly wasn’t just survival alone. No, what she wanted was to live a real, genuine life alongside others, and beneath that, she wanted an end to a system that devoured its own and called it sacred.

“My son has led me into conflict before. He has yet to do so without good reason. If you choose to join him, you will be escorted under Drakhal’s protection for the time being.”

She looked between the dragon whose protection could redraw borders, and the man beside her who had chosen the same fight, standing firmly within the reach of what hunted her.

If she stayed silent now, if she let herself be escorted under another Realm’s protection, Thalrim would only see provocation and insult. They would see a royal asset removed from their control and sheltered by foreign power, and the response would not be quiet.

“Lord Igneel,” Lucy began, “before you decide on this matter, please allow me to confess something.”

Natsu turned toward her immediately, concerned. She felt the urge to sand down what she was about to say for his sake, but she would not.

Igneel’s gaze sharpened. “Go ahead.”  

Lucy drew a slow breath. “I fear that Realms do not interpret movement kindly, they interpret advantage. And running is not a plan, right?” She asked rhetorically, some bitter humor reflecting through the words despite herself. “The hunters are already here for me, and there will be worse.”

She lifted her head. “While I am grateful for your generous offer, if you put Drakhal’s seal on me, Thalrim will hear of it. And they will, without doubt, interpret it as a declaration.”

Natsu’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Lucy—”

She shot him a look, requesting space. He granted it quickly. He understood that she needed it more than he needed knowing..

“Like I said, it was never my intention to involve your Realm. Now that it’s come to this, I must warn you that I can’t allow that to happen.”

“You are refusing.” Igneel observed, watching her with even attention.

The confusion was plain on Natsu’s face. He clearly didn’t understand. The offer on the table was safety, real safety, and Lucy was pushing it away.

“I am. Not because I don’t appreciate what it would mean, but because none of us can afford what it would cost.”

“What,” He asked calmly, “would have Thalrim believe this?”

She looked down. In the silence of her awaited response, Lucy became painfully aware of herself. A young woman still aching from overcasting, speaking assertively beneath a dragon whose breath could reduce her to ash in an instant.

There was no version of this answer that didn’t fracture the careful obscurity she had wrapped herself in since the forest, but this also wasn’t the truth that would tear everything wide open. It wasn’t the worst confession, the last shield between her and a world that would decide her fate for her, but it was close enough to matter. Close enough to change things.

When she met Igneel’s eyes again, there was only resolve in her expression.

“We never dissolved.” She said. “We just… stopped being visible from the outside. There were fewer reasons to announce ourselves, fewer advantages in reminding everyone what we were. But the Heartfilia line itself has always persisted. My name isn’t just old,” Lucy continued, “It’s current.”

She felt Natsu’s attention narrow beside her, alert.

He already knew she came from a noble lineage. He had said as much himself. If they were going to work together, really work together, to understand The Abyss and stop its spread for good, this was the first crack in the wall she had built between them.

Titles were dangerous. They invited claims and leverage, rapid assumptions about duty and place. Lucy knew that better than most, but she also knew that Natsu understood this already. He lived with one every day.

It would not expose her entirely, she reminded herself. It would not tell him what she was meant to do, only who she was. And most importantly, it would protect Drakhal.

“I’m not just descended from them. I am,” Lucy said at last, her words a seal pressed into cooling wax, “the current princess of Thalrim.”

Deafening silence followed.

Natsu stared at her. He took a sudden step forward, then caught himself and stopped. His expression shifted once, twice. Then he frowned, deep and sincere. “The what?” He demanded.

“The princess of Thalrim.” She repeated evenly.

He blinked again. His eyebrows lifted slowly and his face did something strange, the mental equivalent of tripping over a step. “That—” He let out an incredulous breath. “No. That’s not right.” Natsu went on, shaking his head with increasing conviction, memory itself testimony enough. “I’ve met princesses before.”

Lucy blinked, thrown. “You—what?”

“They’re mostly annoying.” He insisted. “And stuck up. And they never apologize. Ever.”

She stared at him. “That is an incredibly narrow sample size.”

“I stand by it.” Natsu shot back, squinting at her now, scanning her face for signs of jest. “Is this one of those things where you’re like… princess-adjacent?” He pressed on at her silence, clarifying. “Cousin? Distant branch? Because that I’d believe.”

“No.”

“Substituting?”

Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, Natsu, I’m the literal princess.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “…No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” He repeated, more firmly now, like volume might help. “‘Cause if that were true, then the other day—” He broke off and made a broad, incredulous gesture meant to capture the absurdity of the situation, “—I fought with a princess.”

“You did.”

Natsu went completely still.

“Huh.” Happy drifted closer, peering at her with open curiosity. “Does this mean we get a castle now?”

“You can’t be.” Natsu said slowly.

Lucy arched a brow. “On what grounds?”

“Because you’re…” He said, baffled and clearly struggling. “You.”

Happy tilted his head, studying Lucy with exaggerated seriousness. “I dunno, Natsu,” He offered helpfully. “She does have a princess energy about her.”

Natsu acknowledged this with a distracted grunt and stared at her again, longer this time. When he examined the idea with real attention, the evidence began to assemble itself in uncomfortable ways. Her straight posture and careful articulation for one. Even standing there in her cloak, there was a natural elegance in the way she held herself. Those things fit.

But she also cried. She apologized when things went wrong. He had seen her frightened and dirt smeared on the streets with nowhere to go. She had stepped into Drakhal with no herald or escort, correcting him without once invoking her status. She carried her own things, made her own decisions, and had yet to demand a single thing from anyone.

None of that lined up with the princesses he knew.

“How was I supposed to act?” Lucy asked, letting the moment get the best of her under his scrutiny. “Trumpets? A parade?”

“I don’t know.” He said helplessly. “Threatened me? Summoned guards?”

“In your own Realm?” Lucy stared at him. “With what authority? ‘Excuse me, local guards, I outrank you from several hundred miles away?’” Lucy said, exasperation now fully unfiltered. “I was practically on the verge of collapsing when I first met you.”

“Exactly! See!” He said, pointing with renewed enthusiasm as if vindicated. “That’s not very royal behavior.”

She stared at him, unimpressed. “Natsu, you beat up a man in an alleyway in front of me over wager money.”

Happy nodded sagely, agreeing with her.

“That’s normal!” Natsu shot back, still bristling with stubborn disbelief. “You don’t act like someone who owns a kingdom.”

The protest carried him halfway through before it wavered. Lucy had already opened her mouth, prepared to point out that from her standpoint his own behavior hardly resembled that of a prince, but the words never made it out. He’d suddenly stopped short, the implications of what she had revealed rearranging themselves into something far less amusing.

“If you’re Thalrim’s princess,” He went on, voice rising despite himself, “you’re supposed to be protected. You shouldn’t have had to escape through the Great Forest to begin with. Why would you have to run?”

Lucy froze, her body reacting before her mind. His words were like a physical blow, aimed too close at already opened wounds.

Natsu saw it immediately. Her reaction answered whatever question he had not finished forming, and his realization pushed the last remnants of confusion out of his expression. The disbelief that had fueled him earlier hardened into something far sharper.

“Your father’s the king.” He said, the words coming out rougher now. His hands curled slowly into fists at his sides, heat rolling outward in uneven waves. “And you thought your own magic was going to kill you.”

Lucy stared back at him, silent.

The anger mounting in his chest found direction with frightening speed. “What kind of Realm lets this happen?”

She nearly answered, nearly let herself contextualize and justify. She felt the pull of it, the urge to say something that might make the situation understandable, but the air shifted again before she could speak.

“Enough.” Igneel’s voice cut cleanly between them, leaving no room for the interrogation to continue. “My son seems to have forgotten where he is. You will excuse him.”

The heat rolling off Natsu faltered as the reminder landed. His mouth closed with visible effort, attention shifting back toward Igneel. He had stepped too far, too openly, taking no notice of who had been listening the entire time.

Igneel regarded him without comment for longer than enjoyable. In that time, Natsu’s frustration simmered, pushing its way back up the longer he thought about it. His jaw tightened, restraint slipping as the anger returned. “But—”

“You are asking why,” Igneel interrupted, unperturbed, “when all that matters is what follows.” His attention shifted back to Lucy, and the intensity there changed, refined. “You are not obligated to explain Thalrim’s failures on foreign ground. Nor would it be wise.”

He was right. Whatever had gone wrong in Thalrim, whatever holes had widened enough to let her fall through them, they could not be dissected here without becoming a statement politically.

“I understand.” She replied.

Natsu turned back to her sharply. She met his eyes again. There was apology in the look she gave him, but no retreat. The anger bled out of him, leaving behind a deeper, more disconcerting understanding.

“In Drakhal,” Igneel continued, voice low and resonant, “we do not enforce another Realm’s internal warrants without cause. Sovereignty is not courtesy. It is boundary. If Thalrim seeks you,” Igneel went on, “they can do so under their own authority. Drakhal does not validate pursuit just because it is declared. Unless your presence threatens my people, your alleged treason is none of my concern. You are not accused here.”

Lucy took in his words. While she may not have protection, he had refused legitimacy to the hunt itself. If Thalrim wanted her, they would have to claim her themselves publicly, not through cooperation from neighboring Realms.

It bought her something, at least. But would other Realms be as willing to mind their business once they crossed them? That was a problem for Lucy of the future, she supposed.

Natsu’s thoughts had already moved towards the next problem, searching for direction. “So what happens now?” He asked Igneel, the question direct. “If Thalrim’s already hunting her, how can she just walk back out defenseless? Can’t imagine they’re plannin’ a welcome party for her.”

His attention stayed on Igneel, waiting for an answer. The tension was still visible in the line of his shoulders. Lucy waited for his father’s decision as well, eyes hard.

Igneel straightened, the subtle change in posture signaling a transition from assessment to decision. “You will not remain in Drakhal.” He answered, voice firm. “The hunters entering the city will be dealt with under my law. As for you,” Igneel continued, eyes fixed on her, “you will leave this Realm at once without clearance.”

Natsu’s expression smoothed as understanding clicked into place. “So she leaves clean?”

“She leaves unclaimed.” Igneel agreed. “No record of sanctuary, no public escort, no story for other Realms to misinterpret. We do not want a declaration.”

Lucy let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The anxiety that had been clawing at her chest loosened with relief. “Lucy Heartfilia was never here.” She confirmed, catching on.

“Correct.”

The tension finally drained from Natsu’s shoulders. “And I go with her.” He said, not asking.

Igneel turned to his son, and the warmth returned there immediately, familiar, fond and trusting. “You will go as requested, with clearance.” He said. “Your duty is to investigate and seek answers. Whether she is under your protection is yours alone to decide.”

Natsu grinned at that, quick and confident. When it was done, decisions made and words set into foundation, Lucy stepped back without being asked to after thanking Igneel, retreating several paces down.

Though neither Natsu nor Igneel had dismissed her and nothing about them suggested secrecy, she felt that remaining too close would feel like pressing her palm against glass and pretending she belonged on the other side of it.

They did not lower their voices. If anything, they grew louder. Natsu gesticulated as he spoke, and Igneel listened to him patiently. When he replied, it was calm and warm.

The difference was immediate. With her, Igneel had been measured. With Natsu, there was no careful dance of words. The exchange moved faster, easier, layered with familiarity. They interrupted each other. They disagreed without tension. Natsu made a face and Igneel huffed and neither of them mistook it for disrespect. At one point Natsu laughed obnoxiously, arms at his hips and head thrown back, and Igneel made a low sound that might have been a rumble of amusement or a warning disguised as one. It was impossible to tell where duty ended and affection began, but it was all there, plain as day in front of her.

She had known kings. She had known fathers. But she had never known this.

“It is reckless.”

“So?”

“You are not invincible.”

“I know.”

Lucy blinked at that. Natsu did not argue the truth of it. He did not posture or pretend immunity. He only stood there, alive and certain in the knowledge that someone older and stronger would call him foolish without calling him disposable. She lowered her gaze briefly, pressing her thumb into the crescent pendant at her throat until the bright motes of light steadied her.

It occurred to her that Natsu was what she had never been permitted to become. Royalty without ritualized isolation, authority without doctrine, power allowed to remain personal. He stood before a king and did not diminish into instrument. He argued, laughed, contradicted, and was met with correction meant to strengthen him instead of change him.

His loyalty was not harvested for state. No one was preparing him for death. He was trusted with choice instead of groomed for inevitability. She didn’t want to admit it, but the distance between that and her own upbringing opened inside her, another quiet wound held closed by her. She was careful not to let emotion show this time, for fear of them picking up the scent.

Whatever came next, it would not look like this. She would not be shielded by inheritance or lectured for her own sake. If she stepped wrong, she would most likely answer for it alone.

And yet.

When Natsu turned slightly, gesturing toward her without looking back, mentioning her in whatever plan he was outlining without breaking the flow of conversation, Lucy felt something unfamiliar beneath the ache. Inclusion in place of obligation.

Igneel followed the gesture, eyes flicking toward her across the distance. Lucy straightened slightly again.

“Then go.”

Natsu nodded. He turned back toward her, Happy drifting at shoulder height in easy tandem.

He stopped a few paces away and planted his hands on his hips, studying her with a look that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be reluctantly amused or just plain concerned. It seemed he still hadn’t quite decided which reaction made more sense.

“You’re looking at me like I grew a second head.” She said.

“You kinda did.”

“It’s still the same head.”

“Yeah, well.” He replied. “It’s got a crown on it now. I’m still processing.”

He studied her again, comparing two versions of the same person; the depth he had underestimated and now meant to understand properly. “Man, and here I was thinkin’ I’d just picked up some weirdly determined runaway noble.” He muttered.

“Princess.” She supplied.

“Right. Princess.” He repeated, wincing a little at the title. “Because you ran away. From your kingdom.” He pointed at her for emphasis. “The kingdom that’s yours because you’re the princess.”

“Right…”

Natsu dragged a hand down his face, groaning, “That explains why every conversation around you felt like it was missin’ about three paragraphs.”

Lucy lifted an eyebrow at him. “You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

“Not really.” Natsu’s tone flattened in a way that made the humor thin.

“Panicking?”

“A little.” He admitted. “Mostly ‘cause this means the past few days were way more serious than I thought.” He looked down in thought for a moment, then up at her again. “It also changes things. They’re not hunting you ‘cause you’re dangerous. They’re hunting you ‘cause you’re useful.”

Lucy’s mild amusement faded.

“There’s the whole keys thing too.” Natsu added, jaw tightening again. “People get real stupid when they think they can use someone. If they find out, they’ll try to dress it up in pretty words.”

“They already do.” Lucy said quietly.

Natsu looked at her, some of the bite leaving his expression.“You don’t have to deal with that alone.”

She swallowed, lowering her eyes.

“That’s not why I told you.” She said, though she wasn’t entirely sure whether that was true. She felt for the fragile line she was walking between control and vulnerability. “I just didn’t want your Realm to suffer because of me.”

“You said that already.”

“I meant it.”

“I know.” Natsu’s reply came without hesitation. He straightened a little, the earlier frustration shifting to something more focused. “That’s why we’re not sittin’ around waitin’ for it to blow up on us,” He continued. “We stay ahead of the mess.”

She looked up at him again, searching for reluctance, anything that might indicate he wanted to jump ship after all. She found nothing.

His mouth quirked. “Unless you’ve decided you know the roads better than I do.”

A smile tugged at her lips before she could stop it.

Behind him, Igneel shifted. Natsu glanced over his shoulder once, a silent acknowledgement passing between father and son.

Then he faced her again. “Let’s get going.”

“Aye, sir!” Happy chirped.

Lucy’s gaze slipped past him to the drop that carved the tableland from the lower hills, and the memory of her ascent came back to her in a rush. The sudden absence of footing, the way fire had seized the air and bent it into propulsion, the way her stomach lurched violently as heated bloomed at her back. Her stomach tightened again just at the recollection, pulse quickening.

Natsu noticed the color draining from her face. “What?” He asked.

“I think I’ll just walk, actually.” She said at once, too quickly.

“Walk?” He turned and looked meaningfully at the drop, then back at her to check whether she had accidentally mistaken a cliff for a staircase. “And how’re you planning to do that, exactly?”

“I… honestly don’t care.” The exasperation escaped before she could smooth it away. Beneath it lived a simple, stubborn wish. She did not want to do that again.

She walked toward the edge as if she’d already reached a perfectly reasonable solution. Natsu watched her go, intrigued by where she was going with this. As she approached the drop, she scanned over it. The tableland fell away in a steep, jagged descent of rock that very clearly did not resemble a path of any kind. She stepped sideways along it, studying the terrain with increasing determination.

Nothing.

Lucy crouched this time, testing the ground with the toe of her boot. Maybe Drakhal might reconsider if approached patiently.

Behind her, Natsu stared. “Lucy.”

She ignored him. She shuffled a little father along the edge, evaluating a cluster of rocks that might, under extremely generous interpretation, have counted as the beginning of a route downward.

Natsu crossed his arms, growing impatient. “Luuucy.”

“I’m observing the terrain.” She said stiffly.

A rock slipped free and vanished down below. Several seconds later, it still hadn’t hit the ground.

“Unless you’ve secretly grown mountain goat hooves in the last five minutes,” He continued, watching the process with deep skepticism, “there’s no version of this where you don’t roll down like a barrel.”

Happy floated closer, peering over the edge with her. “Why can’t you just carry her again?”

Lucy’s head snapped toward him so quickly it nearly unbalanced her. “Absolutely not!”

“But it’s faster than whatever you’re doing.” Natsu protested.

“It’s terrifying.” She corrected. She folded her arms, drawing herself upright. “I refuse to be launched again.”

“Launched is a strong word.”

Lucy just stared at him.

Finally distinguishing between her theatrical stubbornness and genuine fear, he lifted both hands in surrender. “Fine, no dramatic fire descent. But we’re losing daylight here.”

Happy suddenly brightened, undeterred. “I can carry her!”

Lucy and Natsu both turned to look at him.

She looked down again, measuring the distance. The drop did not look kinder for being examined, and Natsu was unfortunately right. Time was moving. So were hunters.

She let out a long, reluctant breath. “Okay,” She said at last. “But if I fall—”

“You won’t.” Natsu replied, certainty in his tone.

Happy beamed at her. “Probably!”

Lucy closed her eyes, summoning whatever remained of her patience. This was her life now, dragons and cliffs and reckless allies who treated sky diving peril like a mild chill in the air. Somewhere out there, responsible, normal people were probably traveling by road.

Happy swooped down with enthusiasm, paws outstretched. “Hop on, Lucy!”

She hesitated, then shifted her weight until she was balanced against him, every muscle tense in anticipation. Happy’s wings began beating harder as he pulled her up from the back.

He lifted about two inches.

“Wh-What the heck?” Happy wheezed, wings working overtime as he struggled to gain altitude.  “Why are you so heavy!?”

“I am not,” She snapped automatically.

Happy eyed her suspiciously. “Did you bring rocks with you??”

“No!”

“Maybe it’s that crown you’re carrying.” He puffed, flapping with exaggerated strain. “Royal responsibility. That stuff weighs a ton.”

Natsu barked out a laugh beside them, but quickly shut up once Lucy shot him a glare.

“Whatever. Just don’t drop me, okay?” She warned, looking down nervously.

“I would never.” Happy declared. He immediately dropped several alarming inches. “Probably.”

“Happy!” She shrieked.

“Kidding!!”

Happy did not, in fact, drop her.

Lucy thankfully reached solid ground without experiencing a traumatic, violent end. The descent was uneven and accompanied by several dips that nearly stopped her heart, but it remained, technically, nonviolent.

Natsu was already there waiting for them, enjoying the show.

The moment Lucy’s boots touched the ground, Happy released her and dropped face first into the grass. He groaned into the dirt, wings twitching weakly. “Never again.” Happy rolled onto his back in a limp heap, panting hard. “I think I just saw my ancestors.”

Lucy looked down at him. “Did they have helpful advice?”

“Yeah,” Happy wheezed.

“What was it?”

“Eat more fish.”

They began to walk through the smaller hills again. Lucy kept her eyes ahead, watching them unfold. The wind provided some relief for the heat and sweat at the back of her neck. Her thoughts moved elsewhere, past Drakhal’s borders toward what waited beyond them.

She had left the tableland with more than she had arrived with. She’d even met and spoken to a dragon, but the road ahead felt no less dangerous for being shared.

“Are you sure about this?”

Natsu glanced sideways at her. “About what?”

“When I leave this Realm, I won’t know what’s waiting for me. I don’t know how bad things will get.”

He said nothing, so she continued.

“I don’t know everything about my family.” She admitted. “But I’m not running just to disappear.” Her gaze stayed fixed ahead. “I’m running because I need answers.”

When she finally looked at him, Natsu was still watching her.

“I can work with that.” He said.

“Even if it gets worse?”

He shrugged lightly, but his eyes were serious. “S’like my old man said, we have the same goal. And I don’t take people back to places they escaped for a reason.”

Something inside her loosened. She nodded, accepting his answer.

The wind pressed through the tall grass, bending it in long green ripples across the hillside. Natsu spoke without slowing his stride. “I know where to go. We’ll check in with the guards and talk to council first.” He angled them down a slope that cut away from the main road. “Rest tonight, then tomorrow we leave for good.”

Lucy kept pace beside him, pulling her hood up again like a second skin. “Okay.” She agreed.

The hills gradually lost their height and flattened, giving way to hard soil and stone. Soon, the city of Drakhal came into view again. Lucy would have thought the sight of it familiar by now. Instead, something in her stomach tightened.

He led them toward a lesser path that dropped them onto the city’s outer edge through the side, rather than the open approach. That’s when she noticed the first hunter.

A man leaning in the shadow of a dye house with his attention aimed the wrong way. He wasn’t looking for passing trade, he was scanning faces.

Then another, farther ahead, pretending to inspect a cart wheel that had no owner nearby.

And another, all distributed.

The city had changed around them. There were too many strangers looking for the same thing, too many eyes drifting, doubling back, stopping at the sight of blonde hair before moving on again. There were pairs of men posted near intersections without speaking to one another, each one facing a different direction.

The locals glared at them and whispered amongst themselves as they moved about their daily lives. Shopkeepers watched from their doorways and conversations dropped to low murmurs when the men would pass by. The people of Drakhal were still outside, still moving through their usual routines, but the atmosphere was the same as when they’d originally left for the hills, if not worse.

Happy’s ears drooped. “Uh… Natsu?”

“I see it.” His voice came flatter now. He took the next turn without delay, guiding them into an alley where the walls rose close and warm.

Laundry lines crossed overhead. Somewhere nearby metal rang against metal, a smith finishing up the day’s work. The usual sounds of the city went on.

Natsu glanced around the corner before letting them proceed. His shoulders had shifted, no longer relaxed. He was focused and counting.

“More than before.” Lucy said quietly.

“Way more.” He didn’t look at her as he answered. “And spread out this time. Guess word travels fast.”

He led them through another turn, then another, cutting across the back side of an eatery where the air smelled like char, onion, and hot oil. Lucy caught sight of two figures at the far end of the street they’d just avoided. One held folded parchment in hand, the other speaking to a local merchant with too much interest and too little familiarity.

Her pulse kicked harder. “Do you think they know I’m still here?” She whispered.

“They know you were.” He checked the rooftops, then the alley ahead before moving again. “Not sure they know where. Yet.”

“This isn’t good.” Happy said, concerned.

“No,” Natsu agreed easily. His mouth twitched slightly, something between annoyance and anticipation. “But it’s not unexpected either.”

A pair of men crossed the mouth of the street ahead. Natsu caught Lucy lightly by the wrist and drew her backward before she could step into view. He released her as soon as they were hidden again.

The men kept walking.

Lucy exhaled once their footsteps faded. “They’re getting bolder.”

“They’re gettin’ sloppy.” Natsu corrected, glancing around the next corner.

Despite herself, she felt strained amusement at his response. “You sound almost offended by that.“

“Aghh,” Natsu let out a second later, scowling. “This is startin’ to piss me off. They’re askin’ for a beat down at this point!”

“You can’t do that, Natsu.” Happy warned.

“I know.” He grunted, moving quicker now.

The further in they went, the more obvious it became that this was no loose search. It had formation, hunters posted where roads funneled, where strangers would need to pass, where word from one sighting could spread fastest. It was like a tightening circle.

“They’re not trying to storm Drakhal.” Lucy said, keeping her voice low, the unease pressing at her. “If they stay just this side of tolerable, if they act like hired men following lawful work…” She swallowed. “They can keep searching without forcing Drakhal’s hand, can’t they?”

That got a full look from him. He seemed annoyed on principle, knowing she was right. “Still hate it.”

“They’re waiting for me to make it easy.”

“Then don’t.”

She almost smiled, but the feeling didn’t fully form. “I wasn’t planning to.”

He tilted his head toward the next split in the road, then said, “From here on out, we stop being easy to spot.”

Lucy glanced down at her cloak, then back at him. “I hate to disappoint you, but I have never been easy to spot.”

Natsu snorted quietly. “You’re memorable in three different directions, princess.”

Her expression flattened. “I regret telling you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Happy pointed ahead with a paw. “Two more.”

Natsu’s attention snapped forward. At the next junction, concealed by a stack of casks, stood another pair of strangers. Both of them faced the opposite direction, scanning crowds with the subtlety of a lighthouse.

Natsu clicked his tongue. He shifted course immediately, steering them through a sliver of passage between a bathhouse wall and a storage shed so narrow Lucy had to turn sideways to fit through it. Two steps in, her cloak brushed the rough boards of it. Three steps in, and her cloak snagged.

Lucy stopped moving. She tugged forward, but the cloak tugged back.

“What’s takin’ so long?” Natsu whispered at her from the other side, peering around the next corner.

“…I’m stuck.”

Natsu turned back to look at her, blinking at the situation.

Happy floated back to her. “Maybe inhale less?”

“I am inhaling a normal amount of air.” She hissed.

“Is it the rocks, Lucy?” He asked innocently.

She sighed. “I’m not carrying any rocks, remember?”

Natsu stepped closer, arms crossed. “How’d you even manage to do that?”

“I walked,” Lucy said tightly.

“That doesn’t seem like walkin’ to me. Right, Happy?”

“Oh yeah. Getting stuck like that is impressive.” He replied nonchalantly.

“Would you please just help me out of here?!”

Happy dove toward the snagged section of cloak, hovering close as he tried to work the fabric loose from the splintered board. Once he finally got a grip on it, he announced, “Okay! I think I got it!”

Natsu grabbed Lucy’s arm. “Ready?”

“For—?”

“Pull.”

Lucy broke free like a cork from a bottle and stumbled straight forward. Happy, still holding the cloak, shot backward from the sudden release and smacked into the bathhouse wall with an oof!

Lucy spun around immediately, sporting a look of worry. “Happy?”

“You okay there, Happy?” Natsu asked next, turning around as well.

“…Good news,” Happy announced weakly. “Your cloak’s free.”

Natsu crouched and picked him up by the scruff, giving him a quick once over. “Try not to get taken out by cloaks or princesses, alright?”

Excuse me, she thought.

She had been worried about him too, thank you very much. If anything, she’d been the first one to spin around. The fact that she had also been the cause of the incident felt like a minor and largely irrelevant detail.

“No promises.” Happy wheezed.

Natsu huffed a fond laugh through his nose, giving him a quick pat between the ears and setting him on his head belly first.

Lucy tugged her cloak back into place, checking to see if it had been torn. She glanced up, shooting Happy a brief look, then Natsu, before clearing her throat lightly. “…Thanks.”

Happy puffed up a little and grinned at her.

The city opened into a cramped service lane lined with shuttered doors and stacked firewood. Only once they were screened from sight did Natsu finally look back at her properly, the last traces of humor gone. “Stay close.”

She held his stare and nodded.

“I would also like to not get captured, for the record.” Happy pointed out anxiously.

“No one’s getting captured.” Natsu said with easy confidence, though his attention had already shifted elsewhere. He drew in a slow breath through his nose, testing the air and listening past the immediate quiet of the lane to the distant noise of the city, the sounds spilling through the maze of alleys around them.

He jerked his head in another direction, another cut between two buildings. “C’mon.”

Lucy fell in beside him, but kept watching his face suspiciously. “Are you… doing something right now?”

“Walking,” Natsu answered.

“That doesn’t seem like walking to me.” She said dryly, echoing his earlier tone. “Do you have super hearing now too?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, Natsu’s gaze flicked upward. “Happy.”

Happy straightened in his hair. “Aye?”

“Go find Gajeel and Levy,” Natsu said without slowing, delivering instruction. “Tell ’em things got a little crowded around here and that we’re gonna need an escape tomorrow. But keep it vague.”

Happy’s ears twitched. “Vague how?”

“Just vague.” Natsu waved a hand as if the distinction hardly mattered. “Tell ’em I’ll be back early tomorrow. They should be ready to move with a plan.”

Happy pushed off from Natsu’s head, wings fluttering. Happy hovered uncertainly, looking between the two of them. “…You’re sure?”

Natsu flashed a quick grin at him. “We’ll manage. I’ll see you at the house.”

The confidence in the answer seemed to settle the question.

“Okay,” Happy said at last, reassured. “I’ll tell them.”

“Thanks, Happy.”

“Be careful!” With one last nervous glance between the two of them, he kicked his wings hard and shot upward between the walls, vanishing across the rooftops in a blurry streak of blue.

Lucy watched the empty strip of sky he left behind for a moment before turning back toward Natsu. “Gajeel?” She said, frowning. “You mean the guy from the alley?”

The memory of them full on fist fighting over a losing bet came back clearly. That was one of the people they were trusting with their escape?

“I’ll tell you later.” Natsu said, his attention already elsewhere.

Somewhere farther down the street a wagon rolled over uneven stone, its wheels clattering loudly enough to carry between buildings. A door slammed nearby, and voices rose and overlapped in a heated exchange over broken crates just beyond the next block, distracting the ear.

Natsu tilted his head, reconsidering the sound of footsteps farther back the way they had come, then shook it off and angled them toward another passage.

They misjudged the turn by a matter of steps. No more than that, but it was enough.

The service passage ahead narrowed into a refuse court with crates. The moment Natsu rounded the corner, Lucy felt his momentum falter and his body stiffen as three figures detached themselves from the far shadows and the area turned from route to trap.

He pushed her back behind him instantly. The bounty hunters hadn’t seen them, not yet, but they were waiting with the lazy watchfulness of predators who had cut off every exit.

Natsu retreated back to the wall, mind visibly going to work. He reached for a nearby stack of crates, fingers testing the rope that bound them. His eyes flicked up to the pulley track overhead. Lucy saw it all at once, the cleverness of it, the gamble: drop the load, make noise elsewhere, slip past in the confusion.

He yanked the rope, but the knot held.

The pulley screamed instead. A high whine rang out, and Lucy felt her stomach drop as every head snapped toward the sound.

Too loud, Lucy thought, a cold spike of fear clarity slicing through her. Too obvious!

One of the men whispered under his breath, and another took a step forward. This time, the footsteps didn’t falter. The bounty hunters’ silhouettes slid closer, unhurried. They were headed straight for the shaded area where Lucy and Natsu stood pressed between two leaning buildings, close enough now that she could hear the soft clink of their armor as they spread.

“Damn,” Natsu breathed, shoulders squaring in preparation to force something, anything, before the distance collapsed entirely.

No, Lucy thought suddenly. Not like that.

She made sure all her hair was well tucked into her hood. There was no time to warn him.

Lucy reached up, fisted her hand in the front of his collar, and yanked until he was crowding her into the wall. The movement was decisive, fueled by a confidence that left no room for doubt. Natsu stumbled a half a step forward before instinct caught up with surprise, his arm snapping out to brace against the wall beside her head. It bit into his palm as the space between them vanished.

Lucy rose onto her toes, close enough that her breath ghosted his, where the shadow swallowed the exact line of where she ended and he began. It wasn’t a real kiss by any means, but it was enough to look like it.

Natsu blinked, his eyes wide with startled confusion. For a moment, she thought he might ruin it, but then he saw her expression, the fierce, unblinking intent in her gaze, the silent trust me burning there, and he shifted. His body settled and his weight rolled in, blocking her from view naturally.

Lucy tilted her head just enough, not touching, letting the illusion do the work for her. It was just dark enough to work. It had to.

The footsteps slowed, then stopped altogether.

“Hell,” One of the bounty hunters drawled, amusement thick in his voice.

Another whistled low, appreciative. “Buncha drunks! Get a room!” He laughed, boots already turning away. Their laughter faded, interest evaporating as easily as it had formed.

They stayed just long enough for Lucy’s pulse to hammer dangerously loud in her ears, for her to become aware of the heat of Natsu’s body and the flex of his arm beside her head.

Only when the sound was well and truly gone did Natsu ease back, his arm dropping from the wall as he glanced around once, twice, before looking back at her, impressed. The grin he shot her was mischievous, eyes bright. “Nice one, Lucy.”

And Lucy, a little breathless, smiled with him in relief. “Thanks.”

Natsu leaned past her shoulder to check the passage again, scanning both directions to confirm the hunters had truly moved on. “But we’re not clear yet,” He said, tone shifting back to business. “They’ll circle around.”

Natsu steered them through two more turns than necessary, then finally pushed open the crooked door of a local tavern whose windows were too clouded with grease and smoke to offer clean sightlines from the street. Inside, noise swallowed them whole.

This place was far larger than the pub Lucy had previously sat in, and far more packed. Warm lighting pooled across high beams and uneven floorboards, the glow shifting with the sway of iron chandeliers suspended from thick chains. They were rustic and forged in circles, candles spaced along their rims.

Lucy took everything in quickly as she followed Natsu inside. A bard somewhere near the back wrestled with a heroic ballad on a battered lute. While his voice was enthusiastic, it was barely surviving the music and roar of conversation around him. Tables were crowded with people already deep into their drinks, laughter rising loudly and often as steins thumped against tables hard enough to slosh liquid on the floor. Some drinks were held by tankards black or white in color, seemingly made out of ivory.

A massive dragon skull dominated the center of the far wall, its curved horns stretching. Beneath it hung a carved wooden banner bearing the tavern’s name.

THE DRAGON’S DEN

The sign looked newer than everything around it, the wood polished and lettering cut with care. To the left of the skull hung a red banner bearing the gold, minimalistic silhouette of a winged dragon. Its fabric was scorched along its lower edge, curling slightly upward. Beside it, an iron wall sconce shaped like a dragon’s claw gripped a shallow bowl where fire burned steady.

The place smelled of roasted meat, liquor, and smoke. Two men were leaned over a table, locked in an intense domino match. A card game unfolded at another table with increasing accusations of cheating and laughter, gold coins scattered in a pile between them.

“You palmed that!”

“The fuck I did!”

In one corner, she spotted a sultry woman lounged comfortably in a man’s lap, murmuring something that made him chuckle like a fool as he held her ass. Lucy caught the scene by accident and immediately looked away, embarrassed by the improper view.

Two women closer to her argued in low, sharp tones. Lucy observed from the corner of her eyes as she caught up to Natsu, already waiting for her at the bar.

“I’m telling you, they won’t tolerate another port tax.” One hissed. “Merfolk have already cut patrols twice this season.”

“And whose fault is that? Have you seen what’s washing up lately?” She snapped. “If I were them I’d do the same. Those dicks are making it worse by sending privateers and pretending it isn’t sanctioned.”

Lucy’s brow furrowed. She kept walking.

Natsu slid onto one of the stools at the counter like he’d been here many times before, waving a hand toward the barkeeper. “Hey, Cana! Two ales,” He called, his voice carrying cleanly over the swell of tavern noise. “And whatever’s fast.”

The woman behind the counter looked up at once. She was pretty, all smooth skin and clever eyes. Dark hair spilled over one shoulder in a loose wave, and her cheeks carried the warm flush of someone who had likely sampled her own stock before sunset.

“We don’t have time for this, do we?” Lucy asked, sitting down beside him. She played with her braid for a moment, pulling it out of her hood and rearranging her hair back into place at her shoulder nicely. Just because she was on the run didn’t mean she had to look like it.

“We’ve got exactly enough time.” Natsu replied easily. He tipped his chin toward the packed room around them. “If they’re sweepin’ the streets, they expect movement. That means they’ve already checked indoors. So we stay still.”

It made sense.

The hunters had stopped at Emberhold Inn a few days ago. Natsu probably inferred that they were checking the interiors first before spreading out across the streets. That, and he’d spent hours asking around and observing them while she’d been unconscious. The search had tightened since then, so maybe they were getting impatient.

Outside, hunters were circling the city like vultures. Inside, they were just two more people in a sea of patrons looking for a drink.

Lucy’s gaze drifted to the coins he’d tossed onto the counter, polished and more than enough. She wasn’t entirely sure what ale and bar food normally cost, but even she could tell he’d tipped generously. Natsu never seemed to be short on money, though that was to be expected. He was royalty after all, even if the royalty of Drakhal had a different manner of doing things.

Cana’s eyes focused on Natsu first as she finally walked over, narrowing with familiar amusement. “Well, look who finally decided to stop by and drink something that isn’t on fire.” She drawled, already reaching for steins.

She was not Dragonborn. There was no shimmer of scale at her throat, no horns or telltale markers of the blood that dominated Drakhal. But she wasn’t human either. Lucy couldn’t have said exactly why, there was just something faintly uncanny about her, a watchfulness that suggested she heard more than people said aloud. Whatever she was, she wore it comfortably.

“I drink other things sometimes.” Natsu pointed out.

“You burn other things.” Cana corrected pleasantly. “And don’t think this tip covers what you still owe me for that banner you roasted.”

Her eyes slid past him and landed on Lucy.

Lucy straightened instinctively, the old reflex to present herself properly sparking to life again.

“Well hello,” Cana’s brow lifted. “Who’s the hottie?” She asked, her chin tilting toward her and tone syrupy.

Lucy blinked at her.

Natsu glanced over his shoulder at her. “She’s with me.”

Cana’s smile widened a fraction, something conspiratorial flickering in her eyes. She leaned forward on her elbows, gaze darting between them in a way Lucy did not immediately understand.

“Well, well,” She said lightly, “aren’t we branching out.” She shot Natsu an exaggerated wink. “Don’t worry. I won’t mention a thing.”

Mention what?

Lucy’s confusion sharpened into sudden, mortifying clarity. Her cheeks warmed before she could stop them. “Oh, I’m not—“

“Good.” Natsu said at once, seriously. “‘Cause we’re layin’ low right now.”

Cana’s smile only deepened. “Natsu,” She said, suddenly delighted, “you sly dog! I didn’t know you had it in ya!”

Lucy felt a small part of her soul leave her body. He had absolutely no idea what she was implying.

Cana pushed off the counter with a laugh, already turning toward another end of the bar where a patron had begun loudly accusing her of watering down the ale.

“You’ll survive a damn minute!” She called back over her shoulder.

She moved smoothly between counter and cask, drawing ale with practiced speed. Lucy watched the foam crest and spill over the rims of the steins as she slid them across the bar to others waiting before them.

At a far table behind her, a broad shouldered man leaned back in his chair, speaking slowly while three smaller figures listened. His voice carried to Lucy’s ears.

“No way. Giants can’t cross into human territory without contract.” He said, and the word contract landed mockingly. “Last time it happened, they called it invasion.”

One of the smaller men scoffed. “Humans call anything taller than them a threat.”

Resigned laughter rippled.

Lucy’s fingers tightened in her lap.

Humans.

The word was spoken here with exasperation and familiarity, like neighbors who argued across a fence but still borrowed each other’s ladders when the roof needed fixing.

Humans seemed complicated. Sometimes dangerous, sometimes necessary, sometimes both in the same afternoon. It was quite different from her father’s clipped, volatile words. There, it had been said with distant superiority, spoken of like one might refer to mayflies that made a nuisance of themselves.

They can’t be too bad, Lucy reminded herself.

She had to acknowledge her conditioned alarm at the thought, how rebellious this would have sounded to her elders. She would have been praised for dismissing them altogether in Thalrim. Here, she was starting to understand that the real world wasn’t built on neat categories of better and lesser. She had to distinguish between prejudice and truth, between a people and the pressures placed upon them. It’d be nice to sit across a human in conversation some day and learn more, preferably while not being hunted down by them.

“You seem stressed.” Natsu said, watching her.

Lucy blinked again, caught. She hadn’t realized her face was giving her away. She hesitated, then let the truth come without dressing it up. “I am.”

He glanced back at the man, to the women arguing about sea patrols, to a trio of travelers who wore clothes unlike anything she recognized, and then back to her. “It’s just people.” He said.

“No, it’s not. It’s more than that.” She continued, her words drawn from somewhere deeper than pride would have liked. “It’s everything I don’t know. The alliances, the grudges, the way they talk about other races like it’s obvious. I don’t understand any of it.” She admitted. “I feel stupid.”

He tilted his head slightly, studying her in that patient way of his. “How could you be stupid for not knowin’?”

“Because—” She stopped, glancing back quickly. She had to be careful with what she said out loud, especially near Dragonborns with sensitive hearing. “Because of who I am. I was always taught to speak as if I understood the world beyond our borders, but I don’t. Not really.” She shook her head, then said more shamefully, “I don’t know anything, and I hate it. It makes me feel like I’m walking into danger unarmed.”

“Well, you are.” He replied simply. “So what?”

“So what?” She repeated, incredulous.

“Everybody walks into somethin’ unarmed at some point. Everyone has somethin’ they don’t know.” He said. “You’re just noticing it more now.”

She frowned at him. “You make everything sound so easy.”

“Most of it is.” He countered. “Don’t overthink it too much. You see something you don’t get? Ask about it. Just start with what makes you curious.” He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug, then added, “If someone gives ya trouble, I’ll handle it. And before long you’ll know how to handle it yourself.”

Her shoulders eased. Natsu hadn’t tried to soften the problem or pretend it didn’t exist. He had simply accepted that she was standing in the middle of it and treated that as normal. Strangely, that helped more than comfort would have.

The world felt too enormous, loud and layered and filled with history she was ignorant to, but she wasn’t afraid of it. If anything, it felt like invitation. The more she realized she didn’t know, the more fiercely she wanted to learn.

Maybe the real shame was never ignorance itself, but refusing to outgrow it.

Maybe living wasn’t about certainty or safety or having all the answers. Maybe it was about discovering your way forward. The courage to admit what you didn’t know and work to understand it; the freedom to pursue curiosity wherever it led because it called to you like a distant star.

Somewhere along the way she had learned something about herself. And if the road ahead looked anything like the one behind her, there would be many more lessons waiting for her.

Their steins finally arrived, slid across the counter with a soft thud. Froth spilled over the rim of them. The bar food came next, a small wooden platter of sizzling meat skewers. Natsu eyed them with a comical intensity.

Cana leaned in once more. “Try not to set anything on fire.” She said to Natsu, then looked to Lucy. Her expression suddenly softened into mock innocence, dark lashes lowering as she clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Or break his wittle heart.” She added, gaze flicking between them with deliberate, wicked amusement.

Lucy felt the heat climb all the way to the tips of her ears. Her brain stalled. “I’m not—” She managed, the words escaping in a thin breath. “We’re not—”

Natsu, meanwhile, had already finished three of the meat skewers. “Whymm would shemff break anythinff?” He asked, genuinely perplexed, voice muffled from the fourth and last meat skewer in his mouth. He gulped it down quickly, then said, “We just got here.”

“Hey! I said this is watered down!”

Cana’s expression changed instantly. “Touch my barrels again and I’ll throw you out myself!” She barked. “I measure with my eyes, and my eyes are perfect!”

And then she disappeared into the fray, threatening bodily removal and financial ruin in equal measure.

“That’s not what she meant.” Lucy hissed under her breath to Natsu.

“Then what’d she mean?” Natsu asked, squinting at her in honest confusion.

“She was implying—” Lucy began, then faltered. She opened her mouth again. Closed it. How was she supposed to explain this to someone who probably only categorized the world into fight, food, and sleep?

“Nevermind.” She said tightly. It’s better she forgets the whole thing. Maybe it was common out here for people to assume relationships, she just wasn’t used to it. Such an insinuation would have previously been an insult. Worse, a strategic slight that would have required response and correction.

But it was a joke. A loud, unfiltered, ale soaked joke. And the world was not Thalrim.

He studied her, trying to detect some invisible threat she had failed to articulate, then shrugged with disarming indifference. “Well, I’m not worried.”

“About what?”

“About my heart.” He said plainly, looking forward. “It’s working fine.”

Lucy stared at him.

So he’d gone with literal organ function, then. How dense could he possibly be?

She glanced toward the tavern door once more, scanning the shifting bodies for the posture of men sweeping a room instead of enjoying it. Nothing. Only placed bets and conversation and the smoke of cigars. Satisfied, for now, she looked back down at the ale set in front of her awkwardly, fiddling with a strand of her hair.

Natsu shot her a sideways glance, fingers already curled around the handle of his stein. “You drink?” He asked, noticing her hesitation.

“…No.” She said honestly.

He paused, the stein hovering inches from his mouth. “Why not?”

“I’ve never had alcohol.”

His brows climbed slowly, incredulity dawning in stages. “Not even a little?” He pressed.

“Not even a drop.”

He lowered his ale entirely now, staring at her. “You’re joking.”

“I am not.” She said primly, a little offended at his amusement. “It was discouraged.”

“Of course it was,” He said immediately, delight breaking across his face. “That’s amazing.”

“What’s amazing about that?” She said exasperatedly.

He laughed under his breath, shaking his head in genuine wonder. “You crossed the Great Forest. You fought bounty hunters. You tried to walk down a cliff.” His grin widened. “But ale? Too dangerous.”

“That’s not what I said.” She insisted lamely.

He lifted his stein properly this time. “Well then,” He declared, eyes alight, “cheers!”

“To what?” She asked warily.

“Do ya even need to ask?” He said matter of factly. “To first times!”

She exhaled softly and gave in. First times were, technically, something people celebrated, right? She lifted her stein reluctantly and tapped it against his with a soft thunk.

She took a cautious sip. The bitterness struck first, unexpected, followed by what felt like a ball of fire rolling down into her chest and sitting low in her stomach. She coughed as it burned her throat. The awful taste lingered, and she pulled the stein away, grimacing.

“This is terrible.” She said hoarsely. “How do people actually drink this?”

Natsu had nearly chugged all of his by now. He let out a small laugh again at her response. “You get used to it.” He replied, wiping foam from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why would anyone want to?”

He tilted his head, looking at her with that same amused curiosity he had worn when she admitted the truth. “You’re so weird, Lucy.”

“And you’re drinking foam.” She replied.

“Foam’s good.” He grinned.

Lucy looked down at her stein again. The surface of the ale caught the firelight, swirling and shifting with each small movement of her hand. All these people had to be drinking ale for a reason. She’d seen a few unpleasant nobles do so in Thalrim as well, usually over aged wine or cognac, like their goblets held some private reward.

There had to be something about it, something she was missing.

She took another, smaller sip this time, determined not to flinch. The bitterness had not improved, but the warmth spread more easily now. It wasn’t… completely horrible, she guessed. Once you ignored the taste, that is. She felt a little lighter now, even.

Natsu watched her over the rim of his own stein, his grin lingering. He looked like he had just witnessed something uniquely entertaining and had every intention of savoring it.

Time folded strangely inside the tavern.

The noise swelled and receded in waves, chairs scraping, laughter rising and lowering. The bard had either started a second song or never stopped the first. Lucy couldn’t quite tell anymore.

At some point, Cana passed behind them again, arguing loudly about cask measurements. At some point, Lucy realized her shoulders had completely relaxed without her permission. The tavern felt warmer now. Softer.

She lifted her stein again and took another sip, deciding she minded the taste less than she had a few minutes ago. Some of it clumsily spilled onto her thigh, and she looked down.

How did that happen?

At some point, Natsu was no longer beside her.

The stool on her left was empty of Dragonborn now, and she stared at it.

She considered whether it was a trick of the ale, or if he was still there somehow, just… less visible than before. She was about to investigate this very important theory when a familiar voice sounded at her shoulder.

“Lucy.”

She turned her head too quickly, and the world blurred weirdly.

Natsu was suddenly there again, not invisible at all and standing close enough that she could see the faint sheen of heat rolling from his shoulders. He must have stepped outside and brought a trace of night air back with him.

“We should go now.” He said to her, voice quiet and practical. “It’s clear.”

“Clear?” She repeated thoughtfully, testing the word.

He narrowed his eyes slightly at her. “Did you drink more?”

She blinked at him owishly. “Noo?”

He glanced at her stein, but it was barely lowered from where she had left it. He looked back at her, visibly confused. “You barely had four sips.”

Lucy attempted to dismount the stool gracefully. The floor, however, had relocated without informing her. Her foot missed the rung entirely, and she lurched sideways in a manner she would later deny with absolute conviction.

“What the—!” Natsu started. He caught her by the elbow firmly and steadied her, heat radiating through the fabric at her sleeve. He leaned closer, inspecting her face. “You’re swaying.”

“I am not sss—” She paused, then tried again. “Swayin’.”

He looked bewildered. “You’re seriously tipsy? From just four sips?”

“I’m not tipshyy,” She declared, pointing at him with grave authority and missing by several inches. “I’m Elven.”

Natsu stared at her. A single bead of sweat slid down the side of his temple.

“…Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” He said to himself. He shifted her arm more securely around his shoulders, ignoring the way her body seemed to interpret gravity as only suggestion now. “Okay,” He muttered under his breath. “Let’s go. C’mon, c’mon.”

“I am comin’.” She said with a sort of wounded frustration.

“You’re not,” He replied, adjusting his grip as she suddenly veered left without warning. “You’re orbiting.”

The tavern door loomed ahead, crooked on its hinges. Natsu maneuvered them toward it with careful efficiency, half dragging, half guiding. Lucy’s boots caught once on the edge of a rug that had likely been a tripping hazard for decades.

“Why’s thefloor movin’?” She demanded as they approached the front door.

“It’s not.” He answered exasperatedly. “That’s just the alcohol talking.”

Lucy huffed at this information. “How can alcohol taalk?” She asked. “Yer not makin’ any senseeee.”

They were almost to the door when a hand landed lightly against Natsu’s forearm.

Cana stood there, no grin, no wicked glint in her eyes this time. She had angled herself slightly so her back shielded them from casual observation. Her gaze swept over Lucy’s slumped posture, once across the room, and then returned to him.

“Natsu,” Cana said quietly, “before you go.”

Even with Lucy leaning into him, even with her muttering about the unfairness of rugs, his attention sharpened. “What?” He asked.

“I saw something.” She said, her eyes flitting to Lucy again. “About her.”

“What kinda somethin’?” Natsu asked, voice low. He didn’t dismiss Cana’s abilities the way he dismissed half the world’s warnings. He knew better than to do that.

Behind them, the tavern noise rolled on. Laughter bloomed and collapsed, dice clattering. A stein dropped with a wet thunk and a drunken apology got swallowed by music. The space between the three of them felt oddly tight.

“Important.” She replied carefully. “It wasn’t a full vision, but it was strong. So I went to the cards,” She continued, “and there was a tower split by light. Something old rising beneath it. She was there.”

“Doing what?” His voice dropped a fraction more.

“Singing.” She answered, but the word did not sound gentle in her mouth.

Natsu frowned.

“Natsuuu.” Lucy called in a low, elongated complaint. “Whyy’re you having a shhhecret—” She hiccuped. “—meetin’ withoutme? I can see you whisperin’.” She accused, pointing vaguely at the space somewhere near Natsu’s shoulder and missing by several inches. It ended up poking Natsu in the nose instead.

He caught her wrist and pried her hand away from his face, lowering it back to her side. “Personal space.” He muttered under his breath.

“I was emphasssizin’.” She informed him, offended at the implication of error.

“You emphasized my face.”

“It wuz in the way.”

Natsu closed his eyes briefly in resigned annoyance. “Gimme a second.”

“I’ve given at leasht fiiive,” Lucy whined gravely, leaning against his grip as though exhausted.

Cana bit back the ghost of a smile, but it didn’t fully take. She leaned closer to Natsu instead, lowering her voice again. “And you were there.” Cana continued, her tone sharpening. “You, and three others.”

“Who?”

“That’s the problem.” She admitted, frustration and unease warring across her face. “I couldn’t see their faces, but I know one of them was you.” She insisted. “I was shown your hands, and a sword. It’s just, when I tried to look directly, everything went white.”

Cana’s brows drew together faintly. “She looked…” She trailed off, almost annoyed with her own limitations, that the universe would show her the start of a storm but not its name.

Lucy leaned closer, squinting suspiciously at Cana as though she had just been personally excluded from something fascinating. “You’re bein’ mysterioous,” She slurred. “I dun like it.”

“She looked what?” Natsu pressed on, impatience flaring. His grip on Lucy adjusted almost imperceptibly.

“I don’t know.” Cana answered honestly. “Just don’t assume you’re walking beside someone ordinary.”

Natsu glanced down at Lucy, who had already lost interest and instead decided to pat the doorframe with her free hand, confirming it was, in fact, solid and there.

“I’m not.” He said finally.

Cana held his gaze for a second longer, satisfied with whatever she found there, and then like a candle snuffed and relit, the solemnity cracked. She leaned back slightly, mischief threatening to return. “Also,” She added wryly, “keep her away from any more ale tonight.”

Natsu made a face. “I don’t need cards to see that.”

He pushed the door open with his shoulder. Night air rushed in, cutting through the heat and smoke of the tavern. Behind them, Cana watched for a moment longer than necessary, the echo of her vision lingering.

Lucy inhaled deeply and blinked, surprised by the concept of oxygen. “Oh,” She said faintly. “Thass wayy better.”

She swayed again, and he tightened his hold. “Better, huh?” He repeated, unconvinced. His attention lifted past her, surveying the street.

The street outside had quieted since earlier. The clusters of strangers that had been drifting through were gone, and the doorways stood empty where men had lingered. No silhouettes doubling back or watchers stationed near the corners. For the moment, it looked clear.

He glanced down at her again, replaying Cana’s words in his head.

Lucy, meanwhile, had tilted her head back and was staring at the sky as if it had been newly invented. “It’s s’large.” She murmured, awe softening her voice.

“It’s always been large.” Natsu said flatly. “It’s the sky.”

They made it ten steps before she stumbled outright, the heel of her boot catching on absolutely nothing. He caught her before she could meet the ground face first, hauling her upright with a low grunt. Lucy blinked up at him, studying him with earnestness.

“Yer sssurprisingly solid.” She observed.

“…I guess.” He replied, clearly unsure of what to do with her sudden honesty.

“I cud probly win a duel likethis.” She added thoughtfully.

“Like this? With who?”

“You.”

He snorted despite himself. “You can barely win against the sidewalk.”

She made a noise of indignation that dissolved halfway through into something suspiciously close to a giggle.

That stopped him.

Natsu slowed, staring down at her. “Are you giggling?”

“M’not.” Lucy insisted immediately, offended by the accusation. Her lips pressed into what she clearly believed was composure but was, in fact, barely restrained giggles.

A second bead of sweat slid down his temple. “Okay,” He said under his breath again, repositioning her arm more firmly around his shoulders. “Let’s just… get to the house.”

The walk back became a slow struggle with the ground. He kept her angled slightly toward him, his arm anchored around her waist when necessary, steering her away from uneven stones and gutters while she drifted unpredictably.

Lucy suddenly tried to pivot away from him, alarmed. “Wait,” She said with sudden urgency. “I jusht ‘membered somethin’ important!”

Natsu let out a wary sigh. “What?”

“M’keys,” Lucy whispered, horror dawning across her face. “Theyer gone.”

He looked down at her hip. The entire ring of golden keys hung plainly from them, glinting.

“They’re—”

“M’keys are missin’, Natsu,” She said gravely, lifting her eyes to him with drunken sincerity. She had already begun patting her cloak with increasing alarm, her movements slow but deeply committed to the search. “Wha’ do I doo?”

“They’re right there.” He answered flatly, pointing at the keys.

Lucy froze and leaned forward, squinting down toward her hip. Sure enough, they were right where he pointed, chiming softly as she swayed. “…Oh.”

Without comment, Natsu turned her firmly back toward the road and resumed walking, his attention sweeping the roads while he guided her forward.

“Why’re you bein’ sooo bossy?” She muttered under her breath.

“You’re drunk.”

“M’not.”

“Right,” He said dryly. “And I’m a flying cat.”

“M’not drunk!” She insisted, lifting one hand to slap at his arm.

She missed entirely. Her arm swung upward and connected solidly with his throat instead. Natsu made a strangled sound that was neither dignified nor particularly dragon like.

Lucy froze.

He staggered half a step back, one hand flying instinctively to his neck as he coughed, eyes watering in affronted disbelief. “What the hell, Lucy!?”

“I—” Lucy blinked at him. “You moved.”

“I didn’t.” He rasped. He coughed again, pointing at her with wounded indignation. “You almost crushed my freakin’ windpipe!”

“But… yer fireproof.”

“This has nothing to do with magic!”

She frowned at that, swaying just enough that he had to steady her again before she tipped sideways.

“Jeez,” He muttered, adjusting his hold and repositioning her arm carefully this time so it would not become a weapon. “New rule. No sudden movements. You’re gonna knock me unconscious at this rate.”

She leaned closer, peering up at him, examining the damage she had allegedly not caused. “Wounded?” She asked, unexpectedly demure.

“I’m fine.” He said, brow twitching in annoyance.  

Her brows suddenly pinched together. She stared at his face, and her lower lip wobbled. “You’re injured.” She whispered, oddly coherent this time.

“What?” He said, frowning at her. “I’m not. It just hurt, s'all.”

Her eyes began to shine. “I hitted you.” She said, voice trembling. “Ansh yer mad at me.”

“Whoa, hey—no no no—!” He panicked instantly, glancing around. “Don’t do that! I’m fine!” He blurted nervously, clearly out of his depth. To prove it, he leaned closer and turned his head side to side, presenting evidence. “Look, see? Totally fine! Not wounded! Zero wounds!”

Her lip trembled harder, tears threatening to spill.

Natsu frantically waved his hands. “No crying! You don’t need to cry right now because everything is okay!”

“Mad.”

“I’m not mad!” He insisted. “I promise!”

She sniffled, still unconvinced.

He glanced down the street again. They were getting nowhere. At this rate he was going to get caught escorting a drunk, crying, runaway Elven princess through the streets in the middle of the night. Definitely not part of the “don’t get spotted” plan, and a great way to save bounty hunters the effort.

“Lucy,” He said helplessly, lowering his voice, “I’m not mad at you. I swear.”

She looked up at him, eyes still watery but focusing a little better now.

“Can we just get to the house, please?” He added quickly, gentling his tone. “If we don’t, I’m gonna cry next.”

“…‘Kay.” She said finally, wiping her eyes and composing herself.

“Great,” Natsu let out a relieved sigh. “Good. Then let’s go.”

She nodded, then tugged lightly on his sleeve. “Seeee,” She said, “I wud win that duel.”  

He stopped and stared at her, baffled. “…What?”

Before she could continue, Natsu’s gaze sharpened past her shoulder. Two figures were just down the street, moving with purposeful slowness, pausing at doorways.

Bounty hunters.

“Shit,” Natsu breathed.

Lucy squinted past him. “Natsuu, those’rethe men.” She announced far too loudly.

“Shh!”

“They have assdymmetrical shhoulders.” She added helpfully. It was really bothering her for some reason.

“Lucy.” He hissed. He pivoted smoothly, steering them toward a recessed doorway swallowed in shadow and pressing her gently back against the wall. “Just— stay quiet!”

Lucy understood this, at least in theory. She recognized the danger even through the haze, but alcohol made seriousness feel like something happening two rooms away, muffled by walls. Her attention kept snagging on absurdities, like how she had just remembered she might be blinking too loudly.

He shifted his body in front of hers, blocking their line of sight and angling to obscure her profile. The hunters footsteps continued, voices low and indistinct.

Lucy leaned slightly to the side. He nudged her back.

She leaned the other way. He nudged her again.

“M’helping.” She murmured, aggrieved.

“You’re peeking.” He whispered.

“Ssstrategically.”

“Not strategically.”

The hunters paused halfway down the road, speaking between themselves. One of them broke away, turning back down the road alone while the other lagged several paces behind, distracted by something in a nearby doorway.

Lucy inhaled, trying to get her bearings together. Drunk or not, she was at least partially aware of the situation. “Shhould we create a distraaction?” She whispered, sincere.

“No.” He whispered back instantly.

“I could preten’ to throw up.”

“Please don’t.”

“I could fall… dr’matically.”

“You’re already doing that.”

“I could—”

“Lucy. Stop.”

She huffed softly, eyes narrowed in affront. She was trying to be useful, but fiiiiine. If he didn’t want her help, she would find a way to occupy herself instead.

Her attention moved to the weapon secured at the back of his waist. It was bigger than a dagger but not quite a sword, sleek and housed in red and gold. She had noticed it before, but now it seemed strangely fascinating. Lucy leaned closer, studying it with curiosity.

She had never once seen him use it. Was it functional or just a decorative weapon? Her fingers drifted toward it in idle curiosity.

“What’re you doing?” Natsu whispered suddenly, his voice dropping into a tense murmur. He could tell her hand was moving even though he wasn’t looking at her.

“M’just checkin’ somethin’…”

“I said no sudden movements, remember?”

Lucy nodded seriously, paying very close attention to him.

She reached for the weapon anyway, attempting to grip the handle and draw it out to inspect more closely. She missed. Her hands slipped lower by accident, digging into his waist instead.

Natsu jerked like he’d been struck by lightning. “—ghk!”

The sound carried farther down the road than either of them would have liked. The nearest bounty hunter lifted his head sharply at the sound.

Lucy blinked at him. “What—”

“Don’t—!” Natsu hissed, twisting sharply away from her as another involuntary laugh threatened to break loose. His shoulders locked tight as he forced the reaction back down.

Lucy froze where she stood, staring at him. “Why’d you make tha’ weird noise jus’ now?”

“Because you’re ticklin’ me!” He snapped, ears warming. The words had barely left his mouth before movement caught the corner of his eye. Natsu’s head snapped up.

One of the bounty hunters had turned the corner, drawn in by the sound of hissed voices. He slowed as he approached, his attention on their silhouettes in the dark.

Too close.

Natsu’s mind ran through his options in an instant. Turning back now would be too suspicious, and running would attract the attention of more hunters. They couldn’t risk a scene.

“Hey—” The hunter started, turning his head slightly to call down the road and warn the others, but Natsu had already closed the distance between them before the word could finish leaving his mouth.

He stepped in tight and forcefully drove his heel straight into the back of the man’s knee. The joint buckled instantly. Before the hunter could even register the loss of balance or gasp, Natsu’s palm snapped up under his jaw and shoved his head forward, directly into the stone wall.

The man dropped instantly.

Natsu caught him before he collapsed loudly, dragging him by the collar into an alley. The hunter’s head lolled uselessly with every step. He didn’t slow until he reached a stack of empty, weathered crates. With a short grunt, he shoved the unconscious man behind them, arranging his limp body just far enough into shadow that anyone passing the alley would only see darkness.

By the time he returned, Lucy’s heart had climbed somewhere into her throat. The sudden violence had cut through the fog of ale enough to sober her slightly.

“This,” Natsu muttered, grabbing her by the shoulders and steering her firmly toward the path that led back to his house, “is your first and last time drinking.”

Lucy did not argue this time. She went along easily, blinking as the rush of adrenaline pushed back the haze in her head. “…Won’t they talk?”

“They’ll talk,” He said, glancing back toward the alley where the man lay unconscious. “Just not tonight.”

“He didn’ see your face?”

Natsu huffed softly. “I don’t think he even finished breathing before he hit the wall.”

That was good.

Well, no, actually, it was terrible for him and she hoped he would be alright eventually. But for them, it was good. She had remained unseen and Natsu had struck frighteningly fast.

It was difficult to reconcile what she had just witnessed with the same person she had accidentally tickled into embarrassment seconds earlier. Then again, she supposed he might be having similar difficulties reconciling with the fact that she was, apparently, a runaway princess from Thalrim of all places.

They moved quickly now, keeping to the darker side of the streets, dipping through narrow alleys if needed. Lucy walked with exaggerated care, trying her best to keep up despite the sway in her balance.

The buildings finally thinned, curving toward a familiar stretch of green. He guided her along the short path without slowing, one hand still ready at her arm in case the ground tried to take her again.

Finally, they reached Natsu’s house. He guided her up the short path toward his door.

“We made it.” He said out loud, equal parts relieved and in disbelief.

By now, the walk here had burned up a lot of the alcohol in her system. She was still sort of tipsy and relaxed, but nowhere near as drunk as she was earlier. “…Sorry.” She apologized, sheepish in a way she did not often allow herself to be.

Natsu looked at her. He let out a long breath, the tension draining from his shoulders. Sure, things went a little sideways, but not badly enough to matter in the end.

“Don’t worry about it.” He said at last, mouth twitching despite himself. “It was your first time drinkin’, I shoulda known.”

He fumbled briefly with the latch, then pushed the door open for her. Lucy slipped inside gratefully, the house wrapping around her like a warm blanket.

Despite the lingering effect of alcohol in her limbs, guilt tugged at her. She hadn’t meant to cause so much trouble. If she had known it would do… all of that, she might have reconsidered entirely.

Behind her, Natsu nudged the door shut with his foot and stretched, rolling his shoulders like the entire day had amounted to nothing more strenuous than a long workout. In one fluid motion he tugged off his tunic and scarf, tossing it onto the nearest chair, followed by his boots, leaving him with only his harem pants.

Lucy stilled.

He padded across the wooden floor barefoot and completely unbothered, muscles shifting under sun browned skin as he walked toward a basin tucked into the corner. He splashed water over his face and ran wet fingers back through his hair, pushing the pink strands away from his eyes.

“Of course,” She muttered to herself, toeing off her boots. “How could I expect fabric to survive past the entrance?”

“Did’ya say somethin’?” Natsu asked. His voice was muffled as he wiped water from his face with a towel.

“Nothing.” She said with an airy dismissal, waving a hand vaguely. “Please, continue your… natural state.”

Lucy inhaled carefully and regretted it immediately when the motion pulled at the soreness in her chest, a dull warning pulse still there.

He turned his head slightly toward her. “Still hurtin’?”

“It’s manageable now.” She said after a moment. “Just a little sore.”

“Good.” He straightened and looked across the room, then lifted a thumb toward the hammock strung between two beams. “You take that.”

“What?”

“The hammock,” He repeated simply. “It’s more comfortable.”

“And where are you sleeping?”

Natsu crouched beside the table and dragged something flat and folded into the open. It was a field cot. He snapped the wooden frame open until the canvas stretched tight, giving it a testing push with his hand.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“I’ve slept on worse.” He replied nonchalantly, already adjusting the cot’s position before dropping onto it, folding his arms behind his head.

That was… nice of him.

Lucy shifted awkwardly beside the hammock, suddenly aware of the fact that she was still wearing everything she had arrived in. Normally, she would have changed before sleeping. There would be a door or a screen, at least.

Lucy folded her arms, staring at the hammock ropes.

Well.

She was certainly not dressing down to her undergarments in front of him.

Across the room, Natsu cracked one eye open. “You gonna stand there all night?”

Lucy drew in a slow breath, looking at him.

This guy wouldn’t understand. He could sprawl half naked across the cot without a second thought if he wanted to. Meanwhile, explaining the problem to him would somehow be more embarrassing than the problem itself.

“I’m thinking.” She said at last.

“About the hammock?”

Lucy did not answer.

Natsu turned his head to squint at her, trying to determine whether this was a real conversation. “Are ya still tipsy? It’s a rope bed.”

“I’m aware of that.” She sighed.

He watched her a moment longer before shrugging and closing his eyes again.

Right.

Sleeping fully dressed it was.

The window rattled softly as a familiar blue blur slipped inside. “Natsuuu!” Happy landed neatly on the table, wings fluttering. “I told Gajeel and Levy! They’ll be ready for you tomorrow.” He announced proudly.

Natsu remained sprawled across the cot, one arm tucked behind his head, the other dangling lazily over the side. “Thanks, buddy.” He said, voice easy and warm.

Lucy turned toward the little cat, relief briefly softening her expression. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much the absence of him had been weighing on her nerves.

Good. Happy was safe.

She reached up and unfastened her cloak, folding it carefully before finally climbing into the hammock. Happy soon claimed his own space beside Natsu, falling fast asleep within seconds.

They lay in companionable silence for a few breaths, broken only by the muted crackle of the hearth.

“Gajeel and Levy will meet us at the administrative quarter.” Natsu said, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Gajeel’s loud, but he knows how to be an official when it matters. Levy handles a lot of the paperwork. If there’s any record of you leavin’, she’ll make sure it’s the boring kind.”

Lucy turned her head slightly. “They won’t question it?”

“They’ll question me.” He corrected. “Not you.”

She traced the crescent pendant at her throat with her thumb.

Maybe it was the lingering haze of alcohol, or the exhaustion finally creeping past the walls she’d been holding up. Either way, the quiet made her thoughts harder to ignore.

“Does it bother you?” She wondered.

“What?”

“That I didn’t tell you sooner.”

The words hung between them. She didn’t owe him anything, not really, but the question had been sitting at the back of her mind regardless ever since the revelation. She was curious to know his answer.

Natsu shifted onto his elbow again, turning to look at her properly. The firelight caught in his eyes, gold threaded through dark. “I’m just glad ya told me now.” He answered, honest.

She was relieved to hear that. Her thumb kept moving along the pendant, over and over, the motion subconscious. “You know what the worst part is?” She murmured after a moment.

Natsu didn’t interrupt.

“I spent my entire life believing I understood magic. And all that time, it wasn’t even true.” The bitterness crept into the edges of her voice before she could stop it. “My own family,” She added faintly, “they didn’t just lie. They built a world where I couldn’t even question the lie.”

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her.

She hadn’t meant to say that much. The alcohol made the walls in her mind give way somehow, thoughts slipping through gaps that normally stayed closed shut. Sensing this, Natsu shifted the conversation sideways, distracting from heavy thoughts.

“So. Princess.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “You are not going to start calling me that.”

“I’m still stuck on it.” He replied.

“Please unstick yourself.”

He rolled a little further onto his side, studying her more openly, a blunt curiosity he didn’t seem interested in hiding. “You’re the current one.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t have any siblings?”

“…I have other family relatives aside from siblings.”

“So there’s not another one above you.”

Lucy exhaled slowly, rubbing her temple. “There is a king.”

“Right, your dad. But you’re next.”

There wouldn’t have been a next for her. She had been meant to die for her kingdom.

The hammock swayed faintly as she shifted. “…Technically.”

Natsu sat up suddenly, frowning. Lucy watched him from beneath lowered lashes, already bracing for whatever conclusion he was about to draw.

“You know,” He said after a moment, “I’ve met princesses.”

“You mentioned.” She drawled.

“They don’t run through corrupted forests.”

“Not all forests are voluntary.”

“They also don’t yank me into walls.”

“That was situational.”

“Or enjoy street food.”

“I was hungry. And I’m sure they would if they had the chance to try it.”

He squinted at her, weighing the credibility of that defense. Then, with sudden theatrical enthusiasm, he swung his legs off the cot and dropped dramatically to one knee on the wooden floor. One hand pressed against his chest while the other extended outward in a sweeping flourish. “Your Highness,” He declared solemnly.

Lucy stared at him in absolute horror. “Get up, get up!”

He peeked up at her. “What? Am I doing it wrong?”

“Yes!”

“How do you know?” He continued, clearly enjoying himself. “Should I be more dramatic?”

Lucy swung one leg over the edge of the hammock and leaned forward, mortified. “Natsu,” She groaned, “please get off the floor.”

He straightened, laughter already breaking through whatever attempt at graciousness he had been performing. He flopped back onto the cot with a thump, still sitting up and looking at her. “You didn’t even order me to stop.”

“I asked you to stop.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I could order you.”

Natsu’s grin widened lazily. “Yeah? Try.”

Lucy glared at him.

Natsu remained exactly where he was. “See?” He said smugly.

“That proves nothing.”

“It proves you’re bad at this.”

Lucy opened her mouth to argue, then stopped herself with a frustrated breath, pressing her lips together and forcibly cancelling the sentence halfway through.

Natsu tilted his head at her, waiting. When nothing came, his grin widened just a little more. “You ever get to do normal stuff?” He asked, curious.

She arched a brow. “Define ‘normal.’”

“Stuff that’s useless.”

Lucy considered that for a moment. “I studied.”

“That’s not useless.”

She smirked faintly. “I practiced my patience.”

“Ouch. What else?”

Lucy settled back into the hammock, the ropes swaying gently. “I once snuck out to the lower market,” She admitted. “I wanted to see it the way everyone else did, without twenty guards hovering behind me.”

Natsu raised an eyebrow. “Just once?”

“Once.”

“That’s kinda sad.”

“I was caught.”

“So you’re also bad at sneaking.”

“I was twelve, Natsu.”

“That’s not a good excuse.”

“For you, maybe.” Lucy rolled her eyes, but the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth betrayed her anyway. “They found me eating a honey cake in the corner. I’d barely taken two bites.”

“You didn’t even get to finish it? That’s tragic.” Natsu said gravely.

“What about you?” Lucy asked after a moment, her voice softer now. “Were you always like this?”

“Like what?”

“Shirtless. Reckless. Loud.”

“Yeah,” He said easily, unoffended. “Pretty much.”

Lucy tilted her head a little, looking at him through the dim firelight. “Your father never objected?”

“Oh, he objected.” Natsu said cheerfully. “Just usually right after he finished doin’ the exact same thing.”

Lucy huffed a quiet breath through her nose. “That does sound like him.”

“You’ve only met him once, though.” He said, puzzled by her implied familiarity.

“That’s true, but I think I understand him a little. You argue with him often.” She observed, voice thoughtful.

He smiled warmly at that, his expression soft with memory. “Yeah.”

It was obvious to her that he cared deeply for his father. Anyone could see it. The affection lived right there in the curve of his mouth, in the way his voice softened when he spoke about him.

“And he allows that.” She pointed out.

“He argues back though.”

“That’s not the same.”

Natsu tilted his head. “Isn’t it?”

She hesitated. The answer didn’t come as easily as she expected. “It’s different. In my family,” She began slowly, searching for the right words, “disagreement wasn’t even allowed.”

Natsu didn’t interrupt.

“If you questioned something, it meant you didn’t understand it yet.” She continued, her voice turning faintly wry. “And if you still questioned it after that, then you were punished. I think the last time I openly argued with my father, I was fourteen.”

Natsu shifted slightly where he sat, one knee drawn up, his forearm resting loosely across it. “What happened?” He asked.

Lucy gave a small, distant smile. “Doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

He watched her thoughtfully, knowingly. “Well,” He said after a beat, like he’d reached a conclusion, “If you ask me, you’re not very good at bein’ a princess anyway.”

Lucy blinked at him. The comment was so offhand and simple, it took her a second to realize he meant it sincerely.

“You’re more suited to other things.” He affirmed.

Her brow lifted slightly. “Such as?”

Natsu smiled at her. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

Lucy held his gaze, surprised. The corner of her mouth curved upward, the earlier distance fading from her expression. “…You’re right.” She said quietly.

Neither of them seemed in any hurry to fill the silence that followed. There was a shared understanding between them that made it comfortable.

“Natsu,” She said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For your help. And for the hammock.”

He waved her off, the gratitude unnecessary. “Just try not to fall out.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. ‘Cause I’ve done enough catching tonight.”

The house grew still. Happy’s soft, uneven snores rose faintly from the cot, punctuated by the occasional sleepy murmur. Tomorrow would bring movement and risk, but tonight held none of that. There was only cozy firelight and the reassurance of a roof overhead. She closed her eyes, relaxing into the hammock.

You are a will.

She remembered Igneel’s deep voice rumbling the words. She thought of Natsu laughing in the tavern, his voice as he told her to simply ask questions if she didn’t understand something. She thought of the wide sky over Drakhal, the Realm they’d be heading to next, the not knowing what came next and moving forward anyway.

The hammock rocked once more beneath her as her body finally surrendered to the exhaustion, sleep claiming her.

The corridor stretched on without end.

The air hung cold and stale, untouched by breath or wind. Every step carried forward through identical pillars and archways that repeated themselves. Somewhere deep within the silence, a heartbeat pulsed. Lucy’s steps faltered as the sound rolled through the corridor again, too present to ignore.

The corridor extended ahead of her.

Thud.

The corridor extended behind her.

Thud.

The sound crawled beneath her skin, growing stronger the farther she moved, until suddenly it was beneath the marble, inside the walls. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, a dull, rhythmic pressure that she could feel in her throat.

“Lucy.”

She turned slowly.

A door that had not been there before stood behind her. The wood looked ancient, blackened and cracked, but the handle remained polished. It gleamed faintly, untouched.

Something breathed behind it.

Lucy stepped backward, frightened. The corridor did not move with her, but the pillars leaned closer. She didn’t want to open it.

Thud.

Thud.

She heard it again and again, the sound growing until she could no longer tell whether it was a heartbeat or someone pounding from the other side.

“Come here.” It called again, right behind her ear this time. She turned sharply, gasping, and the corridor was gone. The pillars stretched impossibly high now. The floor cracked like dried skin.

The door stood everywhere now.

Ahead of her, behind her, at the edges of the hall where pillars once stood, all surrounding her. Every one of them slowly creaking open, every one of them breathing. The heartbeat became unbearable.

“Lucy.”

“Lucy.”

“Lucy.”

The sound layered over itself, hundreds of voices speaking through the same throat. Some sounded like her father, Natsu and Happy, others like strangers. Some sounded like her own voice.

Thud.

The heartbeat pounded louder. Lucy clamped her hands over her ears and crouched down, squeezing her eyes shut. Her breath shuddered.

Thud.

She realized then, that her mouth was moving on its own, her lips shaping the sound of her name over and over. Tears ran down her face as she slapped a hand over her mouth, desperately trying to keep her voice from coming out.

The other voices changed again, no longer trying to sound familiar. The warmth had vanished entirely, stretching across the corridor with wet, hungry patience.

Thud.

“Luuuucyyy.”

The doors slammed open all at once, revealing nothing but darkness.

And the heartbeat stopped. Silence crashed down around her.

Lucy could feel something standing directly behind her, close enough that its breath stirred the hair at the back of her neck. A child’s voice whispered against her ear.

“Too late.”

Lucy gasped and jerked upright in the hammock, cold sweat clinging to her skin.

The ropes swung beneath her as she struggled for air, breath tearing through her chest in sharp, uneven bursts. Her hand flew instinctively to the pendant at her throat, her fingers tightening around it in reassurance.

Sit straight, get control, swallow it down.

One, two.

There were no whispers or black doors or thudding heartbeats here, just the careless snoring of Natsu and Happy, loud and alive. Lucy focused on that sound, drawing slow breaths until the tightness in her chest eased.

What was that dream? The details slipped away the harder she tried to hold them. All that remained was the disturbing feeling of it, cold and persistent.

Her skull throbbed in answer.

The hangover arrived, sharp behind the eyes and heavy at the base of her neck. It was enough to make even blinking feel like effort. Lucy pressed her fingertips to her temples, wincing. Four miserable sips of ale, and she had spent the rest of the night being personally victimized by physics and her own lack of tolerance. Somewhere inside her, indignation flared.

This was stupid and unfair.

She swallowed and sat there very still, breathing until she was calm again.

Natsu snorted in his sleep and rolled onto his side, one arm flinging out to swat at some invisible enemy. Lucy found herself watching the motion. He looked younger when he slept, she realized, the lines of his face unguarded and eased of their constant readiness.

He trusted the world to let him rest. Even in danger, even with bounty hunters prowling and The Abyss tightening like a noose, he trusted. She couldn’t say the same. Every hour she remained here stretched the margin between safety and consequence a little thinner.

Lucy looked away.

She slipped out of the hammock and found her boots, pulling them on, then crossed the room and paused beside the cot, looking down at Natsu again.

“Natsu,” She called, voice hushed.

He made a disgruntled noise and burrowed his face into the cot.

“Natsu,” She repeated, a little louder this time.

One eye cracked open to stare at her, unfocused and olive in the morning light. “Mornin’ already?” He mumbled, voice rough with sleep.

“It is,” Lucy said, “And I have learned a valuable lesson.”

He blinked at her, still groggy. “That ale’s good?”

“That you are never allowed to offer me ale again.”

His mouth twitched. “You only had four sips.”

“If I’d had any more than that, I might not be here.”

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, hair sticking up worse than usual, and looked her over. “Head hurts?” He guessed.

“Horribly.”

“Here,” He said, sliding off the cot with a yawn. He padded to a small shelf, rummaged without looking, then pressed something into her hand. It was a dried leaf bundle tied with twine, smelling faintly of mint and something bitter. “Chew that. It helps.”

Lucy stared at it, rolling it over in her hand. “What is it?”

“Hangover leaf,” He answered. “Cana keeps it around for people who don’t know their limits.”

“My limit,” Lucy huffed, “is somewhere between zero and humiliation.”

He chuckled at that, but sobered as his gaze flicked toward the window. “We’re moving early. No big breakfast, we’ll eat while we walk. The longer we sit still, the easier it is for ‘em to find us.”

“I agree. You said we’re meeting Gajeel and Levy, right?” She asked as she brought the leaf to her mouth and bit down. Bitter flooded her tongue immediately, then a coolness that made her eyes water.

“That’s right,” Natsu replied, already pulling his shirt back on as if fabric were an inconvenience he had begrudgingly agreed to tolerate for political reasons.

“They’re part of your council?”

“They’re part of the whole Realm,” He said, rolling his shoulders. “Levy sits with the council scribes to keep records straight and comes up with really good ideas. Gajeel—” His mouth quirked, finding the explanation funny, “—Gajeel’s technically enforcement. Gate control, patrol routes, that kinda thing. But he looks mean, so people always assume he’s the problem and stop lookin’ for the real one.”

“I see,” Lucy said, though what she truly saw was the shape of Drakhal’s power, more distributed than Thalrim’s rigid tower and throne arrangement.

Somewhere in her mind, she searched automatically for the seat of it, the grand structure where royalty performed its authority, but it wasn’t held in a castle that screamed hierarchy from miles away. It seemed like a network of people who belonged to the city the way the city belonged to them.

Natsu rummaged through a basket by the kitchen. He tossed her food wrapped in oiled parchment, a flatbread wrapped around dried meat and something pickled. She took a bite and forced herself not to wince at the salt, grateful for the quick meal.

Happy’s head popped up from the cot a moment later, whiskers crooked with sleep. “Is it breakfast time?” He asked hopefully.

Outside, the city began to wake.

They left quickly, slipping into the streets. Natsu moved quickly with confident strides, and Lucy followed close behind with her hood drawn up, matching his pace. Happy hovered alongside them sleepily.

The hangover leaf began to take effect slowly, easing the knife behind her eyes into something more bearable, but it did nothing for nerves that rose whenever she saw hunters in corners and doorways. Every time one of them turned their head, she flinched internally.

Natsu led her through narrower routes, avoiding the wider roads again where merchants set up and gossip traveled fast. They passed a small plaza where a carved pillar rose from the ground, etched with draconic script and symbols of old guidelines. She caught herself staring at the markings as they passed. This part of the city was new.

Soon, the buildings shifted again. Their path grew more functional as they approached an administrative quarter. Record halls stood shoulder to shoulder with armories and guard stations, their entrances watched carefully. Messengers moved quickly between doors, and clerks were already unlocking shutters as the day’s work began.

The place was orderly, but not polished.

Stonework here favored function over beauty, its broad overhangs and thick walls meant to endure weather and time rather than impress visitors. And yet, it was beautiful and unique, the architecture sturdier than Lucy had seen in Thalrim.

There was honest craftsmanship that valued permanence, strong lines and rich stone colors. Along the walls, shallow fire basins sat ready to be lit after dusk, their rims darkened from years of use. Stone benches lined the walkways for guards and messengers resting between duties, she imagined.

People here greeted one another without lowering their eyes. It was refreshing.

A pair of guards stood beneath the entry arch as Natsu approached. Their posture shifted the moment they recognized him, moving from bored watchfulness to something straighter.

“Good morning, Prince Salamander.” One of them said.

Natsu grunted in reply and kept walking, not pausing to accept deference or making a point of being seen.

They had barely crossed the lower terrace when another one of the watchmen straightened from his post and gave Natsu a brief nod of acknowledgment. “Dragon Prince.”

Natsu waved a hand dismissively without breaking stride. “Yeah, yeah,” He said, then jerked his chin toward the man. “Your kid still breathing fire when he sneezes?”

The guard blinked before a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. “Doctor says he’ll grow out of it.”

“Good,” Natsu said. “House burned down yet?”

“Only the shed.”

“That’s progress!”

Lucy walked beside him, listening.

The titles shifted easily between guards, spoken without stiffness. She wondered where “Salamander” had come from. It didn’t sound like something granted by court, more like something earned. She’d have to ask him later when presented a chance.

What struck her more, though, was the familiarity. Guards spoke to him like someone they knew. It was nothing like the careful distance she had grown up with, and she liked it. In fact, there was a lot about Drakhal she found herself appreciating the longer she stayed, like its honesty, its lack of pretense, the way power seemed to live openly among its people instead of above them.

A part of her was disappointed she would be leaving it so soon.

The guard’s eyes shifted to Lucy as they passed, lingering. His brow creased. “Is she with you?” He asked.

“Obviously.” Natsu replied, and that was that.

They walked another stretch before Lucy slowed, something across from her catching her eye.

An open chamber branched off the main passage, its doorway open to the morning air. The whole interior was lined with long tables and shelves. Inside, there were rolled maps, stamped ledgers, and wooden tablets etched with draconic script. A large stone board hung near the entrance, its surface covered with pinned public notices, territorial markings, and trade routes.

“What?” Natsu asked.

She pointed at it. “What’s that place?”

Natsu followed her gaze. “Registry room.”

“For…?”

“Everything,” He answered. “Trade charters, territory claims, border maps, guild permits. People usually go there when they need proof somethin’ belongs to them.”

Lucy’s eyes brightened in a way he hadn’t seen before.

“Can I look?”

He blinked. The eagerness caught him off guard. She looked like someone who had just discovered treasure. “…Sure,” He said finally. “Go ahead.”

“I won’t take long!”

“S’fine. We’ve cleared most of the hunters already anyway.” He said. “I’ll wait out here.”

Lucy nodded and slipped inside, already drifting toward the nearest map table.

“Wait for me!” Happy perked up, following her in.

Natsu remained outside. He leaned back against the wall beside the chamber entrance, his arms folded loosely across his chest.  One of the lower watch approached him from the far end.

“Young Lord.”

“Mm?”

The guard didn’t continue immediately. His gaze flicked toward the chamber Lucy had entered.

“That girl…” He said at last.

Natsu didn’t look at him. “What about her?”

The guard hesitated, clearly searching for language that wouldn’t sound like insult. “She’s ah… unusual.”

Natsu huffed. “That’s one word for it.”

The guard shifted his weight. “It’s not just that. There’s something…” He trailed off. “Hard to explain.”

Natsu’s eyes slid to him, mildly interested now.

“Something about her smells off.” The guard said slowly.

Natsu just snorted in response. “Yeah, she’s real weird.” He said immediately. “She tried to walk down a cliff yesterday. When she gets mad it sounds like someone’s about to lose trade privileges.” He continued conversationally. “And she’s never had ale.”

The guard’s expression shifted from unease to disbelief. “Never had ale?” He repeated.

“Not a drop.” Natsu confirmed.

The guard shook his head slowly, expression tightening faintly as if that were grounds for suspicion. “Should I keep an eye on her?”

Natsu pushed off the wall. “No. She’s fine.”

He watched as Lucy reemerged from the chamber, her hood slipping just enough for sunlight to catch in her hair before she tugged it back into place. She looked satisfied with whatever she found.

The guard made a low sound that might have been agreement.

“See ya.” Natsu said, already walking toward her.

He fell into step beside her, glancing down at her. “See anything you liked?”

“More than I expected.”

Happy zipped out from behind her. “Lucy reads maps like you eat food, Natsu.” He announced.

“Yeah?” Natsu said.

A faint note of satisfaction touched her voice. “Drakhal keeps very practical records.”

Natsu gave her a sideways look. “That‘s exciting for you?”

Lucy ignored him and continued, “There was a trade map marked with seasonal road closures and mountain conditions.” She glanced at him briefly. “If winter storms close the higher routes the way the notes suggest, most caravans will funnel through lower valleys instead.”

“And?” Natsu asked.

“And if we’re trying to move quietly, we should avoid those roads.”

He blinked again. “I think you missed your callin’ as a smuggler.”

They continued down the passage together. The administrative quarter grew busier the deeper they went. Messengers hurried past carrying bundles of sealed parchment. Somewhere farther down the hall a clerk argued with a guard about inventory counts while another pair rolled a cart stacked with supplies toward the armory.

They passed a pair of Dragonborn officers quietly debating patrol assignments over a spread of charts pinned to a wall. A Dragonborn with maroon hair stood nearby listening in. His slanted eyes, shaped much like Natsu’s, gave him a striking, almost foxlike look.

Natsu brightened when he spotted him. “Hey, Cobra.”

Cobra’s eyes narrowed on Lucy momentarily, then flicked back to Natsu. The corner of his mouth lifted, and he bumped his fist against Natsu’s in friendly greeting.

“Salamander.” He smirked. “Didn’t expect to see you out of meetings.”

“I’m gettin’ out while I can.” Natsu said with a grin.

“Thought so.” Cobra huffed, but said nothing more, letting them pass.

They continued on and soon entered a long, vaulted hall. At the end of it stood a massive door of gilded metal, its surface engraved with curling draconic patterns.

Natsu turned to her. “You ready?” He asked.

Lucy wanted to say yes out of reflex, but the hangover and the nightmare and the closeness of law loosened her enough to be honest. “I hope so.”

He nodded, then pushed open the door without knocking.

It was a planning chamber with a massive table dominating the center of the room. A sprawling map was pinned across its surface, scarred by knife marks and ink stains. Along one wall, iron hooks held cloaks, belts, and a few weapons that looked well used.

At the far end of the table, Gajeel leaned back in a chair with his boots propped on the edge of the map. He looked different from the man Lucy had seen in the alley. His clothes were cleaner, the metal studs along his coat properly fastened, though the underlying sense of danger about him had not softened in the slightest. Lucy recalled what Natsu had said about him last night and made an effort not to judge based on appearance alone.

Beside him, perched on the table’s edge with a bundle of papers in her lap, was who Lucy could only assume to be Levy. She was smaller and more bright eyed than expected, with bright blue hair pulled loosely back. Where Gajeel’s presence took up space like a looming threat, Levy’s filled it like a spark, quick and impossible to ignore once noticed.

“Hey.” Natsu called as he stepped inside, confident as ever. “We’re leaving.”

Levy’s head snapped up from the papers in her lap. Her eyes widened for a split second before sharpening immediately with curiosity, spotting Lucy standing just behind him. “So,” She started, voice brisk, “this is her.”

“Yeah.” Natsu confirmed casually, smiling. “This is Lucy.”

Recognition flickered across Gajeel’s face before his expression flattened again into something unreadable.

Lucy felt herself stiffen instinctively under their attention. Neither of them seemed remotely concerned with titles when it came to Natsu. She wondered if he preferred it that way. She offered them a small, polite smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” She said, voice warm despite the circumstances. “Though I do wish our introduction came with fewer armed men chasing me through the city.”

Levy’s answering smile appeared instantly, bright and curious. “It’s nice to meet you as well, Lucy.” She replied.

Gajeel finally spoke, voice low and rough. “Figures,” He muttered. “Didn’t realize the girl from the alley was worth a small army.”

Lucy met his eyes. Her throat tightened at the reminder, but she held steady. “Which is exactly why I’m leaving.”

Natsu said nothing, watching the exchange with quiet attentiveness. It was clear that he was letting her speak for herself.

Happy floated down gently, his tail flicking once behind him. “Gajeel, Levy!” He said, cheerful as ever.

Levy smiled immediately. “Hi, Happy.”

Gajeel glanced over lazily. “You still followin’ this idiot around?”

Happy puffed his cheeks. “Duh. I’m basically his caretaker.”

Natsu squinted at him. “You weigh like ten pounds.”

“Ten responsible pounds.”

Levy swung her legs once, then moved to stand up in front of the table. “Alright!” She said brightly. “Let’s get this started.” Her finger tapped a marked position on the map along the southern gate. “The watch rotates there in about an hour. There’s your window.”

“The patrol captain hates paperwork.” She explained. “Absolutely despises it. Which means he avoids anything that might create more of it.” Her mouth quirked with satisfaction. “If the timing’s clean, I can make your exit look like routine supply movement.”

Natsu leaned forward slightly over the table, his attention sharpening in that particular way Lucy had begun to recognize. This was the part he cared about; the action. “And the hunters?”

Gajeel’s mouth curled, pleased. “Igneel already put the fear of the old Gods into the ones we caught. The rest are skulkin’ outside the main streets lookin’ for a dramatic chase.” His grin sharpened. “If we don’t give ‘em one, they’ll waste time in the wrong places.”

Levy flipped a sheet, revealing a sketch of the southern routes. Three minor territories and sparse patrols, all marked with careful annotations.

Lucy leaned closer to get a better look. “If the patrol rotation is every hour,” She said thoughtfully, “wouldn’t the supply ledger need to match the wagon count leaving the gate? Otherwise the discrepancy would show up the next time someone actually checks the records.”

Levy’s eyes lit up. “Yes!” She said, sounding almost thrilled that she’d noticed. “But this is only part one of the plan.” She winked.

“Wow.” Happy beamed proudly. “I actually understood at least three of those words.”

Across the table, Gajeel’s head tilted. His nostrils flared once, almost imperceptibly. He did not step forward. He did not circle her. He simply watched, his attention direct and unfiltered. “Blondie.” He called to her.

Lucy lifted her eyes to meet his. Blondie?

“You smell like you’re supposed to be dead.”

In the Palaces of my Mind [Chapter 5]

Summary: Gray and Juvia have been friends for years, the kind of friends who know each other too well to notice the spark between them, until one late-night study session in college changes everything. [College/FWB AU]

the hyperfixation is hyperfixationing 🫡

&i got way too many feels, way too much emotion. yeah i don’t even know what’s real i just say, “fuck it, keep on going” &i get deeper, i get deeper

:p

just tapping into cobolli v tiafoe now

NOOO my two GOATs….Frances…Flavio….whoever wins whoever loses I love you both you’re both very beautiful…

Guy who watched fairy tail for his first anime when the characters actually die:

im not sure how to feel about ships between earthland versions x edolas versions cuz to me that’s like… cucking 😭 am i crazy

like even if their earthland versions fit together i don’t like it because they already have their respective versions in their own world… so yeah

The hand ft the Eagle yes this is a eagle

Photo by: @wateredfield.

Bad Bunny - DtMF

(Celestial Spirit HC post)

Hii. So, I’ve been working on this little project where I start with the zodiac personalities in astrology and then try to get them as close to their FT zodiac counterparts as possible while retaining as many traits inherent to their sign as possible

And I’ve recently hit a Scorpio shaped wall. I always thought that the “Scorpio’s are Evil” thing was the same as the “Gemini’s are two-faced” thing. Yk, a myth based on the fact that Gemini is “two people”. Uh, um

Scorpio Negative Traits: Sensitive, Paranoid, Controlling, Jealous, Obessesive, Resentful, Vindictive, Judgmental, Secretive, Unpredictable, Inflexible, Agressive, Power Hungry, Manipulative

Scorpio Postive Traits: Mysterious, Loyal, Determined, Emotional, Intuitive, Intense, Passionate, Magnetic, Willful, Sexy, Seductive, Protective, Ambitious

It reads to me like one of those booktok protagonists who exclusively function because their hot despite being a walking red flag. Maybe a good entertainer but no one you’d really want to be around

So I’m like, how am I supposed to make a guy out of this who functions with the other characters, and how am I supposed to get anywhere near FT Scorpio?? Then I realized

Follow me for a second here. My headcanon is that spirits came from human love for constellations/myths/astrology. So all spirits from creation know about all this stuff, they know about all the myths, how astrology works, what their constellations look like, ect. They’re kinda like, pre-programmed with a level base knowledge of themselves and the world, a brand new spirit needs like a week before being able to handle being summoned

Imagine BEING Scorpio

Like your created, and the first thing that hits your awareness is that 1) Your the Token Evil member of your group 2) Anyone who takes zodiac and who you are seriously, likely doesn’t like you and 3) Everyone else in the Celestial Spirit world also knows all of that 4) This is not your fault

Your personality doesnt function well in this scenario. You were just created, everyone knows your traits and myth so you cannot be Mysterious/Secretive and it’s stressing you out because you like your privacy. You’ve already started being Paranoid, but can anyone blame you for assuming they already dislike you? Your the least favorite. Your Emotional/Sensitive, but you maintain that anyone would have their feelings hurt like this

Your first impulsive is to be angry. It’s desrved. You just stared existing and already you have a bias against you. But what if someone sees this? You being Resentful/Angry. Your Intuitive, your Paranoid, they’ll hate you more. You can’t express this, you’ll make everything worse. What are you gonna do anyways? Get revenge on all humanity who likes the concept of Zodiac? Thats not possible

Does everyone expect you to Angry? Do they think your going to be Resentful/Vindictive against them? They know all of your traits, you might as well be see though. Your Paranoid/Secretive/Sensitive and you want to crawl into a hole. Your vulnerable and scared and you can’t even act like “yourself” because all your cards were passed around, when your supposed to be able to keep them close to your chest

How are you supposed to get people to like you? You know everything about everyone as well, but its hard to be Magnetic when people dislike you from the start. Will they find you Manipulative if you try? It’s not like you can be Sexy/Seductive, your a giant scorpion, and none of you know yet that you can shapeshift. Your attractiveness, your sensuality, your flirtation, it was all of the table. Sexuality, it was strongly apart of you. Your traits, your house, your ruling planet—and you don’t have access to it

What else do you have? Protective? Agaisnt what. Determined/Willful? To do what? Change their minds? They’ll see you as Controlling. Loyal and Intuitive, that’s all that’s all you got left. What limited options

Of course you could always lean into Mysterious/Secretive/Independent and self isolate. Except your entire identity is based around being alluring. You traits are based around people wanting to be around you, and you pulling back. You were created with a desire for intense physical and emotional intimacy. You don’t want, nor need, everyone to constantly to be clambering to be around you, but having absolutely no one…. No one to be Passionate about. No one to be Loyal to. No one for you to understand and connect to. Being entierly alone, the idea alone makes you feel ill

You have just been created and your identity has already been destroyed

IM CRYING IN THE CLUB ABOUT POOR SCOPRIO TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO EXIST WHEN WHAT THEIR SUPPOSED TO BE ISNT POSSIBLE AND IS DISLIKED BY MANY HUMANS AND WHO KNOWS IF THE OTHER SPIRITS WILL AGREE???

All the other spirits change because of the trauma of King’s new Laws, the new Contracts, and the Spirit world being split, but poor Scoprio was forced out of their natural disposition almost immediately

Idk man… most other spirits are… mostly fine aside from their DEEP discomfort about their myths, but poor Scoprio

i wish fairy tail had more silly and happy arcs. like s class trial or grand magic games - i wish we could just have those play out as they’re supposed to without anything bad happening. just fun competitions and stuff :(

Summary: Princess Heartfilia was raised to die, groomed and isolated by her Elven kingdom as the next centennial sacrifice to seal The Abyss. Armed with twelve star-forged keys, her mother’s mysterious pendant, and a desperate desire to change her fate, Lucy escapes on the eve of her twentieth birthday and plunges into a world of dangerous truths and unknown Realms. The Abyssal Veil is weakening, threatening to swallow all, and a continent built on the deaths of Heartfilias must now face the most dangerous of all: her survival.

Chapter 7 of Seven Realms of Ishgar is up! This is a slow burn nalu fantasy au, and it’s gonna be a long one at that. Enjoy!

The inn was wrecked. Two of the hunters were down, unmoving except for shallow breaths, while the third groaned helplessly where Mirajane had pinned and tied him up with terrifying efficiency.

Natsu had eventually lowered Lucy onto one of the remaining chairs. He stood in front of her as his attention narrowed to the pallor of her skin, the way her eyes kept darting down to her trembling fingers as if they belonged to someone else now.

She could barely register what had just happened.

The destruction felt distant, unreal, a tableau she was observing through glass. Her attention collapsed inward with the singular, nauseating focus of someone whose body had hollowed itself too fast. The keys at her belt had gone cold again, their earlier heat extinguished as abruptly as the light itself.

Mirajane approached slowly, eyes soft but sharp. The care in her movements was a refusal to crowd Lucy when she already felt trapped inside her own body, ribs tight around a heart that wouldn’t slow. “Lucy…” She said gently. “Are you okay?”

“I didn’t know this would happen.” Lucy whispered, the words breaking apart as soon as they left her mouth, splintering like the broken tables across from her under the weight of everything she hadn’t known. “I thought… I was dead.”

Natsu said nothing, and that was worse than anything else.

Mirajane knelt in front of Lucy, careful, close without being invasive, giving her space without withdrawing it entirely. “Hey,” She said softly, “look at me for a second, okay?”

Lucy tried. Her vision wavered, blurred by tears and the lingering shock, but it steadied just enough for her to meet Mirajane’s eyes.

“Good,” Mirajane murmured. “Everything’s okay, honey. Whatever you felt, that tearing, that empty rush, that’s overcasting shock. It happens when someone pushes too much magic through themselves without having trained for it first.”

Lucy tried to hold onto the explanation, but confusion kept slipping through. “But… I shouldn’t have been able to do it at all.”

Mirajane’s brows knit faintly. “Why not?”

Lucy’s mouth opened, and nothing came out. The answer jammed in her throat, too large to swallow.

“She thought using magic would kill her.” Natsu spoke up for her, his voice rough around the edges.

Lucy nodded once, barely perceptible. “That’s what happens.” She whispered. “That’s what they…” Her voice cracked. That’s what I was taught.

Mirajane didn’t respond right away. She looked between Lucy and Natsu, her expression shifting to disbelief and concern. Something protective hardened into place. “That’s not how magic works, Lucy.” She said carefully. “Not here. Not anywhere I know.”

Lucy looked up at her, eyes glassy, and the question came out raw and unfiltered. “Then why does everyone keep saying it does?”

Silence answered her, stretching.

“Happy.” Natsu said suddenly, voice snapping into action.

Happy, who had gone very quiet after the fight, perked up. “Hm?”

“Check outside.” Natsu ordered. “Make sure no one else is lurking.”

Happy nodded immediately and zipped toward the door, phasing through the broken frame, but not without glancing back at Lucy as if he didn’t quite want to leave her alone.

“Here’s what I know.” He said, slow with anger. “No one who grows up believing their own magic will kill ‘em gets that idea by accident. Whoever told you that lied to your face, in the worst way possible.” His mouth twisted. “Magic is life.”

Lucy flinched.

“Those men,” She whispered, and the words came out thin. “Did I—”

Natsu instantly understood the direction her fear had taken. “No.” He said, blunt and certain, refusing to let the thought finish forming. “They’re breathing.”

Lucy’s breath hitched anyway. “But the light— I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t kill anyone.” His voice stayed firm. “You should be more worried about you right now.”

She blinked hard, forcing the room back into focus. “I couldn’t stop it.” She whispered, drawing her arms around herself.

Something thoughtful passed through Mirajane’s expression. “Can I ask you something?”

Lucy nodded distantly.

“What exactly did you summon?”

“I-I don’t know. I didn’t call… for anything.” She admitted. She drew in on herself a little more, shoulders curling as a tremor ran through her. “I just wanted it all to stop.”

“And it listened.”

Lucy nodded again, throat too tight for more.

Mirajane glanced at Natsu, something unspoken passing between them.

“That’s unusual for an untrained summoner. You must be very powerful.” Mirajane said.

Lucy sniffled. “Untrained?”

Natsu’s anger didn’t move through him so much as lock in, deciding exactly where it was allowed to exist. Even through the fog, she understood it wasn’t meant for her. Whatever had set him off, he kept it pointed elsewhere. When he spoke again, his voice was steady in a way that suggested priority rather than calm. “You’re crashing.” He said. “Hard.”

She lifted both hands toward her face on instinct, as if she could scrub away the evidence of tears the way she’d been taught to scrub away dirt, quickly, quietly, before anyone important noticed, but her fingers were clumsy and trembling. She wiped at her cheeks anyway, smearing wetness across her face rather than clearing it, her breath hitching in small, stubborn catches as she tried to get herself under control.

The crying had stopped, but the aftershocks remained, leaving her body with this unsteady sensation of a bell that had been struck too hard and was still ringing long after the blow.

“I feel…” Lucy started, and her voice broke on the first words into something smaller, more exhausted. She tried again, forcing the sentence through a throat that didn’t want to cooperate. “I feel empty.”

Natsu extended his hand, offering support without forcing it. “Come on,” He said. “You need to lie down before you pass out.”

Her fingers hovered, shaking, before finally settling into his palm. His grip closed carefully around hers, firm.

As he helped her up, the room suddenly tilted, black creeping in just at the edges of her vision. She swayed, and he adjusted instantly, sliding an arm behind her back to steady her without yanking while Mirajane stepped closer, her hand hovering near Lucy’s elbow.

There was no panic in Mirajane’s movements, only a silent, practiced readiness that made Lucy think, absurdly, of royal guards and their cool expressions.

“I’ll handle the rest downstairs and talk to the remaining patrons.” Mirajane said, already moving.

“Thanks, Mira.” Natsu replied, voice tight.

He guided Lucy up the stairs one measured step at a time, his presence a steady line through the vertigo. Behind them, the common room looked like the aftermath of a hurricane, broken and overturned.

That room had been warm when she’d entered it, had smelled of food and woodsmoke and ordinary life. Now, it bore the marks of her fear writ large across it. The ruin she had dragged into a place that had once given her warmth.

“I—” She started, her voice wobbling. “I ruined—”

“Don’t.” Natsu cut in immediately, the word final, leaving no room for the thought to finish forming. “Those lowlives came in here with weapons and a piece of paper thinking they could do whatever they wanted and carry you out like cargo. They got what they deserved.”

He guided her into her room and toward the bed, the mattress dipping beneath her weight, softness stealing the strength from her limbs all at once. Her cloak slid halfway off her shoulders and she tugged it free, revealing her small pointed ears again.

Mirajane appeared a moment later with a folded blanket and a mug that smelled faintly of herbs and citrus. She draped the blanket over Lucy’s legs and pressed the mug into her hands.

“Drink a little, it helps.” She insisted kindly. “Don’t fight the sleepiness, okay? It’s better if you rest.”

Lucy obeyed, hands trembling as she wrapped them around the mug and took a careful sip. The warmth settled low and real inside her. When her grip loosened, Mirajane took the mug from her and set it aside, leaving once more.

Happy popped back through the doorway. “All clear! But uh—” Happy hesitated. “Word’s gonna spread.”

Natsu nodded while still watching her, not surprised. “Yeah.”

Lucy’s fingers tightened around her sheets. “They’ll come back. They’re not going to stop.” She whispered.

Happy’s ears drooped in response.

“Probably.” Natsu agreed without sugarcoating it. His tone shifted as he spoke, sharpening with mild irritation, the memory of those armed men in the common room making his skin itch.

Lucy glanced up at him, then away again, her voice uncertain and small. “You’re… not scared?”

His expression softened. Not gentle, exactly, but more honest. “I’m more scared of the people who convinced you that using magic was a death sentence.” He said.

She couldn’t even afford to think about that right now.

Her shoulders sagged as the last of the adrenaline finally drained away, leaving exhaustion to rush in unchecked. Everything hurt now. Her chest ached with every breath, her head throbbed dully, and her muscles carried the deep, protesting soreness of a body that had been pushed far past what it had ever stretched.

“What do I do?” She asked, unable to hide her turmoil. Her thoughts were too sluggish right now. “I can’t even move, but I can’t stay.”

“First,” Natsu said, his voice firm without being unkind, “you rest here. It’s gonna be a while before you can get back up again. Then,” He said carefully, “I start asking questions.”

Her breath hitched. “About me?”

“About the bounty.” He replied. “How fast it’s spreading, and how many idiots are already sniffin’ around my city.” His gaze drifted, already clocking the damage. When it came back to her, it was darker. “And about Heartfilias.”

If he wanted answers, she knew distantly, there was nothing she could do to stop him. This was bigger than her will or her silence. The questions would keep coming whether she stayed awake for them or not, and she didn’t have the energy to dodge them, not with exhaustion already tugging her under and her body refusing to cooperate.

“And if you don’t like the answers?” She asked.

“I’m not here to be comforted.” He said evenly. There was no hesitation in his tone.

Her thoughts drifted, hazy and slow, back to the argument they’d stumbled into the day before. The sharp words she’d thrown at him with more fear than conviction behind them, how she’d tried to push him away as if distance alone could keep people safe from the nightmare that was coming.

How little any of it had mattered once she was in active danger.

He hadn’t weighed risk or benefit. He had simply stepped in, as though helping her were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You’re doing all this,” She murmured, the words escaping before she could stop them, her voice small with a sudden, unwelcome shyness, “without even knowing if I’m worth it.”

He stared down at her, incredulous. “You just stood between armed hunters and people who gave you a bed.” He replied. “You think I need more than that?”

Her eyes burned. She looked down before tears could spill again. She hesitated, then added more quietly, “You could’ve let them… take me.”

His brows furrowed. “Why would I do that?”

“Because.” She said quickly, too quickly, as if she needed him to understand. “I just keep thinking… if you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have dragged all of this into Mirajane’s inn. Or into your life. Or—” Her breath wavered. Words were getting harder to come by now. “You wouldn’t be… standing here having to decide what to do with me.”

Natsu folded his arms, heat low and restless under his skin. “I’m not ‘deciding what to do with’ you.”

“Redroot said something.” Lucy murmured suddenly.

Natsu blinked. “Red… who?”

She made a small, vague gesture with one hand, as if waving away the effort of explaining properly. “The ones I met before I came here. They told me—” Her brow creased, concentration wavering. “I should tell people… that Redroot sent me.”

He frowned, turning the name over in his head and coming up empty. “Never heard of ’em.”

Lucy breathed out, eyes half-lidded. “They said dragon folk like sorting out people.” She paused, searching for the words, then continued reciting. The words didn’t carry accusation, just distant recollection. “That they’d… figure out what to do with me, decide what I’m worth. Whether I’m a threat, or a toy, or a lesson.”

Natsu let out a short, incredulous huff. “Who comes up with this stuff? That’s not a dragon thing, that’s just stupid.” He scowled, visibly offended.

“I’m just thinking it’s funny.” She said softly, not looking at him. “I was so scared, but Mirajane decided I needed a blanket and tea.” Her eyes flicked briefly in his direction, unfocused but warm. “And you decided I wasn’t going anywhere.”

The room held still around that.

“Maybe there is some truth to that whole sorting thing.” She murmured, her voice fading. “Since you both arrived… at the same conclusion.”

Natsu didn’t reply, but the quiet surprise that crossed his face came too late to be smoothed away.

The idea lingered between them, unsettling and strangely gentle all at once.

Lucy’s breathing slowed further, the edge of awareness slipping from her grasp. “I kept waiting for you to say it.”

“Say what?” He asked.

“Whatever it was… you were going to call me. What I am.” She murmured, the words drifting free of any guard. After a beat, softer still, “But you never did.”

Her eyes finally closed.  

Lucy turned seventeen within the same walls she had been raised to die in.

By the time the final guests departed and servants began clearing the hall, Lucy’s hope had shrunk to something small and stubborn. Maybe seventeen years was nothing beside a life that could stretch two centuries and a half, but it still felt important. Old enough to matter. Old enough, perhaps, to be acknowledged.

Her father lingered at the head of the table, reviewing documents by candlelight.

Lucy waited until the room was empty.

“Father?” She said quietly.

Jude looked up. “Yes?”

She took a breath. “Today marks my seventeenth year.”

He blinked once, as if recalibrating. “So it does. Barely one full turn of the moons.”

The words were neutral. Observational. Still, her heart kicked.

“I wanted to ask,” She continued carefully, “if there is anything more you would require of me now. Or if… there is anything you’d like to tell me.”

It was the safest way she knew how to phrase it. Just an offering of herself, hoping it might earn her something warmer in return.

Jude studied her for a moment, expression unreadable. “Is that what you’ve been waiting for all day?” He asked. “A few words?”

Lucy couldn’t reply. She straightened instinctively.

“Very well.” Jude said at last.

The words gave her a brief, dangerous spark of hope.

“You may stop thinking of milestones as permission.” He continued. “They change nothing.”

The words didn’t sting at first. She waited for more. For something that turned the statement into affection or guidance rather than dismissal.

He did not offer it.

“You’ve reached the age where indulgence becomes liability.” Jude went on. “Sentiment creates blind spots. I suggest you rid yourself of it now.”

Her fingers curled into her dress. “I… I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do.” He said mildly. “You have an expectation. You meant sentiment.”

The hope collapsed, fast and sharp.

Lucy felt heat rise behind her eyes and fought it down with everything she had. Crying never helped. Crying made things worse.

“I only meant—” Her voice cracked despite her effort. She tried again. “I only meant that other children—”

“Are not my concern.” Jude said coolly, looking up from his work at last. “And neither is your happiness.”

She froze.

“If you were like ‘other children’, this conversation would not be necessary. You have been given honor, education, and purpose.” He continued. “That is all you need.”

“I see.” She managed to reply, the words trembling as she swallowed hard, refusing to let her voice break where he could hear it.

Jude nodded, already turning back to his papers. “Then we’re finished here.” He paused only long enough to add, without looking at her, “You may go.”

Lucy stood there for several seconds, the room unchanged, the man unchanged, only the shape of her wish altered beyond recognition. When she finally turned to leave, she did so carefully, silently, without asking for anything else.

Behind her, Jude spoke again, almost absently. “Oh, and Lucy?”

She stopped. “Yes, father.” She answered, the title steady even as everything else went numb.

“Happy birthday.”

The words followed her out of the room, haunting in their emptiness.

It was the last birthday she ever waited for.

It was the first birthday she understood that her father had not failed to love her. He had chosen not to, long before she was old enough to notice.

Consciousness crept back in slow pieces: the scratch of wool against her wrist, the faint citrus bite of herbs lingering on her tongue, and the ache blooming behind her sternum like a bruise she could not see but knew instinctively had spread wide. She drew in a breath and pain answered, sharp and sudden, flaring across her ribs.

Lucy’s eyes snapped open. A quiet hiss escaped her before she could swallow it, her body curling inward on instinct as she fought the urge to gasp too deeply and make it worse.

“Sleep well?”

His voice came from the far side of the room. Natsu sat in a chair leaned back on its hind legs with his feet braced against the wall. His scarf was gone, draped over the chair’s back, revealing a scar at his neck. He looked too still, too alert, his posture caught in that familiar place between rest and readiness, as though he had not fully relaxed even in the quiet aftermath.

Her heart stuttered.

“How long,” She managed, her throat dry enough that the words scraped on their way out, “have you been there?”

“Long enough.” He said. He tipped the chair forward, all four legs settling softly onto the floor, then leaned toward her, forearms braced on his knees. “You knocked out pretty hard.”

Memory rushed back in all at once, cruel in its clarity. Fire, light, pressure. Her chest tearing itself apart from the inside. The certainty, absolute and suffocating, that she had crossed a line she wouldn’t return from. Her breath hitched.  

She became acutely aware of her breathing, of how carefully she was drawing air in as though it had become a limited resource. The realization crept through her slowly, cold and nauseating. Her chest still ached, yes, but it was an ache, not a collapse. Not a wound tearing wider.

She hadn’t died. Natsu hadn’t died when fire came out of his hands.

The thought came with little relief.

Heat rushed to her face, then drained away just as quickly, leaving her pale and unsteady as recent events sunk in. In her panic, crying, shaking, clinging to him—what had she said? She could not remember her exact words, only the sense of them: the kind of truths that slipped loose only when she was certain she was about to disappear forever.

“Hey.” He said, just enough to reach her. “You’re okay.”

Lucy startled, eyes snapping back to him. Her mind stirred more fully then, and with it came unease. Something was wrong. The air felt different, still, not noisy in the way the inn had been, not layered with distant voices and floorboard creaks and the subtle, constant presence of other people living their lives just beyond. Her gaze swept the room, cataloguing details.

Afternoon sunlight filtered in from tall windows she did not recognize, slanting across stone walls. The ceiling rose higher than the inn’s, crossed with exposed beams darkened by age and heat alike. Shelves lined with mismatched objects and tools she couldn’t identify.

This was not her room at Emberhold Inn.

She wasn’t in a bed.

Lucy became aware of the gentle sway first. Canvas creaked softly beneath her as she shifted, the hammock dipping and rocking in response. Thick cords anchored it securely between two beams, worn smooth where knots had been adjusted. A blanket had been tucked around her with surprising care, its wool warm against her.

Her cloak lay folded neatly next to her, boots placed beside it on the wood floor. Her satchel rested against the wall, closed and undisturbed.

Her keys—

Lucy’s hand slid instinctively to her belt, ignoring the ache of her body as she did it. Her fingers brushed cool, familiar metal, and the spike of panic ebbed. The zodiac keys lay exactly where she had them last. She had not been stripped of her things or disarmed.

Still, she had been moved.

Her unease remained. She pressed her feet carefully to the floor, wincing as the movement tugged at the soreness in her chest, and paused there, gauging her balance before daring anything more.

“You moved me.” The words left Lucy’s mouth flatly, in hopes that stating a fact might keep it from becoming something sharper. She did not raise her voice, but the moment the words existed in the space between them, the air tightened all the same.

“I did.” He replied. The answer came too slowly to be defensive, but too quickly to be evasive, and that unsettled her.

“Where am I?” She asked, glaring at him.

Natsu read the question beneath the question. “My place.” He said. Then, clearly aware that wasn’t enough, “It’s just my house. No guards, no holding cell. Nothing like that.”

Lucy’s jaw tightened anyway. “You didn’t ask.”

“No,” He acknowledged, and this time there was something like guilt in his tone. He rose from the chair, then caught himself mid-step and stayed where he was, hands loose at his sides. “I should have, I know that. I just didn’t want you waking up with half the city staring at the inn.”

“So you decided for me.” She said quietly.

“Yeah.” His shoulders rose and fell in a controlled breath. “I did.”

The admission disarmed her more than any justification could have.

“The inn isn’t safe anymore, Lucy.” He continued, quickening slightly now, as if he knew the window for reassurance was narrow and closing. “The hunters marked it. Even if they didn’t know exactly who you are yet, they knew where you were. Mira and I handled the worst of it, but the damage was done.” He gestured vaguely around them. “Here’s higher ground. Fewer eyes. Quieter.”

Lucy accepted that. Her gaze flicked to the door, then back to him.

“You carried me.” She said, and it wasn’t a question.

He nodded. “You were out cold.”

“How long?”

He hesitated just long enough to matter. “The hunters showed up the day before yesterday.”

Her eyes widened. “That long?”

“Yeah.” His mouth twisted faintly. “We left through the back of Mirajane’s inn. She helped get us out without being seen.”

Lucy swallowed, her mind scrambling to reconcile the gap between her last clear memory and the amount of time that had passed without her.

“You didn’t take my things,” She said slowly, grounding herself in observation. “Or my keys.”

“No.” His answer came fast. “I don’t touch what isn’t mine.”

Another careful pause followed. She studied him then, the way his stance remained angled rather than squared, how his weight rested back on his heels instead of forward, how his hands stayed loose at his sides rather than clenched. He wasn’t poised to insist, he looked ready to hear no and let it stand.

“I don’t like this.” She said honestly, testing his reaction.

“I know.” He acknowledged.

The simplicity of it struck her again, disarming in its lack of resistance.

“I didn’t do this to take your choices away.” He said finally, voice lower now. “I did it because last time I hesitated, things got worse.”

Lucy stared at him.

She looked around the room once more, and this time she saw it differently. The space no longer felt like a trap sprung while she slept. It felt like a boundary drawn in haste, imperfect but hidden from danger. It was shelter, offered too quickly and without enough words. She’d be stupid to pretend otherwise at this point.

Whatever disagreement still stood between them, even after the threat he’d made, she understood that it had not been luck that carried her out of that inn alive. It had been him.

“I’m not angry.” She said after a moment. “I’m… unsettled.”

“I’d get it. If you were angry, I mean.” He replied.

The space around her felt marginally less tight. Her legs chose that moment to remind her of their existence and she shifted, her ribs flaring in protest. She winced, bracing a hand against the hammock as she pushed herself more upright.

Natsu’s attention snapped to her at once. “Hey—”

“I’m fine.” She said automatically, then stopped herself. “I mean, I will be. I think.”

He stepped back, giving her space without leaving it entirely.

She stood carefully, testing her weight, the wood floor solid and warm beneath her feet. Her gaze wandered then, curiosity creeping in. The house was larger than she’d expected, but not grand. It seemed lived in and warm.

It was also, unmistakably, a mess. The sprawling disorder of someone who never thought to put things away because he was too busy using them.

Parchment littered the nearest table in uneven stacks, some rolled, some crumpled, and an overused, chipped mug sat on the edge. Weights lay abandoned near the floor, dumbbells scattered where they had been dropped. A heavy punching bag hung from an iron bracket near one wall, its leather surface scarred. Lucy’s eyes tracked it absently, the silent evidence of routine and discipline existing side by side with chaos.

Several large chests were open along one wall, their contents visible. One held spare clothes, shirts folded haphazardly and trousers shoved in. Others overflowed with miscellany like cracked gemstones, silver and gold objects held purely for their gleam, and fragments of ornate metal that looked like they had once been part of something larger, waiting to be remembered.

Beside them, wooden shelves bore keepsakes that felt chosen rather than gathered. Her eyes caught on a few. A scorched gauntlet, a chunk of fire opal, some sort of large horn, an intricate door handle, and an engraved brass compass, each set apart from the clutter and positioned as if they had earned their place.

At the center of the room, a broad stone fireplace dominated the space, cold now but well used, its interior blackened with old soot. Lucy eyed it with faint amusement. After watching him burn men with his bare hands, she wasn’t entirely sure what purpose a hearth served for someone like Natsu.

Tradition, perhaps. Maybe comfort.

Lucy stopped, eyes lingering on a nearby saucepan that sat forgotten on a low counter. Something once cooked dried stubbornly along its edges, the smell suggesting it had once been edible and then rapidly ceased to be so. Two bowls were stacked beside it, remnants of a hurried meal clinging to their sides, having dried into very questionable shapes. It looked like someone had meant to clean up later and then promptly forgotten why that mattered.

So this is how you live, she thought faintly.

She looked away before the question of how are you still alive could follow.

And then there was Happy.

A small cushion near the window bore the unmistakable marks of claws and teeth, its stuffing threatening escape. Brightly colored fish-shaped trinkets and charms, bits of ribbon, and polished stones had been gathered into an uneven pile beside it, arranged with earnest care that contrasted sharply with the rest of the room’s disorder.

Every surface seemed to hold something, really, and the comparison arrived to her without invitation. It was like a dragon’s hoard, as she had only ever known it from fictional books, comprised of remnants and keepsakes and treasures.

Along one section of wall, the chaos gave way to something quieter. Photographs had been tacked up without symmetry or frame. The faces were unfamiliar to Lucy, people she had never met, but she could tell they were placed with care. Some were laughing, arms slung over shoulders. Others were blurred in motion, caught in moments that felt real.

It struck her, then, that nothing in the house had been arranged to impress or intimidate. There were no symbols of status, no careful lines drawn between what was private and what was allowed to be seen. Only the evidence of a life lived openly, loudly, and without much concern for how it might appear from the outside.

Natsu stood a few steps away, arms crossed, watching her with an expression that was hard to place.

She hesitated, then decided to say it anyway. “…You know your house is a disaster, right?”

He glanced around, visibly taking stock for the first time. His eyes landed on the weights, the chests, the mess of living, and he shrugged, unbothered. “I guess. I mean, it’s not that bad.”

Lucy didn’t dignify him with a verbal response. She just looked pointedly at the saucepan.

He followed her line of sight.

His reaction was immediate. His brows shot up, jaw dropping as he leaned forward a fraction, staring into the pan as if it had personally betrayed him. “What is that!?”

“You tell me.”

He leaned even closer, peering into it with comically narrowed eyes like it might lunge at him.

“How do things even get like this?” She asked, half incredulous, half genuinely curious.

He straightened again, a sheepish smile tugging at his mouth. “Happy helps.”

And as if summoned by name alone—

“Luucyyy!!”

There was a rush of air, a flash of blue, and then a sudden, solid weight colliding with her chest.

Lucy barely had time to blink before Happy slammed into her, wings flapping furiously as his arms wrapped around her with enthusiasm. The impact knocked her back half a step and tore a sharp breath from her lungs, pain flaring. A startled laugh escaped her anyway as she caught him on instinct, bracing herself as best she could.

“Lucy!” Happy crowed, burying his face against her. “You’re awake! Good! Because Natsu said I wasn’t allowed to shake you anymore.”

“Happy,” Natsu said flatly, “don’t scare her.”

“Are you feeling better now?” Happy continued undeterred, eyes bright and earnest.

Lucy smiled genuinely this time as she hugged him back, careful of her chest but firm enough to reassure. “I am, thank you.”

Behind them, Natsu had gone quiet again, watching the exchange with an expression that had eased. Whatever strain that lingered between them hadn’t vanished, but it had receded a little, nudged aside by the easy normalcy Happy brought with him.

“Um,” She said, turning to Natsu awkwardly. “This is going to sound strange, but… do you have somewhere I could wash up?”

“Yeah. C’mon.”

He led her down a short hallway. The bathroom was compact and unmistakably his.

A deep tub dominated the space rather than a shower, its copper pipe running up the wall and curved overhead. It was fitted with a crude but effective spout that looked like it had been adjusted, bent, and re-adjusted until it worked the way he wanted. A single shelf held charcoal soap that smelled of sandalwood and musk, and a small stack of towels sat folded beside the tub.

“This one’s clean.” Natsu said, grabbing a towel from the top of the pile and holding it out to her. “Water heats fast, too fast if you turn it all the way left. I’ll be out here.”

Lucy nodded, and the door shut gently behind him.

Lucy took her time. She let the heat sink into her skin and soften the ache threaded through her ribs and chest, breathing slowly until the pain dulled into something manageable. It definitely helped. When she finally stepped out, she felt steadier.

She dressed with care. The open backed sleeveless coat and linen. The pale green boots traced with gold, familiar and solid. She tied the ribboned collar at her throat with neat, practiced fingers, then gathered her hair into a high ponytail once more, smoothing it into place until the reflection that met her felt recognizably her again. Last came the pendant, cool against her skin as it came to rest at her collarbone.

When she stepped back into the main room, Natsu was pushing a table back into place, checking its balance with a firm press of his palm. Happy hovered nearby. At the sound of her footsteps, he turned.

“Better?” He asked.

“Yes, much better.” She answered.

Lucy remained where she was as the quiet stretched. She glanced toward the window, then the door, then back to him, as if one of them might tell her what came next. She had questions, too many of them, layered and urgent, but none of them felt like the right place to begin.

Natsu cleared his throat. “You hungry?”

The question was grounded in something practical, offered without pressure. Lucy considered it, checking in with the dull ache in her body and the hunger beneath it she’d been ignoring. She finally nodded.

“Good.” He replied. “We can make something. Something new. Not—” He shot a disturbed look at the pan, “—that.”

Lucy followed the look. “I appreciate the distinction.”

He stepped past her toward the counter before she could move. Up close, the damage was worse. Whatever had once been in the saucepan had dried into something unidentifiable.

Natsu grimaced. “Yeah, okay. That’s on me.”

He grabbed the handle with two fingers like it might bite him and lifted it away from the counter, peering inside with open suspicion. “I think that was stew.” He said. “At some point.”

Lucy watched as he very deliberately carried it away from her line of sight, then stacked the offending bowls on top of it, quarantining the whole situation. Fire suddenly bloomed in his palm.

Lucy flinched so sharply her chest protested. Her breath hitched, fingers tightening on nothing.

Natsu froze mid-motion, the flames curling lazily around his knuckles. His eyes flicked to her, and something like oh shit crossed his face.

“Oops. Forgot.” He said quickly, and the fire dimmed instinctively, as if answering his awareness.

Lucy forced her lungs to work again. “It’s fine.” She lied automatically, then corrected herself through clenched teeth. “It’s just… you don’t even think about it, do you?”

“Not really.” He admitted. “But I am now.”

She forced herself to relax. “I’m alright.” She insisted, not convincing but sincere. “Go ahead.”

He gave her a second to breathe, then closed his hand around the pan. There was a brief hiss, a sharp flare of orange light, and then nothing. The saucepan disintegrated in an instant, metal glowing white hot before collapsing into ash that sifted through his fingers. Not even a warped handle remained.

“There.” He said, dusting his hands together.

Lucy stared at the empty space where cookware had existed seconds ago, pulse still misbehaving. “You didn’t actually clean anything.”

“I removed the threat.” He countered. “That counts.”

A rush of air stirred the room as Happy fluttered down to perch on the counter, peering with satisfaction. “The evil was defeated!”

Natsu grinned. He lifted his hand without looking.

Happy met it with his paw in perfect timing. Smack.

Lucy stared at them both. Incinerating the dishes and celebratory high fives seemed ordinary to them. She shook her head, lips twitching despite herself, and turned away before she could give in to the very real, very dangerous urge to start reorganizing everything in reach just to feel in control again.

“Alright,” Natsu said, voice lighter but not careless. “Real food this time! Sit tight.”

Lucy hesitated, then did as instructed, lowering herself into one of the chairs he’d dragged closer earlier. From there, she rested her chin briefly in her hand as she watched him race about the kitchen space, pushing objects aside with his elbow and retrieving ingredients.

Happy hovered nearby, offering deeply unhelpful commentary.

Natsu hauled out a thick slab of meat wrapped in cloth. It was dark red, marbled and fresh, and he set it down on the counter with a solid thud. He cut the meat into thick portions with quick, efficient motions, the sound of steel against wood steady and unhurried.

Fire answered him easily when he reached for it, not flaring or roaring as it had at the inn, but tightening into something obedient and controlled. He coaxed the oven back to life with a practiced flick of his wrist, the flames settling into a bed of glowing embers rather than leaping wild.

It was strange, she thought, how easily he shifted between destruction and care. Fire that could erase a pan from existence now banked low and precise. Strength that had shattered tables now turned to cutting and preparing. She hadn’t noticed how much restraint lived beneath the violence she had seen earlier. How much discipline hid inside what looked, from the outside, like instinct alone.

Salt and crushed herbs followed, scattered with a kind of imprecise confidence between his fingers. The meat hissed as it finally met heat, fat sizzling and juices snapping. Its scent filled the room almost immediately, rich and savory, cutting through the lingering smell of smoke and burnt iron with something delicious. Lucy’s stomach tightened in response, hunger gripping her harder now. She was starving, actually. She hadn’t eaten properly in… well, she wasn’t sure how long. Time had become a slippery thing lately.

Bread followed, thick slices torn rather than cut, and then a handful of roots were tossed directly into the embers to roast until their skins split and blackened. It was simple. Blunt. Food meant to fill rather than impress, and when he finally plated it, there was no flourish. He set the dish in front of her at the table, then dragged another chair closer for himself, sitting across from her.

“Here ya go.” He said.

Lucy looked down at the plate, the meat still crackling softly as it cooled. For a moment, she hesitated not because she didn’t want it, but because accepting homemade food from someone she’d recently chewed out felt a bit odd. She looked up at him awkwardly, letting out a small, “Thank you.”

She picked up the knife and tested the resistance of the meat, cutting into it. It was charred on the outside, pink and tender within, juices soaking quickly into the bread beneath it. She took a careful bite, and warmth spread through her almost immediately. It was good. Not refined, not delicate, but honest.

Natsu tore into the meat with enthusiasm as soon as he sat back down, scarfing down bites chased with rough chunks of bread. Happy mirrored him almost immediately, perched half on the chair and half on the table, stuffing his face with gleeful abandon. Crumbs scattered everywhere.

Natsu glanced up at her mid-bite, mouth full. “M’good?” He asked, the words muffled around food.

She nodded. “It is.”

His shoulders dropped a fraction in relief, satisfied, and he went right back to eating.

Happy leaned toward her, eyes bright. “He burned it just right this time!”

Natsu finished gulping down what was in his mouth and shot him a look. “It’s always right.”

Lucy took another bite, slower now, letting herself savor it. Happy finished first, licking his paws dramatically and declaring himself full forever, before immediately eyeing Natsu’s plate with open interest. Natsu swatted him away with the back of his hand and a sound of protest, but ultimately gave in and allowed him a piece to munch on.

Lucy leaned back slightly in her chair once she was done, careful of her soreness, hands resting loosely in her lap. The warmth of the food and shenanigans lingered, but she knew the moment wouldn’t last. Conversations waited on the other side of it. Hard and necessary ones.

Might as well rip off the band-aid and get it over with, she thought. She was running on borrowed time, after all.

She set her fork down. The sound was soft, barely there, but it cut cleanly through the room.

“As a child,” She said at last, her voice low and measured, “I grew up being told magic was dangerous. That it always takes more than it gives.” It came out steadier than she felt, as if she were placing something fragile onto a surface she didn’t quite trust just yet. “Thalrim has always lived by this rule. If you ever pull too hard or want too much, your body won’t be able to withstand the casting.”

Across the table, Natsu slowed. His frantic pace softened as he lifted his gaze to her, taking his last few bites and chewing more thoroughly than before. He didn’t interrupt.

“It was supposed to be the same for all Realms, as I understand it.”

Happy finished nibbling on his last piece of meat, tail flicking once before settling. Both he and Natsu were watching her with the same unbroken attention now.

Her eyes lifted then, unflinching, meeting Natsu’s across the table. “And I know this rule very well,” She said quietly, bitterly, “because they told me my mother died from just that.”

Happy’s eyes widened in concern.

Natsu’s fork paused halfway back to his plate.

After a beat, he set it down, seeming to have lost his appetite altogether. He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking softly beneath the shift. When he looked at her again, there was no disbelief or confusion in his expression, just something dark and tightly held.

“How did she die?”

“What?”

“You didn’t see it happen, right?” He said, tone firm. “So what did they tell you.”

Her mouth tightened, uncertainty creeping in now. “They said she died from hypomagia. That it happened because of the keys.”

Natsu’s gaze dropped, briefly, to the keys at her waist, then lifted back to her face, his attention sharpening.

“The keys are stable on their own.” Lucy continued. “The danger only comes when you try to draw on them. She’d been warned never to attempt that, but she ignored it. They said she underestimated how much they were taking from her over time, and by the time anyone noticed, it was too late. After that, she just… faded. A few days later, she passed away.”

Natsu studied her in silence, like he was turning the story over piece by piece. Then, he shook his head slowly, a solemn motion. “That’s not how magic works.”

Lucy’s mouth curved without warmth. “Mirajane said that too.”

“Yeah,” He replied, voice roughening just slightly. “Because it doesn’t.” He stared down at the table for a beat, then back up at her, thoughts clearly racing now. “If the keys were what killed her, it wouldn’t have drained her slowly. It would’ve had to hit all at once, like with you. That doesn’t add up.”

Lucy opened her mouth, then stopped. The explanation she’d lived with her whole life hovered just out of reach, suddenly brittle in her mouth.

“And it couldn’t have been from just holding a gate open with summoner type magic.” He added, quieter but firmer. “That isn’t lethal.”

Lucy stared at him, her pulse thudding in her ears.

“For hypomagia to actually kill someone, you’d have to use an insane amount of magic,” He continued, heat creeping into his voice despite his effort to keep it reined in, “or have it siphoned out of you lightning fast. And even then—” He huffed a short, humorless breath. “If someone’s powerful enough for that to be a risk, they’re usually powerful enough to survive it.”

Her brows knit, pain flickering across her features before she could stop it. Sadness welled first, thick and heavy, followed closely by confusion, caught between what she had believed and what her body had just proven.

“But… But they said her body couldn’t handle it.” She murmured to herself, the familiar explanation rising automatically, reflexively. “That magic demands a toll, and she exceeded it…”

“That’s a story.” Natsu replied with certainty. “Rules exist to stop bad things from happening. They make sense on their own. They don’t need to scare you into believin’ them.”

Lucy flinched. The distinction itself hurt, but she couldn’t help but think he was right.

“When it… happened downstairs,” She went on, voice wavering now, the words dragging themselves free, “I was so sure that was it.” Her hand lifted without thinking, fingers pressing lightly over her sternum. “That feeling in my chest. Like something was pulling too hard, too fast.”

Happy tilted his head, wings drooping slightly. “That’s when you thought you were dying?”

“Yes.” She replied.

Natsu’s jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly. “Who’s they, Lucy?”

She didn’t answer right away.

Not because she didn’t hear him, but because the question broke something open that she’d never been asked to look at too closely. She stared down at the grain of the table, at the faint scorch marks and nicks left by a life lived roughly and honestly, and tried to sort memory from instruction, truth from repetition.

Natsu didn’t push. He waited, watching her.

“My Realm.” She said finally, the words forced out and unsure even as she spoke them.

She had never watched Thalrim’s streets pulse with ordinary life the way Drakhal’s did. She had never stood in a public square and seen a baker bargain, a guard laugh, a common elf weave spells with tired familiarity. Her life had unfolded behind castle walls and curated silence, escorted from room to room.

She was permitted into gardens only when they were empty, into villages only when they were prepared to honor her, into lessons only when they were ready. She knew that her elders had believed it, had spoken of magic like a burden that bent the bearer, so it must have been the whole kingdom, right?

But what if it hadn’t been everyone?

What if it had just been her?

“Or… my father. I don’t know.” She added. Her throat tightened, emotion thickening her voice. “I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”

Natsu seemed disturbed by that. Heat bled into the space around them, rolling off him before he seemed to notice. “Your father?”

She pressed her lips together, breathing shallowly, trying to hold back as though afraid that if she inhaled too deeply something else might tear loose.

For so long, certainty had been the one thing she’d clung to. That rules existed, that limits were real, that fear was justified. To lose that framework now felt so disorienting. The world hadn’t changed at all, but the lens through which she’d always been forced to see things had.

“There’s no record out here of anything like that.” Natsu continued. “No cases where someone just quietly fades after using everyday magic.”

She looked back at him, startled out of her thoughts. “There isn’t?”

“No.” Natsu leaned forward, forearms resting on the table. “Magic related deaths don’t go unnoticed. They’re big, and always recorded. There’s always witnesses or fallout. A reason people remember.” He held her gaze. “Which means your mom either did more than what they told you and it got covered up,” He said quietly, “or none of it was ever the truth.”

Lucy closed her eyes.

Her mother’s face surfaced unbidden, soft in the few fragments she owned, an impression more than a memory. The myth of her, the warmth of her, the quiet warning her absence had been used to carve this is what happens if you reach into her. The narrative she’d lived with her whole life shattered, breaking in slow, agonizing lines.

And then Maera’s face rose with it. She recalled her mouth going still when Lucy had asked her in those last few minutes together, her wrinkled eyes sliding away as if the answer were something best left untouched. She’d never confirmed it in the end.

Lucy had recognized that silence to mean something was being kept from her, but she hadn’t been brave enough to face it then. Accepting the story was easier than imagining an uglier truth.

“Why would they lie to me?” She asked. The question came out smaller than she intended and devastating in its simplicity, like a child’s honest confusion set down in the middle of adult cruelty. She could feel the heat of tears gathering behind her eyes, threatening, humiliating.

Natsu’s expression shifted, softening. It wasn’t pity, never that, but an empathy that didn’t soften the truth so much as carve clean lines around what was wrong. The anger he’d been carrying didn’t fade, it condensed.

This was cruel. And worse, it was deliberate. Whatever Thalrim claimed to be or stand for, it had done this to its own people, and Natsu seemed to feel strongly about this despite not knowing the details.

“I don’t know.” He answered honestly, holding her gaze. “I don’t get any of it. But someone must’ve benefited from this. Fear’s one hell of a leash.”

Lucy’s mouth went dry.

A leash.

The word slid into place with sickening ease. She had worn it for so long, in fact, that she’d started calling it discipline. At one point, she even believed it was love. The assessment circle came to mind, the etched stone, her father’s calm voice speaking about limits and containment, her value measured through her suffering.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” She said slowly. The bitterness in her voice wasn’t an accident this time. “All my life, it was ‘magic kills Heartfilias’.”

Natsu’s eyes darkened. “Funny,” He muttered, “because from what I saw downstairs, magic wasn’t what was hurting you.”

Lucy’s throat tightened. She looked down at her hands, turning them slowly, as if expecting to see something wrong with them. Maybe dull or grayed skin, veins gone dark beneath the surface, or even the faint signs of a body that had begun to fail from the inside out.

Nothing. All she saw were her own fingers, trembling faintly but intact.

Alive.

And suddenly, very angry.

The fire crackled softly, a steady and domestic sound that felt almost obscene in contrast to their conversation.

“So if it’s not true,” Happy ventured carefully, “then what actually happened to her?”

Lucy swallowed hard. The knot in her throat didn’t loosen, it burned instead.

“I was a child.” She said with less fragility now. “I never saw her sick. I was told she was resting, that I wasn’t allowed to see her until she was better. And then one day she just wasn’t there anymore. By the time I was old enough to ask questions,” She continued, voice level and cold, “I guess the answers were already decided for me.”

For a long moment, none of them spoke. Silence pressed in around them, dense and uncomfortable.

Natsu exhaled slowly through his nose. “Look,” He said, and something in his tone changed. The edge dulled. The heat banked. What remained was gentle and patient. “I’m not askin’ you to unlearn everything you were taught overnight.”

Lucy let the statement stand. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding herself together, scrambling to accept his version of the world in place of the one she’d been given. The stillness in her shoulders eased, but the anger didn’t go with it. It stayed coiled beneath the relief of his understanding.

She knew he was right, at least in some terrible, undeniable way, but knowing didn’t make it easy. “I just—” She stopped, searching for words that wouldn’t come apart in her mouth. “I need time.”

“I figured.” He said without hesitation. “My point is, whatever they taught you, whatever ‘rules’ they drilled into your head, it’s hard to believe those were meant to keep you safe.”

She looked up sharply. “I don’t know who I am without those rules, Natsu.” The confession felt dangerous, naked, slipping out before she could temper it. “If they’re wrong, then everything I thought I knew—” She broke off, shaking her head.

For a beat, he didn’t answer, considering her words.

Then he smiled.

Not wide or carelessly, but certain. The kind of smile that didn’t deny how hard things were but refused to let them stay impossible.

“Then you get to learn something new. Might be scary, sure, but it also sounds like freedom.” He said simply, like this wasn’t a problem to solve so much as a path to walk. “It’s just like The Abyss, isn’t it?”

Lucy faltered.

His eyes were suddenly bright with a confidence that made danger feel negotiable. “What was it you said again?” He continued, tilting his head slightly. He snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah! ‘If all you’re ever given is one ending, one explanation, one way things are supposed to go, you stop lookin’ for anything else,’ right?” He nodded to himself, clearly satisfied. “Gotta admit, I was moved.”

She stared at him. Those had been her words, spoken from a place that had tried to erase her existence entirely. He didn’t even know what she actually meant by them, and yet here he was, handing them back to her like something solid she could stand on.

Happy, who had been hovering quietly nearby, perked up immediately. “Yeah!” He added, flapping closer with a smile of his own. “I thought he was gonna start crying. He didn’t, but I could tell. Very emotional.”

“I was not!” Natsu shot back at once, whipping around to face him.

Happy folded his paws behind his head, smug. “Did too! You totally did the voice thing.”

“I get quiet when I’m thinking. So what?”

“That was the cry voice, not the thinking voice. You can’t fool me.”

Natsu scowled.

“Anyway,” He said, tone snapping right back into place as Happy snickered quietly behind him. “You told me your goal was to keep looking. To keep choosing an alternative, even when it’s hard.” He continued, steady, unbothered by the enormity of what he was asking. “This is just another version of that. And we’ll deal with it together.” He finished, like it was already settled.

Happy smiled at her encouragingly. “Aye! We’re usually confused and it always works out anyway!”

Lucy’s chest tightened. Emotion rose sharp and unfamiliar, threatening to spill over. She wasn’t convinced, not really. Too many unanswered questions still pressed in from all sides. Too much danger lingered in the space he was so casually claiming they would share.

And yet, it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay upset with him when he spoke like this, as though uncertainty were not a failing but a condition of moving forward at all. Maybe she was just a pushover when it came to his type—people with minds set forward, always searching for what could be made better instead of what might go wrong, trusting the good would follow.

It took her this long to understand that fear had never kept anyone safe. It had only kept her useful. The realization struck hard enough that she had to look away.

“I’m sorry.” She said quietly, looking down at her hands. The words were unadorned, yet heavy all the same.

Natsu frowned at her, genuinely puzzled. “For what?”

She shook her head once, the motion sharp with shame she hadn’t quite figured out how to set down yet. “For what I said to you.” Her voice stayed level, but it cost her something to keep it there. “It wasn’t fair of me. I came at you like you owed me explanations, like I had the right to demand of you. And then you saved me anyway.”

Natsu just looked at her. He snorted, the sound soft and surprised, like a laugh he hadn’t expected to have. “If that’s your worst,” He reassured, “you and I are doing juuust fine.”

Lucy looked up at him, caught off guard by his response again.

“I mean it.” He continued, sensing her disbelief. “You didn’t throw anything at me, you didn’t scream at me. You didn’t even use your keys on me.” His eyes flicked pointedly to them. “By my standards, that was a pretty calm argument.”

A surprised sound escaped her before she could stop it. “Is that seriously the standard for you?”

“Mmm.” Natsu tipped his head back, considering, lips pursed in exaggerated thought. “Yeah, I got a few people in mind.” He said easily. “Mostly an idiot made outta ice.”

Across the room, Happy had already lost interest. He’d somehow migrated to a loose skein of yarn left abandoned, batting at it with fierce concentration.

Lucy’s lips curved, but the smile faded just as quickly as it came. “Still.” She said, quieter now, “I wasn’t fair.”

“No,” Natsu agreed.

The bluntness stung her a little, but he didn’t let it hang there for long.

“But you were honest with me, and I’ll take that over silence any day.” He added. When he spoke again, the edge in his voice had softened, redirecting. He scratched at his cheek, a little awkward. “I was kind of a jerk, anyway. I could’ve handled it better instead of cornering ya like that.” He paused, irritation turning inward. “That wasn’t fair either.”

Lucy hadn’t expected him to own how he’d gone about it.

“I get why you pushed back.” He added, glancing at her again. A faint huff escaped him, more self aware than amused. “Hell, if someone had tried that with me, I probably would’ve thrown the first punch.”

Lucy nodded slowly, taking in his words.

“That being said, I’m still not backin’ off The Abyss thing.” He continued, voice firming again in resolve. “Not after what we saw or what you told me.” His eyes held hers, resolute and unyielding. “This isn’t something you should be trying to untangle alone, and I don’t wanna watch you get swallowed by something bigger than both of us.”

A beat passed, then that familiar, stubborn certainty crept back into his voice, open in offering. “I meant what I said about helping. Two heads are better than one.”

Guilt and resolve coexisted in him, neither cancelling the other out. For the first time since the argument, she could see that he wasn’t trying to take her choices away. He was trying, clumsily but earnestly, to stand beside her while she made them.

“So,” She asked softly, testing the truth of it, “you’re not angry?”

“Why would I be?”

“I accused you of hiding things while I’m still doing that myself, and then you went and—” She gestured vaguely, “—did all of this.”

His gaze stayed on her, steady and uncomplicated. “You don’t have to earn help by being agreeable, Lucy. I stepped in ‘cause it was the right thing to do.” He answered. “That doesn’t change just ‘cause I learned more about you.”

The words warmed her, loosening something she’d been holding tight for far too long. Her fingers, clenched together in her lap, finally relaxed.

“Thank you for that.” She said, the gratitude in it real.

Natsu smiled at her in response, easy and unforced.

Lucy found herself returning it before she could think better of it, the expression tentative but genuine. It felt strange, letting this moment of understanding exist between them without immediately trying to justify it or think the worst. It reminded her, unexpectedly, of that first morning at Emberhold Inn, of sitting at the breakfast table across from him, the world still unfamiliar, the danger not yet fully drawn.

It hadn’t even been a week, but somehow it already felt distant, like it happened so long ago.

She decided to break the quiet first.

“So, what happened while I was out?” She hesitated, then added, softer, “Is Mirajane okay?”

Natsu nodded. “She’s good. Told me to say bye to you. Said she wishes you well.” A smile tugged at his mouth again. “And that if we break anything else in the future, she expects a written apology.”

Mirajane’s voice, so easy to imagine even now, soothed her. “That sounds like her.” A small smile found its way to her lips.

“Yeah.” Natsu let the word linger, the smile fading as his gaze shifted. Then, more carefully, he said, “I also talked to my father.”

Lucy blinked. The sentence took a second to register. “You—?”

“Igneel.” He clarified immediately. “I told him what happened here. About the hunters, about the keys.” His gaze lifted to her again, steady. “About you.”

Her pulse spiked, quick and sharp, a reflex she didn’t bother pretending she could control. She remembered him saying he would ask questions, remembered agreeing hazily, but she had imagined merchants, maybe guards, or people who traded rumors for coin and drink.

Not the literal ruler of dragons.

“What exactly did you tell him?” She asked nervously.

“What I knew.” Natsu said simply. “Which isn’t much.”

That should have reassured her. It didn’t.

“He recognized your last name.” Natsu continued, his mouth twitching, like the fact itself amused him more than its implications. “Guess that’s not unusual when it comes to Elven royal lineages.”

Lucy felt her stomach drop.

Royal lineages.

Her thoughts spun instantly, spiraling in a rush she barely managed to contain behind her eyes. Does he know? He can’t know. There’s no way he knows. The truth sat heavy in her chest, suddenly louder than it had been moments ago. She knew it couldn’t be avoided forever if they were going to investigate together, but she’d at least wanted it to be on her terms. Especially after accusing him, only days ago, of hiding being a prince from her.

Natsu noticed and gave her a weird look, but didn’t comment.

“My dad didn’t know much about you. Not specifics, anyway, and definitely not whatever Thalrim’s internal mess looks like.” He hummed, considering. “But he does know the Heartfilia name hasn’t shown up outside Elven territory in decades. And when it does, it’s never accidental.”

Lucy nodded once. That much felt safe to acknowledge.

“What else did you learn?” She asked quickly, keeping her voice even by sheer force of will. “About my family, I mean.”

“What’s consistent,” He continued, choosing his words with more care now, “is that Heartfilia is an old Elven name. Like, actual authority, back when elves still held territory instead of treaties.”

Her pulse picked up again, but she didn’t interrupt. She let him speak.

He looked at her again, grinning like he’d won a prize. “Basically, your family’s suuuuper old. Bet you got a lotta respect as a noble back there, huh?”

The word noble settled into the quiet between them, weighty and imprecise all at once. Lucy held still. She didn’t correct him. Didn’t deny it either.

“What about the hunters?” She asked, redirecting before her nerves could betray her.

Natsu, quick to change gears as much as her, thankfully went along with it.

“That’s the part I don’t like.” Natsu replied, grimacing. “I talked to merchants, dockworkers, guards…this isn’t the first sighting. There’s been multiple unmarked groups askin’ around for elves in places where elves don’t live.”

She’d been afraid of that, but it wasn’t surprising by any means. “How many?”

“Enough that Drakhal won’t stay safe for long.” He said bluntly. “I counted four separate sightings just today. Two near the docks, one outside the western gate, and one asking questions at a local bar.” His gaze hardened. “They’re probably not communicating as much since money’s involved, but they’re for sure mapping movement as they go.”

“That means eventually they’ll tighten the net.” Lucy murmured, more to herself than to him. “So staying for much longer isn’t an option.”

Natsu nodded. “I could shut ‘em down publicly, but the bounty triples by morning. Quiet buys us time. Loud just tells the wrong people they’re getting warm.”

“It was bound to happen.” Lucy said quietly. “I was only wondering how long it would take.”

Natsu stilled for a few seconds, like her casual certainty had interrupted his line of thinking.

“I just…can’t figure out how it’s you.” He said slowly, not looking at her for a moment. “I know I’m missing something, that whatever’s happening is tied back to Thalrim somehow.” He glanced back at her with curiosity, the confusion written plain across his face, “But you just don’t seem like someone who’s caused a mess this big. And that’s what’s throwin’ me.”

That’s because I’m not meant to cause it, she thought dryly to herself. I’m meant to be what it happens to.

Lucy drew one knee up beneath the table, hooking her foot around the rung of the chair. She focused on the sensation while the implications settled, her index finger and thumb pressed lightly at her chin as she stared past him, deep in thought.

Natsu waited a bit, then shifted, accepting her silence.

“There’s one more thing.” He mentioned instead.

Lucy’s eyes snapped back to him, and her shoulders tightened before she could stop it. “That’s never how good news starts.” She replied, the words worn thin.

“It’s not bad news either.” He countered, but the seriousness in his eyes made her stomach dip all the same.

“Just tell me.” She said, unable to take the anxiety.

“My dad wants to see you.”

Lucy lifted her hand away from her face, her thoughts scattering as if the sentence had arrived half a second ahead of her ability to understand it. “What? Why?” She blurted out more than asked, alarmed.

“Because your name came up.” Natsu said without embellishment.

Of course it had. It always did. She thought of the hunters, of the way Heartfilia had moved through the city like a scent on the wind, drawing attention she couldn’t outrun.

She closed her eyes, exhaling in frustration. When she opened them again, Natsu was still watching her, steady and present, neither pushing nor pulling away. There was something held in the way he didn’t look away, like he was bracing himself, waiting to see which way she’d lean.

“I talked to him about clearing you,” He said, careful now, “but he wants to meet you first. He could give you Drakhal’s seal of protection while we search. Makes anyone comin’ after you rethink their life choices.”  

Protection.

The word landed wrong immediately, a sour note beneath its surface promise. Her stomach tightened with alarm. Protection meant visibility. It meant claim. It meant decisions being made about her by people who did not yet know what they were really protecting.

What he was offering her was not danger because it was cruel, but because it was kind, and because Natsu did not know how to extend help without stepping all the way into the fire himself. If she dared to accept something like that, if she let a dragon’s protection settle over her like a shield, the consequences would ripple outward, widening fast and unforgiving.

Thalrim would lose it if word reached them that she was under Drakhal’s protection. Lines would harden. Politics would ignite. Things would inevitably escalate far beyond reward money, and she was absolutely not ready to place the secret truth of her sacrifice into that collision. If that line were crossed now, if too much attention turned toward her all at once, there would be no space left to maneuver. It would be over before anyone understood what had been set in motion.

And it would not be her who paid the price first. It would be Natsu and Happy, standing too close, too unprepared for what followed, and then Igneel after him, drawn in by blood and the old logic of rulers who did not hesitate once lines were crossed.

If they were truly going to work together, if she was going to let herself believe that the faith he had shown her was real, then there was really only one option. He needed to understand the scale of what he was touching.

Even if it frightened her.

Even if it meant placing herself before a dragon and speaking while her voice still shook.

“No.” She said instantly.

The confidence in it surprised even Natsu. “N-No?” He blinked. “But—”

She stood up from her chair. “That’s not why I’d go.”

Natsu’s confusion gave way to interest as he looked up at her. “Then why would you?”

Lucy met his gaze, steady now, the decision already made in her head. The fear was still there, but it wasn’t driving anymore. “If we’re really doing this,” She said, voice even, “then there’s something I need to tell you both.”

Natsu studied her for a beat, then nodded. “Alright.” He said. His mouth tipped into that familiar, dangerous curve of confidence, stepping back into his element. “Then what are we waitin’ for?” He added, voice lighter now.

Before she could respond, he was moving, crossing the room, shoving aside a stack of burned parchment and yanking open a drawer with more enthusiasm than care.

Lucy blinked at him. “…What are you doing?”

“Gettin’ ready.” He replied easily, already unfastening his cuirass and shrugging it off his shoulders. Then he started at his waist.

She made a strangled sound and spun around so fast she nearly tripped over the chair. “What are you doing!?” She yelped. “Put your clothes back on!”

Happy, who had been happily tangled in yarn near the hearth, froze mid-wrestle, ears pricking straight up as he popped his head free from a loop.

Natsu froze, one hand still hooked in his sash, genuinely baffled. “What? I gotta change.”

“We were having a moment!” Lucy snapped, staring determinedly at the wall. “We were conversing! And now you’re—you’re taking your pants off!”

He frowned. “Uh, yeah. That’s usually part of changing.”

“Are you crazy!? You can’t just start undressing in the middle of a serious discussion! Much less in front of me!”

Happy, still wrapped in yarn, shook his head to himself with solemn understanding. “Poor Lucy.” He said knowingly. “She has no idea.”

“I can hear you!” Lucy snapped.

Natsu glanced down at himself, then shrugged. “Well, just look away or something. S’not a big deal.”

“I am looking away!”

“See? Problem solved.” Natsu tugged the sash loose and kicked his pants aside without looking.

She pressed her hands to her face, mortified and exasperated in equal measure.

When she finally dared to look again, he was already occupied with something far less scandalous, adjusting the red and gold blade he had at the back of his belt and testing its balance absentmindedly.

He’d changed quickly. A sleeveless, long combat tunic in dark brown hugged his torso, the material somewhere between leather and light armor. Instead of simple seams, each armhole was ringed with a narrow leather belt, set directly into the garment and fastened with a small gold buckle. They sat proud of the fabric, thicker and firmer than ordinary stitching, giving the impression of structural braces designed to hold fast under stress. The same gold trim that ran directly beneath the narrow belts traced a clean line down the center of his tunic, breaking only where a wider belt cinched his waist, buckled securely over the entire outfit. Below it, the tunic split open into an inverted V, the gold trim continuing along its edges and framing the opening as it revealed slightly darker, loose fitted trousers built for mobility underneath. They tapered neatly into sturdy boots meant for long roads and uneven terrain.

The rest of him looked unchanged. Draped around his neck was his usual white scarf made of interlocking dragon scales, layered over one another in organic, irregular patterns. It looked heavy, wrapped several times like both a ward and a comfort. Beneath it, his own scales showed through along his shoulders, neck, and upper arms, the same warm tan as his complexion.

He worked on his leather wrappings next, tightening and refastening them with habitual ease. Lucy’s attention followed without meaning to, drawn to the movement of his hands as the overlapping bands settled neatly into place around his wrists and lower forearms. The leather was worn smooth from use, wrapped in layers that extended over his knuckles and stopped just short of his palms. It seemed to be as much of a staple as the scarf, regardless of whatever else he chose to wear.

The whole look was functional in the way of modular gear, layered and reinforced where it mattered, refined through use instead of design. And yet the colors all matched. The lines were clean. Nothing clashed or felt incidental. It looked… stylish.

Lucy’s eyebrow lifted a fraction.

He probably wouldn’t call it fashion. He might not even be aware of it. But he clearly cared about how he looked, or at the very least, he was annoyingly good at it.

She was still watching when his hands suddenly stilled and his gaze flicked up, catching hers. She jerked her gaze away at once, fixing her attention elsewhere.

“Ready?” Natsu asked, already reaching for the door.

“Yes.” She said, a little too quickly.

There was a sudden flutter of wings and a small rush of air as Happy zipped across the room, skidding to a stop near Lucy with enthusiasm. “Let’s go!”

They didn’t leave through the front.

Natsu led her out through a narrow side door hidden behind a trellis of dead vines, the latch clicking softly as he shut it behind them. Lucy paused at the entrance despite herself, glancing back at the house she’d just left behind. It looked nothing like what she’d expected from someone as loud as him, tucked against the edge of the city like it had grown there naturally. Dark wood and old stone were softened by moss and creeping ivy, the surrounding trees pressing close enough that branches brushed the roof when the wind shifted.

It felt peaceful, almost stubbornly so.

Natsu waited patiently a few steps ahead. When she caught up to him, his gaze swept over her. The forest sun filtered through the leaves above them, catching in her hair where it had slipped loose over her shoulders, warm gold against dark green. The elegant taper of her pointed ears, unhidden, caught the light just as clearly.

His eyes lingered there for half a second too long. “Hey,” He said casually, alertness sliding back into place. “You might wanna pull up your cloak again.”

She blinked, then remembered. “Oh.”

Lucy reached for the cloak, drawing it back up around her shoulders. The tan leather settled at her neck as she lifted the hood, tucking her hair in with practiced efficiency. The world narrowed slightly as shadow fell across her vision, and with it came that weird sense of smoothing herself down so she wouldn’t invite attention.

“I forgot.”

He waved it off. “Not like you’re doin’ anything wrong. People just… notice.”

He set off at once, leading them away from his house and deeper into the trees. The forest thinned as they went, the ground growing more exposed beneath their feet as roots gave way to hard packed earth and scrub.

Happy fluttered alongside her for a moment, tilting his head as he studied the edge of her hood. “Do your ears get tired,” He asked earnestly, “from hiding all the time?”

Lucy glanced at him, then huffed a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. “No.” She said dryly. “Just me.”

Happy considered that. “Huh.”

It didn’t take long before the path curved them back toward civilization, the distant shapes of walls and rooftops beginning to rise.

As they breached into the city, he angled them immediately away from the wider streets.

Drakhal felt different now.

Not hostile just yet, but alert. The areas they moved through were quieter than before, shop shutters half-lowered, conversations muted and tense. Lucy stayed close to him, cloak drawn tight around her shoulders. Her chest still ached with every breath she took too deeply, a dull reminder of the day before yesterday, but she kept her steps measured and steady, refusing to let pain dictate her pace.

Natsu moved like he was wise on every shortcut, every blind corner, every place the city forgot to look at itself. He didn’t rush, but he didn’t hesitate either, cutting through alleyways and corridors with confidence. Lucy matched him step for step, listening, watching, learning the rhythm of someone who had grown up navigating it.

At one narrow crossing, voices rose ahead of them, men arguing in low tones, the clink of armor close enough to carry. Natsu stopped so abruptly Lucy nearly walked straight into his back.

“Hey.” He murmured, already turning her slightly, angling her toward the wall. “Down.”

She did so without thinking, lowering her head as he reached up and tugged the edge of her hood further forward. His fingers brushed her hair, then settled briefly, firmly, at the crown of her head. Natsu leaned just far enough to see around the corner, his body angled to shield her completely, and she disliked, selfishly, how much weight he was carrying on her behalf.

A sudden weight darted beneath her cloak. Happy slipped inside with practiced ease, wings tucking tight as he went still against her leg. She stared at the uneven cobblestone by her boots, acutely aware of how loud her blood sounded in her ears, of how one careless movement could ruin everything.

A laugh echoed down the crossing, too loud, too careless, followed by the jingle of coin and the sharp curse of someone who had lost a game they hadn’t meant to. Footsteps passed close enough that Lucy could see the shadow of them slide across the stones. Another voice complained about bad routes and worse pay, and then the sound thinned, stretched, and finally dissolved into the maze of streets as if it had never existed at all.

Only then did Natsu relax, the tension draining from his shoulders as his hand dropped away from her head. “All clear.”

Lucy let out the breath she’d been holding, her shoulders loosening as well.

Happy let go and fluttered ahead a few paces, circling once before drifting back. “No one following.” He whispered.

“Good. This way’s quieter.” Natsu said, looking back at her. “Longer, but fewer eyes.”

She nodded. Quiet sounded good right now.

They slipped through more alleys and over low walls, skirting the edges of Drakhal until the roads looked more like paths, buildings giving way to open land and wild.

The air changed first, cleaner, sharper, carrying the scent of grass and stone, and as they hiked, the world itself seemed to open next, unfolding into a sweep of rolling hills that stretched far beyond what Lucy had expected.

They were vast, layered upon one another like the backs of sleeping beasts. The hills rose as massive, ancient swells of stone and earth, their sides terraced and slopes curved with winding paths. Sunlight spilled across them in broad, unbroken swathes, and the sky above felt larger somehow, deeper, as though the horizon had been pushed farther away. Cavern mouths yawned darkly along their flanks, some narrow and subtle, others huge enough to swallow buildings whole.

A breeze swept down from the higher ground suddenly, cool and insistent, rippling through the tall grass in long, rolling waves. It tugged at Lucy’s cloak, the wind slipping beneath the edge of her hood until she caught it and held it in place. The fabric pulled gently against her grip as the grass bent around them.

Natsu glanced at her. “You don’t have to keep it up here.” He said easily. “There’s no hunters this far out, and dragons don’t care.”

The wind surged again, lifting the edge as if testing his words, and she let her hood go this time.

Shadow passed over the ground slowly, blocking the sun, and Lucy tipped her head back following it, her heart giving a confused lurch as a huge body banked overhead. The dragon’s wings beat once, only once, and the air surged outward in response, flattening the grass. Its scales were white and soot dark, the creature gliding on with a lazy grace.

“Those are… dragons.” She said breathlessly, the words sounding inadequate the moment they left her mouth.

“Some of ’em.” Natsu replied casually. “Others are dragonborn families. Nurseries. Training grounds. Depends on the hill.”

Lucy blinked, still staring upward as the dragon’s shadow slid away. “Children are raised here?”

The question came out sharper than she intended, more disbelief than curiosity, because the idea didn’t fit any version of child rearing she had known. Children were usually raised behind walls where danger could be managed, where power could be performed at the gate and paperwork could be produced in triplicate.

“Yep!” Natsu said, and when she finally tore her eyes from the sky to look at him, he was grinning like he’d just pointed out a particularly good tablehouse. “Safer than cities. Dragons don’t like outsiders messin’ with their young, and no one’s stupid enough to test that.”

Lucy believed him instantly, with the same unthinking certainty her body had used to fear her own magic. She felt there was an honesty to this kind of threat, direct and uninterested in argument. Just consequence.

As they walked, the details sharpened. What had first seemed like distant movement sharpened into smaller figures scattered along ridges and paths. Children, yes, but not the careful, supervised sort Lucy had known. These were children moving like they owned the breeze around them, running and shrieking with laughter, tumbling over rocks, chasing each other in wild circles.

Instinctively, she waited for the sharp bark of correction, for some adult voice to rise in alarm at how easily a misstep could send them tumbling down a slope or slamming against rock. None came. No one snapped orders or commanded restraint.

A low, resonant sound rolled across the hills, and the children answered it with delighted screams, scattering in all directions as a dragon on a nearby slope lifted its head. The creature was huge even at rest, forelimbs tucked close and wings folded like dark sails. Their eyes were half-lidded in something like contentment. One of the children scrambled up onto its tail as if it were a fallen tree, using the ridged scales like steps. The dragon did not stir beyond a slow, indulgent flick, careful and precise even in its laziness, and the child slid down shrieking with laughter as others chased after them.

Lucy slowed without meaning to, her boots dragging slightly on the path as she stared. The sound of that free, careless laughter hit her somewhere deep and tender. It was a longing she couldn’t quite name, envy softened by a genuine, almost painful gladness for them.

“They look so happy.” She said softly, and there was something fragile in admitting it.

“Yeah,” Natsu agreed, and his voice shifted, only slightly, but enough that she noticed. The usual brightness of him dulled, replaced by something quieter, “They are.”

She looked at him.

As his gaze rested on the kids, Lucy’s attention snagged on the way his expression held warmth without reaching for it, affection tempered by a distance so faint it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else. It was a quiet removal, like he was observing something precious that belonged to him, and yet didn’t, standing at the edge of a memory rather than inside it.

“Did you…” Lucy began, then faltered, rewording the question before it could become intrusive. She tried again, softer, more careful. “Did you grow up here? With Igneel, I mean?”

Happy’s ears flicked, his eyes shifting to Natsu in a quick, assessing glance.

Natsu blinked, caught off balance by the question in a way that almost made her regret asking. “Uh,” He said, scratching the back of his head. “Sort of.”

Sort of was not an answer. Sort of was a door half-latched.

But Natsu didn’t elaborate. He only glanced back toward the children, the faintest crease between his brows.

They stood in silence for a moment longer, watching as the resting dragon raised its head again, issuing another low rumble. The children scattered, delighted, then regrouped immediately, fearless in a way Lucy could not imagine having been allowed to become.

There was a sudden shout and blur of movement as a child no more than five barreled toward them, calling Natsu’s name with reckless excitement. Natsu barely had time to turn before the kid launched himself at him like a tiny warrior, arms flailing in what was clearly meant to be an attack. Natsu laughed, the sound wide and easy, catching the child effortlessly and spinning with him before setting him back down, only for the scuffle to continue in earnest.

“You’ve gotten bigger!” Natsu exclaimed as the child tried, valiantly, to tackle him again, only to be betrayed by an unexpected tickle that reduced him to helpless laughter and surrender.

“Natsu, Happy, look! Look what I found!” The kid declared triumphantly, thrusting forward some small treasure Lucy couldn’t quite see, its importance unquestionable by virtue of how fiercely it was presented.

“Lemme see!” Happy chimed in at once, drifting closer to peer at it. His eyes lit up. “Oh! Must be shedding season for snakes. This one’s so shimmery!” He said, tail flicking with approval.

The kid beamed.

Natsu took it carefully, holding the thin, iridescent strip up to the light, then nodded with exaggerated seriousness. “Yeah,” He said solemnly. “That’s a real find.”

Lucy found herself watching with quiet astonishment.

A thought surfaced, uninvited and mean in the way truth sometimes was when it had nowhere gentle to land. If she had been raised in a place like this, where laughter was permitted to spill into the open air, where bruised knees were treated as the price of living rather than proof of failure, would she have become that kind of child too? Would she have run simply because she could, learned joy as something natural instead of something rationed, laughed until it hurt and then laughed harder anyway?

Maybe the same fate would have found her regardless, inevitable as a poison, seeping through whatever freedom she’d been granted like lead, slow and patient and already waiting for her the moment she was born.

As if sensing her attention, the boy paused and looked back at her. Lucy managed a small smile, more reflex than intention, and lifted her hand in a hesitant greeting that felt strangely heavy. His head tilted with uncomplicated curiosity, the kind children reserved for passing wonders, and then something else claimed his attention. Another game, another urgent discovery. He bolted, sprinting back toward a dragon farther down the slope, but not before waving goodbye wildly over his shoulder. Happy swooped down to join the other children further up. Laughter trailed behind him as the children chased his tail across the tall grass.

When Lucy finally turned, Natsu was watching her, concerned. The casual ease she’d come to expect from him had vanished, replaced by a stare that practically burned holes through her.

She gave a small, involuntary jolt in surprise.

That’s right. Dragonborn could smell things like this, notice things she couldn’t hide long after words failed. She was quick to withdraw from his eyes, suddenly aware of how obvious she must have been, not only to him but to the child as well.

Natsu didn’t say anything, didn’t try to name it or force her feelings out in the open. She held herself still, and then he turned and started walking again, his stride set a touch firmer than before, as though offering motion in place of words.

He lifted a hand, calling for Happy. Happy peeled away from the children with a cheerful wave, falling easily into place near Natsu. Lucy followed, grateful for the silence, and let the path pull her forward. Standing still made her think about things she didn’t want to feel.

As they drew closer, she began to sense something structural about the land. The hills were not random. They were arranged with a quiet, functional order. Smaller rises gathered in loose groups, their slopes nearly touching in places, divided by shallow valleys worn smooth by use. Winding paths linked them, converging and diverging in ways that suggested routine. Smoke rose from a few low points, thin and steady, and nests or stone markers appeared just often enough to imply boundaries without enforcing them.

And then, beyond them, the land did something impossible.

It was not merely larger. It was singular in a way that defied comparison. What rose before them was not a mountain heading toward a peak, nor a hill that invited ascent, but a colossal tableland that stood apart from everything around it, its sheer sides lifting straight out of the earth as though it had been cut clean and left standing. The surrounding hills fell away in deference, their slopes shrinking back until the tableland dominated the sky alone.

Obsidian ran through the rock like fossilized rivers, catching the light in dull, glassy flashes. It looked as though it had once flowed, remembering fire so intimately it had been reshaped by it. Heat radiated outward in steady waves, and Lucy’s skin prickled, the hairs along her arms lifting, recognizing the presence before her mind could name it.

That had to be it.

She told herself it was only awe, only the natural reaction to being small in the face of something enormous. But she had felt awe before. This was different. This was the sense of stepping into someone else’s gravity.

“That’s him.” Natsu said. The casualness in his voice faltered, revealing something like admiration beneath it. “Igneel.”

Lucy swallowed, and the motion felt loud in her own throat. “It’s… enormous.”

“No one builds close to it. Dragons don’t play territory games with him.”

“Why?”

In her Realm, power always required explanation. If one person stood above others, there was a story for it. A law. A lineage. A divine right. Something that made hierarchy feel inevitable rather than chosen.

Natsu shrugged, but the shrug didn’t fully hide the respect he held. “Because he doesn’t need to prove anything. When he does draw a line,” He added, “it stays drawn.”

A line that stays drawn, she echoed. Not a term that could be negotiated with. Not a decree that could be appealed. Something more final.

“Don’t worry, Lucy.” Happy reassured, sensing her trepidation. “You’ll like him. Probably.”

Lucy sighed. “I’m not sure ‘probably’ is doing the work you think it is.”

The ascent did not wind gently upward. A single narrow path carved the face of the tableland, a deliberate route stretching longer than it had any right to. The path narrowed further as they went, pinching down until there was nowhere to step but forward.

And then it simply stopped.

Stone rose sheer and unbroken in front of them, the path ending like a sentence cut short. Lucy slowed, confusion tightening her expression as she looked from the dead end to the towering wall above it. “…This is it?” She asked, her calves burning and breathing already heavier than she’d like.

Natsu glanced up once, gauging the height, then back at her. “Yeah.” He said easily.

“This is the part where you hold on tight.” Happy said cheerfully.

“What pa—”

Fire detonated beneath his feet.

The ground vanished in a roar of heat and force as Natsu caught her around the waist with one arm and hauled her against his chest, the sudden acceleration ripping a gasp out of her. Wind slammed into her, her cloak snapping violently as the tableland blurred into dark streaks below them. Stone and sky smeared together as they shot upward in an arc, fire flaring beneath them.

Her stomach plummeted so hard she was convinced it had been left behind entirely.

Lucy screamed. A lot. This was unavoidable.

Natsu landed cleanly, steady as if they’d merely stepped over a puddle. Lucy did not register the landing so much as the aftermath. Her body forgot what it was supposed to do next, and at some point, she’d ended up on the ground, flat on her back and arms splayed. She stared up at the sky, heart hammering so violently she was fairly certain it was attempting to escape her body. The stone beneath her radiated heat through her clothes, but she did not move. Moving felt ambitious. Moving felt irresponsible.  

This had been a terrible idea.

Possibly the worst idea she’d ever had.

Natsu and Happy leaned into her field of vision, blocking out the sunset as they peered down at her, expression hovering somewhere between concern and deeply confused appraisal.

“Uhh. You okay?” Natsu asked.

Lucy opened her mouth. Closed it again.

She lifted one hand weakly and gave him a small, shaky thumbs up, the gesture wobbling halfway. The conversation, as far as she was concerned, was complete.

“I’m taking that as a yes.” He said.

It took her another minute to remember that standing was, in fact, something she knew how to do. She rolled onto her side, paused there as the world resettled, then pushed herself upright, blinking a few times as sensation returned in stages. By the time she reached her feet, her legs felt only mildly offended rather than outright mutinous.

She adjusted her cloak with careful composure, as though it could somehow negate all the screaming she’d done, then looked at them despite herself.

Natsu and Happy seemed openly amused, lips twitching.

“Don’t.” Lucy said flatly. “Even look at me right now.”

Natsu grinned.

With every step, the air seemed to rise in temperature. It wasn’t the stale heat of Drakhal, dulled by stone and smoke. This heat was cloying and more oppressive, soaking into her without mercy until sweat beaded at her temples and slid down her back.

Her nerves thrummed.

Lava moved sluggishly through deep channels carved into the earth, glowing a dull, living orange, the heat rising in visible distortions that warped the air.

Natsu stopped. Lucy halted with him alongside Happy, the decision never reaching her conscious mind. Something had already closed the space ahead of them.

There was heat first, vast and all encompassing, burning, so present it altered the shape of her breath. It soaked into her lungs and made the air feel thick.

The ground trembled, and then there was shape. Claws resting against rock.

She lifted her gaze. And lifted.

And lifted.

Igneel stood before them.

Enormous did not even begin to cover it. Lucy had known the word her whole life and discovered, in that moment, that she had never actually understood what it meant.

His body held power at rest the way the sea held salt. It lay through him in quiet saturation, strength neither coiled nor displayed, but there, informing every line of his form. Scales the deep red of banked coals layered over muscle and bone like living armor, ridged and scarred in places where time and battle had tested them and failed.

His molten gold eyes burned low and steady, but when they focused on Natsu, something unmistakably warm shifted across his expression. There was fondness, yes, but tempered by pride. The kind of pride that did not need to be spoken, because it was a fact rather than an emotion.

When his gaze slid to Lucy, the world narrowed.

It wasn’t hostility or judgement. It was simply attention, and Lucy felt it press against every wall she had ever built. She stood very still, not because she was brave, but because she was so overwhelmed by his sheer size.

Natsu stepped slightly closer, not blocking or shielding her, but solid at her side.

Igneel’s voice, when it came, was low and resonant enough to vibrate through the ground. Lucy felt it more than she heard it with her ears.

“So,” He said, “you are the one they have begun to chase.”