It's been a long time, huh.

More than two months. I'm pathetic.

Anyway, someone recently gave me the boot in the ass that I needed to get back to this story.

Let's see, there were only two guest reviews, but I'll still answer 'em.

Guest: Well, wish granted, albeit not as soon as you probably would've liked. I'm glad you find it interesting, the compliments I receive in reviews are the most rewarding (and just about the only rewarding) thing I get from this story.

Ledia Strauss: Nah, sorry bud. I'd like to make him a key part of the story in the future.

Without further hindrances, let's dive into what you've been waiting for.

Natsu gasped in surprise at the mummified figure standing in the doorway. "G-Gray..? But… how?" Natsu questioned in an angst filled shock. The figure now known as Gray shrugged and rasped out "Some protective magic from our guild marks I guess.."

Natsu damn near broke down from seeing his best friend in such a state, only amplified by the fact that he caused it. Add on his Dragon Fate week, and you've got yourself one self-loathing Dragon Slayer. Taking this into consideration you can understand how Natsu promptly broke down on the spot, crying out tears he didn't know he had left and spouting apologies like a broken water main.

Gray slowly, and painfully, shook his head.

The rustling of the bandages caught Natsu's attention as he looked up at Gray from his beggar's position on the wooden floor. "I was foolish… not your fault.." rasped out Gray, wincing in pain as his roasted vocal chords rustled.

Natsu trembled in over-whelming emotion as he yelled out "HOW! HOW CAN YOU FORGIVE ME AFTER WHAT I'VE DONE!?" Gray smiled underneath his wrapped face in response, even if nobody could see it.

"Because.. you're my nakama… my.. best friend..."

Natsu stared up in shock, feeling so very undeserving of what Gray was claiming. He slowly stood, still filled with small tremors. He was tempted to hug him, but only took a hesitant half-step forward as he remembered how much pain Gray must be in.

Despite the minimal movement from the rosette, Gray understood his intentions. In response to Natsu, Gray slowly lifted his right arm and from it a whimsical and astoundingly beautiful stream of glittering ice emerged, slowly floating to the Dragon Slayer within it's cool blue aura.

Natsu seemed to comprehend it fairly quickly as he too lifted his right arm and sent a small stream of wispy and majestic stream of warm golden-orange flames towards his icy friend.

They met in the middle as the cool blue stream slowly circled the warm flames as they curled in upon themselves. The ice twisted and spiraled upwards to form a tear-drop shaped container of ice for the flame that represented forgiveness and comfort to the vulnerable.

While the ice was coiling itself, the flame wrapped itself into a tight bundle of slowly rotating warmth, like a mini sun. When the ice finished forming, the flames expanded slowly to fill the container, granting it a soft, luminescent and warm glow that represented the warming of a cold heart and granting warm happiness to those stuck in their cold bitterness.

And together, Natsu and Gray's tear of flame brought them closer than ever before with the physical representation of their replenished and unbreakable brotherly bond.

A bond of fire and ice.

(Scene Change)

Mira and the others watched the heart-warming scene occurring in the guild hall with soft-spoken smiles upon their lips. "S-So… manly.." whispered Elfman as he wiped a glimmering tear from his eye. Laki nodded in quiet accordance to Elfman's statement.

Mira huffed a content sigh and walked back into the kitchen to start the second rounds of coffee.

At the first twitch of movement from Mira the guild found themselves slowly spurred back into action. The guild members returning to their previous activities with a noticeably lighter air around them. Alzack and Bisca doing their daily gun cleaning, Levi reading whilst Jet and Droy competed for her attention, Laki studying new ways to torture the perverts that pervade this land.

In a land far to the East, a certain white haired sage sneezed with enough force to knock over the thin wall in front of him, exposing a hot-spring full of angry women.

Needless to say, this man was reduced to not much more than a pile of lumps very quickly.

After preparing the coffee, Mira walked back out to the two mages still smiling warmly at each other, apparently unaffected by the flow of time around them.

She quickly broke that affect by gently taking The Forgiving Tear -as she had now dubbed it- from the air and carefully cupping it in her palms. "Mira?" questioned Natsu, recognizing that he had the more able voice at the moment.

Mira smiled gently, squinting her eyes to add to the kind visage that showed her kind heart. "Do you two mind if I put this somewhere for the whole guild to see and appreciate? I mean, appreciate the power of our bonds."

Gray nodded slightly while Natsu said "We don't mind in the slightest Mira, I think it's a great idea."

Mira promptly fumbled with the magnificent crystal, blushing up a storm at Natsu's compliment. Natsu, in turn, blinked in confusion at his guildmate's antics.

This was the scene that Erza walked into.

"What the hell is going on? Gray! Why are you in bandages!? Natsu, why in the bloody hell are you drinking coffee of all things!? What kind of fucking imbecile thought it would be even semi-smart to give Natsu coffee!?" yelled Erza, falling back to her violent tendencies.

Being a Fairy Tail member, it's understandable that Erza would pick up a few profanities.

Mira shakily raised a hand, tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. "I-I gave it to him E-Erza… h-he didn't s-sleep last night…" Mira then shut her eyes, allowing a couple of tears to drip "Gomenasai!"

At this, Natsu leveled a glare at the blade-swinging redhead and she sure as hell noticed.

Taken aback by the fierce look her love-interest was stabbing her with, Erza strode forwards to envelope the white-haired maiden in an embrace. "I apologize Mirajane, I had not realized.."

Said maiden sniffled and slowly hugged her back, The Forgiving Tear clenched tightly in her right hand as a minuscule smile wormed it's way upon her alabaster face. "I forgive you Erza" she muttered quietly.

The swordswoman blinked and then smiled to silently announce her contentedness with this.

(Scene Change)

After explaining the situation to Erza thoroughly, as she had made threatening gestures to both boys during the telling, Erza was smiling proudly at the two.

"Good job getting over your differences you two!"

Both of them beamed at that, basking in the praise given by their sister figure/love interest. Natsu nodded with plenty of energy, Gray with noticeably less. They wrapped their arms around each other's shoulders, the bandaged one grimacing slightly, and loudly -as well as raspy for Gray- announced that they were best-friends and getting along. And for the first time, they weren't acting.

Erza smiled as she saw the lack of acting even worse than her own.

She then sighed in mock exhaustion and said in a humored voice "C'mon, it's only 8:30 in the morning and you two idiots are already wearing me out!" Erza motioned with her hand for them to follow her to the table they usually sat at.

Lucy wasn't at the guild yet so they sat there and chatted for an hour, snacking on the small amounts of food they had ordered. Gray hadn't neglected to mention how much better it tasted than hospitable food.

This caused Natsu to yet again launch into a profuse string of apologies.

(Scene Change)

Lucy finally arrived around 9:30 quickly found them at their table.

When Lucy got there, Natsu was shocked that she had a completely unblemished face, thinking that she would've had at least a slight mark. However, to a trained eye like Erza's, the obscene amount of make-up on her right cheek was obvious.

Lucy giggled a little at Natsu's reaction. "Now Natsu, I'm a lot tougher than you seem to think!" she said, puffing herself up a little while doing so.

Natsu chuckled dryly and responded with a subdued "Yeah, guess so.."

After that, they gossiped for a little while, talking about all the new things in town. From the new couple sprouting up out of seemingly nowhere to the news of an event happening at Kardia Cathedral in a month or so. Granted, nobody knew what is was going to be about, but it was well known that it was heavily related to magic.

This being said, Fairy Tail was starting to get hyped.

During the middle of a conversation, Gray suddenly stiffened and then laughed loudly. Natsu was concerned as he was still injured -or so he thought- and Gray suddenly cast of the bandages, revealing his nude form to the world.

Lucy, being the only one not totally used to seeing him naked, belted him over the head causing him to fall to the floor.

Natsu and Erza on the other hand noticed that Gray was completely healed.

"Gray!" they shouted in unison before their speech differed "You're all better now!/You have recovered from your injuries!" Gray hopped up before nodding and giving a whoop of excitement. Then, the four of them noticed something else.

Surrounding Gray's guild-mark was a flaming dragon head. Or a dragon head composed of flames if you prefer.

Gray, Natsu, and Lucy tilted their heads while Erza cocked an eyebrow. Gray just shrugged and stated "After affects of that healing spell I guess." Natsu was satisfied with this, Erza was curious but quelled her questions, whereas Lucy looked drastically confused.

"What?"

A collective sigh ensued, followed by yet another lengthy explanation.

And I think I'll cut it there.

I realized I left out Happy around ¾ the way through, I'll find a way to incorporate him next chapter.

I started this chapter on July 22. It is currently August 5.

I started, but then got my ass hauled out for camping, where I forgot about this after. Then I remembered a few days ago, but procrastinated. Procrastinated upon my 2 and a half months of procrastination.

I'm very procrastinate.

Anyhow, thank you so very much for reading. I really don't understand why this story is so popular. It has less than 10k words, but almost 19k views. Which is stunning for me.

So please, leave a review telling me why you enjoy this story.

As soon as this chapter gets uploaded I'll set up a poll.

This poll will determine whether the story will be straight NaZa, or NaZaMi.

I'll see you next time.

-The forever weary, AntiNalu.