—one by one / stars flutter into dust : intro

She knows of nothing but music and the stars.

She parts her lips, and sings. What is "speech"? Her speech is song. Her voice lilts and tumbles and flies. The weight of the constellations rests deep in her eyes, casting light so brightly on her soul that no shadows can possibly exist for long.

And yet, today she cannot be happy. Today, Lucy is a dying sun, with only sad songs echoing through her mind. She kneels before her mother's dusty grave and bows her head, soft tears tripping down her cheeks. She lays her bright bouquet of assorted flowers in front of the headstone and rereads the words she knows by heart: "In Loving Memory of Layla Heartphilia: Mother, Daughter, Wife. 1961 - 1996."

She hates these words. They are painful, honest words and they hurt her, remind her that reality is a world in which her mother is gone.

The summer sun blazes high in the sky. It is afternoon, and normally Lucy would already be gone, grieving at home or forcing her sadness into lyrics, but today she cannot bring herself to leave.

Instead, she sits in front of these words that hurt, buries her face into her knees, and sings. She sounds terrible, with her hiccuping sobs and her watery voice and her heaving breaths, but she sings and sings and sings.

A gentle touch on her shoulder startles her out of her crying stupor and she shrieks and flails onto her back with a thud. Mortified, she opens blurry eyes and sees pink. Blinking uncomprehendingly, she rubs her eyes and looks again.

It is a man with pink hair, dark eyes, and a kind smile. He holds his hand out to her. "Sorry I scared ya. Are you ok?"

Nodding slowly, she accepts his hand—it is a very warm hand, much warmer than an average hand—and gasps when he pulls her to her feet in one smooth motion. She stumbles to catch her balance, clutching his hand and blushing when his other hand quickly cups her waist to steady her.

She steps back and he lets her go immediately. She finds herself feeling strangely bereft; a breeze wafts by and she shivers, the places where his overly warm hands touched feeling extra chilly.

"Um, thank you," she whispers hoarsely and cleared her throat.

"No problem. Are you...sure yer okay?" he asks carefully, eying her disheveled face. "You, uh, well, you know, you were...cryin'. A lot. Um, ya just seemed really sad. And I heard you..."

Her eyes widen as she realizes that he must have been forced to listen to her terrible caterwauling and her face turns red as a cherry. She can't meet his eyes as apologizes. "Oh no, I'm so sorry! I must have bothered you, I-I didn't realize I was being loud, I'm so sorry—"

"No!" he blurts loudly, then coughs and repeats more calmly, "No. Actually, I, uh..." He looks away and rubs at the back of his neck, pink rising up from his chin. "I thought ya sounded really beautiful." His gaze darts to hers and then away, his face color now matching hers.

"Oh," she squeaks. "Um, thank you. For saying that. But...I mean, I was—I was crying really hard and there's no way I sounded good. I'm so sorry. I promise I usually sound much better than that."

"I thought it was pretty," he mumbles bashfully. They stand in rosily embarrassed silence for several moments before he clears his throat again and asks awkwardly, "Uh, so, uh, do ya sing a lot?"

"Huh? Oh yes! I'm...I'm a singer, actually. Professionally. Oh, I'm not very well-known," she reassures him hastily as soon as she sees him furrow his eyebrows. "You wouldn't know me, I'm sure."

He doesn't look convinced. "Sing somethin' for real then. One o' your songs."

She glances at the stones around them. "Here?"

"Why not?" He grins and shrugs, turning to look back at on headstone with a bundle of bright red poppies sitting in front of it, which Lucy realizes must be who this man was visiting—before she loudly interrupted him, that is. "Quiet place like this could do with some pretty music, don'tcha think?"

Lucy smiles softly and looks back down at her mother's grave, wiping away a few stray tears. Her heart is still heavy, but it is simply the sadness of her mother's too-early passing that will always weigh her down, not the crushing depression she was feeling earlier.

Nodding, she takes a deep breath and hums, "Alright. I'll sing just a bit of one of my favorite songs."

He grins excitedly and grabs her wrist, pulling her down with him as he drops to the ground. She yelps and lands on her butt, glad for the grass but also hoping her shorts don't get stained.

"You could've warned me," she mutters, brushing at her legs, but he just shrugs and sits behind her, back to back.

"C'mon, lemme hear ya!"

Sighing, Lucy hums a bit of the melody to herself to prepare. It's one of her best songs, she thinks, because the lyrics are bittersweet, but peaceful. It's the first song she ever wrote, the day after her mother died.

She breathes in and sings.

Softly, the wind blows your voice through the sky
And I won't catch up, still I can't help but try
Some nights the stars draw your face through the dark
But I can't reach you there, you've run too far

Surely time flew by too quickly for you
Without you here I'm not sure what to do
All I know is this song that I wrote in my heart
And I wish upon wish to be where you are

The last notes of her voice linger in the air and then fade away like an afterthought, but the mood remains, wrapping around them like they're the only two people in the world. Lucy finds that she's leaning back on him, just as heavily as he's leaning against her, and they are the only things holding each other up.

She wipes a stray tear and is surprised to hear him sniffle. She pulls up and turns around, meeting him halfway. His eyes are telltale red, but there's emotion in them she can't decipher.

"What...what did you think?" she wonders tremulously, quietly, afraid to shatter this moment.

"Beautiful." That's it. Just one word, a word she's heard a thousand times before, or even a million, but looking in his eyes as he said it—his raw honesty is undeniable.

"Thank you." It's almost too quiet to hear, and the gratitude flutters through the air between them.

He reaches out and plucks her hand from her lap. She is shocked enough for the both of them when she lets him, despite the fact that they are undoubtedly strangers. His fingers are long, rough, gentle on hers. There is a brimming strength in them; it's obvious in the sturdy tenderness with which he holds her.

Loosely lacing their digits together, her smooth pearl striking against his worn tan—their hearts flutter at the intimacy—he meets her eyes again and says, "You're Lucy."

She inhales sharply. "How do you—"

She cuts off when he shakes his head and smiles. "You said I wouldn't know but I do. Your voice...I would recognize it anywhere. Maybe not when when you're crying"—he grins cheekily when she pouts—"but...that song, it would be impossible for me not to know when you sing that song. It's my favorite."

"But that's...that was my first song. Ever."

His smile turns crooked; it is so charming that Lucy has to look away. "Yeah, Luce, I've loved your voice since the beginning."

"You're...a fan? Of me? Mine?" Five years, and she has never been recognized in public before, never run into a fan like this. The warmth in her chest is blossoming.

"Yeah. Yours."

The way he says that shoots her through her heart and she's suddenly ten times more aware of the way they're staring at each other, of how dark and deep his eyes are, of how their fingers are so tangled and touching.

Attraction, she recalls suddenly, but never like this before. There is something instinctual here, something she knows but doesn't know, and it frightens her cold.

He leans in slowly, but she jerks away as shockingly as a lightning strike. The slide of his fingers burns her as they pull apart, and she shoots to her feet, stammering incoherent apologies in a mess of random notes. A wreck of a melody—this is his effect on her.

"Wait—" He reaches for her, a growing alarm on his face.

"I'm sorry—"

And then she's gone.

notes: trying something VERY different this time...

hey, i'm alive! i know i've been gone a while, but i've actually been writing, just for a very very different fandom. it's a whole 'nother world of fandoms and i just got sucked back in. i'm gonna try to balance school and work and my stories across all my fandoms, but we'll see how it goes. i've been really good about budgeting my time lately, so this might actually work.

title + chapter titles will all be inspired by e e cummings poems. i looooove his work. so lovely. i guess i tried to match it a little.

the song lyrics Lucy sings are my own. i know i could easily find some random song with pretty lyrics, but i'm challenging myelf. i can't really write songs but i do dabble in poetry now and then, and i enjoy it, so why not.

let me know what you think! do i sound like i'm trying to hard, like i'm being pretentious, or do i sound poetic and artistic and dreamy? (clearly goin for the second but who knows if i hit the mark.)

disclaimer: i do not own Fairy Tail or anything related to it. anything you recognize is probably not mine unless i explicitly say so.

© Copyright 2016 by The Siege