Chapter 21

Two things came to his mind in the midst of the darkness.

Cold.

It was so cold.

Like if the feeling wasn't a separate entity but actually him, he was cold. But he wasn't shivering and he wasn't trembling at the thought and hope for heat to come. He was just cold. His fingers, his toes, the nape of his neck, cold. Like a cool, blanket of ice had formed over him.

And then, Lucy.

Was she cold? Instinct told him to move and reach for his left, Lucy's side. But what he felt was a firm—leg? Slowly, his eyes were opening and giving a passage for the light of the evening to hit his face. Except, contrary to what he was waiting for, the light was so bright it made him squint. Blue shimmering light with fragments of ice floated around his blurred vision until it came all into focus: he was under a blanket of ice. Or for a lack of a better term, a shield of it.

An ice dome with Gray in the heart of it.

The beat of her heart had switched. While it was a waltz before, swaying and moving in a rhythmic pace, it was skipping and pounding to a heavier song now. "Dragons?" she almost laughed. "I'm sorry, but how? I've known Natsu practically my whole life. I think—I think if my husband was something other than that I would know."

Mavis offered a small smile. "I know hearing it sounds bizarre, but allow me to explain this to you." Lucy let go of the breath she'd swallowed. "You've known Natsu for most of his life, yes, but there's things even he hasn't realized about himself yet. But to understand all of this you need to believe me when I tell you: magic exists." Her smile was growing as the words poured out of her, "it's something real, Lucy. And it's not just Natsu, all of you have it inside of you. It's been dormant and even though the memory of this has been wiped clean from your mind, it's alive and waiting. It's waiting for the moment where it can flourish just as it did when you were younger."

"Twenty years ago an ordinance was passed that allowed the killing of dragons. Bounties on every head of a clan were placed, Natsu's father being the biggest of all. It was purge, a "cleansing" they called it to rid this eminent threat from the lives of not just Fiore's, but the world's citizens," there was a glaze over her eyes. "It didn't stop there. The heads of every country gathered together in the Summit to agree on the riddance of magic. Together, they signed on the declaration of the end of all magic after the act of deleting it from the minds of the younger generations."

"But the reason there's even strife is because they didn't erase it from the ones who already knew," Lucy said.

Mavis pressed her lips, "There's more to it. When you're young, your minds are fresh, green and so easily to manipulate. Tampering with a mind who's experienced and lived only resulted in costly repercussions. They've tried it, but the experiments conducted only left those mad and unable to continue living on their own. So what was enacted? An oath of secrecy, no one was to mention a word of magic. Of course there was the resistant." Her eyes were fixated on Lucy's. "But they did the unthinkable and stripped us of our dignity. Taking the only thing we had to ourselves, they rid the world of magic."

Somewhere in a different universe things were different. In an alternate world Natsu never met Lucy, Natsu never married Lucy, Natsu never had a kid with Lucy. Somewhere in a different world, right in this instant, Natsu was dead and the world would have spiraled in an array of different colors. Somewhere in another life Gray had not saved Natsu.

And somewhere in another time there was not the ambushing of two idiots running into the fray of things.

"GRAY?"

"Just run you idiot." His voice was hoarse. "Find the others and go."

Natsu scoffed. Grabbing the hand gun from his boot, he positioned himself behind Gray. "And leave it to you? Hell no."

The hint of a smile crept at the corner of Gray's lips, "listen, I don't know for how much longer this is going to hold up but—"

"Can you run with it?"

"I don't know but—"

"I asked if you could run with it."

"We can figure it out." Natsu managed a laugh. "And, Natsu?" Gray said before readying his stance. "If you cut me off one more time I think I'll personally break the promise I made to Lucy."

"But the dragons," Mavis continued. "They live on." She took her hand and Lucy watched her with the same dazed fixation she'd looked at Haru with. "With him, with Natsu, they're alive."

A new found bile was forming at the core of her stomach. "I know you want me to take this as good news but I can't help but see this going either way, Mavis."

"It will make sense as the time comes. Right now, heed these words and grip them with your life, do you understand?" Lucy nodded. "All of you have to be stronger now than before, and hold your faith and your trust for each other closer now than ever. Don't let anyone break that, do you hear me? There will be people out now, people you will think you'll be able to trust because of their status, their words, and their charisma but don't—do not ever—take their words over those of your friends." The hand over Lucy's was beginning to fade. Dust of light was flying off the white of her skin and blending into the air between them. "Before I go, take this memory with you. Garnish it in your mind, remember the path like the back of your hand. Be strong, and be brave. And remember," Lucy's lids were closed, but the vision Mavis was passing to her coursed through her body in a flit of warm light.

A rising sun casting the world it awakened into a golden blaze of light. Multitudes of trees rose from the earth, their roots stretching deep within and their trunks stretching to unimaginable heights. And a door with a foreign symbll submerged within one, its hinges falling and opening to a white glow inside.

"The resistance has risen."