[anchored embers]

.

.

.

Natsu wasn't scared. Scared was for children, for the wimps and losers who couldn't handle themselves when things got a little out of control. He preferred the term creeped out. Yes, that was more like it. He wasn't shivering in a corner—whimpering and sucking on his thumb, but he couldn't deny the crawls that skittered across his skin–down his back.

Natsu wasn't scared. Being afraid meant there was something to be afraid of. A face to the fear. There was no such thing with him. Just the brash drops of temperature when coming home, like he'd forgotten to close the window earlier. It was the fatigue that hit at certain times in the night. It was the how the lights would turn themselves back on after he had flipped the switch, then off, then on again. It was the eerie sense of a presence behind him when he scrubbed the soap from his eyes in the shower.

It was how things always ended up mysteriously broken whenever he turned an eye. His microwave blaring an errored scream when too many buttons were pushed. His tv dissolving into snow when all of his cables were pulled and snapped. His plastic cups falling to ground over and over again.

No, Natsu wasn't scared. He was going crazy. That's what he told himself, anyways.

The apartment was a piece of shit. It was stationed next to an ancient railroad that flung its ancient train down the tracks every day at two in the morning. The floors were about as old as the city itself; they hadn't been redone in decades probably. Neither the walls or anything else in the building. Just the occasional appliance that was upgraded when Natsu even bothered with a complaint.

Everything around him belonged in a museum, and he was no different. Only Natsu aged much more nicely than his surroundings. Other than a few scars here and there, he hadn't a single wrinkle on him. That fact was stunning for a man his age.

Yes, he has lived long, but he was still a child at heart. He made friends everywhere he went, as well as enemies. He had the smile of the sun itself, and the glare of a demon. He was no two ways, and that was a good thing. He enjoyed his wild path of emotions, because he needed too.

Working as a hired gun was often a strain on a good mood. Though that wasn't typically what he called himself (it was more of a bodyguard act than anything), the results were all the same. If someone comes at you, get to them first.

He was a guardian. That's what he did best. He excelled at protecting things he owned, things he liked. Things he didn't want anyone else having.

Luckily, his possession could be bought for a nice price. Once the exchange was made, you were his, and he was also yours.

Though the pay was definitely sustainable, that didn't make any of his more annoying clients easy to withstand. Sometimes he brooded through the entire exchange, and sometimes his wild emotions got the better of him and he ended up doing the one thing he was hired to prevent. He never killed anyone (other than who he was paid to), but he couldn't help a good hit to the nose of a snooty brat in way over his head.

It was tedious at times, but he loved the excitement. Danger was one of his favorite flavors. Only when he knew he could win though, which he always did. The fights he fought were simple. Bad guys doing bad things that needed to be stopped.

They had faces. They had substance.

The ominous presence in his apartment now, did not.

Natsu had almost gotten used to the hit of exhaustion that came with entering his front door. It was as if the entire day just oozed out of him in clumps. He had no idea why coming home made him so dreadfully tired when his heart was still pounding of adrenaline three steps back.

Natsu dragged his feet through the clutter of his abode. He had no problem with tripping around on his own junk, on the faded, prickling smells of old dishes in the sink, and clothes on the floor; on ancient trinkets he found in the strange towns he travelled in on jobs, and even some he found already in his apartment, before he moved in.

Like the chain of golden keys laying underneath his bed when he was searching for his missing sock. They were chipped and dusty, but still probably worth a hell of cash. He found he liked how they shimmered though, once cleaning them up, and decided to keep them. He never did find out what all those keys unlocked though, but lost interest soon after discovery.

The couch sagged as Natsu slumped into it. It groaned when he moved, and the floor whined in a harmonious chime, as if they all wanted to sing a song together. He let his lazy, drained eyes travel to the tv to watch a show maybe, but of course, all he was allowed tonight was a snowy haze. His eyes flicked down to where the receiver plug sat, unplugged.

He didn't feel like getting up to plug it in. He didn't even really feel like watching tv.

Natsu felt a sense then. A watching sense. He wasn't scared, but the hairs on his arms stood on its ends. It was too quiet without the tv. He could hear the train blare its horn in the distance, letting the world know it was coming soon to startle everyone awake in the deep night.

In a flash, Natsu jumped at the movement that scurried in his peripheral. His fists had locked, but only to stop midway of punching the everliving shit out of the animal in his lap.

"Shit, Happy," he lifted up the cat, who meowed in response.

He petted the cat's smooth fur tersely. Happy didn't seem to mind.

With the shot of adrenaline, Natsu found the motivation to get to his feet. He went to his kitchen, not even sparing a glance to the mountain of cups and plates in the basin, and went to grab a beer from his dingey little fridge. Little pops went about his feet though; he had kicked around another plastic cup he could've sworn was in the pile with the rest of them.

He was just glad he never found his glass cups flying off the shelves.

Flicking the cup away with the toe of his boot, Natsu cracked open his can and downed nearly half of it in one swig. He debated whether he wanted to shower tonight or not. It always seemed like a chore with him.

Plus, he got the creeps the most in the shower. Or maybe he just felt more vulnerable when he was naked. Could be either, or both.

Just as quickly as the energy had been drained of him when he arrived, Natsu felt like he had been submerged in a bucket of ice water. Something around him had sucked all the heat from the air. He felt his skin prickle again. It was eerily silent. Out of habit his eyes skittered around. It wouldn't be the first time someone had broken into his place for a hit, but he usually sniffed them out before any real damage could be done.

His senses were, to put modestly, above average. He listened, searched, and waited. The floors creaked beneath his feet as his weight shifted. For a second he thought he heard it echoed right beside him. But alas:

Nothing.

Natsu went to check his thermostat, and found that it was unchanged. The AC hadn't ever, or probably would, turn on. So what was it? he wondered. Natsu was never cold, and he was standing here shivering, tired. Hallucinating.

Just go pass the fuck out, he ended up telling himself. The job he had returned from was hard and bitter, with an snotty princess who liked rebelling against her parents to look after.

"Happy c'mon," he called out, turning down the hall to his bedroom door.

A creak sounded from inside his room and Natsu expected to see the spoiled cat laid out on his pillow already. When his hand brushed the splintered door, he froze. His eyes slid down to the mass pressing on his ankle.

Happy, wrapped around his jeans. He stared at him with his doe-like eyes. Full of innocence.

And not in the bedroom.

Natsu was not playing around anymore. He crashed into his own room, punching the light on only to have it flicker. His eyes dashed around for the intruder, his feet pulled and fists ready to take on whoever wanted him dead now. The lights flickered to emptiness. Then popped on fully.

Natsu checked behind the door. Still nothing. Heart still hammering. His skin still shivering and weariness still gnawing at him.

Something groaned behind him. He whipped to it, only to see a flash of gold disappear down the hallway he'd just come from. Without thinking, he chased after the intruder. "Hey!" he yelled.

All the while wondering how the fuck someone got in and past him, Natsu tried to remember where he dropped his guns. In some pile probably, and empty of its ammo.

The flash of gold rounded another corner to the main area. It made no sound as it ran, as breathless as the wind. Natsu, fed up, pent up of months of this trickery, whirled around the same corner as it. His blood pumped lava. His lungs breathed smoke. His skin bubbled with rage and out shot his fist.

A bloody, curdling ball of fire exploded in the room. It dazzled in his eyes—a magnificent light as bright as the sun. Flames licked the walls and ceiling, a gruesome heat enveloping them both, swallowed whole.

Natsu blew out a smoker's breath. Only he did not smoke. There was simply, a fire in his lungs. He waited with a churning courage for his flames to dissipate, and reveal what was left of the intruder. He now could put a face to this fear of his.

Only, it wasn't a face he expected.

A simple human. A woman. The flash of gold he'd spotted before–her hair. Long tresses that fell down her back, over her shoulders in a wild haze.

Her hair wasn't what had Natsu speechless though. It was her, in and all, of herself. Other than the horrified expression that engrossed her, she was completely unaffected. She was as flawless as him. Unscathed. Unsinged. Unburned.

How?

No one could evade his flames. They were trained to chase after exactly what he wanted, and destroy it—erase it from existence. Unless what he wanted couldn't be touched.

His fire went right through her. His apartment was smouldering, the floors, walls, everything, blackened to a crisp. The kitchen counters he could see behind her—scorched. Not because she moved–she was well frozen in place–but because she wasn't really here. And she also was. Her form flickered like the lights liked to do. She was a breath of air, a soft wind, fragile yet unstoppable.

Realization hit Natsu like a swift kick. All of what's been happening here, the unusual activity, the unexplainable wonders. It had all finally snapped itself into place. It was this. It was her.

"You're a ghost," Natsu said. He left no room for consideration, for debate. He knew without a doubt in the world.

The girl let out a breath. A ghost breath. One that wasn't real. Her eyes were as blazing as her hair.

"You're a dragon," she replied. Her tone matched his identically.

Natsu considered himself then, with a start. That was a secret he'd managed to keep for a majority of his life. Usually those who discover this don't live long enough to tell the tale.

It was forbidden to use his magic. And even more so to know what, exactly, he was. In this modern day and age, that was cause for treason with the Magic Council. All supernatural beings that were still alive needed to be kept a secret.

They needed to be kept fairy tales.

Despite it all, Natsu felt his sharp canines pull from his lips. "Well, shit."

Natsu had forgotten how exhilarating these situations were. The fear of someone unknown knowing his secret, a secret that could quite easily destroy him. The idea of someone catching him off his guard like this. Especially a someone who couldn't be burnt to ashes–taken care of so simply. Yes, it was quite a turn of events for him.

The ghost seemed to finally catch her voice after a few pounding moments. Smoke billowed around her, a scorched vortex circling where her body should be, given it was real. Her voice trembled from her lips: "You can see me?"

Natsu cocked an aggressive eyebrow. "Yeah? Why else would I burn the hell out of my apartment?"

Offended, she frowned. "Well usually you can't." she said, stubbornly.

That cast an unknown sense into the air, a curious, debateful mood. Why was she visible? Now, of all times? Assuming of course, that she's resided here much longer than Natsu or anyone else.

Natsu, always thinking on his own track, let his voice go shrill and scratchy of realization, "So, it was you around here! You've been messing around with all my stuff."

The ghost, despite having no blood flowing through her veins, seemed to flush. She toyed with the ruffles of her dress, "Oh. Well, yes. I suppose. I can't really recall–"

Natsu scrunched up his nose then, not to be intentionally rude. It was a curious habit he had, one that coincided with his 'observing' face. He hadn't noticed the strangeness of how she spoke before. Her voice was accented in a dialect he couldn't distinguish. It wasn't elegant, but definitely more proper. The ends of her syllables flew up at the ends, in a high pitch that could only mean nobility.

With this observation, Natsu took more to notice. She was styled in a gown, one with frills and layers and a corset that looked hard to breathe in. Guess she's lucky she doesn't have to breathe anymore, Natsu thought, then grimaced at the grim humor. Despite the nice dress, she appeared disheveled. Her hair still flowing wildly, some rips in the fabrics, shoeless.

She was quite the mystery. They both were.

"What, you don't remember sucking out all of my energy every time I passed through that door?" Natsu questioned.

She was nearly appalled at his bluntness. Then she considered it. "I don't remember doing much of anything here."

"What do you remember then? Don't you know who you are?"

The ghost seemed happy he asked, warmth filling the smile on her cold, dead lips. She let out a chiming, fanciful laugh. "Heiress to the Heartfilia Konzern, Miss Lucy Heartfilia," she crooned, and curtseyed. She held out her dress with two painted nails, her accent thick and rich.

Definitely a weirdo, Natsu couldn't help but think.

"And you?"

"Natsu Dragneel," he amused her, "Of the dragon race."

The way she lit up at that joke had Natsu stifling a smile. "You really are a dragon then! I've read so many books about Fiore's creatures but I never thought I'd actually get to see one."

Natsu felt a swell of pride. It's been awhile since he's last been praised for his powers, instead of persecuted. She seemed to notice the damage done to his apartment now, noticing the singing scars that now coated every crevasse surrounding her. "You are quite the monster."

There was no bitterness to her tone, so Natsu took it as a compliment. One he welcomed.

Lucy seemed to wander then, her attention quickly caught to the other mechanisms of his loft. Now, being able to actually feel things with her fingers, she touched everything: the cool stone of his kitchen counters, the masoned tiles beneath her feet, the chilling metal of the kitchen faucet. She flicked it on and gaped at the stream of water pouring from it, onto his pile of dirtied plates. "This is clean?"

It took Natsu a moment to realize she meant the water. He supposed from her time, having that so accessibly would be astounding. He nodded casually.

Off, and on. Off, and on. She moved to the other side of the island and a laugh escaped her. Despite her manifestation, she was still a vague enigma compared to Natsu. Her voice had no origin or end, a simple breath in the room that bounced from wall to wall, between each of Natsu's ears. "Oh, I remember these! They're my favorite." she said, and with her accent sounded more like faahvorite.

"Wha–"

PLONK

A plastic cup bounced around on the tiled floors now, Lucy laugher careening off the smoldered walls. She watched with a fantastic gleam as the cup rolled to a stop. She picked it up again and let it drop to the floor. "They're indestructible," she gasped, squeezing the sides of it.

Natsu watched like an aging parent as Lucy scampered around, flicking on lights, asking how the fires managed to ignite so quickly and then diffuse, what kind of instrument the microwave was to play such shrill beeps, what the tangle of cords were that belonged to Natsu's weary tv (ones she tangled herself), and anything else in between that she could ask questions about.

Suddenly the room began to shake, the floorboards trembled beneath their feet and walls shivered. Lucy whipped around her, fear overtaken on her curiousity a second before. "What is that–what's happening? Natsu?"
Natsu eased her with a simple gaze. "It's just the train passing by, it'll be over in a minute."

"Train?" she echoed. Something familiar, they both realized. Something not utterly foreign to her. "Where?"

Natsu led her to one of the few windows he had in the apartment. It's view was particularly sucky, but as he came with a fresh pair of eyes, a pair as pure as hers, whom probably never even seen such a thing, he came to see the city in a new perspective.

Flashing billboards, bright marquees, honking cars, dozens of people walking around despite the lateness of the night. Up aways, an overstanding bridge that held the train passing by, the steady clunk clunk clunk of its tracks sending corresponding jolts to their bones.

Lights dazzled Lucy's eyes. "Unbelievable. This is Hargeon now? All of those lights, those colors–how? And those things–no horses? How–" that seemed to be the only word she could summon.

Natsu said the only explanation he could give. "The world moves pretty fast sometimes. It's kinda hard to keep up."

Lucy wasn't expecting someone like him to relate to her disbelief. Though she supposed now, as she recalled the knowledge she read so long ago, that dragons didn't age exactly as humans. He looked no older than 20 years old, but it was obvious he was much older than that. Lucy could see years behind his eyes.

Her eyes travelled back to the last seconds of the passing train. In old faded letters on the car, she saw the company name, and a smile slipped onto her lips.

"I see my father didn't fail as he expected he would," she murmured.

Natsu didn't understand. She pointed to Heartfilia Railways painted on the escaping train car. Lucy leaned her arms on the windowsill and held her cheek in her palm. Something solemn crossed her features then, a bittersweet flash that Natsu hadn't enough knowledge to understand.

"How am I here?" she asked, in such a way she wasn't sure to herself or to the stranger next to her.

"Well, I think you died," Natsu attempted. He looked again at her clothes, "I'm guessing a helluva long time ago too."

"It doesn't feel that long ago."

Natsu wasn't sure what to say then. It was after all, his first encounter with a ghost. He's crossed paths with many monsters and mythologies in his life, gods and devils, but this was the first time he'd ever had a true conversation with one. Heard their thoughts, what they felt. What they were going through. Usually he only had time to get a few crude words in before he had a ice sword aimed at his heart.

It was weird. This was weird. And the ghost? Definitely weird. All of this weirdness had him weary—his feet stumbled him into a wooden chair. The choppy legs wobbled under his weight.

"Feeling okay?" Lucy asked, after she tore her view from the world outside.

"Yeah…tired," he replied. Then the lightbulb in his head flickered. "You taking my energy again or somethin'?"

Curiously, Lucy stood before him. Then she looked down at herself, at her tangible arms and legs, at the tile she could feel with her feet. "Possibly. Not sure how to stop it though."

Natsu hummed, his cheek in his palm and eyelids fluttering. She continued to observe herself though, and in her eyes pages were flying by, the books and articles she studied all those years ago about gods and monsters. Some were fairy tales, some a man's life worth all wrapped into a biography. Somewhere, she knew, she had the answer.

Then her own lightbulb popped on.

"You found my trinket!"

Natsu, half-asleep, felt a bite of cold on his hand, "Your wha?" It was Lucy's hand, tugging him up to his feet. He stirred awake at that and was led like a puppy around his apartment.

"Ghosts are just souls too tied to something on earth for them to move on," she explained. "It could be anything really, just something that mattered a lot to them when they were alive. It's like they picked up some magical voodoo stuff after-death."

Natsu sat on the arm of his couch as Lucy tousled through his stuff, searching bookshelves and cabinets and ducking under furniture.

"Okay," he said. He rubbed his eye and yawned. "So what about it?"

Lucy looked up from her place on the floor, eyes wide and brown. "So, my trinket must be here! It's the only explanation as to why I'm here!"

Waving a hand at his clueless look, Lucy continued on her search. The couch moaned and the floor groaned as Natsu slid from the armrest onto the cushions. He slumped and watched Lucy with a sleepy look.

"You died a while ago though, haven't you always been here?" he asked. Sure, he was a dragon and apart of this magical world, but it didn't mean he knew everything about everything. He knew who and what he was, and that was all he ever needed to know.

"I've been stuck here," Lucy clarified, "Stuck flickering lights and playing with cups. But something activated my trinket. Some kind of magic—your magic."

Even Natsu knew that magic wore off after a while. It could be from no use at all, or too much at once. There needed to be a medium with its use, or else the consequences could be deadly. This trinket of hers was probably getting too old, but somehow had managed to survive. Perhaps what Lucy was taking from him wasn't his energy, but his magic flow.

"My rage is my magic," he murmured, face stuffed in pillows.

Lucy smiled, "That I don't doubt."

She was stuck on the floor now, feeling the coarse fibers of the rug beneath her knees and the heat start to build underneath her dress. New feelings, new sensations. They were all starting to flow back into her, one by one, as Natsu sunk further and further into the couch. She bit her lip in worry. She was taking too much of his magic and didn't know how to stop it.

If only she found her trinket.

"It has to be around here somewhere," she sighed. "Once I get it…" Well, she wasn't entirely sure what would happen to her. Just that Natsu would be okay.

In a second she crawled over, tapped her fingers against Natsu's cheek. He stirred awake from a sudden sleep again, groaning. "Think Natsu. Did you find anything when you moved in here? Something out of place? Something weird?"

Words tumbled from his mouth in a mess, trapped by the pillow. Lucy perked, leaning in closer, "What? What did you say?"

"F….fuckin' rats in my bathtub…" his eyes slid closed again, "Wasn't cool…."

Lucy shoved him back on his pillow and fell back on the carpet. She huffed at him and looked around uselessly. She was never going to find it. She didn't even know what it was.

Natsu was going to die. And then, she heard it.

The jangle. Not any jangle, but the jangle. One that had her crashing through years and years of her life, shattering windows of memories and old rusted feelings she hadn't felt since she was a child.

A kitty trotted pass her then, weaving between table legs and under chairs, jangling with each step. Lucy followed, her speed kicking up as she struggled to make sense of where she heard that chime before.

Then she saw it. The cat had rounded the corner behind the couch, and sat. With a keychain between it's teeth.

Half a dozen golden keys hung from that chain, as glittering and perfect as the last day she saw them. Her heart…thumped. With misery of how much she realized she missed those keys. Of course they would be the trinket.

It was the only item in the world she cared more than her life about.

And it was when her fingers brushed the steel, that Natsu gasped. He started, power rushed his veins in harsh gulps, pouring down his throat and filling his lungs. The tang of it burnt his nose, seared his eyes. He sputtered, once, twice, before settling back into the moment. He breathed out a breath of smoke, the burning in his chest refocusing as well. His vision cleared.

"Hey," he sang, "you did it–"

Silence drove itself into Natsu's ears. He turned and was met with a creak in the flooring beneath him instead Lucy's voice,instead of her face, her scent, her presence. Happy sat, licking himself—the space in front of him bare.

He got to his feet, eyes traveling with every sharp turn of his head. "Lucy?"

It sunk in him like a river stone, the thought. The weighted coil that tied his throat. The drop of his gut.

She was gone. Just like that.

The first person that was like him. That he liked. Who he didn't have to hide his entire self from. It felt stupid in a way—he had only just met her, but their circumstances were…special. Unusual. And he only clicked with people like that only so often.

Now she was…where? Heaven, hell? Probably not hell. But in the afterlife, certainly. She'd found her trinket tying her here, and that was how it worked right?

She had saved him too.

Disappointment left a taste Natsu didn't like in mouth. He didn't even get to say thank you. Or goodbye.

Happy's mewl snapped Natsu back into reality. His physical, non-ghost reality. Sighing, he picked up the cat and brought them both through the scorched living room, down the hallway, and to a restless night in bed.

It took some time for Natsu to get used to living without Lucy. He didn't realize how much she affected his life, day in and day out, until she was gone. There were no more cold spots, no more fatigue or woozy spells that hit when he passed through his door. Cups stayed on their counters, and the floorboards only creaked when he stepped on them. He was no longer looking over his shoulder in the shower, or checking his peephole for some threat behind his door.

His apartment was boring. It had lost all it's character, all its Lucy. Everything that made him sure there was still magic in the world. That he wasn't like last of his kind, stranded out here amongst mortals.

She was a type no one would ever know was still here. A type he wouldn't be arrested for for assembling with without Magic Council permission, because ghosts are notorious for being forgotten about. Not to mention untraceable.

It frustrated him how perfect it was. How perfect their friendship could've been.

But, as he had learned a long, long time ago: time moves on, and he had to do the same. Getting left behind while the day and age changed was not something he would wish upon his worst enemy. And so of course, as soon as he had toughened himself up and looked toward a brighter future, put Lucy and her fiasco behind him, there was only one thing that could happen.

Lucy herself, in her flickering, ghastly essence, tumbling onto his bedroom floor in the middle of the night.

It was the sound that woke Natsu, the buzzing lights that sat him up, and the sudden figure next to him that had him shrieking and a small fire burning his bedsheets.

"Natsu!" Lucy exclaimed.

"What the hell?"

She approached him as one would approach a floppering fish on a dock. All tangled up in his singed sheets, Lucy hopped around his form as he made it to his feet. His chest heaved and breathed plumed smoke, but when their eyes connected, that was when he stilled. It had been months since they'd last seen each other.

"I'm back," she said. She smiled tentatively, unsure if it was the right thing to be said. Reading his expression wasn't a skill she had yet obtained.

It wasn't until a grin nearly broke his face in half that she was certain it was. He launched off his feet to her then, arms spread wide, but while he expected to meet skin, perhaps dead, cold skin at least, every part of him simply breezed right through her. They turned to face each other again, standing in each others places.

Natsu couldn't help but welcome the freezing rush that prickled his skin.

"Perhaps not entirely as I was before," she continued, "but I believe the longer I stay in this realm, the easier it'll get for me."

Something off about Lucy caught sight then. Not wrong per se, but definitely different. She seemed older. Not in age, but in the mind. She looked as though she finally fit into her skin, like an amatuer who finally gotten that incessant trick, and was now a master of them all.

Lucy was no longer a lost, wandering soul. But a ghost, a ghoul, with every single one of her wits about her.

Natsu was too busy studying her to notice her drifting fingers reach toward him. It was the slightest brush, the most electric shock he had felt in months. It had his skin crawling with bumps and heart stuttering. Only a single moment in time felt like a hour, before her touch phased through his arm.

"See? Already getting the hang of it." she smiled, cheekily as she could.

"I thought you were gone," he said, then, "Well, gone for good."

"So did I," she admitted, "It's been a crazy adventure since I left."

Some gleam in her eye just had Natsu on the edge of his toes. Like a spark of fire in his chest. So similar to the sparks he felt way back in the day. "What happened?"

Natsu was eager to know and Lucy was just as eager to tell. So, that's what she did, for what felt like hours. She talked on and on about her venture into the ghostly afterlife, about her mysterious lion guide and entire realm of mystical spirit beings. Different magical beings go to different afterlifes, different heavens and hells and everything in between. Lucy, being a special breed herself, unbeknownst, had quite a special realm waiting for her. Some good things happened, and some not so good things, and now she was here.

Back where she started. Yet so entirely more her.

Hearing Lucy go on, about her fears and joys, about discovering buried places and ideals, it had that flame in Natsu's heart flickering. Blowing air to the ember. It pulsed and heated, and Natsu couldn't remember the last time he had been on such an adventure, on something so heartstopping and exhilarating.

Ever since the Magic Council had captured him. Put a dulling curse on his fire magic.

"I wish you could've seen it, Natsu, there's no possible way I can explain it right," she breathed, sighing back onto the couch they sat on. "It was unlike anything I've ever seen before."

Natsu laid back too, copying her motion, and sighed right alongside her. "Yeah, I know a few places like that too."

"Like the celestial world?"

"No," he attempted, "Just…amazing places. Amazing people."

Lucy turned on her side, her eyes trailing up his form to land on his face. That familiar curiosity lined her features again, the one Natsu knew so well.

"Like where you were born?" she asked.

"Something like that."

"Is it still here? In this age?"

That was a question Natsu asked himself nearly every night, when his eyes betrayed him with falling closed. "Ah, I doubt it."

"But you don't know for sure?" she insisted, sitting up. "What if it's still there?"

Natsu looked to her, with stars in her eyes and dust on her cheeks. It blew another breath on the controlled fire in his chest, the chain around the ember rattling.

"We could look for it."

"Lucy," he started, but stopped. She didn't understand. She couldn't understand, she never would. He couldn't say that he had tried this before, and failed. That he was captured and imprisoned for hundreds of years, by decree of the Magic Council. That when he was released, he didn't know where he was, or how drastically time had changed. How nothing or no one he knew before was there anymore, and the familiar charge of his magic was muffled by a spell, only to be undone by a Council member on their say so.

"It's dangerous," was all he could say.

"And I'm dead," she joked, "And that little fire trick—"

"Not that kind of dangerous," he didn't mean to talk over her, but she wasn't understanding. "It's illegal for magical folk assemble in numbers anymore, Lucy. And it's especially illegal to be stirring up old civilizations that are long past their due. All because I'm feeling homesick."

He felt stupid saying that. All his life all he ever did was exactly what the Magic Council hated. He never thought in a million years he would be talking himself out of breaking the law—he was Natsu fucking Dragneel, Salamander of Magnolia, the monster of everyone's fears. He could burn down a city and go slay a Vulcan with power to spare. Nothing could stop him.

But now?

He could barely scuff up his apartment without feeling drained. Without the coil wounding around his chest squeezing his lungs, his veins of power.

Lucy had fallen quiet, and Natsu knew it was because of him. He always had trouble keeping those emotions at bay, the longing of it all.
"Then I will. For you." she said.

The look Natsu gave Lucy matched Happy's when someone yanked on his tail.

"They can't imprison a ghost, and they certainly can't kill one. And…this is important to you."

Something squeezed Natsu's heart then, and it wasn't Lucy's ghastliness or the Council's spellwork. Here she was, back from some wild, insane adventure and ready to hop on another one. God, he missed those days. Missed that feeling of no quest ever being enough.

His mortal job as a bodyguard only did so much for him. In fact, it did very little.

What was the point of being this amazing creature if he couldn't live as an amazing creature? Why was it he was forced to act normal, like mortals? Did he really plan on spending eternity like this, pretending like his whole world died away while he was busy wasting away in prison?

No. Lucy wouldn't get to be the lucky one to go off on adventures. Not without him she wouldn't. It was time for the monster to come back, for the dragon to earn his wings again. He spent hundreds of years in prison once, he could do it again. But like hell would they capture him as easily this time.

"It is important to me," he told her. He stood from his place on the sagging couch and the groaning floorboards, and felt his fingers tingle with flame. "And fuck it if anyone wants to stop me from going where I wanna go!"

Lucy sprouted a grin that quite scarily, matched his.

"I want to you show my home and that's exactly what I'm gonna do!" he said, voice rising with each word. Lucy had popped up to her feet as well, the floor singing with each of their happy steps, "Let's go to fucking Fiore!"

Lucy cheered. Happy jumped from his place on the back of the couch, a shimmering light pouring from his spine. Lucy smile turned into a gape of horror as a spindly wing ripped its way from the cat's back, the creature tumbling to the ground between their feet.

"Ew—?!"

"Don't get too ahead of yourself Hap, we still have to get these spells taken off," Natsu huffed, picking up the cat as he mewled. The feathery wing sunk back into place, skin molding around the slit as if it were never there.

"Was that a wing?" Lucy yelped. She appeared several paces away from the two, disgusted in every way and form.

"Yeah, believe it or not, he's not actually a cat." Natsu chuckled, holding Happy's nose to his, "But don't worry boy, we'll get both our wings and your voice back. Just hold on."

Lucy hadn't even begun their magical adventure and she was already too shocked to speak. "You two are spelled?"

Natsu caught her eye from beside him, and felt stilled by those big brown eyes of hers. He considered telling her then, everything that had happened, all the rough and gorey pieces of it. But, he decided against it. It was in the past, and with Lucy, he only wanted the future.

"You think all dragons are supposed to look like humans?" he smirked.

Lucy huffed, all concern vanishing in a blink. In another, she looked down to where Natsu had taken her hand, his skin so smooth and warm compared to her deathly flesh. She almost pulled away, before she found she'd rather not.

"We have a lot to do Luce, and a helluva time to catch up," he grinned at her. It was true.

They did have forever.

"First stop is getting both me and Happy our wings," he sighed, his eyes all lidded with the natural smuggery that came with being dragon race. "Time to show you what a dragon can really do with some fire."

Lucy felt herself being tugged, her lips pulling at the corners. She allowed Natsu to lead her along, out of their apartment, with a blue cat in tow.

"Trying to impress me now, are you?" she mused.

One single, sharp tug and she was bumbling into a hard chest. If she had blood in her veins, she might've blushed. Natsu was already eliciting heat like a hearth, and she couldn't even remember the last time she had felt…warmed.

"I definitely am," he laughed. "Just you wait."

Lucy didn't think she could wait. Seeing how giddy he was, how amazing she knew these places he spoke of must've been, she thought she might explode right then and there. She did the only thing she could think of in that moment, and it just so happened to be something she had been thinking of doing since the first she met him.

Her lips found the barest bone of his cheek. She pressed down as hard as she dared, before she realized what she was and pulled away. A ghostly kiss. Cold and clammy and gross, it had to be. She shouldn't of done that.

But, when she set back on her feet, Natsu didn't look the least bit disgusted. Confused for a second, yes, but Lucy could deal with that. He couldn't keep down a grin after that.

"I hope you enjoy this moment right now," he spoke, deep and happy, "because as of this moment, Lucy, you and me both are now wanted by the Magic Council for treason and conspiracy to unveil. Punishable by 600 years in the Black Vox prison."

Lucy started, "Wait, what?"

The only answer she got after that was scratchy, unadulterated laughter, and the feeling of fiery flames dancing across her phantom skin.

.

.

.

review! 3