Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail in any way, shape or form.

An upload after five months of little activity here on FF. Don't worry! I have not forgotten about this website and my writing! (Never ever going to forget really). I am legitimately working on other writing projects, but they are taking longer than I realised to actually conceptualise and place upon paper. I hope that when I have more writing, you guys would be able to read it!

I'd written this for a fanfiction competition for a convention I went to earlier in the month. The prompt for it was 'exploration'. Sadly, I didn't win anything. But, it was very fun writing this! I hope you guys enjoy!

The Exploration of a Certain Dragon's Mind

She saw him glance at Macao and Romeo, when he thought no one noticed.

The father and son would be in the midst of fighting or laughing or some situation in between. It was one of those rare times when Erza and Gray were off doing solo missions, Gajeel was too preoccupied with bugging Levy to fight with him, Happy was busy wooing Charle, and she was prioritising her novel chapters rather than anything else. He was bored without a thing to do, having finished incessantly whinging over it a minute ago after she snapped at him. As she scribbled away on the parchment about how her novel's main character Lucille had watched her teammates act out something spectacular against their foes, she, from the corner of her eye, noticed how Natsu had his gaze trained on the father-son duo. His face had been stripped of emotion, left next to expressionless, except for the eyes. His eyes looked glazed, nostalgic.

She wondered over whether he was thinking of Igneel when he saw those precious familial moments. No, she had no reason to doubt it. He was thinking about Igneel. The thought left her slightly melancholy. Did Natsu feel lonely without his foster-father by his side as he grew up, grew strong, and grew from being a young boy to a young man? What had it felt like to be abandoned at a young age? Had this abandonment affected him in his behaviour now? Would he even be at Fairy Tail now if Igneel had never left him? The thought of Fairy Tail without its blatantly reckless Salamander was… impossible.

She looked to her parchment again, at the interaction she had written between Lucille and the other protagonist, Haru. She took note of the way Haru acted around his teammates. Blundering, impulsive, stupid. Brave, invulnerable, selfless. The actions had always been justified and characterised by his passionate loyalty towards others, along with the incomprehensible hero complex that managed to charm everyone in the end. She had never once thought twice of why Haru, and thus meaning Natsu, smiled, or why he laughed, or why he fought, or why, and if, he cried…

When she glanced back up, Natsu had directed himself to acting like a five-year old again, calling out for Mirajane to make him a large serving of whatever he was craving then. She couldn't help but blink. The rapid change in character was unbelievable, but very much like him. She could've been having a hallucinatory moment; spending more than enough time at Fairy Tail had probably caused her to fly away from sanity along the way. But, her mind knew that there was no fooling it. What she saw was real; Natsu had really shown a different side to himself and she was fortunate enough to have caught a glimpse of it.

Her author spirit, as well as the best friend loyalty that had firmly rooted itself in her heart, decided. It would be her duty and mission to continue finding these little displays of mature emotion that Natsu had in him, in order for her to better write her character and to understand him just a little bit more than she did before.

And so, The Exploration of a Certain Dragon's Mind had begun.

..O..

His constant stream of challenge proposals and the deeper meaning behind them was something that she found herself contemplating over.

At that time, they were in the guild once more, having recently finished a mission which only just managed to earn her enough Jewels for her rent that month, just in time too. Team Natsu had again stopped evil doers in their tracks and was more than happily fulfilled in their desire for needlessly destroying objects, leaving the majority of the group content when they waltzed into the guild hall. Erza had gone straight up to Master's office in order to deliver the mission's report, leaving the rest of them to mill around the bar and wait for Mira to fetch them some food.

While Lucy leant her head against the counter, weary from their travel, she watched her fellow teammates, the two males who had thus begun to bicker over some little thing. So much for fulfilling their destructive desires. Their fighting took a mildly serious turn when Natsu hurled a table at Gray's head, the not-so-subtle yet precociously-Natsu way of challenging someone. Watching her pink haired companion commence fighting, it was in that moment that she recalled the Macao-Romeo scenario, and the depth in the little actions that Natsu took. It caused her to watch the Dragon Slayer more intently.

His self-confident smirk was undeniable, the one he always donned whenever he found himself in a fight that he deemed challenging. Mock as the battle was, both parties didn't treat it as such, utilising it as a training form or a way of rivalling strengths. Natsu ran up to Gray, ready to strike him with a 'Fire Dragon Claw', but the Ice Mage had beaten him by a second in finishing his own move, an 'Ice Lance' which caused the Dragon Slayer to skid across the hall floor.

Thinking the fight would have been finished with that move was presumptuous. While people were smiling at Gray's small victory, she was paying rapt attention to Natsu, eyes squinted as she focused on any little peculiarity that he could exhibit. The young man was steadily making his way to a seated position, shaking his head in order to regain his earlier confidence. That's when she found it, eyes widened as the moment flashed before her and left almost instantaneously afterward, as his mouth curved back to form his former grin.

What she had seen was the smile of a man humbled. It wasn't a pout of an immature boy. Neither was it the scowl of an arrogant young man. It was a smile of a man who understood that what he had gotten was nothing short of deserved, and accepted it fully in his stride. It was the equivalent of a man sacrificing a part of his pride willingly, which shocked her, since the act of giving away his pride felt so uncharacteristically Natsu.

And she pondered over that fact, coming to her own conclusion a short while later when she saw her pink-haired friend up and about, ready for another round of his favourite pastime of destroying their guild. The emotion that he had shown then was of acceptance. Her eyes flickered to Gray, noting that he had a similar expression of exhilaration that Natsu had at that moment. She delved deeper into the thought. Natsu's acceptance was of whom he was fighting against, Gray. However much they opposed and constantly bickered, deep inside him, Natsu acknowledged and accepted Gray's fighting skill, even allowing himself to be beaten by the young man and not being overly infuriated by it as he may have been before. The thought warmed her a bit, fondly looking at Natsu and wondering if this depth of maturity that lay dormant within him could further be explored.

Her thoughts jumped to a tangent when the nosy blue-furred Exceed, that she couldn't help but love, outwardly noted that her smile looked, "funny and weird", adding a, "Lucy, stop being weird or you might infect everyone else," for good measure. In the process of shrieking at the fleeing cat, she hadn't noticed her earlier pink-haired subject matter trailing his eyes after her.

..O..

He pulled out a surprise for her when he came rushing into her apartment one afternoon, all but dragging her out of her bed in which she had been previously napping in so that he could show her something. Well, the whole scenario she described then wasn't the surprise, but what he was supposed to show her. Suffice to say, she wasn't very happy at the sudden, no-warning event, but she just sighed and brushed away her annoyance, knowing that Natsu was Natsu.

He led her to the local park; his hand on her forearm guided her to the exact spot where this 'surprise' was meant to be. She watched him as he excitedly chattered about what it was, but his words were left incomprehensible to her ears at the fast rate he was going. Instead, she chose to explore his body language instead, watching at how his eyes sparkled with childlike enthusiasm, and how his grin was so wide that her earlier irritation at him had begun to fade without her noticing.

They reached a spot in the park, relatively empty of people in comparison to the normal amount that would have been perusing the area a few hours earlier. The area around them was cast in an orange haze from the setting sun, and she couldn't help but think that everything looked almost ethereal for her, including the Dragon Slayer that had yet to let go of her arm.

He repeated his earlier explanation, saying that he had been working on it for over a month, then went on to further elaborate how he had been curious about a way of fighting and began trying it out, or something to that effect. Then he said that he hadn't shown it to anyone yet, not even Happy, and she felt the hand on her forearm tighten slightly, and saw how his brows were furrowed and the small bite of his lip that came and went just like the rest of his previous peculiarities and she realised that he was nervous about it, but had also placed his faith in her being the first to view whatever it was, failure or success yet to be guaranteed.

Another new side of Natsu was slowly being unravelled to her, and this time it was willingly on Natsu's part. She thought over her decision for a moment, before placing a hand over the one that held her, encouraging him with a smile that spoke more about her belief in him than any word ever could.

Before she knew it, he had wrapped both his arms around her waist. There was a loud sound equivalent to that of a boom and then she was in the air, much closer to the darkening tangerine sky than she had been previously. Her arms wrapped around the torso of the body that held her tightly, and she buried her face in his chest, afraid of looking at where they were or what kind of magic Natsu used for it to happen.

He noticed her fears quickly, telling her assuredly that he wouldn't let go, and the words were so sincere and the person telling them was Natsu so she swallowed the fright and turned her head around, breath hitching at the sight the greeted her.

The horizon stretched as far as her eyes could see. Beyond the haze of clouds, she saw the silhouettes of far of mountain ranges which reminded her of the mansion and lands surrounding it that she had previous called home. The orange and pink hues of the sky melted with the blues and blacks and she felt as if she were living in a grand masterpiece.

Then her eyes trailed to how they were being propelled, and she saw flames behind Natsu and the shape they took. Homage to the creature that raised him in his youth, the flames were shaped like that of a dragon's – large, intimidating, yet majestic in the fluidity they formed, slowly moving in order to keep them afloat.

She looked at him again, left entranced by the raw emotion that he displayed. He stared off into the picturesque distance, his smile catching her gaze. Similar to the one of acceptance she had noted before, his smile spoke volumes about his emotions. The smile looked to be a mixture of relief, pride, enlightenment and assertion. The mere sight of it left her feeling strange, leaving an unusual presence in her stomach that wasn't sickening, and a flush on her face that certainly wasn't from embarrassment.

Like the last two peculiarities that Natsu had shown, she had to understand the underlying 'why' in his actions of taking her to fly with him. The most likely motive that she drew was of being able to show her a move which he had worked hard on for a period of time. If so, then she felt honoured, and happy that Natsu had actually taken the time to develop and put to practice a skill instead of recklessly trying it out, inconsiderate of any consequence it may lead to. It was a pleasant change, though one that she expected wouldn't happen again. Then there was the second scenario that she had conjured up, less likely to than the first, in which the whole motive of Natsu showing her the move was the equivalent of him attempting to have a moment with her, 'moment' being just the two of them in some scenario that didn't involve idiocy or anything of the sort. Repeating that thought in her head, she realised how truly farfetched it sounded and scrapped the whole idea, knowing that Natsu didn't have the emotional capacity and the patience for that sort of thing.

She shoved away the rebuttals that her mind spoke, of how Lucy had seen evidence for a larger and more mature emotional self that Natsu held. Along with that, she blatantly ignored her quickened heartbeat once Natsu had finally settled them on the ground, giving her partner a shaky goodbye before running off to sort her thoughts out.

..O..

She was walking on a tightrope, precariously looking down as she dangerously balanced herself along. The rope was her steady ground, her last chain to assurance, before it all came snapping and she was left to fall. What did the drop signify exactly? She wasn't entirely sure, but she knew that a whole lot of it concerned her reckless best friend.

Through this whole journey of hers, 'exploring' the things that made Natsu who he was, she had made herself completely aware of him in a different light, in an almost complete spectrum to what she had been viewing him as previously. But, self-doubt caused her to wonder whether she was just making all these little things up. Who was she kidding? Natsu was a kid. Natsu was carefree and reckless. Natsu was straightforward and brash. Natsu was immature and stubborn and idiotic and any connotation with the word 'child'.

Yet he had the capability of being mature. He had the capability of showing a depth to his emotions. He was able to feel the sadness that came from nostalgia. He was able to understand the concepts of acceptance. He was able to be patient and mellow and assertive and the thought scared her, because a part of her feared these discoveries while another took delight in them.

To explore was to venture into territories of the unknown, this case being Natsu's character. One had to be cautious of any dangers that they may face during their journey, such as the realisation that you may care for a friend much more than you think. It had all been in the name of learning, all in the name of her writing.

But she had to stop before she went too far and fell in too deep in the drop.

It had been two weeks since the 'flight' incident and in that time she had done her best to keep away from Natsu as she tried to fix herself up. It was cruel, yes, but it was the only possible way for her to think properly about the whole transition that she had found herself caught up in. She had caught looks from Levy, whom was concerned for her wellbeing.

Even though she wanted to stay away from Natsu, it honestly was easier said than done, and in those two weeks, she had found herself still continuing to analyse Natsu even when they were on entire opposite ends of the guild hall, or when they found themselves in group situations with their friends that she couldn't escape from easily due to Erza's commanding presence or Happy falling asleep on her lap. In those times, she still attempted to inconspicuously undergo analysing him, yet to no avail with parts of her raging an internal war in her.

A night roughly two weeks following the 'flight incident', she was seated at her desk, playing around with her quill, staring at a blank page desolately as she tried to think so something, anything, to start her chapter on. Instead of anything about Lucille, or Eliza or Graham, (her representations of Erza and Gray respectively), her thoughts strayed to Haru and how all his actions and his entire presence was on the borderline of feeling shallow and empty to her. To others, it may not have been so, but by being given a glimpse at what the true character was supposed to be, the way she wrote him felt wrong.

She groaned, tempted to call it a night considering it had already passed midnight a while ago. Straining herself would lead her nowhere. So would over thinking, which she was getting tired of doing involuntarily ever since she began her exploration.

Dropping her quill, she flicked off the lights and crawled into bed, eyes drooping heavily from fatigue. As she wrapped herself up in her blanket, she closed her eyes, trying to fight away the image of a smiling Natsu from plaguing her dreams that night. She steadied her breaths and tried her hardest to fall asleep, hoping that the new day would be better.

Time was fickle as she drifted between the lands of 'wake' and 'sleep'. A period of time after she got into bed, whether it was a few minutes or hours was indistinguishable, she felt something fall in beside her as the covers surrounding her were lifted and placed back like one of Natsu's emotion shifts. The presence was warm as a hearth, making the urge to snuggle closer to it inevitable. An arm wrapped around her shoulders and she tried her best not to make a sound as Natsu began to talk.

"Lucy. Just… I really hope you don't hate me. This is stupid saying it now while you're asleep but, we haven't talked in a while and it sucked. I just wanted to know where you've been, and when I mean that, I mean like, you've been out of it for a while and I only know that 'cause I've been watching you… That sounds really creepy but all I really wanted to say that I've sorta missed you. "

Not smiling would have been futile after such a confession given to her. Natsu… Tactless, reckless, immature Natsu had said that he missed her. It was so unconventionally sweet but conventionally straightforward and so him that her worries and troubles almost seemed to fly away from her mind. She felt bad for placing him in such a situation that he would feel guilty over nothing. If anything, she was the one to blame for wanting to find out more about him and biting off more than she could chew. But, her desire wasn't anything to feel completely awful about, so the both of them should have been left blameless.

And she had to stop herself from being split apart under the arguments of who Natsu actually was. He wasn't just silly. Neither was he just mature. He wasn't just easy to perceive, but neither was he just an enigma. He encompassed all of it. Everything that she had seen about him and everything that she had yet to see was just Natsu, whether or not it appeared to be.

In the process of exploration and discovery, without a doubt a person would make errors in their analysis. But it was only when they learned from their mistakes and found the paradoxical truth which lay underneath could they be truly successful in such a venture.

She moved closer towards the Dragon Slayer, curling herself next to him and twining his free hand in hers, relishing the moment where her one exploration opened a path numerous possibilities beyond what her mind could have ever comprehended.

"I've missed you too," she whispered, smile widening when the small hug gave her grew tighter, making her feel more secure in his arms. "And to answer your question, I… I went exploring."