So. That was a long hiatus.

I don't own Fairy Tail, Hiro "Troll" Mashima does. No copyright infringement is intended

~MM~

Erza splits up Natsu and Lucy on purpose. Mostly because Gray and Natsu's bickering is making her headache worse and seriously, can't they shut up for two seconds, and they just need to go away but also because Erza wants Lucy to see her fight.

Most people, when they see Erza fight, all swords and armor, flashing metals and lights sharp as her weapons, most people do one of two things: they either fall over themselves to back up, run away, holy shit she's going to stab me–! or they fawn and gasp, ooh and ah and still step back because yeah, Titania's got this, no need for me to help. Erza doesn't really mind being a knight for the people around her, especially guildmates, her magic is called The Knight, after all, but Erza appreciates people with backbone and a willingness to fight and just what did Natsu see in Lucy?

Erza wants Lucy to see her fight. Wants Lucy to understand what being tied to Natsu means.

It means fighting, a lot; friendly fire in the guild, ridiculous opponents on jobs, hordes of grunts and maybe fighting a couple big-wigs, too. It means being fearless, or at least hiding how terrified you are, because Natsu doesn't account for things like fear or trauma when he goes looking for a face to pound in. Erza hasn't forgotten Lucy's armor, hasn't forgotten how the jovial air is personality and a mask all at once and the blinding, cosmos-bright smiles are a means to an end. There will be no running, no cowering, no leaving if Lucy thinks she wants to stay, and Erza wants her to know that.

It's tough love, and the look Natsu throws her way when she tells him to go find Erigor with Gray is one she won't forget. It's not panic, exactly, or anger, but there are elements of those things inside of him. They lurk behind his eyes, running them dark and hard, and if Erza thinks about it too hard, she'd think Natsu is suspicious, wary even, of leaving Lucy alone with her. She tries not to think too hard about the way his jaw clenches, tense and biting, and Erza wonders if maybe he's biting his tongue, literally, because he has something to say and knows better than to say it. Natsu does not account for anyone's fear, not even his own.

It's a fear in him that Erza knows will break him, one day, or make him stronger. She hopes it makes him stronger. And if Natsu is going to take Lucy with him, going to let go and trust another girl with light in her name (always the L's, always, always, always – moth to a flame), then Erza will not let her break him. She will not let Lucy break Mirajane, either, because everyone knows the similarities now, between their little-lost girl and their newfound girl.

So Erza fights. She switches to her Heaven's Wheel Armor and hopes that she looks like an avenging angel, maybe Abbadon, maybe judgment, and maybe not an angel at all. So long as she's guaranteed not to lose her family again, Erza Scarlet will do just about anything.

She fights now, tears apart the small fry and like she thought it, it's is so easy but this was never for the winning, wasn't from the start, and she glances back at Lucy to watch her reactions and there's a flood of disappointment in her chest, an aching, bleeding part of her only recently scabbed over, that falls to pieces when Lucy stands there with hero-worship and holy fire in her eyes. In that moment, and it really is a moment, hardly five seconds, Erza sees the end of Natsu Dragneel. He ends in a brilliant bang of light, no sound, no movement; a supernova from the Earth's surface. Light years away.

(Light, light, light. Always that. Natsu does not have the kind of darkness in him to be so attracted to light. To be destroyed by it.)

Erza sends Lucy away, telling her to go back the boys up and then there's the fear in the blonde's eyes, there's the unwillingness. She wants to close her eyes against the glare of the disenchantment, the breaking of something like hope, but then Lucy sets her eyes forward, and her hands clench a couple of times before she's off running. There is an unwillingness, yes, there is a fear, but Lucy is not without a backbone, is not without resolve, is not without determination, and it shows.

Lucy runs when Erza tells her, and she does not ask Erza to come with her. It is the first time someone outside of Fairy Tail hasn't asked Erza to come, to please fight, Titania, they'd be no match for you. It leaves Erza feeling bereft and adrift in the most unpleasant way possible because hadn't she already decided that saving people was her job, wasn't that why she had tried to show Lucy exactly why she needed to think about what she was doing? Lucy, Erza has seen it in a less-than-a-moment, was a person who needed to be saved. Here is Titania, Erza Scarlet the Knight-Queen, being left behind by a girl who does not know danger and does not know enough to learn about it.

Erza remembers, then, that Lucy is a part of Fairy Tail.

(She thinks: light, light, light and decides that maybe Lucy would be fine, that trusting her would be fine, that letting go and loving her will be fine. Lucy, she thinks, is not someone who knows how to leave a place, or people, willingly. There is a good thing about not wanting to save people: you will never have to sacrifice yourself.)

Lucy is gone when Erza closes her eyes, but Erza does not worry that she won't come back.

~MM~

So I am not abandoning this story, I'm really not, but I can't promise standard updates, not with the insanity that's my life. I will try to update more often, though, so be on the look out!

Thank you all for still following this story and your absolutely amazing reviews! Seriously, you guys don't understand what it feels like to get reviews telling me how much you guys like my writing style. Warm fuzzies just kinda fall out of me and I act punch-drunk for the rest of the day and I love it! Thank you!