The Demon's Concubine

Chapter 39 - NSFW

"I dunno…" He looked over at Anna, the blonde still looking at where Lucy was walking through the hall. She sighed as she looked down in thought for a moment before looking back up at Natsu. "You two should join her."

"...Join her?"

"She's going to the garden. You two should go with her, she'd like the company."

Natsu nodded as he caught up with Lucy, walking a little bit behind her in case she'd rather be alone. They went out the back gates and into a garden, the plants and architecture so polished that they almost looked fake. 

Lucy ran her hand along a few flowers before turning around. She was still smiling as she motioned the boys to come closer to her. "Could you help me? I want to pick some flowers, but I can't really bend down…" She pointed at her large belly, chuckling softly. 

Natsu and Happy looked at each other before kneeling and picking several flowers. Lucy kissed their cheeks when they presented them to her, quickly turning to continue through the garden. 

They remained silent as they walked, Lucy seemingly really focused on where she was going and Natsu and Happy afraid of saying something wrong. When her steps picked up in speed, Natsu looked away from her to glance up at the scenery around them, his eyes widening. 

There was a trail of flowers leading up to a huge statue, the statue surrounded by a shallow moat. The closer they got, the more clear it became. "This is a memorial…" 

Lucy stepped through the shallow water to place her hand on the statue. She stood there for a long while, her hand on the statue and her eyes closed. Natsu and Happy gave her a few feet of space, neither making any movements as they watched her. It made sense now, she was feeling off because the last time she had been to this castle, her mother was alive. 

Lucy bended enough to lay the flowers on the foot of the statue before turning around to smile again. "Okay, let's go check out our rooms. I'm a little tired." She walked past the boys and back into the castle, Natsu and Happy choosing to remain silent and a few feet behind her as they followed. 

Natsu felt really bad, it wouldn't be right to stay here if it made Lucy sad. Though, they'd been working on moving in for three months until now, why hadn't she mentioned anything before? Maybe she didn't want to disappoint him? He was the one who initiated moving to the celestial kingdom…

Lucy hummed as they walked up the stairs and through a correder. There were several staff members smiling and waving as they passed them by. If there was one thing for sure, the people of this kingdom were definitely very nice, as expected of a kingdom ran by a Heartfilia. 

The room doors were huge, reaching from the floor to the tall ceiling. There were several rooms lining the walls that lead up to one in the center of the hall, each door about 20 meters apart. "These rooms belong to the Zodiac." Lucy explained, and she motioned towards the room closest to the end of the hall. "This is your room, Happy." 

When Happy didn't make any move to enter, Lucy continued. "It actually used to be my room when I was little, so that's cool…" She smiled as memories came back to her.

Happy got down to walk up to the door, but he hesitated. Lucy didn't seem to detect anything wrong, so she was completely taken aback when the cat suddenly asked, "Are you sad because your mom's dead, Lushi?" 

Natsu facepalmed, that was the most inappropriate way he could've asked something like that. He was going to talk to her about it subtly, but there goes that plan.

Lucy furrowed her brows. "Of course… What kind of question is that?" 

"Does being here make you sad?" Happy's eyes were big and innocent as he looked up at her.