Our Idiots

Chapter 26 // Heraphine Moss

Chapter 26- Heraphine Moss
Juvia's POV
We began our journey into the darkness, fingers trailing against the rough walls to offer some guidance on where we were heading.
"Natsu? Wendy?" called Lucy, her voice echoing from wall to wall, muffled only my the moss that clung to cracks on the damp walls.
After a few minutes of walking in silence we reached a junction and were faced with the choice of which path we's continue down. The first seemed to slope upwards, and would probably eventually lead us outside. The other was lit eerily by a flickering wooden torch; a spiral staircase carved into the slippery wood.
"Maybe they went upwards?" Jellal asked hopefully, gazing longingly at the upwards path, but Erza totally ruined the moment for him by pointing out the white feather which lay on the third step down.
"An exceed's wing feather- Natsu and Wendy will have seen it too. I say we go down," she muttered, her fingering tightening around the hilt of the short sword hung from her waist. Swallowing the fear that rose like bile in my suddenly tight throat, I followed Erza and Jellal onto the winding stairs, my legs shaking to the extent that I was afraid they were about to collapse.
We seemed to go down forever, the seconds stretching into what seemed like hours as I listened to the echo of feet on stone as we walked on and on and the torches became fewer and fewer so that we had to feel our way along the walls. And as we stumbled our way forwards I felt me energy being sucked from me- perhaps from fear- until my mind seemed to be overtaken with fogginess.
"Stop!" Erza yelled, and the sudden sharpness of her voice cutting through the moist air caused me to jump. My foot slipped, and with a squeak I fell onto the rock stairs, bashing my head on the corner of on and bruising my back on another.
"Juvia? What happened?" The anxious voice of Mira questioned from behind me, and I was grateful that the dark at least hid my burning cheeks.
"Juvia just slipped, sorry! Juvia is never normally so clumsy," I muttered, lifting a hand to where I'd hit my head and feeling the warmth of blood trickling from a cut. A hand tenderly touched mine as Gray searched for me in the dark, and I quickly started to stand ignoring the protesting of my back and the pounding in my head. Jellal muttered a few words, and a tiny ball of light appeared above our heads casting eery shadows on the walls and illuminating the others in pasty white. I wiped the blood from my hands onto the skirt of my dress,
"What is it, Erza?" Laxus asked, voicing everyones thoughts as we watched her tap cautiously at the walls of the staircase.
"Juvia your head-" Gray started, but with a quick look I silenced him.
"Actually, Juvia, you just confirmed my fears." Erza's voice was thick with uncharacteristic worry, and the sudden extinguishing of Jellal's light left us in tense darkness as we awaited what she was to say.
"This stair case isn't real- somebody's playing with us. I can't believe it took me this long to realise... They're sucking our magic from us. The moisture in the air isn't water, it's the gas released by Heraphine moss. Heraphine grows in deep underground springs, and sucks magic from magical matter such aa decaying mythical organisms. I won't go into detail on the biological side of it, but basically the plants break down the magic into two components: a purifying pollen like powder which dissolves into the water and cleanses it of any harmful substances, and a poison called Sayna which drains magical energy. The moss on the walls is Hersphine, and the vapour..." Erza explained, and no sooner had she finished that I felt my body go limp and my consciousness slip away...

Gray's POV
Juvia collapsed into me and I reacted without thinking, wrapping my arms around her stomach and taking her weight on my chest. Her bleeding head nocked against my shoulder blade and rolled helplessly to the side, her ear pressing into the top of my arm as she slipped a little from my grasp. Normally I would have had no problem holding her weight, but the Sayna in the air had weakened me considerably. The staircase was filled with light once again as Jellal produced another ball of energy, however the effort of using this magic left him panting and Erza had to wrap an arm around his waist to stop him sagging into the wall. Before my eyes Erza's light armour dispersed into glittering dust, which fell to the floor like rain, loosing it's shimmer the moment it hit the stone as Erza's magic was sucked up by the Sayna.
"We can't give up! Gray, slap Juvia awake. Jellal, don't bother with light- conserve your energy, Mira and Laxus- help me with this. I need you to hold your breaths- inhaling more of this air will only make you feel worse. We have to find a way out before we all pass out; I'll break the walls down if I have to!"
I looked down at Juvia, and despite the dark I could vaguely make out her features; closed eyes, curves nose, lips slightly apart. There was no way in hell I was going to hit her, but I had an idea of something which might work twice as well. Taking one last shallow breath, I lowered Juvia onto a step and drew the last of my strength, imagining the magic running through my veins. Raising my hands, I created an image of a Sayna particle in my minds eye- of course, I had no idea what one looked like, had never attended a science class in my life, and couldn't care less about what made up the air around me, but I needed the visualisation if I was going to succeed. Ice magic pulsed from my finger tips, and I imagined frost coating each little particle and trapping it within an icy cocoon, forming tiny snowflakes around us.
"Gray, we don't need snow we need a solution!" Laxus whispered hoarsely, trying not to breath even as he spoke, and slamming his fist against the wall in frustration. I opened my eyes and took a tentative breath; the air was cold, but more importantly the air was dry.
"I froze them- the Sayna particles that is- so now unless you breath in a snow flake we shouldn't loose anymore strength," I triumphantly explained, but no sooner had the words left my mouth than I fell helplessly to the stone beneath my feet, joining Juvia where she awkwardly sat, unconscious. My head spun and I realised that I'd used the last of my strength in using the spell.
"Gray that's... That's amazing. Since when have you been able to do magic like that?" Jellal exclaimed, finding new energy in the form of hope.
"Since now. I'm sorry, guys, I'm out of magic..." I murmured desperately, blinking the fogginess out of my vision only to find it creeping in once more- this time more demanding.
"Just rest, Gray- we'll take it from here," Erza replied, and so I let go of my consciousness. The last thing I was aware of was my body slouching sideways into Juvia, and my fingers stretching out to hers.