If Only You Knew

Chapter Two - Poppy Village

The four Fairy Tail wizards, and Happy, of course, made their way to the train station. Once there, they boarded a train began talking to pass the time--all except Natsu, who spent the entire trip complaining and emptying the contents of his stomach out the window. Eventually, all of the wizards fell asleep.

A while later, Gray, Natsu, Erza, Lucy, and Happy awoke and got off the train.

"Finally," Natsu exclaimed, "I can stand!"

"Yeah, yeah," said Gray, "It's not our fault you have a weak stomach."

"Whatever," Natsu replied, not wanting to piss off Erza again.

"So, what exactly is our mission?" asked Lucy.

"There's a demon that has been terrorizing the people of a nearby village for centuries. Ten years ago, a brave wizard defeated the demon, or so the villagers thought. The demon resurfaced a couple of weeks ago, and the people of the village are scared out of their minds. Some even believe that the monster cannot be killed, and have lost hope entirely," Erza replied, "but I think that if we work together, we can stop the monster for good, so that the good people of Poppy Village will never be bothered again."

"Wait," said Lucy, "we're going to Poppy Village?"

"Yes," answered Erza, "Why? Is that a problem?"

"N-no," stammered Lucy, "it's just that--isn't Poppy Village the town where you fall asleep if you cross the border? Since the village is surrounded by poppy fields..."

"That's why we have special potions!" exclaimed Gray. "The potions will give us one week of immunity from the effects of the poppies, but after that, if we fall asleep, we'll stay in a coma forever unless we get special medical treatment within a day of having fallen asleep. Only the people of the village are permanently immune."

"Oh! Alright then!" said Lucy, comforted.

"Great! Let's go!"

The group made their way to the village on foot, since it wasn't too far away. When they reached the edge of the village, the began to feel quite drowsy. Happy nearly fell out of the sky as his wings started to give out from exhaustion. The wizards walked a little farther before each downing a small vial of the potion. There was one extra potion for emergency, in case something happened and one of them needed to evacuate the rest.

Once the effects of the potion kicked in, and the wizards were once again energetic and alert, they marched into Poppy Village to greet the mayor.

"Greetings, Fairy Tail, I am glad that you have come," said the mayor. "As you know, a demon has been terrorizing my people. If you can defeat the monster, I will reward you each with forty thousand jewels."

"FORTY THOUSAND JEWELS?!" they all exclaimed in surprise, "WE'LL DO IT!"

A few hours later, they were all sitting in their little camp, waiting for nightfall, which was when the monster came out. Natsu was sitting with Lucy, and they were talking with Happy about how things were going with Carla. Gray and Erza were left sitting together, staring at the ground with nothing to say. Gray looked at Erza out of the corner of his eye and thought to himself God, she's so beautiful. Watching her is like a watching a warm sunset as the light goes down on the water, and the glow of the sun fades away, melting into the horizon. When night and day seem to blur together, and you don't even care which it is anyomore, because all that matters in that moment is the sun, off in the distance, disappearing into the darkness that you now realize is the night. And for a second, you're afraid, because the day is leaving you, but then you remember that it will come back tomorrow, and that it will always come back tomorrow, and that the sun will rise every day without fail for the rest of time, just as it always has. Because I know that no matter how many times she falls down, no matter how many times she gets knocked to the ground or gets hurt, she will always get up again, because she's Erza, and she will never leave me becuause she knows that I can't live without her. At least, she would know if I ever told her. But know it or not, she is my sun, she is my day, she is my night. She is my moon and stars, my universe, my world. Erza is my everything, and just like the sun, I know that she will always be there when I wake up in the morning.

Gray let his thoughts drift on until Erza shook him and said "Come on, Gray, let's go. It's dark now."