Slain Among Ice And Fire {Fairy Tail}

Chapter 11- Caged

"These look like Magic Nullification Chains." She muttered, looking all the more uneasy as her hand instinctively fell to her belt- only to find her Keys were missing. "My Spirits!" she breathed, a sinking feeling in her stomach and panic rising quickly.

Natsu looked her way in surprise, frowning when he realized her Keys had been taken away- before his eyes snapped around,

"Where the hell is Hora..?!" He hissed, his words causing both Lucy and Happy to stiffen, eyes wide and looking even more panicked. He saw no sign of the Saber woman in the cell they occupied, and her missing had his pulse racing a bit higher.

"Oh no!" Happy exclaimed,

"She's missing?!" Lucy stammered,

"I swear I'm gonna tear these bastards apart!" Natsu snapped, his fists snapping around the iron bars keeping them trapped, "OI!!! Show yourselves!!" His voice rose and bounced off the stone and metal harshly, the space outside their cell gave way to a long, dim and dark corridor that stretched away too far to see the end. "Where the hell are we?! Where's Hora?!"

"Salamander, shut up."

Natsu's angry yelling ceased in an instant, the heads of the Fairy Tail Wizards snapping around to their right at the sudden low, slightly flinty voice.

Their gazes focused on the faint flicker of light that bounced from Hora's deep blue gaze, the Saber woman leaning against the stone wall with her shoulder and her arms hooked around her knees slightly. She was in a separate cell entirely, the bars shared between her cell and theirs and Hora backed up against the farthest wall from them. She cast them a small, low look, the clink of metal sounding on the air again from where the same cuffs the Fairy Tailers wore could be seen on Hora's own wrists- but unlike the Fairy Tailers', those cuffs were attached by a short length of chain between them, and mirrored with cuffs on her ankles (to which her boots had been taken from her and left her in the fishnet stockings she wore underneath them), with a similarly short chain connecting the ankle cuffs to a welded bolt and ring in the stone floor. She was pinned by that chain, she couldn't shift more than a foot or two let alone even attempt to move around the cell- and she hated that.

There was a small flash of relief that passed over the Fairy Tailer's faces at the sight of her, happy she wasn't in any more harms way than they were and glad they hadn't been split apart. They had climbed to their feet in their panic and now all three of them quickly moved toward the bars that kept them at bay from Hora's cell, their relief replaced almost instantly by surprise and worry.

Hora had been wearing long sleeves the entire time she had been in the company of the Fairy Tailers- but now they could see that her right sleeve had been torn away, leaving the skin bare and the scar that stretched down the length of her arm in full view- well, near full view, if her skin all up that arm hadn't been stained and stretched across by those peculiar pitch dark markings that seemed to appear whenever her Magic came into play. And now markings that seemed persistent to stay even when it would have been impossible for Hora to be using Magic with the Magic Nullification Chains they all wore.

The Fairy Tailers found their eyes drawn to the scar and the markings in slight, rigid awe- before their eyes snapped away and they frowned, Natsu's jaw clenching slightly as the tang of blood hit his nose- fresh blood.

"...h...Hora!" Lucy stammered quickly, her eyes flashing. "You're bleeding!"

"You Ok?!" Natsu demanded in the same instant Lucy let the words make it past her lips. Both their eyes locked to the shimmer of blood trickling down Hora's skin and from two small slices running through she side of her leg, leaving a few small crimson droplets on the stone where she was sitting ever so still.