I'd Freeze the Heavens for You

Perseverance

A/N: My first job was at an amusement park (which is seriously the most kick-ass "first job" ever). My friend is married to one of the carnies (carnival employees) and he taught me some of the tricks they use, such as weighted milk bottles, oval basketball hoops, rubber bottomed barrels, and counter-balancing weights in rings for the ring-toss games. These tricks have been used for over a hundred years. That's why it's so hard to win those silly giant stuffed animals. There's always a trick. Sometimes, only the carney himself can manipulate the game, and sometimes it all comes down to skill, luck, and perseverance.

Gray stared down at the frozen body under him. Lucy... dead? He refused to accept that. There had to be a trick to this.

Willie Whitehall was a trickster, a gamer, a former carnival man. Everyone knew that the games carnies ran were rigged to seem easy, while really being deceptively hard to win. For example, toss a ball into a hoop, but from the angle of the player, it's impossible to see that the hoop is oval, not round. However, every game had some trick, a way to cheat the deception. Know the trick, and you could cheat the damn carny out of his prize.

Gray wasn't sure what it could be, though. Could you cheat after a game was over? Could you cheat death? Could you still win after such a total loss?

Still, that was the only explanation for why so many hours had passed and Whitehall was still not here. If it was truly Game Over, Whitehall would have claimed his prize right away. If he was waiting until Lucy was totally dead, the deranged wizard would have taken her coffin of ice while Gray was unconscious for all those hours. Yet here she was, still trapped in the enchanted ice.

Enchanted... Magic...

Did that mean she could still be alive in there?

No, she wasn't breathing, and he sensed her frozen blood. Even if perfectly frozen, the brain dies after too long without oxygen.

Then why wasn't Whitehall here? Was he waiting to see how long until Gray gave up?

"You can forget it!"

Gray glared around the empty room. He guessed that, just like how the maze had cameras to keep an eye on his progress for Whitehall's entertainment, there must be similar monitoring devices in the cabin as well. Whitehall had probably been watching the whole thing, both Gray's race against the clock and Lucy's mental torment, forced to watch Gray suffer alone.

"If you're waiting for me to give up... never!" he shouted. "Fairy Tail doesn't abandon their friends. I'm not leaving her alone. I'm not leaving her side. I'd rather die than abandon her."

Yet Gray realized, he really would die soon. Three more hours. Probably less, by now. Perhaps Whitehall was hiding because he did not want to fight. That seemed likely. Why fight when he just had to wait a few hours, and his opponent would drop dead? Then he could simply step over Gray's body and claim his prize.

Gray sat on the floor and draped himself over the block of ice. "I'm not leaving her," he whispered adamantly, gazing down at the face frozen in a sleep-like death. "She's too precious. I would willingly die for her. If I could exchange my life for hers..." He glared around the silent cabin, wondering where the cameras were. "Is that allowed? Can that be an alternative to the rules? I'll take her place. Just... just bring her back to me. Bring her back to life!" he screamed.

Gray held still, hoping for a response. He would even accept the annoying voice that had taunted him all through the maze. Nothing. Total silence. Maybe asking to take her place was beyond the dark wizard's powers. Lucy was dead, after all. Perhaps if he had requested that at the very beginning...