Fairy Tail FanFic - The Ice Dragon

Team.

Haylee arrived at the guild early the next day, eager to get a look at the board and get first pick of the missions. Lucy, however, wasn't very big on the whole up at dawn idea, and loomed moodily around Haylee like a lagging shadow.

"Some of these missions offer such high rewards for so little..." Haylee thought outloud, getting a grunt from Lucy in response.

Haylee scanned through the many notes and fliers pleading for help pinned to the board. One in particular caught her eye, it had obviously been pulled down and then moved to the very edge of the board as it was away from the main cluster, where they were pinned to vie for the viewers attention. She reached down to the corner and pulled the note off the board and examined it.

"Child caught in cave... Mountains... The western country..." Haylee muttered, her breath catching as she felt a pang of homesickness. It may have been bleak and cold but it was her home. She wondered briefly whether Skylar could be back there, but didn't let herself dwell on the subject. An almost illegible scribble on the corner of the paper seemed to pop out at her as she as thought about the notes position on the board.

"Foll...bun...stan..?" Haylee tried to figure out the blotchy squiggle. "Lucy, can you read this?" she said walking over to the girl who was slumped at a table, head down and dozing.

"Hmmm? Lemme see.." Lucy said drowsily and took the more from her.

"Uhhhh, 'Mage urgently needed in the western country'-hey, isn't that we're you're from Haylee?" she asked looking up at the blue-haired girl next to her.

"Nevermind all that, what about that in the corner? The handwriting?" replied Haylee, pointing.

Lucy paused, squinting as she examined the messy handwriting.

"Grey. It says Fullbuster. This must be the mission that the Master mentioned, Grey need a team mate. The notes from yesterday... If help isn't sent soon then that kid..." Lucy choked, thinking about the extreme cold the time she'd been up in those mountains on one of her first missions with Natsu, not long after she'd joined the guild.

As if on cue, Grey walked in, kitted up in heavy snow gear.

"Good, you've seen it. You in Haylee? Not many other members can deal with the cold for long enough, even for me it'll be a challenge, but you were born there and-"

"Yes, let's go," She interrupted him and strode for the door, grabbing his arm and spinning him around as she walked past. "Now."

"Don't you need some kind of coat...?" called Lucy from her table, but Haylee had already gone, and Grey followed shortly after.

They'd been travelling on ice-eagles for about two hours when they reached the mountains, and the strong winds forced them to travel on foot. The snow was at least a metre deep and wading through it took up a lot of time and energy. Haylee was beginning to get frustrated with the slow progress, so using her ice-make magic she created a large ice-wolf. The pair got onto its back and it bounded almost effortlessly through the deep snow, cutting their remaining travelling time in half and taking them to the village of the sender of the note.

They knocked on the door of one small wooden house and were let in by a couple, both sporting black circles under their eyes from lack of sleep and brows creased with worry. Despite the sub-zero temperatures the inside of the small home was warm, the floors covered in thick furs and a roaring fire on one side of the room. However, Haylee and Grey couldn't stay long in the relative comfort of the house, the child's parents gave them all the information they could, where she was last seen, her name, Nanii, and which cave they suspected she had been trapped in by what they guessed was an avalanche. With this new and slightly vague knowledge the pair set straight back out, Haylee easily navigating the area from memory and leading them to the avalanche site.

There was no signs of any avalanche when the got to the abysmal hole in the side of the mountain. Compared to the stark whiteness that surrounded them it stood out with such a contrast the jet-black cave was impossible to miss, even through the heavy falling snow. But the snow around the mouth of the cave seemed relatively undisturbed, and it was completely clean to enter or exist.

"They must have got the wrong cave." Grey shouted over the howling wind, pulling his fur lined hood tighter around his face.

"The nearest cave is quite a way from here..." Haylee called back in response. She walked up closer to the cave and paused, still wearing nothing but her normal gear, using her well trained eyes to scan for any anomalies.

She just noticed something small and blue poking out of the fresh snow at the far side of the cave when Grey was beside her.

"Haylee, please put something on, you'll freeze or something." he said, concern in his tone. "I've already had to see you in hospital twice, don't make it happen again."

"I'm fine." she replied, before realising she sounded too harsh. She turned her head and smiled reassuringly, he was only thinking about her after all, before returning her attention to the object. "See that over there?" She nodded at it and Grey followed her gaze, squinting to see through the snow.

Haylee jogged over and carefully pulled the protruding object free. It was a doll. A child's doll. Made most likely by the girls mother, it had fair skin, long black hair, two green button eyes and a royal blue dress. Haylee stared at it for a moment. She didn't understand dolls, but maybe that was because she was raised by a dragon. She turned and ran back to Grey.

"Nanii is in there. Why she's staying in there though, I have no idea. Maybe she's hurt." Haylee announced.

"How'd you know? She might be somewhere else?" he started but Haylee offered him the doll and he examined it for a moment. "Well... Looks like we're going in." he reached into his backpack and pulled out a clear crystal. As the pair approached the cave and the darkness engulfed them Grey pushed some of his energy into the crystal, making it shine brilliantly and lighting up the barren cavern around them.

Large stalagmites and stalactites reached up and down from the floor and roof of the cave, some forming great pillars of ridged rock. Haylee and Grey wove they're way around the structures, looking for any signs of the little girl. Eventually the cave seemed to widen, and they were suddenly aware they could not longer make out the granite walls or ceiling, and every sound they made echoed dramatically.

Haylee cautiously closed the gap between herself and Grey and laid her hand on the crystal, adding her energy and greatly increasing the amount of light that shone from the small irregular stone. The light danced outward and suddenly everything flashed white.

Grey gasped. What it revealed was a huge cavern, shaped and sized like a fishbowl for whales. The flash had been caused by the huge chunks and spires of crystal that stuck out of the walls, floor, everywhere, all reflecting the light at once.

And there, at the foot of one crystal pillar, bound by a single rope sat a very very grump looking little girl.

Grey smiled, and went to take a step forward but Haylee put her arm silently out in front of him and kept him in place. He looked at her with a puzzled expression and watched her eyes slowly scan the cavern, an annoyed scowl on her face.

Grey looked back and the unhappy infant and the weak looking rope that held her in place. 'Wait, a rope?' thought Grey. He realised why Haylee was scanning the room, someone was keeping her here.

As if on cue, an eerie cackle echoed around the cave. It vibrated through the crystals and bounced off the walls, making t impossible to detect the direction and increasing the volume.

"So, Ice Dragon, I finally found you."