Ancient Words Unspoken

31 ▫ Caught

The train ride to Lotus town was tense, no one wanting to say anything to break the silence as the train rattled along the tracks. Freed stared out the window, his breathing somewhat faster than usual and his leg bouncing up and down in nervousness. There was nothing that any of them could do to calm him down, after all, he had been the one who knew Y/n the best, he was the one that had been in love with her.

Luckily, the train pulled up to a screeching halt soon enough and the teams began splitting up, following the paths which Makarov had instructed them to and were soon on different paths towards the town. The glow from the runes could be seen in the distance and Freed felt rage burning through him at the thought that something might have happened to the H/c girl. He needed to know what had happened. Her attitude towards them had taken a full 360-degree turn and none of them could be sure why. But he was determined to find out.

He briefly glanced to his side at Levy who was holding the book, trying to familiarize herself with the runes and let out a long sigh, letting his eyes run over the text.

"We'll find her Freed, don't worry," Levy tried to reassure to no avail.

"Yeah...She seemed really angry about something but didn't say what...I don't think she'll want anything to do with me after this,"

The solid script mage tried to change the subject in the hopes of getting Freed's mind away from the negative thoughts.

"Right now we just need to focus on these runes, okay?"

With a weak smile, the rune mage agreed and the group found themselves standing in front of the great wall of runes, the purple glow illuminating their faces. Freed reached out to touch them with a small frown, feeling a strange sense of familiarity from the runes.

He took his hand away again and glanced back over at the book, matching up the symbols as realisation dawned upon him

"She's already started rewriting them,"

"So she's somewhere nearby?" Levy looked up at the wall of runes with determination "Leave this to me, go and find her,"

"Are you sure?" Freed asked concerned "There might be people patrolling around here, if they see you they'll definitely attack,"

"We'll stay here," Laxus offered, gesturing to himself and Bixslow "You and Ever are probably the fastest if you fly, you'll be able to find her quicker,"

Freed nodded in agreement, writing the runes for his wings with a quick hand movement before setting off, Evergreen following closely behind.

Y/n awoke to a pounding pain in her head, feeling a relentless headache forming behind her eye. Her entire body felt weak and as she tried to lift her hands to rub at her eyes tiredly, she found she was unable to. Metal cuffs were attached to her wrists with chains keeping her restrained which rattled with every small movement. Panic began to settle in and she blinked a couple of times to try and wake herself up more however, a cloud of haziness still lay over her. The room she was in was dark and dingy with a half working light hanging precautiously above her head. Puddles littered the cold stone floor, tinted red with what she desperately hoped was not blood and a layer of dirt covered what was left of the floor. Finally gaining more awareness of her surroundings, her eyes widened. She was trapped. She didn't know where she was. With shaking hands, she tried to focus all of her energy into breaking the cuffs apart only, as she tried to use her magic, where she would usually feel a gathering of energy inside her, she felt nothing. Trying again, this time with more urgency resulted in the same outcome and she released a shaky breath upon realising that she really couldn't use her magic. She was powerless.

"I see you've realised you can't use magic,"

Her head shot up and saw the outline of a figure in the dingy room, the voice somewhat familiar although she couldn't place where from.