Chapter 5
Trust
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or its characters, only my own OC's, Energy Magic and my Ideas
.:+:.
Frea slowly headed away with Gajeel and PantherLily as they headed toward Jogenen. Her eyes were half-way closed and she was limping slightly as she had an arm hooked over her chest, resisting the urge to wince in pain.
Gajeel and Lily were following just behind her, the Iron Dragon watching her carefully just in case she fell. He could tell she was exhausted, and he couldn't feel any Magic Power coming from her at all. He hadn't gotten a very good look at her hands, but he did notice they weren't nearly as bad as they had been a bit before.
They were met by all of the villagers as they neared, and they were slightly surprised to see the very people who had been crying and unhappy earlier that day, cheering and smiling as they got closer. The elderly man and woman from earlier walked up with warm smiles,
"Thank you so much! You have done this town a great favor." The man told them. The elderly woman stepped forward with a gentle smile at Frea.
"Come with me, I'll see what I can do about those wounds of yours..." The old lady murmured as she began to here Frea away. The Energy Dragon looked to exhausted to even argue with her as they walked away.
"Please stay here for the night, and you can head back to your Guild in the morning." The elderly man offered. Gajeel stayed silent for a minute, he usually wouldn't stay, he would much rather just get the reward and go, spend the night in the woods. But his mind flashed back to the exhausted Frea, she wouldn't get very far, not with being how tired she was.
"Alright..." Gajeel grumbled and he slowly followed the Old Man away into the heavily damaged town. While they had been walking through the town earlier, they had realized not all of it was as badly damaged as the rest of it. The center of the town was relatively free of damage and that's where most of the remaining villagers had been staying.
He was lead inside a building and let into a room, where he sat down at a table and munched on the metal scraps he had been given when he asked for them. He didn't know what Silver had done when she had been looking at his back, but it definitely felt like the slash's weren't as bad anymore.
He was used to getting beat up, so all of the pain from the hits he had taken started to fade, until he only felt sore. Lily had fallen asleep on one of the two beds in the room, and his head snapped up in surprise as Frea stumbled into the room and collapsed onto the other bed without a word.
"Feel any better?" Gajeel asked and Frea opened her eyes a little to glance his way. Her chest had been bandaged up along with her hands.
"Sure..." She mumbled and her silver eyes closed again. Gajeel opened his mouth to ask what she had done to him earlier, but stopped when he realized her breathing had eased as she fell asleep. Gajeel sighed and turned off the lighting Lacrima in the room, before settling down into the bed with Lily and falling asleep.
.:+:.
Frea blinked her eyes opened and slowly, stiffly sat up. She still felt groggy, but almost all of her Magic Energy had returned with sleep. She leaned against the head post with her back and let out a silent sigh.
She had been so tired last night, she had literally passed out a soon as she got into the room. She glanced sideways to see Gajeel asleep with Lily curled up on his chest. Sunlight was filtering into the room, and if she had to guess, she would say it was at least nine.
Getting to her feet she lifted her ands above her in a stretch a yawned a little. They needed to head back to Fairy Tail. She had to admit, the negative energy in this town had significantly decreased since last night. It had gone down so much, she was able to deal with it no problem.
"Gajeel..." Frea murmured. "Gajeel, wake up." She said and he kept sleeping. Frea smiled a little, she knew for a fact that Dragon Slayers didn't like to be woken up, she was one in particular who really hated it. "Gajeel!" Frea raised her voice and he let out a grumble, before opening one blood red eye to glare up at her.
"You need to get up, we have to go back to Fairy Tail." She explained and he closed his eyes again, letting out an annoyed growl. Frea rolled her eyes and leaned down, picking up PantherLily and gently shaking him awake. When the black Exceed was awake, she gently sat him down on the bed she had been sleeping in, and turned back to Gajeel, who had fallen asleep once more.
"Hmm..." Frea murmured and grabbed Gajeel's arm, pulling him out of the bed no problem, and letting him fall to the floor.
The Iron Dragon immediately jumped to his feet and glared at her, vein ticking on his forehead. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Silver?!" He growled an she gave him an innocent smile.
"Nothing." She replied and walked toward the door. "Come on, we need to start heading back." Frea told him and walked out the door. She was aware that both Lily and Gajeel were following her, as they headed away.
They collected the payment and said their good-bye's before leaving the town. Gajeel had his arms crossed over his chest as he grumbled to himself, following Frea as she lead the way. They had been walking for a long while before the Iron Dragon realized where they were going. Buildings rose up in front of them and he stopped dead.
"Why did you lead us here?" He asked and Frea stopped, turning to look at him. They were currently standing in the middle of a small town Train Station.
"We're taking the train back to Magnolia." Frea told him and he shook his head furiously.
"Hell no!" He snapped and Frea gave him a dangerous look, and he sweatdropped. She looked scary, scarier than Erza.
"Yes, don't complain or I'll just drag you on anyway." Frea growled and he sighed.
"Fine..." He muttered. "Damn this..." He mumbled and Frea smiled as she started walking again. He moodily followed her into a train and he sat down across from her.
Frea smiled at him, "I figured out why we didn't take the train in the first place." Frea told him and he glanced her way. "I really don't see why it's such a big deal, Natsu is the same way you know." She explained.
"If you tell anyone, you're dead." Gajeel growled and she smiled.
"I won't, just do try to relax on the ride ok? Try to fall asleep or something." She told him, but he only huffed to stare out the window moodily. Frea felt a little twinge of discomfort in her stomach as the train began to move, and she could immediately tell that Gajeel did not feel well.
Because the Iron Dragon couldn't find the strength to talk, PantherLily moved over to sit on Frea's lap as they talked through the entire Train Ride.
"Could you please explain that spell you used yesterday? The one for your hands and Gajeel's back?" Lily asked and Frea sighed.
"Like I said, it's not Healing Magic. It's still Energy Magic, all I do is concentrate or pour my magic into a wound. I use is at a sort of suture and thread, and force my cells to heal faster." Frea explained. "If I do to someone else... I'm sort of channeling my life into them, and that causes them to heal faster." She told him and ignored the shocked look on Lily's face.
Frea smiled down at the Exceed. "It's not a spell I like to use very often, it takes a lot of Magic Energy and its pretty hard to do. It's because I used the spell twice yesterday, that I was so tired." Frea explained more. "But that's Ok, everything turned out all right."
"But if you say you pour your life into someone... Doesn't that mean you're weakening yourself?" Lily asked.
"Pretty much, but I can do that more than you might think. Something like Gajeel's scratches didn't take to much out of me." Frea replied. She purposefully left out the part that if she had healed someone even slightly more wounded then Gajeel had been, she could have potentially give away more life than she wanted, and ended up passing out.
"Hmm..." Lily murmured. "Alright, now I'm sure Gajeel wanted to know, but you said something about accidentally hurting some people in the Guild. Care to explain what happened?" The Exceed asked and Frea blinked a few times. She knew they wouldn't stop bothering her until she told them, so she let out a sigh and leaned back in her seat.
"It was only about a year and a half after I joined Fairy Tail. I don't really remember a lot about it... But I do remember getting really mad, and then everything went dark." Frea murmured. "I woke up at the Guild, and half of Magnolia was destroyed. More than half of the Guild was hurt too." Frea told him quietly.
Fragmented memories of screaming and destruction flashed before her eyes for a minute. When she had woken up, all of the buildings had been heavily damaged, and almost every one in Fairy Tail had been hurt in some way. She hated the scared and mistrustful faces she had received from everyone after that, and she couldn't even remember what happened.
"From what I figured out, I had changed into Shadow and gone on a rampage, destroying and hurting everything and everyone in her path. They couldn't stop her/me for a very long time, and in the end it took the efforts of Erza, Mira, Master and Gildarts to stop her/me." Frea mumbled. "Everybody sort of avoided me for awhile after that, not that I blame them for it. It took a long time for them to finally warm back up to me." Frea explained and smiled.
"I think they've all gotten over it now, though." She smiled and Lily and Gajeel both sweatdropped at her. It had taken all of those Mages to stop Shadow? Damn... They were glad the Dark Demon was gone forever.
Their conversation steered away from the past, as Frea and Lily continued to talk about happier things, until the train finally slowed to a stop.
Frea smiled as she helped Gajeel to his feet as she slowly lead him off the train, and paused to let him recover.
When he seemed ok, Frea smiled warmly at him. "Thanks for going on a mission with me Gajeel, it was really fun." She told him. "Just remember what I said ok? See you later!" She called as she walked away and disappeared from their sight as she rounded a corner.
Gajeel and Lily watched her go, and Gajeel couldn't help but smile a little. He had, had fun on the mission too, and he now had a new-found respect for Frea. He felt more relaxed around her now, and he could consider her a friend after all of this.
.:+:.
Frea walked into her room in Fairy Hills and half-heartedly threw her bag on her bed. Closing the door she headed away into the bathroom and turned the shower on. Waiting for it to warm up, she stripped down and stepped under the water after unwrapping the bandages around her body.
She quickly washed out her hair, before stepping out and drying off. She wrapped some new bandages around her chest and hands, before pulling on a pair of skinny jeans and simple white tank top. She put her hair up into a loose ponytail and tied it off with white ribbon. Heading out of the bathroom, she made sure her door was locked, before walking over to the window and opening it up. She jumped from the window lightly and landed neatly on the grass below, before heading away toward Fairy Tail.
She couldn't help but smile, she had managed to break through the wall Gajeel had placed between himself and the world. She was happy to finally have his trust, and hopefully as time went on, he would open up to her even more than he already had.
As she neared the Guild Hall, she could hear the sounds of brawling coming from the inside. When she pushed the doors open, she sighed to find the entire hall was fighting.
She really wasn't in the mood to join in, so she skirted the edge of the Hall, and took a seat at the empty bar. Sitting down she turned her back away from the fighting and leaned against the counter with her arms.
"Welcome back Frea." Mira smiled as she appeared behind the bar and Frea smiled back.
"Hey." She replied.
"How did your mission with Gajeel go?" Mira asked. "He seemed to be in a good mood when he got here."
Frea smiled wider, "It was great." Frea told her and Mira smiled more.
"So what happened?" Mira asked as she turned away and grabbed a cup, placing it in front of Frea. The Energy Dragon pulled the cup closer and sniffed at it, just to make sure it wasn't alcohol, before saying thanks. "You both look pretty beat up." Mira said, gesturing toward her bandaged chest and hands.
Frea sipped on the drink, and found it was a Mango smoothie. She sighed when she finished, and smiled at the white-haired Mage.
"Lets just say, I managed to get a few things through that thick head of his." Frea answered, "I think he'll start to understand..." Frea murmured, with another smile and Mira smiled too.
Mira's POV
The Barmaid could already see the subtle changes in Gajeel as he brawled with Natsu and Gray in the middle of the hall, the way he was smiling, and the new found energy that the Iron Dragon had.
She could also see it in the way Frea was smiling about the mission she had taken with him, and she had no need to ask what Frea hoped Gajeel would start to understand. The Energy Dragon didn't give herself enough credit half the time, but she was rather good at changing people's attitudes for the better, even if it was only small changes at first. And Frea could be rather patient with even the most rude and impossible people, though Mira had to admit, sometimes the only way Frea could get through to people, was by literally knocking some sense into them.
That seemed to have been the way Frea had ever so slowly changed Laxus' attitude toward her, even if he had been kicked out before anyone else could notice.
But Frea could be gentle about it too, and everyone in the Guild knew for a fact that she trusted every single one of them, even though the Energy Dragon never expected to be trusted in return. Frea respected the fact that some people, simply didn't trust others, but that didn't bother her, she would trust those people anyway. Well... only as long as Frea had good reason to trust anyway...