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lentenken · 1 year

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The Paths All Broken Up You See

CONTENT WARNING: Vague descriptions of gore, and the ways people commit murder.

Lucy is 14, and in her hands are keys. Her mother is gone, now, and there’s nothing left of her- her father is nowhere. After hours and maybe even days of staying curled up on soft grass, numb to the heat of the sun on her unprotected skin and deaf to the cries of the stead she’d ridden out of her home, she had looked through the bags that had been packed. Beyond the faded out picture from when she’d been a child, there was no other sign that Lucy had been a part of a family of three.

Her horse was laying down somewhere nearby, and the sky had turned dark a while ago now. Despite it being night, there were thousands of little lights shining down on her from high above, and Lucy can’t help the feeling that she’s being watched. In her hands are golden keys that look as if they’d been polished just moments ago, and she eyes them with her lips in between her teeth.

She knows nothing of what they are, and has heard no mention of their existence from her parents. Her mother, she knew, used to be a mage. Her grandmother spoke of heaven at the tips of her fingers, and a booming voice that demanded attention. Of the sky themselves separating from each other in accordance to her mother’s words, and the gods bending the earth to her bidding. Her father recalled the way Layla’s eyes were filled with sparks of something beyond even his knowledge and about how she was a wizard people knew to fear.

There were no mention of keys in their stories, and yet in her hands Lucy holds dozens of them. She spies one with horns curled in on themselves, another with a harp by its bottom, and another with the shape of waves. Others like one with a pair of axes, another with some kind of animal with pinchers at the end, and another with a clover-like shape. Plenty of others were clumped up together in piles, but the first three keys, however, seemed to be calling out to her, and that’s what led to this moment. She eyes the one with horns at their end and reaches out her hand out, and something clicks–

Lucy is 16 and she hates. Capricon had tried his best to care for her and educate her on the happenings of the world, as despite the tragedies she’d held under her belt she was still rather naive. He’d tried his best in explaining how to survive the dense lands they’d traveled, warned her to never once show the keys out in public, held her during the nights she’d call for her mother, and trained her as best as he could so that she could survive.

It’s for that reason alone that Lucy hadn’t let herself go off the deep end. Capricorn was the one thing that held her back from tearing down the people who’d slaughtered her village, and was what kept her so rational all this time. She’s 16, and there have been rumors swirling through the people of the small city she was visiting. There have been talks of corpses disappearing through the night, homes ravaged and left with gore that disappeared in seconds- whispers of something that sounded familiar, and made the magic underneath her skin itch.

While she expected Capricorn to refuse immediate revenge, she was surprised by just how stern Aquarius was about her staying put and not trying anything. Of all the spirits, Lucy had expected her to be the most murderous- and, well, she was, but it was surprising just how much self control the mermaid seemed to hold. That didn't necessarily stop Lucy from starting to plan and keep a constant ear out for more rumors. The twins, despite their attempts, couldn’t really do much to distract her. Mini and Gemi tried their best, chirping out new games to try and play, songs to sing, and dancing with her as much as they could.

On the contrary to the others, Virgo was more than happy to suggest forms of cruel punishments she knew, including suggestions for ways Lucy could go about them. Capricorn always managed to figure out when she was doing this and pull her back to the spirit world, but Lucy remembered each word and held them all close to her thoughts. Taurus was… Taurus. He spoke words of encouragement, told Lucy to try and use a nice big axe to cut everyone down, and was his usual boisterous self. Cancer sniffed, pat her head, and told Lucy she could do anything she wanted but to try and not lose herself

She got what they- well, most of them- were trying to tell her and she tried to ease her grip on the bitter voice inside her whispering about what could have been. Instead, she remembered the tears of her mother, the cries of the people she’d thought of as her own, and the piles of corpses gone before she could even try to dig them graves. She thought of Capricorn’s warm hand in hers and imagined her mother’s on her wrists with his eyes roaming around her face in fear. Aquarius hissed out curses and threats while she held Lucy close and the memories of her father keeping her safe came to mind. Playing around with the twins and listening to their happy giggles filled her with a sense of longing for the children she’d run around and sing with.

The merry calls of the local baker apprentice asking for her opinion on a new flavor, the serene smile grandmother would give her every time she visited, the way her friend was so horribly excited for a chance to go out of their little village, and t̵͕̽ẖ̴̾e̸̥̋ ̵̨͂w̵̡̐a̵͚̅y̶̥͒ ̸̰̀t̶̟̄h̸̛̠e̶̞͗ŕ̶ͅè̶͕ ̴͇̍w̸̗͊ȁ̵̟s̷͕̈́ ̸͎̒n̸̘̅o̷̥̓t̸̹͝h̶̠͝i̴̲̎ń̴̹g̴̤͘ ̷̳̔ĺ̵̺e̶̯͂f̴̹́t̵͔͑ ̶̩͊o̵͕̐f̸͓̃ ̸̘͝ṭ̶̑h̵̜̒e̷̖͋m̶̼̚ ̵̻͊á̴̢l̴̝͒l̶̺̄.̵̓͜.

No matter what she did, the memories would come up, and Lucy was left feeling as if she’d been hollowed out all over again.

Lucy’s 18 and she’s in a guild. It’s big, and was more organized than Lucy would like. It was filled with all sorts of people, and underneath them all was a brimming darkness begging to be called forward. She turned 18 just a few months ago, and that seemed to be all the people needed before asking her to join them.

For all the horrible things growing in their eyes, she was surprised to find that they were people. No outlandish demands or even childish calls for murder, every single person she’d met were kind and treated her with respect. They held meetings every week to talk about their next moves, about targets, and about areas they could erase and Lucy sat through each and every one with a small smile on her face. She had been practicing for months with Virgo to keep her back straight through every heinous suggestion, to have her smile stay the same with every massacre, and to keep the hatred from seeping out of all her pores.

She laughed with a man who cut the infant out of a woman’s bloated belly, and hugged a woman who cheered as she tried to juggle every eye she had collected. She smiled at a wizard who pretended to be a doctor and spread a plague through a growing kingdom, and held the hands of another who tricked an entire school of children to eat their parents.

Lucy felt something simmering underneath her skin, something deep inside her very being begging to be called out, and kept it buried as far as she could as she curled up into Capricorns arms in the dead of night underneath heavy wards to keep strangers out of the one safe space she’d carved out for herself. Virgo gave her a soothing tea and Aquarius lent her gloves with deep holes in the middle in case she ever needed to call out to the sea. Taurus huffs out a laugh and fights her to let some energy out, and Cancer happily tells her stories of their home. The twins danced with her before bed, and Lucy stayed up almost every night thinking of what she’d do to everyone in that cursed guild.

She’s been rising up the ranks quickly, faster than anyone ever had, and she accepts the promotions with a calm smile. She gives the guild master a smile, and tries not to shiver underneath one of the admiral’s eyes. Irene, that’s how she had introduced herself, with red hair and cold eyes. Despite having never met before, Lucy feels as if she should know her- as if Irene is a woman that Lucy has held to her soul far closer than anyone else and that makes her concerned.

She often finds herself in the company of a man who called himself Leo with a humorous twinkle in his eyes outside of the hell that is work. He had a sharp grin and soft eyes with a habit of flirting with anything that moved. Despite her several attempts of keeping her distance, Lucy finds herself with what could possibly be one of the greatest friends she would ever hope to have.

For all that Lucy finds herself in situations that she’s sure is suspicious to anyone with half a brain, Leo pats her shoulder and laughs about how awfully troublesome she could be, and she finds herself appreciating his loyalty. In return, Lucy drags him out of clubs when he’s had much too many drinks for himself, lets him rest on her couch, and even has him meet Capricorn despite having not let her spirits be seen by anyone else in far too long. They both reacted rather strangely to each other, but it didn't seem too much like something to worry about.

Lucy is 20, and her palms are covered in a bright cherry red that brings her back. There are bodie’s littered around her, and Capricorn is holding her face in his hands and saying something. Gemini hugs her around her neck, and Cancer holds her in his arms. Aquarius is washing as much blood off as she can, and Virgo quietly moves the bodies into piles to burn.

She’s not even 25, and she’s managed to kill every person who’d had a hand in her home's destruction, and in the drawer she’s pried open are papers and papers of evidence. She should hand them to the knights, let them figure out what else to do, but there isn’t anyone left of the guild except her and Irene, who’d left on a journey outside the country. She pays no attention to the words Capricorn speaks, and instead focuses on the words she reads out loud from the papers with pictures of her mother’s face with her entire biography and medical information. Type A, Heavenly Body, Asthmatic, and underneath it all are the underlined words- “test reaction to dark magic,” and “with a daughter; no news of her magical affinity yet.”

“What was it all for,” she croaks out and curled deeper into Cancer’s embrace, “they never bothered to tell me or even write down what they wanted to find.”

Capricorn tells her it doesn’t matter because they’re all gone, but to Lucy, the corpses littered across the floor mean nothing anymore. Not when her family is nowhere to be seen, not when their leader had looked her in the eye and laughed through the snot building up in his nose and continued to squeal in joy when the bile came out. The admirals were more than happy to laugh with him, though most of them seemed confused, and said nothing even when Lucy lost herself to a rage.

Leo finds her going through a fourth bottle of vodka in the bar they’d met and doesn’t ask before he’s leading her back to her apartment and lets her rest. Rubs her back when she vomits everything out, holds her hair back and cleans her face while she hiccups and sobs about the unfairness of it all. Listens as she tells him about how she misses everyone from home and about how there’s nothing left for her to even mourn, although she chooses to not say why that is.

Through it all he holds her hand as she cries and cries and cries, even on the cold tiles of her bathroom. Lucy doesn’t remember what else happens afterwards, but she wakes up in the morning to Leo in her kitchen making food and laughing about some new gossip he’d heard out on the grapevine. He makes her sit by the bar, and she watches as he makes his way around the kitchen. Her eyes are glazed over, and she plays around with her cuticles as a discomfiting kind of quiet set itself over the two.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a beat.

“For what?” Leo frowns.

“Just… all of this,” she takes her head in her hands when she says this, “I know this wasn’t what you were expecting when we’d met a few years ago.”

“Well, I went out hoping to sleep with a beautiful woman, and you let rest on your couch so I’d say I got exactly what I was looking for- even if you weren’t in my arms when I woke up,” he shrugged.

“Leo, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know, but I don’t really care- we’re where we are now, and I like how it's going.” At this, he gives her a smirk, “And I’d never deny a beautiful woman some company.”

“Hmph, are you sure this beautiful woman would want you by her side?” There’s a ghost of a smile as she says this, and a growing mirth in her eyes as a familiar pattern comes through.

“Ouch! Lucy, Lucy- you’re not supposed to hurt your friends like this!”

“You’re my only friend,” who wasn’t a spirit, she silently added, or dead now.

“Hmm…” Leo hums and sets a few plates down for them both, the stove turned off and the smell of pancakes washing through her. “We should fix that at some point.”

“We?”

“The both of us, yes!”

She’s about to be 21 when she meets a loud mouthed boy with pink hair and fire coming out of his nose as he sputters around a glass of water. “Gross, gross, gross!” he chants with a severe grimace, “what the hell is that…!”

Lucy takes a glance at his almost cleaned out plate, and spies goops of blue mixed with red and glances at the menu in concern. “Hopefully not what I ordered, if that’s how you’re reacting,” she murmurs.

Despite her saying this quietly, the boy seems to hear and lets out a cackle. “Oh, I hope it is just because you said that!”

“Don’t jinx me! This place actually seems nice!”

“Eh, it’s aight I guess.”

The waitress passing by gives him a dirty look and huffs as she sets down four more plates to add onto the piles and piles of ceramic precariously balanced together on his table. If you’ve been talking like that about the restaurant this entire time, then that might be why the dish was so bad… Lucy sweatdropped.

Nevertheless, the boy doesn’t seem to notice and instead gives a light laugh as he inhales a whole plate of meat. This time, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it as he exhaled and went onto the next plate on his path of clear self destruction via stomach rupture, and it was then that Lucy noticed the short little kitten nibbling on a bone of fish in satisfaction. “They let animals in here?”

“Nrsh- Happish naht ahn ahnimaul!” His owner(?) grumbled out, and Happy mewed as he looked up. Something on his back twitched, but Lucy couldn’t figure out what it was because the boy spoke again, “hish mah besh f’end!!”

“Ah…?” It took her a moment to figure out what the strange boy was trying to say, but it clicked a moment later, “Oh, his name is Happy? That’s cute!”

“Aye, sir! Am Happy, and that’s Natsu,” the cat- and… was it possibly a spirit? Lucy’d never met an animal that spoke except for her spirits and a few of the cattle her old guildmates stole and decided to have some fun with.

“I can’t believe I learned your name before his,” she said. “But I’m Lucy!”

“Are wu alone, wuffy? Dash shad!” Natsu gulps down a whole steak when he says that.

“How rude! I’m just waiting for my friend, but I’ve got a feeling he’s trying to steal someone’s wife again…” Lucy was pretty sure she saw Leo kneeling and kissing a woman right on her ring finger a few minutes ago.

“Aaaaaaa, okeh,” Happy drawled, and Lucy felt a sudden urge to pinch the brats cheek and stretch it as far as she could, but decided to stop herself.

“Gwess you’w stwuck wid us!”

“Who says I’m sticking with you two here!?”

----

"A guild master!? Who the hell would willingly let you be the leader!"

"Hey, ya know what, I'm actually the best they've had!"

"You're the only one they've had so far! Hah, I bet you'll give up after the first pile of papers that end up on your desk!"

"Da hell would papersh beh doin on mah tebl!?"

"The fuck do you mean what they'd be doing there!? And if you spit more food on me one more time I swear to god-!"

Leo’s been acting odd the past few days, Lucy has noticed. He was always rather flighty, and Lucy got used to it as time went on, but it seemed like it got worse somehow. So, obviously, she started investigating- well, tried to. He could be surprisingly sneaky when he wanted to, and that was absolutely fucking her over right now, and Lucy knows that her sleuthing skills are nothing to scoff at.

And yet, despite her several attempts, she seems to catch nothing but air and the swooning of random women who’ve clearly found themselves taken by his charm. Also a few men who vary from being just as charmed, or throw the closest item at her upon hearing his name come from her lips in anger.

Even Natsu seems to not know what's happened, and the city of Magnolia loves him despite the constant pile of rubble needing to be cleaned up and recycled because of him (and his guild, but it's mostly him). For them both to not hear a single word about Leo is... concerning.

She’d almost given up when Virgo mentioned a spirit who can help, and so she does.

She doesn’t like what she hears, and the entirety of Magnolia wakes to a cry that shakes their land for just a few second, but those seconds are enough to let people know something's gone horribly wrong.

Lucy is 25, and Leo is slowly fading away. She doesn’t mean that figuratively, too, she means that as literally as she possibly can. Right in front of her eyes, Leo is crouched down with his forehead pressed against the floor and tears pouring out in waves as he slowly starts to fade into dust right before her eyes.

She’s pressed as close as she possibly can to him, and she’s screaming out words that shake and warbles out curses as she begs him to wait just a moment longer. Her fingers go through his form and catch nothing but starlight.

She hates this, she hates the spirit king, whoever he is, and she hates the sheer audacity of this world to try and take what’s hers away all over again, and the things buried underneath her skin shimmers with rage. Unbidden, the keys strapped to her thighs start to shake and cry along with her, and though they do not come out, Lucy can feel their support anyways.

Bits of her skin split down to her very bones and glow, her nails sharpening and her very eyes turning into slits, bits of keratin bursting out of her forehead and leaving little nubs in their wake as bloods starts to drip down.

Can feel a whole new kind of power come out and her hands pull Leo close to her, and she ş̵̨̻̱͔̈́̒͆͊͝c̴̤͕̈́̒͝͝r̴̹͇̈̍ḙ̶̇̓͐́͘â̴͖m̶͕̲̝̐͒s̵͕̊̈́̒̚��̗͈.

Lucy is 31, and she smiles as Layla Heartfilia opens her eyes.

"Im sorry, old friend..."

The spirits mourn until they're no longer able to, and the spirit king stays in his throne in silence.

A/N: Okay so. I know I was very very vague but I hate writing down technicalities of things except for when I've written them bullet point style, so for the most part I'll leave certain things to you guys to figure out! I willz however, make a few things in this one very clear:

Lucy figured out where the guild that caused her village's massacre is and infiltrated it. I'll leave what she did inside the guild up to the air, except for the fact it was not in any way good things, and I'll leave the goal for the guild up in the air as well. Will either be revealed at any point? Probably, yeah, but not anytime soon.

There are two things Lucy did that caused her curse; one is what she did to Leo- again, I'll leave that to you guys to imagine for a while, and the other is her reviving Layla, her mother. Well... kind of.

Also, if you see typos, haha no you don't! And in my defence, I write on mobile...!!

#ft #fairy tail #swap au #lucy heartfilia #natsu dragneel #loke ft #im not putting down the rest of the mentioned spirits because my god that takes a while

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