brains and brawn | sting eucliffe

³ꜱᴛᴀʟᴋɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴄᴇᴀɴ

Arriving at the guild the next day was proving to be a bit difficult for the young girl. She'd been staring at the doors, debating going inside, for the past twenty minutes.

It wasn't just because she'd broken her promise to Macao, it was because she'd been late. And she was never late before. So forgive her for feeling like butterflies were trying to crawl out of her.

An involuntary shiver went down her spine, and the girl cringed. Butterflies.. she was terrified of butterflies. Actually, any kind of insect. Well- okay, scratch that. She could tolerate bumblebees. They gave her honey, and she absolutely adored honey. That, and bumblebees were actually pretty adorable.

Sighing, the girl placed a hand on the door. Gears knew she couldn't stay at the entryway for long, she had to go inside and face everybody at some point.

And so, she opened the door, the chatter of the guild she called her family quietening at the arrival of the orange-haired girl.

Pursing her lips at the entryway, her eyes trailed over the room. "Sorry I'm late.. the job took a little longer than I thought."

Her eyes met those of the guild as they all just looked in her direction. Macao sighed from his place at the bar, besides Kinana & Wakaba. The only other ones that were in the guild were Nab- as always, she swore that guy never took a job-, Laki, Reedus, & surprisingly enough, Romeo.

"That's alright." Macao waved off from the bar, laying his head down onto the wood. She blinked in surprise, did he just.. let her go?

Having no idea what to do, she slunk towards the other end of her table, where the young boy had taken to sitting. When no one else was around, they usually talked about random things, being the two closest in age left at the guild. Well, besides Amaya.

Speak of the devil.

"Hey-" She blinked, calling out not too loud, but enough for the entire room to hear her. "Uhh- did somebody die or something? It's so gloomy I could feel it a mile away. Also, I swear we had more members than this.."

Romeo looked up from his book before glancing over at the girl, who sat down across from him as if he could explain this whole mess all by himself.

"Amaya headed out on another job yesterday night." Wakaba started from behind her at the bar, smoking a pipe as always. "Said it'd be another day before she got back. Something about hunting down an underwater serpent that'd been terrorizing the coastline of a sea port nearby."

The girl deadpanned. "Seriously? She couldn't have waited until I got back?"

"She said the same thing about you."

The girl's monotone expression drew into an amused smirk after a second. Her friend really needed to slow down on the whole 'job' thing. They hadn't had the chance to see one another in the past three weeks. Even though they literally lived with one another in a condo just outside of the city square.

When one mage was home, the other always seemed to be out on a job. Yeah, sure it was lonely, but they both worked hard for what they had, and never skipped a day of work. At least, until now. With the jewel and experience they'd earned on jobs in the past two years, Fairy Tail's reputation had gotten slightly better, along with the help of the rest of the remaining guild members. The two girls finally had enough to catch up on their rent, thank god for their understanding landlady. Without her, they'd probably be on the streets.

And yeah, sure, they weren't at the top of the food chain as far as guild stats go, but it was alright for them. They never didn't have a job fit for any member of the guild, and it had gotten easier for them to survive. Every member contributed at the end of the day to keep their guild hall in shape, and no one ever had an empty belly.