The Celestial Princess and Her Suitors

Chapter Four: Bixlow

Lucy was walking briskly towards her work. She hummed as she walked, occasionally glancing around. It had been a few weeks since she was attacked by Kit and met Cana. She hadn't seen Kit since the attack and she was beginning to think that she didn't need to keep an eye out every time she left her home. Nevertheless, she continued to take her keys with her everywhere. After all, Kit did say that she was hired by Lucy's father to bring her back to the Heartfilia Estate, so Lucy doubted that the green-haired woman would stop. Although, the question was, why was Kit waiting so long to attack again? Surely she would try again. Lucy softly touched her cheek, the cut has already healed without even a scar.

The possibility of being attacked by Kit again wasn't the only thing she had been thinking about since that night. For some reason, Lucy was unable to stop thinking about Cana. Whenever she wasn't doing anything or doing menial tasks at the cafe her mind would always turn to the brunette mage from Fairy Tail. It was driving her crazy. Every time she caught herself, she would blush and try to think about anything else.

The blonde would often imagine meeting Cana again and spending time with her. She would feel a fluttering feeling in her stomach and her face would burn with a deep blush, especially when she caught herself. She had never felt this way about someone. Was she in love? What was this feeling? She was confused but didn't have anybody to talk to about it.

Of course, she had found herself being attracted to men and women that she saw in magazines and read about in books, but the way she felt about Cana was different in a way that she couldn't even hope to explain. Several times in the past few weeks she had thought about summoning Aquarius and talking to her, but was never able to go through with it.

Lucy was so deep in thought about Cana that she hadn't seen the small, wooden totem on the ground in front of her. She let out a yelp as she tripped over something on the ground. She landed on her front, her chin hitting the stone ground and her arms splayed out in front of her in a failed attempt to catch herself. She laid there for a few moments, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

She soon pulled herself up to sit on her knees, rubbing the spot directly under her chin as she groaned at the pain. She pulled her hand away and looked at it, relieved that she didn't seem to be bleeding. She would probably have a bruise, though. Minnie had freaked out when she saw the cut that was on Lucy's cheek and wouldn't let her get to work until she explained what had happened. Lucy had managed to come up with a believable lie, saying that she had gotten the minor injury when she was training with one of her spirits. She didn't like lying to Minnie, but she also didn't want to worry the kind older woman. She didn't want to see how Minnie would react if she had a cut on her face again.

Lucy looked around her on the ground, searching for the wretched object that made her trip. Her brown eyes zeroed in on what resembled a small, wooden drum. She picked it up as she stood and turned it around in her hands, examining it. It was painted yellow and what she assumed were supposed to be small, dark brown, wooden wings on each side. The wooden totem thing had a wide, open-mouthed grin colored red painted on it and two black dots for eyes. She stared at it, wondering how it got here and where it could come from.

Suddenly, she heard a deep, slightly raspy voice say behind her, "oh, hey, you found Pappa."

Bixlow was angry at Evergreen, very angry. The two of them had decided to take a job in Crocus together because they were bored and had nothing else to do. Laxus wasn't in the mood for a job and Freed was too busy trying to find more books about some rare magic that had struck his interest. Apparently, he had only managed to find five books that focused on this rare magic. Bixlow wasn't interested enough to inquire what the rare magic was. He instead told Evergreen that it would just be the two of them and that she should grab an easy request. Evergreen had chosen a job request that was asking for at least two mages to escort some rich girl to a fancy party, then act as bodyguards for her until she was ready to leave, and finally, escort her back home.