Solitary Princess - Nalu ✔️

Chapter 35

"Your father is dead."

Lucy stood frozen as the words echoed in her mind.

For so many years she'd mourned for her family. She'd always believed that the day her mother died was the day she'd lost her father too. He was already gone before she could even process what had happened.

Lucy knew that it was just his way of coping with the unbearable pain, but she still cried many nights, needing to feel familial love again and never receiving it.

He was never there when she needed him.

Lucy had hated him for taking away her freedom and her joy. She had hated him for just giving up on her. She had hated him for the lonely breakfasts and the empty hallways.

She knew she wasn't losing anything with her father's death. He had been dead since the night her mother's carriage driver returned in the storm alone. She couldn't even think of a single reason she should be sad.

She'd resented her father for years, understanding his pain, but still knowing that she'd needed him and he'd just left. She'd resented him for years for all the restrictions he'd put on her, how he'd taken away any remaining happiness she could've had with his absurd rules. She'd resented him for years for- for what? Why had she resented him? She could barely even remember now.

Lucy wondered why Natsu was touching her face with such a sad expression. Her eyes focused as his fingers brushed her cheeks. Then she realized there were tears streaming down them. She looked into his eyes that were clouded with heartbreak.

Those were the eyes of someone who truly understood what pain was.

And then she was crumbling into his arms, sobs heaving in her chest as she struggled to somehow catch her breath even though it felt like her world was falling apart.

Why was she even sad?

Everything felt distant as she tried to remember. She struggled to place why she felt such loss for the king that had been completely absent from the whole kingdom and from her life.

Oh, that's right.

That king was the same man who'd lifted her up into the air over and over again when she'd beg him to fly. That king was the man who taught her how to ride a horse and make her favorite animals out of paper. He was the man who would get out of bed at night when she was scared just to sit by the fire to tell her funny stories. He was the man who she'd learned about love from just by watching the way he treated her mother with such respect and affection.

Why had she resented him? For doing his best to protect the only family he hadn't yet lost? Why had she hated him? Why had she done exactly what he had done and just given up? Why had she given up on him?

Her head was spinning, making it impossible to keep her train of thought.

So she stopped trying to think and just clung to Natsu's shirt, feeling the way his strong arms wrapped fully around her, pressing her head into his warm chest. She couldn't smell him through the heaves of breath fighting to make her pass out, but she knew he smelled faintly like cinnamon and pine. Her fingers gripped his shirt, focusing on the way he moved one hand into her hair, running his fingers through the tangled mess.

Lucy still wasn't sure why she was crying, but she knew that she'd be okay as long as Natsu was there to hold her together.

Maybe that's what Natsu was trying to tell her earlier. Maybe she could leave the years of loneliness behind now she had people to hold her up and keep her from sinking. Maybe he was trying to say that even if circumstance forced their physical separation, she'd always have people who cared about her in the way her father forgot how to. Maybe love wasn't some tangible thing that faded with time, maybe love could be kept like a memory. Maybe she could move forward knowing that the love she'd felt from her mother never fully left.