The Magic of Three

Chapter 14

The girls went back to the house after that, and as soon as they stepped in the door, Derek was at Juvia's side asking questions and checking her body for injuries.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did you break anything? Are you bleeding? How many bruises do you have? Did you get whiplash from that broom? Were you attacked by birds?"

"Why would I be attacked by birds?" Juvia asked.

"Don't be fooled by their small appearance, they're hostile creatures."

"Hey!" Makarov hooted, feeling insulted.

"Poor Derek, you never did fully recover from that seagull incident." Anna sighed.

"Can you blame me? Those harpies were trying to steal my eyes!" Derek said.

"They wanted the half eaten sandwich in your back pocket."

"Then why did they go after my head?"

Long story short, it was a whole hour before Anna managed to convince Derek that Juvia was fine. Later the girls started to settle down and eventually get into bed. Lucy and Erza were out like the flame of a candle which had been snuffed. But Juvia couldn't close her eyes without popping them open immediately afterward, her mind was just swimming with so many questions and her body was just full of these emotions over everything that had happened today. She still couldn't believe that she was a witch or that her mother had been witch. That she actually had magical powers. That she had an entire other family of witches. And that she didn't know about any of this until today. How could someone spend sixteen years without knowing such things? It seemed impossible.

She looked over to see the cat snoring on the window sill.

"Psst! Gajeel I can't sleep."

Gajeel yawned and licked his chops.

"Then I guess there's no reason why I should."

Juvia ignored his sarcasm. For some reason it was easier for her to accept the cat could talk than the fact that she was a witch. Then again, she always suspected that Gajeel was not a normal feline.

"I'm sorry to wake you Gajeel, I'm just...Confused. I mean, I've been a witch all this time and I'm just finding out about it today. It's crazy."

"Well you know that your old man and Anna wanted to tell you sooner, but the witches' council forbade them to do so until they knew for certain that you had magic."

"But isn't that a little unreasonable?"

"I'm the wrong guy to ask, sweetie. They weren't very reasonable with me. Sentenced to a hundred years as a cat, and for what?"

"I don't know. I forgot. Why were you turned into a cat again?"

"Oh like any young kid I dreamed of world domination. Of course they really crack down when you act on it."

"Wow. No wonder you're so possessive of the sofa." She chuckled.

"It would have been glorious. Me, the firm but just emperor of earth." His tail twitched in annoyance. "Trust me, being a house pet wasn't even plan B."

"Is it really so bad? I mean you do take five thousand naps a day."

"I can't go dancing, I can't play my guitar, the sound of the can opener is the only thing that makes me feel truly alive."

"At least you have people who take care of you. By the way, how did you end up with Nanny Anna?"

"She needed a new familiar because her old one, and by old I mean he was a ferret who was as old as methuselah, had died. Her house also had a terrible rodent infestation at the time. She decided that her new familiar should be young and able to catch mice, go figure."