Celestial Heart (A Fairy Tail Fanfic)

Chapter 4: Not-So-Solo Mission

"Levy! Levy! I found it! I guarantee you haven't--"

This would be where I smacked into a hard, muscled chest while racing into the guild. I bounced off the human blockade and fell back on my ass with a frustrated gasp.

"Ow," I muttered, rubbing my bruised nose.

"Whoa, are you ok?"

I looked up and pleasant closed eye smile filled my face. "Yeah, I'm good. Sorry for running into you and your entourage, Loke!" I said, hopping to my feet.

He blinked behind his shades. "Entourage...?" His gaze drifted over the two women clinging to him like nasty burrs and a sheepish smile formed on his lips.

I dusted myself off, completely oblivious to the jealous, homicidal leers I earned from the women. Loke and I hadn't spoken much since I first arrived here with Natsu and Lucy, except when he finally got around to asking my name. I'm glad he did, considering there was no way in hell I'd let him call me Duck.

However, the girls that were always with him saw me as a rival for God knows why. They saw Lucy as one too, even though she hadn't said two words to the guy. Surprisingly, they didn't react when the lovely Mira spoke with him, even though she was (honestly) ten times more attractive than Lucy and I. And Lucy admitted to it too!

"Well, I gotta go rub something in Levy's face, so I'll see you around?" I asked, speaking only to Loke. I'd be seeing those girls in my nightmares...

"I would hope to be able to see such a beautiful girl more often," he replied with a very charming grin. No joke. He very much pulled off the whole "knight in shining armor" image. Though knights hated mages so...

I didn't blush, because I took what he said as the ramblings of a guy who flirted with anything in a skirt (I wasn't wearing a skirt, because I never did. But even so). I didn't dislike Loke; far from it, actually. But considering he was such a "popular" guy with the ladies, I didn't feel like competing in any way, shape or form.

"Cheesy, but thanks," I said, giving a final grin before slipping around him and into the guild. I heard his groupies whimpering like whipped puppies as he walked away, upset I'd stolen his attention for a few measly minutes.

Gah! I hated fangirls!

I looked around the guild, my eyes lighting up when I spotted the petite teen sitting at the bar, Wind Glasses sitting propped up on her nose as she stared down at a leather-bound book. The pages turned at lightning-speed, and before I even reached the stool beside her, she'd snapped the book closed with a delighted grin.

"Levy!" I greeted, settling in my seat. She perked up, swiveling to face me with a friendly smile. Levy was a pretty young girl, who was age, with straight blue hair cut short at the top and longer on the bottom. She usually kept it tied with a bright yellow bandana that always made me smile upon seeing it. At the moment, she was dressed in a short orange-yellow dress with black leggings and red boots. The dress had a white bow on the front that connected to the halter-top type straps, and the sleeves hung solely off her arms, not connected to the dress at all.

"Hey, Winter!" she said, her hazel eyes sparkling.

"I got it," I said again, this time being able to finish without being interrupted by smashing into Loke. I held up a stack of papers in my hand, and she zeroed in on them instantly, sliding her Wind Glasses up onto her head. (Ok the real name for the glasses was something like Gale-Force Reading Glasses but that's too much of  hassle) "And if you tell me you've read this, I'm going to go join Cana in midday drinking to drown my sorrows."

"You found a book I haven't read?!" she asked excitedly, looking up at me expectantly with her hands clapsped together. I smiled and nodded.

In the few days Lucy and I had been at the guild, I'd made good friends with Levy McGarden, and the other members of her Shadow Gear team, Jet and Droy. I clicked with Levy more though, so I tended to not openly ask to hang out with the boys. And since Levy and I both loved reading, that was one of the things we tended to talk about the most. She'd shown me her room that she had in the guild's boarding house type thing (which I didn't tell Lucy about because it cost way too much for even one person), and it was packed with books. Almost wall-to-wall, really. So now, I'd made a game of trying to find a book she hadn't read before. Needless to  say, I'd failed miserably so far.