The Love of Dragons- Nalu

Chapter sixteen - Renewed

POV: Lucy

After Wendy recounted her facts I slumped down onto the bench with her. This just kept getting more and more complicated. It didn’t help that I couldn’t consult Levy; she was so busy as it was. And Erza was definitely out of the equation for now; she had a bad hangover and was off punching one of the columns with a confounded flush on her cheeks.

“I told you, I don’t understand either.” The little girl frowned a bit and then took my hand, “Just please find Natsu, we all miss him.” The boy had been gone from the guild longer than this on jobs, but still, this had an air of finality and no one wanted it to last.

“We’ll do our best. Whenever Levy thinks we’re ready then we’ll head out to find him.” I squeezed her hand and stepped over to Grey.

“Do you know what’s going on?” He asked me, clearly hoping that I had been able to put together Wendy’s discoveries better than he.

“No, I wish I did, but the only thing I can think of is that somehow Igneel was here and used his dragon-y powers to fix the scarf…” Grey gave me an odd look, like he was actually considering that an option, “Grey, that’s not possible, Natsu spent his whole life looking for his dad, I’m sure he would have noticed if Igneel were here.”

“Lucy, your logic is sound for us; but this is a different world. A week ago that idea would have sounded insane, but now… Now we have to consider even the crazy stuff.”

“Grey, this is still the same world with the same logic.” I sighed; maybe we were all loosing our minds.

“No. Now there are dragons who can take a human form, now there are people who can disappear into trees, now there are new rules for what is possible.” There wasn’t even a hint of humor in his eyes; Grey was dead serious.

“Okay, so if we’re considering that possibly Igneel could have been here… can all dragons take human forms?” I asked, pinching my lips together; that would make everything even more difficult. “Hey, Lev?” I called, the small blue haired girl looked over at me, pulling her eye off the pages of a yellowed book.

“Yeah?”

“Can all dragons turn into people or is it just Acnologia?” She gave me a sly smile and took off her reading glasses,

“I knew you were a bright one.” She patted Gajeel’s arm and ordered him to read the next few pages and recount to her a summary later. “I’ve been looking in every book that even mentions ancient dragons lately.” She walked over to me and indicated that I sit with her.

“Dragons can all shift between their two forms, but some refuse to or haven’t unlocked the ability. Acnologia uses her ability simply for convenience, but I’ve read that a lot of them find it demeaning to be human, also, often when a dragon is born it takes the first form it sees for about two decades before it gains the ability or desire to shift.” I noticed the girl’s hands flexing and almost trembling with the excitement of this investigation.

“So if it were a young dragon then it could be constantly in a human form?” I ran a hand through my hair, desperately confounded. How could we identify a dragon if it only ever was in its human form?

“Luckily that’s not an issue for us though, because we are dealing with Igneel and Acnologia, both of whom are old enough that they probably embody both forms.”

“But they could still be people!” I groaned; it would be impossible to find either one. It would solve almost all of our problems if only we could find Igneel.

“Yeah, but think of Acnologia, she looked really odd. I mean, her skin was covered in vibrant blue tattoos and she had grey eyes. Frankly I’m surprised that we never put two and two together before now.” She seemed a bit forlorn; this thought meant that if we had been more lucid we might have been able to keep Natsu here.

“Igneel was supposed to be a red dragon with yellow eyes right?” Levy asked me,

“Yep, Natsu said that he was like, the second strongest dragon. He was only second in power to Acnologia.”

“It’s clear, Igneel even as a human will have yellow eyes.” she jumped up excitedly, leaping over the bench and table to stand on the bench next to Gajeel. “Hey, Gajeel, you should go with Grey and Lucy when they look for Natsu.”

“Lev, I need to stay here with you.” He protested, giving me a look of utter helplessness.

“I just mean for their search in Magnolia, they’re going to look for Igneel too and you’re the only one aside from Wendy who could sniff him out.” The bookworm reached up on her tiptoes and patted his head,

“I promise, I’ll be fine; it’s not even for a whole day.” She flashed him a brilliant grin and shoed the three of us out the door.

“WAIT!” with our feet on the street we turned to see that Erza had stopped hacking at the post and was holding open the massive doors with both hands and her chest heaving. “You’re not going without me.”

Grey and I shared a pleased look; we both knew that eventually she would come with us. The red haired girl stumbled out the doors letting them fall shut behind her.

“C’mon Erza.” Grey beckoned her, and Gajeel raised an eyebrow at us.

“She’s hungover?” he was flabbergasted. No one had ever witnessed Erza drink before and she even boasted occasionally about the fact that she had never once consumed alcohol.

“Yeah, I guess that she got hit really hard with the realization that Natsu was leaving.” I decided, offering her a hand.

“No, I can walk!” she insisted, the woman didn’t even seem to hear my sentence. She put a hand to her head and from behind I saw Grey tug on the straps of his long coat. I prodded Gajeel in the side and indicated that he stay with Erza while I went to talk to Grey.

“What’s wrong?” I asked quietly, running a hand through my messy, sleep-tossed hair.

“Nothing… I just never thought Natsu would be such an idiot.” We both looked down the road blankly, neither of us really seeing all the strangers walking the streets.

“He thinks that he’s protecting us.”

“Why would he think that?” Grey growled, I could see his fists tightening and the vein on his hand became pronounced.

“Because Acnologia just came here for him and ended up hurting so many people.” I answered, trying to calm Grey down.

“Huh.” Grey grunted and refocused his eyes to watch the people mulling about.

“So basically we’re looking for either Natsu or a red dragon or a man with yellow eyes…” I sighed; clearly none of us had thought this through very far.

“Yeah, at least yellow eyes are pretty distinct.” He responded, seeming detached and craning his neck to see every single passerby.

“Wait… Grey, that’s it!” I jumped up, despite all the heartbreak that I had been pushing aside, a breakthrough is still a breakthrough,

“What?” He wipped around, clearly as anxious for more information as I was,

“We’re fools! We’ve already seen Igneel!” I cried, and I watched understanding float into Grey’s eyes as he slowly cracked a smile,

“So it is possible to find him after all…”