The Love of Dragons- Nalu

Chapter seventeen - Hopes

POV: Grey

            “Are you saying...?” I stared at her, how had none of us realized?

            “Yes! The man we saw the other day when Natsu was leaving. Natsu said that he smelled of dragons, so what if he was Igneel?”

            “No kidding,” I thought back to the man in my head, everything about him had been screaming power and recklessness. He had looked so similar also. Although taller, both had spiky hair, not to mention that both of them seemed to be overconfident. “That was Natsu’s adoptive dad alright.” Then I thought for a moment, “I wonder where he would be now?” Lucy already looked deep in thought about the subject, and Erza freed herself from Gajeel’s help.

            “Grey, why don’t we just check where we last saw him, it’s not even too far away from here.” She seemed to have regained some level of integrity.

            “It can’t hurt.” Lucy decided, Gajeel grunted his consent, and we turned around.

            “Will we be able to feel his power when we get nearer?” Gajeel asked, being the only one of us to not have already seen the fire dragon.

            “Probably not, he can somehow disperse it and make himself… disappear.” Lucy reasoned,

            “Then how the hell can we find him?” I asked, suddenly realizing the thousands of holes in our plan, only one of which was that we were seeking a dragon. Dragons can fly and if he didn’t want us around he could have flown all the way across Magnolia within the hour.

            “We have to hope he’s willing to talk to us.” Lucy confessed, and her optimism from the breakthrough came crumbling down as she recalled the same thing I had.

            “Why else would he have shown up here in the first place?” Erza mumbled, “Really, why would two powerful dragons show up in Magnolia unless they wanted to take Natsu or help us get him back?” This allowed me a little more hope, and Lucy immediately regained her buoyancy.

            “Well… if, you know…” Gajeel started, I had never heard the intense Iron Dragon-Slayer stammer before; “two dragons have already shown up… do you think – do you think that maybe Metalicana will too?”

            We were all silent, only another Dragon-Slayer could understand the incredible loss that those three felt, and neither Natsu nor Wendy were present to deliver the proper comfort.

            As the four of us neared the spot where we had first met him, I began to feel uneasy. I noticed that Erza and Gajeel shared my anxiety; the woman was glancing around us constantly and had one hand tightly on her sword hilt. Gajeel was staring straight ahead but the look on his face made it clear that he understood the precariousness of our situation in going to meet an incredibly renown and formidable dragon. Lucy was far from worried, she even seemed excited with a tiny skip in her step and her fingers pulling on her hair enthusiastically.

            Finally we took the last step and were standing in the very spot from our previous meeting, without hesitation Lucy cupped her hand around her mouth,

            “Igneel! We know that it was you know, can you come out?” all three of us immediately jumped on her, trying to silence her,

            “Wah! What are you guys doing?” she yelled, lying on the ground with Erza pinning her down.

            “You don’t yell at a dragon!” I whisper forcefully, helping both of them up,

            “Well it’s not like we could sneak up on him, I just wanted Igneel to know our intentions.”

            “And what would those be, my dear?” The man we sought fell from a tree and landed gracefully on one foot. He smiled with pointed teeth at Lucy and had one hand in his long coat pocket; the other rested by his side and he had more weight on one foot than the other.  The man’s brilliant golden eyes stared at us and dug into our minds. Even his presence was threatening, it was the feeling that my entire life was in his control and that I would be flicked away on a mere whim.