I'd Freeze the Heavens for You

Aimless

Gray raced through the maze in a panic. He had one week to finish this cursed labyrinth that even the creator needed three days to complete, and he had no food. If he failed, Lucy would be frozen. Normally cool under pressure, Gray felt nothing but panic now. If it had been someone else, if Natsu had been the one abducted, maybe Gray could have kept calm and thought out a plan. Instead, it was Lucy, and his mind went into a blinding rage the minute Whitehall flew away with her.

Gray turned many corners, not paying attention to Lucy's suggestion on the proper way to escape a hedge maze. He had seen Whitehall and Lucy flying north, and that was where he tried to head. Just another corner ... always, he expected to see clues just around the corner. Instead, he came across dead end after dead end, until suddenly he was back at the beginning.

"What the hell?" he shouted.

He ran in the other direction now, randomly following twists, until he realized he was in another area he had been to, considering his own shoe prints were in the snow.

"Screw this," he growled. "Ice-Make: Ladder!"

A blue circle flashed, and a ladder laid up against the hedge of bloodberry bushes. He began to climb when an annoyingly mocking mechanical voice came through the air.

"Nu-uh-uh! This is your first and only warning. Climbing over, digging under, or destroying the bush walls all count as penalties, and each penalty will take off eight hours of your time for completing Whitehall's Wonderful Winter Maze. Play by the rules, and have a pleasantly fun day."

"Figures," Gray growled. "I gotta sit. It's been an hour at least. I'm going about this all wrong."

Gray walked over to a stone fountain where two corridors intersected in a cross. The fountain was frozen over, but that was fine. If the berries were poisonous, he would bet the water was, too.

Gray sat heavily, only now realizing he was panting from running around for so long. He dropped his head into his hands and yanked at the black strands of hair with a growl of frustration. Just then, the same mocking voice announced:

"You now have six days and twenty-three hours left."

"Is that so?" Gray grumbled wryly. "Good to know I've screwed around for a whole hour. Goddammit!" His frustration turned to worry. A whole hour, and he had no clue what Whitehall was up to, where he went, or what he had planned. Despite himself, Gray shivered as a thousand worst-case scenarios plagued his mind. "Lucy," he whispered. "Just wait for me. God, I hope you're safe."

In a cabin placed in the dead center of the maze, Lucy sat at a table with a steaming cup of tea. She mindlessly stirred in a sugar cube and watched a video lacrima. On its screen was Gray in the maze. She could see the panic in his face, and she worried for him.

"Has he stopped running aimlessly?" a woman asked.

"Yes, looks like he calmed down," Lucy said sadly.

An svelte woman named Wisteria sauntered into the room. She had short and spiky purple hair, a bust that matched Lucy's impressive size, and an impossibly skinny waist that was showed off by jeans so loose, they hung on her hips, and a boyish teeshirt torn short so that it barely covered her breasts. She had already explained to Lucy, she was a servant of Willie Whitehall, the caretaker of this cabin, and her duty was to attend the person carried off to this place to wait while their lover completed the maze. Lucy had spent a long time fiercely denying this whole lover nonsense, but Wisteria seemed not to care. She fixed tea, baked some cookies, and gave Lucy the video lacrima that was tied into cameras stationed all over the maze. This allowed the girlfriend to watch, and it provided Whitehall with his sick entertainment.