Sugar & Spice | jerza

Of Rooks & Rogues

"Luce, we're back," Gray yelled, kicking the door to the small house open. "and we brought you a late birthday present! Your favorite murderer!"

"L-Lucy?" Natsu coughed, looking up at Gray with wide eyes.

"Aw, don't look at me like that," the raven-haired boy grumbled, throwing the convicted man onto the sofa. "I'm just doing this for my roommate."

"Lucy?" Jellal called, growing impatient. The house was as silent as a wintry day, and just as lonely too. "Erza?"

The porch door slammed open and Lucy entered the house, panting. Leaves were strewn across her hair and her cheeks were a flushed pink. She was so distraught it took her a while to notice the salmon-haired boy waiting for her obediently on the sofa.

"What happened?" Gray and Jellal demanded at the same time. "Don't tell me it was Acnologia?!"

"I'd like to know," Lucy huffed, ignoring Gray and marching up to Jellal. "why you lied to her about taking her home."

"Erza?" Jellal began, looking incredulously mad. "I never lied! What did that freak tell you?"

"She's not a freak, you bastard!" she yelled, shoving him hard with her shoulder. "She was an innocent girl who trusted you to take her home! Why didn't you tell her you were planning on making her the Red Queen?"

"You told her?" Jellal shouted. His eyes flashed with anger. "You had no right to-"

"What is going on?" Natsu groaned, holding his head. "You two are worse than Queen Flare..."

"I had every right to!" Lucy continued, standing on her toes so she could meet his gaze squarely. "You betrayed her! She trusted you, liked you even, and you betrayed her!"

"Just tell me where she is," the boy whispered venomously. 

"She's gone," Lucy said, falling back on her heels. Her face clouded with exhaustion and regret. "She left an hour ago."

~ ~ ~

The Kingdom of Hearts was just a speck from where she stood now. The woods ahead seemed to go on for eternity, paving a dark, mysterious maze-like path ahead. She was glad the road was straight, though. There were no decisions to be made- just forward, towards home, or backward toward heartbreak.

The second part of the woods seemed barren except for the multicolored trees: pink, blue, black, and orange. Sometimes she swore a pair of violet eyes were staring down at her from up above, but every time she met the piercing look with her own, it faded away into the darkness. It couldn't be Happy, she thought, because Happy had brown eyes. Were there others like Happy?

"Hello, again," Happy greeted, as if he had heard Erza think his name.

"Hello," Erza said glumly. The cat nestled atop Erza's hair and curled into a tight ball. 

"You have no friends," the cat commented. "How sad."

"Sad," Erza agreed, forcing herself to look straight, and not back. It was too late to turn around. Too late, too late, too late.

"I'm hungry," Happy crooned, batting his paw at a shorter strand of Erza's scarlet hair. "Aren't you?"

"Very." She had given up trying to pretend to be a warrior. She was hopelessly lost.

"I know a place where you can eat," the blue cat continued. "There are delicious fish at that place."

Erza wasn't particular toward fish, but she figured the scaly seafood was better than having nothing in her stomach. She wondered what her mother was making for lunch back at home. Probably grilled cheese. Kagura loved grilled cheese.

Her stomach rumbled with agreement.

Erza could sense Happy's wide grin at the sound. "Come on, then. We must get food into that belly of yours. Take that path on the right." His tail flicked toward the general direction.

"But there is no path that-"

Sure enough, a path leading right began to flicker into existence. Not even bothering to ponder about how the impossible had just happened, yet again, Erza strayed off the straight path in search of food.

~ ~ ~

"I'm going with you," Lucy argued.

"No, you have to take Natsu far away from Hearts," Jellal insisted. "Do you want your soulmate to die?"

Lucy laughed at that. "Soulmate? Soulmate?  Last time I checked, the great Fernandes didn't believe in such silly nonsense like that!"

"Just do it," Jellal muttered. "Erza's my problem. I'll deal with her."

"And what am I? Chopped liver?" Gray asked, voice rising with irritation.

"Precisely," Natsu said, bobbing his head good-naturedly.

"Oh, shut up," the boy retorted.

~ ~ ~

"Tell me about Chess," said Erza.

"What about?"

"The people of Chess."

"They're boisterous people, proud of their respected teams. The White soldiers are proud, the Red soldiers are proud. And there's always fighting, terribly bloody. It's an awful place to vacation. I suggest places like Lake Kireina for vacation, so much fish..."

"I'm not planning on vacationing here anytime soon," Erza pointed out. "Fiore is a terrible place and I plan on leaving as soon as possible."

"I agree," Happy replied. "Fiore is a terribly mad, mad place. We're all mad here. You may have noticed I'm not all there myself."

"Is that pun?" Erza asked, smiling for the first time in what felt like centuries. Happy waved a paw, making it wink in and out of reality.

"Perhaps. Now, you want to hear about the people of Chess, do you? Well, there are rankings. Humans are so odd. They always find the need to rank themselves, you know?"

The path was beginning to widen as it led to a shady clearing with murky water. Definitely not a place to vacation in Erza's book.

"There's a queen- those are the real warriors. The king is a mere object- something each side owns and lives to protect. There are pawns- young soldiers. They're the weakest, but once they travel across their home territory and to the other end of enemy territory- they level up.

"Into?"

"A rook, a bishop, or a knight."

"Being a knight sounds cool," the girl murmured dreamily. "Do you get to ride a horse? I've always wanted to ride a horse!"

"Horses are horrid creatures," Happy said, in which Erza replied by making a face.

"Knights have horses so they can jump over others," the cat said at last. "Bishops are good at sneaking by others, and taking shortcuts. And rooks are the speediest. They wear shoes that let them zip across Chess."

Jellal's shoes, his special shoes. The white one's. He was a rook, and hadn't told her. Her stomach flipped queasily. 

"But in the game of chess, I thought pawns could also become queens-"

"Game?" Happy asked, leaping off of her head and floating toward the murky water. "Chess isn't a game. It's the name of a messed up war kingdom. But yes- pawns can become queens. Rarely. They have to be strong, resilient, witty- and willing to sacrifice themselves for the king."

"Now watch this," the cat said, landing near the lake on two legs. "You wait till a fish jumps out and..." A yellow and blue fish leaped out, its wings flapping frantically. "...and grab it and bite it!"

"You have to cook it first," Erza sighed. "I don't think my stomach can handle raw fish."

"Can it handle raw dragon?" Happy asked out of the blue. He dropped his fish and took a step back. "'Cause that's one big dragon behind you."

Erza slowly turned around. Nothing was behind her but the endless path and the trees surrounding it.

"Happy?" she asked, voice trembling. The cat had vanished.