Compulsive

Chapter 23

Lucy sat back in the sand, brown eyes peering at all of her hard work so far. She'd been working on this for hours—ever since everyone came out to the beach after breakfast—and she fully intended to complete it.

Since she'd never been to the beach before, Lucy wanted to maximize her beach day fun as much as possible. So, she set out to do something she'd only ever seen in movies: make a sandcastle. Being the typical nerd she was, she set out to do something absolutely spectacular; she wasn't gonna waste her time and build a lame little thing. She wanted it to be magnificent.

At first, Natsu grudgingly came along with her, grumbling about how boring building a sandcastle was. Still, he went to the beach shack a little ways down the shore and brought back a couple buckets for Lucy. When she ordered him to go fill the buckets, he obeyed. When he returned and Lucy mentioned that she needed wet sand, not dry sand, Natsu grumbled under his breath once again, dumped all of the sand out, and headed back towards the shore.

After a while, Lucy set him free. Everyone was playing pass with a football in the water and she could tell Natsu was itching to join them; she sighed, told him to go have fun, and that she'd catch up as soon as she was finished. Besides, how long could it take? It was just a sandcastle.

Of course, when Lucy was nowhere close to being finished her magnificent castle four hours later, she'd begun to regret this entire endeavor. Everyone else was splashing around in the water having fun, and she was stuck on the hot beach, sweaty and grimy, covered in sand.

Still, she pushed on, refusing to give up. This was her goal, after all, and she absolutely refused to lose. Maybe it was because she'd never been to the beach and didn't want to miss a great opportunity. Or maybe it was because she was a stubborn bitch. Either or.

She filled bucket after bucket with went sand, hauling it back to her workstation and unloading it. By the time she'd finished building the body of the castle, she'd filled and unloaded probably 100 bucket loads; the castle was absolutely huge. Lucy let out a sigh, plopping herself down on the sand, preparing herself for the next phase of work.

Lucy grabbed a butter knife she'd snatched from her hotel room and began to carve into the large blocks of sand. Luckily, she was pretty creative and artsy, so this wasn't too hard for her—but it was a painstakingly slow process. Each big, heavy block had to be carved to perfection. The blocks down below were simply fortitude, but as she got higher up, she began to carve them into pointed towers.

Once she'd completed building the overall body, Lucy began to add details. Windows, doors. A large drawbridge that was lowered down and a gate on the main entrance. She notched in little tiny lines all over the entire castle—this alone took her an hour and a half—so that it looked like it were made of tiny bricks.

After that, Lucy began to dig a moat around her castle; she went back to the beach shack and asked if they had any plastic tarp left over from shipments. The man gave her some, mentioning it came in with a shipment of icecream, and Lucy happily made her way back to her workstation.

She laid the tarp down into the moat, cutting it so it didn't stick out. Then, she worked on filling buckets with water, hauling them back to her castle and pouring it in the moat. The tarp prevented the water from draining back into the sand, so it stayed in the moat and looked nice.

Lucy, sweaty and hot, sat back and gave her castle a once over. Beyond the castle, she could see everyone—even Juvia!—playing in the water, splashing around. Everyone was laughing, smiling. It made Lucy happy, seeing all her friends enjoying themselves.

Turning her attention back to the castle, Lucy realized it was missing something. She took her knife, carving in a little princess peeking out of a window on the tallest tower. Lucy then went to the shore, filled one last bucket with wet sand, and hauled it back to her masterpiece. She laid one large slab down, molding it on top of one of the towers; she carved it into a fierce dragon. Then, she put a much smaller slab of wet sand on the drawbridge of the castle, carving it into a little prince with a sword.