The Hunt

1~Dancing in Paris

It was nearing the afternoon, soon enough you would hear the echoes of bells from Notre Dome. "Looks like someone is up early," said a nimble teenage girl, her hair was blue and shorter than most girls had it. She was talking to one of the main trouble makers, he was a brawn of a man with unkempt black hair and tired red eyes. Dressed in noting but black and metallic piercings.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" he asked confusingly, she didn't give an answer, she just giggled at his cluelessness, "yeah...well whatever," he said, a dark blush covering hid tan cheeks.

"Anyways, Gajeel, I just came to ask if you knew where Erza ran off too? Master looks like he is about to blow a vessel, again," she giggled.

"Hmm?" Another voice entered the fray, their attention went to a beautiful silver haired maiden doing her morning chores, "what did you say Levy? are you looking for Erza?" she asked, a smile always gracing her delicate features.

"Oh hey Mira," Levy said, "yeah, she keeps on disappearing, Master is loosing his mind just looking for her," she said, "and she skipped out on all her morning chores, again."

"Well, knowing Erza and Natsu they probably sneaked out to the streets, you can always suspect that from those two troublemakers," Mira said, she left to finish her chores, leaving the two to their imagination.

...

The young debutante sat boringly in her carriage, the crooked road made it hard for the ride to be comfortable. "Madame," her right hand maid called her, "are you excited to meet you fiancée? I know I would be if I were you."

"Well I do hope he isn't some boorish man," she said as her eyes gazed out to the landscape of Paris, "to think I would be engaged to a man who I have never met, the idea repulses me," she said bluntly.

"Well Madame Lucy, you know very well of your job, your father was very strict about what you were supposed to do," the maid said.

Lucy's eyes darted from the window to her friend, "Juvia, if you had a chance to be free, what would you do?" she asked, curiosity filled her imagination.

Juvia thought long an hard. Her family had been indebt to the luxurious Heartfillia family for generations, the thought of freedom evaded her, "well if I really had to choose, I would really like to go to school," she said.

"I see, a very admirable dream," Lucy applauded, "if it were me, I would rather want to travel the world, in the books that I have read there are so many exotic places that have gone unexplored," she said with a dreamy look upon her eyes.

"Well I have heard that the first prince is an honorable young man. He can play the piano, violin, and guitar, he is also skilled in the waltz and many other dancing arts, he is also a fine scholar who is very well educated," Juvia said, listing all the facts that she had heard from other maids back at the manor, "although one things does stand that he was looking for a bride for many years already, and all attempts have so far failed," she said.

"That's the problem with royals," Lucy said as her gaze was drawn back to the cityscape, as they rode by she saw many shops opening up to the morning, "they can't be picky, most of them get engaged at the tender age of twelve or thirteen, sometimes when they are newborns, but the prince himself is already in his mid-twenties and still has not been spoken for, I guess marrying me will be his desperate attempt to seal the deal, how pitiful," Lucy murmured on.

"Madame, I'm sure that is not the-" Before the young maiden could finish her words she was briefly interrupted by the coachman.

"We have arrived at the castle Madame Lucille," he hollered.