Icy Love~A Fairy Tail GraLu Fan-Fic

A Visit to Quatro Cerberus

Lucy's POV

There weren't a lot of guilds left that we were familiar with. When that realization hit, I shot a worried glance at Aramantha. What if we didn't end up finding her brother? What would we do then? I don't think I would be able to bear with her disappointed face. After all, her brother clearly meant so much to her.

As if reading my mind, Gray slowly took my hand and squeezed it, "it'll be fine. Everything'll work out somehow."

Natsu just happened to glance over at the moment, and saw our joined hands. He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

Once upon a time, if he had saw Gray and I holding hands, I would've automatically taken my hand away. I guess that was when I had liked Natsu. Before he had shown a clear preference towards Lisanna than towards me.

But now, it somehow didn't bother me anymore. I became more used to Gray's familiar ways of reassuring me. He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking of, and always made me feel better. There was just something about him that I failed to see in Natsu.

"You okay?" Gray asked in a low voice. I nodded and flickered a smile at him.

"What if Aramantha never finds her brother?" I added after a while of walking in silence. Aramantha was at the back of the group, and we were at the head, so I had no fear of her overhearing. Even so, I had said it quietly.

"Then she'll have to accept it. Perhaps there are just some things that were never meant to work out," Gray replied simply.

I snuck a sideways glance at him, but he didn't seem saddened in any way. But the way that he said those words suggested that he was half talking about his past experiences as well.

"You're right," I agreed, knowing that he would tell me what he meant in all due time.

"But in the meantime, we should enjoy this. I mean, we're travelling to different guilds, and meeting all of our past - and current - comrades," Gray continued on a more positive note.

"You're right," I agreed once more.

"Where are we going to next?" Aramantha asked, her voice ringing out clearly.

"The closest guild right now is Quatro Cerberus. So I guess we'll go there," Erza replied smoothly.

"Quatro Cerberus? You think her brother joined that guild?" Natsu echoed, with a hint of a laugh in his tone. He clearly still hadn't forgotten about the renaming of their guild during the magic tournament.

"Is your brother muscular? Or is he eccentric? Does he love dog collars?" Happy fired questions at Aramantha about the top things that came into his head when that guild was mentioned.

"Um...........no, I don't think so," Aramantha replied, clearly alarmed by the description of that guild.

"Don't worry, the guild members aren't bad. They're just very...........they're one of a kind," Wendy settled for the nicest explanation.

"Right.........." Aramantha muttered.

"The leader of that guild was once in Fairy Tail," Carla informed Aramantha.

"That's interesting," Aramantha replied, sounding genuinely curious.

"We'll most likely meet him. He always loved greeting guests," Erza added on.

We walked on for a while in silence, with the occasional chatter of Happy and Carla talking about fish (well, Happy was talking about fish. Carla was shooting him tired glances, like she couldn't believe that he was talking about fish at a time like this).