A Smile In The Embers

A Promise

Time went on. Winter turned to Spring, Spring began it's slow changes into Summer. Lucy's friendship with the boy in the fireplace continued and many a servant within the Mansion came to believe the Young Lady's friend was a ghost. The gem she had revealed the day he'd given it had baffled them for weeks before coming to this decision.

The sudden way they chose to explain the strange occurrences was upsetting for Lucy, aghast at how their smiles turned to humored confusion. Despite keeping it secret from her Father while believing it was a mere game created in her loneliness- even she could read the stares they gave her with ease. Worry, concern: fear.

Lucy knew they believed she was abnormal and the little blonde girl withdrew further into herself, opening up to her happier smiles only during the night as the fire glowed- even in the heat of summer.

"Won't they get mad?" Natsu asked her once, worried the extra heat would have her taken away from the fireplace, but she shook her head, fingers tapping on a newer book she had just begun to read to him.

"It rains so much." She explained, smile not reaching her eyes. "And it's only for a little while so they don't mind." Or dare to tell her otherwise, she thought. Time passed on and she grew a little older day by day- and Natsu soon appeared before her in cleaner clothes and happier complexion.

Well taken care of. The orphanage that had a foyer much like her own, seemed intent to make Natsu a proper little boy before long. His smiles never changed despite the time going by and he still managed to tear holes in his pants or get dirt upon them with each new garment. Horse play, he had called it- the other boys (and his brother) often teased him and small fights would break out. The tales he would tell her always sounded like he was surrounded by bullies, but the smile never faded.

"Nah, they're my friends- sorta." He explained. "Not like you. You're special! But we're all here tryin' to get new parents- and Miss Anna always patches us up after! You should see the Scarf she's been ... err.. Sewing? I dunno what it's called, but she uses these big sticks and-"

"Knitting." Lucy answered for him, smile faltering just slightly. Other children had come to join him, all without parents, but somehow together all the same. It made the hollowness inside her own heart clench just slightly, a small seed of envy growing in the pit of her stomach. "She sounds like a wonderful lady. I wish I could meet her..."

She refused to water that seed, it wasn't Natsu's fault she was stuck, unable to see others. The closest to friends outside of him were the children who sometimes came along with their parents for visitation. Play dates, she had heard them all. All dressed in frills and taught the same as she, but none of them broke the mold of that life, none of them argued it.

They accepted and spoke as if she would one day be their wife. (As her Father only ever let her meet the young sons of these families, never the girls.) It made her wish, quietly, that she would never age.

"You know," Natsu continued, playing with a new tear in his shirt, "Miss Anna looks sorta like you. You even have the same last names! - but when I asked her about having family in a fireplace, she just looked at me funny."

"You dummy!" Lucy giggled, attention falling back on the other as she squinted through the flames at him, "Of course she look at you funny. No one has family in a fireplace!"