Ruthless Winds and Raging Seas

Chapter 27

It was still dark out when the Lucy awoke to hear screaming. It was Erza, she was tossing and turning on her cot, screaming in terror yet she was still asleep.

"No! Stop! I won't go back with you! I won't! You can't make me!" She screamed.

"Erza what's wrong?" Lucy asked.

The redhead didn't respond. She only continued to toss and turn, being tormented by her nightmares. Lucy quickly took hold of Erza's shoulders and shook her til she woke.

"Erza are you alright?" She asked.

"I... What's happening?"

"I think you were having a nightmare. You were screaming and shaking. Are you going to be okay?"

"I'm sorry for disturbing you." Erza apologized. "Sometimes these nightmares get out of hand."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No...Please I don't want to burden you."

"Don't be silly it's not a burden when we're friends."

"We're friends?"

"Of course and friends are usually there to comfort each other when they're scared or sad."

"Well...If it really isn't any trouble...The nightmare I was having was about those pirates who had forced me into slavery so many years ago. I dreamt that they had found me and that they were going to make me a slave again."

"No wonder you were so frightened."

"That's my worst fear. That somehow I'll end up right back where I started only this time I won't ever escape."

"You don't have to be so scared of that happening. I don't think that Natsu or Gray would ever let that happen to you again."

"They wouldn't." She admitted. "They would both rather die than see me return to that life. Which brings me something I fear more than becoming a slave again..."

"What's that?"

"Seeing either one of them die for me. I couldn't live myself if they ever did that."

"If you don't mind me asking..." Lucy started. "How did you escape those pirates?"

Erza was so still and quiet when Lucy asked her that but eventually she did answer.

"It was years ago...A boy and I were both being held prisoner, we attempted to escape the ship but we were caught. The captain decided to set an example by having me killed. I was taken somewhere private so he could kill me but he was drunk and his back was turned, I don't know what came over me but I just grabbed his sword and took his lifeboat. The captain sent some of his men after me, I hid in the church. That's where Pastor Makarov found me."

"What happened to the boy?"

Erza bit back her tears.

"I wanted to go back for him. I wanted to go back for him so badly but I was so hungry, so weak, so hurt, I passed out and I became very ill. By the time I had recovered the ship was long gone and so was he."

"Erza...You don't blame yourself for what happened to that poor boy do you?" When Erza didn't respond, Lucy knew the answer. "It's not your fault. You were a child, you were sick and weak. There was nothing you could've done."

"That's what Natsu, Gray, and Makarov have been telling me for years. I want to believe that it isn't my fault, that there was nothing I could do, but I just can't."

"Did you ever find out what happened to him?"

"I saw him...In the market sometime ago." She wept. "He got away...He got away."

"Then there's no reason for you to hold this guilt toward yourself. He escaped, he's alright."

"I can't face him! Because of me he grew up in abuse and slavery, knowing nothing but cruelty while I grew up loved and cared for by a good man. He comforted me during that dark time, he gave me hope, he protected me, and I...I abandoned him. I'll never forgive myself for that and I know that he'll never forgive me either."

Erza broke down and sobbed. Lucy held her and comforted her as she cried. She thought it was so strange how people often blamed themselves for things that were beyond their control.

"You don't know if he'll never forgive you. In fact he may not even blame you for what happened. I bet if you would just talk to him he would be so relieved that you've turned out okay."

"No. No I don't deserve to see him again. I just...I just wish that I hadn't of passed out that night! That I had gone back for him!"

"Hey what's going on?" Natsu asked entering the room. He looked down at Erza who was crying so very hard. "Oh no...She had the nightmare again."

He went to the scarlet haired woman who was crying, wiped away her tears, and helped her back into bed. She fell back asleep in no time. 

"She's had nightmares like these before?" Lucy asked him.

"Ever since she was ten years old and she first escaped that hell hole of a ship. Gray and I would love to kill everyone of those bastards who tortured her."

"How could anyone be so cruel as to enslave and torture a child?"

"There are people in this world who are that cruel Lucy. Everyone on this ship aside from you is a personal witness to such evil. It was evil like that...That took my father from me."

"Took?...You mean your father didn't just die he was..." She trailed off.

"Killed? Yes. He was killed...Right in front of me just like Gray's parents were killed right in front of him."

"I'm so sorry."

"You know you have no idea how lucky you are that you haven't seen someone you love killed. It's so... Horrifying...You just sit there, watching it happen and wondering why this is happening? Your head is screaming at you to do something but it's like you can't move. It's like the fear and heartbreak is keeping you glued to the floor."

He was trembling.

"But at least...At least my father got to see me grow up...At least I got to say goodbye...Gray...Gray was still just a little kid when he lost his mother and father and he didn't even get to say goodbye...And I...I was never abused like Erza was, hell she doesn't even know who her parents are so what reason do I have to cry....I really shouldn't be so upset about my father's death."

He struggling not to cry. Lucy embraced him just as she had done to Erza.

"Just because you didn't suffer in the same way they did doesn't mean you're not allowed to cry about the things you suffered through."

"I haven't suffered as nearly as much as they have. I don't deserve to cry...At least not in front of them."

"Then why don't you cry in front of me?" She suggested. "Whenever you want to cry about your father or anything else that makes you sad just let me know, we'll go somewhere private, and you can just cry all you want."

"That's sweet but... I don't want to cry...I don't like to cry..."

"But sometimes when the pain is too much to hold in...You have to cry. You just have to let it all out."

Natsu didn't go to pieces crying like Erza had but he did allow a few years to slip down from his eyes and down his cheeks as Lucy held him.