Firelight [A Fairy Tail Fanfiction]

Chapter Five

If there's one thing that I doubt I'll ever get used to, it's not being alone in my house.

Father's estate was manned around the clock with maids, servants, a cook, and a tutor so I didn't have to leave to attend public school, but no one ever kept me company the way that my new friends did.

I didn't even call out my spirits on a regular basis, even though Father dubbed it the more... 'lady-like' of the two magics I practice. My "other" magic was pretty much banned after Mom died, but that wasn't really a surprise, since hand-to-hand combat was sincerely frowned upon in my father's circles.

The maids didn't laugh outright when I forgot that my shirt for the day was a pajama shirt, and they didn't comment on my 'weight gain' when I inhaled a sugary treat.

The maids didn't become my friends, they only commented quietly, complimenting my clear skin, my long blonde hair, the practiced grace with which I walked through the halls.

The maids didn't come into my room and watch me sleep, didn't try and draw on my face with a black marker and laugh when they were caught.

The maids never did anything, nothing to ever forge a connection between us.

I might not have been alone, but I was certainly lonely. 

No one saw me as an equal; the maids and butlers all saw me as their superior, the tutors saw me as the young lady growing into her role, and Father saw me as his daughter only in the most basic of senses.

Now, I don't even have to open my eyes to know that I wasn't alone.

Even though I appreciated sleeping in as much as the next girl, it was kind of nice to wake up to the quiet sounds of friends wandering around in my home.

I laid still as I listened to the sounds of someone in my apartment. I laid in my half-asleep state, listening to the whispers from what I can only assume is the kitchen, judging by the high-pitched whispers about breakfast. I was perfectly content to let the two boys help themselves to whatever they wanted from the fridge, but I was jarred awake by the earth-shattering force of a boy belly-flopping onto my stomach.

I guess Happy wasn't content with letting me wake up leisurely, and instead chose to take matters into his own hands, and they were his hands that he dug into my ribs in a violent attempt to tickle me awake.

"Lushy! Breakfast, please! Natsu says he wants pancakes!" He screeched in my ear, squirming around and digging his bony elbow into my gut in his rush to wake me, knocking the wind out of me and sending a shooting pain through my ribs.

I grinned evilly as I planned my small revenge before I woke up and made breakfast for my two guests. I faked a huge yawn, the most theatrical gasp and convulsion and gaping mouth that I could manage with my diaphragm spasming the way it was, and latched onto Happy around his middle and rolled over, squishing him under me with an exaggerated whine and snored the fakest, most rattling snores that I could without hurting my throat. "I'm just so tired I'm just gonna sleep a little longer..."

Happy's reaction was exactly what I was looking for, which was complaining loudly, screeching about my fat squashing and suffocating him, slapping his arms around and kicking his foot pathetically, gasping for air and begging Natsu to save him.

My snores were fast turning to snorts of laughter, and I was just about to release the poor boy from the 'elephant weight squishing all his organs together!' when a single hand bunched the back of my pajama shirt and hoisted me and Happy into the air, my pink quilt sliding onto the floor as Natsu let us dangle in the air.

"Pancakes," was all he said before he dropped us back onto the mattress and sat at the table to wait.

Happy poofed into his smaller feline form in an attempt to escape, but he'd only managed to stick his claws into my jammies, which I had to carefully pick free before advancing on the wasteland of my kitchen.