Ruthless Winds and Raging Seas

Chapter 47

Earlier the night before, Gray quickly bottled up a few of Juvia's tears and then the two of them swam toward land. 

"Are you alright?" She asked him as he pulled her out of the water. "You must be exhausted especially since it was your first time swimming on your own and against a strong current no less."

"I am tired but I'll pull through." He said. "You're not hurt anywhere are you?"

"Well..." She tried to use her hair to cover the bruise on her cheek from where Keyes had struck her so many times. But Gray got a glimpse of it when she did and he gently brushed her hair aside so he could get a better look at her face.

"Did he do this to you?" He asked. "That creep who tried to violate you?"

She nodded while looking ashamed.

"They wanted my tears. I couldn't cry so he...He used pain to try to force them out of me. And when that failed he resorted to fear."

"Bastard." He cursed as he moved his hand to caress her bruised cheek. "God forgive me for saying this but I hope he burns in hell."

"Don't say that. You're too good to hope for the suffering of someone else."

"I'm not too good. I'm human which means that sometimes I will hope for things like that. At least for certain horrible, unfeeling, souls who are probably beyond redemption."

"It doesn't matter now. He's gone."

"You're right. He's gone and I promise I'll never let him or anyone like him ever lay so much as one finger on you again."

She looked away from him shyly.

"It still amazes me that you're saying such things to me. Did you really mean it when you said that you loved me?"

Now it was his turn to feel a little shy. 

"Yes...I did."

"This makes me so happy because I love you too. With every fiber of my being. As God as my witness, I've never loved anyone so much. But I'm confused."

"About what?"

"Why do you love me? I am not human and I heard what you said about me back on the ship. I thought that-"

"I didn't mean what I said. What you heard when I was talking to Laxus and Natsu was all a lie."

"If the words you said were not true then why say them? Does your religion not say that it is a sin to lie?"

"Yes it does. I'm sorry Juvia. I lied because I was trying to convince myself that I didn't love you. But as my father used to say, no amount of lies can hide what's really in your heart."

"It's because I'm not human isn't it?"

"Pardon?"

"That's why you were trying to convince yourself not to love me, it's because that I'm not human. It's alright. I don't blame you for it."

"Yes it was because you're not human but not for the reasons you think. I'm not disgusted or repulsed by what you are. And I don't think of you as some animal. You're a woman, the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on. So beautiful that I'm sure you're one of God's own creations."

"Then I do not understand. If you can see me as woman despite that fact that I lack humanity why did you try so hard to avoid having feelings for me?"

"It was because I was afraid that if we had any life together it would only be for so long. When you and I die we have different afterlives. I was afraid of getting my heart broken again, like when I lost my parents. When they died it shattered me and my only comfort was that I'd see them again in heaven. But you wouldn't be able to go to heaven, you'd cease exist once you died and I'd never see you again ever."