Firefall || Fairy Tail

44 : n i g h t m a r e s

8 Months Since Tartaros

She was freezing. It felt so cold that Amber was sure that her blood would crystallize. She looked around, trying to pinpoint where the sudden blizzard had come from. But the more she examined it, the more she began to understand that this sudden chill was man-made. This was someone's magic.

Then a scream ripped through the air.

The sound made her blood stop far more than the frigid temperatures around her. It was older and grown, but it was one that she had heard as a child when the other kids of the village would gang up on the poor Water mage.

"J-Juvia..." Amber mumbled as she started running.

Her fear only grew as another scream pierced the blizzard itself. But this time it didn't belong to her old childhood friend, it belonged to the man she saw as a younger brother.

This time she yelled, "Gray! Juvia!"

There was no response. There weren't even any screams or cries no matter how much she called out into the raging winds.

The flurries began to thin, but it did nothing for her fear. It could only grow when she began to see red smeared across the ice-laden ground. Blood wasn't something that generally affected the Blood mage, it was where her power stemmed from. And soon she had found the source and one of her greatest fears: two bodies laying side-by-side. Juvia and Gray were both face down, a hand reaching for the other as two pools of blood grew around them.

Amber couldn't feel her limbs, but it wasn't from the cold. Her tears clung to her face as they tried to freeze instead of fall. If it was cold enough to freeze her tears, shouldn't it be freezing their blood? Shouldn't it be helping their wounds? Shouldn't they still be alive?

Her lungs stung as her breaths grew shorter and faster. The scene blurred in front of her as the panic completely set in.

It was still a few hours before dawn when Amber sprang out of her bed. Her breath came out ragged as she blinked the sleep from her eyes. Her heart raced, pumping adrenaline through her body.

She swung her legs from under the warmth of her covers, knowing that her nerves weren't going to let her get back to sleep before she had told Wendy and Carla she would meet them at the guild to go on a big job with them and Shelia. Now having been nicknamed the Sky Sisters, she knew that the girls would probably be alright on their own, but it just made her feel better being there in case she was needed.

Slipping a hoodie over her pajama shirt, Amber grabbed her shoes and headed out the door. Her mind bounced between her plans for the day and the dream that had woken her.

The cool morning air felt good on her skin as she let it relax her, walking through the quiet streets of Marguerite. She had only done this a few times since moving to the city, mostly only when she would return home from a job after not wishing to waste the jewel to get a hotel for a couple hours between trains.

'Maybe I'll go grab a tea and muffin or something since I'm up this early.'

A sigh escaped her as she reached the canal, pausing to just watch the water go by. The weather was just beginning to warm up with spring approaching. It only pushed her thoughts back to the Water mage she had dreamed about. Her mind flipping back to those events that had played out in sleep.

"You're up awfully early."

The sudden voice caused a gasp to lodge in Amber's throat as she turned to see a familiar white-haired male walking toward her along the water's edge. She released the captured gasp as a sigh as Lyon closed the distance to her, his hands causally in his pockets.