Golden Daffodils and Silver Lilies

Chapter 4

Several months later Gray was outside trying out a new magic trick Erza had taught him. He had just gathered the right ingredients and was about to speak the chant when he spotted a dove perched on a tree next to his house. He wanted a closer look a the bird so he tried to grab it. But it flew away from him, he followed it into the fields, and he was led right over to Hector Lockser's farm. The dove he was chasing went into a small cote and outside the cote was little Juvia feeding all the other doves. 

Since the locusts had destroyed his crops, Hector could now afford very little. The only animals he could keep were two sheep and cote full of doves. His cattle, pigs, and chickens he had to sell in order to buy medicine for his wife when she was ill and to prevent his daughter from contracting the same illness. While his sacrifices were in vain for his wife Dianne, at least his daughter Juvia was healthy and strong. And because she was such a gentle child, he assigned her to be shepherdess to the sheep and to tend to the doves which she enjoyed greatly.

"Breakfast time, everybody up." She called cheerfully. 

She began tossing dried corn and hay out for the doves and sheep to eat on. 

"Now don't any of you be greedy." She said. "Make sure there's enough for everyone."

Gray quietly watched Juvia do her chores and did not make his presence known. He was fascinated with how happy she was. He didn't think anyone could recover from losing their mother if they had any memory of her. He knew for sure that if his mother were to pass away now, he would have spent years feeling sad. This girl on the other had a smile on her face and a light step to her.

Juvia then picked up a bucket and went to fetch water from the nearby well. Another girl stepped out from the farm house and she had a nasty smirk on her face. A smirk that Gray did not like, and as Juvia was walking back inside the house, the rotten girl tripped her. Juvia fell down and dropped the bucket which spilled all the water inside. 

"Mother! Mother!" The other girl cried. "Juvia spilled the water!"

At once a woman who was just as nasty as her daughter came out of the house. Her very presence made Juvia tremble.

"You ungrateful wretch!" She screamed. "Here you poor sister is nearly dying for a cool drop of water and you can't even do that little thing!"

"I'm sorry." Juvia apologized. "I didn't mean to."

"You're such a blockhead!" The girl laughed.

"As punishment you'll spin the wool today." The woman declared.

"But I have never spun before." Juvia said. "Can you teach me?"

"You can learn it yourself, can't you? Or are you useless? If you can't work that you can stay here! Now go!"

Juvia did as the woman requested. She made no fuss or further objection. But Gray did not believe that mother and daughter should go unpunished for their behavior. 

"Time to try out my new trick." He thought deviously. 

With pollen in one hand and pebbles in another, he brought them together and whispered the words Erza had taught him to speak. Then he opened his firsts and blew, from his fingers came a swarm of honeybees. Erza had taught him this trick because bees had become scarce and the flowers were in desperate need of pollination. Although in that moment he thought, what harm in having the insects serve a little justice while they're saving the flowers?

"Bees!" The woman and her daughter screamed when the swarm surrounded them.

"Keep them away from me Mother!" The girl shrieked.