Tempest. // gruvia au

3

Gray

     That shoddy door scraped against the shoddy floorboards, shaking the shoddy cottage.

    The shoddy door handle came flying off in his grip as Gray closed the wooden door behind him.

   This place, it was quite shoddy, you see.

    "Juvia finds this scent comforting. Sea salt and driftwood."

    "Oh, yeah?" Gray muttered absently,  not really paying attention. He held up the broken door knob in his fist.

    Gray had brought Juvia back to Macarov's cottage, hoping that maybe the old man could make sense of things. If Macarov's tales we're true, he had lived in the area since his birth, -which, judging by his wrinkles, Gray figures must be for centuries- and has given his blessings to every birth the village has ever seen since.

    Maybe Macarov will recognise her, and know where to return the delerious girl.

    Gray would use the adjective delirious, because, not only was her behaviour strange, but because Juvia seemed completely convinced that Gray was her lover whom she had known for ages.

     Or, at least, until Gray reminded her for the fiftieth time that he was, in fact, not her 'darling' and her eyes filled with bitter dissapointment.

      Maybe she's a widow, and I look like her husband or something. Poor girl.

      Although, Juvia looked to young to really be married.

       Juvia raised her eyebrows at the doorknob in Gray's outstretched arm.
"Why do you take that object off the door?" She then squinted as she tapped the wooden thing, fingers tracing the lines in the wood which marked the life span of the tree it once was.

      "I didn't. It fell off. This house is practically galling apart." Gray placed the knob on a side table to his right, knocking over a candle with his rough, jerky movements.

      Juvia flinched as it came crashing on the floor. "So this is what a man made cave is called, a house? Juvia has never been in one before. She is quite curious."

       Oh yes, that is also what makes me want to use the adjective delusional on her.

      Although, with how tattered her clothes looked, it wasn't hard to believe that she had spent more than a few nights in the bare elements. She wasn't even in a proper kimono, the custom clothes for the Yubikiri region.

      Gray ignored her last question. "Those clothes, they're not from any regions I've travelled to. And I've been all around the continent."

   Juvia

       Juvia looked down at her short dress, heat crawling up her neck as she noticed how raggedy she looked. The soft grey silk she was swathed in was now wet, dirty, and frayed on all ends. Her bate legs were covered in cuts and bruises from tracking through brush, and dark crescent moons under her eyes emphasized her exhaustion.

    Formerly a ruling Goddess, and having been lavished in poetic words about her beauty for many years, she now felt like she was stripped of all pride.

    Self-consciously, she gripped the only pretty thing adorning her; an amethyst necklace, ice cold to the touch.

    Maybe I can prove my identity this way. If I show him the necklace...

    Juvia jumped as she heard a loud creaking noise from above her. Squinting in the dimly lit room, she quickly glanced up, half expecting something to fall from the ceiling of the human cave.