Gaining Courage: The Search for the Lost Keys (a Fairytail Galu story)

Chapter Ten: A Royal Encounter

Story So Far: Lucy Heartfilia of Fairy Tail has set off alone in search of Aquarius' key. After traveling home and finding a clue to her old friend's whereabouts  Lucy took up an S-Class quest to search for a lost temple and a powerful healing staff. With a visit to Crocus and the Great Library Lucy encounters an old friend of Gray's and is attacked by a group of bandits. Once defeated Lucy is left with the cryptic name of Rowena as her only lead. Lucy doesn't yet know which is she now in danger from her search for the staff or Aquarius.

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Lucy POV:

Oh was I happy to get out of there and see sunlight at last. I stretched and yawned as I wandered down one of Crocus' main streets accompanied by Aries who had been invited to spend the day with me. I couldn't help but think that days spent indoors with few windows will get to you after a while. I couldn't believe it had taken me over a week to get everything I needed. I knew if Pauz had been able to stick around after the first day things would have been faster but sadly for me work had called and we'd had to say goodbye. Slowly making our way back to the inn, we were just about to turn off the main thoroughfare when I spotted something interesting: a new magic shop. It must have only recently opened as the signs were still up announcing its presence.

"Aries, do you mind if we take a quick detour?"

Gesturing to the large brightly lit sign to the right of us I waited for her to look. The store looked new in design, full of colourful lights and with a magic wheel colours system changing the stores logo design constantly.

"Of course not Lucy-sama I'm sorry."

Wandering closer, I figured we might as well take a look as you never know when you will find something useful. Entering the store, I decided to start at the back and make our way slowly to the front counter. The shop was quite large with the counter to the left of the entrance and different magic sections running off towards the back of the store. Nothing seemed to be placed in a specific order though everything was grouped up into sections depending on type of magic. Not surprisingly I found myself enjoying the experience of showing Aries all the new and wondrous magic items that were for sale; it turned out some Aries had heard of, while others she hadn't ever seen before.

Some of things I saw brought up memories of my friends and guild mates. There were some magic swords and decks of magic cards; there were even several weird totem dolls that reminded me of Bickslow's babies. The worst though had to be when we came to the magic texts section and I saw at a glance several books on ancient languages and even one on script magic. I couldn't help but think that Levy would have loved this place. Pushing the thought straight back out of my mind to the depths of hell where it belonged, I quickly walked away and made my way resolutely to the front of the store instead before I could start crying. Refocusing I realised I hadn't seen the main reason why we came into the store. Walking up to the counter I waited as the clerk finished serving another customer before I spoke.

"Excuse me I'd like to enquire about any possible celestial gate keys you might have in stock."

After a few comments about their rarity and how there was not much call for them nowadays the clerk finally brought out a chest containing five silver keys. I couldn't help but admire the celestial keys on offer. If it was possible I would have purchase them all, even the duplicate copies I could see of Plue and Lyra. It was always a tug of war lately, on one hand the spirits would be safe with me but on the other I would be limiting a good mage's ability to find friends. Glancing at the clerk I just remembered something I was going to ask.

"By any chance you wouldn't happen to have any gold keys would you?"

Shaking his head the clerk gestured to the chest,