Twinkling Stars

Chapter I - The Dragneel Family

A lot of you are wondering what happened to Erza and Natsu. Well, let's see what their Happily Ever After entailed, shall we?

The sound of running water was the only noise in the otherwise silent house. The running water was coming from the kitchen faucet, where a young woman stood washing dishes from breakfast.

She had long red hair, actually scarlet, that reached her lower back. Her warm brown eyes were focused on her task as she put the last of the dishes on the drying rack and wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing.

Hearing a shout outside, the woman discarded her apron and walked to the patio doors that were still open and led to the backyard of her house. She leaned against the frame of the door and smiled at the scene she witnessed.

A ten-year-old boy was roughhousing with an older man, both with huge grins on their faces. The man had spikey pink hair with onyx eyes and tanned skin. A white scarf with a scale pattern was wrapped around his neck.

The child also had spikey hair, although his hair was mostly red with a few pink strands. He had brown eyes with tanned skin, and his canines were peaking out of the corner of his mouth as he grinned.

The two were Natsu and Henry Dragneel, the woman's husband and son.

It was Natsu who noticed her first. "Erza!" he called out, still grinning.

Henry turned at his father's call and noticed his mother standing there. "Mom!" he shouted. "C'mon, come play with us!"

Erza Dragneel chuckled. "You both know we have to head to the guild soon," she reminded her son, much to his displeasure.

"Aw, man!" Henry stamped his foot. "I almost had dad, too."

Natsu chuckled before reaching out to ruffle his son's hair. "Maybe in the next ten years," he teased, laughing even harder when Henry's pout exaggerated.

Erza shook her head in amusement as the two started to walk towards the door. Satisfied that they were on their way to getting ready to go, the redhead left her spot next to the patio doors and made her way deeper inside her house towards the front door so she could also get ready.

Who would've thought that this is where my path in life would take me?

As Erza began to put on her shoes, her mind wandered to the last twenty years of her life.

Even now, all these years later, she was humiliated and mortified at how she handled the news about her friends, Jellal and Lucy, being friends, let alone about them entering a romantic relationship.

She had been too focused on what she and Jellal could've been, too concentrated on the past, that she wasn't able to let go so the both of them could heal.

It hadn't truly hit her until Erza and Lucy had sparred (a fight, who was she kidding) all those years ago. Her rage had taken control, and she was about to hurt, arguably, her best friend—practically her sister. All over a guy.

Remembering how Jellal moved to protect Lucy from her still made her stomach churn unpleasantly, even after all these years.

As she finished lacing up her shoes and moved to grab her son's scarf for when he finally finished getting dressed, Erza's mind flashed back to that night.

~Flashback~

In one of the rooms of Fairy Hills sat a young woman with scarlet hair.

On top of her bed with her legs crossed, Erza stared straight ahead at the wall with unseeing eyes.

It was several hours after her fight with Lucy, and the rot had yet to leave her soul. She knew that Lucy, as well as the rest of their friends (were they her friends anymore?), were at the guild, but she couldn't face them.