Phoenix

Books and Nightmares

Laxus was watching Emi read out of the corner of his eye. She was always reading, and it brought him comfort to the otherwise hectic outside world. When she would read, she would make faces at the parts where she was excited or at things that she found interesting. She would bookmark almost every page, saying that she's "saving it" for a day when she was bored.

Emi loved to read, and she especially loved to read about magic. She found the very idea of magic fascinating. She would go to the local library and check out countless books on magic, whether it was research on how to do magic or the history of magic.

Emi knew that she was not a mage, but she yearned to be one. She was somewhat jealous of Laxus. Afterall, he has very powerful magic. A dragon slayer. These wizards were especially interesting to her. She had read multiple books on dragons, and from what she could tell, dragons were very fierce and almost impossible to defeat. The very concept of a wizard being able to defeat a dragon seemed implausible to her, but there was no denying that dragon slayers existed.

Emi looked up from her book.

"Laxus?"

Laxus hummed, signaling that he was listening.

"Was that boy a dragon slayer? With the scarf?"

"Yeah. He's a fire dragon slayer. He's a first generation, so he was raised by an actual dragon unlike me."

Emi's eyes twinkled as they grew wide and a smile formed across her face.

"You mean he saw an actual dragon?!"

Laxus looked at her with an amused expression before looking away and closing his eyes.

"Laxus! Tell me more!"

Laxus kept his eyes closed and forced a smile away to keep a bored expression.

"Laxus! You can't say something like that and not elaborate!"

Laxus crossed his arms and listened to her pleas as he enjoyed the moment.

"Laxus!"

After a while, Emi had given up, focusing again on her book as Laxus stayed quiet. Moments later he heard a soft snoring coming from the white-haired girl. Laxus sighed and made his way over to Emi, carefully picking her up and placing her on her bed.

"Jeez, brat. You can't keep falling asleep while reading. You're going to ruin your books."

Emi stirred a bit, mumbling something that Laxus couldn't make out.

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"Natsu! Why are you sneezing so much?"

"I don't know, Happy, but someone is probably talking about how cool I am!"

"Yeah," Gray started, "or how lame you are."

"What was that?!"

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Laxus ran upstairs to the bedroom as soon as he heard it. Emi was screaming in her sleep again. She did this a lot, and there wasn't any explanation she could give other than a "I don't remember."

Without her memory, she was not able to piece together what she saw. She would become very upset when she realized that she did not know what happened to her prior to the three most recent years. She just remembered wandering around Hargeon, and two years ago, she met Laxus after running into a group from a dark guild.

"Hey brat, wake up."

She made no sign to say that she heard him, so he started shaking her. Her screams turned to whimpers, and tears continued to stream down her face. Laxus went downstairs, grabbed his coat from off the sofa, and made his way back up to where she was sleeping. He carefully placed his coat on top of her and waited for her to calm down.

Neither of them knew why, but Laxus's coat seemed to bring her some comfort. They didn't know if it was the weight or the warmth. All they knew is that it calmed her down in situations like this.

Emi slowly opened her eyes, red from crying. She looked up and saw Laxus sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. They made eye contact and he gave a small smile to her. She looked down, saw the coat, and turned back to him to return the smile.

"Thank you, Laxus."

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"Laxus! Look what I found!"

They were currently back at the gardens, and Emi was running back to the lightning mage to show him a flower that someone had given her.

"This guy told me that I could have it. Isn't it pretty?"

Laxus stared at the flower and then turned away, saying, "Yeah, sure. It's pretty."

Emi picked up on the signals, a smile growing on her face as she took the dragon slayer's hand.

"Come on! The ice cream stand won't be open much longer!"

After getting the ice cream, Emi and Laxus discussed the upcoming job request. Laxus would work as an independent, as he was no longer part of a guild. He could pick up on jobs that he heard of in passing. He took whatever jobs seemed interesting to him and collected the rewards.

Laxus was headed off to a small town just south of Hargeon to help guard a merchant caravan. The leader was afraid that they would be ambushed by bandits, as this was a common occurrence along the trail they were taking. Laxus suggested to them that they take an alternative route if they were so worried, but after insisting that they take this route and that they would pay him a good amount of jewel to help them safely pass, Laxus agreed to the request.

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?"

"Probably really early, so don't bother trying to get up to see me off. Again."

"Hey! I just want to make sure you don't forget something important. Like, uh, a coat?"

Laxus snorted and ruffled her hair as he smirked down at her. She flattened what she could of her now messy hairs and continued to eat her ice cream.

"Hey, Laxus. Can I try some of your ice cream?"

Laxus looked offended at the very idea, saying, "Absolutely not. You have your own."

"Oh come on, you big baby. I'll give you some of mine."