#and soon learning the pain and grief and price of victory. seeing those same brothers fall and die and scream in agony

[starlightartemis]

i am once again feeling unwell over clone troopers

[thestrangest-doll-inthe-valley]

I guess I can finally start sharing the Naruto stories I wrote since I didn’t get picked for the fanzine… man, they really are quite blunt. Also, I wish they would just give notes on how to improve for next time… This is the third or fourth time I’ve applied for any fanzine and been rejected without any notes and that’s the one thing I would really appreciate is some notes on how to make my work more appealing and competitive…

Anyway, those of you who are in the Naruto fandom and like my stories can look forward to some posts, including the piece that I’m most proud of despite its rejection from the fanzine: Meteor Shower, which was inspired by Cavetown’s song of the same name. See below for a teaser:

“Naruto was silent as he realized this reunion wasn’t going well before he responded as the wheezing picked up again, “I… I’m sorry… I just… I wanted to protect you like you had protected me all these years....”

Sasuke wanted to demand what Naruto was referring to. He’d been missing from the village for years prior to his recent return after watching Naruto go from victorious to victim trying to save him, the bratty useless Uchiha heir that couldn’t even be bothered to learn the truth about his family until it was almost too late. If it weren’t for the boy with the sun shaped birthmark on his right hand, Sasuke would’ve killed his own brother over a lie told by their own village leaders and perpetuated by the older Uchiha. He wasn’t about to let Naruto throw his life away for a bitter traitor acting on selfish impulses and false narratives….

“Sasuke didn’t demand to know. He silently placed the oxygen tubing over Naruto’s head and situated it into his nostrils. Before he could pull back, the blonde had interlaced the fingers on their birthmarked hands. The familiar warmth that only came when they laced their marked hands together radiated through every nerve in their fingers, traveling up their palms, through their wrists and along their arms to reach their hearts and awaken the otherwise dormant moths in their stomachs…

““Go. You shouldn’t have risked your life by coming here,” Sasuke bluntly and immediately responded, wishing it sounded more gentle and concerned than the icy disdain that echoed in his words. “Use the damn door this time.”

Naruto tried to hide how crestfallen he was, he really did. He didn’t do a good enough job since he saw the flash of guilt and worry on Sasuke’s face as they slipped through the house to the front door. Once Naruto was gone, Sasuke crept back to his room like an apparition that was haunted by the place it was cursed to roam. He let the tears fall as he passed the threshold. With no thought or sense left, only feelings left by the facts of the situation they were in, Sasuke found himself spiraling into a grief stricken rage that left him destroying mementos of his time away from the village until all that was left was memorabilia of the times when he was just a stupid, self- serving, angry kid that bonded with the number one knuckle head over head-strong goals and peculiar, perfectly shaped birthmarks on opposite hands as if they were meant to intwine like yin and yang. He became aware of his volume, both from his wails of unspeakable woe and the destruction of the biggest regrets of his past, when Itachi came rushing in to console him as Sasuke’s eyes shone red with a newly evolved sharingan betraying just how much agony burdened his weary soul and soon to shatter heart.

“Three days,” was all Sasuke could muster as he allowed himself to collapse into his brother’s arms as they both sank to the floor. Itachi felt a devastating pain in his chest that he had hoped would never return as his brother wept with more emotion than he had the night their parents died…”

I will post a link once it’s up on one of my AO3 accounts. For now enjoy the concept of Naruto finally getting to fix things for Sasuke and going so far as to pay the ultimate price just for his precious person while Sasuke struggles to realize and admit just what Naruto means to him.

[primordialpaper]

Gray and Wendy brotp

“Considering the amount of blood lost, Lockser’s fortunate Wendy got to her when she did. As it stands, though, I see no reason why she wouldn’t make a full recovery.”

“And Gray?”

“Hmph... He could do with a lecture on how foolish it is to ice over his wounds instead of receiving proper treatment, but he ought to be fine as well.”

Gray’s focus on Porlyusica and Evergreen’s whispered discussion didn’t hold much further past the words “full recovery”.

The nightmare world he’d been living in less than an hour ago, the crushing weight of his grief, dispelled by a girl who’s head barely reached his chest...

Gray doubted Wendy fully understood the gravity- the depth- of what she had done.

It was understandable, he supposed. She hadn’t been with them when the matter had first come to light, back on Galuna Island, and he’d never seen fit to bring it up with her once she’d joined. No sense filling her young head with tales of his losses. Not when she had enough of her own to deal with.

Still, the warm, living body lying beside him, light blue tresses fanned out delicately on the ground as Porlyusica tutted and hemmed over the state of their injuries was like a fantasy. She was still here. He’d thought that she had died, like Ur, offered up her blood like Ultear had her youth, for him. That he was alive only at the cost of yet another person’s sacrifice.

Wendy had spared him from that fate.

It occurred to him, as his consciousness faded, that while he hadn’t been once more saddled with a life-debt he could never pay back, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to thank her properly.

Gray leaned more than a bit against Juvia, watching as their errant Dragon Slayers embraced close friends and teammates, the sun shimmering off the crystalline orb that was Acnologia’s final resting place. When but an hour ago their world looked as if it was ending, it now seemed to release a breath of relief. They had won.

The collective mages’ ecstatic murmuring and cheers of victory were shattered by a cry of pain.

Gray’s head whipped around just in time to see a shock of deep blue hair flutter to the ground.

“Wendy!”

He was hardly the only person to cry out at the sight. The pink haired girl, Chelia, he recalled, dropped to her knees beside Wendy, big blue eyes wide with worry as she surveyed the blood soaked state of the bandages wrapped around her thigh. Gray had noticed the injury back when they’d first reclaimed the Port, but Wendy had paid it little mind, dutifully healing Erza while they all waited anxiously. It was with a sickening jolt that he realized, now hours later, that her upper thigh had been pierced clean through.

Forget fighting- She had walked on that leg?!

Dimly, he remembered her doing just that, while supporting Juvia no less. The pair of them drawing closer to him, smiling. It had been the last thing he saw before losing consciousness.

No words needed to be exchanged for him and Juvia to rush over together.

“-this close to the femoral artery, no wonder it’s hemorrhaging.” Chelia was muttering under her breath, small, pale hands pressing sodden bandages against the entry and exit wounds. There was hardly any white left to be seen on the wrappings.

“It’s ok- I’m... I’m ok,” inconceivably, Wendy was weakly muttering reassurances, even while she seemed unable to sit up from where she laid on the pavement. Stifling what might’ve been a whimper, Juvia shuffled forward on her knees, and carefully guided Wendy’s upper body to lay on her lap. She breathed whispers Gray couldn’t catch into the crown of her head, gently brushing errant strands of midnight blue off Wendy’s face.

“Can I- is there a way I can help?” Gray felt a prick of shame at relying on a 15 year old for guidance, but this girl was a healer, and he’d long ago learned their word was law when it came to treating injuries. Though, she wasn’t using any healing magic now... Had she exhausted herself in all the fighting?

Before this train of thought could go any further, Chelia’s eyes snapped up to him. He saw them flicker with recognition, and she asked briskly, “You have Ice Magic, right?”

He nodded mutely.

“Put your hands where mine are and apply pressure.” hesitating for only an instant, Gray cupped both sides of the wound just as Chelia slipped her hands free. The warm, tacky feeling of blood coated his palms, and Wendy’s leg jumped under his much larger hands, but he held fast.

“Blood vessels constrict under colder temperatures.” Chelia’s gaze bored into him. Gray was aware of the growing commotion around them as more people noticed the state Wendy was in, but he didn’t dare look away from the pair of cobalt eyes that demanded his attention. They were almost the same color as Wendy’s hair. “In order to stop the bleeding, you need to emit enough cold to slow the blood flow and encourage clotting, without lowering the temperature too much and causing tissue damage. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Gray was calling frost to his hands before the words even left his mouth. His own body barely felt the cold anymore, but he still remembered Ur’s dire warnings about what temperatures were dangerous for the average human, and how long one could withstand them before frostbite and necrosis set it. As long as things stayed above forty degrees, he could maintain this for close to an hour before it became hazardous for Wendy.

Wendy gave a hoarse noise of discomfort at the sudden cold, but she seemed to be fighting to stay conscious, eyelids fluttering as her head tilted to and fro. At this close proximity, Gray took note of another wound- a nasty gash- on her right side. It wasn’t bleeding terribly like the wound on her leg, but it looked particularly savage, like it’d been made by talons rather than a blade.

Just what had this war put Wendy through?

“Move! Get out of my way, you fools!”

Never before had Gray been so elated to hear the sharp, steely voice of Fairy Tail’s head Medical Advisor.

Like always, crowds hastened to disperse at Porlyusica’s command, and Gray soon found himself looking up at the gimlet-eyed medicine woman. With an efficiency that spoke of years of experience, Porlyusica knelt and began rummaging through the bag at her side. Without looking up, she gruffly intoned, “Fullbuster, keep that up. Lockser, prevent her from moving around too much. Blendy-” Gray thought he saw Chelia tense, like Porlyusica was about to say something dreadful. The crone herself actually paused, stilling for the briefest moment, before thrusting out a large roll of bandages to the pink-haired girl. “I’m occupied here, and with Wendy in this state, you’re the only other person with any idea how to treat the wounded. I need you to triage those gathered here, and guide whoever’s able in taking care of any injuries. I’ll address those you deem critical shortly. Got that?”

Chelia’s eyes glistened, and her gaze flickered to Wendy’s barely conscious face. Quick as a flash, she kissed her first two fingers, and then pressed them to the other girl’s cheek. Just as swiftly, she leapt to her feet, snatching the roll of bandages with a firm, “Yes, ma’am!” before bounding away to begin her task.

Porlyusica set to work just as quickly, packing some kind of salve onto a square of fabric, and instructing Gray to hold it against the exit wound while she prepared another pad for the entry wound, after which they would bind them in place. At one point, Wendy roused slightly, and she gazed blearily around. Her eyes fell on Porlyusica- specifically, her hair- and Gray’s heart clenched when they quickly filled with tears.

“Chelia... I’m sor-sorry... I’m so s-sorry...” Juvia attempted to shush her gently, but Wendy was inconsolable, weeping softly until exhaustion dragged her back under. When Porlyusica’s work was finally done, Gray retrieved his hands, before an instinct he couldn’t place urged him to fit one of Wendy’s small, limp hands in his own. His thumb traced comforting circles on the back of her hand as his gaze scanned the crowd of assembled mages, eventually falling on the small pink haired girl currently throwing caution to the wind and scolding Erza as she examined a wound on her shoulder.

While most everyone was alive and well- or at least on the way to well- and their enemies were bested, Gray got the distinct impression that their victory was not without sacrifice. It was simply a matter of what it was, and who had paid the price.

~~~~~~

Gray got his answer one week later, as he and Lyon shared a moment of respite from their work repairing the damage done to the Fairy Tail guildhall. The mages from Lamia Scale, Blue Pegasus, and Sabertooth had ruthlessly bowled over the Fairies’ protests, citing that the conflict with Alvarez had been a matter of countries rather than guilds, and took to clearing up Magnolia and the surrounding areas with zeal alongside their fellow Fioreans.

“Chelia can’t use magic anymore?” Gray had to make certain, on the off chance he’d heard Lyon wrong, even if he knew he likely hadn’t. His adoptive brother’s solemn head shake dashed those hopes quite efficiently.

“Ultear was very clear, from what I’ve heard. Unlocking her Third Origin permanently crippled the other two magic containers in her body. Biologically, it isn’t quite the same as if she was a non-mage, but there’s no known remedy for Origins that sustained such damage.” a shadow passed over Lyon’s face, and fist trembled faintly. “To think, the two youngest among us were fighting for their lives, for our lives, in the time it took us to blink.”

Gray ruminated on something he could say to that, with no success. Wendy and Chelia, for all their prodigious talent and combative skill, still evoked in their guildmates an innate urge to protect and shelter them. No matter how irrational it may be, it felt like a failure on their part when their younger companions were harmed. He remembered holding Wendy’s limp, listless body in the dungeons back in Edolas, feeling his stomach drop in that awful moment of panic when he failed to sense even an ounce of magic power within her, like she was... gone. Chelia wasn’t gone, but a piece of her...

“I’m honored to be her guildmate.”

Gray’s gaze snapped back to Lyon.

“It’s very likely that Chelia saved all of our lives, that day.” a fierce, blazing sort of pride overpowered any lingering guilt in his voice. “Against an enemy with such power over time, in the guise of a god, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. In her last act as a mage, Chelia achieved the greatest feat possible for a wielder of her magic; she struck down a god. We all lived to see tomorrow thanks to her devotion to protecting her comrades. To have someone capable of love like that, of strength like that, as a member of my guild... I’m grateful beyond words.”

Tactfully, Gray turned away in order to let Lyon compose himself, not at all because his own eyes grew misty.

Through the small crowd of mages shuffling about, he spotted Wendy, who was sitting beneath an awning alongside Gajeel. She had been expressly forbidden from taking part in any physical labor, owing to the state of her still-healing leg, much to her ire. It had taken almost two days worth of arguing before she was allowed to cast Enchantments on those working to help lighten the load. Natsu and Gajeel, for once, worked together seamlessly as they took it upon themselves to ensure she didn’t strain herself.

Currently, Gajeel seemed to be listening readily as she spoke quietly, his perpetually stern expression giving nothing away. Wendy’s face was obscured due to both the angle and her long, hanging hair, but Gray could see the tension in the way she wrung the fabric of her skirt.

“I don’t think Wendy sees it that way.”

Wendy’s harshest critic had always been herself. When they’d first met, during their duel for Nirvana against the Oracion Seis, her propensity for self-flagellation had been severe enough that she almost became a liability. While Gray liked to think that her time with Fairy Tail and their unconditional, constant support had softened the tone she took with herself, he knew how easy it was to lapse back into old habits.

Whatever else had transpired in the battle with Dimaria, Chelia’s sacrifice was bound to be weighing heavily on the young Enchantress.

“Chelia feels the same.” Lyon’s reverent tone became more somber. “Wendy won’t press the issue with her out of respect, but Chelia’s certain she blames herself for what happened.” faintly, Gray could feel the uncanny coldness- a trait he no doubt shared- when Lyon’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. The icy pressure was welcome; bracing and invigorating. “For Chelia’s sake, and my own- for Wendy’s- keep an eye on her. We’re both familiar with what regret and self-reproach can do to a person.”

Gray thought back to a warped moon, streaming out baleful indigo light... the gentle, heart wrenching strum of a harp... the slick dapple of blood on his brow...

It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done, accepting Ur’s sacrifice as a gift born out of her love for him. No matter how unworthy he felt, how desperately he wished he could change what had happened, it would have been the height of disrespect to disregard his teacher’s final act. She wanted him to live, without his darkness- his hatred and despair- as weights upon his soul. He didn’t dare fail to abide by that request.

“I don’t want that for her.” Gray didn’t want that for anyone. But the idea of his young teammate- the endlessly kind, selfless, fiercely caring girl he’d come to know- quietly suffocating under that guilt and loathing... it was unthinkable. “I won’t let that happen.”

He might not be able to chase wounds and pain away with a touch like Wendy, but his hands had crafted works of ice unlike any Maker mage before.

He’d be damned if they couldn’t hold his friend together as she threatened to fall apart.