Natsu woke early the next day feeling refreshed. He was getting used to the new routine of dinner and then fun time with Lucy. He couldn't get enough of the feeling of her breasts, hands, and both sets of lips. It was getting harder each day to imagine what life was like before he found her. The thought of her ever not being there in the future didn't cross his mind.

He felt his sacred rod begin to rise with his thoughts and decided it was time to get up. As much as he would like to have more fun, hunting and finding Gray were more important. Contrary to what many tribe members thought about him, he had a strong sense of responsibility and duty to the village. He just also had a strong mischievous side to go with it.

Since it was still so incredibly early with only the barest hint of light on the horizon, he decided to get ready and leave without waking Lucy. He had kept her up later than usual, and she had been so tired. He felt a very small twinge of guilt for exhausting her so much, but he loved making her lose control and the way she looked when she hit that peak. It had thrilled him beyond measure when he learned during their experimentations that she could hit that peak many times in one night if he was skilled enough in reading her body'd signals and responding accordingly. But making her peak so much burned a great deal of her energy and was why he felt that small bit of guilt. Otherwise, he would have been as shameless as he always was, a fact that caused the chief no end of trouble.

He carefully extricated himself from his female. She was so tired that she didn't stir at all. It made a surge of pride fill his chest that he had made her feel so good, and a fond smile crossed his face. If his tribe brothers had seen him in that moment, they would have been dumbfounded by the gentle expression and his softened eyes. Natsu and gentle normally never appeared in the same thought.

But Natsu was unaware of how much more tame he was with Lucy. He went about his business of getting dressed, ate some of the previous night's leftovers while being careful to leave enough for Happy and Lucy, something else that would have surprised the rest of the tribe, and left his little home to meet up with the hunting party.

When he met up with the other males, it didn't take someone with a lot of perception to notice that Gray's disappearance had them all unsettled.

Although that still didn't explain Gajeel. The man was sweating enough to become a living waterfall. He was jittery and kept darting his eyes around like a saber cat watching a twitching branch. Natsu couldn't supress his curiosity.

"What's up, Gajeel?"

He didn't expect that Gajeel would jump like he had stepped on Igni.

"Nothing is up! Everything's fine. Stop with the interrogation and mind your own business because nothing is going on!" Natsu stared in confusion as Gajeel stomped off.

"That was...weird."

Natsu quickly shook off his curiosity. He didn't care enough about Gajeel acting like a weirdo asshole to stay interested.

And so went another day of hunting.

The men returned in a better mood than the day before. Hunting had been excellent. If they kept up like they were going, they would have more than enough to get through the Cold in record time. Even Gray's disappearance couldn't do more than slightly dampen their mood. Disappearances happened a lot at that time of the year since predators were also preparing for the Cold. Gray wouldn't be the first loss they had suffered, and he wouldn't be the last. The faster they could put it out of their minds, the better.

Except Natsu.

While Natsu was more than excited about the possibility of having a good Cold season, he was still worried about Gray. He had always had a harder time dealing with the loss of someone close to him than the other males, and Gray was the closest brother he had. Makarov said they had arrived in the village together when they were too small to remember, although the chief didn't answer their questions on where babies for the village came from. The questions were eventually forgotten since no new little ones had arrived since Romeo twelve years prior. It just didn't seem important.

Natsu was growing more worried, and not just because it was his closest tribe brother that was missing. Gray was one of the strongest men in the village.

If he could vanish, then any one of them could be next. That meant he needed to be able to guard Lucy and Happy, but doing that and still helping with the hunts was a problem.

Natsu spent some time with a small search party looking for Gray. He was surprised that Gajeel declined going with them. He had been just as worried the previous day, but now he was in a strange hurry to get back to his home. Natsu again brushed off his weirdness. Gajeel was well known for surly mold swings.

It was again late when he made it home. There was still no trace of his friend, and he was looking forward to his nightly routine of dinner and Lucy fun.

He wasn't expecting to be met at the door by a frantically upset Happy diving into his chest, sobs racking his tiny body.

"Happy? What's wrong?!"

"Lucy's dying!" the little cat wailed.

Natsu sucked in a harsh breath and ran into his house. He was greeted with the sight of Lucy curled up on their bedding holding her arms around her stomach in obvious pain.

"I told you, stupid cat, that I'm not dying," she ground out through her gritted teeth.

Natsu silently went to her side and looked down at her.

"But you are!" Happy continued to wail. "You're hurting and your bleeding!"

Natsu immediately went to work trying to examine her body for whatever injury Happy could be talking about.

"I'm not hurt, Natsu."

"Yeah? Then how could you be bleeding?" Natsu was starting to get angry. He hated when she wouldn't let him take care of her, and here she was denying him over a wound that clearly had her in a lot of pain.

"I tried to explain it to Happy, but he wouldn't stop panicking." She sat herself up and leaned against his hard chest. "It's a normal thing that happens to females starting at around the time we get our breasts."

"So what's going on?"

Ignoring Happy's quiet sniffles in the background, she began to try to explain.

"Once every month, all fully grown female bodies bleed from the Secret Passage." Natsu's face must have shown his discomfort because Lucy rushed to explain further. "It's a cleansing for our bodies. Chief Grandine explained to each of us when we started having that time that because the Secret Passage is so holy and because it's a doorway into our bodies, bad spirits try to invade us by trying to get in and corrupting it. Our bodies respond to this by washing the bad spirits out with our blood. The pain I'm feeling is from those bad spirits being purged."

Natsu, relaxed now that he was assured that Lucy was fine, furrowed his brow in thought.

"I guess that makes sense, but why is it every month, and how long does it last?"

"Chief Grandine believes that it's every month because of the moon. It often happens near the full moon,so she thinks it helps our bodies have the strength to fully rid ourselves of the bad spirits, or maybe that's when the spirits are most active. We don't know for sure. But with how long it lasts, it's different for each woman, but mine normally lasts five days."

If Natsu hadn't been so conscious of the fact that his body was completely supporting hers, he would have fallen over.

"You bleed for five days and don't die?!" Natsu ran a hand through his hair. "How is that possible? That would kill a man for sure."

Lucy gave him an adorable giggle and a sweet smile.

"Honestly, I'm not sure how it works, either. A female would die from bleeding that long from anywhere else, but this is the exception."

Natsu began to think again, and a thought crossed his mind that made him look at her with worry.

"But what about our fun time?"

She shook her head sadly.

"I'm afraid I'm not up to it. The pains from inside hurts too much. I would never be able to let myself go and enjoy it." She thought for a moment. "But maybe I could do things for yo so thought you touching me. Just because I can't enjoy doesn't mean you should go without."

Natsu quickly shook his head, refusing to even entertain such a thought.

"I wouldn't have fun if you weren't having fun, too. A lot of my enjoyment comes from hearing your sounds, your face when you hit that peak, and your taste."

Lucy blushed as she smiled, and he wondered how much of it came from her typical embarrassment and how much came from being pleased with what he said. He hoped more came from the latter.

"Let's just have some dinner and get a good night's sleep."

Lucy gave him that beautiful smile again and nodded.

After dinner, as Natsu lay on the soft furs of their bed with Lucy tucked tightly against his side, her head on his upper arm, he felt that life couldn't possibly get much better.

UUUUUUUUUU

The next week passed by in the same manner as that first day of Lucy's cleansing time. Natsu left to hunt, searched for his friend although hope of finding him was quickly turning to mourning his loss instead, coming home to dinner, and sleeping cuddled tightly to Lucy. Lucy for ages for plants, dried and preserved any plants or meat that they hadn't eaten the day before, and made dinner for Natsu. The only exception was when Natsu surprised her on the fifth day, the last day of her cleansing, with some soft pelts treated by a friend of his that was especially good at tanning. She was thrilled to have the materials to make herself some warmer clothes.

The only thing Lucy had felt was lacking was the fact that they had not had fun time in so long. She was over her cleansing, but the two of them had become so caught up in preparing for the cold that they didn't have much energy after eating a late dinner and passing out on the bed.

But that night she resolved to change that problem. She sent Happy away before Natsu came home, and decided to great him a new way.

By already being completely nude when he arrived.

"Hey Lucy, you'll never believe what..." Natsu cut off mid sentence as he walked through the door covering. He stared at her for a long moment with his mouth hanging open. She began to feel uncomfortable. Maybe it had been a bad idea...

But that changed as Natsu suddenly and rapidly threw his own clothes off. In his hurry, he didn't seem to care where they fell as long as they weren't on him. In moments, he was diving on her and devouring her lips with his.

Lucy responded just as eagerly, threading her fingers through his short hair and letting him swallow her moans. One of his hands slid across her arm to roughly grab her breast. Lucy pressed the globe of flesh harder into his calloused hand. It had clearly been too long for both of them.
Natsu gently pressed her back onto the bed and slid his other hand down the side of her body to make contact with her already dripping lower parts, never breaking the contact between their joined mouths.

Lucy let out an involuntary gasp as his fingers circled her nub before quickly plunging inside of her. She had missed this so much, and all it took was Natsu moving his mouth to pull the nipple of her neglected breast into his mouth to make her come undone.

He didn't let up on her as she came down from that star filled peak. He kept his pace. She could feel how it was effecting him from the full, hard length of his sacred rod pressed tightly to the front of her thigh of the leg he had unconsciously straddled.

Lucy was broken from her haze as she felt him begun to flex his hips and grind the hardness into her. He needed satisfaction, too.

She carefully pulled back her leg, careful to not strike his sensitive parts, and arranged it so that her legs were on either side of him and she had easier access to his sacred rod with her hands.

She grabbed it, quickly giving it a firm stroke. This caused Natsu to nearly collapse on her, and she lost her grip.

The two froze.

His sacred rod was resting with the underside firmly pressed on her nub and his balls settled on top of his hand that still had two fingers buried inside of her.

They stayed perfectly still for an eternal moment before Natsu gave a tenative flex with his hips. Lucy groaned at the feeling of the rod rubbing directly across her nub. The texture of its skin felt better than Natsu's fingers, and just as good as his tongue. Her wetness from her previous peak ensured that it glided across smoothly.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that Natsu was enjoying as well. His eyes had nearly rolled back into his head at that first motion, and he wasted no time doing it again. And again.

Before she knew it, he was wildly thrusting against her, and she was arching her back to keep his length firmly rubbing her nub. It felt so good. She never wanted it to stop.

But it did stop, and it stopped unpleasantly.

She changed her angle at the same time he did, and the result had his sacred rod lined up with her secret passage.

In one swift motion, his rod was buried completely in her passage.

She dimly heard Natsu loudly groan out his pleasure, but she couldn't hear it too clearly over her own blinding pain. Natsu looked at her with an excited smile, which quickly fell from his face when he saw hers.

"Are you okay?"

"No," she whimpered. "Please. This hurts so much."

Natsu lept from her body, and both were horrified at the sight of her blood staining his rapidly softening rod.

"Lucy, I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. Please, hit me, kick me. Whatever will make you feel better."

Tears began sliding down Lucy's face, making Natsu panic further.

"Do you need me to find a healer? I'll go to your village to find one if that's what you need."

"No," she finally replied as she curled up like a child on the furs. "Just hold me."

Natsu carefully laid down beside her. Carefully, as if she were as delicate as a butterfly's wing, he wrapped his arms around her and cuddled to her back. Both of them lay awake far into the night wondering what had just happened.

UUUUUUUUUUUUU

So who was expecting that ending? :: Dodges knives::

This last scene took a lot of thought. How exactly do you handle virginity loss with two characters that know less about sex than an average modern ten year old? And there is the added complication that they have no one to ask about it. In most stories where one or both are virgins, they have at least heard things. At least one of them anyway. And the one that knows more guides the other, even if it's two virgins fumbling. I hope this came out correctly.

MANY of you guessed correctly that Gray has been captured, but I wonder how many noticed the clues that there is more to it than he got caught by a female. I will give you this hint. There is a clue in this chapter.

How did you like the explanation for periods? Lol They certainly feel like a demon invasion sometimes. LOL

Good news, my special training this week is over. It was painfully, painfully boring, but it's for a good program. I'll be able to provide healthy foods for senior citizens over 60 who are in poverty.

And with the harasser, I'm taking the advice of my very good friends on here and no longer responding to her. When someone is setting up dummy accounts to private message crap to you, and even getting their friends to send messages that seem like setups (which I took screenshots of to show my friends so they could see, and they verified that it really sounded like a set up and that the past three months of nightmarish crap hadn't made me lose my mind to paranoia). I have my review filters on and I'm only leaving one of the guest reviews that are clearly from her because she so badly incriminates herself in it. This will be the last that I ever publicly mention this.

Finally, I wanted to know what you all thought about a reward for the tons of reviews you've given me. Does getting a preview of the next chapter for every 25 reviews sound good? I'll update when I can regardless, but I thought this would be nice to reward you all for such amazing support.