A/N: This is way overdue, and not complete unfortunately, for the lovely constellunaa 's birthday! I hope you can forgive me for it taking so long! This originally wasn't going to be what I came back with when I was on hiatus, but it ended up turning out a lot longer than I expected so now it's a multichap and I just need to stop looking at this fucking thing already oh my god its driving me crazy. I can't even tell anymore if its okay or just total crap.

Big thank you to those who have continuously listened to me go fucking crazy over this and deal with me and my blurbs and screaming and everything. You know who you are ^^

***PLEASE READ THE RATING!***

Rating: M – graphic injury, violence, torture, panic attacks, etc. This is a lot darker than I expected it was going to be.

Summary: Familiars. Shields. Weapons. Coveted and controlled. Used by witches to maintain status and power, or be forced to fight for their lives. But then he's found by her—by golden hair and dark gold eyes and warmth he's never known. And she's in more trouble than she can admit. Witch/Familiar!AU. NaLu.

Sharp metal pierces his sinuses as he swallows and fights back heaving. The blood is nauseating, overwhelming, dulling his ability to smell anything else around him. He lets his jaw slacken and breathes heavily through his mouth.

Warmth trickles from the corners.

He leans forward and allows the blood and cauterized skin to fall to the grass. He reflexively goes to spit and snarls inwardly at the shock to his system. He can't make any sort of mouth movement right now. He knows this.

With a deep breath, he brings a thumb just past his lips and burns both sides of his now split tongue. He swallows what remains of the blood and inhales deep through his nose.

Dead leaves. Soil. Wet bark. Must. Metal. Charred trees.

Water.

He takes off at a sprint.

He doesn't have long before his burned skin is worn away by his saliva and has to be seared again. His senses are high, lungs drawing in large gushes of air, tasting.

The back of his neck pricks at the presence of a massive amount of magic.

He jumps, but the force of the blast sends him rolling. White bursts behind his eyelids as the back of his head collides with the trunk of a tree. His brain throbs in his skull. His heart pounds in his ears. His breath rips down his throat.

He coughs violently at the inhale.

The motion rips open his tongue and the taste of metal floods his mouth again. He stops the bleeding quickly with fire before taking off once more, stance staggering this time. He shakes off the dizzy feeling and narrowly avoids pitching forward, claws digging deep into a nearby tree limb to keep him upright.

He looks up.

If he climbs, she'll follow. If he hides, it won't take her long to find him. If he fights in his current state, he won't stand much of a chance. The only advantage he really has over her, he can't use without her, and what allows him to use it, prevents him from hurting her.

Stupidly fucking ironic is what it is.

In all honesty, he has no chance right now. But he'll be damned if he lets her take him again without a fight.

Even if his power is limited.

He spins around and sparks fire in his palms, only to be thrown back against a nearby trunk. His flames die out as the invisible force pins him, bark digging deep into his skin.

Her eyes burn black in the moonlight, face streaked in the blood she'd tried and failed to wipe away. Her face warps into a snarl as she forces him deeper into the tree with an outstretched hand. He lets out a soft grunt and draws in a shuddering breath, pushing back against her magic to do so.

He's barely able to.

"You're lucky I know some healing magic," her voice is low as she spits at the ground and he smells the blood. She pushes her tongue out through her teeth, and he can see where she'd weaved it back together, haphazardly, but successful nonetheless. "That stunt you pulled could've killed me otherwise," she lures, stepping closer. Her hand comes up to grab his jaw, fingers digging in, "How're you avoiding it?"

He growls at her and jerks back as her nails pierce his skin and force his mouth open.

"Huh," she lets her hand drop, "you've still got some fire without the binding?" She tilts her head to one side and crosses her arms. "Impressive."

He bares his fangs and hisses.

One flick of her hand has his teeth jammed together and chin tilted up.

She yanks his head back down by one of his horns and wrings one of his old piercings. The twist shocks his body and shoots through his whole system, crippling every nerve and he seethes softly, determined not to react. He bites back a whine in his throat, muscles tensing instead, just barely managing to hold it together. He won't give her the satisfaction of his fear.

"I'm not above breaking you," she whispers in his ear. "Maybe this time I'll bind you with a hoop." He feels pin pricks on either side of his septum. Her nails. "Not the first time I've seen another witch leading one of you by the nose."

He rears back and twists his neck down violently, relishing in the sound of horns slashing skin.

She stumbles back, letting her grip on him go enough for his feet to touch the ground and arms to brace against the tree.

He digs his claws in and tears around the trunk, sprinting as fast as his weakening body will allow. With the remnants of his binder's magic fading, it won't be long before he's completely useless.

He sears his tongue shut again. The overall bleeding is slowing, only because his heart rate has slowed. Now, with him running…

He needs to get away. And fast.

His skin pricks again at the presence of her next attack.

He narrowly avoids the high speed whirring as the magic whizzes past his ear and connects with the wood of the trees in front of him, gouging deep gashes into the bark. He dodges another only to draw in a sharp breath at the edges of the condensed energy ripping into the skin of his neck and cheek.

He holds back a cry as he goes to burn those closed too.

He pulls on the fire.

His stomach sinks.

The magic isn't there.

He's out.

Fuck.

He claps a hand to the side of his neck, clamping down hard to stop as much of the bleeding as he can. The smell of the water is closer now, if he can just get across the stream then—

He runs into nothing.

What?

He stretches his free hand out to push against what looks like air as the familiar feel of his binder's magic singes his palm. Another barrier.

His skin buzzes from all around.

The faint iridescence of the wall swirls and curves, stretching high, up, and around a large perimeter, farther than he can see through the trees. Had she sectioned off the entire chunk of forest?

In an instant he's spun around, back pressed against the barrier, arms once again at his sides. Without the pressure on his neck, he feels the blood flow down the length of his throat to his collarbone.

He tastes metal again and fights against his heavy eyelids. He grits his teeth and struggles to pull together another spark of fire, but he's really empty.

"All out?" she sneers, streaking her face in red as she fingers the gashes. He watches the skin across her cheek and forehead knit back together where he'd hit with his horns. "Fucking useless without the bond. What's the point of you guys anyway? You can't do anything without belonging to someone."

He can't help the feral snarl that rips up his throat at that comment.

He doesn't belong to anyone. Not now.

Fucking bitch.

He strains against the hold she has on him, fighting the two barriers.

"You're not getting out of this," she pulls a hoop and a curved barbell from the cleavage of her bodice. "You're just going to wear yourself out."

That's the idea.

He quickens his breathing, bites down on both sides of his tongue, does everything he can to raise his heart-rate.

He'll bleed out before he lets her bind him again. He'll die free. Not with her. Not in that basement.

Her eyes widen once she realizes what he's trying to do.

With a flick of the wrist she drops the barriers and he crumples to the grass, panting, hard. He sees her fingers twirl out of the corner of his eye and hears the hoop fly. He wrenches his head to the side to avoid it.

A sharp piercing in the shell of his left ear brings the telltale flood of magic through his body as his sigil burns over his chest and shoulders. His lungs draw in a long, shuddering breath of their own accord, and his eyes snap open. He feels the muscles working, narrowing in on his field of vision.

And now, he can see everything.

Including his binder staring over his shoulder at something, scared shitless.

It takes him one minute to realize the two binding piercings of hers are still floating in midair, and then another to figure out that the magic he feels, isn't from her.

It's from someone else.

"Been looking for you, Karen," a new voice whispers, behind him.

Blinding light whites out the forest and he covers his eyes to avoid it, lucky enough not to have a frontal assault.

His former binder? Not so much.

Karen screeches, hands shielding her face, and she staggers back against a nearby tree, nails digging into her forehead. "You fucking bitch."

One minute the new witch is behind him, and then next, she's in front of him, kneeling down next to Karen, draped in black.

"That's my line, you hag," she says, fingers weaving into green hair and yanking Karen's head back roughly, "stealing what's mine."

Karen looks thoughtful for a moment, confused, before she seems to realize what the other witch is talking about and snorts, "The unbound lion? He was never yours to begin with."

"He was in my territory," the cloaked witch brings up her free hand to Karen's eyes, "and I want him back."

The answering smile on Karen's face radiates conceit as she snickers.

Then, she cackles, chest heaving, eyes flashing.

"I'll be happy to give him back," Karen finally manages, breathless and smirking, "you might have to dig for the meat though, that shield didn't hold up long."

He doesn't miss the overwhelming scent of anger radiating from the new witch, or the dark aura rippling through the air around her. He feels his magic surge as well, and then dissipate deep into his muscle.

His sight blurs.

The new witch's hand comes up to circle Karen's throat.

"You know you can't kill me," Karen croaks, pulling her chin up, "so why don't you save your new pet before he dies." She meets his gaze over the witches shoulder and he swallows reflexively, wincing as his stomach cramps at the blood.

His body goes slack as his energy leaves him and he blinks at the black spots clouding his vision. He bites his tongue to stay awake, but the darkness only grows.

Warmth floods his chest as gravity claims him.

—

Blood slicks his hands as he claws at his throat.

He won't be collared again. Not again. He can't do it again. Not this time. Whatever is wrapped around him needs to go and it needs to go now.

His breathing is ragged, his heart is pounding, he tears at everything around him and tries to pull himself up. He needs to run. He needs to get away.

A warm hand splays over his chest, and his body calms instantly. He registers a faint, gentle voice in his ear, but can't quite make out the words. A soft, floral scent fills his nose and he lets his head hang as he breathes more evenly.

"…ground…feet…"

His toes curl on reflex, digging into the floor. Sanded wood rubs against them, cool beneath him. Rough and smooth.

"…good…hands…here…"

Softness curls around the backs of his hands, pulling them from his neck, and his fingers tighten reflexively. The tips of his claws dig into his palms, kickstarting his heart a notch.

His eyes fly open.

Soft golden gaze. Long waves. Piercings.

Facial sigil.

He jerks back and away at that, and the calm immediately vanishes. His hands rip from hers as his back hits a wall and he flinches. The soreness from where the bark had scraped at him is faint in comparison to his racing blood and mind.

She's more dangerous than Karen.

Her expression warps at his movement, eyes glazing over instantly as she reaches for him again, but stops. She lets her hands fall and takes a step back from him.

His muscles relax, and so does she.

He clenches his jaw and looks around the room. There's a window, but it's not big enough to climb out of. Candlelight flickers in the glass' reflection, just barely illuminating a door in the corner. He'd have to jump over the bed to get to there.

His ear throbs from the new piercing.

Right.

The new binding. His new binder stands in front of him, ears fully decorated in hoops and studs. There's no point in trying to run this time. Not from someone this strong. Not from someone with this many familiars at her disposal. Not in the physical state he's in.

The fight leaves him and his legs give out.

Warm arms catch him before he hits the floor and guide him back to the bed in a sitting position against the headboard. Her heart is racing, he can hear it, as her scent gets stronger. He can smell it.

Her fear.

Why is she scared.

As soon as she has him upright, she backs away and sits at the foot of the bed, crosslegged. She folds her hands on her lap and he watches as she looks him over. Her face warps into an expression he can't quite read as she brings a hand to cover her mouth and close her eyes.

Salt. He can smell salt.

Is…is she crying?

Her eyes are glossy when she opens them, swallows, and clears her throat.

"You had a few bandages wrapped around your neck, and one on your cheek that you've now ripped off. They aren't bleeding as badly as before, but I need to fix them before you lose any more blood." She wraps her arms around her torso. "You've lost too much already."

Something flashes in her eyes and a shiver crawls up his spine.

He bows and tilts his head to the side. He knows anger when he sees it. Better to just let her do what she wants and get it over with.

He focuses hard on the wooden walls as the bed dips next to him, and fights against flinching away from the fingers that come to touch his neck. The tendons twitch though, and he focuses on his breathing. Deep. Steady. Even.

Don't react.

He feels her weight disappear from the bed and hears a sloshing and dripping. Wet fabric meets his throat and slides over the skin of his neck, chest, and shoulder, dangerously close to the aching gash. The same process is repeated with his cheek.

His stomach churns and he keels over the side of the bed as he heaves up blood.

Tears prick the backs of his eyes as he fights to catch a breath. He groans internally. Obviously he hadn't spit out enough of it and had kept swallowing for as long as he'd been blacked out.

He coughs violently when there's nothing left, and the cool cloth runs over his cheeks and forehead.

"It's okay," her voice is soft, "you're okay."

Hands pull him back up and wipe the blood from his face.

"Damn," she breathes, "what did she do to you?"

His nausea roils at the sour taste on his tongue. He clenches his teeth and fights a snarl. It had just managed to stop bleeding, how is he going to stop it this time? He'd bound now. He can't use magic on himself.

She swipes at a trail of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, rubs it between her fingers. She inhales sharply and turns to face him.

"Open up."

He tilts away from her slightly, shoulders back, muscles tense.

She just looks at him, brow furrowed, eyes wide. He can feel her anxiety.

"Please," she bites her inner cheek. "Please, let me help you."

The cloth sits on her thigh, hands curled into fists, half reaching out to him. Hair curls around her cheekbones and moves with her lashes when she blinks. Clumped together lashes. The corners of her eyes glisten. Wet.

She was crying.

His gaze narrows in on her. On the twitch of her eyes and the building of tears, the quirk of her nose and a slight flair of anger. But not at him. The waves don't come at him. She's angry about something else.

Her fingers itch to reach for him, and he can see her restraint.

She's waiting for permission.

Through all the other overwhelming scents, all he gets from her is worry. Not the telltale smell of rage or malice. She's in pain though. He can tell that much.

He cautiously lets his jaw go slack.

She slowly brings her hands up to his face and rests her thumbs on his lower lip, gently opening his mouth. There's a slight pressure of her pointed nails against his teeth as she leans in, and a slight glow from one of her fingertips to get a better look.

The hands are gone quickly, back to covering her eyes for a minute.

"Fuck." He can barely hear her.

She stands from her spot and shuffles around the small table with the candle before coming back with a fresh piece of cloth and looking up at him. "I need you to let me see."

He swallows involuntarily and fights back the immediate response to keel over the side of the bed again. Very slowly, his tongue works its way out, and she brings the cloth up to rest beneath. He watches as she brings one side of the fabric up to press against the top before pulling away. There's not as much blood as before.

"Healing magic isn't my strong suit," her voice is soft and he feels her thumb lightly trace at the tastebuds next to the split and his burns, "but I know enough to fix something like this." She leans in close, studying, before her eyes find his. "Since so many layers of skin have been lost or burned, I'll have to heal both sides separately. I won't be able to weave them back together."

He nods. Doesn't really matter to him anyway. Less of a chance of that piercing happening again in the future.

His nose scrunches up as she runs a pointed nail along one side of the raw skin, tongue stitching itself back in her wake. The heat and stretch and slight sear of his cells joining back together has him closing his eyes and holding his breath.

Only a dull throb remains and his nose flares as he exhales harshly.

"One more, okay?"

He swallows the saliva in the back of his throat, the motion uncomfortable. When the ache dies down, he gives a short nod and closes his eyes this time. It doesn't hurt as much.

She gently takes the cloth away and prods at the healed skin. It's tender, but better, and he lets out a long sigh in relief as he pulls his tongue in and runs it along the ridges of his teeth experimentally. He can control the two separate sides. Individually.

It feels a little foreign, but better than the razor-edged piercing Karen had had in there before.

"You're insane," she raises an eyebrow at him with a small smirk, "you know that?"

He blinks at her.

"Ripping that out with your teeth with no means of healing yourself properly. Honestly. I'm impressed." Her tone betrays her expression, however, when the smirk fades into a frown and she looks away. "Not the first time I've seen that kind of silence binding used, unfortunately," the smirk comes back quickly and breaks into a smile as she glances back up at him, "first time I've seen a familiar escape because of it, though."

Not like he'd had much choice in the matter. In all the years he's spent as a familiar, never has he feared life. Injury, sure, especially with the number of fights he's been forced into and how many hits he's taken. But Karen…

He shudders and then winces at the motion.

His chest aches and he coughs violently.

He rubs at the spot though he knows it won't help. Not after what she'd tried to do.

His new binder's gaze follows his fingers at the motion and she shuffles a little closer, hands hovering above his. "May I?"

His anxiety swells from the unfamiliar territory. She stares at him with gold eyes, full of determination and remnants of tears shed. Gone is the malice he'd seen directed at Karen. Gone is the aura of danger that had filled the forest. All that's left is a low-burning fiery magic, full of a quiet longing…and something else he's never felt before.

He doesn't know what's going on and that terrifies him. Is she just helping him so she can turn on him later?

He lifts his chin and as a gesture, looks to his chest. There's not much she can do anyway to make it worse, but he'll still keep an eye on her.

Her fingertips are cool on the skin of his sigil as she slowly presses her palm flat and closes her eyes. Her magic sings within him, curling in his muscles and rushing through his blood. His head spins and he readies himself to jerk away should he need to when she focuses in on his heart. It aches at her gentle prodding and he flinches.

Her eyes snap open, an instant snarl warping her features.

"She tried to expand your origin," she yanks her hand back, running it through her hair and standing from the bed. Again he smells salt as she paces around the bed. "What the hell was she trying to kill you?!"

She's not talking to him at this point, devolving and muttering faster than his muddled head can keep up with. The question seems more rhetorical than anything anyway, since Karen't didn't care. No witches do. He's disposable.

He knows what Karen was doing. She'd showed him what happened to the failures.

"Fuck," she whispers, voice cracking, turning to him, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry this has happened to you." This time he sees the tears roll down her cheeks.

He swallows, hard.

What is going on.

Witches don't…do this. They don't…care.

Wiping her cheeks, she comes down to sit at the foot of his bed.

"I'm sorry for what you've gone through, and I'm sorry I had to bind you like this. This isn't normally what happens," she sighs, eyes dulling. She looks exhausted. "Usually—"

She's cut off by a loud crack from outside the room, and he starts at that.

"Lucy!"

Her head snaps in the direction of the voice and he can feel a spike in her anxiety. The magic in the…wherever they are, is definitely housed by another familiar. Why the worry?

He shakes his head and growls to himself. Fuck he hates being this clueless and asking this many questions. He feels like an idiot, and he's not. Not by a long shot.

The door in front of him flies open. A man with dark hair stands there, breathless, with a sigil blacking out the skin of his arm, chest, and jaw in thick, curving embellishments.

A demon familiar.

The familiar's eyes find the witch instantly, wide and searching until he looks to the bed.

Looks to him.

The small smile on his face falls before pulling into a cross between anger and something else. The familiar looks to the witch. "You bound him before talking to him?"

His binder nods, "I didn't get the chance."

The familiar groans, "Lucy!"

The witch…Lucy…springs up from the bed. "I know, Gray, I'm not a fucking idiot!" she yells, "I didn't have much of a choice in the matter, I wasn't going to let Karen kill him too!" He hears a kickstart of her heart and watches the colour drain from her face.

The room goes silent.

She'd said Gray to the familiar.

Gray, this familiar, is that his name?

He…has a name.

Gray crosses his arms, jaw clenching. His eyes flash with uncertainty, despair, denial, hope. He opens and closes his mouth multiple times before steeling himself.

"Too?" Gray finally manages.

He can feel Lucy's heartbreak and anger in the magic as she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. She breathes in deep, slow, deliberate.

"Lucy?" he prompts again.

Lucy lets her hands drop and whole body slump. "We were too late," she says, softly. "She killed him."

Gray stops. Stands there. Doesn't move a muscle.

"You found Karen."

"Yes."

"And this guy was running from her."

"Yes."

"So you bound him to stop her."

"Yes."

"And then she told you she killed Loke."

"Yes."

Gray spins on his heel and disappears through the door.

"Gray!" Lucy goes after him.

He digs his fingers into the mattress to pull himself up and the pain in his chest flares. He bites at his lip to ignore it and forces himself to standing. He may not be in much shape to protect, but he'll do what he can if Gray needs him to.

He hisses at the throb in his skull and leans heavily against the door frame to stay upright, angling himself to hide as much of his body as he can. Normally, his hearing was good enough that he wouldn't have had to move from the bed, but the blood rushing and ringing in his ears is too distracting right now.

He breathes heavily and blinks away the blurry edges of his vision to focus in on Lucy and waits to see her restrain the demon familiar.

But she doesn't do that.

She simply grabs Gray's hand before he can throw open what appears to be the door he came in through. With his night vision he can make the both of them out, especially with the light from the mood, but not much else about the small house—shack?—he's in.

"Where are you going?" Lucy asks, giving him a small tug.

"I'm going to find her."

Lucy shakes her head, "Even if you can find her, she'll kill you."

Gray whirls on her. "She has Loke!" he snarls. "I'm not going to just leave him there now that we've finally found her!" He pulls in hard, heaving breaths, audible throughout the whole house.

It's the only sound other than the creaking of the boards from the wind.

Lucy looks to the floor and shakes her head. "No, she doesn't, Gray," her tone is soft. "He's gone."

A growl builds in Gray's throat. "Did you ever stop to think she was just fucking with you, Lucy? That she was mad you took that guy," Gray jabs a finger violently in the direction of the room he's in, "so she fucked with you to make you angry?"

Lucy's head snaps up, anger rearing. "Yes," she hisses. "That was my first thou—" her voice cracks, and her fingers tighten around Gray's wrist. "Yes. I did."

The softness of her voice stops Gray in his tracks.

He studies her face closely. The way her eyebrows draw together and how she bites her lip. She blinks slowly, keeping her eyes closed briefly before meeting his gaze again.

"Of course," she whispers. "Of course I thought that. Hoped for that. Prayed for that. I would give anything for that to be the case."

"So how do you know it's not?" he asks, voice hard.

Lucy's breath hitches. "I looked, Gray," she says, voice thick. "I saw her do it."

"Then show me."

Lucy bites her lip. "Gray—"

"Show me, Lucy," Gray presses.

Reluctantly, Lucy brings the tips of her fingers up to Gray's temples and closes her eyes. Gray's eyes glaze over and his whole body stiffens under her touch as he just stares vacantly, unseeing, through Lucy.

The boards continue to creak and whistle from the wind.

All at once Gray rips away from Lucy and covers his face, backing away and against the front door. "No."

Lucy doesn't say anything. She just reaches for Gray, wraps her arms around his shoulders, and pulls him in close with silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

"It's gunna be okay," she chokes out, and Gray shakes his head, arms limp at his sides, fists curling and uncurling. "We're…we're gunna be okay." Gray stays tense. He doesn't believe her.

She doesn't believe it either, but that doesn't stop her from repeating it, over and over. A mantra.

Gray struggles, and though he can't see Gray's expression where it's hidden behind Lucy's hair, he can see him trying to pull away and Lucy only holding him tighter. He writhes in Lucy's grip, hands clenching, pushing, flailing out to strike the wall closest to him with a punch, a crater of ice erupting and digging into the wood before he falls to the floor, taking Lucy with him.

Lucy buries her face in Gray's shoulder and lets out a soft, but audible, sob. "We were too late."

Gray doesn't say anything.

This isn't something he should be watching. It's none of his business. He's intruding.

As silently as possible, he pulls back from the door frame and bites the inside of his cheek, hard, when the ache in his chest comes back and makes his stomach churn. At his sudden intake of breath his ribs decide to start stabbing at his lungs and his head decides up is down and sideways is right-ways.

He drop to his knees in a dry heave, and one more time, everything goes dark.

—

When he wakes up this time, sun is shining in through the window, his head is clear, the room is empty, and his chest is a hundred times lighter than it had been before. He's still a little tender, but the magic he's holding isn't overflowing or forced, so he's okay.

He's a little groggy from sleep, and this time when his stomach growls, its asking for food.

He's starving.

It still hurts to breathe, but is only uncomfortable in comparison to the stabbing he'd felt before passing out. His neck and cheek and tongue are sore, and he'll need to be cautious for a little while, but they're closed enough to not be fatal.

His whole body screams at him though as he trudges to the door and slowly pulls it open. There's one other presence in the house, the familiar from last night, and he doesn't quite know what to expect.

He definitely doesn't expect to see Gray ripping out a cabin wall.

Ice seeps into the grooves and cracks of the wood, a faint sheen before darkening to a deep black and shattering under the force of the punch that follows. Another hole that allows Gray to rip out another chunk of wall, and allows more sun to stream in.

What is he doing?

Gray's at a higher level than he is, at the top of a few steps that span the length of the cabin's main area and lead down to the main floor. The room is tiled with large slabs of stone, spiralling and circling from the walls, in, to a large pit full of jagged black stones at the center. A fire burns behind a metal grate, nestled in a large slab of stone in the corner closest to him.

Aside from the wall in front of Gray, and where he'd just come out of, the rest of the room is constructed entirely out of rock.

Shelves line the walls, full of small boxes, jars, and bundles wrapped with twine. Glass lanterns stick out, up high, with unlit, half-burned candles, and large barrels are scattered around and in the other corners. A large tree root sprouts out the middle of one wall, right next to the fire, curves down, and disappears into the floor. A large hole is carved into it with a few iron tools inside.

Its a massive merge of stone and earth, with seemingly no logic to it.

But it's full and warm.

So very warm.

Gray turns and spies him in the doorway. "Hey, you're up."

He blinks as Gray tosses a chunk of wood outside and shuffles down the steps to one of the bundles on a shelf, grabbing something from one of the twine-wrapped packages and sidling over to the fire. Gray pulls something from inside and wraps it up.

It's meat. He can smell it. It makes his mouth water.

It's in front of his face, wrapped in a leaf—from the shelf—and he's tearing into it before he can even think again about how hungry he is. It's rough on his tongue and hurts a bit to eat, but it's filling and salty and everything he needs right now.

There's a wooden bowl with water in front of him that he swaps his empty leaf for and drains the whole thing in seconds.

Gray's looking at him with an amused smile and he bows his head slightly.

"No. None of that," Gray's face falls and he tosses the used leaf into the fire. "Food is a basic standard, no need to thank." He brushes his hands on his pants. "I need a smoke, c'mon."

Gray gestures for him to follow up the stairs, through the now non-existent wall, and out to a few slabs of stone. He pulls out a small, cylindrical bundle of shredded tobacco leaf. It shines in the sun.

It'd been flash frozen in place of paper.

Cool.

"You use fire, right?" Gray side-eyes him. "Can I get a light?"

He nods and Gray brings the tobacco to his lips, cupping his hands to shield it from the breeze. With a quick snap of of fingers he burns a low flame until the end glows orange and Gray pulls away to breathe out a cloud of smoke.

"Thanks," Gray rasps.

But he's not paying much attention.

He hasn't stopped the flow of magic, and his whole body buzzes with it. His blood sings, thrums with each rush, and his origin expands and contracts on its own with each beat. It fills him, and the backs of his eyes prick.

The sensation leaves him unable to move right away.

He looks at his hands.

It's so…clean.

His heart aches in his chest as he pulls on the magic again, fire sparking in his palm and settling into a soft, golden flame. The world falls away, dampening his hearing.

He stares as it flickers, dancing in his grasp, weaving through his fingers and around his wrist, playful. The warmth tickles at his skin, licking, twisting, and then engulfing as he curls hands into fists.

"Surreal, isn't it?"

He snaps out of it to look at Gray, who's looking at him with a soft smile.

He's not quite sure what Gray's talking about.

Gray looks to his own hands, "Feeling Lucy's magic for the first time. There's nothing like it, huh?" He tilts his head up to the sky. "First time I felt it I thought I was dreaming."

He looks from his hands to Gray before extinguishing the fire and crossing his arms. It's all so strange.

"She's different," he continues. "I didn't know witches like her could exist back when I met her. I was lucky, I'd only had three or so binders before Lucy." Gray taps the stud just below his bottom lip before looking over to him, looking over his face like he wants so say something.

He looks away from Gray, focusing instead on his surroundings.

The area is more open than what he's used to with large stretches of grass, littered with a few stumps. The trees climb high, leaves ranging anywhere from green to red, burning bright in the morning sun. Chunks of cut wood pile high off to one side of the house, and a row of large stone bowls and slabs of metal sit above a few fire pits.

"Usually," he can hear Gray flick the ash off his cigarette, "we talk to familiars before Lucy binds them. Show them where we live. Who Lucy is. Give them the choice." He looks over to Gray who shuffles over to a nearby stump to sit down. "Because we deserve that. We deserve the choice."

A choice.

"But from what she's told me, you were seconds away from being Karen's again," a snarl warps Gray's features at the name and he spits at the ground. "So we're gunna end up doing this backwards."

Gray juts his chin out at the stump right next to him, and he walks over to sit.

Gray draws in another puff of smoke and lets out a low exhale.

"My last binder was a few decades ago," Gray starts, crossing an ankle over his knee and hunching over to brace his forearms against his calf. "She was…well, what a witch was. Cold. Controlling. Did whatever she wanted. Used us for whatever she wanted. Usually as a shield, or for a fight. Fight or die."

Gray blinks slowly, pausing for a minute. "It wasn't just me she had, obviously. Witches rarely have just one familiar. But he and I…Loke…was—" he chokes over the word, "…was my best friend. The amount of shit we managed to get through together…"

He takes another pull, the leaves crackling as they burn.

"That last night, another witch came into our territory," he says, eyes focused on the shortening cigarette. "Her familiars attacked us. Us. Our binder. The house. One second, we were fighting, the next, we were unbound and running. Loke and I were supposed to meet up, but…" Gray shakes his head, "he never showed."

He uncurls from his seated position and finishes off the last of his smoke before tossing the tail end into a nearby fire pit. "I thought he might've gotten bound by the witch who'd attacked us, so I started looking for her. Found her eventually and almost got killed by one of her familiars. Would have if Lucy hadn't been there too."

Gray lets out a loud cough and clears his throat. "When I woke up here," he unconsciously looks back in the direction of the house, "I could smell Loke. I nearly killed Lucy when she came in to check on me. If she hadn't shown me her memories, I would have."

He rubs at his face with his hands. Unbound, Gray wouldn't have had magic, though.

Unless he'd held onto some for that long.

"She didn't do anything to defend herself from me," Gray grabs another cig from his pocket, and raises an eyebrow. He pulls on magic from his origin and lights it easily for Gray. "It was the strangest thing." A small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Turned out she was looking for Loke too."

Gray draws in a long breath, muscles loosening with the movement as he rolls his neck. "Eventually we started looking for him together and she ended up binding me in the middle of a fight. I told her to, since there was only so much I could do without magic against other witches and familiars. She'd wanted to before of course, but didn't force it on me. Didn't stop her from asking as many times as she did. She blames herself for losing Loke."

He furrows his brow at Gray.

Gray sighs at that. "Lucy…doesn't like binding. She feels it's an uneven balance of power. We aren't below her. We aren't weapons or tools at her disposal for whatever she wants. So she never bound Loke, and because of that, Karen was able to take him. She didn't want the same thing to happen to me too."

There's no way this is real. No chance in the world. He's totally dead right now and just doesn't know it. People like this…they don't exist. They don't.

"So," Gray yawns, "eventually we found another familiar. And then another. And another, until there was a huge group of us."

He looks around, reaches out. He doesn't hear, smell, or sense anyone else, though the rain from a few days ago could have something to do with that.

"We haven't all been back here in awhile," Gray tells him, answering his unspoken thought. "Though with you here, they'll definitely all be coming now." He jerks a thumb behind him. "Hence the wall."

…that makes no sense.

"Which reminds me," Gray stands and stretches, "we need to start on the bread for tonight. Whenever we get a new family member, everyone comes back here to celebrate." A smile. "Think of it like a reunion for most of us, and a 'welcome' for you." Gray holds out a hand to him and he takes it, letting Gray pull him to standing.

"Gotta go get started on the flour," Gray says, turning away and grabbing two large, curved blades from where it's propped up against stone and offers him one. "You comin'?"

He looks from the scythe, up to Gray, and back. None of this feels real. He doesn't know what to do.

He tentatively takes the handle and follows Gray around one side of the house to a mid-size field of wheat. The tall, fuzzy, beige stalks come up to about his chest and sway gently in the breeze.

Gray moves to put some space between them. "You ever done this before?"

He shakes his head.

"Okay," he backs up, "just watch what I do, and follow suit. And just keep enough distance so you don't hack off my leg."

He watches as Gray readjusts his grip—one hand on the top handle and the other midway down the staff—and twists his body to run the scythe through the wheat in a large semi-circle. It falls effortlessly and Gray steps forward to repeat the same action with the next chunk of tall grass.

The blade is heavier than he was expecting, and though he doesn't quite understand how the stalks end up getting cut instead of bent, when the weight helps the movement gain momentum he finds it to be effortless. It just works, and his thoughts are soon dulled by the repetitive, meditative motions.

It doesn't take them long to gather it all into a few large bundles, way more than he's ever seen before.

"Definitely not enough."

Gray yanks one of the sheafs into place next to the others and brushes his hands off on his pants. "Think you can go find Lucy? We probably need another half field and I gotta get started on threshing." He crosses the field back toward the house and gestures behind him. "She's probably out by the creek. You can hear it just through that treeline."

Gray disappears into the house before he has the chance to protest.

What even.

He shakes his head and makes his way into the forest.

It's the earsplitting cracks that lead him to her, loud over the sound of the rushing river. He hears the grunts, her frustration, and feels the magic and pain before he rounds the massive roots of an uprooted, fallen tree.

She stands hunched over a half-destroyed trunk now laying on the ground.

He scents the air and smells nothing but her and the must of wet bark. So she's not in danger.

Once again, he smells salt.

"Dammit," her voice breaks. "Fucking hell, dammit."

He flinches at another loud crack and rustling of a tree falling over as a flash of light whites out part of his vision. The displeased whine that escapes his lips is involuntary and he more hears than sees her whip around to face him.

"Shit," she breathes. Leaves and twigs crunch under her feet, each snap louder than the last as she gets closer. "Sorry, are you okay?" Her hands hover just over his, and he lets her pull them from his face. "Can I take a look?"

The pads of her fingers prod below his eyes and push at his brows, golden gaze studying him intently. He's not sure what she's looking for, though spots of white blank out a decent chunk of her face every time he blinks.

"Doesn't look like there was any damage," she takes a step back, "can you see properly?"

He squints and rubs his eyes. The white spots are still there, but getting smaller at least. He manages a small nod and she lets out a relieved sigh.

"Good."

He takes in the scene around her.

She's levelled a decent area of trees on the creek's shoreline. Some are uprooted entirely, others are sliced on angles. A few smaller ones have been completely crushed by massive trunks, and some haven't fallen entirely to the floor yet.

All of them have large chunks charred or carved out of them.

His gaze is drawn back to her as she wipes her face and inhales deeply before shaking her hands out and bouncing on the balls of her feet. She rolls her neck, crosses her arms, and looks up at him. "What's going on? What can I do for ya?"

He glances back in the direction of the house.

"Gray send you?" she asks.

He looks back to her.

"Yeah, I figured. More wheat, right?" She brushes her hands off on the thighs of her pants. "This always happens. He won't expand the field even when I tell him he can because he thinks 'we'll have enough next time' but no," she drawls, rolling her eyes, "he refuses because he's a stubborn baby."

She smiles. Eyes soft. Fond.

"Don't know what I'd do without him though," she says warmly.

Her gaze goes vacant, unseeing, straight ahead, yet not. The leaves rustle around them. Birds chirp. The water trickles over half submerged, jagged rocks.

She inhales sharply, loud, jerking out of her daze and shaking her body out violently. Deep, shuddering breaths even out. "Sorry. Spaced out for a second there. Let's go."

He follows a decent few feet behind her, keeping his distance but not straying too far or letting her out of sight. She moves slowly, but her steps are deliberate. Practiced. It's not the first time she's gone where he'd found her.

Obviously. Gray had told him where to find her. Duh.

So when she stumbles and pitches forward to her knees, he doesn't need to tug at the binding to figure out her emotions are all over the place. Hell, the trees were proof enough of that. And the tears.

She's not okay, and she's terrible at hiding it.

She doesn't look back at him, but he sees her bring a hand to her face briefly, and a quick exhale of air, thick with emotions. Blood pricks at his nose and he makes out a few shallow scrapes when she wipes them off again.

She continues back in the direction of the house.

He follows a little closer.

Gray's back in the field when they break away from the forest, whacking the tops of the wheat stalks against the inside of a barrel. He looks to be about a third of the way through with the discarded stems scattered next to him.

"You already seed and water?"

Gray's head snaps up at Lucy's question, and he nods. "Yeah. It's all ready."

"This is the third time, Gray," Lucy goes to stand in front of Gray, arms crossed. "When are we just going to make this field bigger?"

Gray barely sends her a glance before tossing away the emptied sheaf and grabbing another to start the process again. His movements are quick, assured, methodical. He doesn't even seem aware of what he's doing.

"When it needs to be bigger."

Lucy rolls her eyes, "Gray, the amount of familiars is only growing, no matter how many are off on their own. C'mon. When we have free time we just need to do it. We'll need it."

Gray pauses.

"How do you know?"

Lucy blinks at him.

"How do you know we'll need it?" he challenges, straightening up and looking down at her. "How do you know after this year's judgement we're all still going to be here?"

Lucy glares. "Do you have such little faith in me—"

Gray cuts her off. "I have all the faith in the world in you, Lucy, but she's catching on! She's fucking figuring it out and if she does…"

Lucy shakes her head. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"How?" he asks again, tossing the sheaf on the ground. "You can't do everything, Lucy, you're barely hanging on as is."

"I'm fine—"

"You're not," Gray advances on her and Lucy backs up. The set of Gray's jaw and hardness of his eyes is one unfamiliar to him.

Gray's hands come up to grip gently at Lucy's upper arms. "You're not, Lucy. We both know you're not. You don't have to pretend you are."

Lucy shakes her head and pulls out of Gray's grasp, turning away. "It's fine. I'll be fine."

Gray follows. "Lucy, you need to let Yukino take on a few of the wanderers. She's gotten stronger, and—"

"No."

"Lucy—"

She whirls on him. "I said no!"

A muted flash pulses, a faint echo of Lucy's silhouette before settling into a soft aura. Gray doesn't flinch, or back away, he simply reaches for her balled hands and wraps his fingers around her wrists.

"This is draining you, Lucy," Gray says, voice firm, "there's more damage to be done by keeping all of us than if you have a few transferred."

Lucy bows her head, "I can't, Gray."

"Yes you can."

"No!" Lucy yanks her hands free. "I can't….I can't do that to them. To any of you. You're not things! I can't just ship you off because you're 'inconvenient'."

Again, Gray pulls at her wrists, "You know we would never think that. We all know the situation, we'd understand."

Lucy bites her lip. "I can't do it. I can't choose who's more expendable just because of how much magic you can or can't carry." She won't meet Gray's gaze even when he tilts his head down to try and catch hers.

He sighs, looking down, and cocks his head in the other direction as he flips her hands, palm up. The scrapes have started to bleed a little bit and Gray runs the backs of his fingers over them. He can see Gray trying to pull on his magic, but the second the cool air makes it to his fingertips, it dissipates.

Gray growls and mutters something under his breath before letting her hands drop.

"If you want to protect us," he says, "and if you don't want to end up dead, then you need to talk to Yukino about taking on a few bindings." He backs up from Lucy and reaches down to grab another thing of wheat. "Most of us will be here tonight, so if you don't bring it up and explain the situation, I will. It affects all of us. This is not the time to be stubborn."

Lucy doesn't answer. She instead backs up to the edge of the small wheat field and drops to her hands and knees. Her fingers curl, nails digging into the ground, and she closes her eyes.

Magic spirals around her fingers, tiny tendrils that swirl up and around to the backs of her hands before disappearing in the ground.

It only takes seconds for little bits of grass to poke up from the dirt, slowly, but surely. The longer it gets, the more the wind catches, and the bright green sways and rustles. The blades thicken and curl back before the colour fades and sprouts.

She doesn't look at Gray when she stands and turns.

"Fine," she says, and walks away.

There's no sound other than the whisper of the leaves as he sees her disappear into the house. The white is completely gone from his vision now, but he's starting to itch in his skin. He breathes deep, until his ribs hurts and his head swims and he doesn't feel anything crawling down his spine anymore.

A handle is shoved in his line of sight.

"Come on," Gray doesn't wait for him to take it, and he catches the scythe as it falls. "I still need to get through the rest of this pile. Can you cut that while I do?"

Gray's usual tenacity is all but gone and he keeps his eyes on the ground. Not in the mood to talk. Too many emotions.

The scythe is heavy in his hands as he swings, and when Gray's breath hitches once in awhile, he doesn't acknowledge it.

Being in pain is hard enough. Sometimes meddling makes it worse.

So he does what he can to make it easier. He works, slow and steady, side by side with Gray.

—

The sun is low by the time the grain is ground and the dough is kneaded and stuck in a row of stone bakers. It warms his face and he closes his eyes as the silence settles. The fires crackle, but they're easy to tune out, and his shins nearly burn from how close he is to the pits.

It's reassuring though. The peace.

So when a hand slaps him on the back and a loud voice sounds in his ear, he doesn't realize he has a hand around a neck and someone pinned to the side of the house until it's already too late.

"Woah there, newbie," she smirks, "at least buy a girl a drink before diving straight into the kinky stuff."

Long brown hair. Dark eyes. Flushed face. Ears, nose, eyebrow. Strong. Strong, but warm. Warm heart.

Familiar.

He jerks back and shoves his hands under his arms. She's not dangerous. She's not dangerous at all and he overreacted. He could have hurt her. He could have killed her. He can't do damage with magic, but he can do damage with his hands. The scales that come out once in awhile aren't red naturally.

"Shit," the woman says softly, taking a step closer and he backs away. "Hey, it's okay. I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that, I wasn't thinking."

He shakes his head. He still should've been more in control of himself. He's a fucking dragon for fucks sake. He knows what a target is. He knows how to differentiate between familiar and witch. He knows. He does it all the fucking time. As far as he can tell he's fine right now, so what the fuck—

"I've done it too, yeah?"

She pulls him from his thoughts as she shuffles around in a small leather bag hanging from her belt. The sharp smell of alcohol reaches his nose as she pops open the lid of what looks like a water-skin and drains from it a few long times.

"You fight and you fight," she coughs into the crook of her elbow, "so you're always on the defensive, which works and is fine when you're in that environment." Dark eyes find his, staring, discerning. "Looks like you've been in it long enough for your body to develop a mind of its own, huh?"

That's not a fucking excuse for losing control of himself.

She pockets the booze and crosses her arms over the fabric of her bandeau. "Coming out of something like that and so suddenly being somewhere you don't have to react constantly is jarring for anyone. We've all had to learn to control our reflexes and adjust to being somewhere where not everyone is trying to kill us. You're looking for threats right now. You're expecting them."

…he's never really thought about it before.

"It'll lessen over time," she smiles, "and until it does, don't worry about it. We're all pretty strong, we can take a hit or two."

She sits down on the tree stump Gray'd been on earlier and folds in her legs, stretching her arms over her head and letting out a soft grunt. Thick red lines swirl and bend over her right forearm, solid symbols that boast hidden strength.

She's strong.

"You're crawling in your skin," she says, pulling him out of his observations. "You're waiting for the other shoe to drop, right?"

He blinks as she looks at him.

"You watch, and it's so foreign at first you're off guard. You can't move. You can't do anything other than what's asked of you because its so surreal you think you're dreaming." She definitely talks to Gray. They sound similar.

She waves her hand toward the other stump and he's hit with a huge wave of déjà vu. He sits.

"Then you get skittish." She pauses and shakes her head. "No, skittish is the wrong word. You get more antsy, because nothing's happening when you've always been so used to so much going on. Always on high alert. Survival instincts. Waiting for what the next thing is that's going to hurt you."

He bounces his knee against the ground and digs his hands into the wood of his seat to keep himself from bolting. From running somewhere and ripping things apart.

"It's exhausting," she sighs, slouching forward and holding her hands out to the nearby fire, "because you don't trust anyone. And because you feel safe, and the magic you're holding is…amazing…you're so not used to it that you don't trust yourself." She looks over to him. "And that's the hard part. Because it's been just you for so long that you've always trusted yourself."

He swallows, hard, and focuses on the ground at his feet. Though the sun was gone, he could still focus on the texture of each blade of grass.

"But it passes," she breathes, and he can hear her smile. "You have the time and the freedom to figure yourself out, and learn about things you never knew existed. You have people around who have been through the same thing, and who were just as scared as you were."

She pauses and when she doesn't continue, he manages to look back to her.

"We know…what it's like," she tells him, eyes scanning over his face, and he has to fight the instinct to hide when he feels them all over his past bindings. "And I know you aren't going to trust us at first." She lets out a hard laugh. "I sure as hell didn't. Gray's got a few scars to prove it."

She smiles and lifts her forearm—the one without her sigil—to his eye level. A few gashes criss-cross the length of her arm, silver and faded. Old. "I've got mine too," she says.

He runs a hand through his hair and lets out a low hiss when his fingers brush over a tender area.

She zeroes in on his hand. "You alright?"

He blinks slowly and lowers his head the slightest bit.

She nods. "Okay, good."

"Cana!"

Her head snaps in the direction of the voice at Lucy bounding out of the house, light on her toes and a smile on her face.

"Lu!"

Lucy is immediately tackled to the ground in a mess of laughing and limbs until the new familiar has her pinned to the ground.

"Still gorgeous as ever, Lu," she snickers, "I wish you'd take me up on that date offer."

Lucy laughs, "Not sure your girlfriend would appreciate that, Cana."

The familiar, Cana, lets Lucy up. "I dunno, she's pretty open to a lot of different things—"

Lucy taps the top of Cana's head with the flats of her fingers, "Inappropriate!"

Cana stands and pulls Lucy back to standing, "It's been too long."

Lucy sighs, "It really has. It's good to see you."

The smile on Lucy's face is blinding, but soft, relief evident on her features. She looks exhausted, drained, but with someone else around definitely livelier and happier than she'd been earlier on in the day. Gray had been the same.

"So, I met your newbie," Cana says, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "Where'd you find this one?"

And just like that, the smile on Lucy's face falters.

"Karen," Lucy answers.

Cana's expression sobers and she gives one hard nod. Her arms come up from her sides but Lucy presses a hand to her chest to keep her from moving to hug her.

Lucy's eyes are glassy, and squint when she smiles wide at Cana, all teeth, no cheeks. "I'm just glad I got to him in time." She looks to him and he starts. "Though he got kind of pulled into this with no explanation whatsoever."

Now Cana is looking at him too, soft smile warping into a playfully wicked grin. "Oh, I'm going to have so much fun with this one."

Lucy laughs, "He's overwhelmed. Be nice to him." She checks him over. "You'll come find me or Gray if you need something, yeah?"

Something in his expression must've told her something, because she finally flashes a genuine smile. "Good."

Cana throws an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into her chest and back toward the house, "I'm gunna show you so much shit. There are so many cool things of Lucy's around. I have a few bottles of sake somewhere I think, stuck where nobody would find them, so you can have one of those. There's this spot on the roof—"

She's warm with him. An arm around his shoulders, her own energy pulsing, Lucy's magic running through him. He settles.

He listens to Cana ramble on, and settles into his skin.

But he's not in it long before he needs to get out of it.

Evidently, Gray ripping out the wall was definitely necessary with how many familiars had ended up in Lucy's shack. They move in and out, sitting on the stone stairs, gathering around the indoor fire, fumbling around in the kitchen for spices and ingredients to make different flavoured butters for the bread. Someone brought meat that now sizzles over a grate indoors, and many more lounge around the stone bread bakers outside.

It's loud. It's chaotic.

It's disconcertingly mundane.

It's infuriating.

What are these guys even doing? Standing around, eating tons of bread until they're so stuffed their stomach hurts. He doesn't remember the last time his stomach hurt from eating too much, instead of from trying to digest itself. They're smiling, chatting like everything is right with the world and there aren't witches fucking with their kin until they do whatever it is that's asked of them.

What is he even doing here?

"Hi!"

He starts at the sudden presence next to him and rears back slightly. This familiar has her hands up, eyes wide.

"I'm sorry," she says gently, "I didn't mean to scare you."

Hair, a darker pink than his, pulled into pigtails and deep blue eyes. Her smile is blinding as she rocks back and forth on her heels, arms dropping to link fingers behind her back. She's tiny. So young.

His heart breaks at the line of hoops trailing up the shell of her ear.

"Another pinky! We gotta stick together, y'know?" She beams.

He blinks and feels his face contort.

She gestures toward his hair with her chin. "The hair?"

Though he knows he won't be able to see it, he looks up anyway and runs a hand through it. He's not sure when his hair changed from black to pink, but he hadn't thought much about it. Not since…

He shakes his head and looks back to the girl in front of him.

"I'm Sherria," she sticks her hand out, "I was the newest before you, so I haven't been around too long in comparison to some of the others." She turns to look at the group, then back to him. "Yukino found me, but she already had Wendy, so Lucy was the one to take me on."

He cocks his head to one side. What is she even talking about?

Sherria mirrors his head movement as her hand drops. "Do you not know?"

His frown deepens.

Sherria frowns too. "Oh, you were an instant bind, huh?" she sighs. "I can't even imagine what must've happened for that to have to happen. Lucy and Yukino never do that."

He snorts out a growl and she snaps to attention instantly.

"I'm sorry," she bows her head slightly, "I ramble when I'm thinking and I'm not quite sure what's going on so I don't know what to say—"

Crack.

He whips around at the the sound, heart racing as his eyes zero in on one of the fires, crackling and sparking. It's just wood. Its just a fire.

"I'll leave you alone," she backs up from him with a waning smile, curling into herself. "I didn't mean to—"

He sticks his hand out.

It's closed, fingers curled into his palm, but its loose. She meets the back of his hand with a brush of hers and the anxiety fades from her.

He can breathe easier too.

Smack.

He whips around again. One familiar's got a hand on Gray's shoulder, both smiling widely. It's just a clap. It's just skin on skin.

"I'm gonna go get some bread," Sherria says, looking up at him. "Can I get you one?"

He nods absently and she dashes away into the house.

Slish.

That's the one he backs up for.

It's a large knife sliding through a slab of raw meat. He can see it. He knows it.

But his heart won't slow down.

There's too many people.

They're too bubbly.

They're too friendly.

They're too relaxed.

A trap. It's gotta be a trap.

Too many.

Too loud.

Too much.

Nobody's paying any attention to him when he moves back into the forest and bolts.

He doesn't know where he's going. His breathing rips down his throat until its raw, every new one scraping and clawing and dry. His blood rushes in his ears, pounding, throbbing, churning his head until it aches and won't stop. It feels like it's splitting but he can't stop. His ribs, neck, cheek, back, everything hurts, everything that's healed feeling like it's ripped open and fresh again.

When he staggers into a tree he digs his claws in and rips through the trunk to pull himself up. His feet are bare and scrape against the wood as he does so, but it doesn't hurt at this point. He can barely feel anything. A few birds scatter, fluttering off somewhere else as he hauls himself up on a large limb and lays down until he's wrapped his arms and legs around it in a vice grip.

He bites at his lower lip and presses his forehead into the cold of the branch and fights to get himself back under control. The bark digs into his skin, and that helps, so he presses his palms further into it and drags them along until it hurts.

It doesn't draw blood, but he feels it. It's real.

It grounds him.

He swallows, and his throat burns a little less, breathing coming a little slower, heart no longer racing. He can hear the water trickling over the stones nearby and focuses on that as he slumps and gives in to exhaustion.

He feels a prick of worry in Lucy's magic just before he passes out.

—

He wants to collapse.

The barrier pinning him to the cool, concrete brick won't let him.

His stomach churns, empty again, and he fights back the nausea.

Ironic. No food leaves him nauseous.

The moon breaks through the clouds, massive, full, the largest of the year yet and brighter than ever. It finds some of the cracks he otherwise wouldn't see at night, curls around bones in the corner of the room he's in. He swallows.

Winces.

The magic restraining him pushes in closer and a wheeze escapes his mouth before it lets up and he can cough. The movement causes small cuts and he grits his teeth. He's free to let his head hang now, so he does.

Footsteps scrape along the floor.

"You gunna submit today?" his binder lures.

He says nothing.

"Aw," she's closer now, he can smell death on her. "Now where's that silver tongue gone?"

He suppresses a snarl.

His head is forced back against the wall, his jaw in her death-grip as she squeezes until he's got no choice but for it to pop open. He glares, straight eye contact, staring her down and he faintly registers her tongue curling so she can run the ball of her new piercing along her bottom lip.

It clacks against her teeth as she smiles.

"I should've swapped out brow for tongue months ago if it leaves you like this," she lets him go and crosses her arms, "so docile—"

He spits in her face, all blood and saliva, and smirks.

She backhands him and the blade of his new binding cuts into his tastebuds.

Worth it.

The barriers around him tighten, crushing into his ribs and forcing all the air from his lungs. He curls his hands into fists and bites back tears as his body fights to breathe, but pulls at nothing. Black spots cloud his vision. His skin tingles in waves. His muscles start to slack.

A new barrier worms its way into his origin and pushes.

There was no way to swallow that agony.

He feels it everywhere. His body burns, screams with each pump of his racing heart, only more frequent the more panicked he gets and faster it beats. His lips curl, his teeth gnash, his throat screams noiselessly. He fights the tears, but they escape.

The barriers leave.

He coughs violently, heaving in huge, staggered breaths as his sight returns to him. He has no strength left as he's dropped and crumples to the floor. Hands snap his head up by the horns, and feral anger fills his vision.

"You've had it easy so far," she says softly, defining each syllable of each word, "and I have been patient. So, very patient. But you are trying me." He can't be bothered to make a sound when she loosens her grip and his face meets the stone floor. "If you don't start to co-operate I'm going to bring someone else in to make you."

He manages to meet her eyes.

"I know how much you care for your kin," she sneers, spitting out that last word. "Maybe you'll co-operate if it's not you."

Metal shrieks as she closes the gate to the room he's in and he lets the tears fall freely. Almost as an afterthought, he's pinned back up to the wall with her magic.

He can't. He can't do this anymore. If she brings in someone…if she makes him watch, he'll break.

He can't break. Not again.

Through the binding, he can feel her settling, most likely almost asleep if not sleeping already, so he pulls on her magic and fights the urge to puke. Her magic is thick sludge, black, destructive. He hates it.

But he'll need it.

His head is still swimming, and of the countless plans he's thought up on how to escape, since he has no idea what's outside of where he's been for…however long ago she'd found him, they don't seem to apply here.

He's the only one here, he knows that much at least. He's never met anyone else here, but he's felt them around before, heard them too. The binding keeps him pinned in the cell, but as soon as its gone he'll be able to blow the door open and get out without using up all the magic he's gathered.

He closes his eyes.

Now or never.

He pushes the blade in his tongue out, settles it in the grooves of his teeth, takes a deep breath.

He tears his tongue back in.

He falls.

—

He lands flat on his back with a large root digging into his spine. He chokes at the impact and rolls over onto one side.

Sweat coats his whole body and the night air pricks at his skin. It soothes the raw dryness of his throat and fills him with ease. He rolls his neck to one side and rubs at the few vertebrae screaming at him.

Fuck that hurt.

He's okay. He's not there anymore. She's not here. She's not—

He's shoved into the ground by a wave of magic.

—here.

"What is Lucy trying to do," Karen snarls, forcing him deeper into the dirt, "trick me?"

He goes to bring his hands up and pull on Lucy's magic to let out a burst of fire, but before he even think about it they're twisted and forced under him.

"She send you out here as bait?" Karen cocks her head to one side, hovering over him. "Seems a little weird to save you yesterday and dangle you out here today."

His breathing becomes more laboured when she toys with the hoop freshly embedded within the cartilage of his left ear and a feral snarl rips up his still-raw throat.

"I didn't know that bindings were connected," she says, nails tugging lightly at the curved metal. "So when I woke up to mine being ripped out I wasn't sure what was happening. I didn't think a tongue one would be any different, but apparently it allows for more freedom than I thought."

Her eyes narrow, studying him.

"I wonder," she muses, tugging at it, "if I'm the one to rip it out, does it stop working?"

He tilts his chin up and bares his teeth. He snaps at her.

"Ah, ah, ah," Karen backs off, just barely, "attack me and you put your witch at risk, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"

Liar.

He snaps at her again.

Karen's answering grin is manic, "Oh, I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Bitch.

Bitch.

BITCH.

He fights against Karen's barrier magic, straining, uncaring of the retearing of his body, snarling. Fucking bitch. Starved him. Fucked with him. Tortured him. Everything she did. She made him give in. She did this to him. She did this to him and he has magic now. He can hurt her. He can kill her.

Needs to die.

Needs to die.

Needs to fucking die.

The barrier disappears and he lunges for her throat.

His teeth meet flesh only for a second before he's shoved back and shielded from a blinding flash. He hears Karen curse and he struggles against the body that stopping him from fighting. From killing.

He pulls on magic and flails, claws, snarls. He hears crackling, and burning, and he smells blood. He feels pressure come around him and pin his arms to his sides. His teeth sink into something, rough and sour against his tongue and he struggles. He tries to rip away but the pressure only grows. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it. It's restraining him it's…

Soft.

His shoulders stop jerking as he comes back to his body and his jaw goes slack. He pants heavily, laboured, and slumps back against something.

He's upright, and when his head clears enough for him to listen to his surroundings, he makes out a faint murmuring.

"It's okay," is whispered. "You're okay. You're going to be okay. She doesn't have you. I have you. It's okay. You're safe now. You're never going back there. I've got you. Shhhh."

He sinks into the arms. Into the warmth. Into the comfort, until hands push him back and away and all he sees is gold, lidded eyes, glassy and exhausted.

Karen lays on the ground, unconscious, and Lucy's stands front of him, reassuring.

"Damn," she says slowly, and her words slur. "Didn't know dragons used so much magic."

Her eyes roll back and flutter shut as she falls through his arms.

I was not expecting it to be this long...

-xb