Winter's POV

"Winter! You're going to pass out if you stay there much longer! You've never been good with hot springs, you know."

Lucy's earnest voice startled me from my reverie, and I slipped off my perch, splashing frantically in the steaming water, my head submerging for several embarrassing seconds before I could grab the edge of the springs and haul myself out. 

"Yeah." I spat out a mouthful of water. "Thanks for the warning, sis."

Grabbing the towel I'd set aside as I stepped out of the pool, my earlier train of thought came back to me.

Just what does Loke have against Celestial Wizards...?

Both Loke and Candor had taken jobs on their own for some reason, though I supposed Candor wasn't that hard to figure out. He'd only recently gotten released from the hospital and the first thing the guild had done to celebrate was induct him into our ranks. Mira had given him the same treatment she had me, giving him the choice of where to have his guild mark placed. I can't say I wasn't a little surprised when he chose the side of his neck. His wild hair was long enough to cover the black tattoo, so that probably had something to do with it.

In any case, I thought he probably wanted to prove himself to the guild as an individual member and took on a semi-challenging task without the rest of Team Zodiac's help.

Loke was another story completely. I had not one inkling why he'd gone off on his own, but I guess Fate liked to be fickle, because when I tagged along with Lucy and the gang on a job, we ended up in the very same town Loke was working in.

The two of us didn't speak much, and he seemed overly wary of my sister and I. Like he'd been the first time he found out my type of magic. I really didn't want to go back to those days where he wouldn't even look me in the eye, but without a word of explanation from him, there was nothing I could do.

I exhaled sharply, ruffling up my hair with the fluffy towel as I made my way back inside the hotel to change into the complementary silk robe. Lucy - who I saw striding out into the main room while I was knotting my belt - wore hers loose as ever. I snorted. My sister was waaay too proud of her supposed "sex appeal".

Finished, I followed Lucy out and was greeted by a pillow to the face.

...Someone's going to die...

"I'm sorry Winter, but in war there are no friends." Erza grinned with all the ferocity of a tigress, chucking me my own brand of fluffy artillery that I gripped firmly between both hands. Pillow fight, eh?

"I wouldn't have it any other way!" I laughed, throwing myself into the fray, which included a pair of incessantly feuding idiots (read: Gray and Natsu), a kamikaze flying cat who dive-bombed the scene every so often with a giggling war cry, a demonic mistress who showed no mercy even to her biggest fan, and my sister, who stood off to the side and cringed whenever one of us was thrown into a wall.

"Ow, shit! What the hell Winter?!" Natsu demanded. He was sprawled out disgracefully on the floor, his robe dangerous askew, a plaintive hand pressed to his no doubt throbbing forehead. He jabbed an accusatory finger at the pillow that now dangled from my fingertips, tucked loosely against my thigh. "You put an IRON in there, didn't you?!"

My shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. "All's fair in love and war~!"

Over on the other side of the room, Erza paused long enough in her frenzied assault on Gray to smirk at me admiringly. "Well said, Winter," she praised me, causing my cheeks to flush. A little, ok? Just a little. I wasn't having another fangirl moment or anything, I swear.

"Oi! That really hurt!"

"It was supposed to!"

"Haha, Pinky got his ass kicked by a little IRON! No wonder you had so much trouble with that Gajeel guy!"

This would be when I threw my loaded pillow squarely into Gray's chest. He let out a husky oomph!, his face contorting in what had to be immense pain. To his inquiring (agonized) stare, I smiled with a bit of theatrical innocence. "Only I can call the idiot Pinky. It's my nickname for him."

And so the fight wore on. I passed a couple "special" pillows to Erza after she approached me with the desire for an alliance, and we brought hell-fire to the boys, who grouped together only for the goal of survival. Natsu got lucky a few times and managed to melt my IRONs (along with the pillows) before they could reach him, but more often than not he got a lovely taste of metal. Gray just tried not to die, much like Happy, who'd taken to hovering above the fight and offering comedic commentary once in a while that was much appreciated.

"And Natsu goes down! That's his third knockout this evening, and the tag team of Erza and Winter shows no signs of letting up on him!"

"Happy!" Natsu whined, peeling his face from the floor to level a glare in the cat's direction, his eyes nearly rolled up inside his head. "You're supposed to be on my side!"

I crouched beside him, grinning cheekily, and patted his head genially. "Don't get so worked up about it; he's just siding with the winners, is all."

"Like hell you're gonna win!"

________________________

I stumbled out into the night air, face flushed, chest heaving from the adrenaline that still coursed through my too-small veins. That had been epic. 

Erza was still terrorizing the boys, much to their dismay, but I'd run outta steam a little while ago and felt the need to escape before either Natsu or Gray picked up on my growing weakness. 

A fresh breeze whispered over my flaming cheeks, eliciting a quiet sigh of relief from deep within me. A walk would do me good, I decided, would clear my head and calm me down. At this rate, I wouldn't be able to sleep from tonight's riot, coupled with the brawl from earlier that had come from this particular job. 

God, I'd had more of a work-out keeping up with Erza than when taking down a miscreant guild. 

As I walked away from the hotel, my feet carrying me in a random direction (not a good idea, seeing as how I was directionally-challenged, and all that), a sudden thought struck me. Well, it wasn't sudden exactly; it was something I'd noticed earlier but had been too preoccupied to clearly ponder.

Lucy had been gone for a long while.

An image of her Key ring sitting on the bedside table came to mind, and I grimaced. If she got into any trouble out here, she wouldn't have any means to defend herself.

Ugh. Looked like Big Sis Winter was gonna have to play the hero again. Yay.

I wandered around the streets of Balsam, keeping a wary eye out for Lucy or various signs of trouble. Now, admittedly, Balsam was a nice place, a great tourist city and pretty to boot. But every city has its dark side, even if that dark side only consisted of a few drunken idiots. And that was more than enough to spike my pulse with worry.

As much as we bickered and fought, I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened to Lucy. I mean, I doubled as her just so she wouldn't have to see our dad again (useless in the end, but it was the thought that counted)!

On a completely unrelated note, I may or may have been grumbling to myself like a one belonging to an insane asylum (and getting several worried glances as I went past) while I continued my search for Lucy - my efforts were pretty fruitless, to be honest. And I was getting unduly bored with the task, as I'd been meandering around like a lost little lamp without a hint of an idea of where I was going to end up.

I was looking for some sort of stress reliever.

Cue the two grinning guys who stepped into my path, identical glints of lust in their beady eyes.

I paused, raised an inquiring brow at them. Hands shoved oh-so-coolly into his pockets, the white-haired guy sidled up to me; his tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth as his eyes travelled up and down my body. "Little dangerous to be walkin' round by yourself, ya know, girlie," he said.

My lips curled in a toothy smile. "Depends on the girl, I think."

Taking this as a marginally good sign, the purple-haired guy draped an arm around my shoulders, beginning to tug me along the path. "So you're saying you're pretty fiesty, yeah?" he breathed, his words tickling the tip of my ear.

In all honesty, I would have found it hilarious to play a long for a little bit longer, but someone had to go and make the mistake of grabbing my ass. I think it was meant to be arousing; I just ended up getting hellishly pissed out and threw my elbow into someone's gut.

While the purple-haired one was down, huffing breaths while bent so low his forehead nearly met his knees, I grabbed the other's wrist and threw him over my shoulder. His head made contact with the ground, his body folded up, and he collapsed in the dirt, unmoved but only unconscious. With him out of the way, I turned back to his groaning buddy and jammed my heel into his neck, sending him spread-eagle onto the road, also out-cold.

I sighed as I straightened, dusting my hands off and cracking my back. Yup. Stress went poof. 

"...Winter?"

"Eh?" I brushed aside my bangs, smiling as I recognized the mage who'd just turned a nearby corner. "What's up, Loke? Did you finish your job?"

"...I think those two guys are the last on my list." He walked out from the building's shadow, moving closer to inspect the two comatose perverts I'd layed flat in the dust. He nudged one with the toe of his sneaker; he whimpered and turned over, cradling his stomach. "Yeah," Loke sighed, "it's them. I thought I'd taken care of all of them earlier, but when I found two of them harassing Lucy I--"

"Wait, wait! Harassing who now?"

He flicked me a troubled glance, but the glare of the streetlights off his glasses was too distracting, leaving me unable to clearly see his eyes. "Lucy," he repeated. "I found her a while ago and helped her out. And don't worry; I saw her meet up with Natsu a little bit after she... left."

I started to thank him (and probably apologize for his having to intervene) but the two idiots had started to stir and, as I didn't want to deal with them a second time, I slipped the belt from the white-haired guy's pants and strung them together, chained to a bench. The one dude was minus his pants at this point, but I didn't care much about the minor details.

I settled a hand at my hip (rather proudly, I gotta say) as I turned back to Loke. "You free to talk now?" I asked, offering my free hand to him. He stared at it uncomprehendingly, as though he'd never seen something so foreign before. Growing impatient, I snatched his hand and twined our fingers, making sure he wouldn't be able to pull away so readily. "C'mon, you've been weird for a while," I said when an ungodly tint of red cropped up on his cheeks and he averted his eyes, tugging listlessly to free his hand. "We're friends, right? I wanna help, even if it's just a little bit."

He exhaled slowly, almost reluctantly, muttering something beneath his heavy breath that I found impossible to make out. But the dusting of red had vanished and he tightened his grip on my hand, mustering up a waning smile. "Yeah, I guess you're right..."

I dragged Loke along, lacking in my usual chatter. If this were Gray - or even Candor - I would have found something we could talk about it. Not with Loke, though. I wanted him to make the first move, because my prying into his troubles wouldn't do any good; it might've even pushed him further away, and that was the last thing I wanted.

The silence was growing deafening, even with the chirpy nighttime sounds rising up from the city. I didn't understand what could be so terrible that Loke wouldn't be able to tell me anything about it. I just didn't. He was obviously hiding something important from me, something he thought me too untrustworthy to know? 

I inwardly sighed, shaking my head. This is going about as well as my visit to Candor's hospital room... But, gradually, I became aware of the dampness between my and Loke's hands, and my head snapped up in surprise. His hand is sweating... Is he that nervous? I chanced a look up at him, eyes widening as I noticed the angry red mark scrawled across the cheek turned to me. That was most definitely not blush-induced.

Abruptly, I slipped my hand from Loke's grasp and took his face in both hands, turning it so I could better see the mark in the limited light. "Whoa, what happened?" I peered thoughtfully at the blotchy bruise, wondering how I could have missed it. It was so strikingly obvious against his fair skin. "Is this from rounding up those idiots from before?"

He blinked, as though he'd forgotten the scar already, and moved a hand as if to probe it with his own fingers for confirmation. But, seeing as my own hand was in the way, he settled for laying his over mine, fingertips only just brushing over the red stain. "Ah, this..." His lips pulled into a sheepish smile. "I played a pretty mean joke on Lucy and she... got upset, so... I deserved it," he added, seeing the scowl beginning to twitch at my lips. 

I didn't doubt he had it coming (Lucy's not the type of girl to go around slapping people for no good reason), but still. What the hell kinda joke did you pull, you idiot...? "Wow, she really did a number on you, huh? Must've been a pretty lame joke."

"You could say that..."

My eye twitched. Seriously, even now, he was avoiding the obvious question? "Mind telling me what it was?" I prompted, subtly twisting his head a bit so that we were eye-to-eye, noses nearly pressed together. He swallowed thickly.

"I..." I could feel the erratic warmth of his hand, seeping slowly into mine, which had gone almost numb from his deathly hold. Another pained smile graced his lips. "...really don't want to lie to you."

At the time, I wasn't sure why my heart clenched so fiercely in response to his answer. I wasn't sure why he looked so terribly sad, so broken and alone. I wasn't sure why... why anything was happening, honestly, especially when he took a short step forward, pressed his lips to my forehead in a chaste kiss, then stepped back, released my hands and forced an unnecessary smile. "I think... this is going to be goodbye, Winter, so you should know that I..." He closed his mouth, shook his head, and tried again. "I had a lot of fun with you, and I don't regret a second of it."

And with that, he slid his hands deep into his pockets, spun on his heel and marched off into the festering darkness.

Which left me, all alone in the middle of the street, staring after him, unable to say a word or laugh it off, wondering why a few tears had decided to dribble down my cheeks until Gray came to fetch me sometime later.