Lucy took one step onto her balcony and shivered. It was cold out tonight. She hoped Natsu wasn't too cold, he had a blanket but still... Well, she would just bring him another one. She slipped back inside and took off her night gown. She rummaged through her chest of clothing before pulling out black leggings, a pale pink sweater, white leg warmers, and her boots. She put everything on except for her boots. She couldn't wear those just yet. She pulled out a big brown sack that had been neatly folded and tucked away in the space between her two chests. The she tiptoed out of her room, her boots and the bag in her hand. She tiptoed through the hallways, hiding whenever there was a guard patrolling until she arrived at the kitchen. She slowly inched open the door. When she didn't see any light, she fully opened the door, and went inside. She grabbed a basket from a corner and placed all the food she felt she was capable of carrying in it. She had put in lots of meat, bread, cheese, chocolate, cake, fruits, and whatever else she could find that would fit. She covered everything with a cloth, and tied another cloth around the whole thing so that nothing would slip and fall out. She then carefully placed the basket in the big bag.

She stepped out into the hallway and opened another door, the storage closet. She pulled out two blankets, two torches, and a box of matches, and put them in the bag. She pulled the drawstrings, effectively closing the bag, and slung it across her shoulders. She retraced her steps, following the exact same procedure until she entered her room again. She pulled on her boots and opened her balcony door just wide enough so that she could slip out. She closed it behind her, and made sure that no guards were patrolling the area before swinging over the balcony rail, and starting her descent. She had to go slower because of the extra weight, but she eventually made it down. Again making sure that there were no guards that were suddenly going to pop up and see her, she sprinted into the forest.

She heard growling before she even entered the clearing, and when she did, she saw Natsu standing up and leaning heavily on the trunk of the weeping willow. When he saw her, he instantly calmed down, and slid down the trunk of the tree. She ran to him and dropped her bag next to the tree.

"Stupid," she scolded. "you shouldn't be standing up yet."

He ignored her and sniffed the air as she adjusted him so that he was now sitting against the tree.

"What?" she asked. He gestured toward something behind her. She turned and saw the bag. She looked back at him, and heard his stomach growl.

"You could smell the food?" she questioned disbelievingly.

He nodded ecstatically and stared the bag down before looking up at her with pleading eyes.

"Ok, ok. You get the food, let me get it out."

She pulled the bag over to where they were sitting and pulled out everything she had put inside it. When she pulled the basket out, he was practically drooling. Poor guy, he hadn't eaten all day. She felt a pang of guilt even if there had been nothing she could do about it at the time. She untied the cloth from around the basket and uncovered the contents of the basket with a flick of her wrist. She held the basket up in front of him, and said,

"Go ahead. Eat as much as you want. Its all for you."

He looked at her like she was some sort of goddess, which made laugh, before digging in ferociously. Lucy watched in wonder as he scarfed everything down. EVERYTHING. He ate EVERYTHING. Once he had finished, he observed her before saying with a big grin on his face, "Arigatou!"

"You-you spoke!" she said surprised.

"Yeah. I figured it's ok since you brought me food."

She sweatdropped, "Not because I patched you up, and didn't attack you?"

"Yeah, that too," he said rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

So cute, she thought.

"A-Anyway, let me light these torches so we can see better."

"Go ahead, Luigi."

Lucy stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him.

"Luigi?"

"Yeah. That's your name isn't it?"

"MY NAME IS LUCY! L-U-C-Y! LUCY!!"

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry I messed up your name."

"What's my name?"

"Lucy."

"Good boy," she said, instantly back in a good mood. Then she struck a match from the matchbox and lit one of the torches. But before she could stick it in the ground, the flame was sucked into... NATSU'S MOUTH!!!! She watched gaping as he finished sucking up the flame and swallowed. He swallowed a flame.

"Y-You can e-eat flames?!" Lucy asked incredulously.

"Yeah, can't you?"

"NO! NO, HUMANS CANNOT EAT FLAMES!"

"Wow, humans are weird. Well that makes sense since you're weird."

"I am not weird!"

"Yeah, you are."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Fine, whatever. Just please don't eat the next one 'cause I want to be able to see, ok?"

"Fine," he grumbled.

"Thank you," she said as she lit another one. She glared at him, daring him to eat it. He glared right back, looking hungrily at the flames. Then he sighed and grumbled something incoherent. She puffed out her chest in victory and planted the torch in the ground.

"I need to rewrap your wounds."

"Why?"

"Because thanks to you recklessly getting up when you can't even stand, you bloodied your bandages more than they already are!! You can't stay in bloody bandages! Your wounds will get infected!"

"Fine."

So she proceeded to unwrapping and rewrapping his wounds. When she got to the one on his abdomen, she grimaced in sympathy. Now that she could see it better it looked really bad.

"Does it hurt?" she whispered.

"Yeah..." he admitted.

"A lot?" she asked, looking up to meet his eyes.

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"What are you apologizin' for?" he asked, unable to fathom why she was apologizing.

"I'm sorry that I can't do anything to alleviate your pain..."

"There's nothing you can do about that!"

"But-"

"No 'buts'. You can't do anything about it so don't feel bad about it."

"Okay," she said, smiling softly.

After she was done with everything else, she put her head up to face him and said, "I need you to extend your wing now so that I can wrap it."

"Ok," he said as he extended his wing, wincing all the while. When she unwrapped it, she again grimaced. It looked extremely painful. She could see the ripped tissue, it was a pretty long rip too. About 10 inches long. She fingered it. She felt Natsu tense up, but he didn't move away, so she continued. Eventually her fingers were trailing up and down his wing, admiring it. She felt the thin yellow membrane that was on the inside, and then she moved her hand to feel the outside where his wing was covered in scales. They were so warm and they were really nice to the touch. She could sense Natsu watching her intently, his eyes boring into the back of her neck. She was surprised he was letting her do this. She was a complete stranger, yet he was allowing her to run her fingers all over his wings.

When she finally felt that it was time to stop and rewrap his wound, she dropped her fingers and started to wrap it again. When she was done, she asked,

"It'll heal up again, right?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"Pretty sure," she squeaked.

"Don't worry about it. It'll be fine."

"Ok. I-If you don't mind me asking," she began tentatively. "who or what did this to you?"

Natsu's face darkened and he looked really angry.

"Someone really bad. Let's just leave it at that," he growled.

"Oh, ok. I'm sorry I asked, I know it wasn't my place to and-"

"Its fine," he said, seeming calmer now. "Its normal that you would want to know, but I don't want to talk about it right now."

"Ok. Then, can I ask you what exactly you are, like what species?"

"Oh, I'm a ryu."

"A ryu? But that means dragon, and you're not a dragon, well some parts of you are, but not all of you."

"Yeah, we're different from dragons, I actually have no idea why we're called that, but I think it sounds pretty cool."

He flashed her one of his goofy, fanged grins again, and it made her heart stop. In better lighting, it was even more enchanting than before, and she wished time would stop right then, but, of course, it didn't.

"Since you can eat fire... do you have any other cool abilities? She asked, extremely curious."

"Oh, well, I can breathe fire, light myself on fire, light parts of my body on fire, attack with fire. Basically, I can do a lot of things with fire," he said puffing his chest out proudly, causing him to groan.

"You ok?" she asked, her worry coming back.

"Yeah, yeah... I'm fine."

"K. Can I- can I see you light your fist on fire?" she asked bashfully, in complete awe. He chuckled at her expression, then complied. His fist was now engulfed in a bright orange flame. It was beautiful, actually.

"Wow!" she awed. "That's so cool!"

"Yeah, I guess it is."

"Hey, Natsu?"

"Yeah?"

"Won't someone be looking for you? Like your family, or friends or something?"

"Well, yeah, but we were all blasted apart during the battle. Everyone was pretty hurt. I hope they're ok," his face now scrunched up in concern.

"I'm sure they're fine," she said, smiling reassuringly.

"Yeah, you're probably right," he said, smiling back. "Okay, my turn to ask questions. Why did you save me?"

Lucy was taken aback by his question.

"How could I not save you! I'm not just gonna leave you to die if I see you injured like you were," she exclaimed incredulously.

"But you're a human."

"And? Look, I don't know what stories you've heard about humans, or your experiences with them, but not all humans are bad," she said softly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, not all humans are good either, trust me, I would know, but not all humans are bad either."

She had spoken with a bitter tone when she was talking about bad humans, mainly thinking about her mother's murderer and what her father had become. She noticed that Natsu noticed too, but he chose not to say anything, and she was grateful for that.

"Well, arigatou, Lucy."

"Eh?" she questioned, her head snapping up.

"Arigatou, for saving me and for proving to me that not all humans are bad."

He was looking at her so intensely, she blushed and muttered, "Don't thank me, its what any good person would do..."

"Now tell me about yourself."

"Uh, well... What do you want to know?"

"Anything."

"Well, I guess you should know that I'm a princess," she said rather quietly, hoping he wouldn't hear, but, to her surprise, he did.

"You're a princess?! Cool!" he asked.

She was surprised he had heard, but maybe that came with being a ryu, having heightened senses.

"Not cool!" she said bitterly. "It's horrible..."

"Why?"

And so she proceeded to tell him about the pains of being royalty, and gradually she told him about her life in general, her friends, her father, and he listened intently. He only interrupted to suddenly rant about what a horrible father Lucy's was, and how he would beat him to a pulp. Once Lucy explained to him that he couldn't do that, he started telling her about his father, a DRAGON, and his life, well most aspects of his life. He still wouldn't tell her about his fight, but that was okay, Lucy was more than happy with the amount he was telling her now. He even told her that his father had disappeared when he was younger on the same day and the same year as his friends' parents, and that was why he knew that Igneel, his father, had not abandoned him. It couldn't have just been a coincidence! And she agreed with him that it was quite strange that they would all vanish the same day, but she didn't enough about his world to make any theories, which kind of annoyed her. She listened intently though, wanting to know more about him now than ever before. But at some point, her eyelids started to droop as they talked on during the night. She fought hard to stay conscious, but felt herself fall forwards, finally giving in to sleep. The last thing she remembered was being caught by strong arms, probably Natsu's, and heard him whisper, "Good night, Luce." Then she blacked out.