Chapter Text
Mourning is a weird thing, you know? It makes the days blur and drains your energy to do things. It dulls colours away. Makes you lose your appetite.
You don't go to the funeral because you cannot stand the idea of burying an empty coffin. It seems pointless to your eyes. Like a dark and sick joke. You know Mirajane will understand you and won't judge you, and that's the only thing that matters when you don't show up.
So instead of burying an empty, meaningless coffin under layers of dirt and worms, you set up a gravestone, high and proud underneath the sky. You chose the place carefully and end up settling for your old hiding place. Up in the mountains, surrounded by forest and animals, facing the cliffside where it will be washed everyday by the sunset's light. It's much more fitting than a cemetery, bounded by nameless tombstones and mausoleums. It seems appropriate to you. She would have liked it, you decide.
You bury down your pain. Hide it beneath missions and training and easy smiles. As soon as the dullness of the first few days fades away you enter in action and don't stop ever since. You keep moving. You don't give yourself time to think. You pick up more fights with the ice stripper, try harder to make Laxus accept your challenge. You defy Erza more often. Bring Master more problems. You quietly slip to Mirajane's side, in those moments when she thinks nobody's looking, and silently hug her shoulders and give her what little comfort you can offer. It helps both of you, although none of you ever speak about it. It's okay. It works, so you don't question it.
You are loud and obnoxious and cheerful and talkative. You light the guild up and that's great. That's everything you ever want. To take the mournful looks out of their faces. It's worth it. You hide the pain under a waterfall of words and nobody realizes you are actually more silent than ever before. Well, Mirajane does but she doesn't say anything and you are grateful for it. You don't think you will be able to keep pulling up the act if somebody confronts you about it.
The cold is never gone now. It's there, you can feel it, nagging at the back of your mind at every second that tickles by. It wakes you up at nights and startles you at daytime. It's a constant reminder, of your weakness, of your losses, of your fears and sorrows. You kind of resign yourself to it. Nobody will chase the cold away, so you start to learn how to live with it. That's the only option left at this point.
You remain silent, and lonely, and you know you are closing up but you cannot help it. Even going to the guild has become difficult. You see her in every corner, could swear you can hear her laughter in your ears. You turn around looking for her but then you realize she's not there, that she will never be there again and the pain becomes so much worse.
Sometimes, you need to stare hard at empty spaces, only to convince yourself that you just imagined those cerulean eyes watching you. Sometimes, your smile falters and somebody seems to catch on it, but you are quick to brush the subject off and demand a challenge to a random guild mate. Sometimes, you need to lock yourself in the guild's outhouse, because dammit, why is it so difficult to keep up with the façade? Why is it so difficult to put a smile on your face?
Somebody enters the room and you let yourself out before they start asking what were you doing talking to yourself in front of the mirror. You smile and laugh and select a mission to go on, let all of your energy pour out as you destroy monster after monster, and then come back to keep up with the disguise.
And sometimes, in those nights when the pain becomes so heavy it's ripping open your chest, trying to crawl outside of you and you cannot contain it anymore and all you want to do is nothing but scream… those nights you allow yourself to let some tears fall. And you cry, and cry and let your fucking soul out until your eyes are dry and your throat is raw and you're sure there's no more water inside your body to keep crying.
You do it quietly, though. You don't want to wake Happy up. The poor kitten is already too burdened with his own sorrow, no need to weigh him down with your own.
But those nights come to an end. Everything comes to an end, eventually. Time goes on. It always does, doesn't it? It doesn't wait for you; it leaves you behind, bleeding out on the floor, wounded and forgotten. And somehow, you must stand up and ignore those wounds. Keep moving forward, because time doesn't stop for you.
And sooner rather than later, the sun rises and you need to whip the tears off your face and stand up to the new day. Rebuild your mask, hide away the sadness, pretend that nothing is hurting, that you are not actually dying inside. Lie to your friends, take more missions, smile, laugh, challenge your guild mates, play the innocent fool everybody believes you to be. If you pretend hard enough, sometimes you even believe it yourself.
And just like that, days go by and weeks become months faster than one would think possible. You keep moving, willing one step after the other, because that's the only thing you can do, right? Time won't wait for you. The world will not change for you. Nobody will excuse you for your pain. So there's no other option, isn't there? Just keep moving forward, keep your gaze straight ahead. You only allow yourself to look back every once in a while. Doing it is painful, but is also necessary. You need to look back, you need to remember. You cannot allow yourself to forget.
Slowly, bit by bit, you start to heal. You don't realize at first. You are too busy worrying over Happy and pretending to the rest of the world that you are fine. You cannot place the exact moment, but one day you wake up and you realize that you are not hurting that much. That it isn't that hard to build the smile on your face. When Happy asks you how you are doing, you answer 'fine' and you are not lying anymore.
It's a hell of a change, and it confuses you at first. But you are grateful for it and embrace the relief. There's still pain, but it doesn't sting as much anymore. It hurts, yes, but only at particular moments, late at night when you cannot sleep and you find yourself missing her smell too much. Sometimes at the light of the day, when you really need to talk to someone but you have nobody to open your heart to. Those days your feet walk you to the cliff, to her tombstone. You sit there and talk for hours. You talk about the guild and the missions. You talk about how Mira and Elfman are doing. You talk about Happy. You talk about yourself.
The cold is still there. It will never really go away, and you know it. But now it's bearable, a nuisance more than an actual threat. You learn to control it, to slowly overcome it. Remembering her helps you fight it, and so you do it whenever you feel the chill.
You find your smile again, the real one, not the fake one. You start laughing again, but now it's real, not a façade. It's easier every day. Things also change around you. You realize you don't discover Mirajane crying at corners anymore. Elfman is slowly forgiving himself too. You are all healing, moving forward. It brings a strange peace to you. You know that if she could see you all, she would be happy.
Lisanna's loss[ will be forever engraved in your soul. But it's not a vicious wound anymore. More like a healing scar, a reminder. You remember her words from long ago. You train harder than ever. Push yourself further, make yourself stronger. The sorrow and rage fuels it. You will not lose anybody else.
You vow it.