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It was late afternoon in the middle of August as 14 year old Mirajane Strauss wandered through the streets of magnolia.
It had been a slow day at the guild, no good jobs to take and no annoying guildmates to cause problems. It seemed everyone was either out on a job or doing something else today. Even her own siblings hadn't shown up, Lisanna had gone to meet natsu so they could go do whatever they did when they spent all day running around in the woods and Elfman had stayed home with a cold.
Overall the guildhall had been far to quiet for Mira's comfort, so she'd left to go wander magnolia in search of something.
or more specifically someone.
For the most part, mira didn't pay much attention about who showed up and who didn't. If someone didn't show up they could be out on a job or just sleeping in for all Mira cared, that is if she even noticed. However, besides her family, there was one exception to this rule in the form of a certain redheaded requip wizard that she was currently on the lookout for.
Erza was the only one Mira cared to keep track of in the guild besides her family because when Erza didn't show up and wasn't on a job it meant she was off doing something that WASN'T fighting Mira, and that was just unacceptable.
"Where are you, you little dweeb" she muttered after looking in the window of probably the hundredth bakery so far and seeing nothing. "She better not be hiding" she thought to herself, "not when we've got a score to settle". She cracked her knuckles absently and, with a huff of irritation, entered the bakery.
"Hey you" she called out to the man standing behind the counter, he looked up and smiled at her politely. "Yes? How can I help you?"
"Have you seen a little red haired girl wearing armor in here recently?"
"Oh erza?" He said imidiatly "yes she was in here just a little while ago, are you her guildmate?" He asked, noticing the tattoo on her thigh.
"Yeah I am, do you know where she went?"
"No but she ran off pretty quick, seemed like she had somwhere to be, she went east towards the forest I think-"
"Thanks!" Mira cut him off, already darting for the door.
Mira ran down the street scanning the area as she went, no sign of her yet but she was sure she'd find her soon. In less then 10 minutes she had reached the hill that marked the outskirts of magnolia and the beginning of the east forest. She paused to look around. No sign of her, but her demonic sense caught a gentle whiff of strawberry drifting from the top of the hill. She grinned and chased after it. The smell was much stronger at the top of the hill. carefully, Mira made her way further in to the woods without making a sound, until finally, she spotted her prey.
Erza was sitting there at a small table in a clearing up ahead, her back was turned and she was pouring over something with intense focus. There was a pen clenched, shaking, in her hand. Mira raised an eyebrow
"what the hell are you up to"
she whispered to herself. She watched for a few minutes as Erza scratched away at whatever she was working on.
Quietly, Mira approached, careful not to make a sound. Erza, normally so irritatingly perceptive, was so consumed by her work she was none the wiser as Mira kept up behind her.
"Watcha doing?"
Mira loudly asked once she was directly behind her. Erza jumped and let out a small yelp of suprise, Mira laughed at her expense.
"W-What are you doing here" Erza stammered, trying unsuccessfully subtly to gather up her pages. "going for a walk" Mira lied, "more importantly, what are YOU doing out here" she craned her neck to see over Erza's shoulder.
"nothing" Erza replied, leaning over the pages to shield them from view
"Nothing huh?" Mira replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, nothing. I'm not doing anything" Erza stated unconvincingly.
"Riight.." Mira smirked as she slowly approached, then abruptly lunged for the papers. Erza squeaked and swiped them off the table, holding them to her chest. "C'mon lemme see" Mira demanded trying to wrestle the sheets away from the smaller girl. Erza only pulled them closer, curling around them to conceal them further.
"It's none of your business!"
"Aww don't be like that red, it's just some papers how bad could it be"
"Leave me alone"
"Not till you show me"
"No!"
Mira continued trying to loosen her grip but it was no use, Erza was just to strong. "Ugh!" Mira exclaimed in fusteration "you're so stubborn!"
"Say what you want, I'm still not showing you"
"Fine whatever" scoffed Mira, turning to walk away.
Erza sighed and Mira walked a few paces, just enough to watch Erza's body relax out of the corner of her eye, then whipped around. In less then a second she had raced back to Erza and kicked the chair as hard as she could out from under her.
"Gotcha" Mira laughed as Erza, surprised, fell to the ground with a thud, the papers scattering around her. Before Erza could recover Mira was on top of her, forcing her onto her stomach and straddling her back. She used her feet to pin Erza's hands, Erza struggled wildly.
"Get off me you-MMHHFF" Erza's protests where cut off by Mira shoving her face into the dirt.
"Sorry what was that" Mira teased.
"GEHHMT OMMFFF!"
Mira tsked playfully, "you shouldent speak with your mouthful red, it's rude. anyway..." She reached for one of the stray papers with her free hand.
She looked over it for a second, confused. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, a love letter maybe? Embarrassing pictures? Some kind of juicy secret? Whatever it was it wasn't this, she wasn't even sure what this was.
The paper was entirely filled with what looked like scribbles, shakily drawn on each line of the notebook paper. She stared at them with narrowed eyes, "alright I'm lost" she said finally, "what the hell even is this, it just looks like a bunch of scribbles."
Erza didn't answer but her ears burned bright red, clearly something Mira had said was on the right track. Mira stared hard at the scribbles for another minute before she finally realized that, despite their messiness, they held a very familiar pattern.
"Oh no way." Mira laughed in disbelief "this is what you're so embarrassed about? This is lame even for you." She gestured to what she now realized was the alphabet, scrawled across the page in the worst handwriting Mira had ever seen.
"Jesus your writing sucks" Mira stated, inspecting the nearly illegible text. "I mean I've seen bad but WOW, have you even held a pencil before?"
"Shut up" Erza mumbled into the dirt, her face still burning.
"C'mon let me have this one, I mean this is too good not to tease you about"
"Get off of me"
"Hmm" Mira pretended to consider it.
"I don't think so, Ooh! what's this..."
she picked up a page of slightly different illegible words and squinted at it in vein.
"Ugh I can't even read it" Mira groaned.
"good it's none of your business" Erza growled in response.
"Whats it say?" She demanded, momentarily lifting Erza's head to shove her face into the paper.
"Like id tell you" Erza snapped in response, struggling against the force of Mira's hand holding her down.
"You're no fun, just read it"
"Get off me" Erza demanded again struggling harder.
"Not until you read it"
"No!"
Mira leaned forward just a bit to use her body weight to force Erza's head down again but in that moment Erza jolted. Using Mira's slight inbalance, she flipped them over, throwing Mira to the ground.
In a flash, swiped the papers away from her. "Just go away" growled, her face flushed. "Aww your so cute when you blush like that" Mira teased, recovering from the fall and grabbing Erza's face before she could pull away. "Don't worry red, it's not the bad" she said innocently, glancing towards the remaining sheets scattered around them."it's only a little worse then Lisanna's back when we lived in the village, that being said she was 5..."
"That's it!" Erza snapped pulling herself free and shoving her hand down into the bag. In an aggressive motion she retrieved a sheet of half crumpled paper and slammed it down on the table.
"If your so good then prove it" she snarled "I bet your writing is even worse".
Mira smirked as she leaned towards Erza, invading her personal space and taking advantage of their slight height difference to leer down at her. "Gladly" she stated simply swiping the pen from her hand. She shoved Erza out of her way and sat down at the table. Erza moved to sit across from her, "go ahead" she directed glaring. Mira smirked back at her then turned her attention to the paper.
As she began writing she was vaugely aware of Erza staring her down, watching her every move, as if she expect Mira to cheat and swap out her own work with a sheet full of perfectly crafted calligraphy. The corner of her mouth twitched and her smirk grew, Erza was sure to be disappointed when she realized Mira had no need for any kind of foul play.
Though she didn't talk about it much these days, in reality, Mira had been practicing handwriting since she was very young. Back in the village she'd grown up in she had attended school, where she'd been learning how to write since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Between her own skills and the practice she'd gotten out of the years of helping her siblings, Mira's penmanship had been honed to perfection.
Of course, Erza would have no way of knowing that, so Mira could hardly contain herself at the thought of the look on her rivals face once she finished.
As she carefully sketched each letter she payed special attention to making sure they where all perfectly sized and spaced with no mistakes whatsoever, she wanted to make sure Erza would have no imperfections to use against her. She wanted there to be no dispute on her absolute, unwavering victory.
As she finished the last letter of the alphabet, both upper and lowercase, she pulled away to survey her work. She was a little rusty but even so the letters where perfect, the calligraphy both intricate and effortless. She grinned and spun the paper around to face erza.
"hows that?" she crowed in victory as Erza pulled the paper close to her face, inspecting Mira's work.
Mira waited as Erza stared at the letters intently, her face unreadable. Then, after a minute of careful study, she lowered the paper and looked back up at Mira.
Mira had expected a furrowed brow and a blush of fusteration to be plastered across the redheads cheeks when she finally faced her, or maybe a look of stunned despair, even just a sigh of defeat.
However, her expression held none of these emotions when she finally faced her once more. Instead, when Erza looked up at her, Mira was met by a wide eyed gaze of pure fascination.
Mira was taken aback, it certainly had not been what she was expecting. she felt heat rush to her cheeks as she took in erza's sparkling eyes. Suddenly, Erza grabbed her hand and stood to lean close. "how did you do that!" She demanded, her face inches from Mira's.
Mira flinched back with suprise, "uh- practice?" She answered uncertainly, still trying to recover from the initial shock. Just as suddenly as she had stood, Erza sat back in her chair and shoved the paper back towards Mira,
"do it again"
"Why should I?"
"Do it again...Please?"
Erza added quietly looking up at Mira with wide pleading eyes. Mira glowered for a moment but then sighed and picked up the pen once more.
"Fine whatever"
Erza grinned in response and then looked down again to watch the pens movements.
This time as Mira wrote she stole a few glances up at Erza to see her reaction. Erza stared with the intensity of someone trying to win a card game against Cana. Her eyes followed the pens every stroke and she had that same look of awe adorning her features that Mira had seen earlier.
When she finally finished once more, erza took the sheet to inspect it again, then she asked for the pen. Mira handed it over and with careful concentration erza began to write her own version below Mira's.
"You're holding the pen all wrong." Mira noted as Erza grimaced in irritation at her own sloppy work. She rounded the table adjusted Erza's hand around the pen "no wonder your writing sucks so bad, you're holding it like a dagger" she failed to notice the blush that spread across Erza's face as she did so, then walked back to her seat. "Try it now"
Erza carefully began once more. The improvement was miniscule, the writing was only slightly more legible, but it was an improvement none the less. When erza finished Mira looked over to survey her work. "Little better" she commented without thinking as she glanced over the letters. Erza looked up at her once again, this time with a goofy grin so wide it was practically splitting her face in two.
Mira was once again aware of a slight warmth creeping across her cheeks and her stomach turned, god she hated that stupid smile. Whenever erza looked like that, eyes sparkling like a little kid on Christmas, it made her feel so... Weird.
She wasn't sure what to call the feeling exactly but whatver it was it gave her the strong urge to punch something as hard as she could, usually Erza.
And now that that stupid idiot grin was directed at her the feeling seemed to have increased tenfold. she felt her stomach tying itself into knots as she silently begged for Erza to just look away already, luckily it wasn't long before Erza had once again shoved the paper her way.
"Do it again"
"Are you kidding me? I just did it twice"
"Yea but I was holding the pen wrong I need to watch you do it again to get it right"
"Fine but this is the last time.."
In reality Mira would write the alphabet another 6 times before Erza was finally satisfied, by then it was getting dark and Erza was stuffing the paper back into her bag to head home for the night. "You're on the right track" Mira said honestly, before remember herself and teasingly adding, "maybe if your lucky you'll actually be able to write a semi readable letter before you're 80"
Erza just laughed. "Yea maybe" she replied blushing and then looked back at her once more, that same stupid irritating crooked grin still spread across her face "thanks Mira" she said quietly "I appreciate it".
"Uh yea sure" replied mira uncertainly, as Erza waved goodbye then turned and ran off into the fading sunlight. Mira sighed as she collected her things and began the short walk back home.
She grimaced at the waning sun as she made her way down the street, she really should have left sooner, she still had to make dinner. "Why the hell did I write it so many times" she grumbled to herself rhetorically, before taking a moment to actually consider the question,
why had she done it anyway?
She didn't have a good reason really. It wasn't like she was known for being nice, especially not to erza of all people.
She arrived at her street just as the street lamps where coming on. As her home came into view, the answer came to her in the form of erza smiling face flashing through her mind. It was that look she'd given her, one of pure childish joy, of true admiration.
It wasnt a look Mira had seen very often these days, least of all directed at her. Ever since the incident at the church it seemed the only looks most people were willing to give her, besides her family of course, where terrified or disgusted.
A slight shudder ran up her spine as she remembered how they looked at her emerging from the church, gathering around as she stumbled, wounded, into the sunlight. The way they'd started checking her wounds and, upon seeing her arm, backing away in fear. She remembered watching through bleary eyes the slow transitions of their expressions,
first concern,
Then disgust,
Then hatred.
Then from that point on, it seemed, the hatred had never faded.
Even so, Mira could still remember her life before. She could remember being given lots of looks from lots of people, friends, family, adults and other kids alike. Many of them kind ones with none of the disdain they would hold later.
As she opened the door to her house she once again remembered that stupid look on Erza's stupid little face, so different from what she'd gotten used to. She told herself she didn't care, she told herself it didn't matter what anyone thought as long as she had her family, but deep down she knew it wasn't true. When erza had looked up at her she knew for certain that deep down some small fragile part of her missed it.
She felt and irritating pang of sadness at that realization that she quickly tried to squash down, luckily, she was brought back to reality by her siblings greeting her from the hall, their faces sheepish and a burning smell in the air.
"What the-"
"Elf tried to cook dinner"
Lisanna cried out in explanation, pointing an accusing finger at her brother.
"Lisanna! You said you wouldent tell.."
"Well she knows anyway you didn't get rid of the smell in time"
"Still-"
"Alright!" Interrupted Mira, silencing their argument.
"It's fine Elfman, I'll make some now"
She took off her shoes and waved away their mumbled apologies. "Just go the living room I'll make something quick" she assured and they both nodded and wandered to the couch to argue over who's fault it was. Mira smiled and before making her way to the kitchen she allowed herself one more thought of Erza, "maybe" she wondered despite herself "I could ask if she wants help tomorrow"
She was imidiatly flooded with shameful reality and shook the thought from her mind.
what was she thinking, It was erza.
She hated erza.
Scoffing at herself, she pushed all thoughts of erza to the very darkest corner of her mind and then walked to the kitchen to salvage dinner.