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Gray couldn’t fathom what exactly held his partner’s fascination. Sure he was used to Juvia’s head being in the clouds, but she never actually fixated on them before. Since they’d gotten off the train in the northern town of Spruce Valley Juvia had been mesmerized by the sky. It was definitely new for her, usually she was so busy clinging to him that it seemed like she couldn’t possibly notice anything else. Now it seemed like no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t keep her eyes on him. And, if Gray was honest with himself, it annoyed him.
Mostly because he had no idea what the big deal was. Sure, the town looked pretty with the thick flakes of snow slowly descending on them in an intricate dance, and with the soft blankets of white that coated the tops of every surface in sight.
Gray himself found the winter wonderland nostalgic and heart warming, but he was an ice mage and snow was his element, so it was normal for him to be a bit enchanted. But he couldn’t come close to matching the look of childlike wonder the girl had been wearing for the last two hours.
Even while they were talking to their client she’d been distracted. Several times he caught her staring out the window in a daze as the client explained the details of their escort mission. He would be astounded if she even knew what time they were supposed to leave tomorrow morning.
Currently they were wandering the streets, headed towards the hotel the client had recommended for the night. When Gray had to grab her for the fourth time, to stop her from walking straight into someone, he decided he’d had enough and spun her around to face him, fixing her with a glare.
“Oi! What’s with you? I swear you’re even more distracted than usual. This is the fourth time you almost bowled someone over.”
Juvia blinked for a moment, clearly trying to process his complaint.
“Juvia’s sorry Gray-sama, she can't help it. It’s just so pretty here.” She at least had the decency to blush, but she seemed more embarrassed than remorseful.
“Seriously? I mean, I agree that it’s pretty, but it’s just snow. You act like you’ve never seen it before!” Gray huffed, carding his fingers through his hair in frustration. He was pretty sure he was never going to understand this girl. Who got this worked up over the weather?
“But Gray-sama, Juvia hasn’t seen it before….”
There was just a hint of sorrow in that statement, but it made Gray’s entire body tense. He sighed and forced himself to meet her gaze, which had changed from gleeful, to something indiscernible.
“How is that even possible? Oaktown is further north than Magnolia, surely they must get snow during the winter months.”
Really she couldn’t actually expect him to believe she’d never seen snow. After all she had previously brought rain with her everywhere, one trip north or into the mountains would have changed it to snow in a second. Not that Gray was about to bring that up. If there was one thing Gray did understand about the water mage, it was that the rain was one heck of a touchy subject.
But, of course, Juvia seemed to read his mind anyways.
“Gray-sama, Juvia’s rain wasn’t natural, it was magical. It wouldn’t freeze. Juvia actually tried a few times once she joined Phantom Lord. She spent an entire month in the north at one point. But Juvia’s rain never changed… and it caused the snow on the ground to melt, making it ugly and slushy. So no, Juvia’s never seen the snow like this.” She was now completely forlorn looking, and Gray suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the world.
Not two minutes ago she’d been glowing with happiness, and he just had to open his mouth. Well, there was only one way to fix it. Before he could over think it too much Gray grabbed her by the arm, tugging her down the street after him.
“We have a few hours before it gets dark, so come on. There’s a park a few minutes away, and if you’ve never seen snow, then you’ve never played in it. So we’ll just have to fix that.”
The ice mage had to turn to look back at her as the water mage halted at his suggestion. She was looking at him wide-eyed, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. Gray released his grip, feeling his own cheeks heat up as well.
“You do want to play in the snow right?” He queried, eyebrow raised to punctuate the fact that he thought she was being odd again.
Her cheeks darkened under his gaze.
“Really? Gray-sama wants to play with Juvia in the snow?” she asked. Her brows were knitted lightly and her voice was laced with hesitation. It was almost as if she thought she misheard, and really, he supposed that was the case more often than not.
He shrugged. “Of course. Everybody needs to play in the snow at least once in their life.”
And there it was, just like that. The stupid overjoyed grin was plastered back onto her face and Gray just had to smile back. Of course said smile faltered a moment later as Juvia launched herself at him, trapping his arm in her death grip.
“Oh thank you Gray-sama! Let's go, Juvia can’t wait to play in the snow!” she chirped.
Gray just sighed as they resumed walking, this time with her clinging to him. Really she was a sweet kid, but sometimes he just couldn’t keep up with her.
At some point on their walk to the park Gray had managed to extract himself from Juvia’s grasp. Of course he also managed to lose his jacket, but that was nothing new. Juvia had retrieved it though, and Gray had to admit it was one of the many reasons he liked going on missions with her.
Currently the two were wandering along one of the paths in the park, Juvia trailing just slightly behind him.
“So what do you want to do first?” He figured he ought to ask, who knows if there was something she’s been waiting her whole life to do.
His heart ached slightly at the thought, because really, there was probably a pretty long list of things she’s been waiting to do. Gray quickly resolved to maybe ask her about it once their mission was over.
“Well Juvia isn’t sure where to start. If she’s honest, she doesn’t actually know much about playing in the snow. But there was this one thing, that Gajeel-kun had told her about back in Phantom Lord, that sounded really fun….”
Gray noticed her voice had lowered slightly and turned to face his companion.
“Yeah, what was tha….”
A large fluffy ball of snow exploded in Grays face and he stood there in shock for a moment. Suddenly peels of laughter erupted a few feet away. Gray quickly wiped the snow from his face and glared at the water mage, who was trying to stifle herself with her hand.
“Gajeel-kun was… hehe… right. Oh, Gray-sama… the look… on your face. Hahaha.” Yeah, she was failing miserably.
Gray growled and bent down suddenly. In a swift, fluid motion he gathered the snow, packing it in the blink of an eye, before launching it back at her; only to have the snowball fly right through her. Her laughter died instantly. The hole in her chest reformed quickly and she met his stunned look with a sly grin. Right, water body.
Yeah, that wasn’t even remotely fair.
“Oi! That’s cheating!” he hollered at her.
The girl just quirked an eyebrow at him. Then, suddenly swung her arm from behind her, launching another snowball in his direction. This time Gray was prepared though and quickly formed a shield to block the attack. As soon as the snowball struck the shield dropped again and Gray was countering.
Only this time, instead of flying through her, the snowball melted inches from her shoulder spraying her with water instead. Gray frowned before noticing the steam rising from her body. He huffed in frustration before recalling that he and Lyon had created special rules once their magic had advanced.
“Okay, new rule! No magic. Otherwise we’ll never be able to hit each other.” He called out to her, his frustration was evident in his tone.
“Juvia’s certain she could hit Gray-sama again, even with his magic. But if Gray-sama insists Juvia will play by Gray-sama’s rules,” she announced arrogantly.
There was a fierceness in her eyes, and her grin was shark-like. It sent a shiver of excitement running down the boy’s spine and he grinned back, confident that now he had the upper hand.
Again, with speed born from years of experience, Gray dipped down to form another snowball and attack, only to find the water mage had lunged to the side, rolling behind a bench for cover. She popped up, flinging another snowball in his direction. Gray dodged expertly, turning it into an attack. It looked like he had missed but the small dusting of white on the shoulder of her coat indicated that he had indeed clipped her. He let out a small victory whoop, only for her to clip his hip in return.
And back and forth it went. Adrenaline rushing, hearts pumping frantically as the two mages dashed and darted between trees and other obstacles. Small flashes of white whipping back and forth in a blur. Laughter, shouts, and insults flying with them.
Gray had to admit she was incredible, her aim was spot on and she was surprisingly agile for a mage that didn’t engage in hand-to-hand combat. But Gray was better, experience making him faster at packing the snow, specifically while on the move. So after a particularly hard hit to the side of the face, the girl held up her hands in surrender, before collapsing into the snow on her back.
Her coat was covered in snow and her hat had been lost some time ago. Small clumps of snow were tangled in her gravity defying curls and her cheeks were flushed with exertion. Or perhaps a bit of embarrassment, because Gray was down to his boxers, his own clothes discarded long before her hat was lost. Still, she was smiling up at him and, for once didn’t seem lost in a fantasy, so Gray decided to flop down next to her and worry about his clothes later.
“You sure this was your first time in a snowball fight? Because you’ve got quite a bit of talent. I’m actually quite impressed you can throw and dodge like that!” Gray praised, giving voice to his earlier thoughts.
“Juvia owes her experience to Gajeel-kun actually.” She giggled, turning her head to face the gorgeous man beside her.
Gray merely raised a brow in question, prompting her to continue.
“Gajeel-kun and Juvia always liked pairing up to take out dark guilds, but Gajeel-kun worried about Juvia because dark guilds had access to illegal items like magic nullifying handcuffs. He wanted to make sure Juvia could protect herself even without her magic, so we’d often spend our time training together. First one to use their magic loses. It took Juvia two years before she could beat Gajeel-kun, but after that we’ve been pretty evenly matched,” she explained, a soft smile gracing her lips at the memories.
Gray simply stared at her in shocked silence. He wasn’t sure what he found harder to believe; that the Iron Dragon Slayer had cared for her long before they joined Fairy Tail or that the slender water mage beside him could hold her own against the hulking man with nothing but her bare hands. Then again, she’d just held her own against the ice mage himself in a snowball fight, so yeah, maybe the second one wasn’t so hard to believe after all.
Still, it never occurred to Gray that she and the other ex-phantom member might be close. Sure, he knew that she was the one to get him to join Fairy Tail, and that they still took missions together, and sometimes they hung out at the guild together, but they never seemed particularly friendly with each other. Then again, Gajeel wasn't friendly with anyone. Although, he was definitely tolerant of Juvia and her eccentricities, certainly more so than Gray himself.
The ice mage shook his head, uncomfortable with where those thoughts were going. Maybe Juvia and Gajeel were closer than he thought, but that was another question for another day. The sun was getting close to the horizon and Gray was starting to feel a bit chilly, so Juvia must be pretty cold herself.
“Come on, it’s getting late. We should head to that hotel before you turn into an ice cube,” Gray teased, pushing himself up before offering turning to offer Juvia his hand.
“J-Juvia’s fine! Gray-sama your clothes!” she squeaked, her face instantly rivaling the color of a tomato as she finally became aware of his state of undress; and their close proximity.
Oh well, he should have known she wouldn’t remain oblivious forever. It was a shame really. He really did cherish these moments with her, when she just relaxed and opened up to him. It was nice, peaceful even, but they never lasted long. Still, it made dealing with her crazy worthwhile.
As Gray picked up his discarded clothes and as he started to exit the park he turned to make sure his partner was following him. Instead she was still standing in the field, head tilted up to the sky, with her tongue sticking out trying to catch the snowflakes drifting lazily towards the ground.
This spurred a small fit of laughter, startling her into looking his way. She blushed at being caught in the childish act.
"Come on, you need to some real food!" he called to her, barely managing to keep his amusement in check. She sighed before making her way over to him, clearly reluctant to leave.
"Look, I'll make you a deal. If we finish this job early we can come back. Sound good?" Truth be told Gray didn't want to leave either, it had been far too long since he'd had a snowball fight that good.
"Really?! Oh, thank you Gray-sama! Juvia will make sure to do her best then!" She beamed at him, attaching herself to his arm.
He was going to tell her to get off but, as he looked around, he realized they were alone. So instead he shrugged and began leading her out of the park arm in arm. After all, indulging her oddities once in a while couldn't hurt right?