Work Text:
Erza stared in confusion at her ticket, trying to find her seat amidst the bustle of the crowd, all here to see the new performance of “Frederick and Yanderica”. Maneuvering to where she’d been directed she paused when she saw no sign of her companion for the evening. Kinana had been so adorable when she’d shyly offered her the spare ticket to the play, Erza had been willing to look past the fact that Kinana had likely gotten the advice to ask her to accompany her from her brother.
She didn’t get to see the Oracion Seis’s younger members nearly enough, Erza decided. The other guild’s hall was located just outside of Era, too far for a simple visit, and meeting up with her favorite fan usually required her to be accompanied by one of the other members.
Speaking of other members, Erza resisted shuddering when a hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Titania, I’m so glad you could make it.” She actually did shudder at the gravelly voice right next to her ear.
“Cobra,” she grit out. “It appears there’s been a misunderstanding.”
The man started steering her towards her seat, and she could sense the self-satisfied aura coming off of him even with her refusing to look at him. “A misunderstanding?” he asked, and his voice was positively dripping with smugness. With a sudden moment of clarity, she realized that she had been played. Kinana was clearly not trustworthy, she wondered if Erik had limited his plans to his sister or if she had to worry about Wendy and Yukino as well.
“I was under the impression that I was seeing this play with your sister,” she said in what she hoped was a calm voice, refusing to show her annoyance, even if she knew the man could still hear it. They reached their seats and she couldn’t help herself from all but throwing herself into hers when Erik just chuckled next to her.
Sliding in gracefully next to her he dared to stretch out his left arm behind the back of her chair, unperturbed by Erza’s furious glare. “I apologize for not communicating the plans to you fully then,” he said,
Erza harrumphed, turning her attention to the playbook in her hand, refusing to let the other mage ruin a play that she had desperately been wanting to see since she had first heard about it.
Thankfully Erik didn’t attempt any more conversation, and she was able to relax when the curtain opened. Erza allowed herself to be drawn into the performance, forgetting about her companion next to her. It wasn’t until Julius suddenly summoned forth his dragon, and her eyes began to furiously tear up that she remembered him, the handkerchief presented in front of her face without comment was appreciated, not that she was going to give him any verbal recognition.
When the play ended she jumped up to give it a standing ovation, and was pleased to see that even if he was not quite as… enthusiastic as she was, he still clapped, unlike the rest of the audience who were jeering at the poor playwright.
“I didn’t know you wanted to be an actress,” Erik offered, picking himself up from the seat as the still grumbling people emptied from the theater.
Erza blinked, surprised that he had picked that up from her mind, “Acting is a noble profession! To inspire emotions in others using your words! It is beyond what we as mages can do!”
He raised his eyebrow curiously before nodding as in agreement, Erza wondered if she had misjudged the man. “I’d love to see you dress up,” he leered.
“Pervert!” Not even his hearing prepared him for her iron-clad fist impacting with his jaw.
Blearily rubbing her eyes Erza opened the locker that had been assigned to her with her dorm in Fairy Hills, she was expecting a shipment of cupcakes from across Fiore and she wanted them to be as fresh as possible, even if it meant getting up at dawn just as the mail was delivered. Instead of the precious box of cupcakes she was surprised to have her nose assaulted with a floral scent. Her entire box had been overtaken by an enormous bouquet of flowers, nearly spilling over the edge.
This was hardly the first time she had received flowers from an admirer, but they usually stuck to roses, or something simple. The arrangement was a foreign one, and she wondered if there was any special meaning, she could recognize the hydrangea and snapdragon about the others but she still didn’t know what their meaning was.
Extracting the flowers from the locker she was gratified to realize that it had a note attached. ‘Delphinium – boldness, hydrangea – perseverance, stargazer – ambition, “he wouldn’t dare,” she whispered. She felt her hands began to constrict around the flowers, the note crumpling in her fist.
‘And snapdragon – presumptuous’ she was going to dismember the man and feed him to one of his snakes. Once she sampled her cupcakes. Discarding the flowers in the garbage she resolved to teach him a lesson the next time they crossed paths.
“Erza- we have a bit of a problem!” Erza felt that was a bit of an understatement, orange was a horrible color for the guild hall.
“Do you have another admirer Mira?” she asked, trying to step around the orange roses that littered every available surface.
The other woman suddenly seemed to glow, “Oh, these aren’t for me!” It came out sickeningly sweet, and Erza pitied the poor fool who was now going to be the focus of her matchmaking frenzy.
“Lucy then?” she asked, blinking when Mirajane only began to giggle as if this was some massive joke and Erza was missing out on the punch line.
Suddenly she found her vision taken over by text, “They’re for you, silly!” Indeed the single line of text seemed to indicate that she was the intended recipient of the flowers, ‘To Titania, who is the Queen of my Heart.”
Erza almost suspects that they came from someone else if only because the note is so cheesy, but she recognizes the graceful cursive of Sorano’s writing.
“Do you know what orange roses mean?” Mira asks from her side, and Erza realized that she really didn’t have a choice in finding out with all the guild members beginning to trickle in only to see all the flowers.
“Don’t roses all mean love?” She gripes, beginning to pick up the flowers, she doesn’t want anyone tripping on them.
“Yes but they all mean different kinds of love,” Mira coos, even as she helps Erza pick them up. “For instance, orange roses indicate a passionate or desirous love!”
The sword is in her hands before she even realizes what she’s planning on doing, ready to hack away at the offending flowers.
“So do you know who sent them?”
Erza feels her whole body freeze, there’s no way she can let Mirajane know the identity of the man in question, she’ll never live it down. Instead she says, “No idea.”
“Oh, well, they must be serious! This a lot of flowers after all,” Erza feels her body unstiffen, she doesn’t know what she would have done if Mira hadn’t believed her. “Maybe he’ll send more gifts!”
The sudden knot in her stomach is all Erza needs to know that Mira is not wrong about there being more gifts in her future.