She wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious, only that when she awoke, it was to surroundings completely unlike her college dorm room. Sitting up in a blind panic, she looked wildly around at the musty stone walls all around and wooden rafters stretching above her head for several seconds before her memories flooded back to her.
One of her hands whipped up to touch her throat again even as she forced herself to take deep breaths and calm down. Panicking and fainting again would do her no good. She had to, somehow, find sense in the madness that had suddenly become her life and figure out what to do from there. First step. Where am I now? She looked around again, starting a bit when she looked straight up and saw huge bell hanging over her like a gaping maw.
A tiny puff of air that should have been a squeak escaped her and she scooted backward a few inches before a stone wall prevented her from moving further. Her movement caused something to shift on her legs, dragging her attention reluctantly away from the gigantic bell and to the floor instead. Half tangled around her legs was a coat. An old overcoat with only one sleeve left and several patches of incorrect color decorating its back.
She blinked once, then twice, studying the placement of the overcoat and realizing that it must have been draped over her in lieu of a blanket. Who could have…? Was it that boy? Tearing her gaze away from the coat-blanket, she looked around again, spotted a small, circular window and carefully stood up to go look. She moved carefully, trying to step lightly and not slide her feet as she walked. She had no desire to get splinters in her feet on top of everything else happening to her.
Successfully crossing the floor without injury, She clambered up onto the thick circular sill of the grimy window, her unnaturally small frame able to balance comfortably on it as she looked out at the world below and beyond. It was utterly foreign. Carefully, she took slow, measured breaths as she looked out at a sprawling city that never rose more than three or four stories and whose limits were defined by the stone walls rising in the far distance. It looked nothing like what she was used to, nothing like the towering complexes and apartment buildings with stories in the double-digits and glistening surfaces of steel, concrete, and glass.
Below her was a world of clay and tiles and earthy colors mixed in with the splotches of moving color that were people. Below was a city from a storybook, or a foreign countryside, or a fairy tale and beyond it was rolling hills of green forests that only added to the sense of displacement. It was beautiful, no doubt about that. But it was so, utterly unfamiliar that she could only look at it in horror.
Pattering footsteps and the creak of a small door opening had her turning away from the window sharply to look. The blue-haired boy stepped inside, hands clutching a small loaf of bread, using one foot to push the creaky door shut. She watched as his eyes flickered to where the coat lay crumpled and empty, did a double take, and then promptly started panicking. She blinked at him in confusion at the wild, near-frenzied air he immediately exuded, running over to the coat and lifting it as if expecting to find her hiding underneath it somehow.
When he didn't, he started running to the far corners, peaking behind boxes and occasionally looking in the boxes, presumably for any sign of her. She tried to cough politely, make a noise that would attract his attention, only to be sharply reminded that her voice no longer worked. Swallowing the unpleasant reminder as best she could, she resorted to the first alternative that came to mind.
He whirled around immediately at her short shrill whistle, startling her with the glow of green eyes before he blinked and they were red once more. Did I just imagine that? Hurrying over to her, he babbled a long stream of breathless words too fast for her to fully understand. Managing to pick out the concerned tone and what sounded like the word "food" and the question "are you alright?", she nodded slowly before raising her hands and patting the air placatingly.
He slowed to stop and took a deep breath before studying her intently for a minute. She struggled not to squirm under his gaze. She was older than him in mind if not, somehow, in body and had come from a rough neighborhood so by all rights she shouldn't have felt intimidated. She did though, especially when his eyes dropped down to focus on the, most likely ugly and noticeable, scar running diagonally from the left side of her jaw down to her right collarbone.
His jaw clenched for a moment and she thought she saw anger flicker through his gaze before it vanished and he diverted his attention from her to the loaf of bread in his hand. Ripping it roughly in half, he held part of it out to her, "Onaka suita?"
She rolled that over several times in her head before tentatively concluding via context and vague familiarity with the phrase that he was asking if she was hungry. Her stomach, ignoring the emotional crisis of her mind and fractured reality outside, chose that cliché moment to growl and she accepted the offered bread with a blush and a mouthed thanks.
She tried her hardest not to wolf down the piece of bread, or think of how such an obviously homeless boy acquired it, but only partially succeeded. The bread piece was soon nothing more than a memory and crumbs she carefully licked off of her, unfortunately grubby, fingers. I guess I'm more hungry than I thought I was after being attacked by those men and all the rooftop running we did. I guess that's another point in favor of me being alive somehow … the dead can't get hungry.
Looking up, she started out of her thoughts when she saw that the boy had already devoured his portion of bread and was watching her intently, an unreadable gleam in his eyes. She shifted uncomfortably, trying to figure out why he was staring at her. He's way too young to be thinking anything dirty. He doesn't look more than nine. So what is he thinking? For that matter, why did he help me? Not that I don't appreciate it, but he doesn't even know my name. She blinked silently as the last thought stood out, Come to think of it, I don't even know his name.
Hoping to rectify the situation, she looked up and opened her mouth to ask. She then snapped it shut again when she remembered that she couldn't. I appreciate being alive and all, even if I'm comatose or crazy right now, but being mute is such a pain! Sighing heavily, she tried to think of another way to ask the boy's name. Glancing at the grubby window, she snapped her fingers as an idea struck her, I'll just write the words on the window! The grime should make the words visible and— She promptly deflated when she realized a large obstacle in her way, and I have absolutely no idea how to write in Japanese. There's no reason that these people would have a spoken language completely different from their written one and I'm fairly certain I saw signs in kanji before getting herded into that alley.
With the boy watching on curiously, she struggled to come up with another option, Can't speak, can't write … charades then? Guess I have no choice. Looking back up at the boy, she carefully placed a hand against her chest and mouthed her name before pointing at the boy. It took three more times of slowly repeating the motions before the non-comprehending look faded from his red eyes and he pointed at himself, "Namae ka?" She nodded, hoping that she was correct in thinking that "namae" meant the same thing as "onamae" and that he was asking if she wanted to know his name.
The boy scratched the back of his neck and smiled hesitantly at her, apparently sheepish, "Ah, sumimasen, wasureteta!" Moving his hand away from his neck, the boy pointed a thumb at his chest, " Watashi wa, Bickslow desu!"
She felt her thought processes, which had been trying to remember what "wasureteta" meant, screech to a stop. Wait … did he just say his name was Bickslow ? Her eyes widened and she hastily scanned his appearance again. Dark blue hair and red eyes, both of which aren't natural outside of anime and cartoons? Check. Speaks Japanese despite the fact we're in a surprisingly european-looking town? Check. Her eyes trailed up to his forehead and lingered a moment before she cradled her head in her hands pathetically, dark blue stick figure tattoo thing in the whopping middle of his face? Check. She pushed air through her throat, trying to groan, but was only rewarded with a strong tingling feeling and silence. Lifting her head from her hands briefly, she double-checked his appearance, also noting his suddenly nervous countenance as she did so.
She settled for a heavy sigh, I've just met kid Bickslow of Fairy Tail … if this is my version of coma dreams or hallucinations, my head is even more messed up than I thought. I don't even know Bickslow's real backstory, he doesn't deserve me thinking up a horrible childhood for him.
"Ano …" the hesitant word brought her out of her surprisingly calm musings over what was going on and whether she was not panicking about it yet because she was in shock. Bringing her attention back to Bickslow, she noted the way his shoulders were hunched and his body leaning away from her, as if expecting a violent outburst. A pang of pain went through her at the sight. She was smaller than he was, there was no reason to look at her like she was about to bite his head off. Swallowing faintly, she smiled at him and held out a hand, hoping to convey a nonverbal "nice to meet you" since her vocal cords didn't work anymore.
Bickslow stared first at her hand, then at her face, then back to her hand before his posture slowly relaxed and he smiled in return. Clasping her hand, he shook it up and down twice before releasing, "Yoroshiku… eh, onamae wa ?"
She shrugged helplessly and rubbed her throat, there was no way to convey her name to the fictional child Bickslow. If this is a dream, shouldn't he already know? Then again, if this is a dream, my dream, then shouldn't I be able to speak? Plus, this all feels so real… She temporarily pushed away that disturbing line of thought. She could figure out her circumstances later, for now, she needed to focus on her present company who was currently babbling something too fast for her to comprehend.
Before she could finish piecing together his statement, Bickslow turned away from her and began looking around intently, muttering random words under his breath as he searched among the sparse items in the belfry. After cycling through the Japanese words for "box", "window", "rock", "bell", and possibly "dust bunny", a fluttering sound caught their attention and they both looked up. A small blue bird had somehow found a way in and was fluttering about in the rafters with a twig in its beak, probably seeking for a place to build its nest. It chirped and bounced authoritatively from rafter to rafter, looking at nooks and crannies in the woodwork high above their heads.
It was abruptly startled into retreating when Bickslow shouted, "Wakatta!" Whirling on the startled her, he flashed his infamous tongue grin before shouting in a tone of pure triumph, " Onamae wa Haru desu!" He flashed his tongue grin again, seemingly waiting for a similar reaction of joy.
It took her a full five seconds to figure out the full implications of what he'd just said. When it hit her, she sat up sharply, mouth flopping open in disbelief, Did he just name me? Like a pet? After some random bird that happened to fly into the belfry? When Bickslow gave no sign that he was joking, just smiling a tongue-wagging smile throughout twelve seconds of incredulous staring on her part, she gave into the urge to face palm.
Of course he did. Just … of course he did. At least he didn't name me Box…