#grayluweek

"Did you find out why they're here? And angry?"

"Um, I don't speak snow spirit—do you? Like, I was trying to keep 'em away from the chalet, not enjoy a nice gossip." His sarcasm would have worked better if he hadn't sounded so winded.

"Hmm." Lucy considered her celestial spirits and then took out the gold key for the goat, Capricorn. Loke might be useful against angry snow spirits, but he didn't seem like the right choice right now for several reasons.

"How may I assist you, Lady Lucy," Capricorn asked a moment later. He was standing closer than usual and Lucy felt her neck crick as she struggled to look up at him. Like Aries, he had a light dusting of snow on his clothes and in his hair. She was about to ask why he had appeared almost on top of her, but then realized that he was standing between her and the knot of bitter cold that denoted Gray's assailants. Somehow, he blocked the worst of the chill.

"Oh I see," the tall celestial spirit commented, after studying the situation for a few seconds. "There are an awful lot of them, aren't there?"

"I can't see them," Lucy admitted. She suddenly felt embarrassed about the question she wanted to ask. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Capricorn, would it be possible to find out what they're upset over?"

Capricorn did an excellent imitation of a butler being flustered by an unexpected request—which is to say that he remained politely expressionless. "I can certainly make the attempt, at least," he told her.

In fact, the angry knot around Gray began to dissipate, and she saw him stagger slightly. She reached out for him but he shook his head at her. "I'm fine," he insisted. "And I don't want to hurt you by accident." He gave Lucy a tight, pained smile, and flexed his fingers. She suddenly realized—as she should have known—that the swords were fused with Gray's hands.

"Well, you'll look very sexy and heroic as you collapse into the snow," she told him, snapping slightly out of concern.

"Sexy's good…"

Lucy saw Gray's head turn and his stance shifted back to battle-readiness. She winced as fresh blood seeped into his ice weapons.

"I believe I have some understanding of the problem, my lady," Capricorn said at that moment. "If you could just stand still, Mr. Gray…"

"They're about to attack again," Gray told him wearily. "And honestly, I need to get this over with sooner rather than later."

"What have you found out, Capricorn?" Lucy tried to ignore the fact that she could barely feel her fingers.

"I could only get the gist of it, I'm afraid—linguistic and cultural differences being what they are between the celestial and elemental realms—but essentially I think there has been a major misunderstanding."

"Okay, what have we, or they, misunderstood?"

"They were hoping that Mr. Gray would come out to play with them like last time. Also, I believe they were impressed with the blood offering and now consider him a, er, member of the colony. As it were."

"I—wait—what?!" Gray was shaking his head. "I was taught that if you let any kind of gathering of snow spirits too close to your home, first you'd be cold and then you'd be dead."

"Yes, that is what would happen," Capricorn said gently. "You see, like most forces of nature, they don't really understand living beings. They no doubt find ice magic quite—how can I put this?—appealing. So they wanted you to leave the chalet and create more of your delicious cold."

"Delicious cold?" Lucy frowned. "Like food?"

"Not really, but close enough."

"But Lucy sensed danger or evil intent or… or whatever!" protested Gray. "Wanting to play is like, I dunno, a snowball fight or something. Not having a good time watching your new buddy die of hypothermia or bleed out or something!"

Lucy shivered, only partly from the cold. She was beginning to grasp the problem and how everything had gone wrong.

"So the snow spirits, or cold spirits, or whatever they are—they don't actually hate ice mages, they love them... literally to death." She thought for a moment and then added: "That's actually quite consistent with how most stories about the Fair Folk go—lots of tragic endings for people who forget that they just don't think the same way as humans."

Gray was staring stubbornly off into the snow, presumably towards the snow spirits. Lucy pretended not to notice that he had finally given up the weapons and was now trying to stop his cuts from bleeding. His next words dispelled the notion that he hadn't paid attention, however.

"So you're saying that the humans have had it wrong from the beginning. But why does the blood drive them off then?"

"It doesn't; or rather, it doesn't actually kill them. It's just that"—the elegant celestial spirit looked embarrassed—"well, most magical pacts used to be ratified in blood." He forestalled Lucy's next question with a slight sigh, "Including pacts with celestial spirits, of course. We've evolved since. The point is that everyone seems to understand that shedding blood is important. And Mr. Gray's theory that using blood within a magical weapon makes it more effective against spirits and magic and so forth is quite correct. So once a human starts bringing blood into something—well, either they're done playing with you or they're agreeing to something of grave significance. I suppose that somehow context determines whether it's a case of 'get lost or I'll hurt you' as opposed to 'I'm signing my life away.'" He cleared his throat. "I'm just putting a number of different theories together, you understand. Speaking with earth-bound spirits is always… challenging."

Lucy thought for a moment that Capricorn was actually going to sneer—he would have managed it well—but instead he maintained his calm expression and shrugged.

"So how did I somehow make a blood offering?" Gray demanded, coming back to immediate concerns. "I mean, I hear what you're saying in a general way about snow spirits and everything else, but as I mentioned, Lucy sensed malevolence—or just something bad—earlier, and I've never in my life been swarmed like that."

"You have found a way to fuse ice, blood and magic, Gray-san. You're fascinating to them—I think. At this point I really am just guessing. As for the ill-intent felt by Lady Lucy, I suspect that what she really sensed was the danger of you going out to meet such potentially—if accidentally—lethal playmates. She's really extremely talented."

"Don't need you to tell me that," muttered Gray. "So what do we do now? I guess you got them to hold off huh?"

"I told them that you were angry. They are—for lack of a better word—apologetic. Also, they are quite impressed that you have found a suitable wife." Gray stared speechlessly at Capricorn, and Lucy choked. The celestial spirit smiled gently at them. "They are suitably impressed with Lucy-sama's power, since she was able to summon me. They are curious how long it will take for there to be offspring."

"We're not even engaged!" Lucy and Gray spoke in unison, faces now flushed with more than cold.

"Ah. Well, they assume that Mr. Gray became angry because they inadvertently interrupted the, ah, mating ritual."

Lucy turned away with her hands over her face. Gray couldn't tell if she was laughing, crying, or just couldn't take the embarrassment any more.

"And to think I believed this would be a good place to gets away from it all!"

"Shall I tell them that the matter is resolved, Gray-san?" asked Capricorn gently. "Perhaps you could send a small token of friendship."

"Such as what?"

"I understand that your ice sculpture is quite talented."

Without another word, Gray brought his hands together, ignoring the half-healed cuts, and formed a perfect, long-stemmed ice rose. Lucy regarded it suspiciously, but he had apparently opted out of using blood to add colour.

"I see that you left the thorns on," she commented.

"It's how I was taught," Gray muttered, holding out the lovely crystalline flower to Capricorn. "Will you pass this along with my um, best wishes or whatever?"

The celestial spirit nodded. "I believe that this will be the end of the matter, at least for now."

"For now?" Lucy asked suspiciously. Gray's face echoed her question.

"Well… they are hoping to see your, er, offspring in the future." Capricorn's face was perfectly neutral. He bowed politely to Lucy. "As are the rest of us, of course." Without another word, he walked into the thickest patch of swirling snow, held up the ice rose, and then vanished.

The snow seemed to thin within moments, changing from waves of madly careening flakes to a more normal—and distinctly warmer—slow fall. The two humans let the flakes settle on and around them in silence.

"We should go in," Gray said at last. "You need to warm up and I want to help."

Lucy stared at him. "After all of that—not to mention learning that something important that you've known to be true since forever is completely wrong—all you can think about is"—she broke off, suddenly unsure how she wanted to complete that sentence.

"Well, yes," her boyfriend told her, tipping her chin up and stealing a snowy kiss. "You see"—he lifted her into his arms, since she wasn't moving—"you're pretty amazing, and I was just reminded that not only are you sexy and smart, you're a kick-ass mage." He paused halfway to the side-door to crush his mouth against Lucy's, and she found her arms winding themselves around his neck entirely of their own accord, fingers tangling in the back of his damp, snowy hair.

Time passed, and then Gray suddenly raised his head, eyes narrowing. Lucy wanted to protest, but the words died unspoken when she felt the drop in temperature and sensed that they weren't alone. The chill scent of snow under a clear night sky full of brittle, winter stars somehow overrode everything else.

Instead of setting her on her feet so that he could fight, Gray pulled her in closer to his chest. He frowned at the densest swirl of snow.

"Oy! We don't need an audience!"

The cold intensified for a moment and Lucy thought she heard or felt a rustle akin to laughter. Then the cold and the presence—presences?—withdrew, leaving behind a gloriously detailed snow sculpture of Lucy and Gray. It glistened with ice, apparently impervious to the admittedly mild wind.

"Um." Words failed Lucy. The people represented in the sculpture were noticeably short of clothes, their bodies twined together in a passionate kiss. They seemed very… happy.

"Oh gods." Gray squeezed his eyes shut. "I—I don't know what to say."

Suddenly Lucy burst out laughing and Gray looked at her in surprise. After a moment, she'd subsided to giggles. "You have pornographic snow spirits!"

"Hardly!" Gray hugged her, relieved that she wasn't upset and ready to defend his… what had Capricorn called them? His colony. "It's a trifle risqué, I grant you…"

"I think they may be doing more than kissing."

"Well, it's not really clear—and you're staring." Gray narrowly avoided a smack to the top of his head. "Besides, they live beside a, a romantic chalet. Maybe it's just what they're used to in human behaviour. Maybe they're just very open-minded. Maybe—"

"Let's go in."

[END of PART II]

A/Note: See you with Part III soon! As always, any comments, reviews, thumbs up, etc. are very much appreciated! Thank you also to those who are taking the time to check out my other stories. :)

How To

This event will work like many other “ship weeks” work. A prompt, or theme, is assigned to each day of the event. Fans of Graylu are encouraged to create Graylu content through whatever medium they please (fan art, fan fiction, text posts, animation, cosplay, etc.) for each theme throughout Graylu Week. Content may be posted to your own blog and will be reblogged here to showcase!

(Be sure to tag your Graylu Week works properly - more on this under General Guidelines).

All Graylu fans and stans are encouraged to like and reblog any content you see posted on this blog!

General Guidlines

Graylu Week is a celebration, and anymore may participate as much or as little as they wish. There are no minimum requirements for contributing, so please don’t stress over posting content on time. Even if content is posted later than the day it was originally intended, it will still appear here! (Don’t post content for a theme early - this could cause confusion over which content goes to which theme).

Keep in mind all themes are up for interpretation, and you can adhere to them as little or as much as you wish.

Submissions will be open during Graylu Week to allow those without a Tumblr account or those who wish to not post their work on their blog to participate!

Rules

Tags: All Graylu Week content must be tagged grayluweek2024 (WITHOUT spaces) in order to appear on the Graylu Week blog. Otherwise, the mod will likely miss it. THIS TAG MUST BE AMONG THE FIRST FIVE (5) TAGS. If your posted or submitted content hasn’t been reblogged/posted here yet, always feel free to let me know. I will reblog it as soon as I know about it,

Content Use: No one may post content that does not belong to them unless the owner has given explicit permission. If it is determined that content was posted without proper consent, it will not appear on this blog. Additionally, DO NOT PLAGIARIZE OR ALTER SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK.

Themes: Do not post content for a theme before the day the theme is assigned to, For example, do not post content on Tuesday for the theme assigned to Wednesday. This can cause confusion over what content goes to what theme. Additionally, please specify which theme your content is intended to be categorized under. Content posted or submitted late is still accepted, even after the event is over.

NSFW: Sexually explicit NSFW content is accepted, but must be UNDER A CUT and tagged accordingly. Any content featuring material which could be triggering to viewers must also be UNDER A CUT and tagged accordingly. This includes content with any amounts of blood, gore, injury, tragedy, death, or physical/mental trauma. If you are uncertain if your content would be considered NSFW, tag it as so just to be safe. Please blacklist any tag to avoid the content if it is triggering.

Offensive Content: Homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, ship/character bashing, and any kind of offensive content will NOT be tolerated.