The boat rocked lazily on the waves, creaking like the joints of an old dragon complaining about the damp. Lucy was sitting in a corner, hugging her knees with the force of someone who fears they might run away, and muttering to herself about the complexities of Fiore's prison system, exorbitant fines, and the complete and utter ruin of her promising, yet short, writing career. Happy, oblivious to the human drama around him, was humming cheerfully on the prow, making a detailed list of all the exotic and tropical fish he intended to devour on Galuna Island.
And Natsu… ah, our glorious and invincible Fire Dragon Slayer, was exactly where he had been since the moment he set foot on this cursed, floating piece of wood: sprawled on the deck floor, his face a shade of green that would make a goblin envious, muttering unintelligible and deeply depressing things about the cruelty of modes of transport, the betrayal of his own stomach, and the wish to have been born a bird. With every bigger lurch of the boat, he contributed generously to the marine ecosystem over the side. It was a truly inspiring vision of power and heroism. If the island's so-called curse didn't kill the poor villagers of Galuna, the persistent, noisy, and frankly disgusting nausea of our protagonist would certainly kill the mood of any heroic adventure.
And in the middle of all this... Gray. Tied up like a badly wrapped ham for Christmas, still completely knocked out, with his head lolling to the side and a trickle of drool running from the corner of his mouth. A truly beautiful picture of dignity and power.
[Imminent Chaos Level Risk Alert: Keeping a powerful ice mage with serious anger management issues unconscious and tied up inside a fragile wooden boat, floating on tonnes of salt water, and in the company of his mortal rival, is a strategic choice that is, at the very least, questionable and has a high potential for disaster,] Eos commented in my mind, with the tone of someone reading the report of an inevitable catastrophe. [I predict, with a probability of 87.9%, a hysterical fit of rage, followed by a generalised brawl and the likely total destruction of this vessel in less than five minutes after he inevitably wakes up.]
*(Shut up and enjoy the show, Eos,)* I thought, leaning comfortably against the boat's rail and taking a sip of my tea. *(The chaos forecast in Fairy Tail is always 100%. It's just a matter of scale.)*
And, as if following a carefully marked cosmic schedule, Gray began to stir. He groaned softly, opened his eyes slowly, and, upon realising his embarrassing situation and the tight ropes... he exploded.
"WHAT THE HELL—?! NATSU, YOU BLOODY MATCHSTICK-BRAIN! YOU TIED ME UP?! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
"Stop... complaining, you frozen exhibitionist," Natsu groaned from the floor, without even having the strength to lift his face from the deck. "You... urgh... were going to come anyway… it was just to... to make things easier..." The rest of the sentence turned into a guttural, wet sound that echoed over the side of the boat.
"MAKE THINGS EASIER?! I'M TIED UP IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE ON A BOAT WITH A BUNCH OF SUICIDAL IDIOTS! THIS ISN'T 'MAKING THINGS EASIER', YOU IDIOT, THIS IS A CRIME! A KIDNAPPING!"
"Technically, Gray," I interrupted calmly, with the most bored voice I could produce, taking a slow, deliberate sip of my tea to emphasise my total lack of concern, "you're not exactly 'in the middle of nowhere'. We're on our way to a cursed island. And besides, if you keep shouting, I might consider the possibility of throwing you into the sea, ropes and all. Then, my dear boy, it would be a kidnapping with a touch of drama and a tragic ending. How about that?"
He froze (no pun intended), staring at me with a mix of shock, indignation, and a healthy fear in his eyes. Poor Lucy took advantage of the brief pause in the shouting to try, uselessly, to calm things down with words about teamwork and the importance of not killing each other before we reached our destination. A noble, but utterly futile, attempt.
It was then that the fisherman, who until then had just been rowing in silence with an expression of deep regret, cleared his throat loudly, drawing everyone's attention.
"Listen up, you noisy mages… since you're really going to that cursed place, there's something very important you need to know."
His voice had changed drastically. It was no longer just the voice of a grumpy, greedy old bloke trying to make a quick buck. There was a weight to it now, an ancient fear and a dark resignation that made even Natsu stop being sick for a moment. With a slow, deliberate movement, he took off the tattered cloak covering his left arm and held it up for all of us to see.
The sight was... disturbing. He pulled back the sleeve of his garment, revealing an arm that was not entirely human. The skin was deformed, covered in sickly purple scales, and his fingers were long, thin, and ended in sharp, dark claws. Lucy gasped audibly, Happy's eyes widened in pure terror, and even the outraged Gray stopped grumbling and trying to free himself from the ropes, his gaze fixed on the grotesque deformity.
"This... this is the terrible curse of the Galuna Moon," he said, in a grave voice full of an ancient pain. "I... I am one of the inhabitants of that island. Or at least, I was. I managed to escape… but the curse still follows me. Every night, without fail, under the light of that sick, purple moon, the bodies of its inhabitants begin to change, to twist, to transform into... into something demonic, into soulless creatures with an insatiable hunger. I managed to escape the island before the transformation was complete and I lost my mind entirely, but… all the others... my family, my friends... they're still suffering there, night after night."
The silence that settled over the boat after his revelation was heavy, thick, and cold as a shroud. The soft sound of the waves breaking against the hull suddenly seemed louder, more sinister. Lucy hugged her knees tighter against her chest, visibly trembling, no longer from the cold, but from pure, genuine fear.
And Natsu, still as green as a pickle but with a glint of fierce determination in his eyes, managed to raise a trembling finger with a monumental effort.
"Then… it's perfect… We… we're going to save everyone… we're going to break your curse… I promise..." And then, with one last, heroic effort, he turned to the side and was sick once more.
I just sighed, feeling a headache begin to form behind my eyes. *(Brilliant. Simply wonderful. A cursed island with a purple moon, villagers who turn into demons every night, and a rescue team led by a pyromaniac who passes out from sea-sickness, a kleptomaniac blue cat with a fish obsession, a celestial mage in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and an exhibitionist ice mage currently tied up and in a foul mood. What a wonderful, relaxing holiday we're going to have.)*
Gray grumbled something unintelligible about irresponsibility and stupidity, but there was a new tension in his gaze, a weight that wasn't there before.
I just sighed once more, observing the twisted claws of our cursed fisherman guide with a clinical, dispassionate interest.
[Apocalypse-Level Danger Alert: the mission's risk level has just been drastically updated. New danger classification: "Almost Certain Total Disaster with High Probability of Painful Death and Dismemberment". System's logical suggestion: prepare a detailed will and, if possible, a list of particularly witty and memorable last words to be quoted in your future, and inevitable, biography.]
The boat continued its slow, uncertain course, groaning ominously against the waves which, as we approached the island, seemed to be getting stronger and darker. Our cursed fisherman guide, now with an air of urgency and desperation, continued to speak in a grave, sombre tone, describing endless, terrifying nights under the sick light of the cursed moon, of bodies writhing in indescribable agony, of dear friends and neighbours transforming into demonic, misshapen creatures with eyes full of a blind hunger and an unfathomable madness, right before his own terrified eyes. With every word, the air in the boat grew heavier, colder, more oppressive. Lucy was trembling uncontrollably, Happy was curled up with his wings covering his eyes, and even the usually so loud Natsu was listening in a rare, grim silence, his motion sickness momentarily forgotten in the face of the story's horror.
It was then that the sky, which until then had been a clear, sunny blue, changed drastically. Heavy, black clouds, which hadn't been there seconds before, appeared out of nowhere, as if vomited by some dark entity, swallowing the warm sunlight and plunging us into a sinister, unnatural twilight. The sea, previously just choppy, now raged, as if a sleeping giant had just woken up in a very bad mood, the waves growing huge and lashing our small, fragile boat with a sudden, frightening violence. A dry, deafening thunderclap cracked right above our heads, illuminating everything around us with a white, blinding, spectral flash.
And when the blinding light was gone, a second later, leaving behind only the darkness and the lingering afterimage in our retinas... the cursed fisherman, who had been right in front of us, telling his tragic story... had also disappeared. Simply vanished. Without leaving the slightest trace.
Lucy was the first to scream, her voice thin and full of pure panic. "H-HE… HE'S GONE! HE JUST VANISHED INTO THIN AIR!"
Happy clung to the ship's mast with all his might, his big green eyes wide with pure, absolute terror. "W-WAS HE A GHOST THE WHOLE TIME?! AZRA'IL, PLEASE, TELL ME I'M NOT GOING MAD AND SEEING THINGS!"
With a calm that was 100% genuine and 90% fuelled by boredom, and an irritation that was 110% fuelled by the impending, future loss of a good cup of tea, I took one last, sad sip of my now-lamentably-cold drink. I sighed with disappointment.
"Whether he was a ghost, a cheap illusionist, or just a terrible magician with a very dramatic vanishing trick, my small, terrified, furry friend, is entirely irrelevant at this moment," I murmured, my voice drawn-out and with a discontent that was, for the most part, directed at the temperature of my tea. "What is relevant, and considerably more problematic, is that he had, at least, the enormous and crucial advantage of knowing how to row this bloody boat and, presumably, knowing the way to the island. And now, with our one and only questionable guide having evaporated into thin air like cheap smoke, I would say that we are, to use a technical term... logistically compromised. And I am out of hot tea."
[Imminent Danger Alert: Spatial anomaly and a concentration of supernatural energy detected. Probability of an imminent paranormal phenomenon: approximately 92.7%. System's logical suggestion: prepare for an inevitable shipwreck, an encounter with a hostile entity, or, best-case scenario, a dramatic story-arc opening scene, with lots of screaming and the loss of personal items... like your teacup, for example,] Eos's analysis, as always, was precise, useful, and utterly infuriating in its prophetic accuracy.
Eos barely had time to finish speaking when the sea itself seemed to roar in fury. A colossal, gigantic, monstrous wave rose before us like a liquid, furious mountain, so high it seemed to want to swallow the very sky and drag the sun into the dark depths of the ocean. Our small, fragile, and entirely inadequate wooden boat was lifted by the forces of nature as if it were a disposable toy, a piece of nutshell in a cosmic bathtub.
Lucy screamed a high-pitched scream that could probably shatter glass. Gray, who had finally managed to free himself from the ropes, swore in a creative and impressive manner. Happy meowed with a heartbreaking desperation.
And Natsu, still as green as a gone-off pickle and totally incapacitated by motion sickness, could only let out one last, pathetic groan of misery before the boat was finally and inevitably lifted by the giant wave like an insignificant, fragile toy.
I, of course, and to my immense and eternal sorrow, lost my precious and irreplaceable teacup in the violent impact of the wave, which was, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest and most lamentable tragedy of that chaotic and entirely unnecessary morning.
The vessel capsized violently, the world turned upside down, and we were all thrown in different directions, amidst screams, salt water, and the promise of a wet, unpleasant death. The deafening roar of the water filled my ears, and the icy darkness of the ocean swallowed me.
(And so, in a totally predictable and clichéd manner, begins our glorious S-Class mission, which, by the way, wasn't even mine to begin with. Headfirst, without the slightest plan or instruction manual, and with all the subtlety, grace, and elegance of a large-scale natural disaster. Perfect. Absolutely and utterly perfect. My life is a real marvel,) I thought, with one last, sarcastic sigh, before letting myself be carried away by the current and the inevitability of chaos.