Erza's POV (Ooooooooh!)

"Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?" The man with sapphire hair said to me, smiling a bit from behind the iron bars.

I didn't answer, I sat there staring at the dirty floor like I had been for the past hour.

"It's rude not to answer someone, you know." He said, shifting his weight, making his chains rattle.

"Stop talking." I order.

"Why?" He questioned.

"If you don't shut your mouth, I will rip out your tongue." I say to him with a sweet smile.

"Erza!" Natsu yelled from the deck above us.

"Yes, Captain?" I asked.

"Interrogate the prisoner, we need to know as much about the castle's defense as we can." He answered back.

"Yes, Captain." I confirmed his order.

I glanced over at the interrogation chair, remembering the few times that we had to use it were not pretty. The guttural screams of the "victims" in the chair resonated through my ears and gripped at my soul. I shook my head. Now is not the time for petty regrets. We have a bigger mission at hand.

I unlocked the cabinet in the corner containing all of our methods of sweet pain and sour torture. A series of daggers with varying lengths and widths would take a toll of him, and for good measure, a vial of my special concoction would have him blabbering his darkest secrets in minutes.

Don't forget the salt and lemon juice. One of my personal favorites for occasions like these.

I unlocked the cell, grabbing his arm roughly. "Easy on the merchandise, sweetheart." He says as I jerk him up and drag him over to the chair

I ignore the butterflies in my stomach at the pet name, and strap him in. "I wouldn't call it merchandise." I retorted with a snort.

"What would you call it then, sweetheart?" He says, taunting me.

"I wouldn't call it anything, because I personally, I don't care about anything that regards you. Remember your place, you seem to forget what position you are in." I glared at him.

I wouldn't fall for his "charm", he was completely and utterly unappealing.

"Now," I told him. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. You can tell me everything you know about Magnolia Castle's defense and other important details. If you comply completely, I will have no reason to harm you for your attack on our ship. However, if you do not comply, I will be forced to take violent action."

He looked up at me with a large grin etched on his face. "You know what, sweetheart?"

"What ever could it be this time?" I narrowed my eyes at him. I wouldn't let him know it, but Jellal gave me a strange feeling in my stomach. His choice of words and the way his ego carried him wasn't usual on the sea. Jellal was a traveler, that is certain. But he knew nothing of the sea. Here, on this watery grave, was my territory, and nothing Jellal could say or do could change it. He's in the mercy of the Sea and her servants.

"I think I can handle a bit of pain. So I believe I'll just keep what little knowledge I have to myself, and see what you sea women are capable of." That stupid grin was still on his face.

"Suit yourself." I spat at him. Examining the display of knives, I pulled out a small dagger, nothing particularly special about it. I looked over at him, and I blushed when I noticed he was staring at me. What was his problem?!

"Stop that." I ordered, bringing the small blade to the top of his chest, just below his throat.

"Does it bother you?" He asked me, not phased by the fact his life was in my hands.

"Even a fool like you could notice that." He winced as I slightly pressed the blade against his skin.

Small droplets of blood dripped down on his dark blue shirt, staining it.

"You still have a chance to tell me. You won't be pretty by the time I'm finished. with you." I told him, meeting his eyes.

"Glad you think I'm pretty, Erza." He said with a smirk.

My cheeks turned the color of my surname. "Shut it, you! You know what I mean, you just keep twisting my words." He was getting too annoying for his own good. I pressed the knife a little further into the skin of his throat, knowing my anger was getting the best of me.

Natsu is going to kill me.

"You're right, he is." A familiar voice said behind me.

I turned quickly and my eyes widened at the sight of Natsu.

To put it bluntly, he looked terrible.

"Captain, I-"

"The last thing I need is useless excuses." He cut me off, raising his hand to silence me.

He looked over at Jellal and sighed. "There's not much he could have told us, either way we're going in blind."

"I am sorry, Captain." I told him, trying to meet his hollow, dead eyes.

With Lucy gone, Natsu changed completely. He is a dead man walking, barely eating, barely sleeping, he barely even breathes.

"I can feel her, Erza." He says, leaning against the wall.

"What?"

"Lucy." He breathes. "I can feel her. Everything she feels, I can feel it too. It's the same for her as well, she probably doesn't know it though. I never had much time to explain anything to her."

"Is she okay?" I ask him, secretly dreading the answer.

"She's in utter misery. Her heart is filled with sadness and despair. She misses all of us." He says sadly, something that has become usual is his sadness.

"Wendy and some of the other girls think Lucy is pregnant," I say with uncertainty, this has been a sensitive topic. "Can you...can you feel it?"

The corners of Natsu's lips rose up in a slight smile. "Yeah, it's strange, but I can feel it."

"What's it like?" I asked in curiosity.

Natsu closed his eyes and smiled. "I can't feel it move, just it's heartbeat inside of her."

"We'll get her back, Captain." I say confidently as I playfully smack his arm, trying to lighten up the constantly somber mood.

"Oh, trust me, I know."

Lucy's POV

Grief ran through my body like poison, slowly and slowly eating me away. Any other emotions, other than grief and pain, don't even exist anymore. The only feeling that I experience anymore are the sensations of grief and the occasional movement of the child inside me. These emotions are so overbearing, that anything I felt before is gone. All that remains is the emotional virus that is unforgiving and merciless. But feeling something, is better than feeling nothing at all.

A soft knock at the door echoed across my silent "bedroom", I took comfort, little it may be, in silence. It swallowed me whole and my thoughts would scream inside of me, only having a voice in the deadly silence.

Aries' baby pink hair was visible as she slowly stepped into my room from behind the door. "Princess, your father wishes to see you." She whispers.

Father, I scoffed in my head.

He doesn't deserve that title.

That title is for someone who is capable of loving, and being loved. That title is for someone who is willing to sacrifice anything and everything for their loved ones. That title is for someone who is, or will be there for their children, for someone who is patient yet kind. That title is for someone who is, or will be there for their child when they can't be there for themselves.

That title is for someone like Natsu.

My heart fluttered at the sound of his name, even in my head.

"Princess Lucy?" Aries says in concern, slowly walking towards me with her hand outstretched.

I flinched away from her touch. "I'm fine."

I rose slowly out of my rose colored chair. Though my room reflected gorgeous rosy tones, reflecting love and happiness, I felt none of it. It was all a lie. My father and Loke thought they could take me from my true family and then drown me in the superficial, false love that reflects inside of this rose colored room. That some simple pink colors and roses on my wallpaper would make me forget who really loved me. That all of the shiny jewels  and sparkling tiaras could mesmerize me into abandoning my family, and try to make me feel like all the lace and tea parties could ever replace the dirty cotton trousers and drinking competitions with Cana.

"Shall I lead you to his Majesty?" Aries asked with her eyes on the floor.

"You don't really have a choice, do you?" I asked rhetorically.

She nods. "This way, please." She leads me down the hall and through many others, weaving through various staircases and bustling servants. "Almost there, Princess."

I cringed at that word. I was anything but a princess. Aries spoke as if I didn't know my way to the King's study. In all my years of staying in the castle, that was the one room that I most certainly never  forgot how to get there. No matter where I was in the castle, I always had a route pre-planned on how to get there. I learned the hard way that if I was only a moment late to a time when my biological sperm donor called me to his "Royal Office" that there would be a cost to pay.

"We're here, m'lady." She says softly to me as she knocks on his door.

"Come in." The power in his voice exerts even through the thick, wooden door.

Aries twisted the elegant door knob and slowly pushed the heavy door open.

In his usual straight back position at the desk sat my "father", the King. Aries curtsied at him. "Is there anything else you need, Your Majesty?"

"That will be all for now. Leave us, girl." He said, not even looking up from the various document that littered his desk, continuing his erratic scrawling, concentration etched on his face.

Aries nodded, giving him another curtsy, and leaving the room as quick as she could.

"Sit down, Lucy." He says as he lay his pen down.

I walk to the chair on the left out of the pair facing his desk, and sit down. We stay silent for a moment, him still staring at his papers, and I staring at the ornate pattern swirling on the arm rest of the chair.

"Loke has asked me a very important question, Lucy." He says, looking at my eyes, but I refuse to meet his.

"Does he want to extend his privileges as a guard? I remember for years I had always asked him to ask you to, but he never had the courage even though I always thought he deserved everything good this life could give him. It's funny that the Little Lion couldn't ever be courageous enough to do things for himself." I said sarcastically.

A year ago I would have panicked at the tone I was using at the man in front of me. But the man in my heart taught me to be fearless because no one else could do it for me, and I cannot even defend myself, how could I defend the ship.

"You could see it that way. It is extending his privileges." King Jude said using his perfectly executed condescending tone that always made everyone, me included, feel smaller than an ant just under his boot, and that with one little "misstep", our lives would end.

"Oh do tell, Father." I scoffed.

"Loke wishes for your hand in marriage." King Jude says as he stands and moves to stare out the window at the undeniably beautiful flower garden that was my haven as a child. "And I intend to give it to him."

My heart turned to ice at the thought of walking down the aisle, just to see Loke's smirking face at the end of it. "And how do you intend of giving my hand to him?"

"Lucy, my dear sweet girl, we both know how this is going to end." He says giving me a hard look.

I stood to meet his gaze. "Yes, Father. This will end with this forsaken castle in flames, you in ashes, and myself in the Fairy Tail with the man who will be my husband and the father to the child inside of me. You do not scare me with your blinding crown and harsh tone. I know in my heart that Natsu will be here soon, and so you better prepare yourself for one liberating death."

"Oh, I know Natsu will be here soon. You act as if his ship is the only one on the water. My naval forces alerted me an hour ago that he and his poor excuse for a crew and a ship will be here in about..." He paused to check his watch. "Thirty minutes. Splendid! It'll be such a delight to watch your little lovers battle to the death. I'll be sure you get a front row seat, Lucy. I know you wouldn't miss it for the world." He grinned a grin like a child who just got the biggest lollipop in the candy shop, or in a royal's case, a King who just got told he was to inherit the world's largest fortune and the world's most gorgeous woman for one of his brides.

He left the study humming a tune that he used to sing for my mother when she was ill or having a not-so-great-day. Then it filled my heart with joy to see my parents harmonize together in, well, harmony. But now, as I have seen my father's true colors, the once familiar tune is not familiar at all anymore.

"Oh, Aries?" King Jude said from down the hall.

"Yes, my King?" Aries soft voice could barely be heard, even in the hallway right outside the study.

"Send a physician, or anyone who has some scissors, to me this evening. Loke and my darling Lucy cannot get married with the sea scum's so-called-child inside of her. And I just thought it would be a wonderful idea for him to watch it get torn to shreds. Just to give him some peace of mind that killing it has given it a far better opportunity than a life ever could for it.  Could you imagine the scandals and all of the rumors that child would bring? We simply cannot afford for that to happen. Now can we, Aries?" Jude's voice echoed throughout the halls. Loud enough for even the gardeners outside to hear.

"Of course not, Your Magesty." Aries agreed quietly.

"Excellent! I knew you'd think it was a great idea. Now, if you could just-"

The loud blares of a horn echoed across the Kingdom. Not just any horn.

The War Horn.

"Just in time!" King Jude announced excitedly. "Get to it now, Aries! We can't afford to waste anymore time!" He hurried down the hall, barking orders at all the servants.

I rushed to the window, feeling my heart rush, and  just crossing the Magnolia kingdom line was the ship that held many memories, friends, and most of all...

It held Natsu.

Natsu was coming for me.

And nothing Loke or King Jude could do, could ever stop him.

A/N:

GUYS I CANNOT BELIEVE I JUST WROTE A CHAPTER.

Literally the last time I updated was January. Seriously what the heck is wrong with me?

I know that I can either come up with more stupid excuses, or I can just say that I needed an anime break, and that including writing an anime based fan fiction. But, if it makes you feel any better (because it makes me feel better), I passed my AP World History exam that is worth 2 college credits.

On a totally different note, I want to watch more anime again. So if you all know any good anime, and where I can find it in English without a virus eating my laptop alive, that would be amazing.

Hopefully I can finish Payment to a Pirate well enough that the ended isn't terrible and rushed, and possibly start a new story once this is finished.

I WILL FINISH THIS STORY EVEN IF I AM SEVENTY IN A NURSING HOME AND I CAN BARELY TYPE ANYMORE.

I hope this chapter has sort of proven my post on my message board that I intend on writing again. Writing this chapter has seriously made me miss writing. I do apologize for it being short, but considering I haven't updated in almost a year with a really horrible cliffhanger, something is better than nothing.

Thank you guys so much for supporting me and my horribly written stories and I will see you in the (hopefully soon) next chapter of Payment to a Pirate!

Stay nerdy, bros!

~DeathPasta