The sunless sky covered the woods over the treetops which created a canopy. There was a gentle breeze, creating the single sound of rustling leaves. Not a single person was seen at the sight, but a cave.

Cave was deep inside. It wasn't bright but it wasn't even dark, light lacrima did its job lighting up the cave. Deep inside the cave there were two children sleeping soundly. One of them was a strawberry blonde girl and another one was a pink hair boy. The girl shuffled her body waking up from her peaceful sleep. But when the girl woke up there was a frown formed in her face for not seeing someone specific beside her.

"Igneel?" She mumbled under her breath but her low and raspy voice echoed around the cave.

The girl rushed out of the cave after not getting any reply by her only guardian. "Igneel" she again shouted but again she got no response in back, not even a single roar from the sky. Waking up from strawberry blonde's screams, the pink hair boy came outside the cave rubbing his eyes. "Why are you shouting, Mei" he asked. His tone was raspy afterall he just woke up from his sleep. The girl frowned upon seeing the boy awake."Sorry Natsu, I didn't mean to wake you up, but Igneel is nowhere to be seen and he isn't even replying my calls for him." Natsu was about to say something but Mei cut him off saying, "I know I shouldn't be worrying about him for not seeing him for fews minutes, but he used to wake us up early morning before the sun rise, but today, it's afternoon right now and he still didn't woke us up" Hearing the pink hair boy noticed his surroundings and noticed that the girl was right. "I am scared Natsu." The strawberry blonde looked at pink haired eyes with despair in her eyes. Natsu didn't understand what emotion was in her eyes but understood the fact that girl was scared beyond anything. "He must be in this area let's find him together. He won't be abandoning us this soon." She nodded in response.

Both of them separated in different way. Mei went to east side of the forest and Natsu went to the west. The only thing good about this was that they were familiar with the surroundings and chances of them getting lost was negligible. After few hours of wandering around and searching for him both returned to the same place where they started from.

"Did you find him?" the strawberry blonde shoke her head in response, trying her best to hold back her tears.

"Igneel this isn't funny, come out" the twelve year old girl shouted in open sky bursting into tears.

The girl jolted awake. Sweat drops were on her forehead. She puts her hand in her face, realising that what she saw was a dream. Her sudden actions woke the pink exceed beside her.

"Did you have a bad dream?" The pink cat questioned.

It was a calm day, and they were resting at the side of a large oak tree, in the middle of woods which was on their way to Hargeon town. The sun was above them creating a shadow of the tree over them. Breeze was gentle. Rustling of leaves was heard.

"Yeah, I did. Did I woke you up? I am so sorry." The strawberry blonde apologized and put the pink cat in her lap gently rubbing her fur gently.

"It's alright Mei, what matters right now is you. Are you alright after the dream you saw? You can tell me if anything, I am always here for you" the cat said rubbing her own fur against the strawberry blonde's hand.

"Nah I am fit and fine. Leaving my dream aside let's go Hargeon town. Maybe the Salamander in the rumours is Natsu. It's been a long time since I last met him. I want to see how big he has become." Mei said setting Luna in ground and picking up her backpack, which she was using as a pillow to sleep.

"Let's go then" Luna said opening her small wings and flying at head level of Mei. She closed her wings once she sat on Mei's shoulder.

Walking out of the forest they saw a town with train station. "Okay I guess it will take half an hour for us to reach there in train. You okay with it?"

"Yes if you okay with it." The pink cat said in response. The girl nodded stating that she heard her friend. The train station wasn't much far from where they were standing, it would take 5 minutes to reach the train station.

**Time skip**

Finally after trip of half hour the girl and her exceed reached the town.

Hargeon is one of the Fiore's ports and also one of its most beautiful old towns. The town is more prosperous and renowned in fishing rather than Magic, because only 10% of the people in the town have the ability to use Magic. Like any port city, it has its own large marina, located in the southern part of town.

"So, Where is this Salamander of yours?" The pink exceed asked messing with the dragon Slayer's hair. "First of all, he isn't my Salamander, second we two treat each other like siblings though I don't say it aloud and lastly I have no idea about where he would be right now, so the only thing we can do is roaming around." She said to her exceed without removing her eyes from the streets.

After few seconds of wandering around for few minutes, two girls passed beside the dragon Slayer and the exceed yelling "I can't believe he really came to this town." "I agree I even heard he is famous fire mage." The girl's talked to eachother, unknown to them someone else was also listening to their conversation.

The Dragon Slayer and exceed looked at each other "That's must be him" both of them said in unison.

They ran behind the girls, which lead them to crowd of girls. The man was hidden by the bunch of girls. After all pushing - pulling of girls she reached the centre of crowd, noticing someone totally different then she excepted.

"You are Salamander!??" The girl asked the man pointing the finger on him. "Yes lady. I guess you want my autograph. Here you go." He said handing her his autograph. The other girls were going crazy and that's when the notice the charm ring in man's finger. Smiling awkwardly the dragon slayer thanked him, getting out of the crowd.

After getting out the crowd and walking few steps away from the crowd, she started to stare at autograph. "What are you going to do of it?" The exceed asked dragon slayer. The quickly burnt it down until it turn into ash. "Nothing" she said looking at her exceed and smiling at it innocently.

In process they walked past to the one they were supposed to be real Salamander.

...The world is surely small...

Like??

"Let's go to a resturant before we leave this town. I am quiet hungry." The dragon slayer said to her partner exceed.

"Alright, but do we have jewels left?"

"Yeah we do, atleast for our one meal."

"Okay then we will leave for next town after our meal." The exceed said.

-----------

They finished meal soon cause Mei doesn't have a big appetite. Same went for Luna. She didn't like too much of nor she liked too little of food. Luna liked fruits much more then she liked fish. Soon Mei paid for the food. The dragon slayer and exceed left the shop.

"We are broke now Luna. We don't even have jewels for train ticket." Mei slumped her shoulder and gloomy aura started to come from her.The exceed was comforting her partner and was trying to cheer her up. But in this process they didn't noticed the smell of another dragon slayer in air.

On other side, Lucy followed by Natsu and his blue exceed, Happy were heading towards the same resturant where another fire dragon slayer just ate her lunch.

Natsu stopped walking when his nose got smell of another dragon slayer.

"Natsu?" Happy who also stopped in track finding his partner being missing.

"I just got a smell of someone, it's too familiar, but I can't remember whose smell it is."

"Is it Erza?" Happy asked with terror in his eyes.

"No, Erza's smell isn't easy to be forgotten. This is someone else."

"What happened?" This Lucy who turned around to see what's stopping them in their track.

"Ahh- nevermind that smell disappeared."  He stated as he started walking again followed by Happy.

...'It was too familiar.'...

After half an hour of flying walking the two partners arrived at Margaret town. Margaret Town is located almost in the southeast part of Fiore, just south-west of Hargeon. Margaret Town is one of the major cities in Fiore, housing a significant population, gaining its reputation as a home to one of Fiore's strongest guilds, Lamia Scale. The town is located by a river which separates the town in 2 major parts which are connected by a bridge. Such position also puts an emphasis on boats as means of transportation.

"So which guild we have here?" The pink exceed asked to her dragon slayer partner who replied "The famous guild Lamia Scale"

Walking around the town, admiring it's beauty but also walking towards their destination, they came across many shops. There were different shopes like, armour shop, cake shop, clothes shop and many more. Once they reached their destination they were busy admiring the beauty of guild hall. For next two minutes their only focus was guild hall's exterior.

After admiring it's beauty they entered the guild hall and was greeted or let's say scared to death by her sudden appearance by a old woman. "Who are you dearie?" She asked spinning.

"My name is Mei and this is my partner Luna. I am an independent mage, travelling around the continent, but right now I am in short of jewels so would you mind if I take one or two request from your request board. I would be very grateful if you let me take some request." Mei bowed to old lady, though she got weird out by lady's behaviour.

"Ah- sure dearie, but let me introduce myself. I am Ooba Babasaama, The guild master of Lamia Scale. Nice to meet you dearie. Go to front counter you will meet Jillian, she will show you all the requests which you can take." The lady said as she was spinning the man beside her.

The girl only freaked out by the treatment the man was getting but only thing she could do was to ignore what happening.

"Thank you very much" The girl bowed and went straight to front counter to meet Jillian.

"Excuse me are you Jillian?" Mei asked to lady in front counter.

"Yes I am, how may I help you." The lady was standing 6' 0" tall, this pale skinned woman and had a irresponsible feel about her. She has a wide face, a broad nose, and small lips. Her purple eyes are small and she has angular eyebrows. She has shoulder length, pale orange hair which is straight when allowed to grow. She has slanted shoulders, weak arms, a narrow torso with modest breasts, and short legs.

"Ah- I am an independent mage, my name is Mei. I was here for mission which has a high pay and suitable for me?"

"Oh I see, what type of magic do you use?" The lady named Jillian asked.

"I am a fire dragon Slayer."

"Ohhh, Let me see through the missions" As she said she removed the empty glass from the papers beside her. Due the wind or we can call it breeze all the papers scattered around the front counter. "I am so sorry" the orange head apologized to the dragon slayer, trying to pick up all the papers. "No worries let me help you." The exceed said as the dragon Slayer nodded in response.

Both the partners started helping the orange head. After gathering all the papers exceeds eyes falls on one mission paper

...Help Needed...

...The Epimedium Delavayi is a very rare, medium-sized plant and can be found in most subarctic regions. It blooms in late autumn....

...It has tiny, wedge shaped leaves, which are usually olive-green. It also grows quite large flowers, which can be dark orange, black, dark gold and light bronze....

...These plants grow in small groups, but it's challenging to control and maintain their growth....

...As a defense mechanism the Epimedium Delavayi grows tiny thorns....

...They grow deep inside the Mammoth Forest....

...Reward :- 45,000 Jewels...

"Mei you can take this mission. It looks easy."

Whereas Mei's eyes got a different mission.

...Please, champion. I need your help....

...Vile creatures have crept up in our lands. Reports of attacks are trickling in slowly, but we cannot afford to sit back idly. This could get out of control very quickly. Hero, seek them out and deal with those hideous elves. ...

...Reward :- 100,000 jewels ...

"Luna can we take this mission. It looks fun."

Fortunately both said at same time. They looked at each other and started laughing. They handed over other missions and Mei said "Can we take these two missions?"

"Ofcourse you can." The orange head said

"Yosh, let's head for mission." Mei said to her partner Luna

I hope you liked the chapter. Please do like and don't be the silent reader

...- Author Chan...