Anonymous asked: Why did Natsu fall in love with Lucy I feel like there are two main reasons as to why Natsu fell in love with Lucy. The first reason, probably being the most obvious, is the bond they formed throughout their journeys. We learn pretty early on in the anime/manga that Natsu never actually formed a team with anybody in Fairy Tail until he met Lucy, and this I believe is a huge attention to detail. Although he is friends with every single person in the guild, (yes even including Gray), he still found it difficult to form a close enough bond to any of them, or at least close enough to form a team. I feel like part of this is because of Lisanna.
As we all know, Natsu and Lisanna had a very close relationship during their childhood, and she was most likely his best friend in the guild at that stage of his life, excluding Happy. So, being his best friend, of course that meant he trusted her with pretty much everything, and if it weren’t for her siblings and her demise, Natsu and Lisanna would have probably formed a team.
This is where Lucy’s appearance and friendship towards Natsu is significant. From what we know, we can make a pretty clear assumption that Natsu resorted to distancing himself quite a bit after Lisanna died, after all, they were extremely close to one another no matter how much anti NaLi shippers want to deny it. Anyway, the fact that this distance vanished as soon as Lucy showed up just goes to show how comforting it is to him that he has that form of a best friend again, (again, excluding Happy).
Because of how well they clicked after first meeting, I feel like Lucy reminded Natsu of Lisanna, therefore his desire for that kind of friendship again only surfaced once meeting Lucy. Now, I’m not saying that Natsu thinks of Lucy as a replacement for Lisanna, because that is definitely not the case. Rather, he values Lucy so much because of the bond they managed to form; something Natsu was unable to achieve for so many years after Lisanna’s death.
As for falling in love with her, I feel like that mainly just came naturally due to how often they spent time with one another and bonded throughout the years. In the beginning, Natsu merely thought of her as a friend he could tease and mess around with. However, as their friendship progressed and Natsu began to learn more about Lucy, her background and her personality, it quickly grew into something more. He values Lucy more than he does himself, and that I believe is so significant to their relationship. Of course we know Natsu would risk his life for anyone in the guild, but with Lucy that extra sense of his desire to protect her is visible, and this is because she is the first person since Lisanna that truly understands him and knows him better than anyone else.
Onto the second reason; I think another reason Natsu fell in love with Lucy and was so quick to bond with her is because of his past and background.
As the manga was drawing to a close, we learnt about Natsu’s past, and how he was raised by both Igneel and Lucy’s ancestor, Anna. Considering Anna was the one to knit Natsu’s famous scarf, this automatically shows that Natsu values Anna, and therefore values Lucy just as much. After all, during the flashback, Natsu mistook Anna for Lucy.
In the very last chapter, Natsu straight out says that he feels so calm around Lucy because she smells like Anna. This means that right from when they first met, he knew he could be comfortable around her. This is another reason why he felt the need to become friends with her, after years of being so distant with everybody else and not joining/forming a team.
Being comfortable around her, of course, helped develop their relationship even further until he eventually began to fall in love with her. However, he wouldn’t have been able to do so if he hadn’t been comfortable around her to begin with. If she hadn’t been related to Anna, he probably would have just passed her off as another guild mate without a second glance.
So, overall you can view it in two ways; you can either thank Lisanna’s death/initial relationship with Natsu or Natsu’s past with Anna for NaLu’s significant development and Natsu falling in love with Lucy.
((Thank you for the ask! Feel free to let me know your opinions too!))
