The life of roses

Your pulled out of your flashback as the girl in your arms screams and pulls on your (H/l) hair.

Above you, King has flown back up to hover beside his still spirit spear. "Listen" Ban stands, raising his hand into the air, the Chastifol begins to be pulled towards Ban, "who the hell..."

"Yo!" You look up beside you as Meliodas had jumped to bop Ban on the back of the head with one of the tavern's wooden cups, "what are you doing playing hooky from work?"

Ban rubs his head and turns around, you hear heavy steps as Diane comes into view behind you, "What's with all the commotion?" the giant asks.

The blue-haired sin frowned, "this random kid picked a fight with me", Ban gestures up to King. Your frown at him and Meliodas walks over to you, offered his hand to help you up. You take it and the children hide under your wings.

Diane crouches down and lifts both of the kids to safety, placing them behind one of the buildings. Your eyes follow their small figures until they're out of sight, Meliodas watches you closely before he turns to look up at the fairy in the sky.

"KING?" Diane and Meliodas both shout at the same time, recognising their former sin-in-arms. King has his arms relaxed behind his back, no hint of emotion on his features.

Ban looks up too before his eyes go wide with shock, "What part of THAT is King?!"

You tilt your head, confused, "every part?"

Diane winks at the fairy, having to tilt down a little to be eye level to the small young boy floating in the air, "King! We've all been looking for you!" she winks, "I'm so glad to see you!"

Without a word, King turns his head quickly away with anger and flies off into the forest, the Chastifol following after. The giantess frowns as she watches him vanish amongst the trees, "did I say something wrong?"

You fly up to Diane's face at pat her gently on her large cheek, "I'm sure he's just in a mood, you know how King gets sometimes".

The giantess beams up at you, "your right (Y/n)!" She grins.

"Alright! Order up!" Ban puts his hands on his hips, wearing a Boar Hat apron as everyone gathers around the large table of food the sin had prepared.

Elizabeth gasped and clutched her hands together, "It smells so good!"

"Right?" Meliodas agreed, clutching Hawk's ear to stop the pig from devouring the entire table.

You peer into a bowl of delicious smelling soup and almost drool at the sight of it, "yummy!" Sitting beside where you stand, the two children have stars in their eyes as they clap their tiny hands together.

Ban narrows his eyes, "anything you don't eat goes to the pig".

The kids eat fast as they cant get over just how delicious the food is! They grin and clutch their bellies, "Sorry, but we don't have any money".

"Instead" Ban frowns, "tell me where the Capital of the Dead is".

Meliodas was now stuck holding Hawk and you back from tearing apart the rest of the food. The blonde sin patted you on the head thoughtfully, "I'll cook something later".

You glared up at him, sitting on the floor as it was safer to not see the food on the table, "you cant cook".

The captain stuck his fists on his hips and turned up his chin with a grin, "Ban's going to teach me".

"I am?" Ban said questioningly, raising a perfect eyebrow.

Meliodas waves his gaze away with his hand, "any how, we don't need to find Necropolis now Ban, we already know King is here".

"No way that's King"

"Is too"

"Is not"

"Is too"

"Boys!" You cross your arms on the floor, both stop their conversation to look at you, "enough bickering".

"You guys want to find the Capital of the Dead too?" The little boy says, licking his fingers clean.

Ban and Meliodas simultaneously raise their eyebrows and look over at him, "too?" they both say. You stand up your finger pulses in your hand as it tries to locate King, being drawn to his fairy magic. Diane looks in through the window with one large eye, you smile at her and wave as Meliodas steps forward to question the boy.

"Explain"

The little boy nudges his sister and she nods, he speaks, "That kid from before, the one with the spear. He's asked us a bunch of times too. He's pretty determined to get to the Capital of the Dead".

Diane frowned, "King's trying to get to Necropolis? Why?"

The boy nods, "He came here a few days ago".

Hawk had finally cleaned the floor of every scrap of food and looked up, "Must be pretty secluded if he's been here for a while and still hasn't found it". You nod in agreement, tapping the side of your arm.

"No its right around here" the boy said simply. Elizabeth approached the boy and crouched down beside him, she smiled at him and urged him to continue. The boy looked to you, facing his head away from the princess, "The entrance to the Capital of the Dead is in this village. But you cant get there just because you want to".

Ban sat down on one of the table's chairs and leant on his hand, "I have no interest in riddles".

The little girl suddenly pitches up, "The old man next door used to say, precious memories shared with the deceased will lead you to the Capital".

Ban ruffled the little girls hair thoughtfully, "Thanks Elaine. That information is more than enough to cover your meal".

"Um... my name's Ellen".

"My bad, Ellen it is".

You slowly backed up towards the door and opened it silently, slipping out, your wings flew out and lifted you above the trees quickly. Your ring pulsed harder and you changed course, spotting the familiar green patterned pillow on which King was lying.

You landed beside the floating mass, hearing his voice, though muffled as he was face down in the pillow, "stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" you covered your giggle as he yelled at himself.

Just then, the same black hound as the one you had seen at the border, ran up to you, though now the size of a normal dog. It barked with its large mouth happily, its tail swaying at you.

"Hello Oslo" you whispered and stroked its face, the dog licked your arm with a grossly wet tongue and barked happily, this alerted King.

The sin of sloth slowly lifted his head up to look at you, "(Y/n)? What are you doing here?"

"Checking up on you" you reply casually, standing up as you release Oslo. You smile at the light-brown haired fairy and he cant help but tear up. He flies into your arms and you have to step back so you both don't fall over.

"Oh (Y/n)! Diane probably hates me now! I made it look like I ran away because I saw her!" He cried and wrestled with your (H/l) hair for a hold.

You rub his back in comfort, "Its ok King" he lets go and levitates in front of you, "I know she doesn't hate you! In fact she's very worried about you out here all alone!"

He looked up with tearful eyes, "Really?"

You nod confidently, "Definitely!"

(2000+ years ago)

Meliodas smiled as you sat down next to the large stag an placed your hand next to its face on the grass.

Drawing your hand up a golden light handprint is left on the grass. From the light grows a healthy red rose, with large beautiful petals. The fairy forest was beautiful with its spring season, decorated with flowers and healthy plants.

"Sate sate sate" The sin of wrath rests his hands in his pockets as he stands beside you, leaning over to admire the rose, "what a pretty flower (Y/n)".

You grin up at him with a perfect white smile, "thankyou Meliodas!" You stand up, your short dress falling down to your small knees as you clutch a dark purple bow in one hand. You squeeze it and your stardust ring glows, the boy disappears, as well as the arrow in the fallen stag's side.

Meliodas grabbed the deer's hooves and threw the massive dead beast over his back. He chuckles as his messy blonde hair falls over his eyes.

He steadies the deer with one arm so he can hold your tiny hand with his other.You pout and squeeze your hands into fists, "I want to fly us back".

The sin raises an eyebrow, he gives you a thumbs up, "ok!"

He drops the deer to the ground and grabs it by only one back leg, you grip his hand with both of your small ones and fling your small white wings out.

You fly up into the air, lifting him off the ground first, and with some effort, the stag as well.

You chatted with King for a while, but he decided against going back to the tavern when you had to leave. So you waved goodbye to him and flew back.

It was very late when you arrived at the Boar Hat and opened the door, so late in fact that you were sure no one was up. Boy were you wrong. There, standing in the middle of the room glaring at you with his arms crossed, was the captain. His boot tapping in a frustrated way as you stepped inside, sheepishly touching your pointer fingers together, "Oh, Melio, I thought you had gone to bed".

"Ban said you hadn't come back yet" He said with a frown, "you know I cant sleep if I'm worrying about you".

You blush a little, "I know".

Meliodas suddenly grinned and stuck his hands into his pockets, "well your back now, so I'll see you in the morning!" He waved and headed up the stairs towards him and Elizabeth's room.

You exhaled with relief, happy he wasn't mad at you.

"Apparently the entrance is right around here" Diane fixed her only brace, you sat on her shoulder with your wings relaxing back against her shoulder blade.

Meliodas smiled and tapped his chin, "Well, you can only get there if your dead".

Elizabeth stood beside the captain with her hands together against her skirt, "precious memories shared with the deceased will lead us... didn't she say?" She smiled happily, "I'd love to see my mother, she passed away before I could remember her."

Hawk puffed an annoyed breath out of his large nostrils, "then we're screwed".

Elizabeth looked down sadly, "I guess your right. I don't have any memories.

You wrapped your arms around your chest and drew your knees up to your body, you watched Ban as he walked a little apart from the group, his hands in the pockets of his red pants, a hole still through the chest area of his jacket from the Chastifol. Just as you were about to speak, flowers began to materialise from the ground, covering the whole small valley floor.

"What's with all these flowers?" Elizabeth crouches down and smiles, running her hand through them.

"Where these here before?" Diane asked you, picking up one of the tiny flowers, you shook your head, unsure.

"Who cares" Hawk chuffed, "eating these wont satisfy my hunger". As the boar snorted some air onto one of the pink flowers, all of the flowers began to loose their petals and they swirled up and around like a cyclone of pink leaves.

You gasp in awe and stand up on Diane's shoulder, the petals begin to circle much closer and you cover your eyes. Meliodas leaps up from Diane's bent knee to her shoulder and shields you under his body, holding his arm over his eyes.

When you open them again, you were no longer in the small village. (see image above).

Surrounding your group were thousands of massive crystals as far as the eye could see, stretching miles high and miles long.

"Captain..." Diane gawked.

"I know"

From behind a crystal, King hovered, peering around at them, "No doubt about it, this must be the Capital of the Dead".

Meliodas took your hands and you flew him back down to the ground, landing gracefully with your white angel wings splayed.

Suddenly Ban takes off in one direction, obviously he had caught sight of something. You call after him, "Ban wait! Where are you going?"

Above you King sours over as he goes to chase the sin of greed, "WAIT!"

Diane and you gasped, "King!? How did he get here?"

Elizabeth looked to you curiously, "Sir King looks nothing like his wanted poster"

You shrug, "different forms". The princess was still confused, but decided against bombarding you with more questions.

"Are those two going to fight again?" The pig asked.

The giantess crouched down beside you, "What should we do captain?"

"Go after them I guess".

You'd been walking for about half an hour when something twinged in your head, Meliodas felt it too. "Somethings not right" you mumble and Meliodas nods, turning back to look the way we had came.

Diane yelped as she turned to see a young women in Holy Knight apprentice armour standing at the other end of the large crystal they had been walking across. "Where did you come from?"

The girl was in pale purple/white armour and had long black hair and a calm smile. You had an uneasy feeling in your gut as she rested her hand on her sword.

"I died to come here".

Sorry for the wait!! Lemme know what you think of the story so far! Honest opinions please! :))