For Every Beginning . . .
Word Count: 1,403
Rating: E
Warnings: Mentions of violence
Note: Welcome to Bad Moon Rising, which is an incredibly slow-burning multiple ship romance/fantasy/adventure that features both canon and original characters! This is a lot of backstory and a bit of world-building; while not necessary to understand the following chapters, reading it is still recommended! I hope you enjoy!
When Meliodas first meets the Witch, it is in the ruins of an ancient temple, where he finds her half-dead beneath the altar. Her breathing is shallow enough that, if not for his sharp eyesight, he might have missed the stuttered rise and fall of her chest, and blood from a gash near her scalp has stained the white fabric of her dress. She is young, he realizes, not more than eleven or twelve winters; regret flavors his mouth bitter at the knowledge that he is, in some way, responsible for her suffering. It's with a slow, heavy sigh that he kneels to lift her, carrying her away from the smoldering remnants of her home. Better, he thinks, that she never sees the results of the slaughter, the bodies of her kind twisted and broken. She stirs only once on the way to the nearest inn, and is easily soothed into slumber by soft murmurs.
The innkeep is wary of him, a travelling swordsman with an injured girl, but Meliodas has become clever with his lies and manages to gain the man's sympathy and a room for cheap. The innkeep's wife brings warm water and towels and a clean dress, and he gives her three silver coins as thanks. Washing the Witch is little more or less than a chore, a mindless activity that buys him time to mull over his options. Leaving her somewhere seems ill-advised. A witch's coming of age can be violent, devastating. Better that she's with someone who can aid her through it, or put her down should she lose control. Rinsing the soapsand from her hair, he decides to keep her with him.
He does not leave, choosing instead to take his supper in their room to keep an eye on her. Though not an expert in magic, he is still able to see the lingering effects of a sleeping spell, and knows there is nothing he can do until she awakens. He's cleaning his sword when it happens, a sharp inhale alerting him to her as she pushes herself uncertainly to a sitting position. Meliodas watches as she peers around her, fingers rubbing against the bandage wrapped around her head, as her eyes light upon him, a stranger with a weapon glinting in the fire's light. He expects fear, or anger, perhaps even an attack, but she surprises him by rolling onto her side to face away from him. When he sees her shoulders shaking, he knows that she is crying.
They stay at the inn for three weeks, during which she never utters a word. The innkeep and his wife are certain that she is mute, but he hears the whimpers and soft pleas in the middle of the night as terror haunts her dreams. Because she does not give him her name, he is forced to choose one for her; after an accident in the kitchen that leaves her covered in flour from head to toe, only the green of her eyes untouched, he calls her Haunt. It seems fitting for that period of time when she is little more than a ghost living in a girl's body. The day they leave the safety of the inn is the first time she speaks, a quiet thank you given to the people who sheltered them for so long.
While she tends to stay silent around those she doesn't know, she does become more verbose the longer they travel together. There are days where he will hear a barely-there song, hummed as supplies are checked and prepared, though more often than not he catches it as it ends. Five years after he pulled her from the ruins, she creates a game of repeating whatever he has said as a wordless tune. He calls her Echo, and, for the first time, she smiles. Then they find Elizabeth in a small village where she works as a midwife, and the uncertain joy disappears when Elizabeth, months later, is murdered by bandits. The Witch is missing for two days. When she returns, there is blood on her hands and the bandit leader's head in a sack. He doesn't know what to say. She says nothing at all.
She never ages beyond that eighteenth winter. Witches are long-lived, so he pays it no mind. As long as they remain travelers, no one notices they stay the same no matter how much time passes. One century they traverse the frozen north, hunting frost dragons and sheltering in caves. The next, they trace the line of the coast, learning how to fish the cruel ocean from men with weather-beaten faces and cracked fingers. Eventually they come to a small southern kingdom, where Meliodas decides to settle for as long as they can. He becomes a knight and quickly climbs the ranks until he leads them. Echo creates potions and antidotes and healing salves. It is there that they meet Liz.
Echo knows of the curse. After meeting and losing Elizabeth so many times, Meliodas had told her all that he knew about it; she'd sworn to break it and spent every free moment researching and seeking artifacts for fifty years. So, when Liz appears, shackled and slated for death, she urges him to leave. Save the woman, yes, but let her live a full life and spare her the painful death that knowing him would bring. He promises they will as soon as he knows she is safe, as soon as she has a home, as soon as she is accepted as a knight, and then they are sharing a home and a bird named Waddle. When that demon awakens, neither of them can save Liz, and Danafor falls to their weakness.
There is blood in her mouth and a dagger in her hand when they stumble from that chasm, an infant in Meliodas's arms, and she almost buries it in the throat of the man who reaches for the child. Don't you see, she wants to scream, that she is not yours to take? But she stays silent, buries herself in the comfort of it, even when they are taken to another kingdom. There they meet a sorceress and a king who know of a coming war, and the decision is made to create an elite group of knights with extraordinary power. Gluttony, Wrath, and Calamity become the first of these knights. When the others see how she hovers, claiming window sills and high places to watch the orphaned girl grow, they call her a crow. She takes it as her new name.
They are joined in short order by Lust, Pride, Sloth, Envy, and Greed. A mismatched group, consisting of a giantess, a fairy, an immortal, a demon, a witch, a sorceress, a human, and a doll, yet they form a family of sorts, disjointed and chaotic as it is. They take other knights under their wings, protect the kingdom from threats only they can handle. Perhaps that is why it is so easy for others, blinded by jealousy and their label of criminals, to place the blame for that murder on their shoulders. They are driven out, separated; Crow awakens in a field with a talking pig and no memory of how she arrived there. Meliodas, too, is ignorant of what has happened. They do not know that a girl was injured trying to save them, that the two nearly lost themselves to their rage.
They sell their weapons to create a tavern on the back of a giant pig (the Boar's Hat, it is christened with a grin), and set about travelling to look for the others. Every year, they are visited by knights who do not recognize them and who tack wanted posters to the board by the door. As time wears on, the posters begin to look less like them. Meliodas jokes that hers resembles a midwife, while she retorts that his looks more and more like a pirate with each new poster. One day, he finds her studying a flame more intently than usual, and gives her a new name to make their travels easier. They have just set up outside of a small hamlet known as Cain's Village when their customers are frightened off by a girl wearing rusted armor, a girl with hair like starlight and eyes cut from sapphires.
Meliodas turns to her with a raised brow, and Moth smiles.