Where am I?
The last thing that I remembered was losing my walking stick to a particularly sticky mud puddle and then walking through an opening in the trees. The next thing I knew I was here. Not that I knew where 'here' was. I had yet to open my eyes, so all I knew was that I was laying on something that was very soft, I had a covering over me (Was I in a bed perhaps? I hadn't slept in one in so long that I had forgotten what it felt like), and the air was now still due to the lack of a breeze. Also, I was still in my human form.
Stop pretending to sleep, Zinnia. I know you're awake. There are some people here that you should thank. I didn't respond to the fox directly - if there were others around, I didn't want them to hear me - but instead slowly opened my eyes. The shadows of a darkened bedroom greeted my vision. No one else was there. Hoping that no one was listening from the door, I muttered under my breath, "Where are we Zephyr? What happened?"
You collapsed from fatigue. Luckily, the people here found you and took you in. Zephyranthes sounded impatient. Hurry up and go downstairs; they're worried about you. I could almost here him blaming me for collapsing, not that it would be misplaced blame.
Sighing, I slowly sat up so as to not overexert myself.
"Oh, you're awake!" My gaze darted immediately to the door to see that a girl with long silver hair and wearing a small pink shirt and a purple mini-skirt had just opened it and was now halfway inside the room. "How are you feeling?"
"Eliz-" I coughed, cutting myself off. It couldn't be the Elizabeth I knew, who had died so long ago. Instead, I opted to answer her question. "I'm feeling a little better." That was a bit of a lie. "But where am I? The last thing I remember is wandering through the forest."
"This is the Boar's Hat. It's a tavern. Diane-sama found you in front of the tavern a few days ago and we brought you inside."
"Diane...?" I didn't know who she was talking about, but that wasn't what worried me. I've been unconscious for a few days? "I'm sorry for imposing on you for so long. I'll just leave now-"
I had tried to stand up, but a wave of dizziness had engulfed me and I started to fall forward, only to feel myself being caught before hitting the ground. "Woah there, we don't want you knocking yourself unconscious right after finally waking up, do we?" That was a new voice, but I knew that I had heard it before. I felt myself being pushed back onto the bed. "And I also can't have my valued guest leaving in such a stated, now can I?"
After allowing the darkness that had clouded my vision to fade, I could see what appeared to be a short, younger-looking boy standing in front of me. He had shoulder-length blond hair, and sea-green eyes. He wore a black vest over a white long-sleeved shirt and white pants, and the green hilt of a sword peeked over his shoulder. He grinned mischievously as his hands fell back to his sides.
Meliodas? This time I made sure not to say it aloud. It would make sense to see Elizabeth and Meliodas together, but it's been so long. I thought they were dead. They should at least look a little older… Also, Elizabeth looks different from before. What's going on?
"Thank you. And thank you for taking me in when I was unconscious." I almost added on Meliodas's name to the end of the sentence, but stopped myself in time. He hadn't told me it yet.
"So, what is the name of this new guest of mine?" Maybe-Meliodas asked.
"Z-Zinnia." I looked down, fearful of what he might say if he recognized my name.
"Zinnia, huh?" There was only a slight pause before the response. "Well, Zinnia-chan, I'm Meliodas, the owner of this bar, and this here-" he stepped behind Maybe-Elizabeth and wrapped his arms around her, groping her breasts in the process, "-is Elizabeth, my waitress."
"And I'm Hawk!" came a new, high-pitched voice from the doorway. Breaking my gaze from Meliodas's perverted action, I saw a pig standing in the doorway. Was it the pig that spoke? Or is there someone on the other side of the wall messing with me? My silent question was answered when the pig opened its mouth. "Downstairs is Ban, and Diane is outside! You should thank her; she's the one that found you."
"So I've heard..." was all I could manage to say. This was all too much for me. First, two figures from my past came back to haunt me, and now there was a talking pig. I turned back to Meliodas, who had finally unlatched himself from a blushing Elizabeth. "Elizabeth-sama said that this is the Boar's hat, but where is that exactly? What town are we in?"
"Hmmm…" Meliodas put his hand to his chin in thought. "The town we're currently at isn't really known for its name, so you probably wouldn't know it…" He then put one finger in the air. "What it's known for, though, is being near the Capital of the Dead."
"Necropolis?!" Could they be here because they're ghosts?
"Some people call it that."
"We heard that one of our friends might be nearby, so we decided to come here," added Elizabeth helpfully.
Soooo… NOT ghosts… It was at that moment that a delicious scent wafted into the room. My stomach growled loudly, and I clutched it in pain. How long had it been since I last had food?
Sympathy seemed to shine in Elizabeth's eyes as she gave a small smile. "I'll bring some food up."
"No-" I interrupted her as she was making her way to the door. Slowly putting my weight on my feet, I tried to stand again - this time successfully. "I would like to go and get it for myself, if you don't mind. It would be nice to be able to stretch my legs after lying down for so long." Though that was not my real reason - if it was, I wouldn't have collapsed in the first place, as I wouldn't have been lying still for who knows how long - but I wanted to see where I was. Zephyranthes had said something about going downstairs, so I assumed that I wasn't on the first floor of whatever building I was in. Going down stairs was not going to be a pleasant experience in my current state.
"Okay, then. I'll go tell Ban-sama that you are coming." She continued on her path through the door, and the pig - Hawk - followed her while saying something about leftovers. After a moment I could hear the sounds of footsteps going down stairs and fading into quiet.
As I started to take a few shaky steps towards the door, I noticed Meliodas - who was still in the room - eyeing me curiously. He looked like he wanted to ask a question, but if he did, he refrained. He then nodded, as though to confirm something to himself, and followed after Elizabeth.
"You sure are being quiet, Zephyr," I whispered as I reached the door.
Well, if those are really the Meliodas and Elizabeth we knew, there was a chance that at least Meliodas would have heard me. You know how he always seemed to know when I was talking to you.
"Oh yeah. We'll just have to be careful, then." But should I be hiding my identity from them? Even if they don't recognize me right now, they were my friends… I know that I was told to not let anyone from that time find me, but-
My thoughts were interrupted when I realized that I had reached the top of the stairs.
Good luck.
I didn't even last one step. I had placed my foot on the first stair, lost my balance, and started tumbling uncontrollably down. The only thing that stopped me was that the stairs turned towards the bottom, so I fell into the wall at the top of the bottom two steps. Lifting my head, I gazed blearily around the room I had just entered. As Elizabeth had said, it was a bar. There were a few round tables scattered around the room, each with a few chairs around it. To my left was the bar itself, and a collection of bar stools were pulled up. To my right was the door that led to what I presumed to be outside. Meliodas, Elizabeth, and a man that I assumed to be Ban were gathered around a table at the far side of the room. Ban had spiky light blue hair, and was wearing clothing made of red leather and covered in metal studs. He was surprisingly tall, and made Meliodas look puny in comparison. Considering that my fairy form was shorter than Meliodas, I wondered just how short I would look next to Ban.
Elizabeth was giving me a worried look when Ban sauntered over to me, easily picked me up by the fabric of my cloak and dress (which made a distressing ripping sound from the action) with one arm, and placed me down in the middle of the room. I couldn't even fight him. At least that saves me from falling down the last two steps. I was relieved until I noticed that Ban was scrutinizing me.
"Hm." He walked a slow circle around me, his shoulders hunched and his crimson eyes inspecting me up and down. His saunter made him look like an animal inspecting its prey. "You're right Cap'n; she really does look like Elizabeth."
It had been so long since I'd been around Meliodas and Elizabeth that I'd completely forgotten that I had made my human form look like the girl. I had thought that she was really pretty when I was younger, so when I'd thought that I would never see her again, I made myself look like her, thinking no one would be around to notice.
"Yep! The hint to telling the difference between the two is that her boobs are smaller than Elizabeth's!" Meliodas explained, much to my embarrassment. I was certain that my face must have been beet-red at this point.
"That's not the only difference!" I hadn't noticed Hawk, who had been around the other side of the table.
"Umm… Hi, I'm Zinnia. I heard that your name is Ban-san…?" I was pretty certain at this point, but I didn't know what else to say in this situation. Perhaps if I ignored Meliodas's perverted remarks, they would go away.
The taller man stood up at this, making the difference in height more pronounced. "Then you heard right." He didn't say anything else after that.
Did he have a problem with me? Also, didn't they say something about food? I didn't see any anywhere, though I still smelled it. Feeling awkward, I glanced around the room, trying to get a better sense of my surroundings. It was the wanted board by the door that caught my eye, as it hadn't been visible when I had looked around from the stairs. On the board were seven posters, each with a different name on it. Escanor, Merlin, Gowther, King, Ban, Diane, and Meliodas.
Meliodas, Ban, and Diane? Are those supposed to be the people here? But that doesn't look like Meliodas at all. And why would they tell me their names if they're wanted? I have to ask this now, or else it'll just get awkward if I ask later… "Hey, is that supposed to be you guys?" I vaguely gestured towards the board.
A sharp intake of breath could be heard from Hawk, but before he could say anything, Meliodas cut him off. "Sure is! We're the infamous Seven Deadly Sins! Are you scared now?" He put his hands up in the air in front of himself in a mock-ferocious gesture and used a very joking tone for this.
"Meliodas-sama!" Elizabeth seemed surprised that he'd share this information so easily.
"Hmmm… Even if you say that, all you guys have done is help me and be generally nice to me. I have yet to meet Diane-sama, but she's the one that saved me. Not to mention the fact that I've never heard of the Seven Deadly Sins. I don't even know what you guys did wrong, so no, I'm not scared." I walked up to the group and sat down at the table that they were surrounding. Maybe if I sat there long enough, they'd remember that I was starving.
"Never heard of us?" Meliodas gasped. He was acting offended, but it was quite obvious that we wasn't.
It was then that my stomach decided to chip in to the conversation with a growl. This caused me to blush lightly, but at least it stopped me from having to verbally remind them that they promised me food.
"Oh yeah! I'm so sorry, Zinnia-san, I completely forgot. There's still some food in the kitchen, I'll go get it." Elizabeth disappeared behind the bar, leaving me with nothing to say around the two men. Luckily, that silence only lasted a moment before Elizabeth returned with a steaming meat pie. "Here you go! Ban-sama cooked it while you were asleep." She placed it in front of me at the table.
I turned to Ban and smiled. "Thank you Ban-san!"
His only response was to turn away and say something about making one for everyone anyways, but I wasn't paying attention; I hadn't had food in so long and the scent was driving me crazy. "Thank you for the food!" I announced to the group in general before digging in.