"I don't believe you." Harlequin's voice was flat as he propped his chin on his hand.

What?! "Why not? It's the truth!" All that trouble for this response? I couldn't believe it. What reason could he have to not believe me?

"I'm the Fairy King. I know all the fairies, but I've never met you. Even if you're in a human form, I've never heard your name before." He sighed, making him seem almost bored. "If you're just going to lie, then…" He held his hand out to the floating pillow that Zephyr was propped on.

Crap! If he's the Fairy King, then that must be his Spirit Spear! I've gotta-

Truthfully, I was surprised that the transformation had lasted as long as it had. I mean, really. I had passed out multiple times, gone through the terror of seeing my best friend on the verge of death, and now this. I guess that it was just a bit too much strain. It'd been quite a few years since the last time I'd taken human form, too, so I'd been unfamiliar with it.

Suddenly, there was a poof of white smoke, and I was back in my fairy form. My forest green cloak now swallowed my small stature, and its hood covered my deep red tresses for the most part. My wings were folded to my back obediently, but the tips of them were visibly poking out from under the edges of the fabric. I could hear Elizabeth gasp from the sudden change.

"Is this proof enough?" I didn't even uncover my face as I pretended to have transformed on purpose. "I wasn't lying."

Harlequin's eyes opened wide in surprise. I guess he really didn't believe me…

Ban suddenly grabbed the hood of my cloak and yanked it down, causing me to tense. The only reaction I saw, though, was that Meliodas froze for a second. It looked like something had clicked into place in his mind, but his usual slight smile returned immediately. Well, guess he remembered who I am. No going back now…

"That's weird." Harlequin floated right into my face, examining me. "You're definitely a fairy, but I don't know you…" He eyed my wing-tips as though trying to determine what they looked like when spread out.

"Probably because I left the forest before you were born," I explained quietly.

"But, why were you hiding the fact that you're a fairy?"

"I-"

She has her reasons. Zephyr cut me off. He was glaring at the Fairy King. It was obvious that he didn't like the others prodding me so. Gently rising from the cushion, he hopped the short distance to the floor and pressed comfortingly into my side. I can tell that you're about to ask how I come into this, but all I'm telling you is that Zinnia saved me when I was a pup and I've been with her ever since. Now let us rest. Ever since she saw that the Fairy King's Forest had been burned down, she has been depriving herself of food and water, and has spent very little time moving, leaving her in her current malnourished state.

The Fairy King seemed shocked by this knowledge. Had he not seen how I had struggled to keep up with the group? "I- I'm so sorry… It's my fault. The forest, I should've been there…"

Ban's face showed an increased interest at the mention of the forest.

"It's not your fault... It was just bad luck that you weren't there right then." I yawned. I was so tired. While not much had happened, it had been a long day for me. I glanced over to Meliodas, who had remained silent the whole time. "Ummm… I know that where I've been staying isn't really my room, so where should I sleep for the night? Or am I gonna get kicked out for having lied to everyone?"

"Of course you can still stay here, Zinnia-chan!" He was still referring to me in the same way, but something in his tone seemed to have changed. Was his voice… slightly warmer? "We aren't going to kick you out over something as trivial as that."

"Trivial?" I had completely forgotten that Hawk was there. "She lied to everyone!"

Meliodas ignored him. "You are right that I'd like my room back, though. Hmmm… You can move to the attic. It's a little dusty, and when we find more sins, you may have to share the room, but you can stay there."

"Thanks Meliodas-" I fumbled for a moment. His change in tone had almost made me revert back to calling him as I used to. Now that wouldn't do in the current situation. "Meliodas-sama."

I could see that he noticed me catching myself. He probably wasn't the only one. No one said anything, though, as I slowly made my way across the room and took the stairs up to the attic, Zephyranthes close at my heels.

"I don't think we can trust her~" was the first thing Ban said upon the fairy girl leaving. It was obvious that she was still hiding things. She hadn't even mentioned where she had gotten the form that looked so like Elizabeth from.

"I don't know…" King hesitated. With Zinnia being a fairy, he wanted to trust her, but something didn't add up quite right.

"We can trust her." Meliodas had made his way to behind the bar and was tidying up some mugs. He might as well get ready for whenever they did have customers.

"If the Cap'n trusts her, then so do I," Diane stated from her place outside the window, though she did look like she felt a bit suspicious. She was probably wondering what made the captain trust this fairy. Another rival for his love?

"So do I," Elizabeth instantly agreed. She liked the girl anyways. Though they hadn't spoken much, she had never felt any ill intent from her. "Zinnia-san seems harmless."

Hawk decided to add his opinion in. "I don't see how any of you guys can trust her! We should tell her to leave right now. Everything that she told us was a lie!"

"What was a lie?" Meliodas paused in his cleaning.

"W-well, that she was a human!"

"She never said he was human," Meliodas pointed out before continuing to scrub a particularly dirty mug. Before Hawk could say anymore, he added, "She also never said she was alone. Diane, didn't you say something about how you thought you saw a shadow over her when you found her, but it disappeared?"

The giantess nodded. "I thought I was seeing things, since I didn't feel any shift in magic, and a presence didn't disappear when the shadow did. Looking back on it now, though, it was probably that fox shade - or whatever that was. What does it do? Disappear into shadows? I could barely hear what it was saying. What was it saying that whole time, King?"

The fairy's face had a slight red tint to it when he turned to the giant. "Yes, it can go into shadows. From what I heard earlier, it was hiding in your shadow when it got hit from a blast by Guila." Diane looked surprised at this, and glanced at her shadow as though the fox would suddenly jump out of it. "It also knew that I was the Fairy King, and told me to tell that girl - what was her name? Zinnia? - my actual name. Before they went upstairs, it explained that after seeing the Fairy King's Forest burn down, Zinnia stopped eating, drinking, and even moving. And that's what caused her to be in her current condition."

Ban flinched ever so slightly at this, but King didn't notice.

Meliodas looked up from where he was still cleaning. "Hey, it's about time that we had dinner, don'tcha guys think?"

After a bit of discussion, everyone agreed to go outside for a meal.

"They don't trust me…" I murmured to Zephyr from our spot at the top of the stairs. I had just barely been able to make out the words, so the fox shade had offered to eavesdrop from the shadows at the base of the stairs. Since the group knew that he was here now, I didn't want to take any chances of them noticing him, so I had him only go down most of the way, and had told him to stay out of shadows within the sins' line of sight. I doubted that Elizabeth or Hawk would have noticed, so it didn't matter if they had seen him. The fox had just returned and relayed to me everything that I had missed.

At least Meliodas-sama does. And I think that Harlequin-sama wants to trust you. It's mainly Ban. And I think that Diane-sama isn't certain, even if she says that she trusts you. And I don't really care if the pig trusts you or not.

I sighed in frustration before gathering up the clothes that I had grabbed from Meliodas's room. I didn't just want to leave my old clothes in there. Even if the uniform had changed to fit me when I'd transformed, I still wanted to try to fix my precious dress. Perhaps I could ask Harlequin to help me fix it? He did help to make it in the first place anyways… No. I didn't want to bother him anymore.

Placing my hand on Zephyr's head, I made my way up the final set of stairs and opened the door. Inside the attic were boxes upon boxes, most of which were caked in dust. At the far end of the room was a door that I presumed led to the balcony that I had seen from outside. Ignoring the door, I pushed aside some boxes to reveal what I had only caught a glimpse of upon entering the room: a bed. It was pretty dirty and had no blankets, and it seemed to have more dust on it than the boxes, but I gratefully dropped onto it before curling up on my side. Compared to the rocks I had been laying on not that long ago, this was bliss. I could feel the soft fur of my companion as he hopped onto the bed beside me, causing a small cloud of dust to erupt after the large one I had caused, and curled up into the curve of my stomach.

I didn't care if they didn't all trust me. Being here caused me to feel the safest that I'd felt in a very long time. Those were the thoughts going through my head as my mind drifted off into sleep.