1/2/21 - All of these One Shots were written for Kiane Week on tumblr, and now, after some delay on my part, they are finding their way here. The cover art is also my creation and demanded way too much of my time. Comments of all kind are most welcome, you know the drill. Please enjoy.

Kiane Week Day One: Touch/Feel
King struggles to get along with his new comrades, but the newest member of the Seven Deadly Sins surprises him.


Let the Time of Separation Disappear

This group thing was a terrible idea. The Seven Deadly Sins – more like the seven daily prayers King sent to the Sacred Tree to put an end to this madhouse. No matter how skilled the individual fighters might prove in combat – and King had his doubts about at least two of the four oddballs in this matter –, they would not function as a unit. The afternoons he spent trapped in the community quarters high up in Liones castle demonstrated this point with such emphasis, he might laugh. That is, if he hadn't felt so miserable.

On the rare occasion that the Mage, Merlin, showed herself, she would levitate in a corner of the room, smile to herself, and watch the disaster unfold. She played the group without the need of a single word, and King did his utmost to turn invisible whenever she teleported into their midst. But the Captain, Meliodas, would always shatter his efforts by showering everyone on the team with a disgusting excess of liquor only humans could find amusing. And unfortunately, 'everyone' included King.

The third of the bunch, Gowther, did nothing much at all. He sat on the floor in his clunky armor, took away space, and sometimes speed through a book Merlin handed to him in about a minute. The mere thought of gluing his eyes onto a piece of manufactured wood filled with this many words gave King a headache.

And no, the alcohol was not responsible this time. Although the sight of Gowther's untouched mug on the floor did produce a foul taste on his tongue. King hurried to open the nearest window, and swallowed a lungful of oxygen. A bit better. Even though the air circling around the human castle lacked the scents of nature, of conifers and pollen and grass heavy with morning dew.

"What's the matter, King, you gotta throw up?"

King craned his neck to throw a death glare at the owner of the voice.

Ban was by far and away the worst. If a single human existed to whom King liked to demonstrate the deadly capabilities of his Sacred Treasure more than Aldrich, Ban would make for the ideal candidate. Careless, loud, rude, followed by the stench of alcohol wherever he went, and overall, the most human-like human King had had the displeasure to meet. The day he would fight alongside this man would without a doubt bring about the end of Britannia.

"I would have rather stayed in my cell," King said with a pleading look in Meliodas' direction.

"Too late. I got'cha out of there, so you owe me your eternal loyalty. Although I might free you from your debt if ya take another drink and relax. I've got good news this time."

Gowther looked up from his book with a teeth-clattering shriek of his helmet. "Does this mean you have found one of our missing members?"

Meliodas grinned. "Bingo."

"Nooo!" King buried his face between his hands. "Not another one. I won't take another."

The only hinderance that had so far saved him from the dreaded field missions as a special order of King Bartra's Holy Knights, with a special talent for lacking any resemblance of teamwork, had been their shortage of numbers. According to Bartra's vision, seven knights would unite against an unnamed great threat. King's lucky streak had not only pushed him into the spotlight as one of these seven, it had also chosen the worst people as his teammates. And he had little hope that the Sins of Envy and Pride would upset the trend once they showed up.

Meliodas wiggled an accusing finger in the air. "Now, now, King, you have to give her the opportunity to win you over. I met her by chance before she was sentenced. She's a nice girl. And her grilled pork tastes far better than mine."

"That's a low standard to beat." Ban robbed across the lavish carpet – the pelt of a white hound-like creature if King had to guess – and put an arm around the Captain's neck. "I've never tasted worse food than yours!"

"Well, it's not like cooking's a revered skill where I come from."

"To return to your complaint, King," Merlin said while hiding her intentions behind the rim of her wine glass, "I believe our newcomer will surprise you. You might find that you share more than a few things with her."

Aha. Another one of Merlin's cryptic messages. Did the Captain carry with him a dictionary on the way she shared knowledge in singular puzzle pieces to understand her? And could King borrow such a dictionary?

"Let's just get this over with," he said with a sigh.

Meliodas clapped his hands together. "Great! But we gotta go out to the yard to meet her. She's a little shy."

With crossed arms, King floated behind the others through the great halls of the castle. Cold stone atop of more cold stone, decorated with stone ornaments. A handful of knights passed them on their way towards the yard and stared at the group with a mixture of curiosity and hostility. Many a hand wandered towards the hilt of a sword, mace, or spear. King could handle the glares, as a Fairy, he had earned a plethora of glances and hushed comments from his prison guards throughout the past two hundred years. His human form did little to divert suspicion, after all, he hobbled behind an armored colossus, a drunkard, and a blond child. But what unnerved King far more was the fact that he would soon have to collaborate with these human knights and fight their war. Last time he had been forced to kill, his hand hadn't stopped trembling for days on end.

King bumped into Ban when the latter stopped dead on the doorstep towards the yard. The string of curses he planned to hurl at Ban died in his throat, suffocated by the sight of his newest teammate. She reached thirty feet above the cobblestone, her head blocked the sun, and she refused to dissolve after one, two, four hacked breaths that escaped King's mouth like whimpers.

She hadn't changed one bit. Of course, she had grown in these two hundred years, the shape of her body had become more defined with added curves, but she still wore her hair in pigtails, she still shuffled her right foot over the ground, and she still hid her face behind brown locks when none of the other Sins raised their voice to greet her.

Her eyes, a shade of violet more intense than any forget-me-not – the same.

Her hands, strong and dirt-stained and able to form clay into fantastical figures – the same.

Her voice when she mumbled a "Hi, guys" into her hair – the same.

The world turned upside down and shrunk, King's vision and his sense of smell narrowed until no one but her existed, her and a cave and a field of flowers he had called home. She had survived – what had led her here? Did she remember? No, of course not, the spell King had woven had plucked every last hint of him from her memory. But she still stood here, presented to him as his teammate. They could spend their time together like they had used to – but they would fight in a war together. She might get hurt, she might be forced to kill, she might see the failure he was, a killer who didn't hesitate to end his best friend's life. Even if the universe had worked its magic to make her remember him… wouldn't she hate him? For abandoning her?

Ban smacked his elbow into King's ribs. "Will ya say hi to her already? Otherwise my feet are gonna freeze to the ground."

What? Had any of them talked? Had Meliodas introduced her already? King turned towards the Captain for help, but he only offered a knowing grin that matched Merlin's expression to a T.

She extended a hand towards King, the skin covered by tiny scars from a life in the wild. "The name's Diane."

"Harle- You can call me King."

"Nice to meet you, King." The smile she gifted him was ripped right out of his memories, untainted by the two hundred years of separation.

And when he placed a trembling hand against her outstretched finger, every moment that had withered and lost its gleam in the darkness of his prison cell returned to him, and they were kids again. The games of tag, the stories she told him, the anecdotes about plants he shared with her, the sound of her laugh, the smell of grilled pork, the warmth of her body next to him when they slept.

All of this and more overwhelmed King at the touch of Diane's hand. The sweaty palm of his human form against the softness of her fingertip, so close that he felt the individual grooves and bumps of her skin.

His heart might have well run away and forgotten to beat when Diane leaned forward. "We wouldn't happen to know each other, right? Something about you feels familiar… I can't put my finger on it."

"W-where could we have met?" King blinked against the sting in his eyes. Probably dust. Yeah, definitely dust. "I'm sure you're imagining it. You can find a face like mine all around human towns, right Captain?"

"Sure, but most of those folks can't fly."

"I always wondered about this," Ban said. "But I've had at least two… three… five bottles of ale, so I can't trust me ears or my eyes anymore. Speaking of, with our sixth member tracked down, the evening calls for a celebration! Captain, you wouldn't happen to have more of that Vanya Ale stocked somewhere?"

Meliodas grinned. "I'm one step ahead of you. You'll join too, right Diane?"

"How could I decline when you're the one asking?" Diane winked at the Captain, but by some miracle, her eyes found their way back to King. "Still, I'm sure I've seen you somewhere before. It's like a memory from long ago I can't quite reach."

"Maybe it was a dream," King said. "People can imagine the most wonderous things when they're dreaming."

But he remembered. He remembered all of it, all the moments, the conversations, and the quiet togetherness Diane had forgotten. And on this day and throughout the next five years King stayed beside her. He found excuses to touch her, hand her a drink, brush her arm when floating next to her, high-five her after a successful mission. Her skin against his skin for the briefest of moments.

So that at least one of them remembered.