1/20/21 - A quick disclaimer at the beginning: This one shot is written in first person POV. I've never tried this before, and since my mind failed to come up with alternatives for this prompt, I jumped at the opportunity and experimented. If you have a vendetta against first person POV, please feel encouraged to skip this chapter. The next one will return to the usual third person limited. With that out of the way, here comes...
Kiane Week Day Five: Affection
King reflects on his love for Diane and the adventures they went through.
Do You Remember?
You. Let me hold you close, now that we have nothing to fear. Our war is won, our past conquered, our future brighter than I could have hoped. Let me kiss you, now that you wear my ring and I yours. Let me create a shrine for our love, a forest that will last a thousand years, where the daisy blooms all seasons and the birds carol the song of a Giant and a Fairy.
My people say that the Sacred Tree produces a seed only once every five thousand years. A single bloom with a single kernel from which the strongest and most beautiful tree will sprout. The odds of witnessing such a wonder are slim, few Fairies ever do, and those who hope and search all their life might still return emptyhanded. A pearl in an ocean of sand.
And yet, I found the pearl without looking for her. She pulled me from a river, healed my wounds, and nursed me to health. In every sense of the word, she saved my life.
You.
You are my pearl, my one in five thousand chance, my strong and beautiful rock in an ocean of worries.
Let me reminisce the years we spent side by side, as friends, as comrades, now as husband and wife. Do you remember?
A cave in the sun. Water ran down the stone, cool and fresh, but the walls of your home never felt cold against my back. Because your warmth melted all ice. How often did we play tag in the meadows while the grass whispered with the wind? Do you remember half of it? One day blended into the next, one year mingled with the following, but you were always there, with a smile to brighten my mood and a hand to lift me up. Free of my own memories to chain me, I saw the world through your eyes. So vivid and cheerful. Every face a new friend without a shred of hostility.
Sometimes I want to go back to these days with you. But we have more now than we ever did back then, don't we? More memories to wallow in, more experience to rely on, more friends to ask for support, advice, or a mindless night indulged in liquor. And a child to share our stories with.
In truth, I don't want to go back to the cave in the sun. Tears stain the end of this chapter. I now acknowledge why Helbram needed to die, and the sound of the rose tearing through his skin and flesh no longer wakes me in the darkest hour before dawn. But what I did to you will forever haunt me. Please don't worry, you can't kiss away the guilt, your words can't lift the burden. I realize my mistake now. Perhaps one day I will find the strength to remind you how truly sorry I am.
A man can endure torture, he can stomach tremendous loss, he can throw himself into the steel-infested fires of the battlefield time and time again, as long as his mind has a happier place to return to. Nothing lets us hold on and continue to strive forward more than a blissful memory to keep us company.
I robbed you of that.
But I underestimated your strength. You thrived without the warmth of memories, you blossomed, and never once did you betrayal your ideals. Although everyone in your clan told you to find your meaning in battle, you proved that fighting for the sake of fighting is sad and meaningless. Your kindness touched others, allowed them to grow beyond the cage they trapped themselves in. It was this kindness that cradled me during the endless nights in prison, and it is this kindness upon which the merger of our clans and, in a sense, the Seven Deadly Sins are built.
Do you remember how we met again, as comrades?
I had given up hope to see you after all these years, but there you stood, alive and more beautiful than I could have imagined in my most luxurious dreams. You hid your face behind your hair, and you blushed when the Captain introduced you. How many careful, affectionate glances did you throw his way? And I hovered right there beside you, drunk with delight and on the brink of tears.
Yes, I was jealous. How I pulled my hair every single time you snatched the Captain into an embrace. No one deserved you in my mind, least of all an ill-mannered, inconsiderate man of Meliodas' caliber. My respect for him probably made it worse. I watched him like a hawk, desperate to find a flaw that would prove he wasn't worthy of your praises. I made a fool out of myself.
Hey, don't laugh, if he or anyone else came along and played with your feelings like that, I would stare him to the ground and then chase Chastifol after him. What more can I say to convince you of my devotion for you? I've never learned the humility to share what I love. We should put this on a list of things you still have to teach me.
But there were good moments with the Sins too, even back then. Our missions brought us closer together and so did the plethora of parties we celebrated afterwards. The alcohol might have clouded my senses then and again, but I still recall the best parts. Your face illuminated by ten thousand candles on ten hundred chandeliers during our mission in Lothien. Your story about the first time you went fishing and pulled a twenty-feet Dragon Trout from the lake. Your laugh when Ban dove headfirst into the barrel with Aberdeen Ale.
Each day I watched you, and each day your beauty grew, until I was convinced a shower of daisies and primroses rained down on me whenever you passed me by.
But this chapter had to come to an end also.
Without you, where was I supposed to go? To an empty cave in the rain? To a forest I hadn't seen in half a millennium, a ruin of ash and smoke and burnt seeds? Loneliness was my companion and misery my only driving force. Without you, I allowed anger and prejudice to cloud my judgement, I allied with knights I didn't trust to hunt down a knight I should have learned to trust years ago. Shadows arose unseen to me, and I allowed them to seep into my heart. I became one with the evil my bitterness gardened. And then you returned to my life, side by side with Ban and the Captain, a smile on your face and a greeting for me on your lips.
Yes, without you, I wouldn't have rejoined the Sins. Not for the princess' pleas, not for the Captain's orders, not even for Elaine's sake. You, Diane, you made me stay. Blessed by your kindness, gifted with your cheer, awarded with the sight of your sleeping form under a firmament of thousands of stars, I followed you into battle.
A battle in Liones, where you gave me hope that perhaps you did remember the cave in the sun.
A battle amidst the labyrinth of Vaizel, where we fought our predecessors and lost our Captain but gained one another.
A battle high up in the marble remains of a Goddess temple, where I remembered all the promises I made to you and learned to fly.
And a battle against the Demon King, the fate of the world on our shoulders, life as we knew it on the brink of collapse, where I at last found the courage to ask you the ultimate question.
Do you remember?
Now, your hand rests in mine, and I will never let go. I know the contours of your palm better than I know my own, all the hills and fissures and your heartbeat pulsating underneath, but I will never get tired of stroking the skin to hear your giggles. The light seeps through a canopy of birch leaves and paints beautiful patterns onto your face. Let me hold you close and listen to your steady breath. Let me hum a soft lullaby to you. Let me be at peace while your head leans against my shoulders and your hair tickles my cheek.
You are my pearl, my one in five thousand chance, my strong and beautiful rock in an ocean of worries.
You are you.
And I love you.
