Kovak licked my face and slobbered on my bare legs. I twisted my lips in disgust, wiping the cold liquid away. He stared at me, mouth hanging open in a goofy smile. I ran my fingers down his back and gave him a rough scratch. I couldn't help but smile back at him. Something about the animal made me feel…valued. I have found that animals carry love in the purest form. They don't calculate your intentions or question who you are. That's why it's disgusting to betray them. They'll never break your heart, but they'll never know why you broke theirs.
"We should just start at the beginning." Meliodas said at the bar table.
"Well Bartra probably knows something." Diane shrugged.
King walked in the room. "Hey Diane? Are you ever going to be tall again?"
I watched Diane frown from the barstool. She sat between Meliodas and Ban, staring down the center of the table. I don't think she knew how to answer the question, and I understood it was a self esteem issue for her. She scared me the first time I met her, I remember that quite well. Yet, I knew I would never meet another person like Diane.
"Sure. I guess it's just convenient to be little for now. We're not doing much fighting anyways." Diane responded in a small voice. I wanted to reassure her, but I decided to stay out of it.
"I just thought I'd ask. You…know I like you either way." King turned red as a rose. Diane blushed.
Ban took a big gulp of his drink. "Anyways," he said rather loudly before turning to look at me. "Still in pajamas?"
I nodded my head, sipping on a hot cup of tea. Elizabeth had let me borrow a short lilac nightdress. She said I was sleep walking; sweating like Hawk under the heat of Ban's cooking. I didn't really remember it.
"Alright then, let's go." Meliodas grinned and headed to the door.
"Meliodas? Where are we?" I questioned.
"The village where you grew up."
I raised my brow.
"What? You think no one told us where you lived?"
I shrugged. "I guess if we're here, we could open up the Boar Hat."
"Noooo." Ban chimed in, tossing me a jacket. "We're closed today."
I frowned and zipped up the blue jacket. The thought of home made me feel nostalgic yet uncomfortable. Would anyone recognize me? Oh my god, what if they were looking for me?
No one waited for me, not even Ban. That burned me a little, but it pushed me out the door. I felt a brief chill the moment I set foot outside, and raised my hand to block the sunshine in my eyes. The grass below my feet was mostly dead and dying. Looking straight ahead, I saw the group strolling down the dreary main road. Their laughter started to blend together, and I couldn't tell them apart anymore. The buildings had been poorly maintained, with random bricks on the side of the streets.
My feet moved. I couldn't remember the place for the life of me, but I could feel the sadness. It was almost like the old place was crying. You could see that the buildings used to be tall, but most of the roofs had been caved in without a fix. I slid my finger across the walls as I walked, trying my hardest to recollect anything from before. My memories from the kingdom had been completely wiped, but why were my memories from the village so elusive?
"I don't even remember the name." I said out loud. The group ahead of me slowed down.
"King and Diane should search that way; between those trees. It looks like there's a path." Gowther suggested, pointing to the right, just ahead of another dilapidated building.
"Great! Why don't you and I take Elizabeth to look around that gazebo? It looks the least run down out of all the places here." Meliodas snaked his hand around Elizabeth's waist, inciting a quiet squeak from her mouth. He was right; the gazebo was in good shape. I stepped back, squinting my eyes at the pearly steps.
"I don't like it, Mom."
She spun her finger in the air, and I found my legs twirling without my command. "Mom! We're in public." I huffed and smoothed out the pink dress before plopping down beside her on the bench. "Where's dad, anyways?"
"He had to make a delivery. You know how he gets when he starts talking." She said with a sigh.
A little boy, less than two years old, ran happily across the emerald grass. His young mother struggled to chase after him as he laughed all the way to the steps. He stopped, and with a fierce look of determination, crawled his way up. Mom and I watched, as did his mother. When he finally made it, he held his hands in the air and squealed in utter joy. Mom and I clapped.
"I guess it's just you and me, kiddo."
"What?"
Everyone was gone, except for Ban. Well they did that on purpose, didn't they?
"Sorry, I just don't remember this place as well as I should." I admitted. "Maybe I could try to find the bakery or where it was I mean."
Ban glanced around. "Alright let's see what we can find."
I lead Ban down the street, taking a left and headed down the next sidewalk. The site was quite similar to the first, except there were less buildings and more dead grass. Everything was gray, dead, or broken. My mind felt like a broken clock until my feet met the bare ground. That's when I remembered running from the place I used to live.
The church was still intact, except for the blowouts where the stained glass windows had been. Ban followed me as I snaked behind it and set my eyes on the blackened lot. "It looks like it just burnt yesterday." I told him. I walked past what should have been the door, but was instead a pile of ash and burnt wood. Suddenly I could see the layout again. I could see where we used to sit and have dinner. That's when I saw him.
"The silver man." I mumbled, looking at the former dining room. "He ate dinner with us once."
Ban stepped over some brick. "Who's the silver man?" He wiped ash from his pants.
"He might just be something inside my head." I told him, feeling stupid. I didn't know it for a fact. The silver man my mother talked to had to have been the one in my dream at the table. Lenny, you didn't see him. His face was covered, how can you know it was him?
"Tell me about him. Is he handsome like me?" Ban asked, taking a few steps ahead of me. "Anyways, I think this is a bust. Maybe we should head back."
"No, let's look a little more." There was something that caught my eye, shining in a pile of ash where my bedroom used to me. I stepped forward, lightly pushing Ban out of the way. I knelt down into the pile, covering myself in ash nearly to my chest.
"The wind should have blown it all away." Ban commented. I felt his eyes in my back, and then a hand on my shoulder. The silver in the pile shimmered as I wiped it clean.
"It's just a tube of lipstick." I sighed, disappointed.
"There's something inside." Ban whispered, stretching his arms over me to grab the tube. He lightly pulled out a thin piece of paper from inside of the tube and placed it in my palm. "You should read it first."
It felt like a used napkin. I had no idea how it could have possibly survived the fire, but it did. Without waiting much longer, I held it close and carefully spread the paper over my knee. I could feel the brush of Ban's chin on my shoulder as he looked away.
My little Amethyst, I have found you.
"Huh." I said flatly. It wasn't a question, more like a dead end. I read it out loud to Ban, but he didn't feel the same way.
"Someone was after her; that's why you all left. Whoever wrote this note got to her."
"She kept it in a lipstick tube." I shivered. "Why does that make me feel so uncomfortable?"
"Hey!" We heard a shout. Elizabeth was swinging her arm in the air by the church. "We found people!"
Ban kindly helped me stand and we bolted from the bakery. We chased Elizabeth back to the gazebo to find everyone had converged with a red-headed woman. She sat on the steps, speaking quietly with Meliodas. She was dressed in a thick black gown, as if she were in mourning. I noticed a single tear run down her jaw line.
"I only come here when I feel the need. Today has just been…one of those days." She whispered in a raspy voice. The woman wasn't old by any means, but her melancholy eyes showed that she had seen too much. Her voice must have choked back too many tears.
"Mila, this is our friend we were talking about. Do you remember her?" Meliodas asked; his voice much too happy. By the look on her face, I thought she wanted to rip the cheer from his throat. Instead, she rose her frigid eyes to me, lingering over every inch. I felt naked.
"Your mother had no business doing what she did." She started in on me; her voice turning from weak to cold. "We all knew, but to get involved was nothing short of a death wish."
I could feel Ban tense up next to me as I began to speak. "Please, I don't understand. Tell me what you know about my mom." My hands clasped together in front of me. I felt like I was begging.
She stood up slowly, and I admit that I stepped back in fear of her. A slap to the face would have felt so much better than the horror that flew from her mouth. "My son burned alive after the fire spread. I hope that he died of smoke inhalation before the roof caved in and crushed his tiny body." Mila's tears were flowing freely at this point before she paused and gritted her teeth. "In fact, it's the only thing that helps me sleep at night, hoping he died painlessly. But what I do know is that your mother brought this evil on our village. She brought that demon to us and we all paid for her sins."
I swallowed my pain, and she controlled hers. Gowther stood behind Diane and we locked eyes. I'm not sure how, but I felt like he was comforting me, maybe even transferring his energy. Whatever it was, it was just enough for me to ask one more question. "Mila, what was the demons name?"
"I don't know. She only ever called him Love."