Chapter 3: You're My Old Friend

Meliodas was alone and the torch Estarossa had left was beginning to burn low. Dry ear tracks stained his cheeks and faint sores were being to appear on his wrists and ankles where the chains bound him. The faint lighting was enough to make out runes covering his shackles; magic that prevented him from using his powers and stopped the chains from breaking. It was evident he wasn't escaping this situation anytime soon. Eventually, the dying light from the torch lulled him to sleep and he dreamed of his past...

About 3600 years ago...

"LIZZY!" A ten year old and even tinnier Meliodas called at the second story window of a small and rustic but cozy cottage on the outskirts of a druid village. "Lizzzzzzzzzy!"

The back door flung open and a pink and blonde blur pounced on Meliodas. "MEL!" Meliodas into the soft grass with a tiny Elizabeth in his arms. She giggled as she cuddled up to him on the ground, her blonde hair and blue dress rippling in the soft breeze.

"Happy seventh birthday, Lizzy! I made you a present!" Meliodas rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a strangle looking necklace made of dried berries and colorfully painted nuts. Lizzy's face was still buried in Meliodas's neck as she whispered, "I love it!" and giggled again

"How can you love it if you haven't even looked at it!" Meliodas smiled at her and kissed her temple.

"Because I love you, Mel."

"I love you too, Elizabeth."

Meliodas put the necklace he had made around her neck and he two young druid children lay in the grass watching the clouds and enjoying each others company for several hours before Meliodas got up to leave.

"Father's finally going to let me help in his workshop." He told Lizzy excitedly. Meliodas's father never let him enter his workshop let alone help him. He was eager to finally be allowed inside. "I'll see you tomorrow, Lizzy!"

"Bye, Mel."

Meliodas ran home. He had stayed with Lizzy a bit longer than he had meant to and ran to try to make up time. He and his parents lived in deep int the woods, in a one room cottage with a thatch roof. Before Meliodas was born his parents left the village for reasons he didn't understand and no one would explain to him. When they did go into town they got old looks and people stared, but that didn't bother him. Everyone was perfectly welcoming to the ten year old boy. He arrived home having made up the time he had lost with Lizzy. Instead of going inside his home he went around the back and walked to the shack shack leaning up against a massive tree trunk...his father workshop. He paused outside, his father didn't like to be disturbed while he was working, but he had been invited... but what if his father had forgotten? He took a deep breath and knocked. After a moment the door creaked open.

"Meliodas, come in my son," his Father said, opening the door further then returning to a stool in front of a small pot over a flame.. Meliodas felt a flicker of fear and trepidation, as if something was wrong, but he pushed it aside and let his excitement take over again. He entered the dimly lit room, the fire the only illumination. Despite the holes in the ceiling smoke lingered making it even more difficult to see and hard to breathe. Meliodas coughed as he examined his surroundings, vials covered the walls many filled with herbs, but even more filled with an inky black fluid the boy couldn't identify. There were tables along the wall closest to him and in the corner facing away from him was his father and the fire. The other end of the room was too dark to identify anything but a lone chair with... something

"Close that door!" His father snapped and Meliodas did as he was told, removing most of the light from the room. He begin to approach his father but was ordered to sit in the chair on the oposite side of the room. Walking to the chair he felt a sense of dread that he couldn't shake... something was definitely not right here, but he sat as he was told anyway. After he was seated his father lit a torch and brought it over with him. His father placed it in an iron wrought stand behind Meliodas, then stood behind Meliodas. "Hold still" he was told as he squirmed in his chair. As soon as he stopped moving he heard a clang and felt pressure on his wrists. There were shackles attached to the chair and he was now in them.

"F..Father?" He said looking up at the man standing over him, only now realizing that the man's eyes were black, not green like his.

"Don't worry my son," the man petted Meliodas's head, "I've finally found what I've been dreaming of for centuries! Soon our family will take its rightfully place, and those that shunned me and my discoveries will be crushed under our power!"

Meliodas was terrified now and tried tried desperately to escape his bonds as his father removed the pot from the fire and strained its contents into a vial. He returned to Meliodas, vial in hand and insanity in his eyes.

"This vial contains the blood of creatures of the dark plains, infused with herbs and spells to change it, empower it and create a potion of turning a man into a god." He grabbed Meliodas's hair and pulled his head back, simultaneously pouring the vial into his son's open mouth. He held Meliodas's jaws shut until he was forced to swallow the burning liquid.

Moments later Meliodas began screaming only, ending when he lost consciousness.