Title: The Most Precious Gift

Theme: #29 The Sound of Waves

Fandom: Nanatsu no Taizai/Seven Deadly Sins

Pairing: KingxDiane

Note: Future AU/Spoilers. For real folks. I am a spoiler machine. Do not read my stuff if you're not caught up with the manga!

Disclaimer: What a world it would be to own King and Diane... But I don't. I do own the precious babies you get to see here though! They're so cute they made me somewhat broody and now my husband is freaking out! He doesn't understand that I only care about Kiane babies, not real ones!

This was completely inspired by the awesome folks on The Kiane Fanclub discord server. You guys are the only reason this chapter happened.

The Most Precious Gift

The number of people who gathered together that day was astounding. They came from all over Brittania, from the simplest villager to guard-flanked royal. The forms of towering giants grouped together, swarms of tiny fairies kept to the sky. On the ground, at the forefront of the procession was where family and closest friends stood. There was Merlin, standing at full height next to the Dragon's Sin of Wrath. Meliodas' face was scrunched, his arm wrapped around his winged Elizabeth who had her face buried in his neck. Gowther stood nearby, dressed sharply in a dark suit, his eyes hidden behind the glare of his glasses. At the top of the stone stairs, standing before an enormous marble altar was Elaine, dressed in a somber gown, wings beating slowly at her back as she softly laid her hands on the shoulders of her oldest niece and nephew.

With her wings pitifully drooped to the ground Kelda was the eldest of King and Diane's children. She stood taller than her aunt, the oak brown hair that she shared with her siblings pulled into two low pigtails, her fringe falling over filled violet eyes. She was built much like Diane and was only just leaving adolescence. Often she was the one to support her father when her siblings ran too far astray. Grasping her fingers was King and Diane's only son, Olbohn. He was thin, all elbows and knees and his wings were thin but beat faster than other fairy's. His head was drooped. Much like his father he was no good at hiding his emotions. He fought the tears even as they fell down his cheeks in a steady stream. At his waist, clutching his leg tightly was the youngest of the three, Augwyn. Still in her toddler stage, because there was no exact science for aging Fairy/Giant hybrids, she sported King's chubby cheeks with her mothers childhood features, large violet eyes set in a hard stare that didn't quite fit her youthful face. Of the three she alone did not weep.

The children watched their father who stood at the center of the altar, a fairy very different from the one that had helped defeat the Ten Commandments so many thousands of years in the past. Time had molded him into a Fairy King of legend. His wings had grown into their power, imposing with their sheer size that topped at double the King's own height. Lined with a shimmering black they shone with their iridescence, shades of cerulean, sunflower yellow, and orange amber in their oval patterns, appearing almost delicate with the way they swayed with each simple flap. The few witnesses to the Fairy King's power could attest that the wings did indeed shimmer prismatic when accessing the power of the Holy Tree but at the moment the wings were dappled in dreary tones of gray to match the dark and intricate sweeping duster the king wore with it's high collar and copper embroidery gleaming. The Fairy King wore a regal beret that was emblazoned with the symbol of the Grizzly Sin of Sloth and at his side hovered the glowing True Spirit Spear Chastiefol.

The King of Fairies stared at the content of the tomb, the area void of noise and only punctuating his pain.

She lay in eternal silence, her body as still as the stone she once commanded. Her hair hung around around her shoulders, gray-streaked chestnut. There were lines around her still lovely features, her aging had only enhanced her natural beauty in her husband's fond opinion. During her last years she had smiled often, her friends and family making it a point to spend more time with her.

He had been present during her final moments, only him. The children had gone off to play and gather ingredients for dinner while his sister had been overseeing a fungal migration along the southern borders of the forest. Diane had propped herself on the wall of a cliff so that she could watch the sunset with her spouse. He had known the time was coming, could sense the blackness spreading in her veins. He thought he would be able to sense the exact moment that she would pass. He hadn't realized that he was too close to see.

Diane had smiled fondly, quietly reminiscing of their time together. He had been on her shoulder, fighting tears. "Isn't it beautiful?" She'd said, weakly pointing to the skyline.

King had looked at her face, breath coming fast through choked lungs as he gently responded, "Always. Always has been and always will be."

She had chuckled lightly, eyes slowly falling shut as she murmured softly, "Love you Harlequin. Forever."

It took him too long to realize that those were the last words he would ever hear come from her mouth. The stop of her heart had given way to a pit of silence that rang in his ears, deafening him, making him shake with disbelief. He hadn't been able to wrap his mind around the reality of that moment and he sat with her for nearly another hour before he suddenly and violently succumbed to grief. He could only be thankful the children hadn't been there to see.

For a long time they thought their lives would be lost in the throes of battle, be it demons, angels, or even each other. It was hard to believe that one of them would meet their end by succumbing to something as oddly normal as old age.

Fairy King Harlequin lifted his head and turned, viewing the people who had come out to share in their sorrow for his wife's passing. Diane had touched so many lives from so many different walks of life. It was good to see so many representatives of those allies there to show their love for the one that had made his life so worth living. He gaze fell on the three that stood with his sister.

His children.

The three beautiful lives Diane and him had created together.

His expression softened. There was shock in the crowd to see the ruler of fairy-kind composed, being infamous for his sensitive nature. He had grieved, heavily, that was true but he couldn't bring himself to fall in to the great grips of despair he had thought would await him upon her death. She had left him with three precious gifts and was counting on him to continue to care for them, even if it he would now have to do it without her at his side. Kelda, the mirror-image of her mother, had inherited both his and Diane's quieter characteristics despite being an abundantly happy child. Olbohn, inquisitive and easily pleased, he had been his mother's ball of sunshine, always rising early with her and accompanying her the most often, obedient to a fault. Then there was Augwyn, still so young. She was a happy girl but she had a stubborn streak the size of Liones and would not be deterred from whatever struck her fancy. She was a fighter, something both King and Diane had noticed early on, capable of holding her emotions and focusing on the tasks that were set for her. She didn't cry but there was clear pain in her eyes and Harlequin couldn't stomach the thought of her keeping herself from feeling the loss of her own mother. He gestured to his children, opening his arms to them. There was no hesitation in Kelda as she flew forward to crash into her fathers chest, Olbohn only a second behind her, having stopped to stoop and pull Augwyn into his arms as her wings were still flightless.

King cradled his children in his embrace, sensing their pain as sharply as his own. They were his world now. His reason. Diane had left parts of her in the three souls he held. He couldn't afford to give up.

He would make Diane proud by being the person she always saw in him.

Turning, his eyes flitted over her grave, his heart near yearning to join her. She was far from him now but in his children she lived on. She had left him a gift and he was done being the ungrateful king he once was.

Smiling down at the trio of faces that looked up at him he offered them only an expression of serenity. They would be alright. They would miss her but they would live on.

Several millennia saw him standing over more graves. He had taken the deaths of his children hard though there was comfort in the knowledge that none had parted before their time. As Fairy King he had no control over his longevity, nor could he help the mortality of his offspring. His heart ached for them. His dear Kelda, despite having been the oldest was the last to go. The child that had most resembled his beloved Diane had been with him the longest, having chosen to stay with him in the Fairy Forest for the duration of her life unlike her siblings. His children had been such a strong focus of his life since their birth that saying goodbye to them had been harder than their mother's passing for him.

There were other graves, the lives of his grandchildren and great grandchildren resting beneath the ground. He was cursed to live a life longer than those around him with few exceptions. The ones who still lived on had gone to other planes of existence. He resided within the realm of the Holy Tree for the tree was his maker and the fairies were his people. He was charged with the protection of his kind. Still it was painful to know that he still could not be joined in the afterlife with his precious Diane. He wondered if she hated how long he was making her wait. As king he knew that he would become aware of his time of death once it drew near enough but Harlequin had lasted as King far longer than the previous rulers. He was a legend and a myth. Reality and fairy-tale to the world that existed now. His name was whispered with awe and fear, reverence and scorn. He had yet to be bested by anyone, only growing in strength with every passing year.

It was such a lonely existence.

With a start he heard the pitch of laughter from the many fairy hybrids that now littered the forest, tossing him from his brooding. He smiled. His children may be gone but he still had a number of descendants to look after. In each of them he saw a little of his Diane, from the tilt of their eyes to the shape of their ears. He still had pieces of his Diane around him and he was still needed by them.

One of his smallest several generations granddaughter approached him. She was flightless without wings but all else of her was fairy like. She had his peach hair though it tumbled in waves down her back. Her cherubic face was split into a many-toothed grin, the shine in her eyes reminding him of a young Diane. She held her hands clasped shut in front of her.

"Great Grandfather! I found something!"

She was nothing but charm and King couldn't stop himself from floating down and kneeling to her level. "What do you have this time Marjory? I hope it's not another poison slime capper. We barely managed to get you cleaned up last time."

An eruption of giggles met his remark. "That was fun! You carried me all the way to the lake! You even promised to give me another ride!"

King's face blanched. "Please don't tell me you've grabbed another capper just so you can go for a ride Marjory!"

Marjory shook her head. "Uh-uh! I found something better this time!" She opened her little hands and King fell back with a yell as a purple-spotted singing toad leaped onto his face. Marjory lost herself into a fit of laughter, her cheeks sporting blooms of pink as she watched her several greats grandfather toss the amphibian aside with a cry of disgust. He pinned an unimpressed look on the little girl. She only offered him a clearly unrepentant grin of her own, her abundance of mirth catching as Fairy King Harlequin found himself laughing alongside her, the poor toad shaking off the throw it had suffered and hopping off with a displeased croak.

The day would come when he would pass on the title of King. The day would come when he would finally join his dear wife and children in the next life.

Until then he would watch over his family, knowing with certainty that Diane would never forgive him if he gave up. Living without her was still the hardest thing he had ever had to do but he could find it in his heart to forgive the world that took his own world away from him sooner than he would have liked.

One day he would be with her again.

He knew that.

Until then he would look after the little pieces of her he had left, nurturing the family she had made possible for him.

OWARI

I tried to make this happier. I swear I did...

As for the theme, I always heard of this saying that used the sea as a euphemism for death and when I saw the theme I always knew this was the sort of thing I would write for it. The kiss is merely alluded to here.

It's amazing. Twenty-six down, only four more to go?!