Title: We're not okay...

Theme: #2 News/Letter

Fandom: Nanatsu no Taizai/Seven Deadly Sins

Pairing: KingxDiane

Note: TRIGGER WARNING AHEAD! I'M SERIOUS. THIS WHOLE CHAPTER TOUCHES ON A VERY DELICATE AND PAINFUL SUBJECT. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF IT WILL CAUSE YOU TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE IN ANY WAY.

Disclaimer: Owning King and Diane would give me a reason to quit my job and stay home all day just to stare at the two of them until they finally knock me out because of my creepiness. Then I would embark on a great adventure to find my escaped pretties. I'm kidding. I don't own them. Let's be for real. The amount of getting it on we'd have if I was in charge...

We're not okay...

The nights were cold. The beauty that marked the forest even in the darkness of the absent moon was not enough to draw a glimmer of awe from the eyes of the lone Giant that resided there. Like the fireflies that danced in the clearings her eyes glimmered. Yet there was no joy in her eyes. The fireflies danced, their separate brilliance weaving together to create a cascading effect of light that illuminated the dreadful droop of her gaze. A film of tears glazed her vision before bursting, slipping over the edge and coating her delicate lashes, slipping down her cheeks and hanging at the base of her chin. Her body leaned against the side of a large rock, ways away from the monumental tree that stood erect at the center of the vast forest that engulfed the area.

She saw none of the beauty that lay before her. The fireflies danced and she saw nothing. Her vision was far, so very far away from there, intent on a place no one could visit again.

In a tower. Far from home. Moaning from the dulling pain. Her hand clutching another. The stop of her heart as her mind heard the news that the tall magician regretfully relayed to her. The ringing in her ears. The agony from hands that gripped each other too tightly.

She couldn't seem to move past that place.

A familiar figure drifted into her field of view, silently landing on the ground at her feet. For a moment she couldn't even pull her mind out of it's haze to recognize the person before her. The thought should have frightened her but it was as if her emotions had dulled and she couldn't even manage to acknowledge the individual. She didn't say a word or move an inch but there was at least a flash of awareness in her eyes before they unfocused back into the distance.

Never before had he stood before her and not known what to say. The Diane that faced him was a different woman than the one that he had married. The glow of her soul had dimmed, the call of her heart weakened. She had become a husk of her former self. A broken woman who could not find the strength within herself to move on from the devastating shock she had suffered. He knew that as her husband, as her partner, it was his job to give her the strength that she lacked, to support her so that she could find her footing. Yet here he was at a loss. Never had he felt as helpless as he did then. The words that could soothe her hurt were not there. The actions that could guarantee her happiness were lost to him. In that moment he was well and truly hopeless.

It tortured him to realize that as much as he loved her, there was nothing he could do to make her better. He had kept himself from breaking somehow, had kept himself from being completely devastated. The reality was that King was also a victim of the horrible nightmare that plagued them.

The day they discovered that Diane was pregnant was one of, if not the most amazing day in their lives. They had been looking forward to starting a family more than anything. It was no wonder that when Diane suffered her miscarriage it had sent the two of them into a spiral of despair. King had managed to hold himself together, if barely, simply because he knew that Diane would need him to be strong. His heart had been dealt a heavy blow but Diane's heart had shattered upon the absence of the life inside of her. She just couldn't bring herself to move from that place in time when she had been pregnant, her baby whole and healthy in her womb, and her overjoyed husband at her side. As if stuck in limbo she could not find her way out of her grief and instead spent an eternity suffering as the world around her seemed to collapse and she felt the claws of sorrow pulling her into her suffering.

King shuffled forward, everything about him, from the unkempt scramble of his hair to the droop of his wings told the tale of his misery, accenting the anguish on his face. "Diane?" No answer. "Diane please...speak to me." The weariness of his voice made his words sound like a crackling whisper and he had to clear his throat before attempting to speak again. "Diane, I'm begging you. Please come home."

She didn't respond. She was no different than she had been for the past weeks. A silent statue. Another series of tears filled her eyes and fell though she didn't acknowledge them either.

What could he say that would make things right?

What could he do to make things better?

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing could make such a loss better and that's why he stood there, eyeing her with all the love in his heart and hating himself as the woman he had adored all his life died from the inside out.

So instead he turned and left her there, coward that he was, and he flew back to the home he and Diane had shared for the last hundred years so that he could hide himself away from his fellow fairies and just weep into the folds of Chastiefol's pillow form.

His departure didn't faze her. Instead only one thought existed in her subconscious, running around and around.

She felt like she had failed.

Her baby. Her baby. The child that she had conceived with the person she loved most in the world. The incredible physical manifestation of their love. Their baby.

Gone.

Dead before they had even had a chance to know her. Her body, which had been so full, so beautiful and full of life, was empty. She had been filled and now it was if someone had forcibly ripped her insides from her, leaving her with nothing but her memories and the lost feelings she desperately wished to feel again. She was empty and it felt as if nothing would ever make her feel complete again.

She couldn't feel anything but all-encompassing grief. She couldn't shake her mind from what she lost, couldn't find a way out of the fog that had invaded her mind. She was lost, wracked with guilt. She was a former member of the long disbanded Seven Deadly Sins. She was the Queen of the Giants. She was considered one of the strongest beings in all of Brittania! Yet she hadn't been able to protect the life of the innocent child that had resided within her, trusting it's mother to be the one to protect it from anything and everything.

She had failed.

A thought managed to break through the mists of her mind and she vaguely wondered if Harlequin blamed her.

Harlequin.

He was her world. The man who had accepted her as she was, without any cover up. The one who had loved her for so long, wanting nothing more than to be by her side forever. The fairy that had pledged his love and devotion to a giant in the audience of hundreds of others, claiming that he would allow nothing to ever tear them apart. He was her partner. Her husband. Until her pregnancy she didn't believe she could love anyone as much as she loved her Harlequin.

What must he think of her now?

She was useless now. Unable to pick up the pieces of her broken heart, or rather, unwilling to repair the damage that had been done when her body had failed to nurture and care for the embryo it carried. What could she do?

What was she supposed to do?

How could she go on knowing that her daughter, their daughter, was gone?

What reason did she have now, knowing she had failed to protect that which should have mattered most?

There was no one there to give her an answer. Diane shut her eyes, allowing the tears to flow, her mind going back to a time when life had been brighter. A breeze blew, comforting with it's warmth and she opened her eyes. The sky was full of flower petals, a common enough occurrence in the Fairy King's Forest where flora grew aplenty. She watched the beautiful display, mind blank until a single bloom caught her gaze.

She didn't know what it was about it.

Maybe it was the pop of orange from it among the pale yellows and stark whites.

Perhaps it was because while all the other flowers had broken into a myriad of petals from the strength of the wind, this particular one had kept it's form.

Slowly her mind pieced together why it mattered so much to her in that moment though. It was an orange blossom, one of the main flowers she had held in her hands the day she had married Harlequin in a splendid ceremony in the late Spring so many years ago. Their friends had all been in attendance. Flowers had crowded the field around them, surrounding the cave that had been their shared home when they had first met, reminding her that her soulmate had found her long before she had been aware. The orange blossom, he explained as he had placed one in her hair lovingly after sharing their first kiss as a married couple, was a symbol for eternal love and marriage. He had taken her hands in his, placing chaste kisses to her knuckles before smiling at her with the most brilliant smile she had ever seen on his face.

"And that means that no matter what happens we are together now. My life is yours and your life is mine to share. We face everything together and we will never be apart again. That's my promise to you Diane. To love you forever and never leave you. I love you."

She was crying now as she remembered and suddenly it was if the fog had lifted and she could see things far too clearly.

She had lost her baby. That had happened. It was true.

But she wasn't the only one who had lost something precious.

Harlequin had lost his daughter right alongside her. Harlequin was grieving too and instead of letting him grieve with her she had pushed him away, so intent on her own feelings that she had completely ignored his. He had sought her out every day, trying to understand, cajoling her to eat, begging her to react. He had wept. He had held her. He had wiped her tears and smoothed her hair, whispering words of comfort, understanding, and love into her ear. He had worked towards focusing on her without addressing his own heartache because, to Harlequin, nothing in his world was more important than her.

He had sacrificed his own feelings for her and she had repaid him with nothing.

What was she doing?

She needed to see him.

She needed to be with him.

There were so many things to say but there was one thing she had to say first.

She had to tell him her feelings.

She had to tell him how much she still loved him.

Because she knew Harlequin. Had, in her unmoving state seen firsthand how hard it was for him to see her that way. There was so much they were feeling in between them but Diane wanted him to know that above all else she loved him and she didn't want to lose him because she had fallen so far into her own distress. She needed to help him understand so that he could do everything in his power to help in return.

They were supposed to be partners.

She needed to show him that she hadn't forgotten that.

He awoke alone, something he was growing accustomed to. The sun had risen and filled his home with an invitingly warm glow. He could tell by the sound of the forest that it was well into midday and he had slept nearly an entire day away. Shuffling himself from Chastiefol he stopped suddenly when he realized he was covered in blankets that he hadn't recalled grabbing when he had gone to bed. Then he noticed the creamy skin of the arm that was loosely wrapped around his waist and his head turned to gaze upon a human-sized Diane dozing at his side. He had gotten so used to waking without her there he had just assumed she wouldn't be there. Tears formed unbidden as he took the sight of her in and he couldn't stop himself from a choking sob.

She was there.

She was there.

Somehow she had managed to pull herself from all her grief, taking the initiative to stand and seek him out. She had even gone so far as to fit herself into the bed next to him, establishing a physical connection, delicate though it was but at least she was there.

She was there. With him.

Of her own volition.

And that made all the difference.

She roused to the sounds of his sobbing, her violet eyes blinking rapidly as she pushed herself up in alarm. "Harlequin?"

He couldn't seem to manage to get a grip on his emotions. He threw himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist and all but squeezing her to him as he cried brokenly into her shoulder.

And that's when Diane realized just how much they had lost when their daughter had passed.

She couldn't breathe, couldn't get any air, she was crying too hard with Harlequin. Clutching at him, screaming her hate at the world that had seen fit to take her daughter from her. Harlequin cried for his daughter, for his wife, and for himself. They cried together for everything that had become so wrong.

It was hard. It was so damn hard.

Just touching her wasn't enough. He needed to be closer. He needed to feel something other than gut-wrenching pain. He wanted to feel loved. He needed to feel loved.

She didn't fight him when he forced his lips on hers, their mouths melding into a sloppy kiss as hands fought to grip every part of them. His body pushed her back into the covers and her legs wrapped around him, trapping him in her embrace. They were a tangle of probing fingers and sliding skin on skin as their tongues coiled and slipped around each other, moans filling the space of the room.

They were past words and simple caresses. In that moment they only wanted to feel. To know that there was more for them than the bleakness of an ache that would never fade. In that moment Diane only wanted to exist with the man she loved in her arms while Harlequin could only show her how much he had missed her.

They joined with mutual cries and for a split second nothing existed in the world but them and that moment. Their gazes locked, fingers entwined, his lean form towering over her full frame among the pillows. Something was repaired in that suspension of time and what followed afterward could only be described as beautiful.

They would have to forge onward, sharing their sadness. When she would fall he would be there to pick her up. When he faltered she would be the one to dust him off and take his hand to lead the way.

Their daughter who hadn't been given the chance to truly live would not be forgotten.

But nor would they lament and forget how to live.

They still had each other.

They had to keep moving forward, keeping their daughter alive in their hearts.

Together.

Always.

Owari

...man. This was not easy to write. Miscarriages are a very sad and painful possibility during pregnancy and can impact people deeply. They are not to be taken lightly.

On a lighter note I just want to say I'm glad I waited so long to finish this theme challenge. I've been able to write for Kiane alongside the chapters as they come out and now the series is very close to ending. I started from the beginning and now I'm getting to see the end. There's so much wonderful Kiane we've gotten to see and so much we have yet to experience. Looking forward to whatever Kiane we get to see in the future.

Twenty-eight down y'all. It's really happening. Only two more to go.