Wreathed in Sin, Wrought by Destiny

Chapter One

Ten Years Later

As the sun rose over an empty land seemingly untouched by humans, the clanking of armor could be heard, shrieking and squealing as rust ground onto rust. A hulking person, their face and body hidden by old, dented armor, stalked along the side of a bluff. A tattered cape swung in the morning breeze, and the echo of a voice rang across the fields.

"The Seven...Deadly...Sins!"

----

Five tankards of ale were suddenly slammed onto a table by a grinning girl. "Here you are, five steins of our best stuff! Drink up!" She nodded to her customers, waving as the tavern door opened, admitting even more people. "Hey, welcome. There's room at that table right over there!"

"Thanks," one of the men called, and she winked at him, sending a blush across his face that wasn't entirely spawned by the alcohol he'd consumed. All part of the job, the girl thought with a droll smile, grabbing a few empty mugs and heading to the tap to refill them. Treat 'em like a little more than family and they'll eat right out of your palm. Can't blame them, though. Their local tavern must've been shite compared to mine.

"She works real hard as a waitress for such a fragile-looking thing," one of the younger men commented, and she rolled her eyes playfully.

"Waitress? You've got it wrong, I'm afraid. I'm the owner." She flashed a small smile, refilling the mugs and trotting them back over to another table, ignoring their exclamations of surprise. She knew full well that she didn't look old enough to run a tavern, much less work at one. With her long, silvery-blue hair, blue eyes, and rather (young) attractive figure (not to mention her tendency to wear form-fitting clothing), she looked almost like a member of the nobility, perhaps even one of the princesses

Of course, there were only two of them, and there was also the fact that she wasn't human. Still, the girl only kept two rules in her tavern—don't ask about the black wings, and don't run off without paying. The system worked---they got their booze, she got her coin and information.

She hurried back to the kitchen, pulling a steaming meat pie out of the oven and giving it a proud once-over. "Alright, here ya go! This a the Boar Hat specialty!" she called, setting it down on a table.

"This looks delicious," one man breathed, practically salivating over the pie. The others thanked her quickly before each taking a large bite. She watched with amusement as they spat them out.

"This is disgusting!" the first one shrieked with a strong sense of injustice. The tavern owner fought back a snort as some of them rolled up their sleeves, bellowing about not going easy on her because she was a girl.

"You should've known," she shrugged. "Our reputation is for having really good drinks, but horrible food."

"You bitch! I'll–"

"Hold on," one hissed, eyeing the wings on her back and the draconic hilt of her sword that she carried on her back. "This lady's packing a blade! Maybe..."

"Looks like there's a mess we gotta clean up," the silver-haired girl huffed, snapping her fingers. The familiar sound of hooves on the clean stone floor followed, and the pink shape of her dear friend, Hawk, appeared.

"Again?" he whined. "Seriously, you'd think people would have a little more decorum and not spit food out all over the floor. And they say I'm the pig!"

"You are a pig, Hawk," the winged girl said affectionately.

"Yeah, but I can't blame 'em. Feeding them your nasty food..." The pig continued complaining as he ate the scraps off the floor, leaving a sparkling-clean patch of tile in their place as he trotted away. "Try to make someone spit out some good stuff next time, huh?

She rolled her eyes. "I'll do my best," she muttered in amusement. "Anyone want some roasted pig?" Hawk stiffened and squealed something about her scraps being the best ones ever, and just like that, the good mood was restored.

And that, of course, was when someone burst through the door with a shriek of "It's real!"

----

"It was the Wandering Rust Knight," the man gibbered, even after being sat down at her best table and dosed with her prime stocks. "I saw it, I swear! It–he–was stomping up the old trail a-and everything..."

She kept her ears pricked as she washed a mug. The rumors of the Wandering Rust Knight were popular in rural areas–some said he was a ghost, a disgraced king. The most popular rumor was that he was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, which she was intrigued by most of all.

"There's no way something like that exists," another, more drunken man scoffed. "It's just an old story used to scare the kids. 'If you don't eat your vegetables, one of the Seven Deadly Sins will come for you in blood-rusted armor! Ooooh!'" He let out a raucous laugh.

"The Seven Deadly Sins?" the silver-haired girl questioned. Maybe if I act like I don't know anything about the issue...

"What, you don't know about 'em, Miss Angel Owner?" The girl glanced over her shoulder at the two pairs of black wings on her back. Angel...well, she could live with that title, wrong as it was. She turned her attention back to the drunk man, who grinned. "Ya have the posters, y'know." He nodded to the message board, where seven faces and seven names stared out at her, and she turned her eyes away thoughtfully as he continued. "You remember the incident, don't ya? When a bunch of Holy Knights from Liones were massacred at once..."

"Can't say I do," she said truthfully, scrubbing diligently at the mug. "I think I might've been too little to remember." Now that was a lie.

"Yeah, you prob'ly were," one of the men agreed, taking another swig. "Anyways, all of 'em were killed by seven really nasty Knights. Their Captain, Elizabeth, is supposed to be the worst of the bunch." She tracked his gaze to a poster of a dark-eyed young woman with a grim look and short hair. "There's a rumor that she destroyed an entire kingdom single-handedly."

"They still haven't been caught yet, have they?" one murmured.

"Not a single one of them," someone agreed grimly. "There's a rumor going around that they're...well, dead."

"No way, they can't be!"

"The Holy Knights would never let 'em live after all they've done, though, right?"

"That's true," a man muttered. "Even though the king passed away due to an illness..."

"The Holy Knights are doing a great job of protecting the kingdom despite that," someone pointed out.

"Y-yeah, you're right..."

"Then why do the wanted posters get updated every year? Maybe there's a chance that they're still alive," one challenged, and everyone fell silent. The one broke the gloomy atmosphere with a nervous chuckle.

"W-well, even if they are, it's a bit of a stretch to saw that there's someone wandering around in rusty armor, right?" The others promptly agreed, but the girl turned her gaze to the door, ears picking up on something the other heard moments later–footsteps. Clanking, metallic footsteps.

"That smells like rust to me," Hawk squeaked from behind the counter.

The door creaked open on a silent tavern, everyone paralyzed in fear as a horned, armored shadow rose in the doorway.

"The Seven....Deadly...Sins...."

"He's heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!" the patrons screamed, almost as one, and the girl watched with a small frown as they rushed out through the back door without even bothering to pay. The shape stepped forward, rusted bronze armor creaking as it halted, leaning forward slightly. She narrowed her eyes at it, hopping over the bar and putting her hands on her hips, ignoring Hawk's squeals of terror.

"Who are you?"

The Knight remained blissfully silent, before rocking forward with a gasp and collapsing to the floor, helmet clattering off and revealing someone who definitely was not a Holy Knight, nor a Sin.

Blond hair, right eye covered by long bangs, and an almost childlike face burned their image into the girl's mind. A small smile touched her face as she crouched by him.

So it begins again...