A/N: TO my readers, 

I am deeply sorry that it has taken me so long to update. I cannot offer an excuse but I can offer an explanation. Life has been extremely rough these past few weeks, enough so that I haven't had the heart to write. I've had the ideas but the words wouldn't come. It wasn't just a bad case of writer's block, but life itself planning to bring me down. 

So I'm truly sorry that you've had to wait so long for an update. I hope I can make it up to you by saying that the next few chapters are going to be quite interesting and I just don't mean because of how the anime itself progresses :P  

Okay, this is a long chapter and I would like your feedback on what you think of this chapter: is it boring? is it alright? too long? too short? not descriptive enough? too orientated around the plot? 

Guys, give me as much feedback as possible. I want to make my fanfiction one of the best, but I can't do it alone. Your feedback really does help my stories. So, when you get the end of this chapter, don't forget to hit that little star (optional) and leave a constructive comment at the bottom. 

Cheers!

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I don't understand my mentality to help random strangers everywhere I go. I didn't when I was a fox, so when did I become someone so caring for those in need? Groaning, I slumped against the door, catching my breath slowly.

Meanwhile, Meliodas and Mead were talking.

"What is this, a tavern?" Mead asked, chin on the table.

"Yeah, the Boar Hat," Meliodas exclaimed proudly. "It's my place."

"And her?" Mead jabbed a thumb at me.

"I'm one of the people who took a few rocks for you," I huffed, glaring at him.

"Well, I'm hungry," complained Mead, turning back to Meliodas and ignoring me completely.

"If you answer my questions, I'll make sure you get some food," Meliodas stated, arms folded. I recognised this as a technique my mother used to use on me when I wanted something.

Estra, if you go and get the herbs I need, then I'll let you go play with your brothers.

It normally worked. "Nope, food first." Mead looked so smug, leaning back in his chair and hands behind his head, while Meliodas grumbled. It seemed I wasn't the only one annoyed by this child.

"Estra, come help me out," Meliodas asked and I pushed myself up from the floor.

In the kitchen, I quizzed Meliodas on what power these Holy Knights truly had.

"How powerful is a Holy Knight?"

"Have you seen an army before, Estra?" Meliodas asked as he shoved a plump, plucked chicken into the oven.

An image of my younger self scurrying through bloodied grass and mud to feast on horse flesh rose to mind but I decided not to mention that. "Only the aftermath," I answered. "But there were a lot of dead bodies."

"Well, imagine an entire army – that's how strong a Holy Knight is."

"What?" I didn't believe him and I told him as such. "How can someone have that much power?" Then I realised who I was talking to, a man whose power I didn't fully understand yet. A knight whose feared by most of the countryside.

"A Holy Knight doesn't just have strength, but magic as well."

"Magic? Is that the mana that old village leader was talking about?"

"Yeah, probably. That specific Holy Knight used his powers to trap the water underground by puncturing the ground with his sword," Meliodas explained.

I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but a ding from the oven and a screeching call from Mead had me wanting to flatten my ears against my scalp. I poured water into a small, wooden cup, before balancing the plate Meliodas handed me. The wonderful smell of roast chicken, covered in a generous helping of gravy, with lettuce on the side, wafted into my nose and my stomach grumbled in response. But I knew that looks, in this case, could be deceiving.

Mead face lit up when I placed the food before him, along with the cup of water and cutlery. "That looks great!" he cried. "I can't wait to dig in to this!"

"Just watch your taste buds," I grumbled, before stepping a good distance away from him. He gave me a weird look before shrugging his shoulders and prying a leg off.

And just like many others before him, his face screwed up, before he sprayed chewed up chicken and gravy all over the place in his haste to spit it out.

"I never claimed that it was going to be any good," Meliodas laughed, pouring himself a tankard of ale, while I patted the back of the gagging child, handing him his glass of water.

"I did try to warn you."

"So, is it true?" Meliodas asked, moving to sit at the seat opposite Mead. I took my own seat beside him. "All that stuff about you being friends with the Seven Deadly Sins?"

Mead rocked back on his seat, looking slightly flushed. Was it fear or was he poisoned by Meliodas' horrible cooking? "Your food gave me amnesia." Then, his nose twitched and he sniffed the air. His eyes went wide as he lent over the table. "Wait a minute. Are you drinking Vanya ale? Hey, should a kid your age really be drinking that?"

"I already told you, I'm not a kid," Meliodas replied.

"Man, it tastes really good, doesn't it?" Mead stated, Meliodas nodding his head. "It's the best, sweetest, full bodied... or so I hear from the grownups."

"Can I have a taste?" I piqued up, before Meliodas offered me his tankard. I took a tentative sip, then a gulp, feeling that smooth ale glide down my throat. It left a sweet taste in my mouth, opposite to what those other ales left in my mouth. It warmed my belly as I sat back, humming happily.

The bell above the door tinkled and in appeared Elizabeth and Hawk. "Hey guys! You made it back," I said happily and slightly relieved. We did kind of leave them down there with an angry, rock throwing mob.

Elizabeth marched right over to Mead and bent down beside him, hands on hips. "So, Mead, I hear you're quite the prankster with a bad sense of humour." She did not look happy and Mead looked frightened. "The chief in your village told me so."

"What's it to you?" Mead asked suspiciously, recovering from the shock of Elizabeth's close appearance. "Who do you think you are, my mother?"

Elizabeth knelt down beside Mead's chair, smiling at him warmly. "When I was young, I used to get scolded by my father for pulling pranks."

"Yeah and that means what to me?" Mead scoffed.

"I really wanted his attention. He wasn't the father I was born to. And one day, when I was a little girl, I climbed a really tall tree in the garden, hoping to give him a good scare." Everyone was enraptured by her story. "He turned pale as a ghost and started up the tree to try and save me. This man, who had never climbed one in his entire life, and then he fell out of the tree and hurt himself, though luckily it wasn't serious. But still, I remember every minute of it as if it was yesterday. If he'd died, I know I never would have forgiven myself."

"I don't do this kind of stuff because I don't feel for them, they're all real good people to me." Elizabeth laid a hand on Mead's shoulder.

"Then why do you?" Elizabeth prompted.

Mead told his story, of how his parents were travellers and how his mother gave birth to him on the road as well. Then they had stopped in Vanya a few years ago and had been killed by an epidemic. He had been homeless and parentless before the people of the village had taken him in and raised him as their own.

"I was thankful they did. But I wasn't apart of anyone's real family. I got jealous because I knew I would never get what they had," he explained, tears in his eyes. His voice was beginning to waver as well. "I started lying and pulling pranks," he sobbed, tears spilling down his cheeks.

My own eyes were starting to mist, because even though I had my family for quite some time, I didn't have them now. They were dead and gone, only memories in my mind. I had never seen my brothers grow up or have families and litters of their own; hadn't seen my parents grow old.

"Is that why you put the bug in the Holy Knight's drink too? Because you were upset?" Elizabeth asked softly.

"No!" Mead shouted, banging his fists on the table. His outburst shocked everyone. "I did that because the knight treated everyone in the village like they were crap!" He went on to explain exactly what happened, how the knight had insulted the Vanya ale and Mead had launched the grub into the glass. He continued, angry tears streaming down his cheeks, explaining that the knight grew angry, thrown the glass to the ground, drew his sword and stabbed it into the concrete, encased in electricity.

I sat there, nails digging into the wood of the table. No one had the right to treat other with such disrespect in their own home, especially when they offered things to you for your own pleasure. My blood boiled and my hands twitched as I imagined tearing that Holy Knight limb from limb.

"We just care so much about it. Everyone in the village put their heart and soul into it. And he insulted them. Holy Knights are no- good bastards!"

"Okay, and what about saying you're good friends with the Seven Deadly Sins?" Meliodas questioned. Ever the calm and unfeeling one.

"I- I lied," Mead admitted sheepishly.

"Too bad. Gotta admit, kinda got my hopes up."

"But what made you tell a lie like that?"

"The Seven Deadly Sins are wanted by the Holy Knights, aren't they? If the Holy Knights are going after them, doesn't that make them the good guys?"

I glanced at Elizabeth, who glanced at Hawk, before we all turned to stare at Meliodas, who seemed oblivious to what was silently occurring.

"What?" he asked and we all laughed.

Suddenly, the sound of many voices shouting floated on the air towards the tavern. "That's coming from the village!" Mead exclaimed, running for the door and out, down the stairs.

We followed after him, myself pulling away from the ground and following closely on Mead's heels. Coming to a crowd, I pushed my way through with elbows and hands before I was in the front, right before two knights yelling out to the village.

Mead kept running, shoving past the knights and grasping the sword in his hands, tugging at it. He grunted with effort.

"The little big mouth. Isn't going to be any fun at all if he's the only one," the tallest of the two knights said, crouching down beside mead.

"So we're going to charge 20 times the tax now!" crowed the shorter, fatter man, a bushy moustache sticking out on his face.

Then the little fat man went rolling away. "Pick on someone your own size," I demanded, my foot still in the air from the kick I had planted in his face. I laughed at his sprawled position on the ground before his friend tackled me.

"Why you little nuisance," he growled, sitting on my back while I tried to wiggle free.

"Get off!" I shouted but he quickly tied my hands behind my back and tied my ankles together. "Let me go!" I called after him as he went to help his friend stand.

"Are you alright?" one of the town's men asked, flipping me over so that I was sitting.

"I'm fine," I snapped, my cheeks burning with shame and gravel rash. "Go and help Mead pull out the sword."

"But it is impossible. No one has ever got it out!" he protested.

"That obviously didn't stop you the first time though," I replied. "Nothing is impossible."

The crowd were beginning to get riled now, people shouting angrily at Mead as he heaved on the sword, all the while being taunted by the knights.

"Alright, that's enough!" boomed the voice of the village chief and immediately, the square quieted and cleared a path for the man.

"Who insulted our great skills and wounded our pride as ale makers?" the chief asked the masses. "Was it Mead? No! Wasn't that boy only expressing the feelings we were all having deep down inside?"

I watched as one of the ladies walked over to Mead and covered his hands gently. "Auntie! Why?"

"The village chief is right, Mead. You aren't the one to blame."

Two children, who had earlier been quick to throw rocks at Mead, ran over to him to help. Before long, all the men in the square had gathered around Mead, rolling up their sleeves and preparing to help.

"Hey! You people hear what we said?" shouted the tall knight. "Pour the beer out of your ears! It's 20 times now!"

"Auntie, you just leave this to the menfolk," a purple – shirted man said.

Some had found some sturdy rope and they tied three around the sword before splitting into groups of three. They heaved on the rope, muscles bulging, faces turning red with exhaustion and their war cries, but the sword didn't budge an inch.

In the background, I heard the two knights laughing their heads off and it angered me that the people who were supposed to protect these townfolk were sitting back and hoping that they would lose.

Growling, I jumped to my feet and hobbled over, snapping my teeth.

"We're going to keep chugging this cheap stuff and enjoy the show!" the fat one shouted, shaking around a tankard.

I headbutted it from his hand and knocked him from his perch. "Learn to show some respect the humans, fat man. You might acquire something from watching these town folk – perhaps compassion?"

"You again!" the tall one shouted, getting to his feet angrily. "I should have tied you to the gutters!"

Suddenly, Meliodas walked past and my bonds were undone, along with the other knight's tankard disappearing.

"Anyone who doesn't appreciate quality booze doesn't deserve to drink it," he stated.

A shout from the crowd, as the rope snapped and the men went flying. Meliodas kept on walking, drinking the leftover ale as he went. I followed after him, leaving a flabbergasted knight in my wake.

"Sorry, you guys. I don't have any money for that drink," Meliodas apologised, continuing on to stand before the embedded sword. He wrapped a hand around the hilt. "How 'bout this?"

With ease, Meliodas pulled the sword from the ground and held it aloft and I swear my jaw hit the ground. I should have been expecting it, but I didn't realise it would be this easy. Everyone was in awe, murmured whispers gliding around the town centre.

"I- Impossible!" the tall knight stammered. "O- Only a H- Holy Knight could pull that sword out! So, h- how did he do that?"

The ground began to rumble and I shot to my feet, searching desperately for the source of the quake. A torrent of water burst from the well, shooting the two knights well into the air and sent them crashing to the ground. I laughed, laughed so hard my sides hurt before I went and drank some of the cool water.

Then Meliodas sent those knights away with their tails between their legs, sword clutched in their hands.

I went over to embrace him, to say congratulations for what he did, but he only said one thing to me. "We really need to work on your fighting skills."

I punched him in the face.