CHAPTER ONE:

-Introduction-

It has been five whole years since the titans where extinguished, the civilization moved outside the walls and started to populate the rest of the world. Most people abandoned the walls, and because of this, the Garrisons and the Military Police quickly disbanded. Some people stayed behind because they claimed that they did not want to live in a completely new area that no one knew anything about, but the ones that did stay behind, quickly died of starvation because we shortened the food supplies. Most of these people where the people living inside wall Sheena, which was understandable. After the population had moved, the first thing that the Survey Corps did was to create small camps from the wall. These camps where located five kilometers to the north, south, west and east of the walls. Five more kilometers out from these camps where new camps. These continued until they reached the ocean or some sort of terrain that the horses could not bring any carriages to. When the Survey Corps had set up a little over fifty camps, they started to build small cities where they thought the scenery would excite people to start living there. Shortly after the cities where set up, the people moved in. Most of the Survey Corps had settled down in a small town called 'Shaana', but a lot of them spread out across land and sea.

Shaana was a peaceful place. Not a lot of people lived there even though the ones who were, said it was the most beautiful place on Earth. It had huge maple trees with shades of orange, purple and yellow. South of the town, two mountains with snow on the top that never disappeared, stood tall in the sky. Between the two mountains, a slim river with turquoise water ran. The river also ran straight through the town, and connected with the ocean to the north. On one side of the river, there were not any houses because of the terrain. Instead, they put up a couple of parks surrounded by trees and a hiking trail that went up to the mountain lodge. On the other side of the river, was where the people lived. The houses were both big and small, but most of them fit up to three people. The two sides of the river, connected with a single stone bridge.

Squad Levi, one of the squads that had settled down in Shaana, lived together in the middle of the town. The squad now containing Levi Ackerman, Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Alert, Sasha Blouse, Jean Kirstein, Connie Springer and myself, Amael Wander, after Eld Jinn's, Oluo Bozado's, Gunther Schultz' and Petra Ral's deaths so many years ago. We have one of the biggest houses in the town because we are so many people. The house connected to the local stables, but we were the only ones who used them. Inside the house are four bedrooms. Eren and Mikasa shared a room, Sasha and Connie shared a room, Armin and Jean shared a room, and I shared a room with Corporal Levi.

My relations with my comrades were not the best. I never talked to Sasha or Jean. Even though Sasha hung around with Connie a lot, I never got to be real good friends with her. One of the only interactions that we have had was when she stole my pudding a couple of years ago. She fooled around a lot, and normally I would not hang around with those kinds of people, but Connie was different. Connie was one of those people who felt a lot like a brother to me. I am friends with many people in the Survey Corps, but Connie had always been one of my favorites. Both Connie and Mikasa took care of me whenever I needed it and they were always there when I needed a shoulder to cry on, even though that did not happen a lot. Our relationship was not the best, but it was at least better than the relationship I had with the Corporal.

Because you see, Levi and I had a weird relationship. He was never a social person to begin with. Acting as if he hated everyone with all his guts and just wanting to punch them in the face. His facial expressions were flat, and he showed very little emotions. I had never seen him happy. Never. Being his second in command for ten years by now. The only times we were together, was when we were doing paperwork, at dinner, missions and when we were sleeping, because we shared a room, which actually was the entire day.

When I first joined Squad Levi, no one liked me and the other members did not want me into their group. Eld and Oluo were especially mean to me. Petra and Gunther stayed away from me for several weeks and never approached me nor talked to me. I tried to talk to Petra a few times, but I quickly gave up on trying after realizing she was not going to answer. After a couple of months I started to talk to Levi about my "problem" and asked him if there was anything I could do to make up for this atmosphere that we had developed. He bluntly stated, "If you want people to like you, do your best. If you want people to hate you, do your worst. If you do not care if people hate you nor like you, do not do anything. Now, could you fuck off? I have paperwork." From what I had seen before, Levi was not talkative at all, so I was not expecting a better answer than I got. Shortly after our "conversation", I started to make coffee for everyone in the Squad at breakfast and after missions. I cleaned their clothes and bedsheets and participated in making dinner a couple of times as well. When I had been doing that for a month or so I started to get a few 'Hello's and 'Good night's from both Petra and Gunther. Petra and I became very close shortly after. We sat together during breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper, and she introduced me to Hanji Zoë, which became one of my best friends over the years. Eld and Oluo always put on an attitude near me. I could tell they never liked me, even after four year together as a team.

After the 57th expedition, and the death of our comrades, Levi stopped talking to me completely. Before the incident, he would respond with a nod or a slight 'hmm' when I said good morning to him at breakfast, but after, he would leave the room whenever I entered. He did not show up to our annual meetings to discuss the future of our Squad, he often skipped dinner and he seemed less concentrated during missions, even after several months.

Eren quickly grew fond on me. Before Petra started to accept me, I would sit with him, Mikasa and Armin at lunch. The rest of the meals I would stay in my room until someone said they needed me. During those meals, I would finish most of my paperwork for the day, which made it easier for me when Levi and I were actually supposed to work together after dinner.
Armin and I often talked about the new books we had read. Both of us loved reading and we often share the stories we had found while searching the library in the house. In the walls we had a very short amount of books in the corps library, so to have a library the size of all our bedrooms combined was amazing.

It was first when we started to share a room that he talked to me again. Small nods here and there and I could hear slight 'morning's escape his lips at breakfast. People often asked me what it is that I had done to the Corporal. As I said, he was never a talkative person, so when he suddenly started to great me every single day, people got suspicious. The first couple of times I was surprised too, but after a week or two I just got used to it, as weird as it was. Most people thought that sleeping in the same room was extremely unusual, even though it was not in the slightest. Our beds were pushed as far apart as we could, and we had drawn a curtain in the middle of the room to give us both some privacy. On Levis side of the room, there was a bed, a nightstand, a door into the bathroom and a desk. On my side of the room, there was the same layout and furniture, just instead of the bathroom door; I had the door leading into the hall. We had made a rule that if we wanted to enter the others side of the room; we had to knock on the wall beside the curtain. If we got permission to enter, we had to finish out business as fast as possible, and leave the side of the room. When we went to bed, I got thirty minutes in the bathroom to shower, use the toilet, brush my teeth and do anything else that I needed to do and it was the exact same with the mornings.

Levi was extremely strict. At times when my side of the room was especially messy, he would always yell at me for not keeping up to his standards, but he never seemed angry when he yelled at me. Keeping his voice lower than when he yelled at others, it almost sounded as if he did not want to yell at me. Nevertheless, what do I know? I have known him for fifteen years by now, but I still feel like we met just a couple of weeks ago. We rarely had any real conversations, the only interaction we had with each other was when we are doing paperwork, and when we need to get into the others side of the room. However, from the beginning, he took care of me. It might not seem like it from others point of view, but after the death of my parents fifteen years ago, Levi was the one that took care of me as if he was my very own big brother. They put me in the care of the Survey Corps because I did not have any relatives that I could live with, and after I finished my three years of training, they put me in the Special Operations Squad, also known as Squad Levi.

By now, it does not feel like Levi is still taking care of me, but at the start he did not allow me to leave his sight. He ordered me around all the time, but my chores were always somewhere near his own work. I did not mind it though. Through my childhood I did not have any friends so having some company at all times was not as bad as most people would think it was, even though he never talked a lot. I usually tried to start conversations with him, but as expected was the only answers I got small nods or shrugs, and often I never got an answer at all. However, even though it does not feel like he is taking care of me anymore, I know he is. I know that the reason for putting me in the same room as himself was to make it easier to know my whereabouts at all times. He would often ask, or more so order me to say where I was going, and when we were heading downstairs to breakfast, I could hear his footsteps right behind my own.

When Levi and I were doing paperwork, conversations were almost nonexistent. Most of the time it was quiet, but we would often hear other soldier outside Levi's office door, even though the room was placed on the top floor in the office quarters located beside the house we were living in. Neither Levi nor I had ever asked why the other recruits where fooling around at the top of the office quarters and both Levi and I despised their presence, disturbing our work. If I never had met Levi I would not have mind them, as long as they did not disturb me directly by entering the room, but after many years with the Corporal himself, I picked up on his pickiness. Even though Levi was always with me and made me his second in command to make it easier for him to pay attention to my every move, he was as strict with me as he was with anyone else. Always ordering me to make his coffee or tea before our daily dose of paperwork, after some years he also made me do his laundry; when he had made sure that I could do it properly and not make his clothes smell awful. Small tasks here and there every day to make sure I always had something to do. He never gave me time to slack off and made me do harder workout sessions then the others, just because he could. He made me do 30 laps around the headquarters instead of 10, he made me do 40 sit-ups instead of 20, and he made me do 20 pushups instead of 10. We had two workout routines every week, so even though I had the hardest routine, I was not as buff as most people would think I was, considering the amount of work I had to do.

However, I did not mind the extra work Levi made me do. I knew that he did not express his emotions very well; especially happiness and carefulness, so I also knew that this was his way of showing that he cared about me. Most people would think that I had pissed him off so much that he would punish me every day, but it was never nothing like that. Yes, I did tease him a lot, but it never got to the point of where he would straight up punish me. Noticing Hanji's acts, I often tended to him as 'shorty' and call him out on being the cleaning freak that he was.

After Petra's death, Hanji and I became extremely close. We would always be together when we had chores to do like washing the stables and going to get firewood. She would help me with most things I had to do though the day, and there were always many chores. Ever since the extinction of the titans, the Survey Corps always had a lot to do. The bastards in the Garrisons wanted us to disband along with themselves and the Military Police, but after a long discussion, we decided that the Survey Corps would take care of gathering food and other essential items for the citizens. Most of the people living in the towns were too lazy to get their own supplies, so the Survey Corps would have to do everything for them. We would travel out to the woods every morning to gather firewood, some been assigned with the task to pick up the food supplies that came with some carriages from the new capital.

The capital, Empel, was located just five kilometers away from Shaana. Because of this, we were the first to receive food supplies, but we also had to send food supplies to the towns near us, and they would have to do the same. We did this process once every month to insure that all the towns had enough food for all their citizens. Each town had a special amount of food so that nothing was wasted, and if someone stole food from other towns, they would have a death penalty and the persons town would lose the stolen amount of food, of their food supplies for three months. This caused many deaths of innocent people, but the rule never changed, nor do I think it will. We have a strict schedule when it was concerning food and water supplies. Some of these rules did not allow people to sleep while traveling with the food to the other towns, nor did they get any time for a break to go to the bathroom or eat themselves. When the food supply team would come home from patrol, they spent the rest of the week in their dormitories, having the cooks bring their food to them for every meal.

Squad Levi always had to do cleaning duty. Not taken by surprise because of Corporal Levis obsession with having everything as clean as his own belongings, we all did our job as best as we could. However, he would always yell at one or another because he 'missed a spot' or 'you're not doing it fast enough'. None of us really minded though. We were used to the Corporals strict rules by now and none of us complained to the point where he would shout his balls off at us. We would clean on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays at 7 PM. After cleaning duty, Levi and I went up to his office to do paperwork. I had never gotten my own office for some reason, but I was always sure Levi had something to do with that. I sat on Levis left side. His desk bent around on his left to give him more space, but I had always used that space for my own work. Every now and then I would ask him how his work is going, but all I got as an answer was 'none of your goddamn business', but I never cared about his answers. I mostly asked to be nice, but also because sitting in a room with someone and having it be quiet all the time is extremely awkward. He would order me to get him tea all the time, make me wash his clothes or do some of his work because he had too much to do. Sometimes I wondered if he ever considered that I had my own work to do.

I actually really liked Levi. Ever since I joined the Survey Corps, he had been taking care of me. Always making sure I was eating healthy and as much as I should, always making sure I bathed every day, always making sure I was okay after missions even though he did not personally ask. I could often sense his eyes on me while eating in the mess hall and when walking back to our room after every meal. Most people though the Corporal was an emotionless bastard that never cared about anyone and they were not wrong. Corporal Levi did not enjoy showing emotions and I knew very well how we tried his best to hide all kinds of emotions showing on his face. He thought he was the best at hiding everything that could lead to people think he actually enjoyed himself, but after knowing him for fifteen years I knew how to see how he really felt. I knew he was happy to see I was still alive after missions for some reason, I knew he enjoyed being with the squad on Sunday nights and I knew he was filled with adrenaline before every mission. Moreover, I liked those sides of him. He was extremely considerate and actually cared about me, and there were not a lot of people who actually liked my presence. However, Levi never told me to 'scram' or 'get the hell out'. He was nice. He was lovely company, even though he did not talk.

I often found myself thinking about him. Just him and I alone in a room, doing nothing but looking at each other. He made me feel safe. He made me feel like there were only him and I in this world. I felt complete when I was by his side, and like I split in half when we were apart.

Even though.

Levi will never know this of course.

- Authors Note -

PLEASE READ! IMPORTAINT INFORMATION!

I finally got to finish the first chapter! It took me so long to find out how I wanted to end this chapter because it's basically just an introduction to the main character, Amael Wander, and the other characters relationships. It also explains how their condition is right now.

Now. I did not get a chance to give you an image of how Amael looks and since I don't think I'll get that chance later either, I'm going to explain how she looks now!
Amael is just shorter than Levi, at a height of 155 cm (5'1 feet). She's got light brown, armpit length hair and aquamarine eyes. She's also strong, both mentally and physically. She loves to read and she's not afraid to say what she wants, when she wants.

In the next chapter, I'll start with the actual conversations and story in itself. I didn't want to start the story here, because it's just an introduction.

Please leave reviews on this chapter to help me make the next one as good as I can.
Thank you for reading,

And I'll see you guys later ^^

(EDITED: 17.04/2017)