I hate pirates.

I grew up on the shores of a no name village that was too far from anywhere to matter. Most of the men were fishermen, and the women housewives. We ate fish, mostly. It's was very boring.

At least, it was boring until last night, when a large, tattered ship pulled into our harbor and its crew descended like a pack of wolves on the town. It was over so quick that by the time I had managed to respond to the alarm bell, our entire town had effectively been captured.

I'm Jean Kirschtien, pronounced John. I'm technically supposed to be defending this town I call home, but it's makes little difference when you're this outclassed. I hardly raised my swords when this girl literally grabbed my neck and lifted me up like she would a kitten. She wasn't even looking at me at the time!

She drags me to her compatriots, who looked like they had been through a few wars each, and throws me right into the midst.

"This guy attacked me. Permission to kill?" An icy sharp voice comes from the woman who caught me.

"Negative." Says the shortest of the bunch. "Look, he has the 3DMG on his waist. If he can use it, we can use him."

"Ya really think he's just gonna say 'sure, I'll forgive ya fer burning my home down! No problem!'" Says another girl, one with dark reddish hair.

"We aren't burning anything down, Sash." Says the short guy. "In fact, go get Connie and go back to the ship before he burns anything down."

Sash scratches her head. "Er, it might be kinda late fer that-"

The angriest looking guy of the bunch, not much taller than the leader, with brown hair and green eyes spins on his heel and starts sniffing the air. "Smoke's coming from the easts." He grunts.

The leader sighs. "Numbskulls. All of you need to get your heads out of your asses and listen to orders. Ymir, take Bertholdt and put out that fire. Sash, go with them. Mikasa, take your prisoner back to the ship with Eren. Tell Armin to get the ship ready."

Eren (the leader pointed to everyone as he assigned orders, conveniently) turns to Mikasa, my captor. "Well, move out. Don't want cleaning duty for a month. Again."

Mikasa grunts and grabs me by the back of the neck again.

"Hey! Put me down! I don't want to go with you assho-MMPH!"

The woman clamps her other hand over my mouth with enough force to chip a tooth. "Quiet." She growls.

Not like I had any choice.

She slings me over her shoulder and stuffs a dirty rag in my mouth to keep my silent. I had a nice view of her shapely ass as she strides through the streets down towards the boat.

Had this been any other situation, I might've asked her out based on that ass.

Both Mikasa and Eren are silent the whole way to the boat. Eren has a chain wrapped around his neck which continued to clank in the breeze that brought them to our cove. I glance around, but all the buildings are shut tight. It doesn't look like anybody's going to help me, even if anyone else is alive.

Once we arrive at the schooner, I am pulled off her shoulder and set on the ground. Standing up proved useless when she planted her foot on my head and nearly gave me a concussion just to keep me down. She could've just asked.

"We've got a new prisoner. Make sure we have a place for him." She says completely deadpan.

A much more cheerful voice comes from above. "Okay! I'll make up a bed for him in your quart-"

"No, stick him in the brig." She says, still deadpan. "I'm not touching this one."

Wait, what? HEY!

Mikasa lifts her foot from my head and pulls me back up by my collar. For the first time I can see her face properly.

"Listen up. Try anything and I slit your throat, orders or not."

I gulp nervously.

I guess she takes my silence as an affirmative, as she then proceeds to throw me thirty feet straight up and onto the deck of the ship.

No, I'm not exaggerating. One hand, straight up thirty feet. I weigh 180 pounds which is not something a girl can chuck around at all under normal circumstances. Needless to say, I wasn't in a state to do much when a pretty blond woman with kind eyes leans over and politely snaps handcuffs onto my wrists.

Sadly, the next few hours are a blur. There's a reason I wasn't a fisherman back in my hometown, and that reason is I get seasick. Very seasick. I wasn't aware I had that much to eat today until I saw it spilled out in front of me.

At some point, someone looked down and saw my predicament, then left. Slightly after, two more figures came down the steps. From what I gather later, it was about three hours, but it felt about ten times that.

"Keep him still. If I hit the wrong spot we'll need to wait more time to make another batch." Says a calm male voice.

"And that will have to wait a few days, if that storm hits us." Says another voice that I can't quite place.

Two firm hands grip my left shoulder and head, and something pricks my neck. From the prick, a burning sensation washes over me, overriding the sickly feeling and making my head clear again.

I look at my two saviors. One wearing goggles over her eyes, and the other is the girl that handcuffed me. I look around, but the owner of the male voice isn't to be seen.

"Well, he seems alright." Mutters Goggles. "You okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Wh-what happened?"

She holds up a needle proudly. "It worked! Only a twenty percent chance, and it worked!"

Twenty percent isn't high, right?

The blond girl removes her gloves and starts walking up the stairs. From the hatch above, I hear the male voice. "Don't scare him."

The woman in front of me sighs. "Aw, well. We cured you of your seasickness. You can stay down here until we need you." She gets up and turns on her heel.

"Wait! I don't want to stay down here!" I complain. "It's dark and smells bad."

The woman sniffs. "It smells bad because you barfed. Clean it up. If it's too dark, try wearing two eye patches." She shrugs and almost closes the door before I can ask my next question.

"H-how would wearing eye patches help?"

"Once you get accustomed to pitch dark, this light level will be sufficient to allow you to navigate easily."

I try to jam my foot in the door, but she slams it shut with such force the frame loosens a bit. I stub my toe on the freshly shut door.

"Ah, Fu-Whoa!"

Hopping around on one foot was a bad idea, especially in the dark and vomit strewn floor.

My last thought before losing consciousness is that I really need to get my temper in check.

"Wake up." Says the coldest voice I can imagine.

With that command I instantly snap awake. My eyes meet Mikasa's beautiful and terrifying orbs. Beside her stands the blond girl.

"Wow, I didn't think that would work." Comments the blond girl.

Mikasa grunts. "Get Marco over here. This idiot stinks." She turns and walks away.

I'm no longer down in the bowels of the ship, but my new position isn't really better. I'm tied to the mast, rag back in my mouth and arms and legs lashed securely. I recognize some of the people walking back and forth on the deck, but they're all pointedly ignoring me.

Honestly, nothing these pirates had done has made any sense yet. They come to our small town, attack us, take me hostage, cure my seasickness and tie me to the mast. Actually, all of that made sense but the cure part. I want to curse at them and demand an explanation, but there's a rag in my mouth. It tastes like fermented sweat.

The blond girl steps up to me. "I'm told that the cure worked?"

Huh? She was there. She should know. I nod my head anyway.

"Ah, good. Frankly, I wasn't sure you were going to survive the journey if it didn't work. I'm Christa!"

"Mpphh mmmhh Meeeph mphmphmmmm." Which roughly translates to "I am Jean Kirstein."

"Oh, um… I'll see if I can get that gag removed." She smiles apologetically. "If I did it without permission I'd get cleaning duties."

Horrible. I only had to do them every day, being the junior member of the police force of my old town. It might be worse on this ship though, but still. I glower at her, hoping to get the point across, but she literally turns and skips away like a five year old.

I wonder if she's really going to try to get my gag removed. This crew is slightly odd. By which I mean completely incomprehensible.

A shaven crew member walks up to me and looks me up and down before offering his hand. "Hi! I'm Connie Springer."

Wait, this is Connie? That's not a guy's name. Also, my hands are bound you freak, I'm not going to shake your hand.

Connie continues to hold his hand out despite the glare. "Welcome to the crew, by the way. We're not the nicest bunch, but we all get along. Try not to piss anyone off, since live crew can be punished for killing other crew members, but the dead can't come back to life." He smirks with the last sentence.

"Mmmph."

"Glad we had this chat." Connie turns around and heads back the way he came before turning right back around. "Oh, I forgot to mention this. You're technically a hostage, but if you don't work, you don't eat. Have fun!"

He waves as I continue to grumble at him. What the hell is wrong with these pirates?

After a few more minutes, the blond shows up with the black haired short leader. The leader has an extremely bored look on his face.

"See? Tied and bound!" Says the blond.

"As he should be. I still don't see why I was needed for anything." Says the leader guy.

"I need you to take out his gag!" Says the blond with a smile.

"Why the fuck do I need to do that? Do it your damn self!" The short guy turns on his heel.

"But Mikasa will kill me if I do it! You're the only one who can!"

"I still see no need for me to do anything."

"He needs to eat, or else he'll be useless." The blond crosses her arms.

The leader stops and sighs. "Fine. Until you assholes can figure out how to get along, I'll continue to solve your stupid problems for you. MIKASA!"

A loud thunk is heard from lower in the ship, then several thumps and yells, then splintering wood, and then Mikasa appears on the deck of the ship, panting ever so slightly. She still has those dead eyes though.

"Christa's been bitching at me about your prisoner. Do what she asks."

Mikasa dips her head as the leader tches and walks away.

Christa turns to Mikasa. "I'm removing his gag, mmk? I need to get him some food."

Mikasa looks at Christa with her unchanging expression. "Do what you want."

Christa claps her hands together. "Good! Also, while Levi is letting me order you around, why don't you go get some bread from the pantry? I want to talk to him."

I thought Christa's forehead was going to catch fire from the force of Mikasa's glare. Christa maintains a small smile even under this onslaught, and once Mikasa disappears she turns to me and finally removes the cloth.

"Thanks."

"No problem! I don't know what she was thinking, tying you up here."

I shrug. At least, I attempt to. I'm still bound very tight. "Nothing has made a lick of sense since you invaded, I'm not even surprised anymore. So, Christa is it?"

"Yep! I'm the resident doctor, along with Armin."

Armin must be that lady with the goggles. Hmm.

"So, why I am I here exactly? I heard you wanted to use me for something, but what?"

"Why, breeding stock of course!" She says with her smile still locked in place.

I think my jaw hit the floor.

"No, just kidding. We're kinda shorthanded right now, and you have the 3DMG and probably know how to use it." She leans in close to my face. I press my skull to the mast I'm lashed too, but she's still to close. Her face is very, very cute though. Once again, I find myself thinking that under different circumstances… "Do you know how useful 3DMG is in ship-to-ship combat?"

I shake my head.

"It's better than grappling hooks to pull two ships together, you can climb into the rigging much faster, and you can do some other tricks that involves flying through the air." She puts her index finger to her lips. "We just lost our old 3DMG pro, so you have quite the shoes to fill."

"Well, maybe I don't want to do it." I would have folded my arms had they been free. I really hate being bound.

"Then we'll have to throw you overboard." Christa shrugs.

She still has that cheerful smile. It's starting to get more disturbing than Mikasa's constant glare.

Hey, maybe all the crew's expressions are frozen. Levi has that sneer, Eren has that determined look… Oh shit, then what's mine going to be? Please don't be something stupid like smiling goofily. Or maybe… Mom said if I made a face enough it would stay in that position. Maybe she was right?

I am roused from this entirely productive line of thought by something large, brown and hard being forcibly shoved in my mouth, threatening to choke me.

It's bread. Get your mind out of the gutter.

"MMMPH!" I yell at the black haired woman who had just returned from the galley. She continues to stare at me balefully.

"Mikasa! That wasn't nice."

"Wasn't ordered to be nice."

"Well, I'm going to fix that then!" Christa gets a determined glint in her eyes-

Wait, does Mikasa actually look scared?

"From now on, I want you to be nice to him. Not like a slave or anything, just civil."

Oh. Oh god. I just realized that Christa was enjoying this. She's actually enjoying torturing Mikasa. And it is torture, judging by the horrified look slowly eating away at the hardened disposition she had worn every time I had seen her so far.

In my mental list of women not to piss off (Technically, all of them, but the top ten are ones you REALLY don't want to piss off) Christa now ranks number one, with Mikasa a close second. Then there's a huge gap and then my mother comes in at number three.

I don't expect her ranking to remain high, especially if there are more women like these two here on this ship.

"Christa, that's not possible-"

"It is! Just be civil! It's not rocket science!"

I tilt my head to the side. "What's a rocket?"

Christa shrugs. "Armin was talking about them. Something from one of his old texts."

His?

"I fail to see how your associate's research has anything to do with-" Mikasa crosses her arms. The word 'associate' is said with a sneer.

"It just means it isn't difficult." Christa shakes her head, and her smile drops in favor of a serious expression. "Don't tie him to things without a good reason, don't go out of your way to piss him off, that kind of stuff."

Mikasa narrows her eyes, and the steel comes back to her voice. "If that's an order."

"It is." Christa sighs. "Anyway, we can't keep him in the hold much longer. We've got a shipment coming tomorrow, and he needs a place to stay. I'm going to put him-"

"No."

"Every other room is full. We've let you keep your room to yourself, but we have too many people right now."

Mikasa looks at Christa with her diamond hard eyes, then turns them to me. Slowly, ever so slowly, she raises her left arm. I watch in something akin to fascination as she sticks her hand into the folds of her jacket and draws a knife. She suddenly switches to blinding speed and I stand stock still as the soft thumps of the ropes that had been binding me falling to the floor. Mikasa sheathes her dagger, but I still stand there without moving.

"I suppose throwing him overboard or gutting him is not considered nice." Mikasa says in her usual flat tone. "Pity. Show him to my- our room later."

She turns and in three quick and long strides she disappears down the hatch into the lower deck with a smashing of wood.

"Levi needs to put a tighter leash on his student, don't you think?" Christa mutters.

I pull the bread out of my mouth and take a reasonable bite out of the stale chunk. Around the mouthful, I respond. "I have to stay with her?"

"Unless you liked the hold, yes. Don't worry, she's a woman of her word. She follows orders to the letter without fail… just she's definitely the letter of the law, rather than spirit of the law type."

"Joy. Well, thanks for getting me down. I owe you one."

Christa waves me off. "Don't worry about it. We all take care of each other on this ship, though it may not look it. When it comes to battle, we all have no choice but to trust our lives to those around us, so we all have a special bond."

She grabs both of my hands in hers and looks at me with eyes that I swear contained stars. "I look forward to working with you. Welcome to the Titanic!"