A/N: So this is set in Nazi Germany during WWII. That being said, there are going to be deaths, countless instances of violence, and multiple racial remarks— I feel like it kind of just comes with the territory.
The pairings may not be so evident when the fic first starts out, but I promise that they'll come about eventually. I have a lot of ship feels for SNK though, and I have to say that it sucks that I can't cram everyone in here. /shot. Guess it just means that I'll be able to generate more fics for the fandom though, right? c;
As a warning to those who care: personalities may come off as a little OOC, just because the circumstances of the situations for each of the characters are different. It's what happens to us that shapes our personalities, right? But I promise that I tried to keep them as in-character as I could.
(Eren is still the intensely emotional brat that we've come to know and love tho, couldn't mess with that one. c;)
The rain falls like blood onto the streets of the city and the solemn water meets with the crimson stains of the cement until the two become interchangeable.
It's ironic, really, the way the sky is able to shine the way that it does despite the torrential downpour, and it's this irony that leaves the young boy's chest numb with an icy sensation of anger and sadness and this desire—this intense, almost ridiculous, desire—to eradicate those who have forced his life into the sorry excuse that it has now become.
Or maybe he just wants his parents back. He doesn't really know.
Amidst the rubble and the dirt, a hand is extended to him.
He looks up.
Above him is a man shining in military glory—the glory of his side, the glory of the Germans, not the others. He's tall and he's muscular and he has these blue eyes that pierce into the vast emptiness of the world before him with veiled emotion. There's a saber attached to his belt, and a gun too, and with a shock, the young boy realizes that the man before him has taken off his hat—something that is only done as a sign of respect. But who did he mean to respect? What is going on? Where is he, who is this man, what is he supposed to do now, what if—
"My name is Erwin Smith. I was a friend of your father. It was a terrible accident that an event such as this one occurred; the riots are becoming unstoppable nowadays because of the depression. What has happened here is absolutely unacceptable and I can do nothing but grieve for your loss with you."
His words aren't foreign, persay, but they are tinged with a robotic sense of duty that the young boy has never encountered before. He's used to praises filled to the brim with love, teasing remarks of affection, mother and father wrapping him up in warm hugs in the middle of the night to keep him safe from the nightmares—
"I'll take care of you now, Eren. I promise."
At the mention of his name, said boy blinks and stares harder at the man, this "Erwin Smith." There's something in the way his features are laid out, something about the pitch of his voice, something about how tall he stands with such a straight, straight back—
Something about that odd symbol on his clothing…
Eren doesn't know why, but he takes the older man's hands without a single regret.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Ten Years Later.
A man walks down a corridor, takes a sharp left, opens a door, locks it, strides to the bookshelf on the right-hand wall. Eyes scan for a particular novel, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, almost immediately pinpointing it due to sheer memory, and he gently pulls it ever-so-slightly out of its place. The shelf in its entirety slides to the side, revealing a hidden hallway, and he can't help but wonder what the hell Erwin must have done in order to have such a device installed.
He supposes that it doesn't really matter.
The man pauses to make sure that the door is locked—after all, you can never be too sure anymore—before stepping into the void of darkness.
More turns, more empty halls, then, finally—
"L-Levi? Is that you?"
He allows himself a small smile as she runs forward to embrace him. "I feel like I've been alone here for the longest time."
There isn't an apology worthy enough to utter to her, so he saves his words. "It's for your own good."
"I know," she sighs, gently turning away from the man before her and Levi knows that he's said the wrong thing. Petra steps back from his arms in order to face the dimly lit room before him, haphazardly decorated with dying flowers and fading furniture and old memories of a beautiful life that once showed so much promise. "It's really terrible though, isn't it? I hate being treated like this, like an animal."
Levi's never been good with words, but they end up tumbling out anyway, "Better to be treated like an animal than to be killed on the spot. Though I hear that now they're cooping up Jews in camps and working them to death—so I suppose I should correct myself: it would be better to be treated more like a housepet than as a beast in the fields."
It probably wasn't appropriate to say, but the two of them have grown up with each other and have known each other for as long as either can remember, so it only makes sense that Petra chooses not to react negatively to his bluntness. Instead, she allows a small shrug and mumbles, "I'm just tired of this mess. That's all."
There's a pause once more. Then Petra hesitantly turns to stare at her childhood friend.
Levi takes in the greasiness of her once radiant strawberry blonde hair, the scar-like blue and purple bruises underneath her dull, sad eyes, the graying pallor of her skin, the emanation of desperate fear and helplessness engulfing the room around her and suffocating her under its staunch weight.
He tries to ignore the feeling of guilt within the very core of his being.
"Do you think it'll all be over soon?"
There's no real answer. He knows this. But he also knows that he has to give her some sort of response.
"Just trust in me and you'll be okay."
"H-Hey, wait, Eren! Eren, wait for me!"
There's a flash of pearly whites as the taller boy turns to look at his friend over his shoulder, "I can't do that, Armin! Come on, Father would be disappointed if you can't even catch a fake Jew in a silly kids' game! Don't you want to be like Captain Levi one day, too?"
The blonde, still breathing heavily, ultimately gives up and falls to the ground with a thump. "Eren, you said that we were playing hide-and-go-seek. You know that I don't like this game."
"Awh, come on, Armin, you're never any fun," the brunet teases, but he turns and runs back to his adoptive brother anyway so that he can fall into a position beside him on the grass, chuckling when his haphazard tumble makes his friend flinch. "Don't worry, you know that I'm just kidding around with you. It's all in good fun."
The boy beside him sighs, but keeps his mouth shut, knowing that Eren is too stubborn to listen to him and rethink his words and thoughts. Then again, their circumstances are different entirely, so maybe Armin just doesn't know enough yet to understand his friend in his entirety. "I still don't like it. What would Miss Petra think if she ever caught wind of the games you like playing?"
Eren sits up with a glare and a mumbled, "Armin, we're not supposed to talk about that."
Armin realizes his mistake, upon noting the instantaneous shift in his friend's mood and decides not to say anything more.
"Regardless of whether or not we're supposed to call him 'Father,' we can still choose to condone his actions. I know that he's one of our army's best and all, but sometimes I can't help but question his decision making. In my opinion, most of his choices just lead to mistakes in the long run..."
Blue eyes quietly observe the animated nature of his rambling friend, and a single thought alone runs through his head: But he decided to take you in, didn't he?
"Sir, are you sure about this? She's not Aryan. Shouldn't she be sent to a concentration camp? Or killed?"
"I mean, she doesn't look like a Jew or a gypsy to me, so…"
"Quiet," Erwin demands, shooting an annoyed glare at the men behind him. They obey without another question and the commander takes this opportunity to hasten his step.
The young woman beside him seems to respond to this intuitively, matching his pace without even the slightest of hesitations, and upon his noticing of this, Erwin can't help but wish that all of his troops were as obedient as her.
He doesn't really know who she is—not at all—but there was something in her broken gaze when they stormed the orphanage only hours previous that refused to allow him to abandon her. Her plain dress was clearly too short for her and torn in several places while caked with dirt in others. Even before they had made their presence known, it was obvious that she was an outcast amongst her peers and isolated in a world of her own. In some cases, like Eren's, Erwin would simply note it as a sign of a daydreaming personality, but in her's, it was clear that the situation was different: she had lost herself in her own nightmare, not in her own frivolous fantasies.
"We'll be home soon," he tells her.
There's no response.
You'll be home soon, she corrects in her head, I'll just be in another prison.
Erwin's entourage arrives back in time for dinner. The troops that had accompanied him are dismissed as he motions for the young woman to enter the house and leads her towards the humble dining room.
Levi notices their appearance immediately, a curious eyebrow halfheartedly shooting upwards at the stranger by Erwin's side.
Armin ceases to laugh at Eren's joke and stares on at the newcomer in innocent curiosity.
Eren continues to talk about something that he finds absolutely hilarious until he realizes that his audience is no longer paying him any mind, making him turn to face the intruders with annoyance.
His heart plummets.
"This is Mikasa," Erwin starts, "Her parents are dead. She'll be staying with us from now on."
She fidgets uncomfortably underneath their hard stares, and, if she didn't have any sense of pride left, she probably would have moved to hide behind her savior. Instead, she forces herself to stand even straighter and tilt her chin upwards as though silently saying that she doesn't care about whatever opinions they have of her.
The silence remains, though Levi bothers to take the time to shrug and continue eating while Armin has the foresight to turn to Eren in fear of how the other will react.
"There's an empty seat over there, next to Eren—he's the young one with the dark hair. I'm going to wash this blood off of me, and then I'll join the four of you for dinner."
Erwin doesn't wait for a response from anyone before pivoting on his heel and exiting the room.
Not knowing what else to do, Mikasa takes a hesitant seat next to the silently fuming teenager, slightly uncomfortable with the way his eyes (how do they manage to be such a bright shade of green?, she can't help but wonder) attempt to bore through her head.
She awkwardly stares down at the empty place setting in front of her, not knowing if she yet had a right to ask for a portion. She knows that they hadn't been sure whether or not Erwin would be immediately returning, which is probably why it's empty, but the excuse does nothing to assuage her current situation.
Noticing her silent dilemma, Armin stands up out of his chair and picks up the empty bowl in front of her. "Sorry about that," he says with a hesitantly apologetic smile, "I'll get you some from the kitchen."
Her lips part to thank him, but the boy—Eren—responds first, angrily slamming his fists onto the table. "This is absolutely ridiculous! What authority do we have to take in another mouth to feed? Who are you even?" His frustrated glare continues to eat away at the dirt littered on Mikasa's skin, and she's not too sure what it is that she's done to anger him like this, but she knows that it's not yet the time and place for her to speak. "You're not one of us! You're another stranger, an outsider. What right do you have to—"
His rant is cut off by the man who currently holds the position of head of the table.
"Eren," Levi orders. "I don't know what the hell you're trying to do right now, but stop whatever the fuck it is and finish your soup. The maid's out and I was in charge of making it tonight, so if you don't even bother to finish your serving, I'm going to take it as an insult."
There's a beat of silence before the younger man falls back into his chair with a sickened frown. Armin seems to internally debate what he should do next, but with a single glare from the eldest present, he dashes into the kitchen.
Mikasa allows her eyes to shift to meet Eren's: there's something about them that she can't quite pinpoint, and she supposes that if she hadn't developed such an apathetic personality, then maybe she'd have the heart to feel offense at his seemingly immediate distrust of her. His hair is unruly and falls over his face in a haphazard fashion that only accentuates the green of his eyes and their weight on her body makes something inside her shift—though she doesn't know what is is.
She doesn't know much about this boy, Eren. But she gets the feeling that his existence only means trouble.
A/N: Whelp, that's the end of the prologue!
Next chapter will skip ahead a bit (a couple of months, at the most) and will be posted soon (hopefully). I have a plot outline that's pretty much already set in stone, so hopefully it own't take too long. c;
Thanks for reading! c:
Comments and the like are super appreciated!