AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Hello, fellow fanpeople! Welcome to a "monster" of a fic! *hardy har*

I've actually written fanfiction before, but I've never posted anything, so please be kind; I've only been writing off-and-on (mostly off) for a few years. This is my first Attack on Titan fanfiction (I recently watched the anime and fell in love) and my first time posting anything. This is not really a Shingeki no Kyojin fic; it doesn't really relate to the manga, except for a few things here and there, but I think I'll be posting it in both categories just to be safe. This fic is also cross-posted on AO3 (Archive of Our Own) under the same username, just with underscoring between each word (contact me if you feel the need to look it up and can't find it).

Updates shouldn't be too slow, but knowing me, don't be surprised if I do disappear for a few weeks. Thankfully, the first twelve chapters are already written, so they should be up pretty quickly!

SUMMARY: Some tales cross generations and geography, reaching across time and circumstance to be told and to be heard. At this story's beginning, it was not one of these. This is a story of a boy who was betrayed and forced to take the form of a monster. This is a story of how a monster can be more than it appears, and how a monster can become a symbol of hope to those who fear it. This is a story of despair, loneliness, death, hatred, and grief. This is a story of friendship, love, family, hope, and life. But overall, this is a story about how a shift in perspective can turn monsters into humans and humans into monsters.

DISCLAIMER: I (obviously) don't own Attack on Titan or Shingeki no Kyojin.

Chapter 1: Best of Intentions (Sometimes Aren't Enough)

He remembers being human, remembers the way that his mother would sometimes run her fingers through his hair and hum a dancing tune; remembers the way that festival days made his town so much brighter and full of laughter and filled the air with newness. He remembers how his father taught him how to heal, teaching him the uses for herbs – on those days, his father would take him out to the forest and they would identify plant life and steal fruit to eat, and they would walk home stained with juice and carrying apples and pomegranates and blueberries for his mother.

He also remembers the day he stopped being human; remembers the sting of the syringe in his upper arm and the regret filling his father's eyes. He remembers the way his father's soft flesh split and burst just like the peaches they would eat together, and he remembers how his father was composed and terrified – at least until he was bitten in two and then he screamed but only for a second until he was swallowed in halves.

He remembers later vomiting up orange sludge that crystallized into a hard, amber-like substance, and he remembers staring at his father's dead eyes, uncomprehendingly, with the sense of an animal, before his reason returned and his form melted away, leaving him with the body of a weak boy. He remembers hugging the crystal and heaving great, ugly, shuddering sobs and hating himself for being weak and succumbing to bloodlust, hating his new race for its hunger, even hating his father for causing his change.

He remembers being eleven and realizing that going back to his village would be impossible now that he is a kin-killer and race-traitor; remembers leaving his father's remains to be discovered and running away from his familiar forest to another beyond the walls. He remembers being twelve and running afoul of a band of soldiers, and coincidentally, he remembers learning his flesh was impossible to permanently wound. He remembers being thirteen and building his own house deep in the heart of enemy territory. He remembers being twenty and losing control and destroying his house in a fit of rage. He remembers being thirty and looking down on his youthful, unblemished hands and realizing that he hadn't aged past fifteen. After that, he stopped keeping track of the years and started staying in his other form for longer and longer measures of time.

Most of the time now, he forgets that he was ever human at all, but when he remembers, he'll steal baubles from human habitations and stare at them, touch them with one giant finger, perhaps try to recall what they were used for.

Once, he had tried to reveal himself to a village of humans. He remembers the way they ran in terror, eyes wide with unbridled, mindless fear. Atlas, they called him, Titan, world-holder, mountain-crusher. He remembers thinking the name appropriate; a Titan tasked with the weight of the sky, but it wasn't until years later than he realized exactly how appropriate that title was.

It's raining, and even though the drops fizzle and steam in contact with his skin, he's hunched under the protection of a wide-leaved tree on the edge of the forest. His hair hangs in sodden strings around his face as he glares balefully out into the gray-skied tranquility. He isn't cold; his temperature runs too high for that, but nevertheless he dislikes the way the water finds its way into his eyes and the way the air feels clammy and vaguely suffocating and how it dampens all the natural scents in the area. At least it isn't the kind of rain that stings and buffets and blocks out everything from sight but water. He snorts, steam rising in a lazy swirl.

He had wanted to explore the abandoned human habitations near the forest again, but the rain made that impossible; he had once tried tearing off a roof and leaving the house open to the elements, and had come back later to find the delicate innards of the house ruined and waterlogged and its precious treasures destroyed.

With an annoyed grunt, he turns to find better shelter, and that's when he sees it. At first, he thinks it's a malformed bird or a misshapen cloud, but then he sees human shapes in it, and so he watches it come closer and closer, curious about what this new contraption is. It makes to land in the field land in front of the forest, but there is a sudden wind that picks it up and throws it towards the forest, right in front of him. He whirls out of its way, and it catches on a tree right where his head had been. He stands still so that the humans in it won't see him. One of the humans climbs out on a branch and starts yowling to the others inside the part hanging out in the air. Atlas watches, spellbound, as the one on the branch pokes and prods at the part held fast. He silently takes a step closer, and is able to see that the one on the branch is a male, and that there is another male, a female, and a - what is the word ... tiny human in the hanging part. Fixed on learning more about this contraption and humans, he goes to take another step forward, and freezes as a log cracks underneath his foot, vainly hoping they won't see him. His hopes are in vain, as the human on the branch shouts out to the others, and they turn and see him. He hunches down slightly in attempt to look harmless, but the female still screams, and he winces from the ringing in his sensitive ears. The tiny human is wailing, too, and he slumps even further. He didn't mean to upset them; and so, he runs away and leaves the strange humans there, feeling strangely bereft and hurt. It doesn't matter, though; they'll be gone soon anyway.

Of course, when he comes back to the edge of the forest, they're still there, stuck in the tree. He hides himself far enough away that they can't see him, and sets about watching them from a distance. He can smell much better now that the rain is gone. The female smells of milk and the males of sweat. The tiny human smells like newness and feces, and is wailing pitifully at the female, who shushes it absentmindedly. What does it want? Food, water, things to play with? The tiny human wails again, and when no one pays attention to it, Atlas rumbles fretfully, protective instincts rising. Tiny things of all species are weak and need help to learn and grow. If the humans themselves will not care for their tiny thing, then it is up to Atlas to do so. The matter decided, he huffs out a trickle of steam and leaves.

Water is an easy enough task. First, he gathers a broad, scooped leaf about the size of his palm and then tromps to a nearby narrow stream. Dipping the leaf in the water, he finds that the current is too fast and grumbles in annoyance. He finds a slower, wider stream and chirps when the leaf fills with clear water. Then, slowly, carefully, sliding one foot after the other, he makes his way to the humans' tree and sets it down at the base after making sure they weren't there at the moment.

Next is playthings, and he has no idea of what a tiny human would want. So, he goes to a human house nearby and pries off the roof. Inside, there is a lot of wood things, which he decides against because the tiny human is already surrounded by wood. There are the soft feather-things, which he masterfully manages to not burst with his large fingers. Inside a wooden thing, there is something that glints metallically, and when nudged with the tip of one of his fingers, the top whirrs pleasantly. He snorts delightedly, and puts it on the palm of his hand along with the vine. In an open-faced wood thing, he finds things that look like leaves pressed together and etched with dirt. He thinks that humans like those sort of things, so those go in his palm as well. Deciding that his spoils are enough to keep the tiny human occupied, he wraps them in another leaf and drops them off as he did before.

Now, hunting is another matter entirely. Atlas dislikes killing, and he has never hunted before. He's seen solitary hunters trek through the forest and hunt with stick-throwers, but his hands are too large to hold one, and he has no weapons but his body. But, if puny humans do it every day, how hard can it be. As it turns out, very hard. On his first try, he bursts out of the cover of the trees too soon, and the herd of deer bound away and scatter into the closely-grown trees too quickly for him to follow. His second try results in a messy smear on the ground; the less said, the better. After that, he tries to hunt birds for a while, scaring them out of trees and clapping his hands together to form a trap. This ends worse than the deer, as his hands are pecked at by flocks of birds, and he eventually is swarmed and forced to retreat. So, he decides to aim for larger prey. He follows the scratches on trees and the scent markers, and finds his way to a small cave set in a hill. The bear is inside, and when it smells him coming, it tries to escape, but he is waiting outside. Its head is crushed with one well-aimed swat, and Atlas is pleased with his first successful hunt. The bear is deposited at the base of the tree along with his other offerings. Happy with himself, he puffs a jet of steam smugly. See, caring for tiny things is easy! He can only wonder why the humans weren't doing so before.

His ears twitch as he hears the sounds of the humans coming back. Quickly, he retreats behind another tree and watches the four humans chatter as they walk. One of the males notices Atlas's offerings on the ground, and yowls to the others. They poke warily at the bear – silly humans, can't they see the bear is dead? – but eventually they use vines to tie his offerings and bring them up to their strange hanging machine. He coos in satisfaction, his vocal cords barely rumbling, because the tiny human isn't yowling. Smiling to himself – or at least as much as he can with his mouthful of teeth – he leaves the humans to their devices and promises himself that he'll visit again soon.

Atlas is shrouded in sunlight. Years ago, he had found this clearing which was large enough for him to lay down and still be in the sun. Even longer still, he had realized that his body absorbed the sunlight and loved it. He is laying on his back with his eyes closed, his only vision of the orange through his eyelids. Occasionally, a bird will fly by and chitter at something. He has been there for so long that even the deer are content to graze around him. He is at peace.

His ear twitches at something inconsequential, and his nose languidly learns each scent borne to him on the wind. Today is a beautiful day; the leaves on the trees are shone through with golden light, the animals of the forest are happily going about their days, and most importantly – no rain.

Humming thoughtfully, he opens his eyes. The humans would be out of meat by now, and he didn't know if they would hunt. Perhaps this time he will try his hand at the herds of deer again. Unhurried, he moves his bulk into a standing position and searches for the scent of horned mammals.

Miraculously, he emerges from his hunt with a not too brutally mutilated deer carcass, and considers it a success. Bringing his spoils back to the humans' tree, he stops short upon smelling the humans still at the tree, and cautiously rounds a thicket to see the proof. One of the males is on the branch working on the part still stuck, and the others are in the hanging part. The male's small fists suddenly pound at the bark in frustration, and Atlas, caught unaware, flinches slightly. What is wrong with the human? Do they not want to be in the tree? Is it just that they can't get their flying machine down to the ground? Should he help them?

He is drawn out of his musings when the male gets up and kicks at the branch in annoyance, but his foot slips against the bark and he topples out into the air. Atlas moves without thinking and catches the human in his palm. He blinks down at the male, half-surprised to see him there; the male blinks back, and then promptly starts screaming. The other humans are startled out of their shock, and also begin shouting. Atlas winces, and delicately tips the male into the hanging part before throwing the deer corpse at the base of the tree, and then races through the trees as quickly as his legs will carry him.

He winds up on the other side of the forest. Breathing heavily, he rests his head against a tree trunk and sighs dejectedly through his nose. Perhaps he just has to try harder to make the humans unafraid of him. Yes, he would get them all the food and water they could want, and run off any of his kind who dared show their noses around his humans and his forest. For as long as they stayed here, Atlas would protect the humans from his kin, and even himself if need be.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

– If you can't guess, the contraption the humans arrived in is a hot air balloon. Now, armed with that information, three guesses on who is actually in the hot air balloon! *wink, wink*

– The things that Atlas gathers from the human house, in order are: pillows, an eggbeater, and books. It was hard to describe ordinary things through the eyes of someone who doesn't know what they are, so I put them down here so you guys could know what I was talking about.