One: Safe Haven
In the cold distance, surrounded by lush evergreen bushes and the elderly trees with outstretched to bask in the chilled breeze of the morning. Spanning tens of metres below their tipped branching spires, laid a never-dying once-human soul.
This soul, having wandered so many Worlds, now slouched discontentedly against the rough texture of a towering tree. With a single growl, its surroundings ceased movement, beast-like eyes of translucent amber fixated upon a rather numerous amount of humans- with leather jackets blazing its proud pair of wings. The beast, still and distantly curious, but nevertheless wary of their double blades along with a metal contraption- allowing them considerable mobility and almost ingenious strategies to avoid the quite literal stampedes of bumbling, unknowingly naked and much larger 'humans'.
Its stillness behind a large crop of bushes caused the insanely loud horse-riding humans to completely overlook the predator in the bush. Of course, it held no resignations to tear and swallow the group in pieces- although it'd have to pick apart cloth from meat, could you imagine how long it'd take?
With a grunt, it crept out of the bushes, watching the now-distant group with small longing.
For it was once Human, but no longer.
Permanently mute and animalistic, it would never side with Humans. Although briefly it wondered whether if they'd realised there'd be no bumbling giants in a very large radius. With a snort, it turned away.
Meanwhile, the group of soaring soldiers stayed on high alert, in a formation to best alert each other of incoming Titans.
Titans. He internally spat. Unwilling to imagine their hideous deformed proportions and their lazy grins- sharpening at the sight of people to swallow and vomit back up. Fucking hell, he'd had enough of these damn titans. Dirty, unclean-
No.
The thundering of the horses' hooves drowned out any white noise of rustling leaves. He scanned their surroundings, already used to the too-high trees. They'd recently discovered the new area with, surprisingly, no titans. Rarely meeting titans of any kind within a wide radius of the quaint forest.
Which was exactly why they were here, mapping out this potentially dangerous forest and where the epicentre was.
Because Hange Zoe was a fucking idiot with shitty glasses.
With a dark scowl, he deliberately turned away from the no doubt stinking woman. Her adamant requests of scouting the area and 'potentially' figure out a way to ward titans away gave her the go ahead to bring the entire Scout Regiment along with her suicidal mission and crooked life priorities.
He knew, with clarity, that any place that was too quaint usually resulted in high death counts due to an unsuspected ambush. He'd been there, and most certainly came out looking like a sore bruise and wounded pride- but most of all, a valuable life lesson.
The River, it mused, was an interesting place. There was a constant motion of rippling waters, revealing glints of multicoloured fins and wide almost unseeing fisheyes. Most of all, was the easy reflection it showed of its beastly casting back an image with apathetic carelessness.
Its mouth, stemmed from the side of its face to the other side, allowing easy access for flesh to be torn off and then ground into a sloppy mess of red by mountain-ridged teeth. Nose pointed and face slightly extended forward, a pair of slit golden eyes tracking each and every movement in its sight.
Colour... was a beautiful aspect of life the beast was utterly awed by. The metallic glint of goldfish scales, the delicate hues of butterfly wings and harmonic chirps of a songbird-
A distant SNAP! shocked every creature in the vicinity, ears and senses shooting forward for the universal signal to flee for safety.
SNAP!
The low growl that broke through its widening snarl left the entire riverside deathly still, until everything skittered away into their safe covens. More sounds of snapping and the reeling of cords became closer until it was a scarce few meters from the beast's position, large cat-like ears stretched and shifted back, a wide snarl blooming.
The horses and flying humans broke through the dense forest.
Meeting a very angered, threatened and ferocious Titan.
"Shit!"
The word could not have summed up the situation any better.
A loud, booming roar shook the group to their bones with over half of the group freezing in their boots.
"Take cover!" A sharp command broke the trembling air, a broad shouldered man with neatly parted hair almost screamed out the words. The entire regiment shot off with the high speed whirring of steel cords, unsheathing of blades and determined gazes. The horses spun around, feeling the murderous intent.
The Titan was abnormal, with a metallic pale blue hue to its skin stretching over the muscles before widening into a massive mouth lined with sharp bones more than teeth. Pointed ears flattening on its skull with threatened and furious eyes. Wild greyish hair almost puffing up to show its dominance.
Blood singing, adrenaline high and muscles trembling, both parties prepared for blood to spill.
The Titan stampeded forward, each loud footstep thundering across the grass and flattening the blades of grass.
Their muscles tensed, blades readied despite them knowing they wouldn't make it past the next ten minutes without vomiting from the heavy air, terror seizing their stomachs and throat until they were choking from the lack of air.
Until it sped right past them without a second thought. Thundering sound-waves echoing further and further away.
In unison, eyes darted around for orders, an explanation. A single questioned thought wordlessly shared between every soldier and in particular, a scientist in overjoyed hysterics visibly cackled and a silent calculating commander.
"What the fuck was that?"
Image used for cover: Beginning Watercolor: Starting With Trees by Quarto Knows
Thank you for reading. Updates will be sporadic. Reviews may or may not be read (due to incoming flames, whether by OOCness, general hatred or inappropriate usage of curse words) but most certainly appreciated if this story was favourited to show appreciation.
I do not own Attack on Titan/進撃の巨人. It belongs to its rightful authors.
